#theory analysis

[twilightofthesandwiches]

What's really evocative to me in all the new revelations and hints about Kris' true nature and intentions in Chapter 4 is the impression that... Kris is never free.

When they are free of our direct control, they are still not acting 100% of their real desires, they are following the orders of some evil Voice(s?) on the phone.

The ending seem to imply some sort of emotional conflict between them wanting to help out Susie, who is very dear to their heart, and following this plan which is probably not beneficial to her. A plan that they have to follow cause...

When Kris is not controlled by our very literal puppet-strings, they are instead controlled by the coercion and emotional manipulation of their mysterious benefactor. No matter which option they go with, Kris just cannot be free.

[eagans]

ether as severance + “the courtship of kier and imogene” (relationship parallels)

(just so we’re clear, while the kier-imogene dynamic is clearly paralleled with helena and mark, it is also reiterated in cobel and mark, dr mauer and gemma, and even burt and irving to some extent; season 2 has also made it a point to show us that helena and cobel are both victims in their own ways while being perpetrators. it is not a black and white situation and misogyny will get you blocked.)

original threads: (x), (x)

[bi-for-vi]

I don’t see anybody talking about this, but it hurt my heart

[pheracy]

Jinx's traces of make up after she has cried looks like Vi's face tattoo but backwards and they both have it in their left cheek.

Besides, her final look and outfit resembles her sister's in S1 and S2. The bandages covering her chest and the new hairstyle with the shaved undercut on the same side is also similar to Vi's.

After all it seems like Vi and Powder cannot coexist in the same timeline or dimension. When Powder lives, Violet doesn't. When Vi lives, Jinx decides not to. "Always with you, sis".

The parallels, the attention to detail and the design for each character in Arcane is insane. I can't believe this amazing series is over. I'm gonna miss these sisters like they were my relatives.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

"it's not that deep" not yet but I've got a shovel and fan theories and digging makes great exercise!

[stil-lindigo]

the vulture.

a comic about cycles.

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creative notes:

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all my other comics

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[ratvic]

Havent seen anybody talk about this frame (yes this literal less than one second frame) I love it so much, it's so cute.

[cookie-lore-keeper]

One thing that struck out to me when I saw Sugarfly Cookie was the armor on her legs

They don't seem to match anything about her at all. She's very delicate looking with a lot of yellows, yet there are steel boots on her that clash against everything.

And that got me thinking: she's a butterfly, right? She can fly, like Pavlova Cookie and Eternal Sugar Cookie. But, her wings seem droopy. From what we've seen, she hasn't spread her wings yet. Can she even use them? And that got me thinking again.

She's so loyal to Eternal Sugar Cookie. Like... weirdly so, considering Eternal Sugar's other minion seems quite rebelious and doesn't want to be there. And she's so weirdly peaceful, too. What if Eternal Sugar did something to her? Maybe Sugarfly Cookie tried to escape one day and, instead of turning her to stone, she took away her ability to fly by adding weights to her legs and messing with her wings? Maybe she even went so far as to mess with her emotions, which is why she seems so peaceful.

This is also backed up by how scared Pavlova Cookie was when Eternal Sugar Cookie mentioned "re-educating" him. He's probably seen what she did with Sugarfly Cookie. We know he's afraid of becoming a statue, but what if he's also afraid of not being able to leave the Garden at all? Despite being stuck here, he still has the option to leave the Garden and explore a bit. What if Sugarfly Cookie doesn't have that luxury? What if he's scared he'll become like her, in that, even if he doesn't become stone, he won't be able to leave the Garden at all?

[lucanderie]

Still need to mull this over some more, but it's very intriguing how much player-defying Kris proves themselves physically capable of this chapter.

