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blindtaleteller · 6 months

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Just out of curiosity... Is it really in character of Loki to replace Odin with magic like he does at the end of TDW?.. A part of me feels like it is tainted with hasty writing (which fits the narrative regarding how this was a change mid-production). If Loki truly survived the attack by the Cursed, what seems most in character for him to do? Getting on the throne of Asgard doesn't seem that likely to me, to be honest..

This one is gonna be long I think, because asking that particular question, tells me you've missed a few things. Nothing wrong with that; it happens. (I do know a lot but even I forget to add or remind myself of certain bits too now and again: which is yet another reason why I do watch and re-watch the content over and again, and seek out creators and actors interviews from the era from varied angles.)

I wish the current creators paid a decent fraction as much attention mind you, but that' as whole other thing and annoyance.

Anyway! Here we go again~

It does make the most sense choice wise, actually; that Loki would take the throne in 2013: and it has nothing to do with wanting the throne itself as implied and said outright repeatedly by current creators and their "scripts."

While there are a LOT of reasons to do so with what's going on in the story both immediate in Thor the Dark World itself and otherwise? Most of them, and the reason why Loki absolutely would keep the throne for the next five years boils down to the same reason used to attempt to execute him on his return, and ultimately put him in the dungeon to end up as the major reason Asgard's people were spared a prolonged siege at a time when their defenses had been almost entirely decimated.

The ultimate answer boils down to the not-so-hidden Chekhov's Gun for the overall story of the first sequence/series of MCU films.

I say it that way in particular, because in this case.. they started setting up for it back in 2009-11 with Captain America the First Avenger and the first Thor movie as well. Iron Man 2 released in 2010, had some part setting up details for Avengers 2012 as well; though some of them are mostly less important in regards to this particular ask, for the era and subject we're talking about here.

They did this incredibly well though, when you look at the way the set up was constructed.

Basically, there are two layers of story being told in most Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies of the era; if you didn't notice.

1. Local Story, the story that wholly belongs to the title; era and or immediate characters.

2. Universal and or Overall Story belonging to the universe in which those local stories are taking place.

Remember this guy? I'm pretty sure you do but..

One of the things that people love to forget (or more often pass over as taken for granted) is that Thanos is the person who ultimately snatched Loki up, purely with the intent of getting another stone (Tesseract) into his hands. (Of course there was never any promise Loki would rule over 8 billion rather than 4 billion either, and well. That kind of action; taking half the population then rather than 2018: is established repeatedly as being very much in Thanos' character too.)

I say one of though, because the fact that the Mind Stone (Scepter) was in Thanos hands well before that was established in the very first scenes of Avengers 2012.. before they even put a single character on screen.

In a scene that, tells the viewer outright why Loki was the one chosen; and what they want. This scene is a lot more than just a foreword to catch up viewers who hadn't seen Captain America or Thor at the time. This is also the first not-so-subtle mention of their Universal Story Chekhov's Gun, Thanos.

To break it down for you real quick:

------pre-Universal story set up.

1 - (2010) Tony Stark creates a new-to-earth element (Badassium.. lol I didn't name it, they did) replacing the palladium in the reactor in his chest with this element. Black Widow (Natasha Romanov) is introduced.

----this sets up in minor ways for the Mind Stone: a more believable reason and mechanic for Stark being immune to the Scepter being used on him at the top of the tower at the beginning of the Battle for New York. (There are other mechanics like this set up in the previous IM movies as well: including his brief float in space otherwise ignoring physics of human body and suit versus a lack of atmosphere, gravity or air pressure. [IM1]) But it also introduces Nat and her position in SHIELD into the Universe, rather than just throwing her on screen in A1.

2 - (R May 2011)This film is the heavy lifter as far as Universal story goes. It doesn't just introduce one or two major characters in the Avengers; but THREE of next movie's three major, main characters and their place in the universe are introduced and built: As well as giving the first glimpses of the Universe at large.

There is a reason why Loki and especially Asgard where he is after Thor's banishment, has more screen time than Thor in the opening title film, and the Universal Story is that reason.

(This one is going to be among the largest, because it contains some of the intent behind the character as he is in the MCU.)

FEIGE: "The movie, very much, is an origin of Loki, almost as much as it is an origin of Thor. We had to ride that balance." BRANNAGH: " I think the connection, if there is one, is that the stakes are high. So, in something like Henry IV or Henry V, where you’re wondering if that young prince could be the king and whether he’s the right man for the job. That story arc of the flawed hero who must earn the right to be king is in our piece, but what’s key is the stakes. There, it’s Europe and England, and here, it’s the universe. When that family has problems, everybody else is affected. If Thor throws a fit and is yelling at his father and is banished, suddenly the worlds are unstable." I: Can you talk about casting Tom Hiddleston for Loki? BRANNAGH: "From the performance point of view, we needed somebody who was complex and could convey intelligence. There was a constant conversation between us all about whether it was a good thing to keep the question mark over the character of Loki throughout. Is he bad? Does he have a plan? Does he love his brother? Does he hate his brother? Does he hate his father? Is this happening before our very eyes? How does he truly react to the secrets and lies that emerge, in the course of the story? So, you needed someone who could be adept at putting on all those masks and making it seem seamless." [Link to the full Interview HERE.]

Granted Brannagh summarized Thor's part IN throwing that Universe into chaos more than a bit, but yeah. (his shit fit from a less personal view included breaking peace treaty with a no border crossing agreement between two entire worlds, threatening and then killing the residents in the process, and then throwing another fit in defense of that TO get banished: and furthering that later on as the source of that problem through the extra treason of ignoring his very and repeatedly stated light punishment for that first set of acts of treason: by attempting to return from that punishment against the order of not one but two kings [interim and prior] to have the Destroyer sent after him only then.)

As you can see through Brannagh's words in particular though; Thor as a movie (and Asgard in particular) was aimed as one of the major contributing factors and powers in the MCU Universe and Universal Story from concept one.

Asgard (and T1 as a result) as a power and society was set up and built as a major pivoting point and joint for the Universal Story, with all the power, knowledge, flaws, limitations societal and otherwise needed to forward that story.

Brannagh was not just and only aware of that and the scope to which a universal monarchy and having that monarchy including Thor and Loki as main characters would stretch: he and the creators of Thor and the Universe including Feige were VERY aware of it.

And it kept all the way through to IW and EndGame, and would have even if Loki had not kept the throne.. if at a much higher cost. (We'll get to that; though I'm betting with this taken into account you can figure out some of why.)

All that kept to one side, this film introduced Asgard's current ability as a technologically advanced Conquerer-type Imperialist society, rather than gods; but also and temporarily disabled the Bifrost as their most used and fastest known means to deliver larger numbers to Earth, at the time of the movie's release. It likewise released Loki for his role in the Avengers 2012 and in their Universe at large: and set up for Guardians of the Galaxy in subtler ways to start off the Other and Thanos as the ones conducting the Invasion and looking for the Infinity Stones.

Needless to say, juggling all that in one film before the Universal Story hit, made giving their other introduction and Universal story mechanic on the Earthen end a little hard to squeeze in; but they did manage to introduce both Hawkeye and Selvig in the same movie setting on top of that: and added the end credit scene to establish further connection during Thor's banishment: by further involving SHIELD in his and especially Mjolnir's arrival.

Like I said.. heavy lifter of a film. Brannagh did a beyond amazing job with everything he was made to juggle both in film and setting up for the next two: one of which was in production at the same time as the one he was chosen to direct.

3. (R July 2011 [1940s]) Coming out later that year, CA:tFA took the next (and the one at the time unknown previous) page that the end credit scene showed us in that set up, to establish how the cube and Stone got there, a feel for it's danger in the wrong hands and how it ended up on Earth still in 2012 at all: again tying to SHIELD as Earth's portion of that Universal Story, using Asgard's pivot point to advance the plot and add the final Avenger (which lol at the title 'The First Avenger' for that reason and others: someone had a giggle at the name I'm sure). The Tesseract first seen in the end credit scene of Thor; is properly introduced immediately, as A. having been in Asgard's hands before leaving it in the charge of humans, and B. Stolen by Schmidt who knows and tells us this as he's stealing it from it's guardians descendants (right out of their ancestor's grave and dead hands) for Nazi/Hydra gain. The Tesseract (along with Schmidt and Rogers) is lost somewhere over the Atlantic.

----this movie sets up quite a few more things, and uses that gap in time to do so without need for a whole other movie. Cap's presence in 2012. What's really fun and interesting though, is just how afr ahead this one was running it's projected Universal Story aim: even if only in The Tesseract being reclaimed by SHIELD and Hydra sometime between 1945 and 1970 just before Tony's birth in that same year of 1970 (remember, Hydra were unidentified as being in SHIELD all the way up to 2014.)

Hydra's existence, threat, and eventual reveal in CA:TWS resulting in the Mind Stone they stole* while within SHIELD after 2012 to only be recovered three years after that in 2015. Bucky Barnes was introduced in this first film; and while his character on it's own doesn't do a whole lot for the Universal story.. where and what organization he's found in that he resurfaces as forced a part of, does: as the Universal Story in CAtWS connects from CAtFA and Avengers, to GoTG; and leads straight to Ultron where it's finally recovered, and more importantly to revealing the Infinity Stones for what they are.. as well as telling the viewer outright that of the six stones as of Age of Ultron?

We have already seen four of those six stones on screen.. and, three of them have been in Loki's presence if not directly in his hands as of 2013 the year after 2012. (Tesseract twice, Scepter, and Ather: and in that chronological order.)

(*Side note: Errrr, is it stealing when Hydra were running SHIELD more than Fury at that stage after Howard Stark's death: and they just kinda handed it to Rumlow and Pierce without question for two years? idk, that's more than a little iffy in a lot of ways lol!)

Anyway, again that pivoting point is straight-away Asgard, and Odin in particular. Though they make when it arrived on Earth ambiguous in CA:TFA, the Other's dialogue from that opening Avengers 2012 scene mentioned way up there at the top? Tells us outright that the Tesseract was left there AFTER the war with Jotunheim.

The line among the few I'm talking about in particular is:

" The Tesseract has awakened. [...] But our ally [Loki] knows it's workings as they never will. " - The Other, Avengers 2012, Opening Scene

(Another set of side notes: the inflection and especially emphasis being where it is in that dialogue was pretty interesting and a bit odd back then, prior to Thanos being properly unveiled as the Other's keeper two years later. Right away that opener tells you outright what they want from Earth at that moment[tesseract & the stones], the fact that the one speaking isn't in charge either [Thanos being behind the Other and Chitauri], that they are not the only army available to them [he says our Chitauri, not our army or armies: see Ronan the Accuser] and that they're willing to go war and kill on an interstellar level to get it [self explanatory].)

(There's also how Schmidt disappears as shown in this film. Reminder: while we generally know that Asgard put the Tesseract on Earth sometime during Loki & Thor's adult lifetime, we don't know when Asgard got it. BUT. The visuals alone at the end of CAtFA have some pretty big implications in that direction. More so as TDW shows us that there's a certain technology in play as far back as Bor's time. Here's a gif.. Look kinda familiar, Thor fans..?)

Here's one I've shared before, from TDW itself to visually remind us where we've seen that kind of things repeatedly:

(Yep. That's the Bifrost being used 5,000 years ago to bring in Bor's army and steal the Aether, y'all. It also shows us something else: that the Bifrost can be held in long spurts without destroying the planet it's pointed at becoming an immediate thing. Combine this with Loki's knowledge and hm... that raises some other interesting facts and extra questions about the Bifrost scene at the end of Thor 2011 too, doesn't it.)

Okay so! Some who see this might ask 'Why is all that important?'

Welp.. the answer is in the question at the very top of this ask.

Asking about Loki, and his taking Asgard's throne at the end of Thor the Dark World...

The answers are yes, especially because motivation, all that backstory (both directly on screen and what was established and cemented as canon even off it for years by the creators, for that story to work [yes click that link if you haven't seen the breakdown of the year between Thor 2011 and Avengers 2012],) and more pointedly the fact that Loki by that point after the end of The Dark World: not only knows someone is pursuing the Infinity Stones, and knows very well how the Tesseract in Asgard's vault at this stage would help Thanos collect the rest.. but!

