#joink

[joinx]

Decided to hop on the Bill sona possession trend, hope I'm not too late lol

[pikselis]

gonna joink away all that cc

[reanimaator]

[hellfridge]

Keeping your tags because they are dear to me

Harry Lloyd had said he's aiming for specifically a "bad Czech accent" for Viktor (hilariously candid, thank you for your service sir) so I like having Viktor mutter things in Google Translate Czech

And look. Is it in character? Probably not. Or maybe it is but it is pushing it ok I know I am pushing into some syrapy ooc cutesy shit but hold my hand ok?? Hear me out here

Bc I cannot resist the idea of Viktor pre-relationship calling Jayce lásko. and refusing to elaborate further. Not that he needs to elaborate, because Jayce would just roll with this fun nickname that Viktor will call him with such casual ease (like it's the most sensible and obvious nickname there is) because they're buddies and partners yay!

And it's not until they've been fucking for a while that Jayce finally THINKS to ask what lásko means and Viktor shrugs and says "ah that, it means love. Or my love." like it's NO BIG DEAL.

And Jayce is sitting straight up staring at him with an indescribable mix of equal parts fluttery chest feelings and also indignant "are you shitting me rn???" because he is suddenly flipping through how long Viktor's been calling him that (it's been since Jayce said "crank it!!!" that first night at the chalkboards in Jayce's blown up apartment) like it was a totally normal thing to call your new lab partner

With Viktor holding eye contact. Eyebrow raised. His expression 1000% I said what I fucking said

[damianito]

They are idiots in love. Emphasize on idiots

[circus-critter]

We are literally smoking little Trolls 😔

[jaarijani]

IT'S THE ANNIVERSARY!!!

happy one year on this crazy crazy ride!! I love you all 💚 here's to many more music- craziness- and party-filled years 💚

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

Damn bro straight up boinked and man and got philosophical about it

have u ever unalived some1?

You can say kill, it's okay. in some indirect way I feel we have all been cause to someone's misery and perhaps, even their deaths. Not just our actions, no, our inaction - our inability to step outside the thin-scope of our sheltered lives and lend a hand to those who must face the brunt of reality. We could be better, we could be holistically-giving, but we aren't; thus we are partially to blame for what happens, as even the smallest shift in sentiment can leave a wake miles wide, yet we do not budge, instead we are comforted by the warmth of our ignorance and willful-obfuscation.

[toaugment]

if i were to make a bg3 verse viktor would be a human artificer, originally born in lantan and raised by gnome artificers. having immigrated to baldur's gate at some point he would be one of the gondians ( although, whilst he inherited his love of engineering and craftmanship from the people who raised him, he's hardly a devout ).

[joinx]

the jumblr 🤯

[trashformha]

If any of you guys have the clip of this without the subtitles pls send it to me bc I've been itching to gif this scene but can't find a clear clip with no subs obscuring it 😩

Edit: got it :D

[hellfridge]

this meta is amazing holy shit I wasn't ready ok ok SO. i absolutely fucking agree and this was my interpretation as well BUT ALSO the missing piece that makes this fit within arcane might be that Jayce's arc can be seen through a Luddite lense.

Viktor being the pro-machine humans must be efficient herald of a future with basically automated "humanity" -- Jayce being the Luddite pro-worker's rights guy breaking machines and advocating for humans to just get better working (and living) conditions instead of being pushed towards higher efficiency until they die etc.

That said, the interpretation that makes the most sense to me (that Viktor literally decided to eradicate emotions because loving Jayce had hurt him too much) is almost more sad and messy if there's no homophobia? Like, truly, internalized ableism and comparing himself to Mel made him feel so unloveable he thought it was literally impossible and never made a move?? But he loved Jayce (and their dream) so much he couldn't make himself leave???? It was affection that kept them together???????? Then Jayce brings him back and he's been making weapons and this thing that's part of him now killed Sky and he's been so so selfish staying with this guy he has to GO he has to DO SOMETHING. But then he sees Jayce and immediately caves and wants to see him because he's been thinking of him constantly and????? Letting him close means Jayce fucking kills him??????????? Yeah no fuck feelings-- oh nevermind I still want him with me tho think of all we could accomplish lemme just walk in here all dommy and give it a go with my new hyper-abled body I'm ready to fucking compete BITCH SAID NO, FUCK FEELING. BECOMING GOD NOW. Also he hugged her I want a hug oh wait it's nice to see him, wait no it's ok WE CAN BE OF ONE MIND JAYCE C'MEREEE LEMME FEEL YOUR FOREHEADDDD oh nvm he hugged me I want to be loved now let's die together or teleport across worlds or become one with the arcane etc idk

Like. ????????????????🌈?????????

I don't know if I want to make a video about this because it's SO subjective obv but also like. I've NEVER felt compelled to write a "homophobic au" where I take a tolerant fantasy world and make it bigoted. As a kid I used to complain ALL THE GODDAMN TIME about how fantasy writers could imagine a world with talking dragons and magic powers but always drew the line at equal rights for gay people. And here I am PUTTING THE HOMOPHOBIA BACK into a fantasy world WITHOUT homophobia. And I was like.

do I feel so compelled to do this???

I knew I didn't NEED an excuse to insert homophobia into Arcane. Write whatever you want etc etc. But I was so curious, since my preference up 'til now has always been for casually queer fantasy worlds. And uh yeah honestly I think this pivot stems from like, a disconnect between my understanding of systemic bigotry as a queer disabled autistic woman and the way Arcane appears to pick and choose its world's politics from a salad bar.

