Category: Uncategorized

I literally don’t want anything set after Episode IX. These characters have been through enough. We’ve seen what Luke, Leia and Han got when they’d won their fight. The idea of that happening to Finn and Rey makes me want to throw up my hands and say “no more Star Wars.” Just show us what Finn and Rey’s child(ren) look like and close the timeline. Then maybe we can get some new canon Old Republic era content.

If IX is good or at least decent I’m going to close the book on that and say, that’s the end of it for me. John and Daisy are smart to say they won’t be doing any more.

The reason all the Aspies are cute and adorkable in fiction is because NTs can’t handle the secondhand embarrassment of our actual serious relationship destroying mistakes and I would literally die of firsthand embarrassment if I had to publish in detail the stupid things I did to alienate the girl I liked so yeah I get it

I’m pretty bad about second hand embarrassment too, especially for characters I identify with XD

I’m a firm believer in Force-sensitive Finn. However, having been let down by Star Wars before in a VERY big way, I’m trying to prepare myself for the possibility he isn’t explicitly a force user in IX. Thoughts on what his plot and character arc could look like in a satisfactory IX where his abilities are limited to what we’ve already seen? Or is there no satisfaction without Force-sensitive Finn?

The most satisfying one for me personally would be a Stormtrooper uprising because it engages the most with Finn’s background and the moral dilemma he represents. Force sensitive Finn for me is just established canon whether IX chooses to show it or not, and the only thing that keeps audiences in denial is racism (which is why it’s a good idea for IX to make it explicit, of course). What I find REALLY interesting Force-wise, personally, is not even so much Force sensitive Finn as Force immune Finn, leader of the uprising, having a showdown with Kylo Ren. But if I can’t have that I see an uprising without explicit Force sensitivity to be the next best thing.

May I ask why you produced reylo content? Was it more an exercise in trying to write that dynamic or something else? Maybe it’s hard for me to understand because in my view, there is nothing interesting, new or exciting about Rey and Kylo’s dynamic at all, and I find Kylo Ren and Adam Driver to be physically unattractive. But I am curious about what people who I know to be non-reylos “see” in that ship in a creative sense.

I find that dynamic interesting in a horrible kind of way, yes. The manipulation, the way Kylo tears Rey down, uses her vulnerabilities against her, and tries to make her depend on him. I’ve discussed this before but he reminds me of my dad that way, maybe because all abusers have the same playbook in the end–insisting the people who love and accept you do not truly love you, that he is the only one who understands you and has your interests at heart, that he hurts you for your own good, that you deserve this treatment, that he is the best you are ever going to get.

The first piece of reylow content I produced was a headcanon/outline type post about Jedi Rey and convicted war criminal Ben Solo in a complicated and painful prison romance (link). If BS is as redeemed as he’s ever going to get, paying his debt to society and doing some good as a former terrorist who understands and knows the FO, would a romance between them work? It’s certainly not a straightforward and fluffy romance in my envisioning, but rather one tainted by mixed motivations and likely traumatic bonding.

In retrospect I think I gave BS way too much credit, even if the intention was to give him all the advantages I could think of. Now that I read the post over I think he’d be at best a “well actually” and “both sides” type of conversationist about the war, deceitful and revisionist in his recountings. (”Well actually we were more well-intentioned extremists…” “What about the civilians on the Death Stars? Doesn’t it say something that my idols growing up were Uncle Luke and Uncle Lando, who–from a certain point of view–were as much mass murderers as I turned out to be?”) The New Republic would never give him a public platform for fear of radicalizing others, despite repeated requests, and he would complain about freedom of speech lmao.

I also think now that Rey should be at most snookered briefly before she sees through his self-serving dishonesty and walks away for good. Tee el jay already did that story, though, so I don’t see the need to retell it. An older and more confident Rey wouldn’t even fall for BS’s bs anyway. The thought of BS being a sealion yammering away in prison is somewhat entertaining, though.

The other piece of shipping content I produced was a fan video to Blurred Lines (link). Yes, the Rape Song. I found it hilarious and horrible at the same time to work on, laughing at the whole idea of reylow as a wholesome or fluffy ship, not to mention the deplorable fandom conventions surrounding it. I did tag it #anti reylo rather than #reylo as a courtesy to shippers, especially ones who might be sexual assault survivors.