Loki has also up close and personal just been introduced to a third, formerly lost/hidden Infinity Stone being revealed and claimed in a very loud, very public way, by a just as universally known power he himself has intimate knowledge of... Asgard [if through Jane/Earth: and gawds but Bor was just as bad about hiding vital and fatal info as Odin turned out to be, sheesh.]

And here's the extra addition to that motivation to stay and take that throne in a way that also knocks out all threat FROM Asgard and it's allies: the person who tortured him and is seeking those stones has already threatened his life more than once in pursuit of them, and promised to hunt him down if he didn't get what he wanted then in 2012.

(If you missed it by the way? The dialogue, inflection and expressions there both show and tell us right away that they don't trust him NOT to keep the Tesseract from them: even if Loki doesn't fail in 2012. There's no reason to use up the extra airtime, or hit him with pain immediately after, to triple down on it otherwise. The Other, and Thanos by extension; do not trust their hold on Loki: or that he will give them what they want in other words. They don't trust him to succeed [purposely or not] and they don't trust him not to gank both Stones completely out of their already distant reach. (Which and lol he absolutely does manage to do anyway, by putting up neon info signs, really gone-ham public and personal displays, riling the trashed initiative team up left and right, leaving Barton behind on purpose knowing he was coming, and definitely missing the slant of a sloped sky scraper AND the landing pad loop when he tosses Stark into account? It was brilliantly done as was and without that examination, but when you take all that into account too.. oof..! The higher probability that the plan was internally wrecked by the underlying knife of absolute spite for his torturers this character likely pulled off; was just plain beautiful, and clean AF. Just sayin'.)

But and no, Thanos didn't get what he wanted in gambling even the one stone he did have in 2012 in order to try and pick up that second stone.

Obviously.

So they (and we) had more than enough of the potential motivation put down both on screen and off it, over the course of four years (including IM2 production preparing for it in that foundation) but is that still enough to take the risk, and go for the throne?

( ⬆️ Loki's appearance on arrival in Avengers 2012 after his time with Thanos as originally intended; prior to toning it down in order to fit the PG-13 rating the studios were aiming for to increase audience.)

YES, it was.

Even if only temporarily at first, taking Odin off his throne insures Loki's freedom from pursuit on Asgard's end: as he is now king of those pursuers, and a great deal more overall autonomy even outside of Asgard.

This puts him in direct control of the King's Vault, in which the Tesseract [possible means of escape, while within the reach of that greater tech level etc] is being held: and which again.. Thanos [again threatened & tortured him] still wants, and he knows this.

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(⬆️ On-screen Example 1 of what it was like even to be claimed as family, by Thanos. Loki was not, family.)

On top of that, in the long term; his position as King allows him to have a broader sight that running or hiding would not: thanks to Asgard's position as a Known-Universe-sized Imperial Protectorate encompassing multiple Worlds and or Galaxies .. including Earth where the Mind Stone (and Time) is, Xandar (Power shows up just a little under a single year later during his reign,) the Kree (same.) And a much greater ability to prepare (keeping those stones as separate as possible, as he does as the King on the throne who sends Reality to the Collector) and see Thanos coming when he does as a result.

Ultimately, even if temporarily: taking the throne at this stage and in this situation is absolutely within his character, even not wanting it. The massive tactical and personal advantages with Thanos alone, which that position with his knowledge; would provide him with a great deal of capability and reach for a very minimal amount of effort, and especially lives and time lost going the other route..? Were not only on display for two years worth of films to call on, but are pretty hard to excuse passing on in his situation at that time, for any reason.

(⬆️ On-screen Example 2)

There are and were other routes available yes: quite a few of them being he was and likely still is a hero everywhere BUT Earth*. But each and every one of them was that much more dangerous, and lacking in protection both for himself personally and for anything left of what he might have wanted to save of any of those also involved: including Asgard.

(*And yes some of those civilizations might maybe question him and that bad guy status a little: but let's be honest. Confronted with the facts of how all that and Thor's mess ups with Jotunheim actually went down, which Loki also knows about both first hand and in depth, and could easily call out just as publicly [and has in some of my fics]... it's not incredibly likely other societies and especially their leaders responsible for their lives, would choose to indulge Asgard's pride and arrogance at the risk of something like Thanos being allowed to continue to run loose after at least decades of halving populations like Gamora's, Drax's through Ronan, and possibly Nebula's [unconfirmed]. There would be a process to that too though; and time spent correcting all the messes that would cause for him to clean up in order to move forward with fewer obstacles as a result, possibly years if not centuries depending on location and how little they know.)

Taking Asgard's throne (even temporarily) while the majority of big players were either dead at that point[Frigga], weakened [Odin was putting Thor up for king in T1 to take his place & putting off Odinsleep at least 2 years prior to TDW] or occupied/distracted with the final death throes of the Dark Elves [Thor, pretty much everyone else] was the cleanest and safest way to ensure his life, his safety, and his freedom.

Even if, only short term.

Add on the other bonuses being in that seat "wearing the old goat's face" (yeah I borrowed that line from GROUNDED's Tony muse) and well.. there are too many more reasons to do it than not.

The other option has him either trying to escape Darkalfheim to a planet NOT Earth or Asgard to keep from being noted or picked up, before he's found first and knowing Asgard is and has been pursuing him (and Thor) since Thor broke him out of the dungeon: or trying to escape Asgard itself: with very little influence or power to do anything about both the person who tortured him coming after him as promised.. OR Asgard coming after him.

Because there is another thing that would have come out, with Odin still on the throne: is the fact that the body there [if he used a decoy, like one of the elves corpses left behind, or even the guard sent] was not his. Which would have led to immediate search and pursuit, and likely Thor being part of it after dealing with Malekith.

In these scenarios, Loki would have to pursue a counter to not only Asgard itself or Earth's established [and re-established through Jane's reaction] perceptions of him; but also Asgard's political reach as well in order to maintain his freedom, and actually start to counter Thanos before the slurpee stain could reach either, and potentially reclaim if not claim the stones: because they WOULD become an obstacle.. if not because of Odin and Thor [both of whose positions are made blatantly and glaringly clear where Loki is concerned in that same film, repeatedly and reflected on top of that in the entire scene with Thor's friends threatening him, as well as Frigga's own gaslighting scenes prior to her death as the Queen who should have taken her throne in T1 and in the dungeon in TDW.] then definitely because of the Other and Thanos, both of whom were very much alive and still running around the outer edges of the Galaxy until the Other was killed by Ronan in 2014.

Whether he's solely protecting himself, or looking to set up revenge, Loki, Thor, and Asgard's Local story in the MCU was designed to be part of if not heavily intertwined with the Universal Story before we saw any of them on our screens. And, if you're picking up a crafting story any time after 2011 in canon in that Universe.. that's gonna, and should be a thing.

Sad (and more than a little pitiful) that current creators ignore and mock all that and more, along with the efforts of over a decade of that work and hundreds of creators before them, especially in what they're passing for Thor since Gagnarok, or calling the "Loki" series (aka Bob: The Accountant/The Not-Enchantress Show) today*.. but I suppose that's what you get when you pay a bunch of clueless and Odin/Thor-level-arrogant cartoon creators for a twice rejected, unfinished script as the knock-off and fill in for crafting the next part of that story: and then hire their friends to do the next part even worse than the first?

(*Just sayin'. lol! Also yes those are both separate links to just a few examples of what's been going wrong since.)

So.. TLDR...

Yes, it's actually very in-character for Loki to have taken the throne; as a proven and intentionally crafted intelligent and tactically-minded character,* who was raised knowing Asgard's reach and power when a King who uses it properly is seated in that throne.

(*Regardless of what the series tries to tell you to mock viewers otherwise.. those scenes stating otherwise about Loki's character in S1 and now in S2 still makes me laugh my ass off at the stupidity and ignorance on display in this regard especially: as they tell you outright that absolutely no one who might have cared on the BTS team watched an ounce of the Avengers movie they want you believe the character came directly from, any of Thor 2011 before it, and definitely not TDW or Guardians to guess never mind know even remotely accurately as to the TITLE CHARACTER's characterization or motivations, of their own series; to get it THAT wrong on purpose... to the extent that, they have to put those kinds of words in his and other characters' mouths through the "scripts" they wrote and put on screen.)

I do however and as an addition: think Loki probably hated it from day to day.

After all, everything he did to stop if not pause Thanos and buy time; was done so with Odin's face.. and as a result was credited to Odin, who reminder.. by the time GotG and then Ragnarok ended, we knew was aware of Thanos at the very least (if not through Asgard then through other huge powers in the universe like Xandar and the Kree [Ronan was killing on Thanos behalf, Gamora's planet was halved decades prior]) and sat on his hands rather than face the largest army in the known universe, as it's proclaimed protector.

The leader for which being let run loose like that [Thanos].. was able to snatch Loki up, and the New York Invasion to happen as a result of Odin and Asgard's complacency.

Loki would have been stuck with the prospect of revealing himself and slowing down his potential progress and preparation (including restoring Asgard and it's defenses around the Tesseract in it's vault) over the course of those five years, being pursued for likely execution or maybe the rest of those 3,500 years of solitary confinement Frigga had to beg for as a sitting duck in a literal gilded cage again, running and attempting to keep his autonomy while doing all of that anyway, or ... just taking the throne and keeping his face hidden in order to avoid almost all of any of that and the many variations possible there that would have wasted months if not years of very precious time.

Ultimately, avoiding these things would have cost him in another way too, if he did manage and he knew that; because and again, Loki knew Thanos' game and purpose much earlier than we the viewers did. Sitting aside and hiding was not going to exclude him from the gamble of the snap even if Thanos did not find him, and took the stones without his interference.

Without his interference (and especially after Hydra stealing it in the 40's, and Thanos' first attempt to take the Tesseract from Earth as one very near example of why not to: especially from the outside looking in at that) it remains very probable that Odin would not have moved the Aether at all; as Loki did, wearing his face. Which means that, regardless of whether or not he returned for Ragnarok (which was established even in it's own plot-hole ridden mess of a story) as happening anyway: Thanos still would have collected Space and Reality after Power.. and he would have been able to do so far more quickly with them both in one place.. whether that place was floating space with Loki not there to collect either, or in their hands after the fact because he did think not to leave them in the open and undefended.

There are some ways around this (I've done some and planned out more,) but they're very tricky to do believably: and they still take time, allies, and correcting at least some things (especially perceptions and the break in trust worsened majorly by Odin and Thor) to manage. Sometimes a LOT of all of the above.

What's more, when taking him out into the open after the part he played in saving not only Jane, but also Asgard from Odin's rage filled dumb in TDW?

It's pretty likely that revealing himself on the throne and explaining this shit would have wasted even more time in various ways. But the very first and most obvious thing to become a problem in the realm of big-picture no-nos he definitely would have been aware of is this:

Asgard as a whole at that point and likely after having the story confirmed by Thor, would likely fall into a state of even more chaos in civil war if not a war of succession afterwards: further screwing over their ability to recover their defensive capabilities due to fighting themselves.

Other societies becoming aware could spark the same reaction, if a little later and cause Asgard's reputation, standing and overall influence to crumble as the facts came out. While some of these are avoidable or made less in certain situations: the fact remains that is what Odin set himself and Asgard up for by sitting to the side rather than doing everything in his power as King of an advanced space-faring society in contact with numerous others capable of moving them even without the Bifrost in effect.

It's very likely that, some of those external (and maybe some internal like Vanaheim) would use the very good examples of Odin and Thor's incompetence when dealing with things like Jotunheim (oh wow lets not get into that long list of treason and kid-glove handling of prince raised as genocidal traitor yet again), and Vanaheim (Asgardian colony with no Asgardian defense cannons or ships ..hm that reeks of some serious issues and bigotry too: especially seen in the very same film as those cannons, AND the fact they could transport whole armies via Bifrost 5,000 years prior?) alone, as a springboard to either GTFO Odin's alliance party, or support the idea of Loki being crowned instead of Thor.. if not both.

Anyway. This was really long and I have pulled this whole thing apart so many times in so many different ways that I could definitely keep going.. but I think that's a good enough view of the whys it's very much in character.. and some of what likely would have happened if he hadn't. And yes that emphasis in bold is very much needed.

