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9worldstales · 3 years

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MCU Loki Ep 5 “Journey to mystery” intensive analysis

So we reached episode 5. Which yeah it’s better than episode 4 but…

It’s not like it fixes episode 4 problems. It just skips them.

Also… it’s an abrupt change of mood. The other 4 episodes were fundamentally serious. They had comedic moments but they were just moments. They had the appropriate amount of drama considering the plot.

This episode… seems to come out from “Looney tunes” for the most part. You can consider it partly a compliment, as I love “Looney tunes”… but the problem is that the “Looney tunes” is out of place considering what should have been a dramatic situation, ends up causing the story to lose a lot of time on things that could have been skipped and required the characters to be OOC for the jokes to work.

So really… I can’t say it’s not fun, it is… but it seems out of place with the rest of the series as if they had handed it to completely different people.

Premise, I usually don’t talk about them but the title of this episode is “Journey to mystery” which is an homage to the comic that hosted “Thor” but also the whole saga of Kid Loki.

Anyway.

Loki has woken up on the Void and, as soon as he had woken up he had met 4 Lokis, Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Boastful Loki and… Alligator Loki. I find the irony of Loki meeting an Alligator Loki when he’s out trying to kill 3 space lizards delicious but only if this isn’t trying to foreordain the big enemy is going to be another Loki Variant.

Because, if that’s the case I’m not gonna find it funny. But I’ll save the rant for when and if we’ll cross that bridge.

So we start with an interesting scene.

We’re at the TVA but we see it upside down. It’s a hint of how our view of the TVA should have turned upside down. They aren’t heroes protecting the Sacred Timeline, they are brainwashed Variants murdering other Variants. The camera keeps on rotating as we move in what was supposed the room of the Time-Keepers and then it finally stop and shows us things not upside down as we’re back into the Void in which Loki ended.

There’s plenty of fog and a devastated New York City and a purple cloud with purple thunders inside and who’s pretty close to our Loki who stands up and ask where he is and who’re the others.

He’s told in very simply terms:

Classic Loki: This is The Void. That's Alioth. And we're his lunch. Come on!

As the group escape, Loki in tow, the purple cloud whose name we just learnt is Alioth, turns on having a face with red shining eyes and red mouth that looks many things but friendly is not one of them.

Now… who named that place? Who named the cloud? Did it stop and introduced itself? Okay, it’s probably not relevant who need it but if the sentence had been ‘We call this place The Void and that hungry cloud Alioth’ I think it would have worked better. But whatever, I’m nitpicking, I know. On a sidenote Alioth is a Marvel comic character but in them he has a little more personality. Here it reminds me more of “the Nithing” of the “Neverending story” movie, with a bit of Gmork added just to spice up things.

We get the title then we switch back to the TVA.

Sylvie demands to have Renslayer’s TemPad and Renslayer, who’s not as fast as Sylvie was when she was a kid because she’s not blessed with the superhuman speed of the heroine, hands it to her without trying to use it first.

Sylvie now asks who’s behind the TVA and Renslayer denies to know it. Now, if Mobius were here he would probably close her in a time loop in which she would be beaten until she’ll beg to please stop but Sylvie is not Mobius so she’s just sarcastic as she pushes her back on the ground with one feet.

Sylvie: Poor Judge Renslayer. Your whole reality's been destroyed. Tell me, how does it feel to be on the other side of it?

Okay, so it seems… she has hurt Renslayer a lot although her arm isn’t broken and she’ll use it just fine later on? And… no, okay, I’m lost.

Because now they aren’t anymore where the Time-Keepers were supposed to be but in the place where the trials are held. Only Sylvie got the TemPad only now so, how did they moved?

She stopped threatening Renslayer to retrieve some other guard’s TemPad then transferred them there then returned to Renslayer and demanded her Tempad? Or they walked outside and reached that place so that everyone could notice Sylvie threatening Renslayer? Besides why in the world moving there? Just so that Sylvie can say:

Sylvie: This is it, isn't it? This is where you dragged me after you stole my life. A fitting place, then, to take yours.

Dramatic and fitting but is this quote worth destroying the logic behind the scene? HELP?!?

Why moving them there? It clearly wasn’t Sylvie’s idea as she realized only there they were in the place where they had held her trial… and anyway I would have said it’s more the place from which she escaped. The place she was dragged to was the TVA, that place was just her last stop of her permanence in the TVA.

There’s something that doesn’t work well here.

A moment before Renslayer was on the ground, groaning in pain because Sylvie has just pressed her foot against her shoulder… and now she’s instead standing in front of Sylvie and slightly distant from her.

Why letting her get up? Why since Sylvie was looking around and not at her Renslayer, instead than just get up hadn’t tried to make her trip? When this has happened as the change is just too abrupt?

Whatever, not great but not big.

Renslayer deploys what Mobius defined cockroach's survival mechanism by telling Sylvie Loki isn’t dead yet.

Sylvie says she would think she’s lying but Renslayer, who has evidently stolen Loki’s silvertongue, manages to persuade her they want the same thing... or at least to listen to her explaining how is he still alive and how saving him might get them closer to who’s behind the TVA.

Renslayer: It's complicated. I'm telling you this willingly.

And here I facepalm because she’s either assuming Sylvie is an idiot or the viewers are idiots because no, she’s not telling this willingly. Sylvie has just told her she was going to kill her and she’s trying to stall her from doing so and calls this ‘willingly’? Either she doesn’t know the meaning of the word or she’s taking everyone for an idiot.

Honestly I believe she’s taking everyone for an idiot but, in the hands of a different writer, this might explain why Mobius feels he’s Loki’s friend and not the guy who tortured him to get what he wanted, because they might think than being threatened of being killed is a normal interaction in a conversation.

Some people say ‘hum…’ some people say ‘I’ll kill you’, where’s the difference, it’s not threatening at all, just an ordinary intercalation.

Anyway Renslayer tells her how she deeply wishes to know who lied to her, because again, with the people at the TVA, it’s all about them, never about the people they reset. And can we just point out how she reset Loki AFTER knowing the TVA lied to her?

So when the Time-Keepers turned out to be fake it’s not like she went ‘oh my God, I want to know who lied to me now!’, she actually went ‘I’ll reset Loki and Sylvie and when this fails and Sylvie tries to kill me I’ll go, ops, I just remembered, I didn’t mean to reset you both, I only wanted to know who lied to me! I’m totally sincere here!’

Anyway Renslayer explains when they actually prune a branched reality they can’t destroy all that matter so they toss it in a comfortable trash disposer where it can’t continue growing, a void at the end of time ‘Where every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops.’

Sylvie asks ‘why?’

Why they toss them there? Why it can’t continue growing? Why every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops? No idea anyway it’s not like Renslayer has an answer either.

Renslayer: I don't know. The dogma states that the end of time is still being written, that the Time-Keepers are transforming it into utopia.

Oh, you’ve dogma. So you’re admitting you’re just a crazy cult.

Sylvie coulters that’s ‘super believable’ and yeah, it is. I’m sure the Time-Keepers are trying to create a cool utopia. For themselves.

I just doubt the rest of the universe will find their chosen ending an utopia as well. Anyway Renslayer assures her nothing comes back from where SHE, let me stress on the ‘she’, has sent Loki despite knowing the Time-Keepers were fake and lying to her. But Sylvie doesn’t have to worry because Renslayer can help. How if nothing can come back from her?

Magic?

What is Renslayer anyway, another Loki Variant who makes up dumb things but Sylvie swallows them because the plot says so? I say to just put her in a time loop, Sylvie.

Since the TVA likes them so much why not to let them experience them in the first place?

But no, she has to give Renslayer the tempad so, if Renslayer has a ounce of brain she can summon a Timedoor, escape from there, come back from another timedoor and arrest you.

But we don’t see her doing that because we jump back to the Void.

The Void is a terrible recycling dump. It would be nice if this were supposed to have the mean of starting a responsible discussion about trash disposing but no, we just have Loki who would like to take a breather so he can ask questions.

Sweety, really, I know the plot told you otherwise but I assure you that you can ask questions and walk and escape from Alioth so he doesn’t eat you all at the same time.

I was hoping the plot was going on you not being a walker because people in Asgard used horses to move around and skiffs but now I fear they only wanted to paint you as lazy.

I mean, we’ve a old man and a kid that can walk, why can’t you?

Anyway I’ll admit I found funny the following bit.

Classic Loki: Gotta keep moving so we don't die.

Loki: Okay, but what's your plan?

Classic Loki: Don't die.

Loki: Okay, but beyond that?

Classic Loki: Don't die.

Loki: That's not a plan. It's a general demand of living.

Of course there’s actually a pan behind all that as they’ll plan to walk till their hideout and hide there so that Alioth can’t find them. Now it’s probably a good moment like any other to wonder ‘how in the world they had found Loki?’

They’re far from their hideout, what then, they were out for a walk and he was dropped in front of them? Is this kind of plot contrivance or the story is going to have things happen for a reason that’s not ‘oh, look, what a coincidence’? Because a plot should have only so many coincidences, it can’t all conveniently happen at random!

Whatever, why am I talking anyway? Of course it happened because it’s convenient to the plot. And why did they pick him up and are taking him to a shelter? Just because they’re coincidentally nice Lokis like that? -_- Yeah, that’s why.

Loki protests if they’re Loki they should always have a plan. Yeah, they should. Too bad in this whole series it was proved over and over hardly Loki ever had a plan so… whatever.

Now I love the weird birds the place populate but they sadly serve no purpose beyond being weird birds moving around there and, apparently, being the only animals who survive the place… or the only Variant of animals the TVA pruned.

Loki start screaming, demanding explanations and summarizing his situation. Again, it’s fun, especially the part in which he says ‘now I'm surrounded by Variants of myself, plus an alligator, which sadly I didn't find all that strange’ but it feels like I’m into one episode of “Looney tunes” (in which the weird birds would fit perfectly by the way) or ‘who framed Roger Rabbit?’ because the fun is based on a total lack of logic.

That’s not the moment to stop and yell so as to have answers you can have by keeping on walking. They just told you not too long ago Alioth is interested in eating you all, either you believe it and keep walking or think they’re tricking you and walk away.

And this applies to the other Loki too. They can explain and walk instead they had dragged him along for who knows how long in silence for unknown reasons. But I’ll dig better into this in a while.

Anyway the purple cloud also known as Alioth seems to react to the ruckus Loki is making so Kid Loki points his sword at him walking close to him.

And here I’ve another problem.

Kid Loki was distant from Loki when they stopped… but when he pulls out his swords is what? A meter from him? So Loki has to hurry to back walk which causes him to fall because falling Loki is hilarious. Or because Kid Loki has to seem badass, pointing his sword to a lying on the ground Loki.

Kid Loki: Stop wailing or you will signal Alioth.

Even Kid Loki calls it just ‘wailing’. *sighs*

He does so by whispering though so Loki whispers as well when he asks him if he means the monster in the sky. I’m not sure why the kid shook his head since Loki is right, but whatever, he makes the sword disappear and helps Loki up.

Now… remaining where they are, the Lokis, starting from Kid Loki, begins to explains things to Loki, without bothering to whisper or to walk.

Kid Loki: This is the place where the TVA dumps its rubbish, everything they prune. And Alioth, he ensures none of it ever returns.

Boastful Loki: It's a living tempest that consumes matter and energy. They send entire branched realities here that are devoured instant...

Thanks for the info dump, I would have appreciated it just the same if you gave it to Loki while walking because yeah, it was funny to see Loki blowing up but it had no point and for me logic takes precedence over fun. I’m weird like that.

Now… Classic Loki is apparently the only one who can talk with Alligator Loki. I love how he explains him things because again, it’s funny…

Alligator Loki: ( /Growls/ )

Classic Loki: Oh, there's no such thing as an alligator tank. Besides, it's a better metaphor. He's overly sensitive like the rest of us.

…but again, also pointlessly absurd. The Void is not Toontown, the situation is supposed to be dramatic.

I fear they had decided since the Lokis are supposed to be chaotic creatures… they’re meant to create chaos for the sake of it.

The only things that VERY funny and that makes sense is this bit.

Loki: Hang on, that thing's a Loki too?

Classic Loki: Oh, yes.

Loki: Okay, fine. Willing to accept that.

I mean, it’s a totally fair question and it makes sense in a situation in which he has seen Variants of himself of all the kinds he can accept there’s one who’s an alligator too.

Really though, I’d like to have an explanation on how the Variants works. What makes someone the Variant of someone else? Because we’ve already established Sylvie had genetic code different from Loki but whatever… but an alligator… that’s in a completely different league.

Anyway the fact that Classic Loki define themselves as OVERLY sensitive basically seems to be put there to invalidate they’re sensitive because implies they’re excessively sensitive.

In “Thor” Loki had valid issues to be sensitive about and the side material was united in saying Odin favoured Thor. It wasn’t just Loki being overly sensitive.

This series claimed it would discuss Loki’s issues but the way they do it is by invalidating them.

I genuinely wonder if the Loki series employed someone who knew about psychological issues as a consultant. They gloss over narcissism, sensitiveness, adoption, racism issues, a suicide attempt and fear of abandonment in a worrying way.

Loki asks why there’s so many of them. It’s actually just four and they might not know. I mean, Loki doesn’t know so why should they have that info?

Never mind, they’ve the answer.

Classic Loki: Because Lokis survive. That's just what we do.

Oh, okay it’s not an answer to ‘why so many variants of Loki came into existence’ but ‘why you managed to survive’.

Not that the answer tell us much though since they don’t mean if Alioth will eat them, they will survive.

Loki asks them how do they escape. It turns out he doesn’t mean from Alioth but from the Void.

The answer he gets… fits with the question only for the very first part, the rest is an absolutely random info dump to define the Lokis incompetent.

Classic Loki: We don't. All of us were arrested by the TVA and pruned, just like you. And just like you, we all stood around making bad plans that went nowhere.

I mean, okay they were pruned. I could figure out this bit. It’s the ’and just like you, we all stood around making bad plans that went nowhere’ I’ve problems with. When it happened? Prior they were pruned? How did they know they were bad plans if they never could come into fruition because the TVA pruned them? Or after they were pruned? As in right now? Because escaping in a safe place is not a bad plan… it’s just a temporal fix though. And anyway Loki hadn’t planned anything yet… but of course he’s about to and it will be dumb.

I would like to say it’s not his fault, because he doesn’t know the place he’s in, so he would like first to use a TemPad… when of course there’s none there, and then considers causing a Nexus Event… which really is dumb because, let’s forget they’re in the Void, to cause a Nexus event you’ve to do something the Sacred Timeline disagree with, and Loki doesn’t know what the Sacred Timeline agrees with.

This means he wouldn’t know where to start in causing a Nexus event.

But whatever, instead than telling him they don’t know how to cause a Nexus Event they just tell him the TVA doesn’t care what happen there, which I hope they figured out by themselves and not because the TVA conveniently gave them an info dump at random.

