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otterskin · 3 years

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Dumb Details From the Loki Trailer I noticed but then got too serious about

First - apparently it’s not a trailer, so I guess we’ll get ‘Trailer 1′ later? ‘Exclusive Clip’ hardly seems accurate, but hey, I’m not Disney’s marketing division. I wouldn’t live in a shoebox if I was.

Dumb detail no. 1:

Owen Wilson’s jacket is...weird. Look closely.

And another shot:

Yeah...his jacket has a ‘reversed collar’. It’s a cut-out rather than cloth folding on top. Huh. What a strange design choice. What could it mean?

I’ve no idea, but that I watched the trailer enough times to notice this should concern you.

Detail No. 2

In this scene, we see what we can presume to be President Loki’s ‘Throne’. Notice the candy-canes. This is a Santa Claus throne, presumably from some mall Santa. This whole place might be in a mall, judging by the stuff in it.

But the Loki in this shot is not President Loki. Notice that he’s wearing brown pants, a thin brown tie, and the beige shirt he’s seen wearing in other parts of the trailer after he's apparently joined the TVA. President Loki wears black pants, a green vest and a wide green tie with a golden clip that resembles Loki’s little chevron he always has (more on that later).

So it would seem that Loki might meet President Loki here. President Loki might even be addressing him at the end of the trailer. It’s possible that his minions turn on him because there’s two Lokis and they don’t know which is the ‘imposter’.

Speaking of, there’s a minion with bicycle handlebars grafted to a football helmet here, likely meant to resemble Loki. I dig it. There’s also cans of food scattered among the rubbish here. Makes sense that food production is non-existent since everyone has resorted to wearing license plates and spoons. Love how tattered the whole aesthetic is.

This reminds me of the opening Michael Waldron’s script ‘Worst Guy of All Time’, which featured a similar post-apocalyptic setting after the ‘worst guy’ ruins everything and makes himself king of the ashes. That’s likely what’s happened here, but I hope that Loki isn’t anything like Logan Paul, who was the inspiration for that title character.

Ah, the mysterious female character watching a meteor shower WAY TOO CLOSE UP. But my eyes are drawn to one thing...

What is that oblong object with a shiny handle? Could it be...

A sword? I do love swords. Did you know there’s a bunch of pictures of me in the stock photos for ‘Fencing?’ That’s my cred for loving swords.

I suspect that this female character will be an amalgamation of Amora (shudder) and Sylvie and an alternate Loki of some kind. This sword is currently in her possession, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it or another timeline version of it becomes the Loki Show’s Loki′s weapon.

Loki has lacked a ‘weapon of his own’ in the MCU for quite some time. I mean, yes, he has his little knives, but they are many and disposable and something he chose for himself, rather than the two legendary weapons wielded by Odin and Thor, Gungnir and Mjolnir. In fact, throughout his appearances, Loki has seemed to want such a thing of his own - he briefly had Gungnir, and then the Gungnir-like scepter, and even tried to lift Mjolnir.

One might ask why Odin would’ve overlooked such an obvious show of favouritism. Why give Thor a storied weapon and leave Loki empty-handed? Heck, even Hela had the Necroblade.

In Thor 1, we might’ve assumed that the Casket of Ancient Winters was perhaps intended one day to be given to Loki, as it is shown with Mjolnir in the Vault and thus connected to it and the children who would inherit it. But in the comics, Odin did have another weapon of storied history put away for his second son: Gram the Sword.

It was locked for eons by Odin in a special vault which required five keys to be opened, and it was meant to be for Loki if he be worthy.[2] The five keys were infused by Odin with the powers of "journeys", "endurance", "secrets", "new beginnings", and "brotherhood", respectively.[3]

The sword, like everything else in comics, has a complicated history full of take-backs and twists, but let’s just leave it at ‘it’s a representation of Loki’s worthiness and belonging in the trifecta with Odin and Thor as a King of Asgard’. It gives him ‘equality’.

In the original mythology, it’s wielded by Sigurd to kill the dragon Fafnir, and the only relation it has to Loki is that Loki is partially responsible for Fafnir existing in the first place (my username is nod to this myth by the by. Sorry Ottär.) But hey, maybe that means we’re getting a dragon? The Fafnir would be very cool.

Or it could just be a bit of rebar in this mining quarry.

Then again...it appears somewhere else...

It’s easier to see in motion, but that’s a sword swinging on this person’s back.

So the hooded figure is this lady...shall we call her Amylkie? Does that mean she’s the antagonist of this show? Well...maybe, but I suspect the true antagonist is foreshadowed here -

So, what’s going on here? A young girl (Young Amylkie? Some other TVA prisoner that the guard is watching over? An oracle, A Norn, or a kid who wandered off from the tour group in a basilica somewhere?) She’s giving Mobius M. Mobius a...piece of chocolate. Maybe he saw a Dementor, I dunno. I suspect it’ll be a MacGuffin of some kind later. He looks pretty concerned here, which contrasts with his ‘another day at the office’ blaséness when dealing with Loki. But of course this is the eye-catcher:

So, Norse Mythology. It’s been Christiannized. You can thank Snorri Sturluson for that, but you can google all about him later. Let’s just say that he made many Norse figures into equivalents for Christian ones. Baldur is Jesus, pure and a sacrificial lamb who dies for a greater good. And the devil is...Loki. Something the Marvel comics and the MCU have continued.

Here we have a devil, dressed in green and with a distinct shape on his chest:

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

Ah. I’d say that cinches it. This is meant to be Loki. If you look at the devil’s hair, it also resembles Loki’s, being shoulder-length and black.

So, what’s devil-Loki doing? Laying an egg? Trying out a foot massager? For a second I thought it was a moon, but we see the moon over his left shoulder, amongst the stars. Which means this is - probably the Earth.

...Dammit; I live there.

So Earth is barren and being devoured by flames, likely caused by this Loki sitting atop of it (in a throne, no less). Aw gee, things look pretty bad, don’t they?

But wait - what’s that? Under the Earth (and, possibly, under the earth)?

It’s a plant. A shoot, to be exact.

Back to Ragnarok for a second. Ragnarok isn’t the apocalypse (something we see a lot of in this trailer - all of it seems to be exploring the end of days). Ragnarok is the fire meant to wipe out the old and fertilize the ground for the new. And after the gods have died, what happens? Well, Baldur emerges from Hel, one of the only surviving gods (hmm, seems him dying worked out, didn’t it?). He’s joined by Líf and Lífþrasir, who are the new first man and woman, who’s names mean ‘Life’ and who are pictured, usually, with plants and new life. It is they who are tasked who growing a new Yggdrasil after the destruction of the old. The previous first man and woman are Ask and Embla, meaning Ash Tree and Vine/Elm tree, so there’s a theme there.

So a new sprout, possibly a tree, growing out of the destruction of the old.

This fits with Loki’s role as understood in mythology. He checks the arrogance of the gods, including when they tried to achieve immortality (sorry, Baldur, nothing personal), and that keeps the gods at their best. After Loki is imprisoned, the gods become weak, unhelpful and foolish, and Yggdrasil starts to rot. Eventually Loki escapes and returns along with Surtur (who also resembles this figure) to burn it all to the ground. This is also referenced in Thor:Ragnarok, with Loki releasing Surtur in the Vault, a place of thematic importance to Loki and one that represents the hidden secrets and sins of Asgard). You could say Ragnarok continued into Infinity War, where Loki played an important part in aiding Thanos’ destruction, giving up the stone to protect his brother and essentially dooming the rest of the universe - but also ultimately leading to its salvation, even if, like Myth Loki, he wasn’t around to see it.

So, we see Amylkie literally start a fire in the trailer -

- in fact, this whole trailer is awash in flame -

It’s fire, fire everywhere and she’s setting them!

It’s possible Amylkie’s our big bad, but I think there’s a chance she’s either a red herring, or, much like how Loki ‘worked’ with Thanos in The Avengers, she is the pawn of a greater foe -

- a Loki bent on destruction, for some reason or other. The TVA is obviously aware that this is the case, and it seems like they might be trying to ‘fight fire with fire’ by enlisting one Loki to combat another. The villain could be President Loki, since there's evidence of 2 Lokis in that scene - or maybe that's one of many Lokis, and the Big Bad Loki is being played by Hugh Grant as Old Loki. In any case, it would appear that Loki will be coming face-to-face with the worst versions of himself, and many of them. And, if I’m right about this scene:

...Loki will likely eventually discover that even his ‘good’ timeline ended in the destruction of his people and home, plus his own gruesome and torturous death. Although I think the TVA will keep that from him, and just show him the happy parts in an effort to inspire ‘good behaviour’. Until Loki inevitably discovers the rest of how that timeline played out and realize he’s been lied to. I don’t imagine he’ll take that very well...

Damn, even our ‘hero’ Loki is burning stuff down! Does this mean that Loki is doomed, always meant to be an avatar of death and toasty destruction?

Well...let’s go back to that stained glass.

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

And there’s something else...the bottom of the Earth is being lit up, and not by fire. Light appears to be coming off this little plant.

What colour is this plant again? That’s right, green. Green is the colour of new life and growth and change and...hang on, I’ve heard that before, too...

Hang on hang on HANG ON... let me have a look at the shape again.

That’s...a letter. An L? For Loki? Like in the title sequence?

Wait...no, a different letter. An older letter. After all, Loki is old Norse. How do you spell his name in that again?

ᛚᛟᚲ ᛁ -

And ENHANCE on that third letter!

This, my friends, is a Kenaz/Kaunaz, or what would become 'K' in our alphabet. It is also known as the 'Loki Rune' (and the Ulcer Rune, for some reason. I suspect Odin understands why). It’s used to spell his name, but is also used on his own to represent him. Heck, it's even his Superman 'S' in the comics:

Runes are more than letters - they are symbols for concepts. So what else does it mean?

Primarly, it means ‘torch’.

And also ‘knowledge’ (ken). As well as ‘growth, change, the search for truth, decay, arrogance, elitism, feminine, kinship and creativity.’

...Okay, that’s a lot, but you have to admit it fits.

More specifically, it means ‘Mastery of the Fire’. As in, someone who has learned to tame fire so that it is helpful, not harmful. To bring light and, symbolically, knowledge.

There’s another way Loki’s been associated with fire - in the Wagner Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opera that inspired much the Thor films’ aesthetic and certainly their helmets, Loki is called ‘Loge’, which means ‘Fire’. He’s usually dressed to match, too -

Many trickster figures are associated with fire. They are usually called ‘Fire-bringers’ - See: Raven, Lucifer, Prometheus, etc. They are often complex figures with a foot in different worlds, but who nonetheless help mankind with the gift of ‘fire’ - although they usually pay for it, and tend to be self-destructive.

(Side note. Lucifer means light-bringer, which is what luciferase is named after. Because it glows. Which is helpful in labs. In case someone needed to know that.)

Moving from a destructive fire-starter to a fire-bringer seems like a great character arc for Loki to take, especially given his rehabilitation in pop culture, the comics, and even wider culture. Loki has gone from being seen as an evil, deviant, destructive character to one who’s seen as a patron of the arts and creativity, of stories rather than lies. Heck, some scholars of Norse Mythology even posit that he’s the closet thing to a protagonist Norse Mythology has, so I guess that backfired, Snorri!). Being dressed in green and with the sprout clearly also being stylized after his Kaunaz, there’s foreshadowing that he’ll be capable of growing good things even out of ashes.

So, to sum up: Being ‘Satan’ sounds pretty bad, but with a little letter re-arranging like we see in the title sequence, you can be...

...practically a saint. Maybe even a saviour.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

#loki #trailer #details #meta #theories #theory #explanation #thor #tva #santa #devil #snorri sturluson whinging #christmas #fire #kaunaz #loki trailer

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realityhelixcreates · 3 years

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The Mystic Garden: Sowing

Chapters: 1/5

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: PG

Warnings: death

Characters: Loki(Marvel)

Additional Tags: Infinity War Doesn’t Exist, Everybody Lives, Mutants Exist In The MCU, The Reparations Of Loki Of Asgard

Summary: Despite S.H.I.E.L.D. becoming a smaller and more selective organization, Loki still finds himself assigned to them upon Asgard's arrival on Earth. Required to perform a kind of specialized community service, Loki is paired up with another outcast, of a kind he is not familiar with: A mutant named Iris.

Loki of Asgard was a very beautiful man.

Loki of Asgard was a very powerful man.

Loki of Asgard was a very dangerous man.

And that was about all that anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. could agree on about Loki of Asgard.

To some, he was an asshole. To others, perfectly charming. To yet more, he was polite, but distant. Funny. Serious. Sarcastic. Aloof. Morbid. Morose. Intimidating. Shy. Threatening. Angry. Flirty. Each person Iris asked described him in a different way.

To Iris, he was a looming presence, staring her down with searing intensity. Her shiny, brand new partner. Joy.

“So you're the unfortunate one.” He grumbled. “Winner of the worst lottery this organization has ever thrown.”

“I'm Iris Devereaux.” She said, holding out her hand. “Pleased to finally meet you.”

He glanced at her hand with a sneer. “No you aren't.”

“Beg pardon?”

“No one is pleased to meet me.”

“Oh. Well. Here's the thing: you don't decide that for me.”

He raised one perfect eyebrow, tilting his head back.

“I don't tolerate men telling me what I do and don't think or feel. Only I can know that. Now, you gonna shake my hand or not, Mister 'of Asgard'?”

Loki harrumphed. “As you demand, Miss 'of the Riverbank'.”

