fandom reblogs

@lokiusdrabble

A little morsel of non-explicit 🌶️🌶️ for your weekend. 🤭

Filling the prompt “vulnerable”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/90094921

Thinking about how Loki went from “choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret” to ensuring everyone kept their right to choice and free will…

hahaha so I got this ask, uhhhh, a while ago and I was going to do a short answer but then I started tossing out bullet points and once I had those I wanted to link them to posts discussing those things in more detail and now it’s September and I definitely got this within like, a week or two of the show finale, sooooo anon whoever you are I hope you’re reading this blog enough to know that I finally got around to answering your question 😬

anyway yeah, that's basically where I come down on it. it's never been made explicit, but I think it's also fair to say that Loki's alliance with Thanos wasn't an equal partnership at the very least, and canon heavily implies it wasn't a fully willing one either and Loki went through some seriously bad shit during his missing year. extrapolating that to "Thanos had him tortured" is an interpretation, but it's also an interpretation that makes sense of a huge pile of canonical evidence--more sense in most cases, I would argue, than any alternative explanations. I mean, there are possible alternative explanations for a lot of these individually, of course, but not all of them, and I don’t know that there’s much else that pulls together all these pieces. plus all this speculation is happening in the first place because we aren’t explicitly told what a lot of these things mean, so a torture-related reason is just as likely to be accurate as an alternative one.

and when I say “a huge pile of evidence,” there’s...well, there’s a whole lot, at wildly varying levels of significance, and also wildly varying levels of detail because I just want to finish this post already:

he looks burned or otherwise messed up in the post-credits scene in Thor (could be from something not related to Thanos! but if that’s the case it’s still pretty relevant in terms of, you know, Loki’s missing year being Bad Shit)

intro scene in Avengers--sweaty, pale, dark circles under eyes, almost collapses while walking out, basically collapses into the truck and seems to need to brace himself just sitting/kneeling there (like above, could be from something else, like...coming through a portal that hasn’t been properly stabilized is hard on the body? but I don’t think we have any additional evidence to support that specific idea, as opposed to the likelier one that stabilizing the portal was necessary just to make it bigger and keep it open) (link also includes Thor post-credits scene)

also he's obsessed with making others kneel to him, and he comes through the portal kneeling, head bowed, so the former seems kinda weird if the latter was completely voluntary

his back seems to be hurting again after Thor yanks him out of the quinjet and dumps him on a mountain

his conversation with the Other--Loki postures a little but then goes still and silent with tears forming in his eyes and allows the Other to circle around behind him, threaten him, and visibly hurt him; clearly shaken when he comes back. adds up to YIKES.

we all remember “He will make you long for something as sweet as pain” but as far as evidence goes, I find “You think you know pain?” to be even stronger, because it seems...fairly definitive and personal, implying that Loki has experienced significant pain and the Other knows about it, either because it happened on Sanctuary itself or because it happened during Loki’s missing year in general but was significant enough that it came up later (as in, it was discussed, or there was physical evidence when Loki got there)

here’s another great post going over evidence of Loki carrying out the invasion under duress

edit: here’s another one

I always kinda thought "burdened with glorious purpose" could imply someone else did the burdening (which is...only part of the reason I did get super annoyed about it being turned into a context-free catchphrase even before the show, yes, and then the show made that about 10 times worse--not so much in episode 1, I think it's reasonable to assume he's still somewhat under the scepter's influence in the opening scene, but I mean the way the other Lokis and the marketing absolutely ran it into the ground)

Fury says “this doesn’t have to get any messier,” and Loki replies, "I've come too far for anything else." on Avengers Tower, he tells Thor, "it's too late to stop it.” I’m not saying those lines indicate torture, or really anything at all specific, but they do seem relevant in terms of Loki not being the mastermind of this whole mess

"I remember you tossing me into an abyss" indicates possible memory issues, which is...also pretty damn relevant

the scepter is shown affecting the Avengers' moods just by being in the same room, and Bruce even grabs it without realizing (they’re all human except Thor, who doesn’t seem as affected, but it’s still textual evidence of the scepter affecting people without being deliberately used on them)

as a textual comparison, there's a huge contrast between the way Loki behaves toward the Other and by extension Thanos, and the way Ronan behaves toward both of them in GotG, which also implies some things about the differences between those alliances

Ragnarok post-credits: Loki seemed to recognize Sanctuary II and was immediately horrified/terrified, compared to Thor who just looked kinda confused

Infinity War: on the one hand Thanos maybe doesn't know Loki’s Jotun (”well for one thing, I’m not Asgardian”) and that's weird, but on the other, he knows Loki well enough to know the most effective possible way to make Loki give up the Tesseract, and the way he kills him is like...unnecessarily personal, not to mention unnecessary in general because he could’ve just backhanded Loki into the wall, used the Power Stone to explode the ship, and teleported out. instead he wanted Loki’s pain and fear because he liked it. it is really not a stretch to suppose that this was also true when they first knew each other.