As Loki insists there should be something they can do Classic Loki answer him there is.

Classic Loki: There is. Survive. That's all there is. All there ever was.

Sound like a sensible suggestion. Kid Loki tells them all they’re done talking and should go and Loki is free to do what he wants. Then they start to walk away. Note that they had all forgotten they should have whispered and the whole discussion was done with them talking normally and they’ll continue to talk normally now.

Loki decides to follow them and… ask Classic Loki why he wears the horns since he let a child command him. Now… “Marvel studios Visual Dictionary” says the horns on Loki’s helmet are a symbol of sorcery, not of leadership which makes goddamn sense since Loki had them in “Thor” too and he clearly wasn’t the leader. Now this series is trying to say me the horns make someone the boss?

The group stops again for… no reason.

Classic Loki tells Loki to respect Kid Loki as this is his kingdom. With all due respect this seems a way to please young viewers. Sure, it’ll turn out Kid Loki’s Nexus event was ‘to kill Thor’ but that’s all we’ll see the kid accomplish… and sadly it isn’t really explored upon. Was Thor killed on purpose or by coincidence? Did it pained him or not?

Loki seems affected by the idea that kid killed Thor but that’s all we’ll get from such a big declaration. It’s a wasted chance. They could have given us that instead than all that walking and the funny but pointless moments.

I was hoping Kid Loki ‘killed’ Thor by turning into the frog we saw being in a buried jar, in short Thor wasn’t dead yet but the TVA pruned everything and so a still alive Thor ended there and Kid Loki believed he had killed him but no, it seems Frog Thor in a Variant arrested by the TVA.

Eric Martin @MrEricMartin · Jul 8

Comic fans will notice the Frog of Thunder in that jar. We actually shot a scene for the Time Theater in Ep 1 of Loki getting pummeled by Frog Thor, but had to cut it to keep things moving. It’s too bad, because Tom was funny as hell. #LokiMidnightTheater

Apparently the “Loki” series longed for a frog to beat Loki too as if the show didn’t beat him often enough. As of now we don’t have an episode in which Loki didn’t got a beating.

Ep 1? B-15 beats him.

Ep 2? The people possessed by Sylvie beat him.

Ep 3? The guards on the train beat him.

Ep 4? Sif beats him.

Ep 5? Kid Loki sent him on the ground and then we’ll have all the Lokis beating each other.

I’m not saying Loki can’t get beaten in a series with fights, just that if it becomes a ‘funny’ trend proposed in each episode it talks of poor creativity.

The group resumed walking.

Okay the scenery is nice but why in the world they went so far?

More walking after the group reaches a trap door that Classic Loki probably sealed with magic as he’s the one who unseal it.

The group gets in.

The camera moves, showing us details about the layers of ground, among them we can see Mjolnir is buried there with a glass vase inside which there’s a frog Thor who’s still jumping around, screaming (Chris Heimsworth voiced it) as it tried to escape and can’t.

I would have liked it, if the backstory beyond the frog was that Kid Loki turned Thor into a frog and then buried him and that’s why he thinks he killed him when Thor survived but ended up pruned by the TVA just the same.

Once they’re inside the shelter Classic Loki questions Loki.

Classic Loki: So, why did you want to return to the TVA so badly, anyway?

Boastful Loki: You leave your glorious purpose there?

Loki: Something like that.

Can they please, please, please, stop tossing around ‘glorious purpose’? Loki used it only once in a movie and now, all of sudden, it has turn into an intercalation that gets said in all the episodes more than once.

Loki: I am Loki of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose. [Ep 1]

Loki: Glorious purpose. [Ep 1]

Mobius: It's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose. [Ep 2]

Loki: Oh, the mission? The mission? What, your glorious purpose? Give me a break. You can't beat them. [Ep 3]

Boastful Loki: You leave your glorious purpose there? [Ep 5]

Boastful Loki: Glorious purpose! [Ep 5]

Classic Loki: Damn it! Animals, animals! We lie and we cheat, we cut the throat of every person who trusts us, and for what? Power. Glorious power. Glorious purpose! We cannot change. We're broken, every version of us. Forever. [Ep 5]

Classic Loki: Glorious purpose! [Ep 5]

They managed not to mention it only in Ep 4 but to make up for it Ep 5 mentioned it 4 times. Loki used that sentence only once in “The Avengers” no need to have him or someone else close to him to keep repeating it.

There’s something else I dislike about the whole setting, which is that all the Lokis we see have fundamentally given up on the idea of escaping. Or defeating Alioth. The most they want to do is to rule over each other.

Loki in both “Thor” and “The Avengers” was highly intelligent and quick-witted. In this series he’s none of that. At this point it’s clear he’s not the Loki we know in a world we don’t know. Episode 1 and 2 showed him to have some intelligence (like how he stole the time twister or how he figured out Sylvie was hiding in an apocalypse) but everything has gone downhill from then.

It’s sad.

I might say it’s nice now Loki’s ‘glorious purpose’ is clearly helping Sylvie but this doesn’t solve how poorly their love story was built. It just asks me to pretend to forget about how poorly it was built and embrace it.

We switches to the TVA and Renslayer deploys the help of Miss Minute to access to a series of restricted files about the beginning on time and founding of the TVA for… no purpose than stall time really. I mean… if in those files there’s something compromising for the Time-Keepers they clearly wouldn’t let it available to people who could not be on their side. If Renslayer were to be allowed to see it, it’s clear it would mean she’s on their side and not trustworthy.

Plus the whole thing has no relevance whatsoever in the story, it seems an excuse to have Miss Minute there. We learn nothing about the beginning of the time and the foundation of the TVA because Sylvie starts asking about the end of time, the Void in short, where Loki is.

Miss Minute at this point stops searching and shows them a timeline, the sacred timeline I guess, which ends in the Void.

But it’s not solely because Sylvie cares about Loki, no, she asks because she’s SMART, so of course she goes:

Sylvie: What if The Void isn't the end? What if there's something beyond it? Hiding in the shadow of apocalypses obscured me from the TVA because I couldn't create a diverging branch there, right? So if all of this is still being written, whatever happens is just a new timeline. It would be impossible to start a nexus event there. You could be completely undetectable.

Renslayer agrees it has to be the solution, the Time-Keepers has to be there but insists they can’t get past the Void with the Tempad and getting through it (no idea how) would be suicide.

At this point Sylvie comments she doesn’t need Renslayer anymore so Miss Minute mentions a ‘Void spacecraft’. Renslayer catches the ball and say they’ve a prototype of a spaceship designed to withstand the temporal void which could take them to the end of time.

Miss Minute volunteers to search the files which is clearly another way to stall time because what will they do with the files? Start producing it in that room using the blueprints as reference?

They need the prototype, not the files and it’s unbelievable Renslayer wouldn’t know where it is and needs the files.

The girls go on saying:

Sylvie: Find Loki.

Renslayer: Find the man behind the curtain.

Sylvie: And kill him.

Renslayer: Together.

The Time-Keepers were three, an unholy trinity. Why now it’s only one man?

Anyway Renslayer would shake hands on this but Sylvie is SMART so she doesn’t let her go and insists for having the file. Miss Minute and Renslayer try to buy time saying it’s buried pretty deep… which really, it’s an idiocy as pc don’t ‘bury things’. They hide them behind passwords and encryptions but she’s just making a search, not using passwords and decryption programs. Renslayer claims she might not have clearance, which again is dumb.

So Sylvie, who’s SMART suggests the prototype doesn’t exist.

In fact the guards barge into the room and really, I don’t know why they took so long. It’s the TVA, there’s plenty of hunters, what where they waiting for?

As we will likely need Renslayer for more plot related things, Sylvie doesn’t prune her but merely pushes her away, temporally losing her status as SMART girl but hey, she recovers immediately as she steals Renslayer’s Tempad as she pushes her away so she’s back on being SMART.

Sylvie hides behind a balcony. She has the TemPad, she can escape in a damn apocalypse and resume killing Minutemen but she remains there to chat because she knows she’s the heroine and plot protected.

Renslayer tries to get her to surrender with a pretty speech about how tiresome it should be to escape from a fascist government which wants to kill you. Much, much better to surrender to them and not try to survive, right?

Okay, those aren’t her words but you get the gist of it.

Sylvie goes:

Sylvie: I'll admit you had me fooled there for a minute. Or did you get a little real? Did Judge Renslayer really feel betrayed by her beloved TVA?

Now… if Renslayer remains IC (and she might not as Mobius was way too OOC in ep 4 and we’re talking of a character this series created), no, she didn’t feel betrayed. She lives for the TVA.

Mbatha-Raw: “She’s really worked hard to get where she is, so she’s not going to be reckless with the power that has been hard-earned for her. She, in some ways, is deeply indoctrinated with the ways of the TVA. She’s completely conditioned by their thinking and the idea of the Sacred Timeline, and the concept of free will is quite alien to her. She’s a believer. She believes in law and order, and it’s done quite well for her so far in terms of getting her to where she is. She’s not going to abandon her philosophy lightly.” [‘Loki’: Owen Wilson Says Renslayer’s Betrayal of Mobius in Episode 4 Was ‘Pretty Shocking’]

Renslayer didn’t have additional information compared to the ones she had when she decided to remain loyal to the TVA and prune Loki and doesn’t has a concept of free will, hence no, she shouldn’t feel betrayed.

She was a servant and she should remain a servant. But since the series is no big on keeping character IC… who knows?

Renslayer: Why don't you come back out and we can talk about it?

Sylvie: Sure. Just tell everyone else to piss off and we can settle this between us.

Renslayer: Works for me.

Renslayer slips on the dumb slope in this part of the discussion in which nobody just does everything as the hunters remains where they are and the scene seems there to fill time because the hunters will start moving AFTER THIS.

Renslayer continues talking merely for plot purposes.

Renslayer: Tell you what. You come out with your hands up and I'll put you in a time loop. Something not so bad. You can live out your days in a good memory. Do you have any good memories?

Sylvie doesn’t trust her, it’s clear she doesn’t swallow her promises but she has to prompt Sylvie to think to her Only Good Memory which I bet is the one in which she touched Loki one moment before they believed they were about to die and ended up causing the Nexus event.

Because Sylvie is a tragic girl and in the what, centuries she take in growing up considering the Asgardian slow rate of growth and assuming she has Loki’s same age, she never had a single good thing, she didn’t even witness a beautiful sunset or ate a food she liked. Touching Loki was the only good thing she had.

Tissues anyone?

I mean, it’s clear Sylvie is a tragic character and there’s nothing bad in tragic characters but they just overdid things with her. If this keeps up they’ll tell us she had a worse time escaping the TVA than Bucky Barnes when she was brainwashed and forced to work for Hydra.

Now… instead than pruning herself secretly so that the whole TVA might think she escaped, she does so very blatantly. Mind you, the scene is pretty but serves little purpose beyond showing Sylvie’s brave act.

For our SMART girl it was more functional to prune herself secretly so that the TVA would be all busy searching for her.

Whatever, Renslayer declares her dead, forgetting she has a Tempad, HER Tempad, and could return from the Void. But as I said Renslayer is slipping in the dumb slope.

We move to the Lokis group drinking… Roxxiwine, a supposedly exceptional Pinot Noir. This includes Alligator Loki who is poured wine straight in his mouth by Classic Loki.

All this where Boastful Loki is… well, boasting about how he vanquished Captain America and Iron Man and claimed his prize, all six Infinity Stones and I’m “Hey, what about Thanos?”

Because it wasn’t Captain America or Iron Man who were collecting the stones but Thanos. If you’ve to boast, boast about beating the right guy.

But anyway it’s probably all a lie, at least according to Alligator Loki. Boastful Loki counters:

Boastful Loki: At least my nexus event wasn't eating the wrong neighbour's cat.

…and I goes again: “CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN ME WHAT’S UP WITH THE VARIANTS? BECAUSE I GENUINELY HOPE OUR LOKI NEVER TURNED HIMSELF INTO AN ALLIGATOR TO EAT THE RIGHT NEIGHBOUR’S CAT!”

Logic? Hey, logic, where are you?

Alligator Loki decides to turn Boastful Loki into his next dinner. Not a bad move for an Alligator but completely OOC for a Loki as they usually don’t jump at someone’s throat… unless Alligator Loki is actually female?

Besides why Boastful Loki doesn’t get even a little scratch from him biting his hand while President Loki will completely lose his hand?

Classic Loki and our Loki run to stop him and he ends up back in his small swimming pool.

Again, this is fun, this is episode is probably the funnier of the whole series but overall absurd and pointless, more fitting of a “Looney tunes” episode than of the series.

Besides what’s the point for Boastful Loki to feed us a fake story on which he could boast about while they’re in such a situation? It makes him a compulsive liar. As if the show hadn’t depicted Loki poorly enough.

Kid Loki, who remained sitting on the throne drinking juice because no matter if he’s a Loki, minors don’t drink wine in this show, demands to know Classic Loki’s backstory.

I, instead, demand to know what’s going on.

The general impression was that Classic Loki, Boastful Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki were living together by a while but they decide to tell everyone their stories ONLY NOW for the benefit of Loki and, more important, of the viewers?

Whatever.

Classic Loki, despite supposedly being a Narcissist like all the Loki goes and say:

Classic Loki: Me? Nobody wants to hear about that.

Loki points out he’s actually interested in knowing since he was aware he was supposed to be killed by Thanos.

So, to explain the survival of Classic Loki, the “Loki” series goes and tosses a COMPLETELY VALID AND RIGHTFUL JAB AT “AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR” whose creators said they planned Loki’s death as their first scene and actually made an illogic mess of those 10 minutes which contain more nonsense than the rest of the MCU movies put together…

Classic Loki: Thanos? In my timeline, everything proceeded correctly, my entire life, until Thanos attacked our ship.

Loki: So, you didn't try to stab him?

Classic Loki: ( Chuckles ) Certainly not. Take no offense, my friends, but blades are worthless in the face of a Loki sorcery. They stunt our magical potential.

Boastful Loki: But they look awesome.

Classic Loki: Oh, yes. Especially when they clatter to the ground just before your neck is snapped.

…to end up in colossal disappointment (never mentioning the one Loki who praises blades as awesome is the one who doesn’t use a blade but a hammer. Copying Thor much?).

I appreciate the praising to Loki’s magic but Loki can’t cast solid projections of himself (and this series so far hadn’t bothered to explain why Loki got an upgrade in his magic power which he has hardly used in the other movies). Not even this Loki in fact can make solid projections, as we’ll see the Asgard he’ll project later on is just an incorporeal illusion. It would be different if he’d used a real person but the idea is even more horrible. Anyway, for the sake of tricking Thanos, Loki suddenly can do something he couldn’t do before, which of course will end up being interpreted as being what he also did in “Thor: The Dark World” too when he faked his death. And then what?

Classic Loki: Then hid as inanimate debris. After I faked my death, I simply drifted in space. Away from Thor, away from everything. Thought about the universe and my place in it, and it occurred to me that everywhere I went, only pain followed. So I removed myself from the equation, landed on a remote planet and stayed there in isolation, in solitude for a long, long time.

