How to Respectfully Talk about Adoption with Your Adopted Child

Adoptive parents are encouraged to talk freely and honestly about adoption from the time their child is very young so that there is never a time in the child’s life when this information comes as shocking news.  

It shouldn’t be a “challenging event that occurs once.” Because if you keep this information from your child until they’re older, it’ll be harder for them to believe their adoption was a positive thing.

Waiting until adolescence to reveal a child’s adoption to him or her is not recommended. “Disclosure at that time can be devastating to children’s self-esteem, and to their faith in their parents.”

Don’t refer to birth parents as “choosing not to keep” their child. This implies to a child who was adopted that he was “not worth keeping.” Don’t refer to a child as being “put up” or “given up” for adoption. The child needs to know that it wasn’t their fault that their birth parents could not take care of them at the time

and that other adults are looking out for their best interests.

Do Treat siblings who joined families by birth or adoption equally. Don’t Distinguish between children who were adopted into the family and children who were born into the family unless it’s relevant.  

Don’t Ignore a child’s birth country, race, or genetic heritage. Especially in communities where there is limited ethnic diversity, children from racial or ethnic minorities need family and physician support to overcome racism and develop a strong, positive racial identity.

It’s important to examine your beliefs and attitudes about race and ethnicity before adopting a child of another race or culture. Try to think whether you have made any assumptions about people because of their race or ethnic group.

Don’t talk about how lucky your child is to be adopted.

In Other Words: Do Not Act Like Odin!

Sources:

[1] Respectful Ways to Talk about Adoption: A List of Do’s & Dont’s

[2] Adopting a Child of a Different Race

[3] How to Tell Your Child They’re Adopted

[4] When Should We Tell Our Child That He Was Adopted?

buckle up lads bc I’m awake and I’m fuckin mad

so, if you’ve spent 0.0003 seconds in the loki tag, I’m sure you’ve seen thousands of comments about him being an overdramatic diva who has a penchant for making mountains out of molehills. taika himself even described loki as “someone who tries so hard to embody this idea of the tortured artist, this tortured, gothy orphan.”

excuse me, what the fuck?

loki isn’t just some rawr xd theatre kid who’s mad at odin for taking away his club penguin subscription. loki was abused, and I’m frankly sick and fucking tired of people trying to downplay or just straight up gloss over that.

in thor 1, we see that loki has been emotionally and psychologically manipulated. he was told his entire life to despise the very realm that odin had stolen him from. the second he discovers what he is, he realises that he and thor never have been (and will never be) equal in the eyes of the man he once loved and called father.

at the end of that movie, loki feels so abandoned, so alone and hated and ostracised, that he attempts suicide. he is then caught, tortured and mind controlled by thanos, forced into leading an invasion he wanted no real part in, and then is dragged back to asgard where he is told by his abuser that he would have been better off dying as a child surrounded by the corpses of his would-be subjects.

loki is told that the only reason odin isn’t going to slaughter him is because of his mother. when she later dies, he is deliberately excluded from her funeral and has his only chance to say a proper farewell snatched away from him. he is left in a prison cell to slowly be driven and by his own grief and guilt, and this time he has no visitors to distract him from these thoughts.

when thor says “I wish I could trust you”, that’s a direct jab at loki. that’s an attempt to get him to soften and say that it’s okay, he’s forgiven everything that’s been done to him in the past. but loki isn’t stupid. his “ trust my rage” is a warning, a reminder that he is furious at thor, odin and everyone else who turned a blind eye to his torment. the anger is burning him alive from the inside out, and the memory of frigga is the only thing keeping him from striking a match and razing the whole wretched realm down to the ground.

I don’t care that taika put in a single line of odin saying he loves loki. that changes absolutely nothing of what I’ve said above. the cat can whisper the sweetest of praises to the mouse trapped under its paw, but empty words will do nothing to dull the sting of its claws as they sink in.

loki is allowed to be angry. he’s allowed to be upset. he’s allowed to be hurt. he’s allowed to reject an out of character deathbed apology that came more from moral obligation than genuine feelings.

say it with me folks: loki does not have to feign forgiveness for the comfort of others, least of all people like odin who were direct contributors to his suffering.

Thank you SO MUCH for this!!!

Good, good. Glad we’re keeping up the trend where Thor keeps idolizing and adoring his totally great, not at all abusive father even after seeing a fucking mural of his horribleness. Real fucking glad. He’s defo who Thor should be reflecting on losing in this trying time (or turning to to muster strength) -_- The guy who bears a significant portion of the blame for Thor’s home being destroyed and the numerous deaths that came from that. Oh, right, I forgot we’re supposed to blame Loki for that more than Odin. 

