#CANNON FODDER 2

[retrocgads]

UK 1998

[thebrokenpapergirl]

AMC IWTV Theory

I think Louis brought Daniel to Dubai either as a distraction or punishment for Armand.

Let me explain...

If it is a distraction it will manifest physically or psychologically. Meaning that Louis is either going to put Daniel's life in danger and force Armand to protect him and attempt to either escape or overpower Armand. Or, if it is in fact, a psychological distraction he wants Armand preoccupied with Daniel while he gets information, either from Armand's head himself or the archives in the penthouse.

If, however, it is punishment. I think Louis is going to force Armand to either watch Daniel die or give him the Dark Gift. Either way, it will haunt Armand for eternity.

I think Louis has pieced together that a lot of what he remembers is muddled. I believe it is because of Armand's influence, but even if it is just trauma, Louis now knows his recollections are missing pieces. I think he either intends to get those pieces back or, if he thinks he has pieced together what is missing, he wants retaliation.

I don't think it's a coincidence that he waited to redo the interview with Daniel until after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I think he used the diagnosis as bait for Armand. He knew Armand would give in, he would want to see Daniel, thus more easily acquiescing to Louis' demand.

[yangscowlick]

Vi/Jinx/Warwick family reunion got me, but the problem is that this show is just so “automatic” in pulling the rug out that it’s hard to get emotionally invested (why I never got remotely attached to Isha the moment she was introduced because it was obvious where that was going). They got me one last time because I’m a sucker for the sisters, but the payoffs are going to feel less emotional if you train your viewers to keep their guard up from the start.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 - Battle for Armageddon Cinematic by Edouard Boccard

[bizlybebo]

where the hell is the snow it’s been two years of this

[enzo-fodder]

Text on top imagine:

Age- 30

Gender- male

Class- cannon fodder

Job- go in first to everything. Best for capturing Intel due to his health of 192 (it's the armor, w/o it he'd probably have 125)

Bio: he only got the job for the money. If he knew it'd involve this, he'd never take it. He's oddly skittish and awkward for a grown man (it's the autism). Thank God his mom raised him to be tough. Otherwise... Yikes.

(if I changed anything it's for a reason. Don't correct me on it pls)

Btw! He is Italian, and his mom runs a mob. Like the Mafia. But not THE Mafia, just a weird inuniverse Mafia. She's the godmother. His dad though? Yeah no, he left and learned how to play guitar and fish. I wanted to put this in his bio but I didn't know where too. Idk ask abt that if you want

Pls send asked btw, I'm taking asks

[severalowls]

Chickened out of my master grade zaku because its an absurdly niche limited edition manga variant I have no attachment to and the idea of taking a craft knife to something worth over a hundred quid as a first effort is terrifying.

So I'm doing the Real Grade zaku instead and so far the leg alone has been like 30 pieces and a tiny fragile decorative washer turned to atoms from being cut literally an inch away so... sweats. Looks fuckin nice though. Compared to the HG guntank from like 2001 which looks like a pound shop toy unpainted, the more modern pastel-ish colours with tonal variation are Lovely but also makes cutting imperfections all the more obvious...

[wastedpotentialsblog]

Eramis is such a tragic character and Plunder and Seraph writing are doing her so much justice I'm seeing more sympathy for her. Please I just want her to be ok

[stew-chan]

hell yeah theres a season 2 of tragedy gundam!! i totally missed it by a few months when i watched the original :)

[velvet-vox]

What were they even thinking with the Osamodas family? Aurora genuinely feels like Wakfu's version of the high school girl bully (Chloe Bourgeois, Sissi, Lila Rossi). I guess there just simply are some archetypes that no french production can escape.

[notspiders]

Oh, Honey! (Bumblebee! Reader x Monster! 141)

