#thor: i think the reason loki is so awkward around jane and sif is that he's never had a girlfriend

[evilkitten3]

thor 3 would've been a thousand times funnier if loki had just. had kids the entire time and never mentioned it. or just assumed everyone already knew

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

RWBY / MCU AU (2.0)

(reposting since Tumblr is being weird)

The Avengers

1) Ruby Rose as Tony Stark / Iron Man (reasoning: weapons nut, expert inventor, red color scheme, main protagonist)

2) Jaune Arc as Steve Rogers / Captain America (reasoning: awkward blonde guy who is always trying to prove himself, forged his papers in order to get into Beacon, team leader of JNPR)

3) Weiss Schnee as Thor Odinson (reasoning: yes, I know that Nora is the more obvious choice. I went with Weiss since I felt that she fit Thor’s story better. Nora doesn’t really have good parallels for Loki, Sif, Odin, Hela, and the rest of the Thor cast. As for Weiss, she started out as an arrogant heiress with a terrible father and brother. She later lost her inheritance and was humbled by her experiences in Beacon and with Team RWBY. To me, her character arc fits Thor to a tee)

4) Yang Xiao Long as Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk (reasoning: prone to anger, known for brute force and punching. Also, since she’s Bruce, she would be close friends with Ruby, which could mirror their sisterly relationship)

5) Harriet Bree as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (reasoning: if the Atlas Military and Ace Ops are S.H.I.E.L.D. in this AU, then I felt that a member of Ace Ops should be Black Widow and Hawkeye)

6) Clover Ebi as Clint Barton / Hawkeye (reasoning: if the Atlas Military and Ace Ops are S.H.I.E.L.D. in this AU, then I felt that a member of Ace Ops should be Black Widow and Hawkeye)

Guardians of the Galaxy

1) Mercury Black as Peter Quill / Star-Lord (reasoning: douchey guy who always feels the need to overcompensate. Hates his biological father)

2) Emerald Sustrai as Gamora (reasoning: she’s partners with Mercury, green color scheme, can be said to be in league with Salem due to her association with Cinder, black character)

3) Roman Torchwick as Rocket Raccoon (reasoning: loudmouthed thief who mocks everyone, partners with Neo who is Groot)

4) Neopolitan as Groot (reasoning: characters known for their distinct way of “speaking”, Roman’s closest associate, cutest member of the team)

5) Cardin Winchester as Drax the Destroyer (reasoning: big, muscular guy who is not really known for his brains)

6) Cinder Fall as Nebula (reasoning: she’s one of Salem’s main followers, Salem being our Thanos. Also, her connection to Emerald)

Wakanda

1) Blake Belladonna as T’Challa / Black Panther (reasoning: daughter of Ghira, our T’Chaka. Her story is all about discrimination and finding a way to bridge the gap between humans and faunus. Technically, she’s of royal blood. She’s also part cat)

2) Adam Taurus as Erik Killmonger (reasoning: anti-human/pro-faunus extremist who is obsessed with Blake. His main plan is basically to kill everyone who he feels is a threat to his people. True, the origins of his obsession with the Black Panther is different in this AU but still)

3) Kali Belladonna as Queen Ramonda (reasoning: Blake’s mom)

4) Ghira Belladonna as King T’Chaka (reasoning: Blake’s dad)

5) Sun Wukong as Nakia (reasoning: Blake’s love interest. Don’t come at me Bumbleby stans, he’s a faunus and Yang’s already cast as Hulk)

6) Ilia Amitola as W’Kabi (reasoning: since she’s a White Fang agent, I felt that she should be the member of T’Challa’s inner circle who ends up siding with Killmonger)

7) Sienna Khan as N’Jobu (reasoning: this is to act as a parallel to her relationship with Adam. N’Jobu was Killmonger’s father, Sienna was Adam’s leader. Also, just like N’Jobu, Sienna was a radical who wanted to fight against discrimination towards her people)

The Black Order

1) Salem as Thanos (reasoning: main villain of the series)

2) Arthur Watts as Ebony Maw (reasoning: member of Salem’s Inner Circle)

3) Tyrian Callows as Corvus Glaive (reasoning: member of Salem’s Inner Circle)    

4) Hazel Rainart as Cull Obsidian (reasoning: member of Salem’s inner circle)  

Asgard

1) Jacques Schnee as Odin (reasoning: Weiss’ father)

2) Willow Schnee as Frigga (reasoning: Weiss’ mother)

3) Whitley Schnee as Loki Laufeyson (reasoning: Weiss’ brother)

4) Winter Schnee as Hela (reasoning: Weiss’ sister)

5) Klein Sieben as one of the Warriors Three (reasoning: associate of the Schnee Family)

6) Nora Valkyrie as Valkyrie (reasoning: besides the obvious naming reasons and Viking symbolism, Nora is also headstrong and stubborn)

7) Lie Ren as Heimdall (reasoning: okay, to be honest, Ren is Heimdall mainly so that he can have some type of connection with Nora. In terms of personality, Ren is also stoic and honorable)

Stark Industries

1) Qrow Branwen and Summer Rose as Howard and Maria Stark, respectively (reasoning: going with the fan theory that Qrow is Ruby’s biological father, then it made sense to have Qrow and Summer as the Starks. Also, Qrow being Howard oddly fits if you picture him as a raging alcoholic who unintentionally neglects Ruby while she was growing up)

2) Penny Polendina as J.A.R.V.I.S. / Vision (reasoning: A..I. and android who is close friends with Ruby)

3) Pietro Polendina as Ultron (reasoning: okay, so this one is a bit of a stretch. Since Ultron is the “father” of Vision, then it made sense that Penny’s father would take this role. Just imagine that Pietro is a rogue A.I./killer robot made by Ruby and Yang in this AU)

4) Oscar Pine as Pepper Potts (reasoning: Jaune and Weiss have already been cast, so I guess this AU is a Rosegarden fic)

5) Coco Adel as James Rhodes / War Machine (reasoning: I was running low on characters. This is literally just because her main weapon is a minigun)

Other Major Characters

1) Raven Branwen as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (reasoning: so instead of Ross being Betty’s father, Ross would be Bruce’s father in this AU. The reason for this change is that I really wanted to include Raven in this AU and casting her as a power-hungry general chasing her daughter around the world in order to control the Hulk felt appropriate)  

2) Vernal as Betty Ross (reasoning: to keep the General Ross-Betty Ross relationship to some extent, then Vernal as Betty made sense. Instead of being father-daughter, it’s “mother figure-daughter figure”)

3) James Ironwood as Nick Fury (reasoning: big military guy and the head of Atlas Military and Ace Ops)

4) Glynda Goodwitch as Maria Hill (reasoning: this would’ve been Winter...but I have Winter cast as Hela. So Glynda, being my second choice due to her past relationship with Ironwood, gets this role)

5) Neptune Vasilias as Jane Foster (reasoning: closest character we have for Weiss’ love interest. Don’t come at me Whiterose stans, Ruby’s already Iron Man)

6) Bartholomew Oobleck as Erik Selvig (reasoning: it’s mainly because he’s a professor)  

7) Pyrrha Nikos as Peggy Carter (reasoning: warrior, closest character we have for Jaune’s love interest)

8) Saphron Cotta-Arc as Bucky Barnes / The Winter Soldier (reasoning: there was literally no other character who I could think of that could fit this role, so I went with Saphron since you have the sibling relationship element with Jaune. This is obviously not a romantic-Stucky interpretation, this is more along the lines of Steve and Bucky being spiritual brothers)

9) Ozpin as Stephen Strange / Doctor Strange (reasoning: Earth’s protector, one of the guys leading the charge against Salem. Also, Ozpin looks like the kind of guy who’d be a mysterious sorcerer)

10) Marcus Black as Ego the Living Planet (reasoning: Mercury’s estranged, biological father)

[galaxythreads]

Thor (Thor: TDW)

Muted. 

Thor in the Dark World is muted. I don’t mean this in a negative way. Thor has undergone a brutal beating since his first steps onto MCU. 

When the movie opens, we’re seeing the aftermath of Thor’s family in ruins. Thor has disowned Loki. Maybe not verbally, maybe he’s not even aware that he’s done so, but Thor has denounced his brother. His best friend. Closest confidant. A person he could rely on for decades. 

And this leaves him utterly miserable.

He’s trying to distance himself from everyone. He won’t talk to the Warriors or Sif, he barely speaks with his parents. 

Odin keeps handing out unhelpful advice about romance, as if trying to throw Thor into functioning again by making him care for a woman. Odin could have cared less about Thor’s romantic interests in Thor 1. But when we arrive here, Odin is suddenly all over Thor/Sif. (And yes, I absolutely believe this is Odin also attempting to sway Thor away from a mortal. He wouldn’t have called Jane a goat otherwise.) 

But Thor and Sif’s relationship has always struck me as more of a brother and sister thing than romance. And Odin trying to get them “together” must have been awkward and uncomfortable for both of them. (Small side note, but Sif avoids Odin the entire movie. Even in the middle of a battle, where she is a general in the army, she avoids him.) 

How is Thor supposed to discuss anything he’s feeling with a mother who’s focused on his sibling, and a father who could care less about said brother, but also him? Odin’s attempt to “help” is assuming he knows everything. Including how to fix Thor’s problems. 

There’s a reason Thor says “my father doesn’t know everything.” 

Thor’s main motivation, main joy is his family. The “death” of Odin destroyed him in the first movie, and Loki’s suicide left him broken. Thor’s purpose for a thousand years was utterly obliterated in three days. 

Loki arrives in the Avengers, and Thor makes an attempt to reach him. When Loki doesn’t reach back (can’t, because of the Other, but Thor doesn’t know that), Thor tries to keep a distance after their initial conversation, and keeps that mindset well into the second movie.

We are not told whether or not Loki was allowed visitors, but it’s safe to assume that he wasn’t. 

If this is the case, then Thor wasn’t even legally allowed to talk to Loki, and get his side of the story. And without that perspective, Thor can only make assumptions. Disownment, was, I think, the easier path for him. It doesn’t hurt if it’s not his problem anymore, right?

So he delves into distractions to avoid how his family has broken. 

Helping maintain order in the Nine. Doing anything to avoid Asgard and Loki. 

Even Jane, to an extent, falls under this. His concern for her is, I think, is sincere. I also think that he thinks of himself and Jane as his most “ideal” life right then. When he was with Jane, thinks weren’t great, but they were better. It’s almost like Jane is his comfort daydream. 

But rather than approach her and talk, he maintains a distance. How can Thor think of Jane, be with Jane, without thinking of this: 

“If you destroy the bridge, you’ll never see her again!” 

Because in the middle of their falling out, in the middle of Loki’s attempt to get Thor to kill him, he has to stop and think about Thor’s happiness.

Thor must have been rattled, later,  when he thought about this. Because I doubt that Thor doesn’t think about this day often. 

So he shuts down emotionally in an effort to survive. Thor can’t even cry at his mother’s funeral. He barely smiles at anything, even seeing Jane, the first woman we’re aware of that he sincerely loves, fails to cause him joy. 

He’s emotionally closed off, almost half-dead in his responses in TDW. The terror he feels at the thought of getting close to anyone whispers through his every action. In avoiding Jane, Darcy, and co. In pulling away from his family, and his friends. 

And because of this, the Warriors and Sif are so protective of Thor in this scene: 

“If you even think about betraying him...” 

This, I think, has very little to do with Loki physically harming him. This is them inadvertently saying, Thor is fragile right now. Thor has barely spoken to them in the movie at this point, but even they recognize that Thor has been emotionally crippled. 

