artaud-d2

. i feel like i have been shot

. i enjoyed it immensely though. mostly

. send a party ambulance i guess

. omg jesus was them all along they sacrificed themselves for humanity? their whole take on jesus was something i enjoyed. demon aziraphale was AMAZING and the world doesn't deserve michael and david.

. oh fuck "to the world" is gonna weigh VERY DIFFERENTLY from here on out, isn't it

. a thought i had, from beginning to bittersweet end: this is very much a love letter to fan fiction. i'm so there for that. like at the beginning where they echo past dialogues, which, you know, is a popular fanfic au technique. or like at the end where they are all characters in a bookshop au ffs it had a vibe like s2, so fanfic coded. they even nod to murielxeric guys comón.

. i thought it was very nice of them. wow such fanservice many au. very fandom friendly. very mindful very demimure. right up until the end. wouldn't you guess. there it went fan-ficky in a whole different way. dear reader wouldn't you guess that ending.

. i feel like people's anger (and my anger) towards the ending has to do with the comfort we took on imagining them eternally in love, immortal together forever uwu. you know, like we hope all our love stories go, subconsciously or not. it was one of the very few fiction works where a literal perfect happily ever after was actually plausible in canon (i just had to change the tense in that sentence, "is" to "was", and it shook me). their mortality feels unbearable because a) ours does and b) it takes that comforting fantasy away. it was a nice thing to have and it sucks that now, in canon, they don't get that utopic ending. but i do think i can make peace with the finale by remembering that, well, that is also my ending, at the end of my story (spoilers btw), surprise, i die, and just because i'm not immortal it doesn't mean that my story is a sad one or a useless one. you know? they had as happy as an ending as any of us can have, not more. which is, you know, fitting, since crowley does say something along the lines of "we humans". they being... trans-human (?), not being above us, is sort of the point of the story: they wouldn't be human otherwise. and humans do, very characteristically, die. it's like, the one thing we all have in common. everything ends and that's ok. so i respect the ending, it breaks my heart and i wish it didn't, but i can't say it's bad or out of nowhere, and i can make peace with it after a proper grieving period. they could've given us a fucking kiss though. ANYWAY.

. besides there will be tons of fanfic to read with god taking pity on them and creating a pocket garden universe with kisses and wine and crepes were they do live happily ever after and it's just as valid as canon because there are no rules. didn't you hear? we all have free will now.

. i did like the whole existentialist vibe to it.

. i hoped for more sass from the bentley. fly high sweet angel.

- jesus played either by trans poc or hozier yes those are the only 2 valid options

- opening: either the fall, featuring aziraphale’s flaming sword…

- … or: paralel montage of husbands going through the motions set to queen’s ‘show must go on’

- kiss

- LONG HAIR CROWLEY (present day or south downs epilogue or both not picky)

- cain & abel. first human death and all that jazz

- muriel unhinged. i want them really influenced by all those books, all that humanity, all those grey areas. loose hair, messy clothes, quirks gone wild, no white, oh so many questions

- moar flashbacks

- big reveal of crowley’s traumatic and soul scarring punishment in the 1800s (spoiler: it was paperwork)

- jesus flashback? could take or leave it tbh

- god is dead/plan, what plan?

- that one scene from the book that didn’t make it to the show where aziraphale briefly possesses a televangelist.

- 80s flashback

finished watching good omens season 2 // hasn’t started watching good omens season 2

For two years, countless people online have received all sorts of harassment and downright cruel accusations for seeing a potential romance between Rey and Kylo Ren. And now, after the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I think it’s safe to say that sweet, sweet victory is theirs: the Reylos’.

It may come as a shock to see the violent reaction to this ship, but it has been a sad reality. Ridiculous accusations ranging from “abusive” to “misogynist” or “racist” have been lightly thrown around on the internet, with no regard for the very much real people on the other side of the screens.

For many of us, that’s water under the bridge now. Even the filmmakers are shamelessly validating the ship. Reylos can finally stop calling themselves trash. But I started thinking about all this people who are new to the ship and haven’t grown callous and impervious to that violence, as many old-timers have. All those shy fans hungry for information but too afraid to ask.

That’s what enrages me the most. That so many people have to be afraid for enjoying something in an innocent, creative way that harms no one. That they have to be harassed for doing something as innocuous as shipping. That they may even believe the awful things spat at them by faceless trolls. That they feel downhearted.

