#I'm very sleepy lol

[koreanbibliophilegirl]

Guys I miss Temporal Transcendence(it is literally my own WIP)

[toddandersonsblog]

ahhhhh I want to read it so bad!!!! but I don't think it's available where I am 🫠 ahhghh I'm so intrigued, it must be amazing, as you said. I'm glad you loved it!!!!

hiiii!! how are you liking the book so far? ☺️

OH MY GOODNESS ME IT WAS SO AMAZING!!! I’m going to wait a few weeks I think before I start posting about it because of spoilers, but there is SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT I LOVED IT SO MUCH

[astral-herald]

Jayce Talis' Joycean Epiphany

Tracking the textual similarities between James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Jayce's character journey, specifically in Arcane season 2, episode 7.

As time goes on, my appreciation for Jayce's arc only grows, and I think episode 7 captures the best of the showrunners' narrative concision and cohesion. Within that perfect storm I noticed a lot of similarities between Jayce and James Joyce's main character, Stephen Dedalus, who spends the 1916 classic shedding attachments to the material world in pursuit of ultimate freedom, including monikers of creed and country and friendship, captured in his famous epiphany.

This isn't a perfect mapping, but comparing Stephen's epiphany to Jayce's meeting with Mage Viktor is pretty enlightening/interesting! More below!

The Joycean Epiphany

Stephen Dedalus' epiphany occurs in the last third (ish) of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and happens as follows: Stephen, consumed with anxiety, loneliness, and confusion about his place in the world, finds himself wandering toward the ocean. He steps knee-deep inside and sees the figment of a woman out of reach, who he describes as a "strange and beautiful seabird" who awakens him to "the wild heart of life." The Bird Woman inspires Stephen to shake off material attachments to nationality and religion, as well as to break off personal relationships in order to arrive at his true self, which he must do in isolation. This is the most egregiously brief synopsis possible...

Jayce's journey in Arcane does, in fact, follow a very normal, non-epiphanic arc in general; I'm not merging Stephen and Jayce together here. Instead I want to call attention to the visual cues and specific plot points that truly give me pause and think/hope they were intentionally building this parallel.

The Irish Coastline, the Undercity Grey

In Portrait, there is great emphasis attached to the sea's physicality as Stephen enters the waters. He's permeated a barrier as the tide wrestles with him:

"In a few moments he was barefoot...and, picking a pointed salteaten stick out of the jetsam among the rock, he clambered down the slope of the breakwater."

Jayce also permeates, with a lot of struggle, pain, and anguish, a physical barrier/obstacles - the Grey, which we see as a thick green miasma throughout the Undercity in this timeline, and the Fissures he's fallen into. Interestingly enough, Jayce also has a pointed stick that's figuratively eaten by the Anomaly. Not salt, by any means, but each character takes up a damaged implement at the onset of their journey.

The Epiphanic Figures

In Portrait, Stephen is drawn into the water towards the woman who inspires his epiphany: "A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea."

Within the Grey, Jayce encounters Viktor as the mage, staring at him with his face obscured. When he turns and leaves, he prompts Jayce into action, thus spurring the epiphany, the necessary movement through the Grey.

Upon his approach, Stephen describes his epiphanic woman: Her long fair hair was girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face..."

"...and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness."

In Portrait, Stephen never reaches his Bird Woman; she remains out of reach, just like his ultimate freedom will remain until he commits to his quest for self-discovery. Similarly, Jayce and Mage Viktor never touch, despite Viktor and Jayce's established physical intimacy.

The Quest

Stephen spends the remainder of Portrait systematically shedding what he feels are restraints to his true self. If you haven't read Portrait, there is a lot, a lot, a LOT of syncretic philosophies wedged inside, Platonic, Aristotelean, Aurelian, etc., to showcase Stephen coming into his own intellectually and emotionally. But the way he describes this quest, when speaking to his best friend, Cranly, is key when comparing him to Jayce:

"You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too."

Jayce, inspired by his own Bird Woman, the Mage, sets out on his quest of ultimate solitude, wherein he traumatically relives his past mistakes.

But now, with Mage Viktor's wisdom and an understanding of what's to come, Jayce finally becomes a powerful and independent force. He doesn't rely on his betters or outside approval. He attacks Mel for her past treatment of himself and Viktor as tools/investments for her will. He will leave behind the comfort and privilege of his old life. In order to do what needs to be done to save Piltover, Jayce is willing to make those mistakes, to sustain on his own, etc., when he was never willing to do so before.

