#community response

So recently someone posted a piece of “art” depicting Jinx, Lux, the rhino from the Get Jinxed video, and an extremely racist representation of Ekko using an ugly and archaic trope. This post went up both on Twitter and on Tumblr. And this wasn’t from a random troll no-one knows, but someone who has apparently posted a fair bit of Lightcannon art before.

When rightly called out on this by not only justifiably angry Timebomb fans but also justifiably angry Lightcannon fans, this person didn’t apologise or take the image down, but engaged in denial tactics, doubled down, insulted the people on both sides calling them out and even reposted it elsewhere across multiple accounts after the post was reported and removed.

I don’t need to explain why this was disgusting, indefensible behaviour on the part of this person. Ordinarily some internet rando being a gross scumbag on Twitter and throwing a tantrum when it wasn’t well received wouldn’t warrant my attention or even be a footnote in my day to day.

But, since they also posted their image on Tumblr, since this is the first actual “racist Lightcannon” I’ve seen in the wild, since this is an accusation that continuously pops up against a fandom community I’m a part of, and since their image drew inspiration apparently from the Get Jinxed video in a way that has coincidental parallels to my favourite scene in my most well-known fanfiction, I am to put it extremely politely, beyond fucking pissed at this person.

But I am not making this post for them, I am making it for the community and the fandom, so I’m going to try to do something positive with it. So here goes.

Laying a little groundwork here; since Season Two particularly the Timebomb vs Lightcannon ship war has gotten a lot uglier than the mostly friendly rivalry it was prior. Accusations of racism and homophobia fly around willy-nilly on every side of the Arcane Fandom’s ridiculous spiderweb of ship wars, but Lightcannon fans are particularly prone to being called racist, especially on Twitter.

Full disclosure; I’m not on Twitter. I left last year to avoid Arcane Season 2 spoilers after the leaks came out, and I haven’t gone back since, and have not for a nanosecond regretted that decision. My awareness of Twitter Drama is thirdhand at best; it’s so overrun with malicious bots, ugly politics, fake accounts, and algorithm-driven rage bait that I struggle to take it seriously. I don’t see what gets posted there and to me it’s so hard to verify anything on Twitter as legitimate that I don’t give it much weight.

Bluntly, it’s a cesspool I don’t swim in.

But I’m a prolific LC author on Ao3, I’m running the LC week events, I’m here on Tumblr, I’m on the LC reddit, I’m in all the major discord communities, and I can speak for them to say: this isn’t us, this isn’t how we talk about Ekko, this isn’t in our fics, this isn’t in our discourse, and anyone who even breathed something like this would not be welcome in our community.

It’s also worth being aware that there are also bad faith actors (mostly on twitter, again, because it’s twitter) spreading “Lightcannon is a racist ship” very much on purpose to silence and bully Jinx’s oldest ship and strongest queer ship and its shippers out of the fandom, and seeing the Arcane-is-canon thing as an opportunity for some good ol’ LGBT erasure under the mask of a moral crusade against racism.

The flip side accusation that “Timebombs are all homophobes” exists for similar bad faith reasons. Because people are fucking gross like that, apparently.

I think it’s past time to fight back against those misconceptions. This unfortunate incident raises an opportunity to stand in solidarity with PoC members of our shared fandom and with Timebomb fans, and anyone else who might have been hurt by this thing, to denounce racism in any part of our fandom, or any fandom, and address the hate and harm it fuels.

I’m not going to name the OP or link their blog because I do not want to encourage harassment or give them attention, but if you know who I’m talking about and you follow them, I implore you to unfollow and block. And if you see any posts containing similar content from anyone on any platform, call it out, report it, and get it taken down.

If you’re the LC fans I know and love you’re probably doing that already.

I want to very strongly emphasize that this person is not one of us and this person was not in our community spaces expressing these views, but if proving that means calling them out on behalf of Lightcannon fandom, that’s easy and I’m oh so happy to do it.

And I’m not alone. I know I wasn’t the only LC fan who reported the rhino picture, on either platform. The people calling them out in the Tumblr were LC people I follow, and the OP was being just as nasty to them as to the TB fans on twitter. I know people from our discord server who called them out on twitter multiple times and of course, they doubled down and went on the attack.

