#mcu!hwr

[lokiinmediasideblog]

The Loki series fumbled in that it could have been a very meaningful tale about grief.

What if the main TVA cast Loki interacts with are people he killed in 2012? And it would have been so meaningful for his character development!! He learned to care about humans! It would also explain why Mobius is drawn to him.

What if part of the conflict was Loki trying to save Frigga and alter the timeline to keep himself and everyone else safe? And he fails at it all the time. This could be either TVA!Loki or some other antagonist Loki variant. If it is TVA!Loki and HWR was present, it could have tied to the comics lore of Kang keeping an alternate version of his dead lover (Ravonna) around because he couldn't accept her death.

The Loki variants that were pruned or removed from their timelines like Sylvie and those in the Void would be grieving their lost lives.

[lokiinmediasideblog]

LMAO. FR. Literally every character was theorized to be either Loki or Loki's child, or a variant of Thor or Odin. I remember the "OB is Jormungandr" , "Mobius is normie Odin or Thor cus Donald Blake", and "Sylvie is Loki's daughter" theories.

back when I first watched the loki series, long after it had first appeared (a year maybe), I was waiting in the last episode for a reveal that He Who Remains was also a Loki. i thought well that's the obvious twist isn't it? he's the protagonist AND the baddy, as well as about half the other characters with speaking parts. the two of him are going to have to fight this other him aye?

I knew about Woman Loki and The Selfcest going in (those were why I'd watched it in the first place, for i have fantastic taste in everything) but what i had done was extend this too far, such that by a few episodes in any new character was Suspected Of Being Another Version Of The Main Character. and you know what? i (with my fantastic taste in everything) was right. that should have been the twist. literally every character in the series should have been loki.

[lokiusly]

Highkey don’t want anything bad to happen to Mobius but lowkey want Mobius to be lightly threatened so Loki can become a dangerous protector

[musclesandhammering]

An interesting thing we don’t really go into is how, even after the TVA workers have their memories shown to them, they still don’t actually remember their lives on the timeline.

B-15 said “I looked happy” not “I remember being happy”, Mobius watched his family with admiration but no recognition, C-20 talked about her time in the bar like a revelation but one without any nostalgia attached to it, Brad acted more like a doppelgänger who bumped his twin off and stole his life rather than a guy reclaiming his own, etc.

It’s very subtle but it really adds to the feeling of them genuinely being seperate entities from their sacred timeline selves. Like, Mobius was right when he said it’s not his life, this [the TVA] is.

[bye-bye-bye-someone-in-the-sky]

Glorious purpose

I know what I want

I know what kind of God I need to be

For you

For all of us

[ordinariumsresources]

328 icons of Jonathan Majors as He Who Remains in Loki S1.

download here

these are designed as base icons (100x100), you are more than welcome to edit / use as you wish. please like this post if you do!

[neyafromfrance95]

i hate the fact that sylvie is so underappreciated and underhyped.

she is everything a fandom loves, minus the fact that she isn't a cis man.

she is canonically queer.

has traveled all around the multiverse.

her glorious purpose is defeating the fascist organization.

she is radical. she believes that a rotten system needs to be burned down, not rebranded.

she has complex, intriguing dynamic with other characters. hwr? her archnemesis who wanted her to continue his legacy. loki? her variant who is obsessed with her. the tva? has been stalking her since she was 11.

everything about her is punk. her personality, her appearance, everything.

she isn't "softened" or "feminized" in order to appeal to the male audiences, or any audiences for that matter. she is unapologetically feral and bratty.

she has trauma, issues and flaws that are explainable by her backstory - her childishness, for example, can be explained by the fact that she never got to properly grow up through socialization.

she inspired loki, the biggest mcu antihero, to change for the better.

like, people here will say that they want three-dimensional, angry female characters but when they actually get her, they complain about her being too rude instead of platonically sucking their fave male character's dick.

[lokiinmediasideblog]

am I the only one who felt like Loki S2 felt like the abridged version of a story arc that was planned to be longer and with more storylines? There were so many setups to payoffs that never came about, like why did the camera linger on Dox's and Brad's forehead touch and B15's reaction if not to show there was something fishy going on only for it to turn out to be nothing? Why so many emphasis on Ravonna trying to uncover the truth if she was never getting an arc out of it? What caused HWR to decide to erase the TVA memories and create the Time Guardians as a cover for himself? What was even the point of Miss Minutes being horny for him? Everything felt so pointless.

