#can’t wait for things to get better

[katanaski-main]

Heartbroken dying of allergies and taking care of sick babies . Pray for me

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

Danny Fenton, aka Phantom, has been given a new task!

In short, literally no one in the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms wants their mostly peaceful afterlife to be rocked by a certain Gotham rogue named Joker. Which, when he dies, is almost sure to happen because of whatever the hell was in that vat he dropped in included ectoplasm. So, yay, he’s also a little ghostly too, meaning he *is* pretty hard to kill. Unfortunately, there’s also a certain vigilante that is quite keen to murder him in recent years.

So now Danny has to keep the mass murderer trauma clown alive for as long as he possibly can while attempting to keep the Joker from. Well. Being the Joker.

Oh, and naturally, Danny got this assignment AFTER Joker got out of Arkham. Again. And entirely blew up the asylum. Time to join the Goonion, he is NOT doing this without getting PAID, thank you.

[inthehouseoffinwe]

Finarfin Fades.

No one expects it, no one’s faded in Valinor since Miriel. The War of Wrath is won and he comes back, waving off the courtiers, well wishers, and congratulators with his usual grace, and walks into the palace of Tirion. To rooms abandoned since their owners left so long ago. Winding deeper and deeper his feet take him to what was once Finwë’s favourite garden.

He’s so tired.

He’s fulfilled his promise to Fëanaro and Nolofinwë, to avenge them. To make the agony of their final moments - agony Finarfin felt, falling to the floor screaming as fire and darkness consumed his spirit - count for something. Now Morgoth is finally gone, but he’s not the only one.

His brothers, larger than life, larger than death, are gone. With them his sons. Niece. Nephews. Grandchildren. His daughter is never to return. He Saw little Nelyo’s death in his dreams and is sure hopes for the child’s own sake that Makalaurë will be close behind.

Little remains. Even less on these golden shores.

So Finarfin sits on a bench long overgrown with vines and weeds, and watches the sun filter through the thicket, wishing the ghosts he sees in his father’s garden would flesh out.

He sits. He waits.

And by the time anyone finds him, it’s too late.

…at least he’s smiling again.

[softdefault]

i tried so hard to fight it but im just actually so disappointed with veilguard.

as a video game, its fine! the gameplay is fun and it’s visually stunning. but as a dragon age game it’s… not good. even if we somehow ignore all the massive world breaking lore inconsistencies, it’s supposed to be a story heavy RPG. but it’s so shallow, so surface level. there are so many issues with so many of the decisions the devs or ea or whoever made leading to the final state of this game and it’s actually so sad.

I feel like im grieving what could’ve been, making new saves in hopes it’ll somehow be better this time around, and it just isn’t.

[ilovebeingaturtle]

I love headcanoning that the whole Triceraton mind device severely messed with Don’s memory abilities but I also think he’s the type of person to be so hyperfocused on the present and future that he doesn’t even notice at first. Like it’s not until weeks later where he completely blanked out on a request Leo asked of him that morning or when he realises he can’t recall what their old home looked like anymore that he goes

“Uh. Well that’s not good…”

[pixelatedraindrops]

You can't just leave him to suffer all alone Makoto... ;w;

So this is essentially a role-reverse of this comic XD (idk why)

Makoto may be super moody and fussy when he catches the flu; but if Yuma catches the flu, he's super needy and clingy when delirious. And it looks like Makoto can't say no to him... x'D

I guess your work is going to have to wait after all. Now you better properly take care of your sick original! (just try not to get sick yourself hehe)

I know this comic is usually supposed to be heartwarming but...I made it more silly.

because they're silly lil' guys... x'D

Based on another skit from @foxes-in-love

[froggtogs]

still trying to figure out style stuff (this time with four!)

[concha-de-mar]

one of my favorite aspects of super hero shows is watching the hero(es) develop in terms of battle prowess and intellect but it’s a lot more exciting with Terry because he has to be Batman

[colouringbuck]

Sorry for going completely M.I.A for over a month, it was not my intention, but I ended up in a severe burnout which culminated in a bit of a breakdown and so I’ve spent the last few weeks recovering and without the ability to do much on social media.

To everyone who has tagged me or sent asked etc that I haven’t responded to in any way, I love you all for thinking of me and including me in things/sending asks etc hope you all know that it wasn’t on you and that if I had been able to, I would’ve been responding and championing all your creativity etc.