General Warnings: Mostly fluff. Reader is female and is described as rather small and chubby. Reader is clumsy. Reader has a very large family. Characters may act out of character. Poor grammar is likely. Cussing. Part 1??? Note: Monster! 141 belongs to @bluegiragi

~~~~

Price watches you through the window.

Truthfully, he isn't sure how he and his team ended up here. One day they were being chased by a bloody team of zombies/cannon fodder, the next- he's laying on this extremely cozy bed (although it is a bit small) with his wounds nicely patched. Soap has gone hunting with the other women. Ghost is satisfied that they're all safe in this... rather massive cottage and has been snoring away in the next room for the past hour. Gaz has told him that he's going to just fly around and keep an eye out- just in case if the enemies somehow find themselves through the dense woods and into this clearing.

They really were lucky, Price thinks. According to you, the woods were a force themselves. Navigating through it, especially at night, is practically impossible. Compasses don't work. There's no signal and, of course, any type of aircraft just fail here. The woods are miles long and unless you packed enough supplies- it's suicide to dive back in and try to find your way out. It's just that sometimes the woods can help you, and sometimes the woods just gives you Mother Nature's middle finger and kills you. So there's that.

Naturally, the team was suspicious.

1) The explanation made no sense. 2) They were just outnumbered by a ton of enemies and to stumble upon this welcoming lot is... well, it's too good to be true, yeah? 3) You and your family are just way too happy. 3.1) There are no guys in your family. Your mother stated that men generally just wandered in, the family would treat them, and then they go away by themselves after a few nights. 3.2) Honestly, all of you look the same. Maybe there's like, a difference in hairstyles, body types, and obvious age gaps between the women here and there, but Jesus… Gaz has already made the mistake of confusing you, your cousins, your many sisters, and other random girls multiple times last night. 3.3) Scratch out the 'massive cottage' you guys claimed it to be. It's a mansion. Your 'family' is very large. There are many aunts, other women, cousins, other girls that were adopt into the family- Just no men. All living under the same roof and might as well be an army itself with how efficient you all did your tasks.

That said, it's very rude to point guns at innocent, clueless civilians. You, an adorably chubby, little bumblebee-hybrid (identifiable by the two rather pathetic buzzing wings behind your back), opened the door to them last night and stared blankly at their guns before cheerily ushering them in without freaking your head out. Next thing they knew, they got some quality homecooked meals cooked and served before them, plenty of drink (the honey mead everyone shared is excellent), proper treatment with their wounds (with... herbs), and warm beds. Ghost had stayed up the whole night and snooped around (just in case) but reported nothing interesting except for a few old hunting rifles and some overdue library books. Yes, each girl did carry a tiny foraging knife, but he's pretty certain they could still punt them like footballs ten at a time.

Morning comes- the team properly introduce themselves without being too specific of their occupation. There was a great deal of oohing and aahing as Price unfolded his one wing. His smoke did cause one girl to faint and her mother quickly asked for Price to... stop. He did his best and has, for now, stopped smoking his cigar. Everyone just steered clear from Ghost. Many children were petting Soap's head and playing with his fluffy tail, and others were stroking Gaz's wings.

Despite all the attention, Price's gaze is always on you. Maybe it was because of the fact that he's seen you first. You were just the cutest out of all of them. He wanted to whisk you away just to squish every soft part of your body and have you cuddled up beside him in his nest back home.

He's sorely disappointed to be told that he needs to return to bed so that his wounds can heal faster. No matter. The window gives him a very nice view of the clearing outside. Some girls are tending to the farm. Others are beekeeping. Plenty have gone to the outskirts of the forest to forage or hunt. Soap has offered to go out with the girls and they gladly accepted his help. (Tomorrow, he'll get off of this bed and join everyone too.)

Right now, you're picking the berries in your garden. It's amusing to watch you. Sometimes you bend over to pluck a few pretty flowers too- he's gotten a very nice view of your plump arse here and there. He's watched you buzz your small wings to just barely get a foot in the air and pluck an apple off the tree. Oh, how he wished to simply go out to lift you up himself... Your weight would be nothing to him.

From his observations, he's smartly deduced: Your body is round. Your little wings aren't designed for distance.

He loves the way you'd burrow your nose into any flower. Sometimes you remind him of Johnny's eagerness by the way you'd get a bit too enthusiastic and faceplant into the bed of flowers to take in the scent.

Price watches you get up, bump into your cousin (or is it sister? Or is this another girl? He couldn't be arsed), and the two of you collectively squeaked and apologized at the same time. Adorable. Fascinating. Beautiful. He hasn't felt this way ever since the time he xaight the glimpse of the shiny Excalibur in that stupid rock.