And Loki spends almost their every minute from when he leaves the cell trying to get a rise out of him. Mockery, jibes, anger. Anything to get him responding. Loki, I believe, thinks that Thor’s apathy is used to punish him, but this is Thor’s only coping mechanism. To have someone push him from there is as scary as it is a relief. 

Because this is when Thor starts responding. Living. 

This says so much about their bond, broken and jagged edges at this point, that the simple fact of talking to each other, even in anger, seems to offer so much relief as much as it does pain. 

And it’s here, in this scene, that I think that Thor claims Loki as his brother again. Not in so many words: 

“I wish I could trust you.” 

I wish we could be what we were. Do you remember? When we were brothers? 

And Loki doesn’t miss a beat. “Trust my rage.”

Things can’t be the same. But I will still help you.  

Thor realizes here that his family isn’t gone. Loki calls him brother frequently. Thor may have lost his mother, his father in every what that matters, and Asgard is under threat, but he still has Loki. 

The relief of this causes Thor to start living. He’s far more animated after this scene than the earlier part of the movie. Thor starts reacting. He cries when Loki dies. He mocks Malekith and goads him into battle. When he leaves Asgard, he goes to Jane.

He allows himself to be emotional vulnerable with her. 

He’s gone full circle.

Closed off to tentatively opening again. 

Thor 2 is Thor’s weird bounce and hop around the healing process. This is where he recovers from the emotional weight of the Avengers and the first Thor. It is, I think, the first time he processes everything that’s happened.

An emotional shut down to a hesitant opening again. 

[mymarvelbunch]

Be Your Own Hero - Steve Rogers x Reader (part 6)

Masterlist

Summary: You’ve lost all your family and most friends in The Decimation. Refusing to believe their deaths are permanent, you dedicate years to find a way to reverse it. Upon finding something that might help, you search for the Avengers’ help. It’s Steve Rogers x Reader, but in reality it’s mostly Badass!Reader. Also, Non-American!Reader.

Warnings: none!

Note: Y/Co = your country. Y/Ci = your city; Y/N/L = your native language.

Previously: “As I was saying... Tony and his new team managed to build that time machine.” You and Steve exchanged glances and smiled wide. From your side, you heard Danvers say, “Let’s get it started, then.”

Part Six

Two days later

Everything was surreal. You were surrounded by heroes: Iron Man, War Machine, the Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, Captain Marvel, Valkyrie, Nebula, Rocket, Ant-Man... And you were among them. Part of the team, with a Quantum Suit and everything. Almost an Avenger yourself.

You took a couple deep breaths and brought yourself back to reality. The team was discussing how they’d get the Stones.

“Okay”, Natasha began, paper and pencil in hand. “First Stone, Space. The Tesseract. Let’s list all occasions in which one of us came in contact with it.”

“1945″, Steve said. “It was in Red Skull’s possession. I don’t remember if it was in the plane when I crashed it, though.”

“1995″, Danvers added. “My... mentor had kind of stolen it, and a reactor with the Stone inside exploded. My powers come from the it actually. And then Goose - an alien cat, if anyone’s wondering - swallowed it.”

“Well, your cat must have puked the thing, because Loki was after it in 2012, and it was back in SHIELD’s possession″, Barton said, seemingly undisturbed by an alien cat eating an Infinity Stone. “Then Thor took it to Asgard.”

Thor nodded. He already looked a lot better than when they found him. “It remained in Odin’s vault until we fled Asgard. Loki took it for some reason and... died trying to protect it from Thanos.”

A couple ‘I’m sorry’s were heard. “I don’t know when or how dad found it in the ocean”, Stark said eventually, “but I’m 90% sure it was already in SHIELD’s hand in the 70s.”

Natasha nodded slowly. “So, 1945, the 70s, 1995, 2012 and any time period between 2013 and 2017. Anything else?” Silence. “Okay, next Stone, Time.”

“Easy”, Stark said. “Strange.”

“Not always”, you replied. “He only became its guardian in mid-2016. It belonged to a woman before then. She lived in the same New York Sanctum, though, I think.”

“So we have pre-2016 and post-2016, same place, different guardians”, Natasha said. “Reality Stone?”

Thor adjusted himself in his chair. “It possessed Jane Foster in 2013. We took her to Asgard, so if we pick a place it’s probably the safest. Lady Sif was the one responsible for getting the Stone away from Asgard after that, since the Tesseract was already in our hands. Sadly, she only told its location to Loki, and both are gone.” He glanced at Rocket.

“Thanos took from Knowhere, from the Collector, I think.”

“Asgard in 2013 and Knowhere after that, then”, Natasha said. “Next, Mind Stone.”

“Loki’s scepter from 2012 to 2015, when it was put in Vision’s head”, Stark summarized.

“That scepter was in HYDRA’s hands for quite some time, though”, Steve added. “It was how Wanda and Pietro got their powers.”

Natasha nodded. “Power Stone.”

“Morag, 2014″, Rocket said. “That’s when Quill stole it. Then we left it in Xandar for safety. Didn’t end up so well, but the Stone can be found there until... well, I wouldn’t risk 2018, so 2017.”

“Anything else? Nebula? Carol?” Both women shook their heads. “Okay. Soul Stone.”

“Vormir”, Nebula said. “It was supposedly a mystery, but Gamora somehow found out and told Thanos so he’d stop torturing me.” Her robotic face let her guilt clear.

“Thanos killed Gamora, though”, Stark added. “Didn’t he? Isn’t that why Quill punched him back in Titan?”

Nebula nodded. “Yes. Thanos took Gamora to Vormir. Came back with the Stone, without her. The Stone had been there until then.”

Natasha nodded. “Guys, I think we have a plan. There are three Stones in New York in 2012: Time, Space and Mind. Three Stones in other planets in 2014: Power in Morag, Reality in Knowhere, Soul in Vormir. Alternatively, we can travel to 2013 to get Reality instead. What do you think, guys?”

Everyone began to nod, much to your surprise. There was a fatal flaw in that plan. “Guys? Aren’t we forgetting something here? Thanos killed his daughter in Vormir and came back with the Soul Stone. Doesn’t that ring any bells?”

Rocket snorted. “Thanos didn’t care for any lives aside his own. He probably killed Gamora so she’d never tell anyone else about Vormir.”

Nebula shook her head. “Y/N has a point. Gamora was Thanos’ favorite. He never killed me, who he always despised and saw as inferior. He wouldn’t kill my sister if he didn’t deem it absolutely necessary.”

“He did say he was forced to kill her in Titan”, Stark added.

“See?”, you said. “Besides, the Stone’s named Soul. What if you need a soul to get it? That would explain all the secrecy behind its location.” You stood up. “No, there must be another way to get that one. A way that doesn’t risk lives. That’s what you said, right, Stark? We won’t risk lives.”

Stark nodded and stood up too. “Yes. I agree with Y/N. However, the only other times any of us has seen the Soul Stone are after Thanos gets it. Nebula and I saw it in Titan... that’s it!”

Everyone turned to Stark, who turned to Nebula. “Nebula, remember when we almost took the Gauntlet off Thanos’ arm?” She nodded. “If we manage to go to that specific point, we can at least get our hands on the Soul Stone, if not on the whole Gauntlet. And Strange was still in possession of the Time Stone, meaning we could just ask him. That way we don’t have to find out if getting the Soul Stone in Vormir requires sacrifice or not.”

Smiles could be seen all over the room. Banner was the first to speak after it: “Well, we shouldn’t send Stark and Nebula there, though. It might be confusing, and we can’t afford wasting time with that.”

“That’s an easy choice, honestly’, you said. “Send Danvers, Thor, Valkyrie and you there. You four have more than enough power to help the guys.”

“Lady Y/N is right”, Thor said, standing up. “I may not be in my best condition, but with Stormbreaker I can help stopping Thanos. I know exactly what to do this time.”

Valkyrie and Danvers agreed. Banner asked to stay away from the fight, and everyone conceded. The trio suited up. Stark and Nebula set the timer and described the scene they’d find. “Remember”, Stark said, “you have to get at least the Soul Stone. All the others can be safely found in other timelines, though it would save us a lot of work if you managed to get more. If possible, try to ask Strange for the Time Stone. He surely knows what we want to do with it.”

“Be safe”, you added.

“Look out for one another”, Steve added as well. You two exchanged glances.

They nodded, and Banner activated the time machine. “3... 2... 1...”, and they disappeared. After a minute, they came back, puffing. It was Danvers who spoke up first, excitedly. “We got two of them! Soul and and Reality!”

Valkyrie spoke second, huffing. “There was no way to ask the wizard for the Time Stone. Everything was a mess.”

Along with Thor, they told how they didn’t reach Quill in time to stop him punching Thanos, so it was a tough fight to get close to him. It was Danvers who got hold of the Soul Stone, while Thor grabbed the Reality Stone. Valkyrie managed to knock Thanos unconscious, allowing them to adjust their timers to get back. Strange was busy using the Time Stone to fight, so they weren’t able to get it from him.

“Well, we avoided the most complicated ones”, Natasha said. “No potential sacrifice to get the Soul Stone and no attacking Jane Foster to get the Reality Stone.”

“Damn, that one would have been awkward”, Rhodes commented. “Okay, now we need to get Space, Mind, Time and Power Stones. Do we stick to the original plan?”, he asked, looking at you.

“I don’t see why not”, you replied. “Like Natasha said, the worst part is over. By the way, Thor, Valkyrie, Danvers, you can rest. It should be easy from now on.”

Oh, how naïve you were.

.

Since they planned on getting the Space and Mind Stones mid-Battle of New York, it would be best to send the original Avengers, who knew where and when to be. Banner was voted out, thanks to his new looks, and Thor was left to rest. Natasha, Steve and Clint would go, along with Scott, whose powers could be useful. Stark and Rhodes would head to 2017 to negotiate the Time Stone with Strange, since no one knew how the previous guardian would react to them. You and Nebula would head to 2014 Morag to retrieve the Power Stone.

“I mean, when else will you be able to go to space?”, Steve said, making you smile wide. You were so excited Nebula asked for a delay for you to calm down.

Banner and Rocket would stay behind to coordinate everything. Rocket didn’t want to travel in time again, after being the one to test the machine. After a minute, you managed to get yourself back together. The eight of you gathered around the platform. Steve was responsible for the pep talk:

“Three years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the stones, get them back. One round trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know, that doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we're going to win. Whatever it takes. Good luck.”

You and Natasha smiled at him. Scott praised him, and Barton laughed for the first time since you’ve met him. “See you all in a minute”, Natasha said, excitement clear in her voice and body language.

You felt dizzy as you spiraled inside the Quantum Realm, but, before you could blink, you were already out. You found yourself in a purple desert planet, with no sign of life except for a temple-like building. It was a disappointing sight, so you simply turned to Nebula and asked, “Is the Power Stone inside that place?”

She nodded and you followed her. She pulled you to hide behind some sort of ruin. Confused, you followed her gaze to find a masked human-like being singing and dancing around with a gun.

“Do you know who he is?”, you asked. The song sounded familiar.

“Peter Quill”, she answered in a whisper. “Half-human, half-something I can’t remember. He’s the one Tony said to have punched Thanos when we heard he killed Gamora.”

“Oh”, you said. “Okay.” You kept watching. “He needs to take some dancing classes.”

“He’s an idiot”, she deadpanned.

