Tag: long post

diversehighfantasy:

seriouslycromulent:

seriouslycromulent:

Wow. So apparently Stephen Colbert has got bigoted Star Wars fans in a lather.

First, I’d like to acknowledge that although I’ve watched all but 1 Star Wars film in the entire franchise, I’ve never been a big Star Wars fan. I don’t dislike the franchise. Like I said, I’ve seen all but 1 of the films. But I wouldn’t say that I’m a part of the fandom.

With that said, I’m just now learning of how the lovely Kelly Marie Tran (who played Rose in The Last Jedi, for those who don’t know) was harassed off of Instagram due to racism, sexism and misogyny constantly being spewed at her by bigoted Star Wars fans. And I only learned this because I like to watch Colbert’s monologue throughout the week. 

Well, apparently Colbert called out the fuckery (in his own Colbert-ian way) and now there are reaction videos on YouTube lambasting Colbert for calling them sexist, racist trolls. Their argument it seems is that he’s attacking all Star Wars fans. Because, you know, if you’re a “real” SW fan, you’d be engaging in hateful rhetoric, bullying and prejudice online toward an actress of a franchise you love. If you’re not doing that, you must not be a fan.

It just trips me out how this world of geekdom/nerdom/social outcasts that the sci-fi/fantasy fandom community is supposed to represent is filled with the same level of masculine fragility, white supremacy and constant bombardment of harassment, bullying and ostracization that so many of the white males claimed to have suffered at the hands of the mainstream (read: non-geek) community for decades. 

A community that insists that they’ve been bullied, hurt, rejected and threatened for being different because they were nerds, geeks or oddballs, are so quick to take up the mantle of the bully themselves when they believe their opponent is “weaker,” inferior,” or “deserving.” And all too often, we see this play out against people of color, women, and women of color. At the end of the day, these white men (and I know it’s not all white men, so you don’t need to say it) don’t want to be respected like everyone else, they want to be in the same position of power that the people who supposedly hurt them are in. They want to do to others what the mainstream has done to them. And somehow, they think it will result in themselves being seeing as the Alpha or the protagonist. Ain’t that something?!

Whether it’s Kelly Marie Tran in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Jada Pinkett in Gotham, Sonequa Martin-Green in Star Trek: Discovery, Leslie Jones in Ghostbusters, or Katie Leung in Harry Potter in the Goblet of Fire, let’s all admit that sci-fi/fantasy fans have a serious fucking problem with women of color. Especially women of color who they consider sexually undesirable. 

I know the problem exists for men of color too, but the shit the trolls – and let’s be honest – and actual fans throw at women of color in the nerd/geek world is essentially the same hateful tactics men (especially white men) have thrown at women of color in the mainstream world for centuries. And as women of color, we often feel like our concerns go unanswered or our pain unnoticed. 

So I’m glad that people are turning out for Kelly Marie Tran the same way they turned out for Leslie Jones. I’m happy to see here on Tumblr that they are some SW fans who are calling out this fuckery and shunning those hateful bigots, giving them no where to seek refuge for their online Klan meetings.

Because you’re right. These people are scum. Just like the haters of Star Trek: Discovery because it didn’t put a white male front and center. Just like the haters of Leslie Jones for just daring to exist. Just like the haters of Cho Chang because she kissed Harry Potter like it said to do in the script – and the book! (Seriously, I heard some white fans harassed Katie Leung in real life and sent her death threats. This was before the days of Twitter and Instagram.)

So please continue to show the world that us sci-fi/fantasy fans are not all bigots, hate-mongers and assholes. I know there are a lot of them (::cough:: comic book fans, you too. ::cough::), but just as we need to show the world that America isn’t the Tiki Torch Whites at Charlottesville, Va., we need to show the world that these trolls, bigots and haters are not who we are.

OK. I don’t feel like responding to this in a comment, so I’m going to respond to it in a reblog, as I believe it deserves to be addressed. I’m kind of tired at the moment, and it’s just easier to type this out on a desktop keyboard than on my phone.

So … regarding this comment on my blog post:

Where to begin …

To @harlequinn823 and others, if you’re interested:

I’m completely fine with Colbert’s video not addressing the harassment or fuckery that Boyega had to put up with even before the first reboot film came out. And I’ll tell you why in a minute, but first, to address your point about the fake trailer, if you go back and re-watch the trailer, Finn’s name isn’t included in the short list of “cool male characters” who get dropped into a pit.

The dialogue in the video is (listen from the 2:39 mark): 

“… all the cool male characters like Kylo Ren and Poe Dameron fell into a big hole after Rey cut their penises off.”

Although I would’ve preferred for Colbert to include Finn as a part of his “cool” male lead characters list along with Kylo Ren and Poe Dameron, the reality is that a lot of SW fans (and casual fans) don’t see him as “cool.” They like him, but they don’t think he’s cool. I disagree with them, but I know I’m in the minority. So maybe that’s why Colbert didn’t include Finn’s name. I don’t know.

But since his omission from the fake trailer list is not the most salient issue in this discussion, I’ll move on. 

What I think is the most salient point is is that Colbert was addressing the current issue with Kelly Marie Tran being harassed off of her social media channels due to bigoted trolls and fans. Although Boyega has put up with a lot, he’s 1) never left social media, and 2) has had a lot of people defending him since the attacks began – and not just in the nerd community. People have been defending Boyega and calling out and mocking the racist hate he’s been receiving since the moment it started. There have been articles in the US and abroad addressing it, most written by members of the SW fandom, the mainstream pop culture news platforms, and members of the Black community in the US, Nigeria, and the UK.

So no, Colbert didn’t include Boyega in his call out on the bitchassness that has affected Boyega, but I don’t see that necessarily as a flaw. Boyega has been, and continues to be, defended to racist trolls. And Boyega is still active on Twitter and Instagram. Not as much on Twitter as he used to, but I believe that has more to do with him being busy with his new production company than avoiding dealing with the racism in the fanbase. (Also, I use Twitter less these days too because of all the constant angry rants or depressing news that bombards you every day, so I can’t judge him for that.)

Boyega has had people stand by him. And his absence from Colbert’s monologue on this issue – that’s specifically about Kelly Marie Tran – isn’t a sign that Colbert doesn’t stand by him too. Instead, it’s a sign that he chose to focus on an issue that is currently hurting this specific woman. I’m not going to find fault with Colbert for that. 

Also, I’m a little disappointed with all this “What about John Boyega?” and “What about Jake Lloyd?” commentary I’ve been seeing. Are we that fucking anesthesized to the pain of women of color that we can’t give them their due when they’re hurting and have people come together to address why that’s wrong? Do we have to drag men into it because the notion of us caring about an Asian-American woman’s unnecessary pain seems so foreign to us? Women of color so rarely get to receive this type of attention when they’re attacked by men, and actually see people take the woman’s side. And it’s even more rare for a women of Asian descent.

Can we have this moment be about Kelly Marie?

I adore Boyega. That’s my nerd. But this isn’t a moment about him. Sure, we can reference the bigotry that has affected his life in this particular fandom, but it shouldn’t take the spotlight from what’s happened and happening to KMT.

But that’s just my 2 cents.

Colbert doesn’t defend John. When John was getting a ton of racist shit after the TFA trailer came out, Colbert did a segment making fun of Fans complaining about Kylo’s lightsaber. It’s revisionism to say that John had the same level of defense from commentators, media and official sources. Abrams didn’t say anything about John’s harassment until a year later.

I know Finn wasn’t part of the pit part – as he should not have been. But the video’s one acknowledgement of fandom’s antiblack racism was Porgs with a Black Lives Matter sign. Not Finn as the male lead, which pissed off the people they were targeting just as much as having woman leads.