The lunch horn has been blown. He's been told that today's meal would be freshly baked bread and creamy chicken with wild rice soup. There’ll be tea and coffee for the drinks.

Price wishes his lunch would just be you.

[kingdomaddiction]

So what if when SQH arrived to PIDW he was fragmented into three different people?

1. He wakes up after he thinks is the end. He’s a young, beautiful woman. And apparently she’s a cultivator? Su Xiyan, they call her. She realizes she’s in her damn story playing the role of a character that’s meant to die. She hates it and tries really hard to change history but it’s useless. No matter how hard she tries she can’t get the palace master off her ass. Really, that dude is a creep.

She tries to run away but here’s something invisible keeping her there, spoiling all of her plans. It’s infuriating. So, she decides just not to play along. Ignore the plot.

Suddenly she meets a demon. They fall in love and it’s inevitable.

It’s doom. She knows what will happen to her, to him (her silly, lovely demon Lord, it’s hard not to love him— she never stood a chance), to her unborn child.

She cries and begs and screams but she’s imprisoned. Punished for loving the “wrong” man.

It’s hard to remember but she manages to scape. Her last memories are Luo Binghe’s cries. It’s cold, oh so cold, and she hates herself for writing something so sad and depressing.

2. He’s a child again. Not sure how that’s possible, but he’s living and breathing. Shang Lei is pretty sure he died in a very pathetic and pitiful way.

For a long time he thinks it’s just a dream. But the hunger and pain feel real.

Shang Lei finds out he’s living in the PIDW universe when a cultivator visits the town talking about the recruitment for Cang Qiong Sect. He wants to laugh and cry and run the other way but then a blue screen pops up scaring the shit out of him.

A system, he has a system. Now he understands this second life is not for him to enjoy, but to fix his own story (excuse you??? Fix???).

He’s forced to join the sect, to join An Ding, and it takes an embarrassing amount of time to realice he’s Shang Qinghua, the cannon fodder.

It’s depressing and anxiety inducing but he has no other option but to obey the cruel system.

He meets Mobei and he swears it’s love at first sight. Obviously he promises to follow him forever —the system intervention is not needed.

Years passes, he becomes head disciple. It’s hard, unpleasant work. He hates it with all his gut. But the system needs him to be a Peak Lord, so Shang Lei becomes Shang Qinghua.

He’s nervous, Binghe’s birth is near. He knows it, he has been keeping track.

And one day… it happens.

His head feels like it’s been split open. He screams and everything turns black.

When he wakes up he’s at Qian Cao infirmary. Mu Qingfang is trying to talk to him, her?, but he’s overwhelmed by the memories flashing in front of him.

It hurst so much, physically and emotionally.

The system is apologizing to him (a first, really,) talking about a glitch and diving his soul. Qinghua is not listening, he can barely breathe. All he can think of is his baby and her darling husband now imprisoned under a mountain.

Before he can think of running of there and look for Luo Binghe (he’s just baby— he needs me! ) the system warns him.

He’s not allowed to find him. He’s not allowed to save him.

Mu Qingfang witnesses the worst second case of Qi deviation he has ever seen in his life.

3.

He wakes up. She’s a woman, an old woman. Her body hurts from hunger, cold, and age.

It must be a dream, she thinks. But when she wakes up the next day, and the next, and she’s here. Shang Lei has to accept his reality.

He died, and instead of just… dissolving or some shit, now he’s an old woman (really, what the fuck?) with no name, no family, and no money in a xianxia universe.

It’s shitty, really shitty.

She tries to… adjust. It’s not easy and the people of this town is extremely cruel. She still manages to find a job as a washerwoman. It’s hard on her because of her age and the seemingly eternal cold of this cursed town, but it gives her enough to buy food so she tries not to complain much.

The loneliness is the issue. Sometimes is too much to handle. She cries and begs the gods to send her someone, anyone, just to stop feeling so lonely.

And then it happens.

A cold morning, a river, a child.

She jumps into the water ignoring the freezing temperature and fights against the current. She almost drowns but it’s worth it. Because now she’s holding in her arms the most beautiful and adorable baby boy she has ever seen in her life.

Her heart feels so full. A child, her child.

There’s no doubt in her heart. This child is hers.

“Luo Binghe,” she says and laughs. It’s silly, her own little private joke to name her child like her protagonist, but isn’t it a nice coincidence?

He, like her protagonist, was floating down the river in the coldest day of the year and was found by a washerwoman.

A washerwoman just like her.

A washwoman…

A baby…

A river…

.

.

.

Huh.

… no matter, she raises Binghe. He’s such a polite, lovely child. Her perfect little gentleman. She tries to teach him about love and kindness, even when the townspeople are cruel and mean Binghe needs to be good!

He’s so smart and grows so fast it makes her proud. But she’s afraid, she can feel her body becoming weaker and weaker with each passing day.

It’s just her and Binghe, no one else. If she dies he’ll be alone.

Her sweet boy tries to help, and when she inevitably falls ill he works hard to put food on the table for both of them.