and despite the show not really addressing this, at least not directly/explicitly, it actually does provide several new pieces that also fit the theory:

additional (possible) evidence of spinal issues and other indications that he’s frequently in pain--which could of course be from the battle, the Hulk-smashing, and the Tesseract dumping him in the desert, but the fact that Avengers gives us two different pre-battle scenes of possible back issues indicates they might’ve already been around (i.e., from Sanctuary) and just worsened by the battle etc.

he’s absolutely terrified the instant he sees Thanos onscreen in the Time Theater--I mean, the first thing he sees is himself trying to stab Thanos and Thanos stopping him, so yeah, it’s...probably reasonable to assume Thanos isn’t going to have a nice response to somebody trying to stab him? but for somebody who doesn't know the specific context, which show!Loki doesn’t, it could just be part of a battle, and/or it wouldn't seem out of the question for Thanos to just smack him aside. but Loki seems to know immediately that something awful is about to happen and he isn't surprised when it does...only when it actually leads to his death

edit: here’s a fantastic gifset juxtaposing scenes from Avengers, Infinity War, and the show, and basically it just makes all my points for me

edit, January 2024: I didn't realize until much later, but you know how that gifset above juxtaposes Ebony Maw's creepy "even in death you have become Children of Thanos" quote with Loki stuff? well, the actual Loki episode in Legends season 1, which is literally just a clip show catching audiences up on his time in the MCU before the show, also does exactly that. so I'm not saying that Marvel's saying Thanos actually considered Loki one of his kids or at least one of his potential kids for a minute there, with everything that implies given the way he treats his actual kids, but like. I'm not not saying that, and it's interesting, isn't it? Thanos wouldn't even be the only person to use Loki's insecurities and daddy issues to get him to do something (you know, because Mobius literally tells him he's doing this).

edit: when Loki tells Mobius that he hurts people because he’s had to, he’s referring to a lot of things, and he doesn’t necessarily mean “I have literally been hurt by people who will hurt me again if I don’t make them happy” but also, I mean...he could mean that, and putting this scene together with the conversation between him and the Other is...really something.

there’s an early scene on Lamentis where Loki might just be out of breath again as he is many times during the series (from, I would imagine, a lack of ability to stay in shape over the past year, so that’s...also a thing), but he might also be fending off a panic attack--from scary situation in general? orrrrr from dodging asteroids, something that potentially could have happened on Sanctuary, which is itself an asteroid field? I recognize this is kind of a stretch but like, I'm just saying, it does fit

Similarly, his abilities (physical and magical) are pretty damn inconsistent and this is a possible reason

"I've lost track of the number of times I’ve been killed"--either it's hyperbolic bravado that's way more nonsensical than his usual, or...??? combine this with “no resurrections this time” and it’s INTERESTING

additional extratextual evidence:

there’s an Avengers deleted scene where the Other contacts him two more times, once before the battle really gets going and once midbattle (thanks @scintillatingshortgirl19 for the link!). the first time doesn’t look too bad; the second time, though, the contact definitely seems to hurt him. maybe that's not deliberate on the Other’s part like it was before, but it also means the Other is cool with causing him significant (and distracting) pain in the middle of a battle? and also shows he's always watching? plus there are two different instances shown here, only one of which shows Loki reacting with obvious pain when contacted, which certainly could indicate the Other is doing that part deliberately

Hiddleston interviews--didn't give specifics but did say Loki's missing year was Very Very Bad, a struggle to survive a very precarious existence, run-ins with the universe's worst people, lots of brushes with death, he looked like he'd been eating very badly, etc.; specifically compared it to being kidnapped by terrorists, which doesn't necessarily mean that Loki was kidnapped by terrorists (or that his situation was directly comparable to Tony's in Iron Man, but I assume that’s what he was thinking about), just that it was that level of scary and dangerous, but...it's also a very specific comparison to make!

Marvel confirmed in Loki's bio that the scepter was influencing him and he didn't know it, so although this doesn’t necessarily rise to the level of mind control, torture, etc., it’s still...very relevant

Aug. 2022 edit to add: remember the fan theory that MCU Loki’s eyes are green, but they’re blue in The Avengers because of the scepter’s influence/control? not as blue as the other people completely controlled by the scepter, obviously, but blue enough to suggest Loki wasn’t really in control either? I think this has been mostly debunked as a legit theory based on things like...Tom Hiddleston has blue eyes and there’s no evidence he’s worn colored contacts or had his eyes digitally recolored while playing Loki, so any apparent color change is likely the result of lighting or fans recoloring screenshots after the fact. on the other hand, comics Loki has green eyes for sure, and I’m fairly certain the original Thor posters recolored his eyes to be extremely green and then just dropped that later...and even as late as season 1 of the Loki show, Marvel can’t make up their minds on his eye color as shown in a couple of official licensed figures from the exact same line of toys. the toys in particular almost certainly weren’t intended to mean anything except lousy quality control, but on the other hand if Marvel keeps refusing to be clear about this, then I’m absolutely going to continue finding evidence where none was intended.

Oct. 2024 addition: I need to update this with stuff about season 2 but instead here's an extremely extratextual but still very interesting thing from the fan-run MCU wiki

Alright so, I want to talk about Loki and his autistic coding. Now I won't give much credit to the russo brothers since they made it very clear they don't particularly like Loki as an individual or character..

