#this is arcane geometry

[cheshire-castle-library]

October 3, 2023

HEY STUDYBLR IM LOSING MY GOB!!! Okay so listen, I have a sculpture class this semester where I'm working on this automaton of a hand, rapping its fingers impatiently. I'm using a cam and follower system to create some simple up and down motion.

And I know how high the difference between the low and high points of the cam are, and i know how long the follower is across so that it sits on the cam, but is pinned on a rod over the side. BUT, i needed to know what angle the follower would be at max height, and like.... I had NO IDEA how to find that, or whether it would make a right triangle or not, so my solution?

Castle math. This is like, medieval math. This is what made free masons free. Fucking circles. I was given my great grandmother's drafting set after she passed. She used these to draft the streets for the city I grew up in, these things went through WWII, like they are good. And I treasure them, but this literally let me make circles of Diameter "follower length" and from that and some vague understanding of relationship between triangles and circles, and knowing that this is even possible because of YouTube and a frikken Professor Layton puzzel from eons before, I just kind of sit and do this???

I'm still losing my nut over this. I mean I knew academically that this worked. This was how math was done before calculus. All math was Geometry - rooted in real, discrete shapes - but its completely different doing this yourself. And like, I learned some things about the numbers and how they related to each other that explains an error I was having where at some point the follower touches the cam in a place I didn't intend it to. So now I think I can tune the cams to better suit the distances I have!!!

There's so much here, and I'm really glad I did this this way. My best friend mentioned that this is basically was CAD programs do and I.... hadn't even considered using CAD (ya know, like I was trained to), because I'm 3d modeling this, but not in a really complicated 3d modeling program, so I need to know the numbers myself. But like... this is witchcraft?!?!?!??? This is some arcane fucking math.

[definetelynotdepressed]

god cursed me into seeing this image so im making it everyone elses problem

[wildstar25]

MiqoMarch Day 2 - Free Day

Daydreams in Red

[cindernet-exploded]

Lofi beats to study arcane geometry to

[He/She/They for A'vyra]

[blommaavmorker-blog]

Karduzh

O que vê não é visto. O que sente já foi semeado, esse nome não lê, ele se abre. -Vc já foi afetado, mas a consciencia do que esta por vir, é retroativa, eventualmente indetectavel...Para os olhos daqueles que buscam o obvio, apenas espelhos serão encontrados...

[scionshtola]

11. Despite everything, is it still you? Has the core of who they are as a person remained true through everything, or have they been changed by what they’ve experienced and learned, for better or worse? (x)

There have been quite a few ups and downs in the six or so years since Corisande left their home for Eorzea and ended up joining the Scions. They've changed for the better in some ways--learned more about the world, expanded their horizons exactly as they always wanted; and for the worse in others--more reluctant than ever to burden others with their problems. But they are still the same at their core: a warm, kindhearted bun who wants to help others, learn about the world, and can be found, more often than not, wandering the nearest woods with their oldest friend.

[eagleoftheninth]

(Re)learning Blender for strictly peaceful purposes

[feyosha]

Oh it’s all fun and games exploring spaces that fail to meet basic axioms… until your circulatory system starts following infinite parallel but untouching trajectories and ceases to be a circuit.

Reality Anchors! Every! Time!

[theplotmage]

Principles and Laws of Magic for Fantasy Writers

Fundamental Laws

1. Law of Conservation of Magic- Magic cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.

3. Law of Equivalent Exchange- To gain something, an equal value must be given.

5. Law of Magical Exhaustion- Using magic drains the user’s energy or life force.

Interaction and Interference

4. Law of Magical Interference- Magic can interfere with other magical effects.

6. Law of Magical Contamination- Magic can have unintended side effects.

8. Law of Magical Inertia- Magical effects continue until stopped by an equal or greater force.

Resonance and Conditions

7. Law of Magical Resonance- Magic resonates with certain materials, places, or times.

9. Law of Magical Secrecy- Magic must be kept secret from the non-magical world.

11. Law of Magical Hierarchy- Different types of magic have different levels of power and difficulty.

Balance and Consequences

10. Law of Magical Balance- Every positive magical effect has a negative consequence.

12. Law of Magical Limitation- Magic has limits and cannot solve every problem.

14. Law of Magical Rebound- Misused magic can backfire on the user.

Special Conditions

13. Law of Magical Conduits- Certain objects or beings can channel magic more effectively.

15. Law of Magical Cycles- Magic may be stronger or weaker depending on cycles (e.g., lunar phases).

17. Law of Magical Awareness- Some beings are more attuned to magic and can sense its presence.

Ethical and Moral Laws

16. Law of Magical Ethics- Magic should be used responsibly and ethically.

18. Law of Magical Consent- Magic should not be used on others without their consent.

20. Law of Magical Oaths- Magical promises or oaths are binding and have severe consequences if broken.

Advanced and Rare Laws

19. Law of Magical Evolution- Magic can evolve and change over time.

20. Law of Magical Singularities- Unique, one-of-a-kind magical phenomena exist and are unpredictable.

Unique and Imaginative Magical Laws

- Law of Temporal Magic- Magic can manipulate time, but with severe consequences. Altering the past can create paradoxes, and using time magic ages the caster rapidly.

