#this isn't the plot? sorry

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

You're just not toxic enough.

[enbyman]

I love how everyone in house md wants to fuck house even though knowing he's the worst human being

[zhukzucraft]

=> Pearl & Co: Ponder the portal

-

Gem: I messaged Mumbo and Skizz but no answer yet. I think we should wait-

Gem: Scar!!

Scar: What? No point in letting it go to waste, am I right?

Pearl: Hey whoa whoa whoa

Pearl: Let's hold our horses

Pearl: Why- why do we even need to go to the Nether, anyway?

Scar: Isn't the Enchanting Table there this time, Grian?

Grian: A-yup.

Grian: It's just plopped in a Bastion in there. 'Cause why not.

Scar: Ancient City is a hard act to follow, huh?

Grian: Eh, it works as long as nobody gets access to enchantments too early.

Gem: You don't say! Then maybe WE shouldn't be going there so soon, huh Grian?

Grian: Don't tell me that GeminiSlay is scared of some little piggies!

Grian: I fully expect you to carry, by the by.

Gem: UGH.

Pearl: Come on guys, let's at least wait for Skizz and Mumbo to come back!

Scar: Nooo, you never know who's trying to beat us to it. Those rapscallions could be closing in on the magic table as we speak!

Pearl: :(

=> Pearl & Co: Be Martyn

Start Over -- Go Back

The submission time is now over! See you back in this POV after a couple of posts!

(outdated part below preserved for posterity)

================================================

It's time for another

What Will You Do?

this time addressed to the whole group!

Should they jump right in? Should they wait? Should they do a dance-off? You can suggest actions and arguments for any of the 4 characters, or all of them at once!

Please submit your suggestions as replies to this post, or at this channel in our discord (LINK), or if all else fails - directly to my askbox. This event will last for 3 DAYS, until next Wednesday.

Also - next update we'll be checking in with the POV vote winner, Martyn!

[soul-wanderer]

Juliette being openly unhappy with Nat's (lack of) character development

Simone voicing her feelings about the lack of transparency and information regarding the fate of her character and about being kept in the dark about the filming schedule

Lauren (and Tawny) being surprised/unhappy/blindsided by Van's sudden death

Melanie being unhappy about Simone suddenly being written off AND speaking out about the fact that she requested knowing her character's timeline and being vocal about the fact that she's been kept in the dark about it past season 3 and that the writers don't fucking know where they're going with the story

And people still defending the writers and the plot, despite well established actresses dropping "hints" left and right that something is going really fucking wrong behind the scenes is absolutely insane to me 😭

[adhdo5]

An incomplete list of things LXC daydreamed about while holed up somewhere hiding from the Wen in occupied Yunmeng with nothing better to do and it's the most unstable and terrifying experience of his life but at least his rescuer is life-changingly hot

Kissing Meng Yao under the moonlight. Obviously

Calling him a-Yao. Also obviously

Showing Meng Yao around a fine and normal Cloud Recesses

Someone from the Cloud Recesses showing up and LXC introducing them to his wonderful rescuer

Nie Mingjue showing up and LXC introducing him to his wonderful rescuer

Mentally replaying the time Meng Yao held his hand for 37 full seconds and the expression MY was wearing about being allowed to

Meng Yao holding his hand forever maybe?

Meng Yao's lips have been a bit dry with the cold lately and he licked them the other day and LXC has been thinking since about what would happen if he'd been like Hhey can I t;ake care o fthat for yuo

"Meng-gongzi, I... I've never been at someone's mercy like this before..." "Don't worry. I'll be gentle ^_^"

Meng Yao's beautiful dazzling mind means he manages to get some vital information abt the Wen troop movements and this wins them the war and he's legitimized and it's awesome and some idiot says MY would be nothing without LXC's vouch and LXC goes You have it the wrong way around... I would be nothing without him 💗 and then the entire bus claps and cheers for MY yayyyy ☺️

Hearing out Meng Yao's miseries and reassuring him and holding him gently. Meng Yao of course tries to bear it alone and with grace but Lan Xichen is honored to hear out Meng Yao's woes and be of any sort of help he can... 🥺

"Ah... you've... found a conveniently remote and/or insulated space that one could theoretically play a musical instrument in without alerting unwanted attention...? Would Meng-gongzi mind terribly if Xichen played a song for him....? :looks at you with my sopping wet romantic eyes:..."

Seeing Meng Yao's wrists

Seeing Meng Yao's collarbones

Seeing Meng Yao's... well... let's just say...

"[coughs weakly] Please, Meng-gongzi... it isn't your fault... it's only by your kindness I survived as long as I did... Meng-gongzi, the qiankun bags in my effects are the remains of the Cloud Recesses library... you must return them to Gusu when it is safe... tell my didi... tell Wangji I believe in him and I'm sorry..."

