#incoming feels

[yunhuntress]

@starvingtongue asked: 🛑 (from Paine)

There was so much blood and yet Fang did not yield in the fight. She only grew more feral to shield Paine and their people from harm until the enemies were wiped out. It left the huntress looking like a red river that could stand on two legs. Exhaustion won out in the end as she collapsed into Paine's arms when she could finally let herself relax for a moment.

When green eyes awoke, she felt herself being cleaned. Looking around, she realized she was laying in a safe place where her wounds were slowly mending on their own. She glanced to her right to find Paine who worked to continue cleaning up her form. Clothing had been trashed through the fight and Fang sighed. At least her sari was safe as she had forgone that before the battle.

"I should remind you I'm not going to leave you alone in this world, hm?" Fang murmured gently.

"I didn't need protecting at this cost to you, Fang."

The huntress shifted to sit upright ignoring the pain in her ribs as she did so. She reached out to stop Paine only to lean in to kiss her deeply for a few moments. As she drew back, she gently caressed her warrior's cheek. "You are priceless to me, Paine."

[astorkes]

well, her guard needs work

[chechula]

Another random comic diary. I have a really tiresome job I should be doing(commission comic about washing machines. really. x_x) so I am drawing a lot of other things to avoid working on it :3

[ghosted-jazz]

Species Swap AU! Retired couple gets a fairy godchild to help repair their relationship

[manny-jacinto]

#the father the son and the holy spirit

[idolomantises]

Twitter does fascinate me, because I feel like tumblr has been a lot more accepting of people who draw women with big boobs, who draw adult art on the side, and who aren't afraid of being sensual and intimate.

But twitter seems to be actively terrified of anything that could turn them on. For years I've been harassed for my art. Way back in 2020 I was called out for "sexualizing" Ankha, but this was the image they were referring to.

This fear of adult works and porn has to end man. Queer artists shouldn't be harassed or labeled as bad, untrustworthy people because they want to draw women with curves or big chests, or draw some NSFW art on the side.

[rizsnt]

pull the blanket tight now or whatever the kids are saying

[uldahstreetrat]

I started writing fiction has a hobby when I was 7 years old and to the credit of the adults around me it was encouraged, but it was always followed with the warning that it was hard to make money this way. when I was 12 I started taking my art and drawing more seriously and that warning grew louder, drowning out the encouragement I saw from it.

and now even as a grown ass adult I can't be creative for too long without those comments coming slithering up my back to tell me I'm wasting my time because these creative endeavors don't make much in the way of money. these are one of the few things I have that I am entirely intrinsically motivated to continue doing but the consequences of being warned against it at every turn leaves me questioning myself and my worth.

so I just want to say, to remind both you and myself, that it's worth it. creation is always worth it if it makes you happy and you don't have to prove that to yourself or anyone else.

please, keep making the things you make.

[anghraine]

I finally read a good article about Austen and eighteenth-century socioeconomics that gives rough approximations of eighteenth-century prices/incomes in modern (I think c. 2014) currency, but is appropriately emphatic about just how rough those approximations must always be given drastic differences in the economic worlds we live in. It's actually much more about the economics than Austen, and particularly about how much descriptions of "middling" incomes and what was affordable to people who had those incomes is still a conversation about a tiny, tiny elite in terms of the overall population at the time.

Austen-wise, though, the author also found room for a tangent in which he goes off on a scathing condemnation of Mr Bennet in socioeconomic terms, which I do love to see. Most baronets generally had land and incomes far closer to Mr Bennet's than Darcy's and yet Mr Bennet can't be bothered to even slightly provide for his children's futures beyond what was legally required by his marriage settlement (even the girls' meagre inheritances mostly come from Mrs Bennet's money rather than his). The author acknowledges the passage about Mr Bennet saving to counteract Mrs Bennet's extravagance and also how this is an indictment of Mr Bennet as well as Mrs Bennet, something that criticisms of him often skate past, and even points out how enthusiastic Mr Bennet is about the convenience of Darcy paying for it all in a way that can be read as funny and endearing, but also as distastefully shameless.

