Tag: long thread

lj-writes:

johnnyclash87:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

After going HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY at the conclusion of Chapter 3, I’m starting a new thread because the first one was getting too long. Damn, the author is not pulling any punches. Everything in the notes can contain spoilers, so be sure to filter ’#broken earth spoilers’ if you haven’t already!

So I’m pretty sure Syenite is Essun from her time in the Fulcrum, roughly 20 years ago. Either that or Sy is a different character who matches Essun’s description almost exactly, both of them tall mixed women disparaged as “midlatter mongrel.” If they are the same character then I wonder at the fact that Essun is described as having only 2 children, since she comes across as pretty fertile and would have been even more so in her 20s. Either she ran before she was forced to have children, meaning she would have been on the run for 20 years (impressive!), or the implication is that Essun had 2 children but had also given birth in her former life as Syenite. I doubt orogenes in the Fulcrum really have an opportunity to bond with their children, to say nothing of the unhappy ways said children were conceived, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Essun counts only Nassun and Uche, whom she had willingly–more or less, she did mention not wanting children and I doubt any choice was perfect in the life she led–and whom she bonded with, as her children even if Syenite had given birth. Essun also thinks of herself as a different person than who she was before, whether that’s Syenite or someone else, making the break even cleaner.

I’m here blogging partly because Syenite’s scene with the ten-ringer is so uncomfortable and I needed a breather. (I wonder if he’s the earth-breaker from the opening? He certainly has the power level and the seething hatred from a lifetime, no GENERATIONS, of abuse.) The lives of Fulcrum orogenes is such a parade of horrors, my god.

“None of them looked like survival fetishists or would-be warlords.” Nice shade on post-apocalyptical clichés there 😂 I like the widespread in-world acknowledgment from a setting well-versed in apocalypse–literally, they have a whole manual–that the rational thing to do in catastrophe is to band together in well-ordered communities.

So if Damaya -> Syenite -> Essun, Schaffa has given some heavy foreshadowing of her life as Essun. Also the methods the Fulcrum use to start breaking the orogenes is all SORTS of skin-crawlingly awful but the worst may be the equation of brutality with love. That pretense may fall away eventually, but to imprint that lesson in the wet clay of a child’s mind, a child whose old ties were ripped apart and is reaching out for love like a young plant yearning for the sun… The dysfunction and trauma are baked right into the Fulcrum’s methods from the start.

I’m pretty sure she based the Fulcrum slightly off of Indian Reservations so yea don’t expect too many happy moments.

Oh I expect things to get much much worse. I thought a lot of chattel slavery, actually, especially the breeding and rape and mutilation, plus the fact that orogenes really are slaves of the state. And I think the author is drawing similar parallels, too, in that there’s actually a slur for orogenes–rogga–and even the term “rogga-lover” for people who treat them as human beings. The major orogene characters whose looks we know are explicitly Black, and in the case of the ten-ringer his very dark skin and kinky hair are cited as examples of his ill breeding. That’s in “stills” or “Muggle” terms though; he makes it clear he is the product of careful breeding between top orogenic lineages, with the implication that the best and purest blooded orogenes were, by genes or chance, dark-skinned Black people by our terms. It’s not a direct one to one parallel, obviously, since Black and Native people don’t have the power to move the earth with a thought (..right?).

Ugh the reality of the node maintainer is… I guessed it, from the time Alabaster mentioned there being a doctor and no Guardian at a node, but the full reveal is still horrifying. It seems to be implied that the child and Alabaster are related, too, which would be rather likely if the child were Fulcrum-born–and most from the Fulcrum are. The kid might even be one of his bio children.

Also it’s ironic that Alabaster will probably go on to do on a bigger scale what the node maintainer tried to do, and which the A-Man himself stopped with all his incredible might. How much worse do things get that he is brought around to the node maintainer’s way of thinking?

I can’t be the only one to think that the way the orogenes are treated in the Fulcrum is very reminiscent of the Mages and Circle of Magi in the Dragon Age series, and the Guardians are a lot like the Templars. Even the moral dilemmas and dangers that became the rationale for abusing and violating the orogenes/mages are similar. In Broken Earth everything is upped so much more, though; the Tranquil of DA are kid friendly stuff compared to the visceral horror the node maintainers’ fate provokes. Between the stretches of second person PoV, the intricacies of orogeny and the social workings of the comms, I’ve been thinking BE reads like/would make a magnificent video game and these similarities just heighten that feeling.

Alabaster also touched on a thought that had been bothering me throughout, and the discussion of the orogenes’ inborn instinct to stop earthshakes just strengthens my suspicion that orogeny is not a curse but an adaptation for humanity’s survival. If not for orogenes the earth would have swallowed all civilizations long ago. They are the reason larger civilizations thrived along the equator, simply because they were brought there and provided their protection in that region in larger concentrations.

You know what should be and maybe once was? Orogenes should be treasured and honored members of every comm, instinctively providing their protection from shakes. Instead what happened? People were taught to fear and hate orogenes, and if not outright killed they were taken away to the center to be enslaved and abused and raped and mutilated and tortured.

And yes, orogenes can be dangerous because they are so powerful, but what exists there is a cultural problem, not a problem inherent in orogeny. Why wasn’t the bullying against Damaya stopped, why did she get in trouble for standing up to her bully and why was she told it’s because he likes her? Why wasn’t her bully taught a better way to relate to his peers?

If orogeny weren’t desperately hidden as a shame and a curse, but rather everyone were taught, gently and humanely from the lower creche, about the power of the earth and both the gift and danger of orogeny, about how to regulate their emotions and how to treat each other kindly so the power would not spring up unawares with frightening and tragic consequences–then the danger would be contained without the “need” for violent control.

That kind of teaching would benefit everyone, since it’s clear from the presence of sessapinae that the difference between orogenes and stills is not one of kind but degree. (I’d say people with very sensitive sess are probably borderline orogenes and could produce orogene children.) Each comm would benefit from orogenes, and society as a whole would be so much more humane.

But of course, such an arrangement would bring down the empire that surged to unnatural and unsustainable heights by hoarding and enslaving orogenes. If each comm learned to shape itself into managing orogenes and turning their powers to the comm’s protection, Yumenes would have come literally crumbling down centuries ago. It would exist and even thrive without the Fulcrum but it could not build so ambitiously and wondrously, and it would have to content itself with being just a big, prosperous, down to earth city.

And we can’t have that, can we? Not when there’s so much value to suck out of communities and so much profit to be had out of the slavery and trauma and misery of others. That’s what this was about the whole time, the concentration of power at the center, more and more and MORE for the have-too-muches. What a gigantic fraud. What a heartbreaking waste. What an unbelievable crime.

I’m with the node maintainer and later on, probably, my man Al on this. Bring it all down. Bring the fuckers’ beautiful vaulting roofs down on their heads. Not a one of them is innocent, not even the babies, any more than there can be a clean person in a mire of bloody mud. If it cannot be changed, break it. Break Father Earth’s bones, because boy did he ever have it coming.

Edit: Oh so they’re treating it as fact that the child was Al’s? That’s nice. Just stab us all in the gut over and over again. I guess that level of power had to come from somewhere.

pansexualfaithlehane:

erenexe:

poedamerontrashcaneron:

intj-confessions:

auditorycheesecakes:

onyxjuniper:

frecklesandsky:

I just read this super sad post about this girl who’s asexual and married and everyone is basically telling her that she doesn’t deserve her husband/she’s just a prude/she should just do it anyway.
So I want to tell you all right now that if people tell you this, or if they tell you you’ll never have a relationship, it is BULLSHIT.
My husband is asexual and I’m not. He’s sex repulsed, we don’t have sex, we never have.
And it doesn’t matter to me. You know what does? He does. His mental health and wellbeing matter to me. Because he is my best friend and he’s one of the smartest, kindest, funniest people I’ve ever met. And he’s had people tel him that he’s broken and it makes me SO ANGRY because they are WRONG.
Being different doesnt mean you’re broken.
If you don’t like sex/don’t want it/etc. Do not let anyone tell you that you’re inferior because you’re not.
Do not let anyone convice you that you’ll never have a relationship because they’re wrong(if you want one).
You are not broken, and it will be okay.

This made me feel really good. Remember this, for all my ace spectrum friends out there

#it’s really reassuring to hear from the partner #the one who’s not ace #but is totally cool with having no sex #loves her husband anyway #is in a stable and happy relationship #it’s such a relief when you discover that asexuality is a thing #that you’re okay #but then you start to wonder if it means your only chance at not ending up alone is finding someone else who’s also ace #but no #turns out it’s not #that’s really good to hear #so #thanks #so ace #so space

I hope you don’t mind me reblogging your tags but these are my feelings EXACTLY

I’m always a little nervous that I’m not “good enough” for a “real relationship” because sex isn’t on the table. So yeah, these stories are reassuring

The amount of pressure from society to have sex is incredible. We’re told it’s linked to relationship health and if you’re not willing to do every damn thing you’re labeled a prude. It’s incredibly disheartening, especially considering how one’s libido can change over the years even if you’re not ace. Nice to see a supportive piece from a partner.

OK, kids, buckle up it’s story time.

When I got married, I hadn’t had sex yet.  Waiting until marriage was important to me, so that’s what I did.  My wedding night was the first time I had sex.

It sucked.

I figured, ok, this is new for both of us, it’s probably going to take some practice.

A year later?  It still sucked  We tried a lot of different stuff.  A lot  of different stuff. 

It sucked so bad, we even bought a copy of “Sex for Dummies”.

(it didn’t help)

I started working late so I didn’t go to bed at the same time as my husband.  Every time he would travel for work, I’d be grateful that I didn’t have to go through the awkwardness of avoiding his advances when I went to bed.

He didn’t think it was healthy for a newlywed couple to have sex less than once a week.  So we scheduled it.  Repeat, scheduled intimacy.  I thought I was putting on a brave face and doing what I needed to do to maintain a good relationship.

Because I had no idea that asexuality was a thing.

I talked to my husband, told him I didn’t like sex.  He didn’t understand.  I lost track of how many times I said: “It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you.  I don’t want to have sex with anyone.”

So it was established, Amber doesn’t like sex.

But we still did it.  Because I wanted my husband to be happy.  Sometimes halfway through, I’d start crying.

And he’d always be supportive, and apologize.

After he finished.

So when I found out about asexuality, and told him how I felt, he suggested I go to a doctor.  Because obviously there was something wrong with me.

So I went to a doctor.

(surprise, surprise, I’m perfectly healthy)

Then I told my mom.  When she suggested meds to improve my sex drive, I broke down in tears.  I told her there was nothing wrong with me.  And my mom has been 100% supportive of my orientation ever since.  When people ask if I’m a lesbian, she teaches them about asexuality.  

But anyway back to my journey of self-discovery

So I tell my husband, I’m asexual, I don’t want to have sex.  You are not asexual, you do want to have sex.  One of us is going to be miserable in this relationship, and I’m tired of it being me.  I love you too much to make you miserable for the rest of your life, but I love myself too much to be miserable for the rest of my life.  We might have to face the fact that we’re not right for each other.

So his immediate response is “no, I can change, I’ll do anything, divorce is not an option, etc”

But I can’t exactly ask him to stop wanting to have sex.  Because that’s not how allosexual people work.  And he can’t seduce me into wanting to have sex, because that’s not how asexual people work.

Anyway.  He cries, I cry, we decide on marriage counseling to help our comunication.

Because we’d been married for almost 6 years by this point, and had been together for 3 years before that, and we still can’t really talk about what we want (or don’t want) in regards to sex.

