Star Wars Rare Pairs 2021

[lucymonster]

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Canon Crossovers: Kylo/Jacen, Poe/Kylo/Jacen, Poe/Din, Phasma/Qi'ra, Aphra/Qi'ra, Fennec/Qi'ra, Leia/Qi'ra, Qi'ra/Kylo, Finn/Kaz, Rey/Jacen, Zorii/Suralinda
Canon EU: Kylo/Voe, Kylo/Terex, Poe/Kylo/Terex, Ransolm/Kylo, Hera/Magna
The Mandalorian: Din/Bo-Katan
Star Wars: Rebels: Kallus/Hera, Kanan/Kallus/Hera
Star Wars Sequel Trilogy: Poe/Finn/Rey/Kylo, Finn/Rey/Kylo, Poe/Finn/Kylo, Poe/Rey/Kylo, Finn/Kylo, Kylo/Rose, Zorii/Kylo, Zorii/Rose

Dear creator,

Thanks so much for creating for me! I hope you'll find me an easy recipient: this letter includes a selection of my favourite things for inspiration, but I’m very open to anything you’d like to do.

I've requested fic and art for everything. Some sections of my letter are longer than others, but I’m equally excited for every ship I’ve included, and for gifts of any size. If a prompt seems to suggest a longer story, I’d also be thrilled with a short scene or excerpt based on that concept. Feel free to get creative and go where inspiration takes you - if it's not on my DNW list, I'm open to receiving it.

I'm lucymonster on ao3.

Thanks again, and happy creating!

General info

⛔ Do not want

• underage: explicit <18 sex, any <16 sex or any <13 romance
• parent/child incest, mummy or daddy kink, ageplay
• scat, vore, emetophilia, bestiality
• 'no-no-yes' type noncon
• extreme gore, graphic organ damage, genital bleeding/cutting/tearing
• AUs other than canon divergence (incl. trope AUs: please no a/b/o, soulmates etc)
• unrequested trans or ace headcanons
• poetry
• unwarned major character death (tag or author’s note appreciated!).

⭐ Story likes

In general, my favourite stories are the ones where the characters feel like real, live, messy and imperfect people. I love fics that are thought-provoking or uncomfortable to read. I love to relax into well-earned (or not-so-well-earned) moments of happiness for my otherwise beleaguered faves. I love to laugh. Favourite themes include:

• anything with a strong character focus
• characters who are flawed and abrasive and challenging to love; difficult or dysfunctional relationships
• dark/gritty/moody aesthetics
• imperfect happiness, bittersweet undertones, unfulfilled yearning
• ensemble casts, background characters, outsider POV
• mundane details, little moments of human vulnerability
• politics, bureaucracy, propaganda
• banter, snark, gallows humour, quippiness
• guilty pleasures: denying them, suppressing them, and finally giving into temptation
• tropes: hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, huddling for warmth, fake relationships, bodyswap
• descriptions of food, characters eating or sharing food, food as comfort
• military kink: uniforms, weapons, ‘sir’
• harsh environments, brutal weather, survival/adventure stories
• redemption (or failed redemption)
• crack treated seriously
• non-standard formats: drabbles, non-linear, epistolary, social media, in-universe meta.

💀 Dark likes

Honestly, go as brutal and fucked-up as you like. There's no such thing as too dark. I love my horror both overt and covert - if you're not feeling the in-your-face disasterfest, by all means creep me out with subtle insinuations or dark twists to sweet-seeming premises. Some favourite themes:

• noncon/dubcon (see my 2019 nonconathon letter for a still-current laundry list of kinks I love)
• bad guys win, good guys go bad
• grey morality, antiheroes, villain-centred morality
• extremist politics, callous bureaucracies, the mundane horrors of life under the jackboot
• 'ugly' mental illness: violence, paranoia, self-destructiveness, warped thinking
• self-harm, suicide attempts or ideation
• psychological horror
• coercion, blackmail, abuse of power
• victim blaming
• self-harm, self-destructiveness, suicide attempts
• physical torture: flogging, beating, burrning, bone-breaking, electrocuting
• psychological/'enhanced interrogation' style torture: sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, stress positions, extreme noise and temperature, deliberate humiliation.

