#I am a better person for it

[parasocialqueen]

saw someone say that Jean’s number 29 for the Trojans is Kevin’s number and Renee’s number put together and I have not been the same since

[a-method-in-it]

A non-complete list of things you can do that will actually affect the world in positive ways:

Give money. If you have money, this one is easy. Whatever cause you care about, there are people actively working on it, and they all need more money.

For maximum impact for your money, set up a recurring donation, even if it's small. Recurring donations allow organizations to plan their budgets better and spend less on trying to solicit donations.

Call your reps. Ignore anyone who tells you it doesn't matter. Call them. Local, state, federal, all of them. The more local they are, the bigger impact individual calls make.

Register to vote. Ignore anyone who tells you it doesn't matter. Terrible people would not have spent hundreds of years and untold amounts of money trying to restrict access to the ballot box if it didn't matter. Vote every time.

Donate Blood. Stealing this one from the person above. It's a good one.

Join a community organization. Doesn't have to be political or big. Get involved with a community garden or a group that reads to kids at the library. Join a local DSA chapter or become an abortion clinic escort or attend a queer meetup. Honestly, join a walking group if that's what's around you. Getting out into your community is an inherent good and will make you more likely to encounter groups doing good work in your community.

Start a community organization. Does your town need a community garden? A mutual aid group? Someone to pick up litter at the park so people actually go there? Be the change you want to see in the world.

Unionize your workplace. I yap about this one all the time, but it's a thing that anyone can try to do; it's hard but there's no barrier to entry at all. I have resources on my union 101 tag about how to get started if you want them.

Talk to real people in your life about politics. Online debate with strangers doesn't do anything. Talking to people in real life can. Reblogging doesn't do anything. Telling your mom how upset you feel about an issue and explaining it to her might. If you feel like you're shouting into the void on social media, it's probably because you are. And I find it's much better to talk (not shout) to people you know who actually hear you.

I feel like. Part of the reason we're seeing hot takes like "video games like Stardew Valley are bourgeoisie and you should feel bad for playing them" and "if any actor in a TV show even hints at supporting any part of Israel then we need to boycott that entire show" and stuff like that is.

Online activism does virtually nothing. It does virtually nothing, guys. You can reblog and repost stuff all day and it does nothing. And so there's this desperate need in people's minds to Do Something, but social media platforms have so thoroughly trapped us into the idea that This Is How You Connect With People, that we think blogging = activism.

But nothing we've reblogged thus far has made a significant difference in the world. So we keep reblogging, desperately, convinced that if we root out the real evil in our media consumption or if we pare down our beliefs to the One True Ideal and force everyone around us to share that ideal, then finally Something Will Change For The Better.

Log off. Go give blood; there's a critical shortage right now. Help someone in your community; it might not fix wars that are thousands of miles away but it'll help that person. Call or email your local representative about issues that matter to you. Fucking vote. Do something in the not-online space. It'll matter more than 100 posts in a row about Important Things.

[stellarglowsquiiiid]

Parkour Civilization 1 is about how capitalism incentives the people living within it to keep moving up its ranks (even though it’s functionally impossible to do so), believing they’ll be safe if they just get a bit richer, only to be in a situation that’s even more difficult to maintain. How one bad fall can cost you everything, and how it’s much easier for the rich to avoid making that fall.

Parkour Civilization 2 is about getting betrayed by queercoded bitches (you are parkour Jesus Christ).

[archivebottles]

Happy birthday to the most special girl in the universe!! Wanted to try something ambitious and ended up with the biggest comic I've done to date

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

With the end of season two comes a second redraw!