- Law of Emotional Resonance- Magic is amplified or diminished by the caster’s emotions. Strong emotions like love or anger can make spells more powerful but harder to control.

- Law of Elemental Harmony- Magic is tied to natural elements (fire, water, earth, air). Using one element excessively can disrupt the balance and cause natural disasters.

- Law of Dream Magic- Magic can be accessed through dreams. Dreamwalkers can enter others’ dreams, but they risk getting trapped in the dream world.

- Law of Ancestral Magic- Magic is inherited through bloodlines. The strength and type of magic depend on the caster’s ancestry, and ancient family feuds can influence magical abilities.

- Law of Symbiotic Magic- Magic requires a symbiotic relationship with magical creatures. The caster and creature share power, but harming one affects the other.

- Law of Forgotten Magic- Ancient spells and rituals are lost to time. Discovering and using forgotten magic can yield great power but also unknown dangers.

- Law of Magical Echoes- Spells leave behind echoes that can be sensed or traced. Powerful spells create stronger echoes that linger longer.

- Law of Arcane Geometry- Magic follows geometric patterns. Spells must be cast within specific shapes or alignments to work correctly.

- Law of Celestial Magic- Magic is influenced by celestial bodies. Spells are stronger during certain astronomical events like eclipses or planetary alignments.

- Law of Sentient Magic- Magic has a will of its own. It can choose to aid or hinder the caster based on its own mysterious motives.

- Law of Shadow Magic- Magic can manipulate shadows and darkness. Shadowcasters can travel through shadows but are vulnerable to light.

- Law of Sympathetic Magic- Magic works through connections. A spell cast on a representation of a person (like a doll or portrait) affects the actual person.

- Law of Magical Artifacts- Certain objects hold immense magical power. These artifacts can only be used by those deemed worthy or who possess specific traits.

- Law of Arcane Paradoxes- Some spells create paradoxes that defy logic. These paradoxes can have unpredictable and often dangerous outcomes.

- Law of Elemental Fusion- Combining different elemental magics creates new, hybrid spells with unique properties and effects.

- Law of Ethereal Magic- Magic can interact with the spirit world. Ethereal mages can communicate with spirits, but prolonged contact can blur the line between life and death.

- Law of Arcane Symbiosis- Magic can bond with technology, creating magical machines or enchanted devices with extraordinary capabilities.

- Law of Dimensional Magic- Magic can open portals to other dimensions. Dimensional travelers can explore alternate realities but risk getting lost or encountering hostile beings.

- Law of Arcane Sacrifice- Powerful spells require a sacrifice, such as a cherished memory, a personal item, or even a part of the caster’s soul.

[wildstar25]

MiqoMarch Day 25 - Fate

"It's almost funny; that my adventures would lead me right back to the isles I had thought to have left so far behind me. Is this all a coincidence or is this fate?"

[deepberry2882]

THEYRE MULTIPLYING

My kids 💕

[bluebellowl]

Under the influence of the virus, character traits of animatronic are amplified. For Emmet that’s his drive to win, his love of rules and, most importantly, his close bond to Ingo.

Even if they’re found by FazEnt staff, Emmet wont let anyone near Ingo

I gotta admit i’m quite proud of that one. There were so many geometry sketches involved in this and the rendering turned out pretty good if I may say

ok after i made this the Arcane season 2 poster came out and I see parallels! So you could also interpret this as Emmet not only being protective but mostly possessive. "He is mine, don't you dare take him from me."

[orcanist]

"The soul is filled with reflections, Brex. Arcane geometries refracted through a prism of the self. All it takes to see the beauty of one’s soul is a little bit of light." Celebrating orctober AND 10 years of Brex with this incredible piece by @jojobuu

[canmom]

Animation Night 189: Nonphotorealistic

There is a funny trend in animation-related terminology to define things by what they aren't. Animation is any technique for creating film that isn't live action. Limited animation is any style of 2D animation that doesn't follow the conventions of Disney's 'full animation' on 1s and 2s - a category that includes a wildly diverse range of approaches and techniques, as this wonderful history by Animation Obsessive describes.

