Arcane Critical - Blog Posts

i (foolishly) decided to step out of my little side pocket of the arcane fandom to see what people are saying about mel in regards to jayvik... and bruh. i wasted like... a couple minutes of my life reading a jayvik shipper's long ass take dismissing the misogynoir in the arcane fandom and i just need to rant.

there's nothing wrong with jayvik. there's nothing wrong with YOU if you like jayvik.

but having your head so deep up a ship's ass you don't notice the people around you being anti-black? then pretending like black fans are just making shit up to “spite your ship” or whatever bullshit you believe to make yourself feel better after pointing out the misogynoir that the fandom isn't even trying to hide? it's shit like this that prevents me, and a lot of other black fans from enjoying certain media in general.

and i just wanna say i don't think a lot of people are anti-jayvik because they're "butthurt" or whatever the fuck y'all say. IT'S BECAUSE Y'ALL ARE FUCKING WEIRDDDDDD WHEN IT COMES TO MEL.

ntm a couple days ago i saw a goofy ass Instagram reel saying "y'all couldn't even handle jayvik" nigga WHO? WHO IS Y'ALL? let's be so fr, jayvik is the most popular, well received ship in the whole show. go to the arcane ao3 tag right now and you'll see that shit in the top three up there with timebomb and caitvi (we also need to talk about how common it is for interracial relationships in media and fandoms to only be mainstreamed as long as one of the partners is white... but i digress, i digress.)

we can't handle a fandom doing what it does best; pairing the two men together and shitting on the woman? gtf 😭 this has been happening since the birth of the Internet. Hell, probably even before.

And the real kicker is, you don't HAVE to like Mel. I can understand why some people may not like her, and I'm not gonna sit here and say you have to like her just because she's black. But a lot of people are just regurgitating nasty anti-black talking points to justify their hatred for her instead of ACTUALLY having a valid reason to dislike her character.

mel is a colonizer. i won't deny that in the slightest. but the mass majority of the fandom don't care to dig deeper than the surface level representation she's given. it's always "she manipulated jayce!"/"she called them investments!" nigga go bathe.

i knew as soon as viktor appeared on screen the fandom was finna show they ass over that white man. i just KNEW fujo brain worms would takeover and all logic would go out the window. but trust me. you jayvik niggas aren't oppressed for wanting these men to kiss. y'all aren't even a minority. quit acting like you gotta protect yourself from big bad mel medarda and her stans.

and it's not even ALL jayvik shippers, but it's too damn many. they saw black woman near their fave and immediately decided to lynch her character. i'm saying lynch metaphorically and literally because of that disgusting jayvik serial killer au floating around in mel's tag. i have something to say about that to but i'll make another post. i'm disgusted, not shocked, and disappointed that this behavior is so normalized in fandom spaces.

since arcane season two decided to be more ship driven than narrative driven i feel like a lot of y'all feel... entitled, and people feel like they finally have the opportunity to express their anti-blackness in an environment where they can pull the homophobia and ableism card once you call out the weird shit they're doing.

tl;dr i don't wanna hear a jayvik shipper, nay, a NONBLACK person speak on fandom misogynoir ever again because y'all are just loud and wrong every damn time, and stop acting like black fans are fucking stupid for addressing it.

has anyone else noticed that the writers were absolutely reluctant to fully commit to the darker implications of piltover's actions? like the gas attack on zaun? but tbh the writers' self-sabotaging of arcane's potential as social commentary is not what's really frustrating, it's that it's not just a missed opportunity, it’s a deliberate avoidance. the writers couldn't make piltover that bad, at least not through the characters we have to follow.

with the gas attack, what we get are scattered hints: a single man coughing, kids praying to janna in a song (in a way that’s super easy to miss), and worship of a painting of janna. but the show never fully depicts the suffering caused by the gas. it never commits to the atrocity and by refusing to depict the actual impact, the show softens piltover’s culpability and allows a big part of the audience to either overlook or justify it.

but the gas attack aside, the writers had two opportunities to make an explicit statement about systemic oppression, environmental racism, and the true cost of unchecked industrial power but they avoided doing so. and those two clearest instances of this avoidance are in how the show handles viktor and orianna:

in season 2, viktor’s story is literally warped to avoid blaming piltover. viktor, a character who should represent the suffering zaunites endure because of piltover’s neglect, is instead pushed into the role of an irredeemable villain for a marvelesque shit show. his transformation discards his humanity so blatantly that the audience is distracted from the actual injustice: he was dying because of piltover.

his ending is framed around jayce’s “beauty in imperfection” speech as if he should have just accepted his disability rather than seeking a cure, when the reality is, he wasn’t just disabled, he was dying because of the system piltover built. that was his entire struggle in season 1, but by season 2’s end, the narrative no longer engages with it to protect piltover.

as for orianna, she is reduced to an easter egg as a gift to league of legends fans (which is funny because the show ruined her lore for them), but more importantly, to avoid critiquing piltover.

her lore was an explicit condemnation of piltover’s disregard for zaunite lives. she was a little girl who helped zaunites, got sick due to piltover’s pollution, and had to slowly replace her own body with machinery until she lost all humanity. but arcane erases this. she’s barely a cameo, and the audience isn’t even told how she died. the show doesn’t just sideline her suffering, it removes it entirely, sanitizing piltover’s guilt in the process.

more importantly, all of this lets a big part of the audience defend piltover. for instance, by never showing the gas’s impact, the show gives certain viewers the option to ignore it: no bodies, no long-term sickness, no undeniable, inescapable horror. and i'm sure we've all seen how this allows for interpretations that justify piltover’s actions in the fandom, whether that means erasing the gas attack’s consequences or framing it as acceptable because the victims are zaunites (who are often conveniently portrayed as violent criminals).

also, ekko’s line about rescuing more people because of gang fighting is a perfect example of how the show subtly misdirects the audience. yes, gang violence is an issue, but it’s not the only crisis. the gas remains, it spreads, it poisons the people, especially the children working in factories. those are also people the firelights must have rescued. but the show chooses to highlight one crisis over another, and we know why ...

anyway, it's sad that the writers had no balls. they let so many people feel comfortable not thinking too hard about piltover’s crimes, and comfortable enough to insult anyone who criticizes characters participating in those crimes, especially caitlyn and her squad.

I just can't turn my brain off for episode 7 because it's foundations are so contradictory. How can we believe that Piltover decided to change it's ways because one Zaunite kid died when Piltover has collectively proven throughout season 1 and 2 that they don't care about those kids?!!??

In season 1 enforcers regularly harassed and assaulted children in Zaun. In Act 1, Marcus tried to fire his pistol at Powder when she tried to escape him, he only stopped because she was out of range. Vi was a teenager when prison guards regularly beat her as she was falsely impropisoned in Stillwater by the same enforcer without question. Caitlyn didn't care that a child as young as Isha (probably 8) got thrown into Stillwater and neither did any of the guards. Jayce felt guilty that he killed Renni's son, but he never apologized for what he did, and chose to leave his body in the same place, in the same position he died for Renni to find her boy.

Remember that one scene where the camera lingered on that one Piltovan kid who has hurt when Jinx diverted the Grey back on Piltover and Ambessa wiped a tear from his eye? It's sad to know a child got hurt by the Grey, but do you know what other child was hurt by the Grey? VIKTOR. He was hurt by the Grey as a child, to the point that it was killing him by the time he was an adult, but Piltover, including Heimerdinger NEVER saw that as a wrong to be righted. I could keep going on about the ways the Piltovan cast have harmed children in one way or another, but that would get repetitive. The point is Piltover and it's cast have consistently proven that they don't care about children in Zaun in any way that matters, so to assume that Vi's death would bring about change is just dishonest to the story that's been told up until that episode.

“The people of the underground deserve to breathe” oH cAsSandRA cAreD ab0uT zAun luv my aCtiVist qUeeN

But the ventilation system is designed in a way that—with the Kiramman key—can be easily weaponized against zaunites cuz the gas wasn’t directed AWAY from zaun, just held back. Zaun was being held at gun point with gas. The oppressors keep this deadly gas in their arsenal so they could re-introduce the Gray into Zaun if they so please, if Zaun gets out of line.