Which suggests it was more about getting feminist applause than actually dealing with an issue that DOES go beyond Kelly. By the logic that it’s all about Kelly and only Kelly, the video shouldn’t have highlighted other women like Rey and Holdo who have also faced fandom misogyny.

Disney is riding a narrative right now that says the only reason to dislike TLJ is if you’re a bigoted, misogynistic manbaby, and this fits that narrative without bringing, you know, the “volatility” of blackness into it.

I support Kelly Marie Tran. Colbert can suck it.

People who say they defend Asians while denigrating and ignoring Black people and other POCs can fuck all the way off. The hypocrites who claim to care about racism while ignoring antiblack racism are very much included. That’s missing the whole damned point and it’s worse than useless. If you treat antiblack racism like business as usual because Black people are “strong” and can “take it” or some such shit, if you don’t even see it happening and only go uwu poor dear over people you deem worthy of protection, then you are part of the problem.

It’s All A Fucking Joke, Right

featherinmycapandcheese:

chibikittens:

autumndiesirae:

homoelitism:

lunarsolareclipse:

lavabendingthot:

hirasawaschoiceass:

lavabendingthot:

satansbra:

millenniumfae:

In the few months I’ve been modding at fuckyeahasexual and touring ace Tumblr, there’s been a very. Steady. Stream of info that detail horrifically abusive situations and overall poor mental unhealth. Two a week in the inbox if I’m lucky, usually around seven-ten.

And there’s been so many, I can officially categorize all 500+ of these kinds of asks and submissions into an extensive bulletlist of Why Asexual Exclusionary Radicalism Is Incredibly Toxic And Shitty;

Coming Out To Family, Friends, And Employers

  • “My parents keep telling me that I’m something else, and it’s making me doubt my sense of judgement, not just about my sexual identity, but also about everything in general.”
  • “My family, friends, and co-workers keep referring to me as an inanimate object in a manner that’s clearly meant to humiliate and devastate me. Nothing I say will get them to stop.”
  • “My parents vocally/bodily forced me to undergo medical examinations, some of them concerning my sexual organs, many of them concerning blood tests and other trauma-centric procedures.”
  • “My family is intervening with my private life by changing my schedule to include exercise, socialization, friend influences, and whatever they think can ‘change’ me.”
  • “My friends/co-workers no longer respect my bodily boundaries when I came out to them, because they no longer see me as someone who should be respected. They regularly touch, fondle, grope, and prod me without permission, and/or verbally harass me, and don’t take my objections seriously.”
  • “My family, friends, and co-workers no longer just harass me, but also anyone I’m currently dating because they view my significant other as pathetic, underserved, or even being abused.”

First Few Days Of Dating

  • “My date got irrationally angry and confrontational when I came out to them, in a manner that made me fearful.” (SO many of these.)
  • “My date immediately lost any respect they had for my boundaries, no longer asked for consent, and {tried to} force themselves upon me.” (A lot of these, too)
  • “My date tried to verbally circumvent any boundaries and issues I confessed to, and it made me feel like I was in danger.”
  • “I didn’t come out to my date at first, and when they found out, they radically changed their behavior in an attempt to control and manipulate our new relationship to their benefit.”

Long-Term Relationships

  • “My partner has forcefully and radically changed our long-term relationship after finding out about my asexuality, and I’m now trapped and controlled in a way that I wasn’t before.”
  • “My partner broke up with me/is fighting with me because of my asexuality, and trying to make it seem like I’m hurting them. It’s made me doubt myself and my ability to trust my own intentions.”
  • “My partner is slowly changing from what was once supportive of my asexuality, and I’m wondering when I have the right to be worried and when I’d be overreacting. I’m aware of the worst case scenario, but I also worry that I’m being selfish and childish – which are things I’ve been told all throughout my asexual experience.”

Self-Care And Self Development

  • “I don’t trust my ability to say either yes or no in sexual situations, and this has extended to my life in general. I don’t feel comfortable in my ability to self-determinate.”
  • “The lack of authority, definition, and schooling of the concept of asexuality has made me very uncomfortable with what I think I am, and that uncertainty haunts me every waking moment.”
  • “I think it’s too late/too early to tell if I’m asexual, but the longer I hesitate, the worse my mental health and emotional wellbeing gets. I’m effectively stuck.”
  • “I see no benefit in coming out, or even identifying as asexual. There’s no positivity, role models, or supportive community for what I consider a big and scary part of my overall identity.”
  • “I think this was sexual abuse, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
  • “I think I was treated badly by my parents/friends/partner, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
  • “I want to believe that I’m deserving of equal freedom and human respect paid to other, not asexual people, but people tell me I’m being selfish and childish.”
  • “No one encourages this part of me. And that makes me feel forgotten and abandoned in general.”

Shut the fuck up about your petty beef with tumblr bloggers and youtubers and Archie comics or whatever. I literally do not care, I can’t care. I see these messages every goddamn day – this post was written and drafted a month ago, and I very easily compiled most of this bulletpoint list from scratch, just by eyeing what I see in the askbox and what comes across my dash. 

‘Ace discourse’ anger is empty and so meaningless. This is what I see by being part of this one 17k follow asexual ask blog for maybe half a year. I am so Done with all the faux rage posts and all the false positivity about how it’s ok to NOT be ace and all the acephobia that falls perfectly in line with the gaslighting typical of acephobia-101 while also having the audacity to claim it not so.

This is what’s real and I want to bleed it into your goddamn eyes.

Reblogging this again, for obvious reasons

Ace ppl are not INSTITUTIONALLY OR SYSTEMATICALLY OPPRESSED BECAUSE OF THE DEGREE THAT YOU FEEL SEXUAL ATTRACTION. If ur trans ur lgbtq. If ur aro but ur gay, bi, pan ur lgbtq. If ur ace but homo, biromantic etc ur lgbt. Being ace doesnt make u lgbt by default. Does the interpersonal lack of understanding suck and should change? Yeah. But society doesnt want u dead so cishet aces stay tf out our business.

Someone read this, all this stuff about struggles of people coming out as ace, people abusing them and telling them that their identity isn’t real or is a problem to be fixed, making people feel worthless and feeling that they’re in the wrong about their own goddamn identity, and said “nah they ain’t oppressed™ enough to be in a community of people who face the same issues”

U mad huh?

Anyway….aces can’t be systematically opressed. None of those things are examples of systematic oppression

Also nice how they called it “asexual exclusionary radicalism” as if it wasn’t a cheap tactic to compare ace exclusionist to twerfs

@lavabendingthot @lunarsolareclipse @homoelitism

Hey, instead of being a giant piles of garbage, try reading up:

“Aces don’t face oppression”

Asexuality was listed in the DSM as HSDD (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder) until 2013, making it officially a mental illness that would be treated with therapy and medication. It is still in the DSM, except that you can ‘opt out’ if you self-identify as asexual, which is great except that asexuality is still so unknown that there undoubtedly many people who are asexual but don’t know that it’s “a thing”. This means that who knows how many asexuals have been sent to therapy and told they’re sick, then been “treated” for their orientation to try and force them to experience sexuality “correctly”.

In short, our orientation has been and continues to be pathologized, and asexuals have been put through corrective therapy: x,x, x, x, x

Posts of people describing the hardship they’ve faced for their asexuality:x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

The blog @acephobia-is-real has so many submissions and examples of hatred, harassment, hostility, and abuse, of aces who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted in an attempt to ‘fix’ them, and made suicidal due to aphobia and/or their own perceived brokenness, that it would be pointless for me to try and link any. Just go and start reading. Try their suicide tag.

