#hold on a fucking second

[miratenebrarum]

[ wait hold on. the sidemuses choice.

silent artificial lad, born to kill grown to be a good boy who lies a lot, with overly talkative sidekick

and overly talkative artificial lad, born to be a good boy grown to kill and lie his way through life, with silent sidekick..... ]

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

i just finished reading the shadow friend by alex north and i'm fucking reeling over here

[userautumn]

i want buck to introduce his kid to bobby. i want him to hold a little chubby hand in his big hand and use it to point at bobby, old and grey, across the room. i want him to duck his head so the little baby can hear him better even though his mouth is right there, and i wanna hear him say "see that? that's grandpa over there" and i want to see bobby not even looking at them, because he's standing by the grill with an apron and a serious expression on his face. and i want buck to say to little buck jr, "you see him over there? that man taught me everything i know. he's the one who helped grow me up so i can be the best dad i can be to you, and he's going to take care of you too." and then i want little baby buck to babble incoherently because he is a baby after all, and i want him to reach up and grab buck's nose with his little tiny, chubby baby hand, with his little, tiny chubby baby nails digging into the soft skin of buck's nose and i want buck to laugh and say "ouch" loud enough for bobby to look up, finally, and wave with his grill tongs. that's what i want. that's the future they deserve to have.

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

As much as I like the idea of Steph getting-over-it™️ and moving-on™️, no longer being defined by the shitty actions of men in her life, I also really really like the idea of a Steph who can’t fully let go. Steph who picks fights with Bruce for no reason. Steph who says things to him that sting, unwarranted, out of nowhere, not even because he did anything recently, at least nothing she can consciously recall, just like automatically. Steph who for a single, just one single half second, gets jealous of a ‘good work’ and pat on the shoulder, and immediately afterward feels an immediate overwhelming wave of revulsion so intense she thinks she might throw up. Steph who gets weird looks from Cass, Steph who gets glares and awkward coughs when she says something out of pocket, Steph who gets asked why she’s being immature, why shes stirring up shit for no reason, Steph who doesn’t know how to answer that, because she doesn’t know why she did that, she doesn’t know why she keeps doing it, it just keeps happening. Steph who doesn’t know how to stop or even if she wants to stop or not. Steph who doesn’t really need to make a conscious effort to avoid being left alone with Batman, but who still takes pains to avoid it, just in case, just in case, because what would she say then? What would he say then? What could either of them possibly say to each other at this point. What kind of horrible resolution would happen, what kind of terrible breaking point would manifest, what could either of them say? Nothing good, Steph knows. Nothing good. So she takes pains to avoid being alone with him.

[teaboot]

has cataloging my income and expenses helped me keep track of my finances? Yes! But have I ever in my life felt more like a struggling father of six sitting at his desk in the wee hours of the night at the head of the Great Depression as he contemplates a third job and oh wait fuck

[veinsfullofstars]

“Any more stupid questions?”

Bonus live reactions to being saved from a Dark Matter ambush:

Started 07/13/24, finished 07/27/24, updated for color correction 11/02/24. | Kintsugi AU Masterpost

[lazylittledragon]

ok so i feel like i’m in the twilight zone right now and i need a wider scale peer review so please help me:

do ‘lying is the most fun etc etc’ by panic at the disco and ‘you’re gonna go far, kid’ by the offspring sound EXACTLY the same or am i going off the deep end

[harbingerofsoup]

btw psych is still the best network television show to ever air, no has ever done it like them and i doubt anyone ever will

[teal-tealwren]

coming up for air

[n0anix]

some icebound stuff

[corrodedparadox]

Testing out some decal stuff

[everysongineverykey]

as part of the getting-worse-before-it-gets-better portion of aziraphale and crowley's season 3 relationship arc we NEED a desperate "i love you" from aziraphale met with a hissed, spiteful, and quickly regretted "i forgive you" from crowley

[o-wild-west-wind]

you know, I’m just gonna come out and say it. reason 182639302 why I’m sad ofmd was canceled: I would’ve liked to see a post-Izzy world.

you can stab me in the face now.

[feels-for-the-fictional]

You can't tell me our main man Jim, Jim Kirk, James Kirk, James T Kirk, James Tiberius Kirk, CAPTAIN stack of books on legs James Respectful and Sensitive Tiberius Kirk does not know about Vulcan hand touching and their significance.

