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[bradypnoea]

Healing Factor | indelen | (42/42) - 121k | May ‘20 - Mar ‘21

Loki was lucky to survive the devastating car crash that very nearly claimed his life. Now, resting and recuperating in his brother's home he has every care and amenity available to help his recovery. A professional physical therapist was hired by Thor Odinson to help get his brother back on his feet. But for the young woman the assignment is not nearly as straight forward as it first may seem. The accident is merely the final link in a chain of traumatic experiences that inflicted wounds far worse than any number of broken bones. And it's not as if Loki was a friendly man to begin with. Shrewd, caustic, mischievous and introverted, incapable of straightforward communication, lacking in patience and not overburdened with an excess of empathy Loki is the worst possible kind of patient to have. Unless, of course, you’re the type to enjoy the challenge…

Note: Healing Factor has 13219 hits and deserves every one, like, I was lucky to read this story as it was posted in real time and I remember thinking by the fourth chapter that it would be one of my all-time favourites. I can't praise it highly enough: the characters, the pacing, the plot points, the texting, the dialogue, the tension, the resolving of the tension. It felt like a return to my favourite works of the 2012-2015 era. Indelen's writing is quick and intelligent, questions are posed to the reader and answered as they arise. I just- I'll stop and let the work speak for itself but if you can, avoid reading the Series Title on AO3. The OFC's first name is intentionally withheld and I promise it will be SO satisfying to read the moment its revealed. And as soon as you finish, read the next installment in the series, "In Care Of", of which Indelen has just posted the ninth chapter.

- Author's Tumblr | @indelen -

It is not my habit to make semi-flirtatious banter with a man about to interview me for a job as this is, of course, completely unprofessional.

And it is definitely not my habit to make semi-flirtatious banter with a man whom I knew to be married, no matter how obviously in jest the comments were meant to be. After all, even the most innocuous joke can be misconstrued.

And yet, when the front door of a modern upstate New York home opened and nothing short of a Norse god made flesh and mortal stood before me, all that popped out of my mouth was:

“Oh, my goodness gracious! Are you the one that needs round the clock care?”

Look.

If you were there.

And you saw him.

You would have done the same.

Thor Odinson was tall, fair, with cornflower blue eyes and perfect skin. His shoulders were broad and well muscled, his posture was comfortable and assured, his expression was bright and cheery. On hearing my words, he threw his head back and laughed. Even his laughter was energy itself; pure and friendly and unpretentious. Despite myself, I felt stuck down by his charm. It’s not even that he was remarkably handsome, though of course he was, it was that he projected immense health, joy and vitality.

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[bradypnoea]

The Relic | mareebird | (47/47) - 254k | Sep ‘18 - Jan ‘21

A bargain to keep Loki from rotting on the Raft has not gone as either brother hoped. The Odinsons bide their time on Earth, uncertain of their allegiance and future, as Loki's ennui grows. Thor's quest for a fabled Asgardian relic brings the brothers to Norway, where they cross paths with a mysterious local archaeologist who turns Loki's relationship with humanity on its ear.

Note: (In honour of the impending release of the Loki miniseries and my sceptical optimism for it, I'm highlighting a few canon-adjacent Loki works that can pass the time between new episodes or, if you're like me, distract from new content long enough to miss the first wave of inevitable Discourse.) When mareebird said "character study," they weren't fucking kidding. This is a unique piece that diligently picks apart the tension and animosity cemented between the brothers, and within Loki himself. The Relic is a story of building love, examining the significance in the act of searching, and mareebird as an English graduate supplies enough narrative techniques to spoil a reader for other fanworks (as well as two spaces after a full stop, I spotted). The recency of its publication allows for scenes that feel as though they could have been canon, and though I have to appreciate receiving any new Loki content from Marvel, I wish a story like this would have been made into a miniseries.

- Story Tag on Author's Tumblr | @mareebird | Series on AO3 -

”Explain once more why you need me to tag along. This endeavor of yours, haven't you been at it long enough? Norway can’t possibly still hold any more secrets for you. I think it’s high time you gave up, Thor.”

