Fanfic / Vainglorious

Vainglorious is a Worm and Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover focusing on the Thor elements.

In this universe, Annette is a Dark Elf, and Taylor a hybrid. After Annette is abducted by Loki and Valkyrie for the Collector, Taylor is left alone. Increasingly aggravated by Emma's bullying, Taylor decides to go for a joyride in one of her mother's Harrows. And then the Simurgh attacks Canberra...

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Tropes:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Harrow's large blade, when boosted with sublight-jump speeds, is one of the only things capable of noticably damaging the Simurgh.
• Abusive Parents: Odin towards all of his children. It's hinted he inherited this from Bor.
  • He punished an already grieving Hela for losing an army by consigning her to be the goddess of the unworthy dead, starting her descent into darkness.
  • He broke every bone in Thor's body for some crime, stripped him of his power, and banished him from Asgard. Every sign is that he intended this to be permanent, regardless of what others might have hoped. This was due to Thor angering the Thinker and Warrior; forcing Thor to live a mortal life in their experiment was the price for sparing his immortal life. As soon as Brad dies, Thor is reborn.
  • When Loki confronted him about his failings, and refused to become the crown prince, Odin outright killed Loki rather than admit he was wrong. Only the work of Vanir shamans managed to revive him after he suffered brain death five times.
• Abusive Precursors: Simurgh explains that Ymir created all of the Ymiroid races - humans, Aesir, Jotun, and more - for one purpose: Food for higher beings.
• Alien Invasion: The Jotuns invade Australia.
• All Girls Like Ponies: For all her claims of being a born warrior, Taylor is absolutely infatuated with the horses of the Light Elves.
• All There in the Manual: The author clarifies a lot of things in the Spacebattles thread outside of the chapters.
• Altar Diplomacy: Frigg married Odin as part of the treaty that ended the war between the Vanir and Aesir.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Assuming Odin is in fact Kevin Norton, he has mellowed out significantly.
• Amnesiac God: There are hints that Brad/Hookwolf might be this universe's Thor, his memory wiped and dumped on Earth Bet. Odin may or may not be Kevin Norton.
  • It is confirmed that both Odin and Thor have been rendered amnesiac and banished to the mortal realm, Thor by an enraged Odin and Odin by Frigg as punishment for abusing his children.
• Amputation Stops Spread: When Taylor stabs Laufey, the cold spreads up the sword and into her arm, freezing it solid. She has to break the arm off to keep it from reaching the rest of her body.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Taylor loses her arm when the Simurgh rips off the Harrow's blade and attacks the ship with it.
  • Taylor loses another arm when she stabs Laufey in the gut and the cold of his body freezes her arm solid.
• An Ice Person: The Frost Giants, of course. Gwen also triggers with ice powers after her family is killed.
• Anatomy of the Soul: Hela notes in her interlude that the culture's beliefs reflect how many souls one has, so the ancient Egyptians really would have had several souls.
  • Elves and Einherjar are born from specific parts of human souls collected by Asgard's magic.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Dark Elves under Malekith are directly compared to Nazis more than once. Taylor even notes at one point how the Dark Elf salute is oddly similar to the Nazi one and Star Lord explicitly warns Annette not to do anything "Nazi-ish".
• Anti-Climactic Unmasking: Secret identities seem a lot less important to many capes in the face of the Jotun invasion, so many have simply given up on wearing their masks and even give their names to former enemies. Given how big a deal this is in cape culture, it says something about the war that nobody thinks too much about it.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Lung does not react well to questions about why he doesn't fight the Endbringers. Lisa implies that he's having a mid-life crisis.
• Artifact of Doom: The appropriately named Ring of Doom, the ring stolen from Andvari. The dwarf laid a curse on the ring that not only doomed Sigurd's descendants to be taken by Dormammu but also twists those who bear it. Brunnhilde blames the ring for her decision to kill Sigurd's three year-old son, claiming it brings out the worst in its bearers.
• "Ass" in Ambassador: Bor tried and failed to be a good host for Malekith. First, he showed up wearing his helmet decorated with the horns of Auðumbla, the ancestor of all Dark Elves. Second, he introduced them to the Elves, descendants of Dark Elves who gave up their divine heritage. Third, he offered to terraform a few worlds for the Dark Elves, an offer that was insultingly small. And finally, he lost his temper and outright mocked them for clinging to the vestiges of a godhood they can't even remember. It's no wonder things descended into war after that.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Taylor lampshades how the leaders of groups of gods are always overpowered.
