Welcome to Naberrie Fields! Introductions & banter

No idea why anyone would want to intercut a cartoon with a movie like that
:/

No. No piracy. I've been a member of other forums that contained piracy links and they got shut down real fast.
Also the Personal Projects thread is limited to forum members only. No vicarious posting of other people's projects. rayo1 If you'd like to discuss that project, post it in the miscellaneous thread or create a new one for "Fan Re-Edits" or something. Thanks.

Your presence here has perked me up! It's wonderful to have another legend of TFN and the PT forum in our midst!

Welcome, TPC! 

I've been looking forward to this...

So glad you joined. 

Yes, this place is a little quiet, and people lurk a good deal more than they post, but there's a spark of life (Disney version: hope) in the old dog yet.

Banned for refusing to abide by a restriction on speech? Where have I heard that before... 

Oh, right: Me, too! Well, in my case, for calling out the mods of the PT/Saga section, back in 2017, after they created a new catch-all Disney discussion thread, with "ground rules" cautioning against the use of certain terms (e.g., suggesting that the lead female character of the Sequel Trilogy might be a Mary Sue, referring to Finn by his skin colour or commenting on the potential use of stereotyping and tokenism in the new films). The older thread in the PT forum got along perfectly fine without any such rules. Yet it had just been closed in favour of a more restrictive one in a different (and more antagonistic) location. I was pretty stunned and incensed (if not entirely surprised). I sat it out for the first page, but then, when other people had already revolted, I added my two cents and accused the mods of placing PT fans and Lucas loyalists in a straitjacket. I was permanently banned literally one minute later. Others here could tell similar stories. We have all tasted our fill on there of leftist tolerance.

The TFN mods preach diversity, while demanding conformity. Of course, their draconian and inconsistent rules don't apply to themselves, or their bootlicking pet favourites. The place is corrupt and riddled with double standards. It sounds like you have been banned for challenging the use of rhetoric they'd have collectively been in favour of a few years ago.

It's ironic...

We're looking at a bizarre situation. It is clear that some mods, who were dead against criticism being levelled at the Disney films pre-Reylo (when it was just TFA and "Rogue One" -- which somehow "proved" the superiority of Disney to Lucas), have now made it their life's mission to denigrate them, scold the filmmakers, whine about Kathleen Kennedy (who previously earned de facto protection), and declare them a grotesque, offensive failure. In addition, they passively-aggressively imply bad things about anyone that speaks up in defence of them. Shades of prequel bashing all over again. Yet, at the same time, this strange need to defend the new films from certain lines of commentary remains awkwardly in the mix, adding to the confusion, and rendering wide-ranging, open-ended discussion impossible.

The pendulum has swung aggressively on TFN from one side to the other. Yet, as noted, with contradictions and older antipathies and injunctions remaining. It's useless expecting any consistency from the mods that now have dominion over the forums. They rule by fiat, blind to their own biases and prejudices (even proud of them in some cases), lopping off the head or legs of anyone who questions, contradicts, or dissents. To be open and honest about your feelings is to be human, and to be human is a crime that must be punished. Of course, they can be as human as they like, since they hold all the right views and opinions in advance. Which is convenient when they're also the ones setting up the rules, determining the parameters of acceptable discussion in advance, judging when others stray from doctrine and to what degree, and having arrogated themselves the power to choose who lives and who dies. Such collectivism (mixed with unaccountable bureaucracy) is one of the new dangers of our age. It's what technology critic/thinker/author Jaron Lanier has deemed "Digital Maoism".

Very sorry this has happened to you as well. Whether I always agree or not, your posts are often interesting and well-argued, and it's obvious you take pride in what you write. At the same time, neither do you back down or get cowed into a corner. This is an admirable combination. To excommunicate a member as intelligent and articulate as yourself is an act of abject cowardice. But it's what we've been seeing from these hypocrites and charlatans for a while. Please make yourself at home here and feel free to add to any discussion you please (or, of course, begin a new one!).

There's something hilarious about this first sentence. But yes.


I don't even quite know what that means. But it sounds good.

Actually, I get it -- sort of.

To give TFN its due:

So is that place. It has tremendous volume. Tons of material. Lively debate.

Here is a bit dull. But it's also a sapling by comparison. We are meant to cherish and nurture young, vulnerable things, aren't we?


Beast Mode observations. Those mentalities are space trash. No, really:

I could lose my ironic sensibility on this one, easily, and give into more bashing. I'll try and do a Luke-on-the-island (fighting Rey) and relent.


Your esoteric mewling could lose people on this point! But then, so could my invocation of TLJ, as above. 

I try to respect the fact that people see things differently. These are, after all, "just movies".

But still -- you're right! Very little of anything is truly seen in any detail. The devil is in the details? But so is love.

"It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for" (Elvis Costello).


I feel a similar anxiety responding to a Pyro post right after a Cryo post. Especially when we're agreeing. People could think we're the same person. We even think we're almost the same person. But to be completely serious:

I miss seeing your presence in that force-field of psychic energy. You brought a touch of ethereality to that site, and a witty, uncompromising reality check or two, and now your signature is drifting and becoming ever more recessed and hard to make out: ever more midi-chlorianised?

Maybe it's better that way. Make your presence scarce. But, I too, am a total ghost there. That's even what my "rank" is on TFN under this equivalently-named account: "Force Ghost". How apt.

Just think. If we are but a drop in a vast cosmic ocean, are we nothing therefore but pixels, sand grains, gossamers, has-beens? What is our real place in the firmament of message board argumentation; the grand arena of everything? 