All of this and your tags @foundlingmother !

Your tags say it all.

I’m habitually a reblogger; it’s been a while since I created my own post. But I’ve been thinking about various Loki/Tom topics that I don’t recall ever seeing addressed on Tumblr, so I figured, why not put them out there?

Now, the following is not Earth-shattering news; it’s just an observation or two I thought might be of interest to Loki stans.

Loki’s Fighting Prowess

It’s easy to underestimate Loki’s physical fighting skills because his magic skills often take precedence, and because he’s often fighting beside (or against) his brawnier brother. But take a close look at the following gif from The Dark World (note: gifs are not mine; just found them online):

How many hits did Loki just land with his knives on the dark elf in this 1.5-second gif?

Three. Lightening fast, right, left, right, all in the chest. It’s so fast and his movements are so tightly controlled that they hardly register.

Loki’s uncanny speed is also evidenced in this famous gif from The Avengers:

Loki’s obviously superhumanly fast. But he’s also superhumanly strong. Again, we forget about this because Thor. But let’s review the evidence.

Loki’s fight with Captain America in The Avengers:

No offense to Cap, but Loki was wiping the floor with the super soldier until Iron Man arrived, whereupon Loki immediately surrendered, for reasons of his own.

Loki is a Jotun, a Frost Giant, raised as an Asgardian. His physical strength may not quite match Thor’s, but he’s in the same general class, and has held his own in extended 1:1 battle with the god of thunder more than once.

From the first Thor film:

And The Avengers:

So, what happens when an ordinary mortal goes up against Loki?

Speed. Strength. What else makes a formidable fighter? How about agility:

Of course, these examples demonstrate only Loki’s physical combat abilities. They do not begin to address the formidable mental skills and abilities Loki brings to the fight, such as intellect, resourcefulness, cunning, strategy, and endurance.

With over a thousand years of combat experience, probably including daily training and practice, Loki would be nearly unbeatable in a fight.

Add Loki’s magic skills to the mix and you have one badass motherf*cker.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki in ‘The Avengers’, (2012). Dir. Joss Whedon.

Please, don’t repost. You can reblog!

Why do people assume Loki is so frail when he can do things like this? It’s just not his first line of action, that’s all.

In a word….wow.

Let me slow this gif down for you just because I can…

I just spent 5 min. watching this

@MarvelUK: When your brother oversteps the mark…

*crashes through the window*

THAT’S NICE NAT HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU KILLED IN TWO DAYS MISS PROFESSIONAL ASSASSIN!!!

And don’t even get me started on you, THOR.

This is one big BS. Where did they get this number from? Explosion in SHIELD Headquarters wasn’t Loki’s fault. It was an accident. He didn’t even notice the energy emission before Hawkeye told him. And after that they couldn’t track him until Stuttgart. How could they know a number of his victims then? Romanoff is a lier and she is manipulating Thor, but I can’t blame her, because Thor is a fool.

Mmmmhhmmmmm

- Who’s your favorite Avenger?

Me : Loki

- But he’s not even an Av..

Me : LOKI

Let’s update this post.

Also, if we go by the comics, Loki pretty much assembles the Avengers more than anyone else, and he assembled and joined the Young Avengers as well. So if he's not an Avenger by this point, he's definitely an honorary one at the very least.

Alright, It’s been a while since I’ve bothered to watch a Marvel movie, but are you guys being serious about that guy in Civil War claiming that the total of people killed in the Battle of New York were 74? Like what. the. fuck. Loki was sentenced to a millenia in solitary confinement for killing 74 people?! That ’s so disproportional! There are real terrorist who’ve killed millions of people and only get twenty something years in prision and then exile. What the actual fuck? How does asgardian justice even work?

mcu writers are either stupid or were high when they’re writing the scripts.

Indeed

Also, guys Wanda Maximoff killed we don’t know how many people in Johannesburg via Hulk but she was fine living in a mansion 😒

I guess that killing and destroying cities is okay as long you are not Loki.

not-so-friendly reminder: Asgard’s justice system doesn’t exists.

ODIN is Asgard’s justice system.

Odin didn’t punish Loki for the deaths he caused on Earth, but his DISOBEDIENCE, for not falling into line like Thor did, for trying to rule Earth without Odin’s permission, for attacking a planet that is under Thor’s (and therefor Odin’s) “protection”.