Burnout and a breakdown is not a fun way to spend my time, but I’m starting to feel better and feel able to get back to being online. I had so many plans for posts I wanted to write this hiatus, not sure I’ll get many of them out now but I will put some things out over the next few weeks! I have no idea what’s been going down for the most part in my absence - which is probably a good thing tbh - so bear with me if I end up going over things fandom has already discussed ad nauseum 🤓

Anyway - it’s good to be back and can’t wait to catch up with everything and everyone

[valkyurii]

it’s funny how things have gone full circle with malenia. she was so hated when the game first came out, but then people grew to like her. then the dlc came out and now people hate her again lmao

[distraughtlesbian]

this might singlehandedly obliterate all my cred as a person with good opinions in this fanbase but across the void is. kind of not that bad.

[daisyachain]

I wonder what the thought process was behind introducing Mel into the Jayce-Viktor subplot specifically. The game lore has them as a bread-and-butter flip of the superhero/supervillain dynamic where the supervillain is noble and the superhero is a jerk. Also hewing to the superhero/supervillain tropes, they’re close friends before they have an explosive blowup that turns them into devoted rivals. Classic, well-trodden, tropey set of mutually obsessed characters who read like X and Magneto (films) or Spider-Man and Green Goblin (Raimi films) or Wolverine and Sabretooth or Obi-Wan and Anakin or any one of approximately five billion matched sets.

While the superhero/supervillain sets have one more prominent character (the hero), Jayce and Viktor are designed to be equal parts of it in a trite well-neither-one-is-actually-good storyline. They’re specifically created to be equal and opposite. Mel is inserted right into the subplot of both of that duo. More on that later.

Now, Jinx and Vi are also a matched set of stories. From game lore, Vi is tied to Caitlyn’s lore. Arguably Sevika, Isha, Vander, Silco are inserted between them in much the same way. From just the basic source material, Viktor technically has Blitzcrank as his other major lore connection. Plus it’s League. Treating the source material with reverence…probs not a good idea for writing a narrative. Arcane has to sand down the really rough-sketched archetypes into something resembling a proper story.

The web of connections between the Zaun and Piltover characters does get fleshed out. Jayce gets connected to Caitlyn as her mentor-figure and (much more loosely) Vi as a bash bro. Viktor gets Sky as an OC story partner. Mel should be just another node in the spreading network that Arcane builds between the existing lore points.

What stands out is that she doesn’t have clear ties to the existing lore Jayce lab—as a new MC/Champion, it does make some sense to have her be her own central node rather than an accessory. She spends most of her time with new characters or with Jayce. In s1, mostly Jayce, in s2, mostly herself. Her alliance with Caitlyn starts up pretty abruptly at the 11th hour. Mel feels disconnected from the cast in a way that can highlight her as a sort of third party third way political leader, but also one that puts a lot of pressure on her relationship with Jayce to express and carry her character

The cracks become clearer when you refer to her mom. Ambessa’s in the same spot as a new champion, her only proper connection is to her OC daughter, and she integrates much more seamlessly into the show for better or for worse. Mel’s relationships with her spy, her assistant, Heimerdinger even Viktor show off Mel’s professional side, which tells us precious little about her under that surface. Jayce and Ambessa are the ones around which she reveals a little more. Ambessa, on the other hand, lives out loud and has a pretty emotionally intense connection with daughter (domineering mom), her henchman (possibly more…?), and Caitlyn (substitute evil daughter). Singed and Viktor are also in her posse, but we won’t count them as their dynamics with her aren’t illuminating.

Mel is a pivotal character in Arcane, more plot-critical than the nominal main (Vi) with far more screentime than the fan favourite (Ekko), and one of the few mains who doesn’t do a stint as a villain (alongside Vi and Jayce). Her role in the plot is to push Jayce’s research to the point where his magic becomes practicable (s1), then to take responsibility for her mother’s misdeeds (s2). She and Jayce arguably form the Big Good alliance to Ambessa and Viktor’s Big Bad; while not the emotional core of the show, those four get the last word in on the plot while the Vi-Jinx subplot gets foundered upon the rocks of ‘i forgor.’ (The character stuff for Vi and Jinx remains strong; they just cease to have any impact on the things that happen in the story). Mel is also The Mage; more than the hextech, she embodies the discovery that the show is supposed to be about.

