Sports and Geeks

Camilla. 30. USWNT. Critical Role. SWEWNT. woho. Comic Books. I play rugby.

[bigflooparh]

[srdcovka]

the most annoying coworker on earth almost killed a patient while you're getting ur blood drawn by a literal angel

[khalliys]

The girls!!!!

[chapispng]

they love derpy :3

[bunnilily]

post-movie rumi's pattern admiration ✨

[cutetanuki-chan]

hits them with a poly beam

[jawlipops]

rumi sandwich WOOOOOOO

[jawlipops]

incredibly self indulgent doodles lol

[gayafsowhat]

Mira and Zoey suddenly relating to those like 1800s men seeing a woman's ankle for the first time memes but it's with Rumi's shoulders

[alexontoast]

what if pit fighter vi ✨had a bath✨

[the-canine-king]

The CaitVi reversals are adorable and I really like the thought process. It's so fun seeing Caitlyn, who tries to be so disciplined and reserved, be so expressive despite herself, and having a character as selfless and unwilling to take for herself as Vi be a vampire who HAS to take, and take from a happily willing Caitlyn, inspired.

Also the range of your art from the awesome muzzle/bloody mouth to the really cute silliness in one page is A+

RAAAGH YOU GET THE VISION EXACTLY…!!!

ngl, sometimes i feel awkward drawing the au with all the other great regular werewolf/ vampire au art bc i tend to second guess myself for the reversed ideas being way too OOC and being overly self indulgent (i mean IT IS self indulgent but still lol), so i really appreciate comments like these :')

and thank you!! sometimes i just wanna get some quick/ silly ideas out and other times i want to put in more effort lol

here's a silly doodle for you

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Arcane and the myth of the silver bullet

I've heard quite a few reviewers talk about the fantasy elements of Arcane as though they're an intrusion. Even though the show is named Arcane and centers around the impact of magic as technology, some feel these elements take away from the grounded class conflict. (I would argue class conflict is secondary to character conflict, but that's another post.) Why does a story about a class war end in fighting a person trying to impose their ideology on the entire city by force using magic, as opposed to previous people trying to do so using mundane violence?

There's two levels of fantasy in Arcane. There's the obvious level, the Arcane, hextech, magic itself. But there's another form of fantasy that Arcane struggles with, and it's the myth of the silver bullet.

Jayce and Viktor's hextech is the silver bullet's original form: technology that transforms society for the better just by existing. Viktor's belief in the silver bullet is so complete that he asks Jayce why he's wasting his time with politics when they could be helping people through science, and Jayce isn't too far behind. But the other characters aren't far behind them. Silco's Shimmer is the most obvious silver bullet analogue, but the indirect and most pervasive one is violence. Just direct violence at the right person and society is solved. Kill Silco and Powder comes back. Kill Caitlyn and Powder comes back. Blow up the Council tower. Enact a fascist regime. Blow up a factory. The glorious revolution of Zaun. Three hex crystals. Shoot the Hexcore out of Viktor's chest. One big act of violence and the problem stops, right? Right? The ends justify the means.

The silver bullet of Arcane isn't Hextech. The silver bullet of Arcane is violence. Viktor's Glorious Evolution is magical, yes, but the magic is only a vessel for the true goal, the goal every character has been working towards: the end to the class conflict through the base violence for necessary change. See, the problem with the previous violence was that it wasn't big enough, wasn't thorough enough. We need to commit it against every person in Piltover and Zaun, and then, finally, it will be enough. The ends justify the means.

Except, they don't. Because the ends are the means and the means are violence and death. Three hex crystals and your family is dead. Isha blows herself up to save Jinx and Jinx almost kills herself over it. Blow up the Council and you get a fascist regime. Enact a fascist regime and you get Noxians. Shoot your best friend to avert the bad future and you cause it. It's no surprise that Viktor's one final act of violence ends the same way, a dead world. The silver bullet doesn't work. Killing is a cycle.

The magical aspects of Viktor's Glorious Evolution are fantasy. The belief behind it is not. The belief that we can force the world to be fixed, if we are strong enough, smart enough, brave enough, has been the ideal driving the entire class conflict, and the Glorious Evolution is merely its ultimate expression. Of course no amount of violence does anything to it. Of course it requires perspective and then forgiveness. And of course its defeat is the beginning of the long, slow social change that is Sevika on the Council. There is no silver bullet, no final evolution. Only the endless march of progress.

[sapphiresaphics]

The reason Season 2 ends with a big robot battle is because throughout the entire show, everyone thinks that to solve the conflict between the two cities you just need either bigger violence or the more correct form of violence.

Silco’s brilliant takeaway from the failed bridge revolt that began Arcane is that he just needs to have an even BIGGER attack. “For respect.” Right?

Jayce’s big plan to solve things was to team up with Vi to take on Silco. Because just getting rid of Silco will solve everything… right?

Jinx’s hatred and anger is taken out on the council, blowing them up in a fit of rage and retaliation. Surly that will stop things from getting worse, right?

Ambessa believes that Hextech weaponry will solve all her problems with the Black Rose. Remove them and everything will be okay, right?

So much of the justification for peace, is through acts of violence. Something Caitlyn herself remarks upon in season 2. But notably each time the violence escalates, the retaliation escalated too.

Jayce’s attempt to stop Silco resulted in him killing one of the Chem-Baron’s kids. That same Chem-Baron then attacks the memorial for the counselors which in turn sets off Caitlyn to attack the undercity, which in turn sets off Jinx to attack Piltover, which in turn forces Ambessa to seize control of the city. Every time, the violence escalates larger and larger.

