not sure why i was thinking about ragnarok in the shower, but an au concept (which i would love to turn into fanfic but we all know about how bad i am at actually committing)
this turned in to a whole plot synopsis/ramble so be warned lol. i needed it out of my head.
loki lands on sakaar in a very similar fashion to thor (albeit a few weeks earlier). he is captured by scrappers and fitted with an obedience disk, the shock of which is powerful enough to force him to drop his aesir glamours. (remember, the disc is enough to knock him flat on his back later in the movie, so i don’t think this is much of a stretch).
the grandmaster is elated at having found a frost giant (having never had one on sakaar before). instead of sending loki to fight, he traps him in an exhibit-style enclosure where he keeps “rare” and “exotic” beings. every so often he’ll bring the rich spectators through to ogle his “collection” (even more colonialism commentary!! with the added benefit of not having loki, who is a direct victim of odin’s colonialist vision, be a participant himself. it was played off as a joke, but during his time disguised as odin, loki did maintain non-interventionalist policies. it always sat weirdly with me that he would participate in the grandmaster’s shit, even if it was to save himself [[which now that i think of it, could have been commentary in and of itself. hm]] but i digress).
during this time (i think i read somewhere that loki was on sakaar ~2 weeks before thor fell?) loki does try to recover his glamours, and succeeds two or three times before he is shocked again and forced to return to his jotunn form. (scene where he’s only partially successful and ends up half-jotunn half-aesir anyone?) this sends him into a pretty bad spiral—he’s trapped on a strange planet, with no discernable escape, and forced to take on a form that he hates and has never truly come to terms with before. (plus, he likely believes that thor is dead during this time).
this sets up a storyline for loki that runs parallel to thor’s own. he begins to form connections with the other beings in this “exhibit” (running the possibility of bringing in some bonus characters from the comics that we haven't seen in the mcu yet, but i’m drawing a blank for specifics atm). through these relationships and some more introspective moments where he examines himself (has to come face-to-face with the blue skin and red eyes in the reflection on the glass of his enclosure), loki begins to grow more comfortable with himself. throughout the span of the events of ragnarok, he starts to realize that his jotunn form is beautiful, powerful, and nothing to be ashamed of. that it can be a part of him, just as his aesir form is. (and his masculine form, and his feminine form, and everything else that he feels and performs and is).
he and the other “exhibit” prisoners plan and execute an escape (probably by using loki’s newfound frost powers. the complex suppresses most of loki’s magic, but the grandmaster didn’t account for loki’s natural jotunn abilities). this is right around the time that thor and bruce escape, and their groups end up colliding. loki sees thor first, and is stunned by the fact that he’s still alive. he makes a split-second decision and shifts back to aesir form before thor spots him. he’s become more comfortable with his jotunn form, but is afraid of how thor will react. the rest of loki’s group looks confused, but they don’t question it.
cue the revengers shenanigans of the movie. loki never gives anything besides vague, noncommittal statements, but as thor interacts more with loki’s ragtag group of beings, he begins to understand where exactly loki’s spent most of his time on this planet. this leads to a few poignant, brotherly (or, in my case, less-than-brotherly) scenes in which thor and loki finally get to have some genuine discussions about their family, loki’s past, etc. there’s even a part where loki looks down at his hand, where his fingers are starting to tinge blue as he recedes his glamours, but they’re interrupted by someone and the moment disappears.
the whole heist thing happens and thor and loki are still partnered up, they still kick major ass, and there’s still a genuine moment between them in the elevator, though probably a bit different in tone. in the hangar, thor and loki meet up with loki’s group, who have already commandeered a small ship. torn, loki ends up telling thor that he wants to go with them and try the rest of the galaxy on for size. thor, though sad, is proud of his brother, and they bid each other farewell.
of course, loki has a change of heart and he and his group go back to grab the freed contenders and arrive on asgard to assist thor and the others. and then baby boy gets his badass moment where he’s kicking absolute ass and someone (hela maybe) snarls “what are you?”
and loki just smirks at them and drops his glamours and starts decimating with his ice powers.
cut to thor, who looks so damn proud of his baby brother (in, of course, a parallel to my favorite moment of the movie. cue immigrant song.)
well that ended up a lot longer than i had originally intended. if only i could do that much writing for my current projects, lol. anyway, i was just trying to come up with a way that the movie could have gone that would have allowed for loki to come to terms with himself (and, you know, have thor finally see loki in his jotunn form) because i feel we, the fans, have been robbed of jotunn!loki content. plus i just feel like a deeper dive into loki’s jotunn heritage really would have added to the movie’s anti-colonialist message? loki realizing that he’s been seeing himself through the eyes of a conquerer this whole time and learning to think of himself as beautiful and powerful and worthy of love?
but, i digress. kudos to you if you read this whole thing. i’ll tuck this neatly into my pile of prompts that i would love to write but will almost certainly never get around to