[Nov 2022] [June 2023] [June 2024]

[mohntilyet]

illario as the grandchild that is most like caterina is something i'm loving to chew on. the grandson that took her lessons to heart the most. kill anyone who sees your face and knows your name, "we are not revolutionaries", the first out of the two to prioritise the contract. power at any cost, and the only one to lean into the unnecessary abuse that their grandmother told them was tradition. why is anyone surprised he allied with the venatori? and then there's illario's considerable skill in infiltration and manipulating any mark, he has always had the charisma that lucanis lacked. illario isn't attached, he has/can/will use someone and immediately drop them; "that does free me from promises i don't intend to keep". he can lie about how much he cares so well that he fools a magister into believing he loves her. he kills zara without hesitation to cover his own tracks, meanwhile lucanis blindly promises a young girl in the middle of a siege that he will help her find her father. even the lessons about family stick with him, and in this entire messy power struggle, he never actually orders anyone to directly kill caterina or lucanis, not until he's backed into a corner.

and even after all that. despite even lucanis believing illario should be first talon, lucanis is still the better killer. illario is not strong enough to be the brutal assassin caterina needs him to be. so when lucanis seems to fill the role his mother left, grief and love for her dead heir apparent remains, and any of the other qualities caterina needs in her next talon doesn't matter. whatever his mother was, lucanis has to be. what illario does doesn't matter, because he will always be second best to caterina's memory of her favored daughter.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Jayce and the fallacy of the butterfly effect in Arcane's narrative

If Jayce's symbol is the butterfly, then my theory is that we're going into a full "butterfly effect" narrative in Act 2. Either we'll watch it happen, or we'll only see Jayce come out the other side of it changed by the experience, knowing - or more importantly, THINKING he knows - what to do to change the future. Literally, to "defend tomorrow."

tl;dr: Jayce will encounter the butterfly effect in season 2. Viktor and Mel both foreshadowed this in season 1. I think Jayce will fixate on Viktor and will believe that stopping or changing Viktor either in the past or the present - most likely the present - will mean he can save the future. I believe this will lead to an even worse tragedy and may have the same effect as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ekko's approach to changing the future by sticking closer to the present - considering only tiny increments of time to alter more immediate future outcomes - will be the superior approach. I also think that Jayce attempting to change the future will create the conditions that push Viktor to become the Machine Herald.

One of the most common reactions even the casual viewer had to Arcane season 1 was this: "If [character] had just done this one small thing a little differently, [tragic event] wouldn't have happened!"

Arcane has been called a Greek tragedy for the main reason that because of how well built up the characters' personalities and reasonings are, there's no other way season 1 could have gone. There was no stopping the multiple tragedies that occurred, because with one event leading to another, the chain of seemingly inevitable events goes too far back to identify what one singular event caused everything, what one character made what one decision to put our characters on the terrible paths they walked.

Arcane is about to investigate this idea in its own narrative, and I think that Jayce will be the character to stumble into the flawed idea that you can change one event, or stop one character, and change the future for the better. This is because Jayce struggles with a few very interesting character flaws, one of them being that he believes himself to be the main character, and it is therefore his responsibility to intervene, be a hero, and fix things.

Viktor and Mel both foreshadow Jayce's future encounter with the butterfly effect.

Recall that Viktor said: "There is always a choice."

Jayce sees choices in black and white, believes that he has no other options but to go along with what he's persuaded and pushed into, and acts too boldly with too much power multiple times.

Recall that Mel said: "We can't change what fate has in store for us, but we don't have to face it alone."

Jayce tries to solve big problems on his own, and though he delegates to Enforcers and the like, Jayce relies on his reasoning and his alone to make important decisions if he doesn't simply become persuaded - usually through strong emotions like fear - by other characters. In addition, since Mel is specifically talking about Viktor's plight here, it's worth mentioning that while Jayce did say that he would help Viktor in acts 2 and 3 of season 1, Jayce does wind up leaving Viktor to face his fate alone. When Jayce tries to change that fate in s2 ep1, ep2 shows that only tragedy can come of this as well.

Viktor and Mel's statements here are not contradictory. Viktor makes the point that you can always make a choice. In context, he's literally referring to the classic "secret third option," because given a choice between aggression and passivity, war and surrender, Viktor chooses to defuse the bomb instead. Mel, interestingly, seems to believe that destiny is fixed in a broad sense, and she operates as a politician and diplomat and investor who navigates that line of destiny in the most optimal way possible. In reality, in context, she is referring to the fact that Viktor can't change the way he was born and so he has no way to change his fate and therefore must face it, which is true - she's only missing the information that Viktor actually does have the means to change his illness and his body. Her wisdom still applies however, because he'll have to accept the hand that fate deals him after he makes that choice. Will he face it alone, or not?