Sometimes he arrives dirty, his eyes filled with tears and bruises on his face. He always gives her a warm, big smile when he sees her and her heart aches.

Her time is coming, she knows. And she begs him to be good, to be kind even when it’s pointless. She no longer tries to deny it, Shang Lei is aware in which universe they are living.

The last thing she sees are the eyes of her beautiful child filled with tears begging her not to leave him.

4. SQH wakes up in QC again. He’s numb and Mu-shidi looks alarmed, he seems discussing his state with the sect leader (what is he doing here?)

The memories of Luo Binghe’s mother, his/hers, fills him with both warmth and sadness.

She raised him, she managed to raise her son. Even if she didn’t know she birthed him, she loved Luo Binghe as her own and did her best to give him a home.

But now he’s alone… and Shang Qinghua can’t reach him. Because the system is stopping him, threatening to hurt him or his son if he dares not to follow the script.

It’s so unfair and twisted, he wants to cry. But he can’t fight so he’s forced to watch his son grow from far away… Abused, beaten, and punished.

He despises SQQ and plans on killing him. But then he has a Qi deviation so strong his whole personality changes and suddenly his son is finally treated with respect and love and Binghe seems to adore his new Shizun (maybe a little too much??? Young man! That man is way too old for you!!!!)

Life is good, for a while.

Binghe is thrown into the abyss, he finds out SQQ is a transmigrator (but unlike him he wasn’t split), they form and alliance and so much shit happens that his story is no longer his.

It’s different, good. Binghe is happy, his old lover is free (still as handsome as the day they met), Mobei has promised to threat him better (i love you, do you love me, my king?) and he has no system to worry about anymore.

… But he stares at Binghe sometimes. Yearning for him. To hold him and kiss his forehead and she used to do when he was a child.

Unfortunately it’s not possible. Binghe hates him (please I beg you, the system forced me, —) and sees him as nothing more than a rat.

He tries his best to pretend it doesn’t hurt, but whenever LBG insults him he locks himself up in his rooms and cries. He could tell him the truth since the system seems to be gone but Shang Qinhua is paralyzed with fear. He knows he wont be able to survive Binghe’s rejection. So, SQH lowers his head and takes it no matter how vicious Binghe’s comments get when his cucumber-bro is not around.

.

// ran out of ideas—

I haven’t decided how but ???? Maybe one day SQH talks with Tianlang-Jun and the demon is reminded of a beautiful cultivator of his past and is instantly captivated. He follows him around much to Mobei and all the other demons dismay. It makes Binghe uncomfortable because that man is his father, why is acting like with SQH of all people?

(Mobei and Tianlang-jun fighting for SQH’s attention— him earning a reputation for having the former emperor and the second strongest demon in all the realm after him. SQH remains oblivious to it, thinking they are just being nice)

(SQQ: airplane this is so fucking dumb what kind of extras are these????)

(Binghe gets… suspicious. Tries to get closer to SQH to investigate— is this a plot to usurp the throne? What’s so special about him?

SQH is just glad his son is paying positive attention to him! No insults, no mean comments! Is he doing something right? He wont question it—

• SQQ jealous shenanigans.

• SQH slipping and using his other life knowledge to spoil LBG.

LBG: ????? Wtf???? How does he know i like this? Why— how? Is he stalking me?

SQH: I made this dish for Jungshang—

//tastes just like his mother’s cooking.//

LBG: *cries*

• TLJ and MBJ temporary truce. They can’t lose SQH to LBG.

• SQQ still losing his shit: wtf you hack author this is my husband!

• SQH and Binghe bonding, very wholesome, very cutesy. Binghe is really conflicted but this… it feels familiar. And… Shang-shishu smells like his mother???? Oh, he’s crying again.

Yeah, that the idea I hve so far idk feel free to use it or add anything I’ll go have breakfast now 👍🏽

[nartothelar]

This whole ‘Emmet Vanishing’ situations has really shown a flaw in their system with the train being completely down just because one guy is missing. This seems like a great time for the DWMA to send student cannon fodder I mean interns/job shadows to help out lmao.

I mean in their defense, they live on train 24/7. Death really couldn’t have found anyone better to protect the train than 2 super powerful meisters/weapons who also has an obsession with public transit sksksk

I’d say before Emmet and Ingo were in the picture, the train either didn’t venture out as much as it does or constantly attacked/endangered. Them taking the helm and building it from the ground up, rebuilding it as a simple freight train to a passenger one is pretty impressive!

But on the topic of cannon fodder students, I seriously think Emmet and Ingo would 100% be against them working on their train simply because in their mind, it goes against all safety regulations SKSK

[alpaca-clouds]

Arcane & Disability - From the Perspective of a Sensitivity Reader

Alright. I promised this a month ago, but just did not get around, because university and work were all too stressful. But still, it is a topic that keeps to be on my mind, after the end of Arcane season 2. While season 2 was a mess in general, when it comes to pacing and characters and dialogues, to me – a disabled person – one of the biggest issues really is how the series treats disability. This was already a problem in season 1, but because of the bad pacing and the fact that a lot of characters clearly did not get as many scenes as it was intended at first, making this issue worse.

