Latest Posts by tsuyushuu - Page 5

A Yuuji I did the other day bc I just wanted to draw without thinking too hard :D

'what do u want to draw' 'idk, megumi?'

op, i hope that your pillows are always cold on both sides, that you always have an umbrella when it’s raining and that you always catch yourself before you stub your toes because you deserve all of it.

i actually hated A LOT of choices the writers made in season 2 and you basically listed almost all of it. thank you. this deserves so much more notes.

arcane s2 didn't stick the landing

i feel like the second season didn't build on top of what was established in the first season

i actually hate the "cycle of hate" narrative at this point in my life, especially with how it relates to real world conflicts.

there is no both sides in most cases. there's the oppressed and the oppressors. racism and related is the privileged oppressing the less privileged. and the oppressed who are fighting back are doing it in a situation where there is no other option. and a lot of the time, the burden and criticism of finding the moral way to go about freeing themselves is put on them. oh the black panthers are dangerous and they were forced to end their activities yet the KKK are still around? oh the palestinians attacked israel and took hostages to bargain with while they've lived generations of israel keeping them in an open air prison, having control of what goes in and out of their borders, taking over their homes, kidnapping their children to put in jail, killing them without repercussions, the activists that come from other countries are killed. you can't criticize a people who are trying to survive, who have already tried peaceful methods, who have been pushed to a corner of biting back.

back to this silly media analysis after unloading actual real world issues

in arcane we have piltover: the privileged and zaun the less privileged.

zaun has less of everything, they're literally the lowest class of this uppercity/undercity situation.

i hated how Jayce laid down his weapon in that one scene where he killed a child worker in the factory. and Vi rightly criticizes him by saying,

"You've always been a part of this. You just never had to look it in the eye. One dead kid? There's hundreds more where he came from, thanks to Silco and thanks to people like you who stuck their heads in the dirt."

"This is over," Jayce says.

"Not for me."

he has the privilege of keeping his hands clean, of turning away. Vi accuses him of "sticking his head in the dirt" ignoring what's happening in the undercity and even now he has the privilege of doing it again, meanwhile it's never over for Vi. because these are her people who are suffering, and because she doesn't have the privilege of looking away.

there's a shot where it pans over the group of children who were working at the shimmer factory with their hands behind their heads. the reason they're working there is because of the abysmal conditions the undercity are in, that the upper classes turned a blind eye to. Jayce gets to wash his hands clean of it by walking away.

I'm not saying he should be prepared to kill children if it comes down to it. it's just the fact that he can walk away. he's a councilmember with all the power in his hands, he's part of the reason why these kids are here, and he can't bear putting up with a silver of the pain the undercity goes through everyday.

we see Vi establishing her identity as one of them when they say,

"I can't let you leave with them," Jayce says, referring to the gauntlets.

"Then I guess you're going to have to kill another trencher," Vi retorts. (is that the right word?)

either way, she's one of them.

I was looking forward to Caitlyn becoming prejudiced against the people of the undercity, because it meant conflict, it meant Vi would have to fight her. whether or not it would result in Caitlyn realizing that she was wrong or not. it's a clashing, and during a clashing characters and their ideologies shine.

we didn't really get that.

we got the buildup for it where Cait's dad says "what is she still doing here?" in loathing (though this may be more due to her blood relation to jinx)

and Cait says "You can (help). As one of us." while handing over the police badge

which directly contrasts Vi's standoff with Jayce where she claims her side as a person of Zaun. Here Cait is giving her a symbol of everything she's stood against, her oppressors. (and i heard that the piltover soldiers weren't supposed to be representative of police brutality by the writers and i mean c'mon are you serious??? especially with the scene where they set up barricades between the upper and undercity and where ambessa's right hand man beats up the jinx supporter in line??? where they have them torturing that same jinx supporter in the prison??? where they arrest all of the people at Sevika's rally???)

and sure Vi joins the police force eventually and even at this point I'm still thinking okay she's going to realize she's on the wrong side and leave them, which she eventually does by stopping Cait from shooting isha. but that was more of a "that's a child" moment rather than a "i'm on the side that's oppressing my people" moment.

and jinx rightly calls her out on it later.

In terms of Cait, again, I think they did a good job setting up her falling into prejudice:

"I just understand now, how easy it is to hate them. One vicious act." and i thought this was a moment of introspection where Cait is essentially seeing how easy it is to villainize a whole group of people but she is aware of it enough that she won't do it herself.

