#more people need to have faith in their ability to interpret subtext

[danmeichael]

"shen qingqiu is a liar who is lying about his feelings so we can't ACTUALLY tell how he feels about anything"

so you admit that you can tell he is lying and by extension you can actually discern what his true feelings on the matter are and that he's just unwilling to admit to them.

[ninjakk]

Did WWX obtain the perfume pouch for LWJ - Theory analysis

MXTX is a master of using subtext to convey so many underlying meanings, just underneath the visible plot of her novels. There are many hidden gems in MDZS that the reader might not pick up on during a first read. Throughout the novel, we're often given explanations that connect little hints left in earlier chapters - eventually piecing them all together perfectly to form an enriching new perspective on previous scenes. Other times MXTX has faith in her readers abilities to gather clues and come to their own logical conclusions, without a full exposition. And of course, sometimes MXTX deliberately leaves things up to the reader's own interpretation as well - giving them a little freedom to use their imagination.

A particularly interesting theory I have come across is in regards to the perfume pouch. Some claim WWX obtained the pouch in order to treat LWJ's leg injury. Admittedly, it is something I picked up on and questioned during my first read, and by my second read I definitely thought it was more than WWX just wanting something nice off a girl. I just found it all a bit out of character for WWX to suddenly ignore LWJ, when he was clearly very concerned about him. Contrary to some people's opinion, WWX is not flighty and thoughtless. In fact, most of his actions are incredibly thought-out and deliberate. Even when he seems to be acting the fool or charming women - there is nearly always an ulterior motive. Of course, WWX is bubbly and likes to be silly, but he is more than capable of doing so while still executing something more serious at times.

Some might argue he had time to tell LWJ why he'd got the pouch in the first place and use the herbs to help him when he first obtained it. But with LWJ getting annoyed and trying to storm off, WWX leaves him alone for a moment to cool off - worried LWJ will hurt himself more if he carries on walking fast. We later find out WWX had also worked out during their interaction below, that LWJ needed to expel the bad blood that was collecting in his chest. This was something important that needed addressing, WWX knew this but never had time to help him until they were in the cave and he deemed it safe to do so. So the fact he wasn't able to help him with the above, means in turn, he did not have time to offer him the medicinal herbs he obtained from the perfume pouch either.

People also argue there was no exposition of him obtaining the perfume pouch for such reasons, which is true - but there are other things within the book without exposition as well. WWX cleverly orchestrated a situation where LWJ bought A-Yuan toys, to cheer the toddler up and make him see how kind LWJ actually was. It also helped LWJ feel better about the whole situation and encouraged them to form a little bond - so WX could go on a date catch up on old times and have some time together. But it is never explicitly confirmed that this is what WWX did. MXTX expects the reader to understand her main character and their motivations. With that in mind, I'm going take a closer look at the scene in question and comment as we go along. So get your popcorn kids, it's probably going to be one of my notoriously long posts! But hopefully you'll enjoy reading it nevertheless!

Chapters 51/52

Walking shoulder to shoulder with him, he asked, “What happened to your leg?” Lan WangJi stared straight at the front, “Nothing.” Wei WuXian, “We’re already familiar with each other, aren’t we? How cold—you don’t even bother giving me a single look. Your leg really is fine?” Lan WangJi, “We are not familiar.” Wei WuXian turned around and walked facing the back, determined on making Lan WangJi look at his face, “Don’t force yourself if it’s not fine. Is your leg hurt or broken? When did it happen?”

After noticing LWJ is ever so slightly limping, WWX is concerned and decides to check on him. LWJ denies there is anything wrong and refuses to look at him, seemingly giving him the cold shoulder. From the above we can see WWX is obviously worried about LWJs injury, but he's also upset he is being so cold towards him. He even mentions LWJ won't even look at him - which we know WWX has a little fixation on, from the amount of times he tries to get him to look at him every time they meet. WWX even turns around and walks backwards to try and get LWJ to look at him. WWX is just determined to make him look at his face, because of his subconscious feelings for him and his need for LWJ's attention. He then continues to bombard LWJ with questions, in what could be considered a worried tone. It's actually adorably sweet how concerned he is for LWJ.

Just as he was about to say, "do you want me to carry you", a fragrant breeze suddenly wafted around his nose. Wei WuXian turned around and looked to the side. His eyes immediately lit up. Seeing that he had stopped talking abruptly, Lan WangJi followed his gaze. He saw about half a dozen girls walking together. The one in the center wore a layer of chiffon over her coat of pale scarlet. As wind blew across, the chiffon swayed. Her figure looked exceptionally good from the back. This figure was what Wei WuXian had been looking at. One of the girls laughed, “MianMian, your perfume sachet truly is something special. After I wore it, bugs really did stop coming over. The scent is nice too. I seem to feel much more awake after I smell it.” The voice of the girl called MianMian was indeed soft and sweet, “Inside of the sachet is filled with minced medicinal plants. It can be useful in quite a lot of ways. I’ve still got a few here. Do any of you want one?” Wei WuXian swept over like a foreboding gust of wind, “MianMian, save me one too.”

A lot of people seem to debate the above paragraph quite often. I guess it's really up to the reader's interpretation. Personally, I think WWX wanted the perfume pouch to help LWJ. As we've seen in many other chapters, WWX is an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful person. He also uses his charms to obtain things such as information, and to a lesser extent the odd freebie (the loquat - and even then, one was for LWJ). It's not like him to be momentarily distracted by someone else, especially when he is around LWJ. However you look at it, WWX isn't flighty or self-centred - he's kind and caring. WWX is just not that shallow in my opinion.

WWX only stops talking to LWJ when he smells the sweet scent of the medicinal herbs. The narrative point of view suddenly switches to LWJ, and as such we are no longer able to see WWX's motivation or thought process. We don't even get a description of MianMian from WWXs POV until much later, and even then it's just that she's 'quite pretty' when justifying why he stopped her from being branded on the face. The description we receive above is LWJ's interpretation. With us unaware of WWXs intentions, it's up to the reader to decide what they think is his reasoning. Either way, it's quite interesting for MXTX to switch to LWJ's POV at such a moment. Even if it was just so we could get an idea of how LWJ was feeling at that moment, not much is really given away and the cold looks and tone he uses could have been conveyed either way. So there's no real reason to do this, unless MXTX is covering up what WWX's true intentions are.

WWX smells a herbal scent, hears MianMian state that the pouches contain medicinal herbs and then he approaches, asking for one also. WWX is very innovative and quick thinking. It really wouldn't be out of character for him to quickly work out from the smell and what MianMian said about the pouches containing medicinal herbs, that there may be something in them that could help LWJs injury. The conditions the disciples seem to be living in while at the indoctrination camp sound pretty basic and the Wens don't seem to care too much about the health or well-being of the 'guest' disciples. WWX knows it's highly unlikely they will treat LWJ's leg if it gets worse. He also knows LWJ wouldn't admit it to the Wen sect or seek help from them either. WWX has also mentioned that WC had a particular hatred for LWJ, JZX and himself because of how well they performed in last year's archery competition - so he's painting a pretty clear picture that LWJ isn't going to get help any other way. And as I've said earlier, it's not the only time we have WWX doing something that is hinted at, but not officially confirmed in the text.

The girl was surprised. She didn’t expect to hear a stranger’s voice barge in so suddenly. Turning around, she revealed a fair face, which frowned slightly as she asked, “Who are you? Why do you call me MianMian as well?” Wei WuXian grinned, “I heard all of them call you MianMian, so I thought that it’s your name. What, it’s not?” Lan WangJi watched them coldly. Seeing that he was at it again, Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes with emphasis. MianMian’s cheeks flushed, “You can’t call me that!” Wei WuXian, “Why not? How about this: if you tell me your name, I won’t call you MianMian anymore. What do you think?” MianMian, “Why do I have to tell you just because you asked? Before you ask for somebody else’s name, you should tell them your name first, shouldn’t you?” Wei WuXian, “Sure, if you want my name. Remember, my name is "YuanDao‟.” MianMian silently pronounced the name "YuanDao" a few times. She couldn’t remember if the young master of any sect had such a name. But, judging from the boy’s air and appearance, she didn’t think he was the average disciple.

The narrative has now switched to MianMian's POV. It's also MianMian who directs the conversation way from the perfume pouch, because she's surprised at WWX talking to her like they are familiar. Because she seems annoyed at him calling her that name, WWX tries to charm and diffuse her hostility towards him by making a joke. We can imagine if she'd just said yes, it would have been a very brief interaction, similar to him talking to the loquat sellers in Gusu - and just like then, it was in part for LWJ.

Looking at the teasing smile at the corners of Wei WuXian’s lips, she didn’t know what was going on. Suddenly, Lan WangJi’s low voice came from beside them, “A play on words.” She realized at once that it had been taken from the poetry line "its ceaseless bounds yearn for miles and miles on" and he was making fun of her. She stomped her feet in spite, “Who’s yearning for you? You have no face!” The girls collapsed into a laughing mess, chirping, “Wei WuXian, you really have no face!” “I’ve never seen someone as annoying as you!” “Let me tell you, she’s called…” MianMian dragged them away and turned to leave, “Let’s go, let’s go! You can’t tell it to him.”

We can see from the above that the other girls around MianMian all know who WWX is, yet he doesn't converse with them or even address any of them by name. If he was going over just to flirt - which we never actually see him do throughout the novel (other than with LWJ of course) he could have used the fact he is known to the others as a way to talk to MianMian. To me, it's quite obvious he is being very single minded and specifically wants a perfume pouch.

Wei WuXian shouted from behind, “You can go, but give me a sachet, won’t you?! You’re ignoring me? You don’t want to? If you don’t, I’ll find other people and ask for your name. There must be someone out there who’s willing to tell me…” Before he finished, a perfume sachet flew over from in front of him. It landed right in the middle of his chest. With an "ouch‟, Wei WuXian pretended as though his heart hurt, spinning the sachet around his hand with its ribbons around his finger. Even as he walked back to Lan WangJi, he was still spinning the sachet around, grinning.

WWX is trying to charm MianMian, but his intentions are quite clear. He'll stop pestering her if she gives him one of the perfume pouches. It's the first thing he asked her, and even as she was leaving it's the last thing he said before provoking her into throwing one at him. As usual, he's using his 'charm' to obtain something. Once he's got the perfume pouch, he heads straight back over to LWJ. As I've said previously, WWX isn't usually distracted by anyone when he's around LWJ. In fact, it's usually the opposite. When he's charming the loquat sellers in Gusu, he is obviously distracted by LWJ and even brings him into the conversation, drawing attention to his good looks. When he is talking to 'two slender-bodied maidens' (LWJ's POV, chapter 69), he is yet again distracted by LWJs good looks and throws a flower at him to get his attention. Even in the Lotus Seed Pod extra, WWX has the attention of the farm girls, but he is distracted by thoughts of LWJ once more.

Now you could argue as to why he didn't just tell her why he wanted it - which is a valid point. But as I've said above, LWJ is incredibly proud and WWX has already surmised LWJ probably doesn't want anyone to know about his injury. It's also in WWX's nature to 'trick' people into doing something for him or themselves. He does this throughout the novel. WWX is probably also being careful not to draw attention to LWJ's injury too much, as we've already been made aware, WC has singled them out personally, because of how well they did during the archery competition last year. WC was already being particularly harsh with the three of them (WWX, LWJ and JZX) and WWX is smart enough to ensure he doesn't provide any further leverage to use against LWJ.

Watching Lan WangJi’s expression grow colder, he asked, “What? You’re looking at me like that again. Right, where were we again? Let’s continue. How about I carry you on my back?” Lan WangJi looked at him quietly, “Do you behave in such a frivolous way towards everyone?” Wei WuXian thought for a second, “I think so?” Lan WangJi looked at the ground. He only replied a moment later, “How impudent!” He spoke the two words through clenched teeth, along with some strange hatred. He didn’t even deem it worthy to give WeiWuXian another glare. Lan WangJi strained to speed up and walk faster. Seeing that he was forcing himself again, Wei WuXian hurried, “Fine. You don’t have to walk this fast. I’ll just go.”

