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ratmonky · 3 years

Text

Noxious Silence

Word Count: 5.5K

Warnings: non-con, hypnotism, somnophilia, alcohol, obsession

AO3 Link

The two of you met when you started as a first-year along with Maki, Panda, and Yuuta.

You instantly became friends with each and every one of them but Inumaki remained as a stranger. Although you liked him more than a friend should and wanted to be close to him, he acted cold towards you for a reason you never managed to understand until one day when you all became seniors.

A simple rule of the dorms, two of the seniors buy the necessities for everyone once they all run out.

It was a rule older than you. This wouldn’t be the first time you had lost at rock paper scissors against Maki and were tasked with the duty but it was the first time you were paired up with Inumaki.

Unlike any other times you went out to buy the necessities, your trip to the large store with Inumaki went uneventful.

After the two of you bought everything everyone needed and returned to the dorms, he offered help to you carry your stuff to your room.

Nice gesture, kind and quite unexpected since he usually kept his distance when it came to you.

Nonetheless, it made you blush because your crush had stepped inside your room. Perhaps, you could tell Maki about it after dinner, albeit how much she hated listening to you talk about Inumaki, she kind of enjoyed seeing the way your eyes sparkled as you talked about him.

Finally done putting away the stuff you had bought, you turned around to find Inumaki crouched in front of your laundry basket, with one hand he was holding one of your panties up to his face, his shoulders moved as he inhaled your scent deeply.

Your cheeks flushed and mouth gaped in shock, “Hey-”

“Take off your clothes.”

Limbs turned into stone first. Then your body moved on its own against your will.

He locked your door.

“Get on your knees.”

No matter how confused and scared you felt, you were at his mercy. Even when he unbuckled his belt, you hoped he would abruptly stop and laugh. This had to be a joke, right? But you knew Inumaki wouldn’t go this far for a joke and pull his cock out in front of you.

“Suck it.”

~~~

Days after that day until graduation was hell. If others noticed your change of mood or behavior, they thought of it as the stress of having to get your license to become a professional sorcerer.

Why was he doing this?

Was he doing it to anyone else?

No, you would have noticed if he was. You knew he wasn’t. You hoped he wasn’t.

You couldn’t tell others about anything, even if you wanted to.

“Don’t tell anyone about things we do in your room.”

Thankfully, you never saw him again after graduation and you drowned yourself in work to forget about everything.

At least that was the plan.

~~~

"You’re up early today," Nobara said and took a moment to take a sip from her coffee. “I didn’t think you’d call me this early to help you with the shop.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” You had thought she wouldn’t think much of it. Maybe not. Nobara could easily tell when something was wrong. At least when it came to your well-being.

“Did you pull an all-nighter?” she asked, raising a brow.

You nodded.

But she was smarter than that. She pouted before asking a more specific question, “Were you out working late again?”

Caught in your ‘not really a lie’, you smiled at your friend and gave her an apologizing look. “Yeah.”

“Maybe you should go out and meet new people instead of exorcising curses in the middle of the night,” she suggested and smiled back at you.

“I don’t like going out alone.” Putting away a bouquet of roses, you noticed the time. Your delivery would be here soon.

“Well, you’re going out to exorcise curses all by yourself,” she pointed out and crossed her arms over her chest. “Surely, you can go to a club or a bar to meet new people.” Letting out a sigh, she took another sip from her coffee. “So whaddya say to going to a bar tomorrow?” A large smile tugged at her lips. “Together,” she added but after she didn’t get the reaction she wanted from you, Nobara insisted. “Come ooon! It’ll be fun!”

“Okay! Okay!” you laughed loudly, agreeing to go out with her.

“It’s decided we’re going out tomorrow!” she clapped her hands and then pointed a finger at you, “You have to dress up though, maybe you’ll meet some cute guys there!”

You were about to protest but you knew you needed it. You needed the closure of another person. You desperately needed to socialize with new people and stop working overtime. So you gave in.

“The delivery will be here soon. Can you throw the trash out?” you pointed to the back of your shop.

Nobara left her coffee cup on the counter to walk around the cash register so she could grab and tie the trash bag before dragging it to the back of the shop.

You took her absence as an opportunity to go to the bathroom but as soon as you started got out you heard her yelling for you from the back.

“The delivery truck is at the back!”

You shouted back an ‘I’m coming’ and walked to the back of the shop to greet the delivery man, signing the documents about you receiving the packages.

“Let’s get to work.” you cracked your fingers before lifting two small packages, “We have to put the ones with yellow stickers on top in the storage room.” You pointed at the yellow stickered boxes with your foot. “The rest has to be behind the counter so I can put all of them to the glasshouse and fix them into displays after lunch.”

Your simple explanation was all she needed, she bent down to lift one of the yellow stickered boxes and easily carried the two packages inside.

Wanting to match up with her, you put down the small packages you were holding and instead tried lifting one of the boxes but you could barely lift it up to your ankles. You huffed and tried again.

When Nobara came back to grab another box, she saw you walking over to the other packages that were supposed to go behind the counter, you easily lifted one of them. You stacked three of the boxes on top of each other and walked past Nobara to get inside.

“You’ve got this!” she cheered mockingly and patted your back lightly to avoid making you fall.

You grunted in response, “I can’t even lift the boxes from the ground.” You walked to the front room to do nothing but watch as your friend carried the boxes inside alone.

Once Nobara was finally done carrying all the boxes inside the storage room she glared at you for making her do all the work.

Noticing her glare you winked at her, “You know you love me!”

~~~

You were watching the ceiling, as usual. The television was turned on for distraction from the world itself. you didn’t like how quiet it could get during the night. The television mostly functioned as white noise for you to meditate as you laid in your tiny floor-bed. Not even a futon.

The small apartment didn’t have any furniture other than your so-called bed and a small couch. The television was a present from Nobara’s girlfriend but there was nothing else in the apartment other than the coffee machine in the kitchen.

Although you didn’t have any furniture or a real bed, you didn’t mind it.

Living an absolute minimal life was fine as long as you had a job and friends you treasured, yes, it was fine.

Having only a few friends, you had never shown your weak side to them since there were certain thoughts rather than emotions you could never let out. It was simply for the sake of being safe, your friends didn’t need the negative thought you had within yourself in their lives. You didn’t want to disappoint anyone with your inner thoughts.

Finally managing to stop daydreaming, you got up from your bed to put on a dress before fixing your hair. Everything you had on could be considered too much effort for going to a bar but Nobara had told you to dress up nicely. She always liked you dressing up whenever you went out together, simply for the fun of it.

Unbeknownst to you, it was because she wanted you to take your time doing some self care.

It was going to be fun tonight, at least you hoped so.

~~~

“The food here is greasy,” you commented when Nobara said she wanted to get something to eat as you opened the door for her to walk inside the bar.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Just like how you like your man.” She laughed at her own joke as you vaguely noticed a familiar group of people and a panda sitting on a table.

“I thought it was going to be just us tonight,” you mumbled, hand going to clutch your bag nervously.

“The more the merrier,” Nobara said, putting a hand on your back to lead you towards the people you went to school with. “Plus, you never come to our reunions. It was the perfect excuse!”

“You came!” Yuuji jumped up from his seat when he noticed you and Nobara walking towards the table he was sitting at. His cheeks tinted pink and his neck red. You could see that he was holding a non-alcoholic beverage.

“Of course, I did,” you replied, putting your bag down before waving at the large group, your eyes landed on Inumaki but you quickly averted your gaze.

Everyone was here, just as Nobara probably planned. Yuuji’s arms wrapped around you tightly, he was mumbling about how much he missed you, and so on. Quickly, he led you to the group, forcing you to sit between him and Megumi.

“You look different!” Yuuji said, turning to Megumi. “Right?”

“It’s been a while since she graduated, of course, she looks different,” Nobara responded and then pointed a finger at you threateningly. “You have to come to the reunions at Maki’s place more often! We always get together to drink and all!”

“You make me do those every week,” Maki scoffed. “Not everyone can keep up with your over-the-top parties.”

Pouting, Nobara turned to Maki with her usual puppy eyes. “I thought you liked my parties.”

“I do,” she paused. “When people show up to them.”

Yuuji laughed and you covered your mouth to stifle yours.

“How ya been?” Yuuji asked, he sounded genuinely curious.

You sighed and your lips curled up into a smile. “Busy. I work under a professional sorcerer even though I have my own license. I do extra work at night alone and do extra work at my flower shop.”

“Sounds tough and way too busy.” He took a sip from his own drink. “I’ve been working with Gojo since graduation so I know how it feels.”

Jokingly, you patted on his back. “I’ll pray for you.”

Inumaki watched the two of you talk with half-lidded eyes, hiding his frown behind his own drink.

“What are you gonna order?” Nobara asked, only then you realized everyone had their own food or drink on the table. Grabbing the menu she was holding out to you, you swiftly glanced at it before deciding to order a cocktail. “I think I’ll just drink tonight, something fruity would be nice.”

“Oh, I’m gonna order a hamburger and a coke.” She got up from her seat and turned to the others to ask if they wanted anything. Nope, she turned around her heels, “I’ll go order for both of us from the bar, the waitress seems busy.”

You followed Nobara’s stare and found yourself looking at the waitress who was scrolling on her phone by the corner.

“Maybe, they don’t serve tables after a certain hour,” you said. The last thing you wanted was Nobara complaining to the owner of the pub.

“She’s right,” Maki agreed.

“Yeah... maybe.” Nobara squinted her eyes at the waitress and walked to the counter on the other side.

“So, anyone special in your life?” Maki asked, smiling behind her drink.

Inumaki put his drink down the table with a little too much force, it made a thud noise, nothing too loud. Nonetheless, it made you jump in your seat.

Stay calm. You would be safe with this many people around.

You shook your head rapidly, “N-no.”

“Really?” Yuuji raised a brow, “I thought you weren’t coming to Kugisaki’s parties because you were with your boyfriend. I heard one in every three women has a boyfriend. Since those two are single you must have someone, right?”

Ah, right… None of the boys knew about those two. There even was a rumor going around about Nobara liking Yuuji. Haha... You caught Maki looking a little uncomfortable but none of you said anything. You didn’t have anything to say anyway.

“She seems uncomfortable,” Megumi informed. “Stop bickering about it.”

Thanks to Megumi’s warning, Yuuji backed off and you offered him a smile in appreciation.

The night hadn’t even started and you had already begun to regret going out but you changed your mind after Nobara came back to the table with your drink.

By the time you were drinking your second drink, you started to think that this could be the best night of your life. You had missed these guys.

“Can l have everyone’s attention?” Nobara stood up from her seat, Maki hit her own forehead in embarrassment. A couple of heads turned to look in your direction since she was being a little too loud.

The atmosphere and people who came here were usually quiet after all. You didn’t know why you had come here over all the places you could have gone to but then you remembered how bad the nightlife here in the city was during winter. It was either this quiet pub, the sophisticated cafe, or that one place you and Nobara both had sworn to never go ever again.

Once every head turned to her she smiled and continued. “Thanks for everyone coming here tonight.” Panda started cheering, she shushed him and spoke once again. “I’m very glad to have you all here and-” she started sobbing, “I’m so happy we’re here altogether even though we’re missing some people and-” She choked up on her words.

Maki got up from her seat with a sigh and hugged the girl, trying to get her to sit down before she embarrassed herself more. She regretted letting her taste her cocktail. Yet, Nobara stood up and spoke again. “This is for (name)!”

Following her lead, everyone lifted whatever drink they were holding and held a toast for you.

Everyone kept chatting and drinking. Soonly you lost track of time and began to doze off a bit. You could barely keep your eyes open. You stared down at your drink, listening to your friends’ chatter was kind of soothing. Out of a sudden, you felt something drop. You felt feverish and held on to the nearest person you could cling to. You were clinging onto Megumi, who jolted in surprise.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

Shaking your head, you covered your mouth with your hand.

“Uh oh! We have a puker!” Nobara laughed and hiccuped.

As Megumi made a move to help you towards the bathroom, Inumaki appeared behind you.

“Takana,” he said, nodding in Megumi’s direction and grabbing you by your arm. Following him, you hastily walked towards the bathroom, Maki was watching the two of you closely, before she could follow you to the bathroom Panda grabbed her wrist.

“She’ll be fine.” He gave her a genuine smile and Maki returned to the table where Yuuji had arrived with more drinks. She sipped her cocktail and decidedly carded her fingers through her girlfriend’s hair who was trying to get over her hiccups.

Inumaki opened the stall and let you down. You started puking while sobbing. He brushed your hair back to your nape and lifted it so that you could empty your stomach in relief. He was rubbing your back to help you.

A groan left your lips before you retched grossly, you could feel something was very wrong, you lifted yourself up from the toilet seat.

“Takana?”

You flinched, you had forgotten who was in here with you. He was holding out paper towels for you to wipe your mouth. Quickly taking the paper towels from him and wiping your mouth clean, you nodded slowly.

“T-thank you.” Stuttering, you tried to get up but stumbled backward. “Can you help me to get back to Nobara?” you asked when he helped you get up.

“Okaka.”

You tried to stand up straight, you were trembling, your legs were like jelly. You could feel the feverish heat from drinking too much spreading through your body. You had to go home, or somewhere far away from Inumaki.

Pushing him away, you walked towards the door until suddenly collapsing to the floor when your head sharply spun. Your legs weren’t capable of holding you up, especially right now when you were this drunk.

Inumaki helped you up, he was holding you in between his arms, your back pressed against his chest. “Please, I… I wanna go home…” You felt him press his nose into your hair, taking a long whiff and press himself against you.

Yelping, you squirmed, moving away from him.

He gave a sigh in annoyance. He never liked it when you struggled too much, you knew that.

It was as if the world was moving in slow motion, he opened his mouth to say something and you helplessly stood there, unable to do anything but cover your ears, hoping you wouldn’t hear it.

“Sleep.”

~~~

“Are you sure?” Maki slurred, silently cursing herself for drinking.

“Inumaki always used to hang out with her, I think he can take care of her,” Panda said. “What’s her address?”

All the heads turned to the now asleep Nobara. Maki cursed herself once again for letting her girlfriend drink.

“Well, she can stay at his place, right?” Yuuji asked, trying to fix the skirt of your dress so you wouldn’t flash anyone while Inumaki carried you on his back. “He has a guest room, it’s very big too!”

Megumi nodded approvingly, “Yeah, he does. I’d stayed there before. I think it’d be fine if she slept there for tonight.”

Maki had to take a moment to decide. Her place was going to be full tonight, she already had a drunk girlfriend she needed to carry back home aside from the other two idiots who were going to crash at her place. Ugh, if only Nobara hadn’t promised to let Yuuji and Megumi borrow their guest room, or if only she hadn’t let Nobara taste her drink, she could have taken you with them.

“O-okay,” she relented. “Make sure she drinks a lot of water throughout the night and call her a tab in the morning, if she can’t pay I’ll pay for her later so lend her money.”

Inumaki nodded and took a step forward to walk past the group’s table. Everyone told him to be careful and have a goodnight, he simply bowed his head before he exited the bar.

Once outside, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Thankfully, the walk to his place was short.

~~~

When Panda told him that they were going to meet up in a bar to surprise you for a reunion, Inumaki had no choice but tag along.

He knew you had been avoiding him, he wasn’t that dumb but each time he went to Nobara’s reunion parties at Maki’s place, he hoped you would be there. Yet you were nowhere to be found, nobody but Nobara knew your address. It was as if you wanted to disappear from everyone’s lives but Inumaki could never forget anything about you.

No one could easily forget their first love after all. Although he had heard people say first love never lasts, it simply wasn’t true. Because no matter if it was the first or the last, true love never died.

Inumaki knew he would take his last breath thinking about you and he wished you would do the same. However, with the way you were acting, it was easy to tell you were confused about who your true love was.

So, he gave you time. You would come back to him once you realized how nobody could love you as much as he did.

He also liked to believe he was forgiving when it came to you if it was about you needing space and that you had a believable reason to push him away. Nevertheless, seeing you at the bar in that dress you probably wore to impress some nobody and let both Megumi and Yuuji touch you like that… It made him angry. Jealous.

Nobody touched what was his.

Taking off your dress and underwear, he looked at you with admiration. Just as he guessed, your naked body looked the best. It had been an awful long time since he had seen you.

An airy gasp left his lips while he placed a hand on your naked chest, trailing his fingers down, down, and down until he could run a finger across your slit.

Despite being asleep, you were wet.

He held his finger up to his face to stare at the small bead of clear fluid that ran down the digit, not wanting to let it go to waste, he licked it.

Luscious as always.

His cock was painfully hard against the rough fabric of his jeans but he had time. Unlike any other times at the dorms, tonight both of you had full privacy to do whatever you wanted without anyone interrupting your precious intimate moments.

Inumaki crawled between your legs on his bed and took a skillful lick against your pussy. A smile crept on his face when your body reacted. Using his thumbs, he spread your folds to expose your bare pussy to his hungry eyes. He watched small bits of your juices connecting your folds together split and break apart before he slurped them to savor your taste.

He flicked his tongue on your clit repeatedly to see if it would wake you up but your legs moved slightly, nothing else.

Taking a shaky breath from excitement, he pressed his tongue flat on your clit before drawing tight circles on the sensitive nub. This time, he heard you exhale sharply along with a hum.

Gently, he took your clit in his mouth, letting his teeth graze over the nub faintly before swirling his tongue around it. He added two digits into the mix, curling them just the way that made you buck your hips. When you responded as he thought you would, he started scissoring his fingers in and out of you and continued flicking his tongue on the sensitive nub.

Soon enough, your breathing got uneven and you jolted awake. He slurped all of your juices that gushed out of your slick heat, no matter how confused you were the sensations of him sucking and licking your cunt made you instinctively grab a chunk of his hair as you arched your back involuntarily.

He pulled himself back from you, eyes hazy with lust, reddened lips were swollen and glistening from leftovers of your juices.

You blinked a couple of times. Looking around to understand where exactly you were and the framed pictures of you and your classmates were enough to let you know if the familiar smell that belonged to him wasn’t. A laugh escaped you, it was too absurd and pathetic. The shame you felt wouldn’t go away if you tried covering your naked body so you covered your eyes with your forearm instead, sobbing softly.

Your sobbing became louder when you felt the bed sink, indicating him crawling on top of you. He wrapped a hand around your wrist to pull your arm away from your face but you kept your eyes closed, refusing to look at him.

His hot breath ghosted over your face, his free hand caressed your cheek gently and placed his thumb on your lower lip. He cupped your cheeks and squeezed them until your lips puckered.

You felt him press his lips onto yours, he squeezed harder, prying your mouth open to worm his tongue inside of your mouth. The taste of your own juices and his saliva mixing together in your mouth was too much. Squirming, you turned your head to the side abruptly to prevent him from kissing you.

“Is it because I’m weak?” you forced a chuckle, your voice broke out to a sob. “Is it because others could overpower you unlike me?”

For the first time tonight, you met his gaze. He shook his head slowly disappointedly as if the things you asked were nonsense.

“Why then?”

He left your question unanswered and leaned down to your face, pausing when your lips were barely touching. “Kiss me,” he whispered as the two of you were breathing on each other.

Your lips parted, allowing him to suck your bottom lip into his mouth before moving his tongue inside to massage your tongue. You were complying thanks to his order, rolling your tongues over each other and kissing him back as hungrily as he kissed you.

Inumaki broke the kiss, watching the glossy strand of saliva connecting your lips together slowly thin and split apart as he tried unbuckling his belt using one hand.

The sound of his belt buckle rattling and the tugging of a zipper made you look at him, watching his every movement as he tugged down his jeans, his rock-hard cock moved under the damp spot on his boxers while he tried getting rid of the jeans.

Next was his shirt, he reached with two hands behind his head, grabbing the shirt from the back of his neck, and yanked it off over his head in a swift motion.

It made you blush despite the situation, the way he moved was as if the two of you were intimate lovers.

Silence in the room caught his attention, his eyes landed on you after he threw his shirt towards a laundry pile. You were laying on your back, blushing while looking at him.

“Sujiko,” he breathed, sounding astonished and enjoying this vulnerable side of you that you were showing him. He had missed you, there was no reason to hold back anymore.

Inumaki hooked his thumbs under the waistband of his boxers and pulled them down, letting his cock bounce free as the pressure of the fabric disappeared.

Once naked, he moved between your legs, closing the distance between your hips agonizingly slowly.

He drooled over his cock, covering it generously in his slick saliva, and wrapped a hand around the base to give his throbbing erection a slow pump as he continued watching you. Noticing your eyes on his hand wrapped around his cock, following it as he slid it along his length, he pulled back the thin layer of skin to show you the pink tip glistening with precum.

Your mouth gaped, watching his fist twist as it moved closer towards the tip of his cock.

Decidedly, he tapped the tip of his cock on your clit and dragged it along your folds to coat it with your juices.

“It looks bigger than I remember.” You were more surprised than he was, what you said was something that slipped, unbidden. Just thinking out loud. It wasn’t even supposed to spur him on but Inumaki shoved his entire length inside of you. “W-wait-”

Both of you moaned for different reasons.

He swallowed hard, his vision almost fading to black because of the gummy flesh of your insides pulsating around his cock. Balancing himself on his arms and only taking a quick moment to catch his breath, he pulled out before frantically pushing his cock back in.

“Don’t move,” you pleaded, “It hurts.” You grabbed him by the shoulders, digging your nails into his skin as the girth of his cock stretched your walls to take the shape of it. His size was overwhelming and unbearable, you hadn’t had sex in too long, meaning that your fingers were tiny compared to his cock.

As you tried moving away from him by digging your heels onto the bed and pushing yourself up, Inumaki wrapped his arms around your waist before pulling you closer to himself with his cock buried deep inside you.

“Don’t run away from me,” he whispered, his voice husky and breathless. He needed to drink his cough syrup right now if he didn’t want his throat to bleed. But having a sore throat was a small price to pay if it meant he could let you know about his feelings. “Put your arms around me, hold me tight.”

Your heels that were digging onto the sheets went limp upon his words. Hands that were trying to push him on his shoulders suddenly wrapped around his neck, desperately pulling him closer.

“Let go of me,” you hissed but his lips crashing against yours shut you up. He tasted of blood, his tongue was smothered by that coppery taste. You didn’t get to grimace as he surged his hips forward, rather forcing a moan out of you to snake his tongue down your throat.

You felt dizzy from his pace, a scream of pleasure left your lips, causing him to break the kiss. He buried his face into the crook of your neck, grunting, still continuing his beastly pace and licking the sensitive skin of your neck.

“Toge,” you moaned, trying to get him to slow down but hearing you say his name sparked something within him. It had been so long since he had heard you call him by his first name.

His hips moved at a frenzied pace, he was humping you frantically like a rabid animal in heat. He was desperate, anyone could tell. Since he had his arms around your waist, you had nowhere to run, he pounded in your slick heat rapidly, putting his entire weight behind each thrust to reach deep inside you. The tip of his cock kissed your cervix every single time he slammed his hips against yours and his balls slapped against your ass.

“Be mine,” he begged, his voice deep yet faint and almost scratchy. “Be mine, be mine, be mine, be mine-”

This time, you kissed him, catching him off guard and stopping his babbling. None of you knew if it was his cursed speech that did it or if you did it with your own will. Even so, your lips sloppily moved against each other as his pace slackened a little but not quite.

Your legs wrapped around his hips when he started angling his hips to stroke the gummy flesh of your insides with each thrust as he kissed you. Kind of romantic if anything.

Sickeningly, your walls clenched around his cock at the thought. Your hand moved between your bodies and rested on your clit to draw tight circles on the nub. Your gummy insides pulsated around him. His hips started moving staggeringly, he was losing his rhythm because of you.

Inumaki slammed his forward and withdrew himself from the kiss, a spring was coiling tightly in his guts as he stared at you dreamily. He wanted to cum looking at you.

A wave of pleasure abruptly washed over you like a lightning strike when you felt his cock throb inside you. Completely dissolving into pleasure, you moved your hand on your clit faster.

As your orgasm was shaking to your core, Inumaki was lost in his world, chasing after his own release but thanks to your pussy palpitating from your high, he didn’t have to keep going.

His cock throbbed and he buried his cock deep inside your cunt one last time until the warm bursts of his thick seed could flood your womb, making your tummy feel pleasantly toasty.

Time slowed, yet he continued fucking his cum into you, he wasn’t done indulging in your heat.

At least, that was until he heard you mewl out his name.

He was brought back to the present, his cock still pressed snugly inside of you as he listened to what you had to say.

“Please let me move on,” you begged, voice breaking. Your eyes were glossy with tears but you tried holding them back. “I knew from the beginning that you were just playing with me but… no matter how painful it was, I was glad to be embraced by you.”

Inumaki smiled, his hand went to caress your cheek, his thumb drew a gentle circle on the soft skin and he shook his head.

You leaned into his touch, “Why me?”

He mouthed something that made your tears spill down. Wiping your tears, he pressed a kiss on your lips, promising you to never let you go without saying anything.

In the end, silence spoke louder than words.