The “privilege” of clean air is conditional.

exactly.

it’s been so very frustrating trying to reason with some caitvi stans that when i criticize some writing choices in season 2, i don’t hate the ship and/or the characters i criticize, i’m just disappointed that the show prioritized getting them together at the expense of individual character developments.

and somehow by doing that, i got accused of being lesbophobic (and somehow racist because caitlyn is half-asian 💀), even though i am a bisexual asian woman myself - if anything, caitlyn IS the closest thing to representation i get from arcane and i’m just supposed to be grateful for that abysmal character assassination or whatever caitlyn’s arc in season 2 is supposed to be called. these people take every bit of well-meaning well-deserved objective criticism as a personal attack and project that hostile energy towards any discourse regarding caitlyn and/or vi and/or caitvi. i’m not saying they can’t enjoy girls kissing girls on their tv screen everytime it happens, i’m just saying better representations can be and have been done before, so why do we settle for less?

that particular flavour of caitvi stans screeching at critics of S2 about how, "you just wanted a simplistic happy ending! you can't handle the NUANCE! you have no MEDIA LITERACY!" while simultaneously insisting that we should all unquestioningly accept and praise arcane for giving us caitvi, which they hold up as the sine qua non of wlw representation, because their primary basis for comparison is... legend of korra. is she-ra. is owl house. is steven universe.

none of this is shade on those shows. all of these are okay-to-good-to-great shows, that did genuinely brave things with regard to representation and which often handled mature subject matters in age-appropriate ways. you know what they also are?

children's cartoons. they are cartoons for children.

sorry, when shows like black sails and andor exist, which have prominent wlw characters/ships, and which embed those ships in actually well-written, complex, adult narratives about freedom, oppression, rebellion, and self-determination, arcane doing a, "diversity win! your cops are lesbians!" is not enough for me to give it brownie points.

op, i hope that your pillows are always cold on both sides, that you always have an umbrella when it’s raining and that you always catch yourself before you stub your toes because you deserve all of it.

i actually hated A LOT of choices the writers made in season 2 and you basically listed almost all of it. thank you. this deserves so much more notes.

arcane s2 didn't stick the landing

i feel like the second season didn't build on top of what was established in the first season

i actually hate the "cycle of hate" narrative at this point in my life, especially with how it relates to real world conflicts.

there is no both sides in most cases. there's the oppressed and the oppressors. racism and related is the privileged oppressing the less privileged. and the oppressed who are fighting back are doing it in a situation where there is no other option. and a lot of the time, the burden and criticism of finding the moral way to go about freeing themselves is put on them. oh the black panthers are dangerous and they were forced to end their activities yet the KKK are still around? oh the palestinians attacked israel and took hostages to bargain with while they've lived generations of israel keeping them in an open air prison, having control of what goes in and out of their borders, taking over their homes, kidnapping their children to put in jail, killing them without repercussions, the activists that come from other countries are killed. you can't criticize a people who are trying to survive, who have already tried peaceful methods, who have been pushed to a corner of biting back.

back to this silly media analysis after unloading actual real world issues

in arcane we have piltover: the privileged and zaun the less privileged.

zaun has less of everything, they're literally the lowest class of this uppercity/undercity situation.

i hated how Jayce laid down his weapon in that one scene where he killed a child worker in the factory. and Vi rightly criticizes him by saying,

"You've always been a part of this. You just never had to look it in the eye. One dead kid? There's hundreds more where he came from, thanks to Silco and thanks to people like you who stuck their heads in the dirt."

"This is over," Jayce says.

"Not for me."

he has the privilege of keeping his hands clean, of turning away. Vi accuses him of "sticking his head in the dirt" ignoring what's happening in the undercity and even now he has the privilege of doing it again, meanwhile it's never over for Vi. because these are her people who are suffering, and because she doesn't have the privilege of looking away.

there's a shot where it pans over the group of children who were working at the shimmer factory with their hands behind their heads. the reason they're working there is because of the abysmal conditions the undercity are in, that the upper classes turned a blind eye to. Jayce gets to wash his hands clean of it by walking away.

I'm not saying he should be prepared to kill children if it comes down to it. it's just the fact that he can walk away. he's a councilmember with all the power in his hands, he's part of the reason why these kids are here, and he can't bear putting up with a silver of the pain the undercity goes through everyday.

we see Vi establishing her identity as one of them when they say,

"I can't let you leave with them," Jayce says, referring to the gauntlets.

"Then I guess you're going to have to kill another trencher," Vi retorts. (is that the right word?)

either way, she's one of them.

I was looking forward to Caitlyn becoming prejudiced against the people of the undercity, because it meant conflict, it meant Vi would have to fight her. whether or not it would result in Caitlyn realizing that she was wrong or not. it's a clashing, and during a clashing characters and their ideologies shine.

we didn't really get that.

we got the buildup for it where Cait's dad says "what is she still doing here?" in loathing (though this may be more due to her blood relation to jinx)

and Cait says "You can (help). As one of us." while handing over the police badge

which directly contrasts Vi's standoff with Jayce where she claims her side as a person of Zaun. Here Cait is giving her a symbol of everything she's stood against, her oppressors. (and i heard that the piltover soldiers weren't supposed to be representative of police brutality by the writers and i mean c'mon are you serious??? especially with the scene where they set up barricades between the upper and undercity and where ambessa's right hand man beats up the jinx supporter in line??? where they have them torturing that same jinx supporter in the prison??? where they arrest all of the people at Sevika's rally???)

and sure Vi joins the police force eventually and even at this point I'm still thinking okay she's going to realize she's on the wrong side and leave them, which she eventually does by stopping Cait from shooting isha. but that was more of a "that's a child" moment rather than a "i'm on the side that's oppressing my people" moment.

and jinx rightly calls her out on it later.

In terms of Cait, again, I think they did a good job setting up her falling into prejudice:

"I just understand now, how easy it is to hate them. One vicious act." and i thought this was a moment of introspection where Cait is essentially seeing how easy it is to villainize a whole group of people but she is aware of it enough that she won't do it herself.

"A memorial," Cait says as they both watch a soldier pick up a crying child, "what kind of animals!"

this is where she's falling into it.

again as many other people pointed out, the privilege of living one day in the same terror that the undercity lives in daily and it's enough for piltover to be scared. not to mention, it was by ambessa's hand that this attack happened, and the undercity will have to pay for the political moves people in privilege are playing.

again if we were to compare this to real world issues, it's insurance companies putting people in debt to save a loved one, its banks evicting people from their homes, its the homeless who are put into prisons and used for labor without proper pay or rights. and the "one vicious act" being the bullet that the healthcare ceo assassin shot.

and then we see her weaponize polluted air to terrorize the people of the undercity. went against everything her mother believed in and worked for.

it's crazy that Vi agreed to this. stood beside cait for this.

it reminds me of what silco said,

"Have you forgotten where we came from? The mines they had us in? We came from a world where there was never enough to go around."

"You're too young to remember what the undercity was before it became... an enterprise."

The fact that Silco could still be that composed while he breathed in the toxic air. unless he was scientifically enhanced, i like to think it's because he's the oldest, he's been in the mines longer than the chem-barons, longer than Vi. I don't think Vi ever had to deal with the toxic air.

Vi has forgotten where she came from and here she is weaponizing that same pollution, the Grey, against her own people.

but again I had hope that Vi would see that this is wrong

Vi puts herself next to the undercity man, Heenot?, they were interrogating once Cait threatened him with her gun, giving her a look. these are her people.

"I thought you were on our side," Cait had said after staunchly defending the people of the undercity to her parents in the first season. creating sides, putting Vi on hers.

Vi stops her from shooting Isha and Cait says

"I keep telling myself that you're different." saying essentially "you're one of the good ones" a common thing the privileged/oppressors say about the oppressed.

and that's where the conflict ends???

and then when they reunite??? nothing happens??? they never go over what Cait did??? never confront her about it??? just forgot about all that buildup??? oh no we're too busy now with the end of the world i guess

as I said in the beginning, they set it up for the piltover characters to clash with the zaun characters, between Cait and Vi, between Jayce and Victor.

"You didn't say they were from the undercity!"

"What difference does that make?"

"What—they're dangerous!"

"I'm from the undercity."

but that got washed away once victor got taken over by the hextech and became a "oh both sides are bad" guy and actually free will is overrated.

I was excited for Ekko to show Hemierdinger the conditions they were living in and working together to fix it, for Hemerdinger to fix what he's done to the people because he didn't pay them any attention.

