#Argr and Friends

[skip2mylounacy]

no cos you're completely right cos the way rick is hailed as great for diversity when there is so much covert sexism makes me gnaw on the bars of my enclosure TT

as a fellow afab that's agender and uses it as a pronoun🫡, yeah that's so fair,,,

i get that he was trying to show the kind of transphobia that trans ppl deal with,, but some of the ways he handled it miss the mark I feel. like the Islamaphobia when Magnus assumed Samirah would be transphobic just cos she's religious

and Halfborn continuing to call her argr despite being told not to by Alex but somehow? they r super chill friends at the same time :,) (coming from someone with friend groups who reclaim slurs at each other)

the only one i let off the hook is Jack cos he's been asleep for hundreds of years (unlike the Valhalla lot), i don't remember him being told off for it, and not once in my memory did he use it as an insult (plus reading him yell and twirl his hair about how much he loves argr people makes me giggle and filled me with joy abt how he loves us)

he's also a sword and personally i feel like a weapon would have different understandings of people esp considering basically everyone treats him like a sword rather than a person but that's a different post-

ironically, in Rick's attempts to portray the oppression and un/conscious bigotry and bias of people, he literally portrays it in his actual writing and I'd applaud him for that it I thought it was an intentional meta analysis of human nature rather than just a guy falling into his own traps lmao-

ft the fact that i plan on having a combination of rick's design of olympus & everything being in ny, but also keeping the mythology with its people (tho that's a bit nebulous, but whatever)-

aka camp half-blood stays in long island, yeah

camp jupiter? - still in california

but also: the world trade centre holds an entrance to olympus which is still on mt. olympus and the people do not need to leave their home continents to go to a safe place- olympus is still on olympus, the mountain, rome is still rome, etc- it's just the gods are no longer restricted, they are everywhere-

also kinda just like. rick did this for the egyptians and the norse??? why couldn't the greeks and the polytheistic romans (as compared to the christian/catholic romans) have multiple places of existence???

like. i'm also getting rid of the place-specific things, like álfheimr (alfheim) and niðavellir (nidavellir) not resembling boston and shit but also valhǫll (valhalla) and ásgar��r (asgard) being. like where they were modelled after in norse mythology-

also bye-bye bifrost bc that Did Not exist b4 like snorri sturluson-

actual norse mythology is super interesting, like immensely so-

rick did freyr & freyja so dirty- like, yeah, odin and thor were important, but. uhhhh ppl worshipped freyr & freyja as MUCH bc they were the FARMING gods and important

i feel like this post does a bit to establish my love for sociology, psychology, and anthropology- i love learning abt ppl it's amazing-

[zephiraz]

I got Acroniss! Plus this monkey guy. I also convinced Blue and Echeyakee to stop being so shy, so Echeyakee got his photo retaken.

Acroniss was the last rare spawn that I needed in the pursuit of mimicking my draenei-turned-belf hunter’s stable. The next few I need will be obtained during the course of questing in Outland and Northrend, then I want some more challenging pets from dungeons once I hit max.

From left to right: Echeyakee, Acroniss, Blue, Mukla

[pigeonindustrialcomplex]

L + ratio + you practice women's magic + you're a bottom + you're friends with wizards + you're a slave + you're a manwhore + you're a poisoner + you've done mpreg + you have no honour + you're a coward

[genderfluid-strawberry-of-doom]

halfborn and alex's friendship is actually something so personal to me. and not because it's healthy or well-written, but because that scene in HoT where alex punches halfborn and he says "you hit hard for an argr" and then they banter but he never really admits he's wrong. that reminds me of my own friendships bc sometimes my friends don't admit when they're wrong about something lgbtqia+ and. yeah

[broodingnightgoddess]

Queer characters in media:

Alex Fierro

Alex Fierro is a main character in Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, written by Rick Riordan.

----------------------------------------------------

Character info

Name: Alex Fierro

Alias: Child of Loki, Argr, Person who is the Child of Some Parent, among others.

Gender and sexuality: Genderfluid, sexuality unspecified. He's dating the main protagonist of the series, Magnus Chase, who might get his own entry. Alex will be referred with he, she and they pronouns in this post.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Alex is an accurate example of a genderfluid person, receiving praise from the community for her respectful and accurate characterization, as well as being a main character who dates the POV character. His transgender identity is essential to his character, and explored in depth along with the rejection that they suffered because of it, which should always be shown as a way to promote tolerance and inform the public.

