The Ravens Nest

Why This Is Neither A Win Nor A Loss

Yep, it’s over. Disney has announced (and it’s all over my feed whether I want to hear about it or not) that The Acolyte has been cancelled.

You may have noticed a lack of Star Wars in this space and that’s for a good reason. I only bother with The Prequels, Rogue One (which was a great way to link the Prequels to The OG Trilogy) and the OG Trilogy. That’s it. I don’t really go anywhere else. That’s the beginning and end of my fandom unless we’re playing White Star, in which case, we make our own fanfiction that we can enjoy ourselves and not make our weirdness everyone else’s problem. Unless you want it to be, leave a comment on that one way or the other.

But that’s it, The Last Jedi let me down, I wanted to love the sequels but …nope, just can’t deal with them, personally.

The Mandalorian seemed okay until the later seasons. I still haven’t watched it but the people reporting on it. I’ve heard things here and there but just no interest for me.

The Acolyte was no exception. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care to complain. Disney certainly won’t be listening. I’m one of the people they despise which is fine because I’ve been slowly losing interest in their Marvel offerings as well. I’m not a subscriber to Disney+ as I’ve been diagnosed with rectal glaucoma and can’t see my ass giving them money.

As far as I was concerned, they can hate me for free.

I’m not saying I caused that cancellation. I’m saying there are those just like myself that didn’t care for it and the turnout wasn’t good enough for Disney to keep bankrolling it.

Personally, if you liked it, then enjoy, I really don’t mind. I just didn’t care for it.

My own personal reaction to the announcement of the series was the same as it’s cancellation; I just shrugged. It doesn’t mean a thing to me and, despite multiple warnings to not shove The Message into Star Wars, nope, that had to be in there. It was a must in the evolution of Star Wars and despite the multitude of warnings, admonishments, constructive criticism, etc in order to bring in new people and open it up to a wider audience by shutting long-time fans out. Okay, I really don’t know that that works…oh wait, we do and it never does.

Why is this not working? It’s simple. Hedge Funds and major investors have been pouring money into this kind of messaging for 10 years and, for awhile, getting the normal people who know nothing about this kind of thing was easy so they still made money but now, so many people have awakened to the fact that, even after these people get everything they want, they still have to find something that offends them because, if they got all that they wanted, then their function is over and rather than fading, they have to find a reason to justify their continued existence, by hook or by crook. Once they woke up to the fact that you hated them, once you decided that their existence could not be tolerated, they took a look at you and asked why they were giving their money to you. When you said “If you don’t like it, then don’t watch it” then we went ahead and went on with our lives. Your every whim and desire that you were ever inspired to have was catered to on levels that many couldn’t believe they were seeing, myself included. We Let You Know This Was Coming.

The whole thing is predictable too. Now you’re blaming us for not turning out? I’ll take it. I’ll take it because I didn’t care. Nothing was good enough. Nothing. There was never an end to the grievances you sought out.

Welcome to reality. When the customer feels disrespected, that’s when we check out. We move on. We don’t seek nor do we desire your approval or your permission. We respected your wishes after a point. We wouldn’t even hate watch it. We just didn’t watch. We let you have it and now, it didn’t make enough money to justify the cost. Before, that was different but you’re now talking publicly-traded companies that have investors and they must make money, they are legally-obligated to make money for those investors. If they don’t, the investor can pull out by selling all their stocks and cutting their losses.

Don’t get mad at the casual and long-term Star Wars fans who walked away. It’s not their fault. It’s yours. Not the ones who turned up to watch this but the ones who insisted on the retcons, the shoehorning, the complete and total ignorance at best and indifference at worst of the universe that fans built under guidelines by George Lucas which had a dedicated fan base which would have happily purchased even the faintest resemblances to any of that material.

Personally, I’m not cheering on this cancellation. I just don’t care. It’s not a win to me because we didn’t have to go down this road. It’s not a loss to me because I didn’t care to watch it. I still have bills to pay, articles to write, ministry work to do, games to play and a life to live. It’s an idea that just didn’t work out. This has been going on well over ten years now. It simply can’t continue and it’s unsustainable.

Modern Star Wars by Disney has nothing to offer me so I walked. Many others like me thought the same and walked as well. Where’s this bigger audience you talked about so much.

Finally, I wanna address this…

I remember being called toxic for walking away but wow look at this? And this isn’t my graphic, it belongs to MasterofTheTDS on Twitter, be sure to check out his tireless efforts at showing the hypocrisy of the people I’m addressing.

Now throwing death threats at people who didn’t turn up to watch this? But we’re the ones that are supposedly “toxic.” Sure thing. Right. I’ll just write that all down.

Oh sure, “Manbaby” “Incel” “Toxic” and every “-ist” and “-phobe” label was applied to us. That left only…you. You weren’t enough to sustain the show. Killing us or trying to harm us won’t bring back your show. We’re not going to turn up anyway.

What this article does is it points out that, no matter if you give them the world, these people think so little of you that you are merely disposable. You call yourself an ally? Sure, for the moment. They’ve pointed out that you are the enemy. Nothing will ever be enough. It’s time to turn and walk away. Ghost these people. Seriously. They’re scared now because they thought they could terrorize the masses to bending the knee. Some got tired of taking that knee and just bent both, walking away. Now the exiled outnumber the exilers, they realize that and they’re being crushed. They know they’ve gone too far. They know they can’t turn back now. Deprive them of this allyship and watch what happens. You’ll find every toxic trait they’ve accused both you and me of having and they’ll still take no responsibility. None, whatsoever.

I won’t tell you that Disney is starting to come to their senses, it’s far too early in the game for that. I say wait and see. Seriously, just hang back, don’t be so quick to give them money again.

Whether or not they come to their senses rests on whether or not they have any sense.