#guess I can give this a tag

[mikokat]

any tiger zoro fans?

[verflares]

(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:

"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"

[paesthethyc]

clown behaviours

[tigitaldurtle]

A comfort character is where you are the one comforting said character, right?

Haha just kidding but I am indeed inconsolable when it comes to Stan Pines. I needed to give every version of him a hug or ELSE!!!

Bonus under the cut!

You didn't think I forgot about teenage Stan, did you? He needs a hug the most. I just didn't know how to fit him into the comic aogijaigjewwio

[gleeful-side]

Checking the contraband

Aaaaaand some more legion sketches

[deoidesign]

Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between

[samwitcch]

concept designs for the zombie apocalypse au i'm working on - pt. 2 (small au details under the cut regarding their wardrobe)

---

max's design

takes off her jean jacket during supply runs / fights - used to be billy's jacket

signature weapon is a sawblade baseball bat - was taught how to swing from billy but the bat was modified by dustin

lucas' design

has started wearing jackets less and switched to dress shirts - the jackets were getting in the way of his new shoulder holster

signature weapon is a crossbow / revolver - the best marksman of the group and most knowledgeable with guns (his dad taught him everything as a war veteran) can really use anything!

dustin's design

found his vest off of some dead biker guy, thought it looked sick, and hasn't taken it off since - he puts pins on it to personalize it

no real signature weapon because he tends to stick away from fighting, more support - he knows basic fighting skills but is a beast with his crafted weapons (e.g. bomb traps, molotovs, etc)

is the pack mule when it comes to supply runs - he stays with mike and will to scout but brings a heavy backpack with possible backup supplies / weapons if need be

---

other notes: wanted to share that the apocalypse starts in 2019 while the kids were born in 2015. the first arc of the story takes place in apocalyptic 2028 and so on (their current designs are for arc 3). reason? i wanted them to experience some of the music and technology up to the 21st century :] i'll make a more official story thing later! maybe i'll write something for this au or draw a comic? idk my creative writing skills are pretty weak but we'll never know until we try LMAO

[nell0-0]

AHHHH! He lost his EYE in the war! AHHHH!

I am perfectly normal about your last comic. I swear. Very normal. Just...not at all sobbing and emotional over it. You should know that. Definitely. ;_;

It's so good and so sad!

Yep ;u;

Glad you liked it tho!

Take the broken mask drawing as symbolism (?). A piece of him is now forever a part of Mask, and there's no taking that back.

There are many protrayals of Fierce Deity out there, but I like to think he ain't necessarily mean (quite the contrary), just a bit out of touch with how hylians work and feel. Fierce Deity deemed some things necessary for Mask's survival and well being, and not necessarily all of them were free of consequences. It was done with good intentions tho. If only he bothered to explain/tell Mask that...

Tormenting Twilight a bit is fun sometimes too ksksks

> Context about the ask HERE

> Twili Twilight looks HERE

> Continuation of this HERE

[creativitysloyalservant]

i have decided to break my lack of original posting on this blog to bring you my Thoughts on Rot in Paradise. because i played it as soon as i got up this morning and i have scoured for some opinions after finishing it, and now i have my own!!

(and also i posted this on twitter but twitter has such a Shit wordcount that i'm also posting my things here with More Detail)

so! spoilers under the cut, please go and play the game if you haven't. it takes literally an hour (it only took nearly 2 hours for me because i like voice acting by myself and exploring every nook and cranny) and it's also free. so maybe come back into the tag once you're done.

okay, so i noticed quite a number of people being confused and disappointed on the lack of an explanation for the monster. it's brought up in the story as the central thing driving the plot, but it's never explained on what "she" is, why she's compelling people to eat a ton of fish-related food or hell, metal, and why this doesn't impact June at all.

but you know what I think?

i think that that's the point. the focus of rot in paradise isn't supposed to be on the monster.

yeah, it's the thing that pushes the plot along besides June and the gang going on vacation in this island. it's what's causing that uneasiness from the moment that guy grabs June's arm at the drinks, to the sheer unnerving feeling of witnessing people going to the ocean to get Raptured basically. i know i personally felt a chill when i saw that one dude literally eating chains and the other hauling an anchor, as if they're trying to make themselves heavier so they get taken by whatever She is.