🍑 Smut likes

Character-driven smut is my jam. I love sex that says something about the people involved, offbeat sex scenes, sex that's awkward and imperfect and humanising, unusual erogenous zones and intimate details about the characters' bodies. Specific sex acts are less important to me than the characterisation aspect: I'm ready and eager to be sold on ANY kink outside my DNWs if it's being used to explore my requested characters' desires, beliefs, motives, hangups and relationship skills (or lack thereof).

As a starting point, some prerennial favourites include:

• orgasm delay/denial, sexual frustration, begging
• coming too quickly, loss of control, getting overwhelmed
• crying after sex
• rough sex, hate sex, power imbalances
• on the other hand: tender, adoring, needy sex with lavish attention to each other's pleasure
• humiliation, verbal insults, gendered slurs
• frottage, dry humping, clothed sex
• sex pollen, fuck-or-die
• different erogenous zones, being sensitive in non-genital places
• anal sex (het or slash), double or multiple penetration
• sounding, watersports, forced wetting
• public use, gangbangs
• loss of virginity, inexperience, clumsy sex
• praise kink
• scar worship
• uncomfortable, consensual-but-unpleasant type sex
• under-negotiated kinks
• any level of complex, problematic or questionable consent.

🎨 Art likes

Any of my fic likes that can translate visually are just as relevant to my taste in art. For any of my ficcier prompts or favourite tropes, I'd be over the moon to receive an illustration from the hypothetical fic that fills them. I love dark, shadowy colour palettes and goth/metal/industrial styles and an overall moody gloom. I love symbolism and meaningful visual motifs, and I'm open to oblique, metaphorical depictions of ships just as much as pictures of people kissing. (But I am also, to be clear, still very keen on pictures of people kissing.)

On a diffferent note, fluffy art is also amazing. I love chibis, cuddle piles and all manner of sugary cuteness. Polka dots or rainbows in the background just because? You son of a bitch, I'm in. My ship holds hands in the background while their new pet hamster frolics across most of the canvas? Just make sure that little guy's cheeks are as chubby as they come! Throw my grumpy black-clad faves into a scene of lollipops and sparkles? I'll squeal so much that even my ship's new pet hamster will think I'm shrill. I also adore that trend of tiny chibi characters with food items larger than they are.

Request details

Canon Crossovers

❤️ Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Jacen Syndulla
❤️ Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Jacen Syndulla

We all agree these guys have met, right? Jacen is a bit of a blank slate character, and I'm here for any interpretation of him, whether he takes after one or both of his parents or grows up to be a total "how did THAT happen". Some things I'd love to see:

• The smuggler AU where Jacen and Ben (and Poe) decide living up to their family legacies isn't really their thing after all, and fly off to pursue a life of highly profitable crime instead. Maybe they still do jobs for the Resistance sometimes when one of their parents calls in a favour.
• Ben and Jacen train as Jedi together. (Maybe Poe is their much cooler non-Force-sensitive boyfriend who flies in sometimes on visits from the flight academy.)
• During the war, Poe and Jacen commiserate about their past with Ben while teaming up to fight Kylo Ren.
• After the war, both/all of them find their way back to each other.

For art, I love Jacen's green hair, and glimpses of his parents showing through in his adult appearance - tall and lean like his dad? Flight goggles on his head like his mother?

❤️ Poe Dameron/Din Djarin

I've been thinking about this ship ever since I watched this fanvid, and I'm open to any way you can think of to make it happen! Maybe Poe crosses paths with a mysterious fellow outlaw while he's running spice? Maybe he's heard rumours on the underworld grapevine, and looks Mando up for help against the First Order? Maybe in this AU, Poe never joined the Resistance but ended up working as a Bounty Hunter, and an older, wiser Mando has come back to the fold? Whatever happens, massive bonus points if Grogu is there and Poe has no clue what to do with him.

