#for 1 reason or another

[sharpsuite]

@deadn30n​ replied to your post “CHISHIYA had appeared! What to do...”

Can I feed AND flirt tho

   " I don't know. CAN YOU? That seems to be a question of SKILL on if you can do multiple things. " Chishiya offers a casual shrug while he takes the offered snack. Not like he knows anything about flirting anyways.

[f1archivist]

OSCAR PIASTRI F2 Reaction Gifs Masterpost -> i do believe this is the entire set of oscar gifs minus one that tumblr refused to upload for a total of 29. enjoy!! obligatory "thank you prema for these" as well -> f3 version of this post is here

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[ct-tupperware]

I call this gifset 'would not want to meet Fives on the battlefield'

[selemina]

King Foolish and his two warring Jesters!

[linterteatime]

Fancy bugs and cool bugs and-

More gijinkas here!

[sidsinning]

IM SCREAMING HE DID NOT JUST

ADAM TAKE THE L HOLY FUCK

[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.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

you open my Super Important Documents and its just pictures of charles xavier

[curseofdelos]

mentally I'm still here:

Nico insisting that neither of them are going to be sacrificed/left behind to satisfy the prophecy is a perfect encapsulation of his growth over the series and it makes me SO soft to think about

Nico as a character - particularly in BoO - doesn't have a lot of self-preservation. He doesn't really care what happens to him as long as the mission gets done. We see this most explicitly after he almost fades into nothingness after the Bryce Lawrence incident:

And again when he considers shadow travelling into Octavian's tent to assassinate him:

(Nico himself notes here that it was unlikely he would survive another jump. If Will hadn't stopped him, he probably would have died.)

In both cases, Nico was willing to risk death for the sake of ending the war. He puts very little value on his own life, and repeatedly argues to Reyna, Hedge, and Will that the possibility of saving camp (a place he never felt welcome at, might I add) is worth the risk of losing his life.

Even before Nico went on the quest with Reyna and Hedge, the others were concerned about his safety. Percy tried to remind him how unpredictable his shadow travelling could be, and Hazel notes that he has been acting strangely lately:

It's not quite clear what Hazel is worried about here, but my interpretation of this scene is that she's concerned that Nico isn't thinking - or perhaps, isn't caring - about what effect the constant shadow travelling will have on his wellbeing. Between Tartarus, the jar, and the Cupid incident, Nico's mental state is at its worst at this point in the series, and I think Hazel is worried he'll do something reckless - something he can't come back from.

And so in TSATS, when Nico is told that he's going to have to leave something of equal value behind in order to save Bob, the old him would have had zero issue sacrificing himself if that's what it took to ensure Will and Bob's survival. This version of Nico, who's been going to therapy w/ Mr D and opening up more and built a little support system for himself, can't fathom it.

Nico in BoO did not have a future. He had fully convinced himself that nobody cared about him or would miss him if he was gone - not Percy who fought for him at every turn in PJO, not his sister Hazel, not his new friends Jason and Reyna. He was ready to leave both camps behind because he couldn't see himself ever being happy there. He couldn't see himself being happy at all.

But now, in TSATS, he has a boyfriend that he loves, he has friends that he loves, and he has a community in Camp Half-Blood. He has experienced so much loss that losing someone else is his worst fear. The old Nico would have considered sacrificing himself to protect Will and Bob. At the very least, he would have kept that option in his back pocket as a 'just in case'; he wouldn't have sworn on the Styx that he wouldn't stay behind.

This Nico, however, is doing much better - not perfect, but better. He loves Will, and he wants a life with him, and he's not willing to give that up for anything. Nico has hope for the future, and he's clinging to that hope with everything he has. He sees a light at the end of the tunnel, and he wants to reach it. He's not willing to sacrifice himself because it means losing that future.

Gone is the cynical pessimistic Nico who assumes the worst because the worst is all he thinks he can have. Here is the Nico who has had a taste of happiness and is willing to fight to keep it. He's not going to sacrifice himself because he wants to live. He's not just fighting for Will here; he's fighting for himself too.

And seeing him go from "if it kills me, it kills me" to "it's not going to be me" makes me so ASDFGHJKL

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[fancy-strawberry-beard]

Shitty idea for an AC game's modern day segments:

You play as William Miles, and you're re-tracing the steps of Desmond's journey in order to study the various isu artefacts he came into contact with, but also to re-connect with his son.

As you do, you're confronted by the ghosts of the people Bill has fucked over the most:

Clay Kaczmarek: this one's easy, just say that Rebecca was able to [insert techno babble here] and retrieve a copy Clay's code but never meant to actually bring him back due to ethical concers (this was more of an attempt to retrieve just enough of him to give him a proper burial). Bill needs his memories, especially those concerning Desmond and Juno, so he brings him back. Somewhere in between all the verbal abuse he showers upon Bill there's also the information you need.

Lucy Stillman: either she wasn't as dead as we thought and crawled up to some sort of control panel to download her consciousness as a last ditch attempt to stay alive or the temple just does that automatically. Either way, ✨️isu bullshit✨️. She's surprisingly quiet and helpful at first but eventually starts to ask questions about the way Bill treated Clay, Daniel, Desmond... making this about anyone except for her when it is very clear that she's projecting and this is actually all about her.

Desmond Miles: the previous two encounters have given Bill an idea, though it might just be him going old and crazy...

He asks Rebecca and a bunch of other hackers to figure out what's going on with the AC3 temple and lo and behold his personality has indeed been stored in the temple. He recognizes that he should probably be angry with Bill for dragging him back into this mess but right now he's a bit too discombobulated to really feel anything.

