Hey, so like…

lokiperfection:

darthwindows:

lokilover9:

lokiloveforever:

seiramili7:

timetravellingshinigami:

nikkoliferous:

asgardiankingofmischief:

nikkoliferous:

Does anyone want to talk about how ridiculous it is that Valkyrie, of all people, shames Loki for not caring about doing the right thing?

Loki: I don’t mean to impose…
(Valkyrie throws a bottle at him because violence is only bad if The Villain™ does it)
Loki: The Grandmaster has a great many ships. I may even have stolen the access codes to his security system.
Valkyrie: And suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?

Yeah, and considering her history in enslaving people for the Grandmaster runs about 1000 or so years? Maybe more, I can’t recall, she doesn’t really have the moral high ground.

In fact, Loki attempting to capture Thor and surrender him to the Grandmaster is more in line with something that Valkyrie would likely pursue (considering her time in Sakaar). Maybe they should have made her more difficult to convince.

Her comment/question is rather out of place also and would have to assume that she’s familiar with Loki to the level that Thor or Hulk (cause of NY) are.

I can only assume she said it in retaliation to what Loki did with her mind, but, in my opinion, she probably would have said something else.

Or they could have validated that she wasn’t necessarily trustworthy too.

It just felt like more of Taika’s lazy story-telling to me, as opposed to Valkyrie getting back at him for the whole ‘invading my mind’ thing. (But hey, don’t invade people’s brains, kids. It’s quite rude). I personally viewed it more as like, “hey, we haven’t reminded people that Loki’s a bad egg in the last 3 minutes or so; better let someone have a dig at his loose morals” sort of BS that is honestly just rampant in Thor: Ragnarok.

Like, I know Ragnarok critics get labelled conspiracy theorists for thinking (or at least speaking as though) Taika just had it out for Loki and wanted to degrade him as much as possible. And I get it, that sounds objectively insane. But just, looking at the narrative of the film itself, it’s… hard not to get that impression? And there’s really no other indicator in that movie–unless I’m forgetting something–that anyone on Sakaar (not including Thor and Bruce, obviously) has a clue who Loki really is. I guess it’s possible that they do, but there’s no evidence that that’s the case. More show & tell problems in this film.

I actually do want to address the ‘betraying Thor for money’ thing, though. Because I see a lot of people complaining that it’s completely out of character for Loki to do so for the money, and I actually have a different take on it. We all know Loki is rarely able to just be honest about what’s going on in his head. That’s essentially what the entire conflict between him and Thor has been fueled by for all this time, really. So I kind of headcanon that Loki might have told Thor that it was for the money, but I personally believe that in reality, it was actually Loki’s last-ditch effort to save his brother. Even as strong as he and Thor both are, individually and together, he did not believe Hela was an enemy that they could defeat (which is technically true)–especially now that she’s all cozy on Asgard, where she’ll be even stronger than when they first met her. Loki already failed once to talk Thor into staying on Sakaar of his own free will; I think betraying him was Loki’s way of trying to keep him safe from Hela by any means necessary.

I also think that deceptiveness can extend to his fight with Valkyrie too. A lot of Loki fans complain about her being able to take him captive so easily, but I choose to believe he lost to her intentionally. Easy ticket to finding his brother. He is the trickster god. Why are we suddenly taking him at face value all the time?

Admittedly, when it comes to Thor: Ragnarok, it’s super hard to decide when Loki is acting out of character because he’s running a scheme and when he’s doing it because of bad writing.

People actually call Loki stans (the true Loki stans) and people who don’t like Ragnarok as idiots just ‘cause we analyzed the movie from start to finish. Most of these people who insult us are new to the fandom and only saw Ragnarok. And even if they saw the other Thor movies they don’t remember it or for some reason they don’t like it. They just here for the jokes and, me, who is someone who’s here for depth of character, good storytelling and just pure emotion cannot deal with people like that.

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all okay.

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?

In fact, Valkyrie’s own words about “

suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

“ itself applies accurately to what Valkyrie was doing exactly at that time.

And to be honest, Valkyrie is a hypocrite. Considering about her own deeds that sold many non-guilty people into slavery and causing those people’s deaths for thousands years, and the fact that she knows almost nothing about Loki himself, she has absolutely no right to judge Loki and then acts like she has never done anything wrong in her life, ever.

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all 🆗.

People often forget about her actions because the narrative never call it. The narrative of Ragnarok want to condemn Loki only out of other characters and exaggerating his “evilness” into stereotype and caricature-like so people start to regard him as only “a mere background character who is just an useless twink who have no dignity and just nothing but a pest to Thor the Perfect ‘Hero’ with no absolute importance other than being fan-service”. That’s why they’re so many double standards in Ragnarok especially regarding Loki.

@lucianalight @juliabohemian @welle-nijordottir

Waititi did have it in for Loki, he admitted it. He said Loki’s treatment and humiliation was “payback” for overshadowing the other movies. Everything, from that stupid play, to the deleted port o potty scene, to being chained up and having glass bottles thrown at his head, to Thor’s triumphant obedience disc scene was all a reflection of exactly how Waititi feels about Loki. “Blah, blah, blah, shut up, space orphan” “Loki tries so hard to be this tortured, artistic, space orphan”. Waititi’s not subtle about it. He thinks all the little Loki lovers are idiots. He meant out to “respectfully” disrespect the other movies, and extend a middle finger to those of us whose favorite character wasn’t Thor. It’s funny how, in that scene where Loki is sitting there chained up, nobody there, not Thor, not Bruce or Valkyrie, have any right to stand there and judge Loki. Valkyrie was just as much a “lackey” of the Grandmaster, if not moreso, because she worked for him and enslaved people for him for a long, long, time. She knew about the orgy ship too, and was obviously in high favor with the grandmaster. But yet in that scene, suddenly Thor, Bruce and Valkyrie are the spotless heroes with the right to look down their noses at Loki? No.

