#throughout the seasons

[lfleio]

Season 1-7

[nick-close]

If you google Jonathan Sims Magnus Archives fanart and look under images you’ll find a spot on drawing of Anthony Burch.

[idkaguyorsomething]

as well as being well written, well acted, and well edited, wild blue yonder also pays tribute to one of the most important traditions of nuwho: running around the same fucking hallway over and over again.

[pizzat-i]

something's a bit fishy about this man

[neon-sunsets]

it’s actually insane to me in retrospect that viktor got the arc he did. I need to go back and count his screen time minutes, but it’s clear that he’s up there numerically, and his story has so much weight within the narrative outside of just numbers as well.

beyond that, though, is the fact that viktor's narrative is fundamentally one about internalized ableism and the systemic structures that encourage it.

(obligatory disclaimer #1 that I have a significant mobility disability and a progressive chronic illness, but I am only one disabled person.)

imagine this: you are a child. you are disabled. the world you live in is one where you cannot afford healthcare; no one is there to teach you how to even use your cane correctly. your world is inaccessible and, worse, even the people who would normally show class solidarity with you don't, because you are not even able to do what they expect from you. characters like vi, powder, claggor, ekko, and mylo are all shown care and solidarity that viktor isn't — because they are able-bodied and therefore able to "pull their own weight."

this, at least, is an environment that can probably be overcome or mitigated by age and meeting people in your community who do care about you. this is an environment comparable to that of many, many, many disabled people who manage to thrive in a deeply unfair and ableist world.

but then you encounter a man who sees that you have talent and tells you as much. he does not ask much of you and he does not care that you are disabled. all he asks is for some help, which you give, and in return he teaches you the things he knows. what comes of this, after all is said and done and your understanding of the world has been fundamentally changed, is that you do have something you can give to your community, to the world. you have a talent which you can use to make yourself useful. you're not strong or sturdy but you can make machines, and that is always in need.

but you can't skate by on being useful like a normal child. the onus is always on you to prove that you're worth the air you breathe and the space you take up, that it's worthwhile to keep you alive. and the place to go to make yourself the most useful, where the most change can be made, is not a place you have any traditional way of accessing. you, through tenacity and grit, manage to get there anyways. (the show doesn't depict this, but any way viktor would have managed to get to the academy would have involved significant difficulty and possibly deception).

and when you get there, to that towering city of bronze, you find that nothing you do actually matters all that much.

everyone looks at you and sees your disability. everyone looks at you and sees where you're from. no matter how smart or accomplished or helpful you are, your behavior will always be, in their eyes, representative of your people. you could handle the stares, the rejection. but their judgement is dangerous to you and your people.

so, in order to survive, you must be perfect. you must project confidence or at least indifference to their cruelty. you must do as you're told and accept meager promotions and toil away as an assistant. you might be the only disabled zaunite they'll ever meet, so you have to make it count. if you fail, if they decide everyone from the undercity is lazy and useless, it's your fault.

you tell yourself you won't let them get to you. you tell yourself that you believe in your abilities.

it's a convenient narrative, and it's wholly untrue.

you, after all, are only a human being. a lifetime of the chips stacked against you is nearly impossible to overcome.

and so the image you build of yourself is that of a man far more self-confident than you, one who is quiet and reserved but proud of his accomplishments. the man you actually are, though, is one desperate for acceptance. desperate to assimilate. you chase your dreams, yes, but you can't bear to take credit, can't bear to be the face of them. you don't let yourself get close to anyone except the man you've built all of this with, who you love more than anyone else. you don't let anyone touch you (except him) and you don't touch anyone. you convince yourself you don't deserve his love or anyone's, that you're not whole enough for that.

you take it so far that, when you finally have the technology you think can cure your terminal illness, the first thing you try to fix is your leg. not the thing eating at your lungs and cutting short the time you thought you had, but the leg which has marked you as Other your entire life. and even though it doesn't quite work, even though it still causes you pain with every step, you force yourself to run on it — faster and faster until you're outrunning the ships and screaming because you may have visibly "fixed" your leg but it still hurts the same.

