#but she could have had a serviceable sw protagonist arc even if a bit uneven

[reachexceedinggrasp]

I don’t think you need to be “diplomatic”, there’s a ton of people who are mad over TROS’ writing decisions esp about Rey, you should feel free to express your opinions in your own fandom space. As long as it’s tagged people can avoid it if they dislike it

Oh, I’m not diplomatic over tros at all because it is pure unmitigated trash and I refuse to pretend otherwise, I just mean it’s always been verboten to criticise Rey’s arc because that makes you sexist and I don’t want to deal with the even more of the bullshit ‘you’re just a horny fangirl!!!! you don’t care about anything except your baddangerous attraction to the bad man!!!’ legion in my inbox. So I feel like I have to be careful and mitigate everything to head that off at the pass. To the point I’ve seldom discussed the problems I had with her arc before tros and only rarely indicated how off base I think a lot of the fandom is in the ways they defend it. Apart from talking about fanfic lol.

Strangely, I actually care about the flaws in Rey’s arc because I’m a girl and would like to see female characters who are allowed to be full human beings and to have arcs as complex and compelling as male characters do. But if you reject this corporate American dude-with-tits permavirgin-with-no-desires father-figure-authority-worshipping Strong Female Character crap, you must be some neckbeard 45 year old dude who hates wimmins. Or you’re a self-insert shipper who can’t admit it and you secretly hate Rey. That comes from other women 99% of the time and it fucking gets me because it’s so fucking misogynist.

Like, I almost never brought up my many problems with TFA some of which TLJ doesn’t redeem, or the fact that I don’t think the prequels are good films, I have beefs with George Lucas and don’t think he’s an infallible genius, etc. I just didn’t want to get into stupid arguments with people I otherwise agreed with. This fandom is so terrible that it was worth focussing on the positive when it came to subjective things that aren’t massive dealbreakers. There’s loads of things I am always willing to throw down over, but I don’t want to fight about the prequels’ status as cinema if we can agree about the thematic sweep and overall aim/narrative/moral of SW. And shit like... I don’t want to fight about the term ‘Mary Sue’ even though I think it’s useful and apt and there's no reason not to use it correctly despite loads of people throwing it around wantonly. TROS Rey is a textbook Mary Sue but I’ve mostly avoided saying that because so many people in fandom want to ~reclaim~ the term and think it’s inherently sexist to suggest it’s a bad thing.

A Mary Sue (or Gary Stu) is a kind of bad writing, it doesn’t apply to characters being super mega ultra special or powerful if they’re still well-written characters. Luke is not a Stu and I’m so fucking sick and tired of seeing him used as an example of how the concept is sexist because sex is the only thing preventing people from reacting to him the same way they did to Rey. It’s just not fucking true. Luke is a much, much better character than Rey and if you compare his journey in ANH to hers in TFA, it’s real fucking easy to see why one feels earned and organic and one needed to be rescued by a better writer in order to avoid full-on Wesley Crusher-hood.

And then tros just confirms that apparently everyone except Rian wanted to writer her as a flawless avatar for the entire original universe, story, and characters to be warped around. For everyone to just love ever so much for no reason whatsoever, to never change or struggle or undergo any challenge because she’s already Born Worthy. And the company itself leans all the way into this (Terrio even going so far as to say that Han thought of her as his heir as well, like FUCKING HELL; nor is he the only one, it’s all the usual suspects with blue checkmarks) and somehow doesn’t realise the absolute garbage-tier shitty self-insert fanfic they’re writing??