This STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Collector's Vinyl Is Gorgeous (Exclusive) If You Are A Star Wars Completist,

Hopefully Hapless Introverted Romantic

An introvert attracted to someone easily slips into obsessively imagining as the desire to connect with someone drowns within the inability to socialize, to get through the insignificant chatter with a stranger that allows the introvert’s preferred social medium to come into being. As each of those desired moments with the desired slips by, as the fear of being alone with that delicious stranger keeps those very moments unattainable the introvert channels that deep desire into obsession. A continuous imagining of what could be if she could just be more social, could deliver the charming small talk to win the interest of the other person, drives her into her imagination, building a relationship within that universe that she has total control, where her introversion is the charm, where the one she desires brings down that barrier not so she can take on extroverted traits but so her genuine thoughtfulness, insights and vibrancy naturally flow.  How she desires that this person has the patience to understand her introversion, to look into her eyes and see her life and is willing to wait for this seemingly quiet stranger to find the significant words to make a conversation charming because the words are worthwhile.

If you are an introvert, find some way to connect, find some way to interact with those you deeply desire to know so you don’t spend your time writing down the obsessive imaginations of relationships you hoped you had because you could control the social awkwardness, because even know, this introvert is writing stories of love affairs she wished that she could have and is still getting stuck in those social situations that introverts dread. And I’m not even writing great ways for the introvert to conquer those situations because I’m not sure how to conquer them; it’s still a stumbly, awkward mess of staccato words and looks and gesticulations that sometimes murder a relationship between two otherwise largely compatible and loving people.

she sensed Kylo’s excitement, and his hunger—as if he were a beast finally freed to confront its tormenters

Saturated in Star Wars  (You say it like it’s a bad thing...is it?)

REALLY, EMPRESS, IS IT TOO MUCH?

I posted this Hallmark ad on the Sith Support Group on FB, and within a few moments and comments, it led to a 😑  response from her.

https://www.facebook.com/HallmarkStores/videos/10104204997593081/

Hallmark has gone beyond peddling Star Wars ornaments and is in full-on money-grab, Star Wars-bandwagoning mode. I hesitated to agree with Krystee because Star Wars merchandise is a functional part of my daily life. 

But, yes, when is it too much? 

Keep reading

The Maul that is Darth Maul! Nerding out over all the Star Wars hype

Kylo bought the whole stock of that card, it’s the only way he can express himself without a tantrum.

Cognitive Struggle Experienced, Simultaneously, by the “The Force Awakens” Audience and the Film’s Villain: Part 2

A Sith Scholar work-in-progress (Draft of the second section of my current research, and a bit dated)

Restraints and the Stress of Keeping a Secret

Kylo Ren is not skilled in showing restraint. His mask is literally on but figuratively off because he reveals his emotional state. We cannot see any facial expression when he is angered, but it’s manifested in physical violence.  When he first unmasks himself he shows incredible restraint as Rey refuses to tell him voluntarily about BB8. Not only does he remain calm when she refuses to tell him and gets sarcastic, he doesn’t throw a fit. He’s almost bragging about his restraint at this time Rey is restrained in a chair capable of many tortures. He tells Rey, “you know I can take anything I want.” He remains calm and uses the Force to look into her mind.  Her secrets are revealed and soon after are his. Revealing a secret releases stress. 

According to “Incognito,” if we keep a secret, we're protecting a confidence, which is what we think we want to do.  But there's an urge to spill the beans because another part of the brain knows it will relieve stress in our bodies” (Eagleman). When Ren uses telepathy, he relies on his victim’s brain’s urge to reveal a secret to extract the information he wants. He makes that urge harder to resist. Rey’s secrets about her loneliness are revealed, and she must have felt some stress relief, a release of pleasure for which she had to credit Ren. However, she never gets to reveal her secret of the map. 

(Imagine the stress of other secrets kept in this saga: secret of Luke and Leia’s parents; Anakin’s father, Anakin and Padme’s secret relationship; Finn not telling Rey he’s a stormtrooper gone AWOL; those in the film and makers of the film keeping the secret about Rey’s parentage -- all these people with extra stress from keeping their secrets!)

