#discourse and drama just isnt something id like to be involved in

[watatsumiis]

Heya, I'm not entirely sure how to start this post, it feels a little weird making it at all, but I realised it might be some kind of necessary evil or something like that.

To that anon who sent me those three asks last night (all within the span of a few minutes and the same typing style, so I know they're from the same person), I wanted to reach out to you. I'm not going to sit here and call you names and mock you because that's simply not the kind of person I am, despite the things you said and the assumptions you made. This is going on the idea that you're not a troll stirring drama and just ... someone who had something to say, but wasn't sure how to say it.

I know sometimes that anonymous feature is really tempting, especially when you feel like someone has wronged you and you want to give them a piece of your mind in a very abrupt manner, but it's not a productive way of conversation at all. All it does is upset people (including yourself, because I know in a lot of cases you'll end up refreshing and waiting for some kind of response that you probably won't get).

If you have something you'd like to have a conversation about, you can reach out calmly and maturely and have a genuine conversation with the person instead of sending them messages that they'll likely gloss over and probably even laugh at. I figured you likely won't do it, so I want to reach out and invite you to have a genuine conversation with me, no hard feelings about the asks, I'd just like to get your perspective and clarify on some of the things you've said. You're free to DM me or send me an ask off-anon, since I've blocked your anon asks. This kind of behaviour is genuinely not healthy for anybody and even if you don't reach out, I hope you're able to take some time and reflect on that, take a step back from the intricacies of social media for a bit and go from there.

#general barks #this goes for anybody by the way - if anything i say or talk about or reblog concerns you and youd like to clarify then please #just reach out instead of sending anonymous messages please. im always willing to sit down and have a conversation #with someone who can get their points across in a calm and mature manner. #discourse #anon hate #let me know if theres anything else i should be tagging this as - im happy to do so #not quite the note i wanted to start off on today but that's okay. i suppose its sparking a much needed conversation #discourse and drama just isnt something id like to be involved in

[roxannepolice]

Long asks anon again, here to offer my opinion on the current wank. Rey as a character is rather blatantly breaking sw story rules and nothing is going to get SFF fans hackles up like rule breakage. This is root of both the MarySue accusations and current wank. Rey has a tragic backstory thats doubling as the only failure she can call her own. But its a) damn near entirely offscreen and b) serves as convenient justification for why shes competent at near everything that comes up.