Brief Story (spoilers)

Alex is the child of the trickster Nordic God Loki, who tricked Alex's married father into sleeping with him in a female shape.

Alex was rejected by his mortal parents for the conditions of his birth and his gender fluidity, however Alex found confort with her Abuelo (grandparent), a Mexican inmigrant who respected and honored Alex's gender fluidity, much to the anger of her father. Abuelo would tell her about Aztec myths and stories and teach her pottery.

Later on, Alex was disowned by her father and she had to live in a youth shelter, where she was constantly abused and bullied.

The protagonist Magnus Chase would meet Alex Fierro years later, in the Half-Blood Camp, where they would become friends and then a happy couple. Alex would explain to Magnus his gender identity, and while the former had some difficulties at the beggining, he would grow to be supportive and understanding.

Trivia

Alex has heterochromia, which means their eyes are different colors, this may be a visual representation of their dual gender identity.

She also states that she looks similar to Loki except for some injuries the latter possesses.

----------------------------------------------------

[yanderemontgomerygator]

who are u. ur so cool. I'm high on marijuana

thak yoy so muc!! :D i am yangerde montgomergy gagor! my pronons argre he/him abd i am boy! i 18, i arm a bad bjitch an i lov montgomrgy gato, duck, twerkig, an bernie sandar!!!! and i HAT. THE SMEL. OF THE BEAHCH.

if anyon want to talk t me, i hav an instagrum! @yanderemontgomerygator! i dunt hav any posts ther yet but i wil post there son! so fel fre to mesag! i lov talk ang making friend :) notificatons are a litle bugy thoug so if you mesag me i may not respon imedistely i applogiz.

an congrsats on the marjinunagua! i lov marjunigna i hav nevr had it but i am glad it is legl because geting high is poger for thos who want to. ihop yoyu get hgigh again!! :) [if yoy wan to]

[thevagueambition]

I meant to do this yesterday: 8 and 14 for the writeblr ask.

8. Which OC of yours is your favourite and why?

Hmm, god, do I have a favourite?? I love all of them but honestly it’s been a while since I thought about any of them, I’ve been so heavy into fanfic land lately... Hmm, this would be easier if my desktop worked and I could look through my art folder simply called “OCs” but I am still stuck with my laptop, rip

Let’s go with Sølve, one of my older ones

Sølve is a viking age mercenary. He’s one of the children Loki gave birth to, but was raised almost solely by his human father whom he doesn’t get along with. He’s known for being quite argr (ie “not performing the male gender role correctly”) and is probably something like genderfluid -- ie, he will sometimes put a dress on and use she/her and indeed there are some towns where people know him as female. 

Anyway, he went viking at an early age which was pretty harrowing because he’s afraid of open water after nearly drowning as a child. He’s a competent fighter, though, and made friends on the raid whom he’d later end up forming a mercenary band with. He tends to make a mess of things and pretends it’s either intentional or doesn’t matter to him, but he cares more than he’s willing to admit. I love him because he’s a chaotic dumbass who is ready and willing to defy the gods probably??? Dumbass

I really associate the opening lines of Eurovision winner song Heroes, of all things, with him: Don't tell the gods I left a mess / I can't undo what has been done / Let's run for cover 

14. Is there a specific moment you’re looking forward to when it comes to your WIP? Which one?

There are several really spicy dramatic conversations between Enjolras and Grantaire later in Elysium that I look forward to writing the rest of/writting the context of but I don’t want to get too specific. Aside from those, I look forward to getting into the lead up to the July Revolution. 

[harclay]

geoff harclay is averyl’s cousin by marriage and was one of the men w/ a technically superior claim to the chieftainship averyl now has. they’ve been friends, however, ever since she married his cousin; they’re of the same age and connected instantly, with geoff being averyl’s perennial sidekick. when she took control of the clan, he joined her as her second-in-command.

public opinion of the two of them is ambivalent, and virtually everything them and their relationship is a double-edged sword. geoff’s willingness to play second fiddle, despite his greater claim, adds legitimacy to averyl’s rule as chief, the implication being that she was the best choice and his respect for her means other people should respect her too; on the other hand, people suggest he’s waiting for averyl to die--or the opportunity to get rid of her himself--and is using his position to build up good opinion/a power base in the meantime. their friendship has been misread as a romantic relationship and some people think geoff was the real father of averyl’s children, and that they haven’t married now only as a way to avoid drawing attention to the truth; others think he’s a kind of miserable Nice Guy™ who isn’t strong enough to win averyl over sexually, so he hovers around her hoping she’ll change her mind. those people who have met averyl personally or who have heard rumors/stories about her argr nature add their own, usually homophobic twists to these stories.

