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cognitosclowns · 1 year

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ALRIGHT I know part 2 just released, but any theories for part 3?

OHOHO HELL YEAH >:) these may be a bit sporadic and out of order, a catastrophic amount of sillies, perhaps some hooliganism, etc, etc, y'all know the drill by now <3

[IJ part 2 spoilers, ofc]

Same cold open as always (in front of the whitehouse, etc) except this time its RON >:)

he MENTIONED being a huge conspiracy nut in college - considering he's most likely gonna remember elements of Reagan's script, I 100% believe he's gonna slip back into that.

WE GET A GIGI BACKSTORY EPISODE!!! Otherwise I will just start biting people

ok this is just a plea to the IJ writers BUT STILL

JUST,,, PLEASE </3 I want Gigi lore. Her character is delightful, and there's so much potential for interesting backstory. They've set up all these little threads [her working her whole life to get where she is but still being unsatisfied, 'I could get used to being unremarkable', feeling ignored] now I just want them to elaborate on them.

I might be biased bc I love Gigi to death but COME ON, IT FEELS LIKE SHE'S GETTING SHELVED SO MUCH!! I'm so glad she got to do more this season, esp w/ Reagan, but I'm yearning for lore

tldr. Give me a Gigi episode or give me death.

Air Bud (AB) and Alpha-Beta (AB). Can you see where I'm going with this can you see the wires crossing

I'm sorry but I need the silly robot man to get jealous of the team paying more attention to Air Bud than him.

I can picture it so vividly like a vision from an angry god just

'Of course we're a team! we've even got loveable non-human sidekick who grew beyond his original purpose, gained human traits, and became all the better for it!'

-haha, well, I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a side-'

'Air Bud :D'

'I beg your fucking pardon, Mister Hand?'

in short I need smb to offhandedly refer to Air Bud as AB, and watch this man have a cyberstroke from pure jealousy.

speaking of my favorite man,

ALRIGHT,,,, I DO KINDA REALLY WANT TAMIKO DATE 2.0,,,,,,,

I don't really ship them but the potential here is too powerful. I need to experience more of Whatever The Fuck Happens To AB's Mind When He Sees A MILF

Tell me it wouldn't be delightful to see this clown try and ask Tamiko on a proper date. Tell me that wouldn't be magical to witness. It'll be an absolute car crash and I pray the writers give it to us.

also because if (lets be honest, when) he gets rejected, his dramatic, self-pitying crywank moment is going to be. so good. Teenager sulking in their bedroom watching rom-coms and crying about how 'that was just like me and Tamiko 🥺🥺🥺' levels of pathetic. I know it in my heart of hearts. I physically can't wait.

I think overall I just want this man in situations. bad situations. bad not good situations where he will act both bad and not good <3

THE ROBES,,, UH,,,, HRM,,

*GESTURES VAGUELY* THERE'S SO MANY OPTIONS IDK YET GIVE ME A FEW MONTHS TO STRATEGIZE

They could be anything from aliens, to time travelers, to 4th dimensional beings, robots, clones, ghosts, Just Some Guys (tm), to all of the above in some hodgepodge fruitcake situation.

I will however say that,, at least half of what the Robes told Reagan was probably bullshit. The stuff about all catastrophes having meaning? Not buying it, there's smth up here.

[ALSO,, I'm 90% sure that season 2/part 3 is gonna be the start to an actual Longterm Overarching Plot, which the Robes will no doubt be involved in. Please Please Please, this show is already delightful, and a broader plot would just. *italian hand kiss*]

MISC SHIT, MOSTLY JUST HOPES AND DREAMS:

JRand prison moments. homoerotic prison escape. two bisexual men pressed into a dirt tunnel, who knows what might occur in the heat of passion etc, etc

GLENN CHARACTER ARC!!! We're getting little hints at it,,,, he's tried shrooms,, he's growing closer to the team,,, the bisexual arc is right around the corner for this man I can FEEL IT.

I think we might see Atlantis? We've been getting more stuff about them, and since we've covered pretty much all other Already Mentioned Funky Locations, I think that's gonna be the Big Travel Episode next season!!

BEACH EPISODE!! PLEASE GOD!!! Either combined w/ the above, or separate

[Also, shamefully, I'll admit,,,, I kinda want a musical episode. I have no excuse I just think it'd be so delightful. Please Once-More-With-Feeling, Guy-Who-Didnt-Like-Musicals these bitches Shion, I know you have the power.]

A deep-dive into Andre's psyche. SO many things have been brought up, and I hope they really go in on them. He's coping in 1000 different ways and I don't think a single one of them is good for him.