There may be dissatisfyingly little research done on asexuality, but there has been enough done to prove that they do face discrimination, no matter how hard some may find that to believe. But guess what? You, an allosexual person, do not get to say shit like “aces don’t get kicked out” or “aces don’t _____” any more than I as a white person get to say that things I don’t experience must not happen to black people either. Just because you haven’t experienced it personally or witnessed it with your own eyes doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. You haven’t walked in an ace’s shoes, you don’t know what they deal with. Period.

Not even other aces can tell asexuals that their experiences aren’t real or aren’t valid. Different people can deal with different amounts of oppression, that doesn’t mean the lack of oppression is the default “truth”.

Nobody is trying to say that asexuals have it “as bad” or worse than gay or trans people, but we don’t HAVE to “have it worse” to beincluded and for our experiences to have merit without being compared to anyone else’s. Let me say that again: our experiences have merit without being compared to anyone else’s.

“We just want to protect our safe spaces”

Aphobes have:

Are all aphobes this vile? Maybe not, but this is still the disgusting, hateful attitude festering in the gatekeeping community, and it stinks like shit. The examples I have provided above are only a fraction of the harassment and abuse that is perpetrated on a regular basis.

“Het aces/aroaces are straight”

Some het aces identify as straight. Some het aces don’t identify as straight, they identify as asexual, and it’s not your place to label them against their will. There is no world in which aroaces, people who experience no attraction to anyone, are straight.

“We accept SGA (same-gender attracted) and trans aces”

Firstly, SGA (same-gender attraction) is a term that was used and is still used in Mormon conversion therapy, so as one can understand,a lot of people are very uncomfortable being labeled with this description. Secondly, it enforces a gender binary of “same” and “opposite” gender that leaves a large number of nonbinary people out in the cold. Is a genderfluid person only “same-gender attracted” if they’re attracted to other genderfluid people who are genderfluid in exactly the same way? How about agender, intergender, demigirl/boy people? And before the argument “well they’re included as trans” is made, there are plenty of nonbinary people who do not identify as trans. I’m one of them.

The standard of “SGA and trans” as requirement for entry to the LGBTQ community is used nowhere outside of aphobic tumblr, and it seems crafted specifically for the purpose of excluding aces, aros, NBs, intersex people, and others not deemed “gay enough”.

(SGA did NOT come from ‘SGL’, same-gender loving. That is a term created by black queer people and not to be appropriated by white people.)

Discussion of the history of the word ‘queer’ and why it’s better than ‘SGA’: x, x, x, x, x

There are also many “SGA and trans” aces who are against the gatekeeping and feel that they are hated by these aphobes.

Your “discourse” is harmful to all asexuals. And PS, your rhetoric is literally indistinguishable from TWERF rhetoric.

“The LGBT community has always been about fighting homophobia and transphobia/we came together to fight homophobia and transphobia”

Despite the fact that bisexual and transgender people have always been around, and have done great things for the community, they have faced a great deal of lateral oppression from the LG part of the group that did not want to see them get an equal share of attention, support, or legitimacy. This post is not about proving LG transphobia and biphobia, but it’s so rampant that I don’t feel like I need to provide sources whatsoever. Nevertheless, here’s a collection of biphobia, and the blog@terf-calloutdocuments some of the violent transphobia on this site, particularly in the lesbian community. This post is an example.

“The A stands for Ally so that closeted people can be the community without being outed”

No one is saying that we don’t care about closeted people, but a) even if you’re a closeted L, G, B, or T, you are still a L, G, B, or T. Allies do not need to be part of the acronym to be intrinsically welcomed. As someone said, this is like saying the ‘B’ in BLT stands for ‘bread’. We can pretty much safely assume that a sandwich is going to include bread, we don’t have to go of our way to give it a letter. Either you are outing every “ally” as a closeted queer person, or you are giving 100% cis straight people an LGBTQ member card, the very thing you are arguing against by trying to exclude asexuals.

Furthermore, this puts forth the argument “I’m willing to let cishet straight people into the community for the sake of a few closeted people” while at the same time stating “I’m not willing to let the A stand for asexuals because I don’t think letting cis heteroromantic asexuals into the community is worth giving all asexuals representation and support”. Which says that you consider asexuals less valuable and more of a threat than cis straight people.

Bonus: The History of LGBT(QQIAAP+)

“Aces have never been a part of the LGBTQ/queer community”

“Stop tokenizing bi and trans people/stop comparing bi/trans and ace experiences”

We’re not the ones doing it. They are comparing them, themselves.

“I have proof of an asexual being homophobic/transphobic/racist/a terrible person”

Of course there are asexuals who are terrible people. There are legions of gays and lesbians who are racist and transphobic. Does that make them not gay/lesbian? Does their bigotry invalidate their sexual orientation, or remove the L and G from the acronym? No, I don’t think so. Some asexuals being bad people doesn’t justify you trying to invalidate all of us.

“’Allosexual’ is a bad word because ____”

I actually have an ‘allosexual’ tag just for posts about why ‘allosexual’ is a perfectly fine word: x, x, x, x, x. x

“The split-attraction model is homophobic”

What we call the split-attraction model was first described by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a gay advocate from the 1800s, as “disjunctive uranodioning”. (source) (credit to this post)

“The term ‘corrective rape’ was coined by South African lesbians and should only be used by lesbians”

No one means any disrespect to lesbians or other victims of corrective rape, but this is not a correct statement.

“We’ll Show You You’re a Woman” describes the violence directed towards LGBT people in South Africa, stating, “Negative public attitudes towards homosexuality go hand in hand with a broader pattern of discrimination, violence, hatred, and extreme prejudice against people known or assumed to be lesbian, gay, and transgender, or those who violate gender and sexual norms in appearance or conduct (such as women playing soccer, dressing in a masculine manner, and refusing to date men).” It goes on to say, “Much of the recent media coverage of violence against lesbians and transgender men has been characterized by a focus on “corrective rape,” a phenomenon in which men rape people they presume or know to be lesbians in order to “convert” them to heterosexuality.”

The Wikipedia article on corrective rape in South Africa states that, “A study conducted by OUT LGBT Well-being and the University of South Africa Centre for Applied Psychology (UCAP) showed that “the percentage of black gay men who said they have experienced corrective rape matched that of the black lesbians who partook in the study”.”

It is not only lesbians, but also bisexual women, transgender men, gay men, and gender non-conforming people in South Africa who experience corrective rape. This is not in any way meant to minimize the horror of the epidemic or shift attention away from lesbians, but other victims, including asexuals, deserve attention as well. Do not silence or speak over victims of rape by policing their language.

“Aces are valid, they’re just not queer/LGBTQ”

You cannot in one breath say “Asexuals are valid” and in the next deny their experiences. Spend five minutes in the community and you will see testimony after testimony from aces describing their abuse, their sexual assault(s), the countless times people have called them confused, broken, wrong, mentally ill, inhuman, sinful, and how these experiences have left them feeling hopeless, alone, alienated, subhuman, depressed, and suicidal. Almost every asexual out there will tell you a story of how their orientation has caused them pain and struggle, and you can’t call them valid while at the same time calling these experiences invalid and nonexistent.

Bonus: This is a list of all the mainstream LGBTQ groups that include asexuals.

“Form your own community!”

a) We do have our own community, because every letter in the acronym has its own communityand yet is still part of the acronym, b) you fucking shits won’t stop sending us hate and bombarding us with shit meant to trigger and harass us.

“Aces take resources from other LGBTQ who need them”

I’ve seen some pretty wild claims about this one, insisting that asexuals “steal” things such as scholarships, beds at homeless shelters, food and space at pride events, suicide hotlines, and so on, yet I have never seen any actual proof that any “stealing” has ever taken place. For one thing, I thought “you’ll never get kicked out or fired for being ace”, “no one is suicidal because they’re asexual”, so why would you think aces need these resources? Either we don’t need them or we don’t use them, you can’t have it both ways.

