Intro Notes: When the Dust Settles

Okay, so you may remember this from, idk.  Ages ago.  2015?  Somehow, that seems a little too recent, but that's what the time stamps on AO3 are telling me.

Anyway.  It old.  It was an idea I started, and then for one reason or another, never got very far with.  Which is weird, because it was fully outlined, and even has a decent rough draft.  I mean, there's a lot I want to change, and I'm working on fully rewriting it, but it's sat in purgatory for long enough.  This is one I've wanted to bring back for ages, and just never got round to it.  But after bringing back Trickster God and finding that an incredibly rewarding experience, I decided that 2022 will be, amongst other things, the year I dig a bunch of old abandoned WIPs out of mothballs.

Starting with this one.

It's a Thor 1 AU, and they seem weird to do now that we've had two more films and a series.  But I'll tell you what.  Thor 1 AUs hit different now that we all know Loki is just as big of a dumbass as Thor is.  That's one of the main things that's getting changed.  Because we have so much more character development to work with from canon, I've been able to go back and add that in.  Especially with the Loki series, even though he's still broken, he hasn't been completely shattered in that yet.  He's...

He's a fucking idiot.

So this is a Loki who hasn't been tortured and used by Thanos.  He hasn't had a taste of the throne, and had it ripped from him.  He hasn't learned that every one of his friends would betray him at the drop of a hat.

But he's still had that big, jarringly terrifying upset on Jötunheimr.  Only now, he doesn't have answers.

So this Loki is also a bit broken, but not as broken as he could be. 

If you read this one before, there were three chapters originally posted.  Those chapters have been completely rewritten.  You'll see comments dated from 2015, but I've changed the date on the first chapter upload because it is a brand new chapter.  But this is the upload people are subscribed to, and have bookmarked.  It just made sense to keep this one here.  But every word is brand new.  The next few chapters may feel familiar, because I've taken what was already posted before, ripped it apart, and put it all back together with brand new prose and insight.

For the time being, I'll be posting new bits every week or so.  But this is also being done as part of Unus Annus, so there will be weeks when I have run out of buffer for some fics and wind up posting whatever garbage I do have done.  That's one of the risks of trying to post something every day for a year.  I'm a month in and already losing my mind.

But if you're here because you're one of the 60-odd people who are still subscribed out of some optimistic hope, hello!  You're the reason I picked this one up first.  There's a couple more I'll be picking back up as I progress with this challenge, because those are the fics people have told me they'd like to see finished by subscribing.  I don't judge by comments, because most of the time people who ask for a fic to be continued never come back when it is.  It's a nice sentiment, but I don't put a lot of weight on comments or other visible metrics when it comes to picking up older fic.

Anyway.  When the Dust Settles.  It's back.  I can't promise weekly updates, but I'll try very hard to make sure it stays more or less consistent.