There are other factors to take into account alongside of all this, including (aka not only) the fact his actual species (yep, don't forget: he's not Asgardian either) is both known at this point, and absolutely despised by Asgardians in particular on top of all that. And, at least some of the generation that hates his kind most --Odin and Frigga's-- are still around to keep carrying that on and attempt to pass it to their kids of the same generation. A thing we know they did already, through the dialogue, responses and and actions of every single member of the Royal family, including Loki's, starting with the very first film.

Remember.. this was the entire reason Thor thought it was completely okay to rack up multiple charges of treason, trespass on a completely different world he was forbidden by both sides from even setting foot on, and then insulting and killing them on the home planet he invaded, in the first place...

..and that fact it was still present, and was in action, was ultimately the root of the reasoning for that banishment.

Incidentally, and as final set of side notes?

This another example of why world building and sticking to the rules of that world/universe as established is necessary, and only serves to make the world and universe the characters are supposed be part of that much stronger and more interesting when done correctly.

Limitations (physical, social, psychological and more) exist in story and in those universes not just as near-laws-of-physics, but sometimes as an obstacle themselves to overcome, or more importantly and most often forgotten?

To work with, rather than around or over; in order to actually accomplish something, or at least give the sense of that accomplishment.

This is at the heart of what it means for a character to earn what they're given and show that, rather than simply getting it for free.

Ultimately I see that choice as Loki exchanging his name and identity, along with recognition for having put Thanos off of killing half the universe with him in it for five years; for the ability to better and more quickly protect himself and the things around him from those threats, not only from Thanos.. but also those threats posed and put into word by Odin, Thor, Sif, and the Yes-men Three.

And he was only able to to that without interruption, because he did make that sacrifice in hand for five solid years by taking Odin's throne and face.

It does fit that Loki absolutely did and as Tom Hiddleston and creators have said: at least try let go of Asgard, Thor, Odin and the rest when he let go at the end of Thor 2011...

..However. It's also very clear even if he hadn't; that Thanos' actions and Odin's and Asgard's inaction, ended up forcing him right back in front of them, whether his remaining anger re-igniited by the Scepter during that missing year had been bolstered as it was, played the part it did on screen or not.

All that said.. it was quite a long way away from hasty or lazy writing. If anything, that would have been true for going through with Loki's death at the end of TDW instead: as the next set in line would have been entirely excused from putting him or any of that story into focus on screen at all, even in what little they did pay attention to it during and after Gagnarok.

The TDW creators simply chose the most obvious path the previous creators had already crafted in their foundations, and laid down the path for them to take in crafting the next with TDW to set up for hte next even after it.

Sucks that it took getting that big an audience reaction in that direction to do so and not be that lazy about it.. but it is what it is.

Post-Script and For faster reference and in order from Captain America 2011 on, Loki did/was subject to, the following:

[Pre-1940s: unknown era] Had enough definitive exposure to the Tesseract as prince of Asgard, to be referred to as the equivalent of an expert on the Tesseract. (Given his discovery of the doorways between worlds as put on display in TDW, this makes even more sense than it already did in 2012.)

[2011]Was tortured and influenced both emotionally and mentally by the Other and gifted the Scepter with the intent of further riling and amplifying [that's what fueling means in this instance] his anger towards Thor and Earth's part in helping to release him from his banishment: in return, he's offered rule over Earth and more importantly his freedom from all of the above in that rule after.

[2012] The Mind Stone is used long distance in conjunction with the Tesseract to watch and torture him at a distance on screen as well. It's only functions used on screen otherwise is as a projectile weapon and device to spread that mind control to serve the deal made.

[2013]Helped save Jane & the Reality Stone.

[2013]Helped save an otherwise defenseless Asgard from another siege & Odin's stated intent to die to the last man, woman and child in that fight: at the same time.

[2013]Killed Algrim/Kurse in defense of Thor and Jane; an individual who was so powerful as enhanced by the Reality Stone: that he batted Mjolnir aside like it was a nerf toy.

[2013]Sent the Reality Stone to the Collector, separating what stones he had.

[2013]Kept the Space Stone in it's place in the vault ..and it stayed there for the 5 years of his rule.

[2014] Between Asgard proper as a political and protective power, and his connections to the Collector himself: clearly knew about and did not claim the Power stone, or put it in Asgard's vault either, after it's use there.

[2015] The Mind Stone being removed from Earth, was stated as being Thor's purpose, as directed by the King [Loki.] No intended ending destination was given.

[2017-2018]Rebuilt Asgard, it's homes and it's defenses: well enough that even in and by Gagnarok they were building theaters and statues, and enjoying plays.

( ⬆️ Yeah I wasn't kidding: that's the Kurse nerf-toy mjolnir sequence in TDW, if you missed it.)

#Loki #MCU #MCU canon #TDW #motivations #intent #survival #the world a character is in and it's history (esp immediate) should always effect them #if it doesn't; there is no point to having that world/universe #or pretending they're in anything other than a plain white 10x10 box #the MCU used to do this fairly well #the problem is they stopped following through in entirety about 2/3 of the way to IW between Gagnarok and Cpt Marvel #and both Infinity War and Endgame: along with everything that followed? Suffered and still is suffering because of the lack of effort..#..and the lack of the intent or focus of telling a good comelling story with their entertainment; rather focusing it as a political podium.#gee..#idk why the entertainment companies are losing money: they only stopped entertaining to bring politics to the fore <.<;;#no idea why THAT and using isms and ists to drive off your customers when they didn't like it didn't go well. none at all.#..if you can't hear my sarcasm and laughter there?#that's not MY fault lol #Thor: the Dark World #Avengers 2012 #Guardians of the Galaxy 2014 #Captain America: the First Avenger #Local Story #Universal Story #and how they interact when done right #asks #canon info dumps #canon break downs #situational & background

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no-te-lo-voy-a-dar · 2 years

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GABE MY DEAR FRIEND I AM SINCERELY SORRY FOR THE LATE ASK REGARDING REPRISE- I GOT CAUGHT UP WITH ST BUT I AM HERE NOW TO RANT TO YOU ABOUT THAT AMAZING CHAPTER ONE SO HERE I GO!

R missing the stars- me too, my dear me too- Frigga living!!! (Yesss we love that for her, and Loki's breakdown about it??? glorious)

Loki and reader being more sibling like than Thor and Loki??? lmao and Reader being Loki's moral compass- I absolutely adored that part + Reader being a supportive friend to them and... just Them in general- I want to have a friendship like that-

WE ARE CALLING OUT STARK'S BLATANT DISREGARD FOR PETER'S FIGHTING SKILLS- GUY YOU CAN'T JUST THROW A TEEN A SUIT AND CALL IT A DAY-

Loki and Reader, and later Nat teaching Peter some moves??? I love bonding through training and this hit that part of me so well- Loki offering his help too??? And the steady integration of R and Loki into the life in the Avengers Tower- with Bucky + Nat being their sparring buddies??? LOVE LOVE LOVE THAT-

I'm so excited to see what would happen when Matt meets R- would he notice some difference in their heart beat or smell? Would he try to attack them on sight? Or would R, being the trickster's best friend, be teasing Matt and just slipping out of his grasp, playing cat and mouse-

All in all, absolutely loved the first part and I am so!!! excited!!! to!!! see!!! more!!!!!!! :))))

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH RAEL ;U; THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS !!!! don't worry about the timing! i saw your reblog tags and i was already very happy about those, this is just so sweet. AND DON'T WORRY I PERFECTLY UNDERSTAND BEING CAUGHT UP WITH SOMETHING ELSE

i had to add the stars. Asgard ALWAYS had them on display, i think. and I do too. my city doesn't have too much contamination so u can still see some planets and stars at night, but when u go out like, 15 or 20 minutes there is SO MUCH MORE. so yeah. space yearning

I CRIED FOR FRIGGA WHEN THAT HAPPENED FR AND LOKI LITERALLY SPIRALLS AFTER IT AND THE DELETED SCENES WHERE LOKI WAS SCREAMING INSIDE THE CELL?? YEAH. YEAH. not here tho, they get better (8

Thor and Loki are still close brothers, but yeah they are still like, not flinching in the literal sense of the word, but something broke between them from Thor 1 to TDW that didn't happen between Thor and Reader and between Loki and Reader, not to mention Thor used to be a dick about Loki's magic sometimes as teens (in my head) so yeah

LISTEN, PETER WAS LITERALLY MANAGING WITH SPIDERSENSE AND VIBES ONLY. and i know some ppl don't like Tony bashing, i get it, but also.....yeah

I'm very fond of those fics were they write Natasha and Peter being close. the spider duo. there are some too where Bucky and Peter become close too and so that's being shown here lol. AND YES! I KNOW AN INTEGRATION OF THIS KIND WOULD TAKE TIME SO :D BONDING SEQUENCE

oh trust me, i already have planned how magic is going to mess with Matt's perception and i hope i manage to explain and write it properly because the line between making your magic make sense in universe and being too out there is fine

thank you thank you thank you! im also excited to see more (8

#gaal talks #omg i forgot my tag for asks #its been so long #i answered a thing #i think that was it #reprise fic

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worstloki · 3 years

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don't think about Old Loki missing Thor and wondering if Thor missed him too, and then think of how miserable and depressed Thor was in Endgame. Just don't bc i did and now it's 11am and i'm crying

nice try but loki and thor get irrevocably sad when left away from each other regardless of any hatred towards each other bc that's just comic canon babey and it's been making me happy for a while

#classic loki was literally motivated to do mischief and bad bc it'd get thor's attention like 75% of the time #loki kills balder all the time and thor goes 'hey i miss loki :( im gonna bring him back to life bc i love him :(' to balder just because #loki be like ''im glad thor won't have to rule alone. what a sad fate that would be'' and walks alone to jotunheim's throne #and then 2 seconds later has run away from the throne to the point where thor has to go check on him #they're bros and they're stuck together sorry #it's like TDW where people go ''we need a plan'' and thor goes ''ye you're right imma get loki''#''you cant get loki he's traitorous and tried to kill you!!!'' 'i am aware'' ''he's a coldhearted untrustworthy criminal!!'' ''i am aware''#it's ok thor you can say you love him he'd say it back even in the middle of a fight <3 #alas thor does not say it so loki is left to warn him about loving a mortal that will eventually die and leave him heartbroken #i swear they just pretend to hate each other even after thor 1 #''loki gimme the tesseract stop messing around'' ''i missed you too <3'' ''loki im serious about this'' ''what a coincidence so am i <3''#it's all passive aggressive #loki stabbed thor in avengers 1 with the ittiest bittiest knife istg if he can hold open a star thing with his hands he can take a needle #also i want to HC thor would put mjolnir on loki's chest after a fight to tell him to stay still but there didn't use to be a spell on it #and then in thor 1 the one time loki decides to not stay put he can't lift it XD #yes #brodinsons feels in this chilli's tonite #the Loki show #loki spoilers #loki show spoilers

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evilkitten3 · 2 years

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i think one thing i hated about thor 3 that i never see getting discussed in thor’s response to loki’s reappearance on asgard post-sakaar.

ignoring the extremely weird behavior loki’s been displaying throughout the movie (especially the whole “your savior is here” thing which. makes me miss tdw’s “ta-da” line), the last time thor and loki interacted in the film was thor leaving loki to be electrocuted on the floor with no way of freeing himself while telling him that they probably shouldn’t ever see each other again.

thor arrives on asgard with val and bruce. and that’s it. he’s taking on the goddess of death in the realm where she’s at her most powerful, her giant zombie wolf, and her horde of undead warriors (and skurge but like. this isn’t the comics; skurge isn’t a threat here) with two other people. not that the three of them aren’t pretty fucking dangerous, but there’s no way they can win this; they’re outnumbered and outmatched. oh, and the ship they’re on (the commodore) is fucking tiny.

loki literally shows up with a small army and a ship big enough to fit all of the survivors on. and thor’s response? “you’re late”

this isn’t fucking lord of the rings you actual sack of shit this is the absolute last person in the universe who owes you anything showing up to save your reckless ass. fucking heimdall at least gives him a “welcome home” and is overall pretty damn friendly given everything that’s happened between the two of them. which i personally find hilarious given that in the actual ragnarok loki and heimdallr are supposed to kill each other.

but anyway, i think that particular interaction between thor and loki showcases everything ragnarok did wrong with their relationship specifically. namely, it was one of the worst possible conclusions to the arc started in thor 1. in t1, loki is struggling to feel like his existence means anything next to thor’s, and thor is so hotheaded and generally oblivious that he’s completely unaware of how deeply loki is affected by his casual remarks. obviously a1 and t2 have things significantly worse, for fairly understandable reasons, but the overall connection between them was still easy to see - brothers who cared for each other at one point but were caught up in such a toxic family dynamic that they were incapable of even properly communicating with each other.

come thor 3, though, thor’s not even pretending to care. he’s entirely indifferent to the guy who has been by his side for over a thousand years. i’d say he treats loki like a dog, but honestly, he treats loki more like a boomerang - just an object you throw at your problems and if it doesn’t come back then it’s probably broken and you should just throw it away.

loki and thor didn’t “reconcile” in ragnarok. thor stopped caring about anyone else (don’t get me started on how he treated bruce/the hulk) and loki gave up on ever being treated like a person. i’m not sure if loki sacrificed himself in infinity war to save thor or to get away from him. and honestly i don’t know if loki was sure either.

