im not used to drawing nsfw/suggestive art (additionally, I never draw female figures) and i think thats ABUNDANTLY obvious lmfao (not taking critiques on this, i'm doing this purely for fun/practice and don't want to be critiqued on it)
anyway. sub lute x dom adam but neither of them are happy about that dynamic. lute decides to point it out and annoys adam. to be lined and colored tomorrow because it's 11:30pm and i'm tired, with a possible continuation at some point
also random commentary because i feel like it:
i think adam would 100% be down to get completely naked except for his mask/helmet in front of lute. why? he refuses to tell her even though she's seen his face, I doubt Adam himself knows
i also 100% think adam calls lute bitch in public as a front. lute is the only woman he won't privately call a bitch but if there's even a slight chance he'll be overheard he calls her bitch.
lute's wings are probably going to be chained in the final piece. idk i think chained wings (whether it be her wings being chained or adam's wings being chained, but she absolutely prefers it when adam's wings are chained) would be a turn on for her tbh
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Le Rite sacré de l'amour magique - The Sacred Ritual of Magical Love.
Mild NSFW
I feel so sad whenever I read about how this scene was 'cringe' and 'unnecessary' and 'awkward' - given it's visually and narratively a feast of subtext, and full of delicious tidbits about the essential nature of Hex-tech as a magical system.
It also wonderfully highlights the fusion of a pure source powered by the crystallization of celestial bodies with the viscerality of blood as a sacrificial link to esoteric knowledge - but at the cost of forfeiting one's 'tether' to humanity.
We have Viktor literally having a brush with death and nearly transcending the physical plane, while the Hex-gem takes away his life force and infuses it into its internal matrix - a literal melding between man and magic that, sadly, also requires the forfeiture of his fundamental humanity.
All while simultaneously, Jayce and Mel are making love, in a gorgeously animated sequence which is allllll about prioritizing female pleasure (and showing a female orgasm onscreen in a PG-13 kids' show - like, y'all, that takes balls, given if it were a mainstream Hollywood film, it'd earn an NC-17 rating or get slapped with a big ol' R for its trouble.)
And there's so many wonderful interpretive lenses we can apply to the juxtaposition between Viktor and Jayce - all while sex, death and magic are happening onscreen. On one level it represents Jayce's seduction, and by proxy corruption, at the hands of Mel - all while the Hex-core is corrupted by human blood that belongs to a man who has grown up in toxic environs and carries their lived legacy in his body to the point it's killing him from the inside out.
And on the other hand, we can see it as a divergence between the two routes of magical power as a means to channel transcendent knowledge - one through the brutal solitude of Viktor's path, which will ultimately set him in Machine Herald territory, and have him casting off his 'earthly ties' - right down to everything that makes him human. For him, the Hex-core is knowledge to be penetrated and absorbed, and its secrets require a sacrifice of the highest order. And on the other hand, we have Mel and Jayce literally melding together with astral imagery in the background, to show a different route that magic allows one to take, namely where two life-forces come together and engender something sublime between them (or possibly even make a baby? It's a popular fan theory and I can certainly see the potential.)
Magic, for Arcane, seems to be a means of interconnecting different facets into a unified whole (not unlike the way the series mirrors and makes parallels between a host of characters and circumstances, almost like they're different faces of a Hex-gem). And this scene sums up so powerfully what that system of science and magic is about - and the extreme highs and lows it can take you to.
And of course, right at the heels of this intense interplay between sex and death, two different types of la petite mort, we have the ultimate confluence between the two:
Rebirth.
And who better to embody it than two characters who carry their dead selves behind them like corpses shackled to their heels, in different ways?
Tbh I read these scenes as a trilogy for explaining Arcane's magic system - with Jinx being that final spark - literally the Powder - that blasts Hex-tech in all its destructive and yet empowering potential wide open.
Also a separate aside, I find this scene way more uncomfortable than the earlier two, simply because the interactions between Silco and Jinx are so fraught and charged. The first time you watch it, there's that almost-kiss Gotcha! that makes you spit-take, like: Wait are they...? And then the whiplash is so extreme because in a blink it goes from uncomfortably full of romantic undercurrents to strangely tender, verging on reverent. A moment of perfect and pure trust between two monsters whose entire conception of trust has been trampled into shards that they now use to cut others with.
But for me the pinnacle is this scene.
Other fan theories have also stated that they see Jinx as sort of the unwitting embodiment of the Hex-crystal's power paired with the dark potency of Shimmer, and for me this is one of the biggest visual metaphors. This girl, caught in a blissful gyre of fulfillment and serene frenzy, unmade and then remade, as she deciphers the codes of the Hex-gem and feels, for the first time, at one with herself and with her potential to unlock secrets and usher in miracles.
And madness, too, but that's a whole 'nother analysis.
tl;dr - Please Fortiche. Release an art book. I will shell out the big bucks<3
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I honestly think that Ekko's trauma is often overlooked or outright pushed aside and ignored by a large section of the Arcane fandom.
Now this does make sense to some degree, Ekko is a side character so it makes sense why he's not as discussed as the main characters of the show but it feels like even as a side character he is often cast aside.
