#lilythoughts

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Listening to the Greater Good audiobook and I love how Marc Thompson gives half of the Xodlak family Southern accents and the other half Russian accents.

[lunacys-things]

I need Mammon in my life

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I’ve been listening to the Thrawn 2017 audiobook with my husband on our way to and from work. We just finished the Dromedar incident and got to the part where Captain Rossi gets all pissed off at Thrawn for saving the Dromedar’s crew instead of the Tibana gas. She suspends him, but then Thrawn razzle-dazzles her with some reverse psychology, getting her to kick Eli off the Blood Crow along with him. For those that don’t remember, the convo goes something like this:

Rossi: “One word out of you, Ensign, and your ass is staying behind on Ansion too.”

Eli: *seethes silently*

Thrawn: “i’M sUrE EnSigN VanTo WiLL bE Of gReAt VaLuE tO yOu On tHe ReMAiNDeR oF yOuR PaTroL.”

Rossi: “On SECOND thought, I can hardly deprive my extra special lieutenant of his aide. Congrats on the extended shore leave, Vanto. Peace, bitches.”

Eli: *surprised pikachu face*

At this point, shaking his head in disbelief, Ricky paused the audiobook. This was the conversation that followed:

Me: “What’s wrong?”

Ricky, exasperated: “Why is Thrawn OBSESSED with Eli?”

My brain, who’s an unapologetic Thranto shipper: «Where do I even BEGIN? Let me launch into a detailed monologue on how Thrawn and Eli are actually soulmates, only at this point in the story, Eli doesn’t know it yet.»

But in reality, I don’t want to sway his opinion, and I’m really curious about his unadulterated take on the Thrawn trilogy, so all I said was this:

Me: “Why do you think Thrawn is obsessed with him?”

Ricky: “I dunno, because he keeps manipulating his life? First he asked Palpatine to put Eli with him. Then he pulled that shit to get Eli assigned to the Blood Crow instead of the job he wanted. Now he’s getting Eli kicked off the Blood Crow too. Wherever Thrawn goes, he’s making sure Eli comes with him. Seems pretty obsessive to me.”

Me: “Hmm…”

Ricky, thoughfully: “…Is Thrawn in love with Eli or something?”

My brain: «Yes. Definitely.»

Ricky, not waiting for an answer: “Well, my man Eli better watch his back. Thrawn seems like the kind of dude who’s got people chained up in his basement.”

My brain: «Yep. I’ve definitely read that fic before.»

Me: “Lucky for Eli they don’t have basements in space.”

Ricky: “Are they still roommates? He might not actually need a basement…”

My brain: «And they were ROOMMATES!»

So I really enjoyed my husband’s take for several reasons. Firstly, he picked up right away on the fact that Thrawn’s early relationship with Eli was super manipulative. When I first read the book, I think I was wearing Thranto-colored glasses. I only saw the things I wanted to see. Like how Thrawn saw potential in Eli and wanted to cultivate it. Or maybe it was the bonding experience of Thrawn and Eli both being outcasts together, “the Wild Space yokel and the Unknown Regions alien”; they could succeed when all those core-worlders wanted to see them fail. But in reality, even if he did indeed see potential in Eli, Thrawn screwing around with his whole life and career was hella manipulative. Of course I know now that Thrawn wanted to keep him close because there was concern of Eli being a spy or even a Grysk plant. Even though he did indeed come to appreciate Eli’s unique talents over time, that’s not why he kept him close at first. But I was impressed that Ricky immediately called Thrawn’s behavior out as “obsessive,” because…well, it does come off that way.

Secondly, the Thranto shipper in me found it really interesting that Ricky asked me, “Is Thrawn in love with Eli or something?” Even though the love in question is of the manipulative and obsessive variety, I found it interesting that that word crossed his mind. It goes to show that even people who aren’t looking for it, and who aren’t reading between the lines, can pick up on some sort of Thranto vibe while reading (or in our case, listening to) this book. I really can’t wait to hear what he thinks once Eli’s loyalty to Thrawn begins to grow.