Actually saying something abt the Cloud Recesses and how fucked up scared he is right now and having Meng Yao actually comfort him. Which is of course the most shameful daydream of all.

"Meng-gongzi, with such news of the Cloud Recesses... I... I'm afraid I have nothing to repay your kindness with... whatever shall I do... all I can offer you to settle my debt is..... my body.........."

Just straight up unvarnished contextless sex. It's been a minute and he is tired and miserable and scared and horny they can't all have plots

[canisalbus]

Man now I'm thinking of like. You know that one lady who made a marble gravestone of her and her wife embracing because they couldn't get married legally at the time or something? Just that but your boys because I was thinking sbout how you draw fabric and characters interacting, how you mentioned there was supposed to be a bad ending or something for your plot, and then The Laws Of That Time

(I keep missing all the plot posts somehow lmao really gotta check it all out)

I find myself thinking of this a lot:

[chiarrara]

new itfskg based on a hc post i saw on here in my fugue state rbing last night i'll add a screenshot or link or smth later maybe idk. okay so baskially how it goes:

megumi and nobara both have a crush on yuuji. this is especially hard for nobara bc she spent the whole first let's say year of their friendship being extremely vocal about how she'd never be into either of them but oops! she got too comfy and caught feelings

nobara eventually breaks down and goes to fushiguro to lament her plight and ask for advice. she's dramatically revealing the source of her suffering when his face gives him away (a big ol "oh no" written on his forehead) (N: what's that face? M: what face... N: oh my god... do you like him too???) (Megumi doesn't say shit cause he's a repressed loser embarrassed of having feelings)

Turns out meg's had a crush on yuuji basically since he met him. he didn't realize it at first of course cause he's way too good at lying to himself. not that good though. he's been silently fostering a deep deep crush for months.

having learned all this, for the next few weeks, nobara starts visiting fushiguro in his dorm anytime she's too overwhelmed by annoying feelings, or pulling him aside during downtime to let off steam, sharing knowing glances and silent communications across rooms. megu's surprisingly glad to have someone to confide in, especially in a way where he's not the center of attention. Since they're both pathetic losers with a crush, he finds it's easier to talk about his feelings than with anything before.

regularly commiserating about how down bad they both are leads nobara and megumi to spend more time separated from yuuji. it's really good for their friendship actually. previously they were both a bit closer to yuuji than to each other, but having a crush to bond over gives them a lot to talk about. yuuji does notice they're spending more time together. and without him. wonder how he feels about that..

one night, nobara barges into megumi's room to complain about yuuji being way too cute and funny at dinner or something while megumi's laying in bed reading. she just plops down half on top of him and starts in. He reluctantly puts his book down but he doesn't object. they've gotten pretty used to each other. so she's going off, grumbling into his shoulder, gripping his sweatshirt out of frustration, and when she looks up, fushiguro looks down at her. their faces less than a foot apart as she's leaning into him, lying together in his bed and...

N: what's that face

M: what face?

he looks away. nobara turns his face back to hers

N: that face

M: (without breaking *very intense* eye contact) I dont' know what you're talking about

they make out

it's very much teenagers with a lot of pent up energy that needs to go somewhere fooling around like teenagers with pent up energy that needs to go somewhere. they kind of crash together, they're grabbing at arms and shoulders and faces, pulling each other as close as they can without ever breaking the kiss. At one point, nobara in readjusting to keep from falling off the bed ends up on top of megumi, knees on either side of his hips, one hand propping herself up and one gripped in the fabric of his sweatshirt. he pulls her into him and rolls them over so they're chest to chest with him on top. he's pushes his hands into her hair, she wraps her arms around his back and twists her leg around h--

two knocks and the door opens

"Hey Fushiguro, I wanted to see if you..."

Yuuji's halfway through the doorway and his face is morphing into the picture of absolute despair

megumi and nobara are...like this

(they're not naked, they're just microsoft paint stick people)

"Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to... I'll just..." Yuuji sputters and stumbles out the door.

(simultaneously) M: Shit.. N: Fuck!

so the mood's kiiinda dead.... megumi ends up leaned up against the wall with his head in his hands. nobara's staring blankly at the ceiling. Eventually, nobara says, "did you see his face?" M: "mm" N: "so...which one of us do you think he likes?"

---END OF PART ONE---

(I'll continue it in like... 5 minutes probably)

[forever-and-whats-left]

Vroom vroom here comes a stupid poto analysisssssss. Once more I've run into that plot point where they point out "Would you have loved him if he were an ordinary man?"

IDK DUDE.

