//I cannot begin to articulate the levels of fucked-up that Thanos’s “adoption” of Gamora was.
He thinks that because he turned her head away from the martial slaughter of her people to show her a fucking blade being balanced, to justify his perverse idea of “fixing” the universe, WHEN EVERY LIFE MATTERS UNEQUIVOCALLY, somehow means he showed her love?
More for the tag “Thanos I hope you die screaming for the love you never gave.”
I have never, viscerally nor lastingly, hated a character more. Literally Satan in other shows is more likable than Thanos. It’s fucking astonishing lol. The idea that anyone should pity him remotely is unfathomable. And this is coming from ME, the person who likes to deconstruct and “save” bad guys.
//Also Loki is going to call Thor “Pirate Angel” sarcastically for the rest of his life.
//Also I love Tony Stark with all my heart and soul.
//Hot take but if you think Ebony Maw, a sorcerer who is proficient at torture and brainwashing, the vanguard of Thanos’s Piece of Shit Brigade, didn’t torture Loki–who visibly recognized him in the beginning of Infinity War–in the same ways that he tortured Dr. Strange, to get something Thanos wanted (maybe “is there something in Asgard’s Vault that the Great Thanos could use?”), before handing him off to the Other and giving him the “consolation prize” of the Mind Stone with which to conquer earth, then youuuuuu haven’t watched the same movie I have.
I now have a concrete face to put to the name of Loki’s torturers while he was under Thanos’s control. The reason why he looked like this
at the end of Thor 1. The reason why he stumbled and fell and suffered from heat exhaustion in Avengers Assemble, and looked like a living corpse. It wasn’t just the effects of traveling through the Tesseract. Tom Hiddleston said Loki was put through physical and psychological abuse (and my meta tag is full of essays that more thoroughly deconstruct this theory), but he didn’t yet know who the characters were that exacted these methods; they hadn’t been written yet. Now it’s clear it’s Ebony Maw.
Loki watches Tony fumble with his words then with his dignity. A lifetime at the side of his exceedingly mercurial brother–complete with the most sensitive of male egos–has taught the Trickster God to pace himself with sensitive topics. Ever the diplomat, he ventures a hand onto the Iron Man’s shoulder.
“You are a master builder of armor. Your inventions are unerringly meant to protect. Sometimes one might have cause to wonder whether that skill has been counterproductive when you are the one being protected. Take care … not to confuse invincibility with isolation. With my lies and illusions, I have made the selfsame error far too long. Tony Stark, there is no shame … ehm, in claiming a child as yours. In claiming another person, of any kind, as yours. It is well worth the threat it poses you.”
I died for my brother. And I do not regret it.
Tony stops as Loki’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. It says a lot of how far they’ve come that the tension he carries even seems to relax a bit with the touch, trusting enough to even have the god at his back, under these circumstances at least.
His eyes close as he listens to the other’s advice, letting out a quiet sigh at the end. “Thanks, Lokes,” he murmurs, looking back and up over his shoulder with sincere gratitude. “I’m glad you decided to stick around. This is your home as much as it’s mine, for as long as you’ll have it.”
You’re mine, too. Please stay with me.
“Forgive me the time it may take to adapt to your graciousness.”
Loki’s watery expression cannot be missed; silently he curses the way that his skeptical, wary brain and sensitive heart forever feud. It’s, on frequent occasions, humiliating.
“I. Am accustomed to being back-up, as it were. Not an object of focus. A fact which my, ehm, over-compensation, in years passed, cannot but have vividly demonstrated.”
The snake’s mouth hangs uselessly ajar, as its tongue lashes out in a vengeful effort to poke Mother Nature in the eye. Its tail flicks back and forth, and it hisses in dismay. Bested. Tragically.
A radiant shimmer of lime and gold, gone iridescent like the angled, oiled feathers of a bird in water, and Loki assumes humanoid form again, a safe distance from his wife, rubbing his lumbar with an equally cantankerous expression.
“You brute, you could have killed me,” he proclaims, all hauteur.
A pause, and then he snickers outright.
“You … you are most vicious, eheh! I cannot but confess that it arouses me!”
