I ship Reylo, but I’m like BARELY in the Reylo community. Partly, this is because while I love fic/art of Rey and Kylo, I could give a shit whether they get together in canon. But the bigger reason, I think, is that Reylo in general has taken the pairing in a direction, with respect to tropes and overall emphases, that I just can’t connect to, that in fact works against all the reasons I ship it in the first place.
This isn’t a “y’all are shipping it wrong” post. I don’t believe it’s possible to ship something wrong. This is more of a “am I the only one who ships it this way?” post. Cuz I’m looking for folks I have something in common with.
See, the reason I don’t ship much het is because het ships tend to be dominated by this…emphasis on sexual dimorphism, let’s call it. There’s “the boy” and “the girl” and the fic and art never lets you forget which is which. The boy is big, the girl is small. The boy is dark, the girl is light. The boy is hard and armored, the girl wears flowy dresses. The boy is wild and angry, the girl is gentle and innocent. Beauty and the Beast, Hades and Persephone, etc. etc.
And like, it is FINE if you are into that! I just happen not to be. And Reylo fandom’s love for these tropes surprises me, because TFA’s subversion of these tropes is what made me ship Rey and Kylo. TFA deliberately refused to make their relationship have anything to do with gender. That was such a goddamn relief to me.
Like, there are early moments in TFA when we see that familiar beauty-and-the-beast imagery. Kylo chasing Rey through the forest. The “bridal carry”. But as soon as Kylo takes off the mask and their contest of wills begins, all of that goes out the window. We realize a couple of things:
Adam is big and Daisy is small, but when the Force is involved, size matters not. So the Force becomes this way of eliminating the physical strength disparity between a male and female character in a way that’s, well, really satisfying for me. Their contest of strength is ONLY about strength of will. And Rey has a very strong will.
The sequel trilogy isn’t going to be a story about a woman soothing a man’s rage. Because Rey is PISSED at Kylo. The first thing she thinks about him is that she wants to kill him! And that only intensifies as the movie goes on. This will be a story about Rey fighting the destructive temptation to hate Kylo and managing her OWN rage, not about her exerting a civilizing influence on Kylo. If anything, REY is the wild one.
You wanna see what the ship is, for me? THIS is my Reylo.
Like, the moment I started shipping it was when Rey beat Kylo’s ass in the snow. When she slashed his face and knocked him on his back, I fell in love. That was so sexy to me. Not cuz I hate men or something. I love men. Too goddamn much. Also, I completely identify with Kylo. Idk what that says about me, but there it is.
I think I’m just thrilled by ships that are dominated by passionate anger. Not cute faux-anger but actual, mouth-frothing RAGE. Usually, you find that more in the slash ships, which is why most of my ships have been slash. And usually, when there’s anger between a male and female character, it emerges from their romantic history together. It’s rarely just because they’re on opposite sides of an ideological conflict. And when they are on opposite sides - if the man is the villain - there’s an inevitable moment when he uses the woman’s gender against her. TFA never goes there - again, to my intense relief. When Rey takes for herself what Kylo sees as his birthright, he doesn’t look at her with wounded narcissistic rage, he looks at her with awe and admiration - and fear. Omg I nearly came. It’s so easy to make villains more villainous by making them sexist. Thank you, TFA, for not doing that.
Also: Rey’s costume is totally gender-neutral? And she’s dirty and doesn’t look made up? Whereas Kylo is kinda maybe wearing a flowy dress, but still looks like a big tough guy? Even their looks are nicely mixed up with respect to gender-coding. I love it.
I have nothing against folks who want to put Rey in a flowy dress, literally or metaphorically. It’s just not my particular jam, and I wanna know who else out there prefers their Reylo in a more femdom/gender-trope-subversion flavor. That’s all!