“What?” Iris took his hand and gave it a firm shake. He allowed it, but drew his hand back the instant she released it.

“Your surname. It means 'riverbank'. Didn't you know? Named after a goddess, and yet you seem to have lived humbly.”

“I'm named after a flower.” Iris corrected.

“The flower was named after the goddess.” He re-corrected. “The personification of the rainbow, a messenger of the gods. She who waters the clouds with her ocean-filled pitcher, flying on glowing, golden wings to carry the pleas of mankind to the gods they prayed to. As she connected the sea and the sky, her rainbows connected mankind to the gods. Just as our Bifrost connected Asgard to Midgard with the beauty and magnificence of the rainbow.”

“Oh, please.” Another agent groaned from their nearby work station. Loki glared.

“Well, that's...informative.” Iris said. Was this what Loki was like? Standoffish, unless given something to talk about? He was certainly well-spoken. “I'm pretty sure my parents just had the flower in mind though.”

“A delicate goddess, an ephemeral rainbow, or a nodding blossom on the riverbank: it all paints a pretty picture, does it not?” He asked.

Iris narrowed her eyes. “What are you trying to say?”

“I wonder.” Loki said.

“Will you two just go get some coffee or something?” the other agent snapped. “I've got to finish this by ten hundred.”

“Fine, jeez, keep your vest on.” Iris said. Loki glared once again. “C'mon, there's a thousand break rooms on this old boat. We can take one over for ourselves.”

*****

“Who was that cur?” Loki demanded as Iris programmed the coffee machine for two cups. “Who does he think he is talking to? I am still a prince of Asgard, and a god! No pencil-pushing desk monkey speaks to me that way!”

“Hey, cool your chops.” Iris said, getting the mugs. “The pencil-pushing desk monkeys keep this whole show running. Who do you think runs this boat? Where does our intel come from? Who finds out if it's any good or not? Who does the budgets, communication, tech, cleanup, triage, programming, and supplies? The heroes get the fame, sure, but we're ultimately expendable. These guys own this shindig. Do you like caramel?”

“I...might?” He said, and Iris added a squirt of syrup to each steaming mug, then handed him his. “And you might be expendable, but I most certainly am not.”

“Cheers, bro. I'll drink to that.” Iris raised her mug in his direction and took a long gulp of fresh, caramel coffee. Oh boy, this was gonna be fun.

Loki seemed perplexed, either by the flavor of the coffee, or her casual acceptance of his declaration.

“Not that it will come to that.” He backtracked. “As my partner, you will have the advantage of my protection.”

“Joy. So, your highness, what's landed you here? You aren't exactly known as a friend to mankind. Why join S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

He harrumphed as Iris took another long pull from her mug. “You say 'join' as if I was given a choice. This is penance, nothing more. It was decided when Asgard had to relocate here, that I would work for a 'humanitarian' organization. Save lives equal to those whose deaths I was responsible for. Work towards paying off the cost it took to rebuild. And so I perform the Reparations of Loki of Asgard, defending this realm from itself. Once I have accomplished this, I will leave.”

“Mhm. And how far have you gotten?”

“It's only been a few months.” He huffed. “So not nearly as far as I'd like. How did they lure you in?”

Iris shrugged. “Job's a job. This one is steady, has good benefits, and it certainly keeps me engaged. It's no daily grind, that's for sure.”

“But with your power, could you not be a leader of some sort, rather than in a subservient 'expendable' position?”

“Ah. You've read my file.”

“Of course I did. As I assume you've read mine. Prying things. Why do they need so many personal details? But yes. It mentioned that you have an unusual power, beyond others of your type? Why are you not in charge?”

“Hoo boy.” Iris took a seat across from him. “You don't know much about human social structure, do you?”

Loki frowned. “It was never supposed to matter.”

“Well, it matters now. And it's mattered to me my whole life, because I can't just run off home to fairy tale land, so it looks like we both have no choice but to deal with it. You know what a mutant is?”

“I know what the word means, but I don't know how it applies to you.” Loki said, perplexed. “You look like any other human to me, so I assume it is something internal?”

Now it was Iris' turn to harrumph. “Well, you look like any other Asgardian to me, so I guess we've both got something going on under our skin, don't we? Tell you what: you explain to me what a 'frost giant' is, and I'll explain what a 'mutant' is in this context.”

“And if I refuse?” Loki sneered.

“Then I do too.” Iris said simply.

Loki stared at her across the table, the intensity of his gaze as hot as the coffee, and Iris tried her best to pretend to be unaffected by it. It wasn't that he wasn't intimidating, but an unfortunate lifetime of bigotry and constant background danger had given her a skin as thick as wood. Well, her mutation had done that as well.

“I can do this all day.” He warned.

“Alright.” Iris shrugged.

A few very awkward minutes passed, a silence spent sipping coffee, until her supervisor, Chris Timmitz, interrupted.

“Iris! Loki. There you are! I've been looking for you two. Lucky to find you in the same place, you've got a job coming up.”

“Oh yeah? Lay it on me boss.” Iris said. Loki grimaced.

“We think we've got another possible HYDRA shelter, kinda out in the open this time. We need more intel. That's where you come in.”

“It's located next to a forest, isn't it?”

“A meadow, actually.” He said a bit sheepishly. “We need you to, uh, plant some bugs on the property.”

“Ha ha.” Iris said flat-voiced.

“Aw c'mon, I didn't come up with the terminology.”

“Was that some kind of insult?” Loki asked darkly. “Do you degrade your employees?”

“Well, it wasn't meant to be.” Chris explained. “It's not my fault the language is what it is. And what about you? Iris may act tough, but she's really sweet and sensitive, so you'd better act right-”

“Or what?” Loki challenged.

“Chris. Cut it out. We don't have to be chummy, we just have to get the job done.” Iris said. “So give us the details.”

“Right, right. We're starting Tuesday. It seems to be when the fewest people are there...”

****

Iris crawled through the tall grass of the meadow, the plants moving naturally around her, so as to not alert her enemies that she was there. The shelter was an old schoolhouse apparently, that HYDRA agents had taken over, ostensibly to restore the historical building and turn it into a museum...all the while sheltering their agents from the law, and pushing revisionist history in an effort to spread their doctrine through yet another small town. They had done this so many times before, changing the narrative, changing the perceptions of the people.

HYDRA had many heads. It was the symbolism of the thing. Some of those heads infiltrated governments, and worked to influence world policy. Other heads overran small towns, influencing the vote, which served to make the jobs of the others easier.

Some people in S.H.I.E.L.D. likened them to a virus to be quarantined, cut out, and destroyed. Iris saw them as a sickness to be cured. Anyone could change their minds, given reason. The trick was to find the reason. That wasn't her job, and she didn't think she'd be good at it, but she knew that there were anti-radicalization support groups popping up here and there now, and no wonder, with the state of the current administration. Iris knew HYDRA must have gotten their voice very well entrenched into the government.

But Iris was more directly concerned with these little heads, with blocking their progress, slowing them down, and just generally inconveniencing them.

She'd gotten the usual stares and glares, upon entering the little town, but it was hard to tell if it was HYDRAs influence, or just typical American small town prejudice when faced with a dark-skinned stranger. Either way, she wouldn't want to live here.

She settled down in the grass, stretched out on her belly, and the sod began to part beneath her. Loki, who had simply made himself invisible with his alien magics, and crept along beside her, was clearly capable of sneaking with the best of them. He barely displaced a blade of grass. He crouched down beside her.

“We are stopping here?” He whispered. “How shall you place your devices? Will you throw them?”

“No, My aim isn't that good.” Iris said, ignoring his smug “Mine is.”, and beginning to sink into the newly exposed soil.

“Uh...Miss Devereaux...are you aware that the earth appears to be swallowing you?”

“Don't worry about it, it's fine.” She wriggled her feet out of her flimsy sandals and into the dirt. She was positioned to just be able to see the old schoolhouse over the edge of the trough that had been excavated beneath her. That was all she needed.

“Certainly. Nothing out of the ordinary here.”

“You're one to talk. Hand me the bugs.”

There were only three of them: tiny things, no larger than the creatures they were named after. Iris took them, then tore a packet of seeds open with her teeth, pouring the contents into her hands.

“This is going to take me a pretty long time. Couple of days, probably. What I'm going to need the most from you is tending. Every hour, give me something to drink. Every four hours, give me something to eat. Make sure no one sweeps through here with a lawn mower or a fire. I'm not going to be able to move, and will likely be in something of a trance. Sorry I won't be better company.”

“That's a lot of orders coming from one little human.” Loki grumbled.

“My life is in your hands.”

“That's...a bit better.”

She pressed her hand against the earth in front of her, and concentrated.

For some minutes it didn't appear to Loki that anything was happening at all. Then the first of the thin, white roots began squirming out from between her fingers, roping around her hand.

Loki stretched out in the tall grass next to her as the roots slowly formed a ragged, grasping ball of pale worms against her chestnut skin. He remained silent for hours alongside her, dutifully holding a small bottle of water to her lips every hour or so. As she had said earlier, Iris lay very still, and very trance-like, drinking without acknowledging that she even knew he was there.

“Hmmm.” He whispered. “I hate being ignored, you know. I wonder if you can even hear me? Could you explain what it is that you are doing, or are you so far away that you cannot even answer? What would happen if I touched you right now, Goddess-Flower of the Riverbank? Would I break your concentration? Would you even notice?”

He opened one of the little ration packs, half of which were specifically labeled with Iris' name. Within were little brown cubes that smelled deeply unappetizing to Loki, formed from a slurry of many mysterious ingredients.

“A special recipe, just for you? S.H.I.E.L.D. must value you more highly than you have previously stated. Here you go, Bright Blossom.” He held the little cube to Iris' lips, which parted automatically to accept the cube. “And so I have become no more than a nutrient dispensary. How far I have fallen.”

He fed her the cubes, one by one. Every brush of her petal-velvet lips against his fingers tempted him to push them into her mouth, a temptation that brought a chuckle to his own lips. There were only so many games he would be allowed to play, before S.H.I.E.L.D. kicked him out entirely. He wasn't attached to S.H.I.E.L.D., or anyone within the organization, but working for them kept him active, kept him relevant, kept him engaged, and most importantly, kept him out of prison. Community service was infuriating, but he had experienced the soul-crushing torment of solitary confinement, and this was much preferable.

A cold, uncomfortable cell? Or laying in the grass on a warm, sunny day, hand-feeding a pretty girl?

He was very tempted to lay his hand on the small of her back, where her uniform had ridden up just enough to show a strip of glistening skin, but it wouldn't have the proper punch with Iris in this deep trance. Without reaction, there was no fun.

The roots winding their way up her arms were somewhat unsettling. Was this what her file had meant when it noted that she was a 'mutant'? That she could cause plants to sprout? Could other humans do that?

Hours later, when the sun had set, and the roots had wriggled into the soil all around her, and crawled their way up to her shoulders, Iris stirred.

“Mph. Man, I'm sore.” She complained.

“Ah, welcome back. There is a powerful desire I need you to fulfill.”

“Not on company time. There's trees over there, go behind them and, uh, work it out? Also, for next time, I really don't need to know.”

“You flatter yourself, or you underestimate me. What I want, is for you to explain what you are doing. Are you making those plants grow?”

“Oh. Yeah, basically. You read my file; you know I'm a mutant.”

“Yes, but I do not know the significance of the term.” Loki admitted. “Is it this? This magic you wield?”

“It's not magic, it's just...it's genetic. I was born this way. At first it was just little things. Gardens grew better wherever I went, I didn't get hungry as much when there was sunlight, I didn't need to drink as much as long as there was water on the ground. I grew up in a way rural community tucked away in the Everglades. We were real poor, so being outside and having wet and muddy feet was just normal for all the kids.

As I got older, the signs got more obvious. I can do things that plants can do. I can direct their growth, and I sorta...change with the seasons, depending on where I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“Eh, stick around long enough and you'll see. Anyway, people aren't too fond of mutants, and it got...tough. To live at home, I mean. So I went out into the wild, and I did pretty well there, but S.H.I.E.L.D. found me and offered me something else. Not every mutant is like me. There's a lot of different ways to be a mutant, it's unpredictable. Some folks can fly, others can turn their bodies into metal, and some can heal wounds to their body in seconds. I manipulate plants, and am, in some ways, like them.”

“I see. And you are causing these plants to grow for what purpose?”

“Spying purposes. It's gonna take a few days, but these vines will tunnel through the ground, all the way up to the school house. When they break ground, I'll send one of them up that tree there, another one around the frame of that window there, and the third down the chimney. You saw those little devices? They're holding those in packets of leaves, and will position them so that they remain hidden, but they consist of audio, video, and heat signature recorders. Once I've gotten them in place, we'll leave. That's all this mission is; bugs on plants.”

“Then why am I here?” He wondered. “You seem to have this well in hand.”

“Someone's gotta feed me. And make sure I don't get found out. There's rumors you can make magic illusions. That's probably why. You can hide us both from any eyes or cameras.”

“And I have.” Loki said proudly. “And fed and...watered you, Little Blossom. What else do you need from me?”

“To do it all again tomorrow.” Iris said. Then she dropped her head into the nest of roots, and settled down to sleep.

*****

Iris was awake and in her trance just as the first light of dawn kissed the horizon. Loki had been awake even before that, every swish of grass or crackle of leaves grabbing his attention.

