#I know I said I was gonna pretend to be a Reylo but I just had to get this out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

callunavulgari · 4 months

Text

Year in Fic | 2023

How many fics did you write this year? What was your total wordcount?

This was a very, very depressing year for me fic-wise. I didn't think it was possible, but not only did I write less that I did last year, but I wrote SIGNIFICANTLY less than I did in 2022.

In 2023 I wrote 11 fics, for a total of 39,450 words. Which is uh, almost half what I did in 2022. And 2022 was a slow year for me. But! I will give myself a bit of grace considering I spent most of the year being neurotic about wedding planning.

Fic Roundup!

so damn sloppy | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 4,557 words | Steve smiles, leaning forward just a little bit, and is rewarded by the sight of Eddie swaying towards him as if hypnotized. “We gonna stop pretending that I’m here just for a movie?”

into the unknown | LoZ | Zelda/Ganondorf/Link | 8,017 words | “What do you think, princess?” Ganondorf asks, cocking his head. “Would having your young knight here with us make the marriage bed more palatable?”

just a little bit closer, baby | Stranger Things | Chrissy/Eddie/Steve | 2,734 words | “He’s sure, Chrissy,” Steve says, voice warm.

Ghost Story | Stranger Things | Eddie/Steve | 2,559 words | Eddie wakes to darkness.

mommy don’t know daddy’s getting hot | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 1,611 words | “Just— Christ, Steve. Fuck me, already. Fill me up, put a baby in me or whatever weird hetero bullshit your brain has a boner for, just do it.”

the icarus to your certainty | Marvel | Loki/Thor | 1,687 words | “Can’t you see that you’re lost without me?” Loki asks softly, his mouth twisted into a strange, sad little smile.

build your altar here | Star Wars | Reylo | 5,486 words | When Leia had first offered up Ben’s condo as a place for Rey to stay while she got back on her feet, she’d foolishly assumed that it was some kind of subletting situation.

for years or for hours | Loki | Loki/Mobius | 1,677 words | “What the shit are you doing?” Mobius hisses, and Loki— Loki is tired.

touch-a, touch-a, touch-a, touch me | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 2220 words | “God,” Steve murmurs into Eddie’s mouth. “You look— I cannot deal with how you look right now.”

these, our bodies, possessed by light | Shades of Magic | Holland/Kell/Lila, Athos/Holland | 2,134 words | Holland tells her simply. “I want to go home.”

this house says your name like an elegy | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang | 6768 words | “Good night, ghost,” he says. “We can play tomorrow.”

Best story I wrote this year:

In my opinion? into the unknown was the only fic that I was TRULY proud of this year. Which isn't to say that the others were awful, but into the unknown was my passion project of the year. I saw a thing on twitter that made my brain go ping, and I sat down and said, yknow what, I'm going to write political marriage Ganondorf/Zelda. And then, I went, yknow what would be great? If we added Link, poly, and a great heaping pile of yearning. And it was! Great that is! It was fun to write and I'm really glad that I put it out there.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Honestly, into the unknown IS probably my favorite - BUT! A very close second is for years or for hours, which I wrote after watching the Loki finale a totally chill amount of times. I couldn't get over the idea of Loki and those timeloops, how lonely it must have been. How he could technically have everything that he wanted and then wipe the slate clean again hours later. I was also planning on writing another Loki fic, one where Sylvie and Mobius end up hooking up and living? traveling? together AFTER, but it just hasn't happened yet. Two people fucking because they're yearning for the same third is just catnip to me.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

This is actually interesting because my stats are pretty wildly different for kudos vs hits. Normally they're at least in the same ballpark. BUT! for years or for hours was definitely my top fic as far as kudos go by a pretty wide margin, coming in 742 kudos, 217 bookmarks, and 2,397 hits. so damn sloppy (a title that i hated IMMEDIATELY after posting) comes in second when it comes to kudos at 239.

But! If you measure by hits- build your altar here, otherwise known as the excessively smutty reylo fic that i wrote actually comes in first. Which is... weird? But hey, what do I know. Numbers are bonkers.

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

While I'm honestly always a little disappointed by the traffic my SXX Exchange and Yuletide fics get (I get it, they don't show up at the top of the page because they spend weeks unviewable before being revealed), I think my actual answer to this question is Ghost Story. It's one of the shorts that I did for my October challenge this year. 2.5k of Eddie waking up in the Upside Down undead, of him finding Steve's house and hesitating there on the threshold, of Vecna in his head, of him CHOOSING Kas as his own storyline, grasping at straws in the hopes that he'll be able to pull it off. I never go into something expecting kudos because that way lies madness, but I got... 11 kudos. No comments. And I don't know, that's always at least a little disappointing, but especially because I was proud of this one. I liked getting into Eddie's headspace in a horror setting. It was great! It was tragic! And I don't know, it just didn't get love. Such is life.

Most fun story to write:

Okay, so like. I wrote A LOT of smut this year. Almost every single fic that I wrote was either PWP, fix-it, or both. And almost every single one of them came easily (ha). The plot bunnies didn't fight me, they just happened. Which means that a lot of them were fun to write! The one where I got to work in Steve's breeding kink in the most hilarious way cracked me up. BUT! I got to write Steve/Chrissy/Eddie this year! I've been wanting to write it for ages and this year, for the first day of kinktober, I got to write Chrissy pegging Eddie while Steve fucks his face. That was just... an absolute dream.

Story that could have been better?

Maybe these, our bodies, possessed by light ? My Yuletide recipient's requests were of a crueltide variety. And I don't necessarily have an issue with writing that. I wrote it and I liked the end result, but where it comes down to it I'm still pretty uncomfortable writing non-con, even a character that is slowly healing from it. I do actually like how it ended. I think I conveyed what I wanted it to, the style was exactly what I was aiming for, I just haven't been able to shake the feeling that it could have been more. But if I'd made it happier or longer, I think I would have taken away from the point I was trying to make.

Story I wrote to fix things:

Definitely the icarus to your certainty. Some of the others are fix-its in the sense that certain characters are alive, others are fix-it fic not because they changed anything about the canon but because of the sense of catharsis. But the icarus to your certainty was a fic that I've been wanting to write for a while, one where Thor and Loki meet again. I've told this story a couple different ways since End Game, but this one feels more complete because I used TVA Loki. It wasn't just me talking out of my ass about suspected ways that Marvel could fix it, it was about the exisiting character meeting back up with a post-Love and Thunder Thor and going hey, I'm here, I'm not the same brother you watched die, but I'm still a Loki, I still miss you, I know what you lost. I did write it before watching the finale, so there's probably at least one more Thor and Loki reunion fic in me, but we'll see.

Longest completed fic this year:

into the unknown was my longest this year at just over 8k.

Fandom you enjoyed writing for most this year:

The fandom that I wrote the MOST of was Stranger Things, because Steddie is still dogging me even now, more than a year later. And it is certainly the fandom that I enjoyed reading the most, but I also really loved playing in the Tears of the Kingdom sandbox.

Favorite character you wrote this year:

I did like writing Ganondorf in into the unknown a lot, but this pleasure has to go to Eddie. He's just so fun.

Most memorable comment(s) this year:

I really loved all the comments that I got on for years and for hours! The comments from my recipients for the SXX exchange and Yuletide were amazing! I got a comment on the Silena and Clarisse fic that I wrote well over a decade ago! I got an adorable comment on the monsterfucking fishsex one earnestly telling me to keep doing what makes me passionate, even if it's... yknow, fishsex.

But honestly, this comment that I got on Rubatosis takes the cake. It just completely blows my mind that even know, almost a decade after I wrote the fic, I am STILL getting comments on it. And not just the comments that other older fic of mine get, but comments that are so heartwrenchingly genuine, thanking me, weeping and happy about it. I actually did a reread of it after I got this comment and while I can see all the places that could be improved on, I'm just still so floored, so PROUD, that it's something that came out of my brain.

Fics you wanted to write but didn’t:

I DO have an entire graveyard of fics in my googledocs that I've started and haven't finished but, in no particular order:

the steddie one where they hook up pre-series when steve is still king steve and eddie is dealing at one of his parties

the steddie hitchhiking one

the steddie coffee shop one that no one asked for

the gloryhole steddie fic from kinktober

ugh the akuroku farmer's market one about being punk and then getting older

the bodyswap geraskier one

the ust filled one-shot of Jericho and Sam Lloyd from the Diviners

the random plot bunny i got after reading hell bent where i wanted to write alex fucking darlington after the howling

the cnc sxx fic

the uh, vaguely necrophiliac sxx one because xue yang is a freak

the *cough* incest ship one where they find out they're related while fucking and neither stops (i may have entertained this as a han/luke/leia one-shot)

the alex/jonas oxenfree one that i wanted to write as a yuletide treat

the anastasia/dimitri one that i wanted to write as a yuletide treat

Oddest story:

god, probably the breeding kink one. mommy don't know daddy's getting hot. it's not even super intense! i just feel like eddie would be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE if he found out that steve had a breeding kink.

Hardest story to do:

I did fret about this house says your name like an elegy a little. I kept getting stuck describing the house and had to force myself past it.

Easiest story to write?

Again, most of the fics came pretty easily this year. build your altar here may have been the easiest? I'd just finished love theoretically by ali hazelwood and while i'd always known they were a reylo i didn't realize that i'd actually read some of their fic! anyway, read a couple reylo fics for nostalgia and then realized that i wanted to write a free use fic. All 5k of it came out in one sitting, it was nuts.

Most mining of your own history in one story:

I don't think any of them? I mean, maybe so damn sloppy if you count the fact that i've actually been in a family video before, but other than that? yeah, nothing.

Themes, or absence thereof:

A lot of smut, tbh.

Where did you publish/archive your stories?

Ao3, as per usual. I didn’t crosspost too much this year.

Story I haven’t yet written, but intend to:

i REALLY want to write the steddie ones that i didn't write this year, specifically the hitchiking and the pre-series one.

Sexiest moment (excerpt):

He fucks Eddie breathless. The corset isn’t helping, the pearls like a collar around his throat. He wants Steve’s hand in his hair, wants to be fucked until it hurts, but Steve is so gentle with him.

There are tears in Eddie’s eyes when he finally surrenders, gasps quietly into the dark and says, “Please, harder.”

Steve doesn’t get a hand into his hair, but he does splay his palm out over the curve of Eddie’s throat, just under the pearls. The hold isn’t a tight one, his fingers loose enough that Eddie could slide right out of the grip if he wanted, but Eddie sobs a little, bucking up, wanting wanting wanting—

Steve fucks him harder.

“Would you like to have him first, then?” Ganondorf asks her, a low whisper in her ear, and her legs clench tight around him, making them both groan as his cock jostles between them.

“Please,” she says, and he makes a sound like a laugh, and pulls back, away, moving them so that he’s propped up against her headboard and she’s reclined against his front, her back hot where their skin touches.

Ganondorf makes an amused sound when Link hesitates, and his hands take hold of her hips and — mortifyingly — spread her legs open.

“Do you need me to tell you where it goes?” Ganondorf asks, almost conversationally, and Link narrows his eyes.

It’s not— there was a moment, when she was younger, when she’d thought of this. Of what would happen if she could just take what she wanted. If she could have Link on his back in the hay of the palace stable or if he’d ever bear her down into the fragrant grass of Hyrule Field.

It was a silly dream. A girl’s dream. She’d never imagined this, her husband holding her open as Link pushes into her, but perhaps that was a good thing. She’d been an excitable girl.

He makes a noise when he first pushes into her that she’ll remember forever, even if they never get to do this again — a slight hitch in his breathing, like a hiccup, then a moan so soft it’s almost a whine. They are green, untested, so very new to this. She’s wanted this for so long and so hard that it doesn't even hurt. The rhythm is rocky and awkward when they start, but Ganondorf helps them find it quickly, his hands reaching out to steady Link's hips, coaxing him into a better pace.

It is perfect, even if it wasn’t what she’d dreamed. She gets to bury her face in his neck the way she’d wanted then, gets to hitch her legs up around his hips and clench him tighter, deeper, his fingers threaded with hers.

But it is over too fast, and her eyes are wet when he goes still inside of her. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

Ganondorf gives them a minute, lets her shake, lets Link breathe. She hadn’t expected patience from him, but then, there’s a great many things about this night that she hadn’t expected.

“Okay,” she tells him when Link is collapsed backwards beside them, watching with hazy eyes as Ganondorf turns her to face him. His cock is between them, hard against her belly, and it’s so big that for a moment, she wonders if she’s ready for it. She can feel Link’s spend licking the insides of her thighs and knows that Ganondorf can feel it too.

She looks at Ganondorf, chin held high, and says, “I’m ready.”

He is big.

His cock inside of her is such a tight fit that her breathing goes ragged as he’s fitting it into her. She’s sweating all over and it’s so much that she worries it will break her, that she’ll never be the same again. Link had felt good inside of her, a perfect fit, no pain, just frissons of pleasure up and down her spine as he moved inside of her, but this — this is nearly too much.

“It’s okay, princess,” Ganondorf tells her, petting her back once he’s completely inside. “You did good.”

Against all odds, the noise is what wakes her. She would have thought— well, she would have thought that she’d have woken to other things. The gentle rocking of the bed. The weight on her hips. Rey had assumed that if anything were to wake her, it would have been that first slow press inside her — her body yielding slowly to the blunt press of him between her legs.

However it happened, the noise is what wakes her. She surfaces slowly, first latching onto the sound of the rhythmic thumping of the headboard striking the wall over and over again before her brain wakes enough to take note of the rest of it.

She’s warm, that’s the second thing that she notices. Most of the time, Rey wakes with her fingers and toes freezing, and she’ll have to spend the first thirty minutes of her morning huddling for warmth beneath her blankets. This morning though, she’s overly warm, her blood already running hot, her chest and belly slick with sweat.

That’s when the rest of the details come to her. The heavy breathing above her. The warm sticky skin pressed to the bare stretch of her back. The creaking of the bed. Her own shallow breathing, little noises escaping her even as her brain comes fully back online. And of course, the feeling of a cock stretching her wide. She must have been wet, she thinks hazily, still halfway between waking and dreaming. Had she been dreaming? Or had he put his mouth on her before he’d bullied his way inside? They hadn’t really discussed the mechanics beforehand, only their wants and limitations. She’d wanted this, she remembered confessing. This specific thing, mentioned in the late hours of the night, her face flushed.

But he’d done it. She hadn’t thought that he would.

She’s still sluggish, but her body is already lighting up from the touch. Already awake and responsive, even as Rey starts to slowly stretch, her toes curling against the sheets as her palms scrabble for a grip to ground her. Ben rocks into her again, a particularly deep thrust, and a noise punches out of her, shocked and urgent.

She hears a chuckle from above her, and then his mouth is dropping to press against the sharp blade of her shoulder, lips dragging indulgently across her skin.

“Good morning,” he whispers, his own voice gritty with sleep. She whines under him, her fist finally getting a hold on the sheets, and he laughs at her openly, rewarding her with a particularly ruthless grind of his hips, pressing so deep that she rocks forward into the pillows.

He works a hand into her hair, and she’s— god, it’s so much so fast that she’s actually dizzy from it, so when he drags her up to her knees, she’s reeling, wobbly like a newborn animal. Her breath catches in her throat, her stomach tensing as he slides his palm down to cradle the shallow dip of her pelvis.

