#could this be considered a spoiler?

[prettydreamings]

wusiala wip

rated g

star wars au

Florian and Jamal were together for almost as long as they could think. when they first started lifting small rocks using the force, when they learned the basic stances of lightsaber combat, when they looked for their kyber crystals on Ilum, when their padawan braids grew longer and longer.

Jamal managed to lift small objects using the force before Florian did, and then he comforted Florian when he cried, tears and snot running down his face in frustration from his apparent failure. Florian usually beat Jamal in training battles with mock lightsabers. he had picked up on the stances and processes came to him easily. when Jamal felt helpless, Florian made up mnemonics to help Jamal figure out the techniques. when they reunited in the ice caves on Ilum, kyber crystals in their belt pockets, they fell into each others arms, warm breaths mingling and their hands slipping into each others to warm them up. they helped each other grow and rebraid their padawan braids. they would talk for hours, Florians fingers detangling the strand Jamal had grown out, the braid it again, then he slipped the modest pearl on the bottom of the braid of black hair. it was made from bone, intricate patterns carved carefully into it, the only thing Jamal kept on himself to remind him of his home planet. then Jamal picked apart Florians braid, always braided it tight enough on Florians scalp for him to complain, but never too tight for Florian to be actually serious about it.

[clarabosswald]

the return of captain poppy space babies >>> the story and the engine

[myrkulitescourge]

the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me

just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.

like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.

in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.

how am i supposed to act normal about this.

[gothamcitycentral]

Be selfless

Don’t steal

Stick It To The Man

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

in The Wigmaker Job and to a lesser extent Veilguard we get a great deal of exposition/clues into how painfully observant Lucanis is. part of him being a top tier assassin is his ability to be hyperaware of everything going on around him and interpreting what that information means correctly, because if he gets it wrong he can die. so i don’t personally really think he was ever truly unaware that Rook was flirting or interested in him. i think instead his denial/avoidance about it stems from the fact that he feels like he is tricking Rook into thinking he’s someone deserving of love. he knows that they are interested in him, he just thinks they shouldn’t be, and wouldn’t want to be if they knew the “real him”

[carrotsnake]

"bill escapes the theraprism / must live in the mystery shack as the next part of his program" genre of billford fanfics are well and good, but has anyone considered the inverse: by some interdimensional mistake, ford is trapped as a patient in the theraprism. the pines family must find a way to save him meanwhile bill is OVER THE MOON. takes every opportunity to be the worst cellmate ever, sabotaging him to get him sent to the wellness void etc... shit now i wanna write it

[gammija]

the real reason tmagp is on break 'til april 11th is so sam can observe ramadan without being chased by a murderous clown blob

[lucabyte]

i CANNOT stress enough how incompatible the themes of these two pieces of media are. i promise my media literacy ability is actually good im well aware that these character mappings are absolutely nothing. that said. play with me in this space. in this sopping wet miserable space. its bad luck to kill a piou piou

original screenshots (and hypnosis 1904) for reference

[egophiliac]

HEY guess who's being completely normal about episode 7 :)

anyway it sure ain't me, so I made myself a baby Malleus! I used the single-headed version of Choly Knight's hydra pattern (link will be in replies ↓↓↓) as a base, and just messed with some of the pieces to make him more Mall-y. including sewing all those little claw pieces, then pinning them on and realizing I actually liked him better without them...oh well. to heck with accuracy, I want stubby little dragon legs!

unfortunately, he doesn't photograph very well, especially his forehead scales (they're there! I promise!) (they're made of glitter HTV so they are actually SPARKLY in real life, yet apparently they come out completely invisible in photos, woe). but he is super cuddly and soft so I'm happy with him! just as in canon, he is a product of LOVE. :>

[solar-eclipsed]

The Birth of a Star

(The Birth of a Ghost)

[strawbyfield]

I had to draw this and get it out of my system lest I go mad from the torment

[twinstxrs]

idk if this is accurate but i’ve felt like in previous seasons riz & gorgug have been one of the inter-bad kids dynamics we’ve seen the least of & this season has been so great in that aspect. gorgug having helped make some of riz’s magic gear. riz helping gorgug with his studies. the shared birthday party. gorgug’s gift to riz being something he himself made to protect riz. riz’s gift to gorgug being something he illegally grabbed to protect gorgug. gorgug who utilizes rage to put his body on the line for his friends & riz who will take deep levels of mental stress for his friends. even though it was within the context of a joke, riz calling gorgug an “absolute sweetie.” like yea they might not be in a band together or both part of a presidential campaign team or owlbears teammates, but they’d go to war for each other, because they’re best friends.