So, before someone asks, who am I to judge this: While my main job is in IT, I usually do at least one book or other project in sensitivity reading per month. I just rely on the IT job to know I have a constant income, if I do not manage to get a SR-job for once. But yes, it is part of my real-life job to critique writers on this kind of stuff.

So, let me talk about the disabilities in Arcane – and what is the issue there. I will go through different characters for this.

Spoilers for season 2, obviously.

Zaun and the Chem Lords

Let me start with something that mainly is in the background. We do see the Chem Lords once in season 1 and once in season 2 – though there for a prolonged scene. And a lot of them are disabled in some way and most of them are disfigured in some way. We also do see some of the “normal people” in Zaun, who are often disabled – using some sort of prothesis – and also often disfigured. And while, sure, the show portrays it as part of the tragedy that Zaun is so exploited that there are so many people who are very disabled, but at the same time the Chem Lords are not at all portrayed in a sympathetic light, and even those background characters of Zaun (like the woman, who lost her child to Jayce and Vi) are not exactly treated sympathetically.

Before anything else, we need to establish one important thing about disability in this show: Pretty much all disabilities in this movie are acquired disabilities. Which is fair. By far most people IRL who are disabled do acquire their disability during the course of their life. Through sickness, through accidents, and also through simply aging. However, there is some issue to the fact that we see very little in terms of variety to the disabilities.

Sure, you could argue, that technically Arcane has more disabilities, than pretty much any other western media project – and you would be right. But let’s face it here: The bar is on the ground – if not underground.

But the main issue is, that for the most part the Chem Lords and a lot of those minor disabled roles in the movie are not at all portrayed sympathetically. The Chem Lords are just minor cannon fodder background villains, while the background characters are also mainly villains. Sure, I have seen a lot of fans a bit more sympathy for their motivations. But in the show? Well, we mainly see how they attack main characters and almost kill them.

This could work, mind you – if we had a counter example of good disabled characters. But that is not quite the show that we got. For the most part.

Sevika

If season 2 had not been the mess that it was, Sevika probably would be the one counter example to all of this. While in season 1 she mainly is just “the goon” for Silco and we get very, very little in terms of motivation for her, season 2 (or rather what was probably originally multiple other seasons) clearly at some point had a character arc in mind for her. Even as it was, we did learn a bit more about her motivation and such.

While I had originally just taken Sevika mainly as someone who was working for Silco, because it was the most promising opportunity for her (given there are not a lot of chances in Zaun). Not because of some ideology.

But Season 2 proofed me wrong, there. We learn not much about Sevika here, but we learn that she actually was with Silco out of conviction that what Silco was ultimately doing was making Zaun better. She understood that Zaun needed a leader figure and she thought that Silco was possibly the best leader they could have had. Now that Silco is dead, she tries to prop up Jinx as the new leader, because she understands that this is needed.

Given the place that Sevika ends up in – as a councilor for Zaun – I am gonna assume there was some version of this (one with more seasons) where Sevika had gotten an arc, this would have been more of a focus. Her learning that instead of popping up someone else as a figurehead, she had to be the one to lead people. However, we clearly did not get that version of the story.

Still, I am possibly going to argue that the fact that she did not get this arc, is less connected to her being a clearly disabled character, and more to her being not a champion in the game so far. So generally speaking, I would still argue that despite it all, she is the one disabled character in this show, who I think is generally portrayed the most favorable.

Silco

I know, some people will now ask: “How the fuck is Silco disabled.” But for once, yes, he uses a cane at times, but also, he has a facial deformity, which is in fact counted under the disability umbrella. While technically speaking a facial deformity does not always stop people from being capable of working, the discrimination of people with facial deformities has to do a lot with the favoring of healthy bodies, and how this is connected to beauty norms.

And Silco… Well, how to put this best? From what is there in season 2, I am going to assume that there was a version of this, where there had been more time to tell the story, and we would have gotten a more sympathetic portrayal of Silco, where we went more into his motivation. Season 2 does hint at the fact that indeed, Zaun under Silco was a lot more stable than in any alternate scenario, and that Silco did in fact really try to make life better for the most possible people. But that is it: It very much hints at it, but never fully goes into it.

