Anyways, special thanks to those who commented last chapter, and I hope you continue to enjoy and that I can hear from you after this small but fun chapter! Bigger one to come soon, and the more I hear from you guys the faster I can update it!
"Goodnight daddy."
Loki finished pulling the purple covers over his youngest daughter before moving a hand to brush across her face and remove the loose strands of her mane that hid her sleepy eyes.
"Goodnight, dear."
He lent down to kiss Trixie on the forehead, beside her Unicorn horn, before standing up and moving to leave her behind for the night in her spacious room set aside in the Asgardian castle next to Hela's and Sleep Near's rooms on either side. Hela had originally insisted on having Trixie in her room when the youngest was still a baby, so she could look after her, but now that Trixie was older it was time for the mare to have her own space.
Of course, this meant that Trixie would occasionally curl up in Loki and Luna's bed instead of her own, but Loki did not resist that idea like he once had. He actually felt a twinge as he entered his own chambers and noticed his own bed where that had first played out over a decade beforehand through the first Trixie's tiredness and Luna's drunkenness.
Things weren't easy back then, but Loki longed for them nonetheless.
Tearing him from his thoughts was a glow projecting onto his wife, who sat contently underneath their covers while staring at a glowing technological device beside her known as a 'laptop'. She had become quite interested in all the technology Stark offered and Loki indulged in her predilection, even playing some of the games she had taken to playing. For her sake only, of course. The King of Asgard was above such things, or so he told himself.
It was late though, and since Luna was currently on a 'normal' sleep schedule and not nocturnal her being up at this point was not healthy, precisely the reason Loki put their daughter to bed after finishing a magic lesson with her.
"Luna, what are you doing?"
Luna did not even look up as Loki moved to the bed and sat down beside her, moving to look at her screen.
"Troping."
Loki blinked. Troping? Was that even a verb?
He had to inquire further, as when he took a glance at the screen she only seemed to be reading some text on a standard type of web page, "Troping?"
Luna blankly nodded as she scrolled down the page, "Troping."
Still not getting it, Loki decided to press on further. Upon further inspection he could see that she was looking at some page called "Legend of the Galactic Heroes", which he recalled was some show the first Trixie had watched in her free time years back. Perhaps Luna was reminiscing?
"And that means what exactly?"
"Take a look for yourself."
The setup of the page was simple, with a small hyperlinked set of words being used to describe something which were then followed by an explanation of sorts. The page Luna was on was titled "Characters" and seemed to be a database of characters which belonged to the series Luna was looking into.
One such example was the following belonging to the character, which Loki found to have intrinsic meaning despite not knowing much about the site: 'Meaningful Name: "Reuenthal" can be, rather appropriately, translated as "Valley of regrets" (in German "reuen" means "to regret" and "thal" in place names means valley). His flagship's designation is "Tristan" which is related to the French word "triste" meaning "sad".'
So this site collected basic information that pertained to what was on it, and described how it applied in a simple manner? His interest piqued by how he could understand basic things despite not knowing the series given the format, Loki continued to look on as Luna finished reading the section.
'The Starscream: Somewhat. He is loyal to Reinhard, but also highly ambitious on his own. Reuenthal himself lampshades this every single chance he gets.'
That was something that made Loki's eyes widen. He had heard of this Starscream, in fact he had read some 'comic books' including the character. He found himself amused by the backstabbing bastard's antics that often times backfired and sometimes even got him killed, but found himself more drawn towards the character's partner Thundercracker who exhibited honorable qualities and found himself walking a line between good and evil that Loki could respect. After all, he was a backstabbing bastard himself once upon a time and didn't want memories of that, so he'd rather find himself invested in a different sort of character.
So, if the site was using the word 'Starscream' to describe this character, Loki supposed that Starscream was such a notable backstabber that he was being used as a way to describe others in a simple manner. Loki wondered briefly what he would have to do to have his own trope before shaking his head and continuing to read.
'Tragic Hero/Tragic Villain: Is Reuenthal a bad man trying to be good, or a good man who can't help but be bad?'
The 'Tragic Villain' part was hidden by a spoiler related feature originally, but Luna highlighted it to read it anyways. Loki found himself feeling sorry for whoever this was, as it sounded just like himself once upon a time before he had reformed. Perhaps he and Luna could spend some time watching this together with Hela and Sleep Near? They were old enough for something mature, even if Trixie was too young.
"Explain this site to me. I think I get "
Luna nuzzled her head into Loki's body as he made himself comfortable beside her, "This internet thing is interesting. There are databases of information, and I have found mentions of us on this site known as 'TvTropes'. We appear quite popular."
He clicked onto another page, where Loki read briefly about him being a darkhorse or something, and then onto another page where Luna was listed as such. She then clicked the word darkhorse and it led to another page which defined it: 'The term "Dark Horse" has its origin in horse racing. A relatively unknown horse would be risky to place bets on, compared to a horse with a known track record, because the gamblers would be "in the dark," so when an unknown horse won a race it was called a "Dark Horse Victory." The term is also used in politics to describe a lesser known candidate who does better than expected in an election.
