Episode 106: Asgard Doesn't Have Alimony Laws

[count_actuala]

Awhile back, just talking in Skype, Lemon and I had a great conversation about how you can smell fake crazy from a mile away. All of the Tumblrites of the world who want so very much to come across as ~*free spirited*~ and ~*quirky*~ and ~*off kilter*~ and whatnot do a terrible job of replicating the word choice and cadence and disjointed logical strains of genuinely crazy people, like your Francis Decs and your Gene Rays and your Connie Marshalls.

Pretty much this. It's the same set of desires that causes the 'sexual orientation' one upping contests and all the feigned declarations of extreme social justice opinions. I'm always telling a friend of mine who brushes up against this in online gaming, "Don't worry, they don't actually believe these things. They probably don't even mention it to people in reality."

I actually watched this happen to an acquaintance a couple years after college, when she finally had to move back in with her parents when it turned out spending her days huddled around her laptop in her filthy living room didn't make for a stable career life. She'd make baiting posts on social media about how she felt so different from other people for a variety of attention grabbing ways. She would post about discovering one identity, wait to gauge the reaction from her various buddy lists, then move on to another when backlash or a painful absence of attention dictated the need. She claimed to be, in order, abandoning the previous identities with each switch: Pagan, otherkin, asexual, an omorashi fetishist, pansexual, polyamorous, and a writer of racebending socially conscious fanfiction. Eventually, shockingly enough, when the well of attention dried out over and over again and the real world responsibilities she'd evaded for so long kept tugging her away from online life, she turned out to be a completely average person with a fine arts degree and a few anxiety med prescriptions.

[Sherlockian]

Loki, as quoted in the Prose Edda:

Do you remember, Odin, when in bygone days
we mixed our blood together?
You said you would never drink ale
unless it were brought to both of us.

Loki, as quoted by Heather Freysdottir:

i LoVe To sNuGgLe!!! ^_^

The only reason it's Loki and not some other stand-in is because of the Avengers movie. They're just trying too hard, and it shows.

I'll admit that a significant amount of irritation with the godspouse community (such as it is) is the fact that I know a stupid amount about religions and the misuse of mythology gets under my skin. 

The few religions that actually do "marriage" to gods require a ridiculous amount of work.  I mean, think about nuns-- you don't just get to say "I'm married to Jesus, lolololol".  You're giving up a lot of your life to take on a mystical communion. 

The only other religion I know of with a similar set-up (Haitian Vodou), also has really really strict requirements for Mariaj Lwa.  There's the preliminary communal ritual, which requires paying for a service, for a reception-- everything.  And there are hardcore restrictions on your life-- for example, the requirement to sleep completely alone and refrain from sex on one or more days per week, plus regular offerings that can cost a stupid amount of money.  Whether or not you believe in the Vodoun spirits, it's a serious ritual commitment. It's not a damn sitcom.

And then you have pagans who take this stuff and turn it into "oh look at me, I'm married to Loki/Set/Thor/Poseidon, isn't it cute and funny!" No.  No, it's not.

[count_actuala]

I'm married to Loki/Set/Thor/Poseidon, isn't it cute and funny!" No.  No, it's not.

Damn right it's not funny.

It's hilarious.

[advancedclass]

Loki, as quoted in the Prose Edda:

Do you remember, Odin, when in bygone days
we mixed our blood together?
You said you would never drink ale
unless it were brought to both of us.

Loki, as quoted by Heather Freysdottir:

i LoVe To sNuGgLe!!! ^_^

The only reason it's Loki and not some other stand-in is because of the Avengers movie. They're just trying too hard, and it shows.

Actually - and I think the ridiculists commented on this - a lot of these weird Lokiwives types seem to predate the Avengers movie. I'm sure the Avengers movie is responsible for a portion of them but I'd have expected a lot more Thor stuff if that was the case.

I can recall someone in class (this was ten years ago, so I can't remember if there was anything to indicate Lokiwife) asking if Loki was likely to have been actively worshipped. The professor said no, unless there were fringe worshippers who wandered off, ate poisonous fungus, and died alone, shunned by the community as a whole. So even though their cutesy astral husband bears no resemblance to the figure from the eddas, at least they got the last part right!

I think this episode made me angry in the same way the Sherlock episode annoyed Lemon. They aren't actually harmful or repulsive in the way the MRA stuff is, but it's just incompatible with the thing they're so smitten with.

[count_actuala]

Loki, as quoted in the Prose Edda:

Do you remember, Odin, when in bygone days
we mixed our blood together?
You said you would never drink ale
unless it were brought to both of us.

Loki, as quoted by Heather Freysdottir:

i LoVe To sNuGgLe!!! ^_^

The only reason it's Loki and not some other stand-in is because of the Avengers movie. They're just trying too hard, and it shows.

Actually - and I think the ridiculists commented on this - a lot of these weird Lokiwives types seem to predate the Avengers movie.

I'd like to point out that Loki is also a comic book character and that plenty of sad, creepy people of all genders read comics.

[Clockderp]

I can recall someone in class (this was ten years ago, so I can't remember if there was anything to indicate Lokiwife) asking if Loki was likely to have been actively worshipped. The professor said no, unless there were fringe worshippers who wandered off, ate poisonous fungus, and died alone, shunned by the community as a whole. So even though their cutesy astral husband bears no resemblance to the figure from the eddas, at least they got the last part right!

