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tiktok is such an awful app, it's almost designed to feed you misinformation and expose you to insane discourse. unlike beloved tumblr, the app that feeds me misinformation and exposes me to insane discourse

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i love being a hater of media that i’ve never seen or listened to. no i will not give it a chance. it’s called listening to my heart

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Only just now realized how evil they are for this parallel

caps from cap-that.com

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LOKI S01E01 “Glorious Purpose”

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Everytime Mobius goes out to drink (quite often w Loki’s absence), he always fills an empty glass for Loki.

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god i love coming home and being at home and sitting inside my home and staying home

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baby, i dont think i could keep up with the change ✍️

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“May I say, before I begin – these are in no particular order? Good. Let’s go…”

Frost Giant

One. The scene between Loki and Odin in Thor where Loki finds out he is a Frost Giant. Playing that scene with Sir Anthony Hopkins was an amazing day. I’m really proud of it.

That scene is basically the anchor of the entire characterisation. It’s very, very important to me. I knew it was an important scene in the script and I knew how I wanted to play it. Yeah, that’s a big moment for me.

[When he says] “Tell me”. So it’s when Loki demands to be told who he is. “Because I’m the monster that parents tell their children about at night.” 

Cane Scene

Two. Walking down the steps of the Halls of Justice in Cleveland, which were doubling as a museum in Stuttgart in The Avengers, dressed in a black suit and carrying sort of the Fred Astaire cane version of Loki’s staff, and flipping it, literally like a cane, and smacking a security guard in the face.

It was so fun because there was something of a showman’s elegance about it. It was Loki’s emergence from the underground in The Avengers. It was all going to be set to this amazing piece of Schubert, as it was. Joss’s script described: Loki flips his staff.

And in the same beat, forehands a security guard across the face. And we did it in one take. I felt like I was seven years old when I was doing it. 

Mewling Quim

 The scene with Scarlett, number three. The scene between Black Widow and Loki in the cell on the Helicarrier halfway through The Avengers. That whole day was amazing. “Mewling quim.” Scarlett and I had an amazing time playing that scene.

I remember, we shot it on a Monday, and we spent all weekend running it at her house. It was really funny. Whenever I got to “mewling quim” – I’ve never told anyone this – I couldn’t say it because we would collapse into a fit of giggles.

And I wondered if I was going to be able to say it and look her in the face without laughing. It just so happens I did. It was alright on the night, but I love that moment.

Vs Hulk

Number four. There is the moment just before Loki is smashed by the Hulk, which is when he gets up off the floor and says, “I am a God, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by an animal.”  But before he gets the word “animal” out, he is whipped out of frame, about to be smashed like a wet fish all over the floor of Stark Tower.

Before we shot it, there was a wire attached to my right foot with three stuntmen on the other end. I remember working with them to time it. I said, “If you pull on the B-U-L of ‘bullied’, then I’ll be out of frame before I can finish my line.” it was just a very funny shot. It was like slipping on a banana skin. It was old school farce. I love that moment. 

The Car Chase

Number five. Better be good. Number five is the car chase at the beginning ofThe Avengers, which was cut down for good reason, but we shot it in these ancient mushroom tunnels in Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, about two hours outside Pittsburgh.

For most of the course of the 21st century, these tunnels provided the world with about 60% of the mushrooms. Who knew that. There’s something like 150 miles of subterranean mushroom tunnels underneath the forest in Pennsylvania, and we shot the entire car chase over two or three days down there.

It feels like you’re driving into the Bat Cave, that’s what it feels like. They are very, very far underground and they are very, very dark and very, very long.

So it was myself and Cobie Smulders and Jeremy Renner and Stellan Skarsgård. Jeremy and Stellan and I are in this 4X4.

This just after the stealing of the Tesseract. In the film, it’s actually quite a short trip, but it was two days’ worth of shooting to get all that footage. It was amazing being on the back of this 4X4, driving 200/300 yards’ worth of mushroom tunnel, being chased by another 4X4 with all the cameras on it. It’s incredibly thrilling – I think because there’d been so much green screen, and that was all real. We were actually in a 4X4. 

Chris Hemsworth

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention something with Chris. It’s the moment where Thor and Loki are standing shoulder to shoulder, staring up at Laufey in Jotunheim in the first Thor film. It was the very first day of principal photography and the very first shot by either myself or Chris as these characters, looking up at Laufey, who’s the king of the Frost Giants. It was just the first moment these characters existed.

It’s weirdly unforgettable. He was wearing the red cape and holding the hammer. He said something like, “Know your place, brother.” It just felt like we’d started something.

So that particular shot has a very close place in my heart. 

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Thor: The Dark World (2014) // Loki: S01E01 (2021)

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I just realized that not only Loki had a really tragic life throughout the mcu, but in universe, there is nobody who knows his story.

