#need some time to process that i think.

[ayliffe]

think my grandpa’s dying boys x

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[worldwright]

anyone else thinking that the Magnus interview questions Sam listed off sound awfully similar to the ones he's been answering on his mysterious ghost intake paperwork?

Two things about this: First, now we have two data points about what the hell sort of experiment fodder the people doing this ritual are looking for. Still no idea what it means, but it's a place to extrapolate from. It also reminds me of the OG-universe Institute interview questions, for whatever that's worth.

Second, I think we can safely assume that Sam isn't just filling out those forms out of spite. He's looking for a chance to do it again, but right this time.

[neutron-stars-collision]

I think that part of the reason why it took Colin a while to forgive Pen and accept LW is that he knows she can see right through him. It’s been said multiple times that she sees him for who he is, despite the mask he tried to wear at the beginning of this season.

And Colin probably thought that he can see her too. That he knows his Pen through and through. So when that crumbled… yeah, it was a harsh wake up call.

He must’ve felt uneven with her, along with the constant worry that he’s not enough for her, that he’s not worthy. The realisation that while she knows him, he doesn’t know her must’ve been a real kick in the gut.

[vi-is-badass]

Arcane Season 2 - The Base Violence Necessary for Change

I think this shot is the most interesting part of the trailer. We see a shot of Jinx as a painting on a wall. A symbol. A leader. Her actions stand for revolution in Zaun and I think this could be an interesting expansion of Arcane’s exploration of violence and the idea that there is a base violence necessary for change.

Silco is framed as an antagonist in season 1 because of his actions against the undercity people specifically.

In act 3 he’s not the revolutionary he positioned himself as and is instead hurting the people of Zaun through his leadership. He’s doing as much to hurt topside as Vander was in act 1 (meaning nothing at all). He’s even got the sheriff working with him just like Vander, but, unlike Vander, Silco is hurting his own people to facilitate power and he’s not even fighting for that freedom he claimed to want so much.

We see the damage his actions have wrought. We see the shimmer addicts, forgotten and exploited. We see that he's created a hierarchy rather than a community.

And it’s contrasted with the firelights. People considered terrorists to Piltover, who do use violence to fight back against Silco and topside, and yet offer the biggest glimmer of hope. They aren’t villainized. The act of fighting back isn’t villainized and it shouldn’t be.

Because it’s not the violence in and of itself that’s the issue. It’s what that violence is used for.

The series hammers this idea home through Vander. 

Vander’s staunch stance against violence is flawed as well. It comes from a good place. A desire to protect what he loves rather than destroy what he hates and it did create a time free of the death revolution brings, but it’s made it so no ground could be made to free Zaun and create a better world for the people in it. It created stagnation. 

The people of the undercity are still stuck in a cycle of crushing poverty, growing up without parents, dying young due to pollution or violence wrought by desperate people or oppressive enforcers.

It didn’t move the needle because Piltover and the system in place wasn’t going to change just because the people of the undercity were playing nice.

The unrest and anger felt towards Vander for his ideal was understandable. His views on the cyclical nature of violence and the fact that if you fight you will lose people (“What are you willing to lose”) is correct, but that doesn’t make this option the ideal one.

Which brings me back to that shot in the trailer of that painting of Jinx.

Season 2 looks like it’s going to be a season of opposites and rediscovery where it flips what we expect of Jinx and Vi on its head and further explores these ideas of violence, oppression, and revolution.

And I think this season might possibly do that by reversing how Vi and Jinx reflect Vander and Silco.

In the first season the siblings were direct reflections of their respective father figures, but now they’re inversions. Jinx can become the good to be found in Silco’s ideals and Vi the pitfalls of Vander’s.

Jinx’s actions in season 1 weren’t those of a revolutionary. Her actions weren’t meant to free the people of the undercity or improve their lives. She didn’t steal the hexcrystal to bring hextech to the undercity and improve their lives and she didn’t kill the enforcers on the bridge to get rid of dirty cops. She didn’t kidnap Caitlyn for a greater cause.

But we know that Jinx isn’t only the violence she enacted. That she is “the monster they (the system and people around her) created”. Her actions weren’t heroic in the first season, but they were driven by the life that was forced upon her. Her hurt and anger are justified.