#inumaki x you #inumaki x reader

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eartht137 · 3 years

Text

DEAREST HEART-LETTER TWO

Whooo, goodness!! I spooked myself after writing the first letter. There is a dog next door to my house and she likes to stare out towards the back "alley way" and one night while I was showering by candlelight (blinds still aren't fixed) she wouldn't stop staring out at the alley way. My azz was spooked lol. That being said, here is another "letter" from Mr. Kal El himself. Enjoy curvies MMMMMMwwwaahhhhhhh!!!!

Dark Clark Kent x Plus Size Reader

Warnings: Stalking (This chapter is pretty tame)

A few days later, the whole situation had hidden itself in your brain. You had so much going on in your waking life, you really didn't have time to dwell on a possible prank. Your birthday had arrived and you really weren't feeling too thrilled about it. Your depression just had to spike up and ruin the one day you thought you would enjoy, but you didn't even get to stress about it for long. You'd stepped into your office to boot up your computer for the day, and you saw it. On your desk was a letter, same vintage parchment, but his time it had an Aster instead of a Rose. You stared at it for so long, wondering if you should read it or not. You finally sat down and pulled the letter out of the envelope to see what he had to say.

Happy Birthday Little One,

I wish so badly that I could show you the best birthday you've ever had, but that will have to wait. I know you're not looking forward to today. I've noticed you haven't mentioned it much, and you almost forgot. How do you forget your birthday silly girl? I have purchased a gift every year since we met, I can't wait until I'm able to give them to you and you can unwrap each and everyone as if it were Christmas. Why haven't you planned anything? Not even a free day for yourself, what's going on? I wish you would talk to me. I want so badly to help you get better, but its a one day at a time deal. I was there you know, when you almost died? I was there the night you called your husband and told him the truth about how bad you felt. I swear it was the scariest night of my life when the surgeon walked in and told you they were putting you in an induced state for a week. All I could think was, what if you didn't wake up, or what if they did something wrong? What if they hurt you more or caused a bad reaction. I have seen a lot of things, but I have never been so sad and afraid to lose someone like you. I watched over you every night, making sure you'd come back to me and the baby. Well, you know what I mean. I know that's been rough on you, but you are making great progress. I remember you saying you'd like to change your hair, would you like for me to set up your appointment? I think you'd look delicious with cherry red hair, just don't cut it please. I love your hair. I love everything about you. I know you don't remember, but the moment our eyes met, I couldn't get you out of my head. I tried, I swear I tried so hard to stay away. I'd go for walks at night to clear my head and try not to think of you, and I'd find myself further and further away from home. It has to be fate that wants us together, because there you were, pulling in from work one night. I watched you sit there blaring your music, trying to finish the song before you went inside. I knew you right away, I had never been so....I can't describe how it felt, it was overwhelming. It had to be love that outweighed the hurt, even your "husband" walked out to greet you, it just couldn't overshadow what my heart felt. I told myself that I loved you enough to let you be happy, and I did for awhile. Not one day or night went by where you didn't cross my mind, so I decided to whisk by and take a picture of you, just for memory of the woman I couldn't have. One picture turned to two, two turned to ten. I had to get the perfect angle, but the only perfect angle is up close, in person; like I said I did try. I wish I could take you out for your birthday. I'd cook for us and we'd go down by the river, or I could take you somewhere 5 star. I know its really not your thing, but you deserve to be served like a queen. You are a queen to me. I dreamed about you, I dream about you all the time, but this one was different. It scared me so much, I woke in cold sweat. I can't bear to think about it now, but I know it was just a stupid dream. I will have to go out of the country for awhile, but I promise to still write as often as I can. I love you, so much.

With All My Heart and Soul,

Kal-El

"Babe!!! Babe, I need to tell you something." You said scared senseless. You rushed to your husband, showing him the letters and explained that you thought it was a sick prank. Your husband immediately called the police. He packed you all up and as much as he hated it, you all went to stay with your mom.

That night while you were up talking to your mom, she leaned back and asked you something insane.

"Is that really another man's baby?" she asked seriously.

"NO! I don't even know who this is, I swear I don't know a Kal-El. I've never met anyone like that in all my life." You whisper screamed at her as you struggled to hold back tears. She stared into your eyes for a moment before sighing heavily. Before you knew it she was crying and hugging your neck so tight you couldn't breathe.

"After all you've been through, this was the last thing you needed. I've always told you to be careful and watch your surroundings." She fussed.

"Ma I did, but I don't ever go anywhere. I stay in the house most of the time and I'm always with my family." You couldn't help but feel as if you were being attacked.

"You never know who is watching you." She argued back.

"Ma, look at me." You said standing back opening your arms to show your full body. "All these years I've worked hard to feel comfortable in my own skin. It took me a long time to feel fully comfortable around my own husband. All of these years you guys have trashed me for my weight, the times you all have told me that I get different treatment for my size, there was no way in this world I could've ever imagined that I would get stalked by-by this Kal-El fucker!" You yelled as tears flowed down your face, you could even feel your face strain in anger. "Now this is happening, and I should've been watching my surroundings. You drilled in my head for years that people looked past me for you and everyone else. You drilled in my head that people would only want me to use me, YOU DRILLED IN MY HEAD THAT I NEVER HAD THE LOOK TO MAKE IT OUT HERE, SO NOW HERE WE ARE WITH A MANIAC THAT SOMEHOW MANAGED TO FIND ME THAT I DON'T EVEN KNOW OR HAVE ANY CLUE AS TO WHAT THIS GUY LOOKS LIKE AND I SHOULD'VE BEEN WATCHING MY SURROUNDINGS!?" Your head felt like it was on fire, then all at once stars appeared and you lost vision.

When you woke up you were laying on the floor with a jacket under your neck as your mom and family (that she had called) stood around trying to get you to come back to. You tried sitting up, but only felt dizzier. Your hands and feet felt numb and you were shaking as sweat poured off of your body. Your husband sat by you, fanning you and giving you water. When you began to feel better, he helped you up and over to the couch. He asked everyone to leave you alone and not upset you anymore.

"Baby what do you want to do? How can I make you feel safe?" Your husband asked.

You stared deep in his eyes and remembered why you loved him so much. He always went out of his way to make sure you were happy. You thought back to not so pleasant days when you both argued and said mean things and your realized then and there how much you took him for granted sometimes. Before you knew it the flood gates released and you sobbed.

"Can you just hold me please?" You asked in a small pitiful voice.

"I will always hold you and be there for you baby. I love you. We will get through this together, like we always do."

#dark clark kent #plus size reader #henry cavill #dark superman

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fantasticfemmefatale · 4 years

Text

Cold- Spencer Reid

not my gif

SUMMARY: reader is kinda bad at dealing with cold weather lmao, Spencer is rlly sweet, and everyone is happy for once in their trauma-filled lives. i live for this man. there’s some slight emily x reader if you use a microscope, i guess.

WARNINGS: fluff, canon atypical happiness, there’s this one homophobe in it, they should burn

Cold.

It was cold.

Had you left a window open?

No, the window on your side of the bed was still firmly shut.

Why was it so cold?

You rolled over, on the couch, eyes screwed shut, half desperate for his warmth although you’d promised you’d give him space, after you were nearly on top of him when you two woke up last time.

Oh.

That’s why it was cold.

Sliding out of bed and grabbing your fuzzy robe off the floor, you somehow managed to make it out of the room while only tripping once. You wanted to laugh at him, tell him depressed elephant who? I am graceful after all, loser! However, gloating in his face required having his face nearby.

Where was he?

You thought back to those crappy stories you’d heard from Emily of sleazy guys in bars who’d scramble for a hook up then leave a girl high and dry before sunrise. But he couldn’t do that if you hadn’t hooked up, right? If he was just a friend who’d come knocking at your door at 8:43 for your biweekly movie night, then got stuck at your apartment because of the storm? Although, you wished he was more than a friend.

A sharp hiss resounded from the kitchen, followed by the faucet running, as you padded in.

“Spence?”

His head shot up fast, like a puppy caught dragging trash through the house. He shut off the faucet with his right hand, and reached for a towel to dry his left as he spoke.

“(Y/N). Hi. Hotch called me saying we had a case, and I told him you were here with me so he didn’t need to call you, and I just thought I’d make you coffee before I woke you up,” he explained with a small, tired smile and equally tired eyes.

“Did you burn yourself?” you questioned, remembering the commotion when you’d walked in.

“Uh, yeah.”

You laughed slightly, one of those sharp nose exhales accompanied by a half smile when you just can’t laugh at the moment. Frankly, you were far too exhausted. You took the mug he was holding outstretched towards you with a grateful smile, returning to your room to get dressed. The warm mug contrasted deliciously with the cold air of your apartment. You didn’t need to tell Spencer that he could change in the bathroom if he needed to; he already knew. After the first time you’d been called in to work while Spencer was staying over, you’d developed a system. He brought his go-bag over with him, leaving it next to the door along with his Converse that you always said made him look like he was still 12. He’d bring two extra pairs of clothes to leave at your apartment, one for when you left and another, comfier pair for your return. Then, he’d gather anything he’d left in your apartment and walk down to his own. It was funny, honestly, how his apartment was just three floors down from your own and yet he refused to leave his stuff there. He’d ramble on about how but leaving my stuff at your apartment saves 9 minutes and 27 seconds, and that’s time we could be spending saving lives, and-

You left your room, dressed in black skinny jeans, combat boots, and an army green long sleeve with the sleeves pushed up to your elbows at the same time Spencer exited the bathroom in Converse, brown pants, a vest, and a button-down shirt. No words were spoken as you two grabbed your duffels from where they were sitting near your door, and Spencer grabbed his messenger bag as well, slinging it over his shoulder in the most uncoordinated way possible while simultaneously trying to open your door, resulting in him on the floor with a loud grunt. You laughed, loud and clear, and you grabbed his wrist and helped him to his feet, opening the door and locking it securely behind you.

The bullpen was colder than your apartment had been, you thought with a shiver as you walked in, with Spencer falling into step behind you. Still slightly groggy and nursing the coffee from Spencer- which you’d transferred to an insulated water bottle prior to leaving- you stayed quiet through Penelope’s run-down of the case and Hotch’s typical wheels up in 30.

On the plane, you sat on the couch with Spencer, careful to leave an inch between you two. In the two years you’d known each other, he’d warmed up enough that you could touch him some, but you tried not to do anything more than the occasional hug or shoulder pat when the time called for it. Right now, nothing was calling except sleep. Just by looking outside the window, you swore you could practically feel the frigid night air of Wisconsin, the lovely location of today’s deranged criminal, a kidnapper. When you voiced your feelings about the cold to Spencer, he spewed facts from who-knows-where about different places the air could possibly get into the plane, meaning you weren’t just making up the feeling. You listened attentively, knowing how much it meant to him when he didn’t get cut off for once. After all, he just wanted to help.

The plane landed, and you were the first one out.

Cold.

It was cold.

And you forgot a jacket, idiot.

Morgan chuckled as he passed by you, clad in a t-shirt, no less, saying, “Cold, baby?”

“As if.”

You were in an interrogation room.

It was less cold than the rest of the precinct, but still chilly.

The woman in front of you, a blond, small thing, looked to be no less than 20. And yet, she was kidnapping the children she babysat for after their parents returned, then trying to pass them off as her own. She was kidnapping the children of same-sex couples, a religious fanatic who believed that being anything but straight was worse than murder. Wow.

Screw homophobes.

Honestly, the case had wrapped itself up fairly well, complete with a glittery red bow, once Penelope- thank god- had figured out that each family had used the same babysitter at least once. Rebecca Umbrige. To be fair, the team had spent a while focusing on the same-sex couples aspect of it, only to change paths after all that turned up from that was dead ends. Then Rebecca came into the picture and brought everything together nicely.

With that red bow, of course.

Still, one more thing was needed.

A confession.

Emily was in the interrogation room with you, watching as you took the lead. You were hoping to get something out of her through subtle hints at attraction between you two, and it worked, eventually.

All it took was holding Emily’s hand. Sad.

Emily laughed as Rebecca was dragged out of the room in handcuffs, earning her a stern look from Hotch when the two of you left as well.

Ugh, why did the rest of the precinct have to be so cold?

The plane ride home was uneventful, and so was leaving the bullpen after the last of the paperwork was finished, just before midnight three days after you’d left. Until, at least, Spencer jogged up to you, brown curls waving wildly in the D.C. wind, asking, “Wanna go out?”

“Like a date?” you asked, incredulous. If it was a date though, you wouldn’t be upset. You’d had a not-so-small and not-so-sneaky crush on him for almost the entire time you’d known him.

He stopped suddenly, speaking so fast it was a miracle he could get the words out at all.

“Slow down, Spence.”

“I just meant, maybe we could go get hot chocolate, or coffee, or whatever, and then just walk around D.C. or something? I don’t think I can sleep right now,” he blurted, brown doe eyes watching you expectantly in that way that made your heart flutter.

“I’m cold”, you said, almost pouting like a child.

He laughed for a second at that. “We can stop by your apartment first and change if you want.”

26 minutes later, according to Spencer, the two of you arrived at the doorstep of a slightly shady 24-hour coffee shop that Waze had been all too happy to lead you to. After getting some surprisingly good lattes, you two wandered aimlessly around D.C., occasionally bumping shoulders from how close you were. He’d tell you the history behind different buildings and monuments you passed, and you’d interrupt every few minutes because oH MY GOD SPENCE THAT HOUSE LOOKS LIKE A FACE!, or, LOOK THAT CLOUD LOOKS LIKE A BUTT!

Spencer laughed every time you got distracted, letting his eyes linger just a few seconds too long on your face when it lit up like a kid’s on Christmas, wanting to commit your face without stress, or fear, or anger to memory. Moments like these didn’t come often in your line of work.

When you realized it was starting to snow, Spencer swore he’d never seen you look this stunning, bundled up in one of his sweaters that you’d stolen months ago, with rosy cheeks and a red nose to match, eyes glimmering with excitement and lips spread wide in a smile and you spun around, eyes on the sparkling sky above.

Eventually, he said, “(Y/N)?” in a voice barely above a whisper.

Your head whipped around, and you stopped suddenly, all your attention focused on Spencer, something that never failed to make him feel cared for. “Yeah?”

He didn’t answer, instead slowly reaching out to hug you, the first physical contact between you he’d ever initiated. His arms around your waist were uncertain, and he haltingly rested his head on your shoulder, thankful you couldn’t see him grinning like an idiot. As soon as you hugged back, he pulled you in closer in a bone-crushing hug that you could’ve sworn made time stop.

“(Y/N)?” he mumbled against your skin.

“Yeah?”

“I know I said this wasn’t a date, but if you wanted it to be one, maybe it could be one?”

“I’d like that, Spencer.”

Cold.

It was cold.

But with Spencer holding onto you like there was no tomorrow, you were much, much warmer.

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raleighcarrera · 3 years

Text

best of me

ride or die | logan x mc (ellie wheeler)

a picture of logan and ellie in their thirties for @rodappreciationweek and the time capsule challenge 🌼

tags: @choicesarehard ; @lovehugsandcandy ; @pixeljazzy ; @troublemakerinspace ; @zigtheeortega ; @jaxmatsuo

~2.3k words | T

“mr. wheeler!”

logan looked around the parking lot, squinting into the sun. one of his students was running at him full speed, holding his cell phone aloft and waving it around excitedly. “what’s up, alex?”

alex drew to a stop in front of him breathlessly. “i got in,” he said, lips splitting into a big grin. “cal tech, i got in.”

“hey, that’s awesome!” logan said, reaching out to clap the student on the shoulder. “congrats, alex. that’s a huge accomplishment.”

“dude, thank you so much for your recommendation,” alex said, nodding enthusiastically. “you’re honestly the best teacher i’ve ever had.”

“give yourself some credit,” he smiled, “you worked hard, and cal tech is lucky to have you. just don’t forget to come back and visit, yeah?”

“for sure,” alex agreed. with one last grin, he was gone, and logan finished getting his things in the car so he could head home, the rest of the students and faculty in the parking lot of mar vista high well used to the roar his devore’s engine made by now, after three years of teaching.

ellie’s car was already in the driveway when he arrived back at the house, and logan frowned when he parked on the street and jogged up the walk to their front door. it was early for her to be home; usually his day ended well before hers. as he walked inside, he wondered absently if the fact that she’d had an early afternoon meant she’d started dinner, and if he was possibly lucky enough that she was making that noodle thing he liked so much.

“ellie?” his keys landed in the bowl by the door with a familiar clink, his shoes kicked off one by one on the mat. “babe?”

“in here!” the stressed-out voice of his wife filtered in from the spare room. as soon as logan took a step towards the hallway, there was a sudden and aggressive rapid tap-tap-tap on the hardwood floor, and their dog ran at him at full speed, jumping up onto his legs with an excited bark.

“hey, clark,” he said gently, bending down to scratch the dog behind his floppy ears, “everything okay in there?”

the pointed silence that followed seemed to speak for itself. he followed the hallway down to the spare bedroom and found ellie sitting on the floor, surrounded by ripped-open cardboard boxes and indistinguishable small plastic pieces.

before logan could ask what she was doing, she frowned up at him and said, “i’ve been trying to put this baby carrier together for three hours.”

he arched his eyebrows at her, looking over the small mess she’d created in the middle of the room. “you’ve been here for three hours?”

ellie pulled a face at him, her lips twisted into a grimace. “morning sickness that lasts all day again,” she explained, scrunching up her nose. “jack caught me coming out of the bathroom and sent me home after lunch.”

“oh, no,” logan said sympathetically, dropping down onto his knees on the one free space of carpet. “i was hoping that’d’ve gone away by now.”

“you and me both,” ellie sighed, puckering her lips at him for a quick kiss. “i guess it was too much to hope for a baby without a rebellious streak a mile wide.”

“i’m still holding out for your dimples,” he grinned, “and that laugh. as long as the baby gets both of those, they’ll be set for life.”

“the baby is five minutes away from sleeping on the floor. i’m about to trash all of this and go take a nap.” the downtrodden expression on ellie’s face tugged at his heart in a way her cute little sighs always seemed to manage to. logan was already smiling when she squinted up at him hopefully and asked, “will you help me try to put it together?”

as if there was ever a chance he’d say no. “’course,” logan answered, “two heads are better than one, right? although you are an engineer...”

“believe me, graco is going to be hearing from me,” ellie grumbled, rolling gingerly to the side to shuffle awkwardly out of the way of the pile of pieces she’d already started putting together. she was just a few months along but already starting to show and moving about differently for it, unaccustomed to her new shape. “there is no reason these instructions should be more complicated than my master’s thesis.”

logan laughed, leaning over to take a peek at the paper spread out between her legs. “hey, they’re not so bad.” he easily snapped two pieces into place, forming the base of the carrier. “there we go.”

“show off.” ellie rolled her eyes, pushing another piece his way with a disdainful sniff. “i’m still calling them to complain.”

“and you totally should,” he said easily, “because they suck and you’re brilliant.”

“exactly,” she agreed. without looking up he could tell that her eyes were narrowed, her lip curling further with every piece he added onto the carrier, the methodic click of each settling into place ringing out loudly in the silent room. finally, ellie groaned, “god, i hate you. i knew this would be so easy for you.”

“okay, but that’s what i’m here for,” he reminded her with another soft smile, reaching out with his free hand to squeeze her knee. ellie huffed when he continued to turn a plastic screw one-handed. “to handle all this shit for you so you can relax. i know you have the hardest job, here.”

“you are the most annoying person i’ve ever met.” ellie’s sigh sounded wistful. when logan lifted his gaze he found her staring at him adoringly, her eyes wet. “i love you.”

“i love you too, baby. any idea what you want for dinner?” he looked away to concentrate on lining two tiny pieces up, frowning when they wouldn’t stick quite right. “come here for a sec, yeah? need some tiny fingers.”

ellie shot him a look, but leaned over anyway, wiggling her hand in the tight space he indicated until the two pieces sealed together with a pop. “maybe i don’t need a refund on my degree after all.”

“they should’ve paid you to take it,” logan agreed indulgently, nudging his shoulder gently against hers. “dinner?” he prompted again.

his wife groaned theatrically, flopping back onto the carpet. her arms and legs spread out like she was making a snow angel, disturbing the bubble wrap and cardboard that littered the room. “i want sushi,” ellie said sadly, “and a wine spritzer.”

“what about apple cider?” he asked gently, eyes still on the baby carrier even as one hand felt blindly for her calf and dug its thumb into her muscle for a massage. “it’s almost the same thing.”

“it’s not even close,” she sighed. “but fine. thank you.”

“you got it. why don’t i finish up in here, and you see what we have in the kitchen? it’ll just be a few more minutes.”

“rub it in,” ellie muttered, rolling slowly to sit up. “okay. i feel like i should do something nice for you. maybe i can make that noodle thing you like.”

logan beamed at her, leaning in to steal a kiss. “that’s sweet of you, babe. thank you.”

ellie laughed, kissing him back before she asked, “why do i feel like this was all an elaborate set up to get me to make your favorite dinner?”

“because you’re a naturally suspicious person?” he guessed, lifting his hand to smooth her hair back off her face. “i don’t know.”

“i think it’s because you’re too charming for your own damn good.” but ellie was smiling when he pulled away, and that was all that mattered. it was the only goal he ever had.

“no such thing,” logan smiled back, gently nudging her away. “i’m right behind you.”

“yeah, yeah,” she said, waving dismissively, “show off.”

he watched her walk away, staring until she disappeared around the corner, and then turned back to the mass of plastic and screws that was slowly starting to resemble an actual baby carrier. squinting down at the instructions, it was only a matter of minutes before he had the rest of it assembled, and then a few more while he backtracked, checking over his work to find where he’d missed the one remaining piece that had been left over.

he took the time to clean up in what was eventually going to be their nursery, eyes sweeping over the boxes and gifts that cluttered their spare room. there was a ways to go before they were anything even close to ready for the baby, and he knew ellie’s due date would be here in the blink of an eye.

would he ever really feel ready? it seemed insane, when he sat and thought about it -- he and ellie were going to be parents. more than home or dog owners or two people with jobs and bills, it seemed like a responsibility he felt no where near prepared for or equipped to deal with. sometimes he still felt like a stupid kid himself.

though he had absolutely no doubts about ellie. ellie took to every kid she met like a natural -- his students adored her, riya’s twins thought she was the greatest thing in the world and were still only lukewarm where he was concerned. the kids in the program they volunteered with couldn’t get enough of her.

she kept their house running and all their plants alive. she kept him so happy he was delirious with it, in a way that had felt utterly foreign at first but now seemed so common.

enviously, he knew she’d be mother of the year without even having to try.

the rest of the room was tidied on autopilot as logan remained lost in his thoughts, and when he finally made his way into the kitchen it was, to his delight, to the tune of ellie in the middle of making his favorite dinner, the room smelling as amazing as the sight of her rushing around so domestically looked.

his heart gave a weak lurch as he stepped up behind her at the counter and wound his arms around her waist. his nose pressed into the dip at her shoulder with a sigh. “all done. next stop... crib.”

“don’t remind me,” ellie groaned, “my dad has been on my ass for weeks.”

logan winced. if there was one thing he knew about detective wheeler, it was that he was just as opinionated as his beautiful daughter. “maybe he could come with us to pick it out.”

“maybe he could mind his own business,” she suggested instead, stirring the boiling pot of pasta on the stove. “he acts like he knows everything there is to know about babies.”

“well,” logan said, nosing at the hair at the nape of her neck, “he did raise the most amazing person in the entire world. maybe we should give him some credit.”

“okay, kiss ass,” ellie laughed, “he can’t hear you. but fine. if you really want, we’ll all go next weekend.”

he shrugged. it was personally something he felt indifferent towards, but a few extra points with ellie’s dad never hurt. most of the time he was pretty certain detective wheeler still wanted him dead. “i think that’d be nice.”

“i bet you do,” she murmured, twisting around to hold the spoon she was holding out. “taste.”

he did, chewing and swallowing slowly. “it’s done,” logan said sadly, knowing the words meant he’d have to move away. ellie laughed as he pulled his arms back and went to set the table instead.

he headed to the fridge for the bottle of sparkling cider, making a show of popping the cork like champagne and pouring ellie a generous amount into the giant wine glass she hadn’t been able to use in awhile. she rolled her eyes at him as she put the serving bowl on the table. “it’s not the same.”

“it’s pretty close,” he argued, lifting his own glass up and swirling it like he’d seen many pretentious people at restaurants that made him uncomfortable do. “it’s a beautiful vintage,” he declared, as though he had any idea what that was supposed to mean, “with notes of... apples.”

gratifyingly, ellie dissolved into giggles, shaking her head. “i can’t stand you,” she said fondly, all smiles. he grinned back at her, lifting his glass to his lips.

“to the baby,” ellie said suddenly, lifting her glass, too, and bumping it into his.

“to you,” logan corrected her, clinking his glass into hers a second time.

ellie narrowed her eyes at him. “to you.” their glasses knocked again.

“nuh uh,” he countered childishly, “you’re the baby’s mom.”

“you’re the baby’s dad,” she laughed, bouncing up on her toes to try to get at his glass even as he lifted it above his head and twisted out of her way.

“this is ridiculous,” logan grinned, “just let me toast you, oh my god.”

“no, it was my toast,” she said, jumping up and splashing apple cider out of her glass and onto the floor, “stop trying to hijack it!”

“okay, okay.” he held his hand out to concede, backing away to drop into his seat at the table. ellie followed suit, smirking triumphantly at him. she still loved to win. “to all of us, jeez. me and you and the baby.”

