#ppl they loved turned their backs on them

[hexhomos]

Can I just say, as someone who really likes Mel's character, I love and appreciate the hell out of your dissections of her interactions. It is such a bummer seeing people think she wasn't actively being malicious throughout the series even after admitting with her whole chest she was building (aka assimilating) piltover for her family? Like not being able to get any genuine exploration of her from people who like her is so obnoxious. I have to seek out ppl who don't like her to get anything that isn't woobifying her to hell or treating her like an idiot 😭 So thank you but also geez, fandom literacy is at rock bottom.

All these posts going "you guys want complex female characters but you can't even handle X" turn out to be true but in the sense that ppl loathe it when you point out the n.1 billionaire in the CLASS WAR SHOW absolutely profits off the systemic misery and needs to be held up to task. My issue has always been how the centrist lib writing glossed over this and the same thing happened with cait's fascist arc in s2.

But in the very least, the whole back half of mel's arc is her going back on those medarda line ambitions and rebelling against her mother. The imperialism IS THE TEXT. She leaves piltover bc she has no business ruling over these people and treating them like a game did do harm! It is my sincere hope that her future writing has a better angle and features her going against Noxus' genocidal procedures bc it also leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth to see the two prominent black women being stand-ins for.... epic gamer colonialism.... that Ambessa book is also going to be set in the past when she was actively taking part in genocide which is a fucking red flag😷 but the author seems aware of that and willing to question the whole thing. She's also a proud outspoken butch lesbian so here's hoping we get that Lest backstory; she seemed a bit too detailed in s2 to be just a throwaway character.

[bomber-grl]

Nico Di Angelo x Child of Medusa 🐍

Pairing(s): Nico Di Angelo x M!Reader

A req for @calypso-74213! Also cringe-ish warning

Everyone at camp is terrified of you

I mean its said that people are scared of what they don’t understand

And you’re sort of an anomaly

Not to mention that you’re able to turn ppl to stone, the only barrier separating them and you, bding your sunglasses

Also because you closely resemble humans/ demigods

Yknow, besides the snakes instead of/ amongst your hair, scales here and there, and your eyes

Especially since Medusa isn’t known to be particularly fond of men, so it leaves much to think about and question

Then again, Athena-

Anyway

Many aren’t fond of you, that’s a given. I mean many campers weren’t very welcoming of Nico and his status(?) as son of hades so I can only imagine the treatment you go through

I mean at least everyone has the decency to pretend to be nice to you

But the tension is still there

The first day you were introduced was by Chiron, usually he’d leave the camper up to the counselor these days but you’re a special exception (along with Percy)

So bam, new cabin for not a god but rather Medusa

I’d imagine a lot of discourse, especially since it’s only for godly parents and the whole pride aspect

But eventually, with much persistence from Percy and others who are willing to back you up, you get one

Which is only a result of them being proven wrong by your origins and proven to be a nice person

Also, might I add, you’re likely here because of being mortal/not completely monster and need protection like many demigods

Anyways, Nico isn’t at camp all that much

Especially since he has this idea that many people aren’t fond of him (which changes throughout the series)

When he hears about you through the grapevine he’s intrigued

He never thought that someone such as yourself would even exist but then again he could say that about the gods and Olympus

Only once he finds out that you’re treated like shit (at the start of your stay) does he go to find you and see what your deal is

And he’s pleasantly surprised

You pass all his standards

1. Don’t be an asshole

2. Don’t be an asshole

Oh, and did I mention don’t be an asshole?

You were more than pleasant to hang out with and he found himself looking for you amongst the crowds of demigods at camp

He looked forward to seeing you again

Only then does he realize how he’s fallen in love with you

He never would’ve imagined he’d ever fall in love with a son of Medusa, but here he is

He’s admittedly hesitant to confess to you

It’s so obvious too

You’re at the lake like you usually are

You tend to spend time there when you’re not having fun at arts and crafts or training with weapons

This is the time of day you two usually hang out and that’s only proven more by the fact that Nico is seated right next to you, gazing at you

Almost lost in thought but then you snap him back to reality- wondering what’s up

That’s when he just tells you, he almost shrinks away until you tell him that you reciprocate his feelings

He’s honestly shocked by the whole thing and just stares at you until you hesitantly hold his hand

From them on you’re officially boyfriends and he can’t emphasize how happy he is to have you

The sun isn’t always shining and so bad things are bound to happen, what’d you expect? You two are a demigod and a half monster (?)

