basics

• independent, non-exclusive, selective
• non-mutuals, duplicate, and OC friendly (must have a published bio)
• low-activity (life is chaotic)
• formerly featured on TheAdoptedPrince, ManifoldMischief, and SilverScreenGoldenPages
• mun & muses (except The Killer) are all of age
• pitting duplicates against each other is an instant block from me, as I had a horrible experience related to this in the past
• please don't IM me your character's entire past, rather than posting it on your blog somewhere, it feels like forcing an interaction
• please read my mythos notes for key details of my portrayal - the reading of your Variant's bio is encouraged but not required, though I will assume that you have done so in our thread

formatting & replies

• no godmodding, meta-gaming, etc.
• typical formatting is small text, bold dialogue, with icons (no need to match)
• if you want an edit, please just message me and we can either replot or I can rewrite
• if a starter is tagged "open starter" you are welcome to reply, no matter how old it is or how many people have replied already (any I'm bored of will be removed from the tag)
• I gladly share my icons, just message me for the link

shipping

• selective with shipping; preferred ships are with Sigyn, Verity, or Mobius, but open to others
• will NOT ship Loki with Thor or any version of himself, including Sylvie
• Loki will be more open to casual, sexual relationships over romantic ones - even if he loves someone, it takes a lot for him to brave showing that
• my (Marvel-based) Loki will reference prior sexual relationships with Fandral, Apollo, and Artemis
• explicit NSFW will no longer be written

triggers

• potentially triggering thematic content includes: childhood neglect / abandonment / abuse, religion, internalized racism, violence, death, torture, depression, attempted suicide / suicidal thoughts, amnesia, etc.
• other common triggers are tagged as they arise
• while criticism is important, I block those who spread hate and/or drama concerning the cast (or family of the cast) or characters or ships
• personally triggered by descriptions of dog attacks

won'ts and will nots

• please see above notes about shipping restrictions
• the Old God is written with respect and love for Loki as a deity and therefore will not be shipped with anyone but Sigyn or Angrboda, nor depicted in any manner of degrading plot
• no version of Loki will be written as dismissive of or as disliking Sigyn as I view this as a misogynistic invention of early Marvel comics, later sadly echoed in other media

Notes

In true Loki fashion, my version(s) of the character defy expectations in several key ways:

• While many Variants often favor a male form, each Loki is genderfluid... and, as a shapeshifter, they will match their form to how they're feeling on any particular day or to suit a situation. Pronouns mean very little to them, but for most the title of prince does. Sylvie, too, is genderfluid and does not always take on the form of a woman, but she was a girl when she was torn from Asgard and some part of her has clung to that. In their female form, they've always felt a little like a younger Frigga, closer to her, and their magic has been stronger for it - which is why a Loki who maintained such a form near consistently was a tiny bit frightening to the others.• Unbeknownst to him, Loki is the son of Hela, who bore the child with her ally, Laufey, in the hopes of breeding a monster worthy of conquering both the thrones of Asgard and Jotunheim. When Loki was born small and unassuming (for a giant), unworthy of winning the loyalty of the Jotuns, she cast them aside. Only Odin knows Loki's true parentage. What is unknown to anyone, however, is that Loki can't die... at least not entirely. They were rejected by the Goddess of Death, and this lingered in their being. (Does not apply to The Host or the Old God)• In his Jotun form, as a byproduct of his dual heritage, Loki's skin won't freeze that of other species at a touch. He is cold to the touch, however. (Does not apply to The Host or the Old God)

• Loki has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Fandral for centuries. It's not much of a romance, but of his friends this familiarity has made Fandral the dearest of them and the most trusted. Their last dalliance came to an end some three decades before Loki's fall. (Does not apply to The Host or the Old God)• Loki knew of Thanos' plan to wipe out half of existence and, in their reasoning hampered by torture and a mental breakdown, sincerely believed that Thanos would keep his word and spare the Nine Realms should Loki deliver to him all the Stones hidden on Earth. (Applies to The Divine/Agent, Broken, Runagate, and the Lost)• Loki's "death" at the hands of Thanos is his greatest trick - he dips his dagger in the blood of the fallen Asgardians that covers the deck of the ship and cuts his own hand with it too, and then let's Thanos kill him while ensuring he keeps hold of the dagger 'till the last. This dagger is bewitched with a spell from another Pantheon, a spell that reincarnates the fallen on Earth, where Loki sends the dagger in his final moments of his first life. But that's only the start of the story... (Applies to The Divine/Agent)• The Loki that escaped with the Tesseract has come to see Sylvie as a sister, his loyalty to her recompense of the trust he broke with his brother so many times. (Applies to the Runagate and any others who meet her)