❤️ Phasma/Qi'ra

Two fiery, ruthless survivors who've left behind everything they ever knew and loved to safeguard their futures and secure their ambitions. I'm into this ship for its cutthroat potential, mutual convenience and the chance for these hardened warriors to expose one or two of their deeply buried vulnerabilities - or forcibly expose each other's.

What would an alliance between them look like? Maybe Qi'ra finds her cartel working for the First Order? Or maybe Phasma's luck with the Order runs out, and she enlists with Crimson Dawn for another chance to make a life for herself and put her warrior's skills to use?

❤️  Chelli Lon Aphra/Qi'ra

They have so much in common, I hardly even know where to START. They're both criminals with flawed but deeply feeling hearts who fucked over everyone who loved them to survive. They've both brushed shoulders with elite dark side Force users. They've both paid a terrible price for the lifestyles they lead, but they keep paying it willingly day after day. I'm sure at some point in her Crimson Dawn dealings, Qi'ra will require an archaeologist's service. Do they recognise their kindred spirits? Collaborate uneasily for mutual gain? Double-cross the hell out of each other?

❤️ Fennec Shand/Qi'ra

If anyone can win the star wars, it's this terrifyingly hot power couple. Fennec has worked for “all the top crime syndicates” - that includes Crimson Dawn, right? If Qi'ra hasn't personally hired her services before, then she's certainly at least heard of her. Both of them have sacrificed hugely in pursuit of their terrible Space Crime careers: Qi'ra her heart, Fennec a decent chunk of her innards. But while Qi'ra is ready to double-cross anyone up to and including her nearest and dearest, Fennec seems to have a strong sense of loyalty and honour (or at least, she takes Boba's sense of loyalty and honour pretty seriously).

I want all the (literally or metaphorically) cutthroat underworld politics, tense business dealings and flexible moral codes. Maybe Qi'ra gets involved in whatever Fennec and Boba are up to on Tatooine? (I don't mind a bit if your idea gets jossed once Book of Boba Fett comes out, canon divergence is great). Maybe she had an understanding with Bib Fortuna that becomes an issue once Boba offs him?


❤️ Leia Organa/Qi'ra

Leia was raised as royalty and lost all of it; Qi'ra was born in the gutters and clawed her way up from nothing. Both of them are deeply driven, albeit by clashing goals. Both of them are whip-smart and pragmatic and capable of immense political subtlety. And of course, both of them have loved and lost Han.

(Quick note on that: Leia and Qi'ra's shared history with the same man is a big part of what makes this ship interesting me, so I'd prefer a fic that doesn't retcon out either pairing. I'm also not keen on out-and-out infidelity, ie 'I'm doing this in secret and I know you'd feel betrayed if you found out'. But I'm fine with any level of agreed or incidental non-monogamy, timeline changes, breakups/divorces, or however else you prefer to handle their tangled history.)

I also love the idea of the two of them first meeting as older women, linked by grief and shared regrets that evolve into something deeper between them. Perhaps Qi'ra has had enough of living in the shadows, and joins forces with the Resistance against the First Order threat?

❤️ Qi'ra/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren

Qi'ra is a smart, ambitious survivor who's willing to use sex and intimacy to get what she wants. Kylo is a handy source of power and also a bottomless pit of easy-to-manipulate emotional needs. I'd love to see virgin Kylo with older woman Qi'ra, or maybe Qi'ra indulging her nurturing side with a younger and more energetic toyboy. Maybe she's using him to get to Snoke, or to keep the First Order out of her private cartel business. Or maybe she sees herself as a mentor figure of sorts, an early exponent of letting the past die and becoming who you were meant to be.

I'm heavily into the Oedipal potential here: is Kylo hyper-aware that he's fucking his dad's ex? Is Qi'ra nostalgic for Han? Does it bother either of them that she's old enough to be his mother? Please feel free to lean into the age gap and keep-it-in-the-family vibe as hard as you like.

Alternatively: redeemed (ish) Ben Solo walks away from the Order but isn't quite ready to join the Fight Against Evil. Working for Qi'ra is a decent morally grey option.

