#the hexcore

[rhiannons-bird]

re-reading Frankenstein this shortly after having finished Arcane S2 is actually an insane experience

[waywardsou2]

OK OK OK GUYS I JUST HAD A THOUGHT

So, we all know how Viktor asked Jayce to destroy the HexCore, and he didn't right. He used it so save him instead and then he melded with it and turned into Jesus. We all know that right.

But when Jayce comes out of the Arcane the first thing he does is go and find Viktor and fucking blow him up

What if, Viktor's physical body, was the HexCore. What if he somehow knew that Viktor, the real Viktor would be ok and this Viktor. His body, was not actually him.

The HexCore took over and influenced him through his bodily autonomy. It explains why the HexCore "fixed" Viktor and then he went on to say the line "So much senseless pain" and fix (insert name here)'s pain.

I truly believe that was not Viktor, some of the things he did were not things I think Viktor would have done without influence. Which is why Jayce had to destroy that version of Viktor, but it was actually the HexCore as well. And he was keeping his promise.

I don't know if he fully knew the extent of Viktor connection between his body and astral projection form because from where I was sitting those two were not connected at all.

I think when he met up with Mage Viktor, and had all those flashbacks and such I think somehow he knew that that was not fully Viktor. And he had to take the gamble of destroying the HexCore without destroying the real Viktor. Because when he gets back to Piltover he clearly knows Viktor is coming for them. He know Viktor will be back despite blowing a hole in his chest

He did keep his promise in the end...

I'm going to go cry now

[mistresscitrusslice]

The Hexcore is like a pet. Like Viktor said, it learns. It is not inherently evil. Feed it shimmer and blood and you will get a beast. Feed it, idk, poro snacks and good vibes or something and you will get a cute örb.

[samibamitami]

I have a little theory about “sky”

I don't know if this counts as spoilers but here's your warning anyway

Don't think it's actually sky that we keep seeing alongside Viktor. She didn't have much importance before so it would be weird to suddenly bring so much attention to her, and how she's apparently able to go in people's minds alongside Viktor no problem, even appearing in that weird space mindscape as a weird mirage in the background.

So my guess is that this is actually the arcane itself using Sky's image as a way to interact with Viktor,, a way to guide him, a way too more easily manipulate him, to keep a close eye on him.

So that's my little theory, I don't really have a lot of evidence to back this up, it's more so speculation, but let me know your thoughts on my little mini theory

[bb-enablefreebuild]

I’m writing a fic where the consciousness inside the Hexcore turns into an actual person and now it’s all I can think about 🧍

[lazui-l]

The hex core and Viktor toxic yuri. Viktor does she hit you

[kurthummeldeservesbetter]

The Hexcore Itself Was Sick

Aka, my theory of why everything went wrong

TLDR: Because Viktor was sick (terminal illness) while creating the Hexcore, the Hexcore itself was also sick. This + absorbing, learning and adapting in the environment it was in with it's creator is why it influenced his ultimate plan without thinking about the actual consequences).

TLDR 2: The Hexcore could learn and adapt, but it only ever learned about "curing" sickness, so that's the only thing it knew how to do.

Okay so it's when Viktor coughs up/drips blood onto the hexgates that he gets the idea that hextech could effect organic matter. In turn, he creates the hexcore, which he explains (and Jayce thinks along the same lines) as being able to learn and adapt (very human traits).

Later, when we see him testing this theory on the plants, they grow extremely quickly and die almost as quickly; hinting that there is an inherent sickness to it, as well as connecting it to Viktor, who is also rapidly declining. I think, the minute he created the hexcore with the ideals that it could affect organic matter, the arcane itself took some of those parts of him (the obsession with cure, the sickness itself) and it's why it's not working the way it should; because it's creator is not fully a part of it. The hexcore would have never worked on anyone else (regardless of shimmer or not) because it's only meant to be connected to one person. Viktor, because he created it (or because he was the first to physically interact with it) was the only one who'd be able to survive.

I think, when they say it's adapting and learning, it's also listening.

Then the other person who has also had an obsession with the arcane, who also has used it to build things, create, also has this same inherit desire to heal this sickness (aka, the other person who interacts with it beyond Sky (I'll get to her in a moment) also has the same end goal with it). It listens to these two desires to keep it alive, keeps getting the fuel it needs to know it's plans (a corrupted version of what Viktor and Jayce actually desire) and even hears Jayce defend it against Heimerdinger's accusations of it being evil.

So it isn't learning that it's "corruption" isn't bad, but a good thing, a thing that can save.

Viktor then takes the adapted shimmer (which is just enough to "heal" the leg) and tries for more, with the carved runes. In enters Sky (who does not have shimmer to save herself) who "saves" Viktor, but instead of what I think would have happened (Viktor and the Hexcore becoming one the way it ends up happening) she dies, and the Hexcore uses her soul as a way to increase it's overall influence on Viktor later on.

So, when Jayce ends up using the Hexcore on Viktor anyways, it just completes the process that the Hexcore wanted all along; being back with the creator who gave it it's ideals. Given that the only things it has "learned" or even absorbed are the ideals of "healing" and "curing", and given it's new inability to not understand the extremes, it just keeps using the emotional connection (Sky, if she was just an image of Viktor's last ties to humanity/emotion) to manipulate (though the hexcore doesn't consider it manipulation, only guidance) Viktor into staying on course.

It feeds into Viktor's disappointment in Jayce for not destroying the hexcore (it overlooks this little fact because hey the hexcore got what it wanted water under the bridge and all that) and guides him to leave.