She doesn’t have to enjoy it, that wasn’t part of the bargain. The deal was anytime, anywhere— within reason, of course. She’d thrilled at the idea of it, imagining him bending her over the back of the couch, over the kitchen counter, imagined crawling into his lap during one of his shitty zoom calls and having him like that, where any one of his sleazy corporate overlords could hear her panting for him if he decided to unmute them.

She hadn’t thought that this would be his first move on the chessboard, that less than 24 hours after shaking on it she would wake to him inside of her, stretching her wide, the very first thing that she’d told him she wanted.

Anything, though. And just because she hadn’t imagined this happening the morning after they discussed it does not mean that she can’t enjoy it.

He fucks her hard and fast after that, as if her coming awake beneath him has made him desperate for it. Her scalp aches under his grip, but the pull is a good one. She’s wet and aching, his cock so good, pressing so deep— she’d forgotten what it was like, what he could be like.

She makes a noise, something quiet and pleased, and he must like it because he moans for her, his grip turning harsher, his thrusts more punishing. She wants to ask him for it, wants to tell him harder, but he hasn’t said that she can talk yet, so she bites her lip and holds on for dear life.

He comes inside her, letting out a long and guttural groan, his hips pressed flush against hers.

She’s trembling and she doesn’t want him to pull out yet, wants to come with him still inside her, but doesn’t—

“Touch yourself,” he tells her, his voice strained, cock still buried to the hilt inside her. She lets out a breathless little sob, already reaching, and it barely takes more than the press of her thumb to her clit before she’s coming, so hard that knees go out from under her. She bites down hard on her pillow to muffle the helpless little keen that makes its way out of her.

Crackiest moment (excerpt):

Eddie is giving him shit when it happens. It’s been a little over a half hour since Eddie turned to him, bored and pouty about it, and asked if Steve wanted to fuck him.

“Obviously,” Steve could pretend that he’d replied, because that was smooth and cool, and not the reality of the weird grunting noise that he’d made in response, as if his brain had briefly forgotten that it was human and not still ape.

Eddie had snorted, but forgiven him this, and Steve had gone to work dutifully, because the reality of getting to fuck Eddie was still new and visceral. But then here they are, well past foreplay, and Eddie is giving him shit, cracking jokes, and Steve is still somehow completely hard. Which is to say, Steve is buried all the way inside of Eddie, balls flush against his sweaty ass, and absolutely breathless with laughter, trying to muffle the sound of it into Eddie’s shoulder when Eddie throws his head back theatrically and moans, “Yes, daddy, yes. Harder, please. Yes, Steve, put a baby in me already.”

And it’s—

He’s joking. Neither of them ever get even close to brushing against their mutual daddy issues. It’s a joke, the same way that the theatrical porn star moans he’s been driving Steve crazy with for the last half hour have been a joke. The same way that his nicknames getting more and more absurd every month is a joke.

But Steve’s breath — it catches. He’d been halfway through another shaky thrust, tears still in his eyes, and then, at Eddie’s words, his movement stutters. He doesn’t��quite gasp, but his exhale comes out shaky, a nervous huff of a noise.

Eddie goes still under him. He twists, peering around his own shoulder at Steve, his eyes wide and dark. He blinks and asks, “Really?”

“Fuck,” Eddie says again, voice thready. Steve tugs on his hair again, just enough to hear him hiss. “Just— Christ, Steve. Fuck me, already. Fill me up, put a baby in me or whatever weird hetero bullshit your brain has a boner for, just do it.”

Steve’s breath catches, his brain abruptly knocked offline. He doesn’t— later, he’ll try to wrap his brain around why this works for him. Try to figure out whether it’s the daddy issues, the unspoken desire for a kid, or just the idea of filling Eddie up with his come, but in this moment, the only thing that he can think of is those words in Eddie’s mouth, the reality of what he’s about to do.

Steve’s a good, smart boy. Smart about this, at least. He likes to have sex. He’s safe about having sex. Even with Nancy, he’d never—

He fucks Eddie until he’s wailing, working his way up from the slow grind. Short, slow strokes, hard and deep. Harder, a little faster. It’s so much harder to fuck Eddie right like this, but it’s so intimate, tucked so tightly together that he can’t make himself move.

“Please,” Eddie is saying, and Steve isn’t even sure if Eddie’s aware that he’s talking out loud. He’s got his head buried in his arms, his body rocking forward every time Steve fucks into him, and his voice is throaty, his body shaking with every thrust.

“Please Steve,” he gasps, breathless, sweaty. He lets out an uneven moan at Steve’s next thrust, hard and deep, just the way Eddie likes it. “Do it, just do it, pump me full of your come, do it, please.”

Favorite dialogue (excerpt):

“Good morning, Princess,” Ganondorf tells her, still smiling. “That isn’t your usual guard.”

“No,” she tells him, and leaves it at that.

He hums thoughtfully, his eyes going to the guard again, and for a moment, she thinks that he may press the matter, as if it’s any of his business where Link may be, but after another moment, he drops it, leaving it with a polite nod.

They watch the birds in silence for some time.

Ganondorf, as it turns out, has a bag of feed with him, which he offers her when the robins have finished what's on the ground and turn to eye them expectantly.

She dips her hand into the bag, delighting in the cool press of seeds against her knuckles, and comes out with a palmful, which she gently tosses to the grateful birds. As she watches, a few more descend.

“Do you come to this spot often?” Ganondorf asks as she brushes the lingering kernels from her hands.

She looks at him, wondering if she should say. If he does mean her harm, this place that she only comes to when she means to be alone would be a delightful place for any would-be kidnapper. But, on the other hand, if he is to be her husband, he will learn soon enough.

“Yes,” she tells him, reaching to brush her knuckles across the rose nearest her, the last few drops of morning dew clinging to the downy softness of its petals. “I love this place.”

“It is lovely,” he says. “Quiet, peaceful. I was happy to find a place to myself.”

She turns to look at him, curious despite herself. “Do you have a place like it? Back home?”

Ganondorf is still watching the birds, but as she speaks, he turns to her, his expression soft.

“I do,” he says, sounding pleased. “We have orange trees growing in what passes for our garden. They grow in a small alcove tucked away from prying eyes. There’s a fountain there. It’s peaceful.” He seems to hesitate, then adds, “They smell divine when they’re in bloom. Perhaps one day I can show you.”

“Perhaps,” she replies, for politeness sake. She is her father’s only heir. He would never let her venture out into the desert, not even if she had all the guards in Hyrule with her.

Perhaps, she thinks, when she is queen. If her husband has not attempted a coup by then.

They have drawn an entire flock by now, not only robins, but jays and turtle doves. They bicker amongst themselves for the seed, their chatter light and easy. She only wishes that her entire day could be this quiet.

“Are you looking forward to the feast tonight?” she asks, only half listening as she watches one of the larger jays wallop one of the doves with its wing.

“I never look forward to feasts,” Ganondorf tells her gravely, which surprises her enough that she lets out a sharp bark of laughter.

When she’s done laughing, she looks at him, tears in her eyes, and confesses, “Neither do I.”

“Looking for your knight, princess?” Ganondorf whispers out of the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t duck his head towards her, but there’s a barely noticeable tilt to his head that means he wants to, that he wants his lips pressed right up against her ear, where he can speak truly to only her. The whisper, she thinks, will have to suffice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispers back, her eyes finding Link’s even as the words leave her mouth. He is watching them, but there’s a faint crack in his mask, a flash of pain bare on his face for all of Hyrule to see before he catches her looking and schools it into careful blankness once more.

Ganondorf chuckles, a warm rumble that she can feel through her entire body, from head to toes.

“Of course, you don’t,” he tells her, something faintly mocking in his voice. It makes her hackles go up, spine straightening as she lifts her head to look at him.

He is looking down at her now, and on his lips is a smile that she hasn’t seen from him yet. It isn’t the soft private smile from this morning, nor is it the polite smile that he gives her father and the rest of court. This is a strange smile, just for her, and it appears entirely genuine.

“Are you mocking me, sir?” she asks him.

“Perhaps,” he tells her, unexpectedly lifting her into a spin. She reels, a bit dizzy when he sets her back onto her feet. He smiles again, as if he’s laughing at her, and ducks his head to whisper in her ear, “Is it working?”

She blinks hard, finding Link over his shoulder again.

“Is what working?” she asks breathlessly.

She can feel his smile against her ear, the feel of it curving upwards. She shivers.

His lips move against her ear, his breath warm against her throat. “Am I making him jealous?”

She flinches. Not hard, but just enough to make her misstep. She corrects herself, but people have already seen.

There will be whispers. Rumors.

She huffs, and looks away from him, careful to keep her gaze away from Link.

“I told you,” she says coolly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He laughs again, but obligingly straightens, taking his mouth far out of her reach.

They dance in silence until the music stops.

Favorite lines (excerpt):

“You can, you know,” Mobius tells him, and Loki wants to ask what, wants to ask if that’s freestanding permission— to take anything he wants, anything he needs.

“Can I?” Loki asks, his voice a rasp in the dark.

Mobius nods, his nose sliding against Loki’s. He’s holding his breath, Loki thinks, and that won’t do. Loki needs him to breathe.

He kisses him.

Mobius makes a thin noise, like he hadn’t really expected Loki to do it, then something heavier as his mouth slides open under Loki’s.

Loki reaches, curling his fingers against Mobius’s cheek, pulling him closer, until they’re almost on top of one another. Loki wants— he wants a great many things. He wants to kiss Mobius until his breathing goes erratic. Wants to crawl backwards onto the desk and let Mobius have him there, just like this. Wants to touch him all over, map out every square inch of his body until Loki knows every whorl of hair, every wayward freckle.

“Mm,” Mobius hums as Loki breaks the kiss. Their lips make a wet sound as they separate. The sound of it is thrilling. It makes him want more. Mobius clearly is on the same page, his eyes flickering open slowly, watching Loki through slitted eyes. As Loki watches, he smiles and asks, “Feel better?”

He does, actually.

The panic is ebbing, his heart regaining its normal rhythm, his vision no longer tunneling. He doesn’t feel as out of control now, like time itself is slipping away from him.

Loki licks his lips, ignoring the way that Mobius’ eyes linger on his mouth, and nods. He leans in for another kiss, this one shorter. He is very aware of the light of the loom, going ever brighter outside the window. Not long now.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mobius tells him, leaning smugly back against the computers when Loki has finished with him. He looks rumpled. His hair askew, his lips bruised. Loki wants to wreck him.

“Don’t worry about what?” Loki asks, distracted.

Mobius jerks his head towards the loom, the timelines, the constant writhe of them against the blackness of the void. “That. Don't worry. You’ll get it right next time.”

Loki hisses, his head jerking up. He meets Mobius’ laughing eyes. Says, “When did you figure it out?”

Mobius shrugs, flashing Loki a look. “You didn’t get that good at physics overnight, Loki. Come on. How long have you been at this?”

Loki doesn’t know. Not really. He’s lost count. Lost count quickly even. “Too long.”

Mobius eyes him. He’s still reclined back against the computers, his elbows planted firmly under him, legs slightly splayed. Loki can see the length of him, hard in his slacks. It’s tempting. He is tempting. If they had more time, then maybe—

Mobius is still watching him, like he can see Loki's every thought printed out and set before him in real time. Who knows, maybe he can.

“Next time,” Mobius tells him, like a promise.

The light outside the window is growing brighter, the rattling of the entire structure around them getting louder.

Loki breathes.

“You won’t remember,” Loki says, feeling a tug of… something at that. Hurt, maybe. Grief, perhaps— for this version of Mobius that his hands have touched, this version who won’t exist five minutes from now.

“Maybe not,” Mobius tells him with an unconcerned shrug. “But I can promise you I’ll be receptive.”

Loki snorts. “That sure of yourself, are you?”

Mobius’ smile goes soft, secret. A little sad around the edges.

“With you?” he says. “Always.”

Ganondorf is enormous, well over seven feet tall and thick with heavy, corded muscle, the bulk of him great enough that in the months prior to his arrival, the castle staff had seriously considered widening several doorways around the castle. And while she is glad to know that he is able to fit through their doorways without issue, his size is… intimidating.

His hair is swept up into a glinting gold crown, the color a deep russet red that’s several shades darker than the rest of his kin. He's bare from the waist up, his naked torso heavily adorned, golden hoops in his ear lobes, a heavy looking necklace of gold and ruby draped around his throat, intricate designs swirling down to just above his navel. Delicate chains link the neck piece to golden cuffs squeezed tight around his biceps and then, even further down, another pair of arm guards that run from forearm to wrist. There is even, she realizes, her face going red, a pair of simple golden hoops through two brown nipples. They glint back at her in the afternoon light, mocking.

Zelda, who had missed the first of the introductions during her inspection of her betrothed, blinks hard, head jerking up when she hears her own name echoing through the chamber. She turns towards her father, who is looking back at her expectantly. She has no idea what he’s said, but she can guess.

She clears her throat, stepping forward until she is at the very edge of the dais. Her eyes find Ganondorf’s.

His eyes are warm. Gold. There’s intelligence there – slyness and cunning, yes – but even as the force of his gaze holds her in place, she recognizes something more there. A challenge. The potential for cruelty, perhaps. It will be a game, she thinks, looking at him. He will do his duty. He will wed her and unite their peoples, even swear fealty to Hyrule. And yet, she’s somehow sure that he will spend the rest of their lives testing her, looking for cracks in her armor, waiting and watching for a chance to usurp her throne.

She watches as he goes down to one knee before her, and finds her mouth wet as he reaches for her hand, saliva pooling against her tongue. Suddenly, she is very aware of everything. Her father beside her. Link at her back. Ganondorf’s kinsman watching her with a careful blankness masking their curiosity. There are wolves in the castle and they are hungry.

“Hello, Princess Zelda,” he says, mouth quirking upwards into something that’s more smirk than smile. His voice is warm, smooth like liquid honey.

“Ganondorf,” she makes herself say, willing her voice not to waver as she gives an estimation of a curtsy. It isn’t quite proper, but it is within the polite boundaries of etiquette. No one will be able to fuss.

His smile grows as his gaze flicks over her right shoulder, to where she knows Link is standing. She cannot allow herself to look, but she can guess that Link is likely standing there, his face carefully blank, the perfect soldier. She wonders what drew Ganondorf’s attention – a tightening of Link’s fingers around the hilt of his sword? A flicker of an expression around his mouth?

Whatever it is, Link holds Ganondorf’s attention for several long moments. Zelda can feel her hand begin to sweat against Ganondorf’s palm and longs to withdraw it. Then, Ganondorf’s smile goes a touch crooked, showing teeth, and still holding Link’s gaze, he ducks and presses his lips to her knuckles. Only then does he return his gaze to hers.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Ganondorf tells her, releasing her hand at last. Zelda can feel the burn of his lips against her skin, warmth blossoming outwards, sending seeking tendrils crawling down her wrist. She has to fight the urge to hide her hand behind her skirts.

She swallows again and makes herself smile, even as a shiver runs through her. “The pleasure is all mine.”

A hand touches her elbow and she flinches, expecting Link, but when she turns, it’s Ganondorf. He’s looking at her seriously, his heavy brows knotted. There is no calculating or cruelty on that face, only understanding.