HM. okie this is getting rambly - I'll probably add more within the next few months as these episodes congeal in my brain, but for now, tysm for the ask!!!

#inside job #inside job spoilers #theories #cyberstroke. thats what I do when your mom- *gets shot*

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cto10121 · 3 years

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Juliet and Romeo and Juliet and Rosaline for the ship ask 😄

A little confusing in the wording, but I think you mean R&J and Rosaline/Juliet, right? Okay, then.

Romeo and Juliet

vomit / don’t ship / okay / cute / adorable / perfect / beyond flawless / hot damn / screaming and crying / i will ship them in hell

Epic. Flawless. Immaculate in concept and its realization. Poetry so beautiful it is still quoted and referenced 400 years later. So iconic their names are stand-ins for a love couple. An erotic passion so vivid, gripping, and all-consuming that it still gets hate and backlash and pearl-clutching to this day. And to think, the original R&J from the original Brooke poem suck so badly. They were not without sympathy, but Brooke is not consistent in their characterization, very contradictory. Shakespeare turned a two dimensional sorry-excuse-for-a-cautionary-tale couple into one of the most beautiful and well-realized fictional couples ever, an oyster into a pearl. They are on opposite sides, but equal and alike in love and goals and perception. Both characters even receive their own arcs: Romeo learns to move on from his dead-end and shallow crush and discovers what being in love is really like through his true passion. Juliet learns to stand up for herself and her love, confront her parents on their shit. Both would move heaven and earth to be together and I’d warn God himself not to get in the way. Even apart from each other, they use the same language and have eerily similar reactions, especially their mutual meltdown at Romeo’s banishment. (And the soulmate vibes keep vibin’). Only a violent, macho, divided society could end this love. It’s the grandaddy of all star-crossed ships, and woe betide any author that tries to rip it off only to disparage it, because I will end a hypocritical bitch.

And then there’s the probability that Shakespeare himself shipped them. That’s my headcanon, anyway, and I’m sticking with it.

Juliet/Rosaline

vomit / don’t ship / okay / cute / adorable / perfect / beyond flawless / hot damn / screaming and crying / i will ship them in hell

Definitely a troll ship, angelofmusic1296, you cheeky thing, you. But I’m going to take it seriously anyway. :P First of all, they’re cousins or at least in some way related, so already it’s a no-go. Secondly, Rosaline has made a vow of chastity, which in the broadest sense possible would have lesbian sex count. Even if it doesn’t, per Romeo, she “hath forsworn to love,” which means no relationships, period. In any case, from the very little we know of Rosaline (mostly from Mercutio, of all people, who is actually the one to describe her and talk about her at length, not Romeo. Maybe that’s the true Rosaline ship, hmm?), she would not suit Juliet at all. Juliet is warm and passionate, Rosaline uncharitably a “pale, hard-hearted wench,” (again, per Mercutio, definitely not the most reliable of characters) and no doubt quite cold in her “Dian’s wit”. In every sense this ship is a disaster, and I don’t even see an AU in which this even happens.

#ask #angelofmusic1296 #romeo and juliet #might as well #i am just barely embarassed

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fatedfragment-archive · 3 years

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Hi there! Do you do bnha character asks? Then how about Tokoyami Fumikage? He's so underrated it hurts.

This has basically turned into bnha character asks and honestly i’m not complaining

favorite thing about them- he’s really gentle? Like i think a lot of the time when he fights others he’s holding back, he has to work extra hard to keep dark shadow in check

least favorite thing about them- he’s a little one dimensional where I am rn but it’s not ur fault king its bc horikoshi hasnt given u an arc yet 😔

favorite line- “as long as you’re standing, give a hand to those who have fallen.”

brOTP- i wanna see more of him and deku together!! They seemed to get along well during the cavalry race

OTP- shouji/tokoyami is so cute actually 🥺

nOTP- i don’t think I have one really? I dont think there are other ships with him so

random headcanon- he ends up becoming one of those goths who always carries a black parasol partially for the aesthetic and partially bc he sunburns v easily on his arms/ legs

unpopular opinion- i think he’s super cool and deserves mlore screentime and development! He’s rly powerful but I wanna know more about his limitations

song i associate with them- am I really about to say teenagers by mcr? Yes. Yes I am

favorite picture of them-

HE CROSS HE ARMS

#gansey.txt #tokoyami fumikage #bnha

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serendipitous-magic · 5 years

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My Initial Rant - Warning, Spoilers!!!!