It was essentially a toxic relationship: Viktor made it with the ideas it could cure illnesses and heal, but because of the nature of the arcane, it turned those ideas up to 1000. Had the hexcore been, ya know, chill, Viktor probably would just be healing random people and going about his business rather than a cult leader with great hair and style. They keep the blanket because it's sentimental, Viktor has calmed down with his upset with Jayce because now they're on the right track to "healing" and he's also naked and that's even a little too much for a hivemind cult leader.

Add in moral support from Sky (the way the Hexcore is keeping Viktor on course) and everything is golden! ENTER JAYCE WITH HAMMER JAYCE NO WHY The only emotional connection Viktor has outside the arcane (and outside it's influence) has suddenly blasted him and pretty much rejects his plans (they had originally planned to heal people together!) what the hexcore+ Viktor thought was a good thing; heal people! So, the hexcore adapts, learns "hey, emotions = bad because they cloud judgement and cause harm" so it creates new plan: assimilation, no choices to cloud judgement, no emotions to stop them (Viktor and the Hexcore) from doing what they want.

So, it guides Viktor into letting go of his emotional support (Sky) and thus everything is right as rain! New update incoming, new adaptation: Glorious Evolution for everyone! And you get assimilated and you get assimilated and you get assimilated

WHATS THAT? EKKO WITH THE STEEL CHAIR ACCELERATION RUNE?

Bam boom the massive reintroduction to all the emotions (anger, regret, passion, love) + Jayce's "you were perfect to me/imperfections make you who you are", confession along with the fact another Viktor is the one to say "this is all wrong" basically reset Viktor into taking full control back (the Hexcore doesn't understand this but it's lost its power) and thus, they end together.

Do I think I'm right 100%? Nah. I think it's pretty open-ended as to what exactly went wrong, if it was always going to corrupt him, if Viktor's worst traits just got influenced, but I like my theory.

[bringthekaos]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. I don't think the hexcore is evil. I don't even think it's related to the void.

"It killed sky" does it even had enough consciousness to know what "murder" is? The hexgore felt a source of energy, and it used it. Maybe not even that. Is implied the reason why Viktor's body was able to hold on was the shimmer, Sky didn't have that, and it got shocked by evil magic.

When Viktoe triesnto destroy the hexcore, it backs down, almost as if it were afraid. It attacks Viktor as retaliation, or because it was scared?

Oh, I don’t think it’s evil either, but I do think it’s sentient. And as such, it has a sense of self preservation—it also seems to have some degree of emotional response, as it lashed out and “punished” Viktor after he “threatened” to destroy it. But like you said, that could just be fear/self-preservation at work, no actual vindictiveness.

And Sky’s death wasn’t a malicious act either. In all of his other experiments, Viktor was using Shimmer, and it “fed” off of the regenerative properties of that. But in the Sky death scene, we were shown that Viktor had run out of Shimmer, and was opting to go through with his next experiment anyway. I think we’re meant to understand that without the Shimmer, it had to consume massive amounts of energy from somewhere in order to execute the runes that Viktor told it to. It chose Sky, and had she not been there… I’m pretty sure it would have been Viktor getting swept off the floor.

So in that regard, the Hexcore was doing as it was instructed by the runes Viktor carved on himself, but it had insufficient “fuel” to complete the function. I’m not sure what led it to choose Sky over Viktor, given that he was closer and already physically touching it. That’s where I’m kind of headcanoning that it behaves a bit like a parasite—it does its best to keep its host alive because it needs the host. Which would explain why it went for Sky instead of Viktor. And I’m using parasite in the most literal of ways—a life form that derives what it needs from another life form. And I don’t even know that it actually needs anything… it just requires certain amounts of energy in order to do what its host is asking it to do.

The only reason I tend to speak of the Hexcore like it’s… idk, bad (for lack of a better word) is this scene:

But I think it’s meant to be ambiguous, whether the Hexcore is actually fucking with his mind here, or if his mind was fucked to begin with, in the aftermath of his diagnosis, and what we’re seeing here is a manifestation of his desperation/temptation. So really what I mean is it’s bad for him.

Either way, I think we’re gunna find out the hard way what the truth really is 🥴

[binghe-malewife-goals]

Something about cosmic horror sentient malevolent disembodied beings, you know

[mistresscitrusslice]

You make a good point about the inherently Hextech clashing with the inherently Hexcore Viktor.

What do you mean when you by Mel’s “gold brace”? If you’re talking about the gold body jewelry, she does still have it in season 2, just not in the opening song. Everyone kinda got their outfits stripped down to pajamas in the opening.

Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't

S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.

The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.

No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.

But Viktor was, Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.

1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?

2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's

Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?

She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.

Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?

Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:

But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.

[tofusofus]

I fear I cooked

[bioluminesced]

so about those teasers

[waywardsou2]

The way Viktor asks "What am I" when he firsts wakes up is horrifying and heartbreaking. Because he isn't happy he is alive. He isn't happy to see Jayce.

Because something is terribly wrong

His skin and his flesh and his bones and his organs are now tarnished and woven with metal. He doesn't even recognise his own hands.

"What am I?" Because Viktor is suddenly incomprehensible to himself.

He doesn't know who he is.

He doesn't know what he is

Because he knows he isn't the same. He is alive but he probably can't even feel alive

And that's the worst thing here. He can't feel, he can't sense. He can only detect and comprehend. But he can't feel

The writers really wanted to break our hearts here didn't they

[mistresscitrusslice]

In some positive news, it is now exponentially easier to fuck the Hexcore

[okaylokii]

Moments and memories and moments and memories

[bb-enablefreebuild]

Fellas how much brainrot does it take to make a character based on the humanized Hexcore.