#mash 2016

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

I could wax poetic about why Viktor's League backstory is inherently more interesting and more thematically resonant than where they went with him in Arcane season 2, but the cold hard truth is

a man covered in grease and probably blood who builds his own body out of scraps with his own two hands, can in fact build any contraption out of dinted metal sheets and a few screws including a deathray, performs deeply inadvisable operations on desperate but consenting people with his own tools, generates a cult following against his wishes because of his ability to inadvisably help people but the power's all his now anyway so he may as well, wants to clean up and save the undercity but is (only sort of) misunderstood as a walking Geneva Convention violation a freak and a supervillain, torments his arch-nemesis on at least a weekly basis and probably homoerotically hunts him for sport, had his life's work misattributed to people in the ruling class and is angry and tragic about it forever, tries to rip out his own emotions and is unsuccessful but pretends like he was not, is actually oddly kind to children, and is at the end of the day still just some guy,

is just hotter okay

[backmarkerr]

Kimi explaining why he picked #7 instead of #6 as his driver number

[undersummerstars]

You know that feeling you get when you revisit a fandom you loved years ago and get that nostalgic feeling when you read old fics or look at old fanart and remember those golden times?

And then there's the feeling you get when you come across a fandom that you missed out on or never really knew about until now and you read those old fics imagining what the golden times must have been like...

[appalachianapologies]

tagged by @rosieblogstuff to make a new post and drop the names of my WIPs, and because I also don't have a WIP folder (my folders are far more nuanced and I don't have the brain cells to do something that smart), this probably won't be all of them

I have a handful of relatively tame ones:

jack reads files

snips from juvie

tragic backstory™️

fuck it desi lore

mash or pass

and then just random words that somehow make sense in this brain of mine:

fight club except not at all and also people die

autism be damned my boy can COOK

this man is going to have problems!!!!

another wip don't fucking @ me

the long needed abandonment complex overhaul

I also don't know if I can tag enough people, especially people who have already been tagged before so if you're reading this, I'm tagging you in all ways but physical and you can absolutely say that I tagged you

[notasapleasure]

fuckin.HEARTBREAKING i can't find any working links to electricity comes from other planets songs in this day and age.

[lgbt4077]

Secondhand book store find 😳

[candle-wax-and-polariods]

she’s coming for blood

[the-passer-outer]

my deep obsession with things like the 2016 orange shark bite hot wheels and my obsession with the minecraft greek mythology mash up pack will never be understood by any normal person

[txttletale]

It's so strange when people accuse you of being super negative all the time. Do they picture you angry crying and mashing your keyboard as you write a post critical of the flaws in a video game something? You always come across as very calm and chill actually so I don't see what they see I guess. It's giving transmisogyny! Anyway. Hope you're having a nice time of the computer today Ms. Healed.

it is really funny. it always reminds me of when i posted about the fascistic undertones to the worldview of doom (2016) (and the genre it's a representative of) and people were like "how do you enjoy anything" and i was jkust like. i played the whole game it ruled i loved shooting those guys. some people i guess just only feel motivated to be critical when theyre really mad instead of just... i don't know, enjoying being critical as an intellectual excercise that make you better at understanding and making art innit, which is a very strange mindset to me

[grison-in-space]

wondering about whether you could rec some "romance is a social construct" texts? ofc it is, but i like having books and articles to reference/learn specifics from/see how these ideas have developed.

Sure! Here's a quick reading list. Bear in mind that I am not a professional historian and my reading on this subject is a little diffuse. I'm not tackling the behavioral ecology stuff right now because a) I don't have a more direct book rec off the top of my head than Evolution's Rainbow, which is not technically focused on social monogamy, and also b) I approach that whole field with my eyes wide open for people letting their own perspectives and cultural views get in the way of their observations of animals, and I do not have the energy to go deal with it right now.

If you're going to read two books, read these two:

Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, A History: how love conquered marriage. 2006. All of Coontz' work, having to do with the social construction of the family, is relevant reading to this question (and I'd also recommend The Nostalgia Trap, because the historical context of how we conceptualize families is a major part of the construction of romantic love), but this one is most focused on the social construction of romantic love specifically and what it has replaced. Coontz is, I will disclose cheerfully, a major formative influence on my thinking.

Moira Wegel, Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating. 2016. Exactly what it says on the tin; focuses more closely on the modern invention of dating and romance.

