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shanastoryteller · 7 months

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Happy Fall Season! 🍁🍂🌻🎃👻🧛🏻‍♀️ … Three faced goddess continuation 👉🏻👈🏻? God dammit shana i fucking loved this prompt, 2012 Tony is the only version that has rights and I’ve had such a problem with him ever since aou, but your writing took me back to when I actually loved his character

a continuations of 1

Rhodey heads to the smith, unsurprised to see a line of people outside of it, waiting for the man inside to succumb to his need to eat or sleep and pounce on him for whatever issue they believe needs his immediate attention. Peter is among them, the closest to an apprentice that exists, but he can’t enter the forge without everyone else pushing in too, so he waits with all the rest of them.

When they see him coming, they groan, knowing their chances have been destroyed, except for Peter, who just looks relieved.

He remembers a time when Edward belonged to him alone. Edward exists because of him, after all, and needs must, but sometimes he can’t help but resent that this is another piece that he’s had to share.

“When I walk back out, it better be to an empty hallway,” he says blandly.

He receives a chorus of, “Yes, General,” and a jaunty wave from Peter before he’s opening the door and then shutting it firmly behind him.

In the beginning, the alchemy lab and the forge had occupied the same space, the outpost not yet big enough to have the rooms to spare. It had been quickly remedied once Rhodey had found about it, because the last thing any of them needed was losing him to an explosion of his own making, but he can’t say he’s surprised to see a cauldron bubbling ominously in the center of the room. “You have a lab for a reason.”

Surprised brown eyes snap up to meet his, and then there’s that familiar grin that always causes tension to unspool from his spine, even when it really shouldn’t. “Well, well, look what the cat dragged in. How goes the battle on the Eastern border?”

As if he doesn’t know. “They’re retreating. Our soldiers are holding the line and it looks like they’ve given up attacking us on that front. For now.”

“Sounds like something you should tell the king,” he says, frowning down into the cauldron as if it’s personally disappointed him.

Rhodey closes the distance between them, grabbing his chin and tilting his head to the side, frowning at the bruising mostly hidden by his hairline. “I am. But it’s a bit of wasted effort, considering the king is half the reason for their retreat.”

“Just half?” he pouts. “I really think that I deserve more credit-”

Rhodey kisses him to shut him up, a strategy that he’s been employing since they were teenagers, the whole reason necessitating Edward in the first place.

The second prince could not be scene dallying with someone so below him in station, the fact they were known to be friendly was a fluke of a broken wagon and much derision to all who heard of it. But Edward was no one, an educated fifth son of some nameless noble with a talent for metalwork, and no one cared if he kissed a commoner.

Then war had come knocking and a king could not do what needed to be done and so Edward had shifted from Rhodey’s to the country’s overnight.

Tony hums happily against his mouth and Rhodey pulls back rather than deepening it. Half the trick with was not letting him get distracted. “You need to get some sleep. Have you slept at all since getting back from the battle?”

The deep bruises under his eyes already tells him the answer, but it’s still worth asking.

“Need to figure this out,” he says, tilting his head to the cauldron. “It’s a coating for the blades to get them sharp enough to cut through armor. Not our armor, obviously, but other people’s.”

“A day,” he says, because Tony is needed everywhere at all times in all ways, and someone has to keep him from running himself into an early grave, and at the outpost, that’s him. “Just a day at home. I know you miss it. It’s been a while.”

Tony’s eyes go distant and fond. “Yes,” he agrees, and that one word has all the exhaustion that he won’t let show.

“You disappear all the time, no one will question it,” he murmurs, “I’ll make sure of it.”

“I’ll go if you will,” he returns. “You haven’t been home in even longer than I have.”

“Less of a need,” he argues, and he should argue against this too, when it’s unnecessary and dangerous, but he’s tired too. “Fine. We’ll need to sneak out to the woods if you don’t want to get caught.”

Tony clearly hadn’t expected him to agree that easily. “You hate flying.”

He hates how much pain it puts Tony in, but since he’s flying either way to get home, it doesn’t matter. “I’ll deal.”