No, seriously, SO MANY SPOILERS. OKAY? This is your warning.

_--_

For real, look away now.

_--_

Okay, my main problem with this trainwreck of a season? It completely lost touch with the emotional aspects of the story. Like... entirely.

There was a plot there, but a) it didn’t address like... anything that they set up in the first two seasons, emotionally, and the plot felt more like a cheesy, over-the-top comedy/action/adventure/??? than anything else, and b) it was not character driven at all. The plot just kind of happened to the characters

Moreover, the first two seasons felt like they were about real people. Season 3 felt like it was about characters. Empty, one-dimensional characters. Every single character was reduced to a cheap caricature of themselves - and I mean every one. I’m not sure I can think of a single moment that felt emotionally complex or even in-character. The writing of seasons 1 and 2 felt like we were hearing and seeing real people talking and reacting to things and relating to one another - this season felt like every single line was from a bad B-list movie. I mean, the actors did the best they could with what they had, I’m sure, but... The writing did not sound like real people. It sounded like the characters were just being fed cheesy, over-used lines that would further the (action-and-drama-driven, paper thin) plot.

They reduced Hop to a bumbling moron who doesn’t even act like a cop, much less his real self. I mean, really, who in the fucking hell is this new character? I don’t know him. He’s just an alcoholic who stumbles around saying, “I’m the chief of police, I can do anything I want,” punching people and being a fucking dick to Joyce.

They reduced Joyce to just... yelling. Like, her character just became this somewhat headstrong woman that yells. No complexity. No character at all, really. She’s barely even seen trying to take care of her kids except for saying, “Our kids are in danger!” once or twice. Who. The fuck. Is this?? Where’s Joyce Byers? Because I don’t know this woman who looks like her.

They reduced Will to a non-entity with maybe half a relevant moment. He just becomes an evil-barometer, and that’s about it. He’s the main fucking character. And we get a single scene that’s actually about him, it never gets closure, and after that he’s shuffled over to the sidelines.

They reduced Mike to a jerk. Like he’s just a walking stereotype of a teenage guy. Like, I see none of Mike’s character in this season. Where’s his kindness and empathy? His earnestness? His leadership? His nerdiness? His (relative) emotional intelligence? His intelligence? His loyalty? His relationship with Will (and that’s even besides being shippy - like, the first two seasons hinged on Mike being very close to Will, and them being best friends since they were five, and Mike being determined to get Will back and then keep him safe, and now it’s like... Do they even know each other? At all? They seem like vague acquaintances.)

I think they might have forgotten about El’s backstory and personality entirely. The only good thing I can say for her in this season is that she did get her character arc of going out in the world and establishing her own personality more, outside of the lab or the cabin or her boyfriend. But aside from that arc, in this season it was like she was just a magic bullet. They reduced her to her powers. She slammed shit around with her mind for a while and went into the Void and like... giggled with Max? And don’t get me wrong, I really appreciated the Elmax content, but it just seemed like it was not earned in the slightest. She did not feel like the same character. (Like all the other characters tbh.)

And that’s not even to get into all the other characters that just kind of moved around like puppets on a stage depending on what the plot required of them, who got, like nothing as far as actual character content or arcs. (Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, Dustin, Lucas...)

And speaking of plot? Nothing felt deserved. Nothing felt built-up-to or significant. The characters got beaten up and thrown around a lot (seriously, there was a lot of violence in this season, and all of it felt very unnecessary and artificial), but none of it really... Meant anything? Like, Steve gets the crap beaten out of him and almost tortured by Russians (??? why the Russians. Why. Whyyyyy.), Jonathan gets the crap beaten out of him by the not-zombies, Nancy gets beaten up and thrown against a wall by the not-zombies, El gets choked, B*lly gets hurled around a fair amount, Hop both takes and deals a fair amount of violence (apparently for no reason??? like none of it really makes sense)... But none of the action or violence really seemed to have a reason or meaning beyond just “look, action!!” It didn’t mean anything beyond just moving the plot forward to the next shock-factor scene.

Why was the Party never together?? Like, ever. I think they had like two scenes where the Party actually had plots that touched at all. Other than that it was like they were just off doing their own thing in like 3 or 4 completely separate stories. We didn’t get any moments of them crossing paths, really, in the organic way that stitched together the interweaving plots of seasons 1 and 2.

