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jcmorrigan · 4 years

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In Defense of Archibald Snatcher

Oh, wow, we’re coming up on almost the sixth anniversary of The Boxtrolls, my favorite film of all time, and though the fandom for it seems to be either dead or in hibernation, I still have the torch lit.

I actually have been of the mindset of the opinion/s I’m about to present here for all those six years, but never really thought it prudent to lay them out until I recently had a friend I was recommending the film to who I warned about some of the elements considered “problematic” and I offhandedly mentioned that I could do a whole essay about why they don’t bother me and said friend replied with a desire to want to hear it because we share infodump for infodump, so here we go, I’m poking the hornet’s nest surrounding a controversial film with a dead fandom.

But if you were on Tumblr back in the heyday, you might’ve seen the reaction to this film when it first debuted. Specifically, what a lot of people honed in on wa that the villain, Archibald Snatcher, employed a dragsona to be able to push his agenda and implement his evil scheme. There was outrage. There were accusations. There was lambasting. And above it all, one question hovers: was this transphobic?

I want to start, before we get into the weeds, by saying that if you are anywhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and you were offended by this film or this character, your experiences are completely valid. I’m about to present the counterargument in language that assumes my take is fact for the purpose of not having to write fifty thousand clunky disclaimers, but analytical as this may be, it IS an opinion, and if you don’t think it’s right, then hey, that’s super valid, and I’m not gonna try and change your mind, because if you’re hurt, then you’re hurt! You just may want to nope out of this post right now because I’m about to lay out my observations and thoughts to the contrary of the accusations of this being homo/transphobic.

First of all, the obvious facet that comes to mind is how strange it is that we only ever saw the word “transphobia” put on this phenomenon rather than “homophobia” when using a female alter ego as a disguise or a performance art is not the same as being a woman assigned male at birth. One only needs to take a look over at RuPaul’s Drag Race to see examples of this culture. Lots of gay men wearing dresses. No women perceived male.

All the same, I will say that on the surface, adding any kind of queercoding to the story’s villain, who the audience is supposed to boo and hiss at, looks really, really bad on paper. However you interpret it, Snatcher is definitely queercoded. He openly flirts with the man he’s trying to trick as a means of getting what he wants, he displays sincere enjoyment of wearing the dress, and he runs the gamut of flamboyant hand gestures. But if you dig a little further, there’s even more to the story: his tale is one of a man who desires to pass as one of the elite class in his society, but is held back by something he can’t change about himself no matter how he denies it.

Let’s look at the rest of his story. Snatcher is in pursuit of the White Hat: the ultimate status symbol. To that end, he’s decided to otherize the Boxtroll population of the town and play upon the culture shock in Cheesebridge to convince the humans of the “upper world” that the Boxtrolls are predatory monsters who must be killed. This sounds like a pretty black-and-white good-and-evil scenario, right? You’ve got your population of innocent sweethearts being attacked and your genocidal racist orchestrating their destruction. But there’s a third layer still: Lord Portley-Rind, the chief White Hat himself. Lord PR is actually the worst of the lot. It’s because he doesn’t accept Snatcher that Snatcher feels he has to resort to this tactic. He demonstrates open hatred of the Boxtrolls and of Snatcher (”I’m not sure who should be more worried: the Boxtrolls or us!”). There are implications in how he treats his daughter that he’s a textbook sexist who believes there are men’s roles and women’s roles in society and nary the twain shall cross. And he’s the rich guy controlling the entire city and letting children’s hospitals and crumbling bridges go to waste by spending the budget on frivolous cheese. In short, Lord PR is basically the ur-example of a nightmarish fictional Republican (and oh, how I WISH he hadn’t been so prophetic).

I’m not saying Snatcher was justified or good. No. He’s in no way redeemable. But over the course of his interactions with Lord PR, you can see just how much society’s elites treat him as inhuman or like a dirty buffoon. He’s looked down upon, he’s insulted even when he’s doing the “service” Lord PR desires, he’s rejected until he’s gone above and beyond his contract and I think it’s even a little bit implied that Lord PR would’ve reneged on the whole deal if the mob hadn’t cheered for Snatcher in the end. So what you have is a prim and proper billionaire who subscribes to gender roles telling a man of the lower class, obviously economically downtrodden, that he doesn’t deserve what Lord PR has.

The idea of meritocracy is woven throughout the film. Listening to the speech in the background of Snatcher’s anaphylactic attack, while the visuals are focused on Eggs rescuing Fish, you can hear Snatcher rambling about how his father told him that if you work hard, you will receive a White Hat, but he worked hard all his life and got nothing. One of the White Hats literally says he got his through being rich. It’s not hard to infer that Snatcher has figured out how broken the system is and realized the only way to win the game is to cheat.

But there’s still one more thing holding him back from his victory, something that actually trips him up when he achieves what he wanted. Cheese is presented as another status symbol: the rich eat it and are connoisseurs of its flavor. Snatcher is deathly allergic to it. The goal he’s chasing, he can’t even have without threat to his own life. His reaction is to pretend he isn’t allergic and to expose himself to having allergic reactions on the regular to show how much he’s ready to become part of the elites. I’ll reiterate: Archibald Snatcher wants to join the elites, but is held back because of something about himself he cannot change that only matters because the upper crust said it should.

Okay. So we’ve established the man is gay, or somewhere on the queer spectrum. How is this not really, really horrible?

Because the narrative invites you to feel some sympathy for him. No, not for his actions or any secret soft side or tragic backstory (that’s a job for the fans), but because he is chasing a dream he cannot attain. Perhaps the film’s biggest shortcoming is how little consequence comes to Lord PR in the end, because Lord PR, for all intents and purposes, is the worse villain on the board. Snatcher’s ploy is to take the class below the one he inhabits and paint its members as the bad guys: a nuisance that must be exterminated for the betterment of society. And we’ve seen this. We’ve seen plenty of real-life examples of have-nots turning on have-lessers because the haves benefit from oppressed groups infighting and being distracted from who holds the money and the power. A lot of times, you see that while intersectionality is definitely something we need to pay attention to, racism, sexism, and homophobia are not concepts that are all explicitly linked. If you experience one, that doesn’t mean you don’t project one or two of the others on other people - particularly if you’re trying to make yourself feel better about the discrimination you face.

