I still have Star Wars on the brain, and even if I was cooling down from the Star Wars hype, it was immediately rekindled by the Rogue One trailer and the recent release of the The Force Awakens DVD. But I’m not here to talk about any of the new Star Wars movies. A while back I talked about my favorite Star Wars installment in the franchise, The Empire Strikes Back, and now I am here to talk about my second favorite, Return of the Jedi.
I love Darth Vader—ever since I saw him first walk onto the screen in A New Hope he has become my all-time favorite character. I also love Leia. She’s a badass princess of the galaxy who helps the Rebels win against the Empire, before going on to become a General in her own right and commanding the Resistance against the First Order. Despite being father and daughter, however, the two don’t have all that many interactions on screen. I always found this unfortunate, as getting to explore Leia’s relationship with her father could very well have been interesting and compelling. After all, Vader has done far worse to Leia than he ever did to Luke, and therefore reconciling these two characters seems a much harder task.
Thankfully, fanfiction is here to save the day.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m nothing these days if not Star Wars trash, and I’m especially obsessed with one Poe Dameron. When I heard that his family’s backstory was featured in the prequel/tie-in comic Star Wars: Shattered Empire, it was a matter of course to pick it up and check it out. What I found inside was three parts awesome tie-in story, two parts giant question mark.
Spoilers for the whole comic below.
Spoilers for The Force Awakens and potential future plot points above and beneath the cut.
January 1st was an important day for me. That day was the day I remembered that I loved Star Wars.
This is how Rey deserves to be, y’all.
(via nonbinarygayrey @ Tumblr)
My reaction to The Force Awakens was roughly the same as Saika’s in that I have way too many feelings about everything. As such, everyone in the movie is now my child (except Leia, who is still, and will always be my queen). However, there’s no denying that I have a strong affection for Rey. Back as a child, when I watched the original trilogy with my parents, there was always a small emptiness in watching the daring feats of Leia, Luke, and Han. While Leia was a fantastic character, I realize now that I was always wondering where the other ladies in the galaxy were, especially Jedi. Since I never watched either of the animated series (and I barely remember the prequels), Rey is the first lady Jedi I’ve seen—and probably the first lady Jedi many people have seen. And she’s fantastic; she’s intelligent, brash, emotional, flawed, and perfect. So, of course, I had to look up fic.
Unfortunately, people thus far seem determined to ship Rey with Kylo Ren, the new face of the Sith. Even beyond their less-than-pleasant encounters, and the fact that they dislike each other, what’s the worst about this is that most of these fic are straight up rape fic. While I can go into a tirade about how our female protagonist deserves so much better than this—and how it reveals something terrifying about fans and how we’ve been conditioned to read romance in straight up abuse—instead, I’ll rec several fics starring my favorite ship: Rey x Healthy Relationships.
Star Wars Episode VII comes out next month, and it’s not soon enough. I can hardly contain my excitement, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that I’ve been spending my days googling all things Star Wars and reading up on every fan theory that I can find. So fic and potential movie spoilers are ahead.
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