LWJ is less than welcoming and gives WWX a very frosty reception upon his return. He just thinks WWX acts this way with everyone - but of course we know the way he acts with LWJ is different. WWX ignores his glare and offers to carry him on his back. When LWJ asks if WWX 'behaves in such a frivolous way' with everyone, WWX replies 'yes' because to him he's not really done anything other than make a joke and obtain a perfume pouch. LWJ is (understandably to us) upset and just wants to get away from WWX. I always want to give LWJ a hug and WWX a smack over the head at this moment in time. Seeing LWJ hurting himself even more by trying to get away from him, WWX quickly tells him he'll leave him alone.

Combining three strides into two, he quickly caught up toJiang Cheng. Yet, Jiang Cheng didn’t give him any good looks either. He spoke menacingly, “You’re so ridiculous!” Wei WuXian, “It’s not like you’re Lan Zhan or anything, so why do you say ridiculous like he does? His face today is worse than how it used to be. What’s wrong with his leg?” Jiang Cheng spoke in a sour voice, “You still have the time to pay attention to him? Why don’t you pay attention to yourself!? I don’t know what tricks that idiot Wen Chao is planning this time, making us search for some cave entrance here in Dusk-Creek Mountain. Hopefully it’s not like last time when he made us circle up and be shields of flesh."

WWX catches up with JC and they have an argument about WWX's fixation with LWJ - as usual! We can see WWX is still very focused on LWJ and his current state. He doesn't even bite at JC's possible dig at how he just acted 'ridiculous' with MianMian. He just brings the conversation back to LWJ instantly. Before anything else could be said, a disciple near by interjects and tells WWX about the awful attack on the Cloud Recesses and how LWJ got his injury. Hearing this WWX is even more concerned and was about to turn back and insist on helping LWJ, when JC argues with him once again. This draws the attention of the Wen sect and they are told to concentrate on the task at hand. At this point, a lot happens quite quickly and as such WWX isn't able to help LWJ with his injury until much later.

Chapter 54

Suddenly, Wei WuXian caught a faint, herbal scent. Reaching into his lapel, he fished out a small sachet of perfume. The wet sachet hung from its tassels, delicate yet somewhat pitiful. Recalling how MianMian said that it was filled with medicinal plants, he opened it up at once and found that there were indeed herbs, along with a few small flowers, half-dried and quite chopped up.

So the perfume pouch finally comes into play. Understandably WWX has been rather distracted up until this point. Again, he is reminded of the pouch because he could smell the herbal scent - just as before. He then goes on to recall what MianMian had said about it containing medicinal herbs - again, just like before. He comes to the same conclusion that some people claim he did prior to obtaining the perfume pouch, in the exact same way. So it's not much of a jump to think this is what he originally thought anyway and he's just been reminded he had it on him.

Wei WuXian spoke as he picked them out, “I can’t believe that the girl’s perfume sachet ended up so useful. I’ll have to thank her properly when we go back.”

Some people query if WWX had indeed obtained the perfume pouch for LWJ in the first place, then why did he say the above? To me, I always read this as 'SO useful', because he is impressed it was useful in such a situation. There's intended emphasis on how useful it has been. If we're going down the route he initially got the perfume pouch for LWJ prior to this scene, he only obtained it hoping to help ease his pain and help him walk better. He wasn't expecting to use it on a bloody leg, covered in rows of teeth marks from a huge beast! So he puts emphasis on just how useful it turned out to be. If he thought it wasn't going to be useful, he'd have just said 'I can't believe this was useful', 'actually useful' or 'come in handy' - or something along those lines. I've also taken a look at a few different translations and they all use 'so', in order to stress it is more useful than he originally thought.

Obviously as I stated above, unless specifically confirmed by MXTX, any theory that can be backed by text, is of course plausible. I certainly think this explanation fits very well with WWX's personality/character, and definitely adds more depth to the scene and his actions. It also adds to one of the many misunderstandings WX share before becoming a couple. It's a running theme for WWX or LWJ to do something and the other totally misinterpret it, before they finally realise each other's feelings and the motivation behind their actions. As such, I think this fits quite nicely with the rest of the novel and certainly adds more value to the scene in question.

[assortedpuzzlepieces]

Ok, I’m about to go off on a GIANT rant about a specific issue I have with John Winchester & how the show intentionally & canonically portrays him as an ableist, homophobic asshole through his portrayal by JDM, so buckle up.

For the record, this is something I’ve always believed, but after listening to podcast episodes from @otrsupernatural & Carrying Wayward, one super clear example of why has just snapped into place & I feel compelled to share it.

So I want to start by noting a couple things that stand out. First & foremost, I think JDM is an incredible actor & I think he brings his A game with his portrayal of John. John Winchester is undeniably an asshole, & yet JDM balances that so well against the idea of loving parent, to not only make the character more realistic, but also to give real authenticity & depth to the trauma his children experienced at his hands & answer why they act the way they do in regards to him as their parent.

John is someone who, on the surface, appears to be a loving and concerned father, who makes mistakes, but does so because he’s in shitty circumstances & doesn’t have a lot of options or has his own trauma to battle that limits the choices he believes he has.

However, the show also gives us other content that proves there is more to John than that caring but broken man from as early as S1 & into the beginning of S2, & this content screams the truth of his ableism & homophobia, & gives some really strong evidence as to why these are two of the primary struggles of his children through the end of the series.

To explain, we 1st have to look at characters from earlier in S1. In 1x10, Asylum, we are introduced to Dr. Ellicott. He is shown to be someone who is canonically ableist to people with MHI. He sees them as less human, he does unethical experiments on them, he tortures them, just, lots of gross stuff there. On top of that, we see him as a ghost using what appears to be electrical shocks to Sam & Dean to possess & harm them, which resembles electroshock. There are also strong echoes of conversion therapy in this episode.

After this, we have 1x12, Faith, where Sue Ann is using dark magic to attack & murder people she hates, which specifically includes a woman who was pro choice & a gay man. This not only shows that she was homophobic, but that she condemned sexual freedom & bodily autonomy for women as well, which is in relation to homophobia, as well as deeply rooted in misogyny.

So essentially, we are shown a doctor who tries to force people to be less mentally ill or queer by “curing” them, & then a woman who took it a step further & murdered them to “cleanse” the town. We are given two different, but very interwoven ways with which society has tried to get rid of queers & disabled people, & it’s not subtext, it’s literally stated.

Now, in the show, both Dr. Ellicott & Sue Ann are the villains, & while the show demonstrates their ableism & homophobia, it also clearly condemns them for those actions. They are both dead/gone by the end of the episode & their actions are shown as evil. This is SO important, especially for a show that has failed in other episodes to truly state what exactly is the problematic action in the episode (looking at you, Bugs & Route 666).

That said, if Dr. Ellicott & Sue Ann are villains, then we must also extrapolate that ableism & homophobia are intentionally being written as evil in the show, so other characters who demonstrate these actions are also bad. (Yes, I know I’m being super redundant right now, but I just want to be really damn clear on this to demonstrate why I believe John’s characterization is intentional).

Now, in 1x21, John finally “learns” about Sam’s psychic abilities, & I say that in quotes bc there’s reason to believe he knew about it already from Missouri & was just in denial until confronted with the evidence, at which point he has a very strong reaction. As Ali pointed out, it’s interesting that he has such a strong negative reaction, as he clearly doesn’t have an issue with Missouri as a psychic, & yet he’s upset about Sam being one. He demonstrates the mindset of “othering” people outside of his family, which is a common treatment of both people w/ MHI & queer people - the mentality that “those people” are fine in general, but “not my son/daughter/family/me”.

So here in that episode, we are already getting an attitude from him that clearly parallels ableism & homophobia, & that is on top of other comments he made that are clearly rooted in misogyny, like his “that’s my man” to Dean in the flashback in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1x18).

THEN - the final nail in the coffin is the “secret” he tells Dean before he dies in 2x1; that Dean needs to either save Sam or stop him. By now it’s crystal clear he views Sam as something “other”, something not fully human, & his response? It’s literally “cure or cleanse”. Either make him “normal” or get rid of him.

To repeat, John LITERALLY uses ableist & homophobic language & tactics towards him son because he is different, & also tries to force Dean to do the same, passing on that legacy, by trying to erase anything about Sam thats not his personal definition of “normal”, all out of FEAR of who his son is & what he might do.

And the show CONDEMNS this behavior from the very beginning, even before we ever see him act this way!! They make it clear that ableism & homophobia are BAD, show John act that way, & then condemn him AGAIN when Dean tells Sam & it is made clear to the audience that what John asked of him was wrong.

Like… holy fuck. There is literally no way I can watch this & not believe that his characterization was not 100% intentional with him being set up as a bad person & his actions as condemnable. It’s just not narratively possible. John Winchester was intentionally written to be an asshole & we are supposed to see him as one, & any love we see from him is only meant to validate the complicated feelings Sam & Dean have towards him, not undermine the knowledge that he is a bad person. It’s literally in the text.

*Edit - Im adding a point here, since it’s been brought to my attention. John’s concern about Sam being infected with demon blood & possibly corrupted does not detract from the parallel being made between his actions & those of IRL people who are homophobic or ableist. In fact, this is another argument for that in interpretation, & here is why -

For literal thousands of years, mental illness has been viewed as demonic. People w/ MHI were thought to be possessed, evil incarnations, or even just sinfully corrupt & given to wickedness. People w/ physical disabilities were believed to be punished for moral failings, not faithful enough, etc, etc. Queer people were believed to be sexually deviant, witches, destroyers of families, etc.

These beliefs carry across many religions, but especially Christianity, & are present even today in some more extreme sects. And the people that believed these things? Well many of them were parents who “loved” their child & were trying to protect them from evil by purifying them. They too believed they had valid fears & good reasons to torture, maim, & even kill their children.

So to anyone who would argue “well it’s not the same because John had a good reason to be afraid of Sam” - shut the fuck up, because no, he didn’t.

Sam hadn’t hurt anyone. He wasn’t doing anything worth killing him over. He was a good kid who was hurt by someone outside his control & yet he only started doing anything that was truly wrong when he was pushed to it by circumstances that were again, beyond his control, & only then bc he was trying to do what was right!!

Anyone would do that, not just a kid w/ some demon blood powers. So let’s not act like he was inherently dangerous just BC he was different, bc guess what? That’s part of that mindset too. Sam was a good fucking person & John seeing him as less was John’s failing, not Sam’s.

[tearblossom]

Orbital Station Scene Analysis: Part 3

Lmao here we go again. Ready to fall even deeper down the rabbit hole that is this scene with me!? This one scene functions simultaneously as my source of joy and depression and I watch it more than I would care to admit. So, naturally, I have even more to say about it! It’s going to be long. Sorry.

Part 1- https://tearblossom.tumblr.com/post/645095661644251136/scene-analysis-this-is-just-what-i-personally-feel

Part 2- https://tearblossom.tumblr.com/post/645776311115186176/i-was-thinking-some-more-about-the-final-scene

In this one, I’ll be going into more detail explaining the emotional mask that I believe Takemura is trying so desperately to keep on during this scene (and undeniably fails at several times, with it coming off entirely upon the scene reaching a certain pivotal moment) and also pointing out the instances that I feel the mask slips occur. Honestly, it’s pretty easy to tell for reasons that I will explain. I’m going to reiterate the fact that I am not a facial expression/body language expert. This is just one human being looking at another human being and trying to figure them out. This is just my personal interpretation of this scene. Prepare yourself for many, many screenshots and gifs. Also, I will be using the same video sources as the other two posts because I don’t have my own footage. 

https://youtu.be/ra-Ij1KU8r4

https://youtu.be/PUmQqVOq5oY

I failed to mention before the reason that Takemura even had to put up the cruel facade in the first place because I didn’t want to state the obvious and insult everyone’s intelligence. We all know the reason but I’ll just say it here anyway: Arasaka. 