Her silence is important because it says a lot more than whatever else words would. She doesn't hate him, she is disgusted by him. That is what is clearly stated. But more broadly, who the fuck would Erik be if he WERE ordinary? His name wouldn't even BE Erik. Would he still be so into music? Would they have met? Would Erik even have spent the time to develop her singing skills because, let's be honest, the whole "dead" father bit definitely made her more open to manipulation? So whenever people say, "It's her saying she's in love with him" I feel like people are missing the big picture, because, the WHOLE theme of the book is how we treat those who are "different". Literally. The end of the book has a monologue about questioning whether we should pity Erik. (and the answer is a lot more complicated than a simple yes or no).

SO. IDK. MAYBE???

[godlygivenanxiety]

y'know what i want in a jilco fanfic? i want jinx to try and be powder again for her sister, to even try and be civil with ekko(somewhere along s1).

i want to see that because i know it wouldn't work.

there's not much to do that would make them ever forget the things she has done, it would forever be silently weighting on their conscience; jinx would mention something about having designed some kind of tech for silco and they would wince, they would make concerned faces at her ideas or bombs, vi would've to convince ekko of jinx not meaning malice when she loses her temper or explodes something in loud arguments.

even if silco didn't fight through hell and back to 'rescue' her, jinx isn't what vi or ekko want her to be and it would only make jinx hate herself more and more, until she either left and silco had to find her somewhere in zaun or they fucked up massively by triggering her so bad(something that vi did do in canon) that she does something as unforgivable as the council attack.

either way, she would find her comfort in silco as she has always done meanwhile silco can finally embrace her tight and let himself admit to her that he was so close of losing it without her near. and it would be such a powerful reunion for the both of them *sighs*

[monabee-draws]

There are too many things to say about Act 3 but one truth is that Episode 7 is the best episode in the season. And I mean in terms of a complete, narrative arc in one episode. There are plenty of absolutely perfect scenes and moments in other episodes (Isha's scene in ep 6, Jayce and Viktor's final reconcilliation) but wow was 7 the best written episode overall.

The Ekko/Heimer plot:

- Explores the beauty of a world entirely uncorrupted by the Hextech dream because this Powder chose to close the power away in a drawer.

- We watch Heimerdinger see the fruit of what his work might have done if he didn't dig his head in the sand for decades. It is blissful inaction and lack of compassion that kills. It is the maintenance of the status quo by those who benefit from it that kills. It is the entire false dream of Piltover that kills. And it can be changed, but only if those in power recognise their own hubris.

- Heimerdinger's death foreshadow's Jayce and Viktor's as well. He chooses to 'evaporate' into the Arcane so that the younger generation can try again, and make up for his mistakes. His brand of scientific omniscia did not work, and neither will jayvik's.

- The sister's tragedy persists in every universe. Vi and Jinx never get to be together no matter how perfect things could have gone. Vander warns our Vi that the kids will always follow her lead, and its on her head if things go wrong. Their Vi paid that price for them. She saved Mylo, Claggor, Vander and Powder. But there will always be a loss somewhere. There is no perfect world.

- Powder/Jinx was never going to be happy staying in Zaun and always needed to be free beyond other people's wants for her/their protectiveness/the cycle of violence. This foreshadows her imagined conversation with Silco and her flight at the end of episode 9 (she's alive I'm sorry.)

- Ekko learns to reconcile his vision of freedom with the imperfect nature of his own world (a very necessary lesson for a time traveler), a realisation that also foreshadow's future Viktor's realisation that perfection isn't good actually.

-> overall, this half teaches us Jayce's lesson about the importance and beauty of imperfection, of freedom of will, and going beyond the will of others. It's a perfect microcosm of the story as a whole, and expertly sets up every other character's choices in the end. Not to mention the literal time travel device ends up saving the world. That small imperfection - "That device cannot be" - is what sets everyone free.

For Jayce's story:

- Se see that Viktor's beautiful commune was always a lie, and all of the people he 'healed' were already dead at his hands. Hextech was never going to save anybody. The dream was tainted from the beginning.

- Jayce's resillience and agency grow and recover beyond what we see of him in season 1. He takes real accountability for his actions for the first time. The sheer spread of the consequences contradicts Jayce's insistence that they thought of every countermeasure. This entire sequence destabilises his (and Viktor's) images as gifted scientists whose intellect is equivalent to omniscience. They too are blinded by the same folly of Piltover's elite - their superiority is finally and thoroughly challenged in an indisputable way.

- His injury and leg brace level him with Viktor in a way that is crucial visual language for their later reconcilliation and Jayce's speech about accepting flaws in the finale. The fact that it is his Hextech hammer that breaks his leg is even more important - more evidence of the corruption of their dream, and of violence not being the correct solution.