geoff is all around a fairly straightforward, nice dude who, because of his closeness to averyl from a young age, kinda Got Woke really quickly in a way that many men of westeros have never had to do. his adolescence in the clan was very turbulent, violent, and troubled, as any difference from normative masculinity is harshly punished in their warrior culture, but his friendship with averyl was central to his ability to survive that without being pushed in a toxic direction. he can’t opt out of many aspects of masculinity in his world--violence and war, for one, are crucial to being a male member of the mountain clans, especially a noble one--but his awareness of norms and structures as norms and structures, rather than absolutes that were impossible to defy, made him capable of growing and processing rather than becoming emotionally stagnant.

[directionlessbuthappy]

Hit Me

Reader is a good shot. Ivar claims he’s better.

for reference: argr means “womanish” 

Taglist: steadypiepsychicflower cbouvier23

Taking in a breath. Lining up your finger to the eye. Exhaling. Releasing. Your arrow goes right through the deer’s eye.

The sons of Ragnar were always good sparring partners. Bjorn taught you how to shoot while you grew up alongside him in Hedeby. You decided to come with him to Katteget a few winters ago; it had been a few years since his father disappeared, and he seemed somber. You would be a bad friend to let him go alone.

This is how you met them so many years ago. Ubbe, Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Ivar, Bjorn’s half brothers.

Bjorn’s youngest brother seemed ever bristled by you. You could remember the first thing you ever said to Ivar. You were shooting alongside the four of them (Sigurd had elected to stay home) and you were the first to hit a bullseye into the neck of their small songbird targets. Ivar grumbled at his loss and muttered, “You were just lucky, not skilled.”

You snorted and shrugged nonchalantly at Ivar. You failed to hide your smirk of victory.

“Everyone is good at something.”

You found the more time you spent in Kattegat, the more you could see how Ivar disliked to lose. Arguments, fights, competitions. Ivar refused to fail at anything he started. Despite the fact that he was the one antagonizing these situations, you respect him and his drive to clean up his own mess. His legs did not stop him from being a man; a boneheaded, superiority complexed, stubborn man. Ivar the Boneless was not boneless; you felt that sometimes you were the only one who could see that. His brothers always referred to Ivar as “harmless.” You never once believed them. You thought this was why Ivar took a liking to taunting you the most.

“More luck, Ivar?” you chirped. You heard a harrumph off to the side as you stepped forward to retrieve your arrow. Leaves crunched under your feet as you walked to the target, taking the deer’s antler to roughly pull the arrow free. You’d just ripped it out when another arrow hit the deer between the eyes.

You stumbled back with a yelp. Ubbe began shouting.

“Ivar! She was retrieving an arrow, where is your honor brother?”

“She could see I was not finished,” Ivar shrugged. You turned to the arrow’s origin. The frown on your lips made your usually sparkling eyes sour. With reddened face, you ripped Ivar’s arrow free of the deer’s skull without looking. “Are you finished now?” you shouted across the field. Ivar laughed while his brothers shook their heads, dismayed at his foolishness.

“I was not going to hit you y/n.”

“Oh?” you said with a head tilt. You were still angry, so very angry… “Then prove it, Boneless.”

Ivar’s smug grin turned to a scowl. He hated when you called him that. His name held meaning, but his title was demeaning the way you used it by itself. He watched you with slow steam building in his ears; you had taken up the deer’s head and tossed it to the ground. Stepping aside, you knew these evergreen woods did not hold many fruit trees. So you improvised.

You took a pinecone, walked back to where the deer’s head had perched upon the half cut tree, and held your back to the short trunk. You put the pinecone on your head. Perhaps this was the first game of Russian roulette ever played. And Ivar was willing to spin.

“Wait, y/n, wait! What are you doing?” Ubbe protested. You smiled slightly.

“Do not worry Ubbe. Ivar is a good shot, he always says so. Apparently all my skill with a bow is luck. Let us see if your brother is as lucky as I, hmm?”

Ubbe shook his head and turned, muttering something to Ivar. You could not hear it.

“Do not do this brother. She is offended, be nice and she’ll stop this.”

“Why would I do that? She just wants to be right. Let her be right…or not.”