Nobody will ever know he was betrayed and lied to, nobody will ever know he was tortured and controlled, nobody will ever know he faced his former handler and was killed by him.

Nobody will ever know how deeply he cared about people, how much he disliked fighting, how horrible were things Thanos put him through, how much he struggled with internalized racism and self-hatred.

Nobody will know that he loved astronomy and was good at technology. That he was brave and caring. That he never enjoyed hurting people.

That he was fighting Thanos from the start. That he saved his brother, and his friends, and his girlfriend. That he was trying his best, even if not always successfully.

People will always remember him as a power-hungry maniac who attacked NYC, "faked" his death and then had a sudden heart change and saved Asgard. But that's it. A crazy jealous little brother. A selfish brat. Never a real person who played an important role in delaying Infinity War and saving the world.

Loki never received a funeral. There wasn't a single person who truly knew who he was and what he actually did. And now he's dead, and the world couldn't care less. Most of them don't even know how he died and his body will never be found. And he, most likely, will be completely forgotten sooner or later.

But, maybe, it was for the better: he was stolen, abused, tortured, used when he was alive but he's free now. He loved astronomy and now he is somewhere in space among the stars, where nobody will ever find him, and there is no Odin, no Thanos, no Grandmaster. And when the world will forget about him completely, he will be free from the society that pushed him into falling.

The world never truly knew Loki or gave him any justice, but it doesn't matter anymore.

And all I can think about is....

...Goodbye, Lucy Gray, we hardly knew you.

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Chekov's Heart Shaped Gun - An Analysis Of What Love Means In Loki (TV)

What Sylki actually means and why it’s not romantic love. / How S1E3/4 and S2E5 prove that love is who one calls home. / How Lokius will prevail.

Let's begin our analysis in s1e3.

Sylvie says she can’t sleep when another version of themselves is around. She is stronger than most in the show, yet she lacks trust in themselves- then wakes up from her nap a scene later, but alas, her even saying that is interesting. On that note, Sylvie and Loki are variants of each other. It's only fair to say that they basically have the same trust issues.

Mobius is a trustworthy person overall but to a Loki that’s near impossible to come by as it seems. Loki sleeps soundly with Mobius literally across him, considering the fact that he too couldn't sleep around an untrustworthy person. He trusts Mobius, even before he met Sylvie.

Moving on, Loki takes the glasses offered to them on the train and drinks both upon Sylvie’s refusal to drink hers. The glasses and their contents are identical and have a green tint to them- which is symbolism to establish the fact that Loki and Sylvie are in fact the same person- in variance, supported by the cinematography of this scene: mirroring sides.

Loki drinking both can mean three things all together in this context which I transformed into sentences because I lack in English vocabulary:

“See, I am you, you can trust me.” – Which she doesn’t.

“I take what comes my way.” – Loki doesn’t go around looking for love in any shape or form and takes what is thrown at him – resulting in “whim-prone” actions.

“I can have my cake and eat it too.” as in Sylki stuff- which sounds like clumsy and desperate flirting to me, honestly. There is also the element of Loki’s massive ego in this context, which turns into self love and becomes less (self/)destructive as the show progresses throughout S1 and S2.

Why did they address Loki’s bisexuality in the show specifically? Verbal “representation” without context? That’s below this well-thought-out show’s writers.

I keep coming back to the wording.

"Would-be-princesses" - plural, derogatory (as in aspiring to be, but not one) "Another prince" - single, specific

[Note: I saw some people posting that the timeline name of Mobius "Don" means 'prince', but couldn't find that specific definition myself in any online dictionary/baby names site. Best definition I could find was "brown, chief, noble" over on Wikipedia, so for now let's refrain from that specific definiton and focus on what is given to us plain and straight. I'll make this note make sense in the end of this analysis.]

Or could it be perhaps to give them a common ground to stand on? Nope. They don’t stand on that common ground, not even for a minute.

A drink. (Ding ding ding!!!!)

Yes, a drink. When he gets that drink, he sings an Asgaridan (well, Norwegian) song:

In storm-blackened mountains, I wander alone

Across glaciers, I travel forth

In the apple orchard the fair maiden stands

And sings, "When will you come home?"

When she sings, she sings, "Come home."

So who’s the maiden exactly? Loki dedicates the song to Sylvie, but never says it was specifically written for a romantic love interest. Not gonna lie, I might be reaching here, but hear me out: the lyrics can go both ways. They talked about their mother and how Sylvie barely remembers hers. So, Loki, as he is, sings about a traveller coming home to a maiden, possibly his mother or lover, depending on the context at which the song is directed towards.

The only time we see Loki truly helpless against the world is when he mourns his mother. The purest form of love he has ever received, gone. Upon their conversation with Sylvie about what “love” is, Loki disagrees with it being mischief itself, instead takes time and a couple drinks and sings about a fair maiden- his mother calling him home. That is the only type of love he has truly ever felt for another.

