What would be cool in bayo 3, instead of Viola being half human half fairy she could still be human but like in DND, she and be a witch with a pact with arch-fae. Just an idea since personally I don’t care for her being half fairy due to the fact that it is not explained well when it comes to the understanding of her and Lukas fairy lineage and also it create some cool new machinics for gameplay wise and story wise with a bit of open world exploration. But as you know, this an idea.
If you know me, you know one of the biggest things that pisses me off in fandoms is whitewashing. So y'all, this has absolutely been INCENSING and I feel the need to talk-
So, essentially, God of War Ragnarok casted a black girl to play Angrboda, right? (And the director gladly defends this choice here) And I’m like, awww shit, she’s so pretty, look at her skin, look at her LOCS, a lil crush for Loki/Atreus 😍, like- I’m elated??? Bc I’ve loved God of War since I was a child and now here comes a character that looks like I did????
And then here come the racists fucking over people bc “thERe aRe No bLaCk pEOpLe iN tHAt aReA” 🙄🙄 as if the Vikings didn’t seafare regardless.
MIND YOU, THIS IS A SERIES THAT HAS HAD:
a made up mishmosh of Heracles and Achilles in an MC that absolutely DEMOLISHED the Greek pantheon
said character move to Norse mythology and procreate with a giant to birth LOKI
(This girl births a serpent in story, but her blackness is a believability issue???)
LORE BASED IN NORSE MYTHOLOGY THAT HAS SO MANY GODDAMN CREATURES AND RACES THAT WHO KNOWS THE RANGE OF WHAT THESE FOLKS COULDA LOOKED LIKE IN STORY
BUT THE BLACK GIRL EXISTING IS WHERE WE DRAW THE LINE????
One of the biggest things for me (and god, doesn’t this jump into how white people treat black people overall) is that Kratos has been voiced by BLACK MEN (TC Carson and Christopher Judge) the ENTIRE TIME! So y'all were okay with being entertained by us, as long as it didn’t look like us!
And to those going “well you all make characters black all the time, why can’t we make them white” bc you’re already the damn societal default. We make characters black bc you hardly ever get to see well drawn, respected black characters as much as you see white/fandomly deemed (but usually Japanese anime) ‘white’ characters. Not to mention, whenever this happens, it is almost CERTAINLY from a racist motivation. It is NEVER “well I want more white rep” bc you don’t NEED that. Almost everyone else in the story is white- so why this reaction towards my girl Angrboda? 👀👀
Oooh I’m just, I’m sizzling. I’m tired of sharing the world with racists 😭
The amount of people getting 0 upvotes for calling this shit ugly is kaczynski inducing
Guys the issue isn’t (mainly) that these are all identical cookie cutter houses without a grass lawn, or what they’re one step away from apartments (these are worse than apartments), or even that it’s “high density” housing (it’s not really, they’re still single family homes).
the issue is this sort of development is a fucking zoning dystopia that manufactures human misery. I think north Americans who haven’t been outside USA or Canada will often forget that the majority of the world and most of human history did not have towns carved up into “housing zone” and “everything else” zones.
The extinction of mixed use zoning has been devastating on communities. It leaves people in food deserts. it leaves people more sedentary and pedestrians more at risk because of car dependency. it leaves children alienated, depressed, and much more dependant on their parents for longer when they need a drive to go anywhere interesting. Not to mention a lack of any profit generation besides property taxes leads to suburbs consistently being subsidized by the inner cities because they are economic sandpits with 10x the asphalt, piping, and utilities needed because every home needs its own independent setup.
Having swaths of land designated for absolutely nothing but residential development is a waste at every level. Hell, even communist bloc housing was smart enough to keep a ground floor for business space, many have small groceries or stores to keep things walkable.
This setup is an extremely common sight in eastern Europe. They aren’t American style non-perishable food desert corner stores either, they sell fresh meat and produce and many are open 24 hours. The nearest thing you can get around here to “European” style zoning (we had it too actually, we just bulldozed it all lol) is probably Montreal because Quebec prides itself on french identity and architecture/city planning is no exception.
I stg the north American white middle class is so agoraphobic they built themselves into misery pods, but hey at least there’s no undesirables in the neighborhood bringing down property value so in the end it was all worth it. And yes a lot of it does all come back to racism. A combination of white flight from urban areas and the exclusion of black veterans from the G.I. bill lead to these homogenized ivory towers of nothingness.