• Authority in Name Only: Loki is titled as the "God of Mischief", but actually is no more godly than any regular denizen of Asgard. Unlike Thor he never received an actual divine mandate from Odin.
• Bad Powers, Good People: The Aesir manipulate the energy of death to empower themselves and their forces yet they're also gullible and idealistic.
  Aswang Temur: The Aesir are a good natured people. Horrifically violent practitioners of magic so dark and evil that most don’t even know how their species ascended to godhood. But good people nonetheless. Naively so.
• Becoming the Mask: Annette entered her relationship with Danny with no real affection, but over the years she came to love him and Taylor deeply.
• Been There, Shaped History: Annette has been active on Earth since at least the time of ancient Egypt and was worshipped as a god under various guises, such as Nut in Egypt. She was also responsible for several notable villains and heroes throughout history during her previous experiments with the Aether.
• Behemoth Battle: A two-on-one battle featuring Lung and Taylor versus Laufey.
• Bottled Heroic Resolve: Taylor uses a stash of Dark Elf battle drugs to keep herself fighting despite injuries and exhaustion. She was in for a most likely fatal crash when the supply ran out but was killed before withdrawal set in.
• Break the Haughty: This happening to Taylor, Brad/Hookwolf, Eidolon/David, and Colin/Armsmaster is a big part of their character development arc, as detailed in Pride.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu:
  • Odin completely depleted the Odinforce to weaken Eden enough for Doctor Mother to kill her. This left him too weak to prevent Frigg secretly deposing and exiling him.
  • The Ancient One tried to repel the Entities when they arrived at Earth Bet but was outmatched. She was still able to strike a key blow that weakened and distracted Eden enough for Odin to cripple her.
• Broken Pedestal: Taylor's awe in the presence of Nimue and King Arthur is brutally destroyed when they not only betray her but declare their intent to conquer the Nine Realms, after tearing the Aether from Taylor's body. As she notes, Arthur was from a time when his racism, jingoism, and belief in divine rule were ordinary.
• Calling the Old Man Out: After Thor was exiled and Odin declared Loki would become crown prince, Loki confronted his father. Their argument rapidly escalated as Loki denounced him as a father and king, ending with Odin striking Loki down.
• Came Back Strong: After Taylor resurrects herself with the full knowledge of being the living Aether, she's a lot stronger, and has the benefits of being fully healed with clearly superhuman strength.
• The Cavalry:
  • While facing down an empowered Laufey, Eidolon arrives leading the Masters of the Mystic Arts.
  • Outnumbered and outmaneuvered by a Jotun army, the human forces are rescued when the literal cavalry arrives in the form of King Arthur and his mounted Light Elves.
  • When Arthur declares his intent to conquer Earth, Loki arrives leading the forces of Asgard.
• Cavalry Betrayal: The Light Elves arrive to aid in battle, but once the tide has turned King Arthur stabs Taylor and declares his intent to conquer the Nine Realms for Avalon.
• Chainsaw Good: Dragon's anti-Jotun suit has chainsaw teeth.
• Challenging the Chief: When Taylor issues a challenge to King Arthur to try and stop the battle, it is revealed she is in fact the bloodline heir of the kingdom of Denmark, and thus a claimant to Arthur's throne. He refuses to let such a challenge slide and Taylor kills him.
• Chekhov's Gun: Excalibur was designed to act as a vessel for an Infinity Stone, though the socket for the gem is now empty. Arthur attempts to drain the Aether from Taylor using Excalibur.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Bjorn mentions to Taylor that he had been keeping an eye on the Jotun colonies hiding in Antarctica. Several chapters later, those colonies send reinforcements to Australia.
• Chest Burster: Taylor wonders if she came out of her old body this way. She came out of the face, but other than that it did have a lot of elements of this.
• The Chosen One: Taylor is revealed to be the first godborn descendant of Sigurd's line in millennia, destined to break the curse on her family line.
• Clone Degeneration: Dark Elves do not reproduce sexually, but instead used their technology to manufacture a new Dark Elf body to act as a host to their soul. With each body they lose bits of their essence; Annette muses she might have ruled a pantheon before the current universe but she can no longer even remember it.
