#fandom critical

[dalek-thal]

This is a Dragon Age post now, fuck you all.

"it's not that deep" has become my activation phrase that awakens my suppressed urge to kill

[shitpostingsapphic]

People keep calling Vi the class traitor for loving Caitlyn when the real class traitor is SILCO.

Manipulated the people around him with talk of revolution and independence, while feeding them poison, orphaning more kids and putting those children to work in his manufacturing facilities, BRIBING THE POLICE, and making life in the Lanes so horrible that organizations like the Firelights had to come into existence for the sake of survival. All the money and success that came about from his actions is in the pockets of his buddies. It is not to the benefit of the people. He is benefiting himself.

Silco took the progress of the undercity five steps back. And he never felt remorse for it.

Silco is the class traitor you should hate. Not Vi.

[blueraith]

Some of you have the weirdest fucking takes on sex that I instantly channel my stereotypical inner millennial and 'literally can't even'

Oppressor vs Oppressed?

Boiling a lesbian relationship down to the grossest, hetereonormative views as possible??

Thinking that anyone who liked a sex scene in media is addicted to porn?????

Like, who tf are you people? Who raised you? Social media, evidently, please touch some grass and quit coming into the main ship tags with your frankly utterly bizarre, puritanical, and just weird-ass takes. They're an instant block from well-adjusted, non-terminally online people who just want to see some good fucking fanart and decent media analysis.

Because whatever the fuck y'all are on about? Not media analysis. You're projecting your hyper sensitive political identity on fictional characters where the gods and all of creation can see you. I'm suffering from second hand embarrassment from some of you because y'all are coming out with your whole chest ranting about how eating pussy is inherently political.

Fucking hell, I feel like I'm aging five years every time I see whatever stupid shit some of the kids are on about.

Anyway, I'll eventually get back to my Vi analysis. Christmas prep is bullshit, and I got distracted with posting my very first smut fic lol.

[thedissonantverses]

“I wish I was more unaware of the lore so I could enjoy Veilguard the way you do.”

Shut up. I know more about the lore than you do. Knock it off you’re not being slick when you say shit like this. It’s condescending and it’s annoying.

[c1trvswurld]

I will air out everyone in this bitch—what are you ON.

Arcane fans try not to sound like actual caricatures of pilties challange.

Y'all really don't see poor people as people and learned nothing from the fucking show 😭

Cailtyn Kiramann pfp is the least shocking thing about these comments holy fuck

(source)

[lullabyes22-blog]

Arcane Fandom drinking game.

tw: racism, misogyny, classism, ableism.

tw: fandoms in general, ig?

Take a shot if:

Sevika is reduced to this exoticised, hypersexualized, sub human caricature with no exploration into her motivations, her family, her issues as a disabled woman or her experiences as a working class person who grew up in a literal slum - and instead serves as a sex toy with body heat, who exists solely to get the reader off.

Take two shots of she is neutered instead of oversexualized, and reduced to the Mammy stereotype wherein her only purpose is to roll her eyes and provide commentary on the (white) characters/readers' antics, the latter of which drive the plot.

Take a shot if:

Mel Medarda is reduced to a living example of the Jezebel stereotype: oversexualized in the most dehumanizing and demeaning language possible, made a literal receptacle for other characters' desires with no attempt to engage with her motivations as a politician or her feelings as a woman, or else blamed for every single problem in the show, because apparently an ambitious woman is synonymous with 'The face of pure evil,' a woman who has sex and uses it to express agency is an insatiable slut, and a black woman is literally the devil incarnate.

Take two shots if she's taken the other extreme, and her ambitions, flaws, and sexuality have been wiped away completely, leaving only a hyperperfect husk of a character behind, for us to rally around with empty cries of 'Yaas Queen!' and no attempt to critically examine a) the problematic nature of the praise and b) the essence of what makes her human, and what drives her forward, in the first place.

Take a shot if:

Ekko is reduced to his crush on Powder/Jinx, with no attempt to engage with the complexity of the fact that his best friend warped into a monster, nor the ways in which he himself is a product of Zaun's poverty and his relationship with his community, the impact of trauma on children, his complex relationship with violence and his own moral compass, nor the fact that he is an activist, a freedom fighter, an artist, and an engineer, all at age eighteen.