Other useful readings to help inform your understanding of different ways that various people have conceptualized sex, sexuality, society and long-term connection include:

George Chauncey, Why Marriage? 2015. Chauncey is best known for Gay New York, which also offers a useful history of the way that relationship models and social constructs for understanding homosexuality changed among men having sex with men c. 1900 to 1950. This book, published just before Obergefell v. Hodges, is a discussion of why contemporary queer rights organizations focused on same-sex marriage as an activism plank in the wake of AIDS organizing. I find it really useful to read queer history when I'm thinking about how we understand and construct the concept of romantic relationships, because queers complicate the mainstream, heteronormative concepts of what marriage and romantic relationships actually are. More importantly, queer activist organizing around marriage has played a major role in shaping our collective understanding of romance and marriage in the past twenty years.

Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Celibacy, 2000. In order to understand how various cultures construct understandings of marriage and spousal relationships, it can be illustrative to consider what the people who are explicitly not participating in the institution are doing and why not. I found this an interesting pass over historical and social institutions that forbid (or forbade) marriage with a discussion about general trends driving these institutions, individuals, and movements towards celibacy.

Eleanor Janega, The Once and Future Sex, 2023. This is a very pointed historical look at gender roles, concepts of beauty, and concepts of sex, attraction, and marriage among medieval Europeans with an extended meditation on what ideas have and have not changed between that time and today. I include this work because I think a deep dive into medieval notions of courtly romance is useful, partly because it is an important origin of our modern notion of romantic love and partly because it is so usefully and starkly different from that modern notion! Sometimes the best way to understand the cultural construction of ideas in your own society is to go look at someone else's and see where things are the same versus different.

It's a mish-mash of recommendations, and I'm reaching more for books that have stuck with me over the years than a clean scholarly approach to the subject. I hope other folks will chime in for you with their own recommendations!

[cerastes]

i havent followed you since my old account died in 2016 but i check in every once in a while to see if youre a girl yet

You can check on my Schrödinger’s egg progress at dreamerwave at twitch.com, where I usually get in playfights with the girls in my chat and say things that makes them want to tear me apart limb by limb bug style, as well as showcase my incredible skill at games by dying to fall damage in innovative ways the likes of which could make Neil DeGrasse Tyson seem like a socially adjusted dude and get called out on my Sephiroth behavior by the selfsame girls. If I ever henshin into a woman (at which point, let’s be real, you’d all be incredibly fucked because you’d want nothing more than to mash pissers with me), you’ll be the first to know by hanging out at the stream, with the added benefit of having gameplay and VODs to peruse whilst on your boss’ dime. Seems win/win to me! See you around on chat!

[friendo]

Have you or a loved one been plagued by horny visions of Anton Chigurh from the hit 2007 Coen Brothers film No Country For Old Men based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy???

Well buckle up for ANTON FRIDAYS, where I’ll be posting 1 to 3 reader x Anton fics every Friday for the rest of the year!

(There will be 31 fics in total! I can’t keep up with kinktober because work is insane for me this time of year and I have not had a proper rest in 2 months, so I decided to do my own thing!)

Each fic will either include a gender-neutral reader (i.e. reader can be read as any gender, no pronouns or specific genitalia descriptors are used), or will include 2 chapters both with gender neutral pronouns, with one geared towards an AFAB reader and one for an AMAB reader.

Each month will have a bit of a theme, as well!

For October, I decided to mash my love of horror movies and NCFOM together to do a lot of horror-adjacent fics, so gear up for some AUs featuring slasher Anton, vampire Anton, phone stalker Anton, and more, as well as general macabre-themed fics.

For November, the leaves are changing so we’re doing some switching – this month’s fics will have Anton taking on a more submissive position!

And for December, is it getting a bit cold in here? Or is it just Anton being Anton? This month will be focused on...well, Anton being a bit mean, for lack of a better word.

(NOTE: Titles and release order are subject to change!)

Here's the prompt list below the cut! I'll be updating the list with links as I post them to my AO3.