When you look at the hierarchy, Snatcher is, I reiterate, a very bad person. But he’s also a victim. Not as much of a victim as the poor Boxtrolls, who get the malice trickling down from both the Red Hats and the White Hats, but he is a victim. We see him mocked, laughed at, turned away. And though he’s not redeemable, there are aspects in which he is sympathetic.

But what about Frou Frou? What about that particular disguise?

Well, for one, it’s used to make yet another allegorical statement. Snatcher is able to get attention paid to him if he weaponizes female sexuality - though it is a very shallow attention that largely results in the straight men of the town swallowing his propaganda while also objectifying him. Most of the comments made on Frou Frou are slimy, smarmy “compliments” on her body from the White Hats. Lord PR’s wife harbors a distinct distaste for Frou Frou because her husband most certainly prefers ogling Frou Frou to actually paying attention to their marriage. Frou Frou is a propaganda vehicle to make it look like more than one person is on the same page as Snatcher; Snatcher himself drives the action of his scheme and gets the dirty work done.

It’s also worth noting that if you take away the implications, villains using alter egos to trick their nemeses is a tale as old as time, from sea witch Ursula making herself more supermodel-esque in order to marry the prince to mythological Loki actually crossdressing much in the same vein in order to fool the Frost Giants. There’s a reason disguise masters and shapeshifters are intriguing villain archetypes: because we’re always a little bit afraid that someone isn’t who they say they are, and because - yeah, I’m about to go here - I think we all wish we could shift shape ourselves to take on new forms that suit the goals we’re trying to accomplish, even if that means “fooling” others. So it’s reasonable to think Laika wasn’t aware that there was any queercoding to even be had here - but I do think the crew was aware, and not in a malicious way.

However, watching Snatcher’s scenes as Frou Frou, there’s something that comes across in his character that you don’t see so often when he’s presenting male: he’s legitimately having fun. He dances, he flirts with the crowd, he adds more flourishes to his speech, he gets sassy. Frou Frou is a means for him to express himself, to allow himself to be feminine when he has built his philosophy on needing to do “what a man does” (he repeats this at least twice) in order to achieve greatness. He can be a little more himself when he’s Frou Frou, even though Frou Frou isn’t him. Taking a new identity that’s allowed the other half of the gender roles allowed in Cheesebridge (which runs on a binary because it’s run by the White Hats) lets him act a little less like what he needs to be to be taken seriously and a little more like he has freedom.

Put this back in context of the greater narrative: given all the parallels we’ve seen, it’s safe to assume that Cheesebridge, as a whole, is not accepting of deviations from gender roles, whether it’s being open and proud of your LGBTQ+ identity or simply wearing the clothes that don’t belong to your gender. Snatcher is taking an enormous gamble here by using Frou Frou at all. On one hand, it’s a calculated risk; he knows if he can appeal to Lord PR’s unchecked sexist libido, he can secure another avenue to being heard. On the other, however, it’s not really much of a leap to say this is something he wants to do, someone he wants to be more like, and isn’t allowed to, and since he’s cheating at the game anyway, he might as well go all the way and do what he wants with his life.

I’ve seen a lot of people take issue with the scene where he reveals himself to Lord PR and comparing it to some actual homophobic/transphobic media. And again, if that still stands to you as your primary analysis and emotional reaction, then feel free to turn away, reject my analysis, and know your thoughts and feelings are completely valid. But I think this scene differs from your usual “person with male parts tricked you into thinking they were a woman” scene in a couple ways.

For one, Snatcher decides to out himself on his own. To Lord PR, it’s when he’s got nothing left to lose. Again, when he realizes the game is broken and the odds are against him, he takes control and decides to be himself a little more. Now everyone knows he likes to act a dragsona because he wanted them to. But also, earlier on, when he revealed himself to Eggs, it was again on purpose. Eggs didn’t figure him out. Snatcher needed Eggs to know the level of the threat he was dealing with: that he was the person Eggs has been running from since the start and is no less dangerous in a dress. It’s always been of his own volition. There’s no “I thought you knew” or disrobing to see a body that doesn’t match expectations - Eggs ripping Snatcher’s wig off is maybe a little iffier, but again, in context, that’s him trying to show Snatcher’s identity, not as a man but as Archibald Snatcher, to expose the corruption, and Snatcher actually plays it completely off because he’s that good of an actor.

Which brings me to my second point. There’s only one person who reacts in an “Oh, gross!” manner to this revelation, and it’s Lord Portley-Rind. The one we’ve established is sexist, homophobic, and your textbook Rich White Straight Cis Man. The one at the top of the food chain. The one who’s been objectifying Snatcher and acting like a slobbering pervert about Frou Frou from the beginning. The homophobe realizes he has been a little gay. The sexist realizes his objectifying a particular person he perceived female has consequences. And this is why to me, that scene is actually hilarious. Because I don’t feel like I’m laughing at Snatcher’s expense. I’m laughing because Lord PR just got called OUT, and this is exactly the kind of discomfort that is karmic given how he’s treated his daughter, his wife, and everyone in his city who’s needed him.

Cycling back to when Snatcher outs himself at the ball, Eggs doesn’t really seem to care that there’s a gender-role-play involved here. His concern is not that this is actually a man; his concern is that it’s specifically the person who he knows is trying to ruin everything. Same with Winnie when Eggs passes it on. Eggs trying to reveal Snatcher to the crowd doesn’t even begin with “Frou Frou is fake,” but a line I will never forget: “Archibald Snatcher has lied to you all.” Not even drawing attention yet to the fact that he’s in the room. Starting out by having everyone remember that guy they are all sure ISN’T there and pointing out he’s bad news.

To look at Lord Portley-Rind’s “Oh my God! I regret so much!” as a dig at Snatcher is to say that Lord Portley-Rind is the lens through which we should be viewing this story, which it most certainly isn’t. The lens is Eggs and Winnie. Adjacent lenses are Fish, Shoe, and Jelly. Lord Portley-Rind is an antagonist to every single character in this film save the other White Hats.

