#ben solo: threads.

[exiitiosus]

poe dameron. 〃 @hearthofvesta

It was moments like those,  when the laughter and chatters of everyone around them brought a faint smile upon his features,  while Poe's presence had,  the ever so constant,  voice in the back of his head turn into nothing but a mere whisper that made everything feel almost normal;  that had Ben wondering if he could be greedy for once and allow himself to hold onto that feeling for a little longer,  hold onto the other for a little longer.  He so desperately wanted to,  and yet there was a small part of him that was scared,  that had always been scared to completely let himself feel.

However such thought was easy to slip away from his mind the moment Poe's words resonated in his ears and a rather genuine laugh spilled past his mouth.  A raise of a brow soon following when dark hues met the other's,  ❝ Write poetry on,  huh ? ❞  There was the slightest hint of mirth and teasing behind his voice.  ❝ Someone's feeling rather modest. ❞  And yet, despite his teasing words,  Ben couldn't really disagree with the other,  not when he could ( and did,  more than once ) get lost in the warmth of those very same eyes he was talking about and how,  if Ben was any good with words,  he might have already compared him to some of the most gorgeous planet present in the vast universe while admitting that he himself was nothing more than a moon,  pulled into his orbit and destinated to forever yearning to be closer and closer.

❝ If I didn't know better I'd be thinking that you are just eager for the possibility to ride on the Falcon. ❞  There was mirth laced within his tone,  but it was the teasing gleaming behind his gaze a far too obvious telltale on where his mind was.  That made even more obvious by the way a grin was still curving his lips when he turned his attention to the others.  ❝ I'd say I'm sorry about taking him away from you,  but he gave me permission so. .  . ❞  A pause,  long enough just so he could offer a two fingers salute.  ❝ See ya,  guys. ❞  

And there he was,  one arm still secured around Poe's shoulders as he pulled the other away from the group,  a familiar content feeling seeping through his bones.  ❝ You know, ❞  There was a glance stolen at the other before whispered words left his mouth as if Ben was suddenly conscious of his own thoughts.  ❝ I missed you.  I mean it. ❞

[fandomrantsandtwittertakes]

[stillsolo]

GET TO KNOW THE WRITER

BOLD OR COLORIZE WHAT ALWAYS APPLIES TO YOU, ITALICIZE WHAT SOMETIMES APPLIES TO YOU, AND STRIKE THROUGH WHAT WILL NEVER APPLY TO YOU.

I RUN: lots of blogs || A FEW BLOGS || just this one

I FOLLOW BACK: muses in the same fandom || only muses who interest me || fandomless muses || FRIENDS OF MUTUALS || only members of a closed rp group || EVERYONE

I AM ACTIVE: more days than not || as often as not || some days here and there || DEPENDING ON MY school SCHEDULE || rarely || I'm often lurking even if I seem inactive

I LIKE TO WRITE THESE THEMES: FLUFF || ANGST || ACTION || casual interactions || INTENSE INTERACTIONS || CRACK || FIRST MEETINGS || PLATONIC RP || SHIPPING/ROMANTIC RP || THREADS || ASK MEMES || PROMPTS

I PREFER ROLEPLAYS THAT ARE: one-liners || single-para threads || MULTI-PARA THREADS || NOVELLA || different lengths depending on my mood

FOR SHIPPING, I AM: MULTISHIP || single ship || poly ship || no ship || plotted ships only || OPEN TO NEW SHIPS || not looking for new ships || mostly or exclusively looking for high engagement ship partners || mostly or exclusively looking for casual or low engagement ship partners || not picky about ships || SOMEWHAT PICKY ABOUT SHIPS || extremely picky about ships

I LIKE TO PLOT: everything || most interactions || some interactions || first interactions || nothing || threads || everything except memes and crack || ships || family relationships || HISTORY/BACKSTORY FOR OUR MUSES

TALK TO ME OUT OF CHARACTER: ANYTIME || TO PLOT || IF YOU'RE CONFUSED OR HAVE QUESTIONS IN GENERAL || to remind me to reply || sparingly || only if it's really important

I GIVE ALTERNATIVE CONTACT METHODS (discord / social media) TO: FRIENDS || mutuals || anyone who asks || PEOPLE I'VE SPENT A LOT OF TIME TALKING TO ALREADY || SHIP PARTNERS || members of a certain rp group || no one

`➠⠀:⠀⠀ ACQUIRED FROM :⠀⠀@valorums thank you for thinking of me!!

TAGGING : @techniiciian @desiccation @sgterso @strcngered @forcenexus / @magikborn @alootus @vibraea @desireandduty @jundlcndwastes & whoever wants to do this!!

[wandalives]

Somebody PLEASE tell me there is a Reylo Phantom Thread AU. And if there isn’t one there needs to be one immediately

[bloodymyhands]

just dropping tags for new muses + for other muses i forgot to add tags for.

ahsoka

✮⋆˙ ahsoka tano. ━━ ( threads )

✮⋆˙ ahsoka tano. ━━ ( visage )

✮⋆˙ ahsoka tano. ━━ ( inbox )

✮⋆˙ ahsoka tano. ━━ ( study )

anakin

✮⋆˙ barbie. ━━ ( threads )

✮⋆˙ barbie. ━━ ( visage )

✮⋆˙ barbie. ━━ ( inbox )

✮⋆˙ barbie. ━━ ( study )

ben

✮⋆˙ ben solo. ━━ ( threads )

✮⋆˙ ben solo. ━━ ( visage )

✮⋆˙ ben solo. ━━ ( inbox )

✮⋆˙ ben solo. ━━ ( study )

vax

✮⋆˙ vaxildan. ━━ ( threads )

✮⋆˙ vaxildan. ━━ ( visage )

✮⋆˙ vaxildan. ━━ ( inbox )