“Oh c’mon, he’s not that bad. And his taste in music is good.”

Nebula rolled her eyes at you and stood up. “We can’t wait on him forever.” That said, she shot him in the head. “He’s going to be unconscious for an hour. Let’s go.”

Relieved that the poor guy wasn’t dead, you followed her inside the building. The Power Stone was in the center, covered by an orb-thing, on some sort of alter, with no protection whatsoever. “Are you sure we’re not walking into a trap?”

“Quill took the Stone effortlessly. All he had to face was some Krees.” As she said that, Nebula walked straight to the altar and extended her hand to grab the orb. Her cibenetic arm burned, but she managed to grab the orb before it fell apart. You two looked at each other in the eye. “I wasn’t always like this”, she offered, as if the sight of her arm was something to fear.

“We live with what we’ve got, I guess”, you replied, smiling. “I hope you didn’t feel pain, at least.”

“Pain distracts you from battle”, she said. “Thanos only allowed me to feel pain if he was the one inflicting it, so... no, I didn’t feel pain.”

“Sounds like a comfort to me.”

She didn’t answer, but you could see a ghost of a smile in her lips. She placed the orb in her pocket and you two suited up again. “Okay”, you said, “3... 2-”

You interrupted yourself as Nebula fell on ground, looking like she was convulsing. You heard the Pym Particle bottle from her suit break. “Nebula!”, you shouted as you reached her, kneeling before your teammate. “Are you okay?”

As if answering your question, her cibernetic eye projected something. It was Nebula herself, standing by Thanos’ side, with another female-like alien. “Gamora”, you heard your Nebula say.

The conversation between the three was clear: they knew Future Nebula was there and had time traveled. Also that she wasn’t on Thanos side anymore. They wanted to get her.

“This is not a live projection”, Nebula said, standing up. You stood up as well. “They must be already on their way here.”

“Then switch your timer with mine”, you replied. Nebula turned to you with wide eyes. “You can’t be taken, Nebula. What if they send past you to fool our friends? If anyone is kidnapped, it’s got to be me.”

“I can’t let you fall into his hands. You will die.”

“So will you!”, you shouted. “My mission is done, Nebula. I did everything I could to bring my family back. But yours isn’t. Go back with the Stone and make our wish.” A huge noise was heard. “They’re here, aren’t they?” Nebula nodded. You took your timer off and gave it to her. “Go!”

Reluctantly, she took it and gave her broken timer to you. “I’ll come back for you, Y/N. We don’t risk lives.”

“Bring everyone back first”, you screamed, trying to be heard in the midst of the noise. Someone was entering the temple. “Only then you come back for me. Now go!”

With no hesitation this time, Nebula left. Still suited up, you grabbed a knife Natasha gave you and stabbed your new timer. It was the last thing you did before everything went black.

Next

----------------------------------------------

Cliffhanger! You thought everything would be easy? hahahahahaha

I had thought of this part long before I started writing this imagine, and it was the one I was looking forward too the most, due to the major changes made.

Part 7 won’t be told from the reader’s POV, but from Steve’s (and probably Nebula’s). We go back to reader’s POV on part 8!

Edit: I fixed a small detail on parts 6 and 7. Originally I had the Mind Stone being collected in Titan, but it was the last Stone Thanos got, on Earth. I made minor corrections so it would fit movie canon in this aspect.

Taglist (open!): @autobotgirl15-blog​ @starstrucknature @cheeseburgersstuff​ @aamzter2013

[notallthosewho-wanderarelost]

Fosterson Week Day 2: Outside POV (Headcanons/Meta)

What does everyone in Thor and Jane’s lives think of their relationship? Here’s some headcanons and analysis. Featuring Team Jane, notable Asgardians, and a few Avengers and supporting cast circa pre-AoU.

...predictably, this got long. There wound up being a lot of people.

Team Jane

Darcy: She’s TOTALLY the captain of the ship! I’m pretty sure that’s canon. She loves their relationship. The #1 Fosterson fan.

Selvig: Selvig is overall a very cautious and traditional-minded person. In Thor 1 he tries to get Jane to follow a more conventional research path, and more to the point, he warns Jane to stay away from Thor and vice versa. So he’s probably happy that she’s happy, given that she’s like a daughter to him, and he definitely likes Thor, but he probably privately thinks the relationship is doomed, just based on the whole “human dating a Norse god” thing. Especially because he knows his Norse mythology, and therefore has some idea of the crazy shenanigans Thor got up to in his youth during the Viking age. (Shenanigans which included lots of sleeping around with women.*) So Selvig is probably happy on the outside but waiting for an inevitable breakup on the inside.

*Pulling this more from comics than from actual myth, though myth Thor does have two kids that we know of by women other than his wife. But given what Thor’s like in myth, the fact that he’s a fertility god, how much gods in general sleep around, and the fact that we have so few Norse myths actually extant, it’s not a stretch to think it was probably true in mythology as well.

Asgardians

Odin: We already know what Odin thinks- Jane belongs with Thor like “a goat belongs at a banquet table,” and Thor should be dating Sif. For all his “we are not gods” talk, Odin sure looks down on humans. (Or probably anyone who’s not Asgardian, really. With the possible exception of the Vanir.) So, not a fan, thinks Thor is wasting his time, and Jane is inconsequential aside from having an Infinity Stone hijack her body.

Frigga: From the little we saw Frigga interact with Jane, I think she definitely approves of their relationship and likes Jane. Tbh I’d think that even without having seen them interact. I feel like in Frigga’s book, anyone who could push Thor to mature the way he did in Thor 1, especially in such a short time, has already proven to be a good match for her son. Plus, Frigga is very intelligent and cunning- we know canonically that Loki specifically takes after her in that regard, and she seems to be “the power behind the throne” in her relationship with Odin- not to mention a very capable magician, which would presumably require a lot of study, so I think she would definitely consider Jane’s being a scientist a huge point in her favor.

But from the interactions we got with Jane and Frigga, it sure seems like she approves. She was kind to Jane, and she was tactful and teasing when she interrupted Thor and Jane’s moment on the balcony, instead of disapproving. Plus, with the way Frigga herself teases Odin, I think she’d find Jane standing up to Odin and insisting that all of the Asgardians (including Thor) treat her as an equal both impressive and necessary for someone dating her son. So: unlike Odin, definitely a fan of Thor and Jane dating. If we stick to canon, she unfortunately wouldn’t have had the chance to know Jane very well, but I think she certainly would’ve seen how Jane and Thor were a good match for each other.

Loki: Despite all his talk of mortals being ants to be crushed under his boot, I think Loki’s intrigued by Jane. Probably confused why Thor is so wrapped up with her, but still intrigued. There’s the famous “I like her” moment after she slaps him, and there’s also the fact that Jane is a scientist and Loki is very cerebral. Also probably realizes just like Frigga does that Jane balances Thor out well. (I’m ignoring Ragnarok here. No clue if Loki actually comments on Jane or on the relationship there, I haven’t seen it and don’t care to.)

Sif: That one shot of Sif side-eying Jane in Thor 2 wants us to think she’s pissed at Jane because she’s jealous, but I think there’s more to it. It’s canon multiple times over (both Thor movies and Agents of SHIELD) that Sif has feelings for Thor, and not only does he not like her back, he’s dating Jane, but I prefer to interpret that glare as “who are you, you’re putting Asgard in danger when I’ve sworn to guard it, and you’re also the girlfriend of the man I love, I’m angry at you for multiple reasons which are not necessarily reasonable but I will deal with my feelings later because I’m going off to fight.” 

Sif and Jane unfortunately never get to properly interact in canon, but I think that if they ever got the chance to spend some time together they’d get along well. Sif might be jealous of Jane dating Thor, but she’s also a woman who had to deal with a lot of sexism and people telling her no and trying to stop her from doing what she wanted and getting where she wanted to in life. She’d think women should stick together, not fight over a guy, even if that guy was Thor. She canonically makes friends with women especially easily, as we see in her AoS appearances. Plus, Sif has a lot of personality traits in common with Thor, so I think she’d definitely grow to like Jane fairly quickly, and that dynamic would be similar, only platonic- Sif wanting to fight things, go on adventures, and throw things around (less so than Thor did though), and Jane going “Woah, slow down there, no,” in between working non-stop, while Sif would try to get her to loosen up. (Dang it, now I want a fic of Jane and Sif hanging out together and winding up on some madcap adventure that they never tell Thor the full story of, only crazy tidbits. A noodle incident, basically. Also, just think of Sif and Darcy interacting! It would be amazing.) I think Sif would get over her jealousy eventually. She’s pretty smart, and she’d realize that Thor never made a move back when he was single, he never reciprocated her feelings, and there was no point in being jealous when Jane is her friend too. I feel like she’d eventually see how well Jane and Thor balanced each other out, though it might take her some time because of her own feelings for Thor.

Heimdall: It’s not really clear how much Heimdall is actually friends with Thor vs. how much they interact in their positions of Bifrost guardian and prince of Asgard, but either way, Heimdall can see everything. He might be concerned about the political problems Thor and Jane’s relationship might cause, and he might also worry about the whole Asgardian-dating-a-mortal thing since their lifespans are so different and that’s bound to cause Thor some heartbreak, but I think he’d definitely see how the two of them complement each other.

The Warriors Three: Highly doubt any of them care enough to have an opinion, except to notice that Thor is really sad and pensive a lot because he misses Jane. They hope he feels better soon. Hogun is really the only one who might care to have an opinion, but he’d probably reserve judgement since he saw Jane for all of 5 minutes and that’s not enough time to judge anyone.

Actually, scratch that! Volstagg is a noted family man with a ton of kids he loves dearly, he probably loves his wife a lot too and can’t imagine how it would feel to be apart from her. So he’d probably want to talk to Thor, maybe say he can sympathize, but isn’t sure how to bring it up and doesn’t want to upset his friend, so he never does. Really Fandral is the only who’s kind “eh” about the whole situation.

And then when Thor leaves for Earth to be with Jane they all probably miss him a lot.

Avengers + others

Getting wayy into headcanon territory here. Or, getting deeper into headcanon territory. But that’s what we’re here for, right? 

Basically, if Jane hung around Avengers Tower with Thor a lot, what would everyone think about them?

Tony: Thinks they’re weird. Good for each other, but weird. Thor is, well, Thor, and Jane is a tiny flannel-wearing genius scientist who’s obsessed with her work. And space. And managed to end up dating an alien, hey isn’t that quite a coincidence? 

He tries to work with Jane on some of her projects, but can’t always keep up with her since astrophysics isn’t quite in his wheelhouse, and he can’t learn everything overnight. Does enjoy having another scientist in addition to Bruce in the building though, especially one whose area of expertise is so different from his own, and from Bruce’s.

Pepper: Definitely thinks they’re cute together. Also thinks they’re a bit of a strange pairing, but not to the extent Tony does.

Rhodey: Somewhere between Tony and Pepper. Thinks they’re a bit weird, but cute. Too cute. They need to stop being so cute. Take it down a notch.

Steve: He’s pretty good friends with Thor, so he sees how happy Thor is and is happy for his friend. If Steve and Jane got to know each other I think they’d discover they have similar attitudes toward following the rules. Or rather, toward breaking them and pulling crazy stunts. And bond over that. Steve could tell her crazy war stories, and Jane could tell him about all the times she did crazy things For Science. So yeah, I think Steve thinks they’re well-matched and is happy for them both.

