“The widely circulated timeline created by @Zerflin does a great job in showing how recently slavery & segregation occurred & that they lasted longer than the modern era.
“I'd like to offer this timeline as another way of viewing the same period of history to show the constancy of both Black resistance in US & efforts of the white power structure to maintain racial caste since 1619.”
I had the exact same experience the second time I looked at this picture as the first time. I was looking like "what is this green line? Like suddenly everything is OK? It's not. Racists are still trying to push us back to 1619. Nothing has been fixed. We still need to fight. Hard!
Ten Places Arcane Went Wrong With Sevika and How to Fix It!
Recent events on twitter have been very validating, SO who wants a ten-point rant (by no means an exhaustive list on where the arcane writing team could've prevented looking weirdly racist/misogynistic to Sevika?)
Just me? Well, too bad!
HUGE credit for this goes to @saga-ordsmed, without whom I don't think I would've been able to make even half this list. Most of these issues (including me seeing Jinx as abusive to Sevika) directly came from her blog. If you love arcane critical analysis, including Sevika x OC content, please visit her blog!
Secondly, I'd love to shout out my amazing mutuals who have also helped me flesh out Sevika in the (just over) month I've interacted with them! @xxlreader, @melmunchmedarda, @crunchycerealisgood, @roseamongroses, AND @/thatonequeen on twitter (whose thread brought this discussion to that side of the fandom and prompted this post!)
Okay, let's get into the list!
1. Stop Destroying Sevika's Mobility Aid As A Joke. Sevika's prosthetic is the butt of three cruel jokes in season one and once more in season two. There's a levity/comedic atmosphere that the writers love attaching to damaging/destroying her literal mobility aid. Once was enough; get new material or have her almost bite the dust a different way. Getting stabbed/knocked out without the arm being violently removed by Caitlyn, Jinx, and Vi would still result in a loss that doesn't target her disability for cheap laughs.
2. Don't let Jinx treat Sevika like shit. Sevika is subject to a level of disempowered physical and verbal degradation from both Jinx and Silco. She is called ugly, has her capabilities and intelligence denigrated, and is gassed/slapped/strung up/knocked out/shame marked. She doesn't flinch when she resignedly asks Jinx, “Are you here to finish me off?” That, as Saga points out, is a survivor's response. I already made a post going over how Sevika's work environment is hostile at best, and outright abusive at worst. If the show wished to fix this, or you want to rectify this in your own fix-it fic, do something that implies Jinx being coddled without Sevika being actual collateral to it. Either have Jinx be reprimanded, or make it so her mistreatment stops at the verbal/childish rather than physically and psychologically damaging. She might be an asshole, but writing it to prevent it from dipping into routine/prolonged abuse would go a long way in maintaining her agency
(2.1). Alternatively, give Sevika a friend, friends, lover, or SOMEBODY she's allowed to vent to/heal from something like that. Let her have someone to whinge about Silco to, or someone to shit talk Jinx to who doesn't shut her down. Give her some form of catharsis from that hellish work environment. Have someone care for her. Haze, an OC written by Saga and Quill, and an OC written by Venus @xxlreader both accomplish this in amazing ways. This is the appeal of most Sevika x Zaunite OCs from what I've observed, and I've even started making one of my own (she's still cooking so that's all I'll say for now).
3. Show us exactly why Sevika believes in Silco. We're shown his incompetence and Sevika holding things together. This dips into misogynistic territory of a capable woman's best narrative place being in service to an incompetent man. While this dynamic is often romantic in most media, played between straight couples as cute or the natural order of things, and Sevika is decidedly a lesbian, this is still misogynistic. Credit for this epiphany again goes to Saga. Show us he actually deserves her support. A plan of his pays off, a neighborhood once overpoliced thrives. A business previously suffering succeeds. The shimmer trade establishes diplomatic ties with Bilgewater. Literally any tangible benefit that shows he is a leader who deserves her support.
