The day after the premiere of Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (December 16, 2019), I watched a roughly seventy-second-long video of a young woman absolutely losing it over the idea that Kylo Ren – I’m sorry, Ben Solo – probably died a virgin.

I mean, she went on a whole tear about how this was actually about fighting for abuse survivors in the fandom to see someone like them make it to the end of the franchise (hello, Finn exists, binches) but like… at the end of the day, her real big beef with The Rise of Skywalker days before it actually got a wide release was that… Ben Solo didn’t get to plow Rey’s oh so fertile fields before becoming one with the Force.

That sentiment – that Ben Solo somehow deserves to get his dick wet in Rey and that The Rise of Skywalker somehow robbed him of the right to fuck when it’s obvious that he’s the ultimate Space Incel – is featured heavily across too much of that fandom’s response to the end of the film.

For example, Hazel, the one writer referenced in a previous Fleeting Frustrations post as saying that “at least Kylo didn’t lie to Rey like Finn did”, spent pretty much two solid weeks straight following the premiere publicly losing her ever-loving shit over this movie and – at least once – losing her shit specifically over the fact that we now can probably say that Ben Solo does not in fact fuck.

It’d be great performance art if they weren’t so serious.

And so embarrassing.

What’s been tripping me up these past few weeks is that this isn’t enough for these fans.

---

It’s not enough that Rey and Kylo kiss right before that moment where he dies.

• 

• 

It’s not enough that finally, Rey/Kylo fans don’t have to replace Finn with a poorly photoshopped Kylo when they need to make “canon” images of the couple showing affection.

It’s not enough that apparently Rey’d been burning a torch for tall, pasty, and patricidal from day one – but just never mentioned it.

It’s not enough for them that Kylo Ren is finally and officially (apparently) rendered Not Responsible for his actions the way they’ve claimed since he first appeared in this franchise.

It’s not enough that their ship is canon to an extent in a trilogy where few others are.

It doesn’t matter that for Rey/Kylo shippers, The Rise of Skywalker provides more fanservice than an A.C.E. concert.

Because while they’ve gotten ninety nine percent of what they wanted from the franchise, they didn’t get the big thing that they really wanted:

Kylo Ren’s redemption in the form of an utterly unearned Happily Ever After where Ben and his tradwife Rey pop out little Skywalker spawn to perpetuate the Skywalker family’s genetics and their shitty legacy.

From the moment that spoilers started dropping from the premiere, I got to watch Reylo shippers on Twitter and Tumblr act as though they’d just paid to watch the family pet get shot in front of them.

Many are still posting tweets with the hashtags #BenSoloIsUs or #BenSoloDeservesBetter where they share sob stories about how Ben Solo’s death triggered their depression or was a sign that Lucasfilm didn’t care about their fans that were abuse survivors or proved that women weren’t the target audience or –

A bunch of straight-up nonsense where they vomited their trauma – trauma that our resident patricidal Space Incel does not actually share unless this fandom is way  more murderous than it looks– all over the place while wailing for the Return of Rian Johnson or some mythical JJ Abrams cut that undoes its own awfulness.

It’s been wild.

Folks who spent massive chunks of the past three plus years since The Force Awakens telling Black fans critical of Reylo fans’ view of Finn and the franchise that “it’s just fiction” and that “fiction isn’t reality” have spent days losing their common sense over a film where they are, for all intents and purposes, catered to.

No joke, I’m finding some pleasure in their actual suffering.

You know why?

Right before the premiere, I saw tweets like the one above made before the release by folks smugly (snidely) suggesting that “antis” (anyone that thinks Kylo Ren doesn’t deserve shit in this space opera) would need mental health care as a result of the sweet Bendemption–

Only to then see those same Twitter users McFricken losing it over the ending of The Rise of Skywalker.

Like… I couldn’t actually have thought up a better Christmas present for myself.

I deserve this.

And so do they.

---

People in 2020 are aware that the Star Wars fandom has problems. They’re aware that the fandom is frequently toxic, and that the fans target marginalized performers and fans alike.