So we go to counselling for 6 weeks.  The first 3 sessions individually, and the last 3 together.  During the together sessions, the therapist would prompt us with a question, and we’d talk to each other, being completely honest about things.

During (what turned out to be) our last session, I’d finally had enough.  I’d had enough of being embarrassed about what anyone else would think.  Enough of the gender roles I was being forced into.  Enough of paying someone to watch me talk to my husband.  Enough of pretending to salvage a relationship that I had been increasingly avoiding over the past 2 years, and I said:

“Josh, I love you.  We have communication problems, but we’ve been together almost ten years and I’m willing to work through those if you think we can make it work.  But I am never having sex with you again.”

(At this point, the therapist who’d been trying to get us to communicate put down her notebook and said, ok I think we’re done.)

Then and only then, did he agree to file for divorce.

—————–

I say all that to say this:

Don’t you dare fucking tell me that asexual representation doesn’t matter.  I would have six years of my life back if I had known.

And if you’re in a relationship, talk to each other oh my God.  About everything.  What dream you had last night.  That song from scout camp that randomly gets stuck in your head.  The reason you don’t like sweet potato.  That embarrassing thing you did in third grade that still makes you mad when you think about it.  If you and your partner can share these tiny, intimate details, talking about sex is no big deal.  And it takes practice, so practice.

————–

On a happy note, now, 3 years after the divorce, I am in a happy, stable relationship with another ace.  And if you happen to ask my mom how I’m doing, she’ll tell you “I’ve never seen my baby girl happier.”

It gets better.  But it’s up to you to make it that way.

@theonetheonlyjordanelizabeth please read this ❤️ I may be sex repulsed but I know that I love you and thats what matters ✨

I know this is already really long and really informative, but I also wanted to add a partner’s perspective. I too, have an ace fiancee. I knew about it before our relationship. I didn’t know it was a thing until I met her, and that was huge to me because I learned something new and also came to understand an old friend a little better. 

I, on the other hand, am not ace. I am at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I am pansexual, and she has a hard time I think coming to terms with the fact that I don’t want to make her have sex.

Like, ‘Really?’ you might ask me. Like really is my only reply. I have loved her for a long time now, and being we met over Tumblr and we knew one another before the relationship, sex isn’t a big deal in our relationship. and I can think of at least ten of my friends who would feel the same way right now. 

ASEXUALITY IS A REAL THING, LOVING, SWEET ACE RELATIONSHIPS ARE REAL! Just because your partner wants sex doesn’t make you broken. Just because you don’t want sex doesn’t mean you should have to force yourself to do so. 

Just be honest with one another, love one another. If a relationship can’t survive a healthy, honest conversation, then it wasn’t a very strong relationship to begin with. 

TL;DR People who can’t see past sex as a ‘core’ in a relationship with someone ace/sex repulsed is an asshole.

So, please tell me all about the easily accessible vegan food pantries you support. And the vegan homeless shelters. Oh, and those vegan options at the American free school lunch program. I’m really interested. And then tell me about how vegan options are easily accessible in poverty-stricken rural areas. Please tell me how it’s easier to come across free fruits and veggies than road kill and an over population of deer in the American Mid-West. And then tell me why you want to hate the poor?

defenestrate-yourself:

angryherbivore:

vegansmustbestopped:

Alright, I hope nobody minds but I’m going to answer this one straight (no jokes, no satire). I’m just not in the mood to come up with an entire comedy routine for this. Partly because I’m tired, and partly because this inane talking point is the one that pisses me off the most, out of all them.

I’ll give you a little introduction about myself. I was born in the Dominican Republic. I spent the first 7 years of my life there and I went back there every summer until I was a teen. If you don’t know, it’s an extremely poor country. Not as poor as Haiti, but pretty far away economically from the United States (which is where I live now), Canada, Western Europe, and chances are from any country from which people will most likely be reading this from.

I did not grow up poor. My parents were middle class (by Dominican standards). My grandparents owned a chicken farm.

I knew plenty of poor people. No matter where you go in the Dominican Republic, they are everywhere. Looking back on my childhood, whenever I went to a friend’s house (it was much more like a shack with a tin roof, than a “house”) and if I so happened to catch them while they were eating, I have absolutely no recollection of ever seeing meat on the table.

You know the kind of foods that I always saw? I saw things like rice, potatoes, corn, yucca (root vegetable like potatoes), beans, lentils, peas, breads, and fruits on the table.

I would never venture to say that they were 100% vegan, because obviously I doubt they were. But I’ll bet every last cent that that I have that at the very least 85% of the food they ate (and everybody in their socioeconomic status) was plant-based. Do you know why? Because it’s the cheapest.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. From an agricultural standpoint, the lower you eat on the food chain, the less time and resources go towards the finished product, then the less the finished product is going to cost. If you are growing crops to feed animals and then feeding animals to people, then that’s a lot more time and resources going towards the finished “product”. If you are growing crops to feed people directly, then that’s obviously less time and resource intensive (which makes it less costly).

As countries get richer, the more animal products they consume. That’s what’s going on in China right now.

You most likely being born and raised in the United States and most likely never step foot out of the country and seen how poor people (you know the people that you are so concerned about) eat in other nations. I can assure you they are not dining on hamburgers, hot dogs, bacon, chicken mcnuggets, etc…..

You also, most likely being born and raised in the United States, think the real free market price cost of a hamburger is 99 cents. It’s not even close. The massive subsidies that the government gets, through my taxes, artificially lowers the price of meat and dairy to a much more manageable cost to the consumer.

Now for a person, such as yourself who absolutely hates elitism like you claim you do, can you tell me anything more disgustingly elitist than somebody else having to pick up the tab for your taste preference? Please enlighten me why I, and others, have to pay for something that I find disgustingly cruel, but because people like yourself, and millions of others don’t want to pay the full price for a steak? I’m dying to know the answer to this.

If the American public had to pay the REAL free market price cost of meat and dairy, your god-damn head would spin. American culture would be completely different than what you see it today. It would be a more economically honest society.

As far as vegan homeless shelters and vegan food pantries, I doubt there are any. But do you honestly think because there aren’t any (which there might be for all I know), that somehow means plant foods are more elitist than animal based foods?????

The reason why they probably don’t exist is because the people who run these operations, while I’m sure being extremely kind-hearted and philanthropic people, they most likely were born and raised in the United States, and have developed the indoctrinated belief that a “meal” is not a “meal” unless there is a piece of animal flesh on the table. Just because they believe that, it sure as hell doesn’t make it so.

The idea of serving solely plant-based foods will inherently be cheaper for the same reasons I’ve gone over. More than likely, the idea is just simply not in their radar, like most people.

To give you an idea of what’s possible. Here is a prison that went vegetarian solely because of it being cheaper. It had nothing to do with ethics, the environment, etc… Pure dollars and cents. Here is a prison in California where half the inmates were served vegan food. That half had remarkably lower incidences of violence and much better fellowship (which goes to show you that there is more to this issue than just dollars and cents).

Do you want to know what people such as yourself who bring up this absurd talking point should be shouting from the rooftops about? You should DEMAND that every last red cent of the government subsidies that are going to the meat and dairy industry go towards plant-based foods that are already cheap.

So, you would take every cent that goes to meat and dairy, and give it people that produce rice, potatoes, beans, lentils, peas, etc…. You know what that will do? It will massively reduce the price of these already insanely cheap foods. So if you were to go to the store and you’d normally see cans of beans being sold at the current price for about 80-90 cents a can, would know only cost 20-30 cents a can. You can do this with cheap fruits as well. Bananas are a very inexpensive fruit, Slash the already cheap price by at least half with the subsidy, then all of a sudden everybody can eat fruit.

This means practically ANYBODY could afford healthy, vitamin and nutrient dense foods (much more so than meat and dairy) no matter where on the economic ladder you are. This means the food pantries and homeless shelters can stock up on MORE food for less money, which means more people get to eat.

Do you know why this will never happen?

1) People are completely ignorant about the government subsidies that go to the meat and dairy industry, and more than likely have no interest in learning about these things, because out of sight, out of mind.

2) (This is the big reason).  I DON’T WANT TO GIVE UP MY SHIT!!!! I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO PAY $10 FOR A HAMBURGER!!!! WHY IS LIFE IS SO CRUEL!!!!!!! I’M THE VICTIM!!!!

Whenever somebody brings up poverty, when they are asked to “go vegan”. It is the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Do you know why people say this? Because other people say it. They just simply regurgitate the same things other people say without thinking about what they are saying for more than a half a second before they vomit it out of their mouths.

No thinking about how the agricultural process works, no thinking about the subsidies, no thinking about what the poorest people in the world eat….people just simply talking out of their asses.

It’s just people who are confronted with something that makes them uncomfortable and instead of thinking about why they are getting so defensive about their beliefs, they just flail miserably just hoping to land a punch, so they’ll say anything.

The onslaught of bullshit that comes out of people’s mouths when confronted with this issue is never-ending. You have people who will be using a computer with electricity and internet connection writing about the INUIT TRIBE, as if that has anything to do with them. Just take a look at my blog to see how many people think they’re like lions, or how much people suddenly give a shit about a plant’s life, or any of the mindless things that comes out of people’s mouths when it comes to this issue. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just read it.

How come I never hear this kind of stuff about the poor when you’ve got celebrity chefs who display and present food to the public as a form of entertainment? Here are all these starving people, and we have game shows about food. It’s weird…..I never hear a peep about poor people when this comes up.

How come whenever there is a hot dog eating contest, I never hear about this????? Don’t you think that it’s kind of sadistic to have a contest to see who can be the most wasteful and shove as much shit down their throat as possible when there are people starving? Hmm….crickets…

How come I never hear about anyone commenting on a culture that treats food like nothing more than a test of one’s gluttony or are barbecues a place to pray for those that don’t have any food? It’s been a while since I’ve been to one….Maybe it’s changed since last I’ve gone.

How come I never hear about how wasteful it is to lose countless amounts of food and calories through the crops that are grown only to get a microscopic amount of food and calories back from the animals that society eats for a taste preference all the meanwhile people are starving?

How come I never hear about the poor people in impoverished nations who are starving, meanwhile others in that same nation are growing crops not to feed them, but to feed farm animals that would peacefully not exist in the first place, if it wasn’t for the people’s demand of meat and dairy?

It’s weird….I never hear about these things. But tell somebody to eat solely plants, and then all of a sudden you are hearing about poor people and about people who live in the arctic.

Let’s just for arguments sake say that eating things like beans, lentils, rice, etc,…was more elitist and unaffordable to the poor. I hope I pointed out how much bullshit this is, but let’s just play devil’s advocate here for teensy second.

We live in a world where Anthony Bourdain has over 1.5 million people following him on Twitter. I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say these people don’t eat in soup kitchens. What’s their excuse?

We live in a world where people will spend $30 a pound for fillet mignon. I know this because I actually used to work in a meat department for a supermarket. I did it for four years. I know how much your average person spends on things like meat and dairy, and it’s a HELL of a lot more than what I spend on groceries.

I have to ask……what’s their excuse? Let me guess….they are going to tell me something about poor people existing somewhere in some time in some space in some part of the world.

DEMAND makes the world we live in, not supply. The world’s marketplace is what we demand it to be. No one is asking a person who is eating at a soup kitchen to vote with their dollar, because they don’t have the dollar to vote with. They are living on charity (not that there is anything wrong with that by any means). Instead we are asking for people who can vote with their dollar to change the world.