Ambessa and the hextech possession over victor really derailed all the buildup between the undercity and the uppercity that's been set up and then did nothing with it.

oh we have to come together to stop the end of their nation.

fuck that, where's the revolution??? Jinx is the face of the resistance and they do nothing with that??? sure it's the reason why the undercity go fight against ambessa and victor because jinx was their hope, but that hope was building up against piltover, with the border patrols, with the police brutality, with how they tortured their people in the jails, with how they all got arrested at a rally.

where's the face off between cait and vi??? not even that, where was Vi's arc??? like everybody's been saying she did nothing this season. Vi should've been Vander's successor, she should've joined hands with jinx, ending the cycle.

victor should've had his own conflict with jayce, should've been a leader to his people.

the writers really didn't deliver this seaons, the art and animation was so cool though

the only time "both sides are bad" actually works is between the elves and dwarves in lord of the rings because as far as I know one hasn't oppressed/enslaved/taken rights away from the other and it's just petty squabbles and cultural differences and more serious squabbles. (it may be different in the books, but this is what I got from my time in the hobbit fandom).

anyway, i'm sure someone else has already said all this. thanks for reading.

at this point nothing we ever say will change op’s mind if they think that stripping anyone, regardless of status, off their basic human rights just because they break the law is justifiable.

when i made a point in the comments about how criminality is not absolute and can be manipulated to fit the agenda of whoever is capable of changing the law, therefore “criminals” can include some of the most vunerable marginalized communities, thus taking basic rights away from “criminals” could also mean taking away those rights from the people who need them the most, it just flew over their head and i got called a weirdo immediately.

honestly, it’s so frustrating to engage in good-faith arguments with people who resort to personal insults the moment they are disagreed with.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

OK since the person I was replying to isn't somebody I want to get into a discussion with ill make my own post about it. Little rant on the aesthetics of arcane vs writer intention ahead based on the use of child labour in the show.

Child labour in Zaun is normalised. Although it's less recognisable to the viewer as such because we're more used to child labour being as being depicted in factories or mines, all of the zaunite kids in act one s1 are child workers. Ekko works in Benzos shop, repairing and selling things. Vanders kids work as thief's, Oliver twist anyone?

Child labour is a feature of industrial boom historically, as well as the result of wealth inequality. Silco and the other chembarons further wealth inequality in Zaun and make use of child labour, but they invented neither. Zaun is Piltovers industry, the majority of factories and mines down there will be owned by Piltovans because that's a major source of wealth.

We never see the piltover owned factories even though logistically they must exist. Narratively there's no place for them to have shown this, however it does seem like the show goes out of its way to show the poor treatment of children and workers by the other Zaunites but leaves Piltovers hand in it unspoken. The most I have here is Silco speaking on the poor working conditions they had and Jayces lack of surprise in seeing children working, both in the factory and when ekko sold him goods. However, realistically Piltover would absolutely be hiring child workers in zaun and would have been the main contributer to the need for child workers to begin with.

I'm mostly making this point for two reasons. One because I've seen Silco criticised as the source of child labour in zaun which I think dumbs down what actually leads to child labour existing. The fact is, with wealth inequality at a severe level, children are forced to work to sustain their family, if not Silcos factories there would be work elsewhere or they would go hungry. This isn't me justifying his use of child labour, I'm only saying the issue would still exist without him because the root cause goes further back than him.

Two, because I've seen people arguing about the strike team and whether or not children would have been caught up in the factory raids. I don't think the writers intended for the strike team to have gassed child workers, I think it's an oversight on their behalf, but yes, even with the most strategic raids children would have been caught in the gray.

I've then seen people claim the children and the workers deserved that and I'm not even going to bother getting into that, babies first exposure to exploitation much?

Anyway, all of that is to say these arguments can go on forever because there's a discrepancy between the aesthetics of zaun and what the writers want us to believe about Piltover. The aesthetics tell us that Zaun is impoverished and exploited, that it's reminiscent of victorian England, it has casual police Brutality hidden in montages. When you think about the implications it gets messy and you realise that some of our good guys are complicit in some nasty things. I personally think that's good story telling.

But then you get to the writing itself and what they're telling is another story. That zauns issues are more caused by zaunites, that the piltover council has very little to do with their problems, that the strike team cannot possibly have hurt civilians because that would make Vi and Cait TOO morally gray. I see this as pretty lame writing, frankly.

This allows for people to be arguing on the show based on completely different perspectives. I completely get why people argue the strike teams efforts were necessary and caused very minor harm, because the writers intend us to take that away, to the extent of only showing a child harmed by the gray when Jinx reverses it. But logistically tons of Zaunite children would have been caught up in the gray too, its just glossed over because the writers don't want us to consider it.

op i will kiss you on the mouth (if you’ll let me ofc).

i literally ranted on my blog about the non-solution (sevika being on the council) to the piltover-zaun conflict yesterday and in that post i haven’t even gotten close to dissecting the intrinsically problematic politics behind the show yet, so it’s really cathartic to see this post popped up.

context: i was born and raised in a country where there are still traces of colonialist and imperialist invasions. my country was liberated when my mother was 6 years old, and less then 30 years before i was born - it’s recent enough that this kind of oppression and economic exploitation is not a foreign concept to me. i grew up hearing stories about how people like my great grandfather fought and died for the freedom i enjoy today, how significant that sacrifice was and more importantly, how violent the struggle was.

you see, in stories like these, the point is rarely ever the victory, it’s the fight. no matter what version of victory the oppressed masses envision it to be, they can never reach it without violence - either towards themselves or their oppressors. anticipating that, what i wanted from season 2 was not that zaunites will be promoted to positions of power or even that zaun will eventually be independent, i just wanted to see the class struggle play out in its full bloody grittiness. this is not me saying that it would be cool to see a bunch of people murdering enforcers or vice versa, i’m just asking for the fight to be treated with the weight it deserves, even if it means people will face brutalization and by extension, death. but after the first 3 episodes of the season, i doubted i would ever get the story i was looking for and sadly, i was right.

(and at this point i dont even know if i should vent all my grievances about the politics in this show in one single post as a magnum opus and be done with it because I HAVE MORE TO SAY)

i despise the way the fandom talks about jinx. i'm sorry, but a teenager with severe mental health issues who was raised by a dictatorial drug lord in a city where crime is rampant, children are often orphaned, and there is no clean air or water, was never going to turn out right. that is not to say that i condone all of her actions (e.g. killing the firelights, helping shimmer run rampant in zaun), but i do believe that she is the product of the circumstances she grew up in. will all that being said, i don't think she did anything wrong to piltover. most, if not all, the piltovans jinx attacked were enforcers and councilors, her oppressors and the primary people responsible for the subjugation of the undercity. and before y'all argue with me in the comments "but in the s1 finale, the council was going to make zaun independent", i beg for y'all to think beyond authorial intent since the show has deeply flawed politics (see: christian linke saying that the piltover-zaun conflict is an allegory to how the us two-party system fails to communicate with each other). while there are councilors that i like as individual characters (jayce and mel specifically), i don't believe that a consensus would've gave zaun true liberation because there has NEVER been a time where the liberation of oppressed people hinged upon their oppressors granting them their freedom. negotiating with your oppressors is akin to having a conversation between the sword and the neck, there can never be peace unless the oppressed takes away power from their oppressors. whether it's between the irish and the british, the algerians and the french, or the vietnamese and the americans, the oppressed ALWAYS had to fight for their liberation, even for examples that "prove" otherwise. nevertheless, i do believe that jinx's resistance is flawed since her violence is aimless and i wish that in s2, she would actually embrace being a symbol of zaun and use violence to achieve liberation for zaun, but i don't think the writers would be able to explore violent resistance effectively because they're cowards.

this might turn into a structureless rant and it will be rambly, but i’m just gonna be so honest, that moment with sevika at the end was so unearned and it accidentally encapsulates one of my biggest gripes with season 2.

the writing of the season betrays everything they set up about the piltover-zaun conflict. i fully expected a deeper exploration into the innerworkings of piltovian systemic oppression and/or the failures of its institutions. and it didn’t even have to be nuanced, mind you - had they done any kind of social commentary on just one aspect, be it the corruption of the council or the indifference of the privileged class, and how it accelerated the pace of piltover-zaun wealth disparity, i would have been fine with it. (i have SO MANY ideas on this specific topic i’m not even joking, maybe just because i’m a no chill raging leftist idk.)

