Lots of things wrong with #TheRiseofSkywalker but here's an ending variation that fixes some--not all--problems. Inspired by bored clicking through the #DarkRey hashtag. THREAD 1/
Everything's the same through Rey's healing Ben, and Ben's consequent redemption. Rey gets to Exegol, encounters Sidious, and Ben shows up. Basically the same (esp. the lightsaber transfer) except there's no life force sucking, because that's dumb. 2/
When Sidious flings Ben over the edge Rey assumes he's dead & something breaks. She's just briefly experienced the fullness of a bond deeper than any romantic or maternal bond & she thinks it's torn from her. (Maybe Ben's knocked out; she's too distracted to explore further). 3/
So she goes Dark. Wailing on Sidious. She blocks his Force lightning with her lightsaber and hurls her own. In the struggle you can *see* the bleeding of her lightsaber crystal in real time. It slowly turns red during the fireworks. 4/
While this is going on the dead Jedi call out to *Ben*. Rey hears Luke's admonitions but is rage-deaf. Ben hears the voices of the Jedi and is boosted by their Force ghosts. They're urging him to get to Rey, to save her from herself. 5/
The spectacle continues as we flip back and forth between the battles and Ben climbing up. When he finally makes it over the edge, he voice dials Rey "No Rey." Where before she'd given him the lightsaber through the bond, now he takes it. 6/
He--stumbling, struggling--casts it aside, like Luke in ROTJ. Maybe Rey gets blasted by Sidious here, or continues the lightning exchange. (I'm not a director.) "Ben, Palpatine *must* die!" Ben: "Not like this." (Or something. I don't do dialogue either.) 7/
Sidious turns his energies on Ben but Rey bends the lightning toward herself, catching it in her hands like Yoda. After some commentary that makes it clear Sidious was already dying before they arrived, Ben calls the other blue lightsaber & hurls it into the machinery. 8/
Sidious loses the ability to do further combat, and Ben stops Rey from going for the kill. They escape, hanging onto each other as the whole place starts to come down. There's Sith resistance on the way out but they're dispatched easily. 9/
The space battle goes much the same. Rey and Ben escape. Ben lives, and thereby saves Rey from the Dark. Rey and Ben restart the Jedi order. Rey's double- switch-blade lightsaber is white like Ahsoka's. Finn is their first student. 10/10
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Okay, stream-of-conscious thread on liberalism, neoliberalism, politics, policy, and philosophy commencing here and going through the night. (There'll be long gaps and pauses) 🧵#NeoliberalShillBracket
Liberalism is values, practices, & institutions. Usual stuff: representative government, now w/ high suffrage democracy, tho that wasn't always the case. I think at this point liberalism requires democracy and without it—whatever may've been once true—it's not really liberalism.
Okay so rep. gov't and high suffrage democracy. Also markets; professional state bureaucracy, rule of law and a constitutional legal tradition; stable property rights and a welfare state. #NeoliberalShillBracket
If health and fitness, and professional development are middle-class striving, I guess I tend to see middle-class striving as a good thing, and something that doesn't *by necessity* have to be premised on exclusion and elitism.
The urge to better one's condition seems pretty valuable, alongside likely being a basic fact of human nature. Of course it occurs in a social context, which is riddled with various status hierarchies, many malign or toxic. We should fix the social context, not ditch aspiration.
Dreher is right about this. Gender & sexuality are both more fluid for more people than either conservative doctrine or the "born that way" school have supposed. Gender & sexuality are socially construed. *Of course* normalizing LGBTQ identities leads to more LGBTQ people.
It's remarkable that @roddreher thinks of himself as tolerant though. Characterizing a society with more LGBTQ people as "moral insanity", "Babylonian decadence", or the cause of "our dying civilization" is not tolerant. Maybe tolerance for him just means avoiding overt violence.
But it's neither tolerance nor pluralism to merely marginalize--look the other way *so long as* the queers keep hidden--but to drive a demonizing political backlash when LGBTQ folks have gained some cultural influence.
I think it's fair to be confused by all the definitions and vague boundaries of trans vs nonbinary vs genderfluid etc. The definitional overlap between trans and nonbinary arises precisely because we all want to avoid gender essentialism. 🧵
But to go from the regrettable-but-inevitable ambiguity of "transgender is an umbrella term" to "the medical establishment operates on kids to enforce gender conformity is a non-sequitur. It's also a conspiracy theory and basically a blood libel.
The image evoked here is a tomboy who gets gaslit by school counselors and activist doctors into believing she's really a boy and is then rushed into hormone therapy and surgery. This is just false.
Steady stream of these essays by "politically homeless" libertarians. This one by @ismurray. There is exactly one small-l liberal small-d democratic party and one antidemocratic white nationalist party in the US. I wish this choice weren't so difficult for libertarians. 🧵
The piece frets about regulating Big Tech, antitrust policy, and protectionism. Identity politics too, but I'll get to that. Look, I was a big @ewarren booster, but even I complain about her protectionism. But this is *inconsequential* compared to *preserving democracy*.
.@ismurray describes the basic political realignment and its global nature. This is basically correct, in my view.
Disappointing from @AmericanPurpose. There are no trans extremists. There are trans folks who want to live their lives. There is no "radical gender ideology" any more than there was ever a "homosexual agenda". It's a fabrication of the reactionary right to weaponize polarization.
The piece is full of lies and misrepresentation. For example, "trans women are women" does not mean trans women and cis women must be treated the same in all contexts and that's never been the claim. Not even all cis women are expected to be treated the same in all contexts!
We say trans women are women because absent some context where transness is specifically apposite, trans women are, well, women, and to insist on demarcating trans women as an intrinsically separate class is marginalizing. (Mutatis mutandis trans men.)