I love how Arcane utilizes the meta language of film and digital media to convey its story.
The most obvious example of this is Jinx’s scratchy hallucinations. This is an exceptionally old film technique where you literally scratch the emulsion off of the film stock frame by frame. When done correctly this results in these sharp jagged gaps in the film that light shines through, resulting in this scratchy inconsistent effect.
So whenever Jinx is having a psychotic moment, the screen takes on the qualities of film stock and becomes irregular and out of focus, almost as if whoever was scratching those lines literally took the film out of the camera, scratch it, and then is trying to re-insert it back into the shot.
There are other meta-like moments in Arcane too. In season 2 when Vi punches the jaw guy in the pit fighter scene, her punch is SO STRONG that it literally dislodges the film reel briefly. Which is hilarious to me!
But the most interesting thing about this use of meta film language to tell the story is when the Anomaly comes into play. We first get glimpses of this when Jayce is walking through the storm right before exiting into the clearing at the top of the hexgate.
Instead of scratched film and other physical media tricks, the screen starts to… glitch. Like a faulty LCD TV monitor or a bad digital broadcast signal.
We never see this effect around any other parts of the show. ONLY around the anomaly and other moments where the Arcane is coming through.
And I think the reason they do this is because it makes the Arcane feel other worldly. Up into now all the visual effects and subtle tricks have been based on physical media. Film scratches, out of focus reels, dirt on the film stock, noticeable film splicing, projection issues, etc. It’s always been quirks of physical media.
But the Arcane is different. It’s not of this world. It’s MAGIC. So they switch to using noticeable digital effects when the Arcane starts acting up. Screen tearing. Streaming glitches. Color blocks and signal loss.
I just think that’s really cool. They could’ve just kept using film language to tell the story, but they use our familiarity with film language and start mixing it up to convey the magical other worldly nature of the Arcane. How cool is that?
my most Millennial trait is that i want big screen to think properly. to compose my thoughts. app exists for your thing but no website? bad bad bad not good for think, need big screen for think. i wrote this post on the small screen btw
There are times when Helaena sees things. It will sound mad. They are nightmares or puzzles. But the things she does see now and then, they come to pass. She dreams. She's a dreamer.
As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft's most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I've been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.
FIRST:
The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:
A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customi
It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).
Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).
Microsoft wants to put AI everywhere on your PC, but you can take back control.
Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:
No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).
Tired of Microsoft pushing ads throughout Windows 11? Here are the settings you can tweak to turn them off and reclaim some privacy.
The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.
Bonus:
Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)
Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)
How to disable the AI in firefox (still the only browser that lets you do this permanently) (Windows Report, 2025)
Crawling out of my hole to remind people that with this current update to Firefox (version 144) they've gone and dumped in their lot with a buncha lil AI tools, namely Perplexity as a new search engine.
So if the sound of that leaves your mouth tasting of tar, here's what you want to do:
In the url bar, type in about:config
It'll give you a big scary warning page that you might poke holes in your browser. Good. You want to do that. Click continue.
One by one, you're going to need to put each of these into the search bar in the page, not up top:
Each of these are gonna have a lil toggle icon on the right hand side that looks like a funky double-ended arrow. Click that and the value next to it should change to false. It all auto saves as you go. Some of these might already be set to false by default and that's peachy.
The next best thing you can do for yourself is to set your default search engine to udm14 or Qwant, but for now, we're just tidying the garden a lil bit.
the idea that every summer will be as hot if not hotter than this for the rest of my life is unbearable i need to (remembers suicide jokes are bad for my mental health) murder an oil executive
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pixelskylines
origamiaround
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