Now imagine singing a song about your mother to another variant of yourself. Mommy issues much? Sure. Bad way to flirt? Absolutely. He basically shows Sylvie what he thinks love means to him, but also establishing a connection with Sylvie based on HIS mindset: They are the same. No matter what the maiden represents, a romantic interest or love for a mother, these two variants are of the same kind in the end.

“No. Terrible metaphor.” Sylvie says. Fast forward to 3 episodes later in s1e6 she drops the dagger she holds on Loki’s throat and proceeds to kiss him, says they’re not the same and kicks him back into the TVA.

Being a Loki is not about being a villain and losing every time, it’s about surviving. To survive, they must adapt and adapting they do. They hold hands in s1e4 and a nexus event begins. A Loki, a so-called villain, in league with another Loki. No mischief, just loving each other- by each other by this point I’m talking about THEM as ONE. They easily could’ve kissed right then if their relationship was romantic, but they didn’t. They love themselves in that moment of an approaching apocalypse.

“But I’m not you.” – As the track “Stop” plays.- [The Sylki track that also played in the scene mentioned in the previous panel.]

Loki just wants Sylvie to be okay. He wants his inner mischievous giant to be okay. He wants his inner self to be okay. But Sylvie refuses this. She kisses him BECAUSE she refuses the fact that they can ever be the same or view love the same way. To Sylvie, love is very much real in the shape of a dagger, yet she drops it to the ground, then kisses Loki. Sylvie shows Loki that love is not what Loki thinks it is.

Love is not what Loki thinks it is.

Reality isn't what you think it is. -Loki to Mobius in s2e5

Fast forward to s2e5. Loki is in conflict with himself. – Thus, time slipping.

Everyone is sent back to their HOMES. Loki remains at the TVA when others are back in their original timelines- except Sylvie. She sees that McDonalds life as her home. So, that means, these people were sent to when and where they belonged before the TVA, or in case of Loki and Sylvie their respected new homes- also giving purpose to their belonging to that place- the when, where and why.

In Loki's mind, Mobius's home IS the TVA, his purpose, his 'glorious purpose' if you will. He searches around the TVA where him and Mobius spent their time pacing around or just sitting down to have a key lime pie.

Sylvie says that they are, in fact, Lokis of the same nature.

The acceptance.

Then it turns out it wasn’t about when, where or why. It’s about WHO. Loki could never have that drink because these two variants of the same species, Loki and Sylvie, are on different paths of life and love. Their roads have crossed but went their separate ways in the end.

Home.

It's about who, right? Loki could have found himself beside Sylvie in the McDonald's, easily, if he actually saw her as home. But no. He remained in the TVA, where Mobius once called home- which apparently he does too now. He belongs in the TVA with Mobius and their friends, with or without Sylvie.

This brings us to the smoking love shaped gun.

"Must've been would-be-princesses or perhaps, another prince."

"Love is... uh, something I might have to have another drink to think about."

2 people close to him offered him the drink he's yet to enjoy: Sylvie and Mobius.

The would-be-princess and the other prince.

"It's about who." Loki says, looking directly at Mobius.

He chooses the prince.

He makes it known to Sylvie at the very end of the episode, slowly turning to her: "I can rewrite the story."

He found his purpose in Mobius. He is the "who" that'll help him rewrite the story of time. He is home.

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Thank you for sticking around till the end of this one. I appreciate any corrections/reminders of what I've missed or got wrong.

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sylvie’s character essentially functions as a narrative device to remind the audience of how loki *would* have reacted to challenges, frustrations, and difficulties in the past

she’s an externalization of everything he is outgrowing, and every conversation they have had this season has driven that point home

the “love triangle” at the center of this season isn’t really about loki’s feelings towards sylvie or mobius, it’s about loki’s internal struggle to grow and become better without betraying his core identity

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Hi! I'm a huge fan of your Loki meta, and there's a thought that's been going through my mind a lot lately, so I thought I'd ask your opinion :) Obviously at this stage anyone with a shred of human compassion and critical thinking skills can see that Loki does not deserve to be slapped in chains and locked away after such a clear psychotic break. However, do you feel he deserves any punishment for his actions? If you were in Odin's shoes, how would you deal with Loki post-Avengers? Thanks!

//Good question! My entire paradigm about how to treat Loki is based on the belief that he is AS MUCH MENTALLY ILL AS HE IS ‘EVIL.’  For all that he has done, and he has done MUCH that is not condonable, Loki has at the very least severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, some form of Attachment Disorder, cognitive-behavioral distortions such as a Hostile Attribution Bias, and one or more Personality Disorders NOT including Antisocial Personality Disorder which was once called “sociopathy” and in its most severe form “psychopathy” (really though, nothing angers me more than seeing Loki labeled as a psychopath, a misnomer often confused with the TOTALLY separate problem of psychoSIS, which he DEFINTELY has suffered from…but that is for an ENTIRELY other post).  He is also in acute mourning for his mother.  Therefore punishment takes on tricky connotations because for Loki’s reprehensible behaviors to be corrected, he needs TREATMENT as much as he needs “execution of justice.”  