but that's not the main point! the main conflict is about June and her friends.

as people have pointed out, this game is about toxic friendships and relationships! it's foreshadowed in the conversation that June has with the gang about her cousin (which i will also get into), and it carries it through the way her friends are horribly warped by this ocean Creature. June goes on a silly little vacation trip with her friends only for them to become so so different from themselves that they lash out at her and even hit her in McCoy's case.

but she still sticks it out with them. through the whole game, even despite their verbal abuse, despite being slapped, despite them being people that she can hardly recognise. she stays with them for the whole game, up until the point where you are given the two options at the very end. and she could still stay with them.

because they're still her friends. she cares about them even if they still hurt her. from the way June still tells Carmen to tell June if she needs anything after Carmen literally tells her to shut up and leave, the way June worries about Vonnie eating seafood even though she continues to stuff herself despite being implied to either hate or make an active choice to not eat seafood, to the way June still trudges out to sea screaming for McCoy to come back to the shore as he wades further in even after he slapped her until her nose bled.

it mirrors the conversation about her cousin, the reason for why June was looking forward to the vacation. that while she did comfort her cousin through all of it, June clearly says that "they were dickheads, and she should have ditched them a long time ago".

but it's funny, isn't it? that June, an outsider to her cousin's friend group, easily sees the pain that her cousin's friends are causing her, and immediately calls it as it is. that her cousin should have left the second they hurt her.

and yet now, when her friends hurt her, even though this was a quick and sudden change that happened in a span of three days, June still sticks around. her friends are dickheads right now, and we can see that in the way they interact with June, but she still stays.

because they're her friends. and how could she just leave them like this if it's something that's causing them to be this way?

so no, i don't think the monster is supposed to be the main picture. we don't need to know what it looks like, or why it needs to do this to the islanders, or how it's even doing it in the first place. it adds to the scariness of the game, as per the Spooktober Game Jam, sure, but that's not the point. might be a bit disappointing to some, but that's not the point.

the point is about June, and the choice that she needs to make at the end of the game.

it's a choice on whether she chooses to be pulled deeper into the tides and be with the friends who hurt her and will continue to hurt her in this way,

or to leave them to their fates, whether deserved or not, and resurface to a world where she's alone without her friends.

and even though the first choice hurts much more in the long run, doesn't the second hurt even more in the moment? knowing that you're alone at the end of all of this?

even if it is the right choice, i'm sure the pain must be unbearable in the moment.

[bayetea]

there are many things about hazel's povs that have an intensely de-racialized vibe to them (read: divorced from the black girl experience) but I think any black person will tell you that the most obvious sign is the complete lack of attention paid to her hair

like firstly:

she's from the 1930s her hair was definitely getting permed and straightened (it was not acceptable to just wear your natural hair out back then. optics + cultural assimilation/you'll be hard pressed to find photos of black american girls with unstraightened hair in that time period unless they're from like..... harlem)

I do believe that marie was straightening it for her For A Time but then she became more neglectful and stopped so hazel had to do it herself. I'm almost positive that hazel wouldn't have even been permitted to set foot in her school building without straightening it because that's just how much of an expectation it was

ok she comes back from the dead. what's she doing to her hair now bc it's not just gonna be cutesy effortless curls falling over her shoulder no matter what the length is

how does she feel about living in a time period where natural black hair is more accepted (read: more, absolutely not fully)

there are no black people around her At All. in fact she's around a lot of white people on the argo (+nico) so that would probably be giving her some intense feelings of double consciousness (look this term up if you don't know what it means) and that would inform how she feels about her hair

theoretically she ought to be wearing her hair in braids for simplicity's sake but I think it's more likely that she would cling to what she knows (perming/straightening) because it's not easy for a 14 year old girl (PSA hazel is 14.5 in hoo not 13 btw 👍) to go from assimilating to deeply-ingrained white hair beauty standards to just proudly wearing a distinctly black hairstyle all by herself