instead, what we got was half-baked ideas of generic activism (i refuse to call it class activism) and throwaway music videos about anti-establishmentarianism that just boil down to “oppression bad”. don’t get me wrong, this is not inherently a bad message, but it’s an underwhelming and ineffective one, because it’s so inoffensive that it doesn’t actually challenge anyone’s political standings enough to elicit radical changes. and if you don’t think any political development adjacent to “zaun independence” is a radical change then i don’t know what to tell you.

and worst of all, the cumulation of DECADES of class struggle manifested into… nothing. NOTHING. a mutual avenger-level age-of-ultron threat just sidelined that whole plot line into the stratosphere. “we were oppressed but there’s an invasion so we’re cool i guess?” - said no zaunite ever. and do i even want to get into the fact that the final boss is a zaunite or are we not ready for that conversation yet? (i mean people have talked in depth about how displeased they were with viktor’s character development more eloquently than i can so go read those posts and give them some love.)

it’s so unimaginative and ridiculous that at the end the resolution to the class struggle is the fact that poor people are represented in the council now. the conclusion to that whole conflict is not even a triumphant moment it just felt empty. and it felt empty because the story, in the way it eventually played out, did not respect the core conflict that it had consciously tried so hard to flesh out. piltover and its ruling class were condemned for the fact that they crippled an entire city and its people, but then never had to face the consequences of those actions - and they probably never will, because even if sevika’s on the council now, she can still (and will very likely) be outvoted in any zaun-related matter. be so fucking for real.

it’s actually funny and eerie how that ending mirrors our current world in the way political institutions treat marginalized minorities demanding better treatment: instead of making actual systemic changes, those in power often shut down voices of the oppressed by giving them a seat at the table but with little to no negotiation power. it’s a shut-up-and-take-it tactic. it’s a non-solution. it’s disingenuous and evil. and it’s so disappointing that the writers decided that the ending we got was the best one they could think of for the people of zaun.

Zaun never got its independence but its ok guys Sevika is on the council now

And don't forget the "they have a right to defends themselves!" and the obvious "If you support them you're against [insert other group of people who they are only using as a shield]"

not to be, like, politiquelle in my discussion of the response to famously non-political show Netflix Arcane™

but it's so genuinely unsettling to see people who would probably characterise themselves as Nice Liberals with the Right Liberal Opinions turn around in the year of our lord 2024-2025 and without a single moment's hesitation, employ rhetoric like

criminals are not civilians, and if you commit a crime, the police can take away whatever rights they want

drone gas strikes save lives, the ONLY alternative to drone gas strikes is boots-on-the-ground military action, there's NO OTHER WAY

(and we know there's no other way because the people who wanted to do the strikes said so, please don't question this false dichotomy)

gas is a precision weapon. we can program gas to only hit terrorists and criminals, actually

and if any children or factory workers or non-violent offenders or bartenders are harmed, well, then they should have thought of that before being terrorists and criminals

(remember, this is the ONLY WAY. don't think about the fact that attacks are seemingly happening out of a desire for independence and that every councillor still alive already voted for independence, this is THE ONLY WAY)

how do we know everyone in that building we hit was a terrorist and a criminal? well, intelligence reports allowed us to designate that building a terrorist and criminal hideout. so, ipso facto, everyone in it must have been a terrorist and a criminal. QED.

no civilians were harmed in the making of this precision attack :)

those who say civilians were harmed as a result of this precision attack are making up the numbers :)

this is the ONLY WAY :)

please do not talk about alternative solutions. there is no other way. look at the rainbow flag sticker on this gun!

truly, this is the most moral army in the world

Since Arcane released what is basically a timebomb video and since caitlyn and caitvi stans love to use timebomb as a way to say "See! People only hate us because we ship a lesbian ship/character! It's definitely not because we posted racist edits of ekko as george floyd on twitter after his va (a black man) made a 'kuklux kiraman' joke!"

I'm gonna talk about my own grievances with timebomb as a shipper.

Not only out of spite for those stans but also out of anger towards the writers, animators and anyone involved with the dumpster fire arcane's centrist narrative was.

1-As basically all the multi racial couples in Arcane with a dark skinned person they have a tragic ending, and they basically gave zero to no screen time to let us enjoy it (but hey, the dark skinned girls also suffered that, at least we know they aren't sexist!/hj)

2-Ekko's presence in the ending is merely used as Jinx's anti depressant right after the "Child curing female hysteria" died, playing on the trope that a man is what can cure a mentally ill girl.

3-Not enough screen time again, but this time i'm talking about it in general. We didn't got to see Jinx's and Ekko's time before act two and three, we didn't got to see Jinx reflecting on the time she hurted the people of Zaun including Ekko, we didn't got to see Ekko actually showing that he accepts Jinx (at least more than that scene that looked like he was about to deadname her)

4-Giving all the romantic interactions to maniac pixie dream girl Jinx but not even giving a hint of affection other than stopping a suicide attempt and painting each other off camera was certantly a choice.

And there's probably more that i'm forgetting.

Silco is an abuser and a terrible father figure and i'm sick of people pretending he's not.

On the arcane fandom, even to this day there's this weird ass narrative of Silco being "the perfect father for Jinx" or "A loving father who only looks for his daughter's best interest" "girl dad" or whatever other shit this people call him right now.

And the way that i fucking despise this cannot be describe with words unless you count screams of rage and foam as words.

But let's go point for point shall we?

First, how did they meet?

Well the show is kind of ambigous with where they met in time, we know that Vander was already present in the girls lifes before the death of their parents but there is no indicator of prior relationship with Silco. I will then assume for the lack of info that Silco was never an uncle figure to the girls, he was probably too busy with their Zaun plan and he does not seem like the kind of person who would get along with children therefore i will declare that his attempt in murdering Vander and the kids was his first formal introduction to the sisters. He knew they existed, but he didn't had a formal bond with them.

So we can say that when Powder thought she was abandoned by Vi was when Silco stablished contact with her.

Now let's look at this scene in a more raw way, no music, no animation nothing. Just words.

This little girl is crying. She is right now processing the fact that almost all of her family is death. This was all just a very awful chain of events, but her mind cannot comprehend this, this is all her fault in her perspective.

Then comes the true culprit. This man alongside all of his goons are ready to kill her, end with her family's legacy.

Then she just clings to him.

She's acting on pure impulse, because that's what children do. She clinged to him not because she trusted him, not because he seem like a good person but because as a child she would be looking for comfort in the moment where darkness was consuming her mind. And this is the exact moment where this man gets a hold of this vulnerable child and will basically set it all up for him to mold this child into his "Jinx".

"OH BUT THOSE WEREN'T HIS INTENTIONS YOU CANT SAY THAT"

Grooming is a manipulation tactict therefore it is not bound to intentionality, most manipulators don't even know that what they're doing is wrong. Silco very much fits in this.

He projected himself in this child, he said it himself "We'll show them all". This is literally not the case, Vi didn't betray her sister she was having a natural reaction to a traumatic situation, but Silco obviously wouldn't care about it, he doesn't know this children out of this surface level interaction, what matters for him is that he has found someone, he might not have the intention of grooming her but this will be his action from now on.

Now let's take a look at the kind of parenting methods he applied. Most of the community will probably call it "gentle" if asked.

I will however describe it as extremely negligent.

First thing first, Jinx's hideout is dangerous af, this place is not appropiate for...Literally anything, not for testing explosive or treat wounds or to let a child be there constantly. Because i really doubt Jinx only started to have this place only around the time where act 2 was starting considering that at the start this place practically looked like a monument to her trauma. So Silco let this girl spend most of her time in this isolated space that looks like it's going to collapse at any minute, let her test dangerous explosives, and also the final episode shows she could've fallen or thrown herself to the bottom at any moment.

"But Silco has some stuff that Jinx painted over! That means he loves her!"

Abusers can be and actually a lot of them will be loving. Plus loving doesn't mean he takes good care of her, we can say that he loves her but that's it, somebody doesn't hate waffles when they like pancakes and Silco isn't a good father figure for loving his child.

And if anything this loves he has for Jinx only isolates her.

Jinx didn't had anybody but Silco before Silco's death.

Her relationship with Ekko was the equivalent of a crater left by a meteor strike.

Sevika and the rest of Silco's goons/allies just saw her as a problem, a mess who will sooner or later kill them or kill herself.

And outside of them it doesn't seem like anybody else in Zaun cared much about her before the attacks on piltover.

