#I used to be an FDR apologist

[devotedtoafrozenheart]

Wasted times. Chapter one.

Loki x female! reader.

Summary: With literally no-one looking his way, it was just too easy for Loki to grab onto the tesseract, and also you, so he was able to transport away from the collapsing Tony Stark and everyone else in the stupid Avengers tower. Doing this, having messed up a so-called 'sacred' timeline, Loki lands himself in the TVA, and as he seized your arm, taking you down with him, you also end up there. Stuck with the raving, handsome god of mischief. At first observation, you genuinely thought he was a sadist. But (time?) with him reveals something so much more. For one thing, he's awfully sad and poetic, and he's not as evil as he looks.......

A/N: My first ever actual post on tumblr. No followers but the good old cheesebot. But hey, if anyone wants to read this, well, feel free. If you enjoyed it, please like and reblog!! Even more amazingly, please give me a follow!

Warning: Loki and y/n have an emotional shouting match, frequent swearing, suggestions of depressing thoughts and a few graphic sentences.

For you, being the youngest Avenger in the team was hard.

There was still lots of college work to worry about, there was still bills to worry about, there was worry about controlling your three un-predictable powers, trying to convince your mother you weren’t going to die was a major stressor, and living in New York, within the presence of superheroes and supervillains, was a total nightmare on it’s own.

Long story short, it had been an exhausting day, and a very, very turbulent life.

To start a brief prologue of all the chaos, you had three supernatural powers.

The normal life of an average, artistic twenty-year old girl wasn’t so normal for you, because you were quote on quote, an enhanced being. You had the power to generate bright fire in your hands, the power to move things around with your mind, and the power to heal other people’s injuries with a single human touch.

No one knew how or why you had gotten these three powers, you didn’t even know yourself.

And if someone did secretly know, well, they certainly had kept that part quiet.

Life was just weird like that sometimes.

You understood, weirder stuff had happened to you anyway, living in New York city. With the superpower status and all those phony remarks about a hero initiative, you had in fact been dumped into a team of superheroes, encouraged to do some training, been put on a watchlist, etc, etc, etc, and now here you were, in an elevator with Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, and even that sadist Loki, the actual freaking god of mischief, from Asgard.

With S.H.I.E.LD having found out about your powers like they always seemed to do with ‘enhanced beings’, they figured the way to stop you from becoming one of those rabid, egotistical supervillains with a crack in their mental wellbeing, was to quickly introduce you to the team, into the Avengers, to the best people on the planet.

After all, the team was supposed to fill your head with delusions about ‘Being a good person’, and the common ‘Using your powers for good reason.’ Current fig, exhibit A; Battle of New York. The fight was finally finished, and now everyone was crammed into this too-tiny elevator, heading down from the highest possible level of Stark towers.

You were exhausted, drained, fatigued from the fight, you had used your three powers to fling falling rubble and debris off little kids, to burn up any chitauri monsters that scourged the streets, and heal anyone caught up in the madness, the most damaged person you had to heal, had sported a graphically broken leg, so graphic you could almost have seen the bone broken through their skin.

You were leaning against the elevator wall, donning a nasty cut on your forehead, but you were so sapped of energy, you couldn’t even heal that. Just a few meters away, stood Loki laufeyson, the evil, horrible creature, the one who had started this whole raving situation. You were very surprised to see Loki had long raven-coloured hair, and a thin, lanky frame, with a detached expression of playful, cheeky sadism.

He looked nothing like his brother Thor, muscular, blonde Thor. You had heard rumours Loki was actually adopted into the Asgardian family, the bad egg, the black sheep. In all respects, Loki was physically attractive, so much more handsome than you would have thought he would be.

Story goes, the battle had happened on a Sunday, you had been free from your college lessons, you had been available to help, to kick some chitauri ass. Now it was time to go home, everyone was slumped, and the tall, raven-haired Loki was presumably going to receive a HELL wrath from his father Odin, for his numerous Midgardian war crimes.

Thor put a comforting hand on your right shoulder, understanding just how exhausted you truly were, the older, way older brother who was protective and caring.

In some ways he was your favorite member of the team, kind and generous, not overly judgmental and vain, Tony was like that sometimes, and everyone knew Steve was a goody two-shoes, so Thor was kinda your favorite. You had joined the team when you were only eighteen, right out of high school, and now you were twenty.

Everyone you met thought you were still so young, young and vulnerable, that you had joined the team at such a young age, which was true. Tony had admitted, maybe that had been a mistake. Tony was your second favorite. But there was no point dropping off the team, you had also seen some truly horrific, grotesque things, there was no going back.

Like the battle today.

The sheer terror and cold evilness of Loki had been so shocking to watch, he had come so close to obliterating your home, New York, your city, where your family and friends lived, where so many dreams came true. With trying fight off his forces, your team had won, but you also had a bloody, painful wound, a pounding tiredness, and the screams of terror still ringing in your aching ears.

Reaching the bottom level, the elevator dinged and everyone filed out, Thor finally letting go off your shoulder. The two of you were close. He was so old in Asgardian terms, and you were so young in human.

You almost walked into Loki as he got out, long green cape and the intricate Asgardian outfit. Loki simply studied you for a second. He hadn’t seen much of you during the battle, you had been down in the streets, doing more civilian work than fighting, doing more civilized work than the Hulk, who had smashed Loki into the floor so hard he could still feel his brain rattling around in his skull.

Loki didn’t even know what your special talent was, if you had any. You had no Ironman suit, no enchanted strength, not even the trained combat of Natasha, so he didn’t even know why you were on the team, to him you looked like any normal Midgardian girl. After staring for a tad too long at your frightened face, he was forced to keep walking, and you breathed a sigh of relief, thankful he hadn’t graphically impaled your heart, like he had just done to Phil Coulson.

Poor Phil.

Phil had been a father figure.

Phil had loved you.

Thor and Tony marched on ahead, on a war path, but you hung back a little, not knowing what to do now. Being so young and all; no one was going to let you into official S.H.I.E.L.D business, stuff like cleaning up fallout, assessing damage, alerting who about this and this and what to do about this. You weren’t sure what to do, whether it was time for you to just go home.

Call it a day.

You watched Tony, a silver briefcase in hand, being approached by some official looking government guys, probably some senior S.H.I.E.LD citizens. Inwardly, quietly, you were thinking about your mom. She hadn’t wanted you to join the Avengers. She had sprouted warnings about the danger. Sorry, mom. But you had survived so far. and your college friends, surely they would have seeked shelter and rode out the ferocious battle, you would all have to talk about it during a sleepover.

You weren’t really paying attention to Tony until he collapsed, collapsed like he was having a heart attack. You watched in sudden shock, Tony had fallen to the ground, grasping at his arc-reactor heart, gaping like a fish out of water. People were immediately surrounding him, trying to help, and you couldn’t do much, so you simply stared, not Tony, not right after Phil Coulson.

You then frowned, watching as the briefcase he had been holding went flying across the floor, almost like it had moved by itself. Weird. The briefcase. It seemed to have moved. On it’s own accord. It had skid quite a distance on the floor. Tony was still struggling, with people still panicking, but you could only puzzle at the briefcase, wringing your hands, what the heck was going on?