Remember kids, being a trickster is a one-way ticket to death! oh god hat was unforgivably nerdy

Honestly, Loki (and gods based on Loki (cough Erumal cough)) are just really popular among hopeless nerds, even the ones who don't read comics. I'm not sure why; some people like him because he's a huge dick, but those people aren't the ones going around claiming to be boning him on the astral plane.

[chai tea latte]

When I was around twelve and going through a mythology phase, Loki was definitely one of my favourite of that pantheon (I also thought that Freyja was a badasssrad as heck) because I thought he was witty and stuck it to the man. A cool anti-authority figure who seems to come out on top sometimes - what kid with issues wouldn't be a fan?

And then I said 'well, those were cool stories. But they're just stories!'

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that Lokiwives are emotionally children.

[🍆]

This has to be one of the funniest episodes ever. The Richard Marx portion had me in tears. My heartstrings may have actually snapped.

Some of them were just sad, but the writer for example strolls out of Sadness Garden out on to Schizophrenia Boulevard.

I'd be inclined to believe that if I thought she, or most of the people involved, actually believed what they were writing. But as with fictives and otherkin and other very silly people, I think that most of them know on some level that they're spewing utter bullshit. Goes back to the whole "juggling water" thing melted-snowflake talked about with regard to otherkin. If they don't keep posting bad roleplaying 100% real transcribed conversations, or inventing new facets of their completely existent astral plane sex lives, then the illusion fades and they're left with their boring regular lives.

The one exception would probably be the nine-year veteran, who doesn't seem to be quite as wacky, just your garden variety elitist-with-nothing-to-feel-elite-about pagan.

[Delcat]

I'll admit that a significant amount of irritation with the godspouse community (such as it is) is the fact that I know a stupid amount about religions and the misuse of mythology gets under my skin.

I like how it's all sweetness and light and fluffiness and no one ever references stuff like Loki being bound with his son's entrails, his eyes torn out, and venom dripped from a poisonous snake into the sockets for all eternity.  Hell, all I did was read Sandman and I know about that shit.  I learned about him losing a bet and having his lips stitched shut when I was six from fucking Disney Adventures.  They illustrated it (and it was the coolest thing ever).

I guess it's kind of a good thing, considering they'd just play it for angst or some of the weirdest BDSM ever.



This would probably make for weirder BDSM but I don't want to know how.


As far as the writer's dialogue goes, I know that it's something most fiction writers at least try out.  The weird thing is that I'll do it with a roleplaying campaign or whatever, but never think of doing it with my serious pieces.  It's not a conscious "These characters are going to die, I'm not getting 'involved'", my brain naturally divides the two into "hands-on" and "hands-off".  I'm stupidly affected by character death in fiction, so maybe it's preventing that strong bond thing Kalamari mentioned, but I don't try to do it.  I think authors attack different writing in different ways, and what's a crutch in one situation can be a boost in another.

DISCLAIMER: I am not married to any person or object on the astral plane.

[Sherlockian]

I can recall someone in class (this was ten years ago, so I can't remember if there was anything to indicate Lokiwife) asking if Loki was likely to have been actively worshipped. The professor said no, unless there were fringe worshippers who wandered off, ate poisonous fungus, and died alone, shunned by the community as a whole. So even though their cutesy astral husband bears no resemblance to the figure from the eddas, at least they got the last part right!

Doing some more research, and by research, I mean I know I lot of weird pagans, and that's apparently why the term "Lokean" exists-- the Heathen (Asatru/Norse worshipping types) community think that worshipping Loki is a fucking crazy and stupid thing to do.  They refuse to acknowledge the Loki-worshippers as part of the general Norse community, so Loki-worshippers needed a new name for themselves.  Thus: Lokean.

And then the shunning turns into Loki-wives craziness, or something.

[count_actuala]

As far as the writer's dialogue goes, I know that it's something most fiction writers at least try out.

[Delcat]

Sorry, I really should have specified "non-professional" there.

[chai tea latte]

Sorry, I really should have specified "non-professional" there.

As far as the writer's dialogue goes, I know that it's something most fiction writers at least try out.

[Delcat]

It's my experience, man, what can I say?  I don't think most people stick with it, but people I knew as teenagers who are writing seriously now have, in fact, tried it out.  It's a teething phase that I've watched authors go through, it's not like I'm making this shit up.

[transatlanticalien]

EHHHHHHN
sorry Del
I know what you mean, I think it's mostly constrained to those kind of fandom/roleplaying circles that people eventually outgrow
or... not

Anyway I was looking through the #godspouse tag earlier

To start with, there seems to be this idea among some people-and goodness is the pagan tags in some places virtually swarming with this; that Godspouses and other Godowned folks are lonely, physically deprived people who basically have deluded themselves into ‘sex on the astral’ with a ‘god’ simply because they have nothing better to do; so sad and homely are these people that they have to ‘make up’ sexually explicit encounters in their heads to satiate their real life desire for physical human contact.

I wonder why

It’s probably not good that my first reaction to a friend whining that her boyfriend is out of town is “yeah, well, I’mma just go cuddle with my god husband a while; kthanxbye.”

And this is where filters come in handy, kids.

Score! I have now made Loki laugh today.

Well you made me laugh that's close enough

I love Loki with fiber of my body, but if could have chosen, I wouldn’t have  picked this.  Being a God spouse means being at their beck and call at all times.  Your mind is no longer your own. The first thing you think of,  and the last thought of the day is about your deity.  You change yourself to suit them. Its not a passing phase  it’s forever. I have a husband who knows nothing of this, and I fight every day with myself to remember his needs as well. I love him very much, but I fine myself loving Loki more.

Jeeee-suuuussssss