What if Thor #1 thoughts:

For a short au with a writer who (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) doesn’t usually write transformative fiction, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t brilliant, but it wasn’t bad!

First for the good things: it nicely drew on our established feelings for the characters, and kept the story centered on Thor and Loki. Though the art clearly drew from Thor and Loki in the MCU and in the comics, Frigga was nicely depicted with her canon clothing and badass attitude.

Her scenes with Loki were probably the most poignant to me – they epitomized found family, and showed how deeply Loki is capable of love. Loki’s character arc was generally well done, though a bit simplistic.

Thor’s was not. There was little to explain his progression from hating Laufey in the dungeon to being the adoring son. I think that’s where inexperience with this sort of au comes in. If you want Thor to come out seeming as impulsive and non-perceptive as he is in Thor 1, you have to motivate it slightly differently in an au like this. That wasn’t done, so Thor feels flat and boring. It’s as though the author saw those as invariable character traits, rather than as logically established results of life experience. That’s a problem you see frequently in new fic writers, and I think it shows up here. More’s the pity.

Generally, there were a lot of interesting directions this could have gone in, and while I don’t begrudge Marvel for choosing the most obvious path, I do think it weakened what could have been an interesting take on a Jotunheim au.

But all in all, I’m totally happy to spend $4 on a full color fan comic/fic, and as this isn’t canon, that’s exactly what I did. This is a comic/fic that I’d kudos and comment on if it were on AO3 (where honestly, potential readership is similar to a published comic) but it’s not one I’d bookmark.

remember your promises

[ thorki, jotunheim au, What If? fix it fic, 430 words, SFW ]

Thor stops short, his hands clenched the haft of his hammer. Laufey doesn’t even bother to glance back. He doesn’t notice that Thor has stopped advancing on his brother and the old woman crouched beside him. He doesn’t notice that Thor has hesitated.

Instead, he continues his charge. It all must happen in short seconds – Laufey’s furious advance, Loki’s jump to meet it, and the dagger that slams into Laufey’s eye and puts out Thor’s father’s life forever. It must happen so quickly, but for Thor it seems an eternity. As Loki’s fist raises, Thor remembers how Loki had raised a hand in greeting to him, when Laufey threw him into a dungeon as a child. While the dagger materializes, he remembers how Loki had cuddled up against him when he was cold. He remembers training with his brother. He remembers tasting the first thaw of spring, and glorying in the snow that rains down at the first breath of winter. He remembers every soft caress and every sweet smile Loki has given him throughout his life, so different from the hard, punishing love that Laufey offers.

When the dagger splits Laufey’s skull and destroys his brain, Thor remembers Loki’s kisses.

Laufey falls to the ground, and Loki looks up at him.

“What did you do?” Thor gasps out.

“Thor, wait, remember what we promised each other as boys?” Loki asks.

And Thor remembers. He remembers everything. He nods slowly.

“I swore not to kill you, and to stay with you, and that I would love you above all others,” he whispers.

Loki steps closer, Laufey’s blood dripping from his dagger.

“You pledged yourself to me before anyone, anything else.”

“Even before Jotunheim. I remember,” he says. It had seemed such a light vow, then, back before he knew how much Jotunheim would mean to him.

“And I to you,” Loki says. He’s right in front of Thor now, and he drops the dagger on the gleaming path that runs through Asgard’s broken majesty. “You are king now, Thor. High king and king of Jotunheim. Will you honor your vows, King of Winter?”

Thor reaches out and takes Loki’s hand, drawing it to his lips and pressing a kiss across the knuckles. The woman Loki was shielding earlier sighs somewhere off to one side, but Thor pays her no need. He kisses Loki’s knuckles once more, and then kicks the dagger with Laufey’s blood far away.

“I will, my brother, my love,” he swears.

Loki meets Thor’s lips then, starting their kiss for the first time in their long lives.