arcade.waifu.ist
to be hot amongst the pyrotechnics . .
and still feel blue with envy . .
I didn't want speculative rambling and selfship stuff in my serious shrine so it's all here now. Enjoy.
Selfship
I'm a longtime waifubro but I've only been actively selfshipping since early 2023. Selfshipping is something I consider mostly separate from my real-life 2D attraction.
My Self-Insert
| Name | Anemone |
|---|---|
| Age | Forever young |
| Gender | Dubious |
| Height | 5'1"/1.55m |
| Weight | It's rude to ask! |
| Hair | Green |
| Eyes | Brown |
| Occupation | Security specialist |
Anemone is a young mutant with obscure origins. She has the ability to secrete a powerful sedative from a pair of glands located on the palms of her hands, which she typically covers with fingerless gloves. Traces of the same substance can be found in the rest of her bodily fluids. One of her chest hairs is actually an antenna that can pick up on psychic signals. It is superficially similar to a curled cat whisker. She shares a psychic link with a group of clownfish-like beings from a higher plane of existence, known collectively as the Amphiprion Hivemind. This link gives her a bunch of awesome reality-bending powers which primarily manifest as extreme good luck and the ability to levitate.
After enduring a past apparently steeped in hardship, she is content to spend the forseeable future under Arcade's employ. Anemone's bright and childish demeanor masks a distaste for humanity and an amoral nature. Despite having the means and motivation to commit mass-destruction, she has little interest in anyone or anything other than her boss. Anemone is referred to here with she/her pronouns exclusively. This is for clarity, as her actual gender is indeterminate. Arcade thinks of her as a young man and refers to her with he/him pronouns.
Story
During a brief career as a vigilante, Anemone learned of Arcade's existence through the testimony of other small-time heroes. Curiosity drove her to further investigation, initially of Murderworld but eventually extending to Arcade himself. As she learned more about Arcade and his past, she grew to believe the two of them were cosmically bound to each other. Anemone stalked Arcade for three years before applying for a low-level maintenance position at Murderworld in an attempt to gain more direct access to its internal records. She was successful in obtaining the records but did not avoid detection by Arcade, who decided to test her loyalty by staging a scenario where Anemone was offered a large sum of money in exchange for the information she had extracted. Anemone rejected this offer and was promptly offered a promotion.
While Anemone's official title is Head of Security, she enjoys performing menial tasks that allow her to be more present in Arcade's life. Anemone occassionally drugs Arcade with her own toxin so they can go on "dates". Arcade is aware of this behavior but allows it because he knows Anemone would never cause serious harm to him and because he finds high-risk relationships entertaining, though he does not reciprocate Anemone's attraction.
Edit Gallery
Various Arcade-related image edits I've made over the years.
PNGs
Stupid Shit
Miscellaneous
Rambles
I am easily upset by retcons and inconsistencies.
Place of Birth: Beverly Hills?
What is Arcade's place of birth? This should be a simple question with a simple answer. It's not. Well, it might seem simple, at first. If you ask Marvel's official website, they'll tell you he was born in Beverly Hills, California. I have good reason to believe this is incorrect, but that's getting ahead of myself. Why are they making this claim in the first place? To that, I can only make an educated guess. Here's what my research found.
Beverly Hills is, at the very least, an important location in Arcade's history. He was living in Beverly Hills immediately before killing his father. He says as much, in Uncanny X-Men #124. When asked directly "what kind of sewer" he crawled out of, that's the answer he gives. Beverly Hills. There's an obvious ambiguity in his statement, so I could forgive some confusion, though there are several context clues that would indicate he wasn't born there. His accent, in particular, doesn't lend itself to the idea that he was raised in California. In fact, his accent is explicitly identified as Texan in Marvel Team-Up #89. Both issues I've mentioned so far were written by Chris Claremont, who is one half of the creative team responsible for creating Arcade. Of course, I wouldn't typically place any special emphasis on information that comes from a comic character's original creator, but I mention it here because Claremont is responsible for both pieces of information. To me, that would clear up most of the ambiguity surrounding Beverly Hills. But that's only the first half of this story.