#mcu #mcu crit #long post #vent post #look just.#as a (formerly) crappy older brother #i wanted to see thor grow and change #i wanted him to learn from his mistakes and realize the harm he'd done #i wanted him to come to terms with the fact that even when he didn't mean to he'd still hurt his baby brother #i wanted him to realize that sometimes he HAD meant to #i love thor so much bc he's just an extreme version of me #he's got a temper and has a hard time changing his mind once he develops an opinion on something #he's not very empathetic and while he isn't an idiot he just. doesn't get stuff #he's socially awkward when not in a situation where he's got all his privileges #and he's got a little brother that's about a thousand times smarter than him #that's just me with a hammer and superpowers #and shit parents #but thor's not interested in trying to do better #he just wants the world to revolve around him #''i thought the world of you'' really? when?#bc it sure as fuck wasn't ever on the g-ddamn screen

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wrenhyperfixates · 3 years

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Loki Series Thoughts—Glorious Purpose

Ok, I’m always nervous about posting my thoughts, but here we go. Spoilers ahead of course!!! (Disclaimer: Any gifs or images are not mine.)

Let’s start out with the episode’s name: Glorious Purpose. I know some people were a bit miffed about the emphasis put on the line, but I actually thought it worked well. It’s not so much that Loki actually believes in this “purpose,” but rather he is clinging to what he’s been told his purpose is. And by the end of the episode, he’s finally working through some of the things he’s been hurt by, abandoning what he’s been forced into and ready to be who he wants. Granted, it’s still going to take some time for him to come to grips with all that has happened, but I’m excited to see the journey.

The TVA. They undeniably suck. Whether or not it will be addressed directly, they are the (or one of the) antagonists in the show. What they are doing is, frankly, tyrannical. Three “time keepers” have taken it upon themselves to force countless versions of time and people into one single stream. And you know what? They can’t control that timeline. Not like they want to. As much as Loki’s line about “the weak” applies to himself, it applies to the TVA, too. It’s a facade of control that they cling to; if they truly had the right, the ability, to control time, everyone would follow their path. There would be no variants. Now, I could write a whole separate analysis on the MCU’s explanation of time travel. It’s convoluted and in a large way doesn’t make sense.

I’d like to talk about Loki’s characterization. I am, in a word, relieved. From the trailers, Tom seemed to be over-acting, something rather strange for someone so good at conveying deep emotions through nuanced actions. Now I believe any exaggerated lines from the trailers are just Loki trying to separate himself from who he’s been told he is, and trying to reinvent himself. I don’t think that’s a bad thing either; they’re not rewriting Loki, he’s just growing in a new way. And though this way is “new” I think it will be similar to what we’ve seen before. From what we’ve seen so far, there is good continuity, and they are addressing things about Loki that should be addressed in canon.

Loki projects. Most notably in the Avengers, but also a bit in Thor 1 and The Dark World, a lot of Loki’s lines can be applied to himself, though he is talking generally or towards another group. What comes to mind is actually something he touches upon again in the series. The illusion of freedom. And though it is not said that line in particular is him thinking of himself, it can be inferred based on his admission that the line in the gifs above apply to him. Also that little gesture when he says “weak” breaks me. He’s hurting so much.

Loki is not a villain. He may think he’s one because everyone else is telling him that, yet we’re already seeing it brought up that it’s not true. I can only hope that we’ll see Loki state this himself later in the series. He was largely forced to do what he did. It is not his fault, so how can he be a villain?

Loki cares. Tom’s acting is just *chef’s kiss* Seeing his mother’s death hurts so much. I love that his first response is denial. Loki is thrown into something he’s never known about before, being shown things that, to his knowledge, have never happened. But then when he’s had a few seconds to wander around the TVA on his own terms, he’s more come to grips with all that’s going on. So, when he’s by himself and see’s Frigga lying there, dead, it gets to him. Then seeing Odin still call him his son, he feels the slightest glimmer of hope, but also regret; he already knows in the back of his mind that he’s not actually going to get that. Loki’s living from second to second, trying to hold on. He probably thinks this ends with his death. (I do have issues with that Odin scene in context of Ragnarok but that’s more a tangential aside, so I’ll gloss over it for now.) Then seeing Thor and himself acting like brothers again is heartwarming. So just when he’s feeling uplifted, Thanos comes into the picture. He realizes how much control the titan still had over his life; he never really escaped. And in the end, Thanos made good on his promise. And that is terrifying! And he laughs at it. It’s a sad sort of laugh, one that’s slightly crazed. Loki feels that no matter what he does, it ends in pain. By the end of seeing all that, he is a man broken. Rather, more broken than he already was.

Loki is struggling. That’s nothing profound; it’s obvious. But where it really stands out to me is actually in a part I originally thought to be out of character. I am referring to “What if I was a robot and I didn’t know it.” Upon closer inspection, I realize it’s actually that his perception of himself has been so thrown that he really isn’t sure about his own chemical makeup anymore. Odin and Frigga keeping from him that he’s a frost giant made him so unsure of himself, he thought he might not even be a living being.

Nervous tics. Was I the only one noticing his leg bouncing when he talked to Mobius? And what about that scene when he’s sitting on the steps? He begins to pick at his hands. Note, that’s something he did in T1 after finding out he was a frost giant and while confessing to the Warriors Four about how he was the one who told the guard of their trip to Jotunheim. Just a little detail I really appreciated. (If anyone has gifs of any of these things, feel free to share :)

Mobius. I’ll be honest, I’m a bit undecided. I’m hesitant to say he’s evil. After all, we haven’t seen that much of him yet. However, I will say he is unscrupulous and manipulative. His questions weren’t to help Loki work through his trauma. Mobius was trying to goad him into helping, and likely was trying to gauge how much this Loki is like the variant he’s tracking. When Loki makes any admission of his feelings, it’s something he already knew, not a conclusion Mobius helped him reach. Mobius mocks him a bit and pushes his buttons because he sees Loki as a means to an end, and wants to know how easily he can get him to work with him. And what strikes me is how similar Mobius’s deal is to Thor’s deal in TDW. Thor doesn’t offer Loki freedom, he offers revenge. Mobius’s deal is just another variation of this. He can’t offer “salvation” but he can offer something “better”. Working for the TVA really isn’t better, though. So what does he mean? Well, I think he means a chance for Loki to prove he’s a hero. I hope as the show progresses it’s addressed that Loki doesn’t have to prove himself to anyone. That’s what he’s been doing his whole life, but I want Loki to see for himself that he doesn’t have to.

Miss Minutes. Propaganda. Plain and simple, it’s propaganda. Besides the way it praises the “time keepers” as amazing saviors, necessary to keep the world in order, it’s essentially saying “don’t think for yourself.” The whole point of the video is “the time keepers are great. The TVA is flawless. Trust us to decide everything. You have no autonomy in the world we want, so surrender your free will. Submit to the system we’ve decided is perfect and everything will be just fine.” Of course, by “just fine” they mean the variant will be pruned and the timeline will keep going as the time keepers see fit. The animation style was great though! It really fit.

The infinity stones. I think their inclusion makes sense. If you remember from Endgame, the stones being in the right place in the right time keeps the timeline from branching, and thus prevents the multiverse from being created. Likely, the time keepers used the stones to make their “sacred timeline.” Naturally, any variant time stones would cause a problem. That’s why they have so many extras. But think about how pointless so much of what happened seems. Nat, Gamora, Vision, Tony, everyone who was snapped, everyone who was left. So, literally the entire universe was flipped upside down for paperweights. It really puts Thanos’s pursuit of the stones into perspective, doesn’t it?

The cloaked figure. I think there’s some misdirection going on here in one way or another. Mobius says he’s chasing a Loki variant, then immediately it cuts to a scene with the cloaked figure. Our minds are likely to assume that is the variant then. But they don’t actually say it’s Loki, so I’m inclined to believe it’s not. Though, I don’t have enough information to say who I do think it is, I could make a couple of educated guesses and say Mephisto (he certainly interacted with Loki in the comics, plus there’s the stained glass window) or Sylvie. Well, whoever Sophia Di Martino’s character is. I know she was previously listed as Sylvie on sources such as IMDb, but that has since disappeared. But why would you have a “young Sylvie” (Cailey Fleming) without an older version? There is speculation Di Martino’s character will be Lady Loki, but I hope this won’t happen. If they make Lady Loki her own character, I doubt we’ll see Variant Loki get to be fluid. Even if it’s confirmed on the record, it’d be nice to see actually happen beyond a piece of paper. And with twist villains being such a prominent force in modern media, I’m interested to see who our cloaked friend really is.

Time travel. Like I said earlier, this is a lot. But I can’t talk about the episode and not mention this aspect in at least a little more depth. I don’t like how the MCU deals with time travel. I think it’s an unnecessarily complicated mix of a number of different, already complicated theories. However, I think Loki will ultimately escape from the TVA and create a multiverse too difficult to prune (and maybe he’ll actually get to burn the place down too!) This will then tie directly into Doctor Strange 2. Do you guys know what that’s called? The Multiverse of Madness. Actually, in the Miss Minutes propaganda, they almost exactly say “will throw the multiverse into madness.” Will we get to (finally!) see a certain raven-haired god meeting Dr. Strange? And maybe even the Scarlet Witch herself? Well, I’m not sure, but right now I think it’s looking pretty good!

And some random things that didn’t really anywhere else:

Peggy is in the background?! My thought here is that Steve wasn’t supposed to stay with her. This made not only a Variant Steve, but also a Variant Peggy. We may not see Steve, but I bet he’s been taken care of too!! And who knows? Maybe there will be a cameo later. Otherwise, it might be something that was cut from the show, or just a fun easter egg of sorts.

The score was so good! It sets the mood perfectly.

Loki is a good fighter. Even if he’s overpowered, he finds a way.

Some of the humor didn’t land, but that might just be a personal thing.

So now my final thoughts. It’s their strongest pilot yet. So much emotion crammed into less than an hour. A lot of exposition, too, yet it didn’t feel tedious (Endgame I’m looking at you). And then we get to delve into Loki’s psyche, something that really appeals to me! Overall, 9/10. I hope the rest of the series is as good!

Did I miss anything? Was there something you were hoping I’d mention and didn’t? Or do you have something to add or (politely!) disagree with? I’d love to hear it all! Remember, fandom is a safe space to talk about, analyze, and debate about things you enjoy. My ask box is always open with anon on. Reblogs and comments are great too. Thanks!

Me after watching the episode:

#the loki show #the loki show spoilers #the loki series #loki series #loki analysis #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #loki friggason #the loki series spoilers #I know there’s nothing particularly profound here but here you go #*throws thoughts into the void*

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illwynd · 3 years

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do you know good fics with dom loki? (no human aus tho pls)

This is another one of those “that is the vast majority of fic I’ve loved in this fandom over an entire decade, this list gonna be loooooong” asks, nonny XD

So like. Most of the list from before still applies? But in addition...

Most fic by tyrotheterrible definitely applies, but here, try Coldblood.

Most thorki fic by astolat applies, so let’s just pick Failure at random. Warning for consent issues.

