You know the feeling, right?
You're standing by the window in the morning, a fresh breeze is tousling your hair, birds are singing somewhere in the distance, golden sunlight is dancing on the walls, nothing hurts, nothing aches, nothing is even bulging out in the wrong places, and your heart is just filled with peace and grace…
Well, I had exactly that. Just with one teensy-weensy little clarification.
With every passing second, it was becoming increasingly clear that I hate Asgard.
The problem wasn't even Asgard itself. The problem was that I had landed… I had landed inside Loki.
And even that wouldn't have been a catastrophic issue if Loki himself had actually behaved like a god. I mean… a GOD! The actual God of Lies! Of Intrigue! Of MAGIC! Which is what he officially is on paper.
You'd think he would have just gutted my memories, sorted them onto shelves, weighed them, measured them, and then either swallowed me like a glazed donut or tossed me the hell out into the afterlife.
I know that happens; I've read the stories. But no, Loki didn't do that. Loki did absolutely nothing. Probably… I don't know. Or rather, I don't remember.
However it happened, when my consciousness surfaced from the void, Loki was already gone. It was just me in this body. No God of Mischief in sight.
On its own, that might have been manageable. It would have offered plenty of opportunities, trying to figure out where I am, whose body this is, why this helmet needs such massive horns… you know, the touching moments of self-identification in a new world and a new organism, complete with all the requisite stages like shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
But alas, no one was that merciful. The previous owner's memory was available to me, fully and completely, right from the start. It felt just as accessible as my own.
This gave me carte blanche for the shock and depression part, but it left absolutely zero chance for blissful ignorance, hope, or stalling for time.
And even that wouldn't have been so critical if I could actually think of myself as Loki, or at least suspect that I might be him, you know, the whole "memories of a past life returning" trope. But a bummer awaited me there, too.
I could feel exactly where my memories ended and Loki's began. I didn't associate myself with him for a single second.
So, for the last few hours, I've been exploring the depths of the term "totally screwed" via personal experience…
Three words: Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Yes.
It was her.
It was enough to see my face in the mirror to cast aside the last doubts, but even without that, based on my predecessor's memories, this was definitely it. The pitch black… deep… ass-end of the multiverse.
The most idiotic reality of all possible Marvel variants. Realism multiplied by moronism and raised to the power of the screenwriters' creative bankruptcy.
I was ready to make peace with a black Nick Fury. I was ready to forgive this world for a black Mary Jane Watson. I didn't even give a damn about "Aunt May" being played by a lady "slightly over thirty" and "actively dating."
I could even turn a blind eye to the electromagnet for shrapnel in a chest powered by a cold fusion reactor, without which said shrapnel "unstoppably" moves toward the heart… through something… I don't know how local alcoholic playboys are built; maybe that is how it works in their bodies.
Maybe the shrapnel enters the body and just beelines for the heart, threatening nothing else, only "winning the game" when it "captures the base."
Hell, I'd even believe that radiation sickness from prolonged contact with a radioactive element would completely and instantly vanish just because someone shoved another battery made of a different radioactive element into the guy.
After all, we're talking about an American alcoholic playboy with shrapnel migrating toward his heart.
God knows, I am ready to put up with a wide spectrum of nonsense and professional incompetence coupled with pandering to societal trends, but the Infinity Stones…
The Stones, Carl!
Several multi-colored hunks of glass endowed with phenomenal and invincible cosmic power… which literally every dog in this godforsaken universe knows about.
Yet, in this entire universe, there was only one enterprising "bad guy" who took actual steps to collect them.
The writers had so many options for a global, terrifying threat… They had Galactus, they had Apocalypse, the Skrull Empire, the Kree Empire, the Phalanx, the Phoenix, the Form-Master… and about fifty other guys of similar caliber.
But who did they choose for the role of Arch-Enemy? Some pathetic, loser Titan with three brain cells, and even those were located on his chin.
Tremble, mortals! Thanos in a bedazzled glove is the threat to the entire Universe!
And now I'm in this… this. Up to my neck.
The timeline dictates that in a few years, this purple, asexual, bald, mutant dwarf will finally collect all his jewelry for his little bracelet and make the whole universe laugh.
And the main thing is: it doesn't matter how far I am from the events.
According to the conditions of the problem, I could get dusted even on the other side of the galaxy if that nonentity snaps his fingers.
My joy at these prospects was, understandably, overflowing. But my current surroundings offered plenty of other reasons to laugh, hysterically.
First off, I was Loki. And this was bad. Not just because all of Asgard considered this "worthy individual" to be, to put it mildly, a less-than-decent gentleman. No, the trouble was that he was listed as the son of Odin and Frigga.
I can feel however I want about these individuals and the gods of Asgard in this reality, but I understand one fact with absolute clarity: those two will bust me in a moment.
I repeat: I do not feel like Loki. I mean, the old Loki. I've made peace with the fact that I'm in his body and this is my name now, but I am not him.
We have different characters, different priorities, and a completely different view of the world. I don't give a damn about the throne of Asgard, I don't give a damn about Thor, and I absolutely don't give a damn about his parents.
But the guy whose spot I took?
For him, it was the exact opposite.
That inconsistency will be noticed by anyone who knows the old Loki well. And that's pretty much everyone here.
Asgardians live for thousands of years; life here moves very slowly and changes even less.
