so like do people understand there's a difference between "i dislike this thing because it's cliched" and "i dislike this thing because the person who made it personally bullied a friend of mine, used their platform as a big name fan to send their own fans after other people in similar ways, harassed one of the hermits off tumblr, and made the fandom incredibly inhospitable to anyone who didn't align with Their Specific Opinions" or

This is a genuine question....why has the Jedi Council Forums been taken over by toxic Finn fans?

I'm not judging ALL Finn fans as toxic; I'm pretty sure some reylos are, there's a toxic element to most fandoms. I've seen plenty of lovely Finn and FinnRey fans, and let's face it...we are ALL entitled to like whatever character we want, and 'ship' however we want.

But....the JCF has some very nasty Finn fans. And these people have a particular hatred for anyone who likes Kylo/Ben...even if they aren't reylos.

As I've said so many times...I've been banned for mentioning Ben in a Finn thread twice. But, I'm sure as everyone knows, forum threads can be like Red Robins...you can start off talking about one thing and end up going completely off topic. In fact, on the JCF people went so way off topic on a JJ Abrams thread they made a joke of it!

When it comes to Finn and Kylo however, it's a different kettle of fish.

My comment, that got me banned was this: 'The ST should have been Ben Solo's story.'

And I stand by that. Not because, as I was accused of doing, I was 'putting the white character in front of the Black male lead.' But, because it was the Skywalker saga - not the Stormtrooper Saga. It wasn't the Scavenger Saga either. One of my biggest beefs is how DLF turned the Skywalker Saga into the story of two complete strangers. Even worse, they have made it the Palpatine Story.

Earlier on that same forum I had posted how depressed Ben's fate had left me...I'm a clinical depressant and SW was actually a lifesaver for me throughout bad times in my life. Another poster then replied telling me how delighted he was, as it 'served me right for liking Han's killer.'

I'm a clinical depressant. That individual could have driven me to taking my own life, yet his post remained up, and a poster who angrily accused him of being a 'dick' was threatened with a ban. Apparently calling someone a dick is far, far worse than practically telling a depressant they're glad they are depressed.

What does worry me is that some of the hatred the JCF Finn fans have for the Kylo Ren character is starting to bleed out onto Adam. I still 'lurk', just to see if they are still as poisonous as ever (they are) and also because they often have some interesting links. I've seen that some of them are now not just criticising the 'loathsome young man' Kylo Ren, but they are also criticising Adam from anything from his appearance to his acting skills....this isn't fair.

I think it all boils down to 'reylo' being 'canon' in TROS....yet how is this Adam's fault? In fact, I don't really see it as 'canon'...the film and book make it very plain that Rey didn't give a toss for him. I've even recently seen that the 'end scene' originally featured Rey looking 'sad', presumably because of Ben's fate, and they scrapped it in favour of 'Stepford Smiler' Rey.

The truth is, Rey 'ended up' with no one.

'Rey doesn't need a boyfriend.' This is DLF's new mantra, women don't need men. I suspect she'll remain stubbornly single in the forthcoming film, the director apparently is a 'champion' of women's equality, which is fine, but does Rey, and do we, the moviegoers, really need to see even more 'Rey, icon of female empowerment?' This one doesn't.

The JCF attitude to Adam/Kylo is frankly disturbing. At the end of the day, Kylo/Ben was a fictional character. They need to leave Adam alone. He took nothing from John Boyega. Abrams and Terrio did.

A Small Rant

TW: Abuse.

You know, for whatever reason, this puritanism thing making a comeback in fandom has been bugging me. It has been something that keeps popping up in my head and it just keeps coming back and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t figure out exactly why it angers me so much, on a personal level. I just figured out why today. 

I usually don’t publish this sort of thing much except for this topic. Not because I’m blind to what’s happening in the world but because when I look around me and I see pain, I see chaos, I see injustice and I understand that sometimes, the only way we can keep fighting is if we take a moment every day to enjoy something uncomplicated. Something that allows us to unwind and recharge so that we can go on. I see my blogs as escapism, for myself and hopefully for my readers. I like to think that by publishing my stories, I give people the chance to take a small amount of time from their day and take a little step to the side. If only for a minute. 

And yet, as I said, this thing keeps bugging me, it keeps showing up in my mind and so, I took the time to sit down and swim through the murky waters that is my brain trying to make sense and I realized why. It’s fucking abuse, that’s why. It’s giving me flashbacks. Some of my readers might have read that one note where I made mention of it but I come from an abusive household, that’s how I grew up. It’s not something I usually talk about, especially not in my blogs. That’s because, once more, I want these blogs to be escapism, to be somewhere people can go and relax. Including myself. But it’s still part of what has made me who I am, no matter how much I despise that thought. It’s one of those ugly truths I’ve had to swallow. 

When people start talking about problematic, there’s no clear definition for it. It’s just what they think it is, what they decide it is at the moment. Plainly, it’s just their opinion. They claim they’re policing the fandom for the good of others but all I see is entitlement. What they are truly saying is: “You can’t write this, definitely can’t publish this and sure as hell can’t read this because I have decided that it hurts people. By myself, with no data to back me up and no mental health background to speak of.” This is a generalization, of course, but it’s what I mostly have seen in this ‘conversation’. But it’s not a conversation, there’s no interest in listening. The only interest is in obtaining compliance. Are you seeing it? Do you realize?

In the few cases where I see people actually having a conversation, explaining that sometimes writing about these things is a way of dealing with what has been done to us, the reply is usually along the lines of ‘don’t publish it’ or ‘that’s fucked up, that’s not how you should do that.’ And we, once more, should follow this advice because they know better. Do you know what that is? That’s gaslighting. That’s them telling you that the name-calling, the death threats, all of the violence they’re throwing at you would just go away if you just bent to them. If only you understood that they’re doing this for the wellbeing of others, and sometimes even yourself. 