Thor pretended not to hear that last part, as he adjusted his knapsack for what felt like the dozenth time since packing that morning. The wear and tear of the past year had taken its toll on everything. The straps had become prone to slipping free of their buckles. It was bothersome, but he had grown attached to the damned bag. It had been his constant travel companion and he kept his face impassive as he fixed it, perhaps so as not to hurt its feelings—inanimate objects were not always as inanimate as they seemed.

Moreover, Loki had a habit of misinterpreting everything he did, willfully at times, and that included a scowl directed at an unrelated thing.

“Brother, I want you to come,” he said. He did, whether or not Loki believed it. “Of course, I believe your talents will aid us in solving this mystery once and for all, but more than that… I think you might actually enjoy yourself."

A waver in his voice betrayed fear, fear that Loki, so filled with resentment over their ongoing detention in New York, would still find doing nothing preferable to the suggestion there was anything in Midgard worthy of his attention. With a mirthless laugh, Loki tilted back his head with renewed interest in the ceiling, as though it was far more compelling than Thor’s invitation. He took his time, lifting his chin as he traced the cracks, putting on a show.

This script of theirs had grown tiresome: he would extend the invitation and Loki would snidely decline; it was like a checkpoint before every departure.

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[bradypnoea]

Theology for Beginners | MissVioletHunter | (20/20) - 80.3k | Sep ‘13 - Mar ‘15

During the events of The Avengers, a woman finds herself in the hands of an arrogant god that she can't seem to comprehend.

Note: (In honour of the impending release of the Loki miniseries and my sceptical optimism for it, I'm highlighting a few canon-adjacent Loki works that can pass the time between new episodes or, if you're like me, distract from new content long enough to miss the first wave of inevitable Discourse.) For a handful of little reasons I hadn't the slightest interest in reading Loki works unless I was moderating for THF, and for the longest time TFB was the only exception. Theology for Beginners gently expands and extends the frantic 2012 Avengers tiemline to something comprehensive and realistic, and adjusts canon scenes to build relationships between the OFC Leah and existing characters. MissVioletHunter's deliberate effort to avoid rote novelisation of the film makes her plot more effective, and the work is made more impressive by knowing her first language is Spanish.

- Masterpost on Author's Tumblr | @missviolethunter - - Series on AO3 -

May 15. Stuttgart.

"What person can know for sure when his or her life is going to change? What wouldn't we give for the ability to manipulate our destiny, to go back to the moment of an apparent trivial choice in our lives and be able to choose the other option...?"

The woman's voice could be heard, loud and clear, by all the attendants in the meeting room. The international law firm Ulrich & Malcolm, in Stuttgart, owned a state of the art meeting room. To begin with, it was so big that the company always held the Christmas party there; if they wanted, they could have invited all the neighbours and they would still fit in comfortably. It had the acoustics of a concert hall, so no microphones were needed. Furthermore, it wasn't located on the top floor of the U&M building, like any other normal meeting room would be. Instead, it occupied a good part of the ground floor, and one of its sides was entirely composed of several huge french windows that opened towards the zen garden. Under Mr. Malcolm's orders, those windows were always open, so that anyone passing through the garden could hear and see everything in the room. The President of the firm was very proud of his open door policy, literal and figurative. What very few people realized is that, by virtue of this policy, he knew everything that was said and done by anyone on the company. He pretended to accept suggestions and ideas from his team, but he never acted on them. Everybody wasted their time exchanging ideas that would at some point be stolen by one of the senior partners, but the junior associates never complained. In time, some of them would be partners and it would be their turn to have the upper hand in the game.

There were a dozen partners and some junior lawyers and clerks in this particular meeting. The woman delivering the speech was the newest partner at U&M, and she was playing the game with considerable skill. In an short period of time she had been promoted from the Boston office to the London one, and finally to the head office in Germany. Mergers and Acquisitions, which meant swimming in a pool of sharks, but she was good at smelling blood in the water. Right now she was suggesting that the firm took an aggressive position in a merger between two banks. It was a big account and a bold movement, but, if everything went according to plan, by the end of the year she would be one the star attorneys of the firm.