I feel the same way and think had the series not been limited to the 6 episode format it would have been better. Why are series nowadays allergic to anything past 6 episodes? They didn't answer ANYTHING, only left more questions, disappointed us, and the little they did was so damn generic and like a stock photo. Why are they all USA-based in their regular lives? No aliens? D:

They didn't go into detail with Ravonna's past. How the fuck do you go from some school teacher seemingly in a near future or present day to fighting in some mysterious war alongside HWR? And they hardly showed Loki interacting with the friends he sacrificed himself for.

I also heard there was an episode that had to be rewritten on a weekend, and that the way the Disney series are managed is terrible and they don't have the usual/expected structure. There was some article somewhere about that. So executive meddling must have also been involved.

[lokiusly]

HWR called Loki “Loverboy” at the Citadel but he made a point earlier that he paved the way for everything. He knew everything. We can assume that if a pin dropped, HWR knew it would before anyone else.

So when Loki went to see timeline Mobius at the jetski store, and a song played in the background— “Working for the Weekend” to be exact (it’s about a new romance).

Who sang it?

Loverboy.

[erenfox]

can we take a moment and actually talk about sylki for a second?? more specifically, can we talk about my queen sylvie?

in most relationships if one is in a very fatal situation we get to actually see the other one freaking out and determined to save their significant other. not in sylki tho, because everything was subtle.

from bonding over frigga to holding hands on lamentis to sharing that blanket to the fight at the citadel: everything was subtle. and it made perfect sense too, because lokis are canonically horrible in portraying emotions and feelings for their loved ones.

we, even the lokius fans, always talk about how love-driven our boy loki was towards sylvie, but rarely have i seen any posts about sylvie's subtle love signs towards him. and it makes perfect sense, because she didn't know how to interact with him or anyone for that matter, given her extremely tragic life - so naturally she was more careful towards displaying her emotions to loki.

and it's not like there are just a couple of examples of this. oh, no. lemme run you through a few:

the longing gaze after loki tells her about frigga on the train

the numerous times she saved loki's life on lamentis (from the guards, meteors, etc)

the whole scene of her opening up to loki about her past (we all know it was a very sensitive topic; and for her - a loki, to reveal it means a big deal)

the whole goddang lingering look and gently brushing his arm (im still not over that scene)

the look after getting separated once captured by the tva

the little 'you ok?' right after he lost mobius

the death glare to ravonna on several occasions after ol miss renslayer pruned loki

THE FUCKING DECISION TO PRUNE HERSELF NOT EVEN FULLY KNOWING WHETHER RAVONNA WAS LYING OR NOT. like cmon antis. the others i can understand, but denying this? you expect us to believe that sylvie - who has spent her whole godly life of CENTURIES trying to avoid getting pruned - would simply decide to do the very thing she's avoided not even knowing whether ravonna was bluffing and yet she still never loved loki??? like, seriously, name me one good reason why she wouldve pruned herself if it wasn't for loki.

and this is just up till mid-episode five in season one. there are dozens of more scenes of sylvie actually caring for loki. there's literally no better proof that she loved him just as much as he loved her.

they are truly tragic and made for each other, more so than any other couples in marvel. because we know that HWR planned EVERYTHING until that random particular moment in s1 ep6, which means all the canon couples in mcu were also planned by him. i know he planned for loki nd sylvie to love each other, but that kiss? nuh uh bestie. my man hwr himself was shocked (and also rooting for them) during that kiss.

theyre legit living proof of the best, most tragic and wholesome couple ever in mcu.

[musclesandhammering]

Something about the fact that the Loki writers have confirmed multiple times that his variants all look so different because of their inherit chaotic nature.

Something about the fact that it says in the show that the universe wants to be free so it manifests chaos in the form of Lokis.

Something about the fact that Loki is the TVA’s most common variant because every version of them refuses to adhere to their ‘destiny’.

Something about the fact that there was a scene in the show where Ravonna said “this is about order & chaos. I’m order-“ and then a loki variant violently burst in, implying “I’m chaos.”