“Rest.” He commanded her. “I have not the need of it that you do. Never forget: I am no weak mortal. You require a large amount of sleep, but I am all the greater.”

Iris had snorted at the bravado, but accepted the cubes he fed her, and fell into her trance, the roots curling further and further around her body.

Loki idly wondered how far the roots would go. Would they cocoon Iris entirely, prompting her to 'hatch' into a new form? Would they drag her down into the earth, entombing her away from Loki forever? Or would they just die back?

He watched people come and go to the old schoolhouse, working on its restoration. They looked for all the world like normal workers; he didn't even believe any of them to be armed. Not all HYDRA agents were combatants, after all. Just as many of them were spies, thieves, politicians, PR specialists and spin doctors.

Ever since what the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents called 'The Big Reveal', both organizations had been frantically rebuilding. S.H.I.E.L.D. more slowly, taking only the best, only the most trustworthy. Loki supposed he should be proud, even though he knew he was only there as a glorified prisoner.

HYDRA's recruits seemed to be skyrocketing, as they took to the internet in search of easily radicalized young men-mostly men, and boys-to bolster their numbers. They found plenty of them, and quickly, but they were sloppy and unpredictable. All too often, one let their ego overcome their loyalty to the cause, an event that almost always led to public confrontation and violence. But the news media-already infiltrated, most likely-was always quick to exonerate or sympathize with a young white man.

HYDRA disgusted Loki, even back when he had 'convinced' a small cell to work with him. No one group knew what the others were doing. There was a severe lack of communication between cells. Yes, Loki supposed it kept them safe from discovery, but he found it inefficient. A waste of potential by people more invested in the pageantry of a secret society, than by the end goal they hoped to achieve.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was little better, in his opinion, but at least its people were more serious about their work. Communication was more open, their goals more achievable. It felt like they made a difference, whether they really did or not. And they didn't waste potential. HYDRA would simply kill someone like Iris, S.H.I.E.L.D. found her valuable enough to spend resources on her. Under Loki's regime, had he succeeded, Iris, and all people like her, would have been of personal interest to him. All of these so-called 'mutants' would have been given places of high honor. Loki did not waste potential.

But that wasn't worth spending more time dwelling on. It was never meant to happen in the first place. When and where he would rule was yet to be discovered, but it would not happen until he was finished with his penance.

He provided Iris with her water, barely able to see her under all the roots. It was no wonder that she could not go into the field without a partner; she could not be ready for combat, couldn't even eat on her own! If they had to run, was he just supposed to tear her from the root wrapping and toss her over his shoulder? Would disconnecting her like that cause her harm?

He would have to ask next time she woke.

A young man approached, wielding an unfamiliar device. Loki was immediately on high alert. Was that some kind of weapon? He wandered all the way up to the verge of the grasses, gazing placidly out over the meadow. This was a HYDRA agent? He was barely out of adolescence! But from what Loki remembered of his brothers youthful declarations of hatred towards the Jotunn, radicalization did indeed start young.

“Naw, I think it must have been a glitch.” He said into his lapel. “There's nothing out here, not even trails in the grass.” He paused, listening. “Naw. Maybe it was a coyote? There's plenty of wild animals that wander around out here. My bro swears he saw a puma last year. Anyway, I'm gonna trim the grass, since I'm here anyway. If you're really worried, come out and check your cameras. I ain't gonna do it for you.”

With that, the young man yanked a long string, attached to a pod on the device, causing the thing to roar to life. Its loud snarl effectively covered Loki's startled gasp, his invisible eyes wide at the noise and the fact that everything within a six inch radius of the device's head was shredded and flung in all directions.

He had to maintain the illusion. But Iris was right in the horrible things' path. It would rip right into her face.

Unacceptable.

Loki rolled over on top of her, covering her body, roots and all, with his own. He ducked his head just as the device passed by. The force was like a high speed whip, tearing at his hair. It would have lacerated his scalp, possibly to the bone, had he been human. It would have certainly injured Iris, whom he kept safely tucked under his body, protected by his armor and tough, godly flesh.

The young man made a few more passes, working his way down the edge of the meadow, leaving Loki with a stinging scalp from his impromptu haircut, eventually leaving after finishing a rough, sub-par job.

Loki kept still, concentrating on maintaining the illusion, now including fresh cut grass. He feared it had wavered under the assault he had suffered, but the young man hadn't seemed to notice. Hours passed with no movement from Loki, just watching as various people came and went, doing their jobs. Eventually they all trickled away.

The sun had grown low in the sky before Loki felt Iris stir.

“Um. Loki? What are you doing? Did something happen?” Iris asked, her voice muffled by his body.

“Pardon me.” He rolled back into the grass as Iris shook her face free of the grasping roots. “Some boy came through here with a horrible device that tore up the grasses. It was necessary to cover you.”

Iris sniffed the air. “Someone cut the grass. Geez, did he hit you? Your hair!”

“Is it bad?” He asked, then covered his vanity. “It doesn't matter. I made good on my word. Here, eat.” He held food to her mouth. It would be almost too bad when this was over. Feeding her was so easy, so satisfying, and his hair would grow back anyway. If only all missions could be this easy.

Iris ate, watching the sunset, Loki laying on his side in the grass next to her, just watching her. Roots and shredded grass decorated her body, cube after cube passing her lips.

“Miss Devereaux, how will you remove yourself from those roots? If I must tear them, will it hurt you?”

Iris shook her head. “No, the roots aren't attached to me. If we pull this off without a hitch, I'll direct them into the soil. But if we have to get out in a hurry, you can tear them; it won't hurt me.”

“That's good to know.” Loki rolled onto his back, hands behind his head. “There is much still to learn about this realm. What is this that you are eating?”

“You sure you wanna know?” She asked.

“I am suddenly less curious, now that you have said that.” He admitted. “They do smell incredibly unappealing.”

“It's fertilizer, essentially. Fish emulsion and seaweed, blood and bone meal, fermented vegetables, all mashed together. Sounds super gross, I know,” She said at his disgusted expression. “But it's really good for me. My body absorbs it so efficiently that there isn't even any waste. Like roots inside me that absorb everything.”

“Are there? Roots inside you, I mean.”

“Sometimes.” Iris said quietly. “Maybe.”

“It bothers you? I see. It removes you from humanity. Sets you apart. And yet, you think that makes you inferior, rather than the other way around?”

“I'm not better than anybody else.” Iris said.

“You think not? Is there anyone else in this world who can do what you can do? How many people have your S.H.I.E.L.D. actively recruited? They came to find you specifically, why would they do that? Because you were completely average? You are a valued agent of a semi-clandestine organization bent on world improvement. You have been partnered to a god. You are above-average, Iris. Why is that difficult to accept?”

“Are you 'above average' in Asgard, Loki? Have you always been celebrated for it?”

“Mostly.”

“I haven't. I've been despised. I've been misunderstood. I've been coddled and hidden away by my parents in an attempt to protect me. I've been discriminated against by strangers, and teachers, and employers, and neighbors whose kids I grew up with. By those same kids.

I walked out into the wild one day, and didn't come back. I never planned on coming back, never planned on seeing another person ever again. But S.H.I.E.L.D. weren't the first to find me. There were two others. There was a man, a strange old man who could fly. He floated down from the sky, and told me that as a mutant, I was naturally superior to all other humans. He wanted me to come with him, said he was building some grand future for mutantkind, as if we were a different species.”

“Who was this man?” Loki asked, intrigued.

“No idea. I told him to leave. It wasn't long after I had left home, and I really didn't want to go back to any kind of civilization. I was kinda fantasizing about becoming some kind of cryptid, you know? The Everglades Swamp Witch, or something like that.

Then the botanists came. A whole group of them, trying to catalog Ghost Orchids. They're endangered, and people keep stealing them, and wrecking up their habitat. But I knew where they were. All two thousand of them. And I convinced them that I was in contact with all the remaining plants, so if any went missing after their expedition, I'd know, and come hunting for them.”

She grinned. “Like I said, Swamp Witch vibes. They even believed me!”

“So you cannot actually do that?” Loki asked. The stars had come out, forming unfamiliar shapes in the night sky. His eyes could pick out fainter lights than a humans could, and he admired the active beauty of this part of the universe while eating from one of the non-specialty ration packs.

“Well, I can, but not automatically. And not that far away. I have to be closer to a plant to really sense it, and I have to be trying really hard. Like, if I wanted to figure out where the nearest maple tree was, I would have to concentrate on that, and block out all the grass. But a maple has a different...I guess you could call it a signature? A different signature than grass does. A Ghost Orchid grows on trees, and is basically just a ball of roots when it's not blooming. Kinda like this-” Iris nodded at the roots tangled around her. “But way smaller. It looks like nothing, almost. They're very hard to spot. But they have that different signature than the tree they grow on, and I can follow that to where they are.”

“So you found all their plants, as if by magic.”

“Yeah, and they paid me pretty well for it, and I sent the money home to my parents, and then the botanists went home and blabbed. Next thing I know. S.H.I.E.L.D. is on my tail.”

“Because you were friendly to botanists?”

“Well...I might have also...sabotaged a development project.” Iris said sheepishly. “But it was right on the edge of the National Park, and I didn't let anybody get hurt! And I'm pretty sure it was dubiously legal anyway.”

The edges of Loki's mouth curled, even as his eyebrows lifted.

“What's this? You're 'shy and sensitive' I was told. Was I sold a bill of goods? Are you, in fact, a naughty little mutant?”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Ugh, don't joke. Naughty little mutants end up dead.”

The amusement drained from his face.

“You would be celebrated in Asgard.” He said.

“We aren't in Asgard.” She answered. “The only thing that matters is where we are now. Those guys in there? They'd kill us both just for being born. They'd make it so that no one like us could ever be born again. When S.H.I.E.L.D showed up, in their black uniforms and started introducing themselves as 'agents', I thought that's what they had come for. The government was there to kill me.

At that point, I'd been off the grid for over a year, and I didn't know anything about the S.H.I.E.L.D./HYDRA internet explosion. But when they started talking about rebuilding as a humanitarian organization, dedicated to the protection of people-marginalized people-from, like, terrorist groups and hostile aliens, I realized they weren't there to kill me or arrest me, they were just there for me.

So I didn't make them disappear, and went with them instead. I still send money home to my parents. They don't know where I am, or what I do. They don't know the true extent of my capabilities. I'm not sure I do either. The thing about being a mutant is that a lot of these powers don't get replicated exactly, so we each have to figure ourselves out. There's no training regimen or curriculum for this.”

“So all of this is self taught?” Loki asked, impressed. “I'm not even entirely self taught.”

“You were taught? This all didn't just come from being a god or whatever?”

“No, of course not. The power is there naturally, but it needs directing. Like you, I suppose. You're born with it, but need teaching to use it. I had the best teachers the universe could offer, and was exalted and encouraged. You had only yourself, and adversity. I've seen but little of you, but this seems a great feat so far.”

“A compliment?”

“An acknowledgment. It's good to know S.H.I.E.L.D. has become more discerning in its recruitment. I hear it was more than a little disastrous for them last time.”

“Like I said, I didn't find out about that until after. Though, I guess it's not all that surprising that it happened. There's a lot that can go wrong inside an organization that big, and with that much reach. There's just too much going on; there can never be enough oversight.”

“I know.” Loki said. “I used that against them when I attempted to bring down the planet. Somehow, they still didn't notice the traitors among them.”

“You worked with HYDRA?” Iris asked defensively.

“No.” Loki said. “I used them. I didn't...make many distinctions then, in my interactions with mortals.”

“Kinda seems like you still don't.” Iris pointed out. Loki took a breath and hesitated.

“Moreso than I did then.” He said slowly. “Then, you were just tools. A means to an end. Disposable. Interchangeable. There are so many of you, so it wasn't like any of your could actually be important.”

“Right up until barely six of us beat the tar out of you and blew up your entire army?”

Loki scowled. “That is a misstatement. The plan was always to lose.”

“Bull. Shit.”

“No, I'm serious. Earth was the weakest link in the Nine Realms, and it needed to be awakened. And you were. Spectacularly. Look what it's lead to. S.H.I.E.L.D. was purged, HYDRA exposed, and your world made ready for the arrival of Asgard. You've been opened to higher interactions, as a progressing member of the Realms.”

“Uh huh. That was totally the end goal, right? Inter-species altruism? That was what filled your heart while you blew people up?”

“Norns, no!” Loki snorted. “I hated every last one of you. I took a special delight in destroying that which was weaker than myself, never think I didn't. It's just...It wasn't entirely up to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean...I mean that losing was an act of defiance that sparked off the strengthening defense of Midgard, which I continue to participate in. Doing small jobs for S.H.I.E.L.D., rubbing out the likes of HYDRA and A.I.M., all of this contributes to this strengthening.”

Iris regarded him suspiciously through her framework of roots.

“You sound like you're running some sinister, behind-the-scenes shadow plan.” She accused. “You wanna explain?”

Loki smiled, a wan, false thing.

“Do you want some water?” He offered instead.

Iris rolled her eyes. “You're not gonna distract me.”

“And I am not going to elaborate further. Your curiosity will have to remain unsatisfied, or supplemented by your own imagination.”

“Hmph. Why'd you even bring it up then?”

“I? I think you'll find our conversation naturally meandered in this direction. That does not mean it must come to the conclusion you desire.”

“So this is what Abby meant when she said you were a pain in the ass to talk to.” Iris grumbled.

“I was not put here to satisfy Abby.” Loki said airily. “Who is Abby?”

