We are our own worst enemies, anon. We can be so hard on ourselves, so critical and merciless, especially when it comes to something as inconsequential (and yet so important to us) as our outside appearances. I wish there was some way we could physically look into our bodies and see them for the amazing tools that they are. Complex networks of capillaries, tendons and ligaments holding our muscles together and keeping them attached to our bones. Limbs that transport us with barely a thought, appendages that allow us to touch our world and interact with it, to feel and taste and smell and interpret… it’s incredible. And we really have no idea of it—or perhaps we do, but we forget. Again and again. Sometimes we need to be reminded of it because we are so forgetful, and if we’re lucky, we’ve got a special person or people in our lives who will do that.
I think that Loki is canonically self-conscious in the MCU, perhaps to the point he has a serious inferiority complex. I can see him staring into the mirror and beginning The List. We all know it. The List of Things We Hate About Ourselves.
I hate my hair. It’s so thin and oily. My forehead is too wide. My nose is huge and crooked. My lips are thin. That scar is showing up again—I need to find a longer-lasting spell…
He starts from the top and goes all the way down, until he is feeling so low and miserable and worthless that he can’t even stand to look at himself anymore.
This only gets worse when it’s revealed that he’s a Frost Giant.
As if he weren’t ugly before, now he has to deal with being an actual, real monster.
Once he learns how to manipulate the illusion of his Aesir form (a tricky process that takes him many hours of practice), the first thing he does is strip naked and take a good long look in the mirror.
Oh, it’s so much worse than before. Worse because this is what’s real. These rheumy red eyes. The lines and creases on his face, his leathery skin—so greasy in Asgard’s warm, dry climate—with its corpselike blue hue. There isn’t an inch of him that is even faintly attractive. There never was. He’s an ugly misfit. Even the Frost Giants would consider him pathetic, so small and weak, possessing none of the qualities of a worthy jötunn.
Because I am worthless, he thinks. Not only am I ugly, but I’m a failure as well. I can’t do anything right. My plans always fall through. No one truly loves me. They love the illusion I’ve had cast over me all this time. After all, who in their right mind could love this? I am a horrible, ugly person with no friends and nothing to offer except parlor tricks and silly little—
“You’re beautiful.”
Loki jumps at the voice and turns, covering himself with his hands.
Thor has been standing in the doorway for the last five minutes, watching Loki study his reflection with his face twisted in disgust, wiping away his tears, muttering quiet, distressed utterances with every new flaw he found.
“I know you don’t think it,” says Thor, “but you are. You’re amazing, Loki.”
“I am not,” Loki utters, throwing on a robe but remaining in his jötunn form. He wants Thor to see this hideousness for himself. Maybe that will stop the lies he’s spewing. “I’m awful. I look like an ogre or some sort of demon.”
“But you’re neither ogre nor demon. You’re a prince. You’re a sorcerer. You’re my brother, and I love you.”
Loki glowers. “That makes one of us, then.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Thor walks forward and puts his hands on Loki’s shoulders, guiding him back to the mirror.
“You don’t have to look,” he says softly, “and I’m not going to make you look. But I want you to know that you are more than this body, Loki. The you in here”—he touches Loki’s temple—“and in here”—he touches the center of Loki’s chest, just above his beating heart—“is still the same. That is the you I will always love, no matter what your outside looks like.”
Loki scoffs bitterly, his head bowed. “Even if that outside is your enemy?”
“Your skin is not my enemy, Loki. Nor is it yours.”
“Isn’t it? Am I not a Frost Giant? Am I not a member of that race of monsters all Asgard despises, including you?”
Thor goes quiet, his expression reflecting his shame. “I have been forced to do a lot of thinking since Father told me of your true parentage. I have changed my mind about many things.” He looks at Loki’s reflection and gives him a small smile. “So can you. That is the beauty of it. We can change the way we think and see others, even ourselves.”
Loki finally raises his head and looks at himself in the mirror.
Standing beside Thor, his handsome and perfect brother, he thought he would look uglier than ever before. But he doesn’t. He looks… not attractive, but something about their skins beside one another, pink and blue, and their hair, gold and black—even their eyes, sky-blue and fire-red—looks nice somehow. Complementary. Diverse yet harmonious.
Or maybe it’s just the way Thor is looking at him, his heart and his hopes—and his love—showing clearly in his eyes. That is the most beautiful thing in this mirror. Not them. Certainly not Loki.