You were about to impulsively leap forward and pick it up, when the Hulk burst through the nearest door, crying out with his angered dullness ‘NO! STAIRS!’. This knocked the briefcase back your way, dangerously close to the demon Loki, the evil one, the monster. You were going to extend your hand out, with your telekinesis, but Loki picked the Thing up, picked up the glowing blue cube.

The tesseract.

That was what had been inside.

You simply stared at Loki, and the look on your face must have been so toxic and venomous, something so accusing and angry in your eyes, because he then roughly gripped onto your left arm, almost twisting the limb out of your shoulder pocket. You felt your consciousness being yanked out of your skull, felt yourself losing sense, losing mind.

For a few minutes, you didn’t feel anything at all.

You couldn’t tell if you were dead, because in those minutes you didn’t have an active conscious state to process that actual idea.

But slowly, slowly, like you had just awoken from the shortest sleep of your life, you felt something. A sensation. Someone kicking you sharply. A pain. In your side. You slowly opened your eyes, un-aware, un-understanding, wondering now if you had just been killed, killed so quick you hadn’t even registered it.

When your eyes opened fully, you took in the sight of Loki Laufeyson standing over you, long black hair draping around the thin, angular shape of his face. You couldn’t even tell if this was real. It didn’t really seem like it. You groggily made to sit up, and then it all came back to you, in a sudden flash. Getting out of the elevator. Marching forward. The government guys. Tony struggling. The briefcase flying. Loki taking the tesseract. Loki seizing your left arm.

Death.

The sadist.

Oh, God.

He was going to kill you. He was. You were dead meat.

You scrambled back a bit, getting up, trying to get away from the murdering psycho.

“You. Mortal girl. I’ve taken you as a hostage. You’re never getting back to The Avengers. You’re with me now. You’ll never see them again.” He had a surprisingly nice voice, not too deep or too guttural. You stared pure poison at Loki, and then looked around, realizing you were in a dusty, plain desert somewhere.

Like a Sahara.

This was NOT New York.

“What? What just happened? It just felt like I died. I’m woozy.”

A few feet away, the tesseract was nestled in the sand, still faintly glowing. You doubled over and then almost vomited from the exhaustion, you felt so banged-up and nauseous, it was a miracle you were still alive, you could have collapsed on a hospital bed. You couldn’t even stand, really. Your resorted to sitting down in the sand, and then blinked, the giant cut in your forehead was bleeding again, the red blood was dripping straight down into your eyes.

“You took me as a hostage? Why? You lost, man. Seriously. What was the point?”

Loki paused, and then frowned to himself. “Silly questions. Aren’t you scared of me?” You groaned out loud, the pain in your forehead’s cut was getting worse, blinding your nerves. You placed your hand to the wound, focusing on your healing power. The pain slowly ebbed, and the bloody flesh started to sew itself back up, the wound healing back to normal.

Loki was surprised, but you still had crimson blood tracks all over your nose and cheeks, like something out of a horror movie.

“How did you do that!? Are you not human?”

“I am. I just have supernatural powers. It’s not too weird compared to- I mean, have you seen The Hulk??” You then realized how pissed off you were, had to get back, had to tell your mom you were ok, before she decided to just kill your herself. It was hard to aim your irritation at a god, though.

“Hey! Take me back to New York. I just want to go home. Seriously. I’m just. I’m so tired, man. And I have classes on Tuesday.”

You held out your hand, focusing on the tesseract. It flew over to you with your telekinesis, but it didn’t transport you to your bedroom, it simply glowed brighter. It was surprisingly hot in your hands. “Two powers!? Not Midgardian at all. The cube only works when I use it.” “Screw you. Hey! I just remembered…… You killed Phil Coulson. He was so nice to me.”

You stood up with a forced, painful effort, your vision swimming with stars, your body severely not ok. You took a deep breath, and the stars faded, but you still felt so rotten. You folded your arms at Loki, you wanted to kick him and call him a disgrace, but then he would probably slaughter you right where you trembled

You were scared of him. Of course you were.

You had to control your voice and everything, but right here in the sandy desert he seemed less dangerous, and you were sure he had lost his weapons, his daggers. “I am scared of you. Duh. Why wouldn’t I be? But I’m too tired to do anything about it. And you must feel pretty tired, too. Look, are you going to kill me or not? I’m hungry. Just kill me already if you’re going to.. Where even are we?”

He was silent for a second, a little bit of amusement coming to his facial features, not all the visible rage and terror. “You have powers. That’s why you’re on the team. You’re not entirely useless.” You wiped at your clothes, at your shredded jeans and your dirty Sam Raimi The Evil Dead t-shirt, wiping the sand off those filthy clothes you had fought in. You didn’t have a proper Avenger uniform.

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N. Just let me go back. This is getting stupid.”

“Watch how you speak to me, girl.”

Frustrated now, you held out your palm, and a ball of flame erupted in the crease of your fingers. An orange, ferocious, roaring flame. Your most destructive power. Lethal. Loki actually took a step back, and you grinned, to everyone else it was a roaring fire, for you it only felt like a warm tickle. “You sick, disturbed creep. Trying to destroy New York. I saw little kids get hurt. People lying dead. Stay back or I will burn you. How am I ever going to be the same after this experience?”

Loki was silent for a second, maybe the briefest sense of regret softening his stance.

You could understand, if he had done everything like that, because something was so fundamentally awful in his life, you would understand that, his motives, but still. The things you had seen….

Loki, for a second, looked a little sad.

“I wasn’t trying to destroy your city, miss. I’m not a sick creep. I’m not a savage.” “Oh?” “I was trying to rule it. There’s a difference. I meant to rule your people. I didn’t want people getting killed. How would I rule everyone if everyone there died?” “Then why did it have to be so violent?”

He had no answer to that.

Loki suddenly turned, and you turned, noticing an orange, transparent door appearing out of literally no-where, in the sand.

People started to stream out of it, a woman dressed in something like a military outfit, but more futuristic, more sharp-edged. “Appears to be a standard sequence violation. Branch growing at a stable rate. Variants identified.” “I beg your pardon?” Letting the flame in your hand die, you shrunk back a little, there were four guys, like S.H.I.E.L.D soldiers but more hi-tech, un-like anything you had ever seen before, and it was obvious they were not here to be friendly.

This was getting crazy. All you wanted to do was go home. Have an ice-cream.

“On behalf of the Time Variance Authority, the two of you are under arrest. Hands up. You’re coming with, variants.”

You instantly put your hands up, even though you didn’t understand who these people were, or what the heck they wanted.

Loki cut you a look, a snarky, bitter look. Even with that, you still noticed how handsome he was. Much more your type than Thor, Thor or Steve.

“Put your hands down, girl. No one makes demands of us.” “What?! Are you crazy!? I’m doing what they want!” The female solider nodded at you, with something that looked a bit like pity. Pity for your age, probably. Everyone was always like, ‘Fighting for the world when you’re only 20!?’

“You shouldn’t have been dragged into this, child. Now you’re going down.” Loki barked out a harsh laugh. “I’m sorry, what is ‘This’? Who even are you people?”

“You’re under arrest variat. The girl understands. Get it through your head.. Last chance.”

You continued to hold your hands up, watching the wind blow through Loki’s long black hair. If there was to be a fight, there was no way Loki could win against these people. You were going to go with them, there was no other choice. Even though they looked emotionless. No pity. Just brutal establishment. You were so pissed.

