YOOOOOOOOOO You ATE. A Very Squirrelly Man Fr Frrrrrrr

YOOOOOOOOOO you ATE. A very squirrelly man fr frrrrrrr

My beloved, silly, silly red squirrel manfailure

I adore him

His name is Maddox Grim, he's an oc of mine

Your favorite characters are Vi, Jinx, and Caitlyn and you're watching Arcane as a tragic sci-fi fantasy family drama. My favorite characters are Jayce, Viktor, and Mel and I'm watching Arcane as a tragic sci-fi fantasy political drama. We are different people

Sometimes I am so tempted to go do complete rewrites of my old fics but at the same time I kind of can’t stand not having a way to check and see that I’ve improved.

Wild kratts au concept work of mine! My plan for how mutated-ish Chris will look. Calling it the physical instrument au for reasons

Why Viktor Could Die in S2

“They won’t kill a champion because—“ okay just pause for a second and humor me. I’ve made a lot of arguments in the past about why every Arcane character is fair game but that’s not what I’m arguing here—I’m arguing from a narrative standpoint.

Viktor’s my favorite character in Arcane, but I believe him dying in the series finale is the most likely conclusion to his arc. Here’s why:

Viktor’s whole arc is about life and death as a concept—what really constitutes “living”? (Posed by the scenes with Rio) Why is a human life inherently valuable? (Posed by capitalizing on his aggressive need to leave a legacy) Which is more important—a person’s effect on the world around them or their effect on their loved ones? (Viktor realizing too late that Sky valued him not just for his output but for who he is)

There’s also a ton of foreshadowing to Viktor’s demise coming about by a fault in his technology or by the careless way he relates technology to human life (usually himself but not always), and it’s often disguised as humor (the “of course not” scene) or hidden behind false foreshadowing for death by illness (basically everything to do with the Hexcore in eps 5 and 6)

I’ve theorized about it on here before, but I believe at the end of the series the Hexcore will be destroyed (probably by Jayce, specifically to call back to the promise he made to Viktor), effectively ending the threat of the Void overtaking Piltover. Viktor will be so connected to the Hexcore by the finale that destroying it will kill him. He reaches his Glorious Evolution, yes, but it destroys him in the end.

And yeah there is merit to the “how can you live with yourself” kind of approach to ending a character’s story, but that conclusion has the strongest impact if the character’s arc is about learning to live with your mistakes. Most of the character arcs in this show pose that question, but Viktor’s arc really doesn’t?

As far as we can tell with Viktor so far, there’s very little grappling with that concept up until his last 5 or so minutes of screentime, and even then it’s more of a blip that resolves itself (“In pursuit of great, we failed to do good. We have to make it right.”) If Viktor’s story is about defining the respective values of “life” and “humanity” then the most bittersweet ending to his story would be by letting him die after briefly coming back to his humanity.

At the same time, in Ep 5 of BtR Alex Yee says this when talking through writing the script for S2:

“It’s, like, die or accept some things being imperfect. That would be the way that they could go back to humanity.”

So if we assume he’s talking about Viktor covertly here (he very well could be talking about some other character, but yk “going back to humanity” is a very Viktor-coded issue) we could also speculate that they may try to end Viktor’s arc with him accepting the Glorious Evolution just…doesn’t work. I hope that’s not the case because that kind of kills his whole shtick but anything’s possible lol.

To round off this thought by comparison—there’s no chance Jinx dies by the series finale because her whole character arc will inevitably move from “Am I Powder or am I Jinx?” to “Okay, I’m Jinx. How do I live in that identity with the knowledge of my past mistakes?” Her dying at the end of the series would be an unsatisfying conclusion to that question. Same thing with Vi. Vi’s arc was about trying to “fix” things. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were, and they just can’t. Her arc is probably going to be centered around her grappling with grief over losing Powder AGAIN and learning to accept things will never go back to how they were before. Caitlyn’s arc is going to be her exacting revenge and maybe living with regret and bitterness. None of those character arcs logically conclude with “and though they found the answer to their life’s question, they died.”

Viktor’s probably will.

Also here’s a link to a longer more in-depth theory I had a while ago—kind of a adjacent to this thought (for some reason it won’t work as an embedded link) https://www.tumblr.com/arowyn-m/755893249865039872/jayceviktorhexcore-situation-in-s2?source=share

Tumblr

Jayce/Viktor/Hexcore situation in S2

Okay I've seen a lot of S2 theories circulating so I just wanted to get my two cents out there before we get any new information beyond the

Could you elaborate on why La Révacholière makes you cry? I'm not trying to be rude or anything, it's just that the track and the Insulindian Phasmid sequence overall made me feel a sense of complete awe with a twinge of existential horror and sadness, but nothing that would bring me to tears

to me there is nothing horrific about the phasmid -- there is sadness to it, for sure, there is a sens of melancholy about that scene but to me it is a scene of beautiful hope and wonder. the whole game the cryptozoologists are set up as these hopelessly deluded people, chasing after an impossible dream and resigned to failure after a long long history of it*. and then... it's there. the phasmid is real. the hope is rewarded.

and everything the phasmid says is... it's sad, yes, but it's also beautiful and kind. it feels "great, mute empathy". like, after an entire game of traipsing around martinaise, this bombed out ruin full of damaged, miserable people, after talking to the broken and hopeless dros, this is genuinely heartwrenching:

like. god fucking damn. the phasmid is a miracle. the phasmid is something that isn't meant to exist, but it does. the phasmid is kind of a light at the end of the tunnel, it is the realization of the prophecy SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN. it is the emotional high point of the game for me. i genuinely cry every time i reach this scene.

*note that there is imo a pretty strong parallel between this hoping-against-hope and morrell's very sober understanding of the track record of cryptozoology with how the game depicts communism -- "we haven't stopped building love". this also makes it hit much harder for me--i think that the phasmid and the tower holding together serve similar roles, with the phasmid being more allegorical and broad while the tower is more directly a statement on communism and a better world being possible.