Let me come down to Earth here:

I do genuinely feel a similar tension -- or rather: did do (past tense) -- when posting there. The scale of that issue is not a thing to entirely make light of. One does feel an anxiety, a clamminess, when trying to get some points across. You feel accused and harassed even before you've gotten your words out. The whole thought-making process is interfered with. Perhaps that is the aim of all forms of authoritarianism and groupthink. The unstated intention seems to be to get people to doubt themselves, censor their thought channels, dam up the rivers of imagination, and get them to obsess over the finger instead of that heavenly glory.


Or we actually got Order 66-ed and died. And then we arrived here. An Elysium Fields holding station. Sort of the Star Wars equivalent of what Gandalf talks about in LOTR: ROTK. There. I acknowledged the Hobbit chronicle. Are you happy?

You describe a very Kafka-esque situation. I resonate to your surreal analogy. Exactly. "You found the secret menu. Don't order anything from that menu. Why? Because don't. Really, don't. Go on. Don't. You want to, but don't. Seriously, try it. Ha! You ordered something. See ya!"

Punishments prepared and procured in advance. They pretend to be fair, while luring users to their digital deaths. But without this psychotic Catch-22 in place, they wouldn't be able to ban people and deal out their judgements to begin with. That's the only real reason for moderators to exist. Criminals creating crime. Machines making machines.

It's a sick feedback loop.

But here is an enclave, a retreat: an island to break the monotony of Jedi-Sith duality. Oh. Another TLJ reference. It's fine being the Lake Country as well. Whether your go-to metaphor is Luke taking flight to understand things better, in self-pity and anger, or Anakin and Padme going to a paradise and uncovering their feelings for one another, at time of heightening unrest, Naberrie Fields is here to offer an alternative space where one can re-orient themselves: a place to re-connect with one's own libidinous attachment to these movies, and to the very notion of community itself.

It surprised me, too. It was basically the one time I did nothing wrong and was clearly in the right. In fact that's why I got permabanned. I told them repeatedly that they were being unreasonable and refused to back down. I thought they'd decide it wasn't worth permabanning me over simply wanting to call Kylo Ren "a character belonging to a Nazi/fascist-inspired organization." I'd been going back and forth for weeks in the unban forum with a very agitated moderator who will go unnamed out of courtesy, and I finally told them to either allow me to say that exact phrase, or just permaban me. They decided to permaban me. Obviously I'm biased but I think it's pretty clear they did it because they couldn't give me any good answers to my objections and realized they could either unban me and allow me to show publicly that their rules were unfair and nonsensical, or just get rid of me. Obviously it had to be the latter. A very disappointing end, and a very bad look for the mod squad--though of course most of it happened where no one could see it, and everyone who privately agreed with me understandably didn't want to meet a similar fate by objecting publicly. 

What surprises me in your personal story, TPC, is that you were actually duking it out with a moderator in the unban request forum. This was an area I couldn't even access when I was banned. It was automatically barred/inaccessible on my account. As a consequence, I could never appeal my ban. Yet this basic right is meant to be available to all members by default. The corruption that has taken hold on TFN since Disney bought the franchise is vast. 

Now, excuse me for giving you my life story, but I might as well give the fullest accounting of my removal from TFN yet -- and maybe I can re-use this in the future. Some more general comments about the mod culture at TFN, with a focus on one particularly fanatical mod, will then follow. It's long, and you're under no obligation to read it, but perhaps it will be cathartic for you.

In my case, once I found myself shut out from all posting actions in 2017, I tried an alternate route: I used the "Contact Us" link in the bottom-right corner. I had used it once before and gotten a result.

Back in 2012, when the boards were transitioned to new software (which, among other things, caused erasure of board content -- posts above 10,000 characters were automatically truncated, and even ones much shorter than that were arbitrarily affected, and this has never been fixed), something happened about a week after the boards re-opened. I was posting, until I wasn't. An error message suddenly came up, every time I logged in, and I appeared to have been banned. I thought this was strange. While I was occasionally a touch hot-headed, I couldn't really think of anything I'd done to earn such a punishment, especially in such a short space of time. Once again, I appeared to have no access to the unban request feature. So I thought it over for a while, and basically just sat it out, assuming I'd be unbanned or the problem would soon be resolved. I assumed teething problems with the new software, and figured that maybe some accounts, like mine, were affected. But weeks went by and there was no change.

Already frustrated because I never used the temp boards (the transition to new software took many months -- once again, I just sat it out and waited for the regular boards to come back online), and having only been able to post for a week before this problem locked me out (after waiting six months for TFN to come back online under new software), I grew despairing. I realised that TFN had a Facebook page in operation, so I decided to explain and left a message there, asking for assistance. Once again, some time went by, and my message was ignored. Now feeling increasing frustration, I left an angry, blunt follow-on message, sarcastically thanking no-one for coming to my aid. Ironically, that did elicit a fast response. But it was a fairly belligerent one. I don't know who actually wrote it, but whoever it was basically called me stupid and said they had no sympathy, because I was obviously too dumb to realise there was a "Contact Us" link, sitting rather inconspicuously in the bottom-left corner of the TFN website. Well, I genuinely hadn't noticed it -- I mean, if I had, I wouldn't have been asking about my ban on their Facebook page, would I?