"...and that is why I'm asking my fellow partners to approve my proposal and allow me to assemble a team to set the merger in motion", she finished.

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[bradypnoea]

Catherine and Henry | rocksaltandroll | (15/15) - 28k | July-November 2012

Kate is Tom’s Wardrobe Assistant on The Hollow Crown.Everything was going just fine until the Battle of Agincourt, and then Kate's life takes a huge turn. Whether that turn is for better or worse remains to be seen.

Note: When the first parts of C&H were posted on THF (roughly two months after the page had been established), it garnered such excitement that rocksaltandroll decided to build it into a full multi-chapter story. It finished as  one of the most well written novellas to be found in the early TH fandom. Its shorter length belies skilful tension-building without slowing pace even from the first words. I believe it remains their only TH work, though they have published to multiple fandoms since then. This was among the first works I followed as it updated, and I'm grateful they've kept it accesible on AO3 all this time.

-Author's Tumblr | @rocksaltandroll | View on THF -

When Tom Hiddleston stepped into his trailer it was as though Henry V himself had walked in fresh from the battle of Agincort, dressed in metal plate and ring mail, dull-gold crown atop of sweat-soaked hair, mud and fake blood spattered all over his face and armour. He looked exhausted and cold but I swear he’d never looked more attractive than he did now. I damn wished that I was Catherine of Valois, about to be wooed by the King of England but alas. I was just first wardrobe assistant on the Hollow Crown set.

I moved forward to take the battered and dirt-stained shield from him and he looked up from the floor and blinked at me slowly, as though he were trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing in his trailer. It took a second for recognition to register and I was awarded with a small smile and a murmured ‘thank you’. I smiled back as I set the shield aside and waited patiently as Tom removed the leather gloves from his hands. His icy fingers briefly brushed mine as he handed them to me and I felt a pang of sympathy as I watched him slowly flex each digit in turn. He had been outside since the crack of dawn in the cold winter sunshine, filming a gruelling battle scene. Leather gloves were all well and good for protecting your hands from biting reins and glancing blows, but they did nothing to keep in the warmth. I set them aside also and waited in silence for Tom to unbuckle his belt and hand me the sword and scabbard.

He let out a long, shaky sigh as I moved around to his right side and he automatically lifted his arm so I could get to the leather straps holding the armour together. I bit my lip as I loosened the buckle. This was unusual for Tom, the quiet. Usually he was full of chat and niceties, but today he was just standing there sombrely, staring at a fixed point on the wall ahead of him. I cleared my throat as the buckles came undone.

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[bradypnoea]

Whipstitch | kaasknot | (27/27) - 68.2k | June-July 2012

It dawned fair and clear, the day they sewed Loki's lips shut.

Note: (In honour of the impending release of the Loki miniseries and my sceptical optimism for it, I'm highlighting a few canon-adjacent Loki works that can pass the time between new episodes or, if you're like me, distract from new content long enough to miss the first wave of inevitable Discourse.) Whipstitch investigates a different avenue of consequences for Loki's failed invasion, both from Asgard and from Thanos. Most countries had Avengers playing in theatres by the first week of May 2012. Kaasknot had the sixty-eight thousand words of Whipstitch published before the end of July. To build a world accurate to Norse culture and mythology is an accomplishment in istelf; to integrate the Marvel infrastructure into an original storyline, in less than four months, is remarkable.

- Read on Author's Tumblr | @kaasknot -

It dawned fair and clear, the day they sewed Loki’s lips shut. Curiosity and ill-will made it into a spectacle: a prince of Odin, a traitor and genocidal megalomaniac, humbled before Hlidskjálf. It was the event not to be missed.

So it was the throne room was full to bursting as the Þing met to declare the prince’s fate. The crowd of onlookers overflowed the aisles, pouring out between the columns into the plaza beyond—a veritable sea of greedy eyes eager for a show. The prince came quietly enough, by all reports, and it was true: there was no mewling or cowering. He strode to meet his father with his head held high and no sign of fear upon his face.