For another, how heartless do you have to be to tell asexuals that they can’t use suicide hotlines? Do you realize that you’re saying that asexuals should be denied life-saving services? That, in essence, asexuals are suicidal due to their orientation, but you think they’re not “queer enough” so they deserve to die? Because that is the logical progression of refusing someone suicide prevention, and that’s the message aces receive when you tell them they are “stealing” suicide prevention.

LGBTQ resources offer them to asexuals, andbenefit from us using them.

Lastly, do you not realize we are alsoPROVIDING resources? We are bringing bodies and minds to the community, we are here to be voices, to volunteer, to bring encouragement, information, and support. We earn our keep. You just have to admit that you don’t WANT us here.

Nasty shit aphobes do

(Thanks to @livebloggingmydescentintomadness for these)

My own contribution:

Living in a world where the media is overflowing with sexual imagery and where society constantly puts value on sexual intercourse, virginity, and related topics – who can forget the phrase ‘sex sells’? – men and women who do not experience sexual attraction (the definition of asexuality) and who are sex-repulsed or masturbation-repulsed (as many asexuals, myself included, are) feel alienated and ‘broken’. We also face erasure in terms of representation, being either grossly underrepresented or represented as cold, harsh, and ‘synonymous with celibate’ people. Let’s not forget erasure from LGBT spaces – I have many times been told that asexuals do not belong in the acronym or in “our spaces”, even though asexuals have the capacity to be homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, etc, as well as transgender or nonbinary. And, if we don’t belong in LGBT spaces, and we clearly aren’t heterosexual, what do we belong? Nowhere, it seems. Of course, the argument also drifts to “asexuals don’t experience oppression”, which is false.

Examples of asexual oppression:

http://autumndiesirae.tumblr.com/post/118710018295/aces-dont-face-discrimination

Asexuals are the highest targets for corrective rape:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/asexual-discrimination_n_3380551.html

Go fuck yourselves. ❤

aphobes are abusers

Finn, Kylo Ren, Rey, and the Cycle of Abuse

This is spun off from @jewishcomeradebot‘s post about the parallels and contrasts of Finn and Kylo Ren in TLJ–how they both kill their abusers but, where Finn walks away and is free, Kylo Ren stays despite the death of his abuser.

Finn and Kylo’s paths diverged from the very beginning of TFA, of course, at Tuanul. It was the start of Finn’s escape and Kylo Ren choosing to enmesh himself all the deeper, and it was the trajectory of these choices that led to them to the events of TLJ.

In understanding Finn’s leaving and Kylo’s staying, not to mention the nature of abuse in general, I don’t think I can emphasize enough that leaving an abusive situation is unbelievably hard.
Isolation is a big part of abuse, and leaving often means
you have little to no support or resources outside that relationship. Leaving itself may be punished by violence, which was very much true in Finn’s case. Finn had to risk his
life and fight through a space fortress just to physically leave. Once
he had escaped he had absolutely nothing and could have died in the
desert but the Force wouldn’t let him, of course. At
the end of TLJ he’s one of about 20 survivors on a space weed van (I will
never not be amused by that expression), marked and
hunted, his future uncertain.

By contrast Kylo stayed, and he
has all the comfort and resources of the First Order at his disposal.
He is powerful and important, heck, he played his cards right and he’s
effing Supreme Leader now. By all external measures Kylo is way ahead in the game.

Then there is the relational
aspect. Finn not only had to brave significant dangers just to leave, he
had to figure out an entire new way of living and relating to people.
You see him doing that even before his escape was assured, when he built
trust with Poe who was a complete stranger to him at the time. Later he became
friends with Rey and BB-8 despite a rocky beginning, even earned Han’s
trust and respect. When Rey asked him not to go on Takodana, he didn’t
tell her she’d be alone without him or she was a bad friend for not
understanding his fear. He bared his soul to her but respected her
decision completely, something no one had modeled for him in the First
Order. He had to start from scratch in so many ways, much like he had to find his way in a trackless desert to survive.

Kylo? He’s clearly
had many models of non-abusive relationships growing up in a loving
home, but he chose to discard them in favor of Snoke’s way of
manipulation and dominance. TLJ’s Kylo and Rey plot was a long exercise
in Kylo roping Rey in with superficial charm and shallow appeals to
sympathy for his own advantage. I believe he was recreating both the way
Snoke manipulated him and the dynamic he had with Snoke, undermining Rey’s self-worth so that she would easier to control, trying to get her to destroy her friends in the ultimate act of isolation like Snoke did with him. This model of relationships was easy for him, intimately familiar through Snoke’s manipulation and abuse. He chose not to explore the possibility of a relationship that did not depend on subjugation and violence, with Rey or anyone else. Despite killing his abuser he chose to continue the same destructive pattern, this time with himself in Snoke’s place.

In a way I can understand Kylo here, because again, leaving often demands a high, seemingly impossible price. I’m pretty sure nothing about Finn’s defection from the First Order inspired Kylo to follow suit, because externally speaking Finn’s life went to absolute shit from leaving and opposing the First Order. Aside from the abovementioned near-death at his former comrades’ hands and wandering in the desert with nothing, Finn was cut off from a once-absolute sense of purpose and became a wanted man. His allegiance went from an absolute power that seems poised to swallow the galaxy to a pack of pitiable losers whose lives could be–and will be, if Kylo has his way–snuffed out at any moment. What could be more foolish? In fact I would not be surprised if Kylo, in his wavering moments, used Finn’s fate as a way to harden his resolve to stay.

Unlike Finn, Kylo also has the additional prospects of prosecution for various war crimes including mass murder, torture, and complicity with genocide to look forward to, not to mention the patricide of one of the galaxy’s beloved heroes. He, like his idol Vader, has earned the kind of hatred and infamy that would outlive him. In addition, were he truly to admit to wrongdoing, the guilt and regret would and should tear his soul apart for the rest of his days. It’s like the line from Macbeth, “I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.” He could, if he chose, brave the consequences and return to the light. But he chooses to believe he has come too far, and rather than throw away his comforts, his power, his conviction, his purpose, his sense of self-righteousness, and his ability to dominate and control, he chose to continue on his path.

This is why Finn’s and Kylo’s fates still diverge despite killing their respective abusers. For Finn it was a continuation of his journey away from abuse, not only his abusers themselves but the abusive dynamic itself. For Kylo it was a logical culmination of his journey into abuse, to continue the dynamic but with himself as the abuser rather than the victim. Finn chose to break the cycle while Kylo chose to continue it. Rey, who Kylo wanted to take his own place as the victim-apprentice, chose to break out as well and join Finn. She chose to live and fight by his and the Resistance’s side in the uncertainty of freedom, not the glittering cage of absolute power. Snoke may be dead, but as of the end of TLJ he has the last laugh because his legacy lives on through his apprentice, now become the master.

The Supreme Leader is dead. Long live the Supreme Leader.

jewishcomeradebot:

lj-writes:

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

One thing that bothers me about how TLJ is supposed to subvert the traditional SW idea of heroism is, this subversion just happened to take place after SW was led by heroic women and characters of color. Part of the reason fans of color responded so positively to TFA was because it put men of color and a woman in traditional heroic roles with a modern twist. Finn is a reluctant hero, but a former Stormtrooper who wrestles with his trauma. Poe is a hotshot pilot with a heart of gold, but a humble and kindhearted one who doesn’t rely on toxic masculinity. Rey is a Force user who came from nowhere, but a woman who is also struggling with abandonment issues. The main villain is a moderately attractive young white man. TFA has been criticized for its overreliance on ANH’s tropes, but in a way it was what a lot of SW fans needed, to see themselves in the same, even old-fashioned heroic roles that were denied to them.