Which is why if this film falls flat anywhere, it’s in letting Lord Portley-Rind get away without consequence. I think I can take a guess as to why this primarily happened: it needed to wrap up in a little under two hours, and dismantling systematic oppression and abuse of socioeconomic power can’t be done in a two-hour escapade. I still wish he were at least villainized a little more, as that’s where the narrative was leading up to that point. One of his earliest scenes with Winnie foreshadows that he will have to choose between her and the hat, and it takes him two tries to make the right choice. This story, until the very last act, has not supported him being a character to like or sympathize with, even in such subtle ways as Trout and Pickles stealing his hat and running around with it to taunt Snatcher - showing that a symbol is really only a symbol, and doesn’t indicate your worth. Anyone can put on a hat. Lord PR has just been brought onto an equal footing with them, if only for a moment.

Okay, so why have this whole three-layer narrative anyway? Couldn’t we have made this story more clear-cut between the Boxtrolls and White Hats, with no queercoded villain to get in between?

Yes...but I’m not sure that would have been best for the viewing audience. And there’s plenty of precedent as to why Laika thought it was a move for the better.

Queercoded villains are in every aspect of our fictional and fandom lives. Here’s a bitter pill to swallow: all your favorite Disney villains are queercoded. All of them. “But Frollo’s arc is about - “ Being a man in a religious system afraid of being tainted as sinful for being attracted to the wrong person. “Gaston, though, is - “ Very chummy with LeFou, and I’m talking the animated versions. They’re all colorful, flamboyant, foppish for the men and full of socially-unacceptable strength for the women. These were the cornerstones of our childhood nostalgia and characters we still feel culturally attached to.

It’s not just in Disney. Are you a fan of musical theater? Well, then your favorite villain probably got a big song and dance in which they wore some glitter. Classic lit? Google the name of your favorite literary canon villain and “queer theory” and see what happens.

I don’t think we can really say this is good or bad. On one hand, it’s not great that a marginalized group can only see themselves in the character we’re supposed to hate. On the other, though, we don’t always hate that character. Villains hold a unique place in our culture. They do bad things, horrible things, but the story can’t take place without a conflict, and we like when that conflict has a name and a cool design such as a tall, imposing sorcerer/witch in flowing robes - or perhaps a tall, graceful man in a long red coat and a towering crooked top hat.

I’ve had lots of friends and trusted Internet reviewers talking about how queercoding in villains can actually be really empowering. If you’re a fan of the villain, you get to see a power fantasy in which someone who has something very big in common with you gets to enact karma on others for wronging them! You get to wear the cool robes, sing the fun song, do things that are not really legal or acceptable! I think a great analogy is if you check out the book “Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers” by Sady Doyle. It’s primarily about sexism rather than queer issues (though it does touch upon them!), but examines how women throughout pop culture and storytelling history have always been the witch, the monster, the demon, and how that sucks, but it also means that women have a great pile of fictional power fantasies to pick from to indulge in. It’s the same principle. I myself may not be same-gender-attracted, but I am asexual, and still waiting on my glamorous villain who uproots society as revenge for being forced to do something analogous to having a sexual relationship...*taps wristwatch*

Meanwhile, queercoding is not as prevalent in heroes. And I think that’s where everything’s tripping on its own feet. Because a gay villain among a bunch of straight heroes does look pretty bad. Are some of the heroes queercoded as well, though? Well, that’s just realistic diversity. People are gay, and there happen to be some good ones and some evil ones here. I don’t think Snatcher’s dragsona is entirely unproblematic, but I do think it could have been mitigated a lot with more implications that Eggs and Winnie might be queer in some way (and believe me, I choose to interpret them that way, because the more the merrier).

The thing is that in pop culture as of late, there seems to be a trend to scrub away all villainous queercoding because it’s seen as a black-and-white issue. To go back to the Disney villains, do you feel like the live-action recreations of Jafar, Scar, and Gaston are missing a certain je ne sais quoi? Well, think about it through this lens and it might be that you savez quoi after all. They’ve all been made incredibly straight as of late, with off-the-record actor confirmations about having obsessive crushes on the film heroines. I can’t speak to why this has happened; there’s a lot of history behind any given social movement, and I haven’t managed to really unpack this one. “Blame Tumblr” is too easy; I would want to know who were the loudest voices, why they said what they said, and what was the intended accomplishment, not to mention if this had built on other social-media or real-life platforms over the years and was influenced by any outside source by news or marketing. I can’t say why queercoded villains are being burned; I can only say it’s happening. And it was happening big-time in 2014, when The Boxtrolls was released.

I also feel like I would be remiss to mention that The Boxtrolls is based on “Here Be Monsters,” which I believe to be one of the worst books I’ve ever read, bar none. That version of the story has...pretty much everything that’s perceived to be in the film version’s text as problematic. Frou Frou is presented as something to laugh at Snatcher about throughout, largely because everything about Snatcher is presented to make him seem gross or like a buffoon. There’s a whole scene of the hero rifling through his desk to find soiled underwear. Not to mention that the original purpose of Frou Frou in the text was to manipulate the town’s women by dictating the fashion trends they should follow and the beliefs they should hold in order to fit in. This is something that does need commentary on it, but in that text in particular, it seems like the women are silly and easily swayed, and that they’re the town’s weak link because they’re slaves to fashion. The Boxtrolls completely flips this around so that the town’s weak link re: Frou Frou is the rich MEN who objectify women, particularly the men that happen to be in charge of the whole town, and looking at that divide alone tells me how much care was put into this adaptation at every level.

So why’d I do this, besides having a friend who wanted to read it? Because Archibald Snatcher is legitimately one of my favorite fictional characters. Yeah, I know, he’s a horrible person and terribly racist, and no, I don’t think his demonizing an entire people is anything to be emulated. But on one hand, there are places where I not only empathize but identify with him, particularly where it comes to living out the majority of one’s life trying to live up to a meritocracy - I did everything right, so why am I not on top? He’s also just fun and satisfying to me. He’s the exact brand of evil I eat up. He’s quippy, flamboyant, sadistic to a point, and altogether enjoying his job way too much. Even though he isn’t in power all that long, he is a power fantasy for me, too - wishing I had his talent to talk my way into others’ hearts by saying the right thing, and maybe cultivating a little bit of that I didn’t realize I had (but not to use for evil purposes). I loved him from the moment he turned up because of his sheer dynamic presence - his drawn-out vowels, his sinister smile, his silver-tongued manipulations - and to this day I find him an inspiring character when it comes to writing fiction, both in the realms of fanfiction and original villain creation. You could say he’s a comfort character to me. And maybe this has been the delusional rambling of a woman trying to protect a character she likes for surface reasons by spelling out what look like analytical points of discussion.