Then he basically dumped Thor and the other Asgardians who survived and remained on a remote planet in isolation. I mean, it would have worked just the same if he had said ‘I drifted in space, ended on a remote planet and couldn’t leave because there were no spaceships or anything else’ but no, he has to decide to dump everything.

Why?

Because everywhere he went, only pain followed. Yeah, from when he set foot on Asgard, Asgard lived 1000 years of pain. And when he came to Midgard it wasn’t because he decided to attack it that the Midgardians suffered but because he set foot on it.

Had he come there as a tourist, the Chitauri would have invaded JUST THE SAME but solely because he was there. If he’d gone in another place Thanos would have never tried retrieving the Tesseract from Earth.

And the 4 years in which he again ruled Asgard… yeah, all the Asgardians were miserable, weren’t they? It’s actually funny Hela managed to arrive on Asgard when Loki isn’t there, isn’t it? And Loki is the one who brought a spaceship big enough for the Asgardians to escape, and Loki stopped Hela by resurrecting Surtur but no, everywhere he goes he brings pain so the Asgardians would have been happier dying in Asgard.

It wasn’t Thanos’ fault at all if he killed so many Asgardians, he did so only because Loki was there otherwise Thanos doesn’t kill people, no, not him.

Logic, where are you?

And so how the TVA captured him.

And of course, it turns out he somehow knows Thor survived the mad Titan but decides he misses him and wants to see him only when he’s grey and old and so, when he attempts to leave, this sets the TVA on him. They could have said finally someone dropped on his planet and offered him to leave, but no, he always could, he just decided not to.

Mind you it’s sweet he said:

Classic Loki: I got lonely. To tell you the truth, I missed my brother, and I wondered if he missed me, if anybody else did.

But the premise is bad and the conclusion is horrible.

Classic Loki: Because we, my friends, have but one part to play, the God of Outcasts. Nothing more. The God of Outcasts.

Basically Classic Loki’s point is that they’ve to stay isolated, away from people, cut out from the world, there in the Void.

This is how Loki came to call himself ‘God of the Outcasts’ in the comics

“I am Loki. God of outcasts. They see themselves in me, and I in them. All of us, alone together. It’s why my stories always end with someone trying to put me in a box. And begin with my spectacular escape.” [Loki (2019) #5]

It’s the opposite to surrendering in being kept boxed into a corner. And it’s the opposite of seeing the Lokis as an entity apart from the rest of the living things.

This series has so many Lokis… who’re just the same yet neither of them is said to be the same as any other human. They don’t belong except than among them and even then they can enter into conflict. They can’t fall in love except than with themselves and even then they need a special Loki female to fall in love.

It’s Sylvie that points out the TVA workers are Variants like they are, but, even in this case, there won’t be camaraderie between the Lokis and the TVA workers.

Anyway after hearing all of this our Loki decides that no, he’s not going to play the part of the God of the outcast but he’s leaving, going back to the TVA. Since they’re as good at escaping (something this series has established) as at surviving he thinks he can escape and survive and if he’ll die instead, like Boastful Loki says, well, that was his destiny to begin with.

It would be a nice speech if it came from him. Too bad it came from his love for Sylvie because she got the Mary Sue power to turn him into a new man with her love. And so, since the other Lokis didn’t benefit from having the chance to love Sylvie, they can’t be like him, but that’s their only difference. Because love is saving the world.

Kid Loki: You're different. Why?

Loki: No, I'm not, you see? I'm the same, really. I'm the same as all of you. Have any of you met a woman Variant of us?

Classic Loki: Sounds terrifying.

Loki: Oh, she is. But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down. And she needs me.

Don’t take me wrong, I’m sure love plays a huge part in saving the world but in this way it feels just as cheesy and childish as it could be. Besides Loki’s plan is against dumb because all his brain went to Sylvie.

Loki: Now, you said Alioth is what keeps us here. You said it's a living thing. You said it's a shark. Well, if it lives, it dies. So I'm gonna kill the shark. I'm gonna kill Alioth, and I could use all the help I can get.

Okay, to be honest this is not a plan, this is a goal. Killing Alioth is a goal but a plan requires studying a way to how to do it and he hadn’t, isn’t doing and won’t do it. So no plan.

Anyway the Lokis laugh either because they have surrendered and believe Alioth can’t be killed or because the idea someone were to ask help to them is absurd because they’re backstabbing, evil guys. I don’t know which one is more depressing.

But whatever, the discussion isn’t even done well.

I mean, this series wrote down Loki is fluid but when Loki suggests they might have met a woman Loki the other finds it ‘sounds terrifying’ which I don’t know if it’s more stupid or misogynist. And Loki agrees but then launches in a rant on how, because Sylvie is a woman, she’s different and so perfect. Because being a woman is a character trait that makes you better.

Loki: Oh, she is. But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down.

This is not validation! This is dumb. A woman is a damn human being who can be awesome or horrible because her sex and/or her gender do not decide which sort of person she is!

If the idea is that Loki is bad because he’s a man that’s just dumb and if the idea is that Sylvie is great because she’s a female this is not only dumb, it invalidates all Sylvie has done to be the way she is… which is not great because she’s actually moved by wish of revenge, not by some sort of humanitarian purpose.

At this point Killmongrel was more noble than her as he at least cared about those he viewed as his brothers.

Sylvie just wanted to erase the TVA… and now she wants to save Loki because she fell for him.

Should I also mention how Loki the silver tongue, can’t even persuade a kid to eat a candy in this show?

Loki leaves commenting they’re ‘monsters’ which is kind of a big word for guys who don’t want to follow you because you are going against a REAL GIANT MONSTER that could kill them and don’t have a plan.

What about Thanos then? What about the TVA who pruned countless lives? How do you call them?

When Loki is about to leave however he meets a Loki who, for once, looks EXACTLY like him, President Loki, who had gotten there with tons of other male Loki who couldn’t look more different.

Again, the exchange is funny…

President Loki: Ah. Hello, which one of us are you?

Loki: This is a nightmare.

…but the joke is more a “Looney tunes” nonsense, albeit, for once, a little better planned.

But I’ll return on this in a minute because the story switches to Sylvie, the heroine who wakes up in a vehicle. Evidently she was dropped there because the roof above her is broken so she likely fell into the vehicle more than magically woke there.

And, please, prepare yourself, we’re about to start a list of new plot contrivances.

COINCIDENTALLY, although that vehicle was clearly abandoned there by only God know how long, Alioth decides to eat it just now, but COINCIDENTALLY, Sylvie has just came out of it in time so as not to be eaten. Alioth begins to give her chase, so she tries to enchant one of his… tendrils? Pseudopods? So she COINCIDENTALLY see in his memories not his last dinner but where the Time-Keepers are.

COINCIDENTALLY, despite Alioth being very fast, she manages to distance herself from him and hold that distance until COINCIDENTALLY a car which is COINCIDENTALLY working as it’s not damaged and has fuel (Sylvie’s vehicle was unlikely to move considering it seemed to have been forgotten there by a lifetime) appear which is COINCIDENTALLY driven by Mobius who has COINCIDENTALLY not only seen Alioth but not turned away from him immediately and fast as he could and had COINCIDENTALLY noticed she was there too despite the fact she was pretty distant.

COINCIDENTALLY, despite Alioth’s speed, Sylvie manages to outrun him in time for her to reach Mobius’ car. Should I mention Mobius COINCIDENTALLY knows how to drive that kind of car though as a TVA analyst he shouldn’t need it? No, maybe I’m being too nitpicking.

So Alioth, who first was COINCIDENTALLY slow enough Sylvie could outrun him otherwise she would end up being eaten, now COINCIDENTALLY speeds up and tails Mobius’ car up close otherwise the chase would be boring.

Meanwhile, as they drive, Mobius and Sylvie scold each other, each of them sure he’s more competent than the other. We see them pass by the pyramids and the Sphinx and then the scene changes.

We’re back in the Lokis’ hideout but now President Loki and his men has taken control of it.

Classic Loki scolds Loki for leading ‘the wolves’ there. President Loki claims they prefer to be called snakes.

Kid Loki has a nice moment in which he says:

Kid Loki: I've eaten both. They die just the same.

I wish they had developed him more. Is he meant to be a murderous dangerous psycho or he’s also acting so as not to look weak? Sadly though, like all the Loki Variants except Classic Loki, he’s just tossed there to make number and confusion.

Anyway, as I was saying, President Loki being there is not a coincidence nor our Loki’s fault. It turns out Boastful Loki betrayed Kid Loki.

Why? Because he’s a backstabbing idiot with poor planning issues which is how we’re supposed to see all the Lokis. Not intelligent beings and with quick-wits who use their brains to beat enemies stronger than they are but backstabbing idiots with poor planning issues.

Anyway Boastful Loki gave to President Loki the location of Kid Loki’s hideout so, in exchange for shelter and supplies, President Loki would give his his army and he would take the throne.

Not even a kid would believe someone would honour such a dumb agreement and in fact President Loki doesn’t plan to honour it because he plans to take everything for himself

President Loki: Ah, yes. Not so good a bargain. How about this one? My army, my throne?

So of course his army of backstabbing idiot Lokis with poor planning issues decide to start arguing among each other on who has to get the throne.

I’ll be honest, if this was a “Looney tunes” cartoon I would find it hilarious. As they’re trying to tell me all those are Lokis who are ‘more successful than our Loki’ I just facepalm.

He's the Loki that was supposed to stay on the timeline. All those Lokis who had all those successes were Lokis who got pruned by the TVA. As Mobius says, ‘It's your job to lose so others can become the best versions of themselves.’ That's the part Loki is meant to play on the Sacred Timeline. The question is: can you change? [Why Other Lokis Are Much More Successful Than Hiddleston's]

Our Loki successfully interrupted the coronation, successfully killed Laufey and would have successfully destroyed Jotunheim hadn’t he been interrupted. He successfully stole the Tesseract from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, successfully hypnotizing Selvig and Hawkeye and he successfully distracted the Avengers while Hawkeyes did what he had to do. Successfully let himself be arrested so as to arrive where Hulk was and successfully set him loose while also successfully escaping from his prison then successfully managed to open the passage that lead the Chitauri on New York.

Yes, he wasn’t successful in that battle and it was a big deal but I’ll say he accomplished plenty of things.

Which sort of success the other Lokis had? I honestly missed it.

Alligator Loki has enough and moves closer.

Now again, the following scene is very fun for a ‘looney tunes’…

President Loki: Why the hell is there an alligator in here?

Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Boastful Loki: He's a Loki!

…with Alligator Loki managing this time to eat President Loki’s whole arm when before he couldn’t even scratch Boastful Loki’s hand but… it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Chaos ensues as all the Lokis start fighting among them and I wonder if we’ll see Yosemite Sam and Marvin the Martian join the fight along with Taz.

It’s clear that the whole thing is meant to be solely humorous, when President Loki loses his hand and then starts screaming like a banshee, apart from an initial spray of blood he doesn’t lose blood at all.

You aren’t meant to take seriously the loss of his hand, you might even expect they’ll glue it back to him later on.

It’s not terrible humour, it’s something one can definitely enjoy… but it’s so out of place in a story that supposedly has serious themes and instead decides to just spend half of the episode in a comedy that’s more fitting of ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit?’ with Loki leaving the place by escaping in such a manner I can’t even begin to describe… as if he’s tiptoeing around the other Lokis in hope they won’t notice him… and they don’t.

He fundamentally does nothing useful, the one acting is mostly Classic Loki who uses his magic, Kid Loki who handles Alligator Loki and Alligator Loki who beat or maybe I should say bite some Lokis… but the weirdest thing is that Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki and Classic Loki wander through the place for a bit then Classic Loki opens a magic portal that lead to the outside and they leave the place… with our Loki a bit wary to go through it which makes me wonder, is it a power only Classic Loki has?

Did Classic Loki spent all those years after Thanos improving his magic? Or was he a better wizard from the start?

Anyway Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki and Loki leave together because somehow they’re a squad who doesn’t want to betray each other despite being Lokis… but Classic Loki and Kid Loki rants against Lokis in general.

Kid Loki: And whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves, they're sent here to die.

Now I appreciate Kid Loki saying so but if he was sent there to die it was not because he was trying to fix himself but because he killed Thor, right? Or this was a lie?

At this point I don’t know anymore.

Loki claims he wants to get out of there and stop the TVA so things can change. And no, I don’t agree.

They could change also remaining there.

Enough with this determinism and the idea the TVA control everything.

Those Lokis didn’t want to change that’s why they didn’t. It had nothing to do with the TVA and everything with themselves.

What’s more, Loki probably doesn’t know it but he wasn’t always a complete jerk in the sacred timeline. He saved his brother from the Kurse. He came back to save the Asgardians against Hela.

It’s not the TVA who decided he has to be a backstabbing idiot with poor planning issues, in Doylist terms it’s this series which basically erased whatever didn’t agree with this definition from his story, in Watsonian, it was his own mess.

The TVA doesn’t care what they do there, they could fix themselves if they want to.

But whatever, the “Looney tunes” moment is finished.

So we have…

Loki: That's why I need to get out of here. Nothing can change until the TVA is stopped.

Classic Loki: And you trust her?

And okay, I take Classic Loki means Sylvie, but this basically means that they’re thinking only Sylvie can stop the TVA because she’s magical like that and Loki, at the very best, can just help her.

So much for a change. And in fact…

Loki: She's the only one I do trust. And right now, I believe she's our only chance of stopping the TVA.

Kid Loki: That's good enough for me.

Classic Loki: Okay, okay. We'll help you. But approaching Alioth is a death sentence. We'll get you to it, but that's as far as we go.

So yeah, Sylvie is the Lokis’ only hope, their saviour, they aren’t meant to change themselves just to entrust themselves to her. Welcome to the new cult, the Sylvie cult.

And now come the worst part.

Of course CASUALLY Sylvie and Mobius managed to offscreen escape Alioth even though the last we left them Sylvie was complaining he was driving toward it.

Mobius whines:

Mobius: All that time, I really believed we were the good guys.

Even now, he’s not really shown feeling horrible for all the people he has reset and sent there to be eaten by Alioth. He’s more worried he discovered he wasn’t one of the heroes. Is he meant to be a Loki? Or something worse? Please, let me know.

Sylvie, because she’s the only one who gets to call things by their names, point out at the idiocy of his beliefs.

Sylvie: Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls, classic hero stuff.

Classic hero stuffs indeed but if you believe that the TVA is real because the TVA is real you can believe in everything. Instead than just apologizing for orphaning her and annihilating her reality Mobius goes and tries to explain her how he actually wasn’t in the wrong and she too… she too was very bad…

Mobius: Well, I guess when you think the ends justify the means, there's not much you won't do. By the way, you did some annihilating too.

Sylvie doesn’t take any of his idiocies but he again tries to compare his situation to her.

Sylvie: I did what I had to do.

