#but it felt very satisfying

[st-hedge]

The first sketch I made by slapping at the tablet screen vs the one I made after which is about 100 layers cuz I decided to put effort into composition (so everything is its own layer)

[nelkcats]

Help is just a click away

Danny was bored, it's not something new, the Infinite Realms were not the epitome of fun and the portals had been closed after the fight he had with his parents. It was safer that way, no one could get hurt, humans or ghosts.

That didn't mean the halfa couldn't miss them: his family, his friends, or the life he had before. All he had left were the ghosts, which was fine, but it wasn't enough. He felt unbalanced, unwell.

Clockwork told him it was because of his obsession, his obsession to help and protect was being fulfilled but only halfway. He had enough ectoplasm to last a lifetime but Danny was a human too, he needed to see the stars, to help people. He needed it desperately.

Clockwork noticed this and seeing that the boy could not return to his original dimension, he gave him permission to travel to the DC universe as long as he was careful. It was unlikely that they would attack the halfa there, they were all "special" and Danny would go unnoticed. But the boy still wanted to help.

So he formed a small business. He created a simple app and granted help to anyone who made a request. From saving a kitten from the trees to transporting very heavy packages.

It worked wonders and lowered his stress levels greatly. Danny thought he could get used to it, until people started making stranger requests and before he knew it, the so-called "Justice League" was at his door. Of course, he escaped, although that probably didn't help sell his innocence.

[millionsknives]

bait / hook / line / sinker

[cassandragemini]

love lies bleeding inspired me to draw more huge lesbians so heres misha and her pocket sized butch

[picaroroboto]

Particularly as of Shadowbringers and Endwalker one the WoL's key canon traits is how they attempt to understand their enemies - even if conflict is unavoidable or a villain's crimes unforgivable they still want to know who they're fighting and why. On the opposite end a core point of Zenos's character, and the source of many of his problems, is that he doesn't understand others and doesn't care to try, not until his final confrontation with the WoL and his last moments where he's asking them all these questions in an attempt to actually know them rather than just project himself on them like he's always done.

As his Voidsent Avatar, Zero's arc is an extension of this, in a way - see the way she still thinks and talks about Zenos, tries to understand him, while looking to the WoL and their friends to relearn how to human. This fully matures into her making efforts to understand Golbez, and succeeding in offering friendship to him. This is why Golbez's first steps to redemption feel more powerful and moving then if we'd simply defeated him, because it completes a closed circle of trust (doubly so if either Durante or the original Golbez is the Azem shard of the Thirteenth, as some popular theories suggest).

And all of this with the motif of hand-holding/handshakes/reaching out a hand: Zero learning the gesture from Jullus, extending a hand to help Golbez, shaking hands with the WoL as a sign of their friendship; compared to Zenos reaching out his hand towards the WoL at the end, or Durante and Golbez's original attempt to recruit Zero, both of which did not reach, but I think those connections are ultimately fulfilled by the end of this arc.

[saradiation]

Celebrating Fall 🍂🥧🍄‍🟫

Here’s something a little different as I wanted to practice non-characters illustrations and tried to give it a traditional and nostalgic look, almost like it could be part of a children book :) 

[dariusaurs]

i think dinostar is such an interesting ship right now even if i've kind of turned away from it after this season. the problem is that it's complicated, and fandoms historically don't like nuanced situations or takes. i don't think it's fair to say darius is putting brooklynn on a pedestal, since from his perspective, she hasn't done anything wrong, and kenji has been framed as this unfair partner to her. it does feel like his feelings are very immature and more of an infatuation right now ("if he loved you half as much.."/"unless?"), especially when you compare them to kenji's own feelings for brooklynn - his girlfriend who he's loved for 6 years - but that isn't a horrible thing, it's just different. i do completely understand if people dislike the ship right now, and even criticize darius' way of handling the accidental confession, but i just think people have been way too harsh on all three of them without being willing to see that all of their perspectives are different

[atlasisntdead]

Hey unpopular opinion but JJ dying isn't bad writing, it's just sad. It's devastating and I bawled my eyes out, and it sucks that actors not being super professional is possibly what led to this, but it does make sense character wise. Like I can't say it doesn't. And I think they did a great job writing him off, I certainly prefer him dying over being written off Alex Karev style (character assassination of the century). I'm also interested to see how this affects the group.