“Ivar, this isn’t fair,” Bjorn stepped up. “If you miss…”

“She is just being argr,” Hvitserk added. “All girls are this way. You should ignore it.”

“You doubt me too dear Hvitserk?” Ivar suggested. “If I miss and hit her, at least she will not be nagging in my ear anymore. But I do not miss. Besides, I did not put her back against that tree, did I?”

His brothers fall silent. If you wanted to play games, no man could stop you. You observed this conversation with slightly confusion, not knowing what it was they talked about, but you could see it was over and Ivar was ready to shoot.

You stood flat on your feet, hands to your sides, nervous to even lift a finger out of place. You were giving Ivar every opportunity to kill you. He really could. Your head was much smaller than a deer’s, and although easier to miss, your head was alive. The stag’s head was not.

Ivar shifted in his seat and picked out his arrow. Along the other side of the field you stood motionless, waiting, blood pumping in your chest and through your veins faster and faster. It was almost thrilling, if you hadn’t noticed the gleam in Ivar’s eye. You considered for a moment why you were gambling. Was this your anger talking, or did you trust him? Either way, he shot the arrow.

The breeze hit you across the face and for a moment, you were convinced he hit you in the chest. The pinecone did not fall off your head. You reached for your neck; there was nothing sticking out of it. You realized you forgot to breath and sucked in a gasp of air.

Jumping away from the tree and looking up, you saw what happened. The pinecone was pinned to the trunk, half the arrow inside the bark. Ivar used full force and had pulled all the way back on the bowstring to make that arrow hit so deeply. Either it was confidence, or the urge to kill…

You turned with shuttering breath to see Ivar chuckling. He turned to Ubbe and nodded in your direction as your legs willed themselves to walk back to the shooting line.

“I told you, I do not miss.”

[zephiraz]

My hunter and most of his pets. Blue, his starting kitty cat, wasn’t playing nice with posing, so she sat in the stable.

From left to right: Grizzlegut, Echeyakee, Goldwing, and Sunwing.

(Echeyakee and Blue were being jerks and not unstealthing anyway)

[thorraborinn]

So I have a couple friends in Norway, one who grew up on the countryside whose family have some folk traditions, and one who lives in the city but has a great interest in folklore. Both of them are baffled and appalled at the idea that anyone would want to work with vættir, as they say those are evil. A better bet might be tusser. Now that's not a term I can find much English info on. At first I assumed we are all mistaken, but could it be that vættir is something different in Icelandic?

I’m not so familiar with Norwegian folk customs but yeah, the word vættr as we tend to use it in the sort of general discourse is heavily influenced by Icelandic and even the Icelandic huldufólk ‘hidden-people.’ In Old Norse anything living was a vættr (this itself a narrowing of meaning as it originally just meant ‘thing’). I think the best translation of ON vættr into Norwegian would probably be vesen. Óðinn and Loki both get called rǫg vættr ‘ragr/argr wight’ in various sources. In some places it might have been used in place of specifically harmful or troublesome wights until that became the primary meaning. Whereas in Icelandic it typically refers to the four landvættir guardians of Iceland. Icelandic conceptions of invisible beings may also have been influenced somewhat by folk custom from the British isles that didn’t reach the Scandinavian peninsula. Of course even the more positive of them were always considered potentially dangerous. 

In Scandinavian I know there is at least some linguistic remodeling that might point to a strong perceived connection between vættir and jǫtnar resulting in vætte/vätte and jætte/jätte. Although I don’t think that happened in Norway specifically.

The word tusser is cognate to þursar (/þussar) which are far more explicitly dangerous than vættir both in Old Norse and even moreso in Modern Icelandic. (The re-borrowing back into Icelandic, tussa, is one of the most offensive things you can say in Icelandic, especially to a woman, btw. Don’t do it). But lexical drift works in mysterious ways. Based on the descriptions on Bokmål WIkipedia and Den Store Norske leksikon I’d say tusser sound an awful lot like what I’d tend to call huldufólk (note that they have to translate þurs, and to Norwegian troll rather than tuss).

I don’t actually know why a Norwegian would consider a vette more dangerous than a tusse but if Norwegian folk custom is as diverse as its dialects it seems very reasonable to me that it could be a regional thing.

I wonder if your friends recognize alver/alvar and if they would include them under the subheading of vætte/vetter.

Maybe @hedendom would have something to say about this. Whatever you find out, I would be interested in hearing about it.

