#adhd midnite rants & all...

[princessnijireiki]

every time I remember devery jacobs auditioned for rey in star wars I hate that I can envision the ripple effect of disney + fandom racism it would have caused...

like realistically either oscar isaac or john boyega would not have been cast, though boyega might've gotten to retain his accent vs her adopting an english one. kelly marie tran certainly wouldn't have been cast. they might not have even created the tico sisters if there was no need to drive the white + black leads apart and into other characters' arms...

the whole reylo ship would never have exploded with obnoxious fans the way it did, because of racism, which is annoying because yeah I hate the ship, but it would've been scrapped to brutalize an indigenous rey— rise of skywalker & last jedi would never have been scripted the way they were with a woman of color at the helm— or worse tbh, it would be both more brutal AND still romanticized in-script or by fans (it's no coincidence when you see what other ships people who adored reylo support, and I've been blocked by enough people who got mad I publicly agreed w boyega specifically calling out twitter nerd racism to feel very comfortable talking shit about the distinct media consumption patterns they have in common lmao)... and if her casting meant we've gotten whitefinn, finnlo would be the ship we'd all be hating on in its place.

hell, finnrey might not have even been initially plotted in the first place (ik it was officially scrapped by disney/lf despite the seeds of it being established enough in the initial script it had to be stricken from the tfa novelization, but we might not have even gotten as far as having something TO scrap). or tbh maybe rey would've been sidelined for a whitefinn more... or maybe both would've been sidelined for extra kylo screentime.

it's honestly just all very shades of legend of korra vs avatar the last airbender—

like what are the choices you make with the indigenous female character when she's a love interest? would her brutalization at the hands of the story's "bad boy" be racialized & personalized in a nastier way than said villain's interactions with every other character, as with zutara? would all her accomplishments still be in service of somebody else, her mastery still come behind the person she in fact teaches, because she's not THE hero? does your follow up story leave her in a far more passive role than her male or non-indig counterparts, with far less screentime & influence even in her own family's lives than her romantic partner?

and then you flip it around to korra, and what kinds of torture are you willing to put the indigenous female character through that you weren't willing to do to your LAST main character/hero? what kind of torture will you say she deserves or needs to overcome to be "worthy" of a role someone who came before her didn't have to be physically broken into? what kind of nasty white gaze cultural genocide pro assimilationist subplots will she be turned into a mouthpiece of in-story? what kind of busted ass romances will she be made to test drive without being given an ON SCREEN unambiguous canonical happy ending?

and I'm sorry, but to take all that, which is frankly a HIGH bar compared to some lucasfilm properties, and put it in the hands of... what, people who have made multiple racist projects in a movie universe with multiple racist films already?

and I love the mandalorian tv show, don't get me wrong, but the franchise's best talents have come from star wars tv shows & the eu, and in mando we STILL got a scene of "a group of mandos led by an inexplicable white woman immediately tried to hate crime old ass boba fett because they heard his maori accent"?

admittedly that's one of my biggest mando-specific gripes (vs things I sort of generally hate about the star wars universe), but like, in 20+ years the universe has had ONE... ONE indigenous subplot going with django & boba fett + the clones (longer if you include to ot but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since we didn't see boba's face until the prequels; I'm also graciously ignoring the tusken raiders narratives, but mostly that's bc it falls under the umbrella of my general sw hates since they are literally the kind of background texture racism you'd see in a john wayne flick and I don't have the energy or sustained interest to unpack all of star wars' racism, it is a neverending chain of clown handkerchiefs). but from the moment we were introduced to django and boba as unmasked people, the franchise hasn't avoided racial fuckups around them even with literal decades of practice to work out the narrative bugs.

like I wish it could've been good, but ultimately, you gotta be honest with yourself & recognize the people running the circus would've found a new way to fuck shit up even if they'd managed to avoid kathleen kennedy's "white english brunettes" hangup, because there's plenty more equally fucked up baggage where that came from, AND fandom is frequently & consistently of the fucking devil. even my own false optimism couldn't sell me that bridge in new york, y'all.

#now consider this: i clocked korra by first ep of se2 as only getting worse & i do Not follow star wars lore #so if i can be this correct & well informed & wonderful on limited data with very little investment (bc i don't even rly like sw like that) #imagine how i would act if i gave a shit or if it was sth more involved & that pissed me off more if i read it like game of throne... #this is also why i disengaged w star trek for the most part since kurtzman & orci took over + why i don't engage w marvel anymore lol #there's shit that i am not loyal over! immediate & ETERNAL disloyalty grudges & fucking hatred if you cross certain lines with me okay! #ugh anyway. this big brain is a burden y'all #adhd midnite rants & all... #sw