shannanigansandmisadventures

replied to your post:

“Finnrey would be racist over Finnrose if Finn and Rose had mutual…”

:

I don’t trust this anon… I never saw that many antis against finnrose prior to TLJ because a lot of people wanted to wait and see what happened. I could be wrong, but the people that were usually hating finnrose simply because of racism were the people that hated that poc were included in the films to begin with. Finnreys were pretty okay with the ship until the movie’s actual release.

I didn’t see this in our circles – which of course are just some antis, we have to keep that in mind – either. Rather many were excited by Rose, wrote metas about her that went FAR beyond her being anyone’s love interest, and were hoping for her and Rey to get along, so that there wouldn’t be some stupid love triangle with jealousy (thanks RJ for hinting at that DUH) the actual anti Finnrose attitude developped only after the movie was out. However I do know some Finnrey shippers I don’t have much contact with see Rey as the sole center that should get the guy over anyone else, so I won’t doubt that the anon came across such people. Also we have to remember many antis aren’t actual Finnrey shippers, so the question is again “who are antis?”

Yeah, I think it’s important not to get defensive and be “see no evil, hear no evil” like I’ve seen reylows get. People in our immediate circle may have been excited about Rose and the possibility of Finnrose, but we know a lot of antis are toxic and racist as hell. I’ve seen at least one such anon calling Rose a downgrade sent to a reylow, and it made me want to throw up. People can have bad experiences with antis even if we haven’t personally done or seen those things. We don’t get to call people liars just to uphold our pure self-image (not to mention antis are anything but pure and should define no one’s self-image lmao).

jewishcomeradebot:

Me going off on twitter about how much I hate the “Finn is too well adjusted to be traumatized” shit.

Transcript:

God I hate the “too well adjusted to be traumatized/an abuse survivor” argument. Apart from the clear racist bias there I hate it because it dismisses any survivor who’s coping mechanisms aren’t overtly destructive or self-destructive.

Just because Finn’s coping mechanisms doesn’t involve throwing tantrums, assaulting or screaming at people, doesn’t mean he doesn’t display clear coping with trauma, or that he isn’t traumatized by what the FO did to him or that he grew up in a very abusive environment.

For one thing he’s clearly compartmentalizing the hell out of his life and he also seems to use goal orientation as a coping strategy to avoid dealing too much with the chaos that is inside of him. But that chaos and his emotions does overflow at times.

But then he’s right back to coping again. Every time one of his goals are achieved he tries to pick up a new one. It is so damn obvious. And yes it helps move him (and the plot) along, but that’s because he is in action oriented situations so far.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t coping mechanisms and that these might become bad in the long term. It could be interested to see what Finn ‘sans goal’ for a lengthy period would do to deal. We’ve already seen him when his compartments bled and how that makes him panic.

But non-destructive coping mechanisms – self or otherwise – doesn’t mean “well adjusted”, doesn’t mean “not traumatized” or “less traumatized”. It just means “the way this person copes fits their current situation, but that doesn’t minimize the pain and trauma they’ve suffered”

I could easily have continued here because Finn displays far more than just this. But I felt my twitter novel was long enough and I hate the character limit on that platform.

So yeah, apart for the obvious racist bias in the argument in displaying a complete lack of ability to emphasize with a Black man’s pain, people who do this have also just dismissed every single “good survivor” out there who’s coping mechanisms aren’t openly maladjusted.

But to reiterate. Coping in ways that aren’t overtly damaging to self or others doesn’t mean a person was less abused or is less suffering/was less harmed/is less in pain from what they were put through. It just means that they’ve found coping strategies that aren’t openly harmful to others and not immediately harmful to themselves either.

Though Finn’s methods of compartmentalizing and picking goals to avoid dealing with his emotional chaos and pain can easily long term come back to bite him in the ass and become maladjusted and harmful. But for the time being they have helped him along rather than hindered him.

And you know, that’s what coping evolves to do. Help you in a situation where everything is fucked up.

