Thor (film) obsessed? You may enjoy my blog indepthblog[dot]wordpress[dot]com...another place to think about and chat about all things Thor/Avengers. I am also on Twitter as ninepen. On Twitter I mostly make some occasional posts related to Loki and the gang, and the folks that bring them to life, and I've recently starting posting some pics/tiny hints/updates for Beneath on there too. I haven't updated the blog in a while now, I still want to but...time, you know?

[BTW, I don't endorse any advertising that shows up on here on this page or on any of my stories. I didn't put it there.]

If you're here because of Beneath, the Thor/Avengers Loki-focused story I'm working on, below I give some background on that and I pretty frequently update its status so no one has to wonder if I'm still progressing on it.

I love to--

(1a) Write. I guess I have to put it first given the context. I've written original fiction at least since the 6th grade; before then I remember writing story retellings. I haven't published anything (or tried to), but it's always been a vague "thing I'd like to do," and working on this fan fiction -- which I've never done before other than two short (incomplete) attempts at ST:TNG stories, just for my own fun (no one else ever read them) -- has actually ignited more of a fire than I've ever had for that. As soon as I'm done with the fanfic story my goal is to take my three started-novels that were written with potential commercial publication in mind, pick one, and go at it as hard as I can considering I also have a "real" job that pays the mortgage. (How long ago was 6th grade? Well...I'm a repeat offender to age 29 and I'll leave it at that.)

(1b) Talk about writing. Corollary: Talk about the characters in Thor. (This means, like everyone else on here of course, I really enjoy reading reviews for my story. I guess if some crazy thing were to happen and I would get 200 reviews a day I couldn't respond, but so far I've responded to every review except Guests to whom I can't respond. I also review others' stories fairly frequently; I've come to my own pretty clear understanding of the Thor-film characters, but I enjoy seeing others' takes on them as well. Update here, I don't read/review nearly as much as I used to, just no time. Though there are things definitely on my list to read!)

(2) Dive. PADI-certified diver. Coolest places I've been diving: Palau, Yap, Great Barrier Reef. My particular dive obsession is fish identification. I use an underwater slate and camera, I have my Reef Fish Identification books, I have favorite fishes. My alltime favorite Atlantic fish I would say is the indigo hamlet (Roatan); Pacific...maybe the juvenile Manyspotted Sweetlips, too cool. If I could figure out some rational reason Loki would go diving he would so be 60 feet down checking out the parrotfish...nah, he'd like sharks I think, or triggerfish! I don't think Thor would like diving. He wants to trust his strength, not a bunch of equipment. (I'm not obsessed with these characters in the slightest, you know.) 98 dives logged. Max depth: 111 ft. (twice) -- and that is plenty. Fish that has bit (okay nipped) me the most: Lagoon Damsel (AKA "little bugger," Sam's Tours wall, Palau. Fish that bit my fins and scared the heck out of me (because unlike the Lagoon Damsel he has teeth): Yellowmargin Trigger, Blue Corner, Palau. Coolest sighting, just due to circumstances really (we were already on the line at the safety stop and went back down after someone else signaled us about it): leopard shark, Diani, Kenya.

Update 12/16/12: While on a boat out to a divesite in Palau recently I actually came up with a story idea that *almost* makes it plausible to send dear Jane, Loki, and Thor to Palau to go diving. I don't know if I'll ever get around to writing it. At one point Loki snaps an eel's neck to protect Jane and the dive instructor is *not* happy. Neither is Jane. Hahahahaha.

(3) Travel. I've done a lot of it. I've been incredibly BLESSED to have the opportunities to go the places I've gone. Wow, I actually just thought about this for the first time, I have been to 6 continents (oh, maybe 5? Honduras is my only claim to South America, maybe it's Central America and doesn't count!). But it's the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There's a whole lot of globe I haven't been to yet.

Enough of that.

Here is the full blurb for Beneath that I couldn't quite fit in the character count:

Loki sits in a prison cell and waits to hear his fate. If luck turns his way, that fate could provide him with another opportunity to finally earn the respect, admiration, and power he covets. He doesn't dare dream he could return to Midgard. There he has met a number of people who interest him in one way or another…but there is only one he's vowed to visit. If Loki falls again, does another abyss await him? Meanwhile, Jane has big travel plans of her own, and they do not include Loki.

[Added 7/7/13: In a chat with "female'wraith," I realized an alternative blurb for Beneath, shorter and even vaguer, would be: "The greatest danger to Loki is Loki himself." It will mean different things at different times.]

