#a murder at the end of the world spoilers

[kaoskuantico]

I hate Act III, sorry. All the second season was too rushed and some characters that didn't deserve a happy ending got it, and those who have been suffering got the worst ending.

Acts I and II were good, but III is the worst.

I still think Arcane is one of the best shows we've gotten and will get for a long time, the art, animation, soundtrack, the characters...I love Arcane, that won't change. And that's exactly why I'm so critical with the second season, because I expected more and better, I know it could have been better. Maybe they only needed another season to not rush all the plot lines, or even discard some of them.

In case someone hasn't seen Act III yet, ARCANE ACT III SPOILERS

I made another post with the things I LIKED (click).

No one cares but here's a list of the things I hated:

Too rushed, I think we needed another season BEFORE this one

WTF Caitvi sex scene IN JINX'S CELL, RIGHT AFTER SHE LEFT. That's so disrespectful and stupid, Vi wasn't in the right state of mind, as much as I love Caitvi, putting that scene there was a mistake

I'm sorry but I also hate Timebomb (I'm a Lightcannon shipper, which is funny because Lux doesn't even show up in Arcane, but one can dream through fanarts)

Jinx surrendering (why we didn't even get a flashback scene?) and being imprisoned like a dog. Yet the enforcers were never punished

Vi not listening to Jinx telling her MULTIPLE TIMES to get out of there, and because of her, Jinx sacrifices herself (yes, I know she's most likely alive. But that brings my next point:)

Jinx not getting a happy ending at all. She lost everyone, right when she was about to get rehabilitated, Isha dies right in front of her. And we didn't get any Sevika dialogue with her, not even trying to save Jinx (Sevika surely didn't know, but at least a scene where she looks for Isha and Jinx???)

The final scene where Vi is only seen with Caitlyn. Yes, I knew they'd end up together and they deserve it, but what about everything that happened? Losing all her family? Learning to fight just to lose everything and everyone? Ekko not talking to Vi at all after the war? Vi not mourning Jinx?

Why make Jayce and Mel be together if they were going to forget about it and act like it didn't happen? (I prefer Jayvik, but that's another story)

Jinx saving Caitlyn, but apparently that didn't matter at all. Jinx killed her mother, yes. But enforcers killed countless of people, including Jinx and Vi's parents. Even if Jinx surrendered, why put her in that isolated jail? That was Caitlyn's grief acting

Honestly I don't know why Isha had to sacrifice herself, I feel it was too unnecessary, just to traumatize Jinx even more and kill Warwick again.

I wanted to see more of Vi, of her life in prison and before their parents died (besides Vander's memories). But they put too much focus on Caitlyn and the Caitvi. As if Vi's entire character is being Cait's girlfriend

Caitlyn (and every enforcer) didn't get punish at all for their crimes. Caitlyn became a dictator because Jinx killed her mother, but countless of children saw their own parents be murdered in front of them, and now they're the bad guys for attacking back? Mind you, at least Jinx aimed her weapon to the Council, the people who oppressed them. But Piltover kills civilians like nothing, putting CHILDREN in jail. At the end, they end up like the good guys, giving Zaun a seat in the Council. When they should have fought for it, making Piltover pay for everything they've done. Which brings my next two points:

Zaun is never set free, it's still part of Piltover

Following the previous point: Caitlyn becomes a dictator, Viktor a cult god who almost destroys the world. But Jinx is so unredeemable???

Vi accepting Cait immediately, as if act I didn't happen. I understand they wanted to make Caitvi canon, but it was too rushed.

The 'good timeline' being like that because Vi died???? WTF the enforcers wanted a name, ANYONE to put the blame on, so the Council could 'make an example'. And now suddenly everything is okay? The abuse from Piltover is gone? But even if that were true, it's sad it would take Vi's death so peace could exist

Cait put Jinx, a traumatized, suicidal and schizophrenic girl in an ISOLATED CELL.

In a more relaxed note, I hate the design of Powder in the other timeline. I have to admit I absolutely love Jinx's design, with her bang and long braids but damn I expected a Powder with a single braid and a better sense of fashion xd

I understand Ambessa was behind everything, she was using Caitlyn recent grief to manipulate her. But she never apologized, her actions can't be erased, she said it herself.

