#reylo is a thing

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

Uh, guys? Don't confuse your crappy televised fanfic for the story that Tolkien actually wrote.

Galadriel was never "under Sauron's thrall." That's something ROP made up. In Unfinished Tales, she was the only one in Eregion who suspected that Annatar was lying about being an emissary of the Valar. Celebrimbor was deceived by him. She was not. She was certainly not "under his thrall." No, not even because she had Nenya.

Yes, when Frodo offered her the One Ring, she was tempted. It could have given her the power to prevent the fading of Lothlórien. But when she makes this speech in the book, and in the Peter Jackson movies, it's her own thought, she's not repeating something that Sauron said to her once:

“You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

These are Galadriel's words. Her words. Not Sauron's. And she was tempted by the One Ring because she could have been a more powerful queen, not Sauron's queen. Like, you guys really took one of the most powerful and complex female characters in Tolkien's works and you made her story all about a man and his power over her and his manipulation of her. Fuck off.

And stop tagging ROP as Lord of the Rings.

[frenchublog]

ily

[tippenfunkaport]

That viral post that's going around about how people who write "book quality" mlm fic are too "normal" to publish and have real jobs so only "weird" people publish their "shitty" fanfic is so completely out of touch with reality and I am giving a massive side eye to everyone reblogging it.

Not only is it completely, easily verifiably untrue (you cannot enter any professional writing space without tripping over a dozen grizzled scifi writers who got their start by filing off the serial numbers and publishing their Star Trek fanfic even going back decades ago??? it's a whole thing?? plus how can you look at the mlm category on Amazon right now and say with a straight face that people aren't publishing shitty Spirk and Stucky fanfic??? Oh, honey...) it's also the perfect example of this kind of sneering elitism that true artists would never sully themselves by seeking profit, they do it only for the purity of the thing that always somehow leads back to, "no one should be paid to make art, actually."

The only reason you're seeing more published fanfic right now has nothing to do with the idealistic purity of your hypothetical government employee written smut of the past vs the debased scribbles of those awful straights of today and everything to do with the fact that a) self-publishing has created a voracious readership that wants a ton of content so it's become a viable, flexible income stream for many, especially disabled people b) anyone can publish now with self-publishing tools so there are less gatekeepers and c) lockdown got a lot of people into fandom and therefore writing who never tried it before.

And if you really think there's no "shitty" published mlm and no "book-quality" m/f writing out there that started as fanfic, then you are clearly not a reader so why are you even talking about this?

[tarzelladraws]

10 Things I Hate About You AU for Reylo romcom bingo!

[itspileofgoodthings]

always thinking about when I was talking to a friend about IX about Ben’s death and she said “there was a whole lifetime in his smile” and I just. think about that forever.

[theweeklydiscourse]

Fake Enemies to Lovers Enjoyers: Enemies to lovers only works when [insert thinly veiled description of their fave ship’s dynamic]! Otherwise it’s abusive and toxic!!

These types want so badly for their preferred ships to be the exception to their sweeping generalizations and arbitrary limits on what can, and cannot be explored within the trope. They’re such hypocrites that want to have their cake and eat it too, they want the pleasure that comes from lording one’s perceived moral superiority over others while also enjoying the things that are so similar to what they condemn.

I beg of you…spare me the inane moralizing of your fictional preferences and please just sit down. Stop trying to move the goalposts to suit your specific preferences, stop ostentatiously moaning about what constitutes as what in regards to a broad trope like Enemies to Lovers. It’s a futile game and you look stupid trying to impose moral judgment on what is just a matter of taste

[ebongawk]

got my gallery wall up 🥹 (ft @luna4art, @unusualmuffin-art, @itsdancingquen, and @tarzelladraws ofc)

[vintageseawitch]

"omg i didn't know this book was based off a REYLO fanfic waaaah i don't like that 😭😭"

[bookishdaze]

I gotta share something that's gonna sound so ridiculous, and I'm self-aware enough to know that this is me being very gullible, but I just HAVE to spit this out somewhere. Plus, I think it's hilarious.

So I just came back from watching Civil War. I went through like 3 mini heart attacks during that movie by the way.

Anyways, we got a KOTPOTA trailer beforehand, and ya wanna know what my mother said?

"Creo que el changuito se va enamorar de la humana." That's Spanish for "I think the little monkey is gonna fall in love with the human."