“She asked you on a date.” Iris said. “You don't even remember her? Harsh.”

Loki shrugged. “She sounds frightfully dull. I may have to play nice for now, but I needn't entertain every persons sordid fantasies. Do you leap through every hoop set before you? Or do you also tell unimportant people that you aren't interested in entertaining them?”

“All right, that's fair.” Iris craned her head back to look up at the stars. “Which one is Asgard? Can you see it from here?”

“You can't.” Loki said. “The star is too far away, too small. And it doesn't matter now anyway. Home is gone, and we must rebuild from scratch. But that one, right there-do you see? Another realm orbits that one, the Frozen Realm of Jotunheim. They were our enemies once, and yours, but no more. Partly because they are under 'house arrest' as it were, trapped on their own planet. My father drove them off your planet over a thousand years ago. Your world actually warmed up without their influence, at least for a little while.”

“There were aliens here a thousand years ago?” Iris asked, incredulous.

“There have been 'aliens' here for ages.” Loki said. “Visitations and experiments, and failed colonies, and raids. Your ancestors were still getting the hang of fire, and there were 'aliens' visiting your lush and beautiful world. Making plans. Then your lot discovered agriculture and metal, and ruined a lot of those plans.”

“Seems like we're good at that.”

“Yes, yes, I was defeated by mortals. I am aware. I was the first to know.” Loki grumbled.

“Wait, does that mean the aliens really did build the pyramids?” Iris wondered.

Loki snickered. “The hubris of humanity is not universally shared. You are known for several things, and your inexplicable drive for monument building is one of them. Visitors did not build your great buildings; you did. They did come to see them though, like tourists. Some of them even took artifacts back home with them. Hopefully they weren't too historically important.”

“That's so rude.” Iris said.

“And you would never have known to take offense if I hadn't told you.”

God of Mischief indeed.

“What other realms are there? Just the nine?”

“Eight now, I suppose. But no. There are many peoples out there. The Nine Realms were just those places that were somehow related to Asgard. Allies, protectorates and...penal colonies, you might call them. But all interconnected, and all at least a little dependent on the others, at least some of the time. That has come to an end. There is a very powerful spot now empty. I fear there will be a great deal of turmoil before things even themselves back out. It would be interesting to see how that all plays out, but alas, I am trapped here for now.”

“Where would you go?” Iris asked.

“Alfheim first, I think.” Loki said. “They like me there. They are much less dour than the Dverguar, less serious than the Vanir, not so boastful and bombastic as Asgardins, not vicious as Jotunn, and nowhere near as hectic and anxious as Midgardians...humans, I mean. They like jokes and pranks, and value magic...perhaps I should have been Alfar? If only I could have chosen.”

“Yeah, I think we all feel that way sometimes. But I guess even gods don't get that choice. Hey, how do gods work, anyway? I mean, I stopped believing in any all-powerful force a long time ago. About when the only answer anyone could really give me as to why God would make someone like me was that I was put here to test faith. My own, or other people's maybe. It made me sick. What kind of 'father' puts a burden like that on a little kid?”

Loki scoffed. “The first mistake that humans make is in thinking that anything can be all-powerful, all-knowing, or infallible. It is a ridiculous fantasy notion, immature and irresponsible. That kind of thinking can only lead to two things: complete disillusionment, or harm to the self or others. I am a god, because I have a singular connection to a certain aspect of the universe, as does my brother, but neither of us are any of those things. How boring, to be all-knowing! How banal, to be all-powerful. And I have known people who seemed to think they were infallible, and the amount of misery and suffering they caused is unspeakable.

No, gods were never supposed to be all that. Greater than others, yes, but omnipotent...no, that's only for people who are overcompensating I think.”

“What's that about a special connection to the universe?” Iris asked.

“The universe is ridiculously unstable. Did you know that? I believe it was a human that posited that reality destroys and remakes itself fairly often in the scheme of things, but by the nature of it, it's impossible to ever know if that's true. Because if reality is destroyed, so are you, and so, you would never know. And if reality rebuilds itself, then that is the only reality that exists, so you would never know.”

“Oh hell, I don't like that.”

“Well just don't think about it. In any case, this instability seems to be occasionally expressed through individuals of particularly resilient and long-lived species, by connecting them to certain random forces. For my brother, it is the natural occurrence of thunder and lightning, those two things being directly connected. For me, it is an expression of sophisticated behaviors. Those forces are ours to deploy and manipulate to our will, and we affect them in the world around us, even as they effect us.”

“So you're just born with it too, huh?”

“So it seems.”

Iris settled back down into her swaddling roots to sleep, leaving Loki to stare up at the stars. The grass-cutting human had mentioned cameras. Loki had shielded them from that kind of surveillance on the way in, just in case. They must be hidden somewhere out in the trees. Could Iris detect such things? Would it be worthwhile to disable any, if suspicion was already on them? Or would that merely draw even more suspicion?

Perhaps while Iris remained incapacitated, actions that might bring more enemies out should be avoided. She did not have his durable skin, after all, nor his speed or strength. But with her unusual and largely unexplained powers, he hesitated in thinking of her as weak. More like...a specialist.

He felt her stir, just as the sun was lifted into the sky, and he fed her her morning cubes. She settled into her work trance almost immediately. Perhaps she was put off by the previous nights conversation, and didn't want more of the same. Perhaps she simply wanted to finish this mission quickly. Surely she too found it boring to lay in the same spot for days.

He watched the people come and go about their work restoring the schoolhouse. How many of them were just regular workers, and how many were enemy agents? Impossible to tell by looking, especially if even the youth were involved.

The sun had not risen particularly high when he noticed a difference. The roots that wrapped Iris' body were thinning; as he watched, more and more broke away from the tangle to bury themselves in the dirt at her sides. It was like watching worms escaping danger.

Finally, Iris pulled her hands from the soil, and pushed free of the roots.

“Alright.” She said. “Bugs are in. Now it's time for us to bug out.”

In retrospect, Loki could admit that he had been too eager to leave. He simply didn't do well with long periods of inactivity. So when he walked into the trees surrounding the meadow, and found himself face to face with a shotgun-wielding hunter, he wasn't too embarrassed. No, what really made him kick himself was when the one behind them held Iris at gunpoint. How could he have let one of these yokels get behind him?

“Who the hell are you freaks?” The one in front demanded. Loki recognized him as the youth with the loud grass cutting device who had ruined his hair.

“Gaw, this one stinks!” The other one exclaimed. “Well what do ya expect? She looks like mud, of course she smells like it.”

“We were just out looking for a...private place, if you catch my drift.” Loki said smoothly, getting ready. “Nothing to get worried about. It's just such a nice day, and we couldn't help ourselves.”

“Gross.” The one behind Iris said.

“We don't want you degenerate types around here.” The one in front of Loki said. “Now hands up, freak. You're way too close.”

“To what, pray tell?” Loki said. Almost ready.

“Don't talk about it, dumbass!” The other one hissed.

“Look, let's just kill them, to be sure.” The one in front of Loki said. “World ain't gonna miss a few freaks. And then nobody knows, and we don't get in trouble.”

Loki lifted his hand in a gesture he knew humans considered to be rude. Both men fired their guns.

Neither of them saw the illusions of Loki and Iris fade away, sprawled as they were one the forest floor, bleeding from the bullet wounds they'd inflicted upon one another.

Several yards away, Loki took his hands from over Iris' ears, and approached the HYDRA recruits. One of them was still alive. Loki carefully wrapped his hand in a cloth he manifested from seemingly nowhere, and casually suffocated him.

He then led the horrified Iris back to their rented car, and got back onto the highway as quickly as he could.

The silence stretched on for several hours, Loki watching the road, Iris gazing out the window at the scenery.

“Why didn't we sneak off as soon as you put up those illusions?” She finally asked. “We were invisible. We could have just left.”

“They had seen us.” Loki said. “They could not be allowed to go and inform their superiors. If there was suspicion that we had been snooping around the school, the entire point of the mission would be moot. Besides, they were extremely rude.”

“Don't joke.” Iris said sharply. “You killed that man in cold blood.”

“I killed him on cold practicality.” Loki corrected. “He could not be allowed to live, and let others know that he and the other one hadn't actually accidentally shot one another. Once anyone had seen us, that had to be the end for them. It is understandable that you might not like that, which is why I would not ask you to participate. But if I am sent on a mission as a protector, then that is what I will do. These were men who wanted to kill you just for being born, remember?”

“They were radicalized. They could have been deradicalized.”

“And how do you propose we were to do that?”

Iris huffed. “Damnit.”

“Sometimes we aren't afforded the choices we would prefer. But don't fret. I will take full responsibility in the report. I know the Director isn't keen on too many work-related killings.” It was part of why Loki took such delight in reporting work-related killings. Just to remind them of who he was, and what he was capable of.

Once they had reached their destination and returned the rental car, Iris called their contact agent for extraction. She wasn't exactly distant, but with other things to focus on, and other people demanding their times, the closeness of the last two days was fading fast.

Oh well, Loki thought. It had been nice while it lasted. But nothing was forever, and all affection was fleeting; he knew that well enough.

But it was a little odd to see her so preoccupied with her phone.

“Have you a Tweety account, or some such?” He asked, trying to strike up a conversation once again.

“Since that doesn't exist: no.” She answered, distracted. “No, there's just...I'm seeing someone, and he wants to meet up as soon as I get back.”

Loki frowned. For some reason, he didn't like that sound of that. “You need rest, don't you?” He suggested.

“Yeah, and it's a little last minute, I admit. But he's an agent too, and our schedules don't match up very often, so we've got to meet when we can, or not at all.”

“That sounds like a difficult arrangement.”

Iris shrugged. “I'll take what I can get. At least he doesn't seem to mind the whole mutant thing. That's kinda important when you're in my shoes.”

“You do not sound entirely enamored of this man.” Loki probed.

“Well...I'd like to get to know him better, but he's very private. Mostly, I just don't want to be alone. It's hard for people like me, you know? I can't just throw a relationship away because it's not some perfect storybook romance. Gotta be more realistic than that. But I sure hope I get a few days rest before I get sent out again.”

It sounded...practical. She had to take her opportunities where she found them. It wasn't as if Loki had never been there. It was perhaps a little sad, since it sounded like she really did want that storybook romance.

Perhaps it was none of his business. It was absolutely none of his business. He followed her anyway, curious about what kind of man made this little flower bloom.

The man in question was not impressive, in Loki's opinion. Not much more than average. Maybe that didn't matter to Iris.

“Bet you're glad to be done with all that, huh?” He asked. “Dealing with that creep couldn't be easy.”

“It wasn't really all that bad, honestly. He-”

“I don't really want to hear about him. C'mon, we have the whole evening! Let's not waste it!”

Loki decided then and there that he did not like this man. Not in small part because he wanted to know what Iris had to say about him.

She took him to what must have been her apartment, and there Loki left. There were a few things he didn't want to know after all.

#themysticgarden #loki (marvel)#loki x ofc

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mysterylover123 · 3 years

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My Top 10 (current) Villain Crushes (male)

#10. Greed/Ling Yao from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

OK Greed is about as nice a character as you can get and still technically be a villain. But hey, still part of the Homunculi, still kidnapped Alphonse. Definitely the sexiest and coolest of the Humunculi. Arguably the best character in FMA, and that’s no mean feat. Especially when he’s possessing Ling, who is already a hot anti-hero.

#9. Obito Uchiha from Naruto

Naruto is chock full of pretty boy villains. Like, literally every single one of them. But Obito really takes the cake for both pretty and tragic/lovable. He’s the perfect villainous foil to the protagonist, and also super shippable with Best Boy Kakashi due to the whole “used to be his friend” thing.

#8. Norman Bates from Psycho (1960)

My first ever villain crush - actually my first movie character crush in general. Interestingly, Hitchcock deliberately made sure audiences would have this reaction by casting handsome rom com leading man Anthony Perkins to give the performance of a lifetime as the broken serial killer.

#7. Harvey Dent/Two Face from Batman

Batman villains definitely have a massive following for their sex appeal. Harvey/Two Face has always been my personal crush out of the group. I’m actually really partial to both Comics!Harvey and 1990s Animated Series Harvey, though Dark Knight Harvey is certainly handsome too. I love me some half-faced, conflicted split personality villains.

#6. Spike (and Angelus) from Buffy

Buffy has some of the sexiest villains ever, both male and female. Angel is mostly a hero throughout the series, and his villain counterpart is hot but also really evil. Spike is a bit more redeemable, dumbass writing choices in Season 6 aside. Spike is another villain who is just made by the actor’s performance. James Marsters (who also plays crush-able villains as Brainiac and even live-action Piccolo in that terrible movie) just makes him.

#5. The Phantom of the Opera/Erik

Yes, I too had a Phantom Phase. Most (straight) girls do. And I think we can all connect to being isolated organists dwelling in the Opera basement these days. I’ve seen every Phantom film and three different actor performances of the stage play. I’d say the appeal rankings are something like this: Phantom ’98, Phantom ’89, Phantom ’04, Phantom of the Paradise, Phantom ’25, Phantom ’43, Phantom ’62 (hammer), Michael Crawford, Ramin Karimloo

#4. Dabi/(SPOILERS) Toya Todoroki from My Hero Academia

I mean, I always noticed he was hot, but I didn’t develop a hardcore crush on him until these recent chapters. But hey, come in swinging with a gleeful dance as you reveal you’re secretly the tragic long lost brother of Human Cinnamon Roll Shoto? Spilling your whole tragic backstory while shirtless over the air? Pleading for understanding while showing us all your cute baby pictures? Yeah, that’ll do it.

