New(ish) fic: "Winter Child" (thor/loki) + thoughts on writing

Nov 17, 2015 22:13

When was the last time I posted here? This year has been so busy it’s been a blur. I actually managed to do some writing done, in between bouts of RL, and thought I’d talk a bit about my latest stories, one post at a time.

Without realizing it, I’ve been looking for different challenges. I’ve been wanting to try new things. So when a couple of ideas started chasing themselves around in my head, I suddenly realized I had the makings of a 5+1 story, something I’d never tried before.

So all I had to do was think of the other four. The ideas came very quickly.

“Winter Child” is a pre-canon / canon-compliant thorki story. However, since it’s told entirely from Frigga’s point of view, the thorki content is decidedly gen. Frigga finds out what’s going on between Thor and Loki but for reasons of her own keeps her knowledge to herself.

The subtitle is: “Five times Frigga hugged Loki and the one time she couldn’t”.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4683632

There are so many great stories about what Thor and Loki were like as children and young adults. I’ve particularly enjoyed ones told from Frigga’s POV. I began to think through what her relationship with Loki would be at various stages of his life.

This particular picture proved inspirational. It’s from a sequence in the comic books from several years ago. Loki is dead, and Thor decides he has to somehow bring him back to life as he does not want to live in a universe without Loki in it. (Why Thor claims Loki is “of his blood” is a mystery, since comic book Thor knows perfectly well Loki is Jotunn.)



I have a much younger Loki creating similar illusions “just for fun” in one of the early chapters.

The story is about memory and mourning, and a large part of it are Frigga’s memories of Loki after he has fallen from the Bifrost to what she believes is his death. I told the story in a variety of styles, with non-linear writing, tense changes, second person for a key sequence in chapter five, all of which to try to capture Frigga’s fragmented state of mind after she suffered the loss of her favored child.

And since I like flipping tropes - major and minor - I flipped the trope where Thor rescues an injured Loki and wraps him in his red cape. In my story, Loki rescues an injured Thor and wraps him in his green cape. I always gotta do something different, even in a minor way.

Another trope I wanted to explore in an entirely different way (and no, I am not writing mpreg): A common AU trope in thorki fandom is “arranged marriage” between Prince Thor of Asgard and Prince Loki of Jotunheim. (Loki, in those stories, is almost always intersex and able to bear Thor’s children. Considering that mpreg is actually canonical in the original Norse mythology - and I’m not even counting the myths where Loki shifts into female form and bears children but rather three cryptic lines from one of the Eddas implying actual mpreg - it’s no surprise there’s so many of these stories in this fandom.)

I thought it would be interesting to have a chapter based on Odin’s plans to arrange marriages for each of them with princesses from either Vanaheim or Alfheim. This fills Frigga with fear that their deception about Loki’s birth will be revealed and prove disastrous politically and personally (and of course she is so very right about the disastrous consequences of keeping such an explosive secret.)

Here’s an excerpt. Frigga and Loki are on a balcony, watching Thor visit with a potential bride:

“Ah, my son,” I say, resting my hand on his fist, which is clenched at his side. “You may have the good fortune to love who you wed.”

He turns to me, and I catch a quick glimpse of a startled look. He shifts his glance to the palace towering behind us.

“And is that a consideration in these things?”

“If you are fortunate love can come in these marriages. Sometimes quickly. Sometimes less so.”

“I have given no thought to it,” he said, his voice remote as he turns his attention back to Thor and Naerwyn.

“There is much time for these things to be decided,” I say but he doesn’t turn his attention back to me. Naerwyn has moved even closer to Thor and tilted her head back, inviting a kiss, their mouths bare inches apart. Thor leans slightly toward her.

Misliking the hard set to Loki’s mouth I touch his arm to distract him.

thor/loki, marvel, writing, writing tropes, marvel cinematic universe

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