It’s almost like someone that has been abused their whole life might have sympathy with murder victims of their abusers. How is Finn unrealistic? Like you said, there is precedence for this in the real world. And if this is the one weak reason they have for not liking Finn, but they find remorseless privileged school-shooter Kylo Ren compelling, I have to think there’s something else driving the dissonance, even if it’s unintentional. (Moth)

Yeah it’s interesting how there’s always a reason to find Finn boring, unsympathetic, and unrealistic. He’s too perfectly good or too violently bloodthirsty, too childishly naïve or too aggressively sexual, too emotionally healthy to be realistic or too emotionally broken to be romantic (not with Rey, that is–because evidently Rose is perfectly safe with a creepy obsessive stalker). If there’s one thing I’ve learned in fandom it’s that a Black character will never be good enough for fandom, often for wildly contradictory reasons.

Reylows are still chugging that “hate Poe” juice hard, I see.

This is literally the first result when you search for Episode IX. It’s right there in the Poe tag for fans looking for content about him, too. You should block this user if you don’t want to see their scintillating contribution to the tags.

And no, LF is not going to spoil a major character’s death in a comic lmaoooo the comic excerpt was about Poe growing beyond being just a pilot. The scene this narration leads into is literally a discussion between Leia and Poe about being a pilot and being a leader.

But saying Poe is not a main character and will die is not a new thing for this user and those who agree with them:

Redemptive… death. Redemptive death. So let me get this straight, it’s not the mass murderer and torturer who needs redemption and/or death, it’s his victim who needs to die, redeeming himself for unspecified crimes. It’s just more of the “Poe is an extremist and just as bad/worse than Kylo” nonsense, the kind of bullshit RJ was on.

Inconveniently for the people riding the Dameron death train, here’s something from K. Kennedy herself:

(Source)

Future stories beyond Episode IX with… Poe. And even if Kennedy is on the way out, as I personally hope, there’s the fact that JJ Abrams–you know, the guy directing IX?–nixed the character’s death in TFA so he could get Oscar on board. As one does.

Idk what it is these fans have against Poe–he’s not a main character, he’s the real bad guy, he’s gonna die–but all they do is make themselves look more ridiculous and desperate with every nonsensical “argument.”

Never was there a worse thing than the people who hated the idea of Finn being the protagonist before TFA released being rewarded for it, and being able to omit him out of the Star Wars conversation entirely. Even if JJ, Kasdan, and even Rian say he’s up there with Rey and Kylo, it’s hard to argue against/not be gaslighted by antis when the films haven’t gone out of their way (so far) to treat him with the same nuance. =(

themandalorianwolf:

So it took so long to get back to you! Puppy troubles.

There’s a reason why movies like Black Panther, Wonder Woman, and Crazy Rich Asians have such a big fan base for their movies and characters. It’s because good representation matters. TFA has it, but at times it doesn’t have it either. Finn is a great character in TFA, and if you minus out the forced humor that even TFA has, Finn is probably the best new character out of the movie with the most clear motivation, backstory, and impact on the movie.

But here’s the the problem, Finn is black. Black characters, just like black people, go under the microscope more than white characters. For example, many people like to bring up that Finn doesn’t react as much as someone would to fighting people they grew up with and would see as a type of family, or at least comrades, but on the other hand, no one ever comments that Kylo was part of the New Republic and is doing even worse than Finn, be cause Finn is acting in self defense, while Kylo is attacking. For example, Kylo’s torture of Poe takes on a much darker tone when people find out that both Kylo and Poe’s family were very close during and after the war, so Kylo isn’t just torturing a random soldier. Kylo is torturing a close family friend. Meanwhile, Finn’s whole goal is to not fight, and instead of people thinking Finn doesn’t want to fight because he would be actively killing his own old comrades, they write him off as a coward.

The films don’t do much to show Finn’s inner pain compared to the novels, even in TFA, there are times were Finn is used for comedy when it’s almost unrealistic. Like after having his breakdown after the Jakku Village Slaughter, thinking Poe is dead, and almost dying of thirst in the desert, the movie takes a break to show Finn drinking with animals and getting shocked by BB, for the sake of comedy. Yes, Star Wars has always had comedy, but Disney takes it a bit too far at times, and does with the character that many movies love to use as a comedy scapegoat. The minority character. Though luckily, these moments are not that heavily featured in TFA, but if you would ask a Finn hater, then Finn was a walking episode of Johnny Bravo.