But I don’t think Laika was trying to be mean-spirited or homo/transphobic in their character creation. I think they were trying to make an engaging villain who had some layers you could pick at to see more about the narrative as a whole and the message of societal corruption and how the way to overcome it is to be true to yourself rather than defined by your status: a lesson Snatcher fails at the finish line when Eggs gives him one last chance to “make you.” And ultimately, if you really and truly did like Archibald Snatcher, you’re not wrong or invalid in the least.

#archibald snatcher #the boxtrolls #boxtrolls #laika #analysis #discourse #long post #hot takes #controversial opinions #you know...all the fun stuff #and then the sequel: op gives him a crossover villain ship to help him self-actualize

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imagine-loki · 4 years

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Loki's Daughter

TITLE: Loki’s Daughter CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 5: Diamonds AUTHOR: traveling-classicist ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Avengers: Endgame AU Loki that gets away with tesseract has been using it to explore the universe. During his adventures, he comes across a little girl with developing but oppressed magical abilities. Intrigued (and subconsciously lonely) Loki keeps her around. RATING: M for triggering content; this chap is PG

AO3 Link: Here NOTES/WARNINGS: No warnings for this one. Please, enjoy. I do love all the lovely comments and I’m so glad people are enjoying this fic!

The city was bustling with activity. Kuna stared in wonderment at all the beings around her. Some had beautiful, brightly colored skin, others had tails and pointy ears, others still were covered in long, thick feathers like birds. Some beings were gigantic, standing a few meters above their heads, some normal sized (or what she thought was normal), and some were quite small.

“This looks to be a rather advanced civilization,” Loki observed, as they moved through the crowds. “Looks like they’ve at least made contact with their stellar neighborhood groups, if not further afield,” he continued, as a rather stunning Xandarian walked by. He watched him walk by and raised a brow and winked at him as he passed, checking out his rather lovely rear end. Beside him, Kuna tripped and fell, breaking Loki’s gaze. She crawled to her feet.

On the ground, a small, indigenous Sakaaran rolled onto his back. The insect-like being struggled to turn over and get up from the hard shell encasing his body. Kuna leaned over and took one of his four hands and helped him up.

“I – I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to knock you over. Are you alright, sir? I’m – I’m so so sorry, sir,” Kuna stuttered. The bug brushed himself off and shook his head.

“You should watch where you’re going,” Loki said. Kuna looked up at him, worried that he was angry with her. “You might get stepped on, sir,” he added with a sneer at the Sakaaran.

The little creature started cursing at him and Kuna in every language under the many suns, making all sorts of likely obscene gestures with his four hands. Loki covered Kuna’s ears and they moved on. Kuna took Loki’s hand to stay close to him. There were so many people, she was afraid of losing him in the crowd. He did not like her hanging on him in this way but thought there was little choice he had.

A bazaar was set up in the center of the bustling city. There were vendors from all over the galaxy. Suddenly fearing he might be recognized with all these migrant beings around, Loki conjured a dark hood for himself and pulled it over his head. He pulled up a cowl to cover his mouth as well, just for good measure.

Kuna looked around in amazement. She had never been to a market like this before. The only markets she ever saw were the slave markets in her home-system and they were nothing like this. Her nose filled with all sorts of new and exciting smells wafting through the open-air market stalls. Her eyes widened, taking in all the pretty colors and people and objects around her.

As they passed by a row of grills, flames shot up from sizzling skillets as chefs tossed them, sending the food they cooked flipping into the air. Kuna could smell all the spices they were using. It smelled so hot, it nearly made her eyes water. Meat hung from hooks in some stalls, in others, piles and piles of fish stood in little baskets. Some had buckets filled with water that had live creatures in them. Customers stood by picking out their next meals from the buckets and hooks and baskets.

Other shops had mountains of colorful fruit and vegetables all ordered by color and shape. She did not recognize very many of the fruits or vegetables, but they all looked delicious and she remembered her aching tummy. To distract herself from the glorious food all around her, she looked at another stall selling fine clothing. Some of it was like nothing she had ever seen. Shiny metal and leather, woven together like fabric. Other stalls sold weapons; swords and axes, guns and blasters, pikes and rocket launchers.

One side of the bazaar held pens filled with strange looking animals. Animals with long necks and legs. Animals that walked on their front paws instead of all four. Animals that had six and eight limbs. Kuna stared at them. She could barely keep up with Loki as he led her through the stalls and vendors.

Kuna thought this market had everything. Except, there were no slaves anywhere, at least not that she could see. A sudden, sinking feeling washed over her. What if Loki had brought her here to sell her? What if he was going to give her to someone for more money? Terror filled her all the way up and her eyes started to water.

As they walked through the market, Loki heard Kuna let out a sniffle. Was she crying again? He looked down at her.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “I know, it’s probably a lot for you to take in.”

She looked up at him, her eyes big and glistening. “Are you going to sell me?” she burst out, not able to hold it in any longer.

“What? No!” Loki said, kneeling to her level. “Why would I do something like that?” he asked. He could see she was truly bothered by the thought of him selling her. Tears rolled off her cheeks in rivers. “No, I’m not going to sell you, Kuna,” he said. “You’re not a slave anymore. No one owns you.”

Kuna was relieved but she couldn’t stop crying. She put her face in Loki’s chest. He looked around, trying to find something that would make her stop crying. His eyes landed on a vendor stall selling children’s toys. He walked her over to it and studied the table. She sniffled, her gaze falling on the table as well.

“Look at these,” he said, pointing to the toys. “Choose whatever you like.”

It was covered with toys from all over the galaxy. Stuffed toys, wooden toys, plastic toys; toys that talked, toys that walked, even toys that sang. Loki hoped she didn’t choose one of the singing ones.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes,” he assured her. She apprehensively stepped up on the stool provided by the shopkeeper for little ones to find their new toy.

“Look, there’s all kinds,” Loki said, though he could see she was overwhelmed by it all. “Um, look. There is a little groot and that, there, is a sporr. Oh, and look,” he pointed at a small stuffed dragon. “This is called a fin fang foom – they’re like dragons. They come from a planet very far away from here.”

She struggled to decide on which toy she wanted. She’d never had a toy before. Maybe, she had once but that was so long ago, she’d nearly forgotten. Her eyes landed on the stuffed groot that Loki had pointed out. It was cute with big black eyes and little sewn smile. Soft moss sprouted from the top of its head. She reached for it.