✮⋆˙ vaxildan. ━━ ( study )

laudna

✮⋆˙ laudna. ━━ ( threads )

✮⋆˙ laudna. ━━ ( visage )

✮⋆˙ laudna. ━━ ( inbox )

✮⋆˙ laudna. ━━ ( study )

[demongemz]

@desastreorcalamite

Rey didn’t know how or why she ended up in this place, she’d been on a quest to find Luke, but even that seemed to allude to her given her current state. Growing up a scavenger made blending in and finding a place to work easy, she wasn’t very familiar with the transportation of this world but she was nothing not a quick learner as she studied whatever book she could get her hands on in terms of automobile repair, owning the garage offered her some type of solace she’d grown used too on Jakku, she still felt like the person who no longer had a place in this world and even more so when she felt him. Why was he ever trying to reach out to her here? Or better yet why did it seem the moment he felt her he was pushing out feelings of hope and happiness? He was the villain the person who’d killed the one person in her life that showed he cared. She wanted nothing to do with this monster but now that connection had been made it was almost impossible to cut it until he showed up at her shop.

“What the hell do you think you're doing here?” She fired at him not bothering to hide any of her rage from her tone as she stared at him with such hatred. “Are you the reason I ended up here? Couldn’t take the fact that your parents were kind to me and that I was on the way to visit your old master? Who knew the big bad Kylo Ren was just the failed Jedi trainee Ben Solo…Not so scary anymore without your lightsaber in your hand”

[brooklynislandgirl]

@kylo-wrecked   {{xx}} He creates words out of the wrought-iron voice of his like a wizard or a musician which are not mutually exclusive, and she’s surprised beyond measure that the snow doesn’t melt off his lips instantly. It’s everything she can do to turn away and stock up on more ammunition but she doesn’t quite miss his gaze. They say the sun is reborn on the solstice. Whomever They are clearly don’t know that its country of origin is clearly Ben Solo, because she can see the brightness of its still forming rays deep in the valley of gold between the inner and outer rings of darkness. 

“Totally sound like a ‘you’ problem.” Her lips twitch, but now her ears are sharing the same feverish red. She never uses that one word in particular, but she has imagined the different ways he could whisper it to her. “I quite like slushin’.” The menace of the threat though works its way down into her belly where it squirms and she feels herself constrict for a single, solitary moment. He wouldn’t. Never. But again, she can manage to imagine it. Before her next ball is half formed she feels her world tilt on its axis. She’s forced to drop it and grab his arms in return to keep herself oriented. The ghost of a kiss when he steals the candy-cane lingers somewhere in the back of her throat as she swallows. But it also forces her to break eye-contact. She looks around the park, half expecting to see secret service people standing out like traffic cones. She half expects camera flashes and not the lady who is pushing the shopping cart mounding over with collected junk, the group of kids more serious about leaving wounds on their friends than she is. She looks back up at him. Stops right at the mole just above his lip. A single wet, cold, ice-flecked glove lands on the side of his neck. “I defy ya t’ do ya worst, mistah.”

[unsettledcreatures]

first 3 in my inbox gets kisses: 3 of 3 | @ofcatnaps

Tilting her chin up, his lips lingered on hers — starved for physical contact after years without, something he’d learned not to yearn for until she burst into his life — Ben kissed her again, proving to himself she was truly there and not a figment of his imagination.

[gracefallen]

eyes roll at her correction , but he doesn't bother challenging it. smile soon appears back on his face , though , brows raising as he glances back to her. " well i don't need to add anything ! but we can always put it to the test someday , huh ? i'd happily buy a tape measure if it means proving you wrong ! " head shakes , laughing as he goes back to his bookshelf. " ah , yeah . 'cause i'm the reason they're not about right now ! " offering her an amused look as she approaches , he turns , leaning himself up against the shelves. " come on , now . you don't really want me to go anywhere ! " teasing words given before he gestures towards the books on offer. " i'm looking for a copy of alice in wonderland . sounds stupid , i know . but rumour has it that it's haunted ! " proclaimed dramatically , hands shaking in front of him , clearly not believing the tale. " my friends think i'm going to be too spooked to retrieve it , but i'm going to prove them wrong just like i'll prove you wrong someday ! " nudging her shoulder , grin widening as he leans in closer. " so . seen it anywhere ? "

continued  from  here   ♡   @starlcved.

[thursdaygrl]

Usually Ben would be satisfied with minding his own business, he's never really been one for small talk and especially not with strangers. It's no wonder he'd tried to slot himself into a position that didn't value it within his professional life. Really, he didn't intend to prompt Rey for an explanation but he couldn't seem to shut himself up. He pictured it, what that kind of childhood would be like and instantly felt guilty for asking. "Oh." He nodded understandingly, averting his gaze to the dock for a moment instead of her. "That's... fair."

He hadn't been expecting her to take him up on the offer of putting her feet in, but he shifted a little more to turn and watch her as she reluctantly gave into the water for a moment. The corner of his mouth twitched, almost prompting a smile but he didn't get that far. "Feels nice, right?" He called out. Could he teach her to swim? Would she ever even want that? Ben would never be the type to insist, so he left that particular topic there for a moment, letting out a sigh before he slipped back in the water, laying back to float on the surface for a moment. It was his favourite thing to do, when the water blocked the sound and he shut his eyes to the bright sky, his mind emptying for a moment.

"I grew up in the foster care system in Arizona," Rey explained, looking over at Ben where he was propped up on the dock. "None of the families I was with ever offered... I don't think they had the means for them." She hated the way it sounded a bit like a sob story when she said it, but she had made peace with her past. It was what it was, and she typically just left it alone. "I always thought I would learn, I just..." she trailed off. She supposed there was nothing stopping her, but it just still seemed... scary.

