#if people hate me for saying it well i like being anti racist lol

[chalkeater]

guys can you please stop drawing the UTDR Humans as YELLOW. (Kris and frisk)

it normalizes it for the fandom and people WILL copy you. IVE SEEN PEOPLE COPY PEOPLE. Especially seeing Frisk look like a walking asian stereotype is CRAZY . on my dash??

[showtoonzfan]

Legit question about Striker that’s made me confused. I’m not knowledgeable about this stuff so forgive my ignorance. What do you think of Striker’s view on higher/lower class demon couples and it’s portrayal? This episode paints him out to be a supremacist while before that he was just anti-rich, but at the same time, since what species you are determines what your status and position is, can he be anti-rich without being racist of some kind? How does his kidnapping and disgust for Blitz and Fizz plays into this? Is it just a retcon to make him look bad and wrong?

Just wanted to see what your thoughts about him were since you mention his portrayal in the more recent episode, something I haven’t seen that many people mention

Striker isn’t racist at all though, that’s the thing. He certainly is “anti rich” tho. Basically season 2 has ruined him from a serious threatening villain to a goofy comic relief goon, and not only that but they try to paint him as the one in the wrong when….he’s not. Striker is an imp, one of the lower class, and he hates the spoiled rich as well as the high rankings, the rulers of hell (how many there are lol). Viv has been liking tweets of him being a “bigot” as well as fans tearing into him, pre Western Energy. However, she’s the one who created these class systems, she’s the one who purposely used the imps as a slavery/labor allegory. She made these decisions and yet wants you to NOT side with the character that wants to go up against the demons who put them in this ranking to begin with? As well as Stolas, a rich and powerful demon, someone who we’ve seen as being classist towards imps? And yet had the nerve to call Striker a white supremacist??? It’s ridiculous.

The weird thing is that she still writes lines for Striker that indicate he still hates the upper class for what they’ve done to Imps, I actually like how he looks down at Fizz and Blitz for associating with royal demons, even Blitz says “they don’t care about PEOPLE LIKE US”— and yet the characters mock Striker for some reason despite him and Blitz literally being on the same page. The writing flip flops, but bottom line is the show isn’t on Strikers side. Western Energy had indicated that he even lost someone he cared about, or lost everything. It’s something that’s genuinely interesting! But sadly the show is more interested in making you side with the rich and powerful demons so-

[bitchy-peachy]

Watch me get reported again for this comment but I'm laughing through clenched teeth right now cos I frankly want to tear my own eyeballs off.

Said under a clip of Arab Americans that voted for Trump celebrating his win thinking he's gonna help Gaza when he's actually talking with Netanyahu about building his businesses over a destroyed Gaza.

You killed your own people, you stupid fucks. This man lied a bunch of times his first term and y'all thought kissing his ass was gonna help y'all?

He's so pro Israel he might as well crawl under Netanyahu like a submissive wife with his butt up.

You screwed your own people and while I may laugh, I'm laughing angrily and if I saw one of you dumb fucks irl I'd slap you so hard you'd shit yourselves.

I want you fucks deported and I want Gazans that have suffered enough to be evacuated to safety while YOU morons take their place in the fall for your stupid ass votes.

In a just world, you'd be taking ALL their suffering but no, you signed their death sentence and I hope it eats at your asses and every time I see your videos or posts of you talking STUPID, I'm gonna be so spiteful and treat you like the dumbfucks you are.

I ain't even Palestinian or Muslim or whatever and I feel so personally pissed off for them for having pieces of shit like you that screwed them over.

You didn't abstain from voting or voted 3rd party. YOU ACTIVELY ENCOURAGED DIRECT PRO TRUMP VOTES COS HE WROTE YOU A DUMB LETTER ONCE SAYING HE'D STOP EVERYTHING.

Well enjoy a complete wipe out. Oh "It couldn't get worse 🙄."

Well, bitch, you made it worse.

These poor people oh my god I'm flaming pissed. Just got on tiktok and saw that stupid shit and am using dark humor cos I was seriously considering telling these dumbfucking backstabbers to kill themselves for being MORONS.

I've had 2 accounts yeeted on tiktok just for using emoji convos and I ain't about to loose another one again cos I have a lot of friends there, but I will be mean as shit towards you Arabs for Trump fucks. Idgaf who I offend, plus you bitches were extremely fucking racist towards Kamala Harris, saying she was a DEI hire and that we were only voting for her cos she was a Black/Asian American woman.

Y'all also said she had no policies when she had a bunch, you morons were just too busy sucking Trump's dick and selling your people out.

Fuck you. You're worse than the tankies now cos far as I know I haven't seen a single one doing this shit. If anything they cared more for them despite them voting like ass themselves but I didn't see a single one partying over Trump winning like you stupid shits are.

And I'm saying this as someone that hates tankies for usually talking over poc and being anti Semitic cos they think all Jews are evil (when I've met more Jews that want Palestinians saved than destroyed at least here in the US. Not everyone in every country is a flaming fucking asshole)

Unbelievable... Still seething at this.

I ain't a religious person. In fact I'm into witchcraft, lol. But I'm really feeling for these poor people rn and want them blessed and protected.

I hope everyone that voted for Trump gets haunted by their faces every time they close their eyes.

[gerardpilled]

literally stop being an mcr fan then! why can you forgive gerard but not lynz? everyone will pretend they support the idea of allowing someone to learn and grow and change but then they'll see a woman and go oh no not her she's irredeemable like? the double standards are ridiculous

It’s so crazy… I’ve seen countless people say that she needs to explicitly apologize for her actions and yeah I guess that would be nice. I just think it's a more complicated and nuanced situation than it might seem. Her apologizing for being in msi and participating in complicit racism would implement a lot of people and make them guilty by association. It would imply everyone including the sound guys who worked shows would then be connected to "having worked for a racist band" and could seriously complicate relationships - both working and not.

Also, I sometimes really don't understand why this is a discussion worthy of so much time other than reflecting on the atmosphere that allowed such a band to rise within the scene? (I think there's a real meaningful conversation to be had about the excusing of racism from a lot of people within the alt music scene even today.)The band hasn’t toured since 2014? Acts like Marilyn Manson - who among all his other crimes also used racial slurs as shock value - is actively touring. And for the double standards - Frank fucking toured with msi in 2013 like why not cancel him for that LOL!!! Or god forbid, Gerard for working with Jimmy Urine in 2018.

Even forgiving Gerard for saying he’s Japanese while dogpiling Lindsey for saying she’s partially Indian when she doesn’t even know her birth dad is wild to me. The tweets are very similar to each other - and neither of them have apologized? I've seen people start excusing Gerard's tweet, extrapolating info like "he must have taken a DNA test" well, there's no proof of that, and why not extend that benefit of the doubt to Lindsey? Like yes, she shouldn’t have said it but Gerard shouldn’t have either! I also just can't help but think there are more important issues oh my god!!! I've seen people - both Indian and East Asian alike - express discomfort with both Lindsey's and Gerard's actions, and I completely understand that! I just only ever see Lindsey's held to such irredeemable levels, and that's usually by white people who I personally feel are overstepping their role. I just can't help but think some white people do not have meaningful, real life, conversations with the demographics they are supposedly advocating for.

