#because I am Considering It.

[sunnibits]

so you guys know that one meme right

[gossippool]

*steeples hands under my chin like i'm sherlock* so you see,

[catmask]

does anyone have like an anti aesthetic. like something you look at and can recognize as a complete fashion/interior design/artistic movement and understand it but it makes you shudder seeing it. i am not talking like “its morally bad” “its poorly structured” like just sheerly devoid of joy for you actually invites a repulse response.

[voidoffline]

!This is a drawing! Not a screenshot!

This is nineteen hours of work. (Not the build I based this off of- it only took me like a few minutes to build it XD)

(This is the next build of mine that I will draw)

[kimeoshi]

Boss!Aven for @starryjellyfishie !!

Thank you so much once again for commissioning me! :D 💙

[just-your-average-tangerine]

The line between binary and nonbinary trans people is nowhere near as clean as some of yall think it is

[deathricedrawn]

i'm ready to try

[licollisa]

In which Papyrus attends a talkshow.

[cassberry]

the link dying montages are going to be incredible in totk

[an-internet-introvert]

Countdown to October 19th (19/19)

Happy 15 Years of Dan and Phil 🩵🩵🩵

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

You ever have those moments where an idea just... won't leave your head?

[is-this-even-relatable]

Misfortune Teller

tldr: An older Danny, apprentice to Clockwork, does a lot of field work across dimensions, resetting the timeline, queuing future events, and who knows what else. Occasionally, he warns people about such upcoming possibilities, to set them on the right path. How, you might ask? Well in this case... as a wandering fortune teller.

Crack-fic (oh god, it's getting long and my logic brain won't let it remain as crack) where Danny becomes Clockwork's apprentice after getting his GED. Living his infinite afterlife to the fullest. Inspired by this tumblr post.

Working for Clockwork had been... interesting so far. At first, Danny got frustrated by how vague and cryptic Clockwork was. He'd just shunt Danny off to some ancient time with a few words, his own time medallion (Danny carried it everywhere with him now), and then pop back into the portal, leaving Danny with only the faintest idea of where to go.

Eventually, after enough time (ha!) spent around Clockwork, Danny figured out that it just basically meant that he had free reign and to do whatever he wanted. Because if he went on the wrong path, (like that one time in Pompeii when he had almost caused the volcano to explode a few years too early), Clockwork would just pop on by, say another few cryptic words, and then it'd all be fine and dandy, or as he liked to say, "All is as it should be... Now stop practicing your wail by an active volcano."

After telling Jazz about that (it was supposed to be funny, not concerning), she just sighed and shook her head, with a forlorn "think before you act, Danny!" but hey, it'd turned out fine so far, so who cares how he does what Clockwork asks him to do, as long as it gets done, right? Even if it's with a liiiiitle more mischief than strictly required.

Besides. Danny was the one who had been doing time shenanigans across millennia, not Jazz. And he thought he'd been getting pretty good at it too! He'd actually started giving himself a different made-up background for each universe he visited. Sam and Tucker were helping him keep up with the identities on a spreadsheet, so if he had to go back to one he'd already visited, he'd remember who he'd said he was supposed to be.

---

He was on a call with them one evening while haunting Jazz's apartment, doing just that, when he felt a familiar tingle in the back of his throat, as well as a heightened awareness of the seconds passing by, that always accompanied his mentor's appearance.

Sam was talking about his past stint posing as a god of death when he cut in. "Hey- sorry to interrupt, Sam- Clocky's here, guys, I gotta dip."

"Aw, come on! We hardly talked any this past week since you passed your certifications, man," Tucker complained.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, yeah. Partly on you too though, you've been caught up outside of class, and Sam's schedule is nearly the opposite of yours."

Sam hummed in agreement despiter Tucker's scoff.

Danny missed hanging out with them as much as they had in high school, but hey, life goes on. Or at least, theirs did, to college. After finally flunking out of Casper High, he'd taken some time to get used to his responsibilities in the ghost zone, and when he had, he realized that he didn't really have much enthusiasm or timeleft for his human life.

And he didn't really want to go back home either.

But Jazz had made him tie up any loose ends before he noped-off to god knows where, which frankly, he had to thank her for. Getting his GED took a few years, but it was an accomplishment that could be attributed to Danny Fenton, no ghostliness required. Then he was able to let that tether go free.

Pulled out of his musings by a few more grumbles from Tucker, Danny said his goodbyes, promising to call the next time they were all available.

After hanging up, Danny swiveled around, anticipation already lighting up his eyes an ethereal green.

Clockwork, for his part, had been waiting patiently through Danny's lengthy goodbyes. Although he supposed that it tracked for the watcher of time to be patient. With his job, it'd be a nightmare if he wasn't.

"Phantom," Clockwork spoke, calm as always. "I have some tasks I need you to complete as my apprentice."

And Danny, always ready for adventure, didn't need him to explain any further. "Sure! When do you need me to be?"

Clockwork smiled at that. "I am fortunate you are eager. Follow me."

---

Danny popped into existence in this universe with a burst of cold air and static electricity. He found himself hovering by a clocktower above a sprawling, gothic city. Smog and light pollution obscured the stars above him, to his disappointment. He comforted himself with the fact that he'd probably have all the time he wanted to fly someplace less populated to see them later.