Silco is the only one who actually talks to her, and he only ever tells her that she is "perfect". Good to know that you love your child buddy but your child is literally having hallucinations every three scenes where she even talks to her death brothers, has careless behavior for her own and others safety to the point where it almost looks like she's eargerly making the chances of her dying higher, and just generally seems like she has given up on everything but you.

Individuals who suffer through mental illness need help, literally any kind, wether it is a person just helping us with tasks that might be difficult for us or a psychologist (any mental health professional tbh) that assist us in our way to be more healthy and not harm ourselfs or others.

Letting your daughter fall deeper and deeper into a pit where she's literally treating one of her wounds with staples and looking at a shattered mirror while in crisis is not help.

Grooming a child so they can become a goon for a drug lord is not an act that reflects paternal qualities.

And treating Jinx's character as if she was the one who dragged herself in the pit while constantly praising her abuser is not a display of intellectual abilities. The way this fandom is so blatantly ableist when it comes to Jinx should be studied, before we saw AU Jinx almost everyone and their moms was convinced she would've ended similarly all because everyone turned a blind eye to the man behind all of her problems to the man that named her Jinx. Or worse they blamed Vi another child.

All to protect the fragile perception of the ideal father.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

The animators and writers with Caitlyn

"Noooo! We can't show the people of Zaun suffering by a gas that will very clearly affect them since most of the population is homeless and most of them only have the chembarons or the shimmer as their work or medical care options! Let's just put a music video so everyone will ignore it!"

Them again with Viktor

"Yeah let's make this guy who only wanted to cure himself from a terminal illness that piltover gave him the villain, let's also make his community a cult and hive mind to really put on the screen that free healthcare is the literal devil"

tweet i found this from

original tiktok link to support the creator

"OH YOU HATE CAITLYN BUT YOU PROBABLY DON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT SILCO!"

LOUD WRONG BUZZER OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Not only do i despise Silco as an individual and how the fandom loves to ignore the fact that he groomed Jinx (in a non sexual way) and he is one of the main reasons why s1 Jinx was as bad as she was (no, letting the clearly self destructive person be self destructive is not giving them freedom and it is in fact more a way for an abuser to keep the abused in their control)

I despise the fact that the writers wanted to push the centrist bullshit of "Oh violence against your opressors is as bad as the violence your opressors execute over you" using HIM.

But guess what? Silco being an awful person and character does not erase Caitlyn. They're both shitty people and they're both awfully written only existing for the writers to push stuff like

-Abusing butch lesbians is okay!

-ACAB is wrong

-We shouldn't support revolution we should support a reform!

-Police brutality can be okay if it's a femenine woman doing it!

Amongst others.

Btw i will most likely make another post discussing Silco's abuse towards Jinx because everyone from a Jinx fan to a Kuklux kiraman stan loves to push this narrative of how silco was a "great father" and a "positive influence" bs, directly and inderectly pushing another narrative trying to make Jinx look like a spoiled brat who only did stuff because she was a "UNSTABLE MENTALLY ILL MONSTER WHO CANNOT LOVE AND ONLY ACTS FROM SADISM. AND SHE WAS THE ONE WHO CHOSE THAT LIFE NOBODY BUT HERSELF CAN BE BLAMED!" And that shit obviously doesn't sit right with me especially if it comes from the people that are now on twitter using raegan's "war against drugs!" As a way to defend their favorite cop.

A caitlyn stan just called me (a bisexual, bigender and ace person) a homophobic fuck just because i told her that being a lesbian doesn't make her literate (which is true because sexuality does not affect any of your intellectual abilities, it is the individual who has them)

Also, shouldn't she be more angry at how caitlyn is actually written? The writers literally wrote this femme lesbian to be abusive to her butch gf only for it not only to be forgiven by the narrative but actually glorified.

I don't know about you but i'd be pissed.

Kind of unpopular opinion, many might disagree but

I don't think people would like canon caitvi if it was a straight relationship.

"That's not true! Straight ships are still more loved than wlw ships!"

While yes that is true a lot of people nowadays (especially people that went through wattpad phases or people that had to deal with the insanity that some romance animes were, me one of those people) fixate a lot on how healthy canon relationships are.

And Caitvi...

Let me just change Caitlyn for an unnamed man so you can see my point.

-If a man who is also a cop hitted his girlfriend with a rifle in a very calculated way right in a spot where he knows it would hurt more, then just abandoned her crying of pain you would obviously call this abusive.

-If a man was esssentially a dictador who opresses the specific group of people his now ex is part of, even doing stuff like mass incarcerations that actually include children and the few leaders that this opressed group has, you would obviously not root for them to get back together.

-If this man used another girl just as a rebound even if for just a small amount of time you would obviously judge him.

-If this man and his ex found themselves in a jail cell (place that should be traumatic for his ex, mind you) and then he just started flirting and started to have sex with her AND THE ONLY THING HE APOLOGIZES FOR IS HAVING USED ANOTHER GIRL WHILE THEY WERENT TOGETHER, NOT THE PHYSICAL ABUSE, NOT THE POLICE BRUTALITY JUST THE FUCKING REBOUND anyone with common sense would obviously not be happy about this.

Of course i know there will be many saying "B-But you're taking out of context many of Caitlyn actions!" My answer will be NO.

In no context is acceptable to (in a very calculated way) hit your partner in a place where you know for a fact it will hurt more (because if you didn't know rifles actually hurt more than you actually think). In no context is acceptable to commit police brutality and put children in jail and in no context is sex a proper apology.

If Caitlyn's actions look even worse in raw words without cute animation or banger songs and replaced by a man, it's very obvious that Caitlyn is the actual problem.

Amen! 🙏

People who say "Caitlyn did the most for the underground by dismantling shimmer and fighting chembarons" makes me laugh so much for two reasons

1. The show establishes multiple times that children work for the chembarons, so they most definitely got caught in the grey. But the show also establishes, through characters like Heenot, that there aren't exactly a lot of job opportunities in Zaun that don't involve the chembarons as they've monopolised most of Zaun's industries. Its something that Caitlyn acknowledges herself when having her leg stitched up by her dad ("choosing between a kingpin and a gov that doesnt give a shit") So I don't see how gassing and then imprisoning these people for life is "helping". She also straight up cocks her gun at unarmed, sickly workers so, no, she really dngaf ab helping

2. I don't blame people for forgetting this one because the show forgets it too, but shimmer is the only form of medicine (as far as we know) that exists in Zaun. Other than Singed, the show doesn't portray the undercity as having any doctors. Every time a character in Zaun is hurt fatally, they use shimmer to heal them. Caitlyn herself knows this, as she gets shimmer for Vi in S1. Ironically, much like in real life, the criminalisation of shimmer would've most likely harmed the underground more than the drug trade itself. Especially after, oh, i don't know, GASSING A CITY WITH A GAS THAT HAS DISABALED PEOPLE PRIOR.

In conclusion, kukluxkirraman (not u switch!Caitie ily) isn't shit and jinx should've hit the towers again

Arcane season 2 rewrite

I'm thinking about rewriting the second season of Arcane. I have been working on some stuff for the past month but it will probably take a while.

I anything comes out I would like to share my updates on here. Have a nice day ! ~J

Yeah, I've heard, which is why s2 feels like a bunch of interesting multi-chapter fanfic concepts squeezed into one season. But even so, it IS technically possible to write a story this way. You have to do it a lot in video games - certain levels and quests and other gameplay features will be made and you have to write around those. It's definitely a more difficult way to write a story, but it's possible (although why you would write a story like this when you AREN'T beholden to video game writing restrictions is beyond me) and one of the reasons I find video game writing kind of interesting. It's like a creative exercise.

Thing is, one of the things you have to do in that case is put in additional scenes that make the scene you HAVE to include make sense. Like, if the scene you want to include is x character disappearing to another dimension, that's fine, but you then also have to add a scene where people react to that and start looking for them, since that would be the natural consequence. You still get to have your cool scene, but then the scene you added reinforces the connective tissue between your cool scenes.

The thing that baffles me in season two is they just didn't do that. That's why I'm so confused - putting in a scene I think is bad on a critical level is one thing, but choosing not to put in something that would be so obviously natural to include is baffling. It probably was an intentional writing choice, but not including such an obvious action -> consequence element makes it seem like they just forgot. I get that they were trying to resolve everything in one season so they had to be picky about what scenes they included, but if you ask me, following up the disappearances of several people is more important to me than than flashbacks or new plotlines.