She considered what he said about putting her feet in the water. In theory that was simple enough, but she'd always found a way to get herself into one scrape or another. Hopefully this was not one of those times. She stood gingerly and slid her feet out of the flip flops she'd been wearing before stepping carefully across the sand, trying to avoid sharper-looking rocks. When her toes met the cool water, she sighed, enjoying the feeling as it moved across the tops of her feet and to her ankles.

[mikewheelertm]

ben solo. @authcrwriites ( cont. )

While he never made an habit out of it and mostly stuck to less sketchy jobs,  it wasn't hard to convince Mike into taking on a smuggling operation,  after all if the pay was worth it,  who was Mike to turn down some easily earned credits ?  Except he might have been wrong this time around,  chin rested against the palm of his hand while he looked at the other sitting on the other side of the small table of the cantina.  Brows furrowing and he had to fight the urge to roll his eyes.  ❝ I'm starting to think that you are a bad idea. ❞  He pointed out,  a shrug offered soon after as if his words couldn't be taken as a veiled insult.

❝ You know,  it's your idea,  I just felt nice enough to offer you my ship. ❞  And now he was talking shit,  that much was obvious by the way the corners of his mouth twitched,  as if he was trying to hold back a far too familiar grin.  ❝ Maybe you are right,  maybe you aren't.  What do you have to lose anyways ? ❞

[demongemz]

@lcvenderhcze​ || Ben Solo/Kylo Ren

Finn wasn’t overly fond of city life but then again in a big city like this people didn’t ask questions, questions he didn’t have answers to. He had no idea how he got here or anything from his past, it was clear he had some type of PTSD given how he shied away from loud noises but outside of that he knew nothing but his name and that he was weirdly handy when it came to mechanics. He sighed looking around, there had to be someone or someplace he could go to figure something out, get a job or maybe some food. His thoughts were interrupted by a harsh feeling, something that told him that danger was near. He hated this feeling, something about it felt dark and filled him with an unknown fear as he searched the crowds trying to piece together where the feeling was coming from until his eyes landed on a male, boring a hole into him with his eyes alone. “You got a problem?” he mused glad his voice didn’t crack from ill-use after all this was the one causing those feelings to boil inside of him.

[imaginedisish]

how do you sleep? (Ben Solo x fem!reader)

Part 1: We'll Never Have Sex

A/N: Hey guys!! So here is the first part of my Ben Solo x fem!reader fic. It is going to be told in non-chronological order, and every single part can be read as a one-shot! The overall series is based on "how do you sleep?" by LCD Soundsystem, but this particular part is based on "We'll Never Have Sex" by Leith Ross. I hope you guys enjoy!!!

Summary: After a lifetime of pining and yearning between you and Ben while training with Luke, things finally come to a head. (Series takes place over the year before Ben turns to the dark side, and then the aftermath of that).

Warnings: SMUT, fingering (f!receiving), so 18+, obviously canon divergence, all chapters can be read as a one shot with no context, series warning for canon typical violence, cursing, probably poorly proofread bc I only proofread once, praise kink...

Word Count: 2,511

Rain ruthlessly patters against the roof of the tent, threatening to leak through with each drop that came crashing down. You and Ben lay across from each other, a fire separating you, crackling in the center. You silently wish you were closer to him. You wish you could feel his calloused fingertips threading softly with your own. Maybe his hands would find their way to your waist, gently exploring your-

No. You can’t think like this, you’re not allowed to, never have been and never will be. You weren’t meant to get to have sex, married, to settle down, to have attachments of any kind. You were a Jedi, first, foremost, and only. 

But could love be that bad? Would being with Ben be so insurmountably terrible that it would corrupt both of you and bring disorder to the galaxy? Master Skywalker had told you it would, that an attachment of any kind would disrupt your training and your entire way of being. That notion had lost its meaning for you, and seemingly contradicted itself time and time again. If loving Ben was so horrific, why was it the only thing that made sense? 

“You okay?” He mutters, noticing that your eyes are glued to the fire, that stupid fire that stood in the way of being close to him. 

You mumble a yes in response, your mind far too clouded and nervous to say anything else. You were too busy convincing yourself that whatever bond you had with Ben defined the word yearn. You had known him your entire life, both having been trained by Luke practically since birth. And for as long as you could remember, you loved Ben Solo. 

And he loved you. 

But you held back, at least for as long as you could. As teenagers he had slipped up, kissed you while you had been sparring in the woods, far, far away from Luke. He had won the sparring match with your back to a tree, and he kissed you. 

Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me

Not to take me home

It was simple, it was sweetness

It was good to know

You talked about it once, and never again. You decided to hide it, to stuff the memory down, deep down where no one would ever be able to find it. Hiding wasn’t enough, it never was. You couldn’t forget it. Even now you dream of the taste of his lips on yours. You wish you could taste them now.

“You sure you’re okay?” His voice cuts through your thoughts, forcing you back to reality. He’s sat up now, looking down at you over the fire. 

You sit up too, forcing your gaze into the flames. “Yeah, I’ll be alright.” It was Master Skywalker’s fault for putting you and Ben on missions together, for keeping you two so close. He had to know how the two of you felt about each other. It was like some soul crushing test, some obstacle he expected you two to jump over and come out the other side stronger Jedi. 

He couldn’t have been more wrong. And it certainly wouldn’t be the last mistake a Skywalker made. 

“Do you…” He paused, waiting for your gaze to meet his. Your heart skips a beat when your eyes lock. “Do you wanna come over here?” He asks. He tilts his head to the side, searching for your response in your face before you can think of something to say. 

Say no, You think to yourself. Bad idea. Bad, terrible, awful idea. But your thoughts don’t seem to communicate with the rest of your body. You’re already standing up, walking around the fire, and sitting down on the edge of his cot, facing away from him. 