I like character development and psychological stuff -- Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is arguably my favorite novel in close competition with Dostoevsky's Demons -- and am currently fascinated...mmm...obsessed...with the character of Loki. So I wanted to see if I could help him work out some of his angst and set him on a path of redemption. (I don't guarantee this succeeds, in the end, just that that's the kind of raison d'etre of the story.) This will be a long one [see reference to Tolstoy above -- I pretty much just don't do short]. I hope that readers who are similarly fascinated...mmm...obsessed with Loki and his journey will find Beneath an interesting and engaging take on it. Maybe even a little exciting by the end.

A little more background on Beneath and "why it is the way it is." In addition to raison d'etre noted above, this story is intended to be 100% in-canon with Thor and The Avengers. That means I am striving to make canon characters' personalities and speech 100% in line with what I have seen (again, and again, and again...) in those movies. I take deleted scenes as canon also (where they *differ* from the final cut...I may pick and choose). (Please note I said "striving"; I can only hope I am succeeding at least most of the time!) For that reason, I also wanted my *main* characters to be canon characters. And while I guess Loki could meet up with Darcy or Erik (or an Avenger), honestly I don't feel like I know enough about those characters to write for them faithfully as a main character. (Some will make appearances or be referenced.) I also don't think Loki is willing to listen to or trust anyone from Asgard, so that rules out those folks (though I think it might be fun at some point to try a Loki-Thor working it out mano-to-mano story, see how it goes; painfully would be my guess). But also I don't want to have to waste time -- to me it would feel like wasting time, certainly applaud others who delve into it and create their own Asgard -- trying to figure out how Asgard "works." So, that leaves us Earth & Jane. That's where it leaves me anyway. (Which is not to say Asgard and/or other realms won't make an appearance, just that this is a Midgard-based story.)

There are plenty of non-canon "supporting" characters. Earth is home to more than the 8 or 10 total people we meet in the movies. These characters "fill out the world," but they aren't main characters (even though one of them does have significance for the plot). POV is always from canon characters.

So...is this "Lokane"? Well...it's not written with "Lokane" as its goal, or raison d'etre. (I don't speak French but I do love that brilliant little phrase.) Lokane is a possibility. Thor/Jane is a possibility. Jane and no Asgardians whatsoever is a possibility (who needs that hassle!). Jane is at a real turning point in her life so anything could happen. But there are multiple plots going on that eventually come together (one of which is hiding "beneath" for a long time but will hopefully make you want to go back and re-read some parts)...and none of them is a romance. Loki isn't in a place psychologically for a romantic relationship, at least not a healthy one, and Thor is going to be rather busy.

Starting in Chapter 8 and then even more in some following chapters I am drawing on information from a really cool group of "consultants" who help me add a dose of realism to the stuff to come (note of gratitude included at the end of "Unpacking"). I did say Jane was going somewhere interesting...

Apologies if the chapter numbering is confusing. In my documents the prologue doesn't have a chapter number, but this website insists that it should be Chapter 1 -- hence website Chapter 2 is my Chapter 1, etc. Sorry. I couldn't bring myself to renumber my chapters. If I refer to "Chapter 40" I mean *my* Chapter 40, the numbers in parentheses.

Beneath updates (because if you've read this far you may actually be interested. And I like updating it, for the sense of accomplishment that comes with progress!):

Jan 1 update: Hi everyone. I'm still here. :-) As many of you know I've had another international move; it was kind of a long dragged-out one that had me living for a time with my mother, then in various hotels as I was preparing for the next overseas location, then for about a month when I got there because the house wasn't ready. I got some writing done in this time (not a ton, conditions weren't great for it, but some). I got into my house and had no internet for a week or so, then I got my big shipment of stuff and was overwhelmed with that for a few weeks (and, yeah, I know this reads like a list of excuses and to some extent it is!). I was just starting to do some rereading to try to get into the swing of things again (I hadn't written at all since moving into the new house...maybe one or two days a little) when I got some very unexpected news -- my mother was in critical condition in the hospital. I raced to get home. She was not conscious but I saw her. She died Dec. 19. If any of you have dealt with a death where you had basically the sole responsibility of dealing with the aftermath, you know what an overwhelming series of tasks is involved, to the extent it can be tough to find the time just to deal with your grief. This is not excuse territory here (like the stuff above could be! :-) ) but just to let you know where my head is right now. I had really hoped to get the next chapter out before Christmas...but life intervenes and swiftly changes your focus sometimes. But you know, I also wanted to let you all know because with so many of you I've had such nice, friendly interactions over the years, and I know many many of you would give me a physical hug if you could, and I'd be so happy to accept it if I could. I love you all, in this weird sappy way that makes sense to me if to know one else. So, I'm still looking forward to getting back into wherever exactly I left off, and I hope that'll be very soon, but I can't say for sure...I'm not sure how "settled" my mind will be. In any event, it's not "on hold" any more than it was before; I just wanted to update you all because I know many of you genuinely care. (And it will surely be finished in 2024!!!)