But no, as soon as we have Black and Latino leads in main trio, there is a huge insistence that things can’t be this way. Large sections of fandom start to insist that the actual tragic hero and true victim must be the murdering and torturing white guy. Then the franchise itself partly backs them up with TLJ’s so-called subversions–no, Finn is a coward who has to be slapped into place by a wiser woman. No, Poe is a macho gloryhound who has to be literally slapped into his place by white women. Rey is a gullible girl who has to rely on one white guy or another. And none of them can be from a special bloodline because we have to subvert that now, too. Force forbid characters of color and female leads have heritage of their own, that’s solely for white men. Oh, and we’re no longer interested in Finn’s, Poe’s, or Rey’s trauma, the only internal life that matters is the white mass murderer’s.

So the message I get from this is that traditional heroism is boring and no longer for SW the moment characters of color and women have a shot at it. To borrow an image that’s been used in other contexts, it’s like we’re climbing a ladder to get somewhere we’ve wanted for decades. Then, mid-climb, the people who have already climbed the ladder to the top kick it away. While we’re on the ground hurting and wondering what the hell just happened, the white guy who kicked the ladder lectures us from on high how useless the ladder was in the first place and how stupid we were to want to climb it. That’s pretty galling, to say the least, coming from a franchise that still has a problem with letting characters of color and especially Black women simply exist on screen.

This is why it rubs me the wrong way when fans, especially white fans, are so enthusiastic about the subversiveness of TLJ. They’re using faux progressive language while being completely oblivious to, or choosing to ignore, that this “subversion” comes across as a slap in the face to many fans.

That’s what pisses me off about TLJ, among other things. TFA is subversion enough.

TFA

Finn: The Red Shirt Stormtrooper turns out to be the hero of the galaxy

Rey: The damsel in distress turns out to be a Skywalker Jedi.

Poe: The hot headed rogue turns out to be a humble Resistance Hero.

Kylo: The son of two heroes turns out to be the villain and rejects redemption.

Snoke: The cool and calm calculating big bad instead of the overused sadist trope.

Hux: The young general who stands toe to toe with Kylo.

The ending of the film ends bittersweet, unlike the happy ending of A new Hope. Han is dead, a system is dead, Finn is in a coma and Rey is traumatized from her experiences. But Starkiller base is destroyed and Kylo is defeated. Luke Skywalker is found. The War is just beginning.

TLJ

Finn: Stereotypical Black comic relief – no character arc

Poe: hot head Latino man who never listens – always wrong

Rey: Soft eyes girl who is used as a plot device – no character arc.

Rose: Refuge – no character arc

Luke: Grumpy old man – used as a plot device.

Kylo: Plot device with a character arc.

TLJ isn’t subversion. It’s a polished turd that no one wants to accept is bad.

Exactly. And yet TFA is lambasted for being derivative, while TLJ is hailed as the great white hope of Star Wars. It’s almost like subversion ain’t good enough if it uplifts and empowers female characters and characters of color.

I’m going to tell you a story about a colleague of mine. I don’t generally talk about other people in my life online because none of them asked to be put here. Heck I barely talk about myself as there’s too many creeps in the world and I don’t want another stalker. But she okayed this story, so here goes.

My colleague is a biracial Black woman and we’ve both been working at this city’s libraries for years. She’s never really been into scifi or comic book movies or TV-series, but her fiancee is and he often takes her to premieres on this stuff. It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy the movies but left on her own she’d be a “I’d watch it after its been out a few weeks and the ticket price is down or when it comes out on dvd” type of audience, certainly nor a die hard fan.

Well, when TFA came out her fiancee, then boyfriend, took her to the premiere and she was completely enchanted by it. When we saw each other after Christmas that year she virtually pounced me to talk about it as I’m the biggest Star Wars nerd the libraries have and its a well known fact. She wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t a white guy about it – yes bf is white – because her bf only found it enjoyable but too much of an ANH/OT ripoff, but she loved it. In her words it was “ANH for everyone who isn’t a (white) guy”.

We spent months squeeing about together and she went to watch it three more times. Once with friends and twice on her own. This was a woman who pre-TFA would never have done so. While she had seen all the PT movies in the theater and enjoyed them it had never been more than once and never alone. 

She even started buying merch.

A year later when Rogue One came out bf was away on a business trip at the time of the premiere, but she bought tickets and went on her own to it because TFA had pulled her that much into Star Wars. And though the ending made her sad she still went and watched it twice more.

Fast forward to TLJ.

Due to restructuring in our organization we now work at different satellite libraries and work at the main library on different days, so we don’t see each other as much as we used to, therefore it wasn’t until a couple of months after TLJ came out that I had a chance to ask her what she though.

Now my colleague is a woman who’s very much a “eh, it’s fiction” person in reaction to something she used to enjoy taking a turn for the worse. She can rarely get worked up that much about it, because well, it’s fiction. So when I asked her about TLJ I was not expecting her reaction.

She was livid. I’ve rarely seen her this angry about anything, she’s a very laid back person, and certainly never about a piece of fiction. We spent our lunch break ripping TLJ to shreds.

When I asked if she was still going to see Solo the answer was a flat ‘no’, though when asked her the same question a year ago she expressed some enthusiasm to watch the movie. 

Her response to being asked if she’ll watch Episode IX?

*shrug* “Probably. [Boyfriend] will go, so I’ll probably go with him.”

This isn’t a “disgruntled older fan who can’t let go of the past”. It’s a woman whom TFA brought from the general audience category and into if not diehard fan then certainly impassioned casual, a new fan who was willing to throw a good deal of her “for fun” budget at LF and Disney. 

TLJ killed Star Wars completely for her, she’s utterly lost her enthusiasm and unless Episode IX somehow works a miracle she’ll be a fan who’s permanently lost to the franchise.

And she’s far from the only former fan with this story.

This is what TLJ and its “subversion” faux progressive shit did. Yes it might have alienated some of the older fans, but I think the largest group of those who’s said goodbye to Star Wars are newer fans who was brought in by TFA or RO, who might have liked the OT trio but who fell in love with the new heroic leads only to have to watch Rian screw them all over.

I’ve seen it echoed here on tumblr and other social media. Many of those who remain are older fans like me, not because we don’t hate TLJ and what it did with the same passion, but because we’ve been in love with Star Wars for too long to let one crappy movie drive us away.

The newer fans, the fans that came with TFA and RO have no such long lasting connection and less hesitance to bid Star Wars goodbye.

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

Leia slapping Poe is so unprofessional, inappropriate, and hypocritical. As I detailed before in a previous attempted viewing, Leia fucking SIGNED OFF on the plan to destroy the dreadnought, barring some dumbfuck technical limitation that prevented her from overruling Poe and contacting the bombers directly to pull out. This attack is on her as the superior officer who had every chance to call off the mission and have Poe hauled to the brig for disobeying a direct order.

Not only is it shitty as hell for her to lay hands on an officer, she’s blaming him for the cost of an attack that she allowed to go through and that just makes her look like an irresponsible, incompetent ninny. This isn’t Carrie’s fault, obviously, it’s Johnson’s and also Kennedy’s for leaving the movie and Leia’s character in the hands of a man who doesn’t have any concept of logic or the basic workings of society.

Also like why are the stakes so boring? Why is the might of the First Order, which evidently gives zero fucks about losing an entire planetary superweapon, so focused on this one tiny fleet? Don’t these fucksticks have a galaxy to rule or something? And the vehicle they give us for this incomprehensible situation is a movie-length low-speed chase? I’m so excited, I’m snoring.