• Cold Iron: Dark Elves are weak to it. It's also a component in Harrow Blades, with Taylor lampshading how whoever designed said blades was an idiot for using iron in it like that.
• Composite Character:
  • The Dark Elf in the Collector's museum is combined with Annette/Nylarka.
  • Brad/Hookwolf is hinted to be an amnesiac version of Thor. Confirmed when Brad dies and returns as Thor.
  • David/Eidolon is apparently going to become the Bet version of Dr. Strange, after losing his parahuman powers.
  • Kevin Norton may be Odin, and Contessa may have a connection to him. Odin's memories were wiped and he was exiled to live as Kevin; before that, he used Muninn to possess and empower Contessa to continue his plan.
  • Brian/Grue is apparently of Wakandan descent and is taking up the Black Panther mantle.
  • The Entities still follow the same general plan of experimenting as in canon but are revealed to be rogue Celestials.
• Confronting Your Imposter: Huginn, Odin's raven, was exiled along with his master but manages to follow Loki back to Asgard. When the two arrive at the palace, Loki realizes the person on the throne is an imposter because he has a second Huginn.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Victor, to a jaw-droppingly crazy extent. Dr Yamada refused to treat him after one session which consisted almost entirely of him going off on his theory that all Aryans are descended from Hyperboreans, and non-Aryans are all of at least partially Jotun descent. And that is one of the saner "theories". She actually finds Sophia’s attitude easier to deal with.
• Cool Chair: Laufey brings out a flying ice throne he can use to bombard the defending humans.
• Cool Old Guy: Fárbauti, the former king of Jotunheim, is still able to hold his own in battle despite being old enough to have fought against the Dark Elves. He's also up-to-date on modern Earth culture and even fistbumps Star Lord over his choice in music.
• Cool Starship: Taylor's Harrow definitely qualifies until it is lost fighting The Simurgh. Luckily she has three more.
• Crack Pairing: In-universe, Someone writes a Armsmaster/Hookwolf fic after they were seen fighting together.
• Creating Life Is Unforeseen: Annette tried creating life using the Aether several times, but each attempt failed for one reason or another. Her latest creation, Taylor, only exists because the Aether apparently decided to bring her into being itself, something that surprised Annette when it happened.
• Death by Adaptation: Wakanda was wiped out by an Endbringer with only a few scattered survivors.
• Defector from Decadence: Annette realized that Malekith's war against life had doomed their race. She chose to leave and try to find a solution to her race's plight that would allow co-existence.
• Discard and Draw: Eidolon loses his powers, but becomes a student of the Ancient One, eventually leading the Master of the Mystic Arts in battle against the Jotuns.
• Duels Decide Everything: Taylor tries to duel Laufey in hopes of ending the invasion. It ends up being a complete farce, as Taylor is the only one interested in respecting the rules.
• Dying Race: Prior to the war which ended them, the Dark Elves were slowly dying out. The current universe was poisonous to them and they lacked the ability to reproduce, instead choosing to reincarnate whenever a body began to break down. They were unwilling to settle for anything less than a return to their original godhood; all those who were willing to adapt to their new reality left long before the war.
• Enemy Mine: In the backstory, the Asgardians and the Jotuns fought together against Malekith. In the present day, the whole world is treating the First Contact War as an extended Endbringer Truce. Even the Slaughterhouse Nine eventually turn up!
• Escape Pod: Used by Taylor to escape back to Earth after ramming The Simurgh into outer space.
• Eye Scream: Contessa dies when the raven Muninn erupts out of her eye socket.
• Fantastic Slur: The Frost Giants get "Frosties".
• Fate Worse than Death: When the war turned against them, Malekith sacrificed the majority of the Dark Elves and reduced them to dead but aware dark matter floating through the dark matter universe. They pray for the day mortals will harvest their matter and use it as fuel so they can cease to exist.
• From Bad to Worse: After Hela shows up and takes out Legend and Alexandria (apparently non-lethally), the Jotuns, led by Laufey, invade the city, somehow freezing the portal they used to get to Earth open to allow them to use the Casket of Ancient Winters to its full potential. And then Hela breaks the Casket, both enraging Laufey and empowering him with the souls of every previous Jotun king.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Annette ends up going into battle naked and armed only with her innate magic after the Collector stripped her for display. She is not happy about the necessity.
