So, these are the Footnotes/Endnotes/Liner Notes for the Big Sleep, written for Cobaltnine Yuletide 2006.
This year the yuletide matching engine was absolutely amazing. What I got for my 4 options were:
Which when I read the options brought on several thoughts. 1) I could write something for any of these, 2) I want to write something for all of them 3) Loki and Sekhmet having sex on a dingy bed in a dive 4)The entire story is a dream and would end looping back to the beginning. 5) Loki should fall for Isis.
Which meant that I needed to tell the story of the death of Balder, and the story of the death of Osirus. Or at least have Isis looking for his body. After that, every scene was about giving Loki a chance to work through as many sexual positions/pantheons as possible, and breaking up the sex scenes with some plot.
Anyway, presumably anyone reading this is already familiar with the various myths, but I happen to like footnotes. Which moves us to our first note...
The Title: The Big Sleep - Noir Fiction. A Visio flow of a detective novel by Raymond Chandler involving single and double and triple crosses. Shenanigans. Lots of shenanigans. This story is named the Big Sleep because, depending on time perspective, the story is happening, or it has already happened and it is all a dream.
Marathoner - History. It was a battle. Now it's a race. I'm inclined to think sex with Sekhmet should be like a battle.
Loki - Norse Mythology. Our main character, and I rather imagine him as the philandering husband who always gets shot at the end of the first act of a mystery novel. He does not get shot here. Although it occurs to me there needed to be a chase scene with gun fire exchanged. While he was drinking a Martini. The City surely has drive up Martini shacks. Anyway since these are footnotes, I suppose I should say more about Loki. Sometimes Loki's hair is on fire (well, if you're Wagner), but he's always a shape shifter and generally up to something. Silly Loki, tricks are for prostitutes.
Sekhmet - Egyptian Mythology. A lioness headed goddess of vengeance and warfare. And apparently the only way to end her reign of terror, Terror! was to give her red (from pomegranates) beer. I would have here, but she's pregnant and that might cause a birth defect. Like having blue flowers growing out of the child's head. Horrors. The part about being Set's mistress is pure slander on my part. I hang my daisy head in shame.
A drop of water - You might want to watch all the times Loki gets cold/hot liquids splashed on his face. Foreshadow? Could be.
Stupid cow - Egyptian Mythology. Ah well, silly joke on my part. Sometimes Sekhmet is Hathor and has a cow's head. Eventually, Isis gets decapitated by Horus for sparing Set's life (well, he is her brother), and Thoth (her father) gives Isis a cow's head. So, yeah, stupid cow. But who is the cow? Perhaps its all a metaphor for silly rumination.
Ethiopian bitch - Egyptian Mythology. Set, the Queen of Ethiopia, and forty-ish of his closest friends tricked his brother Osirus into getting into an extra pretty box and killed him dead. Then Set tossed the box in the river. But Osirus got over it. So, second time Set was more thorough and chopped Osirus up into itty pieces and tossed him in the river.
Nepthys - Egyptian Mythology. Set's full sister/wife and winged lady. Sometimes she can't have kids. Sometimes she had an affair with her half brother Osirus and had Anubis. Sometimes she only gets one small reference in a fic.
Back - You might also want to note how many times Loki gets something poking in his back. Also forshadowy because its the sort of thing that when I write, it me feel all literary and stuff. Also I think it's funny.
Gremlin - Me. I have a whole story about a car dying, a rainstorm, a dead horse, a wrecked Gremlin, a tallow truck, and a tow truck playing "Don't Fear the Reaper." But I'm saving that for somewhere else.
Jupiter Jowett - Noir. Terry Lennox's car in the "The Long Goodbye" by R. Chandler. It sounded nifty. Loki had to have one.
knocked up by a horse - Norse Mythology. So, umm... I said Loki gets up to stuff. Well, hmmm... yeah, on one occasion he distracted the horse of a giant by appearing as a really sexy mare so the gods wouldn't have to pay the giant for his contract work (They offered him Frejya. They did that sort of thing.). The giant couldn't make his project date, so no payoff. However as a result of Loki's distraction efforts, Loki became pregnant and gave birth to an eight legged horse.