“I’m afraid it’s going to take a long time to do that,” Loki murmurs. “Much longer than it took to change yours.”
“That’s alright. I will help you. I am here for you, Loki. I will always be here for you.” Thor gives him a squeeze and leans forward to plant a kiss in his hair—his oily, stringy, smelly jötunn hair, as if it doesn’t bother him at all.
…maybe it doesn’t.
Loki reaches up and grasps Thor’s hand. A thin veil of frost spreads across his warm fingers, but he doesn’t recoil, doesn’t pull away. No, he smiles and moves even closer.
Tears sting Loki’s eyes.
Maybe someday he’ll love himself as much as Thor loves him. It seems unlikely. Impossible, even. How does one learn to un-see this much ugliness? Who could look at this face and think that it—or anything beneath it—could be beautiful?
“I bet you can conjure some impressive ice weapons in this form,” says Thor, turning himself and Loki away from the mirror. “Has your sorcery been affected at all?”
“You should. Perhaps they are even stronger now that your true form is no longer being suppressed.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” says Thor cheerfully. “Come on, let’s go to the training yard. I’ve never been stabbed with an ice dagger before. It’s probably quite refreshing.”
Loki can’t quite keep his mouth straight; it curls up at the corners despite his best efforts. He rolls his eyes. “You’re an idiot, brother.”
“I’m your idiot brother, forever and ever. Never forget that.”
“I’m already trying as hard as I can.”
Thor grins and pats Loki’s back. “I’ll leave you to get dressed. Meet me in the yard in ten minutes. Oh, and Loki?”
“What.”
“Bring your best game.” Thor wags his eyebrows as he leaves the room. “I don’t want to walk away from this without a scratch.”
Loki smiles at last. He doesn’t even wonder what it looks like on his jötunn face. “You’ll be lucky to walk away from this at all, you pompous fool.” He finishes by putting on a scowl and sticking out his blue tongue as far as it will go. Not exactly mature, but somehow it feels appropriate in this moment.
Thor laughs heartily and points at him warningly. “We shall see about that, little brother!” he declared. “We shall see!”
Loki has nearly finished stuffing the contents of his closet into a bag when he hears the front door, and his stomach lurches once again. He’d meant to be gone by the time Thor got home, but obviously that isn’t happening now.
“Loki?” his brother shouts down the hall, but his tone gives no hint of whether Loki is about to have his ass beaten, or worse, if he’s about to receive some sort of sad, pitying look.
For the thousandth time in the last hour, he curses himself and that one stupid, misdirected text.
“Loki, where—oh,” Thor says from his bedroom door, and, oh look. Pity and regret it is… until Thor realizes that he’s packing, that is, and puts on his I’m-older-than-you-and-therefore-in-charge face, asking, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What’s it look like?” Loki mutters. He can come back for the rest later, he decides, and pulls the strap of his bag up over his shoulder. Thor’s halfway blocking his exit, but Loki has always been faster than him, and he slips by before Thor can do more than glare at him.
“Hey!”
He should’ve run for the door, though, because Thor ducks through the kitchen and cuts him off, and then it’s all 6-foot-3 of his brother’s considerable mass between him and the way out of this mess and their shared apartment.
“So that’s it?” Thor demands. “You’re leaving? You aren’t even going to talk to me?”
He’d rather not, thanks.
“You know I have to,” Loki says instead.
“Why? Because you’re in love with me?”
Loki can’t help but wince at hearing it out loud.
“Can you even admit it, Loki? Go on, look me in the eye and tell me you love me. Say it, and I’ll move.”
Thor’s staring him down, jaw set, and just for a moment, Loki hates him for this. It’s only superficial, he knows, and that’s part of his problem. But if that’s what it takes…
He might as well do it properly, he thinks, meeting Thor’s gaze and steeling himself. “I love you, Thor,” he says, as steadily as he can, “and I’m sorry for that. Now get out of the way.”
Thor nods once, and says, “No.”
Perhaps Loki was mistaken. Maybe he really does hate him after all, he thinks.
“You said you’d let me go!” he complains, and Thor shakes his head.
“No, I said I would move.”
And then he does—forward, to take Loki’s face in his hands and bring their lips together.
When they part, Loki’s glad that Thor still has ahold of him, since the room suddenly seems to be spinning. But then Thor speaks up, a blinding grin on his face.
“You will tell me why,” Thor snarls down at him, fingers flexing on his axe-shaft, looming over Loki’s kneeling form like the old gods he clings to, gory and huge and terrible.