I am definitely not the person to absolve her of her sins or excuse anything she’s done and people she’s hurt, but do people (and I mean primarily other white people who - from my experience - are mainly the ones posting hate about her) realize she has probably been the most clear and explicit about her anti-racist learning curve? Out of anyone even remotely connected to mcr, she has posted and done more direct funding and outreach for Black organizations than anyone. Yes, that’s Twitter activism and doesn’t exactly amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but if people who hate her judge her off of her internet footprint, why not use the same to realize maybe she has learned?

I recently tried to see if she had acknowledged any of her faults publicly- and to my shock - she has!

I’m not saying this is the best response to every thing but I also never saw this mentioned ever before.

I truly think some of the worst stuff she’s done is publicly support Jimmy Urine after the allegations came out but again everyone who just spreads that as a fact completely misses the context of her ex friend spreading unhinged rumors about her for like a year before those allegations came out. Jessicka Adams accused Gerard of sexual misconduct and started claiming that Lindsey was in cahoots with a man who accused Jessicka of sleeping with him when he was underage. Truly unhinged stuff.

If I was Lindsey and my ex-friend was doing that, purposefully targeting people close to me, I also might immediately assume she was behind those against the lead singer of my old band! She should NOT have voiced her suspicions publicly, and I do think that was wrong, but it’s not like she doubled down on it since? I know a lot of people would like to think they would act differently if they were in her shoes, but really think about it! If allegations that arose online came out against a man you called a friend - who you let watch your daughter - would you immediately publicly turn against him? She should have apologized when it became clear the allegations were not unfounded, but even when the news first broke she was liking tweets which better explained her mindset. Also last I heard, they are no longer friends at all.

Again with the double standards though. I've seen no noise around Mikey’s wife publicly defending wife abuser Johnny Depp (a person she does not even know) when he won his trial? Or the fact that Gerard was also very good friend with Jimmy and most likely shares a similar opinion as his wife?

I've also seen people say things like "well she should have known because of all the signs" I think this a dangerous oversimplification. What about the band No Devotion? Everyone loves them here. They formed after their old lead singer was exposed as rapist with multiple situations of him sleeping with young girls on tour. Why didn't those guys know about it?

I also just feel like using this case a justification to hate her alongside stuff like "she made a mikey hate blog!!" (she didn't) just feels so wrong to me. It’s like people are happy this happened to a woman because it gives justification to hate Lindsey. I see no attempts to support this Jane Doe with tweets of support or some kind of fundraiser. It's always just rooted in hatred of another woman.

[hello-nichya-here]

lmao you're so angry that you know shit about radfem so made an entire fucking essay of actually... PROVING IT??? of made up facts to make radfems look like a boogieman liberals wants us to make 😂 it's so pathetic omg, ok step by step:

1)lol what? radfem is about WOMEN, woman's safety, it doesn't matter who exactly was the abuser, what matters is to help female victim because it a movement about WOMEN. Take your head out of your ass.

2) Laetitia Ky, Artė, any south Korean radfem cuz any other type of feminisms won't work there hundreds of woc radfem here just 🗿

3) lol what? did you just imagined it yourself lol?? i'll repeat, radfem is about women well being, it doesn't matter who exactly was the abuser, what matters is to help female victim because it a movement about WOMEN not victims of abuse. and it just so happened that men commit about 90% of abuse, that's a statistic you can google go educate yourself

4) didn't libfem tumbler came out with this bs? it's the same labeling woman, putting them into unneeded categories that liberals like so much? i'll repeat, radfem is about women well being which means no separation from one another and no judgment especially about your sexuality. Take your head out of your ass.

5) ohhh yess we all just haaaaate ace.... no lmao. no one gives a shit, maximum is questioning the label itself cuz it's pointless, your asexuality is a low libido. no radfem gives a shit.

6) lmao where do you take this shit? 😂 can i take your narco dealer's number? also, oh what's this? several public researches that proves that TIMs exhibit a male-type pattern of criminality? rapes in prisons where trans women were sent? hundreds of assaults in public restrooms??? wow shocking!

7) you don't need to be saved, some therapy, cuz i doubt you'd like to be beaten/choked/ect in any other circumstances. another question does it not bother you that your partner would enjoy "playfully" hurting you? in short it's called coping mechanism to deal with abuse and trauma, go educate yourself

8) yeah for some reason we don't support child trafficking, rapes, murders, pedophilia and etc. that comes with prostitution. go watch interviews with those who escaped prostitution, they all hated it. they were abused and traumatized. Take your head out of your ass.

9) hun, we don't hate you we pity you at worst. it's not our job too look out for men, it FEMENISM it's about WOMEN and only WOMEN. adult human female, comprende?

and listen i may not be the best person in the world but at least i'm not spending my life chronically online writing incest fics ;) one again, pull your head out of your ass and educate yourself, here's some masterpost https://manlarp.tumblr.com/post/667874370724691968/accessible-radfem-ideology-masterpost bye bye :)

Saying "WE ARE ALL ABOUT WOMEN" doesn't change shit. You once again proved my point by saying that my experience with radfems spewing out abuse apologism towards me when they thought I was being abused didn't happen based on nothing but your favorite go-to defensive line. YOU didn't see it thefore it didn't happen to ME. Way to prove you guys don't try to silence women who disagree with you by trying to exactly that.

And yeah, I know there are woc of who are TERFs. There are also women who are even more misonygistic than some men. There are plenty of slavic countries where nazism is still a big thing even though Hitler hated slavs. Self-hating idiots have existed and always will. Doesn't change the fact that you fuckers are racist all the damn time.

"We don't care if people are ace, we don't devide women" literally a quick search will show that you guys do. A bunch of the anti-ace discourse was literally INVENTED by radfems, something they are very proud to admit. And plenty of queer radfems are biphobic all the fucking time, something I, a bisexual woman, have to put up with every single time one of your friends comes bother me. Go lie to someone else, bitch.

"Those who ESCAPED prostitution hated it" Yes, people tend to hate things they were forced to do. Doesn't change the fact that you guys are more concerned with making women who WANT to do sex work be labelled as criminals than with punishing human traffickers.

And once again, we have you being all condescending. "Let ME tell you what YOU want. Let ME tell you what makes YOU feel safe." And gotta love how you heard me say I'm kinky and immediately assumed I'm submissive, instead of a dominant or a switch. And then of course you have to go for the slut shaming of "You write kinky porn therefore you are automatically wrong."

"FEMINISM IS ONLY ABOUT WOMEN" Which is why it is dying. If your movement cannot accept that the world isn't black and white, and that societal hierarchies are much more complicated than just Group A is always the all powerful one and Group B always gets screwed over, it WILL fail because it will be ignoring real problems for the sake of keeping a narrative alive. Which is why nobody fucking likes radfems, and the world would be better off if you idiots were gone.

I don't need to read your bullshit, because you idiots will scream your nonsense at me all the time, like you just did. And not once have any of you ever said a single word that was worth listening.

Don't bother sending me more asks, I'll just block you. Go larp with your fellow radfems about every single woman who has a problem with you guys is "brainwashed by the patriarchy" because there's no way you guys could EVER be the problem and that your "activism" is as shallow, stupid and fake as you are.