Now that she’s away from Silco, no longer a part of his machine and actively participating in his actions that were hurting the undercity, her actions and anger can take on a new light. She can rediscover herself away from his manipulations (this isn’t to say he didn’t love her but what he did and said isolated her and allowed her issues to fester) and become that symbol we see on the wall.

Jinx could be in a way what Silco could have been if he didn’t let his own self interest get in the way of his ideals. Not quite as forward thinking as Ekko or as idealistic, but still a symbol for resistance that fights for Zaun.

Whereas Vi is sort of on a path to becoming a darker reflection of Vander’s ideals.

Vi becomes a part of the system she used to rage against.

 Based on the season 2 teaser that was released in 2021– 

“Nobody else needs to get hurt.”

–I think it’s likely that Vi believes she can prevent more death or can stop Piltover’s violence against the undercity if she takes Jinx in.

Vi sees herself as a protector who has failed at every turn to protect those she cares about. She lost her parents, Powder, Vander, Mylo, Claggor, etc. and she is constantly desperate to try and save what she loves and that will likely drive her decision to become an enforcer.

Vi, like Vander, wants to save what she loves and as a result isn’t going to fight back against topside. This is a much more extreme version of Vander’s ideals. Where she “compromises” in an attempt to prevent bloodshed but as a result enables (or in her case helps) the system in place.

This decision will have negative consequences (and deservedly so!) because no matter what thoughts or feelings are the driving factor in it she is still siding with her oppressors and ultimately helping the system that is the root cause of that loss and pain in the first place. 

Based on the clip released at Annecy and what people have said the writers explained about Vi’s arc in season 2 it seems like Vi will be ostracized for this decision and deservedly so. She won’t belong anywhere. To the undercity she’s a traitor and to Piltover she’s nothing more than an undercity rat.

She will have lost everything. She will have no one to protect. And who is Vi if she’s not a protector?

Vi will be forced to re-evaluate who she is and what she wants. Just like Jinx, Vi will have to redefine herself when she loses everything.

I can’t wait for season 2 and what the team at Fortiche has in store for us. The way the show tackles complex themes and ideas is incredible and Vi and Jinx are some of the most compelling and complicated characters I’ve seen on tv. I’m looking forward to November.

[an-established-butt-dent]

Wanderer

[icewindandboringhorror]

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[invinciblerodent]

i feel like I haven't seen enough people mention the fact that Halsin canonically smokes, specifically exotic tobacco, and specifically out of a nice, old pipe that looks (to me) like it might be briar wood.

i just think there is something so inexplicably warm about that, that he enjoys such a small, but extravagant little luxury.

like the only thing I can imagine him smoking is something that envelops him in that woodsy-spicy, pleasantly scratching scent of good quality tobacco for the rest of the day, and the only way I can see him doing it is settled back in a nice chair, with his feet propped up, a good book in his hand, and some fuzzy critter curled up in his lap.

[theecholegend]

Rulie is sending love to everyone!

Bonus: a 5 year old girl holding a puppy but it’s Time and Four

[front-facing-pokemon]

[couldneverhurtusnow]

[chemistry] it's not a word that actors [use]. but you must endeavor a little bit to try and fall in love, in whatever that capacity is. and andrew is a very easy person to fall in love with. he's kind, generous, talented. we shot the film at the perfect junction in our friendship where there was a lot we didn't know about each other, but there was mutual admiration and respect. and a similar sense of humor. (...) yeah, it felt fizzy when we were acting. especially with that first scene at the door -- it's so well-written. you feel like you're dancing through the scene, you can go in loads of different ways, and if i went one way, andrew would go another. if that's what chemistry is, i was aware it was happening.

-- paul on chemistry and whether ‘they (andrew & paul) knew instantly that their onscreen relationship was working’ in all of us strangers, screendaily.com (1/31/24)

[essenceofarda]