Generally, it's used to describe a side character making up part of the Ensemble, either a non-lead secondary character or a mere Flat Character, who can sometimes become unexpectedly popular with the fandom (sometimes, even more than the lead characters) depending on who and where the Fandom is, as well as what the other characters are like in comparison (for example, the hero is not as popular because s/he is too much The Everyman). Often, this can happen because the character has very few character traits, allowing fans to imagine this character to have traits that they like. The Ensemble Dark Horse can sometimes be viewed as the character equivalent of a Cult Classic.'
"Ensemble darkhorse..." Loki smirked in recognition of his apparent popularity with denizens of the internet. While he would not classify himself as a Flat Character, he was not going to complain about recognition, "Interesting..."
Luna rolled over and kissed him on the cheek before opening up another tab she had prepared.
"They have a page for Starcraft II as well."
Loki blinked as he thought about the game he had not played in recent years as other games released to supplant it. Nonetheless, he had loved its final installment and nostalgia began to flow through him at the thought he could read about it in this interesting method.
"They had better have done Fenix justice and mention how little attention his death received in the first two installments, only to be teased and ultimately let down in the third."
Luna smirked at how he quickly became emotional about the game he rarely admitted to playing, much like how he denied partaking in the hobby altogether outside of a select few people, "I think I saw something about that when I peeked at it. So, want to read with me?"
Seeing that Luna wasn't intending to sleep anytime soon, and not for their usual reasons, Loki decided to just go along with what she was doing since it could amuse him too.
"Why not? This is just a new form of data and information collection, and I always enjoy spending time with my beloved wife. Let's start with my page though. I presume I have one?"
Luna snickered as she pulled up another page she had apparently been looking into, only for Loki's face to pale as she scrolled up to the top and he read its first sentence.
Luna had to put a hand over her mouth as Loki began to contort his face as he tried to find words to describe his feelings on how the article attempted to sound as if he was the one speaking in it.
"Are these Humans...pretending...to..."
He shook his head and gripped his hands into fists, entering a form of tranquil fury as he looked at the blight of the internet before him.
"I am contacting Stark. These fools dare think that they can speak for me, the King of Asgard and Equestria, God of Deceit and—"
It was then that Luna could not help herself and she burst into laughter, instantly cutting Loki's incoming rant off with her mirthful noise.
"What are you laughing at?"
Luna patted him on the leg as she fought to reign in her laughter, though it was made more difficult by Loki's look of confusion at how amused she had been at his antics.
"I apologize, I just find it fun to see you get worked up about something. After you went to Hel you really calmed down."
Not wanting to admit defeat, Loki changed the subject and crossed his arms.
"We're reading your page next. Let us see how much you enjoy having fools act as if they speak for you."
"Read it to me in your best Luna impression."
"Even if they mimic your old, backwards speaking mannerisms I helped cure?"
"...yes, We permit this. Amuse Us."
"Explain this site to me. I think I get "
1. Not unless you put your comma where it's supposed to be you're not
The meta in this chapter is real, oh so real. And no spoilers for LoTV, I plan on getting it some time later and actually playing it for myself. Other than that, not much for me to say than Loki being a closet gamer. Like a certain character from Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth which I might not *cough*Vert*cough* say.
6664482 Meta in what sense? There's a lot concerning that, though I'm curious what you picked up on. Very curious in fact
I won't spoil LoTV, though I will say this: the totally obvious thing that everyone should see coming is going to happen. I made jokes for years with my high school roommate about it happening, and it finally did. I feel vindicated...but also sad.
Loki is a closet gamer here, particularly strategy games as one might imagine Loki would be interested in. Next I think he would be into roleplaying games.
Never really got into Tv tropes so can't help in that regards.
Even for a smaller chapter it was still amusing, I had a good chuckle at Lokis reaction to his page.
Good luck with the tropes as well
6671070 Of course not. *Looks shiftily to the left and right* You would never do something like that of course.
6671586 You should keep an eye out. I hide a bunch of fun stuff in the story. And by fun, I mean that I foreshadow a lot.
6671785 I like to read as it comes, otherwise I'd be actively searching for stuff like that.
6672424 Well, I wish you luck then, because some don't read into the foreshadowing and find themselves surprised/angry when major things happen! It's almost like it is a story or something
Enjoy!
6672460 I like being surprised/angry. It's how I know I'm living.
6672542 Well okay then. Just don't claim it comes out of nowhere, as I've had someone erroneously claim something along those lines about something or another you'll come across. Basically like chapters 30-69 are foreshadowing and build up for 70-80, so I know I did my work
Glad you know you're alive at least through emotions. Everyone has their way!
6672549 If I did that now you'd know I had it coming at least.
Some people don't have one and I feel bad for them.