like i remember seeing it for the first time and my complete and utter amazement and just walking out of the theater in shock because of how incredible it was. but i only remember that feeling as a memory. like i want to feel that way everytime i watch it. as much as i love having it memorized and knowing all these facts about it and how i watch it now, i desperately miss that euphoric feeling of watching it the first time.

I DONT THINK I CAN EVER GET OVER THIS

Everyone at the cinema:

Ok, I know I keep saying I’m not going to post about this anymore, but there are times I have to say something.

If someone comes at you with their vile behavior, their accusations, etc.

Don’t engage. Block. Move on.

You’re not going to change these people’s minds. It isn’t worth it AT ALL. They’re going to say and think what they want of us and lump us together with those in our side of the fandom who do tweet out or make posts about vile things. I have reported and blocked Reylos before for racist or just downright vile tweets and posts. An example is that tweet from yesterday. Just because I don’t get into internet arguments with people over this doesn’t make me blind to what is going on. I see it, I just choose to silently report and block to silence that individual. Fighting hate with hateful speech solves nothing. In fact, it makes it worse. On the flip side, race also doesn’t excuse bad behavior. Plain and simple.

Honestly, think what you want of me. There’s no changing anyone’s mind because they’ve already made assumptions on me based on what I ship. I do want to say to Reylos because I do see despicable behavior on our side and I won’t stand for that: Be careful with what you post. Think twice about it. Read it out loud and think about it some more. If you really think posting vile or racist or harmful things on the internet is acceptable, stop and please get off the internet and do some self-reflection. It’s embarrassing and those of us who don’t engage in that sort of behavior get lumped in with you.

From the very beginning, when Ben was still in the womb, Leia could feel that something was off.

From Aftermath: Empire’s End:

“Luke. She reaches for him but doesn’t find him.

The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries. Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach.

Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side, up and down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her. It’s not time, she thinks. Just a little longer.”[...]

“He is less a human shaped thing and more a pulsing, living band of light. Light that sometimes dims, that sometimes is thrust with a vein of darkness. She tells herself that it’s normal - Luke said to her, Leia, we all have that. He explained that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

Right now, her son is upset, tumbling inside her as if he can’t get comfortable. His light, flickering with dark. She centers herself and concentrates. The walls of the room fall away. Everything is white and then it’s black. Then she’s in the calm, airless void. As Leia finds her peace, so does her son. He stops turning.

The baby turns inside her again, troubled by something she cannot feel and cannot yet understand.”

—

(A heartbreaking detail: we’re told that as a child, Ben had trouble sleeping and Han would often lull him. Sob.)

In The Force Awakens Novelization, we get confirmation that Leia knew that it had been Snoke all along:

“Leia bit her lower lip, refusing to concede. “No. It was Snoke.”

Han drew back slightly. “Snoke?”

She nodded. “He knew our child would be strong with the Force. That he was born with equal potential for good or evil.”[...]

He had trouble believing what he was hearing. “So Snoke was watching our son.”

“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.”

—

(We’re not gonna talk about how a family of Force sensitivies couldn’t save this kid because I’m depressed enough as it is)

Fast forward a few years during which Ben is almost killed by a kitchen droid (for real) and is largely left to his own devices, because Han is off being Han and Leia is busy politicking, before he’s shipped off to Luke’s Jedi Academy.

We all know Luke’s version of events: he “saw darkness. Snoke had already turned his heart. He would bring destruction and pain and death,” and so in a moment of weakness, Luke Skywalker considers murdering his own nephew while he sleeps. “And the last thing I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him.”

According to the story Luke tells Rey in TLJ, after Luke tries to attack him, Ben uses the Force to defend himself, causing the hut to collapse and trapping his uncle under the debris. It is then assumed that he goes on to murder his fellow padawans before running off with the handful of students who sided with him, earning the reputation of Jedi Killer.

But this is a lie.

In The Rise of Kylo Ren #1 comic (published on the day TROS came out) we finally learn the truth. Ben Solo did not kill a single student. The fire was set by an “unseen force” and when confronted by three other students who were off planet during this attack, he makes it very clear that he does not want to fight them. He just wants to leave, which he does.

He’s scared and alone and there’s a heartbreaking moment in the comic where he considers going home to his mother but ultimately realizes that he can’t because he thinks nobody will believe him. So he goes to Snoke instead. (This reminds me of the scene in TROS where he tells Rey that she can’t go back to his mother. Just like he can’t.)