“Wife,” he says, and that’s a little stab of agony as well, knowing that it is done, knowing that she is as good as shackled to the man next to her. “We don’t have to do this tonight.”

Her head jerks up, mouth parting. She’d expected cruelty, she realizes, looking into his eyes. Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought that Ganondorf could be kind.

It is a sweet offer, but a barbed one, as well. Even if she were to put the night off – how long would he wait? A week? A month? Years? What if she never wished to bed him? Would he allow that or would he go to her father and declare the marriage contract null.

No, better to get this over with.

Zelda swallows and shakes her head. Her eyes go to Link, standing just to the left of Ganondorf. His face is like stone, still refusing to look at her. He will hold vigil, here at her door. He will… hear. She’s known that all along, but now, it’s like an arrow in her gut. She shouldn’t have kissed him.

There’s a soft sound in the hallway, a quick inhalation, and her eyes go to Ganondorf, who is looking down at her with something like realization. A knowing. Even a soft smugness.

“Oh,” Ganondorf says, voice thick with understanding. Her heart drops as Ganondorf looks between them, face creased. “It is like that, then. I had wondered.”

Link doesn’t look up at either of them, his jaw merely tightening as he stands straight under Ganondorf’s gaze.

Ganondorf laughs, a soft thing, colored with amusement, as he leans back against the door to her rooms. Light from Zelda’s candle glints off of his crown, off of the plate of gold laid over his chest. He’s still looking between them.

“Hm,” he says once he’s finished laughing, reaching for Zelda’s hand. She gives it to him, her heart hammering in her chest, and sucks in a quiet breath when he steps forward and gently draws her over the threshold to her rooms. He takes the candle from her, setting it into the waiting sconce, and looks back over his shoulder at Link, who is still stone-faced and silent at the door.

He quirks an eyebrow at him and says, “Well, aren’t you coming?”

Shock explodes across Link’s face, blue eyes going wide as a ruddy blush instantly colors his cheeks. His mouth drops, lips parting as a huff of surprise leaves him. He stares at Ganondorf, open-mouthed, the emotion bleeding back into him all at once.

He glances towards Zelda, as if looking to confirm what he’d just heard.

Zelda, who finds that her mouth is also open, only shakes her head in disbelief.

Link’s eyes go back to Ganondorf’s, only to dart away again, skittish.

Ganondorf chuckles again, stepping forward until he’s once again looming in the doorway. He cocks his head, as if curious, eyes running up and down Link’s body, heavy with intent.

“I will admit,” Ganondorf tells him, that same strange smile playing around his lips as he reaches out, brushing a wayward curl from Link’s face. “It’s been some time since I had a boy in my bed, but having the both of you won’t be such a hardship.”

He casts a glance over his shoulder towards her even as his palm slides up to cup Link’s cheek, an almost proprietary grip, his thumb coming to rest at the corner of Link’s mouth. She’s shocked to realize that she wants to see what would happen if Link opened his mouth and sucked it in.

Ganondorf must see something of her thoughts on her face, because he laughs again, louder, a rumble deep in his chest.

“What do you think, princess?” Ganondorf asks, cocking his head. His smile is wide, knowing. “Would having your young knight here with us make the marriage bed more palatable?”

Fic goals:

No goals this year, I don't think. Only to write what I want to write. And as per my resolution, work on the original work as much as I can.

#heather says what #year in review #new year's memes #heather writes #2023

3 notes · View notes

protectwoc · 4 years

Text

why all reylos are racist

y’all can go ahead and cancel me now because some of you are not going to like what i have to say and i am completely okay with that.

this recent gq interview with john boyega has incensed me. hearing all the things he went through, from disney and from “fans” and with no support from anyone… i’m livid. sometimes when i think about it for too long i start shaking, i’m so furious. and the response from the reylo fandom has infuriated me to a degree i honestly didn’t know was possible.

some of you may have seen my recent tumblr rampage. it’s reylo bullying hours here on my blog, and i’m not sorry either. one person threatened to post screenshots of my comments, which like… okay? i know what the fuck i said, it wasn’t that long ago. in fact i was going to include the screenshots in this post right here, but they blocked me before i had the chance. sorry. i’m sure somebody has them. anyway…

over the past two days in the star wars fandom we have seen something unprecedented: an outpouring of support for john boyega. both reylos and anti-reylos have joined forces to voice support for john in the wake of the gq interview (and the blm protests, let’s be real, some of y’all would not have given half a fuck if it wasn’t suddenly cool to be antiracist). and this showing of unity is one of the most rage-inducing things i’ve ever seen in a fandom (which is saying something; i have seen some shit).

reylo fandom, full offense intended, but where the fuck do you get off? you’re supporting john now? where was this support when tfa came out and you couldn’t stand the thought of him next to your white-girl-self-insert? where was it when tlj came out and your boy ryan completely sidelined him? where was it earlier this fucking year when y’all twisted a harmless joke (like yall haven’t spent years writing reylo-throne-room-sex-meta BULLSHIT) and ignored the vile racist shit coming from your own fav’s mouth? but you’re supporting him now? now that being antiracist is trendy? fuck outta here with that bullshit.

your fandom is the reason for the vast majority of the absolutely subhuman treatment john has endured over the last few years. your fandom influenced ryan (yes i know what his name is) to write tlj the way he did, you have behaved indefensibly here on tumblr.hell writing and drawing and fantasizing about all sorts of racist bullshit, and y’all have STAYED in his twitter mentions spewing hatred seven ways to sunday. but NOW, without a shred of self-reflection, you’re supporting him? now his experiences are valid?

the way that your fandom refuses to take accountability for its actions makes me see red. y’all stay on some “not all reylos” nonsense and i am SICK OF IT. i’m only gonna say this once, and i want you to hear me: you cannot be a reylo and be “antiracist”. you cannot participate in a fandom that has behaved the way yours has and say “blm, uwu acab.” you can’t. like do you think black people are dumb? that we can’t see right through you? we can.

“but rae,” i hear you whining. “you’re gonna say just because i like two characters together i’m a racist?” and of course not. that would be ludicrous. i think just because you knowingly engage and participate in a fandom that has racism encoded in its dna, you’re a racist. i think because y’all are in bed with racist harassers, racist trolls, and racist content creators, you’re a racist. that’s what the fuck i think. y’all lost the right to “it’s just a ship” me the instant you dragged john boyega into this.

here’s an example: i watched tfa about three days after it came out. i watched the first half, saw the obvious relationship set up between finn and rey, and thought, “aw, cute.” then i watched kylo and rey fight, watch him offer to teach her, and thought, “... interesting.”

when i got home i checked tumblr for finnrey content, saw the outpouring of love from black fans, all the cute fanart and fics blooming, and smiled. then, slowly, guiltily, i searched “reylo.”

BOOM. racism. the things i saw in the tag that night are tattooed on my brain. reylos rejoicing about the obvious rey/kyle pairing because “sw would never put her with that monkey finn”. calling him an “oaf”, “useless”, “bumbling”, “stupid”. reylos joking about how “when they talked about the Dark side, [they] didn’t think they meant that kind of dark.” “woke” reylos pretending to ship stormpilot in an obvious ploy to get finn away from kylo. and in between all of that, cute ship art. fun fics. talented gif makers. and nobody saying shit about the reprehensible behavior going on in their tag.

reylo is built on a foundation of racism. from that first week, racism has been woven into the fabric of your fandom, and it’s been going unchecked. and i don’t mean calling out other reylos. that’s not enough. i mean taking actual steps. y’all have been sitting in a cesspool of racism for five years, and its time for you to get the fuck out or shut the fuck up about being an “ally”. y’all need to leave this fandom.

don’t agree? here’s another story. in 2017, when i still watched supergirl (before i grew taste) i shipped karamel. for those of you who don’t know, karamel is the ship of kara zor-el (supergirl) and mon-el, her second love interest. when supergirl was moved to the cw for its second season, the decision was made to abruptly end her romance with jimmy olsen, played by mecahd brooks (a black man) and replace him with mon-el, played by chris wood, a white man, who was revealed to be, among other things, an alien slaveowner, as well as a playboy and all-around terrible person. and i shipped them. look, i’m not defending myself, but i never really bought the chemistry between jimmy and kara. even though mon-el’s introduction and the way that they carelessly disregarded kara’s feelings for jimmy made me uncomfortable, i thought the way melissa played her attraction to chris wood was more believable (and again, i’m not defending myself, but they are now married so it’s not like i was wrong). so i shipped them. simple as that, right?

well, no. not really. because the inherent racism in the way the writers wrote out her admittedly sweet romance with a black man in favor of a white slaveowner jerk kept bothering me. and finally i decided that it made me too uncomfortable to participate in. i never really reblogged any karamel fandom stuff, but i completely divorced myself from the fandom. i stopped reading karamel fic, and i switched to reblogging exclusively jimmy/kara content until the fandom died out/i stopped watching. i made a choice that real life racism is more important to me than a fucking fandom or a ship, and then i acted accordingly. simple as that.

and i’m not saying you have to stop liking the reylo dynamic. i still like the chemistry between kara and mon-el. i’ve shipped problematic ships before (bamon comes to mind) and i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (to a point). but there’s a difference between liking a ship dynamic and engaging and contributing to a fan culture of racism. you have to stop participating in the fandom. y’all are in bed with people indistinguishable from confederate-flag-waving-all-lives-matter-touting racists and you don’t feel the need to get out of that environment? there comes a certain point where you have to decide if fandom bullshit is more important to you than fighting racism, and unfortunately, reylos have chosen wrong. that, ladies and gentlemen, is why all reylos are racist, regardless of what they say. roll credits.

except i have more to say, so i’m gonna say it. first of all, i’m not trying to hold myself up as some kind of paragon of virtue. i’m not holier-than-thou because all my ships are “woke” or whatever. chemistry is subjective, and we’re all going to be attracted to different ship dynamics, and there’s nothing wrong with that in theory. what matters is the execution. i finally had to say one day, “you know, this ship and the racist baggage it carries is actually less important to me than battling systemic racism on every level, including the fandom level”. y’all thought being antiracist was gonna be easy? that you wouldn’t have to make some actual changes, to make some actual sacrifices? sorry not sorry to disappoint. and if i, a normal-ass person with flaws and problematic thinking that i’m still dealing with and the whole ine yards, can make that decision, then other people should be required to as well.

(what really irks me is that the karamel fandom wasn’t even really that bad! i definitely could have gotten away with being a karamel stan in 2017. thankfully the supercat and supercorp shippers were doing the lord’s work and bullying them into submission (don’t think i’m letting y’all off the hook either, y’all have got some racism to deal with as well but that’s an essay for another day) but like most of the racism happened at the writing level; the fandom itself wasn’t engaging in racist clownery on the regular. but like the reylos are. y’all see racist bullshit coming from your neighbor, fav fic writer, artist, gif maker, whatever, and don’t say shit? don’t feel the need to distance yourself from them? gtfoh.)

i made this argument earlier when i was on my rampage (which i’m still on btw so don’t clown in my inbox, you will get your shit rocked) but i’m going to make it again because i feel like its important to note. when i pointed out that existing in the reylo fandom while you are aware of its racism makes you complicit in that racism, a white reylo told me earlier that (paraphrasing, my memory’s not as good as it used to be and i did mention that they’d blocked me) “you don’t solve a problem like systemic racism by ignoring it. leaving the fandom would be allowing it to happen.” when i pointed out that that’s police officer rhetoric almost verbatim, she (a white reylo) admonished me (a black woman) not to compare police brutality to a “ship war.” lmao.

look, clearly y’all need a refresher on what “systemic” means. it means, quite simply, that there are systems, large and small, allow for racism to exist, and it also means that allowing for racism to exist on the small scale means expecting it on a large one. like you think police officers spring fully formed from the head with racist ideals already ingrained? no! they learn it and learn to justify it with “well just because my friend made a racist joke doesn’t make me a racist” and “just because i laughed at my friend’s using a racist term in my video game doesn’t make me a racist” and “just because my friend is a racist doesn’t mean i’m a racist” and then we have people watching their coworkers kneel on a man’s back for 8 minutes with no remorse. i’m not gonna solve police brutality by fighting reylos on tumblr, but fandom racism is real racism with consequences on our world, and i don’t tolerate ANY type of racism. and the fact that you are so willing to not just tolerate it but justify it should say something to you.

and not all reylos are like this. similar to cops, good reylos don’t last. i have seen people grow so disgusted by the racism in the reylo fandom that they publicly turned their backs on it, and those reylos i respect. you’ve heard of “the only good cop is an ex-cop” well get ready for “the only good reylo is an ex-reylo”.

(and also like far be it from me to justify a cop but one could at least say they have their livelihoods to think about (not like they couldn’t just pick a nonmurderous profession but i digress) but you reylos can’t even choose between taking a stance against the hateful and unjustified bullying of a man who had the audacity to… get a job (?)... over a ship? come on now.)

the point of all this is, for all their posturing about “being antiracist” and “fuck 12” and “support john boyega”, reylos have decided that a relationship between two fictional people is more important than all the black and brown people who are hurt by that decision and the consequences of that decision. and before y’all pull some “b-but there are POC reylos!” (stop fucking using poc as an adjective, its a noun, it stands for person of color, please use it as such) internalized racism is a thing. busting out your token “reylo of color” (see how easy that was?) is not going to change my mind. all reylos are complicit in the racism of their peers, and being complicit makes you culpable. full stop.

and that is why the public support of john boyega from the reylo fandom has me seeing red. renounce your fandom or keep that man’s name out of your mouth. anyway, this was long and ranty and entirely stream-of-consciousness and i’m refusing to edit it so it’s probably completely incomprehensible to anyone besides me but if you made it this far thanks for reading ig. all reylos are racist, blm, fuck 12, acab, stan john boyega, don’t clown in my inbox unless you’re coming to bully me for being a karamel shipper, which i deserve (or do, i couldn’t give less of a fuck). good night.

#john boyega #anti reylo #raetalks

110 notes · View notes

2ndblogg · 3 years

Note

Hey! Just read your hot take on novel!wangxian and I absolutely agree. I'm gonna have to say here that I believe it boils down to the fetishization of homosexual men in a lot of the fandom culture that surrounds mlm shipping, as you said it's a space for a lot of women to experiment with their desires and whatnot, but I think therein lies the breaking points between reading novel!wangxian as a good, healthy relationship vs. reading it as a very flawed and toxic one. As an LGBT person, reading the way the author dealt with their relationship made me extremely uncomfortable, it just really feels like something that is written by someone who is more invested in using her queer characters for satisfying her and her reader's own pleasure than a well-built, strong relationship between two characters. Not to take away from the novel in some other aspects, I believe that novel!wwx is a much better, much more nuanced character than what he is in cql, but when it comes to wangxian, I think the intentions are very different for each of them. To each their own, I guess, but I do find it very troubling that some people in the fandom have a really hard time admitting that novel wangxian is not even remotely healthy.

Absolutely.

And can I just say how glad it makes me to see that not everyone is praising this book for it’s lgbt representation...

But I guess that’s also why I just occasionally feel the need to scream my frustrations into the void or try to make sense of the novel.

And why I try to be understanding and accepting of people’s opinion of the novel and not take it ‘personally’ (in the sense of sitting there thinking “holy shit this is how they view ME, this is what they think of ME” etc).

