hell is the talkin’ type

Had a thought -

…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.

Like this man loves his family. He was content to be in a career path that kept him close to them until Thrawn entered his life, and even when he left his parents, he was still concerned with how him leaving made them look.

Eli didn't care about what people said about him, only about his friends (which it's implied he probably has some in Wild Space) and his parents.

Like this monster the fandom has built out of them is weird. They aren't abusive. He doesn't hate them. He's not willingly estranged from them, and still cares about them lightyears away. He's gone from them because Thrawn sent him to the Chiss Ascendency.

And their distrust of Thrawn was the exact same distrust Eli had about Thrawn when they first met, and the entirety of the Chiss Ascendency has about Eli. None of it is right, but the Vanto's aren't the only one's guilty of it.

Yet they're made the bad guys? And their distrust came out of genuine concern for their son who's entire life had been derailed by someone who murdered a good chunk of imperial storm troopers & continued to raise through Imperial ranks when Eli himself did not.

These are not evil, homophobic people. They're concerned parents, and clearly Eli is a concerned son. He still thinks fondly of them.

I gag whenever i see that mischaracterization of them and not in a good way.

it doesn't help that Eli and his entire family are people of color.

sawamura daichi i’m so sorry for making ur life utter shit

It's still available to read for free online, including the creative writing section, which is a 20,000-word novella reimagining Enjolras and Grantaire's relationship as an openly queer romance in nineteenth-century Paris. It draws on both the historical research I undertook as part of my PhD and Les Mis fanwork from around 2010 to 2020, which I also explore in the critical part of the thesis.

The creative writing section starts with a modern recreation of Enjolras and His Lieutenants and Grantaire at the Barrière du Maine before taking on a life of its own, so it seems doubly the perfect time to reshare, in honour of @brickrenouveautions !

To read, go to figshare here, and either scroll through the thesis on that webpage or scroll down to just below the thesis title and hit Download to download a PDF it as a PDF.

The novella starts on page 157 as it appears on the page in the PDF, but on page 165 out of 1070 if you're entering the page number of the PDF. Scrolling up a few pages before that will show you a short Preface introducing the creative writing section, if you'd like to find out a little more about my thinking behind it.