[navigator-vahnya]

Ahhh, classic Mace Windu 💜

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Something I noticed while listening to the Thrawn 2017 audiobook:

There’s a part in chapter 5 at Royal Imperial Academy where Eli gets all salty about Thrawn “getting through four years of military training in three months and also jumping a rank (to lieutenant) on everyone else.” And Thrawn’s like, “…Did you forget I have tons of military experience already?” This calms Eli down and he says he does indeed forget that fact sometimes.

This is wild to me because based on the new timeline information, Thrawn, who was born in BBY 59, is in his early to mid 40s at the time that he and Eli attend Royal Imperial. Eli, by contrast, is probably like 20-22 years old. (I’m basing this assumption off of Lost Stars where cadets attended Royal Imperial from age 16 to 19. I’m assuming the academy was taking younger cadets at the time of Lost Stars, and thus Eli was probably a few years older than 19 when he attended over a decade prior.) Anyways, Eli is rooming with a literal 40-something year old man — a guy who was one rank below flag officer in his own military — and he’s pissed off because the dude is Billy Madison-ing his way through Imperial naval training.

Why is Eli able to forget about their 20-ish year age gap and Thrawn’s obvious wealth of military expertise? They’re literally roommates. It seems hard to not remember this about your roommate. Is it because Thrawn looks young or because chiss age differently than humans? Is it because it’s hard for Eli to predict the relative age of an alien, especially when he’s only met one single person from the species? Is it related to Thrawn’s political naivete which makes him seems less experienced to Eli?

Why?? Because he definitely mistook this guy for someone of the same age and experience level as himself:

Maybe it’s because Thrawn put his boots on the bed. A 40 year old should know better 🙃

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Conversation between Mace Windu and some mercenaries who are about to get the tables turned on them by some good old fashioned Jedi Devilry:

An ambulance? Really, Mace?? 😂Seriously, I think this book is a comedy. I 💜 Matthew Stover

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So Thrawn’s army of stormtroopers…

A) Are they reanimated corpses? Raised from the dead by the same Nightsister magick that raised Marrock?

B) Are they a cult that worships Thrawn like he’s their God?

C) Are they just batshit insane at this point?

D) All of the above?

E) Both B and C are correct

[navigator-vahnya]

Update on Ricky’s and my progress of the Thrawn 2017 audiobook. We recently listened to the scene at the Ascension Week party at the Alisandre Hotel where Thrawn, Eli and Yularen are discussing the situation with Cygni, the Tibana gas, and insurgent profiling. Eli was surprised to find out this type of work was going on. He and Thrawn have this little exchange:

“Really?” Eli said, frowning. He hadn’t heard anything about criminal profiling work. “When have you been doing all this?”

Thrawn inclined his head: “You sleep more than I do.”

At this point, Ricky goes, “Aww, they’re still roommates? That’s cute.”

Which was my exact reaction when I first read this scene several years ago. It makes you think of Eli snoozing away in his bunk, Thrawn sitting close by with the lights low, clacking away quietly on his datapad so as not to disturb his sleeping roommate. It is indeed a cute thought. But I thought it would only seem that way to me alone. Well, me and all the other people who read between the lines, looking for hints of Thranto. Certainly not to the “regular” people reading this book. I didn’t think your standard reader would find anything cute about this tiny bit of dialogue, and I was pleased to find out that Ricky did.

And I want to say I have never spoken to Ricky about Thranto, or implied there’s anything more to Thrawn and Eli’s relationship than what’s presented in the book. I don’t want to sway his opinions. If he wants to come to that conclusion on his own, I’ll obviously be VERY excited, but I don’t want it to be because I lead him there. And I also know that him using the word “cute” to describe something about Thrawn and Eli doesn’t imply that he thinks anything one way or another about Thranto. I just find it very interesting that he chose that word in particular, especially since the last adjectives he used to describe Thrawn’s behavior with respect Eli were “obsessive” and “manipulative.” Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. But I’ll admit his comment made me unreasonably excited!