“to all of us,” ellie repeated, and this time, their glasses touched gently, the sound barely audible over the giggles that were building up in her throat again.

he flashed her a goofy grin before he tipped his head back and drained all his cider in one go.

sure, it might’ve been nice to have had something stronger, but --

“mmm,” ellie sighed, smacking her lips as she set her glass down, “you were right. this is so much better.”

#rodaw #rod logan #logan rod #logan x mc #choices rod #ellie wheeler #logan x ellie #rodtimecapsule #myfic #long post #hope you guys like this one !! 💕

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dragynkeep · 3 years

Note

Hi there, ironpines! (Love the name btw, I read a really good fic about ironwood being a father-figure to Oscar when RWBY and co. get to Atlas).

So this is probably going to be very long but I’ve really gotta vent about some stuff.

(Also, first ask. I honestly didn’t know how to do this for the longest time. Just got back into tumblr a bit ago).

1. I hate Jaune Arc (a lot of people do), but I want to know why. Do you think/believe he’s an author’s pet? Also, why the HELL did he kill Penny in the first place?!? Why not Winter, Nora, or Ruby? Why did he have to go to the island? Just- WHY?

2. In the first three volumes I really liked Team RWBY, but now….how did they get so skewed? What went wrong? How can Ruby be THAT arrogant that she point-blank says to Qrow: “we never needed an adult’s help.” Like- yes you did! If not for Qrow killing the Grimm in v4 they would have been continuously fighting Grimm. I’m the fight against Tyrian (one of my favorite characters and favorite fights) if not for Ruby getting in the way Qrow wouldn’t have been POISONED!

3. (This is the one I’m going to get cyber-ly killed for). (I also had just started RWBY when volume 5 was airing weekly.) The beginning of Volume 5, in my opinion was good. I liked the first five-six chapters, but when AU watched ‘Rest and Resolutions’ V5C7, I was so angry! Everything about the conversation between Ruby, Weiss, and Yang felt so out of character and out of place. It was so bad and the next episodes following that were not good either (only the raven v cinder fight was any good). The battle of Haven was a train wreck that I honestly have no idea how I even retained braincells after that. Like- why KEEP teasing Weiss v emerald if you aren’t going to do anything with it. Why tease Mercury v Yang if you’re not going to do anything new and interesting with the two (Mercury isn’t even a character anymore!)

4. I wish we got good rep. I really wish we didn’t get confirmation on LGBTQ+ characters from supplemental material (that’s not even canon). And I’ve gotta ask, why do you consider cannon? Cuz for me, the only things I consider actually CANNON to the storyline are the Red, White, Black, Yellow Trailers and the show itself (Grimm Eclipse just for the sake of more cool lore about Mountain Glenn and the fact of mutant Grimm). That’s it. I don’t consider the World of Remnants, manga (DC or otherwise, those were HORRIBLE!), anthologies, and the DISGUSTING novels.

(This is the last thing, I promise!)

5. I’m working on a quasi-rewrite RWBY fic and I didn’t know whether or not I should post the first chapter on my page or not. I just really don’t want the simps to come for my head (though it might happen anyway). But I’ve been writing this for about a year and a half now and I really want to post it but I’m so nervous about the reception and backlash. What do you think?

Thanks for answering me and indulging the fact that it’s okay to like something and still want it to be better (critics/the Rwde tag is my favorite because I can read opinions that I mused share but are too scared to put as a post).

Thanks, we picked Ironpines because we loved Ironwood and Oscar, and then our friends, being the good friends they are, immediately told us it was the ship name for them so now we can't have anything nice.

1) First off, yes, we absolutely think Jaune is an author's pet. We don't really go for self-insert anymore since everyone in RWBY was a self-insert, Monty clearly based them off his friends. But now, Jaune is absolutely an author's pet and has been since the start of the show.

Just look at Volume 1. Jaune literally had more of a storyline than Yang, one of the girls in the title. He then went on to have a dumb love triangle in V2, only to resolve it with Neptune without any input from Weiss, because why not, and then V3 was Jaune finally taking more of a step back for Pyrrha, who was long over due some character.

Until V4 where, rather than everyone mourning Pyrrha, we focused on Jaune mourning her instead. Nevermind that Pyrrha was Ren and Nora's teammate too, probably their only family since they're orphans, or how Ruby literally watched Pyrrha die in front of her. Nope, gotta focus on Jaune. Add that it stretches into V5 also, adding another storyline about his Semblance while Ren, Nora, and Ruby have to stand in the background and wait their turn, while Weiss literally loses all her braincells so she's injured for Jaune's development, how the confrontation with Cinder doesn't go to Ruby, the main protagonist, but Jaune.

Then we get that stupid statue scene in V6 that took over Oscar finally getting some development of his own. It's not even the whole team, because it's only Jaune that gets to meet the lady who totally isn't Pyrrha's mother, it's Jaune that gets the big teary moment, and how Ren and Nora have to stop and comfort Jaune because of course they have to.

I was glad that Jaune finally took a backseat in V7. I actually started to like him again, because he wasn't sucking screentime away from those who need it. But then V8 happened and now I want him dead.

I've said it countless times before so I don't wanna repeat myself, but Jaune is one of the last people that should've killed Penny. He shouldn't have killed her, he shouldn't have had the big tearful scene because another redhead died, he shouldn't have fallen into the void to join Team RWBY, but he did. Now there's no doubt in my mind that Jaune is a fucking author's pet, because the writers won't let him go into the background where he belongs.

2) There's not much to say about Team RWBY. They just suck now.

3) After watching V8, V5 is no longer my least favourite volume. That's how bad it was.

4) Yeah, RWBY's rep is absolute trash and it's because they keep putting it in supplemental material, and also because they look at the LGBT and only see L. The only MLM we have is Scarlet, and he's a catty fae gay stereotype that is so unlikeable and voiced by a creep. Nevermind the whole Fairgame queerbait controversy because this company can't stop themselves for five minutes.

5) I always say that, when you post work on the internet, whether its art of writing, you have to understand that you will get criticism back. It'll suck, especially when you've put so much time and effort into something, but that's the risk you have to take as a content creator.

The good thing is that AO3 has features that let you manage what you see properly. If people just want to hate without giving proper criticism, you can always remove it and ignore it, but I personally believe that people aren't entitled to criticism when it's only said nicely. Sometimes, people will get annoyed and say it in a meaner way, but that doesn't make the criticism any less valid.

Either way, decide based on how you think you'll react to it. If you don't want the stress of criticism, be careful, but if you think you can handle it? Then go for it, the world's your oyster.

#rwby #rwde #jaune arc #ruby rose #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #lie ren #nora valkyrie #pyrrha nikos #anti jaune arc #answered #luke.txt

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blushy-tigerrr · 3 years

Text

Rich Man’s World

c!quackity x gender neutral reader

summary: Las Nevadas was the paradise of very few. On the outside, it was beautiful in the strangest way. People travelled there to let off some steam. They needed an escape from all of the stress of the SMP, and they used gambling as their escape. The leader of this whole idea was none other than Quackity, who was arguably one of the richest men on the server because of this place... or so they thought.

word count: 1.6k

warnings: angst; cursing; mentions of migraines, taking pills; sad ending

based on: money, money, money by abba

a/n: this is my submission for @okpunz ‘s writing comp! super excited to be participating in my first one of these

---

Y/N sighed in exhaustion, throwing their apron on the bar with muted anger. They sat down at the bar with a huff, putting their head in their hands. It was just another day of waiting tables at this godforsaken place, and they were at the end of their wits. The start of another migraine began to creep into their skull, making them wince. Migraines have become a regular thing for them after work, and that really didn’t make this god awful job any easier to deal with.

Y/N fished a bottle of ibuprofen out of their bag with a shaky hand. They walked around to the other side of the bar and filled up a cup of water. They looked out onto the casino floor, taking in the massive amount of trash strewn out across the floor. Knowing that they were the only one left here to be cleaning all of this up made them feel even more woozy. They winced at a piercing shock of pain in their head, gripping onto the edge of the bar with one hand. A few tears of frustration and pain threatened to spill from their eyes. Y/N sniffed, wiping the tears away quickly before anyone could catch them. They quickly tossed the pills into their mouth, washing them down with a long sip of cool water.

“Y/N! Mi amor!” The familiar upbeat voice rang in Y/N’s ears, causing another shock of pain. They cringed again, trying to hold back the pained expression on their face. Quackity. Their boss. Their lover. Someone that they used to call their best friend. Now… it’s a bit complicated. Did he piss them off to no end? Every single fucking day. Did they still love him? “Hey, babe! Another crazy night in Las Nevadas, hm?” Quackity’s lively voice startled them out of their thoughts before they could even answer themselves. Quackity wrapped his arms around Y/N’s waist, planting a sloppy kiss on their cheek.

“Sure is, hon...” Y/N mumbled, still trying to balance themselves on the bar. Quackity began rambling about all of the bets he had won tonight, but the words fell on deaf ears as Y/N began to zone out. That question hadn’t left their mind. They did love him… didn’t they? He may be an asshole sometimes, but they did still love him. Right?

“Alright, I’m just gonna go count up the earnings for tonight, and then you’ll get your pay. Okay, amor?” Quackity grabbed Y/N’s hand, placing a gentle kiss on the top of it. Y/N halfheartedly smiled at him as he made his way back to his secluded office.

Y/N sighed heavily, making their way back around to the front of the bar. They slumped down into the chair, laying their head on their arms resting on the bar. Their massive headache only fueled the extreme emotions filling their chest.

Anger was the most prominent. Y/N worked all night and all day so them and Quackity could pay their bills, but there never seemed to be a single penny left for them. They would spend nearly their entire paycheck on the bills that needed to be paid off. Meanwhile, Quackity could somehow buy himself so many luxuries with what he earned from gambling. It never made sense to them. Why wouldn’t he contribute some of his earnings to things that actually needed it? He wanted to brag so much about being a breadwinner of the household, so why didn’t he act like it?

Suspicion was next to arise. Quackity never told them just how much he was earning. It’s not just that. They were the only person not to know. If anyone else asked him, he’d go on and on about just how rich he was and how much he made every night. With Y/N though, he never said. It made them wonder what he was hiding. Why would he feel the need to hide it? The thought came into their mind. What if he wasn’t paying them as much as he should? What if that was the reason for his secrets?

Guilt followed that thought soon after. Why on Earth would Quackity ever do that to them? He loved Y/N. He would never lie to them about something like that.

…Right?

The sound of heavy footsteps awoke Y/N from their thoughts. Quackity slid their paycheck on the bar to them with a smirk. Y/N gave a small smile back. They went to open the envelope and paused.

“Hey… Quackity. Can I ask you something?” They managed out nervously. He met their gaze, shrugging nonchalantly.

“Sure, babe! Shoot.” He answered, pulling up a chair to sit next to them. Y/N twiddled with their fingers, nervous that they might not like the answer.

“So… why don’t you ever tell me how much you make a night?” They asked bluntly. Quackity sat next to them, stunned. He was not expecting that question, and the expression on his face said that to Y/N right away.

“Uh… well, you see, I-I don’t really discuss earnings with anyone, actually! Just something I like to… y’know, keep to myself.” He responded, scratching the back of his neck. Y/N noticed that. That action plus the fact that he wouldn’t make eye contact told them all they needed to know.

“You’re lying to me.” They stated, staring at him with cold eyes. Quackity’s head shot up to meet their gaze, his face turning slightly pink at the accusation. “You know you’re lying to me. Don’t look at me like that.” They spat at him, their anger starting to show itself.

“Woah, what is going on? I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up about this!” Quackity retorted, matching their piercing tone. Y/N scoffed at him, shaking their head.

“Oh, you don’t? You think I don’t know how you brag to all of your friends about how much money you make each night? I live in the same fucking house as you. I hear everything you say.” Y/N wasn’t yelling. Their tone stayed quiet, and that’s what scared Quackity so much. “It’s constant. The bragging. It never stops until I’m around. ‘Money, money, money!’ That’s all I ever hear anymore, but you’re not telling me! What makes you not trust me?”

“What do you… of course I trust you! I just… I don’t know, it feels weird to talk about it with you because you work here, Y/N!” Quackity shouted, standing up from his chair. Y/N stood up as well, not about to be overshadowed by him.

“Oh, so you can’t tell me, but you can tell Sapnap? Karl? They work here too, y’know, and yet, you’ll brag to them about how ‘it’s a rich man’s world’! What makes me so different? What are you hiding from me, Quackity?” Y/N pleaded. They wanted him to tell the truth. They so desperately wanted some hope that he was still the man they fell in love with so long ago. However, Quackity averted his eyes, staring down at the ground. Y/N threw their hands in the air, exasperated. “Y’know, in my wildest dreams, I had a plan. I would get a wealthy man. I thought I’d never have to work at all. I’d fool around, have a ball, but no. That’s not my life. It’s yours. While I work out here all night and day, and who pays our bills, Quackity? Me. I do, with my paycheck that barely covers it all. While you go out and spend whatever you’re making on frivolous things!”

“Okay, fine! You want the truth? I give you the fucking truth!” Quackity exclaimed, pointing a finger in Y/N’s face. “Maybe I don’t talk to you about my money because I don’t want to admit that I’m going fucking bankrupt, okay? I spent all the money I made on stupid shit or I lost bets and gambled it all away! Okay? I-I didn’t tell anyone about this! I’ve lied to everyone, and I regret it. I regret not being honest. There’s your truth.” Quackity sat back down in a chair, head in his hands. Y/N stared at him, teeth clenched.

“I can’t do this anymore.” They whispered, barely audible. Quackity looked up at them, his eyes pleading them not to go. “I-I can’t just let you lie to me for so long and get away with it.”

“Y/N, please, don’t go. Love, I’m nothing without you!” Quackity begged, grabbing Y/N’s arm gently. They pulled away, refusing to look at him.

“That’s too fucking bad.” Y/N retorted. They picked up their bag, paycheck, and apron. Y/N shoved the apron into Quackity’s hands. “You don’t need me here. It’s a rich man’s world, after all, isn’t it?” Y/N stared blankly at the man they wished they didn’t love. “I quit this shitshow, and I’m moving out tomorrow. We’re over.” Y/N walked briskly out of the casino, tears threatening to spill down their cheeks.

Quackity didn’t bother following them. He knew there was no fixing what he had done. He stared at the apron in his hands. The one that belonged to them. Y/N, the one who supported Quackity through everything. They were his ray of sunshine through the clouds. They were the one thing keeping him going. Now, they’re nothing but a memory. Hot tears spilled out of his eyes as he let out a scream of frustration and pain, letting himself sink onto his knees. “All the things I could do if I had a little money…” He whimpered. He held Y/N’s apron close to his chest, not ready to let go of the love he had lost.

‘It’s a rich man’s world.’

#quackity #c!quackity #c!quackity x reader #quackity x reader

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1kook · 4 years

Text

paint job, hand job

a some way, some how jk smut drabble ((there’s references to it but honestly this could be read alone)) tags; established relationship, more autoshop fun, handjobs, praise pink, spitting :/, nipple play, jk gets pampered basically, hints of domesticity notes; I wrote sw,sh bc I specifically wanted to write this scene and in the end I forgot about it…. so here it is in drabble form 🤩

also thank u to my buddy @kigurumu for reading this over for me 🖤🥺 no more wrong usage of verb tenses🤩 and u have rumu to thank for it!!!!!! also thank rumu for sliding me this gif v.v

In the past few months, you’ve come to learn a multitude of new things about Jungkook. He was still as wonderful and endearing as he’d been his whole life, and with no soul-crushing secrets between you two, you were exposed to a whole new side of him. There were, of course, a lot of nice things, tiny actions you had only just begun to notice; the way his eye twitched when he was looking at a car, the mindless way he’d bump his foot against a wheel when he was thinking. But for all the wonderful things Jungkook was, you would also catch sight of weirder quirks. Not weird in that they made him a terrible person, but weird as in they weren’t exactly qualities the majority of society strived to have. There weren’t many, but the ones you knew of weren’t exactly ideal to your position as his girlfriend.

One, he was extremely bad at asking for help. One time you caught him floating through the bread aisle at the supermarket, hands drifting over the plastic bags as if his touch alone would remind him which was your preferred brand. It was amusing watching him wander like a ghost until you finally walked up behind him, gestured towards a loaf. You didn’t mind little things like this, after all you were very picky about buying the correct brands, and Jungkook knows this. At the time, you thought it was adorable. Overtime, however, you can admit that his fifteen minute detour to the bread aisle could have easily been cut in half with one simple text your way.

Two, he was easily stressed. Jungkook’s job was pretty grueling during the fall, when college kids were back on the roads and fucking up their cars every chance they got. Thanks to the multitude of employees on his team, he was never doing too many repairs at once. But every so often, he’d find a project that spoke to him and he’d pour every ounce of dedication into it. He always did good, always left customers happy. The real obstacle was Jungkook’s own need to always one-up himself. He was perpetually unsatisfied with his work, no matter how many times people praised him.

Lastly, and probably where you find yourself struggling the most, was his inability to communicate these things. He never asked for help, never told you he was feeling stressed. It was a guessing game with him, trying to figure out if he needed some extra support or not. You slipped up at times, tried to help him with something only for him to wave you off with an amused smile.

But there were other times where he desperately needed you and didn’t know how to ask. Like now, the shop completely dark save for a lamp shoved up beside his lonely form in the empty garage.

Rolling your sore ankles around once, your heels clack loudly as you enter the space, keys tossed somewhere onto the metal tabletop as you set to work preparing him a snack. His newest project was repairing a beat up Ford GT from the early 2000’s, a silver body with dark blue decals running over the hood. He had found it somewhere by his mom’s house, fell in love, and had been on a mission to revive it since. All this would’ve been fine, normally, if Jungkook wasn’t so set on getting everything perfect down to the last detail. Tonight, it was fixing the exterior. The garage reeked of paint.

It had been like this for the past three days. You would come over, catch him cooped up in the garage late after working hours, and make him something to eat. The weekend had been okay because you had stayed over most of the day and checked in on him when you could. But Monday was trickier to plan around; one glance at the clock told you it was a little past nine.

That morning, as you packed your lunch, you had been mindful of setting aside some for him too. Now, as you pulled a plastic container of washed and scalped strawberries for him, you were glad you had thought ahead.

It’s much brighter where he is compared to the rest of the garage, the yellow glow of the lamp glaring down at where he’s carefully running a brush against the edge of one, straight line. If he hears you come closer, he doesn’t acknowledge it, furrowed brows narrowed at the metal before him. Setting the container on a tool cart beside him, you lean down to brush your lips against his cheek. “Hi,” you murmur, wait for him to mindlessly turn his head and kiss you.

He does, a quick kiss, before diving back into his work. A beat of silence, and then, “hi, baby,” quietly, almost robotically. You don’t mind, leaning over his shoulder to glance at how perfectly he manages to paint along a straight edge, even with you breathing over his neck. He’s got the stool raised up today to properly lean over the hood of the car. Shorter than you still, but higher up than how you usually find him beneath a car. After a moment you return your gaze to the side of his face, pink bottom lip caught between his teeth as his eyes scan over his work, round glasses barely clinging to his nose. Cute, you think, faintly nudging the spectacles up the bridge of his nose for him. He mutters a soft, “thanks.”

You hum, wrapping your arms around his shoulders when he finally leans away from the car, dark eyes scanning over the paint job. Occasionally you pluck a strawberry out from the container, hold it to his lips as he munches through it, puckered lips mindlessly opening and closing for you. You don’t stop until he’s eaten half of them, by which you then move on to your daily questioning. “What else d’you eat today?” You ask.

It takes him a moment to respond. “Subway,” he says, gestures with a nod at the discarded wrappers in the trash.

“And when was that?”

“Around noon.”

You sigh, rest your forehead on his shoulder. “Baby, that was a long time ago. Have you even showered today?” You ask, tug the beanie off his head to get a whiff of his hair. It smells okay, but you have a feeling his last shower was yesterday night. Jungkook doesn’t say anything but at the first brush of your fingers through his hair, he dissolves. His head rolls back, desperate to feel your touch on him for the first time in a while. You snort, dragging your nails along his scalp. “Feel good?”

“Mhmm,” he hums, body loosening. “So good.”

You beam, trace your fingers down the curve of his neck, until goosebumps are springing up. “You’re so tense,” you note, hands drifting to rub over his shoulders. Jungkook sighs, head falling between his shoulders as you get to work on them. “You need to relax, honey.”

“I know,” he sadly agrees, and, like a baby, stretches his arms up cutely, before letting himself slouch again. You let your hands drop, wrapping your arms loosely around his chest. “But I wanna do good.”

“You always do good,” you tell him, squeezing his middle in reassurance. Jungkook sighs like he doesn’t believe you. “But,” you add, and at this he visibly deflates. “You’d do even better if you relaxed every now and then. No one’s waiting on this car. It’s just for fun, remember?”

He’s always had this obsession with perfection. You suspect it stems from his past, his relationship with Sojin, and most importantly, his relationship with her dad. One can only take so much criticism from their lover’s parents until they snap. Snap, or begin to believe it’s true. He must’ve suffered through so much in their time together and never once did he fight back, a thought that makes you frown as you watch his knee bounce nervously.

Another sigh. You kiss behind his ear, rubbing your hands soothingly over his chest. However, you greatly underestimate how strongly your thirst for Jungkook runs, because even now with him all mopey in your arms, you want nothing more than to please him.

A subtle brush over his abdomen, and Jungkook inhales a tight gasp, abs curling beneath your wandering hands. The sweatshirt he's wearing is your only obstacle. Pressing your lips to the mole on the back of his neck, you move your mouth to his ear. “Let me take care of you?” You murmur, nibbling at one of the tiny hoops that lines his ears.

He tenses up, turning his head, half-lidded eyes analyzing your features. After a moment, he nods, cheeks flushed.

“Good boy,” you purr, hands creeping beneath the hem of his top, faintly tracing over his skin. Jungkook lets out a shaky exhale, muscles tensing under your touch. Another kiss beneath his ear.

It’s rare that he lets you do this, let’s you pamper him while he does nothing. Jungkook was a fairly proactive lover, always making sure you were completely satisfied before anything else. In the past few months of being in a relationship with him, you can hardly remember a time he came without you.

Which is why you take extra care gliding your hands up his chest, over his pecs. His heartbeat thunders beneath your palm, skin so soft and kissable. You’ll save that for another day, you think, tracing a finger over his nipple. It hardens quickly, and you don’t miss the way he shifts in his seat as you begin rolling it between your fingers. “You like that?” You hum, lips pressed against his ear.

It’s so easy to get as close as you’d like, breasts pressing against his back. Jungkook nods, shaky breaths escaping his throat.

While one hand busies itself on his chest, tugging at the sensitive buds until he’s jolting in his seat, the other creeps back around his waist. You run your hand along the skin above his waistband and relish in the way his muscles twitch, until you’re finally slipping it down over his sweats.

His cock is hard, painfully so, and a soft moan escapes him when you run your hand over his length, cupping the head gently. “Look how hard you’ve gotten,” you tease, pressing your palm down more forcefully. Jungkook huffs. “Just from me playing with your nipples,” you chuckle, kissing down the side of his neck. Even through the fabric, you can feel every twitch of his cock, every throb as he grows more and more aroused.

“You like having your nipples played with?” You ask, abandoning his cock to slip both your hands up his shirt again. Jungkook complains with a soft whine, rolling his head back to the ceiling. He’s choked off when you catch both nipples in your hands, pinch the pebbled buds. His hips squirm against the stool, rutting up into nothing, as you continue over his chest. “How does it feel, sweetheart?”

“G-Good,” he gasps, knuckled fists trembling on his knees, pale from how tight he squeezes them. “Can you…?”

“Can I what?” You hum, finally releasing him in favor of gliding your hands down his stomach and over his thighs teasingly. He’s pliant under your touch, muscular thighs reduced to two trembling masses at your every touch.

Jungkook bites down a whimper, eyes trained on the hands that dance over his lower half, barely brushing over his cock like he wanted them to. “Kook?” You croon, right against his ear. He bucks into the air, his head finally lolling back to rest against your shoulder. “Finish your sentence, babe.”

He nods but you can tell he doesn’t remember what he wanted anymore, eyes rolling back behind his foggy glasses. You smirk, pressing a chaste kiss to his jaw. “I, um,” he falters, legs spreading wider as you continue massaging your palms over them. “You…um.” A few more stuttered ‘ums’ later, and then, nothing.

After a moment it’s obvious he won’t say anymore, mind a frazzled mess as he falls headfirst into the sensations you’re bestowing upon him. “It’s not proper to say ‘um’ so many times,” you scold, finally let your hand rest over his cock. He sucks in a breath, teeth clenched. “Good boys don’t do that, y’know.”

“S-Sorry,” he chokes out, and you forgive him with a squeeze around the head of his cock. “Wanna be good,” Jungkook pants, voice strung high.

“I know you do,” you murmur, kissing down his neck as your hand continues rubbing over his cock. His hips circle, body sinking further back onto you as he melts under your touches. “Wiggle your pants down for me, sweetheart.”

“Yes, yes,” he concedes, hands scrambling for his bottoms. Unravelling yourself from around his waist, you wrap your arms around his shoulders instead, watching him as he struggles to tug the rest of his jumpsuit down.