We know this is all bound to the lady who was the mother to Vi and Powder, but how we never get explained. And yeah, this is an issue. While I do not think that originally Silco really fell into the typical trope of “person has a facial deformity to signify their evil” (something that shows up in a lot of media – including Disney movies and a ton of James Bond movies), the fact that we never really go deep into his background and motivation, he somewhat falls into the trope here. And that really just because probably all the stuff that went into him as a character was just cut for time. And yeah, fuck. It is a big issue here. If the rest of the show was not as messy as it was, it would be less so – but given the state this show is in and the way the other disabled characters are portrayed… Oh boy, this is a problem.

Singed

I actually thought a lot about whether to put Singed in here. Because yes, he clearly is disabled and has deformities. But also, in the version of the show we got, he almost feel like a footnote of a character. However, I decided to at least go quickly into him, because again: You cannot put in most disabled characters as villains, and then make someone who is very, very responsible for a lot of the bad stuff that happens in this show and make him disabled as well. And yes, I get that Singed is disabled in the game, and that he is a somewhat bad character in the game as well. But that does not undo the harm this does within the narrative of the show. And you need to understand that. While yes, you can argue that his end goal (reviving his daughter) can be considered as somewhat sympathetic, it is not addressed enough to make him a complex and nuanced character. And again, he very much is responsible for many of the bad things that happen.

Jinx

Okay, let us talk about Jinx. She is the character, who I had the biggest problem in season 1 with – and season 2 did not really make it better. Because yes – until loosing her finger in season 2, generally her disability is her mental illness that clearly is chronic and unlikely to ever fully get away. And this is a big, big issue.

Because Jinx’s mental illness is from about the same line of mental illnesses that villains in the Batman comics have. Like sure, we can argue that there are some aspects in there of some sort of Borderline, PTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and such. But for the most part her mental illness exists mainly to be edgy, and weird, and strange – much like Harley Quinn’s and the Joker’s disability. We know that those two characters were major influences on Jinx.

And look, I will admit, that Harley Quinn is a character I do generally enjoy. But that does not change that yeah, Harley like Jinx is a bad character in terms in representing actually mentally ill people. Because the focus of the character is to be weird, and cool, and somewhat entertaining. While yes, some of the symptoms that Jinx is showing are based on symptoms of real mental illnesses, as mentioned above, the way she is experiencing them is mainly there to be nice in a visual and entertaining kind of way. And that is… Well, it is an issue. Especially given that her mental illness mainly does also show in her violent tendencies.

Don’t get me wrong: I have known people with some of the diagnosis that one could probably read into what we see in her, and some of those people were in fact quite violent. At times only verbally, but in some cases they would also have a hair trigger before they would start and try to shove and punch people. So yes, this part is not technically speaking a thing that is unrealistic.

However, if someone was going to hand me a book, where the one character, who very clearly is written with a mental illness is depicted as a sort of maniac, who is part supervillain, and part manic pixie dream girl, that mainly exists and is the depicted the way she is to cater to a presumed straight male audience. That really is an issue.

Nothing that I can say about Jinx is exclusive to Jinx or Arcane in the grand scheme of things. A lot of these tropes are around for decades now. But that does not make them less harmful. On the contrary. They are actually worse because of it, as this kinda will play into the confirmation bias of people, who do not have to deal with mentally ill people very often. And I wish those tropes would die.

Sure, we can argue the fact that at the very least Jinx is portrayed in a somewhat more positive manner (just as Harley Quinn is these days), is at least a tiny step forward. But it is still not a good way of portraying this. Just not the worst way anymore.

And of course then there is the fact that for now she actually dies in the end of the show, just as pretty much most disabled characters in this show do. And that… is just not a good look.

Isha

Oh boy. Isha is something that came out of nowhere and really was one of the main reasons of me wanting to write this thing. Isha is mute. And here a little bit about muteness in real life: Most mute people are deaf-mute. So they are mute, because they were born without the ability to hear properly, and hence never learn how to pronounce properly, despite technically having a voice box. People who can hear and are mute – like Isha – probably are mute because of some mental illness. Some people go mute because of trauma, some neurodivergent people are non-verbal (so they don’t speak) or can be non-verbal under stress. (I fall under this, at times. I do have days on which I just cannot properly speak.)