The more people demand something, the more the paradigm shifts. The more the paradigm shits, the more peaceful of a world we can live in for everybody (just a clue…..the human species is not the only one that exists).

Right now, we have a world that reflects the demand of people to have Burger King, Mcdonalds,Arbys, Hardees, Wendy’s, Popeyes, steakhouses, etc in just about every civilized corner„(the list goes on and on). I know one thing is for certain. This world the people demanded does not exist because starving people demanded it.

And as far as the road-kill being easier to find in the American Mid-west, by all means….have at it. What I wouldn’t give for a meat-eater put his money where his mouth is and act like the carnivore that he claims to be, and eat up a free meal like that. The animal was killed by accident. It wasn’t done on purpose. They are dead anyway. Go ahead and eat them. Just make sure to take a video of you eating the road kill so I can see how many other “genetic” meat-eating humans would be hungry at that site.

And as far as the over-population of deer, did you ever think that maybe humans are overpopulated? Did you ever think that the deer has every right to exist on land that they were previously able to roam freely in but now has become part of the infrastructure of mankind because for some reason they think birth control is the work of the devil, so they keep on popping out kids like a god-damn pez dispenser? 

I don’t think I’ve ever met a single hunter who uses the overpopulation talking point as nothing more than an excuse to get off on killing something. I have yet to see a photo of a hunter with a sad look on their face after they killed an animal because “overpopulation” made them do it, not because they wanted to. Show me a photo of that. I’d love to see it.

At the end of the day, this has nothing to do with poor people, or the inuit tribe, or our ancestors did it, or lions do it, or protein, or any other bullshit that I’ve heard a million times. It’s simply a childishly global epidemic case of I-don’t-want-to-itis.

If anybody ever gets posed this kind of bullshit talking point, feel free to send them to this post or you can send them to my vegan privilege post or the most recent one I did as response to this. You can copy and paste and plagiarize me if you want. I don’t care.

God DAMN dude I don’t think that anon will EVER recover from that

I got fucking tears in my eyes from reading that. Best post on tumblr. Thanks man. DAMN.

Fucking incredible.

Did y’all miss the part where op cited fucking Sheriff Joe Arpaio for the assertion that veganism is cheaper for prisons, and the second prison story says nothing like veganism reducing violence (even though the source article has the same biased slant as op)? Wtf is wrong with you that you’d take a human rights violating, racist piece of shit like Arpaio as an expert on economic veganism, or that you think a shady as hell private prison contractor (link, their rap sheet is literally the first Google search result for their name lmao) pressuring inmates into a vegan diet as part of a package deal with “bible studies, job training and anger management” is any kind of vegan success story? Look up “self-selecting sample” and “confounding factors,” maybe. Not to mention take 2 seconds to think about the ethics of pressing dietary choices on a literally captive audience as a price of entry for other perks.

Like, there are actually good arguments to be made for the economics of vegetarianism (link). There are also complexities and injustices involved, such as driving up prices for staple foods in poorer regions (link). None of these problems and arguments are going to be properly addressed, however, if vegan advocates are going to be so dishonest and morally bankrupt that they’re going to outright lie about basic scientific methodology and lick the asses of corrupt private prison contractors like Maranatha and outright criminals like Arpaio.

I never said that Rian’s choices flowed organically from TFA’s ending, stop putting words in my mouth simply because you have no good counter. If you could be bothered to read what I did said was that JJ’s choices made it that much *easier* for Rian to sideline Finn. He gave him a possibility where it was safe to do so without too many issues for the overall story.

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

If JJ had confirmed Finn as Force sensitive and sent him to
Ach-To along with Rey it would have made Rian’s need to sideline Finn
that much harder to follow through with. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have
found a way, I have no illusions at all about Rian Johnson on this
matter, but what I *said* was that JJ made it easy for him.

L.J.: Oh please. You said in your earlier ask (link), and I quote: “Because it’s what JJ, the man you all put
your faith in, set him up for. Look at the end of TFA, there’s nothing
else there for Finn.” You didn’t just say JJ made it easy for RJ to sideline Finn, you said it was what JJ set up. Maybe you didn’t phrase it the way you meant, but you can’t blame me for your bad wording. Besides, you’re confirming yet again in your new series of asks that Finn being sidelined is simply what JJ set him up for, so stop trying to run from that.

And what pray tell is the clear and obvious path forward for
Finn at the end of TFA? Rey is the obvious primary Jedi, she was always
meant as the primary Jedi. At best JJ meant for Finn to play second
fiddle to her. What would likely have happened if JJ had continued the
story? Rey would have been half trained or more at the beginning of VIII
if we have any kind of significant time skip, clearly again marking her
as the primary person to drive the Jedi part of the story forward.

L.J.: So you’re just going to uncritically follow fandom’s assumption that the Jedi is necessarily the main character? Because there’s no way JJ would twist the formula even a little in the THIRD trilogy of the series? It’s fine if you yourself lack imagination, but don’t assume your own narrow vision is the only possible way to proceed.

As for possible ways forward for Finn, oh idk, maybe the difficulty of adjusting to relative freedom and individuality after a lifetime of regimented existence? His process of physical recovery from injuries? Making an actual choice whether he’s going to join the Resistance? Conflict about killing Stormtroopers? Setting up a Stormtrooper rebellion, which RJ actually went as far as to set up before leaving on the cutting room floor? The arduous process of deprogramming? His possible Force sensitivity, how it might differ from traditional Jedi powers, and what that means for the lore?

Wow, it’s almost like there was a lot to do there and you’re the one insisting that being a Jedi is the only way for him to be relevant!

Any training of Finn at this point would definitely have left
him a secondary character in that story. And what would Finn have been
doing in the interim? The ending of TFA gives no clear answer to that.
It lands his unconscious ass with a bunch of people he has never joined
at all. He might have been willing to stand against Kylo for himself and
for Rey, but it never lets him make a decision to join fight against
the FO in a larger sense.

L.J.: You’re identifying a lot of interesting directions Finn’s story could have gone in a better Episode VIII. Kudos.

Even if JJ never intended for Finn to have the Force or become
part of the Jedi related plot then he could have had him awake at Rey’s
departure and made it clear that he was joining the Resistance. Even
such little a thing would have made Finn’s path ahead clearer. But JJ
couldn’t even be bothered with doing that little for Finn. That kind of
lack of concern for a character’s story highly indicates that said
character was never that important anyway to the overall story.

L.J.: Those would only be oversight and neglect if JJ could have expected that the person to come after him would ignore everything he did, and, according to Daisy, throw out most of the outlines JJ prepared for VIII and IX. You assume that JJ shouldn’t have trusted RJ and should have set more things in stone for Finn. In hindsight that would have been far better, but putting his faith in a director who shouldn’t have been trusted is not the same thing as not caring about Finn’s character.

This is why I called Finn A Leia. You need to learn some Star
Wars history. The first Star Wars movie was not at all advertised as
only Luke’s story and while with modern day glasses Leia’s role may look
insignificant, it was a leap for 1977. And it was advertised as Luke’s
and Leia’s story. The Farmboy and the Princess. Everyone expected Leia
to play as large or an even larger part in the next movie once it became
clear that a sequel was being made. Instead that was Han, Leia no
longer mattered

L.J.: So sexism is a potent force in media much like racism is. For that exact reason, I am in NO WAY guaranteeing that JJ will necessarily treat Finn right. I actually agreed with you on that conclusion, but the arguments you make in support of that point are so egregiously bad that you’re actually undermining yourself.

Maybe it would be more accurate to call Finn A Padmé. Padmé
drives the plot in TPM, Anakin being dragged behind in what feels like a
subplot. That changes in the next two movies with Padmé becoming an
entirely insignificant character, only there to get involved with
Anakin, have Luke and Leia, and then die.

Yes I’ve read your Finn and Rey are Padmé and Anakin reborn
metas, they do not fill me with confidence for IX. Padmé was always
secondary to Anakin no matter how much she drove the plot in TPM. In
fact, given the set up in the PT, Padmé is so much more clearly
Palpatine’s foil than any of the others, but the movie keeps emphasizing
Anakin’s relationship with Obi-Wan as being the counterpoint, Padmé is
now only there as angst potential for Anakin and broodmare.

The only difference is that we always knew that the PT was going
to be Anakin’s story, but still many fans were shocked at how
insignificant Padmé’s role and character became.  And given how TFA ends
I fear that that is what JJ always intended for Finn, that this was why
he felt comfortable casting a Black man. KK would still have hated it
because having any character of color that central even for one movie
galls her so I don’t see it as inconsistent with her fighting John’s
casting.

L.J.: I think Padmé is a better comparison so far as TPM/TFA goes, but again–Padmé’s and Finn’s arcs were different in their respective first movies, though their interactions with Anakin/Rey have many similarities. Padmé was much more active in driving the plot than Anakin was and this holds true even in AotC, but she was not shown to be developing as a character and overcoming internal conflicts the way Finn was even in TLJ, clumsily as it was done.

For like the third time, I’m not saying Finn can’t still be sidelined, I’m saying there is nothing inevitable from Finn’s story in TFA or even TLJ that says he will be as distantly secondary/tertiary as Leia or Padmé. I’m saying it would be bad and inconsistent writing if it happens that way, not to mention a huge loss of potential.

And neither John, nor Daisy, nor it seems anyone but JJ and
possibly KK and the story group, knew or will ever know what JJ
intended. At this point I don’t think it was anything much for Finn. My
conclusion is that everyone hates Rian so much at this point they
completely forget how complicit JJ is in this, how much he set of for
the possibility of this happening. And look up his Sam concept, Finn is a
Han type character, roguish smuggler guy, before he becomes a
Stormtrooper.

L.J.: In a medium as collaborative as film people do talk, though, and that gives clues. The people who worked on TFA or the novelization with him, such as Alan, Daisy, and Simon, may not have read JJ’s mind or have gotten his full plans, but they do know the discussions they had at the time and had enough clues to suspect–and what’s more, publicly say–that JJ’s intentions were not fully followed through.

As for your point of all those people objecting to how things
were handled in TLJ, you might want to notice that their points of
objections concern the WHITE characters. Rey, Luke, Leia, these are the
ones whom they are incensed about. Not Finn. Mark being the only one who
stands out even a little by supporting John so openly, but even he
speaks far more about the white characters and their mistreatment than
Finn’s. In fact, I can’t recall him even mentioning Finn directly.

L.J.: Most of them were about the white characters, but Alan Dean Foster directly mentioned Finn as well (link). Yes, he did say Finn was very underdeveloped, but he also directly contradicts your point that Finn’s story had nowhere to go at the end of TFA. In fact, you contradict it yourself. Also my larger point is that RJ directly contradicted existing characters and the setup in TFA to the extent that people who worked with JJ voiced their disagreement, something that extends to Finn as well.

John Boyega himself talked about this underdevelopment and potential of Finn as a feature and not a bug, saying that he prefers characters who have room to develop. Since you know about the earlier concept of Sam, you also no doubt know that Sam was originally much more powered-up and single-handedly solves a lot of problems himself. While that may well have worked better with a Black character, I can see John’s point as well.

If Finn’s potential remains untapped in IX then yeah, fuck JJ and I’m fully prepared for that possibility myself. But no one, including you, can tell me that I and many others simply dreamed up his centrality or his potential in TFA.