Bruce: Thinks they’re cute together. Is probably sad because seeing them together makes him miss Betty. Also might feel slightly awkward around Jane because of their Culver connection. (Would probably feel more awkward if he knew that Jane and Betty were friends.** Jane can’t decide if it would be worse to tell him she knows Betty or to keep quiet about it, but she’s terrible at keeping secrets, so hypothetically speaking if AoU hadn’t happened she would’ve spilled the beans eventually.)

**A headcanon of mine. Not actually canon, unfortunately. Though it could easily be! Just like it could easily be canon that Natasha knows Betty because she went undercover at Culver once. I just really like Betty. And I think she and Jane in particular would get along really well, and given the Culver link it’s not even a stretch to think of them being friends.

Helen Cho: Mildly sad to find out that Thor is taken, but has a major nerd moment when she meets Jane so gets over it quickly. Even though their fields are completely different, Jane revolutionized her field and is in the running for a Nobel Prize. Helen thinks that’s pretty incredible. And she makes sure to get Jane’s autograph for her son. Goes on to think Thor and Jane are cute together.

No thoughts on Clint or Natasha are coming to me at the moment, so nothing for them, sorry. They’re probably too busy with spy stuff and Avenging to really have an opinion aside from a vague “I guess I’m glad my friend is happy.” (Also, we ignore Clint having a secret family in this house, but I can’t quite decide on what exactly Clint and Natasha’s situation is in my headcanon AU, so that’s making it hard.)

[maurtheblack]

Dear Creator letter for MCU Spaceships

Under the cut.

Thank you for writing for me! My requests are in loose groups - due to this a couple of them appear more than once. Any prompts/suggestions from either group or a combination are fine for those. 

Group 1 - Valkyrie ships.

Valkyrie’s old. Old as balls. She’s been on Sakaar where time runs strangely, sure, but it’s still been a long time for her. Judging by the Sif stuff in the first movie, and Thor mentioning wanting to be a Valkyrie, she’s practically a cryptid to the Asgardians. How does this come out in her interactions with other Asgardians? How much have Asgardians customs changed since her time? Does she want to be an Asgardian again, and form relationships - platonic and romantic and familial - with them, or does she want to just bounce and set up on Earth as a bounty hunter and get an Earth girlfriend? Going back into earlier in the canon, did Carol ever meet her in her space travels, before or after becoming Captain Marvel? Going AU, what if Valkyrie landed on Jane’s research instead of Thor? We don’t have a canon age for Frigga, so it’s very possible they knew each other back in the day. Perhaps Frigga was once a valkyrie, or Valkyrie was Frigga’s favoured knight once upon a time. I’d love worldbuilding around the valkyries and their place in Asgardian society and history and myth.How does Valkyrie feel about the Asgard she knew being forever lost? Instead of coming back to Asgard, Asgard has come to her, homeless space vagabonds. She’s got to have a lot of feelings about that. She, Loki and Thor agreed to bring about Ragnarok - how do they feel about that? Did they fail or succeed? How does the galaxy at large respond to the fall of Asgard - and are its princes targets for Asgard’s enemies and victims? What are the Jotun up to right now, for instance?

Group 2 - Carol ships.

Carol has a lot of identity stuff going on, and I’d love to see how she’s dealing with that, how she’s reconciling who she was with who she was after that and who she is now. Did she have the same habits and quirks and wants as Vers and Carol? Or did she like different things and behave differently? How is that playing out in her interactions with others? Is she lonely, out in space with no one from either of her old lives? This is the first time she’s had a chance to miss Monica and Maria, and know Maria is growing up and Monica growing old without her. Do the Skrulls ever guise themselves as people she knows for a moment’s comfort, or would that be too painful? How does Carol fit in with a Skrull society? How do they handle it when the Skrulls can fit neatly into any society and Carol’s a sore thumb? How does Carol feel about what she did as a Kree - she was lied to, yes, but did she never suspect? How much did she close her eyes to that she realises now were warning signs? How do the Skrulls feel about this? And then there’s her return to Earth - she’s returning to a very different world, and like Valkyrie, she’s got to have a lot of feelings about her absence. How will she interact with Jane, who presumably endured everything that happened on Earth? And for that matter, what IS going on with Jane? She briefly embodied one of the Infinity Stones, same as Carol. Perhaps they’re drawn to each other. Perhaps Jane wants to study Carol. We don’t have much about Mar-Vell, but she’s a super interesting character. I’m not very interested in the period where Carol believes she’s human, but I’d be very interested in an AU where her alienness emerges early on and Carol has to deal. Also an AU where Mar-Vell lives - perhaps she takes empowered Carol and goes on the lam, or perhaps they’re both captured. 

Group 3 - Nebula Ships

Nebula’s fantastic. I love how strange she is. I wonder how strange she’d be to her own people, and how much like them she is? Was she originally blue, as Gamora was green - or not? Did she ever have hair, and does she miss it? Did she always have a healing factor, and Thanos worked with that? Are all her people a little awkward and abrupt by human standards? The dynamic between Gamora and Nebula is really interesting, and the differences and similarities in how they reacted to Thanos’ raising. One of my favourite moments in GotG is when, after it seems they’d been setting up a conflict between Loyal Daughter and Rebel Daughter, Nebula reveals she is only waiting for her chance to turn on Thanos. Did Gamora and Nebula know that about each other? Did they ever keep each other’s secrets? I’d really like to see what a happy ending for those two crazy kids would look like, or in the angstier vein, something about their power struggles when they served Thanos. Nebula and Jane - like all the Jane ships here, Jane will be interested in space, and I think Nebula would find it unusual, that Jane is interested in her not because of the quality of being Thanos’ daughter, but for the very ordinary (to her) quality of being a space adventurer. And Jane is so civilian - she’s not a physical fighter at all. (yet!) Nebula might be fascinated by a body so undesigned. Thor and Nebula haven’t interacted much, but I think Nebula’s vague similarities to Loki could attract Thor’s interest, and Nebula could be interested by someone who grew up with so little trauma and pain, and was damaged so badly by it. As for Nebula and Rocket, they have SO much in common. If you’re not into the hot raccoon action I’d be just as into them becoming besties and forming an alliance of moral expediency against the Guardians.

Group 4 - Frigga ships

I wanted way more of Frigga. We know so little about her! How long have she and Odin been married? Canonically, there’s no indication she’s actually Hela’s mother, which is interesting. (I am not really into cross-generational incest so I hope it’s okay to write them as not mother and daughter - if you only matched on this ship and you only like it as an incest ship I can cope but would prefer no explicit porn and no underage.) So is Frigga a second wife, or did Odin maintain a harem, or cheat, or did Hela leap from his brain like Athena? Is she as old as Odin? For Hela and Valkyrie, we can go back into the past and have them know each other; perhaps there was a queen-favoured warrior dynamic, or perhaps pre-marriage Frigga was a Valkyrie and fought under Hela’s command. (After all, with Hela’s banishment it would be natural for Odin to seek a wife for more children... and Frigga would, with either pairing, have lost her love. For Frigga/Jane, I just think they’d be cute together once they got over the weirdness of stealing your son’s girl. Or perhaps by Asgardian customs the ladies of the family all entertain each other while the menfolk are off doing terrible acts of war.

Group 5 - Fury/Talos

They were just cute and funny, great buddy dynamic.All I really ask is you don’t devalue Talos’ relationship with Soren. Have Skrulls non-monogamous or something, or she gets divine inspiration and joins an exclusive order of celibate warrior-monks that mean she and Talos must regretfully part with love, that’s fine, I’ll be very forgiving of handwaves. Adding her to the ship also totally fine. 

Prompts of things I’d like to see, or just go nuts based on the above comments.

Valkyrie/Thor/Loki: fake relationship. For whatever reason they have to go undercover as an aristocrat and her two husbands/harem boys/whatever.

Valkyrie/Heimdall: Heimdall saw everything in Asgard. He’s the best person to tell her what it was like. And she can tell him what it was like in her day. What sort of Asgard would they like to build?

Valkyrie/Frigga: Maybe Ragnarok wasn’t the first time someone found Valkyrie. Frigga goes to Sakaar looking for something lost, and while negotiating the Grandmaster’s erratic court, she finds a valkyrie.

Valkyrie/Jane: due to Reality Stone nonsense or a Bifrost mishap, Jane lands on Sakaar and is collected by Valkyrie. The Grandmaster doesn’t know exactly what’s going on with her, but she’s clearly possessed of massive power, so it’s gladiatorial training for her. Valkyrie has to teach her some self-preservation skills - perhaps it’ll reflect badly on her if Jane gets stomped first fight - and Jane needs to get control over this cosmic power if she’s to have any hope of long term survival and returning home. And the Dark Elves are still looking for her...

Valkyrie/Carol: Sparring. Carol is used to sparring with Yonn-Rogg, who always tells her to rein in her power, show better control, don’t get carried away. Valkyrie, on the other hand, spars with the Hulk. Valkyrie showing Carol it’s all right to let loose, and that she can take anything Carol’s got.

Carol/Jane: I would love some classic identity porn with Carol, Jane and Mighty Thor. Perhaps Carol is besotted with this gorgeous warrior and irritated by Dr Foster’s constant requests to interview and analyse her. Perhaps she resents this new Thor for taking on her friend’s role, but has a soft spot for that beautiful scientist. Perhaps she thinks they’re both super hot and is trying really hard to orchestrate a threesome. (Bedroom farce based on this would be amazing.) Or maybe she hates them both until events, etc.

Carol/Soren/Talos: Carol and Soren and Talos are posing as a married couple. Keyword: couple. Carol is never sure who’s holding hands with her and who’s off breaking into secret government offices. Are they both flirting with her, or only one of them? Can end up threesome, or either pairing, but as stated above please do not devalue the Talos/Soren relationship.

Carol/Mar-Vell: Vers is living a perfectly normal Kree warrior life when some lunatic woman kidnaps her and drags her off in a spaceship, telling her wild stories about her *real* past. Mar-Vell has only just managed to escape custody, and after years of mentally wresting the Supreme Intelligence, she’s kind of poorly adjusted. She knows she can’t leave Carol behind when she escapes, though.

Gamora/Loki/Nebula: Thanos sends Gamora (or Nebula) with Loki to subjugate Earth. Gamora (or Nebula) takes the chance to get an Infinity Stone out of Thanos’ hands (or get revenge on Thanos), and either persuades or forces Loki to go on the lam. Nebula (or Gamora) is sent in pursuit, and Loki and Gamora (or Nebula) have to persuade her to join them.

Nebula/Jane:Jane has to go do uhhh urgent science somewhere off planet. Or maybe she’s the first human delegate at an interstellar conference. They’re going to send Gamora as her guide and bodyguard, but due to a hilarious misunderstanding Gamora is in space jail or bodyswapped with Rocket or glued to Drax. Nebula offers to take her place, and somehow no one realises what a terrible idea this is. So off they road trip. Nebula has no idea what “dangerous” is and Jane has no idea that Nebula has no idea what “dangerous” is. So they careen from disaster to disaster, Nebula causes carnage, Jane has a lovely time and has no idea how close to death she is at any given moment.

Gamora/Nebula: between the movies. Gamora wants to find Nebula; sometimes, Nebula wants to be found. Perhaps she just wants Gamora to keep looking.

Nebula/Thor: <em> and this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is. a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me tight, it's getting cold</em> Nebula is a person who has done terrible, brutal things, and she’s betrayed her sister more than once. Thor wants to know how she’s living with herself. The answer is badly. Thor decides that maybe they can be siblings to each other, and help each other heal. He eventually decides that dropping the siblings thing is best, what with all the sex they’re having.