QUITE PLEASED WITH herself, she leans back in her desk chair as though it were a throne, crossing her long legs and resting her delicate wrists on the armrests all in a very slow, very deliberate fashion. she takes her time. for this is the beginning of an an elaborate and beloved game between them, and it has been such since the first day of their courtship. the silvertongue smiles at the otherwise frigid creature before him, and a battle of will ensues that enthralls them both. so seraphina a small bounty of tart peach slices, and lazily picks one up between deft fingers. she’s not even looking at him.
‘ oh? ’ she responds casually, slipping the fruit slice between her teeth with agonizing slowness. ‘ interesting. how will you take care of that? i would offer my services, but alas, i am so busy. ’ seraphina pitchiner summons a very extravagant miniature mirror, and proceeds to inspect her nonexistent pores.
Loki slides into female form, well aware that her appearance in this particular body is a weakness of her wife’s.
She savors the sight of Seraphina engaged in such an alluring and sensual activity.
Loki, hunkered over as ever at a computer in the laboratory beneath the main floor, is inanimate as a statue. He remains thusly for the longest time.
When he comes to life, the glint in his eyes is uncharitable: hostile.
Beyond anything else, however, it is suspicious.
“Who put you up to this? Barton? Romanoff? Or someone with a less obvious agenda for cruelty? The Vision, perhaps? Tell me what I’ve done, to have this carrot dangled: heartfelt camaraderie from someone I respect? In my long life I have learned it is too good to be true. So why? WHY? Is it FUNNY, Stark?”
It’s been months, years, since Loki erupted in so volatile a fashion. His fair rice-paper thin skin goes blotchy-red with ungainly emotions.
“Is my lonelinessFUNNY?”
“Woah, woah!” Tony holds his up placatingly, and while he does flinch, he doesn’t step back. Instead, he steps forward, slowly. “Okay, so it wasn’t my finest choice of words, but… Look at me, Lokes. I’m not lying.”
He meets the god’s gaze steadily, warm brown eyes full of sincerity. “Please,” he murmurs, putting himself as close to the god as he can without outright invading the other’s personal space. “I’m serious – well, the meaning behind it was serious. Do you see anyone else besides the kid and Bruce who get to just wander in here whenever they please? Hell, do you even see anyone else allowed to stay in the tower at all besides them and you?”
“I trust you,” he admits, leaving himself vulnerable as he offers the heartfelt truth. “I’ve fought for you. Everyone else says I’m crazier now for letting you stay here than when I first took on the kid. I told them if they didn’t like it, they could leave entirely, that you were staying.”
He lowers his head, his exhaustion with everythingshowing through. He was so tired of losing the people he cares about, and he really didn’t want to lose the one of the few friends he has because of a couple of words in what was meant to be a lighthearted tease. “I’m sorry. I’m your friend, Lokes. I would never intentionally say or do anything to hurt you. Please, you have to know that, right? I’ll stick by your side, so long as you’ll have me.”
Loki stutters over the words he hears; stutters over the logic of being valued for something intrinsic, past what he can offer as a tool or asset (in that, how alike they are!); stutters over the words he, in turn, has to offer.
So stunned is he that tears flood his alarmed eyes.
I trust you. You. I TRUST you.
When was the last time
ANYONE… ?
When Tony steps forward, Loki steps backward.
“You must explain to me how I have been of use,” he counters, a dagger-edge in his voice. “One is either inherently worthy, or one is of use until he earns worthiness. This has been my lifelong truth.”
Say, Thanos, I recall you telling your adopted space daughter (who you routinely abused, by the way) that her home planet of Zehoberei was now thriving because you killed half its population – including her birth mother – because ‘balance was restored’.
Do you know what I think about that?
I think it’s nothing more than a
BIG
FAT
LIE!!!
So apparently her planet prospered to the point everyone spontaneously died? Troll-logic yourself out of that one, you insane oversized prune.
Welll… TECHNICALLY he would point out that
No one is starving on that world
The crime rate is reduced to zero
The economy is very stable.
Pollution is no longer a problem.
It’s all in the spin….
i mean, as the last survivor has twelve counts of murder, in actuality the crime rate is 100%, so- how’s it going, thanos
Murder isn’t a crime if the last person makes the rules
icyxmischief 