Have A Very Gender Day

This is for @sambuckylibrary's SamBucky Summer Bingo 2024 for the prompt "Meanwhile, on the Boat..." It's a little vibe-y, but it's about Sam and Bucky fixing the boat. What Sam needs in his life 🥰 Under the cut will be what's written up top!

This is for the @sambuckylibrary's "Redwing" prompt for their TFATWS Anniversary Event. This is a little edit of a Modern AU idea where Sam and Bucky are roommates and Sam is Captain America (but Bucky doesn't know it). When Sam has to go away on a secret mission on short notice and Redwing isn't cleared for the mission, he bribes his roommate to take care of his falcon for a month (not knowing Bucky would have done anything for Sam already - a mutual pining scenario). Enjoy! 🥰

Shuri had every right to gut his ass. Namor brought flooding and destruction to her home, killed her mother, all while knowing she was suffering from the death of her brother. Hell, Namor nearly killed her (by impaling her, which how did she survive that idk, anyway). And what was the worst thing that Shuri had done to him? Say no to his alliance to go to war with the surface world? Shuri wasn't the one who killed Namor's two subjects. She actually tried to save them. Yet just like T'Challa, she's forced to deal with the consequences of other people's actions, and when she stands over Namor with a blade to his neck, her internal struggle with this flashes across screen. It's a powerful sequence, but the one that captures me the most is when we hear her mother telling her to show Namor who she is. Not only is it one of many callbacks to the first film, but really, who is she? Who is Shuri? She is struggling with her identity, as grief often does to a person.

When audiences first met Shuri, she was the genius younger sister, the comic relief, who took solace in her lab. But now all this has been taken from her, and taken so suddenly. She's now front and center, now her country's most powerful figure, no longer the jokester, no longer a sister, no longer a daughter, and feels like a failure. The moments where she stands over Namor is us watching her return to herself but also become someone entirely new. She sees the destruction reverse. Sees Namor's hope. Sees their mothers and their nations. She understands that they are similar just as much as they are different. She finally realizes that ending Namor's life cannot reverse the destruction nor her pain, but sparing him is the answer to ending the cycle of it. She recognizes that even though her mother and brother are gone, she is still sister, still daughter. Death in Wakanda is a beginning.

Above all, Shuri understands she cannot think of only herself anymore. She cannot push her people to war because of her own grief and vengefulness. She becomes a leader, in granting mercy. A protector.  And extends this protection by offering it to Namor and his people. This brought a bitter taste in my mouth at first, but it isn't about who's right or wrong, especially when both sides have a little right or a little wrong to them. It's about navigating the actions of their forebearers in the best way they can.

Her multifaceted character is symbolized by her panther suit--it's reminiscent of T'Challa, Kilmonger, and her past self. Now that she's burned her mourning clothes, hopefully in the next movie, we'll see her accept this role with newfound confidence and surity of its purpose. I'm also hoping that Shuri kept Namor's little baby ankle wing that she sliced off and puts it up somewhere to serve as a reminder that she bested him. Can you imagine? I can't wait to see more of her.

Then there's Namor. And dare I say it, he was justified in his feelings of wanting to kill Queen Ramonda. She was cunning and tricked him and had two of his people killed in the process. Remember the scene where he's cradling his subject's face as she dies? And she asks if he can save her and he does not answer because he knows he cannot? And then--was it Namora?--who says, with such blame dripping in her voice, that he was busy meeting with the queen during Nakia's attack. Namor is so angry, and very possibly, so ashamed (and scared?). His ultimate goal is to protect his people, and he failed. He's a god and Ramonda made him look like a fool. To him, she had to go.

Ryan Coogler said that despite Namor being about 500 years old, he wanted him to still feel somewhat childlike. And is he! He's rash. He focuses only on the immediate response without thinking of the ramifications. He seems almost charmingly innocent in his hopefulness that Shuri would want to join him. There's no doubt they wanted us to feel a romantic connection betweeen them, or perhaps just from Namor's end. I don't know who gives clearance on the music, but whoever does, they are always very intentional and unique about it, and a love song plays during That One Mesmerizing Scene. The theories that Namor is infatuated with Shuri just weaken me. She's the first person to ever see Talocan. The bracelet. The mural. Him acknowdging her power. Him waiting for her to beckon him. I. have. folded. No one look at me.