The problem with folks’ acknowledgment of this totally toxic fandom is that… they don’t seem to understand that the concept of toxic fandom isn’t the realm of white dudes alone. For me, in fandom, the majority of the toxicity I’ve had to deal with and that has negatively impacted my health and general well-being… came from women.

Consistently, my biggest issues have come from white women and their sycophantic minions of color who literally view themselves stans/members of fandom first and as people of color second.

At best.

I can’t ever speak for anyone but myself, but when it comes to who harassed me in the Star Wars fandom, who screenshots my tweets to get around blocks in fandom, and who made being in fandom on Tumblr hell for me… it’s been Reylo shippers. Not The Fandom Menace or EU fans that can’t let go of that ghost.

Straight up: Female Reylo fans are the primary people who’ve harassed me in the Star Wars fandom. They’re the ones who’ve done smear campaigns against pretty much anyone in transformative fandom that is vocally critical about their ship’s problems. They’re largely why most of the Black women fans I know on Tumblr and Twitter have left the fandom or those platforms entirely.

They’re the ones who have consistently made it clear that they value their own pleasure in fandom over conversations about racism – even from their own peers of color within their shipping sub-fandom.

Women who ship Reylo have been the ones spearheading multiple gross rumor campaigns about John Boyega from Day One. It’s still ongoing considering the way that folks latched on to the whole “he must be trying to tear down Kelly Marie Tran” POV sparked by The Nerdist writer Lindsey Romain.

Some dudebros on Reddit may have been fixated on the idea that Finn was somehow “stealing” pure white womanhood from Kylo, but the Reylo shippers on Tumblr… also did that?

Right down to the way they framed Finn as a brute Kylo needed to defend Rey from, had Finn killed off in too many of their fanworks, and fixated on post-trilogy fantasies where Rey was barefoot and pregnant on Jakku or Tattooine-

It’s an obsession with the continuation of the Skywalker bloodline that crosses fandom platforms and has led to them lashing out and looking a fool for the past few weeks across social media platforms.

What’s extra embarrassing is that the only thing they didn’t get from the canon is that tradwife Good Ending.

They got the Reylo kiss, the “redeemed” Ben Solo, and the absolute nonsense that is making Kylo Ren extra not responsible for his actions across the years thanks to a creepy old dude who actually manipulated his actions.

They got all that shit that they’d made canon within their fandom and yet –

They’re still out here raging.

Hell, they’re out here planning to do social media protests and boycotts because their favorite fictional white fascists didn’t get the ending they wanted for him and because so many of them are pissed that he didn’t get the fucking he “deserved” from Rey.

They keep trying to pretend that this is solely about how their reading of Kylo – as a supposed survivor of abuse who deserved a good ending despite the fascism and his late-stage “redemption” in Rey’s arms or whatever – means that Lucasfilm is using Kylo to tell the fans that (over) identify with him that they’re not worthy of love.

Too many of these fans have also made it clear that this is about desire and the entitlement to a specific reading of and ending for Kylo Ren. This is about them feeling like they wasted their time on Kylo and on wishing for his redemption arc and on an endgame relationship with Rey.

This is about feeling like they (and Kylo) deserve the happy ending they’d supposedly fought for – against “antis” who may ship Finn and Rey, the Fandom Menace, anyone on the internet that dares to go “isn’t Kylo a fascist that killed his father?” – and losing it when he doesn’t get that.

And I don’t think that the usual suspects writing about toxic and entitled fandom will ever talk about what it means to see a fanbase largely comprised of white women show their asses over their love of a white fascist villain.

Like I’m not expecting that SYFY Wire’s Kayleigh Donaldson will write a follow-up article to her original op-ed about how the Star Wars fandom has a white dude problem where she looks at people who are essentially are her peers and says, “y’all too”.

I’m not. Honestly.

Because that never happens.

But it’s interesting to me how in many of the conversations we have about toxic fandom(s), folks just flat out refuse to deal with a reality of fandom: that the toxicity comes from white women (and their token friends of color) in fandom spaces just as regularly as it does from the white dudes.

