#future leadership

[vi-is-badass]

Arcane Season 2 - The Base Violence Necessary for Change

I think this shot is the most interesting part of the trailer. We see a shot of Jinx as a painting on a wall. A symbol. A leader. Her actions stand for revolution in Zaun and I think this could be an interesting expansion of Arcane’s exploration of violence and the idea that there is a base violence necessary for change.

Silco is framed as an antagonist in season 1 because of his actions against the undercity people specifically.

In act 3 he’s not the revolutionary he positioned himself as and is instead hurting the people of Zaun through his leadership. He’s doing as much to hurt topside as Vander was in act 1 (meaning nothing at all). He’s even got the sheriff working with him just like Vander, but, unlike Vander, Silco is hurting his own people to facilitate power and he’s not even fighting for that freedom he claimed to want so much.

We see the damage his actions have wrought. We see the shimmer addicts, forgotten and exploited. We see that he's created a hierarchy rather than a community.

And it’s contrasted with the firelights. People considered terrorists to Piltover, who do use violence to fight back against Silco and topside, and yet offer the biggest glimmer of hope. They aren’t villainized. The act of fighting back isn’t villainized and it shouldn’t be.

Because it’s not the violence in and of itself that’s the issue. It’s what that violence is used for.

The series hammers this idea home through Vander. 

Vander’s staunch stance against violence is flawed as well. It comes from a good place. A desire to protect what he loves rather than destroy what he hates and it did create a time free of the death revolution brings, but it’s made it so no ground could be made to free Zaun and create a better world for the people in it. It created stagnation. 

The people of the undercity are still stuck in a cycle of crushing poverty, growing up without parents, dying young due to pollution or violence wrought by desperate people or oppressive enforcers.

It didn’t move the needle because Piltover and the system in place wasn’t going to change just because the people of the undercity were playing nice.

The unrest and anger felt towards Vander for his ideal was understandable. His views on the cyclical nature of violence and the fact that if you fight you will lose people (“What are you willing to lose”) is correct, but that doesn’t make this option the ideal one.

Which brings me back to that shot in the trailer of that painting of Jinx.

Season 2 looks like it’s going to be a season of opposites and rediscovery where it flips what we expect of Jinx and Vi on its head and further explores these ideas of violence, oppression, and revolution.

And I think this season might possibly do that by reversing how Vi and Jinx reflect Vander and Silco.

In the first season the siblings were direct reflections of their respective father figures, but now they’re inversions. Jinx can become the good to be found in Silco’s ideals and Vi the pitfalls of Vander’s.

Jinx’s actions in season 1 weren’t those of a revolutionary. Her actions weren’t meant to free the people of the undercity or improve their lives. She didn’t steal the hexcrystal to bring hextech to the undercity and improve their lives and she didn’t kill the enforcers on the bridge to get rid of dirty cops. She didn’t kidnap Caitlyn for a greater cause.

But we know that Jinx isn’t only the violence she enacted. That she is “the monster they (the system and people around her) created”. Her actions weren’t heroic in the first season, but they were driven by the life that was forced upon her. Her hurt and anger are justified.

Now that she’s away from Silco, no longer a part of his machine and actively participating in his actions that were hurting the undercity, her actions and anger can take on a new light. She can rediscover herself away from his manipulations (this isn’t to say he didn’t love her but what he did and said isolated her and allowed her issues to fester) and become that symbol we see on the wall.

Jinx could be in a way what Silco could have been if he didn’t let his own self interest get in the way of his ideals. Not quite as forward thinking as Ekko or as idealistic, but still a symbol for resistance that fights for Zaun.

Whereas Vi is sort of on a path to becoming a darker reflection of Vander’s ideals.

Vi becomes a part of the system she used to rage against.

 Based on the season 2 teaser that was released in 2021– 

“Nobody else needs to get hurt.”

–I think it’s likely that Vi believes she can prevent more death or can stop Piltover’s violence against the undercity if she takes Jinx in.

Vi sees herself as a protector who has failed at every turn to protect those she cares about. She lost her parents, Powder, Vander, Mylo, Claggor, etc. and she is constantly desperate to try and save what she loves and that will likely drive her decision to become an enforcer.