Mobius: Yeah, so did I.

No, you didn’t Mobius. You chose to turn your eyes away from the truth, you chose to believe because being a hero gave you a purpose.

Mobius: Odin, God of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars. Frost Giants. Listen to yourself...

Loki: It's not the same. It's completely different. No. It's not the same.

You first compared your little cult’s beliefs to what Loki lived through his life then told him the situation didn’t make sense but you didn’t care because it gave you a glorious purpose and that the TVA was real solely because you WILLINGLY believed in it. And now you’re telling Sylvie, the poor girl the TVA kidnapped, orphaned and tried to kill with your willing help that you choosing to willingly reset Variants and her fighting to survive are the same thing.

Sylvie: You hunted me like a dog.

Mobius: I'm sorry about that.

Of course, since it’s Sylvie that points it out, at this point he apologizes TO HER. What are you sorry for, Mobius? Just hunting her? What about the rest? And what about the other Variants, Mobius? The ones who didn’t manage to escape? What about your supposed friend, Loki that you had beaten and belittled so you could get information out of him to protect your precious TVA and at whom you reused to believe even when he was telling you the truth?

But honestly, I shouldn’t take it out of Mobius. He’s like Jessica Rabbit. ‘He’s not bad. He’s just drawn that way’. Because this series doesn’t really want to talk about what the TVA did to the other Variants and whatever happens to Loki doesn’t matter because ‘he deserves it’ so why should Mobius or anyone at the TVA feel sorry?

Anyway, after Mobius apologizes to her Sylvie has a moment of vulnerability in which she confesses she pruned herself to find Loki but now she believed the storm ate him already. Because obviously Loki is dumb and incompetent so better not get her hopes up. Okays, she didn’t say so and I get her discomfort but… but nothing, Sylvie goes back to her mission and who cares about Loki while Mobius, who previously harshly criticized Loki’s ‘demented crush for his female self’ now is all supportive.

Mobius: You really believe that?

Sylvie: It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters now is getting out of here and finding out who's behind all of this.

Sylvie of course has a plan because she’s SMART. Sylvie decides they’ll go back to the angry cloud which she previous told Mobius to escape from because she thinks the cloud can be the answer. And since Sylvie is SMART, even though she hadn’t given him a plan and she’s really not persuasive Mobius complies because everyone in Sylvie’s squad does what Sylvie says as she rolled a 12 in persuasion so, whatever.

Back to Loki and his group, Classid Loki asks Loki if he has a plan. He does.

Loki: Get inside, find its heart or brain or whatever, and then, you know, do it in.

Please, don’t tell me this is the guy who manipulated Laufey into trusting him and coming to Asgard or that could keep up a discussion with Fury. This is not a plan this is ‘Loki smash!’ only it works better when Hulk does it. A kid could do better in fact Kid Loki notices it’s dumb and Loki gets defensive.

Loki: Just because it's not complicated doesn't mean it's bad.

Kid Loki: It also doesn't mean it's good.

Okay the “Looney tunes” fun is still on and it continues being on.

Alligator Loki: ( Growls )

Loki: See? He's on board.

Classic Loki: He's praying. He thinks we're going to die.

Because this is fun but so very OOC and out of place I just want to take this episode and put it in another series. I would enjoy it more if it were in another series.

By the way, why Classic Loki understand Alligator Loki and no one else does.

A ship populated with people appear, likely because the TVA reset the reality. Where’s the sea and the rest of that reality? Who knows and who cares? Alioth of course notices the ship and now Loki says something intelligent:

Loki: Alioth is like any animal. He'll go after the big meal first. And while he's busy with that, we can sneak around the back and...

The people on the ship tries to fight and is swallowed in less than a minute. It should be a tragic moment in which all the people on the ship died. It left me empty. Hum… this part just feel flat. Probably because they want to continue with the “Looney tunes” theme by having Loki realize his idea of sneak behind Alioth being dumb because it’s impossible as Alioth is just too fast and dangerous.

Loki: ( Panting ) Okay. Maybe we, uh... think a bit more about this, huh?

Now… COINCIDENTALLY a car arrives and at Loki who worries if it’s bad this is told because “Looney tunes” mood.

Kid Loki: Well, usually means cannibalistic marauders or cannibalistic pirates.

Loki: Delightful. Now they're slowing down.

But no, it’s not cannibalistic marauders or cannibalistic pirates, COINCIDENTALLY it’s just Sylvie and Mobius. COINCIDENTALLY the car stops away from them but COINCIDENTALLY Loki recognizes Sylvie just the same so he can run to her while Classic Loki who evidently hadn’t hear him recognizing Sylvie can continue with the “Looney tunes” moments.

Classic Loki: I don't understand. Is he a coward or was he being brave?

Kid Loki: I'm not too sure.

They decide to follow him anyway. Are they coward, brave or fool?

Loki ends running to Sylvie and she greets him with a ‘ You're alive’ which honestly doesn’t even feel as if she were surprised or happy. Loki is a lot more emotional about seeing her and Mobius. Okay, Mobius seems happy to see him too even though he says nothing.

“Looney tunes” mood continues as she tells him

Sylvie: We thought you could do with some backup.

And he puts his hands on his hips and frowns at her but then she notices Classic Loki and Kid Loki and she neither wonders why they’re dressed so oddly nor recognize them as Loki but considers attacking them until Loki, still in “Looney tunes” mood, introduces them.

Loki: Oh, no, wait, wait, wait, these are my friends. Well, they're, um... How best to put this? Us as a child, us in the future, and us as an alligator. It's best not to question it.

Mobius: You throw a rock out here, you hit a Loki.

Again, hilarious, just not fitting the situation.

Sylvie decides them being there means they’re not there by chance but after the giant cloud monster. Loki confirms they’re there to kill Alioth which she finds a dumb plan because of course all Loki’s plans are dumb and he should just follow Sylvie’s as she has years of experience with Alioth and… no, nevermind she doesn’t but she has read the script and she knows she is the only Loki with a power that’s useful against it. Because Mary Sue. Or heroine. Whatever.

Loki: Well, we haven't decided how we're going to kill it, but...

Sylvie: Come again? Kill it?

Loki: Yes, we're gonna kill Alioth.

Sylvie: Oh, my God. That was your plan.

Loki: Yeah.

Sylvie: And you went along with it?

Kid Loki: I had my doubts.

Classic Loki: Probably unsafe.

So Sylvie gets to expose her plan. She thinks, without any proof whatsoever, that the person they’re after is beyond The Void at the end of time and Alioth is their guard dog protecting the only way in.

Sure, she had a vision when she tried to enchant Alioth but I saw nowhere on that building a sign seeing ‘residence of the time-keeper’. It might very well be the last thing Alioth ate or Alioth and the Time-Keeper might be unrelated. The Time-Keeper might hide in a timeline parallel to the sacred one. Or at the beginning of time. Or he could be Casey in disguise. Or the cat the guy who had Loki sign all he said had. Or he can be Alligator Loki for all we know. But of course, since this is Sylvie’s theory, this is a theory, not a plan, everyone accepts it.

And this is Sylvie’s plan which is her alternate solution to ‘I’ll hit it with my sword’

Sylvie: I'm gonna enchant it.

Which is also insane because really, the last time it worked so well. Loki points it out but of course Sylvie claims his plan was dumber and anyway she’s gonna enchant it, we’re not in a democracy and she’s the Mary Sue, I mean the heroine end of the discussion. And since she’s the Mary Sue, I mean the heroine, everyone agrees with her because she’s a female Loki and female Lokis are special like that. Especially when there’s only one female Loki in all the times.

Sylvie: I'm gonna enchant it.

Loki: ( Laughing ) That's insane, right?

Sylvie: As insane as what? Paper-cutting a cloud to death?

Loki: Listen, I've been down here longer than you...

Sylvie: I'm going to enchant it.

Mobius: She's pretty confident.

Besides, I mean, if Sylvie finds Loki so dumb… why is she falling for him? Why I’m asking? Because she’s the Mary Sue who falls for the character the fandom adoures and manages to do what no one ever could do, make him fall for her and make him a better person.

It’s amazing how Mobius agrees because she’s pretty confident it took Loki, his friend, a lot to persuade him that the Variant could hide in the apocalypse. Ah, the power of a Mary Sue. I’m waiting for her to start singing.

Whatever, back to Renslayer we go.

She enters in a GIANT sized room, chases away the two hunters guarding it, goes to a wall and uses the Tempad to open a door. Behind it we can see Hunter B-15, that Sylvie evidently forgot in the room of the Time-Keeper when she moved in the trial room because who care about her.

Hunter B-15 would like to know why she’s there. I’d like to know why she wasn’t pruned too.

Renslayer accuses her of freeing the Variant and being disloyal to the TVA. Variant, singular, if I didn’t hear wrong. She actually freed the VariantS plural. Unless two Lokis count as one because always Loki. While Renslayer is trying intimidation techniques asking her if she thinks she could escape punishment B-15 wants to know to who she was disloyal as she too saw Time-Keepers weren't real.

Renslayer asks her why should this change anything and, for once, I agree with her. If the Time-Keepers put there puppets as a safety measure this doesn’t change anything and it’s not even the point.

The problem wasn’t if the Time-Keepers were in that room for Sylvie to kill them, it was that the Time-Keepers lied to the TVA employers, telling them they had created them when they were kidnapped Variants who were being used to kill other poor Variants who never did anything wrong. No, scratch the last part, B-15 never cared about the Variants she killed, she only had problems with the fact she was happy before.

Anyway B-15 wants the others to know the truth but didn’t think to hack a transmitter when she could and warn everyone, no, she was just assisting Sylvie to kill the Time-keepers. Out of revenge for lying to her I assume.

Renslayer says the TVA only needs stability, in short who cares if they were lied to, they’ll keep on serving it, so B-15 has to cooperate with her and tell her what drives Sylvie and B-15… has a link to her. Which means Renslayer is sure Sylvie will come back.

And I facepalm.

A link? They talked few minutes and Sylvie could have lied or not exposed herself but anyway… wasn’t what drove her obvious enough one could pick it up without even having to ask.

B-15, who was so good to play bully with poor Variants, obeys and answer Sylvie is OBVIOUSLY driven by revenge… how could Renslayer miss it, did she also have to tell her “My name is Sylvie Laufeydottir. You killed my timeline. Prepare to die"?

Anyway B-15 decides since the Time-Keepers turned out to be fake Sylvie will search for who’ll being this. And okay, Sylvie has fully turned into the heroine of this story. Loki is a recurring character, a very present character but when all is said and done he’s just supporting cast.

Sylvie is the heroine and even this chat supports it.

Hunter B-15: This isn't about protecting the TVA at all, is it? You just want to find whoever is behind all of this, too. You'll never find them. Not before she does.

Renslayer: And why is that?

Hunter B-15: You only want it. She needs it.

B-15 who belittled so much the other Variants clearly looks up on Sylvie, she has blind faith in her and Renslayer’s situation amuses her a lot and if B-15 hadn’t been the one finding amusement in belittling Variants I might share in her fun but like this it feels as if they’re reminding me she’s one who enjoys belittling and humiliating others.

And Renslayer isn’t worried Loki could do something to cause troubles either. It’s all Sylvie. Sylvie will win because that’s what heroines do.

Now it’ll be interesting if it turned out Sylvie is actually truly evil while Loki has ultimately decided to become truly good but I bet the last episode will instead reveal the one who’s truly evil is a male Loki Variant, one that Sylvie will have to either kill, punish or redeem.

Whatever, for now the story only seems interested in pinning Renslayer as evil.

Renslayer leaves B-15 and tell Miss Minute to find her the files on the founding of the TVA. Everything from the beginning of time. You know, the one she wanted to find at the beginning. So… did she really want them, it wasn’t just to stall time?

She excuses her request by claiming:

Renslayer: Whoever created this place is in danger. I need to find them.

Miss Minute agrees to comply.

Now… if Miss Minute doesn’t turn out to have a bigger role in the last episode, I don’t know she’s a spy, she’s the big bad, she’s Tony Stark in disguise, anything, I think they could have cut her. She’s basically the Clippy of the TVA and there’s a reason if Clippy, despite being cute was discontinued as intelligent user interface.

Her existence makes me think they’re trying to market Loki as a child friendly, which explains the low level of drama, Kid Loki being the ruler of the place and not being really mistreated when all the Lokis wanted his place as well as surviving and being the one strong enough to kill Thor, the “Looney tunes” humour. And if this is a kid show it explains also why potentially serious themes aren’t really tackled differently from “WandaVision” and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”.

Back into the Void, or better back into the “Looney tunes” cartoon Classic Loki and Kid Loki are talking with Mobius about Alligator Loki which makes for another funny yet absurd and OOC scene.

Mobius: I mean, the TVA arrested a lot of Lokis, but, no, I don't remember an alligator. I mean, who's to say he's even a Loki Variant?

Classic Loki: He is green, isn't he?

Mobius: I don't know, he could be lying. The long con. Of course, that just makes him more likely to be a Loki. It's always the game within the game with you guys, which I respect.

No, actually he doesn’t. He didn’t respect when Loki lied to him, he insulted him. But somehow episode 5 decided since Mobius saved Sylvie he’s 100% back among the good guys.

Anyway I wish there a story behind Alligator Loki and we were told it and that he wasn’t just reduced to play the part of Kid Loki’s pet and a role similar to the crocodile in “Peter Pan”, with President Loki becoming the future Captain Hook.

Kid Loki asks Mobius what he’ll do assuming he’ll get back to the TVA, which he of course can do as Sylvie has a Tempad and can open a Timedoor.

Mobius: I don't know. I'd like to let people know the truth.

Oh, the truth, yeah it’s the people at the TVA who need the truth, not the poor Variants in that Void who need to be saved, the Variants the TVA wants to be pruned who need to be saved. Let’s save the poor TVA workers from ignorance so they can decide if to willingly follow the TVA like Renslayer is doing or not.

Yeah, I get by knowing the truth some of them might be willing to stop what they’re doing but what if they don’t, like Renslayer?

You wanted to be a hero, Mobius, what’s the problem now, saving people instead than murdering them is too hard?

So they goes to discuss the theme of change:

Classic Loki: So just like that, you're turning on the very thing you devoted your life to.

Mobius: Well, it's never too late to change.

This story makes a big deal of the theme of changing but the reasons why one should change aren’t so great. Mobius wants to change because he was lied at, Loki because he fell in love. Meaning if Mobius had really been created by the Time-Keepers he would have happily continued to kill Variants because it wasn’t his problem and if Loki hadn’t fallen in love with the only special unique female Loki he would have never changed.

That’s not a great way to deal with the theme of change.

Back to Loki and Sylvie, who’re sitting in the grass alone together, Sylvie has turned into a Mobius fangirl who exists to make us forget whatever wrong Mobius might have done giving him her seal of approval.

Sylvie: Mobius isn't so bad.

Loki: Or so good. I think that's why we get along.

Sylvie: He cares about you.