“Kook?” you call, watching his trembling hands fight with his boxers. “relax, okay?”

He nods, takes a deep breath, and then slowly tugs his bottoms down. He doesn’t manage to get that far before his eagerness wins over, and he’s struggling to push them down past the bulge of his muscular thighs. You decide it’s enough, pushing his hands away as you wrap yourself around his waist again, nuzzling your face behind his ear.

“Good boy,” you praise, and a tiny whimper catches in his throat. You glide your hand over his thigh and let it sit at the base of his cock, thumb and forefinger teasingly wrapping around the base.

“Fffuck,” he moans, twitching beneath you.

There’s a pearly bead of precum that forms at the tip, creamy substance slowly dripping down his cock and leaving a glistening trail in its wake. “Pretty,” you comment, watch it pool around your fingers. “But not enough. Kook, spit,” you demand, feel the way his body tenses up at your words.

“Huh?” He chokes, ears and neck flushed as his brain fully wraps around what exactly you’re telling him.

You shift closer, tightening your hand around his cock as you listen to the whine that rips itself from his throat. “You heard me. Lean over, and spit on your cock,” you repeat, feel him shake beneath you. “You’ve done it before, right? Used your own spit to get yourself off.”

He doesn’t answer, so you give his engorged member another squeeze that has him sputtering back to life. “I-I have,” he admits, blush high on his cheeks. “But I never just...spit. On it.”

You hum, watch the way his fingers flex on his thighs.

Deciding to switch tactics, you push as close as you can, licking a thin stripe up the curve of his ear. “But I love watching you spit,” you pout, loosening your grip on him ever so slightly. His cock remains just as stiff, standing almost completely on its own. “Love feeling it all over my body, down my pussy,” you moan, and the way you rub your thighs together is no act. Jungkook throbs in your hold, biting down another groan. “Don’t you wanna know how good it feels?”

His breaths come out shaky, head nodding at your words. He ducks down, dark hair covering his eyes from your view, but not his mouth. His lips pucker, and ever so slowly, a thin trail of spit drips down from his mouth, glistening in the lamp light until it finally reaches his cock, coating his length in a thick sheen that drips down over your knuckles.

Fuck, he was gorgeous. “That’s it,” you gently encourage, slowly beginning to work your hand over his cock. The glide is slippery, squelching noises filling the huge garage as your fist pumps up and down his cock. “Doesn’t that feel good?”

Jungkook groans, bucking into your palm with every squeeze you give. “Ye-yes,” he pants, skin warm and flushed as you kiss over his neck.

His cock is still so hard, twitching for you. You could do this for hours, feel the heavy weight of his arousal in your hands, listen to his tiny gasps of excitement. His head lolls back again, and you can’t help the endeared smile from watching him fall apart in your hands. “Sweetie, look,” you call out, finally making your other hand useful as you cup his balls.

Jungkook hisses. “Babe, that’s—“ a moan rips itself from his throat, your hands massaging over his swollen balls, caressing him as your hand picks up its pace on his cock. “Too much,” he whimpers.

You press a kiss to his neck, nibble at the skin until it’s bruising. He’s quivering like a leaf, sweat trailing down from his hair and over his skin, your name falling from his lips like it’s all he knows.

The head of his cock is angry and swollen, dripping in precum and his own saliva. You want it in your mouth, but the moment was already so fragile, so close to the end, you didn’t want to mess that up by pulling away. So you tighten your grip, licking the beads of sweat from his neck until Jungkook spasms in your hold.

“Fuck, shit, I’m gonna,” he grunts, body caving over as his orgasm hits, grabs him by the throat until he’s gasping for you to stop, voice wobbling on every syllable. You don’t, choosing to stroke him through until his cock is limp, jumpsuit stained with pearly splatters of white.

After he’s done, you press another kiss to his ear. “Good boy,” you smile, straightening your back after wiping your hands against his soiled uniform. You step away and snatch some napkins off the metal table to wipe him down.

You can tell he’s not completely there yet when you crouch down in front of him, dark eyes unfocused as you make a lousy effort to wipe the splattered droplets of cum off his jumpsuit bottoms. “Hello,” you tease, nudge his chin with your hand. “Anyone there?”

Jungkook snaps out of whatever post-orgasm trance he’d been in and helps you to your feet. “Fuck, that was good,” he sighs, and you giggle. “Screw the car, can we just go to your place?”

#goldenclosetnet #ksmutclub #networkbangtan #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook smut #jjk smut #jungkook fic #jeon jungkook drabble #jungkook drabble #mine #swshd

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starkexposition · 3 years

Text

The Bachelor: Tony Stark Edition

Forced myself against my will, at gunpoint, to update this. Here it finally is.

Chapter 2: Electric Boogaloo

Rating: Teen/Mature, it's from college!Peter Parker's perspective Pairings: Tony/Steve, Tony/Strange, Tony/literally everyone, Happy/May, Peter/MJ, Peter/Black Cat, many token ships eventually Summary: One man. Twelve contestants. Several weeks in paradise. All through the horrified eyes of one sticky, adopted son.

“Mr. Stark…”

Most people have normal dreams.

“Can you hear me?”

Nice ones.

“It’s Peter.”

Weird ones.

“Hey.”

Bad ones.

“We won.”

Ones you forget.

“Mr. Stark…”

Or in my case, ones you wish you’d forget.

“We won, Mr. Stark.”

They say when you dream about a person, it’s because they’re dreaming about you, too.

“We won—you did it, Mr. Stark. You did it.”

That never explained why I kept dreaming about him when he was gone.

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

It was never different. Never had a different ending—never even a nightmare. Just the same weak eyes followed by the same labored breaths, every single dream. And each time, the woman who believed in him most would sit with him, hand held to his heart, and promise to him that everything would be okay. And with that, the man who never sleeps would find the peace to finally rest.

There was nothing like it. I had already been through my fair share by then—whether it was the plane crash, or Uncle Ben, or the girl that I loved… Mr. Stark was different. There was no regret, or blame; it was only the mission. The worst part about it was struggling with the selfish feeling that something had been taken away from me, all while balancing the pride that I felt in what he did for the whole universe—and most importantly, for the family that was built around him.

To us, it was a sacrifice. To Iron Man, it was a responsibility.

I guess that must be the reason it kept replaying in my dreams. It didn’t need amending because of the good that it caused, but hell—it kept coming back like a nightmare.

Even after he came back, most sleeps would end the same way: with everyone around us taking a knee for him as the air grew quiet in his passing, Captain Rogers would rise to his feet, place a hand on my shoulder, and say through watered eyes and a weakened smile:

“It was all for you.”

And with Pepper’s blessing, Steve would step forward and pick Tony up from where he laid, carefully carrying him back as Pepper, Rhodey, and myself would slowly walk alongside them.

Some nights, if I got lucky, I’d wake up before Steve’s words.

But not last night.

My brain managed to string out every last excruciating detail of the dream it possibly could in an effort to stay asleep and ignore the sound of repulsors powering down to a low hum beside me. But as they hovered nearby, the stinky air of New York was blown through the ventilation of my suit, which, unfortunately, can be stinky enough to wake you when you become aware of it. A figure took the place of the city’s rising sun, casting a shadow that darkened the scene and gifted me with my daily post-dream reminder...

“You know if you prefer this for your room and board situation, I’d be happy to take up the bill.”

Tony Stark lives.

Which is great. Quality of life really did improve when he came back—for myself, and others, too. Being adopted by him, however, kind of spiced things up a bit. From mentor to parent meant that I was proving myself to him from a parental standpoint, and that consequently resulted in me becoming far more relaxed with him. ‘Cause he’s kind of stuck with me now, you know?

But even in times like this particular morning, when I had a curfew the night before and had to get back to the house upstate by a certain time and specifically did not do so in favor of fighting crime and flirting with a kleptomaniac in a leather suit, I still don’t think I couldn’t be grateful for that fact even when I am abruptly woken from my slumber on a rusty fire escape in New York by Iron Man.

There was always something about those slitted glowing eyes in the faceplate that managed to relay the disappointment behind it so well.

“How’d you find me?” I asked as I kicked my leg up onto the platform, letting my eyes settle on the ladders above.

“Same way I always find you—” Beep-beep, beep-beep! Karen pulled up a GPS screen in my lenses that pinpointed my location, with an additional flashing blip for where the Iron Man suit was just a few feet away. “Installed another tracking device in your suit.”

I pulled off my mask and sat up quickly. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” he gestured to me, his tone dripping with annoyance. “I don’t have time to play hide-and-go-seek in the alleys and dumpsters of New York every time I need you.”

“I have a phone.”

“That you don’t answer.” Tony then tossed over my backpack that was webbed up on the dumpster below. “You know, you could be sleeping on a fire escape in Cambridge right now.”

“MIT doesn’t have MJ—” Oof. Too quick there, Pete. “Or-or Ned. Or May. Or… you?”

The face plate turned to stare at me with slitted eyes once again, Mr. Stark tilting his head. “I thought you broke up with MJ.”

Of course, he won’t ignore it.

“We broke up,” I corrected him, even though that was also technically wrong, but he definitely did not need to know that. “Besides, we’re fine. We’re friends.”

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“Last week,” I told him, pulling the mask over my face again.

Mr. Stark stayed silent, faceplate staring into my soul with those narrowed eyes as he waited for me.

“Okay, fine,” I sighed, swinging down from the escape, “a month ago.”

I shot a web to the wall of the building across from us, and like that, we were en route home.

“Ouch.” Naturally, Mr. Stark’s voice came in through the suit itself while he traveled closely behind me. “That bad, huh?”

“Not really,” I lied. “And I mean, we did try the whole friend thing. That’s not gone. It’s just that… well, sometimes when you break up, it makes it a lot harder to stay broken up when you try to be friends right away, you know?”

“So…” He paused for a moment, as we turned a corner to Avengers Mansion. “You’re not friends?”

I landed on the walkway and pushed my way inside. “I stressed her out too much. I’m just giving her space.”

Mr. Stark’s suit was entirely gone by the time he followed me into the kitchen of the mansion. Making a beeline to the coffee, he raised an eyebrow at me as he pulled the pot and two mugs for the both of us, fixing mine up with sugar before he poured. “That must be easy for you at least.”

“Never said it was.” I informed him as I rummaged around the refrigerator for something, anything with sustenance… Bingo. Pizza. The only consistency that truly exists within the Avengers is the ability to almost always find leftover pizza in the fridge. “But is that stuff ever really easy?”

“Well…” Tony’s voice raised suggestively as he circled around the counter and took a sip of his coffee. “It sure seems like it is now that you’ve got yourself a feline to keep you company.”

I came to a halt, cold pizza at my lips. “Seriously? I’m not talking about this with you.”

Tony cackled, sipping his coffee as he slipped from the kitchen to the elevator, finger pressed on the ‘open door’ button as he waited for me to gather my pizza and coffee to join him. Moments later, we were entering his workshop, which was remarkably as cluttered as I had seen it last. He walked through slowly, moving papers and hardware around to organize the place and put away his projects reluctantly, and each time he seemed lost in thought, staring at some weird looking, half-dismantled device, he would take a sip from his coffee before making his decision on what to do with whatever it was he was holding.

“All packed?” He asked as he pulled the mug from his lips, tossing something into the trash.

I gripped the mask in my hands and turned away from him to face one of the blueprints on the wall, pretending to read it. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Good,” he said. He stopped at the door to his office and looked at me with expectant eyes. “Well? Get dressed so we can go home.”

Before I could even turn away, the door to his office was shut behind him, the blue glow of his holograms flashing through the opaque glass of his office doors and windows. Whatever it was he was working on must not have required too much attention, as he was waiting impatiently for me by his car in the mansion’s garage only a few minutes later, toes tapping the ground while he leaned against the hideously orange supercar.

“Really?” I asked. “This one again?”

His eyes perked up over the rim of his glasses, eyebrows shooting up in offense. “Would you rather walk?”

I shook my head and walked over to the passengers side with Mr. Stark moving out of the way to the driver’s door. “I just think—” I got in, stuffing my bag by my feet, “—you could spice it up sometime. Maybe you could go red next. Or a matte black… now, that’d be nice. All electric, so smooth. Stealthy. It’d be great.”

Tony sat beside me, buckling his belt as he looked at me in disbelief again, “I’m sorry, can you even drive?”

I stared at him and waited for him to realize, but he just stared back. “I’m 19,” I reminded him.

“And?” He said as he started the car and drove closer to the garage door, allowing it to open automatically at his approach. “You never drive anywhere.”

His gaze looked past me then, encouraging mine to follow, and we both looked at the gray Audi that sat on the far right end of the mansion’s garage collecting dust. I looked back at Tony, ready to defend myself and my apparent preference for swinging as my primary mode of travel, but he just grinned and floored it, pulling us away from the mansion, the city, and to upstate New York.

* * *

Saturday nights at the Stark Residence meant one thing: family dinner. It wasn’t required, obviously, since most weekends I couldn’t make it home, and even if I could, I usually chose to not to, as I was 19, in college, had homework, Ned, and was constantly in an internalized battle of wanting to win my ex-girlfriend back and my unexplained desire to spend an unusual amount of time around one of my more recent torments in life:

Felicia Hardy.

And if I’m honest, I’ve probably spent more of my Saturday nights playing cat and mouse with Felicia than I have been doing homework or playing games with Ned. Only thing is, lately it has seemed more like she’s the cat and I’m the mouse—appropriate, since she is the Black Cat and all—despite that I have almost always been in pursuit of her. But my naivety always manages to lead me into falling for her traps and doing whatever it might be that she had planned for me—which, of course, almost always results in me failing to “catch” her.

What a shame.

Of course, that does exclude all of those nights where I did catch up to her. On the rooftops, quips and riddles, jabs and flirts, and the few times I got lucky enough for her to lift my mask up just enough to leave a…

How did I get started on Felicia again?

Right. Family dinners. Instead of seeing her. Just a prelude to the next few months. Did I even remember to say goodbye?

Sigh.

Anyway. Family dinners.

The only night of the week we managed to get (mostly) everyone together. Between Stark Industries and some Avengers work for Tony (remotely, of course, since the man really can’t help himself), Morgan in school and clubs, the vast Morgan Babysitting Unit (Rhodey, Maria Hill, Aunt May, and Happy mostly) trading off the rascal throughout the week, and of course, whatever Happy and May got up to in their free time (don’t remind me), Saturdays were usually the one time in the week that everyone tried their best to set aside for visiting with each other. You know, for Tony’s sake. While the ladies, including Tony’s new personal assistant, Charlotte, would split a bottle of wine as Happy and May cooked the meal together—Italiano, as they introduced it this particular time—the rest would buzz around the house, catching up on the week’s events and sharing laughs like a normal family would.

Normal.

Of course, with it being my first time home for dinner in a few months, most of the attention was on me during the meal—as Mr. Stark cleverly directed it to be, in an effort to avoid talking about the obvious circus that was set to begin the following day—with Rhodey and Maria mainly prying at me for school and hero related questions, but they were sure to cover every topic in the book, like the one I was hoping to avoid.

Girls.

Or, more specifically, MJ.

It took me going from my typical sarcasm to getting quiet and frustrated when the questions persisted for the conversation to finally fizzle out, bringing our dinner party to an end. Rhodey stood up from his seat beside me, resting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing it in understanding, as he grabbed his plate to leave. Everyone, apart from myself and May, began to disperse with him, heading to the kitchen with their empty plates.

I lifted a rogue spaghetti noodle above my face and caught it in my mouth between my tongue and teeth as Aunt May poured herself another glass of wine. She looked up at me as I practically inhaled the noodle, eyes slimming into an unamused look as she stared at me over the rim of her glass.

“This is our last dinner together for a while and you’re not even gonna use your manners?” She tilted her head, hair sliding down from her shoulder.

I made a face and shook my head, reaching for the spoon in the pan. “Not when it’s spaghetti night,” I shrugged in refusal, dumping a small second serving on my plate.

May eventually followed in suit, her eyes nervously checking up on me again and again. With a breath and returned eye contact, I braced myself for the inevitable questions—

“You’re all packed?”

“Yes.”

“Have your passport?”

“Yes.”

Her face fell and she leaned forward, brows furrowing in worry. “… Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Of course not,” I said. “It was my idea to begin with.”

She lowered her voice. “I mean for Tony.”

“Well, why not?”

Aunt May stared at me for a couple seconds, noodles sliding off her fork back onto the plate. “I don’t know, he just… you know, this is a lot of publicity for someone who, you know… was dead—”

“—in a coma—”

“—less than a year ago,” May let out a sigh, her shoulders sinking. “Do you have to get technical with me?”

I set my fork down and sat back in my seat, biting my lip in frustration. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“Tony’s been back for, what? Seven months?” She crossed her arms.

“Publicly, yes, and it’s not like he really kept it much of a secret before that, anyway,” I said, crossing my arms back. “He’s been alive for almost two years. A lot can happen in two years. A person can grow.”

She let out another sigh of concern. “And you don’t think all of this is too much for him?”

“He’s two years old. Of course not,” I said, dropping another noodle into my mouth. “I was ready for that kind of attention when I was his age.”

“Peter…”

“Wasn’t I?”

“Peter.”

“Listen,” I sighed, “he agreed to it at his own risk. Besides, no matter what he does, publicity will follow. He knew this ahead of time. That’s why he waited until his rehab was over—he wanted to be ready. And if he says he’s ready…”

Her eyes looked over her glasses’ frames at me. “We both know he’s not ready.”

“You know, this might actually be good for him,” I offered. “A good way for him to kinda get back in it, you know? It’s like a nice, long vacation with a bunch of pretty people gawking over him. I honestly don’t see the problem with it.”

“A bunch of pretty people trying to use him for his money, maybe,” she started picking at her food again.

“That’s the life he always used to live, May. Which is why I think it could be good for him. Might teach him to have fun again—you know, center him,” I sat up in my chair again, picking up my fork and stuffing my face with more noodles. “Plus,” I said through chewing, “it’s good promotion.”

“Promotion for what?”

“I don’t know, really,” I swallowed my food at her look of distaste. “Something to do with clean something something. Something for the planet. Or something. He was talking about it with those fancy people from the network out at dinner the other night.”

“And you didn’t listen?”

I wound up more pasta and took another bite. “No, why would I?”

Aunt May stopped her movements and stared at me for a moment before continuing to scoop up the noodles. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you’re gonna need for the trip?”

“Positive,” I smiled.

“Alright,” she let out a sigh, “if you say so.”

I smirked a bit, and took another bite full. “Are you sure you’re gonna make it that long without me?”

She took a small piece of a noodle from her plate and chucked it at me. “Zip it, you. I’ll be fine.”

I peeled the noodle from my cheek and looked at it. “Man, Aunt May… Nice aim—” And with that, I launched the noodle back at her.

By the time Morgan and I had finished clean up duty, with me washing the dishes and her wiping down the table with a cloth I gave her, the adults had migrated to the lounge with another bottle of wine, loud chatter and laughter filling up the air around them. Tony was off with Charlotte, going over a checklist with her to ensure that he had everything he needed for the trip before our departure in the morning. I stopped Morgan before she headed upstairs, holding a finger to my lip to keep her quiet as I pulled the freezer door open for her, and before we knew it, we were sneaking upstairs to our rooms with a popsicle in Morgan’s hand and snacks in my own.

The crinkling noise a bag of potato chips makes as you open it is one of the most satisfying noises in the world. Especially in the safety of your own home—unabashedly opening up a new bag without holding back to muffle any sounds. Just that sweet, sweet tearing noise as the smell of greased up, salty potatoes fills your nostrils and momentarily takes the place of that super sweet tub of Ben & Jerry’s beside you. One plus about upgrading to a king sized bed is finally having the room to keep your food beside you as you lie there—it’s a great way to be lonely without entirely feeling lonely. For the most part. Except when you remember that you’re eating an whole pint of ice cream entirely by yourself, because that’s when it starts to hit you that you’re actually, seriously doing this and you really shouldn’t be—

“Really, Pete?”

I looked up from my snacks as I pulled out an earbud, my eyes meeting the unamused eyes of my father. “What?” I asked.

He closed the door behind himself as he walked closer, crossing his arms. “We just picked those up for the flight tomorrow and you’re already eating them?”

“I was hungry,” I told him before grabbing another chip.

“You’re supposed to be getting everything ready,” he grumbled.

“I am,” I said, pointing the chip towards the half-zipped suitcase on the floor, with shirt sleeves and socks and pants sticking out the sides… Well. I tried. “Over there.”

His gaze followed my potato chip to the suitcase and he walked over to it, opening it up to see the jumbled mess of clothes that I neatly tossed into the suitcase from my closet—which, mind you, was already half packed from the last field trip we took in school a month ago. Clever, I know. I mean, half of the clothes were dirty anyway, and a lot of them I just grabbed from my floor… so really, most of them were at least a smidgen dirty. Probably, like, 90% of them were dirty. But none of that really mattered, you see, because we are staying in an actual house while we’re there, and real houses always have washers and dryers, right?

Right?

That didn’t quite matter any longer either, as my father’s eyes fell into that absolutely terrifying “disappointed” look that I was unfortunately seeing a lot of as of late. But just as he went to close it, his eyes widened at the sight of something else and he knelt down to tug on a piece of cloth.

A red piece of cloth. And blue. And black. That turned out to be more than just a piece of cloth. And that was suddenly being dangled in my face for a split second before it was folded over my father’s arm.

“No suit,” his stern voice rang through the room as he turned back towards the door.

My eyes widened as I jumped from my bed, almost knocking over my ice cream, and I followed him out. “What do you mean ‘no suit’? I can’t just go away for that long without it—”

He opened the door, looking back at me. “And is that seriously how you’re taking care of this thing?” He pushed through, lifting the suit to his nose. “God, Pete, it smells…”

“Dad,” I pleaded, “I can’t leave without it.”

“Seriously. When’s the last time you sent Hap to get this thing dry-cleaned?” He turned back to look in my room, pointing at the suitcase as the door swung shut. “By the way, pal, one half-assed packing job isn’t gonna cut it. We’ll be gone the whole summer. Pack accordingly.”

I stopped in the hall as he continued up it with the suit still slung around his arm. “Dad, please,” I begged.

He began walking backwards, a smirk plastered to his lips. “No can do, kiddo,” he said. “You’re not supposed to work while you’re on vacation.”

And with that, he was gone, spending the rest of his evening with the usual entourage before they headed out to Happy’s place for the night.

I didn’t notice myself falling asleep. I wasn’t planning on it either—I don’t think I ever even rested my head for a second. But there I was; it was one o’clock, N64 fan roaring, half-eaten pint of ice cream melting accompanied by an opened bag of potato chips, and I had fallen asleep, controller still in hand. I peeled myself out of bed slowly, grabbing the snacks and heading downstairs to put them away in their respective places. As I was sealing away the tub of ice cream in the freezer, I noticed the door to the workshop downstairs slightly propped open, a faint glow coming from it and the distant voice of FRIDAY.

Curiosity killed the cat, right? Wish me luck.

Ever-so-thankful for my powers, I creaked the door open quietly and jumped up to the ceiling, slowly crawling down the spiral staircase until I finally reached the workshop. Everything was dark and put away apart from the desk, where Tony sat in his rolling chair, staring up at the blue holograms projected around him.

As though his breath had been hitched in his lungs for a long while, Tony let out a sharp sigh as he let go of his frozen stature, leaning forward in his seat. “Alright FRIDAY,” he pulled a pen from his desk and started scribbling on a piece of paper, “run the scans.”

“Certainly, boss,” FRIDAY said, and the holograms began pulling up hundreds, thousands—hell, even millions of files of footage. “Scanning all known devices now.”

Tony sat back in his seat again, jaw clenched in fear as hopeful eyes watched the projections around him. A sigh escaped his lips as he watched FRIDAY sort through the files, hurt filling the contortions of his face and… That’s when I noticed him.

How had I missed him?

“Come on,” Tony prayed, his eyes daring to well up into tears. “Come on, Cap.”

As files were sorted, discarded or scanned again and again, the screen running through images and clips so fast it hardly even flashed with the changes, the files were compared to an image presented to the right of them, none of them matching up with with the familiar head of blond hair that was almost damn near waiting for a match.

Years later, and Tony Stark was still searching for Steve Rogers.

I guess it sort of came as a surprise to me. He didn’t talk about Cap very often. If he did, it was usually short lived—it was never really something he chose to dwell on. And anytime someone tried to bring him up, he never spoke of their time together like it had the weight that I knew it did—like they were just some old buddies back in the day, and that was it. With everything going on in his life, I guess I just assumed he was a bit forced to move on from it.

Then again, when Tony came back—which, mind you, will forever be the most shocking moment of my entire life—one of the first things he asked about was Steve. Just to know if where he was… if he was okay. I was the one who told him he was gone, that he had brought the stones home, and was never to return.

He gave me a small nod when I told him, eyes drifting away from me, as he forced out a quiet, “okay, then.”

And that was it. That was all he ever asked about him. After he quickly regained his composure, Pepper ushered him away to get him some nourishment until they both finally decided it was time to wake Morgan up to see him again after seven long months apart.

I always wondered if Captain Rogers would have stayed if he knew Tony was coming back.