#3. Loki from MCU

Yep, every (straight) girl also has a Loki phase. Specifically of course Tom Hiddleston’s Loki from the MCU. Doesn’t need much explanation. The good looks, swagger, badassery, and for me especially the dorky hilarious comedy (I love me some funny trickster villains); the eventually redeemable nature. The guy’s just a magnetic, impossible to hate and inherently lovable baddie.

#2. Zuko from ATLA

Duh. Though admittedly Zuko is a lot sexier when he redeems himself and goes all adorably dorky in Season 3. Though Part 1 Season 3 is Zuko at his most evil and antagonistic and also at his second most sexy, so they count. The lovable, best redemption arc ever having, tragically sympathetic and victimized Deuteragonist of ATLA is a big part of the reason why ATLA works as well as it does. Great character and irresistibly hot.

Hon mentions: Ulquiorra Cifer from Bleach (he might make the official list once I get to know him better), Sylar from Heroes (trashy show but almost worth it for Sylar), Amon/Noatak from Korra (the reason I started watching LOK), the Once Ler (yes I was one of those) Luke Castellan from Percy Jackson (best homme fatale) , Sasori from Naruto (not terribly complex but sexy as hell), the Count of Monte Cristo (best villain protagonist), Michael Myers (the prettiest slasher villain)

#1. Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z

There might some day be a sexier villain that Vegeta. It’s conceivable. But I doubt it. The Saiyan prince turned servant of Frieza, the truly unstoppable villain of the first arc of DBZ; the best redemption arc in the series (aside maybe Android 18), the future DBZ Best Boy who goes from caring only about power to fighting to protect wife and kids to the death…and of course the deep, throaty voice, skintight spandex, Saiyan physique and cocky smirk don’t hurt him any.

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books · 5 years

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Writer Spotlight: Daniel Kibblesmith

Daniel Kibblesmith is an Emmy-nominated writer for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and has written comics for Marvel and D.C., including Marvel’s Loki (2019) and Black Panther Vs. Deadpool (2018). He co-wrote the humorous How To Win At Everything (2013), and is also the author of the picture books Santa’s Husband (2017) and Princess Dinosaur (2020). He was one of the founding editors of ClickHole.com, and his comedic writing can be seen in places like The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and APM’s Marketplace. He works and lives in New York with his favorite author, Jennifer Wright.

What are your inspirations for Loki?

Loki is ever inspired by himself (or herself, or themselves), and that was how it worked for me, too. I was a big fan of Loki as a villain in the MCU, but I hadn’t read a ton of Thor-related comics until I got the gig. The exception was the Journey Into Mystery series by Kieron Gillen and a whole roster of great artists who—alongside Tom Hiddleston's MCU appearances—really set the mold for the modern take on the character. So I re-read that, and from there I expanded outward into past and future, and read the tremendous Agent Of Asgard comics written by Al Ewing, Lee Garbett (and other artists), as well as going back to early 60's Loki appearances orchestrated by his own creator gods: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber.

Aside from comic-related research, one of my editors, Wil Moss, recommended Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, which was incredibly fun, concise, and helpful in giving me a more rounded view of Loki’s history and personality. I’m a big Sandman fan as well, so it was inspiring to stand at the nexus of Kirby’s influence on Gaiman, and mythology’s impact on both of them, and to see their impact on me, first as a reader, and then as a writer, as I set out to place these mythological figures in an approximation of our actual world.

What aspects of yourself do you see or put into the characters you write?

Loki’s defining trait, especially in the original myths, is that he is both the creator and the solver of the problem. Because no one else is clever enough to get him out of the mess he started, he’s barely ever fully exiled from their society. As a former “problem” student, whatever that means, the aspect of Loki I relate to the most—and I think a lot of people do—is the idea that you can mean well, try your best, and still get punished for it.

Authority figures love to reward cleverness if it comes with obedience. I tell a story in the introduction letter to Loki #1 about getting detention for pointing out, during an assembly, that two teachers were inexplicably wearing the same clothing. I obviously didn't break any rules but the people who make the rules found me to be inconvenient and disruptive, so I got punished.

When I hear the phrase, “too smart for your own good,” I think of kids like that who don’t even know they’re about to be labelled as “bad”, which can alter their entire future and identity—for something that, in any adult circumstance, would be seen as attentiveness, or creativity, or intelligence, or just relatively harmless humor. Loki is a kid who got treated this way for a thousand years, so, of course, he became a villain.

The story we’re telling now is about coming back from that—healing, forgiveness, and the responsibility that comes with an ever-racing, ever-curious brain, the default setting of which is casual mayhem. Loki’s superpower is one that real people actually have to live with and manage: “I just noticed a vulnerability in our world. What would happen if I acted on it?”

You’ve written for television, the internet, for magazines, and have authored books and comic books — how does the writing process vary for these different forms? Is there one you prefer?

I often compare it to playing different video games because the needs and reflexes are different. Writing satire about the news is faster-paced, and comes with its own formulas, just like character-based narrative. Writing a monologue script based on a news event is very reactive, like Mario Kart: foot on the gas, hit the important stuff, miss the stuff that will slow you down. Writing fiction can be a lot more exploratory, like Zelda: I walked around for two hours today but I found a really important acorn, that I really needed for the stuff I'll do next. Writing comics can be very nose-to-the-grindstone, but for me, breaking story is often incidental and happens at the gym, or before sleep, or in the shower. The major architecture of my narrative writing exists as fragments on my phone and in pocket notebooks, born out of little sparks of inspiration. The heavy lifting happens in fleshing them out and editing them together into something cohesive.

If you could live in the universe of any book or comic book, which one would you pick and why?

I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan—I've read five of them, I think. But I would choose to live in the Harry Potter universe because as near as I can tell, it’s just our current universe but with far superior candy.

If you could have a conversation with anyone, real or fictional, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Probably Gumby. He seems chill.

What advice would you offer to your fourteen-year-old self?

Fourteen is honestly too young for most actionable advice from successful adults, and you’re not really in charge of what you’re going to do that day, anyhow. I usually tell college-aged writers to finish entire writing samples, that ideas and potential are far less attractive to people who can hire you than finished scripts or stories are. But I can’t imagine my career taking off based on the screenplay I would've finished at fourteen. So my advice would be to start drinking coffee and working out because both of those things are going to make you feel better in a world of things that are trying to make you feel terrible—including, in some cases, young adults roughly your age and twice your size with whom you are trapped, by the hundreds, in a massive brick building, in which they are often inexplicably literally trying to maim you. In case anyone was wondering where comic and comedy writers—and trickster gods—come from.

Thanks so much, Daniel! Follow @kibblesmith! If you’re lucky enough to be attending New York Comic Con in October, Daniel will be signing in Artist Alley at Booth A-28.

Photo: Nick (IG: @goldenparachutephotography) for Midtown Comics.

#writer spotlight #spotlight #daniel kibblesmith #tumblrnycc #booklr

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lemonsandstrawberries · 4 years

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Superhero Babysitting

fandom: Stony (Steve x Tony), MCU,

summary: Since Steve became Captain America he had deal with many weird things in his life, but babysitting his de-aged boyfriend was probably in top five.

length: 2 984

a/n: sooo this prompt was sitting on my prompt list for waaaay too long, but I finally felt motivated to write it after seeing an alternative scene from IM2 between Tony and Howard, the scene was already deleted from youtube, but it was Howard’s message to Tony, where Howard records while holding sleeping Tony in his arms and tells him about his legacy (so basically everything he said in IM2), but adds little heartwarming things like ‘my son’ and ‘I love you’. that kinda left the Tony fandom divided, but I loooved it, because for me, MCU!Howard wasn’t like his comic version, he was neglectful for sure, but not abusive. so, if you see Howard as an abusive person, you won’t like this fic! just a fair warning. in general, this fic is all fluff and sugar ;D. as always, feedback, reblogs and likes are appreciated and needed!

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Superhero Babysitting

Steve sighed contentedly, the lukewarm water relieving his heated up body. It was a good way to end a training session. Feeling fresh and with a clear mind, he pulled on clothes and went to the common kitchen for an after training snack. The Avengers common kitchen was rarely empty, and usually, there was one or two of team members hanging out, either for a late meal or stealing someone's else snack. His granola bars better be where Steve left them, or there would be hell.

Steve entered the kitchen and smiled, greeting his teammates. Currently, in the kitchen were Clint, tapping something on the phone, Natasha, frying pancakes and a small, blonde boy, fidgeting in his seat.

Wait.

Steve's eyes lingered on the kid for a bit longer, as he opened the fridge and took a jug with orange juice, pouring himself a glass. The kid felt his stare and looked back at Steve, and Steve smiled in a way that hoped to be encouraging, but the kid looked away shyly.

"Cute kid," Steve said to Natasha, as she was flipping the pancakes. "Whose is it?" he took a sip of the cold juice.

"Well, seems that yours," Natasha answered with a half-smile, plating the pancakes.

Steve choked, some pulp going down his chin in a pretty disgusting manner before he wiped it with his hand. "Come again?" he asked, voice rising in panic. Natasha didn't pay attention to him, putting the pancakes in front of the kid and encouraging him to eat.

"You really can't tell who it is?" Clint asked, lifting his eyes from his phone, and looking very unimpressed. "Just look at him."

Steve didn't like this game. He locked his eyes on the kid. Or more like a child. Maybe five, top six years old. Blonde hair, big brown eyes, and pouty lips, when his request of putting both maple syrup and honey on the pancakes was denied by Natasha. Steve knew that pout.

"Why the kid looks like Tony?" Steve asked, feeling cold sweat on his skin. He and Tony started dating just six months ago, and Steve knew that his boyfriend had a long history of one night stands, and the only logical explanation was that a result of one of such nights was in front of him.

The kid looked at Steve, after hearing the mentioned name, but didn't say anything. Instead pulled his eyebrows together and pressed lips in a thoughtful pout. Just like Tony.

"Because it is Tony," Natasha answered, giving up to the kid's charm and going to fetch the honey from the cupboard.

"No way this is Tony," Steve answered, voice trembling a bit. That had to be some joke. It had to be.

"You want to see DNA results?" Clint asked, flipping his phone and briefly showing Steve some medical record on the screen. "Bruce confirmed everything."

Steve's mouth hung open. If it was a joke, his team was going through awfully a lot of trouble to make him fall for it. Tony was probably somewhere in the Tower, hiding, observing everything through a hidden camera and having a blast.

"If that's Tony," Steve started, eyes not leaving the kid, who after getting his pancakes slathered with honey and maple syrup, started to eat with appetite, "why is he so small?"

"Either this is some sort of speed up case of Benjamin Button, or I have one word for you," Clint made a pause, looking too serious when Steve looked at him, "Loki."

That just made a lot less sense with every passing minute.

"I am trying to track Loki down, Thor is already on his tail, but -"

"Tony, honey, use a napkin."

Steve's breath quickened. He watched Natasha wiping the boy's face from sticky syrup and half listened to Clint. If it was a joke, it should already end. Why wasn't it ending?

Unless it wasn't a joke.

"Where are you going?" Steve asked, noticing that Natasha and Clint stood up from the table.

"We got a signal. Maybe we can get Loki and make him reverse the spell," Natasha explained and Clint nodded to her words.

"Wait!" Steve panicked. "What I am supposed to do with him?" he asked, knowing that he worded himself wrong and technically shouldn't talk like that about someone present. Tony frowned, not thrilled with the perspective of being left alone with Steve either.

"Just ask him!"

"You will be fine, Steve. Good luck! Tony, I am going to leave you with Steve for a bit, okay?" Natasha petted Tony's hair, big brown eyes turning to her in question and she smiled, "don't worry, he is a nice person. Remember to brush your teeth after eating!"

Steve heavily sat on the chair across from Tony, after Clint and Natasha had left, not believing that his team left him like that. He didn't have a lot of experience with kids. Or like any. Stopping in the park when a group of kids and their moms surrounded him to get autographs or throw frisbee definitely didn't count.

Quiet, clinking and chewing sounds brought him back. Tony was slowly finishing his meal, not looking at Steve, but down at his plate.

"Uh, so, Tony," Steve said, noticing a brief twitch in the small boy. "What do you want to do later?"

Tony shrugged. "Dunno," he said, stabbing more pancake on his fork and putting into mouth in a messy, childlike way, some honey dripping down his smooth chin. The sad and hilarious thing was that Tony kept eating in the same manner in his adulthood too. That made Steve's heart tug with some longing feeling.

"Alright," Steve sighed, expecting this to be easier. "Then, what do you like to do in your free time?"

Tony took a moment to answer, his plate already clear and he kept smearing the butter and syrup around the plate. "Draw," came an answer in a small voice, almost as if Tony expected to get scolded.

Finally, some common ground. Steve smiled warmly. "What do you like to draw?"

"Robots," Tony answered, sounding a little more confident and happier, "and space."

"You like space?" Steve tried to keep the conversation going. Maybe it was a way to know something more about his boyfriend's childhood, as Tony generally avoided that topic.

"Yeah! One day I want to go to space and be an astronaut!" Tony said a little louder, smiling in excitement. Steve's smile dimmed a little when he realized that one day Tony's wish would come true and not in a way he had hoped for.

"An astronaut? That's a big word for such a small kid. You must be very smart," Steve praised, but to his surprise, Tony saddened at the words.