Arasaka is listening to Takemura’s every word so he literally cannot say shit to V that would hint at any sort of affection for him/her and absolutely nothing that would indicate any growing uncertainty in said corporation. Words mean nothing here. He has to speak through his eyes and expressions because that is all he has to offer, the only cards he has to play. That is why the meaning of this scene can be so easily missed and flies over so many people’s heads. I do not fault anyone that may have missed this on a first playthrough or even those that are still unaware of it whatsoever because Takemura is very, very convincing at first (his face becomes an open book once the contract gets brought out but we’ll get into that later) and besides, to truly understand something that involves emotions as complex as these caused by equally as complex reasons or anything involving subtext really, takes multiple viewings to truly appreciate.

In summary, what I believe is happening here is that during the entire scene up until the contract gets brought out, his mental state is constantly teetering on the edge of a cliff so to speak. He is trying so hard to fight his sentimentality and control his emotional responses not only to V’s misery and pain but also his own wavering faith in Arasaka because they are watching, listening, and monitoring. And he succeeds extremely well at first but it gets harder and harder for him to maintain the mask. The closer he physically gets to V, the harder it is to pretend, to hide. His eyes alone betray him on several occasions but eventually the whole facade just crumbles and he falls. And when the contract comes into play is when he truly, honestly looks at V and the communication through his eyes really begins.

Here is the key thing- it is the most important visual clue to understanding when things happen: When Takemura is feeling any doubt or his emotions begin to overwhelm him or he fears that they might, he promptly averts his eyes to get himself under control and readjusts the mask that has slipped. 

He looks away from V during these moments!

(Just to clarify, I don’t think that every single moment in the scene that he looks away from V has this deeper meaning behind it. When people talk it’s completely natural for them to turn their heads, avert their eyes to look at other things, etc. These are just some moments that particularly stood out to me as signs pointing to my little theory.) 

Okay...let’s start deciphering this conflicted, broken mess of a man.

Scene starts. Takemura is fiddling with the Rubik’s Cube. He puts it down. Expression cold as ice.

mask on full display in all of it’s glory

They talk about Saburo being back in the body of his son and have this exchange of words:

V: “Saw Saburo Arasaka’s back. In Yorinobu’s body.”

Goro: “Yes. Justice has been done.”

And then it happens for the first time...

(Could this be...doubt perhaps? Has justice really been done?)

Moving on- he walks over to stand behind the chair across from V, telling them of their imminent death.

Goro: “I will be blunt - the surgery did not help. You will be dead before winter.”

And then he proceeds to make this face immediately after...

(Lovely, isn’t it? Just full of sympathy. His mask game is strong. But don’t worry though because V wins in the end BIG TIME.)

Understandably, V gets very upset upon hearing this news.

V: “How... how’s that possible? Arasaka’s got the best and the brightest.”

And then something happens again. Whatever could it be, I wonder!

But wait, there’s more!

(He couldn’t even wait until he finished talking before looking away! It’s getting more difficult for him to look at V with a straight face every second! Also, his expression here is the most broken looking yet.) :(

He must not reveal what is hidden behind this emotional wall that he’s worked so hard to build up specifically for this meeting because the room they are speaking in may just as well be made of glass with Arasaka’s unrelenting gaze, an ever-present entity, on the other side of it. He will do so soon though, when he offers V salvation. The contract raises the stakes. The rules change. He feels the wall breaking and there isn’t anything he can do about it and he knows it.

IT’S CHAIR TIME, CHOOMS!

He looks away another 6 TIMES! Leaning more and more over that edge. Feast your eyes...

IT’S CONTRACT TIME, BABY!

Oh, shit!

It’s happening!!

He does look away here but there’s no mask on when he looks back...only despair.

It’s gone.

TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN

The disguise is off now. From this point onward, Takemura looks at V with his true feelings on display. This is where the ability to read the emotion portrayed solely through one’s eyes really comes into play because even though he’s not trying to hide anything anymore, he still can’t say what he really wants to say. We have to feel it through his expressions. His thoughts are so loud during these final moments of the scene that we don’t even need words to know what he’s saying.  

REFUSE TO SIGN

SIGN

HOLY GRAIL MOMENT!

(I’m literally going to copy and paste what I have in my part 2 analysis about this section because I explained my thoughts on it about as well as I am able to there and have nothing else to add. My apologies for repeating myself but I feel the exact same way about it so it still applies here.) 

These reactions make perfect sense because we’ve always known that he cares deeply for V and never stopped. He just couldn’t hide it! But even with this treasure trove of emotional mask slips and unintentional displays of affection, I still wasn’t sure exactly how deeply he cared for V. In other words- if he was actually in love with V or not.

Is he already in love or is he still in the process of falling in love? Is it just a friendly love? (hell no! I knew that was definitely not the case but I still had to ask just so I could cross it off the list!)

And then the two of them walked to the door and said their parting words.

V: “Gonna see each other again?”

Goro: “I believe we will.”

V: “So… see you.”

Goro: “Visit me in Kagawa - I will show you what is real food.”

And then…

he proceeded to make these faces…

HOLY

SHIT!

(The mask isn’t just gone now- it’s burned, splintered, shattered, exploded in a million pieces, disintegrated!)

This man just had the biggest revelation of his entire life: the realization that he is in love with V. These are looks of love and I will not be convinced otherwise. I’m not a facial expression expert or anything, only stating my humble opinions here, but are you seeing this!?

He realizes the truth and it catches him so off guard that he has to look away. He contemplates these newfound feelings and tries to sort them out in the few seconds that he has left with V. And he does. He accepts them. He welcomes them. The gentle, knowing look he gives V when he looks back at them is saying just this.

He also knows that he is now fucked because his love for V is going to complicate things so much more than they already were. Now that he is fully aware that he is in love, these feelings are going to directly conflict with his duties to Arasaka later if a situation arises that places V and Arasaka on opposing sides and I think we all know that is most definitely going to happen at some point.

And now he has to see the love of his life die and just leave this place and go on with his day. Damn. This is turning into one of the saddest love stories I’ve ever seen. Something major is going to happen in the dlc that is going to force his hand one way or another: V or Arasaka? I hope that Arasaka somehow fucks up so bad that it makes his choice easier but my heart breaks imagining the amount of conflict and torment that await him.

The Beginning and The End

[chispas-and-broken-bindings]

I just say your tags on the gifset of Jon looking at Dany like *that,* and I'm super curious what you imagine the finale would have been pre rewrite. Did they just add in the Tyrion convincing Jon to kill D scenes? Might they have explicitly confirmed pol!jon or sacrificial!jon in some version? Do you think there was ever a version in which Jonsa was canon? I can never make up my mind about what they changed/exactly what happened, only that something did.

Warning. This answer is all over the place. I think they cut some scenes from episodes prior to the finale, but the finale feels the most butchered (though I think we’ll never know and I probably sound like a total crackpot). 

I really think they were going hard for pol!jon during the filming of season 7 and it almost feels like they started doubting that strategy in post-production. Or maybe not, and they thought that the dark!Dany turn was obvious enough in that season that they didn’t need to make pol!jon explicit then, and they could have that be the big reveal of season 8. 

But of course, the general audience didn’t pick it up. So, I think they for sure started doubting the pol!jon shift when they realized how badly most viewers interpreted season 7 and D’s character arc… so maybe when they started putting together the season 8 scenes, they didn’t think they could pull off both Dark!D and Pol!Jon in a way that was palatable to most of the audience, especially when the audience wasn’t primed in the correct way to view Dany as the Big Bad™. 

I think they correctly anticipated the blow back about what a bad look it would be for Jon Snow to have purposely manipulated D within a romantic relationship and then go on to kill her when most viewers went into season 8 seeing her as a protagonist, and that a lot of viewers (including many women) would hate it. They weren’t going to pull away from D breaking bad, since the groundwork was too obvious and that was ALWAYS where her story was heading, but I think they lost faith in their ability to reveal pol!jon. I think they made the mistake of not making Jon’s political movements clearer in season 7 and I think from the very beginning they weren’t very good at making Jon a morally grey character. They didn’t commit to it early enough. He is far more grey in the books than they ever made him in the show, and that hurt their ambitions for pol!Jon quite a bit, I think.  As much as I love subtext, it was too much subtext in season 7, especially for an audience that couldn’t even pick up dark!Dany (even though it was hammered in EVERY SINGLE SEASON). 

I realize I haven’t even started answering your actual question. 

I don’t know what they actually filmed (obviously, lol), but I think they started season eight filming with the intention to make pol!jon and maybe jonsa explicit. The pre-season setup was already there, and then when you look at the first half of season 8, there are too many things that don’t make sense if that wasn’t where they were heading. The Jon/Sansa scene in episode one (was that ep 1?), jealous Sansa at the feast, and then even the Tyrion/Sansa conversation on the ramparts all point to Jonsa (though I suspect the Tyrion/Sansa conversation was a last-minute addition too).  

I’m less frustrated by the lack of explicit Jonsa than I am about the butchering of the pol!Jon plot. The pol!Jon plot was sooooo good. It completed the Stark arc. It was the answer to all of the Stark men who died for honor in the south. It made contextual sense. But...I can also imagine the many, many think pieces that would have been written screaming misogyny and sexism. LOL. 

Those got written anyway. 

I don’t think they inserted many scenes. I think it was more that they cut scenes or left scenes out. I think they cut stuff out of Jon revealing his parentage to the other Starks. That scene felt only half-finished and the transition was so odd. I definitely think the scene where Tyrion convinces Jon to kill Dany was added at the last minute. It made no sense, especially not after the Arya and Jon conversation about Dany being a killer and Jon telling Arya to wait for him outside the city… like what?

I also hope that they filmed something better then the dragon pit scene where Bran becomes king and Tyrion becomes Hand. I hated that scene so so so so so so so much. It was so sloppy and bad. That and the Tyrion/Jon scene felt the most out of place. Those are the two I suspect were added and maybe the Tyrion/Sansa scene in the previous episode. 

It’s harder to figure out what may have been cut, but if I could guess anything,I think they scrapped part of Arya and Jon’s reunion in the godswood (that Sansa conversation was very strange and stilted and if they were going to make Jonsa explicit, a hint there would work) and I think they cut short the scene where Jon revealed his parentage to the other Starks. That is where the pol!Jon reveal makes the most sense, especially right after the scene where he backs D and not Sansa in the war room. If they filmed that scene, it also makes sense that it would have been cut if they decided to scrap pol!jon. Its hard to imagine them intentionally cutting short the parentage reveal to the people it would matter to most (besides D) unless most of the footage was unusable because of last minute change in direction. 

I’m not sure any of my ramblings make any sense, but thanks for the ask @esther-dot

[irinapaleolog]

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended for educational and research purposes only. It has been published to shed light and correct understanding on the escalating issue of hatred of women online. By extension, this article also aims to inform readers on right-leaning and left-leaning internet hive minds and their negative influence on culture, politics, and society.

T/W: This article contains mentions of sexual assault, violence against women, suicide, incest, racism, anti-semitism, sexism

If you’re a woman who is active in an online, women-dominated fandom space, then you’re well aware of everything this article is about to tell you.

You’ve read every death threat.

You’ve gone through the sometimes graphic — but always malicious — anonymous message or tweet explaining every way in which some person you’ll never know would like to harm you.

You may have been banned from a fan forum or had your messages wiped from a Discord channel by a bot or mod who decided that your thoughts and your words as a woman were not allowed around here.

You’ll probably remember all the times your sexual identity, your race, or your religious affiliation was questioned and erased.

You have read every time the latest hive mind online has labeled you a sexist. A racist. An abuse apologist. A school shooter. An inbred. A Nazi. A mental case. Inhuman.