My abuser used to say something similar to me, while he was hitting me, name-calling me and just generally ripping me apart, destroying who I was. He’d say: “This is happening because you have an attitude, because you refuse to listen to reason. If you only behaved yourself, there wouldn���t be a need for this.” Not so different, is it? It’s outstanding. 

And then some have the gall to go with the deceptive: “fine, explain your trauma to me so I can tell whether or not you should be allowed to do this.” Who died and made you king of the world? Your opinion is important but that does not, in any way, make it relevant. I, you, us, we owe these people no explanation. Why should I sit here and relieve my abuse for you to judge? Why should I sit here and allow you to step all over my boundaries like they're not there? Why should I lay bare years of pain and suffering followed by the slow dawning of realization and then, perhaps the hardest: years and years of desperately trying to grasp the pieces of who I used to be, of trying to decipher who I am and what’s a survival mechanism. The furious, helpless realization that I might never know! That I’m left with these broken pieces and some super glue and I have to make something out of it. 

Sometimes that means sitting down and writing what happened to me, changing it just enough to feel like I’m taking control back in a situation where it was snatched away from me. It hurts like hell but it’s the good sort of pain, like disinfecting a wound. It feels like hugging the little girl I used to be and letting her know that I got this now, I finally understand what was happening, that it was wrong, it was not my fault and it couldn’t have been. Who are you to tell me that I’m romanticizing the pain I lived through?

I’m glad you can read a situation like that and not see the messiness of it. But I lived it, I know how it breaks you apart. The knowledge that you might love somebody and yet you’re justified in fearing them. I’m glad you can read something like that and think it sounds poetic, or the image it paints is aesthetically pleasing. But when I wrote it, all I could think about is how something so beautiful can be so tainted. A sweet sort of poison that doesn’t even have the decency to make your death quick. You’re left there in pain and marked for the rest of your life. 

So maybe, instead of trying to put a flashlight through the broken pieces of me, you should take the time to look at the mirror and see the monster staring back. 

And maybe, just maybe, read the fucking tags.

In any case, I needed to share this. In case anybody needed the lightbulb moment, too. And just to get it off my chest.

@thatvermilionflycatcher I know what you mean too! And I think on a personal level those are all valid things to want if that’s how people feel and I certainly have no place TELLING them to feel otherwise and/or treating anyone badly because they feel this way, i.e. sending hate mail, being unbearably bullying about it etc. A opinion post on my own blog that doesn’t include pointed tags (well mostly) is as close as I can get to expressing my real frustration without directly attacking anyone, even though I’m sure it reads that way. (Not saying that you’re misreading this at all—just in general.)

Because it IS a real frustration for me. It’s not just me being flippant—though the post had that tone.

In a general sense, with all the appropriate exceptions and caveats I didn’t make in the first place, I still believe all of my original points are good ones. I think fandom has weakened (at best) and poisoned (at worst) our approach to stories. Stories are NOT buffets for us to choose from, they’re not just meant to serve as our inspiration for spin-off stories, or give us exactly what we think we want all the time. No one has to like any story or be moved by it—and certainly not just because I said so—and some stories are bad and hollow and badly told (increasingly in this age) but I can never shake the feeling that so so so much of fandom analysis/meta/participation has shaped an attitude towards stories that’s self-indulgent at best and entitled at worst and that we’ve let become the NORM for us. That’s why I advocate for the “throw it all away” approach if it’s bad and the “not trying to change the story or misread it intentionally” approach if it’s good.

I’ve loved my side characters in my day—tbh I actually really love Susan Price too!!—and been briefly delighted by the possibilities of side ships and also sometimes daydreamed about characters living who actually died and it’s all FAIR. And it’s all FINE. And it’s a piece of the whole experience but i feel like it’s become the substitute for an actually thoughtful and/or loving approach to stories in a way that’s really damaging.

I believe that stories at their best change, challenge, and inspire us, as well as delight and entertain. But I don’t think they’re supposed to be things we use to serve our ends, to create what we want, except maybe in terms of inspiring us to start our own. They don’t exist to be twisted by us into something else. If we don’t like it, we can leave. But to project something onto a story that isn’t there— my original points can be boiled down to that I think?—in a way where THAT becomes our focus, aren’t we just dealing with fantasies as opposed to realities? With what we want something to be rather than what it is? With wasting our time in the shadows rather than trying to move closer into the light? Idk. It troubles me deeply. And I think I’m right that it troubles me. It’s an approach that doesn’t SEE the art, but tries to twist it, tries to use it, tries to project. And so because of that it’s an approach that WANTS flawed art because it’s easier to mould. It wants the weaknesses so it can be exploited, so that the whole thing can become a giant sandbox for us to play in. That’s actually a really awful thing—for one, because it leads to the production of more bad art, and secondly because there is no real growth on our part in such an outlook.

I’m not explaining myself well at all, I’m missing a million points, I sound like I’m grandstanding and maybe I am, you are absolutely right that people can do those things and often mean no harm by it—and also I am sorry if my post touched a nerve and/or made anyone feel badly about what they do in their spare time, it’s always the danger with spicy posts and I do regret that part of it even when I say it—BUT at the end of the day I still feel that all of those traits of fandoms are cheap substitutes for something better, for the approach that finds the realest, truest beauty in what something is and so WANTS better and better art, not just escapism (even though that has its place). And it frustrates me to see it.