[nancydrewwouldnever]

It's infuriating isn't it?? The conversations on here and on lsa that I only check once a month (I've been having a very rough month cause I had the state examinations to keep working as a HS teacher in my country and my stress levels have been skyrocketing, I failed the first exam but I think I passed the last one 😭) have focused on how it must be super serious super real the family does like her ... For me -i of course only watched the fan dragging part- the most awful part because of the entitlement it showed was when Scott was like they call me brother-in-law they should come up with something more original... Like maybe someone should write now to him maybe your middle-aged bro should star in a lolita reboot playing Humbert Humbert tho we all know Adrian Lyne would've never hired him... I wonder if that's 'original' enough. Scott is still a literal nobody in HW saying stupid stuff about his brother's fans, that he used to love and bait on his cameo vids if memory serves me well. Honestly the strike comes just in time so they keep their mouths shut. He said the media wasn't negative, the media their PR firms pay lol, and also the general public while there was a jezebel article questioning how much of a cliche Chris has become and tons of people have called him a creep without knowing half of the story (insta). I mean they're prob the same people who laughed their arses off when the gene Kelly thing was announced because they know Chris can't pull that. I'm baffled at the levels of snobbery while they're giving jersey shore, trailer park white trash teas. And for the people who say Alba isn't racist because it's her friends, erm, there's still her very questionable filmography (what she does isn't pedo baiting -that, to my knowledge, it's when adult people pose online as minors to attract criminals -, it's 'pedo catering'), and if those roles were the only ones she was getting maybe she should've stopped acting. It's not like the world is sleeping on a Meryl Streep with her. Very sorry for my long rant, feel free to reply or not and many thanks for being anti EIAA because the days after that stupid wedding were truly annoying. Very sorry for the terrible hate and bullying you got from beyond ignorant anons. Stay strong, you're very appreciated,🤗

Damn, girl, you said all this with your whole chest! Hope your exams went okay.

I think these next few months are going to be very quiet, given his deactivation and lack of new projects, so I think his PR team is going to jump at anything to keep his name circulating. We may be in for a couple of months of total stupidity when it comes to the articles that get pushed out.

[cuntylouis]

This ended up being longer than i intended for it to be. I think the fact that there's a racial divide between pro breed louis and anti breed louis is also something worth thinking about. a lot of the breed louis fics are by black writers. a lot of the anti feminisation of louis and breeding of louis complaints are by white writers. why is that?

jacob is allowed to be wrong about louis. he was very clear about how in the begining he approached the scenes where louis faces racism in a certain way that rolin had to tell him i know you hate this degradation but i need your character to capitulate to these racist characters. in the same way jacob might hate louis' submission to lestat but louis does submit. in their first sex scene lestat makes him submit. why does louis do it? we can say maybe because he doesn't have a choice or because he sees it as freedom to not have to put on a hypermasculine dominant hat like he does outside.

now back to the racial divide in the breeding kink and feminisation thing. louis being a queer black man means his queerness interpreted through blackness is different that when interpreted through whiteness. that's a cultural thing and not necessarily racist on white people's part. it is common to use words like mother and girls to refer to queer black men and refer to their pussy or coochie when talking about their asshole in black male queer cultures. that doesn't make it homophobic. that doesn't mean all black male queer people do it or like it.

i mean the fandom keeps calling lestat mother which is actually stolen from African American queer communities. the motherisation of lestat is a whole other conversation (his limp wrist and cinched waist are doing a lot of heavy lifting). but the interpretation of his queerness and the ensuing feminisation (which is a misread because the show and sam's interpretation have him as a masculine, dominant patriarch) tends to come at the cost of louis' queerness which is almost made invisible. i think it's cultural and not necessarily racist how the broader white fandom interprets louis' queerness.

I don't know if you want to post this ask. i understand if you don't. i also don't know if you're black. you might already know everything i said. regardless, if you don't know the things I've talked about maybe you can research a bit to see what I'm trying to say. that is if you're interested. i can imagine you're tired of this particular conversation.

No this is really interesting and well-written, thank you for sending this!

I'm not black so i don't want to overstep (though we romani are also often seen as aggressive and unfeminine by white people so i relate to that experience), but it does seem to me that many black fans like or at least don't have anything against feminizing Louis, and majority of the fans who actively dislike it are white. I think you're right that white and black fans look at Louis' (and also Lestat's) queerness through different lens because of cultural differences. The show is also rather ambiguous sometimes and filtered through several layers of narrative, and what happened, how different characters experienced it, how they are remembering it now, what they are narrating, and how the actors are interpreting it can all be different things.

I don't want to start going around policing people on what kind of stuff they're allowed to like reading or writing, and like i said in the original post people have such complex reasons for liking what they like, not necessarily racist ones, and we can't really generalize any group of fans. Like for example i think some people who prefer top!louis and bottom!lestat do it simply because they just want to see Lestat get railed and it's not deeper than that lol. At the same time fiction doesn't exist in a vacuum separate from reality, and i think it's good for white fans, and also for non-black poc fans like me, to sometimes pay attention to how we're viewing black characters and where our ideas and preferences are coming from.

I may be a bit tired of this conversation because it never seems to go anywhere since people don't change their opinions, but you'll probably catch me tomorrow coming here to complain again about some tweet calling Lestat a mother when he's doing something blatantly patriarchal lmaoo

[stonegoldsxcrxt]

Hello (there)! Same anon who sent you the super long ask the other day! I meant to send this much earlier (obviously before the new episode is supposed to air—oops), but I got preoccupied with other things. Anywho.....first of all, I wanted to say I am glad I didn’t come across as being rude to you. And I appreciate you responding so politely as well!!

I feel like I dumped most of my thoughts on you already, but I also don’t mind chatting a bit more about this—if you are open to it too, of course!

I’m glad to see we also agree on some points. And about Headland specifically: tbh I really don’t know how to address that 😭 cause while I think she has some interesting takes on the story and how she wants it to be viewed or where she wants it to go—I very much get where you are coming from. Because as I mentioned in my previous ask, I am not a fan of reylo or kylo (and especially those fans) at all. So while I obviously see where people are drawing the parallels from, it was quite conflicting for me to see Leslye Headland talk about it so much herself. Actually, I was cringing anytime her or the interviewer brought up reylo or any similarities to it 💀 Although I am still glad (I know I already mentioned this) that Headland pointed out that Osha wasn’t going to be all “I know there’s still good in you” or whatever to Qimir and not trying to redeem him.

And I completely understand where you’re coming from when you say you hate seeing young women being treated terribly in a story (I’m a girl too so of course I can relate lol). I mean, if I’m being honest I very typically and wholeheartedly dislike the enemies to lovers dynamic. I think everything regarding said trope can be pretty damn annoying and often times it’s not at all well-written. And I usually hate it regardless of the fandom, the characters, or even the characters’ genders (but the m/f ships are almost always the ones that have a very weird and uncomfortable power imbalance).