Loki’s crime wasn’t murder. It was rebellion. Rebelling against Odin, wanting to be Odin.

.-

About the writers: yes, we see this double standard all the time.

No one knows how many Frost giants and Fire giants Thor killed, as long as he was doing it “for the right reasons”, it doesn’t matter. (Apparently getting violent over being called princess is a right reason???)

Wanda (and Pietro) were the Bad Guys™, but now their crimes are being down played cause they switched to the Hero™ side of things.

Bucky is the only one who could get away with it, seeing he was brainwashed and controlled by Hydra to do the killing. Why doesn’t Loki get the same pass, knowing he was brainwashed, tortured and played by Thanos? Right, Loki is a Bad Guy™, we are not supposed to feel for him, or validate his pain as we did for Bucky. (And you can see this clearly in the differences between Steve’s treatment of Bucky and Thor’s treatment of Loki.)

Steve, Natasha, Clint, Tony… none of them has their hands clean, but again, they’re the Heros™, their bad deeds are either redeemed or justified.

It’s all go back into the black and white narrative. Character that coded as a hero are allowed to completely redeemed themselves without much trouble as the character that are coded as a villain, even though they literally did the same type of crime. Character that are coded as a hero didn’t have to die for a payback to their crimes, meanwhile it’s a common thing in fiction for a character that are coded as villain/anti-hero/anti-villain to die as a payback for their crimes, for their redemption arc.

About the number 74. It could be a mistake from writers. But in fact it makes sense. Before Loki appeared in Shield’s base, Fury ordered evacuation because Tesseract’s energy levels weren’t steady. So by the time the base collapsed it was mostly empty and Loki only had killed the guards he encountered which were less than 10 people. Hawkeye under Loki’s mind control killed two people in Stuttgart. So when Natasha told Thor that Loki killed 80 people in two days, she actually lied(no surprise there), because Thor was defending Loki and Natasha needed to turn Thor against Loki even more. In the final fight in New York, Avengers set a primeter and kept the fight there and police evacuated the area by Cap’s orders. So the number of casualties because of Loki’s attack is low.

Odin didn’t sentenced Loki because of the number of humans he had killed. He didn’t care about them. That was just an excuse. Odin sentenced Loki to solitary confinement for 4000 years because Loki dared to question him, disobey him. Loki wasn’t under Odin’s control anymore. There was no more use of him. So Odin imprisoned him.

Most of MCU’s heroes have blood on their hands. But one good action and they can be redeemed because the are the hero™ but when it comes to Loki, no matter how many times he saved the day, he can only be redeemed by dying because he is the villain™. He saved Jane and Thor twice in TDW, he saved Asgardians in TR, but no, people are still saying he was a villain that only redeemed himself in IW by dying for Thor.

Yep, totally. Not like he’s having problems walking, or is showing clear signs of exhaustion or anything.

SOMEONE FUCKING SAID IT

Added thought: You realize that out of all of the Avengers (including his own brother) only the Hulk was able to do any real physical damage to him.

He got blown up by both Phil Coulson and Hawkeye. He was thrown out of a skyscraper window (do you realize how thick those windows are?) by Tony’s suit. He got his ass kicked by his big brother (who is also a demi-god and physically stronger). Not a single one of those events caused him any real physical harm. Not. A. Single. One.

It took the Hulk to draw blood, to bruise him. And even after that, he was only banged up a little. (Consider how capable he is of walking next to Thor at the end of the film.)

Why do I bring this up? Because it is clear that he is significantly worse off physically at the beginning than any other time in the film—including the Hulk-smash. There is no question that wherever he came from, he was going through physical torture (and I’d wager mental torture, too).

His leg is trembling in the last gif. He was arriving on earth and escaping with his new thralls, obviously tortured, hoping for a little safety probably, and living on nothing but sheer adrenaline. And that much adrenaline for such a long period, (because, let’s face it, he has been living on it since his heritage was revealed) is really bad for you.