Had he been better-liked this might have endeared him to his people. Had he the boisterous, effulgent disposition of his brother—but Loki had been distant before his crimes and subsequent disappearance, and now he was as untouchable as Ragnarök, and just as sinister. The look of the wild man hung about him, in the untamed length of his hair, in the wear showed upon his armor, in the fey gleam in his eye.

The people stared at him, then looked to Thor, Asgard’s Golden Son, and it was as looking from night to day.

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[bradypnoea]

Discrete | miraellie | 2 Works - 73.3k | Oct ‘12 -  Oct ‘13

It begins in a prison with a monster driven to madness. It ends in much the same way.

Note: (In honour of the impending release of the Loki miniseries and my sceptical optimism for it, I'm highlighting a few canon-adjacent Loki works that can pass the time between new episodes or, if you're like me, distract from new content long enough to miss the first wave of inevitable Discourse.) It's evident miraellie loves the character and the ancient myth of Sigyn by the care they've taken to depict her across multiple works and universes. The two installments of Discrete are particularly heartfelt and more than a little bit sentimental. In a surprisingly accurrate prediction of The Dark World, Descrete begins by examining Loki's trauma through his limited point of view, and its sequel Escape the Day pivots to examine Sigyn's determination to overcome her own. Between their uncertainty and distress we are treated to scenes of tendernesss and budding fidelity without slipping so far into fantasy as to betray the grief that forever defines Sigyn's legend.

- Author's Tumblr (Inactive) | @victorybringer - - Series on AO3 | Author's Page on FF.net -

He sees her when he returns to Asgard.

It’s only a few fleeting moments as Thor and some guards take him to his dungeon cell but she’s there, she truly is, standing by a window, her black hair pulled away from her face, so different from how he’d seen it before where it was long and free for him to run his fingers through and she’s so close all he’d have to do is break away from his brother and the guards and reach for her hand, and her name is on the tip of his tongue but the muzzle cuts into his skin as he tries to open his mouth to speak, to whisper her name, to get her to just look at him--

But she doesn’t because her gaze is drawn towards an Einherji who takes up all her attention and he’s slowly, clumsily brushing a strand of hair behind her ear and she shifts away from him, doing it herself and saying something Loki can’t hear and he’ll kill this damn Einherji, how dare he, how dare he touch her like that--

Her focus shifts and finds his gaze and the world stops because she's looking at him and every single vision the Tesseract showed him comes back to him, both of them by the fire and under the night sky and watching two boys laughing as they run through a field of flowers while she holds his hand and leans up to kiss him and--

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[bradypnoea]

Of Different Emotions | WanderingWorldWarrior | 3 Works - 317k | Mar ‘17 - Apr ‘21

As a warrior, you are no stranger to battle and blood. It is all you are made for, and all you want to be. Foreign to the realm of Asgard, your goal upon arrival was to conquer your enemies. You did not come to meet a prince, especially one as narcissistic and duplicitous as Loki Odinson. You did not ask for anything that came thereafter. Yet here you are.

Note: (In honour of the impending release of the Loki miniseries and my sceptical optimism for it, I'm highlighting a few canon-adjacent Loki works that can pass the time between new episodes or, if you're like me, distract from new content long enough to miss the first wave of inevitable Discourse.) ODE feels close to an original science fiction work without losing familiar Marvel aspects. WanderingWorldWarrior utilises the second person point of view throughout the trilogy and to great effect; Softer Emotions begins by introducing tension among the realms, hostility among Odin's family, and then drops you into a battlefield to fight for your life. Each of the installments uses its 100k words to develop characters and conflicts so fully that consequences truly feel irreversible. This is handled beautifully in ODE's second and third entries, which parallel MCU events with original plots which both conclude with poignant ramifications.

- Author's Tumblr | @wanderingworldwarrior -  - Series on AO3 -

Odin Allfather is a terror to behold in his rage. His council flinches before him, the messenger that delivered the terrible news ducking his head and backing away respectfully so as not to catch the god’s unintended wrath.

