J0233 - Reylo

Adam Driver and Selena Gomez at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival

I Can See What’s Happening…

What happens to the Trio when Ben comes along.

Based on this post by @buffshipper8490

I also did one like it a long time ago, but with Obi-Wan and Anakin’s Force Ghosts.

Wow, in that last gif it really looks like kylo is about to kiss rey. didn’t adam asked rian something about a kiss?

He does!

And my baby girl Rey wants it too.

And Adam did asked Rian if Kylo has ever kissed a girl:

Interviewer: So … is this the first time Kylo has ever held hands with a girl?

Rian: I actually talked about that with Adam [Driver]. Adam was like, “So … have I actually kissed a girl before?” I would think maybe he has. Maybe after hours in the Jedi camp, there was a game of spin the bottle — “spin the lightsaber…”

(source)

Why would Adam (a very methodic actor) ever ask this question to the director and writer of the film if it wasn’t relevant to the story and his character? Maybe they thought about including a kiss during this scene but decided it was best to wait for the next installment and make it a “almost kiss” moment instead. Personally,I think it was the right decision because they kissing and then Kylo saying “Rey,I saw who your parents are” would be very awkward. 

THE WAY SHE LOOKS AT HIS LIPS ,, THEY WERE BOTH SO GENTLE BUT THEN SO HASTY LIKE OUCH MY HEART

Based on Ridley saying that Adam held her Fireman style after having to take 25 shots of one scene in The Last Jedi. (Now I’m off to bed.)

One thing I am both grateful for and…. really upset over is that for like 10 minutes, we get Ben Solo as free as he’s ever been. And just from the like, 3 clips I’ve seen, the difference in his physicality, his expressions and his energy is so completely opposite from Kylo’s… I just want to applaud Adam for giving us that. Kylo’s every movement looked so… restrained and stiff in comparison? Like he was holding in everything that he is, putting it all away. And he looked so pained most of the time. Tried to stay as stoic as he possibly could. Seething.  But Ben? Fuckin’ wild XD. The determination, the confidence, the sass, the absolute badassery… Always grateful that we got to see that. But upset that that’s all we got… Just when we started seeing who he really is, they ripped him away. But what we did get was fucking beautiful. As this tweet so elegantly put it:

Everybody say “Thank You Adam Driver”, Who brought his A-game even in this mess.

A rant about Rey.

I'm so sick of the entire Mary Sue debate. It's ridiculous! And this bullshit right here is the straw that broke the camel's back!

Here was my response to that dudebro-

Aside from pissing me off, this interaction also got me thinking...

What I told him about her life was absolutely true and it only takes 1/2 a working brain cell to realize that... Rey grew up in hell.

Niima outpost is a bona fide shit hole. It's the kind of place where the most famous ship in the galaxy can be hidden in plain sight... for years! The kind of place where people sell children. Where people ignore a teenage girl being attack in the middle of the city market... or worse, find it entertaining.

Rey is rather plain looking and shapeless when we meet her... and that was not by accident. Daisy is a beautiful young woman who can turn heads walking down any street in the world... but the difference of appearance between her and Rey are as marked as those between a peacock and a peahen.

The heartbreaking truth is, this is as much a defense tactic as it is a statement of Rey's poverty. She's 19... even if she was a late bloomer she's spent, at least, the last few years having to worry about being seen as a desirable woman... because if someone stronger, more clever, or sufficiently devious enough took an interest in her she could and likely would have been sexually assaulted, raped and/or murdered... the chances of her having never been AT LEAST sexually assaulted are very slim...

She fights every fight like her life depends on it. Even when it's a simple robbery... of something worth zero money to her... did you notice how fast she went from "stop that" to complete savage beast mode on the thugs Unkar sent? It was instantaneous the moment that thug grabbed her. That's panic fighting, pure survival instinct. She's been grabbed before... and it's apparently left her with the effects of lingering trauma.

Did you see how she didn't hesitate to attack, with intent to kill, Kylo the first three times that met? She's had to fight for her life before. Enough to have conquered the panic to the point she can fight effectively. That means she's done it A LOT.

Rey is no sweet cinnamon roll, nor some overpowered bimbo... she's a survivor living in one of the foulest pits of hell that the GFFA has to offer.

