#helayes

The Nile is just a river in Africa, darling ;)

I understand the age thing bc most people don’t realize that all official BP merchandise puts Shuri at 18 in BP and 21 by the time IW rolls around. 

(And, if the prelude comics timelines are correct, around 20 when she met Bucky/fixed him, aka an ADULT).

If you’re a casual fan and you didn’t know, fine. But if you claim to be a serious fan, not knowing that new info says a lot. How you gonna claim to love/want to ‘protect’ her character, and then you don’t even know the basics about her? Silly.

That said, BOTH Sebastian and Letitia have called the relationship romantic and alluded that there’s ~something~ going on. (No one attacks Tish for saying it tho bc attacking a black girl ain’t woke.)

I. KNOW. It breaks my heart. 💔💔💔

In fact, since I’m feeling oddly generous, let me give a quick little snippet from a thunderprincess fic I wrote AGES ago (that is maybe 400 words from completion but has also been FIGHTING ME for months lmao)

Shuri wakes up in her lab, amidst a pile of shattered glass and with the unmistakable, metallic tinge of blood in her mouth.

Immediately, she knows – something is desperately, horribly wrong.

She can feel it in her skin. Feel it in her bones.

She inches up slowly, ignoring the sharp flashes of pain that seem to have suddenly consumed her whole being, and wracks her brain for something to consider.

Something.

Anything.

And then it hits her.

In the lab and out on the fields –

it’s completely and utterly silent.

No.

No no no no no.

A sharp cry catches in her throat.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Shuri scrambles to her feet, bites down the shockwave of pain that crashes over her, and runs out of the lab.

She doesn’t have to go far.

Shuri meets them out on the field, just a few hundred feet from the palace. Scans the crowd of soldiers and Avengers streaming in, searching for familiar faces.

Bruce, who she’d met just hours earlier, is the first of the lot to meet her eyes. In the little time she’d known him, she’d come to appreciate the man’s endearing, awkward charm and relentless kindness. It’s strange to think that he’d been hypothesizing with her not too long ago, looking increasingly impressed with her mind at each turn.

But the look on his face now – leaves her nothing short of terrified.

The rest mirror some variation of the same. She sees it in their gait, in the way they stumble forward.

There’s a word for it. Defeat.

Her heart jumps into her chest.

No.

This can’t be.

Finally, she sees her.

Hobbling, injured, but, with Bast’s blessing, still alive.

The general of Wakanda’s armed forces.

Shuri runs to her, catches her hands in her own. Tries to hide the tremble in her voice.

It comes out, broken and quiet anyway –

“Where is my brother, Okoye?”

Okoye – beautiful, strong, fearless Okoye – looks at her with sad, dark eyes that Shuri can barely recognize.

“Okoye?” she repeats, stubbornly.

Shuri knows what this means. But she’s praying that she is wrong.

Okoye doesn’t meet her eyes this time. Simply shakes her head, a single tear running down her cheek.

That’s when she knows.

Her brother, the king, is dead.

Shuri staggers to her knees. Faintly, she notes that she can see black spots in the corners of her vision. That’s certainly not good.

A part of her mind yells that she should fight this. That she has a duty to her country, to her people, to stay standing, to stay upright. She is their leader now, and likely their queen.

But she’s not ready to be any of that.

She’s not ready to fight this. She might never be.

So instead, she lets the darkness take her, swallow her whole.