Vi, like Vander, wants to save what she loves and as a result isn’t going to fight back against topside. This is a much more extreme version of Vander’s ideals. Where she “compromises” in an attempt to prevent bloodshed but as a result enables (or in her case helps) the system in place.

This decision will have negative consequences (and deservedly so!) because no matter what thoughts or feelings are the driving factor in it she is still siding with her oppressors and ultimately helping the system that is the root cause of that loss and pain in the first place. 

Based on the clip released at Annecy and what people have said the writers explained about Vi’s arc in season 2 it seems like Vi will be ostracized for this decision and deservedly so. She won’t belong anywhere. To the undercity she’s a traitor and to Piltover she’s nothing more than an undercity rat.

She will have lost everything. She will have no one to protect. And who is Vi if she’s not a protector?

Vi will be forced to re-evaluate who she is and what she wants. Just like Jinx, Vi will have to redefine herself when she loses everything.

I can’t wait for season 2 and what the team at Fortiche has in store for us. The way the show tackles complex themes and ideas is incredible and Vi and Jinx are some of the most compelling and complicated characters I’ve seen on tv. I’m looking forward to November.

[alwaysbewoke]

[rileys-battlecats]

my problem is that i love my ocs and want them to be happy. but. i am a tragedy enjoyer at heart

[tanadrin]

Der Spiegel has an article talking about whether the AfD should be banned outright, and it's like... I don't think you can ban a party that is currently polling at almost a quarter of the electorate for extremism, and pretend that you can just keep conducting politics as normal after that! They have like a third of the seats in the Saxon Landtag! Purely aside from the civil libertarian concerns (which are grave), your political leadership has clearly failed on a massive scale if your only response to that kind of reactionary wave in your politics is to ban the bad guys, and then pretend like mainstream politics is fine and nothing needs to change.

(And no, the answer is not, as Scholz and others seem to believe, to try to outflank them by becoming similarly reactionary on key issues like immigration. There are in fact options besides "ban the reactionaries" and "become the reactionaries"! But those other options might require confronting why the biggest parties in German politics are so sclerotic, and why people are so dissatisfied with them in the first place.)

[jamiesfootball]

Loving the idea that now it’s been made explicit that Sam is the next heir to the captain’s armband, he can just lord that over Jamie. Just starting sentences with “well when I am captain-“ and it doesn’t even matter what he says next, he’s just doing it to have fun

Meanwhile Jamie is mentally writing his pitch to Sam for why he should be made Assistant to the Regional Captain and he has Serious! Talking! Points!

[tilbageidanmark]

Obama 2004

[butwhypants]

I have a question and I’m not trying to be annoying. I just want to understand because I feel like I have been misunderstanding how Zionism should work.

Obviously, Zionism is the belief that a Jewish state should exist in Israel. The thing I’ve been misunderstanding is how this can be achieved while protecting the Muslim arabs.

What I mean is, there are a lot of Arabs in West Bank and Gaza, and if Israel gave full citizenship to these people, they would outnumber Israeli jews, and this it would no longer be a Jewish state.

How, realistically, would the Jewish state, protect the rights of the Arabs while remaining fundamentally Jewish?

The main solution I have seen is a two-state solution, but I feel like that would force Jews to leave their homes in the West Bank.

I understand if you aren’t comfortable answering this - I’d just like to try to understand both sides. It’s hard to get unbiased info from the news.

Thanks for the polite question.

The problem with the question I think here is twofold, first Zionism is a very specific word. Zion is the name for the hill that Jerusalem is built on, and was used by the Israeli people when we were taken as slaves to Babylon in the 5th century BC. Zionism isn't inherently about a Jewish state existing, but about the right of the Israelite people to return to Zion, now known as Jerusalem.