What I also find bothersome about Lokis treatment in Ragnarok is wondering how Tom took it. No one knows really and we may never, yet I can’t help but think it affected him negatively on some level, after devoting so much time, talent and heart into the character. I’d certainly be insulted and secretly pissed. And yes, Sakaar must’ve dwelled within the boonies of space, as I too found it odd no one there ever recognized Loki. A form of subliminal messaging, perhaps?

Let us not forget please that Taika is not completely to blame. Hemsworth specifically asked for Taika because he was mad about how Tom overshadowed him in TDW because he did a shitty job and was tired of playing Thor like how it was written. Hemsy requested Taika. Which might be why Tom and Hemsworth aren’t tight anymore.

@icyxmischief

Thanks for @ing me ❤ this stuff means a lot to me and I keep somehow missing out on these newer conversations.

I’ve said a whole lot about this before actually, which I won’t rehash, save to say maybe take a gander at my Ragnarok critical and meta tags and perhaps in particular my post about why I disliked Infinity War LESS than I disliked Ragnarok, specifically, in terms of how Loki was written.

A couple of outstanding points that I’d like to compliment, however:

–The notion that Loki was trying to save Thor’s life by obstructing Thor from leaving Sakaar, while pretending that it was about money, is one that I find is indeed a rare bit of in-character behavior from a Waititi!Loki. I would even go so far as to say that Loki is not entirely aware himself that this is his own deeper motive. He is forever acting counter to his tendency to protect his brother, not because he doesn’t love Thor, but because Loki tries to abide by a code of self-preservation, and protecting Thor so often runs counter to that goal. So well thought out point there, @nikkoliferous

–Like @darthwindows, I’ve also had a lower opinion of Chris Hemsworth since reading his interviews, which come across as self-absorbed and immature, when Tom Hiddleston (who is actually older and has much more extensive film and stage credentials) took him under his wing when he was new to the industry, to actively seek a way to make Loki seem a weaker character in order to prop up Thor. Any time you weaken a strong character to strengthen a weak character, it shows that you are an inferior writer. And “revamping” Thor by making him a flippant, entitled asshole who coerced not only Loki, but also Valkyrie and especially Bruce, with charm, is not only a perversion of the character, but a REGRESSION that effectively erases an attempt at character development over four previous films (Thor 1, TDW, Avengers 1, and Avengers 2). Then tellingly, Chris complained about the return of Thor to “old Thor” in Infinity War, when frankly Infinity War Thor struck me as way more sympathetic. I think it’s sad that Chris effectively damaged, by neglect, Tom’s many years of labor on a breakthrough role in order to cope with feelings of insecurity about his own performance. Amusingly, I think in the long run that’s backfired; Loki is more popular than ever, albeit for reasons that don’t always coincide with the Loki “Stan” motives.

– @lokiloveforever Yes you have it right on the money, Waititi absolutely dislikes Loki. For whatever reason he has an axe to grind with the character. His background is that of a socially and politically liberal person of color and that has been an asset in the work that he has directed and written; people have even written on how his Maori heritage is uniquely and usefully counter-authority and that his sense of humor is excellent in dismantling colonialist ideas of power structure. THAT SAID? In this case, for some reason, he has misapprehended Loki as a whiny privileged white boy who imagines up all of his problems, rather than what he has always been in both the films and the comics: coded as Other in many ways that the audience can vibrantly relate to (queer; a person of color–yes, I do think the Jotnar are a metaphor for what an imperialist Asgard sees as a subaltern or “lesser” race, which makes the “my blue baby” play especially repugnant; the victim of bullying; and mentally ill from trauma). It’s almost like because Tom is white, affluent, and handsome, Waititi thinks the character leads an equally blessed life (which is hilariously ironic given how people like Waititi tell “Loki fangirls” that they only like Loki because Tom is an attractive straight-coded man :))) ).

–I think Valkyrie is an important character for her bi and POC representation, but this does not make her above reproach, and it shouldn’t. That said I’m not sure that when she accused Loki of hypocrisy she was saying she was not also a hypocrite; I read it more as “I know you, you’re an asshole like me.” Even so, yeah, she’s really not in a position to talk, and throwing solid breakable objects at him for simply being helpful made her less than sympathetic to me in that particular scene. But like OP says, “if the heroes are doing it, it’s excusable,” including, apparently, emotional coercion and violence (don’t even get me started on the punishment disc Thor left on Loki causing him to writhe in agony for hours: Waititi also has very little regard for people with PTSD, apparently).

How long do you intend on making him wait before you push Tony Stark up against a wall and kiss him senseless? — totally not T.S.

starkastichotmess:

icyxmischief:

starkastichotmess:

icyxmischief:

“ … I’m sorry, I don’t accept envoys in the case of such important queries, you will have to ask your master to bring me his petition in person.”

“Alright, Lokes. I’m here. Question still stands.”