And many people online, us included, feel that not only this needs to stop, but that the ship is actually endorsed by canonical evidence. We have it in heaps.

This is just a small taste of the myriad of theories and analyses that have been developed in this two years about the sequel trilogy, otherwise known as Pride and Prejudice in Space. You can click on all the links provided to sate your thirst, if you are so inclined.

Luckily there are loads of meta and articles written by people who saw the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren as romantic as soon as The Force Awakens came out. I mean, they even predicted the Force Bonds. As a side note: many people didn’t see the potential for romance in the first film, and that’s fine. Sometimes fandoms tend towards elitism and that is something we would like to avoid: whether you started shipping Reylo before TLJ or after, or if you have no interest in metas or theories at all, or if you used to be an anti and now see things differently: you’re here now and we love to have you. Be our guest.

So why do we ship Reylo? Well, for the same reason anyone ships anything, really. In the words of the lovely and amazing @myflairway (who helped me write this and I can’t thank enough): Rey and Kylo Ren are fictional characters that represent the deeper aspects of the human psyche, therefore the audience is intended to recognise aspects of them in ourselves. If we see that there is sexual subtext between them, it is completely normal to be curious about their connection on a romantic level.

As consumers, we love to find, consciously or not, archetypes, tropes and parallels in fiction. Star Wars has been defined tirelessly as a fairy tale, and there is much to be analyzed in that aspect. We are instinctively drawn to these characters and situations because something about them resonates with us; we feel connected to them in some level. Mythology exists for a reason, and the Star Wars universe constitutes a mythology in itself, while borrowing elements from others.

There is, for example, an exorbitant amount of parallels with the Beauty and the Beast story, which has been told and retold countless times in history, in different shapes and forms, each in its own unique way. This is closely related to the Death and the Maiden archetype, about which @ohtze (one of the most prolific, accurate and all around awe-inspiring meta writers in the fandom) has written extensively.  An example of this is the Hades and Persephone story, for those of you interested in greek mythology. Another is The Phantom of the Opera. Or Dracula. Even Little Red Riding Hood. I could go on, but a single article wouldn’t suffice. Trust me, the parallels abound; it’s a freaking minefield. A tale as old as time, indeed.

A concept all these stories have in common is the weight of sexuality and its treatment. Yes, even Little Red Riding Hood. As a society, we are pushed to believe that this is a taboo subject, and encouraged to ignore or actively despise its representation, particularly of female sexuality. The Reylo fandom has received a lot of backlash for this: it is believed that any form of exploration of sexuality has no place in a franchise aimed at children as if they haven’t seen any of the previous Star Wars films, or other Disney films for that matter. By simply acknowledging or showing interest in it, we are seen as perverts.

Sidenote: I’m not even going to begin and try to address the “Reylo is abusive” discourse, as many people have done it better than I could ever hope to. Spoiler alert: it really, really isn’t. To even suggest that is a blatant disrespect and lack of consideration to actual abuse survivors. You know who IS abusive and disgusting? That’s right, Snoke. But I digress.

What we’ve seen in the movies, and in this particular ship, is a healthy depiction of discovering one’s own sexuality, especially in Rey’s arc. Yes, you read that right. I’ll say it louder for those on the back. Rey is discovering her sexuality. And taking control of it, as a woman. The symbolism is strong in this one. Cue the gasping and clutching of pearls: how DARE we go with this interpretation, how DARE we sexualize a female character and give her a love interest. What’s worse, a VILLAIN love interest. SHE’S A STRONG CHARACTER WHO DON’T NEED NO MAN. How DARE we reduce her journey to a love story, or subjugating it to Kylo Ren’s arc. Well, newsflash: we are not.

What we do is analyze Rey’s independent character and her journey time and time again, just as we do with Ben Solo’s. He also receives a lot of criticism for being *gasp* a MALE character who shows EMOTIONS. The AUDACITY. Evidently many people just can’t handle that they are complex, many-layered characters that don’t exactly fit gendered stereotypes, or the way their stories intertwine.

A vital point in both their arcs is the way they connect, and the way they clash. They are essential to each other's stories, without interdependence or loss of agency. Two halves of the protagonist, remember? Sure, this interaction could be aromantic, but look at all this proof that it very much isn’t. Besides, love and sexuality are important forces in a character’s development, just as in a real, flesh-and-blood person’s life. We are sexual beings who need love. And when we put Rey and Ben’s backstories under the magnifying glass, it becomes obvious that the most difficult thing these characters can do is learn to love, and to forgive.