I guess that was part of the tragedy, wasn’t it? How could anyone have known that by some miracle he would come back? I hadn’t, Pepper hadn’t, nor did Rhodey, or Morgan, or Happy. There was no way Captain Rogers would have predicted that, either. He, like the rest of us, altered his life accordingly.

But if he got the chance to see what I was seeing, would he come back?

“I’m sorry, boss,” FRIDAY said solemnly. “The scans were unsuccessful.”

I suppose we’d never know.

Tony sat still, defeat stealing whatever energy he had left in him, as he tried desperately to understand the holograms before him. He stared for what felt like ages, breathing through the frown on his lips, swallowing back his guts here and there whenever he needed it. Finally, his eyelashes fluttered as he looked away from what was before him, energy joining him once again to neaten his paperwork. “Well, then,” he forced out, “let’s wrap it up for a while, shall we?”

He stood from his desk, picking up a mug of cold coffee and bringing it to his lips as he turned and started walking away, papers still in hand. He walked to a cabinet, dropping the papers into a file as he slowly lowered the mug, swallowing back his thoughts with his coffee.

“Would you like me to keep an open scan going while you’re gone?” FRIDAY inquired.

Tony’s eyes broke from wherever they had drifted, running in my direction on their way to look at the hologram—

Uh oh.

I managed to scurry back right as his head stopped its movement, hiding out of sight before his eyes flickered back over in my direction.

“Yeah,” he agreed. Footsteps. “Let me know if you find anything on your radar.”

Goose bumps. Skin tingling. Danger. Danger. Danger. I don’t think I’ve ever crawled on a ceiling faster than I did, barely making it to the door in time to leave it cracked where it was before he noticed it. It was faster to go out through the porch and up through my window than it was to run through that maze of a house, and I still only made it just in time to get under the covers before my father cracked open my door to check if I was sleeping. The pixelated N64 screen and controller by my hand was seemingly convincing enough, as he turned out the rest of my lights and left me to sleep.

* * *

To be honest, I wasn’t the most excited person when I realized that being adopted by Tony Stark also meant moving off to some cabin in the deep woods of upstate New York. The whole farm life thing never exactly appealed to me the way it did others, I guess. I was perfectly fine with living just a block away from my favorite hoagie joint, a couple blocks down from my best friend, the same part of town as the girl I sorely wanted back, and you know, the same city as the college that I attended daily. The drives back and forth from campus whenever I actually did make my way home only started to get better when I was actually doing them on my own, but they were still painfully long when Ned wasn’t able to join me for a weekend. And when your only entertainment for an entire weekend (or even week) is a six-year-old who is particularly obsessed with outsmarting you, Happy Hogan, and a video game that you somehow manage to fall asleep to while playing pretty much every night as of late, life can get pretty lonely up in the boonies.

Still, there was something to be said about waking up surrounded by nature instead of the city.

You’d be surprised as to just how calming it is for the morning sun’s glow to slowly enter your room, birds chirping in the trees outside your windows, wind chimes twinkling as a soothing voice peacefully rings throughout the four walls of your room…

“Everybody was kung fu fighting—” I don’t think I could have slapped my alarm any faster.

I attempted at covering my head with a pillow to block out the light, but the disturbance of voices downstairs disrupted my Sunday morning a bit early again—although this time, the voices seemed to amount to more of a crowd.

Great.

“Peter, your father will be arriving at your door in fifteen seconds,” Karen warned, lights brightening in my room as I hopped from my bed, placing in my earbuds. Like clockwork, the door creaked open as I paced my room in an effort to make myself seem busy.

“Pete.”

I pulled an earbud from my ear and glanced up at my father before heading to my closet. “You know, you should try knocking sometime.”

Mr. Stark trailed into my room behind me nonchalantly, looking around at the mess spread across the room as he picked up notebooks from my bed and placed them on my desk. “You say that like your alarm didn’t go off two minutes ago.”

“So?” I picked up the notebooks and moved them to my pile of schoolwork. “You never know—I could have been changing.”

He stopped in his tracks, his gaze tracing up to mine with a single eyebrow cocked up in disbelief. “Really?”

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but pajamas before two on a weekend.” He forced back a smile. “Besides, my point stands, you weren’t doing anything embarrassing. Which, by the way—”

“—that’s not my point—”

“—what exactly was it that you were doing?” He turned on his heel, looking around my room. “And what is that smell? Garbage? Gym clothes? Dirty sheets?”

“Dad.”

“When’s the last time you changed your sheets?”

“Dad.”

“Can we get some windows open in here?”

“Of course,” Karen complied, the panel windows rotating open on command, the sound of the leaves following the breeze that filled the room.

“Much better,” he exhaled.

I collapsed on my bed again, then, placing the earbud back in my ear. “Do you always have to act like something died in here when you enter my room completely uninvited?”

“I’m saving your skin, you know. May is downstairs and if she smelled whatever’s going on in here, you’d have a much bigger problem on your hands.”

I jolted up in horror. “May? What is May still doing here—”

“I invited her,” he stated simply. “For Happy’s sake. Surprise.”

I scowled. “Don’t encourage them.”

“Which reminds me, where are your bags?”

“Bags?” My eyes then drifted to the very same suitcase from the night prior, just as untouched, half-full, and dirty as it was the last time my father told me to work on packing it.

My father followed my sight and immediately let out a sigh, his back to me, and I just knew the face that he was about to hit me with before he even managed to turn around. And then he did.

Here we go.

The look of unsurprised disbelief with a flavor of sheer, utter annoyance as his eyes rolled up to the ceiling.

Personally, this was my favorite look of disappointment from him. His “shocked” face that I always seem to get whenever I prove time and time again that he really should stop having any sort of faith in me being able to do anything that is not Avenger, homework, or video game. I mean, it’s only fair. To the both of us, really.

He finished his eye roll, those disappointed eyes falling to mine before he finally headed to the door. “Get dressed and be down in five. Say hi to the crew quickly and then please finish packing. We can’t be late for this.”

“We’re leaving today?”

“Seriously?” He was out the door in seconds, calling back, “How on earth are you more like me than I am like me these days?”

I jumped from my bed and grabbed a t-shirt that was folded on the top of my dresser, pulling it over my head as followed Mr. Stark down the hall, door clicking shut behind me. “How long until we leave?” I asked, catching up to him on the stairs.

“Around an hour.” He muttered, head tilting towards mine. “You definitely did not get dressed that quickly.”

“I’m not going in there alone,” I told him.

He halted about half-way down, looking me up and down in my sweatpants and Midtown gym shirt. His lips flattened into a line, the look of annoyance returning to his face. He then unbuttoned his suit jacket, turned, and shrugged. “Fine.” And as we finished our trek down the stairs, he expanded his arms grandly, cleared his throat, and projected an embarrassingly loud, “Everyone—Peter has finally decided to join us!”

Every pair of eyes in the room fell to mine.

… I brought this upon myself.

It was barely seconds before the only person from ABC that I actually recognized managed to catch my attention—and yes, there was, once again, a gray hair sitting intrusively on the blazer.

“Peter!” She exclaimed, peeling her way through the group to shake my hand. “Are you excited for the next few months?”

“Sure,” I offered, my eyes drifting from hers in search of Aunt May. I looked back at her, squinting a bit as I studied her face. “I’m sorry, I’m forgetting your name.”

“Nellie Freeman,” she reminded me. “I’m one of the producers for The Bachelor.”

“Uh huh,” I nodded my head. The whole bullshitting portion of this thing was already wearing on me, and I was only about… a sentence and a half into it. And it was obvious, as a rather awkward look of concern started to form on her face. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, Ms. Freeman,” I sighed, slouching a bit. “I just rolled out of bed. I really just came down here for food before I get ready to leave.”

Nellie nodded then, stepping aside. “You should probably focus on that, Peter. And please, call me Nellie.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll find the chance to talk later, alright?” She said, clutching her mimosa close to her hair-intruding blazer.

I nodded, turning to make my way to the kitchen. “Okay, Ms. Freeman.”

And with that, I was free, and doing one of my favorite past times: rummaging the refrigerator for food. And as I rolled out each and every tray, drawer, compartment, searching high and low for just a little bit of cream cheese, I felt a very gentle tug at the hem of my shirt. I paused, raising my eyebrows to look down at the very soft, yet expectant face of a six-year-old, a small smile playing at her lips.

“Hi,” she said.

“Good Morgan,” I greeted her, stifling a laugh as she let out her usual giggle. “Staying out of trouble so far?”

“I need your help,” she said. She then waved for me to get close, so I did, crouching down and offering my ear to her. She cupped her hands, leaning close to whisper. “Can I have some of your root beer?” She asked, pulling back with an innocent look on her face.

“Maguna,” I sighed, turning towards her totally. “You do realize it’s still morning, right?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“And that our father is right on the other side of that wall?”

She nodded again. “Yes.”

I raised my eyebrows again, pointing in the direction of our living room. “And that if he catches me giving you root beer at seven in the morning without asking his permission, he’ll get very mad at me?”

“Yes,” she said, this time with a single, big nod.

“I don’t know, kiddo,” I told her, standing up and pulling a bottle of root beer from the fridge, “not sure if it’s worth the punishment.”

She tapped my arm this time, tugging at my shirt afterwards. “Please?”

“Hmm,” I looked between my sister and the bottle of root beer in my hands. “Are you ready to leave yet?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I set the bottle on the counter, along with the bagels and cream cheese, closing the fridge and crouching back down to meet her height. “Go on up to my room, then. I’ll bring some up to you when I finish getting my breakfast and you can play Mario Kart while I pack.”

And for the last hour that we spent in our home for the time being, my sister and I kept sanctuary up in my room, with Morgan sprawled out on my bed, trying to make sense of an N64 controller as I coached her on how to take out Bowser as revenge for his ruthless attack on her Luigi. My bags were carelessly tossed together in a matter of minutes, suit staying tucked away underneath heaps of clothes, and my Playstation carefully wrapped (and hidden) in clothes in my second suitcase, zipped away until further notice. I had bravely ventured downstairs to grab the next round of root beers, and the two of us were able to stay far away from any parental units paroling the household for the remainder of the hour—shocking, since Morgan’s got quite the big mouth when it comes to video games.

Packing the vans for our departure to the airport wasn’t chaotic until the rest of the black-blazer-with-a-stray-strand-of-gray-hair-obtrusively-standing-out-and-distracting-me-once-again people from ABC arrived. It went from packing up the car for a nice family vacation to me pretty much being sent up to my room to pack yet another whole bag with all of the items on their list of things that I had to bring for my “wardrobe” that I didn’t know were “required” for my nice, lovely, family vacation. And then came the labeling of each and every bag—which, of course, followed their security check of each and every bag.

That’s right. They brought security for us.

I know.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure the ridiculousness of checking Iron Man for safety threats was the tipping point of my sanity, so by about eight o’clock, I was lying in the middle of the driveway and tossing a rock up into the cloudy sky. At some point, Mr. Stark’s hand suddenly reached out and caught it and he looked down at me with a tired smile.

“You ready?”

I raised my eyebrows and caught the rock as my father dropped it. “Did my background check already make it in?”

“Funny,” he rolled his eyes as he reached down to grab my hand, pulling me up. “You should be praying that they don’t find it.”

“What do you mean?” I laughed, picking my backpack up from the curb as I followed him up the driveway to the big, black, spy-like SUVs. “Peter Parker is as threatening as Happy when he falls asleep on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner.”

His hand rested on my back as he guided me to an open door in one of the SUVs. “Have you read your high school disciplinary record?”

“No. That’s your job,” I grinned at him as I climbed in and slid to the end, grabbing the buckle.

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark’s eyes widened at the thought as he got in his seat beside me. “And your poor Aunt May’s.”

“Well, she knows about the whole… you know… Spidey thing, now, so it’s fine,” I said, shrugging. “I’m sure it explains a lot.”

Happy’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “Wait until you can’t use that excuse this summer.”

My jaw fell only slightly as I let out a chuckle. “No, no—not an excuse. I won’t need it, anyway. No suit, no hero antics, no need for doing anything absolutely stupid.”

Happy’s eyes looked up again in the mirror as he stopped at the end of our driveway. “The suit isn’t what causes you to be stupid.”

And with another small, Pikachu gasp escaping my lips and laughter bellowing from Aunt May and the man beside me, the window rolled up slowly, separating him and May from myself, Morgan, and our dad for the rest of the ride to the city.

The car ride inbound was far more easy-going than the last long one we had heading outbound, on our way home from my grand, very belated ‘adoption party’, where this whole Bachelor thingy began. I was silent, overwhelmed, sort of regretting the amount of root beer that I had consumed.

I think, like, five glasses, maybe? Full glasses, too. Like the big ones, not the little scotch glasses. All five, sitting in my stomach over every pothole and rock we ran over.

“Come to think of it, Pete, I didn’t really see you much tonight. Was it the nerves? Too many people?”

I nodded assuringly. “Too many people. Definitely.”

He eyed me in suspicion and then let out a sigh. “Listen, Pete. Don’t let this whole… moving into a multi-billionaire’s million dollar lakeside New York mansion thing scare you into thinking you have to respect me any better.”

“I think,” I narrowed my eyes as I stared at him in confusion, “I think just saying that… does?”

“What I’m trying to say is now that I’m officially your father and you’re officially my son, that weird, politeness type of respect isn’t necessary anymore,” he went on, looking forward at the street as Happy drove their car back to their home. “If anything, you should respect me less.”

“I feel like this is a test,” I told him.

“It is and it isn’t,” he grinned to himself. “Just be a normal kid, alright? No more Mr. Starks, no more asking permission for every single little thing. Just ask permission sometimes, when it’s necessary. And don’t call me ‘dad’ while wearing your suit. That’s when you call me ‘Mr. Stark’. Got it?”

And that was it. I’ll be honest, the whole transition from “Mr. Stark” to “Dad” hasn’t exactly been easy, but I think I’ve got it down.

For the most part.

Happy took a sharp turn then, breaking my thoughts as we went off of our course to the airport. “Sorry,” he shouted from the front seat.

“Mr. Stark…?” I muttered, staring out the windows in confusion. I looked at him and he raised an eyebrow expectantly. I realized my mistake but refused to correct it, staring back at him with my own eyebrows raised expectantly as the SUV pulled to a stop in front of the mansion, film crews piling out of one of the vans ahead. “What’s going on?”

“Showtime—” was all he said, before jumping out of the vehicle and heading over to the makeup artists, who, of course, swarmed him.

It was going to be a long summer. And it was only April.

The beauty of college was that the summer typically began in May, anyway, and with some teeth-pulling trips home away from the hyperactive, crime-filled city, I was able to set aside blocks of time to get my work done early in an effort to finish my semester earlier than most. I must say—midterms and finals all within two weeks of each other were not exactly the highlight of my college career so far, but finishing the semester by the start of April in exchange for an extended summer was pretty worth it.

Apart from the makeup brushes that were suddenly advancing on my face.

“Wait—” I held up my hands in defense, waving the brushes away. “No, no—not me, not my thing. I’m fine with—you know,” I gestured toward my face, “this.”

“It’s for lighting,” one of the artists argued.

“And that,” I said, slinging my backpack over my shoulder, “is what editing is for. Tell Ms. Freeman I said that.”

Like clockwork, Nellie Freeman ran towards me, calling my name. “Peter!” She said, excitedly, “Go on over to your father. Share a laugh with him.”

Share a laugh?

I was guided over to where he was and before I knew it, cameras were pointed at us in all directions as Mr. Stark put an arm around me and looked at me to chat, pointing to me. “Are you ready?” He asked, charming smile flashing on his face.

“No,” I said, forcing a smile, trying hard not to look at the camera. “How long do I have to do this?”

“Entire summer,” his smile grew proud.

My face fell.

“Remember, this was all your idea,” he let out a laugh then, and it was apparently enough to satisfy the cameras.

Worst moment of my life.

So far.

As a small part of the crew followed me around the front of the mansion—which, I had inferred was for their introduction to the show, as they were filming numerous angles of the mansion itself, as well as our family by the gates out front, and even a small moment of Tony driving out of the garage in yet another hideously orange supercar—the sound of a small explosion a couple blocks over rumbled through the streets. Myself and the camera people with me, who happened to be closest to the noise, all turned in fear as cop cars zipped up the street towards whatever it was.

My heart pounded a bit as the adrenaline came through my body with my senses and I looked at the crew urgently, “You should probably go distract Iron Man before you lose camera time with him.”

They took my advice.

Barely a minute later, I was in my suit, swinging through the streets of New York City.

Standard bank robbery: getaway car at the corner of the block waiting in drive, hold up in the lobby of the bank, gunmen standing guard outside, and my favorite—two pyromaniacs blowing a hole in the alleyway wall to gain outside access to the vault.

Minutes later, the vault guys were webbed to the brick walls of the alley, the gunmen were knocked out and webbed up, the two guys holding up inside were webbed together in a nice, snug hug, and the getaway car was stopped mid movement by me mere seconds after I had webbed up its passengers to street lights in their escape.

A standard day in New York City for Spider-Man.

Man, I was going to miss it. Genuinely. It was a hobby as much as it was a passion and a responsibility. It had its perks, of course, but swinging through the city, stopping to fight whatever crime was impending, and then getting back into the air moments later just to return to whatever I was doing, or like in many cases, to the backpack I webbed up to a dumpster in an alleyway a block away from the mansion. I undressed from my suit as quickly as possible and got back in the clothes I was wearing before, stuffing the suit into my backpack—

Spider sense. Spider sense. Behind you, Peter—Peter. Peter. Peter.

I turned quickly to see an old bearded man standing at the end of the alleyway by the sidewalk, staring at me as I stuffed the spider suit into my backpack.

I felt my cheeks burning red as the man just watched. “It’s not what it looks like, I promise,” I smiled nervously. “I just found it in the dumpster. It’s probably—it’s probably not even real.”

The old man let out a chuckle, approaching me slowly. “It’s okay, Peter,” he said with a smile. “You don’t need to worry.”

I froze in that moment, movements halted as I registered the voice and the way it said my name—yes. My name.

My name?

“How did you…” I trailed off as the main presented a large pouch to me, reluctantly taking it from him. I stared at the pouch and then up to those old, tired, glistening eyes. “Are you one of the wizards?”

“No,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “You might wanna grab a lab kit for that before you leave, by the way.”

And that was how my Breaking Bad career took off.

Kidding. Sort of. Hopefully. All that was in the bag from what I could tell was some old rusty gear and tech and a few pieces of paper to accompany the items. I looked up from the bag and back at the old man, who just watched with a pair of what seemed to be proud eyes.

I stared at him for a moment, trying to make sense of the familiarity in his eyes. “Who are you?”

The man’s face fell slightly for a moment and he placed a hand on my shoulder, dipping his head down a bit as he blinked slowly, lips curling into a smile once again. “You’ll see.”

The sound of repulsors taking off echoed through the streets, followed by the sound of flight, and both myself and the old man turned in its direction, looking up to the sky as Iron Man appeared over the rooftop.

He hovered there for a moment, silence dripping between us for a split second, before he finally let out a confused, “Pete?”

I widened my eyes. “I can explain,” I started, stepping towards him, “You see, I was helping this nice gentleman over here and—”

He flew passed me to where the man was, but as I turned around with him, the old man was gone.

Tony landed in his place, stepping towards the sidewalk slowly and looking around. “It doesn’t make sense…”

Okay, Peter. Time to be honest. I took a deep breath, “Well, to be honest, there was an explosion up the block, and it turned out to be a huge bank robbery, so I kind of had to step in and—”

“I said no suit.” He stated bluntly, but he was still distracted by our surroundings.

“I know. It’s just—it’s hard,” I confessed. “I’m sorry.”

Tony was silent in response; he was evidently listening to Friday as opposed to me, focusing in on whatever it was they were examining in the alleyway. Moments passed in silence, before he finally let out a sigh, “Alright, let’s go. We have a flight to catch.”

He lifted me from the ground, returning us to our group at the mansion a couple blocks over, cameras and all. The obligatory clips of the Iron Man suit removing itself from Tony that ABC insisted on filming bought me enough time to sneak into the mansion and snag one of the lab kits we had set aside for missions. I was able to slip it into the SUV by the time Tony finished with his numerous close-ups with the film crew.

The remainder of our morning once we actually arrived at the airport was just that. Cameras, interviews, weird filmed moments where we all chatted about absolutely nothing in an effort to seem like we were actually engaging in real conversations—then pause, break, and we were back to loading Mr. Stark’s private jets.

Yes. Jets. As in plural.

Because we weren’t going to fly with the ABC people, right? They had to be there waiting for us upon our arrival anyway.

Eyeroll.

It was only about eleven in the morning by the time we took off, but it felt like the day had been going on for hours already. The jet we were on, which was Mr. Stark’s newest of his hybrid engine class, had quarters for him, myself, and Morgan in the back, which were separated by the full bathrooms in between. It wasn’t long before I had passed out on my bed, the shades closing on the windows to leave me in a nice, quiet slumber…

“Pete, wake up,” My father’s voice called from the door to the cabin. I stirred a bit, covering my head with my pillow. “Shower quickly and get out here, we’re landing soon.”

Soon? Already? How long had I been asleep?

I sprung out of bed, heading to the bathrooms to shower in the circular full shower, washing up as fast as I could, before I dressed in some warm weather clothes and headed out to the cabin, natural sunlight blinding me a bit before I could see outside the windows at the…

Islands? Surrounded by turquoise… lagoons?

How long had I been asleep?

My father walked over to me, looking out the window alongside me with a grin on his face. “Welcome to Bora Bora, Peter.”

#the bachelor: tony stark edition #bachelor au #tony stark #peter parker #stevetony #stony #stony fic #stevetony fic #tony stark fic #endgame fix it #mine

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9worldstales · 3 years

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MCU Loki Ep 5 “Journey to mystery” intensive analysis

So we reached episode 5. Which yeah it’s better than episode 4 but…

It’s not like it fixes episode 4 problems. It just skips them.

Also… it’s an abrupt change of mood. The other 4 episodes were fundamentally serious. They had comedic moments but they were just moments. They had the appropriate amount of drama considering the plot.

This episode… seems to come out from “Looney tunes” for the most part. You can consider it partly a compliment, as I love “Looney tunes”… but the problem is that the “Looney tunes” is out of place considering what should have been a dramatic situation, ends up causing the story to lose a lot of time on things that could have been skipped and required the characters to be OOC for the jokes to work.

So really… I can’t say it’s not fun, it is… but it seems out of place with the rest of the series as if they had handed it to completely different people.

Premise, I usually don’t talk about them but the title of this episode is “Journey to mystery” which is an homage to the comic that hosted “Thor” but also the whole saga of Kid Loki.

Anyway.

Loki has woken up on the Void and, as soon as he had woken up he had met 4 Lokis, Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Boastful Loki and… Alligator Loki. I find the irony of Loki meeting an Alligator Loki when he’s out trying to kill 3 space lizards delicious but only if this isn’t trying to foreordain the big enemy is going to be another Loki Variant.

Because, if that’s the case I’m not gonna find it funny. But I’ll save the rant for when and if we’ll cross that bridge.

So we start with an interesting scene.

We’re at the TVA but we see it upside down. It’s a hint of how our view of the TVA should have turned upside down. They aren’t heroes protecting the Sacred Timeline, they are brainwashed Variants murdering other Variants. The camera keeps on rotating as we move in what was supposed the room of the Time-Keepers and then it finally stop and shows us things not upside down as we’re back into the Void in which Loki ended.

There’s plenty of fog and a devastated New York City and a purple cloud with purple thunders inside and who’s pretty close to our Loki who stands up and ask where he is and who’re the others.

He’s told in very simply terms:

Classic Loki: This is The Void. That's Alioth. And we're his lunch. Come on!

As the group escape, Loki in tow, the purple cloud whose name we just learnt is Alioth, turns on having a face with red shining eyes and red mouth that looks many things but friendly is not one of them.

Now… who named that place? Who named the cloud? Did it stop and introduced itself? Okay, it’s probably not relevant who need it but if the sentence had been ‘We call this place The Void and that hungry cloud Alioth’ I think it would have worked better. But whatever, I’m nitpicking, I know. On a sidenote Alioth is a Marvel comic character but in them he has a little more personality. Here it reminds me more of “the Nithing” of the “Neverending story” movie, with a bit of Gmork added just to spice up things.

We get the title then we switch back to the TVA.

Sylvie demands to have Renslayer’s TemPad and Renslayer, who’s not as fast as Sylvie was when she was a kid because she’s not blessed with the superhuman speed of the heroine, hands it to her without trying to use it first.

Sylvie now asks who’s behind the TVA and Renslayer denies to know it. Now, if Mobius were here he would probably close her in a time loop in which she would be beaten until she’ll beg to please stop but Sylvie is not Mobius so she’s just sarcastic as she pushes her back on the ground with one feet.

Sylvie: Poor Judge Renslayer. Your whole reality's been destroyed. Tell me, how does it feel to be on the other side of it?

Okay, so it seems… she has hurt Renslayer a lot although her arm isn’t broken and she’ll use it just fine later on? And… no, okay, I’m lost.

Because now they aren’t anymore where the Time-Keepers were supposed to be but in the place where the trials are held. Only Sylvie got the TemPad only now so, how did they moved?