Jinx giving 'her blessing' to Vi to be with Cait. Jinx has been feeling replaced by Cait since season 1 and right when we thought they could resolve this (before Act III), they do this. If anything, they confirm Cait replaced Jinx and that Jinx had every reason to feel like that

Jinx sacrificing herself (yeah, we know she isn't truly dead, but I'm talking about the symbolism) WASN'T REDEMPTION. IT WAS SUICIDE, A TRAGEDY. Just a few hours ago Jinx tried to kill herself five times, she just saw an opportunity to do it again and not making Vi fight for her, because Jinx feels she doesn't deserve Vi. It wasn't heroic, it was a suicide

Singed getting his happy ending. HIM, OF ALL PEOPLE. He created the Shimmer, made it a drug and created addicts in Zaun just so he could keep experimenting. Dude, I get it, you want your daughter back, but at that point you should've just accepted she's gone. Vander is gone, Vi and Ekko are left alone (which brings my next point), Jinx killed herself, Jayce spent days, weeks or months alone in an apocalyptic world, Zaun is still under Piltover's power...And HE gets his happy ending? No consequences? No punishment for experimenting on dead bodies/potentially having killed them, for being in Ambessa's side????

Following point 7, why Vi is only seen with Cait at the end? Ekko is truly alone now, and Vi only has the enforcer who betrayed her and never apologized for her actions with her and Zaun. I get it, they wanted to please Caitvi's shippers, but shipping is not the only thing here (which why I hated Timebomb in the alternate timeline)

The whole Noxus thing. It took away the Piltover-Zaun conflict, and it felt too big to make it fit in the second season

I'll keep updating the list for a few days.

[vole-mon-amour]

2x07, part 1.

in a parallel universe Jinx and Ecco are TWINS??? Or was it just an expression? (Upd: probably just an expression, otherwise people would be screaming bloody murder about incest rn, lmao) Also, it's SO weird seeing this average Jinx and still hearing her cracked voice. Her mouth opens, but it doesn't match the tone of this Jinx.

And, damn, the spoilers were right. My girl deserves SO much better.

Hey, if all those people are alive, then Silco should be, too. WHERE IS MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER, SHOW HIM TO ME.

I think I'd love her in every universe.

Hey, does that mean Vi is either dead or insane? They can't be ALL 'normal' here?

???? If Silco isn't here, alive and well, I SWEAR TO THE FUCKING OUTSIDER.

??? Silco's place for her? Where. Is. Silco?

Ah huh! I was right. Love the "if Vi is alive, Powder turns to Jinx" allegory. And, basically, everything goes to shit. I'm afraid Silco might also be dead.

So Jayce needed to land there and Viktor wouldn't lost his humanity. Alas.

And if you love the journey More than the end, Go ahead <...> And where the chipps fall Is not your concern

I see you, Arcane. I see what you did there.

But of course, family is forever and all of that. Meh. At least in some universe she did die.

However, the idea that one of the sisters can't live in the world where another is alive/well/sane. The world is too small for the two of them at the same time.

Yeah, that's why Jayce's going to fuck it all up for everybody.

*looks in the camera like i'm in The Office* Jayce is straight, my ass.

He's kind of in Viktor's place rn. Viktor came out of slums and wanted to give it all to people. Jayce wants to destroy it all. The problem is, it is NOT real in his universe. Like, dude. Use your brain.

It's nice seeing the admission that Jinx is hella smart and does great things in 'our' universe. Terrible, but great.

The green in her blue eyes.

My question is, why are figures/what's left of people mechanical?After Hextech blew up in the universe that Jayce is in? Is it some sort of LoL lore? Therefore that's what Viktor becomes in the current universe after Jayce tried to kill him?

I love her.

Jayce and Viktor the first time they made the relic work... And it's the infinite sign. ;_;

There's something about Ekko, with professor and Jinx, inventing Hextech in this universe, while Jayce tries to destroy it. Honestly, dude would've been way happier if he landed where they are.

LOOK AT THIS PRECIOUS BABYGIRL. It's like when she was creating the thing for Silco with her braids in the air all around her.

The indicators were is that you died a horrible death.

If anything, I'm glad he got the chance to hug Benzo. I need this for SIlco and Jinx.

i was about to say that Silco wasn't mentioned even ONCE during this ep, but decided to wait until the end. the way i gasped. MY BELOVED!!

hey. hey, this isn't Silco (i know and love). the power of family is fucking bullshit, quit with this shit, s2.

when Jinx (well, Powder) and Ekko dance, that's where I roll my eyes and mentally gag. absolutely not. and if THIS is what prompts him to save Jinx in their timeline, then it's a big fat eugh for me.

pretty colours. it suits her.

i am SO imagining Jilco like this. my babies.

they.

Jayce, have you forgotten that you and your mom were dying in your universe?

Heimerdinger should've went back with Ekko.

[sushispider1212]

PvP Civilization and the Hero’s Journey

Note: This does, in fact, contain spoilers for pvpciv so tread with caution.

First off, this is an examination in regards to the concept of a Hero’s Journey. It will be mostly outlining how I feel the series’s narrative fits in with the Hero’s Journey and maybe a couple of predictions about where the series is gonna go from here. (Yes, Parkour Civilization is a more clear-cut hero’s journey. But I’m not talking about that right now.)