In 3DCG circles, there is a similar term: nonphotorealistic. Which describes, naturally, anything that isn't trying to look like a photograph of a real scene. There has been a real boom in this of late, and just like the other terms, it really doesn't narrow it down very much. Other terms like 'hybrid animation' add a bit more hints.

Of course, if you've been anywhere near animation in the last few years, you'll probably know another term: 'Spiderverse style'.

There is no denying that Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) by Sony Pictures Animation was an absolute landmark for animation. (I wrote about it way back on AN21, focusing more on the cultural angle.) The ludicrously stylish film pretty much set the direction for animation in the 2020s - making a bunch of money and awards and thus finally throwing open the door to 3DCG animation that doesn't look like the style set by Pixar/Dreamworks in the 2000s. Its sequel, Across the Spiderverse (2023), was even more ambitious and successful (despite a troubled production involving a lot of needless crunch). We'll be showing that soon in a Spiderverse double bill so look forward to it!

So perhaps not surprising that when people see the use of graphical styles, 2D elements, limited framerates and the like in 3DCG these days, Spiderverse comes to mind. In its wake have come various films and series that apply these and related techniques: 3DCG animation is more varied than ever, and it's cool.

It isn't really a style, tho.

Here I'm indebted to youtuber Camwing who has made a nice video overview breaking down the animation of recent movies in this vaguely defined paradigm. Among them we have The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021, also Sony), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022, Dreamworks), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023, animated at the French/Canadian studio Mikros animation), and of course over on Netflix you got the wildly popular League of Legends spinoff series Arcane (2021, Fortiche Productions), and the romance film Entergalactic (2022, DNEG), tying in with an album of the same name.

None of these films has exactly the same style, but they all pull from a related bag of tricks. The core techniques are animating on reduced framerates for a 'snappy', high-clarity feeling, the combination of 2D and 3D elements in some fashion, and taking inspiration from traditional media such as paintings or comic books.

For example, Arcane and Entergalactic both use the trick of 2D backgrounds/projecting paintings onto 3D geometry, inhabited by 3D characters with a stylised shader. Arcane is dripping with 2D visual effects. Puss in Boots drops the framerate during its action scenes - the opposite of the old paradigm of full animation, where fast actions would get more frames. Spiderverse draws 2D expressions onto its 3D models to push them further, and is full of all kinds of colourful stylised rendering - screentone effects, kirby dots, outlines, the works.

It's tempting to link this to 2D-in-3D animation, and certainly many of these films apply this technique - this is the major niche where Blender has found its way into industry pipelines. But using 2D isn't mandatory to count here. For example, TMNT Mutant Mayhem has an incredibly striking storybook-painting style, accomplished largely by clever shader work and a strong sense of graphic design. Genndy Tartakovsky's canned 2014 Popeye project was planning to use a ton of 2D-style posing and squash-and-stretch, accomplished largely with rigged 3D models. There are many paths to take!

And mind you, I haven't even covered one of the biggest angles here. Search for nonphotorealistic 3DCG on Youtube and what you'll probably find most is information about cel-shading - aka 'anime style'. This has also advanced considerably in the last few years, with the techniques pioneered by Arc System Works in Guilty Gear such as editing the normals of characters for more precise control over shading, and minute adjustments to break up the mechanical feeling of 3D, becoming widely copied in both games and films. (And particularly, animated porn.)

Vtubers in particular have really run with this technique, generally speaking using cel-shaded models with edited normals, inverted eyes, etc. etc. to try and get the feeling of an anime character come to life. [You can see a lot of these state of the art techniques if you download Pixiv's free VRoid Studio software and import the model into Blender using the VRM plugin.]

Naturally this kind of cel-shaded approach has found a particular home in Japan. In anime, the biggest champions of it are certainly Studio Orange, whose hybrid approach involves planning out shots with 2D animation before matching them with the rigs. We've covered their adaptation of Houseki no Kuni in great detail on Animation Night 97; their Trigun reboot was perhaps even more popular. But cel-shaded techniques, 3D previs and the like have also made their way into big films like Eva 3.0+1.0 (AN66).

Although this type of rendering aims to recreate the look and feel of 2D animation as much as possible, it always ends up being something new: character models that would be too complex to draw, an ease to 3D movements and camerawork that would be challenging in 2D, and generally a new hybrid style. This is good! 2D animation is already very good at being 2D animation - it's fascinating to see what 3DCG becomes with that inspiration.

So with that brief overview, where does that take us tonight?

I'm not quite ready to do a Spiderverse double bill tonight, so instead the plan is to check out a couple of recent American franchise films that are taking on the new suite of techniques. I've mentioned them up above, but let me introduce them more fully here.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a sequel to a fairly unpopular spinoff about a side character of the Shrek franchise (AN75). Not, on its face, very promising - which is why it is all the more striking that I was told on all sorts of sides that I must watch this movie. I'm finally going to make good on that.