“Oho myyyy, that was fast … eheheh! Ah, my dear Mr. Stark, do I really torment you so terribly?”

“Well, I mean, if you won’t, I’m sure Steve certainly will, seeing as he keeps trying to get me back…”

Loki’s smile never loses its cordial edge, but its temperature plummets.

“I have earned the right to monopolize you. So if you plan on even joking about pitting me against other suitors, then you can hang onto your joystick … darling.”

itsallavengers:

probsjosh:

stream:

jchamphero:

zooweamama:

stream:

dorkasaurus-spiritus:

parks-and-rex:

kevinburnsred:

stream:

“But, you see, it was just fate that you survived it…you had one last golden egg to give.

“

always thought that Obadiah looked like Thanos

*pants nervously* OHhhhhHHHHHhhH lordieeeee

I’ve also noticed that both of them have a similar line in their movies

Obadiah: I never had a taste for this sorta thing, but I must admit, I’m deeply enjoying the suit.

Thanos: fun isn’t something one considers when balancing the universe, but this? Does put a smile on my face.

Obadiah didn’t die in the arc reactor explosion but instead was warped to Titan memory wiped and grew into a big purple man

okay but….

The theory grows

i’d actually like to draw attention to the fact that these villains are similar in that they are deeply violative of the personal and emotional space, even the bodies, of others. they both literally reach into other people and remove their life source; they both believe that their self-serving ends are also for a “greater good,” be it an arms company’s survival or the universe. both are essentially serial rapists, even if they do not necessarily commit the sexual act. what they do steals and violates from the most intimate parts of others. they are predators.

and the people who survive their assaults are very, very strong, and very, very brave.

icyxmischief:

‘One’s for sorrow,

Two’s for joy,

Three’s for a girl,

And four’s for a boy,

Five’s for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven’s for a secret never told’

Devil, devil, I defy thee

Oh, the Magpie brings us tidings
Of news both fair and foul,
She’s more cunning than the raven,
More wise than any owl.

For she brings us news of the harvest,
of the barley wheat and corn,
And she knows when we’ll go to our graves,
And how we shall be born.

Devil, devil, I defy thee

She brings us joy when from the right,
Grief when from the left,
Of all the news that’s in the air,
We know to trust her best.
For she sees us at our labor,
And she mocks us at our work,
And she steals the eggs from out of the nest,
And she can mock the hawk.

Devil, devil, I defy thee

The priest, he says we’re wicked,
For to worship the devil’s bird,
Ah but we respect the Old Ways,
And we disregard his word.
For we know they rest uneasy,
As we slumber in the night,
And we’ll always leave out a little bit of meat
For the bird that’s black and white.

‘One’s for sorrow,
Two’s for joy,
Three’s for a girl,
And four’s for a boy,
Five’s for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven’s for a secret never told’

~Spiral Dance

unyielding-storm:

icyxmischief:

unyielding-storm:

I love Loki and Thor both equally, and yes Thor has his flaws and the movies has many flaws in how they portrayed him but I sure hope the fandom doesn’t end up making Thor into an asshole [bc one reason why I got tired of this fandom is everyone saying “oh poor loki he’s suffered so much” when thor has suffered just as much. i felt alone in my love for him for a long time] because of this or expect him to be forgiving and hunky dory about Loki when Loki all of a sudden is alive and well and willing to play nice when all of his past transgressions have proven otherwise.

Healing. takes. time.

//The funny thing about this is that I feel the same exact way, only in reverse, verbatim, despite feeling like I am in Frigga’s position, loving both brothers desperately much.

(( An aside: I would ask you and other Thor muses to remember that for the first 1,049 years of Loki’s life, he was Thor’s right-hand man and most trusted confidante, and that the reason why Thor is so hurt by Loki’s betrayal is that “all his past transgressions” have been relatively recent, and also, provoked–even if not justified–by a number of systematic social and cultural prejudices as well as his own father’s problematic parenting.

I would also ask you to remember that it’s kind of like when awful things are done to a person in a position of social power, vs a person who is socially “Othered.” Thor and Loki have both suffered and been horribly mistreated. However, Thor has been furbished all his life with the support system that every person deserves, simply by virtue of his innate predisposition to be a courageous, gregarious, masculine warrior. He “fits” as part of the cultural norm, with no painful disparity between self and society. Loki on the other hand is dark, literally a “person of color” who, by Thor 1, is dealing with internalized racism, nonbinary/genderfluid, LGBT, and a practitioner of witchcraft, which, as we’ve seen in Thor 1 and TDW, is treated in pejorative term as “merely doing tricks” or even exhibiting intellectual cunning at the expense of valor. None of this is to say that Thor is a bad person; quite on the contrary. However, when people are defensive of Loki, I think it’s because the deck is stacked in Thor’s favor by social default, and to Loki’s detriment. Individually they are equals; sysematically, in terms of social power dynamics, not so much. ))

Most importantly, however, perhaps it would be good to agree that the reason why Thor and Loki are so wonderful, so important, to those of us in this fandom, is that they are SYMBIOTIC–equal halves of a whole–and that they need to be perceived as a UNIT by anyone who portrays either one of them.

In other words, let’s not give in to the popular mentality that pits them against each other. Let’s all maybe take a pledge to be an exception to the popular trends that reduce Thor and Loki both to flat characters. ❤

I don’t negate any of that and I’m not trying to start anything. so I ask you to apply what you just wrote about not pitting them against each other. I said in my original post both have suffered equally, that’s all.