“Do you like that one?” Loki nudged it closer to her so she could grab it.

She looked up at him with those big, watery eyes and nodded, hugging it to her chest.

“Alright,” he said. “We’ll get that one.” He turned back to the shopkeeper only to remember that they had absolutely no physical currency. “Oh, dear,” he said. The shopkeeper scowled. Loki chuckled. “If you’d be so kind, sir, we’d like to purchase this little toy, but I haven’t yet gotten any of your planet’s currency. Could you, perhaps, hold it for us while we go to your city’s bank?” He gave him a charming smile.

“No holds,” the shopkeeper said, gruffly.

“Come on, sir, look at her.”

The girl was cuddling the groot in her arms. The shopkeeper’s eyes fell for a moment to the girl then back to the foreigner.

“No money. No. Holds,” the man said, banging his hand on the table with each word.

Loki growled, scowling at the man. He rolled his eyes and then looked back at him.

“Could you at least tell us what planet this is?”

“Tenanci’i,” the man grunted. Loki wasn’t familiar with it. It wasn’t one of the planets in the Nova Corps federation. Perhaps, it had only just been discovered by them. He remembered the hot Xandarian he had seen earlier. The Xandarian’s were explorers, they liked collecting new planets to add to their little club and any way they could stay ahead of the invasive, radical Kree, the better.

“Great,” Loki said, smiling again. “Where’s a jewelry store?”

“That way,” the man pointed.

“Thank you,” Loki said, politely. “Kuna, can we just leave the little groot here for a moment while we go get some money?” he asked.

She looked distraught. Loki crouched to be eye-level with her, putting his hand on her arm. “Remember the diamond we got?” he whispered to her. She nodded. “We need to go turn that into money so, let’s just leave the toy here with this nasty shopkeeper, and then we’ll come right back and get it.”

“Okay,” she said, reluctantly returning the groot to Loki. He set it on the table and gave the nasty man a stabbing look. He sometimes wished we could shoot actual daggers out of his eyes at people with a stare. He took Kuna’s hand and walked away with her. She looked back at her toy on the table and hung her head. She wondered why Loki teased her like this sometimes.

“Pfft,” the shopkeeper scoffed. “Tourists.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Loki told her, as they pushed through the crowd together. “We’ll just sell this diamond for some money and come back for it, alright?”

They arrived at a large storefront and stepped inside. The walls were pristine white. All around, clear cases displayed beautiful jewelry and gemstones. Loki smiled. This was perfect. He spotted a diamond ring in one of the cases. He looked at the price, but he did not recognize the currency nor the numerical figures on the card, but it was definitely a diamond. He figured that since it was behind glass, it must be valuable.

“Once we get some money, we’ll find a blacksmith to get those chains off you too,” he told Kuna, still looking at the ring. She looked at her hand. She had very few memories of when she did not have them on. She was not quite sure how she felt about today. Loki seemed all over the place. “And some shoes for you. And some proper clothes,” Loki continued. Kuna was amazed by him but didn’t fully trust what he said.

A small man walked out from a doorway behind a long counter. He was about Loki’s height. His skin was a dark blue color and his eyes were gray like clouds. His skull rose in a slanting, tapered point. “How can I help you?” he squeaked.

Loki pulled down his cowl and spoke to the man, “We have an item to sell. A rather precious gemstone, except it’s absolutely enormous. Would you be able to purchase such a stone?”

“Well I would, of course, have to examine it first.”

Loki turned away and then revealed the massive diamond and set it on the counter. He smirked at the shop owner whose jaw nearly hit the floor.

“Would you be able to purchase a diamond of this size and carat?”

The shop owner fumbled at a pair of glasses on his head and pulled them down shakily over his eyes. Tiny, subsequently stronger, lenses cascaded down from the frames until his glasses nearly touched the surface of the diamond. His breath was shaky as he examined the stone. He drew up quickly.

“Please, excuse me, sir,” the man said and ran back through the doorway behind the counter. Kuna was very confused. She could not understand a word of what was happening. Loki was speaking another language! And so was the weird, squeaky man. She gently tugged on Loki’s cape.

“Loki? What did he say?”

“Oh, right. You probably can’t understand,” he replied in her language. He flicked his hand at her. She jumped as a flicker of green light washed over her. “Now, you should be able to understand him.”

The squeaky man returned a moment later with a very tall woman. She stood at least two feet taller than Loki, if not more. Her hair was dark, covering her tapered skull, but her large eyes were a delicate color of snowy white. Her skin was a lighter blue color than the man’s. Her eyes widened at the sight of the diamond on the counter.

“Oh my,” she said, laughing a little in shock. The little man beside her hopped on the spot. He handed her the magnifying glasses and she looked.

Loki watched her. Glancing down at Kuna, he winked. He would have to handle this delicately in order to get away with the best possible gain. Luckily for them, Loki was a master silvertongue.

“We’re looking for the best price possible, of course, but certainly willing to sell,” he said.

The woman looked up from the diamond. “This stone is very rare,” she said, swallowing hard. “The largest we’ve ever seen is in that case there.” She pointed to the one Loki had seen a moment ago.

“And how much is that worth, might I ask?” Loki said, smiling. “You’ll have to excuse us, we’re not from here. Your currency is rather unknown to me.” He needed her to say the value aloud so his Allspeak could properly understand her in a language he knew.

“That’s currently valued at 1 billion Xandarian units,” she said.

Loki nearly burst out laughing. Certainly, the Xandarians did not value it at such. These people must have been in the process of switching their currency to the Xandarian unit. He kept his cool composure.

“Well, look at that,” he said, looking down at Kuna. “We must be trillionaires now!” Kuna’s eyes widened as she slowly looked up at Loki in absolute shock. “We could buy an infinite number of those little groot toys now!”

The whole room was in shock except Loki. The other customers in the shop were staring, murmuring to each other.

“What value would you place on this stone,” Loki asked, putting his hand on it dominantly. He looked up at the woman with a wry smile.

“Uh,” she breathed. “Something like this… it’s… it’s priceless. Where on Tenanci’i did you find it?

“Oh, well I couldn’t reveal a secret like that, could I?” he mused at her. “And if you won’t come up with a price, perhaps I should take it elsewhere…” He lifted the stone and made it disappear.