Anyway, it was nice to enjoy an academic text again, lol.

[is-this-yuri]

hey yall, i just ran out of food stamps and cash yesterday. still battling the heat while i'm living in my car too. if you're willing and able, i could really use some donations or boosts to keep me going.

as always, yall have been super great with boosting my dono posts. genuinely i'd be screwed without my followers and it's wild to me how lucky i am. i'm going to be talking to my case manager about hiring a lawyer to help with my disability case, because i really don't want this to go on any longer than it has to.

anyway, here are the links once again, and a super huge thank you to everyone who boosts or donates <3

ko-fi

cashapp

[callixspod]

Persona 4 Golden Update but... Something's off. (Read ID: Important)

Expect to see more soon!

[somnimagus]

My page for @kairizine. It was such a huge honor to be part of this wonderful book with everyone, I had so much fun!

[id in alt!]

[fae-of-prey]

my peter parker is always one bad day away from ending lives bc he’ll be damned if he loses another loved one<3

[evilkaeya]

skk au where they actually develop telepathy but it happens after Dazai leaves and during the four years they don't see each other. Chuuya is washing dishes one night and Dazai's voice pops up in his head. "I wonder what the slug is doing right now? Judging by the time maybe he's washing dishes." Chuuya goes still, mouth hung open and goes "yeah I am mackerel." He hears a "what the fuck" ten seconds later.

[realstrap]

04/29/2024

Hey small ask for today

I need $60 to get to work for the next few days. I did get paid a few days ago most went to food+bills and it still costs me $100 a week just to get there, If you can please help me get to work.

CA: $lezsalt or $sleepyhen

VM: wildwotko

Dm 4 PP

[mochasucculent]

I'm rewatching Arcane, and after my third time seeing season 1 I had a hot new reading on Viktor's scenes in episodes 6, 7, and 8.

Like a lot of other people, I felt it was weird and unsavory that Viktor - very close to death with a disease that affects his lungs - suddenly starts experimenting on his disabled leg. Those two things have nothing in common, save for the fact that the cause of both might have been the toxic fumes of the undercity, which could have resulted in Viktor being born disabled if his parents were also subject to those conditions.

So why does Viktor try to "fix" his leg when his main goal is to utilize the Hexcore to prolong and improve living conditions before he's gone?

Viktor in acts 2 and 3 is motivated to save himself long enough to make a difference in the world. Even though Hextech is revolutionary for Piltover, it hasn't reached who Viktor wanted to help this whole time, the disenfranchised in the undercity. In his mind, he hasn't done enough to change the world for the better, and he will be gone before he has the chance to do so.

After realizing the Hexcore responded to organic matter when it absorbed Viktor's blood, he experiments with plants, only to find that they wither and die soon after the Hexcore makes them grow.

This causes him to visit Singed once again for anything that could help him figure out how to use the Hexcore for magic that could save lives, one last shot at accomplishing his dreams.

Viktor parted ways with with him as a child upon seeing that Singed was willing to hurt Rio, his salamander test subject, in order to prolong her life. Viktor didn't understand that cost before, but he does now, being in the same position as Singed and Rio simultaneously, both the scientist trying to make a breakthrough and the subject he needs to save in order to do so.

Like Rio, Viktor is not his own end goal to his scientific pursuits. Singed is trying to save his daughter, Viktor is trying to help his people. He's his own means to an end, and is now willing to pay the cost of getting there.

Singed gives Viktor a variant of Shimmer to experiment with, the idea being that it will stabilize an organism while the Hexcore's magic affects it, hopefully allowing it to survive through the aggressive and sudden healing process.

Viktor injects the Shimmer into his leg, as well as carving runes into both his brace and thigh to channel the magic towards there before he offers the Hexcore his blood. It does Something to his leg which we don't see till the following episode.

