Reading Wednesday

[dhampyresa]

What did you finish reading

500 Ways To Tell A Better Story, by Chuck Wendig: It was offered as a free download on Wendig's blog a while back and I nabbed it then. I think all the content is available for free on his website, but I haven't checked. I liked it, it's a good mix of writing advice and publishing advice, not to mention editing advice, all of which will, I hope, help me with my own writing. I especially liked these this piece of advice about queries: "don't think about writing a query, pretend you're writing the back jacket", but by far my favourite of all the things he said was:

Write better today than you did yesterday and better tomorrow than you did today.

I kind of really needed the kick in the pants to get bcak to writing this book gave me, so props to Wendig.


The Gospel of Loki, by Joanne Harris: FUCKING FINALLY YES I have to admit that I was still dragging my feet, because of the issues I have with Harris' writing (I still can't tell how much is me bristling at differing characterisation of Norse characters and how much is not). To explain the nebulous issues, as best as I can: I'm bothered by Harris' characterisation of the female characters, they're all fairly one note as either "cloyingly sympathetic" "doe-eyed milksops" (especially Sigyn, urgh, I hate her Sigyn so much, no nuance at all), or manipulative scorned women types (I think the necklace incident with Freyja is even more slutshamey than the original myth, if such a thig is possible) or both (at one point, Skadi, of all people, is described as having "a soupy, soft, idiotic look". SKADI!). This was a lot less apparent in Runemarks because of Maddy being the main character (and what an awesome character she was), but started to bother me more than a little in Runelight (let's not talk about Sif. Let's just not). The time I took to finish this book is a testament to the fact that I very nearly ragequit it several times, because I just could not with the lack of depth of the characters.

That said! Back when I first started reading the book, I said "I still have my familiar problems with Harris' Runemarks series that this is a prequel too, but maybe that'll change by the end of this book." and guess what? It did! The above issues became a lot more bearable as the book went on, for various reasons: Sigyn in the cave was pretty terrifying in a Dolores Umbridge kind of way ("She adopted exactly the sam tone with me as she did with the snake, chiding us for 'not getting on' nd giving stern little lectures."), Idunn standing up to the rest of Aesir when they propose killing Loki after the Balder thing:

She looked at Odin and said: 'You can't.'
Heimdall gave a sneer. 'Why not?'
'Because he was one of us,' she said.

(ngl, I am friendshipping Loki and Idunn more than a bit, now) and of course, GULLVEIG-HEID. How much did I love the development with Heidi? A LOT. I really could have done without her sleeping with Loki, though, especially since there are still no queer characters anywhere in these books :( There was a great opportunity to have Loki sleep with men, that was even foreshadowed by this early line: "sex (although I was still confused by all the taboos surrounding this - no animals, no siblings, no men, no married women, no demons - frankly, it was amazing to me anyone had sex at all, with so many rules against it)" when Loki has slept with animals (Svadilfari), married women (Sif), demons (Angrboda) and he doesn't have siblings, so the absence of him having male lovers really stands out to me.

Things I loved: some really great Loki and Odin moments, like

I shrugged. 'Just remember I saved your life. You know you can rely on me.'
He smiled. 'I know I can,' he said.
And for a moment, I almost believed that neither of us was lying.

or

And don't go believing those stories about how I really cared for him, and how our tragic friendship became a kind of passion-play acted out over centuries. Take it from me, it wasn't. All right?

Which, sure, Loki, suuuuuuuure.

There were also some great moments of humour

'A prophecy? What did it say?'
'Cake.'

(I wish the prophecy had been about cake, instead of "Ragnarok is come at last".)

There were two moments where I had Journey into Mystery flashbacks ("Damn the Old Man. Damn them all." and "Damn him. Damn the lot of them"). Also the Loki-est thing this Loki has ever said, presented as a lesson (Book 4, Lesson 6):

So what's the worst that could happen?

On the whole, I liked the later parts of the book more than the early ones and I'm still happy I read the book.


What are you reading now

The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan: I am finally ready the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series! I'm only about two-and-a-half chapters in, though. I like it so far. Kindly Ones! Ball point swords! The SOCKS OF FATE!


What are you reading next

The rest of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, I think.

Also, you give have no idea how good reading things again feels. It is so so great.

Comments

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

(especially Sigyn, urgh, I hate her Sigyn so much, no nuance at all),

Oh, that's totally disappointing...I keep hoping for a reboot of Sigyn at Marvel to make her more modern and give her more self esteem.

I have my fingers crossed especially after Al Ewing said this of Sigyn, "One thing I’m absolutely sure of - if I use her, I’ll do her justice. I don’t see a point in bringing her in if I don’t make her an absolutely awesome lynchpin character. So there may be a long wait to see her, but it’ll be worth the wait."

Have I asked you before whether you'd seen The Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok? It's also not good with the female characterizations, but I love how they've taken the Norse Gods and put them into a modern Japanese setting.