So wait, you barely know him and he has felt more hurt he wasn’t a hero as he hoped than for all the Variant he killed, had tried to compare his murders and his situation to yours but, when pressured he said he was sorry he hunted you like a dog. Also implied he wasn’t sure Loki died. Whatever else which might have happened went offscreen. Forgive me if I’m not won over by the little I saw in this episode, especially after episode 4. I really needed more than that.

But who cares, Loki doesn’t care Mobius isn’t so good, he gets along with him even when the latter threatens to kill him and have Sif repeatedly kick him in the groin. Stockholm syndrome or masochism?

Now, COINCIDENTALLY, it’s cold so Loki conjure up a cover for himself and volunteer to do the same for Sylvie. Those, of course, weren’t in his pocket so why the Tempad in ep 3 ended there?

Sylvie would like a new outfit, because her own is uncomfortable. Why she didn’t get her a comfortable outfit instead than that is beyond me. It’s not like she’s forced to wear a TVA uniform, those are clothes she picked up. Where I don’t know but whatever.

By the way, it’s a lifetime Loki has the signs of a wound on his arm which he got when they were fighting in the Time-Keepers’room… but the blood must be solely decorative because no one, not even Loki, cares.

They’re kind of cute when they talk about their Nexus event and go into full denial mode. If only I could forget their romance was SO VERY FORCED and tied to narcissism I might enjoy it… though I still think it would have been better if they had made them friends. But Sylvie wouldn’t be a good Mary Sue if it didn’t get to have the male protagonist.

The dialogue focuses on Sylvie’s drama.

Sylvie: I don't know how to do this.

Loki: I don't even know what we're doing.

Sylvie: I don't have friends. I don't have... anyone.

Now, I don’t want to belittle Sylvie’s drama, they clearly had built for her an overly tragic life because what’s a Mary Sue without a tragic past, but maybe of us got into this show for Loki’s drama, hoping it to be discussed if not solved and we got nothing, nothing at all. Loki won’t talk with her of what pushed him to commit suicide. It would be a good point of discussion, telling her there had been a time in his life in which he also felt he had no one, or that prior to Mobius who has somehow been elevated to the level of friend, he had no one because no, Sif and the Warriors Three clearly were Thor’s friends, not his own, but no, it doesn’t matter.

Loki and Sylvie are supposedly in love and all she knows about him is about his mom and how she taught him to do magic. And all he knows about her is she barely remember Asgard and was forced to live on the run.

It’s not bad just for Loki, it’s bad as a portrayal of a love story between two people because they don’t know each other and don’t try to do so, they don’t share anything of their lives, they don’t even have things in common beyond being Loki… which Sylvie rejected for reasons we don’t know as she’s now Sylvie.

Anyway Loki tries to cheer her up by… telling her there were more important things to do?

Loki: Well... there are more important things, right?

Sylvie: Right? Yeah. Like bringing down the TVA.

Loki: I mean… Saving the universe, even.

Sylvie: Well, there's no need to be dramatic, but, yeah, kind of.

Sylvie couldn’t care less about saving the universe, it was all about revenge and no, bringing down the TVA isn’t more important than having people who love and support you around you. This is dumb hero moral.

Loki uses his magic to put the cover he’s wearing around his shoulders around Sylvie as well… which likely means he has also stretched the cover. She moves closer to him and they had that sort of stupid happy face I love in love stories so it would be really, really good if they had built better their own instead than tossing it to us at random.

I mean, this is very cute, and I don’t know if it’s Loki who’s laughing or Tom Hiddleston who find it funny.

Sylvie: It's not very snuggly.

Loki: ( Chuckling ) Okay.

Sylvie: Is it a tablecloth?

Loki: No, it's a blanket.

Sylvie: Thank you.

Loki: My pleasure.

And I like how Sylvie says thank you in a serious tone as if all this was important for her. But the romance remains still out of nowhere even if this is the episode which handles it better.

Then they ruin everything with this.

Sylvie: How do I know that, in the final moments, you won't betray me?

Loki: Listen, Sylvie, I... ( Sighs deeply ) I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother... my home. I know what I did. And I know why I did it. And that's not who I am anymore. Okay? I won't let you down.

Same way Loki knows you won’t betray him. Either you trust someone or don’t there’s no guaranty but this whole chat is not in order to reassure Sylvie but to tell the readers Loki has been changed by love without really discussing the issues that pushed Loki to betray people. The fact he was lied to, the fact his father favoured Thor and made him feel inferior, the whole racist system Asgard had for the Jotuns, the fact Thor used to look down on him and was so arrogant and bloodthirsty Odin kicked him out of Asgard… we don’t talk about all those issues. I’m not even going to mention what might have happened with Thanos because Joss Whedon isn’t working anymore with Marvel and I start to think whatever plan he had for Loki and Thanos got scrapped away long ago… and anyway Loki doesn’t speak about what happened on Midgard… unless we’re meant to believe what happened to Midgard was him betraying his father, his brother, his home and we aren’t talking about what happened in “Thor”…

Whatever, anyway we aren’t talking about it. Loki is a new man, love solved all his issues.

We should just enrol criminals in professional matchmaking programs to find love for them too and they too would come out as different people.

The next bit is, of course, to tell us Loki has given up on his wish to rule, again because love made him happy.

Sylvie: You sure? 'Cause if we make it, and the TVA is gone, there might be a timeline for you to rule.

Loki: Ah. And then I'd finally be happy.

Sylvie instead admits she has no idea what she’ll do after she’ll get her revenge.

Well, dear, you never tried world domination, do you? But no, Loki tells her he doesn’t know what he’ll do either so they could figure out together. Because love saves the day.

And it does but I wish it was less cheesy.

The romance moment end.

We see the weird birds with no purpose beyond being weird birds and then Alioth moving closer. Everyone watches it fearfully.

Since Sylvie, being a Mary Sue, has been elected as leader she’s the one who answers Mobius when he asks which should be their next move.

Sylvie: The TVA needs to be brought down. We don't know who created it or where they are, but that thing out there does. When it hit me earlier, I linked to it. It was brief, but I caught a glimpse of something, and I think if I can get close enough to it, I can enchant it, and it's gonna take me to whoever's behind all of this.

Or, alternatively, he can swallow up you whole but whatever, time for the romantic moment.

Loki: I'm staying.

Sylvie: Loki, I don't know if this is gonna work.

Loki: You go, I go.

Oh, finally she admits she doesn’t know if this will work. Because actually her plan is as solid as Loki’s but who cares, this is only to underline that love is in the air because Loki is staying with her even if her plan might be a complete and utter failure.

I don’t really like her ‘mommy is telling you this might be a dumb idea’ tone if I’ve to be honest, Mobius who suddenly turns to him as he said so, seemed more worried and I’m very clearly not a Lokius shipper as I don’t even believe Mobius and Loki to be genuine friends.

Anyway Loki gives the Tempad Sylvie gave him to Mobius. Because they had to wait for Alioth to be there before deciding to leave.

Mobius, as the true friend he is, decides he’ll leave the place and who cares if they might need herlp, so that in case Loki and Sylvie don’t die but can’t get to the TimeKeeper either they’re left without any mean of transportation away from that place.

Mobius then goes:

Mobius: I'll give your regards to Renslayer.

Sylvie: Oh, please do.

I take this means his strong and deep and special friendship with Renslayer has ended. Anyway he volunteers to bring with himself the other Lokis but they refuse saying that’s their home… which is not wrong as that place has what remains of their homes since the TVA sent them there. Still Mobius could have tried harder but it’s not like he has to care about Loki Variants he and the TVA sent there after destroying their homes.

It’s Loki who worries about them and about how Alioth could harm them.

Classic Loki: We've survived this long. We know what we're doing.

Kid Loki gives Loki his sword, Laevateinn so Loki with his magic creates a sheat he put on his back.

Classic Loki wishes him good luck and I’d like to point out that for all their babbling about the Lokis being terrible, Classic Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki and been very nice and helpful with Loki and among them. Friends. They didn’t just lie, cheat and cut each other throat for power, even if they had just met him. They didn’t even use him.

And I like their relation more than I like the one with Sylvie.

They walk away and Mobius open for himself a Time Door.

Now… it shows that Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are friends because when they interact they genuinely seems so but the basis on which the plot built this friendship are nonexistent.

Mobius observes Loki got away in the end which is… a bit early to say so, since he also needs to get away from Alioth. At Loki who asks him what he will do at the TVA he answers:

Mobius: Burn it to the ground. Thanks for the spark. Well, see you later, Loki.

All this because the TVA lied to him, not because it pushed him to reset poor people he didn’t even try to save from the Void.

Still the sentence is good considering the story started with Loki wanting to burn the place.

Loki: I'm gonna burn this place to the ground.

Mobius: I'll show you where my desk is, you can start there.

Mobius offers him his hand to shake but Loki has to hug him and thanks him even though he didn’t hug Classic Loki and Kid Loki.

Now, it’s true, without Mobius the TVA would have killed him, and Mobius gave him a second chance when the TVA decided to consider the first mission Loki took part in as a failure, but the point is Mobius did it because he needed Loki’s help. Loki helped him find where the Variant hid and tried to stop her. He failed, ended up on Lamentis and when he was retrieved, Mobius didn’t believe him and had him beaten up telling him he didn’t need him anymore. He came to free him only because he discovered Loki didn’t lie to him and so he wanted help face the TVA.

Now compare with Classic Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki. They found Loki and brought him to their hideout because it was dangerous to be outside with Alioth around. They gave him something to drink and possibly to eat. When they were attacked by President Loki, after understanding it wasn’t his fault, carried him with them in their escape. Helped him find Alioth. Gave him a sword. And Classic Loki will die in a while to help Loki and Sylvie against Alioth. In short they only helped him and never wronged him. But they aren’t special friends like Mobius, not even taking into consideration it’s supposedly Loki’s narcissism who caused him to fall for Sylvie.

As Mobius hugs Loki he whispers ‘you’re my favourite’ looking at Sylvie.

Considering how he used to bother Renslayer about wanting to be her favourite and that he knows Loki is in need of reassurance I don’t really enjoy much the joke.

Mobius leaves, the door immediately closes behind him and doesn’t remain open for hours like in Ep 2 and Sylvie and Loki are alone to face Alioth. They walk closer and Sylvie decides then to explain him her plan because doing so earlier, when they had all the time in the world, would have been unromantic. Much better to do it five minutes before facing him.

Sylvie: When a branch appears, Alioth will focus on it. That's when I'll enchant it.

Classic Loki and Kid Loki meanwhile are kilometres away because when they walk away slowly they walk just that fast.

Classic Loki turns behind but then keep on walking so that they get farther.

As they’re close side by side… Loki moves to the other side of Sylvie… no idea why… and points out they might not have the time to wait for a branch so Sylvie says they’ll need a distraction. And how did she meant to create one if Loki hadn’t remained with her? I still think it’s a poor plan that can work only because the Mary Sue’s plan always works.

Okay, so she didn’t think Loki would be the distraction because, after she says so he rests his hand on her shoulder and she shakes her head no and he instead nods yes and then runs away and tries to persuade Alioth in coming after him, showing him the flaming sword Kid Loki gave him.

I’ll be honest the silent dialogue between Sylvie and Loki is a nice moment. If they had put more things like these in Episode 3 this idea of a romance between them would have worked much better.

On another side Loki with a flaming sword seemed a much cooler scene in the trailer than here, where the flaming sword is merely used as some sort of light to attract Alioth.

Sylvie then tries to enchant one of Alioth’s tendril/pseudopod but he notices, ignore Loki and goes after her. Loki runs toward Sylvie telling Alioth he should come his way but Alioth doesn’t care and is about to eat Sylvie who doesn’t move at all because ‘why escaping?’ and then Alioth abruptly gets distracted as Classic Loki uses his illusion magic to recreate Asgard because a real friend comes back in your time of need and even risk life for you even though you hadn’t hugged him.

The music is rather cool.

We’ve then this informative bit:

Sylvie: How is he doing that?

Loki: I think we're stronger than we realize.

Which really feels useless. He’s an older Loki he might have developed powers you two don’t have yet. People change with time, stop considering all the Lokis equal.

Anyway Alioth is fully distracted by the fake Asgard and Classic Loki tells them to go. Sylvie takes Loki’s hand because she has decided she’ll enchant Alioth together with Loki. Loki points out he doesn’t know how to enchant people but who cares, they’re the same so of course he knows.

Logic, where are you?

On another note originally Loki wasn’t meant to do it.

Eric Martin@MrEricMartin·Jul 8

Loki and Sylvie enchanting Alioth together was something we found pretty late into the process. It was #KevinWright that brought up that they should hold hands and find the strength within each other and it was such and of course moment. #LokiMidnightTheater

Of course Loki just watching as Sylvie were to enchant Alioth would have been disappointing but again, a plot also needs LOGIC. Sylvie could have spent two minutes teaching him to use enchantment instead than just telling him ‘You do. Because we're the same!’ The idea that because you’re both Variants of the same person you also share common knowledge is ludicrous but whatever, the show established Sylvie could learn doing it without being taught so… who am I to judge? On the other side the remarking of the fact they’re the same kind of ruin the romance by again feeding into the narrative it’s the result of narcissism.

Whatever, since Sylvie trusts him to learn how to enchant a giant sized monster right then Loki of course is persuaded he can do it.

It’s kind of… odd how the illusion of Asgard disappear before Alioth could touch it… is Classic Loki teasing Alioth? But well, I love how he distracted him by showing him Asgard, as if it were a Testament to Classic Loki’s love for it.

Meanwhile COINCIDENTALLY Alioth let two tendrils/pseudopods get near Loki and Sylvie so each of them can use one to try and enchant him because if they only had one it would have been a problem and if they had three it would have been too many.

Loki can’t quite work the enchantment magic yet so they hold hand tighter. Yeah, it’s romantic but… okay, I’ll try very hard to forget the logic here because this finally causes Loki’s hand to light up with magic.

Meanwhile sustaining such a big illusion was too much for Classic Loki. The illusion fades pressured by Alioth. He uses his magic again but nothing happens but this seems the plan… so it can be is it just that Alioth is attracted by Magic?

Laughing and yelling ‘Glorious purpose!’ Classic Loki, instead than trying to escape by opening a portal has he had done when they were inside their hideout, let himself be eaten by Alioth.

So to sum it up this Loki decided he wouldn’t sacrifice for his brother, as he escaped Thanos and let Thor to fend for himself, but then decided he would sacrifice for a Variant of himself. As I like to consider him a different person from Loki this can be a very nice message of friendship… but I fear the series’ idea is it’s all narcissism and the point they’re trying to do is that Loki sacrificed for himself… even though the series yammered for hours about how the Lokis didn’t see the other Variants as themselves… unless when they fall in love with one.

Bottom of the line, Classic Loki can’t have nice things, he can only die heroically and in this is supposed to be his redemption and he can only embrace such fate.

