Tag: ask

reylo isn’t toxic.

Canonically it is. We have watched Kylo abduct, torture, gaslight, isolate, and manipulate Rey for two movies straight. She tried to show kindness to him, risked her life on there being good in him, and he repaid her by using her as a tool for his ascension, tearing down her sense of self to try to make her turn to him. killing the people she was trying to protect, and attempting and promising to kill her.

As a fanon ship it doesn’t have to be toxic. There can be AUs, there are canon continuations where he genuinely sees how wrong he was and makes amends. There are ways to ship it in fun and respectful ways without flooding unrelated tags and while acknowledging Kylo’s canonical war crimes and abuse.

In fandom behavior the shippers are frequently and extremely toxic. They harass people–including each other–off their blogs, they derail conversations about fandom racism, they are heavy on war crimes and abuse apologism, they erase and demonize Finn, they have been known to be racist and antisemitic. Also, as a matter of personal experience, most of the shippers I’ve interacted with are underhanded, dishonest, or just unreasonably aggressive. There are individuals who are lovely but overall I strongly dislike that section of the fandom.

I liked your Rey meta a lot, but I really resent that both of them have been given backgrounds so traumatic that a romantic relationship is probably not realistic for them. I feel that was done on purpose so that Lucasfilme can say “Hey, they were both too damaged to really be in a relationship right away. In 10 years, they’ll both be better and married to other people :)”

Too traumatized for romance? In Star Wars, where the most iconic romance is between a genocide and torture survivor who lost her family and planet, and an orphan who turned to crime from a young age and also suffered capture and torture during the war? No one can tell me Leia was not borderline suicidal, running on rage and revenge, when she led the Death Star to the Rebellion base in an all-or-nothing confrontation. Nor can we ignore the way Han had Leia on informal suicide watch during the evacuation from Hoth and told her as much. Han being tortured and then sold to a crime lord was the catalyst that finally brought them together, and they bonded as a couple during his rescue and recovery. Life eventually became too much for their relationship to bear, but together or not they loved each other until the very end.

Nah, trauma doesn’t disqualify anyone from romance and that goes double for Star Wars. Rey and Finn if anything are healing for each other, and arguably are the only two people that understand each other and love each other unconditionally enough to achieve the complete intimacy of a committed relationship. Frankly any romances they get into with other characters would feel tacked on and won’t be interesting to me.

So I wanted your opinion, your do you think JJ will go with Finn and Rey? Do you think they might start Ep-IX already in a relationship or do you think it’ll be something that happens later in the movie or just implied? How would you handle their relationship? If I was JJ I’d start them out together. Set the status quo at the door. I just think it’s his best bet is to answer a lot of these questions in the first 30 minutes.

Much as I’d like them to start the movie out in a relationship, I think it’s unlikely. As of the end of TLJ they still have a lot of issues to work through before a full intimate commitment. Rey is likely to be shaken by the experience of being so coldly manipulated by someone she put her trust in, and Finn has to work through what his own commitment to the Resistance means. There’s also the question of whether Rose and Finn will start a relationship and what that means for both of them when there are so many problems in their dynamic and Rose has a ton of issues to work through herself. Mostly I’d like to see Rose and Rey bond early in the movie without any of the toxic jealousy nonsense that marred Rose’s character in TLJ.

A period of friendship between Finn and Rey without necessarily being romantic, including dating other people, could be good for them in the long term, too. Their first attachment sprang up so fast in the midst of a galactical crisis and literal life-and-death situations, and for all they love each other they don’t really know each other that well. Having a calm period of growing friendship and long conversations, including supporting each other through romances and breakups, would allow their lives to entwine together in a more gradual, organic way.

I can’t begin to guess whether we’ll see them get together romantically in IX but I’m very sure there will be enough closeness and emotional intimacy for strong implications of romance, and I hope we’ll get an onscreen kiss and declarations of love, too–there’s really no reason not to, given how overwhelming their attraction for each other was from the start.

Someone on tumblr calling themselves a anti-anti said that being anti was a purity culture, that this lead to real abusers go free and that antis don’t care about real abusers among them. I not even see you and others as anti, just critical and analytical in a way a straight white people seems to can’t.

I mean make no mistake, there absolutely are antis who are abusers and harass people over a ship, and I don’t associate with people who act this way. I can’t speak for all antis or an anti “community” assuming one even exists; all I can do is take responsibility for my own actions and curate my interactions. And I’ll continue to be critical and analytical of the canon text and opinions that have currency in fandom. Assholes who try to paint that as inherently harassing or abusive can go take a hike.

The claim that antis let abusers a free pass is rich coming from an anti-anti too, seeing how I regularly get troll anons jeering at me about my age, have received a blitz of racist anons including the n-word (that one was… confusing), and how a big-name reylow fan very transparently tried to set a harassment gang on me while hiding behind a block. I did get a few anons and notes using the exact words she fed her followers, though not as many as expected–she must be losing her touch. And this shipper herself was temporarily harassed off her blog by fellow reylows for very mildly calling out the demonization of Finn, showing just how normalized harassment is in that part of the fandom as a tool for silencing dissent. While antis who are harassers and bullies definitely exist, I have not seen a big-name anti blogger purposefully use their platform to direct harassment at someone, nor have I seen antis driven off their blog by fellow antis.

Things have gotten to the point where most of the blogs of any prominence that discuss fandom racism and are critical of reylow and reylows have turned off anon or their asks altogether due to harassment. That probably accounts for the amount of activity in my inbox, since more than one anon has cited the fact that I’m one of the few “antis” who allow anon. Reylow shippers have, in a very real sense, managed to choke off an important route of communication on Tumblr by harassing people who disagree with them.

If this anti-anti focuses exclusively on harassment by antis while ignoring what a massive problem it is among shippers, then they don’t really care about harassment as an issue. They’re using it to score points against people they don’t like.

Your Rey meta was pretty damn good and helped me see Rey & Rey in a new light. Finn is dealing with PTSD & emotions he had to surprise. Rey is dealing with childhood abandonment and dealing with being vulnerable. They want and need the other, but both TLA & TLJ proves that they aren’t dependent on that need. Unintentional or not, Finn and Rey caring and loving each other is probably one of the few things that connect both TFA & TLJ. Anyway A+ on that Meta

I got an A+! 😍 Thank you for your kind words. This is why I think Finn and Rey’s is the best male-female fictional relationship in years, possibly ever, because they both have their respective arcs and hurdles they need to overcome. People who think they are boring and conflict-free aren’t paying attention, or don’t care about conflict other than mistreatment between the man and woman. The central conflict in Finn and Rey’s relationship is that they both struggle with intimacy due to their traumas, and both need to grow into the heroes the galaxy needs them to be. That is the kind of relationship conflict loving couples have, not things like torture and manipulation.

How can I get in contact with @thelastjedicritical? They don’t have an ask box and I don’t have a Tumblr

lj-writes:

Then it’s possible they don’t want to be contacted by non-Tumblr users, but I’ll try @-ing just in case. Yo @thelastjedicritical someone wants to talk to you!

They’re not comfortable giving you their contact info off Tumblr, but if you have a specific question feel free to send it to me on anon and I’ll let them know.

There’s a rumor that Adam and John are training in sword fighting together? Part 2 if their fight or is this another team up where “Ben” is redeemed?

Given they way their last fight ended, I much prefer the first option. The second would have to be done really, really well if it is not to feel like a trite rehash of the throne room fight and an abrupt turnaround for the Kyle Ron character. And God, I don’t want a movie where Finn is forced to ignore the injustices done against him like Rey was in TLJ.