Your origins might be a mystery but you know better than anyone not to fear the dark

So when Nicos having certain days where he’s struggling, he’s glad that you can embrace all of him

Change of tone but you and Nico are just chilling as Jules- Albert drives you places when Nico realizes something

He’s never seen your eyes, or rather, looked you straight on

I mean you’ve kissed, hugged, etc etc but he’s never seen you without your glasses

Which how could he? He’d literally be turned to stone

But that doesn’t stop him from wondering

His eerily long silence next to you prompts you to ask him what’s up

And finally after much convincing that ‘we listen and we don’t judge’

He tells you

And of course you laugh but just because you find it endearing that he wants to

Of course it’s something that never goes anywhere but if he asks a Hecate kid if there’s stone proof potions- well that’s none of your business

[seraphsfire]

///ARCANE s2 finale SPOILERS ///

LONG POST

SO. THAT VIKTOR ARCANE LEAGUEOFLEGENDS GUY HUH.

some observations that are my personal opinion and/or interpretation of viktor's transformation and physical state. (my screenshots, idc if u repost them or whatever just don't say they're yours, etc)

minor edit: added a sentence i could've sworn i'd written that i hadn't and so my paragraph made no sense lol

love love love the aspects of body horror and character design going on with viktor's post-sourdough-starter cyborg body here, so i was trying to get a better look at it to maybe sort of figure out how his body was transformed, and what it's made of now (metal, magic, a third secret thing, idk)

so it looks like, in general, his skeletal structure and the metal parts in his back brace and his leg brace were fused together and then fused *into* his musculoskeletal structure, not just sort of copied by the hexcore. You can see here he has actual bolts in his spine before he got robot-ified, and to me it seems like this could have been a way for his brace to hook or snap onto his spine more securely to give him extra support.

I think the circles in the middle of the brace over his sternum might have also snapped into bolts in his chest, and you can see them better here

the cloth and leather parts of the brace have either dissolved or been turned into metal.

--I just want to take a side note here to note what im sure other ppl have mentioned but I haven't seen talked much about at least recently, is that viktor's disability wasn't just his mobility issues and bad respiratory health, that he must have been in terrible pain to have a procedure as extreme as bolts being put into his spine and/or chest deemed necessary / beneficial to his quality of life.

In the scene where he tries to destroy the hexcore, he can barely push himself up, and it takes all of his strength to lift a stool over his head that's only a few pounds :(

He later asks jayce to destroy the hexcore because he can't, and ive seen most people interpret that as him not wanting to destroy his life's work, but i always viewed it as him not physically being able to--the hexcore was too strong, and it snapped out at him and knocked him over just at the threat of him destroying it.

That circles over to another thing i thought was interesting, is that when he comes out of the goop he still seems very weak and unstable, even though he now has his back brace and leg brace fused to his skeleton. He still has to use his crutch to walk toward jayce and make effort to straighten his legs, because they're still twisted. It makes me wonder if the hexcore didn't so much heal him as dull his sense of pain so he couldn't feel it, and its energy forced him to move.

That's something i thought was interesting, and it made me think of his line about not feeling cold--he then says he feels something that is exactly how I'd describe coldness to somebody who's never felt it before, it just seems like now, his nervous system doesn't process it in the same way as he used to recognize the sensation of coldness. Interestingly, he still describes it as "unpleasant"

back to the design of viktor's body: what exactly is it made of? Here's where the body horror aspect of it comes in, because i think there's a possibility that's still mostly his body and what we're seeing here is exposed, preserved muscle fiber, because the hexcore either burned or melted off his skin or it literally rotted away while he was in the goop. There's a few artsy little flourishes from the hexcore magic peeking through, but except for the slightly darker color, it looks eerily like how muscle fiber on preserved cadavers looks, down to the way the little filamenty veins are. Granted it could just be a metallic structure the hexcore created, visually mimicking human muscle structure. Or the sourdough starter could have been something super gross like magic sentient cosmic energy formaldehyde--that also makes sense to me because of how when his hair grew out some of the tips had lost color, like they'd been bleached.

anyway the visual aspect of his resurrected hexcore appearance that makes me think of a reanimated cadaver most was how strange and unsettling i found it that he's completely gray and glowing with purple sparks, is that for some reason he's still got a bellybutton and almost a normal skin-like surace to that part of his stomach.

On the other hand, his hip socket and the rest of his pelvis is bony and skeletal. You can kind of see his pelvis not being attached with muscle fiber to his hip socket in that lower corner, it looks the same atp as when he's in his cosmic form.

the jokes about "jayce hugged him with his whole ______ out!!!!" just make me sad bc obviously any extraneous soft tissue was completely obliterated, (I say obviously but idk how many ppl literally believe they were censoring human body parts here.)

Like, he doesn't even have fingernails anymore. The only reason he has a stomach still is because abdominal muscles are a skeletal support structure.

