philosopherking1887:
I finally finished the fic that @wouldyouknowmore won in my 666-follower Satan-themed giveaway. Yours is next, @shine-of-asgard… sorry I’m slow :-
The prompt wouldyouknowmore gave me was: “what would you think of writing Loki and Thor as personifications of two of the seven deadly sins? Patron demons, if you will. I’ll let you choose which sins, of course.” I suggested writing it as a workplace comedy taking inspiration from Good Omens and “The Good Place”; this is what resulted. It’s almost 3000 words rather than the intended 1000-2000… I’ve never been good with word limits.
It was virtually inevitable that Loki would end up both loving and hating Thor; it was in their natures.
They worked in the Deadly Sins department of the Pre-Death Acquisitions division of Hell. It was a common misconception that there were seven of them—there was definitely something satisfying about the number seven, and “Seven Deadly Sins” had a nice ring to it—but there were in fact eight. Someone should have told Pope Gregory that Pride was a very different sin from Vanity; it would have been obvious, Loki thought, if only he had met both Thor and Fandral. Vanity is the obsessive preoccupation with outward appearances and with the opinions of others; pride is an excessive inner confidence in one’s own abilities and worth. Loki found vanity (and Fandral) to be contemptible, servile, and therefore unattractive. Pride, on the other hand… there was an alluring swagger to it (and Thor). It may have been a moral vice, but Loki considered it an aesthetic virtue.
Loki envied Thor his prideful swagger. Of course he did; he was, after all, the embodiment of Envy. Which he might have found contemptible in himself, but he comforted himself with Nietzsche’s argument that envy was a Homeric virtue which spurred its possessors to great deeds in the agon, and was moved by the inscription from Hesiod: “Two Eris-goddesses are on earth… the one, the cruel one, furthers the evil war and feud! … Zeus the high-ruling one, however, placed the other Eris upon the roots of the earth and among men as a much better one. She urges even the unskilled man to work, and if one who lacks property beholds another that is rich, then he hastens to sow in similar fashion and to plant and to put his house in order; the neighbor vies with his neighbor who strives after fortune. Good is this Eris to men. The potter also has a grudge against the potter, and the carpenter against the carpenter; the beggar envies the beggar, and the singer the singer.”
And if that didn’t help to make him feel better about himself, he could always console himself that “whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises.” Loki read a lot of Nietzsche.
But Loki’s envy of Thor wouldn’t have spurred him to much if it weren’t for Amora—fittingly, for she was the spirit of Lust.
Keep reading
@incredifishface, I don’t know if you saw this, but I thought it might amuse you…
Loki is the Philosopher King 