Love is not a weakness of character. It is a strength. By shipping these two sweet, lonely idiots we are not taking their agency away. We are empowering them.

And people can disagree; that’s completely fine. What is certainly not fine is choosing to be belligerent about it, bullying and abusing other fans or the filmmakers and actors themselves. I’m sorry for the violence made against all of them, and this is a small attempt to fix that, to protect you and make you feel validated. What I’m trying to say, all in all, is this: don’t be afraid. You’re not alone.

A small(ish) theory about the causes of the specific bond scenes and an even smaller theory about a scene we didn’t get.

Ok you got me, it’s not smallish. It’s huge. It got a life of its own and I do not control my creation anymore. I hope you enjoy it.

After watching the movie a shameful amount of times, there was still one thing that intrigued me about the Force bond (or fond, for short. I will refer to it that way from now on, I love it and you can’t stop me. I secretly expect it to catch on in the fandom. Don’t judge me).

So what triggers it? Does it appear randomly or for a specific reason? If so, what is it?

The first obvious answer I thought of was that the bond came to life when one of the protagonists is thinking about the other. For now, it’s the theory that I think fits best, but if someone has a better one, by all means, bash me in the head with it. I want to DISCUSS.

I guess the novelization will shed more light on the matter, but we’ll all be old and grey by the time it comes out, so let’s live in the present and scramble our brains with what we got.

WELL THIS TURNED OUT TO BE ANOTHER VERY LONG-ASS POST; I can’t seem to function any other way, so CUT. And obviously, spoilers.

Ok, I’m going to try to list all the instances where Yin and Yang appear in the movie. They really did beat us in the head with this symbolism, didn’t they.

Some of the images I included aren’t so much Yin/Yang symbolism as things divided in two, which is another recurring theme and it is related to it. I love to find symbolism everywhere and you can’t stop me.

At the end I’ll link a couple of metas that treat the subject, which inspired this post. I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, all the wonderful and talented people of this fandom who wrote them. This post is partly made in the hope that it will help you to write more. And congratulations. We won.

This will probably be edited many times. Feedback is more than welcome. Also, someday my prince will come and we’ll have HD pictures. For now, this will have to do.

THIS IS A VERY LONG-ASS POST AND I DON’T EVEN GET INTO AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS LIKE I WOULD LIKE TO.

So, without further ado, I give you the list:

- The cave symbol in Ach-To:

- The Tico sisters’ medallion, also refered to as the “perfect conductor”:

- Leia’s ring:

- Kylo’s fucking face:

- Actually, also Snoke’s face, but I don’t want to post a picture; it would make my eyes sad (and I suspect yours too).

- I can’t find any good shots but I bet my boots that Finn’s jacket is divided diagonally just like Kylo’s face. Unrelated: the thought of Poe stitching the jacket back together brings fuzzy feelings to my heart area. You can pry that headcanon from my cold, dead hands.

- Also, not really imagery, but I feel that Finn’s learning of the war’s profits, the whole two-sides-of-the-same-coin lesson also applies. Which brings us to:

- The whole Canto Bight wardrobe aesthetic. I mean, they took the trouble to show people walking paired very specifically: you see people dressed in black with people dressed in white. And it’s also in individual wardrobe choices. They weren’t even subtle about it. Like, at all.

I MEAN LOOK AT THE WOMAN AT THE BOTTOM LEFT’S WEIRD UP-DO:

Even the police guards, for fuck’s sake.

- The elevator scene:

Thanks to @discorded-psychicemotions​, @we-are-bellarke​, @frog-coins​ and @random-fangirl-confessions​ for pointing that one out, HOW COULD I HAVE MISSED IT.

- Anakin’s lightsaber:

Even the black side of the hilt is turned towards Rey and if that isn’t poetic cinema I don’t know what is.

- They also divided Snoke in two would you look at that.

- T H E  F U C K I N G  F I G H T S C E N E

I would post 94567293 shots of this scene but why try to grasp p e r f e c t i o n.

- Also saw the symbolism in the cave scene (when she asks to see her parents and sees two figures aproaching and they become one and the blurry reflection sure as hell looks a lot like Ben and then the barrier vanishes and she sees herself). What, pray tell, the fuck.

- Also, the lighting in all the force bond scenes was reminiscent of Yin and Yang. I’m not going to take screenshots right now. I am tired.

