lilghost1412

[lilghost1412]

:breaks down door:

YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU KNOW WHAT I NEED IN MY LIFE. MORE THINGS CENTERED AROUND TAKAGI AND CONAN/SHINICHI MY GOD I LOVE THEIR DYNAMIC AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE ELEVATOR LIKE YALLPLEASEEEE GIVE ME MORE FICS I NEED FOOD CAUSE GOSHO AOYAMA SURE AIN'T GONNA FEED ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (I read a fic last night that was centered around them and my brain has been vibrating rapidly since)

[lilghost1412]

asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.

[lilghost1412]

[lilghost1412]

A new adventure starts

[lilghost1412]

East and West?

bonus close up!

they're stealing each other's bangs

[lilghost1412]

a pokemon phone background commission

[lilghost1412]

[lilghost1412]

Me in history class: Wow, humanity has been through some fascinating times!  I wonder if I’ll ever live through major historical events!

Me now: NO NO NO NO NO I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE

[lilghost1412]

run out of tears to cry T_T

[lilghost1412]

so true

[lilghost1412]

glad to see those spreading the truth

[lilghost1412]

That video of Alex Hirsch reading S&P notes for Gravity Falls conveys a few things to me:

1) the U.S. entertainment industry (especially animation) is run by older conservative types who make up offensive terms and get really mad about them.

2) the people who run Disney would be the first to fall in line with a fascist regime.

3) most of the media we consume is tailor-made and watered-down to appeal to the tastes of older, deeply religious conservative audiences.

4) conservatism, not the left, is and always has been the biggest voice of censorship in American culture.

[lilghost1412]

I'm sorry I know most people will wish they kissed or interpret their relationship as romantic (as is fandom nature) but I'm feeling sososo emotional about queerplatonic Jayvik. They're partners, with a shared vision of the world, who's destinies are literally intertwined on a cosmic level. It just makes so much sense.

And aroace Victor also makes so much sense. In season one, we had the classic scene play out where your best friend stops noticing you cause they got involved in a romantic relationship. Not to mention the allusions to being cold and machine like in season two. How can you be human if you don't love like that? But what breaks him out is not a kiss, but rather a declaration that Jayce still wants him, still wants his partner by his side, imperfections and all.

I don't care how people interpret their love, as long no one implies it's somehow less than, cause they didn't kiss :')

[lilghost1412]

me when i fuckin uhhh

[lilghost1412]

the fact that trucy can accurately use throwing knives to the extent of hitting an unwieldy object in motion (a segway tire zooming away) is absolutely terrifying, thank you

[lilghost1412]

real dialogue from the game

[lilghost1412]

character misses their shot and the villain goes "ha! you missed." and the main character goes "did i?" and then shoots the villain again while they're frantically looking around the room for what the hero could possibly have aiming for instead