So: Mel is the one true mage character in a series called Arcane and the one main character that Arcane needed to set up within its own runtime. The only connection she is given to the remaining world is via a relationship with Jayce, a character locked in binary orbit around one (1) single other character in the source material. It does make sense to have Mel introduced meddling in magic, pushing forward the research that will ultimately clue her into her own powers.

It does feel awkward to have her interactions be with a character who textually canonically is always thinking about something else. Mel is the one who gives Jayce the ideas that escape him—the mettle to reach beyond his caution, the sway and savvy to enter politics—because they’re living in two completely different worlds. The substance of their connection isn’t bonding over any shared interest in the process of discovery (Mel clearly holds her own as an arcanist as we see from her diagrams in the mind prison, but it’s not on screen) or in games of words/meanings/people (THE key character trait for Jayce is him being the most tone deaf man in the world). They are interested in magic, but the substance of their interactions is them each saying things at each other without communicating. The most intense moments in their relationship are mediated, triggered, or broken by Viktor of all people [trombone noises]. Who Mel doesn’t know from Adam.

In other words, Mel doesn’t have many characters to bounce off of to show different parts of her personality. The intent was to have her come off as cold in public with a soft side for Jayce, but we see so much of her soft side that she comes off as a straightforward nice rich girl coming out of her shell. To my memory, she doesn’t spend any time having much proper dialogue with Caitlyn (the nice rich girl gone cold to her cold rich girl gone nice), Viktor (literally always there), or even Silco (a fellow icy diplomat with a soft spot). While Jayce is around, she’s his girlfriend, which doesn’t work because Jayce is permanently, unilaterally, and plot-endingly tied to a different character to the exclusion of all else, carried from og lore into the tv show.

When Jayce isn’t around, her interactions with her spy do something to give her back her personality of a ruthlessly efficient operator. However, she gets locked in Character Development prison for half of s2 and fights her way out by…force of personality. Her magic use isn’t tied to the empathy that’s supposedly the source, and we don’t see her analyze it or take it to bits as fellow scientist Viktor does. As someone else pointed out, she loses the cunning part of her that makes her Mel and becomes just a white mage for the entire last quarter until she pulls her Black Rose double cross. Which is cool.

All that is to say in a very disjointed way: Mel has a lot riding on her, but it doesn’t come together. Jayce takes up a lot of her screentime for a relationship ultimately written to end, and not just to end, but to be preceded consumed and eclipsed by Jayce’s existing lore. She’s isolated by a cast of OCs without making the logical connections to the other main characters, and she doesn’t even have a distinct relationship written for a man she’s spent years with in the trenches (Viktor). She lacks a showy personality in a series full of characters designed to be as over-the-top hammy as possible, she lacks stakes in the pre-existing characters’ fight, and her ultimate power-up does not tap into her most distinct traits (thinking outside the box). She does get one crowning moment, but I was waiting a very long time for her to get out of them chains.

[rinnysega]

I’m really in a mode of I LOVE WRITING, CHARLIE! I LOVE WRITINGGGG today lol

There’s some days where I miss the brainrot of a fandom/posting to AO3, but coming up with an original antagonist’s most devastating line, the poetry for the characters’ journals, arcs that come together so wonderfully, getting actual professionals to tear up over original content???? That my brain made????

It’s unmatched to what I know I’m capable of doing with my thoughts, emotions, and words ❤️

[slozhnos]

for newcomers to the kotlc fandom on tumblr:

first of all, hey welcome! feel free to introduce yourself!

it’s always great to have new members of this part of the fandom, but it could be helpful to have some general guidelines for new people.

if you use fanart for your profile picture, make sure to credit the original artist if it isn’t you, and the same goes for reposting art, as many artists don’t allow that. it is important to let the artists be recognized for their work.

when it comes to characters and ships, you have to be respectful and polite. you can criticize a character or ship, but don’t constantly bash on them. even if you don’t like them, it isn’t acceptable to hate on them or those who do. there isn’t a reason to be rude based on their opinions on their favorite characters or ships.

thank you for reading this post, and i’m very happy to welcome you to our corner of the fandom!!

[alistairs]

Since this pc can’t run the game fr without catching fire all I’ve been doing is fucking around in the cc so pls enjoy Anson past, present and future.

[ssruis]

Going through a straight up comical amount of irritating situations to get the stupid 4* guaranteed ticket from the welcome to sekai campaign. It Will Be Mine.