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dadsbongos · 3 years

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burn me to the ground

(1)gentle lover (2)burn me to the ground Movie/Game/Show: Thor: Ragnarok Dynamic: Loki Laufeyson/Reader Warnings: ragnarok spoilers?, passing description of you as toned/muscular cuz loki with gf who could crush him >>>, i give more time gap to thor's arrival cuz :), fem pronouns Summary: He’s never been one for such sentiment, maybe that’s why her influence is so terrifying to him. ~~~

“You wanted me to meet someone?”

“Right! Right, right, right,” the Grandmaster waves his hand in a gesture for Topaz to guide his chair through the room, “He was all mumble-y and murmur-ey and I heard your name, so I was thinking maybe you could tell me what this guy’s all about!”

Upon seeing the man in reference, your eyes widen and you nearly stumble back.

The man, however, immediately tilts his head and practically hisses out, “You.”

Well, no point in pretending to not know him now when he reacts like that. Sighing and tossing up your hands as if to show relief, you gush out an awfully whiny, “Aw, prince! Thank goodness you’re okay! I was so worried when we got separated!”

“So, how do you two know each other?” the Grandmaster’s smile is broad, if not slightly threatening, as he waggles a finger between the two people in front of him.

“I’m a sort of guard to your royal asshat.”

Loki doesn’t get the chance to speak up as the Grandmaster claps in response to you, “Well, I’m sure he’ll be happy to know your track record here doesn’t show any signs of slacking!”

“Certainly, yes,” Loki nods curtly, not pleased at the prospect of a Midgardian - this Midgardian - having to watch over him again, “Reassuring to have her here.”

“I would be, look at her- " reaching over, the Grandmaster squeezes at your bicep, “So strong, she’s a great contender!”

“Contender…?” Loki murmurs to the woman, a brow quirked.

Smacking the prince’s arm, you shake your head before turning back to the Grandmaster, “Loki wouldn’t be a very good contender, he’s pretty frail and weak. Lame, too.”

“Aw,” wagging a finger as one would to a pestering child, the Grandmaster’s broad grin falls into a tight-lipped smile before he speaks, “Loyal guard trying to protect her prince, how sweet.”

“What can I say?” Loki notices the way you seem more on edge now, breath shakier, but you manage to mask it as light laughter, “Duties never rest.”

Nodding, the elderly man turns to Topaz, whispering in her ear before dismissing you both back to your quarters.

It’s as the door to the room shuts that Loki is greeted with the first hint of aggression he’s ever seen from you - not even in his time on Earth had he seen malice slip from you like he does now. The door slams and you wring your hands in your hair, nearly shouting as you turn to the God,

“You moron, why’d you have to go and say that? As if you know me? You could’ve gotten us killed.”

“But I do know you,” Loki held his hands up, pausing your rampant pacing, “Was I not supposed to try and find solace in the fact that I was on a new, strange planet with the one person I recognize?”

“You’re such an ass,” it’s a deflated insult, sighed out while you stomp over to the one bed in the room and slump down on it, “Just hope that nutjob believed me about you being weak.”

“Which, I believe we should have a talk about, by the way,” Loki’s brows furrow, “Why do that? I don’t need any protection nor defense, especially by the likes of you.”

“Unless you want to go as a gladiator and potentially be ripped in half by people twice your size, I would just take the label of weakling socialite and run with it. Hope you get on the Grandmaster’s good side like I have and eventually he maybe stops looking at you like a starving man to steak.”

“Haven’t quite gotten to that last bit, I imagine.”

“No, unfortunately not. It’s a little terrifying.”

It’s quiet as you rub at your aching temples and think over the situation. Loki turns and begins assessing the room - a room he hopes to not be stuck in.

“Are we to share this?”

“Probably,” yet another exhausted sigh slips from your lips, “I wouldn’t bother bringing it up to the old man, you might get vaporized.”

There’s a beat of silence before Loki chuckles, it’s forced and tight.

“Oh,” nodding, you lean back until you’re fully reclined on the bed, “you think I’m joking.”

The God’s eyes widen at that, turning to face you in alarm, “Are you not?”

Suddenly sitting up to untie your boots, you mutter, “I’m trying a slow coup. I was gonna do it on my own, but now you’re here so that’s minorly reassuring.”

“Coup?”

“Accident comes to the Grandmaster, we move up. I say we, but if you try and overthrow me for the throne, I will have to duel you. Duel at best, but at worst…”

Another pregnant silence flows through the room, Loki tilting his head, “You do realize how alarming that is when you don’t finish that sentence, right?”

“Good.”

It was an unlucky arrangement. Trapped on a trash planet, literally, with a Midgardian worm - whom he either has to share a bed with or rest on a loveseat for the nights. None of which is even mentioning the Grandmaster.

The Grandmaster.

On the surface he’s light. Bubbly. Fun. And then someone drops a glass too close to his favorite new shoes and suddenly they’ve been pardoned from the land of the living and the stench of wretched toast permeates through the room.

It’s that memory that has Loki tuning out of the story of the man across from him. His hands fall to his thighs and begin rubbing away the sweat of nervousness that gathers there. The movements don’t go unseen, and the woman who assigned herself as his personal guard reaches down and takes his hand. Uncaring if the rest of the party sees as they cling to one another.

You aren’t Loki’s first choice of partnership but maybe that’s where he’d be wrong - because your grip is strong and it won’t let go unless it’s commanded. It’s comforting and reassuring and Loki can’t remember the last time someone held him like that as he breaks down. It isn’t just the hand holding at parties, it’s in the late nights when neither of you can sleep and your heads are too full of countless worries of each’s own home. It’s the way you hold him and don’t say a word of it the next day. Barely acknowledging it unless he brings it up first, not wanting to make him uncomfortable or pressured.

It’s kindness and genuinity and he thinks he wants to have you around all the time. After the Grandmaster. After Hela. Whenever and wherever that dust happens to settle, he knows he wants this comfort all the time.

Storytime comes around to Loki. His fingers curl tighter around your hand as he speaks, occasionally taking a break to sip at his neon drink when there’s a hearty whisper-shout of both your names,

“Over here!”

God of Thunder, you notice. Thor of Asgard. You two excuse yourselves from the couch of socialites to cross the room to Thor.

“Thor? You’re alive?” you begin, eyes wide.

“Of course, I’m alive, what’re you two doing? Why aren’t you stuck in a chair? Where’s your chairs?”

“We didn’t get one,” Loki shakes his head.

“Get me out,” Thor urges, still thoroughly confused over the presence of his brother and old friend.

“We can’t,” you whisper.

Nodding, Loki continues, “We’ve gotten in favor with the Grandmaster. In his higher courts.”

“Like friends but scary,” you pitch in, “We’ve been here a few weeks. Maybe a month.”

“A month?" Thor repeats in utter disbelief, "I just got here.”

“What’re you guys whispering about?” the Grandmaster himself juts into the conversation with a giggle, “Time works different around these parts. On any other world I’d be like millions of years old, but on Sakaar…” he stops and looks between the trio with a teasing grin before shaking his head, “In any case, you two know this… what’d you call yourself - Lord of Thunder…?”

“God of Thunder,” Thor corrects with a forced chuckle.

“I’ve never met this man in my life,” Loki immediately denies.

“He’s my brother.”

Rolling your eyes at the brothers, you’re quick to gesture to Loki, “Adopted.”

The Grandmaster nods, “He any kind of a fighter?”

“You take this thing out of my neck and I’ll show you.”

That’s how they find out that - at the very least, Thor’s alive. Not well, but certainly alive.

The night after that party is mostly quiet in the room. Presently, both people are getting ready for bed but inside their minds is such fueled turmoil that neither truly believes they’re getting rest that night. Upon finishing his state of dress, Loki makes his way out to the balcony.

Air on Sakaar isn’t particularly fresh or clean, nor are the stars incredibly visible with all the city lights, but it felt better out there than being trapped in a room. He’s soon joined by another body at the railing, hands barely brushing together on the roughened metal.

It’s Loki that makes the first move, slowly sliding his hand across the rail until his entwined with yours. Your fingers weave together and Loki can’t help but balance his gaze between your conjoined hands and your eyes. He remembers a time where he used to look into those eyes and see an enemy - now, he can’t imagine a time where he would’ve ever wanted to hurt someone such as you. Can't believe there was a time where he wanted to hurt you. Your care is expressed in tender touches and loyalty. In quiet moments of trust and earnest adoration. In honesty. It's that silent care that speaks the loudest.

It’s your voice that breaks him from his own thoughts, “When this whole thing is over and Sakaar is ruined and Thor will have the throne, where will you go?”

Loki falls silent at that question, he brushes a thumb over your knuckles, pursing his lips and tilting his head as he thinks over what response would fit best. Then he comes to the realization that it wouldn’t matter where he lies as long as he has comfort that lies with him. Comfort that sleeps inside the woman beside him is what he wants.

And so, he mumbles out, “Where will you want me?”

There’s a laugh pulled from you as your head shakes, “You wouldn’t want to go to Earth. Unless you’d like the Avengers up your ass.”

There’s a shared laugh as Loki relents, speaking before laying a kiss to your knuckles, “I wouldn’t be fond of that… but for you, my dear, I’d tear the universe apart.”

“That sounds like exactly why they wouldn’t want you. Sorry to say they’re not fond of universe-tearing.”

A sarcastic huff falls from the prince, “I’m charming and romantic and this is how I’m repaid?”

“However, I can’t say that’s not excellent bargaining to keep you on a leash,” you grin.

“Like a dog?”

“Well, now,” looking away, your lip is tucked between your teeth to muffle possible laughter.

Loki doesn’t follow your example, instead he studies the planes of your face. The curve of your cheek and the way your eyes are lit up by the stars and lights that flow in this city. You’re beautiful. That, he knows. And despite being trapped on Sakaar, he also knows he’s grateful to have someone like you. To have you.

Strong, both in emotional resolve and psychical capability. It’s nice to have someone who can stay level-header and offer support. It makes him want to care and provide for you as well, and that’s what scares him.

You make him want to return sentiment when all he’s cared for before was letting things burn.

#loki x reader #loki x y/n #loki x you #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson x you #loki fanfic

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lokigayforhela · 3 years

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Heya. May I request an Hela x female reader where Hela falls in love with the reader whom is Loki's friend and decides to kidnapp the reader and reader being scared and angry at her at first, only getting along with Fenrir but reader falling in love with her as well after a while and Hela asking the reader to marry her?

WC: 2695

TW: this can kinda come off as Stockholm Syndrome-y I think? So tread lightly if that upsets you.

A/N: This is… a long one. Settle in with a snack. I wrote it in two sittings, so hopefully it flows. Enjoy!

You woke groggy and confused, unable to remember when youhad fallen asleep or why you were so cold and uncomfortable, and it took yousitting up to realize just how much of a predicament you were in.

You had shackles around your wrists, and while you weren’trestrained in any other way on the bed you had been laid on, it was still arather unsettling way to wake up.Trying desperately not to panic, you tried to take note of your surroundings,trying to figure out where you might be or who might have you, and you had justswung your legs over the edge of the bed to try to stand up when you heard acool, collected voice speak from somewhere in the shadows on the other side ofthe room, and you could just make out the figure of someone sitting in a chair.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You’re still too groggy.”

Your brow furrowed, and you squinted, trying to get aglimpse of who was speaking. “…who are you? What have you done with me?” Apause, as a bit more of your memory came back to you. “Where’s Loki?”

The voice laughed, and a few moments later, the figure stoodand crossed into the light, and you were more than a little surprised to seethat it was a woman who was holding you captive. Even if she did look extremelyintimidating. “I am Hela. And you’re-”

“Wait, Hela like Thor and Loki’s sister Hela?”

Hela hesitated, clearly a bit miffed that you hadinterrupted her, but eventually, she cleared her throat. “…yes. The very same.And I’ve brought you to somewhere they’ll never find you. You don’t need toworry about them anymore.”

Well, that didn’t sound threatening at all.

“…Why have you brought me here?”

“I intend to court you.”

Of all the thingsyou could have expected her to say, this wasn’t even on the list, and all youcould do was stare blankly at her in shock.

“I’ve been watching you for some time, and I think that wewould make a good match.”

Finally, you snapped out of it, and bit out a forced huff ofa laugh. “…so you kidnapped me, put me in shackles, and just think thateverything’s going to be peachy-keen? What, did you watch Beauty and the Beast one too many times as a kid?”

“….I don’t know what that is, but I only put the shackles onyou so you wouldn’t hurt yourself if you woke up.”

You scowled, still entirely unsure what to think about thisentire scenario. “…Loki will find me. As soon as they realized that you tookme, they’ll come with the rest of the Avengers, and whatever… this is will fall through.”

Hela looked at you, like she was trying to understand whyyou didn’t quite seem as onboard with the idea as she was, and after a longmoment of silence, she spoke again. “…you’ll come to like it here, in time.You’ll see. In the meantime, I’ll have your supper brought in soon. You must bestarving after sleeping all day.”

You couldn’t think of anything to say to that, too besideyourself in pure anger and confusion at Hela’s sheer audacity, and you onlyscowled, curling back up in the bed and glaring out of the small window by yourbed.

“…Fenris, keep watch over her. Good girl.” You heardmovement on the other side of the room, followed shortly afterward by the soundof a door closing and, having assumed Hela was leaving, you turned your headback in her direction, only to be greeted with the largest dog you had everseen towering over you, looking at you curiously.

“…..you must be Fenris.”

Fenris chuffed out a quiet little snort, and bowed her headslightly, and you watched in silence, still so unsure of what to think of yoursituation.

“…I don’t suppose you’ll help me get out of here?”

Fenris snorted, and in response laid her entire head on yourlap, effectively keeping you sitting right where you were, and you groaned inpure frustration. “….great. Just what I needed. A giant dog to keep me trappedin here, on top of some strange woman who thinks the best way to court someoneis to kidnap them.”

You heaved a sigh and looked back out the window.

“What fucking luck.”

——————–

You weren’t sure how long Hela had kept you wherever it wasthat she was keeping you.

The most you had gotten out of her was that you were on someplanet that wasn’t Midgard or Asgard,which had been destroyed, as Loki had told you before. You didn’t evenrecognize the planets you could see from the window, so you didn’t hold muchhope for being anywhere near Earth, but to your surprise, you were finding itless and less possible to care about it as much as you once had.

Hela somehow managed to spend both more and less time withyou than you thought she would, when she’d mentioned she was interested incourting you. She spent the mornings in the room with you, trying to get you totalk about yourself, but afternoons you had to yourself after Hela haddelivered your lunch, and the only company you had until dinner was yourselfand Fenris, who never left your side longer than it took for her to go outsidewhen she needed to.

In fact, Fenris, you reasoned, was the most, if only,bearable thing about being held captive for the foreseeable future until you,presumably, fell in love with Hela or were found by Loki and the rest of theAvengers. For all her towering height and scary, very large and sharp teeth,she was a sweetheart, and the more she hung around with you, the more fond youbecame of her. You would sneak her scraps from your meals, and scratch herbelly when she sprawled out on the floor.

Once, Hela had walked in and found you both asleep on thefloor, Fenris curled up in a ball, and you nestled against her side, and thesight had endeared her so much that she sat on the floor and watched you untilyou woke up, something that you couldn’t quite decide whether or not was endearingor a little unsettling.

Perhaps it was a little bit of both.

Hela herself was a puzzle that you couldn’t solve, for allyour trying.

She had kidnapped you, taken you from Loki and your otherfriends, and your home, but she was treating you the nicest anyone had evertreated you. Aside from keeping you shackled twenty-four/seven and refusing tolet you out of the room without supervision, and even that was only so youcould use the bathroom when you needed.

If you took away the fact that she’d literally committed acrime, and a creepy one at that, Hela just seemed like a girl in love, who didn’tquite know how to properly show it. Which was flattering, you supposed, andwould, in any other setting, be almost endearing.

Maybe she just didn’t know any better.

Thor and Loki hadn’t told you much about Hela, but that wasonly because they didn’t know thatmuch about her, but from what you’d understood, Hela had had a rougherchildhood than you could imagine, and had been locked up simply for being whatshe was trained to be. You couldn’t imagine what that would do to a person’spsyche.

Perhaps you had reacted too harshly.

One morning, you finally decided to at least try to talk to Hela. Maybe you couldhelp her understand that what she was doing was wrong and that there were muchbetter ways to go about courting someone.

So when you heard the keys Hela carried jingling, you satup, facing the door so that you were the first thing Hela saw when she came in.

“…you’re awake.” Hela seemed genuinely shocked to see youlooking at her, and when you smiled a little, she only seemed all the moresurprised. “…I brought you something different today. I know you must begetting tired of eating the same stuff every single day, and… there was amarket in the city nearby, so… I brought you some pastries.”

Hela’s nerves had seemingly gotten the better of her as shehanded you your plate, you figured you must have really thrown her for a loopby being so amenable today. You thanked her quietly, and when she moved to sitdown in her chair by the door, you caught her wrist without really thinkingabout it, and the both of you froze for a second, neither of you daring tomove.

“…sit down with me. We’ll share.”

Hela hesitated for a moment, even after you’d loosened yourgrip on her, and after a long moment she sat down on the very edge of the bed,and still at a distance from you. You picked out a pastry for yourself and heldthe plate out for her, but she shook her head.

“…I don’t need to eat. Not really.”

Your brow furrowed a bit as you looked at her. “…that’s notan Asgardian thing. Thor and Loki eat.”

Hela huffed out a tense laugh. “Thor and Loki weren’tbanished to Hel for centuries.”

You didn’t say anything to that; what were you supposed to say to something like that?But when it became clear Hela was still expecting you to say something, youcleared your throat a bit.

“…you could still eat, if you wanted to. I mean, I won’tmake you. But… you could. I don’t mind.”

Hela smiled, more of a grimace than anything else, but yousmiled a little in response, as well, and for a moment, you sat in silence,chewing on your breakfast in silence.