I hate how badly the Loki fandom treat Thor

They are all like “oh he is a dick” “oh he treated Loki poorly” “Thor made Loki feel like shit”

BULLSHIT

Thor loved Loki. Thor loved Loki with all his heart. Thor fell for every lie and every trick and manipulation because he thought Loki shared those…

They are all like “oh he is a dick” “oh he treated Loki poorly” “Thor made Loki feel like shit” Because he did? Many times? “Some of us do battle, others just do tricks.” - Thor “Know your place.” - Thor “So you take everything I love as recompense for your imagined slights?” - Avengers “He’s adopted.” - Avengers And then we have Thor’s speech to Loki the first time they talk in TDW. I don’t give a flying FUCK what happened between them up until that point. They both made horrible, glaring mistakes, but Loki’s not the *~*only one*~* who’s ever done anything bad, ever. They both have an extremely toxic, abusive relationship. Mother just died? Threaten your OBVIOUSLY GRIEVING BROTHER with death. And beat the ever loving shit out of him on the boat WHILE HE’S BOUND AND GRIEVING because HOW FUCKING DARE HE voice his opinion? Sure, Thor did reach out to Loki a couple of times during the Avengers, but never once in any of these movies has he allowed Loki to actually EXPLAIN why he feels the way he does. Never once has Thor ALLOWED himto have his own feelings. Every time Loki has tried to speak, Thor has either silenenced him altogether or invalidated everything Loki said or felt. Even IF Loki was wrong about some things (personally I never took Loki’s line about being tossed into an abyss literally, and didn’t even think to make that connection until someone else pointed it out, and this was back when I disliked Loki), HE STILL FEELS BETRAYED. But when he tries to explain it, when he tries to voice his feelings, he gets silenced. He gets BEATEN UP. (side bar Loki did love Frigga but he would have happily left her heart be smashed into pieces if it meant he was King. How do I know this? He has tried to murder Thor multiple times. Frigga would have been destroyed if you disagree you are fuck nugget who deserves a boot up the arse)

Are we even watching the same movies? Are you fucking SERIOUS about Frigga?

Also: - In the first “Thor” movie, the first time we see Loki “try to murder” Thor is with the Destroyer. Here’s the thing about that: HE BACKHANDED THOR. He didn’t fire the laser at Thor like he did with the Oathbreakers Four, he BACKHANDED him. Up until this point, as far as we know, Loki has not had any real interaction with humans. We know for a fact that Oathbreakers Four haven’t for around a thousand years, and since Thor doesn’t recognize Earth or its inhabitants when he gets there, I think it’s safe to assume he and Loki haven’t, either. Loki’s interactions with humans have been minimal. Fandral was IMPALED and three days later goes back to fighting a fucking DESTROYER like it’s nobody’s business. Thor slaughtered DOZENS of jotuns because one called him “princess” and wasn’t remotely phased by any of it. We’re supposed to believe that flirting with Jane changes a thousand years — Thor’s entire life perspective — but suddenly it’s ridiculous and too much of a stretch to think that maybe, JUST MAYBE, Loki miscalculated the effect a frustrated backhand could have on a now-mortal Thor? Even though he could have gone for a very direct kill like he had attempted with the Oathbreakers Four? - Also in in the first movie, we have Loki jumping at Thor on the Bifrost with Gungnir. This is the only attempt in the movies that actually seems like a serious attempt, but he’s used Gungnir against Thor a couple of times before, so I’m not 100% certain he was going for the kill. Either way, Thor was destroying the Bifrost, and Loki panicked and attempted to stop him. Whether he was actually TRYING to kill Thor or not is a bit uncertain, but I’d argue this is the scene that would make the most sense. - Now, in “Avengers,” we have Loki dropping Thor while he’s stuck in the cage. Thor hit the cage with Mjolnir before and cracked it a fair bit. Loki knew it was going to take more than a wall of glass to kill Thor. He was trying to get Thor out of his way. Know who he attempted to kill directly right before? COULSON. BY IMPALING HIM WITH THE SCEPTER. - Second time in “Avengers,” he stabs Thor with a tiny knife in the side to get him away. He doesn’t go for the kill then, and he doesn’t go for it afterward while Thor is stumbling back. HE RETREATS. If he had wanted to kill Thor in that part, he could have very easily done it. Thor wasn’t expecting to be knifed in the side, he wouldn’t have expected to be stabbed in the heart or in the back. Loki stabbed Thor in that part because he was panicked and he knew there was no going back or stopping, even though he very clearly WANTED to. Or did you miss the times in the movie when he was being threatened and falling over and looking like he was about to drop dead? Loki was part of Thor’s group of friends. Who do you think got Loki to be part of that group? Was it Loki’s sunny disposition? Yeah shame on Loki for being a quiet introverted bookworm and practicing magic. THE SHEER NERVE OF BEING AN INTROVERT. HOW DARE HE. Fuck you for saying this. This is pure BULL SHIT right here. Hell no Thor forced Sif and co to accept Loki until they liked him as he wanted desperately to be close to his brother. Question: Do you have any idea how shitty it feels to be (barely) tolerated by people just because someone else is forcing them to? They were Thor’s friends, not Loki’s, and even though Loki SAVED THEIR ASSES multiple times, they turned on him over the words of an ENEMY KING because they didn’t like him. And even though Thor *deserved* to be banished for murdering dozens of people (over a damn WORD), starting a war, violating the express command of his king (“it is forbidden” “of all the laws of Asgard, this is one we mustn’t break”), and endangering the lives of prominent warriors (Oathbreakers Four) and his brother, the Oathbreakers Four still committed treason to get him back and turned against Loki despite him being rightfully appointed BY FRIGGA. Can anybody point to a scene in every movie the two of them are in where Loki shows even the slightest bit of affection for Thor? Sure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPsey-ecubI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT_bz_JjTa8 WOAH WHAT IS THAT? IS THAT WARMTH I SEE IN LOKI’S EXPRESSION? Nahh…. couldn’t be. He’s just evil 4 teh lulz. Oh, but he’s pointing out that Thor isn’t perfect in this scene, so he must be lying. You can only love someone if you’re blind to their faults. Hey, wait a second… Thor 2 Loki showed no love for Thor Uh, why WOULD he, in the beginning? Thor didn’t exactly speak up when Loki was sentenced to FOUR THOUSAND YEARS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT (which is considered torture in some countries after a few weeks or months) for doing something ODIN HAS DONE MANY TIMES AND RAISED HIM TO THINK WAS OKAY. There was no trial. No one even tried looking into WHY Loki did what he did. No one actually tried to get to the bottom of it. Thor sort-of asked in the beginning in “Avengers” but then dropped it altogether because it was easier to just beat shit up. Speaking of beating shit up, kinda funny how Thor greets his brother, who he’d thought dead, by THROWING HIM OUT OF A PLANE and beating him up and telling him everything he feels is wrong. And even AFTER doing all of this, Loki still wanted to go back with him. But he *couldn’t* at that point. Is that longing I see? Naaaaah, it couldn’t be. Loki’s just evil.