You probably know somebody whose had their information put up on Reddit threads or 4chan forums or alt-right YouTube channels for everybody to see. The aim? To determine if maybe they could find ways to hurt that individual in person or — at the very least — make their life a little harder.

And of course, you know all too well that all the threats, lies, bullying, defamation, doxxing, and dehumanization is driven by the internet’s systemic fear over women enjoying media made for them, on their own terms, and on their own time.

We’ve experienced countless cycles of this outrage, ranging from comic book heroes to k-pop. One of the most recent iterations, however, is driven by a desire to see two fictional space wizards kiss in a galaxy far, far away.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what it’s like to be a fan of “Reylo” in the Star Wars fandom, well, it looks a bit like this:

All of the screenshots, located above, catalog a small sample of the four years of hate sent to “Reylos:” fans who are interested in the canon romantic dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. These fans are predominately women.

And, no, let’s get this out of the way: These hate posts, while directed towards fans of a fictional pairing, have nothing to do with fictional characters. This hate has everything to do with policing and punishing women for collectively enjoying fiction in a way deemed incorrect by various political and social agendas. The end goal is always the same — bully these women until they become silent.

Defining a “Bullying Hive Mind:” The “Alt-Right” vs “Antis”

The ways in which bullying hive minds reach this end goal are dependent on the political alignment of the cyberbully. Either they are pursuing an agenda dictated by alt-right circles or one dictated by factions of the progressive left, both of which gained internet popularity in the early to mid 2010s.

Most people — whether it’s because you’ve kept up with the aftereffects of the 2016 election or because you’ve spent anytime on YouTube as of late — are familiar with the alt-right. This group leans male and is driven mostly by insecurity, overt misogyny, and a sense of ownership over what they think are “male-dominated spaces” being overrun by women. It’s another example of extreme conservative thinking: what was mine should stay mine and anybody who thinks differently than me needs to get out of my way.

Arguably the biggest example of alt-right hate and harassment online is Gamergate, an anti-women bullying campaign that first arose on 4chan. The movement’s aim was to push women out of gaming journalism, game design, and gaming fandom by sending death threats, rape threats, stalking women, and dehumanizing women to their peers.

The event bolstered the anger, insecurity, and sexism of young men into an online hive mind that continues today, most notably in Gamergate’s successor “Comicsgate,” which orchestrated the attempted sabotage of Captain Marvel’s release.

These people are not hard to find. They parade their ideas on Reddit or, increasingly likely, on monetized YouTube channels. Their tactics often include spreading misinformation using false “evidence;” discrediting women’s interests by reducing them to “mental cases;” dogpiling; and doxxing.

In Star Wars fandom, this right-leaning group refers to themselves as “The Fandom Menace.” The group was created by former Comicsgate supporter Ethan Van Sciver, who goes by ComicArtistPro Secrets on YouTube. He frequently uploads videos — clickbait title and all — with common alt-right buzz words like “SJW.”

The Fandom Menace was formed in response to The Last Jedi — a more inclusive, forward-thinking addition to the Star Wars franchise that was inspired by the writings of Robert Bly, a leader in the mythopoetic men’s movement. The focus on feminine power and multiple women with complex character development and speaking roles within the film — in addition to the death of Luke Skywalker — powered this hate group to see Star Wars under Disney as “feminist propaganda.” They were driven by the belief that Disney was attempting to erase men from the Star Wars fan community. This led to several targeted hate campaigns including one that ran actress Kelly Marie Tran off of social media.

Where the alt-right works to monetize their hate through public YouTube channels, left-leaning circles are less well known to the general public. Reactionary left-leaning circles that operate within fandom spaces tend to skew younger (mostly generation-z and late millennial) and are predominantly women. They rose in 2015 with the onset of Tumblr and in response to the changing dynamics within “shipping” fandoms. For the uninitiated, “shippers” are groups of people within fandoms who center their attention around a specific relationship within that fandom (e.g. Rey and Kylo Ren).

In online spaces, this reactionary, left-leaning group is better known as “antis.” This name was given to this group after they became known for demonizing, demoralizing, and/or dehumanizing any individual in a shipping fandom who they deemed to be promoting “problematic” content through the fiction they consumed.

Anti harassment campaigns follow a consistent pattern where genuine concerns about real-world injustice are misinterpreted and applied to fictional properties in an attempt to create a 1:1 comparison and exert power over another (often marginalized) group. They start by leveraging performative accusations around real world issues such as sexism, racism, homophobia, sexual assault, and gendered violence against fictional characters deemed by the group to be representative of these problems. The guilt-by-association of these characters is then applied to the people who like these characters, and a general warning is issued: “stop supporting them, or else.”

When this accusation is ignored, it is then weaponized into bullying campaigns that aim to belittle and discredit women through dangerously shallow and irrational pearl clutching. The motivations and levels of participation in these harassment campaigns vary, but they tend to move from one large fandom to the next, focusing on whatever pop culture character will award them the most clout.

As one of the biggest current pop culture “ships,” Reylos have drawn the antis’ ire on both Twitter and Tumblr since the ship’s inception in 2015. The following accusations have been leveled against fans of these characters since 2015. These accusations include:

That Reylos support real life abuse by wanting a romantic pairing between two characters who begin as enemies in an epic myth.

That Reylos are racists because they support a romantic pairing between two white characters.

That Reylos are sexist because Reylos write sexually explicit fanfiction between the “pure” heroine and the “bad guy.”

The importance of these causes and people’s ability to engage with them in good faith is recklessly diminished by blaming valid, real life concerns on women who are enjoying a fictional pair of characters from a film series. It disregards the fact that the women shipping these characters are not a homogeneous group in either their identity or their background. It erases the abuse that some shippers have experienced first-hand — -abuse they should not be forced to out on the internet in order for their shipping to be seen as socially acceptable.

When the Left Leans Right

Launching targeted harassment at any group of women celebrating an enemies-to-lovers ship won’t gain antis clout among their peers. As mentioned previously, Reylo is specifically targeted because it’s arguably the biggest ship in one of the biggest franchises in the world. This means that while Emma Watson said that the enemies-to-lovers dynamic in Beauty and the Beast is about “inclusion and love,” that classic Disney film is old and it’s been done. There is no longer a large, activated community around it, and, as such, there is little incentive to bully the women who enjoy it.

Once antis do decide to bully a ship, however, one of the main accusations leveled at followers of enemies-to-lovers ships is that what they are supporting is “dangerous” to society. To antis, symbolism and subtext in fiction are bypassed in favor of literal and often severe interpretations of a story’s greater meaning. This means that, theoretical little girls and grown women who are unable to separate fiction from reality are put at risk of harming themselves and others because of what they see in fiction.

The irony of this is that a group of mainly women confidently trying to convince other women that they must be protected from complicated romantic dynamics in fairytales is taken from a page in the American conservative playbook that is still used today. For decades, American conservatives have used popular media to scapegoat real issues in society that are easier to pass off as a consequence of the media our society consumes rather than what our society actually teaches and perpetuates.

For example: In 1948, psychiatrist Frederic Wertham began to publish magazine articles and books that claimed that comic books led to juvenile delinquency. While he had no scientific evidence, his writings caused a societal outcry that led to an investigative Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Here, conservative politicians demonized comic book writers and the comic book industry, declaring that “this country cannot afford the calculated risk involved in feeding its children, through comic books, a concentrated diet of crime, horror, and violence.”

The subcommittee eventually lead to the Comic Codes Authority — a comics industry created code that put restrictions on the art their creators could produce. The code stifled the industry for almost a decade.

Around the time the subcommittee’s investigation was coming to a close in 1955, the pearl clutching continued on television in a special news report entitled “Confidential File: Horror Comic Books!”

More propaganda video than actual news report, the narrator speaks over several young boys alone in the woods reading comic books. The narrator states:

“When I was a boy and hung with the gang we did a lot of things, we roasted potatoes, we went on expeditions, we tipped over garbage cans now and then, we wrote nasty remarks about the teacher on the sidewalk, but we never spent an afternoon sitting around like this, reading.

What a wonderful thing this would be if they were reading something worth while, something that would stimulate their desires to build and to grow. But they’re not reading anything constructive…they’re reading stories devoted to adultery, to sexual perversion, to horror, to the most despicable of crimes…

One of the wonderfully appealing things about children is that they haven’t yet come to the age where reality and unreality are divorced. The emotional impact of something they read in a comic book may be much the same as a real life situation they would witness.”

The news report goes on to show young boys stabbing trees with a knife and almost killing their friend with a rock after reading horror comic books.

This same outlandish, conservative mindset is what we see today in left-leaning anti culture. The difference now, however, is that these ideals are being regurgitated and repackaged for young girls as each generation of women gains more power within a patriarchal society.

For girls, the preoccupation is not around whether or not they will commit violence, but rather, who they will have sex with and how they will be treated as they grow within a historically male-dominated culture. The idea that women will get themselves into toxic, abusive relationships because they consume hyperbolic myths and fairytales instead of the real consequences of imposter syndrome, insecurity, and the restriction of women to explore their worth in society is no different than what conservatives said about boys in 1950s America. They asserted that boys would become violent psychopaths because they consumed multi-colored panels depicting fictional, exaggerated violence instead of the real life wars our countries waged, fear mongering on the news, or the pro-gun culture surrounding them daily. Both thought processes are damaging to the growth of our societal beliefs.

In fact, the fear and discomfort of women exploring sex within their own spaces is something that is threatening to groups on both the left and the right.

John Boyega’s New Years Eve Tweet: What Caused It and Why Did it Blow Up?

All of the screenshots above were taken within 4 days following a blow up on Twitter involving Star Wars actor John Boyega, a few sock puppets, and whole load of serial anti and alt-right accounts.

If you’ve been on Twitter this year, chances are you have noticed John Boyega trending. The 27-year old actor (best known for his portrayal as Resistance hero Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy) gained traction on Twitter New Year’s Eve when he posted a tweet of characters Rey and Kylo Ren fighting (as they do in a movie entitled, well, Star Wars) with the caption “Star Wars Romance.”

To anybody who had never touched fandom Twitter, the tweet appears harmless enough. However, the tweet was successful in doing exactly what it intended and exactly what lurking hate accounts who successfully orchestrated the bullying barrage wanted the tweet to do. It galvanized a hoard of antis and alt-right trolls and their following to — by their own admission — bully Reylos.

This particular incident began with Twitter user @crogman, a sock puppetnow going by the name of @solo_sebes. The sock puppet account appeared on Twitter in mid December 2019 and quickly entrenched itself in a community of Reylos by retweeting and posting Reylo-positive tweets and joining in on post The Rise of Skywalker discourse. The account was also quick to energize antis of the Rey/Kylo dynamic.

Now that the sock puppet is embedded deeply enough into the Reylo community that somebody within that community would see controversy on their timeline between @crogman and Boyega, @crogman tweeted at the Star Wars actor, “bro you’re extremely disgusting and gross also fucking disrespectful…you cannot be this jealous of adam driver dude as a black woman im fucking ashamed that someone like you represented us in star wars.”

The comment was included with a screenshot of John Boyega on Instagram writing “@heyfabrice it’s not about who she kisses but who eventually lays the pipe. You are a genius.”

Boyega’s Instagram comment was in response to a fan suggesting that Rey (played by Daisy Ridley in The Rise of Skywalker) was now available after her canon romantic partner, Ben Solo (played by Adam Driver) died saving her life.

Boyega’s comments upset some fans on Instagram who found that his comments suggested that a woman’s worth in romantic relationships — fictional or not — was a prize to be won by the man who gets to have sex with her first.

The sock puppet account inflamed a situation that would likely have stayed on Instagram. While antis correctly identified that the account was fake and was indeed blackfishing, antis incorrectly claimed that the account was created by Reylos to justify a group of white women attacking Boyega on social media. Instead, the account was clearly a plant meant to goad the actor into directing hate at Reylos.

