#he has come a long way

[ikuudo]

索今豪 Sol Jinhao’s Character Sheet

[originalartblog]

Don't forget to eat to keep the demons at bay

[kittykatninja321]

My less popular opinion (and what I believe to be implied by the art in Lost Days) is that rather than waking up in a fully grown body Jason didn’t actually complete his puberty until after his Lazarus pit dip while he was on his murder tour. Imagine you’re tied up in a basement in Berlin getting interrogated by a teenager and his voice is cracking the entire time and if you laugh he’s going to shoot you

[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.

[noxcheshire]

I think I’d be really funny, if Bruce was a reincarnated Vlad.

This is going to be based off of a prompt I saw (I will find you) where Bruce suddenly remembered his past life as Vlad.

HOWEVER, my take on that is the de-aged Ellie and Dan because the amount of ANGST and self hate that Bruce will go through thinking his past self was not only a villain, but also that sort of person?

It will eat him alive.

It will eat that man alive every time he goes to sleep and another burst of memories pass underneath his eyelids.

It burns him when he wakes up with the phantom touch of a body underneath his hands, of a boy just as young as Damian and thinner too, struggling to escape a grip of a man whose hold was too possessive, and too cruel.

It feels like acid swishing down his throat when he wakes with the taste of oily words filled with threat and something more whispered over the form of a boy. A young boy whose blue eyes blazed furiously back and yet tried to hide the quiet bursts of fear underneath.

It feels like Bruce cannot scrub the man he had been right out of him, even when his skin blisters red until it bleeds. Vladimir Masters had woken spitting and screaming, burrowed like a cold sore underneath everything that is Bruce.

Bruce hates it.

Hates the monster he had once been and still is — because despite the fact Vlad is now Bruce, living and breathing and existing here in Gotham — Vladimir Masters still exists.

He is out there right now in a little place called Amity Park, pulling weight and blood just to get what he wants.

A man who has used and abused for far too long…

Perhaps it was time to see to it, that however and whatever way that Bruce came to be, that it began with Vlad’s unfortunate circumstances back into the Ghost Zone.

[raiiny-bay]

Love, Dhes

Parker,

It's unfair how time with you feels so short. How the last 10 years have felt like no time at all. I like to think there are other versions of us out there, somewhere. Maybe in another timeline, another universe. I like to think we find each other no matter where we are or what we're doing. That we're together and happy and I get to love you in a dozen different lifetimes. That's what I hope, anyway. And I hope when this lifetime ends, we get to start over and do it all again. Because once just isn't enough. Not for me. Not with you.

I hope the next 10 years pass slower.

Love, Dhes

[bertoyana]

Erik, what are you doing?

X-MEN: DAYS OF THE FUTURE PAST (2014)

[heartorbit]

the star you've longed for

[somegrumpynerd]

Cross has trouble getting to sleep alone in his room and goes looking for a distraction, but ends up finding a solution for both of them

[unlenertitled]

🥺🥺🥺🥺❤️

Here's the thing..

you probably think i just reblog this Paul and Richard stuff because of the cuteness (okay, that helps obviously), but what struck me as well from this bit (don't worry, no kissing 😊 Ausländer Berlin 2022-06-05, ig _s_u_n_n_y__0_8_)

...is that Richard, who was/is always so worried about esthetics, his looks, his image; remember in the Du Riechst So Gut second video where they put him in the red dress and he commented in the making of that it had taken him a long time to be able to laugh with himself (or something like that), and who always wants to be styled to the max when performing...

This time Richard went down on his knees, knowing there was good chance he wouldn't be able to get up again in a fluent motion (because he struggled after the salut for a good part of the tour), that he will show his age and/or show himself as not being as agile as for instance Paul....

and he still did it anyway, without hesitation...and indeed he struggled a bit to get up, Paul lending a hand so Richard could get his feet out from under him and stand again...

...this Richard has come a long way 💕

[beedreamscape]

I love that, in Callowmoore moments, Taliesin doesn't rush things, nor does Ashley, so we hold the table hostage in their intimacy and I'm here, butterflies in my stomach, watching how he holds their interaction so well despite them being chairs apart.

Never have I watched such palpable rpg sexual tension, and it's ravishing

[formerprincewille]

Something that really sets Wille and Simon apart from other queer ships is that when we say their love language is physical touch, IT REALLY IS PHYSICAL TOUCH. And I’m not speaking of just sex. Over the course of the show, the amount of touching between them is astronomical. And that’s really something rarely seen in queer media. There may be moments here or there, but often times there’s a lack of physical contact unless it’s for “the plot”. Wille and Simon feel like a real couple in the way they’re always physically reaching out for each other.

[fisheito]

yeah..................

[ineed-to-sleep]

So I've had this wip sitting in my folders for months now and decided to ressurect it to satiate the urge to draw these two again

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[thechy-fychannel]

y'all ever think abt how it was julie having the affair and it is even said multiple times that she was the one who left him, yet wilson was still the one who left their home and moved in with house. like. he couldn't bear to stay in their home alone. he immediately ran to house and stayed on his couch for weeks. suffered through his pranks and his laziness and his manipulation. telling him he wants him gone while sabotaging his attempts to leave. and he only left once he got a girlfriend again.