(3.1) Alternatively, show us a Sevika who can make a gang/organize the goons on her own. Show us a Sevika who strikes out on her own, or better yet, show us why she feels there's no other option. Shows us a Sevika who pulls a faction together on her own. After all, Silco couldn't do a thing himself. But Sevika could. So show us.
4. Stop calling Sevika “ugly”. Like in the artbook too? Are we fucking serious? Just stop it, abeg. It's a shit look having your only south asian/Desi-coded character be called an “ogre,” a “funny-looking rat," (bird w/o wings comment referring to her missing arm), and literally “ugly” in the show and accompanying material. At a certain point, this fails to reflect each character's (possibly racialized) assessment of her and calls into question the writing team's opinions of their only butch, disabled Desi woman. Even white disabled characters like Viktor and Jinx aren't made fun of over their disabilities to that degree, nor denigrated for their looks. This decision adds nothing to the show and shouldn't belong there.
5. Let Jinx actually apologize to Sevika. We got a whole spin-off game (Jinx Fixes Everything) where she never tells this woman "I'm sorry" or "I hurt you and that was wrong" or even a damn "I'm trying," but are expected to love the dynamic of Sevika immediately running to help her? The found family dynamic of season two is weak for that reason. They “saved” each other's lives, but Jinx materially harmed and continued to harm Sevika for (implied) years at Silco's enablement. She's traumatized that woman in ways that demand genuine restitution.
(5.1) Or, let Sevika not be involved in whatever Isha & Jinx got going on. Jinx hurt her in awful ways, and Sevika isn't obligated to help her. Keep the ethos of "we don't hand over our people," but allow her to fuck off and do her own thing. Coalition build, rally the other goons, organize another form of resistance, hideout/rest with a friend/lover, and generally healing are all ideas for Sevika that could be done without centering or helping Jinx. This, as Saga pointed out, subverts abuser logic in storytelling, which often centers “reconciliation” over a victim's actual needs.
6. Have Jinx ask Sevika what arm she wants/needs. Chomper is a horrible arm, heavy, unwieldy, shit in close range, and if Sevika wasn't freakishly strong, she wouldn't be able to use it at all. Even then (despite the “friendlier” harness style), it causes unnecessary shoulder/neck/back strain. It also can't help her perform daily tasks, is stated in the artbook to be Jinx's art project, and gets removed just as violently. The backpack design was much better, and changing Jinx's response from "It was something I could fix" to "What do you need/want" would've sold the whole "turning a new leaf/I'm sorry" thing.
7. Let Sevika voice her actual displeasure with the council summoning her. That last scene is so fucking bleak, with no explanation for how she got a seat where she'll likely be spoken over and outvoted. Being summoned by Jayce and leaving, only to then show up to help, diminishes the point. Though subjective, it would've been better for Sevika to have made demands of Piltover (since Zaun would be in that position) and then decide to fight or not. Piltover doesn't get to just ask the undercity for help after locking them down, brutalizing, and gassing them for an assumed six months. Is Sevika angry in that scene? Good. Let her voice that, or if she walks away, don't have all of Zaun show up anyway. If you still want to show Zaunites fending off Noxians, show the invasion encroaching on the Undercity. Show them defending their turf on their soil for their sake, rather than coming at Piltover's behest. They're independent, and Piltover had its chance.
8. LET SEVIKA EITHER KILL MORE PEOPLE OR WIN MORE FIGHTS. This is a little fan-service-y, and I don't care. Sevika has a total of four individual fights and only kills one person during them. She only kills Smeech with Jinx's assistance. She kills Finch outside of a fight, and while this demonstrates her ruthlessness, it doesn't show off her martial ability in a “fair” situation. She gets jumped twice, has two fair fights, and the narrative only lets her win one of them. Give us a reason why the undercity is scared of her. Show her killing other goons while she's outnumbered. Show her intimidating other chembarons with her own might. Show her killing multiple enforcers, for god's sake. Is she “Zaun's Scary Lady”? Then, show us why.
(8.1) Additionally, show her either regret or internal rationalizations at having terrorized her own community in service to the cause (as held hostage by Silco). A good scene that showed why people reasonably hate/fear her would've gone a long way in having onscreen justification for Zaun to mistrust/dislike her.