The whole room gasped. The woman put her hand out to stop him.

“No!” she cried and then regained her composure. Loki was sure she was a tactful negotiator herself when the stakes weren’t so high. He smiled at her and waited. “Wait,” she panted. “I need to make some calls to my colleagues. I’d like to have as many opinions as possible before I place a value on an item such as this.”

“Very well,” Loki said.

It did not take long for her colleagues to join them in the shop. Indeed, it was filling up rather quickly as word spread around bazaar of the strange man and little girl with the gigantic diamond. Five appraisers stood around the diamond, whispering to each other. Occasionally, one would straighten up and mutter something and another would quibble with him for a bit before they both agreed and went back to gawking at the rock.

“Are you really going to be that rich?” Kuna asked Loki. They had been given a seat on a couch nearby and treated with a tray of food and drink. Loki handed her some food and poured her a cup of a non-alcoholic drink. He quickly tasted it to be sure before handing it to her.

“We are going to be that rich, Kuna,” he corrected her. “And who knows,” he whispered, leaning in close to her. She leaned in too. “Maybe we can trick these idiots into giving us a little more before we’re done. Drink! Eat! Enjoy yourself for once,” he said.

We? She had never been a ‘we’ before. She was confused by this feeling inside her. This anticipation and excitement were overwhelming. She nibbled on some Tenanciian delicacy and drank her strange-tasting but non-alcoholic drink. It was a color she had never seen before. I vibrant shade of orangey-yellow, like honey. She thought about the toy groot and the nasty shopkeeper. She thought of his face when Loki and her returned as trillionaires and bought his whole shop. She thought about the magic he had done on her to make her understand the weird lady and man.

“Loki?” she asked.

“Mmm?” Loki said, mouth full of Tenanciian fruit.

“What was that magic that you did to me?”

“Oh, um,” he swallowed his mouthful of juicy fruit. “I just shared my Allspeak with you.”

“What’s ‘Allspeak’?”

“It’s an ability that allows me to understand other languages in my own. And it also allows other people to understand me in their own language.”

Kuna blinked. “But I can understand you.”

“Well, yes, you can but I’m not speaking your language when I talk to you. I’m speaking Asgardian but you’re understanding me in your language. What’s it called, your language?”

“Ardulian,”

“Right, Ardulian. You understand me in Ardulian because that’s your language. And they understand me in Tenanciian because that’s their language. It’s difficult to understand completely but don’t overthink it. So long as you can understand me, it works, right?”

“I understand, I think,” she muttered. She leaned in closer to Loki. He leaned in with her. “Why do we want to trick them into giving us more if we’re already going to be trillionaires?”

“Well, why not?” Loki said. “Look at this place.” He gestured to the expensive jewels in the cases. “They have plenty of wealth to go around, don’t you think? Why not… redistribute it? Into our pockets? We who have nothing.”

“Huh,” Kuna said, sitting back. She liked that idea.

Finally, after a lengthy discussion between themselves, the Tenanciian appraisers asked for Loki and Kuna to rejoin them. Outside, people lined the windows, peering in and trying to get a look at the stone. As Loki stood, a regal looking woman walked in through the door. The woman approached the counter. The appraisers bowed their heads low and made a gesture with their hands in respect.

The woman was immensely tall, her head nearly grazed the ceiling of the room. She was almost twice as tall as the woman from behind the counter. Her skin was snow white tinged with hints of blue falling in ambiguous stripes across her bare arms and neck. Her head rose in a near conical shape, rounded off at the top of her skull. Her eyes were the same chilling color as the other woman’s. She was digitigrade, with long, bent legs and what appeared to be hooves like a Midgardian rhino’s. With her came a posse of much smaller male beings that gathered around her legs like little puppies. They were closer to Loki’s size but still about a full head taller than him.

“Hello.” Loki said, politely, repeating the same gesture the others had done. “Please, forgive us for causing such a ruckus on your peaceful planet. We’re tourists.”

“Welcome to Tenanci’i,” the woman said down to him, she lowered herself a bit. “I am the ruler of this world. My name is Shakk’uri.”

Loki bowed his head in respect to her. Kuna followed his movements. “My name is…” Loki suddenly remembered how he had wanted to keep a low profile. He was doing a very poor job of it. “Eh, Lopt,” he finished, trying not to sound like he was asking a question. It was a ridiculous name his brother had once convinced him to use when they visited the ancient Midgardians.

Kuna looked up at him, wondering why he had given a different name to the big lady.

“And who is this?” she said, looking at Kuna.

“This is my… erm… companion, Kuna.”

Kuna looked up at him with joy in her face. This was a very special day. She had never been a ‘we’ or a ‘companion’ and now she was both at the same time. She caught Shakk’uri’s gaze and quickly looked down, bashfully.

“It is an honor to meet you, your majesty,” Kuna said, very politely in a small voice.

Shakk’uri was taken by the precious child. She smiled at her. Her race’s strong, motherly instincts overcame her. She wondered about Kuna’s grimy appearance and dreadfully thin frame compared to that of Lopt.

Loki could sense her concern and added quickly, “I found her in another solar system, far from here. She was being held there as a slave.” Shakk’uri gasped but Loki continued. “We’ve been traveling for a day or so now, when we arrived here on Tenanci’i. I wish to sell this jewel we discovered in our travels in order to pay for supplies for ourselves and to free Kuna from these rotten chains.”

Shakk’uri was surprised by the wretched backstory of such a cute little girl. However, she was a little mistrusting of Lopt. He was charming but in a deceitful way. She lowered herself before the child.

“Is this true? Are you safe with him, my love?” she asked.

Kuna was surprised by the question but smiled. “Oh, yes, my lady,” she said. “He would never do anything to hurt me. I was scared of him at first but he pinky promised me he would never hurt me. Ever. And you can’t ever break those. Ever. He’s been so kind to me! No one has ever treated me this way before.” Kuna realized she was speaking far too much and looked down again.

“Oh, pinky swears are serious business indeed,” she said with smile to the young child. She put her hand on Kuna’s cheek. Their race only had three long fingers that freaked Kuna out a bit, but her touch was incredibly warm. “You just make sure he keeps that promise. And if he does break it,” she said, lowering her voice so Lopt could not hear, “You can come straight back to Tenanci’i and live with me, alright?”