She stopped threatening Renslayer to retrieve some other guard’s TemPad then transferred them there then returned to Renslayer and demanded her Tempad? Or they walked outside and reached that place so that everyone could notice Sylvie threatening Renslayer? Besides why in the world moving there? Just so that Sylvie can say:

Sylvie: This is it, isn't it? This is where you dragged me after you stole my life. A fitting place, then, to take yours.

Dramatic and fitting but is this quote worth destroying the logic behind the scene? HELP?!?

Why moving them there? It clearly wasn’t Sylvie’s idea as she realized only there they were in the place where they had held her trial… and anyway I would have said it’s more the place from which she escaped. The place she was dragged to was the TVA, that place was just her last stop of her permanence in the TVA.

There’s something that doesn’t work well here.

A moment before Renslayer was on the ground, groaning in pain because Sylvie has just pressed her foot against her shoulder… and now she’s instead standing in front of Sylvie and slightly distant from her.

Why letting her get up? Why since Sylvie was looking around and not at her Renslayer, instead than just get up hadn’t tried to make her trip? When this has happened as the change is just too abrupt?

Whatever, not great but not big.

Renslayer deploys what Mobius defined cockroach's survival mechanism by telling Sylvie Loki isn’t dead yet.

Sylvie says she would think she’s lying but Renslayer, who has evidently stolen Loki’s silvertongue, manages to persuade her they want the same thing... or at least to listen to her explaining how is he still alive and how saving him might get them closer to who’s behind the TVA.

Renslayer: It's complicated. I'm telling you this willingly.

And here I facepalm because she’s either assuming Sylvie is an idiot or the viewers are idiots because no, she’s not telling this willingly. Sylvie has just told her she was going to kill her and she’s trying to stall her from doing so and calls this ‘willingly’? Either she doesn’t know the meaning of the word or she’s taking everyone for an idiot.

Honestly I believe she’s taking everyone for an idiot but, in the hands of a different writer, this might explain why Mobius feels he’s Loki’s friend and not the guy who tortured him to get what he wanted, because they might think than being threatened of being killed is a normal interaction in a conversation.

Some people say ‘hum…’ some people say ‘I’ll kill you’, where’s the difference, it’s not threatening at all, just an ordinary intercalation.

Anyway Renslayer tells her how she deeply wishes to know who lied to her, because again, with the people at the TVA, it’s all about them, never about the people they reset. And can we just point out how she reset Loki AFTER knowing the TVA lied to her?

So when the Time-Keepers turned out to be fake it’s not like she went ‘oh my God, I want to know who lied to me now!’, she actually went ‘I’ll reset Loki and Sylvie and when this fails and Sylvie tries to kill me I’ll go, ops, I just remembered, I didn’t mean to reset you both, I only wanted to know who lied to me! I’m totally sincere here!’

Anyway Renslayer explains when they actually prune a branched reality they can’t destroy all that matter so they toss it in a comfortable trash disposer where it can’t continue growing, a void at the end of time ‘Where every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops.’

Sylvie asks ‘why?’

Why they toss them there? Why it can’t continue growing? Why every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops? No idea anyway it’s not like Renslayer has an answer either.

Renslayer: I don't know. The dogma states that the end of time is still being written, that the Time-Keepers are transforming it into utopia.

Oh, you’ve dogma. So you’re admitting you’re just a crazy cult.

Sylvie coulters that’s ‘super believable’ and yeah, it is. I’m sure the Time-Keepers are trying to create a cool utopia. For themselves.

I just doubt the rest of the universe will find their chosen ending an utopia as well. Anyway Renslayer assures her nothing comes back from where SHE, let me stress on the ‘she’, has sent Loki despite knowing the Time-Keepers were fake and lying to her. But Sylvie doesn’t have to worry because Renslayer can help. How if nothing can come back from her?

Magic?

What is Renslayer anyway, another Loki Variant who makes up dumb things but Sylvie swallows them because the plot says so? I say to just put her in a time loop, Sylvie.

Since the TVA likes them so much why not to let them experience them in the first place?

But no, she has to give Renslayer the tempad so, if Renslayer has a ounce of brain she can summon a Timedoor, escape from there, come back from another timedoor and arrest you.

But we don’t see her doing that because we jump back to the Void.

The Void is a terrible recycling dump. It would be nice if this were supposed to have the mean of starting a responsible discussion about trash disposing but no, we just have Loki who would like to take a breather so he can ask questions.

Sweety, really, I know the plot told you otherwise but I assure you that you can ask questions and walk and escape from Alioth so he doesn’t eat you all at the same time.

I was hoping the plot was going on you not being a walker because people in Asgard used horses to move around and skiffs but now I fear they only wanted to paint you as lazy.

I mean, we’ve a old man and a kid that can walk, why can’t you?

Anyway I’ll admit I found funny the following bit.

Classic Loki: Gotta keep moving so we don't die.

Loki: Okay, but what's your plan?

Classic Loki: Don't die.

Loki: Okay, but beyond that?

Classic Loki: Don't die.

Loki: That's not a plan. It's a general demand of living.

Of course there’s actually a pan behind all that as they’ll plan to walk till their hideout and hide there so that Alioth can’t find them. Now it’s probably a good moment like any other to wonder ‘how in the world they had found Loki?’

They’re far from their hideout, what then, they were out for a walk and he was dropped in front of them? Is this kind of plot contrivance or the story is going to have things happen for a reason that’s not ‘oh, look, what a coincidence’? Because a plot should have only so many coincidences, it can’t all conveniently happen at random!

Whatever, why am I talking anyway? Of course it happened because it’s convenient to the plot. And why did they pick him up and are taking him to a shelter? Just because they’re coincidentally nice Lokis like that? -_- Yeah, that’s why.

Loki protests if they’re Loki they should always have a plan. Yeah, they should. Too bad in this whole series it was proved over and over hardly Loki ever had a plan so… whatever.

Now I love the weird birds the place populate but they sadly serve no purpose beyond being weird birds moving around there and, apparently, being the only animals who survive the place… or the only Variant of animals the TVA pruned.

Loki start screaming, demanding explanations and summarizing his situation. Again, it’s fun, especially the part in which he says ‘now I'm surrounded by Variants of myself, plus an alligator, which sadly I didn't find all that strange’ but it feels like I’m into one episode of “Looney tunes” (in which the weird birds would fit perfectly by the way) or ‘who framed Roger Rabbit?’ because the fun is based on a total lack of logic.

That’s not the moment to stop and yell so as to have answers you can have by keeping on walking. They just told you not too long ago Alioth is interested in eating you all, either you believe it and keep walking or think they’re tricking you and walk away.

And this applies to the other Loki too. They can explain and walk instead they had dragged him along for who knows how long in silence for unknown reasons. But I’ll dig better into this in a while.

Anyway the purple cloud also known as Alioth seems to react to the ruckus Loki is making so Kid Loki points his sword at him walking close to him.

And here I’ve another problem.

Kid Loki was distant from Loki when they stopped… but when he pulls out his swords is what? A meter from him? So Loki has to hurry to back walk which causes him to fall because falling Loki is hilarious. Or because Kid Loki has to seem badass, pointing his sword to a lying on the ground Loki.

Kid Loki: Stop wailing or you will signal Alioth.

Even Kid Loki calls it just ‘wailing’. *sighs*

He does so by whispering though so Loki whispers as well when he asks him if he means the monster in the sky. I’m not sure why the kid shook his head since Loki is right, but whatever, he makes the sword disappear and helps Loki up.

Now… remaining where they are, the Lokis, starting from Kid Loki, begins to explains things to Loki, without bothering to whisper or to walk.

Kid Loki: This is the place where the TVA dumps its rubbish, everything they prune. And Alioth, he ensures none of it ever returns.

Boastful Loki: It's a living tempest that consumes matter and energy. They send entire branched realities here that are devoured instant...

Thanks for the info dump, I would have appreciated it just the same if you gave it to Loki while walking because yeah, it was funny to see Loki blowing up but it had no point and for me logic takes precedence over fun. I’m weird like that.

Now… Classic Loki is apparently the only one who can talk with Alligator Loki. I love how he explains him things because again, it’s funny…

Alligator Loki: ( /Growls/ )

Classic Loki: Oh, there's no such thing as an alligator tank. Besides, it's a better metaphor. He's overly sensitive like the rest of us.

…but again, also pointlessly absurd. The Void is not Toontown, the situation is supposed to be dramatic.

I fear they had decided since the Lokis are supposed to be chaotic creatures… they’re meant to create chaos for the sake of it.

The only things that VERY funny and that makes sense is this bit.

Loki: Hang on, that thing's a Loki too?

Classic Loki: Oh, yes.

Loki: Okay, fine. Willing to accept that.

I mean, it’s a totally fair question and it makes sense in a situation in which he has seen Variants of himself of all the kinds he can accept there’s one who’s an alligator too.

Really though, I’d like to have an explanation on how the Variants works. What makes someone the Variant of someone else? Because we’ve already established Sylvie had genetic code different from Loki but whatever… but an alligator… that’s in a completely different league.

Anyway the fact that Classic Loki define themselves as OVERLY sensitive basically seems to be put there to invalidate they’re sensitive because implies they’re excessively sensitive.

In “Thor” Loki had valid issues to be sensitive about and the side material was united in saying Odin favoured Thor. It wasn’t just Loki being overly sensitive.

This series claimed it would discuss Loki’s issues but the way they do it is by invalidating them.

I genuinely wonder if the Loki series employed someone who knew about psychological issues as a consultant. They gloss over narcissism, sensitiveness, adoption, racism issues, a suicide attempt and fear of abandonment in a worrying way.

Loki asks why there’s so many of them. It’s actually just four and they might not know. I mean, Loki doesn’t know so why should they have that info?

Never mind, they’ve the answer.

Classic Loki: Because Lokis survive. That's just what we do.

Oh, okay it’s not an answer to ‘why so many variants of Loki came into existence’ but ‘why you managed to survive’.

Not that the answer tell us much though since they don’t mean if Alioth will eat them, they will survive.

Loki asks them how do they escape. It turns out he doesn’t mean from Alioth but from the Void.

The answer he gets… fits with the question only for the very first part, the rest is an absolutely random info dump to define the Lokis incompetent.

Classic Loki: We don't. All of us were arrested by the TVA and pruned, just like you. And just like you, we all stood around making bad plans that went nowhere.

I mean, okay they were pruned. I could figure out this bit. It’s the ’and just like you, we all stood around making bad plans that went nowhere’ I’ve problems with. When it happened? Prior they were pruned? How did they know they were bad plans if they never could come into fruition because the TVA pruned them? Or after they were pruned? As in right now? Because escaping in a safe place is not a bad plan… it’s just a temporal fix though. And anyway Loki hadn’t planned anything yet… but of course he’s about to and it will be dumb.

I would like to say it’s not his fault, because he doesn’t know the place he’s in, so he would like first to use a TemPad… when of course there’s none there, and then considers causing a Nexus Event… which really is dumb because, let’s forget they’re in the Void, to cause a Nexus event you’ve to do something the Sacred Timeline disagree with, and Loki doesn’t know what the Sacred Timeline agrees with.

This means he wouldn’t know where to start in causing a Nexus event.

But whatever, instead than telling him they don’t know how to cause a Nexus Event they just tell him the TVA doesn’t care what happen there, which I hope they figured out by themselves and not because the TVA conveniently gave them an info dump at random.

As Loki insists there should be something they can do Classic Loki answer him there is.

Classic Loki: There is. Survive. That's all there is. All there ever was.

Sound like a sensible suggestion. Kid Loki tells them all they’re done talking and should go and Loki is free to do what he wants. Then they start to walk away. Note that they had all forgotten they should have whispered and the whole discussion was done with them talking normally and they’ll continue to talk normally now.

Loki decides to follow them and… ask Classic Loki why he wears the horns since he let a child command him. Now… “Marvel studios Visual Dictionary” says the horns on Loki’s helmet are a symbol of sorcery, not of leadership which makes goddamn sense since Loki had them in “Thor” too and he clearly wasn’t the leader. Now this series is trying to say me the horns make someone the boss?

The group stops again for… no reason.

Classic Loki tells Loki to respect Kid Loki as this is his kingdom. With all due respect this seems a way to please young viewers. Sure, it’ll turn out Kid Loki’s Nexus event was ‘to kill Thor’ but that’s all we’ll see the kid accomplish… and sadly it isn’t really explored upon. Was Thor killed on purpose or by coincidence? Did it pained him or not?

Loki seems affected by the idea that kid killed Thor but that’s all we’ll get from such a big declaration. It’s a wasted chance. They could have given us that instead than all that walking and the funny but pointless moments.

I was hoping Kid Loki ‘killed’ Thor by turning into the frog we saw being in a buried jar, in short Thor wasn’t dead yet but the TVA pruned everything and so a still alive Thor ended there and Kid Loki believed he had killed him but no, it seems Frog Thor in a Variant arrested by the TVA.

Eric Martin @MrEricMartin · Jul 8

Comic fans will notice the Frog of Thunder in that jar. We actually shot a scene for the Time Theater in Ep 1 of Loki getting pummeled by Frog Thor, but had to cut it to keep things moving. It’s too bad, because Tom was funny as hell. #LokiMidnightTheater

Apparently the “Loki” series longed for a frog to beat Loki too as if the show didn’t beat him often enough. As of now we don’t have an episode in which Loki didn’t got a beating.

Ep 1? B-15 beats him.

Ep 2? The people possessed by Sylvie beat him.

Ep 3? The guards on the train beat him.

Ep 4? Sif beats him.

Ep 5? Kid Loki sent him on the ground and then we’ll have all the Lokis beating each other.

I’m not saying Loki can’t get beaten in a series with fights, just that if it becomes a ‘funny’ trend proposed in each episode it talks of poor creativity.

The group resumed walking.

Okay the scenery is nice but why in the world they went so far?

More walking after the group reaches a trap door that Classic Loki probably sealed with magic as he’s the one who unseal it.

The group gets in.

The camera moves, showing us details about the layers of ground, among them we can see Mjolnir is buried there with a glass vase inside which there’s a frog Thor who’s still jumping around, screaming (Chris Heimsworth voiced it) as it tried to escape and can’t.

I would have liked it, if the backstory beyond the frog was that Kid Loki turned Thor into a frog and then buried him and that’s why he thinks he killed him when Thor survived but ended up pruned by the TVA just the same.

Once they’re inside the shelter Classic Loki questions Loki.

Classic Loki: So, why did you want to return to the TVA so badly, anyway?

Boastful Loki: You leave your glorious purpose there?

Loki: Something like that.

Can they please, please, please, stop tossing around ‘glorious purpose’? Loki used it only once in a movie and now, all of sudden, it has turn into an intercalation that gets said in all the episodes more than once.

Loki: I am Loki of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose. [Ep 1]

Loki: Glorious purpose. [Ep 1]

Mobius: It's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose. [Ep 2]

Loki: Oh, the mission? The mission? What, your glorious purpose? Give me a break. You can't beat them. [Ep 3]

Boastful Loki: You leave your glorious purpose there? [Ep 5]

Boastful Loki: Glorious purpose! [Ep 5]

Classic Loki: Damn it! Animals, animals! We lie and we cheat, we cut the throat of every person who trusts us, and for what? Power. Glorious power. Glorious purpose! We cannot change. We're broken, every version of us. Forever. [Ep 5]

Classic Loki: Glorious purpose! [Ep 5]

They managed not to mention it only in Ep 4 but to make up for it Ep 5 mentioned it 4 times. Loki used that sentence only once in “The Avengers” no need to have him or someone else close to him to keep repeating it.

There’s something else I dislike about the whole setting, which is that all the Lokis we see have fundamentally given up on the idea of escaping. Or defeating Alioth. The most they want to do is to rule over each other.

Loki in both “Thor” and “The Avengers” was highly intelligent and quick-witted. In this series he’s none of that. At this point it’s clear he’s not the Loki we know in a world we don’t know. Episode 1 and 2 showed him to have some intelligence (like how he stole the time twister or how he figured out Sylvie was hiding in an apocalypse) but everything has gone downhill from then.

It’s sad.

I might say it’s nice now Loki’s ‘glorious purpose’ is clearly helping Sylvie but this doesn’t solve how poorly their love story was built. It just asks me to pretend to forget about how poorly it was built and embrace it.

We switches to the TVA and Renslayer deploys the help of Miss Minute to access to a series of restricted files about the beginning on time and founding of the TVA for… no purpose than stall time really. I mean… if in those files there’s something compromising for the Time-Keepers they clearly wouldn’t let it available to people who could not be on their side. If Renslayer were to be allowed to see it, it’s clear it would mean she’s on their side and not trustworthy.

Plus the whole thing has no relevance whatsoever in the story, it seems an excuse to have Miss Minute there. We learn nothing about the beginning of the time and the foundation of the TVA because Sylvie starts asking about the end of time, the Void in short, where Loki is.

Miss Minute at this point stops searching and shows them a timeline, the sacred timeline I guess, which ends in the Void.

But it’s not solely because Sylvie cares about Loki, no, she asks because she’s SMART, so of course she goes:

Sylvie: What if The Void isn't the end? What if there's something beyond it? Hiding in the shadow of apocalypses obscured me from the TVA because I couldn't create a diverging branch there, right? So if all of this is still being written, whatever happens is just a new timeline. It would be impossible to start a nexus event there. You could be completely undetectable.

Renslayer agrees it has to be the solution, the Time-Keepers has to be there but insists they can’t get past the Void with the Tempad and getting through it (no idea how) would be suicide.

At this point Sylvie comments she doesn’t need Renslayer anymore so Miss Minute mentions a ‘Void spacecraft’. Renslayer catches the ball and say they’ve a prototype of a spaceship designed to withstand the temporal void which could take them to the end of time.

Miss Minute volunteers to search the files which is clearly another way to stall time because what will they do with the files? Start producing it in that room using the blueprints as reference?

They need the prototype, not the files and it’s unbelievable Renslayer wouldn’t know where it is and needs the files.

The girls go on saying:

Sylvie: Find Loki.

Renslayer: Find the man behind the curtain.

Sylvie: And kill him.

Renslayer: Together.

The Time-Keepers were three, an unholy trinity. Why now it’s only one man?

Anyway Renslayer would shake hands on this but Sylvie is SMART so she doesn’t let her go and insists for having the file. Miss Minute and Renslayer try to buy time saying it’s buried pretty deep… which really, it’s an idiocy as pc don’t ‘bury things’. They hide them behind passwords and encryptions but she’s just making a search, not using passwords and decryption programs. Renslayer claims she might not have clearance, which again is dumb.

So Sylvie, who’s SMART suggests the prototype doesn’t exist.

In fact the guards barge into the room and really, I don’t know why they took so long. It’s the TVA, there’s plenty of hunters, what where they waiting for?

As we will likely need Renslayer for more plot related things, Sylvie doesn’t prune her but merely pushes her away, temporally losing her status as SMART girl but hey, she recovers immediately as she steals Renslayer’s Tempad as she pushes her away so she’s back on being SMART.

Sylvie hides behind a balcony. She has the TemPad, she can escape in a damn apocalypse and resume killing Minutemen but she remains there to chat because she knows she’s the heroine and plot protected.

Renslayer tries to get her to surrender with a pretty speech about how tiresome it should be to escape from a fascist government which wants to kill you. Much, much better to surrender to them and not try to survive, right?

Okay, those aren’t her words but you get the gist of it.

Sylvie goes:

Sylvie: I'll admit you had me fooled there for a minute. Or did you get a little real? Did Judge Renslayer really feel betrayed by her beloved TVA?

Now… if Renslayer remains IC (and she might not as Mobius was way too OOC in ep 4 and we’re talking of a character this series created), no, she didn’t feel betrayed. She lives for the TVA.

Mbatha-Raw: “She’s really worked hard to get where she is, so she’s not going to be reckless with the power that has been hard-earned for her. She, in some ways, is deeply indoctrinated with the ways of the TVA. She’s completely conditioned by their thinking and the idea of the Sacred Timeline, and the concept of free will is quite alien to her. She’s a believer. She believes in law and order, and it’s done quite well for her so far in terms of getting her to where she is. She’s not going to abandon her philosophy lightly.” [‘Loki’: Owen Wilson Says Renslayer’s Betrayal of Mobius in Episode 4 Was ‘Pretty Shocking’]

Renslayer didn’t have additional information compared to the ones she had when she decided to remain loyal to the TVA and prune Loki and doesn’t has a concept of free will, hence no, she shouldn’t feel betrayed.

She was a servant and she should remain a servant. But since the series is no big on keeping character IC… who knows?

Renslayer: Why don't you come back out and we can talk about it?

Sylvie: Sure. Just tell everyone else to piss off and we can settle this between us.

Renslayer: Works for me.

Renslayer slips on the dumb slope in this part of the discussion in which nobody just does everything as the hunters remains where they are and the scene seems there to fill time because the hunters will start moving AFTER THIS.

Renslayer continues talking merely for plot purposes.

Renslayer: Tell you what. You come out with your hands up and I'll put you in a time loop. Something not so bad. You can live out your days in a good memory. Do you have any good memories?

Sylvie doesn’t trust her, it’s clear she doesn’t swallow her promises but she has to prompt Sylvie to think to her Only Good Memory which I bet is the one in which she touched Loki one moment before they believed they were about to die and ended up causing the Nexus event.

Because Sylvie is a tragic girl and in the what, centuries she take in growing up considering the Asgardian slow rate of growth and assuming she has Loki’s same age, she never had a single good thing, she didn’t even witness a beautiful sunset or ate a food she liked. Touching Loki was the only good thing she had.

Tissues anyone?

I mean, it’s clear Sylvie is a tragic character and there’s nothing bad in tragic characters but they just overdid things with her. If this keeps up they’ll tell us she had a worse time escaping the TVA than Bucky Barnes when she was brainwashed and forced to work for Hydra.

Now… instead than pruning herself secretly so that the whole TVA might think she escaped, she does so very blatantly. Mind you, the scene is pretty but serves little purpose beyond showing Sylvie’s brave act.

For our SMART girl it was more functional to prune herself secretly so that the TVA would be all busy searching for her.

Whatever, Renslayer declares her dead, forgetting she has a Tempad, HER Tempad, and could return from the Void. But as I said Renslayer is slipping in the dumb slope.

We move to the Lokis group drinking… Roxxiwine, a supposedly exceptional Pinot Noir. This includes Alligator Loki who is poured wine straight in his mouth by Classic Loki.

All this where Boastful Loki is… well, boasting about how he vanquished Captain America and Iron Man and claimed his prize, all six Infinity Stones and I’m “Hey, what about Thanos?”

Because it wasn’t Captain America or Iron Man who were collecting the stones but Thanos. If you’ve to boast, boast about beating the right guy.

But anyway it’s probably all a lie, at least according to Alligator Loki. Boastful Loki counters:

Boastful Loki: At least my nexus event wasn't eating the wrong neighbour's cat.

…and I goes again: “CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN ME WHAT’S UP WITH THE VARIANTS? BECAUSE I GENUINELY HOPE OUR LOKI NEVER TURNED HIMSELF INTO AN ALLIGATOR TO EAT THE RIGHT NEIGHBOUR’S CAT!”

Logic? Hey, logic, where are you?

Alligator Loki decides to turn Boastful Loki into his next dinner. Not a bad move for an Alligator but completely OOC for a Loki as they usually don’t jump at someone’s throat… unless Alligator Loki is actually female?

Besides why Boastful Loki doesn’t get even a little scratch from him biting his hand while President Loki will completely lose his hand?

Classic Loki and our Loki run to stop him and he ends up back in his small swimming pool.

Again, this is fun, this is episode is probably the funnier of the whole series but overall absurd and pointless, more fitting of a “Looney tunes” episode than of the series.

Besides what’s the point for Boastful Loki to feed us a fake story on which he could boast about while they’re in such a situation? It makes him a compulsive liar. As if the show hadn’t depicted Loki poorly enough.

Kid Loki, who remained sitting on the throne drinking juice because no matter if he’s a Loki, minors don’t drink wine in this show, demands to know Classic Loki’s backstory.

I, instead, demand to know what’s going on.

The general impression was that Classic Loki, Boastful Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki were living together by a while but they decide to tell everyone their stories ONLY NOW for the benefit of Loki and, more important, of the viewers?

Whatever.

Classic Loki, despite supposedly being a Narcissist like all the Loki goes and say:

Classic Loki: Me? Nobody wants to hear about that.

Loki points out he’s actually interested in knowing since he was aware he was supposed to be killed by Thanos.

So, to explain the survival of Classic Loki, the “Loki” series goes and tosses a COMPLETELY VALID AND RIGHTFUL JAB AT “AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR” whose creators said they planned Loki’s death as their first scene and actually made an illogic mess of those 10 minutes which contain more nonsense than the rest of the MCU movies put together…

Classic Loki: Thanos? In my timeline, everything proceeded correctly, my entire life, until Thanos attacked our ship.

Loki: So, you didn't try to stab him?

Classic Loki: ( Chuckles ) Certainly not. Take no offense, my friends, but blades are worthless in the face of a Loki sorcery. They stunt our magical potential.

Boastful Loki: But they look awesome.

Classic Loki: Oh, yes. Especially when they clatter to the ground just before your neck is snapped.