Hello fresh - last years workers were on strike for shitty work conditions and there’s reports of union busting. Never have i seen a youtuber acknowledge this at all
Idk which one but one of the vpn ones mined bitcoin from ur computer and they’re useful but generally falsely advertised, not a big tech person but this guy talks about it
All the fit teas and shakes etc are bullshit that just makes you poop and loose water weight short term
Raid shadow legends - lol do i even need to explain this one
All the loot crates - filled with cheap junk they’re getting wholesale
The online coupon thingies are a data harvesting scam. Just google the shop name + coupon when shopping
The online therapy better help was a whole big controversy and i still see this shitty company being promoted
Idk maybe the learning platform ones are the exception but i never looked into them
Adding on to this. Skillshare is hard to cancel. There’s a slight chance this has changed but when I looked into subscribing, there was a lot of people complaining about having to email the company multiple times to cancel.
Since Squarespace is templets, they legally own whatever you make. If you decide to change providers, you can’t take it with you. You’re stuck with them forever or have to rebuild your website from the ground up. You at least own the domain name so there’s that, but for me it’s not worth the work if I have to restart should I ever decide I hate the company.
I want more people to know this because every time I’ve looked into something advertised by youtubers, it’s never been good.
This is a Firefox extension that automatically skips sponsorship messages in Youtube videos. The fact that these small-time corporations feel the need to make Youtube creators behave like trained animals for a tiny contribution is stupid in the first place.
This is far from the most important thing to focus on here, but “I’ve never seen a youtuber acknowledge this” is such a weird thing to say. It’s a sponsorship. They’re being paid to promote the company, so why would they mention its controversies and shortcomings?
Like I’m not saying it’s good, but what were you expecting?
If you’re an ally, please help this mutual aid effort either by reblogging or donating directly to the PP in the image (it’s mine, I’m in direct contact with Lola to raise these funds and am posting this at their request)
Lola is homeless and they need funds IMMEDIATELY. Please donate.
They got kicked out of the shelter after getting attacked and trying to report it to higherups
Please spread this and do anything that you can to help her she has nowhere to go
Idk where you’re getting those numbers. It’s predicted that up to a one quarter to a third of the country could be underwater by the end of monsoon season.
Nearly 500k homes have been destroyed and as of this article published this morning, August 29th, more than 3.1 million have been displaced.
Here are some aid organizations you can donate to (don’t worry, I looked into them and checked Charity Navigator and stuff). You can also call on your country’s government to provide aid and if you live in a country participating in the IMF you can urge them to send IMF aid too https://www.imf.org/en/Countries
K.C. Undercover: dark skinned men, light skinned women. the one dark skinned girl is portrayed as mean, apathetic, sadistic, and cruel.
The Proud Family: dark skinned men, light skinned women. dijonay, the only dark skinned girl, is portrayed as “ghetto” and “rachet” alongside her entire family. and suga mama, who can be argued is dark skinned, is portrayed as mean, cruel, and abusive. additionally, trudy, the mother, comes from an entire family of dark skinned people. yet she herself is portrayed as very much light skinned.
trudy proud’s family (left) vs trudy proud (right).
The Hate U Give: the dark skinned main character starr on the cover of the book (left), vs. in the movie, where she is played by amandla stenberg (right); a light skinned biracial actor.
nina simone (singer, left) vs zoe saldana (actress, right), who played her in the 2016 biopic “nina”.
stagecoach mary (right) vs zazi beetz (left), who played her in “the harder they fall”.
ororo munroe (storm, center) vs the actresses that played her in the x-men movies (alexandra shipp - left, halle berry - right). and alexandra shipp, herself, is also colorist.
monster high: clawdeen wolf (right), vs. the actress that plays her in the upcoming monster high live action movie (miia harris, left). it also appears that they artificially darkened the actress’ skin for the role.
strawberry shortcake franchise: orange blossom, who was lightened between her 2003 design (left) and 2009 design (right).
The problem is there. You see it. This whole “we’re all black at the end of the day” bullshit is the exact mindset hollywood uses to justify the erasure of dark skinned women. None of this will EVER be okay. And the fact that y'all consistently find the same goddamn excuses to justify shit like this is exactly why dark skinned people don’t fucking trust y'all.