The Battle of Jotunheim

The tale about to be told won’t be found in any of the tomes detailing the history of Asgard, nor that of the realms over which it presides. What is about to be put down into words, by order of Odin, exists only in the memories of those few survivors who lived it... and, with old lives, old memories fade, distort, and vanish entirely.Once upon a time, Odin had but one heir, his daughter Hela. By the laws of Asgard, writ when the universe was new and Ymir’s blood recently shed (or so the stories claim), she was only to inherit the throne should no male heirs follow her. However, the Goddess of Death’s mother had died in childbirth and so there was little chance of a (legitimate) heir following her. Odin’s finest general, she spread fear throughout the realms and painted the stars red - even her own armies were not safe from her rage, when battle was lost or even won with merciful blade. The royal advisors loathed and none but her Beserkers had any desire to see her, one day, rise to the throne. Worse, her influence made the sitting king yearn for more worlds under his domain, more subjects, more worshippers.So, when Hela’s thirst for blood had her in a long battle on a far off realm, the advisors to the king met one night in secret and came up with a daring but simple plan. They introduced Odin to the Lady Frigga of Vanaheim.Within the perspective of gods, it was a whirlwind romance. By the time Hela returned from her long siege, crowing of her victory, her father was wed and expecting a child with his new wife. A child, the seers said, would almost certainly be a son. In the months that followed, there happened to be several attempts on the queen’s life, foiled all by her wit, and though Hela denied all involvement, tensions between her and her father increased with his suspicion.On the night that Thor was born, Hela led a small contingent on the palace. The wailing prince was secreted to Midgard with his mother, and the golden halls of the palace of Asgard marked the first battlefield of a war between father and daughter. There were many to follow. Those who had long resisted Aesir rule, the Jotuns first among them, fell in with Hela. She forged a close alliance with the king of Jotunheim, Laufey, and together they hashed a plan to fight Odin on the battlefield he had chosen. The ancient laws.In accordance with the inheritance laws of Asgard, male heirs are primary in the succession, with the eldest born son expected to take the throne should something befall a king. However, should a daughter be born first, she is not forgotten. A son born of a princess would, like turning the course of a river, bend the lineage back along her line. So, with magic aiding their unlikely union, the Goddess of Death set out to create a life for her own purpose, a prince of Asgard that the legions of Jotunheim would gladly follow.However, law also dictated that, while living, Odin could name his heir. So, giving up her search for the infant prince - still hidden away on Earth and, now ten years old and a bubbly toddler, never even seen by his warring father - the fallen princess turned her sights to her father. Meanwhile, Odin’s spies - for, oh, he had many then and many now - had told him of his grandchild and of Hela’s plans to turn him into little more than a path to the throne she coveted. In a final battle, set upon the ice of Jotunheim, each fought for blood of a different sort. It was in that battle that the, supposed, last of the Valkyries fell.One dying Valkyrie managed to return to Odin’s side. She had set eyes on the dark princess, she told him, and Hela led her army of monsters against the Aesir forces. And, though their battle plan had been to take the pregnant Hela back to Asgard, so that her child might be delivered safely there and kept from his plotting mother and father both, she was no longer with child. Of all of his forces, the most senior of the Valkryies were among the few who knew their true purpose there. Odin’s focus turned to banishing Hela to a realm from whence, he hoped, she could never return and to finding his newborn grandson.Let’s go back a bit... Hela went into labor in the beginning of that final battle. There’d been many spells that went into Loki’s making, for a Jotun would otherwise kill an Aesir just by touching her, let alone joining with her in such a way. When he was born, Hela’s midwife, one of her shieldmaidens, set the blue child into his mother’s arms... and, instantly, in the innocence of a child seeing his first face, took a form like hers. As soon as Laufey was admitted in and set eyes on the child, he insisted that no Jotun would ever follow him - even in his natural form, he was far too small for them to ever respect, and in the form he took when any but the Jotuns held him, he was nothing more than one of their oppressors.He ordered the child sent to the temple to await sacrifice, as was then the practice of both sides. Perhaps that, he dared think, would turn the tide of a failing battle. Besides, with the prince so easily passable as Aesir, he could just as easily be raised as an Asgardian prince to rule over Jotunheim and crumble what little of their culture remained. Hela gave little protest - something about the child had revolted her from the moment he was set in her arms, their natures at odds. Despite the protests of her attendants, she returned to the battle.So the newborn infant, new to the world and expecting only to be held, was left in the temple, awaiting a priestess who, slain in the spreading battle, would to his fortune never come. His mother, who quickly cast new life from her mind as she walked among the dead, was cast into the realm that would take her name, and his father and the remaining Jotun soldiers were forced to surrender as Hela’s warriors, fearing execution rather than the death on a battlefield for which they yearned, fled or slew each other.In search for the prince, Odin’s most trusted Einherjar tore what remained of Jotunheim apart. Finally, one called for Odin - the child had been found in the rubble of the most holy of Jotunheim’s temples. Odin followed him and knew instantly that they had found the right child when, as he had done with his mother, the infant reflected a form like his back at him, begging acceptance, pleading love. Those few who knew who Loki truly was were sworn to secrecy, but as the Norns would have it, even those seemingly uninjured died of their battle wounds soon after.Hiding the now shivering baby under his cloak, he returned to Asgard and, finally, bid Heimdall to cast his eyes upon the realms and discover where Frigga had hidden herself and her son away. To this day, Heimdall is the last surviving of Odin’s court, with the exception of Odin and Frigga, who knows the truth, too valuable to have killed and well trusted. It was an easy thing to pass the new child off as an Odinson - all the needed to say was that Odin hadn’t been at all ignorant of where she had gone. Asgard had lost its princess - no one minded at all - but had not one prince but two. And, while Odin always saw something of that fallen princess in his grandson, Frigga’s heart was quite large enough to hold love for both the son she’d born and the one she’d been given.