Feel free to agree or disagree with that but I am not here to play the oppression Olympics of who has it worse. Because I don’t see Loki being othered as an excuse to justify he deserves more care than Thor nor absolve him of his responsibilities. And I don’t agree he suffered more.

Everyone has been othered at some point but they alone are responsible for whatever actions they take. Do I understand why they did what they did? Absolutely.

My main concern is others taking Thors behavior in ragnarok at face value. He’s deeper than what people claim him to be.

Furthermore, I do see them as a unit. I’ve been rping him for a long time so I ask you to not dictate to me how to rp him.

And I ask you to not pit them against each other of who’s had it worse or more suffering. If you wanna think otherwise though, feel free to do so but I disagree.

No one’s pain is worse than another because everyone deals with things differently. Everyone’s pain is valid and should be understood.

I understand people being defensive over Loki, therefore as someone who’s rped Thor for many years as well, I ask you and other Loki lovers to understand his side as well. Just because someone has power or more privilege does not mean they don’t suffer, too.

//Friend, you need to read my reply a little closer.

I am not here to play the oppression Olympics of who has it worse.

Neither am I? 😦 It’s not a competition. What I said above was to give you some reasons why Loki fans can seem defensive, and why the social odds (only ONE dimension of characterization) are stacked in Thor’s favor. This does NOT negate Thor’s suffering, nor does it negate Thor’s GOODNESS as a person.

Because I don’t see Loki being othered as an excuse to justify he deserves more care than Thor nor absolve him of his responsibilities.

Again, neither do I. See what I already wrote, that explicitly, nothing that I point out here excuses or condones Loki’s behavior. It’s up there! Read it again to see it 😉

Again, NOT excusing it. Not not not. This blog isn’t a Loki stan blog. He’s done awful shit for which there is no excuse. Catch that, everybody? Awful shit. No excuse.

I can’t speak for other Loki fans, but what bothers ME as a Loki AND Thor fan is how Thor is WRITTEN in Ragnarok. NOT Thor himself, but what Taika Waititi and his writers have done to him.

And yes, I agree, there are lots of things you can say that might explain (but not justify 😉 ) Thor’s behavior in Ragnarok.

Putting these fictional characters aside: okay now I’m not trying to get preachy or didactic here. ❤ Just let me explain what I mean by Othered cause I realized I’m throwing around terminology without defining it and that’s bad of me.

It is fundamentally untrue that all people are” equally othered.” All people struggle, which is why my favorite quote of all time, by Plato, is “Be kind: for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” There is no such thing as an easy life, and everyone is responsible for their own conduct toward other people. I agree with you wholeheartedly here.

BUT. Here’s our monkey wrench.

Being “Othered” is an idea rooted in Structuralist, Post-Structuralist, and Post-Colonial Literary Theory, a theory abut the controller vs the “subaltern,” and it was adapted to identity politics circa the 1980s and 1990s, and is now circulating beyond academic contexts, to refer to people who are separated consciously from a dominant culture, exotified and commodified, and implicitly placed in a position of powerlessness that is both individual and systemic.

For instance, you can be a racist against a black woman, but you can’t be “reverse-racist” against a white woman, because white people are not the Othered demographic. You can be homophobic or transphobic, but you can’t be “heterophobic” or “cisphobic,” again, because again, straight and cis people are in the position of social power, BOTH individually AND as an institution.

Does this make sense? I know it’s a lot of shit to digest lol. ❤

Where we disagree, then, I think is in how much Loki qualifies in a fictional social setting as an Other. In some ways, he has power: he’s a prince, so in terms of class, educational background, and money, he’s doin great. But in terms of race and gender, not so much. I think it’s easy for people to forget this stuff because we haven’t openly dealt with Loki being a Jotun since Thor 1, and we have never explicitly dealt with Loki being LGBT except in the Agent of Asgard comics.

Okay so: All that shit aside. I was trying to engage in a dialogue with someone who struck me as more open-minded and curious than the usual Thor mun, and that made me happy! ❤ :3 But I can see that, despite your admirable intellectual curiosity, such conversations upset you deeply.

So I will refrain from taking these talks to you in the future. Because your comfort as a person is more important than my theorizing. ❤ Be well.

The Game

burningxcourage:

icyxmischief:

  “Hmmmmmmmmmmn. How about that, brother.”

Loki marvels at the chess board and then at the adored imbecile
who has bested him, and he ruminates: has he just lost because,
unconsciously, he’s still compensating for accusations and
dismissals that presented him with a terrifyingly possible future
bereft of Thor altogether, and, well, he let Thor win?

Or is he still flustered from the destructive stage of the
gods’ sacred cycle, and his own heroism among that havoc,
thank you very much, and Thor won this match fair and square?

Or is it the fact that there is an extremely blue, cube shaped
Infinity Stone in the vicinity, and, like a drug on which Loki
was once thoroughly hooked, it siren-sings to him, buzzes
in his brain?

All three. Yes. He’s certain it’s all three.

  “Over one thousand fifty years and at last you’ve done it. It makes
me miss mother, who would smile so … and … father.”

An incredulous little laugh through his nose.

  “If only to see his shock.”

{ I love you both, my sons. }

Perhaps a fourth reason Loki is off his game is the massive
effort to process that Odin, on his deathbed, at last
admitted culpability for a lifetime of being a better king than
father. It is liberating, but also terrifying.