Tony kisses him again, writes down some notes, douses the cauldron, and then they’re using the secret entrances that had actually been the whole point of building a lab near the forge. When they’re far enough away, Tony’s chest glows, the light and sparks spreading out from his chest to effulge his body and liquid gold and mercury sliding down his limbs. Rhodey has to close his eyes against the light, but Tony’s arms around him are always welcome, even when they burn almost too hot to stand.

The Iron Mage flying to the castle is a common enough sight that it raises no alarm and the brightness of Tony in flight means no one can tell he has a passenger, seen as nothing more than their own personal shooting star.

Tony melts the iron shutters back with a wave of his hand, likely reforming it behind them with a more intricate pattern than they’d been wrought with, because he always had such opinions about anything he hadn’t crafted himself.

He’s barely set Rhodey back onto his feet and folded the star back inside himself when there’s the running of little feet coming straight for them. Rhodey’s not surprised.

She’s always watching the stars, looking for her father.

Tony bends to pick up Morgan as she rounds the corner, barreling towards him with single minded intensity. “Daddy!”

“Hey, buttercup,” he says, hoisting her into her arms and settling her on his hip. “Miss me?”

“Yes,” she answers, wrapping her arms around Tony’s neck in a hug. She turns her head to grin at him, Tony’s eyes shining in her face. “Hi Rhodey. I missed you too.”

“Hi, Princess,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. She frees one arm from Tony to grab onto the front of his jacket, keeping him in place. He settled a hand on her back and that seems to satisfy her.

The door pushes open and Pepper is standing there, still with hair up and braided around a circlet and in a deep blue silk gown. “Someone here is supposed to be asleep.”

Tony and Morgan’s innocent faces are identical and equally unconvincing.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Rhodey asks.

“It’s all three of you, really,” she answers, striding forward. She squeezes his shoulder, then uses it as balance to push herself to her tip toes.

Tony bends to meet her in a kiss, chaste enough that Rhodey doesn’t feel the need to pull away but long enough that he assumes Tony’s sleep might end up experiencing a delay.

“I don’t want to go bed,” Morgan says. “Daddy’s home.”

“I’ll be here in the morning,” Tony says and Pepper’s face relaxes. “Come on, I’ll put you to bed myself, okay? And then you can tell me about all the new things you learned over breakfast.”

“I’m not tired,” she insists, but only waves at him when Tony pulls away to take her to her room.

Rhodey waves back, almost goes with them, but having the two of them there will just make her twice as riled up.

“I could have another, you know.”

He looks down at Pepper, blinking. “I thought – after the war?”

After the cave, after swallowing a star rather than being swallowed by it, Tony couldn’t justify staying on the sidelines, couldn’t justify only contributing to the war as Edward. Besides, being captured in the first place had shown him that he wasn’t safe as Edward anyway, but even Tony couldn’t justify taking to the battlefield without an heir, without a child of Stark blood to inherit, without a queen who could rule both while he fought and invented and in the event of his death.

Prince Gregory had been ten years older than Tony, he’d been the boy everyone knew would be king. Tony was just the spare, and not even one had on purpose. It’s why he’d had the freedom to meet Rhodey in the first place, to take on the name Edward and poke and prod his way through universities and labs and harassing blacksmiths into teaching him a craft a prince was never supposed to know. They’d assumed his father would arrange his marriage to some foreign noble for political reasons and Tony would install her onto an estate and do what was necessary to add a couple kids to the royal line and that would be that, he would then be free to spend his time on pursuits he enjoyed and with the man he loved. He was just the second prince, after all, it’s not like what he did really mattered, and he and Prince Gregory had never gotten along anyway.

Lots of people hadn’t gotten along with Prince Gregory, lots of people had thought his temper and his cruelty and several other attributes made him unsuitable as king. Maybe, on their own, they wouldn’t have mattered much – Rhodey thought Prince Gregory was not so much worse than King Howard – but he was constantly compared to the brother ten years his junior and found lacking.

They never found out who was behind the attack that killed Tony’s parents and brother. With their enemies sensing weakness and declaring war soon after, it was easy to pin the blame on them. But there were persistent rumors that it’d been someone, or several someones, that wanted Tony on the throne over his brother.