Like… how many people’s coverage of The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t encompass the weirdness of how the Reylo shippers in a majority of the fandom are handling this ending Quite Badly.

Again y’all, there are plans for a #BringBenSoloBack social media event on the fifth across Twitter and Instagram.

A whole ass hashtag event to raise awareness for the fact that… a fictional fascist didn’t get the Good Ending his fanbase thinks he deserves? Wild. You literally would not see that about a character of color in any fandom.

We know this because whenever characters of color in any media get killed off – especially in service of making a white character feel bad and move forward on their hero’s journey – fandom doesn’t raise hell for them.

Fandom doesn’t fight for them.

(In fact, fandom usually tries to make excuses and provide rationalizations for why these characters of color had to die or – in the case of Finn following The Last Jedi – why they “should’ve” died.)

And then there’s the fact that this fandom has a history of literally reducing Rey to what she can do for Kylo Ren – what she and her body can provide him. Whether that’s sex, power, or a (semi-) willing receptacle for his Skywalker seed.

I get that it’s all the rage for folks to claim misogyny in any commentary on how Reylo fans have let their desire for Adam Driver and Kylo push them towards defending Kylo Ren’s fascist ass, but –

That is what’s been happening.

Folks are literally letting their thirst for this dude drive them towards… some serious shit.

Like I know that when Daniel José Older had the Reylo Hoard swarm him the other day after making a very clear point about how Kylo Ren’s fans are literally willing to forgive him for patricide and for being an absolute ass for Rey, they were like “he’s just dismissing our feminist desire” but like…

I just went over Older’s initial tweets and like… his first tweets about Kylo that I found on the 24^th were simple. Like his first one was just: “i just hope if i ever do anything wrong like murder a ton of ppl i too can conjure up ghost han solo to tell me I’m still a good person that’s all i ask“

Then he says, “I wonder if people would’ve been more upset about Vader getting got if he hadn’t looked like a soft boiled egg under that helmet” in a separate thread on Christmas that got 154 comments – half as many comments as likes.

I guess that’s where folks got it into their heads that he’s being misogynistic or sexist in vaguely (but correctly) pointing out that Kylo Ren’s fandom’s desire for redemption kind of frequently revolves around how they either identify with Kylo for the fanon personality and backstory they’ve foisted on him or… how much the fans in questions want to head down to Poundtown with him.

There’s nothing in those tweets from Older that’s incorrect or misogynistic when it comes to talking about the fandom or the women who have bent over backwards to make Kylo Ren a good guy over the past almost four years. Even when he’s actively pushing back against what the fans are doing in his mentions and in response to people calling him/others out of their names, he’s not even mean about it?

Like he even attempts to talk with these total unlocked doors who were threatening to boycott his future Star Wars work or return the one (1) thing he did for Lucasfilm’s publishing arm. They’re out here threatening to boycott him and ruin his livelihood because he pointed out that it’s interesting that Vader never had people clamoring this hard for him to get a Good Ending.

(The issue with Older actually brought me one of the funniest moments of 2019: someone using the name of a Korean pop song in my display name to insult me before saying all kinds of nonsense.)

And if you think that this behavior is just anxiety and depression caused by the end of The Rise of Skywalker, what excuse did Reylo fans have in October 2019 when they went after her following some tweets she made about Kylo fans that go after people that dislike him are the very bullies other people see when they look at him?

What excuse did they have for swarming her mentions after she mentioned getting at least four fake reviews on goodreads done to drop down the rating of her work?

What excuse did they have for trying to browbeat her into submission for expressing her opinions – first about Kylo Ren and then about the fans that won’t let criticism of him past?

Rey/Kylo fans  are the reason why NK Jemisin doesn’t deal with Star Wars, were annoying as hell about EK Johnston calling Kylo a villain, and constantly try to come for Tricia Barr.

And why exactly?

What excuse do they have for this behavior – because Kylo sure as shit was alive back then?

These fans are entitled.

They are aggressive.

And they have shown that they care about controlling what the fandom says about Kylo Ren and about his fandom.