They treated women like shit in this season??? What the actual fuck. And not just the season, but the characters treat each other like shit! Hopper tells Joyce to “stick to sales”! Jonathan tells Nancy that she should give up on her case! Not to mention that Nancy is humiliated and treated like shit at her job, and it is not handled well at all by the writers - it feels like a bad, cheesy movie where the villains just holler out some sexist shit and then guffaw about it, and that’s like... Never addressed. Lucas and Mike call girls “a different species.” And then they spend the rest of the season doing their weird girls-are-mysterious-creatures-that-you-can-win-back-with-presents thing???? The cougars at the pool were unnecessary and really uncomfortable. Robin was a cool character until all the sudden they had to be like “oh and she had a crush on Steve in school!!!111!!11!!” ......... why.

And on that note, why any of the heterosexual bullshit?? Why?? It didn’t even feel deserved or organic in this season. At least in season 2 the straight ships felt well-deserved (mileven, lumax - they were built organically, over the course of the season, and their love story felt like it meant something). Here it’s like they just paired up as many male-female pairs as they could and shoved it in our faces, with no real emotions or meaning behind it. Even Jopper, which was a great ship in seasons 1 and 2, just got... uncomfortable. Like, they treated each other like shit. It was really uncomfortable. They had no chemistry. They just bumbled around like idiots, being mean to each other. I.... I don’t understand.

Furthermore, why did Billy get a kind-of-redemption-arc?? Why did they have to do the whole “oh, he was abused as a child and that’s why he’s a monster, boo hoo!” thing??? The message they send with that is so fucking awful. Billy is a human piece of shit (abuser, violent, racist, sexist, etc., etc., etc.) and they’re like “But we show you his shitty childhood, which means he’s pathetic and worthy of redemption!!!” FUCK. NO.

The monster made no sense. I mean, emotionally. Symbolically. All the setup they did with the Mind Flayer in season 2? All the foreshadowing about how only the undead can defeat it (aka Will, zombie boy)? They made a fantastic monster and villain... And then they just made it into a gooey meat monster that turns people into zombies for shock factor. And its whole connection with Will, and all that? It was used as, like... like Will was just an evil barometer who occasionally said, “He’s here,” and that was it. The Mind Flayer went from being a fantastically horrifying, effective, interesting, powerful villain to... a cheesy movie monster.

Why the Russians. ... Why. There was literally no reason for them to be there. To open the gate, I guess, but... Honestly what significance did that whole plot have? Okay, so the Russians infiltrated Hawkins to take advantage of the Gate, to try to open it again, and they used the mall as a front to do that, and one of them was basically the Terminator and he was after Hop and Joyce (which also just felt so artificial and contrived), and... And they were in cahoots with the mayor...? Honestly, from a storytelling perspective, they could (and, I think, should) have used either Hawkins Lab or Brenner or Kali or something, anything they’d already established to fill that exact role!! Because the Russians in Hawkins just felt like stereotypes that marched around holding guns. They added no emotional relevance or impact to the story. They didn’t really add anything to the story except for some convenient plot devices (that weren’t even very clever or compelling). They could have had Brenner come back (they hinted he wasn’t dead) with the New Hawkins Lab or whatever and fulfill the same exact role, plot-wise, and that would have been so much more emotionally relevant than just shoveling a bunch of Russian stereotypes into Hawkins and making them punch people.

The fucking ending. The Byers leave? That’s it? That’s the story? After all that pain and suffering and struggle and victory and relationship building and everything (I’m talking about S2 here), they just... pack up and leave? And there’s a 30 second scene of Will crying while he hugs his friends and then Joyce shuts the door and that’s it? The end result - the ending is that they need to cut ties and move on and grow up? That’s the moral? After all that, “sometimes change is good even though it hurts,” and the Byers leave all the people that care about them? How in the hell is that an emotionally satisfying ending? How is that an ending at all? And I’m not even talking about ships here (again, that’s a whooooole ‘nother rant). Just for the story, it fell so completely and entirely flat. It did not feel deserved. It did not feel meaningful.

And honestly, I think that’s the problem with the whole season.

It did not feel deserved, or meaningful, because there was no emotional connection from the beginning. We never connected with the characters emotionally. There was hardly anything there to connect with. It started out off-key and kind of bland and emotionally distant, and it stayed that way through the entire season, to the point where I wasn’t even engaged. I was just watching so I could be done with it.

The plot was rushed and driven by shock factor. It felt over-the-top and cheesy, and not in the good-old-fashioned-80s-movie-nostalgia way. The characters were treated as side notes, and all of them felt paper-thin and completely out-of-character for themselves, lacking any complexity or emotional depth. Very few things in the plot actually engaged me or made me feel for the characters, because it was all so rushed and meaningless. None of the relationships (family, friends, ships, etc.) felt real or genuine at all, and frankly many of them were just uncomfortable because they were jerks to each other the whole time with no real closure or arcs.