“I am a King,” he replies, baring his blood-stained teeth in a feral grin. “Kings do not share.”
Our Kingdom Comebyamberfox17 , another collaboration between us inspired by the last episode of Vikings, “Eye for an Eye”.
Here, have some domestic bliss on me. You’re very welcome! (Part of my human!au and most of all of my Let Thor Be Chubby mission)
I was tagged by @loxxxlay and @wnnbdarklord… probably about 2 weeks ago, but I’ve been procrastinating because this is actually the kind of thing that requires some thought. But I’m finally doing it because who would pass up an opportunity to rec their own work?
Hello, you have been identified as An Awesome Fic Writer™. Congrats, you rock! So that all of your readers can shower you with some extra love today, please tell us your favourite five stories of yours and why you like them and then send this to another five fic authors you think deserve this title!
1. The Abyss Gazes Also(gen; Loki in the Void / Loki & Thanos fic, a.k.a. WTF happened to Loki between Thor 1 and The Avengers?)
This fic isn’t my favorite for the writing quality, which I’ll admit is pretty uneven, but because it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written (at 72k words, it’s longer than my dissertation); it’s the first fic I started writing when I got back into fanfiction in 2015, after 10 years’ hiatus; and it’s the fic that I’ve put the most thought into. It’s also been one of the most frustrating, both because I have trouble writing plot – introspection and conversations are where I’m most comfortable – and because nobody’s fucking reading it. (OK, not nobody, but very few people.) It’s especially frustrating when I see people on Tumblr complaining about the lack of Loki-in-the-Void fic that isn’t straight-up torture porn (hello!), or spitballing half-formed theories about what happened with Thanos, and I’m like, I have thought about this extensively! Here are my extensive thoughts! Yes, they are in fic form, and I don’t really want to rehash them in meta. I will say, though, that the few people who have read it have been very enthusiastic, and a remarkable number of the comments are people saying they’ve made it their headcanon about what happened, which is an incredible vote of confidence. Perhaps one of the things that makes me proudest is that the enthusiastic readers are split between people who would consider themselves “Loki stans/apologists” and Thorki or Thor&Loki fans who get annoyed about said Loki stans/apologists trying to absolve Loki of all blame. The fact that people in both camps like my fic indicates that I’ve come up with an account that assigns Loki just the right amount of culpability: he’s not completely innocent, but there are some major extenuating circumstances. (And maybe the two camps don’t actually disagree as much as they think they do… it may be mostly a matter of emphasis and group membership signaling.)
2. Desert Flowers(very mild Thorki; Thor and Loki get high and talk philosophy)
This is my first Thorki fic, written before I was really committed to shipping it, but it ended up kicking off my now 12-fic Thorki series Whatever is done from love. The funniest thing about this fic is that it started as a crack idea: what would happen if Loki got Thor stoned and then tried to get him to talk about philosophy? But then I took it entirely too seriously, thinking about when and where Loki would have gotten marijuana, and then suddenly it veered into issues of racism and morality and I really started thinking about Loki’s Jewish coding in Marvel media. And there are Nietzsche quotes, of course.
This is my first fully committed Thorki fic, with actual sex. I also think it’s probably my most consistently well-written fic. It seemed to flow more quickly and easily than most of my other fics; parts of it were fully formed in my head before I committed it to electronic paper.
4. Winter, Autumn, and Spring(Thorki porn with feelings; 10 years before Thor’s coronation, Loki tells him they need to end their affair)
I have kind of mixed feelings about this fic because the writing is sometimes on the florid side, but a lot of my Thorki readers say it’s their favorite. And I think it’s also one of my more original ideas. In the realm of canon-compliant fic, there’s a lot of first-time pre-canon Thorki out there, a lot of TDW prison sex, imagined reunions before Ragnarok came out, post-Ragnarok “where did that ‘I’m here’ scene go?” or “married life” on the Ark… but as far as I know, I’m the only one who’s written a fic bridging the gap between pre-canon Thorki and the tense, semi-hostile situation between them as the first Thor movie begins. And I think I did a reasonable job making it plausible, if I may say so.
5. The Third Time(gen; Loki dies for real in some vaguely described speculative version of Ragnarok, he and Thor have a last conversation)
This is the first fic I posted on AO3 (though I had started working on “Abyss” beforehand), and like “The Tree of Knowledge,” I think it’s one of my best-written. It’s more concise and precisely worded than most of my other fics, probably because I had it almost entirely formulated in my head before I wrote it down: it was worn smooth over the course of many showers, like a river pebble. I wish Loki’s actual movie death had permitted him as much dignity.