If Loki hadn’t grabbed onto your arm, you wouldn’t even be in this stupid mess.

Loki placed his hands on his hips, blowing out one long exaggerated sigh. “It’s been a long day. And I think I’ve had my fair share of idiots in armoured suits telling me what to do. So actually, this is your last chance… Now get out of my way!” The solider lady struck out a baton or something, and hit Loki straight in the face, no mercy.

You watched in fascination as Loki seemed to slow down, in time, like a freeze flame, just pausing in mid-air, so strange. You noticed something on her shoulder: ‘B-15.’ Her name was a numbered letter. B-15 smiled at you, cruel smugness written on her lips. “Are you going to do that to me!!??” You questioned, holding your hands even higher.

“No, honey. You’re sensible. I just have to put this thing around your neck.” She had a neck bracelet, a tracking signal, which wrapped itself around Loki’s neck. He looked absolutely foolish. In any other situation, you would have laughed. “Um, hey, look, please, I’m not a part of this. He grabbed me on purpose. I didn’t want to be transported here. I didn’t ask for this. I just want to go home. I need to see my mom.”

For a second, B-15 looked genuinely sorry for you. She was dark-skinned, with a rounder form and a short haircut. “Sorry, honey. But you have to come with us. We deal with time, and you two just messed up the timeline. We can explain more soon. Nothing bad will happen, if you just do what I ask.” She tugged on your shoulder, and you let her put the bracelet around your neck, too weary to fight.

Loki had taken a hit to the ground, his long, lanky frame splayed out on the sand. Not the super intimating villain he was before. Still poisoned. But tired, just like you. The other time cops forced him up, and you smiled a little bit, they were out for his BLOOD. “Karma, Loki. Have some instant karma.”

“Midgardian, that is not funny. I did nothing to deserve this.” The fools forced Loki through the door. You blinked at B-15, and after Loki’s lead, she forced you through the orange door too, firmly holding onto your shoulder. When you emerged out of it, you were in an entirely different place. A strange, sterile, artificial, orange-coloured reception area, unlike any other reception area you had ever seen before.

You were standing right next to Loki, and he gazed down at you with his tall height, you gazed up, noticing just how striking the color of his eyes were. Again, he stared at you for a tad too long. He probably thought you were beautiful or some phony thing. You had been given that compliment a lot of times in the past.

Not like it really mattered now, though.

“Why did you have to seize me? We’re in this mess together now.”

He blinked.

Shuddered.

And then he tried to bolt.

He ran for it, but B-15 used a device in her hand to wind back time, so Loki was forced right back into position, right next to you. You laughed, Loki wasn’t going to get out of this situation anytime soon. You weren’t, either. But they were treating Loki like crap. The soldiers marched Loki up to the receptionist, working at an orange desk.

He tried to bolt and bolt and bolt, but every time he did, she just kept rewinding the device.

It was a hopeless, doomed effort.

She placed the tesseract down, and there was confusion on the worker’s face. “Log this as evidence.” “Can you at least tell me what it is??” “It’s the tesseract!” “Sounds dumb!” You and Loki were marched over to a set of doors, Loki in all his glorious frustration, had seen enough. “I’m dangerous. You’re a fool. Look, you cross me, the God of mischief, and there are deadly consequences.”

“Hmm… We’ll see.”

B-15 pushed Loki into the door, whatever it was, and it closed, trapping him inside. You looked around the orange area in sheer horror, holding up your hands so high into the air. B-15 was nicer with you, as you tried to process just what the actual fuck was going on. So, they were time police. You and Loki had done something to fuck up time. Him stealing the tesseract? What would happen now?

They couldn’t just alter time or anything to re-put the tesseract into Tony’s briefcase.

Would they, let you do time travel?

And most importantly, could you get finally something to eat?

“Um, so I guess the timeline didn’t like Loki taking the tesseract.” B-15 nodded, relived you weren’t raging and fighting. “Yes. He was just supposed to get shoved into a cell on Asgard. Mistakes like that cause a butterfly effect on the scared timeline.” “And what was I supposed to do?” She didn’t answer, either because she didn’t know, or she didn’t want you to know.

“Are you guys going to delete us from existence now?”

“Loki? Yes. It would a pleasure to prune him. You, not so much. I’ll try help your case. You’re the only sane variant I’ve met with some sense. You’re, it doesn’t seem right that you deserve this.” The doors opened, and you knew you were supposed to go inside. “Um, what’s this?” “Just some standard time testing.”

“What?”

She waved goodbye.

You realized you were now in a little room with a robot, and even worse, this robot had a smiling face. It held out one arm, and seemed to aim something at you that de-materialized your filthy, bloodied clothing, you were appalled, seeing yourself stark naked. You then dropped through the floor, straight through the floor, and landed in-front of an overweight man at a desk, with a cat.

You realized you were in new clothes now, a prison jumpsuit, brown, ugly, hideous, but clean and not caked with blood and grime. There was a stack of papers on the desk. “Please sign to verify this is everything you have ever said.” The stack wasn’t too tall. That made you feel a little sad. When it came to it, you liked being more reserved and silent.

You frowned, but picked up the pen, signing a flowery ‘Y/N Y/L/N’ on the top paper.

The floor suddenly dropped again, and you found yourself in-front of an airport security scanner machine, with a dwarfed man wauting for you, holding a clipboard. The situation as weird. It almost seemed like a fever dream. Time cops existed. Time travel existed. There was a proper flow of time for all events in your crazy universe.

You had fucked it up.

And now, you were in time jail.

“Please to your knowledge confirm that you are not a robot, that you are a living sentient being who posses what many different cultures and beliefs would consider a living soul.” “Um, yes, I’m a human. I have feelings. I have a soul.” “Please move along, miss.” You paused in the scanner, and it flashed brightly, presumably scanning your soul.

The thought was enough to make you feel violated.

It was just too strange.

You wondered how you would explain any of this to your college friends. They felt like a world away already. On a different planet. The man recovered a flash card from the scanner, a polaroid photo, a thingy, a thing you couldn’t really describe, but instead of a picture, moving colours purple and blue. “What’s that!?” “Your temporal aura.”

“A what?”

You were almost certain Loki had asked the same question to the man minutes before. But this time, he answered for you. “It’s what they use to detect if you have alternate versions of yourself living in the sacred timeline. The colour’s usually represent what your soul is like. As a person. Your soul is, purple and blue.”

“What do you mean, alternate versions? More than one version of me?”

“Yes. Different realties, miss. I can’t explain much. But the other versions of you are very nice. So I’ve been told before by my colleagues. Nice variants. Only one evil one. That usually doesn’t happen a lot.” “The guy before? Loki? The man?” “Bad variants. Very bad.” You were silent for a second, not knowing what to say.

You had a sudden hysterical, obsessive shower thought. “Have you ever had time variants of U.S presidents? They do stuff that alters time. You know. Leaders of the free world. Wait. Do you know what the means?” “Well, yes. We had quite a lot of JFK. And FDR.”. “JFK if he didn’t get assassinated!? FDR if he didn’t get polio???”

“I can’t explain anymore miss, please move along.”

The floor dropped once more.

This final room had nothing, so the doors immediately opened. You stepped out, and there was Loki. Right in front of you. Tall, handsome, lanky Loki.