Nebula/Rocket: <em>There ain’t nothing like me, but me</em> As morally bankrupt lab experiments, the two of them have a lot in common. Put them in circumstances where they have to feign moral competence, heroism, or being good at  interaction - perhaps their friends are being held prisoner by a rigidly honourable alien race and they have to diplomacy them out? Perhaps they’ve been stranded on a lawless world and are pretending to be Asgardian warriors to diminish the chances of being ganked? They accidentally get custody of a small child and have to set a good example because if they return the child tattooed and with a prison record they’ll probably be executed? Trying to see them work out proper behaviour from first principles could be deeply hilarious, or kinda sad.

Frigga/Hela: Frigga was always meant to be Queen of Asgard. She just thought it would be when Hela took the throne. Frigga and Hela as battle wives, or perhaps Frigga’s a diplomat who Hela courts. Maybe Odin arranges their marriage.

Jane/Frigga: instead of Thor being banished, it’s Frigga. Perhaps she forcibly objects to Odin banishing her son, and he sends her instead. Perhaps she protest some other Odin-y thing. Anyway, Jane finds her instead of Thor, and is just as charmed. Will Frigga prove her worthiness? Does she even want to?

Nick Fury/Talos: Talos would like to be sworn warrior brothers with Fury. There are traditional rituals. Fury is touched and honoured. The rituals turn out to involve sex. Why, what do sworn warrior brothers do on Earth? 

[taaroko]

Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Thor: The Dark World

Yay more Thor! (Yes I know this is widely considered to be the worst of the MCU movies and I DO NOT CARE. *hugs entire population of Asgard possessively*)

This prologue is ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s Anthony Hopkins’s inflection or if it’s just a step too far in the high fantasy direction, but it does make me cringe a bit. More showing, less telling! The prologues in the LotR movies were way more interesting than this.

The Dark Elf language also makes me cringe. I am very aware that it’s preposterous to assume that people from different planets speak English, but what’s most important to me is that actors cannot deliver nuanced performances when they are speaking gibberish. At least when it’s real languages, someone can coach them on inflection and stuff, but they really hamstrung Christopher Eccleston by making him say these silly-sounding lines.

Malekith has no imagination if the only thing he could think to do with the Reality Stone was turn stuff into dark matter.

“Benevolent god” indeed. Sending the Chitauri to slaughter people doesn’t really fit that description, sweetie.

Seriously Anthony Hopkins’s delivery is really weird in some places.

Odin is now three for three on children who showed scary genocidal tendencies, so I think there’s a lot of bitterness and feelings of failure behind what he says to Loki. Also Loki’s not showing any remorse at all, even though now would be a great time to explain that he was tortured and manipulated by Thanos. They’re both getting defensive and lashing out instead of engaging in meaningful communication.

Hi Sif! Hi Volstagg! HI THOR! He has such good entrances. Hi Fandral and Hogun! (Even if this is Zachary Levi Fandral with his stupid wig.)

The weapons the raiders are using are really interesting.

Hey I wonder if this Kronan knows Korg.

I love Thor’s smile when all the raiders laugh at his “I accept your surrender.”

*dreamy sigh* Asgard.

HUGIN AND MUNIN! And one actually lands on Odin’s arm! That’s awesome.

Odin ships Thor/Sif. (Me too, Odin.)

Obligatory shirtless Thor scene!

Volstagg and his family! *wibble*

Oh Sif. Rejected. (But Thor’s pretty nice about it.)

Jane is really quite socially awkward, isn’t she? Why did she go on this date?

It says something about how bad of a driver Jane is (hitting Thor, nearly driving off the road) that she would trust Darcy to drive her around (I guess Darcy’s record is slightly better, having only hit Thor once, while they were in the middle of a dust cloud).

“Why’re you calling me?” “I didn’t want to shout.”

Portals! Whee! (Honstly the portal shenanigans are one of the big reasons I love this movie. This crap is so much fun.)

I love the way Darcy wiggles her hand when she says “Gimme your shoe.”

Okay so the Dark Elves are set to wake up if the Aether gets activated? Headcanon time. Judging from all the creepy red lights in their ships, I think they used the Aether to make most of their tech, much like Schmidt did with the Tesseract. So yeah, if the Aether gets activated, their tech would react. That works.

Heimdall’s new armor has an orange stone in the breastplate. I thought he was gonna turn out to be the one who had the Soul Stone, and that it was the source of his infinite sight. ...I’m pretty sure I still like that better than what we ended up with in canon. Also, I only noticed this the other day, but Heimdall’s helmet is shaped the same as Hofund’s hilt, and that’s awesome.

Heee, I love Thor and Heimdall’s chat. I definitely believe that Thor would describe Heimdall as his best friend.

Whoops! Continuity error. Jane should not be in her Asgardian outfit yet. I guess they decided to move this bit to this part of the movie instead of later, but didn’t reshoot it.

Did Thor make this storm or is that just London being London? He does make it stop, I guess.

Sorry guys, Thor already has that dark strand of stuff in his hair; it’s not a Loki memorial braid.

Thor and Darcy’s interactions are always gold.

You sliced off part of that car!

Oh, question answered from before. You CAN see space rushing past from inside the Bifrost. Sweet.

Hi Eir! The Soul Forge is so cool.

Jane takes Odin’s rudeness pretty well. But dang, Odin. I know you ship Thor/Sif, but being mean to the competition is an elementary mistake.

That book is freaking awesome. It’s like the Book of Kells, except the images move and it’s in runes.

Dangit I don’t want the bad guys to be the ones who touch foreheads to show affection!

I really don’t like this look for Frigga. That one-boob breastplate is really weird.

The emotion in Loki’s scene with Frigga’s projection is so great. He wants to sever ties with Odin (or he thinks he does) but he can’t do that without severing ties with Frigga too, and you can see how much it hurts him to say anything that would hurt her. Which he plainly instantly regrets. And it’s the last thing he ever says to her.

Yessss more romantic exposition from Thor.

Hahaha, Jane is so much more shy around Frigga than Odin.

Man the way the Kursed dude kills people is really messed up.

Loki you would not be smiling at this dude if you knew he was going to do much more than cause a bit of mischief.

Thor jumping and grabbing Mjolnir is such a cool shot.

“It’s only because I’ve worried over you that you have survived.” Based on how Odin behaves as soon as she’s dead, that is extremely accurate.

Heimdall is so awesome. Oh, and I love the way the Dark Elves’ ships look almost like they’re made of dragon hide or something. Dragon hide or lava rock. Fantastic design. Fantastic movements.

This movie has so much more of Asgard in it than the first one, which is awesome. Even if it’s mostly getting pummeled by Dark Elves.

Those black hole grenades are freaking terrifying.

Yeah...if Loki hadn’t given that tip about the stairs to the left, the Kursed dude wouldn’t have arrived in time to help Malekith before Frigga finished him off, or before Thor and Odin arrived. :/

Frigga’s funeral is beautiful. The music, however, has been somewhat retroactively ruined by that play in Ragnarok. (Which I adore.)

Even if Loki doesn’t know how much his actions specifically contributed to Frigga’s death, I think he regrets helping the Kursed dude.

Hi Stan!

Dang, Asgardian law is crazy strict if Thor and the Warriors Three are casually talking about being killed by Einherjar if they screw up this plan.

This is so sad, because Loki actually doesn’t betray Thor at any point during this mission. He makes up for it by being incessantly irritating (which is the best stuff in the movie), but he sticks to the plan the whole time. The only one he betrays in this whole movie is Odin.

Okay the dagger/handcuffs trick by Thor is funny and all, but it really doesn’t hold up if you think about it. You’d definitely notice the difference between being handed a dagger and having thick cuffs put on.

Sif is very good at not letting her jealousy show too clearly. And her sword is awesome. Her and Volstagg’s threats to Loki are pretty great.

Peak annoying little brother stuff right here, when they’re in the Dark Elf blade ship. My favorite is “Oh dear. Is she dead?”

So Thor has the “face squashed against glass motif,” and I think Loki has a falling motif. Into the abyss in the first one, out of the ship in this one, and through whatever dimension Doctor Strange trapped him in in Ragnarok.

The flying longboats are so cool.

I love how much Loki likes it whenever Thor gets the better of him with sneakiness. He’s so used to Thor just smashing his way through stuff, so any subtlety he uses (especially when it’s successful against him) is fantastic in his book.

“Ta-dah.”

“What I could do with the power that flows through those veins.” I would love to see what Loki could do with the Aether. He’s already a master of illusions, and the Reality Stone would multiply that by about a thousand. It’d be awesome. And yet he sent it off to Knowhere instead of keeping it (or giving it to Thanos). Just like he kept the Tesseract safe in Asgard’s vault the entire time he was pretending to be Odin. If Loki had really done everything he did in Avengers of his own free will while in his right mind, he would not have gone to such lengths to keep multiple Infinity Stones away from Thanos. Heck, he might even have been the one to commission Stormbreaker from Eitri. I suppose he didn’t use the Stones himself because he knows as well as Thor does how deadly they can be to the wielder, or maybe he knew they’d draw Thanos to him like a beacon.

Thor thinks Loki wants to hurt him because he’s talking about Jane’s mortality, but Loki thinks Thor only cares about Jane and not the fact that their mother just died. They’re so bad at understanding each other.

The bittersweet smiles they exchange after “She wouldn’t want us to fight.”/“Well, she wouldn’t exactly be shocked.” are so painful to watch. They both desperately miss the days before any of this happened, when they were simply brothers, and I think they realize that about each other in this moment. But it’s not enough to fix everything, which is why Thor says “I wish I could trust you” and Loki says “Trust my rage.”

Ian is such a dope.

If a flock of starlings burst up through the ground at my feet like that, I would be scarred for life.

Thor’s plan is awesome. I totally fell for it in the theater. I thought Loki had double-crossed him and chopped his hand off, but they were working together the whole time. I kinda don’t think they let Jane in on it, though. Is the lack of blood on Thor’s arm stump a mistake or a hint that it’s a trick? *rewinds and squints* Ooh, no, it’s because the dagger has a glowy energy field on it! Insta-cauterization! Anyway, this would’ve been the perfect time for Loki to betray Thor for real if he’d wanted to, but he plays along. In part, I think, because he was so impressed with the plan.

Hey guys, even when Loki’s pretending to be a traitor, he doesn’t call himself Laufeyson. STOP CALLING HIM LAUFEYSON IN YOUR TAGS. Also his knife-fighting is awesome.

The Kursed dude’s eyeballs getting sucked out of their sockets was NOT a necessary detail to include.

“You fool, you didn’t listen!” What does Thor mean? What did Loki not listen to? Did Thor tell him that he was only supposed to protect Jane, not him?

Okay so I’m really not sure what the deal is with Loki’s fake death here. I have a couple different theories.

Theory 1: Loki really did get stabbed and really did believe he was dying. After Thor and Jane left to seek shelter from Thor’s uncontrollable grief storm, Loki reverted to his true form (because, dying) and that actually saved his life because Kursed blood isn’t as deadly to the Jotnar as it is to the Aesir, or his vital organs aren’t in the same place anymore, or something. So he was able to heal himself and take advantage of the situation.

Theory 2: Loki never intended to betray Thor, but he always intended to fake his death, both as a way of escaping prison and of avoiding Thanos’s retribution. So as soon as he finished off those four Dark Elves, he turned one of their corpses into a copy of himself and puppeteered it over to stab the Kursed dude and get theatrically killed. It would explain why the Loki who gets stabbed only has a Dark Elf sword and a black hole grenade on him.