Mani - Brotherhood of the Wolf. A small role I know, but originally the detective following Loki around was going to be Theseus. But then I connected some dots on what was going to happen Narfi, and decided to fit the fourth request in. Woot. And Huzah.
Huitlipochli - Nahuatl Mythology. Hummingbird god of war and the sun. Great one for a party and molesting/stabbing innocent flowers with his long beak. Hmmm... perhaps he and Sekhmet's flower headed kid should hook up. Or not. I kind of prefer Huitlipochili as a swinger. Also I'm quite fond of saying his name. Conversely kind of a pain to type. It's one of the nicer things about Norse mythology. Their names are often monosyllabic. Course there's about a billion ways to spell their names, but... whine, whine, red wine. Rose. Whatever.
Coatlique - Nahuatl Mythology. Huitlipochli was born when his mother Coatlique was decapitated by her children (the stars and the moon). Huitlipochli avenged his mother (more decapitation) and gave her the head of a (or two) blood serpent(s).
Tezcatlipoca - Nahuatl Mythology. Tezcatlipoca, or Smoking Mirrors. God of magic, warriors at cross roads, and getting his twin (Quetzalcoatl) drunk so Quetz would sleep with his sister and end the golden age. This is probably why Loki wakes up with scales and feathers in his mouth. Or he could have just had a very good time.
Rainbow Bridge - Norse Mythology. Connects Midgard (people land) and Asgard (god land, not to be confused with goatland in Yorkshire). And just so I don't forget - but in my mind the Rainbow bridge used to be a Rainbow Serpent, who fell in love with the Midgard Serpent. Rainbow cast aside his thunder stick and stones, because the Rainbow bridge should be transgender. Alas things ended badly (the gods, always getting in the way). Rainbow became a bridge, and that's why the Midgard serpent wants to poison the sky. But seriously, not an explanation that easily fits into “Loki drives over a bridge.”
Balder - Norse Mythology. The best of the gods! God of innocence and light. Mostly famous for dying. I imagine him as played by Jimmy Stewart. In a yellow suit. Oh and he was invulnerable to everything except mistletoe. So the gods would entertain themselves by throwing things at him. Seriously.
Sigyn - Norse Mythology. Loki's long suffering wife. Poor thing. She was so faithfully devoted that even though he cursed her (and for that matter was tied up in their son's entrails), she stays with him below the earth/dirt/whatever and held a bowl over his head so he wouldn’t be seared with snake venom. Gosh. That says co-dependent to me.
Nothing could be important enough to be quite that earnest - Because Loki has seen the play. I think he may have acted in it. Just a small production. A few friends. Some gin in his tea. And yes, Loki did eat all the watercress sandwiches.
Vali - Norse Mythology. Loki and Sigyn's son. Sweet story. In revenge for their father's roll in killing Blader, the other gods turn him into a wolf so he can rip his brother Narfi's guts out.
Bacchus - Greek Mythology. God of wine and drunkenness. I should think he would invent chewable aspirin.
Narfi - Norse Mythology. Loki and Sigyn's son. Gets his guts ripped out by the aforementioned brother. Because preppy doesn't pay. Actually it might, but then there are taxes. And death.
Ra - Egyptian mythology. One of their sun gods (always a mite confusing) and overall strong eyesight. Just for reference, Osirus' father.
Apollo - Greek Mythology. Actually more likely to shoot Loki with an arrow than a sunbeam. Or molest Loki for sweet loving. You know he wants to. He just doesn't have time. Sad really. Tragic. Too bad I've already made a joke about tragedy and Greeks in another yuletide story.
Huitlipochli - Nahuatl Mythology. Now he'd probably run up the stairs and cut Loki's head off with an obsidian sword-thing. If you know, they hadn't had sweet, sweet lovin' the night before. Huitlipochli, he wears other people's hearts on his sleeve.
under the sea - Norse Mythology. Loki and Angrboda's child, Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent. Odin took him from his mother's hall and threw him under the ocean. This seemed to backfire as he became large enough to wrap around the world.