It's crazy to me that my doctors often criticize me for having "medical anxiety" but i never really had medical anxiety (to this extent at least) before I moved here and started seeing the doctors at this practice, where upon learning that I have a mental illness that has psychosis elements, would literally NEVER miss a chance to try to convince me that ALL my physical health issues are just a figment of my imagination, psychosis, or my apparent desire for attention ... (and like, not to mention they would oftentimes refuse to test or treat me unless i first "lost a bunch of weight"). My PCP once tried to convince me i must not be taking my mental health meds and that's why i "thought" i was having these health concerns... and like, belittling me to the point where I was told, point blank, to my face: "I'm not testing you for lyme Disease because it would be a waste of resources and you cannot possibly have it" (his exact words), despite my growing up and living in NEW ENGLAND, as well as one of the lyme disease capitols of the world, my dad being a deer hunter and having lyme disease himself, also having a bunch of symptoms that maybe could be other things too but were definitely in-line with lyme disease, but yeah, because I have a mental health disorder I must be just looking for attention 🙄 Now I avoid going to the doctor and when I do, I just downplay all my health concerns, even tho some are pretty serious and have a very negative impact on my day to day life.

Oh, the irony of being belittled by doctors for having "medical anxiety" when they were the ones who gave me medical anxiety in the first place lol

[jazzzzzzhands]

Can you draw Wally plz??

on tablet?

Do I really need an excuse??

I Honestly wasn't sure what you meant! Because i have drawn him so so many times digitally BUT this one is special BECAUSE! Normally i do do my sketch Traditionally, But i chose to take this ask as a personall challenge to do the WHOLE thing digitally looky at my digital sketch!!

just like my trad sketches, it is just very very light. Im so used to drawing lightly because i erase a LOT oh and hey, while i'm at it, just take my ding dang time-lapse

ahahaha just in case you guys ever wante to watch me manually color and yes yes, do those shading lines by hand because i love them. oh and ty Ibis for having background elements bc backgrounds are HARD. (But putting the little stickers and bgs together feels like scrapbooking and its fun!!)

If you actually watched me draw, you may get motion sickness from just how much i move my canvas around lmao

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

(how to resume the second half of this episode: *Captain Holt's voice* paiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin)

Season 1 episode 5 [A Vile Hunger For Your Hammering Heart] - part 2/2

- The way Louis' face is still as a statue as Loustat make their plans. The way you can feel the resentment covering the entire house.

- Lestat immediately shutting down going to Paris.

- And now welcome to the portion I'd like to call "Claudia Suffered More Than [insert your favourite martyr figure here]". Oof, Bruce immediately gives off a bad vibe, more than that white student who is after all only reproducing classic patterns of racism and classism.

- [Louis] "As the depression set in on the nation, I barricaded myself within the dilapidating walls of 1132 Rue Royale, educating myself from Lestat's library, ignoring all other duties of the role Claudia once mocked me for - the unhappy housewife." - was the raccoon really necessary? It is a nice touch, I won't lie, but really hammering in the point: the depression Louis talks about isn't just the Great Depression, it's his own (I like hammering points too, sorry). But you know what, I WISH I could lock myself wherever my books are and just ignore the whole fucking world and everyone in it for 3 or 4 years.

- [Louis] "Flaubert's style is so dense." - L'éducation sentimentale is, I'll admit it, a horror to read (but less than Le Rouge et le Noir, Stendhal really gave it his whole to make that one unbearable). Madame Bovary on the other hand is a gem.

[Lestat] "Louis Armstrong is in town tonight, playing at the Pelican" - when a bookworm introvert dates a music addict extrovert - beware the conflicting schedules and discordant ambiances. (In which I am Louis and the perfect day is a quiet day with classic music playing lowly in the background and a pile of books)

[Lestat] "You sound like every pompous Sorbonne student I've ever eaten." - ... As a former Sorbonne student, I have absolutely nothing to say in my defence (I studied French and English literature and linguistics for a year with a minor in audio-visual media, fyi). I am sadly very self-aware of how pompous I sound whenever I start talking literature. Sorry not sorry. (would absolutely not protest if Lestat decides to give me a visit. Ahem. Who said that.)

- [Lestat] "'You draw me into your gloom.' [Louis] 'It's your fault she's gone. If you hadn't pushed her... ' [Lestat] 'Claudia.' [Louis] 'If you hadn't done your...' [Lestat] 'Claudia, Claudia. I cannot listen to this insanity about Claudia one more time, bordel de merde.'"

I know we justifiably talk about Armand's "Lestat, Lestat, Lestat" litany, but Lestat's "Claudia" is quite good too.

Also, can't quite decipher what Lestat says in French there. English accent too thick. I think it's "ils me chient dans la main [gibberish]" ("they" or maybe "he shits in my hand") but don't quote me on that.

