hyacinthcollective

[hyacinthcollective]

Arcane S2 Texts posts

[hyacinthcollective]

Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't

(Editing to add: see this post for details on the Mel's armor/shield theory)

S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.

The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.

No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.

But Viktor was, in Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.

1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?

2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's

Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?

She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.

Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?

Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:

But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.

[hyacinthcollective]

*takes drag from my candy cigarette*

Wizard Viktor isn't aiming to save Jayce, himself, or the world. He's hitting timeline after timeline to set them on a path that is doomed BUT ALSO keeps their fates inexorably intertwined

The goal is to get their fates tangled together in a way that doesn't lead to Viktor erasing Jayce into dreamless solitude, fuck whatever else happens

*leaves*

[hyacinthcollective]

[walks up to a couple] so which one of you is the "used the technology I promised you I'd destroy to save your life instead, now I'm here to kill you because I told your future self I would and I'm not gonna break a promise to you again" and which one is the "time traveled to grandfather-paradox myself into the defining event of your childhood thus directing the entire course of your life toward meeting me"

[hyacinthcollective]

Some Viktor (Arcane) Musings:

The thing is, I think Viktor must have told Jayce about his illness at some point in S1 before Viktor collapsed and ended up in the hospital

The reason being that it's literally impossible to ignore how much Viktor's health deteriorates in the 6-7 years between 1.03 and 1.04. There's no way he could not give Jayce some clue of what's going on with him.

But, for my own purpose and that of the fics I write, my thought was that Viktor maybe... downplayed the severity.

For example, my take is that if you have this fissure illness, you generally don't live past 30 in the undercity and Viktor knows this. He must have had some sense of a timeline, because his headlong rush to secure a legacy indicates the he knew he probably wasn't going to die of old age.

This, I think, he would be upfront with Jayce about. That they have to advance Hextech to the point where it's making breakthroughs in disciplines other than weightlessness and teleportation if Viktor has any chance of living a long life. Jayce would be on board with this fully, I think. Magic can do anything so if they're fast, and dedicated, chances are they can find something that will also improve biology too.

But, I think Viktor lied or played down how short of a time he actually had. Like, he told Jayce he probably wouldn't die of old age without Hextech intervention, and Jayce took that and like any sheltered, naive Piltie from a good family he thought, "This is awful, Viktor might never see 80!" Thinking that Viktor might, without intervention, only live to see, like... 60.

I also headcanon that once you start coughing up blood, it's a bit like TB, you don't have much time after that. So in 1.02/1.03, Viktor is driven to make a legacy for himself knowing he doesn't have a lot of time, but he might even still be fooling himself to think he's got more time than he does because of his move to Piltover. He has cleaner air here, better nutrition, better sun exposure, an easier life, etc. If the life expectancy in the underground for this disease is 25-30 or less, why should he maybe see 40 in Piltover?

But then... tragedy strikes. He starts coughing blood sometime during the time skip. His health rapidly deteriorates, and he doesn't tell Jayce that this means he's probably only got a few months to a few years left. He basically allows Jayce to keep living with the illusion that Viktor has limited time, because that would be unavoidable to realize just by looking at him, but still maybe decades remaining.

What compounds the problem here is that Viktor also tends to obfuscate his need for rapid intervention by posing them as the needs of the undercity which goes straight over Jayce's head. He tells Jayce they need to focus on new uses for Hextech to help people in the undercity now, it can't wait, they're running out of time, and goddammit Viktor, stop hiding your needs behind altruism, just be selfish, just tell Jayce that you're not talking about the undercity, you're talking about yourself and he would have dropped everything to help you!

Because this is Viktor's biggest flaw: he lies to himself and he lies to Jayce about why he's pursuing science at such a breakneck pace, and I don't even think he knows he's doing it. He's become so accustomed to the idea that he's not allowed to be selfish, not allowed to pose his own desperate desire to live as a priority, that he keeps fucking couching it in the needs of others so Jayce has no way to know just how desperate Viktor really is because Viktor doesn't admit it even to himself.

And this becomes a bigger problem writ large when Viktor creates his cult to "cure" other people because he can't fucking function if he's not posing his self-serving desires as things that also help the group. Babygirl, what is wrong with you?

So now instead of just perfecting himself in very scientifically troubling ways, he feels the need to spread around the cure that he made for himself to others to justify it, even if it doesn't fit them and in fact is horrifying to give the same solution to a bunch of people and fix things they never asked to be fixed.

[hyacinthcollective]

If you think about the actual timeline for the Jayvik divorce arc it is so. fucking. funny. Guys that was like...five months?? Maybe a year?? And most of that was because Jayce got stuck going crazy getting his ass kicked by the bisexuality demons in a pit in the torment nexus.

Really, within the course of a few days all counted, these insane and enmeshed dipshits went through

-Frankenstein's Monster/Frankenstein Allegory Divorce. Came Back Wrong Event. "Can't Let You Go" as an act of betrayal. Sleeping alone in the lab crying listening to Coldplay's "The Scientist" after divorce vs divorcing your situationship to go become Jesus

-"We're Separated." Jayce doing Hellfire from Hunchback but make it bisexual. losing his mind in The Pit. symbolically recreating his ex's life journey. Viktor going through his "starting a cult and taking psychedelics in a hippy commune. getting a balayage bc I'm so over him while wearing the blanket he put on me as a wrap dress" era.

-Divorce 2.0 now with Judas/Jesus Allegory!! The "I love you and will scream as I kill you for all our sakes" ass trope. Hexcore, play "Judas" by Lady Gaga. play "Mary On A Cross."