There is always a choice, there's even secret third options, because having a fate doesn't mean that you are doomed to make only one possible series of choices. What it does mean is that each choice comes with a hand that fate deals you. It is impossible to know what all of these branching choices and consequences are in advance, and it is just as impossible in hindsight - the branches are too complex and the end outcomes are all equally meaningful, just different. If Arcane season 2 is to be a tragedy, it may show us that each possible outcome is still tragic if you fall for the fallacy of the butterfly effect.

Jayce is counseled by some of the wisest, cleverest characters with the deepest life experiences in Arcane, but he hardly ever takes that counsel to heart. If he does, he still acts on that counsel in flawed ways that have unintended consequences. This will come to a head in season 2.

Viktor and Jayce both have a butterfly following them around in season 1. The butterfly effect refers to one small seemingly insignificant event changing the course of history, and changing that event therefore changes history. Viktor bled over the railing of a Hexgate in season 1:

And Heimerdinger sees what we can only assume is Viktor's blood contaminating (?) the Hexgate in s2 ep3:

This might be the seemingly unimportant "inciting incident" that Jayce (and Heimerdinger and Ekko) settle on as something that should be avoided or erased by changing the past (if they time-travel with Ekko, for example).

I doubt that, if this is what this crew chooses to fixate on, it will be the only event that is considered as something to change. But let's take this and run with it for the sake of discussion.

As silly as it sounds, how do you stop Viktor from allowing his blood to come into contact with the arcane? Stop Viktor's involvement with the Academy entirely? Don't invent Hextech at all? But what if someone else invents Hextech besides Jayce? What if future tragedy befalls Piltover because it didn't invent Hextech?

The possibilities and what-ifs could branch on forever. But because Jayce is who he is, and because his tragedy with Viktor is still raw and recent and frightening, I think Jayce's butterfly effect experience will have to do with Viktor.

My personal prediction is that the timeskip between s2 ep3 and ep4 will be Jayce experiencing a timeline where Viktor, taken over by the Hexcore, brings about an apocalyptic event similar to what Heimerdinger experienced in his past. Either Jayce and co. can't go into the past to change the present, or Heimerdinger and/or Ekko advise strongly against it to avoid a paradox. This will lead to them re-entering the canon Arcane timeline before this apocalypse, but still after the timeskip. Jayce, believing that destroying Viktor and his cult will save the future, and believing that resurrecting Viktor was Jayce's mistake to fix, attacks him. But the consequences don't unfold the way he hopes, because trying to change fate once the cards have already been dealt has led to tragedy before.

The butterfly is a symbol of something other than just the butterfly effect - change, evolution, and rebirth. If the butterfly symbolizes the butterfly effect for Jayce, then I think it has a different meaning for Viktor - the change and rebirth meaning.

I've always found it very interesting that we see a similar-looking butterfly on Progress Day... but made of metal.

Every time Viktor's situation changes, he adapts and evolves. If Jayce attacks him, if his cult is destroyed, if the Hexcore is causing Viktor to decay, if all of these things happen at once - he'll just evolve again, and I think the Machine Herald is the next step. And the Machine Herald will be a triumph for Viktor, but Jayce will believe that he's created something even worse. The resulting feud will be a personal nightmare for both of them.

I think this still allows Viktor to use his own agency to choose to become the Machine Herald (the MH will probably be the "secret third option" that saves Viktor, or there will be a secret third option that ends the feud) while still allowing Jayce to be offended and horrified at whatever the Machine Herald represents or is trying to do in the undercity. Introducing the element of time travel allows Arcane to explore the meta concept of tragedy and fate that season 1 was built on while showing that you can't "solve" a tragedy, because there are other terrible possibilities lurking behind alternate choices. Especially if what you're trying to change is singular people or events and not systems of power.