This is proven by the fact that the account under its new username attempted to instigate hate towards Boyega’s co-star Daisy Ridley in the comments of Reylos’ posts shortly after New Year’s Eve.

Additionally, @crogman was not the only account never associated with the Reylo community that was used to inflame the situation with Boyega. User @FaberLima1 tweeted at Boyega under @crogman’s tweet writing “you are paying mico and only worsening your image. Better stop (and erase while you have time).”

Boyega responded to this tweet with several laugh emojis.

The account @FaberLima1 at the time of this screenshot has 6 followers and no tweets past December 25th. Like @crogman, the account posts Reylo-positive posts utilizing popular hashtags within the fandom including #BenSoloDeservesBetter, a hashtag created by fans of Ben Solo to express their dissatisfaction with his character’s ending.

Also like @crogman, the account was created in July 2019 yet has tweets only traceable in December, signifying that the account has been nuked perhaps multiple times.

Shortly after @crogman’s tweet to Boyega, antis began to push common anti-Reylo accusations. This included accounts who had never actively bullied Reylos. For example, user @sxidey posted several tweets accusing Reylos of “sexualizing Rey,” “harassing John”, and giving “money to the military.”

The latter accusation is a common left-leaning talking point against Reylos who support Adam Driver (a former marine). This particular comment was a reference to a Gofundme started by Ben Solo fans on Reddit. The Gofundme is raising money for Driver’s charity, Arts in the Armed Forces.

The account, however, had only had one recent mention of Reylo two days earlier on December 28th. The account itself is also new, joining in October 2019.

It’s possible that the account is simply a new anti account on Twitter. Regardless, the listing of anti accusations against Reylos almost at the exact time of @crogman’s post reveals the motive of inciting hatred against members of the Reylo community.

Another account, @itsjoey56138220, was also inflaming the situation early on underneath @crogman’s tweet with accusations that Reylos were racist.

Unlike @sxidey, this account has a history of inciting hate against Reylos with outlandish conspiracy theories including one theory that Reylos were created by the alt right who caused “ex Twilight bitches” to make the ship popular. The account has also claimed that Reylos are racist because Reylo shippers want a “whites only romance.”

Boyega, in response to users including two sock puppet accounts with no association to Reylo — and encouraged by anti accounts sewing seeds of hatred across Twitter — finally took to his own Twitter account to tweet:

The tweet, which currently sits at over 190k likes, caused tens of thousands of hateful, targeted tweets towards a group of fans made up predominantly of women and girls. It also resulted in several hate videos by alt-right YouTubers totaling hundreds of thousands of views, several hacked accounts, and the suicide baiting of a teenage girl.

The New Years Incident By The Numbers: How Boyega’s Tweet Set Off The Left and Alt-Right

Following Boyega’s tweet, reactionary users on both left and alt-right Twitter felt further emboldened to hate on a group of women they had been discrediting, dehumanizing, and sending death threats to for years. For myself, the event presented an opportunity, albeit an unfortunate one, to track these groups’ behaviors and quantify them. Ultimately, I had the goal to break down how these incidents are organized to hate on women, whether for purposes of clout or their desire to purge women from fandom spaces.

For this analysis, I took a sample of tweets that contained the word “Reylo” (the search pull also included its plural form “Reylos”) from December 31, 2019 (the day of Boyega’s tweet) to January 3, 2020. After cleaning the accounts to the best of my ability of “pro-Reylo” tweets, I was left with 25,012 tweets that contained negative and neutral comments about Reylos and the Reylo dynamic. I sifted manually through about 7k of these tweets to find key themes, which I verified utilizing a text mining analysis of the tweets.

I emerged being able to quantify the following key themes:

Hate, Trolling, Cyberbullying

Abuse, Toxicity

Racism

Sex, Sexualized, Objectification

Mental, Psychotic, Unhinged

“Hate” received the most individual tweets at ~2.2k tweets and received ~31.4 likes per tweet on average. Tweets containing themes “abuse” and “racism” received a slightly higher avg like count at 38.7 avg likes and 35.4 avg likes, respectively. These themes, along with tweets dealing with “sex” were all mentioned over 1k times.

What this suggests is that a smaller number of accounts with a wider reach were posting more substantive tweets with a focused agenda, while tweets containing “hate’ keywords were more likely to be lobbed out by anyone, including accounts with very little reach.

Tweets mentioning the theme of Reylo fans being “mental” cases had less tweets at 602 total tweets. This theme was pushed strongly by the alt-right circles involved as opposed to leftist circles, which dominated the conversation on Twitter. While this analysis does not focus on the alt-right’s reaction on YouTube, Twitter was used as a place to spread YouTube reactions created by notable Fandom Menace members.

Keyword Group: Hate

The “hate” keyword group quantified tweets containing any mention of trolling, cyberbullying, or hate towards Reylos. The fact that “hate” reveals itself as a top keyword provides further evidence that this event was viewed as implicit approval to bully a group of fans consisting predominantly of women. Anybody involved in sending Reylos hate were, by their own admission, the bullies and were cheering John on for “trolling” women and “putting [women] in their place.”

“Reading Reylo hate to cheer myself up”

“I don’t like Finn’s character either, but I love how John is putting Reylos in their place.”

“Seeing John Boyega troll the Reylos is the greatest way to end 2019”

The clear agenda to send hate towards a group of women and teenage girls was further validated by the fact that the incident was received positively by all sides of the political spectrum, from “progressive” antis to members of the alt-right. The members included the Fandom Menace and alt-right leader and Pizzagate supporter Jack Posobiec.

Both groups took advantage of the situation utilizing the same tactics they typically employ. The alt-right took to YouTube and Twitter to discredit women among their followers by using buzz-words such as “SJW” and “Twilight.” “Twilight” — which was mentioned 103 times in association with “Reylo” between 12/31/2019 and 1/3/2020 — is often used to describe any piece of media enjoyed predominantly by women.

The goal is to degrade women’s interests among their peers by pushing the narrative that Reylos are silly girls consistently preoccupied with the same trivial, valueless media.

Examples of tweets from the alt right include the following:

“John Boyega ripped the Reylo’s a new asshole. You haven’t seen this many acne riddled fatty Tumblr Girls lose their shit since Twilight ended.”

“My thesis: Reylos and most of these Neo Star Wars fans are just ex Twilight fans and self hating beta male cucks who attached themselves to the franchise like parasites. Next they will glom onto whatever film series is hot and continue their rot.”

“StarWars was so great before Disney. Now its plagued by psychotic Reylo fans, Tumblr freaks, representation-screeching SJWs, radical feminism activists, ex-Twilight fans, &wine-guzzling Disney-fan mothers caked Karen. &these are the people they’re now targeting for their fandom.”

On the other side of the spectrum, long-time anti accounts spearheaded the harassment of Reylo shippers, leveraging Boyega’s tweet to bombard Reylo shippers with hate messages. This included viral tweets from accounts with a history of anti behavior across multiple fandoms, along with multiple tweets from accounts with history of targeting Reylos.

For example, Twitter user @Iovestour tweeted, “oscar isaac going off about disney’s blatant homophobia & john boyega telling reylos to fuck themselves all within two weeks i love men men are my friends.” This tweet has more than 48k likes. You’ll be hard pressed, however, to find any tweets by the account past November 2019, even though the account has been active since March 2018.

All tweets made under the account’s former name “blinkapologist” have been deleted — a trait uncharacteristic of your normal Twitter user just looking to share their opinions and maybe curate the news. Past tweets (to which blinksapologists’ tweets and replies have been deleted) reveal a pattern of anti behavior including a history of going after individuals supporting fictional characters the anti finds problematic, utilizing extremist parallels to real-life events.

A reply to @Iovestour in June 2019 reveals the user had allegedly called victims of the Holocaust Nazi supporters. The accusation appears to have been said to supporters of Marvel character Wanda Maximoff.

Along with antis with history across multiple fandoms inciting hatred against Reylos, this event also revealed itself as a targeted harassment campaign due to the frequency in which some accounts tweeted at or about Reylos.

Boyega’s tweet caused some anti accounts within this sample to tweet over 50 times about Reylos in the span of 4 days including sadgeorgelucas1, who tweeted about Reylos ~100 times, drhorotiwtzfine, who tweeted about Reylos ~75 times, and saltandrockets, who tweeted about Reylos ~65 times.

This is not abnormal. Several of these top accounts were also consistently bullying Reylos. The accounts highlighted in red in the chart below are anti-Reylo accounts that were also included as mentioning Reylo frequently between December 31, 2019 to January 3, 2020. This includes once again drhorowitzfine, who has mentioned Reylo negatively ~1,150 times between 2017 to 2019. Other top anti accounts include winniethepoe1, who tweeted about Reylo ~320 times from 2018 to 2019 and ~25 times during Boyega’s New Year’s Eve incident.

Of course no harassment campaign can be waged without finding ways to make the people being bullied look like they were worth being bullied. One of the two main “arguments” thrown against Reylos included the predictable anti accusation of Rey and Kylo’s “abusive” relationship poisoning the mind’s of women and girls. Since Reylo shippers had made the decision to create transformative works and discuss a fictional romance found to be impure by the antis, Reylos could now be cyberbullied in real life for their morally reprehensible decisions.

Reylo is also referred to as “abusive” because some still try to stretch the narrative that Rey and Kylo’s relationship is incestual, and therefore Reylo’s are promoting incest.

The idea that the relationship is incestual goes back to a 2016 fan clash over who Rey’s parents were. Many fans wanted Rey to be a Skywalker or a Solo, which would make her related to Kylo Ren, the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. The event involved Reylos being frequently lobbed with accusations of incest, and they were at one point banned from discussing Rey and Kylo’s dynamic on a popular Star Wars forum, Jedi Council Forums.

Another common theme was that Reylos were “toxic.” This theme was mostly fed by alt-right circles and originated with a post by Fandom Menace supporter Dataracer117, who has a history of harassing Reylos.

Dataracer117 has a history of voicing his contempt for Disney and their “radical feminist propaganda.” This is most notably seen in his involvement in Comicgate’s attack on Captain Marvel. This included digging up screenshots by fans of Captain Marvel who spoke out against the sexism being aimed against the film, accusing all the accounts of being “Captain Marvel bots.”

Like the Captain Marvel incident, Dataracer117 posted a tweet with screencaps that Reylos were allegedly sending death threats to JJ around the time of Boyega’s tweet. Despite Dataracer117’s history attempting to devalue women in fandom communities and despite the screencaps being debunked by the Reylo community, the screencaps gained traction around Twitter, YouTube, and in media publications including Buzzfeed. They were further used to create the narrative that Reylos are “unhinged.”

This narrative inflamed alt-right accounts, and they began to frequently frame Reylos as mental cases. Discrediting women is nothing new (in fact you can easily read about it in this essay on Western puritanical conditioning against women in the 17th century), and is to be expected from a community who dedicates their time to driving women away from their online spaces.

The second accusation that was used to fuel harassment against Reylos was the claim that Reylos were racist against Boyega. They claimed that Reylos’ harassment of the actor led women to be upset with Boyega over his Instagram comment. This led to harassment on his Twitter — which remember, was started by a sock puppet account not associated with the Reylo community.

While racism is a prevalent concern that needs to be addressed within all fandom communities-and questions over inherent privilege due to one’s community are something to be examined-no support was given to back up these particular claims about the Reylo community during this incident.

This is not to say, however, that isolated incidents have not occurred outside of this specific accusation within the Reylo fandom, as they would within any large and global group of people. However, these incidents are statistically insignificant to the population of people who discuss Reylo positively on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis (which, according to the sample number of accounts who have discussed Reylo between 2015 to 2019, can be quantified at over 40k individuals. The true number is dependent on how many accounts — currently almost 70k — discuss Reylo negatively within the sample).

This particular accusation of racism has several layers to it and I would like to break them down separately.