Ben rests a warm hand on your lower back, his thumb tracing circles and stars along your spine. It feels good, comforting – so it can’t be bad. You didn’t feel any evil bubbling up in your stomach, no pull into the darkness like had been foretold and prophesied. 

“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Ben asks, there’s a smirk in his voice. You could hear it from a mile away. You turn your head to look down at him, and there it was, the cocky smirk. The second he sees the pain contorting your face, it slips away. You want it to come back.

You smile softly, reassuring him that everything was fine. “It’s just the nightmares.” It wasn’t a lie. They had certainly come back. You had dozed off a few minutes ago, and there they were. You weren’t going to fall back to sleep, not without him.

Ben responds by wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you down onto the cot. You stretch out a bit, letting yourself get pulled under the current of whatever was about to happen. The loneliness was too much; being without him was too much. And those – of course – were the real issues, the real sickness that was plaguing you. 

You and Ben knew loneliness too well, far better than any being ever should. 

Having someone this close kept that sinking alone feeling at bay; trapped it in some deep, dark, unintelligible, inaccessible corner far out of your mind’s reach. The feeling of his arms holding you tightly in place dispersed it, decimated it, fragmented it into pieces that simply could not be put back together, as if they had never been part of a whole to begin with. 

You’ve never had someone this close for this long. You’ve never gone this long without that alone feeling nipping at your skin and cursing in your face. And yet, it had been silenced. It wasn’t just because of a someone. He silenced it. And you knew that he was the only one who could. No, this couldn’t have just been anyone. It had to be him. 

And only him. 

“Ben,” You whisper. He squeezes your hip lightly in response. The feeling sends a ripple of chills down your spine. 

You don’t know exactly how long it’s been like this, standing on the ledge of a building neither of you should jump off from. You lost track of the time a few years ago. But you certainly never lost track of him. 

He squeezes your hip again, his lips suddenly sinking against your neck. You swallow the heavy lump in your throat as his hips push against yours. You jump, I jump, You think to yourself as he presses open-mouthed kisses up to your jaw, his body slowly shifting so that he’s above you. You let yourself fall onto your back, staring up at him. 

It was so quick, so easy to melt under his touch. It was too easy, for both of you, to give into the thing that had connected you for years. It was too simple to get to where you are now for it to ever be bad, to be the start of another war. 

The words slip from your lips. “I think I love you…” But you didn’t think. There was no thinking about this sort of thing, especially with Ben. That think came from your nerves, from that part of you adroitly trained to push him and everything else away. You didn’t want this to go past think. Think sits in limbo, unsure of its position, suspended in fluidity and nonsense. 

“Think?” Ben enunciates each letter, as if to question each sign’s meaning. But the smirk on his face tells you he’s much less serious than that, and that he knows your intention is far more serious than that think. 

You clear your throat, but the anxious feeling continues climbing up your esophagus. “Yeah…” You trail off, failing to seem aloof. “I think I-,”

“I know.” The thunder outside attempts to rudely interrupt the crackle of the fire and the finality of his words, but you hear them all the same. 

“Know what?” You question as the tips of his fingers graze the sides of your neck, slowly and gently wrapping around, as if to hold you in place. 

There’s no nervousness etched across his forehead as those perfect lips of his part. His brows aren’t furrowed, he doesn’t clear his throat. That smirk still tugs on his lips, even more so in his eyes, begging to be stretched into a smile. He’s cocky – but sweet – because he knows you’re terrified beyond belief. He’s more comfortable crossing this line than you are.

He was made to cross lines. “I know I love you.” And he means it. He means it in a way that speaks for you too, in a way that takes your think and transforms it into something greater. It was permanent, static, steadfast. A know, not a think. 

Rain pounds violently against the roof and you’re almost thankful for it. It keeps your words from leaking outside and into unaccepting ears. The ears that you and Ben had sworn your life to, your being to, your duty to. You were consciously breaking that oath, that code, that order that you had lived by for as long as you could remember. 

Part of you wants to scream, How dare you? How dare you cross the man who taught you everything, gave you everything? But what if that everything wasn’t as important as what Ben was, as that know had suddenly become? 

You know the answer, you’ve known it for years, before this moment, before he kissed you against that tree. You know the answer every time you see his smile, those eyes. You know when you hear his voice, when you feel his hand at your back when you’re being reprimanded by Skywalker. And he knows it too. He’s known longer than you have. 

Never mind crossing the line, it’s gone now, as if it was never there to begin with.

His lips press fervently against yours, already begging for more. He fits perfectly there, above you, your bottom lip skimming against his teeth, being bruised and imprinted with each hungry kiss. 

He pulls away for a second, his chest rising and falling somehow faster than your own. You wonder if he can hear your heart beating out of your chest, the sound drumming violently against your own ears. His hands unclasp your throat, roaming down your body, exploring each curve and corner before resting at the hem of your shorts. 

“Wanted you,” He pauses, his fingers hooking under the waistband. “For so long.” He finishes, his lips finding yours again. “So fucking long.” 

“B-Ben,” You’re stumbling around your words, and yet your mind has never felt more clear, more free. “Need you, please.” It’s a beg, a whine. 

His lips part from yours for just a second to pull your shorts and panties down. “Always needed you,” He says as his right hand drifts slowly down your stomach and in between your thighs. He spreads your legs and finds your clit before two of his fingers move further down. “So wet for me,” He says in between the gasps that echoed in the air. 

“B-Ben,” You whimper, suddenly remembering once again that you quite literally have never had anyone this close before. “I-I’ve nev-,”

“I know,” He whispers, his voice filled with lust, even deeper than normal. His dark hair falls against your forehead. “I’ve got you.” His fingers move back to your clit, circling slowly at first, gradually getting faster until all you can do is dig your nails into his shoulders. 

“F-fuck,” You curse. He presses harder against your core. “Need you, Ben,” You beg, all breathy and carelessly loud. 