My only other real complaint as far as how TFA treats Finn, is that instead of the match with Kylo being a duel effort between Finn and Rey, it’s turned into Finn getting thrown into a coma and Rey finishing the fight. And many white knights and white feminists stuck up for that choice, but I argue against it. Yes, Anakin and Luke did amazing feats when they were young and inexperienced, but when their first duel came with an actual trained dark side user, Luke lost a hand, and Anakin lost his freaking arm. It would have been more realistic, and fit in with the themes of teamwork of TFA, that after Finn gets slashed, Rey and Kylo are fighting, and while Rey is struggling to keep her footing while Kylo is overpowering Rey, Finn works up the strength to force pull the blaster Rey was using to him and shoot Kylo, injuring him further, and letting Rey come in for her face scarring winning blow.This works to show that TFA is about teamwork and these two protagonists, makes Kylo losing more believable, so you can bring him back as a formidable foe, which they really can’t in canon because Rey’s beat that ass twice with no training, and it doesn’t make it look like Finn being shown with a lightsaber was bait and switch. Something that many haters say it was, and many Finn fans as of now are afraid of.

I blame TLJ for a lot of Finn’s treatment as of now, but I’d be lying if I said that some of the blame doesn’t lie in TFA, and just by looking at how Solo treated Lando, I can’t help but think that Kasdan and Kennedy may have been behind Finn’s treatment of TFA. I’ve seen JJ’s other works, and one of his famous lines in his works is “If we don’t learn to live together, we are going to die alone.” Which was a metaphor for teamwork. Finn and Rey are co-protagonists, but there is a legitimate argument that at times Rey was boosted up at the cost of Finn. And when you’re in a fandom that consist of mostly white people, they’re going to run with that, like Rian Johnson did, and well the fandom did. I really hope JJ and Chris can make a better script for IX, than TFA was, because while I did enjoy TFA and thought it portrayed Finn great, there were the few times I felt that TFA did a disservice to Finn for the sake of comedy or to boost Rey up.

Hi! Have you heard of the news that Netflix is making a live action ATLA series, and Bryke is going to be heavily involved in it? What are your thoughts on it?

lj-writes:

I’m not sure why it’s necessary but I hope it does well.

I misspoke in my OP. The live-action version is EXTREMELY necessary and I now stan it with all my heart. I hope it outdoes the original many times in success and that when people think of ATLA in the future, they think of the live-action version with the characters played by actual Asian actors and not as drawn versions voiced by predominantly white actors. I also fondly hope the fans now whining about having to see their faves as actual POCs will cry about it forever.

rockcubes:

rockcubes:

luffykun3695:

erikkillmongerdontpullout:

neilnevins:

neilnevins:

Man I’m tired of live action remakes

i know Mike and Bryan are working on the Avatar live action series. Which bodes well for it considering the bar was set incredibly low in 2010. But the continuing idea that animation is a lesser way of telling a story that and that live action remakes are “how it was meant to be seen” just don’t sit well with me.

even with the most cutting-edge CGI, you’d be able to tell when a Fire Nation airship sorely stands out or when Appa has been superimposed in a shot. Every frame of the original show is so beautiful and animation made EVERYTHING feel like this world was completely realized. To date I’d argue it’s one of the most perfect examples of a well told and contained story. Everything felt fleshed out and lived in. What does live action bring to the table that was lacking 13 years ago? I dunno, man.

People forget the beauty of 2d animation

This puts into words exactly what I have been feeling about the live action version. I can’t understand what live action could bring to the story that animation did not. And honestly, I don’t think they can find a cast that is as good as the voice actors. ATLA didn’t just have an amazing story and animation, it had a talented voice cast that I’m just not sure could be replicated.

Im literally screaming to the heavens because I get to see actual Asians and non-white people in live action media that’s based on non-western ideas and here you all are creating a problem that doesn’t exist ain’t nobody talking about trying to surpass the animated series like shut the fuck up

Bitch and wtf u mean they can’t find a cast that is as good as the original voice actors? In case you didn’t know Asians are talented and can bring something amazing to the table

I understand if people don’t think this is necessary or whatever, cool, don’t support it. It’s kind of like how they never made a live-action movie adaptation of ATLA (no they didn’t shut up), you can see a live-action TV version as similarly unnecessary and you can ignore it until the heat death of the universe if you so desire.

But. Like it or not, remakes are a huge trend and it’s also one of the few ways shows can gain traction and recognition in an increasingly competitive media market. This goes double for a cast that will be made up of young actors of color, they’re going to need all the boost they can get. It’s an industry-wide trend that even fucking Disney has deemed to be a good bet.

