#and then i tried to draw thorns and struggled quite a bir

[mewguca]

i saw pretty outfits on twitter so i drew them

[link] and [link]

[sithroyal]

      Snoke and “Punishments”

Note: This post will contain heavy mentions of abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, child grooming, csa, csa mention, rape, rape mention, and rape recovery. I will never write rape scenes on this blog but I will be writing the after affects of said situations. This has been a large part of my portrayal since I started writing this character and thus, will not affect ongoing threads or further plotting.

       Snoke has always been a part of Ben’s life. It’s noted that Leia first felt him as a ‘band of light’ before the darkness started creeping in - but it wasn’t Ben’s darkness. Shortly after he was born, it was noted that only Han could get Ben to sleep for any length of time. He was always there and always trying to get his claws into Ben. 

He never stood a chance of defending himself without the help of others, which was given but not continued. Ben was failed by multiple people and by himself.

For years Snoke tormented him. Nightmares were the start of it and created a fear of the dark, of his own room and home. Ben couldn’t sleep peacefully through the night and, eventually, stopped waking his parents up when he had a nightmare. It was easier that way. He waited until dawn and then he’d allow himself a few hours to sleep before his mother would come.

The whispers began around eight years old. He didn’t know what the voice wanted but it spoke to him, told him things that no one else should know, and he listened. Until one day, he responded to it. Ben was convinced that he’d finally made a friend in this person who lived inside his head but he was careful not to bring him up. That was part of their deal to keep talking - no one could know that it was happening or he’d never speak to Ben again. 

Of course, having found said new friend, Ben was in no hurry to sell him out so quickly. Why would a lonely and neglected child want to be rid of his only real friend?

When Ben went to live with the Damerons (part of my blog’s canon divergence, which can be found in the about page), the communication died down. While it wasn’t completely gone, Ben was still able to have some hint of a normal life until he was around thirteen. The conversations became far less innocent. 

Snoke was grooming Ben. Not only for him to become his apprentice one day, but in many other ways. By the time he started to realize what Snoke was doing could be seen as wrong, the dreams had already shifted from nightmares to something far more sexual. Ben was highly uncomfortable with the direction these dreams had taken but there was little he could do about it. 

After a while, he began to normalize it, rationalize it for himself. No, there was nothing romantic about any of this. It was an exchange. 

From that point onward, that was precisely what sexual contact became for Ben / Kylo. It was a way to get something. Payment of some type. Snoke never corrected him in his thinking but knew it was clearly how Ben thought of the act - payment for being there, for being a friend, for being a parent when he needed one, for simply paying attention. 

Clearly, this line of thinking was incorrect but Ben never learned anything better about it. One point of contention between him and Snoke had been Poe Dameron. Ben’s affection for the other directly threatened Snoke’s control over Ben. So, Snoke took the opportunity to use his crush on Poe against him. He convinced Ben that Poe would reject him and find him disgusting for having such feelings, to never tell Poe about any of them, but he did. Ben told Poe the day he left to join his uncle’s academy.

When he left to join Luke, Ben was already eighteen years old.

By this time, Ben didn’t think about what had happened to him. He found that there was no reason to bring it up when he learned that Jedi were celibate. Of course, Ben had little intention on keeping to traditional Jedi teachings unless absolutely necessary to begin with. During his training, Ben still talked to Snoke and often told him precisely what Luke was up to - there was no reason to lie to someone who could tear through his mind to find what they wanted anyway.

The week before Luke attacked Ben, his nightmares and conversations with Snoke featured him leaving the academy. Snoke wanted him to join him so he could use Ben to focus on the dark side of the Force, so when Ben didn’t do that, Snoke forced his hand. He purposefully caused Luke’s attack by using the Force to simulate Palpatine’s energy, drawing Luke in, and making him believe there was no other way.

Ben fought. He took the blame for the temple burning when it wasn’t his fault (something that Snoke instilled in him after Ben went to him). Every little nudge gave Ben the illusion of a choice. Make no mistake, Ben did choose to perform these actions. While Snoke did manipulate him, he still didn’t force him to do anything. 

Once Ben was with Snoke and the First Order, things gradually started to change in the relationship. Where Ben had once earned positive reinforcement from Snoke, he was starting to receive backlash of various degrees. Small things at first, always a little comment here and there to put him down, and then it gradually became worse. 

The first time Ben noticed that something wasn’t quite right was when Snoke told him he wasn’t allowed to eat for two days after making a mistake in a mission. This escalated to up to five days, only allowed water with a bit of protein powder, in an effort to exacerbate Kylo’s negative emotions. He became easier to anger and agitate, which was a state he stayed in almost permanently when he runs on four hours of sleep (at most), two sparse First Order regulation meals per day, and constantly having to mind his thoughts. 

Over time, and with bigger fuck ups, the punishments ranged from being beaten with various tools by the Praetorium Guard to stress positions and, in some instances, rape (usually by one or the entire group of Guards). Given the gradual escalation of the punishments, Ben / Kylo began to understand that this was not only something wrong but also something that he was failing to deal with. His anger, irritability, and various negative emotions heightened and the memories of them began to feature in his dreams, leaving him with even less sleep than before. 

Snoke’s quips and vicious remarks in The Last Jedi hurt him terribly. 

“You have too much of your father’s heart in you, young Solo.” “I thought you would be the one to snuff it out. Alas, you are no Vader. You're just a child in a mask.” 

It’s not that things like this haven’t been said before but the timing of the phrases, his newfound connection with Rey, and the fact that he’s still recovering from the fight on Starkiller base meant that it rubbed salt into highly sensitive wounds. On top of that, by the end of the film, Ben / Kylo has murdered his abusers, leaving him emotionally vulnerable yet again when facing Luke on Crait.

The year between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker gave him time to build his defenses up again, to recover somewhat, but he still didn’t deal with the trauma of what he suffered under Snoke’s hand. So, once he heard Palpatine on Exegol, he was once again faced with his abuser. Because...

“I have been every voice you have ever heard inside your head,” the Emperor said. The voice changes from Palpatine, to Snoke, to Darth Vader.

Being faced with confronting his abuser yet again, he’s rattled but this is nothing he’s not dealt with before. Determined and distrusting, he finds out what he has to know first. Of course, his mother calling to him on Kef Bir and the conversation with his father definitely helped to give him some of his strength and light back. Like everything else, it’s a choice he made. Their influence swayed him to where he needed to be but he had to make the conscious decision to actually give up the mask that Snoke gave him. 

This was a huge turning point for him and his recovery. 

Now that Palpatine is dead, Ben still struggles with talking about the so-called punishments and things that he’s suffered through his life. He has problems with admitting that he’s been molested and raped - he’ll never use those words because that makes it too real for him. While on Naboo, he normally doesn’t pursue relationships with people he doesn’t know and will often remain secluded at home, working as a bounty hunter, or smuggling something for the Resistance.

Of course, none of this comes without a price. Ben is highly defensive when it comes to his emotions and his heart. Rey is one of the few people that he trusts with anything and opening up even to her is a difficult task for him. Out of anyone, she would be the one he’d tell. Poe Dameron being second but only because he knew him before, even then, it’d be a lot of communication to reach that point, if at all. 

Ben guards his heart with steel and a maze of thorns. He’s prickly and he’s difficult to understand, or navigate, but if they’ve managed to find the right hole in his armor then they can get straight to his heart and do as they please with it. He may never fully recover on his own but he tries so damn hard on top of atoning for his past actions - which may never be enough.