Oh no...she ruined Sif?
Although Marvel did spoil me a bit here, after Loki left "Journey into Mystery", it starred Sif! A whole comic book series revolving around her and I loved it so much. She even had an adventure with Beta Ray Bill! lol

That does seem really weird about Loki not being bisexual. Even Marvel...who usually creates new characters to represent the LGBTA community rather than outing an older one...but it was hinted in Young Avengers and Loki's current writer confirmed, "Yes, Loki is bi and I’ll be touching on that. He’ll shift between genders occasionally as well.”

There were also some great moments of humour
'A prophecy? What did it say?'
'Cake.'
(I wish the prophecy had been about cake, instead of "Ragnarok is come at last".)

I'm sorry but Eddie Izzard is in my head, Cake or death?

That is definitely the Loki-est thing to say, the only thing more would be to involve bacon somehow...which I know is only a Young Avengers thing, but I still love it.

YES!!!! You're reading the Percy series! I can't wait to see what you think...while I love a lot of things about that half of the series, I like the female characters and other sexualities that are portrayed more in Heroes of Olympus series.

I think I just realized that I forgot to respond back to a reply from you weeks before, oops. I'm sorry and I'll get on that.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know there was a Marvel!Sigyn, but omg so excited if Al Ewing is writing her! Agent of Asgard has been consistently astounding so far.

I have no read The Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, as far as I know. I'm having a hard time keeping up with my manga reading right now (I have, like, 50 back issues of Vinland Saga to read. Have you read Vinland saga, btw?) and I'm kind of Norse myth-ed out currently too, but I might check it out in the future, if I remember.

To be fair, there's no basis in the myths for warrior!Sif, so I can't fault Harris for not going down that path. If I had to pick any female goddess to be a warrior (excluding Freya, obvs), it'd be Sigyn, actually: her name does mean "(female) friend of victory".

Sif!JiM was AMAZING! It's a shame it only ran so shortly. it had great writing and awesome art. The issue with Hildy is one of the very few issues I own (and paid full price for) in paper/floppy form.

I'm actually of the opinion that myth!Loki is both pansexual and genderqueer, but there's not much evidence in the myths, aside from the Svadilfari thing (and there are good reasons not to count the Svadilfari thing). so, again, while I wish Harris had gone there, I can't say she's going against canon. However! The quote makes it clear that Loki doesn't give a shit about sex taboos and while I could buy that he stuck (mostly) to the rules at the beginning, I simply cannot believe that by the end he's going every single one of Asgard's rules, EXCEPT the 'no sleeping with dudes' rule. That just makes no sense.

I can confirm that AoA!Loki has changed sex/gender already and flirted with a dude while in guy form, so that's a promise Ewing has kept so far.

Cake OF death, obviously.

I think "it seemed like a good idea at the time" and "not as planned" are also very Loki things to say.

I am enjoying it a lot so far! And I shall be sure to go all tl;dr about them next post, hahaha. (OMG, queer characters, yesssssssssssss.)

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know there was a Marvel!Sigyn

That's because the original Marvel!Sigyn was...horrible, the usual dutiful wife who's treated like crap.
http://marvel.wikia.com/Sigyn_(Earth-616)

The Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok is a Manga series but since the translations are out of print or only available as ebooks, I only know it from Hulu. It's free on there and some other sources.

I have never even heard of the Vinland Saga, but that does sound interesting. I noticed on Free Comic Book Day that there's a non-Marvel comic book series, too.
https://www.comixology.com/Loki-Ragnarok-and-Roll-1-of-4/digital-comic/69506

Well, Odin does mention the 8 years that Loki spent as a woman, including having children. I suppose he is only mentioned having relations with men as a woman, but then, the ancient Norse believed that unless you were unable to procreate, it was shameful to be on the receiving end of sexual acts as a man and they would rape those they'd conquered especially men.

If culture was a bit different, I'm sure it would have been mentioned because even as he insults everyone around him over them, he really doesn't seem to care about the rules as you said...maybe it was and it's been lost...
Everyone but the most rabid homophobic fangirls seem to accept his bisexuality/pansexuality.

Yay! I love how there's this panel of Young Avengers and Kate Bishop's like, Am I the only straight person on this team? and America Chavez is like, I've seen how you look at me. You're not that straight.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I think I'll never understand how anyone goes from "married Loki" to "dutiful wife", lmao. That's such a big leap in logic.

I think my local library might have had some of it at some point, so I might pick it up if I find it there.

...That is the weirdest thing, because I have had this exact same idea kicking around my head for ages. Granted, in mine Loki's rockband is him, Setesh, Coyote, Morrigan and Eris and they are fighting the Internet because reasons, but still.

Oh, I know that, I just mean that if you took out the Svadilfari thing (which you can, because rape is a valid interpretation of Sleipnir's conception and I refuse to take that into account as to anyone's sexuality), there isn't much to go on on the pansexual/genderqueer front.

Yeah, that's a problem with all mythologies: so much has been lost or added after the fact, it's sometimes hard to tell what's original.

That was one of my favourite panels! I hated that it took until the last too issues for Kate and America to actually talk to each other, though.