#stolen from twitter
Melissa & Eric FTW. like hello, she acted w/his IRL wife, Roselyn after all!
Niall on a date
Niall: so how do you feel about Larry Stylinson?
Date: ugh it’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard!
Niall: *shoving bread sticks into golf bag* sorry I’ve gotta zayn
Those other Lokis…
He’d acted affronted, of course, in front of all those time puppets. Let them think him petty and insecure - which he most certainly wasn’t. Let them think all his motives were as easily spotted as what he’d let them see.
It wasn’t about plans. Plans shattered under the constant twisting of variables; he knew that better than anyone. It was about following the flows of power, and the cracks of weakness, which he could see so clearly. As clearly as Thor could read storms in the clouds!
Everyone always forgot to ask what his power was. Oh, magic, certainly, but that was a tool. He wasn’t the god of magic. He was…
Well. It was no wonder the TVA had encountered so many Lokis. Pushing against expectations was in his nature.
All those other Lokis…
And Mobius had just spilled their images in front of him, as if to motivate him through rivalry with these dead others!
It was the first one which lingered most in Loki’s thoughts, perhaps simply because it looked most like himself. Except… blue.
Blue. A Loki who had embraced his Jotun skin, or perhaps had never lost it in the first place. He wore Asgardian clothes… Which had come first? His hair was long and soft, and even his body seemed soft, and he carried himself like a mage, and he looked… happy.
Loki had seen him, and immediately known that this Loki had found some peace he had not. He had wrested some happiness from the universe, and-
And then his gut had clenched a moment later, as he realized why the TVA had this image.
He realized that Loki had been dragged by brutal TVA agents through one of their doors- Had he resisted? Had he objected with a Jotun accent? Had he craned his head around, searching desperately for his Thor, who would surely save him, but was in fact already reset?
Had he knowns his entire world had been pruned behind him?
He had been pushed along through the TVA’s impersonal processing, no answers or reassurances. He had been stripped of his Asgardian clothes, and made to stand, Jotun blue, in a TVA jumpsuit designed to tell everyone he was as good as dead already, so no need to have compassion.
Then he had been accused of the crime of existing.
And, stripped already of all the proof that he did exist, that he was real, REAL, rough TVA agent hands holding him in place had been the last thing he had felt, before he was erased from existence completely.
Completely. Except for this image the TVA used like it was nothing. Perhaps they had a file, detailing how far his life had deviated from the TVA’s grand, sacred plan.
Choices. Branches. So many paths Loki could have gone down. Did go down! All pruned and destroyed, except for this one pitiful path which led to a Loki who was so nearly himself being-
Thanos. He pushed the thought, the echoing crack, away. That couldn’t be the end of his story.
He’d had some thoughts of staying with the TVA for a while, working his way closer to this incredible power, he would admit that. But that display, of only some of the Lokis they’d killed, had driven home to him how truly murderous they were.
Mobius was not Thor, always threatening his death but never meaning it. These agents did not view him as a person, real and alive, who was among them. They saw him as a kind of ghost, an echo, an error, who they would delete without a thought once he was no longer useful.
Why not? He was, to their mind, not even real.
Perhaps these agents, creations of their masters, were not even capable of becoming attached to someone who worked by their side. Loki had counted on that, that growing attachment, that sentiment, to help protect him in their web.
But no. Their threat of death hung far too near. Loki had had to escape.
He thought again of that bluer, softer Loki, who had died in unyielding, impersonal arms, not yet knowing he had no world left to escape to.
One of them had had to.
Now he was, if not free, at least very much on the loose, which was the closest to freedom any version of his life was ever likely to contain. He had had food, and his first real night’s sleep in years.
And time to think about what he wanted to do.
He had served Thanos, no matter the circumstances. He had served that mad titan, who wished to wipe out half a universe.
The TVA ended universes by the dozen.
The TVA took free will, from everyone in the single universe they allowed.
He had been a villain. He likely would be again. Thor was the heroic one, with his rippling muscles, and giant hammer.
But the TVA had to be destroyed. He knew that like Thor knew a drought. Who but the god of mischief could possibly stand against such grand bureaucracy?