I was in fandoms back when they were really a place dominated by straight (homophobic) women and realism or lgbt representation wasn’t on anyone’s mind (and the occasional dude butting in to say that’s not how sex works or bottoming is experienced was ignored or told to get out). I experienced this change to fandoms being more of a lgbt space, of people becoming aware that media can shape your views of groups of people, of people becoming aware of their fetishizing of fictional gays vs. their prejudice against real life lgbt people etc.

And tbh MXTX just writes like one of those, she writes wangxian like everyone wrote their gay relationships around 2005 and earlier; clear power imbalance, clear roles and attributes that are divided into ‘manly’ and ‘feminine’, certain physical attributes (like the female self insert character aka the bottom being pretty and slight and weaker and shorter), men/the penetrating partner can’t really be raped so anything the woman/bottom tries isn’t really ‘bad’, the male love interest is forceful and self centered but ONLY because he’s so in love and since he’s emotionally stunted he has to express that through sex, men/tops NEED sex and it’s rude/mean to deny them that, the girl/bottom isn’t THAT horny or in charge of their own sexuality but wants to please their partner and what they really get out of it is the emotional aspect, decisions need to be made for them because the dude/top just knows better, the girl/bottom is childish and flirty and the guy/top suffers through it until he finally snaps and shows the girl/bottom who'sboss etc etc. (honestly homophobia and misogyny is so tightly knit in this kind of fiction, if it wasn’t so frustrating it would be very interesting).

Tbh I disagree with novel!wwx being more nuanced (despite a lot of ppl whose opinions I really respect also feeling this way), because I simply cannot seperate him from the wangxian relationship. All I see are tropes and stereotypes applied to make him ‘work’ in the context of the wangxian relationship instead of an actual personality...

To me, in CQL WWX is clearly the main character and you love his interactions with LWJ and want more of them and value them, wheras in the novel most of the time WWX plays second fiddle even when a scene should technically be about him and LWJ’s presence is incredibly suffocating, because he’s always being controlling or at the very least influencing WWX.

I also don’t feel like WWX has much of a character arc/growth. We’re essentially told he had one but the only thing that really actually changes is him hating himself a bit more and letting LWJ smash..., and I guess: he’s less independent than ever, he’s more isolated that ever...

I’ve called novel!wangxian a relationship between an abuser and his victim, because you can find evidence of that in the text. Not because I think the author wanted to portray an unhealthy gay relationship. Like you said, she was fetishizing and wrote for a similar crowd. But to me that ‘realization’ helped...I still don’t see how people can call it a masterpiece but I can at least understand hyping something you like up...

And like, badly written gay relationship or not; gay/straight,man/women, I see how people can find it hot. Exploring your sexuality through fictional characters isn’t necessarily a strictly straight girl phenomena. I probably have read fic that was exactly like this, I can’t judge anyone for it. But no one prints out the last PWP they read and goes, “this is ideal lgbt representation and nothing will ever be this good, the fact that it includes rape makes it so realistic” like????

(Is that part or an effect of the woke and purety culture? you can’t say ‘i like this book but it has flaws’ or ‘i’ve enjoyed this but it’s not up the feminism or lgbt acceptance that i preach/live’ so you have to pretend it’s flawless?)

And like, I do think novel!wangxian is a nightmare when it comes to lgbt representation and I do believe this is largely due to a cishet woman writing about gay men and fetishizing them (the fact that a lot of peoples arguments why novel!wangxian ‘is better’ boils down to ‘there’s kissing and sex’ is also pretty telling). And I am frightend and worried by some peoples response to it.

But is it really fair to see it as just that? It’s a problem sure, but that same thing happens in straight media (which I am admittedly not well versed in). Stephanie Meyer didn’t set out to write Edward Cullen to be a creep and non of the teenage girls that went crazy over him viewed it as such...Reylo fans (aside from some of them proclaiming Finn to be the real villain and saying it’s racist and misogynistic to not find Kylo Ren hot) found a way to view him threatening her as romantic and sexy, Loki fans that didn’t ship him with Thor usually fell into the camp of “he would be a perfect boyfriend” or “what if this OFC was his slave and he raped her everyday <3″... like ignoring/glorifying/romanticizing behaviours or exploring what kinks you might have through the safety of fictional characters and fictional settings isn’t JUST happening when it comes to ‘the gays’...

And not just specifically in fandom spaces either, a lot of ‘romantic’ movies include inappropriate touching, the boy/guy knowing better than the girl what she wants etc. And I absolutely do believe that that’s something that normalized these things for a lot of young girls and guys (I don’t want to get into this too much, I’ve really seen a change in the past few years, but before that it was pretty common for young boys to believe they need to keep pursuing and pressuring a girl that has said no, girls truly thought boys could die of blue balls, girls thought it was their duty as good girlfriends to let their boyfriends fuck them even when they weren’t in the mood, that they couldn’t talk about what they want in bed or what they don’t find enjoyable because ‘sex is for boys and girls get a relationship in exchange’ etc.).

And in much the same way movies have only relatively recently begun being called out for that, it’s also still pretty recently that they’re being called out for having their one queer coded character be a pedophile and a murder or whatever...Like, society as a whole becoming aware of these issues.

But do authors that publish their work with a specific target audience in mind have a responsibility to think about the effect it might have on them? (And I can already hear loud screams of ‘no way, it’s not your fault if your audience isn’t smart enough to understand that this bad thing is bad’, but I actually do believe in a way they do. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t write whatever you want, just maybe take a look at HOW you bring your point across. (We do KNOW people are influenced by what propaganda they’re consistantly fed. I mean, you wouldn’t write a pro-drugs childrens book...) )

What if the author isn’t aware of their bias and prejudices? Or their target audience isn’t their actual audience?

And do we, society and media, judge female and male authors differently when it comes to romance and sex in fiction? (The answer is yes btw) But also, where do we draw the line at calling something ‘badly written’ and calling it toxic? Can it be both? As I’ve said before, a lot of people claim that only the physical intimacy scenes of novel!wangxian are bad, because they’re badly written and OOC, some say the book as amazingly written and only the wangxian relationship is bad because the author doesn’t know how to write gay men. In my ‘hot take’ I essentially said that’s not necessarily bad writing so much as it’s simply an (okay, unintentional) toxic relationship. And would this relationship still come across as toxic (or badly written, whichever you want) if we didn’t know the author to be a cishet woman? Or if a gay man had written it? (my personal, eloquent answer for this is: yes, but differently.)

Which was really all just a rambly way to get to my point of: it’s not just fetishizing of gay men, it’s also the homophobia and self-inserting in a safe situation.

You can literally replace WWX in the novel with a female character and it wouldn’t change a thing. The author takes such an effort into building up this power imbalance in every aspect of their life that if WWX were a heroine nothing would change in this (sexist/ancient society) setting.

(And clearly this is something that appeals to people if you look at the amount of female!WWX fics...)

Not even the sex scenes. There are maybe two allusions in all of them combined that WWX might also have a dick but like, you can’t be sure and it sure as hell doesn’t need stimulation.

(and again, that could be written as a kink...but it’s just not.)

CQL is a gay love story. MDZS at it’s core is none of that.

But I also very much agree with your ‘to each their own’, like here I am criticizing and trying to find explanations and whatever, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter why someone might like (or write) a book like this, I vastly prefer CQL!wangxian but people have their own reasons for not doing so.

The ‘problem’ really only lies in, as you said, people not being able to accept that it’s not a healthy relationship. Or claiming it to be perfect lgbt rep.

And because my brain can’t shut up today:

I also can’t stop thinking that the way some people ‘glorify’ the book as due to their age and ‘inexperience’.

When I was a pretty young kid and got into fanfiction, there was nothing but completely OOC!whump to be found in the first two fandoms I was in. And I loved it. It was YEARS later that I thought I might like to read something with the characters being...in character. What I’m trying to say, in different stages and phases of your life you might enjoy different things, for different reasons...and obviously, in that moment, you won’t think about ‘what appeals to me here/should this appeal to me/etc’.

I don’t mean inexperience as ‘sexual inexperience’ here, though of course that could be part of it, but also like, inexperience with this genre (is this the first book like this you read, or did you just read 50 in a row that all had the same unhealthy vibes?), with lgbt people and issues (do you know any lgbt people or is your only image of them either the cute boy you can’t have and don’t want to see with another girl or grown men in full kink gear in front of children during CSD? and also: do you think ‘i like this’ and that’s the end of it or do you notice how many people idolize this objectively unhealthy relationship and won’t allow critique on it...)

I...just wanted to say thanks really.

I just can’t stop rambling apparently and I know I mostly just repeated what you said or what I already said but in longer... I just really do feel very strongly about novel!wangxian and the perception of them and have actually at times felt very personally...worried/affected, by people’s acceptance and love of them and I just... have to try and make sense of it...

#i'll be honest rambling like this is very therapeutic and I'm glad some of you read the last one and send asks and agreed #and it's why i'll (try to) put this in the tags too...i like discussions but seeing ppl NOT going 'it's true love/perfect rep' love that #mdzs #mdzs meta #mxtx critical #i guess

24 notes · View notes

kirareykenobi22 · 4 years

Text

Reylo Coffee Shop AU

"You know," she heard her best friend Rose say. "As a barista, I feel like I should tell you that you look like you could use more coffee. But as your best friend, I feel obligated to tell you that maybe you just need some sleep."

Rey groaned as she straightened up from leaning against her open textbook at her table. "It's not like I can sleep in my dorm room. My roommate is the worst." Giving up on studying, she packed up all her supplies as she started into a rant. "She got this new boyfriend, and he basically lives in our dorm now. I barely want to study with a stranger in the room, I definitely don't want to sleep with him around. And do you know what my roommate said when I talked to her about it? She had the nerve to tell me that I'm just jealous." She slammed her textbook and looked to Rose for encouragement. "Can you believe that?"

She was met with pursed lips from Rose. "So I'm not saying what she's doing is fine, cause it isn't, but are you sure that none of this hostility is coming from just a little bit of jealousy?"

"I am not jealous."

Rose raised her hands in defense. "All I'm saying is that you also seemed a bit touchy like this when Finn and I started dating."

Rey rolled her eyes harder than she ever had. "You guys met here. At a coffee shop. Do you know how cliche that is? Who actually meets their soulmate in a coffee shop?"

"Technically we met in freshmen biology. I just didn't work up the nerve to ask him out until he started coming here everyday for coffee."

"I have not had enough caffeine for this conversation," Rey said massaging her temples.

"I'm not making you anymore coffee," Rose warned, getting to her feet. "One sec, I've got another customer."

Rey's eyes followed Rose back to the counter, and she sat up a little straighter when she saw the waiting customer. A well-dressed man stood at the counter and gave a small smile as Rose took his order. Maybe it was just a result of all the relationship talk, but Rey couldn't help but notice that he was insanely attractive. He had dark wavy hair and dark eyes that swam with hidden depths of mystery. And he was tall. Rey was rather tall herself for a female, but this man would've towered over her still. Even though a counter separated them, she could see that the top of Rose's head didn't even reach his shoulders.

Rey immediately felt self-conscious of her hair, which was pulling up in the world's messiest bun, and of her shirt which may or may not have had more than one coffee stain on it. Her gaze didn't stray from the man, but he never looked her way. He simply waited for his coffee, and he left as soon as Rose handed it to him.

Rose returned to Rey's table a minute later taking off her apron as she sat. "And that is officially the end of my shift."

"Who was that guy?" Rey asked with a one track mind.

"Why?"

"Just curious," Rey shrugged.

Rose chuckled. "I don't really know except that his name is Ben. He's been coming in every day for about two weeks now to get coffee. And you've been sitting at this table studying for about two weeks now. But I guess you just now noticed him?"

"Ben, huh?" she asked, her mind drifting. "And you said he comes in here everyday?"

"Yeah... What are you planning?"

"Absolutely nothing."

*****

"Are you wearing mascara?" Rose asked incredulously the next day.

"Maybe," Rey said coyly as she dropped her backpack on the ground at her table.

"Who are you trying to impress? Is it about that guy you were asking me about yesterday?"

"Can't a girl just feel like looking nice just for herself?" Rey asked as she pulled out her laptop.

"Well of course a girl can. But you never do."

Rey may or may not have put a little bit of extra effort into her appearance when getting dressed this morning. She put on a subtle layer of makeup, although obviously not subtle enough, wore a nice black blouse, her best jeans, tall boots, and even wore her hair half down. But it's not like she was trying to impress anyone. Nobody but Rose paid attention to her anyway.

"I just felt like changing things up today. Don't overthink it."

Rose narrowed her eyes as she returned back to work. One peppermint mocha latte later, Ben walked in the door. Rey stared over the top of her laptop as she pretended to be writing her research paper. Once again though, he got his coffee and left without even looking in her direction.

She frowned slightly as he walked out. It was fine. She wasn't upset. It's not like she'd been expecting anything. Only people like Rose got cutesy love stories in coffee shops, and Rey's life certainly wasn't a fairy tale.

When Rose's shift ended and she came to sit, Rey didn't hesitate before speaking. "So his name is Ben Solo."

"What? No middle name. I'm disappointed." Rose laughed.

Rey glared. "His full name is Benjamin Lucas Solo. Now may I finish?"

"There's more?" Rose sighed as Rey's glare intensified. "Of course you may finish."

"He's a senior in his final semester here. He's graduating a semester early in case you were wondering. He's a political science major with a minor in literature. His mom is Leia Organa and his dad is Han Solo! And that means his uncle is Luke Skywalker!"

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Should I know who any of those people are?"

Rey groaned. "Leia Organa is only one of the most influential senators of this generation. and Both Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are famous war heroes. Han with the Air Force and Luke with the Army. Come on, Rose. And I thought I lived under a rock having grown up in an orphanage."

"Okay, okay," Rose said. "So he's related to pretty important people. How did you even find any of this out?"

Rey waved a hand. "The internet knows everything."

"But how did you..." Rose trailed off and shook her head. "Never mind. I don't wanna know. So what are you gonna do with all this information?"

Rey sighed. "Nothing. There's nothing do with it."

"You know, you could just try talking to him. He seems nice enough."

"He probably doesn't want to talk to me. He's related to so many important people, and I'm just some random nobody."

"Well, you never know until you try."

Days passed and Rey continued to dress nice to stare as Ben came to get coffee only to leave without speaking to her. One day she was almost certain that he looked at her, but that's about all she had to show for her efforts.

On the last day of finals, the last day she could see him before he graduated and left forever, Rey had an idea. As soon as she got to Starbucks, she walked up to the counter where Rose worked.

"Grande peppermint mocha latte?" she asked with a knowing smile.

"No," Rey said firmly. "Well, yes. But also no."

Rose scrunched up her eyebrows. "I'm confused. Do you want one or not?"

"I do. But I was also wondering, do you know what Ben's order is?"

"Of course." Rose smiled. "He orders a black coffee everyday."

"What?" Rey scrunched her nose. "Why? Why come to Starbucks and just order a black coffee? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy a Keurig?"

"Maybe," Rose shrugged. "But he said this gives him an excuse to see someone everyday." She sent Rey a pointed look.

She blanched. "You don't think he means me, do you?"

"Look around. Who else is in here everyday?"

"Then why hasn't he ever spoken to me?"