Loki is DAMAGED. The following is why, which does NOT CONDONE his decisions in the present, but, IMPORTANTLY, DOES EXPLAIN THEM: 

He found out that he was stolen from the worst enemy Asgard ever faced to date, a race considered SUBHUMAN and INHERENTLY EVIL, and he found out that his father never told him because the “truth” of his heritage was something so awful that he had to be “protected from it.”

He found out (which Odin confirmed in Thor 2) that he was always intended to be used as a political device and that Odin never considered him a son, but rather, a charity case who should be groveling at his feet even for the meager compassion he was shown, which was borderline emotional neglect, by a parent he dearly loved.

He spent his entire childhood programmatically and deliberately placed in his brother’s shadow, as his foil, “second best,” and opposite, thereby pathologizing the only normative relationship he ever had with a peer. And even though his parents claim to love him, anytime it comes down to it,Thor is chosen over Loki hands down. Even the concept of Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, is one of worthiness to be a future monarch. A hammer Loki can never pick up.  You talk about smothering a child with impossible standards.  

With his brother exiled and his father in a coma (he thinks, because of his tantrum), Loki, who is passive and quiet by nature, had to be a regent king in a time of war. The pressure would have cracked anyone with half the spine Loki had.

He became suicidally depressed and attempted suicide. 

He found himself in hostile alien war space and was, according to Tom Hiddleston and Joss Whedon, tortured brutally in every conceivable way.  He was coerced by a REAL psychopath (Thanos) into being a war fieldmarshal in exchange for his freedom and a chance to rule a realm other than Asgard. 

All of this was still to please and emulate his father. It failed. He came home and immediately became a political scapegoat for Asgard, without a real or fair/unbiased trial, placed in prison, disowned as “Laufeyson,” and forbidden to see his mother ever again.  

He was never actually visited for months in solitary confinement (in a blindingly bright prison cell, the opposite of what a Jotun is acclimated to, cold and dark, with no intellectual stimulation),  and the most eventful occurrences were his mother making him choose between herself and his father, and his brother saying that if he didn’t comply with a kamikaze scheme to rescue his mortal girlfriend (whom Thor met for a few days and repeatedly showed to favor over Loki, whom he knew for at least 1047 years) he would “kill him.”  

His mother also died while he was in prison and he was forbidden to attend her funeral.

His brother who claims to have matured still clearly places all of the blame for their falling-out on Loki, and refuses to even have a civil conversation about the past without threatening to beat Loki into a pulp.  

He either dies or endures great physical and psychological torment to pull off an illusion of dying, and is forced to say last goodbyes with unfinished business of a catastrophic sort to his brother. 

I am a firm believer in positive reinforcement being more effective, particularly on a DAMAGED person, than punishment.  As much as he tries to conceal this fact, Loki THRIVES on praise from valued individuals.  Being locked away in a dungeon alone, in solitary confinement, underneath his home, and visited by nobody except his mother (who only visits him as an astrally projected holograph) is only going to REINFORCE HIS DELUSIONS (if they honestly even ARE delusions) OF PERSECUTION. It will NOT show Loki the error of his ways or promote positive change. 

The issue here is that the goal needs to be just that—promotion of positive change, NOT revenge, NOT “justice.”  Treating even a perpetrator with compassion and dignity ultimately has a better chance of protecting those he has injured than treating him like shit and only further feeding his vindictiveness and rage.  

So I think Loki needed to be confined for the safety of others. A cap needed to be placed over his magic and possibly over his physical freedom to wander unchecked. But he did not need to live in utter isolation and disgrace in a dungeon forsaken by his family.  He needed systematic, goal-oriented, firm kindness.  He needed to have his own preconceptions slowly destroyed on an emotional and cognitive level.  The problem is that despite its technological advancement, Asgard is a surprisingly primitive society when it comes to the treatment of mental illness.  What Loki really needed was time AWAY from Asgard, time to piece back together his identity IRRESPECTIVE of his family’s. He needed to be both empowered and validated.  Like Tom Hiddleston has said, people who are secure with themselves and their control over their circumstances don’t NEED to lash out and belittle others.

I know I’ll receive flack for this, I’ll be called “impractical” and a “soft-hearted humanist liberal.”  But frankly, if the option to repair a child before he becomes an adult via education and therapy doesn’t exist, this is the best recourse I can think of, and scientific evidence supports my assertions.  

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I loved seeing Loki calling out Sylvie and standing up for Mobius and the group.