"Maybe," Tony answered, arms sagging down and he looked into his empty plate. At that moment, Steve realized that maybe because of his intelligence, Tony didn't have a lot of fun during his childhood, always being pushed to books about science and mathematic equations, instead of toys and games.

"You know, I like drawing too," Steve tried to change the topic. Much to his happiness, Tony looked up, seeming interested again. "You want to draw with me?" Steve's heart filled with a warm feeling when Tony nodded with a bright smile. It seemed he had a plan on how to keep the boy occupied. "But first, put your plate into the sink and go wash your mouth and brush teeth," Steve reminded, hearing a small whine of protest, that made him smile.

Some things didn't change.

It was surprising because Tony turned out to be a pretty calm kid. Steve gave him some pencils, crayons, and paper (all from his private supplies, he would restock later) and page after page, Tony created colorful pictures, barely speaking and moving, just sitting at the coffee table in the living room. True to his interests, Tony drew a lot of robots, in that childlike, rectangular way, but there was some wonderful attention to details, something Steve found almost startling.

"Wow, looks great, pal," Steve praised Tony's newest masterpiece - a robot in a rocket, on a background of a starry sky. Fun and colorful as Tony used every crayon he had. "I am gonna put this one on the fridge," he smiled, ruffling Tony's hair in praise.

Tony giggled, face beaming with happiness. It should be cute but was a bit alarming how such a small thing, something one's child should hear every day, brought so much joy.

It wasn't Steve's business. If Tony found out, he would get angry at him. Maybe even furious. But…

"Hey, Tony," Steve asked despite the warning signals going on in his brain, "do you draw often with your dad?"

Oh, there it was. Tony's hand stopped, eyes became startled. It lasted only for a second and Tony took a clean page and started a new drawing. He shrugged as an answer. "Dad's busy. It's fine."

Of course. Steve looked sadly at Tony. There was barely any emotions in Tony's voice or posture when he talked about Howard.

"Dad is busy all the time?"

"Kinda."

"So you don't spend time together too often?"

Tony shrugged, taking a blue crayon and doing some swirl in the middle of the page.

Steve bit his lip. He might regret it, but he had to know.

"Tony… does your dad-"

"He doesn't hit me."

The answer made Steve's eyes widen. "Uhhhh… I didn't mean that -" he tried to backtrack, but Tony didn't allow him.

"You are not the first one to ask me that today," Tony muttered, taking a red crayon and Steve's eyes widened in shock. Clint. Natasha. Bruce. Did they all ask? "Dad's often gone. Sometimes he yells when he gets angry, but that's all."

Steve frowned. That was a relief to hear, but still, didn't sound like a complete and happy childhood. "Is your dad-"

Steve didn't finish. He saw Tony grimacing horribly, eyes shining with tears. Suddenly he folded arms on the table, and curled, hiding in himself.

Steve sucked in a surprised breath. Did he make Tony cry? "Hey, hey, it's okay, I am sorry, I won't ask again -"

"I messed up."

"What?"

"My drawing. It is ruined," Tony sobbed out, clearly distressed. A minute ago, Tony showed some maturity surpassing his age, but it didn't change that he was still a kid.

"Hey, I am sure it is not that bad. Let me see," Steve said softly, walking to Tony and trying to look at the piece of paper under the kid's arm.

"Noooo, it is ugly," Tony said stubbornly, not planning to move and locking arms tighter around the drawing.

"How it can be ugly? You did such a great job with every other drawing," Steve tried to encourage, but Tony just made some high pitched sad sound. "Come on, just show me," he tried again, leaning over the chair and softly poking the kid's side.

Oh, a reaction. Tony giggled, curling a little bit away from the finger. Steve smiled, poking some more, and then used his forefinger and thumb to very gently pinch the kid's side.

"Steheheeve! Dohahan't!" Tony asked, his laughter having a melody Steve knew so well, but sounding like little chirps. It was one of the cutest sounds he ever heard.

"Show me, show me, show me," Steve repeated time after time, moving his fingers and repeating the motion on boy's small belly. Tony giggled on a high note, and leaned back, escaping from the fingers, finally showing his drawing.

This day was already crazy and Steve thought nothing would surprise him. In the middle of the white page was drawn a very familiar shape drawn with red and blue crayons. Captain America's shield. His shield.

"That's-" Steve noticed that Tony was looking at him, all insecure and the previous smile gone from his face, only tears left. "That's beautiful, Tony! Wow!" Steve praised enthusiastically when the shock faded. The circles that made his shield were almost perfect and the star was exactly in the middle, all angles the same. Maybe it lacked a little bit on the coloring and Tony went out of the line a few times, but from a technical point of view, it was perfect. "You did a great job!"

"It's wrong," Tony argued, sounding sad all over again.

"How it is wrong? Looks great to me."

"Too much blue," Tony sniffled, wiping his eyes.

Steve looked closer at the drawing, now seeing it. Tony colored the circle that supposed to be white with a blue crayon. Honestly, Steve didn't notice, too much in awe of the perfect outline.

"It looks better like this," Steve decided, patting Tony's soft hair. "Seriously."

Finally, Tony smiled, some wet traces still on his cheeks, but sadness gone. Steve smiled back, somehow feeling proud that Tony sketched his shield.

"So, you like Captain America, huh?" Steve asked, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.

"Yeah!" Tony burst out, eyes shining happily, "he is the greatest hero ever and my favorite! I love Captain America! … Uh, Steve?"

Steve turned around, hand pressed to his mouth. He didn't expect that outburst of unfiltered, pure love and his face became heated and something he could only describe as a dopey smile took half of his face. Tony didn't need to see that.

"Steve, are you okay?"

"Yeah… I just need a moment, buddy."

Evening came sooner than Steve expected, none of the Avengers returned and it was high time to put Tony to bed. Steve tried to prolong that moment the longest possible, but Tony started to yawn and his head was bobbing dangerously down.

"Okay, kiddo, bedtime," Steve gave up, taking half-conscious Tony in his arms and carrying the boy to their bedroom.

"Mhhmm… Not tired."

"Sure you are not tired," Steve smiled, having another familiar moment. He put Tony down on the bed and pulled the covers over the boy's small frame. "Sleep well, pal. I will leave the night lamp on, just in case. I will be in the next room," Steve said in a hushed voice, brushing the hair off Tony's forehead. He didn't make it even half though the room when he heard a quiet voice.

"Steveee… Don't go."

Oh, dammit. Steve was afraid of that. Taking care of his adult boyfriend reverted to a kid was one, but sharing a bed was too much. That was like a sure romance killer.

But he couldn't say no to a kid. Tony had been denied too many happy memories by his parents already, and Steve didn't want to pile on that.

"Alright," he turned around and sat on the edge of the bed, "but only until you fall asleep."

"Okay," Tony agreed sleepily, scooting closer so he could feel Steve's warmth. "Can you tell me a story?"

"Sure," Steve smiled, "what would you like to hear?"

"Can you tell me about Captain America?"

And Steve's face became red again. Great.

"Uhhmm. You know what, pal? Maybe I will tell you about my favorite hero instead. Would that be okay?"

Tony nodded, not opening his eyes. It appeared that he just needed to be close to someone.

"Okay, so I will tell you about a very smart guy, who spent all his days designing and building machines, and one day, he built a gold and red armor - "

Somehow, Steve missed the moment when he fell to sleep on his own and slept through the whole night. He remembered when he woke up in the morning and the feeling of something scratchy on his face.

"Mhm. Go away," Steve muttered, fidgeting away.

"No."

He knew that voice. Steve's eyes snapped open and he saw brown eyes looking at him.

"Hi, sleepyhead," Tony greeted, casually spread on the top of the covers, all in his adult glory.

"Tony!" Steve smiled, feeling with all might how he missed his boyfriend. He scooted closer, wanting to lock their lips together, but somehow the memory of yesterday was too fresh and he placed his kiss on Tony's forehead instead.

"What the hell was that?" Tony complained, and Steve laughed, just taking in the moment, "give me a proper kiss!"

"No," Steve continued to laugh, moving away as Tony advanced on him.

"What do you mean no? I want my kiss, Steve!"

"I said no!"

"Bad news! We couldn't find Loki, but look I bought some games for Tony - aaaaw!" Clint stood disappointed in the doorway, not even cringing at the sight of Tony basically climbing over Steve. "You are an adult again!"

"What? What do you mean?" Tony asked, frowning at his friend. Steve took the moment to throw Tony off of himself (Tony squawked) and sat up on the bed.

"Never mind," Clint waved his hand but looked almost offended. Tony was a cute, polite kid. Unlike his adult version.

"What's that?" Steve asked, noticing some packaging under Clint's arm.

"New games," Clint said, showing the colorful covers, "now I have to return them," he complained dramatically.

Tony shrugged. "I will play with you."

"You will?"

"Yeah. You said you bought them for me, right? Let's play."

Clint beamed a smile and ordered Tony to come to the living room, solely to get his butt kicked during xbox tournament and sprinted out. Tony laughed and yelled something after the archer, but Steve didn't listen, too relieved with this whole mess ending just after one evening and one night. It was a nice experience, but he much more preferred his adult boyfriend.

"Hey, baby, we good?" Tony asked, still not understanding the morning chaos, but already moving forward.

"We good," Steve confirmed, smiling warmly at his boyfriend. They finally shared the good morning kiss and Tony hurriedly changed clothes to join Clint for some early gaming tournament and Steve decided to get some more sleep.

Babysitting was exhausting.

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a/n was getting too long, so I am gonna add it here instead - although this fic was inspired by the prompt and that alternative scene from IM2, the true reason I am posting it, is because blue!anon send me a nice message. I didn’t post in a while, I have a back injury and I can’t sit for too long (seriously, proofreading and editing was a nightmare), but because I knew there was someone thinking about me and my fics, I wanted to go through with this and post something to make them happy, instead of sitting on this fic for God-knows-how-long. remember that likes/feedback are not only to make your creator feel good/ for ego boost - this is honestly the only way we can communicate, and hearing nothing just kills the joy of posting (not writing, as I mentioned, I write, I just don’t feel motivated to post). so, thank you again, blue!anon, for keeping me motivated, I love you and appreciate you so much ❤️💙💛

#stony #steve rogers #tony stark #deaged!tony #fluff #domestic #natasha romanoff #clint barton #tickle fic #just very brief #we are not supporting abusive mcu!howard on this blog #fanfic #fanfiction

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thesunwillshineonus · 6 years

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Loki is coming back theory: A hopeful post

I think the majority of us agree with the fact that Loki, one of the most complex and acclaimed MCU characters, deserved a better ending to his redemption arc. I have decided to write this post in order to spread some hope that this is not the last we’ve seen of the God of Mischief.

First of all, his death was not convincing nor fitting for a character that is known for dying and coming back in almost every movie he is in (and don’t forget about the comic books). If the directors intended to make his death believable, they should have made him use his powers, try to trick Thanos with his illusions or attempt to fake his own death again and ultimately fail. He should have had a good plan only for it to be disrupted by Thanos and the fact that he doesn’t even seem to try makes me think either Loki is not dead or he let Thanos kill him on purpose.

It’s interesting that neither Loki nor Doctor Strange seem to use the infinity stones they own against Thanos. Even Thanos acknowledges that Strange doesn’t “use his greatest weapon”. But we know that Strange made use of the time stone to see into the future and realised that he (and half the universe) had to die in order to win in the end (presumably). Maybe Loki knew this as well. Maybe his death was also necessary in order to reach that outcome and that’s why he let Thanos kill him.

“The Tesseract can show visions of the future, which may or may not come true. The people who have seen this power are the Red Skull, Eric Selvig, and Hawkeye [...]” [source] Loki seemed to be looking at the tesseract very intently before saying “I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again” to Thor. The tesseract could have shown him a vision of a future in which Thanos is defeated and Loki’s brought back to life somehow, hence the optimism of his statement. Also, I’m 100% sure this line is foreshadowing, it’s too cryptic and striking.

Also, it’s odd that Loki just drops the tesseract on the floor and doesn’t even try to pick it up while Thanos is distracted, considering he seemed so unwilling to give it away only a moment before. I guess he was too busy doing… whatever it is he was doing while Thanos was beating the crap out of the Hulk and killing Heimdall. Because, really, where was he? If the Russos’ intention was to make us believe Loki was out of options and would finally meet his definitive end, it was not a good idea to have the audience lose sight of him for 4 whole minutes, especially since he’s a character who has faked his own death before and whose most distinctive traits are being mischievous and unpredictable.

When being asked about Loki’s death at Ace Con 2018, Tom Hiddleston said “I’ve known about that scene for two years. I met with Marvel in May 2016, and they were actually telling me the story of Ragnarok with concept arts and images. [...] My whole journey through making Thor: Ragnarok I knew this was coming” [source] Tom knew about his Infinity War scene back in 2016 and yet he said this about Loki on September 2017: “He’s cunning and transformative and changeable and will do everything he can to survive. He’s the trickster. He’s the God of mischief.” [source]

Tom Hiddleston also had a reassuring message for fans who were worried about Loki before Infinity War was released: “Loki is the God of Mischief, the Lord of Misrule, an Agent of Chaos. Chaos isn’t something that’s threatening to Loki and everything’s fine.” [source]

Even Loki himself reminded us who he was right before being ‘killed’ by Thanos. “I, Loki, prince of Asgard, Odinson, the rightful king of Jotunheim, God of Mischief [...]”. His last words “you will never be a god” also point out the fact that he is a god (and Thanos is not). This line sounds too cryptic as well, it’s almost like Loki is telling Thanos “I know something you don’t”.

