haljathefangirlcat

[haljathefangirlcat]

"I will wait until the end of all things, and I will eat the Sun and I will eat the Moon. But I will take the most pleasure in killing you."

[haljathefangirlcat]

Des Xanteners Lindenblatt.

[haljathefangirlcat]

Day 3

Favourite male character

I must confess that I too am not immune to Hagen. But since everyone else here has already written about him and I don't think that I can really add anything anymore I might as well write about Volker instead (and also because I have to hold a presentation about him in a few weeks).

Now the reason why I like Volker and consider him one of my favourites is actually very simple and superficial: He plays an instrument. I play an instrument (even if it's not the same one). I like fictional characters that play instruments (because they are rare). But that probably isn't a very satisfying answer to this already starving fandom so I guess I'll have to go into at least a bit more detail.

It's a bit more difficult to form an opinion about Volker than about the other more prominent characters because he doesn't appear for a chunk of it. When he reappears in the second half, the narrator has to actually introduce him a second time because by then the reader has probably already forgotten who he was, and that he already appeared during the war with the Danes and the Saxons as a standard bearer, and from then on he suddenly becomes a main character out of nowhere.

From then on he becomes one of those characters that probably the funniest to watch (or in this case read about), mainly because he is quite similar to Hagen in many respects and even worse in others. That man is so impulsive that even Mr. Let’s-provoke-the-woman-that-wants-to-kill-us(-and-other-genius-ideas) has to hold him back several times.

Also the sword-is-a-fiddle-fiddle-is-a-sword allegory thing that he has going on, is so extremely interesting because it is entirely unique to this character. The Nibelungenlied doesn’t really use a lot of allegories in the first place (the only slightly similar thing I can think of is “X made a woman cry” as a way of saying that X killed some guy, and also maybe Kriemhild and Ute’s dreams), and the one time that the Lied consistently uses such artistry like a stylistic device, it is for the one character that is also an artist, which I find very fitting.

[haljathefangirlcat]

hey I love your work!! you seem like such a gorgeous, thoughtful person.

I had a question, and you seem trustworthy—Cas have you seen the new ao3 privacy policy? the one with another checkbox? what’s that about? I’m a little scared especially with recent events and the actual documentation seems a little vague. what do you think? I live in the states

I have, and I come armed with research!

For those of you who don't know, the new policy states:

By checking this box, you consent to the processing of your personal data in the United States and other jurisdictions in connection with our provision of AO3 and its related services to you. You acknowledge that the data privacy laws of such jurisdictions may differ from those provided in your jurisdiction. For more information about how your personal data will be processed, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

To translate, this means you are consenting to your personal information (IE: e-mail address and IP address) being shared according to US privacy laws, not the laws of whatever country you live in or happen to currently be reading from. This is because AO3 is US-based.

This sounds scary.

However, if you delve deeper into AO3 privacy policies, it says:

We may share Personal Information if we:

are legally compelled to do so;

have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on the OTW; or

are cooperating with law enforcement authorities.

We will cooperate with all investigations conducted by law enforcement authorities within the United States when legally required to do so. Cooperation with law enforcement authorities from other countries and cooperation when it is not legally required are at our sole discretion. Our discretion looks favorably on freedom and justice, and unfavorably on oppression and violence.

Basically this means they'll share your info if they're told to by law enforcement, which has ALWAYS been a law. This isn't a change. I think they just added this to say "Hey, remember if you live outside the US, just know that we as a website have to comply with US-based laws because we live here, and things suck here right now!"

The last part of their statement is also really telling. The creators of ao3 believe in free expression and are not trying to get you in trouble or censor your work. You're not going to get in trouble for posting/reading gay fanfics. It's not illegal to do so. (If that changes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it).

I think the most important thing now is to advocate for the necessity of websites like ao3, because some people don't like websites like that. I think this shows that there will be probably more opponents to websites like this in the future. But I don't think the FBI is going to come and knock on the doors of everyone who reads bedtime stories on ao3.

Honestly, Ao3 is more transparent about this info than most people. all websites can share any personal info you put in if legally compelled to do so.

[haljathefangirlcat]

there i fixed it for you <3

[haljathefangirlcat]

If you have a work that carries the "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" label I have to say That is very allowed

[haljathefangirlcat]

my friend just told me that there's a secret second dashboard that solely contains posts from people you've turned on post notifications for, and when i click the link in the messages it opens it within the tumblr app, so the tumblr app also has a secret second dashboard for post notification blogs, and the only way to access it is to open the link for it within the app.

i literally love tumblr

[haljathefangirlcat]

From Dean’s Mother Goose Book of Rhymes, illustrated by Janet Grahame Johnstone and Ann Grahame Johnstone. This book was published in 1977 but it was a compilation of several volumes from throughout the 70s.

[haljathefangirlcat]

the first law of tragedies: the end is already written and inevitable. the second law of tragedies: your actions are all your own and you can choose to get off this ride whenever you want. the third law of tragedies: we both know that you are never going to do that.

[haljathefangirlcat]

I just saw these super cool designs of the Norse gods from a theatrical interpretation of the Poetic Edda. The play is a mixture of Swedish folk music, dance, and Peking opera. If you’re interested in checking it out, I think you can watch it here, but it is of course in Swedish.

The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems about gods, heroes, the creation of the world and its coming end. The play starts with Odin resurrecting a dead völva (seeress) and asking her about things in the past and things that will happen in the future.

Photos taken by Håkan Larsson.