And, idk....I’m a little on the fence about the fiction affecting reality thing. I mean, tbh a few years ago I might’ve completely, 100% agreed with you. Especially cause, as I said, I very much was (and still am) very anti reylo and kylo. So I know from experience that some people can be very.....strange and delusional (for lack of a better term) when it comes to liking or shipping toxic things in media. But I’ve also been in and interacted with plenty of other fandoms, and have liked other things besides star wars. As you said, there’s nothing wrong with liking fictional villains.....and as I mentioned, I honestly think it’s quite hypocritical for some fans to now suddenly be up in arms over people liking Qimir or the Osha/Qimir dynamic. Especially since for years fans have joked about characters like Anakin or Maul or Thrawn (and more recently Kylo) being in the right or whatever. I mean, really I’ve never thought about it much since usually it seems to be just jokes and sometimes I, too, get a kick out of those jokes. But like I said to me, especially as a Filipina, it does not sit right with me that a lot of people seem to be mad that some fans are simping for the non-white villain???? And I get that some people—imo mostly straight white women—seem to be lenient towards the hot white male villains. And again, one of my biggest issues with reylo and kylo stans was how they treated John Boyega, and just hurled a bunch of (often extremely racist) insults at him. But unfortunately, even now, when I am essentially on the other side of the fandom—I still feel these underlying hints of racism.....which has been a problem in this fandom since its inception tbh.

So when it comes to the whole ‘fiction affecting/influencing reality’ thing.....I have to say I honestly don’t think there is actually a good or “right” answer to that one??? Idk, I think some people genuinely struggle with it and buy into certain delusions, but in my opinion most star wars fans who like the villainous characters or problematic ships aren’t excusing that kind of thing irl and it doesn’t have any actual bearing on their irl morals.

Also, I appreciate what you’ve said. As for this certain person I have seen on twitter who has especially been spewing hate towards Leslye Headland and Manny Jacinto, I honestly didn’t think you agreed with those views despite them ss and pinning your post (it was the post you made recently about the way fandom is with villains in general) lol. And yeah.....again, even despite somewhat being on the other side of the fandom now I have seen a lot of people criticizing Headland especially and questioning her sexuality. Essentially saying “even as a ‘lesbian’ she has backtracked on lesbian representation” or a few people making fun of Manny Jacinto’s looks (and sometimes his acting).

Like I said, I didn’t believe you were being prejudiced or spewing dumb hate—and I hope you don’t think I was trying to accuse you specifically of that. Tbh I should not even be surprised about some of the vile things I’ve seen people saying (regarding Headland, Stenberg, Jacinto, essentially the whole cast and crew since even before the show dropped). As I mentioned, bigotry has unfortunately been a huge staple of this fandom since the beginning of the franchise, but I fear it’s gotten much worse.....🫤🫤🫤

hey!! so sorry it took so long for me to get to this, I had a lot going on in my life and still do so I'm sorry, this response probably isn't going to be as long! it's not because I'm mad at you or anything like that!! I'm a person too, and I haven't published a LOT of the shit in my inbox I've been getting for these posts but trust me, it's happening. I answer you because I can tell you're respectful and open to discussion!! and I appreciate that!!

1: Personally I will always believe that fiction does affect reality but I think it's obviously very nuanced. It's not as straightforward as "you like a villain so you must be a bad person." I don't think that it's as simple as if you like a villain that you're a bad person, or you condone those events. Villains and antagonists are often written to be empathetic towards the audience to create a sense of conflict, but the audience should be able to recognize that. More simply put, I guess I believe that fictional scenarios can affect your perception of real life events.

To give a pretty extreme example, if only to describe what I mean (I am NOT saying what the acolyte has done is a 1:1 comparison, I am using an example as a learning opportunity), we can talk about the book Lolita, which is infamously about an adult male character who is sexually obsessed with a young girl. The author frequently subtly tries to force the audience to empathize with this man. Ultimately, Lolita is about how abusers can still be charming people if you look on the surface, but underneath it all, they are still looking to take advantage of others. Eventually, the reader should understand this, after realizing that empathizing with someone doesn't absolve them of their crimes. However, there are people who don't; there are people who read that novel and actually walk away with the idea that the book is a love story, and that the young girl who was victimized was actually to blame for the story's events.

In real life, there is an actual phenomenon based off this interpretation of the book that has come to be known as the Lolita Effect, or, the idea that young women or girls should shoulder the blame for the abuse they endear. Quite literally, though perhaps unintentionally, the novel Lolita has contributed to the perpetration of victim-blaming young women and girls. So there's one example of fiction affecting reality and stuff like that is why I believe it does (though obviously far more extreme).

while I don't think anything Star Wars has done with the acolyte even approaches this level (obviously), my argument about the acolyte is that it's important to learn to recognize subtleties in the way that people who might stand to gain something from your allegiance to them might act around you. Headland saying "Qimir did not manipulate Osha" completely undermines what her writers have shown us. It undercuts those subtleties and replaces them with the perspective that this is okay behavior, when, instead, I deadass would not have a problem with this element of the acolyte had Headland simply acknowledged the way Qimir treats Osha is purposeful so that he gains her allyship and affection (I think we agree on this element).

Honestly, I think Headland wanted to tell a story of two people who perceive themselves as having been "wronged" by the Jedi or who may even have real legitimate reasons to be mad at the Jedi independently, coming together and becoming a powerful duo. That's fine, I think that's interesting potential, but what she unintentionally created instead was a woman who was good and honest being emotionally manipulated by a man who is cunning and deliberately aggravates her to get what he wants. It sends two different messages, because it's two different stories.

The way that I worry about this affecting real people's perspectives irl is that Headland has stripped her audience of the ability to recognize those subtleties because she insists they are not there, even though they are. This can then, of course, be extrapolated to real life. Of course, maybe someone is smart enough to recognize it irl... or maybe they aren't. Honestly, that ends up being up to someone's personal capabilities, it's just that sometimes being given examples of things in fiction helps you recognize it later.

2: I'm not going to lie to you, I don't particularly care who the fandom finds attractive. I'm not going to police who you do or don't want to get with on the basis of the character's morality. To be truthful, the people saying "I wanna fuck Qimir" do not bother me. The people saying "I wanna fuck Anakin" do not bother me. The people saying "I wanna fuck Thrawn" do not bother me. I think a lot of people think that I'm offended by it because of this post I made, but truthfully, that post is about being unable to recognize that someone is being manipulative because you are too busy being attracted to them so you excuse all of their shitty behavior, hence the phrase "all the audience saw was a hot guy," meaning, they did not also see that he is being evil while simultaneously being hot. There's nuance to this situation. The problem (for me) isn't people saying "I wanna fuck Qimir," the problem (for me) is people saying "I wanna fuck Qimir and for that reason I think he's absolutely right about everything, the Jedi got what was coming to them, etc," which are all takes I've seen. And the acolyte is far from the only media with this problem. Star Wars as a whole is far from the only media with this problem (ie I've never read or watched shadow and bone but there's a lot of people on that post talking about it.)

Honestly, my criticism of the fandom and media is usually not rooted in how people feel towards characters on a personal level unless it's to the point where 1. it's a pattern and 2. it's disrupting the actual interpretation of the show, particularly when it's disrupting a female character's story. Which is why I made the post I linked above, it's a majorrrrrr pattern in all fandom but I correctly predicted that Qimir was quickly all anyone would talk about, and I was right. I saw no less than ten posts about "where's Qimir" after episode seven. Hello?? Isn't this show about Osha? Is it not her story? Or do you just not care about her anymore? It makes me sad and it happens over and over and over; ie, the sequels quickly became the Kylo Ren movies and little else seemed to matter.