The title character is a kind of feline musketeer type, now facing the end of his swashbuckling career as he's lost 8 of his 9 lives. Not wanting to hang up his hat, he goes on a quest to restore them. What makes it stand out its the action scenes, which go all in on the anime-influenced, extreme perspective and lighting, limited framerate style that we're discussing above. Apparently it looks sick as shit.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a fresh reboot of the venerable TMNT franchise, which pretty much describes itself in the title: four turtles (named after Renaissance painters, of course!) live in a sewer as ninjas, led by their aging master who is a rat. Starting as a comic book, it became one of the iconic toyline-driven TV shows of the 80s - but it's still going! Indeed, Turtles has been on a roll of late (at least going by animator scuttlebutt), with Australian studio Flying Bark Productions turning a lot of heads with their neo-Kanada School style (and for really stretching the definition of 'storyboard').

This new film takes a different approach to the bombastic action of Rise. It focuses on a new origin story for the turtles, telling a kind of coming of age story - but what makes it unique is the animation style and cinematography. Cinéma vérité is not a phrase you really expect to be associated with ninja turtles, but the film seems to really go all out in a way you wouldn't really expect from a franchise movie, shooting the young turtles in a handheld style and focus heavily on character. Marcel Reinhard's shader work, allowing the animators to isolate lights to specific objects and characters and introducing graphical elements of cross-hatching, stippling, etc. etc. to the lighting, gives it a uniquely painting-like feeling, augmented by a lot of 2D creativity in lighting and effects.

Turtles has never really been my thing, but this film looks unique enough that I really want to see it - and I hear it's a good film too.

So that's our bill for tonight! Puss and Turtles. Let's see what the big studios have been cooking of late...

Animation Night 189 will be starting around 10pm UK time (roughly three hours hence) and carrying on til about 2-3am same! We'll be on twitch.tv/canmom as usual. Hope to see you there!

[tinygameralec]

Ewan mostly looks for cleverness and kindness. He likes intelligence too, but he's more interested in someone kind enough to let him be his messy awkward anxious self and sharp enough to make him laugh. If someone doesn't understand the things that interest him but asks genuine questions about it, he likes that a lot too.

So basically his perfect friends are Urianger, G'raha and Alphinaud.

10/18/23

What does your wol(oc) look for in a friend?

[tenderwatches]

summary: Viktor and Jayce get a little too close in the lab + a look at how viktor learnt the rules of surviving in Piltover as an Undercity transplant cw: this chapter contains ableist language (canon, self-referential) and descriptions of medical suturing

When Viktor first became aware that he’d die early, he’d been angry.

It hadn’t been pretty. He’d yelled at his mother, at his father, had thrown things—his cane, books, half-assembled inventions. He’d cried and screamed until he’d worked himself up so badly that his father had needed to sprint to a breathing station with Viktor on his back in hopes that the cleaner air would dampen his desperate wheezing.

After that, he’d been listless for days, lying in bed, trying to conjure up the motivation to work for anything when his time would be so short, so inconsequential.

And then he remembered Rio.

The waverider was a huge creature he visited where a strange man in a strange place beyond the ravine kept her. She was like a salamander glistening in shades of blush and blossom, with big eyes full of curiosity and a tongue that craved sweet nectar. Such a simple creature, but he still thought of her, even years after he’d last seen her. He still thought of her and of the man who was so determined to keep her alive that he had not cared if she lived.

He thought of infants, cold in their cradles, their lives snuffed out, breaths robbed by the Gray. He thought of children wasting away, disfigured by the slicks of toxic chemicals oozing from chemtech seams deep in crevasses, and how he, at least, knew sunlight.

Since then, Viktor has done his best to ensure that every moment of his short life contributes to something greater than himself. The people whose lives he’s saved in the Undercity will go on to have families; they’ll impart their knowledge upon others who will do the same, who will do the same, who will do the same.

Life, like an object in motion, stays in motion.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed—it can only be transformed.

Viktor hopes that after his death, the energy that was once heat in his body will permeate into the ether, atoms ricocheting into the endless universe.

Until then, he’s resolved to stay in motion.

This determination presses his lips into a thin line of concentration as he makes minute adjustments to the dials on the microscope before him. Crystalline structures resolve into sharp focus, forming wild geometries that defy every principle of natural formation. Unlike genuine hex crystals with their orderly lattices, the synthetics’ birefringent patterns are irregular, and the arcane’s response is unlike anything he’s ever seen.