That gives the he heebie jeebies so good, honestly, and what an fascinating choice by the design team instead of giving him idk, age of ultron steel robot shaped abs, which i've seen a lot in like human--robot transformations, he's this horrifying mix of petrified/preserved cadaver tissue, magic metal, and sentient cosmic energy. (Even more tragic and sad if you think about it that way and that jayce might have been hugging his dead friend's preserved, skinned corpse)

the "reanimated corpse" idea fits into the interpretation that viktor's emotions and thoughts are still his, but they've been very dulled by the power of the hexcore, because a reanimated cadaver body isn't going to be able to work as effeciently that way anymore.

or idk maybe the idea that he was still sort-of there, faintly is one i like because it makes me feel better, i can at least pretend some part of him felt comforted being held in such a horrific situation. had to post this screenshot bc that sad little face when hes getting hugged is destroying me

Anyway. many thoughts, many feelings, many possibilities and interpretations. Do with this what you will. I, for instance, will be walking into the sea and never returning probably

[needanaccount2readarcaneposts]

but THIS. HONESTLY#im happy for more zaundads but i feel like ppl who only got into it once they got handed a wholesome au on a silver platter#won't really vibe with the folks who were here since all we had was subtext and homoerotic violence

Yeah, like. I'm happy, so happy actually, that we got confirmation that (whether romantically or platonically or fraternally) they loved each other. They loved each other so much. They could have changed the world together. Silco offers Vander's memory his understanding before he dies. Vander's first and last memories of Silco are of him young and hopeful and happy, and alive with possibility. They shaped each other, for better AND for worse. They made each other who they are. They loved each other so much that they had a little hideout deep under the earth where they hung their flag and hung their hats side by side and their mining jackets one inside the other and dreamed a big, impossible dream together. They wanted to make it real.

But it's also about the blood, and the betrayal, and the ferocity, and the complexity, and the brokenness, and the avoidable-inevitable tragedy. It's Vander wrapping his hand around Silco's neck for a second time, and seeing the man he loved - loves - staring back up at him, terrified, before spending his last breath slumped against Silco's body, exhausted. It's about Silco turning his head tenderly into the crook of Vander's neck, Vander's blood hot on his hand, and murmuring, "I knew you still had it in you," the one-last-time before giving him to the flames. It's about covering up scars, versus having to wear them on your face forever. It's about stealing Vander's knife under the water, and giving it back to him in his gut, and then keeping it for the rest of his life.

It's about how it could only ever have worked with two of them. But it's also about how, because things went the way they did, because they both broke the way they broke, and both made the choices they did, it would only ever end with one of them.

being an OG zaundads shipper is such a conflicting time right now. we've gone mainstream, but at what cost? the absolutely brutal silco & vander character assassinations of S2? that are how newbies are getting into the ship? genuinely tragic.

zaundads fandom needs you 👇to resist S2 propaganda

make S1 zaundads great again

[schmweed]

[fridgrave2-0]

hehe ghost-turbo haunting felix au

turbo is connected to the last piece of his code in the whole arcade - a trophy he gifted to felix in mid 80s as a symbol of him genuinely caring about their relationships on par with being the best racer. felix also gave him one of his medals and both kept their gifts next to other rewards, but when roadblasters and turbotime were unplugged, the medal was gone with everything else

now, after burning in cola-lava turbo is basically dead, but scraps of his code still were intertwined with the trophy (after all, it was his first winner's cup, but felix never knew about it), giving turbo an opportunity to exist as a shadow incapable of interacting with anything and anyone besides felix, who kept the trophy even after the roadblasters incident

also I went crazy in tags, feel free to check them out

[lemongogo]

they should get to kill each other at least twice .i think

[sillyfairygarden]

shattering the deep toxic claws of art block with many such faces 💚💛♥️

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OOH YEAH BABY ITS THE SURGERY EPISODE BABY!!! ME AND THE HOMIES NEED SOME NEW FACES FOR OUR NEW PLAN, AND WHO BETTER TO GET THE JOB DONE THAN THE TWO MOST EVIL PEOPLE WE'VE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF HAVING OUR LIVES VIOLATED BY? I MEAN IT WOULD BE FUNNY. IT WOULD BE FUNNY.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[lambmotifz]

am i the only one who doesn’t like normal/regular wincest au

because all the supernatural storylines are the main factor that makes their dynamic so special. wincest without horror elements just. isn’t wincest

[sanchoyoscribbles]

maybe link should consider that I filled my inventory with salted milky smoothies right before the fight and spent all that time leveling up the sword and energy gauges tho ...🥲

[louquettes]

women

[zrllosyn-art]

A naru sketch page. Because he is surprisingly fun to draw.

Inspired by a VERY GOOD TRANS NARU HC FROM @jelliefeesh (who also draws VERY good narus n also jus has super good art in general go check his stuff out)

The stickers are available for free download in both English and the original Japanese. If youd like.

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[pinkhysteria]

tucker looking for who made him a "lone wolf" in the first weeks of the game