I really hope the MCU explores their relationship. And though I'm sure it would never be a romantic one, that does not make it any less intriguing. Ryan is phenomenal with his villains. Just like Kilmonger challenged T'Challa not just with war, but challenged his core beliefs, Namor did the same with Shuri. The only difference now is that Namor is still alive, and this sets us up for a delicious exploration of a complex relationship between two leaders who have similar wants but conflicting perspectives.

very few character arcs have been as substantive and transformative as the arc given to shuri in wakanda forever. and what makes it so powerful is her undeniable rage.

shuri angry. at herself, at the ancestors, at the world. and there’s so much range in her anger. it’s cold and dismissive to her mother’s faith in the spiritual. it’s painful and untethering to herself and her beliefs. it’s hot and all consuming towards namor and the harm he causes.

and then with how mythical and fairytale-esque wakanda forever is in general. shuri plays with the princess archetype and instead almost becomes a vengeful goddess. eternal war was one death away. it just happens that the person she longed to kill was her mirror image.

a black heroine having the space to transform, rebirth by fire and fury, was an experience. i don’t really know how to put it into words.

“Is my mother’s life not worth eternal war?”

Allow me to give y’all a little of mythological context because I am a history nerd and the Mesoamerican cultures and mythology are very rad. 

(A spoiler ahead with my interpretation)

The music was my main motivation to go see the film (alongside with the introducing of Tenoch, one of my favorite people inthe world).

The day of the Mexican premiere, my facebook feed was full of photos of musicians (whom I follow for their prehispanic instrumental and amazing work thru the years in the band TRIBU and colabs with musicians Arturo Meza, Jorge Reyes and Rastrillos) attending the premiere and revealing that they participated in the making of the music for the film!

The news clearly moved me to inexplicable levels because those musicians: Ramiro Ramirez Duarte and Alejandro Mendez Rojas, have spent decades working and promoting research, practice and recognition of prehispanic instruments and how mesoamerican music might have sounded.

In addition, these musicians (one with degree in ethnomusicology and anthropological research and the other as a member of the Otomi indigenous community in the north of the territory where I was born and live), have been and are part of projects and musical groups that have given original music and prehispanic instruments the place they deserve in the broad definition of Mexican music.

In an interview with La Silla Rota Guanajuato They explain that "Prehispanic music no longer exists, from that past only the instruments remain, their melodies".

Alejandro Méndez Rojas commented that is unknown how the music of that time was; everything was destroyed in the 16th century because the Spanish prohibited prehispanic musicians and everything that had to do with ancient culture, they stopped making the instruments, there were no longer any manufacturers.

Did you get chills when the Talokani first came out and hypnotized the ship's crew with their voices? This is what you hear:

Did you feel the love and pain through Namor's origin story? This was what accompanied that feeling:

The pieces Namor, Lost in the depths, Yucatán, Namor's Throne, Imperius Rex and Sink the ship also have remarkable elements from prehispanic instruments and voices.

Hearing the distinctive sounds of snails, flutes, rattles, drums, and canes at epic and emotional moments in the film made my heart race and pride prickle my skin.

About "Árboles bajo el mar", Alejandro Mendez Rojas explain in their social media:

"In this piece I composed all the sounds made with prehispanic instruments. I used a Tepehuano bow, tortoise shells percussed by Huave deer antlers, Mayan double-diaphragm whistle, Mayan trumpets, Tezcatlipoca flute, Mayan tunkul among other instruments made by me.

Thank you for allowing me to promote Mesoamerican musical instruments through their sounds in this film and thanks to all the people who collaborated on this piece."

With their work and passion for the music, they become heroes too:

“One way to ensure that instruments are not lost is to build them again, to execute them, to carry out work so that they last, so that they remain alive.

I think that the instruments of prehispanic Mexico deserve that boost, that promotion to enter a world where there is musical diffusion, the instruments deserve that stage to be better know, we have worked with them for many years, have cost us diffusion"

Because it is another form of representation, it is another way of saying "we are here", but on a large scale, it is an opportunity to continue preserving our culture, our roots and to allow it not to go out.

"Mexico has a wonderful ancestral legacy, worthy of being recovered and put into circulation again, the instruments will come to life in every human being who listens to them"

Gracias señores Ramiro y Alejandro por ser tan chingones y seguir trabajando por darle a nuestra herencia y a nuestras raíces la dignidad que merecen. Felicidades por este trabajo tan hermoso y emotivo. Y muchas gracias por ser parte de mi formación y herencia musical. Me siento orgullosa y feliz por todo eso 🫀

Please, listen all the music from the original soundtrack and give them a lot of love. Thank you Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson for let it be this wonderful dignity manifesto that is Wakanda Forever.

she wasn’t truly outside? as in near the ancestor’s tree like her brother in the first film? that she was stuck inside the palace, where she saw her mother die? was it also a coincidence that shuri ended up meeting killmonger, who in the first film, had nearly the EXACT SAME EXPERIENCE AS HER? where he too, saw his father die? the similarities of them experiencing such disastrous trauma that when they both end up in the ancestral plane, they are still in the locations where the traumatic events literally happened? (shuri in the flooded palace, killmonger in his father’s apartment)? the way that they’re both trapped by their trauma via the locations they’re in? the way that they are both connected by their want for revenge and vengeance against the people that took their loved ones?

