Star Wars Twitter Is Thirsting Over One Character & It's Exactly Who You Think
This article contains spoilers for "Star Wars: The Acolyte" Episode 6
"Star Wars" is sexy again. Tell the Reylo shippers in your life, tell the retired fanfic writers, tell your mom. Manny Jacinto has arrived to single-handedly dispel all the culture war nonsense surrounding "Star Wars: The Acolyte" and replace it with an endless stream of extremely thirsty social media posts. We are, as they say, so back.
If you've been following along with the latest "Star Wars" Disney+ series, you already know. The show's fifth episode confirmed fan suspicions that the mysterious Qimir (Jacinto) is in fact the Stranger, the masked, vicious Sith warrior who's been pulling Mae's (Stenberg) strings from the shadows. Qimir spends that entire episode murdering Jedi, including core characters Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen). And yet, all anyone could talk about on X, formerly Twitter, afterward was the villain's arms. In fairness, they're insane. The fervor has only increased with the release of Episode 6, which sees Qimir trying to seduce Osha (Stenberg) in more ways than one.
"Once upon a time one brave woman named leslye asked 'what if star wars were allowed to be as horny as possible for the dark side without apologizing for it?'" X user @femmevillain wrote, referring to showrunner Leslye Headland, "and that was when manny jacinto as qimir was born." And that's far from the only post celebrating the franchise's newest evil boyfriend.
Star Wars fans are going nuts for Qimir
Turns out, there's still something about bad boys. "Manny Jacinto as Qimir is so sexy that I think anyone would abandon the Jedi for the Sith if he just asked them to," X user @BELLA_SNOWDEN wrote in a post over screenshots of a shirtless, dripping wet Qimir. That particularly scene from Episode 6 has gotten a lot of attention online, with X user @hunterbadbatch sharing similar images under the caption, "whoever's idea it was to have manny jacinto skinny dipping in star wars I OWE YOU MY LIFE."
Other fans have taken things a bit further in an effort to truly match Qimir's freak. X user @AshleyKSmalls tweeted a screenshot from Episode 5 of the Stranger choking Mae. The caption? A short and sweet, "Me next!" The post has 46,000 likes and counting. And these are all without getting into the entire subgenre of posts that simply zoom in on Manny Jacinto's admittedly enormous biceps.
The whole thing calls to mind the Reylo (Rey x Kylo Ren, for the handful of uninitiated) fan movement that reigned supreme during the sequel trilogy. Those shippers eventually got canonical validation when Rey and Kylo shared a kiss at the end of "The Rise of Skywalker," but "The Acolyte" seems to be promising a lot more than just that.
The Qimir fan movement might be exactly what Star Wars needs.
It's no secret that "Star Wars" isn't quite as big right now as it once was. Every franchise has peaks and valleys of pop culture relevance, so there's no reason for fans to worry. But in the wake of the sequel trilogy kind of fizzling out and most of the Disney+ shows failing to capture a larger, casual audience, "Star Wars" has receded a bit from its usual place of honor in the public consciousness.
Qimir might be exactly what the franchise needs right now. It's fun to watch a "Star Wars" story that's willing to be sexy — to have a villain telling our protagonist how "everybody seems to want" her and complimenting her lightsaber stance while skinny-dipping. Fans are already shipping Qimir and Osha, with plenty of fanfiction popping up in the last week alone. Sometimes, a little bit of sex appeal can go a long way in drumming up hype.
Introducing a hot new villain is one thing, but it's far more compelling when that introduction brings something unique with it. The Stranger embodies the seductive nature of the dark side that we hear about so often but rarely see in practice. He appeals to a wide swathe of casual viewers, sure, but he also adds a fun, new flavor that "Star Wars" hasn't dipped into for a while. It remains to be seen how deep the Qimir rabbit hole will go on "The Acolyte," but the fans have gotten their hooks in, and they aren't likely to let go anytime soon.