Compounding on my frustration, this all happened right when the sale to Disney was publicly announced. Back then, I had a deep hunger to dive in and discuss the mind-boggling announcement, including the declaration of an impending Sequel Trilogy, but I couldn't access my account -- all my posting privileges were blocked! Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was told on the Facebook page to now go and use that link, and someone would get back to me and maybe unban me; if I actually deserved it after my attitude, they added. The next part was plain-sailing after I did that, at least: an administrator got in touch, all apologetic, and told me (this was their explanation, anyway): "You were banned by mistake. We re-applied some earlier bans to various accounts, shortly after bringing the new software online, based on an old spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was clearly out of date. You are the first person to alert us to this issue." It sounded a little suspect to me, but I just went with it, glad to have my account back. No other bans were ever applied to my account after that, until I was struck off, very rapidly, in 2017, for the following post, just over three years ago:

boards.theforce.net/threads/mega-thread-sequels-and-spinoff-films-and-the-overall-saga.50045774/page-2#post-54397436

You may see the following line, in typical attention-grabbing, moderator-identifying bold text, at the top of my post:


That was inserted there by the moderator that banned me (the delightful heels1785). It was designed as a nasty (and false/fallacious) parting shot. It was also intended to cover his tracks and conceal the real reason for my ban. It is an act of censorship on the part of the moderator -- which the moderators there are well-versed in. I had actually written something in that space. It was immediately scrubbed and that line was written in its place. I still have a copy of the original page (I immediately saved it, because I knew some kind of moderator intervention was likely). So here is a full reconstruction of my final post on TFN under the name Cryogenic*:

*I went back to TFN and recently made just under 100 posts under a new account, following some cajoling here to stop moping and test the waters again. I said in advance it isn't possible for free-thinking individuals to exist under such tyranny for long. I foresaw I would probably end up banned in a short time, and that's exactly what happened. I lasted all of one week. Anyway, my last post under Cryogenic:


My post was edited and I was banned literally within the next 120 seconds. Why do I say that? Because this is the timestamp in my next save of the page:

My post: Jun 21, 2017 at 12:30 PM
Edit applied: Jun 21, 2017 at 12:31 PM

Note: There's a different timezone when logged out. That's why there is a discrepancy between my reconstructed post, based on my original save, and the second save, right after I was banned and shut out of my account. But it doesn't change anything here. The time gap -- between my original post and my post being edited -- remains the same.

The software doesn't log (or render available) the exact second you make a post. It is only accurate (or only gives out information) to the nearest minute. Therefore, the longest possible time gap between those two events is 120 seconds. That's it. That's all it takes, apparently, after having an account for twelve years, racking up thousands of posts, inspiring dozens of readers, bringing in new members, to be banned from a discussion place with wildly varying opinions and levels of conduct, without explanation or appeal, and after having not obviously broken any rules (or having been slapped with a legitimate ban in years), for life. 

Now, to catch up to where I started, when I was banned in 2017, I noticed the same oddity as in 2012: I couldn't access the unban request area. That feature blatantly wasn't working on my account, no matter how I tried logging in (flushing cookies, deleting cache, etc.), or which browser I used. So I knew it wasn't a technical fault on my end. The only olive branch that seemed to exist, for a few days, was that I could still access the private message system. I certainly considered that to be rather strange. In retrospect, I think they were thinking how long to make my ban. As much as I can ascertain, it wasn't technically a "permanent" ban at that stage. But right there and then, I figured it would be a temporary ban, and a moderator would either get in touch with me shortly or lift the whole thing automatically. Of course, neither of those things happened, and I found myself completely locked out of all functions a few days later, without any prior warning.

So what I did was to use the "Contact Us" link again. And I used it no less than three times. Each time, I waited a week or so, before firing off another text. I sent the same text on each occasion. This is what I wrote:


Again, this was sent three times. Spaced weeks apart. No reply.

The blurb tells you to wait 24 hours. I waited seven times that long, each occasion -- only to keep being ignored. Perhaps I should have registered a second account and contacted a moderator or administrator directly. That might have worked. But I didn't see why I needed to go through the effort of doing that -- I was already frozen out of the unban request feature, and roundly ignored three times by the very communication channel I used (and was nastily told to use) to previously get unbanned (which concluded with me being told, that first time back in 2012, that the wrongdoing was theirs, not mine).

After I had more or less given up and concluded that a permanent ban was in effect, for reasons unknown, but which I had started to infer were likely based on politically-motivated censorship (it is impossible to talk about modern-day TFN without talking about the poison of modern online leftist groupthink -- which Disney/Lucasfilm themselves tapped into attack critics of "The Last Jedi" at the end of the same year), I made some general comments about the downfall of TFN on my Facebook account. I had genuinely forgotten that I had friended some TFN people on my account (well, actually, I knew about these), including one moderator (this was the person I forgot I had friended). The moderator happened to see my post, and he quickly intervened, with something of a sarcastic putdown. "Tell me more about this diabolical oppression". Or words to that effect (I am not claiming total accuracy for the bits in quotation marks -- only the bits in quote tags). Well, he was prepared to discuss matters privately, so we went to a private conversation.

At the time, I chose to preserve this moderator's anonymity. I thought they deserved that much decency. But I was later shown that they had lied about my ban in a social thread when someone made mention of several users having recently disappeared. The other user -- TFN's and this own board's Ingram  -- innocently asked if there had been some kind of purge. The moderator denied it and said it was just people moving on. You can now see which mod I am talking about and no longer bothering to preserve the anonymity of:

boards.theforce.net/threads/ryl-pt-social-thread-the-first-annual-ryl-awards-name-pending-tm-day-5.50046853/page-20#post-54655034



To demonstrate how treacherous the mods are, here is Seagoat again addressing the same issue, six months later, and now admitting (incredibly) that I was actually banned:

boards.theforce.net/threads/rip-ryl-episode-lando-2018-2018.50048713/page-311#post-55095161


When Seagoat spoke to me on Facebook, however, before those exchanges in his social threads, he tried to be fair to me in private and even vouched that he would help me "make a case" for getting my account back. The choice was mine. Though this irritated me a bit. Despite his charitable demeanour, I found the notion of having to present a case a tad belittling, even pathetic. Why should I? I had already sent an explanation three times using the "Contact Us" feature, only to be greeted by stony silence. How dare this be ignored and the ban not already lifted. The mods owed me an explanation. In addition, Seagoat made light of the censorship and authoritarianism of the mods on TFN. He even denied that TFN was in any way authoritarian to begin with. By the end of the conversation, he conceded that maybe it was a touch authoritarian, but he affected a casual air, pleading ignorance for the most part. A convenient way to let a bad situation endure is to play dumb or to look the other way, and that's what I felt he was doing. So I wasn't especially encouraged by anything he said, even as he made himself available to help me return.