Not to mention they completely threw away all the interesting loose ends from season 2. What happened to all that hinting that Will has powers?? What happened to Brenner possibly being alive? What happened to Kali? What happened to “it was the best thing I’ve ever done” and that whole arc? What happened to “the way to defeat the Mind Flayer is with an army of the undead (Will, zombie boy)” (which they turned on its head and made the Mind Flayer into zombies???? What?? What?)?? What happened to literally every good and interesting and complex thing in the show, and why did they replace it with meaningless, unearned, paper-thin, badly written action and drama, coming from characters that are bumbling imitations of themselves?

Y’all, I’m fucking mad. Like. I don’t even know what the hell to say right now. I don’t fucking know if this fandom is even salvageable. I don’t fucking know.

And that’s not even to really get into byeler, which... fucking ouch. I was expecting angst, but we didn’t even get that - we didn’t even get that! We got nothing. We got a single 30-second interaction of them one-on-one, in which they’re fighting, and then their relationship is literally never addressed in any real capacity again. After S1 hinges on Mike trying to get Will back. After “crazy together,” after “we won’t let him,” after “it was the best thing I’ve ever done,” after all that - it’s like they barely know each other. Are they even friends, let alone best friends for life? Do they know each other? Do they even look at each other? They hug for half a second and we’re supposed to believe that Mike and Will - attached at the hip for the entirety of S2 Mike and Will, who have been one of the main close relationships on the show, who the show focused on as being one of the most complex and deep relationships - they just hug for half a second and walk away, while there’s narration about how “change is painful sometimes but it’s good, time to move on.” Fuck. This. Entire. Season.

#season 3 spoilers #sts3 #i'm fucking mad

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headcanonsandmore · 5 years

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Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger for the character ask game

Ron Weasley:

How I feel about this character:

Ron is my favourite character in HP. Actually, scratch that; he’s my favourite character in fiction. No joke, I could read a million books about Ron, and not get bored. He’s such an interesting and multi-faceted character that I’m actually shocked that he isn’t more widely loved.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Hermione, of course. But also Harry, Luna and Neville.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Ron and Harry’s friendship is one of my favourite things about the books. Also, his friendship with Luna.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

He’s easily the most three-dimensional character in HP. He’s the perfect match for Hermione, and is arguably more of a catch than most of the other main characters. The fact that these are considered ‘unpopular’ opinions never ceases to baffle me.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

Oooh, I’ve got a list!

Molly is called out for gifting Ron maroon jumpers every year. He hates the colour (since it clashes with his hair), and yet is the

only one

of his siblings to constantly get that

same

colour year after year. Hermione actually having to deal with the repercussions of rarely showing Ron support in anything he does. Ginny realising that she (inadvertently) caused the whole Lavender debacle, and that it was really horrid of her to call Ron a ‘hypocrite’ when he was actually taking her advice to ‘get some snogging done’. Fred and George discovering that their teasing has seriously impacted on Ron’s mental health.Ron saves Harry and Hermione from the centaurs, showing that Hermione can’t just use magical creatures for her own ends, and proving how capable Ron is. Ron’s brain scars actually playing into the story after he gets them. Maybe the scars awaken some sort of magical power within him? Just... something. Those scars seemed to indicate something in OOTP, but are never really explored afterwards at all. Hermione getting detentions (at least) for setting the flock of birds on Ron. This one goes without saying, but I find it horrifying that Hermione never really got punished for being physically violent towards Ron. Lavender Brown getting treated with the respect she deserves, highlighting that she did nothing wrong, and that (unlike Hermione) Lavender was up-front about her affections for Ron, and showed faith in him. Ginny showing concern for Ron after the bird attacks. Weasley siblings stick together, after all. Ron having at least one teacher showing genuine support and encouragement to him. Ron’s insecurities parallel Neville’s, but (unlike Neville) Ron never had a teacher looking out for him, and believing that he could do well. Ron shows so much support for his loved ones throughout the series, but rarely ever gets any in return. It breaks my heart.

my het ship:

Romione. But also Ron/Luna.

my fem/slash ship:

Ron/Harry.

my OTP:

Romione.

my OT3:

(Hermione + Ron) + (Ron + Harry) = Both is good for Ron Weasley.

my cross over ship:

I don’t really have one, to be honest.

my kink:

N/A.

a head cannon fact:

Slughorn tried to ‘collect’ Ron after the war, but Ron adamantly refused. The potions master learned the hard way that you can’t sort people into ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’.

my gender bend:

Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Weasley was the youngest daughter of the Weasley family. She often felt ignored in favour of her older sisters, as well as her younger brother George. Eventually, she fell for her best friend, the muggleborn Hermes Granger.

