this is seriously the longest I’ve ever spent on a piece, been working on this off and on for like a month but I think I’m finally satisfied with it – inspired by a vintage photo I had saved
‘Crazy thing is, it’s true. The
Force, the Jedi, all of it. It’s
all true.
Do it JJ
@selfhate-me To answer your honest question, which was incidentally asked in a way that I couldn’t have known unless I came back to the post, see this post I did just now for Finn Appreciation Week. See the second row of gifs where Kylo stares at Finn, Finn stares back, and then Finn–who is already heavily traumatized at this point–nearly jumps out of his skin when Kylo releases the blaster beam from Poe at a structure close to where Finn is standing, blowing it up. I mean if this doesn’t count as canonical interaction or bullying to you idk what else to say.
There’s something pretty wrong imo with Rey asking her friends and allies to work with someone who’s tortured and nearly killed them, to say nothing of having directly ordered the murders of innocent people. She’s putting the extremely uncertain redemption of a war criminal over the safety and well-being of the people who suffered at his hands, and that’s pretty fucked up.
Okay, this is not Rey. This is not headstrong, independent, resistant, stable and compassionate and competent Rey from TFA. This isn’t the Rey that my little godsisters fell in love with along with Finn.
Look closely. I normally don’t care about micro-expressions but…
Rey’s eyes are not herself here.
This is Rey that’s being subtly mentally and emotionally manipulated by Snoke and Ren (the Dark Side), also having her abandonment issues exploited, with the (ooc) harsh and callous treatment from Luke. All this while she’s so far away from Finn, and Finn from her.
This is not Rey. This is literally just Peter Parker from Spider Man 3 after over-exposure to the Venom symbiote. Thinks they’re being heroic when in reality…
This is not our Rey of sunshine. When I saw my godsisters frowning and squirming at scenes like this, I knew something was seriously wrong about this.
She just looks so sad and empty…
The thing is that Rey was objectively being broken down in TLJ. I don’t know how anyone can think it romantic that the only reason she opened up to Kylo was because she was objectively emotionally and mentally broken down (partly by him!). RJ broke Rey down to make her vulnerable to Kylo’s machinations, and that’s romantic?!
It’s awful what they did to her, but what’s even more awful is that this is somehow romanticize. That it’s somehow erotic or romantic that the woman turns to the man whose manipulating her because she has been emotionally and mentally wrecked.
I mean it really comes down this whole idea about female pain and distress being attractive because it leaves her open for a man to come and save her and allows him to fulfill this white knight fantasy. And I’ve seen men achieve this by breaking her down himself and then manipulating her to forgetting that he was the one that largely got her into that situation in the first place. It’s just awful that RJ intended us to find that romantic.
You’re right it is horrible and it’s not romantic at all. Crap like this pisses me off. Because not only do you reduce a woman, but it also shows that you have a horrible warped understanding of love. What some people don’t understand is that is not what real love is like. And it sure as hell it is not what rescuing a woman means in the first place. You don’t break a woman down and then rescue her from it.
That doesn’t make you or your hero a knight in shining armor. No it’s the situations in life and the struggles that you go through that can break us down, and when you find someone that supports you through those things that is a part of what love is. A true knight in shining armor is someone who is there for you, who supports you that’s good times and the bad, someone who supports you and all the things you go through. Not someone who breaks you down and then “rescues” you. A knight in shining armor is not even someone who rescues you from all your troubles. Rather it is somebody who is with you to help you through those struggles. But that’s just my take on it.
And this is why Reylo doesn’t work. It is also why Rey looks so empty in these photos because she is being broken, or rather emotionally manipulated by the dark side. And that? Well that’s just abuse.
Honestly, everyone would see that the whole Rey becoming seduced by Kylo’s sob story and losing herself in the process for what it was if the fandom didn’t collectively decide that Kylo Ren is the only viable romantic lead in the ST
(i.e: they can’t see it because Finn is Black. Point blank. They can protest all they want at the suggestion, but the more they insist KR actually is Rey’s obvious love interest, the more ass shows).
Love stories always suffer from narrative interference. Like Darth Vader freezing Han in Carbonite or the False Love Interests that are a staple of romances. Reylos point to THE WAR as the thing that’s keeping Rey and Kylo apart, but nah. Kylo could walk away, he had the chance. They weren’t separated against their will because one was physically in stasis (which – hello! – applies to both Finn and Han, who were both put there by the villain, though lbr Vader was more humane about it).
The characters who wanted to be together but were kept apart were Rey and Finn. Obviously. Obviously even in RJ’s script and the TLJ novelizations.
Kylo the interferer tried to drain every last drop of Rey out of her. He didn’t succeed.
Romantic interference is by definition not the endgame. Rey WILL be Rey again. This is not who she is from now on, this is Rey on a journey that will ultimately put her in the right place. And it won’t be that her whole identity will be Mrs. Finn Skywalker, either. That’s just projection because Rey’s identity according fandom is 100% about Kylo (but as “equals” because she can fight, cause lord knows equality is all about being able to win in a one on one brawl with your life partner).
Seeing those gifs and understanding better what is going on in this fight made me bitter again. In particular, how Rey is not allowed to be herself, the Rey we got introduced to in tfa. I know these things were already discussed, but once again:
1) The girl grew up in desert. She scavenges every day, looks through the dirt, through dust, through oil just to get that one part. The first thing is survival, her buns are unkempt, her freckles are clear and there’s a smudge of dirt on her forehead.
The one we see on ahchtoo is someone looking like her. But this woman has never seen a spot worse than that from a wine, she has perfect skin, her highlight is blinding and later she changes her hair to look like something from a fashion mag (not many people look good with sleek hair, but better this than keep a reminder about her parents, isn’t it?).
2) This girl grew up where water and food is scarce. But now there is no need to look for food and the hunger and thirst she has known and was afraid of all her life is gone.
3) This girl grew up where sand surrounds you. It’s unforgiving, it rarely if ever allows for greenery. And what water you can get your hands on, it’s for drinking. Now she sees a lake, something she only heard of. But know matter, she knows how to swim. When did she learn, you ask? Perhaps the same moment she learned the knew way to fight?
4) The girl grew up knowing that getting things is almost impossible. But losing what she had to others, who were stronger, greater in numbers is a possibility she’ll have to face every day while she waits for her parents. She learns how to protect herself, to be brash, effective, use what many see as a helping tool like a weapon.
But no she has a sword. She doesn’t use it almost like a staff or a spear anymore, even tho she was never given any lessons. Now she is dancing, flashing a bright toy, knowing that enemies will step away before she even tries to hit them.
5) The girl misses her parents. She hopes they left because they had to. But they will come back if they are still alive. She remembers little. You could say she has never known family, but she knows that it should be something you cherish.
The woman we see later? She agrees that it’s okay to kill you own father and slaughter millions of innocents just because your uncle was checking batteries on his sword near you.
So if what we’ve been told is true and Finn and Rey do spent most of the plot of Episode IX together then that’s very interesting because that puts Finn right back at the center of the Force related plot.
L.J.'s Obsessions 