Still Sad An Entire Month Later Lmao

*sighs* hello.

here, have some hurt/comfort reylo.

you're welcome.

Hoooooooo boy once I get the hang of animating again and stop being the slowest and most easily distracted artist on the face of the earth it’s OVER for the Reylos 😤

DYAD - A Star Wars Fan Story

Prologue Part 1

Howdy, I’ve been working on a Star Wars fan story and have just finished the Prologue. DYAD is an alternative story to the sequel trilogy where Rey is brought up in the dark side and Ben Solo never did or became Kylo Ren.

Ben Solo and Rey: dyad in the force. Two that are one. One soul, force whatever you wanna call it split into two bodies.

TRoS acting like it makes total logical sense: Well, I guess we should kill one of the halves!

Different

When [Ben] says "Join me," and then..."Please," in that really beautiful, you know, distinctive, intimate way. I feel you could've ended the movie there[.] It felt like the "I love you," "I know" moment to me. Not that he was declaring his love for her in that moment, but that he was saying, "I need you. I really need you. [...] I can't exist without you, and if you don't come with me, I'm not sure I can do it."

--Leslye Headland (House of R podcast)

tidal

Part of why I fixate on Ahch-To and Kef Bir is that I love ocean/water/shore imagery, and because they cater so specifically to my aesthetic preferences it really amplifies how I view Rey and Ben's connection.

I like the symbolism of the Force and the bond as something like a tidal push and pull; the intertidal zone as a middle ground perpetually alternating between two extremes (land/water, high/low, light/dark); the interconnectedness of an ecosystem affected by planetary movement; the dark side as drowning; etc.

I'll simply never be over that so much of the Force bond took place with Rey on Ahch-To in the middle of an ocean, and then that setting was mirrored in their final battle and Ben's redemption. How that all evolved from their first fight taking place in the snow, as though it thawed into a raging sea. Rey from the desert thrust into situations where she is surrounded by water, new and unfamiliar and overwhelming. Water as simultaneously a desperate life-giving necessity and a dangerous life-taking unknown (like Ben, like the Force). You imagine an ocean.

There's also the Ahsoka show's use of the World Between Worlds tying in with the ocean, which only reinforces that link in my mind of water and liminal spaces between the Living Force and the Cosmic Force. Or something about the relationship between deep sea + outer space: they're the same, in reverse! The Force bond pulling inward and infinitely deeper versus the Force itself expanding and reaching ever outward.

And now The Acolyte has added onto this too! Sol: talking about the Force as an ocean me: hooting and hollering and pointing at the screen

If you want more of a literal narrative thread, I'm choosing to view this as a fix-it continuation of this previous drawing—Rey hopped into the World Between Worlds and pulled Ben back and they both washed up on Ahch-To. :) Not pictured: the fish nuns just out of frame saying "ah shit, here we go again."

After Ben's death Rey becomes a workaholic. She throws herself fully at her work to avoid greiving and feeling the half of herself missing. She knows hes gone, but doesn't want to face the fact fully. It all boils over years later when someone approches needing directions to get around the newly rebuilt republic. he looks so similar to ben that she finds herself feeling sad and looking at him for to long. Her fortress she built around herself to protect against reality crumbles a little revealing the hole in her heart. Her need for him is still there, she wants to act like its not but can't help it. She needs him to be standing in front of her she needs to feel the comfort and the sense of home she felt on Exegol before it was ripped away without warning. But the stranger isn't ben, he isn't here she starts to feel the coldness again and lonelyness that ate away at her for years before he appeared.

Reylo being the heart of Star Wars (much like Anidala before them) is showcased beautifully in TLJ & barely there in TROS.

I'll never understand how incompetent JJ Abrams is at making a fucking Star Wars movie. Like I'm sitting here thinking "How tf is this dude still making movies??? Why is he the definition of boring? Why is he so blind to how Rian Johnson almost saved The Sequel Trilogy by fixing the mess you made"

IM ILL 😭😭😭😭

She knows this will hurt him. She knows this will make him feel betrayed. She hates that she has to do this to him because she knows he’s not the monster he pretends to be but he’s still not the person he needs to be in order for them to be together.

A cornerstone of Rey’s personality is she doesn’t give up, no matter how hopeless something seems so to be giving up on her other half and leaving him with the first order is heartbreaking for her. She’s not only devastated at the loss of Ben Solo, her other half, but for what she knows this will do to him and that he will view this as a betrayal.

And we can see so clearly what it does to him written all over his face 😭 he’s so hurt and confused, he thought there was no way she wouldn’t see things his way and that she knew they belonged together no matter what so he can’t believe she’s fighting to get away from him again and just UGGGHHHH

And how initially he is FURIOUS, firing on the falcon all his big talk of destroying her, and luke and everything while she is initially just so sad this is the way things have gone but by the time we get into TROS Rey’s sadness and disappointment turns into RAGE and she is furious with him for keeping them apart and not coming back to the resistance with her.

GUH 😭 when she lays eyes on him again at the end of TLJ we see her take a few deep breaths and he looks hopeful when she does it meaning he can feel her sadness, her regret, her pain, her resolve waiver for just a moment before she puts on this mask of indifference and just looks SO disappointed in him.

While for him, once his anger burns out and he sees her again he’s just utterly devastated and filled with regret and you can see he’s disappointed with himself too 😭

The chemistry and acting talent of these two is insane but the experience of what it’s like to fall in love with someone who’s not ready to love you and how painful it is to walk away from that person when you realize it is captured so beautifully and so devastatingly I’m so heartsick about it 😭