#so on the surface he looks like everyone else. he could pass for an everyman. zzs comments on this once; saying that its easy to forget

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

i dont know if this is a wildly shared take but im always ,, enraptured is maybe a fitting description ,, im enraptured by novel wen kexing's (specifically NOVEL wkx's) sanity. alright so he is not the sanest person around, obviously. he is unhinged and unashamed of it. but he is so contained and self-controlled in his insanity.

im used to characters like him, of the same or an equal standing with equal power, history, goal, and personality who end up externalizing their inner demons in some shape or form at some point in the story (or in their own backstory). and i have the impression that wen kexing never really does that. not really. even when he skins the old valley master and bathes the valley in blood, is this the culmination of long years of planning; it is a calculated statement of power. its politics. not explosion. he remains grounded and reachable throughout; and even though describing what he does to crown himself valley master this way is a stretch, i would say it is still within the perimeters of it. it definitely is not anything where he seems to lose his shit.

the one moment when he comes close to a slipping sanity, when he maybe loses his marbles a bit expresses itself so very different to how these moments usually look like; in heavy sorrow, instead of rage. at the end of the main story, when wen kexing has fulfilled a-xiang's wish and killed mo huaiyang to avenge cao weining for her, and when he attains an injury that could turn fatal and is sitting in the shards of his life and really feels the loss of his a-xiang, his little girl in purple. he comes very close to dying there, dying because he cannot bring himself to remember his will to live. and only when zhou zishu asks him whether he wants to live does wen kexing seem to regain some spirit. only when zhou zishu tells him he is not going to leave him, does wen kexing regain his hope. and this is so interesting because this is not an explosion of rage, it is not violent. its just grief and sorrow, as simple and mundane as that. it makes him seem ,, well, not human, because rage is human too ,, maybe common. an everyman. i find that absolutely insane.

how can a guy like wen kexing, with a life and a lived experience like wen kexing, rettain his steadiness, his psychological stability, to that degree? absolutely maddening

[sheriffcobbvanth-blog]

Sheev Palpatine Headcanons that LITERALLY NO ONE Asked For

Well, no one asked for these, but I’m writing them anyways. Some of these were inspired by the Novel Darth Plagueis, but I’m basically ignoring it.

Basically, Sheev was born to Cosinga and Leonora Palpatine. They were the leaders of one of the ancient Noble Houses of Naboo.

Cosinga’s main thing is that he is blatantly isolationist. He’s super anti-Republic, and firmly believes that Naboo should return to it’s ancient ways, and keep to itself.

This guy was basically a Separatist before being a Separatist was cool.

And naturally, he’s anti-Jedi.

So when his youngest son, Sheev, is born, and the tests at the hospital come back showing that he’s a powerful Force Sensitive, Cosinga flips. His. Shit.

Handing his son over to that infernal “peace-keeping” force to become a tool for the Republic he’s been trying so hard to get off of his planet??? LOL, not gonna happen.

So he basically bribes the hospital to keep quiet and not alert the Republic authorities (Coincidentally, this is why there’s a pediatric wing in the Theed Royal Hospital that bears his wife’s name) 

And the Republic Authorities who do know, and the hospital technicians who won’t keep quiet? Well, he takes care of them too.

He and Leonora figure that, Force Sensitive or not, Sheev is their son. Raising him should be easy. Even if he’s prone to throwing tantrums that result in the things in his immediate vicinity blowing up and catching fire. Even if they have to bribe/murder a bunch of people to keep their son’s... condition a secret. They can totally do this.

*narrator voice* they could not, in fact, do this.

Random fun facts -- Leonora Palpatine had her older brother murdered to gain control of his assets. Cosinga’s elderly uncle died in a freak accident, which resulted in Cosinga inheriting his title. Like... this all happened before Sheev was born, but this is what he’s living with, okay? They are not good people. Not everyone on Naboo is this bad, but too many people are.

Basically, Sheev is a psychic growing up in an environment that is highly toxic, at least emotionally.

Like. This is the upper-nobility of Naboo. Everyone is plotting to murder their neighbors and steal their family’s fortunes. People literally train teenagers as bodyguards and equip them with knives and poison on this planet. Subterfuge and sabotage is the norm here. And all of that negative, backstabbing, cut throat energy? All of that “it’s me or them; I’ll do what I must to get ahead” philosophy that rules his family’s lifestyle? Being absorbed by little baby Sheev.

So he grows up seeing everyone as a rival, and wanting more and more power.

Like, he hides his Force-Sensitivity and his bad qualities really really well. On the surface, he comes off as a charming, intellegent, and kind young man, but... things have been happening around the Palpatine estate. 

Like, first it’s his sibling’s dolls and plushies showing up without their heads, then it’s their pets and other animals that are being randomly butchered, and then a servant goes missing. Nothing can be proven, especially since Sheev had alibis and some of the incidents would literally be impossible for him to pull off without help or the force, but Cosinga and Leonora know.

Also, the two people who were ahead of Sheev in the class ranking at the Theed House of Knowledge? They die in a freak yachting accident.

Cosinga and Leonora are (finally) figuring out that this is really beyond them, so they start looking for help

But not from the Jedi. Literally anyone but the Jedi.

Enter one of Cosinga’s Proto-Seperatist anti-Republic buddies, who says that he has a friend of a friend of a friend who knows some stuff about weird Force Shit.

Enter Darth Plagueis, aka the guy who will become Sheev’s Sith Master.

Basically... yeah. Sheev is already pretty much a sociopath immersed in the Dark Side at this point, but he’s an untrained sociopath immersed in the Dark Side. 

But now he has a person to train him.

So things start going south quickly.

at first, his parents think that he’s getting better.

He isn’t. He’s just getting better at hiding what he’s doing

Then, Sheev gets sick. Really sick. He picked up some rare virus while on a school trip (actually, one of his classmates tried to murder him, but that’s another thing)

Darth Plagueis needs to save his student

He does this by draining Leonora of her lifeforce and then passing it on to Sheev.

Sheev lives. Leonora dies. Cosinga is pissed.

Cosinga challenges Plagueis to a duel

It goes about as well as one might expect.

Like... Plagueis doesn’t eve have a lightsaber. He just kills him with the Force.

Palpatine uses the Force technique to slowly kill his siblings. They die in intensive care.

Oh, how tragic. The entire Palpatine family died from a mysterious illness contracted off-planet. The only survivor was the youngest son, Sheev :(

Sheev milks this

He uses the incident to launch his political career, calling for wider cooperation with the Republic to improve the health care system so that no one else has to experience what he did.

he assumes the role of “humble everyman who unexpectedly had an enormous responsibility forced upon him by the hands of the goddess and is doing his best to shoulder the burden with dignity.” 

The public eats that shit up

pretty soon he’s a rising star on the political playing field

Of course, he kills a few people to get there but. You know.

Also, it’s worth noting that Sheev is actually a respectable and fairly common name on Naboo. It was the surname of some fancy philosopher hero from Nabooian mythology. So as entertaining as it would be, Sheev’s name was in no way responsible for his fall.

He also does have some male-equivalent-of-Handmaidens assigned to him over his career. Unlike Padme and most of the Monarchs of his planet, he doesn’t see them as friends or confidants or anything but tools. A lot of them die in his service, and he winds up murdering the ones who won’t help him take over the galaxy. A few of them are illegitimately devoted to him despite this.

So... yeah. The moral of the story is, the Jedi recruit young for a reason.