❤️ Finn/Kazuda Xiono

Finn and Kaz have a certain sense of overwhelmed-ness in common: they abandoned the strictures of their respective upbringings, they fell into their Resistance roles more or less by accident, they have a tendency to talk talk themselves up and then come unstuck when it's time to deliver, and they're both starry-eyed about Poe Dameron but not quite able to live up to his level of effortless heroic strut. They're both adorable failboats who nonetheless make themselves indispensable to the Resistance cause, and I'd love to see what would happen if a shared mission or a coincidence ever caused them to meet.

❤️ Rey/Jacen Syndulla

The last Jedi meets the ... guy who totally could have been a Jedi if he wanted to? Son of a Jedi who never inherited much of his power? Jedi school dropout who still has awkward class holos of himself with Rey's dead Force-dyad ex? (I love the idea that Jacen and Ben Solo knew each other as kids, and will adore any reference to that headcanon.) Or maybe their connection has nothing to do with the Force at all. Maybe they meet because Jacen comes to throw in with the Resistance, and they grudgingly impress each other with their piloting skills and affinity for danger.

❤️ Zorii Bliss/Suralinda Javos

I want this because 1) it would be hot, 2) they have the exact same fucking energy, and 3) it would be HOT. Maybe Poe introduces them (as an ex, or just a friend) and regrets it once the two craziest women in his life merge into an unstoppable whirlwind. Maybe one of them needs the other one's help with a spice deal or shady underworld scoop. Maybe neither of them are really sure what to do with their lives once the war's over - they both threw in for the cause, but they were never exactly career freedom fighters. They can figure it out together!

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Canon EU

🧡 Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Voe

I love Voe's quick temper and determination, her competitive streak and her bitter struggle to fit herself into the serene Jedi mould. I love how her own insecurities cause her to uncritically buy into the Ben Solo, Super Special Skywalker Descendant mythos, and how it's her need to prove herself against him that puts them on uneven footing as much as any innate gift on his part. And Ben's so casually dismissive about 'her place in the way of things'. It makes me MAD for her but in a way I enjoy being mad, if that makes sense, lol.

I'd love to see more of her and Ben's one-sided rivalry during their temple days. Maybe, as they get older, their raging hormones and limited social circle make a bad idea look more like a good one. Maybe Voe's drive to match Ben's power morphs into a more general (albeit resentful) admiration - we know Ben's a flaming human trashfire, but she doesn't. Or maybe she does. Maybe she senses the darkness brewing in Ben, but her foresight gets mistaken for jealousy. Maybe sex is the only arena where she feels like she can get the upper hand (sub Ben is good!) or maybe even there she ends up feeling less than (failboaty wannabe-Dom Ben who's clearly driving without a licence is also good!).

Or later, once everything's gone to hell, let Voe survive. Let her claw her way off Mimban somehow and come back as Kylo's first failed attempt to kill his past. Does she make her way to the Resistance and devote herself to bringing him down? Does the rage and trauma turn her to the dark side? Or does she strike out on her own, grey-dark and driven by a need for revenge? Maybe she becomes a thorn in Kylo's side as he tries to establish himself with the Knights of Ren and the First Order. Or maybe she comes back years later, post-TROS, forcing redeemed and still-alive Ben to confront the first act of true senseless evil he ever committed.

🧡 Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Terex
🧡 Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Terex

I'm obsessed with Terex's see-saw morality - his devotion to the Empire and its vision of galactic order on the one hand, his chaotic and self-serving criminality on the other. His contempt for 'that freak Kylo Ren' is a thing of trashfire hateshippy beauty, and his unflinching self-harm to override those implants hits me right in the id every time. He wants to strip the galaxy of its freedom but he values his own so much he'd rather die without it. I'd love to see him and Kylo get in each other's way while they're both working for the First Order, and clash hard on their values despite being theoretically on the same side.I'd also love to see Terex and Kylo as prickly, unpopular First Order defectors. Maybe they fall into Poe's reluctant care because no one else is willing to put up with them! Maybe they both defect completely separately and are dismayed to find themselves working together once again! Or maybe they stay First Order loyal but get tangled up with Poe when a mission goes wrong and strands all three of them together somewhere. Naturally, wherever it is, there's only one bed.