It was an area with lines arranged to pass through airport security, but it was completely empty except for a younger kid, basically a teenager, and a few soldiers, and some accountant guys working at the back. You approached Loki, it looked like he was waiting for you. In all honesty, now you wanted to cry.

You were tired. Sad. Alone. Far from home.

Loki stared at you, the murderous, insane, raving, psychopathic poisoned, revengeful sicko who had just tried to take over New York. “Y/N. that’s your name, right?” “FUCK you for dragging me into this mess, Loki. I have the right to be so pissed off right now. None of this was supposed to happen.” But that was all the anger you had left in your system. Your shoulders slumped, you couldn’t feel angry anymore. Just sad.

“How old are you? You look awfully young.”

“I’m twenty.”

“They’re about to kill a child.”

“Haha. Very funny.” You looked around, thinking about what the guy had just told you. It was a miraculous thought. Theses time cops made dibs on anyone who messed up. Anyone. And there had been forty-four presidents so far. “They had US presidents in this place. They had FDR in here! Wow. I wonder what he did to mess up. Could have crashed the whole country. Hoh! They had a version of him who was republican.. No. FDR gone way wrong. Gone to the Axis powers. Holy shi.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“I wonder if they ever had Woodrow Wilson. God. I fucking hate Woodrow Wilson. I hope they deleted all versions of him. He was a racist asshat. I’m going to teach you about US presidents. I know a lot.”

“I can’t believe those fools let you on the team.”

“What? The Avengers? They were my friends.” “You were just a child on the team. You were too young to be fighting for, whatever. You were just a baby. You were only twenty. Thor’s over 1000 years old, and Tony must be about forty.” “I’ll scare you even further. I joined when I was only eighteen.”

“How did Tony Stark think that was good a idea? What would your parents think if you had died? What would he say to them? Sorry your little girl got killed?”

You chortled.

“My dad doesn’t give two shits about me. And I comforted my mom a lot, so we worked through It together.” “Take your tickets.” You took a ticket from the barricade, and started through the processing lines, Loki right behind you. You were downtrodden now, he could see every ounce of the snarky fight had left your body.

No more anger left for him.

“Are you ok? We’re in this thing together now, you have to toughen up.” You were so shocked by the question, you openly gaped at him. “Are you serious? Why would I be ok right now? They expected me to burn some Chitauri with my fire, I had to heal people with the most horrible injuries, I had to move the mess of buildings around with my telekinesis. Phil’s dead. My replacement dad. His blood splattered. I got kidnapped by you for no reason. Forced into this jumpsuit. And now they might delete us from existence. If they had the power to take US presidents away, where you do you think that leaves us? How is any of this what you would consider ok?”

The room was so un-nerving, with the lights hanging from the ceiling like peering eyes, silence except for you and Loki talking, nothing else. And there was no else but that one kid. Not a lot of people went through this. No one to help. No family. Friends. No Thor to give you advice. Loki gave you a look of amused pity, and you scoffed silently, for a second you had this brutally twisted hope that they just deleted him already, because he was a plain horror to be around.

“Y/N, you’re falling apart. It is hilarious to watch.”

You simply ignored him, walking through the lines. With your silence he was left to his own thoughts, and he must have been feeling pretty disturbed like you, and perhaps seven more, because he suddenly cried out ‘This is a mistake! We shouldn’t be here!’. You knew he excepted you to retort with something sarcastic, but you didn’t have it in you anymore.

You were just a sad creature trapped in a sad life.

“Y/N, say something.”

The way he said this.

You snapped.

You stared at a monster and the only thing he stared back at you with was pity.

“Fuck you, Loki. I said something. And it’s fuck you. Fuck. You. I thought you were a sadist. A psychopath. You could have butchered me. You killed people for no reason. Why? Why? I’m not letting you help me with this until you apologise, or show some sympathy, or tell me why. You murdered Phil Coulson. They said you killed eighty people in two days. What do you want? What do you want me to say? What do I say to a murderer and terrorist? What do I have to do for you? What would make you happy? You sad, sick disaster. You tried to throw Tony off the tower. If he hadn’t had the suit on, he would smashed into pieces. You would have done the same to me if I had been in your way. Like, I just don’t understand. So here it is good sir, delivered to you on a shiny silver platter: For once in your cursed, monstrous life, do a good thing and leave me the EVER LOVING ABSOULTE FUCK alone.”

A brief silence.

Loki Laufeyson would not be spoken to like this.

1000 years worth of rage and hurt.

Anger went gruesomely feral across his handsome facial features.

“You’re pathetic, Y/N. You're fucking pathetic. Tony forced you into the team so young and now you’ve lost all your strength. You’re just a child. You have no idea who you’re messing with. I’m a God. A God. You’re nothing. You’re a weak mortal who can’t even begin to comprehend what I was trying to achieve. I’ve seen worlds you will never know about. You’re right. I could have killed you. I could have snapped your neck into half. But I didn’t. I didn't because i thought you were beautiful. No one has ever seemed as beautiful to me. But you’ve done nothing but show me disrespect for it. You have to recognize your superiors. You're trash. You’re dirt compared to me. dirt. A human number. A nothing. Just another person that could have died if you didn't have your powers. There is a reason why I had to invade New York, I had to because of the malevolent titan, but if you keep treating me like this, I WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER TELL YOU WHY. ARE YOU ON MY SIDE OR NOT? OR NOT?! JUST LEAVE ME HERE TO THE SAVAGE THOUGHTS OF GIVING UP! YOU'RE THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS EVER AGREED TO SPEAK WITH ME FOR AT LEAST ONE MINUTE WITHOUT OVERWHEMLING DISGUST IN YOUR EYES!”

You couldn’t help it. A tear escaped your eye, then two, then three.

All you had wanted to do was your best, and he was a God, yelling at you, just some in-significant mortal girl. You were tired, hungry, scared, isolated, away from your friends, your head ringing with the battle that had just finished, you had stepped up and kicked some ass, but you had never asked for any of this, never asked for your powers.

Some of the graphic things you had seen…………..

Nick had given you Phil’s fanboy trading cards of Captain America.

They had been doused in his blood.

Doused.

Loki instantly saw the tears, and he softened, but only a little bit. You sat down on the ground, collapsed, wanting to curl yourself into a ball, just crying because you somehow these freaking times cop would never let you see your mom again, or your friends, of your family, or New York, or the stupid times you had to get up for college, or Tony ruffling your hair with a wink, or Natasha constantly asking if you had a boyfriend, or Steve sometimes taking you out to grab some dinner, or the silly, problematic way you used to have a picture of F.D.R on your wall, back when you had thought he was a good person, back before the Japanese interment camps and the racism against the Jewish people and all the other horrors, he could have the best, better than Abraham, but he went and did that.

You covered your head and your face, but continued to cry, embarrassed because the soldiers and the kid and Loki were all watching you.

You just sat.

Sat there and cried.

You could hear Loki walk over to you, and he tapped at your shoulder with his shoe, tap tap tap, you could feel him kicking you lightly in the arm.

“Y/N. Shush. Shush. Stop crying, girl. Ok. Ok. Ok. I shouldn’t have screamed at you like that. I'm- I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it. Y/N. Y/N. Don’t you think I’ve been through horrible things as well? Don’t you think I know just how bad my own life is? Don’t you think I’ve also seen terrible things? We’re both angry and scared and alone. We have to figure out how to get out of here. Together. I’ll get you out of here. We’ll get out of this place. But you have to trust me. I don’t need this sadness from you. We have to work together. Put the past behind us. We've been through horrors. No more horrors for each other.”