Lonely walking the paths of the under earth - Norse Mythology. Loki and Angrboda's child, Hel. Odin took her from her mother's hall and threw her into the underworld where she became queen. Mind you there wasn't time to go into her several years of apprenticeship with Hades and final level graduate work with Veles.
And chained - Norse Mythology. Loki and Angrboda's child Fenrir. Giant wolf. Jaws scrape the sky. Will end the world that boy will. And after Odin heard that Fenrir was going to kill Odin, well... Odin didn't take that lightly. Odin took Fenrir (and the other kids previously mentioned. It wasn't like he was always kidnapping Loki's kids) and long story short chained him up with ribbon made of impossible things.
Pele's Flaming Tiki - Hawaiian Mythology. Goddess of volcanoes. Because Kthulu's shrimp shack was taken. Also it was my goal to reference as many pantheons as possible without actually having a Illiad like scene of, "Loki looked at the party goers. Pele was chatting with Papatuanuku, who was flicking off Marduk, son Ea, who was in a conga line with Shiva, Pan-gu, Tezcatlipoca, and the crew of the Argonaut. Loki's head hurt and he resolved to step away from Wikipedia."
borrow a cape of feathers to fly - Norse Mythology. For some reason Loki borrows Frejya's cape of feathers to turn into a bird and fly off to rescue Idunn and her golden apples of youth. Given that Loki shape changes ever other sentence, why? Mind you, he helped kidnap Idunn in the first place, but that's Loki for you.
Frejya - Norse Mythology. Goddess of Beauty and Love and all around sexyness. And warfare. She was that kind of gal.
Snori - Icelandic saga. In a particularly droll section, Snori described an amusing incident involving a very tight (it was the style of the time) set of leggings and being shot with an arrow. Which he didn't notice, because of his tight pants. Now if you will imagine being in Japan and reading an Icelandic saga aloud in a bad French accent (or Swedish chef, or Irish, or... well any bad accent really). Well, there was much jocularity.
Carat - Norse Mythology. Frejya was very fond of gems. She named her daughter Jewel/Gem (I suppose so the kid could found a holographic rock band. Hmmm... must remember that, it may come up again. Gem and the Holograms play Smoking Mirrors. Everyone gets stoned. But I digress.)
golden apples - Norse Mythology. Like I said, Loki helped rescue Idunn and her golden apples. After he helped steal her in the first place, so... yeah, whatever.
Titan's - Greek mythology. Actually not so much asleep as chained, but it must be boring. Wonder if they have cable. Anyway these are a number of different mythologies apocalyptic end of the world flee for the hills scenarios. The real question is in a Alien zombie invasion, where does one flee? This is important because I really like the idea of the City as this small world that exists on a knife's edge. That at any moment, any mythology could bring it to a close. That even as Loki is flying, he is one of those levers on the rocks. And that all the City's inhabitants, who you don't see much of in this story, get up in the morning and live their lives. The morning light blinks off their condos. They go to work in shipyards and ride the bus. Or go clubbing.
Ironwood - Norse Mythology. There were troll women who lived in the Ironwood. You see, Loki ate the heart of a woman who had been burned alive. Then he started vomiting troll women. I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere.
Jotunheim - Norse Mythology. Pretty much says it all. Land of the Frost giants. I'd say a couple hours drive out of the city. Mostly because Hwy 17 is pretty twisty.
Angrboda - Norse Mythology. Sometimes called Distress Bringer. Loki's mistress, but I like the idea of her being a first wife. So there.
His first love token - Norse Mythology. I concatenated Angrboda here with Skadi, who was also a frost giant, and a goddess of winter. Her father (the guy who Loki kidnapped Idun for) was killed as a result. So she showed up and demanded restitution. Loki made her laugh by tying a goat to his penis and playing tug of war. When the goat pulled his penis off, he fell into her lap and sprayed her with blood. Skadi laughed and was appeased. Well, that and after she picked out Njord as a husband. He had clean feet. Mind you at the end of the Lokasenna she ties the snake over Loki's head. It's a complicated relationship.
sail on her ships of dead men's nails - Norse Mythology. Hel is building a ship out of dead men's nails. In some myths, Loki will sit at the tiller for Ragnorack/end of the world.