So why shouldn’t young Asian actors get a better chance at stardom from one of the few cases where Western media portrayed their cultures respectfully and positively, to great acclaim? It’s especially not a great look to say the original, mostly white, actors were irreplaceable, implying they did a better job of portraying the Asian characters than Asian actors could, Like seriously fuck that noise.

themandalorianwolf:

Finn isn’t going anywhere. Get use to it, edgelords and dudebros

I hate that it’s been almost 3 years since TFA and people still call Finn a dumb janitor, refuse to believe he was one of the best Stormtroopers, or that he’s even the co-protagonist night of the sequel movies.

I don’t know how many times people have to say that every low ranking soldier in the FO did sanitations. Snoke wasn’t going on no space craigslist.

The Before the Awakening Novel details Finn’s days in the FO. Leading his squad, his training with Phasma, his knowledge of different melee and range weapons, his status as one of the best Troopers, and his first mission on a mining planet and his failure to shoot protestors, which in turn led to him being sent on the mission to Jakku to prove that he had what it took to do the dirty work.

Want to learn more about his past with the First Order, how he feels about fighting other Stormtroopers, what his time in the FO was like for him, his feelings during TFA and just stuff a 2 hour movie juggling multiple characters and subplots from several different other movies doesn’t have time to tell?

Read the damn EU material!

Why is it whenever it comes to Finn actually being an interesting and thought provoking character who’s competent, the claim has to be backed up by every single shred of canon and signed off by Yoda himself? Like it even matters considering even when backed up with LOADS of canon evidence, people say it doesn’t count, but only for Finn of course. When it’s to else, that’s whole different story. But screw it, I’ll talk about Finn.

Here’s some spark notes from the EU:

Finn hates killing Stormtroopers, but he knows they won’t hesitate to kill him due to their training, so he doesn’t hesitate either.

The First Order teaches their Troopers to suppress their feelings, so TFA is really the first time Finn is allowed to act freely.

Not all Stormtroopers are taken from their families. The First Order army is huge. Some Troopers joined willingly or were born into the FO.

Finn, and all other Stormtroopers, had multiple jobs in the First Order due to how they rotated jobs, one of which was Sanitation.

Finn had also been an executioner, but didn’t have to execute any one due to there being no prisoners or reason to.

Phasma and Hux both thought him Officer or Captain material if he could move past his need to help weaker troopers and morality.

Finn doesn’t talk about his experience in the First Order because beyond NO ONE EVER FUCKING ASKING HIM, Finn is deeply ashamed of his past with the First Order since he genuinely wanted to be a good soldier.

In the Beyond the Armor book, something John Boyega personally helped with in regards to Finn. It’s actually a very interesting in general about Troopers, but it also confirms Finn’s love for Rey and Poe’s friendship is what helped convince him to fight against the First Order.

Ever since Finn appeared in the TFA trailer, there has been a constant fight against him, even before the movie came out, people have been looking for reasons to hate him. They say he doesn’t belong, he’s useless, they ask for proof that he’s even slightly competent, proof that he’s black, proof that he loves Rey, blah blah.

It’s just ironic that the first black protagonist in Star Wars is always under a microscope and judged as either too competent in the books or not OP badass in the movies. I’m sorry I forgot how Luke, Anakin, and even Rey were also fish out of water looking for their place in the world.

All people need to know about Finn has been there the whole time, but people ignore it. I’ve seen people who obsess over Rey and Snoke’s origins, not even bother giving Finn’s background a look or a guess. Kylo stans will search every single EU material to try to find anything redeeming about his murder happy ass, while writing Finn off as a toxic throwaway character. And don’t even get me started on how the dank shippers and edgelords treat Finn.

Meanwhile Finn’s over here doing his best and proving that he’s the badass, kind hearted protagonist JJ Abrams and John Boyega busted their asses on. Hopefully in IX, JJ and Boyega can remind everyone what a damn great character Finn is.

actualreyofsunshine:

finndeservesbetter:

nutheadgee:

diversehighfantasy:

actualreyofsunshine:

For some reason, I’m seeing a lot of posts from people who don’t ship R//ylo, who don’t seem to know a lot of the details abt what happened, but are choosing to comment off of what they do know (which isn’t the full story), and I just want to remind people that it’s really worth your time to learn about the extent of the situation before making a post or jumping to conclusions. Especially if it’s something that concerns black fans.