Take a double shot if the characterization veers the other way, and he is portrayed as 'Forever Alone' because black men cannot have healthy relationships, do not deserve to have a full range of complex emotions, and should be punished by having their most deeply held wishes, friendships, and loves crushed to dust before their eyes, for daring to dream of a better life and a world that loves them.

Take a shot if:

Jayce Talis is not even acknowledged in fanworks as a mixed race man, nor as a person of color, with no attempt to engage with the complexity inherent in his experience of privilege, and the ways in which he is a product of his upbringing, and where these factors intersect with class commentary. Take a half shot if the character is whitewashed, and turned into the kind of bland, boring, vanilla caricature that we're used to seeing in media in perpetuity, who exists as a foil to the villains, a symbol of virtue, and a blank slate on which the viewer is meant to project themselves and their own beliefs.

Take a full shot if the character is the epitome of the white savior trope: a smug, paternalistic, know-it-all white man, whose self-assurance in his own superiority allows him to walk in and take over a conflict, then tell people what to do.

Take two shots if characterization veers the other extreme and he's just a sweet, dumb, himbo puppyboy with no personality, no goals, no desires, and no motivations of his own, save for making Viktor happy and doing his best to be a good boy.

Take three shots if Mel is the one leading him by the nose, because nothing says 'nuance' like making a black woman the villain for the sin of having agency and not existing solely for vilification.

Drink the whole bottle if:

Caitlyn, an Enforcer and a Councilor's daughter, is portrayed as a sympathetic sweetheart angelcake, without being forced to confront the actions of the state and the institution of which she is a part, without being forced to face the consequences of her complicity in the system that oppresses others, nor without being forced to recognize the fact that her actions and her words are not, in and of themselves, inherently just, and the fact that her privilege does not automatically grant her moral authority.

Drink another if she is portrayed as a damsel, an innocent, a child who needs to be protected and cared for, rather than a full person with agency and a complex emotional landscape of her own.

Drink again if the characterization leans the other way and she is turned into a classist caricature, an entitled bitch who doesn't even realize she's the bad guy, or gets turned into a literal Nazi because, once again, folks cannot engage with complex topics such as classism, racism, ableism, etc. and instead resort to infantilizing, simplistic, and reductive portrayals.

Stop drinking and switch to cyanide if her characterization hinges on her relationship with Vi, within which Caitlyn is the dominant top here to 'tame' this feral subhuman, with no understanding of the uncomfortable and undeniably harmful implications of such a power dynamic.

Drink the rest of the alcohol stash if:

Vi, an adult, a former convict and a street savvy survivor, is reduced to an angsty, moody, petulant puppydog off her leash, unable to take responsibility for her own actions, and her trauma is treated as an excuse for her behavior.

Drink another bottle if she is portrayed as a hypermasculine, toxic, violent, and Cait is the one forced to tame her, make her behave, and bring her into line, and her relationship with Vi is portrayed as inherently parent-child, or worse, caretaker-charge, without any regard for Vi's autonomy and right to be flawed as a human being.

Drink a fifth if Vi is portrayed as a hypersexualized aggressor for the audience's titillation, with no attempt to engage with the fact that butch lesbian women have more complex emotions than 'sex starved nymphomaniac', nor the ways in which Vi's abuse, abandonment, and trauma have impacted her relationship with intimacy and sexuality. Drink another if the characterization shifts the other way and Vi becomes a sexless robot who has no personality or wants, nor is given room to grieve for her family, her home, or her own trauma, and is instead expected to bounce back, get over it, and move on as nothing more than Caitlyn' Brave Buff Gf (tm).

Drink the entire bar if:

Viktor, a disabled man, is depicted as a neurotic, fragile, jittery wreck. Take two bottles if his disability is treated as a punchline, or the defining characteristic of his existence, and the only time we're meant to consider his body or his physical pain is when he's having an episode and collapsing, or having a coughing fit, and it's treated as a joke, rather than something which affects him and his ability to function.

Take three bottles if he's taken the other extreme and he is twinkified and babygirlified, and his sexuality and his love life are the only thing we're meant to care about, and his romantic relationship with Jayce is the only thing he's allowed to have, lest the audience think too hard about the ways in which he and his work might benefit Zaun, or how the Council might respond to a disabled person from an underprivileged background.