“But Reylos Read Explicit Fanfiction”

The first part of this is that the nature of Boyega’s Instagram comments allowed antis and alt-right circles to attack Reylos on NSFW fanfiction and fanart written and drawn for and by women. It also allowed antis to draw more criticism around the ways in which Reylos analyzed The Last Jedi, a film with many allusions to the writings of psychoanalytics including Sigmund Freud.

After the release of The Last Jedi, the Reylo community, who had written long form meta analysis on the Star Wars saga since 2015, wrote lengthy metas about the symbolism in the film. Much of this symbolism was reflective of Rey’s sexual awakening throughout her journey in the movie.

Antis took issue with this and saw this as “sexualizing” Rey’s character. They asserted that women exploring sexuality through the lens of a fem-gaze narrative written for women was appalling, degrading, and out of line.

For anti and alt-right circles, the Reylo community’s openness to discussing sex in Star Wars through meta, fanfiction, and fanart by women (and generally for women) meant that Reylos could not take offense to Boyega’s questionable comment that suggested to some of his fans that Rey was a sexual prize to be won. The narrative antis spun was wholly unable — and unwilling — to separate women discussing sex in their own communities as different from men offering their sexual “jokes.”

This justification for bullying Reylos felt eerily similar to “she was wearing that, she asked for it.” It’s a highly socialized sexist line of reasoning women deal with daily and one that was readily accepted in this incident.

2. “But Reylos Ship Rey With The White Character”

Since 2015, Reylos have been accused of racism on the grounds that Reylos did not prefer Rey to be in a romantic relationship with the black male protagonist. This claim is presented without any evidence to back up the accusation.

Furthermore, the people who ship Rey and Finn (known as “Finnrey”) have done little to celebrate this pairing and act as a fan community. In fact, they have consistently acted more like a group that seeks to find ways to activate hate against Reylos instead of create content for their ship.

The two data visualizations below show every user in my sample who has tweeted the word “Reylo” between 2015 to 2019 vs every user in my sample who has tweeted the word “Finnrey” between 2015 to 2019. The gray in these charts represent the number of accounts who have only ever tweeted about their own ship. The purple represents the overlap — that is the accounts who have tweeted at least once about the other ship.

The first observation is that the number of users discussing “Finnrey” is small in comparison to the number of accounts discussing “Reylo.” Finnrey was mentioned by 7,780 accounts while Reylo was mentioned by 69,484 accounts.

As mentioned, gray = accounts who have only ever tweeted about their own ship. Purple = accounts who have tweeted about at least one other ship. So, in this case, out of the ~7.8k accounts that tweeted about Finnrey, ~60% of accounts mentioned “Reylo” at least once (4,665 accounts total). This number represents only ~7% of accounts who have ever talked about Reylo.

This data is supported by other statistics comparing the two ships. For example, on fanfiction website Archive of Our Own, the fic tag for Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren has ~16k fics. There are another 12k fics in the tag for Rey/Kylo Ren. The fic tag for Finn/Rey has under 2k fics.

3. “Reylos Have Bullied John Since 2015”

The most damaging false claim to come out New Year’s Eve was that Reylos had been attacking Boyega (and other Star Wars actors) with racist tweets since 2015.

It is very true that the actor has received heinous racist attacks. Most notably, the actor was attacked on social media following a #BoycottEpisodeVII hashtag that was started by two 4chan trolls in an attempt to get racist Star Wars fans to take the bait. It is well known that this hashtag was the work of racist alt-right accounts.

Since the hashtag, other attacks have been levied on Boyega. One of these attacks included a surge of outcries against him by The Fandom Menace, after a tweet posted in June 2018 stated: “If you don’t like Star Wars or the characters understand that there are decisions makers and harassing the actors/actresses will do nothing. You’re not entitled to politeness when your approach is rude. Even if you paid for a ticket!”

The Fandom Menace took the opportunity to bring their anger over Boyega’s comments to Twitter and YouTube, much like Comicsgate did when Brie Larson spoke in favor of diversity.

Reylos, however, are now being blamed for these attacks without any supporting evidence. They are also being blamed for the harassment of Kelly Marie Tran. The actress was bullied off of social media by alt-right trolls on her Instagram page, along with antis who saw her character kissing Finn as “sexual assault.”

You will not find any evidence linking the Reylos back to the targeted harassment of any Star Wars actors over the years. Predictably, however, you will find that the people who used this accusation to their advantage admitted that their own motive was bullying.

For example, Twitter user @notlipglosse tweeted “the way this man waited until he got his last star wars check so he could freely make fun of the racist stans who have bene harassing him since 2015 %@&@*!?!?!?” This tweet (at the time of the screencap) gained ~92.2k likes. A tweet posted on December 19th, however, reads “the way we’ve been bullying Reylo stans and calling them delusional and they won…,” further supports the data that this incident was about inciting hatred towards a group of fans predominately made up of women.

Another example is from user @irisckp. Shortly after Boyega’s tweet, the user tweeted “NOT THIS REYLO AND HER MUTUALS ACTING LIKE JOHN BOYEGA HAS BROUGHT SOME TYPE OF OPPRESSION WHEN HE WAS RACIALLY ABUSED BY REYLO’S FOR YEARS. HE HAD EVERY RIGHT.” Again this tweet was presented without evidence that Reylos had “racially abused” Boyega.

The tweet is referring to a livestream from a young woman in the Reylo community who candidly expressed discomfort over the false accusations and bullying. The livestream was taken by antis and used to further bully the young woman.

This bullying eventually descended into suicide baiting that resulted in the woman’s account being deleted. However, this did not stop antis from pushing the woman to kill herself. It also did not stop them from telling the teenager’s father, who had gotten involved in combating the harassment, to “live tweet your reaction when you find your daughters lifeless body dangling from her rooms ceiling fan.”

After @iriscpk’s initial tweet, the user admitted that they had “never seen Star Wars” (like a portion of antis bullying Reylos that night) and that “Reylo” is used as an umbrella term for their unsupported accusations of racism against Boyega.

The tweets again reveal that viral tweets making accusations against Reylos had no merit, and were not based in any evidence they had seen with their own eyes. These users were looking to be involved in the latest conversation despite the lack of evidence or knowledge and despite the real harm being done to the community the tweet targeted.

This supports the hive mind behavior behind this cyberbullying attack. There was no concern for any person hurt. There was no concern for the misinformation that was being spread. And there was no concern for the very real issue of racism in online spaces.

This was only ever about a group of women getting hurt and, hopefully, getting off the internet altogether.

Why This Matters and What This Means for Art and Society in The Digital Age

If you have gotten this far and you find this article absurd, you should. This much vitriolic hatred, ugliness, and anger over women analyzing and creating media for a romantic pairing in a Hollywood blockbuster is, to put it mildly, overblown. Unfortunately, it’s the reality. And it’s a reality that has even deeper repercussions if not addressed.

I wrote this article not only in a hope to correct the misinformation against a group of women in the Star Wars fandom, but also to address a larger issue of what it means when these hate campaigns are so readily accepted by the general public, by journalists, and by other fans.

The internet will continue to evolve as it already has. It will evolve into an ecosystem that will touch every single moment of our lives. It is a future that will be as brilliant as it will be terrifying and when we are so willing to demonize a group of women with no evidence but a tweet with a lot of likes, it shows that we are not prepared.

We are living in an age where art is being dictated to what a few executives read online, or what a data analyst may write up in a report. We have seen how Disney has made a movie based off of fan service easily found in Reddit threads. We have seen Paramount shift the schedule of an entire film to redesign a character after apparent outrage. We have seen Disney remove James Gunn from a major movie project following a targeted alt-right campaign to get him removed. And we have seen this with Warner Brothers choosing to green light their films using AI.

This pattern is concerning in part because we are willing to create art via algorithm. But, it’s also concerning because, unless these algorithms are properly coded and taught overtime to understand hive mind mentality, the machines that churn social listening data will be regurgitating intelligence corrupted by organized and hateful groups. These groups aim to restrict freedom of speech, diversity, and meaning in our art for the sake of political agendas laking any evidence, any substance, or any valuable goal.

I also wrote this article because it is not only our art that is at risk, but the ways in which we communicate as human beings online. The ability to see individuals — namely women — as inhuman or as less than with no second thought is something we should all understand is a problem. We have a deep inability to question what we see on our Facebook feeds, our Twitter timelines, or in our Instagram photos . We also live in an age where entire governments are being overturned by algorithms and social media ads. We are quick to blame Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and YouTube for this, and yes, while, those platforms have a responsibility of their own, we need to realize that it is our responsibility as well to always question what we see and search for evidence if it is not provided to us.

This example of bullying women in an online community is not necessarily synonymous with political elections, but it still presents yet another moment where people are failing to believe hard evidence over buzz words, sensationalized headlines, and clear, often spelled out agendas.

Until we learn not to react to everything we see, and listen to the people around us who come with facts, this type of behavior will continue, this type of behavior will get worse, and this type of behavior will impact us politically, socially, and culturally as we become more and more integrated as a digital society.

On January 10th, John Boyega posted a video to his Instagram account showing himself mocking tweets by women in the Reylo community. He did not blur out the names. These women were specifically targeted. The event created ~50k tweets continuing to bully women. Media outlets including Forbes, IGN, Cinemablend, Esquire, and The Wrap picked up the story. They all applauded the video.

In response, Reylos trended #reylolove — stories about how women in the community had positively impacted their lives.

They also created a charity event for anti-cyberbullying charity Cybersmile, which you can donate to here.

[thefatlannister]

“You’ll have to make it a kill shot:” That Bellarke Scene in 4x11

Okay so at this point I’m aware that I’m bordering on beating a dead horse, but “Clarke would never choose to sacrifice the entire human race for Bellamy” is apparently the Hill I’m Dying On.

I wanted to respond to this comment on my old meta “Start with Bellamy Blake: Unconditional Love + Narrative Meaning” with what’s basically my overdue reaction and analysis of what happened in 5x11 with Bellarke. **It is important to note before I begin that the gun scene in 4x11 is primarily about Clarke thematically, and her character arc. What did and didn’t happen in this ep is also tied into Clarke’s (semblance of a) character arc in season 4 which I’m hoping to write about separately.

But for now let’s dive into the 4x11 gun scene from a bellarke perspective:

I see everyone out here like “CLARKE WAS WILLING TO LET HER MOTHER DIE BUT CAN’T KILL BELLAMY TO SAVE THE HUMAN RACE!!” Which is basically a retread of the argument that was going around after 3x15 and the “start with Bellamy Blake scene.” My reaction to this interpretation of 4x11 is largely the same as my reaction to that interpretation of 3x15, namely that this is a very reductive interpretation of the scene and the circumstances surrounding Clarke’s decision and bellarke’s relationship. Also, just a warning up front that I’m really not trying to sound preachy, mostly because it’s totally understandable for people to interpret the scene the way they do— more than 3x15, the 4x11 scene is framed in /extremely/ personal and even romantic terms. It’s FRAMED like it’s a scene where Clarke DOES choose Bellamy over the rest of humanity.

However, I’d argue that both the very specific circumstances of the plot AND the nature of Bellarke’s relationship undermine that interpretation. I will also talk a little below about how I believe poor writing- from a macro and micro standpoint- contribute to the confusing framing of this scene.

Plot Context

The task of describing and understanding the actual circumstances and stakes of the moral conundrum we’re presented with in 4x11 is very hard. This is largely because the episode does SUCH a poor job of establishing and explaining them itself. In many ways I’d say the episode actually makes false assumptions about the scenario it sets up, which is frustrating on multiple levels. So here’s what we know about the situation:

1. Clarke, Jaha and all of Skaikru are locked in the bunker. Skaikru thinks they’re safe to ride out the 5 years.

2. Octavia, Indra, Gaia, and Kane are the only ones outside the bunker who KNOW that Clarke stole it; this is true for THE DURATION OF THE EP.