For now Loki has lost one of the greatest reasons for
the anesthesia of rage.

And Loki must learn to heal.

  “Thor … you know that when I told you that I was sorry, for it all …
even though I did not truly die … you know that I was being
sincere …yes?”

The enormous tanker continues through uncharted space toward
earth, passing away at the pace of light years beneath the
brothers’ feet.

Sometimes, Thor wishes he were a mind reader. If only so he could breach the ventricles of Loki’s mind and see just what was lurking there. What was going through his brothers infuriatingly complicated head. He knew the mind to be a private place, though and would never ever breach it even if he did somehow get the gift bestowed upon himself.

He is momentarily forgetful, in his own arrogance of having won the game at last that he does not even for a second consider the possibility that Loki had simply let him win. So lost is he that he temporarily fails to catch the look in his brother’s eyes. Though even when he does catch it, they do not provide insight into what the other is thinking.

Thor had..a lot to make up for. Their relationship over the last little while having been more unstable than it had been in sometime. With Thor only now taking the time to realize that he had been wrong in many a ways. He had made up to Loki surely and now they were back to their amicable selves. Playing the game and worrying not on those moments.

But was that so?

Were they not at heart still somewhat worried?

Oh Thor’s arrogance would be his ultimate downfall someday. Which in some ways he was aware of. He knew that and yet he still found himself becoming the arrogant sod all over again. Even when self realization clicked in. Why!?

It was a mystery, even to he.

Oh he needed to keep his ego in check!

But for now he looks to Loki and nods, sagely. ‘Aye. It doth make me miss mother and father as well..’ His gaze becoming wistful in that moment. “Neither of them would believe that I could beat the most clever of us all at chess!” Shaking his great golden head.

But Loki catches him off guard again, and the Thunder God is forced to look up once more. Crystal blue meeting jade green.

‘Of course’ He says, after a long pause that seems to go on for a small eternity. “I knew in the moment you said so that you were being sincere.’ His gaze staying solidly on the other.

“And I..have much to apologize for, brother.”

Those moments in which Thor sheaths his self-absorption and
becomes staggeringly compassionate are precisely why Loki
can forgive so much, so often. They are precisely why he can
flank his sibling with confidence, even after being disregarded
and willfully misunderstood. They are why he is willing to see
that blame is shared.

They are why, when Thor defeated their most recent nemesis
without Mjolnir, Loki stood on the Bifrost and bore silent witness
with an expression of overbrimming pride.

There is no one Loki loves as he loves his elder brother, even now.

“I have told you, and will say again, that if you are willing, we shall
face what has passed between us since Jotunheim side-by-side.
I too need to apologize, and I shall.”

He breathes a laugh at the consternation on Thor’s face.

“You are vexed by my enigmatic nature once again,” he discerns.
  “I shall ask you forgiveness for that first. You see, brother, it is my
armor, to be never still in one place for too long. But you know
that already.”

He spreads his arms and stands.

“What would you have me divulge? I am your open book. Take the
rare opportunity.”

{Sigyn swoops in to give Loki a hug and a kiss} I love you, no matter what. (ConstancyChaos)

constancychaos:

icyxmischief:

constancychaos:

icyxmischief:

“Oh, Sigyn.”

  “I do not know that I believe you anymore. But neither do I blame
you for how you truly feel. It is alright, sweet friend.”

“No, it’s not ‘alright.’”

Sigyn pulls away, her husband’s words stinging like shards of ice upon her skin.

“What do you know of how I truly feel, if you have no trust in me when I tell you?”

More castigation from a good soul. More “if, then” scenarios
which leave no room to barter or comprehend the world in
shades of gray and tones of survival. No compromise, no
confidence that his words might be taken as benevolent.

It reminds Loki of when his mother Frigga cornered him in
his own cell beneath Asgard and, unintentionally, but deeply,
cut Loki with her equivalency “if Odin is not your father, then
am I not your mother?”

This grows wearisome; the notion that he is a
lost cause in the narrative of his beloved pantheon grows
all the more likely with every confrontation.

Yet he could never raise his voice to his tender and steadfast
wife.

“ … . I do not mistrust you,” he begins as evenly as he is able,
though he sounds breathlessly tired.  “I conceive of you as an
endlessly compassionate soul, who perhaps feels an unconscious
obligation to an unsalvageable person. You see, Sigyn, my lack
of faith is not, has never been, in you. It is in myself. For you see,
I have great experience,” and he thinks on Odin, and on Thor, “with
adoring someone who does not live up to your hopes.”

He meets her eyes in earnest.

“I will not be your undoing, for I love you dearly. I have gotten out
of the way of the welfare of loved ones before, and I can do it again.
You may call it mistrust, but it is my attempt to be brave.”

And selfless.

  “These arguments have happened with more and more frequency,
and it is plain on your face that I cause you constant pain. If you
wish to be released from this marriage, I shall release you, and I
shall continue to protect you in every way possible for the rest of
my life.”

“By the Norns, Loki!“

Sigyn sighed softly, her head dropping into her hands. Covered, her eyes began to well with tears of frustration. She sat there for several minutes, choosing her words with the utmost care, but they seemed to whirl around in her head in a fog. When her mind felt clear enough to speak, she raised her head.

"Just because I am angry or frustrated with you, it doesn’t mean I want to end our marriage. Please do not draw such drastic conclusions. The love I have for you and the life we’ve built is far greater than any lapse in my temper.”