Rose let out an exasperated sigh. "Why haven't you ever talked to him? You both are assuming the other doesn't want to know you."

"Okay, okay." Rey took a deep breath. "I'm going to buy his coffee today. When he comes in to order just point him in my direction."

"I can do that."

Fifteen minutes later, Ben walked in and Rey felt her stomach flip. What if she made a huge mistake? As he walked up to the counter and talked with Rose, Rey honestly felt like running for the door. She watched Rose hand him his coffee and point in her direction, and she braced herself for the inevitable.

He walked over to her table with a small smile. He gestured to the empty seat across from her. "May I?"

"Of course," Rey forced herself to smile instead of showing the anxiety she felt.

"So you're the one who bought my coffee today." His voice was a low rumble that somehow seemed to make him even more attractive.

"Oh yeah," Rey tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I see you in here everyday, and I've been meaning to introduce myself but I never got the chance, so I figured this was just as good a way as any."

"Do you know who my parents are?" he asked.

"I do, but that's not why I wanted meet you."

"Really?" He seemed genuinely shocked. "That's usually the only reason people talk to me. They see me as their gateway to fame."

"Well I promise that's not me," she said. "I just think you look like a really nice guy is all." And you're super cute so if you wanted to marry me that'd be cool too, she added in her head.

"You're Rey, right?" he asked.

Her jaw hung open for a moment. He knew who she was already. He knew her name. "That would be me."

He smiled. "I've read some of your research papers the university published. If you could actually manage to create the technology you proposed that could change the world."

Now her jaw was definitely hanging open. "No way! You actually read those papers? The department made a big deal out of publishing them but I didn't think anyone would even look at them."

He laughed. "Well I read them. And I'll admit, it made me a little curious about the girl who wrote them so I may have done a little research on you."

"And learned that I come to this Starbucks to study literally every single day?"

"I may have noticed that."

Rey laughed now. "So do you have big plans for after graduation?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I want to go into politics like my mom obviously, but my dad's still bugging me to become a pilot. And my uncle has always wanted me to join the army. Did you know that my uncle made me do an army military camp with him one summer in high school?" He laughed. "Worst summer of my life."

"Really? Was it really that bad?"

"Oh it was the worst. I told him I was going to burn the place down to save other children from having to go through what I did."

Rey burst into laughter. "I'm assuming you didn't actually burn it down."

"No, but I came close."

"Okay, but seriously, you've gotta have some kind of a plan for what you're about to do with your life."

"I do," he relented. "But my goals are more long term. The short term goal is to get to know you outside of this coffee shop."

Rey gave a small laugh. "You're just messing with me now."

He shook his head. "I'm not. Here." He passed a napkin over to her with his messy scrawl on it. "It's my phone number. I'm hoping you'll get good use out of it. Being the son of national heroes means you're actually pretty lonely most of the time."

Rey smiled broadly as she took the napkin. "Well you're not alone anymore."

Ben smiled back. "And neither are you."

#reylo #coffee shop au #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #tros #rise of skywalker #reylo au #oneshot #bendemption

82 notes · View notes

mattymurdox · 4 years

Note

STAR WARS

AHHH Laura this is gonna be so hard T-TLike... Star Wars is just so broad man... so, I almost want to make this way too long and just do this for each trilogy is that insane? Yeah, ok I’m doing it, why not. (We’re also pretending like Star Wars wasn’t utterly ruined so... yeah, let’s go then.)

Prequel Trilogy:

Favorite character: Obi Wan Kenobi

Second favorite character: Padme Amidala

Least favorite character: Jar Jar Abrams... I mean Binks sorry, force of habit at this point.

The character I’m most like: C3PO I guess, I’m lanky and awkward and I worry a lot so it works.

Favorite pairing: Anidala

Rating out of 10: 7 overall an all right trilogy

Original Trilogy:

Favorite character: Han Solo, my idiot disastor man.

Second favorite character: Leia Organa, utter bamf of a woman.

Least favorite character: don’t really have one

The character I’m most like: Maybe Luke...idk maybe still 3PO lol

Favorite pairing: Han/Leia forever (they never split up and they raised Ben happily ever after the end)

Least favorite pairing: I mean, I guess Luke/Leia if it even needs to be said... yikes.

Favorite moment: I love you, I know (I’m a sap what can I say)

Rating out of 10: as a stand alone without knowing the ST exists a solid 9 man, not perfect but pretty damn close.

Sequel Trilogy (or... TFA, TLJ, and like three scenes of TROS)

Favorite character: BEN SOLO BEN SOLO BEN SOLO

Second favorite character: Rey, just Rey

Least favorite character: Palpatine because him in this trilogy is utter bullshit lazy story writing imo.

The character I’m most like: Rose Tico, I love my sister dearly, I’m a hopeless romantic and I believe in saving what we love over fighting what we hate.

Favorite pairing: REYLO, you can fight me

Least favorite pairing: Ironically Han and Leia in the sequel trilogy make me want to throw myself into the sea, thanks jj for ruining my favorite thing about star wars you hack.

Favorite moment: The mother trucking kiss, Ben Solo running ass over teakettle to Rey in his little black sweater, and the throne room scene are seared into my brain as the main redeeming qualities of this trilogy.

Rating out of 10: Welp... TFA, TLJ, and like three scenes of TROS get a solid 9... the remainder of TROS gets a 0 out of 10 burn it with fire forget it exists.

#star wars #reylo #ben solo #han solo #leia organa solo #leia organa #aTROSity #reply #ask game

27 notes · View notes

thegrabowskis · 4 years

Text

STAR WARS SPOILERS AHEAD

Things I liked:

The Rey/Finn/Poe friendship dynamic was really cute, even though it wasn’t set up in the previous movies. (Rey/Finn and Finn/Poe were, but I don’t even think they were all in the same room in TLJ until the very end.) I loved their three-way hug at the end, it was so nice.

Hux being a spy purely to spite kylo ren

Kylo’s redemption. It felt pretty well-earned, since they’ve been building up to it since TFA, even though it was in the middle of such a mess of a movie and was kind of sloppily done. (and tbh i think it was the right decision to kill kylo because redemption or not you can’t have a mass murderer walking around with a happy ending post-trilogy)

The dialogue between Kylo and Han being an echo of TFA.

The lightsaber fights between Kylo and Rey felt like they had real weight to them. They were choreographed but not in the way the prequel fights were; there was emotion and fire in these fights, and every time the sabers hit, you really felt the impact both physically and emotionally.

Leia calling to her son in the Force right before he killed Rey, making him drop his saber.

The scenes where Kylo and Rey communicate through the Force bond between them. My favourite scene in the whole movie was the one where it kept switching perspectives; he was on a dark planet at night and she was in his quarters. That was one thing they took from TLJ and made better.

If I can divorce myself from the cynical nature of it, hearing the voices of all the Jedi (especially Hayden Christensen as Anakin) and all the Jedi “living” in Rey giving her strength was a really lovely idea.

Loved Ben’s tiny little humorous, human moments when he was coming to save Rey. His “ow” we he hit the wall and his little shrug when he was about to fight the knights of ren were both great.

The visual and sound of the ghosts (?) of all the previous Sith yelling in unison

The visual of Kylo and Rey facing off against Palps with their two lightsabers raised in identical ways

really a lot of the visuals were neat; JJ knows how to make a good looking movie, even if it doesn’t make narrative sense.

Rey reaching her lightsaber back to kill the emperor, realizing that kylo was on his way, and bringing her empty hand back to show that she had passed it through their force bond to him.

acting was real good.

Things I hated:

The ticking clock element that went nowhere and got completely abandoned halfway through

The force can do literally anything now, even bring the dead back to life, which nullifies the whole reason anakin turned to the dark side in the first place

Finn being force sensitive with no setup of that from the previous movies

Several times they set up some plot device and basically turned right to the camera to explain it to the audience (the Sith Finder, are you fucking serious)

Force ghost luke caught the lightsaber Rey threw, which means force ghosts can interact with the physical world, which nullifies any remaining impact of their actual death

Palpatine being the puppet master the whole time without any explanation as to how he survived rotj. and his snoke clones.... what the fuck was that

Rey being palpatines granddaughter. Like WHY.

Kylo being like “I never lied to you about your parents” when he absolutely did, he said they were no one, just filthy junk traders who sold Rey for drinking money. This movie retconned a lot of shit from tlj but this/the whole granddaughter plot pissed me off the most.

Poe and Finn each get non-character Female Love Interests in the most blatant Case of the Not-Gays I have seen since I don’t know the fuck when

Leia has a goddamn lightsaber now. They show a CG’ed younger mark and Carrie training at some point soon after return of the Jedi (?) even though it was never mentioned before this film that leia trained to be an actual Jedi; she was just force sensitive.

How palpatine switches so fast from “Rey you have to kill me to continue the sith line” to “oh actually nvm I’ll just kill you and keep living because your and ben’s force bond connection rejuvenated me and somehow made my skin clearer and my fingers grow back”

You could never catch your breath because they had to shove three movies worth of plot into one film, so it was just action scene after action scene after action scene with no time to process the action scene that just happened

There was one very jarring shot of cgi Carrie Fisher that looked REALLY bad, like almost looked like they didn’t finish it on time

The backgrounding of Rose. They literally pretended she never fell in love with Finn. The two of them just acted like regular colleagues.

Why was lando there

Like narratively I get why poe’s whole plan at the end was “uhh idk hope for a miracle” (Disney loves stories of Hope), but I DONT get why he told everyone else that was his plan. That would not actually give me hope at all if I was flying to try and take out a fleet of planet killing star destroyers with my x-wing the relative size of a flea.

It moved so fast you barely got to take in any of the neat planet designs

The knife which they conveniently found which conveniently had the Sith Finder’s location written on it and fit the shape of the wreckage where the sith finder was, Goonies style. That was so stupid I couldn’t believe it

Never explained what it was that Finn wanted to tell Rey; it was implied he wanted to tell her that both he and leia knew she was palpatines granddaughter, but no explanation is given for how they would have known that

The very obvious having of the cake and eating it too re: Reylo. They made reylos happy by giving them the kiss but then tried to make antis happy too by killing kylo so it could never happen again. (although if luke’s force ghost can interact with the physical world, then i see no reason why kylo’s couldn’t)

the prognosis

while there were elements and scenes i liked, there were way too many times during this movie where i lifted my hands in a “what the fuck?” gesture. it kept my interest the whole way through, but (mostly) not in a good excited way; instead it was in a “this is so stupid I can’t believe I’m seeing it with my own two eyes, if they fucked up this bad how ELSE are they gonna fuck up?” way. it was so clearly scrambling and desperate to close up the trilogy and retcon anything they didn’t like about TLJ that removing my cynicism is next to impossible. it felt like they took the life of the original trilogy, killed it, buried it, and danced gleefully on its grave.

#mallory.txt #star wars #star wars spoilers #im so fuckin ready for this hitb

21 notes · View notes

ichabodcranemills · 4 years

Text

I wasn't going to talk about Star Wars on tumblr anymore, but it's gonna bother me if I don't.

If you think Reylo was endgame y’all tripping balls.

And excuse me, Leia didn’t die to "save" uwu baby Ben. She died to save the rebellion. This was literally what Han said. “You have to fight for what she fought for.” Ben wasn't redeemed bc he was precious and needed to be saved by these women. It was for the same reason Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum: he would be needed at the end for the Deus ex Machina (or eucatastrophe) Rey-saving-the-world moment (which by the way was also Finn’s doing, so don’t minimize my boy’s part)

In the end, Leia got everything she fought for, and isn’t that fair? The Resistance was victorious, her son fought for the right thing (and that have always been the whole point of a Bendemption: Leia deserved it), her favorite adopted son Poe Dameron followed her steps as General, her mentee Finn followed her steps as a force sensitive non-Jedi who’s the smartest person in the Resistance, her adopted daughter Rey literally took the family last name after seeing Luke and Leia’s force ghosts.

Now, the kiss. Yuck, horrible to see, I know. So just close your eyes like I did mine! I mean it. It’s like it isn’t even there, bc that kiss meant nothing. It was forgotten less two minutes after it happen when Rey went to have her epic hug with her two boyfriends, Finn and Poe. It was just another kiss to join the Star Wars tradition of (sort of incestual) kisses the narrative pretends it didn’t happen. It managed to be less relevant to the plot than Luke and Leia’s. RIP to Reylos that all you got was crumbs, my OT3 was actually endgame.

#tros spoilers #anti reylo #this is an anti reylo positive review so tread carefully #and like I obviously think this movie had issues #it's just not as bad as folks are saying #Finnrey

12 notes · View notes

kenobios · 4 years

Text

rotj: my thoughts

positives and negatives. spoilers ahead

so, i wasn’t gonna write one of these but i felt i needed to get some stuff off my chest so i can move on. i was just gonna pretend this movie didn’t happen but i think i can come to eventually accept that it did now that i’ve had time to digest everything.

POSITIVES:

- honestly... from my first viewing there isn’t a lot i like. but i’m sure this will improve the more i watch the film and actually have the chance to form an opinion on more things within such a hectic onslaught of information. - i laughed. c3po and that little fixer dude were genuinely funny (to me). dio (sp?) was super cute too. tbh i never cared much for droids (my obi-wan is coming thru here) but i actually enjoyed them so that’s a win for me - very pretty film. visually spectacular. - fast-paced. not boring for a second (to me). kept me entertained. - rey’s yellow lightsaber. i actually liked this even tho it doesn’t match up with current canon (yellow being for temple guards). it reminded me of bastila and i was just waiting for her to show it off as a double-sided saber... which i didn’t get but it still looked like it was built for it so i’ll take the win. - the idea of palpatine being powerful again but it would have been cool to see a younger version of himself - rey and ben teaming up and the intimate moment they shared which felt genuinely beautiful and was one of the highlights for me

now here’s the ISSUES i have off the top of my head, some of them having been mentioned on this blog before:

- the trio. everyone else has already said it. forced and uncomfortable. it felt like they were setting up a love triangle for the first half of the movie as well, which was weird. when they had poe and rey have those ‘moments’ or when they bickered with each other i was like ‘they better not be tryna spring up some hanleia dynamic on us for the last film between these two’ especially while also baiting finnrey (which is never touched upon again after the first half of the movie, yikes)

- towards the end of the film, i turned to the person next to me and said “this reminds me of a video game plot” - i couldn’t pinpoint exactly why that was, but it was just a feeling. and not a deep, thorough video game plot either. another reviewer said something similar. it’s just... very shallow, expository and it feels like it’s dragging you and the characters through very railroaded and forced missions/battles. i mean at the start they’re really just looking for something, going to someone, that person says they need to talk to someone else for the thing, they go to another person, etc. which is a type of mission device used in games as well. it also felt to me like one of those japanese otome games where rey is the bland female character that all the male characters fall for (poe, finn, kylo) and she gets her pick of which one she wants to romance, which was cringe.

- i didn’t hear the characters. i only heard what they were forcing the characters to say in order to progress the plot or explain the plot. the characters themselves became faceless inserts for exposition. so many times i heard a character say something and thought... that was a jarring piece of dialogue that seems both out of character and unnatural to say at that point in time.

- although i said being fast-paced could be a positive, it was largely a negative for me. at one point it felt like slide transitions were happening at minute intervals. a major plot point would be revealed and then no time is given to process, it’s onto the next major scene. this left everything feeling very rushed and messy, which i believe is due to half the film being cut for time constraints.