At times we tie our own leash by thefirstwhokneels, feat. Jotun Thor as a warprize, with submission games.

Forfeit by YIWT which has various physical configurations in the different chapters but I think it’s still fair to include it XD

His Idea of Punishment by bloodsongs, feat. tentacles

For Old Time’s Sake by OneWhoSitsWithTurtles. Thor gets Loki a private cell during Avengers 1, for... reasons.

Winter’s Service by Kay. Another warprize Thor fic, with Loki topping from the bottom.

Stimulating by hannahrhen. Prostate stimulation. Noncon ahoy.

trust building exercise by ladylaufehson and thoresque. Rebuilding trust involves bdsm, don’t it?

King by Albenkind. Loki wants to top.

The Dominance/submission 30 day OTP porn challenge entry for by loki-on-mjolnir. Thor needs some relief from the burdens of kingship.

Beautiful by Thorvaenn. Feat. anal hooks.

The Dominance/submission 30 day OTP porn challenge entry by Hermaline75 this time. Similar concept as above. This prompt is just the gift that keeps on giving, huh?

Manners by grumpyowls. Thor gets a lesson in manners.

Fraternizing with the Enemy by Philosopher_King. An interlude during TDW. Light on the D/s aspect but I’m including it anyway.

Eyes on the Prize by TheMadKatter13

The Problem of the Plums by darklittlestory, Loki isn’t dead after tdw. With bondage.

rebuild your ruins around me by maharlika. Size difference with big!Jotun!Loki

a soul that’s changing its shape by grim_lupine, with bondage and body worship

And again if I can be so bold, many of my own fics also qualify, but a couple particularly pertinent ones would be Sleeping Beauty and On Bare Skin.

And there’s something I really want to stress here, related to another ask that I haven’t answered yet and about changes in the fandom over time:

If you’re looking for some sort of fic that seems unusual or uncommon, it’s really beneficial to look at fic older than ~3 years! This fandom was HELLA prolific, with a HUGE range of content, going all the way back to 2011. If you want it, somebody was probably writing it! Probably several somebodies, and they might still be writing it, but even if they’re not, it’s often still there for you to find. We had (and have!) SO MUCH GREAT CONTENT, YOU GUYS. Digging back into the AO3 search pages will be WELL WORTH YOUR WHILE.

While you’re there, please leave the authors some love, too--it’s super nice to know even your older work is still being appreciated!

This has been a PSA.

So yeah. The list above is again far from comprehensive, anyone else please add the many I’ve missed!

#replies #thorki #fic recs #anon #Anonymous

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alwida10 · 3 years

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Just some quick* thoughts:

1. I still don’t get how the stripping scene is supposed to be framed as a joke. Miss Minutes is creepy as hell, and so is the smiling robot. (Picture it as a fat old man with the same expressions, I dare you.) somewhere else someone argued the slight pause before the drop would be looney toons like, but I can’t get myself to see that. The typical sounds (you know the dropping sound and the ‚spoing‘ when hitting the ground) are the thing that made those funny IMHO. And those are missing in this scene. Also, he doesn’t look down or so, but yells at the robot. Also (Nr. 2), in the looney toons the drop would leave a character unaffected, but Loki staggers and makes big eyes.

And even though my tumblr dash is full with people complaining about this scene and literally no one is stating how fun it looks, everyone keeps claiming it would be framed as a joke. On Twitter I see mostly thirst, and a little frowning about the scene, and still no interpretations of this as a joke.

So why keeps everyone claiming that? Am I The only one not getting the inside joke? Or are we so burned by Ragnarok we happen to snap at the tiniest bit of evidence something could be intended as joke?

2. As pointed out in this post there Are some striking parallels between Thor’s remaking in Ragnarok and Loki‘s stripping scene. I just wanted to add this:

The design is quite similar with the four arms and intimidating posture. It’s an interesting choice. It could be by chance or it could not be.

3. I dislike how the woman in the trailer takes Loki‘s knives away, or better - I dislike Loki’s piccachu expression. Unlike everyone else, my main issue with the whole lot of new loki content is that he misses the regal touch he had in Thor 1 and TDW. Ok, this is Avengers loki and he went through a lot, but he shouldn’t be moving and talking like a woodworker. (Sorry for the oversimplification.)

4. I would have something to say about how finding the stripping scene sexy probably connects to dub-con and/or non-con kinks. And while I get some people are appalled by this kink it’s probably more a social problem. I once read some great meta about how a religious upbringing with the premise women should not seek or enjoy sex combined with the innate desire for sex would lead to rape fantasies. Because that would be the a chance for sex where the woman cannot be blamed. (Well, obviously women still mostly get blamed for rape, but that’s another can of worms.) of course, I am no specialist in his topic and there are probably other explanations, what makes people like one fantasy that others dislike, but this explanation is certainly true for me. Thanks, mum and dad. Anyway, what I‘m saying is: whoever likes those rape fantasies doesn’t need additional beating.

*sorry This got longer than expected.

#MCU loki #loki series #fandom discourse #loki series negativity #loki series positivity #so you can’t see this Post if you blocked either of the tags #loki series critical #i am so tired #at This Point I am starting to believe that there was no way the Loki series could be pleasing everybody #or should I say anybody?#because the only ones being unambiguously happy are the thirsty fans #Good for them #and Just to be clear: being pissed is valid #feeling isolated and offended is valid #feeling happy probably too

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writernotwaiting · 3 years

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Loki Meta Nobody Asked For, part 3--All MCU Lokis are AU fan fiction Lokis

There is so much in part 3 that I really wanted to see and I very much want to celebrate, but once again, I am conflicted.

Ok. Good things: Loki and his magic. Loki and fighting. Loki and improvisation. Loki as bisexual. Loki talking about his mother. Loki showing a moral compass.

All of these are Most Excellent Things: • Loki here is finally not a de-powered pushover. His illusions are effective. He teleports over a short distance. He resists Sylvie’s mind control. He stops a multi-ton support tower from falling and pushes it back up into place!!!! • He fights effectively--finally! Granted, his dagger misses its mark, but he was drunk, so I’ll give him a pass on that. Aside from that, he finally shows us some highly effective hand-to-hand combat skills. Thankyouverymuch for acknowledging that Loki survived a millennia of life in a warrior culture. He was raised by a warrior king. His brother is a Hero(tm). There’s no way he didn’t learn some skillz. His ineffective fighting in episode 2 can easily be attributed to the fact that he was pulling his punches when he was fighting the human shields Silvie possessed. • Loki’s character explicitly acknowledged their queerness!!!! This makes my little queer heart glow bright, and I think needs no more comment. Just . . . yesssss! • Loki loves his mom. Loki is conflicted about that relationship because They Lied To Him. And did I mention that Loki speaks wistfully about his mother and a bit about the fact he was adopted and no one told him until he already pretty much found out (in the most awkward way ever). Even Sylvie thought that was pretty poor parenting. Good stuff. • Loki really doesn’t want to kill innocent bystanders and only attacks folks who attack him first. He is also kind of appalled to hear that the TVA workers are all variants who’ve had their minds wiped. Again, this is all excellent, and fits well with the Loki we met in Thor I who just really wanted to make sure his war-mongering brother didn’t sit on the throne until he grew up a bit, and then Everything Got Way Out of Control. • We see Smart!Loki in action, as opposed to hear Mobius flatter Loki to get him to cooperate. While one of Loki’s attempts at deception fails miserably, the other works (with Sylvie’s help). This is all excellent and made me Very Happy Indeed!

[more below the break]

I also very much liked many parts of his interactions with Sylvie, and the fact that we got a tiny bit of her backstory (and I love her insistence on her own identity--this is very much I think a Loki thing, “I am not you. I am my own thing, thank you very much”). This relationship has a great deal of potential for complexity and depth. I am totally here for enemies to frenemies to allies if that’s where the series is going.

I like the reveal that the TVA agents are all variants themselves who have been “wiped” and indoctrinated. We are finally getting more obvious hints at the insidiousness of the TVA.

So why am I still conflicted about the series? Well, here is what I did not like: • Loki’s improvisation with the old woman--he had too little information to pull off an effective scam like that and he would have known that. He had a photograph. A black and white photograph--no voice, no personality, no coloration, no body language; he didn’t even know if the picture really was one of a husband and not some other type of relation. There was no way it would ever work. He should have known that. Loki would have known that. • His voice and body language when he pretended to be a guard was stupid and unconvincing, not mimicry. That was a joke. • The getting drunk thing. I found this not only disappointing but insulting and also possibly lazy on the part of the writers. It felt completely out of character. In fact, Sylvie felt much more “Loki-ish” in this scene than Loki did. I just cannot in any universe see Loki doing anything like this under these conditions. They are undercover in a high-pressure situation in which they are about to be wiped out of existence if they fuck things up, and Loki decides to get drunk? No. This is a virtually suicidal loss of control. They have no idea how long they would be on that train or what they would have to deal with later. They have no idea what sort of security is in place on the train. Why did they even stop in a bar, of all places? Why not find a sleeper car and stay out of the way? For that matter, why not just find seats? Why would a guard be sitting in a booth at a bar with a prisoner? They wouldn’t. Loki’s sense of self-preservation is stronger than that. He’s smarter than that. It was stupid and out of character and also unnecessary--there are so many other ways they could have gotten them shoved off that train that did not involve Loki making a spectacle of himself. It was, in fact, a very Thor thing to do, not Loki-like at all. • I still feel as though Tom is over-emoting in all of the scenes that are less than life-or-death. It does not feel like the Loki I met in Thor I and The Avengers. That Loki had a length of re-bar up his spine and only genuinely smiled when he looked at Thor (when Thor was smiling).

I feel like Tom is playing two Lokis in the show--the one that fights his way out of tight spots and occasionally deals with his difficult family issues, and the other is a parody of mischief!Loki--whose face is extremely emotive and who wants to bare his soul to whomever looks vaguely as though they’ll listen to him.

So, here’s my mid-series conclusion. All MCU Lokis are fan fiction Loki’s of the comics. Among those MCu fan fics are three distinct AUs.

1. The Loki we meet in Thor I, The Avengers, and Thor II. This Loki works hard to bury his emotions. His body language is generally stiff and prickly. He is the product of growing up in a culture that is driven by a toxic masculinity and devalues those traits that are coded “feminine” such as all of those things Loki excels at. Because of this, he has gotten the message his entire life that he is with less that the Golden Child that is Thor. He loves his brother with all his soul but resents him because his father placed them in competition with one another. All of this was reinforced by growing as the “tag-along” little brother who was tolerated but not embraced by Thor’s closest friends. This Loki becomes self-destructive and suicidal, experiencing a psychotic break as a result of revelations about his adoption and internalized racism. He spends who-knows-how-long falling through the void enduring perhaps months of sensory deprivation only to be tortured and manipulated by Thanos. He emerges from that experience Truly Fucked Up, stopped of much of his power because he’s had the living shit kicked out of him. But his core self is still there somewhere--a core self that loves his brother, that craves affection, that really hates what Asgard has done to him but still has a moral compass in there somewhere that says wiping out the entire universe is a bad thing and I guess protecting helps humans is something he ought to do since his brother loves them.

2. The Loki we meet in Ragnarok and IW. This isn’t really the same guy as Loki #1. It’s a fan fiction AU in which Loki has no trauma to deal with. He is a manipulator. But he is a manipulator because he is a survivor. He does what he has to do in order to be not dead, and if he can also have some luxury while he does it, well, that’s a bonus. Theoretically, he is a powerful mage--since he was able to overcome Odin and place him in a nursing home--but we don’t see any of that on screen. He is revered Mostly Harmless by the narrative. There is no re-bar up his ass. His body language is much more loose and emotive. His characterization has been flattened out in order to serve as a narrative foil for Thor, and will be bridged in IW to serve Thor’s character development (yet another feminization of his character). Many people really enjoyed this version of Loki. But let’s be clear, he isn’t the same Loki we met in the other three movies.

3. The TVA Loki. This Loki is a new fan fiction. A third AU. This Loki is slightly closer to Loki #1 in that his characterization is a bit more complex than Loki #2. He is smarter. He is more versatile and powerful. He has a backstory that isn’t being mocked. His queerness is not being used to villain-code him. But it would be wrong to say he’s the same Loki that we saw in the first three movies. This Loki’s trauma is all family-related, which great, at least they acknowledge that.

