Before The Release Of The Second Season, There Was A Popular Theory That The Hexcore Had A Missing Element—a

I am surprised no one did it with them

no looking back, orpheus. you promised ▋

I wonder, is there any castlevania discord? (For a fans of games and animated series obviously)

mathias bad decision roulette landed on "make my ex immortal"

Nocturne is getting closer so i wanted to do a little something to celebrate

there's meta to be had about just how much of viktor's arc is about loneliness and the blatant visuals they use in his evolution about metamorphosis, butterflies, cocoons, in utero, etc, as he molts from a soft, vulnerable larva who keeps getting hurt in his bids for love and acceptance, into a hardened final form complete with an exoskeleton acting as both physical and emotional armor. a shield keeping his emotions in and the pain of loneliness and rejection out, until it's cracked and his humanity is forcefully exposed. like. sorry if it's just the entomologist in me but this was blatantly obvious the very first time i watched the show and I've been continually surprised that no one's really pointed this out. as a certified lonely person it struck such a deep cord with me, when he accepted his fate, his path ahead, to be one he'd have to walk alone, finally putting up that last seemingly impenetrable wall around his soft parts (but keeping the blanket, this signal that he never asked for this, and that he's not unreachable). So much of his s2 arc centered around not just his desire to right his wrongs and help the world, but to connect with others and not feel alone, both of which got twisted by the hexcore. His attempt to create a hivemind where no one would ever suffer loneliness or rejection or loss, and he would feel their souls with him as well (even though that was an illusion in the end, he truly believed it). The whole 'I now speak with all their voices' but he's just floating in an empty space. And for the consequence of the glorious evolution to be eternal solitude, it just drives home how that's the worst possible fate imaginable for Viktor.

VIKTOR | JERICHO | ARCANE

Please enjoy this edit here on Tumblr in full. ❤️ Focusing on the GLORIOUS EVOLUTION of Viktor (with lots of Jayce too, because you can't have one without the other). HOW are these lyrics so perfect?

Update: We have a link to a NEW extended version on Youtube (the only way we could make the audio work there was to add 12 seconds to the middle of our edit at 0:51) under the cut:

Update: We FINALLY found a solution to YouTube blocking/muting our audio. 🥳 Apparently cutting 12 seconds from the second verse was enough of an edit that the filters were rejecting it. We have an EXTENDED edition going live on Dec 27 with those 12 seconds added back in (new content begins at 0:51 secs).

Other places to watch (original version)

Patreon (public, no login needed): https://www.patreon.com/posts/viktor-jericho-118392578

Tiktok Part 1: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NbxnBt/

Tiktok Part 2: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NbnQQd/

Twitter: https://x.com/VidDuality/status/1871194052923670966

There's a theory from Ashikai that Aeons come in contrasting pairs that oppose and fight each other. Ashikai pairs Nanook with Qlipoth, but I don’t fully see that connection, Preservation already stands as the natural enemy of Voracity. That makes me wonder that there isn’t really any Aeon of Creation who directly opposes Destruction. Lygus mentioning that we don’t fully understand Destruction only reinforces some of my thoughts.

What if Nanook is both the Aeon of Creation and Destruction? Nanook desires to destroy the current universe so that a better one can be created, creation through destruction like how you can’t make a chair without first cutting down a tree (he too has strong jesus references in his design). This could explain the Stellarons who hold destructive power of creation. There's a strong theme here, the destructive power of creation and creation of destruction.

This also sheds some light on Phainon and his dual themes of destruction and creation. Let’s be honest he’s likely the Lord Ravager trapped in Amphoreus, yet he’s also strongly tied to memories and creation. If he represents creation through destruction it would make a lot of sense

I didn’t see anyone else do this, but I have many thoughts about an Arcane Fate AU.

The concept is that Hextech and the story of the two sisters took place roughly 100 years ago, and during that time, Zaun gained independence. Because of this, characters like Jinx and Vi are now historical/folk figures in Piltover and Zaun.

The Holy Grail Ritual is a fancy competition between Piltover families to show themselves off. They usually select representatives with sufficient magical abilities to compete, and they use Servants as familiars in battles. However, in this particular Holy Grail Ritual, something went wrong, and some Servants ended up being summoned by unintended individuals (people from Zaun).

The Master-Servant pairings and classes would look something like this

Piltover: 

Viktor - Jayce - ????? Caster

Mel - Lest/Leblanc -  Assassin/Pretender (what i mean is Leblanc is pretending to be Lest and that her class is assassin)

Caitlyn - Vi - Saber or Shielder i am not sure about this 

Zaun: 

Isha - Jinx - Archer 

Ekko - Heimerdinger - Rider

Singed - Warwick - Berserker 

and special guest:

Ambessa - Arcane Herald - claiming to be saviour those who are more familiar with the fate series could probably guess his true class

Nanook and the Path of Destruction

The thing that makes Nanook and the path of Destruction so intriguing to me is that the methods are generally bad, but the goal, and what leads up to that goal, are much more complex and understandable than one might think.

Because Nanook wasn‘t some mustache twirling villain since birth, they were a victim of catastrophes started by other people and only through experiencing so much suffering did they develop their ideology of „This universe is bad and it needs to be destroyed.“ Fact is that if the universe did not exist in the way that it does in Star Rail, there wouldn’t be a path of destruction. Continuing that thought, there was and is Destruction in Star Rail‘s history that’s completely disconnected to Nanook. Nanooks ascension was more of a response to the suffering created by Emperor Rubert, Tazzyronth, the IPC etc. than something that happened in a vacuum.

If you look at all the antagonists we got in Star Rail up until now, do you notice how only a few of them are fully associated with the Destruction? And if you look at their goals, how many of them align with the path of Destruction?

Nanook and the followers of the path of Destruction are in no way justified in their actions, but acknowledging that they are the product of a continuous cycle of violence created by paths other than theirs than them is important for understanding the entire Star Rail story.

To end this I wanna point out how similar Nanook‘s goal is to the message of the game to ultimately show how flawed the Destruction is.

The message of Star Rail is to embrace the future. This is similar to Nanook wanting to destroy the current universe for a new one. Ending things to start new things isn’t wrong, but Nanook‘s desire to destroy the past is born out of an inability to see the past clearly for what it is, resulting in their actions being harmful. They internalized the violence they experienced as a human and now see it as some universal law and can‘t see past it to find a way to break the cycle of violence which they are now just continuing.

This is what makes Nanook‘s goal ultimately only a twisted reflection of the core message of Star Rail, because the AE Crew is creating a better future by understanding people’s problems and helping them (e.g. Sunday), not just by fighting bad people and never fully addressing the problem.