In return, Rey provides stress relief to Ren by revealing his secret fear that he won’t be “as strong as Darth Vader.” He is unable to remain restrained after she resists him, but he doesn’t harm her. He voluntarily, literally unmasked himself for Rey, but, under Rey’s control, he involuntary, figuratively unmasked himself. He heads in a panic, still unmasked, literally and figuratively vulnerable and exposed to consult with Snoke. He’s so distracted he doesn’t realize that Hux was right behind him, eager to tell Snoke that Ren’s the one that decided that all they needed was the girl. Ren was either completely sure that he could read Rey’s mind and get the information Snoke wanted, or something inside him wanted to delay the First Order locating the Resistance.  The latter is what Hux wants Snoke to infer. Hux wants to reveal that Ren intentionally defied Snoke’s orders. Ren’s pull to the light is, again, evident here.

Although he defied Snoke, possibly confirming his pull to the light, he still seeks belonging and approval through the dark side. His inability to get the map and letting the droid go, defying Snoke’s orders, will not get him the approval from Snoke that he so desires. To try to make things right he must retrieve Rey, but she is gone. His attempts at restraining himself are done, he ignites his lightsaber and destroys his interrogation room. He finds relief in not restraining, not holding his emotions, not keeping them a secret, as explained in Kornhaber’s article, “Darth Vader 2.0,″ “...what sets Ren apart is that “he’s full of emotion,” which at first sounds like a platitude but then seems like an important distinction—while Vader worked to conceal his conflicted feelings …” (Kornhaber). As obsessed as he is, as much as a fan he is and wants to be like Vader, his lack of restraint keeps him from being like Vader, which probably further fuels his tantrums.

Kylo Ren likely still loves his family – which is why he is so conflicted. Hearing that the droid fell into the hands of his father, knowing the resistance, led by his mother must have made certain feelings resurface. Certainly feelings of resentment resurfaced, fueling his desire to ally with the dark side, but certainly any fond memories or feelings for his parents he had resurfaced as well.

So if Kylo Ren is a humanoid, the impact of sending him away must be similar to the impact it might have on a human adolescent here on earth sent away to boarding school. Dr. Joy Schaverien in a 2011 paper in The British Journal of Psychiatry, argued that boarding schools "can cause profound developmental damage" (Schaverien). 

So one can imagine that on top of the genetic burden Ben Solo carries that these feelings he has of being sent away to the Jedi Academy are akin to those felt by children sent away to boarding school. So much is set up against a well-adjusted adolescence that it cannot be surprising that he is vulnerable, attracted to the dark side. It should not be surprising that as a young adult that he is not emotionally well-developed or balanced. He has big issues stemming from the legacy he carries in his blood and the circumstances he faced in his formative adolescent years. This is not to excuse his behavior, but it might help to explain a lot and show that there are multi-dimensions to this villain that many try to keep in a one dimensional category.

We see this manifested when they fail to get the droid from Jakku. Hux proposes to use their weapon to destroy the republic which supports the resistance. Kylo Ren turns to look at Hux as Snoke approves the suggestion. Hux knows that this hits close to home for Ren. His parents are protected by the resistance military forces, thus this is a threat to his family. And still being conflicted, this shows that it worries him.  Later, when Hux proposes using the weapon against the resistance, Ren begs Snoke for guidance to get the information from Rey. He is desperate to please Snoke but he is not ready to be implicit in the death of his parents at the Resistance base, perhaps desperate to save them as well.

When he confronts his father, who it’s apparent he has bitter feeling towards, we find out, when he reads Rey’s mind and senses her fondness for Han, he is calm, not in a rage, tearful. The scene begins with him masked, but his father persuades him to unmask himself. He submits to his father’s will by removing the mask. And now he stands literally unmasked and he tries to maintain a facade of toughness, disregard for his father in this stand-off.  However, he flinches when approached by Han. I don’t think that even at the moment they were eye to eye that Ren knew if he was going to join his father or kill his father. 