Ben rests his forehead against yours, his fingers flicking at your clit, his other hand coming up and under your tank top. You have no bra underneath, something he couldn’t help noticing before. He gently rolls a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, reveling in the way you feel against him. 

He wanted you, needed you, just as much as you wanted and needed him. 

His palm glides across your chest, making sure to do the same to the other side before swiftly pulling your top up and over your head, discarding it somewhere on the floor. You don’t care if it lands in the fire. You wanted it to burn. 

“Doing so good for me,” He whispers, his lips sucking against your neck now. “Such a good girl.” 

You feel yourself clench around nothing, fluttering as Ben’s fingers refuse to let up. “I’m s-so close,” You choke, struggling to catch your breath. You could feel that familiar feeling building up in your stomach, heat spreading like a wildfire across your skin and every inch of your body. “Ben,” You recklessly call out. “I’m gonna-,”

“That’s it,” He coos, his fingers still working at your core. “Come on my fingers.” And just like that, white heat, stars, the cliché tension snapping, all of it was true. With him, that’s exactly what it felt like. 

He doesn’t stop right away, his fingers slowing down a bit before dipping down to your entrance, collecting your slick bringing them up to his lips. His fingers disappear into his mouth, sucking gently before he pulls them out. The feeling at your core immediately sparks again. You want more, need more. 

“Ben!” Your heart pangs in your chest at the shout of a familiar voice. FUCK. “Ben!” The voice yells again, outside the tent. Your eyes widen in fear. Panic fills your chest, and Ben springs up and out of the cot, hoping to get outside the tent before the voice found its way inside. 

Ben smiles at you as he stands at the entrance of the tent. You smile back, but you’re freaking out on the inside. What if Luke hadn’t called Ben’s name? What would’ve happened if he had simply come in and caught you? Ben can tell that you’re uneasy by the way your nose scrunches up, eyebrows furrowed tightly. And yet, you don’t regret a thing. How could you? 

“It’s okay, don’t worry,” He whispers, grabbing the cloth door to the tent with his hand. “We’ll figure it out…” He trails off, looking towards the door for a second before his gaze finds yours again. “I’d do anything for you, I mean it.” His words are so final, so permanent, the exact thing you had been afraid of. 

But not anymore. 

“I know I love you.” The words fall from your mouth with ease this time. You can hear Master Skywalker’s footsteps growing closer to the tent.

Ben smiles, his cheeks flushing just a touch, like someone had pinched his cheeks ever-so-slightly to remind him of how handsome he was. “I know I love you,” He says back before squeezing out of the tent so his uncle wouldn’t see the evidence of creed that had been broken and the attachment that had been consummated.

What the fuck were you going to do?

Depollute me, gentle angel

And I'll feel the sickness less and less

Come and kiss me, pretty baby

Like we'll never have sex

[starblightbindery]

Binder's Note for Forms by Trebia

How Forms fits in the long tradition of Star Wars fanfic.

My hope is that this project captures a snapshot in time from Star Wars fandom het shippers between December 2015 and December 2017, before the franchise confirmed any emotional intimacy—if you can call it that— between Rey and Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017).

Trebia, then aged 24, wrote and published the first chapter of Forms on Archive of Our Own on December 18th, 2015—the exact release date of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When posting this first chapter, Trebia noted, “I’m just working off of memory from the one viewing I saw last night.” The entirety of the fanfic was completed and posted an exact month later, making this fic historically significant in Star Wars fandom as one of the earliest published “Reylo” stories.

A serialized novella that was churned out in an astonishingly short time frame, Forms is notable for predicting many elements of The Last Jedi (2017) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), including the Reylo Force bond, Rey walking away from her training with Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren pleading with Rey to join him, and Kylo Ren pushing his Force energy into Rey to save her life.

Throughout the story, Trebia mashed new and old Star Wars elements together—characters like the Mandalorians and Admiral Daala, settings like Illum and Kuat⁠—evincing her fondness for the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Forms has classic tropes from this franchise, like stealing a uniform to go undercover in an enemy base and the forced proximity of a “Slow Boat to Bespin.” Present in Forms are scads of fan theories from between the release of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. These included the theory that—echoing a Legends plot line from Dark Empire (1991) where somehow Palpatine returns and Luke Skywalker joins the dark side to try and take him down from the inside—Kylo Ren had strategic reasons for his apprenticeship to Snoke. Like many Reylo fan-works set in-universe, Trebia lends justification to his many antisocial acts, part of shipper efforts to make the character more self-relevant and sympathetic.

Forms weaves in tantalizing threads that were tossed around by fans and concept artists but ultimately not pursued, including Dark Rey, Stormpilot (Finn/Poe Dameron), and Rey's saberstaff. Trebia even predicted the Kuat Drive Yards plot line started in The Last Jedi (Rose Tico’s contempt for weapon's manufacturers on Canto Bight) and continued in the abandoned Episode IX: Duel of Fates script by Colin Trevorrow. Forms also addresses loose ends that probably should have been covered for a more cohesive nine film saga, like the Chosen One prophecy and direct interaction between Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren.

No discussion of Forms can be complete without also placing it in the context of Star Wars fandom in 2016. Reylo was a fringe pairing that made intuitive sense to many Star Wars fans, particularly women; however, prior to The Last Jedi, the ship was dwarfed by the popularity of slash ships like Finn/Poe and Kylo Ren/Hux. At the time, many fans theorized that Rey was Luke Skywalker’s long-lost daughter, making her Ben Solo’s first cousin, making Reylo an incest ship.

As noted on the Fanlore wiki, the tags on this fic changed over time. In addition to “Riding the bus to hell either way” Trebia joked with tags like “Possible incest?” and “Not incest until proven guilty in the court of law.” Following the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Trebia celebrated by replacing those tags with a celebratory “IT AIN’T INCEST.”