Something about the fact that the entire story arc of the Loki series was about him choosing to free the sacred timeline & embrace all the anarchy & endless possibilities- positive & negative- that came with it instead of continuing to enforce the absolute order that would keep them all safe.

Something about Loki literally sacrificing himself so chaos could reign.

Something about the fact that Loki tried for years to beat He Who Remains through playing by his rules, and was only able to do it when he came up with a solution so insane that HWR didn’t anticipate it.

Something about the fact that messing with people’s minds & using tricky and unorthodox means of fighting has always been Loki’s Thing.

Something about the fact that at least one loki variant has the natural ability to rewrite the laws of time, space, and reality.

Something about the fact that Loki is literally the god of chaos- in the series, in the comics, and in Norse mythology.

And also..

Something about the fact that all of Wanda’s variants look and act exactly the same.

Something about the fact that the TVA never mentioned Wanda whatsoever despite her being a Reality Breaking Cosmic Anomaly.

Something about the fact that Wanda fans thought her reading the Darkhold caused the multiverse to open but Kevin Feige confirmed it was Sylvie killing He Who Remains that opened the multiverse, and in turn allowed Wanda to hear her kids through the Darkhold.

Something about the fact that Wanda almost always uses her ‘chaos magic’ to control people/events & bend reality to her will, which directly contradicts the meaning of chaos.

Something about the fact that Wanda has never once had any sort of symbolic arc or subplot or character dive directly linking her to chaos as a concept.

Something about the fact that the only thing about Wanda you could consider overtly chaotic is her propensity to go on destructive rampages when she doesn’t get her way.

And finally..

Something about the fact that, in the mcu, Wanda is constantly awarded with the chaos moniker- they decided to keep the ‘chaos magic’ name from the comics, fans call her the queen of chaos, and she gets credited as the token reality breaker pretty much constantly… while they’ve never even acknowledged on-screen that Loki’s the literal God of Chaos.

[geehollow]

I've thought a bit more about Older Loki from the series and what his existence means for the MCU.

(bear with me because I've seen season one once and never again except for a quick peek at the scene where Older Loki talks of his nexus event)

My take was that it means the Loki from Infinity War is alive on an asteroid somewhere. So basically Loki's not dead in the main MCU. After all, Older Loki says he made a double so convincing Thanos thought he'd killed him for good, while really Loki had retreated to "an asteroid" and that the TVA had snatched him when he'd tried to go back to Thor.

Now that would mean that the TVA thought "as long as everyone else believes you're dead, you can do you" and only intervened when Loki stepped out of (time)line. But that implies that Sacred Timeline Loki was indeed meant to die because of Thanos and never pop up again, and the TVA let a branched timeline exist?

A version where Loki survives Thanos, if that's the case, is already a nexus event (like a Loki being born female*). The TVA should've cropped him as soon as that happened, because otherwise, as said, it means that it's allowing a separate timeline to exist. Why allow this one random branch to exist when the TVA is so strict about variants?

Unless the gist of it was "if everyone believes Loki is dead, it combines into the bigger picture that leads to HWR. Indeed, for HWR to happen, the universe needs to have Loki out of the equation at this point in time and not a moment after." In that case, the fact that Loki survives and exiles himself to the asteroid forever is not only allowed, but what actually happens as a canon Sacred Timeline event, because he was only pruned when trying to let the universe know he was still around.

If that's so, then my take that Loki survives Infinity War still holds merit. Now that Tree Loki has replaced HWR, establishing the flow of time as a multiverse since the start (see this meta by me and @lucianalight for more in-depth explanation) in fact Loki can leave the asteroid or be discovered whenever.

Whether that means in a branched timeline or the main one (I'm still debating the main timeline thing), it means Hiddleston's Loki is not out of the equation–in fact, there's no more equation. It has been replaced. If the HWR equation needed Loki out of the way, the new time structure doesn't. If the condition needed for MCU Loki to be "dead" doesn't exist anymore, then by all means, the sun might shine on us again.

The MCU seems to have dropped the Kang plotline. In a version of the MCU where Kang-HWR happened, then perhaps MCU Loki had to stay "dead". With a multiverse? Eh. With that plotline dropped? Double eh.