However, he clearly is not the PTSD!Loki that we see in TDW. They have decided (at least so far) to completely ignore what happens between Thor I and The Avengers. I’m not quite sure why it’s ok to deal with trauma when it’s Bucky Barnes and Tony Stark, but not ok when it’s Loki, but this is the decision the director made, and if I want to enjoy the show, I have to be ok with that. So that’s what I’m going to do right now. The Loki show is fan fiction. It’s an AU. And it does a pretty good job at doing that.

#Loki series #Loki spoilers #meta #also posting on Ao3

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bedlamsbard · 3 years

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Some Loki thoughts under the cut! Not explicitly spoilery for this week’s episode except for one comment, but some of what I’ve been dwelling on for the past few weeks, especially as I go through my MCU watch. This is sort of negative, for those who are avoiding negative comments.

I think for me what I'm increasingly missing is context -- Marvel could have run most if not all of this story line with almost ANY character with very few changes; it doesn't feel deeply rooted in Loki himself. At this point (next week’s finale could obviously prove otherwise) you could run this exact same story line with Natasha or Tony or Thor or Steve or Wanda or etc and end up with pretty similar results.

Obviously some of the decontextualization is deliberate depersonalization; what happens when you remove Loki from everything familiar and put him in this beige office monstrosity? But even depending where you fall on the was-influenced-or-tortured-by-Thanos scale, that...already...happened to him...when he fell at the end of Thor, it just all happened offscreen, and then it happened again in the beginning of Thor: Ragnarok when he falls off the Bifrost and ends up on Sakaar -- it just all, again, happens offscreen, and both times results in Loki going “yeah, I could be anyone but I’m going to be Loki of Asgard, good or bad.” Which isn’t to say that there’s not value in telling that story onscreen but I don’t love how they’ve been doing it. And like, I love alternate universes and multiverses and alternate versions of the same character, I was absolutely onboard for episodes 1-3.

What’s key for me in that kind of thing is still keeping the character very firmly rooted in their own context even when everything else is stripped away from me, and that’s where the show started losing me after ep 1 and to a lesser extent ep 2 really dug into it. Like, this guy is not human, he’s a thousand years old, he may or may not be a literal god (every Thor and Avengers movie has a different answer for the “are Asgardians gods or not?” question and Ragnarok commits to it; because I love the larger-than-life scale of divine storytelling that’s where I fall on that scale, but the show sort of elides it), and he just had the Battle of New York go pear-shaped on him. And then there’s his family and...yeah, previously he’s only been presented in context of Thor (and to a lesser extent Odin and Frigga), but like, so has Thor himself -- Thor’s most stripped of context in Age of Ultron, tbh (which is a whole ‘nother issue because of like...the rest of AoU). But that’s a huge part of Loki and his identity issues and the fact that because, for whatever reason, the show can’t/won’t bring in movie characters rings hollow. (The reasons are probably torn between a very practical “budget + pandemic made it impossible” and a thematic “who’s Loki without his family?”) I like Loki a lot as a character, but for me a huge part of what makes him that character is his context and not having it is jarring. (And I like his dynamic with Thor.) Most of what I find really appealing about Loki has just not been there these past few eps and it’s not there even in its absence, which is the key part for me; with the family bit you can feel around the edges of it because it’s been highlighted a few times, but the “absolutely not human” part is just...lacking. Like, you can have the magic and all the rest of it too, you know?

And for me the fact that this is supposed to be post-Avengers 2012 Loki -- which is a Loki who’s glaring in his brittleness -- is...lacking? You can argue that one reason he’s so unsettled is because he’s smarting from what happened there, but I’m just not feeling it. And yeah, he’s a chameleon who can blend into new contexts pretty easily, even coming immediately out of trauma (the Sakaar episode in Ragnarok shows that), but that’s such a specific context that we’re so familiar with that it feels off to me. (And also, this is is a me issue, Tom Hiddleston, while very handsome, is very clearly ten years older in the face than he was as 2012 Loki, so I don’t even have the visual cues to say “this is 2012 Loki.” That is obviously a me issue, again, I want to reiterate that.)

and to switch gears off the decontextualization

I’m also feeling some resentment on behalf of Loki Prime back in the films because the whole argument that a Loki is only allowed to do bad things and won't be allowed to change falls apart in the face of TDW/Ragnarok/IW? and like, he was presumably a pretty decent dude the preceding millennium? there’s a reason his psychotic break in Thor was such a shock to everyone? (I guess to get back to context, he’s a thousand years old and the fact that none of that history feels like it’s there. Like, the DB Cooper thing is ultimately pretty harmless, and also like...only forty years prior.) I've seen people talking about Show Loki having to speedrun Film Loki's character arc but by the whole argument of the show, if we're taking it at face value, that character arc NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. So it sits weirdly with me.

Obviously there’s no reason to take “you were born to cause pain and suffering and death” at face value, except there’s also Kid Loki’s comment in the last ep about “whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves, they’re sent here to die.” It’s been a while since I read the comics (I think I went through Journey into Mystery around when Thor or maybe Avengers came out, but that was the last time), but IIRC that feels like much more a comics thing than an MCU thing and because they’re so very, very different it’s jarring. This felt like a lot of “we’re going to stuff comics stuff in here despite the fact that the MCU is only very loosely connected to the comics,” which on the one hand could be fun (and obviously a lot of people found it fun!) but on the other hand threw me very badly. I love a multiverse but one reason I mentally can't cope with most comics is that I need the multiverse to be very, very logical about its divergence points and that went out the window here. This is 100% about how my brain works, not a quality issue; it’s an issue that’s shown up elsewhere and not specifically a Loki thing here. (I can kind of look past it for Into the Spider-Verse but tbh I think a lot of the reason I can is because that film’s animated. again, like, 100% about how my brain works.)

also the recurring “glorious purpose” line makes zero sense considering that Loki never utters it again after Avengers. :/ I know it was exciting back in 2012 but y’all.

okay I’m going back to dealing with all of these problems in fanfic again

#bedlam watches loki

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valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn · 2 years

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This is one of the best laughs I've had in a while mainly because it starts somewhat fine but then becomes utterly pathetic: 10 times Loki proved he's not a hero.

1.- He took advantage of Thor's trust in him, coaxing him into invading Jotunheim.

Yes, he persuaded him. Didn't really take much to convince him but yes, I'll give them that. He did talk him into going there. Just one correction: invading? Nope. He told him to go there to search for answers and some form of accountability.

2.- He Tried To Destroy Jotunheim.

True. And this can be explained and contextualized but never justified. It was 100% wrong.

3.- He Used The People On Jotunheim To Achieve His Own Goals. Before attempting to destroy them, he used the Frost Giants as his tools [...] Before they could kill him, Loki betrayed the Frost Giants.

You know, this is a point I don't really see brought up in metas and I've got to say I really like it, because yes he did use the Jotuns to achieve his ends and he had no qualms in doing so. That's clearly the result of the Asgardian indoctrination where they all believe any beings born elsewhere are lesser than therefore not valuable and easily used and murdered without bad conscience.

Again, what he did was wrong.

4.- He attacked Thor, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three. He saw his friends as traitors, despite the fact that all they wanted was for their friend to be back home.

Aw, they just wanted their friend home. The same friend who had started a war with Jotunheim after Laufey called him 'princess'. The same friend who had put them and his own brother in danger when engaging in a battle with hundreds of Jotuns and no backup. And they just wanted him back because they didn't see anything wrong with what he had done which frankly says a lot about them and none of it it's good (= blind loyalty is not good).

Not that I'm defending Loki trying to kill Thor or his friends, this one's clearly wrong too.

5.- He faked his death twice. The first two Thor films ended in Loki's apparent death. One, where he willingly fell to his apparent demise [...]

If he willingly fell to his death then he didn't fake it. What the...

6.- He Led The Dark Elves To Frigga. He gave Kurse directions, thinking that he was leading him to Thor.

Woah the series really has done a lot of damage, huh? He didn't send the elves to Frigga, he sent the Kurse to a room where he could disable the palace shields. Watch TDW again, please.

So not wrong, he had nothing to do with this.

7.- He Was Responsible For Odin's Death And Hela's Return. Although Loki did not outright kill Odin, Thor blamed his brother for Odin's death. Thanks to his death, Hela was eager to resume her conquest.

He was responsible for Odin's death although he didn't kill him but Thor blamed him so it's his fault anyway then they blame Hela's return on Loki because why blame it on Odin when Loki is right there, amirite?

Again, not wrong. He didn't kill Odin and for fuck's sake, he's not to blame for Hela.

8.- [After Sakaar] When arriving at Asgard, Loki had no qualms with posing as their savior, not missing an opportunity to make himself look good.

Uh... would you be so kind as to please explain to me how the Asgardians could have possibly made it out of there without that ship? Because the Bifrost would have taken too long, the Tesseract couldn't possibly get all that people out of there at once and not for nothing but an army of zombie einherjar was kind of killing people right, front and centre so like... of course Loki showed up as a saviour, had not been for him they would all have died.

Obviously, not wrong. Not even when he saves people he gets a pass...

9.- When Loki slipped into Odin's Vault, he was tempted by the Tesseract. Rather than leaving it on Asgard to be buried in the destruction, he took it with him. This lured Thanos to their ship. As a result, many of the surviving Asgardians perished [...] the whole scenario could have been avoided if not for Loki's greed.

Er... perhaps the whole scenario could have been avoided if Thanos hadn't attacked them and killed them all? Are you going to blame the Snap on Loki too?

Basically, not wrong. How the hell is he blamed for this is beyond me.

10.- Loki's attack on New York was one of his worst crimes. He brainwashed people to serve him.

Yeah brainwashing is bad and he did it to others so that's wrong but when it happens to him it's not even brought up and he's the only to blame with not a single mention of who had sent him there in the first place. Gotcha.

Basically, yes wrong because he did invade and kill tons of people. But holy crap, context matters! I mean, I'm fine with blaming him for shit he has done but the last few points are nonsense?

#Loki #in defense of loki

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lucianalight · 3 years

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moonstone-queen17 replied to your photo “Thor Ragnarok: “Hey can I copy your homework?” Thor(2011): “Sure, but…”

Well, here’s the thing. The first two movies were honestly just lacking any taste, and were just hour long sessions of boring. Thor Ragnarok was the first Thor movie I found myself watching over and over. The characters were compelling, the villain had an actually understandable motive, hell the best part was the lack of Jane Foster because Natalie Portman is part of why the first 2 are horrible. This movie isn’t focused on some stupid romance, it’s about Thor and how he’s grown into a true King. Valkyrie is a badass, who wears her scars after losing everything and realizing with Thor that she can be more than the coward she thought she was, who stood by while her sisters in arms were slaughtered. Loki shows how he cares about Thor, and Asgard, because deep down he was struggling for so long with the lies he’d been told about himself, and now he knows who he truly is, because he has his brother to lean on. It’s a movie about family, it’s a movie about growth, it’s a movie about bonds. So sir, I will say this. Yes, Thor Ragnarok has similarities to the first movie. But that’s because it’s meant to be Thor and Loki coming full circle in their journey as Odin’s sons, and it’s meant to be about how the sins of the father are not the sins of the children. No forced Jane Foster romance, no heterosexual bs being shoved down your throat, no uncompelling character motives. It’s found family, and finding who you are, despite the hardships. Sorry you couldn’t see its brilliance.

@moonstone-queen17 It’s great that you enjoyed the movie but a lot of what you’ve said is your personal opinion and taste, which is subjective. And subjective matters like how you like sth better than the other thing can’t be discussed or be taken as a reason in objective analysis. So I won’t discuss them. Now about other things you mentioned in your reply(I’m linking to posts because lots of points you mentioned has been analyzed in length before):

This movie isn’t focused on some stupid romance

The focus of other movies wasn’t romance. It was part of the story, but not the focus. In Thor 1, the focus of the movie is Thor’s worthiness. How he changes from an arrogant and thoughtless prince to a worthy one. The focus of TDW is Thor’s struggle whether to follow his heart and what he knows to be right or to do what Odin and others expect of him. While there is no character development for Thor in TR.