They maliciously comply with our exact wording when asked to turn a doorknob. They cover their mouth midway through a sentence. When asked to say Berdly's name, they repeat themselves loudly in shock. They do PLENTY of physical actions or gestures unprompted, such as kneeling down and touching Ralsei when only prompted to talk, pushing Susie out of harm's way for the second time, giving her their knife with a flourish, laughing or nodding to clarify a statement... as well as their unprompted hijinks at the church. They act by themselves both in the spur of the moment and premeditated, in both low-stakes interactions and highly emotional, instinctive reactions. It seems like they're capable of doing any emoting, physical gesturing, or creative prompt interpretations they so desire apart from a) speaking, b) when directly commanded to do something else and c) in many weird route sequences (will circle back to this). They know entire commands word for word before they execute them, and they are aware enough of the fact that we have goals and what those goals may be to actively conspire against us. Kris knows our "rules".

This is extremely interesting because we saw very little of this in the previous chapters- leading us to believe Kris had basically zero input on Dark-World happenings, and had less understanding of their own situation then say, Ralsei did. But here, Kris isn't just getting more clever about or more accustomed to defying us- they're proving progressively more capable of just doing things of their own volition that any possessed kid who was randomly dropped into this situation with no warning or context would not wait two days to try.

Combined with the fact that from the beginning, they defy us to limit what we see long before they defy what we actually force them to do, (even when they clearly don't like doing it!), and that there's precedent for a character's mindset determining the player's level of control with Susie, it's seeming more and more like Kris is purposefully limiting themselves in earlier chapters. They have a vested interest in "playing the part", coming across to either us or someone else like they have less agency than they do, and they get progressively more open about the amount of defiance that they are capable of.

This is just, a fascinating jump in Kris's amount of agency! At the very least, they may know a similar amount of meta-info to even Ralsei. It changes some of their earlier actions from purely-forced to compliant. And there's a lot of (non-evil, you guys) reasons they would do this- they're probably at least, (at this point), afraid of some kind of retribution from us or their co-conspirators. They want to stay ahead of us by hiding their agency, they may not be comfortable enough with themselves to show express in certain instances... And this changes their defiant actions from things that they are allowed to do into things they are willing to risk doing- saving Susie twice, not hurting Ralsei's feelings, comforting Noelle, slorking down those juice cups like they're NOTHING- all little risks they're willing to take.

This just leaves the weird route- which may either be a route where the player simply gains more control over Kris, or maybe the "proceed" commands could be more general and therefore more inclusive. Or Kris could be initially, willing to play along with freezing the Darkners in order to achieve their goal, to bide their time, and once they realize how fucked up we can get it's too late.

I don't know. I'm definitely missing things, but I just love how much more Kris we have and are eventually going to get.

[midnight-in-town]

Martha really said "no hating on another nice woman just because of a man we both love". If that’s not about educating little girls like Becky to fight against internalized misogyny, I don’t know what is.

A true icon. Bless Endo-sensei for giving her and Henderson such a compelling love story and emotional flashback.

[impossibleanimegirl]

[eagans]

aggregation of several threads w/ similar observations

[vampiristar]

GUYS, I WAS RIGHT! THEIR SEPARATION CREATED CHAOS BUT TOGETHER THEY CREATE ORDER. THEY ARE THE ORDER THAT EMERGES FROM CHAOS 😭😭‼️

[pheracy]

After being shot by Jayce, Viktor's eyes turned the color of the gear.

I CAN'T NO MORE FORTICHE 🤸🏼

[cloverandstuff]

I'm still hung up on this

Every character that has died in Alien Stage so far has all gotten a comic from their own perspective.

Sua got one where she wants to tell her 'sister' that she found paradise in the hellish place.

Ivan compares his love with Sua's and thanks Till for being the victim for his shallow feelings.

Hyuna makes sense of her love for Luka, and tell him to take his time solving her puzzle.

All of them got to tell their perspective in some way.

...Except Till.

From start to finish, he never had interviews done, he never interacted much with other and just never...spoke.

The only time we ever see him outside of the videos in in the comics from other POV's.

His own death comic was not done in perspective. It was done in his mother's.

And Io loved her son. She cherished him and wanted him to find his happiness wherever he went.

But she never truly knew him. He was snatched away from her far too early for her to ever know him.

Till is a character who we, as an audience, only know from surface observation and the thoughts of others. We have no idea of what was actually going on in his head.

We have ideas for everyone else who are dead, except Till...

...WHICH IS WHY IN THIS ESSAY, I WILL PROVE TILL IS ALI- [gunshot]