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This! All of this. Getting the technology of your time period wrong is extremely jarring for those of us who lived it. Please research.

Younger writers. Please, just know that you could not skip to different songs on a cassette tape, that’s CDs. With tapes you pressed fast forward or rewind and prayed.

Also, VHS tapes did not have menu screens. Your only options were play, fast forward, rewind, pause, stop, or eject.

Y’all are making me feel like the crypt keeper here, I’m begging you 😭

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if the world was ending i'd wanna be next to you.

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more food (loki edit)

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I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

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I'm just saying

(my contribution to this poll)

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@ryebreadgf / The Truth About Grief, Fortesa Latifi / bone deep, m.v.e / Sidewalk, Richard Silken / unknown / 60 hours, m.v.e / @itsblackleader / Salt, Nayyirah Waheed / @heavensghost

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Loki(us) and reaching out

@sacredfixation made two wonderful blog posts on the topic of Loki and his tactility in the series and how it looks like he is only now learning to touch both his own body and others. I highly recommend reading them!

This also gave me a bit of pause. Loki has been a source of fascination since he cautiously yet deliberately walked around that pillar in Asgard's palace to soothe his enraged brother.

What always struck me was how Loki - even before everything fell apart - barely touches people with his hands. He leans in there to talk to Thor, and their shoulders touch, but Loki's hands do not. And this movie is the last one where they were being brothers indicating that a lack of touch has been going on for a long time.

Then we have this moment, after Loki's heritage is revealed and Odin passes out: A featherlight touch after great hesitation only to have his hands far far away from Odin when he calls for the guards.

Nothing is the same after that. Everything Loki thought to be true was a lie; he was never meant to be a king ("your birthright was to die"), he was not considered a worthy son of Asgard, he was not even of Asgard. Worse, he is of a species considered monstrous by the Asgardians. How could he possibly reach out now? There was nothing to reach out for.

On the sacred timeline, the only other time for him to truly reach out, ends as a fading illusion of his mother. And if that doesn't break your heart, I don't know what will:

And now we have a variant just a few weeks, possibly months ("a heartbeat"), before his sacred timeline counterpart would reach out to his mother only for her to literally fade away and die.

This variant does not decide to reach out right away. Oh no. In the early episodes, he is either self-contained or uses physical touch as a means of manipulation or attempt to level out the uneven playing field he was thrust into.

Actual reaching out starts to happen after Lamentis.

As much as I prefer Lokius over any other type of Loki ship, as much as I believe that Mobius plays a huge part in Loki's salvation, him connecting with Sylvie (not physically but emotionally; meeting a Loki even more broken and alone than he is) ultimately helps him do that extra step to start reaching out. Because she does on Lamentis.

As I have written before, Lokius for me starts in Season 2, not Season 1, though I would call them friends by the end of Season 1. I never shipped Sylvie with Loki, but I can appreciate connection, especially between two beings that have been alone for so long.

Ironically, the episode entitled "The Nexus Event" is where Loki shifts from being self-contained to reaching out to Mobius. Well, after he was pummelled by Sif (never loved Sif more than in this timeloop for some reason, but that's another blog post) an infinite number of times. What comes out of this time loop is his fear of being alone, his own, genuine remorse, and his attempt to reach out to this figment of Sif whom he probably once counted as a friend but that friendship not just turned stale but bitter and hateful, and he knows he will never gain the forgiveness of the real Sif. Still, he tries to reach out to her mirror image. And that says a lot.

Reaching out seems to become Loki's whole state of being after that because nobody reaches back and he is afraid of being alone. And it is very tragic, too, because while Loki is ready to reach out, Mobius is not.

That scene in the Nexus Event, both before but especially after the time loop is the absolute low point in the Mobius/Loki relationship (be that romantic or platonic). Mobius is being so cruel and I want to write some angsty kind of oneshot about him feeling really fucking bad over it post-series (but the point of this blog post is about is reaching out, so we continue).