Take a fourth if the characterization shifts and he's reduced to a hypersexualized toy: a broken doll to be pitied and fetishized and cared for, and Jayce is his Daddy, his owner, his caregiver, his knight in shining armor, all in one.

Take a fifth if, in the midst of all this, his relationship with his disability, and the ways in which it has impacted his life and his choices, is completely glossed over.

Take six if his relationship with his disability is not even acknowledged.

Switch to cocaine if:

Jinx, one of the most complex characters in the show, and the only one with any sort of internal consistency, is reduced to a whiny helpless brat who just wants a hug and an explanation for her widdle feewings from a big strong grownup.

Take an eightball if her relationship with her sister, her trauma, and her mental health is reduced to the 'Hot Psycho' trope: an excuse to play up the 'cool' aspect of her personality while completely ignoring the trauma at the heart of her actions/behavior. Take another if the characterization swings the other way, and she's reduced to a one-dimensional villainess, a demon, an amoral monster, and the only motivation for her actions is the fact that she is a crazy bitch, and the only reason for her existence is to serve as a foil for Vi's goodness and the audience's own hangups re: mental illness and critically engaging with the more unpalatable aspects of human behavior.

Switch to crack if her relationship with Silco or Vi is not even mentioned.

Pour a glass of absinthe if:

Silco, a single parent, a survivor of violence at the hands of a loved one, a victim of systemic abuse, and a revolutionary, is portrayed as the ultimate villain, and his desire to fight for a better life for his community is somehow worse than the Council's decision to literally silence everyone in the undercity via chemical runoff, political neglect and police brutality.

Pour two if he is a cartoonish, hamfisted boogeyman, with no sense of his humanity, nor the ways in which he is a product of the same systems that hurt every undercity character, and the ways his actions replicate the cycle of abuse and hurt the ones he seeks to save in turn.

Pour a third if he becomes an unrepentant sadist, a child abuser and a sexual predator, and there is nothing loving or fatherly about his relationship with Jinx.

Pour four if the character is taken to the other extreme and he's sanctified as a literal martyr and hero, and all his wrongdoing is glossed over because he's just a ~victim~, and everything he does is justified, no matter how terrible, because he had a traumatic childhood or his abusive ex didn't die soon enough. Eat the sugarcube if his bond with Jinx is suddenly a wholesome Disneyfied gag-fest wherein he calls her "Pumpkin" and babies her like a toddler, and their relationship has zero codependent overtones, and she's suddenly a sweet innocent who doesn't have blood on her hands, same way he's not the one who sanctioned it.

Eat the bottle of absinthe if Silco is given the tumblr sexyman treatment, and suddenly he's just a walking Daddy Kink, with no regard for the ways in which he is a complex person, nor the ways in which he and other characters might actually interact, or his history or his trauma or the way it impacts his life.

Drink the whole liquor cabinet if:

Zaun is portrayed as a dystopian hellscape rather than a robust, vibrant, diverse community, with a wide range of experiences and a deep and nuanced relationship with authority, power, and violence. Break into the cellar if, instead, it's just a shitty stereotypical ghetto, full of criminals, addicts, and victims.

Light a cigarette if Piltover, a technological juggernaut that also has a diverse immigrant population, and a vibrant and rich cultural identity, is reduced to a bland, generic, vanilla utopia, and is full of pompous blowhards who have never engaged with the undercity outside the scope of the narrative.

Light a molotov cocktail if it swings the opposite direction and Piltover is turned into an neoliberal nightmare, a soulless, shiny, hollow, plastic, faceless wasteland, populated only by vapid, shallow, self absorbed stooges and shills who have no depth or personality of their own.

Throw the molotov and light the house on fire if:

'Piltover and Zaun' is not even mentioned, and there is no acknowledgement of the way these two cities shape the cast of characters who reside within these systems, much less a mention of the ways in which the characters might not be fully representative of the communities they are a part of, and the fact that they are still very much human beings with individual experiences.

If you didn't get alcohol poisoning, a whopping hangover, or a charge of arson: congratulations.

You win.

[resol-nare]

Okay I'm just going to say it because I'll explode otherwise.

Neve and Bellara could be a cute ship but I'm put off by the people who are INSISTENT that they would be better romantically.

Maybe it's my aroace-ness bleeding through but I don't get it. Why can't they be better as friends?