Rhodey doesn’t know if it’s true. All he knows is that relief rippled through the country far heavier than mourning.

The relationship he and Tony had, the future they’d mapped out, had been possible for a snubbed second prince and utterly impossible for a king. Tony had put off marriage for longer than he should have, but he couldn’t forever, and his urge to get out and fight now that he could pressed down on him.

Pepper had been his friend first. Their friend first. A noble, but only barely, and utterly unsuitable for the title of queen according to her pedigree and also the only one Tony would agree to marry so the rest hadn’t mattered.

If she were anyone else, he thinks he would have hated her. But Pepper had come to him after Tony had asked her and said, “I love him,” like throwing down a gauntlet.

He’d known. Who couldn’t help but love Tony, once they got to know him? And Pepper was beautiful and competent and trustworthy, could have Tony’s children and lead his country and keep all his secrets. And Tony might be able to resist falling in love with Pepper when she was only his friend and confidant, but as his wife, the mother of his children, his queen? He would fall.

“I want what’s best for him,” she’d continued in what he thought was going to be the worst conversation of his life, “and that’s me and you. He would never give you up. You know that. You should have a little more faith in him.”

“He needs you,” he’d said quietly. What Tony needed is something he couldn’t be, he wasn’t a noble or a woman.

Pepper had lifted her chin in defiance, every inch the queen she was going to become. “He needs us.”

That had been years ago. They made it work, awkwardly and painfully at first, but much smoother these days, warmer and easier. When the war ends, he thinks things might even be easy.

Tony and Pepper had needed to have a child and quickly, to secure the succession. She’d been pregnant within four months of their marriage and Princess Morgan’s birth had been greeted with relief by the country. Still, more heirs are better, especially with Starks being thin on the ground, but Tony resisted the idea of having another child in the midst of war, another child that he might die on and abandon.

Which is what makes Pepper’s statement so confusing.

“I didn’t mean right this second,” she says, lips turning up at the corners. “I know I’m not exactly your type, but I certainly wouldn’t mind the process myself. Morgan’s yours, of course, but if you wanted – I wouldn’t mind. Tony wouldn’t either.”

He understands what she’s offering and he’s shaking his head before she’s even finished talking. “We can’t – they’d know.”

“Maybe the next one will take after my genes,” she says. “Goddess knows Morgan’s all her father.”

She is, so clearly Stark, from her eyes to her intelligence to her love of trouble. But there’s no way a child of his could pass as a child Tony’s, which is what any child of the queen’s would have to be. Even if they came out pale enough to pass as a Stark, which isn’t any sort of risk they could take, it wouldn’t be worth the risk of anyone finding out that a child in line for the throne was not of the Goddess blessed bloodline.

“Tony’s children are my children,” he says, and means it. Pepper and Tony had always been clear about that and it had been a relief, to not have to be so close and yet so far, to be able to love Morgan as his daughter even if it was nothing he could ever say out loud. “Go and help him with her. I know you have a lot to catch up on.”

He’ll go to his room, with the bed and comforts that he’s missed quiet a lot, and get the sleep that he’s also missed.

She sighs, squeezing his arm. “Don’t wander. I get up early and Tony never sleeps through it.”

Tony will get up with her, and kiss her as she heads to the hall, then go down to his room and crawl into bed with him, still sleep warm, until he has to get up and put in an appearance as King Anthony.

Rhodey smiles and nudges her towards the hall. “Go on, your husband is waiting.”

“Our husband,” she corrects imperiously and doesn’t move until he laughs and nods and repeats her words back to her.

#i actually think everyone's characterizations in aou onward were utter garbage lol #like i think tony gets shafted a lot because i love him but also they really just made everyone unlikable #the last marvel movie that was real to me was catws #damn this is so long #i'm just having a lot of fun with this au #asks #anon #prompt answers #prompts are closed #avengers

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rolling-harbinger · 2 years

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I find it so interesting how Hunter literally relates to every characters problems in the show, but it’s then taken to the extreme for him.