mind you black women and girls can do whatever they want with their hair and straightening/perming it does not always/have to come from a place of self-hatred or whatever but in this particular case back then straightening one's hair was political And a survival tactic. it was as normal as brushing your teeth. it was enforced through dominant cultural messagings about the Absolute Necessity of conforming to white conventions of beauty. if you don't understand then think of it similarly to how you'd think of 1930s women needing to be perpetually dolled up and modestly dressed in order to be considered "good women" and anyways I'm just saying that this would be a lot to unpack for a 14 year old girl so hazel's probably just continuing to do this impractical thing (straightening her hair all the time) like 60% out of habit and 20% out of shame and 20% she doesn't know what else to do

something something about a missed potential character arc regarding all of this and in general there's so little mind paid to race in hazel's povs which is just ridiculous to me because a black girl from the jim crow era should have at least a few feelings about where she fits into modern society even if that society is camp jupiter. rick demonstrates his capacity to talk about how his characters feel about their race most notably in the kane chronicles so I don't think was too much to ask for. see this quote from an early son of neptune chapter:

^ like....... hazel's feelings of out-of-place-ness are There in the text and important to take note of when understanding her character (note that she's been there for like a year already and she still feels like she doesn't belong) but the emphasis is always put on her Being from a different time or Being undead and is never put on her out-of-place-ness regarding her race as a black girl from segregation times who is literally so out-of-place in this weird post-racial camp jupiter society. it feels like such an obvious thing to consider so its glaring absence really bugs me when I reread her povs and it bugs me when her hair is never talked about by extension because It Matters

you might be thinking "well she had a lot going on and she's not a superficial person maybe she just didn't care what was going on with her hair" and my response is simply that Black girls don't get to "not care" about their hair it is not the same thing as a white person going to school with bedhead it's not the same thing At All (if you aren't black then chances are you've never actually seen what untouched black hair looks like in the morning), especially when it's been beaten into your head for your entire life that your hair is ugly and you have to "do something to it" for it to be acceptable (and again...... she's from the 1930s so that feeling is magnified like 50x over). remember that perpetually dolled up modest 1930s woman I mentioned previously. picture her time traveling to camp jupiter of all places in 2010 and struggling to drop all of her makeup/hairstyling routines and internalized misogyny and conceptualizations of what women are "supposed" to be. this is the kind of fascinating character exploration that we really missed out on with hazel (and tbh regardless of her race she was never believably written as someone from the 1930s. I don't think rick even really tried to be honest)

you might also be wondering "how was rick supposed to know/attempt to portray any of that" and then my second answer is that If you're going to write a character who is not the same race as you then you should do some research and we have the internet now so research has never been easier 👍 this would be especially important to do if that person is a poc from the jim crow era I think! (he could have at least googled black hair 1930s)

anyways what I choose to believe (this is pure fanfiction) is that during hazel's first year at camp jupiter (remember that she was there for about a year before son started) nico would have helped her figure something out after observing her distress over her hair c: like they both secretly watched youtube videos on black hairstyles circa 2010 and then they got attacked by monsters for using a laptop (neither of them know how to use a laptop but he's trying his best for her) but then after killing them he helped her do her hair as something she likes that is easy to maintain <3 (I could also see reyna doing this because she surely knows a thing or two from her spa days)

[mobius-m-mobius]

You wanna hear a good story? Listen to this one.

Mobius + comfort

[shroomerr]

I love this orange airpod

[valcaine]

sea snakes are not good on land so I had the idea he just, mass crawled anywhere he went,,, instead of regularly slithering upright lolsies

[jasperthejester]

me: finally accepting theres a good chance im autistic and starting to work up the courage to ask my parents to see if i could get a diagnoses but being scared to

my mom: do you ever think you have adhd? if you want to do a screening for add next time your at the doctors you can

me:

[tomurakii]

Seeing Silco and Vander together in the AU lowkey feels like watching your based nonbinary best friend get back with their shitty ex boyfriend who misgenders them. Girl he's a centrist and he tried to drown you stfu about "forgiveness"

[classic-blue]

Nature of the Arcane- Positive and Negative Energy

(For reference, Arcane = the series; arcane = the magic) Come help me figure out how the heck the magic system of Arcane works.

