tfa_kink | DISCUSSION/OFF-TOPIC POST

Eh. I agree that it's not a personal attack on Reylo shippers as much as it is a performative act for the people who shun it. Post a PSA; prove you're better than those other fans; get credit from your like-minded friends -- quick and easy! The actual Reylo shippers whose tag is being shat in just happen to be collateral damage.

Out of genuine curiosity, why do you ship certain ships? (I love reading manifestos and things like that in general)

I think the two ships that are my favorites so far are Poe/Finn and Kylo/Hux. Thing is, I didn't even see both of it in the beginning (which is rare, I usually have slash goggles on tight). I only read comments about them and they made so much sense. I think I don't even have to elaborate on Poe/Finn, they're just really cute and I love how much trust and friendliness there has been from the beginning. With Kylo/Hux I read a headcanon that went like "they totally did it once and now it's all awkward with them and they loathe each other" and I could so picture that haha. I love love/hate relationships and that little exchange where Hux saw Kylo's face or the fact that he tracked and rescued him later on are kinda interesting.

I like a lot of pairings too, mostly canon ones (Anakin + Padmé or Han + Leia, and also Finn+Rey I guess if that turns out to be a thing). Another one I really like in the saga is Qui Gonn / Obi Wan.

Please be mindful to not turn this into some kind of bashfest. x3

I like kylo/literally anyone nice lmao because I identify strongly with characters who do every fucking thing wrong and I like to see them get kissed and forgiven until they cry about it.

I feel pretty much the same way, anon. I ship Finn with Rey/Poe/Kylo (and really, anyone) and I don't have much interest in other ships, although I can see their appeal.

anybody interested in beta reading a fic?

Qui-Gon/Obi Wan was one of my first ever ships in my childhood, and to this day I'm not even really sure why because I don't otherwise have shippy feelings for mentorship/fatherly relationships. I usually love them platonically, but for some reason with Qui-Gon and Obi Wan it is a definite romantic preference. I think one of my fave things about them is their mutual respect and protectiveness. I like that their relationship was long enough for us to see Obi Wan go from a student, to an equal, to someone perhaps even better and more fit than Qui-Gon, and so they have taken turns taking care of each other.

.....As I say this, I'm starting to realize that "mutual respect and protectiveness" might be what I like about Poe/Finn too.

Sounds a lot like fun! Can you tell me anything about the pairing/contents?

I've always gravitated towards pairings that start with friendship. Whether it's slash, femmeslash, or het, if the characters are decent people and have a strong bond of friendship, respect, and loyalty, I'll probably ship it.

This is also probably why I tend to multiship in most of my fandoms. I tend to go for how two characters interact. For Star Wars, I ship Finn/Poe because I adored that there was immediate trust and friendship and that there wasn't an hour long interrogation of Finn and debate over whether or not to trust him. I also ship Finn/Rey because they're adorable and care so much for each other. Basically, the fact that these two relationships have characters who have already proved that they'd risk their lives for each other is what made me ship it.

I feel the same way about the original trio. I will never be over how Leia and Luke and Han had their own agendas and problems, but would do everything in their power to go save one another if they were in trouble.

Basically, I hardcore ship people's friendships. I love strong friendships more than romantic relationships sometimes, and sometimes I love when friendship turns to romantic love. I ship people who would willingly take a bullet for their partner and who would follow them to the ends of the earth out of loyalty.

Love/hate relationships make me a bit uncomfortable because of lot of what people see as verbal sparring or secret affection comes off as borderline verbally abusive to me. I feel the same way about trying to redeem, justify, or erase bad actions of characters by saving them with love and sex or excuses as to why they acted a certain way. I have no issue with people who like these types of tropes or pairings because ship what you want and I'll stay away and mind my own business, but it makes me really, really uncomfortable. I've dealt with it enough in real life that I want to avoid it when I escape into fanfic. I guess I don't understand why someone wants to erase or ignore negative characteristics of a antagonist, or even a protagonist who's a jerk, because half of what usually makes them interesting to me are those negative characteristics.

I mean, I find Kylo Ren fascinating in that he's an adult man with huge entitlement issues and he's slaughtered so many innocent people of his own free will, including his own father, and the fact that he flirts with the good side but ultimately chooses the dark side is what makes him so interesting. (But then, I tend to think that there are some things that people should not be forgiven for, so I"m probably biased in that regard of not wanting to see him redeemed in future movies.)

Basically, I tend to not ship "villains", though that's not to say that some of my ships with the protagonists are good or nice people because I have some ships in other fandoms where the people are well-meaning and have mutual respect with the people I ship them with, but they're either total assholes or messed up emotionally.