With Luz, they are similar because they both can’t do magic naturally, they also feel guilt for helping Belos, and they both can’t go home (but with Hunter it’s taken to the extreme because he’s been helping Belos his whole life, and as a witch he should be able to do magic. He also can’t go home or else he would literally be killed)

With Amity, they are similar because they both have controlling and neglectful parent(s) (but with Hunter it’s taken to the extreme because Belos doesn’t care for Hunter and his safety at all, while Amity’s parents do actually care for her and her safety. And Amity always had her siblings, and she’s starting to make amends with her dad. But Hunter was always alone, he only recently got Flapjack, and there is no way to make amends with Belos)

With King, they are similar because both of their families were all killed (but with Hunter it’s taken to the extreme because his family was killed by the person he loved the most. And can you even say he has a family considering he’s a clone?)

With Lilith, they are similar because they both have a need to please adult figures in their lives, and they also can’t fail the emperor (but with Hunter it’s taken to the extreme because the emperor is his uncle. His whole life he needed to please the emperor. He never grew up with a loving family, unlike Lilith)

With Willow, they are similar because they both were/ are considered half a witch witches (but with Hunter it’s taken to the extreme because while Willow actually did get magic and is also really powerful with it, Hunter will never have magic)

With Gus, they are similar because they are overlooked and ignored by adults because of their age (but with Hunter it’s taken to the extreme because even though he is in an authoritarian position, he is still belittled and mistreated by adults and even made fun of)

With Eda, they are similar because they both got dad/uncle issues, and have both probably dealt with a lot of panic attacks in their life (but with Hunter it’s taken to the extreme because while Edas dad actually does truly love her, no matter what she did, Hunters uncle never even loved him in the first place)

(Also, I’m not trying to compare trauma here and say he has it worst, I’m just stating how he has his similarities to these characters, but his side is really taken to the extreme )

There’s also problems he has that no one else in the show can quite relate to.

He grew up as a child soldier. I can imagine he has trauma similar that of a soldier in war. The training he does seems to be very extreme, especially for a kid. I can imagine he has seen some pretty graphic and horrific stuff in his line of work. He also lives basically everyday fighting, stopping criminals, and protecting the emperor as his guard. His life is constantly at risk from criminals, traitors, enemies of the emperor, his own colleagues, and now even the emperor himself, the person he loved and idolized. He has almost died (and even died in past lives) so many times. He never got to live a normal childhood. He had to grow up fast, and adapt to this life. But the only reason it isn’t heavily affecting him is because he grew up with this stuff. So it’s normal for him. He doesn’t see any of this stuff as bad, unlike what an adult would see because they hadn’t grown up like that.

He was also heavily sheltered and doesn’t know basic normal relationships, and doesn’t understand normal concepts. He doesn’t know what’s considered normal and what’s not. He thinks backstabbing people is a completely normal thing to do to others and even his own friends because it happens all of the time where he comes from.

Everything also has to be earned for him. Nothing can ever be taken easy. He’s a powerless witch, he has no purpose in a world like this. He works so hard to prove that he is strong, and can make the emperor proud. Cause if he can’t, this world will forget him, and he will be left behind. He has no real magic, so he is seen as nothing from most people.

He also thinks he always has to prove him self, and that he is worth nothing if he can’t be of service to someone. He thinks he will be replaced and forgotten the moment he can’t complete a task. He always has to complete a task or mission with no failures, because he can’t disappoint the person he thinks that sees him as special.

There’s also the high possibility that Belos most likely not only emotionally abuses and manipulates Hunter, he also physically abuses him. The way Hunter always flinches, and the constant threats from Belos. Belos also gaslights hunter even when hunter is not there. Like in Hollow Mind, hunter has a lot of knowledge on the mindscape, but the moment anything puts Belos in a negative light hunter starts to doubt himself and call himself an idiot in the sake of putting Belos on top. He belittles himself for Belos.

He is very lonely. Before flapjack, he has been basically alone for 16 years, with nothing but an abusive uncle for company.

He also has a lot of pressure. He will do anything to make Belos happy. He will betray people, trick people, and hurt people (even if they showed kindness towards him), not really out of malicious intent, but because he is so terrified of failing or making Belos mad. He becomes very desperate and anxious the moment he can’t succeed at something. He has a lot of anxiety and he just can’t fail. If he didn’t come back with results, something bad will happen to him. This also makes him very self sabotaging sadly. (And Unlike Lilith) this has been with him his whole life.