Sure, she's a decent person... but make no mistake, she is absolutely willing to cut a bitch. She is a stone cold killer. We don"t know her body count, but anyone with eyes can see that she didn't hesitate and she didn't bat an eyelash at killing that first stormtrooper in the forest before Kylo found her. She'd have done the same to him if not for the fact that he was a Jedi.

Which brings me to the point where they actually do meet...

When he took off that helmet and introduced his real PERSON to her you can't help but wonder why the fuck the big bad guy would do such a thing.

But, if you watch the scene that follows you can see him become more and more fascinated by her with every passing second.

I didn't watch him when I saw this movie at the theater, I watched her. She was emoting beautifuly... terror, panic, revulsion... I can see why someone could see this scene as akin to rape... they'd be wrong, but I CAN see how they've come up with that.

Guess who else wasn't looking at him during this scene? Rey wasn't either.

You know when else she wasn't looking at that incredibly expressive face of his?

When he first got a load of her.

The novel states and it's actually pretty easy to see if you look for it, that Kylo Ren was surprised by and impressed with her from the moment she opened fire on him in the forest.

Yup. He was a goner from the word go. He didn't take her because it would be just as easy to get the map from her as it would be to get it from the droid... frankly the data chip would have been infinitely more useful than a 30 second, unfocused memory... no he took her because he felt incredibly drawn to her. He took her because she intrigued him. He could feel there was something different and special about her. He was so distracted by her and elated to have gotten her under his control that he didn't give even a fraction of a shit about finding the droid or Luke anymore... he actively didn't want the droid anymore because that would have robbed him of his excuse to keep her around and investigate her mind... the perfect cover for his sudden, urgent, NEED to learn everything about her and figure out why he felt so "inexorably drawn" to her.

Watch his face after she says the bit about Vader... he's scared shitless... but he's not afraid for his life... he's scared because he didn't find out why he was drawn to her, and now it was a way more powerful draw... and it felt incredible... like nothing he's ever felt or seen or heard or read about...

That my friends, with a shiver down his spine to mark the occasion, was the moment he realized that she was his ONLY equal in the entire galaxy... and he wanted her. Like a trophy, yes, on the surface, where he could acknowledge and accept it - but also on a deeper level... on the level of a unique being who had found the only other of it's type in existence... on the level where Adam wanted Eve.

Rey missed 100% of that... just like a lot of the fandom... just like I did upon first viewing.

In fact she missed every bit of him falling in love with her... allllllllll the way up to this moment

Yep... even says so in the book... she had no inkling that he had actual, real, deep feelings for her.

Not even when this happened-

She was clueless.

And guess what else she didn't know? She didn't know he was physically attracted to her until this moment-

It never occurred to her that he might want ALL OF HER... because she only found out 10 minutes ago (a LONG ten minutes!) that he felt ANYTHING towards her besides a desire to shape and control her Force training and abilities.

It was a lot to take in all at once... especially considering that she was still so terrified of him that she tried to kill him 18 hrs ago!

She had hoped she could convince him to go home to his mother and his family... to return to the light... to fight the good fight... she never even suspected that he had fallen in love with HER... the lonely, scrappy, unwanted, abandoned, flawed, unlovable dessert rat... not her powers.

I think she misjudged him terribly from start to finish.

She has no idea when she closes that door in his face that his feelings were hurt but not changed... that they were real and not some fucked up manipulation tactic.

That naked vulnerability is why they chose Adam Driver... Kylo's feelings for Rey are alive and well... that's why the last time we see him he is bowing under the weight of massive amounts of grief.

NERDIST really upped their REYLO game. MUST WATCH!

I wrote twitter meta about the one good thing about this film (Adam Driver’s acting, the PURE character work he did with zero dialogue) because I finally figured out what he was talking about when he said he was using “mask work” with Kylo Ren. He wasn’t playing through a mask only when he wore the helmet, he was acting as if his very FACE was a stoic blank mask he was looking through. That’s why Kylo Ren as a character has such a specific feeling to him, and why the audience instantly responded to Ben Solo, who could show his emotions.

This character was always 100% a young boy hiding behind a mask that hid and disallowed every emotion except for his anger, the only emotion that men are allowed to feel. This character is an exploration of how toxic masculinity harms men. And what miracles can happen for men internally when they embrace emotionality and forgive themselves and use their energy to do good. (I’m crying about him again.)

“It wouldn’t be healthy” oh please give it up

Google, I—

EXCUSE ME I—

OKAY BUT—

Google... is a Reylo.