Hermione Granger:

How I feel about this character:

She’s alright, but I wish her flaws were actually explored in the books, instead of being glossed-over.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Ron.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Her and Ginny, I guess?

My unpopular opinion about this character:

She’s got some serious personality flaws that need to be talked about more. Not to mention her tendency towards cruel physical violence (even towards people she loves).

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

That she actually have to deal with the repercussions of her negative actions. Also, that she have an actual character arc to highlight this.

my het ship:

Ron/Hermione.

my fem/slash ship:

Hermione with a femme!Ron, as hypothesised by @hillnerd.

my OTP:

Romione.

my OT3:

N/A

my cross over ship:

I don’t really have one.

my kink:

N/A.

a head cannon fact:

Hermione goes through personality growth as an adult in the same way that Ron and Harry did as teenagers. She also encountered something of a severe road-block to her relationship with Ron, since she had a tendency to never admit fault. Their relationship was strained, but they went to counselling, and were able to work through it.

my gender bend:

Hermes Granger was something of a swottish boy all his life. That didn’t change when he got to Hogwarts. Although what did change were his feelings for his best friend Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Weasley.

Thanks for the ask, anon!

#ask #anon #ron weasley #ron weasley defense squad #ron weasley defence squad #molly weasley critical #fred and george weasley critical #ginny weasley critical #hermione granger critical

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trashqueenkyloren · 6 years

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Longass Meta on Kylo Ren’s Redemption Arc/Rey and Kylo

SO, to begin, this is something I’ve wanted to write literally since Dec 2015 but the fear of being hated on has been so strong that I’ve just recently felt confident enough to post it and I really just want this out there before The Last Jedi comes out so I can compare although it’s so close to the release date this is all probably irrelevant now oh well

So I went into The Force Awakens basically as a blank slate (I’ll explain later) and I really just want to point out a few thoughts I had while watching it the first time that point to a potential Kylo Ren Redemption arc and the possibility of Rey and Kylo at least teaming up (this is mostly just my opinion, feel free to disagree!)

(way more under the cut guys, read on if you like!)

To begin, let me explain a little bit about myself

PART 1: BACKGROUND

When I went to go see TFA in theaters, I knew almost nothing about Star Wars. I had seen the originals like once when I was like 5 and had not really gotten into it. In fact all I knew was that

1) The force and the light/dark side are a thing

2) Darth Vader is Luke’s father

3) Han is Leia’s love interest and Luke is her brother (and even this I had to ask my friend to clarify/make sure I had it right)

and obviously I knew the names of yoda and r2d2 and other really basic knowledge, you get the idea

The Force Awakens is what made me become a Star Wars fan (don’t worry, I have since then made up for my mistakes by rewatching all the movies and such)

but anyway what this means is

I went into TFA as basically a blank slate, meaning I had no biased Star Wars thoughts to cloud my judgement

I saw what the filmmakers wanted me to see

In addition, being a person who currently studies Literature, Psychology, and Film Studies at college (yeah, yeah, I fit the stereotype, kill me), if there is something I know well it’s Storytelling

The only things I really knew about TFA before going into it were that

1) It was a sequel to the originals

2) Rey and Finn are the main characters (had seen pictures and was already lowkey shipping FinnRey)

3) The bad guy was some masked dude

That's it. I wasn't a huge fan so I hadn't bothered to look up anything else about the movie and hadn't seen any spoilers. But enough about me .

PART 2: THE CHARACTER OF KYLO REN

Now, while viewing TFA, one thing that struck me and captivated me in a way that no other Star Wars movie had was the character of Kylo Ren. I had definitely not expected to like this character at all. Two things changed this for me

1) The reveal that he is the son of Han and Leia

Never before (in the movies) had Star Wars had a character that was so clearly torn between the two sides. Him being the son of Han Solo and Leia gave him a legacy and a reason for us to want him to be good. We want Han and Leia to get the happiness they deserve. Honestly, if you don’t want a Kylo to be redeemed just think about poor Leia losing her son and still having hope for him (Do it for Leia!!) .

