Frigga's Lodge

"Monster or hero? Ask yourself," whispered the one wrapped in green.

Why do we need monsters so much in our stories?

(a few thoughts I need to get out of my system while writing fanfic)

For me, it looked more like a trick than a proper narrative structure: to show the hero through an encounter with a monster, which then turns out to look suspiciously like the hero himself. A doppelgänger encounter, because every Odyssey, sooner or later, seems to find a mirror for its hero.

After all, what is an adventure if not spending time with the unknown, only to discover that it was very much known all along — a mirror to show you yourself?

So, when Loki in my fanfic story meets Hela and then Hulk, the question is: is Hulk no more than Hela, then? The hero saw himself in Hela’s destiny, and then again in Hulk’s. Ah, no, I told myself, something is different here.

Hela was a path one might take. Hulk was about blindness. Rage is blindness, in a way. Banner is not fully conscious of Hulk’s actions. And it turns out Loki was not fully conscious either, when he tried to achieve his great goals.

That is why it was so important to help him see it.

[ Read the new chapter of The Odyssey of Professor Loki here ]

"That'll be thirty gold pieces, my king." Valkyrie held out her hand. "I win."

A new chapter in the fanfic series of Professor Loki

[ Follow the Story Here ]

Flox Odinson: "Grandfather said you could even see behind that door. If you still want to."

With canon characters, we already know so much about them. You can give them a recognizable trope, throw them into another angst trap, build an AU around them, and it works because we carry their history with us already. But original characters are different. They are often easier to talk to. They start dragging you through the story faster than you can keep up with them.

That was exactly what happened with Flox Odinson — my original child character, created for my fanfiction series Professor Loki.

Seeing Canon Loki through child's eyes turned out to be such a strange and unexpectedly emotional adventure. But there is also a trap hidden there: what if the character remains flat? What if they exist only to observe someone else’s story? Thankfully, Flox seemed to know exactly where he was going and what he was looking for in this narrative long before I did.

***The last, honestly, is a little terrifying.***

[ Follow the Story Here ]

"People. Animals. A sprig of the World Tree. And memories. That's all that's left of our homeland."

A new chapter in the fanfic series of Professor Loki

[ Follow the Story Here ]

Saturday evening in the Odinson household was supposed to be quiet. Instead, it involved a magical fever, a Sorcerer Supreme, and a theatre premiere that someone very important had completely forgotten.

AI-generated illustration. Fictional characters.

"I knew it! Alex! I knew it – he's not who he pretends to be!" Alex made a heroic effort to sit up. "Look here! I printed the photo from yesterday. You know what? I did it! I caught our professor. And he's not some stupid cosmology professor; he's a real alien invader!"

"The Odyssey of Professor Loki"

Saturday mornings in the Odinson household were never quiet. This one involved Thor, a game console, a prophetic child, and the first unmistakable sign that Loki was beginning to come back.

AI-generated illustration. Fictional characters.

"...A big, but not fat, cat jumped onto the kitchen island. It gave him a much-needed distraction. This must be the stray Sylvie had mentioned earlier. There was a bloody mouse in its mouth. Looked like it had come to its master with a gift.

Loki didn't seem to notice. But his bandaged hand drifted to the cat's back. The cat purred, pleased, and placed its offering in front of him.

Loki's long fingers touched it, seemingly by accident.

The bloody, but very much alive mouse woke in a flash of green light and darted away. The cat shot after it."

"The Odyssey of Professor Loki"

AI-generated illustration. Fictional characters.

"Alex knew her job. She just needed to catch the wave, and then her interviewees would spill the sensation themselves. Besides, academia was her field. She knew exactly where to set her traps.

First: family. Wife, almost ten years together. Two kids - a boy and a girl. He relaxed. Good.

...

They met - the sunbeam, the ring, his finger. At that exact moment, Whitney took her one and only shot. All three of them were bathed in a flash of golden light"...

AI-generated illustration. Fictional character.

I finally finished writing a long Loki story.

The Odyssey of Professor Loki

It’s about memory, family, and what happens after the End of Time.

Professor Odinson lives a quiet life in Nottingham… until the past starts catching up with him.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/80959836/chapters/212707326