refreshing myself on Norse mythology...
...and now ship Vili, Vé, Odin and Frigg all together in one happy brothers & wife family.
Although considering the context I'm basing this on is in Loki's rap battle against the other gods, who is not the most reliable of narrators, the canon's pretty shaky.
But Norse mythology and prose is the best ever. If only for the fabulous verses like these:
"Knowest thou that I gave
to those I ought not -
victory to cowards?
Thou was eight winters
on the earth below,
milked cow as a woman,
and didst there bear children.
Now that, methinks, betokens a base nature."
"But, it is said, thou wentest
with tottering steps in Samsö,
and knocked at houses as a Vala. (Vala: seeress)
In likeness of a fortune teller,
thou wentest among people;
Now that, methinks, betokens a base nature."
"Be silent, Týr;
to thy wife it happened
to have a son by me.
Nor rag nor penny ever
hadst thou, poor wretch!
for this injury."
"Loki, thou art drunk,
and hast lost thy wits.
Why dost thou not leave off, Loki?
But drunkenness
so rules every man,
that he knows not of his garrulity."
"Milder was thou of speech
to Laufey's son, (Laufey´s son: the giant Loki)
when to thy bed thou didst invite me.
Such matters must be mentioned,
if we accurately must
recount our vices."
"Silence, thou impure being!
My mighty hammer, Mjöllnir,
shall stop thy prating.
I will thy head
from thy neck strike;
then will thy life be ended."
The snark! The implied cross-dressing! The pointed remarks! The implied incest! The double standards of infidelity! The really insane family trees if any of this is actually true! Exactly how many childen have you begotten other god's wives with Loki? The end just being Thor and Loki sniping at each other!
Oh, do I ever want to see a live action performance of this poem done as a rap battle. If rap battles were done more as dramatic readings rather than rap battles.
Perhaps just Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston reciting at each other. That'd be fine too.
And then I'm also reading about Homosexuality in Viking Scandinavia, realising that the description of Hel being "half black and half flesh-coloured," could just mean she's dark skinned as the Vikings were trading with the Middle East, and that there were ravens? (ornithology is not a strong point of mine) flapping around in the Avenger's movie when Thor chewed out Loki.
I like Hel as a goddess. She's the most 'normal' out of Loki's kids by Angrboda and gets the cushy job of presiding over all those who died of old age or outside of battle, rather than being chained up or made to encircle the world. Then there's the fact that Queens of the underworld are always cool and willing to let people live again if you can melt their hearts. (See Persephone)
This person also has good thoughts on Loki as a trickster god. I am particularly endeared about Loki using preconceptions of gender and sexuality just to play with and trip others up.
A breakdown on screentime for each of the six main heroes. Hawkeye gets just over 10 minutes. Black Widow gets some serious time, but still everyone is talking over her. ;_;
Have a skaldic recording for a taste of Norse poetry. Plus part 1 and part 2 of the Lokasenna flyting in Icelandic.
There is random speculation over the internet over other characters Marvel will introduce to the Avengers and I am cheering so hard for Scarlet Witch. Mostly because she's from a 'verse I'm somewhat familiar with (three and a half movies and parts of two animated series totally counts as 'somewhat familiar' right?) and she is kick assingly independent and I really want another female character to be awesome. (Although that'd probably be dependant on whether the script got written by a woman or not...)
I kind of love that it's so easy for me to slip back into Norse mythology geek mode. Now I'm going to go see what fabulous crossovers I can manage to find...