Kuna beamed at the big lady’s enormous generosity. “Thank you, my lady, but I like Lo—pt,” she stammered but corrected herself. She stood closer to Loki, putting her arm around his knee.

He looked down at her, impressed. He had feared she would blow his cover, but she was clever. He looked up again at the queen and smiled.

“So,” she said, now addressing the appraisers. “What is the value that you have decided on for this most precious stone?”

The woman stepped forward while the men bowed their heads and backed away in respect and a little bit of fear. Loki made note of how the men reacted to Shakk’uri’s presence and the assertiveness of the woman behind the counter. The females on Tenanci’i seemed to be running things.

“We’ve estimated its value at 753 billion units, my mother,” she said.

The room fell tremendously still for a moment while everyone digested the enormity of the stone’s value. Loki waited patiently for them to recover; hands folded in front of him. Soon, eyes fell to him.

“What an immense value, indeed,” Loki said. He turned to the queen, “Shakk’uri, you would not know a potential buyer for such a valuable item, would you?”

Her composure was calm and cool. “I am certainly interested in purchasing it from you, Lopt. My people have just made an alliance with the Nova Corps and, while we greatly appreciate all that they have done for us, we find their currency system very peculiar. I would like to discuss this matter further with you privately, at my hive.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” he said, smiling. He returned the stone to his pocket and followed the queen and her posse out of the store.

#Loki #God of Mischief #Father #Others #Submitted fic #submission #Loki's Daughter #chapter 5 #traveling-classicist

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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What If…? Episode 6 Review: Killmonger to the Rescue

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This review contains spoilers for Marvel’s What If…? episode 6.

Episode 6 of Marvel’s What If…?, entitled “What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?”, might be the flattest episode to come out of the series so far, but it at least works in the way the other Disney+ Marvel shows work. It takes a character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe who didn’t get quite enough time in the spotlight and gives us more. In this case, it’s the charismatic Black Panther villain Erik “Killmonger” Stevens.

As he was only relevant to the Black Panther movie, we get to see the character step out of that bubble and interact with some other MCU mainstays. His connection with Tony Stark cheats the world out of Iron Man, but there’s the question of whether the situation might have a positive effect on Killmonger’s soul, like how his cousin T’Challa inspired Thanos and Yondu to be better people in a different alternate reality. Once that question is answered, the episode meanders until abruptly ending.

If you regularly read our weekly What If…? reviews (try saying that three times fast) you may already know that these pieces have their own unique format. It’s more of a breakdown that we hope will satisfy die-hard Marvel fans but help bring those less familiar with the MCU up to speed.

Alright, let’s get into “What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?”…

Required viewing

The two main movies you need to see are Iron Man and Black Panther. The whole nexus event of the episode revolves around Tony Stark’s superhero origin, but you don’t need to check out his sequels (even if the Stark drones resemble Whiplash’s handiwork from Iron Man 2). The scene where we meet Ulysses Klaue is an alternate take on his introduction in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but watching that movie is not a necessity for this story.

Voice cast

As always, Uatu the Watcher is Jeffrey Wright. In the Black Panther corner, we get plenty of returning voices like Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger, the late Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda, John Kani as King T’Chaka, Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue, and Danai Gurira as Okoye. On the Iron Man side, Don Cheadle is James Rhodes, Jon Favreau is Happy Hogan, Paul Bettany is JARVIS, and Leslie Bibb is Christine Everhart.

For those replacing the original actors, Mick Wingert is Tony Stark, Beth Hoyt is Pepper Potts, Ozioma Akagha is Shuri, Mike McGuill is General Thaddeus Ross, and Kiff Vandenheuvel is Obadiah Stane. I mean, I guess Don Cheadle as James Rhodes also sort of counts here, but that’s just splitting hairs.

What’s different?

The military career of Navy Seal Erik Stevens, codename Killmonger, brings him to infiltrating the Ten Rings and uncovering a plan to capture Tony Stark and use him to arm the terrorist organization. Acting on this information, Killmonger appears during the Ten Rings’ violent attempt to grab Stark. When the Stark-branded bomb lands near its creator, Stark is saved at the last second by Killmonger, who throws the bomb into the distance and outguns the would-be kidnappers.

In this reality, Stark’s heart is never pierced with shrapnel and he never finds himself having to build a robot suit…in a CAVE! With a BOX OF SCRAPS! He also doesn’t learn his lesson as he chooses to continue making weapons and even doubles down on it. Killmonger earns his trust further by exposing Obadiah Stane as being part of the kidnapping plot. Stark chooses to promote Killmonger to Stane’s old position (fitting, since Stane’s villain name is Warmonger) and he invests in an old idea of Killmonger’s to create mech-like drones.

Pepper Potts is uneasy with all of this, feeling that Killmonger is hiding his true intentions.

The drones can’t be completed due to the lack of a viable power source. Stark considers Arc Reactor technology, but discards the idea as a pipe dream. Killmonger talks up how vibranium could do it and sacrifices his necklace heirloom to make it work. Inspired, Stark decides to set up a meeting with Ulysses Klaue to buy more vibranium off the black market. James Rhodes acts on Stark’s behalf and that’s when things break down.

Black Panther interrupts the meeting to take back his country’s vibranium. Killmonger appears, subdues both Black Panther and Rhodes, and kills them both. Though not before he chastises Rhodey for working for a broken system that oppresses people like them. He makes it appear that the two killed each other, visits Stark (who is aware of the truth), kills him, and spells it out that the two never truly shared the same vision. As Stark dies from a vibranium spear, the Dora Milaje is blamed and war begins to brew between the United States and Wakanda.

Killmonger kills Klaue and uses his corpse to enter Wakanda and earn the trust of his estranged royal family. He sets up a battle against the Stark drones and leads the Wakandans to victory.

How does it work out?

It’s very open-ended, but it’s a dour situation. King T’Chaka makes Killmonger the new Black Panther. It’s only a matter of time before Killmonger betrays his uncle and gets his long-awaited revenge, showing that even in this reality, Tony Stark inadvertently sets things in motion for T’Chaka getting assassinated. T’Challa confronts Killmonger in the Panther spirit realm and warns him that his actions will have dire consequences.

Meanwhile, Shuri is not fooled by Killmonger’s charms and works with Pepper Potts in hoping to expose Killmonger and prevent the war from escalating.