Viktor pauses to scribble a few words alongside one of Jayce’s diagrams, adding to the existing maze of their notations. They’ve managed to offset interference caused by the unexpected new compounds identified in their lab tests, but there is still residual output to deal with. He takes this moment to rest his forehead in his hand, momentarily closing his eyes. The urge to surrender to sleep swells slowly, like a building tidal wave, and he forces his eyes open before it can break over him.

One of Jayce’s hexscopes (an adaptation of one of his early designs) sits open on the table, tracking arcane energy as it moves through the crystal matrix. He stares hard at the pen attached to the end of its thin metal arm, scratching softly on continuously rolling paper as it records the waveforms. The resulting bonds are irregular with equally unpredictable chemical reactions—

Chemical reactions! Viktor straightens up so quickly that the momentum almost carries him over backwards. Head reeling, he stumbles to steady himself against the desk, pulling the diagrams in for a better look before jamming the microscope against his eye again, squinting hard at what he sees under the lens. These erratic bonds must be the cause of the arcane’s volatile reactions and inconsistencies. They’re brittle instead of strong, releasing energy in unexpected spurts. They’re illogical, full of contradictions. Only chemtech can force such incompatible combinations to hold.

Simultaneous thoughts fire off in all directions—what this means for the outputs they’re attempting to handle (harness? Eliminate? Neutralise?), the tenuous nature of these bonds, the undersized reactions sustained by the crystals—and the nagging feeling he’s seen this all somewhere before. Somewhere in Zaun, near the seams, where, in his youth, anger at the injustice of his life had gotten the better of him. Somewhere he'd nearly gotten buried in collapsing pipes, flashing fuchsia and green in the darkness of the sump.

He drops away from the microscope and back into his chair. Perhaps he should consider bringing some of this work back to the lab Heimerdinger had set aside for him. It’s closer to his Academy-issued apartment than Jayce’s lab is, and with the constant travel across the city, he often finds himself exhausted before he’s even really gotten started. Today, just like many other days, his leg aches as if he’s been standing for the entire morning, though it’s only been a couple of hours since he arrived. The considerations of the crystals, his small inconveniences, the way they all still stagger him, make the walls begin to feel oppressive. The clean lines and polished brass are a far cry from the corrugated metal and improvisation he was used to in the Undercity, and yet—he’s now facing the same kind of problem. These synthetic crystals with their arcane violations bear toxicity here, whilst below, poison is a by-product of unholy greed.

In both places, they stand to lose so much, and yet the eyes of the elite are perpetually closed.

Viktor’s teeth grind as he grips the edge of the workbench to pull himself up again, ignoring how his muscles protest. He begins recalibrating the containment field to account for an array of chemical reactions, instead of only the ones they’d adjusted for earlier in the week. If he can just isolate the unstable compounds, maybe apply some of the principles he’d developed during his academy years, they can counteract or capture the arcane fluctuations.

He’s so deep in focus that he almost jumps when Jayce walks in, chatting before he’s even crossed the threshold. “I thought you might want to see the latest stability readings from—” He breaks off, and Viktor knows his eyes are fixed on the modified containment field setup. “What are you doing?”

“Testing a theory.” Viktor doesn’t look up from the controls. The crystal’s glow intensifies, casting flickering shadows across his hands. “The synthetic crystals are made with chemtech. The instability isn’t a flaw—it’s a signature.”

“Testing a wh—wait, chemtech?” Jayce’s footsteps quicken across the floor. He unceremoniously drops his papers onto the desk, knocking the pen of the hexscope out of alignment. It continues to dutifully work through arching waves, up and down. “Hold on, you can’t just—we don’t even have protocols for working with—”

“We don’t have time for protocols,” he hisses, sharper than he intends. He forces patience into his voice. “It’s like Councillor Medarda told you—every day, Clan Ferros grows more restless—”

“Viktor, wait—”

The crystal flares with brilliant lances of blue-white light, shattering into shards that streak across the lab, acid green and electric purple tails in their wake. Viktor recoils from it and finds himself crashing first into the chair behind him, then the ground.

His breath leaves his lungs without being replaced by another—it’s a second too long before he can gasp again, sucking in air that smells of Jayce’s aftershave. Sandalwood mingles with the smell of sulphur and iron. Stars shrink and grow in his eyes.

“Are you—” When Jayce speaks, Viktor slowly becomes aware that he’s caged by a pair of smooth, sturdy forearms. His former partner is propped above him, but not so much that their bodies aren’t pressed flush together. Heat grows between them. Jayce’s chest heaves as his own gives, and for a moment, Viktor can’t speak.