“They can just kill me. I don’t care anymore. I’m not the same now. I’m over this. I have nothing to live for in this place. I want to die.”

Something weird to Loki’s voice.

“No. NO. NO YOU DON’T. You don’t say things like that. You have powers. Act like it. Toughen up. Know your worth. Mortals don’t even have powers, but you do. We don’t think like that. We don’t give in to our feelings. If we feel like that, we shove it down deep. Don’t be ridiculous. Think like that again, and I will be even more mad than I am right now. It's too real. Now shush. Odin know I've cried before. Y/N. I'm sorry.”

To silence you and Loki’s raised emotional voices, a different voice, with a southern twang. You wanted to look who was it, but you didn’t, because then Loki would see your disgusting, blood-tracked, tear-tracked cheeks. You didn’t look, just listened. “Hey there, I’m miss minutes. I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably saying this is a mistake, is shouldn’t be here.”

Loki went silent for a bit, listening to the voice talking, which sounded slightly strange in a way, like it wasn’t actually a person.

You weren’t even listening properly, but the voice started on about the first multiverse war, the three time keepers, the sacred timeline, varying off the path the time keepers made for you, which meant becoming a variant, a variant now with no place on the timeline, a variant with time crimes that had to await a trial.

You weren’t really listening.

You still had the picture of FDR.

It was from when you had to do some research about him for a paper. You had found out he was a good person. Great, even. A hero. Born in New York. Just like you. Beating all the demons and the polio and The Great Depression and then World War Two, and the strain of those things and the high blood pressure and people shitting on him and God knows what else. Only this time without any powers. Who better to look up to? You had put him on the wall. Next to all the photos of your friends and memories and the sunset and art and all that crazy crap.

But then you had found about all the horrific stuff.

It made him less of a great person in your mind, but you could still be like him, right? A good person, only without all the horrific mistakes and screw ups, this time, even better. But you weren’t a great person. You were just a mistake. Your whole entire life was a mistake. And now, it was getting deleted. Like a typo on a document.

I've failed you. I haven't done enough. I've been weak and I haven't been there for people when they needed me most. Because of what? My own sadness? My own guilt? About what? Yes, i confess to all of that, my hero. But enough. Please don't look any further. I confess. But enough. No more.

Loki was saying something.

You closed your eyes.

You felt something, him placing his hands on your shivering arms. He clasped onto your wrists tightly, his hands long and thin. “Y/N.” You said nothing to this. “Y/N, look at me.” You opened your eyes slowly, and looked at the evil one. “I’m genuinely sorry. And I’ve never been sorry before. Never. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that, ok? Say it. Say Loki feels actually sorry. because it’s true. Say it. it's true to the Gods.”

“Loki, you feel actually sorry.” You whispered, voice barley even there.

“I think we’re both damaged and upset and broken. And we shouldn’t take that out on each other. We need to work together. You’re right. I’m a villain. I’m a nightmare person and I admit it. I was tortured, and possessed, and had my mind twisted by a monster so badly, it got splinted into fragments. I would explain more about this, but it would put your safety in jeopardy. Just know that we’re working together now, ok? Ok? Ok? Ok?”

“Ok. Ok.”

“And I will NEVER hurt you now. I won’t kill you and I won’t even try to yell at you. And knowing you now, I won’t even try to backstab you. I won’t.” “I don’t believe that.” “I know. I have to earn your trust first. You didn’t deserve any of this. And I am so fucking sorry. You have no idea. I had no idea you were in so much pain. I had no idea about your struggle.”

You took a deep, shaky breath.

An apology was always good. And this one sounded genuine.

“I’m sorry, too. You probably have a messed up reason why you did everything, some reason, some backstory. I can never know what someone else is going through, Loki. I have no idea what you’ve been through. So sorry. I am so, so sorry.” “Ok. Ok. truce. Truce between us? We’re in a new place. A new beginning. I don’t think this place is even on earth.”

“Ok. Truce. Truce.”

“I’ll probably have times when I get mad and beyond upset at you. And I’ll shout. And you’ll shout back. But we’re on this truce now. i'm so sorry for what I just said. I am. “Ok. Truce.” “Truce. But remember, I’m still a God, and you’re just a mortal. But truce. Truce.” You smiled a little. He smiled back, but it was so sad, and for a second you could swear there was tears in those bright Asgardian eyes.

You stood up with an effort, and his tall frame leaned over you, tall and lean and lanky.

You looked up at the TV screen, and for a moment swore that an orange clock was staring right at you with wide, enormous eyes. It had to have just been a recorded video. A video of that clock pretending to talk. But it was staring at you, right at you, with a human like expression of shock. You stared back, not knowing what to say. A hallucination. It had to be a hallucination. Then it was gone. “Ok. You have to tell me, what’s an FDR?” You were about to explain, when a voice cut through the silence.

“What are you looking at me like that for, bucket head? Why you pointing that thing at me?” The kid at the front of the line was getting mad, raising his voice. The time cop was demanding for his ticket, but the boy hadn’t taken one. The cop was fed up, because he pulled out a baton, and when it met the boy’s shoulder, he was disengrated into nothing, with a horrible, gruesome, metallic scream.

A scream that seemed to go on forever.

You and Loki stared at each other in fright, the sound was just God-awful. “Got your ticket, Y/N?” “Got my ticket. Got your ticket, Loki?” “Got it. Ok. Let’s go. No rages. No emotion. We'll end up running this place. Again, I'm sorry. We're in this together.” “Ok. Together. I'm sorry too. Truce. As one. No more fighting.”

And the two of you went into the unknown.

[hawtdawgblog]

Stop it with the smears people!

Im so fucking pissed at the people that are bullying Tulsi cause she is a quote unquote "homophobic" or "islamophobic" and even "pro life" and "Assad apologist"

As a Bisexual Native American (or Indigenous) that leans towards males, Im gonna tell you why I support Tulsi Gabbard for President in 2020

Both of us are anti war and she just wants peace amd better relations with other countries for the US. Weve wasted billions and billions of dollars in foreign wars that we cannot win.

She also supports racial justice and condemns racism and bigotry according to her campaign website:

"For a nation forged by immigrants, wrestling with the legacy of slavery and racial injustice, we continue to aspire to live up to the founding ideals of America — of freedom, equality, and justice for all. Hawai‘i stands as a shining example of how to heal our nation and stand united through the power of aloha. Aloha means ‘I come to you with an open heart, with love, respect, and compassion, and a recognition that we are all brothers and sisters — connected to each other and our planet." - Tulsi

And as far as I know, she is the only one to recognize the horrific acts the US did to Native Americans. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard-2020-presidential-race.html <She stated that Indigenous Cultures must be respected during her tour of Standing Rock. We have been mistreated along with broken treaty promises and broken reserves and she ACKNOWLEDGES it. Who knows? Perhaps she might support reparations to African Americans and Native people.

According to Congress.gov she made pro-marijuana bills as well such as the one to end federal marijuana prohibition or the Hemp for Victory Act in last month of July.