- each character is either twisted into an unrecognisable character, or ignored/not given the time they deserve. rey? blank slate female protag with a famous bloodline and who barely reacts to the things going on around her (leia dying, ben dying, she disregards her ‘friends’ on multiple occasions). like others, i always defended rey’s abilities, but this film is too much. she has been made a mary sue. finn? rendered nothing but the ‘friend’ pining after a girl and only briefly gets time with his own story which is never fully explored in this film by any means. poe? turned into a grumpy, seemingly jealous ‘friend’ with a shady past that felt like they were trying to make him the ‘han solo’ of the trio rather than going with what we already know about his character. leia? now this is hard, and i respect what they tried to do, but i still felt like her death could have been done a bit better rather than the quick ‘shock’ moment it was. also the stuff with luke training her is a no for me. way too shoe-horned and part of what made leia cool to me was that she was a skywalker but didn’t need to be a jedi. her powers were elsewhere. kylo? don’t get me started. rose? who? she may as well not have been in this movie with the way they ignored her character and showed how little the other characters care about her. it broke my heart.

- rey palpatine? though i’m a rey kenobi fan, i was happy with rey nobody. i liked what it stood for. i didn’t mind the idea of rey palpatine in theory, but the way they force-fed this to us in the film rather than building it up left a bad taste in my mouth and i’m going to have to pass on it. if they wanted to have her related to palpatine, they should have just made her a clone imo. it would have matched with what was being built up prior (in tlj with the clones in the cave), it would have explained her ties to the dark side, it would have completed the palpatine/skywalker poetry, and it would have still been congruent with her being a ‘nobody’ since that’s essentially what clones are seen as in star wars. also we wouldn’t have to think about the fact palpatine got laid. laboratories were already set up in jakku by palpatine. cloning itself was shown in rots anyway (snoke) so?

- although i’ve wanted ben to be redeemed... it still felt too rushed in this film. also, he does display some toxic tendencies as kylo ren towards rey (trying to manipulate her to go with him) which didn’t sit well with me but i didn’t really see ben/kylo ren in his scenes sometimes anyway, since he was also forcibly used to give exposition to us/rey. i did like his scene with his mother and father in the film but i just needed more than that to really feel his redemption rather than the quick switch we got.

- i originally wasn’t okay with the whole ‘bringing someone back to life through the force’ thing since i always liked the idea palpatine was just saying that to honeypot anakin, but decided i’m willing to accept it as a unique ability they had for each other due to their force bond. but then... ben dies anyway. and it’s done in such a way that leaves you feeling ‘wtf just happened?’. it was random, forced, didn’t feel necessary and it just... happened. no one reacted to it. he wasn’t referred to or mentioned after this. the last skywalker goes out just like that. poof. okay. so was this a shock death or was jj genuinely trying to appease people who didn’t think ben deserved redemption or to live? either way ben lived such a sad, cruel, manipulated life that his death seemed unfair and we’re all supposed to think this movie is hopeful and celebrate a few minutes later? i don’t think so. in fact, everything that happens after that scene feels incredibly uncomfortable because of the massive tonal shift.

- the kiss. ok don’t hate me. i enjoy reylo. but i honestly think the kiss wasn’t exactly... needed? maybe it was just because everything else felt so forced but it felt a little forced in this scene for me. for me, the hug ben gave rey just beforehand spoke more volumes of their intimacy. i did mention their intimate moments above as a positive, so i still like this overall moment (in addition to the moment rey heals him). but the hug spoke enough to me that it would have been nice to keep it more subtle yet obvious enough (thanks to their acting) that they cared deeply for one another. but then again, this is what i felt before i knew ben died, so. idk. i guess it would suck for ben to die without having kissed rey? how about just don’t kill ben off. have them hug instead of kiss and then leave us to fill in the gaps as they both live. how about that.

- the rey skywalker thing is embarrassing. and rey ended up alone in the desert... just how she started. i just can’t. by the time this came on the screen i was ready to leave. i only stayed because i HOPED there would be an after credits showing her on the falcon, or her training finn to be a jedi, or her speaking with any of the force ghosts (luke or ben or anakin).

- speaking of which. why were there no force ghosts in the scene where she fights palpatine? we just get voices? that scene really lacked impact and the whole fight sequence just felt blah. palpatine came back super strong and then he was gone in moments. there should have a) been force ghosts or some kind of visual presence of the jedi to help rey whether physically or just boosting morale and b) ben should have fought palpatine with her.

- why is rey alone in the desert? i honestly didn’t think this meant she was going to be a hermit until i came online and saw that’s what everyone else thought. but just... why? why is she not passing on the jedi ways she fought to keep alive? or the knowledge she has gained/kept in the sacred jedi texts she stole? surely not. surely that is her plan. surely ben saved her not just because he loved her but also because she can carry on the skywalker legacy NOT by dying alone in a desert but by training new jedi. (which, again, SHOULD HAVE BEEN FINN AS THE FIRST NEW JEDI!) or better yet, a new type of jedi that don’t follow toxic ways but that incorporate both the light and dark side of the force like she does? and calling THEM skywalkers? but nope. instead she ended up back where she started. except with less personality this time.

- i can’t talk enough about how cool it would have been to have jedi!finn at the end. talk about coming full circle from the promo baits they had for TFA of finn with the lightsaber. AT LEAST GIVE US THIS.

- the whole movie just felt like a massive disrespect to the previous film. everything rian built was trampled on, retconned or ignored. say what you want about tlj and rian, but this is what happens when you ignore or try to retcon the preceding film whether you like it or not. everything feels messy and the plots get screwed up. this movie would have been largely different (better) had they not tried so hard to pretend tlj didn’t exist. even if you didn’t like it, take the plot and mould it into something you do like. don’t just toss it aside and lose all sense of continuity between the films. i don’t blame jj for this exactly, but rather the disney committee that were too afraid to acknowledge tlj’s existence due to the reception it got from fans and thus felt the need to have jj ‘fix/retcon’ things rather than build upon/improve things.

- oh yeah hux. that happened, i guess. i thought it was weird and it kinda sucked that they did that. who cares about the new guy? general pride or whatever? no one. surely making general hux more menacing couldn’t have been THAT hard. but no. we get a rather silly death instead. alright. at least he can forever be known as the petty king of star wars.

- there’s probably more. i could write an essay but i’m getting tired of complaining already so i’m leaving it here. if you happened to read this far and want to talk about it with me some more, my DMs are open!

overall, i just hope some canon content is going to be released, either in the form of a book or a comic, that explores more of this following the movie. i want to know more about finn’s story. i want to see whether rey does stay on tatooine or whether she trains jedi. i want to see whether she communicates with ben through the force, or just, y’know, any closure on that would be nice. i want to see the director’s cut with the other half of the movie. then, perhaps, i will know peace.

#tros spoilers #star wars #ight it's off my chest #i feel better now #even though i feel there is still more i could talk about #that's it for me

6 notes · View notes

rebelrebelwrites · 5 years

Text

Desti—ny: Supernaturally-Sized Reylo Crack

SUMMARY: In which Rey and Ben, massive Supernatural fans, accidentally summon an angel, a demon, and two hunters to their watch party for the final season.

NOTES

For Rowan, aka @midnightbluefox, have this incredibly crazy crack set in the Pacific Northwest, where hunters and demons and angels and Den Headmistresses freely roam, sort of. Happy birthday! @thereylowritingden

(P.S. This is easily the silliest thing I’ve ever written as an adult. Ever.)

“How’re we doing on snacks?”

“Popcorn is popped, pizza and plates are artfully arranged in the kitchen buffet-style, and your candy receptacle is primed for a true chocolate binge.”

Rey glared at her boyfriend.

“It’s a candy jar, Ben.”

“Sure, if a grown woman could squeeze into a jar.”

“That was one time, and I’d eaten that special gummy bear without knowing— ”

“It’s a tub, Rey. A candy tub.”

Rey rolled her eyes and resumed digging through their hamper. The clothes were clean, but they hadn’t gotten around to folding them yet, so her Destiel shirt would be a bit wrinkled.

“I can’t believe we had to do laundry just so you could— ”

Rey whipped around, shirt in hand. It wasn’t as wrinkled as she thought it’d be; success.

“Excuse me? What’s that you’re wearing?”

Ben looked down. He’d crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against their bedroom doorframe; now, he let them dangle at his sides.

“You bought this,” he harrumphed, nodding to his Eat More Pie t-shirt.

She grinned.

“That’s right I did! Now come on, we’ve only got like ten minutes ‘til the premiere starts, and everyone else will be— ”

The shrill, almost metallic sound of their apartment intercom interrupted her.

“They’re here!”

She blew past him, dancing over to their front door. She’d barely turned the knob before it burst open; Finn, Rose, and Poe pouring inside with the energy of three sugar-stuffed children.

“9 minutes and 14 seconds until the new season starts!” crowed Finn.

“Are you actually counting down?” Ben asked from behind Rey. He’d followed her into their living room, hands stuffed into his jean pockets and pie shirt still on. Much as he pretended he wasn’t as invested as the rest of them, the truth was, he was just as big of a fan of Supernatural as Rey and the others, and Rey knew Dean was his favorite character.

“Of course he is,” Rose chirped, sidestepping her boyfriends so she could hand Rey a massive apple pie. Rey weighed it in her hands; the whole thing was almost as wide as she was.

“Holy— ”

“Yup!” Rose proclaimed proudly, “It’s caramel apple chocolate peanut butter pie with a candied crumble on top. Thank Pinterest.”

“Dean would be proud,” Rey said, grinning. “Ben, will you go put this in the kitchen with the pizza? I’m gonna go grab our, uh, spooky pre-show surprise while everyone settles in.”

Ben nodded, taking the pie from her with one hand. Rose’s eyebrows lifted a little at that, but she held back her giggle till he’d lumbered away.

“Shut it,” said Rey, blushing. Rose giggled again but pranced over to their couch, snuggling in between Finn and Poe.

Rey took the opportunity to slip back to her and Ben’s bedroom to grab it. When she emerged holding the old book above her head, she received mixed reactions: from their spots on the couch, Finn looked intrigued, Rose wary, and Poe confused. Ben just smirked from where he was perched on their threadbare armchair.

“What the hell is that?”

“Rey found this ratty old joke of a b— ”

“It’s a spellbook!” Rey interrupted him. She raised it higher overhead, beaming.

Everyone else burst out laughing.

“It looks like a community theater prop,” Poe sniggered.

“It… really does,” said Finn, wincing. “Sorry, Peanut, but I think you got duped.”

“Hey now, hey now,” Rose interjected, stifling her laughter, “we don’t know that!” She looked up at her best friend. “Where’d you get it?”

Despite her friends’ teasing, Rey’s smile hadn’t slipped even an inch.

“Rowan,” she shot Poe and Finn a look to quell any more laughter, “You know, my Destiel Discord friend.”

“You’re not actually taking any of this seriously, are you?” Poe asked.

“No, of course not,” Rey said hotly, bending to flip the book open on their coffee table, “it’s just for fun. I figured we’d read a couple of silly passages as a joke before we start the new season, that’s all. She sent it to me as a funny gift.”

She glanced up at Ben, who looked surprisingly pensive.

“What?”

He shook his head but said nothing.

“Well, I’m intrigued,” Poe said, pulling the book toward himself. “It’s silly and hilarious and the Winchesters, bless their beautiful hair, would love us for it. I’m in! Shall we?”

“Me too,” agreed Finn, scooting closer (slightly squashing Rose in the process).

“No harm ever came from reading a book,” Rose added, smiling and shrugging. Rey grinned again and sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, leaning her elbows on the glass to try and read the thing upside down.

“Well, this is gibberish,” said Finn, squinting at the page.

“Gobbledygook. Come on, Shakespeare, lend us a hand,” called Poe, trying to wave Ben over.

Ben rolled his eyes.

“Please, Ben?” Rey asked, “Your experience lecturing about Mary Shelley to high school kids makes you the most qualified.”

His lips twitched; a suppressed smile.

“You’re the one who speaks engineer.”

“Together, then?” she needled him.

He sighed and flopped down next to Rey. Rose turned the book toward them both, and they each grabbed a side.

“It looks like that weird alien font in Microsoft Word,” Rey said, pressing a finger to the first passage.

“It does,” Ben agreed. “Maybe just… try sounding it out?” He bit the inside of his cheek, then started to try and shape words out of all of the odd vowels. “Zod ee reh doh noh koh ah...”

“...beh rah ma geh nah zod peh sah geh…?” Rey continued, reciting the incantation — or whatever you’d call it — like a question. She couldn’t seem to keep her giggles from infecting the gobbledygook.

Rose laughed next to her, and the boys made a show of looking around the room dramatically as if a demon might pop out at any second. Even Ben chuckled.

“Wait, we should check each other’s eyes,” Rose suggested, still giggling, “you know, make sure everyone has the white in their eyeballs.” At that, she actually snorted a little.

Then, the room shook.

The laughter died.

“Sounds like some kind of construction,” started Poe.

“We didn’t see any when we came in,” countered Finn.

“What do you think that was?” Rose asked Rey, frowning. Rey opened her mouth to reply, but the room rocked again; so hard this time she toppled over into Ben’s lap. His arms immediately circled her.

The shaking didn’t relent; in fact, it just got louder and louder, buzzing in their ears and their eyes, so Rey clamped hers shut, trying to drown it all out, and then—

Silence.

“Where the hell are we?” growled a deep voice.

Rey opened her eyes. In front of her, Rose, Finn, and Poe were all wide-eyed with shock. She whipped her head around to see what they were looking at, Ben still clutching her tight. When she saw who it was, her jaw practically fell to the floor.

The cast of Supernatural was in her living room.

Not the whole cast, but Jensen, Jared, Misha, and Mark. Rey’s insides went squiggly as she took each of them in. How did they…?

She ran the risk of some serious drool with her mouth hanging open this much.

By the looks of it, they were halfway through some sort of scene — Jensen had Mark by his shirt collar, anyway, with Jared looming over his shoulder and Misha hovering, all dressed in their character’s costumes. In her living room.

Behind her, Rose let out a strangled little sigh.

“How in the…?” Ben trailed off. He still hadn’t let go of her, which was probably a good thing, because her legs felt like jelly.

“Where the hell did you take us, Crowley?” Jared asked.

“Don’t look at me, Moose. This is above my pay grade. Talk to the giraffe,” Mark replied, rolling his eyes.

“Are you guys serious?” Ben asked, tone caught somewhere between disbelief, confusion, and utter awe. Slowly, his hold on her loosened.

“Oh— ”

“— my —”

“— god!”

Rey couldn’t tell who’d shrieked what; it could’ve been Rose, Poe or Finn, but it was Finn who barreled on. At least someone could string words together — something she was having trouble with at the moment.

“They’re in the middle of a scene!” Finn insisted. “In your… living room. After appearing magically. Right after you guys read that thing in that book. And the whole apartment felt like it was going to come down.” He eyed Jared, grinning weakly. “We’re big fans.”

Jensen groaned.

“Fans? Damn it, don’t tell me we’re in that alternate universe again!” He rounded on Finn, letting go of Mark. “You know us?”

The room fell deathly silent.