A gentle furrow forms between Jayce's brows as he quickly pushes himself up onto one palm, the other coming up to cup Viktor's cheek. The motion is gentle and unthinking, fraught with the effortless care these kinds of gestures bore in their past. His eyes search Viktor's face with worried intensity, thumb brushing along the angular line of his cheekbone and coming away bright red and wet. “Hey, V—” he soothes, voice soft with an intimacy that makes Viktor's chest tight. “V-Viktor—hey.” The feeling dissipates.

Viktor pushes Jayce’s touch away and tries to sit up. He slides his hand back to support himself as he does, successfully forcing Jayce back on to his heels. Viktor finds the resulting breadth of air between them too cool on his skin, and wheezing feels like a flurry of knives in his chest. “I’m fine, Jayce,” he dismisses, muffling an accompanying cough in the crook of his elbow. He winces at the taste of copper in the back of his throat, hot embarrassment coursing through him. He can’t meet Jayce’s eyes; they are too bright with concern, honest anxiety spilling forth, unguarded. “You did not have to—” But both the words and his irritation die in his throat as dark droplets begin to dot the tiles at Jayce’s feet. “You’re bleeding.”

“Oh.” Jayce twists slightly to look over his shoulder, but immediately relaxes his posture when the movement elicits a wince. “It’s nothing. Besides, you are, too,” he points out, vaguely indicating Viktor’s cheek.

“A scratch.” Viktor feels nauseous. Not only did Jayce need to protect him like a helpless child, but he’d gotten himself hurt in the process. He leans forward, breath escaping him in a frustrated huff. “You’re bleeding on the floor. Let me see.”

“Viktor, really, it’s—”

“Take off your shirt.”

Jayce’s amber eyes turn into burning discs, his dark brows lost in his messy hair. Viktor feels the back of his neck flush with heat. “Your back, Jayce. Let me see,” he repeats, mortification sharpening the edges of his demand.

Viktor tries to ignore the inherent eroticism of demanding that Jayce turn around and strip—only to immediately fail when Jayce simply does it. By the time the two of them settle again (the lab’s robust first aid kit to one side of Viktor, Jayce sitting cross-legged in front), Viktor is dizzy. He wishes he could say it’s purely due to the sheer amount of bronze skin on display, but the headache blooming up from the base of his skull tells him otherwise. He concentrates on applying a local anaesthetic to the scattering of gashes across Jayce’s broad shoulders, then dabbing each with an antiseptic. “Well, the good news is you’ll live,” he jests, managing to thread a thin, curved surgical needle. His movements are slow but steady, and when he leans in closer to begin his work, the room rocks by only a small margin.

“Thanks, doc, what a relief.” Jayce turns his laugh into a soft snort, presumably so as to not disrupt Viktor’s stitching. Though he hasn’t needed to exercise this skill in months, the repetitive motions return to him with ease. They sit in stillness a while longer before Jayce hesitantly raises the question, “What… were you saying about chemtech?”

In spite of himself, Viktor smiles. What he wouldn’t give for the world to have the kind of insatiable curiosity that Jayce Talis has.

He walks his former partner through the process of his discovery, naming the impossibilities, the idiosyncrasies, and the ways in which he suspects the arcane clashes with the chemical compounds. Jayce is just as intrigued as Viktor, and Viktor can’t help but think that, had Jayce been in his position, they might have ended up in this same situation despite the other man’s usual adherence to safety precautions. Words of science, math, and discovery pass between them with the easiness of butterflies on a breeze, punctuated by an occasional excited exclamation from Jayce.

His progress on Jayce’s back is clean and methodical—habits formed from years of treating injuries in the Undercity, where wounds proved you couldn't stay out of trouble and seeking proper care marked dependency. He uses a pair of forceps to guide the needle through each wound, stopping only to tie off each suture as he moves from one cut to the next.

“When did you learn to do this?” Jayce has never been good at silences.

“Long ago.” Viktor keeps his eyes fixed on his work, feeling perverse as he notices the warmth radiating from Jayce’s skin, even through the sterile gloves he’s donned. “I have always fixed things. Mending clothes or skin, it makes little difference to me.”

His hands have moved now, lower down, from the broad muscle of the trapezius. He rests his fingers there for a second too long, and the name of the muscle floats through his mind, 'latissimus dorsi', as if the words are a subconscious effort to pull him from other thoughts.

“I had to learn some of this too, actually. In the forge—hot metal doesn't always go where you want it to,” Jayce offers, and Viktor’s hands still, his thoughts returning to the present.

The differences in their circumstances are not lost on him, but he recognises Jayce’s attempt to… relate to him. “I suppose we both learnt through trial and error,” he acknowledges.

“Not that—not that it’s, uh, the same.”

Viktor hears the uncertainty in Jayce’s hurried addition, as if he’s waiting for a sign from Viktor to indicate he’s irritated that Jayce has drawn the comparison. “You can relax, Jayce.”

