Two days ago, I had a long post about Loki all drafted in my head. Now, hours before I’m supposed to send this week’s newsletter, my head is empty and I’m sleepy af, and I don’t even know why since it’s only like 10:30pm. So I’m just going to do this in point form, and only the bits I sort of remember only because I’ve ranted to a few friends on WhatsApp and can basically plagiarise myself.

• I really really like this series for what it is - basically, a set up for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and Spider-Man: No Way Home (I hope the title is a lie and Tom Holland Spidey does find his way home, if it’s about him, but if Miles appears from another dimension I want him to be stuck in the MCU, obviously.) 


• KANG THE CONQUEROR. JONATHAN MAJORS. See, Kang is a pretty boring villain, but he’s also a very very annoying one to me because there are like infinite numbers of Kangs and he always travels in time to ensure he wins. He’s boring because he’s… boring. Like, serious and humourless. I was excited when Jonathan Majors got cast as him because I thought he would give Kang a gravitas that feels godlike rather than dull, y’know? But instead we got a TOTALLY UNEXPECTED version of Kang, and I. Love. It. (Also, okay, one can argue that he’s probably He Who Remains and not Kang in this series, but they’re the same person so I’m gonna call him Kang ok.)


• Marvel really showed their hand at how reluctant they are to give us queer representation. In June, they celebrate Pride Month by throwing us tidbits like a single line in a document confirming that Loki is genderfluid, and a single line uttered by Loki that confirms his bisexuality. Fans were rejoicing because we get a confirmed genderfluid bi Loki finally. And then… the moment July rolls around, and we had only a couple of episodes left to go, they introduced a romantic subplot between Loki and Sylvie out of nowhere, despite the fact that he definitely had more chemistry with Mobius, AND Loki never shifts into Lady Loki ever, AND Sylvie is the only female Loki which is pretty fucked up and also weird if they’re genderfluid? You’re telling me that among ALL THE AMAB LOKIS, not a single one decides to shift between genders or live mainly as Lady Loki? That’s… not right, and definitely not comics accurate. (Don’t y’all just hate it when I start ranting about comics accuracy, lol. But when the comics aren’t the greatest when it comes to rep, and the live action is somehow even worse, it needs to be said.)


• Okay, let’s discuss Loki’s bisexuality. Is it wrong for a bi person to fall for someone of the opposite sex? NO. Is it problematic to be mad at a bi person in a het-passing relationship? YES. Am I still mad? Heck yes. This is not because Loki’s bisexuality is not valid, but because unfortunately we live in a stupid heteronormative world and giving Loki a female love interest doesn’t feel like an “I see you” nod at bi people, it feels like a way to let cishet viewers forget about his supposed queerness. It feels like when these same people say, “well, if you’re bi, you can just choose to date the opposite sex exclusively then, what’s the problem?” There are ways to make bi m/f relationships work while keeping the story still very queer - like in VERONA COMICS by Jennifer Dugan. I’m not saying that Loki ought to have “am I really queer” crises or that his past loves need to be drudged up, but… bi people are bi, y’know? They aren’t straight people in disguise. And this Loki, outside of that one sentence he uttered, comes across as not just hella straight, but also rather cis to me. (Sylvie does give me queer-but-still-cis vibes though.) [Rereading this I guess my problem is not so much that his love interest is a woman, it’s that besides that one line he is never portrayed as particularly queer at all.] Oh and those interviews where the writers/showrunners/etc mention that Loki will have a male and female love interest? THIS IS SUCH A COP OUT, or straight out trolling. 


• Loki and Sylvie. They are the SAME PERSON from different timelines. This means they have the SAME DNA. They are basically twins. So… it does make sense in a twisted way that the person Loki falls for is himself, but at the same time, this Loki is supposed to be experiencing GROWTH and CHANGE (one of the big themes of this series is what it means to be Loki and can that be changed), and leaning into his narcissism is not growth. And it should be possible for men and women to care for each other without it being romantic. Also, this just says to me that Disney+/Marvel would much rather show us what is basically incest than a consensual m/m or f/f relationship. That is an actual statement that Disney is making with this decision, and I just can’t brain this.

• Loki’s gender fluidity… is not only never really shown in this series, if you think about the MCU as a whole, he has only ever shifted into female forms as a joke. This does not sit well with me. AND! AND! It wasn’t made clear but it feels like Sylvie’s nexus event seems to be… being born female? Which is such a bizarre thing to cause a nexus event for a character who is GENDERFLUID anyway, not to mention wtf is this gender essentialist bullshit. I cannot.


• Not a Loki point, but I had joked to some friends before that Marvel might make Hulkling female or presenting himself in a female form most of the time (since he’s a shapeshifter) so that his relationship with Billy will be straight-passing. It was a joke, but now it feels like it might actually happen… if they give us Hulkling at all.


• Sylvie as a Lady Loki. I don’t know, I love Sylvie, but why does she, the only female Loki (apparently), is also the Loki who suffers the most, and has to make all the big self-sacrificing decisions? In the end, her final decision (tricking Hiddleston Loki, choosing free will and chaos over controlled order) does feel more Loki-like than the character we’ve all come to see as Loki Prime. 


• Which brings us to a point I didn’t think about until reading this post from Tordotcom, which asks - why was it that the two Lokis, given two choices and two choices only, did not come up with a completely different choice? The article frames it as an out-of-character moment, but the more I think about it myself, the more I feel like Hiddleston Loki was trying to think of a third option, but he was too slow/too distracted with trying to stop Sylvie. Wanting to “talk about it for a bit” with Sylvie seemed to indicate that he wanted to discuss about whether those really are their only options, to me. Because otherwise he could’ve just said that they shouldn’t kill Kang and leave it at that. But the series doesn’t really make it clear, so I guess it’s up to interpretation.


• The other Lokis did not get enough screen time at all which is such a shame because they are all excellent. I can only hope that Sylvie freeing the timeline means that Classic Loki still exists somewhere because Richard E. Grant is a magnificent Loki and also can Joanna Lumley be a Loki, one day? Maybe? I want Kid Loki back. I want President Loki back. I want Lokigator back. 
I want MORE LADY LOKIS.

• Luckily, there will be a second season!

• I feel like I ought to have Black Widow thoughts but… I don’t, not really. It’s a really fun movie and Yelena is now up there with Carol and Hope among my fave MCU women.
• I start working again next Monday, so I don’t know if the newsletters will continue to be weekly. We shall see. I’m sad that I probably won’t finish playing
• I was watching a video about Dark Academia the other day that made me rant a lot to some friends. I had thought of writing something more coherent about it in this newsletter, but obviously (judging from my Loki rants) I have lost my ability to be coherent today.
• I can’t believe I start work in two days and I’ve only finished reading ONE BOOK this month so far. And that book is less than 200 pages long, haha. I guess I am in a slump again? Maybe?
• STAY SAFE!