Standout moments

One of the absolute highlights is the moment of Stark looking over Killmonger’s schematics for his drone idea, which look very Gundam-like. Killmonger sheepishly admits that he likes anime, which is a subtle, in-universe way for the character to admit that his blue, armored uniform is absolutely him trying to steal Vegeta’s look.

The press conference is incredibly satisfying, just in the sense that Killmonger shuts down Stane’s schemes with receipts and confidence, easily nipping that problem in the bud. Happy punching Stane out cold is the icing on the cake. It makes me think about how the plot of Iron Man is incredibly obvious for those who speak Urdu as the Ten Rings terrorists straight-up tell the viewer that Obadiah Stane is behind the kidnapping.

Speaking of the Ten Rings, their involvement certainly feels like it has more weight to it after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. How fitting that Killmonger would make such a strong foil to the Ten Rings’ leader Wenwu, who is also obsessed with a secretive and fantastic utopian society that considers him an outsider despite a familial connection.

We get our third Chadwick Boseman performance in this series and once again, it hits hard in its own way. The Star-Lord episode was like a celebration of T’Challa that talked up his potential to make the universe a better place. The zombie episode had him give a meaningful speech about remembering the dead and keeping their memories in your heart. Now we see T’Challa’s casket and see him appear as a spirit.

Also, man, for someone who is the key to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man has not been doing so good on this show. He’s made three appearances so far and he’s died each time. The comic version of What If…? was never too kind to the likes of Magneto, Loki, Kingpin, or Beast, and now it looks like Stark is their television counterpart.

I think there’s supposed to be an episode coming up about him ending up on Sakaar, so let’s hope he does better that time around.

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See you next week! Same Watcher time! Same Watcher streaming service! In the meantime, if you want to dig deeper into What If…?, subscribe to Marvel Standom on the Den of Geek YouTube channel, where we dish out weekly episodes on all the new Marvel TV series, trailers and movie releases. Can’t stand our faces? That’s fair! You can listen to Marvel Standom on Spotify and Apple, too.

The post What If…? Episode 6 Review: Killmonger to the Rescue appeared first on Den of Geek.

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shenanigans-and-imagines · 6 years

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Black Panther Thoughts/Rant

I’m just going to get this out of the way first: GO SEE BLACK PANTHER!!!

I highly suggested avoiding reviews and just go see it yourself as blindly as possible. I had no idea what the actual plot was before I saw it and I am grateful.

Star Rating: 4/5

And now my thoughts and spoilers in no particular order...

Honestly one of the best stand alone movies the MCU has produced.

You don’t have to have seen Civil War or any of the other movies to know what is going on. It’s a very entertaining and engaging contained story.

T’Challa is a dork and I love him.

He loves his baby sister, freezes in front of his crush, and gets roasted by EVERYONE

Stories about people growing into their roles as leaders is my jam and this movie delivers on that front.

This is a movie taking a very strong stance for globalization and the importance of opening our boarders to help one another as opposed to closing ourselves of to “protect our own”.

BUT we see the other side and understand why Wakanda is so reluctant to join the rest of the world.

It also doesn’t shy away from the oppression suffered by black people all around the world, while at the same time condemning violent action against that system.

This is a pretty dense movie in terms of theming and I’ll probably need more time to properly sort it all out.

On that note there are some problems with the pacing at times.

This movie is doing a LOT of stuff and the fact there is a six hour cut of this movie out there in the universe does not surprise me in the slightest.

The beginning is a little rushed and it takes just a little too long to get to Killmonger.

Once Killmonger steps onto the scene and stays there, the movie really comes into it’s own.

Also, I’m going to be honest, Martin Freeman does not need to be in this movie.

I get it, outsider’s POV, but we were doing just fine without him for a good third of the movie. He doesn’t really add anything and is just there to get and give exposition dumps. I feel like there was a way to do it without him there.

The romantic subplots needed more development too

Nakia and T’Challa were fine. They’re both great characters but their romance didn’t really bring anything we haven’t seen.

Okoye and W’Kabi though were forced. They didn’t have any scenes between them showing them being a couple. We just hear Okoye call W’Kabi my love and that’s it. I needed a scene with them fighting side by side or some witty banter between the two of them. As it stands they could have been colleges or hell siblings and I would had felt the connection more.

BUT let’s get back to the good stuff which is literally EVERYTHING ELSE

Shuri is amazing and I love her and I will protect her even though she could invent thirty different things that could kick my ass.

She also destroys her brother at any given opportunity and it’s amazing.

I need her to meet Tony so badly so he can just stand there and be like “yeah she’s my daughter now, I’m adopting her“

Okoye is a stone cold bad ass and seeing her tear off the wig mid-fight gave me LIFE

I’d watch her origin story, starting with her training and moving her way through to ranks to general. I kind of need it you guys.

Can we also get a Nakia movie while we’re at it?

I want to know what Wakandan spies do.

I want to see that trouble she got into with the ivory traders.

Lupita Nyong’o is incredibly talented and we know for a solid fact she could carry a movie all on her own.

Also shout out to my man M’Baku.

I was not expecting to walk way loving this man since everyone was talking about Michael B. Jordan, but DAMN SON!

He brings some much needed levity to the proceedings and I really appreciate it.

He’s also an interesting character in his own right with his own motivations for joining or not joining the fight. I can’t wait to see him in Infinity Wars.

And, because we absolutely have to, Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger.

Guys, words cannot express how great this character is.

He is definitely one of the best villains the MCU has come up with and is certainly a contender to throw Loki off his seat, (that is if you decide to ignore the Netflix series).

The scene between him and his father in the ancestral realm is devastating and Jordan kills it. The way they keep switching it back and forth with him as a child and him as a man is beautiful and I could honestly watch that scene for hours.

He makes good points that make you questions Wakanda’s position considering the history of the world.

You understand his anger and frustration at the system when he knows there’s a place that could fix all that.

BUT he crosses the line and there has to be a compromise between his way and complete isolation.

His last words are also pitch perfect and I am really upset we’ll never get to see him again.

Overall this movie is extremely ambitious and for the most part it suceeded. There are some hiccups here and there, but nothing to derail the story. I was left completely satisfied and itching to see more of Wakanda and these characters.

Wakanda Forever

#black panther #black panther review #marvel #mcu #black panther spoilers #wakanda

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