“…You can take the shackles off, you know. I’m not gonna goanywhere.” You laughed a bit. “I can’t. You don’t even let me out of the room.”

“…your door hasn’t been locked since you got here.”

That confused youto no end, and as you looked at her, absolutely bewildered, Hela actuallycracked a bit of a smile.

“I just jingle the keys so you think the door’s locked. You’ve always had free reign of the house.Did you really not even try the door?”

You were a little too embarrassed to admit that you hadn’t, so you just took another bite ofyour breakfast, hoping your flushed cheeks didn’t give you away.

“…you can look around today, if you want. I don’t mind. AndI’ll take the shackles off, too.”

“….I’d like that.” You looked back over at Hela, findingthat she was already looking at you with an expression far softer than youthought someone like her capable of making, it only made you blush all the moreas you smiled weakly.

Hela returned the smile much moregenuinely, and when she reached over to take one of the pastries from yourplate, you couldn’t help but to wonder if this might be a turning point in therelationship between you.

——————–

Days faded into weeks faded into months, and the longer youspent with Hela, the more you found yourself enjoying Hela’s company.

You would read together in the humble little library she hadmade for herself in the corner of the living room, you would play fetch withFenris together, and sometimes Hela would even let you go down with her to thevillage to go the market and run errands.

It was nice.

Much nicer than you had ever expected things to turn out.

Sometimes you felt a little guilty that you had just… stopped wondering if or when Loki andthe others would come, but then you would think about how much you were actually kind of enjoying being withHela and Fenris, and eventually you stopped wondering about it at altogether.

It was late one evening that you found yourself standingnext to Hela in the kitchen, drying dishes with a clean rag as Hela handed themto you, and you were overwhelmed with the pure domesticity of it all, and youstopped, tilting your head as you got lost in your thoughts.

“…Y/N…? Is everything alright?” Hela’s quiet voice broughtyou out of your silent revelry, and you turned to look at her, smiling a bit.

“…just thinking.” You shrugged a bit as you set down aplate.

“About?”

“…this, I guess. Us. Being here, together.”

You weren’t looking at Hela, but you heard her take a long,slow breath, anticipating what you were about to say next.

“…I’ve never connected with anyone like this before.” You glancedover at Hela then, and you saw that she had relaxed, but only just. “…it’snice.”

Hela nodded slowly, and finally turned her head to look atyou, expression unreadable. “…It is?”

“…it is.”

You weren’t entirely sure when the two of you had moved soclose, or which of you was the one to make the first move, but one moment youwere looking at Hela, and the next you were kissingher, and it was nice and warm and right, and by the time Hela pulled back, you were smiling softly.

“….I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” Hela started to apologize,but you shook your head.

“Don’t. It’s okay. Really.”

“…it is?”

You could only laugh softly as you nodded, smiling a littlemore. “In fact, I… I’d really like to do that again, if… if you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind.” Hela answered alittle too quickly, like she could hardly contain her eagerness, and it was soadorable and unlike her that you laughed, even as you leaned forward to kissher again, dishes completely forgotten on the counter.

——————–

“Y/N?”

You looked up from where you were sitting curled next toHela, book in hand and Fenris’ nose on your lap as you scratched herabsentmindedly. “Yes, darling?”

“…I’ve been thinking.”

Despite knowing that nothing was wrong, you couldn’t helpbut to feel your heart sink in preparation for hearing something that you mightnot want to, but you tried to smile and nod, hoping Hela didn’t catch the quiet“…oh no…” you muttered under your breath.

“…You’ve been here for quite some time now.”

It was true; you wagered it must have been close to a yearby now that you and Hela had been living in your secluded little cottage on theoutskirts of the village, and life there together with her just felt perfect, in a way that you’d neverexperienced before, and you nodded along as Hela continued to speak.

“And I like to think that we’re, that this… I mean, I canonly speak for myself, but… I’m just going to say it. It… It works.”

You laughed a bit, feeling relief when you realized Hela wasjust nervous and unsure how to say what she was saying. “It works. It does.”

Hela nodded again, looking at you for a long moment. “…marryme?”

You were so at a loss for words that you could do nothingbut stare blankly at her, trying to wrap your brain around what she’d said.

“I don’t… have any rings, like they do on Midgard, and we don’thave anyone to perform the magic rites that they did on Asgard, but… We canjust say that we’re married. And we’llknow. And that’s enough for me, if… if that’s enough for you.”

You laughed a bit, nodding as you reached for Hela’s hand,holding it tightly in your own. “Yeah. I think that would be enough for me.”

Hela smiled, and immediately leaned forward to kiss you, andit was easy to tell just how head over heels she was for you, and it even more amazingto know that you loved her exactly the same. Perhaps it wasn’t how you had everimagined falling in love would be like, but it was love and it was imperfect.

You’d never known you could be so happy.

#Hela x reader #Hela Odinsdottir x reader #Hela #Hela Odinsdottir #Marvel #purplewings12 #ask #answered #oneshot #drabble #feat Loki #but not Really #this got so Long im so Sorry #fluff #Tiny bit of angst

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pennylaneforthoughts · 3 years

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Lokius Hogwarts AU

All right my dudes, hot take time:

I’ve seen a lot of Hogwarts AU headcanons floating around, and having thought waaaaaay too much about it, I’m here to add my two cents.

( @sortinghatchats has my favorite sorting system I’ve seen to date, since it goes so much in depth into themes throughout the HP series that good ol’ JK barely touches on in her pretty surface level commentary on the subject, so that’s the system I’m gonna use. Go to their blog to learn more about the way the system works bc I’m too lazy to go more in depth than I already have.)

This is gonna be Hella Long tho so I’m putting it under a cut.

Loki: Petrified Slytherin Primary/Slytherin Secondary - sorting: Slytherin House

Perhaps it may seem trite, but Loki really is a Slytherin Primary at heart. Yes he is ambitious and all that stereotypical stuff, but that’s not really what makes a Slytherin a Slytherin. Anyone can be ambitious. No, he’s a Slytherin because he unapologetically prioritizes himself and the people he cares about above all else.

“Slytherin Primaries are fiercely loyal to the people they care for most. Slytherin is the place where “you’ll make your real friends”– they prioritize individual loyalties and find their moral core in protecting and caring for the people they are closest to. Slytherin’s reputation for ambition comes from the visibility of this promotion of the self and their important people– ambition is something you can find in all four Houses; Slytherin’s is just the one that looks most obviously selfish.”

However, Loki’s trauma has pushed him to something this system calls Petrifying.

“Whether through death, betrayal, abandonment (from either side), or through never having had any to begin with, the Petrified Slytherin has decided that having important people is too dangerous. Having those strong ties leaves you open to pain and weakness, and the pleasure of those connections aren’t worth the despair that comes from their seemingly inevitable loss. In this way, they close themselves off to meaningful connections out of what is ultimately fear (though from the inside, it’s far more likely to be experienced as a rational, sensible decision given the circumstances of the world), and gives them a stony exterior that seems impenetrable, resolute, and cold.”

Loki wants love and acceptance so badly, but he is convinced that the kind of attachments and relationships that that comes from are far too dangerous and the risk isn’t worth the reward. He pushes people away, hides behind a mask of self-aggrandizement, and betrays others before they can betray him in an attempt to protect himself from potential pain.

In the series, however, we see him slowly unpetrify and move towards a more healthy style of attachment because of Mobius and Sylvie’s influence on him. Whereas his circle of priorities used to include only himself (and arguably Frigga and later, Thor, in the movie timeline), he proverbially “thaws” enough to let Mobius and Sylvie in, and tragically, because of that, the loss of them hurts him so deeply because by the end of season 1, they’re all he had.

His Slytherin Secondary, however, is obvious in his methodology. He’s the god of chaos. He loves improvisation, and plans only exist as long as another better idea doesn’t come along and usurp it. He’ll change and adapt (quite literally) to best fit the situation in front of him, and he takes joy in that. But beneath all the running and his many personas, he has his “neutral state” that he lets only a precious few see. Mobius gets to see it, and so does Sylvie, and as he progresses through the series, he starts to be more comfortable existing in that state where he’s no longer hiding behind everything he feels like the world expects him to be and he can just be himself.

Mobius: Slytherin Primary (Hufflepuff Model)/Hufflepuff Secondary - sorting: Slytherin House

People like to put Mobius in Hufflepuff, but honestly? I don’t think that’s where he’d be most comfortable. Yes, he is kind and caring to basically everyone, and we see this over and over again in the series. The man radiates comfort. However, like it says in Inky and Kat’s description of the Slytherin Primary,

“Wanting to help someone doesn’t mean you’re loyal to them. Wanting to help them at the expense of your comforts, your values, your commitments and sometimes even yourself–that does.”

Mobius is kind to a fault. But he is not kind at the expense of himself. Not to everyone at least. He is kind to the child in France, but he is not kind to the point of saving him from the resetting of the timeline, and he doesn’t feel guilty about that. He believes in a duty of care, but he does not believe he has any obligation to go beyond what he thinks that duty of care is. He unapologetically plays favorites, and this is mentioned on multiple occasions. Above all else, Mobius values loyalty as a virtue. Sure, he cares about the TVA and its accompanying morality, and he genuinely does believe it’s his duty to care about and be kind to others. He seems to vibe quite well with the Hufflepuff ideal of caring about people simply because they are people, but this is all secondary to his personal loyalties when push comes to shove. For Mobius,

“dropping that model in order to stand by someone you love, or in order to protect yourself, doesn’t feel like a failing. Sticking to that modelled morality at the expense of betraying or abandoning one of their own would make a Slytherin feel guilty and wrong. Being able to put the things and concepts you like aside for the sake of the people who need you feels more righteous than any moral posturing.”

It’s for this very reason that Mobius gets so angry and feels so betrayed when he thinks Loki has abandoned him for Sylvie, and when Ravonna lies to him and prunes him.

“Betraying your own is the worst kind of crime. Loyalty is precious and terrible; it makes you vulnerable. It’s given sparingly, deeply, and a Slytherin will stand by their loyalties through the same death and fire that a Gryffindor would brave for the sake of doing the right thing, or a Hufflepuff to help someone in need.”

Loki is Mobius’ own. Mobius prioritizes Loki over almost everything else, sticks his neck out for him over and over again, and is willing to sacrifice his own happiness for him. He’s even willing to abandon the whole of his former ideology and prior friendships for this relationship that has become closer to him than his own self, the highest tier of trust and loyalty a Slytherin can give.

“It’s an extreme Slytherin who would let the whole world burn for the sake of a friend, but every Slytherin Primary would be at the very least tempted.”

And Mobius very nearly does exactly that. Even says the words, “burn it to the ground” when Loki asks him what he’s going to do. And he doesn’t feel bad about it. Especially after realizing what the TVA has done to him and the people he cares about. He kicks the TVA out of his circle of care, and doesn’t look back. And he does it for Loki.

Mobius’ Secondary is where people get his Hufflepuff vibes from, I think. A Hufflepuff secondary is marked by “their consistency and the integrity of their method. They’re our hard workers. They build habits and systems for themselves and accomplish things by keeping at them. They have a steadiness that can make them the lynchpin (though not usually the leader) of a community.” And that is what Mobius is. It’s why he radiates that kindness and comfort. He quietly and carefully works at and invests in the relationships in his life to the point that people almost automatically trust him, and over time he has learned how to read people and figure out what makes them tick.

He approaches new situations with a steady head and gentle hand that Loki is unused to, and it’s this approach that eases Loki into learning how to trust and rely on people. It’s an inherently Hufflepuff approach, and it’s the key to his success as an analyst for the TVA and an understanding friend for Lokis across the timelines.

Tl;dr - Application to an actual Hogwarts AU fic:

THEREFORE! There’s a compelling narrative to be had with a tiny, first-year Loki coming into Hogwarts. He comes from a pureblood family that’s very proud of their Gryffindor heritage (they don’t talk about Hela, and Loki and Thor don’t even know she exists until later in this story), and his brother had been sorted into Gryffindor a couple years prior, and Loki has heard very little other than contempt for Slytherin House and everyone in it. Loki doesn’t want to be sorted into Slytherin. He doesn’t want to deal with the disappointment and shame from his father and the sad eyes of his brother. But the sorting hat sorts him there almost immediately, and his heart sinks. He wanders over to the table miserably but determined. If he’s gonna be sorted into the “evil” house, might as well just run with it, right? Best not to get close to people though. It’s Slytherin. Who knows when someone will betray you.

Enter Mobius, the tiny muggleborn, bright eyed, bushy tailed, and having no clue about the prejudices between houses. The hat takes a hot minute sorting him, giving him the choice between Hufflepuff and Slytherin and telling him Hufflepuff would love a kindhearted and welcoming member like him. But Mobius has been eyeing the little black-haired kid who got sorted before him and is now sitting far apart from everyone, and he can’t help but feel like he needs to be this kid’s friend. And didn’t the hat just say Slytherin is where you’ll make your real friends? Friends are what Mobius cares about, so he’d like to go to Slytherin, thank you very much, so that’s where he goes, and he happily plunks himself down right next to Loki and sticks his hand out.

“I’m Mobius. What’s your name?”

Loki looks at Mobius’ hand disdainfully and doesn’t shake it, but he does answer, “Loki.”

Mobius’ eyes go wide, and he smiles. “Loki? Like after the Norse god?”

Loki nods, eyeing Mobius suspiciously. People don’t often bat an eye at his name. Not in the wizarding world, anyway.

“Wow, that’s so cool! I loved reading about Norse mythology in school and Loki was always my favorite. Names have power, you know. If you’ve got the same name, then you must be just as awesome.”

Loki has no idea what to do with this kid, but he’s immediately aware of two things:

He’s absolutely sure that this Mobius kid is in the wrong house. No way a Slytherin can be this excited without a single hint of deception in his face.

He’s going to be eaten alive by the other students if Loki doesn’t protect him. What a pain.

Loki is completely wrong on both of these points.

#lokius #loki x mobius #wowki #loki #mobius #loki 2021 #look i've thought WAY too hard about this and i just need a slytherin mobius who subverts everyone's expectations about what a slytherin is #while still being 100% obviously a slytherin when you think about it

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aurorawest · 3 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thor hasn’t been given Mjolnir yet.

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

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

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

Kind of an understatement, Thor.

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

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

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

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

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

Personally, Loki didn’t find this insulting,

Probably because it’s a terrible insult.

but Thor clearly did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I very much love writing Loki wielding his knives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swallowing, Loki said, “And?”

“And what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s right.

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

Nooooo Loki, it will!

“Loki?” Thor said, sounding unsure.

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

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

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

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

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

#Anonymous #loki #thor #brodinsons

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imagine-loki · 4 years

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Ragnarok

TITLE: Ragnarok CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 4: All Hela Breaks Loose AUTHOR: traveling-classicist ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you take care Odin when he was homeless on Midgard (based on the deleted scene from Ragnarok). You take him in and listen his crazy stories about Asgard and Thor thinking he’s just some crazy hobo who needs help. Then one day, Thor and Loki break into your apartment looking for their father. Hela returns in your living room and insanity ensues. RATING: T (PLEASE READ THE NOTES)

AO3 Link: Here NOTES/WARNINGS: This chapter has some rather graphic depictions of violence and wounds. I know this can make some people squeamish so I thought I’d whack a warning in here, just in case.

“Get out of my house, or I will shoot you this time,” Theo shouted at Doctor Strange. “Hi Wong, how are you?” she added kindly, smiling at Strange’s friend. He smiled and bowed politely to her.

“Oooh, I would love to see you shoot him,” Loki said, stepping out of the way to stand behind her. “You know, I’m really starting to like you. Here, don’t let me get in the way. Go ahead, fire away.”

“Don’t get comfortable,” she spat at Loki. “You’re next.”

“Who gave you gun? Why do you have a gun?” Doctor Strange asked.

“For lunatics who break down my doors,” she shouted, waving the gun at Loki, who gracefully ducked out of the way. “Or assholes who teleport into my house without my permission! Oh my God, what am I saying?” She pointed the gun back at Strange.

Thor and Odin approached them. “Loki, we need to go,” Thor said. “Oh, hello Doctor Strange. We were just going.”

Theo glanced at Odin. He looked worried. She could see tear trails on his cheek. She lowered the gun and went to him. “Odin? Are you alright? What did he say? Do I need to punch him?” she asked, pointing at Thor. He took her hand.

“We must go now,” he said, looking up at her sadly. “Back to Asgard. We need to address this situation with Hela.”

“Who?” Loki and Strange asked in unison.

“Aren’t you paying attention, brother,” Thor sneered at Loki.

“Hela, your daughter?” Theo asked Odin, ignoring the others.

“Your what?” Loki shouted.

“We cannot discuss this now, Loki. We need to go back to Asgard. Quickly, before she breaks free and Ragnarok begins. I can feel it, she is close now.”

“Oh, yes, I do think it’s time for all of you to go if someone is coming to destroy you or us,” Doctor Strange said, herding them away like geese towards the door. “Not you,” he said, pushing Theo aside. She frowned at him and brandished the gun still in her hand, giving him a warning. “Thank you for stopping by. Please, do not come again,” he said, opening the door for them and gesturing for them to leave.

A sudden piercing noise rang out from somewhere near the ceiling. Theo grabbed her ears and held them, trying to block out the spine-tingling noise like a thousand nails on a chalkboard. She heard Odin cry out in pain and she straightened up, looking for him. Loki was holding him up, Thor standing close by. Near the ceiling in the living room, where the noise was coming from, a black, vortex-like portal was opening.

“What the hell is happening in my living room!” Theo shouted. “Strange! You better knock this off right now!”

“It’s not me,” he shouted back. Wong stepped past her to Strange’s side. They lifted their hands and in front of them. Orange, circular shields formed. Theo shook her head in disbelief. After everything that had happened to her in the last five years, how on earth could she actually be surprised by anything. Especially, after the two men had literally teleported into her living room.