- The gold dice. They’re not really remotely Yin and Yang related but I feel there’s something more to them than Han’s memory.

- I also noticed that every time there was a shot of the sun in Luke’s last scenes (you know, where he dissapears along with what was left of my heart) there was always a cloud covering half its face. Look, I have proof:

This one is just blatantly obvious:

And when I saw this one, the TWO SUNS resembling TWO YIN AND YANGS I almost lost it then and there and it may or may not have been related to the fact that I smuggled a flask of wine to the theatre and my feelings were running rampant don’t judge me.

By the way, if you want to have your mind absolutely BLOWN, read this meta by @frolickingfizzgig about the significance of the sun in Kylo Ren’s story. It just adds so much to what I’m saying.

- And, finally, just a bunch of beautiful random shots where they just shove the symbolism down our throats, with varying levels of subtlety:

There was a shot of Rey training with the lightsaber which showed a very clear Yin and Yang shape in the sky. I wasn’t the one who noticed it, someone else did, but for the life of me I can’t find the original post and I want to credit them. Help! 

Luke and his always iconic fashion choices:

This is a work of art I like to call “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”:

And, ah yes, fuck my heart:

I think this is it. For now.

For further reading, please direct your attention to:

Yin and Yang traits and how they relate to Ren and Rey. by @geminiwankenobi

Mirroring, opposites and the personification of Yin Yang in the final fight between Kylo Ren and Rey. also by @geminiwankenobi

Dark Feminine, Light Masculine: Examining the Gendered Balance of the Force in Star Wars by @legalist217 

And just read anything by @ohtze and thank me later.

You know what, fuck it, here’s the link to the whole Reylo meta library. Everything and everyone who writes is awesome: http://could-reylo-be-canon-today.tumblr.com/post/143655702421/reylo-meta-library-20

(In no particular order. This is a mess. I’m a mess. Spoilers, obviously).

- Female martyrs ™

- Just whenever Rose feels feelings.

- The parallels with the real world about the profit of war. I don’t remember seeing that kind of message in Star Wars before. It was powerful and necessary.

- HOW DID THEY MADE THE FATHIERS SEEM SO SAD ALL THE TIME I WANT TO ADOPT 500 OF THEM.

- Rey’s arc concerning her relationship with the Force I just love her so much.

- I HONESTLY THOUGHT FINN WAS GONNA DIE FOR A SECOND I KNOW I’M STUPID BUT IT WAS SO WELL DONE? And then Rose saves him? AND THEN I THOUGHT SHE DIED IT WAS AWFUL. I mean, Stormpilot is the Titanic of ships for me, but Finnrose is just so fucking cute I don’t mind.

- The rebel force-sensitive kid at the end. I want to adopt him to take care of my 500 fathiers.

- Leia crying alone.

- Seeing Leia use the Force for the first and only time.

- Whenever Billie Lourd and Carrie Fischer where in the same scene specially when Leia was on life support that must have been really hard for her daughter to rewatch nobody fucking touch me.

- The Kylo Ren/Leia scene. HE DIDN’T DO IT. SUCK IT ANTS. But, yeah, my stomach was where my lungs should have been that whole exchange.

- Knowing that we’ll never ever ever ever see a reunion between Ben and Leia. (It crossed my mind that a good end for episode IX would be Ben going away to visit her wherever she is, after his redemption which I can’t believe some heathens are doubting.)

- Just Ben and his broken heart.

- All the Force Bond scenes and having been right about it for such a long ass time and then the angst and rejection and lusfhglkdufgdskafvbkjfvfgd.

- ALL the reylo dialogue; i. e. you’re not alone neither are you (sidenote: I have ascended to reylo heaven and you’re all together there with me, boy we’re gonna have two years to write all the metas, it’s gonna be insane).

- “Ben”

- T H E  F I G H T  S C E N E. Or, you know, the whole throne room sequence for that matter.

- You have no place in this story. You’re nothing. But not to me.

- Him kneeling to her queen and her rejecting her why do you do this to me Rian why would you give so much just to take it away.

- Hey did you know that Ben and Rey’s feather-like touch and his father’s last gesture were the only two times in YEARS he’s had skin to skin contact or any resemblance of affection? Yeah, no, I’m fine, really.

- “please”

- Luke. Just everything Luke. Literally every single scene of his made me want to tear my hear out, wear it like hat and eat it.

- Special mention to his reunion and goodbye to Leia and him trying for her not to give up hope for his son fuck me sideways.