#oh my god this post is so long

[bloominglegumes]

i love normal guys doomed by the narrative

[gongyussy]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[heartorbit]

find another role, carry on the show

[four-pointed-leaf]

happy pride month

[papanowo]

get a grip loverboy !!!

[beebundt]

personal stuff made recently 🌼

[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

[frosted-woods]

autumn time to be gay and totally fine and not miserable at all

[fraternum-momentum]

Isn't Aimee horny with Sindney too, so is he just a fling to her?

HOO BOY OK aimee is def horny for syd ! but she's kind of starting to develop some feelings for him and it's messing with the whole 'leading people on and leaving them dry' thing she has going on. and she's coming to terms with it (it is not going well)

when they met, her initial plan was just to mess with him for a bit bc she found him cute. but once she learned more about him, she kind of grew jealous of how he remained relatively unaffected by the town. why does she have to fight for her life almost everyday while he's all kumbaya and shit? it's unfair, and it really pissed her off. so at that moment, she decided that she will be the one who corrupts him.

(this was also the moment where she gets her demon tf!)

in a sense, she's taking out her anger and resentment for the town and what it has done to her on sydney by taking his virginity and defiling him. it's a sort of crab mentality in a way ?? like if she's going down, she's taking him with her bc she's petty and bitter about it.

usually, at this point aimee would move on to the next person but she does end up liking sydney a lot, so they remained fuckbuddies. plus, she eventually realized that it wasn't fair of her to be mad at him when he really hasn't done anything to her personally, so she felt guilty about that and stuck around.

although there was this particular moment where she realized her feelings for him might run deeper than she had thought

aimee isn't used to kindness from other people, since she's objectified on the daily and is generally treated like garbage by most people so this was a wtf moment for her. it lowk left her in shock for a bit. and currently she's in denial of everything LMFAO

[namisweatheria]

I feel like we don't discuss Nami's relationship with gender enough. Her entire character is so deeply informed by being a girl in a male-dominated pirate world and it's so interesting and so worth talking about.

The background creepiness of Bad pirate crews, which are most of them, how they tend to not have any female crew members at all, how they beckon any pretty young woman around to come play with them and join them. It's real bad. It's also like, a totally 2 dimensional portrayal of evil that is reserved for the most background of background characters.

However I think their ubiquity says a lot about how piracy is meant to be perceived by the public in One Piece, and is one of the strongest indicators of how prevalent misogyny is in-world.

It's very normal in One Piece for regular island inhabitants to have never met a Different class of pirate in their life. There's no reason for them to withhold judgement that maybe these pirates won't be like every crew that attacked before, and to wait and judge them by their actions. I mean frankly that would be irrationally weak self-preservation.

There are people who live peacefully under the flags of Yonkos who protect them, and feel loyalty and gratitude to them for it, but that seems to only be thing with very big name pirates. The East Blue, being the weakest and least populated, has no such plethora of powerful people and resulting turf wars.

So. Nami. Is very clearly implied to have never met any Different pirates before. I'm thinking about what that means. About how every group of pirates she stole from were creepy, dangerous men. How she started going out stealing when she was still a young child. How she didn't have a mother anymore to guide her or comfort her. How Arlong would grab her chin inappropriately, talk about her as a "human female", as property, and god knows what else.

How all the men in Arlong's crew treated her patronizingly, pretending they're all friends, teasing her and playing at respect when really not a single one of them ever stuck up for her or hesitated to accuse her of betrayal. Who were always ready to kill her if she refused to cooperate. Who grabbed her and intimidated her when they felt like it.

That's what she had to come back to after a close call with stealing from other predatory men, instead of the relief of home there was a dark, cramped room filled with endless hours of misery and isolation and blood. Where any one of her captors could barge in and demand new maps, work faster, where did you go, you took too long again this time. Endless threats and incursions.