The new reading I have of this scene is that the reason Viktor chose his leg specifically is not because he was trying to "fix" it, but because:

-He's not willing to put others' lives at risk and knows he's not long for this world, so the only test subject he's willing to use is himself

-He knows the organic matter he tests the Hexcore on might die

-Viktor's leg is a part of his body he's willing to lose if things go wrong and it rejects the transmutation (he also knows that he could just fully die then and there too and is willing to take that risk)

Obviously, the scenes involving Viktor's experimentation center his physical disabilities (shots of his back brace, the focus on his leg) and equate them with the disease that is literally killing him. The narrative lens shows us that Viktor "curing" himself begins with his disability, which sucks.

So while the boat scene undoubtedly is written to be "triumphant" because Viktor's leg is no longer disabled (shown by him dropping his crutch, the swelling music, the parallel to the scene where a child Viktor can't keep up with his toy boat), a different reading is that it's another experiment to him.

Viktor is stress testing the organic matter he infused with magic, and the scene is triumphant because he's realized his leg isn't deteriorating or weakening - it holds up. The mutation of the magic in his leg survived. It's a sign that maybe he can use the Hexcore on the rest of his body, keep himself alive long enough to do what he's always wanted to do: leave a legacy that changes the world for the better.

To me that's a much more in-character perspective for Viktor in these scenes than what is being said narratively through directing, framing, music, etc. Previously, Viktor had never expressed distaste for his disability as an adult, only commenting on it as a part of why he was isolated socially from Piltover. To me, him testing the Hexcore on his leg is merely an indifference to its current state, rather than a preference to have it changed. I don't even necessarily think it'd be a bad thing if Viktor did outright say "I would like to not be disabled", because I'm sure many other disabled people feel that way from time to time, but season 1 really does a poor job of pushing that framing of "curing" disability onto a character that did not express those perspectives himself at this point.

It gives off a big ol' "aw, poor Viktor, not only is he dying because of the political landscape that leaves disenfranchised people to suffer preventable diseases, but he's got a disabled leg too!" One of those things is much more problematic than the other lol.

Season 2 definitely hurtles Viktor very quickly into the Machine Herald perspective in which he thinks humans must evolve past ANY limitations of their original bodies, but to me season 1 Viktor just doesn't feel that way about himself. His primary concern has always been rooted in how to improve the lives of his people permanently, and it's only when he's actively dying that his secondary goal is to live long enough to see that happen.

It's something he drops completely after his experimentation results in Sky's death. He's immediately spiteful of the Hexcore and tries to destroy it - and himself.

Viktor now accepts that he will die before he's able to change the world the way he wanted, and hides the fact that he fucked with his body from everyone as he awaits his demise. "Fixing" his leg is not something he celebrates in and of itself, it's now only a reminder that the pursuit of his dream resulted in someone else's death.

The narrative does well in season 2 to frame Viktor's Glorious Evolution as a Bad Thing at least, and Jayce's speech at the end about Viktor never being broken is extremely valuable and important, but it's just weird to see him say this:

Cause to me now, that ain't what Viktor was trying to do at all! The writers may have retconned that to be the case, which is fine, whatever, but season 1 in isolation does not support that idea to me after this rewatch.

Overall, I think Arcane can have confusing directing sometimes that focuses on evoking feelings and themes rather than the richness of its characters, their dynamics, and the world they inhabit - to the detriment of all the above. In season 2, this resulted in a lot of scenes that felt emotionally unearned or muddy to me, like pretty much everything with Jinx, Vi, and Vander together rip.

It's for this same reason that I think it took me so long to really come to this reading of Viktor's season 1 scenes, because the directing bias REALLY wants to make you feel sorrow and hope alongside Viktor, even though it means he'll seem to randomly start equating his disabled leg to his illness. It just felt like a weird disparity to me until I watched these episodes again and was like "wait" lol.

Anyway peace and love on planet Earth I cannot stop thinking about Viktor Arcane