I’ve wondered since, though. Doesn’t my Blurred Lines video count as shipping material? Don’t the so-called anti-reylo edits like the “It’s not a fucking woman’s job” one (link)? Can it only be considered shipping content if it’s fluffy or at least ultimately affirming of the ship? For something like reylow, in particular, isn’t poking fun at the grossness of the whole concept also a valid part of shipping, provided everything is tagged and warned appropriately of course? In a section of the fandom that has Handmaid’s Tale AUs and Native American AUs and teacher-student AUs, why should only material that says rape is actually uhhh bad be off limits? Since when do we hold up romance as some ultimate purity of feeling, when romantic attraction can be as destructive and fucked up as any other urge we have? 

So yeah. I produced reylow or “Reylo” content not in the sense that mainstream shippers do with their fake Bullshit Solo who only exists to erase and one-up Finn’s trauma. That fakeness is what makes me nauseous about the ship, not the idea of exploring these characters’ dynamics including in a romantic or sexual sense. (But as for actual sex… nah. Like you I find Adam unattractive, and the farthest I’m comfortable going is KR as a rapey incel who gets his teeth kicked in by Rey.) I enjoy poking and prodding at an abusive fictional relationship. What I hate is the lie that it’s not abusive.

stormscavenger:

lj-writes:

Do people even have the concept anymore that you can find something awful and fascinating at the same time? Like, I found Catra and Adora’s dynamic exciting, engrossing, and very, very gay. That doesn’t mean I am obliged to go around defending Catra’s every action or insisting she has to be redeemed. (I sure hope not, that would be weaksauce when she’s worked so hard to be her own person and the villain she wanted to be.) You won’t catch me going around saying that trying to kill Adora or bring about eternal winter is fine and child soldiers aren’t responsible for their actions even after they’re grown up and have been given clear chances to turn away. Adora doesn’t owe Catra a solitary shit when she’s tried for the entirety of Season 1 to get her to leave and got a nice payback in the form of attempted murder.

Do I ship it in the sense of liking the dynamic and enjoying the content? Fuck yeah! Tragedy! Villainy! Internal conflict! Bring it on! Do I ship it in the sense that I insist it must be pure and perfect because I personally like it, endlessly justify Catra’s shitty treatment of Adora and outright war crimes, and flood every tag insisting that the Rebellion are just as bad as the Horde and that Glimmer, Angella et al. are the true villains? Hell no.

(Not saying Catradora fans do this, by the way. I am referring to the behavior of a different group of annoying fans.)

If you take this as me saying you shouldn’t ship Catradora and you are a bad person if you ship it because it’s wrong and bad and impure, congratulations, you have proved you have no reading comprehension whatsofuckingever and are just putting words in my mouth, whether out of stupidity or malice.

If you think I have ever tried to dictate what other people ship beyond expressing personal distaste in the proper tags and calling for civil behavior, then congratulations, you are a liar. Fuck, I’ve even produced reylow content depicting it as the unhealthy, abusive, borderline rapey ship I see it as, and would have done more if I saw it as romantic at all (which, for the reading challenged, does not mean that you are not allowed to) and if that section of the fandom were not such a misogynistic, racist, abuse apologist nightmare.

Furthermore, if you think calling out a group or individual’s bullshit in the tags reserved for that without even interacting with them is the same thing as harassing and policing them, then CONGRATULATIONS you are a silencing piece of shit who wants to shut down opinions that differ from yours by disingenuously conflating criticism with harassment. You winner of a person you.

I think I understand where you’re coming from. This is basically how I felt when I said I wanted to analyze the relationship between Jennifer and Khalil 

God I have SO MANY FEELS about Jen and Khalil (didn’t read your post past the title though because I’ve only just started Season 2). I remember the aching headcanons I had of them, an AU where Khalil does not fall into Whale’s clutches but graduates with honors though a year late, gets into wheelchair sports, and he and Jen dance at prom with him spinning in his wheelchair circles around her as she laughs and whirls in turn, and her sitting across his lap for the slow dance, forehead to forehead as they sway… and they do lose their virginity to each other, maybe not in the exact way they originally envisioned but spending the sexiest, wildest, tenderest and most caring first night they could have imagined. And it would have been awkward and hilarious too at times, and they would have laughed and cried and cuddled through it all.

I loved Khalil and Jennifer’s budding romance and I want a Khalil redemption and possible KhalJen so bad, though his actions and her own trauma probably brought them far past the possibility of my innocent AU. I just feel so desperately sorry for these kids 😭