Leia flying through space is… not as bad as I feared, but mostly my thought is, so what. This is Star Wars. I’m supposed to be excited that a character, particularly a known Force sensitive, is able to move things with her mind? Especially when it’s going to be a prelude to putting her in a coma for most of the movie?

Just eat the obvious prop porg, Chewie. I don’t give a shit anymore.

Due to the obvious wrongness of Leia blaming Poe, her subordinate officer, for an attack she allowed him to make, Holdo’s treatment of Poe is similarly tainted. She comes across as high-handed as off-putting instead of the capable woman putting the mansplainer in his place that reviewers have crowed about.

And Rose tasing Finn… just… ugh. So let me get this straight: Finn is sliced with a lightsaber across the spine, and his wound and recovery are played for a cheap slapstick and visual gag. Having just recovered from a serious and life-threatening wound, he is shot with a force so strong he goes flying across a room and hits his back. He is temporarily paralyzed as a result. But we’re not supposed to take this physical trauma seriously at all, it’s just what he gets for being a cowardly deserter (which he isn’t) while Rose gets to use her trauma of losing Paige to justify her treatment of him?

I now see why Rose stans keep bringing up Paige to justify Rose in this scene. In addition to their own latent racism that’s the way the scene has been framed, as Finn owing something to Rose, not for anything he did wrong but because she happened to idealize him, and deserving to be hurt for a crime he did not commit. This movie is such a mess and so upsetting, I can’t even.

Also Johnson seriously can’t write a character with any depth to save his life, can he? Poe’s every other sentence is wanting to blow shit up? Really?

I have so many questions about Poe, Finn, and Rose hatching their plan. So if Finn’s arc in this movie is about learning how to stop being a selfish POS or some shit (FUCK YOU JOHNSON), it looks like this growth has already been established in like, 2 scenes? First he’s going to run away, but has a change of heart because Rose was sad and also put a million volts through him? (Seriously, can he get the agency and dignity to change his own mind without being beaten into it? Too much to ask?) So that’s like… character development accomplished? He’s already seen the bigger picture and went from “this fleet is doomed” to deciding to save the fleet. He already sees his and Rey’s fate in the context of the survival of the Resistance rather than just their own individual survival.

This was a choice that he already made at the end of TFA, btw, so I’m not sure why it had to be retread at all because RJ is a talentless hack who just wants to copy JJ’s greatest hits. It’s also just a really poor and abrupt way to do character arcs. Just say you don’t give a shit about Finn’s character, RJ, it saves time.

A more sinister reading is also possible, too: the implication is strong in this scene that Finn is being coerced with the threat of jail time for his supposed desertion, or at least Poe’s disappointment if Rose tells on him. Under this reading Finn’s talk of saving the fleet and the heartfelt gesture of giving the tracking bracelet to Poe are empty, the product of Rose’s blackmail. Yet again, it does neither Finn’s nor Rose’s character any favors.

And Poe? We’re supposed to believe that a career military officer who left the Republic military to serve with Leia is a macho he-man who disrespects women, has no concept of the military chain of command, and would undermine it for his own petty grudge. The multitalented pilot/intelligence officer who conducted sensitive espionage operations as Leia’s right-hand man, who left his former post due to the dictates of his courage, conscience, and intelligence, is a meathead who can’t understand technical details and has nothing but explosions on his mind. Mmkay. We’ve estabilshed that this is RJ’s character assassination version of Poe. But.

Why are Finn and Rose going along with him? I’m guessing they haven’t met Holdo and possibly don’t know at the start of the scene that she commands the fleet now. But once C-3PO tells them, they can’t claim ignorance of the fact that Poe is greenlighting their plan against Holdo’s knowledge. Why isn’t Finn questioning the wisdom, or at least the very real difficulties, of going over a Vice-Admiral’s head? Why are both he and Rose entirely willing to accept, without argument, 3PO’s argument that Holdo would never agree to this plan?

If anything this scene leads me to believe discontent with Holdo was widespread long before the mutiny. (And it wasn’t even that long, given the short time frame we’re working with.) It’s not just Poe who thinks Holdo is an autocratic leader who ignores ideas and input from others. C-3PO, who has decades of military and negotiating experience, Finn, a newcomer to this organization who has some experience with authoritarian leaders, and Rose, a rank-and-file mechanic, all reached the same conclusion independently within hours of Holdo coming on board.

This is where you can see RJ’s sloppiness as a writer, where his writing shows the exact opposite of what he means to establish. Alternately, if he meant to establish Holdo’s failure of leadership, he contradicts himself there as well by portraying Poe as this simple-minded caveman character and Leia firmly on Holdo’s side. The result is an incoherent mess.

This scene is also where all the leads of color are swept into a meaningless side plot where they were all wrong for not listening to the white woman and do a great deal of harm, so again… fuck you, Johnson.

Jon Kasdan tweeted about Enfys Nest “Thank the incomparable @Maisie_Williams ’cause we knew wanted a character in Star Wars that at least ASPIRED to be, like, a fraction as bad-ass as ARYA STARK.”

asianamidala:

reys–speeder:

thelastjedicritical:

lj-writes:

I’m confused. Like there weren’t badass female characters in SW before?

They keep shooting themselves in their own feet …

I’m not sure how to phrase this, but I think that the people at LucasFilm are trying to make Star wars like Game of Thrones (hiring the directors, comparing arya stark, choosing an actress from GoT)

Arya is an abused child soldier, made to murder to survive and who’s violent nature and murdering is romanticised by the show runners and the fandom… how the fuck is she badass? She is a tragic character.

14 year old Padmé Amidala choosing diplomacy before violence is badass
Mon Mothma and Padmé Amidala creating the Rebel Alliance to fight against an emperor who is a powerful sith lord is badass 
19 year old Leia Organa refusing to sell out the rebels under torture is badass
Oola the twi’lek dancer trying to fight Jabba off despite being in chains is badass
Rose Tico fighting against fascism while in mourning for her sister is badass
Rey leaving Kylo Ren to do the right thing and to help her friends is badass
Ahsoka Tano fighting Vader to save Ezra is badass
Jyn Erso dying to make sure her father’s work against fascism wasn’t in vain is badass
Breha Organa and Beru Whitesun taking in an orphan child, despite the danger it brings them, yet loving the child as their own no matter what is badass

I can go on… Star Wars already has its badass women, we don’t need romanticised child soldiers or white saviours to bring badass women to Star Wars

Exactly! That bothered me about the Arya comment too, because the character as I remembered her was more sad than empowering, but I didn’t know the recent developments well enough (I stopped reading after the fourth book and stopped watching after the first season) to feel qualified to comment. It’s creepy that so many creators mistake women’s suffering for being badass.

diversehighfantasy:

lj-writes:

“Star Wars is a story about redemption!”

Then I’m rooting for the redemption of the tens of thousands of Stormtroopers who were abducted, enslaved, brainwashed, indoctrinated, and abused. They knew nothing else, but if shown another way maybe they can make a different choice and bring down their oppressors.

“Star Wars is a story about hope!”

Then I hope Supreme Leader Kyle Ron, a torturer and murderer who had every opportunity to turn away from evil but refused it each time, who willingly took over an enslaving genocidal organization and is continuing its policies, will watch his entire world collapse around him and suffer utter and total defeat.

“But… you don’t get it. It’s a story of redemption and hope for white men who have famous names and a need to get away scott-free with their crimes.”