"A memorial," Cait says as they both watch a soldier pick up a crying child, "what kind of animals!"

this is where she's falling into it.

again as many other people pointed out, the privilege of living one day in the same terror that the undercity lives in daily and it's enough for piltover to be scared. not to mention, it was by ambessa's hand that this attack happened, and the undercity will have to pay for the political moves people in privilege are playing.

again if we were to compare this to real world issues, it's insurance companies putting people in debt to save a loved one, its banks evicting people from their homes, its the homeless who are put into prisons and used for labor without proper pay or rights. and the "one vicious act" being the bullet that the healthcare ceo assassin shot.

and then we see her weaponize polluted air to terrorize the people of the undercity. went against everything her mother believed in and worked for.

it's crazy that Vi agreed to this. stood beside cait for this.

it reminds me of what silco said,

"Have you forgotten where we came from? The mines they had us in? We came from a world where there was never enough to go around."

"You're too young to remember what the undercity was before it became... an enterprise."

The fact that Silco could still be that composed while he breathed in the toxic air. unless he was scientifically enhanced, i like to think it's because he's the oldest, he's been in the mines longer than the chem-barons, longer than Vi. I don't think Vi ever had to deal with the toxic air.

Vi has forgotten where she came from and here she is weaponizing that same pollution, the Grey, against her own people.

but again I had hope that Vi would see that this is wrong

Vi puts herself next to the undercity man, Heenot?, they were interrogating once Cait threatened him with her gun, giving her a look. these are her people.

"I thought you were on our side," Cait had said after staunchly defending the people of the undercity to her parents in the first season. creating sides, putting Vi on hers.

Vi stops her from shooting Isha and Cait says

"I keep telling myself that you're different." saying essentially "you're one of the good ones" a common thing the privileged/oppressors say about the oppressed.

and that's where the conflict ends???

and then when they reunite??? nothing happens??? they never go over what Cait did??? never confront her about it??? just forgot about all that buildup??? oh no we're too busy now with the end of the world i guess

as I said in the beginning, they set it up for the piltover characters to clash with the zaun characters, between Cait and Vi, between Jayce and Victor.

"You didn't say they were from the undercity!"

"What difference does that make?"

"What—they're dangerous!"

"I'm from the undercity."

but that got washed away once victor got taken over by the hextech and became a "oh both sides are bad" guy and actually free will is overrated.

I was excited for Ekko to show Hemierdinger the conditions they were living in and working together to fix it, for Hemerdinger to fix what he's done to the people because he didn't pay them any attention.

Ambessa and the hextech possession over victor really derailed all the buildup between the undercity and the uppercity that's been set up and then did nothing with it.

oh we have to come together to stop the end of their nation.

fuck that, where's the revolution??? Jinx is the face of the resistance and they do nothing with that??? sure it's the reason why the undercity go fight against ambessa and victor because jinx was their hope, but that hope was building up against piltover, with the border patrols, with the police brutality, with how they tortured their people in the jails, with how they all got arrested at a rally.

where's the face off between cait and vi??? not even that, where was Vi's arc??? like everybody's been saying she did nothing this season. Vi should've been Vander's successor, she should've joined hands with jinx, ending the cycle.

victor should've had his own conflict with jayce, should've been a leader to his people.

the writers really didn't deliver this seaons, the art and animation was so cool though

the only time "both sides are bad" actually works is between the elves and dwarves in lord of the rings because as far as I know one hasn't oppressed/enslaved/taken rights away from the other and it's just petty squabbles and cultural differences and more serious squabbles. (it may be different in the books, but this is what I got from my time in the hobbit fandom).

anyway, i'm sure someone else has already said all this. thanks for reading.

thank you for saying this.

mel is good at being a politician but she is a flawed person. multiple things can be true at the same time. however, for some reason, the fandom and EVEN THE SHOW are afraid of criticizing mel in any capacity. she just has to be the ✨perfect✨ character, as if “perfect” isn’t the most uninteresting and unimaginative thing a character can be.

i personally never liked mel as much as some other characters, but i can appreciate her character, because i understand why she is the way she is and because i see potentials for a great character arc. but season 2 just completely stomped on all of my expectations for her. she deserved better. we as an audience deserved better and i can’t even deceive myself that they will handle her well in Noxus.

I didn't think this needs to be said but you can't be the richest person and politician in any country, particularly one with such wealth disparity and police brutality, while also being a "good person." Reasons for that can vary from ignorance or apathy (at best) to malice and deliberate exploitation (at worst). Yes this is about Mel Medarda. Idk why some parts of the arcane fandom try to erase her wrongdoings? Flaws give a character depth. You can recontextualize the nuances, which I love doing too, but thats an entirely different thing than trying to pass it off as being 'good'. She's infinitely more interesting with her flaws than if she were just pure and good like the fandom + writers tried to make her seem.