I've totally done that. I'm doing it now.

Also, I've ended up being weirdly shamed for something I wrote anonymously- I was in a chat for a different fandom's meme and someone was talking about how weird some kinkfic was. Everyone in the room agreed while I pretended to be afk. No regrets, though- I enjoyed it, at least.

kylo ren/hux. mpreg. (i'm sorry world)

AYRT (Never apologise for your writings, friend!) I am definitely not very experienced in that pairing/characters, so I doubt I'd be a good fit (sorry! >w<) but that sounds very neat! I'm sure that'll generate interest!

if obi-wan and anakin's ghosts are both in episode 8 like they're rumored to be, does that mean I'll be able to request ghost!obikin on this kinkmeme in 2017. because I will.

[spoilers] <- Idk why you would be here if you hadn't seen the movie already but ya never know.

I'm gonna start the serious theorizing thread here. I'm tired of just seeing buzzfeed theories; I seriously want to know where you guys, the character/relationship-focused side of the fandom, think the new series is going. (And I think everybody probably has some thoughts to share.) I have some thoughts myself but first I'll just post the questions that I think are key. Maybe if we work together we can figure it all out...

1. Who are Rey's parents? Why did Anakin's lightsaber choose her?

2. Where did Snoke come from? Why did he choose Ben Solo? What is he training him to be?

3. (Less important) Will Kylo Ren get a redemption, or will he get even worse?

Ok anyway so here's the thoughts I had / theories I've seen. Really long post incoming lol

1. Who is Rey's family?

-My first thought after seeing the movie for the first time was that she's another child of Han and Leia who they presumably think dead and didn't recognize.

For: Han spent a lot of shots in the Falcon staring at her like he was just on the verge of remembering something. Luke doesn't really seem like the marrying type, Jedi master and all, even though he did have kids in Legends. She knows how to pilot the Falcon and speak Wookie, come on. Chewbacca loves her. It would explain Kylo Ren's weird temper tantrum when he hears BB8 met a girl on Jakku.

Against: Leia didn't seem to have any connection with her, and if they're both force sensitive, Leia should've recognized her. Why would Luke not tell the Solos that they still had a surviving child (assuming he knew). Leia didn't really have any relationship with Darth Vader so it would be weird for the focus of the next generation to be on only her kids and him.

-The prevailing theory that most of the movie seems to point to is that she's Luke's.

For: The Skywalker lightsaber chose her. She had (force?) dreams about Luke's island hideout. The flashback sequence heavily implies that she was there when the Knights of Ren destroyed the new jedi order. It would be thematically symmetrical if Luke's kid was the one who stopped the new Vader or was the new main character. She came from a desert planet just like him. She's strong with the force and can use it even with minimal training like him. It would also explain Kylo Ren's weird temper tantrum when he hears BB8 met a girl on Jakku.

Against: Who did Luke have a kid with? And again, Leia should have been able to eventually force-sense that it was her, even moreso if Rey as a kid had met her aunt at some point. Why would Luke abandon his kid somewhere so terrible for so long, especially when she still has a lot of living family and allies who could've hidden her. If she is his daughter then she must have been at the jedi slaughter, and presumably she would've been a major target, so how did she get away/why was she spared/why did Kylo Ren not go looking for her/why would *he* not be able to force-sense that it was her. Maz says the people who left Rey on Jakku "aren't coming back" but that Luke "still could," implying that he was not the one who put her there.

-The last big theory is that she's Obi-wan's granddaughter

For: The destruction of the jedi order meant there was no more jedi code and he *could* have had a relationship if he wanted to. It would be thematically pleasing to have Obi-wan's grandchild stop the next Vader, in opposition to how he created the first one. It would also be pleasing for the overarching saga to have the Kenobi family continue to be involved with the Skywalker family. We also know Ewan Mcgregor's voice was confirmed to be in her lightsaber flashback. They're the only two good guys with British accents. It would explain how the people who left her on Jakku are never coming back - if her family was Luke or Leia, we know they're still alive.

Against: Accents aren't genetic. Who in the world would her parents and grandmother be? Why wouldn't his force ghost have ever visited her on Jaku, if, presumably, it was visiting Luke at his jedi school earlier? And there's not a clear reason Anakin's lightsaber would chose a Kenobi over another Skywalker.

-Maybe she's a nobody. Maybe she's not related to anyone.

For: It would breathe some new blood into "Keeping Up with the Skywalkers." It would explain why Maz implies her family is dead and why the ship that left her on Jakku doesn't match any we've seen before. Maybe she was another force-related immaculate birth or something.

Against: Star Wars is all about the Skywalkers. It would be kind of weird if she was just a stranger. Why would that lightsaber call to her?