Valkyrie is a badass, who wears her scars after losing everything and realizing with Thor that she can be more than the coward she thought she was, who stood by while her sisters in arms were slaughtered.

Since you’ve seen the movie over and over again, I’m surprised you missed that Valkyrie didn’t stand by while her sisters were slaughtered. She was fighting Hela. She was attacking her, while her lover jumps in front of a sword meant to kill Valkyrie and saved her by sending her through a portal. Valkyrie didn’t want to leave that fight. “coward” was what Thor called her when she refused to help him. She didn’t thought that she is a coward. She felt guilty for being the lone survivor. She had seen the ugly truth behind Asgard’s golden facade. She didn’t think it was worth fighting to save it.

Loki shows how he cares about Thor, and Asgard, because deep down he was struggling for so long with the lies he’d been told about himself, and now he knows who he truly is, because he has his brother to lean on. It’s a movie about family, it’s a movie about growth, it’s a movie about bonds.

Loki had already shown that he cared about Thor.

(No, he didn’t fake his death)

And actually what transpired between Thor and Loki, wasn’t a true reconciliation. It definitely wasn’t Loki being able to lean on Thor.

Thor Ragnarok has similarities to the first movie. But that’s because it’s meant to be Thor and Loki coming full circle in their journey as Odin’s sons.

Thor and Loki coming full circle, isn’t a good thing in their arc, since they started with Loki being disregarded and under Thor’s shadow and they have come back exactly to that. And FYI according to TW, TR was supposed to be new Thor 1, a reboot to disregard everything that happened in previous movies. That’s why the characters are ooc in it, which is probably why you enjoyed it since you didn’t like the other movies. There are other issues with movie like the one dimensional villain, the hypocritical tone of the movie and the long list of plot holes. Still I’m glad that you didn’t see its problems and you could enjoy it.

#anti thor ragnarok #anti tr thor #valkyrie #loki #hela #reply

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backtoasgard · 4 years

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Back to Asgard Month

Celebrating nine years of nine realms! Please join us for a Thor fandom event to take place September 13 through October 10!

For the 9-year anniversary of the release of Thor 1 on DVD on September 13, let’s get back to the fandom’s roots with a month of revelry fit for the gods!

What is Back to Asgard Month?

It’s a fandom event focused on Thor and Loki (either as a ship or as brothers) and other Thor characters and their portrayal in MCU Phase 1 & 2 (Thor 1, Avengers 1, TDW, AoU). It’s about sharing the love of those characters and stories with other fans by posting content, recs, meta, discussions, and anything else that you enjoy, and encouraging commenting and interaction within the community!

When is it?

Four weeks starting on September 13, with each week dedicated to a different movie. This doesn’t mean you can’t post things outside of that schedule, it just gives some structure for those who want it.

Week 1: Thor 1 (September 13-19)

Week 2: Avengers 1 (September 20-26)

Week 3: TDW (September 27 - October 3)

Week 4: AoU, etc., or catch-all if you missed any of the above (October 4-10)

Participation, Rules, and More Below!

How do I participate?

So many ways! Here are a few ideas:

Do a rewatch and post your reactions, talk about the movies, whatevs

Talk about what the fandom means to you, what drew you to the characters, etc.

Share recs for “classic” fic, art, edits, vids, whatever---tell us about your old faves!

Revive some old fandom memes! Loki does what he wants, Thor.

Comment on older content--who doesn’t love comments, whenever they arrive?

Share and rec your own older content---latecomers to the fandom may never have seen it!

Create and share new fic, art, edits, meta, playlists, vids, or any other new content you feel like making, as long as it is focused/based on the early movie canon

Share prompts and plotbunnies for others to take up---tell us about that idea you wish someone would write/draw/whatever!

Tag it #backtoasgard so we can find it and reblog it!

You can also submit content directly to this blog. If it meets the requirements, we will post it. (Note: Please submit only your own content. No reposting!)

Rules:

This event is focused on the Thor characters in Thor 1, Avengers 1, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers Age of Ultron. Inclusion of non-Thor-franchise characters or content referencing other MCU movies from the same era is acceptable. Content that involves any Phase 3+ movies (TR, IW, EG, etc.) is not. That content is everywhere and it’s great too, but this event is about celebrating the early era of MCU Thor fandom.

Inclusion of elements from comics, other Marvel (e.g., Marvel TV, Avengers: EMH, Tales of Asgard), mythology, or any AU you’ve got is also cool, as long as the focus/basis is the events and characters from the early Thor movies.

Absolutely no character bashing. If you can’t praise your fave without bashing other characters, do it somewhere else.

Absolutely no ship bashing. The early days of MCU Thor fandom were largely thorki-focused, and while other pairings are totally cool in this event, any ship bashing, especially any anti-ism, is not welcome. If you follow this blog or its tag, you are acknowledging that you may see some thorki.

Absolutely no kink shaming. This fandom grows its own kinktomatoes.

Criticism of the movies is fine, but this is an event for people who enjoyed them. Keep that in mind and don’t be a dick. We realize this is subjective, but please err on the side of caution.

Tag/warn appropriately. At a minimum, this means following AO3 rules for Major Warning content. If you are linking to a work hosted elsewhere (such as AO3) and it is appropriately tagged in that location, you need not duplicate warnings on tumblr. NOTE: Sibling incest does not need to be warned for if a work is labeled as thorki. ALSO: Adopted sibling incest should not be labeled “pseudo-incest” or anything that is otherwise insulting to adoptive families.

Within this event at least, please treat other fans like people. If you disagree with something, do so civilly. If you don’t like something, move on and find something you do like. Remember that we’re all here to have a good time.

You are free to take part in as many (or as few) ways as you like. No one is judging or grading your participation. There is no minimum, no maximum, and very loose time limits.

(Credit for the inspiration behind this event goes to the LotR fandom’s Back to Middle-earth events that one of your friendly neighborhood mods participated in back in the day and enjoyed.)

Please share this post to spread the word! We look forward to celebrating this fandom with you!

#backtoasgard #thorkiedit #thoredit #lokiedit #thor 1 #thor tdw

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aurorawest · 3 years

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⭐️ ooooh! can you please give a "director's commentary" on chapter 2 from "Foundations" where Loki and Thor are in a pub and get confronted by these two awful guys??

Yeah! Gosh it feels like a long time ago that I wrote Foundations!

Some general commentary about this fic - one of my struggles with writing Loki was how to get into his head and make sense of the fact that in Thor 1, we have that deleted scene where he tells Thor that he loves him, and to never doubt it. Obviously that scene was cut, but Loki’s entire arc really does bear out that he loves Thor, so I really needed to find a way to reconcile, “Never doubt that I love you,” with Loki’s douchebaggery in Thor 1. So that really was the impetus for this fic - what are some things that have happened between them that could lead to Loki’s love for Thor never wavering, but would also convince him that keeping Thor from the throne was a good thing, so good that he should resort to fairly extreme measures to achieve it? I wrote this fic a bit out of order—chapter 3 came first, then 1, 2, and I wrote 4 and 5 more or less simultaneously.

The men watching him didn’t seem like a concern anymore, either. They were the princes of Asgard. Who would dare attack them?

“Drinking by yourselves, princelings?” a voice said from above them suddenly.

So in chapter 2, I wanted to show Thor’s hot-headedness, and I wanted it to involve Loki, because I wanted to show a conflict between Loki loving Thor for looking out for him...but also hating Thor for looking out for him.

Spoken too soon. Loki’s head snapped around much faster than Thor’s did. It was the two men who had been watching him. Surprise.

With a smile that he hoped was charming, rather than sloppy, Loki said, “Well, I wouldn’t say we’re alone.” Wait, was that supposed to be clever? The drink was getting to him. The drink had gotten to him.

Thor scooted his chair over and slung an arm around Loki’s shoulders. “Only because we haven’t found company yet!” he thundered. Loki tried to slither out from under his arm but Thor’s fingers clamped around his shoulder, so he resigned himself to his brother’s drunken clutches. “Join us, friends. And well met on this beautiful evening!”

I tried to mimic the dialogue patterns of Thor 1 and TDW for this fic much more than I typically do. Since most of my fic takes place post-Ragnarok, and I really love the tone of Ragnarok, I draw a lot of my style and tone from that. But I wanted to give this fic a feeling of being set in the past, long before Loki and Thor encounter 21st century humans.

[...] The men looked at each other and Loki felt another twist of uneasiness. One of them, his hair a fiery ginger that Loki couldn’t help letting his eyes linger on,

This is a very subtle (like so subtle that I’m sure literally everyone missed it) reference to Theo Bell in the novel Loki: Where Mischief Lies, who’s a redhead. I have a head canon that Loki has a thing for redheads.

elbowed the other, who was brawnier and uglier, with a nose that looked like it had been flattened by someone else’s fists on more than one occasion.

Could I have just said his nose had been broken? Probably. I still kind of like the way I worded this.

“Perhaps if it was just you here, Your Highness,” the uglier one said. Loki stiffened, but Thor didn’t react. Either he didn’t get it or didn’t care. But Loki wasn’t so far gone in drink that he didn’t understand, nor did he miss the way the redhead’s eyes narrowed at him. It sparked a flash of irritation in him—he was the prince, they had no right to look at him that way. But he looked down at the table, a habit honed in court, where it was easier to bow his head and dig his nails into his palms rather than argue with Father.

Loki digging his nails into his palms hard enough to draw blood has become one of his tics, the more I’ve written of him. This...may have been the first time I referenced it?

With a chuckle, Thor said, “It is just us here.”

The man laughed too. It was much less nice than Thor’s dumb, likable laugh. “Aye, Prince. You and your greasy brother.”

Head canon: Loki’s hair looks greasy because he hates its natural curl and he dumps product on it. He would rather it looked bad in any other way than be curly.

The smile fell off Thor’s face and he removed his arm from Loki’s shoulders. “What?” he said, suddenly sounding far less drunk.

“It’s not the grease we mind,” the redhead piped up.

Loki raised his head, sensing danger. It was best not to be looking at your lap when you knew it was coming. His daggers were a comforting weight on his forearms, but Thor hadn’t brought a weapon tonight. Why would he? Loki went out into the city by himself all the time, and he never had any trouble. And if one of them was going to have trouble, it would certainly be Loki—less trusted, less loved. Too pale, too quiet. Unnatural.

Loki is definitely an unreliable narrator here. He sees hatred and distrust everywhere he looks. There’s obviously an element of truth to that (as we’re about to see), but on the other hand, he’s been drinking at this pub for ages with no trouble. He knows the bartender. Loki’s mind really prioritizes negative experiences (I guess most people do but Loki, anxiety and depression ridden Loki, really does).

“No, not at all,” the man said. “Who hasn’t skipped a bath now and then? No, the thing is, we don’t drink with faggots.”

I remember after I posted this fic, I went back a few days later and added the tag ‘period typical homophobia’ because of this line.

The room didn’t actually fall silent, but it might as well have. There was a loud ringing, and it took Loki a second to realize it was in his own ears. His chest felt like something heavy, like the hammer Mjølnir that was kept in the weapons vault, was compressing it to nothing, and he was fairly sure that his heart had stopped beating.

Thor hasn’t been given Mjolnir yet.

The man’s grin was practically ghoulish. “Probably thinks no one sees him going into that whorehouse, the one where they keep the lads—”

I purposefully left it vague whether this is true. But since this is the director’s commentary, I can tell you - it’s true! Loki does frequent a brothel with male employees. He actually has sort of a long term relationship with one. The guy is in love with Loki. Loki is...not. There comes a point where the guy confesses his feelings to Loki. Loki never comes back after that. Later, on The Statesman after Ragnarok, Loki finds out the guy was killed in Hela’s purge. He feels pretty awful.

The scrape of Thor’s chair on the wood floor was deafening. [...] “That,” he said in a dangerous voice, “was not a very nice thing to say.”

Kind of an understatement, Thor.

The redhead took a step back. The ugly one, who’d just aired Loki’s—dirty laundry? Skeletons?—didn’t. He was mixing metaphors. This was something he’d preferred to think of as simply a thing that he just didn’t talk about, but now that it had been announced to a roomful of people, it seemed like something he should have been much more ashamed of. Surely people didn’t stare like that otherwise.