Congresswomen Gabbard's enviroment policy also what makes me want to support her. Like many others, she insists on fighting climate change https://youtu.be/Nn7i7A5hWy8 Also, during her tenure at congress she has introduced the bill known as the OFF Act in Washington https://www.tulsigabbard.org/tulsi-gabbard-on-climate-change Not only does the proposed bill save the enviroment, it also wants to protect enviroment jobs and create them for others. AND as a side note she voted no on gutting the Clean Air Act. And look at her views on DAPL https://www.tulsigabbard.org/tulsi-gabbard-on-dapl The future president stands by the water protectors. Me and her both agree that the pipeline harms the water supply and the local reserves and many other Americans water supply is contaminated by DAPL. Cleaner water is part of her platform and I love it.

Finally, she wants to end the war on drugs by legalizing marijuana. According to Congress.gov she made pro-marijuana bills as well such as the one to end federal marijuana prohibition or the Hemp for Victory Act in last month of July. Both of us realized that the current marijuana laws are hypocritical https://youtu.be/9yfsoeSy_tU I agree with her on the fact that this war on drugs and the marijuana laws are failed and been causing other numerous problems.

Now you might be saying what Ive said at the very top and lemme tell you people, especially straight people: You CANNOT tell me who to vote for. Im sick of the people that keep telling the LGBTQ+ community that supports Tulsi that shes a "homophobe" and we shouldnt vote for her at all. Guess what? SHE👏HAS👏CHANGED👏HER👏VIEWS👏 Her latest voting record in Congress was 100% pro LGBTQ+ Arent people allowed to change from their misguided views and thought that the views that they supported harms others? And guess what? She apologized for her actions. Also, people like Obama and Hillary were not pro LGBTQ+ themselves before https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obama-should-repudiate-an_b_69244 But guessed what? THEY CHANGED. Yet know one seems to care! And before you guys tell me she is "pro Assad" think again. Visiting and trying to make peaceful diplomatic relations isnt pro anything! FDR once made a diplomatic visit to Stalin, does this mean that he is pro Stalin and communist? No. Also where the fuck did she say she is pro life? Id like to know that.

Now this blog is getting long so I will say this: If there was an election right now and there is no 3rd party candidate and its just between Tulsi and Trump, who will you choose?

In conclusion, if your gonna vote for someone else like the Greens if Tulsi is somehow nominated or just stay home read this>: Have fun for not only throwing your vote away, but for splitting the vote and giving Trump another 4 years! Try not to cry if that ever happens.

#TulsiGabbard2020

[hoedameron]

“I used to be an FDR apologist“ this person cannot be real naurrr....FDR???!!! DID WE TAKE THE SAME HISTORY CLASS???

[ao3feed-lokiangst]

Wasted Times

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/8M3gpmG

by devotedtoafrozenheart

With literally no-one looking his way, it was just too easy for Loki to grab onto the tesseract, and also you, so he was able to transport away from the collapsing Tony Stark and everyone else in the stupid Avengers tower. Doing this, having messed up a so-called 'sacred' timeline, Loki lands himself in the TVA, and as he seized your arm, taking you down with him, you also end up there. Stuck with the raving, handsome god of mischief. At first observation, you genuinely thought he was a sadist. But (time?) with him reveals something so much more. For one thing, he's awfully sad and poetic, and he's not as evil as he looks....... (Follows the Loki series but I'll re-write the trashy, un-developed aspects of the show that no one likes)

Words: 7320, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel, Loki (TV 2021), Thor (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M

Characters: Loki (Marvel), Mobius M. Mobius, Sylvie (Loki TV), Hunter B-15 (Marvel), Ravonna Lexus Renslayer, Thor (Marvel), Miss Minutes (Loki TV), President Loki (Loki TV)

Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader, Loki (Marvel) & Reader, Loki & Mobius M. Mobius

Additional Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, follows the loki series, but i'll rewrite the trash, Swearing, reader is female, She/her pronouns, reader is twenty, Reader was an Avenger, US presidents variants, they got captured by the TVA, Mostly FDR though, I used to be an FDR apologist, Loki's fevered mind in 2012, 2012 loki was feral, no beta we die like nat

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/8M3gpmG

[gibsongirlselections]

How John Dos Passos Left the Left

The reputations of the writers who transformed literature during the Jazz Age, the so-called “Lost Generation,” have undergone some interesting up and downs. Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis have largely disappeared from the canon. Dreiser’s sludge-like prose doomed him among readers over the last half century, while Lewis, who achieved fame in the ‘20s, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, has seen his reputation sag. None of his indictments of middle-class America have found an audience today. Good luck trying to get a class of college sophomores to read Main Street. His last real success, It Can’t Happen Here (1937), had a brief revival with the election of Donald Trump. But no one reads Babbitt or Elmer Gantry anymore.

Hemingway’s name remains popular, though it is doubtful whether any of his novels are read today, other than The Old Man and the Sea, which is popular, I understand, in seventh- and eighth-grade language arts courses (precisely where it belongs with its faux-biblical prose). During the virus, I picked up The Sun Also Rises, which I’d first read in college and thought a fresh and wonderful book. Now it seemed shallow. Even the dialogue, which I thought so smart, sounded old hat. Lady Brett came off as an adolescent’s dream of what sex could be like with an ever-willing woman. If Hemingway is read today, it’s not for his novels but his short stories, which, at their best in “Hills Like White Elephants” and “Big Two Hearted River,” remain sharp, hard-edged gems.

Scott Fitzgerald faired best of the ‘20s generation. The Great Gatsby, the most popular of his novels, may be The Great American Novel of the 20th century. It captures young readers of every generation.

But what of my personal favorite as a young man, John Dos Passos? Rereading him amid this terrible virus, I believe he holds up best.

During the 1930s, Dos Passos was as popular as any writer of serious fiction in America. He had made his breakthrough after World War I during which he served in the ambulance corps. Two of his novels, Three Solders (1921) and Manhattan Transfer (1925), “changed the whole tone of opinion about the war,” as H.L. Mencken put it. They reflected the attitude, also popular in England at the time, that the war was a worthless conflict imposed by heartless leaders that had wiped out a generation of young men. But unlike Hemingway, Fitzgerald did not romanticize Europe and flee to Paris. In his view, America was all about the rejection of Europe.

Like Lewis and Hemingway, Fitzgerald was disgusted by the materialism and money grubbing of the America of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. He supported various left-wing and radical causes and became particularly incensed over the treatment of Sacco and Vanzetti, the two anarchists accused of murdering a guard during a Braintree, Massachusetts, payroll robbery. His epitaph on the case summed up what it meant to radicals and revolutionaries of his generation: “All right we are two nations.”

Following Three Soldiers and Manhattan Transfer, Dos Passos moved deeper into radicalism. He denounced Franklin Roosevelt and voted for the Communist candidate, William Foster, in the 1932 presidential election. He dismissed the New Deal for trying to save a corrupt capitalist system. The depression pushed him further to the left. For a time in the 1930s, he was associated with the communist journal New Masses, though he never joined the Communist Party and wasn’t even much of a fellow traveler. In truth, Dos Passos was an idiosyncratic man of the left.