It is also known some members of the cast filmed at least one scene in Durham Cathedral (2017), and Tom Hiddleston was supposedly among them. Although he has not been photographed, different people claimed to have spotted him on the set.

The scene(s) shot in the cathedral never made it into Infinity War. However, it is unclear whether this footage was shot for Avengers 4. It’s important to remember that this location was also used to film Thor’s vision in Age of Ultron, a vision which seemingly represented Hel. We also know that Loki’s death in Thor: The Dark World was originally intended to be real, although not definitive, as Thor was supposed to travel to Hel and retrieve Loki in Thor: Ragnarok. [source] Perhaps this idea has not been fully discarded, which would be a plausible explanation as to why Chris, Tessa and Tom were spotted filming in Durham. It could be assumed that Loki is truly dead this time, but not for good: Thor would go to Hel in order to bring him back from the dead, hopefully in Avengers 4, or in another Thor movie. You can read more about this on this Reddit thread.

It’s actually a fact that Loki will appear in the next Avengers movie, as these leaked photos of the A4 set confirm.

These photos suggest that Avengers 4 will recreate the Battle of New York. The widespread assumption that Loki’s presence in the pictures indicates a flashback is wrong, as we can see Scott and an older Tony in the company of Captain America, who is wearing his old costume (meaning he is Steve’s past self). Thor and Loki are also dressed as in the battle of New York and Loki is gagged. He has something that looks like the tesseract in his hand and this doesn’t add up to the events of the first Avengers movie, which could mean that time travel is involved. This alone doesn’t prove that Loki is alive in the current timeline, but maybe his death can be reversed if the Avengers alter the past. In any case, at least we can be sure that his past self will play a role in the movie.

Kevin Feige tweeted this letter dedicated to the fans after Infinity War was released. We can see Thanos' gauntlet as well as a Loki keychain in the picture, next to the letter, which seems suspicious since Loki’s role in IW was pretty limited.

When it comes to Kevin Feige, it is also important to point out that he has barely spoken about Loki’s death. In fact, when asked specifically about Loki, he only said that the scene was emotional, as were some other scenes in the movie [source]. He seemed to avoid answering the question by beating about the bush and repeating the same thing over again. One would think that if this were Loki’s final scene, Feige would have something more to say, considering that Loki is a fan favorite and that Feige himself always seemed to appreciate the character.

In addition, Jeremy Conrad seems to believe Loki could come back and has hinted he will on several occasions. For those who don’t know who this man is, he’s a journalist and the founder of MCU Cosmic and he has proven himself to be a quite reliable source when it comes to information regarding the MCU. This is what he said on the matter at hand:

Then, he shared the link to a brief article about the possibility of Loki being brought back to life through time travel. You can read it here.

Two months later, this was Jeremy Conrad’s response when someone suggested Tom Hiddleston should be the next James Bond:

He basically hinted that Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is not over yet though when some users asked him to elaborate he didn’t answer. We all know that Avengers 4 is in post-production by now and this movie definitely won’t keep Tom busy so we can assume Jeremy Conrad is referring to the possibility of Loki being in other MCU movies yet to be announced.

Many of you may not know this but some weeks ago a man who claimed to have worked at Tom Hiddleston’s house tweeted that Tom has signed up for 4 more Marvel movies:

We should take this with a grain of salt but I personally think he might be telling the truth. Though I’ve chosen to hide his username because of the negative response he got for this tweet, this is not just an anonymous person hiding behind a computer screen, but someone who has personal information on his twitter profile, such as pictures, location, occupation (he is indeed a plumber and works in the UK) and he deleted the tweet once it started to gain some attention. He said he only wanted to share the good news but regretted tweeting about it because of the way Loki fans had reacted (some were calling him a liar). However, he insisted that he wasn’t lying and that we would see Loki in more movies. To be honest, I was really skeptical about this whole plumber thing at first but a few days after this, Jeremy Conrad insinuated that Tom Hiddleston won’t be James Bond because that would be incompatible with his role as Loki, so, even though 4 more films sound too good to be true, I think something might be going on with Tom’s contract.

At this point, it seems there is more evidence of Loki coming back than being permanently dead but, of course, nothing is confirmed yet. I’ve made a list of links just in case you want to read more theories about Loki’s death:

Reasons why Loki is alive

More reasons why Loki is alive

Ego Stone theory

Loki’s left hand theory

Undying fidelity theory

The sun will shine on us again

You will never be a god

More hope for Loki

#loki #thor #avengers infinity war #infinity war #infinity war spoilers #avengers 4 #marvel #mcu #tom hiddleston #loki is alive #mine #loki theory #avengers 4 theory

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that-shamrock-vibe · 5 years

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Superhero Spotlight: Avengers Endgame Posters - Reveals and Theories

Alright so we have our first set of characters posters for the upcoming juggernaut that is Avengers: Endgame to conclude and capitalize on the equally huge Avengers: Infinity War and wrap up what has been called the Infinity Saga phase of the MCU.

As these posters have raised many opinions, questions, theories and rather touching memes relating to other franchises and properties, I thought I would give my thoughts to some of the questions and theories as well as raise my own.

Missed Opportunities:

Alright so I can’t really go into what’s good or bad in terms of breaking down the posters because, unlike others, these are simply more or less headshots of the characters. Now on the one hand, this is a rather touching throwback to the first Avengers movie where the character posters there were also somewhat headshots as the main six characters were only shown to the side of the posters half-in in full supersuit attire. But that raises the negative aspect to this choice in that, it would have been nice to have seen the characters that aren’t in full supersuit attire in supersuit attire.

Now I can understand both sides of the argument to why they didn’t do this. As to why it would have been a good idea is because, for some of them, this is most likely their last hoorah when it comes to starring in an MCU movie and so to show Iron Man, Captain America, War Machine, Spider-Man and Black Panther with their masks/helmets would have been a nice touch rather than just seeing the character end with the head and then the actors take over from the neck up. But at the same time I can see why they didn’t because it adds another layer of drama and likeability to these characters if you can see the defeated look in their eyes and the determination they have to “Avenge the Fallen”.

Falcon, Star-Lord and Captain Marvel I give passes to on that because the latter two’s headgear isn’t always used and goggles pretty much block out any emotion. Also Thor and Loki’s helmets haven’t been used recently, Ant-Man and Wasp I give passes to in the same way I give Iron Man a pass.

In terms of characters not getting a poster, I do believe this all but confirms that Peter Dinklage’s Eitri will not return because even some of those who died prior to the snap made the cut for a poster and we will get into that.

Others who didn’t get a poster, who I am not so much surprised about but if Wong and Happy got posters why not them, are Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, Maria Hill, Nakia, M’Baku, Erik Selvig and Jane Foster. While we don’t know the fate of the latter four we didn’t know the confirmed fates of Valkyrie or Shuri to be certain.

Another missed opportunity is not having Ruffalo pictured with some sort of Hulk colouring. I still say his full promo shot for The Avengers which showed the Jekyll/Hyde of the character perfectly was one of the best promos the MCU has had. Whether or not they don’t want to reveal too much of this new Hulk they’re teasing may explain his absence but we’ll see.

The Reveals:

Alright so three major things are revealed in these posters alone. 1) Valkyrie, Wong and Happy survived the Snap, Valkyrie’s survival most likely means her rumoured appearance in the movie is true. I do find it interesting how all of the shippers who try pairing Cap and Bucky together in a romantic way are now also pairing Carol Danvers and Valkyrie together, yet unlike “Stucky” this pairing actually seems to be a potential thing as not only has Captain Marvel become an overnight LGBT icon akin to Wonder Woman, but because Tessa Thompson has already revealed Valkyrie is bisexual there are grounds for this ship to become canon and for us to have our first LGBT superhero romance in superhero movies either kicking off or teased in Phase 4.

The second thing that is revealed is Shuri apparently did not survive the snap, I genuinely believe this is a fake-out by Kevin Feige and/or the Russo Brothers as a way of throwing us off guard for a massive shock reveal.

I suspect, much like a lot of fans, that the shot of Shuri’s image among the list of the missing which also includes Spider-Man and Ant-Man is simply that, a list of the missing...not deceased or dusted. Yes Spider-Man is dead but unless Tony and/or Nebula are back on Earth at the time of this scene, no one knows if he’s actually dusted or not. We know Ant-Man isn’t dusted but trapped in the Quantum Realm so it stands to reason that after being knocked out by the Black Order during the Battle of Wakanda, she came around and simply went into hiding. There is every chance she survived the Snap because unless we see them turn into dust I wouldn’t trust the word of directors.

The third thing is the fact that only all of Tony’s supporting players survived the Snap. Rhodey, Pepper and Happy all survived to potentially see Iron Man’s last stand? It is weird that both Falcon and Bucky are dusted, no mention of Erik, Darcy and Jane, Fury and Maria Hill are both dusted and Banner lost his supporting players before Mark Ruffalo took over. So out of all the main six’s supporting players only Iron Man has his full team with him, maybe with the exception of Spider-Man but he’s a superhero in his own right.

Heroes are going to die in this movie, thee is no doubt about that. It is just a question of how gut-punching they want to make the deaths.as memorable and outstanding as possible. In my opinion, any of the main six dying would be a gut punch for the MCU but I feel at least Captain America or Iron Man will be one if not two of the casualties in this movie.

I don’t see Black Widow or Thor dying because Thor’s popularity of late has most likely saved him and he’ll hopefully go off and find a new Asgard while Black Widow, who looks fantastic here by the way, has her own movie coming out.

Banner and Hawkeye are the two I am on the fence about from a business and directorial standpoint, I love Hawkeye and am thrilled Renner looks set to finally full realize the character’s awesomeness here but when you think there have to be some casualties here it doesn’t look good. Also I think Bruce Banner/Hulk has run his course within the MCU.

The Theories:

So I have or have heard 3 major theories to come out of these posters, the first is my own Shuri theory in that her colourless photo here is simply a rouse.

The second is one I’ve heard revolving around Loki with fans saying that because he legitimately died prior to the Snap that it is a little bit odd that his photo is among those who have been dusted...unless he is going to return in Endgame. Firstly I am believing the same theory applies to Gamora because while she is in the Soul Stone rather than suffocated to death, she was never dusted and therefore technically shouldn’t be among these photos, otherwise where is Heimdell?

But secondly, I genuinely believe this is simply a list of fallen heroes who fell at the hands or Snap of Thanos and, for better or worse, Loki was a hero in the end as he tried standing up to Thanos. Do I think that means he’s getting a revival with everyone else, well I still say they need to make some deaths stick but because Loki is getting his own series and he has survived death a couple of times before, I would this it is plausible for him to make a surprise return.

The third, long-standing theory is that Marvel and Disney will use the Snap as a way of keeping certain Guardians members dead. This was something brought up in the aftermath of the original blow for James Gunn...but then it turned out he was never really fired and it was all just a fake-out.

When fans thought he had been fired though, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was in flux to the point where it was getting pushed back and fans believed it would be easier on Disney to keep the dusted Guardians members dead and have Rocket and Nebula either join the Avengers or go off on their own, but again this is now not the case.

If Gunn wants to wrap up his trilogy with his original team, as to be honest I think he should, then it makes sense for the four dusted Guardians members to come back. However, in this fan’s personal opinion, I think the MCU and Guardians 3 could do without at least Drax and Mantis. Star-Lord either needs to be held accountable for his stupidity on Titan or just needs to lead the team and be intimidated by Zac Efron’s Adam Warlock in Guardians 3, Gamora needs to return because she is currently in the Soul Stone. But of course, Dave Bautista is Gunn’s biggest supporter and so he will not stay dead.

Overall:

So it is sad because as nice as these posters look, we as fans already know they’re going to bring people back and looking at all of them lined up...if they don’t have a movie sequel or a co-star role in a movie sequel coming up, they have a television series in the works on Disney+. Now this again could be a rouse by Disney to try and lull us into a false sense of security but the ones who have TV shows like Falcon, Vision and Scarlet Witch are all three of my favourites so I don’t want it to be true and them to be reduced to TV but I also don’t want them to remain dead.

I would say the only ones on the dead side who currently could stay dead are either Hope van Dyne or Nick Fury. Hope because Ant-Man does not have a threequel planned while Doctor Strange, Black Panther, the Guardians and Spider-Man all have upcoming movies. Nick Fury because I can never remember how many more movie’s he has left on his contract and feel Spider-Man Far From Home would be a great fake-out not only if Fury in that movie was an illusion of Mysterio’s but also if it then when further to reveal that Fury was really dead.

So what do you guys think? What’s your favourite poster? Who do you think will stay dead? Do you see a romantic future for Captain Marvel and Valkyrie? Post your comments and check out more Superhero Spotlights as well as other posts

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theteablogger · 7 years

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Andy’s Instagram

I said in my "I'm back" post that Andy is still engaged in some of his old behavior patterns on his Instagram. He said last fall on Facebook that he has "no real interest in maintaining the big public persona fandom thing," but that was and is obviously not the case. Here is a run-down, with screenshots in case he deletes things. Other people's faces and usernames will be censored and comments will only be included if they're relevant in some way.

Overidentification with a fictional character

This is the most obvious element of Andy's Instagram behavior: the majority of his photos concern or are linked to Bucky and the MCU in some way. Until very recently, if he wasn't actually in costume for the photo, his comment would talk about how much his hair looks like Bucky's, he'd refer to himself as Bucky, or Bucky would appear in the tags. To some extent, this is normal for cosplayers on Instagram and other social media platforms; however, given Andy's history, it seems like a terrible idea for him to engage in this sort of behavior.