It's in that second Sif time loop where they find even footing again, and this is where the word 'friend' truly falls for the first time, Loki being the one to reach out again, offering it, after Mobius voices his doubts (yet wants to believe him). And Loki never ever falls back on that word. They share one hug, initiated by Loki, in Season 1, but him almost frantically reaching out is after he was thrust into a past where his new friend does not know him and after his equally new friend had just used his own affection - and attempts to reach out to her - against him... (See what I mean? Loki reaches out to both, Mobius reaches back; Sylvie does not. Not this time. Instead, she betrays him. And it causes a shift in both relationships. I really like this trio dynamic across the series; they always seem to miss each other until the very end.)

Back on point: It's amazing how - 1) despite the recent betrayal, 2) his early experiences at the TVA and 3) his proclaimed friendship of Mobius being so fresh - he does not fall into old patterns of self-restraint, mistrust and false poise. Instead, he almost obsessively moves forward in his need to make a connection... Now this leads into the blog post @sacredfixation counting down all the ways Loki becomes physical in season 2, and how Mobius reaches right back, making them equals in this frantic need for connection.

Lots of beauty here, even though it breaks my heart.

Might revisit this blog post for a look at Season 2, but I needed to write up the topic of Loki and touch pre-series until the end of Season 1.

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A brief thought in passing.

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USA people! Buy NOTHING Feb 28 2025. Not anything. 24 hours. No spending. Buy the day before or after but nothing. NOTHING. February 28 2025. Not gas. Not milk. Not something on a gaming app. Not a penny spent. (Only option in a crisis is local small mom and pop. Nothing. Else.) Promise me. Commit. 1 day. 1 day to scare the shit out of them that they don't get to follow the bullshit executive orders. They don't get to be cowards. If they do, it costs. It costs.

Then, if you can join me for Phase 2. March 7 2025 thtough March 14 2025? No Amazon. None. 1 week. No orders. Not a single item. Not one ebook. Nothing. 1 week. Just 1.

If you live outside the USA boycott US products on February 28 2025 and stand in solidarity with us and also join us for the week of no Amazon.

Are you with me?

Spread the word.

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i feel like fandom would really benefit from adopting the idea of readings, as in interpretations. anyone can interpret canon as saying anything on even the most tenuous of justifications. if you interpret a detail or moment in a particular way, great! but if someone interprets that thing in another way, even in a way which directly contradicts your interpretation, that’s also okay. multiple readings can exist at once without invalidating any of them

a lot of fandom drama seems to arise from people acting as if their interpretations are True or Factual in some way, when really all anyone can do is speak to their own interpretations & experiences. which is natural! and good! many voices with many interpretations and approaches is healthy and good. the trouble is depicting a reading, which is a very personal thing, as universally true, and then getting frustrated that others don’t interpret events the same way. & i get it, that can be annoying, especially if you think those other interpretations are misunderstanding the canon. but so much of the time it’s just a different reading, taking into account details you might not have noticed or maybe just viewing them in a different light, informed by different life experiences & values & everything else that goes into a personal interpretation of a creative work

by trying to depict One Single Reading of a text as Correct, fandom loses all the nuance of interpretation & also just turns everyone into a bunch of rabid raccoons fighting over different ways to look through the same kaleidoscope

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Loki + tumblr [269/?]

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This is a good reminder for me right now. My heart cat died the day after Christmas and it was very traumatic, not just that he died (at seven months), but how (attacked my two of my dogs, quite unexpectedly, with me desperately trying to pull them away).

It’s been not even two weeks, but people expect me to be basically fine and functional… and while I often am managing to be fine and functional, I still have “wet patches” where I’m just really, really not. And that’s okay. That’s normal.

You don't have to force yourself to bounce back so quickly. I read something recently that said "when you come in from a rainstorm, you don't expect yourself to be dry and warm right away", and it really resonated with me. It's okay to take time to dry off and warm up. Take the time you need to process what happened to you.

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lord take all of my pain and sufferig and give it to elon musk

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I grew up going salmon fishing with my grandfather on Lake Superior in the summers. You do not fuck around on Superior. That water is cold and the undertow is strong. Still one of my favorite places, though.

The Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River superimposed on a map of Europe

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Someone finally articulated the swirl that’s been going on in my brain since this happened.

Obviously the United Healthcare ceo was a piece of shit and health insurance is abominable but it’s also very ghoulish to do stuff like this with 67.4 k notes

Idk maybe we should as a whole step back and stop acting like judge jury and executioner.