I'm thinking about that her fight scene in Alabasta, where she tumbles and rips off her cape and uses it to catch her enemy's spikes, before leaping to her feet and running out the back door, all in one moment. How it makes her enemy reconsider her and think, "so the girl's not a total novice at fighting after all." What that implies about her experiences as a young thief. The times she wasn't fast or clever enough and had to fight and claw her way out. Why she always carried a staff and a knife. Why she was the only one before Chopper who had any medical knowledge or experience.

You know she was stitching herself up. And the weapons, how do you think she learned to use those? If any of the Arlong Pirates helped her it wasn't out of kindness and it wasn't gentle.

Then I think about Nojiko, and Bellemere's memory, and the only softness in a hard life. How easily Nami connects to every young woman experiencing hardship that she meets. How completely she dismisses the struggles of men unless they mean something to her and are going through something terrible. The way that Nami only has sympathy for women and children is easily noticeable in-text, but it's also something confirmed in those words by the author. And it's clearly because of the life she lived, the men who had all the power and only abused it, who saw her as nothing but a girl to take advantage of, without anyone aside from her sister clearly knowing and caring about any of it.

Nami clearly isn't bitter, she doesn't think the world owes her recompense, on the contrary she knows she is far from the only person in the world to suffer the things she has suffered. She is endlessly reaching out and kind, but only to those that she isn't sure would get help without her. Certainly, before Luffy, Usopp, and Zoro, no man ever reached out a hand to her without an ulterior motive.

I think when she sees a girl in trouble, a girl biting her lip to hold in a scream of grief, a girl running in the woods away from a monster, a girl captured by pirates, she sees someone who no one is coming for. Who no one will stick up for. A person without allies in a world against her. Whether it's actually true in this case or not, she runs straight for that girl anyways every single time.

[weaverofink]

when u name urself after ur fictional crush but your entire friend group also knows the reference

[ewwww-what]

The moment when you find exactly what you were looking for (it was your best friend the whole time)

(close-ups below & my commission info)

[gongyussy]

he's like if a baby cow wandered into a zoom interview

[avalonlights]

[nebuladreamz]

A little different than last year's, but here we are again. To say that this past year hasn't been absolutely wild would be a lie, cause HOLY SHIT MAN

This year's birthday is. A little different for me, but you already have the silly comic to show that so I won't make like a broken record oops

But, despite the changes and hills that life's decided I should climb or throw at, it hasn't changed the fact that I'm so genuinely fucking thankful to the people that I've known since joining this fandom. I'm not even kidding when I say that being here has actually changed my life for the better. I know I said something similar last year, but this time, hoo boy it sure turned up the AMP and test how far I could go.

So, to everyone, both new and old; thank you for being here :D

@garbagechocolate @darkxsoulzyx @smoljeanius @bunmuffin @skizabaa

@tuzesdays @sleepykas @fernzwing @kandidandi @starsketchez

@just-a-drawing-bean @notdysfunk @ilsole @amberluvsbugs @cloudyvoid

@nomsthecat @alfinefalf @nosleepygay @theblog-with-thestuff

@cacaocheri

(Edit: ty kibbits for informing me of the. Fuck ass tagging system)

AND TAGGING OTHERS BECAUSE. POINTS. BONKS WITH HEAD. GETTING TO EITHER INTERACT OR TALK OR WHATEVER IS ALWAYS A DELIGHT

@ohno-the-sun @kibbits @ink-yy @saltyfryz @kaprisvn

@hierba-picante @sunny-sophies-garden @cookiiemancer @sneeblbop @justaduckarts

@pepethehumanz @crystalmagpie447 @woolysstuff @mocha-illustrates @duhsty1

@sanchensky @pillowspace @victarin @witherfide

[I DEFINITELY GOT SONAS WRONG AND THESE AREN'T ALL THE SILLY PEOPLE I KNOW BUT IM SITTING HERE AT 2:30 IN THE MORNING JUST KNOW YOU'RE THERE IN SPIRIT HANDING YOU ALL POPTARTS WAUGH]

[broareweabouttoviberightnow]

am I getting too convoluted if I said Johnny dies Dallas lives n Pony loses his hearing as a result of the way Dallas hits him (to put out the fire) when he pulls him out of the church au??