Why is this still here? -- Because it's sitting on my laptop still and this helps me remember that it's there! [Leftover from a couple days ago; Upon further reflection, if there is enough interest...or more But likely if I simply continue to feel like it, I'm going to write that farce/parody wedding scene. There will be a Princess Bride reference. You will die laughing. I least I do, as it's in my head. Who knows what might actually come out on paper. Note: I do not actually promise I will write it. But I want to really really really badly. Probably largely spurred on by the clicking sound in my bedroom that's making procrastinate going to bed. But also by this line: "Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togevah," Thor intoned, then paused, a look of confusion passing over his face. He cleared his throat and his voice returned to normal. "Sorry, wrong fandom." And BTW, Chris Hemsworth could act the heck out of this, ha!]

Per a bit of interest in the study of Loki's motivations I did before writing this (and until I can get around to getting it on my blog) -- here are the first two, bearing in mind they predate Beneath and are really meant to cover what was motivating him in "Thor" and/or "Avengers":

To win the respect of his father. If that fails, to amass the most power he possibly can to show his father he should have respected him.

To belong. To not be questioned about who he is and what his rightful place is. To destroy everything that speaks of where he came from.

If you've followed these notes in the past you'll know I don't put up a chapter until I've finished writing the one after it, so there's always one "in reserve" for needed edits and so forth in light of the following chapter. Shameless but honest plug for reviews: I've seen other writers on here say it, and it is so true -- getting reviews and knowing someone is eager to find out what comes next is genuinely great motivation to press forward! Your reviews are amazing rays of encouragement and often give me new ways of thinking about things.

Magic & Mead (complete!): This story started out as flashback material to be used at some point in Beneath. I was traveling without internet and couldn't keep going on Beneath until I could ask my consultants a couple of questions. Give me a pen and some paper and I'm happy! And then, well, my Tolstoy- and Dostoevsky-loving self reared its head and my little flashback filled an entire notebook (it's like a 5x7 notebook, but still) and then some. It's actually turned out to be rather helpful in writing Beneath because it sort of forces me to envision the bigger picture of the long, full life the Asgardian characters have lived. The actors are 30 but the characters are way older with that many more years of life experience. So while I guess I won't be extensively using this material for flashbacks, some of it has been worked in one way or another, such as in "Chapter 21: Breakthrough" and "Chapter 24: Scars."

It was a joy to write. It's pre-angst Loki (well, just the normal-ish young teen kind of angst, not the I'm a monster whose daddy never really loved me and now Thanos probably wants to torture me to death angst) and Thor, brotherly good times and bad times, attempts on Loki's part to understand himself and the people around him and how he fits into it all. It's much less complexly plotted than Beneath (a difference you may like or hate, I don't know). There's too much seriousness and teen angst for it to really be considered fluff, but it's definitely fluffier than Beneath. (Do you know how much fun it is to write Loki being happy and laughing and having fun after so much time writing bitter/angry/I'd-really-be-cool-with-killing-you Loki for so long?) (updated 1/28/13)

Moving to Alfheim (complete!): This one could equally well be titled Ninepen Has Insomnia, though this title probably wouldn't make you want to read the story. It is composed of five short chapters. The first chapter came to me when I went to bed as just a little cutsie vignette. Then insomnia hit. Then the second chapter came to me as more than a cutsie vignette but rather having something serious to say. And I thought, hm, I should try to remember this and write it down. Because the second chapter (or second part, I wasn't thinking of it in chapters at the time) would make a very appropriate flashback for the chapter I was working on at the time in Beneath (ch. 40), even though I wasn't thinking of Beneath at the time, rather it was the natural continuation of the first part of the story. And then insomnia continued. So I gave up and got out of bed, thought, ach, may as well jot this down in my kind of story short-hand so I don't forget. Then realized I could make a third part that closely parallels the first part and kind of brings the story full circle, and I love-love-love parallelism but have never gotten to so directly apply it before. Then realized, huh, I really kind of like this, it has an easily identifiable beginning, middle, and end, it's not too complex and yet has some deep thoughts in it (or at least it seemed so in my sleep-deprived brain), some foreshadowing which I also like, and I can use it both for flashback material, AND as a standalone story -- and an actual short one at that! Which is different for me, and I like different. [Added 3/25/13, when I should by all rights have been asleep; updated 5/19/13.]

