Can’t Stay Away’s Fic Rec Friday #1 (04.14.23) - ilangatye by @dittany-6413
Title: ilangatye (ao3)
Author(s): Dittany_6413 (ao3) | @Dittany_6413 (Tumblr)
Fandom(s): Black Panther Wakanda Forever
Pairing/Ship(s): Namor x Shuri
Type: Canon Compliant | Post BPWF | Enemies to Loves | Hurt/Comfort
Rating: Mature
Status: Work In Progress
Updated: 04.12.23
Summary: ilangatye - flame (Xhosa) | “Do you remember our conversation, princess? Exactly one year ago from today?” asked Namor. | “Of course,” replied Shuri, “we called each other cowards.” | Namor chuckled lightly, “That’s a deep cut, but it was true,” | Three years after the battle, Shuri sought reconciliation, and Namor sought to control. Instead, they found themselves surrendering.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Why I Love It: I often discover things like this late at night when I can’t sleep and I can’t stop fantasizing. This was a welcome relief to pass the time I spent in insomnia some nights ago.
I ate the whole thing up in a couple of hours read time. It’s one of the most mature explorations of this dynamic between film canon Shuri and Namor as they exist after the events of BPWF. While everyone can reasonably acknowledge that in real life, the idea of falling in love with the person who took the life of your mother is not rationally justifiable, those of us who can see a way for fictional characters to come around to it do appreciate the sensible approach.
You can ignore the un-sensible and suspend disbelief in most cases, but when you are presented with something that comes close to making sense in the world of fiction, it leaves room for unburdened enjoyment. This story does that. It unburdens the reader the same way it unburdens Shuri. Nothing is gone. Grief, sadness, anger, disgust – it’s all there. But as a human tends to do with lesser stakes in real life, so does a well-written character do with more dramatic stakes in a narrative. So does Shuri here. She connects, she learns, she grows. Namor is a calculating God, who gives Shuri what she wants under the guise of manipulation, but if you read between the lines drawn here, the author is actually telegraphing the nature of his true feelings and motivations for yielding to Shuri in more ways than just in the ways of war and diplomacy. He loves her, and will make himself weak in the eyes of his people for her, understanding that together they will be stronger. I would classify this as a slow burn, not in the traditional way you may think.
It’s calm, it’s introspective, it’s thorough, it takes itself seriously in how it handles the subject, but it knows what it is: fictional, hypothetical, fantastical. The characters have arcs you can track. Give it a chance, go on the journey. Follow the author’s updates here on Tumblr.
ilangatye