#as a result

[fifiophobia]

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde except it’s with Jinx and Powder 💙

Textless version:

[mefiless25]

Автор сидит весь вечер на квасе и птичьем молоке и слушает плейлист, чтобы почувствовать себя крабовой палочкой

[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.

[asaka-lucy-dr-rc]

(Hajime says “Nanami, wake up!”.)

[mossrockpog]

Q!BBH's report

[sbnkalny]

I like to raise shields around the entire group

[coconut530]

The colored Sawyer redraw I promised months ago to commemorate me being into Shiloh for four years :D

[lomkaill]

LOOK WHAT I MADE 2 DAYS!

FILBO! He's so cute and small!

I'm also thinking of sewing Floofty, but it all depends on your asset ;3

[kingmintyreturns]

"it's okay not to reblog this, but think about why you don't." hmm. okay. well, i have OCD and i refuse to reinforce the obsessive compulsive cycle that states my goodness as a person and an ally to marginalized folk hinges on pressing a button to share a post to less than 300 people on my little corner of the internet. there. i thought about it, ya happy now?

[lovedreamer11]

Otto screwed up

My spirits lift every time I remember that this is exactly what Otto proposed to make Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne.The only reason Viserys didn't have a son was because poor Aemma was forced into consummation her marriage too early. After her death, Viserys, who was not yet thirty, could remarry a woman who could bear him sons, as happened in the canon. All Otto had to do was wait a couple of years. Afterwards, Viserys would have a son and become an heir, and Daemon would be left with nothing. But Otto hated the prince so much that he wanted to hurt him immediately.

But as a result, Rhaenyra became an obstacle not only for Daemon, but also for Otto’s own grandchildren, and both of Daemon’s sons became kings of Westeros. It’s even a pity that Otto died and couldn’t see this.

[clingylilhoneybee]

Called in sick for the first time at this job n was so brave about it

[leninqrad]

insane how i got forcefemmed by my endocrinologist

[spamsandsuch]

In my mind i dont think swatch necessarily hates spamton but spamton does think they hate him

[not-poignant]

I was watching RotG and suddenly I could only see the meme with the increasingly large dominos. With the small domino being 'Pia watching RotG' and the big domino being 'Efnisien, Gary, Anton, Temsen, Gwyn and Augus all starring in the same a/b/o fic'. Does RotG hold a special place for you, thinking of all the stories you've written since?

Hmm,

Yes and no? There's an even smaller domino you're not seeing which is that I had written original characters and stories before this, and Augus in particular was based off an original character I'd written before (and not published) so like, Rise of the Guardians didn't *invent* him, I did, years before I ever watched the movie. But there's also dominoes that drove me out of the fandom, and it was my bitterness re: the fandom that prompted the writing of original fic in the first place.

So let me tell you a story, anon. If you don't want to know how toxic the RotG fandom could be, I recommend you just walk away now and know that no, actually, RotG doesn't have a special place in my heart, knowing I wrote original fic to initially escape the way some small pockets of that fandom treated me. Otherwise I would have written RotG fiction for far far longer, because as the old-timers will remember, I actually had a couple of longfic ideas lined up to go immediately after SAL that I abandoned because of well...everything.

I actually spent a while after finishing SAL kind of hating Rise of the Guardians because of some nasty drama and meanness/spite towards me, particularly in the last few chapters, and it took about 2-3 years before I could even consider watching the movie again or write for the fandom again. And then by the time I'd come back, all of my original stuff was established, and I felt a lot more comfortable, and a lot more 'fuck the haters' with some of the stuff I had previously had to deal with.

(Fandom wank beneath the cut, lol)

For example (self-harm and suicide mention) one person would specifically post graphic horrible self-harm photos complete with blood tagged into the RotG and blackice tag/s specifically to coincide with my chapter releases towards the end of SAL - and she was a BNF in the fandom in her own way, so *everyone* kind of knew who she was and what she was doing - and she blamed me and my story for the self-harm, and so I had people coming to me going 'do you realise what this story is doing to this person, don't you even care.' And of course I felt horribly guilty and distressed, but I was also at this point around 7/8 chapters from finishing the story, wanting to give everyone a happy ending, and after posting the last chapter I broke down and cried because I was just so relieved that I didn't have to be tormented by this specific person anymore or see these images as a survivor of suicide attempts and self-harm myself.