He doesn’t even know what a friend truly is, when Eda referred to flapjack as Hunters friend, he seemed confused and acted like he didn’t know what Eda was even talking about.

He not only has bad mental health, but also physical health. He has so many scars on his body which could be caused by both Belos and missions he has had in the past. He also has these huge bags under his eyes just showing how he barely ever sleeps. He’s described as scrawny by Amity, so he might also not eat a lot as well.

There can also be guilt he has for helping Belos kill so many Palismen. He might’ve even helped Belos kill witches and “traitors” too considering Belos made past golden guards help him with that. Hunter constantly has memories of Palismen, and how he has helped kill them. (Again, similar to soldiers with ptsd from killing) and the reason only the Palismen being killed is affecting Hunter and not other things is because so far in the story, that’s the only thing he has realized was bad because of his friendship with Flapjack. He thought sending his friends off to be part of the emperors coven was fine until he realized their palismen would be in danger. If he never made his friendship with his palismen, he wouldn’t have seen anything else wrong with that. He can’t see anything wrong with how horrible his life truly is until he gets something that tells him otherwise.

Then there is also the problem with his uncles curse. He always wants to help with his curse, and find some type of cure. But every time he suggests something that may help, his uncle dismisses him, and may even get mad at him and threaten him. Hunter constantly has to witness Belos’s violent outbursts, and maybe even had to deal with his cursed form head on sometimes. Hunter grew up with this constant violence and this need to somehow cure and help Belos.

He also believed his life was set up for him. That there was no way he can have a life HE would want to live. He was always told the titan had plans for him. And that he can’t die, not for the sake of his own being, but for the titan. He had no choices in his life. Everything he did, was for the emperor.

He is very insecure. He acts very confident and egotistical (especially with the mask) but he doubts himself a lot. He doesn’t see someone worth anything, he just sees someone who needs to be of service to the emperor.

And now I can see him also having really bad identity issues, questioning if anything is real, what even is he, is he worthless? Was his purpose just to be made and killed over and over again by Belos? Is HE even real? Is anything he does actually HIM doing that, or is it just the person he’s supposed to be a clone of? His whole life is a lie. Everything he ever believed was a lie. Belos never truly saw him as special. He saw him as a thing. As a tool. Something that can just be replaced. He is nothing.

Dude… Hunter is teetering back and forth on a very thin line of mental instability, I’m surprised he even made it this far without being completely insane. (Albeit, he did go a bit crazy temporarily in Eclipse Lake. And it’s probably not even the first time that’s happened)

He really represses his trauma, and even looks back at it as a fond memory. But I feel like with him being alone in the forest with nothing but his thoughts and a bird will make him realize how screwed up everything really is.

He has gone through so much, and I’m afraid for what the future may hold for him because I have a good feeling his trauma is far from over

#DAMN THIS IS SO LONG #there’s just so much trauma!#I AM SO SORRY #if no one reads this I don’t blame them lol #but if you did read this #I really really appreciate you so much #thankyou so much for taking the time to read all of this :’)#this boy has been through a lot #the owl house #toh #disney toh #toh hunter #the golden guard #toh disney #toh the golden guard #hunter toh #hunter #abuse tw

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mischief-lies-and-stories · 4 months

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The Finale was Good, Actually

[Normally I put my intro here, but I jump right into spoilers with this one, so I won't. Spoilers for Loki, especially 2x06, Agent of Asgard, and The God Who Fell to Earth. I also reference Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven," but it's like the first line, so I don't think it spoils anything.]

I’m thinking about the ending to Loki again, and how even though it got kind of mixed reactions from the fandom, because it ends with Loki and Mobius separated, and even though it seems like disregard things that Loki wants (he doesn’t want to be alone, now he’s alone at the end of time; he never wanted a throne, and now he’s got the loneliest throne of all). Ultimately, at the end of the day, I feel like it was such an excellent and cathartic ending for Loki, because of this story arc we’ve seen him on– including the parts of him that this Loki in particular doesn’t get, but just the MCU Loki in general that we’ve seen go through for the last twelve years. And because it mirrors so well with my favorite comic arc, Loki: Agent of Asgard (ignoring most of what happens after Ewing leaves Loki’s story).