She turned her attention back to Odin and his sons. She grabbed Loki’s arm and pulled him back. The three of them took several steps back, behind the magicians. Loki put Odin behind him and Thor. There was a flash of light and Thor and Loki adorned armor. Theo stood between the brothers and the wizards, holding her gun and wondering what on earth she was going to have to do to have a normal life again.

A woman materialized from the vortex in ragged black clothes. Her hair was black and pin straight. Her eyes dark, with even darker eye shadow and liner. To Theo, she looked like she’d just arrived back from a My Chemical Romance concert.

“Ahh, Midgard?” the woman breathed.

“Hela,” Odin said from behind Loki.

“What a stinking rathole for you to be hiding in, you old bastard,” she said.

“Hey, I just cleaned yesterday, but your siblings wrecked my living room!” Theo said, pointing her gun at her.

“Oh, and who is this? Your slave? Or your pet?” she scoffed.

“Roommate,” Theo said, finger steady on the trigger.

“Oh, you’ve fallen low, Odin. It’s almost pitiful. But if this is the place you’ve chosen to die, I won’t argue with you. Come out from behind that greasy son of yours.”

“Greasy?” Loki spat. Thor tried to stifle a chuckle. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re excused, little brother, now get out of my way!” She charged forward. Swords shot from her hands. She moved faster than lightning. Theo reacted instinctively, jumping and pulling the trigger, firing off three rounds into the woman’s face.

Each bullet hit its mark, tearing away chunks of flesh and bone. Hela broke away from her charge, tumbling over the couch, holding her face and letting out a howl of pain. Theo was hyperventilating. She stared at the gun in her hand as it trembled with fear and shock at what she had just done. The gun had always been there for protection, but she had never planned on actually shooting anyone.

The men in the room looked at Theo in shock.

“Well,” Loki said, shrugging. “That was much easier than I expected. Ragnarok diverted.”

Hela rose from the ground, kicking over the coffee table, sending books, apple tarts, and coffee flying in all directions.

“Brother, I think you spoke too soon,” Thor growled.

She removed her hand from her wounded face. Her right eye was white, blinded; the skin around it, scarred as if burned from the bullet wounds. The muscle and sinew of her jaw was exposed, showing her teeth and jawbone. The tissue began to necrotize and turn black before their eyes. Theo took a step back out of fear, her stomach turning at the sight of what she had done.

The movement sent Hela into the attack and she flew at Theo. Two swipes of Hela’s arms sent the men careening into the walls. She was on top of Theo in an instant, screaming and howling at her.

She wrapped her fingers around Theo’s neck and squeezed. The air was trapped in Theo’s lungs and she choked. Hela had her pinned to the floor, half smashed against the wall and the wood flooring. Theo’s gun skittered across the floor and landed a few feet away. Her hand flopped, frantically for it, as black spots began to appear in her vision. Hela squeezed harder, Theo heard tiny, crackling noises in her neck and a horrendous gurgling came from her mouth.

She abandoned her gun and tried desperately to peel Hela’s fingers away from her throat; scratching, hitting, punching, kicking, her; anything she could do to get her off her, but it was to no avail. Hela stood over her like a statue and her grip was like steel.

The men were still struggling on the floor. Thor was the first to his feet as Loki helped Odin. Thor threw his hammer as hard as he could at Hela’s back. She whipped around and with her free hand, caught the hammer. The hollow thud echoed through the apartment.

The hammer vibrated in Hela’s hand. Sparks rippled out from it, licking up her fingers and wrist. Cracks formed outwards from her fingers and a noise like metal being sheered pierced Theo’s eardrums.

“That’s not possible,” Thor squeaked.

The hammer vibrated faster, the cracks split wider, and the noise intensified. Hela did not remove her eyes from Thor. Theo, who was still under the iron-like grip of her other hand, was beginning to lose consciousness. She was beginning to panic. Her limbs felt heavy, her eyes felt like they were bulging out of her head.

In an instant, the hammer exploded, sending lightning and chunks of metal flying across the room. The windows in the kitchen shattered in a shock wave that felt like it shook the whole city block. The cabinet doors flew off their hinges. The furniture shattered and curtains shredded.

Theo could hear yelling in the hallway as one of her neighbors was trying to figure out what was going on. In the back of her mind, she hoped they just minded their own business on this one.

Her mind was beginning to shut down. She could no longer think straight. The others were regaining themselves from Thor’s hammer breaking into a thousand pieces, but Theo didn’t have time for them.

The pain in her neck was too much for her to bear any longer. With all her remaining strength, she kicked Hela as hard as she could. While it did not send her flying across the room as Theo had intended, it did get her hand off her throat long enough for her to turn over and stretch for her gun.

She made a lunge for it, but her hand flubbed over it, her mind unable to coordinate her fingers to grab it. Abandoning the instinct to fight, Theo tried to run. She put the rest of her energy into her legs and tried to scramble away from Hela. She stood over her, watching the pathetic mortal who had deformed her so flop about on the floor.

Hela kicked her over, bearing down on her with her sword. Theo’s eyes widened in terror at Hela. She closed her eyes. This was it. This was how it felt last time too. Time seemed to slow, and silence fell and once again, Theo wasn’t ready to go.

Loki cast a spell that knocked Hela back against the wall. Hela’s sword slashed across Theo’s chest, creating a long gash, diagonally across her torso. She cried out in agony at the pain that erupted through her body.

Hela turned and advanced on Loki, swords blazing in a green fire. Loki stepped backwards.

“Thor! Help me!” he shouted. “Lightning her! Do something!”

“I can’t!” Thor shouted back. “My hammer!”

Hela lunged at him. Loki conjured daggers and caught her sword in a cross above his head. She was strong. He could feel the heat of the flame on her swords. Something dripped from them, thick and black, like oil. It dripped onto his skin and burned through, revealing the muscles and tendons of his hand, down to the bone.

He cried out at the burn and let his dagger fall, stepping to the side to avoid the strike of Hela’s blade, holding his hand. He hissed at it as his skin boiled, leaving lesions and blisters in its wake around the epicenter of the ghastly wound.

“It’s poison,” he muttered. He looked up and she was striking at him again. She spun quickly round to continue her attack. He sidestepped once more and made a quick jab at her side. His dagger hit its mark: a rip in the fabric of her armor. She made no cry of pain, no flinch, nor effort to conceal the wound. It bled but she paid no heed. She swung wildly with her blade, but Loki ducked out of the way.

He waved his hand, creating a bright flash of light and loud bang to distract her. In her daze, he made several copies of himself around her and attacked all at once. She spun in a circle, releasing swords in all directions, striking several of the Lokis and making them disappear. Loki could feel twinges of pain at their deaths. Strange and Wong blocked some of the swords from hitting Thor, Odin, and Theo with small force fields.

Loki rolled out of the way of the sword meant for the real him. He had to think of something else. Hela was too clever, and this was too small a space with too many morons in it for them to fight properly.

“Strange!” Loki shouted. “Open one of your portals to the empty dimension! Make her fall through!”

Doctor Strange moved his hands in a circular motion and a portal opened beneath Hela’s feet. She screamed as she began to fall. She made a last ditch lunge at Loki with her sword as she fell through the floor and the portal closed up behind her.

Theo was gasping on the floor. She felt an eerie, coldness permeating through her body. Her back arched as waves of a burning pain washed over her like fire lapping at her skin. Spasms of electric-like shock wracked her muscles, causing her to convulse on the floor. The pain radiated from her chest. She looked down. She could see the blood and the wound, but she could not feel it. The wound felt numb, but the rest of her body was filled with its pain. She screamed but the effort made her head spin.

Loki ran to her side and knelt, examining the wound on her chest and comparing it to the wound on his hand. Strange was right behind him.

“Move,” he said, pushing Loki away from Theo. He turned Theo over. “I’m going to pull up your shirt, Theo. Please, don’t punch me this time,” he said.

“No,” Theo begged as she rolled side to side in pain. “Please,” she moaned.

Strange lifted her torn sweater, revealing the long gash. Her abdomen was littered with other older scars; one rather large, star-shaped scar covering the lower right side of her torso. She struggled to pull her shirt back down but Strange held her. Loki’s eyes widened at Theo’s battle scars. He straightened up and turned to Thor.

“Thor, you stupid oaf! What was that?” he shouted, picking up what was left of Mjolnir’s handle and throwing it at Thor. It hit his chest and bounced off him. Loki shapeshifted into an image of Thor and mocked him. “’Oh no! My special hammer’s broken! I can’t do anything anymore! I’m just a weak little boy! I’m just gonna sit here and watch my crazy sister kill my dear brother! Maybe I’ll have a spot of coffee and an apple tart while he bleeds out!’”

He turned back into himself and grimaced at Thor who was fuming, ready to tear Loki to shreds. Odin stopped the two of them, putting his hands on their chests before they could go at each other. His eye was on Theo who was moaning and crying on the floor, clearly in agony from the wound she had received from Hela.

Strange and Wong were trying to hold her still to examine the wound. The gash was not fatally deep, but it was bleeding badly and parts of it had already become infected as if it were days old. Strange was confused.

Before his eyes, the tissue began to necrotize and die around the edges of the wound, turning gangrenous and then black. Theo moaned with pain. Her hand searched for something to hold. Odin knelt beside her and took her hand and held it.

“I don’t wanna go… no,” she whimpered. “It hurts. Too much.”

“It’s a poison,” Loki said, holding up his own hand to show Strange. The poison on Hela’s blade had burned away Loki’s skin to reveal the tendon and bone of his right hand. The tissue around it was blackened as if dead. “You won’t be able to deal with it here on Midgard. She’ll have to come back to Asgard with us, if she’s to live.”

“Loki,” Odin breathed, seeing his injured son. Loki paid him no heed.

“She is not leaving this planet,” Strange said, not looking up at Loki.

“She’ll die, then,” Loki retorted.

“She is a citizen of earth, and she will not be leaving with a hostile force like you.”

“Thor’s here,” Loki said, gesturing to his brother who was kneeling over the broken pieces of Mjolnir. “He’s not hostile. Just tell whoever that she went with Thor. I don’t care. If she stays here. She’s dead.”

“I don’t want to be dead,” Theo whimpered, deliriously. “Please.”

Loki stared at Strange, searching for his answer. Theo did not have much time. There was a pounding on the door.

“Police, open this door!” someone shouted.

“Nope, we don’t have time for your indecision. I thought you were a doctor,” Loki said. “Bring us back, now! Leave the silly magicians.”

“EXCUSE ME!” Strange roared as the room was filled with rainbow colors.

Bifrost opened. Loki picked Theo up. He hoped she would survive. Strange made a move for them but was blown away by Bifrost. They were picked up and thrown into the rainbow bridge, careening through space. The gate opened on the other side and they materialized in Asgard. Theo was barely alive in Loki’s arms.

“I need a skiff, now!” Loki ordered. A flying boat-like vehicle arrived almost immediately, and Loki put Theo inside.

“Loki, where is Heimdall?” Thor asked.

“Not now, you idiot,” Loki replied.

Odin was helped in by two Einherjar and Thor stepped in as well, doing his best not to strangle his brother in front of everyone. They flew to the palace and Theo was quickly taken inside to the Healing Room.

“Healers!” Loki addressed several women in the room as he entered, carrying Theo. “This woman is Midgardian. She has been struck with a poisoned Asgardian blade. I don’t know what the poison is, but it’s killed the tissue around the wound.”

“Oh dear,” one woman said. “Put her in the soul forge, sire. We’ll try to stop it’s movement through her body.”

Loki placed her on the table and the healers started the forge. Theo was awake but confused and delirious. What she saw around her did not make any sense. The table she was laying on suddenly came alive and golden clouds formed above her in shapes that looked eerily like her own body.

She had been drifting in and out of consciousness until now. Her whole body felt like it was on fire. Her chest felt as if it had been cleaved open by a chainsaw in a horror movie. Her head spun with the pain.

The shapes above her billowed and undulated as if moved by an unfelt breeze or wave. Her eyes could not focus well on them, but she thought she could make out a darker colored cloud floating somewhere around where her chest was.

Loki watched the soul forge and the healers do their work. The forge had picked up on the poison and was able to halt its movement in Theo’s body but could not identify nor neutralize it. At least with the poison stopped, the healers could have a better look at the wound. They removed her shirt, much to her distress. She fought back with what little strength she had left.

“Try to relax, Theo,” Loki said. “They’re trying to help.”

“Don’t tell me to relax, you bastard,” she hissed.

“Clearly, she’s not as far gone as I feared,” Loki said flatly.

He looked at the healers and nodded gently. They turned a switch on the forge and Theo’s limbs fell limp.

“I can’t move!” she said. “What did you do to me!”

“It’s by design,” Loki said, calmly. “So, you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else. Like I said, just try to relax and let them do their work.”

They continued to remove her clothing and clean the wound. Loki’s attention fell to the star-shaped scar on her lower abdomen. He knew the mark: a blast from a Chitauri weapon. His mind was filled with flashes of memory too fast for him to catch. He could hear the Chitauri battle cries and weapons blasting, he could hear people dying and buildings falling, he could hear the Avengers rallying. He shook his head, violently.

Thor stepped up beside his brother and addressed the healers, pulling Loki’s attention away from Theo. “Did you call him ‘sire’?” he asked the healers. “You do know who he is, right? What he’s done?”

“Oh, of course, we do, dear. We’ve known for a while now.”

“You’ve what now?” Loki asked, surprised by the matron healer’s answer.

“We all know the Allfather was reaching his limits with the Dark Elves, what with the Queen’s death and yours – twice - and all that mess with Midgard. And then, for you to abdicate, we all thought it had been too much for you too to bear.

“Then, after all that, for Odin to suddenly take an interest in philanthropy over war and military, was, well, rather unlike him,” the healer explained to the brothers, while she worked on Theo’s wound.

“And then, there was the giant golden statue of you, sire, and the plays and the speeches and the epics and the books and the new libraries and theaters and amphitheaters. We started to put a few things together. The Council called a bit of a private meeting with palace staff about it, and we agreed that we were more prosperous this way, so we just let it be.”

Loki turned to his brother smugly and smiled. “Well, how about that?” Thor’s jaw nearly hit the floor. “Wait a minute. You knew and you let me walk around in that old man’s body for years? My back still hurts from being as old as him!” Loki said to her.

“Well, sire, that’s what you get for lying to us. We also agreed that was fair.”

“Right, well, next time we have another one of these ‘little meetings’, make sure I’m invited,” he said, winking at her. She giggled and shook her head.

Odin wandered up to the forge and gently laid his hand on Theo’s arm. It seemed to calm her a bit. She was weakening again from the pain and effort. Odin looked up at Loki and smiled.

“I like what you’ve done with the palace,” he said. “I was just admiring the drapes. Your mother would have like the color. Yellow was her favorite.”

“I thought they were gold,” Loki muttered. He turned back to the healer. “What are you finding?”

“This is a strange poison. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It is so fast acting,” she replied.

“Is it possible to get a sample from it?” Loki said. He turned to a guard. “You, go to the library. In the botany section there is an old tome under ‘Skarsgard’. It’s several millennia old so be careful with it. It’s called Ancient Poisons and Their Workings. Bring it to me, quickly,” he ordered. The guard scampered off.

“Sire, we may not have time to look up an antidote for her. Her mortal body will not be able to withstand this for much longer even with the forge’s help,” the matron said.

Loki turned back to the soul forge. Theo’s life signs were fading quickly. Loki picked at the palm of his hand. A nervous tick he’d picked up from his mother. His weight shifted from one foot to another.

“Try a regeneration ointment on her,” he said. The healers moved together, preparing Theo’s wound. The matron poured an ointment out of a bottle and rubbed it on the wound with a gloved hand. The wound began to heal but immediately died again. Loki shook his head, afraid that would happen.

“Try healing hands,” he said. “I don’t know the effects of these spells on mortals.”

“Myself, either, sire, but it’s worth a shot,” the matron said, casting the spell over Theo. As long as she kept the spell up, Theo’s wound healed and her life signs improved but as soon as she let it drop, the wound began to necrotize, and Theo diminished. Loki growled to himself.

“A healing stone,” he said. The matron powdered the stone in a mortar and pestle and sprinkled the dust over the wound. To Loki’s surprise the potency of the stone kept the poison at bay for far longer than the other remedies had, but soon he could see the wound beginning to infect again, turning red and white but at a far slower rate.

“That seemed to have worked better,” the matron said.

“We cannot waste too many stones, we have to find something more sustainable,” Loki said.

“What about Idunn’s apples?” Odin said, looking at Loki.

Loki considered Odin’s proposal. No mortal had ever been given one so it would either kill her immediately, give her immortality, heal her wound, or none of the above. It was worth a shot, Loki thought. He nodded at the matron.

The healer’s kept a basket of the apples on hand as they were useful healing items for Asgardians with minor wounds and injuries and other minor maladies. She sliced off a piece of one and fed it to Theo. Her life signs improved dramatically and the infection in the wound slowed.

“Alright,” Loki said. “Give her a little more until it heals the wound. Let’s see what happens.”

The matron continued to feed Theo pieces of the apple, but the healing process appeared to taper and plateau. The wound would not heal beyond a large scab on her chest before reverting back to an open, infected wound a few seconds after Theo had swallowed a bite of apple.

“Whatever that poison is, it won’t let her body heal,” Loki said. He looked at his own hand. He felt a little twinge in his own stomach at seeing his own bones. The pain was intense at the area of injury, but Loki was used to pain like this. He was more interested in the necrotized tissue.

“Are you hurt, sire? Were you cut by the same blade?”

“Yes,” he said, simply, hiding his hand from the healer. “Keep her fed with the apples whatever way you can and try to keep her comfortable. Give her something for the pain. Mandragora, poppydew, datura, something that’s not too strong. I’m afraid it might put her to sleep permanently,” he said. “Mortal composition is weird so do not give her very much of anything.”

Theo muttered something from the bed. Loki looked down at her and leaned closer. “No opioids,” she muttered. “Please, I can’t.”

“On second thought, no poppydew,” he said, straightening up again. “Try a teeny, tiny bit of datura. And don’t let her leave the Healing Room if she starts hallucinating.”