Viktor pulls the gloves from his hands and sits back to survey his handiwork. He’s stitched four lacerations in total, covering each with neat squares of gauze taped down over Jayce’s tanned skin. The damage, thankfully, wasn’t worse than any of the other countless accidents they’ve had in the lab, but Viktor still feels that curl of shame at being impatient enough to have caused this one.

Silence expands to fill the gulf between their differences—Viktor’s skills hard-won through necessity, Jayce’s forged with the security of his family and promises of a bright future. And yet, an uncanny symmetry has brought them to this point, just as it had years ago; one extraordinary moment in which their paths converged.

“Why would you risk this?”

Back then, he’d told Jayce that he hadn’t aspired to be an assistant for the rest of his life—and that was true. But beyond that, he’d known he was running out of options.

Every action, every movement, all the things he’s ever contributed, has an impact, however imperceptible in the long line of the universe. But it’s not enough for him to simply have been; he wants to be remembered.

Though energy can neither be created nor destroyed, human legacies are far more fragile things.

𐡸.:𐫱:.𐡷

Summertime, 978 AN - fifteen years ago

Nothing tasted as bitter as cruel irony, Viktor thought, as he made his way up what had to be the seventh staircase between him and the first stage on which he’d have to parade himself like a show dog. Progress Day in Piltover arrived with fanfare, as always, and the usual thrum of city life had become more of a coursing roar.

From Glasswell Street to Sidereal Avenue and Incognia Plaza, crowds gathered around vendor carts and at the colourful merchant tents, blissfully caught up in the spirit of innovation and promise.

Not one seemed to remember that, centuries ago, this day had not been marked by celebration but by terror and half a city being swallowed by the sea.

In the four years since his arrival at the University of Piltover, Viktor had marked each Progress Day by lighting a candle in remembrance of those Zaun had lost in the disaster. Earthquakes, resulting from the blasts detonated to clear the way for the Sun Gates, had thrashed the streets of the Undercity, sacrificing thousands of lives to the ocean—all in the name of progress.

Now, here he was, prepared to submit himself to the judgement of those who had so greatly benefitted from the influx of trade the Sun Gates had ushered in. He had only two destinations in mind, but the journey to the merchant families’ tents was already enough to send pain lancing up his leg. Maybe it was his penance walking over those watery graves to attend their school, study their sciences, and pretend like he was one of them.

He felt that he was doing a rather shoddy job of it, by the way the artificers peered at him with narrowed eyes that flicked between him and his papers. This overt display of suspicion made him curse Professor Heimerdinger for forcing him into this lavish ordeal. Auditioning had never been in Viktor’s plans—he knew better than to fool himself into thinking he could join the ranks of Piltover’s apprenta.

Rule number one: They will not make space for you.

He could build bridges upon bridges over the work his classmates created, but the city’s artificers, ruled by the wealthiest of the merchant class, would sooner retrofit their workshops with last year’s scrap metal than take on a cripple from the Undercity, even when the dean of the academy and head of the council himself had singled him out.

Graduation loomed ever closer, and despite his time at the academy, the future felt uncertain. Piltover’s clean air and bright sunlight had undoubtedly improved his health (incredible what being able to breathe did for a person), and the prospect of returning to the Undercity daunted him. He needed an apprenticeship probably more than anyone else stood waiting in the chamber, and yet, he was certain that he was the least likely to receive one, no matter how sound his work was.

“Name?” One of the artificers asked as she handed back the paper that clearly bore his name. He tightened his grip on his invention in an effort to hold his tongue.

“Viktor.”

“Full name?”

“It’s… just Viktor.”

She treated him with the kind of disdain that only someone with a meagre amount of power could manage. He hated her for it, and then hated that he did. It was too petty to warrant such a response from him, but his entire body was sore now. He’d pushed himself through the uneven cobblestone streets faster than he should have dared. He’d even risen with the sun, well before he’d needed to. He wanted to give them as few reasons to dismiss him as he could manage, thinking his dedication to punctuality might also communicate his regard for their time and win some small amount of their favour.

From the placid way the artificers looked at him, he could see that was not the case.

Of course, he’d known this and had even explained such to Heimerdinger when the dean had urged him to take on the auditions. How difficult it would be for him to simply make the physical journey in a process that was designed to showcase resilience and determination; how his accent would immediately mark him as ‘other’, and how the inventions he was proudest of were things that would not sparkle and flash the way Piltover expected. His progress was for the Undercity, and thus, it might as well have been invisible.