🧡 Ransolm Casterfo/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren

There are so many exquisitely painful ways these two characters' paths have collided and could collide again. Leia's isnt the only life Ransolm upended when he revealed the truth of her parentage. Just imagine Ben off on some unreachably distant Jedi field trip, turning on the space TV and learning from the impersonal face of one of his mother's colleagues that he's descended from Vader. By the time he has taken the throne, Ransolm's been transferred from his homeworld prison to First Order custody and is back at the mercy of a masked dark Force user. His efforts to destroy Vader's legacy were a small but pivotal part of what helped resurrect it.

Some ideas:

• Ben and Ransolm have met before, on one of Ben's visits home from the temple. He was already showing an interest in the Empire, though he wasn't exactly forthcoming about his growing pull towards the dark side. Ransolm just thought he'd found a hot, likeminded friend to show off his collection of Imperial salvage to.
• Kylo Ren visits Ransolm's prison and is keen to meet the man who showed him the truth of his family.
• Post-canon, Ransolm and redeemed Ben find common ground in the mistakes they made by looking to the Empire for political inspiration.

🧡 Hera Syndulla/Magna Tolvan

Well, for starters, they both have ample reason to be furious with Aphra! If that doesn't break the ice, I don't know what will.

I love Tolvan's redemption arc and how fierce she is for the Rebels after devoting most of her life to the Empire. I'd love to see Hera take her under her wing a little, help her unpack that headful of Imperial thinking, find ways to make her as useful as possible to the new cause. I'd love to see them both being hyper-badass together. I'd love to see kinky powerplay - Tolvan being called sir in bed is insanely hot, and so is Tolvan kneeling down and calling someone else sir for a change!

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The Mandalorian

💛 Din Djarin/Bo-Katan Kryze

I've been lowkey obsessed with this ship since the moment Bo-Katan swaggered on screen and made cool, gunslinging Mando look suddenly dweebish and awkward by comparison. Now it looks like they're set for a major rivalry in season 3! I'm so very happy, but also impatient and greedy and want more of the two of them right!!! now!!!

So, Mando's been in an ultraconservative cult this whole time - bet the sex education sucked. Bo-Katan should gently dom him as he readjusts to normal human intimacies, like exposing his face. Or she should not-so-gently dom him as they brawl-fuck their way across the rift the darksaber has inadvertently cut between them. I'd love to see them get into the weeds about What It Means To Be Mandalorian, or spar together and learn from each other's fighting styles, or spar together a little too seriously because, you know, rivals for the throne.

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Star Wars: Rebels

💚 Alexsandr Kallus/Hera Syndulla

Hera is one of my favourite badasses in the GFFA. Kallus is one of my favourite redemption cases. Hera can offer Kallus comfort and reconnection after his defection from the Empire! Kallus can offer Hera comfort and reconnection after Kanan's death! If anything happens between them while Kanan is still alive, please don't have it happen behind Kanan's back or in a way that implies a major problem for Hera and Kanan's budding romance if he found out. Maybe sexual exclusivity isn't a thing in space, or Kanan isn't the jealous type, or you just don't mention him at all and I form my own conclusions. Basically complex relationships and offhand it's-all-fine-here nonmonogamy are :D :D :D, but malicious infidelity makes me :(.

I love the idea of the two of them finding peace in each other once the war is over. Maybe they settle down and raise Jacen together. Maybe there are some teething issues as two veterans who've seen hell and lost loved ones adjust to civilian life. Maybe something happens to drag them back into the mess, and they get to swing into action as a badass new power couple. Or maybe they're not a thing yet, and the sorely missed adrenaline is what tips them over.

