She/her - Writer (ao3 @AgraAFTERdark), yapper, bottom feeder. Sometimes i serious but mostly i shitpost.
258 posts
Latest Posts by agra-can-u-not - Page 4
Damn OP, go off.
I definitely agree that having caitlyn’s character take that dark turn is interesting. I would like it if she actually suffered consequences from the narrative about it tho. Like yes, on her part, its a morally grey, “lesser evil” choice to prevent the Noxian invasion. And arcane is full of morally grey characters and choices. But usually, the difference is that said moral-grayness is acknowledged in canon in some way. While we the viewers know what Caitlyn did was wrong/cruel/morally grey, she isnt actually punished for it. Nobody calls her out for it to any significance. While i dislike the “dictator cait” takes that come in tandem with writing off jinx and viktor’s actions, i can see why the phenomenon has arisen when the latter are punished for their actions while the former is really not.
to continue talking about why i believe the political commentary of arcane is flawed, i want to discuss how the piltover-zaun conflict not getting a satisfying resolution hurts caitvi’s writing as a couple. i want to talk about them specifically bc they’re the only endgame couple in arcane and the worst takes i see about the show’s political commentary usually comes from caitvi shippers. i will start by saying that i LOVED caitvi in s1, which is why i’m so disappointed by how they were written in s2. while i understood why people were uncomfortable with caitvi due to caitlyn’s position as an enforcer and vi being a victim of police brutality, it didn’t bother me when i first watched s1 because caitlyn fit into the “good cop” trope and i believed that the series would end with her reforming the police force in piltover. my expectations ended up being subverted when i watched act 1 of s2 after seeing the dark turn her character had. i actually liked seeing caitlyn’s descent into darkness in act 1 because it demonstrated that even “good” people in corrupt systems can still abuse their power. i thought that she would eventually be redeemed since caitvi is the endgame pairing and that is the only way i could see the couple working. after watching act 2, i became less confident that caitlyn would get a proper redemption arc since we only see the aftermath of her actions and she gets offscreen development. again, it makes sense that she would grow less skeptical of the crackdown from noxus after 3-6 months, but it would be more impactful we see what led her there when in ep 3 she used the grey against civilians, threatened heenot, and nearly shot a child. i need to emphasize that the grey WAS used against civilians since the mv montage shows regular civilians running away from it and vi says it was used to “clear the streets”. even if the grey was only used against criminals, it is still a war crime because the use of chemical weapons is prohibited under the geneva conventions. the last time vi and caitlyn were together, caitlyn hit vi with her rifle on a place that vi was already deeply wounded from. the fact that their reunion is caitlyn hitting vi multiple times is a good example of how vi’s trauma is rarely explored by the writers, especially since she is so nonchalant about it. during her time in stillwater, vi was regularly beaten by enforcers, she should’ve been a lot more hostile towards caitlyn when they meet again. vi was one of the main characters who confronted piltover about their oppression of zaunites in s1, but in s2 when caitlyn becomes everything vi hates about piltover, it doesn't harm vi's perception of caitlyn at all. another thing i hated was vi having sex with caitlyn in a jail cell knowing that jinx is going to commit suicide. not only is it ooc for vi since she is shown to be very loyal to her family and is a victim of police brutality, but sexual assault by cops is very prevalent in prisons so it's tone deaf to viewers who experienced police violence. i know that the scene is supposed to be vi “reclaiming her trauma”, but is it really reclamation when her trauma is rarely explored? caitlyn is NEVER confronted by anyone for gassing civilians, falsely imprisoning zaunites, torturing zaunites, and raiding their homes; the fact that she never comes to terms with harming zaunites makes it feel like vi is settling. i understand that lesbian representation is important, but that doesn’t mean that we have to excuse bad writing, especially when said pairing is wrapped up in bad political commentary. pinkwashing and homonationalism are real problems and the way caitvi shippers become apologists of fascism and police brutality is reminiscent of how oppressive power structures justify xenophobia, racism, and aporophobia in the name of “protecting” queer people.
first 5 faceless emojis are how your summers gonna go
A family of fraternisers
AUs where Viktor is raised by Silco and/or Vander are funny to me, because that means that most of their children run off with “The Enemy”
I figure this is a setting somewhere between the main universe and Powder’s AU
Bonus “I learned it from YOU daddy” ZaunDads
Australians all let us rejoice, for we have more TimeBomb AU AU. They live in Melbourne too (don't hate me Sydneysiders but there's no way Ekko would live in a city with shit coffee 😋 and it just works, Silco would absolutely be connected to the Carlton mafia, Ekko's the Melbourne Uni Student Union President, Jinx is the menace of the Engineering department, it works.)