Maybe, just maybe, the sequel trilogy that refuted the entire idea of the Skywalkers being special and is intent on killing and sidelining every Skywalker it can get its hands on, that made its one surviving Skywalker/Solo an evil war criminal and fascist tyrant, plans to subvert the idea that a powerful bloodline is the end-all be-all in this new universe? Maybe characters like Finn, Rey, and the Stormtroopers–the actual forgotten children of the universe–are meant to be the true heroes who triumph over an elitist mass murderer with a famous name. You know, just maybe.

And like, of all of the characters over the years, all of the suffering they endured, all of the tragic endings, Kylo Ren is the one who should have a happy ending? Nah.

The Sith were destroyed. Kylo proves that you don’t need the lure of the Sith to have evil in you. He makes choices, completely conscious of the fact that what he’s doing is wrong. And yet he’s treated as if he doesn’t have an ounce of free will. Even Anakin had to be carefully manipulated over years. How is puppet Kylo (despite having clear free will when he’s seen by himself asking Anakin to help him fight the light) who turns into the happy good guy complex storytelling? How does that make sense?

The problem is, Kylo being a commander (now Supreme Leader) of the First Order, an organization that destroys more planets and terrorizes more people than The Empire did and doesn’t even pretend to be anything but evil, means that all the battles of Yavin and Hoth and Endor did was destroy some weapons. What does it matter that the Sith were defeated if the Empire came back with bigger weapons? Kylo isn’t where he is because he’s a Sith who fell to the Dark Side, but because he wants to be. Snoke’s fatal error was thinking he could be controlled.

So, where’s the hope? How can it end so that things are better, and the entire Skywalker history isn’t reduced to nothing? I agree that it’s with the thousands of Stormtroopers, a rebellion that guts the FO from the inside, it’s with the billions of people in the galaxy standing up against tyranny, and Luke’s legacy, Rey, bringing the Jedi into a new day. That’s hope for the galaxy, not for one corrupted man.

Puppet Kylo makes story sense in one and one context only: an attempt to derail Finn’s story with “poor Ben had it worse!” Kylo is Finn’s foil in every way. They are from contrasting backgrounds and made the opposite choices. The same people Kylo hurt, Finn befriended and helped. Kylo in TFA was shown to hate Finn obsessively, probably for this very reason. Puppet Kylo takes him out of this foil relationship and gives his pain, his background, precedence over what was done to Finn and what he chose to do in response. Finn, Rey, Poe, and everyone else who was victimized by him are no longer allowed their own pain, they are now forced to empathize with Kylo and being angry about what was done to them makes them the bad guys. TLJ was an overly long exercise in centering Kylo and sidelining Finn, but even it was not stupid enough to go the puppet route and showed, in its muddled way, Finn and Kylo make the opposite choices yet again.

Puppet Kylo is boring and terrible storytelling in every way, but it is very effective at prioritizing whiteness and sidelining the Black lead. It’s in the same vein as arguing Kylo’s war crimes are not too bad, which in addition to making me want to run far away from whoever spouts that shit, also has the convenient effect of denigrating the morality of Finn’s choice and painting him as some kind of helplessly softhearted puppy (one war crimes-apologist Reylow actually called him “my good boy, my best boy”) instead of a psychologically complex man who made difficult moral choices in spite of the physical danger and his own deep-seated trauma.

Star Wars is, fundamentally, a story about choice. Kylo’s choices are what defined him, else the past two movies were just giant wastes of time and the last movie will essentially have to start from scratch. He is far beyond a happy ending. Maybe he’ll have a redemption, but after all the lives he’s destroyed he can’t be both happy and redeemed. He passed that point the moment he chose to respond to Luke’s momentary lapse with mass murder.

trekmemes:

warp6:

lj-writes:

Just what level of “don’t ever fuck with us” is Starfleet? I mean I used to think Jem Hadar and Klingons being these fierce warrior races was something of an Informed Trait when they kept losing in face-to-face fights with mild-mannered Starfleet officers. But then I realized… it’s actually because Starfleet officers are just that tough.

Just how motivated and ambitious you have to be, as someone coming from a post-scarcity society, to sign up for such arduous training and potential danger? I have to wonder kind of people decide to go through years of rigorous education, constant work and travel, and the possibility of a nasty death when they are guaranteed lives without fear or want right on their home planets.

Could it be that Starfleet may, in fact, be a place for malcontents? Not the kind of small-time malcontent that turns to destruction and exploitation, but the kind of malcontent that is stifled on some level by the cushy existence of their home planet (even while being willing to die to protect it) and wants something more. Something out there and anywhere but here.

Such people are dangerous to the preexisting system unless they have an outlet for their energies. Just to name a few headliner captains, leave the James Kirks, the Jean-Luc Picards, the Kathryn Janeways, the Benjamin Siskos, the Philippa Georgious with nothing to do but enjoy life, and chances are they’d get restless. You can see their innate drive in the paths they didn’t take and in alternate universes: Picard has a brother who was perfectly content to run a vineyard at home, living a comfortable rural existence. Picard could have had that or any of a million other career paths, but he still chose the uncertainty of the stars. The 20th-century version of Benjamin Sisko had a burning ambition to write groundbreaking science fiction despite being struck down over and over again by racism. Georgiou was goddamned Emperor in the Mirror Universe, and Burnham and Lorcas wanted her throne. Clearly these are not people who can sit content and let the world be; they shift the very earth they stand on and reach for the stars any way they can.

So what do you do with world-shakers in paradise? You could choose to kill them or lock them up and “reeducate” them, but that goes against the Federation’s ideals. You could let them live free and potentially climb to the top, but they might make too many changes and disrupt the whole comfortable arrangement.

Or, you could give them a way out–infinite ways out, in fact, into space. Their boundless energy would be structured and channeled in morally acceptable directions by the strict rules and directives of Starfleet, and their ambition to be better than others and be judged by their abilities would find expression in rank and promotions.

These are, of course, the same individuals who would die to protect the Federation when it is threatened by a race of fierce warriors, a mechanical collective, or vast theocratic empire. The same people who would have felt stifled in civilian life and could have threatened the whole system become its fiercest defenders. It’s a brilliant system, really, that meets everyone’s interests and turns a society’s potential threats into its greatest assets.

I don’t think it’s any wonder, looking at these incredibly trained and driven people who can take down Klingons in single combat and engineer their way out of alternate timelines, that non-Federation worlds–and maybe more than a few Federation ones–hover somewhere between suspicious and outright terrified of the Federation’s intentions. Starfleet is one of the major reasons one can make a case for the Federation being a “soft” empire, and I can see why peoples ranging from the Ferengi to the Klingons are so suspicious of them. Because you do not ever fuck with Starfleet.

I love this! I feel like Starfleet is commonly seen in fandom as this awesome career everyone on Earth probably aspires to—after all, we all live with the constant potential for ugly death in our not-technologically-advanced-utopia world, and most of us would love the chance to do that but IN SPACE. But whenever I think about the actual reality of Trek!Earth, it’s like…if you live on Earth in the 22nd+ century you are literally guaranteed a long and healthy life. You are guaranteed to die only of (very) old age!!!

And there are probably plenty of safe skydiving/whitewater rafting/speed shuttle piloting/VR equivalent of all of the above and more outlets if you’re just an adrenaline junkie, and plenty of meaningful jobs that aren’t Starfleet, from creating art to doing research to civilian inventing/engineering to teaching…To have everything you could want as far as quality of life and safety and entertainment goes, and still choose Starfleet—to join the military-not-as-we-know-it-but-still-basically-the-peaceful-equivalent-of-a-military, to follow orders, to risk everything…yeah. It’s only certain people who are gonna want to do that.

Whenever I read a fic where Starfleet is referred to as “the service,” I think to myself, Exactly.