💚 Kanan Jarrus/Alexsandr Kallus/Hera Syndulla

I'm incurably weak for 'longer-term couple with deep bond and entangled history/pet trainwreck they accidentally picked up somewhere along the way'. I'd love to see how Kallus might fit into the existing Hera/Kanan dynamic, fraught and complex as it already is; I'd equally love equal-but-different poly, blatantly lopsided/asymmetric poly, or an ill-defined ambiguous mess between three people with a freighter's worth of emotional baggage between them. Some ideas:

• Mum/dad/black sheep uncle, aka. what on earth do the rest of the crew make of the developing triad? Do any of them actually clock that it's happening, or do they each have their own entertainingly off-base theories about why Kanan, Kallus and Hera are all acting different around each other and keep disappearing together?
• Pre-redemption: Kallus and/or Hera are guiltily hot for the horrible no-good ISB agent who's hellbent on hunting them down and destroying everything they love.
• Post-redemption awkwardness as Kallus finds his place aboard the Ghost.
• Missionfic! Send them off together on some dangerous quest or other and let them all be dazzlingly competent at fighting the Empire yet hopelessly inept at navigating their feelings.

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Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

💙 Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (ST)

I will never, ever get tired of Ben surviving TROS and having to integrate into Rey's life with her friends/lovers who he variously tortured and brutalised. I'll take literally any spin on this scenario. Slightly prickly but ultimately healthy and uplifting poly? Toxic disaster foursome held together by nothing but lust and sheer stubbornness? Group adventures taking down what's left of the First Order? Team visits to the max sec prison Ben gets locked in after the war?

I love AUs where Ben defects earlier in canon, or where he never goes dark in the first place and instead shows up as the bad-tempered, difficult son of General Leia. Does he fight for the cause voluntarily, or show up now and then to lend a grudging helping hand? How differently does the war with the First Order go without him there to act as Snoke's enforcer?

Or, if Ben is still Kylo, I also love forced-to-work-together and redemption-by-seduction tropes.

💙 Finn/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (ST)

All of them have the Force now! Let's see Ben, alive or as a Force ghost, helping train Finn in the use of his powers while introducing him to all the weird bits of life with the Force that the books and old masters don't tell you about. Let's see Finn coming to terms with this new part of his identity - maybe he doesn't even want to be a Jedi! Maybe he's seen enough of where that path leads, and is content to live his life as a normal guy who just has flashes of intuition now and then. Let's see Rey explore two completely different kinds of connection: the togetherness-whether-you-like-it-or-not of her Force bond with Ben, verses her voluntary kindred-spirit intimacy with Finn.

Or, pre-Bendemption, drag Finn into the weird spooky sort-of relationship Rey and Kylo have going.

💙 Poe Dameron/Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (ST)

I love established Finn/Poe with Kylo pining from the outside. I love historic Ben/Poe where they've known each other since long before Finn was in the picture. I love background Reylo (or intense platonic Rey & Kylo Force bond) with Kylo/redeemed Ben setting out to make things right with her friends and accidentally catching feelings in the process. I love prickly forced cooperation, stranded-together, allies-by-circumstance type stories. I love love love to linger on how much Kylo has hurt both Finn and Poe, whether it's background baggage in a lighthearted shipfic or an all-out wallow in the horrors of past torture and attempted murder. I love banter and antagonistic not-really-romance.

Some ideas:

• The First Order is defeated and the galaxy is at peace, but Finn and Poe are still haunted by the war. Like, literally. The ghost of Kylo Ren keeps showing up wherever they go.
• TROS missing scene: after Rey flees the Death Star ruins in her stolen TIE, Finn and Poe are approached by an unarmed, dripping wet Ben Solo who wants their help getting to Rey 'before it's too late'.
• Poe has history with Ben from back before he turned to the dark side. When Rey brings a redeemed Ben back from Exegol, that old baggage comes to the fore, leaving Finn suddenly afraid of becoming a third wheel in his own relationship with Poe.
• AU where Ben defects pre-Supreme Leader ascension, and Finn and Poe find themselves reluctantly in charge of the new prisoner-cum-Resistance-member.

💙 Poe Dameron/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (ST)

I love that they're all three fairly quick-tempered, adrenaline-wired personalities with wicked pilot skills and a penchant for reckless do-or-die maneuvers.