On another note… why was he capable to open a portal when they was inside their hideout but when they had to do all that walk through the place or when they moved to search for Alioth or when they left Loki and Sylvie he didn’t think to open one? Don’t give him powers that he isn’t going to use when it would be useful to use them!

Back to the story, at this point Alioth notices Loki and Sylvie so they close their eyes and have… a burst of magic? Is that what had happened? Anyway Alioth starts shining green and loses his face, no, not in the sense he damages his reputation, he just loses his face which evidently was just some sort of scary decoration as he’s basically a cloud.

Everything becomes green and Sylvie opens her eyes, smiles and tell Loki, who hasn’t realized anything, that he can open his eyes… which really is dumb.

Anyway they hadn’t enchanted Alioth, they had just… dissipated him because the cloud now opens up but you don’t see what’s behind it but, literally, a building in likely another dimension because of course Sylvie’s theory was right and beating Alioth meant to open the way to the residence of their enemy.

Or are we supposed to assume they’re mentally controlling Alioth? But in this case it’s just Sylvie who’s doing it because Loki was apparently unaware so…

At this point the two start to walk toward their supposed enemy’s residence and it would be very fun if the guy there had no relation with the TVA who actually was guilty of tossing litter in his own territory but only one episode is missing and, of course, they need to fight the big bad.

Have I already said if they use again Loki as the big bad I’m going to scream?!?

I genuinely hope that this will not be the case and we’ll get Kang, the conqueror.

Anyway so, this episode.

This episode was the funniest of the series, I’ve no qualms admitting it. It’s just I didn’t see much point in having an episode which is mostly filled with “Looney tunes” humour at this point in the series in place of facing all the serious themes the other 4 had supposedly raised. Also I would have appreciated the “Looney tunes” humour more if Loki had played the part of Bugs Bunny instead than the one of Daffy Duck, mixed with Yosemite Sam and other characters who’re there just to make confusion.

I’ll be fine if it were to be an extra episode, a bonus, but no, we’re wasting almost a full episode to… have fun?

At this point, instead than making a serious series with serious themes you would have made a fully playful one. Let’s not have a fascist organization which kills Variants or sent them in a lager called Void to be eaten alive by cannibalistic pirates or by Alioth, and which also kidnap and brainwashes its workers so that they’re willing members of a dumb cult and act all racist and abusive toward other Variants.

Let’s not talk about identity, sexual or personal, of the nature of people, if they can be good or evil. Let’s just have fun. Or let’s not and keep on talking of all that until we’ve solved the issue.

You can’t show me Mobius who first forces Loki to work for the TVA then has Loki beaten over and over for no decent reason belittling his relationship with Sylvie and then they’re back on being best friends and he’s super supportive of his relationship with Sylvie and we don’t talk of what happened in Ep 4.

You can’t show me the TVA being abusive and racist toward the Variants and now that they’ve discovered they’re Variants they don’t regret what was done to them but just that they were lied to and this isn’t denounced as hypocrisy but as the right thing to do.

What’s more you can’t take a character who’s famous for his intelligence and quick wit and who’s a capable fighter and stronger than humans and have him dumbed down and weakened down in a serious contest.

You can’t wave away what were meant to be serious issues which lead said character to attempt suicide as him being overly sensitive.

Do you want to make a parody? Fine, but label it as such.

On a positive side they made the romance between Sylvie and Loki a tad better… but it’s just too late.

You should have first constructed them falling in love, and then developed it. Their falling in love was built over nothing. Even if now you’re raising a pretty house, it has no foundations.

Also there are just too many plot contrivances and too little characterization.

Why Kid Loki wasn’t fleshed out a little bit? He killed Thor. How? Does it pains him? He’s the king of the place? How? Which are his powers? He’s generally nice with the other Lokis in a world that insists the Lokis are backstabbing idiots who want to backstab themselves. Isn’t it worth exploring? If only to see why they turned out different from how they started?

No, he’s just there to point out how he was willing to murder his brother from a young age because retconning “Thor” is Marvel’s biggest wish from a lifetime.

Also this episode keeps the trend of recurring plot contrivances and poor Sylvie as a Mary Sue which, honestly is damaging to women portray. A solid characterization would have to be persuasive or capable on solid basis, her tragedy genuinely explored not just tossed there with everyone humouring her because she’s a Mary Sue.

I mean, even Thor, in “Thor” to have his best friends follow him on Jotunheim tempted them with things they liked/wanted.

Sylvie just says ‘jump’ and everyone asks ‘how high?’ and this is bad because Sylvie has a goddamn lot of potential but all her previous struggle isn’t explored and currently she gets all she wants served on a silver platter so, even now, we don’t see her struggle.

Overall the plot of this episode can be summarized in Sylvie reaches Loki and Mobius into the Void, provides Mobius the means to go back to the TVA while she and Loki find the way to who’s behind the TVA.

Nothing really relevant happens otherwise. For 40 minutes episodes it’s really too little.

So yeah, it was a funny parody episode but… that’s all. Compared to episode 4 at least they kept the characterization the series established so they didn’t screw it up in this episode but… really, this has so much more potential that got wasted and it’s sad…

#mcu loki #loki #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #classic loki #kid loki #boastful loki #ravonna renslayer #mobius m mobius #alioth #president loki #alligator loki #miss minute #9 worlds study #9 worlds study mcu loki

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depressedtransguy · 3 years

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if you're not @angelwiththeblue-box and you read this then I'll send you back in time to stop your parents from getting together and boom you're never conceived fuck you back to the future rocks

When she opened her mouth to respond she spoke in an alien language, so closed captioning was offered at the bottom. It was a very organized recording. "People of Creuclite! Your coward of a tyrant has been slain! And you're now free to build up your own government and live your lives!"

The allies in the crowd cheered even louder, while the tyrants' following fell to their knees in submission. But then, to Frigga's confusion, the allies dropped to their knees too and raised their hands up to her. "Thank you, our new Queen!" The crowd cheered while Frigga gasped in shock.

"No, no! I mean, I'm honored that you would want me to rule, but I'm 16! Also half of my family has a really bad experience with being royalty, so I don't think I should ever rule anything, but really, thank you!" she called to the crowd with a wave, wincing slightly in apology at their disappointed groans. "It's alright, you guys'll get to build your own government that's best for you! And I'll visit if you need help!" As they began to cheer again, she glanced at her watch and realized what time it was on Earth. "Oh, shit. I have to go, I'm late for dinner! But good luck!" With a final wave of her fingers she disappeared in a flash of green, and right after that, Anthony made the screen go black.

Thor was the first to comment. "'Half my family has a really bad experience with being royalty'?" he questioned and turned back to face Frigga who was poorly hiding a smile.

"Oh come on Uncle Thor, we've been told everything from Jotunheim to Hela, we know what the fuck happened," Frigga countered with a flourish of her wrist.

Anthony agreed with a nod and a small smirk. "Didn't stop you from ruling over Sucoria, did it?"

Frigga jumped in before anyone else could question what that meant. "I'm allowed to have a little fun too," she corrected with no contradictions. "You get to play with your little gadgets and your little science experiments, I got to be queen of a diamond planet for four months until they realized that I had no intention of ruling them, only of draining their wine supply, until a secret conspiracy stabbed me like Caesar."

"And you're proud of that?" Stephen questioned.

"Extremely! Anthony's just jealous because he's never been queen of anything." Anthony tried to butt in only for him to be cut off once more. "Scratch that, you're a queen all the time."

She laughed hard while her brother rolled his eyes and dropped his gaze back down to his tablet. Loki probably smiled for the first time that day. And Tony and Bruce were still watching from the sidelines and taking notes on the interactions of the group.

"Oh, I crack myself up."

"Well at least someone's laughing."

Thor raised his hand up again, so Anthony once again called on him. "Okay, so, that was incredibly cool, and I really want to have a drink with you-" he pointed to Frigga from over his shoulder "-at some point, but you said that we could access any point in time between now and 2066. Does that mean that you can access what is going on in the year you came from?"

Anthony's head shot up before it went right back down, him typing furiously on the tablet until he reached an answer. "Yes." He looked up to his audience. "We can see them."

Stephen and Loki especially leaned forward, knowing they and their future relationship would be the thing on broadcast to the room, and, although embarrassed, were interested. A picture appeared on the screen once more only a few seconds later.

"That's the Kyln," Thor recognized.

The 'camera' took it's time panning down the prison's hallway that Frigga knew better than the back of her hand until some sound suddenly started seeping into the room. Grunting, cries of pain, and what seemed to sound like punches and kicks landing grew louder and louder until their view was finally opened up to the main prison area.

And there were bodies... everywhere. Most were guards, prisoners seemingly still locked up in their cells and physically undisturbed, and the cause of their death quickly being revealed when a man all in black somersaulted into the area and tackled one of the last standing staff members. The 'camera' moved closer.

"I SWEAR I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" the man pinned on his stomach desperately begged, his arms wildly flailing until the anonymous attacker pinned down his wrists. "I DON'T KNOW!"

"And I don't care." The assailant's voice was deep and gravelly but still unrecognizable to the group watching the scene. Said assailant then took a knife out from his belt and raised it high above his head, attempting to strike a killing blow right at his C1 through C2 vertebrae, and seemingly going to get away with it.

Until something crashed into him from behind and he was sent sailing forward until his forehead smacked into the steel ground and his body skidded to a halt. His head immediately flicked up to get a look at who had dared oppose him.

It was another guard, who was doing his best to remove the floor cuffs from his friend's wrists. "You're a brave one, aren't you?" the man in black taunted, pulling a knife out of thin air and flipping it in hand just as the cuffs broke off. "Really an unfortunate trait."

"I'm not afraid of you." The tremble in his voice was obvious. "You're just a... a monster."

The assailant scoffed loudly, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Well that's not very nice, now is it?" The knife vanished as quick as it had appeared, and in its place appeared a very familiar crimson band that was soon tossed around the guards neck and then thrown over the upper railing. The guard choked desperately as he hung. "So I suppose I shouldn't be very nice either."

"Who the hell is this?" Stephen whispered to himself, his interest peaking at the use of Kamar-Taj magic. Previously he had assumed it to be Loki, since the future was supposed to be showing them two, and the Kyln was where Frigga said she had been locked up, but now he wasn't sure. It couldn't be him at least he knew since he would never choose to stab someone as a way of killing them due to the state of his hands. (Sure, the incessant killing also wasn't his mantra, but he didn't know what he'd do for his kids since he technically didn't have any yet.)

His question was about to be answered as the recently freed guard bravely ran up to him and tore off his hood from behind. Wavy black locks were released and tumbled down his shoulders until his pale face whipped around to the only guard left standing. It was Loki. And he looked royally pissed.

The guard meanwhile, looked shocked. "Holy shit, I-I'm-" the mask fell from his hands as he tripped over his words and desperately tried to get out an apology that would save his life.

Unfortunately for him, there were not enough words in all the languages in the universe that could make him live.

"I'm sorry too. But not for you." Loki pulled out a gun and shot him point blank in the face. "For whoever has to clean up the blood."

With a small sigh the god then tossed the gun aside and ran his black painted fingernails through his hair, toe stepping over the strewn bodies until he was almost at the room where Frigga had been led into. But then he suddenly jerked to a stop.

And with him did the whole present room. They were all way too over-invested. Especially Loki- but he had the best excuse to be since he was the one on screen. Maybe if he focused on the screen enough he could repress the reality of the situation even better.

Future Loki looked out of the corner of his eye without moving, clearly scanning the perimeter, before he suddenly picked up a knife from a nearby body and flung it behind him. It stopped short just before it hit a pale forehead with a little bit of brown hair drooping down. Stephen. "Impressive feat, darling," he murmured as he snatched it from the air, gesturing at all the bodies around. "It was extremely unnecessary, yet, still impressive."

"Oh shut up, Stephen," Loki responded with a quirk in his smile and a warm look in his eyes to his partner across the room.

"I mean, I expected the dramatics, it's you, but this is really something," Stephen continued as he walked forward, gesturing erratically until he was close enough to grab Loki's hips and pull him into a greeting kiss. "Hi."

"Hi." After the following tight hug they parted slightly to keep talking. "Did anyone know anything?"

Stephen sighed in disappointment and shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. I talked to everyone. Thor, Quill, Wong, Mantis, the other guardians, Valkyrie, Christine, Atreo- everyone, and they all know nothing. And now they're worried because they know that we can't find our kids. What about you?"

"Well I did manage to confirm that Frigga was indeed imprisoned here- for war crimes on Xandar-"

"I told her to stop going there."

"Yes, we all have, but she likes it there." Stephen shrugged so he continued. "Anyway, she was here, but nothing on the cameras showed anything of her breaking out. But she's not here. It's like she... vanished into thin air." Both of them took a small second of silence. "As for Anthony, I think he was supposed to be on a date with Atreo."

"Yes- I should have mentioned that. Atreo said that he canceled at the last minute, saying that he had to break his sister out of prison, and nothing else. So I suppose he was in the Sanctum in his lab, as he usually is when he helps her, but there's nothing there."

Loki groaned and buried his face into the crook of his husband's neck, digging his fingers into the back of his robes as Stephen began to gently rub his back.

"You know we're going to find them, right?"

"We better," Loki growled before pulling back. "Or else I'm going to tear the universe apart."

Stephen smirked lightly before cupping his cheek and shaking his head. "We will. They don't stand a chance against us."

"Together." Once again did Loki reveal a genuine smile before pulling his husband into another kiss.

Present Loki bit hard on his tongue as he turned a dark red, attempting to cover the color with his hands, and managing to make it unnoticed to everyone except Thor and Stephen. Thor since he was sitting right next to him, and Stephen because he had been glancing over at him way too often. Although he had been thinking about him and Loki since that morning, the kissing kind of sent his queer brain into hyper drive. And he couldn't stop looking.

"So," Loki began after the kissing was concluded, making the formerly distracted members of the room focus up again, "where do we go from here?"

"Home. Let's... let's start at home."

"Sounds perfect."

With their hands connected Loki then teleported them both to most likely the Sanctum, leaving the entire present room staring at the slaughter and shocked to their cores. "What the fuck," Tony broke the silence with even though it was just a murmur under his breath as he scribbled on his notebook.

"I have the same question," Stephen agreed to no one in particular.

"Well I don't," Frigga contradicted with a bit of teleportation to move herself more into the circle of the group. "Now we know they're looking for us."

Anthony concurred. "Not like there was any doubt in that, they are going to terrorize the universe, but confirmation is always nice," he pointed out.

Stephen was meanwhile once again staring at Loki. He seemed to be slightly curled into himself with his legs crossed tightly and his hands gripped on opposite arms, eyes anxious and perhaps overwhelmed, and Stephen was worried about him. He didn't like the guy, but... he couldn't not care. They were married in the future, and he clearly loved him to an extreme extent, so a new feeling of protectiveness and possessiveness had been born inside him in just the last 24 hours. And yet he barely even knew him. It was completely bizarre, of course, but, so was everything else.