[haljathefangirlcat]

01: The völva

A hearing I ask of all humankind the higher and lower kin of Heimdall; They, Father of the Fallen, wanted me to recount the ancient deeds of heroes I recall from time’s dawn.

Völuspá, translated by Bernard Scudder, 2001.

Völuspá, “Prophecy of the Seeress”, is the first poem of the Poetic Edda. The creation of the world and its coming end is told by a völva (seeress) at the request of Odin. The design for the völva is taken from a theatrical interpretation of the Poetic Edda by Jon Fosse that mixes Swedish folk music and folk dance with Peking opera. Because I still can’t get over how cool those designs were.

Photo by Håkan Larsson.

[haljathefangirlcat]

The god Loki (or Loke as we say in Sweden) from Norse mythology. My drawing is very inspired by John Bauer’s paintings of him. I don’t remember when I first saw them, but I do remember that I thought: “Yeah, that’s what Loki looks like”.

Loki was the son of a giant (or jotunn), but he once mixed blood with Odin and became his foster brother (Odin’s father was also a giant, btw). His role in the Norse mythology has been debated a great deal by scholars, among other things how much he may have been influenced by the Christian Devil (since those who wrote down the Norse myths were Christians). He is a bit of a trickster, sometimes assisting the gods and sometimes causing problems for them. He is described as cunning, unreliable and disrespectful, but there are many times when the gods were benefited by his tricks. It was thanks to him that Thor got his hammer, for instance.

By the giantess Angerboda, he was the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, but he is also said to have given birth to children himself. Once he became pregnant by eating a roasted woman’s heart, but the most famous story is about how he turned himself into a mare, mated with the stallion Svadilfari and later gave birth to the eight-legged horse Sleipnir. In the poem Lokasenna Odin also says that Loki once spent eight winters beneath the earth as a woman milking cows, and during that time bore children. But it’s maybe just said as an insult.

In Ragnarök Loki will fight against the gods and be killed by the god Heimdall.

[haljathefangirlcat]

A commission I did for a guy on DeviantArt (I occasionally do commissions, but not often because my concentration and disciplin suck when it comes to things that I don’t feel like drawing XD). He wanted the Norse god Thor, but drawn as someone’s dad or favorite uncle rather than young, handsome hero. Which I was more than happy to do, because having grown up with Peter Madsen’s Valhalla comics, that is exactly how I see Thor. ^^

[haljathefangirlcat]

07: Odin the Queer

“Óðinn knew, and practised himself, the art which is accompanied by greatest power, called seiðr (‘black magic’), and from it he could predict the fates of men and things that had not yet happened, and also cause men death or disaster or disease, and also take wit or strength from some and give it to others. But this magic, when it is practised, is accompanied by such great perversion that it was not considered without shame for a man to perform it, and the skill was taught to the goddesses.”

Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga Saga, translated by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes.

“Odin was the master of magic, but in particular he was the lord of precisely this kind of sorcery that made a man ragr. To get an idea of how deep the social contradiction went, one only has to imagine the god of medieval Christianity, with its capital penalties for many kinds of supposed sexual transgressions, being clearly described in biblical texts as engaging in same-sex intercourse. Thus we have Odin - lord of the gods, divinity of war and poetry, patron of the royal elites to whom a masculine heterosexual ideal was central - also portrayed as the supreme practitioner of magic that was homophobically shameful for men to perform. A Norwegian scholar got to the heart of the matter some years back in a series of groundbreaking papers on the divine being she referred to as ‘Odin the Queer’. The same term surely applies to the men of magic, who were activating social disdain while controlling and weaponising it as power.”

The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price.

[haljathefangirlcat]

16: Gerd and Freyr

Gerd said:

'Barri is the name, as we both know, of a wind-calm grove; and after nine nights, there to Niord's son Gerd will give love's pleasure.'

Skírnismál 39, translated by Carolyne Larrington

In this poem Freyr falls in love with Gerd, the daughter of a jötunn, and sends his old friend and servent Skirnir to woo her. Gerd agrees after Skirnir threatens to curse her with a repulsive husband and unbearable sexual frustration. Several scholars have suggested that the poem was intended for dramatic presentation, perhaps as a sort of hieros gamos since Gerd's name has been etymologically associated with the earth and enclosures.

[haljathefangirlcat]

The Norse god Freyr (Frej or Frö as we call him in Sweden).

Freyr was a fertility god and seems to have been one of the most important gods in the old Norse religion. His name means “lord”. Adam of Bremen wrote that Freyr bestowed peace and pleasure to mortals, and that his likeness was equipped with an erect phallus. In the Prose Edda he is rather described as the one who controls the weather and brings good harvests: “Freyr is the most renowned of the Æsir; he rules over the rain and the shining of the sun, and therewithal the fruit of the earth; and it is good to call on him for fruitful seasons and peace. He governs also the prosperity of men”. His riding animal was the golden boar Gullinbursti.

Freyr, together with his father Njörðr and his sister Freyja, was originally one of the Vanir, a group of gods associated with magic, nature and fertility. During the Æsir-Vanir War, Njörðr was sent to the Æsir as a hostage (together with his children, I assume) which resulted in a peace agreement between the two groups. Of course it has been speculated if the story of the Æsir–Vanir War had its basis in a real war between groups of people with different religions. I once read a theory that the Vanir maybe were surviving elements from the religion of the Nordic Bronze Age. It is impossible to know anything for certain about the Nordic Bronze Age religion due to the lack of written sources, but I still decided to give my version of Freyr a Bronze Age look.

[haljathefangirlcat]

Huginn and Muninn entertaining some valkyries.