Frigga - Norse Mythology. Frigga had a dream (sometimes its Balder) that her son Balder was going to die young. So she went and got everything, except unimportant mistletoe, to promise not to kill him. Yeah. That so ended well. Seriously, dip the kid by one heel and then grab the other heel and double dip. Ask mistletoe. What's with the loopholes. Yeesh.
Aesir and Vanir - Norse Mythology. Norse gods. The warlike ones and the oh so pretty ones. The Vanir would star on the CW. Not sure where the Aesir star. I mean they're still pretty, but... not Vanir pretty.
mead all those dead warriors - Norse mythology. Odin cherry picks all the most kick ass warriors and then plays host. Thay way they can fight for him at the end of the world. Hel gets everyone else. Except when she doesn't.
Senior Vice President of Copernican Geometry - Why not.
Odin - Norse Mythology. All Father. Head dude of the Norse gods. Missing an eye because he traded it for wisdom. I imagine him here as played by David Bowie in the Prestige.
Tolkien - Well it would be funny wouldn't it? Although, he speaks Elvish with an Aesir accent.
Set - Egyptian Mythology. Ardvark headed god of the desert, foreigners, and red heads. Often up to skullduggery. Or helping Ra sail around in the underworld. Depends on your perspective.
Isis - Egyptian Mythology. Osirus' wife/half-sister. Goddess of fertility and magic and generally all round coolness. She held the fort down while Osirus did his wander thing, his getting dead thing, and his getting chopped up thing. She just put him back together and raised him from the dead. I sort of picture her here as played by a young Jackie Brown. Cool and sexy. Not sure where she's hiding a gun in that outfit, but she is.
Osirus - Egyptian Mythology. Egyptian god of the underworld. Once he ruled the earth, inherited from his father, Ra. But for the most part he seems to have spent his time wandering off leaving Isis in charge. Until he got himself all dead and chopped up. Mind you, the whole underworld/mafia was a happy moment of, hmm... Egyptian Mythology as an episode of the Sopranos. But with less swearing.
Father Abraham with many sons - Bible. Well, you see, Abraham had two sons (and a brother who procreated with his daughters, while Abraham got merely by being married to his half-sister). One of those sons had two sons, the yonger of whom had many sons. Actually the older one also probably had many sons too, but we don't follow him. Poor guy. God favored the younger trickster son. Plus there was late night wrestling.
Silver chair – Norse Mythology. In Valaskialf, Odin’s solid silver hall, Odin had a silver chair from which he could see the whole world.
Wagner - Err... big old opera about the end of the world. Watch the cartoon.
showing the World Tree grow - Norse Mythology. Big old tree. I used to work at an office with LCDs like that. Unfortunately they didn't show the world tree growing. That might have been cooler than watching numbers go whoosh.
First you cheat my boy out of his payment for his work on the Asgard Estate's walls - Norse Mythology. The whole horse things. As a lead Mafioso, I figure Set must get a cut from most construction projects. How exactly he was going to get a cut on a Frejya I won't speculate.
Brokk and Sindi - Norse Mythology. Don't they just sound like thugs? While Loki was getting the Sif's golden hair (more on that later), he took time off to challenge two dwarves (the aforementioned thugs) to build yet awesome-er things than the hair. The payment was his head if they succeeded. He tried to distract them (for some reason he didn’t want to pay them) by being a fly. But that didn't really work. He wriggled his way out of it, and ended up getting most of the cool things that Norse gods use: Thor's hammer, Odin's spear, etc. I like to imagine that they were supposed to be working on Set's Box of Death when Loki distracted them.
That I ate - Egyptian Mythology. Set did. Sometimes. Other times it's a fish. Gosh. Set knows how to make with the love talk.