Also:

Loki risks his life TWICE to save Thor’s human girlfriend who’ll die in a couple decades anyway (so like a couple weeks or months to people who live for five thousand years), and then dies SAVING THOR. but only teamed up and helped him to avenge Frigga and then to cease a chance to work his own agenda in. What do you mean ‘cease’ a chance? That doesn’t make any sense. o.0 Loki is not some misunderstood poor baby.

mis·un·der·stood

[mis-uhn-der-stood] Show IPA

adjective

1.

improperly understood or interpreted.

2.

unappreciated.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misunderstood

Fun fact: ‘Misunderstood’ does not mean *secretly innocent*, it literally just means “improperly understood.” You can misunderstand something in a positive or negative way. Loki being misunderstood doesn’t mean that he’s a harmless fluffy puppy who farts rainbows and pukes gold coins and can cure all illnesses and bad things with a smile. It means he’s not understood very well, or at all, by someone.

Loki IS misunderstood, but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t done anything bad or wrong. I pick up snails off the sidewalk to prevent them from being crushed under my foot. I’m vegetarian. The thought of taking another life makes me ill. Killing is a SOOPER BAD thing to me. I think killing for any reason other than survival is bad.

But Loki’s not the ONLY ONE who has killed. He has been conditioned to think that killing is a-okay by his entire family and culture. This does not make it right. This does not make it good. I agree that Loki shouldn’t get off completely free from it all. But his sentence is insanely cruel. Can you imagine four thousand years of being denied support and just basic human contact? Frigga had to fight for him to have a BED because that was seen as a LUXURY. BY THOR. THOR. Speaking of Thor: His solution to everything is to smash it with a hammer. His solution to nearly all of his problems is to kill. He tried to kill TWO of the Avengers right away. He didn’t actually TRY to talk to either of them. It was just incredibly LUCKY that Captain America had a shield that could withstand Mjolnir’s blow. Same with Iron Man’s armor. Ironically, Loki actually gives people a chance to talk and/or to come over to his side. Even though, in this movie, he’s had a major psychotic break and is being tortured into submission by THANOS AND HIS MINIONS, even though he pretty much has them *in his head* and can’t really get away from them, he still hears his enemies out. He still, crazy as it is, avoids killing unless it’s necessary. Loki’s in a terrible place in this movie, between a suicide attempt, god only knows WHAT he went through AFTER that, and *at least* somewhat unwillingly leading the invasion, but he is still less inclined to beat the shit out of people than Thor.