“Yes, sire, we’ll take care of her. But, please, let me see your hand,” the matron said, grabbing his hand before he could turn away.

“No—, matron, I’m fine, please,” he said, trying to pull away.

“Shush, let me look,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. You must be in excruciating pain.”

“Really, I’m fine,” Loki said, he pulled away, but she pulled him and walked him to a counter with healing supplies.

She applied a healing stone powder to it which eased the pain and healed it somewhat. His skin did not immediately die again as Theo’s had so his healing factor was an advantage, but it still did not heal completely. The healer gently wrapped his hand in silken bandages, taking care with his hand and fingers. He winced a little when she tightened the bandage but quickly regained himself.

“I know why you’re acting this way,” she said, leaning in close to him and gesturing with her eyes back towards Odin. “You’re no use to us injured or sick so let us help you too.”

Loki smiled and nodded at her. “Thank you, matron,” he said, sincerely. “We’ll work on finding out what this poison is, just keep the mortal girl here, please.”

Loki turned back to Thor and Odin. One of the healers had given Odin a cane for him to lean on. He did appear weaker than before. He looked about as if it were his first time in the palace. Occasionally, he would look down at Theo and squeeze her hand, gently, then go back to aimlessly looking around.

Loki led Odin and Thor to the council chambers. Odin plopped down in the King’s seat out of habit. Loki walked up behind him and cleared his throat. Odin looked up at him, smiled, and moved over to Loki’s old seat. Loki took his seat at the head of the table.

“Now, Odin, tell me about Hela, I missed that part while we were on Midgard,” he said.

“Because you were flirting,” Thor muttered.

“I was not flirting!” Loki snapped. “I was cleaning up your mess as usual, brother!”

“Do you two always fight?” Odin asked them.

“Where have you actually been for the last fifteen centuries?” Loki asked him, sarcastically. “Now, would you care to explain this random other offspring you’ve locked away for several dozen centuries?”

Odin looked down, seemingly ashamed. He cleared his throat. His sons watched him as he shifted his weight in the chair.

“I have not always been honest with you, my sons,” he began. “Don’t interrupt me, Loki!” he snapped, as Loki took in a breath to make a snarky remark. He closed his mouth and let his father go on. “Asgard is not eternal. There was a time when it did not exist here. When it was not this,” he gestured to the fine palace around them.

“The Realms were not united. They were once chaotic and ungoverned. My ancestors sought for eons to bring about peace. We have succeeded but it was never a sturdy peace.

“When I was young, when your mother and I had first been married, when our peoples, the Vanir and Aesir, had been united, it was during one such unsettled and chaotic times that we had a daughter together: Hela.

“Perhaps, it was the chaos she was born into or my want for war to settle the peace, but I realized almost immediately the child’s aptitude for battle. Like she was made for it. I trained her for the battlefield. When she was old enough, she commanded my armies; fought by my side. And, together, we brought peace to the Realms.”

“By ‘brought peace’ do you mean, you bullied the Realms into a bloody submission to you?” Loki asked.

Odin raised his head to look at his son. “Say what you will,” he responded. “All successors judge their predecessors. I surely did my own father. And he his. But Hela’s appetite for war could not be sated with peace. She sought out battle wherever she looked. She wanted more than peace. More than I could ever give her. She wanted the universe in her hand.

“When I could not give her that, she attacked Asgard, her own people. I sent in the Valkyrie to stop her, but she slaughtered them all. I conjured all the dark magicks that I could, and I locked her away in Niflheim where I thought she would be safe, where Asgard would be safe from her.”

“In Hel,” Thor said.

“An echo of her own name, not it’s original,” Odin remarked. “It destroyed Frigga. She begged me to remove her memory of Hela so she would not suffer with the knowledge that she had helped create a monster. I thought I would lose her. It was never her fault. Hela was what I made her to be. Frigga wanted to do it herself, but it was far too dangerous.

“So, I removed her memories of Hela. It would be several centuries before we had another child,” Odin looked up at Thor, there was a tear in his eye for his beloved wife. It slipped down his cheek. He dropped his head, ashamed to be crying in front of his sons.

He went on, “It was foretold to me by Mimir that Hela would lead the charge at Ragnarok and kill me. And then destroy Asgard.”

“Mimir was insane,” Loki scoffed.

“He knew more than us all,” Odin said.

“Is that why you betrayed him? Because he was wiser than you?” Loki asked, darkly. Odin did not respond.

“Father, you’re the Allfather. There must be a way to stop her,” Thor said

“There is none.”

“Pfft, how Allfatherly of you,” Loki said, rolling his eyes. “So, how could she have escaped?”

“I do not know. Her cage in Yggdrasil was supposed to be impenetrable.”

“Perhaps, she had help, then,” Loki posited.

“Impossible. No one knew of her existence.”

Thor made an uneasy noise and Loki sneered at him. He enjoyed seeing his brother squirm at learning the truth after centuries of Odin’s lies.

“Well, clearly someone did,” Loki went on. “Someone who shares her interests, perhaps. There’s plenty of beings who would love to see Asgard go up in flames—” he trailed off, thinking of what Odin had said. “’She wanted the universe in her hand…’” he breathed, opening and closing his good hand on the table.

Loki stood so fast his chair tumbled over backwards. His face paled as white as snow, his eyes widening as if he’d seen a ghost. He ran out of the room with Thor hot on his heels.

“Brother, where are you going?” Thor asked. “Loki!”

He followed Loki through the halls of the palace. They descended several staircases. They were headed to the dungeons. Three guards walked up the stairs towards them, likely just getting off their guard duty.

“You three, with me,” he ordered. The stepped to and followed him.

They arrived at an unassuming door in the dungeons. Thor had never seen the door before. At least, he couldn’t really remember if he had.

“Loki, explain. What’s going on?”

Loki was ignoring him. He threw open the door. It led down a dark tunnel that Thor could not see the end of. Odin had just caught up with them. He watched Loki.

Loki gathered his seidr and moved his hands in intricate patterns in front of him. Green ribbons began to form woven Asgardian knotwork that he blew onto the door, magically sealing it. He flung the door shut and posted the two guards at it.

“Guard this door and ensure no one enters or comes from it, understand,” he said. The guards nodded.

Thor peered down the tunnel. He could feel magic in it that was for sure, but he could not place where it came from. He tried to concentrate on it. Magic was Loki’s thing; Thor had never really been good at it. It felt like it radiated a familiar energy, similar to the feeling Bifrost gave him when they traveled on it. The realization hit him. This door was one of the secret pathways through Bifrost that Loki knew.

“This door is to be added to the guard patrols, immediately,” Loki said to the third guard. “I want you to go to the guard barracks and summon High Commander Ingvild here at once.”

The guard nodded, genuflecting and rushing off back up the stairs.

“Ingvild? A woman?” Thor exclaimed. “Where’s Sven? I thought he was High Commander.”

“I cut off his head,” Loki said, flippantly, pacing back and forth.

“You what?! Are you mad! He was one of our best warriors! He trained us both!”

“He was plotting to kill you; do you know that?” Loki snapped. “Ensure you could never come back for the throne, overthrow our line, and take over. How would you like a giant hog as our new sigil, then? Huh? Why don’t you leave the ruling to me, brother?”

Odin chuckled. “A giant pig on our banner,” he laughed. “I always thought that man was off. He looked like a pig. You know his name meant pig?”

“This isn’t real,” Thor said, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ve gone mad. This place has gone mad.”

“Welcome home, brother,” Loki smiled, giving him the craziest face he could muster. “What’s the matter, brother? Is it mad to have a woman as High Commander?”

“Uh… no,” Thor blushed. “I just meant, uh… I was just surprised that… you know that I fully support female warriors and women… don’t look at me like that.”

Loki shook his head disappointedly at his brother as the guards gave him looks of discontent.

“Ingvild is an accomplished warrior,” Loki explained. “Crime has seen a massive fall since she took over and she rooted out all those pesky little corrupted council weasels for me. My first choice would have been Sif, of course, if she weren’t so eager to toss aside all her oaths for you, her one true love,” he bat his eyelashes at Thor. He was blushing nearly the color of his cape now.

And Ingvild is a good choice, I guess. I’m glad you haven’t cut off Sif’s head too.”

“Oh, believe me, brother, I wanted to more than once, but I refrained. You’ll thank me later. You can put all that mortal girlfriend business behind you. After you uphold your oath too. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Father, please, do something about this!” Thor said, gesturing to Loki.

“What am I going to do? I’ve been deposed,” he said, walking away from them. “He’s your king, now. You have to listen to him.”

Loki’s jaw dropped for a moment at Odin agreeing with him, but he took the opportunity to sneer at his brother. Thor’s fists clenched and he lunged at his brother. Loki put his hands up and the guards lifted their spears at Thor. He stopped short of strangling his brother, sparks arcing over his fingers.

“Ah, I wouldn’t do that,” Loki said. “They don’t like it when you get that close to me and neither do I, sparky.” He lowered his brother’s hands. “Ah, Ingvild, you have impeccable timing,” Loki said, addressing the woman descending the stairs. Thor growled at him but tried to control himself, dispersing the rest of his electricity into the air and making the guards hair stand on end.

#Loki #Lover #God of Mischief #Others #Submitted fic #submission #ragnarok #traveling-classicist #chapter 4

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princelee-chang · 5 years

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omg absolutely obsessed with your idea of theonsa as clintasha in an mcu au! do you have any headcanons about the two of them in that au/which marvel characters other asoiaf characters would be?

first off, thank you so much for the ask!! sorry it took so long i am currently speaking from the grave had so much fun writing this

also, sorry to disappoint but i don’t have any detailed aus of other asoiaf characters for mcu. but! in saying that, the lannister siblings + brienne in thor is kinda amusing if you think about it: cersei - hela, jaime - thor, tyrion - loki, brienne - valkyrie/sif. that’s about it tho. maybe when i recover from 8x03 i’ll have more for you

disclaimer: all of my knowledge comes from fic, mcu & tv tropes

i realized theonsa and clintasha aren’t perfect parallels of each other. rather they share each others arcs, sometimes reversed too which, imo, makes it even better. what do i mean by that?

sansa is natasha trained by SHIELD

hands down one of the best spies in the world ✓ redhead ✓ master at manipulating egos ✓ making their enemies feel like they’re in control of a situation ✓ red and black motif ✓ scary calm poker face ✓descendant of a Famous House ✓

also: pls imagine sophie turner on a freakin motorcycle !!

was always on the side of the good, though not above the means justifying the ends and getting her hands dirty to finish the job

trained under cersei and petyr who (surprise!) turn out to be undercover HYDRA agents

margaery was her first partner and her first love !!!

when margaery died in a mission gone wrong, it broke her

set up by cersei, they were captured and tortured for intel

they killed margaery first because she refused to break

a rogue brienne manages to save sansa and sansa realizes SHIELD left them to die

when it’s revealed SHIELD is infiltrated by HYDRA, she’s not surprised

it’s more of a confirmation for her

never had a partner since then

she’s also one with the safe house

(i havent decided whether the rest of the starks are civilians or if they’re all just a badass family of agents)

theon is clint trained in the Red Room

archery ✓ the sass™ ✓ daddy issues ✓ kind of an immature idiot sometimes ✓jerk with a heart of gold ✓

yara joins the army (or FBI?) like clint’s brother, barney

here’s where it gets interesting tho bec now the roles are reversed

theon is the one trained in the red room and ramsay “trained” the humanity right out of him

he was brainwashed, given false memories of his childhood, and went through the same “graduation ceremony” as nat

when theon makes a huge ass mistake in a mission/op tho, they hang him out to dry

so now he has both KGB and SHIELD bounties on his head

theon doesn’t even see sansa coming

he just surrenders at her feet because he’s just so tired of being on the run all the time

he honestly thought there was nothing left in him and that there was nothing to fight for, so “go ahead,” theon says

SANSA MAKES A DIFFERENT CALL !!!

now, with a brand new cause, he’s the one with the ledger that he wants wiped out

the one who’s willing to come clean and bare all his past sins for everyone to see

the one who will do anything for redemption

even if it’ll cost him his life

(do not imagine theon controlled by the Mind Stone and sansa being the only one who can set him right)

when sansa spares his life and convinces him to turn, SHIELD insists she take responsibility since he’s the enemy and they’re not completely convinced of his change of heart and it was her call. also because they’ve been nagging her about a partner since she’s never been able to keep one after margaery, tho she tells everyone she prefers working alone. more importantly, literally no one wants to work with theon since he’s got a terrible rep

still, the more missions they run, the more time they spend together, the more it makes sense because really, it startles them both to find out how achingly similar they are

they both know intimately what it’s like to feel like a disposable pawn instead of an agent with a cause. they’ve both endured torture, witnessed horrors that’ll stay with them indefinitely. they both know the fear of losing yourself in all the masks, covers and false identities they slip into and just as easily discard. they both started out naive, idealizing the world and know what it’s like to be violently woken from that dream, disillusioned. they both were disappointed by the people they looked up to, not knowing who to trust.

they’re the type of people that owe nothing to anyone, and prefer to keep it that way. for the longest time, there was no such thing as love, love was for children, there are only liars and liabilities.

BUT!!! they know things are just different when they stop calling saving each other’s lives a debt, or a favor even. they know it’s real when they stop keeping count of how many times they’ve saved each other.

now, they can’t think of doing things any other way or being with anyone else.

thus Strike Team: Delta is born

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scifrey · 5 years

Text

My Very Spoilery Endgame Review - What I Liked, What Annoyed Me, and Two Questions I Am Left With

I was very satisfied and enjoyed it very much. The theater burst into applause in several instances and it was great to celebrate the end of an era with fellow fans.

Now for the spoilery critiques and praise.

My favorite moments were:

Thor reconciling his self-image and self-worth with his mother

“I’m still worthy.”

Loki escaping and (hopefully) living in at least one timeline - because if Steve went back to “trim the branches” then this means he returned the Tesseract to 1970. Which means the branch where Loki snagged the Tesseract and was not imprisoned on Asgard may have endured*.

Ken Jeong’s cameo.

Stan Lee’s cameo.

Banner coming to terms with who and what he is and living comfortably with the Hulk.

Basically everyone really leaning into the self-love and self-value by the end of the film.

“That is America’s Ass”.

“I could do this all day.” “Yeah, I know.”

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

“Ha! I knew it!”

“I am Iron Man.”

Scott finding Cassie alive.

Wong’s exasperated reply to Strange’s “Is that everyone?”

Nebula’s redemption. This is a princess (as Squidward calls Thanos “sire”) who saves her own damn self.

How the thing that gave the game away to Thanos was actually really clever and well executed; this wasn’t a “heroes are just stupid this one time” (like how Quill screwed the pooch in Infinity War when they had the damn glove). It was something that I genuinely hadn’t thought of, and I assume no one, not even Nebula, would have thought of. It worked. And it worked well.

All the ladies supporting Carol in the final battle - which was awesome but also felt a bit like the moment was added only so the Russos could check it off a “don’t piss off the feminists” list.

How the final battle set it up well for the next phase - I liked how the Glove Relay was from an OG Avenger (Hawkeye) to the new Avengers - Black Panther, Spider-man, and Captain Marvel.

“I love you 3000″.

Falcon!Cap - finally! Yay!

The sound of the armor that started it all being forged as the endcap of the credits.

However.

I wish Bucky and Steve had also had a meaningful moment at the end, like Steve and Sam, something that made it clear that even though Steve was older now, he was no less Bucky’s best pal.

I'm very, very annoyed that they Fridged Natasha. I mean, I get it. Someone had to die. And we all knew Hawkeye was going to go back to his family, so it wouldn’t be him. And I do love how they did the death, how Nat and Clint fought with one another to the be the one to make the sacrifice. And her death would have been especially cheap if Bruce had just Snapped her Back. I get it.

And if there wasn’t a long history of Fridging female character to ensure the male ones have enough Man-Pain to have a character arc and impetus to be a hero, then you know what? This would have been a really moving sacrifice. It would have really worked.

But there is. And in light of that, it’s left me... itchy. Uncomfortable. Because in the context of the film alone it was a great death. But in the context of the history of comic book narratives, it sucked.

Also, what does this mean for the Black Widow movie? Will it actually be a prequel? Will it be Budapest? And if it is Budapest, will they use the same actors, or cast new, younger ones?

I also don't understand the narrative reason why they had to make so many fat jokes around Thor.

I mean, yeah, it makes sense he was depressed and stopped taking care of his heath, and self-medicated with booze and food. This was a strong and meaningful narrative and I really liked that he was given the opportunity to mourn, to question his purpose, to become more than just muscles and a hammer in terms of character construction. That he could grieve and struggle, and be filled with crippling regret that kept him indoors and hiding, and filled self-loathing.

As a character choice it made sense. And I liked that he was still a powerful warrior while chubby, and that he didn’t magically become slim again when he suited up. It was wonderful to see him be no less powerful, dangerous, dedicated, and no less kick ass while sporting a keg instead of a sixpack.

But they leaned awfully hard on that “fat joke” button and by the time Rhodey said “Cheez Whiz?” I was over it. Its got tedious and frankly a bit insulting.

Teasing someone for suffering because he lost literally everyone he loved is not cool. The jokes fell flat, for good reason. They were cruel.

And when the Russos announced that they had included the MCU's first openly gay character I was hoping that it would be a main character, not some rando dude in a talk therapy meeting. I wanted Bucky and Sam to confess feelings, or Bucky to Steve even if Steve couldn’t return them, or Valkyrie to at least have a wife in New Asgard, or something.

But TBH it didn't surprise me that they made it some nameless dude in group support. Like J.K. Rowling, the Russos are happy to queerbait but too cowardly to commit, and they always have been. I’d be annoyed but it’s not worth the energy.

At least when the guy mentioned his boyfriend it was a “no big deal” mention, and nobody made a “are you cool with this, Cap?” thing to really point out that ooooo, this dude is queer.

But those are my only gripes. The rest of it was thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying.