This asshole was no-one’s friend and was never acting in good faith.

I have my issues with cancel culture, it can do more harm than good, but unfortunately in an internet space where ‘engagement’ is seen as value and validation, the strongest message that can be sent that something is Beyond Fucking Unacceptable is to starve it out and let it wither into obscurity.

Don’t engage, don’t harass. Disengage, unfollow, block, ban, report, take its air.

This shithead has no place in the Lightcannon community and does not speak for us.

And that goes for anyone else that pushes a racist, misogynist or homophobic agenda or ideology while claiming to be “a Lightcannon fan”. You aren’t. You are not my people. You are not on my team. You don’t love these characters, you’re hiding behind them to spread hate, and you have nothing but my contempt and scorn.

Get the fuck out of my fandom, and may the door hit you on the arse on the way out.

And to PoC fans on every side of the fence, we see you, we see how wrong this is, and we’re sorry someone claiming to be one of us put you through seeing this. To Timebomb fans reading this post, we may be at odds sometimes on silly fandom things, but we are with you on this.

I want to bury the misconception that Lightcannon fans hate Ekko, for good, because in my own experience the polar opposite is true, and the people pushing ‘LC fans hate Ekko’ are, once again, doing so in bad faith to divide this fandom against itself.

I speak on behalf of my Lightcannon community; Ekko is a fantastic character, and we love him too. I wish you could see the way we talk about him in our fandom spaces. I wish you could see how much love we also have for Ekko, even if we don’t ship him with Jinx.

Most if not all of us have our own shipping preferences for Ekko – we want him to be happy, we just don’t think Jinx is it for him – and race isn’t a factor in those preferences (nor should it be) especially taking Ezko into account as one of if not the most popular of Ekko’s many options.

If you want evidence of that just read back across my blog whenever I’ve posted about him, including the most recent one, or read our fics! Ekko is best boy, we all know he deserves the very best ( though if you’re here for angst, you’re valid too 😉 )

The bottom line is that Lightcannon vs Timebomb is a very unserious conflict.

We are at each other’s throats over the love life of a fictional character, Jinx, whose story in Arcane had almost nothing to do with romance of any kind, and whose story in League of Legends has even less. Our biggest point of difference is which of two Loyal, Kind, Big Hearted Community Leaders our crazy blue haired skrunkle should date. The whole thing’s deeply unserious.

But racism is never unserious. If we see it, we need to speak up, shut it down, and act to heal the divides it causes.

And the best way to do that last part, I think, is lay our weapons down and reach out. Because the asshole posting the racist image, like all the bigots peripheral to this shitstorm of a fandom, did so with the intent to divide and rage-bait and fuel the Stupid Fucking Ship War.

So, let’s make it have the opposite effect.

Lightcannons reading this. I want you to do this: continue to call out racist comments from anyone claiming to be a Lightcannon fan. Let everyone see this isn’t who we are. But be mindful that people are also trying to draw both sides into petty pissing contests; so, the most effective tactic is to get those posts taken the fuck down.

This racist ‘fandom’ material should not exist, it exists only to cause harm, so it should not be seen. Starve it out, take it down, let it be known this shit is not welcome and does not speak for us.

And secondly and more importantly, reach out to any PoC fans you might know who’ve seen this and been hurt by this, and to your Timebomb moots. I’ve made this post because I felt I had to speak for Team Lightcannon and make where we stand publicly clear; caveat is that I don’t think that a loud call out post like this is as actually useful as quieter acts of solidarity.

Reach out, offer support, listen. If you aren’t friends with any TB shippers, bite back that defensive Twitter reply and write something conciliatory instead. You will probably still be met with hostility; emotions are running high around this stupidity like they always do around internet drama. Be thick-skinned, turn the other cheek and continue to be kind. It’s not worth it. This is a ship rivalry. It’s nothingburger, it doesn’t matter.

Fighting bigotry does. Every little act of kindness does.

And you never know, you might just find common ground with someone you didn’t expect.