• Fusion Fic: Fuses the Wormverse and the MCU, especially the Thor and cosmic-level aspects. The most notable example of this is the reveal that the Entities are a pair of heretic Celestials using the Space Stone to create dimensional duplicates of planets for their experiments.
• Genius Bruiser: Laufey is far more cunning and knowledgeable of Earth than he appears, which is all on top of being the biggest and strongest jotun around.
• Ghostapo: In the backstory, the Nazis of Earth Gimel summoned Thor via human sacrifice and rode his power to near victory over the United States. The Thinker and Warrior exterminate that iteration of Earth after exacting a toll from Odin for his son's interference.
• God Guise: Annette, being a near-immortal dark elf, has posed as several gods throughout human history. The Wakandan gods recognized her as Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the night sky.
• Godzilla Threshold: After watching Dragon duel Laufey and learning his/her plan to freeze the entire Pacific Ocean, Saint hacks into Dragon's code... and upgrades her. Amusingly, Dragon was piloting a drone shaped like Ghidorah, one of Godzilla's more famous enemies, at the time.
• Gone Horribly Right: Hela was ordered by Odin to become Goddess of Death so she could serve as a one-woman army. She became massively powerful but it also warped her personality, leading to her eventual rebellion and banishment when she protested Odin's shift away from militarism.
• Grounded Forever: Danny tells Taylor she's grounded for life immediately after telling her how proud he is.
• Half-Human Hybrid:
  • Taylor in this verse is half-human, half Dark Elf. It's more complicated than that sounds. Dark Elves are incapable of having children, but when Annette slept with Danny, the Aether formed a hybrid in her womb.
  • In the first chapter of part 2 she meets an Asgardian named Bjorn who went native living in Canberra, and he has a young daughter named Gwendolyn with a human mother.
  • The Asgardian Brunnhilde's descendants settled on Earth, meaning they interbred with humanity. Danny is one of her remaining descendants.
• Heel–Face Turn: Annette was originally one of Malekith's champions and supported his war on the universe. This changed when she witnessed him using their own civilian transports for kamikaze attacks, killing off the bulk of the Dark Elf race. She stole the Aether and went into hiding while trying to find a method to restore her race in a form that could co-exist with the current universe.
• Hereditary Curse: Sigurd's descendants are damned to Dormammu's Dark Dimension due to a curse Andvari laid on his stolen ring.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Annette knew that someone was coming for her, and left to draw them away from Taylor.
  • Taylor makes a last stand to gain more time for refugees fleeing an advancing Jotun army.
• Higher-Tech Species: The Dark Elves had technology which put all of the following races to shame.
• Hope Spot: Taylor forces the Simurgh into space when she attacks Canberra... only for Hela to show up.
• Hostile Terraforming: The Jotuns have created a massive snowstorm that is burying most of eastern Australia, which both hampers their opponents and increases their own strength. They plan to use the Casket to freeze the Pacific Ocean, from which they can expand and freeze the entire Earth.
• Hurl It into the Sun: Taylor attempts to use her Harrow to throw The Simurgh into Jupiter, unsuccessfully.
• Hybrid Power: Taylor's hybrid nature does offer a few advantages, namely that she's more resilient to the universe of light than a pure Dark Elf. It later turns out that she's only possible because the Aether itself decided to take her form.
• Immune to Fate: Apparently Taylor is at least partially resistant to precogs like the Simurgh. This is likely because she has the Aether/Reality Stone for a soul.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: Frigg's illusion and mannerisms while posing as Odin were perfect, but there was one thing she couldn't replicate: His smell. Odin reeks of death due to his bloody history and link to the Odinforce, unlike Frigg.
• Inconvenient Summons: While dead, Taylor is accidentally summoned by Eidolon and the Ancient One. Taylor is disoriented due to everything happening, Eidolon is nonplussed by the weird cow spirit, and the Ancient One is wary because they just summoned a Dark Elf.
• Irony: Loki refused to become Crown Prince, an act which led to Odin's fall from power and eventual exile. Said exile resulted in Frigg's imprisonment and Loki being unwillingly made Acting King. He's not happy when he realizes this.
• Just Toying with Them: Laufey plays along with Taylor's demand for a duel and plays the part of an idiot long enough to leave her wide open for an attack.
• Large and in Charge: As king of the jotuns, Laufey is the largest of the lot.
