Lauren(ce)

…Palpatine’s office is a womb right? Its where Sidious’ perfect apprentice is developed. He’s nurtured in this space by Palpatine until he Anakin leaves it reborn Vader.

Like there’s really so much to say about Palpatine and yonic symbolism.

He’s also almost an anti-mother. With Anakin only knowing a mother’s love, and both of his major conflicts being about saving his mother and the mother of his children, Palpatine is a perversion of both. With Palpatine eventually replacing both Shmi and Padmé. Initially taking a nurturing role throughout his conflict over his mother, and eventually becoming the person Vader is most dedicated to through his conflict over Padmé.

Shmi’s child (Anakin) dies and is reborn Darth Vader. Idk it’s just paired with the raw bloody entrance like outfit we wears. They’re in this red organ like office and Vader is being born through Sidious. Its almost a gory birth scene.

Then there’s like the inverse of Anakin with his mother happening in this scene. With Palpatine arriving on time.

Principally because like, stern and serious right-and-wrong Ch’en is also a total romantic and kind of a dork. She’s embarrassed about it. It’s great.

But also because this event shows her doing all sorts of romantic adventurer things, despite the seriousness of her conviction and the dire situation. She shows up in Baizao and saves a beautiful stranger, picks a lady up and does a huge flying leap to take her where she needs to go, gets involved in and solves a strange situation in this new place, uses a pinnacle martial technique she developed in a climactic moment to overcome her own father…

The episode doesn't really ask us to understand bloodbending as an invention born from torture and genocidal violence, but primarily as a horror "Come to the Dark Side, Katara"-test because the reveal is directly linked to the abducted Fire Nation villagers. We don't even bother about Hama's motivation beyond "They deserve the same" (as if what Hama did was in any way symmetrical or proportionate. As if they want me to believe this old woman who can only bloodbend during the full moon could reproduce the carceral torture environment specifically designed to exterminate her bending lineage. This is not a reasonable "both sides are bad" situation.)

The Fire Nation removes water, community, bodily autonomy, hope, and any ordinary means of escape. Hama still feels the charge of the full moon every month, studies and experiments for years to find power in the one remaining source available to her: the water inside living bodies. She invents a technique in a place optimized against waterbenders and perfects it to the point where she can control the fine motor skills in another one's hand to open the cage that holds her. As far as we know, she doesn't even kill the guards when she walks out. Bloodbending is horrifying, but it is also an astonishing act of ingenuity. The Fire Nation reduces her to helpless flesh, and she weaponizes flesh itself against her torturers and murderers of her people.

Happy to report that The Star-Strewn Sea is now available on my patreon at the free tier.

I plan to post a chapter every Saturday on Sundays for a few months.

The whole book will be free, you do not need to join at a paid tier to read The Star-Strewn Sea.

You can read Chapter One for free here.

Freaks can read* on AO3 here at this link

Elesa admiring skyla

Nude beach alt on patreon, linked below