and when the system is not only oppressive in the material sense but also set up to make you hate yourself, there is almost no escaping this cycle of self-hatred. throw in the fact that in season 2 viktor keeps getting tossed from resurrection to resurrection against his will and it's no wonder the man did the things he did. it doesn't excuse them by any means, but arcane is not interested in excuses — it's interested in what makes people do the things they do. everything that he did to the people in the commune was a reflection of his own self-hatred, both because he still possessed it after death but also because, since he was programming the hexcore to try and save his life but started with "fixing" his leg, it is designed to make people as physically "normal" as possible. the faceless, identical machine people are a metaphorical representation of the ideology viktor has bought into in his pursuit of self-hatred and internalized ableism. his whole arc across both seasons is a demonstration and condemnation of the ways that systems of oppression reinforce self-hatred in the people they are oppressing.

obligatory disclaimer #2 that I don't think arcane did everything right. I'm frustrated with the direction of season 2 away from the piltover/zaun class conflict and towards the broader league of legends universe. but I do think, as a disabled person with a very similar experience of my disability to viktor, that this arc is well-done and very compelling. in the end, what saves the world is viktor accepting that he is deserving of being loved. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a good long while.

[hiding-under-the-willow]

anyways. What

[tealvenetianmask]

THIS was the biggest character growth moment for Blitz in the episode.

Early on, Stolas asks about the horses, and Blitz makes a joke of the idea that he has a traumatic past. Now, in the fandom, there's been a bunch of speculation that his love of horses has to do with growing up around them in the circus... and I think that's a pretty good bet. But regardless, I think the fact that he makes this joke is supposed to signal to the audience he's not ready to really open up about his past and/or doesn't think that Stolas needs him to.

Why would he anyway? His idea of caring for Stolas involves smiling a lot, being silly, being encouraging, making food, buying/stealing/ killing things for him- keeping him in the moment, and letting the really difficult emotional stuff just exist in the background for the time being.

It's not a bad strategy.

But when Stolas goes through being rejected by his daughter and responds with utter despair and hopelessness, I think Blitz realizes that he has something to offer on a deeper level. Because of his painful life experiences, and not in spite of them.

His particular brand of resilience has a core of defiant determination in the face of staggering emotional pain. And Stolas needs that from him, so he's going to be really fucking brave and share it.

[ariadne-mouse]

god Arcane S2 is so good. I love not knowing any of the source material, because I'm just consuming the story as it is - with absolutely exquisite visuals and beautifully orchestrated emotional arcs. The ending had me legit crying and loved every moment of it.

[viyojo]

Happy Graduation!! ✨ 🎓 🎉

[sassyeddie]

Buck and Eddie | Matching Tattoos

( buddie tattoo soulmateism for @wellcollapse )

[smile-dance-breathe]

Nellie Nelson & Henry Nelson in Heartstopper Season 3

[dredgesnails]

grian and gem are being consumed by the sea. pearl’s a fish. mumbo’s growing gills. rivers are being built and expanded everywhere. keralis is chilling on his yacht. big salmon is… big salmoning. my god it’s inescapable

[screwpinecaprice]

I'm retaining my headcanon that he's like a human heater. Perfect for winter seasons.

[lonestardust]

Confused TK throughout the seasons via @k__buttercup

[genericpuff]

For the sake of comedy, I redrew this iconic S1 panel in the S3 style. Better or worse? 💀😆 /s

edit: because i've gotten comments on both this post and the one i shared in the subreddit that seem to misinterpret why i made this, y'all this is meant to be satire, i'm not actually trying to 'outdo' the original panel, it's supposed to look like the S3 art style which looks boring and stiff compared to the original LMAO (I even used S3 panels as the base to work off of when creating this) so yes all the issues with the redrawn version are on purpose, i'm well aware it's not as good as the original and that the anatomy is wack, that just tells me i succeeded because it's p much exactly what S3 of LO looks like JFKDLAJFDASKLJKASLD

[canarybell]

Stumbled upon another "Crowley is always the one saving Aziraphale, when will Aziraphale save Crowley for a change?" post.

And my only question was, did I just Imagine these moments or what?....