Reys instantly good at the force because of a convenient force download that to the best of my knowledge only occured in the noncanon KOTOR II and quite frankly cant blame most of the general audience for not getting because without prior knowledge or the novelizations why would they? She has darkness in her but as so far used and touched it consequence free and its almost entirely symbolically externalized on the Kylo (and in SW symbolism is Real in a way it isnt in other narratives) Shes strong in the force because Light rises to meet Dark but to quote the current crop of movies ‘thats not how the force works) or at least thats never how it worked before. Shes the first SW protagonist to go behind enemy lines and come out with both hands in the second movie. For ppl wondering how come Luke and Ani never get labeled MarySues, this is why, they got thier asses handed to them, Rey hasnt. There /is/ something /off/ in Reys story, and ppl pick up on it. if you can make a post (w/ over 1k notes!) about how great it is that a character meant to prop up 7hrs worth of movies has little to no character development to go through, somethings off. If multiple ppl can make posts about how its neat Rey can tap into the darkside (still characterized as evil in ST) consequence free (with some quite frankly stupid justifications, 'shes disciplined’ really? jedi lacked a lot of things thats not one of them) somethings off and again, if the only failure your main heroine has is /entirely retroactive something’s off/. If the story were getting with the is the story most ppl think we are, a 'female empowerment’ (i dont feel particularly empowered by being told I have an equal chance at being a deus ex machina but ok) than well, her story is over and theres no need for IX (hell it could have been over in TFA, most ppl assumed she had accepted her place as the future jedi in that one) and no need for reylo The ST was always gonna deconstruct all that came before it purely by virtue of being a sequel. The tragedy of anakin skywalker is now a farce, the happy ot ending now a tragedy, and the mythopoetic structure shot to shit in the name of serialization and perpetual warfare. this stand true for all the sequel characters including rey and ben. the only question is are we going to get anything out of it? I compare it to home renovation. You can knock out a wall and the walls gone, but new opportunities arise. With Benlo, I’m reasonably confident that there will be at least some attempt to take advantage of the new space. With rey and the resistance kids? not so much. it just feels like they knocked down a blue wall to rebuild it as pink one and at the point it just feels like a waste of time because ive seen this before. Ive seen pure cinnamon roll desert orphan reform jedi order If this was all youre going to do that the fuck was the point? which circles around to my problem with team good guy this go around and That Scene. JJ twisted the story into a pretzel to justify the winners of the last round being the underdogs again and then rian twisted so much further the storys head may as well be up its own ass. And then at the very end he shoots it all to shit and rushes to reassure us its all gonna be okay. He removes the entire point of the underdog trope /the tension that comes from the fact that they might lose/. I mean there wasnt a whole lot of that to begin with already but really? So theres no tension that Reys gonna win so her journey feels frictionless, and theres no question where shes gonna end up so full offense why give a shit? Thats where the whole 'can rey lose a fight?’ thing comes from. Ppl want conflict in her arc to justify its existence and give us a reason why this her story to begin with. if the only character going through growth for all three movies is ben, if the only characters whos fate is up in the air is ben, and if all the tension in the reylo relationship comes from ben, then why is this /reys story/? why not just make it about the character actually driving all the drama and thus, the story?   As a final thought, im going to add that having Kylo be aware and insecure that hes never gonna be as Iconic as Vader was a great story choice, regardless of where ends up. Current Rebels, on the other hand, seems to have not gotten the memo that they are never gonna be as iconic as Original Rebels, and the story itself seems to being trying to sell them to me as being better. Rey is Luke but better, Poe/Finn are Han wo the smuggler grit, and id be lying if i said it didnt piss me off.

&

Long asks anon to kick down ur door again, AND ANOTHER THING. SW is a lotta things. Subtle aint one of them, and St hasnt changed in that regard. If you have to debate it chances are either a) ur arguing counter to the text in which case mor power to you but not really helpful for predictions or intended meaning or b) /it aint there. A bunch of ppl didnt like anidala, but nobody doubted we were supposed to think they were in love by the end of AOTC, bunch of ppl didnt like poes arc, but no one doubts he fucked up by not listening to holdo was the intended take away. Which brings to rey and flaws or lack there of. Were told rey has flaws but she has yet to suffer any real consequences from them with the exception of The Damn Parentage Wank, which again, pulls the double duty of making her hyper competent at everything. Because rey has no consequences for her flaws, from a story function pov there aren’t any. If rey did have a flaw to overcome, we would all agree what it was

Now won’t you all just look at this beautiful, spot on rant which has been lagging in my askbox since the last time Rey’s flaws or lack thereof were the discourse’s focus (November, I believe?) and suddenly became a thing again, courtesy of Tweetgate. I think you really summed up the crux of this debate wonderfully, anon.

I particularly agree with the part about Rey not getting narratively punished for whatever flaws we’d like her to have (great point about returning from behind the enemy lines with both arms still in place), when SW don’t stay away from allowing characters to get “punished” even for otherwise applaudable features - vide Padmé, whose idealism is what Palps manipulates into gaining more power (this is why Padmé will never come off as a Mary Sue or too perfect, btw). But I’ll say even more - Rey doesn’t even get called out on her flaws, except for by Ben, who’s mostly dismissed as a baddie like Palpatine saying Luke was foolish to rely on his friends. Let’s just consider one thing - both Anakin and Luke get called out on their flaws by Yoda (Anakin repeatedly and by lots of other people for that matter) whereas with Rey, the same grumpy-yet-jolly senex pops up from the afterlife to further inform us what a great jedi material she is.