So the MCU, whether it acknowledges it or not, has two potential Lokis: Main Loki and Kid Loki. It is my assumption that they'll try to use Kid Loki and ignore Main Loki, but to be honest, who the fuck knows anymore what they'll try to do. I've heard of the scrapped Waldron's Avengers 5 script (thank fuck it's scrapped) and I'm consistently 80% hopeful they'll never touch Loki again.

*a Loki being born female is already a nexus event and should've been pruned as a baby if all other (male) variants are shocked at her existence and she herself says that's the reason she's been pruned–clearly no one here is genderfluid. Once again I'm going off of my one watch, but it stuck to me. Sylvie's existence as a child and adult makes no sense. A very easy way to solve this would've been saying Sylvie is the Loki that didn't hide their fluidity, and chose to present as a girl either against Asgard's criticism (and here's your Very Strong Female Character that has a brownie point more than a male counterpart for sticking to her guns) or even accepted by Asgard (which would've been tragic, Loki living a nicer life and being ripped from it). But then again, it's Disney-owned Marvel and they're cowards and prefer that pitiful mess around the character's gender and sexuality.

[samsayswhatever]

Exactly. He needed character growth to see what he really needed

“You know you can’t get to the end until you’ve been changed by the journey.”

I wasn’t expecting that line from HWR to strike so hard during a s1 rewatch but it’s so symbolic to the arc of s2 and the entire series as a whole. Loki wouldn’t have been able to accomplish any of the things he did without doing all of the things he did to get there first. None of us would be where we are today if we hadn’t done any of the the things that came before. Loki couldn’t achieve his glorious purpose unless he had been changed by that journey—by Mobius’ belief in him, by friendship, by love, by loss and despair. And eventually, Loki and the entire multiverse were changed forever.

[mysticcollectionbee]

Loki Season 2 Ep. 1 Thoughts:

(Heavy Spoilers)

Ok so I have a lot of thoughts and are basically all over the place so I'm gonna be putting in them in somewhat chronological order (Unlike Loki's current situation hehe)

They really HAD to put more of Loki's heartbreak over Mobius not recognizing him? Loki creators probably: "I know we're gonna bring the duo back but let's make 'em suffer just a bit more in the beginning".

I know others have covered this but also want to spread this headcanon/theory: Even though past Mobius doesn't know Loki ,and probably got his memory erased afterwards, It's still an interesting theory that maybe his interactions with Loki then might have somehow stuck with him and made him want to look into Loki a bit later.

Miss Minutes is with Ravonna right? I feel likeMinutes is probably the only tool/weapon that might give the former judge some leverage.

Casey! Casey not just being a comedic guy but actually a massive help is really nice. He (Present Casey) immediately saw Loki in pain/trouble and decided to help him without much question.

So...X-5 and D-90 weren't what I was expecting, they're kinda switched actually from what I was expecting. I thought X-5 would be a friend to Mobius and kinda con-artist and D-90 was a massive jerk who would side with Ravonna...But hey, I'm all for D-90's redemption.

New Judge is great. Screw Ravonna!...Where's Ravonna?

Apparently she was in on HWR's plan from the beginning...Guess she is a big bad after all. Also, why was she so great to HWR? Like in the comics they were couple but things seem to have taken a different turn in the MCU.

Look, I get it if you don't ship Lokius but...You have to admit was really nice to see Loki get some support from Mobius (And B-15, don't forget her stopping Ass-5) and then Mobius trying to calm/ground Loki while the poor dude is really going through it. AND even later, Loki and Mobius trying to make the other calm down and not to worry about their problems.

IF you do ship Lokius. We're either getting fed well or being clowned upon. Either way, let me just enjoy these two for a bit.

Why has no one talked about the weird fact that O.B.'s memory doesn't seem to have been erased but Mobius' has? Also, is O.B. like a TVA secret? Why the hell is no one in the TVA visiting him! How is he able to keep track of time in the TVA?!

Ok so that guidebook O.B. made, Loki still has it right? Like in a trailer clip he is flipping through an orange book, that's the guidebook right?

I love how Mobius is still thinking about whether he'll lose his skin or not till the very last minute lol. We know he's always was gonna pick saving Loki no matter what, but you'd totally still be worried about the skin thing.