• Last of His Kind: Annette is apparently the last full-blooded Dark Elf and Valkyrie remains the last of the Valkyries.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Taylor deciding to jump the Frost Giant patrol gets Gwen's family killed.
• Light Is Not Good: The Light Elves appear just as good as their name implies, but at heart they believe themselves superior to other races and destined to rule them.
• Loose Canon: The author says that the Christmas interlude is optionally canon.
• Make My Monster Grow: After Hela breaks the Casket, Laufey starts swelling in size using Pym particles.
• Master Race: During their wars of conquest, the Aesir viewed themselves as the true heirs of Ymir who were destined to rule over the other races.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Annette took many consorts over the millennia, many of them mortals, but largely regarded them as replaceable. That changed when she met Danny and ended up falling in love with him.
• Mysterious Antarctica: Bjorn reveals that there are several Jotun colonies on Antarctica which have thus far avoided notice by humanity.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • When Frigg secretly banished Odin she left the Odinforce weakened and Asgard effectively blind to the goings-on of the Nine Realms and their enemies. The Jotun invasion has progressed without contest as a result of this and Earth Bet not actually being part of the Nine Realms.
  • Hela breaks the Casket of Ancient Winters in order to demoralize Laufey and eliminate a threat. This backfires when Laufey reveals the Casket contained the souls of the previous Jotun kings, which are now empowering him as he sets off on a crusade to exterminate the Nine Realms.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Getting slammed into Jupiter at close to the speed of light didn't take out the Simurgh, and it takes an antimatter blast to dissuade her from chasing Taylor's escape pod. Before that, it took a sublight jump for the Harrow's blade to take a wing off, and a singularity bomb was the only other thing that really hurt her.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: When Annette reveals that she's married to Valkyrie's descendant, she begins treating her many-times great grandmother-in-law as this. She even mentally makes a note to ensure she gets to see Taylor as little as possible.
• One-Gender Race: Frost Giants apparently reproduce asexually.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: It's all but directly stated that the "Dwarves"/Dvergar that rest in suspended animation on an alternate Earth Cauldron is aware of are actually the Dark Elves that survived the final battle with the Asgardians. This largely lines up due to the technology matching the Harrows used by Taylor and Annette and how a single pod (which, as Doctor Mother notes, is far too large to hold a Disney-style dwarf) is open, with enough dust to confirm it happened quite some time ago. They're only even called Dwarves because the religious group or groups that found them labeled them as such in their left-behind writings.
• Our Souls Are Different: Described here.
  • Annette used the Aether as Taylor's soul.
• Physical God: Many characters are actual gods of varying strength and origins.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Valkyrie is rather annoyed with Annette walking around naked, despite her reasonable excuse of having been stripped while held captive. Annette just uses the complaints to needle Valkyrie.
• Poor Communication Kills: Odin was fully aware of the Entities, but never told anyone else in Asgard about them or why they shouldn't be bothered lightly. This leads to Thor being exiled when he went on a warpath in a world they were experimenting on, Odin being overthrown because he wouldn't explain why he had punished Thor so severely, and Asgard about to go to war on Earth Bet and possibly attracting Scion's attention because nobody knows why they should stay away.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child:
  • Asgard's wealth of magic stems from the Odinforce, a polite name for the Deathcore which converts the power of death into something usable.
  • Hela became as powerful as she is by consuming the spirits of the unworthy dead - meaning anybody who wasn't a warrior who died in the exact circumstances required to become an Einherjar. Including children.
  • The Doormaker and Clairvoyant are not standard parahumans but conduits for the Space Stone's power, sealed in life support pods. When they inevitably burn out, they are simply replaced with another disposable test subject.
• Pride: The fic's title refers to "vainglory, defined as "inordinate pride in oneself or one's achievements; excessive vanity.". Thus, a major theme in the fic is the viewpoint characters rising above their egos and vanity to true glory.
• Propaganda Machine: During Hela's time Asgard was rife with propaganda depicting their conquests as a righteous crusade to bring unity and enlightenment to the lesser races.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Hookwolf doesn't really like Kaiser or care for the Empire; he, Stormtiger, and Cricket joined up because after Hookwolf triggered, he killed a piece of work parahuman fighter that had just nearly killed him. They went to the Empire to gain protection from his associates.