-The last theory I've seen is that she's Anakin reincarnated which doesn't make any sense so I'm not gonna address it.

2. Who the hell is Snoke

I'm gonna post a quote from the wiki just to get everybody on the same page about Snoke.

"Snoke witnessed the rise and eventual fall of the Galactic Empire. He had several apprentices before he became invested in the Skywalker bloodline, believing General Leia Organa and Han Solo's son, Ben, the grandson of Darth Vader, had the right balance of the dark and light sides of the Force in him.[3]

Leia was aware of the influence Snoke could have on her son, but did not inform Han, believing he would not understand, and that, as a Force-sensitive, it was her responsibility to keep Ben away from the dark side.[3] Eventually, Snoke turned Ben to the dark side, anointing him Kylo, master of the Knights of Ren, and ordered him to destroy Luke Skywalker's revived Jedi Order."

The big theory about Snoke that everybody's been focusing on is why or why not he must be Darth Plagueis, Palpatine's "dead"/"immortal" master. So check out the above.

-He witnessed the rise of the Empire, that means he was around and training apprentices during the clone wars. This is both good and bad for the Plagueis theory: Plagueis would have been significantly older than the Empire, but if he wasn't killed, then he also would've had to be in serious hiding during Palpatine's rule, so collecting apprentices would be kind of a bad idea.

-What was he taking on apprentices for? The Sith Rule of Two requires there to be only TWO sith at a time, master and apprentice, and that every sith master must have an apprentice. If he's not a sith, why exactly does he have these apprentices? And if he is a sith, then who was his master? Could he have been an apprentice who failed Plagueis? Or someone even older?

-If his goals are evil and dark side-oriented, why would he have needed an apprentice with a balance of light and dark?

-If he isn't a sith, which seems impossible unless he is a sith we previously believed to be dead, then WHAT is he training Kylo Ren to be? How does he know how to train someone in the force? To make a lightsaber? Could he be a jedi gone dark, like Dooku maybe? That still wouldn't explain what he's training Kylo to be.

-Killing a loved one is a specifically Sith rite of passage in the training. Anakin's was Mace Windu. Dooku's was that jedi guy who's identity he used to buy clones. Darth Maul's was actually Palpatine - you don't have to *succeed* in killing them, just honestly try. So, again, why would Snoke be putting Kylo Ren through a sith training ritual if he isn't a sith himself?

Conclusion: I have no goddamn idea who Snoke is.

3. Redemption arc?

Well it's Star Wars so we've never seen a good guy go dark and not be redeemed. But we also have only ever seen one good guy go dark. Redemption fits thematically into the saga as a whole - the light side overpowering the dark side. But the trilogies could also be going in a fluctuating order: someone falls, someone is redeemed, someone falls again. Presumably there will be a fourth trilogy in our lifetimes so I don't think thats too far-fetched.

On the other hand, Vader killed a bunch of kids and Mace Windu indirectly, but never anybody we actually cared about as viewers. Kylo kills Han fucking Solo. From a viewer standpoint, that should probably be unforgivable. From an ooc standpoint, Harrison Ford hates being in Star Wars movies and has always wanted Han to die, so that would probably have happened no matter what.

Leia says she still senses good in him, which is exactly what Padme and Luke said about Vader. But she says that before Han dies. She can feel when Han dies, and he is (in canon, I looked it up!) *not* force sensitive, so what she must have been feeling was something in Kylo. The last of his light side disappearing seems very likely, which would point to no redemption.

FURTHERMORE Leia and Han both say that Snoke doesn't actually want Ben, he's just using him for something. For what? He gives two clues near the end of the movie: bring Kylo to me to finish his training, and bring the girl [Rey] to me. If Kylo is training to become a sith then the end of his training will be killing Snoke himself, so that seems very unlikely. The more likely implication is that the end of his training means the end of his usefulness as an apprentice, and his death. Rey? Much more powerful with the force. Next apprentice target. Maybe Snoke will even try to have her kill her brother/cousin as the ritual. I think a lot of signs point to Kylo Ren dying at Snoke's hand or command, maybe even before the end of the trilogy.

But if he went light at the very end and helped Rey kill Snoke and then died himself, it would be a really perfect replication of RotJ. Maybe too perfect to make it likely.

I wonder whether Felicity Jones' character in Rogue One might end up being Rey's mother. Felicity is British, so it's probable that her character will speak with a British accent. It's possible that she could also be related to Obi-wan.