Maybe he remembers his time as the reader or maybe this is an entirely new copy. Idk.

We end on some big reveal and the next game will have a new protagonist with Desmond as a digital companion.

[lazylittledragon]

Random thought/question: what would your Tavs/Durge and their significant others like... legit fight about? Not bicker, not argue, but actually get mad and say things they don't mean and have to cool off and talk about it later when calmer heads prevail and they're able to apologize without it sounding forced?

this is such a great question that i needed a whole 24 hours to think about it akdhdjhd

i think gale and cyra probably have small things blow out of proportion (because honestly. kids and work and Tired) and then a Lot of stuff they haven't talked about comes up and it ends with 'how the fuck did forgetting to change the bedsheets turn into This'

i actually feel like dorian and astarion are pretty good 90% of the time but sometimes one of them is in a bad place and is like 'i actually really need to be left alone with this thing right now and i don't want to talk about it' and maybe they're not always great at taking the hint

ashe and halsin have never had a fight ever

[somegrumpynerd]

A bunch of doodles inspired by @wickjump saying Cross has an eternal kicked puppy look (and steadily devolving into dadmare because y'know. My Brand)

[pharawee]

What really gets me about PeteKenta this week (and by that I mean that it causes me emotional damage), much more so than in the episode before (or in the whole of season 1 even though the seeds were already there) is how emotionally careless Pete acts towards Kenta (and the mission against Tony but maybe that's for my PeteChrisWay post). And it's all such a mess -- their shared past, their individual traumas, their current preoccupation with second chances -- that I can't even blame Pete, even if I'm fully on Kenta's side here.

Pete treats (and, let's be honest here, this isn't even the first or fifth time) Kenta as an afterthought. I know he means well and that he's driven by trying to make amends for something that was never even his fault to begin with. I also understand that with the way things are right now in canon, his feelings for Kenta were always platonic (even though that makes the one kiss they shared kind of questionable in retrospect because at the very least he was acting very inquisitive, inviting even) which is fair enough. I wish they'd kept the whole "the one that got away" angle because it feels so much more realistic to me than the revelation that all this time Pete was himself secretly pining after Way.

(adding a sprinkle of gifs to this post because clearly I'm not suffering enough already)

The secret pining COULD however at least partially explain why Pete never put a stop to Kenta's one-sided pining either. Because he must always have known. He can repeat the "he thinks of me as a brother" line a hundred times, but he's a telepath. Kenta and he kissed, and every time they've since met and touched, Kenta's thoughts are very obviously all but screaming his longing at him.

And yet Pete has never said anything -- either to spare Kenta's feelings or (judging by how he handled his secret crush on Way) because he found the situation to be overwhelming. Again, I don't blame Pete in the slightest, it's not like he had an emotionally healthy childhood to learn how to approach these things. I don't even blame him for the third possibility: that Kenta's crush is a very useful thing for him to keep around, especially since in the past it's kept him out of Tony's reach (plus, feeling wanted when your own love is unrequited probably feels very nice too).

There's no way Kenta would have let him leave over and over again if it wasn't for his feelings (and remember, Kenta never extended the same courtesy to any of his other brothers until much later). Unrequited or not, not addressing the elephant in the room left Kenta in limbo for years. He's kidnapped children for Tony, probably even killed for Tony, yet as soon as Pete starts leaning into Kenta's longing for him, Kenta can't bring himself to stop Pete (much less harm him or rat him out to Tony) -- which is a really convenient secret weapon to have in a fight against someone as ruthless and powerful as Tony. It's not even deliberate manipulation but pure self-preservation. Babe and Jeff and Charlie and Way have all learned to survive on less than that. It's about time we see the damage that Tony caused in Pete.

And not only that. I think now we also get to see that Pete doesn't know or understand Kenta nearly as well enough as he believes. He literally asks the go-it-alone guy to not go it alone when that's kind of his whole thing (not to mention that OF COURSE Kenta will do the thing for him and not care for the consequences -- it's all he knows to do to earn appreciation). He's essentially leaving Kenta on stand-by, not like the brother he claims to be, but like a thing he can just pick back up whenever it's most convenient for him. And he deals out praise to Kim while openly reprimanding Kenta in the next sentence -- which ironically is such a Tony thing to do because it keeps Kenta small and loyal.

Pete is so willfully blind towards Kenta's feelings and to who Kenta is as a person that it makes him look like a total dick here. And the thing is, his defence doesn't even hold up: you wouldn't treat your brother like that either, someone you claim you share a bond with. Hell, if Pete treated Kim that way -- someone who's only marginally involved -- Kim would surely let him have a piece of his mind. But Kenta has learned to suffer in silence so why bother changing the status quo (and never mind that the status quo was Tony)?

As things are right now, Pete's allowed to have priorities (currently these priorities lie with neglecting everyone's safety by dicking down Chris on every imaginable surface in his condo while not even using a secure password on his private computer) while all Kenta is allowed to do (all that he KNOWS to do) is switch masters from Tony to... what? a very absent Pete?

I'll always love PeteKenta, and I'll always love the could-have-beens from Pit Babe Season 1, but with how things are playing out right now I either need Kim to put Pete in his place (good) or Kenta to walk away and leave Pete on read (even better).

[bastardofharrenhal]

every time someone uses those excuses of sansa being too southern, not being northern enough, having the tully look, hating the north or having her direwolf killed as a reason as to why she sucks or shouldnt be a ruler an angel loses its wings