For the non-Aussies (seeing I confused the shit out of you with the Bunnings thing), magpies are highly territorial and swoop in spring. Tim Tams are a delicious chocolate biscuit, and Collingwood is an inner Melbourne suburb whose football team has the magpie as a mascot.
Arcane incorrect texts pt.4 mfs
Damn u right
The problem with water siblings x fire siblings ships is that Zuko and Azula would probably keep accidentally doing racisms for like the first 6 months of their relationships minimum
Realest thing ive seen in the past hour
Ma BABYSS😢😢😢
Incorrect arcane texts pt.3 bitches
I am NOT
checking in on the jwct fandom the morning after season 3 dropped like-
no matter what your most embarrassing moment in life is, at least it’s not having fucking chat gpt write fanfic for you bc you’re too lazy to do it yourself
TRUE DAMAGE EKKO IS SO PEAK ITS LEGIT HOW I WAS INTRODUCED TO HIS CHARACTER.
I believe in TD Ekko comeback
Everything here honestly
Stromae wrote Ma Meilleure Ennemie about a couple who both love and hate each other. We hear both of their perspectives through his and Pomme's individual verses which seem to directly allude to Ekko and Jinx's feelings for each other (later confirmed by the AMV). It was such a turning point for timebomb because it was the first instance of the ship appearing to be more than just a one-sided crush on Ekko's part.
The Coldplay remix goes back to square one with an additional yearning verse for Ekko but yet again nothing from Jinx's POV, making the relationship portrayed in the song unbalanced. Normally, I would be floored by the unashamedly down-bad lyrics - but in the context of how Ekko's character was reduced entirely to his relationship with Jinx and her development in season 2 - all these lyrics about him worshipping her like a goddess just leave a sour taste in my mouth.
HFHSIDJWOFIRIE CHAT. HOW DO I GET OVER THEM. 😭😭😭
Endlessly listening to "Ma Meilleure Ennemie" and feeling inspired 💙
Arcane incorrect texts pt.2 baby
Courtesy of pinterest
Ugh what a diva
You're serving cunt?
You're in jail and you're serving cunt?
Everything here BUT i would like to add that i think meljay was written to fail. Like the way they got together in a fwb not even knowing much about each other way and the obvious implication that they were both using one another - even if they got a side bonus of pleasure out of it - disincentivized the shipping.
Now, relationships started for the wrong reasons is by far from an uncommon trope in fandom discourse (hello, fake dating), but doing said trope successfully involves having both couples GROW as people and change how they percieve their partner. We see that sorta on Mel’s end. She gets a nice little arc about not wanting to be the manipulative person her mother honed her into anymore, but from Jayce’s? No, it doesnt come close. Meljay started with them both allying mainly for personal gain, albeit with the added bonus of fun on the side, but Jayce is never really depicted viewing Mel as something like “a silver tongued, untrustworthy liar” where its clear she views him as a bit of a “good intentioned fool.” Like the misconceptions feel unequal, i guess.
And im not saying this to fault Mel, because i really enjoy her. All the characters in arcane are morally grey. Thats not an issue i have for her character in general but just for her relationship with jayce being anything but temporary.
Now, Melvik, on the otherhand? Well, suffice to say, i love it. It started as a crackship but i slowly grew to love their dynamic. Viktor absolutely would see through Mel’s charismatic persona and call her out for it. He’d get on her nerves and speak out, refusing to fall in line and which would rile her feathers. They would challenge each other in a way Meljay just dont. Thats why i think theyd be neat. It comes from less of a place of spite bc i do enjoy jayvik as well than a consideration of what constitutes an equal/satisfying dynamic.