In the real world, social issues are all tangled up in each other. Racism and classism and queerphobia and xenophobia and ableism and misogyny and misandry and ageism...all these 'isms bud off each other in a kind of swirling feedback loop, necessitating an intersectional approach to activism.

At the end of Arcane, no one broke the cycle of violence. The council chamber table is shaped like a gear, symbolizing its members' status as a "gear train" for all change within Piltover and Zaun. Jinx's bomb destroys that gear with the rest of the council room, only for an off-screen contractor to glue the pieces together between scenes. Piltover adds more "progressive" representatives to its gear train, but the underlying oligarchical mechanism remains. If the cycle of violence ever breaks, it will be because these new "teeth" convince the council to trade their power for democracy. If the elite don't give a real voice to the marginalized (I'm not sure one or two non-elected representatives makes the cut), the marginalized will take to more radical measures to be heard, and the conflict will start anew.

Arcane's hostile oligarchical world sculpted Viktor into the perfect time bomb. Its proud disgust for immigrants; addicts; the poor; the disabled, taught Viktor great shame and hate for who he was and where he came from. These lessons are at least cousins to Social Darwinism, fascism, and the politics of eugenics. Viktor aimed to "evolve" himself and his people into a "perfect" final form. He equated "progress" with the eradication of disability and sickness...then emotion.

Here Viktor branches off from the emotionalism central to fascist ideology, declaring passion ("Our emotions...rage, compassion, hate...") the "cause of [humanity's] greatest evil." Viktor describes emotions as Freudian "baser instincts," dirty and corrosive in their "self-corrupting" force.

To deserve love and admiration, Viktor believes he must become perfect. And for all he waxes poetic re: science and reason and the people of Zaun, Viktor still bases his definition of "perfection" on the ideals of his oppressors. It says a lot to me, that Viktor's idea of "progress" looks like the total eradication of sickness and disability; the rise of an obedient, docile, dogmatic collective; the dominance of Viktor's dome amidst the modest shelters of his followers; Viktor's sleek, agile, white and gold robots. Viktor's goals share a springboard with those of the Piltover elite. Both systems place undue value on power and purity. Both depend on a complaisant, malleable public, and both punish individualism. Piltover pretends to champion movers and shakers and out-of-the-box thinkers, immortalizing key figures like "Stanwick Padidly" and Jayce, but Jayce was only allowed back into the world of the wealthy once he proved

a. he had something to give

b. he was deemed suitably manipulable.

The moment Jayce tried to clamp down on Piltover's rampant corruption (aka wield his newfound powers in service of the less fortunate), Mel was there to reinforce the status quo. It was made very clear that Jayce's options were either to fall in line or lose his job—along with the chance to make any kind of positive change. Behind the curtain Jayce and Viktor were only puppets in service of the wealthy and powerful. Hextech didn't better the lives of marginalized people. It upgraded weapons for the police and generated new trade opportunities for employers (the economy would've undergone a hell of a shakeup with the sudden flush of consumer goods and access to overseas labor. From the state of Zaun and Piltover post-time skip, I assume the new trade routes shuffled money around but didn't make necessities like medicine or shelter any more attainable for your average citizen).

"You used me, and Viktor, for Hextech. You called us 'investments.'" "Two brilliant young inventors who shared a penchant for impossible surprises. Carrying magic from myth to machine. Rallying the hope and hearts of a nation. You were a wise investment."

Anyway. Why is Viktor so threatened by his ability to feel "affection?" Every other goal aligns with a kind of supercharged version of Piltover's oppressive value system, but this one...not so much.

I guess you could say "civil society" frowns on explosive emotions like rage and hate because they threaten the docility of a healthy status quo. Compassion poses a similar threat. It makes sense for Viktor to fixate so hard on emotions when they're the only weapon powerful enough to snap him out of his Hexcore power trip. But I'm more drawn to the reading where Viktor recognizes queerness within himself (cough his love for Jayce cough) as another barrier on the road to perfection (as measured by the standards of an oligarchical regime).

It seems to me that Viktor's goals are all symptoms of a society steeped in ableism, classism, xenophobia, and queerphobia—but only three of those conditions manifest in Arcane's worldbuilding.

I dunno, man. What resonates with my queer experience will totally contradict someone else's. But I guess I can't envision an oligarchical system like Piltover's—a system founded on classism, ableism, and a weaponized fear of the dirty "other"—would somehow evade racism and queerphobia. Like..."We're fine with black people and gay people. But god help you if you're poor or sick or disabled or from Zaun!" Bigotry is irrational and contradictory, so there are surely examples of this pick-and-choose phenomenon outside of Arcane. And good lord, I don't think anyone should feel "obligated" to fill their fantasy worlds with homophobia! But Arcane definitely sparked enough cognitive dissonance in me to make me crank out some "what if this world was also homophobic" fanfic.

(There's also League of Legends' legacy as an alt-right cesspool. Before I even knew what an MMO was, I'd been warned about a game called LoL, the supposed "worst of the worst" when it came to voice chat culture. Not sure how I feel about that context yet.)

[homosekularnost]

arts crew reacts to tarik/ratthi (audio)

[fandaniel]

i think one of the stranger things i did was i was once jealous of my then boyfriend having a friend with the same name as me that i went on his carrd and stole a character he kinned 😭

[hunteakye]

Oh? Eevee wants your credit card details!

[buttercreamdicks]

Jesus today's More

I haven't seen this much unresolved sexual tension between an opinionated lesbian and a socially inept straight man since Mulder and Scully