I don't know, it just seems to me that everytime something unfair happens in a story, there's people saying it's bad writing, but...unfair things happen all the time? That's actually a very interesting thing to explore if done right, and I feel like it was in this case.

[bonejunky6669]

i really don't see harrow ever choosing alecto over gideon. harrows love for alecto seems much more akin to worship- a religious fanatic obsessed with the beauty and ethereal energy of the thing inside the tomb she has worshiped all her life. she also only knows alecto as a corpse and a hallucination, she doesn't know her as a person. harrows love for gideon has been a life-long endeavor full of struggle and conflict and intimacy and shared pain. it is human. they work because they are both so incredibly flawed and they can connect through those flaws. their initial hatred for each other stems from the fact that they know too much about one another. harrow and gideon's relationship is sustainable because it has already survived through so much. i don't see harrow and alecto lasting. not to mention the fact that harrow lobotomized and tortured herself and went to the ends of the earth to get gideon back. even if she doesn't see it herself, she loves gideon more than anyone else in the universe including alecto

[trrenchertrash]

lotsss of rambling here but in the same vein as this post I think there are a lot of elements in s2 that are facing the same issue with audience perception, especially surrounding vi. arcane is not a melodrama that is meant to spend episodes and episodes dwelling on any one character’s feelings or trauma and trying to heal it all while the larger plot is hurtling towards war. It’s not realistic to expect this show to spend 3 episodes dealing with vi’s feelings during her pitfighter stint and learning that she has value outside of being a protector through a relationship with someone like loris. she pushes him away because she’s not in a place to accept that kind of relationship, and a stranger isn’t going to be able to heal or help her in this state. she was never going to learn anything while she was “passed out at the bottom of a mug” because that isn’t a productive or enlightening place to be. the show establishes where she is, shows us how far she’s spiraled, and then it takes her out of that situation and places her in one where she has the opportunity to discover something that will change that. I keep seeing people say that vi needs to realize that she’s worth more than what she can provide for others, and they’re right — but she was never going to learn that from a stranger, because what she needs is to heal the relationships with the loved ones she already has. the show addresses this when vi asks jinx why she came to get her even though she didn’t really need her help. vi’s perspective and position begin to change as soon as she joins jinx and isha because her relationship with them is the catalyst for the realizations her character needs to have. by contrast ,the imagined scenarios where vi gets taken care of by a stranger are not what she needs, in large part because she as a character would never allow that, which is the point of showing her pushing loris away. he’s trying to help her, but she’s not in a place to be helped by him. what does help her is hearing that jinx came after her despite believing that she didn’t truly need her help. what helps her is being in a position where she does ultimately get to help protect jinx and isha despite that, because it reminds her who she is (hello loss of identity arc) and because it makes her realize that she DOES love jinx and she IS still her sister in spite of everything that has happened. what helps her is being in a position where she has a chance at a do over, being in a position where she gets to choose to trust jinx enough to lower her fists and take a chance on the monster who turns out to be her father. being in a position where she gets her family back. THAT'S the healing vi needs.

something something about how vi is angry enough to punch a hallucination of caitlyn in ep 5, but by the time she actually sees her again in ep 6, all that anger is gone. why? what changed? the answer is everything. during her time as a pitfighter vi has nothing. of course she’s lingering on the loss of the last thing she had to hold on to. but between then and when she actually does see caitlyn again, she’s gone from having nothing to having everything. she has her family back. she has a sense of peace we haven’t seen her have maybe ever before. what happened with caitlyn went from being the center of her world to being nearly inconsequential. that doesn’t mean that caitlyn shouldn’t be held accountable or make amends. she should and I think she will. but it’s also understandable that vi is no longer holding on to those volatile feelings in that moment. because what matters is saving vander and her family and that’s what she’s focused on.