Hesiod overpass - Greek poet. They can’t all be rainbow bridges.
Valkyrie - Norse Mythology. Battle maidens, not rabbits wearing winged hats.
Gabriel - Bibl-ish. Since I did want to touch on all four of my yuletide requests, I wanted to introduce the idea of Gabriel + jello shots = fun. Plus I liked the line.
Myrrh and bitter almonds - Popular Egyptian perfumes. There's also a tie in with Myrrh and a greek myth having to do with Adonis, but... anyway, bitter almonds means you might not want to eat that bear claw. Poison.
Raven - First Nations Mythology. Trickster figure. I wanted to go with three trickster figures that were fairly well known, and yet I could imagine falling in with this plan.
Coyote - First Nations Mythology. Trickster figure. I did feel kind of bad dipping into the Americas again, but the dynamic completely changed when I tried to use Hermes as one of the tricksters.
Anansi – Ashanti Trickster figure. He's a story teller, he had to show up.
Tew's day, Wodan's day, Thors day, Feyja's day - Because English is a mongrel language. Now the Satyr's day, there you're on your own. They play to rough.
Your daughter's a hideously attractive woman - Anansi once tried to become immortal by crawling between Death/Ruler of the dead's legs 3 times. Third time she sat on him. It's a small jump to imagine that he tried to pull that with Hel.
Play the infant - First Nation's Mythology. Raven once stole the sun, moon, and the stars by getting a young woman pregnant (with himself), being born and then tricking grandpa into giving him the sky's light. Perhaps he likes to be the baby.
Bilkskirnir - Norse Mythology. Thor's house, which has a Rowan door here because that's sacred to Thor.
Sif - Norse Mythology. Thor's wife and the goddess of harvesty sort of stuff. In Skaldskaparmal, she and Frejya are listed as the top two drop dead gorgeous babes that were most desired by giants and gods. Which for some reason makes me think of a 1960s movie starlet. Someone who wanted to be Marylyn Monroe . And if her hair is fake, how much else would be?
The golden hair she'd cried for - Norse Mythology. Okay so basic breakdown of the myth is Sif was sleeping. Loki snuck in and cut her hair off. She was so ashamed, she wandered around with a veil on her head and cried. Thor threatened Loki, who then went off and got golden hair for Sif, and a boatload (and a boat) of neat things for the gods from the Dwarves. The thing that always struck me as odd about the whole Loki cuts Sif's hair off myth (other than I'm capitalizing Dwarves and not gods) was how could she not notice her hair being cut off. Also hair grows back (thus the inequality of the Gift of the Magi short story). Clearly she must have been scalped. In which case, she didn't notice? Wow, talk about deep sleeper. Or was she in on it. Golden hair. How else was she going to get on the Skaldskaparmal top ten list of most gorgeous goddesses.
the giant lacquered fish - Well since the one that got away was Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent, there had to be a fish on the wall.
Thor - Norse Mythology. God of Thunder. He was very powerful and much into smiting. With his short handled hammer Mjolnir, and his oh so sexy power belt, Megingjord. Very Wide World of Wrestling.
red hatted gnomes beyond - Haven't you ever wondered where garden gnomes came from? Well it's time you begun.
forge birthmark - Comics. In Gaiman's Sandman, Loki comments to Thor about a forge birthmark on Sif's... anatomy.
Aegir's - Norse Mythology. If you've seen the Tim/Dini Batman, you know what this club looks like. Only more so. So this entire scene is pretty much meant to play out the Lokasenna, a mid range poem. Technically it takes place after Balder is dead, but whatever. Basically Loki went to a party at the hall of Aegir, the sea god. Loads of gods and Elves were there. Except Thor, who was off killing trolls. Anyway, Loki kills Fimafeng, one of the servants, gets kicked out, returns, and starts saying really outrageous stuff. Either he's lying (he says that the goddess of virgins is a slut) or he's truth telling (could be). In any case, people keep offering him stuff to shut up, but he doesn't. Sif even offers him mead, saying he should be nice to her. But, no go. Mind I was really tempted to have a whole Nirdir/Njordr golden shower comment. But it was beginning to feel like, "on this week in gods, who will Loki insult next?"