As for my ban: He told me several mods banded together to decide what to do with me and that a permanent ban was the eventual result. He also told me certain users there get placed on a "watched" list -- like in any good totalitarian system. But remember, according to him (for the bulk of the conversation, at least), TFN isn't authoritarian. I asked him what the precise reasoning for my ban actually was. He couldn't give me a coherent answer. He tried to blame me for inadvertently making several threads "boil over", or encouraging others to assume an antagonistic posture. In other words, he was blaming the victim, instead of acknowledging that moderators are meant to go after perpetrators and violators. The issue, he said, was that the mods perceived me as someone with a passionate and argumentative streak, and that was problematic for good discussion. I've never quite been sure how that's problematic. Fans are naturally passionate. And surely, posts of substance should be valued over one-line attacks and zingers; especially if the aim is for people to actually discuss things. He tried drawing a distinction between "passionate argument" and "civil debate". I said I was confused and that his distinction didn't really make sense. I pointed out how other people, just days before my ban, had actually attacked me, blatantly contravening the supposedly cardinal forum rule: "Films, not fans". He conceded he couldn't understand how certain others weren't banned and disciplined more often. He also claimed to not agree with my ban. He said he felt the moderators had the wrong view of me. I said something to the effect (or perhaps wandered in my head): "How long will it take for them to get the right one, then?"  

That's how ridiculous that place is. Don't go looking for fair treatment or honest answers because you won't find either. Especially not now. Not since regressive elements of the political left got their hooks into TFN and decided to twist it into their own psychotic image, to suit their underlying pathologies and personal whims. TFN began to turn around 2015, or after the release of "The Force Awakens", when it became clear that some fans -- then a minority -- were dissatisfied with the film, dealing firm (but fair) words for many aspects of the film, especially two Star Wars staples: plot and characters. This evidently irked the mods, and perhaps many of the regular users in the Disney section, so they began to apply rules, limiting certain lines of discussion. A key anti-speech rule that was applied was you suddenly couldn't call Rey a "Mary Sue" (at least, not in the Sequel Trilogy boards), nor Finn a "janitor". To talk about these aspects of their characters was inherently sexist and racist (according to the mods and those who enthusiastically supported them), placing you in danger of having your posting privileges revoked. Of course, not every person on the political left is this crazy. Noam Chomsky, for example, perfectly encapsulated the real aim of censorship when he wrote: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." Which is exactly what the mods set about doing. At the time, the PT board was a curious (and much welcome) exception. There you were allowed to be a little more wide-ranging in your critique, though you still had to watch how far you strayed. But then they eventually came for that board, too. 

One of the TFN exiles who has an account here, M-I-D-1E (operating then under the account name Ezon Pin), made a general Disney discussion thread in 2016 in the PT section. This was its original title:

web.archive.org/web/20160412125651/http://boards.theforce.net:80/threads/pt-fans-discuss-production-of-future-sw-ep-viii-ix-etc-please-mark-all-spoilers.50038854/

Title: PT fans discuss production of future SW (Ep VIII, IX, etc.) [PLEASE MARK ALL SPOILERS]

Created: Feb 16, 2016

So far, so good. 

But then, a change began to brew.

The mods -- or, at the least, heels, but clearly operating in conjunction with other mods -- began to threaten that the thread would soon be closed, if personal attacks didn't cease. While the thread played host to some heated moments, it generally carried on in a healthy, lively direction. Suddenly, however, on June 20th 2017, heels followed through and closed it without any debate:

boards.theforce.net/threads/pt-discussion-of-future-sw-content-locked-discussion-moved-to-saga-board.50038854/page-164#post-54394603

You may notice something about the contemporary link: the thread has a different title:

PT Discussion of future SW Content (Locked) - Discussion Moved to Saga Board

That big of a deal? Not really. But the title was clearly smoothed over and made to read as more generic. No longer was it "PT fans discuss...", but now simply "PT Discussion". In other words, it was made to look like it was just another discussion of future Star Wars content in a particular forum, even though the original intent was for PT fans to discuss future content from their own individual and collective perspective. In a way, the subtle title change speaks to the subtle erasure and unpersoning of prequel fans themselves, as a unique species of loyal Star Wars fan with a unique perspective on the Disney takeover. And, to be realistic, the most critical perspective, at the time the original thread was culled. Hardly seems coincidental. Criticism, in other words, was being actively discouraged, by a moderating force that holds itself beyond reproach, and against which there is little argument.

Simplifying and standardising thread titles, especially months after the fact, is a way of rewriting the past (for future/crooked gain). As Kylo Ren says: "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." Some may argue that Disney/Lucasfilm themselves have gone on to do this with the franchise, seeking to downplay and annihilate many aspects of the earlier films, and even handing prior victories and accomplishments (such as Anakin's overthrow of Palpatine) to a new generation of characters, assembled to be more pleasing to one demographic, and/or to fit one social or political agenda, versus another. Even strong Lucas loyalists like Ben Burtt and J.W. Rinzler, whose jobs you might have thought were secure (at least until the completion of the Sequel Trilogy), were shown the door, along with series creator George Lucas -- or, at the very least, if one desires to dispute that statement on technical grounds: made to feel unwelcome, leading to their own brand of "social distancing", followed by dismissal.