I think Loki was pruned by either Future Sylvie or Future Loki. I think Future Loki and Sylvie came up with a plan to make sure Present Loki got pruned and survived. Also...Sylvie growing out her hair to have 50/50 hair colors is making me more of Bi idiot than usual.

While I enjoy the comparison to the Sam/Bucky roll to Lokius I think there is a key difference: FaTWS played this for comedy while this was played for relief that the characters are ok. And Sam immediately told bucky to get off while Loki probably just thought Mobius's suit was too heavy. (Yes, I'm wearing clown makeup, what about it.)

Finally, And I know how controversial this is: I don't think Loki is looking for Sylvie for romantic reason (OR more accurately, not the sole reason). She is literally about to be hunted down and probably killed and was the last one to see what happened in the Citadel. Even if he did feel betrayed by her, he still would probably want to save her.

[lucianalight]

Connections between Gods of Stories: Breaking the Cycle and Rewriting Reality

From "Loki God of Stories - A Comparison between MCU and Comics" series - Co-Written by @lucianalight (Luci) and @theitcharchives (Hollow)

Ouroboros, the snake that devours its own tail, is an ancient symbol of birth and rebirth in a never ending cycle for eternity. It appears in many mythologies around the world including Norse mythology, with the serpent Jörmungandr encircling the world with its tail in its mouth.

Like an ouroboros, Loki is trapped repeating certain moments again and again, but no matter what he tries, the outcome doesn’t change. In the comics, it’s him trying to escape the role of villain and Ragnarok. In the series, it’s him trying to find other ways besides killing Sylvie and saving the tyrant who takes away everyone’s free will in exchange for constrained stability, or letting everyone decide and allow the basis for a multiversal war. There is also a nice parallel between comics and MCU here. In comics kid Loki wanted Loki to choose his path aka die as himself. Classic Loki wanted him to choose the old role. And in MCU Loki could either die with the destruction of all universes or kill Sylvie and become a villain. It's a recurring cycle in both mcu and comics. Loki either dies a hero or has some scheme(betrayal, escape, etc).

But series Loki doesn’t like either option. So he finds another way, like comics Loki. For the people he loves, for everyone, and for himself. And I (=Luci) can’t help but think that “For you, for all of us” in a way is breaking the fourth wall. Loki’s also saying it to us who love him and followed his story all these years.

“It’s not your story. It never was.” [Renslayer, S1E1] 

When Loki asks “how does it all end?”, Mobius answers: “It’s a work in progress...They’re untangling the epilogue from its infinite branches.” Not far from the truth, actually. There was a point after which HWR couldn’t predict anymore what would happen: it was Loki time slipping, again and again, until he made the final decision of replacing the equation. The end wouldn’t be clear before Loki arrives in the TVA and before he starts his Journey from there in season 2. The multiverse fate depended on the decision he would take in the future. 

Each time Like time slips, the cycle repeats:

Sylvie kills HWR

The loom overloads and deletes branches except scared timeline which causes HWR's reincarnation(Remember while Loki does remember all his time slippings HWR doesn’t)

in sacred timeline Loki escapes with the Tesseract

TVA gets him until he reaches HWR’s citadel with Sylvie

return to number 1,

until Loki destroys the loom and creates the tree and the loop(1 to 4 repetition) breaks. 

So the cycle starts with Loki getting to the TVA until it breaks with Loki always keeping the timelines alive. It is a dynamic similar to what happens in Sandman S1E11, A Dream of a thousand cats. When the cat asks Dream of the Endless if a world dominated by humans and not cats was the actual reality, Dream replied that it had always been so once the humans dreamed of it. So the narrative strand of the cats’ world and of the humans’ world can exist in parallel, as HWR’s reign and Loki’s reign do–there was always a sacred timeline, until Loki replaced it with Yggdrasil that always existed (which is why Doctor Strange was able to see billions of outcomes in IW).

So now, there are two parallel narratives, one where time was always constrained into the sacred timeline which led to the happenings of the season one and two, and one where Loki has always sat in Yggdrasil and held the timelines. The first narrative has always been true, until Loki disrupted it, and now the second narrative has always been true (like the humans dream-changing the world as it has always been).

This needs to be true for both the beginning and the end of the series to exist. So Loki substituting the narrative is him reshaping reality, retelling the story of the universe. Which makes him this universe's God of Stories. Even God of the Story, if we consider his Yggdrasil the creation myth that spawns all others.

