[fandom/shipping salt] [mute]

"Thranto just feels like grooming"

Newsflash asshole, Eli is an adult at the start of the book

He's not some naive 16 year old

He's just a few months shy of graduating and becoming an Ensign.

At minimum he's 18 when he meets Thrawn

Most shippers headcanon that he's between 18 and 20

and before we got any official word on Thrawn's age, most assumed that he was in his late 20s or early 30s, and generally assumed that their age gap was 10 years at most

some shippers are fine with the big age gap because they recognize that both parties are adults, while others choose to ignore this and headcanon them being closer in age

(my personal headcanon is that Thrawn is only 27 or 28 when he and Eli first meet)

Yeah, I definitely headcanon him as 18-19 when they meet, and like...their relationship is definitely fraternization by most definitions, especially when Thrawn starts climbing in rank. But grooming? That is entirely not what's going on.

oh yes

in my fics, Thrawn's only about 8 years older than Eli

Okay, but in one of your fics, Thrawn is also a dragon.

yes that is true

Eli didn't mind after a while