Aphrodite - Greek Mythology. Goddess of Love and Beauty, and fooling around with sad/happy mortals/gods/whosits.
Adonis - The handsome son of a tree. His mother (before she was a tree) slept with her father, who was the grandson of a statue, so immobility ran in the family. Anyway, Adonis ended up being raised by Persephone and Aphrodite. He then had an affair with Aphrodite, before being killed while hunting. I was/am working on a City retelling of the story for NaNoWriMo this year (among other things).
Lucifer - Bible. Morning Star. Shiny bright angel. Pride goes before a fall. Gabriel and Lucifer had a little off screen fun to fill in the third request.
Frigga - Norse Mythology. Odin's wife. Goddess of motherhood, fertility and apple pie. Okay, not that last bit, but she could see the future, which probably sucked. Not in a Cassandra way, but still... worthy of Vicodin.
Noah - Bible. God said, dude, build a boat. So he did. Then he packed it full of a zoo. Then the rain, she fell. And fell, and fell, and fell. 40 days. 40 nights. Which with all those animals, must have been pleasant. But plenty to eat. When the water finally seeped away, Noah jumped with glee, planted grapes, and got falling down drunk on wine. That's some fast growing grapes.
Blind Hod - Norse Mythology. God of winter. Blind. Killed Balder by accident/Loki tricked him. Still gets killed in punishment though. Blindness/ignorance not being an excuse I guess.
Tyr - Norse Mythology. God of war and warriors and getting by with one hand. When the gods were trying to tie up Fenrir (so he wouldn't eat Odin), Tyr stuck his hand in Fenrir's mouth as a pledge that nothing could go wrong. That worked out well. In the Lokasenna, Loki claims that Tyr's son with his unnamed wife is actually Loki's. This is how we know that Tyr was married.
Nanna - Norse Mythology. Balder's wife. So attached that when he died, she threw herself on his funeral boat and died. How romantic.
Mad Juana of Castile - Spanish History. Daughter of Isabelle and Ferdinand. She was married to Phillip the Handsome. She was known for being particularly jealous and when he died, she didn't take it well, and ended up being locked up for the rest of her life. Not so romantic.
A Private Dick - It would seem that Loki is partial to both Sam Spade and V.I. Warshawski style detectives. But he's less inclined to Veronica Mars. Cute, but just not his type.
Young Lochinvar - Literature. A bit player in the poem Marmion. However, he who stole the show, or at least the public's attention. I mean, it's not like the poem is named Lochinvar. Bascically, his love is about to marry another. He shows up, has some wine, dances a little, then takes off with the girl on his fast horse.
Davy Jones - Folklore. Oh who am I kidding. Pirates of the Caribbean .
Minotaur - Greek Mythology. Bull headed dude resulting from a little bestiality on his mother's part. Hard to say if he and Hathor could have found true love. He spent most of his life in a maze. Poor thing. Except for the bit where he ate people.
Huginn and Munnin - Norse Mythology. Odin's ravens (nothing to do with Raven) who traveled the world observing stuff for him. They'll have something interesting to report this time.
Hathor - Egyptian Mythology. Goddess of the milky way, cows, motherhood, beauty and gentleness. Sometimes turns into Sekhmet and then watch out.
River Styx - Greek Mythology. Thetis dipped her son Achilles in the River styx to make him invulnerable. Course, she didn't dip him by the ankle she was holding. However I've already ranted about that.
Odin was throwing a spear at Balder - Norse Mythology. One of the gee whiz neato things Loki scammed off the dwarves. A spear that never missed.
Idunn - Norse Mythology. Goddess of youth. She tended ye ole golden apples, which kept the gods young.
Bragi - Norse Mythology. God of poetry, and one Odin's sons, and Idunn's husband. In the Lokasenna, Loki accuses him of cowardice. For that matter, Frigga disses him too.