(This goes for Heimerdinger too, you don't get to be in charge of an entire country since its founding without being responsible for the way it turned out. Yet he got killed off before the story ever grappled with that, which frustrates me to no end. But that has more to do with how the writers mishandled the Piltover v. Zaun conflict and we'd be here all day if we went into that)

Idk, flaws to me are a positive thing. Characters with them are fascinating, and characters without them are dull. I will always prefer and fight for interpretations of characters that accomodate flaws while also staying true to who they are. The more, the better imo (provided they're still in-character, I too dislike seeing people hallucinate flaws/ wrongdoings/ motives that have no basis. "If you're going to hate them then hate them accurately etc. etc").

And personally I much prefer the version of Mel that actually takes into account that she is a powerful and wealthy politician who used different forms of manipulation and exploitation for personal reasons. Those reasons are interesting and incredibly nuanced (stemming from her experience with her mother). I don't really have faith in the arcane writers anymore (stuff that the writers have said really worsened my opinions on s2), so all I have is blind hope that whatever spinoff they do with her goes in that direction.

And before anyone misinterprets this: no this isnt a hate post. Its the opposite actually. Im describing the interpretation of mel that i love and have loved since season 1 (before the writing took a nose dive). If u look thru my blog u can find a post I did before s2 came out where im praising how morally ambiguous she was. So yeah i have receipts. If u dont love mel at her inaction corruption era then you dont deserve her at her magic empath era.

Dedra + Windows XP Sounds

this speech never fails to make me cry. one of the most beautiful monologues in the entire cinematic history. no really, i’m not exaggerating.

if you haven’t watched andor, do yourself a favour and go watch it. every minute of it. you don’t even have to know star wars lore to enjoy it.

i’ll admit, it gets really rough to watch sometimes, so please be mindful of your mental health. if you decide to give it a try, i promise it will be worth your time. even if you end up not liking it, at least you would have gotten something out of it.

SO WHAT DO I SACRIFICE? EVERYTHING.

FILM & TV YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW | DAY 2: GENRE

↳ Political Drama, Spy Thriller, Sci-Fi/Fantasy

For ppl who liked Arcane season 2, is the honeymoon over yet?

Can we agree that S1 and S2 are completely different shows?

That none of the themes carried over between them?

That Piltover did nothing to earn Zaun coming to their rescue in the final battle?

That Viktor's "cure all weakness" shit came out of nowhere?

That understanding any of Jayce's actions post-talking to mageViktor requires a PhD in eyebrow twitches and nonsense?

That Viktor saving baby Jayce was an unambiguous retcon?

That Vi was just a cardboard cutout that Jinx and Caitlyn wrestled over?

That Vander lived and died at least 2 times too many?

That Isha was just a cute pet for Jinx to monologue at?

That Jinx turned from unhinged terrorist to a defanged, quirky jokester?

That Caitlyn's blink and you'll miss it dictator arc changed nothing and there were zero repercussions for it?

That Ambessa became a hypocritical moron whose anti-mage sentiment ate shit and died when she teamed up with robot mage Viktor, who didn't even PRETEND he wasnt going to hivemind her along with everyone else?

That Silco being close to Powder and Vi's mom, knowing them since they were born, only serves to weaken his relationship with Jinx?

That Mel went from a morally complex, savvy politician into a heroic battle mage, (in like 5 mins of screentime) while all other kinds of magic + Hextech were evil and corrupting and had to be destroyed?

That Ekko convinces Jinx that he went to an alternate reality and fell in love with her and she shouldnt kill herself and to become a revolutionary hero(?) OFF SCREEN?

IS THE HONEYMOON OVER YET?

my hypothesis for why we leftists are always at each other’s throats is that when you are left enough, every one is on your right :))

“Chewbacca is… a Maoist. Hera Syndulla? A Trotskyist. Ahsoka Tano? A Social Democrat. Ezra Bridger? A Posadist. Lost! All of them, lost. I am the only one with clarity of purpose.”

(I don't think this post has made it here yet but if it has, I'll happily take it down)

Aldhani crew + silly hats!!

and you keep reblogging me. instigation goes both ways.

i said, "let's have a discussion", in good faith.

you asked a question. i answered, in good faith.

then you miscontrued and misinterpreted what i said to make it seem like i agree with you, which i fucking don't. you broke the fucking good faith, and here i was thinking that maybe this might turn into something fruitful. just save me the trouble and tell me from the start that you are a fucking brat who can't take no for a fucking answer ever.

first of all, this post has never been about "ending the circle of violence" or whatever the fuck that shit show of an ending was trying to say. it's an irrelevant point to make that came out of nowhere. do you have a habit of stringing along every thought you have in your head and try to make it fit your narrative or did you never get the chance to learn critical thinking?