This is why Ekko's approach with his Z-drive will be superior to Jayce's sweeping attempt at changing the future. Ekko's goal has always been societal change. He creates his own punk society in the undercity, more progressive and successful than anything Vander or Silco ever created, and a better bastion of safety, hope, and progress than what Heimerdinger founded in Piltover. Trying to change systems by going back in time is most likely futile. But taking what Ekko has already built in the Firelights, curing his tree, and fighting for the Firelights' survival bit by bit by optimizing the present with the Z-drive shows that:

It's more worth it to focus on becoming wise (Ekko's mask is an owl) and making choices you won't regret

It's best if you don't face your fate alone (act as a collective and take care of each other)

Consider every option, not just the obvious black and white choices

Maintain and fix what you've already built instead of abandoning it once things get difficult

Adapt as needed if the choices you made lead to dark consequences, and once again, stick together and take care of each other when the bad times do come

That's my Act 2 but, ultimately, my season 2 prediction based on the butterfly symbolism we've already seen. Ekko's involvement is what will give the series the at least partial happy ending that the creators have referred to. I personally don't think that the Viktor/Jayce feud will end quite so well, but maybe, they will still survive.

[buttercupshands]

I started drawing this next day after I finished Act 6

13 or so days and it's finished!

Main things are traditional and Loop's body was edited digitally after

Unedited it looks like this

I've been torn on how to do Loop's body for the entirety of lining, also

A bit sad the main lines are visible only as a wip, most of this thing is literally just a ton of sharp lines

I think it's also my first day of drawing, Loop is just a sketch here (feat. my leg)

I even finished the beans before it so they were a moral support, because if you let me things like this take a year

[raps-hellion]

*TRIALS OF APOLLO SPOILERS*

something about blonds (percy is not coping well at all).

+ percabeth

[yukipri]

For curiosity's sake...

[bejeweledbaby]

obsessed with fics where steve and eddie were each other's first kiss when they were children but they don't connect the dots when they meet again as adults. Neither realize that this eddie is that eddie and this steve is that steve.

let me set the scene:

the older kids are having a small get together at steve's place and they're all sharing their first kiss stories. eddie starts regaling the group with the story of his first kiss with this beautiful boy at summer camp who had gorgeous hazel eyes and the softest hair. steve thinks the story sounds a little too similar to his first kiss. he starts connecting the dots when he realizes the chocolate button doe eyes he used to dream about years ago are the same chocolate button doe eyes he's been dreaming about in recent months. when it's steve's turn to share his first kiss story, he's like, "well, actually you've already heard it." and now eddie's connected the dots and pulls him into the bathroom to kiss about it. and there's some heartfelt love confessions and then they ride off into the sunset together.

[lilybug-02]

Wow. That could not have turned out worse.

Part 23 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

This comic will be on Holiday Hiatus this December and January! While on a cliffhanger? What a scam! >:/

[maddymoreau]

Thinking about how Diavolo’s feelings transcend time and how in the Nightbringer UR+ card Demon Lord’s Castle Tour this conversation happens.

When asked, “Do you wish to see your father?”

Diavolo responds:

“I suppose I do . . .” isn’t the typical reaction to how a child would feel about wanting to see their parent. Especially when said parent has essentially been in a coma for a year.

Along with how Diavolo describe his father.

It makes more sense why when you learn in Lesson 56 how Diavolo was treated by him growing up.

Diavolo can tell when others are lying but is unable to understand his father’s intentions.

Diavolo mentions that he lived a very sheltered life growing up. That from a young age his father never allowed him a chance to talk to anyone outside the castle.

His childhood friend was Mephistopheles. A demon literally RAISED to be his friend. Putting a barrier between the two because Mephistopheles would put Diavolo on a pedestal.

The isolating childhood he experienced riddled with his strict father constantly scolding him.

Despite everything MC is so important to him he wants to see his father again so we can meet.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Do you like sci-fi and indie animation? Check out Monkey Wrench!

[fudgecake-charlie]

Because me and @briefle are insane we've both written short fics in the disco hermits universe! Here are some rough drawings of a moment from each of them.

LINK TO BRIE'S AMAZING FIC in which Etho gets a surprise confrontation in the Whirling-in-rags

LINK TO MY SILLY FIC in which Etho does a very dumb thing about his hair in the middle of the night

for the people who read my fic i have a very stupid addendum for you that is. practically canon