His though process was thankfully broken soon enough when Tony spoke up once more, a continuation to his 'what the fuck' comment. "Question for Anthony. Just a confirmation, why was he wearing a mask? I figured Loki would like to be eminent for his crimes." After being shot a glare, the billionaire raised his arms up in defense, but didn't rescind his statement. "I just figured."

"No, no, you're right," Anthony confirmed. "All of us do. I've never worn a mask in my life, the only change being erasing my heritage lines to make sure that I'm not overly noticeable, and Frigga always leaves her calling card when she breaks the law. But I understand his actions. Basically- they're vulnerable. They don't have us, they're worried, and they're desperately searching for something that they don't know where to look for. And since they're vulnerable, if any single villain or even good guy in the universe gets even a whiff of their weakness, they'll be facing a much bigger problem than just our disappearance."

"Exactly," Frigga agreed. "The universe doesn't like us. Whether it's for our crimes, our heroism, or even our queerness, 99% of the people in the universe don't like us. So he's just protecting them from possible outside force in order to be as safe as possible. Sure, everyone died, but if someone gets ahold of the footage or the prisoners go out and tell a bunch of people what they just saw, chaos would no doubt ensue."

As Tony instantly wrote down the notes, Anthony folded the tablet into his chest and furrowed his eyebrows at his log. "Alright... Thank you for that. And I suppose it makes sense based on the little context we have."

"Little context? Put the two chaotic and unincluded sorcerers in the room together and you have your context," Frigga corrected with a knife pointing at Tony.

Bruce nodded with a slight shrug to indicate that she was in fact correct. "But since we have what we do have so far, I think we should have a discussion with Anthony about how they plan to get back, as I assume you'd both like to."

"I would love to, I have a Ted Talk in France any day now. Then? Then."

"And I have an alien dictator to kill. The hit was put out on him like a week ago, and if I don't get him soon enough, my record as a bounty hunter will get a black mark on it. And I need to make money somehow."

Tony and Bruce glanced at each other. "Okay, ignoring that since we don't have time to unpack that, and, I can't believe I haven't asked this already, but have you guys eaten anything since you got here?" the former, the dad of course, asked.

"We had some toaster waffles last night as we explored the Sanctum pre-relationship," Frigga answered. "So technically yes, but it hasn't been much."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Well we knew it wouldn't be like how it was when we grew up, obviously, so we wanted to see how bland it was before any of us entered the picture," Anthony continued after his sister.

"Yeah, and the answer turned out to be 'incredibly'. Like I knew there wasn't going to be much of an impression without any of us living there, but there was barely any fucking food for us to steal!"

Stephen held back a scoff. "I'm sorry I didn't stock my fridge for my future kids."

"You should be," Frigga shot back as she spawned a pad and pencil in her hands with a green swipe. "But, even though I do want food, I have an off topic question, Anthony."

In anticipation of her question, Anthony sighed deeply, but did wave his hand and allow her to continue.

"Are we in Back To The Future?"

"I should have predicted that, no, this is nothing like Back To The Future because time doesn't work like that," he corrected with an adjustment of his glasses.

Frigga leaned forward. "So Back To The Future is a lie?"

"Yes, I'm sorry that a time travel movie from 80 years in the past- 40 years from where we are now -isn't exactly correct on how the space time continuum works. Not even I completely understand its complexities and structure, as I was explicitly told not to mess with it no matter what," Anthony detailed. "Even though now that's exactly what I have to do now. I mean we, I suppose I'll be working along with Stark and Dr. Banner, but I'll do all the work."

Tony opened his mouth to respond, but Bruce clamped a hand over his mouth first just in case. "Who told you not to mess with the space time continuum?" the latter asked. "I mean it's a smart thing to do, the only time we took it into our hands was when it was a matter of life or death, but you... you don't exactly strike me as a person who listens to directions."

"Oh you're right, I don't. Neither of us do. It's part of the reason why the majority of the universe hates us. But when my parents give me one rule to directly abide by because I could very possibly collapse everything that we know with my 'fuck around and find out' method, I'm going to fucking listen."

His sister was suspiciously scribbling away in her sketchbook, but she did look up at him when he was finished speaking. "I don't know why you'd say that to this crowd, there's not one of them without daddy issues," she pointed out, gesturing to them all to close her point. "I doubt most haven't if any at all have respected their parents."

"That's true. My apologies."

#it's 3k #thank you #tell me if it's awful there's so much talking

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years

Text

It’s The Avengers (03x04)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 04: She Who Seduces

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: wow! lots of stuff you guys want but at the same time aren’t gettin’ any

Word Count: It’s a weird feeling to be tagged as an essential worker, but not be made to feel like an essential worker? I mean I feel I’m not one. But if I am being forced out of my house, being exposed to the possibility of catching the virus, being ignored by corporate, media and the govt as humans, I have to wonder why am I even sitting here. I get the doctors and nurses and no amount of verbal praise can even come close to what they are doing right now. But if me and my colleagues have be ignored and made to work at large, I’d rather we do it from the safety of our homes, man. (Just when I had started to get better on my own)

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

The camera focused on a blue egg the colour of sky lying in the dirt, zooming in on it a little before jolting back as the egg moved. The camera did the entire cycle once again before a fluff hand tried to smack that egg like a cat curious about this unexplained cute atrocity in front of them.

“Lulu!” a voice called from somewhere in the distance in the midst of a mixture of all sorts of noises- like the ones experienced in your neighbourhood local market. But the camera did not budge till it recorded the sky egg crack bit by bit before a pair of blue eyes popped out on a little white head. Those gorgeous cute eyes looked at the camera, blinking out of coordination before looking at the little golden fuzzy arm slowly coming towards its head. Blinking again- this time with curiosity- the blue eyes froze on that snail-paced extension of a husk behind the camera before a tiny void opened under those innocent eyes to take that husk arm into it and bite down with an audible crunch.

Javier’s camera swiftly turned to Lulu’s cries, finding him far behind in the crowd of aliens trying to knock something away from his arm.

The little husk- screaming and howling like a little dog in pain- was rescued by pale fingers catching hold of the round head that was too stubborn to let go. A little squeeze and those surprisingly vicious teeth let go, breaking the remnants of the eggshells to let out white paws attached to the tiniest legs.

“Scram,” Loki ordered the white alien- who ran away as quickly as possible- before turning towards Lulu, “what were you trying to do with that beast? Have it for breakfast?”

Lulu chirped, nodding before slumping a little into the ground.

“Yeah, good luck with that while you’re in Y/N’s care,” he stated, getting and turning to look at the judgmental zoom Javier’s camera threw on him. “What. You want her to keep another alien as a pet?”

“Guys, I found a restaurant,” your voice called out of the frame, making Loki look in your direction, “OH MY GOD YOU GUYS! THERE ARE REAL LIFE SAILOR SOLDIERS IN HERE!!”

Loki looked at the camera, ageing a thousand years more. “Please tell me it’s not one of those mangas she keeps talking about.”

When Javier spelt it out for him from behind the camera, Loki’s eyes closed and he let out the heaviest sigh he possibly could

Loki: *with a very serious face* the prospect of me having died before being teleported here does not seem so bad. It looks fantastic now. *camera zooms in on his face while you scream in delight in the background, “I’m sitting with real-life Sailor Soldiers!! Aaaahhhh-”*

The Lounge

"Where's Stark?"

One camera panned in on Bucky's face as he came out of the dorm with bed hair while the other looked at a mildly surprised Scott drinking orange juice from a crystal wine glass.

"He said he'll come in twenty. He's gone for his weekly therapy session," Scott replied, swirling the juice in his glass with his pinky out while observing Bucky from head to toe. "You should try that sometimes. It's really good."

Bucky sat down on the sofa with a stare filled with judgemental questions in Scott's direction. "Me? Therapy? That stuff's for looneys."

Scott furrowed his brows at Bucky, pause all moments for a second before bringing the glass ever so slowly to his lips. "Okay, Boomer."

"What?"

Bucky: I don’t need therapy. *mocks a laugh* Shuri made me better than ever in Wakanda. All I need is exercise, healthy food in my stomach and a good amount of sleep. *nods in satisfaction*

*camera zooms out to reveal Scott sitting next to him, shaking his head lightly in mild disbelief*

Scott: *softly* Now I know where that attitude in this present world comes from.

Bucky: *turns to look at Scott* *shifts uncomfortably in his seat while shifting his gaze between the camera and Scott*

*silence erodes the room before Bucky finally breaks*

Why are you looking at me like that? I haven’t killed anyone recently.

Scott: *furrows brows in confusion* what?

Bucky: *stops mid-way and looks away from Scott towards the camera* Nothing

Scott: I never said about killing anyone. *pitch grows higher with every word* Bucky, I never said about killing anyone. Bucky, did you kill someone?

Bucky: *shakes his head with disinterest* mm-mm.

Scott: *mouth opens wide in disbelief* *hands go into his hair on his head* OH MY GOD YOU KILLED SOMEONE!!!

Bucky: NO! I DID N-

Fifteen Minutes Later

Bucky: *softly* So I’ve decided after...a lot of thinking that I should go talk to a...a therapist.

Scott: *nods and smiles at the camera like an encouraging wife*

Bucky: *gives a forceful smile*

Scott: And I too will be going to see a therapist.

Bucky: *nods* *presses lips*

Bucky and Scott: *look at the door, forcing the camera to turn and land on a somewhat irritated Natasha glaring at them from outside the door with arms crossed across her chest*

Back In The Lounge

Wanda walked into the living room space where Bruce was working on some calculations on his laptop while another camera discreetly caught Bucky and Scott giving each other the stink eye.

"You should take a break, Bruce," Wanda stressed while placing a mug of hot tea on his table. Bruce half-looked at the mug before turning back to it, pulling it close and smelling it. "Since when do we drink so much tea?"

Wanda shrugged. "Since Loki and Y/N came into our lives?" She was unsure but that's what all things pointed at. Bruce went with it too.

He rubbed his eyes and shut his laptop. "Yeah, I guess we can take a break." He yawns and gets up. "Loki seems to have everything under control anyway, so…"

Wanda seemed to wince very quietly, her expressions showing no surety in Bruce’s words; or a reflection of an upset stomach.

“I mean, Y/N is being a levelheaded person too. It’s not all Loki.”

A scoff came from the other side of the room where Bucky stood, all eyes and camera turning to stare at him, his crumbling confident posture trying to display reason. “I mean...she hasn’t been to space before. She does not know what’s out there as well as Loki.”

“So, what you are trying to say is she won’t be able to survive if it wasn’t for Loki?” Scott stretched his words to make sure Bucky heard every single one of them.

“Of course she wouldn’t survive out there. She is a kid.” A very sweaty Clint walked into the lounge and went straight for the orange juice inside the fridge. The camera caught the muted gasps coming out of Wanda and Scott for the men in the room not having much faith in your survival skills.

“So are you,” a very sweaty Natasha acknowledged Clint’s words as she grabbed the juice bottle from Clint’s hand, “but you survived the Infinity War without your family. Oh, wait. You didn’t really survive. You just turned into a whiny little bitch and started killing the first thing you saw.”

Wanda looked at the camera with her eyes wide and her lips pressed tightly to stop her from screaming at the burn. Bruce, on the other hand, whispered ‘oh shit’ and tried to disappear in his mug. Scott sipped his juice like the best tea he had been served in a long time, all the while smirking like a content goofball.

“That was so below the belt, Nat,” Clint protested, his hands resting on his hips as he watched her gulp down half the bottle of juice before handing Clint the rest and smacking her lips in satisfaction. “Y/N is in outer space with a frost giant. And so is Javier. But I don’t hear any of you mention him in this conversation when it comes to surviving on one's own?”

“Javier is a-”

Bruce paused before finishing his sentence as he realised the error of his words right before they came out. “Nice guy?” He finally breathed out, his lungs not being able to take the torture. “He is also in danger, of course. That is a given. I was in danger too when I was stuck in space. Thor can vouch for me.”

Thor: *standing on a cliff while the Asgardians celebrate in the background around a fire* *yells over the sound of waves crashing in on the rocks below* BRUCE WAS SO MUCH FUN ON SAKAAR! WE HAD DRINKS AND DANCES AND SO MANY GIRLS OGLING AT HIM! OF COURSE, THAT WAS WHEN HE WAS THE HULK. WHEN HE WAS BACK TO BEING A BORING OLD SCIENTIST ALL HE SPOKE WAS OF HIS PHDS AND HIS HOW MUCH THIS ONE GUY HERE WAS ALL OVER HIM! I THINK HE LIKED IT. HIM! HE LIKED HIM. IF THIS IDIOT WASN’T STUCK ON BORING OLD NAT THEN I WAS BETTING ON THEM DOIN’ IT. YEAH!!! *pauses and smiles his widest smile* *blinks into an invisible void in the distance* PLEASE DON’T TELL NATASHA I CALLED HER BORING. OR-OR OLD.

Bruce gulped where he sat. “Maybe he can’t vouch for me. He was too trippy throughout his trip to space anyways. Maybe the lack of oxygen did it to him.”

The silence grew uncomfortable by the second as he exchanged a look with a camera while Clint just shook his head and let out a defeated “dude”.

Space Place

“Hey, where’s Loki?” you asked Javier while Lulu climbed up the bar stool in the small inn right by the farmer’s market that you had just passed. “Right behind you?” you looked past Javier before walking towards the way he had come- “but he’s not he-”

Your words were cut short by something you saw from the window, forcing the camera to shift on seeing the concern cloud your face towards the scene outside the window. Outside, four buffed up aliens stood surrounding Loki while he raised his hands a little like a white flag.

Instinct took over and you stepped out of the inn but stopped on the porch as Loki yelled, “No! Do not come any closer!” without making eye contact.

One of the buff guys did step closer, his face breathing down right into Loki’s. And Loki? He chuckled at the alien. “One more inch and I think we’ll be kissing, Kronk.”

Kronk the big boulder looking guy hissed at him. “You stepped on the wrong planet, Silvertongue. Hudon wants your head or your body. And he will make sure you pay up your dues.”

Loki tried to increase the distance between him and Kronk, moving back a little; enough to stop smelling his breath on him. “Wow. Looks like someone had a lot of raw Siluji fish today. Hehe. And I thought Hudon was on Myscul. Anyways. How about I talk to Hudon and offer him something that he cannot refuse. And both of us can get back to our respective business.” No matter how much he smiled, Loki did not seem to be getting through that guy.

“Hudon does not want to talk to you. He knows how you work, trickster. He will cut his ears off before he listens to you.”

Loki wanted to contradict the guy but shut his lips to be on the better side of this guy. “Okay. Fine. I will meet him in two hours then? I’ll even bring some good sushi for you.” Loki started to walk away from them when one of Kronk’s men caught hold of him and slapped black handcuffs onto his wrists.

“You are coming with us, traitor.”

The camera recorded Loki being dragged away in broad daylight while no one even batted an eye at the incident. You walked to the end of the porch- the end close enough to watch Loki being taken away as his brows reflected concern in your direction before disappearing behind the nearest stall of berries.

