#imagine if that happened to someone like the darkling. or vader | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mermaidsirennikita · 2 months

Note

I mean yeah it all comes back to her being a reylo, the way people still talk about them shocks me. Idk if i've ever seen shippers from such a mainstream popular ship get treated this way when honestly....reylo isn't even that problematic. I would argue something like darklina is more problematic and those shippers don't get 1/3 of the shit reylos get. Hell I could name you other more problematic ships where the shippers don't get nearly as much hate as reylos.

Well, to be very fair a lot of reylos said a lot of out of pocket, racist (and specifically antiblack) shit about John Boyega and Finn. I don't want to downplay the shit John Boyega went through making those movies.

And in turn, a lot of finnreys said some really fucked up, racist (specifically anti-Asian) shit about Kelly Marie Tran and Rose... and I do think that gets downplayed a LOT. Like, if we're going to talk about racist fandom antics in SW, and there are a lot of them, then let's talk about all of it. Obviously, all of this goes beyond shipping, but the interesting phenomenon that did happen with the reylo stuff is that because they didn't want Rey with Finn, many of them did support Finnrose (and by the way, lol--I'm not into Finnrey because in general I don't like Rey outside of TLJ and I frankly though Finn deserved better on every level, and I wouldn't consider myself a Reylo, but I AM into Finnrose, and to a lesser extent Finnpoe). For some, I do think that was a "get Finn out of Rey's path" thing, for sure--but also, setting Finn up with a cool pretty girl to get him away from Rey is... not the worst thing lol. And I would also say that many did seem to genuinely like that ship, and a lot of the reylo fic authors I saw back in the day used to write some good Finnrose shit.

(Also: Roselo? Let's get into it. I would kill for Rian to cast Adam and Kelly in a Benoit Blanc movie, the chances that Adam would do it are MIDDLING but still.)

I think the main reason why the reylo thing got much bigger, tbh, is that it's Star Wars. Darklina is in theory more problematic (though to me it's very much a draw because while I personally do not find Kylo Ren as like, threatening as the Darkling, he's still a prominent cog in a dictatorial fascist-aligned regime and he did kill a lot of innocent people, so, you know, fair) but S&B is NOTHING compared to SW. I think in general shippers are loathed by a lot of old school SW die-hards because Shipping = Kissing and Kissing is Gross, and Bad People Bad, except for Vader because Vader Cool. They make exceptions for Han and Leia because they still jerk it to Leia to this day and it's a part of the old lore, and a lot of them just want to be Han Solo in a way I don't think a lot of them wanted to be Kylo Ren.

And then you combine that with the morality police who really just like. Didn't like reylo for whatever reason, but decided to take on the idea that it's HORRRRRIIIIIBLEEEE to ship a bad guy with someone (when like--I personally cannot STAND Anidala, but you would have no SW if a bad guy hadn't fucked someone back in the day... tepidly, I imagine, but it happened). The idea of using moral righteousness to justify your ship has always been a thing, right? (If we're keeping it real here: while I do think that a lot of reylo antis were genuinely concerned about racism with that ship, I also think that many of the white antis.... were only concerned with racism when it suited them. I mean, where were they when Kelly was getting death threats? Care about it for everyone, you know?) But I think it became a much bigger thing when it was reylo.

Then in turn, the reylos reacted by becoming more cultlike, because that's what happens when you vilify people for wanting to ship something. And they became wackier, and the lore became more kNOWN. Like, again--I don't personally ship reylo. I find the dynamic compelling in TLJ; I think Adam and Daisy have great chemistry in that movie; I think that he and Rian pulled her best work in the trilogy out of her; and I think that that movie is the only one where Rey feels like an actual human being, versus a girlboss cypher. She's human, she idolizes Luke and then realizes he's only human, she experiences disappointment, she experiences DOUBT about morality, she is, I believe, genuinely pretty horny for Kylo Ren in that movie (imo, Rey probably has like, zero sexual experience lol, but I also doubt that he has much either), and the idea of her wanting to be SOMETHING only to find out she's NOT THAT is really interesting. I find the idea of her being tempted to become his Dark Empress or whatever, and the idea of him being both an incredibly weird, dark, amoral person who's all about assuaging his own Feelings because mommy and daddy didn't love him the way he wanted them to... and someone who else wants this girl to bounce on it as his Dark Empress.... really interests me.

I didn't want to see them have babies. I didn't want to see them be happily ever after. I wanted to see her kill him while kissing him or something. Which I don't think was what a lot of reylos wanted, right? So it kind of made that ship inaccessible to me, and I imagine a lot of people who might've otherwise been into it. And I think things like "grey force babies" or whatever naturally made it seem more ridic, which of course happens with any ship (BOATBABY.......) but the size of the fandom and the ship made it seem bigger.

