Update :)

[swiftsnowmane]

*** This is a personal and fandom-related update from my Star Wars sideblog (@the-far-bright-center) from a few months ago. I'm posting this in January 2019, but back-dating it to October 2018, when I first shared it on tumblr. Cross-posting it here now for archival purposes. :)

 

 

Hey everyone, it’s been a while. You may have noticed that lately there’s been a bit of a decrease in daily posts here, and that I haven’t been as consistent with tagging, etc. For the past three months, I’ve been in the middle of an unexpected and extremely stressful house move. During this time, I’ve had very unreliable and inconsistent internet access, so I decided to run this blog on a queue, and add to it with intermittent reblogs whenever I could get the chance. To say it’s been frustrating is an understatement, and I sincerely apologize to those of you who have messaged me or sent me asks during this time – I’ve been so exhausted, it’s been impossible to keep up with everything.

Thankfully, the house move is now winding down (we’re now finally in the new house, but still unpacking, settling in, etc.), so I should at least be able to resume curating this blog with more of my usual attentiveness. I’d like to say that everything will now go back to normal, but….I’m honestly not quite sure what ‘normal’ is anymore. Over the last few months, I have been thinking long and hard about my continued involvement in SW fandom, and have come to some difficult, but, imo, necessary, conclusions.

Don’t worry, I am not leaving tumblr, nor am I going to stop posting on this blog. It means too much to me to do that. However, I feel I must make it clear that, from here on out, I can no longer have anything to do with any current or forthcoming ‘New Canon’ material, whether it be films, tv series (animated or otherwise), novels, comics….just…none of it. 

Most of you know me well enough by now that I don’t think I even need to explain why, but I will do so, just in case…. 

I had always intended to completely divorce myself from the Disney stuff once Star Wars: Rebels had finished airing, but since, for a variety of reasons, it turned out that I was never able to finish watching that show through to its conclusion, this ended up happening far sooner than I’d expected. (I won’t even get into my thoughts on the renewed Clone Wars season – the less I say about it, or even acknowledge its existence, the better…for the state of my mental and emotional health, at the very least.)

My reasons for wanting—no, needing— to stay as far away as possible from Disney’s version of Star Wars from now on are many and varied [see here, here, here, and here], but ultimately it comes down to several inter-related issues, the most key being that ever since TFA, I have not been able to trust Disney with Star Wars, and will never be able to fully trust them with it ever again. It does not matter how much ‘good’ material they put out to balance out the bad, it’s too late…the damage is done. And since the version of SW as put forth in the sequels is probably the worst, most out-of-character, inaccurate, and disrespectful interpretation of my beloved story that I could possibly imagine, I therefore cannot help but view the rest of Disney’s output (however innocuous, and regardless of who writes/directs/creates it) with extreme skepticism, and an anxiety bordering on panic.

As I’ve gone over many times before, the entire premise of the so-called ‘sequels’ is anathema to pretty much all of my long-held beliefs and understanding of the saga as a whole…and to what I had, for decades, assumed that other fans implicitly understood and valued as well. And so, the fact that so many fans have so readily embraced those movies and swallowed down Disney’s bizarro version of the SW saga without hesitation or question, has continued to leave me feeling more and more heart-broken and ostracized. Not only from an entire fandom, but also from popular culture in general. It’s made me realize that, for far too many people, ‘Star Wars’ is indeed just a blockbuster series of movies, and is not the mythical two-part saga that it is to me. For far too many people, it is now, at worst, an endless, profit-churning franchise…at best, another version of an expanded universe, albeit one that has been corporately ‘canonized’. 