Beyond that, Anon seems to forget that JJ wasn’t the only writer. Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan were also writers, and unlike Johnson who claimed he had UNLIMITED POWER, JJ talked about in detail how many other chefs were in the kitchen and we don’t know how many things were changed in re shoots. I’m not going to pretend to have a crystal ball and know everything, but regardless of the lightsaber bait and switch elements that screamed re-shoot plot holes, Finn’s story still clearly left him as the male lead.

TFA ends more like The Empire Strikes with Rey leaving to train and Finn suffering with the events of the movie.

And what really bothers me about Anon is how they keep talking about SW history and comparing Finn to Leia. If anyone is the Leia, it’s Poe. Finn is closer to the young Obi-Wan role in the prequels mixed with the Han Solo in the originals. At worst Finn is the deuteragonist like Han Solo, at best he’s the co-protagonist like Obi-Wan.

I might not work for lucasfilm, but I understand story structure and what would make a compelling story.

Here’s a short list of where Finn’s story could go in IX.

  • Finn orchestrating a stormtrooper to not only save his old comrades, but provide an army that the Resistance desperately needs.
  • Finn finding out he has ties to the Mandalorians or just joining the Mandalorians and convincing them to help fight the FO because Mandalorians hate the Empire more than the Republic.
  • Finn trying to find HIS family.
  • Finn finding out he has family in the FO and wanting to save them.
  • Finn using his 20 years of knowledge of the FO to become one of the Resistances most valuable soldier.
  • Finn going off on his own to rally outer rim worlds to fight against the FO.
  • Finn training with Rey in the ways of the force to battle Kylo and the KOR.

If people don’t have they’re own imagination, they’re fine to listen to Reddit. If JJ just dubs Finn, yeah fuck him, and I’ll go to The Mandalorian with Jon Favreau, but let’s wait and see for fucks sake.

somuchanxietysolittletime:

geekandmisandry:

knaz16:

knaz16:

dragongoddesst2:

knaz16:

@fellow lesbians, what’s the reason you don’t date bihets? I’m asking coz I’m seeing more and more reasons not to date bi women with the way they act and want to know your stories, what is something you’ve noticed bihet women consistently do that lesbians don’t ?

For me: bi women are more attracted to gender roles than actual women. They will say they are not feminine but to them that means just not wearing makeup, everything else they do, they are not gnc the way lesbians are gnc, and they treat lesbians like men.

Anyone else?

Call me a bihet again. I dare you. I am going to politely agree to disagree here with you. The term bihet is false. You cannot be a bisexual heterosexual.
Also, your experience with one or two bi women in the past doesn’t mean every single bi woman is like that.
This post is disgusting.

Bihet.

Aw and I made IT cry too!

So many bihets tears, not enough cups ☕

….Literally calling bi people “it”.

Honestly, my bi ass wouldn’t want anything to do with their transphobic bullshit anyway. Do they think this is some punishment?

“I would never date a bi woman!”

Yeah,
well, that’s like saying you’d never serve me a plate of shit. Glad
it’s off the menu, but I wasn’t interested to begin with.

frisktastic:

gayamericanoutlaw:

shipwhateveryouwant:

just-antithings:

frisktastic:

tumblr: when people include racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. ideas in their stories it has real life consequences

also tumblr: but ships are never problematic, what’s with all these “antis”? it’s just fictional and can’t affect anything

Just Anti Things: I honestly don’t see any difference between popular mass media and someone’s obscure fanfic

this….isn’t a new argument. we’ve had it before. many times. representation matters, people can also ship what they want. those don’t contradict each other.

Here’s the thing:

Fiction does not equal reality, nor does fiction have a 1:1 influence on reality.

However, good fiction — even (and in some ways especially) speculative and genre fiction — REFLECTS reality.

An example could be film noir, which experienced a boom during and directly after World War II because its gloomy moods, jaded protagonists, and disillusioned view of the world mirrored that of wartime and postwar America. Another could be the influx of ‘fuck the system’ films like “Bonnie and Clyde” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” during the countercultral 60s and 70s (granted, this was also partially due to the lifting of the Hays Code and the end of the Hollywood Blacklist). Yet another could be the theory that zombie and vampire films experience surges in popularity depending on who’s president (according to the theory, zombies are rightists as seen by leftists and vampires are leftists as seen by rightists). Every piece of fiction, ultimately, is in at least some small way a product of its time and its creator. Even the most out-there fantasies or the grittiest thrillers have universal archetypes at their core. When someone sets out to write a story, they are at the core of it either writing about their own experience, or writing about some aspect of the human condition that fascinates them. (Which is where “problematic” content comes in, because let’s be real: many, many aspects of the human condition aren’t pretty.)

So, the anti-anti/pro-fiction belief is as follows:

1: Fiction is not reality. Writing about something does not mean that you condone it IRL. 2: Fiction does not directly influence reality in a ‘monkey see, monkey do’ sense. Someone who had no plans to commit an atrocious act isn’t suddenly going to start making those plans because they read in a novel about said act being committed. Furthermore, someone who is psychologically able to distinguish reality from unreality, and morally able to distinguish an acceptable action from an unacceptable one, isn’t going to start condoning atrocious acts committed by other real-life people because they read about them in a novel. 3: Fiction does reflect reality. Representation matters because everyone deserves to see their own reality reflected in the stories they consume — and, for the general betterment of society, everyone needs to see other people’s realities reflected in the stories they consume, because the old adage about not judging someone’s life until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes holds true. Furthermore, if stories are being produced that are sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist — especially if it’s a recurring trope — that needs to be addressed because it reflects the sexism/racism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism present in culture at large; for example, the “Bury Your Gays” trope, which originated with restrictions present in the Hays Code, draws such backlash because LGBTQ+ audience members want fiction to reflect that our culture has grown in acceptance of LGBTQ+ people since the Hays Code era.

TL;DR: “People should be allowed to write and read what they want because fiction isn’t reality” and “Representation matters because fiction should reflect ALL realities,” are not mutually exclusive ideas, and, in fact, both are important to understand in order to criticize media responsibly.

I suppose I shouldn’t be suprised that this is what ended up happening to the post, but I think it’s good opportunity to point out something

for like 90, 95% of cases, “antis” (wish there was a better term) and antiantis actually agree

I literally agree with everything the person above said.

Most antis are NOT saying you shouldnt be allowed to reflect reality. For some reason, antianti’s understanding of anti’s position is almost always this strawman

People aren’t saying you can’t show murder, or pedophilia, or racist things

We’re just saying you shouldn’t be condoning them, or romanticizing them. That’s it. Whether that’s in fiction or fanfiction or in posts online. 

Point 2 is something I really agree with! That’s why “video games make people violent” is wrong. 

But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about a monkey see monkey do kind of thing. 

“Furthermore, if stories are being produced that are sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist— especially if it’s a recurring trope—that needs to be addressed.“
This is all I’m saying. This is literally the whole “anti” argument. 

It’s frustrating that most people reblogging this post now will probably never see my clarifications, but I hope a few people will. 

Also this is exactly why “anti” and “antianti” are such bad terms. Anti WHAT? The long but more accurate terms would be “believes even fan fiction and shipping can spread problematic ideas” and “believes fan fiction and shipping don’t have that kind of power.”

Reylos won’t rest until they’ve run every black anti out of this fandom. I hate them so much

korrasera:

lj-writes:

korrasera:

To preface this, I’m not actually shipper or an anti-anti. By which I mean that my opposition to antis rests purely in their authoritarianism. But otherwise? I don’t have any skin in that game. I think reylo is a little gross myself, but shippers are free to do what they do. The closest I’ve gotten to caring is that I think Kara and Lena should be canon on Supergirl and I cried tears of joy when Korra and Asami became canon.

And unfortunately, you’re incorrect about antis. I mean, I would love it if the picture you were painting was accurate, that some antis are authoritarian while others are not, but the fact of the matter is that being an anti-shipper means that you’re subscribing to an authoritarian stance in regards to fandom. Sure, maybe you’re not as hardcore as other people, but the ideology you’re talking about is still ultimately authoritarian in nature. I wrote a short 101 on authoritarianism when an anon criticized me talking about authoritarian exclusionists that hate aces in the LGBTQ+ community because they didn’t understand authoritarianism either. (source)

As for your abortion debate example, a better way to put it would be this. Not all people who are anti-choice support murdering people who seek abortions or doctors who provide abortions. But! All people who are anti-choice stand opposed to bodily autonomy and think that all pregnant people, almost all of whom are women, should not have the right to control their own bodies. That’s an inherently authoritarian and an inherently violent ideology, regardless of the number of them willing to assault and murder people in the name of their cause. The only real caveat I have is that anti-abortion might just be born out of a different kind of authoritarianism, as in the US it’s strongly indicative of religious conservative Christian attitudes and that community is authoritarian as all get out.

In other words, you don’t have to provide shelter and material support to someone who does evil if you actively enable evil by embracing authoritarianism. Since anti-choice advocacy gets people killed and intentionally tries to strip rights from people, that counts.

Antis, on the other hand, just subscribe to an ideology that polices fandom looking for people who are not sufficiently pure, using disgust in the place of reasoning to judge someone as being evil or morally wrong. It would be nice if those of you who just didn’t like a ship were the core of your community, but that’s not what an anti is, at least not anymore. They’re people who harass shippers, drive them off of social media, and use claims of pedophilia and child grooming to do it. A lot of people have pointed out how anti attacks on shippers actually make it more difficult for us to stop predators who go after children because not only has it meant creating false reports that law enforcement officials have to take action on, but the community has themselves sheltered predators because they know how to manipulate authoritarian power structures in order to facilitate their grooming behaviors.

Why do you think so many people identify as left-wing in US politics without identifying as Democrat? It’s because identifying as a Democrat means participating in the system Democrats have built, much of which has been built on regressive social policies that aren’t much better than what Republicans offer. In this same fashion, identifying with a community that’s become defined by it’s authoritarian ideology means supporting that ideology, even weakly.

Yes, I stack rank antis near the bottom of the list of authoritarian groups that I personally care about fighting, but it’s still not healthy. If you want to be healthy then I’d encourage those of you who don’t subscribe to those views to come up with a new term to describe yourselves and break your community away from that ideology so you aren’t in tacit support of them.

For someone who’s not in fandom you sure are eager to tell me I’m wrong about fandom spaces I’ve been active in for years. You also seem to think you know what my “ideology” is when it’s nothing like what you describe. I’m actually closer to you–I think the ship is gross but that people are free to ship what they like. I don’t want to censor people or stop them from creating content, and I certainly don’t want to be anyone’s thought police. I have a hard enough time managing my own thoughts.

I do talk about things like bigotry and misogyny in fandom, commenting on and criticizing publicly available content generally without even interacting with the creators. That’s what the bulk of anti activity consists of, at least among people who came to be known as antis through a combination of tagging convention, identification by detractors, convenience, and self-identification.

I mean sorry we don’t match the cartoon idea of us you have in your head, I guess, but when reality and your own conceptions don’t match maybe it’s the latter that should be adjusted rather than the former. And that’s a cool take, telling us that we should cede our fan space and label to the worst elements among us, effectively saying we need to get out so the trolls and harassers can take over. All this from someone who has admitted to not being much involved in the spaces I’m talking about.

And if we did as you suggest and relabeled ourselves “crits” or something else, do you really think the caricature of us that lumps us in with harassing trolls will stop? I highly doubt it, considering that the reason Black women who talk about fandom racism get called fascists and racists isn’t because of a fandom label. They get treated like that because they’re Black women who talk openly about racism. Falsely labeling them as inherently authoritarian abusers helps, of course, so thanks for that.