So, I posted a fic that I wrote like two months ago.
I’m forcing myself to post it, because this causes me a huge rush of anxiety and self-loathing but I need to build better relationships to my work (not exclusive to fan content), so here it is.
Basically it’s just Viktor thinking about some of the changes in his life while Jayce is away, leaving him and Mel alone.
BUT THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT.
Don’t pay attention to the fic on itself, but if you have a few minutes I’d rather prefer it if you spend them reading the following:
While this fic doesn’t focus on Mel, I kinda want to say something about her now that I’m touching the topic.
What I am about to say could upset both Mel-lover and haters, so if you want to debate something with me please just remember to be civil. I am a person who can make mistakes and I’m willing to acknowledge them if they are justly founded.
I’ve seen many people try to justify their hatred towards Mel by calling her “Jeffrey Bezos” and claiming to be leftists (based). Jeffrey Bezos is the richest person in the world, we don’t know if Mel is the richest person in runeterra, but she is the richest person in Piltover. So, of course she has some guilt over the class differences between Zaun and Piltover and the exploration of the Undercity. But, just like with Jeffrey Bezos, they are not the sole instigators for the economical difficulties in their respective countries. They are people who have “worked hard enough” or “had enough luck” or probably a mixture of both (personally I believe it was rather the “luck”) to get where they are. Before Mel, there was another “richest person in Piltover” and should Mel die, there will be a new one. She is not an evil Once-ler type of corporative villain and her existence doesn’t determine the misery in the Undercity, she is only a fracture of the capitalistic elite and a thriving one.
Wishing for the death of the black woman who managed to trick the system to her own gain isn’t the revolutionary take you think it is.
You may dislike her for her being part of the capitalistic elite, but if you see yourself as a “Jayce stan”, or even probably a “Viktor Stan”, you may have to reconsider the fact that they too are part of that elite. It is never explicitly said, but by the way Jayce dresses, acts, the entire image dedicated to the “Man of Progress” and with Hex-Tech being a fundamental and successful enterprise, it’s very much implied. Viktor might seem more unassuming, but we know that Jayce considers him “his partner”, so it is very likely that the lucre is being shared equally between the two of them. And we dont know what they spend it on. All assumptions are headcanons.
Cassandra is not THE richest, but she is still one of the seven richest leaders and she is explicitly xenophobic and classist, yet we dont see much slander against her (Yes, I know she’s a minor character. Yes, that might be part of the reason. Yes, she’s also considered a polished white lady who knows how to use guns and is considered a MILF. That might also be part of the reason.)
With that, to the second point. Mel has also been accused of xenophobia, classism and even ableism. Always based on one instance in which she looked at Viktor with a negative expression.
I don’t think you can debate for the sentiment conveyed in her face being something positive,
but there are many people who like exaggerating the message of that expression.
As a disabled person whose health condition resembles Viktor’s, far more than I wish it would, the last one is particularly irritating. You can argue about the classism interpretation (I disagree, but I can at least understand why people could choose to think so), but there is no shown instance in which Mel was portrayed being ableist. She never diminished Viktor based on his disability (or really at all). If I’m wrong and you have concrete evidence instead of mere perception, go ahead and send me a message. As long as you stay civil, I don’t mind debating.
And I haven’t seen people bring up how Mel is an immigrant herself. We don’t know the details of her leaving Noxus. She claimed she was “an exile to her family”, which confused and mildly bothered me when I first heard it. Political persecution is a sensible topic for me. Yet, later when we hear her mothers version of the story and Mel’s words, I was willing to bet this was a soft exile. I don’t know whether Ambessa Medarda would have threatened her own daughter or if this was a misguided way of impeding her future death at her refusal to adapt to Noxian customs and imperialistic ideologies.
With that said, there is a character who the fandom really loves and applauds. And I’m a hypocrite bc they are also my favourite (to my defence, I have a weird and long history with said character).