OCTOBER

5th: Blood Oath

Featuring: Vampire Anton, bloodplay, biting (of course)

11th: Trapped Under Moonlight

Featuring: Werewolf Anton, knotting, scratching scratching biting biting more scratching clawing etc etc

18th: The Reverend of Second Chances

Featuring: Reverend Anton, cheirophilia, religious undertones

Inspired by The Night of the Hunter (1955)

18th: It’s For You

Featuring: Phone stalking, breaking & entering, voyeurism

Inspired by Black Christmas (1974)

25th: A Haunting in Texas

Featuring: Ghost Anton, poltergeist shenanigans, wet dreams

25th: Beyond The Pale

Featuring: Necrophilia, questionable Anton behavior, disgust and desire are one and the same

25th: Moving in Shadows

Featuring: Nyctophobia, hate sex in the dark, predator/prey

31st: Your Pound of Flesh

Featuring: Cannibal reader, willing victim Anton, love hurts

Inspired by Raw (2016)

31st: On a Short Leash

Featuring: Petplay, collaring, vibrators

31st: The Thrill of the Hunt(ed)

Featuring: Slasher Anton, gore, predator/play dynamics

(Despite the 31st being on a Thursday, I couldn’t not post on Halloween!)

NOVEMBER

8th: To Ruin You

Featuring: Omorashi, watersports, bathroom denial

A loose sequel to my fic Self-Control

8th: Pretty Pleas

Featuring: Begging, orgasm denial, oral sex

8th: A Lesson in Self-Restraint

Featuring: Strip teasing, demanding, a tied-up Anton

15th: Three’s a Crowd

Featuring: Anton x Carson x reader threesome, bisexual antics, somebody’s getting spitroasted

15th: Sweet Release

Featuring: Lactation, nipple play

15th: Fingertips

Featuring: Tickling, dubcon

22nd: The Taste of You

Featuring: Lots of sweat, stuck in the heat, car sex, body worship

22nd: Your Special Project

Featuring: Emetophilia, medical play

Will eventually be made into a series

29th: A Job Well Done

Featuring: Sex toys, praise

29th: Chlorine and Salt

Featuring: Public sex, poolside, edging

DECEMBER

Featuring: Temperature play, shower sex, mutual masturbation

6th: Ice Water

6th: Firebug

Featuring: Fireplay, branding, arson

6th: Iron and Grease

Featuring: Boot licking, teeth pulling, face stepping

A loose sequel to my fic Lick the Boot That Kicks You

13th: Words Like Knives and Razor Wire

Featuring: Name-calling, humiliation, spitting

13th: Quiet in the Alley

Featuring: Public sex, against a wall, under pressure

13th: Backseat Blues (AKA The Gas Station Dick Pills Incident of 1983)

Featuring: Forced erection, insatiable urges, car sex

20th: Don’t Hesitate

Featuring: Consensual noncon, roleplay, Anton wants to try something new

20th: Performance Review

Featuring: Office setting, after-hours trysts, Anton in that suit at the end of the book

Inspired by Secretary (2002)

20th: Justified Rage

Featuring: Enemies, hate sex, violent sex, dubious consent

27th: Tears Are Not Enough

Featuring: Dacryphilia, high reader, manipulation, kind of a funny one tbh

27th: Tame You

Featuring: Massages, back scratching, happy ending (literally)

[viktor-leagueoflegends]

(I hope this is okay to send but this feels like an appropriate space to let this out) I was already worried when Arcane became canon and most people (except the small group of actual league lore fans) were mostly happy and I think at the time I could almost forgive people dismissing lore fans concerns by claiming Arcane would be approvement over the current lore, because I do genuinely like Arcane season 1 and I understood where they were coming from. But now that season 2s out and it sucks and the viktor vgu's out and I see every arcane fan praise it despite not actually playing league, I just feel so upset? Like I understood defending Arcane's canonicity and overhauling the main lore when only season 1 was out because at least Arcane was actually pretty good but now, not only does it suck but it also just alters things about canon?? Like great, old viktors just gone now and I feel like everyone I see online is cheering or acting like you're a homophobe if you don't like him. Like sorry, as a bi twink, I still think his VGU sucks and is a massive downgrade and that his skins shouldn't have been changed so heavily (i wish they at least preserved the original look through a skin or something)

Thank you for your work . Looking at your blogs made me feel a lot better and I really appreciate the archiving

Hi, thanks for the ask! And yeah, totally fine to send stuff like this here. 

I know exactly what you mean about being worried from the point of Arcane becoming canon, I’ve kind of felt a looming sense of dread about this IP since then and a sort of “...There’s no way they actually go through with it, right?” just because it causes so many logistical issues for a lore that's been built on top of over the years and to change that foundation is.... tricky, to say the least.

I think from the end of arcane 1 there was a possibility of a machine herald overhaul that, yk i wouldn’t be happy with but would be tantamount to the 2011 into 2016 rework where he still maintains the characteristics of being an engineer cyborg and whatnot. And I’d be like “Ok, now I’m in the same boat as the 2011’s, it happens, I’ll cope.”