• Puppet King: Odin was reduced to this after he nearly killed Loki, with Frigg and her Vanir allies acting as his "council". In truth, he was actually depowered and banished, with the Odin on the throne being a glamoured impostor.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Fárbauti, the king of Jotunheim before Laufey, allegedly died of old age. When informed of this he calls Laufey a "little bitch"; based on his comments, his successor betrayed and sold him to the Collector.
• The Reveal:
  • Annette settled on Earth in order to experiment on the stolen Aether. Taylor was born when the Aether spontaneously formed an embryo in her womb after she had sex with Danny.
  • The reason Asgard hasn't intervened in the Jotun invasion is that Earth Bet is in a different dimension which Heimdall can't see. Odin might have been aware of the invasion, but was banished by Frigga, leaving the Odinforce inactive.
  • Thor was banished from Asgard due to unknowingly interfering with the Entity experiment on Earth Gimel. In return for sparing Asgard, Eden demanded Thor live one mortal lifetime in Earth Bet.
    • This has a secondary reveal in that the Entities were active on Earth decades earlier than in Worm canon, with Eden still alive.
  • Odin's bargain with the Entities was designed such that he could betray and eventually kill them to save Earth.
  • Contessa's power originates from Odin, who possessed her by replacing one of her eyes with Muninn.
  • The Entities are Siyyon and Edinnu, heretical Celestials using the Space Stone to experiment on worlds.
• The Right of a Superior Species:
  • Ancient Asgard espoused this view, claiming that they were the rightful inheritors of Ymir and destined to rule all other races.
  • The Light Elves have come to hold similar views after observing the decay of the Asgardian Empire and Earth's current downward spiral. Tristan notes it's especially hypocritical given they were humans originally.
• Rightful King Returns: King Arthur is revived and leads his hosts in battle against the Jotuns. Unfortunately he intends to be king of everything and quickly turns on both the humans and Asgard.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Siyyon is driven into a murderous rage when he discovers Odin was behind Edinnu's death, intending to destroy everything associated with the culprit.
• Sadly Mythtaken: Lampshaded in-universe on how the Midgardians misremembered a lot of stuff about Asgard.
• Second Super-Identity: Taylor accidentally gets two, Warp Drive, whose spaceship attacked the Simurgh, and Dark Elf. It takes a while before anyone finds out that they're one and the same.
• Sentient Phlebotinum:
  • Taylor's soul is revealed to be the Aether, as a result of Annette's experiments. Apparently several major figures in Earth history were similar experiments.
  • Dark matter is used by the spacefaring races as fuel, unaware that it's actually the sentient remains of dead Dark Elves. The dark matter for its part anticipates the day it will be harvested as its current existence is an endless hell.
• Ship Tease: Between Hookwolf and Cricket.
• Shown Their Work: The author did their research on Norse Mythology, as well as the myths of other cultures, while planning the fic.
• So Proud of You: After defeating Laufey, Taylor gets this from the entire Triumvirate followed by her dad. Who then grounds her.
• Soul Jar: The Casket of Ancient Winters is this for the Ice Giant Kings.
• Start of Darkness: We see what started Hela down her path in her interlude. Originally a noble warrior who loved her soldiers, she overreached during a battle and her entire army was destroyed. While still grieving for her lost friends, Odin punished Hela by banishing her to be goddess of the unworthy dead, an act which slowly warped her into the Blood Knight Odin was forced to seal.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: Laufey vows to wipe out all life not only on Midgard but throughout the Nine Realms in retaliation for Hela breaking the Casket and dooming his soul to be devoured by Ymir.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Why the remaining Dark Elves refused to change to the new state of the universe. As mentioned above, they were apparently once god-like beings in the dark matter realm before the current universe of light, even if they can barely remember it, and view adapting to the new reality as the Elves did as basically having to admit that they were doing things wrong from the very beginning. This is illustrated in Annette's analog early on, where she compares the Dark Elves to creatures living in a shrinking ocean, who, instead of evolving onto land to survive, would rather try and flood the ocean again at the expense of the land creatures. Annette losing faith in Malekith was prompted by him using the civilian transports as a last-ditch kamikaze attack because he feared them undergoing such a change.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • While the Aesir may not get along with the Dark Elves, Taylor proves that they can work together in truly extreme circumstances.
  • Averted with most heroes and villains after the Jotuns invade. In the face of extinction, many have largely abandoned the hero/villain paradigm and are damn near friendly with one another. Some still make it hard due to being assholes, such as Victor and Shadow Stalker.