9. Empathize with Sevika's Betrayal. While Vi is our tag-along character for most of season one, a scene demonstrating how Sevika's "betrayal" was calculus done under duress with the Lanes in mind would've gone leaps and bounds further to rectify/humanize her. "Vander had his chance," when all we really know from Vi's POV is "woman who tried to kill my sister and me when we were literally teenagers" isn't gonna cut it. I say this as someone who didn't pay Sevika much attention back when season one dropped. Maybe a personal rationalization or line about how much better she feels Zaun is doing under Silco could help this. A tangible economic difference between appeasement with Piltover and blackmailing the enforcers to allow for commerce.
10. Give. Sevika. A. Fucking. Flashback. Literally everyone gets one. Sevika gets a throwaway line about her father. I like Saga's idea, but it doesn't have to be this. Literally anything conceptualizing the daily cruelty of life under Piltover and how she saw weak leaders rise and do nothing, or get killed, could help us understand why she might follow someone who does heinous things but gets results. In my mind, that's a scene of either her or other kids in the mines, an enforcer harassing/raiding a club, her mother dying due to lack of access to medicine, or her former union captain selling out some other miners. JUST GIVE US SOMETHING OF HER LIFE BEFORE THE WHITE PEOPLE PLEASE.
OKAY FIN! That was by no means an exhaustive rant on everything Arcane could have (and should have) fixed in their treatment of Sevika as a character. Like I stressed before, most of these issues I became aware of after interacting heavily with @saga-ordsmed's blog! Please give her a read-through and leave something nice because without her labor/analysis, y'all would not have this post.
One thing that I will never miss about my ex is how she would switch around her memories according to her emotions.
1. She told me she felt clingy while we were talking about our upcoming moves. I was worried that she wouldn't be able to survive long distance since she would have large emotional outbursts while we were still near each other. I just said if that's the word we're using then fine.
2. I get overwhelmed by touch, and we had talked about this before. There was a day where she was all over me and I said that I needed a break. She just said that she was sorry for being clingy and would practice giving me room.
(This post isn't going to get into the softcore coercion, but that built up too)
3. We were talking about general affection, and I said that she was a little clingy so that definitely made her seem more affectionate. Her face fell and she's upset because all of a sudden I'm calling her clingy????
This was written in chronological order. When the fuck was clingy my term for her?
Anyways I'll never miss her and I love that my space is being respected now <3
It’s already bad enough that I’ve waited this long to speak on it — but the way the queer community treats touch-me-nots is absolutely out of line.
What happened to basic respect? Respect for someone’s preferences, their body, their boundaries? Just human decency?
Instead, people drag touch-me-nots like they’re less than. Like they don’t deserve love, intimacy, or healthy relationships — and for what?
Some of my friends identify that way, and let me be real: nine times out of ten, when I hear their stories, it’s rooted in trauma. Sexual assault. Repeated boundary violations. Or simply being pushed into roles because the hypersexualization of masculine lesbians is on a whole other level. It’s dehumanizing.
And somehow, people think that makes them the problem?No. The only weird person in this equation is the one who has a problem with someone else’s boundaries.
You don’t need to have sex with someone to experience love, intimacy, or connection in a deep, ongoing relationship. It’s not a necessity — that’s a myth. But the current climate of queer relationships? It’s bleak right now, to say the least. The dating pool got pee and Dookie floating in it. No lie.
And let’s not forget: we are human beings with choices.
So if someone identifies as a touch-me-not — how the hell does that affect you? In any way, shape, or form?
Let’s revert to default settings and just mind our business.
join me in a very indulgent comic about sebastian and maru and how i wish they could've made up somehow. idk if it's completely in character or if sebastian would even let her join lmao, but THERE'S AN EXTRA SEAT AT THE TABLE FOR A REASON (not just for the farmer).
You can also TEXT "START" to 678-678 or go to their website! There are 700+ of you following me. You don't need to be from the US to reblog this. Reblog.
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