In Moving to Alfheim, Thor is 10 and Loki is 9. Each chapter involves a conversation about moving to Alfheim. Of course, that's not what any of those conversations are really about. Here's the first paragraph of the first chapter, "It All Started with a Whistle (Not Really)" [3/26/13:

Thor woke to a terrible whistling noise. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. That’s what he would tell Loki, but really he woke to a full bladder, and after he went back to bed, then came the terrible whistling noise. It wouldn’t let him go back to sleep, which was close enough to waking him up. He got out of bed again and crossed to the other side of the room where Loki slept in the bed they used to share, and still sometimes did, because, well, why not? They were used to it. They’d slept at each other’s side since Loki was born. (

Eighteen: One morning I woke up with a version of the Loki-under-the-serpent story playing in my head. Luckily it was a weekend so I lay there and let it play out for a while, then thought, huh, I kind of like this. Then thought, uh-oh, I better go write it down before I forget it! This event, and the death of Baldur that precedes it, is "true" for the purposes of Beneath. That means I have to have worked out in my head my version of what happened. So I do plan to eventually write it out more fully. It's just that if I do it right now I'll see it as an excuse to not work on Beneath because I've hit a rough patch or something. Here's two excerpts of this story (pre-writes, really, they may change a bit in the actual story). The second excerpt is a tiny bit graphic, but only if you're super squeamish.

“You will serve one year of this punishment for every year of life Baldur lived.”

Eighteen years? A heartbeat to Odin. More than half of the years Loki himself had lived. The part of him that was wanton and rebellious and full of rage that grew from the pain he could not acknowledge drove him to speak words that appalled the part of him that wished only to be obedient and accept whatever punishment he was given, the more horrific the better. “So you’re saying I would have been better off if I’d killed him when he was still a baby?” The words were calm, nearly devoid of inflection.

His mother let out a strangled cry and stumbled backwards. One of her servants stepped forward to steady her, then at Odin’s gesture led her from the throne room. Loki stared at her back as she retreated, the warring parts of him hating himself for saying such a cruel thing, wanting to beg her to come back, wanting to never see her again, wanting to run into her arms and beg for her forgiveness, wanting to wake up from this nightmare that he still sometimes tried to believe wasn’t real.

“Perhaps you prefer to serve one year for every year you stole from him instead? Your tongue drips more toxic venom than any serpent. You will remain silent, or I will have your lips sewn shut.”

And slightly later

He glanced up and there was the snake, its head anyway, for that was all of it he could see. The head was at least as long as he was tall, and two massive fangs protruded over its opened lower jaw. Loki’s eyes darted quickly around him before returning to the snake. He was alone. His ankles and wrists were bound exactly as he remembered them the night before. The sun was up and warming the nighttime chill from his body. The serpent lay there, unmoving, probably warming itself in the morning sun just the same.

Loki narrowed his eyes at it in silent challenge. The venom hurt, there was no doubt about that, but the pain was already fading, the burn mellowing into a light smolder. Loki laughed. Eighteen years of this. The boredom would kill him before the serpent did.

And then his forehead caught fire.

Or that’s what it felt like. Shock came first, the pain followed a second later and made him cry out. He strained against his bonds, succeeding no more than before, and as he lifted his head the venom started to trickle down toward his eyes. As soon as the pain of the trail of fire told him where the venom was headed he flung his head violently to the right, and he was fairly certain he’d managed to sling off most of the poison. His forehead and cheek hurt, and tears fell from his left eye of their own volition, tears which Loki at first mistook for blood.

Eighteen excerpts added oh-dark-thirty Nov. 12, 2012. Going to bed now.

Update 1/2/15, I've written nearly two chapters, just in a few moments here and there. As always I'm trying out a different style in it, telling it alternating between two time periods. The story begins with Baldur's death...and with his birth.