Out of his anger, Dos Passos produced his greatest and most original work, the trilogy U.S.A., which appeared between 1930 and 1936. U.S.A. is a big sprawling book of around 1,200 pages and his most original and influential work. Building on some of the anti-capitalist themes he first outlined in Manhattan Transfer, Dos Passos set out to paint a broad picture of America in turmoil. He used techniques borrowed from European modernists like James Joyce in a way no American author ever had before to create a new reality. He sprinkled his text with brief biographies of famous and not so famous people: Rudolph Valentino, Thorstein Veblen, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (a bête noire of his), and Henry Ford, among others. In the “Camera Eye” sections, he created news items from a pastiche of newspaper headlines and stories. The effect was to give the novel an immediacy and sense of dealing with the real world. The technique has been copied since, but no one has done it as well.

U.S.A. was a huge success and appeared just as Dos Passos’ career took a dramatic turn. In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Dos Passos, like many of his fellow leftist contemporaries, most notably Ernest Hemingway, was drawn into the conflict. He went to Spain to work on a documentary film, “Spanish Earth,” designed to promote the cause of the Republican forces. Disillusion soon set in. One of his friends, José Robles Pazos, was caught up in the fighting among the various leftist factions and murdered by the communist secret police.

Like his contemporary George Orwell, Spain inaugurated Dos Passos’s distrust of communism and its fellow travelers and apologists. His consequent drift to the right was rooted in one of the abiding themes of his career—a deep distrust of power, especially power in the hands of an elite. Fear of unregulated capitalism and fascism now gave way to a conviction that the greatest threat to democracy was communist power. World War II furthered these concerns, with Dos Passos increasingly troubled by the power exercised by FDR during the war.

Dos Passos continued writing fiction and in 1962 published Mid-Century, a follow-up to U.S.A., only now the villains were on the left—especially labor leaders like John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther. Mid-Century lacked the creativity of his trilogy. Instead of the “Camera Eye” and other unusual techniques that seemed fresh in the 1930s, Mid-Century featured long documentary sections interspersed among the text. The book was a success, but the critics accused him of turning his back on his past. Dwight Macdonald, a former admirer and firm man of the left, wrote that Dos Passos had become “a simple Republican, scared to death of Russia and Communism.”

The man who once had written for the New Masses now became a contributor to Bill Buckley’s National Review. He came to view the American experiment through different eyes, even writing a highly sympathetic history of the Founding Fathers. In 1964, Dos Passos supported Barry Goldwater’s campaign for president. That shocked many of his admirers but was a natural outcome of his drift to the right that had begun in Spain. Both men feared communism and unrestrained power. In the 1920s, that power was in the hands of big business; now it was found in big government and what President Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex.”

Maybe Dos Passos’ journey wasn’t that strange after all.

John P. Rossi is professor emeritus of History at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

The post How John Dos Passos Left the Left appeared first on The American Conservative.

[smokeybrand]

Out With The Old

It’s wild watching the mainstream media trying to mitigate Bernie’s momentum. So many misleading headlines to articles full of misinformation, spread around like an insidious, dumb-ass, cancer. It takes nothing to do a quick fact check but most people, older people, won’t take the time to maybe not take all that fake news to heart. It’s funny; Boomers call us lazy but won’t even take the handful of seconds to google something as long as that something fits their narrative. These are the same people that don’t know the difference between Communism, Socialism, and Democratic Socialism. To them, it’s all the same - Entitled laziness. Even though they benefited from all of the social programs installed by FDR and then changed the game up when they got into power. Even though they were able to retire with pensions secured by strong unions and purchase entire homes for the price of what cars cost now. They all think Billionaires earned their money somehow, like it’s even possible to accrue that level of wealth in a proper lifetime, without trading on the plight and rights of workers but want to attack someone like me who doesn’t buy into the stupid propaganda that they didn’t even believe in. I don’t want to rot away in a cubicle, living paycheck-to-paycheck, trying to keep up with an outdated “American dream.”

I want to keep pace with the rest of the developed world. I want to be able to have a healthy work/life balance where i don’t have to put in 60 hours just to pay f*cking rent. I want to be able to see a doctor without having to worry about my prescriptions bankrupting me. I want t be able to work toward a degree that is worth the paper it’s printed on and graduate without having two mortgages worth of student debt. I want to be proud of my country like i was before i found out that it’s a corrupt oligarch that grinds people into dust, only to replace those who have fallen by the wayside with new, just as brainwashed, sheeple. That’s the only way i can describe these older generations. They bought what morally bankrupt politicians have been selling. They scoff at socialized medical but then cram their faces with McDonalds and their heads with Fox news. They bark about their taxes going toward fulfilling a better education system for everyone but seem to think that 7/8 of our national budget ging toward imperialistic war efforts is okay because ‘Murrica and “Freedom.” Can’t let the terrorists win even though the US is basically the biggest terrorist corporation in the world. We used to be an industrial power.

America built sh*t, the infrastructure of the world. It lead in science and academia. There was a f*cking race to the moon and we won. That “dream” i spoke of before was an aspiration once, not a impossible fallacy. Being “American” was a source of pride, something to be envied. Now, it just means you live in a joke of a country where an orange tinted, dimwitted, proudly sexist, comically bigoted, Nazi-apologist criminal, presides over the most corrupt government since Nixon. We stopped producing ingenuity and progress, opting to export fear and war. Death is the business of the United States now, at home and abroad. But that’s okay if it’s in the name of protection and freedom. But it’s not. It never was. Bernie knows that. And us lazy, entitled, Millennials know that. You can decry and misinform and mislead all you want. Lie about the polls and alter facts to your heart’s content. Throw all of your billions at an opposing message to win over your aging constituency. Writhe to the best of your abilities all you want, fight until your fist bleed and you shout until your voice is hoarse. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact your time is speedily coming to an end. You're old system is in it’s death throes now and this coming election is the start of something new. It is inevitable.There are more of Us than You now.

We are coming for that throne now and there is nothing you can do to stop this momentum. And if not us, then the Zoomers. If not them, then the next generation after you all will label with some condescending and infatilizing moniker. It’s only a matter of time. You and your systems are obsolete now. We are the new. We are the innovation. We are the inevitable.

[undergroundeconomist]

(Anti-)Capitalism and Me

This post exists to give a snapshot of my beliefs about capitalism and anti-capitalism at the time I wrote it. Please avoid falling prey to the essentialist fallacy by making any assumptions about any of my other beliefs based on what you read here. If you are wondering what else I might believe, ask me.

First, some background. I became a staunch socialist and even flirted with the idea of Marxism when I was in high school, probably because some of my favorite teachers were socialists. From about 16, I had a close friend who was a staunch anarcho-capitalist. I really enjoyed arguing about politics with him, because he was always very respectful as he patiently explained his views to me. In college, I picked up some book about libertarianism (I don’t remember the name, but the first chapter was called “The Night Watchman State”) hoping to “learn about the enemy”, and instead of finding better arguments to use with my friend, I instead found myself convinced that maybe there was a better way than socialism. It didn’t hurt that, as I grew up, I became more aware of all the failures of government intervention that surrounded me, not least the schools I attended themselves.

After about a decade and a half of exploring various flavors of libertarianism, I finally came to a few realizations that pushed me away from many libertarians and libertarian beliefs. First, I realized that systemic racism is an actual thing, and that it is not entirely attributable to government intervention in markets. Second, I realized that the very notion of a free market is a myth. There are always non-market factors distorting prices, so it’s just a question of whether we’re just going to let the market produce blatantly unjust outcomes, or whether we’re going to engage in transparent, direct interventions to try to offset some of those unjust outcomes.