There were other examples of the loop too, most notably Ouroboros himself. Was OB inspired by Timely or vice versa? Who came up with that knowledge first? Who was there first? HWR, Timely or OB?(It is my personal idea that this very thing was what actually led to OB being named like that, and the Ouroboros parallels are Luci’s mind connecting dots -Hollow)

This is how comics Loki defeats the gods sitting above in the shadows. Did the gods create humans, or did the humans create their gods? What about gods of gods? Who created who first? It's a never ending loop. A never-ending story. Just like how Loki’s story was cycling in a loop.

From the ancient Egyptian to now “the loop – so often represented by the ouroboros – has been inextricably bound to our concept of time.”[s]

I (=Luci) have to appreciate how the series keeps the theme and lore through both seasons and connects it to the ouroboros mythology. The sacred timeline is shown as a circle surrounding the HWR’s castle. “The ouroboros in its original Egyptian context symbolizes repetition, renewal, and the eternal cycle of time.”[s] And when HWR is talking about managing the timeline it is shown as a circle around him. Like how “In the more widespread Roman variant of Iranian Mithraism, Zurvan, symbolizing ‘boundless time’, is depicted with an ouroboros entwined around his body.”[s]

“The Renaissance-era alchemists saw the ouroboros as something to break out of in pursuit of a linear, rather than cyclical, eternity”.[s] When Loki breaks the cycle by becoming the god of stories, the timelines shape Yaggardsil, tree of life. A tree of stories just like how comics showed the stories as a tree.

The existence of everyone’s stories depended on him. Loki became the god of stories by giving everyone the chance to write their own stories. The story was always about him. For all time, always.

Source: The ancient symbol that spanned millennia

Previous - Next

[galaxythreads]

I do feel very irritated with the ending of season 2 to be honest. like understand, just because it wasn't bad doesn't mean it's my beloved. I liked a lot of it, but there are parts that just rubbed me the wrong way, like:

Feeling the "Where is John Watson in Sherlock's Mind Palace thing". Where it's like, why didn't Loki talk to Thor, or Frigga, or anyone about the timeline problem?

Loki being alone on a throne, sitting there forever, a - completely stops MCU the Kang saga unless someone shoves him off the throne, and b - is one of the most depressing endings I have seen in a marvel project to date. Loki is terrified of being alone and now he is. permanently. forever. He doesn't get to live out a life on the timeline, he has to sit there, and listen to his friends move on and live their lives and then die. Like to me this feels like Loki being tied up by the snake and then left with a pool of acid to drip on his face forever. Like it's more of a punishment. Yes, I understand that narratively it had to end this way but I'm still :(

Loki's shoes. I can't. I know it's minor but WHY IS HE WEARING SLIPPERS?

No one making any effort to find him or go sit at the end of time with him. No one cares??

Ravonna just randomly dying at the end by what I presume is Aloith. Okay. Thanks for giving us a conclusive end to her story! :)

We do not know what Sylvie's nexus event is and now we never will

We spent so much time worldbuilding the TVA and then it's pointless. We don't know if they consented to being agents, we don't know how their minds were mass wiped, we don't know what's up with the pie. Why do they have an entire room of pie? That's so weird. The pie clearly meant SOMETHING

So many people in the TVA died for nothing. Brad's team is dead and it didn't DO anything.

I STILL FEEL CONFUSED ABOUT WHY THEY WERE TRYING TO SAVE THE LOOM BECAUSE WHY DID THEY THINK THEY NEEDED IT? DID NO ONE THINK ABOUT WHY IT WAS THERE? No one gave an explanation for why the TVA though it was there and i'm aflksjdlsf

Loki's time slipping started because of kang..........?????????????? how????????????????????????

sylvie's entire character has been muddled down to kang killer and that makes me sad. she had so much more to tell and they just didn't know what to DO with her in season 2.

WHY was the scene with Ravonna and HWR recording there? It didn't mean ANYTHING

I just. I don't know. There's more but I'm tired and can't think of it. I'm just. Irritated. Like I enjoyed this season a lot more than season 1, I genuinely had fun and I am actually sad it's over rather than relieved, but the finale was just bleh to me.