secondly, you are assuming that if i'm critical of the show i can't ever agree on any of its message. you assume that just because i don't agree with certain character arcs it means i have to be disagreeable to every single fucking thing said in the show. so basically i can't like something and be critical of it at the same time? so media literacy is dead now? say that again three times in your head, do you not find it fucking ridiculous?

and now, at this point of the conversation, you decide to throw in the "nuanced character" argument and accuse me of being performative, while this fucking conversation has never been about characters to begin with?

and whether or not i agree with how the show ends doesn't invalidate any of the things i just said, and if you can't grow a fucking brain cell big enough to comprehend that, then we're done here.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

i never said that i agree with it? you ASKED me what's the moral thing for piltover to do and i ANSWERED.

but just because i map out a believable scenario doesn't fucking mean i have to agree with it?

have you never engaged in thoughts exercises ever? and what's with the insistence to read what i never fucking wrote.

and if you just keep asking me questions just to be intentionally obtuse about it, stop bothering me.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

I never said there is absolutely nothing moral to be done about that situation. I also never said there shouldn't be anything immoral to be done about that either.

let's get the first thing out of the way, and i'm gonna hold you hand when i drill this into your brain, this is not something FOR piltover to do. sure they have the jurisdiction, but if you have been paying attention in season one, piltover is NOT FIT to handle the zaun situation. let's talk logistics for a second. assuming you can just safely assasinate every drug lord and chemsbaron, you'd have a humanitary crisis and a massive vaccumn of power on your hand, which - and i'm gonna repeat this again - piltover is not equiped to handle. you'd have a barrage of freshly unemployed impoverished citizens that you'll have to take care of, a shit ton of power-hungry opportunists eager to replace the old mobsters, oh and yeah, TONS OF SHIMMER that can be weaponized. it'll be an open season - which, again, piltover will be scared shit less of. do you think piltover ever cared to learn about how zaun functioned? do you think they made an effort? they didn't have to. they just need to get their factories up and running and collect their wealth. they didn't need to care. which is why, for any sort of punishment to matter, it cannot be piltover who enforced it.

BTW, THIS IS EXACTLY THE REASON WHY WE DON'T OUTRIGHT ASSASSINATE DICTATORS IN REAL LIFE.

so what do we fight authoritarianism with? democracy. duh.

so here's the moral thing piltover could do. first, they could upgrade citizenship of zaunites, give them more political power. second, give zaunites a chance at economic mobility - more zaunites working in piltover, more schools, more shops, more business, which in turn will give them a stabilized enough financial state to stay away from the factories. easier said then done and piltover will have to sacrifice a great chunk of it's economic priviledge - which is why this scenario will never be allowed to play out with the state of piltovian council bruh. third, when people are successfully lifted over the poverty line, that is when you go for the drug lords - or don't even bother, the people will find a way - if they are being oppressed by both the chemsbarons and piltover, but one help lift them out of the grip of the other, who do you think they would support? who do you think they would throw to the pyre?

now, is that an ideal ending in an ideal world? yes. is it hard? fuck yes. but the only immoral thing to do is NOT PUNISHING THE CHEMSBARONS. and before you unclutch your pearls and come at me, think about how your aggressive crack down on drug lords would play out in comparison to this. oh yeah you don't have to, i already told you, vaccumn of power, social unrest, class violence, all that good stuff. but now, because assasination is rarely ever that easy, piltover put their boots down harder on chemsbarons, chemsbarons will put their boots down harder on the already oppressed masses. and when you are on the ground looking up, every one above you is an enemy. you know what that would lead to? google the images of the french revolution, of the bolsheviks, and imagine how that would look on the streets of piltover.

so your choice really, crack down on drug lords and enact the "punishment" you so desire, or foster the growth of democratic sentiment in zaun. pick your poison.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

and i just don't understand how you would think that human rights are something that you have to earn to keep. it's called "rights" for a reason, and that reason being every human being is to be treated like a fucking human being by other fucking human beings. that is the singular idea that bonds us as communities, that nurtures compassion, that discourages discrimination, that drives society forward. the idea that we as a collective thrives when we RESPECT each other's rights.

i never said that you shouldn't lose any of your rights if you commit crimes. if you can find a single sentence i said in this pointless conversation with you that even entertains that idea, shoot it my way and reep a fucking reward. idk what you want me to explain about a point i never made.

the point i did make is, however, that even though a person who got caught driving under the influence certainly do not deserve the same treatment as a zealot murderer, they are still clumped together under the umbrella of criminality. and criminality is a fragile concept. it can be redefined. it can be manipulative. it can be a tool of oppression.