Like Any Other Child: For better or worse my brain doesn't shut down with this stuff now, mostly because of my incessant need to imagine backstory for Beneath and even for the other stories noted above. To me it's an important part of having a "complete" character -- the character has a past, and in Thor's and Loki's cases, over a thousand years of a past. Surely some interesting stuff happened, and some stuff that had a lot impact on their lives, right? So this is a story sort of tracing some of the things that made Loki different growing up, and how that was dealt with, including decisions Frigga and Odin had to make. It spans Loki's birth and how he wound up abandoned in the temple (all covered sparsely in the first chapter) through probably his late teens, of course with lots of time jumps. So I wrote the first chapter "Not Like Any Other," just about 670 words (it's more of an intro), today at lunch break. And it's an odd style for me but I wound up kind of liking it. It's fun to experiment around with the style a bit. The rest of the story, assuming I get around to writing it at some point, would be more my normal style, closest to Magic & Mead probably. This is the intro paragraph:

Loki looked like any other child. The combination of black hair and pale skin was uncommon, but no one would look at him and suspect he was anything other than the three-year-old Aesir child he appeared to be, the son of the king and queen, the younger brother of the heir. Only the father who’d taken him from a cold and unforgiving land, the mother who accepted him into her arms, the gatekeeper who’d seen it all happen, and the healer who treated him knew that he was not like any other child.

January 8, 2013. Yup, going to bed now. Update Jan. 16, have played around a bit with this one and wrote a Chapter 2 (possibly "Birthday Celebration") in the present tense and another kind of odd style for me, just for the experience of doing it really. But if felt like maybe it fits, too... Anyway, it was good writing experience for me. I've started a Chapter 3, too. Argh! Don't worry, Beneath is still written every single day and is without question my priority.

Added Jan. 22, 2013, excerpt from Ch. 2:

Odin descends the stairs slowly, mindful of the precious bundle in his arms. He is reminded of the first day he brought that bundle home, much smaller then, hidden in a large leather satchel, carefully set atop a change of clothes to cushion him and tightly swaddled to ensure he remained in place and would not be smothered. He remembers how he wearily climbed flight after flight of familiar stairs up to his chambers, to surprise Frigga and allow her to react to the loss of his eye in private, to see the son he barely knew because he’d been away at war, to present an innocent baby he hoped she would be willing to raise and to love. So much has changed since then. Most days, it is easy to forget that Frigga did not birth this boy just as she did Thor.

Today is not one of those days.

Today Odin knows exactly who and what he is holding.

Update February 7, 2013, I've been writing like crazy for this one in my notebook. All, thus far, with Loki 3 and Thor 4. I have no idea why this captivates me so. I don't really want to write a three-year-old's POV...that's kinda weird, for me, I don't really know how a three-year-old or four-year-old thinks or (internally) perceives the world. So it's nearly all Frigga POV, and I'm having so much fun with it. Some parenting angst (come on, she's raising Thor and Loki, here!) and some problems Loki has to deal with that affect everyone else, and of course him. And lots of sweetness and love. (But yes, mom and dad are still imperfect, in their own ways.) Eh, we'll see what I wind up doing with it. I think I need the family cuddles I get to write with young Loki and Thor, to balance the much heavier stuff in Beneath. But I still want to write Eighteen, too, I just think maybe it's not good for my mental health to write at the same time as Beneath! I'll probably put this up eventually, but I want to be certain I'll actually finish it, as opposed to just playing around, before I put it up.

Slow Poison: Loki is accused of a serious crime. He's been around a couple centuries now and Baldur's death is in the distant past...but no one has really forgotten it. Nearly everyone doubts him, but this time he's 100% innocent. Or is he? Who's to blame, and is it really just coincidence that Loki was unharmed? Thor lies unconscious, barely clinging to life, and won't be at his side to help him seek the truth. Family angst and psychological drama. I may never write this, but it's floating somewhere in the back of my mind... I like it because it gives Loki a chance to play the hero. Added 2/9/13.

Loki Loves His Local Library: My first parody. No words written yet except these: "World domination is so yesterday, Thor, do try to keep up." I don't know if I actually have it in me to pull this off...but we'll see! It's been kind of simmering in my brain throughout the month of June. [Added 6/29/13]

7/2 update -- I wrote the blurb last night, might be too long: Loki sits in a library and waits to hear its fate. If luck turns his way, that fate could provide him with another millennium to finally gain all the knowledge he covets. He doesn’t dare dream the Avengers could journey to Asgard to assist. There he’s found a number of tomes of interest…but there is only one Asgardian capable of reading them. If Loki fails to defend his local library, does another psychotic break await him?

