X Never Marks the Spot

gnine came up with a thought last night that I had to fic, as it fixes the biggest problem I had with Thor:TDW. This is about the closest I've come to writing MCU!Odin in character. I usually like to take a bit from Norse myth and have Odin be as conniving and clever as his second son. But really, this is even more fun, and will be my headcanon since it's unlikely it will ever actually be jossed...

The Sincerest Form (2578 words) by Xparrot
Fandom: Thor: The Dark World - Fandom
General Audiences/Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Frigga/Odin (Marvel), Frigga & Loki (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Post-Thor: The Dark World, Imprisonment, Parenthood, Fix-it

Loki is not the only trickster in the family.

--

Despite the general fandom disillusionment, the household has continued to watch Agents of SHIELD, and the last couple eps have been fun. Not sure I'd recommend it to anyone who dropped it, as it hasn't really resolved most of the problems it started off with (the cast is still too white and too young and too shallow); but it's becoming the team show I wanted it to be, and I'm hoping it will continue. If it keeps up like this, it may be able to fill the hole that Warehouse 13 is going to leave in my fangirl heart when it ends next year. The last couple eps of AoS have had team worry and lots of Fitz-Simmons and Coulson-May ambiguous co-dependency, much to enjoy...

If not as much as I'm enjoying this season of Arrow! Hands down the show I'm looking forward to the most on the weekly roster. I still need to do that pimp post. It's not a perfect show, but it is some damn fine TV, and any fan of superheroes handled dramatically ought to be watching, because they do things right that I've never seen pulled off before. And tomorrow's ep looks to feature a lot of Diggle (and I may hope, lots of Diggle/Oliver slashiness)...

So there is a lot of new TV on right now! And I am watching all of it! (it feels like...this is too many shows for me, really, I'm hitting my televised fiction saturation point. But I don't want to drop any of them, not yet! Stop being so watchable, TV!)

Roughly in order of most-looking-forward-to to least, expect spoilers for all:

Elementary - okay no spoilers here, still loving it - premiere was a little slow but Joan Watson is amaaaaaazing, love JLM's Sherlock, that is all! <333

Once Upon a Time - ( Spoilers for OUaT 3x01 )

Sleepy Hollow - yeah, yeah, I've jumped on this bandwagon (or rather was dragged on it - usually I wait until a show has aired at least half a season before watching, but came back from vacation and housemate had watched the pilot 3 times and insisted it be added to the weekly roster, so!) ( Sleepy Hollow 1x01-1x02 spoilers )

Person of Interest - don't have much to say, but ( spoilers for POI 3x01 )

Agents of SHIELD - which I'm mainly counting on to keep me distracted from Thor 2 long enough to, y'know, breathe...fanning on a movie franchise is SO STRESSFUL, especially when the next movie is most definitely going to smash all my headcanons (and 150K words of fic omg why) to tiny shards...(Lokiiiii~~~) ( Spoilers for SHIELD 1x01 )

Legend of Korra - my rant here got long so I'm going to make it a separate post. But yeah, it's on the bottom of the list for a reason, siiiigh...

Series' end. And.

SPOILERS (do not read unless you've read it. I mean it, really, it's better not knowing...)

But I would just like to say, to everyone I got into this series...

( I say again, spoooooilers )

(In non-spoilery news, this issue also included a letter from Tom Hiddleston to Kieron Gillen, waah!:

Dear Kieron,
You and I see Loki the same way. He's one dark, anarchic, bottomless black hole of rage, hatred, pity and pain. An exiled outcast, a lost & lonely agent of chaos, who wouldn't know what to do with familial forgiveness if it walked up to him in the street and slapped him in the face. I've had as much fun playing him as you've clearly had writing him. I know your run of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY has been so hugely popular. What an enormous honour to share Loki's legacy with you. Here's to bringing Norse back!
--Tom Hiddleston

ETA: A follow-up thought from gnine...

Any fanartists out there into Marvel? marvel_bang is taking claims for stories now! (that I have a story in the big bang as so far yet unclaimed has nothing to do with this rec. Really. ._.)

Meanwhile the ongoing struggle with my Loki feels continues apace, have posted a few more chapters, with the latest one having one of my favorite moments in the story (if anyone ever wondered if I outgrew my love of smarm - no. No I have not.)