But because that ship was so archetypal (big bad man, girl onto which you could project whatever you wanted because she has like zero personality in 2/3 movies) it was easier for allll of these fic writers to do whatever they wanted with the dynamic, to pass the fic around, to do weird shit with it. And I think that tends to happen with bad/good ships. The fic writers have something very iconic to cling to, and they can do more with it, and therefore the fic is better, and that makes the ship bigger. The ship evolves into the fanon version, and then everyone who hates it hates it more because that ship is getting what they want. It reminds me of Darklina, Dramione (and for the record Dramione is something like... Go with God, but I do nOT. GET. THE DRAMIONE RENAISSANCE LOL.), Haladriel. Because reylo was again, so big though, there were more writers and more types of fic and it just got More More More.

So yeah, I think it's all kind of a snake eating its own tail thing. And now everyone who hated reylo anyway hates it even more because of all these reylo authors getting book deals, and often having solid success (or better). You can make a lot of critiques about why that's happening with a white ship versus a ship featuring poc, but that's beyond reylo and gets into fandom racism and racism in publishing AT LARGE. It's a bigger thing than just "the reylos did this".

But yeah, I personally don't really find Reylo all that shocking or perverse a ship. I've shipped worse lol. I just think there are a lot of really complicated things that have less to do with the SHIP than the shipping culture. Some of those things are super valid. However, I also think that this narrative occurred wherein it was like "the only toxic ones are the reylos" and... Yeah dude, there were plenty of toxic reylos. However... The Kelly Marie Tran of it all is where I really start getting bugged, because what happened to her and her character was one of the grossest things that happened in that franchise, and LET US BE REAL, the driving force behind that was not the reylos. (Nor do I want to imply that it was all finnreys--a lot of the SW fandom in general is super fucked re: basically any people of color in prominent roles.)

#anywaaaaay #i also just think that

5 notes · View notes

kanerallels · 2 years

Text

Me, having a mental conversation with myself: You know, Despicable Me's plot was so overshadowed by the Minions that I don't think any of us got any time to appreciate the fact that a villain adopted three children for a scheme and--

Me: *comes to a screeching halt*

Me:

Me: Okay was anyone gonna tell me Despicable Me was A Series of Unfortunate Events but slightly to the left or did I have to figure that out in the shower myself?

#i don't make the rules #it's just the truth #asoue #asoue netflix #a series of unfortunate events #violet baudelaire #klaus baudelaire #sunny baudelaire #count olaf #lemony snicket #despicable me #gru #minions #but in all seriousness the concept of a villain adopting three children for a scheme then becoming a decent parent is flawless #imagine if that happened to someone like the darkling. or vader #actually that is pretty plausible for vader

2K notes · View notes

callstolike · 3 years

Note

I’ve said this before but if LB didn’t want people shipping Darklina(she could have fooled me!) she should have made him her father. She’s an operan who doesn’t seem to remember her parents so it’s not like it couldn’t have went that way. Then we would get the “woke”version of Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader where Alina ends up killing her father instead of saving him and believing he could be redeemed because she’s a horribale character who cares only about her boy toy but yeah in theory it could have been an interesting struggle for Alina to contemplate having to kill her father plus then the love triangle couldbe M*l/Alina/Nikolai, it may as well have been that way in the trilogy as well since the Darkling barely appears after the first book.

she certainly could've fooled me as well. the whole trilogy relies so heavily on the unresolved sexual and romantic tension between he two of them that it's impossible not to be emotionally invested in the development of aleks and alina's relationship, regardless of your personal preferences for how things end up. it's also pretty clear that alina still feels compassion for aleksander right up until his final moments, that despite being told by everyone and their (his) mother that he's beyond saving there's a part of her who sees him as someone worthy of love and care. in that sense she is closer to truly loving him than anyone else appears to ever have. god knows what lb intended us to do with that, but shipping them is really a no-brainer if you happen to like their dynamic or appreciate any of the above.

having aleksander be her father is a really interesting idea - on the one hand, i honestly don't believe aleks would ever have a child knowing the burden of grisha power, but on the other i can almost imagine him seeing it as a necessary evil to fashion such a child into a weapon for the greater good of his people. having alina wrestle with her identity as grisha and being her father's daughter while also following her own moral compass would have been really interesting and would leave a lot more room for filling out aleksander's moral reasoning to give it more depth instead of treating him as a cardboard cutout of evil. although i think mal's only real role thematically in the trilogy - at least as i see it - is to represent a specific ideal of romantic love as a foil to the darkling, so i'm not sure how i'd fit him into alina's character arc otherwise as i'm not a fan of him and would be happy to just be done with him. he might be a good representation of the lure of another kind of life, away from the destiny of being the darkling's child and inheritor of his destiny, but i'm not sure how much i like the idea of having alina's whole personality being defined by her relationship to men, so i'd probably skip that anyway.

i think alina really gets the short end of the stick characterisation-wise by lb because she's limited by lb's own conception of morality, so she seems on the point of understand aleksander's side again and again but is always made to back away from that to the safety of traditional morality and relationships. it would be nice in this au to have her be able to really think for herself and rationally interrogate her father's views rather than be pressured by other characters/the author to come back over to the 'right' side.