and when your core argument is "if you do crimes then you don't deserve rights", how do you differentiate between those who you deem deserving of that treatment, and those who got fucked over by the system so bad that they turned to crimes or get turned into criminals not out of their own volition? you certainly never bothered to make that distinction in your original post, so why did you expect us to treat that statement with care and nuance, when you did not make an effort to aspire to that same level of care and nuance? what reaction did you think people would give you, if you made a grossly indiscriminate statement about how criminals do not deserve human rights and then preemptively called everyone who disagree with you weirdos and dumbasses?

in my original responses to you when i tried to point out there is more complicated mechanisms at play, you got defensive and started calling me names, without even trying to engage in the arguments i made. and now that you finally bothered to add a thin layer of nuance, you're patting yourself on the back for using big words without even pointing out which "false equivalences" and "asinine assumptions" you think i or the people in the reblogs actually commited.

go on, name one and let's have a discussion. tell me, which two subjects that i have falsely drawn equivalence between that you feel the need to call me out on it.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

we’re literally talking about chemical weapons???? two or more things can be true at the same time? using chemical weapons is still bad even with or without a fucking net?

are you having trouble making a single coherent thought? or is that just beyond your intellectual capacity?

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

if something is allowed under the law, it doesn’t mean that that thing is inherently good or insusceptible to misuse. the law itself may not be intrinsically capable of detecting and punishing misuse either.

guns are allowed in domestic policing, but that still doesn’t mean that you can fire at will. you can’t willy-nilly shoot at criminals if they do not pose any threat to you. it is the way it is because the use of a gun against even the most heinous of criminals with no weapon in hand, especially if it threatens civilians nearby, is a human right violation. now replace “guns” with “chemical weapons” and read that excerpt again.

if you live in america - with that degree of police brutality and the deafening outcry against it - and i still have to make this allegory so you understand, then maybe you should go outside and talk to real people for once.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

at this point nothing we ever say will change op’s mind if they think that stripping anyone, regardless of status, off their basic human rights just because they break the law is justifiable.

when i made a point in the comments about how criminality is not absolute and can be manipulated to fit the agenda of whoever is capable of changing the law, therefore “criminals” can include some of the most vunerable marginalized communities, thus taking basic rights away from “criminals” could also mean taking away those rights from the people who need them the most, it just flew over their head and i got called a weirdo immediately.

honestly, it’s so frustrating to engage in good-faith arguments with people who resort to personal insults the moment they are disagreed with.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

“I’m expecting great things from you”

Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook.

Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, for the second book of the Flat Earth series. She died in 2015. You can buy Tales From the Flat Earth here in paperback or here on Kindle.

i bought a property on emberlift alley and what they do for you is they give you the property

i’m sorry for the person i will become when season 2 comes out.

Rebellions are built on hope.

I love soulmates but also this-

She-Ra PoP vs Arcane S2

Physically disabled character considered inferior by his society, abandoned instead of being helped

Technological genius who benefits from having a partner

Uses technology to improve his health and quality of life

Becomes fundamentally altered by a force outside his control (with Christian and cult references)

And now here's where She-Ra and Arcane's messages diverge: Hordak is consistently supported and loved by his partner throughout his journey. She doesn't let up when he tries to hide his pain from her.

She does NOT tell him that he is wrong to try to "fix" himself and actively helps him do so. She recognizes the validity of how he choses to deal with his condition, which was caused by genetic "imperfections" during the cloning process. But she impresses upon him that he does not deserve the physical pain or mental torment of being a "failure".

Her message was that his imperfections do not limit him or define him. They are a part of life, part of the world, and a part of him, and he is not a failure for having them.

Meanwhile in Arcane, Jayce criticizes Viktor for "wanting to cure what he thought were weaknesses" and specifically mentions his leg and disease. The two things that brought him chronic pain, progressively deteriorating quality of life, and one would ultimately kill him. Also, Viktor never actually expressed that he was ashamed of them. We as the audience are left to assume that's how he feels, because why wouldn't he? What else would a disabled person feel? Not that he is perfectly aware that Piltover's oppression and exploitation of his people likely directly contributed to both those issues. Not that he values himself for his intellect and contributions to Hextech even though society constantly prioritized Jayce. Nope, obviously he feels so bad about it that he tries to turn all of humanity into robots. On top of that, Christian Linke has explicitly said the Hexcore corrupted him and Sky was a manifestation of it manipulating him. So even if he did feel that way before, he's still not at fault for what's been going on.