And listen. LISTEN. The last time I took a general audience member (my cousin) to watch the first movie in a trilogy from a popular scifi franchise (The Force Awakens) and who had never seen any of the previous movies, I KID YOU NOT they turned to me and told me that they felt something going on between Rey and Kylo. Fast forward 2 years later when the sequel came out AND THEY WERE RIGHT.

For those who don't know, 99% of the theories about Rey at the time were of her being a Skywalker, which would make Rey and Kylo related. Yet my cousin CLOCKED it. My cousin had the gift of PROPHECY.

"Don't be ridiculous. That was ONE time." I don't care. You don't understand. After that experience, I'll believe so many things at this point.

[michelleaneousart]

Hey everyone!

I'm still (somewhat) alive!! 🥳

I did this way back in 2020 actually, but it was meant for a zine (which, to my knowledge, never saw the light of day) and since I've been going through my computer and saw this, I figured I might as well post it now. At least it might fit the summer vibe (not where I'm at though, here it's only rain all day long...)

Hope you guys are all doing well x

[isalovesslowburn]

It's time to make an ao3 account in these dark dark days, my dear guest visitors!! My favorite authors are all doing it and if you don't wanna miss anything, hurry up! xx

[lokidoki9]

hey pssst you can like Qimir without shitting all over Kylo (and Reylo), okay thanks for coming to my TED talk

[writingwife-83]

I think it’s really interesting that according to Adam Driver, even after TLJ they were still sticking with the plan to keep Kylo Ren as a villain to the end. He said his character was still on the same track and in that scenario we’d never have seen “Ben Solo.” Can you imagine? 😟 I mean, yes TROS was a dumpster fire in a lot of ways, but I will always be grateful that they didn’t go the way they almost went. I’m grateful for what we got and for the fact that in some ways you could argue that they’ve now left it open for the possibility of more Ben Solo content.

[fantasticalleigh]

old concept art for the final chapter of my reylo comic Return, which i will probably never finish. these are from early 2023 and the idea was to have either ben or rey be trapped inside some sort of portal in the WBW and have the other fight to rescue them so they could return to the land of the living, basically. I never got around to drafting the rest of the plot for that last chapter but i wanted ben to really come to terms with his desire to start a new life with rey in which he is the person he always was and not the person he wanted to be, as Ben Solo and not Kylo Ren. i have many other sketches/illustrations in the vault and while it's unlikely the comic will ever be completed i'm still glad i took the plunge and made it bc i learned a lot along the way.

(the ben solo profile drawing with the butterflies in the top right of the last image is a sticker and available through my shop!)

[animentality]

Rian Johnson didn't have to make Benoit Blanc gay but he did and for that and that alone, I will forgive him for Reylo.

[short-wooloo]

With the news from Adam Driver about how kylo redemption was never the plan originally and his story was basically meant to be reverse Vader, I'd like to resurrect an old conspiracy theory of mine about Rise of Skywalker

So the duel in the ruins of the death star, y'know how it ends with Rey stabbing kylo and then she heals him?

Well I believe he originally was meant to die there, Rey killed him in anger, and it causes a breakdown in her, she's upset not only that she failed Leia and couldn't redeem kylo, but also terrified by her anger, scared that she truly is a Palpatine, and from there we get our pep talk from Luke and final battle with Sidious

Basically I think Rey healing kylo was a last minute addition to the script (probably at disney's insistence)

And the rest of the film doesn't exactly prove me wrong

How does kylo get to exegol after Rey took his TIE fighter? Well apparently in the exploded, sitting in water for 30 years ruins of the death star there's not only a functional imperial TIE, but one with a hyperdrive too

What does kylo do upon reaching exegol? Fight the knights of Ren, something Rey herself could do or perhaps even better you could have had the Knights fight Finn, Rose and the Resistance soldiers

Does kylo meaningfully contribute to the final battle with Sidious? Not really, he gets drained of his life force by Sidious (so basically he inadvertently helps him) and is thrown down a hole for the rest of the battle, Rey does all the heavy lifting from there

The only meaningful contribution kylo makes after his "redemption" is sacrificing himself to revive Rey, which may not have even needed to happen because the only reason she was so drained is because kylo being there caused Sidious to realize he could absorb both of their life forces to restore himself (so in a way, it's his fault!) Alternatively it could have just been written that Rey passed out due to exhaustion and was otherwise fine

So yeah, that's my conspiracy, not that crazy, perfectly reasonable from my perspective