I'm very sorry if you have seen a lot of the fandom saying things that are rooted in racism towards Manny Jacinto. That has not been, and will never be my stance. I seriously don't care who they cast in this role as Qimir, my response would have been the same, because my beef is with this style of story being presented the way it has been, not with the looks of the actor. I highly suggest blocking people who are hating on him for those reasons. Actually, I suggest blocking anyone hating on Manny for this at all, because wtf, he's doing a great job and doesn't deserve that.

What's unfortunate for me is that I really liked episodes 1-5 of the acolyte a lot, and 6-8 completely lost me. I'm very used to tuning out (which I recognize is partially privilege given that I am white) the bigoted chatter from people that seems to erupt from certain recesses of the 'fandom' whenever something new from Lucasfilm comes out because it happens every. single. time. and it's exhausting. I'm super sorry that it feels like literally every time something new and exciting comes out, people who are assholes to be assholes come out of the woodwork and start spewing hatred. But I want to be clear how much I am not condoning nor participating in that aspect of it; even if you see people on twitter spreading screenshots of my posts around while they do, trust me, I literally don't even know them and they certainly never reached out to me to ask if they could share my tumblr post there. I'm not on twitter and I do not condone using my posts to spread hatred for the sake of hatred.

I have a lot of problems with the acolyte, even more now after the last few episodes. What I do is talk about narrative decisions and story decisions and character decisions, because those are the things that I think matter and should be up for conversation and debate. Because quite simply, I think how you tell a story, and what story you're telling, matters. It's safe to say I am ultimately disappointed in this show. I don't think it stuck the landing, and there are lots of other problems re: Sol's character too, that I will probably never get into, because I'm really ready to let this show go. Perhaps on a deeper level, for me, this type of story is never going to land if not only the fandom but also the director/showrunner won't acknowledge it for what it is, either....

Anon you are always welcome in my inbox! I can tell you're genuinely open to conversation and I like that!

[tangledbea]

you're so real for saying charithra chandran for rapunzel, she's been my number one fancast for her if there ever is a live-action movie (hopefully there won't be one! PLEASE disney come up with new ideas for the love of god!!) the moment i laid eyes on her while watching bridgerton.

something that really irks me is the number of people crying over rumours of rapunzel not being white... like people are going over to avantika's socials and harassing her over a literal fancast which is quite frankly very strange behaviour. their number one excuse for the anti desi rapunzel is: "well, desi girls aren't naturally blonde. we need a blonde to play rapunzel, otherwise it won't be realistic, duh!" but!

1st of all, rapunzel herself isn't even blonde. she's brunette!

2nd, rapunzel's hair has never ever been realistic. super long, glowing, magical hair is realistic to you people? really?

also seeing people say that rapunzel can't be desi because she's german... and then propose a different actress who isn't even german either to be rapunzel lol.

but idk. the undercover racists are once again coming out full force. it's like the halle bailey situation all over again

i hope this was a good take sob sorry for bringing bad vibes to the function

anywho, at the end of the day i will literally get on my knees and BEG disney to not make any more live actions movies. we don't need them!!!!!

I agree with literally everything you said, including fan-casting Charithra because of her performance in Bridgerton. XD I watched her there, and for the first time since the movie came out, I saw an actress I'd be happy with portraying Rapunzel. She's got the acting chops, she's got the look, her innocence is so sweet and her rage is so palpable. The only role I've ever seen Avantika in is Karen in Mean Girls, and although that's just one role, nothing about her performance said "Disney's Rapunzel" to me.

I really really hate that people think it's okay to harass actors for any reason, let alone because of a popular fancast. In that respect, social media is a blight. People should not have unfettered access to celebrities and the creatives behind their favorite shows. God, I wish people could be trusted, but this is why we can't have nice things.

Oddly, I've been seeing a lot of people complaining in the Tumblr tags about people's treatment of Avantika on Tiktok and Twitter, but I haven't really seen people complaining about it here on Tumblr. So basically, the people yelling in the tags are yelling at the wrong people*. Of course, this happens all the time around here; people complaining about what they saw on a different social media platform.

But, yeah. NO MORE LIVE ACTION REMAKES, PLEASE. I mean, we obviously can't stop them, because too many people who aren't that critical of it enjoy it, but it sure would be nice if they'd get the picture.

*Not to say that I think that no one here on Tumblr is racist or feels the same way as the TikTokers and Twits who are being overtly racist, just that I'm not seeing it with my own eyes, because I'm not on those platforms.

[whitehartlane]

re: the forrest fan news: i saw some comments on reddit (i know what did i expect) reacting to it and they pissed me off even further i need to get it off my chest—

like 1.) there were comments like “how can you be racist to sonny he’s the nicest” or “imagine racially abusing the nicest player in the league” and it just irritated me so much like - how nice a person is or isn’t is fucking irrelevant to SOMEONE ELSE’s racist behavior towards them???? like i hate this comment??? i have a huge side eye for these ppl bc they’re the ones that feel fine unleashing racist abuse toward ppl as soon as they stray out of “niceness”

and 2.) there was a comment saying “well you know that’s real racism bc koreans statistically aren’t poor or violent or uneducated or any of these other things racists use against other races, it’s totally illogical to discriminate them so it’s just pure racism” — like wow, some jaw dropping ignorance i couldn’t believe…to me, reading that, i’m just like …you’re racist? coming from an asian person living in the west…lemme not even get started on how ignorant and harmful (and literally just racist lol) this type of thinking is…

sorry for ranting in your asks unprovoked 😖these comments just brought up some bad memories and i hope, in case someone who has similar thoughts whenever sonny gets racially abused reads this, can kinda stop and rethink like why that reaction is not … helpful.

hi anon!! yeah i saw these comments on reddit too. you’ve basically said everything that needs to be said but i’m just flabbergasted every time that the topic of racism and specifically anti asian racism comes up in football circles people are so utterly uneducated and downright odd about it. don’t get me started on people going “but sonny’s so nice, how could you racially abuse him” as if being mean or nasty excuses racism? these are the same kinds of people who say that players like vini jr (whatever your personal opinion of him may be) provoke racism because they wind people up on the pitch or whatever. can’t believe this has to be said but your personal opinion on a person or their behaviour does not excuse racial abuse towards them and same with that thing that was like ‘erm actually statistically koreans aren’t poor or uneducated so you know any discrimination towards them is proper racism’ like oh my fucking days can we be serious? i don’t even have the patience to get into how fucking horrid that statement is.

it’s mad that every season we’ve got to hear of at least one cunt that’s been banned from watching footy at the stadiums because they’ve racially abused sonny like how many more times does this need to happen? and what breaks my heart even more is that despite this being a regular occurrence sonny’s talked about how life in germany was difficult for him bc of racism like how much worse was it for him here? honestly just glad that spurs (and the other clubs involved) take stuff like this seriously, honestly think that’s one of the major reasons he feels at home in london.