And I think a key part of this is the mindset of the team who created this show. Was this simply a poorly executed but positive sentiment, or a symptom of ableist bias from a team of 3 able-bodied people? We can harp on Jayce all we want, but ultimately someone designed him this way, and THIS is what I take issue with. Christian also says in the art book explicitly that Viktor fixing his leg and spine make him lose part of his humanity. If this is the logic behind Jayce's monologue, it is NOT positivity. It is a direct shaming of a disabled person's right to choose how they take care of themselves, said by a character who has already violated Viktor's autonomy and wishes, written by a team that equates self-improvement with inferior humanity.

Amanda Overton has repeatedly mentioned she was inspired by She-Ra, which is pretty obvious here. Unfortunately, this isn't the unequivocally positive message she thinks it is, and she missed all the nuance of Entrapta and Hordak's conversations about it. A huge component of why it works in She-Ra is because Entrapta's wisdom comes from her understanding of her own "failures" and "imperfections" due to her autism, and Hordak reciprocates support throughout the show. One of the key members of her development team is an autistic person who provided a realistic view of what an autistic person can be like.

This is two people who understand each other's pain uplifting each other, NOT Entrapta being Hordak's miraculous savior at the 11th hour. Having Jayce need a leg brace for like 5 minutes does not give him ability to understand Viktor's lifelong struggles that were also killing him.

For future seasons, I hope they bring on staff who actually have any idea what they are fucking talking about.

OK since the person I was replying to isn't somebody I want to get into a discussion with ill make my own post about it. Little rant on the aesthetics of arcane vs writer intention ahead based on the use of child labour in the show.

Child labour in Zaun is normalised. Although it's less recognisable to the viewer as such because we're more used to child labour being as being depicted in factories or mines, all of the zaunite kids in act one s1 are child workers. Ekko works in Benzos shop, repairing and selling things. Vanders kids work as thief's, Oliver twist anyone?

Child labour is a feature of industrial boom historically, as well as the result of wealth inequality. Silco and the other chembarons further wealth inequality in Zaun and make use of child labour, but they invented neither. Zaun is Piltovers industry, the majority of factories and mines down there will be owned by Piltovans because that's a major source of wealth.

We never see the piltover owned factories even though logistically they must exist. Narratively there's no place for them to have shown this, however it does seem like the show goes out of its way to show the poor treatment of children and workers by the other Zaunites but leaves Piltovers hand in it unspoken. The most I have here is Silco speaking on the poor working conditions they had and Jayces lack of surprise in seeing children working, both in the factory and when ekko sold him goods. However, realistically Piltover would absolutely be hiring child workers in zaun and would have been the main contributer to the need for child workers to begin with.

I'm mostly making this point for two reasons. One because I've seen Silco criticised as the source of child labour in zaun which I think dumbs down what actually leads to child labour existing. The fact is, with wealth inequality at a severe level, children are forced to work to sustain their family, if not Silcos factories there would be work elsewhere or they would go hungry. This isn't me justifying his use of child labour, I'm only saying the issue would still exist without him because the root cause goes further back than him.

Two, because I've seen people arguing about the strike team and whether or not children would have been caught up in the factory raids. I don't think the writers intended for the strike team to have gassed child workers, I think it's an oversight on their behalf, but yes, even with the most strategic raids children would have been caught in the gray.

I've then seen people claim the children and the workers deserved that and I'm not even going to bother getting into that, babies first exposure to exploitation much?

Anyway, all of that is to say these arguments can go on forever because there's a discrepancy between the aesthetics of zaun and what the writers want us to believe about Piltover. The aesthetics tell us that Zaun is impoverished and exploited, that it's reminiscent of victorian England, it has casual police Brutality hidden in montages. When you think about the implications it gets messy and you realise that some of our good guys are complicit in some nasty things. I personally think that's good story telling.

But then you get to the writing itself and what they're telling is another story. That zauns issues are more caused by zaunites, that the piltover council has very little to do with their problems, that the strike team cannot possibly have hurt civilians because that would make Vi and Cait TOO morally gray. I see this as pretty lame writing, frankly.

This allows for people to be arguing on the show based on completely different perspectives. I completely get why people argue the strike teams efforts were necessary and caused very minor harm, because the writers intend us to take that away, to the extent of only showing a child harmed by the gray when Jinx reverses it. But logistically tons of Zaunite children would have been caught up in the gray too, its just glossed over because the writers don't want us to consider it.

op i will kiss you on the mouth (if you’ll let me ofc).

i literally ranted on my blog about the non-solution (sevika being on the council) to the piltover-zaun conflict yesterday and in that post i haven’t even gotten close to dissecting the intrinsically problematic politics behind the show yet, so it’s really cathartic to see this post popped up.