- The scope of the dead world needed to be explored for us to understand how bad of an apocalypse we risk facing such that Zaun and Piltover cooperating could even be conceivable despite Caitlyn and Ambessa's fascist campaigns tearing the cities apart. The audience needs to have that disbelief suspended, and those scenes achieve that. In-story the cooperation between cities is still unbelievable, but this episode succeeds at making it understandable from a meta-perspective. We know what lies beneath the mask.

-> Overall, this half reinforces the themes of glorious imperfection, but also helps better set the stage for the audience to suspend their disbelief later on. And, it very importantly reminds us that no one character in Arcane has ever or will ever be 'correct' about the best path to move forward. It must always be a collaborative effort, and when we forget that, we forget ourselves, and we doom the world to a twisted vision.

[hilacopter]

I will probably be burned at the stake for this but I hate how popular ships in fandoms (ESPECIALLY here) are always based on WhO'S tHe MOsT QuEeRCoDEd iN CanOn and not on whether the ship is actually. good. I won't deny that a lot of these popular ships are good and it would be fine if they didn't become the literal fanon norm and every time someone has other ships for the characters or god forbid, doesn't like the ship, everyone goes "we totally respect your opinion and all but they're literally so gay how can you not see how gay they are you dumbfuck-"

[lilchaoswitch]

I wish dating Sim games/otome games or whatever were gender neutral or you got the ability to choose your pronouns like in The Arcana :( I know gay guys who play dating sims is a small demographic but please please pleasepleaseplease just let me pick my pronouns so I can immerse myself in the Anime Men Romance Simulator without feeling dysphoric 🥲

[starbamnk]

thinking about academic rivals to lovers boat boys but its just. you know. etho being really smart and joel being all like "get a loadda this guy."

to the point where they're genuinely obsessed with eachother (under the guise of rivalry) to the point that their mutual friends are like "guh we should get them together or smth... or. mess with them >:3"

so their mutual friends (namely bdubs, impulse, pearl, grian, etc.) begin to do dumb things like leaving faux mocking love letters in Joel and Ethos's lockers' under the other's name, writing their names in eachother's notebooks surrounded by hearts, teasingly mentioning "oh, Etho/Joel has been talking about you" and things of the like

genuinely drives Etho and Joel crazy but they're also like "ohmygod hes been. talking about me—"

[silverware-is-interesting]

got some sketches of the band au

Note: these are not final, design's are likely going to change when i eventually clean them up. they all technically have 2 outfits (onstage n offstage) these are just the onstage fits

idk what to make the tag for this au tbh "kinitopet band au" seems kinda boring... ANYWAYS! Have a terrible overview of the concept so far. n the band members too ig

Meet the KinitoBAND (placeholder name while i think, i'm open to suggestions though). They're a rather niche yet beloved band who play a multitude of different genres. all of their songs have a rather upbeat nature, or, they used to. lately they've been leaning more into rock and sometimes it just gets a little... strange... wonder why that is? they're actually more like vocaloids(???) that are programmed like Kinito with the react response algorithm (Kinito's i more advanced, but they've all got it) so if they ever did interact it'd be alright. the programmer (Sonny C) had initially only meant for there to be a vocalist but there was a decision somewhere to make a band (so there's a drummer and a guitarist too)

Let's get into the characters

Kinito The vocalist + tech Kinito is a fan-favourite, to be expected of the one who is always in view front 'n center. personality-wise he's similar to his canon counterpart, just a bit (emphasis on bit) more chill. i've imagined him to get a little... parasocial with his fans who probably just went for the music. he has a bit of a persona on stage, you could say. he's more energetic and in general might be a little more aggressive than usual, especially lately.

Sam The drummer Sam isn't quite as popular as Kinito, but he's got quite a few fans who might not gravitate towards Kinito like almost all the promotional material wants you to or people who like the drums. personality - Sam has a calm, almost 'cool guy' demeanor. he acts relitivley the same on and off stage. Jade the guitarist Jade, unfortunately, is the least popular member of the band. She's got a couple devoted fans, but noticeably less than the others. just as intended. personality- she's quite resourceful and the most upfront about things of the band. she's generally louder than the others, not on purpose, she's just not the best at maintain a good speaking volume.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Lady of Winterfell being an uncommon speculation for Arya is a little ridiculous considering "Arya Stark" is already the Lady of Winterfell. Obviously we, as the audience, know she isn't physically present in the North but she's still an essential aspect of the Northern plot and already associated with the role in-universe despite not being there. There are theories built off a single misinterpreted line but somehow, Arya becoming Lady of Winterfell is unlikely even with all of her plot connections 🙄

[legionofpotatoes]

everyone hates crunch and everyone wants the new dragon age to have 4x the scope with 8x the quantum content