All people who are anti-choice stand opposed to bodily autonomy and think
that all pregnant people, almost all of whom are women, should not have
the right to control their own bodies. That’s an inherently
authoritarian and an inherently violent ideology,

Having anti-abortion beliefs correlates with authorian personalities, certainly, but that by itself doesn’t make someone an authoritarian personality, or rather by itself doesn’t determine their score on the right-wing authoritarian scale. You seem to be sliding over the definition of “authoritarian” to encompass all bigotry and evil, which is unhelpful and imprecise. Authoritarianism is a scale, with high scores having predictive value for certain behaviors such as intellectual/moral inconsistency and aggression on behalf of leaders. It’s not a test of good and evil people. (I just took it myself and the people bragging in the comments about their low scores were… something.)

And did you seriously say people who identify as Democrats in the U.S. are supporting the Democratic Party’s worst policies? I mean I guess that means people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic Socialist who became the Democratic nominee for her district, is participating in the Democratic system and therefore is complicit. Never mind that leftists like her who run in Democratic primaries are trying to change the party and take it over from the centrists and right-wingers. It almost looks like a label is more important to you than actual actions.

In specific:

Unsurprisingly, I have a few problems with your response, starting with how you’ve just accused me of being eager to tell you who you are, when in fact you’re the person that was in a hurry to attach a label to me while simultaneously misrepresenting  and misunderstanding what I’ve said about authoritarianism. And a quick side-note: I referred to you as an anti-shipper and you’ve just said that you’re an anti-shipper in saying “I mean sorry we don’t match the cartoon idea of us you have in your head” so it doesn’t sound like I’m being presumptive at describing you as an anti. You just identified as one.

One thing I see I didn’t clarify properly before is that there’s a difference between calling someone a harasser and an authoritarian, but you’ve interpreted me talking about groups exhibiting authoritarian behaviors as being indicative that all such people are harassers. If you’ll reference my previous post you’ll see that I was very clearly talking about how people who consider themselves antis but do not engage in harassment are still siding with a group of people who harass people, because it’s those antis that go inventing claims of pedophilia and harassing people off of social media that you have to worry about.

That said, let’s get to the points you’ve made. Yes, if you aren’t aware that anti-shipping is a hotbed of authoritarianism then I am telling you that you are wrong about fandom spaces you’ve been active in for years. This is me, telling you that you’re wrong.

Next, let’s talk about what the actual point of describing how authoritarian antis are, because this shit comes up in my communities all the time in the form of exclusionists and truscum. In short, your community has a lot of dirty laundry and right now it’s been strewn about the floor for everyone to see. Or, in simpler terms, there is so much harassment leveled by antis at shippers that there’s no way that you can claim that they’re edge cases, they represent the community.

That’s something that is usually really useful in determining whether or not a community is inherently authoritarian, because in communities that don’t embrace it, or even better are outright anti-authoritarian, when someone behaves poorly the rest of the community calls that person in and helps them learn that what they’re doing is wrong. In authoritarian communities, the behavior is either condoned or supported, with only very weak attempts, if any, to put a stop to it. And that goes whether we’re talking about harassment, abuse, or straight up violence.

So, you’ve got three options. Deal with the problem people in your own community and reclaim it, break away as I mentioned before, or get used to being lumped in with people who do terrible things. Take the word authoritarianism out of it if you want, it’s not really important for this part of the framework, but to be honest I left out the ‘deal with your problem’ part of it because I anticipated that you’d reject that because you’d probably reject the notion that your community has problems. And yes, if there was a concerted effort by healthy anti-shippers, people who identified themselves by the way they find some aspects of shipping distasteful but in no way needed to enforce that view on shippers, you’d get a new reputation and would be able to distance yourself from being associated with abusive and authoritarian antis.

But the fact of the matter is that you’re still supporting a fundamentally authoritarian community. And you’re even inventing excuses for it, ways to explain away the criticism without actually addressing it.

In general:

Okay, now for all of the cleanup:

Yes, having anti-abortion beliefs makes you an authoritarian. You cannot hold anti-abortion beliefs without choosing in some part to support an authoritarian stance, in which someone chooses to police other people to change their behavior in order to bring it into line with a group norm based on purity and adherence to a central authority, whether that’s the ideology or a leader. Just like you cannot be selectively progressive and call yourself progressive, you can’t be anti-authoritarian and yet not support bodily autonomy. If you choose to oppose bodily autonomy, even in spirit, you are choosing authoritarianism, because the idea that our bodies are our own is core to not just anti-authoritarian principles, but also most legal systems and a great deal of everything human beings have ever based our morality on.

No, there’s no one authoritarian inventory. It’s been studied extensively for decades and a lot of people have come up with different scales and inventories to describe it, so your experience taking one right-wing authoritarianism inventory does not describe the whole of what authoritarianism means. My preference, and I’m hoping this is the one that you found, is the Right-wing Authoritarianism Scale invented by Bob Altemeyer, a professor at the University of Manitoba who studied authoritarianism in great detail. If you haven’t read his book The Authoritarians, it’s a great start. I recommend immediately following it up with the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD. That should make the link between emotional immaturity and authoritarianism absolutely clear, something that Altemeyer only hints at in The Authoritarians, when he addresses the need for security in such groups.

I am impressed at the level of sophistry that takes ‘left-wing people often times don’t identify as Democrats because Democrats have done some terrible things’ and then suggest that means I’m saying that reformers and non-Democrats who attempt to join and reform the party are somehow responsible for regressive social policies they had no hand in building. Because, and let me quote you exactly here, “people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic Socialist,” is somehow responsible for things like the prison-industrial boom created by the Clinton Administration in the early 90s. I do hope you can see that this point is ridiculous because not only are Democratic Socialists not the same thing as Democrats, Democractic Socialists like Ocasio-Cortez, or the Justice Democrats that came out of supporting Bernie Sanders, who join with the Democratic Party to reform it are specifically choosing to fight the very same corruption I talked about.

No, I’m not defining authoritarianism as all bigotry and evil. The fact that you feel the need to simplify everything I’ve said to that point kinda suggests that you can’t engage with the material. I’ve repeatedly, in that 101 post I linked to you before and elsewhere on my blog, have addressed the complicated nature of authoritarianism, the way it does harm, it’s role as a cognitive flaw in our species that arises naturally, it’s relationship with emotional maturity, and the fundamental need for security that authoritarianism tries to fill…and the best you can come up with is to look at all that and say that I’m basically saying that authoritarianism = evil.

Hell, one of my core fucking points is that authoritarianism isn’t evil, it’s a trait that a lot of us embody that we can unlearn and that we have to fight to help others unlearn before they go past the point where they’re never going to give it up!

In closing:

I don’t like how simplistic your attitudes are on pretty much all of this. Whether we’re talking about the way you want to sidestep discussion of the problems that antis create, the way that you clearly don’t grasp authoritarianism or how it relates to political science, or just the way that you’re throwing cheap rhetorical tricks at me in an attempt to make your point, it does not sound like you’re arguing in good faith. At all.

I mean, you honestly just tried to turn something I said inside out and tell me that it somehow suggested that I cared more about labels than someone’s actions.

Well, your actions tell me that you can’t argue your way out of a wet paper bag or you’d be presenting substantive and valid points instead of misinterpretations and misdirects.

Post-script:

I noticed you’ve got an ‘anti-anti bs’ tag. Where’s your ‘anti bs’ tag?

If you stand opposed to people in the anti community that harass people, it seems like you might want to point that out when you see it and educate people on how to avoid it and prevent it. Or maybe take any stance on it aside from ignoring it.

Maybe you haven’t ignored it. I don’t know in detail, as I don’t follow your blog. But you want to tag stuff as being ‘anti-anti bs’ because presumably you think that people who oppose antis often say bullshit things. I’m pretty sure harassment and abuse is worse than bullshit, so why no tag there?

Me: *repeatedly states that there are antis who are harassers, trolls, and abusers, and explains that it won’t help to vacate the anti label in favor of them*

You: OMG YOU’RE DENYING THAT ANTIS HAVE PROBLEMS!!! DEAL WITH IT!!

At this point there doesn’t seem to be much relationship between what I said and what you’ve replied to. I do know there is a problem. I have acknowledged it. All I’ve told you is that there are authoritarian antis and non-authoritarian antis, much like there are authoritarian shippers and non-authoritarian shippers. It’s ironic that the ask at the top of this thread was literally about shippers harassing Black antis to drive them out of fandom, but I don’t go from there to say reylo is inherently authoritarian or whatever. It means there are reylos who behave badly, including in authoritarian ways.

Sure, maybe you’re not as hardcore as other people, but the ideology
you’re talking about is still ultimately authoritarian in nature.

Um? The only “ideology” I’ve described is this:

I think the ship is gross but that people are free to ship what they
like. I don’t want to censor people or stop them from creating content,
and I certainly don’t want to be anyone’s thought police. I have a hard
enough time managing my own thoughts.

I do talk about things like bigotry and misogyny in fandom,
commenting on and criticizing publicly available content generally
without even interacting with the creators.

This is authoritarian, despite not meeting any of the criteria you’ve described? If anything the only authoritarian parts seem to be the parts I’ve said I don’t subscribe to. This is another part where what you’ve said to me doesn’t seem to have any bearing on what I actually wrote. If you want to tell me I can’t argue/am not arguing in good faith, it’s a good idea to look like you actually know what my arguments are.

As for having an #anti reylo bs tag: There’s that inconvenient part where I and other antis have in fact discussed harassment and misogyny among antis (link, link). When disgusting shithole antis on Instagram stole and posted a picture of a shipper’s minor child, I knew about the situation because antis on Tumblr talked about it and condemned it.

You seem to think I should make more regular posts about anti reylo bs, but do you really not know how these harassers operate? They act generally as anonymous mobs who send awful anons to shippers. In order to regularly track and document that I’d have to follow/regularly read reylo blogs, which is a big no both for my own well-being and because that’s like, stalking? Anti antis can do that, which is an upside to their fandom presence. (It’s almost like anti anti isn’t inherently a bad thing? I mean what else do you call people who are against all antis? Oh right, you’d rather pretend you’re not anti anyone and prefer to make your inaccurate and wrong arguments under a veneer of neutrality and intellectual rigor that you don’t actually possess. Okay.)

I referred to you as an anti-shipper and you’ve just said that you’re an
anti-shipper in saying “I mean sorry we don’t match the cartoon idea of
us you have in your head” so it doesn’t sound like I’m being
presumptive at describing you as an anti. You just identified as one.

Where…. did I say you were presumptive… for calling me an anti…? I said I am one and that you were presumptive for making blanket condemnations of a fandom community whose activities as a whole and whose “ideology” you don’t actually know outside of its worst elements. I’m taking you to task for using the label incorrectly, not for applying it to me. Again, reading what I actually said would help.

Because it evidently bears repetition, I know there are authoritarian antis who subscribe to authoritarian beliefs. My problem is with your saying that there are authoritarian and non-authoritarian shippers, but that there are no antis who are not authoritarian or at least do not give tacit support to authoritarianism by being an anti. (Would this be a correct summation?) I’ve explained to you at length why that’s an inaccurate and harmful stance that helps silence fans of color who discuss fandom racism, so if you actually care about that you can scroll up to read it.

Yes, having anti-abortion beliefs makes you an authoritarian. You cannot
hold anti-abortion beliefs without choosing in some part to support an
authoritarian stance, in which someone chooses to police other people to
change their behavior in order to bring it into line with a group norm
based on purity and adherence to a central authority, whether that’s the
ideology or a leader.