context: i was born and raised in a country where there are still traces of colonialist and imperialist invasions. my country was liberated when my mother was 6 years old, and less then 30 years before i was born - it’s recent enough that this kind of oppression and economic exploitation is not a foreign concept to me. i grew up hearing stories about how people like my great grandfather fought and died for the freedom i enjoy today, how significant that sacrifice was and more importantly, how violent the struggle was.

you see, in stories like these, the point is rarely ever the victory, it’s the fight. no matter what version of victory the oppressed masses envision it to be, they can never reach it without violence - either towards themselves or their oppressors. anticipating that, what i wanted from season 2 was not that zaunites will be promoted to positions of power or even that zaun will eventually be independent, i just wanted to see the class struggle play out in its full bloody grittiness. this is not me saying that it would be cool to see a bunch of people murdering enforcers or vice versa, i’m just asking for the fight to be treated with the weight it deserves, even if it means people will face brutalization and by extension, death. but after the first 3 episodes of the season, i doubted i would ever get the story i was looking for and sadly, i was right.

(and at this point i dont even know if i should vent all my grievances about the politics in this show in one single post as a magnum opus and be done with it because I HAVE MORE TO SAY)

i despise the way the fandom talks about jinx. i'm sorry, but a teenager with severe mental health issues who was raised by a dictatorial drug lord in a city where crime is rampant, children are often orphaned, and there is no clean air or water, was never going to turn out right. that is not to say that i condone all of her actions (e.g. killing the firelights, helping shimmer run rampant in zaun), but i do believe that she is the product of the circumstances she grew up in. will all that being said, i don't think she did anything wrong to piltover. most, if not all, the piltovans jinx attacked were enforcers and councilors, her oppressors and the primary people responsible for the subjugation of the undercity. and before y'all argue with me in the comments "but in the s1 finale, the council was going to make zaun independent", i beg for y'all to think beyond authorial intent since the show has deeply flawed politics (see: christian linke saying that the piltover-zaun conflict is an allegory to how the us two-party system fails to communicate with each other). while there are councilors that i like as individual characters (jayce and mel specifically), i don't believe that a consensus would've gave zaun true liberation because there has NEVER been a time where the liberation of oppressed people hinged upon their oppressors granting them their freedom. negotiating with your oppressors is akin to having a conversation between the sword and the neck, there can never be peace unless the oppressed takes away power from their oppressors. whether it's between the irish and the british, the algerians and the french, or the vietnamese and the americans, the oppressed ALWAYS had to fight for their liberation, even for examples that "prove" otherwise. nevertheless, i do believe that jinx's resistance is flawed since her violence is aimless and i wish that in s2, she would actually embrace being a symbol of zaun and use violence to achieve liberation for zaun, but i don't think the writers would be able to explore violent resistance effectively because they're cowards.

this might turn into a structureless rant and it will be rambly, but i’m just gonna be so honest, that moment with sevika at the end was so unearned and it accidentally encapsulates one of my biggest gripes with season 2.

the writing of the season betrays everything they set up about the piltover-zaun conflict. i fully expected a deeper exploration into the innerworkings of piltovian systemic oppression and/or the failures of its institutions. and it didn’t even have to be nuanced, mind you - had they done any kind of social commentary on just one aspect, be it the corruption of the council or the indifference of the privileged class, and how it accelerated the pace of piltover-zaun wealth disparity, i would have been fine with it. (i have SO MANY ideas on this specific topic i’m not even joking, maybe just because i’m a no chill raging leftist idk.)

instead, what we got was half-baked ideas of generic activism (i refuse to call it class activism) and throwaway music videos about anti-establishmentarianism that just boil down to “oppression bad”. don’t get me wrong, this is not inherently a bad message, but it’s an underwhelming and ineffective one, because it’s so inoffensive that it doesn’t actually challenge anyone’s political standings enough to elicit radical changes. and if you don’t think any political development adjacent to “zaun independence” is a radical change then i don’t know what to tell you.

and worst of all, the cumulation of DECADES of class struggle manifested into… nothing. NOTHING. a mutual avenger-level age-of-ultron threat just sidelined that whole plot line into the stratosphere. “we were oppressed but there’s an invasion so we’re cool i guess?” - said no zaunite ever. and do i even want to get into the fact that the final boss is a zaunite or are we not ready for that conversation yet? (i mean people have talked in depth about how displeased they were with viktor’s character development more eloquently than i can so go read those posts and give them some love.)

it’s so unimaginative and ridiculous that at the end the resolution to the class struggle is the fact that poor people are represented in the council now. the conclusion to that whole conflict is not even a triumphant moment it just felt empty. and it felt empty because the story, in the way it eventually played out, did not respect the core conflict that it had consciously tried so hard to flesh out. piltover and its ruling class were condemned for the fact that they crippled an entire city and its people, but then never had to face the consequences of those actions - and they probably never will, because even if sevika’s on the council now, she can still (and will very likely) be outvoted in any zaun-related matter. be so fucking for real.

it’s actually funny and eerie how that ending mirrors our current world in the way political institutions treat marginalized minorities demanding better treatment: instead of making actual systemic changes, those in power often shut down voices of the oppressed by giving them a seat at the table but with little to no negotiation power. it’s a shut-up-and-take-it tactic. it’s a non-solution. it’s disingenuous and evil. and it’s so disappointing that the writers decided that the ending we got was the best one they could think of for the people of zaun.