She drew another breath, feeling like she was treading on shards of glass, fearful of breaking them further. Nevertheless, she continued, careful to speak as clearly and earnestly as she could.

“I understand your intentions, … at least I think I do. I’m trying to… Is it that you are afraid that you won’t live up to my hopes … or that I won’t live up to yours? Darling, I may be endlessly compassionate, but that does not mean that I am limitless. I have my own faults and weakness, try as I may to overcome them. And I know you seek to protect me from further pain by distancing yourself, but I need you here with me more than any physical or emotional protection your absence may offer. The more you drive yourself away, the less I feel that you truly love me, even though I know in my mind that you do.”

She bit her lip, hoping that her words might bridge the gap growing between them.

“Does that make sense?”

Loki swallows sharper words at the sight of Sigyn’s head falling
between her fingers. He licks his lips and presses,

“Aye, but it is not the issue of a single argument, but incessant
miscommunication, and though all whom I love would have me
instantly recognize my error in it, I do not see … it does not feel
as if the effort of self-examination is mutual. I do not mean to
say that you are as myopic as Thor is, but … ”

His features are crumpled, strained with apology, yet if they
are to close all misunderstandings, regardless of the outcome,
he too must be honest.

“Yes. What you say makes sense.”

He continues to speak gently.

“But there is more to my offer than our… our quarrel. Asgard is
dangerous; there is no scrutable way to defeat Hela. The wiser
course is … Sigyn, I have established myself with the Grandmaster
and I believe that, in time, I can overtake and eliminate him.
I’m staying here, on Sakar. You and our son … nothing would
give me more joy than to be with you, but until I have secured
power here, you would be safer going through one of the many
intergalactic doorways from this planet, into a realm protected from
the forces here, on Asgard, and …”

Under Thanos.

“ … elsewhere.”

fallenangelwings:

icyxmischief:

Loki’s smile spreads thinner still.

If this creature thinks it is the first ancient and mighty being that
the Trickster God has ever had to doggedly survive, it will learn
otherwise. And if it thinks that Loki will spare his own reputation
among its fellow beams of rigid light, at the expense of Thor’s
welfare, well then. An even sterner lesson is in order.

  “My reasons are my own, celestial.”

Loki speaks with just enough snide amusement not to cross a line
into outright insubordination. He knows that raw power of a kind
that dwarves even two or three Infinity Stones put together is
what faces him now.

“I’ve no desire to tarry here. And my targets have very little to
do with matters of moral outrage. You’ve a brother, I think, who’s
most skilled in the art of stealing reputations, whose victims all
share some grave misdeed or another. I? I am preventing future
conflict for a loved one, who does not have the stomach for
barbarism of this sort. Or haven’t you ever dirtied your hands
to save another’s soul?”

He cleans his twin daggers, which flicker like silver trout scales
darting through a cold stream, with a cloth from his belt.

  “Worry not. None of these are beings of this, your precious,
  ‘earth.’ I merely cornered them here. Let me pass, and I
shall find another cage for my quarry in the future.”

“I’ve dirtied my hands for far less than that.”

The Seraph’s words were tinged with a tired regret. Had the trickster not been sensitive to the Grace that coursed through Castiel’s veins, he doubted even a glance would have been spared. The angel looked like the exhausted salesman he wore as if that vessel had always been his own flesh and blood. It was though, wasn’t it? Jimmy Novak had died with him the day Raphael came for Chuck. He’d been rebuilt in this body several times since. If fate should have it, Cas would bear this vessel forever.

Still, if a human were asked which of the two souls standing in that alley was the angel, no doubt the chosen would be Loki. He all but towered over Castiel, clad in armor that was not of this world. A lithe creature with a wicked smile that promised chaos and death.

No. No human would look at the shorter man in the dirty trench coat and think him anything more than that.

The faintest trace of amusement lightened his face, just for a moment.

“So you have met Gabriel. I thought this his work, not yours. And I’d hoped to convince him to spread his frustrations across the county, because I’m sure hunters have taken notice by now.”

Finally did steel blue eyes shift from Loki to the corpse at his feet.

“I don’t care what your reasons are, God of Mischief.”

A proper title slipped past his lips, his graveled voice still carrying that wearied indifference.

“I don’t care of your quarry’s origin, or its crime. Do this neatly, or do it elsewhere. And should you encounter hunters, let them live. They, too, prevent future conflict.”

The blood drying around them evaporated like water, leaving bare brick and concrete behind. What remained of the cadaver crumbled like ash and scattered in the breeze as if it never were.

“Can’t touch this!”

Castiel’s eyes slid slowly shut as his phone began to shriek a piercing, obnoxious song in his pocket at full volume, shattering the tense silence. For a moment, he is frozen in that close-eyed stance of exasperation at the work of his eccentric big brother.

  “My-my-my-my music hits me, so hard, makes me say, ‘Oh my Lord!’ Thank you, for blessing me, with a mind to rhyme and two hyped feet-”

The song all but echoed off the walls of the alley before he was finally able to hit the damn button and raise the phone to his ear.

  “Sam.”

  “Hey, Cas,” the hunter replied, a noticeable degree of concern in his voice, “I’m just checking in, did you find out what’s wrecking Toronto?”

The Seraph’s face turned to Loki’s, staring for one unflinching second.