I honest to god think that already exists somewhere not on this meme

Just to clarify, because I haven't been reading many theories so I don't actually know what most people think--do people think Rey was left on Jakku for her own safety? That was the vibe I thought the movie was definitely trying to get us to think. Like, her parents or guardians or whoever was in charge of her knew that the force was strong with that one, figured she would be important for the future of the universe, and didn't want her to get kidnapped/assassinated/recruited to the dark side, so they stashed her on a backwater planet and told nobody, figuring that would keep her the safest. Like, I was certain that was the reading we were supposed to get from the film. I can't even see it any other way.

Also, is Finn supposed to be force sensitive? Does it matter? (I suppose if he's Mace Windu's relative? But I really don't want this to turn into a "black people are all related" thing.)

Is it possible that the writers haven't actuality thought through who Snoke is yet, and are just waiting to see all the theories and see if any of them jibe with what else they want to happen? Only asking because Snoke was so much nothingness as a character that he might as well have been a blank wall that Hux and Kylo yelled at.

But when the Reylo shippers are being told that they're bad people for liking a particular ship in the space specifically designed for that ship, it's hard not to take that as a personal attack, no matter the original intent. I'm not even much of a Reylo shipper, but I think the hostility and concern trolling they're having to deal with is nasty as hell. It is a form of attack, even if people are doing it to make themselves feel good.

BB-8, our one true droid queen (I still cannot get used to calling her male, even though that's how she's referred to in the EU)

1. Luke obviously knows about Rey, according to the end scene as it was written in the script. My favorite theory is that she was a Jedi padawan that he was training and managed to hide her away when Kylo turned and killed everyone. There's a part in the novelization that says Kylo recognizes her too.

I really prefer for her not to be related to anyone because I think that makes for a stronger story and honestly, it'll be pretty unsurprising and anticlimactic if she is related to someone.

If she has to be, I definitely don't think she's Han and Leia's daughter because 1. why wouldn't their lost/hidden daughter come up in conversation in the movie? Holding that back for the sake of plot in episode 8 or 9 seems ridiculous. 2. The script says that Leia and Rey's hug is their first meeting. That seems evident that she's not their daughter. 3. The only reason I could see for them not knowing her is that someone changed her given name when she was left on Jakku.

2. I really have no theories about this. Whenever he's on screen is usually when I take a bathroom break during the movie.

3. I would say that it's likely based on the original trilogy's tendency to redeem people, but at the same time, the new trilogy is being 30 years after the OT and storytelling tends to favor not redeeming villains right now. I think the main part of the reason why Han died was because Harrison Ford very clearly did not want to be in any more movies and this was his only way of getting out, but also because it was a throwback to ANH and because people are more used to seeing beloved characters die in movies or TV shows now.

I'll be a bit disappointed if they follow the RotJ path and redeem Kylo at the end. I personally don't want to see him redeemed, but I also had a problem with seeing Vader redeemed - I mean, excluding the prequels, in the OT he still killed so many innocent people - AN ENTIRE PLANET - so why does saving his own son redeem him for all those deaths? One good deed does not outweigh all the bad someone has done.

But as much as I love Star Wars, the movies are not the most complex when it comes to good/evil, characterization, or redemption. So, I think it could go either way, but I would prefer for him to actually become super dark and evil rather than redeemed.

If I remember correctly, they have the general story mapped out, so they probably have an idea of who he is, but it might be amenable. I'd find it really surprising if they created the character without knowing his purpose or endgame.

Unfortunately fandom has always had to deal with this for certain pairings, for as far back as I can remember.

Tumblr just makes it worse because it's right there in a tag all the time, so it's not like you can get away from it whereas on forums on journals, bashing and trolling still happened, but there was at least some level of moderation and posts were easily deleted.

It does but nobody ever goes to the prequel/ot kinkmeme

OP here and I agree, sometimes it's hard to put your finger on why you like something or why you like something platonic and something else romantic. I can't think of another mentor/student relationship right now that I ship (maybe Cox and JD from Scrubs but also platonic).

I only know the movie and not the expanded universe and now in hindsight Obi Wan's character is IMO not even that well fleshed out going just by Episode 1 (I mean he is one of my favorites but during rewatches I always think that he does not have that much screentime), but yeah, there is this mutual respect and even though it's a master/student relationship, they are also almost equal in a way and Qui Gonn does acknowledge that Obi Wan will be a great jedi (greater than he himself). I think I also like their contrast, Obi still seems more hot-headed while Qui Gonn is wise and unconventional. I miss their dynamics in the later prequels when it's all about bickering and more a brother relationship between Obi and Ani (and Ani has much less respect for Obi than Obi had for Qui Gonn). XD

DISCUSSION/OFF-TOPIC POST

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Why you ship what you ship

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[spoilers] The Big Questions

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