I am convinced that his words, “I want to be free of this pain.” were a genuine cry for help, a moment he was ready to ask to come home, a step towards the relief in revealing his secret that he just wants to rejoin his family. As a fan, I wanted that so much for that to be true, for this tension to result in a reunion, for Leia and Han’s son to go home so we can see them become a family again. But as a film viewer, that would have been too easy solution to this conflict; it would have been unsatisfactory. So I was fearful of what was to come next; I was yelling in my head to Han Solo, “RUN!” And although Han really could not escape, I thought that maybe Ren would attempt something but that maybe Chewie would intervene and maybe Han would just get badly hurt. I was not prepared for Ren to do what he did.

As the light changes to red, something makes him decide that he will seek the relief by making the decision to kill his father. And in igniting that lightsaber and holding it intently into his father, he face is so sinister and hate-filled. As he backs away he does sign in anticipation of a sense of relief for revealing the degree of hate he felt for his father. He had been mourning the metaphoric loss of his father for a long time, and it’s a loss that he acted to make real and permanent. But he knows deep down that he did not hate his father enough to feed a murderous rage. And he dons a figurative mask, feigning relief in making this final act to bring him to the dark side, but those dark, doe eyes keep the audience from believing that.

During the firing of the Starkiller base weapon passing by Ren’s ship (the finalizer), the camera is positioned behind him then the view is switched to a head on shot of his masked face. The glare of the weapon’s beam is reflected on his mask, but no emotion is shown.  Ren knows that this show of Force brings the First Order closer to destroying the resistance, his mother, if he is unable to track down the map to Luke. We supply the gravity of this moment as Lisa Zunshine explains with the Kuleshov Effect, where images are juxtaposed with expressionless faces, the audience supplies emotion (80). We supply the emotion of this scene--Ren’s thoughts because we know he was trying to prevent this action from happening. “What drives our interpretation of a character’s mental state are our earlier interpretations of other mental states.” (81) We know that he is conflicted, that he feels remorse in destroying the Republic – this is part of the conflict, the “light” he feels pulling him away from the dark side.

The audience is conflicted about Ren because he is the product of one of our favorite couples, and we want him to choose a path that makes them proud of him, that honors all for that they fought. The audience is also conflicted because of the ways this villain tries hard to compare to, but mostly contrasts Darth Vader. He is not the ruthless villain Darth Vader was for the audience of Episode IV and V. Compounding this conflict is Ren’s unmasking. Darth Vader was not unmasked until the very end of his life. Ren doesn’t even need a mask, but he willingly reveals himself to his enemy, Rey. 

The audience’s conflict about Kylo Ren grows because his unmasking reveals the actor’s face, and many may have worked to reconcile the other roles in which they’ve seen this actor with his portrayal of Ren. As Zunshine explains, “In film the actor adds another dimension to the character, an extra level to process.” So not only is this character the son of a favorite couple, he is also a character from another story. However, the filmmakers have done such an incredible job distancing him from his other known role. Many of the Star Wars actors first became known to the audience through the Star Wars films, but the actor who played Ren was a familiar face to many of the audience members. 

I was in the position of seeing this actor for the first time as Kylo Ren and not as any of the other characters he has portrayed. However, I have since seen him in his role in other films and the TV show, “Girls,” and I am impressed on how different and convincing he is in these different roles. Something about the films made him look very different from the character he plays in “Girls,” and I can’t quite pinpoint what those particular strategies are in the film besides his acting: lighting, hairstyle, angles, costuming, makeup perhaps. Something was done to make him distinct in this film. I wonder if the audience that had seen him in the TV show “Girls” before seeing him as Kylo Ren think that his appearance is really different between the two productions. Part of me still believes that this is not the same actor, and I want to know why, even though Adam Sackler on “Girls” behaves somewhat like Kylo Ren when he gets frustrated. As commented on in The Atlantic, “I can imagine Driver-as-bad-guy being a bit petulant and petty, not unlike his Girls character in a bad mood, or like Loki, the one successful Marvel movie villain thus far.”