  “… It was Gabriel. I asked him to find new killing grounds, or an alternate means of destressing.” “Is he alright?” “… Five days, nine hours and thirteen minutes ago, my body was lying dead on a table. No. He is not alright.”

  “… What about you?”

A beat was skipped, and the trickster would know what came next was a complete and utter lie.

  “I’m fine. It’s not like I haven’t been through this before. Call off any hunters in the area, tell them you have it covered.”

“ … .”

As the dulcet tunes of MC Hammer flood the blood-stained alley,
Loki’s expression transforms from caged predation … .

… to barely restrained smugness.

He simply smirks at Castiel like that for the head-wagging
duration of ten to twenty seconds.

“Aren’t older brothers … d e l i g h t f u l ?” he rolls the word off his
tongue, which presses impishly between his grinning teeth.

He awaits while Castiel answers the phone and his eyebrows
loft higher at the deliciously apropos irony of Gabriel taking the
fall for his crimes. And at the gracious gesture that, he must
admit, he is not certain he has yet earned from the Seraph.

“Mmmmyyyy,” he hums, and green eyes grow paler as widened
pupils contract, and it’s at that precise moment, in which Castiel
has shown Loki an unprompted kindness, that the Trickster God
recognizes how handsome his assailant is. “That was good of you,
brother of Gabriel.”

Chiseled jaw, cleft chin, ocean hued eyes and an aura of weariness
which is not off-putting, but, rather, endearing. Loki can espy wings
in the thin veil between the realms, between the planes of reality,
and they are dark and ponderous, and they remind the God of Mischief
of the corvids of whom he is so fond.

“I agree to your terms, angel … Cas.”

He licks his lips fiendishly; he heard Castiel’s acquaintance “Sam” speak
his name on the mobile phone, and now, lover of chaos, provocateur
extraordinaire, he is merely trying to settle beneath a few thickened
layers of this creature’s skin.

“That is, if you agree to listen to music of a more … shall we say,
refined variety … . my treat? You look tired. And you already know
who I am. Seems a fair exchange. Or aren’t you a gentleman?”

theglisterwitch:

icyxmischief:

Beneath her glamour, Loki doesn’t attempt to conceal an
expression of haughty surprise.

“Why, home, of course. We certainly are not stopping for an
ice cream sundae.”

It occurs to her quickly that the child’s indoctrinated militance to
be useful is speaking. Not a far fling from Loki’s own childhood
culture, rife with warrior’s pride, and such shame in battlefield
failure that a glorious afterlife may truly be denied. Valhalla is
a club of elites if ever there was one.

Her guise is an especially paunchy guard, but a sturdy looking
one, so as others pass them by, she she draws Xiao Jing into
a headlocking bear hug, with a well feigned soft chortle, and
a murmur in fluent Mandarin about her compatriot taking too many
prescription opiates for back pain on the job. This
slips them past their most dangerous wave of resistance.

Courage, comes the whisper inside the young warrior’s head,
we are nearly outside.

Time passes as a sticky, clammy infinity, and as a mere cluster
of seconds, and they have passed to the front gate. Ever so
curiously, their fingerprints match those of no one employed,
and it is when the guard leans over the screen to check its
calibration that Loki slams his face into the metal wall,
leaving a splattering shower of red from his shattered nose.
She strikes the largest green button she can locate, and
the gate yawns to natural light, and she bodily lifts Xiao
Jing, carrying her outside.

Their glamour she does not drop until after she has struck
out and ripped a portal in a thin membrane between the
Realms, and leapt through to a marsh in Asgard on the
opposite side.

A peculiar emotion ripples like sound down Xiao-Jing’s skin, and she supposes distantly that perhaps all of this remains far, far too sudden, as if the first moment after Loki’s appearance had failed to end – just as had been the leaving from the island compound, on her own for the first time and nearly hamstrung by an undertow of blackest panic. The stillness now, as then, is anticlimactic; all at once her breathing carries on the eddies that skim above the tall grass, betraying an embarrassing level of exertion even while carried. She hasn’t been off her feet for long enough to recover. Can I stand?

Of course. She must.

Loki’s hold, supporting her, is firm but not constrictive. For once, it doesn’t cause instinctive unease, for reasons she can’t parse. But while Loki can speak into her mind, she lacks the skill to speak in return, and can neither yet find her voice, nor bring herself to ask even so small a thing as to be set down.

Here in the marsh, now in safety, the expected censure might come at any time – before she is sent for healing, or after; now, or when they are next alone. Insisting on walking on her own will do her no good at this stage of things. The damage has been done, more damage than she can compensate for.

While the cool, moist air blows around them, as she wonders how to even begin to redeem herself from the things Loki has seen, she wonders also whether this is when her protection here will end, and she will be back among the unkempt high buildings of New York, seeking a hiding place there where she can have a measure of peace and privacy. She’s lost her weapons and her armor, and lost the right to them…

No. Not New York. She was found there once, and will be found there again. She might do better to find someplace with more wilderness, fewer people, where an invisible presence will not be marked by rumor or seen out of carelessness. There is no more work for her, now that she knows she is not fit for it – now that she knows Zhi was right about her.

But that is too overwhelming, and the alien energy that still crackles down Loki’s limbs which hold her and makes her head buzz, maybe a remnant of the illusion and maybe of the jagged-edged fury Loki had shown at having to seek her failed apprentice and find her in abject disgrace. It makes Loki the warmest thing here, so that steam almost rises from her as the light fog collects on her clothing, then disperses back into the fragrant air. Insects sing in the water at her feet.