But this overhaul into something just so completely unrelated, to the point they’re renaming him Herald of the Arcane… it feels bad! It feels really really bad! And like you said, seeing people praise it because they never gave a shit about Viktor and the space he occupies in league sucks major! It’s actively detrimental to the health of the overall lore because it’s going to be SO much work to retcon and many champions are getting caught in the crossfire! All this to try and cashgrab from arcanes!

And ur so right it's honestly so crazy to me the way people are defending the decision. As if it isnt so obviously a half-assed rush job to meet the Arcane deadline. Like. This rework is bad! It is incredibly lazy from the skins to the kit changes! And people are acting like it’s good like no way you consider this a successful rework right. They did fuckall to the kit and made most skins worse. You can ask for better I promise you. But yeah the terrain of the reception to this VGU is wild. Here's hoping we can get some kind of compromise.

And I'm glad the archive has helped. I know I've spent time just mashing the random post until I feel better. Really all I wanted was for this to be a resource for LeagueViktor fans and I'm happy it's doing that.

[foxes-that-run]

Paper rings

Paper Rings is about love over wealth and luxury. Paper rings are simple and unglamorous, but also can be fragile. Paper being temporary and disposable. The song mixes good and bad to say that Taylor choses an imperfect life with this person. Taylor described it as not having modern influences when it does and being punk, a word that fits this song better than reputation but Taylor used in Time. It's was hinted at on Reputation which makes me wonder if it was a Reputation vault track. It copies the sound of Hilary Duff's 2015 Breathe In Breath Out which Taylor mentioned on Tumblr:

Paper Rings was hinted at in the Me! Lyric Video with a Paper Ring with two polaroids (it mentions photo frames) and has a Spotify Story:

"I wrote "Paper Rings' with this idea of throwback sounds. We didn't want to use any sounds that were very modern on this song. This song talks about true love, and if you really find true love, you probably don't really care what the symbolism of that love is. Material things wouldn't matter to you anymore if you found someone that you just wanted to live your life with. "

In the iHeartRadio Secret Session (Audio in the video above) Taylor said:

[...]"imagining that I was a wedding band at a reception, playing the love songs that the bride and groom wanted to hear in, like, 1978 or something. It's called 'Paper Rings.' The whole song is just basically reminiscing on fun memories. [...] there's some fun, kind of, punk, like inspired by punk girl groups and the way they used to sing, shouting them in a really unapologetic way. [...]

A 1978 Wedding Band is a very specific reference. So thinking of songs from 1978... This wedding blog lists a few like Just What I Needed – The Cars, released in 1978 and one (H tweet) and was also in The Wedding Singer. Blondie is a clear reference for the Lover aesthetic and the song. Blondie released One Way or Another in 1978. (Before the 1D cover). The Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop is an earlier influence for it.

...also did she say Punk? as in the 2023 Time Magazine:

When was it written

Like all of Lover it is copyright 2019 for its release. It was Easter egged in the Call It What You Want Lyric video on 2 November 2016 and in the Reputation magazine hinting pretty strongly that it was at least partly written with Reputation.

It was recorded at Conway, LA, & Metropolis in London. London Boy was also recorded in both. Taylor didn’t record reputation at Metropolis but KOMH and a few lover songs were at Conway.

Live performances

Paper Rings was a surprise song in Minneapolis on 23 June, 2023, the other surprise song was If this was a movie. Taylor also performed it as a mash up with Stay Stay Stay on 21 July, 2024. It was not played the few Lover promo shows.

Rings

The Spotify Visual features a huge ring, pearls and beehive. When talking about the song Taylor talked about not caring about a ring if you truly loved someone, and the lyrics 'I like shiny things, but I would marry you with paper rings'. So why this visual with a huge ring and perfect life? To me this is about giving those things up, which fits the 'unapologetic' punk feel. This idea is also in the LAWYMMD video. Maybe rejecting a proposal with a shiny ring for a more youthful love.

Lyrics

The moon is high Like your friends were the night that we first met Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet Now I've read all of the books beside your bed

In the iHeartRadio intro Taylor said the song was reminiscing on fun memories which these first verses are. These are the sections which match Breathe in Breathe out. which has lines that start with “I remember..” while Hilary was looking back on a lost love Taylor is reminiscing on a current love, it sounds both nostalgic and new.