"Why should they only be friends when they could also be fucking?"

Why does everyone have to be fucking. Why. What is wrong with people just vibing platonically?

I think there's something to be said for close platonic relationships because they CAN be just as intimate if not more so. And pretending that romantic/sexual relationships are somehow automatically superior just feels bad to me.

Honestly I dread the day that Bioware or any other studio starts talking in depth about the ace spectrum and makes it part of a character's arc, because I know the fandom will NOT treat them right. Y'all could barely handle yourselves when Mary Kirby said Lucanis was intended to be demisexual.

[shitpostingsapphic]

First thing, if you haven't watched Arcane, don't have an opinion on it and broadcast it to the internet. That should be common sense.

Second, if you're only able to internalize the Piltover and Zaun storyline from s1, just say that. Don't say it was the main plotline, because it wasn't. There were several that ran together during the course of the first season. So if you're shocked that the show called Arcane was focused on the magical side of things in the 2nd season, I'm afraid that's a personal problem.

The Piltover and Zaun plotline is indeed important. Just perhaps not in the way you made up in your mind. So the ways it was addressed (and it indeed was addressed) didn't satisfy what you'd been hoping for. Perhaps the story being told wasn't the one you think you were being told. Rewatches help. Pick up details you didn't process before. There's no shame in that.

And keep in mind that with a medium like animation, YES, the little details tell as much of the story as the dialogue. Every frame is so much more intentional than live film can ever be. So if you resent the idea that you might have to rewatch something to pick up on miniscule details you missed upon first watch, perhaps animation isn't the medium for you. Especially with a show so detailed and painstaking and with as high a budget as Arcane. More has gone into this than most any other animation project.

Just rewatch the damn thing. And stop making a fool of yourself on the internet.

[shitpostingsapphic]

I really need arcane critical tag users to consider that your determination to make Arcane solely about the conflict between Piltover and Zaun, is frankly, lazy. You want a simple storyline from a show that has always been complex. If you can't keep up with the nuances that this show provides you, that's on you. But this show was never just about Piltover and Zaun. That was simply one facet of the show. Perhaps the fact the show is called ARCANE, and not Piltover and Zaun, should have clued you in on that. If the cities' conflict is all you got from season 1, that's on you.

The more I think on it, Arcane season two fundamentally doesn’t work as a story for Zaun or Piltover because it misses the entire point of the two cities: in a world of magic, they are cities of invention and science.

Visually, they’re based on Steampunk and Cyberpunk, which works for what both cities represent. Steampunk is associated with the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the Victorian era, and is thereby representative of invention and bringing humanity forward into an era of new technology, fitting for the City of progress. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk is associated with a society oppressed by technology, and often the rebellion against that society, or how the people suffer under it.

To Zaun and Piltover, magic becomes science, notably in the form of Hextech. It blurs the lines between the two, and truly does encapsulate the phrase ‘magic is just science we don’t understand yet’.

A lot of Piltover and Zaun’s champions are designed around this idea, and it’s what creates the unique appearance of the region.

This focus on technology and how discovery impacts the people also worked in season one’s favour, as it felt more down to earth almost, despite the fantastical world, and allowed us to explore the society over the fantasy, which worked for the story Arcane told.

Season two flipping this on its head, and making the science into magic, erased the identity of Piltover and Zaun and what made the lore and the characters unique from the rest of Runeterra in the first place. It makes the world feel smaller in the process as well.

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

I’ve seen a few comments suggesting folk were afraid Izzy was about to be mocked by the crew for painting his face and singing, and relief he was embraced, supported and accepted instead.

But the crew don’t mock Ed for singing and showing vulnerability

And they don’t mock Wee John for painting his face

Perhaps folk mean the mocking might be down to such an about-face. But I still don’t really understand this take.

Because the only person who would’ve mocked Izzy. Is Izzy.

[galedekarios]

i need ppl going game bad bc veilguard is on sale right now to stfu actually. it's the annual christmas sale. ea did the exact same thing with inquisition way back when in 2014 and it was only out for a few weeks with a 30-40% discount too.

[basedonconjecture]

I just read a critique on how the fandom treats Caterina, flattening her into a wholly morally objectionable character beyond her treatment of her grandsons rather than engaging with the nuance of a matriarch who is balancing her grip on power with the survival of her family. And I…have to agree that this is largely what I’ve seen myself and, while unsurprised, am somewhat disappointed by.