"Alone, Quite Alone"

Nobody asked, but my favorite scene in Portrait is the last dialogue between Stephen and Cranly, whom Stephen frequently describes as his closest friend, and whose opposition to Stephen's departure he considers the most. Try as he might to be sympathetic, Cranly struggles to understand why Stephen can't relent and warns him of what will happen to Stephen if he takes on his quest: "And to not have any one person...who would be more than a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had."

Cranly tells Stephen that "you need not look upon yourself as driven away...or as a heretic or an outlaw." He invites him to stay, to return.

And Stephen is grieved by this: "A voice spoke softly to Stephen's lonely heart, bidding him go and telling him that his friendship was coming to an end..."

"...Yes; he would go. He could not strive against another. He knew his part."

In killing Viktor as the Herald, Jayce has fully accepted loneliness and the necessary suffering it incurs on others. Guided by Mage Viktor, his own Bird Woman epiphany, he plays his part in the fate set before him.

In this moment, the Herald Viktor is Jayce's Cranly: "Stephen watched [Cranly's] face for some moments in silence. A cold sadness was there..."

"...He had spoken of himself, of his own loneliness which he feared."

*To note, Stephen's epiphanic realization amounts to isolation for his own benefit, whereas Jayce endures isolation and commits these "mistakes" (killing Viktor) for the greater good - very important difference!

Regaining Cranly

This same idea comes across every time I post about Arcane season 2: subversive endings. And while my opinion of the season has been on the downturn, I will never cheapen the shock and awe of the Mage Viktor reveal, and I will always find new ways to break it down and appreciate it.

In Portrait, Stephen leaves Ireland, his religion, and his loved ones behind. Stephen asks Cranly to clarify what he means by his talk of loneliness: "'Of whom are you speaking?' Cranly did not answer." In the essential modernist way, Stephen seeks out the independent soul amidst the masses.

Jayce, meanwhile, uses his newfound autonomy and sense of self for the greater good. He followed his epiphanic figure as Stephen did, and abandoned his Cranly, for a higher goal than self actualization.

And that's where this comparison just about falls apart.

Because Jayce and Viktor are "inextricably bound," the fundamental crux of the epiphany - its independence - isn't possible. Jayce guides his Cranly away from "his own loneliness which he feared." He invites Viktor to partake in his epiphany and they complete the quest together.

the end <3

I'm excited about this comparison! And I know I'm offering a very cursory read of Portrait here. I actually wrote about it for my latest conference CFP so it's fresh on the mind. And a lot of these comparisons can be chalked up to Joyce's just General Narrative Influence, that he refined this exact mode of quest -> self discovery -> loneliness, but we're here to have fun, not to submit to a journal lol.

[pigeonstab]

Dad mode: activated

[danishphoner]

one thing that really fascinates me about alex is his devotion to art – and more specifically, how he chooses to get some inspiration from scientific works of what he aims to implement in his art. every time one gets to examine some of his lyrics, or even how he explains these lyrics in an interview, they can be greeted by some bits of actual scientific information. an example is how he named his taquería on the moon with the term “information-action ratio”, coined by the critic neil postman, and referenced it in the song four out of five, something that might also indicate an interesting articulation with postman's concept. the line “cute new places keep on popping up”, for example, can express his well-known sardonic discontent regarding the flood of information being generated and transmitted over and over and, as much as it seems visually appealing and does give the idea of benefiting from advanced technologies, it doesn't really add anything substantial to the receiver's critical thinking – and worse, it distances the information receiver from the sender in a communication channel, according to postman.

what i'm saying with this interpretation is, it's known that alex is enamoured with the idea of gathering a bunch of references and condensing them into a mixture of metaphors in his writing, but it's so thrilling how, at times, we can find some bits of science inside of it – and it's even more exciting, just like playing a puzzle game, to find these references and analyse them by doing a similar research to what he did to create his works.