The first time Beverly Hills is listed as Arcade's place of birth is in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #1. His entire biography fills only half a page. Now, I know what you're probably thinking; maybe the handbook was simply released before the contradictory issue of Marvel Team-Up. That's simply not the case. Marvel Team-Up #82 has a cover date of 1979, while The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe began releasing in 1983. I can only assume that it was a simple oversight. It was the early '80s, tracking down random back issues to verify information about a character who's biography doesn't even fill a whole page probably wasn't a priority. The handbook had a huge list of people in charge of its production, so it's impossible to trace this blunder back to any one person. Not that it matters, of course. Except, it does. Because this random piece of information is still being repeated in character encyclopedias. It's been passed through so many publications that it's now on Marvel's official fucking website. Arcade's place of birth still hasn't been touched on in an actual comic. That is, unless you count Claws #2, where Wolverine calls Arcade "the psychotic son of a Texas oil millionaire". Texas. Fuck me, man.
This probably all seems very unimportant. There's a random contradictory factiod about a C-list Marvel villain floating around. So what? My problem is that "facts" that are made up for character encyclopedias are for some reason given precedence over actual canon by resources like the Marvel Wiki. This isn't even the only time this has happened. All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #1 makes a number of unsubstantiated claims about Arcade, on top of repeating the Beverly Hills thing and listing his hair color as black for some reason. Figuring out which claims are baseless isn't easy, either. I had a hard time tracking down the source of the initial Beverly Hills claim that started this ordeal, and I'm insane. I can't imagine researching this is worth it to anyone who isn't me. Maybe all the "unsubstantiated claims" are hidden away in secret issues I don't know about. Maybe Marvel has an actual internal record of unspoken canon facts about minor characters. Maybe the world is made of pudding.
Avengers Arena Condradictions/Retcons
The following essay contains a brief discussion of real-life racial prejudice. Read at your own discretion.
I have complicated feelings about Avengers Arena. I have complicated feelings about a lot of things Arcade has been in, but this one is especially complicated, for reasons I'm sure are obvious if you know anything about the series. For better or for worse, this comic is an important part of who Arcade is as a character, especially in recent years. I don't necessarily dislike the direction it took him in. I like that it introduces a level of insecurity about his inability to kill anyone with superpowers. I think it makes sense given the nature of the abuse he faced as a child. His insecurity is the driving force in the events of Avengers Arena. He wants to be respected, but, maybe more than that, he wants to be relevant. My interpretation of this sudden shift in characterization is that the years of failure finally got to him, digging up his childhood trauma. It's not enough anymore to enjoy himself; he has to be successful. I like this. I think it's a great way to keep Arcade as a character fresh and interesting and human. But that's not the only change introduced in Avengers Arena.
I also have complicated feelings about Wolverine/Gambit: Victims. From a meta perspective, Miss Locke's death is deeply terrible. A female Asian character is killed off in service of a white male one, by a writer who has been caught up in multiple controversies regarding prejudice against East Asians. This is fucking awful, and I wouldn't feel right discussing this without mentioning it. Locke is an interesting character, and her unceremonious demise in a miniseries that is really only relevant when having this specific conversation is deeply frustrating. That being said, Locke's death does work in service of Arcade's character, even if its full impact wouldn't be explored until decades later. Narratively, it's nobody's fault, not really. It's a consequence of the high-stakes relationship between the two of them. It was always going to end with someone getting hurt. It's tragic and it's compelling. Arcade's later replacement of Locke with an android replica even feels like (though I doubt it's actually intended to be) a meta commentary on the treatment of women, more specifically East Asian women, in popular media. So, of course, Avengers Arena does nothing with this.
The death presented in Wolverine/Gambit: Victims, while being deeply problematic, at least lends itself to an interesting interpretation of Locke herself. Avengers Arena throws this away in favor of a different version of events, one in which Locke is murdered by Arcade for getting "too close" to him in a romantic sense. I very nearly want to drop any pretense of analytic detachment here; this sucks and makes me angry. I don't have a problem with romantic interpretations of their relationship. In fact, I'm actually quite partial to such interpretations. My problem is that it places them into these incredibly heteronormative roles where Locke is pining for Arcade and his committment issues lead him to fucking murder her. In Locke's case, this borders on total character assassination. Additionally, Avengers Arena replaces Locke's android with a human woman named Miss Coriander, who bears a physical resemblence to Locke, but is otherwise unremarkable. A small, drone-like robot named after Locke also appears, but is not relevant to this particular essay.
Despite what it set out to do, very little of what was introduced in Avengers Arena has managed to stick. After reading this, I'm sure you could've guessed that this has been beneficial for my continued good health. The story in Hellions #9-11 does everything regarding Locke and her impact a thousand times better, even if it's only lightly touched on. I continue to hold on to a delusional hope that a creative team that cares will actually develop this plot someday.