Especially all the little call backs. The "I am Iron Man" and “I could do this all day” stuff - it felt like little gifts to the fandom.

However, I have two questions.

1) When people were Snapped Back, were they Snapped to their previous exact geographical location? Because if so, what about people who had been in transit? Did people who were Snapped Away while in a plane just... appear mid-sky and plummet to their deaths? Were people on spaceships Snapped Back into the void of cold space? We saw in Infinity War that helicopters crashed into city streets - the pilot, that means, was Snapped Away. When that pilot came back, where did he come back? Did Bruce think to Snap them all into safe places? (I mean, I assume the Stones accounted for Spacial Drift and the location of planets in orbit... maybe it accounted for people who would have Snapped Back into deadly situations?)

2) I do love that Steve and Peggy got their life together At that point Pegs would have been like... at least 10 years older than Steve? Maybe 15? What would her neighbors think of Sugar Momma Peggy Carter and her Very Much Younger (Looking) Husband?

Did she introduce him to anyone? Did they have neighborhood BBQs? At that point everyone would have known who Captain America/Steve Rogers was so did no one recognize him? What did they say? (Did we get Beardy Steve back???) They had kids, canonically, so was Steve able to attend their T-BAll games and school plays?

One assumes that Sugar Baby Steve would have been the House Husband, because Pegs was running Shield and Steve was out of the game. He’d never be able to show his face at SHIELD because Howard would recognize him, and so would Arnim Zola, so HYDRA would have known that Captain America survived and I imagine they would have given anything to get him into the Chair.

It makes me think that Sugar Baby House Husband Steve would have been very isolated and possibly lonely. Maybe he had a few neighbor friends, but can you image how torturous it must have been to live so privately? To know that Bucky was out there suffering and being tortured and brainwashed and that he couldn’t do anything about it? He couldn’t go save his best pal?

That Peggy could never bring him to the SHIELD Christmas party, to visit her new baby godson Anthony, never attend anything with him.

And it makes me think Steve had to vanish from her life right when his earlier self entered it so like... as soon as she started getting sick enough with Alzheimer's he had to leave.

Because that’s when younger Steve came into her life, and started visiting her in the nursing home.

But he had to abandon her when she needed him most, and that is very tragic. How did Steve reconcile that with himself? Especially with returning to a future where she was dead and his friends were alive and he didn’t need to be the Secret Sugar Baby House Husband any more?

All in all, it was very enjoyable and I will watch it again.

And I look forward to the FanFic.

* This means that Loki in that branch also likely did not participate in the battle against the Dark Elves. His character growth in that moment was likely delayed, but I believe he ultimately would have processed his extreme confusion, self-loathing, and hatred of his betrayal by his “family” Thor enough to join forces with him against the destruction of the universe when it mattered. Perhaps having the extra time to do so might have even served him better. I don’t know if this means Odin chose to die and Hela was released, thus triggering the destruction of Asgard. I don’t know what this would have meant for Ragnarock - possibly with Odin as the King when he died the defenses would have been better (though I argue the culture and peace of Asgard thrived under Loki, especially with his dismantling of the Empire and the valuing of the Arts) and they would have saved Asgard or at least not lost so many.

And if Asgard had not survived, perhaps in this version something different may have happened, and Loki wouldn’t on the survivor ship. Perhaps he was on a different ship. Perhaps he wasn’t present for the battle at all and in a completely different part of the universe.

If he was elsewhere this means

a) The Asgardian survivors would have lived because Thanos wouldn’t have targeted the ship, and Thor would have been less self-loathing.

b) When Thanos found Loki with the Tesseract in this branch, it’s likely Loki was able to ingratiate himself to Thanos and gave the Stone to him without Thor there to tip his hand toward an immediate betrayal murder attempt. I subscribe to the theory that Loki was just as mind-controlled during The Avengers and the Battle of New York as Barton (though I wouldn’t call Loki totally innocent in everything) and that he had been suffering from extreme mental health issues following his unsuccessful attempted suicide. In this case, he would be willing to play the long game to get his revenge on his abuser Thanos. Then, later, hopefully, he joins Thor’s side to save the universe against Thanos (as he did against the Dark Elves)- betraying Thanos and perhaps stopping the Snap before it happened in that timeline. Or if not stopping the Snap, perhaps being a part of the new Avengers if he survived it, or joining in the final battle if he was Snapped Away.

Anyway - I have lots of Loki Thoughts. Feel free to adopt any Plot Bunnies this may have generated in reading this.

#Avengers: Endgame #Review #spoilters #Endgame #Avengers #Storytelling #Loki #Endgame Loki #head cannon #theories #loki theory

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desperatelyseekingdennis · 5 years

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Captain Marvel

I went into this expecting mediocrity, and was not disappointed. About on par with Ant Man and the Wasp, but without Paul Rudd to make it enjoyable.

Surprisingly, the soundtrack is absolutely the worst part of the movie. That's usually one area Marvel nails, but but here. They kept trying to use pop songs to tie the movie to the 90s, but none of them really fit the scenes. It's obviously possible to pull this off (Edgar Wright comes immediately to mind for another Ant Man comparison, or else various Iron Man scenes) so there's really no excuse.

Action and effects were passable, and the plot not the worst I've seen but still pretty bland. Despite getting a lot of screen time, I never noticed Jackson's de-aging. All told it wasn't a complete waste of money, but I definitely wish my girlfriend hadn't insisted on seeing it in the theater.

From here on out spoilers ahoy as I did deeper into my feelings about specific scenes.

(I started this right after the movie was released, and wrote a giant ten page analysis of the entire plot scene by scene. I saved it to my drafts, forgot about it, then just now erased the entire thing and am going to try and be more focused on just the bits that don’t make sense to me)

So first of all, the “surprise twist” that drives the entire plot doesn’t work in the MCU. The Kree have been villains in several live action properties at this point. The entire plot to the first Guardians was that the Kree are so militaristic that a bunch of them refused to honor a peace treaty. That they’re the put upon victims of the oppressive Skrulls just doesn’t work in this context. Maybe if you’re a comic book fan who knows the Skrulls are *also* villains, but most viewers aren’t going to know that. So it was obvious before they even reached Earth that Jude Law was the bad guy. They’d have been better served picking some other random alien race for her to be a part of. Yes, I know Mar Vell is historically Kree, but he’s also historically male so clearly they don’t care that much about source material. In a pinch, just make Mar Vell a Kree and these new guys are after her research.

The premise that Danvers doesn’t know she’s human also doesn’t make much sense. Did she never bleed in the six years of combat training? Also, and maybe I’m overlooking something, but have there ever been any other white Kree? There’s the one black guy, but even he has a sort of bluish tint. Then there’s Jude Law and Carol being straight crackers. ????? Again, making not making them all Kree would have gone a long way towards fixing this.

Why did SHIELD show up at all? Fury doesn’t believe Danvers is an alien when she claims to be one, so what exactly did they think was worth investigating? They should have MIBed this bitch. Either Fury is a cop that gets taken into SHIELD as a result of him killing a Skrull without training, or he’s the SHIELD agent that takes over after the cop on the scene does so. I’m pretty sure Agents of SHIELD established that Coulson was an analyst before becoming a field agent, so using him for that roll doesn’t work well. But given this was a GURL POWER movie, this would have been a fantastic opportunity to give Agent Hill some back story.

In the train scene, how did she know to punch the old lady? They’ve already established the Skrulls are so good at pretending that the Kree have to implant safe words deep in your subconscious to prove your identity, but for some reason she can spot one in a crowd of (what to her are) aliens? For that matter, if they are telepathic, why could the one guy not identify that Fury doesn’t go by Nicholas? That whole scene where he specifies that he only goes by Fury should have been pretty close to the surface. Even so, that scene was so bad. It was so obviously tacked on to use as a plot device later. The writers are aware that Fury has appeared in other movies, right? That he’s not an original character? What happened in the next twenty years that made him reevaluate people calling him Nick? <Danvers reads his ID> “Thank’s Nicholas” “Only one person calls me Nicholas, and you aren’t my momma. Its Fury.” Was that so hard?

The scene with the biker was so bad.. It could have worked if they’d done something with the “why don’t you smile” line, but they didn’t. He said it, end scene. ??? It also felt like it might have been a Terminator reference that also fell flat, but that might just be my imagination. As it stands, it only serves as a wink and a nudge at their SJW targets, without actually providing anything for the rest of the audience.

Why is the light speed engine so important? Mar Vell seems convinced it will bring peace to the galaxy, and Jude Law at least pretends to think it will allow them to conquer it. But they already have the weird window portal things. I guess the weird portals are static in space, so I can see where FTL travel independent of them would be beneficial, but hardly the game changer its being made out to be.

On the subject of pointless McGuffins, lets review the history of the Tesseract prior to this movie. Odin loses it on Earth, where Red Skull discovers it The Real Captain steals it from Red Skull, but loses it in the ocean where eventually Howard Stark will recover it and give it to SHIELD. It stays with SHIELD until Loki steals it in the opening scene of the Avengers. Its stolen like five more times before eventually Thanos uses it to murder Spiderman. Nice chain of possession, no unexplained gaps.

Post Captain Marvel, we learn that along the way somehow the Air Force gets hold of it, where an alien managed to steal it and hide it on her space ship for at least six years before SHIELD, completely unaware of its existence, stumbles upon it. Again, the writers are aware that there were other MCU movies before this one, right? This isn’t really a problem per se, its just dumb. Its answering a question nobody had, complicating a narrative for no reason except that they couldn’t come up with a non-Infinity Stone McGuffin.

When they fly into space and can’t find the space ship, Danvers is just like “Open sesame” and the ship decloaks. ??? How worthless is Kree cloaking technology if it can be turned off remotely by somebody who doesn’t even know its there?

It was pointed out on Twitter that the song the Supreme Intelligence dances to that she pulled out of Danver’s memories would have been released after Danvers moved to Hela. I can’t confirm that because I don’t remember what song was playing, but if true that’s pretty bad writing. People will write it off as “she probably heard it in the car with Fury” but you can’t just invent a scene to fill in a plot hole. That’s the writers’ job, and they didn’t do it.

There’s more to unpack in that Supreme Intelligence scene, but they mostly come down to “what are the rules of this technology?”

Then the climax. Oh my god the climax. She thinks real hard and destroys the little chip that’s been blocking her powers (bee the dubs, until they explained otherwise I thought the little chip was the source of her powers), then suddenly she’s God. No ramping up, no learning curve. Just “oh, I can fly now and direct fire from a fucking attack cruiser doesn’t hurt me” and the movie is over. What the actual fuck. I can’t even put into words how bad the last act was.

So I won’t. Instead, I’ll talk about Thor: Ragnarok. At the beginning of the movie, he’s cocky as hell. He’s stupid over powered, and he knows it. So when his sister appears he ends up losing his hammer because he’s so sure of himself that he doesn’t take a moment to think about the situation. Then he winds up on the Junk Planet, and he’s still cocky. He’s going to fight the champion and get off the planet then go kill his sister no big deal. But he loses there, too. He’s starting to lose faith in himself, but it doesn’t matter because he’s the only one that can do what needs to be done. Finally he’s able to get off planet and back to his sister... Where he loses again. Now he’s hit rock bottom. His people are going to die because he wasn’t strong enough to save them. At that moment, he has a literal deus ex machina moment (in that Odin is a literal god) and regains all his power and proceeds to kick all the names and take all the ass. (that was meant to be an Infinity War reference and not a suggestion about what his intentions re: Valkyrie, honest)

At this point in the movie, he’s basically at the same level Danvers is at the end of hers. Completely unstoppable, unreasonable power levels all around. The difference is he earned his position. He fought for it, almost died for it several times. Danvers just... thought real hard. At any point in the movie did she lose a fight? Was she ever in any real danger? Even in the opening scene when she’s sparring with Jude Law its made clear that he’s incapable of beating her which is why he’s pushing her to learn to hold back. And that’s with the power dampener. Thor Ragnarok has *so* many problems, but at least they gave the hero a journey to go on. And that’s accounting for the fact that he starts off pretty ridiculously powerful.

I’m officially out of time and this is getting out of hand so I’m just going to wrap this up. This was actually shorter than what I originally had.

#captain marvel #thor #MCU #reviews

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sserpente · 6 years

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In a heartbeat (Chapter 2)

A/N: OMG, you guys, I am literally startled. Thank you all so much for your positive and numerous feedback, I never thought this new project would be so well received. Enjoy the next chapter! ♥

Find all chapters on my masterlist!

Several seconds passed until the play of warm colours ceased. You were standing in what resembled the stairwell of an ancient mansion, with valuable sculptures in the corners and artistic paintings on the walls. In front of you there was the man who had saved your life. His red cloak seemed to be moving and floating on its own when he stepped forward to properly introduce himself. Thor was even faster to speak.

“So Earth has wizards now, huh?”

“Something like that. My name is Doctor Stephen Strange.”

Frowning, you looked around you. Stephen Strange. You had heard of his name before. He used to be a famous neurosurgeon before… there had been this atrocious accident.

You let out a breath you didn’t realise you were holding, your limbs still shaking. The shock of what had happened sat deep—clinging to your heart like claws, stabbing you from the inside out.

“W-whatever just happened? Who was that? What does she want?” Why did she kill my best friend, you added silently, swallowing thickly to suppress a sob. Your heart was still pounding like a steam hammer—it almost hurt.

Strange nodded. “Yes, what does she want, Thor? You seemed familiar.”

“We are not. I know as much about her as you do but we need to stop her now. My hammer…”

“A shame,” the wizard said, pouting in approval before turning to you. “I’m sorry about your friend.” Fighting back your tears once more, you nodded.

“Look, sorcerer, we need to find my father.” Thor continued sternly. “He’ll know what to do, he is the Allfather, the protector of the nine realms.”

“What brought him this title, I wonder?” Strange remarked sarcastically. “I know who your father is, we met shortly before he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes,” Strange said. “He chose to remain in exile when your brother Loki…” —he put a suspicious emphasis on his name— “…banished him to Earth.”

“But why would he do that?”

Loki. Where was he? Your thoughts drifted away from the weirdly calm conversation Strange and Thor were having. You didn’t want to be here—you didn’t belong here. You had just missed your job interview and then, even worse, lost one of your best friends to a powerful black-haired witch. This wasn’t right. None of this was.

“You should probably stay the night.” Strange suggested when you turned back to them again reluctantly. “It will take me some time to locate your father and in this house, you will be safe from Hela. I will personally bring you to your rooms. Don’t enter any of the others without me, they’re—uh—out of order.”

“Stay the night?” You chirped, terrified. “What about me? I can’t stay the night, I need to go back this instant! I have… had a job interview! I demand to leave immediately!” Although you tried to sound intimidating, your words were weak and exhausted.

The past hour had taken its toll on you and with the realisation of your best friend being gone sinking in more with every minute that passed, it was getting harder to even stand upright without throwing up or fainting like a pathetic little school girl.

“You can’t leave… what’s your name?”

“(Y/N),” you choked out.

“(Y/N),” Strange repeated gently. “You can’t leave. I’m sorry. Hela knows who you are and what you look like, she saw you with Thor and Loki.”

“He’s right,” Thor added with a deep voice. “For all I know she will try and kill you once she gets the chance.”

Of course, he had a point there. Thanks to Karen and Susan, Hela might be thinking you were in on the game. The danger you were in was tangible. Perhaps you should stay the night. Only tonight and then tomorrow, you would make your leave, making sure to find Karen and mourn her sister together. Organising a beautiful funeral to honour her would be the least you could do after this terrible incident—it was, naturally, even more important than your spoiled chance to become a famous journalist one day.

“I will need my brother back.” Thor stated when you said nothing, clearing his throat audibly.

“Oh yeah, right,” With a flick of his fingers, there were eerie orange sparkles spreading on his fingertips again and then, having you flinch and jump aside, the wizard opened a portal on the ceiling through which a yelling Loki fell straight to the hard ground.

“I have been falling… for thirty minutes!” He complained crossly. Panting, he got up on his feet. The situation would have been funny, caused you to giggle even if you hadn’t just escaped death by only a heartbeat.

“Handle me…” He started, eyes narrowing as he fixated Strange. His voice was dangerously low, breathless even when out of thin air, he conjured two razor-sharp daggers. “Who are you? You think you are some kind of sorcerer. Don’t think for one minute you second-rate—“

Loki started at Strange before he had even finished his threat. Maybe it was the adrenaline that was still cursing through your veins and stopping you from collapsing; most of all, however, it made you brave.

“No! No, stop it!” You screamed, blocking his way. Your palms connected with his chest and despite of the nice feeling fabric of his black suit, it felt like trying to fight off a solid rock. The God of Mischief hesitated. Looking down at you in a confused manner, his blue eyes met yours. Whatever he saw in them—fear, exhaustion, desperation—it made him halt.

“No more fighting, I’m fed up with it! I just… I just want to go home!” Tears. Hot, salty and stinging, they worsened your sight. You quickly buried your face in your hands to hide your crying to keep at least some dignity. You should have all right to cry though. You were human, you were no supernatural witch…

“I don’t want anything to do with all of that spooky magic stuff! Life is exhausting enough! I just lost my best friend to a psychotic alien bitch for absolutely no reason!” You shouted out of breath, your words barely comprehensible in between frantic sobs.

“Okay, okay, (Y/N), you need to calm down, you’re having a panic attack.”

Strange was probably right with the amount of oxygen entering your windpipe. Trembling, you let him take a hold of your wrist—it wasn’t like you could have reacted in the first place—in the next moment, your environment once more changed within the twinkling of an eye.

In midst of an old-fashioned room with what looked like ancient furniture, the wizard switched on the lights and led you over to a surprisingly soft and comfortable bed.

“I know this is too much for you right now. It’s no less than what I felt when I first learned about magic and realms and… give yourself some time. Is there anyone you want me to contact for you? Your friend, maybe? She will have alerted the police by now.”

You decided to like the bearded man. His voice was relaxing and comforting and the way he kneeled down to look you in the eye all the while covering one of your hands with his, you felt safe.