TBH, I have a very cynical theory as to why Rey is being pushed as the main character while it’s difficult to deny that it’s Kylo Ben who does all the plot heavy lifting. I’m pretty sure Ben’s arc was the first one DLF thought out (and the big question is, was it the only one they thought out) and only later on decided to make Rey the main character, which also involved much less spontaneous writing. Mind you, it’s not as if benepemption didn’t have a manufactured subtaste to it, but with Rey’s heroine’s journey stiff structure occasionally substitutes any in-world explanations of her actions (this is why I have to hope renperor has some narrative purpose rather than happening because lovers need to be separated and anti-hero needs to achieve what he wanted in 2nd act). I feel as if whatever potential her character had (and hopefully still has, pending IX) got smothered by layer upon layer of making her likable by everyone, which largely relied on negative characterization: she’s not helpless, she’s not too naive, not cynical, not too emotional, not too emotionless, not morally corruptible, not anything you’ve ever complained about regarding any SW character, not falling for the bad boy, not not not - and in the end it’s kinda difficult to say what Rey is like and while the goal of making her widely likable was achieved, it also made it almost impossible to view her as loveably flawed/annoying like the classic characters. And on top of all this is the matter of making her a nobody just like you!, as DLF appears to say with uncle Sam’s gesture (which also kinda assumes the existence of a Star Wars fan as some uniform entity? because if you identify with her, good for you, I just don’t understand why the franchise assumes I’ll identify with her by the grace of being a SW fan alone), because, as you excellently put it, the message here is that everyone can be chosen by God - which again, it’s not as if the saga ever contradicted this, so why the hell make a case of it? I can’t agree that it’s made into Rey’s flaw, though, imo her low birth only serves to further frame her as an oppressed virtue. And I definitely agree regarding too much of her growth being left off-screen, or before the story ever begins. The problem here isn’t even that it is left off-screen (it’s not as if we had huge insight into any of the pt or ot characters) but rather that her characterizations is left off-screen while being depicted as at least untypical (unique to put it bluntly) for her situation (same goes for Finn). A hopeful, kind person growing up on her on her own in slavery under a nicer name is a rarity and DLF makes a case for it being a rarity - and this sparks up curiosity in her past, as if market pandering to Re/sky wasn’t enough. So from this pov her un-reveal being frustrating isn’t just a case of not wanting to love her or her self only a potentially deeper psychological question getting answered with well, light.

I should add, Ben’s arc feels like the most spontaneous one (though Finn’s may yet be a masterpiece) and he’s the one to admit his fear of not living up to Vader’s legacy, because I think he’s the character serving as the creators’ vessel, more or less like Luke was Lucas’ avatar in ot. In his fear regarding Vader’s legacy one can feel Disney’s fear due to having bought popculture’s holy grail and not being entirely sure what to do with it. On this background, Rey (a literal scavenger of OT’s pieces) and rebels 2.0 repeatedly blessed by Leia come off as what DLF would want to be. And the result is that the character which was supposed to be Vader 2.0 proves the most original and surprising one, whereas “breaths of fresh air” come off as room aromatizers with “fresh” written on them.

And as far as the plot being bended into a pretzel and then disappearing up it’s own ass, well, a part of me is still hoping that taking virtually the same villains as before is a mythological-psychoanalitical metaphor of a nigredo repeating itself until the unconscious gets accepted by the conscious…. but, tbh, as the leaks flow this hope is withering.

#asks #cleaning up the askbox #long asks anon #sw negativity #let rey free from the corset disney

[welcometomytightholenowleave]

Addressing some stuff

If you arent reading this post in a complete monotone you are doing it wrong

1. Internet drama is a fucking waste of time

2. I regret a bunch of shit i said. Being in insular communities where you constantly are up in the throats of random strangers melts your brain. This post was supposed to be made like 3 weeks ago but haha wow lets be real i had a life going on.

3. I likely won’t maintain a huge social media presence anymore. I do not really like the internet and I’m probably just gonna try to avoid anglophone parts of the web. Gonna be focusing on irl activities, work and that kinda stuff. It’s what i deserve.