The story's strong influence in early Reylo fandom reflected a hunger for more Star Wars romances about the pull between light and dark. After all, the sequel trilogy did not set up Kylo Ren as a horned, alien-appearing monster or a wrinkled geezer. Unblemished by the ravages of the dark side, Kylo Ren was depicted with pillow lips and a fabulous, voluminous coiffure unencumbered by his helm (which really should have flattened it to his scalp.) The groundwork for a lightsider/darksider romance was previously explored in other Expanded Universe stories. At the forefront of these were watered down lightsider/darkside romances like the tepidly written romance between Luke Skywalker and former Palpatine agent Mara Jade. Given Mara Jade was hardly a champion of the dark side, there was no risk of corrupting Skywalker. But the Expanded Universe also boasted stories that played with this dynamic, like the twisted connection between Fable Astin and Jaalib Brandl by Patricia A. Jackson for the Star Wars Adventure Journal (1994), the conflict between Jaina Solo and Zekk in Kevin J. Anderson's Young Jedi Knights (1996),or the passion between Darth Revan and Bastila Shan in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003). In this respect, Forms and the rest of the Reylo fan fiction oeuvre continues the grand fan tradition of Star Wars villain fucking.

“Darksider and lightsider conflict is one of the most fascinating points of Star Wars,” Trebia said in 2016, when interviewed by Spencer Kornhaber for The Atlantic. “Rey and Kylo represent the fight to find the balance.” Yet, at the time, the fledgling “Reylo” ship was abhorred by affirmational Star Wars fans who despised the emphasis on shipping with a female gaze, as well as scorned by media commentators who found the ship to be “problematic.” In male-dominated, established fan spaces like Reddit and Jedi Council Forums, discussion of Reylo was effectively banned by moderators through the freezing of threads. In other fandom spaces like Twitter and Tumblr, discourse about Reylo mirrored larger purity culture. The ship became a convenient target for alt-right misogynists, and also for anti‑shippers concerned that the ship “romanticized abuse.” Productive and unproductive debate arose around media consumption construed as agreement or approval, whether a sympathetic Kylo Ren lends people to give more latitude to real-life white right-wing men with anger management problems (or if it's the other way around), and if shippers can tell the difference between a fictional antihero and the same dangerous thing in real life. Critiques of Reylo fandom also included the implicit racism inherent in the sidelining of John Boyega’s heroic character Finn in favor of white whiny fascist Kylo Ren. (It did not help that 2016 also saw the election where white American women voters decided to displace a competent Black man with a white whiny fascist.)

In the September 2020 issue of the Journal of Fandom Studies, Andrea Marshall notes that Reylo “fan fiction acts as a locus of resistance to gendered oppression as feminist authors construct selves that critique the source material and the fandom for gendered oppression within tropes and attitudes.” By having Rey actually interact with and befriend a woman other than Leia, Forms already improves on the source material. It's a delight to see Forms depict older women over age fifty who are plot-significant and interact which one another, if only because Star Wars movies are fairly gender regressive. On the other hand, Rey's strategy to convert Kylo back to the light is to uh, suck the badness out of him. It's Padmé Amidala logic—sure, he arranged the wholesale slaughter of an entire village, but he can also deftly finger you to orgasm! Granted, Star Wars is infamously a franchise of excuse making, where really shitty dudes manage to turn it around and do the right thing at the last minute. Forms also doesn't push all that hard to actively resist the neo-fascist allegory in the sequel trilogy, particularly in Trebia's appendix, which dissatisfactorily explains that all of the First Order war criminals in the story ended up as instructors in military academies. (Who would even hire them, Albus Dumbledore?!)

Fics like Forms led to “ship wars” discourse, which led to the publication of ozhawkauthor's “The Three Laws of Fandom” meta essay on January 1st, 2016. “Laws” is a bit of a misnomer since there is no enforcement body; the essay is more of a request for courtesy in fandom spaces. The laws were also meant to apply specifically to shipping, not fandom or media criticism as a whole. “It’s not up to you to decide what other people are allowed to like or not like, to create or not to create,” wrote ozhawkauthor. “That’s censorship. Don’t do it.”

For fans conscious of fandom history and the impact of censorship in spaces like FanFiction.net and Livejournal, ozhawkauthor's guidelines—(1) Don't like; don't read, (2) Your ship is not my ship, (3)Ship and let ship—felt intuitive. This is reflected in spaces like my bookbinding guild, Renegade, which—similar to Archive of Our Own—takes a hands off approach to policing content. This did not prevent widespread handwringing about Reylo content. Star Wars fan ughwhyben reflected on the “gigantic fandom that is suddenly experiencing a renaissance, where an influx of mainstream folk are trickling into (or running into) the fic side for possibly the first time right now and don’t have this training. It’s like we’re flickering back and forth between the modern evolution of fic side fannish culture and what things were like in, for example, 2001 when I first stumbled in.”

Decades ago, in May 1981, Lucasfilm reacted to the publication of “Slow Boat to Bespin” by Anne Elizabeth Zeek & Barbara Wenk by declaring a ban on smut in fan fiction. I've included in the errata of this binding a letter from 1981 written by the Star Wars fanclub president to circulating fanzines threatening legal action. While slash was also caught in this net—disproportionately targeted given non-explicit gay romance was not okay even though Star Wars has non-explicit het romance—it was this fairly tame (by fic standards) heteronormative fic, featuring Han Solo and Princess Leia, that signaled to Lucasfilm that smutty fanfic was no longer on the fringes and now needed to be addressed to protect the “wholesomeness” of the franchise. Subsequently, fanfic writers had to make a conscious decision to flout Lucasfilm’s policy and go forth with propagating their smut.

