#the only thing i didnt do was watch the whole thing

[hexite-nightmares]

My very unorganized thoughts on S2 of Arcane but only about Viktor

Alright I finally had time to think and write everything down so here we go. I want to preface that I have been weary about this season ever since I watched the act 1 leaks. Mainly because it was very clear he was never going to be a machine, and they didn't give him enough screen time to develop his motivations into ACT 3 Viktor being convincing enough

LET'S START WITH THE FALSE PROPHET VIKTOR

Alright so he has about 11 minutes ish of screentime. Aside from the glaring issue of Jayce reviving him and not destroying the hexcore, taking away agency from a disabled character. It was clearly a false prophet situation, but it was so fucking confusing on whether he could feel like a regular human, if he was under the Hexcore's control which makes the agency issue worse or just jaded. He all of a sudden starts speaking like he's reading Deuteronomy passages ?? We don't know for sure if he's aware that he's basically creating a hive mind now, did he start his plans of making everyone into one right here? Sky seems to encourage him to do this, what does she know about it since shes been in the hexcore ALONE for a little longer? (writers didnt confirm whether it was the real her or not) . Act 1 Viktor's issues are mostly about agency, and a seeming full abandonment of his identity as a scientist, his personality does a full 180. He doesn’t seem to question that the object that revived him and killed Sky is giving him healing powers, but he’s angry at Jayce so we have no clue if he’s being controlled or not.

The show doesn't seem to care to spend time with him bc Isha and Ambessa I guess.

Anyways lets move on to not even act 2, but ep 6, his only episode in this act.

I had huge gripes with this episode, mainly because whatever the fuck was going on with Viktor trying to "keep" Vander's humanity, when he clearly was taking it away from everyone he touched, does he actually believe what he's saying or is he under the Hexcore's control still?. Obviously the glaring issues of Sky being there without any actual input, they're cosmic friends I guess but with very generic lines, and the fandom has to fill in the blanks with whatever Amanda Overton feels like saying about Sky in the moment(if we don't see it in the show I don't take it as her development, sorry). So Viktor builds Colloidal silver drinking Joshua tree and ppl think it's fucking Eden, Jinx calls him a Machine Herald when there's NO SIGN OF MACHINERY JUST PURPLE MAGICAL METAL LOOKING FLESH. We get a whole ass different realm with no explanation other than, oh yeah Viktor is inside there. Jayce comes in and almost kills him. The only option there is at this point is for Singed to start his MH era. The choice of becoming MH is nonexistent now, other people have to jumpstart things for him. I know some people interprete this commune as Viktor achieving his dreams, thinking he was being himself, that he was in paradise with Sky and.. that wasn’t the case for me.. it was extremely sinister. Worst part of this Act, is that MH was seemingly a damn trial experiment for Orianna.

BONUS:

So it seems that Christian Linke has confirmed Sky was the hexcore using its influence to manipulate viktor into the glorious evolution. He said it was meant to be as a misdirect. So to everyone who got dunked on here for “wanting to be spoonfed” or “not reading into it deep enough” for thinking he was being mind controlled, you were right about it being the hexcore. Viktor has been confirmed to have no agency until episode 9 I guess. He also mentioned Viktor’s goal was getting the most power/influence… we never saw a fucking glimpse of this in season one I’m sorry.

ACT 3

First awful problem here is obviously Singed having to jumpstart things. Viktor is aware for his choice of whatever is happening with the egg thing. Yet....there's still no sign of machinery. We get a scene where Sky fucking dies again, he refers to her as Ms Young, which im guessing is a parallel to the other time he dismissed her in S1. But of course we get the double fridging in the show, cuz making female characters just for the sake of advancing her crush's plot line is sooo amazing. Here lies sky, the character who is barely a character. Well after that we get the sequence of his transformation and we get that butt ugly mask. His personality does another huge change again. So we know the hexcore is not influencing him anymore as the hexcore completed its goal of the glorious evolution.. so I guess viktor really does think this is the right way?

A huge issue I have again, is the lack of agency. In this particular scene Jayce goes "My partner died in this room" yeah..Viktor didn't fully choose to become this right? it all started with Jayce using the hexcore on him, it’s been manipulating him the whole ass season…Kinda wish there was some sort of acknowledgement from Jayce that he’s basically the catalyst of this.

He gets his laser because...fanservice. There's no way he went all the way to the lab and magically attached it to himself just to cut off a wall. He keeps going on that choice is false, but a few minutes before he said he’d evolve all of those willing?

In the cosmos, beautiful sequence. I don’t love Jayce’s dialogue choices(about his disease) here and then it all being about viktor hating himself.. since the hexcore was leading to all of this, his motivation for it all being self hatred feels a bit eh. The sequence is beautiful and Jayce and Viktor destroying the anomaly with the rune shard is nice, that part was cute. But then they kinda disappear and we only know that viktor is alive so far, no clue about Jayce. The sequence is touching towards the end and I’m a sucker for characters finding each other in every timeline/universe but it can’t make up for all the other things that are bothering me. This seems to be the one time Viktor has some sort of agency I guess.

Then obviously the worst part that will bother me forever. The thing that made me almost slam my laptop shut

This retcon is just awful I shouldn’t even have to say why, it makes things fucking weird and it’s frankly stupid. Also viktor can’t rock a beard like that.

Anyways this is very disorganized, fuck you riot I felt like an insane former this whole time but I was right.