Besides, if they DIDN'T want to write in such a way that would require extra scenes to properly connect all their different ideas together, then they should have included less ideas in the first place. Each act in s2 feels like it should have been a season by itself. It's harsh writing advice, but sometimes you really do have to kill your darlings. The writers do this a lot with individual scenes...

(See: them not including any jinx or sevika interactions after act 2 because somehow they felt like all the other scenes had already said anything that needed to be said, completely disregarding that having two characters bond for two whole arcs and then never talk onscreen again is weird.)

...But they seem unable to do this with any of the bigger concepts they want to play with, like the noxus invasion or hexcore brainwashing everyone. I say this as a viktor and mel enjoyer (not that mel ended up having anything to do with the noxus plotline anyway), but removing either one of those plotlines would have left the rest of the season a lot more room to breathe.

Anyway, it also wouldn't be so bad if this was just one character they did this with, but every single time a character goes missing (which includes Sky as well, now that I think about it) it sets up the expectation that surely at SOME point, SOMEONE is going to start looking for one of them, and then that expectation is never fulfilled. That's why I can't just call it bad but WEIRD. Like, why would you do that? It makes it seem like nobody cares about them. Actually, no, to be fair, the firelights do make a mural for ekko, so good on him for being the only missing person anyone actually cares about, I guess.

There's some stuff in arcane s2 that's bad, like, on a critical analysis level, but there's also some stuff that happens that's just plain weird. Like, did you notice any time someone disappears in s2, nobody goes looking for them? Jayce, Ekko and Heimerdinger go missing and nobody ever mentions it. Same for Mel. It makes it seem like they were only gone for two seconds, but they were definitely gone long enough to notice.

There's some stuff in arcane s2 that's bad, like, on a critical analysis level, but there's also some stuff that happens that's just plain weird. Like, did you notice any time someone disappears in s2, nobody goes looking for them? Jayce, Ekko and Heimerdinger go missing and nobody ever mentions it. Same for Mel. It makes it seem like they were only gone for two seconds, but they were definitely gone long enough to notice.

Why Episode 7 is the worst episode in all of Season 2.

This fuckass Timebomb ship is the worst thing to ever happen to Jinx's character.

Ok so finally we're gonna talk about Boy Savior Complex and AU Girl Next Door Powder

This is gonna be long. Also, we're not only talking about Episode 7 and Timebomb, we're also discussing Jinx's suicide attempt and how her character's resolution is actually really sad.

First of all, Jinx never liked Ekko back. Season 1 makes it pretty clear that they're friends, and that Ekko has an unrequited crush on her. His feelings are clear, but she never shows any reciprocation. And, no, the art book that came out after season 2 concluded doesn't count. You can't just put "the boy with the unrequited crush" trope in your story and then retract it.

And now to get to the serious part... who the fuck is AU Powder?

Ekko gets transported into this alternate timeline where we the audience soon realize everyone is happy and none of the conflicts that plague the original story exist and everything is perfect and "as it should be". So this is the ideal world and the one where all these characters reach their highest form of happiness. Even Silco is back with Vander.

And in this ideal world Powder is... a waitress at The Last Drop? I rewatched this episode and I genuinely tried to pay attention to see what does she actually DO. Like what occupies her time in this universe. And between Vander's line about how she's "too smart to be spending her life in a bar" and the fact that she is at one point behind the counter (while Ekko is studying his books... imma get back to that) and the fact that we never see her in any other places besides the bar and her hideout and that one time Ekko takes her out... this seems to be it.

So in the perfect timeline, Powder has decided to stay back with her family once she's grown up, to remain with Vander and help him run his bar, and implicitly has no big ambitions of her own, and definitely no ideas that she would sacrifice her family life for.

Now... Powder/Jinx as a family person is not actually wrong characterization. This is pretty congruent with her character in season 1. Her entire story and literally everything revolves around her family and not much else. When she's Powder she's attached at the hip to Vi and when she's Jinx she doesn't seem too interested in the world outside of her hideout and Silco's office. So considering all we know, yes, Jinx does place family first.

And this is pretty assumed by the show. Now, I also characterized her like this in season 1! She is a family girl. And Jinx happens to have all these people with big revolutionary ideas around her, be it Vander or Vi or Silco or Sevika, but she herself never actually seems much interested in that. She has a small moment in arc 1 of season 1, which i think it's significant to mention comes right after Vi plants the idea in her head. It would've been one thing if these ideas stayed with her, but post time-skip she doesn't bring anything like that up again. She mostly acts like a bored teenager whenever Silco drags her to the river to tell her all about his tragic past that radicalized him. Overall, any time she exhibits any revolutionary spirit, it seems to actually be more of a personal vendetta for her.

So, okay, Jinx is a family girl and she's never really actually been about all these big ideas, I can agree with the writers that this represents her character.

It's just that... this much?

Man, COME ON. There were people making "Everything's Perfect" AUs since season 1, and they almost all had Powder be a student at the Academy. This girl was clearly passionate about her little inventions, her bombs didn't work but she kept and kept trying. You're telling me she would be completely uninterested in learning more about engineering, in getting a formal education in that, in doing anything with it? Since in this world, there's peace between Piltover and Zaun, we can't talk about any barriers to her becoming a student. And, for that matter, in League lore there's an academy in Zaun, too, that she could have attended.

Even Ekko points it out, man. Now, to the writers' credit, the story acknowledges quite clearly that Powder choosing to stay with Vander and help him run the bar is weird. It just... never explains it. Like why is she like this, though? Let's throw out some possibilies:

(1) in some scenes, there seems to be a little "jinxiness" in this Powder, too. maybe she's aware of that side of her, and doesn't like it, and fears that if she went off and did what she wanted, and was truly herself, it would ruin what she has, "things are good now" (in this case, this Powder is actually a tragic character. nowhere near ideal timeline stuff.)

(2) in act 1 of season 1, the reason Vi makes Powder stay back is because she fears losing her, after Vander tells her that she might lose Powder in a confrontation with Piltover. since Vi dies in this universe, on a job, maybe in that moment Powder internalizes that rocking the boat in any way is bad. Vi was spirited and had big ideas and wanted to be someone and it led to her death. so maybe this Powder gave up on all of that then. Vander seems like the type to give her a "look what happens" speech, too.

But these are just my theories. This doesn't ever get properly explained in the show. So then maybe Powder is actually content like this and likes this and maybe these people constantly pestering her that she could do and be more are just annoying nuisances to her, same as Sevika is an annoying nuisance to Jinx in the original timeline (although there it makes significantly more sense).

(Also, why is Vi even dead in this universe? They could've easily found another way for Piltover and Zaun to make peace. Guess Jinx doesn't even get to be happy in the Perfect Timeline, goddamn, girl really is cursed after all.)

If you're gonna spend an entire episode on fix-it fanfiction that is supposed to pander to fans and give them, on screen, what they always wanted to see, why didn't we get grown up Powder in a cute academy uniform, being a top student and working on school projects and being loved by her professors cause girl was a prodigy.

Instead... this is Ekko in this universe, actually.

Ekko is the "big idea guy" and he's working on an entry to the innovations fair and he gets to be Heimerdinger's pupil. To her credit, this Powder still seems to be very smart, Ekko comes to her for help cause he can't actually build his invention alone. But she only uses her intellect to help Ekko. I always thought it would be Powder who would be Heimerdinger's pupil. Instead, here, she's hanging off Ekko's arm, and being all cute, as he discusses Important Stuff with Heimerdinger, stuff that she doesn't get to be privy to, but that she is expected to help them with anyway.

So AU Powder is this very smart girl who is helping her boyfriend build his entry for a contest because he can't actually do it himself but it's okay she'll help him of course and no he can take all the credit she doesn't want to be recognized or anything or to go to like University that would be crazy she's doing it cause she loves him and she's sweet like that and she likes to help others and she doesn't have any character traits that make her difficult she's just a cute funny and relatable down-to-earth girl and she pokes fun at Ekko but like in a loving way and she likes being a waitress and she'd rather be recognized for her dancing skills and................ I'm sorry.....................

So you're telling me Ekko gets transported into an alternate timeline in which his childhood crush who never liked him back is stripped of all her personality, has no goals or ambitions of her own and has no interests besides being his supportive girlfriend, is devoid of all the traits that might have made a relationship with her difficult, and despite the fact that she never showed interest in him in the original world, here she is head over heels for him, always acting all lovey-dovey with him and being nothing but a cute and affectionate puppy.