[sysig]

Family ♥ (Patreon)

[amoratheskeleton]

FINALLY

I FINALLY DID MY ENTRY FOR @voidzphere DTIYS!!! YIPPEEEEEE

CONGRATS ON 1K!! YOU DESERVED IT SM

[asexual-pancakes]

Flustered impulse doodles

[mortellanarts]

Today I am posting my ZTD Aftermath fic on the only thematically appropriate day I could think of, the first day of a new year! Especially fitting since it took almost exactly a whole year to write these 45k words lol happy 2025 everyone ♡

[dastardly-lemondrops]

If Snape had a tramp stamp, what would it be of

[stabbystiletto]

😈🧥🐈‍⬛😮‍💨🧥🐈‍⬛

Kuro looked so cozy and comfy in that new artwork so I wanted to draw them in matching sweaters lolololol 🤣🤣🤣

also ponytail kuro is 1000/10 please strike just give us ponytail kuro just once in the manga please lol i mean he's had one in a few different arts now so i don't think it's out of the realm of possibility lolololol 🙏🥺🙏🥺🙏

[c00kietin]

snorrkkk mimimimimimimi honk shoo honk shoo

[jinx-blackout-84]

WAIT YOU HAVE FIVE IN UR PINNED. WHAT ARE UT THOUGHTS ON HIM TOO I LOVE FIVE

FIVE. FIVE OHNYGOSH CLAWING THE WALLS OF MY ENCLOSURE FIVE.

Five is one of my favorite fictional characters for a few reasons.

I mean, first of all, the apocalypse that follows wherever he goes. At what point does the apocalypse end and he begins? Can he really exist anywhere without bringing complete destruction with him?

AND TIME TRAVEL

All of time, flickering in the palm of his hand, and he can't control it. What if he goes too far forward? What if he can't get back again? What if he's trapped again, lost in a world of rubble and ashes, and what if he doesn't make it out this time? What if he starves inside a tiny shelter, or dies in a catastrophic storm? What if it all ends and there's nothing he can do to save everyone? The amount of paranoia and anxiety he must have about his power, I mean, even just rewinding a few seconds at the end of S2 must have been terrifying, if he went just a bit too far he could be trapped again, he could actually die this time around.

Also, he's watched his siblings die once, and found their dead bodies buried in rubble another time. He's left in this barren wasteland, only his thoughts, his dead siblings corpses, and a mannequin to keep him company.

It fostered this sort of uncanny loyalty towards all of them, making him unable to let them get hurt or put in harms way, and I imagine everytime one of them does something risky, or they fail to stop the apocalypse, all he can see it their unfocused eyes and limp bodies, all he can see is their blood on his hands as he tries to dig them put of the rubble, yelling their names like he doesn't know they won't respond.

Also, he's had one purpose since he was born: to kill. Every wall of the house was lined with details on how to end someone's life with the nearest object. He wants a peaceful life, to finally be happy, like we don't all know that that kind fo violence sticks around. He can't just get rid of that, every time he picks up a fork or sees a blanket all he will think about is the hundred different ways he could kill someone with it, every time he walks into a room he will know exactly how to most efficiently murder everyone in the room.

And all those years in the apocalypse, the kind of desperation he learned there, the weight of that glass eye in his pocket, always, the thousands of equations and numbers, the hours spent tying and failing to find a way home, getting hungrier, older, more desperate. It was really over, wasn't it? He was going to die there, and never save his family.

And then to find out that Vanya caused it? To discover that to save the rest of his family he might very well have to kill his sibling? Luther trying to stop him from killing an "innocent person" like he hasn't breathed violence ever since he was old enough to lift a butter knife, like Luther doesn't know that they were raised to be soldiers, not people.

The Commission, making him their best assassin, using him for jobs he didn't understand, constantly having him jump all over time and kill, kill, kill, of course he wants peace!

And then he gets hime, with enough time to stop the apocalypse, he tries to help them understand, tries to fix the family (like he doesn't know it's too broken to be fixed in time) and after 45 years stuck in a wasteland, FAILS to save himself from reliving that fate, but saves his family, and loses then across time again. He finds them, and realizes the apocalypse followed him, like he's some sort of catalyst for death, no matter where he goes, everything burns.

Hazel and Cha Cha burning down the place with the glass eyes (idk what it's called) as more imagery for not only Five losing everything he wants in the apocalypse, but also to show that the things he tampers with ar inevitably destroyed? I was going bonkers.

The fats-paced fight scenes to strangely upbeat music have me going insane evry time I watch them.

[tomlinfonda]

Just thinking about the possibility of Ted going back to Kansas and the Kansas state flower being a sunflower and Trent being dressed in sunflower colors in Amsterdam and Colin asking Trent "And your daughter?" and Trent replying "She's never been happier" meaning that it was good for Trent's daughter for her parents to be seperated because her father was living a better, happier and a more authentic life. Thinking also about the possibility of Ted being queer and coming from a very homophobic state and leaving it behind and finding a home thousands of miles away, in London, and Henry being happier because his father is also happier.

[fitzfunnymoments]

I have had this idea for months now and finally made it real

[sysig]

Challenge level: Impossible (Patreon)