Thrymskvida: OK, it doesn't have an actual title yet, but yes, this is the Thrymskvida story from mythology (my version of it, same continuity as Beneath). So, I wrote a flashback bit from this story in Beneath's Ch. 55 "Stories," and I had so much fun with it, and more and more bits of it have been coming to mind, and I just decided I have to write it. It will be written very much for humor, but with undercurrents of some of those things that will eventually come to a head between Thor and Loki. As I'm currently conceiving of it, this story will be all Thor and Loki, all the time. It's "easy" in the sense that I don't have to come up with the plot (I really can't handle any more plot at the moment) and it's just so light-hearted. [Added 6/28/13] 7/12 update -- Chapter Two completed! Super fun times to write. ha. And here's how it starts:

Thor paced inside his chambers, his body so taut with stress he looked two inches taller and felt that if he grew any more tense he might snap in half. The fingers of his right hand were squeezed into so tight a fist they had gone numb.

“Thor?” Loki’s voice sounded from the door, which he’d opened without knocking. Thor turned to see Loki’s head with its mop of long black hair poking through. “What’s this all about?” he asked when he caught sight of Thor. “I was in the middle of something.” He stepped inside and closed the door.

“Loki, it’s about time, I sent for you over an hour ago. Whatever you were doing, forget about it. Something more important has come up.”

If I Had a Hammer: Loki helps Thor learn how to use Mjolnir. Thor and Loki in their mid-to-late twenties. Setting up of a problematic relationship between Loki and Odin. [Added 8/7/13]

The Memory Casket: Here's the blurb for it--

When he escaped, they expected him to lash out. They expected him to cause chaos. What happened wasn't what they expected at all. But Loki always has a plan. And he has never liked to be predictable, so chaos might just be involved after all. When Loki takes drastic action, who will pay the price?

There will be some surprises along the way that you absolutely will not predict.

Currently (Feb. 10) I'm on pg. 6 of Ch. 31. I think there will be just one more scene, and it's mostly notebook-written already. So, give me a day when I make good progress on Beneath and also have a little time left over and at long last you'll have another chapter of this story. Not abandoned. Just very very hard to find the time to work on it these days. (My life has a few additional complications in it these days, I do more weekend travels than I used to because of where I live now, and, more than anything, Beneath is so unfathomably long that basic fact-checking of my own story takes ages, so the pace on that one has slowed down a lot.) Line from Ch. 23 that kind of sums up the whole story: "“There appears to be more to this memory casket than we were led to believe,” Eir said." Updates may be slow on this story, as this is a side story for me, Beneath being the main one. [Begun 8/8/13]

Trials (complete!): I thought of this one in early November 2013 and was even writing the first chapter while the JCPenney lady rang up my purchases. (Yeah, I get like this. What I couldn't accomplish if I had an extra hand.) Loki is 19 and Thor is 20. Boy is it fun to make wonderful and awful things happen to Loki. [Added 11/12/2013]

What My Father Started: My first of possibly two TDW tie-ins. Will be 3-4 chapters. Have written the first chapter, and most of the second. Born of my desperate need to understand. What happened with Loki? What happened with Odin? [Added 11/21/2013]

The throne room was silent and empty, save one man who stood at the foot of the raised dais that held only decorative remnants of what had once been a throne. The bodies had long since been cleared away – Asgardian and Dark Elf – and the rubble and other debris as well...

Surreptitious Entry (complete!): Loki, get out of my dreams! Yeah, a couple of images and impressions from a minimally-remembered dream (ch. 1, "Lying Low") and possibly semi-lucid wakefulness (ch. 2 "Infiltration") led to this weird story, somewhere around March 8, 2014 early AM. It's three chapters, I wrote the first one March 8. Nooooot my usual conception of Loki, okay? Not even a conception of Loki I quite buy, well, maybe by the end, actually. It's from a dream, I wrote it down and added lots of words to it, and there you have it. Completed April 20, 2014, and started putting it up April 22.

Echoes of the Frost (complete!): Something's wrong with Loki, and Frigga fears the worst. So does Loki. I try to always do something different, stylistically, in each of my stories on here. This one, although it's about Loki, is not told through Loki's POV at all, but rather through Frigga's, and then through Odin's.