[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.

[half-a-life-left]

is it cathartic, then? did you finally get what you wanted?

[mayor-david-prentiss]

i think it's kinda insane that warhorse lets you observe henry seeing the deepest moment of intimacy in the game between ištvan and erik. and that at the possibly most impactful and emotional moment for henry, high in that tower where hes supposed to kill the man hes been dreaming of killing for weeks, he can still stop to ask if what he saw was love.

[starry-bi-sky]

Danny hurts.

That's nothing new, but he thinks he deserves to talk about it still. He hurts specifically behind his eyes, as if he's been doing nothing but stare at a screen all day, and his lungs feel shallow and stifled like he's run for a mile without stopping. There's an ache in his knees like abdominal cramps, stretching down to his calves and slightly up his thighs. His shoulder blades ache, rooting center towards his spine, snaking down to his hips.

It's bearable, but he still hurts.

It was a nightmare that brought him here, with his arms wrapped around Bruce's middle like a cobra and his ear pressed to the man's stomach. It's not a heartbeat, but he's already checked for it, and if he stops and listens, real quiet, he can hear Bruce's internal organs gurgling. So it's the next best thing, it means he's working as he should.

Bruce's curved finger draws a line down his spine, and then back up, slow and soothingly. Danny shudders involuntarily, gooseflesh popping up on his skin, and his arms tighten briefly, then loosen up. He shakes for a moment, and then tries to sigh out of his nose in a way that didn't reveal just how awful he felt.

"…Tell me about flying?" Bruce asks him after a few seconds of silence, voice quiet and low; tentative. The petting doesn't stop, and Danny blinks slowly. To think, first, and then to try and come up with a response. His jaw feels heavy and sluggish beneath the skin, the way it usually feels when he doesn't want to talk.

He cleans the cobwebs off, tightens his fingers around Bruce's shirt. Loosens it. "Incredible," he croaks, "Weird. It was— crazy. Instinctual. All I needed to do was think about it, and then not even that after I got used to it. I'd think about going up and- and I'd go up. Or down. And I'd tell myself to slow down or go faster, and- and uh, I would."

It's weird, talking about his powers to someone who isn't Sam or Tucker- or, or Jazz. Even weirder for it to be an adult. A living one, that is. And one that would just— just listen. Just like that. And ask questions with no judgement, none that Danny could pick up on anyways.

He starts drawing abstract shapes into Bruce's back with his finger, trying to think. "It was- it was so weird, and so cool. Have you ever— have you ever had one of those hyper-realistic dreams as a kid, where everything felt real? It was like that." He continues, and the tension bleeds out of him, and the grief, and the hurt, "I could go as— as high as I wanted, and since I didn't need to breathe, I didn't need to worry about choking."

Bruce keeps quiet, and it's a bit of a relief, Danny's gaining steam. "I wanted to touch the stars," he tells him, staring unfocused, "and I had this revelation one day, uh- I think the summer after my accident, that I could now. I didn't have to wait anymore. I could probably fly up and up and up, and I'd be in space." It'd been a ground-shaking revelation to him, and it'd shaken and then shattered his foundation of rules and what he could and couldn't do.

He focuses back in on the feeling of tracing the edges of Bruce's ribs, and Bruce does the same to his spine. "I- I uh, didn't. Of course. Going up- was— well— I, I'd never been that high before. I tried to, once, just to see if I could. And then I looked down, and Amity was a bunch of specks below my feet. Like an ant colony. Or a bunch pebbles." It had been amazing, and horrifying. He could see it from one end to the other, and he only knew where home was by the OPS Center on the top, sitting like a satellite.

Danny swallows the spit gathering at the corners of his mouth, "It was terrifying," he says, "I thought that if I kept going up, I'd lose Amity and never be able to find it again. I knew Earth was always rotating, I got scared that if I went up, when I went down Amity wouldn't be where I left it." He trembled the entire flight down to the ground. It'd felt like some sort of epiphany to him, or a kind of enlightenment. His mind had pushed past the borders of what it thought to be foundational, and now a bubble had popped. And he didn't like it.

"I went back down, and told myself I'd try again when I was older." And the world was less scary.