“This slight shall not be ignored,” Odin growls, rising from his grand chair and almost upsetting the table in the process.

Static crackles audibly in the air, tensions rising with the physical sensation tingling on their skin.

“We should attempt to reason with them,” one of the council men pipes up quickly.

It is well known that whoever’s advice the king takes becomes heralded as a hero among the nobles of Asgard.

“No,” another man butts in, frowning. “We should use this against the barbarians. Perhaps one of the Ordinat can be leveraged to give us information.”

“That’s absurd!” a third says, rolling his eyes. “If the organization has revoked their deal with us, they are our enemies now!”

Odin’s eldest, Prince Thor Odinson, rises from the table with a grim scowl on his face. “Send me, Father. My warriors and I can make this right.”

A dark chuckle sounds from the other side of the table. The men of the council shudder in their tunics, shooting unfavorable glances at the younger prince.

“You find this statement humorous, brother?” Thor asks while Odin glowers at the table top with his one good eye.

Loki Odinson laughs again, finally gracing his brother with a cold, green stare. “You think your blundering band of boars can do anything to help this? There are situations that can't be settled with blood, you know.”.

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[bradypnoea]

Stjarnavetr - Part 1 | renlem | (51/51) - 296k | January-December 2015

Stjarnavetr has been exiled from her home realm of Vanaheim and has come to Asgard by the mercy of Odin Allfather and Queen Frigga. She is entrusted by Queen Frigga to further instruct the youngest prince, Loki, in seidr, the magic of the Vanir. Stjarnavetr tries her best to deal successfully with the arrogant and impetuous prince of Asgard, while Loki tries to coax from his new seidr tutor the dark secret of why she was exiled from Vanaheim. In the process, the two come to find solace in each other’s company and Stjarnavetr must confront her feelings about Loki and the horrors of her past.

Note: (In honour of the impending release of the Loki miniseries and my sceptical optimism for it, I'm highlighting a few canon-adjacent Loki works that can pass the time between new episodes or, if you're like me, distract from new content long enough to miss the first wave of inevitable Discourse.) I think I happened upon Stjarna's 11 installments as I was poking around in other people’s AO3 bookmarks in May 2020, looking for something to occupy the nebulous quarantine days. I didn’t even notice that its publishing run spanned almost five years until I had reached the handful of One Shots that separate the two major parts. Comprising a word count around 622k, Renlem has made the Stjarnavetr series an immmersive experience that hits hard on darker facets of Aesir noble society. Fingers crossed they’ll be able to finish Part 2 soon.

- Masterpost on Author's Tumblr | @renlem - - Series on AO3 -

I had come to Asgard when the youngest prince was not yet five hundred years old, but in appearance a grown man already. I might never have made acquaintance with him had it not been for Frigga, Odin Allfather’s wife and queen. She entrusted him to me with a special task in mind when I had come as an exile from my home of Vanaheim.

I had been brought before her during my third week in Asgard as her newest handmaiden. I still remember it so very well; we had been in her receiving chamber and she had bade me rise after I had knelt before her. She smiled at me and I thought how beautiful she was, how regal.

She gestured towards her fireplace. Two chairs were set before it with an intricately carved table between. There were a few books lying there, along with a tray and some cups that a servant had brought earlier. She sat in one of the cushioned chairs and motioned for me to sit as well.

I gingerly sat down, dreading any pain that I might feel. I had been in much pain as of late, but thankfully I could move about now without much trouble. Once I was comfortable, she offered me some wine, which I politely took.

“I am most pleased you are here,” she said kindly.

“As am I,” I replied, lifting the cup to my mouth to take a sip of wine. It was by her and Odin Allfather’s mercy—and pity—that I had been allowed to come here.

“Are you healing well, Stjarnavetr?” she asked, inclining her head towards me.

“Yes. Eir assures me that I will be fully healed within the week, though there will always be… scarring. But she has been able to nearly restore me. Asgard’s healers are truly miraculous, Your Majesty.”

Queen Frigga smiled. “I am very glad. You were in quite a state when you came.”

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