@wakesirens replied to your post โthere's been a lot of discussion on the dash of...โ:
wait if you donโt mind. will you elaborate on the worldbuilding
โthis is the fic in question: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361534/
it's an original au that combines comics canon and norse myth and a lot of my own pizzaz. to be perfectly fair i am cheating with my gay marriage worldbuilding because the jotunns are non-human aliens whose reproduction doesn't work quite the same way. so, this is worldbuilding that hinges on xenobiology to function, but that xenobiology does inform the social and cultural standards that govern the lives of those who have it.
the premise is as follows:
the jotunns are hermaphroditic (not a word i would ever use for real-world people because it is both disrespectful and dehumanizing AND a biologically inaccurate word to describe any intersex condition. the jotnar are like earth snails and totally unlike earth people), with full "male" and "female" reproductive organs. quotes used here because they would not be using those terms/categories to describe their biological sexes since they do not have two distinct categories of sexes in which exclusively one sex fertilizes the eggs of the other. they do, however, have social male and female roles that mirror those of the aesir and vanir, who have human reproductive biology.
royal jotunn marriage succession is patrilineal, where a father's first/eldest son inherits his title, position, and property. the father in a jotunn marriage carries the first child (who is always his son) and the mother carries any successive children. the social role (male or female) that a child will fulfill throughout their life is determined by their parents.
in my fic, odin and laufey were young warlords together, and odin, set to inherit his seat as allfather from bor, proposed to laufey as he was set to ascend the throne. laufey rejected the proposal because he understood that odin was asking him to be his wife, and thereby rejecting/ignoring/fundamentally misunderstanding his social role as a jotunn man. it would still be a viable political marriage since laufey would be capable of (and would have been planning to) bear their firstborn child. odin understood that he and laufey would be able to create an heir to the throne of asgard but did not understand the way that laufey's social role would be different in a marriage to odin/in an asgardian marriage than it would be in a jotunn marriage. since odin can never bear children in turn, laufey would only ever be his wife, which denies him his social/royal role as a jotunn man (and he is heir to jotunnheim as ymir's son).
this causes a rift between odin and laufey (odin, spurned of his proposal which was born of sincere love and devotion, laufey, insulted that the borson would reduce him to his bride) which causes a thousand year war between asgard and jotunheimr
after many years of bloodshed, frigga reaches out to laufey to ask that he consider a peace, and he concedes to do so if odin were to show his face at his hall and ask for one. odin does so, and they agree to make amends and to formalize the peace between their warring realms with an arranged political marriage. they agree to marry loki (farbauti's second son after helblindi, laufey's third son as he bore his heir byleistr) and balder (odin's third and youngest son, frigga's second (tyr is half jotunn on his mother hrod's side and odin's first (but illegitimate) child).
loki is a disfavored son, outside the patrilineal line of inheritance, and the runt of the litter. it is technically beneath his station to be given to an asgardian as his bride, but he is misliked and undervalued by his father so it does not bother laufey to give him a match he would never take for himself. it's more acceptable for loki to be given as a bride to balder than it would have been for laufey to marry odin both because he is not in the royal line of succession for the throne of jotunheimr, and because balder is so far from the throne of asgard himself. thor, the legitimate firstborn son of frigga and odin, is heir to the throne, and arranged to be married to a royal vanir girl to continue the line of the dynasty his parents started.
the problems begin in chapter 3 when thor and loki meet at the feast held in thrym's hall to celebrate the royal engagement because the odinson falls madly in love with his baby brother's betrothed. and thor having an affair with loki is a big political no-no because if they were to legitimize their union, it would put loki (a royal jotunn without a formal line of succession to the throne) on the arm of the throne of asgard, which would be a match dramatically below thor's station even if loki had not been regarded as an underhanded political weasel. and loki also has the potential to produce a legitimate asgardian heir with thor, which odin would never permit.
it is understood that balder and loki's marriage is a formality and they will not produce children of consequence, if they do produce children at all. balder wants to and loki does not. because, again, balder sees loki's capacity to bear his children as just something that is biologically possible between them, but loki sees the possibility of his bearing balder's children as distasteful and beneath his station and an insult to him besides.
also the reason that the jotnar fill male and female roles within their royal marriages despite not having the same biology as the cultures they emulate is that they model their royalty/succession traditions on asgard and vanaheimr. non-royal jotnar do not do this and do not maintain the same gendered royal social roles that ymir's line does.