That being saidddd fuck misogynoir and stan mel medarda!
long-winded ramble about melvik and the arcane fandom
I really do believe the boom in the melvik ship has nothing to do with the show (obviously since they barely interacted) and more with black fans and fans of mel ( a black female character that they, by proxy, would have to be exposed to misogynoir when trying to engage with her content) separating themselves from the anti-black fandom into more niche places where outsiders are less likely to scrutinize. especially when you consider that the ship really started gaining more traction months after the show’s end (as opposed to right after or during, which is usually the case) and I think that correlates to the online harassment of mel (and meljay) fans ramping up. if someone is looking for non-art fan content of a character, most of it is revolved around shipping since solo, non-romantic fan fiction is unpopular and un-incentivized.
anybody who’s been a fan of mel since s1 (or has scrolled more than 3 times in her tags on social media) knows that meljay, despite being one of the few actually canon ships on the show, was disparaged, minimized and scrutinized basically since its inception, with most of the onus being on Mel. as her most popular ship arguably until now, that meant if you were somebody that enjoyed mel (or meljay) you were basically getting flashbanged by vitriol to the point a lot of her content was a) people trashing her character or ship b) people fighting back against that undue backlash and coming in dead last c) actual content for the ship in question. This got significantly worse after the arcane writers took 3 percs each during the s2 writing period and validated fanon malice against her character within the show, further emboldening them. if you were a fan of mel or her most popular ship (and once again, canon relationship), you were signing up to be bombarded by bad takes (im being generous) every time you wanted to engage.
sometimes what happens in huge fandoms amongst marginalized fans, I’ve seen people exhausted of dealing with the vitriol branch off into an unlikely, unpopular ship and make that the new “safe space” and I definitely think that’s what happened here.
with that being said, there’s something very funny (/positive) about melvik now compared to its earliest iterations. a lot of early fan-content had a mean-spirited slant to their interactions that you can tell was adopted from the larger, jayvik fanon that they despised each other. there were also a fair amount of consolation prize polycule fan fiction that felt like the writers weren’t confident in mel and viktor’s relationship on its own and the only thing that glued the love triangle together was wanting to appease jayce which is…lol. now it has its own fanon (e.i. pre-canon bitter exes) and better recognizes the merit of these characters outside of a polyamorous relationship. I’ve also noticed that there seems to be an uptick in fan content (art and fan fiction) that centers mel, or just outright de-centers jayce even if there is polyamorous relationship which wasn’t as common before. i wonder how much that has to do with mel fans using the ship as an escape from the hatred in her other tags.
i think now, despite the parallels the writers either unintentionally created or failed to capitalize on, one of the biggest appeals to the ship (and fandom) is that it just embraces absurdism as a crack-ship that could’ve actually had some merit in the show if arcane wasn’t written like that™️. meljay is always diminished and those two character’s love for each other gets debated every day ending in y, but with melvik there’s no real need to prove itself. it’s a “why the hell not” ship and now that the arcane fandom at large is starting to catch onto the fact it exists, it’s very funny seeing people argue about how a relationship like that could never happen in canon, as if fandom has ever upheld the original content as something non-transformative and above individual interpretation LMAO….
anyway. all of this to say that im a #nooticer and i #nootice things
i like jayce and jayvik but ya 😭 im here for the spicy rarepair, not the afterthought angle of a triad
POV: Enjoying a rare Melvik fanart and someone, for god knows why, mentions jayce…😐
I started liking this as a crackship but i fear im growing obsessed
melvik pre-canon kisses
They should’ve had a girl so confusing moment i stg
I agree with all of this but i think in a way ekko and mel WERE kinda treated like after thoughts by the writers themselves compared to the main 5. Well, ekko at least, altho i have a few problems with mel’s s2 arc being too convenient. They definitely both deserved better.
Just wanna say that I think Ekko and Mel slander makes sense when you understand that 85% of the Arcane fandom views both of them as characters less worthy of fandom attention.
In their eyes, they are afterthoughts to more interesting relationships, so when someone in the 15% dares to give them anything outside of dutiful lamentations ("Mel and Ekko deserved better!"), they can't help but feel those analysis would be better suited for a character they *actually* like and so they lash out.
Fans of both characters have to constantly argue that these characters have loved and have been loved. They want Mel "independent" because she doesn't "need love" and they want Ekko focused on The Tree and the unnamed Firelights because they want it to be easier to carve both of them out of the interpersonal narratives that attaches fandoms to characters in the first place.
They want Mel and Ekko to "save the day" because they don't want their roles in the story to interfere with other characters that they like. Better for them to beat the Bad Guys™ than to be given more material that would validate their personal connections with other characters in ways that the fandom would prefer to ignore.
And the fact that Ekko and Mel are completely different characters who have never once interacted with each other and yet somehow both of them are being treated the same way with how the fandom constantly diminishes their relationships with the rest of the main cast leads me to believe that it does have something to do with the One Trait they do share.