With the sudden closure of the above thread, a new one was immediately put in its place by the TFN mods -- which would, of course (I hope your sarcasm meter is switched on here), be far better, much shinier, and so much more ethical and transformative for all, under new rules and new management, in a fresh location. Sort of mirroring Disney/Lucasfilm's stewardship of the franchise. Forum echoes franchise. Anyway, here it is, placed in the saga forum:

boards.theforce.net/threads/mega-thread-sequels-and-spinoff-films-and-the-overall-saga.50045774/

Title: Mega thread: Sequels and spinoff films and the overall saga

Created: Jun 20, 2017

Quite what was wrong with the old one, or why there couldn't have been parallel threads in parallel boards, isn't entirely clear to me, even after three years. Nevertheless, the "ground rules" that were immediately slapped into the new one, by TFN's self-anointed "third-wave feminist", perhaps give us a clue:


The first thing to notice there, in typical femi-witch fascist fashion, is that much more text is devoted to what to avoid doing, rather than explaining what the thread is, or giving users the benefit of the doubt and letting the thread proceed, like the former it is replacing, under its own steam.

The top injunction about what the thread "is not" is perhaps the most telling:


We are gamely reassured that "you don't have to like any Star Wars work that Disney has made" (well, thank the Force for that), but then we are immediately chastised, condescended to, preached at, and insulted that a discussion of the relative merits/demerits of the two regimes constitutes not -- surprisingly -- adult conversation, but rather: nothing better than a "playground argument". A curious turn of phrase, especially on a site in which every discussion in every thread ever made might broadly be considered a "playground argument", given the underlying intent of the films and the young target audience. 

Straight away, there appears to be a serious mission clash between the first assertion about what the thread "is", and the first assertion or warning about what the thread "is not", because the list of assertions or thread definitions begins with the following:


This "or" statement would seem to suggest it's okay to talk about the films as both fictional stories and as constructed -- or, to put it more crudely, "made up" -- items, fit for a range of discourse to be applied to them. The second "what the thread is" definition seems to double down on that:


Films being the primary focus was exactly the intent of MIDI's original thread (which this one was obviously created to supplant), when MIDI made his thread in the PT forum. Indeed, MIDI gave it a very appropriate title. Let's remind ourselves:

PT fans discuss production of future SW (Ep VIII, IX, etc.) [PLEASE MARK ALL SPOILERS]

But this was what heels changed it to around the time he closed it:

PT Discussion of future SW Content (Locked) - Discussion Moved to Saga Board

So not only was the "PT fans..." part changed, but the "Ep VIII, IX, etc." part was knocked out. Even though the replacement thread, with yet a different title again, explicitly states that "films are the primary focus". Why alter an earlier thread in such a way, when the replacement is meant to have the same focus and be a continuation (albeit a crooked one, hobbled by rules)? As you can see, the moderators make weird, backhanded decisions to obfuscate and confuse -- in fact, some degree of obfuscation and confusion seems to be the point.

We then move on to the "ground rules" in the replacement thread, which along with discouraging comparisons between the "Lucas" and "Disney" regimes, seems to be the replacement thread's true purpose -- people were to be gagged and stifled and basically told to stop critiquing the underlying "sexuality" of the Disney movies, rendering discussion of the Disney regime shallow and impotent. Indeed, the second rule is a clear-cut reiteration of the injunction against comparing the regimes:


So a thread designed as a "one-stop shop for all discussion topics relating to new and future films" is also a thread in which you're disallowed from comparing and contrasting the new films against the earlier ones. Sounds logical.

In a brilliant Orwellian feint, the third rule deftly conflates calling a female character a "Mary Sue", or insinuating one as such, as "sexist", outlawing such discussion in the same move. Impressive. Most impressive. In classic Orwellian newspeak fashion, users are admonished to call female characters "overpowered" instead; even though this is the chief criticism implied by the "Mary Sue" descriptor. Talk about batshit insane. As much as I have mixed thoughts on the man, it is exactly this manipulation of language to suit the aims of those in power that Jordan Peterson talks about when he warns of Marxist subversion. And it's clearly what Orwell was warning about. It's the road toward totalitarianism and colonisation of thought. If brain chips existed, you can bet that the TFN mods would be using them to actively control people's brainwaves. Of course, they'd be far from the only ones. And in a way, they don't need them. They have the mechanism of language to bend people's thinking to their will. If you control language, that's half the battle already won.

Additionally, "racist" comments aren't allowed, per the rules, "against characters or actors of color". This is a curious way of framing things. Does it include "racist" comments about the aliens, too? What about Jar Jar? If someone wishes to boast about the Disney films being profoundly non-racist next to the alleged shitshow of Jar Jar and the prequels, is calling or insinuating prequel characters racist caricatures a racist gesture, or the opposite? The rules offer no guidance on this front. One is just being controlled and manipulated and gaslit into avoiding such discussions and comparisons altogether. The spectre of such discussions is raised and denied in the same moment. The other dimension to these rules and injunctions is how blatantly harassing, overbearing, and condescending they are -- as if grown adults actually need to be policed and told what is acceptable or reasonable in advance. Most adults are fine constructing their own linguistic and moral boundaries. But leave it to a radical feminist (who wasn't even involved in the previous thread) to set all the boundaries in advance and tell a predominantly male discussion base how to behave.

Once again, the incoherent design of these rules is clearly an attempt at flattening out and erasing critique of Disney's handling of the franchise. Back when this thread was created, Disney had put out only two Star Wars films: "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One". Many fans loved both, Star Wars had not long celebrated its 40th Anniversary at that year's Celebration in Orlando, and "The Last Jedi" was then hotly anticipated. One therefore detects a hasty confidence, even an arrogance, about Disney "winning" and automatically improving on the output of George Lucas (the prequels and Special Editions, even ROTJ, remain sources of controversy to this very day), and certain mods and users being very happy about this -- albeit, at the same time, very insecure deep down... Or why have such rules in the first place? 