Is it better for Xiao-Jing to throw herself upon Loki’s mercy now, or to wait for Loki to deal with her in her own time? She can’t decide, and knows indecision is cowardice, and can do nothing. An ache is forming high in her chest, low in her throat, that she doesn’t understand or think she’s felt before, which makes her need to hold her breath a moment as if letting it out will make something rupture. She had thought herself better than this, and hadn’t thought to lose her place so soon. But spirits are unforgiving when angered, and Loki is certainly not an exception, and this, then… this will be the end of her life in Asgard.

It will be the end of the only thing she’d ever earned for herself.

Finally she forces her tongue to form words, even more clumsily than when Loki had first appeared in her cell dripping in rivulets of rage-light: “I can stand. I can stand.” She will accept this on her own two feet – in the rags left of her clothes, but standing, facing it. The wet grass may soothe her shame, and she wants to have one last, long look at Asgard’s stars.

Loki is a man now; for their professed enlightenment, Asgardians
can regard his capacity to flow between genders as water flows
from one rocky eddy to the other … unsettling. So he maintains
the gender by which he was first known ordinarily after first arriving
in the realm. As such, he is no less maternal when he kneels to
Xiao-Jing’s level. He knows she’ll not appreciate the gesture–
she may in fact see it as condescending, so fiercely self-sufficient
is she–but she is gazing upward at the sky, standing in the dewy
grass of a cool evening, and she looks so desperately despondent.

“Child,” he breathes, unable to refer to her by some greater
formality, “please look at me. Travel across realms so hasty
as ours can drain even the most exceptional of mortals.
Are you certain you’re well?”

“If you fear the shame of being seen in my arms, instead of
walking to the castle, I can readily disguise us again.”

makerofrunevests:

Loki tilts his head, licks thin lips and holds up a pale palm.

“Forgive me. I am exceedingly quiet and prone to startling others.”

That wan, slim mouth curls up into a guarded smile as the
woman called Sigyn introduces herself.

“A bold name for a tempered lady,” he observes, and then dons
a second-nature impishness. “I should hope you are given to
sharing your mind decisively with one of the Einherjar, who are
rather too pompous for their own good. May your espoused be a kind-
hearted soldier.”

It is difficult to say what prompts the God of Mischief to be
so warmly inclined, at least for Loki, toward an intruder upon
his innermost machinations. But something about her is
incontrovertibly gentle, pensive, measured. It soothes his
skittish psyche.

Yet Loki cannot quell his own hyper-honed skills of observation.
He spots the misgivings in the fair-haired girl’s eyes, and his
heart is resigned to the same state as ever: an untrusted creature,
thought somehow wrong-footed and bizarre. A thing of deep
woodlands and shadow, fey and weirdly, dangerously alluring.
Nothing wholesome. Nothing like the woman whose momentary
fear reminds Loki to double down on his caution.

“I trouble you. Do not concern yourself; I have that effect upon
everyone. Allow me to take my leave that you might enjoy your
late night stroll unencumbered.”

If he knew Theoric, he wouldn’t recommend sharing one’s mind decisively, Sigyn thinks. Sharing one’s mind with Theoric, if said mind is not the same as his, is an operation requiring great gentleness and many apologies, and often
ending in a judicious silence which the Einherji thinks means her mind
has changed to be the same as his. But that is not the sort of
information Sigyn would reveal to anybody about her betrothed.

“Thank you for your good wish,” she replies softly, smiling. She would have
appreciated such a wish under any circumstances, but especially
tonight, when she is disturbed because Theoric was hard-hearted toward
her. No doubt it was but a mood.

A flush rises into her pale face at her new acquaintance’s statement
that he troubles her. He must have noticed her brief fear, and found
it insulting–no, hurtful.

“Indeed, my lord, I intruded, not you,” she says softly but quickly,
trying to make amends. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

She nods courteously and smiles, and has taken two steps away when she
recollects that she hasn’t an inkling where to go, and turns back.

“Could you please tell me the way?”

She is well aware that she’ll have trouble finding it, even told; her
intelligence lies in other areas than remembering directions. But
asking him to guide her is not possible. Besides the damage it would
do to her reputation and betrothal if she were seen walking at night
with a man, she would hesitate to ask for a favor after insulting him
as she believes she unintentionally did. Even asking for directions
makes her turn a deeper pink.

Loki’s eyes narrow in scrutiny at his unanticipated guest.

“ … I mean not to pry, my lady, but you are rather obviously
troubled. Or obviously, at least, to one schooled in the study
of microcosmic nervous tics. It is not in my nature to speak
bluntly, for often painful repercussions follow. But you seem …
an uncommonly kind soul, so I am inclined to worry.”

Why he involves himself in business without direct fruitfulness
for himself or his small-knit circle of loved ones, Loki cannot
fathom. In the presence of this rather plain and quiet creature,
however, it’s a curious compulsion. Perhaps she reminds him
of a less self-confident, younger variant of his late mother.
Perhaps, even, himself, when he was small, and timidity
was an expedient way to avoid his father’s severely critical
eye. He cannot know.

But when she flushes, flustered to request aid, he is
all the more certain that he appreciates her. He, too,
despises asking for help, and calling his own competency
into question.

“I shall gladly show you, if indeed you take no offense to my
company.”