…to end up in colossal disappointment (never mentioning the one Loki who praises blades as awesome is the one who doesn’t use a blade but a hammer. Copying Thor much?).

I appreciate the praising to Loki’s magic but Loki can’t cast solid projections of himself (and this series so far hadn’t bothered to explain why Loki got an upgrade in his magic power which he has hardly used in the other movies). Not even this Loki in fact can make solid projections, as we’ll see the Asgard he’ll project later on is just an incorporeal illusion. It would be different if he’d used a real person but the idea is even more horrible. Anyway, for the sake of tricking Thanos, Loki suddenly can do something he couldn’t do before, which of course will end up being interpreted as being what he also did in “Thor: The Dark World” too when he faked his death. And then what?

Classic Loki: Then hid as inanimate debris. After I faked my death, I simply drifted in space. Away from Thor, away from everything. Thought about the universe and my place in it, and it occurred to me that everywhere I went, only pain followed. So I removed myself from the equation, landed on a remote planet and stayed there in isolation, in solitude for a long, long time.

Then he basically dumped Thor and the other Asgardians who survived and remained on a remote planet in isolation. I mean, it would have worked just the same if he had said ‘I drifted in space, ended on a remote planet and couldn’t leave because there were no spaceships or anything else’ but no, he has to decide to dump everything.

Why?

Because everywhere he went, only pain followed. Yeah, from when he set foot on Asgard, Asgard lived 1000 years of pain. And when he came to Midgard it wasn’t because he decided to attack it that the Midgardians suffered but because he set foot on it.

Had he come there as a tourist, the Chitauri would have invaded JUST THE SAME but solely because he was there. If he’d gone in another place Thanos would have never tried retrieving the Tesseract from Earth.

And the 4 years in which he again ruled Asgard… yeah, all the Asgardians were miserable, weren’t they? It’s actually funny Hela managed to arrive on Asgard when Loki isn’t there, isn’t it? And Loki is the one who brought a spaceship big enough for the Asgardians to escape, and Loki stopped Hela by resurrecting Surtur but no, everywhere he goes he brings pain so the Asgardians would have been happier dying in Asgard.

It wasn’t Thanos’ fault at all if he killed so many Asgardians, he did so only because Loki was there otherwise Thanos doesn’t kill people, no, not him.

Logic, where are you?

And so how the TVA captured him.

And of course, it turns out he somehow knows Thor survived the mad Titan but decides he misses him and wants to see him only when he’s grey and old and so, when he attempts to leave, this sets the TVA on him. They could have said finally someone dropped on his planet and offered him to leave, but no, he always could, he just decided not to.

Mind you it’s sweet he said:

Classic Loki: I got lonely. To tell you the truth, I missed my brother, and I wondered if he missed me, if anybody else did.

But the premise is bad and the conclusion is horrible.

Classic Loki: Because we, my friends, have but one part to play, the God of Outcasts. Nothing more. The God of Outcasts.

Basically Classic Loki’s point is that they’ve to stay isolated, away from people, cut out from the world, there in the Void.

This is how Loki came to call himself ‘God of the Outcasts’ in the comics

“I am Loki. God of outcasts. They see themselves in me, and I in them. All of us, alone together. It’s why my stories always end with someone trying to put me in a box. And begin with my spectacular escape.” [Loki (2019) #5]

It’s the opposite to surrendering in being kept boxed into a corner. And it’s the opposite of seeing the Lokis as an entity apart from the rest of the living things.

This series has so many Lokis… who’re just the same yet neither of them is said to be the same as any other human. They don’t belong except than among them and even then they can enter into conflict. They can’t fall in love except than with themselves and even then they need a special Loki female to fall in love.

It’s Sylvie that points out the TVA workers are Variants like they are, but, even in this case, there won’t be camaraderie between the Lokis and the TVA workers.

Anyway after hearing all of this our Loki decides that no, he’s not going to play the part of the God of the outcast but he’s leaving, going back to the TVA. Since they’re as good at escaping (something this series has established) as at surviving he thinks he can escape and survive and if he’ll die instead, like Boastful Loki says, well, that was his destiny to begin with.

It would be a nice speech if it came from him. Too bad it came from his love for Sylvie because she got the Mary Sue power to turn him into a new man with her love. And so, since the other Lokis didn’t benefit from having the chance to love Sylvie, they can’t be like him, but that’s their only difference. Because love is saving the world.

Kid Loki: You're different. Why?

Loki: No, I'm not, you see? I'm the same, really. I'm the same as all of you. Have any of you met a woman Variant of us?

Classic Loki: Sounds terrifying.

Loki: Oh, she is. But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down. And she needs me.

Don’t take me wrong, I’m sure love plays a huge part in saving the world but in this way it feels just as cheesy and childish as it could be. Besides Loki’s plan is against dumb because all his brain went to Sylvie.

Loki: Now, you said Alioth is what keeps us here. You said it's a living thing. You said it's a shark. Well, if it lives, it dies. So I'm gonna kill the shark. I'm gonna kill Alioth, and I could use all the help I can get.

Okay, to be honest this is not a plan, this is a goal. Killing Alioth is a goal but a plan requires studying a way to how to do it and he hadn’t, isn’t doing and won’t do it. So no plan.

Anyway the Lokis laugh either because they have surrendered and believe Alioth can’t be killed or because the idea someone were to ask help to them is absurd because they’re backstabbing, evil guys. I don’t know which one is more depressing.

But whatever, the discussion isn’t even done well.

I mean, this series wrote down Loki is fluid but when Loki suggests they might have met a woman Loki the other finds it ‘sounds terrifying’ which I don’t know if it’s more stupid or misogynist. And Loki agrees but then launches in a rant on how, because Sylvie is a woman, she’s different and so perfect. Because being a woman is a character trait that makes you better.

Loki: Oh, she is. But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down.

This is not validation! This is dumb. A woman is a damn human being who can be awesome or horrible because her sex and/or her gender do not decide which sort of person she is!

If the idea is that Loki is bad because he’s a man that’s just dumb and if the idea is that Sylvie is great because she’s a female this is not only dumb, it invalidates all Sylvie has done to be the way she is… which is not great because she’s actually moved by wish of revenge, not by some sort of humanitarian purpose.

At this point Killmongrel was more noble than her as he at least cared about those he viewed as his brothers.

Sylvie just wanted to erase the TVA… and now she wants to save Loki because she fell for him.

Should I also mention how Loki the silver tongue, can’t even persuade a kid to eat a candy in this show?

Loki leaves commenting they’re ‘monsters’ which is kind of a big word for guys who don’t want to follow you because you are going against a REAL GIANT MONSTER that could kill them and don’t have a plan.

What about Thanos then? What about the TVA who pruned countless lives? How do you call them?

When Loki is about to leave however he meets a Loki who, for once, looks EXACTLY like him, President Loki, who had gotten there with tons of other male Loki who couldn’t look more different.

Again, the exchange is funny…

President Loki: Ah. Hello, which one of us are you?

Loki: This is a nightmare.

…but the joke is more a “Looney tunes” nonsense, albeit, for once, a little better planned.

But I’ll return on this in a minute because the story switches to Sylvie, the heroine who wakes up in a vehicle. Evidently she was dropped there because the roof above her is broken so she likely fell into the vehicle more than magically woke there.

And, please, prepare yourself, we’re about to start a list of new plot contrivances.

COINCIDENTALLY, although that vehicle was clearly abandoned there by only God know how long, Alioth decides to eat it just now, but COINCIDENTALLY, Sylvie has just came out of it in time so as not to be eaten. Alioth begins to give her chase, so she tries to enchant one of his… tendrils? Pseudopods? So she COINCIDENTALLY see in his memories not his last dinner but where the Time-Keepers are.

COINCIDENTALLY, despite Alioth being very fast, she manages to distance herself from him and hold that distance until COINCIDENTALLY a car which is COINCIDENTALLY working as it’s not damaged and has fuel (Sylvie’s vehicle was unlikely to move considering it seemed to have been forgotten there by a lifetime) appear which is COINCIDENTALLY driven by Mobius who has COINCIDENTALLY not only seen Alioth but not turned away from him immediately and fast as he could and had COINCIDENTALLY noticed she was there too despite the fact she was pretty distant.

COINCIDENTALLY, despite Alioth’s speed, Sylvie manages to outrun him in time for her to reach Mobius’ car. Should I mention Mobius COINCIDENTALLY knows how to drive that kind of car though as a TVA analyst he shouldn’t need it? No, maybe I’m being too nitpicking.

So Alioth, who first was COINCIDENTALLY slow enough Sylvie could outrun him otherwise she would end up being eaten, now COINCIDENTALLY speeds up and tails Mobius’ car up close otherwise the chase would be boring.

Meanwhile, as they drive, Mobius and Sylvie scold each other, each of them sure he’s more competent than the other. We see them pass by the pyramids and the Sphinx and then the scene changes.

We’re back in the Lokis’ hideout but now President Loki and his men has taken control of it.

Classic Loki scolds Loki for leading ‘the wolves’ there. President Loki claims they prefer to be called snakes.

Kid Loki has a nice moment in which he says:

Kid Loki: I've eaten both. They die just the same.

I wish they had developed him more. Is he meant to be a murderous dangerous psycho or he’s also acting so as not to look weak? Sadly though, like all the Loki Variants except Classic Loki, he’s just tossed there to make number and confusion.

Anyway, as I was saying, President Loki being there is not a coincidence nor our Loki’s fault. It turns out Boastful Loki betrayed Kid Loki.

Why? Because he’s a backstabbing idiot with poor planning issues which is how we’re supposed to see all the Lokis. Not intelligent beings and with quick-wits who use their brains to beat enemies stronger than they are but backstabbing idiots with poor planning issues.

Anyway Boastful Loki gave to President Loki the location of Kid Loki’s hideout so, in exchange for shelter and supplies, President Loki would give his his army and he would take the throne.

Not even a kid would believe someone would honour such a dumb agreement and in fact President Loki doesn’t plan to honour it because he plans to take everything for himself

President Loki: Ah, yes. Not so good a bargain. How about this one? My army, my throne?

So of course his army of backstabbing idiot Lokis with poor planning issues decide to start arguing among each other on who has to get the throne.

I’ll be honest, if this was a “Looney tunes” cartoon I would find it hilarious. As they’re trying to tell me all those are Lokis who are ‘more successful than our Loki’ I just facepalm.

He's the Loki that was supposed to stay on the timeline. All those Lokis who had all those successes were Lokis who got pruned by the TVA. As Mobius says, ‘It's your job to lose so others can become the best versions of themselves.’ That's the part Loki is meant to play on the Sacred Timeline. The question is: can you change? [Why Other Lokis Are Much More Successful Than Hiddleston's]

Our Loki successfully interrupted the coronation, successfully killed Laufey and would have successfully destroyed Jotunheim hadn’t he been interrupted. He successfully stole the Tesseract from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, successfully hypnotizing Selvig and Hawkeye and he successfully distracted the Avengers while Hawkeyes did what he had to do. Successfully let himself be arrested so as to arrive where Hulk was and successfully set him loose while also successfully escaping from his prison then successfully managed to open the passage that lead the Chitauri on New York.

Yes, he wasn’t successful in that battle and it was a big deal but I’ll say he accomplished plenty of things.

Which sort of success the other Lokis had? I honestly missed it.

Alligator Loki has enough and moves closer.

Now again, the following scene is very fun for a ‘looney tunes’…

President Loki: Why the hell is there an alligator in here?

Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Boastful Loki: He's a Loki!

…with Alligator Loki managing this time to eat President Loki’s whole arm when before he couldn’t even scratch Boastful Loki’s hand but… it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Chaos ensues as all the Lokis start fighting among them and I wonder if we’ll see Yosemite Sam and Marvin the Martian join the fight along with Taz.

It’s clear that the whole thing is meant to be solely humorous, when President Loki loses his hand and then starts screaming like a banshee, apart from an initial spray of blood he doesn’t lose blood at all.

You aren’t meant to take seriously the loss of his hand, you might even expect they’ll glue it back to him later on.

It’s not terrible humour, it’s something one can definitely enjoy… but it’s so out of place in a story that supposedly has serious themes and instead decides to just spend half of the episode in a comedy that’s more fitting of ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit?’ with Loki leaving the place by escaping in such a manner I can’t even begin to describe… as if he’s tiptoeing around the other Lokis in hope they won’t notice him… and they don’t.

He fundamentally does nothing useful, the one acting is mostly Classic Loki who uses his magic, Kid Loki who handles Alligator Loki and Alligator Loki who beat or maybe I should say bite some Lokis… but the weirdest thing is that Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki and Classic Loki wander through the place for a bit then Classic Loki opens a magic portal that lead to the outside and they leave the place… with our Loki a bit wary to go through it which makes me wonder, is it a power only Classic Loki has?

Did Classic Loki spent all those years after Thanos improving his magic? Or was he a better wizard from the start?

Anyway Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki and Loki leave together because somehow they’re a squad who doesn’t want to betray each other despite being Lokis… but Classic Loki and Kid Loki rants against Lokis in general.

Kid Loki: And whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves, they're sent here to die.

Now I appreciate Kid Loki saying so but if he was sent there to die it was not because he was trying to fix himself but because he killed Thor, right? Or this was a lie?

At this point I don’t know anymore.

Loki claims he wants to get out of there and stop the TVA so things can change. And no, I don’t agree.

They could change also remaining there.

Enough with this determinism and the idea the TVA control everything.

Those Lokis didn’t want to change that’s why they didn’t. It had nothing to do with the TVA and everything with themselves.

What’s more, Loki probably doesn’t know it but he wasn’t always a complete jerk in the sacred timeline. He saved his brother from the Kurse. He came back to save the Asgardians against Hela.

It’s not the TVA who decided he has to be a backstabbing idiot with poor planning issues, in Doylist terms it’s this series which basically erased whatever didn’t agree with this definition from his story, in Watsonian, it was his own mess.

The TVA doesn’t care what they do there, they could fix themselves if they want to.

But whatever, the “Looney tunes” moment is finished.

So we have…

Loki: That's why I need to get out of here. Nothing can change until the TVA is stopped.

Classic Loki: And you trust her?

And okay, I take Classic Loki means Sylvie, but this basically means that they’re thinking only Sylvie can stop the TVA because she’s magical like that and Loki, at the very best, can just help her.

So much for a change. And in fact…

Loki: She's the only one I do trust. And right now, I believe she's our only chance of stopping the TVA.

Kid Loki: That's good enough for me.

Classic Loki: Okay, okay. We'll help you. But approaching Alioth is a death sentence. We'll get you to it, but that's as far as we go.

So yeah, Sylvie is the Lokis’ only hope, their saviour, they aren’t meant to change themselves just to entrust themselves to her. Welcome to the new cult, the Sylvie cult.

And now come the worst part.

Of course CASUALLY Sylvie and Mobius managed to offscreen escape Alioth even though the last we left them Sylvie was complaining he was driving toward it.

Mobius whines:

Mobius: All that time, I really believed we were the good guys.

Even now, he’s not really shown feeling horrible for all the people he has reset and sent there to be eaten by Alioth. He’s more worried he discovered he wasn’t one of the heroes. Is he meant to be a Loki? Or something worse? Please, let me know.

Sylvie, because she’s the only one who gets to call things by their names, point out at the idiocy of his beliefs.

Sylvie: Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls, classic hero stuff.

Classic hero stuffs indeed but if you believe that the TVA is real because the TVA is real you can believe in everything. Instead than just apologizing for orphaning her and annihilating her reality Mobius goes and tries to explain her how he actually wasn’t in the wrong and she too… she too was very bad…

Mobius: Well, I guess when you think the ends justify the means, there's not much you won't do. By the way, you did some annihilating too.

Sylvie doesn’t take any of his idiocies but he again tries to compare his situation to her.

Sylvie: I did what I had to do.

Mobius: Yeah, so did I.

No, you didn’t Mobius. You chose to turn your eyes away from the truth, you chose to believe because being a hero gave you a purpose.

Mobius: Odin, God of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars. Frost Giants. Listen to yourself...

Loki: It's not the same. It's completely different. No. It's not the same.

You first compared your little cult’s beliefs to what Loki lived through his life then told him the situation didn’t make sense but you didn’t care because it gave you a glorious purpose and that the TVA was real solely because you WILLINGLY believed in it. And now you’re telling Sylvie, the poor girl the TVA kidnapped, orphaned and tried to kill with your willing help that you choosing to willingly reset Variants and her fighting to survive are the same thing.

Sylvie: You hunted me like a dog.

Mobius: I'm sorry about that.

Of course, since it’s Sylvie that points it out, at this point he apologizes TO HER. What are you sorry for, Mobius? Just hunting her? What about the rest? And what about the other Variants, Mobius? The ones who didn’t manage to escape? What about your supposed friend, Loki that you had beaten and belittled so you could get information out of him to protect your precious TVA and at whom you reused to believe even when he was telling you the truth?

But honestly, I shouldn’t take it out of Mobius. He’s like Jessica Rabbit. ‘He’s not bad. He’s just drawn that way’. Because this series doesn’t really want to talk about what the TVA did to the other Variants and whatever happens to Loki doesn’t matter because ‘he deserves it’ so why should Mobius or anyone at the TVA feel sorry?

Anyway, after Mobius apologizes to her Sylvie has a moment of vulnerability in which she confesses she pruned herself to find Loki but now she believed the storm ate him already. Because obviously Loki is dumb and incompetent so better not get her hopes up. Okays, she didn’t say so and I get her discomfort but… but nothing, Sylvie goes back to her mission and who cares about Loki while Mobius, who previously harshly criticized Loki’s ‘demented crush for his female self’ now is all supportive.

Mobius: You really believe that?

Sylvie: It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters now is getting out of here and finding out who's behind all of this.

Sylvie of course has a plan because she’s SMART. Sylvie decides they’ll go back to the angry cloud which she previous told Mobius to escape from because she thinks the cloud can be the answer. And since Sylvie is SMART, even though she hadn’t given him a plan and she’s really not persuasive Mobius complies because everyone in Sylvie’s squad does what Sylvie says as she rolled a 12 in persuasion so, whatever.

Back to Loki and his group, Classid Loki asks Loki if he has a plan. He does.

Loki: Get inside, find its heart or brain or whatever, and then, you know, do it in.

Please, don’t tell me this is the guy who manipulated Laufey into trusting him and coming to Asgard or that could keep up a discussion with Fury. This is not a plan this is ‘Loki smash!’ only it works better when Hulk does it. A kid could do better in fact Kid Loki notices it’s dumb and Loki gets defensive.

Loki: Just because it's not complicated doesn't mean it's bad.

Kid Loki: It also doesn't mean it's good.

Okay the “Looney tunes” fun is still on and it continues being on.

Alligator Loki: ( Growls )

Loki: See? He's on board.

Classic Loki: He's praying. He thinks we're going to die.

Because this is fun but so very OOC and out of place I just want to take this episode and put it in another series. I would enjoy it more if it were in another series.

By the way, why Classic Loki understand Alligator Loki and no one else does.

A ship populated with people appear, likely because the TVA reset the reality. Where’s the sea and the rest of that reality? Who knows and who cares? Alioth of course notices the ship and now Loki says something intelligent:

Loki: Alioth is like any animal. He'll go after the big meal first. And while he's busy with that, we can sneak around the back and...

The people on the ship tries to fight and is swallowed in less than a minute. It should be a tragic moment in which all the people on the ship died. It left me empty. Hum… this part just feel flat. Probably because they want to continue with the “Looney tunes” theme by having Loki realize his idea of sneak behind Alioth being dumb because it’s impossible as Alioth is just too fast and dangerous.

Loki: ( Panting ) Okay. Maybe we, uh... think a bit more about this, huh?

Now… COINCIDENTALLY a car arrives and at Loki who worries if it’s bad this is told because “Looney tunes” mood.

Kid Loki: Well, usually means cannibalistic marauders or cannibalistic pirates.

Loki: Delightful. Now they're slowing down.

But no, it’s not cannibalistic marauders or cannibalistic pirates, COINCIDENTALLY it’s just Sylvie and Mobius. COINCIDENTALLY the car stops away from them but COINCIDENTALLY Loki recognizes Sylvie just the same so he can run to her while Classic Loki who evidently hadn’t hear him recognizing Sylvie can continue with the “Looney tunes” moments.

Classic Loki: I don't understand. Is he a coward or was he being brave?

Kid Loki: I'm not too sure.

They decide to follow him anyway. Are they coward, brave or fool?

Loki ends running to Sylvie and she greets him with a ‘ You're alive’ which honestly doesn’t even feel as if she were surprised or happy. Loki is a lot more emotional about seeing her and Mobius. Okay, Mobius seems happy to see him too even though he says nothing.

“Looney tunes” mood continues as she tells him

Sylvie: We thought you could do with some backup.

And he puts his hands on his hips and frowns at her but then she notices Classic Loki and Kid Loki and she neither wonders why they’re dressed so oddly nor recognize them as Loki but considers attacking them until Loki, still in “Looney tunes” mood, introduces them.

Loki: Oh, no, wait, wait, wait, these are my friends. Well, they're, um... How best to put this? Us as a child, us in the future, and us as an alligator. It's best not to question it.

Mobius: You throw a rock out here, you hit a Loki.

Again, hilarious, just not fitting the situation.

Sylvie decides them being there means they’re not there by chance but after the giant cloud monster. Loki confirms they’re there to kill Alioth which she finds a dumb plan because of course all Loki’s plans are dumb and he should just follow Sylvie’s as she has years of experience with Alioth and… no, nevermind she doesn’t but she has read the script and she knows she is the only Loki with a power that’s useful against it. Because Mary Sue. Or heroine. Whatever.

Loki: Well, we haven't decided how we're going to kill it, but...

Sylvie: Come again? Kill it?

Loki: Yes, we're gonna kill Alioth.

Sylvie: Oh, my God. That was your plan.

Loki: Yeah.

Sylvie: And you went along with it?

Kid Loki: I had my doubts.

Classic Loki: Probably unsafe.

So Sylvie gets to expose her plan. She thinks, without any proof whatsoever, that the person they’re after is beyond The Void at the end of time and Alioth is their guard dog protecting the only way in.

Sure, she had a vision when she tried to enchant Alioth but I saw nowhere on that building a sign seeing ‘residence of the time-keeper’. It might very well be the last thing Alioth ate or Alioth and the Time-Keeper might be unrelated. The Time-Keeper might hide in a timeline parallel to the sacred one. Or at the beginning of time. Or he could be Casey in disguise. Or the cat the guy who had Loki sign all he said had. Or he can be Alligator Loki for all we know. But of course, since this is Sylvie’s theory, this is a theory, not a plan, everyone accepts it.

And this is Sylvie’s plan which is her alternate solution to ‘I’ll hit it with my sword’

Sylvie: I'm gonna enchant it.

Which is also insane because really, the last time it worked so well. Loki points it out but of course Sylvie claims his plan was dumber and anyway she’s gonna enchant it, we’re not in a democracy and she’s the Mary Sue, I mean the heroine end of the discussion. And since she’s the Mary Sue, I mean the heroine, everyone agrees with her because she’s a female Loki and female Lokis are special like that. Especially when there’s only one female Loki in all the times.

Sylvie: I'm gonna enchant it.

Loki: ( Laughing ) That's insane, right?

Sylvie: As insane as what? Paper-cutting a cloud to death?

Loki: Listen, I've been down here longer than you...

Sylvie: I'm going to enchant it.

Mobius: She's pretty confident.

Besides, I mean, if Sylvie finds Loki so dumb… why is she falling for him? Why I’m asking? Because she’s the Mary Sue who falls for the character the fandom adoures and manages to do what no one ever could do, make him fall for her and make him a better person.

It’s amazing how Mobius agrees because she’s pretty confident it took Loki, his friend, a lot to persuade him that the Variant could hide in the apocalypse. Ah, the power of a Mary Sue. I’m waiting for her to start singing.

Whatever, back to Renslayer we go.

She enters in a GIANT sized room, chases away the two hunters guarding it, goes to a wall and uses the Tempad to open a door. Behind it we can see Hunter B-15, that Sylvie evidently forgot in the room of the Time-Keeper when she moved in the trial room because who care about her.

Hunter B-15 would like to know why she’s there. I’d like to know why she wasn’t pruned too.

Renslayer accuses her of freeing the Variant and being disloyal to the TVA. Variant, singular, if I didn’t hear wrong. She actually freed the VariantS plural. Unless two Lokis count as one because always Loki. While Renslayer is trying intimidation techniques asking her if she thinks she could escape punishment B-15 wants to know to who she was disloyal as she too saw Time-Keepers weren't real.

Renslayer asks her why should this change anything and, for once, I agree with her. If the Time-Keepers put there puppets as a safety measure this doesn’t change anything and it’s not even the point.

The problem wasn’t if the Time-Keepers were in that room for Sylvie to kill them, it was that the Time-Keepers lied to the TVA employers, telling them they had created them when they were kidnapped Variants who were being used to kill other poor Variants who never did anything wrong. No, scratch the last part, B-15 never cared about the Variants she killed, she only had problems with the fact she was happy before.

Anyway B-15 wants the others to know the truth but didn’t think to hack a transmitter when she could and warn everyone, no, she was just assisting Sylvie to kill the Time-keepers. Out of revenge for lying to her I assume.