Except there are multiple ways to have anti-abortion beliefs and not all of them involve adherence to purity and authority. I’ve debated enough of them on a sideblog to know (link if you want to see it). Many anti-abortion people sincerely–and wrongly–believe that abortion is murder and infanticide. Others of course, perhaps most, simply use that argument as a veneer for the authoritarian motivations you mentioned. That doesn’t mean the former are giving tacit support to the latter’s worst actions or have similar psychological profiles as the latter. It’s like saying soccer fans tacitly support hooligans by being soccer fans.

If you haven’t read his book The Authoritarians, it’s a great start.

The funny thing is I was literally describing Altemeyer’s research from that very book, and though I read it in full a long time ago (10+ years) I’ve checked it briefly to see if I remember the main points correctly. Unless my memory seriously fails me it didn’t have anything about labeling single beliefs as “inherently” authoritarian or blaming all conservatives for being complicit in authoritarianism.

lj-writes:

Saaaaaame. And they justify it by deliberately conflating all antis with a subset of awful harassers, ignoring the fact that antis who operate under their own names are by and large people who just don’t like a fucking fictional ship and engage in discourse about it. I have literally seen anti-antis like @korrasera (whose take on other subjects I respect) say all antis are by definition authoritarian harassers. Way to ignore the fact that, in reality, the word is also used to describe people who do no such thing. It’s like saying all anti-abortion people are killers or complicit in sheltering killers. I fucking hate the anti-abortion movement and am well aware that there is a strong authoritarian streak in the movement. A number of them are in fact bullies, harassers, and terrorists. That doesn’t mean anti-abortion thought is inherently authoritarian or violent, just goddamned stupid and sexist.

I do hope you can see that this point is ridiculous because not only are
Democratic Socialists not the same thing as Democrats, Democractic
Socialists like Ocasio-Cortez, or the Justice Democrats that came out of
supporting Bernie Sanders, who join with the Democratic Party to reform
it are specifically choosing to fight the very same corruption I talked
about.

This just in: Being a Democratic nominee for Congress, hell, campaigning to be the Democratic nominee for President, does not constitute identifying as a Democrat. If a would-be Democratic nominee for President is not a Democrat, who is? Joining the Democratic Party isn’t the same thing as identifying as a Democrat? Whut?

Also LOL at thinking being a Democratic Socialist is incompatible with the Democratic Party, whose members hold a broad range of beliefs from leftist to right of center. It’s almost like people can identify with a party affiliation while being critical of it and working to change it, so your original take was hilariously wrong and actions matter more than labels.

is queer being a slur really a controversial position? i know there’s a segment of our community that is trying to reclaim it but i think the other side is just as valid, some of us don’t want the slurs that were used against our community for decades to be used just because we haven’t agreed on a better umbrella term for the community.

sophrosynic:

lj-writes:

sophrosynic:

lj-writes:

@sophrosynic Obviously reclamation is not universal. Words in such common usage by the community such as “gay” and “dyke” are still slurs in many contexts and places, but we don’t see the “queer is a slur” crowd running around trying to shut down these terms.

Also, queer can’t be an umbrella term for all people who are not straight/not cis, and the claim that we’re trying to use it to describe the whole LGBT+ community is false. “Queer” is associated with radical activism and resistance to heteronormativity specifically as a reaction to mainstream LGBT+ politics, so it can’t be replaced with LGBT+ and vice versa.

If you’re not queer then you’re not queer. Simple as that.

Except the problem with the word queer has never really been what you’re saying here. No one is saying that people who use the term as an identity can’t do that, or that the word has to be scrubbed entirely out of existence even in historical & certain contemporary contexts. What people have overwhelmingly tried to critique are the politics of reclamation that people ascribe to when it comes to the word queer, specifically the idea that reclaiming a slur on a personal level somehow stops it from being a slur, period, when this is really not true.

It’s not comparable to words like ‘gay’ or ‘d*ke’, mainly because the word gay is not an analogous slur to begin with, and ‘d*ke’ is a slur that is overwhelmingly derogatory towards lesbians and no one else. Many of the lesbians who use the term don’t deny that it’s still a slur, regardless of their own personal usage of the word, which is exactly why non-lesbians are not allowed to use it to refer to lesbians, even if said lesbian happens to use the word as a personal descriptor. 

It’s great that you’re happy with identifying as queer, and that this is empowering to you. That’s your personal decision, and no one should dictate to you otherwise on the subject. But it’s not a “reclaimed” slur, and it hasn’t stopped being a slur because some folks have chosen to identify as such. It’s still a slur. Acknowledging that is important.

So not being called queer against your wishes isn’t enough for you. Here you are getting honest, telling me you want it to be relegated to historical and **limited** contemporary contexts. You want us to sharply cut back on its use, to the personal and whatever specific contents you decree.

Like, buddy, of course it’s a slur. If it wasn’t a slur it would never have had to be reclaimed. The reclamation is part of the radical act, turning derision and hatred and violence against us into strength. And no it’s not just personal, it’s a political movement with a lot of history–bold of you to try to erase that on your say-so lmao. Queer is purposefully not respectable like LGBT+ because it is meant to be a giant fuck you to heteronormativity. It is a different politics and replacing it with a word that is not a slur misses the entire point. You don’t like that it’s a slur? Then stay in your respectable LGBT+ boxes where you never have to hear a bad word with bad connotations. Queer isn’t for you and it’s not about you.

You want to know what some of the biggest Pride events in my country are? Queer Culture Festival and Queer Parade. Not Gay Pride, because we reject the idea that cis gay men and cis lesbians represent us all. Not LGBT+ because we don’t all fit into neat categories, and no one gets to play cute little tricks like “Drop the T” or “A is for Ally.” Queer, because we are an indivisible whole, and those who want to pull shit like “Lesbian, not queer” know to stay home. We’re not changing that just because you have an issue with how inclusive the term is and the fact that dirty little aceys can claim it just as easily as you.

We’re here. We’re queer. Cover your damned ears and stay in your fucking lane.

“Here you are getting honest, telling me you want it to be relegated to historical and **limited** contemporary contexts. You want us to sharply cut back on its use, to the personal and whatever specific contents you decree.“

That’s really not what I said? I was offering clarification and an understanding that there are always going to be contexts where the word queer is required and necessary and important, especially if you’re referring to, like you mentioned, “a political movement with a lot of history.” 

Also, I didn’t use the word “limited”–you chose to add that, so maybe don’t put words in my mouth? Neither did I say that I wanted to “sharply cut back on its use”–you chose to add that take yourself, so acting like I said or meant that in some way is to have read my response in really bad faith.

“The reclamation is part of the radical act, turning derision and hatred and violence against us into strength.“

Except this isn’t actually all that simple, which was the whole point of my response. It’s much more complicated than that, especially given the complex history and evolution of the movement to begin with, as well as the complex history and usage of the word ‘queer’. This is what I mean when I say that this is a perspective that works for you, but isn’t one that’s shared across the board, especially when you consider the full breadth of the history of queer activism as a whole. 

Acting like “reclamation” in general falls neatly into two groups where one group is happy with the word as an identifier, and the other group is not doesn’t even come anywhere close to the actual reality. This perspective wrt “reclamation” has always been super ignorant of the variety of ways in which the word ‘queer’ has been used and is still used today. Quoting from this post:

people have been debating the political efficacy and ethical concerns of using the word “queer” as a self-identifier, unifying term to describe populations, and/or theoretical framework for decades. these debates are not about two sides, where one side thinks it’s great and the other thinks it’s terrible and everybody in either camp agrees with everybody else in their camp.

The perspective also ignores the fact that perspectives on things like queer history/theory/activism are not monoliths, not even within the same organization, let alone the movement. The post I quoted from offers a number of those perspectives from a bunch of different sources, and even that doesn’t come close to just how many varied viewpoints there are, even from the people who were at the forefront of activism in the 90s.

So when I said that “reclamation is not universal.” I don’t just mean that there are some people who are unhappy with and don’t identify with the word ‘queer.’ I meant that there’s a spectrum of views, where the idea of “reclaiming the word” represents just one of them. This is what I meant when I said that it’s great that it works for you, and that this is your perspective, but this is nowhere near representative of the views of the queer movement as a whole. Even if that movement happens to have the word ‘queer’ in the title.

Again, to quote from the same post:

“queer” is complicated, it has multiple histories and meanings, and not accounting for that, especially when talking as if you’re an expert on the issue, is an enormous failure. lgbtq people have rich and complex histories and cultures. if you’re not willing to account for that, then get out of the business of trying to tell our stories.

“Queer is purposefully not respectable like LGBT+ because it is meant to be a giant fuck you to heteronormativity. It is a different politics and replacing it with a word that is not a slur misses the entire point. You don’t like that it’s a slur? Then stay in your respectable LGBT+ boxes where you never have to hear a bad word with bad connotations.“

Holy shit, this is an entire mess. I didn’t address this implication in your original response, because I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now that you’ve set this down so clearly, it’s worth responding to. 

In what world are LGBT+ “respectable” and “tidy” categories of identification? Do you not realize what a profoundly bad take it is to imply that identifying as “queer” makes you somehow more radical in your subsequent politics? Do you realize what you’re saying when you say that LGBT+ is somehow less of a giant fuck you to heteronormativity? And do you even understand where this criticism of the LGBT+ movement as “heteronormative” even emerged from to begin with?

The implication that people who might not want to identify as queer for a variety of reasons are somehow less radical in their identities and their rejection of heteronormativity isn’t just a bad, incorrect take. It’s a deeply homophobic one. If your intention is to use the word queer in a way that encompasses and unifies radical politics against heteronormativity, then I’m gonna tell you flat out that the way you’re using it here is not only wrong, but also immensely disrespectful to the very movement you think it describes, as well as the people who are a part of it. 

And like, people have criticized this exact take on multiple occasions because of its limitations and also because it’s one of the most fundamental pitfalls of “queer politics/theory/activism” as a whole. Not only because it’s been a framework that has historically not accounted for things like “race, gender, class” etc, but also because it does the exact thing that you claim it doesn’t do, which is sanitize everyone’s identities into a nebulous, neatly defined little category that doesn’t even account for the sheer diversity of peoples’ identities:

There is something odd, suspiciously odd, about the rapidity with which queer theory–whose claim to radical politics derived from its anti-assimilationist posture, from its shocking embrace of the abnormal and the marginal– has been embraced by, canonized by, and absorbed into our (largely heterosexual) institutions of knowledge, as lesbian and gay studies never were. Despite its implicit (and false) portrayal of lesbian and gay studies as liberal, assimilationist, and accommodating of the status quo, queer theory has proven to be much more congenial to established institutions of the liberal academy.

[…]

The next step was to despecify the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or transgressive content of queerness, thereby abstracting “queer” and turning it into a generic badge of subversiveness, a more trendy version of “liberal”: if it’s queer, it’s politically oppositional, so everyone who claims to be progressive has a vested interest in owning a share of it

(source)

“Queer, because we are an indivisible whole, and those who want to pull shit like “Lesbian, not queer” know to stay home.“

And speaking of homophobia, it really didn’t take you very long to break out the garden variety lesbophobia now did it? I mean, I would say I’m surprised, but I’m not. How are you honestly going to start off with the premise that “queer = inclusive” and then say something like “lesbians know to stay home if they don’t like it”? The fact that you typed this shit out with a straight face and zero awareness is emblematic of nearly everything that’s wrong with popular Tumblr discourse about the word queer, lol. 