Thiazzi - Norse Mythology. Frost giant that Loki kidnapped Idunn for/to/whatever. Course by this point, he's dead Jim. However, perhaps while Loki was pregnant and milking cows in the underworld, he and Thiazzi got to chatting.
Grefjon - Norse Mythology. A goddess of fertility and virginity. However that works. In the Lokasenna, Loki calls her a slut, and since there wasn’t time for Loki femslash, this was the next best thing.
Nirdir - Norse Mythology. A Vanir god of wind and sailing. Feyr and Frejya's father with his sister Nerthus.
Freyr - Norse Mythology. God of beauty/ virility . In the Lokasenna, Loki accuses Freyr and Frejya of keeping up the family tradition of incest.
Hang a few more men - Norse Mythology. In the Lokasenna, Loki calls Odin fickle in his role as the god presiding over battlefields. Sacrifices were made to Odin by hanging, much as he was hung on the world tree. Which, makes a nice change from all the heart/penis eating that's gone on thus far.
pregnant - Norse Mythology. In the Lokasenna, Odin (after being called fickle) tells off Loki by pretty much saying what he says here.
Frigga thought you were dead - Norse Mythology. After a particularly long trip, Frigga figured Odin was dead, and so took up with his brother's Vili and Ve.
Ask Hel - Norse Mythology. After Balder dies, Odin (well, one of his sons - but seriously, there's already a cast of 10s) asks Hel to set Balder free.
Thor threw Loki into the water - Norse Mythology. In the Lokasenna, Loki's reign of gossipy terror ends with Thor showing up.
mighty salmon of un-justice - Well, Loki and the Tick do both live in the City.
Great Astarte - Egyptian Mythology / Semitic. Goddess of fertility and war. Also, Queen Astarte is a bit player in the legend of Isis searching for Osirus. Basically, after his casket becomes a tree, he gets turned into one of the pillars of her house.
Lamia - Greek Mythology, and for that matter a poem by Keats. Plus I wrote an SPN fic (Monstrous) where she ran a spa. Head of a woman, lower half of a serpent. All scary. Or sad. Depending on your poem.
Rubbed all over with dampened barley - Egyptian something. Yearly ritual. Possibly not this fun though. Or maybe it was
tiger's giant dick - Ashanti Mythology. Tiger was Spider's favorite dupe. In one story, Anansi tricks Tiger into trading his all.
Ride of the Valkyries - It's Wagner. It's Bugs Bunny. It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel pretty good.
Van - Norse Mythology. A river, which originates from Fenrir's mouth/drool. He can't close his mouth because there's a sword holding it open.
emerald landfill island - Because I wasn't letting Loki cross a bridge without eventually making some sort of connection with the Emerald City.
Hel won't let Balder come back - Norse Mythology. Hel wouldn't let Balder come back unless everyone cried. Loki (in disguise as a giantess) didn't. Oh, well.
Yule - North European Winter festival and all round good day to set trees on fire.
Like a thousand doors - Norse Mythology. After getting Balder killed, Loki hid out in a house with a thousand doors.
like the perfume of Punt - Egyptian Mythology. The gods were supposed to smell like the most expensive perfume, i.e., the stuff that came from far away Punt.
Ra's name - Egyptian Mythology. Isis tricked Ra into telling her his name, so she could learn how to raise the dead.
Vengeance and retribution - So when I realized that I was going to cross Norse/Egyptian, I thought Loki would make a natural parent of a god vengenance and retribution. Instead of Odin's lost eye, Horus' eye of truth and all that.
swam down the drain a salmon - Norse Mythology. When Loki tried to escape the other gods, he became a salmon, but was captured in a net he had invented.
Narfi's intestines - Norse Mythology. Which seriously, overkill much.
Ripped apart anyone that got in his way - Norse Mythology. A small Brotherhood of the Wolf slice. While I didn't have room for any really big crosses (what with all the random sex, childbirth, death and puffins), I got to this point and went, oh, wolf. A brother who becomes unrecognizable. Okay. Sure. Take out Theseus, add in Mani.And there you go.
Really that’s enough don’t you think? Yeah. Okay. The end.