It was early in the morning when the two parties met at the border between Jotunheim and Asgard. The sun was just beginning to rise and the snow sparkled under it’s weak beams. There was a beautiful harshness to the scene, something that would be captured later in paintings and sketches.
Thor came with his attendants, with an entourage of servants. They came on horse back, each and every one of them. There was even a scribe there, hastily recording this historic moment for future sagas and to report back to the King.
Thor’s betrothed arrived escorted by soldiers.
Between the towering figures of his guards, he looked even smaller and younger than Thor knew him to be.
Thor smiled at him.
Loki scowled back.
Thor wondered how he would feel if he was in Loki’s place, if he was the one being made to leave his homeland. Loki was only fourteen, a child really, although Thor was not much older than him at seventeen. It was cruel to put so much on their shoulders, to require them to unite their Kingdoms and bring a stop to an unwinnable war.
Thor had only seen Loki once before, when their betrothal was announced. Loki had bared his fangs at him then. He did it again now.
It would have been frightening on a full-grown Jotun.
On Loki it was oddly endearing.
He reminded Thor of a kitten trying to defend itself. Loki postured, attempting to intimidate him, but he did not have the bulk or the ferocity to pull it off. Thor suspected that was the reason they had been betrothed to each other. Loki was a Jotun runt. No Asgardian would find him fearsome.
Loki took a step towards the boundary, but a large hand clamped down on his shoulder, stopping him.
One of his guards spoke in a low voice, his words lost to Thor.
Loki’s eyes widened and the color drained from his face. He shook his head, but the guard’s grip only tightened, fingers digging in.
“What’s happening?” Thor asked quietly, turning his head to direct his question to Sif.
She stood beside him, her face stoic.
Thor was supposed to accept Loki here at the border and escort him back to Asgard. That was what Thor knew. Loki was coming to live with them, to stay in Asgard until he came of age, then he and Thor would marry. That was the plan as Thor understood it, but looking at Sif’s face, he realized that there was something of this plan he had not been told.
“Prince Loki is leaving all of Jotunheim behind,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on the horizon.
Thor looked back at Loki in confusion. The meaning behind Sif’s words dawned on him as he saw Loki resignedly removing his clothing, his movements slow and his fingers trembling.
Loki was to cross over the border naked, to come to Thor in subjugation.
Thor felt bile rise in his throat. He could not imagine being in Loki’s place, could not imagine having all these people watching his humiliation, having one of them recording it for the ages. Thor knew it would have been his own father who requested this, who would have insisted on humbling the Jotun Prince.
Loki couldn’t come to Thor as an equal. Odin had seen to that. He had ensured that with this one action he stripped Loki of his standing. This would be the story people would tell of the day Prince Loki crossed the border to Asgard.
Thor found himself shaking.
Furious, unthinking, he reached for the clasp of his cloak.
“Thor!” Sif hissed at him, but he didn’t listen.
It was freezing and Thor’s shaking now had more to do with the cold than rage, but he undressed, leaving Sif with his clothes and walked across the border to join Loki’s side.
Loki looked up at him with wide eyes, taking in all of him. Thor hoped he approved of what he saw.
“I would not ask my future husband to do anything I would not do myself,” he said, offering his hand to Loki.
He pointedly did not look at Loki’s own nude form. He kept his eyes trained on Loki’s face.
Shyly, Loki placed his hand in Thor’s.
They crossed the border together, hand in hand, naked and smiling; Thor a beaming smile that threatening to out do the weak morning sun, Loki a smaller, softer smile, but one that Thor still noted all the same.
When they reached the Asgardian side, Thor took his cloak from Sif and throw it around Loki’s shoulders, hiding him from the assembly.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice low and pitched for Loki alone to hear.
Loki tugged the cloak tight around him, watching Thor with his large, dark eyes. There were no bared teeth now, no sneers. He seemed awed and Thor found himself warmed despite the chill of the snow under his feet.
**
Odin berated Thor until the windows rattled and the ground shook, but Thor did not care.
He knew his father had wanted to make Loki a symbol, to show the other realms that Asgard had gained mastery over the proud Jotuns, but Thor was not interesting in playing his father’s games.
He was the one who Loki would be married to and he would not have Loki made to feel like a conquered prize.
Their marriage would be a partnership, not a battlefield.
Loki is the Philosopher King 