No Such Liberty (47,734 words) by Xparrot
Chapter 9-12
Loki slept peacefully for the day and the night and late into the next day; past noon he at last awoke, screaming.

Chapter 8 is a turning point originally intended to be at the halfway mark. As it's working out it's a little-less-than-a-quarter, though the general structure of the story still stands. (Good grief this is absurdly long; I have my doubts that anyone will actually read it to the end. I'd be more sorry if I didn't actually really like the story, with most of my favorite stuff what's coming up next. It's what I want - and what else is the point of fanfic, if not blatant self-indulgence?)

No Such Liberty (32,614 words) by Xparrot
Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8
In which Thor should know better.

Just posted chapter 4, for which gnine did awesome fanart, check it out!



Tumblr | Deviantart

...Meanwhile the fic itself is still not completed, but the first draft having broken 90K words it is now officially the longest single fic I have ever written...(and I would say that there is not even any smut to pad it, but honestly, though it's gen as far as 'shipping goes, the later bits are basically solid emo-porn. So.)

No Such Liberty (15357 words) by Xparrot
Chapters: 4/?
Fandom: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Gen | Teen And Up Audiences
Characters: Thor (Marvel), Loki (Marvel), Odin (Marvel), Frigga (Marvel), Sif (Marvel), Warriors Three, Original Characters
Summary: Thor takes Loki back to Asgard in chains, but this does not mean that Loki's schemes are ended, or that Thor has or ever will give up on his brother.

[So gnine and I rewatched The Avengers and had a long conversation about what Loki was actually doing, and gnine (as is her wont, Smallville fans may recall) figured it all out!]

Whether Loki is the villain you love or the villain you love to hate (or just hate), there are two things about him that nearly everyone seems to agree on. One, Tom Hiddleston makes an awesomely compelling supervillain; and two, Loki's apparent masterplan in The Avengers makes no damn sense.

( So here's a plan that does! [Detailed spoilers for the Avengers, on the off-chance you haven't seen it yet.] )

Came up with this yesterday mowing the lawn, and while it's not my personal headcanon, in some ways it makes so much sense. A touch of potential Loki redemptionista amidst Avengers team banter (which I now want to do more of because man they are adorable!)

Majority Rule (2430 words) by Xparrot
Fandom: The Avengers (2012)
Gen | General Audiences
Characters: Tony Stark, Thor (Marvel), Other Avengers, Loki (Marvel)
Summary: Tony learns something that changes his perspective on the Asgardians of his acquaintance.

So I've had this idea for a bit now of how Journey into Mystery is going to end, inspired by what little Kieron Gillen et al have said about the upcoming "Everything Burns" storyline. There are no actual spoilers here, just pure speculation based on little more than the title; but I am about 50% sure this is pretty much how it’s going to happen. …And this is the happy ending. The other 50% is worse. Agggggh. ;_; (Okay, really I'm hoping that if I focus on worst-case scenarios, then whatever actually happens won't be as bad and my poor wee fangirl heart won't be entirely shattered. Since heartbreak seems to be one of the inevitable downsides of being a comics fan...)

Done and Gone (1078 words) by Xparrot
Fandom: Journey into Mystery, Thor (Comics)
Gen / Teen And Up Audiences / Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Ikol, Thor (Marvel)

Asgardia was on fire.
How it shouldn’t end (but probably is going to.)

So, ummm, yeah...you might've seen this coming. In my defense, I say, Loki. (Also brothers. And Loki. And mythological superheroes and superheroic mythology. And Loki. Did I mention Loki?)

In this case, kid!Loki, because naturally if I'm going to write Avengers fic it's going to be for the tiny side-fandom no one actually reads in :P That being said, I really like this one; it was one of those stories where partway through everything fell into place, the pieces coming together into a picture I hadn't seen properly myself until it was assembled. This is why I love writing.

Minimal spoilers for the first volume or so of Journey into Mystery.

Walking in Shadows (16341 words) by Xparrot
Fandom: Journey into Mystery, Thor (Comics)
Gen/Teen and Up Audiences
Characters: Lok, Sif, Thor, Warriors Three
Summary: When Thor is abducted by a mysterious foe, Sif and the Warriors Three go to the rescue, with the help of Thor's now much-younger brother. But how far can you trust even a child trickster?