3. Clarke, Jaha, Abby, Bellamy know from the beginning of the ep that Octavia won the conclave and that NO ONE OTHER THAN HER (and Indra,Kane, etc) KNOW THAT CLARKE STOLE THE BUNKER.

4. Clarke, Jaha, et al have the ability to communicate with Octavia et al if need be.

The problem with 4x11 is that it’s written as if Clarke and the others have no idea what’s going on outside that door. Clarke is written as if there’s a mob on the other side of the door waiting to slaughter skaikru. In fact, I think an earlier, perhaps even a filmed, version of this episode had exactly that, because even in the promo for the original ep that’s the situation that’s implied.

Clarke’s defense to Niylah in bed (don’t even get me started…) about Skaikru’s technological know-how would make a TON more sense if Skaikru were actually shown as in danger of being completely slaughtered. But as it is, we know Octavia is in control, and that word of the stolen bunker hasn’t gotten out yet. Which means that if they open the door, the likely outcome isn’t the slaughter of skaikru, and it CERTAINLY is not the end of the human race (a HUGE leap).

The stakes of opening the door are that hundreds more members of SKAIKRU will die. Not all of them, but more of them. And honestly, as the leaders of skaikru, it would be totally valid for Clarke and Jaha to be worried about that!! But that’s not the argument that’s presented in 4x11- that argument isn’t introduced until 4x12. Instead there’s this nonsensical assumption - by apparently both the writers and the viewers - that if Clarke opens the door then all of humanity will die.

Character Context

Now, to get to the central question at play when interpreting this scene from a bellarke perspective: Does Clarke believe when she lowers the gun that she is dooming the human race to death? We the audience know she’s not, but in Clarke’s mind, is her choosing to let Bellamy open the door fundamentally the same as if Clarke gave ALIE the passcode in 3x15, thus temporarily saving her mother but dooming the human race?

The obvious answer, to me, is OF COURSE NOT. Because only someone weak-willed or short-sighted would make that decision, and Clarke Griffin is neither. I cover this topic in considerable detail in my original meta, but if Clarke knows for a fact that sacrificing a loved one could save the world, and the alternative is losing the world AND that loved one, there is literally only one choice that makes sense. That’s why she let Abby hang in 3x15, and that’s why she would have been forced to let Bellamy hang too.

So what’s different in 4x11? Clarke seems convinced throughout the episode that opening the door could mean the end of the human race. She also, notably, spends the episode NOT TALKING TO BELLAMY, until this last scene.

What makes 4x11 different is that this ISN’T a clear cut “save the world or save this person” situation, and that it’s BELLAMY that’s able to instill enough doubt in Clarke that she’s not willing to kill him over it (read: an infinitesimal bit of doubt).

With ALIE, there WAS no uncertainty - like Bellamy says, "we knew what would happen then - now, we know nothing.” Fundamentally, Clarke's argument in the 4x11 scene is based on that fact that she KNOWS that if they DON’T open the door, the human race survives. But if they DO open the door, the survival of the human race is UNCERTAIN, not categorically doomed.

And, ultimately, Clarke is NOT willing to kill Bellamy over an uncertainty.

Of course, had it been anyone BUT Bellamy on those stairs, she likely would have been willing to kill them. But Bellamy is her partner, her co-leader, the person she loves most in the world. And, importantly, in the moments where Clarke doesn’t trust her own decision-making, she trusts Bellamy’s. That’s canon fact.

That’s why the subtext of what Bellamy says to her about keeping the door closed is so important: I know we’ve done stuff like this before, I know this feels necessary- like closing the dropship door, like pulling the lever in Mt Weather, but it’s not. And you know how you know it’s not? Because I won’t share the burden of it with you. In fact, you’ll have to kill me to do it.

And Clarke, who wants DESPERATELY not to hurt him, who has affirmed and reaffirmed how much she trusts him, ultimately is not willing to bet Bellamy’s life on him being wrong. Which, of COURSE she’s not, because she loves him.

Although my interpretation of this scene may not be as classically romantic as others, I find it no less compelling. In fact, I think it says really fucking beautiful things about Bellarke.

Their relationship is defined in part by their knowledge that, in a situation where the choice was LITERALLY between the survival of the human race and the other person's survival, Bellamy would beg Clarke to pull the trigger and vice versa. They would do it, to save their people, to save the human race.

Bellamy literally does this in 4x13- makes the choice to leave Clarke behind, because not doing so means both she and his people die. It kills him to do it, but it is in the strength of her love and the knowledge of her faith in him that he is ABLE to do it!! They have changed and molded and supported each other in order to make each other capable of making decisions that might ultimately mean putting the people they both love before each other. That’s what bonds them and, ultimately, that’s what breaks them.

4x11 is an example of that bond being used to help Clarke understand when NOT to make that kind of hard choice. The very fact that Bellamy isn’t on her side is what allows her to make the right decision and to hold onto her humanity. It’s their relationship with each other that keeps them CENTERED, that keeps them balanced enough to retain their humanity but also to be able to make the hard decisions.

Narrative Framing

To finish off, I want to circle back to my original observation that I totally understand /why/ people interpret this scene as the romantic trope “you over the world.” And that’s because it’s literally presented that way. As explored in this essay, anyone reading into the plot and character dynamics of the scene can see that it’s nowhere near as straightforward as that. And yet, Clarke’s tears, the lack of her verbal acknowledgement of his arguments, and even the script itself all combine to narrative frame this scene in a way that is undeniably… romantic.

In a way, the scene oversimplifies *itself.* The actual dialogue we receive (not the subtext) - "you'll have to make it a kill shot"- is specifically meant to frame Clarke's choice as either kill Bellamy or let him open the door. This is the frame even though a reasonable viewer could just be like “well obvi she can shoot him in the leg or something.”

It is CLEAR that the writers/directors.etc. intended to frame this moment as "Clarke can't pull the trigger because she loves him too much.” That is indisputably what the scene is telling us, and I think it is this message that is the catalyst for so many members of the audience to then conclude “Clarke chose Bellamy over the human race.”

So I guess my point here is that they clearly wanted to frame this scene as being about Clarke’s (nonplatonic, earth-shatteringly intense) feelings for Bellamy, for better or for worse. And I, for one, am curious as to WHY they would be so intent on doing that….😏😏

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

5 Questions with Isabelle Baafi

1. Why do you write?

Well, to be honest, I can’t not write. In the sense that writing is a big part of how I engage with and interpret the world. I’m not a naturally chatty person, and to me, face-to-face interactions are so fast, so spontaneous and so loaded (in the sense that so much of what we experience is subtext). In contrast, writing is quite a low-stakes form of expression. At times when I feel overwhelmed or tongue-tied, writing allows me to decompress, reflect, and say all the things that I want and/or need to say, but which I couldn’t express in the moment. And speaking of expression, writing has definitely helped me to understand myself, my life, my past, and my loved ones a lot better, and to find the vocabulary for things that were ineffable for a long time. Writing poems especially has been really cathartic for me (not to mention, at times unsettling, euphoric, and/or devastating!), and I think that that introspection can be very beneficial. Plus, there’s so much I could say about the power of stories and the beauty of words in their ability to evoke empathy, spark inspiration, and deepen our collective contemplation. Words are amazing, and I love that I get to play with them all day, and see what I can conjure.

2. In your poem ‘Finding my dad in a can of baked beans’ there is an interesting juxtaposition of the everyday “baked beans, corned beef, carrots, peas” and a mystical world “wise men, who cross the world looking for home”. Why bring these disparate realms together? How can a poet best navigate the banalities of modern life?

That’s a great question! My quick answer to that is: when you’re a child, isn’t everything – even the most mundane of things – at least vaguely mystical? My longer answer would be that one of the things that’s great about poetry is that you can juxtapose different worlds. The poem is inspired by a song called ‘Inkanyezi Nezazi’ (translation: ‘The Star and the Wiseman’), which my dad used to play quite a bit when I was a child. I don’t understand Zulu, and so I didn’t know the words, but I knew that my father liked the song, and that it was in his native language. So when I started the poem, I was thinking about heritage and ‘home’ and my relationship with my father. The beans came in because the song was used in a baked beans ad in the 90s, and so to this day, whenever I play or remember the song, I think of a) my father, and b) baked beans. Random, I know. In terms of the mystical setting – the song is about the Wise Men from the Nativity story, who saw the Star of Bethlehem and crossed countries looking for the newborn Messiah. Now, when I started the poem, I had no idea about any of that. But when I looked up the song and found out the meaning, I knew that I wanted to add that dimension as we well. It seemed right that I should add those different worlds, because as much as I was physically close to my father as a child, I never really felt like I knew him. In fact, I always felt like I was trying to traverse some invisible gulf between us. And so, the Wise Men’s relationship with the star, and my relationship with my father, and his relationship with tinned food, and our relationship with South Africa, were all echoing each other, and I wanted the poem to reflect that. In terms of how a poet can best navigate the banalities of modern life… That is something I’m still learning myself. But if I wanted to write about an activity that I do regularly – that is, something that people normally consider to be dull and uninteresting – I would ask myself Why do I do it? How do I feel when I’m doing it? and What would my day be like if I didn’t do it? I think if you ask yourself those questions, you’ll see how much of what you do is actually central to the kind of life you live, and possibly even your sense of identity.

3. According to my calculations you were on the front cover of the UK’s biggest poetry magazine The Poetry Review (summer 2020) before your first pamphlet Ripe came out (autumn 2020). Did this put extra pressure on you? If so, how did you cope with the pressure? What are your tips for bearing the burden of expectation?

The front cover was definitely a shock! And it was lovely to be included in the issue. To be honest, I didn’t feel any added pressure. Mostly because I had already put so much pressure on myself to produce a pamphlet that I was completely happy with (and I’m sure you know how hard that is!), and which I’d be happy with for years to come. So I was already working loads on some of the poems, and trying out as many different things as I could. Secondly, in situations like that you only ever see things from your own perspective. If the poem gave people any kind of indication of what to expect, or if it whetted people’s appetite in some way, that’s not something I would know. I mean, apart from some kind words from the people who’re close to me, I didn’t sense any anticipation. And the other thing is that I’m ultimately happy with the poem (‘hotboxing’), but I actually think that there are several others in Ripe that are stronger – so I didn’t think that people would be disappointed if they read the rest of the pamphlet. If someone is feeling the burden of expectation, I would say to just try and tune it out. Remember that it’s not your responsibility to please people. In fact, I think that it’s the artist’s job to challenge what we see and believe to be true. And the thing is, if you try to please other people, you’re more likely to end up disappointing yourself, and falling short of the priorities and goals that you believe are important.

4. Ripe features lines from Galatians, Isaiah and the Psalms. Do you consider yourself a Christian poet? Why/why not?

Well, I am both a Christian and a poet, and so to that extent, yes. However, I don’t really think of myself as a “Christian poet” – mostly because I think of “Christian poets” as people who write (exclusively?) “Christian poetry”, which I don’t, despite the many biblical references in my work.

On the other hand, I’ve often heard, and I believe it to be true, that any poem written by a Black poet is de facto a “Black poem”, because even if the work doesn’t announce itself as being from that perspective, the poem is informed by the perspective of the writer, and it centres that experience. And so, following that logic, I guess it could be argued that my poems are “Christian poems”. I mean, I would definitely say that my faith informs my work. And ‘Simon Peter’, for instance, is a poem of existential exploration, from the perspective of a man who would later become a disciple of Jesus. But my intention with that poem was not to preach or talk down to the reader. I wanted to tap into the questions that we all have at some point, in our own way. I don’t think of poetry as a place for me to discuss or explore my faith explicitly, and that’s largely due to the fact that I’m always aware (or I always assume) that my poems will be read by a secular/nonChristian/cynical audience. Still, in everything that I do as a person, my ultimate goal is to point people to their Maker and to deepen their understanding of themselves and the world.