Already, their attention drifted, and other hopefuls surrounding the tent seemed to bear down on him. He grimaced as he set up his contraption of pipes and dials that looked out of place within the sleek lines of the tent. It wasn’t until his machine began hissing shrilly and emitting puffs of Gray that the artificers paid him any mind. One of them started shrieking, making it very difficult to explain that he’d also released an aerosolised alkali to neutralise the toxicity—the whole point of the showy demonstration.

Rule number two: their grace is precarious.

Whilst he’d never been foolish enough to think that the artificers might like what he brought to the auditions, he’d not been expecting their fury. With stomach-piercing fear, he realised that they, in all their self-aggrandising glory, seemed to think that his audition was an assassination attempt of the mercantile family. The absurdity nearly made him long for simpler days, when people merely saw his mistakes as proof of unworthiness, and his greatest lament was how they judged his errors more harshly than his peers' mere learning experiences.

He’d packed his machine in a hurry and practically fled the tent, almost tripping himself like he’d not done since he was a child in his haste to slip into the crowd.

Rule number three: They will lie to you.

By the time the day ended, he’d attended only one more audition, though he was hardly sure that it counted. He hadn’t spent very much time at the Holloran tent, but the experience still clung to him like a stubborn mood, even as he sat in the safety of his favourite haunt in Piltover. The mechanical oasis overlooked the promenade level of the Undercity, waters running through the ravine below, where he’d played as a child. He’d always appreciated the serenity of this place, finding even in his youth that its quiet tranquillity suited him.

“Viktor, my boy,” called a reedy voice from behind him, and he lifted a hand off his cane in greeting without turning to look at Professor Heimerdinger. “How did your ventures go today?”

“I don’t believe it really ‘went,’” he responded wryly, easing himself into a seated position in the arch of the open-air window, legs relaxing over the ledge. “Can you say it ‘went’ if one family thought I was attempting a murder, and the other refused me at the door?” Heimerdinger’s poro scurried over his lap and around his back, which he found both ridiculous and… cute. It made his bitter remark come out with a slightly amused lilt, even if there wasn’t much to find amusing in being turned away, only to almost be knocked over by the next hopeful student when the Holloran family admitted them mere moments after.

The professor gave a soft hum, a gloved hand at his chin in the perfect pose of refined thought. “What will you do?”

Viktor rolled his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “I still have some time. I will need to finish the year, of course, and then… Well, then, probably the, ah, how do they say? ‘Crunch time’? Comes?”

Heimerdinger’s moustache twitched in a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes, even though Viktor thought that his use of the colloquialism had been rather apt. When the professor spoke next, his words were soft and cautious, as if he thought that Viktor might snap. “Why don’t you consider being my assistant, lad? You could stay on at the academy, and though I’m sure you’d rather be doing something more ambitious, you’d have time to pursue your own projects.”

Silence hung in the air between them for a moment. Viktor tried to read the expression in Heimerdinger’s eyes but only saw a soft sorrow there. “I appreciate your offer, Professor,” he started, the words tasting of defeat even before he’d spoken of any decision.

Heimerdinger seemed to sense Viktor’s aversion and interjected before he could continue. “So you’re aware, Viktor, this isn’t mere charity.” The professor turned inwards, eyes downcast, a slight droop to his large ears. “I was… perhaps hasty,” he admitted, still looking at the cement floor, “in urging you to audition.”

Viktor had never known Professor Heimerdinger to be prideful, but the dean’s guilty posture struck him, even so. His kindness still burnt; Viktor’s stubborn independence made him reactive to the idea of being handed anything out of pity, particularly given the assumptions of other students who already believed his mere presence was an excess of anything he had any right to. “Thank you, Professor.” He found that he meant it. Heimerdinger had always believed in his potential, even when doing so set him at odds with the rest of the faculty. “Perhaps… give me some time to think it over,” he relented, looking back out at the city below. The streets still bustled with the activity of Progress Day, even as the sun began to cast warm, dusky shadows amidst the revelry.

“Take the time you need, my boy. The offer stands.” With that, the professor retreated at a quick trot, his ever-present poro shuffling along behind him. Viktor sat in the wake of their departure, contemplating the glint of mechanical contraptions dotting the landscape (so far as he could tell, they were only constructed as decor for the day, which was an awful waste, considering what you could buy in the Undercity after selling parts of just one). Perhaps it had been a blessing that he’d not managed a successful audition. Being the assistant to the academy's dean would mean he would have access to lab spaces and materials that most others would not, including unusual things that would need to be assessed for danger.

That could be interesting.

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an: this chapter was SO fun to write - definitely one of the ones we were most looking forward to when we were posting on AO3!! i'm so bad at these tumblr updates im going to try to get a bunch of them scheduled at once and see what happens haha anyways tho we just posted chapter 23 yesterday on AO3! 🙌🏽 fic come so far 😭