[baddingtonbitch]

pls tell us ur thoughts on veganism (#2 from the ask thing)

my thoughts are good! i've been exclusively plant based before for years and i had a largely good experience with it, and i think it's a great thing to do for people who want to and are able but i also completely understand not wanting to. i also think it very often gets made out to be something it's not, but every diet and lifestyle has adherents who are kinda...deranged and misrepresent it. there are people who hate vegans for very stupid reasons and there are also vegans who are very hateable for very good reasons that are not their diet (usually extremely problematic influencers) but like, vegans aren't monolithic so it can all get pretty frustrating and exhausting to witness the media try to come to some singular conclusion about a huge movement and massive number of people based on a really myopic view of very loud and bad examples.

like anti-vegan raw meat fitness bros and shithead podcasters who antagonise vegans are putrid but so are the vegans who view themselves as morally bulletproof for loving animals while being very privileged, out of touch and racist, wearing plastic fur and leather, shaming people in food deserts or referring to sustainable and traditional practices of indigenous cultures as "barbaric".

it's also not a miracle cure or protective spell against cancer and people who tout it as one are fucking cunts. there's a few public figures here in australia who have done a lot to make vegans look completely insane, saying it will cure anything from covid to brain cancer or smearing themselves in blood and shrieking at people in restaurants. but then there are also always people who are eager to denigrate everyday vegans for nothing at all.

but in my own experience i've never really gotten into any irl discourse with anyone about it, every vegan i've known personally was very normal about it and so was i when it was a part of my life. the people who make asses out of themselves on either side duking it out online and in the media in some kind of eternal hot take battle clearly have bigger issues than what they do or don't put in their mouths and on their bodies. they mostly have a lot of misplaced anger or shame or really any combination of vitriol and distress and this is one of the hills they've chosen to loudly die on as a coping mechanism. at the end of the day their main issue is that they haven't made peace with the limits of their own influence and their sphere of control and it's broken their brains so the anti-vegans hatefully obsess over people not eating bacon and the unhinged self-appointed ambassadors of veganism do reprehensible shit like comparing eating animals to the holocaust. like when piers morgan interviewed tash peterson i wanted the studio to collapse and kill them both lol

in my own experience, my own circle and my own day to day life it has been a primarily positive thing. the main negative i've experienced and the reason i'm not currently exclusively plant based (or exclusively anything) is that following any kind of specific or rule based diet has triggered a relapse into disordered eating for me in the past. that's a whooooole different conversation for another time lol but i'll just say that the vast majority of what i eat now is plant based, and when it comes to the fraction of my diet that isn't, i'm not going to guilt myself over it. while i can't claim to be doing EVERYTHING i can, i'm doing as much as i can while prioritising my mental health and enjoyment of life and i'm a lot healthier now doing that, physically and mentally, than i was when i was a raw vegan letting the concepts of morality and purity and right and wrong in regards to food trigger me into a greenwashed relapse.

i also have the awareness to know that my subjective experience with that pitfall is not the fault of vegan philosophy, just a distortion of it peddled by "wellness" culture that i was particularly susceptible to given my past experiences. and besides, charlatans are not exclusive to veganism, the people on tiktok spruiking raw liver diets and borax smoothies also claim to be doing it in the pursuit of some nebulous ideal of "wellness" so....

basically in conclusion i still personally see the value in being as plant based as i can feasibly and comfortably be, but my relationship to food has been so complex and difficult in the past that i'm ok with pursuing something i see as worthwhile without allowing shame or pursuit of perfection to factor in. and i've also got enough going on with my own relationship to food that i don't really care what anyone else puts in their mouths. if you're vegan or not, just do what you feel is right and what works for you and makes you happy. regardless of my own feelings on veganism and my own history and future with it, everyone and anyone else's diet is firmly outside of my jurisdiction and none of my business. we've seen how trying to dictate the dietary choices of other people has made both pro and anti vegan people become crazy assholes so let's just focus on our own choices because that's all any of us can really control.

(oh my god i didn't mean to write you a novel but all these thoughts just spilled out lol, sorry for the text wall and thank u for asking! <3<3)

[plantpest]

The thing is she hasn’t denied any of the accusations because they’re true. Those blogs are genuinely all her. She just doesn’t like people knowing that she’s a TERF because it’s bad for business. No one has said anything defamatory or insulting towards her. It’s just like any other business where the CEO gets caught saying racist/transphobic/sexist etc things except she’s not coming out an apologizing, she’s just getting angry at whistleblowers. I’m sorry that she’s gaslighting you over it.

and another ask:

She’s changed her TERF blog URL three times in 2 days. It’s not that she’s denying it, she just doesn’t want anyone to find out. She doesn’t want to be a better person. She wants to continue to be transphobic while taking our money.

tl;dr tumblr user havekat is a fucking terf lol

there's a whole mess under the read more

let's address kate:

on @havekat she doesn't reblog much from outsiders. however, from the reblogs she actually has (old and new) a whole lot are from terf blogs. the same goes for katsflora

speaking of katsflora, there's at least one straight up transmisogynistic post with no connection to plant there. this is her blog on which she mainly posts pretty pictures. probably reblogged to the wrong blog

the extremely aggressive transphobic blog that changes urls every now and again (henceforth known as That Blog) has reblogged havekat since its start in... 2018? i can't see the archive anymore, i guess tumblr is being tumblr about it. it's still actively reblogging her art as well as having a painting of hers as a header. kate is obviously fine with this blog promoting her, which would lead one to assume she is fine with extremely hateful people promoting her

she often talks on havekat about her stalker/harasser but never goes into detail. this is fine, no one is entitled to share details about shit like that. however, she often talks about being suicide bated. in her latest posts she talks about The Anon (an anti-kate anon who we guess is her stalker) going around is spreading lies about her and talking about how she is a failure. she never says what the lies are. the anon also never says she's a failure, but this is kinda pedantic of me to point out

she never publishes the harassing anons she herself gets that are presumably suicide bating her. that's obviously fine as most people don't want shit like that plastered on their own blogs. ...except that she uses this as one of her main points fishing for sympathy. she is also very quick to publish any other asks she gets however abusive language they have

she reblogged someone getting an anon (The Anon we guess) with some regular ol' kate-is-a-grifter-and-a-fraud. there's presumably been some back-and-forth with the receiver and kate. kate added "I don’t sell to people who help a stalker suicide bait me". from what we can see there's been no suicide bating. my guess is that kate doesn't know what "suicide bait" means. someone telling others to not buy her art is not suicide baiting. someone harassing her to the point of her feeling suicidal is not suicide baiting. it's vile and abusive behaviour that can have very extreme consequences, but it's not baiting

when someone asks her outright about her being the owner of That Blog she talks in circles

when someone asks her outright if she's being a terf or transphobic she deflects by stating she's bi (which... you can be bi and a terf. you can be straight and a terf (straight radfems are hilarious but w/e). you can be a bisexual or heterosexual or homosexual transphobe)

gonna slip in a quick terf=/=transphobe. there's layers n shit. at the top there's "trans people are very much valid in their own struggles but trans women have no place in women's issues since that encompasses only cis women bc reasons". which is transphobic but like. at a socially acceptable level

kate blocked me for asking her to clear up The Anon's accusations. she has not blocked That Blog

on That Blog and The Anon:

The Anon is from what i (and others) can tell some pissed off terf who hates kate for one reason or another but likely bc kate is totally fine taking money from trans people (specifically trans women) and refuses to confirm or deny her opinions openly on havekat

however kate sometimes refer to The Anon as a he and gives some details that doesn't adds up to The Anon, which makes me think there's actually two people going around. or there were and now there's one. it's kinda whatever tbh but worth pointing out i guess

The Anon sending messages abt kate being the blogowner is likely a fucking piss ass terf herself and is getting off on kate getting upset. so like. fuck off. block me will ya?

the owner of That Blog could be a bored and extremely hateful person with lots of spare time who pretends to be kate, but it would take serious dedication. some people are unhinged enough to do shit like that

That blog has reblogged kate's art since its start, several years back. lots of the art uses the same tagging style as kate has. however, tags can be changed retroactively. with a tag changer it's easy and quick

the two blogs have a similar typing style, but lots of people on tumblr do, so it's not really anything. it's also not that hard to mimic other people's "tones" if they're not already similar

the blogger has "slipped up" a couple of times and hinted at or admitted to being kate. could be a determined hater or it could be kate. we have no such slip-ups from havekat or katsflora, at least not from what i could find. havekat doesn't even promote katsflora and afaik it's her blog

That blog has, again, kate's art as its header. kate had a public freakout about someone adding descriptions to her paintings, so if she didn't like That Blog she would likely be public about not tolerating her (i assume based on content etc) using kate's art as a header

i cannot stress enough how violent the content of That Blog is. it's extremely transphobic. the "infiltration of women's spaces" (aka trans women existing) seems to be the blogger's biggest hate subject

whenever there's a fuss around kate possibly running That Blog the blog changes url. some drama hungry shit is keeping track of them and making sure people can find the newest url. search and you will find. i won't link That Blog or the url tracking blog bc i don't want people exposed to this shit too easily

my take from all this is that kate is a terf, and a really slimy one at that

at the base level she is totally fine with having radfems, terfs and transphobes promoting her. she has been fine with terfs and transphobes since before her money struggles. she is still fine with this. i understand how desperate she could be and needing to find support wherever she can, but by trying to play two fields she is at risk of losing everything. either she is fine with terf ideology and loses all her trans and ally support, or she takes a stance against it and loses that side instead. from what i've gathered lots of terfs are against her bc she's playing with the enemy i guess

she could have been vibing with terf ideology but grown into a healthy mindset right before the money issues hit and so never bothered to unfollow and/or block people in order to gain as big of an audience as possible. but i dunno. people calls her out right and left and she continues to be shifty around it all

as for me i will continue to operate under the assumption that she is a terf and i will warn others that supporting her means, sadly, not only that they are supporting someone in need of help, but someone who is also promoting a politic that is killing people

it is a hard stance to take bc - assuming what she is saying about her economical situation and struggles with her dogs and homelessness etc etc is true - i am actively asking people to potentially making a mentally ill person homeless. but the opinions she holds are supporting death, direct and/or indirect, of trans women (trans people, but specifically amab enbies and women)

i have screenshots btw i just don't feel like cleaning them up. if someone want to make a whole ass recipe blog i can send them but eh. i haven't said anything that's hard to find

[allamericansbitch]

i think for me the 4th of july post wouldn't bother me if the last few months hadn't happened lol. like girl was being called out from all sides but particularly a lot of the black community for associating w someone like m*tty bc of the racist porn, and it didn't occur to her to....reflect on that? think about independence day and who it was meant for and who it wasn't and just like idk. swifties go on and on about how well-read she is but it's obvious she hasn't read anything that challenges her worldview recently

like girl have your party have fun w your friends i'm not saying don't do that but i'm sick of constantly having to settle for even less than the bare minimum from white people. it's like the past few months never happened and she said exactly that that none of it bothered her and she's "on top of the world" and like.....she is telling us she 100% meant it and i hate it

no exactly it's all cumulative. it's her choosing to date matty and public say she didnt care about his hate speech, it's her literally only talking about pride month once in a terrible speech were she just lied to people about how politically active she is when we all have seen her be silent for years especially lately; calling herself an ally while continuing to be silent about the anti lgbtq+ legislation being passed, and then going on to just casually go back to posting and celebrating 4th of july when she publicly said she didnt feel right about doing that years ago. it's all adding up to be way too much.

[sentimental-darkness]

Tumblr is really a cesspool lately. Most of the posts recommended to me are:

They would side with fucking Hamas just to make Izreal look as bad as Nazis or Imperial Japan... Yeah, that kind of people, which is like 80% of Tumblr rn. They are also like completely oblivious to what Hamas has done, like it never happened lol

Your usual close-minded leftists and commies and wokesists, with anti-intellectual mindsets.

18-20 something years old + personality disorders with narrow-minded focus and nothing of note to say, but they sure hate people and glorify murder like the sweetest of things.

Sometimes they're like all of these at once, a true scum of this site. Frankly, I do remember some of them being here, but I can't see any crazy right wingers who are ideologically driven and racist anymore. It's like they don't exist anymore, everyone right wing is actually a well-spoken individual in their own right and not as insane as the rest of this site, at least the ones I come across here.

[bisluthq]

Also Taylor is fucking funny :

- when Biden dropped out, 27 minutes later he announced his endorsement of Kamala

- Taylor posted her endorsement 27 minutes after the debate finished

- she DID take a swipe at Vance by singing it ‘childless cat lady’

— no, that’s not as tough as “we will vote you out in November!” But the statement she released about Vienna made me think she wouldn’t straight up endorse a candidate because of political threats and the far right literally have that conspiracy that Taylor and Travis are a gov psy op to get people to vote blue, and that they have been chosen to birth the next anti christ…. Like, there has to be some nut jobs making politically based threats when this shit is being shared across all social media platforms and not just 4chan or whatever.

- Kamala announced friendship bracelets to her store after the endorsement and walked off stage to The Man. This to me SCREAMS a coordinated effort tbh, and maybe that makes me delusional, but so many celeb endorsements are more virtue signalling or ‘fuck the other guy’ or ljke pink washing it “I’M VOTING A ✨WOMAN✨ FOR POTUS #GirlPower! 💅🏻💪🏻💋”. They got maximum exposure from the endorsement by doing it now AND having “swiftie x Kamala” merch after the endorsement was posted. It was a perfect move imo

- I know Kamala has been leaning into pop culture with the brat stuff as well, but I feel like making friendship bracelets as merch without knowing 100% for sure they’d have Taylor’s endorsement would’ve been a v risky move and their campaign doesn’t seem that stupid, because FANS would talk about it online and spin their own narrative (just look at Charli and the RAVE CANDY bracelet photoshoot backlash)

- if she said ‘I’m voting for Kamala because�� and I’m not voting for bigotry, racism, homophobia” she’d just make the right more mad or anyone on the fence mad because they’d be like ‘hey I think trump will make me rich, that doesn’t mean I’m a racist! I’ll definitely vote trump now!’ Because people are stupid and when they feel attacked that’s what they do *some people.