He had been a villain.
And now, he thought, perhaps it was time he tried being a hero.
His kind of hero.
The mischievous kind.
Those other Lokis…
He’d acted affronted, of course, in front of all those time puppets. Let them think him petty and insecure - which he most certainly wasn’t. Let them think all his motives were as easily spotted as what he’d let them see.
It wasn’t about plans. Plans shattered under the constant twisting of variables; he knew that better than anyone. It was about following the flows of power, and the cracks of weakness, which he could see so clearly. As clearly as Thor could read storms in the clouds!
Everyone always forgot to ask what his power was. Oh, magic, certainly, but that was a tool. He wasn’t the god of magic. He was…
Well. It was no wonder the TVA had encountered so many Lokis. Pushing against expectations was in his nature.
All those other Lokis…
And Mobius had just spilled their images in front of him, as if to motivate him through rivalry with these dead others!
It was the first one which lingered most in Loki’s thoughts, perhaps simply because it looked most like himself. Except… blue.
Blue. A Loki who had embraced his Jotun skin, or perhaps had never lost it in the first place. He wore Asgardian clothes… Which had come first? His hair was long and soft, and even his body seemed soft, and he carried himself like a mage, and he looked… happy.
Loki had seen him, and immediately known that this Loki had found some peace he had not. He had wrested some happiness from the universe, and-
And then his gut had clenched a moment later, as he realized why the TVA had this image.
He realized that Loki had been dragged by brutal TVA agents through one of their doors- Had he resisted? Had he objected with a Jotun accent? Had he craned his head around, searching desperately for his Thor, who would surely save him, but was in fact already reset?
Had he knowns his entire world had been pruned behind him?
He had been pushed along through the TVA’s impersonal processing, no answers or reassurances. He had been stripped of his Asgardian clothes, and made to stand, Jotun blue, in a TVA jumpsuit designed to tell everyone he was as good as dead already, so no need to have compassion.
Then he had been accused of the crime of existing.
And, stripped already of all the proof that he did exist, that he was real, REAL, rough TVA agent hands holding him in place had been the last thing he had felt, before he was erased from existence completely.
Completely. Except for this image the TVA used like it was nothing. Perhaps they had a file, detailing how far his life had deviated from the TVA’s grand, sacred plan.
Choices. Branches. So many paths Loki could have gone down. Did go down! All pruned and destroyed, except for this one pitiful path which led to a Loki who was so nearly himself being-
Thanos. He pushed the thought, the echoing crack, away. That couldn’t be the end of his story.
He’d had some thoughts of staying with the TVA for a while, working his way closer to this incredible power, he would admit that. But that display, of only some of the Lokis they’d killed, had driven home to him how truly murderous they were.
Mobius was not Thor, always threatening his death but never meaning it. These agents did not view him as a person, real and alive, who was among them. They saw him as a kind of ghost, an echo, an error, who they would delete without a thought once he was no longer useful.
Why not? He was, to their mind, not even real.
Perhaps these agents, creations of their masters, were not even capable of becoming attached to someone who worked by their side. Loki had counted on that, that growing attachment, that sentiment, to help protect him in their web.
But no. Their threat of death hung far too near. Loki had had to escape.
He thought again of that bluer, softer Loki, who had died in unyielding, impersonal arms, not yet knowing he had no world left to escape to.
One of them had had to.
Now he was, if not free, at least very much on the loose, which was the closest to freedom any version of his life was ever likely to contain. He had had food, and his first real night’s sleep in years.
And time to think about what he wanted to do.
He had served Thanos, no matter the circumstances. He had served that mad titan, who wished to wipe out half a universe.
The TVA ended universes by the dozen.
The TVA took free will, from everyone in the single universe they allowed.
He had been a villain. He likely would be again. Thor was the heroic one, with his rippling muscles, and giant hammer.
But the TVA had to be destroyed. He knew that like Thor knew a drought. Who but the god of mischief could possibly stand against such grand bureaucracy?
He had been a villain.
And now, he thought, perhaps it was time he tried being a hero.
His kind of hero.
The mischievous kind.