This man. JAMES KIRK. Looked at Spock, clearly vulcan spock, hands firmly planted behind his back Spock. LOOKED him up and down, and despite absolutely knowing it would not be considered impolite if he didnt offer a hand shake, looked at Spock, tall drink of water Spock, Vulcan sensitive hands used as terms of affection Spock, and was like hmmmm absolutely will make this Vulcan shake my hand. AND SPOCK gave like 1 second of thought before he was like yes absolutely here is my hand to hold for you and you only. I AM DECEASED

[asgardian--angels]

Scene Breakdown: What Actually Happened Atop the Hexgates

Hi everyone, this has been bugging me literally since I watched the finale for the first time three months ago and I've been trying to put the pieces together ever since. I still have a lot of questions about the metaphysics of hextech and the alternate timelines (Mage Viktor you frustrate me!!), BUT, setting those aside for the time being, I wanted to break down that final climactic scene atop the hexgates so we can see what actually occurred. A lot happens very quickly, with multiple key elements interacting - Viktor (i.e., the hexcore), the anomaly, the z-drive, and the runestone. This is my best attempt to make sense of it, and I'd appreciate your own theories and feedback! It is rather long but has plenty of pictures.

So, the first very important element to examine is the anomaly - in particular, what Viktor's doing with it and why it acts the way it does in this scene. I still have a great deal of questions about that first point, that is, what role it's playing in the Glorious Evolution, because it's really not super clear. But, as it pertains to what we see in this scene, Viktor says the following -

"The sublime intersection of order and chaos."

Hextech is engineered order, wild runes/anomalies are organic chaos. Both are apparently needed to carry out the Evolution - while Viktor on his own with the hexcore can Evolve individuals, for some reason (help me out here) the anomaly allows him to extend his power and will. I won't say a whole lot on this as it's not super pertinent - but I still intensely question why in the ruined timeline, we see only some Evolved (likely only those who had mind-strings) while the rest of the population just got anomaly-blasted (I refrain from calling it hexcorized as many do, because it literally isn't - it's the corruption we see from the anomaly) and just, Pompeii'd in place. But I digress.

In the hexheart, Viktor frees the anomaly from its chamber, instead moving it to a containment field in his hexcorized staff.

The anomaly hypothetically can only exist in conjunction with the hexgates, or more broadly, concentrated runic activity that wears thin the wall between the material world and the arcane (thus the hexcore may fit this also). It would not persist outside of these conditions. Thus, Viktor keeps it stable in this hexcore force field, allowing him to safely transport it up the gravity chute of the hexgate.

I haven't seen it mentioned before but I don't think Viktor in his Evolved form can actually fly - he appears to rely on the gravity field generated by activating the hexgate gemstone mesh. This creates a concentrated beam that travels up the length of the chute, and we're going to assume here, atop the hexgates as well, in a very narrow field - where Viktor and the anomaly float but not where Jayce and the Evolved stand. This could be a result of him breaking through the dome or not.

He releases the anomaly, where it floats upwards into the sky along what we can presume is the same gravity field.

Key here is that it is still, somehow, tethered to Viktor. If it leaves the hexcore field, it would implode. It's not shown explicitly what this connection is, but it must be there. It is no longer connected to the hexgates - if it were, it would not implode at the end of this scene. It is solely tied to Viktor now.

One thing that remains unclear to me is whether Viktor intended to use the energy of the hexgates to power himself/the anomaly. The concentration of the energy into a vertical beam is stated by Jayce earlier in 2x03, but we never see this - either Viktor was stopped before it could get that far, or it's unrelated and has no bearing here.

The next element here is the z-drive (or inverse anomaly).

There's been plenty of theorizing and speculation about the z-drive, as it was created from inverting the acceleration rune, thus controlling time rather than space. (It is not abundantly clear to me how the anomaly made the jump from a 4-second time travel machine to a reality-hopper thanks to some mysterious tinkering from Heimerdinger... but let's ignore that here). But its role in this scene is actually less than it may seem.

The primary consequence of Ekko launching the unstable z-drive at Viktor is that blasts what I'm calling a time-hole in Viktor's armor (physical, emotional...). This allows Jayce to get through to him where he'd otherwise be impenetrable - yeah yeah, the cosmic yaoi, we've all seen it.

The z-drive does not destructively interact with any other element in this scene - not the anomaly, nor the rune. Just Viktor/the hexcore.

It actually breaks Viktor's staff into pieces, which is a neat detail though I'm not sure it has any impact on events.

It's easy to think that the two anomalies canceled each other out - but that is not what happens, as we'll see. While I don't have a perfect screencap for it, after watching this scene a few dozen times, I can tell you that the rotating cloud cover concealing the anomaly does not change during the z-drive explosion. Those bursts of corruption we see in the above shot are what the anomaly's been doing the whole time. The two anomalies do not affect each other.

The time stop we see during this explosion could either be a visual storytelling effect from the animators (i.e., everything we see actually happens in a split second but time works differently in the astral plane) or the explosion of the z-drive actually creates an isolated time bubble around the top of the hexgates. It is not clear which is true. I'm inclined to believe the former.

That brings us to the runestone, the most complicated element.