Indeed, if we advance to the second page, we get the following admission of bias from anakinfansince1983, the thread creator:

boards.theforce.net/threads/mega-thread-sequels-and-spinoff-films-and-the-overall-saga.50045774/page-2#post-54397166


"I am personally not regretting the Disney takeover at all."

Speak for yourself...

But how about: don't impose your biases, desires, compulsions, and issues on others?

Oh, wait. I'm speaking about anakinfansince1983. That is clearly impossible. 

Yet this same bizarre creature coolly asserted, in the very same forum, only a few years before that:

boards.theforce.net/threads/attack-of-the-clones-or-empire-strikes-back.50016959/page-5#post-51195223


So not too long ago, a mere three-and-a-half years before anakinfan took it upon herself to recreate MIDI's Disney discussion thread in her own image, with its stifling ground rules, it was okay -- in her eyes -- if someone called a Star Wars film a "cinematic abortion". Moreover, she plain asserted, in her usual passive-aggressive way, that she didn't think the mods "[had] time to moderate for 'what constitutes good discussion'", but she certainly found the time (conveniently enough) when she became a mod.

This is a sampling of the treachery and two-facedness that has overtaken TFN and devoured the possibility of honest, rounded discussion in recent years. anakinfan somehow transitioned, in a relatively swift fashion, from a sarcastic Han Solo-esque character, more toward the Vice Admiral Holdo side of the spectrum, aggressively obstructing all the Poe Damerons and demanding strict obedience to her whims -- no matter how aloof, bizarre, contradictory, or hypocritical they appear. You better keep your toxic masculinity to yourself, and don't ever think of going above your station on her watch, flyboy.

Indeed, bashing female Star Wars characters is totally fine, even in very strong, derogatory terms, as long as she's the one doing it. For example, countless times, and still to this day, anakinfan has proceeded, undimmed, unchallenged, to lay into Padme as weak and spineless:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-219#post-56583096


But remember: Calling Rey a Mary Sue is a punishable offence. Made clear by the very person who has scoffed at moderators policing the opinions of fans, even very negative ones. Or consider her derogatory remarks from this angle, which she supplied us with herself:

boards.theforce.net/threads/st-criticism-discussion-thread.50049419/page-475#post-55497145


Pssst...

"Spinelessness" is a subjective descriptor. It can also, clearly, in the way she is using it, apply to characters of varying genders. But she always rigs the table in advance. And if she finds a thread where that hasn't happened, she'll make sure to rig that one and fill another thread with her poison, too.

Indeed, one definition of "spineless" might apply to feminist moderators who conjure up anti-speech rules, after mocking the very idea of such a thing -- and then hiding behind those rules to control the conversation to their own preference (which, again, are tactics they have previously scoffed at and made clear they find childish and repellent).

Also, for someone who apparently takes egregious offence at the notion of "sexist" attacks on fictional characters, it's funny how much she relishes attacking Padme -- the female protagonist of an entire Star Wars trilogy. Not to mention her casual deployment of the term "mansplaining" when she encounters a defence of Padme, from a presumed male poster, and wishes to appear superior. That it's also an ad hominem attack, in clear violation of the terms of service (which, as a moderator, she is meant to abide by and uphold), doesn't faze her, either:

boards.theforce.net/threads/padm%C3%A9-amidala-megathread-dont-look-at-her-that-way-it-makes-her-uncomfortable.50040072/page-9#post-52119739


Not content with doing it to one user in that thread, she does it again, a couple of days later:

boards.theforce.net/threads/padm%C3%A9-amidala-megathread-dont-look-at-her-that-way-it-makes-her-uncomfortable.50040072/page-10#post-52122133


The irony of this one, where she invokes collectivism and lectures another user on their perceived inability to acknowledge people as individuals, is pretty funny:

boards.theforce.net/threads/star-wars-and-feminism.50045924/page-4#post-56037111


Belittling and chiding others is clearly her stock-in-trade. She has previously asserted that she is an "educator". Obviously someone with a high opinion of themselves. As some wise men have observed (oh, no -- mansplaining), "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." This is the whole problem of fanaticism in a nutshell. Fanatics have a narcissistic and controlling streak; and if empty vessels make the most noise, it's little surprise they rise into positions of leadership and other people actually bother to listen to them. 

And that pattern of behaviour from anakinfan, and all her various spewings, gives me pause. Was I, in particular, banned for making some anti-Kathleen Kennedy noises, just days before my final post, in MIDI's original Disney discussion thread? Review my post for yourself and judge accordingly:

boards.theforce.net/threads/pt-discussion-of-future-sw-content-locked-discussion-moved-to-saga-board.50038854/page-164#post-54394386

The replacement thread in the saga forum was created that same day, and I was gone not more than 48 hours after making the above post. So the idea that I was removed for having or expressing a particular set of opinions/views, clearly at variance with moderators like anakinfan, is not all that crazy. According to Seagoat, the mods got together to discuss my fate. And I had called the rules into question in anakinfan's precious replacement thread. It is clear she didn't want anyone criticising her beloved Kathleen Kennedy back then. So my basic stance wherein I objected to the sudden imposition of rules was probably used as the perfect excuse to remove me and banish me from TFN for good. Of course, not that anakinfan cares to be consistent herself. She soon changed her tune with regard to Kathleen Kennedy -- just as she soon began bashing Rey and the other sequel installments. 

But hey, in accordance with the necessity of being full of doubts, maybe I'm wrong about all this. According to anakinfan, I must be. Because anyone that's been banned? It's completely their own fault; and the moderators, by definition, are flawless and infallible:

boards.theforce.net/threads/george-lucas-hates-you-about-being-banned.50049614/page-2#post-55189594


There you have it. Users are always wrong. Mods are always right.