I lean more towards theory 1 because I don’t really like the idea that Loki would trick Thor into thinking he was dead the day after their mother died, and also because when they filmed it, they actually meant for this to be Loki’s real death scene, and they only changed it later because test audiences didn’t believe Loki was dead. However, if I put aside my emotions, I have to admit that theory 2 makes more logical sense.

Would Malekith have found the Aether sooner if it hadn’t gotten into Jane? The movie implies pretty strongly that Malekith woke up because the Aether was out of its hiding place.

Mjolnir on the coat hook is such a great gag.

The elevator in Malekith’s ship looks like a spinal column, which is some fantastic design.

Thor’s battle trash talk is always delightful.

PORTAL SHENANIGANS. YESSSSSS.

Poor Mjolnir. It’s trying so hard to get back to Thor. I like to think that when it shatters the glass of that building on its way back up, it’s doing so in frustration.

Hi Jotunheim!

So apparently this isn’t remotely how you get to Greenwich from Charing Cross. Whoops. Maybe that girl was just really flustered at being addressed by Thor and gave him crap directions?

Jane really likes trying to throw herself between an unconscious Thor and a thing that she thinks might kill him.

POETRY. Malekith tried to destroy the Asgardian army by dropping his fleet on them. Now he gets killed by his own ship falling on him.

How’d Loki know about Thor’s line to Odin “There will never be a wiser king than you”?

“I can assure you, it will be absolutely safe here in my collection.” LIAR.

It’s so cool that Chris’s wife is the one who played Jane in the end credits scene. I’m not sure how they failed to do this kiss scene with Natalie in the first place, but whatever.

Every time Thor’s about to show up somewhere in this movie, there’s thunder. :D

Okay so the biggest problems with Thor: The Dark World are that Malekith is the dullest villain in the entire MCU and that Thor kinda doesn’t have a character arc. In a movie where half of his family dies (as far as he knows). How is that even possible? Despite the beautiful funeral, Frigga’s death was really kind of glossed over, and then Loki seemingly dies too, but even though those are very powerful scenes while we’re in them, they don’t leave much of an impact on the rest of the movie. You don’t really feel those losses in the way Thor fights Malekith. Thor should’ve been struggling to stick to the plan instead of just whaling on Malekith blindly with Mjolnir. He should’ve had some breakdown with Jane there to witness it and comfort him. Instead he’s the one comforting Jane when she blames herself for all the loss he’s suffered? No no no. He should’ve either been very emotional, very bent on revenge, or smiling and joking through the pain like he does in Ragnarok and Infinity War. This stoicism is not effective, and it probably contributes to so many people’s (mistaken) belief that, prior to Ragnarok, Thor was a boring character. And Malekith’s side of the battle would’ve been better if it had been personal for him too. He could’ve been more upset at the death of his buddy Algrim, or maybe he had family members who were killed by Bor, which is why he’s so keen on killing members of Asgard’s royal family now. It would’ve been so easy to make this an emotionally intense fight. Instead, it’s merely fun because portal shenanigans. *shrug*

Despite not having much of an arc, Thor is still wonderful. He’s funny, he’s more thoughtful and wise than he’s ever been, he’s gallant, he’s romantic, and he’s getting better and better at working as part of a team and finding solutions besides smashing stuff. Also he makes the best entrances, has awesome armor, and is mesmerizing to watch in battle. I adore him.

Other stuff this movie has going for it. So much more Asgard screentime, even if they cut a few scenes I wish they’d left in. The music is still great. Everything looks gorgeous, and the Dark Elves at least have interesting technology and costumes. No Dutch angles. Plenty of screentime for Heimdall. Every single second of Thor and Loki’s scenes together, being obnoxious bros to each other but still working as a very effective team (heralding all the excellent contentious Brodinson stuff to come in Ragnarok).

[beaft]

hey!!! so i went to see thor ragnarok yesterday, and i thought i’d type up some Thoughts while it was still fresh in my mind. so here goes. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS but also i don’t want to do a cut because my blog theme is hard to read things on, so just shut your eyes and scroll down really fast i guess? i’ll send you a psychic message so you know when it’s safe to open them again

things i liked

the humour in this movie was on point. i mean, it’s waititi, so obviously it was going to be, but everyone just seemed like they were having a fucking blast doing it. it didn’t even feel like it was trying to be funny or quirky or slapsticky – it just put the characters in daft situations and let natural awkwardness do the rest

the giant monster made out of blue rocks who seems to have no idea what he’s doing and just wanders around exchanging pleasantries with everyone in a gentle new zealand accent. he tried to do a revolution once but it failed because he didn’t print out enough pamphlets. i don’t even know his name but he was legitimately the best part of this film and i want him on a poster

the “get help” plan, which, for the uninformed, consists of thor just fucking tossing his brother at oncoming enemies like a person-shaped rugby ball, and has apparently been performed enough times for loki to instinctively dread it happening

i hate doctor strange and benedict cumberbatch and the fact that he was included in this film for no reason other than to appease people, but i did enjoy his cameo (albeit very, very grudgingly). he’s just so done with thor’s nonsense and i felt it on a spiritual level. also when loki comes at him with a knife and strange just fucking teleports him off to norway like “bye”

“this one time when we were children, he transformed himself into a snake, and he knows i love snakes, so i went to pick up the snake to admire it, and he transformed back into himself and was like, “YAARGH, IT’S ME!!!” and he stabbed me. we were eight” fucking classic

the fact that it wasn’t entirely comedy-centred. sure, the main emphasis was on the ridiculousness of the whole thing, but there were definite emotional moments, and on the whole they were done well. (particularly the exchange between thor and loki in the elevator, and the part immediately afterwards with the attempted betrayal. you know the bit i mean)

in most marvel films you know that ultimately the villain will be defeated, and the planet will be saved, and everything will turn out okay, etc etc etc. here, that gets chucked out of the fucking window. literally anything can happen, and it does, even as you’re like “nah, no way, they’re not gonna go that far…oh. well. okay, then.” and that dispensing of the traditional formula made the whole thing feel a lot more unpredictable. which is good, i think!

valkyrie. everything about valkyrie. i have a massive weakness for butch women, and i have a massive weakness for lovable assholes, and when those two things combine it’s just like. hnghhh

also i was worried that she was going to be shoehorned into the “strong female character” stereotype, but that wasn’t the case at all? like she had moments of weakness and was really dorky and cute and she just felt like such a real person (aside from the whole “semi-immortal warrior woman on a flying horse” aspect, obviously)

on that point: there was no love story. this is entirely personal preference, but love stories in action films really annoy me (unless they’re done well, and they rarely are). plus, it feeds into the idea that the only reason to have a woman on the team is for the purpose of creating a romance with the main hero. but they didn’t do that! there was some light flirtation between thor and val, but it felt more friendly than anything else, and was very much in character for both of them. super refreshing, honestly

the trouble with marvel is that because nearly every movie has a different writer, character consistency is often lost. (see: natasha behaving completely differently in aou than she did in any other film, steve zigzagging between rigidly following the rules and going off to do his own thing, character development being gained and lost and gained again, etc.) that being said: thor and loki in this film felt more like thor and loki than in any other mcu flick. thor was maybe a bit dumber than i usually like, but the smiley optimism and earnestness was very much there, and loki cut a perfect balance between being An Asshole and being An Asshole With Feelings (whilst occasionally slipping back into his patented “melodramatic diva” persona). bruce wasn’t quite as much of a success, but i’ll get to that later

“i’m here.”

hela was unbelievably badass and every time she was on the screen i got a little bit gayer. i think it’s the antlers, personally

things i didn’t like

where was sif? there was no sif and it was just. never explained??? i’m starting to feel like marvel has this weird policy where they can only have a certain amount of women onscreen at a time, and if there’s any more than that an alarm goes off and everyone starts running around in a panic like “OH NO! THE WOMAN METER HAS GONE INTO THE RED! QUICK! CULL THEM! CULL THEM!” they’ve added in valkyrie and hela, and in order to maintain the status quo, they’ve skilfully sliced out jane foster and sif, like soviet-era teachers razoring out controversial passages from history books. if they didn’t show any of the warriros three then that would’ve been understandable, but fandral and volstagg and hogun were all (if briefly) in evidence. but sif is just. not. it’s fuckin bizarre man idek

kinda wish they’d done a bit more with hela’s character than just going “oh, she’s evil, and she likes to kill people and do evil stuff because she’s evil.” she already looks amazing, and is possibly the most powerful villain we’ve seen so far – so it would have been nice to have a little more emotional depth there, especially considering how interesting her backstory is

the plot was a little bitty in places. it did work, but there wasn’t much of a connection between thor performing as a gladiator and hela taking over asgard. if they’d found a way to link those two plotlines together it might have worked better, but as it was, the whole thing felt a lil bit contrived

we’ve always suspected that asgard isn’t quite what it seems to be (after all, no one ends up ruler of the nine realms without a little blood being spilt along the way), and in this film that gets confirmed – but after the initial revelation it’s just not really explored? there are some pretty heavy overtones of genocide and colonialism/imperialism, and it seemed kind of mad to bring up something like that and then just gloss over it. plus, it ignores the fact that in the avengers loki was pretty much doing exactly what odin did himself several thousands years ago, but on a slightly smaller scale. like…there’s a wealth of stuff to be done with that information, and they didn’t do any of it? weird

i was sort of hoping that odin would play a larger role in the movie, considering that so much of it indirectly revolved around him and his actions. instead, he turned into obi wan kenobi and then vanished in a big puff of gold dust. i don’t think that he actually exchanged more than a few lines with anyone, although given the relatively short length of the film that’s understandable enough

bruce got flanderised from a hyper-controlled scientist with self-loathing issues into a twitchy ball of nerves who’s constantly out of his depth. he’s not my favourite character, so it didn’t bother me too much, but it was still a little jarring

they didn’t show us the hug at the end and i’m pissed about it

[theshadowedqueen82]

Fic Writer’s Week Day 7

Fic recs day! Here is my (long) list of Loki centric fics, grouped by movie.

Pre Thor/ Thor

The Sinking Feeling of Anticipation by JaggedCliffs

Pre-Thor, Gen. Just so you know, JaggedCliffs always writes the most heartbreaking fics and this one is no exception. Thor gets Mjolnir for his coming of age ceremony, and now Loki’s hoping for something just as grand for his ceremony.

Monsters by Coneycat

Housemates Crossover, Gen (but slash in later fics). First off, a disclaimer: watching the TV show Housemates is not necessary. You can read this fic without even having heard of the show. I highly recommend it, as it has a fantastic breakdown of the motivations of Loki’s entire family as well as giving Loki his own support system. This fic is the first in a series that centres around the idea of Loki falling and landing in Bristol, where he befriends a variety of supernatural creatures including a ghost, werewolf, and vampire.

Life In Reverse by Lise

Gen, WIP. This fic may possibly be my favourite fic on this entire list. Loki falls to Earth and ends up becoming a SHIELD agent, and then an Avenger. He’s weird friends with everybody (including Jane!!!!), and there is a lot of feels plus plot plus emotional growth and healing! I don’t think that it’s possible to recommend this fic enough. Seriously, read it.

Truthfully by Salazarfalcon

Gen. You’ve probably seen this fic on these lists before, but that’s because it’s really good. This was my first Loki fic and ended up dragging me into the fandom, with it’s A+ brodinson feels and therapy, which is a trope I will never tire of.