He started off by familiarizing himself with the city. As he flew, he followed the trail of power and met the resident city-spirit, a spooky- but kind underneath- woman draped in black lace, who told him her name was Gotham. He spoke in length with her about this universe, its heroes, and her knights. On that, she was very enthusiastic... or at least Danny thought she was, her projected emotions belaying much more than her gloomy exterior. She told him how her knights had been through a lot and would need some guidance fighting the darkness that pooled in her deepest corners, smiling with too much glee, filling lungs with fear, and terrorizing with cold hard bullets.

Danny could sense that the dangers she spoke of were growing in power, ever slowly. The longer they shadowed people's minds and hearts, an intangible thing grew that lent them more otherworldly pull than their physical forms had right to hold.

That must be what he was sent here for.

But... they were weak, pitifully so for him, infinite king as he was. And besides, he wasn't here in that sense. He was a messenger, a simple apprentice. And he could do this however he wanted.

Cue his talk with Lady Gotham, and subsequent idea to arm her knights. With what? Well, he figured knowledge would be a start. Flying high above the city invisibly, Danny noticed a sea of colors and lights by what appeared to be the city's pier. He flew down, noting that it appeared to be the setup spot for a travelling circus or carnival of some kind.

He considered what to do. One of Lady Gotham's troubles was a madman clown, right? Well maybe he'd be attracted to his ilk here... and with the danger came the knights. Maybe he could catch one of them here?

Danny was floating around at the entrance and beginning to formulate a plan when a flyer caught his eye. Looking for a mystic to read fortunes. URGENT!

Hadn't Clockwork said something about fortunes? And he hadn't made an identity in this universe yet...

A mischievous smile crept across Danny's face, splitting it in two with far too many teeth.

---

Half a city away, a man in all black, perched on the very same clocktower that Phantom had Appeared by, shivered as he felt an ominous premonition about his sanity in the near future...

Said man quickly opened his comms to check in with his many, many kids. Yet even after hearing back from each, he still felt apprehensive.

Somewhere even further, Clockwork laughed.

---

And that's how Danny found himself seated at a fortune teller's booth at a pier in Gotham, two days later, for the Tricksy Traveling Circus's grand opening.

[mavigator]

i talked about it a little bit already but i have things to say about it. for context, i was born with amniotic band syndrome. the amniotic band wrapped around my left wrist in utero and stunted the growth of my hand. i was born with about half a palm, four nubs for fingers, and a twisted half of a thumb. i can open and close my thumb and pinkie joint like a claw.

yesterday at work i had a shift in the room with 5-10 year old kids. i had my left hand hidden in my sleeve (a bad habit of mine). a kid asked if he could see my hand, and even though internally i was debating running into traffic, i said “sure you can” and showed him my hands. he stared for a moment, looking disturbed, and then said “i don’t want to look at that anymore”. that hurt to hear, but i understand that kids are new to the world and he probably didn’t mean it out of malice. i put my hand away again, told him that it was okay, and that i was just born that way.

he then went on to talk about how he knows a kid with a similar hand to mine and called it “ugly”. i told him that wasn’t a very kind thing to say and that he wouldn’t feel good if someone said that to him, and he replied that no one would say that to him—because he has “normal hands”, and he’s glad he does because otherwise he’d be “ugly”. i tried to talk with him for a bit about how everybody is born differently, but he just started talking about a girl he knows with a “messed up face” and pulled on his face to make it look droopy. i went on some more about how it wasn’t very kind to talk about people that way, but the conversation moved on to something else.

i’ve told my supervisors about it and they’re going to have a talk with his mom. what i wanted to say is this: i’m genuinely not upset with the kid. kids are young and naturally curious, and he clearly simply hasn’t been taught about disabled people and kind ways to speak to/about others. which is why i am upset with his parent(s). i know he’s encountered visibly deformed/disabled people before (he said so himself!), yet his parent(s) clearly haven’t had any kind of discussion with him about proper language and behavior. i knew from birth that some people were just different than others, but my parents still made a point to assert to be kind to and accepting of others. i wonder if adults in his life are the type of people to hush him and usher him away when he points out someone in a wheelchair. that kind of thing doesn’t teach politeness. it tells children that disabled people are an Other than can’t be acknowledged or spoken about; which, to a child, means disability must be something bad.

i’m lucky enough that this was a relatively mild incident, and that i’m a grownup with thicker skin. i’m worried about the other kids he mentioned to me. has he been talking to them this way? when i was a kid, i had other kids scream, cry, and run away at the sight of my hand. or follow me around pointing at me and laughing at me. or tell me i couldn’t do something because i was ugly or incapable or whatever. one time a girl at an arcade climbed to the top of the skeeball machine, pointed at me, and screamed at me to put my hand away and wouldn’t stop crying until she couldn’t see me anymore. another time, a kid saw my hand, screamed at the top of her lungs, and ran into my friend’s arms, crying hysterically about how i was scaring her. that second incident made me cry so hard i threw up when i got home. i can kind of laugh it off now, but having people react to me that way as a child is something i’m still getting over. why do you think i have a habit of keeping my hand in my sleeve? it just irritates me to see children that have clearly not been taught basic manners and kindness—their parents Clearly missed something pretty important .

[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.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.

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[ryllen]

I was just THINKING OF HOW ANNOYING Sebek is, H O N E S T .