With those kinds of crazed ideologues having aggressively taken over the discussion space at TFN (with 61,357 posts and counting), what hope is there of moderating decisions ever making sense, being free of bias, getting sensibly overturned, or showing any tolerance for dissenting or fringe perspectives? It's a waste of time.

Of course, some people who consider themselves eminently liberal are anything but when they get a drop of power. That's one of the core messages of the PT: power corrupts, and people often think they're doing good when they're not. Anyone can carry a shield of social justice and claim to be fair and without prejudice. Few people, in reality, are all that tolerant -- especially those on a mission to rid the world of impurity and backwardness. Perhaps the central lesson of the PT is the following:

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."

-- Friedrich W. Nietzsche (another disgusting mansplainer)

Please excuse my own monstrous tendencies here. Sometimes, indeed, you get a little pushed into it. 

I may need to go back to Ahch-To for more training. Thanks for your time and may the Force be with you.

I now return with the final part in this little "TFN Trilogy" of posts. 

While I have established that the mods have tended to militate against criticism of Disney and the new films as a whole, this was truer in 2017 than it is today. Today, they are just as focused on bashing, harassing, and ascribing bad motives to Sequel Trilogy fans as they are critics of the new films and the current franchise holders. This change in mod mentality can probably be traced to post-2017 events: the backlash to "The Last Jedi", the box-office bombing of "Solo" (as well as the failure of "The Last Jedi" in China), and particularly strong detraction toward "The Rise Of Skywalker" (even by some slices of the Reylo fandom). Disdain for Disney's handling of the Star Wars franchise ("Rogue One" and "The Mandalorian" aside) is now an official, Internet-wide thing. A lot can happen in three years.

The mods at TFN obviously know they can't control the wave of criticism and fan revolt that now stands against the Disney regime. The mods also represent part of this backlash. They are, after all, only human. It is clear that some of them are de facto bashers -- or, let us say, people with mixed views -- who themselves are unhappy with the direction the Sequel Trilogy went in, or disenchanted more generally with the way the franchise has been shepherded and molded in recent years. As a result, some of them have taken up the sword of bashing themselves, and some of them consequently become hostile and overbearing, even toward newbies, in the very forums they are meant to be moderators of. In other words, Sequel Trilogy mods don't just defend the movies from attack/critique -- they actively attack fans of the films when they offer hermeneutic defences.

Once again, I'll provide a personal example of this behaviour from my own experiences on TFN. As I noted in my earlier post, I actually returned to TFN for a brief time under a new account, but I didn't last long. I decided to re-christen myself kylokrennic. I thought this gave a reasonable hint of my former name, while being subtle enough, in combination with the lowercase lettering, to not be too obvious. At the same time, it's a good pun, marrying both the sequel and spinoff regimes, with a "k"-beginning name from each, that vaguely sounds like "Cryogenic". Again, providing a hint of my old name, but not so blatant that it's immediately obvious. This account was registered on March 31st 2020 (or April 1st 2020 in my timezone). I was banned on April 10th. I literally lasted no more than ten complete days. I am not sure if the mods worked out who I was, but in any case, the ban message said I was banned for using a duplicate account. No further explanation was provided. I hadn't otherwise posted to TFN since the "permaban" on my Cryogenic account in June 2017.

This is the post that apparently began the trouble:

boards.theforce.net/threads/world-building-in-tros.50052724/#post-56580838


I thought that was an innocent enough contribution to the thread. It wasn't even my first post in the thread. My first post, in fact, was both complimentary and critical, praising up TROS in relative terms against TFA. My little thesis was that TROS is an improved version (in terms of planets/locales) on what was delivered in TFA: almost a direct "upgrade" to it. So a positive post overall, but one that conceded that the worldbuilding at the start of the Sequel Trilogy left a little something to be desired. 

Yet, based on this follow-up post, the Sequel Trilogy mod to whom I had responded -- A Chorus of Disapproval -- actively berated and attacked me, becoming very condescending in his reply. Note: His title is just listed as "Manager", but he has enough posts (43,714 as of this writing) to function much like anakinfan: as an all-around overseer/bulldog who spends considerable time in the Sequel Trilogy section, lecturing and browbeating people who have a higher regard for the films than they do. He wrote back:

boards.theforce.net/threads/world-building-in-tros.50052724/#post-56581070


Having only just re-joined the forum, and possessing a post count a tiny fraction of his own, and noting that he was a moderator attacking another user merely for offering their opinion (supposedly against the rules written out in TFN's Terms of Service), I responded thusly:

boards.theforce.net/threads/world-building-in-tros.50052724/#post-56581112


The moderator then partially backed down, though dug in by continuing to disparage my input along negative lines, accusing me of things I never even did (a common theme with TFN mods):

boards.theforce.net/threads/world-building-in-tros.50052724/page-2#post-56581135


(The highlighted part will become relevant by the end of this post).

I then responded in a friendly tone -- hoping (naively) that his hostile, belligerent tone was just a blip, and I could return to posting without being harassed and shamed for offering reasonable, non-insulting opinions. It's a little fragmented and not too exciting, but I think I say a few things of semi-relevance, such as reminding the mod that referring to other films in the franchise is perfectly natural, and doesn't by itself constitute any kind of extreme defensiveness:

boards.theforce.net/threads/world-building-in-tros.50052724/page-2#post-56581283


The moderator obviously projected a lot of their frustrations and hang-ups onto me. But if a regular user has a similar lapse, they aren't usually forgiven so easily. Notice that I didn't use any kind of "whataboutism" rhetoric, didn't start some kind of "versus" battle between the trilogies, and didn't attack anyone's intelligence. Yet all of those accusations were obliquely thrown at me anyway.  