Icarus by trinity_destler

Loki/Jane, WIP. Loki falls to earth and since he’s got nothing else to do decides to find out how Jane could have such a profound effect on his brother in such a short time. No smut, mostly science and feels, and Jane is written like the amazing science nerd she is. I didn’t even like Lokane until I read this fic, and it delivers the most delicious of slow burns with a smattering of plot, science, and feels, all wrapped in beautiful prose that you need to read twice to savour properly.

Avengers

Ask Me No Questions by Alex51324

Gen. A “Loki ends up living with the Avengers” fic, and it’s awesome. Loki’s punishment was to be unable to speak unless if asked a direct question, and even then he can only answer with the truth. Lots of Avengers interactions, lots of “Loki’s not doing great but he’s doing better, sometimes”.

Unravelling by Lise

Gen. Loki doesn’t get back up from the Hulk beating, aka “what if physical trauma was an actual thing in superhero movies?”. This has actually turned into a series that’s basically just dealing with Loki’s complicated feelings re his family. I don’t usually like Odin but this fic does a fantastic job of writing him as a father, who’s made a lot of mistakes and is trying to fix them.

we’re not friends, we’re strangers with memories by Lise

Gen. Have you ever wondered what would happen if Clint and Loki were roommates? Well wonder no more, because this fic has a newly mortal Loki sleeping on Clint’s couch because he refuses to leave unless if Clint kills him. Starts off as crack and gradually descends into feels and deep emotional conversations (most of them drunk). Clint and Loki end up being weird almost-friends, which is fantastic. I didn’t know how much I needed that until this fic.

A Villain State of Mind by Mikkeneko

Gen. The Tesseract failed to teleport Loki back to Asgard, and now SHIELD is stuck with him while they wait for Thor to come back and pick him up. The solution? Consult a telepath who has a shining reputation for dealing with troubled non humans: Professor Xavier. A beautiful union of the MCU with the X-Men, with Loki actually getting help and improving, gradually. This is the first in a long series that does an amazing job of dealing with internalised racism, being an outcast, and the concept of family.

Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains by Lise

Gen, WIP. Post Winter Soldier, Steve and Sam are still looking for Bucky and end up finding Loki, holed up in a former HYDRA lab and left for dead. There are many good things about this fic, such as Sam being amazing, Steve being guilty and angsty on everything, and Loki slowly starting down the long, long road to recovery. And Bucky shows up too at one point, and so does Sharon Carter (who actually has a personality in this fic!).

I have lived with shades, a shade by Lise

Gen. AU where Loki ends up being locked up in the Raft after the Avengers, and Steve breaks him out following CA:CW. It turns into “Wanda and Steve take a trip through Loki’s brain”. Lots of feels, hopeful ending, magnificent characters. This fic I have reread countless times and every single time I find something new to love about it.

Thor The Dark World

in her garden grew hyacinths by LadyCharity

Gen. The most heartbreaking fic I have ever read about Frigga’s death, perhaps the most heartbreaking fic I have read, period. Written from Thor’s POV, it’s basically a long story about Thor and Loki mourning with a lot of jealousy and insecurity from both brothers. 

Bargaining by proantagonist

Gen (hints of Loki/Sif and Loki/Natasha if you want to read it that way). Before Thor 3 came out, it was my belief that this fic was the only way by which to fully resolve all of Loki’s family problems (and in some ways, it still did a better job than the movie). Thor ends up being killed, and Loki makes a bargain to go back in time and prevent Thor’s death. He ends up changing a lot more than that, including himself.

Road to Nowhere by Lise

Gen. The fic where Loki convinces Thor to come with him on a road trip to get Frigga back from Valhalla. It’s an interstellar road trip. If that hasn’t already sold you, then there’s also a lot of beautifully written Brodinson interactions, with a lot of Loki trying to distance himself but Thor not wanting to lose his brother again.

those yesterdays bleeding through by wnnbdarklord

Gen. A time loop fic where Loki dies on Svaltaralfheim and wakes up back in his cell, just before the riot. He decides to use this to save Frigga, no matter how many times it takes. Many Frigga feels, fantastic job of Jane, and amazing use of the Aether.

Pleas to the Stars by JaggedCliffs

Gen. Nobody tells Loki about Frigga’s death, and Thor doesn’t ask him for help. Loki stays in his cell, slowly wasting away and wondering why his mother won’t come back. This fic has me in tears by the end of it no matter how many times I’ve read it. So many feels, so much angst. It’s probably the most heartbreaking thing on this list.

In The Bud by KaylaNorail

Gen. Ragnarok speculation, where Thor is disappointed but unsurprised when Loki ditches him and Dr. Strange during their search for Odin, choosing instead to spend his time using the time gem for his own plan. This fic is hands down one of the best things I have ever read. The characters are beautifully written, the feels perfectly executed, and it somehow manages to pull you out of the pit of pain that it threw you into and leaves you with a feeling of hopefulness at the ending. A fic that I will forever hold up as “better than canon”.

Thor Ragnarok

so much left to learn (and no one left to fight) by TheOtherOdinson

Gen. Drunk conversations is a trope I enjoy very much, and this fic is no exception. Thor and Loki realise just how much they lost, and try to think of a way to move forward.

atonement by foolonahill17

Gen, WIP. Every time this fic updates I drop whatever I’m doing to read the new chapter. It’s really good. Post Ragnarok speculation, where Loki sacrifices himself to give Asgard and Thor a chance to escape to Earth.

Un/Hurt by PoorYorick

Gen. A 5+1 where Loki gets hurt and hides it from a variety of people for a variety of reasons. Mainly whump with really good character interactions, and Sif exists in this one, so yay!

bold by finalizer

Loki/Valkyrie. The Valki I have been waiting for. Two walking disasters try to figure out if they mean anything to each other, and decide that it’s a better idea to have this conversation drunk. Only to find that they remember everything in the morning, resulting in awesomely awkward pillow talk. It’s not quite porn, but is rated mature for a reason. Read at your own risk (of falling for this ship hard enough to bruise, that’s the main risk of reading this fic).

And your father’s death came by the hand of Laufey’s son by Ohdotar

Gen. What happened to Volstagg’s children in the aftermath of Ragnarok? Loki is on the ship when he hears them, and realises that their father is nowhere in sight. In which Loki awkwardly tries to become a father figure, or at least an uncle of some sort. Loki interacting with small children, what else could you ask for?

[simpmaru-nara]

Re: Thor Ragnarok

Okay so I’ve got a lot to say about this movie so I recommend you settle in for the long haul. Also there’s gonna be spoilers obv since I’ll have to reference the movie to make some of my points. I’ll try to stay away from any big ones, but go into this knowing that it will spoil some points.

To get started I’d like to say that if you are going to see the movie for pure entertainment value then the movie’s pretty alright; gorgeous graphics, some good jokes, fun costumes, etc. But even in that aspect much of the action was lackluster simply because it was often diminished to make room for dialogue or to cut to uninteresting parts of a fight. For instance in the final big fight there are three different points of interest and we spend too much time seeing the least fun parts of all those fights. And the gladiator scenes, which were extremely played up in the trailers, only last for about ten minutes and end by leaving the viewers both confused and disappointed.

In fact “confused and disappointed” was the mood for the entire movie

Despite excessive exposition the story somehow manages to be extremely vague with lots of unanswered questions. The first ten minutes of the movie is just Thor explaining how he ended up in the position we find him in and explaining the plot-important villain he faces. It tells instead of shows and is interrupted several times to make way for uncharacteristic jokes. It’s boring as hell and still doesn’t answer most questions one could have about what’s been happening to Thor since last we saw him. Then it transitions in probably the most disappointing way possible to answer a question that people have been burning with since the cliffhanger in the last Thor movie; what happened to Asgard and Loki? Thor arrives in Asgard to find Loki; who apparently has been met with zero suspicion in the face of extremely odd behavior and the creation of a god damn gold statue. Despite being questioned at every turn by the Warriors Three and Sif (who was suspiciously absent in this movie but I’ll get to that later) in the first movie, apparently in this movie everyone is content to praise the saint Loki who died for their sins. The entire situation is treated with a lot of nonchalance even after Loki is unmasked. Even more casual is the mention of the time that has passed with Loki in charge and absolutely nothing is said about what he’s done as king. Several movies building up Loki’s desire to rule, believing himself more worthy than his hot-headed brother, only for it to end up being something he does nothing note-worthy with. We were led to expect more. Oh and also apparently Thor and Jane broke up? Why? Oh right because we needed room for his new love interest. Of course this type of empty story telling carries on throughout the entire movie. It’s never truly explained how the last Valkyrie survived or how Bruce ended up in space.

Actually I’d like to talk about that last one a little more. The writers behind this movie used huge cop-outs in a few key points. One of the biggest was Hulk explaining what happened to him after the events of Age of Ultron. They used the dumb child-like personality they built for him as a way of dodging responsibility for explaining how the hell Hulk even ended up where he was. The quinjet, as far as we know, is not a space-faring vessel. It’s a god damn plane and yet we’re meant to believe that somehow the Hulk managed to fly that thing into space and make it far away from Earth and crash land on Sakaar before anywhere else. It’s ridiculous yet it’s the only explanation we’re offered from an illiterate Hulk. More than that we aren’t given any reason for why Thor is in the Hulk’s quarters. It’s made fairly clear that Hulk’s feelings towards Thor are mixed and the Grand Master wanted Thor dead in order to keep his Champion but for some reason both keep Thor alive and even choose to let him stay with Hulk? And no one questions it; not even Thor.

Thor, and the entire cast for that matter, is wildly out of character the entirety of the movie. Everyone is ripped to shreds in favor of humor. It’s like the writers went, “Hmmm, how do we make Bruce Banner funny? Oh!! I know! Just make him really weird for no apparent reason and also give him mood swings because we’re just going to forget that he had complete control prior to this movie and instead he’s going to be neurotic.” And they did that to everyone. Thor had a sense of humor in the earlier movies; typically more subtle and friendly, but here he’s openly sarcastic bordering on cynical. His jokes come across more Stark-ish (if Tony suddenly genuinely stopped caring) than they do Thor’s brand of humor. And Loki. God Loki... he’s reduced to a running joke about betrayal and being untrustworthy. “Silver tongued” Loki appears to have lost any amount of wit or actual mischief and is instead predictable and weirdly subdued. And all of this humor is ill-timed.

The writers absolutely refuse to give a single moment in the movie any depth. Any time that the plot manages to touch on something meaningful there’s humor thrown in as a buffer that only succeeds in forcefully detaching you from the plights of the characters. Thor’s in a cage and being threatened by the literal catalyst of Ragnarok? Better toss in a couple of jokes so it doesn’t seem too intense. Thor and Loki actually have a chance to talk about their problems and/or work as a team to establish a dynamic? Better make a joke about how easily Loki will throw Thor under the bus. Odin just died and Mjolnir was destroyed? Quick lets move onto the next thing before things get too heavy. The movie completely fails in making you care about anyone in the main cast. In fact, the person I was most invested in for the entire movie was Heimdal. The man has a total of maybe 10 minutes of screen time, but damn if he wasn’t the most interesting thing going on in the story. That’s at least half way because they didn’t try to force any awkward humor with him and they didn’t kill him. Which they killed a lot of characters in this movie and never give it the proper time or even weight to be grieved over.