  • The team-up of Valkyrie, Fárbauti, and Annette. Not only are all three from races that have fought previously, Annette fought and was defeated by the other two.
• Third-Person Person: Laufey speaks like this when he encounters Taylor to be dramatic, only for Taylor to mock him for it.
• This Is Reality: After killing Laufey, Taylor thinks the Jotun armies will just suddenly be stopped. Eidolon notes that by this point they've already done everyhting that could potentially have stopped them in their tracks, so it just comes down to fighting them off.
• Transhuman Treachery: For all of Arthur's disdain for humanity, he was himself originally human before being reborn as a Light Elf.
• Truly Single Parent: Frost Giants can reproduce asexually.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Thor unknowingly triggered a chain of events that allowed events on Earth to reach their current state. His exile led to Loki's near death at Odin's hand, which in turn convinced Frigg to secretly banish Odin. Odin, being the only one aware of the existence of Earth Bet, was not able to spot the Jotun invasion and intervene.
  • The Nazis who summoned Thor on Earth Gimmel set off a chain of events they could not have anticipated. Not only was their army destroyed by an enraged Odin, but shortly after Scion and Eden destroyed Earth Gimmel due to Thor's presence disrupting their "garden". Thor's "exile" is Odin's way of covering up the fact that the Entities demanded Thor live one life on Earth Bet as repayment, which ultimately makes the Nazis responsible for the Jotun invasion.
  • Laufey's decision to invade ultimately leads to Siyyon's rampage, which devastates the Nine Realms, Jotunheim included.
• Vestigial Empire: The Asgardian Empire was once a force to be reckoned with, but in recent years has begun to wane. Things have only gotten worse in recent years as Odin's focus on his secret conflict with Siyyon and Edinnu and subsequent exile has allowed invasions and insurrections to ravage their holdings.
• Visionary Villain: With Wakanda destroyed, Erik "Killmonger" has fixated on the potential of parahumans as an equalizer for minorities. He believes humanity should use the Jotun war as a starting point for colonizing the stars. His aspirations only grow when he sees how petty the gods area, now dreaming of leading a revolution across the galaxy.
• Vision Quest: When Taylor dies she finds herself in the spirit realm and converses with three Wakandan gods, learning secrets about her and her mother. After facing down the spirit of Malekith and helping to free King Arthur's soul, she returns to the physical world.
• Weaponized Exhaust: Odin utilized the Bifrost Bridge to behead Edinnu.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Bjorn and his family save Gwen are killed in the chapter after their introduction.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Several characters aware of Asgardians are wondering where the heck Odin is, and why Heimdall hasn't raised the alarm after the Jotuns invade Canberra. Odin's deposal by the Vanir left nobody on the throne who could properly wield the Odinforce, so nobody was paying enough attention to the lower realms.
• White Man's Burden: In a more fantastical variant, this is how the Asgardians justified their rule during Hela's time. They believed themselves to be the true inheritors of Ymir and that this made it their duty to guide the other, lesser descendants. Similar rhetoric comes from Nimue, who claims the humans obviously need the guidance of a superior race like the Light Elves.
• Worldbuilding: The author clearly put a lot of effort and thought into the history and cosmology of the setting, with what isn't spelled out in-story given more detail elsewhere.
• Written by the Winners: As in Ragnarok, Odin has whitewashed Asgardian history and downplayed the threat posed by their enemies. Aside from Hela's entire era being essentially erased, the stalemate with the Vanir was not as one-sided as claimed and the dark elves were far more dangerous than they are presented in text.
• Underestimating Badassery: As Simurgh notes, King Arthur vastly underestimated Taylor because he didn't realize she was a legitimate god rather than an empowered mortal.
• The Unmasqued World: The Jotun invasion starts cluing the Earthlings in to the fact that not only are they not alone, but some legends are more than just that.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • Taylor tried to take out a Jotun patrol and ended up getting everyone but Gwen killed, with the two only surviving due to Gwen triggering. Taylor, after getting her to a refugee group, prepares to make a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the Jotuns from getting to the group. Carlos/Aegis tells her that she is a real hero before she leaves.
  • Doctor Mother admits to Number Man she often feels like a third wheel in Cauldron. He counters that she was critical for starting the organization and her initial research into formulas is the foundation for all of his work.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Taylor does her best to delay an advancing Jotun army but is ultimately killed.

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