Loki is...not exactly uncomfortable with the fact that he’s attracted to men. He knows, or thinks, that it’s outside the norm, but he doesn’t think that he’s doing something wrong. I have a reference in some fic...somewhere...I can’t remember which one, about how Asgardians live such a long time that most of them will try having sex with someone of the same-sex, even if they don’t really think they’re attracted to people of the same sex. It might be in one of my fics for the Loki Rarepair Bang? Anyway, later, Loki will come to understand that. At this point, he’s still kind of like...I don’t know anyone else who likes this. I was really trying to walk a line between him being ashamed and him knowing, deep down, there was nothing wrong with him.

Then again, they may have been staring because of the look on Thor’s face. “Apologize to my brother,” Thor said.

The man looked at Loki and grinned. Loki folded his wrists inwards and fingered the hilts of his daggers, but he said in a low tone, “Thor, it’s fine.”

[...] “Best listen to your brother,” the man said with a leer. “Or maybe I should say ‘sister.’”

Personally, Loki didn’t find this insulting,

Probably because it’s a terrible insult.

but Thor clearly did.

Loki isn’t entirely comfortable with this fact. Thor sends mixed signals. He doesn’t have a problem with anything about Loki, and yet, he still gets mad about an insult like this. Obviously, it’s meant as an insult, which is why Thor gets angry - it’s not the content so much as the fact that these assholes are attacking Loki.

[...] Loki knew that a normal Asgardian should be offended by all of this. The disrespect, if not the accusation itself. [...]

But all Loki could see were repercussions spidering out from this moment, repercussions from getting angry, from standing up for himself, for fighting back. An Asgardian was supposed to fight back. But Loki knew that he couldn’t win either way. If he fought back, his father would say he should have calmed the situation. If he didn’t, everyone would think he was weak. And in any case, the fact that there’d been a confrontation in the first place would be blamed on him.

At the heart of a lot of Loki’s issues is this idea that he can’t do anything right. He knows what he would naturally do, but knows it’s not acceptable. He knows what he “should” do, but he also doesn’t think that’s acceptable. He feels caught in this impossible place where it’s literally impossible to win the approval of his father...which is the one thing he wants.

[...] In a blur, Thor’s fist swung out, connecting with the man’s face with a wet crack of bone and cartilage. The man dropped like a stone, but when he hit the ground he tried to roll away. His red-headed friend stepped forward, bringing a fist up.

I remember really, really not wanting to write a fight scene here, haha.

In a second, Loki was on his feet, holding out a hand that was suddenly grasping a dagger. The redhead jolted to a stop as Loki extended it so the point rested inches from the tip of the other man’s nose. With an icy smile, Loki said, “I wouldn’t.”

I very much love writing Loki wielding his knives.

The redhead’s face twisted in a snarl, but he lowered his hands to his sides. There was that taken care of, at least.

Thor kicked the other man out from the table he was trying to crawl underneath, grabbing him by one of the pauldrons on his shoulders and hauling him to his feet. The man took a wild swing at Thor and missed. In return, Thor head-butted him, smashing his already ruined nose to an unrecognizable, bloody pulp. Then he slammed the man down on the table, one hand around his neck. The tabletop splintered and bowed with the force of the blow. Their ales splattered everywhere.

“Thor,” Loki said warningly. “That’s enough. He’s an idiot—let him go.” But Thor was too far gone. The rage of battle, he liked to call it. Loki preferred to think of it as dumb, animal bloodlust. The man’s face was turning red while he wheezed, and his attempts to hit Thor were growing weaker.

“Thor.” Loki took a chance, lowered his dagger, and stepped forward. He wrapped a hand around his brother’s shoulder and pulled him back, though of course his strength was no match for Thor’s. If Thor wanted to kill this man, he could, and Loki would be powerless to stop him with mere strength. Sorcery, yes. But that was what had gotten them into this in the first place. And besides, Loki didn’t think Thor would thank him for magicking him. “Stop. It’s not worth it.” Thor bared his teeth and squeezed his fist tighter around the man’s neck. The man’s eyes popped and his wheezing became a thin whistle, then the absence of anything in his gaping mouth as Thor cut off his air supply.

For a moment, Loki studied the man. He’d thought—he’d assumed—that he would feel a bolt of horror, of a desperate need to stop this so a life could be spared. But as he looked down and searched for that feeling, he just found a cold emptiness. What did he care if this man died?

I believe that Loki is a deeply sensitive person, who cares and loves with absolute abandon...if you make it to the very inner reaches of his heart. Otherwise, he probably doesn’t give a shit about you. I want to show that here, that Loki has this very cold-blooded side. It’s not that he likes killing people or inflicting pain, but it doesn’t bother him.

What he cared about was not causing more trouble than had already been caused. About making sure Thor didn’t do something rash and stupid. And about not getting the blame himself for something that he hadn’t started, because for his whole life, people had been ready to believe the worst of him.

Here’s some set-up for Loki’s eventual scheme to prevent Thor from taking the throne. Loki knows Thor acts without thinking. Here, he wants to stop it. Later, he’ll use it against Thor. Here, Loki is very much fighting against people’s perception of him. He wants to be loved. This flips for him later, where he embraces what (he thinks) people think of him and really tries to become the villain. It’s not a natural fit on him.

“Brother, please,” Loki hissed. “Stop. Think.”

This is an intentional echo of Loki’s dialogue to Thor on Jotunheim in Thor 1.

And why should this work now, when it rarely did? But Loki felt the tenseness go out of Thor’s shoulder, and after a second, he released his hold on the man, pushing him away. The force of the push slid the man across the table and headfirst onto the floor, but he was moaning, so clearly he wasn’t dead.

For the first time, Loki glanced around the alehouse. If there hadn’t been silence before, there certainly was now. Everyone in the place was staring, and not in a friendly way. The look in Birger’s eyes was unmistakable.

I used the name Birger for the bartender because I figured I wouldn’t want to use it for a more important character.

[...] He [...] smiled as though nothing was wrong, met Thor’s eyes, and walked to the door. Spine straight, shoulders back, the half-smile on his face that he wore when he didn’t want anyone to know how much he was breaking inside.

Loki is a practiced actor. There’s far more going on inside his head than he’ll ever let on.

He didn’t even know why this, of all things, should crack one more piece of him. Certainly, it wasn’t the idea of gossip about him. There was already gossip about the fact that he liked men as well as women. Mother already knew, anyway. She’d sat him down one day, several months after she’d noticed his eyes following not just some of the attractive serving girls, but also boys, and had the excruciatingly awful Talk with him that he was sure Thor had gotten from their father, not from her. “You know to take precautions to prevent disease, not just pregnancy?” she’d asked, and he’d managed to stammer, his face bright red and burning, “Yes, Mother, of course.” Honestly he hadn’t thought much about it, but the only thing that could have made that moment worse was admitting ignorance.

“Will you be my fester-man?” has Loki remembering talking about his attraction to men with Odin, and how absolutely mortifying it was. Odin’s side of this talk is telling Loki that whoever he wants to sleep with is fine, but he needs to marry a woman and produce an heir.

But Thor was here to witness this, and maybe that was what made it seem so awful. Thor, who meant the world to him, but whom he worried saw him as lesser. Lesser than his friends, the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif, lesser than every other Asgardian. Lesser than Thor himself. Why wouldn’t he see Loki as lesser, when Thor was going to be king? When despite this display tonight, he’d receive no more punishment than a stern talking-to from Father?

Loki had kept his cool, Loki had defused the situation—they were walking away from this with everyone alive because of him. And yet he was the one who everyone would see as the one who hadn’t done things quite right, while Thor, who’d nearly killed a man out of anger, would have his actions waved away. Loki’s circumspection was a flaw, while Thor’s hot-headedness was a virtue. Loki would never hold the throne because he wasn’t Asgardian enough, and Thor was too Asgardian for his own good.

Really the core of this section and Loki’s bitterness—Loki can do nothing right, and Thor can do no wrong. Loki sees his outsider status as both a flaw, but also as an advantage. He does feel he did the right thing in this situation, but he knows no one else will feel that way. Thor’s reaction was maybe not good, but it’s what everyone would expect.

It wasn’t that Loki didn’t appreciate that his brother had almost killed a man to protect him. It was just, he didn’t need to be protected, and he could see the outcome of this writ large as though it was scrawled across the front of the palace. It made him want to scream. It made him hate Thor with such a scalding fierceness that it scared him. He couldn’t hate Thor. But nothing was fair, and Thor never did anything about it.

He hates Thor. He loves Thor. One thing this fic really taught me about Loki was how he lives with cognitive dissonance every moment of every day. He holds these massive contradictory feelings inside him and they just sit next to each other, totally irreconcilable.

The two of them walked the dark streets of Asgard in silence, Thor’s heavy breathing quieting the farther they got from the alehouse. [...] “I suppose you want to know if what they said is true,” he said, staring straight ahead into the dark. His eyes found the palace, shining golden in the distance.

Thor made a noise. In his periphery, Loki saw his brother look towards him. “I know it’s true,” Thor said. “I mean, maybe not the part about the…um, establishment, but you liking men, I already knew that.”

Swallowing, Loki said, “And?”

“And what?”

Loki stopped walking and it took Thor a couple steps to realize it. As Thor turned back to him, Loki asked, “And… [...] Do you care?”

[...] “Why would I care?” Thor asked. And then, “Did you think I would care?”

“I…” Loki hugged his arms over his chest until he realized it looked childish, like he had something to hide, something to be ashamed of. Dropping his arms to his side, he said, “They cared in there.”

Thor snorted and shook his head. “They were fools. I’ve never known you to put any stock in the opinions of fools, brother.”

“So you don’t,” Loki pressed. It seemed of the utmost importance that Thor actually say these words. Loki needed him to prove it, not with his fists, but on Loki’s territory, by saying it. Out loud. Unequivocally. Plainly.

Loki needs to be told things verbally. He needs people to tell him, straight up, ‘I love you.’ ‘You’re worthy.’ Etc. Which I think is why Odin’s ‘No, Loki,’ is so devastating to Loki. Loki places so much important on words and doesn’t really look at people’s actions (Thor, incidentally, is the opposite).

Shaking his head, still looking befuddled, Thor said, “No. There’s nothing to care about.” Then he paused and took a step closer. Reaching out to put a hand to the back of Loki’s neck, he said, “Loki. Even if there was, you’re my brother. And I still wouldn’t care.”

I remember really wanting to get this right. I think when I first wrote this line, I had Thor say, “You’re my brother; of course I don’t care.” But I wanted Thor to just...not care. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Loki, Thor just isn’t a bigot. But I also wanted the sense of like, even if he did care, the fact that it’s Loki would make him rethink this.

Loki wanted to hug him. But that vein of resentment was still there and it stopped him. Instead, he swallowed hard and just stood there for a moment, Thor’s hand cupping the back of his head while he felt something inside him splintering.

And for the first time, he identified it. It was the feeling of his jealousy and love butting up against each other, two immovable forces that wouldn’t yield to the other. With a flash of insight that felt more like seeing into the future, like a faint hint of his mother’s witchcraft (none of which had been passed down to him), he realized this battle was going to shape his life.

He’s right.

And right then, he wasn’t sure love would win.

Nooooo Loki, it will!

“Loki?” Thor said, sounding unsure.

He forced himself to smile, and as he met Thor’s eyes, the resentment receded. Reaching up, he wrapped a hand around Thor’s forearm and said, “Thank you.” There was more to say, but it was beyond him. It was too much.

“Nothing to thank me for,” Thor said, sounding relieved. Then, he ruffled Loki’s hair, which he knew Loki hated. But this old, familiar argument was safe, and they retreated to it as they continued their walk back to the palace. Loki smoothed his hair down and wished he could do the same with the cracks in his life. Something felt changed, and it was frightening, and he felt in his bones that there was no going back to safety, no matter how much he might try.

Safety is an incredibly important feeling to Loki. I return again and again to it in my fics. There are certain people that make him feel safe, and these are the people he loves above all others. You can count them on one hand: Thor. Frigga. Stephen Strange. There’s an element of physical safety to this, but mostly it’s emotional safety. There are people who will let him be who he is, and he’ll do anything for them because of it.

Thank you so much for asking!! It was really fun to return to this fic.

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

#Anonymous #loki #thor #brodinsons

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