And the shots reverse. The destruction is undone, everything goes back to normal. But not because she kills namor, but because she doesn’t. Because she puts an end to the cycle of destruction, of colonialism turning peoples against each other, of generational trauma, of grief. Because Queen Ramonda speaks to her, and namor’s mother reaches out to him.

She demands he yield but it’s more than that. He yields but it’s more than that. It’s ending the ceaseless grief that’s been haunting them both for so long, it’s ending the violence that would’ve haunted their people for eternity. Stopping the violence the oppressors who seek to exploit them want to see, and the violence they themselves want to inflict. Namor adds a new painting to his wall, imoritalizing the end of something ancient. Shuri burns her funeral robes, marking the beginning of something new. And while they’ve both loved and lost and lost so much more, death is of course, not an end. It’s a stepping off point into something new. Beyond grief and rage. Into healing.

Namor: *making a giant mural of him and Shuri like a teenager puts names in hearts*

Namor: *patiently waiting for Wakanda to call him*

Namor: *putting on his best outfit for a meeting with Wakanda's council so he'll look good in front of Shuri*

Namor: *dramatically walks out of the water of Wakanda's river*

M'Baku: fish-man! Welcome. I am King M'Baku of Wakanda-

Too often we treat oppression as if it is a competition. Who has suffered more, whose history was the roughest, who receives more compassion or hate from the rest of the world. And even when we try to work together often we don’t want to bend in our ways or be open in order to understand another or communicate/listen effectively to come to an agreement on how we can stand together.

In this movie, the UN and the CIA were of course a threat to the protagonists, but they truly didn’t even have to intervene directly. The mere threat of exploitation and colonization was enough to nearly drive Talokan and Wakanda into a frenzy and start fighting one another and hurting each other. And sometimes we get so caught up in the hurt and the vengeance until we’re bleeding out with our hands around each other’s throats and we pause to think “why are we even doing this to each other?”

Ultimately it’s pointless, the endless cycle of pain and hurt and for what? That’s what the colonizers want. The UN/CIA knew nothing about Talokan, but if Wakanda and Talokan had wiped each other out, they would’ve loved nothing more than to sweep up and exploit the vibranium resources left behind without having to do any of the dirty work. Shuri realized that being consumed with vengeance wasn’t going to help anybody, and the fear/threat of losing more loved ones was only going to get more people hurt. It killed Killmonger and it was killing Shuri, Namor and their people. The very people they were trying to protect. They both saw the beauty in each other’s cultures, and they knew it was worth dying to protect, but not like this. Why should they tear each other down like this when they have both fought such hardship to thrive?

Originally Talokan saw Wakanda’s act of opening their borders as a threat against themselves, but it was the fear of what the colonizers would do, and yet Talokan attacked Wakanda for it. In the end, their perspective shifted, and Wakanda also chose to respect their decision to remain a closed culture.

We celebrate each other’s differences in their cultural uniqueness, and we come together to unite over our values to support one other.

“The only thing I want is the next time little boys and girls [in Latine countries] see themselves in the mirror, that they feel proud of that reflection. That they see that there was never anything wrong with them, but rather in the eyes of those who judged them.”

When Tenoch Huerta of Nahua and Purépecha Indigenous ancestry said this in a cast interview for Wakanda Forever:

“…We have in Latin America, two main roots: which is the Indigenous roots, of course, and African roots. The food, the customs, the music, even our way of life has a strong influence from African cultures. So for me it’s important to see it [in the movies]; I mean this character [Namor] comes from Meso-American inspiration, particularly Mayan and, of course, is an interpretation of those cultures. But at the same time, we can feel close [to it] because all the process to get us “mixed” is just a way to erase our Indigenous heritage and they taught us to feel ashamed of who we are. For 500 years!”

When long-time actor–since 2006–and advocate, Tenoch Huerta published a book (paperbacks set to release December 13 but digital copies available now!!!) titled Orgullo Prieto (Brown Pride) that is a reflection on racism and colorism in Mexico. He has also gifted his voice for the audibook narration of these books: La sombra de Miztlán [The Shadow of Miztlán]; Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina [The Open Veins of Latin America]; and Los Narcos Gringos [The Gringo Drug Traffickers] (Spanish Edition).

And when Tenoch reiterated:

“It’s not common in Mexico, in Latin America that a brown-skinned guy could be the main character and have a lead role in movies. And then I jumped to the U.S. and I did it here [with Wakanda Forever] and it’s powerful and deep, and I hope the kids in their homes can feel identified. And I’d just say to them never, never in the life was nothing wrong with you, it was in the eyes of the people who was looking at you. But not [as in nothing being wrong] in you, not in your skin, not in your roots, not in your blood, not in your history. So please, babies, feel proud.”

He is also a mental health advocate and champion for the sciences. He has said all the YouTube channels he follows are science, historian or philosophy-related. If this man didn’t already have me in a choke-hold I swear to fucking god-