Some fans do gymnastics to make them about a specific muse but they are very generic but I’ll add that Joe was not with friends at the Met Gala, he was with a costar that knew Taylor better.

The wine is cold Like the shoulder that I gave you in the street Cat and mouse for a month or two or three Now I wake up in the night and watch you breathe

This verse continues the reminiscing, I like the use of cold shoulder and street compared to the intimacy of watching someone breathe. Also this line reminds me of the Hilary Duff song title.

Kiss me once 'cause you know I had a long night (Oh) Kiss me twice 'cause it's gonna be alright Three times 'cause I've waited my whole life (One, two, one, two, three, four)

This verse is the most like a wedding band, and one Taylor mentioned when talking about the song that Jack does the count in. Taylor has not used ‘be alright’ very much:

22 - Everything will be alright, if you keep me next to you

Shake it off - Saying, "It's gonna be alright."

Call it what you want - They took the crown, but it's alright

The Archer - But what if I'm alright, right, right, right here?

Death by a Thousand Cuts - I ask the traffic lights if it'll be alright

The 1 - And it's alright now

Fresh Out the Slammer - But it's gonna be alright, I did my time

I look through people's windows - Does it feel alright to not know me?

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings Uh huh, that's right Darling, you're the one I want, and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

The refrain is where Taylor would chose a simple paper ring over a fancy ring or wedding. When talking about the song Taylor described this as the ring not mattering, but to me paper is more temporary, it’s not a wedding but a tentative commitment of sorts. Taylor also describes the relationship as non traditional with “this” an ill defined situationship.

Uh huh, that's right Darling, you're the one I want In paper rings, in picture frames, in dirty dreams Oh, you're the one I want

The one I want implies again there is someone Taylor is choosing this person over, she’s forgoing something shiny for this relationship. Yet the theme of reminiscing implies this is not a new relationship. Darling is not used a lot.

Picture frames are also uncommon in Taylor’s work, only HYGTG, Run and this song have a framed picture to mean a relationship. The Me! Lyric video had 2 Polaroids with the paper ring, very 1989/reputation-esque, one of her holding a cat and one with friends.

How You Get The Girl: With pictures in frames of kisses on cheeks

In the winter, in the icy outdoor pool When you jumped in first, I went in too I'm with you even if it makes me blue Which takes me back To the color that we painted your brother's wall

Taylor will follow this partner anywhere even when it’s not always easy or pleasant. More on the wall and icy pool below.

Honey, without all the exes, fights, and flaws We wouldn't be standing here so tall, so

In this verse their relationship has some history of "exes, fights, and flaws" they’ve overcome. Similar to “one I want” this is not a simple we met and went from friends to this, they have history.

Icy outdoor pool

I have a post on the icy pool. Which is something Harry has been known for (also in Hampstead Heath Pond) long before Joe did handy exposition for this. Taylor said on 2 June 2018 in Chicago ( Harry was in the City) "2 New Years Eve's ago I found myself in the midst of a very like incredible 3am moment where you think you are invincible and you end up like jumping in a pool in the winter and you feel super untouchable in that moment" Taylor Nation cut this part out.

The house Taylor rented in Hampstead in December 2016 has a pool and she included photos in the Rep Magazine. A post on that.

Blue Walls

I have a post on this blue wall line and that it is a metaphor for being emotionally isolated. She also referred to blue painted walls in:

Everything Has Changed - And all my walls stood tall, painted blue

The Lover photoshoot hints that it is metaphorical:

If you think these rep book photos are of Taylor actually painting a wall and not a photoshoot I have some ice to sell you.

I want to drive away with you I want your complications too I want your dreary Mondays Wrap your arms around me, baby boy

In the bridge Taylor tells how she wants good and bad, a similar idea to on New Years Day about wanting someone to clean up bottles after the party, or dreary Monday’s here. Again with complications, this is not a fresh relationship between 2 single people.

Drive is a Haylor theme also and this line reminds me of Style’s “let’s get out of the town” and finally taylor calls the muse “baby boy” .. perhaps she is singing about someone who’s ‘younger than her ex’s but acts like such a man, so.

[mashhistorian]

Dale Sherman’s book “MASH FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the Best Care Anywhere” provides information about more than just the series, movie, and original novel. Sherman discusses the Korean War, MASH units, the M*A*S*H play, spin-offs, interesting tidbits about the series, and much more. Learn more about Sherman’s book in this week’s post and learn where you can buy a copy!

[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.