What is the anomaly? Why was it born? Why is it that other mages in the series don't seem to cause anomalies, but Hextech does?

I refuse to be content with a magic=good or magic=bad explanation, and Arcane loves to play with nuance. I was trying to sort out my thoughts on why some magic has bad side effects while others don't, and this is where I'm sitting now. My (spit-balled, half-baked, and probably leaking) thesis:

The arcane/using magic has 2 separate outputs: the order you placed (Hextech) and the resulting exhaust (wild runes; the anomaly). Hextech can use runes to control magic, but there's a second output of natural, wild magical energy, that Hextech doesn't account for. Both of these energies can build up, and when they're reunited, they have explosive reactions (see: Mage Viktor's world, the final blip that takes Jayce and Viktor, and possibly various smaller explosions throughout the series).

For example, when positive and negative charges meet, lightning strikes.

Justification below the cut.

Science break! Ever been shocked by static electricity? That's because of a buildup of one charge, say positive, on you, and a buildup of negative charge on another object. Nature loves balance, so when you two touch, the charges discharge in a shock that connects the positive and negative charges and allows them to balance out. Size this idea up big enough, and you get lightning- powerful, fast, and destructive.

More importantly though, you can't just charge positive energy, without also charging negative energy at the same time-  creating one by necessity creates the other, so that there's an overall balance of electricity types (hey look, a metaphor, creating one inevitably leads to the other…).

Let's carry this idea over to the arcane. What if there's a 'positive' magic and a 'negative' magic output?

(Note, I use the electricity words here intentionally- positive/negative do not mean in a cosmic/moral/ethical way, but in a scientific, 'hey we need 2 connected words to separate these concepts' sort of way.)

Positive: Hextech; runes; the intended output. Teleportation, levitation, everything we see it accomplish.

Negative: the wild rune, the anomaly; the unintended output.

And, when the two come together, lightning strikes.

Lightning 1- Viktor vs Ekko's Z-drive. Viktor spends S2 becoming a centralized conduit of 'positive' magic, via the Hexcore and top ups from the crystals under the Hexgates. As the Machine Herald, the claw is continually using runes and doing magic behind him. In short, he's been building up a lot of positive magical energy. When Ekko chucks the Z-drive at him, it's powered by an anomaly, or 'negative' magical energy. Put the two forces together, and let the fireworks happen; a part of the Machine Herald's mask gets struck off in the blast. (But the Z-drive has less negative energy than Viktor's positive, so it doesn't totally wipe him out.)

Lightning 2- Viktor and Jayce's rainbow time. Jayce's acceleration rune might be the negative magical energy in this case (since it travels with him via Mage Viktor's anomaly), paired with the anomaly that Viktor grabbed beneath the Hexgate. That works in opposition to Viktor's compiled positive magical energy via the Hexcore and similar products. With these together, the balance between positive and negative is reached, achieving net neutral magic dispersion, and of course, an implosion that sucks in (or teleports, we can be happy) Jayce and Viktor, ending the conflict.

Perhaps in Mage Viktor's timeline, a similar explosion occurs, resulting in the destruction that we see Jayce traverse in the alternate timeline. But in the main timeline, Jayce and Viktor were able to contain that explosive potential to just themselves, via Jayce's acceleration rune.

"Pass me a tome" Jayce's (quoting Viktor) explanation of the anomaly/wild rune (S2:E3)

Jayce says that Viktor theorized that wild runes are "patterns that would occur naturally where the border between our world and the Arcane is thin." By the theory, wild runes are expressions of magic not quantifiable by traditional runes- natural outputs of magic that are uncontrollable and untamable.

This still works with my positive vs negative theory- it's just that Hextech, and by extension the boys, are only viewing it from the perspective of positive energy (they accessed magic, but really only half of it). From that view, negative charge, which they can't interpret why it's building up or that it even is, might look pretty wild and untamable- however, we see mages control this negative magical energy. Mage Viktor uses the anomaly to send Jayce back to his timeline. The Machine Herald is able to transport it and start to destroy/convert the world.