-Separated era 2.0. Sexy Gay Villain. Im Evil and Gay and Here to Serve Exactly What you Are. Cunt. engaging in horny homoerotic fights with your rival/ex. The Magneto/Xavier era. "My ex came back and he's so much hotter now." Dom!Viktor truthers get our validation and get fed.

- Viktor getting turned down by his hot ex and taking it so bad he becomes Bodyhorror Evil Robot Wizard God. take a shot every time Viktor pins or lifts Jayce by the throat.

-brief cameo flashback of Jayce being haunted by Viktor smiling before getting blasted, just to sprinkle some "dead wife in an action movie" trope to the arc. as a treat.

- Madoka Magika Cosmic God Doomed Gays Era. The small devotee standing in awe before the Beloved God imagery.

-"You were always perfect to me. Your flaws are beautiful. I always loved you for everything you are. All I want is you." Piltover's Ultimate Dumbass Loverboy commits to the power of love except it isn't working. Jayce's voice cracking as he says how much he's always adored Viktor.

(Sidenote can you imagine Mel Medarda in the hive mind collective feeling so fucking tired seeing Jayce immediately confessing his endless devotion and adoration to the Evil Robot God Viktor? She's probably dealt with these two being unhinged and enmeshed for years. she's so fucking sick of them. she is so out of the polycule.)

- IN EVERY REALITY IN ALL POSSIBILITIES. "But babe our fates are inextricably enmeshed throughout realities and throughout universes." Life Without You Is Fields of Dreamless Solitude.

-We Go Into the Darkness Together. Fuck Orpheus I'm Built Different. Category 1000 Forehead Touch. clutching hands and each other as we enmesh our souls for eternity and explode into a butterfly launching into the cosmos. Undoomed Him From The Narrative The Wedding is Back On.

ALL OF THAT IN. HONESTLY. A SPAN OF DAYS. (jayce stuck in the pit barely counts ok). the last four points alone were in a fraction of a frozen second. unhinged. deranged. they're insane. your honor what the fuck is wrong with them???

[hyacinthcollective]

hey google how to cope with being the end and the beginning and the catalyst and the martyr all at once.

[hyacinthcollective]

Made an arcane fan animation hehe

[hyacinthcollective]

Hextech and Radium.

This is just a compilation of thoughts that me and @restless2rusted had comparing Hextech to Radioactive/Nuclear materials.

-Viktor and Jayce are the Marie Sklodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie of Piltover.

-What would have happened to Viktor's body? The Hexcorized limbs make a difference in the decomposition of his body, making it rot faster like the plant did.

-Like Marie, would Viktor need an especial coffin for being himself "radioactive"

-Jayce also had to be buried in a special coffin, not because he had those Hexcorized limbs like Viktor but for being exposed to the "radiation", and therefore next to Viktor yay radioactive husbands in their own special joint graves.

-Their lab, comparing now Hextech with radium/nuclear energy, their lab would've been shut down or had its own Sarcophagus like the Chernobyl plant.

-The Hexgates, Werecat pointed out how it would be a rather difficult job to destroy/maintain the hexgates without Jayce and Viktor, much like we saw the Noxians failing, I like to think they too would need their own container in this little au of sorts.

This is where it gets creepier.

-I compared the little glittery residue the hexgates leave with each travel to the "snow" that fell the night of the Chernobyl accident.

-Piltover-Zaun are the Pripyat of this au, unknowingly Piltovians watch in awe every hexgates shipment leaves in a blink of their eyes, they see the glittery residue like something fun like part of a show. Zaun slowly starts to get contaminated quicker and its citizens sicker.

-Werecat got the idea that Noxians (and now that I think therefore other people who had trades in Piltover) also got exposed by being on Piltover and staying for so long that they bring home some side effects.

Bonus:

[hyacinthcollective]

However, Viktor does use his cane on the weak side in the flashback to when he was a child, and in s1 act 1 (popular fan theory is that he didn't know that its less damaging to use it on the opposite side)

And, moving away from Viktor a tiny bit, not all cane users hold their canes on the side opposite to their weak leg as not all disabled people use mobility aids in the same way and for some people it's more damaging to use it on the opposite side due to issues in their arm, wrist or shoulder for one example (there are more reasons then that)

Reminder to fanartists drawing Viktor from Arcane, canes are held on the strong side of the body not on the side with the weak leg. Im disabled and use a cane from a knee injury that never healed and it's cool seeing ambulatory mobility aid representation in popular media, just make sure you know what side it goes on!

[hyacinthcollective]

Jayce is a good puppy🥰

[hyacinthcollective]

Moments and memories and moments and memories

[hyacinthcollective]

Are you guys still stuck in the arcane? Or did it drop you somewhere?

[hyacinthcollective]

drunken dancing 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

[hyacinthcollective]

the hexgate fight is so funny bc did jayce just forget that he was supposed to fight viktor? he kinda just let him walk past him and it's only when they're literally flying through the air on their way to the roof that he even tries to attack him. i get it he's pretty but good god STAND UP man

[hyacinthcollective]

U ever start smth and ur like haha this is such a cute SKETCH and then it turns into a 10hr painting. Anyway heres astral plane viktor as ponyo's mother

[hyacinthcollective]

does anybody remember that one clip of arcane animators talking about how there are virtually no perfect circles in the show? the exception being the hextech gemstones. makes me think about how the blowjob brothers are so often framed in the middle of some goddamn circle