Heart of Ice

Uh oh, ranting ahead

This is about how my gender identity interacts with my kintype.

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mytimelordheartbeatsfordwarves:

I wonder if maybe my not-Hobbitish traits should be chalked up to my human form and my extended time trying to convince myself I’m human.

Yeah, this is exactly how I feel about it. I do often feel ‘half jotun/half human’, but I know that it’s the result of not really belonging to either group and feeling trapped between the two. My physical body and my upbringing have obviously influenced who I am to a large extent and there’s no way to cut those parts out (as much as I’d sometimes like to).

lesliebones asked: I was just thinking, after seeing your (main blog) post on jotnar with names, in marvel at least, have you thought about what your jotunn name would be? Or about giving your jotunn kin identity a name? Not sure if this is a weird question, though now I'm starting to think it is, but I was intrigued.

No, I don’t think that it’s a weird question. I guess I just don’t really see my jotunn kin identity as separate, though? Honestly I feel that my ‘real’ name is fairly ‘jotunn-ish’ anyway.

Jotunn names seem to be earned or at least self-invented as an adult rather than given at birth, since they say something about the individual (maybe a pet name or some such is used in childhood). I haven’t really earned a title like ‘cruel striker’ or ‘the wise one’ or anything haha. So, I have no idea what my ‘jotunn name’ would be, or how I’d even construct it without a fluent grasp of Old Norse.

But what would you *want* to be?

amaraelessera:

swanblood:

salfarro:

So, the deal with being otherkin is that you are what you are because that’s what you are. Although it may *seem* like otherkin are just delusional roleplayers that want to be cool things, that’s not how it works, although of course many otherkin if not most do like their otherkin identities.

I know I’ve asked this question before but I didn’t get a lot of response, so I’ll ask it again. For otherkin, what would you actually +want+ to be? In the past I said the Martians from the Fox cartoon version of Red Planet. This time, I’m going with The Thing from Mr. Watt’s short story told from the point of view of The Thing, titled “The Things.”

A small bird, like a songbird or a pigeon or a hummingbird. When I was really young, I used to think that I must be a small bird like that, but it didn’t “fit”.

Swans are huge. I would rather be a tiny bird that can fit anywhere.

I’ve talked about this before, mostly because it’s one of my favourite things to flail at my (nixie) girlfriend over.  I’m Elven.  But if I could have chosen, I would want to be a mermaid.  I’ve wanted to be a mermaid for about as long as I’ve known I was Elven, for whatever it’s worth.  Might be because my watch-over-and-over movie when I was a kid was The Little Mermaid.  The desire’s never really gone away.

My therian side, on the other hand, is a cougar.  I’d rather be a housecat.  I choose to compromise by doing that thing that huge dogs tend to do where they think they’re lapdogs.  I’m a tiny adorable kitten and nobody can tell me otherwise (even if I’m actually a medium-sized solitary big cat).

I’d rather be an elf. In fact, I used to identify as elven, when I first realised that I was nonhuman (or embraced being nonhuman I should say), but before I knew very much about my actual kintype. I mostly ‘miss’ identifying that way even though it didn’t really fit because there’s a whole community of elven-kin and also because humans have an infatuation with elves. At the time, the latter annoyed me because it was used as a way to dismiss my identity as mere wishful thinking. However, now that I identify with a race that are often seen as cruel, stupid, ugly, evil monsters, you know, I kind of miss the good reputation that elves have!

I still think that elves are lovely beings and I wouldn’t object to a little interspecies fun if you know what I mean.

lesliebones asked: Ah, yup, I see exactly what you're saying. But when I was thinking of fictionkin, I was thinking of things that were purely created out of fiction that don't necessarily exist in mythologies, or are radically different from pre-existing versions. I think whether they define themselves as mythkin or fictionkin just depends on what they feel comfortable with. Like I don't identify with the term otherkin, but I can see why others would think I should at least a little bit.

I somehow only just saw this?! So, sorry for the delayed response.

Anyway, yeah I do know what you mean. I identify more with mythkin than fictionkin even though I feel like my identity is a kind of mashup of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Norse lore, but as I said I don’t really see a difference between a fictional interpretation of a nonhuman race and ‘myth’, especially when so very little about hrimthurs is actually described in the lore so I’d say that they’re pretty open to interpretation.

However, I do kind of dislike ‘mythkin’ as a phrase because, as I’ve mentioned before, I think ‘myth’ implies something that doesn’t really exist. I guess I’d rather just go with otherkin and then specifically jotunn/hrimthurs.

As an aside, my favourite interpretations of my kintype actually come from MCU fanfic that mix MCU canon with lore. For a while I wondered why that was, but then I realised that both the lore and the MCU canon are from the perspectives of the Aesir & humans and the giants are the antagonists, whereas some fanfics are told from the perspective of the giants and they are presented sympathetically, with a lot more detail about their biology, culture etc.

lesliebones:

jotunnqueer:

lesliebones:

jotunnqueer:

but the whole Hoenir debate does raise some interesting questions tbh

such as

at which point do two separate deities with the same origin become separate and can it even work that way?