Again, this is scary as hell.

It’s not misogynistic to point out that a thing done by a fandom largely made up of women is worth looking at a little closer.

And it’s worth looking closely at how strongly Reylo shippers move for their ship and what happens to people of color in the way of their ship – whether we’re talking about creators, fans, characters, or performers of color.

Because that shit is scary.

It’s harmful.

And it’s absolutely uncalled for.

I watched a video of a movie theater where Reylo shippers responded to the kiss in the final parts of the movie. They were screaming things like “we won” and “yes” and “finally after four years” like this was the end of a war they’d been fighting on end –

And then, right before the video cut out, I got to see their reactions as “Ben Solo” fell to the side, dead.

Then, the screams took on a different note.

---

Here’s the thing: I know what it’s like to have to deal with your favorite character dying. It hurts.

Many Black viewers of Orange Is the New Black flat out stopped watching after the fourth season had Poussey Washington die in the same way that Eric Garner did. I know that I will never be able to watch the end of Millennium Actress without sobbing myself into an asthma attack. And hell, when I thought Finn was going to die at the end of The Last Jedi before Rose saved him from sacrificing himself –

I was ready to have words with Rian Johnson. (Within reason of course.)

So, I genuinely do understand that when your favorite character dies, that it’s sometimes like losing a beloved friend.

But what many Rey/Kylo fans are going through takes a reasonable reaction to loss and uh…

Zooms right on past that to absolutely unreasonable responses to the outright horrific – especially when they find an acceptable or easy target for their rage and heartbreak.

Like this tweet where the original poster, bendeylo, essentially asks their fellow Rey/Kylo fans to fantasize about who they wanted to kill more: John Boyega or JJ Abrams.

Or Twitter user iam_thesenate who blames John Boyega for harassment that a teenage Rey/Kylo shipper may have been receiving and says “The one thing I take comfort in is knowing that JB will burn in hell” before calling him “you motherfucker” in her follow-up tweet.

This isn’t normal.

This isn’t a normal or measured response to having your favorite character pass way.

Not the raging at JJ Abrams, not the way that the Rey/Kylo shippers have responded to John Boyega from New Year’s Eve on, not the anger that they’ve been unleashing across social media platforms, and certainly not the tantrums about how #BenSoloDeservesBetter.

When we talk about fandom entitlement and what needs to be stopped, it’s easy to say “oh, this isn’t a problem in transformative fandom” spaces.

It’s easy to decide that the only fans that act up when they don’t get their way are white dudes like the ones that didn’t like the very idea of the 2016 Ghostbuster’s reboot and acted horrendously because of it.

Because most people minding their business on the internet don’t see people like iam_thesenate or bendeylo or even Hazel losing their ever-loving shit the way they have been. And nerd outlets – like The Nerdist and The Mary Sue and CBR – that cover nerdy media and the fandoms that spawn from them… aren’t covering this.

Not the way they should be.

Fandom entitlement and the horrible behavior that is displayed as a result?

Aren’t gender locked.

And we need to be talking about how these reactions from an audience primarily made up by women – the screaming in movie theaters, the vile tweets made to and about these “easy” targets, the idea that they can pressure a studio into “fixing” things for them – are a sign of toxic fandom.

We need to be talking about how this bad behavior shouldn’t be rewarded and it shouldn’t be ignored.

I keep being told that Rey/Kylo and Finn/Rey are “just” ships – that the characters that comprise them aren’t real people.

So there’s no competition here, no need for me to care about the ships or the fandom focus on white characters at the expense of everyone else.

But if that’s how that works, then there is no reason to for these fans to behave like this.

Then there’s no reason for fans to be condescendingly racist at John Boyega, smearing him for stuff he literally didn’t do, or even this new and definitely dehumanizing thing where they refer to Finn only as FN-2187.

And there’s every reason for fandom researchers and journalists to talk seriously about the toxicity that Rey/Kylo shippers have been displaying and weaponizing for far too long in these fandom spaces.

This isn’t new, but it needs to be over.