[airisdonxem]

My beautiful OC, Sati Argred. Art by https://m.vk.com/lilitmanga

[eleven-pipers-piping]

thanks for being so chill! basically, it is great that she (im gonna use she for now because its convenient and thats most common for her) is so confident in her gender identity, but the first thing is that a lot of genderfluid people use the pronouns they/them some of the time (i do all the time because i am too tired to constantly be telling people what pronouns to use) and she talks about the they/them pronouns kinda disdainfully, like she says that if other people want to use they/them thats fine "but i change a lot. thats sort of the point." which completely ignores the possibility of people like me, who are tired of correcting people daily, or fluid people who move between boy, girl and agender, etc. and implies that no fluid ppl use they bc we "change a lot". if she had said "for me personally, i only use he and she, because i flip between girl and boy, so i will let you know when i want you to call me what." that leaves it open for people like me to still exist

also she talks as if rickald copied and pasted a wikipedia definition of genderfluid and then tried and failed to finesse it into being actual dialogue. and then she talks completely differently for the rest of her time when shes not talking abt fluidity. there was also definitely an easier way of mentioning her fluidity and slipping it in there, the way he did it was really awkward and stilted. she occasionally would announce to the room how fluidity works and what pronouns she was using, and obviously yes she has weapons and she fierce and blah blah blah but people dont do that. people get tired of explaining time after time after time, thats why people dont want to explain in the first place, because it takes so much energy and its so frustrating to be expected to educate everyone on your gender.

then there is how people are written as percieving her. halfborn, since he no comprendo her gender, calls her an "argr", and she reacts as if that is a comment on her gender but in norse it just means bad or angry. its not even a noun, its an adjective, wtf rick can u not google things? and when she reacts, she again turns into a teacher to everyone, which wouldnt be how someone reacts, especially if, as its implied she has, they have repeatedly said that a term is offensive or incorrect. they would react with way more annoyance, and they would not try to reiterate, unless theyre extremely patient, which, from how shes written, she isnt! shes all over the place for no fuckin reason. and mallory tried to protest calling alex she the first time they met, and alex becomes a teacher, which actually isnt that bad since they just met but shes still not really a teacher-type for the rest of her interactions.

and then we have magnus. fucking magnus. who can magically tell when alex is a he and when alex is a she. no. stop. stop it now rickald. stop please. yes, when i am a boi i walk a little different than when im a girl, but people do not notice because they dont notice, or they dont have enough information. we act a little differently based on our current pronouns but for fucks sake, you cant magically tell by looking at us, no matter how woke you want magnus to be. this is especially annoying because magnus literally says he doesnt get the genderfluidity, but can still magically tell when alex's gender changes, something that usually doesnt happen suddenly, at a snap of the fingers and something that the person themselves will sometimes not notice. so stop, rickald, because you are going to give kids the impression that they too will be magically able to tell what their nb friends' gender is, and that leads to conflict, and relearning everything.

tl:dr, alex is a caricature of a genderfluid person and obviously rank did a quick google search, didnt do any deeper research, definitely didnt talk to any genderfluid people or ask a genderfluid person to look over alex's scenes, but still thought he could write her correctly, but failed and refuses to admit it. as per usual.

no research, no conversations with real people, just rick assuming hes perfectly correct, as always. (sorry this was so long i really went off oh boi)

im actually not a big fan of alex fierro, or at least how dear old rickald wrote her. im genderfluid, and i have some other nb and genderfluid friends, and shes such a caricature of how an actual genderfluid person acts. i like her as a concept, but as with everything rickald does, the execution was absolutely terrible. just thought i would put that out there (not trying to be rude, if im being rude im sorry)

oh! no you’re not being rude don’t worry!!! i’m not trans myself, and i don’t know the extent of how badly trans folks are treated, but i do know that y’all face a lot of hardships and discrimination. i was so happy when rick introduced a genderfluid character, it actually helped me learn a little more about trans issues and identities and stuff cuz i did some research after reading. i didn’t know she was written like a caricature, likely because of my own ignorance as to what it’s like to be genderfluid. thank you for telling me this. i do think that rick did a good thing in introducing a genderfluid character, but if the way he did it is offensive to trans folks, i won’t talk over y’all. would you mind telling me specifically what’s wrong with alex’s character portrayal? not trying to sound like an idiot, but i don’t particularly understand your stance. but i want to!! you don’t have to explain but it’d be cool if you did, i’d like to know more so i can identify stuff like this in the future !! (also thank you so much for this ask, i really appreciate it!!!)