Maybe Rey and Poe have a bantery, mostly friendly rivals-with-benefits arrangement that gets upset by a much less friendly rivalry with Ben. Maybe Ben and Rey are already together, and a threesome with Poe is the quickest way to get him on board with an alliance that he's otherwise deeply suspicious of. Maybe Ben and Poe have history from having both grown up in Core World-based, Alliance-loyal circles. Maybe they all bond over their love of very spaceships (maybe it's an AU where the war never happened and they're all racers or smugglers or New Republic navy fighter pilots or something). The possibilities are endless! I just want the pretty people to kiss and snark at each other a lot.

💙 Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (ST)

I love these two as enemies drawn together by circumstance, as foils to each other's best and worst traits, as lost soul with a shared background in evil doing their best to leave the First Order's influence behind. I love pre-canon stories where stormtrooper!Finn stumbles into his scariest commander's orbit (only to find that maybe he isn't so scary after all?). I love post-canon or divergent stories where Ben defects to the Resistance and Finn helps him find his footing on the new terrain. I love happy endings and bleak disasters and bittersweet could-have-beens. Honestly, if these two are interacting, I'm happy.

Some ideas:

• Ben survives Exegol and helps clean up what’s left of his First Order mess. Finn agrees to work with him for Rey’s sake, but his own feelings about his former commander are a lot more complicated than just ‘yay he’s good now’.
• Ben (alive or as a Force Ghost) takes an unexpected interest in Finn’s Jedi training.
• Pre-TROS or in a First Order wins AU, Finn gets captured and Kylo Ren takes a keen personal interest in his interrogation. (Torture and noncon are good; Finn’s awakening Force powers are good; Kylo’s immense frustration that all his Resistance captives keep manifesting unexpected powers and resisting him is good.)

💙 Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Rose Tico (ST)

I'm really into the ethical clash between these two: Kylo with his love of power and his violent authoritarian leanings, Rose with her sense of justice and compassion for the underdog. I'd love to see the two of them build a relationship of some kind, either with Kylo in full First Order meltdown mode or redeemed Ben Solo cooperating with the Resistance afterwards.

Some prompts:

• Kylo thinks Rose's morals are naive. She's too young and idealistic to correctly process the trauma of her upbringing and embrace totalitarianism as the natural solution to all the galaxy's problems.
• Redeemed, conflicted Ben needs someone to lean on as he sorts out what the hell he's doing in a post-Evil Meltdown world. Rose is there - to listen? To argue political philosophy? To smack him back into shape?
• Neither of them can stand each other, but somehow they keep ending up in bed when the beers and bad decisions come out.
• A stray plot device strands the two of them on a hostile planet where they're forced to work together for survival.
• Rose struggles to reconcile the irreconcilable reality that her sister died fighting the man she's now crushing on/sleeping with/getting close to.

💙 Zorii Bliss/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (ST)

Hear me out: Ben survives TROS but doesn't exactly find it easy to slot back into good guy life with Rey and her Resistance pals. Zorii has no room in her heart for First Order Sky Trash but needs new crew after what happened to Kijimi. I'd love to see Ben tapping back into his Legendary Smuggler Han Solo roots, Zorii taking life one step at a time, and two attractive, damaged people with nothing in common finding a way to make it work together anyway.

Alternatively: in a happier AU, Ben never fell to the dark side but instead ran off to join the Crew, who found a use or two for his Force sensitivity. Poe is very welcome to join in here, either as a romantic complicating factor or as the snarky friend/colleague who clashes with both of them.

💙 Zorii Bliss/Rose Tico

Rebellious cool girl sweeps nerdy shy girl off her feet! After being sidelined in TROS, I'd dearly love to see Rose have some adventures of her own - adventures that may or may not involve getting roped into chaotic underworld hijinks. Bonus points for Rose trying to talk up her criminal past by way of that illegal parking incident on Canto Bight.

Or on a more sombre note: god, they've both lost a lot. Maybe they connect over the grief and rage of having watched the First Order destroy their home planets, or the bittersweetness of finding a new home for themselves once the fighting is over.

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