And, in 2016, of all the ships in all of fandom, it was the Reylo Star Wars pairing, featuring this specific heteronormative female power fantasy (of being able to leash a villain by the dick to drag him back to the light) that led to a communal reaffirmation of these fandom norms. In her interviews with the The Atlantic, Trebia directly quotes from the Three Laws of Fandom, endorsing “ship and let ship” as a basis for creating Reylo fanworks. “I am fully involved in the garbage compactor that is this pairing, and I love it,” Trebia said. “No matter what way it goes, I will stick with it.”

After studying early romance novels from the late 1600s and early 1700s, Ros Ballaster observed a polarity between didactic love fiction and amatory fiction. Didactic love stories are sweet—aspirational, moral, and idealized—while amatory fiction is spicy—erotic, transgressive, untethered from social sanction. We do see representations of didactic love in Reylo fan fiction, particularly in contemporary romance “Modern AUs” like Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis (2021)where the Kylo's homicidal Sith rage is sanitized to a more socially-acceptable grumpy academic brooding. One can comfortably bring Adam Carlsen, Ph.D home to meet Mother. But certainly, the majority of Reylo fic written by fans gravitate towards and come with the self awareness of the amatory. For one, Trebia loudly proclaims in her Chapter Two author note: “MORE TRASH FOR THE TRASH GOD.”

Discourse over the “morality” of Reylo fan fiction tends to overlook the distinction between the didactic and the amatory. As compelling as the idea of a “Force dyad” is in fantasy, this relationship is not meant to be aspirational in a literal sense. Yet, readers of Reylo fiction were and continue to have to defend their interest in the archetype with disclaimers—yes, it's trash, yes, I know it's problematic—while men in fandom are not held to the same standards when it comes to “problematic” media they consume or enjoy, whether it's a Michael Bay blockbuster film or male-gaze pornography.

As Deborah Lutz notes, “The Dangerous Lover Romance” is a centuries old, conventional way to represent erotic desire and romantic love. The “sublimely tormented Byronic hero” is hardly groundbreaking, to the extent that Rian Johnson's depiction of Reylo in The Last Jedi subverts the trope—at the end of the film Rey isn't enchanted, she's repulsed. The same way Star Wars replicates Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey monomyth, Reylo stories like Forms reflect the broad appeal of the “how-the-turntables” Dangerous Lover romance—where the woman protagonist, initially subjugated by the debased, restless misanthrope, ends up subjugating him through her strength of will and the power of love. Trebia's Kylo even sports malevolent scars like so many Gothic male romantic leads before him—always on the face. In the Gothic romance, the heroine accesses socially undesirable aspects—power, rage, craving, desire—as expressed by her double, the Dangerous Lover. His presence in the story provides a basis for her disinhibition. The Reylo ship follows a well-trodden cultural script of transgressive female desire.

Forms the fan fiction novella is a notable cultural artefact reflecting a distinct period of time in Star Wars fandom. At the time, Reylo fanfic held all the promise of improved representation for women characters, crossed with the instinctual, regressive insistence that maintains a white male character in the forefront. Reylo fan fiction produced in early 2016 also led to the reification of anti-censorship values in fandom. Seven years later, a fandom that was once derided has gone fully mainstream, as fic writers like Ali Hazelwood, Ashley Poston, and Thea Guanzon top traditional publishing bestseller lists. What Trebia knocked out, hours after her introduction to the characters, is now it's own Star Wars literary tradition.

[artist-issues]

Hello! My ask is about The Rise Of Skywalker. I would like to read your analysis of Reylo's scenes such as their dialogues in the film, Rey's declaration to Ben ("I did want to take your hand. Ben's hand."), Ben's return to the light side and the reylo kiss. The declaration, Ben's return and the kiss, for me, are the only good things about this film.

I thought all of the Rise of Skywalker was really terrible. Terrible writing, terrible plot, and even some pretty terrible characterizations. (I thought the actors did their best, though.)

Basically, ROS had several threads that TLJ and TFA had braided together. All it needed to do was tie those threads off. But instead, it unraveled them and tangled them up and said “done! All tied up!”

For example:

Thread 1: Finn’s journey from fear to faith.

Thread 2: Leia’s hope for her son.

Thread 3: Poe’s journey from hero to leader.

Thread 4: Hux’s growing, rabid desire for control. (It’s why the organization’s called the First “ORDER”)

Thread 5: Kylo Ren’s learning that power won’t make him feel secure.

Thread 6: Rey’s learning that she doesn’t need to be “somebody” because it’s all about something bigger than herself.

Thread 7: Kylo Ren and Rey learning their respective lessons by finding the answers in each other.

TLJ took what TFA started and got you those threads. Then TROS said “never mind, we don’t like those threads” with most of them. For example, Poe and Finn suddenly have nothing to do. For example, Finn is not doing anything that requires the faith he began building at the end of TLJ; he’s just following Rey around. Poe is not learning how to lead, he’s just info-dumping and trying quick three-man hero missions, unlike the lesson he learned at the end of TLJ. Hux is not strategizing with rabid extremism for control; he’s just pettily throwing his life away to get back at Kylo Ren. Et Cetera. The threads all get unraveled or tangled up or left dangling uselessly.

EXCEPT for Thread 7.

They make an attempt at “Kylo Ren and Rey learning their respective lessons by deepening their bond.” The problem is, without the other threads, that one just doesn’t fit any better than the rest of the story.

First off, I 100% agree that Kylo Ren and Rey would be involved romantically, in some way, eventually. There’s literally no way around it. Romantic attachment is choosing to commit to someone on an intimate level. Because they’re Force Bonded, and because they are the only people in the universe who have similar identity crises and deep family-related angst, they were bound to intimately understand each other. They started caring about each other in TLJ. All TROS had to do was fan the flames of that care up in a way that led to their character developments concluding.