But also just crying out of sheer distress because of how horrible those last few weeks were, because like, if it wasn't for the readers I would have walked away due to the pressure and bullying and coercion to get out of the fandom just because I had a story that some folks enjoyed reading. That was a level of targeted hate I'd never encountered before, and have never encountered since.

Around that time a couple of small hate groups started up about me, and I would get messages like 'you realise there are hate groups about you, right?' and I'd be like 'please don't tell me about this, people can hate me, leave them alone.' Then there was the time I just got - over around 10 days - about 100+ messages telling me to kill myself because of SAL and how 'horrible' it was re: it's 'really dark themes' which I find hilarious now, but back then, was actually really stressful when it coincided with someone literally *harming themselves* or posting old self-harm photos on days I posted a chapter, talking about how the reason she was doing it was because she hated that my story was so popular when it didn't deserve to be.

Like, no, I did not have a special relationship with Rise of the Guardians by then, or the fandom. I hated it. It's why I stopped writing for it when previously I literally had so many ideas I wanted to write for Jack/Pitch. For years after that. I would remember the good memories I'd made with SAL, but a lot of readers followed me into original works. And otherwise, all I remembered was being forced to see those photos and this person's tags if I went into the tags to look for fanart to share and promote. I'd made some very good friends (some very best friends, actually), and some of us got the hell out of that fandom as fast as we possibly could to escape these people.

So like, I would love to say that like, I feel nothing but fond memories thinking of the influence Rise of the Guardians has had on me, but no fandom that I've ever been in has ever had this kind of level of underground viciousness that developed as the story gained momentum.

When I wrote The Golden Age that Never Was I was truly detached from the fandom and the movie. I was writing based on my memories and feelings of the characters. I didn't look in the tags like I used to, and instead looked for when I was mentioned directly. I had a spike of anxiety every time I got an anon message while writing it, and I had to like...avoid fics and a bunch of other stuff to get through it.

I have watched Rise of the Guardians since and I do really enjoy it, but...I don't see the dominoes the same way you do anon, probably because of the way it all happened in my head, though I do think putting original writing on AO3 happened partly because I was in a hurry to get out of the RotG fandom. So in a way RotG is connected to that, but like, only because I was fleeing and abandoning all of my Pitch/Jack ideas as I went (to the point where people remembered them and still asked me about them years later and I was like 'haha oh no sorry I'm not writing those oh well maybe one day!')

Chances are high I actually wouldn't have written original fiction if my love for Rise of the Guardians had still stayed strong. I was ready to write two very specific longfics, and had done worldbuilding for both, and was talking openly about them, but towards the end of SAL I bolted from the fandom as fast as I could. The hate I got from specific corners of the RotG fandom is one of the reasons I started writing Game Theory before SAL was even finished - to cope with how I felt about the end of SAL and the hatred I was getting there. When some of those folks said 'omg I'll never read a story about Augus' I was literally like 'oh thank fuck, I'm going to be left alone now.'

Like...I got diagnosed with Fibromyalgia like 6 months after that, I cracked teeth because of how stressed I was, and I still have crowns in my mouth and teeth removed because of that whole period. I was sleeping an average of 3 hours a night.

...I feel a very special fondness for the people who supported me at the time, especially my good friend Silvia, who is still my beta and friend today. She is responsible for far more of the dominoes that have led to this moment than Rise of the Guardians could ever directly be. And I am extraordinarily grateful for the readers who have found my stuff since. Now the majority of readers of my original stuff have never actually seen Rise of the Guardians or read my RotG fics, and like, actually sometimes that's really nice, if a bit weird.

I have never, in my life, encountered a fandom that could get as toxic as pockets of Rise of the Guardians got, and I'm including Dragon Age: Inquisition in that, which had literal blocklists of asexual people, so you know I mean business! But as a final point, I do want to say the majority of people there were amazing, absolutely amazing, this is truly a case of a few bad apples spoiling the whole experience, and I'm still to this day gutted it happened like that, and have zero surprise a lot of people left the fandom all at once, at the same time, because of it.

[dreamcatcher-faux]

I'm slowly getting through them.... slowly but surely :3