#my loki posts

[feral-sylki]

Something I have really loved this season with Sylvie is the appreciation of the ordinary. Living a normal life was her dream, and she soaks up every moment, like each are a precious gem. She has a job in a fast food place, and she loves it and takes pride in it. She’s got a coworker that she can chat with, a bartender who knows her name, a record seller who calls her a regular and recommends her music. And to her, all these little things, the fast food and drink and music and the people you connect with as you go about your day, they’re all special. Through the lens of this character, we can take those things that to us might seem mundane, that we might take for granted, and elevate them, and go “this, this is special actually”

[feral-sylki]

Talking to a colleague about Marvel projects, in the voice of someone who is very normal about season 1 of Loki: have you seen season 1 of Loki

[feral-sylki]

I think part of why the “fixing broken things is hard” theme of s2 falls flat for me personally is that it works fine when applied to people. like. working on yourself is hard. redemption is hard. hard and messy and takes a lot of patience and forgiveness. but try and apply this theme to the TVA, as an entity, as an organisation, and it just feels kinda weird. the TVA of season one wasn’t broken. it was doing exactly what it was meant to do and doing it splendidly, with the only real hiccup, being Sylvie, being actively monitored by the guy behind the curtain. the TVA of s1 wasn’t broken, it was fundamentally wrong. so, the TVA of s2, then. is that TVA broken? it’s trying something new, to protect, rather than destroy, which is making it physically broken, because it was never designed for this (hence the beloathed Loom plot), and Dox thinks its ideologically broken, because they’ve deviated so far from what they were founded to do, from what she still thinks they’re supposed to do, because she’s resistant to change, to new ways of doing this, to deviating from what she’s been told is the only way. She could have been an interesting foil to Loki and Mobius’s desire to reshape the TVA if she’d been utilised fully. anyway I digress. the TVA of season 2, to me, isn’t broken. Loki is certainly trying to “fix” it, trying to make it better, but how can you fix something that was fully designed this way? It’s like taking a sword, a weapon meant for ending lives, and saying, this is bad, what this is doing, it’s broken, I can fix it. it’s not broken. it’s doing exactly what it was made to do. I mean I guess theoretically you can take it and try and use it positively, to protect rather than destroy, but at the end of the day it’s still a sword. just because you’ve decided you’re going to use it to defend rather than destroy doesn’t stop it from being a sword. like. it’s still a sword. it’s not broken. the TVA is still a sword. they don’t destroy it like they said they were going to and they don’t ‘fix it’ because it’s not broken and they can’t use it without accepting its nature and its nature is that it undermines the very idea of free will. its still a sword. its just being used in a different way. it’s still a sword. does this make sense

[feral-sylki]

Still crazy to me how Loki comes back to Sylvie and goes “looks like it’s the sacred timeline or nothing” and she deadass goes “in that case, nothing”. Like. She literally goes, Let us fight, let us die, but either way, let us be free. The way that all the apocalypses she grew up in were on the Sacred Timeline. All the disasters and war zones she experienced were on the Sacred Timeline. “Do you really want to be the god who takes away everyone’s free will to protect that?” The timeline where she wasn’t allowed to exist, where she had to watch people be desperate and fight to survive and ultimately die anyway, over and over. “It’s not enough to protect the Sacred Timeline.” She has built her life, her goals, her own glorious purpose, on the hope that there will be something better, one day. She has hope, even now, even here, at the end of all things, that maybe, just maybe, there’s a slim chance things can be better. She never stops fighting for that hope, and she reminds Loki of it too. “It’s okay to destroy something,” she says, and Loki finishes, “if you can replace that thing with something better.”

[feral-sylki]

Thinking about how Sylvie over enunciates the “thank you” when Loki wraps the ‘tablecloth’ around them. The way that this is probably the first time in a long, long time that she’s said those words to anybody. Both said them, and meant them quite this much. Because, the way she overemphasises, you know she’s not thanking him for the warmth of a blanket. And she wants him to know that

[feral-sylki]