Among the characters who were killed were the Warriors Three. A fact which is never acknowledged even as it happens. We at least get told (through Exposition Golem Alien because the audience can’t be trusted to deduce anything obviously) that Mjolnir being destroyed is a heavy weight on Thor and we see briefly the level of grief Thor feels for the loss of Odin, but the Warriors Three were Thor’s best friends. He grew up around them, adventured with them, they play a significant part in the first Thor movie, yet even before they die they’re widely forgotten about both by the plot and by Thor. Interestingly enough, however, is that Sif does not appear in this movie.

Sif remains completely AWOL for the entire movie, and honestly I’m pretty sure the reason is because the writers were reluctant to kill her off since she’s the Hot Warrior Babe. Because obviously they showed no hesitation in getting rid of the warriors as a casualty of the opposition to Hela and if Sif had been present she would have been right beside them and equally dead. Couldn’t do that so instead she’s just mysteriously not there. And I make this accusation with more than just Sif in mind. The movie also doesn’t want you to think that Hela isn’t attractive. In every scene we see her in she starts with her hair down in a sexy cat suit until she’s ready to fight at which point her wild black hair turns into her war helmet. There’s no real reason for the transition other than the fact that if she was always sporting the war helmet then she would come across as less attractive.

Besides the casual “must remain sexy” attitude towards Hela there was also a huge lack of continuity in the story, which kind of ties in with the lack questions answered, but still stands as it’s own problem. In the first Thor movie Odin takes Thor’s powers and casts an enchantment on Mjolnir. “Whosoever holds this hammer, should he be worth, shall possess the power of Thor.” Obviously Thor is the one to eventually pick up the hammer again and regain his power, but the importance of Mjolnir relative to Thor’s abilities is not diminished at that point. Yet magically in this movie Thor doesn’t need Mjolnir he just has these powers naturally. Even though, you know, Asgardians have never been shown to just naturally have elemental abilities and it was established that Thor doesn’t have much magic prowess the way Loki does. But that’s okay we’ll just ignore that because it’s really cool to see Thor turn into an anime character with glowing white eyes and electric fists (an ability he didn’t have even when he possessed Mjolnir). Also there’s the fact that Asgard’s history is vaguely outlined in the first movie as well and it’s made very clear that Odin is not the one who carved a spot for the golden city. He’s not the first king; his father was king before him. So no, Hela, you didn’t help Odin drown the realms in blood especially not while he was busy trying to end a war with Jotunheim as was explained as what he was doing around the time Thor was born and Loki was adopted. And it’s not just this either; there were plenty of other errors there, even with Doctor Strange.

And the scene with the Doc was odd in it’s own right. Last we saw of Doctor Strange he was giving up the infinity stone and taking over the New York sanctum as a talented, but still young sorcerer. When we see him in this movie he throws around magic like candy; appearing to be extremely proficient and wearing a familiar comic-book-esque outfit. Which raises the question, where is he relative to the power he (if we’re to go off the comics) is meant to possess? Is he the supreme now? What has he been doing since the end of his movie? The timeline is wonky at best and leaves you grasping blindly to try and put it together. It’s only made worse by the first after-credits scene which seems to be leaning into Infinity Wars territory.

Honestly I could talk about everything this movie could have done better for hours. I could pick apart the entire movie start to finish for all the things that were just wrong. But this is already an essay sized post so I’m gonna wrap it up. I care about this franchise. I care about the MCU. And that’s why it makes me so upset, as a fellow writer, to see how god damn lazy every part of Thor: Ragnarok was. The writer’s consistently and shamelessly cop-out of any meaningful story telling. “Show not tell” is a concept burned, drowned, and buried. They tear apart these beloved characters so thoroughly that they are nearly unrecognizable all in the pursuit of getting some good one-liners out there. I don’t have the words to describe my disappointment because Thor isn’t the first recent Marvel movie to do this. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 made some similar mistakes and now I’m feeling like the MCU no longer cares about building a coherent story line with dimensional characters. Instead they just care about making a movie as quotable as possible so that they sell some merch. And that’s a shame; I don’t want to see the MCU die because of a cash grab that sacrifices legitimate investment in the franchise.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

RWBY / MCU AU (2.0)

The Avengers

1) Ruby Rose as Tony Stark / Iron Man (reasoning: weapons nut, expert inventor, red color scheme, main protagonist)

2) Jaune Arc as Steve Rogers / Captain America (reasoning: awkward blonde guy who is always trying to prove himself, forged his papers in order to get into Beacon, team leader of JNPR)

3) Weiss Schnee as Thor Odinson (reasoning: yes, I know that Nora is the more obvious choice. I went with Weiss since I felt that she fit Thor’s story better. Nora doesn’t really have good parallels for Loki, Sif, Odin, Hela, and the rest of the Thor cast. As for Weiss, she started out as an arrogant heiress with a terrible father and brother. She later lost her inheritance and was humbled by her experiences in Beacon and with Team RWBY. To me, her character arc fits Thor to a tee)

4) Yang Xiao Long as Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk (reasoning: prone to anger, known for brute force and punching. Also, since she’s Bruce, she would be close friends with Ruby, which could mirror their sisterly relationship) 

5) Harriet Bree as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (reasoning: if the Atlas Military and Ace Ops are S.H.I.E.L.D. in this AU, then I felt that a member of Ace Ops should be Black Widow and Hawkeye)

6) Clover Ebi as Clint Barton / Hawkeye (reasoning: if the Atlas Military and Ace Ops are S.H.I.E.L.D. in this AU, then I felt that a member of Ace Ops should be Black Widow and Hawkeye)

Guardians of the Galaxy

1) Mercury Black as Peter Quill / Star-Lord (reasoning: douchey guy who always feels the need to overcompensate. Hates his biological father) 

2) Emerald Sustrai as Gamora (reasoning: she’s partners with Mercury, green color scheme, can be said to be in league with Salem due to her association with Cinder, black character)

3) Roman Torchwick as Rocket Raccoon (reasoning: loudmouthed thief who mocks everyone, partners with Neo who is Groot) 

4) Neopolitan as Groot (reasoning: characters known for their distinct way of “speaking”, Roman’s closest associate, cutest member of the team) 

5) Cardin Winchester as Drax the Destroyer (reasoning: big, muscular guy who is not really known for his brains) 

6) Cinder Fall as Nebula (reasoning: she’s one of Salem’s main followers, Salem being our Thanos. Also, her connection to Emerald) 

Wakanda

1) Blake Belladonna as T’Challa / Black Panther (reasoning: daughter of Ghira, our T’Chaka. Her story is all about discrimination and finding a way to bridge the gap between humans and faunus. Technically, she’s of royal blood. She’s also part cat) 

2) Adam Taurus as Erik Killmonger (reasoning: anti-human/pro-faunus extremist who is obsessed with Blake. His main plan is basically to kill everyone who he feels is a threat to his people. True, the origins of his obsession with the Black Panther is different in this AU but still)

3) Kali Belladonna as Queen Ramonda (reasoning: Blake’s mom)

4) Ghira Belladonna as King T’Chaka (reasoning: Blake’s dad)

5) Sun Wukong as Nakia (reasoning: Blake’s love interest. Don’t come at me Bumbleby stans, he’s a faunus and Yang’s already cast as Hulk)

6) Ilia Amitola as W’Kabi (reasoning: since she’s a White Fang agent, I felt that she should be the member of T’Challa’s inner circle who ends up siding with Killmonger)

7) Sienna Khan as N’Jobu (reasoning: this is to act as a parallel to her relationship with Adam. N’Jobu was Killmonger’s father, Sienna was Adam’s leader. Also, just like N’Jobu, Sienna was a radical who wanted to fight against discrimination towards her people) 

The Black Order

1) Salem as Thanos (reasoning: main villain of the series)

2) Arthur Watts as Ebony Maw (reasoning: member of Salem’s Inner Circle)

3) Tyrian Callows as Corvus Glaive (reasoning: member of Salem’s Inner Circle)     

4) Hazel Rainart as Cull Obsidian (reasoning: member of Salem’s inner circle)  

Asgard

1) Jacques Schnee as Odin (reasoning: Weiss’ father) 

2) Willow Schnee as Frigga (reasoning: Weiss’ mother)

3) Whitley Schnee as Loki Laufeyson (reasoning: Weiss’ brother)

4) Winter Schnee as Hela (reasoning: Weiss’ sister)

5) Klein Sieben as one of the Warriors Three (reasoning: associate of the Schnee Family)  

6) Nora Valkyrie as Valkyrie (reasoning: besides the obvious naming reasons and Viking symbolism, Nora is also headstrong and stubborn)

7) Lie Ren as Heimdall (reasoning: okay, to be honest, Ren is Heimdall mainly so that he can have some type of connection with Nora. In terms of personality, Ren is also stoic and honorable)

Stark Industries 

1) Qrow Branwen and Summer Rose as Howard and Maria Stark, respectively (reasoning: going with the fan theory that Qrow is Ruby’s biological father, then it made sense to have Qrow and Summer as the Starks. Also, Qrow being Howard oddly fits if you picture him as a raging alcoholic who unintentionally neglects Ruby while she was growing up)

2) Penny Polendina as J.A.R.V.I.S. / Vision (reasoning: A..I. and android who is close friends with Ruby)

3) Pietro Polendina as Ultron (reasoning: okay, so this one is a bit of a stretch. Since Ultron is the “father” of Vision, then it made sense that Penny’s father would take this role. Just imagine that Pietro is a rogue A.I./killer robot made by Ruby and Yang in this AU)

4) Oscar Pine as Pepper Potts (reasoning: Jaune and Weiss have already been cast, so I guess this AU is a Rosegarden fic)

5) Coco Adel as James Rhodes / War Machine (reasoning: I was running low on characters. This is literally just because her main weapon is a minigun)

Other Major Characters

1) Raven Branwen as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (reasoning: so instead of Ross being Betty’s father, Ross would be Bruce’s father in this AU. The reason for this change is that I really wanted to include Raven in this AU and casting her as a power-hungry general chasing her daughter around the world in order to control the Hulk felt appropriate)  

2) Vernal as Betty Ross (reasoning: to keep the General Ross-Betty Ross relationship to some extent, then Vernal as Betty made sense. Instead of being father-daughter, it’s “mother figure-daughter figure”) 

3) James Ironwood as Nick Fury (reasoning: big military guy and the head of Atlas Military and Ace Ops) 

4) Glynda Goodwitch as Maria Hill (reasoning: this would’ve been Winter...but I have Winter cast as Hela. So Glynda, being my second choice due to her past relationship with Ironwood, gets this role) 

5) Neptune Vasilias as Jane Foster (reasoning: closest character we have for Weiss’ love interest. Don’t come at me Whiterose stans, Ruby’s already Iron Man)

6) Bartholomew Oobleck as Erik Selvig (reasoning: it’s mainly because he’s a professor)  

7) Pyrrha Nikos as Peggy Carter (reasoning: warrior, closest character we have for Jaune’s love interest)

8) Saphron Cotta-Arc as Bucky Barnes / The Winter Soldier (reasoning: there was literally no other character who I could think of that could fit this role, so I went with Saphron since you have the sibling relationship element with Jaune. This is obviously not a romantic-Stucky interpretation, this is more along the lines of Steve and Bucky being spiritual brothers) 

9) Ozpin as Stephen Strange / Doctor Strange (reasoning: Earth’s protector, one of the guys leading the charge against Salem. Also, Ozpin looks like the kind of guy who’d be a mysterious sorcerer)

10) Marcus Black as Ego the Living Planet (reasoning: Mercury’s estranged, biological father)