I love everything you pointed out about the kind of person who would do that. I think that the flip side, though, is that they also have to be (or become) the kind of person who is willing to follow orders, and give up a LOT of control over their lives, compared to the 22nd+ century general population, who (unlike us) never have to answer to a single boss if they don’t want to! I’m sure Starfleet is much more enlightened than, for instance, the modern US military when it comes to letting people leave Starfleet at will, rather than being in for a set number of years, but while you ARE in…you go where you’re assigned and do what you’re told.

And the conflict between that aspect of serving, and being, as you put it, a world-shaker, is fascinating. And something I think we do see on the show a lot. (What is the Prime Directive, after all, but Starfleet’s ultimate standing order?)

Starfleet is certainly a creation of pure brilliance.

It’s a home for the restless, the ambitious- the sort of people who are permanently dissatisfied with their lives no matter what they’re doing. In any society, you’re going to have people who aren’t content to settle down home on the farm, and who seek out the ‘big city’ instead. As Jim Kirk puts it, “Other people [have families], Bones, not us.”

Now what are you supposed to do with all that energy? Some might call it the adventurers’ instinct, but it presents itself mostly in troublemakers. They’re the people eternally unhappy with the status quo, who if left alone will find ways to destabilize entire regimes (or if less charismatic, make people feel miserable about their choice to ‘be ordinary’). But what are they to do once their society achieves paradise? Stay at home and stagnate? No, too dangerous- any one of them could become the next Khan Noonien Singh. It’s a ticking time bomb of internal conflict for a peaceful utopia.

So put them to work. There’s plenty of labor to be done in space: research, data collection, diplomacy, potential warfare. Let them be the arms and legs of the Federation, spreading the gospel of peace and prosperity with one hand, striking down its enemies with the other. Let them assimilate the entire quadrant into the Federation. (After all, assimilation IS what the Federation does, no less than the Borg, although this is one you’re more likely to survive with your personality and culture intact.)

Long story short: don’t fuck with Starfleet, home to nearly all the restless geniuses of 150 planets.

This needs more recognition!

ancientreader:

lj-writes:

ancientreader:

lj-writes:

ancientreader:

lj-writes:

jewishcomeradebot:

lj-writes:

petalmist0:

I know there are many Star Wars ships and everyone defends their fav ship until it officially sinks. All I ask you all is to read this glorious work and admire that fact it has great writing and works well to portray the characters to fit the story. Not to mention despite it being one of the less popular ships this is a great work and to my joy it’s not a modern au. (Sorry people but I hate modern aus…)

But now I ask that you help me hunt down the writer and beg them to continue this fic! Please for my ever growing love of Star Wars help me convince the writer to continue this amazing thing I’ve discovered!

image

1. What the fuck

2. Why the fuck did you put this in the finnrey tag? Do you like baiting people into looking at rapefic?

Here’s the tags for good measure. And Pokemon? You piece of shit, that’s a kids franchise even more so than Star Wars. you’re straight up exposing minors to rape fic and not even so much as giving them a warning?

You’re a vile excuse for a human being and I hope you have a miserable life.

They’re straight up trying to trigger people. I’m going to wait for reylos to call this gross and vile behavior out since they always claim to care so much about the safety or rape and abuse survivors, though I won’t hold me breath while doing so.

Pokemon?! Holy shit. Also #marvel, #cats, #dogs, and #harry potter, all tags frequented by minors. Go deep-throat a cactus, OP.

And you’re right Mara, you can’t hold your breath that long. You’ll asphyxiate…😨

@lj-writes, it’s a beautiful thing that you get your undies in a bunch about fiction but you’re willing to wish serious injury on a live person. Perhaps reconsider some of your ethical choices.

Wow, some rando time out of their day to @ me and say they don’t care about minors being baited into reading rape stories but do care about the online harasser’s poor widdle feelings.

@lj-writes, I’m not “some rando,” I’m a fic writer and a fan who’s sick and tired of seeing other creators of art and fic being bullied by the likes of you. Nobody is baiting anybody into reading anything, and, once again, it’s you who are wishing serious physical harm on live human beings.

Children should not be going on the internet without adult supervision. And if someone is so fragile that a trigger warning triggers them, then they need to stay off the internet as well. Oh, and maybe not read or listen to the news. Which, you know, often describes the traumatization of real actual people and not fictional characters.

I note with interest that you didn’t even have the nerve to address me directly.

Bullying? Yeah, when you stray out of your lane and don’t keep tagging basic etiquette then you get put in your place. Look at you, bellyaching about the fee-fees of someone who puts a Star Wars rape fic in the fucking Pokemon tag, then blaming kids for potentially accessing an improperly tagged fic.

And cry me a river about your “physical harm”–all that fic writing and you can’t recognize a figure of speech, wow. I suggest you stop doing that if you can’t comprehend the basics of tagging.

Lmao I reblogged directly from you as even you must be aware, I just didn’t think there was someone there worth addressing directly. But since you’re so thirsty for my attention, here it is: You’re a troll who doesn’t comprehend the basics of internet manners. Stop wasting my time and get out of my notes.

@lj-writes: “Figure of speech,” that’s adorable. So the cruel things you say are harmless somehow? 

If you’re so goddamned concerned about children, maybe do something for them in the real world, like advocating for universal health care. Or tutoring in underserved communities. Or advocating for good pay and decent working conditions for nannies, who so often have to leave their own children behind in order to earn a living. Or you might lobby for lead testing in municipal water so that more children don’t wind up brain damaged like the children of Flint. But I’m sure it’s much more satisfying to give yourself props for attacking people who are making art and writing stories that you are choosing to look at.

The internet is a public space, like it or not, and children too young to be exposed to adult material should not be out there unsupervised. That’s on their parents or guardians, not on me or any other adult on AO3 or elsewhere. 

Yeah, you’re a bully. You’re a bully and a hypocrite and a lazy-ass self-righteous wanker.

If you’re unmoved by gross predatory invasion of spaces frequented by children but so in your feels when someone tells said gross person to basically fuck off (which I suppose is a rape threat now?)–then that shows where your sympathies lie.

Wow, this long-ass sermon because I want people to keep untagged rape and, really, off-topic stuff in general out of the tags. I’m sorry that no one has introduced you to the concept of walking and chewing gum at the same time. I.e., it is possible to care about real-life causes and online etiquette at the same time. Shocker, I know!

Tags exist for a reason. Use them correctly. Sure, children should be supervised on the web, AND adult material should be tagged appropriately (and on subject in general. Seriously, why are you so rabidly in favor of tagging Star Wars material Pokemon?). Again, it’s possible to do both, hard as it might be for your simplistic mindset to comprehend.

Hey everyone, wanting people to tag properly and getting angry that someone is purposefully exposing children to a rape fic is bullying now. Going out of your way to expose children to a rape story, on the other hand? That’s awesome.

This needs more recognition!

jewishcomeradebot:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

Stop doing my son Darcy dirty and comparing him to Kyle O’Reckt. Kyll is obviously Wickam, the duplicitous, manipulative predator who targeted vulnerable teenagers for his own gain, taking “whatever he wanted” from them. Cease this dishonor on the good name of Fitzwilliam “Disaster Man” Darcy 2kforever

@publeesher

Sources: The Force Awakens script, Google

Akajsdlksadjkadsa. Reylos really do not pay attention to anyone who isn’t Kylo do they? Like Rey’s age is basic canon knowledge. It’s in the TFA novel too, I’ll try to remember to take a picture of the page when I get home but here’s a screen cap from the Star Wars Character Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded an official Star Wars book published under Disney and therefore canon. (Highlighting mine.)

Oh whoops. She’s officially nineteen and hence a teenager.

Rey’s age was so firmly fixed in my mind, I thought at first the comment was going to argue Georgiana and Lydia weren’t teenagers.