He’s no longer the god of lies, he’s no longer trapped in this box that the narrative keeps shoving him into. He’s no longer this person everyone in his life has always told him that he is and that’s all he’ll ever amount to and all he’ll ever be.

There’s this line that he has in The God Who Fell to Earth (which, admittedly, I don’t care too much for, because it takes his God of Stories arc and just sort of drops it without giving him a chance to make something of that title) that he says at the very end that goes, “A lie is a story, yes. But I remember the first lie I ever told. Which means before I was a liar, I was something else.” And so now, in the MCU, we see that he’s something different, something beyond the God of Lies, something more. We see that he can even be something more. He’s broken out of this box that the narrative has always tried to shove him into, this narrative that He Who Remains has written, that the timeline has written, that everyone who has known him has always forced him into. He’s rewritten his story.

Which is what he does in Agent of Asgard, through ego death, through rebranding himself as God of Stories, through evolution, through transformation. And we see him transform as he walks down the bridge/gangway, up those stairs, through that rift. We see him transform into something different, into something more. And because I love Agent of Asgard, because that is my gospel in terms of Loki’s arc, it’s what I’ve wanted for MCU Loki from the beginning, what I’ve been waiting for him to do, to realize about himself: that before he was the God of Lies, he was something more, and he can be something more again. He can be something different, something beyond what the narrative forces him to be. He can contribute to the narrative, rebrand the narrative, guard the narrative so that others can write their own stories, without being written by Kang, without being erased by Kang, without being rewritten by Kang or a variant of Kang.

And he’s alone. And he’s selling himself a lie, because even when he’s not the God of Lies, he’s still what came before. There is a line from Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Eleven,” that goes, “When you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.” And all those years are rattling around inside you at all times. And just as all those years that you have ever been are rattling around inside you, all the people that you have ever been leave their mark on you. So that even if you are different, even if you have changed, there is still a piece of who you once were left, like a brand, upon your soul.

So even though he is the God of Stories now, the God of Time, a god for his friends, for everyone, he is also the God of Lies. Because a lie is a story told.

And he is there alone, watching Mobius, at the end of that season. And I think what hurts people so much, is that we know them, and we know what Loki has said explicitly about what he doesn’t want. And we can see from the look on Mobius’s face, that this is clearly what he doesn’t want, either, but it’s kind of just what he has to live with. But what we can also see clear as day, in that final shot of the series, is this look on Loki’s face. It looks like a second away from a smile, and a second away from tears. People have interpreted it differently, and I can see both ways. But what I see, and what I think people are interpreting in a variety of ways themselves, even if it’s not necessarily put into these words, is in this moment (just as Cisneros puts it, even when you are eleven, sometimes you are also three, and so just as you are the god of stories, you are also the god of lies), Loki is telling himself a lie. He’s selling himself a lie, and it is a very good lie, because he is the god of lies and he is used to lying to himself. The lie he tells himself is that this is what he wants, because this is what is right. That every cell in his body is not screaming to be physically in Cincinnati the moment he catches sight of Mobius on the timeline. The lie he is telling is that Mobius is not upset about his being gone; he is just working through finally finding his past, and being given this freedom he’s never had before, and if he is upset or missing Loki, he will get over it. He will get past it, and he will find his place and his purpose just as Loki has, and it will not involve Loki. And that’s okay, and what Loki wanted, and what is meant to happen, and Loki is happy about it.

And it’s a beautiful sentiment, a beautiful sacrifice, and it is reassuring. But it is also a lie. And the lie that he is feeding himself, he might believe. But as he’s telling it to himself, he knows what it is. A lie is a story told. Not a true story, but a story that you imbue with magic in an attempt to make it seem so.