This is especially important to keep in mind if you’re a non-black fan. There have been instances in our fandom where non-black fans have tried to police how black fans interact with each other, or with the source material, without fully knowing the context of what they’re talking about. There’s also been an element of tone-policing in what’s been said to them, where a lot of it has been “We shouldn’t say/do/write this because we should be better and we don’t need to give R//ylos any ammunition!” Like, this is essentially what respectability politics is, and if you’re a non-black fan saying this to black fans, it’s not a good look and we need to stop doing this.

I think what has been lost in all of the hysteria is that the posts were directly skewering racist fanwork that is created and supported by reylo fans. They’ve rallied behind multiple authors of blatantly racist fanfics – fics that have mountains of kudos and adoring comments.

They were shocked and appalled to see the way Black fans memed it (racist Kylo Ren), made it all about a slur that made them uncomfortable – more uncomfortable than humiliating and gleefully killing Finn in a popular fanwork. Like. We see that. We can’t stop it, but we can laugh at it, and it doesn’t have to be in a “socially acceptable” way.

The edit of “Kylo” trying to run over Finn? It’s a parody of actual Reylo fanwork and anti-finn meta. Why is it hard to look at parodies of racist fanwork, but not the fanwork itself? Because, with few exceptions, reylos are eating up brutally anti-finn stories on AO3 and aggressively defending its right to exist.

They saw a slur weilded by Black people and removed all context to make “antis” (and ftr the very fact that the perjorative “anti” is used as a label for reylo-critical fans instead of the much larger anti-Finn crowd should tell you something about how Black people are regarded in the ST fandom) look like the “real racists.”

Non-reylo fans who are more sympathetic with reylos seeing a slur used by Black fans in the Kylo Ren tag than Black fans seeing the fandom embrace unambiguously racist fanwork might want to step back and consider why the feelings of these shippers matter more.

Reylos with all their arts, literature and English Ph.Ds don’t understand satire.

Non blacks who don’t understand black humour and the culture behind it commenting on and tone policing how black fans interract with fandom claiming moral high ground.

The clownery truly writes itself.

Reylos are proof that the mentality of “its only racist if you use the N word” is more damaging to Black people than helpful. Because it allows them to get away with all manner of antiblackness (while accusing Black fans of being the “real” white supremacists lol).

As long as they don’t channel their ancestors and smash that N key, they can claim that nothing they do is racist, and everything Black fans do is.

I’m fairly convinced most Reylos know what they’re doing. They will never admit that they’re being disingenuous in how they choose to apply their standards, but the fact that their sympathies only extend as far as themselves and no further is entirely on purpose. Like in this ask, where the anon completely skips over ALL of the pertinent details, including the race of the “antis” in the tag who were joking among themselves, but they took the pains to ensure that people know how at least one of the Reylos is a black person. even though all the other Reylos who were ganging up on the group of black fans were all white people, and terribly racist white people with a proven track record of being racist at that.

The gaps in this description were completely intentional. It was intended to eliminate sympathy for the fans of colour who were unduly harassed and deleted by Tumblr and focus this idea of victimhood on the Reylos. It was intended to portray black fans as belligerent people who went out of their way to harass innocent Reylos. That’s just racism 101 at this point, and it really sucks that non-black anti-Reylos didn’t get that on multiple occasions.

twitter*com/ashlinthejedi/status/1041064269641658369 did i hallucinate kyle ron throwing her into a tree and mind-raping her? poe’s impulsive but as far as i know has never treated anyone he genuinely cares for (finn, leia) like shit so this makes no sense to me???

[Twitter user Ashlin! @/psykylogist Poe Dameron is actually a living anarchist and y’all insist that he’d treat Rey better than Ben? The only thing that man has higher than Ben is his kill count…]

(Source)

I like how they think “anarchist” is some kind of count against his character. Maybe they’re using it interchangeably with “terrorist?” (Terrorism and extremism are common talking points against Poe, I wonnnnder why.) I may not like Doomerey but I do enjoy how hilariously threatened Reylows are by it, maybe because it’s still better than their ship despite being a whole lot of nothing. It used to be Finn they used to accuse of killing more people than Benny, funny how it’s Poe they’re attacking now.

For extra amusement points watch this person being torn apart in their own comments section and get all pissy 😂