The runestone has been embedded in Jayce's body by Mage Viktor, complete with anomaly corruption webbing. Mage Viktor's ultimate plan here is still largely a mystery (and it keeps me up at night). But I maintain, purely speculative, that he did this for a dual purpose - the runestone is now linked in some way to that ruined timeline/with that timeline's anomaly; it glows whenever Jayce activated the alt-hammer, which was able to hurt Viktor (perhaps it was the only thing that could?).

But, relevant here, it appears to act as a pre-programmed set of runic instructions to be read, interpreted, and executed by the hexcore inside Viktor. It activates when placed into Viktor's spectral body, anomaly corruption traveling up his arm. This triggers hundreds of copies of the acceleration rune to burst outwards which frees the souls of the Evolved from their bodies.

These souls travel in the astral plane into a swirling mass that close in on the rune.

We never actually see the souls go into the rune, although we are shown beams of blue light being gathered into the rune on Jayce's wrist, which could potentially be the souls though it could also just be energy/a sign of the rune activation. It's highly unlikely the souls went anywhere else even though visually at times it looks like they're floating near the z-drive - it would make no sense for them to go into either anomaly as those are both about to explode, and it was the rune that beckoned them in the first place. They could just be 'freed' to disperse into the aether, but, ehh, that does not appear to be what's happening based on the visuals.

Most of the souls are sucked into the rune before the spell runs its course and interacts with Jayce and Viktor. The last remaining appear to go with them.

So here's where it all comes together, and everything happens very quickly.

We have the anomaly, in the sky, tethered to Viktor & the hexcore. The z-drive is mid-explosion. The rune is now running its course.

This is what happens in quick succession, in order:

The rune sucks in Jayce, Viktor, and the z-drive explosion.

It's hard to capture in a screencap, but yes, the rune takes the z-drive explosion with it.

2. The shockwave of the z-drive explosion, which had been in progress before it was sucked into the rune, throws everyone back. However, since the explosion is gone, Ekko and others are unharmed. The soulless drones are ragdolled around.

3. The anomaly, no longer connected to the hexcore, becomes immediately unstable and collapses, imploding, which sends a shockwave outwards from the top of the hexgates (both screencaps are of this moment).

Now, I am a wholehearted believer that Jayce and Viktor were teleported elsewhere, and there's plenty of speculation posts both here and on twitter that lay out evidence for why it's likely.

I'll just mention that besides the fact that the blue flicker at the end of the rune's disappearance perfectly matches that of the other example we see of it being used - by Mage Viktor saving young Jayce - it also glitches out:

What does this mean? Potential reality-hopping? Anomaly influence to say the least, perhaps caused by the z-drive explosion interacting with it. I personally don't see why Mage Viktor would embed a pre-set teleportation rune into Jayce's wrist to give to Viktor without the intention of, yknow, teleporting them, especially if freeing the souls was an intended part of his plan. But we may never know.

So there you have it. The play-by-play. The anomaly needs the hexcore and imploded when the connection broke. The z-drive did not cause the anomaly to implode, its only narrative purpose here was to give Jayce the precious moments to reach Viktor. The hexcore is hypothetically still part of Viktor, and we have no idea if getting his face blasted open would be fatal for Evolved Viktor's body were they to get spat out somewhere, nor whether the z-drive would also explode in their faces or just fizzle out in the arcane. Many questions remain, but I hope this clarifies at least the technical aspects of what actually went down atop the hexgates.

Thanks for reading, and please let me know your own theories!

[superbat-lmao]

The Justice League, on their way back from a deep space mission that was incredibly successful, received a distress signal from a galaxy they’re passing through.

As they investigate, they learn that a colony of a planet has been wiped out. Completely.

Slowly they piece together that there is some being out there that had been terrorizing planets, starting with colonies and then eventually going after larger settlements and home planets.

The League also learns they are not the first people to learn of this foe, or try to come up with a solution to stop them.

The colony they are inspecting has researchers on it that had fled or escaped from other planets where they piled together all they knew about their enemy, and in an attempt to sift through the mountains of data they had collected, created a device.

If a person was connected to the device, they would mentally experience the number of years required to process the data and come up with an attack plan in seconds. What the researchers had needed was time, so they created it.

As the League pieces this together, Superman sees that there is a being approaching the remnants of the colony and the defense system alerts the “remaining colonists” of the imminent threat. Their failsafe boots up and takes the nearest person, in this case, Batman, who had been studying some of its programming, and activates.

The rest of the team didn’t have a chance to react before Batman blinks and is in motion, setting up machines and dictating code without lifting a finger.

There is no fight, because after the two seconds Bruce was in the machine he was a flurry of motion and the enemy was contained.

They ask him how long had passed for him in the machine. It takes him a full minute to respond.

“150 years.”