2) His feeling the pull to the light

This scene surprised me because the fact that Kylo is talking to an old helmet about his inner feelings means that

a) he has no one to confide in so he is withholding a lot of strong mixed emotions and feelings, which is unhealthy

b) he is tempted by the light side while being on the dark, which is very, very different from most villains, who (it seems to me) disregard the light completely. Which means despite wanting desperately to be bad he can’t even do it because of an inborn light side like a teenager going through a rebellious phase

and c) he is being honest about his call to the light because he has no reason to lie if he’s not talking to anyone, which means he really does still feel a compulsion to be good

Star Wars, being a family-friendly film saga, usually has a pretty clear dichotomy on good and evil (hence, light and dark sides). We root for the good guys, not the bad guys. It’s always been sort of a black and white morality going on, but Kylo is one of the few characters that enhances the Star Wars universe by bringing to light (heh) the potential for gray morality in an otherwise black and white world (as it is)

He is a person that really should be on the light side because of his family and such, but because of Snoke’s constant manipulation and unfortunate upbringing he’s been struggling with the dark side his entire life. It’s really a sad thing to think about.

Additionally

While initially hating him, I ended up feeling a great deal of sympathy for him throughout the film, so much so that I wondered why they had even made him a villain at all

He was not a weak villain like I had heard in reviews, just a conflicted one. A lot of people don’t like it when villains don’t fit perfectly into a “pure evil mustache-twirling-type”. I found Kylo infinitely more interesting because of this.

He’s no Darth Vader. But that’s the point. Both he and the audience, in a sort of meta twist, know that he’ll constantly be in the shadow of Darth Vader. So, instead, he’s younger, more volatile, more emotional, uncontrollable, unpredictable. He’s contrasted from all these villains to show how he stands out as different. He seemed to me separate from the Hux/Snoke kind of evil that didn’t have any sort of redeeming qualities at all. Evil for the sake of evil, if you will

The viewer’s sympathy for the villain and how obviously they showed his flaws and potential for good is the crucial foundation of a redemption arc

I liked him a lot as a character pretty much up until he killed Han Solo. Then, I obviously believed he was a lot more evil than he looked, although the fact that he definitely didn’t seem happier or better or more dark-side oriented in any way after this still suggested that he didn’t become completely evil

After this, it hit me that the ONLY sure-fire way to make people absolutely hate Kylo Ren as a villain and squashing people’s complaints that he was too wishy-washy or not bad enough as a villain was to have him kill off one of the most beloved characters in Star Wars history (who also happened to be his father)

He was so obviously drawn to the light and not bad enough throughout the first half of the movie that the writers had to take a huge step in order to get him to the actual level of villain and add a lot of unlikeability

PART 3: KYLO REN AND REY

(My favorite part of the movie ^ Has been my laptop’s background wallpaper since Dec 2015. I would get a poster of it if I could)

In this section, I will describe some things I picked up both about Kylo’s characterization around Rey and their interactions between them. I think that Kylo’s actions towards Rey played a large part in getting the audience to think he was “too weak” of a villain (Something I heard in reviews a lot after watching the movie)

1) The infamous bridal carry scene

Okay my first thought when I saw this was that he was way too gentle with her. Honestly, Kylo, you need your hands to use your lightsaber and the force, so this is much you rendering yourself completely useless on unsafe territory

He could’ve slung her over his shoulder? Or passed her off to a Stormtrooper? So this struck me as very strange, to say the least. To think that he would carry her so gently. But then we see this

Now, the importance of the combination of the bridal carry and the crossing of the threshold was not lost on me

It reminded me a lot of a movie a had scene only a few months earlier (which I would highly recommend), Crimson Peak.

While the bridal carry itself could indicate romantic interest between the two characters (somebody already wrote a really good meta about this so I won’t go into it here) the additional crossing of the threshold is a step in the traditional “Hero’s Journey,” a set of steps in a literary work that star wars loves to rely on, where the hero’s journey begins and the hero’s life is changed

Typically, it’s the point of no return for our hero, as things change in a permanent sort of way for their journey moving forward

2) The Unmasking Scene

I was shocked by this scene for a few reasons which I’ll go into here

a) First off, I was shocked by how youthful he looked. I was expecting a creepy looking old dude or someone with a bunch of scars on their face, but instead we get this young, handsome boy. (Yes, I find Kylo Ren attractive, but does this somehow invalidate my thinking in this meta? No. I can put aside attraction for an objective analysis.) But what I also realized is that he doesn’t need the mask to live, like Darth Vader did. He needs a mask for the entirely opposite reason, in order to make him seem intimidating. Without it he just looks like a lost child, he needs the mask in order to be taken seriously.