I oppose many aspects of the “capitalism” that anti-capitalists oppose. I am against so-called “surveillance capitalism”, because I do not believe the private details of people’s lives (I will not call it “data”) should be up for sale. Becoming a parent has made me realize the value of my attention, so I am against most forms of advertising, because I do not believe that person A should be able to pay person B for person C’s attention.

One aspect of capitalism that I can’t imagine ever opposing is money, at least in some form. One might say that I don’t oppose money because I have more of it than most people, but the same argument can be turned around on them: they only oppose it because they are jealous. I reject both sides of this argument. There are certainly bad effects of money. The problem is, I’ve seen enough attempts at producing better systems without money that I’m convinced that it’s simply not possible. Money has evolved pretty much everywhere there’s been trade among disparate groups of people.

There is one big component of capitalism that I don’t hear anti-capitalists talk about much, presumably because they want to get rid of money, so they consider them just ill effects of money rather than the causes of those ill effects: banking. In the presence of a privileged/regulated banking system, there can’t be anything even approximating a free market. The reason? Banks in such a system have access to virtually unlimited quantities of money, causing them to swamp any other market signals.

Back in the days of hard currency, governments and other power-seekers sought to control money by controlling mines, controlling the mints, controlling exchange rates between different currencies, and by controlling who could even own currency (for example FDR’s gold seizures in the United States). But these measures pale in comparison to the complete control over the money supply (and who gets it) enjoyed by central banks.

I don’t expect that we’ll be going back to hard currency. But what we can do is force currencies to compete against one another in the marketplace. At one point, merchants in large American cities had to manage exchange rates for 200 different privately-issued currencies without the benefit of computers or even electronics; they used big books with prints of each kind of bank note and that week’s discount rate for that note against some benchmark note. With modern electronic commerce, it would be trivial to handle even thousands of different currencies.

Even anti-capitalists who don’t oppose money per se tend to hate this idea, because the people who can opt out of a poorly managed currency were already better off to those who can’t, and having a bunch of people opt out accelerates the collapse of the poorly managed currency and potentially the government that has been poorly managing it.

In my view, any government where this is an issue is already insolvent. Allowing it to prolong the inevitable by forcing people to accept its currency will just increase the total damage its failure causes to everyone, especially those on the bottom rungs of society. If we want to help the people at the bottom, we should not leave it to the crappy government whose own people don’t want to use its currency. Instead, we should be making sure even those at the bottom have access to sound money. I don’t know the best way to do that, but I’m sure if all the anti-capitalists (many anti-capitalists would call this faction “tankies”, so certainly “not all anti-capitalists”) wasting their time being apologists for Maduro instead put their energy into instead creating opportunities for those harmed by Maduro and Chávez’s bad policies, we could come up with something.

I wanted to write something about property here, too, but I think that’s worth a separate post.

[furynewsnetwork]

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By 1776

During an interview with Bill O’Reilly, President Trump was asked if he respected Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia. After answering in the affirmative, O’Reilly pushed back, telling Trump, “But he’s a killer.” Instead of walking back his statement or seeking to clarify, Trump went even further and drew a parallel between the US and Russia, saying, “There are lots of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”

By responding this way, Trump violated one the central dogmas of US national security orthodoxy, causing the various organs of the national security complex – career politicians, military and intelligence officials (active and retired), corporate media outlets – to quiver with rage and issue all manner of self-righteous, cognitively dissonant condemnations.

Not only did Trump undermine the conventional wisdom surrounding the US government’s special status as a noble institution whose worldwide presence stabilizes and civilizes all who come into contact with it, he did it in a way that put it on a similar footing with the deep state’s favorite boogeyman, Russia.

Yet there is a great deal of truth to Trump’s statement. The US government is indeed a killer, and quite the prolific one at that. One notable example, being that it is estimated (very conservatively) that the Iraq war caused the deaths of at least 165,000 Iraqi civilians. Years before the US invaded Iraq, it imposed deadly sanctions on the country’s economy, causing, by some estimates, the death of 500,000 Iraqi children. When asked if such a high price was worth it, then Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, replied, with little visible emotion and no hesitation, that, yes, it was indeed worth the price. Going back even further, to the horrific war in Vietnam, it is estimated that between 1.5 million and 3.8 million people were killed. And when one considers the dubious, if not outright fictional, pretexts upon which both those wars were waged, the body counts become even more grisly.

But none of these facts matter to the apologists for US empire. For them, such killing, while always and avowedly regrettable, is a necessary price to pay for their self-righteous and messianic crusading. The fact that millions of innocent people have died is outweighed by their ostensibly noble intent. Somehow, I doubt the victims of US state violence are comforted by that.

The media, who are supposed to challenge such mendacious propaganda narratives, have, predictably, taken to defending and reinforcing them with the vigor of a state Mandarin. Amply documented by real journalists like Glenn Greenwald, their intent is and always has been to uncritically disseminate government propaganda in what can only be described as an incestuous relationship where favorable coverage is given in exchange for access and other favors. Hence the self-righteous, wide-eyed hysterics emanating from various corporate media outlets.

But Putin’s motives are bad, we’re told. Apparently, this makes all the difference to some. And while one can concede that intent is an important element of a crime, it does not change the underlying criminality of killing innocent people. Committing such acts under the color or pretense of “law” does nothing to change that either. At best, the US government’s mass slaughter of innocent civilians is a case of negligent homicide writ large. At worst, it’s a case of a blood-thirsty empire waging wars of aggression and leaving a mountain of corpses in its wake.

Another flimsy, self-serving rationalization offered up to us by the various establishment figures is Putin’s persecution of internal dissent. He jails people for having bad opinions and he even has some of his opponents and critics killed. This is somehow worse than killing millions of innocent people in foreign countries? And even if we accept the implied premise, that oppressing and killing your own people is worse than killing foreigners, the US government still comes out looking pretty terrible. Whether it was FDR’s mass internment of Japanese-Americans or Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs”, which was designed, in part, to oppress blacks and peace activists, the US government has been engaging in various forms of domestic oppression for decades. A thorough examination of the US government’s record of domestic oppression and authoritarianism could go on for hundreds and hundreds of pages.

It is therefore exceedingly obvious when one bothers the think about Trump’s statement, instead of reacting emotionally and reflexively, that he is 100% right when he points out the US government’s record of killing. It is enormous and probably unparalleled in recent history. Certainly, Russia’s measly annexation of and incursion into Ukraine cannot match the US government’s body count in Iraq, nor can the spillover effects from Ukraine compare to the hell that was unleashed on the world in the form of ISIS.

Yet many Americans will find these truths hard to swallow. After all, they have been subject to decades of relentless conditioning and propagandizing which encourages them to identify with the state and to subscribe to feelings of exceptionalism which implicitly denigrate and dehumanize other countries. For these Americans, an attack on the state is an attack on them personally. And any attempt to understand other countries and cultures, particularly ones who are deemed adversaries or enemies, is perceived as disloyalty and treachery. Undoubtedly, there will be no shortage of people accusing this writer of “hating America” or shilling for Putin. But such accusations are based on emotions, not facts. Nothing I just said can or will be refuted by anyone because it’s all true, just like Trump’s statement will never be adequately rebutted by his critics. That such a truth is decidedly inconvenient to the powers that be, who are obsessed with endless warfare and domestic authoritarianism, is certainly no concern of mine.

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