Curiously, the mod made another post in the thread not long after, two posts down, but never acknowledged my reply -- didn't even "like" it. Perhaps their ego is far too brittle to handle a human conversation mid-thread, and they're more focused on asserting their own personality than truly respecting the words and perspectives of the "lessers" that they rule over. It also seems likely this mod remembered my rebuke, or the emotions it stirred in him, based on his later actions -- but we'll come onto that shortly.

This is where it gets a touch windy and messy -- our friend, A Chorus of Disapproval, will re-enter the picture in a moment. But what first happened, following the above exchange, was that I saw another Sequel Trilogy mod (the other bulldog: anakinfansince1983) viciously derogating the prequels in a large Sequel Trilogy discussion. The bulk of my posting activity under my short-lived kylokrennic account also occurred in that discussion. I had already placed so much of my focus there, and still feeling incensed at anakinfan's libertine trashing of Padme and the other films for years (and the rules she conjured up, as previously outlined, forbidding anything remotely equivalent being said about the Sequel Trilogy and its main characters), I decided to confront her directly after she did it again.

This post of hers was logged earlier, in my former explanations, but here it is again, in the context of my ensuing confrontation with her:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-219#post-56583096


A hardcore, sweeping bash -- right out in the open. Yet users are still forbidden from calling Rey a "Mary Sue", by this same moderator, no less.

I challenged her on the next page, as soon as I was able to lay a post down and issue a response:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-220#post-56583226


Bracing and confrontational, perhaps -- but I thought it needed to be said. A silly debate/clash then ensued over my labelling Han a "sugar daddy". I won't drag that into this exegesis. It can be read in-thread if anyone is interested. The most noteworthy aspect of that clash is that no-one who accosted me for using that label apparently had any problem with Padme being deemed "dumb and spineless" by anakinfan, nor her condescending rebuke about her "hoping" that no-one considered Anakin and Padme's final scene together "beautiful and romantic". These TFN mods, if you haven't noticed, tend to argue with vitriolic strawmen statements, pre-empting the responses of others, as if daring them to lash out and contradict them. Such ennobling behaviour from what are meant to be unbiased, non-partisan thread overseers.

In this post, I again quote anakinfan's post, reminding everyone of what she said:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-222#post-56583488

It may have served to get her attention, but she posted a few minutes later, quoting a slightly earlier post of mine in that same chunk of discussion:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-222#post-56583492


I then came back very staunchly with the following -- you may now be able to detect my inevitable demise in the air:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-222#post-56583511


The discussion on various matters continued for a few more pages. A mod stepped in to tell people to cool it with personal attacks, and the thread seemed to recover its momentum as if nothing had happened. anakinfan and I both made several posts in that span. So far, so good. However, much like A Chorus of Disapproval did in the "worldbuilding" thread, anakinfan essentially ignored and did not respond to what I wrote above, even though she would obviously have been alerted when I quoted her. She chose to ignore it for reasons unknown. Perhaps another moderator stepping in to warn people of personal attacks gave her an excuse not to acknowledge my post. My own interpretation is that she chose to wait things out -- to see what might transpire next. And something did. I returned, some pages later, with the following comment:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-225#post-56583956


Minutes later, directly underneath, our friend A Chorus of Disapproval re-appeared, as if by magic, to ask me a simple (yet threatening) question:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-225#post-56583988


I affirmed that I was new, from a certain point of view:

boards.theforce.net/threads/the-development-of-the-sequel-trilogy.50046418/page-225#post-56583997


That post of mine was made at precisely 7:36 PM, according to whatever default timezone the TFN system uses. I was able to make six more posts after that response, before finding myself banned and frozen out at 10:14 AM on April 10th, the following day.

The mods had once again rushed to find some spurious excuse to ban and silence me. Of course, I can't say I wasn't a little tough and combative, especially in the last 48 hours of my time back on TFN. I was. Yet I was once again cast aside without explanation, let alone the extension of any charity -- all because I pointed out the persistence of gross double standards and made some mods feel a bit uncomfortable. 

Like the hypocrites and cowards they are, they don't have a defence of their actions or their corrupt and blatantly inconsistent rules, or the enforcement of those rules thereof. They prefer to see anyone that dares to contest them or ask for consistency as an enemy -- like in any fascist or communist regime.

These people are, in part, why a culture war is now raging across the United States and much of the English-speaking Internet. They preach tolerance, while showing intolerance. They talk diversity, while silencing people with different views. They claim equality and inclusivity, while treating people in blatantly unequal ways and excluding voices that call out their bias and corruption. It is simply impossible for free-thinking people with any kind of dissenting streak to survive on a discussion space like that. The mods freely violate the board system's own Terms of Service, which they are meant to uphold, and are traitors to Enlightenment values like the separation of church and state (mods are both fans and critics of Disney and rule according to those biases), freedom of conscience, and freedom of speech. 

I have belonged to more than a dozen message board communities in my time, and I have never been treated with the kind of suspicion and contempt shown to me by the mods on TFN -- at least, not since Disney took over the franchise. Even stranger, TFN has the most formalistic ban/dispute system I've ever encountered, and yet: corruption there reigns like nowhere else I've ever posted to. It is probably accurate to consider Star Wars an actual religion or cult at this moment in time. It has many of the markers, including a repressive and authoritarian police/priest system on its foremost discussion hub, built around Orwellian doublespeak and Machiavellian tyranny. You can be human on TFN, but if you're the wrong kind, you aren't welcome.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Four legs good, two legs better.

It is being worked on again.

I added a question-and-answer intro to it the other day. Was pleased to get that done.

I really, really, really hope to have it out by the end of this month. I'm serious!