It feels like everyone analyzes every other character thoroughly and for good reason, these are very multi-layered characters but it also feels like with Ekko they barely even give him a side glance and when they do talk about his hurt it seems like they only extend to Jinx. While Jinx is a very large piece of it (seriously they have a whole other thing going on) she definitely is not the only thing lingering on in his mind. I mean he saw his basically uncle get killed in front of him, he is the leader of a resistance group and he also basically lost his entire family in one night, like have you seen the bags under his eyes, that boy is stressed out but it feels like these aspects of his character are ignored by the community.
Honestly his treatment within the fandom mirrors what a lot of black people go through our trauma and hurt is brought up. It is either brushed aside or outright ignored with it often being countered with "that was a long time ago" and this is especially seen with little black girls and boys. The fandom analyzes almost everything within the show from full blown characters to little background details but yet Ekko is often left out of the equation in these discussions and it just makes me a little bit annoyed.
Ekko also suffers from what a lot of other black characters in media do which is the almost bad faith criticisms or misinterpreted thrown them. It feels like a lot of black characters are held up to a standard that no other character gets held too and where their actions are taken in the most negative light on purpose. I haven't seen this that much but I have seen it a handful of times, where people will villainize Ekko and say that he is "getting in the way" of Zaun's liberation which is wild because Ekko out of everyone in the show is the only person that positively effects Zaun and it's people. You even see this in shipping where Ekko is label an abuser or aggressive.
Overall I know this probably doesn't really matter and most of the fandom probably likes Ekko but I just wanted to vent a little bit 😭 and I just hope in S2 they flesh out his character and that the fandom starts to take more notice of him.
Thanks to @letters-to-rosie for helping me think about this more.
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First Day
A/N: this has been in my head for a long time because I have random trivial star trek knowledge and whenever they show spencer talking about star trek in the show i go all heart eyes so I wrote a little blurb 🫶🏻 also I had fem!reader in mind when I wrote this but I realized I didn’t actually make any references to gender so 🤷🏻 - mod angel
Pairing: Spencer Reid x GN!Reader
Summary: Spencer bonds with his new coworker over Star Trek.
~~~
It was my first day at the BAU, and I was a little… intimidated being here. I had been mostly keeping my head down and staying quiet, since social interaction wasn’t something I was great at. I was okay just watching the others interact with each other for now.
“Hey, kid,” Derek called out, beckoning Spencer. “I need your help with the crossword.”
Spencer walked over to Derek’s desk, which was next to mine. “What’s up?” he asked.
Derek pointed to the newspaper with his pencil. “7 across: James _ Kirk (Star Trek). 8 letters.”
Tiberius, I thought instinctively. I considered saying it out loud, but he hadn’t asked me, so I decided to stay quiet.
“Tiberius,” Spencer said, almost as fast as I had thought it.
I smiled to myself. I was always the only one who knew about geeky stuff. Until now, I guess.
Derek finished filling in the crossword. “Thanks. I knew it was always James T. Kirk, but I didn’t know what it stood for.”
Without thinking, I spoke up. “Actually, in the third episode of The Original Series, someone who’s fighting Kirk prepares a gravestone for him and it says James H. Kirk.”
Everyone turned to look at me, staring at me with open mouths. I blushed. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. But now I felt uncomfortable sitting in this silence.
I cleared my throat. “Um. So. Yeah. It wasn’t always James T. Kirk, as you said. They didn’t mention his full initials until-“
“Episode 13: The Conscience of the King.” Spencer cut me off, his eyes lighting up like he had been dying to talk about this. He walked over to my desk and leaned on the front of it. “The first time they mention it is when Spock is checking his background and speaks it into the computer.”
I nodded, smiling. “Yeah, and they don’t mention the name Tiberius until the 6th movie, The Undiscovered Country.”
“Oh my god, there are two of them,” I heard Emily say.
Either Spencer didn’t hear her or he was purposefully ignoring her. “Actually…” he started, sitting on my desk. He was bouncing a little. “The first time the name Tiberius is mention is in The Animated Series episode BEM.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.” I admitted. “I’ve never actually seen The Animated Series. Actually, I’ve only ever seen part of The Original Series…”
That only made him sit up straighter. “Do you want to watch it? I have every episode on DVD. I’d be happy to show it to you sometime.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’ve always wanted to finish watching it, and watch the other shows too. If you don’t mind me imposing…”
He shook his head. “I don’t mind at all. Not a lot of people I know are interested in Star Trek, so I’m happy to show it to you if you’re interested. You can come by my apartment sometime and we can watch it.”
I nodded. “That sounds great. I appreciate it.”
I heard people whispering in the distance.
“Did he just-“
“Shh, don’t say anything, you’ll jinx it. I think this is the first time in history that this has ever worked.”
“And probably the last time it will ever work. This is definitely a unique circumstance.”
I blushed a little as I heard everyone talking about us, but I continued chatting comfortably with Spencer for a while before everyone was interrupted by the news that we had a case. But I was really relieved that, despite feeling so overwhelmed about starting this job, I had been able to make a friend on my first day.
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