Anyway, Loki has always been different from the other asgardians. He never had friends of his own, he didn't have people he could really connect with, he was just different.

But that's not all that I want to talk about- I feel like his powers specifically his illusions come into play in this as well. Also his lying.

Okay, so, we know that autistic individuals tend to mask to fit in with society because they're not really accepted if they don't. (Society sucks.) Loki is never really accepted as himself- if he is faking being someone/thing else and people don't yet know of him/his intentions he's more accepted. I feel like it's a form of masking. Playing a role to be accepted. He lies his way through life, uses illusions to mask his true intentions and desires, his true self.. yet people can tell something is slightly off..

As an autistic individual myself, I see Loki’s Jotun heritage as a metaphor for a broader range of experiences and not only about the obvious context - which isn’t an uncommon thing in media texts. But Loki clearly spent a lot of his life feeling ‘different’ and not understanding why as OP mentioned. Similarly, neurodivergent people tend to feel the same way and can empathise with that sensation. I know that as an autistic person, I often feel like ‘the odd one out’ and have done all my life and it irked me that no one could tell me why I felt that way.

I remember sobbing when Loki learnt the truth, that he wasn’t being ‘dramatic’ or ‘delusional’ when he felt he wasn’t receiving the same treatment as Thor from Odin. Also, in no way am I trying to take this character or scene away from anyone who may have actually experienced a similar thing with being adopted or having an unhealthy relationship with a parent/relative (trust me, I know what that’s like which is why I also relate to Loki but anyway—). But I think Loki’s story is so universal when it comes to his struggles and fears. It makes him a character a lot of people can relate to for different reasons.

“You know it all makes sense now…”

I think we’ve all had that moment ourselves, especially when we’ve gotten a diagnosis or researched about neurodivergence and come to the conclusion we may be on the spectrum. Things click into place… It’s Loki’s raw emotion that also draws us in. The confusion, the shock, the anger, the heartbreak… Loki learnt that he wasn’t ‘imagining things’, that his internalised thoughts had been more grounded in reality than he had maybe ever expected. It’s something many autistic people also experience, that cycle of grief to acceptance.

Loki, at his core, is a character who often feels misunderstood or mischaracterised by those around him. He plays into the roles thrust upon him to appease others, to be what he thinks others see him as. I have often felt misunderstood in my life, and I also struggle with telling people who I am, naturally falling into roles within different environments and groups that I felt “needed filling”. If you were to ask me to describe myself, I likely would give very limited, stock sounding answers: “I’m funny I guess, I think I’m kind, approachable…?”

That’s something Loki also struggles with:

“What makes a Loki a Loki?”

“Independence. Authority. Style.”

Loki doesn’t seem to know who he is without others around him. He doesn’t know where he fits in without others around him. He always had the role of ‘living in Thor’s shadow’, the ‘second son’, ‘the trickster’ with his family and he became something else entirely with the TVA fam, and when he lost that he found himself asking: “Without them, where do I belong?” His relationships with the TVA fam were different in a sense that he felt like he met others like him, as OP mentioned: displaced, manipulated/lied to, striving for purpose in their own ways.

Thanks so much for the tag @westwardly much love 💜💜

Not really gotten a lot done, it's been a week™, but here's another rough bit from the current wip on the brain:

What a place to drown, sinking away from the light.  No. No, he was sinking towards the light. The stars were below him, dying, flickering out one by one. He looked up, upwards to a soft, familiar glow. It cut through the black, the pain, the drums– It stopped. It stopped, and Mobius gasped in a breath of blessedly cool air.  The ocean was gone. He was lying on his back, resting in a familiar lap, head pillowed by thin legs, fingertips brushing so tender and reassuring through his short wet strands. He stared up at a cloudy sky, surrounded by lush garden foliage and ancient trees that he vaguely remembered not from his past but from someone else’s, a bittersweet place that had once been called home.  This was Loki’s Asgardian sky, Loki’s memory, Loki’s soft, loving smile as he looked down at Mobius. “You’re okay.” “Loki? Loki, I…” He closed his eyes, tilting desperately into that touch. His racing heart slowed, the panic easing with each gentle tousling of hair with those delicate, slender fingers. He was okay. Mobius was okay. Mobius took in a shuddering breath, eyes opening for real this time.

THANK U!! :3

Loki 2x03 "1893"

Loki and Mobius now have a very long time to sit and think about all the things they left unsaid and undone because they thought they had more time. All the things that they so desperately wish they had said.

They could say it now, especially Mobius. But it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't feel right. It wouldn't be good enough.

Both of them looking back on that day and all the many opportunities missed. Both thinking, "gods if I had just kissed him" and "if I had just told him then, right then, that I love him."

Which leads to all the other times that there was a perfect opportunity and they had let it go by because they thought, mistakenly, "not yet. This isn't quite right. Once everything settles down, then I'll tell him. Then I'll kiss him."

Except by the time that happened...it was too late.

PROMPT.