This is every little boy's with an unrequited crush dream right here. Man, Ekko won more than any other character in this show. And she's mentally ill, too! He's hit the jackpot. Y'all what the fuck am I watching.

I'm sorry but literally ALL I COULD FUCKING SEE WHEN I WAS WATCHING THIS STUPID DANCE SCENE was that in this universe Powder is a good christian girl who stays home with her dad and loves her boyfriend and is always happy to help WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GOOD GIRL PROPAGANDA get this bullshit OFF my fucking screen I cannot fucking believe what I'm watching here

Moving on.

Ekko has hurt Jinx more than any other character in the show.

Physically speaking.

Ekko is the one who does this.

Which leads to this.

Which ultimately leads to this.

It has always confused me and it continues to confuse me why no one in this fandom treats Jinx being injected with shimmer as a big deal, when this is the worst thing that happens to her post episode 3. And it's a point of no return for her character, she can't undo this. And yeah I know everyone thought Shimmer Jinx was cool in season 2, but her being turned into a half-dead monster is not a good progression for her character. She also goes through agonizing pain in the process.

Singed agrees.

It's Ekko who forces Jinx between death and being turned into a half-dead corpse. It's actually insane to me that no one in the fandom considers this and that this is never brought up in the show. If they wanted Jinx and Ekko to be a thing, you'd think this would be a big deal in their relationship. Ekko has changed her irreparably, for the worse.

Idk, is the guy who beat you up and left you for dead really boyfriend material?

This is the first moment Jinx shows any interest in Ekko. Interesting timing.

I'm pretty sure she doesn't even mention his name post act 3 of season 1. She doesn't wonder about whether he's alright after the bridge fight (for that matter, neither does he). The first time when Jinx looks at him with any hint of affection is when she's standing on a ledge, ready to throw herself off.

Jinx has no one anymore at this point. Her old family is long gone. Silco is dead. Isha is dead. Vi has decided having a good time with Caitlyn is more important than her. This is Jinx at her lowest moment. Does she like him back or is he just the only one who showed up?

Ekko is a winner once again. His crush has been abandoned by everyone, and he is the only one left to comfort her. Luck like this is hard to come by. And of course, she's gonna be super impressed and touched by any sliver of affection now. Probably gonna look at him with big, grateful eyes, and see him as her savior. I'm disgusted.

By the way, this should have never been Ekko. If Vi was too busy with fucking Caitlyn, this should have been Sevika. Sevika is the only character who has known Jinx since she was a child, and who has been with her through every iteration. And she's the only character who has never cared whether she's Jinx or Powder or any other persona she decides to take up, to her she'll always just be an annoying kid. And to Jinx this might actually be comforting. Sevika is the only one who has a realistic perspective on Jinx, and recognizes her flaws, so her talking her down might have actually been very touching, and there are things she could tell her that neither Vi nor Silco could.

(The fuck could Ekko tell her, honestly? That he went off to an alternate universe where she was his perfect girlfriend, so she shouldn't kill herself actually? What the fuck.)

I also wanna talk a bit about Jinx's resolution as a character. Not her fake-out death, but her in the last episode. I think it's interesting that everyone who had a connection to Jinx is gone, namely Silco and Isha. Silco and Isha are both people she chooses, actively, and she is herself around. Instead, now, she's back to Vi and Ekko, the same people that were with her in her childhood. This is a full circle moment for her.

This is Powder right here, guys. Powder was a little girl who made a mistake and then she went off on this journey where she met new people and she was someone else and it was fun for a while but ultimately she realized what she was doing was bad and she came back to her family and is ready to be that little, sweet girl again. The problem with the Powder-Jinx dichotomy is that Jinx, as much as she represents all this bad stuff that the show has made clear, also represents Freedom and Power, two things that Powder definitively lacked. Her coming full circle, coming back to Powder, is not actually a good resolution for her. She's right back where she started, with Vi and Ekko. Her venturing off on her own and making her own decisions was ultimately a mistake that only lead to her suffering. We can take this all the way back to when she decides to venture off on her own with that bomb, despite Vi's disagreement, and the consequences plague her for the rest of the story.

I know everyone thought it looked super cool when she lifted off that hood, but I could only think it was tragic.

Personally, I think it's reasonable

-ish

Vi could be convinced to wear the uniform, but NOT in the way she was convinced in the show.

Who cares about her love for Ca*tlyn??

It shouldn't be a part of the process of Vi turning into an enforcer.

VI might love Ca*t, but she loved Powder/Jinx for far longer. Vi's relationship with Ca*t can't compare to her relationship with Powder/Jinx.

Her entire time in jail was spent thinking of getting back to her little sis. The fact that her sister changed so much would hurt her. Badly. But she still loved her sister even after seeing Jinx joyfully shoot at Firelights.

She "created" Jinx—that would be her main reason for going after her sister herself, but for becoming an enforcer? No. That being said. . .

She could be manipulated into thinking that becoming an enforcer was the only way to get rid of Jinx.

Ca*tlyn was the only person Vi could turn to. The undercity was no longer the home she used to know and her time in prison would make her attached to anyone who freed her from that hellhole (even if that person only did so to use her). However, Vi's love for Ca*t still wouldn't be the reason why she'd become an enforcer.

Ekko lived in a secret hideout and both Ca*t and Vi were kidnapped soon after they were supposed to go their separate ways. Vi would've gone back to Powder/Jinx and would've done her best to reach out to the Powder inside Jinx alongside Ekko.

But she didn't because Ca*t and her were kidnapped together and because they both witnessed Jinx bomb the council.

This results in Vi comforting Ca*t and feeling responsible for the grief Ca*t experiences. With the feelings they share and knowing Vi's knowledge of the woman who killed her mother, Ca*t would, and did, use her romantic relationship with Vi as a way to get revenge against her mother's murderer.

It's not Vi's love for Ca*t and the guilt of creating Jinx that leads her to become an enforcer, it's Vi's belief that there's no other way for her to stop Jinx's violence that leads Vi to wear the badge her family's killers wore.

But this belief is only had because Ca*t put it into her head. Ca*tlyn is an enforcer and wants to stop Jinx. Stopping Jinx isn't something only Ca*t wants to do though. The councilors also want to stop Jinx.

Jinx is lawless; those who enforcer the law should be the ones to stop her.

So, in Ca*t's mind, if Jinx is to be stopped, Vi needs to join the side of the law to stop Jinx.

This, of course, is NOT the only way to stop Jinx, but Ca*t believes it to be and could make Vi believe it as well because no one else is around to tell her otherwise.

Topsiders won't say that Vi's relationship with Jinx can stop her.

Enforcers won't speak up against violence against those from the undercity.

Ekko is elsewhere, unable to speak, unable to fight against Vi becoming the enemy.

Had Ekko been around, or had Vi simply not been around mostly Topsiders, she would've never become an enforcer.

No, instead she's surrounded by people who think that to stop a criminal, an enforcer is needed.

And that is what would've/should've been the reason that Vi became an enforcer.

Not because Jinx needs to be stopped, not because Vi loved Ca*t, not because Vi "knew" there was no other way to stop her sister, not because some cute enforcer girl wanted people like Vi on their side,

But because no one around her argued that there was another way to stop Jinx,

because Ca*t could tell her over and over and over again that she needed Vi to wear that pig skin to stop the woman who killed her mother to stop Jinx

and no one was around to back Vi up when she originally said no.

I need ya'll brain.

What's your opinion about Vi becoming an enforcer at the end of S2E1?

Do you think it's reasonable enough for her to pick the badge or do you think it's OOC? What do you think her line of thinking here?

I'm still indicisive about the topic so I need more insight. Any thoughts are welcomed.

Not gonna reblog their post *cough* unlike this fuckass *cough* cause whatever, have ur opinion ig but I hate Cait/CaitVi stans—honestly, I hate everyone who can't let others have opinions without personally attacking them for it—butttt

I hate CaitVi stans sm

"frothing at their mouth"

Honey (derogatory), it's a rant on the internet—do you expect me to be all nice and kind? No. Fuck you. I can be as feral as I'd like. This isn't English class, I don't have to proofread my work if I don't want to. Did you really see me talking about Steb in red panties and me eating out Vi and think my rant was gonna be some serious philosophical shit? No. It's just a rant. Plain and simple.