The cycle continues.

And as things get worse and worse and worse, Viktor comes up with the ULTIMATE form of violence:

Forcefully remove ALL choice and agency from ALL people in the world and impose his own will on everybody all at once.

Viktor’s “glorious evolution” is the inevitable culmination of this attempt to stop the conflict between the two cities. It’s a different type of force, yes, but it’s still a force against your will all the same.

Viktor’s robot army is a visual representation of what the cycle of violence will ultimately lead to. It’s taking away your choice, your individuality, your emotions and fears, against your will.. by force. Reducing you to just a blank, faceless, obedient, automaton. You have no agency. You have no purpose. You don’t even have a voice to scream with.

But as future Viktor observes: “when all equations were solved, all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude.”

Arcane begins with the tale of two cities entrenched in the cycle of violence. The political machinations don’t leave the show, it just gets more and more heightened as the show goes on until it balloons out of control and becomes this enormous war over the very concept of individuality. Arcane needs to end with a big robot battle because that’s a visual metaphor for what happens when the cycle of violence continues. When you keep thinking “this act of violence will be the one to stop everything from getting worse” this is the only logical end game.

Just as doing science for the sake of science gets you the Atomic Bomb and the potential of Nuclear Destruction, violence for the sake of violence will only result in devastating consequences and a loss of rights and freedoms.

Anyone who thinks season 2 did away with the political messages of season 1 is lying to themselves. Season 2 is just a continuation of what was happening in season 1 and it only gets bigger and more intense as the show progresses until it reaches its breaking point.

Ps: this is my own extrapolation from this brilliant post. Please check their analysis out as well!

[shitpostingsapphic]

In general I think most arcane "critics" on social media would benefit from another rewatch of the whole show.

[shitpostingsapphic]

You know a character is overhated when people have to make up shit that didn't happen on order to justify that hatred.

"Caitlyn gassed the whole city of Zaun" wrong. She uses the grey as a weapon to incapacitate the chembarons in their hideouts, specifically. The montage SHOWS us this. She does this in a strike team she creates as a means to avoid an all out invasion led by the Noxian forces, which would have meant the deaths of several innocents. Even if the grey might have spread minutely to affect civilians, the chances are slim, and the grey is nothing more than factory smaug. Objectively, a handful of civilians breathing factory smaug for a brief amount of time is worlds better than numerous innocent people dying. Even in her rage, Caitlyn knows mercy.

And I guess these same people falsely overstating Caitlyn's actions don't want to talk about Jinx using gas bombs indiscriminately on the entirety of Piltover, intentionally harming innocent civilians. Or that her fishbones blast ALSO killed innocents.

No, I guess we only want to talk about the intentional harming of innocent people if it's Caitlyn doing it, and you have to outright lie about her intentions and the severity of which she acts in order to do so.

And the thing is, when you do shit like this, it makes it impossible to talk about other characters, like Jinx, their faults, their good and bad, without then making others assume that their character deserves hate the way you hate Caitlyn. I love Jinx. She's a fantastically written character. But I call out her actions and the way she harms others and you assume I'm calling her a bad character undeserving of an audience's love, right? The way you are with Caitlyn?

Arcane is supposed to be a show where we're able to discuss the spectrum of morality. And it's actually done phenomenally well, but people like you want to look at things in a very black and white way. You're looking at it on a class based system. If someone is from Piltover, no good deeds they do can be considered if they do something bad. If they're from Zaun, every evil thing they do must be defended in some way. Because privilege and oppression are the ultimate markers of good and evil to you. There's no complexity to be had there for you. People of privilege can't feel pain. Oppressed people can't cause pain.

It's narrow minded.

I love Arcane because we CAN discuss this complexity that exists. And I guess it makes sense why you hate season 2, because it made it impossible for you to stay with your narrow minded way of thinking.

[wingedshadowfan]

admittedly, we only saw pitfighter vi for a very short time, but i think i'm grateful for that bcuz i would go feral the more i notice abt her, the sadder and more existential i get

ppl pointed out she was in nothing but bandages, jeans and a jacket bcuz she was left alone in the undercity w/ basically no other clothes and in an enforcers uniform after her fight w/ cait

she was using the kiramman house banner as a blanket while rolling around in bed, beaten up, drunk out of her mind to keep images of caitlyn away and alone after physically having pushed loris away

i believe in one of the scenes of her w/ jinx and isha in the tunnels you can see that she'd still kept her enforcers badge and even hooked it onto her jeans but turned backwards

not to push my caitvi agenda but have you guys noticed how they both love each other and are aware of it (since the bed scene in s1 i'd argue)?? there's no miscommunication trope, no "idk if you like me back and i don't wanna lose you", no "i'm not sure abt my feelings for you", no "i don't love you back (as strongly)", etc - their love is a given and a mutually understood truth, which is what makes vi's "oil and water" so fucking sad and makes me so mad at the delusional ppl who say caitvi are abusive towards each other or don't perceive one another as equals

the only thing preventing them from being together since the start has been the outside circumstances and the current situation they found themselves in: the world of conflict and violence around them had swept them up and they knew it, it was always abt whether their love could survive those challenges, not abt whether it was there or whether it was true

[lettuccine]

(me to myself) it's okay, they're just acting..

zoom in on the smooches:

[papirfecni]

snippet of the caitvi page i’m working on :^)