Rey just needed to demonstrate more of the letting-go she demonstrated at the end of TLJ: she wants Kylo Ren to be Light, but she realizes there’s nothing she can do to force it, even if she begs and pleads, so she just keeps doing the right thing on her end and trusts the Force, believing he’ll come to the right conclusion in the end no matter how much evil he’s done. What’s that ladies and gentlemen? It’s called ✨ unconditional love. ✨

Then Kylo Ren just needed to see that love. Literally, just see and continuously experience it. Even if he’s trying to hunt her down and kill her or take everything from her or whatever, she just keeps refusing to kill him and believing he’ll turn good. After all, that’s more than his parents did for him back when they sent him away—and since then, whatever unconditional love Rey shows him is strengthened by the examples of unconditional love Han Solo and Luke showed right before they died. Plus the alternative to accepting unconditional love—murdering everything that might give him a sense of power—hasn’t been making him feel any better. So he was primed for redemption via Rey.

That’s all they needed to do in TROS. Not so hard, just write a reason for her to save his life or spare it again, even after their previous encounter and even given his new status as Supreme Leader. He’s halfway there. Continued pushes are all that’s needed.

Just like Luke Skywalker in the Revenge of the Sith, Rey and Kylo Ren don’t really need to develop much more in the final movie of their trilogy. They just need to put what the first two movies taught them to a big final test.

Anyway. With that in mind:

Let me give you the bite-sized version 😅

The Force-Searching Scenes - I don’t like these because they’re all Kylo Ren searching for Rey, with little to no engagement from her. She feels more like she’s given up on him in these scenes and is just trying to win an argument whenever he barges into her brain. He, on the other hand, might be looking for her, but it’s with one hand on his grandfather’s mask. Which is totally the opposite of him “letting the past die. Kill it, if you have to.” So he’s taking weird steps backward, toward TFA, as if TLJ never happened… and that tarnishes his motives for finding Rey, in my mind. If he’s going back to trusting the past and the idea of his grandfather, then why does he want to turn Rey to the dark side? When Vader failed to turn Luke, he tried to murder him. Kylo Ren knows that. So meditating on a mask he should be giving up on in order to find and turn Rey makes no sense, so it takes the tension out of those scenes for me.

Fight Scenes - Again, it makes no sense that Kylo Ren would still be pursuing turning Rey to the dark side so doggedly. Neither of them could convince the other at the end of TLJ. They split a lightsaber in half to prove it. Now, that doesn’t mean they should be giving up on each other completely. But Kylo Ren should be acting like he’s given up on her, even if just to convince himself. That’s what he’s done this whole time: turned to killing the people who fail him to make himself feel more powerful. She has a reason to keep believing in him: she’s on the Light Side of the Force. But instead, she’s the one acting like she wants nothing more to do with him. He mentions how he’s going to turn her to the dark side multiple times in the movie. But she doesn’t say more than one quipped question hinting that she still wants him on the light side. So the “attachment” focus of their fights loses all it’s tension because again, it doesn’t make sense. After TLJ, he should be at least trying to give up on her and pursue killing her, if anything. And she should be steadfastly believing in him, while pursuing doing the right thing no matter what he does. That’s where they were in their character development. More fighting barely makes sense.

Healing Scene - I liked this scene only when Rey heals Kylo Ren. Their fight beforehand, and her ramming his lightsaber into him, still makes no sense. She’s angry at him because of her connection to Palpatine and she’s fighting him like that’s going to exorcise her identity…but Rey being a dark, angry descendant of Palpatine never made sense (it unravels her whole character development.) So her motivations in this scene don’t make sense…until she heals him. Then, suddenly, there’s a glimpse of that Rey we left on the Millenium Falcon in TLJ: she’s healing him, even though he might just stand up and attack her again, because she genuinely believes he’s Ben and she just needs to show him mercy until he comes around to believing it. And THAT is part of what turns him. So I like that: I just think it was executed really poorly. She should never have been healing him from a wound she caused.

The Kiss - The kiss was just basically the TROS storytellers confirming that they were romantically attached instead of just enemies-to-friends/Allie’s attached. Because…for some reason they had to confirm that visually. I just think, again, that they didn’t set it up and execute it well. They have no conversations and no significant attention paid toward each other between the healing scene and the final battle. They might be force-linked, but the audience needed to see that bond turned romantic, or him turned good before any overt romantic gestures, much earlier on. Other than that, I like that he healed her. I love Adam Driver’s acting in that whole scene. Makes me wish they gave him more to do.

The Death Scene - This should not have happened. It was lazy. Kylo Ren is a character who has been trying to fulfill himself by making BIG, final (emphasis on “final”) choices. Having him make one more big final choice, to end his own life, was not good character development. He should’ve had to live with what he’d done so he could learn from his mistakes. That’s where his whole character was headed. He’s always failed to learn from his past: he thinks he can just erase it. You know what giving up your life for a different hero and then fading away is? It’s nice, but it’s just another “erase” choice. Additionally? It’s terrible for Rey’s story, too. She finally had someone she chose, someone she waited for who actually came back, somebody who understood her…somebody who’s redemption rewarded her long faith…and she’s left alone again. That’s just the worst. Plus, what did she need him to heal her for? What exactly did she die of? He was way more injured than she was.

What they should’ve done was, Kylo Ren and Rey save the day, and then he’s condemned to death for his crimes by the New Republic, but in honor of Leia’s life of sacrifice and belief in him, he’s given enough of a pardon to simply be banished to the unknown reaches. And Rey goes with him, because she can finally stop waiting, she loves seeing the galaxy, and they can learn about the Force together…plus, they’re obviously deeply connected. And that would be a great homage to Leia’s legacy as a character who never gives up on hope, and that hope is ultimately rewarded. Instead of having her give her life to reach him…so he can live for an hour or so before also dying.

Long story short…you’re right! I just think all the elements you liked should’ve been way more central, built up to, and placed where they fit in a better movie!