“Holy shit,” Rey finally said, realization sweeping over her in a wave. “Guys. It’s them. It’s Dean. And Sam. And Cas. And Crowley. We actually summoned the real thing!”

“Rey, don’t be silly,” Ben said, “They’re actors. You know Sam and Dean aren’t actually real.”

“You know about hunters?” asked Sam.

“Of course we do!” said Rose, springing to her feet. Even feet away, she looked hilarious compared to his giant frame.

“We’re in that alternate dimension again,” Dean groaned, “Did you do this, Cas? If it wasn’t Boris over there, then this has some serious angel stink all over it.”

“It was not me, you know that, Dean,” Cas said solemnly, eyes shining. Dean practically flinched before turning back to them, and Rey couldn’t help squealing a little.

“Oh my god, oh my god, Destiel is so canon!” she shouted. “You two love each other, don’t you?”

“What?!” asked Dean. The slight absence of the typical gravel in his voice was enough for Rey — that, and how Cas’s face fell.

“It’s complicated,” said Cas, body stiff as a straightjacket in his trench. “Anyway, we can deal with that later; I think I know how they summoned us here.”

“Frankly, I’d like to hear more about whatever Destiel is,” quipped Crowley.

“This is insane,” muttered Poe. Like his boyfriend and girlfriend, his eyes kept trailing Sam, who didn’t seem to know what to do with all of the attention apart from averting his eyes.

“Enough!” said Dean. “Go ahead, Cas.”

“These two,” the angel started, stalking toward Rey and Ben, “Seemed to have accidentally summoned me — through multiple dimensions — with a very ancient, very powerful summoning spell.” He bent down, and before Ben could reach for her, Castiel had snatched the book from where it still lay on the coffee table behind them.

“Not sure how it’s possible that you two somehow deciphered Enochian, but here we are,” he finished.

Rey looked at Ben, and then they both shrugged.

“We’re big fans, too?” Ben offered.

“And good at linguistics,” Rey added.

“Right,” Sam said, “Cas, can you get us out of here?”

“Now that I’ve got this back, yes,” he said, tucking the book under his arm. Rey opened her mouth to protest, but the look he gave her made her reconsider. And think that maybe she’d been wrong about who wore the pants in his obvious relationship with Dean.

“I think I’m chuffed here, thanks,” said Crowley, but Sam clapped a massive hand on his shoulder, forcing him to join him in grabbing onto Cas’s trench coat.

“Sayonara, alternate dimension uh… fans,” said Dean. He grabbed Cas’s wrist, noticed Rey watching him like a hawk, then flinched and glanced at Ben. “I like your shirt.”

And with that, there was a flash blinding, white-blue light, and they were gone. Just like that.

“Rowan is never going to believe this,” Rey murmured, slumping to the floor.

“I’m not sure I do, and I was here for the whole thing,” said Ben, joining her.

“Hey,” said Finn, glancing at his watch, “The premiere started over ten minutes ago. Did anyone remember to DVR it?”

“Oh my god, you’re right,” squeaked Rose, falling back in between Poe and Finn on the couch. Poe made a noncommittal sort of grunt, slinking an arm around her, while Finn did the same on her other side.

“Oops,” said Rey.

Everyone looked at each other before erupting into a fit of giggles.

“Well,” said Ben, reaching for the remote — now that Sam had (presumably) left the building, he had the longest limbs, no doubt — “Least we got a special preview.”

“Worth it,” Rey agreed.

THE END

55 notes · View notes

local-star-wars-kinda-nerd · 4 years

Text

Episode IX review.

In short, my primary reaction was facepalm.

I had a bad feeling about this episode since first teaser has been released. It made me feel... nothing, which was strange. When any teaser or trailer for previous films had been released, I got excited about these movies. Every one of them: from The Force Awakens to Solo. But not this time. And, unfortunately, I was right (at least for myself).

Detailed review is under cut, as well as spoilers are. You've been warned. I also want to warn you that I'm not professional critic, just a fan like a lot of other people.

IMHO, the whole trilogy should've been made by one director. No guarantee this would make these movies a lot better, but at least the story would've been whole. Why am I saying this? Because one of the biggest, if not the main, problems of TROS is it's trying to apologize before fans for mistakes made in episode VIII. Instead of trying to fix them, giving a good and understandable explanation for questions left after TLJ, they just said: "Forget about episode VIII ever existed". No jokes, I could've just watch TROS after TFA without watching TLJ and only questions I'd have are where is Snoke, why Kylo's mask is destroyed, where is Luke. And that's disappointing. I'm not saying episode VIII was perfect, it has done some things wrong, but also some things were good. And they should work on fixing bad and improving good. I realize that J.J.Abrams was given an impossible task: to finish Star Wars saga with the most unstable fan base. TROS was gonna be hated anyway, no matter what director has done with it.

Okay. What I liked about The Rise of Skywalker?

- More Poe and Finn interactions. I know it's not enough, but they made a really cool bromance.

- C-3PO. Just C-3PO.

- Luke training Leia the Jedi ways.

- The idea of redeemed Kylo Ren (or Ben Solo at this point). I only wish his redemption arc has been executed better.

- Hey, they haven't forgotten about Anakin's existence, the true Chosen One.

- Visual effects. As always, magnificent.

- Lightsaber duels also looked good.

- Luke admitting that he made mistakes and that he shouldn't been hiding on Ach-To.

- Hey, they showed that Rey had some kind of training.

- Finn turned out to be Force-sensitive. I thought it would be cool since TFA has been released.

- Music, because I love John Williams' work obviously. Though sometimes some tracks from other episodes in this movie seemed off.

Now, to things I disliked or even hated (forgive me, I'm a simple human being with the right to feel negative emotions towards things. I'm not gonna hate or blame other people for their disagreement with me):

- Too fast. TROS had some good scenes, but I couldn't feel their weight and importance because everything was going too fast.

- Maybe it's just me, but despite movie's best efforts it hasn't managed to convince me that the main trio is a team. Poe and Finn - yes, their friendship was obvious since TFA. Finn and Rey - also believable friendship (for me). But I never got feeling that all of them are good team, best friends. A New Hope managed to make the same thing way better.

- Kylo's mask. In TLJ destroying the mask was important point of his character arc. Snoke just humiliated him for being beaten by a just scavenger and pointed at that Kylo isn't Vader, only a child wearing a mask and pretending to be his famous grandfather. And at this moment Kylo decides to stop trying to be someone else (even someone he idolizes) and finally try to be himself. And then he repairs it in TROS. Why? There is no explanation in movie. My guess is on a huge amount of hate towards Adam Driver and his appearance.

- Remember Rose from TLJ? Well, either your answer is yes or no, forget about her. You barely will be able to notice her role in this movie. Yes, she did questionable thing. Yes, she was hated by half of fans. And that's why you will even forget that she was here.

- Palps is back! Remember how he returned from dead in EU? He's also not dead in our movie! So it vanishes importance of every episode made by Lucas, so what? Ya boy Palps is back! Aren't you glad? Okay, no jokes. When a lot of people hated TFA and TLJ, I thought: "Hey, at least these episodes haven’t made the biggest mistake EU's post-Endor made (and by this said "Anakin's sacrifice and Luke's path don't matter! Balance isn't restored, Sith are still there, the Empire isn't dead yet, have fun!") - they haven't brought Sidious back. Sequels still have a chance to be a not bad trilogy". And then the teaser happened. Honestly, his comeback feels like a YouTube theory on the big screen. That's what you expected from the finale of great Skywalker saga? Total unimportance of Skywalker's sacrifice. Alright, it would be only half of trouble. The real pain is Palpatine's comeback makes no sense. How he survived? Why waited so long? What he even wanted? What was his plan?

- If there is a thing I liked the most about The Last Jedi, it's Rey's parents being just scavengers, who sold their daughter for drinks. Again, since I watched TFA in theater, I was hoping the creators won't make Rey Skywalker, Kenobi, Palpatine, Bridger, or anyone else at this point. But no. She is Palpatine's granddaughter. And somehow this explains her abilities. I have no idea how. And it also feels like writers were looking for YouTube theories about Rey's bloodline and just picked the most popular one.

- Rey is Mary Sue. More than ever. I absolutely don't mind her a being powerful Force-user, but please, can anybody explain me how she manages to use tricks without training some Jedi couldn't use even with years of training and practicing? This explanation from TLJ novel sucks, honestly. In TFA she used mind trick. How? Okay, she did only once, maybe that's all. In TLJ she moves a hella lot rocks. How? Alright, not everything is too bad. But in TROS she is using Force lightning, healing, she holds a ship(!). And that's because... what? Palpatine's blood? No. No, and again no. Being daughter of someone powerful doesn't mean you can now do every-freaking-thing with the Force you want. And thing is, she face no consequences of such power. What do you say? She killed Chewbacca? Nope, he's alive, and we didn't even have time to believe in his death, and Rey has no time to realize the cost her uncontrolled power. Does she need help in defeating Palpatine? Well, voices of Jedi helped her to rise, but why it had to be her alone? If you present us Rey and Kylo being a diade (sorry for spelling, wasn’t watching in English), be so nice to use it.

- Redeemed Ben doesn't matter. He isn't remembered, no one's gonna be upset of his death, he won't show in the final scene as a member of Skywalker family (and why Anakin isn't there is big mystery too).

- I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. Reylo. Yet another thing I didn’t want to be brought into movies since TFA. I don’t believe in their love. I can believe that Kylo cares for Rey after she shows some amount of compassion towards him, something he hasn't got in years. I can accept that Rey wants to help Kylo to return to light (honestly no idea why she does, but I can accept it), but not love to death. They just didn’t have enough time or interactions to make their feelings believable, if these feeling are even real. As someone who thinks that Arcann's romance is pretty fast, even it is way more believable (and his redemption arc is better, too).

In the end, question is, was the sequel trilogy needed? Maybe. The story could've been finished better. Was this trilogy needed? I'd say no. Nothing has really changed, we still don't know if Jedi Order is going to be reborn, or the new order will come to replace them, or what is going to be with all Force-sensitive at all. This episode was supposed to be the finale of whole Star Wars saga, but for a finale it leaves way too many questions about future. As finale of Skywalker story, there's not enough Skywalker's influence for victory over Palpatine. Especially Anakin's. He is the Chosen One (or at least was before TROS), and everything he did to finally bring Palpatine down in this movie is... said a few lines. No more than any other Jedi. It destroys all previous episodes for me. It hurts me to admit that for the first time I was shocked by how a Star Wars movie turned out. In bad meaning. Of all new movies The Last Jedi was my least favorite, and still I like it. The Force Awakens had great potential, even with everything Abrams did. Solo was such a satisfying story for me. Rogue One is personal favorite of new movies. But The Rise of Skywalker made me sad and disappointed. And that's considering I love a lot of Star Wars. For me, it wasn't worth it.

#star wars #episode ix #the rise of skywalker #tros #tros spoilers #slight swtor mention heh

2 notes · View notes

queenofcarrots · 5 years

Photo

So if this is gonna happen I’d rather it happen on Tumblr than on AO3, so if you want to talk about it do it here please.

The short answer is that there is definitely a place for dark themes in fanfics. I love dark themes, if you look through my stories on AO3 you’ll see a lot of horror and stuff. But I’m not into rape as a kink, or bestiality or pedophilia, and I’m not into the kind of sex shaming that I see in the kind of “darkfic” that seems to be popular in the reylo fandom these days. So, any fic with tags that say something like oooooo so dark it’s so dark and edgy will definitely get the side-eye from me. I handle it by staying away from them. I don’t read them, and I have a blacklist as long as my arm on Tumblr to guarantee I don’t see it unless I want to.

So I curate my experience. And part of my curation involves malevolent-reverie, whom I have blocked and whose name is in my blacklist. I’d rather pretend she doesn’t exist. So if you associate with her, I do not want anything to do with you at all, at all. I am not ashamed of this stance either. I think it’s interesting that you say I “shamed other authors and made them feel like shit,” there was one author who I will not name that I did say something to when I found out they were writing rapefic. I’m sorry if it made her feel bad but I really, honestly, don’t want to even pretend to be friends with someone who writes rape for kicks or who points to malevolent-reverie as a guiding light. And that’s absolutely my right - curate your own experience, right? That’s what we’re always told to do. I could have just dropped this person and not said anything, I suppose, and she could have wondered why I blocked her, but we were friendly and I respected her enough to let her know why. Maybe that was a mistake. I’ll remember that next time.

To my own story: I like Crimson Peak, and I’ve wanted to do a Finnreylo version of it for a long time (I posted a prompt last year... October maybe? November?). I knew that I wanted to make it dark in some ways but really positive in others, in ways that push against the kind of stuff I see in so-called darkfic that I don’t like (especially those things that I think of as not respecting the characters - like racist treatments of Finn and the other POC characters, and the characters treating each other poorly). So I thought, is there a way to write a really dark story, that respects the characters and has them treat each other well, that is sex-positive and loving, but also (hopefully) makes you feel really unsettled when you read it? So I’ve centered the story around Finn, and given him a really strong back-story, and I’ve included the incestuous, maybe-murderous brother and sister, and I don’t want to spoil it but anyone who’s ever read any of my other finnreylo stories will have some idea of what is coming.

So to answer your question, “what”: I thought about writing this before I “shamed” other authors, but I didn’t actually start writing it until after. And I didn’t “make” anyone feel like shit; they did that to themselves. Who gives a fuck what I think anyway?

[Also I have a trigger finger for the block so if you are an edgy darkfic author and you feel the need to respond to this be aware I’ll probably just block you because frankly I am too old for this shit.]

#fandom wank

50 notes · View notes

vaderey · 5 years

Note

Soooo Mark’s tweet about Adam scares the shit out of me. There’s no reason he had to go that route unless the unthinkable is happening in IX.

(in case you, like me, had not seen it yet.)

I honestly don’t know what to make of this, but tbh I’m not really putting much weight on it. Who knows if this has anything to do with SW. But he also could be referring to how Kylo is a villain and this time Adam is only pretending to be evil? IDK man.

But as I said I don’t really think there’s much here to put weight into. This is vague enough that it can be interpreted in a multitude of ways and getting into a tizzy because the reylos latched onto the idea that Kylo is not a villain and will grasp at any straw that echos even the slightest hint of that is just a waste of our time. At the end of the day we’ll see when we see, and most everything before is just mindless speculation. I’d rather fill that time speculating about the things I’m excited about, so I’m not gonna worry too much about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#ask #Anonymous

12 notes · View notes

simonjadis · 5 years

Note

I've always felt divided on shaming others for shipping "problematic ships." Don't get me wrong. I get the icky implications of Reylo but at the same time, well, I don't want to be that "No Fun Allowed" guy to teens and young adults who are just chilling. Sure, plenty of those shippers can be problematic (see how Finn is villainized unlike Kylo) but they don't speak for everyone.

That is super fair!

To be honest, I don’t really see Reylo as falling under the major “problematic” umbrellas. Imo, most Reylo shippers are thirsting after one or both parties, which is fine. My Star Wars OTP is Sheev/Vader. I don’t ship Reylo but it’s not a NOTP for me by any means. (I find Kylo and Snek disappointing as characters and as the only Dark Side representation in the series, but Kylo has nice hair and nicer tatas)

I remember seeing arguments after TFA came out where people equated Kylo’s (attempted!) mind-reading to sexual assault or to abuse. While it’s very fair to not want to ship someone with their abuser, I think that an enemy from the opposing faction is a very different concept, and that fantasy violence between enemies should not be misconstrued (remember the hubub about Mystique vs Apocalypse in 2016? That kind of sentiment is what made female superheroes relegated to having long-range energy powers and then passing out for decades. Let’s not go back to that).

