just wanted to chime in to say the biracial/black women convo is important and I really appreciate your perspective. I’m around Zendaya’s age, (slightly) older and I’m also a (biracial) light skinned black woman. Same foundation shade as Zendaya actually 😂. I can tell you this discourse was not a thing growing up. We were black, considered black by society, etc. it wasn’t until the past 5 years that I’ve seen people feel the need to distinguish us as “biracials” and honestly it has been a little hurtful and neglects our experiences as biracial black people. Yes we have privilege, absolutely. Now that I live in a city, I feel that more readily. I was also raised around a lot of white people so I can adapt fluidly in white spaces, which has been immensely helpful in my career. But all grass isn’t always greener on the other side, if that makes sense.

For example, I grew up in a rural sundown town. Guess what? I was the only black person many of them had ever seen, and on top of that being biracial made me, and I quote, an “abomination”. Can’t tell you how many times I heard that growing up. And I imagine even in hollywood there are remnants of some of that (less harsh) sentiment there. Is Zendaya privileged and does she have access to more roles because she’s lighter? Yes. Is she still probably fighting off “stereotypical” castings, being met with executives who say “a black star won’t make us money in China/Korea/europe/whatever”, is she offered less than her white counterparts, probably also yes. I think it’s important that we can acknowledge that Zendaya (and light skinned black people) is more privileged but I get so salty when I see people try to strip her of her identity or overly criticize her because she’s “not black enough”. I feel like the discourse around biracial people in particular has been on fire in recent years. I can understand the frustration people feel with society around light skinned folks and I absolutely admit that some light skinned folks abuse their privilege or don’t give back, but the discourse is really stripping us of our identity as BLACK people. I’m a black woman, society sees me as such and I am PROUD to be a black woman. Having one white parent doesn’t erase that from my identity.

hopefully people don’t take this the wrong way, but thanks again for your take. Love your blog!

First off, thank you so much for your sweet and kind words about my blog Anon. 🥰 I appreciate it!

lawkjefklawje jenitals help

honestly i would imagine it's something like that bc like really. jooty is one thing, he's done sex scenes with women before although not too graphic bc network TV but

yeah i can imagine the jenitals may be too far which i mean boy sameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee [both i wouldn't want to show my junk on TV like that and also low key i don't want to see that xD]

I’m as Finnrey as they come. No other romantic pairing for either of them will work for me. Any short search of my blog will feature love of Finnrey and hatred of reylow, doomrey, finnlow, etc.

That said, I do think it’s fair, and probably necessary, to discuss the optics of Finnrey and why so much was changed in the movies.

I wrote a post a long time back asking how Finnrey fandom could be more welcoming and supportive, particularly to black fans who at that time were getting inundated with racist messages from reylows. I received a lot of good feedback. Well that post seems to be making the rounds again because a couple of black fans reached out and we’ve been conversing. Neither of these fans likes Finnrey. Both of them feel it follows the shopworn “black man lusts after white woman because white” trope and that Rey’s feelings really aren’t comparable. I understood in part, but as I’m not black I couldn’t understand completely. To me, it seemed obvious that both of them cared deeply for one another, and I really understand what “not comparable” meant.

Then one of these fans said to me that if the Finnrey dynamic was more like in the TFA novel they might have shipped it. That confused me more, since this was a novelization of the movie they said they did not like the Finnrey dynamic in. I was told to read it and I would understand better. I borrowed it and finally got a chance to read it.

They were right. I now understand.

As Finnrey fans, I do think there is a place for debate about why the novelization made it so much more explicit that Rey found Finn attractive and was falling in love with him. I think it is fair to ask why the clunky “my friend” was added when “We’ll see each other again, I believe that, Finn” or even just “We’ll see each other again” would have sufficed. The bedside scene in the novelization was much more that of a woman leaving her love to go off on an adventure. It was a subversion of the Odysseus trope and worked well. “My friend” seemed tacked on, 19 year olds don’t talk that way, and when I first heard it I did think it odd. Having now read the novelization, I think it’s more than odd, and it seems like something JJ was told to insert.

I’m writing all this to you because one of the takeaways from my original post to the fandom was that black fans said they often felt marginalized and that their concerns are not taken seriously in the fandom, particularly about race and racism. Obviously since the person was anon, who knows who it was, but that doomrey anon you just answered? That person said almost exactly what one of the black fans I recently spoke to said, that it was possible Rey will be made to realize her feelings for Finn were not love, and that Poe makes her “tingle” in a way that Finn didn’t. That the “my friend” business was an out LF gave itself to extricate itself from having to follow through with Finnrey, they can always say Rey only felt friendship for him.

I was told that several black fans left Finnrey fandom after TLJ because of Finn’s overall treatment and because it seemed to them that the Poe and Rey meeting was meant to be significant in more ways than just, they’re meeting finally. I respectfully disagreed, feeling that 10 seconds and smiles didn’t negate all that Finn had gone through with her. The response to that was that LF had decided to make Finn a joke in TLJ so why would it be so far fetched to use him as a starter boyfriend of sorts for Rey that she could measure her feelings for in comparison to Poe and realize she liked Poe “that way” more.

You said to that anon that doomrey would be shitty storytelling. I agree 100%. I also know Daisy herself has said she does not want doomrey at all. But Finn stumbling around leaking bacta was also shitty storytelling, so was him getting tased and the suicide run that wasn’t. Yet we got all of those and much more shit in TLJ.

I think there can be reasoned debate and discussion about LF’s racism making them not care that they derail the story - and doomrey would definitely be derailing it - just so long as they appease their racist fan base who don’t want to see a black man and a white woman romantically involved, and hysterical anons declaring that the first scene of IX will be of Poe zipping up and Rey rising from off screen wiping her mouth. Several black fans feel as that anon does, that Finn might be used by LF as Rey’s romance barometer and she decided that Finn was cool but Poe really makes her knickers wet. These are not “secret doomreys” these are black fans who are angry that Finn might be discarded because of racism. So yes, while doomrey would be an awful follow to the story being told, when has that stopped LF before, is their point. It’s a good one.

EDI: That is unlikely. Salarians rarely took part in raids on rachni-occupied worlds directly.

Joker: *sigh* Missing the point. So the two guys are climbing up a hill, going through this nasty geen fog... And as they get to the top, they come out of the fog, and the salarian sees thousands of rachni. He looks over at the krogan and says, "Well, that makes me nervous."

Joker: The krogan says, "You think thats scary? When this is over, I have to go back down through that fog by myself!"

EDI: The implication being that the salarian soldier would be dead.

Joker: Yes. thank you for killing the 2,000-year-old joke.

EDI: That joke plays to racial stereotypes on both sides. The krogan appears brutish and insensitive, while the salarian appears weak. Stereotypes such as exemplified here led to the development and use of the genophage.