Snowflake Challenge Day 2
Day 2: Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create.
Every once in awhile I get completely involved in an epic-length fic or series. Here are three of my favorites.
I’ve just spent every spare minute these past couple of weeks reading Scyllaya’s amazing frostiron (Loki/Tony Stark) novel “Bend Around The Wind”. Posted between 10-31-12 and 11-26-13, it’s canon-divergent from the end of “The Avengers” on. Friends have recced this fic to me and I finally decided now was the time to read it.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/550896
Summary: A few months after the battle of New York the God Loki appears back on Stark Tower under chaotic circumstances. This time however he is on the run. Tony Stark gets caught up in the crossfire and is taken along with the Aesir. Can the two of them ever make truce in order to get away? And even if they do, how does one escape from such a dark corner of the universe, when they are so very far away from the Nine Realms, that not even Loki knows the way back home? But first, they need to survive.
All the kudos! “Bend Around The Wind” is epic! It’s a slow burn enemies to allies to friends to lovers that follows Tony and Loki in their travels across the universe to return back to the Nine Realms, in the process picking up several new OC allies and antagonists. The worldbuilding is amazing. Some of it is partially based on comic book locations, such as the Kree and the Skrull storylines, and part of it is based on Norse mythology, such as the use of the god Frey, but there’s no need to know any background information since everything is fully explained in the plot. Half of the story deals with their journey back to earth, and the second half goes into the political consequences of what happens after their return. There are political machinations, both on earth with the World Security Council and in the rest of the Nine as not everyone on Vanaheim, Alfheim, or Jotunheim are happy with Asgard’s supremacy. There are cliffhangers along the way, which makes me happy I read the whole story complete.
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“Wild Ambition Fortune's Ice Prefers” by amberfox17 is an A/U thorki story using the “always a Jotunn” and “arranged marriage” tropes frequently used in stories for this pairing.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/845183
Summary: When Thor went storming into Jotunheim he was looking to start a fight, but accidently winds up a pawn in Odin and Laufey's plans for a permanent peace between the realms; namely, in exchange for the return of the Casket of Ancient Winters, Laufey is offering his firstborn child Loki, the Aesir-sized sorcerer, in marriage to Thor. Such a momentous decision is not to be taken lightly, so Odin sends Thor to live on Jotunheim - without Mjolnir - for a season with Loki, to get to know his prospective consort and to teach the wilful prince some diplomatic sense. Thor is horrified, his parents are insistent and no-one really knows what Loki is thinking, but he hasn't stopped smiling... Or, a jotun AU arranged marriage worldbuilding fic, featuring a confused Thor, a manipulative bastard Loki, Jotunheim politics, a slow burn developing relationship and a motley arrangement of characters from Marvel and myth.
I loved the slow burn between Loki and Thor. Loki’s got complicated plans - and so do most of the rest of the characters in this complex and vivid novel. The author does a great job of showing how Loki’s plans, while seeming to align with others, are always his own. Thor and Loki struggle to find their place with each other while always being aware of the complex politics surrounding them, with Thor’s family, Loki’s family, and many other parties jockeying for political position in this new reality. The author’s worldbuilding is amazing. In addition to Asgard and Jotunheim, Thor and Loki visit other realms as they get to know each other and they all feel incredibly real.
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The SHIELD Codex by KhamanV is a 14 story series consisting of six novel-length stories and 8 shorter ones. Gen.
https://archiveofourown.org/series/181178
Description: As Loki falls from Asgardian grace one more time, he chances a risky path that takes him directly to the door of SHIELD. At first a cautious enemy, then eventually an odd ally, and then ultimately a friend, Loki has to decide what changing his destiny truly means - and what it will cost.
Whether Loki’s destiny is fixed or whether he can rebel against it has been a theme in Marvel comics for some time now. Faced with the prospect that all his plans will inevitably lead to disaster, he decides to make a sharp and unexpected turn in his life by turning himself in to Phil Coulson. This leads to a series of adventures, leading to a climactic and utterly satisfying ending with Thanos’s complete defeat.
The series involves pretty much everyone from the MCU including the Guardians of the Galaxy as well as the agents of SHIELD from the earlier seasons, including Skye (Daisy), Melinda May, Antoine Triplett, Gemma Simmons, Leo Fitz, and Alphonso MacKenzie, with guest appearances from other Marvel characters, heroes and villains such as Dr. Doom from the comic books. There’s no need to know any comic book background as the author fully explains who they are.
My favorite stories in the series are “An Honest Man”, in which Phil Coulson has to defend Loki from a crime he did not commit; “A Snake Came Crawling” where Loki meets his biological mother and has to come to terms with what he did to Jotunheim; and “When The Man Comes Around”, which shows Thanos’s final defeat. There are some flashbacks in the later stories to Loki’s time in Thanos’s hands and exactly how Thanos and his followers turned Loki into his tool.
An Honest Man: Since his struggle with not only the Darkhold but his own nature, Loki has found a strange new path in life, and grudging allies of a sort he'd never expected - but it's not an easily kept path. Now, accused of the greatest monstrosity of his life and awaiting the most final of consequences, Loki needs at his side the one thing he himself has never been - an honest man.
A Snake Came Crawling: Thor's visions and Loki's warnings combine when the God of Thunder confesses his fears about a great and final doom gathering around Asgard. But Ragnarok's legend is known - the twilight of the Gods coming at the end of a great war, and the betrayals of Loki. A destiny Loki has refused. If he will not attempt to bring the cycle of the gods to a close - who will?
“When The Man Comes Around”: When Thanos strikes a distant Nova Corp outpost with the power of his newest Infinity Stone in his fist, Loki and the Agents of SHIELD know that time has run out not only for them, but for the entire universe. All hopes now rest on Loki’s closely held, mysterious plan to halt the Titan’s advance - but for many, the question will forever linger: Can he be trusted?
Posted to LJ and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer. :-)