It’s laughable that you state that “queer = indivisible whole,” except for those lesbians who should stay home if they don’t agree with you, because they’re probably too respectably heteronormative anyway. If your so-called “queer activism” and radical politics is one that seeks to exclude people, then it’s not radical, or inclusive, and it’s not activism. It’s just stale, rehashed bigotry. 

Also, have you actually spoken to local Korean activists at length, aside from Pride? Because if you sincerely believe that your dumpster fire of a take is somehow universal among the community, then you’re in for a really shocking eye-opener.

“We’re here. We’re queer. Cover your damned ears and stay in your fucking lane.“

That’s cute. Except the way you’re using the phrase “we’re here, we’re queer” is entirely divorced from its actual historical context. So maybe instead of throwing this around like a gotcha, you can spend some time reading up on the history of this chant and how it was born from HIV/AIDS activism, and how it isn’t actually a cutesy little catch-all snap back for people to fling around when they don’t have a leg to stand on. 

If “certain contemporary contexts” doesn’t sound limiting to you and you didn’t mean it that way, then fine. You already agreed that it’s okay for people to identify as queer, that it’s a political movement, and that it’s okay to use it. I agreed that it is a slur–a slur that, whatever its level of reclamation, we agree is all right for personal, political, and academic use, though its level of efficacy may be in dispute (more on that later). According to you, you didn’t even mean to tell people to limit its use when you went all “it’s a sluuuuur.” (Jeesh, we know!)

So what was even the point? What’s the point of contention here? You just completely change the subject from queer being a slur to critiques of the queer movement and the fact that my opinion isn’t universal. Why? Because you need to keep this “conversation” going somehow? Because you need to waste more of my time by shifting the conversation every time we reach an agreement?

I never claimed my opinion is universal or that I speak for the whole movement, because who can? Do you speak for the whole LGBT+ movement? The best “rebuttal” you can give is that it’s not that universal or simple, which is… okay? What movement is simple and homogenous? What theory is free from problems? If you were going to come at me about the efficacy of queer as a label and a movement then you could have done that from the start. You didn’t need to act like its being a slur was the end of the argument then move on to substantive critique when we reach an agreement on that. These critiques are valid and important but they really weren’t the point.

Also, you’re being deliberately obtuse if you think my stating the aspirations and background of (some in the) queer movement is an attempt to pin it down to one thing. I was explaining why a slur can still be useful and be worth reclamation and make a political statement–and you agreed. Your points of contention seems to be that it’s not that effective and there isn’t broad agreement, but again, that’s a different conversation that I’m not sure why you’re even bringing into a post about whether it’s okay to continue to use queer. It looks like we’re in agreement: It is! That was the whole point of the OP! To me the fact that you’re dragging things on by adding a ton of irrelevant stuff makes it look suspiciously like you’re still trying to say it shouldn’t be used, while also insisting that’s not what you mean. Maybe talk out of just one side of your mouth?

“The implication that people who might not want to identify as queer
for a variety of reasons are somehow less radical in their identities
and their rejection of heteronormativity isn’t just a bad, incorrect
take. It’s a deeply homophobic one. If your intention is to use the word
queer in a way that encompasses and unifies radical politics against
heteronormativity, then I’m gonna tell you flat out that the way you’re
using it here is not only wrong, but also immensely disrespectful to the
very movement you think it describes, as well as the people who are a
part of it.“

Holy strawmannig, Batman! Like, maybe read what I actually said? I was responding to people like you who object to its use for being a slur. Which you say you’re not. So what’s the argument here, again? I have already said on this very thread that you have reblogged that it’s not an umbrella term and cannot replace LGBT+, and in fact reacts against mainstream LGBT+ politics (M A I N S T R E A M which is by definition not radical, what even are words). That is why, I argued, they are not interchangeable and queer should continue to be in use. Way to accuse me of saying the exact opposite of what I said.

Thanks for the sources, like I said these are really important and good critiques but, again, doesn’t really pertain to this discussion, which is about the usage of “queer.”

“it really didn’t take you very long to break out the garden variety lesbophobia now did it?”

Zomggggg are you really ignorant of what “lesbian, not queer” was about or are you purposefully obscuring it? It’s the same slogan used by the “Get the L Out” people, a.k.a. TERFs, which is what they turned to after “Drop the T” failed. Here it is from the “Get the L Out” campaign’s own website (link):

lj-writes:

If you don’t identify as queer, have trauma with it or have other objections to it, then we’re not including you when we say “queer community.” Full stop. Also nearly every word LGBTQ+ people have been using for themselves have been slurs at some point, or still are used as such. If you think an alternative would be better, present one and fight for it to be used. Do what you need to do to protect your mental health, filter words, block people, but don’t tell people who need an inclusive term that they can’t have their own identity because you personally object to a word that has been so thoroughly reclaimed that there are “queer studies” and “queer theory.”

We believe that lesbian rights are under attack by the trans movement and we encourage lesbians everywhere to leave the LGBT and form their own independent movement …

“Lesbian not queer” is literally AT THE TOP OF THEIR WEBSITE. Did you really think these peeps are just stopping at not identifying as queer, that they are critiquing the problems of the queer movement in good faith? Did you really think they’re not flaming transphobes?

Jesus H. Christ, this is how aphobia and exclusionism become gateway drugs to TERF thinking and help mainstream their rhetoric. Get your head out of your ass and stop conflating pushback to transphobia with lesbophobia. That is literal TERF talk. You don’t seem like a transphobe yourself but what you’re doing here is called being a useful idiot.

Yikes. Finn has almost half the amount of screen time as Rey and they’re supposed to be co-protags? Yiiikkes. I’m not sure how TLJ stans could look at that and say Finn was not relegated to bit player status.

themandalorianwolf:

reys–speeder:

themandalorianwolf:

thelastjedicritical:

thelastjedicritical:

themandalorianwolf:

thelastjedicritical:

themandalorianwolf:

thelastjedicritical:

themandalorianwolf:

lj-writes:

Depending on the count Finn had equal screen time as Rey or more in TFA, so the reduction was entirely in TLJ. And a sizeable number of TLJ stans don’t think Finn was a protagonist in the first place–I’ve heard him compared to Qui-Gon Jinn or Mace Windu–so to them that’s just the way things should be.

The mentor who died in one movie or the only black Jedi they know.

Finn’s screentime was reduced by about 20 minutes compared to TFA…

In TFA Finn and Rey were miles above everyone else in screentime, and storywise clearly were the co-protagonists, with Finn actually actively starting the entire story …

TLJ retconed that. For that alone the movie is awful. (Not to mention there was more Finn material filmed, important material in fact that RJ cut for unknown reasons *cough*)

The entire Kylo show btw doesn’t result from Kylo having gained significant screentime.. his screentime stayed pretty much the same compared to TFA but Finn in particular and also Rey lost a lot of theirs. This explains the shift of the focus, together with the fact they Rey’s storyline is mostly about poor Ben and not herself, and Finn’s is literally filler material.

Finn has approximately 7 deleted scenes, 8 if you count whatever scene this flight suit came from. What I find weird though is how Finn’s cut scenes aren’t short things the film can do without like Kylo staring out a window, they’re actual character driven scenes.

It also strikes me as odd Finn is the only character to have an entire alternant scene! Which makes me think that this version of Finn’s confrontation with Finn is from an entirely different character arc.

tbh I’ve had a particular horror vision in my head for a while… and this vision says that John expected a totally different film in terms of Finn’s arc. That even more things that we don’t know about were filmed and then scrapped as soon as Johnson was in the cutting room … Like RJ couldn’t get away with minimizing Finn’s role to this degree while filming but then once this was over, he could wield the scissors and rearrange everything until it fit more to his original idea, ie. Finn as the comic relief who doesn’t do that much. And then John saw the movie and realised what was done to his arc and couldn’t do anything about it.

Maybe. Could be possible. No one just has that many deleted scenes. Also put in mind that Finn in his flight suit-

Has a different haircut than the rest of the movie and this footage was taken during principal photography. Now I’m not sure if everyone knows this, but hair doesn’t grow overnight, especially hairstyles like that. Us african folks ain’t a chia pet. John woudnt just show up to set with a different cut. He would have to of cleared this look. That means John potentially has an entirely different group of scenes that were changed in re-shoots.

Yes! It makes no sense for him to turn up to filming with a completely different haircut! Look at how early he started growing out his hair for IX even before we knew that’s what it was for! Training for TLJ started shortly after the end of the TFA promotion, so why on earth should he get a haircut during this period if it wasn’t for the movie?

Also wasn’t Rose’s background story initial in the movie and they then reshot the scene and left it out?

Also this is John during the promotion of the Force Awakens. Different haircut, particularly visible bc it’s longer and the line in his hair is on the other side, unless the footage from TLJ shooting is mirrored for some reason but I don’t know why that should be the case.

Usually when people get that type of haircut, the line is on both sides for balance.

I really don’t know why anything happened. I just know that there had to of been some changes, even JJ admits that he changed parts of the TFA script because he didn’t like them or the implications.

Timeline-wise, one of the first things to get leaked about tlj was the filming of John and Kelly “getting flirty” on what we now know to be a Falthier and that photo was released in March of 2016 iirc. It’s my opinion that the casino plot on Canto Bight was Rians top priority for Finn.

My tin foil hat is on, but I don’t think rian ever had many alternative ideas for Finn. I don’t know who is responsible for coming up with Finns arc on the supremacy, or for the plot involving Finn fighting alongside Paige, but it is unlikely to have come from Rian himself. I don’t even think Rian was present while shooting the Finn vs Phasma duel—I have to double check this, but I believe the secondary director was there filming that. And we have bts footage of Rian observing daisy and Adam training, but nothing of John.

Yeah I’ve looked in BTS and there’s not jack of Johnson, and I mean even the throne room scene is more about Kylo then Rey.

Johnson just wants to be Kylo.

Considering nothing

If what @reys–speeder says is true, and @themandalorianwolf provides at least partial confirmation, it may explain something I noticed about the TLJ novelization (link): The Finn-Phasma duel is very different in a number of small details from the version in the novelization. At the time I thought this might simply be the nature of action scenes, but then I read the throne room scene and no jarring discrepancies jumped out at me, at least none that I could spot from memory alone. If Johnson didn’t film and possibly didn’t even write the Finn duel that may explain the extra “drift” from the script.

Also, the second unit director generally doesn’t film scenes with the primary cast but rather films background characters and large-scale battles. The duel was a pivotal scene for Finn that featured him prominently. If it’s true that Johnson left the scene to the second unit he was treating Finn as effectively a background character and not a part of the main cast.

It’s one thing that so many people like The Last Jedi, but it’s another thing that so many people have no problems with it. There are people who either don’t know or don’t care about bad writing, character assassination, racism, sexism, sub-par action sequences, terrible humor, or any of the other many problems of The Last Jedi; it’s baffling. And what’s even more baffling is that this comes from casual moviegoers, hardcore Star Wars fans, and even social justice warriors alike.

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

@loopy777 Well, obviously. Finn going from “This fleet is doomed” to outright kamikaze for the remnants of that fleet because the person who tased him and mocked him gave him a lecture about the evils of the universe and has a sad past is the height of writing. His character regressing from valuing his own individuality and feelings, something that was systematically denied to him as a child soldier, to seeing himself as expendable for yet another cause is great character development. And his “having” to be hurt yet again to be saved from himself and being lectured to about how hateful he is for wanting to sacrifice himself for other people is a great thematic moment.

And that’s just one character.