Every facial expression, gesture, and non-verbal signal of a neighbor is memorized by heart over that time, even by the dullest idiots.
So, I cannot get caught by Odin or Frigga. Not if I want my life to be anything other than "very eventful but very short."
I don't believe in the kindness of this honorary "Allfather of the Year" for a single penny. If he turned his biological son into a mere mortal and kicked him to Earth without food, water, or a livelihood, and sentenced his adopted son to death in front of all Asgard... then what will he do to an other-worldly body snatcher? I really don't want to test that on my own skin.
Especially considering his face looks exactly like Hannibal Lecter, just slightly retouched with a respectable beard and an eyepatch.
Luckily, the old Loki had shielded his chambers well against the gazes of any Heimdalls or Odins who might be capable of seeing and hearing through walls, distances, and realm boundaries.
Otherwise, the situation would already be critical.
I also knew the methods for passive self-concealment, thank you, muscle memory, and I applied them the moment I figured out what happened.
But that didn't cancel out the main difficulty. I needed to leave Asgard immediately.
The problem was… I simply didn't know where to go.
Screw the Bifrost. Loki knew how to walk between worlds via the shadow paths. I'd already verified that I could sense several nearby entrances, the ones the God of Mischief used most often.
But the question remained: "Where?"
The realms closest to Asgard weren't suitable, even though I knew them decent enough thanks to my inherited memories. Earth? It could work, but a total shitshow was about to kick off there, and I had zero desire to participate.
I didn't know the exact date, but Thor's coronation, the event that started everything in the first movie, was already scheduled and coming up fast.
Loki was already furious about it and had already resolved to sabotage the event by sneaking Frost Giants into Asgard.
Well, at least he'd only resolved to do it, not actually done it yet. Small mercies.
Still, this meant that on Earth, Iron Man and the 21st century were already in full swing. Which meant the "Avengers Initiative," Hydra, the Chitauri invasion, and all that other garbage were right around the corner.
No, I wasn't scared to get involved.
What kind of fear can you really have when you wake up in the body of a God, retaining no memory of how you died but, based on symmetry and logic, strongly suspecting you definitely kicked the bucket in your past life?
I had literally learned through practice that existence doesn't end with death.
Besides, the locals didn't just believe in Valhalla; they knew for a fact it existed. So, the squabbles of local humans didn't frighten me, especially with Loki's powers and skills at my disposal.
I just didn't want to get involved. I saw no incentive for myself. Like, at all. This world didn't even have any cute girls worth strutting my stuff to save… or whatever heroes do.
Natalie Portman was a total doll when she played Padmé in the first Star Wars prequel, but she'd grown up since then.
The makeup stopped highlighting her natural beauty and turned into a tool to preserve it on camera. That's not something worth busting my ass and risking my neck for.
Gwyneth Paltrow… look at that, I remember the name of the actress who played Iron Man's assistant. Loki's brain is a useful thing. Anyway, Gwyneth Paltrow… maybe she looked okay in a couple of shots, but otherwise? A plain, gray mouse.
Scarlett Johansson, aka Black Widow… kill it with fire.
Just burn it. Not only does she have the same issues as the previous ones, if not worse, since her resting bitch face demands a boot to the face for ninety percent of her screen time, but she sold her motherland to the damn Yanks.
And if we're talking purely about the character, she really needs to be dropped into a vat of acid, if only to cleanse the human gene pool.
Oh right, there's also Sif, the heroic warrior maiden and Thor's buddy.
Here, I feel the urge to scream at the female half of Hollywood's casting directors: When will you idiots learn to remove moles from faces?
Or at least cover them up when you're playing representatives of perfect, "high" races like gods, elves, or superhumans?
You know, beings whose lore implies physical perfection and an absence of primitive skin defects?
Do you have any idea how jarring it is when, on one hand, you know for a fact that the Aesir are gods who don't suffer from mundane diseases, who are gifted with physical perfection, free of genetic errors, tumors, age spots, pimples, or warts… and then you see a mole on a purebred Asgardian's face? It's supposed to be normal.
Nobody else is bothered by it. But you suddenly notice it and get hit with massive cognitive dissonance.
Worse, there are plenty of Aesir like that in Loki's memories, but nobody cares. Because the director and makeup artists are morons who created a moronic reality.
Oh, and Sif is a first-class feminist. A literal icon of the movement, if the movement even knew she existed.
And you know what the vilest thing about the local women is? It's that every single one I listed, and two dozen more off-screen, are those damn "Strong Independent Women."
Not the ones who are actually strong and independent, but the ones who scream about it every minute of screen time.
Other types only flicker in the background, usually ugly ones. The ones shoved in our faces in this cursed, degenerative universe aren't women you want to love.
They are women you want to pick up… not in bed, but just in your hands… and throw out a window! Because screw that! They are nothing but trouble.
At work, as friends, in a family: they are always a source of problems and frayed nerves. To hell with them. Just… to hell with them!
Of course, I feel like I'm going slightly off the rails trying to analyze real people based on movie images, but the problem is that Loki's entire memory backs me up.
I happened to rewatch the Thor movies not too long ago, and goddammit, everything matches. Down to the smallest detail! And that is, no joke, terrifying.
I hate Asgard. I hate this universe. I hate the Marvel filmmakers!
….
If this gets a good enough response and makes it into the rankings, I'll give you guys more chapters. Either way, more chapters are coming.