So to begin: What is a Hero’s Journey?

A hero’s journey is the idea that a whole lot of myths and stories that revolve around a central protagonist follows a certain template as to how that story works. It’s a series of plot events that can be easily traced through these stories.

These are not always in the same order, and not all the steps are covered. I will be going through the Campbell phases (Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces), but they’ll be in the order I think best fit pvpciv.

And all good journeys start with the Call to Adventure.

Our protagonist starts in their normal life before something happens in order to get our protagonist off on their adventure.

For our purposes, it’s Evbo’s normal wooden sword life. We can assume he’d only been alive there (and maybe beyond there?) for only a few days, but as stated in the opening narration, that’s just life for him.

His call to adventure? Winning his first match and Tabi showing up.

Winning the first match is important, because it is what gives him hope that he could make it out of the wooden sword phase, but also makes him start to question his normalcy because the guy forfeited.

And Tabi, being the one who travels to the next levels with Evbo with the explicit intent to get him all the way to diamond sword level, is actually a sort of mentor character in the grand scheme of things. She even taught him how to crit, which enabled him to get better at pvp, which got him to the next level, the place unknown to our protagonist.

This leads in to our next step: Supernatural Aid.

This is where our hero gets a magical guardian to help them or give them a boon of some kind. This doesn’t have to be literal, of course, but whatever boon has to help later in the quest.

And this boon? Evbo’s resurrection.

I am of the belief that symbolically, the Diamond Swords are the magic guardians (especially with their training arc that we’ll get to later.) And since Evbo’s resurrection power was gifted by them, it counts as magical aid especially since being able to revive in this world is highly valuable.

And next? The Crossing of the First Threshold.

This is where our hero crosses into a world unknown, traveling beyond to a place where the rule are unknown to them.

Aka Evbo crossing to the Stone Sword level, and subsequently the Iron Sword level.

But here’s where things get real: The Belly of the Whale.

This is where our protagonist has their major failure. From being beaten up badly by the villain, or failing their quest, they hit rock bottom. Normally this phase comes in the middle of the story, but sometimes it’s really early on!

From this failure, they leave behind all the known rules that they may be holding on to, and fully embrace the transformation of the self that ensues.

Evbo encounters this in the murder-reincarnation loop he gets caught in during the Golden Sword training montage. Simply put, before this he was still operating by the known rules of pvpciv, attack people to get sword strength to live. He was also still relatively the same, being a little weird guy with a shopping addiction and an unhealthy dependence on Tabi since she’s the only person who was nice to him. Fun.

But here? It’s rock bottom for him. A no win scenario in which he only gets a small chance of escape every so often to try to win at gold sword level only to die and end up there again. Suffice to say, it’s at this point that Evbo starts to go through his character arc and mature.

Leading into the next part: The Road of Trials.

This is the training arc! The beginning of the transformation! It’s usually a set of tests that the protagonist must complete, aided by their supernatural boon from earlier! They usually fail at least one, but not always.

Evbo’s gold sword training arc is a clear cut Road of Trials. He does the tests, gets better at pvp, and becomes a better fighter and a slightly better person. And he fails, many, many times. This is only possible through his previously acquired supernatural boon, AND the trials are facilitated by the Diamond Swords, Y’know, the magical guardians. Anyway.

Next up: Abyss.

Our hero confronts the being with ultimate power in their life and has to make it out. All of the change and training they’ve went through is to get to this point.

In this case, I believe it is Evbo’s confrontation with Tabi at the end of the season finale.

Tabi, his mentor, the one who’s stuck with him this entire time and taught Evbo how to crit. The one who betrayed Evbo and is also in possession of the most powerful sword, which she stole after beating up the Diamond Swords that Evbo thought were the strongest.

A final confrontation, to see if she still cares…

And he survives into the Apotheosis.

This is the realization stage. The greater understanding that leads to the final stage of the journey.

This is Evbo after the confrontation with Tabi. Him understanding that he needs to leave in order to fix everything, that his resurrection power was given to him by sheer luck. And also the fact that pretty much everyone else is after his head.

And this is where the story ends for now. Right after the revelation and transformation.

But! But! This leads into my final section! Predictions!

Pvpciv doesn’t end in a complete hero’s journey. The reason for this is pretty obvious, since it’s setting up season 2. But where can it go from here?

Remember how I said that the phases can appear out of order? Well, I think the pvpciv season 2 will actually restart the hero’s journey!

The journey is all about the known world vs the unknown world and how our hero changes and transforms over the course of it. Well, at the point where the story is, Evbo certainly has changed, but he also learned and now the unknown world is the known world.