- Bruce's been stalking Claudia for a while, huh. And interesting to note that it's partly Louis' fault, his repetitive calls to Claudia that attracted his attention.

- Louis's destroying that table. I'm going to focus on that instead of whatever happened to Claudia or what Louis's doing to Daniel, no thanks. Just like how Armand immediately calms Louis down, and gonna cheer for that slap, good one, Daniel, well deserved, about time.

- [Lestat] "It could be her, but I am the one who is currently standing in front of you, and unlike Claudia, I am a full-blooded adult... with all the right appendages. So if all my considerable considerables continue to be squandered..."

'Stat... Yeah, I have nothing to say.

- [Grace] "Whoever you are that took my Louis" - yeaaah, if one of my sibling would say that to me, I think I'd just crumble and shut down. But at the same time, kudos to Grace for having the strength to bury her brother while he's standing in front of her and keeping whatever secrets he's guarding.

- [Claudia] "I spent time following Louis and Lestat now that I am my own woman, with no obvious sense of why I follow them, other than meaning slowly disintegrates without them... my companions in immortality. But today at the cemetery, I finally understood something so obvious, which I pondered for a decade... why they made me. To be Louis' sister."

*silently sobbing* It's the way Louis knows that passage by heart, and the way Claudia's prose keeps on being heartbreaking.

It's how Louis curls around his pain, and how Claudia makes herself taller in the face of this pain. It's how they don't even need more than an embrace and a word to make it better. It's how siblings who have gone through the same shit know each other so intimately. It's how that's the moment Claudia goes from daughter to sister.

- [Lestat] "The vampires out there are vicious. Oh. But you knew that already. Who did you meet out there in the American hinterland?" - oh, you are being especially awful, Lestat. I love you but you are being unfair. Even if you fear loneliness and abandonment, even if you've just went through seven years of not getting a single kind word or affectionate gesture from Louis... Lashing out, refusing to tell Claudia the truth about European vampires, the cruelty, the violence... No, that's not a good reason for it. But then again you wouldn't be Lestat if you didn't lash out when terrified and angry.

- Ouch. Contrasting that fight seen through Claudia's perspective with the s2 scene seen through Louis and Lestat's... Shivering. This is baaaaad.

Oh, no, no, no, no, I don't wanna see that part. I don't want to have to think about it and analyse it.

Man, I had forgotten how much that episode fucking hurts.

No, but the way Louis won't even say "I don't love you" not just because he won't give Lestat that satisfaction, because he lives to be stubborn and contrary, but maybe also because after all, after everything, that would still be a lie, and Louis doesn't lie; he forgets, he obfuscates, he redirects, he refashions his memories, but he doesn't lie... Even when his own life depends on it.

Episode insider:

Rolin Jones saying for Claudia "why was I the thing to make up for your mistakes". Yeah.

"This is where we start building the Anne Rice universe. As Lestat rightfully warned her there are wolves around the corner."

"It's the kid that goes 'My parents weren't all that bad. I have gone out and seen life. It is not all easy and conquerable'. And she comes back with hat half in hand, but with a mission - to take the good vampire and continue on with her life, and that is at odds with the other vampire in the house."

"It is about the fight of Louis, the fight for Louis's soul. I mean, in the end, it's 'Everbody Loves Louis', isn't it?" - Louis is catnip for vampires. And honestly I can relate. Did I say lately he's my favourite too...

That shot of Lestat hovering in the air all dressed in black with his hair floating around him while Claudia covers Louis's broken body with hers... Enraged Angel. Oh, that's worthy of a full oil on canvas painting.

Alright. That was harsh. And we're so not done. We love angst and tragedy, yey! *sobbing*

episode 1 | episode 2 | episode 3 | episode 4 | part 1 | episode 6 | episode 7

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

So sad you didn't like the dadsy moment. I thought for sure you would go crazy.

As far as I know David Breen wrote this episode and he's not new. Don't quote me, but I think the writing team is the same

Actually went back and edited my post twice earlier cause I had a buddy mention the mixing studios change and then I also was able to process more lol y’all must have the first version my B o7 I can’t believe my hcs have become canon

[derpiedoxie]

HAPPY (slightly belated) HALlOWEEN!!

HAVE SOME CORALINE FANART