The second problem, and I don't mean this with any disrespect, is that you've fallen for the Great Replacement theory as espoused by Ben Shapiro and Elon Musk. It's a very common and very insidious idea, which is based on the idea that if "foreign" cultures were allowed to come in to a society that they would outnumber and overthrow the people currently there. That's not true, and in fact a majority of the Palestinian people ARE Israeli citizens, with full legal and voting rights. Israel is not a theocracy (significantly more religious diversity then the US has for example), and maintaining a religious majority should not and can not be our goal. Allowing the Jewish people self determination in our homeland does not have to correlate with oppression or discrimination against the Palestinian people who also live there.

This current war betrays the fact that there is a long history of cooperation and conflict between all these groups - Eretz Israel is the most contentiously fought over piece of land in the history of the world, and this current war isn't even in the top one hundred most deadly. On the other hand though, cooperation has happened before and it will happen again. Muslims and Jews are not automatically enemies - we've both been willing to make sacrifices on hardline religious interpretations for the sake of peace before, and I hope we can do so again.

Fundamentally, the Jewish people have a long history of living in Israel and we have the right to live there safe and free. However, the Palestinian people ALSO have a long history of living in Israel and have the right to live there safe and free. There is no solution here that will create a mono-state of any culture or religion, and especially not when it is the most important place to 4 billion disparate people.

[kargaroc]

going through the jade shadows tag reveals a lot of people that should go and talk to a woman in real life

[bubtans]

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY APPEAL TO EMOTION APPEAL TO REASON

[starscelly]

annoys the hell out of me that we can have all these discussions now abt future stars captains and they all sound so good!!! i’d be happy with miro, delly, robo, so many of the guys!! hell if otter could wear the “C” i’d be campaigning for him!!!!! even with our current old men it’s really interesting, because pavs seems like an obvious choice but at its roots this is Tyler’s Team so i could hear either out and like. basically people have great points for so many of our core and it’s really awesome to see how our leadership group is gonna grow and change over the years into good hands. but for now we’re stuck with our current fuckass captain like . man.

[solvicrafts]

When I do get to the part 2 of my Jarlaxle meta series, I'm probably gonna focus it mostly on how he tends to shelve his emotions, and the ways in which he practices emotional intelligence, but also has a really bad habit of devaluing himself at times.

Because don't get me wrong, I admire the hell out of him, but there are a lot of things I wanted to get to in that post and just didn't because it'd be too long and I wasn't up for that, and the thing is, as incredibly good as Jarlaxle is at diffusing situations... the guy DOES have his own opinions. It's not that he /never/ gets offended or anything, it's that he makes a conscious decision NOT to at certain points.

But he absolutely DOES have moments where that patience runs thin, such as his initial interactions with Cadderly, and I plan on getting to that, too, at some point in the future.

[akkivee]

More Kuko ramblings because adhd, but i was driving and listening to Closer, which made me think about HitoJaku, and then Hitoyas slightly retconned backstory, and then chapter 4 of the dhbat manga, and then about Kuko and Sawamura parallels. But something we haven't seen touched on in a while is Kuko's latent anger issues, violence streak, and the sadism both of those issues inspire.

you actually beat me to talking about this thought myself lmao i’ve been planning on a creepy kuukou ‘month’ for october where i just draw kuukou with his darker aspects when i can and his viciousness was part of the plans lmao. like i still don’t how much of sougyaran bam💥 i should be taking literally or anything at all lmao, but like combined with sawamura’s story and the rocky vibes sougyaran bam 💥 has, i was going to put it out there that maaaaaaybe kuukou might be implying a body count in his chorus

and like i still can’t get over the shock on kuukou’s face when the bully tried to kill himself and kuukou intending to take the full blame for it all in that very chapter like idk??? i feel like there is a sort of violence that shaped him and he’s been fighting against with varying degrees of success lol, but especially in those early chapters where he’s still wearing that dragon sukajan

but it’d be great if that was the underlying issue in the upcoming drama track!!!! 🙏🙏🙏

[whisperofthewaves]

peeta will lie with the straightest face on the national tv about his unrequited love's pregnancy not consulting it with a single person in his PR, damage management team, and the love interest beforehand, and I love him for that. this is the ideal I want to aspire to.

[whitegownsandflowercrowns]

Words cannot describe how happy I am about the WGA news