Stars and swords and things

i feel like i don’t post enough/any of my mel doods so here’s some of my recent faves

some rough sketch avatrice sparring sesh

like, she at once feels very familiar as a heroine, and yet I can’t think of other female characters (except in a certain niche genre of 80s/90s young adult fantasy with strong heroines, a la Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley and Patricia Wrede) that really resemble her in any real way. her literal presence in star wars refreshes the Whole Damn Story. 

she’s a character who actually doesn’t have that much personality growth to achieve (if that makes sense)—instead, her whole story is one of self-acceptance, of realizing that she herself is enough, that she is worthwhile by herself, as herself. she doesn’t need a luke skywalker-esque heroic bloodline–she’s enough as is. she doesn’t need a mentor to teach her how to balance her emotional and analytic selves—her instinctive self is not one where she has artificially separated those selves.

(also side note: kylo ren is Wrong when he says she’s needs a teacher, but that says more about him than her. what she needs is connection; this is also what he needs. he of course only has relationships of unequals: master/student, modeled on parent/child. it’s his model for how people connect and interact: one person instructs, the other follows. one person commands, the other submits. kylo ren has never had a normal conversation with a peer in his life (again, what a fucking great character))

rey is Emblematic of the kind of heroine i have always loved, and that i feel like we need right now. she’s not overly serious or cynical or jaded—she’s a character whose faith in the world *changes* the world. she’s innately powerful, and her character arc stems out of *realizing that she is powerful*.