"over lesbians making love 'impurely'"

I hate CaitVi in general. Don't expect me to like any CaitVi scenes. If it was Vi and Gert fucking like rabbits in a prison cell, I would be all for it, but Vi getting it on with a cop in a prison cell? Being on her knees on a hard floor? Seeking out sex as a coping mechanism which I'm supposed to be. . . Okay with? I wouldn't hate the sex scene if it wasn't for the dynamics CaitVi have and the writers thinking lowly of Vi and Zaunites in general.

Fuck cops. Fuck copaganda. Like Caitlyn if you want, but you can like her while acknowledge the propaganda the show portrays and how insufferable the dynamics people think are cute are actually horrible.

Omg so cute Vi can't read so Caitlyn reads for her 🥰🥰 Omg Vi is Caitlyn's mutt haha Caitlyn is so sophisticated and smart and Vi is a dirty street rat who can barely read 😍😍 people are so stupid the council didn't deserve what happened to them because they were just now starting to get things done (and only to instantly switch and want to start a war because of what ONE Zaunite did) 🤬🤬 Caitlyn is a good person—everything she did was justified 100%!1!!1!1

I like Jayce, but I won't hate on those who don't like him because I understand he is far from perfect. There're so many things I see from various Arcane fans that tick me off because of how they treat characters that are minorities, but CaitVi's/Caitlyn's stans are the worst of them

THIS THIS THIS

watching arcane s2 completely fumble jinx’s arc genuinely made me so so upset, i’m still fucking mad about it honestly

I think I took for granted how good She-Ra is. Like it is a MIRACLE that a show like this exists, you know?

Idk, watching the Arcane finale and seeing it fumble the things it set up for itself in season 1, ditching complex and complete set-ups and pay-offs for cheap parallels that don’t always make sense; it made me realize how fucking lucky we got with spop.

There are a lot of incredible things about the show, about how pretty much every character in the show is queer, how trauma is represented, complex themes interweaved beautifully in a TV-7 rating show.

BUT

I feel like we as a ~ society don’t talk enough about the set-ups and pay-offs in the show. The fact that nothing in the show comes out of left field and how every piece of dialogue serves a function and sets the characters up. The characters in spop will never act out of character for a line, or to further the plot. Their consistency is incredible.

Let’s take Jinx and Catra for example. Jinx has complex mental health issues that were at the center of everything in szn 1, so she had a lot of symptoms and she was able to be messy and frustrating and realistic in her disorder. Then szn 2 came around and somehow her symptoms are mostly cured - which ok, we can chalk that up to Isha’s presence in her life, which yeah, her hallucinatory symptoms partly come back when Isha goes missing. Although, this would mean that they’re setting up that if Isha is not in Jinx’s life, then her symptoms would come back full force no?

Isha dies and there is absolutely nothing that pays off in terms of this little set up they did. Jinx becomes suicidal, but her other, more complex, more “able to ruin plot plans” symptoms disappear in its entirety. This is a character whose complexity is determined by what the plot needs to do.

Catra also has complex mental issues, and those NEVER go away for the sake of plot expediency, in fact, the plot baked Adora and Catra’s conflict in the center of it all from the very beginning. This means that Catra gets to act realistically all throughout the show and that furthers the plot. Catra doesn’t get rescued and all of a sudden her trauma goes away for the sake of redeeming her faster. Catra has not been healed at the end of the show, she is beginning to heal. She is allowed to explore the depths of her trauma and symptoms and instead of speeding through it, the show says - here, go down to rock bottom, get rescued and be unable to say thank you, get re-triggered by your abuser and run away at the very end of the show. And also, here are some characters that will call you out on your behavior, here is an emotional support animal, here, the person you love and have pushed away from, never hated you!! Her healing always feels like it’s a deliberate choice from Catra bc of what tools the show is giving her, not bc the plot needs to move forward now.

And in terms of set-ups and pay-offs. I mean…. It’s actually nuts. Characters’ dialogues literally bake themselves into other characters. Shadow Weaver tells Adora “Catra distracts you, confuses you” and Adora later tells Bow and Glimmer (after calling SW out btw) “I am distracted and confused and I cant be any of those things if this is going to work” which creates the final moments of the show.

Angella tells Adora “take care of each other” and Adora internalizes it as “I have to take care of Glimmer” bc of her trauma, and that leads her to be very controlling with Glimmer, which creates conflict in their relationship, which creates the heart of Etheria situation, which creates the Horde Prime situation.

SW tells Catra that she abused her bc Catra reminded her of herself. In that same episode, where SW’s past is explored, they both say “it doesn’t matter what I do, my authority figure doesn’t trust me”, we can see how Catra begins to emulate SW’s authority style throughout the show.

The show starts with SW telling Adora “isn’t this what you’ve wanted since you were old enough to want anything?” and it ends with Catra asking her “what do you want, Adora?” which sets up the conclusion of Adora’s entire arc.

Even little things, like Entrapta telling Wrong Hordak it’s ok to make facial expressions and Wrong Hordak being animated copying character’s facial expressions for practice after that.

ITS JUST SO GOOD THE WRITING IN THIS SHOW IS RIDICULOUS.

Y’all are very strange creatures to show more empathy toward Caitlyn than the workers in the Lanes she gassed, just because they’re labeled as ‘criminals.’ It should be common sense that, given the state of Zaun, this might be the only way they can sustain themselves— a situation created by Piltover’s neglect and oppression. And let’s not forget, even kids were [forced to] work for the Chembarons. Gas is not going to go “minor detected, must swerve!!!”

But somehow, we gotta have this endless empathy for Caitlyn, as if her mom wasn’t also part of the problem. “The people of the underground deserve to breathe”— wow that’s like the bare minimum, thanks Cassandra.

All of the councilors (except maybe Mel? not sure) were against an independent Zaun. People were still living in horrible conditions. She’s in a position of power and is still complicit with all the other issues Zaunites face. Cassandra Kiramman was NOT a good person and she could’ve done so much more for Zaun than improve the air quality.

Do we even know what areas of Zaun were ventilated? Was it ever stated? /genq

I don't really think OP is saying that their crimes aren't crimes, just that they're still citizens that Cait gasses. They're point was that selling drugs and engaging in gang violence isn't really too bad of a crime when a lot of these people are just trying to get by.

It's a system put in place by the people on top (Piltover's leaders) who do nothing to really help Zaun or it's people. That ofc leads to Zaun's people trying to put money on the table in more underhanded ways. Not unlike lower funded places America.

These people shouldn't be GASSED with something that can def kill them (look at season 1 Viktor) because they are low tier criminals.

Its kind of the equivalent of literally dropping Asbestos on a city to clear the area. Sure you'd probably accomplish your goal but that's still a war crime and pretty awful overall.

And the grey being released wasn't a punishment for petty theft. It was used as a way to get Jinx, so by your logic it would still be wrong because your rights weren't taken away for crimes you yourself have committed, they were taken away because you happen to live IN Zaun.

^^^———

It is WILD that you say “selling drugs and engaging in gang turf war does not make you not a citizen” as if that changes the fact that they’re still CRIMES.

I mean, if your logic is that Zaun is technically part of Piltover and thus falls under Piltover’s jurisdiction… committing a CRIME under their jurisdiction means you can suffer consequences from your actions. No? It doesn’t MATTER if you’re a citizen or not. Being a citizen doesn’t give you free rein to do whatever you want! You have to obey laws!

If I’m a citizen of a city in America, and I do a crime, the police of that city are allowed to take away my rights as a citizen. That’s what being a citizen in a functional society MEANS!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU WEIRD ASS MOTHER FUCKERS????

I witnessed people dying in real time

It’s 11:53 pm, I am a big fat lesbian for Jinx and Mel, and about to start season 2. Wish me luck

Also. I have to mention the fact that the enforcers don’t HAVE to parallel cops specifically. They’re “enforcers”. Look back in history to any violent regime and you’ll find more parallels between the enforcers and them.

they’re not just cops- they’re the idea of violence carried out via the government, and that’s never been a North American specific issue.

"Stop projecting your America-centric view of cops onto the enforcers in Arcane!" as if the very first shot in season 1 isn't a bloodbath with Vi and Powder's parents having been murdered by enforcers, as if we don't witness multiple violations of their power in season 2 and as if police brutality isn't a global issue.