The Many Deaths of Loki

Loki cannot die.His birth-mother was the goddess of death, and every inch of his being rejected her as she rejected him. Like the first sparks of life in the universe, he was an impossible creation, the blending of two disparate species. Bred of magic. Each time he comes close to dying, the universe pulls him back, the chaotic force of life needed to balance out the cold order of death.Any wound will never be quite irrecoverable, any blow not quite enough to shatter him, he’ll slip into the void and... come back. So, to be more specific, he can die... it’s just not very permanent.This means what he’d always feared - that there is no place for him in Valhalla, it’s somewhere he will never reach, but nor too is Hel. Within mythology, tales were spun of the terrible lives he bore and, in some tellings, he was said to be the god who brought life-bringing fire to humanity like his counterpart in the Olympian pantheon.All of his domains - the creative and manic force of chaos out of which all things are born, the stories that only existence can bring, the mischief that is born of a life-addicted hedonism - circle about a central theme of glorious, vivid existence. Life.

Liaisons with Other Pantheons

Affairs of state had, on occasion, brought Odin and his sons to Omnipotence City. This was particularly true before the paper gods stole away the hearts of men and the various pantheons would have to endure negotiations to determine over which mortal populations they would rule. The debates could rage on for days, and were widely considered the most boring aspect of being a god.Loki, however, rather enjoyed these trips. For one, politics are all a great feat of trickery, manipulating minds into giving you precisely what you desire. Fascinating. However, more than that, it was a chance to meet up with Apollo. They never courted, not exactly, but oh, over the years they had their fun.However, that ended rather abruptly about two hundred years ago. Loki was invited to a party, very exclusive, women only - not a problem for Loki. She had a bit of fun at that party too, with a certain huntress who became quite taken with the Goddess of Mischief. That put an end to his liaisons with Apollo; even the Olympians object to their lover sleeping with their sister.

Asgardian Years

Years on Asgard are longer than those on Earth - their days too, though not to quite the same degree. It can take about five years, on Earth, for the seasons on Asgard to cycle from ice covering the endless ocean to bountiful summers and back to Yuletide once more. Many of the other realms have years that approximate those on Earth, so reason would hold that Midgardian years are something of a standard, but no... all correspondence with the other realms follows the Asgardian calendar and it’s generally expected to refer to to time by their measuring. This has begun to fade, slightly, in modern years and now even Asgardians occasionally refer to time interchangeably.By mere chance, Asgardian years correlate to Midgardian ones in terms of childhood development. Aging doesn’t start to drastically slow until puberty and, even then, only becomes truly noticeable when someone is full grown (about the equivalent of a 25 year old on Earth, which may fall anywhere between 150 and 200, depending on when puberty was reached). Until that time, an Asgardian child two years old by Asgardian measure is very alike a two year old human on earth, though by Midgardian years they would be about ten. Children are considered adult at 20 (or, rather, at a century old), but it’s not unusual to expect them to take up arms years / decades before that.

The Blood of Two Worlds

This portrayal of Loki is half Asgardian, the son of Hela and Laufey, born out of their alliance against Asgard and intended as a political pawn to secure her line’s claim to the throne after Thor was born. To be able to carry a half-Jotun child, she had to wield magic against his biology, a little like the Asgardian version of genetic engineering. This distinguishes his biology from both species in a few key ways:• His ability to change his form came from the magic used in his conception and, because of this, is his one unlearned magical skill. He can control it, but it’s also partially instinctive. It also allows him a disposition for other magical disciplines, which Frigga noticed early on and nurtured. The Variant from What If was carried by a surrogate - hence being so much larger, as his genetics weren’t adjusted so extensively.• While in Jotun form his touch is cold, it won’t cause frost bite. It’s a bit like taking someone’s hand in yours after they’ve just held snow with their bare hands. Similarly, other people’s touch feels warmer than it would otherwise but not excessively so.• Emotionally, Loki has always felt everything with an intensity like fire. Everything might as well be ramped up to 11, whether it be happiness or sorrow. This is partially because his hormonal balance is entirely unbalanced, his body always swerving madly between what would be normal for an Asgardian and what would be normal for a Jotun. There is no natural equilibrium.• His favored and habitual Asgardian form is something like a genetic possibility, which is why in that form he so strongly resembles his birth mother. It’s... almost his natural form, and does have some tells of his Jotun heritage that other forms taken do not. For instance, a certain resistance to extreme cold, and inner organs that are not quite where they should be for an Asgardian, though not quite matched to his Jotun form (see below). This is partially how the blade missed his heart on Svartalfheim.• Asgardian and Human biology is somewhat similar, allowing for demigods to be born without the aid of magic. Normally, a Jotun and a Human could never hope to have a child, even if the freezing touch could be overcome; the biologies are just too different, even with magic. Loki's biology is just Asgardian enough to be able to have a child with any of the three.