I mean, if most of the surviving lore describes them as two separate figures, is that now… correct? because what else can we as modern heathens rely on?

but to believe that you basically have to believe that our collective consciousness actually changes the gods themselves rather than them being ‘fixed’ in the sense that mortals are

idk where I stand on that tbh

For the most part, collective consciousness does play a major role in morphing deities from conception to pinnacle. Many times, you’ll see a deity that is basically the same as another, with a few differences. This is usually do to localisation changes. It happened with many of the Greek Gods, each city-state and cult taking the preferred deity of their choice and building on their main, defining strengths/aspects until the differ slightly from many others.

I think basically, you end up having to go with what you believe in your own heart, instead of relying mostly on texts, tapestries, etc. With regards to the Greek deities, which is where my strength lies so I use them as a reference point always, you have the mystery of Dionysus who is a ‘foreign’ god, coming out of the east. Some cults considered him one of the old gods, but he is also viewed as the son of Zeus. He is a young male, he is a bearded adult. He is a god of harvest, intoxication, chaos, but also a rebirth deity at times. His place as a rebirth deity, combined with some of the origin stories in which he is the son of Zeus with Persephone, or Zeus with Demeter, have convinced a few scholars that he and Hades overlapped, or possibly, even merged.

Then you have Helios who originally was the sun, and then the charioteer of the sun. His placed was soon usurped by Apollo, though they were still considered two distinct gods.

Apart from differences due to locale or cults, there also exists the possibility that they could be the same deity but with a different epithet. Many gods had multiple names that they would be called, out of respect, fear, other. Hades was often referred to as Plouton when talked about during regular every day conversation. I’m not sure if epithets are as prevalent throughout other religions though, so I can’t help you there.

And now this is very long and rambling and I am unsure if this even remotely answered a bit of what you were questioning but blahlskjdfak

Yeah, it does. I guess what I’m saying is that there doesn’t have to be a ‘right answer’, just what you believe personally (after having done your research, of course), because of changes in belief due to region, time period, knowledge being lost over the centuries since conversion etc.

But the idea of being able to bring beings into some form of existence through collective consciousness also obviously as implications for, say, fictionkin, so it’s interesting, you know, how much of what we ‘invent’ are actually things that already exist influencing us vs how much we are able to think things into creation?

… I have no idea if that makes any sense whatsoever.

I definitely get what you’re saying. I think it’s more so that we create names to give things that already exist, but afterwards, collective consciousness molds and morphs it into fitting the needs/wants that are desired. Names change, characteristics, origins, stories, offerings change, but for the most part, nothing necessarily ‘new’ is being born. Just being reconfigured, for deities at least. So you can worship R’hallor, Ares, Loki, Mandos, etc and all, in my opinion at least, are completely valid.

(Source: ramsaytrollton)

iaafl asked: If such a thing is true about Jotnar and sexuality and gender, this could be the source of some of your dysphoria! Just an idea, sorry if I'm being rude or making poor assumptions.

Ah, I already know this. The concept of single-sexed/genderfluid jotnar isn’t new to me by any means. Thanks anyway. =)

Of Lokis, Jotun sexuality and fanon

boomshotwithheadcanon:

If fanon holds true, Loki’s sexuality can be easily justified.

You see, if it holds true, then he isn’t technically ‘gay’ or any other words you can come up with him and all the fangirls have been getting it right when they write thorki, frostiron or stoki fics.

If the Jotun are a race that has none of what everyone else calls females, regardless, he would be programmed to look for individuals without boobs. You see, breasts, in most mammals, are not apparent outside of child rearing for the purpose of feeding their offspring. Humans are the only mammal on Earth that has them 24/7/365. Aesir, Vanir, Elves, Dwarves, etc, seem to hold true to this rule as well. For the sake of argument, we will say that breasts present outside of child rearing, is standard amongst sentient, humanoid species.

Except the Jotun, of course. They are several possibilities.

They are either:

- Are distinctly male and female, but are not mammals (there are other ways to feed offspring after all)

- Are distinctly male and female, are mammals, and only show breasts when child rearing

- Are of ‘one gender’, as suggested in fanon, and may work a lot like how Jotun are depicted, such as withing Llanval’s Eidolon universe, a concept that is very popular in the fandom

- Hell they could be like clown fish or something for all we know, only a few reproducing females amongst a whole lot of males, and when a female retires, a male changes gender to take her place. WHO KNOWS!!!

There are other things possible, being a huge sci-fi fan and nerdess, however, they don’t come to mind right now.

So in effect, for any of those options, he would be programmed to look for an appealing mate (or at least a good time) from someone who meets that criteria. It also means, with how Asgard perceives those who prefer those of the same gender, and him being a prince, you can totally understand half of Loki’s rage. The poor guy is probably the most sexually frustrated being on the planet, stuck watching while everyone including his brother, gets to flirt and fornicate while he’s stuck in the corner. He cannot actively choose what he likes any more than the next person, really.