But! That’s only toward the Sword Civilization! The rest of PvP Civilization is the unknown now!

So here’s my idea. We’re gonna go all the way back to the First Threshold and the Belly of the Whale. There’s gonna be more trials and a greater and more powerful supernatural guardian to provide aid (PvP God?).

And! There’s more phases that I skipped over! Here’s the two that I think are going to come up!

Meeting with the Goddess: The hero gains items to help them in the future from a powerful figure. In this case, I think these items will likely be either more PvP weapons, or the Netherite Sword. Likely granted by the new supernatural entity.

Woman as the Temptress: An often female figure that tries to trick the hero from straying from their path. Pretty obvious, but I believe that Tabi will fulfill this role, especially since she’s the most powerful figure in the picture right now, and still feels a friendship with Evbo. I think she’ll try to sway Evbo to her side using that connection, and maybe she’ll be swayed to join Evbo’s side instead? Maybe, we’ll see!

Conclusion.

PvP Civilization is a very interesting version of the hero’s journey, and I hope you have found this as interesting as I do! This came to me about an hour after watching the finale and I like dissecting media into parts.

I may have missed a few things, my memory isn’t infallible, so if there’s something else you’ve noticed, please feel free to say so!

[emmanelson]

BILL FARRAH and DARBY HART in A MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD S01 E06 "Crime Seen" (2023)

#aka darbill touches that have rewired my brain chemistry

[det-loki]

they're so cute

[slinkpinkiller]

[billfarrah]

After watching the first two episodes of A Murder at the End of the World, I just wanna say how happy and excited I am that they didn't make Darby your typical intelligent but emotionless and cold protagonist. I love that she's not just another Lisbeth Salander. She's smart, techy and definitely guarded, but I love how often we get to see her smile and geek out over things - whether it's over her hero Lee or Bill, how we see her smiling while she's texting Bill and when they're flirting, or over her loving The Simpsons. It's so refreshing that we see her soul as much as we do her intellect and she isn't just another typical "emotionless girl" protagonist. The giddy smile we see from her when she finally meets Bill at the end of episode 2 is so endearing. She's morbid and digs up dead bodies in her spare time and is preoccupied with solving mysteries but we still get to see her be a giddy teenager.

Anyway I've only had Darby for one day but if anything happens to her I'll kill everyone in the room including mysef.

[libraryleopard]

three episodes into a murder at the end of the world and i am now fairly convinced that

zoomer is actually bill's kid, not andy's

my evidence is thus:

zoomer is blonder than his father, more like lee and bill

that moment in the first episode where bill plays along with zoomer pretending to be a doctor feels significant–why show them interacting so much, you know?

episode four is called "family secrets"

bill found something out he wasn't willing to tell rohan–maybe that he's zoomer's dad?

lee's story about bill and her only having hooked up once and him losing his hard-on feels like when people put too much specific detail in a lie to make it sound real

zoomer is five, just the right age to have been conceived when andy and lee were in the "off" portion of their on-again off-again relationship

bill getting dumped by his hacker gf and then fathering a kid with her idol would be very dramatic

[notsoyoungblood]

Knowing that Bill's call to David's room lasted 27 seconds, I wonder if Rohan's call to Darby's room was the same length (whether it was truly them or a AI)

[onceuponathreetwoone]

I am loving A Murder at the End of the World but I have two bones to pick after episode 4:

Are we really supposed to be believe that Darby and Rohan walked the distance it took them to snowmobile, drive and trek, there and back?

Was that cliffhanger actually a surprise to anyone? I’d worked it out as soon as Bill interacted with that character in the first episode…it was super obvious, no?

[hotch-girl]

i wish i had watched fargo instead of amateotw. i get what they were trying to do but no

if u want to make it ab the characters then actually develop the characters!!!!!!

[rhera]

A Murder at the End of the World - Chapter 4: Family Secrets

[ominous-horse-noises]

main takeaway from certain fan reactions to the finale is this:

the final scene with ankarna was so meaningful to the bad kids' arcs and how they made peace with being wronged by people they loved, and if all you can focus on is that the rat grinders didn't get much screentime, then you don't love dimension20 and you don't love this world: you want to be playing your own hs themed dnd campaign and you're mad the oc versions of the rat grinders you made up in your head acted ooc. these are not your characters and this is not their story.

[mikaeled]

It is original thought, more than money, oil, or even water, that will determine if there is a future to be had. ⇁ A Murder at the End of the World Chapter 1: Homme Fatale

[emmanelson]

BTS vs Actual Scene

[det-loki]

the way bill and darby are constantly gravitating toward one another and invading each others personal space with these charged looks is killing me. they're magnetic