“Javi,” you uttered softly, your eyes still looking for Loki, “I think Loki’s in trouble. Oh, God. I think we are in trouble.”

The Foreigner’s Inn

The camera settled on the window sill and a pair of hands moved away to reveal Javier sitting back in the seat of the corner table far away from the bustle of the inn. You sat opposite him, nervously biting your nails and moving your leg under the table while Lulu sat right in the middle, facing the camera, drinking some green concoction you bought him with a few talons from the ones Loki handed you once you had landed on this planet. Javier’s blue eyes scrutinised the place before coming back to you. He tapped your hand for attention before signing something.

“Yeah,” you acknowledged with a nod, “a plan. We need to come up with a plan to save Loki. But we don’t know where they took him. Oh, shi-should we have followed them? Ah fuck! Now, we won’t know where they went. Maybe we should ask someone. But we don’t know what kind of guy Hudon is. What if he’s got eyes everywhere? Then if we ask someone about him, we’ll be the ones walking right into the lion’s den. And we’ll be the ones who will need saving. Okay okay okay okay okay okay. Right right right right right right.”

Javier knocked the table to get your spiralling conscience back to him, directing you to stop, breathe in and breathe out. And you did, pausing for a moment before things got worse in your head. “Right. We need to think this with a clear head. Um...what would Mr Stark tell us to do.”

With your back straight you looked right at Javier. “He would say stop, take a breather. Make sure that you are safe first. It’s fine to worry about Loki but he is a great strategist. He will definitely find a way out of trouble. But that does not mean we do not go look for him. No one gets left behind. Not even that ugly gourd. Help is always around. All you need to do is ask. And never forget that I love you no matter what. Now go save that son of a bitch.”

Javier stared blankly for a second before breaking into silent applause. “So, we need to find something or someone that can give information about that guy holding Loki. Where can we get someone who would know that and help us, complete strangers?”

Lulu, who, all this time had been swinging his bushy bottom from the chair, suddenly stopped, put the drink from his hand on the table and pressed his belly with a click.

[Hippie Sabotage’s Righteous starts playing]

Lulu got down from his chair and moved towards the door of the inn. You called after him but he did not stop and so you and Javier followed with the camera.

Lulu’s camera took in the boots stepping into the inn first. Then the ripped pants, going up to the open shirt revealing perfect abs. Then came those familiar faces carrying their smouldering looks with them still.

Javi’s camera recorded your expression of surprise followed by a hint of something schemy going on in those eyes. A smile was all that you gave them though. “Never thought I would see you guys again.”

The camera swerved to the rainbow k-pop donning shades that were being taken off as slowly as possible. White turned to look at you, the smoulder still holding strong on his face. “And leave you to fend for yourself, princess. Not on my watch.”

You: Yeah *mildly disgusted* I forgot how clingy he is.

“I need your help.”

Sky jumped where he stood and clapped his hand before slipping behind Mauve and blushing.

“Loki’s in trouble. I need to help him es-”

“Say no more,” White whispered while bringing his pale finger on your lips, which you smacked away. “But before we go on the adventure together, my beautiful princess, I urge you to imagine going on another adventure. Just you. And me. And planets with no one but us.”

“And me,” came a faint whisper from behind Mauve.

“Oh, my G-is there anyone of you who is a normal one?”

“I don’t know about normal,” Green came forward and tucked at the edges of his shirt, “but I can take him away from you and help you save your…”

You waited for him to finish his sentence.

“Boyfriend?” he sounded as unsure as the uneasy lines on his face. Before you could say anything to contradict him, White gasped and Sky whimpered. “Boyfriend! He is your boyfriend?! Oh my stars,” White cried, “what are the odds that fate made us meet when you were already someone else’s.”

You stood there, blinking, questioning whether it would be a good decision to tell him the truth. “So, because I have a boyfriend, you will stop pursuing me?”

Sky sniffled, White sighed in defeat and Orange clicked his tongue at the lost opportunity. “I am a creature of code. I would never even think pretty thoughts about someone else’s queen,” he assured with a weak vibration in his voice.

“Cool,” you exclaimed, “Loki is my boyfriend! And I am Y/N, hi. And you are…”

“Call us whatever you like,” Green replied with a smile. “We don’t have names. Just voice notes as a way of identification. Now, let’s get to work.”

“Oh my God,” Mauve groaned audibly and rolled his eyes under those shades, “finally. She definitely needs that work.”

You and the cameras looked at you, wondering what was so wrong to have blunt judgement thrown at you out of nowhere. “Why would I need work?”

Green gestured to you to move up the stairs of the inn with them. “You mentioned Loki being captured by the alien named Hudon.”

“Never mentioned that.”

“He is a classic brute,” Green continued, like he never heard you, as you walked next to him while Lulu got himself lifted into your arms, “who owns all the brothels of this base. He trades in creatures who can exploit their own bodies for what he pays them. The fact that Loki was taken away by his men points at the possibility of trade between them gone wrong.”

You gasped at the sudden revelation that was dawning upon you. “Wait. So, that could mean he wants payback from Loki. Does he want payback in...in cash or...in kind?”

Green’s eyes reflected sympathy for your situation. “Let’s hope, for you and Loki, that it is cash.”

“But wouldn’t that mean he has to sell his body?!”

Green nodded. Lulu’s camera caught White murmuring to Violet, “do you think that furry thing is their child?”

“We have something that might help you. And for that-” he stopped in front of a door of one room at the far end of the corridor, twisting the knob and clicking it open for you to enter- “we would need your help.”

“Okay,” you nodded before confusion took over your face and Lulu purred while rubbing against your shoulder, “what kind of help.”

Mauve sighed loudly, pushing you away- gently- to enter the room first. “We would need your help to do something about the drab that you humans call fashion on your planet,” he nearly puked while looking at your clothes.

“Hey! This shirt is really comfortable. So are these leggings and boots!”

Mauve screwed his face at you. “Oh, they better be! Because that hue-combination is a disaster,” he stressed.

You felt your head go back a little. "Just because I don't have much interest in fashion, I'm gonna let that pass. But I am pretty sure the Queer Eye won't stand for that insult."

"The Queer Eye would've made you into a walking weapon had they been in your vicinity darling," Mauve mentioned matter-of-factly and walked towards the lone dresser and dragged out the chair before tapping it. "Now sit your ass down and let me show you how it's done while Mr Green fills you in about everything."

You looked at Green. He nodded jovially. White on the other hand went and plopped on the bed. Violet went and splayed himself on the sofa, Red went for the window sill to go and brood there. Sky took the foot of the bed and made himself comfortable to look at you for the next two hours. Orange took off his shirt and trousers and went into the bathroom.

"Hey, Lulu," White called out from the bed, "put on a sexy getting-ready song."

Lulu got up on the dresser and pressed his stomach to play Rachel Bloom’s Sexy Getting Ready Song.

“Wait. Hold on,” you called out, making Mauve and Green stop in their tracks and Lulu pausing the song, “I...I gotta poop. Please get that orange pervert out of there?”

Hudon’s Whorehouse

A hush, beginning from the entrance, fell as the eyes followed the figure. A sweet yet strong melody seemed to follow that black-clad creature, stirring both fear and excitement in the witnesses; who completely missed the two companions walking on its either side.

Never feel too good in crowds With folks around when they're playing

The clack of those pointed heels seemed to be a pound at the doors of the devil himself and every minion that walked in the path she walked, only stopping in the room fit for a queen; nothing less. A seat was taken on the gold-framed sofa, legs spread in comfort and defiance of the one in charge, arms rested on the armrest while popping a grape in the mouth with lips painted red as the blood that flowed in her veins.

A creature with the body of a human- except for the extra pair of hands- and the head of a furry with antlers entered the hall, sitting opposite you. “Welcome to the house of Hudon!” he greeted, the gold on his antlers jingling like bells on Rudolph, “the finest whorehouse you would find in this system.”

“I will evaluate the ‘fine’ myself, Hudon,” you stated quite indifferently, your attention taken by a golden strawberry resting in your fingers, “how old is this rotten blasphemy.”

The anthems of rape, culture loud Crude and proud creatures baying

It was easy to get that accent on your tongue. The tone was smooth enough to show not much effort was being put to talk while the words were spoken like a dagger stabbing the listener with every breath.”

Hudon directed his men to take those old fruits away and to replace them with new ones. But you had already lost interest in them. Sitting straight up, you let your arms go back on the headrest, your suit jacket revealing the skin underneath, the acne on your chest from the sweat and dust revealing itself in full glory. Hudon nearly feels himself blackout with the sheer audacity of a human woman walk into his house and sit there as a client while making him- the one who runs the sex business- make him feel things that were quite transparent in his gaze.

All I've ever done is hide From our times when you're near me

“Here I am, out on a vacation from my boring home, looking for some fun and adventure when someone suggests to me your name and business,” you mutter loud enough for him to hear. “Hudon the hoarder. The one who has everything you can ask for. Anything out of your fantasy. You name it, he has it for you.”

“I do,” he agreed with a smile, interrupted just as he is about to start listing his merchandise.

“Oh, but I don’t think you do, Hudon.” You leaned forward, your legs still spread apart in those black trousers, your frame bent enough to reveal more and still reveal nothing at all, making Hudon’s eyes linger there far longer than he expected them to. “I don’t think you do. What could you possibly have that could seem human enough for my taste and yet not human at all, Hudon? What could you possibly have that could meet my demands, unlike the men on my planet? One who is not meant to be ruled and yet-” your voice turned to a whisper, and Hudon’s eyes were stuck on the hypnotising moment of your lips under that netted veil covering your smokey eyes- “he bends under my commands like a good dog because he knows he will get a treat if he behaves.”

Hudon gulped and blinked.

Honey, when you kill the lights and kiss my eyes I feel like a person for a moment of my life

“I am not here to have some cheap fun, Hudon. Nor some sloppy seconds. I want a challenge that I can smother between my thighs, making him question how he ended up there, under me. And then make him question how he can get under me, again.”

A silence proceeded your laced words. A long lingering silence which would have stretched even more had one of Hudon’s men not brought that shook fur-face back to the present.

“I I I I I think I have the perfect specimen for you, miss…”

“Lady. Lady...Morticia Addams,” you declared, blinking at Javier’s camera.

You: *cringing* I did not think this part through. But I did come up with a nice personality? *does a weak thumbs up*

“I will send for him immediately, Lady Morticia,” Hudon declared, getting and taking a bow, “and if he is not able to satisfy you, I will humbly present myself to you as a sacrifice.”

You: *deadpan* Pervert.

“If your specimen does not satisfy me, then mark my words, Hudon, you won’t find any piece of him in your excuse of a brothel.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a weak voice, walking out and scolding his guards to get him ‘Silvertongue’.

You noticed the two guards still in the hall by the door, looking at you and your companions. Javier moved from his place by the fireplace to the door, to let the tiny camera- courtesy of the rainbow k-pop- strapped to his chest take in the patient steps of the man of the hour; at the same time, directing with his hands to Lulu to resume his score.

But you don't know what hell you put me through To have someone kiss the skin that crawls from you

Loki, bare-chested and in chains, was walked towards your hall with four guards- two on front and two on back. This was the first time any of the cameras had seen so much of his bare skin. Neither had they seen so many muscles on that body that seemed so lean on the outside with the clothes on. The raven hairs snaked around his shoulders while his eyes were set at the goal in front of him: you. And if you did not know any better you would have thought those peach curtains were flying right and left to get a one-touch, one whiff of that God.

To feel your weight in arms I'd never use It's the god that heroin prays to

You almost choked on the juice you were offered on seeing Loki like that- in just his pants. Like a healthy supermodel straight out of a pin-up hidden in your childhood drawer. Quickly recovering and changing into the persona created for this place you leaned back on the sofa to admire the view when all five men came to a halt in front of you.

It feels good, girl, it feels good It feels good, girl, it feels good

“Hm,” you muttered, your eyes going up and down an apparently tight-jawed Loki, “decent. Where did you catch this fish?”

“Caught him fresh in the market today,” Hudon’s henchman answered, surprisingly in an Australian accent, “owed our master for quite some time. Will finally pay his debts now.”

It feels good, girl, it feels good Oh, to be alone with you

The laugh that came out of the prude was murky. You got up and nonchalantly waved your hand to make the guards stand away from the merch, letting you get a good three-sixty view. Loki could feel your eyes on him even when you stood behind him, carefully studying these marks on an otherwise flawless skin that ran all over his back and some did on arms, right down his wrist.

A wave of emotion washed over you on seeing them, which you hastily veiled for the sharp eyes lurking in the background. Clearing your throat, you took out your silver hair stick from the bun at the back and walked to face the frost giant.

There are questions I can't ask Now, at last, the worst is over

“Sit,” you commanded.

Loki’s eyes grew dark. The camera recorded the silent change of roles for a quick moment before Loki finally obeyed, getting down on his knees.

See the way you hold yourself Reel against your body's borders

You took a step to his side before looking at the guards still standing there. “What. You want in on the show as well?” Your raised-up brow was judging them hard at this moment.

The guards stood there looking at each other before one of them finally spilt. “We are not allowed to leave him alone with you till you sign the contract and make the payment.”

“Hm. Well, if that is the case-” you took another step to stand right behind Loki- “I will inspect this...merchandise before I make the payment.”

I know that you hate this place Not a trace of me would argue

The hair stick in your hand made its first contact with the bare skin on Loki’s back, promptly making his muscles move underneath that pale skin. A smile found its way to your lips. “Sensitive to touch, I see. I prefer virgin skin.” You dragged stick all the way from one end of those shoulder scales in the back to the other, taking light steps to move towards the front.

The camera zoomed in on the shadow of something brewing inside Loki’s eyes while his lips stretched ever so slightly with a thought only he knew. The stick came to the collar bone, travelling up his neck to land right below his chin, lifting it up to watch your tongue in between your teeth, peeking out for a look.

Honey, we should run away, oh, someday Our baby and her momma And the damaged love she made

“Say, boy,” you asked softly, letting the stick dig into that chin to raise it up further, “what does that mouth do.”

A chuckle rose in Loki’s chest and burst out to close his eyes before they could look at you in a new light. “They do things you wouldn’t want to know.”

But I don't know what else that I would do Than try to kiss the skin that crawls from you

Questioning- or pretending to question- his audacity you responded with a sly ‘uh-huh’ before getting down on one knee, letting both your arms rest on the other. “Well, it better-” your voice grew duskier by the minute while that thin stick landed on his lips, circling them- “do things unspeakable. Otherwise-” you gently pushed the stick in his mouth, and he took it in, wrapping his tongue around it- “what is the point of that pretty pretty mouth.”

Then feel your weight in arms I'd never use It's the god that heroin prays to

Javier could not help but record the drooling and uncomfortable faces of the guards standing by the door, half of them looking at each other, other half stuck on the hypnotic movements happening between the two of you; all of them standing with their hands hiding their bulges in those leather pants.