It was only then you realised you had lost your bag during the explosion. Your phone, your wallet, your passport, even your car keys… everything was gone. If you did leave tomorrow, without your documents and any money, you wouldn’t even be able to leave the state.

“I… I don’t know Karen’s number by heart.”

“I will find a way to let her know you’re alive. Until then, you should rest. Are you hungry? There’s a bathroom opposite the room, it’s equipped with a first aid box so you can take care of the cut on your forehead. I will have some tea brought up, it will help you sleep.” As soon as he finished his proposal, a tray carrying a silver tea pot and a pretty porcelain mug appeared on your nightstand. It was steaming with a dark liquid, tempting you to taste it.

“Thank you.” You mumbled. For the tea or his comforting words, you did not know.

It must have been past midnight by now. The tea hadn’t helped. For hours on end, you had been thrashing around in bed, turning from side to side restlessly, for every time you closed your eyes to sleep, you saw Susan lying on the ground before you. She was reaching out, pleading you to save her instead of running away and stepping through that portal.

The smell of the fresh blood drowning her clothes was so vivid you gagged when your eyes flew open once again. Sweat was running down your back, your knees had turned to jelly and your heart… it seemed to be skipping so many beats you wondered how you were still alive.

You knew you wouldn’t be getting any rest tonight but at least, your tears had dried. You had no energy left to cry and relieve yourself from the grief rioting inside you. Maybe a short walk would take your mind off things and distract you from the gruesome picture that just wouldn’t go away.

Strange had told you not to explore the other rooms on your own and after what you had experienced today, you were fine with listening to his advice. Out of order probably meant hazard of any kind of magical origin. So you simply wandered through the empty hallways barefoot, inspecting the art in the house as you desperately tried not to think about Susan and the fact you would never see her again.

After a while, you came by another closed door, through this one, however, candle light shone to the wooden ground, illuminating a few feet in front of you. Either Doctor Strange, Thor or Loki would be inside the room, clearly not sleeping either, you assumed.

So you entered, making sure to knock quietly before opening the door to peek inside. It was the God of Mischief you spotted lying on the bed, reading a book whose title you couldn’t quite make out from the distance. He had replaced his clothes as well. Instead of the black suit, he was now wearing foreign garments made of green fabric which looked way more comfortable for reading in bed than his previous outfit.

He instantly noticed your presence before you even let the door fall shut behind you. Alarmed, he looked up to meet your tired gaze, his blue eyes sending pleasant shivers up and down your spine. There was something about his eyes… something intriguing.

“I can’t sleep,” you explained before he could open his mouth to dismiss you rudely. There wasn’t much you expected from him, after all. After what you had heard of he had done, you doubted he would show any sympathy for a human girl.

Loki tilted his head. He frowned, his lips parting ever so slightly. “Strange said the door was locked.” He stated wondrously.

Your eyes widened. “No, it was open, I mean, I just…” Grabbing the door knob in an irritated manner, you attempted to open it once more. It didn’t move. Not a smidge.

Oh no.

“It was open.” You corrected, turning around in an apologising manner all the while Loki rolled his eyes. Annoyance, so you figured, was safer than anger. Carefully, you approached his bed. “Why did he lock you in here?” You asked before you gave it a second thought. The answer was clear. Loki was a war criminal—unguarded… what would he do? You had just trapped yourself in this room with a very, very dangerous man. Of course your day was getting even better.

“Strange does not trust me. His sorcery is more advanced than I thought—sloppy but quite affective. I am yet to figure out how to break the spell, though I believe it is the house that blocks most of my magic.” He said, setting his book aside. Now, you had his full attention but whether that was a good or a bad thing, you could not tell.

“You can’t sleep?” He asked then, raising his eyebrows a little. For just a brief moment, you believed there was actual interest flaming up in his eyes, it was, however, quickly replaced by the most inconspicuous hint of mockery. It stung even though you tried not to let it get to you.

“Quite frankly, I will not be sleeping either now that you have so brilliantly locked us in here.”

“You could have told me the door was locked before I closed it, you vengeful idiot!” Dubiously, you usually ran out of cruel insults when you were angry and right now, Loki was provoking you. You were grieving, you were in pain and he… he was distracting you.

Nervously, you scratched the back of your hand, with the God of Mischief tilting his head once more upon seeing your skin turning all red. If you continued like this, you would be bleeding by tomorrow and yet, it felt good to do at least something with your hands.

Loki was staring at you in an almost scrutinising manner. It was like his intimidating glance went right through you.

What you didn’t understand was how you hadn’t just left after seeing Loki in this room. You could have bolted and returned to your own, searching for Strange or Thor instead but for some incomprehensible reason, you had stayed and entered. Again, you were reminded of how there was something about the God of Mischief that intrigued you. If only you knew what it was.

“Can I please just… lie down? I really am exhausted.” There was no point in standing at the edge of his bed any longer anyway. Given you would be locked in here for the rest of the night, you might as well make the best out of the situation. Perhaps now, you would even fall asleep.

Loki was dangerous and unpredictable, this much you were very well aware of, however, with him by your side… you felt oddly protected.

Watching him nod mutely and biting back another scornful remark to express his plain annoyance, you slid under the warm bed sheets all the while remembering how he had attempted to lunge at Strange today. What had induced him to listen to you? Was it compassion? Pity?

“Good night, Loki.” You whispered, sighing quietly before turning to face the wall. When he replied nothing in return, you simply forced your eyes shut. Despite the dim light in the room, it took you in fact only a couple of minutes to fall into a relatively peaceful slumber.

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soldierstark · 6 years

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Late Night Magic | Part 2 | LOKI LAUFEYSON X READER

Description: Nightmares are a common occurrence for the reader as her power emanates darkness and danger. This leads to an odd connection between her and Loki who resonates with her through 2:30 am conversations.

Author’s Note: Ya’ll really enjoyed Late Night Magic and with so many requests for a part 2, I couldn’t not write one so here it is. I pulled this out of my ass in like an hour and a half and I think I turned out pretty well. I especially like the dream sequence. Anyways, as always I appreciate feedback and I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think!

Word Count: 1891

FANFICTION MASTERLIST | Part 1

The onslaught of hard liquor down my throat lead to me having a coughing fit as I slammed the shot glass down onto the counter. I wiped my mouth violently and leaned against the counter, my (Y/H/C) hair falling over my shoulders and covering my face.

“Why the sudden change from tea to whiskey?” a voice asked, breaking the eerie silence that overcame the Avengers Tower while everyone else with a normal sleep schedule, well, slept.

I looked up and shook my hair out of sight, coming face to face with the only other person who was ever up at this time of night, Loki. He approached me casually before leaning his elbows against the counter opposite from me.

“Another nightmare?” he asked in a soft voice. Loki’s face looked relaxed aside from the fact that his eyebrows were scrunched together. It was almost as if he were… concerned.

I reached a hand up and pushed a stray piece of hair behind my ear, looking away from his piercing gaze. A dry laugh escaped my lips along with a flush of color to my cheeks as I recalled the dream that woke me up tonight.

“I wouldn’t call it a nightmare per say,” I trailed off, looking back up at Loki. “It was just rather… well… strange is the only way I can think to describe it.” My hand gripped the bottle of whiskey carefully as I poured myself another shot.

“Care to elaborate?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Not to you particularly no,” I replied, downing another shot of alcohol.

“And why is that?” Loki prodded. When I didn’t respond he asked another question. “Was I in it?”

I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders, trying to seem nonchalant. “No,” I lied through my teeth.

Loki stood up straight and crossed his arms over his chest. He tilted his head to the side slightly and studied my demeanor carefully with a smirk. I got the sudden urge to shiver though I wasn’t cold.

“You know (Y/N), though I am the god of mischief, I am also the god of lying. Do you really think I wouldn’t be able to see your dishonesty?” he quipped sounding amused.

I pursed my lips and began screwing the cap back onto the bottle of whiskey. 2:37 am on a Tuesday was not the time to be getting drunk off my ass. “No, I was just hoping you’d ignore it.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because it’s too late for you to be picking an argument with a girl who could literally destroy you with a simple touch,” I replied monotonously, putting the bottle away into the cabinet above the cups where it belonged.

I turned around to face Loki again, leaning my back against the kitchen counter. The moon light streaming in through the wall of widows a few feet away gave Loki’s silhouette a silver lining. Much like that of a cloud obscuring the sun’s afternoon rays.

“I thought we already established that you wouldn’t do that?” he retorted cheekily before clearing his throat. “But seriously (Y/N), what was the dream about. It must’ve been quite odd to wake you up at this hour.”

I chewed my bottom lip slightly and looked down at my bare feet which rested upon the cold kitchen tile. I could feel Loki’s gaze burning into my skin during the moment of silence that overcame us before I replied.

“Yea…. Quite strange it was,” I answered vaguely, recalling the dream I had awoken from mere minutes ago.

“I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off,” I gasped out between labored breaths. I swung my silver katana around me, skillfully killing any one of Hela’s undead soldiers that came my way.

Loki and the Valkyrie girl along with Bruce all ended up in the same vicinity that I was in. We were all using the various weapons we had on us the fight off the army of soldiers.

“Heimdall needs to get the civilians onto the ship faster… they’re just gonna keep coming and there’s no way we can kill all of these,” the Valkyrie girl yelled, twisting around to stab another one of the undead from behind.

My arms were burning in protest despite the rush of adrenaline I received from battle. Epinephrine can only get you so far when it comes to physical fatigue. I was starting to feel the effects of battle both mentally and physically.

Things couldn’t go on like this much longer and from the look of things, we had a long way to go.

“We don’t need to kill all of them,” Loki ground out between the stabs he took with his two knives. “We just need to buy Thor more time to kill that bitch.”

My ears perked up at the Princes words, and idea forming in my mind that might just be the solution we were all looking for. I maneuvered myself through the hoard of undead soldiers while simultaneously fighting them off.

“Loki,” I yelled once I got closer to him.

“What?” he yelled back sounding distracted, still fighting off Hela’s soldiers.

“You and the others need to get on the ship along with the civilians,” I said quickly. “You’ve got to get off this planet.”

Loki was able to steal a glance at me for a split second before he had to turn his attention back to fighting. “What? No! I’m not leaving you here (Y/N). You’ll get killed,” he replied exasperated.

“I’ll be fine Loki, I do have a plan you know. Plus it’s not like we have any other option,” I argued back. “What do you suppose we do instead? Stand here and fight to our deaths?”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Loki let out and indigent snort, stabbing an undead soldier through the skull. “I think we should do something that won’t end in a suicide mission for you. I don’t even need to hear your plan to know that’s what it is.”

“Loki for the last time I’ll be fine! For the love of all things please just get everyone on the ship,” I demanded, swinging my katana in a wide arc taking out 4 soldiers.

I stood up straight and looked over at Loki, having an undisputed staring contest with him. His eyes were filled with unreadable emotion as he surged closer to be me, pulling me into him by the waist.

I let out a gasp of surprise as he leaned his head down and pressed his lips against mine firmly. I tensed up slightly but relaxed into the kiss almost immediately after, returning it with fervently.

Loki’s lips were surprisingly soft and warm, the feeling that shot through my body at the sensation was indescribable. Despite the battle going on around us, I felt perfectly safe in that moment wrapped in his arms.

The kiss ended almost as quickly as it started, both of us pulling apart for air.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Loki said softly, so soft that I could barely hear him over the sound of the battle raging on around us. And with one last smile, he started making his way towards the ship. The rest of the ‘revengers’ following suit.

I quickly sheathed my katana and made fists with both of my hands. I hit my wrists together two times and on the third, black flames erupted from my palms like fireworks.

Ever since I discovered my power of cataclysm, a little part of my focus had always been spent on keeping it under control. Never had I ever been able to give something my undivided attention out of fear of losing control all together.

For the first time ever, I didn’t have to fear losing control, because that was all a part of the plan.

I let the power of destruction over take me and in one swift move, I shot my hands out and watched as Asgard began to crumble to ruins around me.

“The dream itself isn’t what’s bothering me Loki. It’s the meaning behind it,” I breathed out, wringing my hands together nervously. “Yesterday you said the dreams are reflections of your subconscious, well my subconscious is telling me something that I really don’t feel like dealing with.”

Loki licked his lips, not taking his eyes off of me. I found myself entranced by the motion. Man was in deep. Of all the people I could possibly get a crush on, my mind just had to start liking this thousand year old Prince from an alien planet.

I had such great taste in men.

“I’m just curious as to what this all has to do with me,” Loki admitted.

I pushed myself off the counter and made a move to exit the kitchen. “It’s not important Loki,” I grumbled trying to push past him.

Loki’s arm reached out and gently grabbed me by the elbow, halting my movement. “And where do you think you’re going?”

I rolled my eyes. “Back to bed.”

He let out a deep chuckle and shook his head playfully. “Nuh uh. Not until you tell me about your dream and what I was doing in it.”

I threw my head back with a groan. “For someone as old as you are you can be really immature. Will you please let me go to bed?”

“If you want to go back to bed that bad, all you have to do is tell me about your dream (Y/N)”

I let out an exasperated sigh and gave Loki an indignant look. “How about I show you?” I compromised, the shots of whiskey I took giving me some courage I otherwise wouldn’t have.

Loki gave me a heart stopping smirk. “Even better.”

Taking a step forward, I wrapped one hand around the back of Loki’s neck while the other made it’s way through his long dark hair. Standing up on my toes, I pulled his head down to mine and kissed him firmly on the lips.

He reciprocated almost immediately and wrapped an arm around my waist while the other went around my back, pressing me closer to him. Our lips move in synch as I rummage my hands through his hair, messing it up undoubtedly.

I pull Loki’s face even closer to mine, electing a deep, lustful moan from the back of his throat. For what seems like forever, we kiss deeply without another care in the world.

That is, until we’re interrupted by the millionaire who owns the very kitchen we were making out in. “What the hell guys?” Tony groans huskily, rubbing his eyes wearily. “It’s like 3 in the morning go to sleep.”

Loki and I break apart and turn quickly towards the voice of Tony Stark, putting as much distance between ourselves as possible.

“You know what,” Tony starts waving his hand dismissively. “I don’t even care anymore do whatever the hell you want. Just clean up when you’re done will ya? Thanks.” He finishes with a yawn, turning around and walking back down the hallway towards his room.

I let out a quiet laugh and look over at Loki. “Good night Prince Loki,” I say jokingly, making a move to leave the kitchen.

“Good night Lady (Y/N),” he replies with a smile, finally allowing to pass him and go back to bed.

Tagged: @holamora @sherlokidlikeshit @domcaaa996 @iamhamburglar

#loki laufeyson #loki x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #loki fanfic #loki odinson #loki odinson x reader #thor #thor ragnarok #marvel imagine #loki (marvel)#loki #marvel imagines #marvel #off #fanfiction

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blu-b · 6 years

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Trying again to post my Ragnarok blabbering....

Let’s try and see if tumblr still thinks it has too many paragraphs. If so, I shall split it into two. Reminder that this is just me spewing out everything that bothers me because I actually have so desperately few Thor(ki) pals on tumblr that I'm basically jumping on any opportunity to actually talk to someone about it. Which is why you precious few who commented are now getting the full broadside of my entire jumbled misery. I apologize in advance. You really don't have to read all of it. I’m also not looking for a grand discussion or anything. I just need to get it out of my system.

I respect that there are people who liked the movie, and I don't mean to spoil it for anyone else, so what I'm going to say here is all just a very personal, subjective impression that is by no means anything else but an opinion. Also I feel kind of stupid because the film has been out for a year and...yeah well.

On we go.

upstartpoodle replied to your post “I’ve finally seen Thor: Ragnarok (yes yes, I’m late to the party, I...”

I haven't seen it since I knew from the various spoilers I've seen that it wasn't really my cup of tea, so I can't really comment about the film as a whole, but I've seen a lot of complaints from other people about inconsistent characterisation, too many jokes, dropping the ball on plot points established in the previous films, etc. There's an increasingly long post that keeps cropping up on my dash about it.

calicoskatts replied to your post

I enjoyed it but for me it was jsut another entertaining movie from Marvel but nothing particularly interesting. I thought I was watching Guardians of the Asgardians personally. I’ve been put off from Marvel over the last bit tbh, so maybe that’s why? Like I said, I enjoyed it but I wasn’t wowed or anything.

nelioe replied to your post

*raises hand* I agree, I too thought the movie was awful

miusmius replied to your post

I honestly loved it!

hiko73 replied to your post

What? The movie was amazing from beginning to end, imho....I feel at a loss why you hated it so much.

So, before I say anything, I need to explain that I basically knew the film's plot from gifs and Youtube clips before I watched the DVD, although I didn't know all of it. I already thought some of the scenes sucked big time from the snippets I had seen (Get help, the obedience disk), but actually there were a few that I thought were bad and that turned out rather good in the movie. I’ll come to those in a minute.

So, I think seeing the movie in its entirety for the first time was what did me in. Really, my brain hurt after the end credits rolled off the screen, and I felt like brainwashed. I mean, I knew it was different, and loud, and colourful, and that’s not what I’m having a problem with. It’s rather…a conglomerate of things that just rub me the wrong way.

I’m not mentioning the inconsistent characterisation and the many loose threads that never get cleared up sufficiently (an entire fandom has been waiting for an explanation of how Loki survived Svartalfheim! I had expected it to be a major plot point early in Ragnarok, but it wasn’t even mentioned apart from ‘I thought you were dead’. Well yes, thanks Thor, me too. I’d like to know how he managed not to be dead!).

I’ll also not mention obvious plotholes because well, it’s Marvel we’re talking about, so things like that are expected, and I’ll neither mention obvious flaws on the technical side (too many rapid cuts, weird camera angles or frames) because artistic liberty and all. What does get on my nerves is how almost any serious scene is broken up by something ‘funny’. No two characters can have a quiet talk for two seconds before some joke is cracked that does or does not fit the situation. It’s…tiresome. Especially since most of the jokes aren’t really funny.

