#vadaphra

Aphra: Aww, she just didn't come out yet. 🥰

Anakin: I am Darth Vader 😐

Vadaphra - it's just really funny to me

Obikin - used to like...but obi wan ticks me off enough that maybe not anymore.

Anisoka - have only read one fic for it... mmmm on the fence

Vader x piett - I just love it. It makes nearly zero sense but i love it ^_^

She knew too much for him to let her near her and it's much easier to say "uh yeah I tried to kill her, not my fault she survived" than to explain "yeah i mayhaps let her go" to the Emperor.

First Time Uploading Something Here. I Fall in love with this ship, then i saw it in that blog years ago. LOVE THIS SHIPPP, NEEDS TO REVIVEEE. There's no fanart since last 7 years, is so saaaaddd, so i try to make something, srry i did'nt draw very well.💔

Considering she’s supposed to be an Asian, lesbian character, the writers aren’t transmitting the message clearly. Instead they shamelessly keep inserting sexual innuendos in their interactions and even though she’s supposed to be gay, she acts like she can’t keep it in her f****** pants every time she’s near him. And they even try to whitewash her on multiple occasions and try to make her look and act like a dark Padmé (please, your unoriginal trashy OC could never measure up to Padmé Amidala). Her jokes are forced and annoying, she acts like a complete w**** and turns everything into a joke. Being “quirky” doesn’t make your character good when said character has about as much depth as a piece of paper. They try to force some Anakin/Padmé parallels to show her one sided idolation. Hence the existence of the godawful popular “dark” crackship. Not only that, she manages to sink her claws into Luke too. And I have seen people ship them as well. Few characters enrage me as she does. For someone who’s supposed to bring diversity into the franchise, she is acts like a (shameless) straight white female (she is Asian in some issues but white in others). What’s worse is her creator Kieron Gillen supports this trash of a ship and acts like he’s surprised to discover them. As if there wasn’t enough of Marvel comics to fulfill fanboyish power fantasies. Being able to write for George Lucas’ franchise is probably making these writers have delusions of grandeur.

Not only that she is given a ridiculous amount of importance for someone who actually has no place in the main story, her job could still be done by Boba Fett but we needed more Strong Woman™ in the story. And oh boy, the plot armor is strong with that one. She keeps coming back even after he throws her out into space because how else are they gonna make some cash? These writers have taken it way too far with their fanfiction. What were they going for? A Bellatrix Lestrange in Star Wars who is infatuated a villain? This unoriginal b**** (ripping off of Han, Padmé, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft) is one of the worst and shallowest characters in existence.

Yes, I'm aware that vadaphra is 'out of character' (for Aphra, but perhaps even more so for Vader. I mean, Tolvan is basically a less malevolent, more grounded and somewhat watered-down female version of Vader, and Aphra would still totally hit that (does, in fact, hit that), but Vader doesn’t give jack shit about relationships. Padme got thrown into the fridge and his idea of love along with her). Yes, I'm also aware that Aphra is overwhelmingly considered gay (needless to say this is absolutely fine, though I’ve always headcanoned her as bi, and in my fic 'Ashes in the Clearing', struggling to fix her relationship with Sana, even though that's not the point of the fic and therefore not explicitly mentioned. The theme was: grieving for someone you knew was bad for you, which we can all agree Vader was, canon or not canon, and therefore failing to completely move on. In other words, it’s a liberation that is not fully experienced as such). Yes, I know Vader is... look the word 'asshole' is not strong enough, but you get the point. Yes, I also know he's older than her, but Aphra is a grown woman, and I can assure you, being about the same age, that a fifteen-year age gap between consenting adults does not even remotely phase me (I also happen to know people in relationships with that same age difference (and no, it's not always men who are older, and yes, they're happy that way.) Now, back to the topic at hand. Yes, there is a power-imbalance. No, I don't think 'vadaphra-type' relationships should be endorsed, and no, my writing fics about them does not equate me saying 'gay girls go try boys', that would simply be unacceptable. But here's the thing: IT'S FICTION. Can fiction depict ideal situations? Sure. Is it necessarily its job? Hell no. I mean, how many classics rely on toxic atmospheres, unbalanced relationships and unhealthy protagonists? Yes, too many to count. 'Perfect' (if that’s even a thing) is what I want real-life people to get, if they want it, not what I want to read in books. Now, of course, my fics will never be 'classics' or even 'literature', nor do I want them to be. But I believe censorship and self-censorship, when it comes to fiction - not life - is an inherently bigoted attitude that takes the very essence out of it. Fiction can have many roles, and one of them is to explore things you wouldn't in life. And that's what I like about it. You wouldn't accuse Gustave Flaubert or Emily Brontë of promoting toxic behaviours, right? And yet they did write about them, in deeper and more thought out ways than I ever could. (Now, look me in the eye, and tell me you’d still read Wuthering Heights if Heathcliff were a sane, decent and gentlemanly person. Come on, I’m waiting.)