I have never seen ANY Loki fan claim that he’s innnocent. I HAVE seen MANY Loki fans point out that he’s not the ONLY one in Asgard with problems, but that he has been turned into a scapegoat. Heimdall committed treason twice in the first movie and faced NO CONSEQUENCES. Neither did the Oathbreakers Four. Oh yeah, and those relics in the weapons vault? Probably not birthday presents. Yeah OK Odin wasn’t the best father but he was a dick to Thor aswell. Actually I agree with that. But the problem is that Odin’s abuse toward Thor wasn’t AS noticeable until TDW. It’s more noticeable with Loki in the first two movies. But I agree: Thor is also a victim of abuse. He and Loki went through different types of abuse, but I’d say it’s all around terrible. Odin fucked both of them up. Loki is evil and twisted Tell that to the actor who’s been inside this character’s head for three movies and given him life. Tell that to the guy who’s closer to him than ANY of us are.

Stop giving him abuse cause he doesn’t give you a tingly feeling down there like Tom does. Get serious Wow, fuck you for reducing something that means a LOT to people to “we just want to TH’s dick.” FUCK YOU and the misogynistic horse you rode in on. And FUCK YOU for erasing the *many* fans of Loki that aren’t attracted to him (asexuals, lesbians, and fuck, even people who *just aren’t attracted to him*). FUCK YOU for erasing victims of abuse. FUCK YOU for erasing victims of bullying. FUCK YOU for erasing people who struggle with mental illness. FUCK YOU for reducing all of us to “you just think with the bits between your legs.” *~*Fuck You*~*

Agreed on so very many levels with, well, everything.  But I swear, it’s like talking to a brick wall sometimes - people don’t want to see the hypocrisy because it mirrors so much of reality.

Ow WOW. Is this the kind of bullshit the Loki detractors are flinging around now? Man I am so glad I’ve been missing it. And good on you for taking the time to call it out (to people who, unfortunately, will almost definitely not listen). If nothing else, I read it, and loved it. Especially that last paragraph. Bless you.

I’m behind on the hate we’ve been getting lately. Thanks, comrades, for having our backs.

Bless this post.

This.

@talabriina wherever you are now thank you for what you did on this post

It honestly is insane how deluded the general audience has become toward Loki since Gagnarok. Like, Loki's entire body of characterisation is blatantly ignored in favour of ad-libbed hate speech from CH and TW.

see, this is one of the best thing about the blu-ray release.

Much better clarity on the whole bullet issue and you can see the fuckin’ FORCEFIELD  he threw up.

WHOA. I thought the bullet hit Loki…. and he was doing a BITCH PLEASE!HAIR FLIP.

What if his hair IS his force field?!?!? Whhooooaaaaa

^ This

This is interesting, actually. That scene had always led me to just assume that Asgardians are bulletproof.

Anyway, yes, more scenes of Loki actually doing magic in the MCU, please. 💚

Huh I don’t know if I noticed it was an actual shield before…you can kind of tell by the way he’s moving his arm/hand there as well though. 

Yep, totally. Not like he’s having problems walking, or is showing clear signs of exhaustion or anything.

SOMEONE FUCKING SAID IT

Added thought: You realize that out of all of the Avengers (including his own brother) only the Hulk was able to do any real physical damage to him.

He got blown up by both Phil Coulson and Hawkeye. He was thrown out of a skyscraper window (do you realize how thick those windows are?) by Tony’s suit. He got his ass kicked by his big brother (who is also a demi-god and physically stronger). Not a single one of those events caused him any real physical harm. Not. A. Single. One.

It took the Hulk to draw blood, to bruise him. And even after that, he was only banged up a little. (Consider how capable he is of walking next to Thor at the end of the film.)

Why do I bring this up? Because it is clear that he is significantly worse off physically at the beginning than any other time in the film—including the Hulk-smash. There is no question that wherever he came from, he was going through physical torture (and I’d wager mental torture, too).

Loki is not a Background Character

If you didn’t have Loki then the Avengers never would have assembled to defeat him in New York. 

If you didn’t have Loki then Ultron would never have been created, The Vision never would have been created by Ultron, and Wanda Maximoff and Pietro never would have gained their powers. 

If you didn’t have Loki “fail” to bring back the two infinity stones to Thanos then it wouldn’t have been as important and necessary for Thanos to quickly get his hands on another stone so Gamora may have never been sent and she may have never met Quill, Drax, Rocket, or Groot under the circumstances that she did. Ronan picked her to send because he presumably knew Thanos really needed the stone after losing 2, and Gamora was better than her sister. So the Guardians potentially wouldn’t have happened. 