Zaun never got its independence but its ok guys Sevika is on the council now

A few more things:

- If you don’t like something, keep it to yourself or your private group chats. You may feel the urge to critique someone’s art, review someone’s fanfics or disagree with how a character is portrayed in creative fanworks, but unless the creator states otherwise, any criticism - even constructive - is unsolicited and rude.

It is encouraged that we consume media critically - media literacy is important if we want meaningful thoughts-nurturing conversations. That being said, we don’t criticize creators of non-monetized fanworks for depicting topics deemed “problematic”. Fandom and its creative force are not to be held to the same standards as published authors and studios behind the piece of media that birthed them.

- You don’t have to like a ship and you are well within your right to critique it, but do not under any circumstances post a critcism of a ship under the ship tag. That’s what anti-ship tags are for.

The Three Laws of Fandom

If you wish to take part in any fandom, you need to accept and respect these three laws.

If you aren’t able to do that, then you need to realise that your actions are making fandom unsafe for creators. That you are stifling creativity.

Like vaccination, fandom only works if everyone respects these rules. Creators need to be free to make their fanart, fanfics and all other content without fear of being harassed or concern-trolled for their creative choices, no matter whether you happen to like that content or not.

The First Law of Fandom

Don’t Like; Don’t Read (DL;DR)

It is up to you what you see online. It is not anyone else’s place to tell you what you should or should not consume in terms of content; it is not up to anyone else to police the internet so that you do not see things you do not like. At the same time, it is not up to YOU to police fandom to protect yourself or anyone else, real or hypothetical.

There are tools out there to help protect you if you have triggers or squicks. Learn to use them, and to take care of your own mental health. If you are consuming fan-made content and you find that you are disliking it - STOP.

The Second Law of Fandom

Your Kink Is Not My Kink (YKINMK)

Simply put, this means that everyone likes different things. It’s not up to you to determine what creators are allowed to create. It’s not up to you to police fandom. 

If you don’t like something, you can post meta about it or create contrarian content yourself, seek to convert other fans to your way of thinking.  

But you have no right to say to any creator “I do not like this, therefore you should not create it. Nobody should like this. It should not exist.”

It’s not up to you to decide what other people are allowed to like or not like, to create or not to create. That’s censorship. Don’t do it.

The Third Law of Fandom

Ship And Let Ship (SALS)

Much (though not all) fandom is about shipping. There are as many possible ships as there are fans, maybe more. You may have an OTP (One True Pairing), you may have a NOTP, that pairing that makes you want to barf at the very thought of its existence.

It’s not up to you to police ships or to determine what other people are allowed to ship. Just because you find that one particular ship problematic or disgusting, does not mean that other people are not allowed to explore its possibilities in their fanworks.

You are free to create contrarian content, to write meta about why a particular ship is repulsive, to discuss it endlessly on your private blog with like-minded persons.

It is not appropriate to harass creators about their ships, it is not appropriate to demand they do not create any more fanworks about those ships, or that they create fanwork only in a manner that you deem appropriate.

These three laws add up to the following:

You are not paying for fanworks content, and you have no rights to it other than to choose to consume it, or not consume it. If you do choose to consume it, do not then attack the creator if it wasn’t to your taste. That’s the height of bad manners.

Be courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.

One of my favorite things is modern adaptations that leave people with the same careers they had in the original material, because unless you’re a cop or a doctor that practically never happens.

Irene Adler’s an opera singer. We still have those! They don’t have the same subtext exactly, but nothing is going to because we aren’t the Victorians. She could continue to be an opera singer. I have never seen this happen.

Jonathan Harker can still be in real estate. That’s a job people have. A modern story that still involves Dracula contacting his firm to help him purchase property sounds amazing actually.

how do draw good

fill 14 sketch book

bad stuff is good stuff bc you made stuff

do you like sparkle???? draw sparkle

draw what make your heart do the smiley emote

member to drink lotsa agua or else bad time

d ont stress friend all is well

your art is hot like potato crisps

don’t let anyone piss on your good mood amigo

if they do

eat

them

i promised you 🦋

(crossposting from x, bsky, & ig)