#inb4: I'm not even a reylo

[defiantbird]

What's your favorite character relationship dynamic and which characters made you realize that fact? What was it about them that resonated with you originally? (inb4 PoTO ramble but I'm entirely here for it)

Ooo, a good one, Anon. Correct, it probably started with Phantom :P You asked for it...

...although honestly this is a complex thing so while I'll try to keep it relatively brief, I may not succeed, so I'ma put this under a cut.

The short answer: light vs dark, enemies-to-lovers, and/or redemptive relationships.

My initial love of Phantom was no so much about the relationship (romatic of otherwise) between Erik and Christine, but more Erik as a person. I have always been a super sensitive person, moreso as a kid, and Erik was the first time I saw a character that was excessively emotional and utterly unable to contain or manage it, and it was the first time I felt Seen. I did like the romantic dynamic in general, but Christine specifically wasn't interesting enough for me as a character to get me fully into it as a romance.

All of this developed in my mind as I got older, and to be honest I didn't understand why this stuff appealed to me until maybe like ten years ago. Pardon me for a bit of personal stuff.

I've considered myself, for a long time, to be Too Much. Aside from being super emotional and sometimes excessively empathetic, I used to be very obsessive, vengeful, and angry. I developed chronic depression at a -very- young age and had almost no guidance on how to manage it, and it made me a pretty difficult person to be around and with.

I honestly didn't get better until my relationship (with my now-husband, then-boyfriend) almost ended, partially because of how I was. What moved me to dedicate myself to getting better was realizing that I was hurting him and would lose him. And I did get better! Way better!

All that to say, even though it sounds dramatic: the idea that love can save someone and make them the best version of themselves is so hopeful and wonderful to me. I adore stories where good and value can be found in people have been broken by their sadness. Not only that, but the idea that just having that good and value recognized by someone else is healing and powerful.

To tie back to Phantom- Erik doesn't have a change in heart until Christine shows him that he's not incapable of being loved. By kissing him at the end she basically says "I could have loved you, I HAVE seen beyond your appearance, it was never about that". She just loved someone else and, y'know, had some entirely valid reasons to come to hate and fear Erik. "What made you ugly isn't your face, it's what you let your sadness turn you into."

So, with that in mind, you can probably see why my two fave ships these days are Reylo and Dimileth- if you know what those are. I always found it really funny when critics of Reylo would say "you don't care about Rey, you just want to be her and have Kylo Ren love you". Because, no-- I'M Kylo Ren, and I want to be loved by Rey. I was the shitty, broken person who needed to be shown I wasn't beyond repair or understanding by someone who DIDN'T let their sadness break them, who had the patience and love in them to help me.

And, this isn't just a romantic thing. I very much enjoy this in fictional friendships as well. Frankly, this all ALSO relates to a lot of my friendships.

...whew, that was dramatic, wasn't it? I hope it wasn't too much, or that it wasn't entirely disorganized and incomprehensible. Thank you for the ask! As you can see, I can talk about this shit forever if I'm allowed.

[intersex-ionality]

Anyway, on lighter fare (and my god, how is this the lighter fare):

The people who are harassing the shit out of John Boyega are not “reylos,” they are racists. Having an interest in Rey and Kylo Ren making out has fuck all to do with being the kind of white supremacist sack of shit who would try to get a black man fired over petty jokes in the wake of his career being toyed with by a major studio. There is, in fact, no correlation.

Trying to re-frame “person who enjoys the idea of two fictional characters making out” as “person who thinks it’s reasonable or justified to try and get a black man fired for making some jokes with sexist implications” is such a weird, ineffective tactic.

For fighting racism.

Unfortunately, fighting racism is not the actual goal of this shitshow.

The goal is to make people, especially queer woman, feel bad for enjoying some movies in a way others don’t like--even if its the way the films themselves ended up promoting.

To make that goal sound less petty, it’s being disguised as a fight against racism.

Fighting racism is being co-opted into a ship war.

I know this comes as a weird shock to everyone involved, but the answer the racism is not sexism, the answer to sexism is not racism, and trying to obfuscate the actions of fucking racists by calling them shippers is some dumb ass bullshit.

People have been trying to get John Boyega fired for non-reasons since the first trailer dropped, and those people run the entire gamut of star wars face, because racism is everywhere. It’s not somehow a unique feature of a particular ship.

Re-framing racism as a shipping issue is a great way to call perfectly pleasant fans of color racist for having emotions, while letting white shitheads who spend all day writing slur laden screeds on twitter, and have been trying to get Boyega fired for most of a decade now, off the hook because at least they don’t read the wrong kind of fanfiction.

It’s not just ineffective, it’s counter productive.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.