4. Death threats make me super uncomfortable no matter which direction. Same goes for death wishes and intentionally triggering people. I might get very pissed at people but i rarely actually want them hurt. Even if i say bad shit in the moment the thought of someone (even people who are dicks, yes) being... actually maimed or killed makes me deeply uncomfortable. I feel like i should have been more vocal about that.

5. A bunch of shit i regret is letting my bitterness, self hate and jealousy of people i perceive as privileged run amok. I still got a fucked up sense of identity and will probably turn into a future meth head, but I’m seriously trying to adress my own damage with trying not to cope with the bare minimum. Feelings are gay. I need to find a way of processing my own trauma that isnt just lashing out at other people and hoping whatever freak out they have satiates my need to be seen, even if for the wrong reasons. No forreal i legit regret a lot of shit i said. If you get anything out of this cringe-post, let it be that. I should have chilled the fuck out and just avoided toxic discourse instead of letting myself sink to that level.

6. People getting close to me/assuming allyship/closeness freaks me out. I am a recluse and i do not feel comfortable being affiliated/lumped in with anyone that i wouldnt let touch my butthole. For context i have a lot of schizoid behavioral patterns and i generally go through life scared of people. I mainly want to stay out of peoples business and i am extremely avoidant to the point of lashing out at people if I feel they cross my often very intricate and nebulous boundaries. I’m generally heated in the moment and apathic later. This also goes for people who hate me. I probably don’t hate you back but if you are planning on rubbing your shit on me i will probably think you are annoying, pathetic or funny. But most of all i just want nothing at all to do with you. Yes this goes twice if you are a “kinnie” or lack any kind of meaningful hobbies or talents. Cyber bullying isnt a talent.

7. I still find the concept of e-cheating on your military boyfriend with a cyber bully with no job or education who spends her day compiling a document about a discord server really funny and that can sadly not be helped but i don’t want any drama. You do you but also come on that is hysterical on paper.

8. I really do not hate gay people or trans people. I hate transphobes and homophobes. I can make it make sense. The intra community garbage, a lot of radfems and ..unique trans women legit treating trans men like garbage has just made my brain melt and at this point id rather have nothing to do with it. Again, a lot of awful shit ive said has been an active result of “doubling down” and projecting the hatred i saw back onto them. The problem has never been with the demographic, its been with people who spend their whole waking lives acting like complete cunts. I’m trying to be less of a cunt. I want a healthy self perception where I’m comfortable with my own homosexuality and trans ness and where I don’t spend all my waking hours on the defense. I still believe trans men and afab people have unique challenges because i do not reject.. well, the reality of sex based opression and i respect myself too much to deny that having a pussy has impacted my life, but i also have chilled tf down with regards to trans politics. Its a fucking nuanced subject and it’s almost hard to quantify at all due to all the complex intersections and variables. Ahah this shit gives me a headache I’d rather just play with sand or some shit than type an essay.

9. Radblr jokes were never funny. None of you understand sarcasm, comedic timing, verbal humor or irony. I hate it here.

10. I will probably still speak like a cunt-bitch because thats the kind of culture ive been raised with. I don’t really adjust my language and just because i word something in a fucked up or nonchalant manner does not mean any ill intent behind it. My favorite movie as a kid was a shitty no budget flick about an alcoholic manlet that hunts down zoophilic criminals . I will never not be edgy, a mess, and over the top. Again, gallows humor, reclaiming slurs and generally being extremely blunt isnt something i actually do with ill intent. I know how to read the room somewhat, and try to tone down my personality if i am not sure people are comfortable with it. at the same time, while i love edgy jokes i am not comfortable with them being made by people who have active malintent towards any demographic mentioned. Its all very context based. The people i joke around with know this because i won’t shut the fuck up about “omg tell me if i cross a line I’m socially inept and don’t like hurting people”

11. I really don’t wanna be involved in any of this anymore its cringe as shit haha