Here's a thing: a have a weird humour, I Hate comedy with a capital H, and I despise nothing more than random comedic slapstick elements in an otherwise serious film. Why for heaven's sake can no one make a serious movie anymore? Argh. This film is literally titled "The end of the world" and yet there's a joke at every corner, and no it isn't a black-humoured jab at fate, it's the kind of knee-slapper that's only funny for half the time it takes, and not again afterwards. It makes me angry. Comedy has to be precise and on-point to work. There's a lot of well-placed comedy in the previous Thors and the Avengers; comedic elements that are funny even when you watch the scene a second and a third time. Now, Taika Waititi takes comedy to an entirely new level that isn't necessarily one I like. I also need to say that although I don't know him personally, he comes across as a very taxing person, taxing in a sense that his constant good spirits and giddiness and sort of bouncy energy would definitely wear out my social batteries if I had to be around him all the time. It wore out Tom Hiddleston's, as we can see in several behind the scenes footages where Taika takes to fooling around in front of the camera while poor Tom would just like to get on with his work.

Anyway, back to the movie. Of the major things that rub me wrong is that it does have a very problematic attitude towards violence.

It is rated for a viewing age 12 and up in my country, but I sure as hell would not let my children watch it. There are scenes that come down to nothing but random violence for…well, not even the sake of anything. Hela just skewering Fandral and Volstagg like that? What for? If it’s meant to establish an emotional connection and show just how dangerous Hela is, it fails spectacularly, because it is not given enough time, or enough emotional room. It’s just ZAP and they’re dead; if you don’t look closely you don’t even realise it’s them because they've never had a moment to being reintroduced. Half of the audience has probably already forgotten who they were.The scene with Hogun is gruesome as is the slaughtering of an entire army, and it does nothing whatsoever in terms of significance. Later on, we see many other characters just resorting to brainless mass shootings and seemingly enjoying the heck out of it. Valkyrie, Skurge, you name them. There's a very problematic message in having a character stumble off an enormous spaceship, having them fall off the gangway drunk because it looks cool, and then proceed to mow down a bunch of innocent and mostly unarmed scrappers on a trash planet.

Now, I don’t have a problem with violence in general. I just don’t like the way it is presented here.

There were a few scenes that were actually good.

Thor and Dr. Strange for example, even though the plot could easily have done without that sideline, and Benedict Cumberbatch is also only pouring 50% of his effort into his performance - still, it’s solid, classy acting.

The scenes between Thor and Loki on Midgard in the very beginning stand out because both Hemsworth and Hiddleston are given enough time to actually act out their characters' emotions without being interrupted by a joke. I really liked the dynamics here and I wish the film would have picked up on that course.

Some of Hela’s scenes where a little background on her character is revealed were good as well, but overall I thought Cate Blanchett was alternating between gross overacting and doing minimal duty as per contract. It would have been nice to have her on screen some more, and learn a bit more about her past and her motivation. Revenge for being imprisoned by Odin? Sounds familiar. Hela, darling, how about a little talk about that with Loki over tea and biscuits? I'm sure the two of you could have shared some experience. (Also major kudos to Loki for NOT tearing into Odin like "Aha, so throwing your kids into a cell seems to be your standard educational measure, dad.")

Anthony Hopkins was awful. He has never been good in any of the previous films, one of my main reasons for my major dislike of Odin, and I don't know if he's getting senile or what, he just was really really bad in this one. It only adds to the awful characterisation of Odin altogether. The last straw was his dealing with the Hela situation: "There's this threat that is coming for Asgard, born of one of my own mistakes, there's nothing you can do about it and I don't give a shit so bye and good luck, I guess." Good thing he disappeared, or I would personally have crawled into the TV and shoved the old man off the cliff.

So, what little else I liked was actually any scenes with Heimdall - I wasn’t a big fan of Heimdall, ever, but he seriously kicks ass here, not only because of superb acting on Idris Elba's part but also because his scenes aren’t interrupted by hectic cuts or off the mark jokes.

Surprisingly, Skurge’s story arc was interesting as well. Now, I don’t like Karl Urban - you've probably figured out by now that there isn't an awful lot of people that I like. Basically I think his character is rather unnecessary - why not use one of the established characters? Why not let Fandral or Hogun be torn between right and wrong? Anyway, Karl does play him well and I see why a character like that would be in there (his death though? More random, unnecessary violence).

Bruce Banner / The Hulk really went on my nerves the entire time. The fight between he and Thor is well choreographed, but the entire sequence is too long *yawns* Some of the stuff with Thor in Hulk’s room is actually funny, but that was that.

And then Loki. Please prepare yourself for a rant of epic proportions.

Now, I do admit I'm biased because I love Loki; I've loved him in Norse mythology ever since I was a child. I went to study Old Norse for a bit mainly because of the Edda and Loki, and I love what Hiddleston has done with the character in these films. I also get that this is Thor: Ragnarok and not Loki: Ragnarok and that he is a supporting character just like all the others.

That said, in the few scenes that he actually has - you don't really need Loki for what he does. Any random side character could have stolen the ship's codes, or placed Surtur's crown in the flame. That last bit was a bow to the original myth (and the comics, I suppose) where it's really Loki who releases Surtur and causes Ragnarök (which is why I -love- the 'saviour' scene because it's a reference to Loki arriving at the scene of the final battle at the helm of the ship of the dead, called Naglfar, in Norse myth). But - in the film, all in all, you don't really need Loki for all that. Valkyrie could have done it, or Heimdall, or Skurge for that matter (what a heroic plot that would have made for him!).

And there's more to it than just lamentably little of Loki in this film. The entire film, to me, seems like a deliberate attempt to ban Loki to the background, give him as little screentime as possible, and make him look ridiculous altogether. Not only is his character basically replaceable in what he does, no -

(I've seen quite a lot of the BTS stuff in advance, so this plays into it as well.)

Let's start with the small things:

- There's hardly any close-ups of Loki in the entire film, Norway being the one great exception (consequently, he rocks the scene).You can always see him do something in the background, but the camera is never close enough to pick up clearly on any emotions or anything. Best example is the sofa scene at the Grandmasters'. If that was shown correctly, you would be able to read the entire course of the fight from Loki's face - there's glee, there's worry, there's schadenfreude, there's hope and admiration and anger and frustration and everything you can possibly imagine he goes through, but we are shown only mushed images of it. The entire dragging long battle between Hulk and Thor would have been way more interesting if more of Loki's facial expressions had been cut into it.

- Basically all he's good for is delivering cues for Thor and being there as a projection screen for Thor's heroism.

- The camera always seems slightly out of focus; Loki is there but he's not, somewhere at the back or to the side. Even when he's meant to be in the picture, the camera frame is just this little bit out of focus or he's being filmed at a weird angle.

- Weird angles. It's a signature thing for Loki in this film. He's being filmed from behind, above, below - now don't get me wrong, it's a very interesting artistic device - and the scene where he appears before the grandmaster, filmed through the transparent floor is a masterpiece in terms of camera angle - but when it's 80% of these frames and the rest is 15% hovering in the background and 5% good, clear close-ups, it conveys a message about the filmmaker's attitude towards this character - and in Loki's case, this message is not doing him any favours.

- More weird stuff: time frames. As I said above, you only ever see Loki doing unimportant stuff. Sitting around talking to the Grandmaster's cronies, getting "captured" on purpose, trying to get through to Thor. We don't see him doing any kind of stiff like Thor does, nothing "heroic", we don't even see him do any significant amount of magic. The only heroic moment he has, at the very end, is again botched by off-kilter dialogue ("I'm not doing get help" just sounds soooo out of place at this moment) and weird framing. Like, Thor gets all these super-cool, physical fighting scenes, full-on frontal, kicking and punching the shit out of everyone. Again, I get that this is Thor: Ragnarok, and we also have the Hulk and Valkyrie who need their hero moments. But we do know that Loki is just as good a fighter as everyone else, he fights differently, but he's very capable of defending himself and others, as seen in Dark World. In Ragnarok, he's right there in the middle of the fight, but you never see him do anything. You see him close in on someone, cut, then you see him pull out a knife of a body or juggle his helmet or whatever, but never any real action that proves how capable he is as a fighter, not like Thor gets them all the time. You see him jump, and roll, and fall on his ass, or doing a pirouette and tossing his hair back afterwards. The focus is not on him doing his share of defending Asgard, but on how he's a weak and pathetic fighter (this post explains it with great visuals). The thing is, somewhat heroic moments have been filmed, but have been left out in favour of more ‘funny’ sequences.

- Talking about ridiculousness: There's a total of seven scenes where Loki falls on his ass, his face, or is somehow on the ground for some reason when it's totally not necessary. In comparison, in Dark World and Avengers, he was only ever on the ground when either defeated, or due to battle action, not just for shit and giggles.

The one at Dr Strange actually makes me wince from the sheer impact with which he hits the floor, bouncing back two feet high in the air (can’t find the gif right now, but he does), and everyone in the cinema laughs. Actually laughs, like this is some funny one-liner. Someone's dropping from the sky and hitting the floor real hard and y'all laugh? Like no, this ain't funny at all, not to me.

- What are these scenes actually good for? Why did the previous films set him up as a master magician who - as even Dr Strange says - is a force to be reckoned with, when everyone can just shove him to the ground like that? Why is nearly everyone suddenly more powerful than him?

- Shitty lines/shitty scenes: 'Safe passage through the anus'. Boy, it makes me cringe for poor Tom who actually had to say this shit out loud, or play stuff like the (thankfully deleted) portaloo sequence. Like, wow. I mean, I know I have a different type of humour from nearly everybody else, but this shit is just so not funny, and I really hate Taika Waititi for even including such lines and scenes in the script. I mean, I get that he favours Thor over Loki, but was that really necessary? It's so cringeworthy it makes my teeth hurt.

- (On a minor sidenote, can we talk about how it also speaks volumes that Hiddleston was given a costume that he can barely move in and that makes him visibly uncomfortable, yet no one gives a shit?)

To sum it up, I don't like how Ragnarok treats the character of Loki and ignores all of his potential in favour of cheap jokes. It says a lot if a script needs to make fun of one character in order to let its main character appear in a better light. Taika talks about how Thor's and Loki's relationship is at the focus of the film and how they finally get to resolve their problems. I'm sorry, but I don't see any of that. I don't see any brotherly moments or reconciliation or at least an attempt to make things right. And that brings me to the one character that I have the biggest problem with: Thor.

Now, the general consensus was that Thor grows, he learns, he takes up responsibility, he has this great character development that makes him into a better man. I don't see that. What I see is a man who uses and abuses everyone in his path to achieve his own ends. He thinks he can command Valkyrie by repeatedly reminding her of her oath to the throne (the throne being a very prominent motivation for Thor, as we shall see) even when she's made clear that she gives a shit. When that doesn't work, he keeps trying to guilt-trip her, and when that doesn't work either, he fakes concern to get her attention, and once he has it, he cruelly pushes all the buttons that he knows will make her yield (basically telling her: you can either forget everything and rot on this planet, or you can do something about it and help me).

He manipulates Banner in the same way because he needs the Hulk for his Asgard mission. I mean, telling Bruce he prefers him over Hulk, and telling Hulk he prefers him over Bruce - I get that it's meant to be funny, but when you think about it, it isn't. It's manipulative as heck and it's exactly the kind of shit he always accused Loki of: lying to get his way.

And when it comes to Thor's interactions with Loki, he has not learned a single thing. He still treats Loki the way he always did: a scapegoat at worst, a convenience at best. In Norway, after Odin departs, Thor doesn’t hesitate to immediately accuse Loki of both Odin’s death and bringing about Hela as a consequence - as if Loki had any inkling that this was gonna happen. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to bring destruction to Asgard on purpose, remember it’s the only home he ever truly knew, so even if he did let things slip while posing as Odin, he surely never meant for Hela and Ragnarok to happen. He was just as surprised about the Hela revelation that Thor was, and as for Odin’s death - I doubt that this was intended. Especially since we still don’t know xactly how Loki got rid of Odin, but if he’d wanted to kill him, he could certainly have done so while Odin was weak and defenseless, but he didn’t - he just wanted him out of the way, not dead. Yet Thor completely assumes Loki is to blame for all of it, and as a consequence he falls back into his abusive treatment of his brother.

Yes, all I see is an abusive sibling who purposefully manipulates his mentally unstable younger brother. He knows what Loki has been through in the past; moreover, he has heard from Odin himself just how everyone in this family was played and lied to. He has seen what that did to Loki in the past. Thor knows exactly what's at the core of his brother's mind: the ambition to gain his family's approval, a fear of being abandoned, a deep-rooted sense of worthlessness and the ever-prominent desire to impress his older brother. Of course Loki sucks at saying all this out loud, and Thor probably doesn't know the full extent of the damage, but after the events of Avengers and Dark World he must at least have an inkling of what's going on inside that mind.

And yet he goes ahead and uses all of Loki's greatest fears against him:

"Our paths diverged a long time ago" - no they didn't, he just never let Loki catch up to him.

"It's what you always wanted" (never seeing each other again) - have you even paid attention to your brother, you big fool?

"But you, you stay the same", "you could be so much more" etc. - and being what, exactly? Thor's thrall, tagging along behind him, helping out when shit hits the fan, and otherwise keeping his mouth shut? To Thor, Loki is only acceptable when he behaves like Thor wants him to. He fails to see that it's Loki who's forced to change more than anyone else. He was forced to change almost first thing after being born, from a Jötun baby to an Aesir one just to please his new father. He's constantly forced to change to adapt to everyone's expectations: Odin's, Frigga's, Thor's own. And when he refuses to play along, he's the one at fault.

There are two scenes in Ragnarok in particular that I find hard to watch in respect of Thor's abusive qualities. First, the elevator scene /Get Help.

Loki tells Thor no three times, he even gives him a reason why he doesn't want to do Get Help (which, considering Loki and his difficulties to express emotion, to Thor no less, is a big deal). I don’t know about y’all, but if my sibling told me they found something humiliating, which is several steps up the uncomfortable scale from "I just don't like it", I would never force them into it. Thor has to respect his brother's feelings and stop right there. A no is a no, even from Loki, even in this situation, especially considering how the entire move is nonsense after all - but Thor doesn't stop. He disrespects his brother's wishes, he ignores Loki's feelings, and what's worse, he even belittles him for it and laughs it off: No, for me it's not.

Yes, well, Thor baby, guess what? It's not always about you.

Even worse is the taser/obedience disk scene. It makes me physically cringe. And I will happily fist-punch everyone who tries to tell me it's just "a joke" or "friendly sibling barter" or wasn't "meant to hurt Loki" or that Thor "didn't know". I'm sorry, but nope.

Thor knows exactly what the obedience disc does, how it hurts. He has absolutely NO reason to use it on Loki. Loki has been playing along to his plans, he has even tried to offer Thor an explanation and a possible way out, but at that time Thor decided to throw a tantrum and sulk. Did he really think Loki would go through with that half-arsed attempt of collecting the 'reward' for Thor's capture from the Grandmaster, when just some hours before Loki has told Thor that he Grandmaster is a lunatic and that he basically wants to leave Sakaar just as bad as Thor does? Did Thor even listen??? Not to mention that there never was a 'reward' promised by the Grandmaster; instead a threat of public execution looms over Loki if he fails, so the reward he speaks of is possibly, once again, getting away with his life (while using the time this buys him to come up with a means of escape).

There was no reason at all to place the taser disc on Loki and leave him there - besides, Thor must have planned to use the disk even before he could be sure Loki was going to betray him, so it was Thor's plan all along to leave his brother there for whatever sick reason. How could he be so sure Loki would find a way to free himself? How could he be sure the rebels would be the ones to find Loki, and not the Grandmaster, or Topaz, or any of the hundreds of guards that swarm the place? Not to mention that time passes differently on Sakaar, so who knows how long Loki lay there writhing in agony. Thor walking off telling him "Good luck, I guess" while his brother is in obvious physical pain, and at the mercy of a crazy dictator, is the ultimate cruelty. But the throne is always more important, eh?

How could Thor be sure Loki would follow him to Asgard and come to his aid? Seriously, Loki could just have taken that ship and flown to the other end of the universe for all he cared. He's the only Asgardian on a ship full of refugees, he has no reason at all to help Thor, not after the taser disc and the general way Thor treated him, and YET he comes after his big brother because he desperately seeks Thor's approval, and Thor knew that and manipulated his brother into exactly this behaviour back there in the elevator.

And does Loki get a thank you? Not even! All he gets is a flippant "You're late" (everyone who tells me that's 'friendly sibling banter' again must have a truly fucked up relationship with their sibling), and then he's being ordered off to the vault to basically perform an act that could cost his life, without Thor even wasting a second thought to it. Well, we've already seen in Dark World how little Thor cares for Loki, as he just leaves his dead little brother behind to rot on a foreign planet. Doesn't even send anyone to come and collect the body or something. Doesn't even seem to care in Ragnarok whether Loki has made it out of Asgard alive or not (does he check frantically if his brother is aboard as they float off into space? No...but hey look, there's a throne, and people call him majesty, so all is grand).

Not even the "I'm here" scene does anything for their relationship. How often does Loki have to prove that he will sacrifice himself for Thor, and how often does he get nothing in return but accusations ("You faked your death!", "You killed our father!"), dubious compliments ("Maybe there's some good left in you") or at the most Thor throwing him a bone of approval: "Maybe you're not so bad after all" instead of "Thanks for saving our arses".

So, is this 'growing'? Is this 'mature'? Has Thor learned one single thing that makes him a better character? I don't think so. He takes up right where his father left, caring only for his throne, and manipulating his brother just the way Odin has always done. Yes, he became a little less uptight, and yes there's the new Thor who's sassy, nonchalant, doesn't give a fuck, doesn't let himself be played by his brother's schemes. I love the way Chris Hemsworth is playing this new Thor as opposed to the previous films. It's fun to watch him finally fill this role with a bit of spice. I really really like this new Thor. The problem is, I like how the new Thor is, but not what he does.