If Loki didn’t take over and pretend to be Odin he would never had the chance to split up the Infinity Stones in TDW and ensure they wouldn’t be easy pickings for Thanos. 

Many of the major events in the MCU can be tied back to Thor 1 and Loki falling into the void. 

Loki was the catalyst for the mcu

Loki was the catalyst for the mcu, and that's one reason why IW was such a disappointment for me, as the conclusion to this story that had been built for a decade.

Loki was the catalyst for everything, and we'd been first introduced to the big bad of IW through what he did to Loki. If the Russos wanted to establish Thanos as super evil and ruthless straight away, (or... trying to save children from starvation while also relishing in bloodshed?) I feel the best way to have done this would have been to clarify the real story behind the first Avengers.

The GA sees Loki as the bad guy of that film. Show them he was just the puppet. A puppet with enough strategic intelligence to foil his master and cut his strings in the end, but a puppet who was still forced to dance to his master's tune and go through the motions all the same. Because as powerful and terrible as Loki is, he was dominated by this being. It took all the Avengers to defeat Loki (and whether they actually defeated him is even debatable), but that power is nothing compared to his puppetmaster. This being made a GOD into his puppet. Isn't that a truly terrifying prospect?

And look at what Thanos was trying to achieve through Loki. He wanted the Tesseract, yes, but if that was all he wanted, Loki would have just gone straight back, successful, after the first 5 minutes of the film. But he also wanted Loki to create a portal through which to send what looked like a pretty darn massive army. The only purpose of that army was to destroy -they started as soon as they came through, without any direction, and if the entire army had gotten through the portal, the damage would have been pretty extensive. So Thanos is a guy who tethered a god, gambled the mind stone, and assembled thousands of Chitauri and their tech/leviathans/weapons simply with the intent to cause as much destruction as possible.

Reframing the first Avengers with that intent revealed, that this mad titan will go to insane lengths to just kill and destroy everything, makes Thanos a lot scarier and more compelling (imo) than anything we got out of IW. In addition to introducing Thanos as this terrifying entity, it would have begun the film with an actual conclusion to the plot threads left hanging from the first Avengers.

And Loki is absolutely essential to this story. The characters need him in order to understand or realise any of this. Bruce magically knowing Thanos and his plans does not cut it. Loki's is the frame of reference needed to warn the Avengers of what is coming, what Thanos plans, and the extent of his power. Loki is the one who brought them together, for that very purpose. Loki is the one who split up the space stone and reality stone to keep them from Thanos.

Loki was ruler of Asgard for the past 4 years, with all kinds of magic artefacts and resources at his disposal. Loki would have enacted multiple plans to either protect against Thanos or to defeat him. Loki was told that Thanos was coming for him, that there was nowhere he could hide, and he would long for something as sweet as pain when they got to him. Loki was terrified. Loki WOULD HAVE planned against that. Loki should have been heavily involved in IW, helping the Avengers and using everything he had planned and prepared for this day.

LOKI SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MAJOR CHARACTER IN IW. He should have been the Avengers' main asset against Thanos. Loki is ESSENTIAL to the MCU story arc.

Not quite whump exactly, possibly more fanon than anything else, but I love all the little scenes in Avengers that imply that Loki’s connection with the Chitauri was not pleasant or friendly, but rather… painful. And all the threats and general mistrust that lead you to think why were they working together in the first place?

It’s…not just an implication, though. 

Okay, I just. I love this photoset, and no disrespect to the OP, but I am getting tired of people outside the Loki fandom behaving as if our belief that Thanos mistreated Loki is “just headcanons.”  There is ample canonical evidence.  Like, you can take Loki or leave him.  No one is excusing his past behavior, and no one is saying he’s a character everyone is gonna love. But let’s just call it like it is: Loki has PTSD from working under Thanos.  