meanwhile jinx gets the focus and development she gets because she’s the character that needs it. she’s the character who is occupying a position that is not sustainable, who still needs to make peace with who she is and the role she wants to have. vi doesn’t get that same kind of development because she doesn’t need it. yes, she doesn’t change much and that’s because she’s the constant, the control in a cast of characters who are pushed to change beyond recognition. but what does change for vi is that by the end of arc 2, she's positioned once more as the hero. and she is a hero. arc 1 has vi in a very passive role for the first time. she's always been a character who makes decisions that push the narrative forward for better or worse, but in arc 1 she doesn't actually make a single decision that truly impacts the story until she stops cait from shooting at jinx and isha. she's vulnerable and scared and sad and she lets herself be led around by cait because she's lost. in arc 2 that isn't the case anymore. she's back to making decisions and she's back to doing what she thinks is right. she defends jinx and isha, she seeks help for vander, she wants to stay and help the commune with jinx, to help heal people from the devastation that's been caused. she bests ambessa because she's able to set her anger aside and collaborate with caitlyn. once again she picks herself up and she keeps trying. of all the characters in the show, vi has done the best job of holding onto her "good heart" despite everything she has endured, which is more than most. there's a reason both vander and caitlyn point this out when no other character is ever assessed in such a way. it doesn't mean that vi never makes mistakes. she does. but she never loses sight of the fact that she's trying to do the right thing while others are consumed by hate or vengeance or fear or confusion. vi is the strongest character in the show; even ambessa points out her resilience. no, i don't mean physically. the fact that vi continues to get up, continues to do what she thinks is right, and is able to let go and forgive after everything she's been through — that's real strength.

one thing I will say is that this show is wholly unpredictable, and I think that's part of the audience response. but the arc is there. the development is there. it may not be the arc the audience was expecting, but honestly? I think it's better.

[mars-ipan]

Mars, you have a lot more patience than I would at this point gdhfkjgdsfg. If you'll allow me to choose violence for a second:

-

Hi anon! Did you know you can engage with other people without interpreting every word they use in the worst way possible, making a million assumptions about their background and prescribing opinions to them they've explicitly told you they don't have?

I don't even disagree with all of those rebuttals, but if you want people to engage in discussions with you you have to treat them like human beings, not your opposition in a court case. What are you expecting to get back when you act like this? About nonexistent fingers in his ass guy?

You should at least have got off anon and owned what you said- unless you're using anon to block evade, in which case you should consider respecting people's boundaries.

:D waow…. feeling very cared for in this chili’s tonight

[lunarharp]

into the deep end - 30k T orufrey fic, focusing on memory trauma, disability, and romance.

the sweet oblivion of the victim, the poisoned freedom of the other.

for one moment - it had felt like two parts returned - the needed reunion of two disparate halves. no more secrets, no more pain.

the moment you get to give back what you never wanted to take. that moment, under the night-blooming flowers, when they had both let out the same single broken sigh of relief.

but they were never whole to begin with, were they?

qifrey swore he wouldn't say 'sorry' to this man any more if he could help it - sorry is cheap now. he didn't want to be in a position ever again where you only have 'sorry' left. so he just looks down into the threads of his blanket, strains his eye until it hurts, feeling his insides - his throat, heart and head - burn with pain. he expects more, but olly says nothing.

olly says nothing.

[milesdadworth]

I FORGOT TO POST LAST NIGHT WE FINISHED AAI2

WE GOT THE ICONIQUE 'THAT MAN SHINES BRILLIANTLY' WAHTEVER LINE

i am a little sad phoenix didn't get to be anywhere near this amazing character growth moment for edgeworth but thats the basic nrmt bitch in me

was also very sad at the end when it's like WE'LL CONTINUE ON THIS PATH AND MEET AGAIN ONE DAY to all the characters we know we have not seen since this game :(( AA7 free our characters from the capcom basement :((

[uncanny-tranny]

There's something so insane to me about being able to create and recreate vintage or even ancient music, clothes, fabrics, building architecture, anything, really.

I watched this video about a lady who knit a WWII-era vest, and it was really unique, because the cable work would eat up yarn, when there were shortages of fibers. This pattern would have likely been used by people to send overseas to soldiers, and now it's being created in a time where this war has been over for generations. What were the people making this pattern thinking of? What about the people making the vest? Could they fathom a world where world wars didn't happen back to back? Could they imagine what peace felt like, or did it fade like a distant memory, a faint friend? All we have now are the remnants of their efforts, a "simple" vest that would warm the bodies of countless people the knitter would never have imagined were here on earth with them.

We're reaching across time to learn about other people - we're reaching our hands out just to grasp anything tangible. And when we've take hold of something, all we can do is say I love you I love you I love you

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

Macavity's downfall is - and always was - his own ambition.

[verygayandverytired]

just finished lorelei and the laser eyes. unbelievably good puzzle game. a true genuine 10/10. it might not end up being my favorite game of the year, but it is absolutely the BEST game of the year