All in all, I think what happened was that Taika and Chris Hemsworth decided it was time to put the focus on Thor and make his character the center of the plot - which is fine, with it being Thor: Ragnarok and all, but why does it have to be at the expense of another great character that could have been used in so many other, different, better ways for the plot? I think they tried deliberately to shift a bit of Loki's coolness and cunning to Thor who, let's face it, has been a rather one-dimensional character in the previous films.

What I'm going to say now is unpopular, and probably mean, but it's the vibe I'm getting from day one since I started watching any Thor movies and BTS and interviews: All of this ties in nicely with Chris Hemsworth coming across as borderline jealous of Hiddleston and the success he gained for his portrayal of the Loki character, who was never supposed to steal Thor's spotlight. It's a shame Taika Waititi rolled with it in Ragnarok and actively added to this fiasco by way of bad filmmaking.

On a final personal note: Just yesterday before watching the film I wrote a little scene post-Ragnarok where Thor finally gets to understand everything that bothers Loki, and finds a way to comfort his brother in a very gentle, caring way, because that was what I understood Thor had finally learned: true compassion, the ability to understand, the motivation to go and make up for every time he was a shitty sibling in the past. I can't see that now, not anymore after watching this film, not after what Thor has been made into and how he treats Loki :(

I'm sorry this got so long. I'll disappear for a while now and see if I can manage to un-watch this movie. Thanks for reading/listening.

#upstartpoodle #calicoskatts #nelioe #miusmius #hiko73 #warning: long post #loki meta #thor meta #my thoughts on ragnarok #I'm blabbering #I just love Loki too much ok #probably because I can relate to him on so many levels #it's not even funny anymore #sorry

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sarcastic-space-gal · 6 years

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Escape pt. 2

Warning: Loki being a protective boyfriend. So much Angst, but fluffy ending. THOR RAGNAROK SPOILERS!

Word Count: 2,215 oops A/N: thank you so much for all the lovely comment in the first part, you guys are amazing!! Again sorry for my english mistakes! This is the whole thing, feedbacks are really appreciated! I hope you like it! (gif is not mine!) xoxo It was a cold night. You could hear the pitter-patter of the rain when you entered your apartment. There was something strange in the air, you couldn’t detect it however. When you passed near the mirror in the hall you stopped and sighed, then you moved your head slightly to the right. You watched that little piece of paper embedded in the frame. You turned towards it. Then you couldn’t stop it: your eyes started to fill with tears. It’s odd how a simple drawing can make someone suffer so much. Well, it was not a simple drawing…it was a little portrait of your boyfriend, Loki. You made it a little time ago, in a boring afternoon. “You’re amazing (Y/N), how can you do that?!” Loki was so excited about it, he honestly wanted to take it but you refused “I want to have it with me so I can see you even if you’re not around” you said while you giggled. He only chuckled slightly and wrapped his arms around your waist. The memory hit you like a truck. Your heart hurt. When Thor had come to inform you, weeks ago, that he was…dead, you couldn’t believe it: you felt numb, helpless, your world crashed in few seconds. The night is the worst part of the day: you’re alone with yourself and all your thoughts come to consciousness haunting your fragile, desperate, broken heart. Rivers of tears had streamed down your eyes uncontrollably for days. He was gone. Forever. Your lips began moving and shaking without your permission. You took that little drawing in your hand, slightly touching it with the other one. An hot tear slowly made his way down your cold cheek. It was painful as hell watching his face but you couldn’t move away your gaze. You left out a sob and put your hand to your mouth try not to cry out loud. And then a green light shined into your house. You quickly turned behind. “Hi sweetheart” his mischievous grin was an innocent smile “I missed you so much” You couldn’t believe your eyes: Loki was now in front of you, safe and sound like the last time you have seen him. Your hand slowly touched his cheek like he was going to break under too much pressure and fade away. “You’re here, you’re alive” you whispered between your tears. “And I’ll never leave you again”. You left out a light chuckle and jumped into his arms hugging him with all your strength. He returned the embrace burying his face in the crook of your neck,. You two stayed there for what seemed hours and then kissed like it was your last time on earth. As soon as you released the kiss another brightening light emitted into your apartment. It was Thor. “Thor! What are you doing here?” you questioned rubbing your eyes in order to remove remaining tears. “Did you tell her what did you do brother?” Thor was dead serious. “No…this…it’s not so simple!” Loki mumbled. “What are you talking about?” Loki turned his face towards you and looked like an innocent child. “We will have time to talk but not now…come with me.” “What is the matter?” you were so confused. Thor and Loki looked into each other’s eyes and in unison said: “We have to find our father”. This is all you remembered when you woke up in a dirty circular cell. Your body was hacking from top to bottom, your head was pounding. When you realized you weren’t alone you stood up as quickly as you can, panic made his way in your mind. There were other prisoners but… they seemed to be harmless. “This must be a nightmare” you said to yourself. “Where are you from?” You shouted backing off and slamming your back onto the wall. “Oh I’m so so sorry I didn’t mean to scare you!” a creature made of blue rock dressed up as a gladiator waved his hands in front of him. “Where am i?” you tried to calm down. “In a cell” you looked at him with an annoyance printed on your face. “Oh sorry on Sakaar” he laughed “The Grandmaster controls everything here, and we are the entertainment for him and the public. Every day he organize combats in the arena and who is captured is forced to fight.” “So you are a gladiator” you stood up from the wall and walked toward him slowly. “Basically” he chuckled “Sorry for scaring you before. I was only curious because in a week I have never seen so many humans! I mean you are very similar to the other one who was here yesterday, but right now he’s probably chilling in his new room with Hulk-” “Sorry what did you say? Hulk? Hulk Is here? And who is the other human?” It was possible that Loki and Thor were landed there too? And Hulk? How he ended up in Sakaar? “Oh hey calm down! I will tell you everything. Oh and… I’m Korg” he shaked your hand with a happy smile. You couldn’t hold back a grin. “(Y/N)” you said softly “But now I need you to tell me who did you meet, they are probably my friends” “Well, the first one is muscular with long blonde hair, even if he got an haircut, and he told me about his hammer and how he did dirty things with it-” “Thor!! And there was someone else with him? Any other humans?” you asked hoping that Loki was with him. “No, he was alone but two weeks ago another human emerged from one of the holes, and now is actually the Grandmaster best friend ” he said. “Who is he? Did you see him?” “He is really different from Thor he has dark hair, for what I know he doesn’t have an hammer to play with but he can do strange things, he is like a sorcerer. I heard the Grandmaster calling him Loca? Floki…? No, Loki!” At the sound of his name you stopped. You lifted your head with wide eyes. Your memory started to return and in a moment everything came back to your mind. A bomb of emotions streamed throw your head in a few seconds. Rage, delusion, fear, panic. You remembered Doctor Strange, what Loki did to you, all the lies he have told you about is fake death and how much anger you have felt, your little trip in Norway in order to find Odin… you remembered Hela… the falling throw the hole in the sky and that woman who brought you there. “The Bifrost! It’s why I’m here, Hela followed us and we all ended up here!” “What?” Korg looked at you with a confused gaze. “I have to find Loki and Thor” As soon as you finished the sentence, the gates opened and two guards took you by the arms bringing you with them. “Leave me!” you groaned. You were dragged to a noisy chamber full of people and weapons. “Choose one of them and be ready” the guards left you. Many other creatures were standing with a serious look on their face. You tried to keep no attention about them and instead prepare yourself for whatever would have come after. You changed your clothes in a gladiator dress and took a sword from the panel in front of you. Then you heard a loud whistle, a sort of alarm and the door opened again “Come on it’s your turn!” the guards shouted at you. You were scared but there was no way to get out in that moment: you tightened the grip on the sword and made your way to the gates. They slowly lifted with a loud noise, the light hit your eyes and you covered them with your arm. You walked in and you could see the arena: all the people were shouting and screaming “Deimos! Deimos!” like a mantra. Deimos was a huge, enormous, colossal monster who was looking right into your eyes. You swallowed hard trying to maintain control of your shaking legs, focusing on every movement he made, when an hologram appeared in the centre of the arena. “Welcome to everybody! For tonight I have prepared a special fight for you all: one of our champion against a human!” the crowd roared “let’s the fight begin!” the hologram turned off and the monster was ready to charge in your direction. You looked the last time over the public and around yourself: this is the end? How could all finish in this way? Your eyes landed on the main staircase, “vip section” maybe, where there were people dressed in very colourful way and- Loki? Loki was looking in your way: you have never seen him with so much panic and concern in his eyes. When you saw him all the anger faded away in an instant, your eyes softened and your mouth opened slightly, you would have given everything to be with him and melt into his strong arms. But there was no time for that. You focused on your enemy and prayed to every God (literally) to save you from that situation. Deimos started to run and quickly reached your form. You were smaller but faster, so you jumped to your right and backed off. He got angrier and with a jump he was right over you; swinging your sword into his leg you run under him so you could see his back but something quickly grabbed and lifted you from the ground. You couldn’t breathe. The pain was unbearable. Loki was in full panic mode then. You were at the mercy of death in person. However he couldn’t do anything because it may be looked suspicious, and this was irritating beyond every limit. Seeing you in danger and not be able to come to rescue made his anger rise into his mind, his jaw clenched. “What is the matter, my dear friend?” Loki closed his eyes trying to maintain his composure and slowly turned behind. “Nothing, I wanted a better spot to watch the fight” he forced a smile in the Grandmaster’s direction. “Oh yes you’re right, it’ll be an interesting match” he stated with a mischievous grin on his lips. Loki returned his gaze to the battle and froze like a sculpture: you were strangled by the huge hand of the monster. He clenched his fists and slammed them into the glass with full strength. “NO!!” he shouted not caring about the Grandmaster or whoever. In that moment the door opened and all the people were knocked out by Thor and Valkyrie. “Loki come on we have to go, Banner is waiting on the ship” Thor said slamming his fist at a poor fellow. “(Y/N) is in the arena we have to save her” Loki threw a dagger to a guard next to him. “(Y/N)? She is here?!” “I brought her here” Valkyrie simply stated. “And why on Asgard you didn’t tell me?! You hard-drinking bounty hunter” Thor and Valkyrie were about to kill themselves when Loki intervened. “We don’t have time for this, come on we have to go” Loki started to run out the door. He was going to save you at any cost. You were sure your lungs were about to give out. Deimos was inches from your face, his purple eyes full of ferocity were eating you alive. You managed to swing your sword into his hand as he left you fall down hard on the ground hitting your leg. You left out a painful shout as you grabbed your injury. That was the end: Deimos took the sword and aimed at you. You closed your eyes. But nothing. Instead you heard gunshots: the monster was standing still on the ground. Dead. “Thor and…You?” “Sorry for bringing you here, but I’m at your side now” Valkyrie said, you could see regret in her look. You were about to stood up when a soft hand stroked your face. “Sweetheart are you ok?” Loki was at your side in a moment. He tried not to look panicked but he was. His heartbeat was running “I can’t walk, my leg… I think it’s broken” you groaned “But I’m happy to see you right now” “Everything is going to be ok” he put one arm under your shoulders and the other one under your legs trying not to harm you more and then he lifted you like a feather. You flinched but quickly melted into his arms, you felt so tired… “Hey stay with me honey” Banner landed the ship in the arena and everyone went up. The ship lifted from the ground headed to the escape route. Thor and Valkyrie took a sit on the front, while Loki stood in the back with you in his arms. His touch soothed your tired body. “I’m still mad at you, you know” you punched him lightly with a smile. “Oh I know it, but I promise I’ll make it up” he said but the grin turned into a sad expression “I thought I was about to lost you in there” his eyes were already filling with tears. You stroked his cheek with a smile and whispered “I’m here…and I’ll never leave you again” “I won’t too” he took your hand from his cheek and kissed it with passion “I love you” “I love you too”.

#thor ragnarok #loki x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #loki #thor

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beaft · 6 years

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hey!!! so i went to see thor ragnarok yesterday, and i thought i’d type up some Thoughts while it was still fresh in my mind. so here goes. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS but also i don’t want to do a cut because my blog theme is hard to read things on, so just shut your eyes and scroll down really fast i guess? i’ll send you a psychic message so you know when it’s safe to open them again

things i liked

the humour in this movie was on point. i mean, it’s waititi, so obviously it was going to be, but everyone just seemed like they were having a fucking blast doing it. it didn’t even feel like it was trying to be funny or quirky or slapsticky – it just put the characters in daft situations and let natural awkwardness do the rest

the giant monster made out of blue rocks who seems to have no idea what he’s doing and just wanders around exchanging pleasantries with everyone in a gentle new zealand accent. he tried to do a revolution once but it failed because he didn’t print out enough pamphlets. i don’t even know his name but he was legitimately the best part of this film and i want him on a poster

the “get help” plan, which, for the uninformed, consists of thor just fucking tossing his brother at oncoming enemies like a person-shaped rugby ball, and has apparently been performed enough times for loki to instinctively dread it happening

i hate doctor strange and benedict cumberbatch and the fact that he was included in this film for no reason other than to appease people, but i did enjoy his cameo (albeit very, very grudgingly). he’s just so done with thor’s nonsense and i felt it on a spiritual level. also when loki comes at him with a knife and strange just fucking teleports him off to norway like “bye”

“this one time when we were children, he transformed himself into a snake, and he knows i love snakes, so i went to pick up the snake to admire it, and he transformed back into himself and was like, “YAARGH, IT’S ME!!!” and he stabbed me. we were eight” fucking classic

the fact that it wasn’t entirely comedy-centred. sure, the main emphasis was on the ridiculousness of the whole thing, but there were definite emotional moments, and on the whole they were done well. (particularly the exchange between thor and loki in the elevator, and the part immediately afterwards with the attempted betrayal. you know the bit i mean)

in most marvel films you know that ultimately the villain will be defeated, and the planet will be saved, and everything will turn out okay, etc etc etc. here, that gets chucked out of the fucking window. literally anything can happen, and it does, even as you’re like “nah, no way, they’re not gonna go that far…oh. well. okay, then.” and that dispensing of the traditional formula made the whole thing feel a lot more unpredictable. which is good, i think!

valkyrie. everything about valkyrie. i have a massive weakness for butch women, and i have a massive weakness for lovable assholes, and when those two things combine it’s just like. hnghhh

also i was worried that she was going to be shoehorned into the “strong female character” stereotype, but that wasn’t the case at all? like she had moments of weakness and was really dorky and cute and she just felt like such a real person (aside from the whole “semi-immortal warrior woman on a flying horse” aspect, obviously)

on that point: there was no love story. this is entirely personal preference, but love stories in action films really annoy me (unless they’re done well, and they rarely are). plus, it feeds into the idea that the only reason to have a woman on the team is for the purpose of creating a romance with the main hero. but they didn’t do that! there was some light flirtation between thor and val, but it felt more friendly than anything else, and was very much in character for both of them. super refreshing, honestly

the trouble with marvel is that because nearly every movie has a different writer, character consistency is often lost. (see: natasha behaving completely differently in aou than she did in any other film, steve zigzagging between rigidly following the rules and going off to do his own thing, character development being gained and lost and gained again, etc.) that being said: thor and loki in this film felt more like thor and loki than in any other mcu flick. thor was maybe a bit dumber than i usually like, but the smiley optimism and earnestness was very much there, and loki cut a perfect balance between being An Asshole and being An Asshole With Feelings (whilst occasionally slipping back into his patented “melodramatic diva” persona). bruce wasn’t quite as much of a success, but i’ll get to that later

“i’m here.”

hela was unbelievably badass and every time she was on the screen i got a little bit gayer. i think it’s the antlers, personally

things i didn’t like

where was sif? there was no sif and it was just. never explained??? i’m starting to feel like marvel has this weird policy where they can only have a certain amount of women onscreen at a time, and if there’s any more than that an alarm goes off and everyone starts running around in a panic like “OH NO! THE WOMAN METER HAS GONE INTO THE RED! QUICK! CULL THEM! CULL THEM!” they’ve added in valkyrie and hela, and in order to maintain the status quo, they’ve skilfully sliced out jane foster and sif, like soviet-era teachers razoring out controversial passages from history books. if they didn’t show any of the warriros three then that would’ve been understandable, but fandral and volstagg and hogun were all (if briefly) in evidence. but sif is just. not. it’s fuckin bizarre man idek

kinda wish they’d done a bit more with hela’s character than just going “oh, she’s evil, and she likes to kill people and do evil stuff because she’s evil.” she already looks amazing, and is possibly the most powerful villain we’ve seen so far – so it would have been nice to have a little more emotional depth there, especially considering how interesting her backstory is

the plot was a little bitty in places. it did work, but there wasn’t much of a connection between thor performing as a gladiator and hela taking over asgard. if they’d found a way to link those two plotlines together it might have worked better, but as it was, the whole thing felt a lil bit contrived

we’ve always suspected that asgard isn’t quite what it seems to be (after all, no one ends up ruler of the nine realms without a little blood being spilt along the way), and in this film that gets confirmed – but after the initial revelation it’s just not really explored? there are some pretty heavy overtones of genocide and colonialism/imperialism, and it seemed kind of mad to bring up something like that and then just gloss over it. plus, it ignores the fact that in the avengers loki was pretty much doing exactly what odin did himself several thousands years ago, but on a slightly smaller scale. like…there’s a wealth of stuff to be done with that information, and they didn’t do any of it? weird

i was sort of hoping that odin would play a larger role in the movie, considering that so much of it indirectly revolved around him and his actions. instead, he turned into obi wan kenobi and then vanished in a big puff of gold dust. i don’t think that he actually exchanged more than a few lines with anyone, although given the relatively short length of the film that’s understandable enough

bruce got flanderised from a hyper-controlled scientist with self-loathing issues into a twitchy ball of nerves who’s constantly out of his depth. he’s not my favourite character, so it didn’t bother me too much, but it was still a little jarring

they didn’t show us the hug at the end and i’m pissed about it

#be shh now #thor #thor ragnarok #ragnarok spoilers #loki #valkyrie #film review #mcu

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