This character, unlike Mel, wasn’t exiled from their home, they left on their own accord as not quite an immigrant, but with all the disadvantages of being one, to pursue an education and a better life. Life as an immigrant (and I KNOW this for sure), sucks. For some much more than for others. I hate it and I suffer because of it, but I’ve had it easy. This character probably had it far more difficult than I did, but immigration isn’t the same as exile. Unlike Mel, they did have other types of hardships, which I’m sure everyone knows about and understands. But, similarly to Mel, this character rapidly rose, probably through a mixture of hard work and luck, to a high position of power, first as second in command to Piltovers Head of the council, later as a revolutionary scientist. Everyone in fandom loves him for it.
I do have to wonder, had Mel’s…character design…been different, would people applaud the immigrant who preaches for peace, is exiled from their country for it and yet somehow manages to become the most economically and politically successful person in a different country, that is canonically hostile to her home, all that at a young age?
Yes, they probably would. One of the fandom favourites is very close to that narrative.
I don’t really have a lot to say. I’m sorry if I upset anyone with this. It’s not really an analysis or critique, but more like a vent type of post because this has been annoying me for a while now. If you don’t like Mel I guess that’s fine, but don’t be a hypocrite about it. I’ve seen the same person giving three different reasons on why they hate Mel, all of them very depending of whats’s convenient in that moment (ex. “I’m a communist”, “She’s manipulative”, “Her relationship with Jayce was forced”. Pick one and stick to it at least. Have some integrity.
And mostly, just refrain from posting unnecessary negative stuff unless it’s actually important. Regardless of whether that is Mel, Silco, MelJay, Melco, Melvik, heck even if they are a popular ship. There are some fan favorite characters and ships in Arcane that I despise more than I should, but I understand that for others they are emotionally important and why should I ruin other peoples fun? When someone directly asks me what I think about a character or ship and I know that what I will answer could be upsetting I either:
a) Answer on private and try to be respectful
b) Say “They are not really for me, but you do you. Enjoy what makes you happy!”
Anyways, hope you have a good day. I use the block button a lot, but I don’t really have the energy to hate someone I don’t know, so I actually mean it.
I’ve responded to this thoughtful post on twitter, thank you for writing it.
one tiny addon
One thing I do want to address here is the incident with Viktor where fandom projected all sorts of cruel fuckery onto Mel because she looked at the guy in impatience or annoyance (justifiably so, imo, I’ll explain below). There’s a long history and a lot of academic study on the ways that Black women are seen as rude, aggressive, mean for just merely existing, see Angry Black Woman trope. We face this in real life every single day and it’s pervasive in fiction, and even more in fictional fandoms where any and every Black Woman is seen as angry/cruel/rude/aggressive any time she expresses any emotion, opinion or makes a move that can be construed as being opposed to fandom’s delicate white faves who must certainly feel attacked and abused because someone dared to disagree with them, civilly, mind you (Mel didn’t rail and rant at anyone, nor did she spit on them in a rage or insult them for their position). So many women characters who get outsized hate and critique, and the common refrain of why is she so rude, why so uppity, why so mean? Bonnie Bennett, Michonne, Abbie Mills, the list of where this happens is long. So I was only a little surprised at the visceral response to this scene.
the lab scene
The main reason I did have a shred of surprise is that Mel’s behaviour makes complete sense. As does everyone else in the scene. But people continue to act like she was being despotically cruel, ableist, mean. Why? Because she doesn’t prioritise Viktor’s thoughts or opinions in the scene.
My question is always why should she? She focuses on Jayce for 3 clear reasons:
Because he is actually the lead partner when it comes to Hextech. Everyone in that room knows it, including Viktor.
More importantly, he is the de facto head of the Council and is a key decision maker in the city. His opinion is actually the one that matters here.
Most important, his entire job on the council is to protect the city, locate the stolen tech and notebook, and ensure it is not used to harm people.
None of the above applies to Viktor who frankly appears not to give a single shit about the potential ramifications of the stolen crystals and notebooks to the point where he lies about the monkey bomb builder likely making a weapon (that’s his right, maybe he wants Piltovans to die or he believes raw Hextech should be open source, I don’t really care. But his position places him at cross purposes with the other two people in this scene whose job it is to care).
Like I just have never gotten the need to act like only one character’s stance is of value esp in show that attempts to all sides matter everything. And ironically in this scene, Mel ends up being right, and either way, they’re all dead unless there’s a miracle because no one listened to her lol.