They’re my thoughts anyway lol. I wonder if she’ll have voter registration booths at the next USA eras shows?

I agree with you 100% and that point about undecided voters not needing to be told voting Trump makes them racist is SO important. Yes obviously bigots vote Trump. But Trump can’t win just on the bigots. He can win because a lot of people believe he’s better for the economy. They also feel like a lot of his policies are “common sense” and that’s borne out of ignorance rather than hate. Most of the transphobic arguments I’ve seen from that side are literally rooted in ignorance, not in like “trans people are [slur]”. They appeal to a lot of TERF arguments tbh. The thing is there’s an F in TERF. It’s fucked up and wrong but the people who believe that aren’t anti women and saying they are won’t like… change their minds.

[mermaidsirennikita]

I mean yeah it all comes back to her being a reylo, the way people still talk about them shocks me. Idk if i've ever seen shippers from such a mainstream popular ship get treated this way when honestly....reylo isn't even that problematic. I would argue something like darklina is more problematic and those shippers don't get 1/3 of the shit reylos get. Hell I could name you other more problematic ships where the shippers don't get nearly as much hate as reylos.

Well, to be very fair a lot of reylos said a lot of out of pocket, racist (and specifically antiblack) shit about John Boyega and Finn. I don't want to downplay the shit John Boyega went through making those movies.

And in turn, a lot of finnreys said some really fucked up, racist (specifically anti-Asian) shit about Kelly Marie Tran and Rose... and I do think that gets downplayed a LOT. Like, if we're going to talk about racist fandom antics in SW, and there are a lot of them, then let's talk about all of it. Obviously, all of this goes beyond shipping, but the interesting phenomenon that did happen with the reylo stuff is that because they didn't want Rey with Finn, many of them did support Finnrose (and by the way, lol--I'm not into Finnrey because in general I don't like Rey outside of TLJ and I frankly though Finn deserved better on every level, and I wouldn't consider myself a Reylo, but I AM into Finnrose, and to a lesser extent Finnpoe). For some, I do think that was a "get Finn out of Rey's path" thing, for sure--but also, setting Finn up with a cool pretty girl to get him away from Rey is... not the worst thing lol. And I would also say that many did seem to genuinely like that ship, and a lot of the reylo fic authors I saw back in the day used to write some good Finnrose shit.

(Also: Roselo? Let's get into it. I would kill for Rian to cast Adam and Kelly in a Benoit Blanc movie, the chances that Adam would do it are MIDDLING but still.)

I think the main reason why the reylo thing got much bigger, tbh, is that it's Star Wars. Darklina is in theory more problematic (though to me it's very much a draw because while I personally do not find Kylo Ren as like, threatening as the Darkling, he's still a prominent cog in a dictatorial fascist-aligned regime and he did kill a lot of innocent people, so, you know, fair) but S&B is NOTHING compared to SW. I think in general shippers are loathed by a lot of old school SW die-hards because Shipping = Kissing and Kissing is Gross, and Bad People Bad, except for Vader because Vader Cool. They make exceptions for Han and Leia because they still jerk it to Leia to this day and it's a part of the old lore, and a lot of them just want to be Han Solo in a way I don't think a lot of them wanted to be Kylo Ren.

And then you combine that with the morality police who really just like. Didn't like reylo for whatever reason, but decided to take on the idea that it's HORRRRRIIIIIBLEEEE to ship a bad guy with someone (when like--I personally cannot STAND Anidala, but you would have no SW if a bad guy hadn't fucked someone back in the day... tepidly, I imagine, but it happened). The idea of using moral righteousness to justify your ship has always been a thing, right? (If we're keeping it real here: while I do think that a lot of reylo antis were genuinely concerned about racism with that ship, I also think that many of the white antis.... were only concerned with racism when it suited them. I mean, where were they when Kelly was getting death threats? Care about it for everyone, you know?) But I think it became a much bigger thing when it was reylo.

Then in turn, the reylos reacted by becoming more cultlike, because that's what happens when you vilify people for wanting to ship something. And they became wackier, and the lore became more kNOWN. Like, again--I don't personally ship reylo. I find the dynamic compelling in TLJ; I think Adam and Daisy have great chemistry in that movie; I think that he and Rian pulled her best work in the trilogy out of her; and I think that that movie is the only one where Rey feels like an actual human being, versus a girlboss cypher. She's human, she idolizes Luke and then realizes he's only human, she experiences disappointment, she experiences DOUBT about morality, she is, I believe, genuinely pretty horny for Kylo Ren in that movie (imo, Rey probably has like, zero sexual experience lol, but I also doubt that he has much either), and the idea of her wanting to be SOMETHING only to find out she's NOT THAT is really interesting. I find the idea of her being tempted to become his Dark Empress or whatever, and the idea of him being both an incredibly weird, dark, amoral person who's all about assuaging his own Feelings because mommy and daddy didn't love him the way he wanted them to... and someone who else wants this girl to bounce on it as his Dark Empress.... really interests me.

I didn't want to see them have babies. I didn't want to see them be happily ever after. I wanted to see her kill him while kissing him or something. Which I don't think was what a lot of reylos wanted, right? So it kind of made that ship inaccessible to me, and I imagine a lot of people who might've otherwise been into it. And I think things like "grey force babies" or whatever naturally made it seem more ridic, which of course happens with any ship (BOATBABY.......) but the size of the fandom and the ship made it seem bigger.

But because that ship was so archetypal (big bad man, girl onto which you could project whatever you wanted because she has like zero personality in 2/3 movies) it was easier for allll of these fic writers to do whatever they wanted with the dynamic, to pass the fic around, to do weird shit with it. And I think that tends to happen with bad/good ships. The fic writers have something very iconic to cling to, and they can do more with it, and therefore the fic is better, and that makes the ship bigger. The ship evolves into the fanon version, and then everyone who hates it hates it more because that ship is getting what they want. It reminds me of Darklina, Dramione (and for the record Dramione is something like... Go with God, but I do nOT. GET. THE DRAMIONE RENAISSANCE LOL.), Haladriel. Because reylo was again, so big though, there were more writers and more types of fic and it just got More More More.

So yeah, I think it's all kind of a snake eating its own tail thing. And now everyone who hated reylo anyway hates it even more because of all these reylo authors getting book deals, and often having solid success (or better). You can make a lot of critiques about why that's happening with a white ship versus a ship featuring poc, but that's beyond reylo and gets into fandom racism and racism in publishing AT LARGE. It's a bigger thing than just "the reylos did this".

But yeah, I personally don't really find Reylo all that shocking or perverse a ship. I've shipped worse lol. I just think there are a lot of really complicated things that have less to do with the SHIP than the shipping culture. Some of those things are super valid. However, I also think that this narrative occurred wherein it was like "the only toxic ones are the reylos" and... Yeah dude, there were plenty of toxic reylos. However... The Kelly Marie Tran of it all is where I really start getting bugged, because what happened to her and her character was one of the grossest things that happened in that franchise, and LET US BE REAL, the driving force behind that was not the reylos. (Nor do I want to imply that it was all finnreys--a lot of the SW fandom in general is super fucked re: basically any people of color in prominent roles.)