Yes, it is a sad ending, because Loki wants to be with his friends. And his friends– at least Mobius, but I would argue that if asked, Verity/B-15, OB, Casey, and perhaps even Sylvie would agree, too– his friends want to be with Loki. But they can’t be right now, for the good of everything. And that is very sad, that sometimes for the good of oneself, one’s family, one’s community, and, in the case of superhero media, for the good of the universe and time, sometimes friends cannot be together. Lovers cannot be together. Missed opportunities abound. Words are left unsaid. The words that are said have to bear the weight of what there is not time to say.

But the story that Loki is rewriting here ends hopefully. Because Loki has all of this rattling inside of him. He is still the god of lies, but he has also been newly christened the god of stories. But he was also, before this, before his lies became painful, became lies, when they were merely amusements, he was also the god of mischief. And he is a sorcerer, with a talent surpassing those who trained him. Perhaps not surpassing his mother’s, but coming damn close, if it doesn’t. He (supposedly) tricked everyone but Heimdall for four years that he was his father!

Magic, and mischief. And so, with all of these parts of himself, and his stubbornness to pull off or nearly pull off impossible feats time and again (for heaven’s sake, it took an entire newly-formed team of six humans to stop the god of mischief on earth, after he’d been tortured for a year), if he gets it into his mind that he’s tired of sitting around and decides he misses Mobius enough to go find him, he’s going to figure out a way to go find him without bringing destruction upon the multiverse. He will find a way, I’m confident of it. And also Mobius is just as fucking stubborn as he is.

So it ends perhaps not in a way that we wanted it to, but it ends hopefully, and it ends triumphantly. They won. They beat Kang at his own fucking game. He wanted Loki to stop Sylvie from killing him, so he can go back and do whatever the fuck he was doing or, if he really did want Loki to take over for him, so he can go fuck up some other shit, while someone else is still watching the Sacred Timeline. So that essentially he’s still ruling the world, just continuing to outsource it.

But Loki, upon the brilliant suggestion of Sylvie, says fuck that idea. And breaks it. He beats Kang, because Kang is so fucking power-hungry, so fucking dictatorial, so fucking entrenched in his ways, that he doesn’t believe it’s possible for anybody to change, least of all Loki. He’s predictable, Kang made him that way. But Loki broke out of that narrative. Loki saw how the chips were laid, and upon Sylvie’s suggestion (I still want to credit Sylvie for this idea), just breaks the mold.

The ending was sad, for a multitude of reasons. But what I care about, is if they did right by Loki, because so often, they do not do right by Loki. And I am perfectly open to the argument that they did not do right by Loki because of I don’t want to be alone and I don’t want a throne and then he ended up alone and on a throne. I get it. I understand if your argument is that they did not do right by Loki because of that. That makes sense. But I feel like, character developmentally, with what my boi deserves (and do not twist my words, I’m not saying he deserves to be alone or to be king of nothing, I’m not saying that), ultimately at this point in the game, they finally fucking gave him. He deserves to have people (plural) who love and care for him, who are probably going to try to find him. As far as we know, Thor thought he was dead for that year, and so did not go looking for him while he was being tortured by Thanos. That’s nothing against Thor, I’m not saying Thor loves Loki any less than Mobius loves Loki. Like if you think somebody’s dead, you’re not gonna go looking for them. And if they turn up a year later after being tortured that fucking sucks, and I’m sure you’d feel terrible about that, but that’s not your fault.

But Loki’s friends know that he’s giving them a chance. And Mobius (as aforementioned) is just as stubborn as Loki is, and I don’t think Mobius is gonna stand for him being trapped in that tree all by himself. We might not see it, depending on what Marvel has planned, so this might not be canon, but I do think characteristically that it makes sense for Mobius to be like I’m gonna go find this fucker. And at least get some closure, at best be like either Let me stay with you or Let me figure out a way to get you out of here, for at least a little while.