If I squint hard the egregious and incoherent “that’s how we win” moment was about Rose realizing she was wrong and telling Finn he shouldn’t throw his life away for a cause like her sister did, that yes, he should live, he should have a chance to see Rey again. But there was a relentlessly glorified suicide run like 5 minutes earlier, and that was evidently about serving the light and not being a hero? And Paige wasn’t trying to destroy what she hated, she was thinking about Rose in her last moments? Finn wasn’t acting out of hate either, he was trying to buy time for the remainder of the Resistance. Why is it love when Holdo does it and hate when Finn does it?

I think I would have liked the scene better without that stupid line, because then at least it could have been about Rose’s trauma and not about her being a thematic vessel or whatever the hell that scene was trying to achieve.

@loopy777​ DJ as catalyst for Finn development is even worse, though? At least
Rose became a friend of sorts. Finn went from fleeing to kamikaze
because a random dude he met in a jail cell spouted nonsense moral
equivalency and then–shock!–betrayed them. That looks awfully flimsy to me.

Did
you seriously put Finn’s “individuality” in quotes? I guess I
hallucinated the parts in TFA where he escaped the regime that kidnapped
and enslaved him out of his own “individual” conscience, where he made
friends and built relationships as an “individual,” and wanted to flee
to the Outer Rim out of his terror and trauma as an “individual.” Or the
part in TLJ where he wanted him and Rey, two “individuals,” to be
spared the destruction. There’s even a part in the TLJ novelization
where he all but begs Rose to understand that he was never allowed to
think and act for himself as an “individual” in the First Order (and
Rose dismisses him because yay friendship)!

I’m sorry, buying
time in a desperate situation has always been a valid military plan and,
for that matter, Holdo’s and Paige’s sacrifices also consisted of
buying time with their lives. There WAS a plan on Finn’s part for the
Outer Rim to rally and come to the Resistance’s aid. Finn had so much faith in the
people of the galaxy rising up against the First Order that he was
willing to literally stake his life on it, and then to have his
attempted sacrifice cheapened by being called an act of hate and not
love left a serious bad taste in my mouth.

Also, even if we say he
was acting without a plan, that is at best thoughtless or reckless, not
hateful. Rose’s speech, though framed and received as a thematic
moment, was unearned and made no sense even by your metric.

Yes, Finn was an individual, but ‘individuality’ was a never a theme or a subplot anywhere; it’s not important to the story, and 7 certainly doesn’t posit it as the reason he left the FO. 8 was clear that no more help was coming to Crait, & everyone knew it by then. And I don’t think “thoughtless and reckless” inspires suicide without some deeper emotion driving it- you’re taking away Finn’s agency, and kind of infantilizing him.

@loopy777 “My first battle, I made a choice. I wasn’t going to kill for them.”

I mean… I can’t believe I actually have to explain what an astounding assertion of individuality that was for someone who was brainwashed to be a cog in the FO machine. He listened to his own trauma, his own morality, in defiance of everything he had been taught his entire life, and I thought that made his individuality pretty important to his story and TFA as a whole. I’m curious, what do you think Finn’s arc in TFA was really about?

Oh hey, I didn’t realize “believing in the people of the galaxy” and “fuck it, I’m gonna save my friends anyway even if no one’s coming” weren’t valid motivations, or that attempting to kill yourself to destroy a weapon that would have been used to kill your friends has to come from a place of hate now. By that metric weren’t Holdo and Paige a lot more hateful, since they killed a metric ton of people in their own suicide runs? Or is it okay as long as they had a good plan–do carefully planned suicide attacks never come from a place of hate? As far as I can tell good planning and hatred are like… two totally unrelated indices. One doesn’t say anything about the other.

And why is it infantilizing to read a motivation in Finn that is not hatred? Believing that people will rise up is infantilizing now? Wanting to save your friends is infantilizing? I mean your handwavy “some deeper emotion” seems to be your own assumption and not anything supported by the story, other than the presupposition that Rose was correct. Why does that deeper emotion necessarily have to be hatred–couldn’t it be love, or maybe depression from everything he had suffered?

@loopy777 But Finn’s story being about asserting individuality explains both of those developments? He tried to flee because he listened to his own trauma and fear about the FO rather than be drawn into another cause to fight for. He came back for Rey not because he was obligated by a higher cause because she was someone he wanted to be safe. It’s clear that he hadn’t given himself to the Resistance at this point, but rather had his own goal he wanted to achieve by helping their mission.

It’s also possible that TLJ badly mangled his arc and his newly discovered individuality is ridiculed and called a bad thing, and then his dedication is also called bad so all he can do now is follow the person who was violent against him and insulted him. Maybe Rose Tico is just a horribly written character. You know, just a possibility.

Again, you can’t deny that earning time for one’s allies is a valid tactic that has been used throughout history, in general to show how noble the person is (e.g. Holdo). Even if no one came, Finn’s allies could still find a way out while their cover was intact. Since no one including Rose was expecting Luke to come, as far as anyone knew at that point Finn’s sacrifice actually was necessary for the Resistance remnants’ survival.

It’s interesting that it’s suddenly a “spiteful act of defiance” and “hate” because Finn does it while it’s “heroic” when Holdo does it. It’s also interesting that, while they both miscalculated, Holdo is judged by circumstances she could have known at the time while Finn is judged by circumstances he could not have. Omniscience is expected for Finn, but not for Holdo. And what’s more, not being omniscient makes Finn spiteful and hateful instead of, like, just not all-knowing.

You seem to have forgotten or misunderstood the role “thoughtles or reckless” played in my argument. That was not my first position, which was that he was making a noble sacrifice and there was no evidence he was acting out of hate, but rather a fallback position that even if we accept for the sake of argument (you know what that is, right?) that Finn’s suicide run was poorly planned, a position I don’t actually agree with, that at best makes him a bad planner and not automatically hateful. I was pointing out that even if you’re right about the sacrifice being needless, it doesn’t support your (or Rose’s) conclusion that he was being hateful.

But Finn wasn’t trying to destroy. He was trying to defend, much as Poe was. That’s another reason Rose’s line was dumb, by the way, because there is no clear line between destroying and defending when you’re being attacked by an enemy that’s trying to annihilate you. There’s a famous case of someone trying to apply pacifism toward fascists in our own world, but Neville Chamberlain doesn’t get the best rap unfortunately.

Eh, you can try to insert “individuality” into Finn’s background psychology, but you’re not really explaining where it was in The Story. If we were meant to read “individuality” in there as something important, it would have been reflected beyond Finn. I could easily read “cowardice” into the same moments and choices, and nothing in the movie would contradict me, but it’s equally unsupported by the wider framework.(1/3)

@loopy777​ Going back to your earlier point Finn is actually not adverse to violence though, did you miss the part where he jumped out at and killed Troopers in battle on Takodana and actually whooped with joy in battle? Cowardice is even more contradicted by his actions where he hatches an incredibly dangerous plan to escape the FO and shows incredible boldness in battle, for instance literally running into someone aiming a blaster at him. There’s a lot of trauma and fear about the FO, understandably, but it doesn’t translate into anything that can be reasonably or fairly termed cowardice. And for that matter, aversion to violence isn’t a thing anywhere in TFA–not a theme, not a subplot, not reflected in the story anywhere. Violence has never been inherently bad in SW, or even in TLJ itself.

I don’t get what you’re saying about Holdo vs Finn. 8 is clear that when they’re fleeing to Crait, they think allies might still come, but by Finn’s attack they know they’re trapped in a box and alone. Finn is in denial, and all he’s doing is hurting himself by giving into the dark side. And that’s where you argument about pacifism falls apart, because Star Wars has feeling-fueled magic. You may not like it, but it’s the point of this whole series. (2/3)

You are confused about the sequence of events. The confirmation that no one is coming explicitly arrives AFTER Finn’s attempted self-sacrifice and Rose crashing into him. It even comes after the “not fighting what we hate” line. The ski speeder mission was launched in the first place because Poe and others agreed with Finn’s argument that they buy time for allies to arrive. The only new information Finn had between the start of the mission and the end of it was that losses were too heavy and he was, most likely, going to die unless he gave up on taking out the cannon. You can’t argue this was “dark side” without arguing that suicide runs are inherently dark side, in which case Holdo is as much “dark side” as Finn.

Also why are you positing that Finn was acting out of hatred in an argument about whether finn was acting out of hatred? That’s circular reasoning. Unless you’re arguing that destroying a weapon to save innocent people/your friends is an inherently hateful act, in which case, well, he was already dark side in TFA and so were Luke and Lando from the original trilogy. Destroying an entire fleet in a suicide run isn’t particularly pacifistic, either.

‘As for “thoughtless and reckless,” I focused on that because we were already disagreeing hardcore about his sacrifice having any purpose, which I still say the movie is very clear on. You’re free to disagree on the clarity of the moment, of course, but I don’t think you can saying something is “unearned” when you’re reading against the text. (3/3)’

Like I said, you’re arguing from a false premise–that Finn knew no one was coming and they were alone, but he didn’t. If I’m wrong about that sequence of events please let me know.

The “thoughtless and reckless” bit is a neat trick on your part, if you’re even aware of what you’re doing. Let’s look at the flow of the argument so far: You said Finn’s act was hateful because he didn’t have a plan. I pointed out that even if he didn’t, though the movie supports my point that he did, not having a plan and being hateful are two separate categories. I labeled your argument correctly, that what you’re arguing is not that he was hateful but that he was thoughtless/reckless at best. Then you turned that against me, imputing your argument to me to accuse me of infantilizing him. That’s not an honest way to argue, Loopy.

Reading against the text is an impressive accusation coming from someone who’s going off an incorrect chronology of events, imputing knowledge to Finn that he couldn’t have had, and making a logical leap from there to calling him hateful, spiteful, giving into the Dark Side etc. If that’s the kind of distortion it takes to make Rose’s line fit, then frankly it doesn’t look very defensible.

I can’t continue the debate due to some family stuff taking my time,

Good luck, I hope everything is okay!

but
I wanted to say I’m not trying to be disingenuous, I think we’re both
getting confused about each other’s arguments. I was trying to argue
that Finn having no plan and fighting anyway *is* hateful, and also
trying to link back your other “thoughtless and reckless” option to the
same thing.

No, you weren’t. You said I was
infantilizing him and taking away his agency, implying that you weren’t
by interpreting his action as hatred rather than thoughtless/reckless.
Also you never explained how not having a plan is equivalent to being
hateful. Repeating it doesn’t make it so.

lj-writes:

Different people are sensitive to different things, and have different reactions as a result. I’ve noticed that even a number of people who are very critical of TLJ don’t see the treatment of Finn as a problem, for instance, and a lot of white women see TLJ as an unqualified victory for female representation. I think a lot of people also react positively to what TLJ was trying to do, especially the last half hour or so, without necessarily dwelling on the failures of execution or how unearned some of its most heartfelt moments were.

And a tech speaking “no one is coming” != confirmation, it’s voicing what was clear to everyone including Finn.

No
it wasn’t omg what the hell are you going on about. They hadn’t even
established communication when the ski speeder mission was launched, and
they went to take out that cannon specifically so they would have enough
time to communicate and for allies to come to them. They were in the
same place information-wise and goal-wise as Holdo was when she did her own suicide
run, unless you’re imputing some kind of telepathetic power to Finn and
the others to magically know without even sending out a call.

I’m
glad we’re no longer continuing this debate because it’s not productive
anymore. If you misremember these pivotal scenes so inaccurately then I
really have to question what it is you like about TLJ–the actual
movie, or the very different version that’s in your head?