Titans Bearing Gifts (complete!): What popped into my head after watching Guardians a second time, Sept. 30, 2014 and I then elaborated on. Will use a version of it in The Memory Casket, too, which is awkward perhaps, but oh well. Ha.

Blurb: Come on up. Thanos has a gift for you. It's a gift you can't refuse.

Some dark stuff, some unpleasantness. Some dark moments for Loki, in some ways the darkest I've written for him -- this is not a nice Loki. It was interesting, it was hard writing that, in the sense of being a bit painful, but it was good, too. It's so much fun to write Loki at different periods of his life -- you know, to write him such that you can feel it's the same person (hopefully), though in very different psychological states.

Musings and Explorations: DVD Extras: Various "deleted scenes" from the Thor and Avengers movies. The things I feel an irresistible pull to write, filling in some gaps. This won't be a movie retelling, or an unbroken narrative -- it'll be kind of like watching all the deleted scenes together on your DVD. The one I've started writing is the beginning of Loki's imprisonment in TDW. What's his attitude at the beginning, what does he think of all this, how does he cope? How does that change over time to reach the imprisoned Loki that Tom Hiddleston has so eloquently described? High on my list is a written version of the scene where Thor retrieves Mjolnir after crashing in the big glass cell thingee in Avengers -- what was going through his mind there? I think it was super weighty stuff and it's in my head but I want to write it out. This'll be one of those "permanently in-progress" things, and I'll welcome requests, but bear in mind I may or may not take them on, depends if I feel the inspiration for it. [Begun Jan. 2, 2016.]

Ocean's Depths: Yes, I started a new one, so sue me. :-) I can't help myself when something bites really hard. I'll either finish it easily and quickly or more likely it will linger. I've written the first two chapters and I know the key scenes that follow. Title has a double meaning, as you know I like those. The barest kernel of the story was inspired while on a transatlantic cruise to the land of the Vikings, and listening to our Swedish captain give a lecture on the Vikings through history. Thor and Loki are grown-up best buds in this one, and that is awesome good fun to write, even though the story is a bit heavy in places really. But I do love me some solid Thor-Loki friendship and brotherhood. [Begun May 2016]

Ragnarok Moments: A Collection: I don't have the time, or probably the inclination, to write anything "big" stemming from Ragnarok (which I did love). But there are a few moments I feel compelled to add, or build upon. Right now it's just one chapter (each chapter is a distinct snippet, not chronological with any others I may add). Should you have an idea for something here, and don't feel like writing it yourself, feel free to share it and if it sparks something maybe I'll write it. [Begun November 2017]

Here's the order all these stories come in within the "universe." I'll write all of them such that they don't depend on the others, although they're all in the same "universe" (except Surreptitious Entry and What My Father Started) and do reference events in the others. Completed stories are in bold.

Like Any Other Child (Begins with Loki's birth and may continue into their teens...with time skips)

Better Than Jewelry (Thor is under a year and Loki is a week or two old)

Moving to Alfheim (Thor and Loki are 10 and 9)

Echoes of the Frost (Thor and Loki are 12 and 11)

Magic & Mead (Thor and Loki are 15 and 14)

Trials (Thor and Loki are 20 and 19)

Thrymskvida (notional title; Thor and Loki are in their early/mid 20s)

If I Had a Hammer (takes place shortly after Thrymskvida)

Eighteen (in the "main" part of the story Thor and Loki are both 34, I think; in the other half of the story it begins with Thor and Loki 16 and 15)

Slow Poison (Loki and Thor are...I forget, I think maybe 80's)

Ocean's Depths (Thor and Loki are in their 100's)

Titans Bearing Gifts (Between Thor and The Avengers)

Beneath / *The Memory Casket / *Loki Loves His Local Library (These three are mutually exclusive, two post-Avengers possibilities and one parody; Thor and Loki are...ancient. 1,040)

*What My Father Started (takes place during/after TDW; thus far my only fully-conceived TDW-related story, not the same continuity as my other stories, which were conceived before TDW, but basically the same interpretations of the characters)

*Megin...Meg...Thor's Magic Belt (takes place during and after the events of Spiderman: Homecoming, unrelated to any of my other stories)

*Surreptitious Entry (nothing to do with any of my other stories; takes place a few years after TDW but isn't closely connected to TDW events)

*Ragnarok Moments: A Collection

Note: Stories preceded by * are outside the "Beneath" universe of stories.