If you need context, earlier this year, CorridorDigital put out an "AI-made anime," where an AI filter was used to convert live action footage into "animation" (for the record, this is NOT animation. Animation is not a look, it's a process. By this logic, anyone using that Pixar Snapchat face filter is a Pixar animator). They touted themselves as "revolutionizing animation."
They were met with considerable backlash and criticism from the animation community. For one, they were taking frames from the real anime Vampire Hunter D to feed the AI. For another, the video was essentially a proof-of-concept for how "easy" and "inexpensive" it is to reduce animation to an automate-able process.
Well, Corridor did not learn anything, because they released a sequel... In the middle of a strike against the use of AI to replace/exploit/profit off of the labor of workers in the film industry. Corridor assured they hired their own artist to train the AI, but remember that industry discourse like this is interconnected. They may not be stealing art, but any studio that sees this and goes 'wow, it's that easy' will. Corridor's also boasting about AI democratizing animation-making. Now anyone can make animation in their bedroom with nothing but a camera and a free software! Except, anyone could already make animation in their bedroom with nothing but a camera and a free software. I made animation in my bedroom with nothing but a camera and a free stop-motion software when I was 10 years old.
Anyways, work like this is exactly what studios hellbent on exploiting workers want to see. It doesn't matter if it's cool or fun. Remember that AI discourse is currently the frontlines of the labor crisis in the film industry. Corridor putting out this video as "fun education" in the middle of an strike is so incredibly irresponsible and disrespectful.
The vast majority (around 80%) of Chinese characters are made up of a radical (the general meaning) and a phonetic.
Radical 女 nǚ (woman) and phonetic 馬 mǎ (horse) = 媽 mā, mother (your mum sounds like a horse).
But a small minority are pictograms, that is to say a picture of the thing they represent.
Pictograms are the earliest characters, thousands of years old, but many are still used every day.
If you look at the oracle bone script for rat, tiger and elephant you’ll see they are clearly pictures of the animal they signify.
But if you look at the modern versions, you’ll notice something odd, they’re all rotated 90 degrees onto their sides.
Why? Why are all these characters written with the animals balancing on their tails?
Well, it’s for a straight-forward, practical reason.
For a couple thousand years before paper was invented writing materials were limited. We had silk (expensive), bronze (expensive and impractical), and oracle bones (religious use only).
And one more…
That was cheap, plentiful, durable, and easy to erase and rewrite characters. The wonder that is…
Bamboo!
It was cut into strips, and tied into books. Long thin strips of bamboo contributed to the Chinese custom of writing vertically, from top to bottom (and right to left).
But it also meant that it’s much easier to write some characters length-ways so that they easily fit onto the strip.
So that’s it, mystery solved. That’s why a lot of Chinese picture characters are written at a right angle.
Hope: Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop it.
Scott: What??
Hope: You always make that face whenever you’re about to say something super stupid just to piss me off. So cut it out–
Scott: You’re the best fighter I’ve ever met and I’m lucky to have you as a partner.
Hope: …
Scott: Also cereal qualifies as soup.
Hope: SEE I FUCKING KNEW IT–
Long post about Loki's romantic history in the comics
So, got inspired to do a little research mainly because of this: Tom Hiddleston pitched his own standalone movie in 2013 to Kevin Feige, explicitly referring to Loki and Enchantress' romantic relationship as a springboard.
Which actually confused me because my personal memory of Loki from the Bronze and Silver Age was definitely along the lines of "I think Amora and Loki worked together but I'm pretty sure Amora wasn't that interested, because Loki was an asshole and she knew it."
Turns out I was correct, buuuuut, they were a lot closer than I remembered. Especially in recent comics.
So I'm going to do a (relatively) brief overview about Loki's relationships as far as I remember. The guy fucked a lot, especially when he was evil. Latest incarnation is actually kinda more chaste imo.
BIG post, lotso images, reflection on MCU Loki at the bottom after the history lesson.
OG 616-Evil-Loki (since the 60s up till the 2000s)
For MCU new fans, imagine Classic Loki but he's purely an asshole with zero or very little redeeming qualities. That's OG evil Loki. He was always a villain, at best he sometimes helped out of selfishness, but he ended up dooming Asgard and the world the multiple times.
He also fucked. A lot. Mostly as a male, not necessarily in a 'human' form.
SOME of his notable romance partners (mostly the named gods)
Angrboda (1985)
Storm or Frost Giant. Mother of Fenris wolf, Jormungand the Midgard Serpent, and possibly Hela (her parentage gets really tricky after multiple reincarnations). Because Fenris and and Jormugand are several of the main constants of the Asgardians despite the multiple reincarnations from past Ragnarok cycles (in Marvel, Ragnaroks always happen and the Asgardians always reincarnate after each occurrence, with some differences.), it's suggested that Angrboda is one of Loki's oldest mates, if not THE first.
Also fun fact, it's actually suggested in the Marvel Universe book that because both Loki and Angrboda are shapeshifters, the reason their kids came out as a wolf and a serpent is because they each bear the form of the animal that their parents had assumed at the moment they were conceived. Kinky!
Angrboda only appeared once in comics and has never been depicted since, and even then she was 'dead' in her only appearance because it was in Hel. Even tho most characters connected to the Asgardians are reincarnated with them after each Ragnarok cycle, she never has been (tho her children and their respective descendants always reincarnate/persist). Which is a shame, because she has a really cool design and has lots of story potential.
She was also known as a sorceress or a witch.
Sigyn (1978)
Oh boy, Sigyn. Loki wanted to seduce her, but she was already engaged and knew he was evil. So Loki killed her fiance, used illusion to take his form, tricked her, and then tricked Odin into marrying him and her. Odin tried to annul the marriage but ancient laws prevented her, so he exiled Loki and Sigyn now bound by marriage vows, went with him, so Odin declared her Goddess of Fidelity.