5. Who are some underrated poets who deserve more exposure? Who are some overrated poets who deserve less exposure?

As a general rule, Black woman poets are very underrated. I think Canisia Lubrin deserves so much more limelight, and these days I’m in love with Vievee Francis’s poems. But I’m sure there are many more, across all demographics, and I love discovering new favourites. Every time I go on Twitter my reading list grows… In terms of overrated poets, there are many. But I don’t believe in knocking anyone down, and to each their own. Every story and perspective is important to someone. Also, context is important. What was considered ground-breaking thirty years ago might pale in comparison to some of the leaps being made now, but that doesn’t change the fact that they paved the way for so many poets today. Plus, I’m optimistic that the more we foster and celebrate excellence in all its forms, the less likely it will be for mediocrity to reach the top.

________________________________

Isabelle Baafi’s pamphlet Ripe is available from Ignition Press

[alistaircousland]

I'm curious? How exactly do you see reylo becoming canon when he tortured her and killed his own father? There isn't even subtext so I'm confused by all the "canon sources" you seem to be reading

(before anything- Reylo is not canon yet. I strongly believe it will be. If you refer to me saying so in my blog title etc. that is mostly to scare off harassing antis so they do not follow me. I’m not talking about normal people who don’t ship reylo following me, here I’m refering to the death threat senders and those who throw all sorts of slurs at reylo shipppers. I do not want them on my blog.)

I’ve thought a lot about how I should answer you on this anon. Short or long? Precise or jokingly? I’ve come to the conclusion that if you really want to know, what you should get back is a (at least almost) definite answer. I will spend a lot of time on Kylo/Ben, since that seems to be the man some people have problems with, not just with the ship Reylo but with his character as a whole.

I’d also like to state right now, before you bring in every piece of logic you’d usually apply to any real-world situation. There are two things we need to be clear about: this is fiction. This is a fictional ship. This whole story is a made up thing, by bringing in every moral and standard you have normally nothing in Star Wars makes no sense. Secondly, no character is perfect. Not a single one. Kylo has his flaws, Rey has her flaws, even our darling Finn does. The original trio has em and there’s so much to pick from in the prequels. I won’t go into that any more, but you need to have this clear. No, Kylo is in no way a perfect prince and no he will not be treated as such. Got it? Ok let’s go!

Let’s start with Kylo Ren, previously known as Ben Solo!

Now, just to give a quick reminder, he is not irredeemable. He feels compassion. He is not okay with the First Order blowing up planets (read the canon novel fam). He most likely grew up on one of those planets destroyed. He is not a psychopath.  

So now let’s get to the Han death scene, shall we? I don’t know how people think he initially wanted to kill Han, or that it was his plan all along to trick him into some false sense of security or something? There are a LOT of ways you can interpret this scene, and to try to not make this too long I won’t go into every detail. If you could not see that he was truly torn apart and did not know what to do I really am confused by how you watched this movie. He is distraught, wanting to go back but knowing he never could. Yes, he believes that he never could go back with Han, because of all the awful things he has done (see “It’s too late”). It doesn’t matter if Han says no (and sometimes I wonder if Han really believed his own words, see this theory on this scene if you’re interested: http://nathantrents.tumblr.com/post/159970936626/ ), he has already made up his mind about that fact. His only choice in this scene as far as we can see according to him is to kill himself or kill Han. He can’t go back to Snoke without killing Han, he can’t go back to Han because of his actions. I’m sure he does not want to die, and makes that terrible decision to kill Han. Hopefully that will help him stay on the dark path, he believes. Listen; he is not okay with what he did. That’s the whole point of the scene and his death. Even though he did the darkest of acts- killing his own father,- he still can’t get rid of the light still inside him. Still, when he was stabbed by his son, Han caresses his face, as to say he still believes in him, or still cares for him. It’s not far fetched to think that Kylo didn’t believe that he cared- he was not there for him during his childhood and sent him away to train with Luke! Still though, he can’t justify it himself which is what makes him redeemable to me. (Another interesting theory regarding his struggle with the light is that Snoke actually encourages him to use BOTH light and dark, but somehow Kylo only wants to be dark? I don’t know what to make of that yet, but it is still interesting to note.)

I hate to say this, because I do truly love Han Solo, but Kylo killing him is not inexcusable. I’ve gone through it before, you know. When Darth Vader killed Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan is one of, if not my number one favorite character in Star Wars. Still, I got through it, and while I was pissed at Vader I still accepted his redemption. He killed Palpatine, the worst of the worst. I don’t know how y’all can’t see that this is setting itself up to be done again, with Kylo killing Snoke in most likely episode IX. Snoke is no better than Palpatine, they both are despicable beings (who has shown no indication of remorse/compassion whatsoever) and they’re both going to be slain by our legendary Skywalker line, whom they thought they had seduced well enough to have on their side just to have them both eventually turn on them. Kylo is already showing a lack of faith in Snoke. Honestly, he might’ve even killed his father to finally have access to his physical form, as we still don’t know if he actually has even met him face to face! Imagine that! Besides, Kylo hates the weapon. He does not want to use it. He never wanted to kill his father. This is going into too much theorizing but what did Vader want to do? He keeps saying “I’ll finish what you started”. I can only think of Vader destroying the Jedi (which must be why he wants to locate Luke- so he can end the Jedi). HMMMMM I wonder who else says they want the Jedi to end??????????? *cough*it’s Luke*cough* What if it was Luke who first betrayed Ben back in the day? Anyway that’s enough for now.

A quick stop with some Rey too!

I’d like to talk about the interrogation scene with Rey here. No, this is not a “classic”torture scene. Really, it is not. Please compare this scene with what the First Order did to Poe earlier in the film. That is torture. Kylo has stated in the novel that he does not want to hurt her. Yes, he does say that! Guess what he says! ”Despite what you may believe, it gives men no pleasure. I will go as easily as possible- but I will take what I need.” Guess what! This is exactly what he does! He tries to use the mind probe force ability to get his crucial piece of information painlessly out of her. Unfortunately, he fails to do so. Rey instead uses this same dark side ability to do the same to him, revealing his darkest fears to him. There are multiple times Rey struggled with the dark side in this film alone, this scene and during the fight in the forest. In the end of the fight she even considers killing him, a dark side of the force thing to do (remember “it’s not the jedi way!!!11!!1” – Anakin). 

Aaaanyway- her “hurting from the probe” is also very much up to interpretation too. In the novel there is no mention of her feeling pain from it(probably because Kylo says he will do this as painlessly as he can), but she’s stressing because she’s trying to stop it and that’s why she is so distressed. Listen it is not okay that he kidnapped her and caused her this stress, but you do realize that she is is enemy? And still- even though he could treat her the worst possible way he did not. Of COURSE Rey is in distress being captured by him, and that is not okay but what did you expect? What I’m saying is that technically he should treat her worse, but my point here is that he still didn’t. He is supposed to be the big baddie! Which is why it makes it so special that he does not harm her. 

Another highly important fact to consider; she always shoots first. When they meet in the forest for the first time, she fires at him, unbeknownst to who he his. He comments on this (novel), saying “You would kill me. Knowing nothing about me.” She says he is of the First Order so why wouldn’t she, and he replies with that she doesn’t and that she is ignorant. He continues with “So afraid. Yet I should be the one who should be scared. You shot first. You speak of the First Order as if it were barbaric, And yet, it is I who was forced to defend myself against you.” This of course happens once again in the forest with her firing her blaster at him first. He is forced to knock her out so she wouldn’t try to harm him further, because yes, she would. This we see when she gets the lightsaber, and she charges at him. He is defending himself, still stunned about how good she is at literally everything. She is the one who slices him up, cutting his face, are two seconds away from killing him. She didn’t have a scratch from what we saw. 

So to the good stuff- reylo. Why? How?

Listen- we don’t want a toxic-capture-prisoner-slave-rape thing that somehow people seem to believe. The most of us want them to be together on the same side, be that the dark side, light side or the most popular and mostly loved outcome- in the middle, together. Since I believe the route they’re going is the middle ground, I’m going to focus on this one ok? Save dark Reylo for the fanfiction. 

OKAY SO if you ship Reylo then you most likely believe that they formed a force bond when they entered each others minds(or when he first entered hers in the forest, but that is up to interpretation), which honestly seems like the only logical way for her to be that knowledgeable of the force after their encounter. She succeeds in doing the mind-probe back at him, in addition to using a Jedi mind trick on the (James Bond) stormtrooper aaand getting that lightsaber in the forest without ANY training. If they formed a force bond, this would actually make sense as the core of a force bond is borrowing each other’s strength. She could have picked up how to do all these things through him.

Before this bond was made Kylo mentions this “something” at least three times in the novel talking about her. Rey also thinks that she finds herself drawn to Kylo when they meet again in the forest, which all would make sense if they formed a force bond. Kylo’s pre-force bond “somethings” could be him sensing there is a possibility of that bond, which would make sense with him saying “something there. Something unexpected.”

For Star Wars this is an unexplored story- a light side-dark side romance. This has been explored in the now expanded universe, but not in what we consider canon. Imagine all the possibilities! The novel Lost Stars (yup a canon novel) they have explored the Empire-Rebel romance thing, and that is such an amazing story you definitely should read. For the movies this is a new thing that is just screaming to happen. Even marketing is pushing these two as the main characters of this saga- further establishing how their relationship is at the core of this trilogy. Rey said she feels like their destinies are intertwined, and guess what TLJ will definitely further develop that.

While I would adore it if they went romantic with it, they don’t have to.  This story can work with them just relying on their force bond connection to so become friendly towards each other. However, adding a romantic factor would really spice it up and make it a lot more interesting.

(If you are a fan of the “cutesy” way of shipping them then you must’ve seen the way he looked at her when she catched the lightsaber. Literal heart eyes. He is so attracted to her, be that romantic of because of the force bond- so much so that he wants to teach her and never harm her.)

Anyway- I have no idea how or how much you know about Reylo, but you should know we predicted balance being the main plot for this saga back in 2015/16 right after release. All that by reading the subtext of the film, novel and script notes. We picked up this ship also, as being the main indicator of this balance. We knew that their bond would be the center piece, which is why it does make sense to ship them. They’re yin and yang- different, and yet the same. Lonely, isolated in their own way. We want them to find happiness in each other.  

The reason I’m not saying anything about the Finn and Rey ship here is because I have nothing against it. I love them, they’re adorable. Personally though I want and strongly believe Reylo will be the way this is going, and then I can only hope they’re brave enough to go with Finn and Poe. If not, there were rumors about a “Finn-love-interest” being cast for ep VIII far back and now we have Rose- so tbh I would not be surprised if they put them together either.

SO THE BOTTOM LINE IS-

I am not forcing you to ship this. You are allowed to like and not like whatever you want to. What I am tired of is having to justify my ship because others don’t bother to read subtext, because the film, the promotional material for TLJ and everything Rian says about it all but confirms it for me. What I am asking of you is to ship and let ship. Stop hating on such a small, insignificant thing because yes it is insignificant for you if you don’t care about it, but stop harassing shippers for what they enjoy. I have no idea if you’ve participated in any of this, I hope you have decency enough to not have done it anyway, but that needed to be said. 

As a last note to this, it needs to be said that Star Wars has never been a fluffy, cutesy non-problematic series. There are sooo many morally wrong decisions being made by all characters, so cherry picking which are good “cinnamon rolls” and who is not is not the way to go when you discuss this saga seriously (note: when discussing seriously. by all means make whatever memes suits you for the fun of it fun). This saga is so much deeper than that. The conflict between light and dark has always been at its core, and as we know nothing is ever black and white about this. I am so glad they’re finally solidifying the balance between the to to be focal point.

Thanks for not sending hate and actually asking for a serious opinion, I hope this answered your question in some way. If not, well, go back on anon and specify whatever you feel wasn’t properly said I guess. So yeah, thanks for not going all about this in a hateful way.