My impression and assessment of Kylo Ren is compounded by this actor. As Zunshine explains, “Once the actor’s face gets factored into the equation, our mind-reading adaptations have some-thing extra to process” (85). The filmmakers and Adam Driver have done a spectacular job making Kylo Ren look nothing like the other characters that Driver has played.  The filmmakers have done an incredible job showing Kylo Ren’s many faces. Of course, there is the Kylo Ren we see with a mask. Then there is Kylo Ren unmasked, not repulsive to Rey nor the audience, actually quite attractive to many when he is interrogating her. When he rushes to Snoke unmasked, the angles are not flattering. His crooked nose and teeth are accentuated. But when he confronts them in the snow battle, he is almost more youthful, even his voice sparks of innocence, “We’re not done.” But most of all, he does not look like Adam Sackler of “Girls” or other films that this actor has been in. When he shouts “traitor” it hints of ugliness, but then during the scene he is an attractive sight. When he has Rey backed against the chasm and tells her, “You need a teacher” his desperation is manifested in an unflattering angle, but these moments that he is unmasked depicted in an unflattering light or angle are not as dominant as the attractive face, and attractiveness is typically associated with the hero, the light side, further emphasizing his conflict and pull to the light. I don’t want him redeemed because I love my dark side cupcake, but in this film, it sets it up so that result would not be a surprise.

Pop! Deluxe: Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Kylo in TIE Fighter

😍🤤

My sexuality

Archives of the Last Jedi Academy (continued, pt. 6)

Impulse Unleashed

She had devoted a portion of her strength controlling her impulse to use some of the forbidden arts of her culture. She wanted to learn the ways of the Jedi, pure, unaided by ancient spells and powers. Training was getting more difficult as was her ability to keep this skill set repressed. She was proud as she excelled past those with whom she had begun training, even after her injury, and often detached from the moment wondering how much farther she could excel if she had allowed herself to use those powers. The distraction was so disabling but it set a great contrast to those moments that she could clear that from her head and allow the Force to flow throughout her, she felt more powerful than any spell ever made her. She worked on forgetting her past, the traditions, her mother’s teachings to keep her mind consistently clear. She made a deal with herself to stay away from the archives just until she could have complete control of thoughts of her culture, then she promised herself she would return to her research.  

Ben and she had found other places to meet. He saw the acceleration of her control of the Force and on hiatus from their research, they would test each other in their secret meetings. He had a such a surge of the Force that she wanted to match; it seemed more powerful sometimes that he could not control it. She began to imagine that she could match his power if she returned to her culture’s craft, that ability would help her equal the surge of the Force in him. And soon, the memory of being intimidated by him became distant and implausible.

In their training with Master Luke, she and Ben were paired up to spar. She feared that Master Luke would sense her use of that craft but more feared losing a match to Ben. She exploited his confidence and lack of control over the immense Force flowing through him. She held back on using any of her familial arts for half the spar; he had seemed to be holding back; he feared any similarities in their methods could reveal their secret training, and then he became unpredictable. Luke cautioned Ben on the the feelings he sensed, confused about the fear he sensed Ben was trying hard to conceal. She decided to provoke him, to push him to reveal that fear because it would give her an advantage. 

In spending time together, she could push taunting him. He revealed good humor and patience with her contrary to the rumors she had heard about him reacting strongly to any attempts to reveal his vulnerability. She had seen glimpses of it in his training with Luke who knew the potential Jedi inside of Ben, pushing him harder, testing his temper.

Suddenly in sync, the flow of the Force released any control that she felt, including drawing forth her craft, the act of defeating Ben no longer required her conscious thought. He seemed to move in increasingly slower movements, she could see the molecules vibrate with each of her moves, her saber leaving trails with each movement. Then she felt a shattering in the Force, and Ben no longer moved in slow movements but in erratic, fierce pulses. The swings of their sabers left intertwining glowing trails in the air as they no longer sparred but fought. As they charged for each other and locked sabers, their master held them in place forcing them to stare at each other, to fix on the expression of the other, to silence the growls of their attempts to use mind tricks against each other. Their muscles began to burn frozen in this stance and Master Luke shut off their sabers and took possession of them and pushed them away from each other, both falling to the ground. He looked back and forth between them, finding a moment of weakness as the adrenaline drained away.

As she felt her thoughts slip from her control, she felt Ben panic at her slip then felt his anger at her use of her culture’s spells and those thoughts became clear to Luke. “Much more training do you both require.” He turned and walked away. Vulnerability on display brought a surge of relief and she began to cry; there was no need to expend any more energy on these secrets. She wiped her tears and stood up and looked across at Ben. She knew that anything between them had to end, had to be let go in the flood of regret between them.