b) The second thing that shocked me was that this is the first installation of a trilogy and they’ve already unmasked the main villain. This speaks volumes to them wanting the audience to humanize him as early as possible. Darth Vader didn’t get unmasked until the later part of the last movie of the trilogy. If they wanted him to remain purely antagonistic, they would would have left his mask on. This means that they aren’t going to want us to view him as the one-dimensional cardboard cutout villain, they want us to view him as a human with flaws.

c) The final thing I want to touch on is that Kylo’s unmasked came directly after Rey’s quote “That’s what happens when your being hunted by a creature in a mask”. When Rey said this, my reaction in the theater was, So just take it off! And then he did. And I had really not expected him to actually take off his mask for her, as this meant he did not want her to view him as a “creature” or a “monster,” but he wanted her to see he is a human, just like her. He wanted to create empathy between them. This move, along with me noticing that Kylo was much younger and more attractive than I thought, coupled with his attempts to reassure her (tells her he doesn’t know where her friends are, “you’re my guest,” “don’t be afraid, I feel it too”) led me to believe the Kylo Ren might actually be Rey’s love interest, instead of Finn. It seemed like a unique plausible twist and it was just kind of an instinctual gut feeling that hit me. Of course, the thought of this went out the window when Kylo murdered Han, but, after reviewing the movie a couple more times, the thought kept coming back to me.

(Okay quick side note, my friend and I came across a Kylo Ren action figure for The Last Jedi that says different phrases in Barnes and Noble recently, so I pressed it, and one of the phrases is just Kylo saying “Don’t be afraid” in a gentle tone and my friend and I were laughing because what kind of villain just says “don’t be afraid” even in their action figure? That’s like, the least threatening thing, so anyways...)

3) The Final Fight

I really, really liked the fight at the end, aesthetically it was beautiful. I really liked that neither Rey nor Kylo seemed to overpower the other, even though Kylo should’ve easily been able to overpower Rey because he’s physically stronger and has had more experience and training.

The fact that Kylo says “It’s just us now” clearly to Rey honestly made me laugh because Finn is standing literally right there, but Kylo clearly doesn’t view him as a threat because he knows that Rey is strong with the force and therefore, she is more of a threat to him. A lot of what Kylo says can actually be applied to Rey too, which I find interesting. When he says “Han Solo can't save you,” yes he’s talking to Rey but he’s also talking about himself, as he believes Han Solo was unable to save him.Then he’s obviously not trying to flat-out kill Rey in their fight, he’s trying to get her to join him because he believes he can train her (“I can show you the ways of the Force”) which also surprised me.

It was interesting to see Kylo weakened by his wicked act, instead of strengthened as he thought. This, to me, meant that he still had the potential for light and redemption in him, given enough character development in future movies. I’m excited to see what The Last Jedi and Episode IX holds for him, and what they decide to do with his character. All I’m saying is, he has a lot of potential for a good redemption arc, as the foundation has already been laid for it.

PART 4: ENDING THOUGHTS

I think that both reylos and “antis” have a lot of valid points, but miscommunication seems to be a main problem.

I guarantee you that literally no reylo wants Kylo Ren and Rey to make out, like, right now, as it stands with the ending of The Force Awakens that we know. They need Kylo to go through a redemption arc FIRST and there needs to be a lot of things that need to change for this to occur. If Kylo Ren didn’t threaten Rey in any way in this movie then they would not be enemies, and there would practically be no plot. Also, I’m pretty sure no one wants Rey’s story to be eclipsed by Kylo or her story to revolve around saving him. This should come about through Leia/himself. But also, love does not make a character inherently weaker.

Right now, Rey and Kylo are enemies, on opposite sides of a war. But they have a lot of potential for the “Enemies to Allies to Lovers” classic trope (with TFA as enemies, TLJ as allies, and then ep 9 as Lovers) But things must proceed in this order for this to occur. There is no skipping stages here. It is their potential for more which intrigues reylo shippers so much.

Personally, I am intrigued by their yin and yang, with one person in the dark being drawn to the light, another in the light being tempted by the dark, and I want them at least to team up (it could remain platonic) to bring balance to the force. To me, seeing this play out would be extremely satisfying, and be something unlike what Star Wars has done before.

Now, if you don’t ship reylo or don’t want Kylo Ren to be redeemed, awesome. That’s your opinion and you are free to have it. I don’t wish to start arguments or discourse, I simply wanted to vent some thoughts. This post shows my opinions, which I am also free to have. Thanks for reading about it!

#kyloclub #reylo #kylo ren #rey #tlj #tfa #leia #meta #ben solo #my meta #the last jedi #the force awakens #star wars #sw #my thoughts

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