Renslayer says the TVA only needs stability, in short who cares if they were lied to, they’ll keep on serving it, so B-15 has to cooperate with her and tell her what drives Sylvie and B-15… has a link to her. Which means Renslayer is sure Sylvie will come back.

And I facepalm.

A link? They talked few minutes and Sylvie could have lied or not exposed herself but anyway… wasn’t what drove her obvious enough one could pick it up without even having to ask.

B-15, who was so good to play bully with poor Variants, obeys and answer Sylvie is OBVIOUSLY driven by revenge… how could Renslayer miss it, did she also have to tell her “My name is Sylvie Laufeydottir. You killed my timeline. Prepare to die"?

Anyway B-15 decides since the Time-Keepers turned out to be fake Sylvie will search for who’ll being this. And okay, Sylvie has fully turned into the heroine of this story. Loki is a recurring character, a very present character but when all is said and done he’s just supporting cast.

Sylvie is the heroine and even this chat supports it.

Hunter B-15: This isn't about protecting the TVA at all, is it? You just want to find whoever is behind all of this, too. You'll never find them. Not before she does.

Renslayer: And why is that?

Hunter B-15: You only want it. She needs it.

B-15 who belittled so much the other Variants clearly looks up on Sylvie, she has blind faith in her and Renslayer’s situation amuses her a lot and if B-15 hadn’t been the one finding amusement in belittling Variants I might share in her fun but like this it feels as if they’re reminding me she’s one who enjoys belittling and humiliating others.

And Renslayer isn’t worried Loki could do something to cause troubles either. It’s all Sylvie. Sylvie will win because that’s what heroines do.

Now it’ll be interesting if it turned out Sylvie is actually truly evil while Loki has ultimately decided to become truly good but I bet the last episode will instead reveal the one who’s truly evil is a male Loki Variant, one that Sylvie will have to either kill, punish or redeem.

Whatever, for now the story only seems interested in pinning Renslayer as evil.

Renslayer leaves B-15 and tell Miss Minute to find her the files on the founding of the TVA. Everything from the beginning of time. You know, the one she wanted to find at the beginning. So… did she really want them, it wasn’t just to stall time?

She excuses her request by claiming:

Renslayer: Whoever created this place is in danger. I need to find them.

Miss Minute agrees to comply.

Now… if Miss Minute doesn’t turn out to have a bigger role in the last episode, I don’t know she’s a spy, she’s the big bad, she’s Tony Stark in disguise, anything, I think they could have cut her. She’s basically the Clippy of the TVA and there’s a reason if Clippy, despite being cute was discontinued as intelligent user interface.

Her existence makes me think they’re trying to market Loki as a child friendly, which explains the low level of drama, Kid Loki being the ruler of the place and not being really mistreated when all the Lokis wanted his place as well as surviving and being the one strong enough to kill Thor, the “Looney tunes” humour. And if this is a kid show it explains also why potentially serious themes aren’t really tackled differently from “WandaVision” and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”.

Back into the Void, or better back into the “Looney tunes” cartoon Classic Loki and Kid Loki are talking with Mobius about Alligator Loki which makes for another funny yet absurd and OOC scene.

Mobius: I mean, the TVA arrested a lot of Lokis, but, no, I don't remember an alligator. I mean, who's to say he's even a Loki Variant?

Classic Loki: He is green, isn't he?

Mobius: I don't know, he could be lying. The long con. Of course, that just makes him more likely to be a Loki. It's always the game within the game with you guys, which I respect.

No, actually he doesn’t. He didn’t respect when Loki lied to him, he insulted him. But somehow episode 5 decided since Mobius saved Sylvie he’s 100% back among the good guys.

Anyway I wish there a story behind Alligator Loki and we were told it and that he wasn’t just reduced to play the part of Kid Loki’s pet and a role similar to the crocodile in “Peter Pan”, with President Loki becoming the future Captain Hook.

Kid Loki asks Mobius what he’ll do assuming he’ll get back to the TVA, which he of course can do as Sylvie has a Tempad and can open a Timedoor.

Mobius: I don't know. I'd like to let people know the truth.

Oh, the truth, yeah it’s the people at the TVA who need the truth, not the poor Variants in that Void who need to be saved, the Variants the TVA wants to be pruned who need to be saved. Let’s save the poor TVA workers from ignorance so they can decide if to willingly follow the TVA like Renslayer is doing or not.

Yeah, I get by knowing the truth some of them might be willing to stop what they’re doing but what if they don’t, like Renslayer?

You wanted to be a hero, Mobius, what’s the problem now, saving people instead than murdering them is too hard?

So they goes to discuss the theme of change:

Classic Loki: So just like that, you're turning on the very thing you devoted your life to.

Mobius: Well, it's never too late to change.

This story makes a big deal of the theme of changing but the reasons why one should change aren’t so great. Mobius wants to change because he was lied at, Loki because he fell in love. Meaning if Mobius had really been created by the Time-Keepers he would have happily continued to kill Variants because it wasn’t his problem and if Loki hadn’t fallen in love with the only special unique female Loki he would have never changed.

That’s not a great way to deal with the theme of change.

Back to Loki and Sylvie, who’re sitting in the grass alone together, Sylvie has turned into a Mobius fangirl who exists to make us forget whatever wrong Mobius might have done giving him her seal of approval.

Sylvie: Mobius isn't so bad.

Loki: Or so good. I think that's why we get along.

Sylvie: He cares about you.

So wait, you barely know him and he has felt more hurt he wasn’t a hero as he hoped than for all the Variant he killed, had tried to compare his murders and his situation to yours but, when pressured he said he was sorry he hunted you like a dog. Also implied he wasn’t sure Loki died. Whatever else which might have happened went offscreen. Forgive me if I’m not won over by the little I saw in this episode, especially after episode 4. I really needed more than that.

But who cares, Loki doesn’t care Mobius isn’t so good, he gets along with him even when the latter threatens to kill him and have Sif repeatedly kick him in the groin. Stockholm syndrome or masochism?

Now, COINCIDENTALLY, it’s cold so Loki conjure up a cover for himself and volunteer to do the same for Sylvie. Those, of course, weren’t in his pocket so why the Tempad in ep 3 ended there?

Sylvie would like a new outfit, because her own is uncomfortable. Why she didn’t get her a comfortable outfit instead than that is beyond me. It’s not like she’s forced to wear a TVA uniform, those are clothes she picked up. Where I don’t know but whatever.

By the way, it’s a lifetime Loki has the signs of a wound on his arm which he got when they were fighting in the Time-Keepers’room… but the blood must be solely decorative because no one, not even Loki, cares.

They’re kind of cute when they talk about their Nexus event and go into full denial mode. If only I could forget their romance was SO VERY FORCED and tied to narcissism I might enjoy it… though I still think it would have been better if they had made them friends. But Sylvie wouldn’t be a good Mary Sue if it didn’t get to have the male protagonist.

The dialogue focuses on Sylvie’s drama.

Sylvie: I don't know how to do this.

Loki: I don't even know what we're doing.

Sylvie: I don't have friends. I don't have... anyone.

Now, I don’t want to belittle Sylvie’s drama, they clearly had built for her an overly tragic life because what’s a Mary Sue without a tragic past, but maybe of us got into this show for Loki’s drama, hoping it to be discussed if not solved and we got nothing, nothing at all. Loki won’t talk with her of what pushed him to commit suicide. It would be a good point of discussion, telling her there had been a time in his life in which he also felt he had no one, or that prior to Mobius who has somehow been elevated to the level of friend, he had no one because no, Sif and the Warriors Three clearly were Thor’s friends, not his own, but no, it doesn’t matter.

Loki and Sylvie are supposedly in love and all she knows about him is about his mom and how she taught him to do magic. And all he knows about her is she barely remember Asgard and was forced to live on the run.

It’s not bad just for Loki, it’s bad as a portrayal of a love story between two people because they don’t know each other and don’t try to do so, they don’t share anything of their lives, they don’t even have things in common beyond being Loki… which Sylvie rejected for reasons we don’t know as she’s now Sylvie.

Anyway Loki tries to cheer her up by… telling her there were more important things to do?

Loki: Well... there are more important things, right?

Sylvie: Right? Yeah. Like bringing down the TVA.

Loki: I mean… Saving the universe, even.

Sylvie: Well, there's no need to be dramatic, but, yeah, kind of.

Sylvie couldn’t care less about saving the universe, it was all about revenge and no, bringing down the TVA isn’t more important than having people who love and support you around you. This is dumb hero moral.

Loki uses his magic to put the cover he’s wearing around his shoulders around Sylvie as well… which likely means he has also stretched the cover. She moves closer to him and they had that sort of stupid happy face I love in love stories so it would be really, really good if they had built better their own instead than tossing it to us at random.

I mean, this is very cute, and I don’t know if it’s Loki who’s laughing or Tom Hiddleston who find it funny.

Sylvie: It's not very snuggly.

Loki: ( Chuckling ) Okay.

Sylvie: Is it a tablecloth?

Loki: No, it's a blanket.

Sylvie: Thank you.

Loki: My pleasure.

And I like how Sylvie says thank you in a serious tone as if all this was important for her. But the romance remains still out of nowhere even if this is the episode which handles it better.

Then they ruin everything with this.

Sylvie: How do I know that, in the final moments, you won't betray me?

Loki: Listen, Sylvie, I... ( Sighs deeply ) I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother... my home. I know what I did. And I know why I did it. And that's not who I am anymore. Okay? I won't let you down.

Same way Loki knows you won’t betray him. Either you trust someone or don’t there’s no guaranty but this whole chat is not in order to reassure Sylvie but to tell the readers Loki has been changed by love without really discussing the issues that pushed Loki to betray people. The fact he was lied to, the fact his father favoured Thor and made him feel inferior, the whole racist system Asgard had for the Jotuns, the fact Thor used to look down on him and was so arrogant and bloodthirsty Odin kicked him out of Asgard… we don’t talk about all those issues. I’m not even going to mention what might have happened with Thanos because Joss Whedon isn’t working anymore with Marvel and I start to think whatever plan he had for Loki and Thanos got scrapped away long ago… and anyway Loki doesn’t speak about what happened on Midgard… unless we’re meant to believe what happened to Midgard was him betraying his father, his brother, his home and we aren’t talking about what happened in “Thor”…

Whatever, anyway we aren’t talking about it. Loki is a new man, love solved all his issues.

We should just enrol criminals in professional matchmaking programs to find love for them too and they too would come out as different people.

The next bit is, of course, to tell us Loki has given up on his wish to rule, again because love made him happy.

Sylvie: You sure? 'Cause if we make it, and the TVA is gone, there might be a timeline for you to rule.

Loki: Ah. And then I'd finally be happy.

Sylvie instead admits she has no idea what she’ll do after she’ll get her revenge.

Well, dear, you never tried world domination, do you? But no, Loki tells her he doesn’t know what he’ll do either so they could figure out together. Because love saves the day.

And it does but I wish it was less cheesy.

The romance moment end.

We see the weird birds with no purpose beyond being weird birds and then Alioth moving closer. Everyone watches it fearfully.

Since Sylvie, being a Mary Sue, has been elected as leader she’s the one who answers Mobius when he asks which should be their next move.

Sylvie: The TVA needs to be brought down. We don't know who created it or where they are, but that thing out there does. When it hit me earlier, I linked to it. It was brief, but I caught a glimpse of something, and I think if I can get close enough to it, I can enchant it, and it's gonna take me to whoever's behind all of this.

Or, alternatively, he can swallow up you whole but whatever, time for the romantic moment.

Loki: I'm staying.

Sylvie: Loki, I don't know if this is gonna work.

Loki: You go, I go.

Oh, finally she admits she doesn’t know if this will work. Because actually her plan is as solid as Loki’s but who cares, this is only to underline that love is in the air because Loki is staying with her even if her plan might be a complete and utter failure.

I don’t really like her ‘mommy is telling you this might be a dumb idea’ tone if I’ve to be honest, Mobius who suddenly turns to him as he said so, seemed more worried and I’m very clearly not a Lokius shipper as I don’t even believe Mobius and Loki to be genuine friends.

Anyway Loki gives the Tempad Sylvie gave him to Mobius. Because they had to wait for Alioth to be there before deciding to leave.

Mobius, as the true friend he is, decides he’ll leave the place and who cares if they might need herlp, so that in case Loki and Sylvie don’t die but can’t get to the TimeKeeper either they’re left without any mean of transportation away from that place.

Mobius then goes:

Mobius: I'll give your regards to Renslayer.

Sylvie: Oh, please do.

I take this means his strong and deep and special friendship with Renslayer has ended. Anyway he volunteers to bring with himself the other Lokis but they refuse saying that’s their home… which is not wrong as that place has what remains of their homes since the TVA sent them there. Still Mobius could have tried harder but it’s not like he has to care about Loki Variants he and the TVA sent there after destroying their homes.

It’s Loki who worries about them and about how Alioth could harm them.

Classic Loki: We've survived this long. We know what we're doing.

Kid Loki gives Loki his sword, Laevateinn so Loki with his magic creates a sheat he put on his back.

Classic Loki wishes him good luck and I’d like to point out that for all their babbling about the Lokis being terrible, Classic Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki and been very nice and helpful with Loki and among them. Friends. They didn’t just lie, cheat and cut each other throat for power, even if they had just met him. They didn’t even use him.

And I like their relation more than I like the one with Sylvie.

They walk away and Mobius open for himself a Time Door.

Now… it shows that Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are friends because when they interact they genuinely seems so but the basis on which the plot built this friendship are nonexistent.

Mobius observes Loki got away in the end which is… a bit early to say so, since he also needs to get away from Alioth. At Loki who asks him what he will do at the TVA he answers:

Mobius: Burn it to the ground. Thanks for the spark. Well, see you later, Loki.

All this because the TVA lied to him, not because it pushed him to reset poor people he didn’t even try to save from the Void.

Still the sentence is good considering the story started with Loki wanting to burn the place.

Loki: I'm gonna burn this place to the ground.

Mobius: I'll show you where my desk is, you can start there.

Mobius offers him his hand to shake but Loki has to hug him and thanks him even though he didn’t hug Classic Loki and Kid Loki.

Now, it’s true, without Mobius the TVA would have killed him, and Mobius gave him a second chance when the TVA decided to consider the first mission Loki took part in as a failure, but the point is Mobius did it because he needed Loki’s help. Loki helped him find where the Variant hid and tried to stop her. He failed, ended up on Lamentis and when he was retrieved, Mobius didn’t believe him and had him beaten up telling him he didn’t need him anymore. He came to free him only because he discovered Loki didn’t lie to him and so he wanted help face the TVA.

Now compare with Classic Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki. They found Loki and brought him to their hideout because it was dangerous to be outside with Alioth around. They gave him something to drink and possibly to eat. When they were attacked by President Loki, after understanding it wasn’t his fault, carried him with them in their escape. Helped him find Alioth. Gave him a sword. And Classic Loki will die in a while to help Loki and Sylvie against Alioth. In short they only helped him and never wronged him. But they aren’t special friends like Mobius, not even taking into consideration it’s supposedly Loki’s narcissism who caused him to fall for Sylvie.

As Mobius hugs Loki he whispers ‘you’re my favourite’ looking at Sylvie.

Considering how he used to bother Renslayer about wanting to be her favourite and that he knows Loki is in need of reassurance I don’t really enjoy much the joke.

Mobius leaves, the door immediately closes behind him and doesn’t remain open for hours like in Ep 2 and Sylvie and Loki are alone to face Alioth. They walk closer and Sylvie decides then to explain him her plan because doing so earlier, when they had all the time in the world, would have been unromantic. Much better to do it five minutes before facing him.

Sylvie: When a branch appears, Alioth will focus on it. That's when I'll enchant it.

Classic Loki and Kid Loki meanwhile are kilometres away because when they walk away slowly they walk just that fast.

Classic Loki turns behind but then keep on walking so that they get farther.

As they’re close side by side… Loki moves to the other side of Sylvie… no idea why… and points out they might not have the time to wait for a branch so Sylvie says they’ll need a distraction. And how did she meant to create one if Loki hadn’t remained with her? I still think it’s a poor plan that can work only because the Mary Sue’s plan always works.

Okay, so she didn’t think Loki would be the distraction because, after she says so he rests his hand on her shoulder and she shakes her head no and he instead nods yes and then runs away and tries to persuade Alioth in coming after him, showing him the flaming sword Kid Loki gave him.

I’ll be honest the silent dialogue between Sylvie and Loki is a nice moment. If they had put more things like these in Episode 3 this idea of a romance between them would have worked much better.

On another side Loki with a flaming sword seemed a much cooler scene in the trailer than here, where the flaming sword is merely used as some sort of light to attract Alioth.

Sylvie then tries to enchant one of Alioth’s tendril/pseudopod but he notices, ignore Loki and goes after her. Loki runs toward Sylvie telling Alioth he should come his way but Alioth doesn’t care and is about to eat Sylvie who doesn’t move at all because ‘why escaping?’ and then Alioth abruptly gets distracted as Classic Loki uses his illusion magic to recreate Asgard because a real friend comes back in your time of need and even risk life for you even though you hadn’t hugged him.

The music is rather cool.

We’ve then this informative bit:

Sylvie: How is he doing that?

Loki: I think we're stronger than we realize.

Which really feels useless. He’s an older Loki he might have developed powers you two don’t have yet. People change with time, stop considering all the Lokis equal.

Anyway Alioth is fully distracted by the fake Asgard and Classic Loki tells them to go. Sylvie takes Loki’s hand because she has decided she’ll enchant Alioth together with Loki. Loki points out he doesn’t know how to enchant people but who cares, they’re the same so of course he knows.

Logic, where are you?

On another note originally Loki wasn’t meant to do it.

Eric Martin@MrEricMartin·Jul 8

Loki and Sylvie enchanting Alioth together was something we found pretty late into the process. It was #KevinWright that brought up that they should hold hands and find the strength within each other and it was such and of course moment. #LokiMidnightTheater

Of course Loki just watching as Sylvie were to enchant Alioth would have been disappointing but again, a plot also needs LOGIC. Sylvie could have spent two minutes teaching him to use enchantment instead than just telling him ‘You do. Because we're the same!’ The idea that because you’re both Variants of the same person you also share common knowledge is ludicrous but whatever, the show established Sylvie could learn doing it without being taught so… who am I to judge? On the other side the remarking of the fact they’re the same kind of ruin the romance by again feeding into the narrative it’s the result of narcissism.

Whatever, since Sylvie trusts him to learn how to enchant a giant sized monster right then Loki of course is persuaded he can do it.

It’s kind of… odd how the illusion of Asgard disappear before Alioth could touch it… is Classic Loki teasing Alioth? But well, I love how he distracted him by showing him Asgard, as if it were a Testament to Classic Loki’s love for it.

Meanwhile COINCIDENTALLY Alioth let two tendrils/pseudopods get near Loki and Sylvie so each of them can use one to try and enchant him because if they only had one it would have been a problem and if they had three it would have been too many.

Loki can’t quite work the enchantment magic yet so they hold hand tighter. Yeah, it’s romantic but… okay, I’ll try very hard to forget the logic here because this finally causes Loki’s hand to light up with magic.

Meanwhile sustaining such a big illusion was too much for Classic Loki. The illusion fades pressured by Alioth. He uses his magic again but nothing happens but this seems the plan… so it can be is it just that Alioth is attracted by Magic?

Laughing and yelling ‘Glorious purpose!’ Classic Loki, instead than trying to escape by opening a portal has he had done when they were inside their hideout, let himself be eaten by Alioth.

So to sum it up this Loki decided he wouldn’t sacrifice for his brother, as he escaped Thanos and let Thor to fend for himself, but then decided he would sacrifice for a Variant of himself. As I like to consider him a different person from Loki this can be a very nice message of friendship… but I fear the series’ idea is it’s all narcissism and the point they’re trying to do is that Loki sacrificed for himself… even though the series yammered for hours about how the Lokis didn’t see the other Variants as themselves… unless when they fall in love with one.

Bottom of the line, Classic Loki can’t have nice things, he can only die heroically and in this is supposed to be his redemption and he can only embrace such fate.

On another note… why was he capable to open a portal when they was inside their hideout but when they had to do all that walk through the place or when they moved to search for Alioth or when they left Loki and Sylvie he didn’t think to open one? Don’t give him powers that he isn’t going to use when it would be useful to use them!

Back to the story, at this point Alioth notices Loki and Sylvie so they close their eyes and have… a burst of magic? Is that what had happened? Anyway Alioth starts shining green and loses his face, no, not in the sense he damages his reputation, he just loses his face which evidently was just some sort of scary decoration as he’s basically a cloud.

Everything becomes green and Sylvie opens her eyes, smiles and tell Loki, who hasn’t realized anything, that he can open his eyes… which really is dumb.

Anyway they hadn’t enchanted Alioth, they had just… dissipated him because the cloud now opens up but you don’t see what’s behind it but, literally, a building in likely another dimension because of course Sylvie’s theory was right and beating Alioth meant to open the way to the residence of their enemy.

Or are we supposed to assume they’re mentally controlling Alioth? But in this case it’s just Sylvie who’s doing it because Loki was apparently unaware so…

At this point the two start to walk toward their supposed enemy’s residence and it would be very fun if the guy there had no relation with the TVA who actually was guilty of tossing litter in his own territory but only one episode is missing and, of course, they need to fight the big bad.

Have I already said if they use again Loki as the big bad I’m going to scream?!?

I genuinely hope that this will not be the case and we’ll get Kang, the conqueror.

Anyway so, this episode.

This episode was the funniest of the series, I’ve no qualms admitting it. It’s just I didn’t see much point in having an episode which is mostly filled with “Looney tunes” humour at this point in the series in place of facing all the serious themes the other 4 had supposedly raised. Also I would have appreciated the “Looney tunes” humour more if Loki had played the part of Bugs Bunny instead than the one of Daffy Duck, mixed with Yosemite Sam and other characters who’re there just to make confusion.

I’ll be fine if it were to be an extra episode, a bonus, but no, we’re wasting almost a full episode to… have fun?

At this point, instead than making a serious series with serious themes you would have made a fully playful one. Let’s not have a fascist organization which kills Variants or sent them in a lager called Void to be eaten alive by cannibalistic pirates or by Alioth, and which also kidnap and brainwashes its workers so that they’re willing members of a dumb cult and act all racist and abusive toward other Variants.

Let’s not talk about identity, sexual or personal, of the nature of people, if they can be good or evil. Let’s just have fun. Or let’s not and keep on talking of all that until we’ve solved the issue.

You can’t show me Mobius who first forces Loki to work for the TVA then has Loki beaten over and over for no decent reason belittling his relationship with Sylvie and then they’re back on being best friends and he’s super supportive of his relationship with Sylvie and we don’t talk of what happened in Ep 4.

You can’t show me the TVA being abusive and racist toward the Variants and now that they’ve discovered they’re Variants they don’t regret what was done to them but just that they were lied to and this isn’t denounced as hypocrisy but as the right thing to do.

What’s more you can’t take a character who’s famous for his intelligence and quick wit and who’s a capable fighter and stronger than humans and have him dumbed down and weakened down in a serious contest.

You can’t wave away what were meant to be serious issues which lead said character to attempt suicide as him being overly sensitive.

Do you want to make a parody? Fine, but label it as such.

On a positive side they made the romance between Sylvie and Loki a tad better… but it’s just too late.

You should have first constructed them falling in love, and then developed it. Their falling in love was built over nothing. Even if now you’re raising a pretty house, it has no foundations.

Also there are just too many plot contrivances and too little characterization.

Why Kid Loki wasn’t fleshed out a little bit? He killed Thor. How? Does it pains him? He’s the king of the place? How? Which are his powers? He’s generally nice with the other Lokis in a world that insists the Lokis are backstabbing idiots who want to backstab themselves. Isn’t it worth exploring? If only to see why they turned out different from how they started?

No, he’s just there to point out how he was willing to murder his brother from a young age because retconning “Thor” is Marvel’s biggest wish from a lifetime.

Also this episode keeps the trend of recurring plot contrivances and poor Sylvie as a Mary Sue which, honestly is damaging to women portray. A solid characterization would have to be persuasive or capable on solid basis, her tragedy genuinely explored not just tossed there with everyone humouring her because she’s a Mary Sue.

I mean, even Thor, in “Thor” to have his best friends follow him on Jotunheim tempted them with things they liked/wanted.

Sylvie just says ‘jump’ and everyone asks ‘how high?’ and this is bad because Sylvie has a goddamn lot of potential but all her previous struggle isn’t explored and currently she gets all she wants served on a silver platter so, even now, we don’t see her struggle.

Overall the plot of this episode can be summarized in Sylvie reaches Loki and Mobius into the Void, provides Mobius the means to go back to the TVA while she and Loki find the way to who’s behind the TVA.

Nothing really relevant happens otherwise. For 40 minutes episodes it’s really too little.

So yeah, it was a funny parody episode but… that’s all. Compared to episode 4 at least they kept the characterization the series established so they didn’t screw it up in this episode but… really, this has so much more potential that got wasted and it’s sad…

#mcu loki #loki #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #classic loki #kid loki #boastful loki #ravonna renslayer #mobius m mobius #alioth #president loki #alligator loki #miss minute #9 worlds study #9 worlds study mcu loki

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