Remember, this is the guy who verbally, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, and otherwise abused a number of people for years and tried to excuse his actions by claiming that his mental illness/es had caused him to believe, among other things, that he was the embodiment of various fictional characters and some real people, and/or was in contact with them as they existed in parallel universes, and that everything he did was necessary to save the world. Only four years ago, he said that he'd been writing something from Neville Longbottom's point of view and suddenly started to see and hear this fictional character in the room with him. Within the last three years, he was explicitly tying in Destiel with his relationship with Brittany in SPN meta posts. Just last year, he was claiming to have very specific sense-memories of New York in the 1920s and '30s, but lampshaded it by saying that he probably picked up some information during "the gap-filled years", which he felt made him even more like Bucky. This was around the same time that he started talking about how his hair had mysteriously changed color all on its own to look exactly like Bucky's, much as it changed when he "became" Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom.

As I and others have said time and again, if Andy honestly believes that he did horrible things to people due to mental illness making him unable to differentiate fantasy from reality, why would he ever engage in behavior that risks triggering an event like that again?

Here are just a few examples:

#buckyhair and #buckywiththegoodhair come up a lot.

Andy’s hair just naturally looks like Bucky’s. Yup.

Of course a fictional character's training has any bearing at all on Andy's real-life abilities.

This post has nothing whatsoever to do with Bucky, but note the hashtag.

I find it very hard to believe that Andy's really been planning this tattoo for years and that it has nothing to do with Bucky. I guess we’re supposed to believe that it’s a huge coincidence that the current design and his future plans for it coincide so well with the placement of Bucky’s metal arm. Without explicitly saying so, he offers this as evidence of how he’s “so connected to Bucky”.

Yes, Andy himself is a superhero.

Again, there is no actual Bucky in this post.

Here, Andy over-dramatizes his actions while being hit by a car to make it seem as if he responded in much the same way that a highly trained supersoldier would. Someone replies, "You are literally Bucky oh my god are you okay??"

Andy also says on his Instagram that his Bucky cosplay has motivated him, more than anything has before, to work out and to get in better shape. While this is a good goal to have, it's worth noting that talk of/promises to change lives for and by means of fandom (and characters that Andy channeled or embodied) was a major component of the BagEnders and DAYD cults. In the latter case, getting into better physical shape was part of it, with “Dumbledore’s Boot Camp” and the cross-country hikes.

Tying fandom in to real-life politics and world affairs

This was also posted on tumblr. The text is a paraphrased quotation from The Avengers, from the scene in which Captain America saves the life of an elderly German man (by implication a survivor of the Nazi regime) who is the only one brave enough to stand up to Loki.

Andy is hardly the first person to conflate being a slash fan with political or social activism, but considering his history, this gets an extra hard eyeroll from me. People's lives are at stake due to LGBTQIA persecution in Russia, so naturally it's an extremely emotionally charged issue, and Andy is right there to take advantage of that. He also talks about learning Russian, supposedly for career reasons, although people on tf-talk have pointed out that the Russian film system is closed to outsiders, the field is rather crowded in Eastern Europe, and oddly enough, people in countries that are not Russia tend to speak primarily non-Russian languages. (A Russian class did not appear on Andy's Spring 2017 transcript, so he only took it for one semester, if at all.)

I also notice that he says he's "about to learn a lot about Russian time zones", as if he's never had a Russian friend before. One of the women that he emotionally manipulated via tumblr and Skype is Russian and lives in Russia.

This is not the only post of Andy as Bucky wearing a POW/MIA shirt as part of his cosplay and using hashtags like #honorourvets and #powmia. If he really wanted to honor military personnel, a minority group, etc., he wouldn't use them as props to draw more attention to himself.

Another post about cosplay and slash fandom as a form of activism. What a shame that his cosplay partner puts his real-life relationship ahead of "being a tree by the river of truth", and that his fiancée puts her discomfort with "anybody else gettin' their hands on her man" (as Andy says in the video) ahead of their great chemistry. [/sarcasm]

Andy has repeatedly made passive-aggressive comments about this man's being unwilling to do Stucky photos because of his and his fiancée's boundaries. I didn't think much of it until I noticed that a comment giving Andy kudos for showing respect had been met with pontification about how he would really love to be able to do Stucky photos, but "real life romances come first" and he wouldn't want to do a Stucky shoot with a "stunty, stilted, or no-homo vibe".

I also think the way he refers to his "wonderfully devoted fan following" in Russia speaks volumes about how he thinks of them. Everyone is just a means to an end, and usually that end is narcissistic supply.

Here's some post-election political Bucky art. Run through Google Translate, the caption reads (bolding mine):

I'm sorry that my Russian is bad, small and new. I'm grieving for America tonight. I do not believe in religion. I believe in God. I do not think I found this place by accident. Here I learned that a place can have bad leaders, bad laws and good, strong, kind people. It's Russia. Now it will be America too. I hope we can change and have good leaders and good laws.

He continues to portray himself as wise, compassionate, and haunted by the fact that the rest of the world is not equally so. This also continues his old pattern of imparting mystical significance to his participation in a fandom.

Using superhero imagery "to highlight the problems faced by real world vets" on Veterans Day seemed disrespectful to Andy…so instead, he posted a picture of Cap and an apology to veterans for Trump's having been elected. Because that's completely different.

International Women’s Day. See previous point about his use of people and issues as attention-getting devices.

Courting younger, politically-minded people with condescension and a hefty dose of misinformation

Here are just a couple of Andy's posts about the 2016 presidential election:

I can't even tell you how many times Andy made tumblr posts inviting random strangers to his (his parents') house to hang out and have fun; this is the same old story from another angle. Anything to lure new people into his influence. (This video is incredibly condescending, by the way.)

This (part 2) (part 3) is the Instagram version of this misleading tumblr post. I'm going to go ahead and admit that this and several other tf-talk comments about his BS surrounding the election were from me because I was incredibly angry about Andy's once again taking advantage of people's completely justified fears about a volatile situation.

See also this brief but masterful takedown of his "shh everything will be fine" tumblr post after the election.

Here's a completely unironic post (part 2) (part 3) about how back in the day, only intelligent, right-thinking people had the ability to share their opinions with large numbers and wide ranges of people—but now any jackass pleb can get on the internet and spin anything in any way that they want, to reach any nefarious end. "Credentialed experts, not Instagram gurus. Data, not anecdotes." There he is again, hiding in plain sight.

Talking about how poor he is

It mainly takes the form of the usual posts about doing or making XYZ impressive thing on a shoestring budget because Andy Is Wise and Resourceful, but there's also this (part 2).

Stupid art school! Not only do they expect Andy to take art classes instead of just accepting that he is The Most Talented; they also expect him to purchase supplies! Thus he can no longer attend VA ComicCon…unless his friend knows "a magic money tree or a way to get free tickets." One or the other must have materialized, because he made it to the con anyway. Obviously Andy's friends are free to pay for things for him if they want to, but remember that he has a history of lying or "bending the truth" to get money out of people.

Making and endorsing extremely poor decisions

Yes, he says that he only had one Oxy with his giant tumblr (sic) of wine. That doesn't matter. It's unwise to mix any amount of opiates with alcohol, and equally unwise to discuss it publicly, especially given his tendency to encourage much younger people to regard him as some sort of font of wisdom and life advice.

This is how Andy achieves the one-armed Bucky look. Yes, a lot of people can pop their shoulders in and out of joint at will, but it's a bad idea, especially given the amount of time that he spends with it in this condition.

I spoke with the same doctor whom I consulted about the horrific binding injury that Andy claimed to have sustained. They said that repeatedly dislocating one's shoulder is very likely to cause instability of the joint, which can be debilitating (and quite dangerous, I would think, if his shoulder went out while lifting weights or something). Additionally, every time his shoulder is popped out and reset, Andy risks incurring torn muscles and stretched or torn ligaments/tendons, a trapped nerve, and vessel damage. Some of these effects become increasingly likely the longer it's out of joint. Andy, if you happen to read this, please stop doing this stupid thing. I may not like you, but I don't want you to injure yourself, for fuck's sake. And please stop instructing other cosplayers in how to accomplish dangerous things for the sake of a costume.

I have no idea whether Andy was checked out by medical personnel after he was hit by the car. I hope so. It's the #noexcuses tag that really gets to me. Attention, everyone: never, ever assume that you are 100% okay to engage in strenuous physical activity after an incident like being hit by a fucking car. It doesn't matter how slowly it was moving at the time. Without a thorough physical examination, you cannot be sure that you haven't sustained a non-apparent injury that will cause trouble later. Something like this is absolutely a valid reason not to go to the gym the next day, as intense cardio or weight training may exacerbate damage of which you are not yet aware. This post of his is incredibly irresponsible.

Promoting DAYD

Last October, in a post that featured photos of the GoT feast, Andy referred to DAYD as "a fairly popular HP companion novel", as if it were the HP equivalent to the Star Trek novels rather than a fanwork.

Andy continues to urge new people to check out the fan novel that he used as the basis for the second cult of personality in which he manipulated and took advantage of a great many people. (Also, DAYD got a neutral, one-line mention in an Atlantic Monthly article alongside Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but okay.)

He is so hoping that someone will ask about that tattoo.

Grooming female companions

I'm not sure what other word to use for Andy’s relationship with this person, as public information about it is limited to what appeared on Instagram. Please understand that I am not judging her at all and do not wish to identify her in any way. Considering Andy's behavior with Abbey, Brittany, L, Silven, and others among his female friends/followers, I think it's important to talk about it.

This is the first overtly romantic cosplay picture that Andy has posted in MCU fandom. His cosplay partner’s comments are very telling:

It really was the best day for me. … I love you my handsome cosboyfriend you seriously are my best friend my love and I truly believe my partner I know when you call me "your" Natalia that I am loved and care for more than I could ever imagine. I love you

If this person is roleplaying as Natasha, it makes no sense to refer to Bucky as her "cosboyfriend". She is talking about Andy. Whatever is going on here is pretty fucking intense. And given his proclivity for redheads, it is not lost on me that he has selected a character who’s had a canonical relationship with a red-haired woman in the past, giving him an excuse to act out scenes like this.

Here is a romantic photoset of Andy with the same woman, to whom he now refers as "the cosgirlfriend". She replies,

I love you my beautiful cosboyfriend … By the way you owe me roses now … [you're] the beauty im the beast

A commenter asks whether this is "canon, or just two beautiful people being beautiful together," wondering whether Andy and this fellow cosplayer are an IRL couple. Andy neatly dodges the question by referring to the comics.

Andy's "cosgirlfriend" has also called him gorgeous, left a suggestive comment on one of his bathbomb photos, talked about missing him/his face, and referred to him as "baby" and "dear". All of her comments were left within ten days, and of course Andy didn’t respond publicly to any of them. In my opinion based on what Andy has done many times over, the little information that I have (not all of which I am comfortable sharing) suggests that this may have been another situation in which he love-bombed a woman and quickly established what she felt was a very close, deep relationship with romantic possibilities, and then backed off just as quickly. As of 5/30, Andy had taken down the first picture of the two of them and she'd asked for the second to be removed as well. He did so earlier this month. I have not attempted to contact this person, as I feel that would be crossing a line, but I'm guessing that she requested their removal because she’d received negative attention and/or warnings about Andy.

Miscellaneous

I will not share screenshots of these, but Andy has posted several pictures of himself with young children. He loves kids, perhaps in part because they tend to be so much more credulous than adults and they make great attention-getting props. In one notable instance, he posted a picture and video of a little boy from Romania, who he said was a huge Captain America fan who'd love to hear from Sebastian Stan. Andy and some of his friends tagged the actor several times in the posts and comments. All the boy talked about in the video was his Pokemon fan creations, while Andy tried hard to drag the conversation around to Cap and Bucky. The picture that he posted was also Pokemon-related, as was a later image of a drawing the child had made. It seems likely, given his past behavior, that Andy is using this child (who may or may not be interested in Marvel characters at all) to gain the attention of the actor who plays the character around whom his life currently revolves.

Andy has consistently referred to the kittens as "our babies" for a couple months now, which is understandable because he lives with them, but also makes me nervous because of his history with the rabbit, the mouse, and Boo.

He recently shared a picture of himself with a very good Seven of Nine cosplayer and called back to his days in the Star Trek: Voyager fandom. Reminding people of the first time that you lied your ass off to a fandom for attention is probably not a great idea, Andy.

Here he is using another flimsy excuse to humblebrag about his alleged genius IQ, which he's been doing from the very beginning. Andy never changes.

Andy also now has a Patreon on which he is offering a tutorial for Bucky’s metal arm. Someone at tf-talk has noted that his bio includes a different origin story for his costuming interest than he gave in Viva La Cosplay. Then, he wanted to appear charmingly naïve and to make his work look more impressive by claiming a lack of experience. Now, he wants to look super legit to attract more patrons.

The higher reward tier includes a 20-minute [Facebook] messenger session for Q&A and for Andy to talk the patron through customizing the arm for themselves. A) Facebook’s policies mean that a lot of people will have to give Andy their RL names for this...which is one reason that he likes using Facebook. B) That doesn’t seem like very much time to go over customization. Would any cosplayers like to weigh in on this?

#andythanfiction #andrew blake #andy blake #bucky #mcu #cosplay #social justice

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