I want to be as delicate as I can here but there does seem to be a fair amount of players projecting their familial traumas onto Caterina, specifically, as well as the dynamics of the Dellamortes as a whole without accounting for their actual characterizations. There is certainly a form of catharsis in working through painful things within us using characters we relate to (and you can, of course, write whatever you want) so this isn’t me saying there’s anything conceptually wrong with this practice as a general rule. It is only me (calmly, gently) suggesting that a bit of circumspection about Caterina when writing her is, in my opinion, necessary. Not only to give space to a character who, by the very nature of them, IS complex but also in accurately depicting Lucanis’ (and, by extension Illario’s) relationship to her.

This isn’t to absolve Caterina of the choices she made or the harm she caused but there is something to be said about how there is far more sympathy for a man willing to sacrifice thousands of people for a lost cause than a woman trying to make the best decisions she could in the position she was in. I’m not going to say them here but I’m sure my meaning is clear.

I will say, while I think wanting to write Lucanis getting away from the Crows comes from a generally well-meaning place, I do think there are few ways to do so that wouldn’t strip him entirely of his agency unless you are engaging with Caterina (and his relationship with her) in a meaningful way. And this includes grappling with the murkier aspects such as grief and the love that remains for a person who has caused you harm. Most of all, it requires Lucanis making this decision himself. Not Rook or anyone else. Personally, I don’t think it’s a path that is super consistent with his character but that’s just my own interpretation. Again, write what you want. How you want. But I do think the themes of regret and forgiveness can be applied to the Dellamortes in a much more nuanced (and satisfying) way than Rook (or Neve) “saving” Lucanis from his terrible family as much as they may want to. Which can be an interesting angle to take in a post-VG relationship, conflict is important for relationship growth, but it becomes rather shallow if it is solely depicted as Caterina hating Rook/Neve or treating them poorly and/or doesn’t take into account Lucanis’ feelings, only pitting his family against them in a sort of forced choice situation, etc.

tl;dr the fandom’s treatment of Caterina largely kindaaaaa squashes any nuance there and I don’t wike it *whinewhinewhine* :(

[shitpostingsapphic]

Arcane critical tag users are some of the dumbest shits on the planet.

You see a police force taking responsibility for the city that they put in danger via bad political choices, asking but not forcing Zaunites to help, because it's ultimately their responsibility to save the city, and think that means it's depicting cops as heroes.

Y'all would have been livid if the enforcers didn't fight back against the Noxians and said acab acab acab without a thought.

You think a show with multiple storylines in season 1, with all characters having varying levels of morality and complexity no matter their class, was only about a one dimensional conflict, that featured one side being the bad guys and the other side being the good guys.

Your failure to see the complexity of arcane from the first EPISODE is not the fault of the writing. It's the fault of your dumb brain and inability to keep up.

Is it just me or did the Arcane finale completely forget about the dynamic of oppression between Piltover and Zaun? Why are the Piltover police suddenly being depicted as a relatively heroic force that will open the city gates to Zaunites after after two seasons worth of them being depicted as cruel and apathetic people of immense privilege who spare no mercy towards the Undercity? Is it just me or is the final season of Arcane totally contradicting its progressive messaging?

All I can think about is when the tides of war finally roll out of the shores of Piltover and Zaun, what will happen to Zaun?

[shyjusticewarrior]

"It's okay for people to assumptions about you as long as they're not harassing you."

Could not make this shit up if I fucking tried.

[queenaeducan]

Once I put a post out into the world I cannot control what ppl do with it but when I take care to say how much a platonic friendship resonates with me and still have ppl yapping about romance in the tags I do have to stare out the window in solidarity with my aro siblings

[shitpostingsapphic]

It's so clear when someone isn't paying attention to the show whatsoever, that they don't understand the reality of politics or revolutionizing livelihoods, and that they don't actually care about any of those things. "I'm so unsatisfied with the story I'm being told that I'm gonna defend the drug pushing, police bribing, child labor enforcing asshole that actively made lives worse for his people and did it to be in power and get revenge, not to help others."

the more I think about how s2 fumbled the Piltover/Zaun conflict so bad, the more I become a Silco defender