I absolutely agree that it’s horrifying to see Finn, who has literally done nothing wrong, be villainized. It’s always a mistake to pretend that a rival ship is awful so that you can feel more secure about your own, but it’s extra bad when it’s the series’ first leading black character. That said, from my perception, I don’t think that those condemning Finn represent the majority of Reylos.

More generally, I think that what someone ships, in their imagination, only rarely reflects who they are as a person or their real-life values. It’s pretend.

While we’re right to judge books, films, shows, and games on things like representation, those pieces of media are not the same as fanfic, let alone smutfic. Fanworks are distinct in multiple ways.

Gonna get into this: cw for a reference to incest

For example, when Supernatural first launched, I watched the pilot live in 2005 (I am 1000 years old) and immediately shipped the only two actual characters, who both happened to be hot guys: Sam and Dean.

(Note: I don’t actually ship them anymore, but tbh I haven’t watched the show since Season 8 and even before that, I had grown to despise them both – one of the perils of writing a very long-running show with lots of personal drama is that characters do things that cannot be forgiven by some viewers. But that’s irrelevant.)

Only later would I learn that they were largely inspired and even named after Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, two bisexual main characters from On The Road who were lovers, and who were based upon real men who were also lovers. (Which goes into part of why Supernatural is fucked up – notably, Castiel was also inspired by Constantine; another case of a straight character based upon a bi character, and that’s without getting into the issues with race, gender, and worldbuilding)

At that point, fandom culture (in my experience at the time) only treated incest as a squick – something that some people personally disliked, as one might be turned off by mpreg or watersports, etc.

Why wasn’t it a squick for me? Who knows tbh. I have zero brothers and I’m gay, so I never had to develop a feeling of aversion like that.That’s my best guess. I didn’t exactly fetishize those ships, but if there were only two hot dudes in a story, I didn’t think anything of it.

(Note: I think that incest ships may be specifically appealing to some fans because the bond between the characters is already secure? A similar appeal to the “found family” trope but the opposite thing. That’s just a theory)

However, upon coming to Tumblr, once I got over my culture shock of seeing people treat imaginary pairings as not squicks but moral indictments, I did come to understand where a lot of people are coming from with this!

For some people, it’s not just a personal squick, it’s an extra-strong aversion because they’re leery of incest being fetishized (for example, most real-life twins do not find twincest jokes funny!). More often, it’s people who were abused in real-world incest and cannot fathom why it would be someone’s kink or even factor into someone’s ship.

The solution to any sort of ship that’s going to remind someone of the worst moments of their lives is to do what I did in bold, above: use a content warning. If your fic contains sex abuse or incest or whatever, please tag your work. The same is true with fanart. If you want to share your other media with friends or the fandom at large but worry that your kinks may be off-putting, literally just make a second art/writing account or a separate blog to share those.

Don’t deliberately take people bag to the worst moments of their lives.

HOWEVER

We’ve seen a lot of people write about how they don’t want to see fandom treated like Catholicism (or, alternatively, as Protestantism; the word that they’re looking for is orthodoxy).

People have every right to ship whatever vile things they like. That goes for things that personally horrify or squick me. All that they need to do is be respectful in public spaces and to upload their work/commentary in the appropriate places with the appropriate tags, warnings, and readmores.

I think that people who don’t feel especially powerful or in control in life are the ones who get the biggest kick out of things like gatekeeping, exclusionist rhetoric, and being fandom police. Others are simply well-intentioned but became carried away. Not all antis are bad people, but it’s not a healthy thing about which to frame your personality and your online brand.

Your personal dislike of something doesn’t make you a morally superior person. As someone who hates mushrooms, I know that it’s tempting to believe otherwise, but it’s true.

And wielding social justice language as a cudgel, especially one that just happens to validate your opinions on a piece of fiction, is disingenuous and harmful in so many ways.

Ships (or kinks, etc) don’t equate to someone’s real-life values.

(Side note: anyone else notice that people who wouldn’t bat an eye at someone writing Age-Appropriate Wolf fanfic, when the characters are highschoolers but played by adults, are quick to condemn people who ship cartoon teens together, even though those teens are literally ink on paper and are absolutely voiced by and drawn like adults? I’m not sure what that’s all about, but it needs to stop. It’s literally just pretend!)

(Other side note: I understand that a lot of people are uncomfortable with shipping real people, even though said shipping has been a part of culture for millennia. My thoughts on that is: literally just act like an adult about it! Don’t tweet them fic or fanart, and don’t show it to them at conventions or whatever. The same thing goes for actors who play fictional characters. Talk show hosts should also maybe stop showing fanart for shock value but that’s a whole other conversation)

If you’ve gotten carried away with fandom-policing or something else, hey, that’s part of being a person. I’ve done it too! What matters is to be a better person. Making mistakes and becoming a better person are part of what it means to exist.

#anon ask #fandom #shipping #I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THIS #my post #anon #ask

7 notes · View notes

eleanor-writes-stuff · 5 years

Text

a language that i never knew existed before - Day 18

Here’s a modern AU for AO3′s valeriacatulli, who requested “something involving Reylo being musicians or arty filmmakers”.

This one took some time to figure out, but I hope you enjoy this little snippet of Patreon-funded documentary filmmaker Rey and Human Disaster™ rock star Kylo Ren. Thanks for the prompt, and happy holidays! 🎄🎁❄️

If anyone else would like a little Reylo ficlet for the holidays, here’s your chance! I’ll be filling requests until Boxing Day, so be sure to drop by and select a prompt!

25 Days of Reylo Also available on AO3

It really is a beautiful night for an engagement party.

The Cantina’s warm, welcoming glow reaches across the street, beams of golden light coming to a stop right before Rey’s feet where she leans against the window of a closed health food specialist. The night is surprisingly cool for once; not cold enough to necessitate a jacket, but nice enough that her hair isn’t plastered to the back of her neck. The streets are quiet save for Cantina and the club down the street, since everything else in the area closes by eight at the latest on a weeknight.

Rey leans against the window with a sigh, tips her head back to look up at the moon. It really is a beautiful night, perfect for Finn and Poe and the thirty family and friends they’ve chosen to share their happiness with tonight.

From the window Rey spies Poe’s father standing up and carefully clinking a spoon against his glass. Time for speeches, apparently, and Rey knows she should get back in there, knows that it’ll be too obvious if the maid of honor stays away from the party any longer, but–

“Was Cinderella not invited to the party?” a voice asks from somewhere behind her, somewhere in the darkened alley between the health store and the club.

With her heart racing and her body poised for flight, it takes Rey a moment to place a voice she would recognize anywhere in the world. She peels herself away from the window, carefully ventures closer and squints into the darkness until a low chuckle reaches her ears, accompanied by an achingly familiar figure stepping into the dim light of the sidewalk.

“Hello, Rey,” Kylo Ren slurs, half his body weight supported by the brick exterior of Silencer, the club he must’ve just emerged from. “What’re you doing out here, creeping on those innocent people?”

She is not creeping, but Rey finds she can’t quite be bothered to deny his allegation when there’s a much more pressing matter to attend to. “Are you…” she steps closer, takes in Kylo’s glazed eyes and slumped posture with slow-building incredulity until– “Are you drunk?”

He shrugs, the motion clumsy and almost comical on his alcohol-loosened limbs. “So what if… if I am? You’re not my mom, you can’t tell me what to do.”

Rey doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or turn her back on him and leave him to fend for himself. “So what if you–” she echoes with a faint note of hysteria in her voice. “Oh my god, Kylo, what the fuck is wrong with you? I’ve heard the rumors, but I never thought–” never thought I wouldn’t recognize the man you’ve become.

The Kylo she knew – the Ben she knew – would never have gotten drunk. He’d seen what it had done to his grandfather, seen what it had done to his father, and vowed to never, ever lose control of himself to such an extent that he could not be held accountable for his behavior, that he had an excuse to be an asshole.

That was the man she fell in love with. This childish, clumsy, lumbering oaf of an idiot? This one she doesn’t know at all, hasn’t even spoken to since the day she walked out on him and their life together.

“Aww, you kept… kept tabs on me,” Kylo hiccups, clapping a hand over his mouth about ten seconds too late. It’d be funny if it didn’t feel so wrong to see him this way. “I kept… kept up with you too, you know? Saw your new video, the one where you said the city is gonna fall into the sea. Boosh,” he purses his lips, attempts to mimic a crashing wave with his mouth and his hands.

Rey crosses her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t fall into the sea, the sea rises over it,” she explains with a roll of her eyes even as she realizes how pointless it is to have this conversation with a drunk man. And not just any drunk man, but this particular drunk idiot. “Why’d you even watch it, anyway? I thought you said they’re a waste of time – mine, yours, and everyone’s,” she spits, throwing his words back at him four years too late.

Kylo gives her a silly, lopsided grin. “They are,” he says brightly, as if he isn’t insulting her documentaries to her goddamn face. “S’a good way to waste time when I’ve got five minutes before I go on and I miss you and I wanna hear your voice.”

Ice sneaks into Rey’s veins, causing all of her muscles to tense. Is he seriously– now? After all this time? After everything he did? Really?

“I… I don’t have the time for this,” Rey mutters to herself and makes to cross the street. Trust Kylo Ren to show up and present himself as an even more uncomfortable alternative to celebrating her friends’ engagement in the very restaurant where she’d once planned to celebrate her own.

“Rey, wait–” he calls after her, suddenly sounding more alert than before, and she’s not going to turn back, she’s not she’s not she’s not, but then there’s an awful racket and a trash can clatters to the ground and a pained cry rings throughout the street.

“Oh my god, Ben!”

She runs to his side without consciously deciding to do so, drops down to her knees and pulls him into his lap before she can process what it’ll be like to hold him again after all this time.

“What the hell did you do, you drunken idiot?” Rey demands, sweeping hair out of his face to find a bright red gash on his cheek. There are scrapes on his hands too, little cuts on his palms and scratches on both his arms all the way up to his short sleeves, and a quick glance at the overturned trash can finds shards of broken beer bottles everywhere, the biggest one even slightly bloodied by the cut on his cheek.

“Fell,” he manages to force out through gritted teeth as Rey’s hand hovers uselessly above his wound. “No surprise there, right?” the idiot laughs, only to hiss as the movement of his face aggravates the pain. “Always falling for you. Right from the beginning, remember when you walked into Poe’s house and I tripped over my own fucking feet like a complete loser–”

“Oh my god, will you shut the fuck up?” Rey commands him with a voice that’s thicker than she’d like. She swallows the lump in her throat, uses her free hand to reach for her phone. Thank god for dresses with pockets.

Rose picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey, can you come out here for a bit? Discreetly, please, I don’t want the guys to worry.”

“Snap’s in the middle of a speech, I’ll try to sneak out as soon as I can,” Rose whispers back before she hangs up and leaves Rey to deal with a lapful of idiot on her own for the next few minutes.

“Close your eyes, I need to see how bad it is,” she barks harshly, turning on her flashlight without waiting to see if he’ll comply.

“Ah, fuck,” Kylo grumbles when she shines the light in his eyes, rushing to obey her order. She focuses on the cut, but when Rey starts tracing it with her eyes from one end on his jaw to the other right beneath his eye, she finds herself catching sight of the worst dark circles she’s ever seen.

From there it only gets worse: he’s so pale his skin is practically translucent, his lips are chapped and bleeding, and if she were to look up the word gaunt right now she’d probably find a picture of Kylo Ren in the dictionary. And that’s just his face, Rey realizes with a sinking feeling in her stomach as one hand reaches down to wrap around his bicep.

She hadn’t noticed it from afar, not in the darkness and with him in his leather jacket, but he’s so much skinnier than she remembers him being, so much weaker.

“Ben,” she breathes, and her voice is thick with tears again. “Ben, what happened to you?”

Had he really fallen in his haste to follow after her? Or had he just collapsed, a result of whatever this is rather than the alcohol in his system? And he doesn’t even smell heavily enough of alcohol for him to be this far gone; Rey lived with this man for years, knows that it takes a small distillery for him to get anywhere near tipsy. None of this is adding up.

“How long can you spare?” the smartass mumbles, still squeezing his eyes shut. “Because the answer is a lot.”

She’s missed that, Rey realizes with a pang. His awful sense of humor, his deadpan delivery, him.

“Give me an itemized list,” she manages to croak out, tucking her phone back into her pocket.

Kylo opens his eyes, looks up at her and makes no move to shift from her lap. “Haven’t eaten in days, haven’t slept properly in months, started drinking to forget and now I have to keep drinking to keep forgetting, didn’t really think that one through–”

“But why?”

He blinks at her, a slow, confused movement of his eyelids. “Because I’m a rock star. S’what rock stars do.”

This is what rock stars do, Rey. We go on huge tours and we’re always on the road and yes, if a groupie asks me to sign her tits after paying hundreds of dollars for our shit then I’m gonna fucking sign her tits and smile at her while I do it–

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Rey says, choking on a sob as she does. She’s done here. Rose will be out any minute now, and then they’ll call an Uber or something to drive him to the hospital and get him fixed up. He’s a big boy, he’s a rock star, he can handle himself while she goes back to the party and pretends none of this ever happened–

“Yeah, I know,” he whispers, and before she knows it he’s raised one hand to brush away tears she hadn’t even realized she’s crying. “But it’s too late to change that, isn’t it?”

You have the saddest eyes in the world, Rey had once told him, laughingly at the time. Now he pins her in place with those sad eyes and something in her breaks and against all common sense Rey leans down to press her lips to his forehead.

“Not too late, it’s never too late,” she assures him in a fevered whisper. “You’re doing to yourself what I watch people do to the planet every day, Ben, but if there’s still hope for earth then there’s still hope for you.”

Do you really think any of this is going to make a difference? Grow the fuck up, Rey. You’re throwing away your future to save the fucking trees? Everyone wants to work with you, fucking Luke Skywalker is willing to come out of retirement for you, and you’re choosing to go film oily birds and stuck turtles and whatever the fuck on your own dime instead? You’re choosing to leave me for some hopeless crusade that’s never going to amount to anything?

Ben looks up at her with those sad, sad eyes.

“You really think so?”

“I know so,” she tells him as noise spills out of the Cantina from the open door and the click of Rose’s heels grows closer. “You just need to choose, Ben. Choose to walk away from this. Choose to change your life. Please, please, I don’t want to see you like this anymore–”

He reaches for her hand, laces their fingers together. “I can’t do it alone, Rey.”

Rey squeezes his hand, gives him a smile. “You’re not alone.”

She holds his hand the whole way to the hospital, and never leaves his side again.

This is two thousand words long and completely off-topic. Moral of the story, kids: always come up with an outline, even when you think it's just going to be a short ficlet.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! Please don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment; I'm on a mission to write seven more ficlets today and feedback will help fuel my mad man's quest.

#reylo #reyben #kylo ren/rey #rey/kylo ren #rey/ben solo #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #ficlet: language that i never knew #my fics

14 notes · View notes