1) Loki worked under Thanos at the same time as Nebula and Gamora.  Like the sisters, he was a fieldmarshal, “child,” and “collectible” of Thanos’s; like all abusers and warlords throughout fiction and actual world history, he uses the psychological tactic of taking the young specimens of a conquered civilization and assimilating them into his own “culture,” in this case an enormous mercenary intergalactic army, for his own purposes, therefore both debasing and demoralizing the enemy.   Nebula and Gamora both suffered “enhancements” to their body chemistry and, in Nebula’s case, to their anatomical structure****  in order to be made better fit to find Infinity Gems.  What was Loki’s role under Thanos? To secure an Infinity Gem.  It is inescapable that Loki was mistreated by Thanos. Why else would he hate him so much for “saving” him and equipping him with power?  2) Why did Loki work under Thanos, if Thanos mistreated him? Because, as the Other made explicitly clear, to deny Thanos his wits, knowledge, and resources would be to be tortured and killed.  If Loki wanted to ever see life beyond Thanos’s grasp, he had to provide the Tesseract.  Having earth to rule in Odin and Thor’s image was just a consolation prize; Loki’s main goal was to SURVIVE THANOS.  I don’t blame people for not realizing this upon seeing Avengers Assemble; the movie was enjoyable but the writing was often convoluted and unclear, making it seem as if Loki’s only goal was to be a “diva” who “freed people from freedom.”  All of that was a distraction.  

3) How do I know that? Not just because of little morsels of evidence, like Loki showing signs of heat exhaustion and back injury, but for bigger, more incontrovertible reasons:  Loki’s conversation with Thor at Stark Tower, during the Chitauri Invasion, before stabbing him in the side.  A deleted scene shows that the Other CAN HEAR LOKI through the Mind Gem in the scepter,  and will take all of Loki’s disobedience directly back to Thanos. Therefore when Thor pleas with Loki to join forces with him, Loki is not at liberty to agree; he has to say “it’s too late” and flee, even though he is brought to tears, lamenting the “sentiment” that he wishes he could acknowledge and indulge, but it would get them both killed. Remember at this point Thor has no idea Thanos even exists, but Loki does.   

4) Loki hid on Asgard as Odin.  Does anyone really believe that was just to be lazy, drink wine, and watch plays of himself?  No.  He was hiding from Thanos, particularly with the knowledge that he had sent the Aether, another Infinity Gem, to the Collector, and kept the Tesseract safely stored in Asgard’s Vault.  Hell, I could speculate that he didn’t even know the Infinity Gauntlet was a fake, as Hela revealed, and thought that as long as that was hidden in the Vault, he was safe, but again, this post is not about speculation. But why is Loki so terrified of Thanos that he’d put his entire life on hold and masquerade indefinitely as Odin?  Because Thanos is a monster and mistreated him.  

5) Probably most importantly, Tom Hiddleston discussed the script of Avengers with Joss Whedon and they decided explicitly that Thanos AND the Chitauri physically and psychologically abused Loki.  (I do not have the old 2012 interview link but if anyone reading this does, please send it).  

I have more reasons but honestly? Tl;dr Thanos mistreated Loki.  It’s a fact, like “Loki has black hair.”  As someone who has PTSD and as someone who has training in counseling, I happen to think it informs his behavior for every film installment from Avengers 1 on.  You can reject Loki as a character, but you cannot reject the facts about his backstory. 

****please note that Nebula was disfigured simply in a fit of sadistic pique over how she couldn’t measure up to her sister, and later when the siblings formed a healthier emotional bond, Thanos killed Gamora in front of, and to further spite, Nebula.  And anyone thinks Thanos wouldn’t also have enough spite to do direct harm to Loki? 

****Bear in mind also that the Tesseract/Space Gem, while not controlling a mind overtly, does have negative psychological affects, much like substance abuse.  Thanos used that to hook Loki–much like Loki used it to hook Bartonand Selvig–and provide himself an insurance policy of absolute obedience.  Like, that’s also canon.  Not piddling, not headcanons, not grasping at straws. CANON. 

Okay, I just. I love this photoset, and no disrespect to the OP, but I am getting tired of people outside the Loki fandom behaving as if our belief that Thanos mistreated Loki is “just headcanons.”

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

I continue to wonder why the hell the filmmakers would go to so much trouble to let the audience know that Loki was operating under duress and under someone else’s orders. We know what kind of person Thanos is. We know what he is capable of.

However, I feel as though even if the franchise made Loki having been tortured by Thanos explicitly canon, people who insist on seeing Loki as a villain would probably cling even harder to that belief. 

Great meta!👏👏👏 Thank you!

I watched Avengers after seeing Thor and TDW. So it was really obvious to me that there was sth wrong with Loki. How unhealthy he looked when he first appeared and there was sth off about his speech about freedom. Then I saw his conversation with The Other and everything clicked into place that there is someone else behind everything. Someone who Loki is afraid of them very much. Gotg was a confirmation of how Loki was treated during his time with Thanos. I also have my own ultimate theory about what happened to Loki.