kylux fandom is having a breakingdown that's confusing me af
All the freaking out in Kylux fandom about whether the ship is still “ok” or not is just frankly ??? to me. What…exactly changed? That we saw Kylo and Hux’s dislike for each other have a physical manifestation? Come on, guys. It’s not abuse when two people (who aren’t particularly good people, either, which lbr, we knew already) who have a negative relationship with each other/dislike each other get into a fight.
It’s not abuse when there’s no reasonable expectation of trust between the parties or an inherent power imbalance with a social expectation of caretaking (mainly adult and child). Hux isn’t a helpless child - he’s a sharp and trained military commander He can hold his own against Kylo as much as any other non-Force sensitive and Force-sensitive and non-Force sensitives have gone to battle with each other often.
The first time Kylo chokes Hux is more a physical manifestation of a power struggle. Like any fight/battle. The second episode - the wall thing - is a bit more iffy in that Kylo has social power re/; being the Supreme Leader…but…honestly? His position at that point was NOT stable. If Hux had wanted an insta-coup I bet he could have had it. At any rate, the army is conditioned to obey him first - Hux isn’t powerless, but he has chosen to, at least for that time, submit to Kylo. (Perhaps because they’re in the middle of an f-ing crisis…)
I wonder if 2 years of fanon and AUs has made the fandom collectively lose some perspective, but we KNEW after TFA that Hux and Kylo had an axe to grind with each other and we KNEW that Kylo was not above hurting people/using the Force for intimidation. Essentially, nothing has changed. The core of enemies-to-lovers is that they start out as ENEMIES. Enemies fight and hurt each other. Come on. Not every inappropriate/shitty use of force on another is abuse. All this means is that the development of their relationship toward friendship/romance may need to be shifted to after TLJ as opposed to directly post-TFA. “They’re not romantic anymore” When were they EVER romantic in canon? If you thought Kylix was fine after TFA, I really don’t get what the problem is now.