Okay but like. what if Sylvie is a metaphor for the whole multiverse. Like “The universe wants to break free.” The universe wants nothing, as it is not a sentient being in and of itself, but just a collection of stars, dust, physics and time, but the people, the people in it, they want things and they want things so bad, and none more so than Sylvie. “So it manifests chaos.” She might have been born the goddess of mischief, but no mischief she could have got up to back home on her timeline could ever have compared to the absolute chaos and anarchy she rains down upon the TVA, the organisation that claims to control it all, who strangle the multiverse, very literally, as it turns out, with the Loom, those who ripped her from her home and her life. She makes herself their very antithesis, everything they fear. She manifests chaos. “Like me being born the goddess of mischief.” She’s more than just mischief, she’s the multiverse itself, in this equation. Within the narrative she is the very embodiment and representation of the harm and damage He Who Remain’s manipulation and control has inflicted upon the universe, and she is the answer too. She is the voice of the multiverse, yelling enough, and fighting tooth and nail for freedom, for flight, for branches that can reach up forever into infinity. When Loki falls in love with her, he falls in love with the multiverse. And what wouldn’t we do for what we love?

[feral-sylki]

“Who’re you to decide I can’t die fighting?” she asks, knowing he’s faced with the decision of whether or not to kill her and all she says is “if all I get is the chance to die for what I believe in, then give it to me.” And Loki basically goes, “No. I’ll give you the chance to live. I’ll sacrifice myself to give you the chance to live. Like you always dreamed.” And her little smile, before he stepped away to the end of time, like she knew, like she knew

[feral-sylki]

“Her name was Sylvie”

“Because we’re the same”

“See? We’re both selfish”

These three quotes have attached themselves to my brain and won’t let go and so I’m gonna chatter about them because I have so many thoughts and look. I am quite aware there is a focus on Sylvie with these. I can’t help it, she’s my favourite, her tragic backstory, insane grin and absolute commitment to her beliefs have captivated me

Okay so first one: “Her name was Sylvie.” Loki, with the very real possibility she’s been killed, holding the line for her. The identity she forged for herself, the escapism and the rebellion and the individuality that’s so important to her, he not only respects, but holds the line for her. You fell for yourself; no, because she isn’t me, she’s Sylvie. He cares for her, he fell for Sylvie, the fierce woman who teases him and challenges him and fights for life with everything she’s got. And he does reach Mobius. Mobius plays it off mockingly during the interrogation “is that with an ie or just an i?” but he remembers it and he uses it. He says to Ravonna, “Why didn’t you let me interrogate Sylvie?” Like it’s so important to have someone who cares, someone in your corner. There’s so much packed into four words

“Because we’re the same.” The flip side of the individuality is the fact that they are variants of each other and that’s such a fascinating and important and beautiful part of the narrative. Sylvie violently establishes her individuality and separateness from the Loki conglomerate at the beginning, but she choses to reassure Loki that he can do it by using their sameness. Like seriously I cannot express how amazing that character development is there. She’s now so much more comfortable in her identity because of him. Because of him, Loki, fresh off the sacred timeline, who was meant to “cause pain and suffering and death” only, he has helped her feel more comfortable in her own skin, by caring and just being himself. That’s awesome. And it’s also romantic as hell. Win win

“See? We’re both selfish.” Painful. Devastating. Beautiful. Harder to pin down why I like it so much because I haven’t had two years to chew on it yet but here we go let’s see. Ok so: it’s an extension of the we’re the same module, and even estranged from him, she’s still willing to accept what he and she share. There’s still care there; it isn’t what they had in season one, but it’s there all the same. She was horrified by the timeslipping and concerned for him, so, she takes him drinking. That’s my hedonistic girl. But the point being that she sees him in pain and is trying to care for him, in her way. So, we get there, conversation, and we get to the other thing that’s fascinating about it: at the time Sylvie owns the “you’re so selfish” when it’s thrown at her like “of course I’m selfish, I want a life, what’s wrong with wanting something?” which is amazing, because I really do love a character who is not only willing to admit to selfishness, but embraces it, owns it, takes pride in it, even. Like fuck yeah that’s my girl. But but but, and here’s the sticker: with this line “See? We’re both selfish.” we see that maybe it did get under her skin, the way that only he can really hurt her like this, precisely because of how much she cares for him, this vulnerability that she has with him, one of the few people who she’s taken down her walls before. But she also can see how low and rough the spot he’s in is right now and she cares about him and wants to help him, so it could be argued she’s using it like she used their sameness to reassure him last season. She says “we’re both selfish” in the same breath that she told him being selfish isn’t bad; so essentially: it’s ok, Loki, it’s okay to want things, we both wants things, it’s normal

So yeah, I’m completely normal about these characters this show and these quotes