So, I think Loki has people who care about him, who love him, plural. I’m not saying Thor doesn’t care about him or love him, I’m just saying, it’s Frigga and Thor, and Frigga’s dead, so it’s Thor. And that was it. (I’m talking MCU. I’m not erasing Verity (although I am including B-15 in this so she’s here), I’m not erasing Sigyn.) And those people are willing to go find him, even though it seems like technically speaking he’s supposed to stay there. I don’t think Mobius is gonna stand for that. And he’s finally said fuck all of you who’ve tried to put me in a box. I’m more than what you insist I am. I’m better than what you insist I am. And he has more compassion for himself. He has more compassion for certain other people, not everybody, but certain other people. I think he has more compassion for his brother, which he was starting to have in the main timeline post-Ragnarok, but not at this moment when he was in the main timeline. At this point in the story, I think part of him was very resentful of Thor for not coming to find him, but being unable to articulate that without admitting that he had been tortured, and also not really able to articulate in general that he had been tortured. And dealing with the aftermath of being tortured. He’s going through it in the main timeline during this time. But I think he’s getting some compassion for Thor now, through getting a different perspective than he had last time.

He’s seen a grander scale of his own potential, both in the form of Sylvie and then in the form of himself, and what he’s capable of himself. Not what a variant is capable of, from going through a different life than him. What he can do.

And he’s got a new title, what fits best for him in this moment. And they better use it, better than they did in the comics. I feel like they put this in, this new moniker, as if it’s gonna be the end of his arc, but it’s comics, it’s not the end of his arc. And then they’re not sure what to do with it? So that by the time The God Who Fell to Earth comes around, they decide to scrap it altogether without doing anything with it. (And then they give him another new title? As if they expect that one to go any better?) And yeah, God of Stories is a very open concept, but that should give way to so much creativity. And it doesn’t? For some reason? So I hope they do a little bit more with it in the MCU. Historically they’ve kind of really disliked Loki in the MCU– and the comics too, but mostly in the MCU– (I actually have a (conspiracy, sort of) theory on this that I need to do a bit more research on before I’m comfortable disclosing it, as it’s rather crackpot sounding) so I’m hoping they’ll do something with it. I’m hoping we’ll see him again. Outside of the tree, where he can do some things. And also he’s got new powers now! And he got those in like the eleventh hour of the last two episodes. So I’m like, does he have more powers that we didn't get to see? Maybe powers he doesn’t know about yet? That would be pretty cool. Does he have that orb, like he does in AoA? What can he do with that? Is that how we beat the Kang Dynasty or Secret Wars? Maybe.

In conclusion: I liked the ending, (somewhat) unpopular opinion. I felt like it gave Loki his due. I feel vindicated by the ending. I hope that’s not the end of him for the MCU entirely. But other unpopular opinion? I hope we don’t get a season 3. (I think it’s been pretty much confirmed that we aren’t at this point, but sometimes they change their minds. I mean, I heard whisperings that Supernatural is coming back and it’s been three years since that was supposed to have ended. I’m so tired.) That was such a good series finale, I hope we don’t get anything after that for this show. He can be in other movies; hell, he can have his own standalone movie, I’d love that. But I feel like this show is over. I don’t want them to bring it back, because it would just sour this beautiful, perfect ending.

#loki #loki tv show #loki season 2 #loki season 2 spoilers #loki comics #mobius m mobius #lokius #loki theories #loki 2x06 #sort of unpopular opinion?#i don't know i guess it's unpopular with some of the fandom #damn this is so long #and i cut so much of my rambling too

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 3 days

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Expertise can't help you here.

#dungeon meshi #kabru #laios touden #falin touden #Happy Thistle Thursday once again. Have I been holding on to this comic for several weeks? Sure have!#I forgot how long it takes for Chimera Falin to come into play.#I still really love my 'better drawn' art of her - unfortunately it was several weeks too early for the anime only folks.#Slowly getting the hang of drawing Laios. I don't know why I struggle so much but I am getting...somewhere.#Meta time: God damn I love how the chimera shows off the expertise and gap between Kabru and Laios.#The truth is: they are both *right* and they are both *wrong*.#This creature is a combination of monster and human and they only have the skillset to deal with one of those.#Kabru goes for all the human vitals - but she isn't human.#Laios tries to approach her as a monster and is struck down by the humanity he sees in her.#She is something new that defies what they *both* understand about the world. And that makes her such a perfect antagonist.#The damsel was the dragon all along!#...She is really so cute though. Terrifying! But adorable. I am so excited to see the boom of fanart for her.

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endusviolence · 1 month

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Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.