With Isha we never learn why she does not speak. She just doesn’t. She shows up, attached herself to Jinx, and then is basically Jinx’s own Manic Pixie Dream Girl, just in the “little sister” way, rather than the “romantic” way. She mainly exists just to bring Jinx back into functioning enough that she can partake in the rest of the plot. And once she has archived that, well… She dies. Again, like almost all disabled characters in this show fucking do. She is merely a plot device.

And again, given some of the hints that are dropped, I do assume there was at some point more to her story. But we did not get that version of this story. The version we got? Well, she is the mute manic pixie dream girl, who gracefully offs herself once her plot function has been fulfilled. And this more than anything to me is so fucking egregious. If she was not disabled this was already bad enough, but given she is disabled? This is fucking horrible – especially again in the context of a show where most disabled characters die.

Basically what the show tells me – a disabled person – is that my main worth as a person is to die for ablebodied people. Thanks Arcane, needed to hear that. Great job. Hope y’all are proud for creating this show.

Viktor

Lastly there is Viktor. And mind you, there was a moment in this where I had some hope for his arc in terms of disability representation. Because while I will usually rage a lot about “healing disabilities” in fantasy and scifi media, his case was one where it was understandable. He was not trying to heal himself because he so desperately did not want to be disabled anymore, but because his never properly defined sickness, that was responsible for his disability, was degenerative, and he was going to die very early without a cure. And even with that in mind, once something bad happened because of it – when Sky died – he stopped it, because he realized it was too dangerous. While I had some minor notes of how this was handled in season 1, I thought it was fairly good.

And in the beginning of season 2 I actually kinda liked it too. It was not him who chose the healing, but Jayce. And once Viktor woke up from his coma after the magic healing, his first reaction was to be angry with Jayce about it. Partly because of the danger he understood, but partly also because Jayce violated Viktor’s bodily autonomy. I liked that. It was good.

However, it only went downhill from there. Because whatever anger Viktor had from that moment on, it was gone. Sure, you can argue with Viktor’s actions how much of it came from the core/the hextech/the arcane, and how much came from him. But never the less: He quickly is fine with being healed, and then becomes a sort of villain. And also goes ahead to heal other people of their illnesses and disabilities. Some of them consensually, which is somewhat fine though again for the aforementioned reasons of the eugenic implications of the “healing the disabled” trope has, but in some cases also non-consensually. And that is just… not good.

And then, in the bloody finale, he is kinda the final boss. He, the disabled person. Sure, Ambessa is the leader of the fascists, but Viktor is kinda the final boss.

Sure, I could say something about it being nice to have a clearly queer disabled character. But you know what? All of that pales against the fact that in the end of it all, Viktor has to be sacrificed for the happy end for the ablebodied people.

You know, in some other version of events I would have liked the fact that Jayce does acquire a disability in those last few episodes. While it is not quite clear whether this disability is gonna be chronic or not, it does not matter, because he, too, gets sacrificed. Guess he is no longer as valuable given that he is disabled now. Or at least that is the feeling that comes up.

Conclusion

Look, here is the thing: None of the characters in question are written in a way that is so egregious that if it was just this one example it would be a problem. And hey, some part of me is like: “Hey, at least there are multiple disabled characters,” given that this is still fairly rare in western media. (I am currently getting spoiled by Japanese shows. Ranking of Kings, Sign of Affection and so on are doing a much better job at portraying disability.) But given that most of these characters are villains or end up as villains on the long run, and most of them end up dead? Yeah, fuck Arcane. You do not get points for depicting disabilities in a way that clearly communicates that actually the lives of disabled people are less worthy than those of ablebodied people.

Look, whatever you have been told about Sensitivity Reading: Like editors in book publishing, Sensitivity Readers have little power. All we can do is say: “Hey, this is some really unfortunate implication here. Maybe you should change that.” But authors and publishers can absolutely ignore our feedback. Talking with other sensitivity readers there were a couple of examples where all the feedback was ignored.

I do not know whether Arcane had a Sensitivity Reader who gave feedback on the depiction of disabled people in this show. But I am going to assume if there was, they were very probably ignored. Because yeah, I am sorry. This is just overall not good.

Yes, this show has more disabled characters than most western shows. But again: If those characters are mainly villains, and mainly die by the end of the show… Yeah, sorry, Arcane, you do not get a gold star for including them. In fact, given how the characters are shown, frankly, I would probably have preferred it if the characters had not been disabled in the first place.

[enzo-fodder]

Hi Enzo! You like painting? Cuz I got a lot of paints!

-🪡

First ask! Also my shitty digital art skills jumpscare