[wortsandall]

genuinely wish i hadnt watched season 2, its changed how i see things. i miss season 1 so bad and those versions of the characters. i was not having a good time sidenote: (spoilers)

i really want to know what ekko said to jinx i mean she was so stuck on trying to kill herself that even ekko's presence didnt make her stop and we're supposed to just guess what he said to make her come back with her hair cut short ? this is what i mean when i say that they dropped the ball on character for the sake of plot. i want to know why characters are doing things, why they're working together besides "oh we were fighting but now theres ambessa and viktor to stop so we'll come back to our interpersonal conflicts" only to Never actually Do That. they kept setting up interesting conversations only to cut away from them.

i really resonated with jinx in season 1, and this season i was watching and waiting for something but she was just so subdued the whole time she felt like a different character to me. which is fine because i know grief can do that to a person. but my favorite moments of hers were her fights with vi and with isha. and they really killed isha and then never mentioned her again like ???? why do that

im very character > plot. it could be the most nonsensical thing but as long as the characters are good im having fun. and so much of the plot of this season was about the war and the anomaly that i did not give a single fuck about, i was waiting for character moments that would make me hurt inside and they didnt really happen. not in the soul crushing way season 1 did. i still sob over silco and jinx is season 1 act 3. and i wanted that kind of emotional devastation

for example i dont understand cait and vi at all. im trying so hard to see why theyd be into each other, break up like that and get back together and i genuinely Do Not understand. maybe its my aromanticism rearing its ugly head again but i have no idea what the fuck they were doing the Entire time.

if i dont understand the characters, it kills the whole thing for me. and i did not understand the character motivation in this season.

ekko mel and jayce hard carried this season for me im so proud of them. (especially jayce i love him)

[lemongogo]

anyways . silly thing

[al-luviec]

compiled whatever this is (and I run out of tag space)

meh HoT gifs (3/?)

[good-beans]

Who was gonna tell me that Yonah FUCKS !!!!!!!!!

I finally sat down to watch it and sudddenly realized why it made people so upset with Kotoko -- it's "get the audience's ass" pt 2 (part one being Baptism of Fire)

What an Incredible, Precise, Scathing commentary on the public's view of punishment. On how we treat "justice" in the news when it's two parties we don't know. On how hypocritical we want justice but don't want our actions to have any consequences -- we want it to be done but we don't want it to be our fault. She makes a HUGE point about people ignoring mental stress and only feeling bad when people are physically suffering. Before getting attached, people did want the prisoners to get hurt and feel remorse. In real life people are constantly wishing pain onto wrongdoers so they change their ways.

She's making excellent points, as well as the voice drama overall emphasizing the fact that it's the right thing to do to get attached. She's 100% correct, but by framing her as a villain, Yamanaka encourages the audience that we should care about people. We should find out about everyone's lives and get attached before making judgements about them. This project remains about human understanding and love and I am amazed.

And from a character perspective, I just loved her view of the situation! I was worried from the bits of the vd people were posting that she was just going to be painted as a flat, villainous character, but she's so so deep. I love a character who will get their hands dirty to make a better world for the innocent characters they care about. And her speech when hugging Es really revealed how much that burden weighs on her. She isn't violent for fun. She doesn't enjoy it. But her heart is so broken by a world of injustice, she will take on this painful responsibility since she has the power to and others don't.

[scattered-winter]

its wild just realizing how much people have done and experienced and how prepared they are for what's to come when i am . very much not . lmao

[danielnelsen]

update: peach is doing very well!! she's eating and sleeping normally (sleeping more than normal, really, but that's to be expected)!! after 3 days of not sleeping and a few changes in painkillers, she finally just napped for an hr then, after another day, slept through the whole night (and most of the next day). she's started following all her usual routines again and is very keen to eat! still on some painkillers, but they're not having any horrific side effects anymore

now that im not staying up to keep an eye on her all night (while also dealing with upgrading my computer and my phone and also my sister preparing to go overseas and the dogs barking and howling constantly due to all of the above), i finally got some decent sleep too and slept for about 14 hrs. so today ive got that weird shakiness that i get from sleeping too much, but hey it's better than the whole of the last week

[its-no-biggie]

hey guys who was gonna tell me that bocchi the rock contained the single most autistic scene in anime history

[taffingspy]

nerd to nerd communication

[arlo-venn]

y'all i slept for 21+ hours uninterrupted? haven't done that in a a while.

[the-kipsabian]

1/2, please bear with me cause this thing needs to be viewed as a whole and tumblr doesnt let me post the entire 11+ minute clip even if its well within the size limits

part 2 here

[doecrossing]

just sat through the most horrible, awkward, tense dinner I've ever experienced in my whole life

[pleafyistired]

this thing i do when i have not consume anything about a media but this guy who makes art about that media is really good and im gonna follow them. And also its probably because of the sunglas- [I AM SHOT DEAD]

[sonknuxadow]

im fully aware that i need to stop forcing myself to engage with every new sonic thing immediately and finish it as quickly as possible . im working on that. but why did my first time having to actively practice being okay with being a little late to a major new sonic thing end up being a game i was looking forward to way more than any of the other new or upcoming sonic projects from the past year or so . tragic

[todayisafridaynight]

Hey so Snap this is going to be so fucking weird, but honestly don’t care. So I was watching a clip of Drag Race Philippines and it was the make over episode and I think they were making over family members and this father was all about getting into drag. So, I just wanted to tell you never forget how much of a lovely loving kind and caring father you have, who loves you and protects you and makes you feel heard. That’s all.

i'd have to die before i forget how great my dad is thank you for the opportunity to brag about him again anon

[universalthaumaturge]

ok i get why anthy has creature of delirium now