#m #asks #sab #kindhearted ocean #alina starkov #aleksander morozova #malyen oretsev #grisha meta #grisha trilogy #shadow and bone

19 notes · View notes

screwdriver-and-souffle · 7 years

Text

Tagged by @him-e grazie mille <3

Rules: Answer 11 questions, make up 11 more then tag 11 people to answer

Favourite Rey’s parentage theory? Rey no-one or rey kenobi, basically anything but Rey Skywalker

Least favourite Rey’s parentage theory? Rey Skywalker

What do you think of Dark!Luke, is it possible that the ST goes there? i don’t like it very much, i’m too attached to the idea of full of hope Luke, i would like for a conflicted Luke but not dark and i don’t think they’ll go there, they’ve already killed Han

What intrigued you the most in TLJ trailer? the fact that they teased a more nuanced view on the light and dark side of the force problem, basically, i’m excited because greyness

Should the ST end with a completely resolved, all-around happy ending where the villains are completely defeated, or would you prefer a darker ending with the suggestion of a new threat surfacing? Discuss. The second, for sure, on a meta level because you know they’re not gonna stop with this trilogy and it would be kinda disingenous to go after a few year, sike, the pace didn’t last that long. On a text level, the galaxy is a mess politically, as you know if you read the books, and it would be believable to have someone not that good to size power again and there’s still the treath of dark sider so, yes, the second one.

Regardless of Rey’s parentage, why do you think she was left on Jakku specifically? Is Jakku important for some reason? (Do you want it to be?) No, i don’t think he has any specific reason in universe, i think the writing team chose to build a planet like that because they wanted to build trust in the public again and demostrate they remembered the spirit of the saga by building parallels with the OT, Jakku is a parallel to Tatooine, that’s it imo

What is your favourite thing about the original trilogy (in comparison to the prequels and the sequel trilogy)? I can’t really talk about the sequel because it just started but i prefer the OT because they were decent film, the dialogue didn’t make me cringe, the character’s reactions were believable for the most part and the plot went to the point

Should the balance—whatever it is—be achieved? Yes, it would be great, tbh, the thing that vaderkin killed Sidious and that’s it, balance achieved, i would like something else, plus, i’m kinda meh on binaric morality

Should the jedi end? YES, the jedi as an istitution were kinda fucked and if Luke has actualy researched and tried to build the jedi back as they were, everyone is better off without them tbh

Finn, Rey, Poe, Kylo: rank them from best to least well written. (explain why, if you want) Rey, Kylo, Finn, Poe. Poe is last because he wasn’t there for 3/4 of the film. Finn is third because i didn’t really liked how they hand waved away the fact that he has been brainwashed since he was kid in a very militaristic culture, like, he doesn’t seem to have any consequence from it, he met his ex-comrades and nothing, he met Phasma, his superior officer and it was kinda played for laugh? I hope in the next film they explore this thing that, to me, it’s a foundation to the character and it was just there. Kylo, oh, Kylo, i have such complicated feelings for Ren, on one hand is a brat who killed Han with an unhealthy obsession for Vader but on another hand he’s conflicted, man, he’s lost and he tries so hard to be a bad little darkling but the results are not that great and he gets his ass kicked by an untrained girl but he goes she has so much potiental, so you know, i didn’t like him that much at first but he has so much potential as a character for grow and change. We passed the most time with Rey and they did a good job with here, she’s a brave young woman with a lot of hope.

Is there an element from the previous movies and/or the expanded universe that you’d like to see explored in the sequels? I would like that the jedi order to be called out in a film, as in, the used child soldiers and i want someone to go: you dark siders brainwash people, the jedi would never, and someone to go: Actually the jedi literally grow people to die in a war so yes, the jedi would, the jedi actually did and they don’t have that much of a moral high ground. NEW QUESTIONS

how would you like Leia to react to seeing Luke again?

How do you imagine the force ghost commentary to what happens in the galaxy?

What is it Snoke goal, in your opinion?

What will be Rose role?

What kind of music would listen 3 characters of your choice?

If you could, what would you change in the franchise?

Yoda: good master or not?

Was Obi-Wan justified in lying to Luke about his parentage?

Would you change Kylo Ren’s design?

Do you think Anakin’s redemption was earned with killing Palpatine?

Is Rey going dark, in your opinion?

tagging @janiedean @georgeorwell @einemelodieimwind @rebeltimedork @francisperfectionbonnefoy @pinkplumcake @claw-roscoe-rupture @robbmadden @slonvy (idk if you like SW if not ignore it)

#star wars #i was kinda long winded sorry #meme

5 notes · View notes