Þrymskviða. Compressed down, it goes like this: A Jotun steal Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and says he’ll only give it back if he’s given Freyja to marry, as she is the most beautiful goddess in all of existence. The gods argue over what to do for a while before Heimdall suggests they stick a bridal veil on Thor, says he’s Freyja, and pretend they’re giving Freyja (Thor) to the Jotun to marry so Thor can get close enough to the Jotun to steal Mjolnir back.
Now typically when people talk about this story, it’s with an element of disbelieving comedy. “Oh my god, who would believe Thor was a woman, let alone Freyja, the most beautiful goddess in the world?”
But I propose a different way to look at the story.
See, different cultures have different beauty standards. Modern western beauty standards may be a delicate hourglass supermodel, but that’s not always been the case. Greece, for instance, depicted Aphrodite like this:
Yeah. A Greek sculptor was told “sculpt the goddess of beauty” and they thought “alright, fat rolls, that’s where beauty is at, let’s do this”. And everybody else apparently agreed with them, because up went the statue. Beauty is a malleable concept is what I’m getting at.
Now this is where it becomes relevant that Freyja is not just the goddess of love, sex, and beauty. She’s also the goddess of war. And the righteous dead. Goddess of war in the same Viking warrior culture that gave us shield maidens, women who wielded seven fucking kilogram (15 lbs) shields in combat.
Sooooo … when the Norse storytellers said, “This is Freyja, goddess of war and the righteous dead, who rode giant murder cats into battle, she is the most beautiful goddess in the world”, I’m guessing they weren’t thinking of her as some willowy waif. No, I’m guessing they probably thought more along the lines of:
190 cm (6′3″), broad shoulders, built like a brick shithouse, with a jawline like whoa, and fully capable of murdering everything in her path.
Put in that context, the story of Thor dressing up as Freyja sounds less like a punchline about “how could anyone ever mistake Thor in a veil for Freyja?” and becomes more a case of “ohhhhhhhhhhh, no wonder all the gods thought this plan would work”.
just in case you’re wondering what i’m talking about:
13%, 21%, a whooping 30%, 15%, 21% again. and those are the stories that do well.
it’s almost like tumblr has a reblog button you could USE
LIKE IT? REBLOG IT!
it’s not fucking difficult.
also i love how i gotta make these posts practically every time after i publish something.
look, i don’t give a fuck about money. i’m writing fic for fun. if you wanna throw a billion dollars at me, sure, you do you.
but literally all i want, all we all want, is for our stuff to be acknowledged. spread. REBLOGGED.
because obviously you read it and liked it, right?
so now all you have to do is hit that little button. it looks a little like this
and then that’s that.
or, on ao3, you write “i really liked this! thank you for sharing!”. and that’s that.
it takes absolutely ZERO EFFORT, and it makes you happy (because you liked what you just read) and it makes us happy (because our work can get potentially more readers), and everyone is happy.
and instead, there’s likes all around.
and likes are a little like seeing someone having their arms full with things and they drop their keys and you walk past and say “hey dude, i hope that works out for you!”
writers spend hours, even days and weeks or months on fics, pouring ourselves into it, forgoing sleep and food sometimes just to finish something because we hope you’ll like it.
and we get a litte ❤️ for our troubles and that’s it.
and especially when you get statistics like above – 42 likes and 9 reblogs – it feels like a kick to the face.
if every writer only wrote for themselves (”as you’re supposed to do uwu”), there wouldn’t be a single fic out there, because we’d keep all the fics. but we write for our audience too, hoping we’ll hear back, hoping people will spread our fics, “hey, look at this cool thing i read!”.
and that doesn’t happen.
so you start thinking “hey, maybe i shouldn’t publish this. it’s bad anyways, right? and it doesn’t make a difference if i do. it’s not like anyone cares.”
how many thousands and thousands of words for your favorite ship do you think are out there, saved on hard drives by authors who’ve given up wishing to publish their things, because “nobody cares.”
reblogging and commenting seems to be at an all time low at the moment. and you know what happens when you, the supplier, feel like there’s no demand out there?
you stop supplying.
because nobody cares enough to want to share it.
“thoughts and prayers with your fic! it was so good!” that’s what the like button means, to make an extreme comparison here.
and honestly, i don’t understand why.
reblog. your. writers. it’s all we ask for.
No writers or artists are trying to sound “whiny” by asking for this. It’s literally how our work gets any recognition since we’re not doing it for money. If you’d like to make a writer’s day or an artist’s day, please consider reblogging works that you love. I promise you will put a smile on their face. ❤ ❤ ❤
i’d be really curious to know what percent of queerbaiting is
a) an intentional marketing scheme to stir interest in the project and attract certain fanbases (lgbtq people and young women) vs.
b) members of the creative team genuinely wanting to write queer characters but the corporate side of things force them to tone it down but they still leave little hints vs.
c) they legitimately did not know how gay something would come across
The answer:
A is 100%. Because B and C are not queerbaiting. The literal meaning and definition of it is A.
Please tumblr learn the difference and stop shitting on good shows
Anyone who’s still not clear:
Teen Wolf show-makers asking fans what they wanted, getting the answer ‘canon-queer relationships’ and then just hinting at Stiles being bi and having the characters people ship hang out platonically is queer-baiting
Gravity Falls having the two male police officers hold hands and show genuine affection to one another, but not being allowed to confirm they were married because the studio wanted to sell the show to Russia and China is queer-coding
Arthur Conan Doyle genuinely not understanding why some people would think two men living together, declaring their undying affection for one another, and constantly referring to Holmes as a ‘confirmed bachelor’ was a bit gay is queer-subtext
Rook's Writing 