Sigyn was seemingly very puritan, as she stated that she could never live outside of wedlock.
What follows is a long, long history of spousal abuse. Loki resented and despised her, sometimes pretend to return her love only to mock her. Loki constantly 'cheated' on her and also did evil, Sigyn fulfilled her duty and always went with him. At some point they literally got shackled together because I think Odin wanted her to guard Loki from doing some kind of mischief.
At one point, Loki finally released her of her marriage vows and she was no longer bound by them so they finally fully parted ways.
And after her last appearance, she presumably died during one of the Ragnarok cycles and she has never appeared in print or has been referenced since.
Amora the Enchantress (1964)
So basically she was like Loki, treacherous, untrustworthy, seduced men a lot, but she was relatively the better person of the two because she bordered the 'evil' spectrum. She actually minded the Apples of Idunn which gives Asgardians their immortality and did her job. She was also obsessed with getting Thor to fall in love with her constantly.
Which is why it honestly confused me when Tom mentioned her and Loki have a thing, cos I thought she wasn't interested and knew better. Which turns out, was brought up in the comics.
"I can't be trusted, and you can't trust." hmmmmmmmmm
So this was the crux of it. In the bronze and silver age, Amora knew way better to get personally involved with Loki, but they did collaborate on evil time-to-time. They may have had a fling or two, seems likely.
Loki also once had a thing with Amora's sister Lorelei (Lorelei got into some love potion and fixated on Loki, who took advantage of that until he tired of her).
Also Loki deliberately created a mortal (Sylvie Lushton) with a copy of Amora's powers, looks and name just to mess with Amora. And she did actually got pissed enough to come down and test Sylvie herself before passing her and allowed her to use her name and powers.
Which brings us to them in more current comics.
Current God of Stories/Outcasts Loki (since 2011)
The current incarnation of Loki (also known as Ikol, which I'll use to differentiate between him and his past self). The original evil Loki of 616 is dead and this incarnation is the current 'Loki'.
More chaotic good/neutral than evil, Ikol was born when a copy of his past evil self's soul combined with the truly innocently good Kid-Loki (who acts like a conscience).
After aging himself up, he basically decided to try to atone for his past misdeeds (he has kept all his past memories as evil Loki), and restyled himself from God of Evil and Lies, to the God of Stories, and currently is the God of Outcasts (yup, referenced by Classic Loki in Ep 5).
Quick note that the 'Loki' in publication was Kid-Loki when Hiddleston's Loki debut in Thor (2011) and Ikol had not yet 'appeared' in print. So MCU-Loki was not based on this Loki. In fact there's a scene where Ikol ages himself up (2014) and was deciding on a form based on other reality Lokis which he can view. MCU-Loki was one of the forms he saw (far left, the one with no horns).
So it's possible Ikol based his appearance on MCU-Loki!
Also Ikol is the Loki who is more openly gender fluid. However, I've not seen them really switch genders much ever since they've become titled the God of Outcasts and generally being more depressing lately.
Anyway, ever since Ikol reinvented himself, he's generally gotten better relationships with everyone, or at least tries to. This seems to include Amora actually being interested in him again, presumably because Ikol not being as evil as Loki means he won't try to backstab her as badly.
Notably, there was a comic event called AXIS that also included a spell that inverted everyone's alignment. Good becomes evil, evil becomes good. This affected Loki and Amora both, and they decided to get together apparently while they're both aligned 'good'.
Eventually they had to undo the inversion spell, during which they did hope they would stay together after getting their alignments back to normal...but unfortunately no they didn't.
And that's pretty much as far as their relationship has gotten. Basically, there IS something there, but old-Loki couldn't be trusted, and current Amora hasn't really become a better person like Ikol has become. And Ikol harbors too much guilt over past misdeeds to really get close to anyone romantically. The inversion temporarily gave them peace-of-mind to actually pursue their relationship, but it was temporary.
How does this reflect on MCU-Loki's love life?
So key thing to note, MCU-Loki debut before Ikol became the current incarnation. At the time of Tom's debut, it was Kid-Loki who was the incarnation. The inversion AXIS event happened in 2014.
Even then, somehow, Tom found the old comics showing that Enchantress and Loki had a thing and directly petitioned Feige with the idea of having her as Loki's love interest in the MCU in 2013, so kudos to him, he researched a deep cut.
The complication comes from choosing the variant-Loki angle combined with Enchantress. Like if it was a direct adaptation - i.e. Sylvie = Amora = another Asgardian, this would be easy. Alas, MCU's gotten a lot more complicated.
But, it does play into the main aspect of Amora's and Loki's relationship - that they were too similar, and knew each other too well, to ever trust each other and get into a relationship, even tho they did have an interest and had some mutual respect (pretty big deal for 616-Loki especially).
Which of course with Sylvie's backstory and status as a Loki variant, plays right into that. Two people too similar, and knowing how bad they could potentially be towards each other because they can't trust each other.
In a sense, MCU-Loki changing himself for the better in the series is similar to how Ikol chose to make himself a better person than the old him i.e. someone capable of loving unconditionally. Sylvie would be at the stage Amora is in the comics, who has lapsed into old bad habits which led to her not really growing as a person as much as Ikol.
Anyway, hope this was enlightening. It was kinda fun to go through old stuff again. Also Loki's sheer army of offspring (from his evil incarnation, but Ikol acknowledges all of them as his still) is an amazing thing to read through lol!
And to evil-Loki's credit, he tried to do right by his kids when he could, possibly his sole redeeming quality (notable story is him working with Spider-Man to save his half-mortal daughter Tess Black) Amora also has her own kids fathered by men she seduced.
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