Because it's still a useable product, so long as you understand what it actually is, I'm not fully content to say that the anomaly is an entirely wild thing, or an unpredictable force. It's possible that Mage Viktor intentionally manipulated it to send Jayce, Ekko, and Heimerdinger to their temporary alternate universes to set in motion events to save the main timeline. I think the anomaly definitely has somewhat volatile characteristics, a bit more chaotic perhaps, but it's still controllable.

(Additionally, Ekko breaks time using both hex shards (assuming they're still in the Z-drive, I'm not sure off the top of my head), and a tiny anomaly. The fact that he's able to control it to a degree also shows that the anomaly is not fully wild and untamable.)

I suppose my overarching feeling is that the anomaly is not necessarily better or worse, or more dangerous, than the 'positive' magic of Hextech- it's just a different, inevitable byproduct of magic use.

Then why don't mages cause anomalies and 'lightning strikes'?

Simple- they know how to account for both positive and negative energy in their spellwork. They know how to equate a balance, so nothing blows up in their faces.

Granted, the only mages we really see in Arcane are Mel, the Black Rose, and Mage Viktor, and the only real discussions we get about magic is from either the Hextech nerds or Heimerdinger, who may not be working with the full picture of how the arcane works. Our sources with regards to actual mage work in Arcane are pretty thin (and I probably need to rewatch Mel's S2 scenes).

But the Black Rose mentions as Mel leaves that (paraphrased) 'it's a dangerous world out there for a solitary mage.' This seems to imply that mages work best in collaboration- perhaps that allows for a balance between positive and negative energies, preventing 'lightning strikes.'

The real point- The Need for Collaboration

While the obvious theme to be drawn from this is the need for balance, another interesting one is the need for collaboration. If mages in Arcane indeed do work together to prevent destructive magical fallout, this again points back to a core element of Arcane's relationships:

Things (magic in particular) work best in collaboration.

That's how the boys crack Hextech

That's how Jinx and Vi start to bring Vander back and reconcile

That's how Viktor and Sky work in the commune

That's how Ekko, Powder, and Heimerdinger crack Hextech again

That's how Caitlyn and Ambessa start to work, and how the lack of honest collaboration exposes Ambessa's selfish gains and weakens Caitlyn emotionally and politically

That's how Mel literally does everything politically (and why her arc narratively suffers when she's on her own against the Black Rose for so long [I still love her tho])

That's how Piltover and Zaun fend off Ambessa's assault

That's how Viktor and Jayce end it- together.

More assorted thoughts on this topic:

This theory somewhat requires that the arcane is not conscious, not retaliating for Hextech using magic improperly, which is debatable. The Black Rose says "the arcane is waking up," which could imply a sentient force, or simply a natural force like how the world 'wakes up' to spring after winter. Ekko also claims that Jayce 'pissed off' the arcane, which Jayce is cutely embarrassed about, which is a possibility, but not one that I'm getting into here- it's entirely possible that Ekko is also wrong! Jayce and Viktor frequently are! (also, the hexcore being sentient does not necessarily mean that the arcane is sentient- Viktor describes it as a learning matrix, so it could very much be a Flubber situation. He done taught the rubix cube science before ethics.)

As Viktor brings Jayce up to the top of the Hexgate, Viktor winds the anomaly in his staff and talks about the balance between order and chaos- maybe positive magic is one and negative the other?

@avelera and @linddzz were throwing around some awesome thoughts similar to this strain, including how it looks like Mage Viktor 'cleans up' the smoke output of the spell in the snowstorm. Their theory is that what I call positive and negative energy is actually constructive vs destructive force in equal output from the Arcane, and that balance between those two types is needed (i.e. if you want magic to do what you want, you also need to let it blow up some stuff) which would also explain what I've called lightning here. Definitely worth a read!

There are so many holes in this theory, but I still wanted to organize my thoughts about the anomaly, Hextech, and how Arcane tells the audience to view magic. In S1, Hextech is all good and great, possibly dangerous, but in S2, Hextech and its byproducts are all infectious, destructive, and never productive. I found the switch a little jarring, and went searching for a deeper meaning.

Also… does this mean that Arcane is actually a big metaphor for the dangers and impacts of technological advancement on natural society and how Mother Nature will come back to bite us all in the butt? Has Arcane been a secret Ghibli film all along???