[fantastic-nonsense]

I think people who genuinely wanted Percy to rebel against the gods and overthrow the system kind of...miss the whole point of the series

The question is not whether or not the gods deserve to rule; the books are kind of unambiguous that they don't! That the gods are generally undeserving of their children's loyalty is the one thing that Percy and Luke both agree on! But PJO is less about divine right to rule vs. ruling via consent of the governed and more about improving dysfunctional family systems. It's not about whether unfair rulers deserve to continue ruling; it's about forcing the gods to be better, fairer rulers and a better, fairer family given limited alternatives.

Because what are the alternatives, as presented to us within the scope of the original PJO series?

Option 1: allow Kronos to topple Olympus and take over. Clearly not a viable alternative for all of the reasons the books show us.

Option 2: the demigods overthrow the Olympians and rule the world themselves. Okay. How's that going to work out long-term, given demigods are mortal and cannot control or protect their parents' domains? Demigods will die out within a generation or two, so that's potentially a one-generation short-term solution, and then everyone's right back where they started. Except worse, because now the world has been out of divine balance for a century and the gods have a completely legitimate bone to pick with all demigods. Materially worse outcome.

Option 3: demigods ignore the gods and their will entirely. They integrate into the mortal world, refuse to participate in quests or talk to their parents, and pretend prophecies don't exist. Except that's clearly not a viable option, since we see that demigods usually can't safely exist in the mortal world without monsters coming after them, the gods are cruel enough to use blackmail and engage in hostage situations to get demigods to act as heroes, and prophecies have a way of coming true regardless of everyone's best attempts to circumvent them. Again: materially worse outcome.

And for Percy, for the demigods at Camp Half-Blood, for Luke and for everyone else who defected....for the most part, they don't actually have an inherent problem with the gods ruling them. They just want to be acknowledged, valued, and loved by their families, to be treated as more than a tool for their parents to wield whenever their services are needed. That was the core thesis of the demigod rebellion, which was wholly separate from Kronos' specific motivations for overthrowing the Olympians, and it's why Percy's asks at the end of TLO were what they were.

The point was always that had Percy grown up in a slightly more dysfunctional family environment...had he grown up with Frederick Chase's seemingly conditional love or May Castellan's madness instead of Sally Jackson's steady, quiet, unconditional love...he could have turned out like Luke. Like Ethan. Like the dozens of demigods who defected from camp to join Luke's cause. Percy could have turned out just as a bitter and angry and vengeful. Just as ready to tear down the system. Just as willing to betray and kill his own family for the sake of making a point.

But instead, Percy openly reprimands the gods for abandoning their families and using them as cannon fodder in their own petty disagreements. He forces them to acknowledge and claim their children. He demands that everyone who is part of the godly family be recognized and accepted, not just those related to the Twelve Olympians. He asks for those unjustly punished (like Calypso) to be set free and accepted back into the family. Because that's the point at the end of the day: not forcing bad rulers to step down, but changing an insanely dysfunctional family system that the gods and demigods are all members of into a better, safer, and more accepting environment for demigods to grow up and live in.

Overthrowing the gods wouldn't solve the problem at the heart of the series, which is the gods' shitty parenting and family management skills. It would only exacerbate the massive familial fault-lines that Kronos exploited and leave the demigods open to more godly manipulation. Which is why the series ends as it does, with Percy using his wish to tangibly improve the lives of his family instead of selfishly improving his own life (via accepting immortality/godhood) or overthrowing the gods. Because the conflict isn't about the gods as rulers. It's about the gods as parents.

PJO's core thesis is Percy, who grew up knowing unconditional familial love, looking at this whole world of children who didn't and saying "that's not fair. Gods should be better than this!" But instead of destroying them the way Luke wants to, instead of overthrowing them and putting himself on the throne, he instead challenges them to be better parents and family members. To be part of the solution instead of the problem. And Percy's demands don't solve everything, but they were necessary first steps! Without forcing the gods to acknowledge a bare minimum floor of inclusion, the cycle would simply begin all over again the next time a major conflict popped up.

So that's the problem Percy solves and how he successfully fulfills the prophecy: by believing that the gods had the capacity to change and forcing them to break the cycle of familial abandonment, he preserves Olympus and takes the first steps towards a new status quo, one that is objectively better for demigods than the one he grew up in. That's why he succeeds, and it's why Percy overthrowing the gods would have made for a much less satisfying ending than what actually happened.