The fact that I can no longer relate to most other SW fans is beyond depressing for me. Something I used to take for granted – the universal appeal and relatability of Star Wars as a modern myth—no longer exists. I can’t even talk about my beloved Star Wars with people in RL anymore, lest someone let slip a spoiler that will break my heart all over again.  It is no wonder that the lead-up to every subsequent release since then (even the ones I have been actively ignoring, which is most of them) has left me a shaking, nervous wreck….and given the often fragile state of my mental health in general, this has been downright dangerous for me at times. Even just stumbling across or hearing about SW related news and announcement can leave me distressed and despondent for days on end. It takes a herculean effort for me to then reclaim a positive headspace and find my ‘happy place’ again after something like this. So I blacklist as much as I can, but it doesn’t always work, because… in order to keep this blog even remotely active, I have to peruse other SW blogs for content. And, given my need to AVOID spoilers like the plague, I struggle to do this at the best of times. Disney has so oversaturated the market with their output that sometimes it seems like every damn day there is yet another announcement of some new release. It’s just too much, and the fact that there is no end in sight is demoralizing as hell. (I dream of creating a time machine and going back to before all of this shit, just to make it stAHP.) Ultimately, all of this combines together to leave me feeling completely alienated, stressed out, and just plain unhappy.

But no more, I say. This is FANDOM….it’s supposed to be FUN. It’s supposed to make me happy. Life is already horrifically depressing and stressful as it is. And what is more… this blog in particular is supposed to be my safe space. That’s what I created it to be, in the first place.

In short, the conclusion I’ve reached is this: in order to continue enjoying the REAL my preferred version of SW in the way that I need to engage with it, I MUST completely remove myself from new Disney content. If I do not, I will lose the ability to enjoy any of it at all. 

So, my friends, while I’m not going anywhere (not just yet anyway), I doneed to ask you all to please continue being patient and understanding with me about these above-mentioned issues. If you want to engage in meta discussions with me, for instance, please be aware that I will only talk about interpretations of ‘Star Wars’ as Lucas’ saga (and anything that is supplementary or supportive of that), and will not engage with anything that tries to insinuate that the sequels nonsense is even remotely part of the same story. Likewise, I beg you all to please refrain from commenting on my posts or messaging me about anything to do with upcoming releases, news, or any Disney Star Wars stuff from this point on. Again, I’m happy to discuss past content…to an extent (if you’re not sure what, please feel free to message me for clarification). But any new Disney content I just….don’t want to hear about. At all. Even if you THINK I will like it or be ok with it. The fact is… I won’t. Because Star Wars is finished. It’s a completed story. ‘IT IS ALREADY OVER. NOTHING CAN BE DONE TO CHANGE IT.’  I neither want nor need any more from it – whether as a story OR a ‘franchise’ – than what already exists.  And I become stressed and anxious the moment anyone (purposefully or inadvertently) suggests that I ought to be watching/reading/seeing/hearing about what I personally feel is just a fake version of the REAL THING that I hold dear.

Finally, I just want to clarify that, because of all of this, it’s unlikely that I will be able to keep this blog up-to-date with all the ‘latest’ content (not that I ever have done so, lol). I will, however, continue to keep it to the standards I have set so far. As always, the subject matter will be mostly be Prequels Trilogy, along with the (original!!) Clone Wars animated series (aka, seasons 1-5), Rebels (but only up through season 4a), Rogue One, and, of course, the Original Trilogy. Some supplementary material from those eras may creep in, along with occasional EU content. I just I thought I’d better make it clear that there won’t be any further ‘new canon’ on this blog…. at least, not unless some kind of unforeseen miracle happens and Disney decides to de-canonize their shitty sequel trilogy and magically make me trust them again! (ha ha I can dream)

Because it’s so difficult for me to find new content on tumblr without running into stuff I do not want to see, I have for a while now had the goal of creating my own content for those times when I can’t find anything new. Frustratingly, due to the house move, I’ve been way too busy to even contemplate that in recent times, but I do have some still-unfinished and in-progress projects that I’d like to eventually share here. In addition to this blog, I also ‘curate’ my own RL Star Wars collection, so once I get a new safe place to set it up, expect regular photoshoots of my action figures and other collectibles as well. :)

Most of all, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has stuck with this blog for so long. Thank you for respecting my various quirks, neuroses, and eccentricities, and for helping to keep this blog a safe space.

And to any new followers out there…. a belated, but very warm, welcome! :)