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- 'cause all of my enemies started out friends help me hold onto you (you could stay)

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Arcane

Okay, so I thought Season One of Arcane was a really good story with really good art. Fun characters, emotional moments, lots of good action.

Season Two is unlike anything I've ever seen. I've never had a show raise the bar like this. The art, not just good but mind-blowing. The emotional moments, gutting. Shocking. Devastating. But still with moments of humor, and so much warmth. The betrayals. The redemptions. I truly have never seen anything like it. I'm absolutely blown away. I don't even know how to describe it to people, because if I tried to just summarize an episode, it doesn't sound that incredible. But in context, with the soundtrack blasting and the colors on the screen and the face acting in this goddamn animated cartoon about a video game, I literally don't know how to explain it.

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Arcane Season 2, Part Two

Okay, the theme I think they're exploring is how one person can have disproportional influence, whether they're trying to or not, especially when they're stepping into a hole left by someone or something else. The universe hates a vacuum, but what (who) steps into that vacuum can change everything.

Vi and Powder were probably on track to be normal kids in Zaun, but when the Enforcers kill their parents, Vander steps in. His influence is a good one, but different, and they grow up good but maybe a little more rough.

Powder is abandoned by Vi at the same time they lost Vander. Silco steps into that gap, and under his influence, Powder's worst impulses are fed and she becomes a monster, Jynx. When Silco is dead and she ends up with Isha in that emptiness, it brings out more of her goodness and playfulness, and she softens again.

As for Vi, she never lets one person fully fill the emptiness that Vander left. The first person she really lets get close to her is Caitlyn. Under Cait's influence, she becomes (reluctantly) more willing to go along with the establishment, to try to trust the Council and Enforcers. But then when Caitlyn betrays her, she spirals and self-destructs. Until Jynx returns and tries to reassemble their little family, and you see Vi start to hope for that again, and start to forgive.

As for Cait, in the vacuum left after her mother's death, her first instinct is to pull Vi closer (especially since her father refuses to step up and fill that hole). But the main thing left in that hole is anger and grief, and when Ambessa steps in, she presses Cait to feed that anger. Cait also has most of Piltover calling Zaun animals, saying they must be dealt with, and to focus on the Greater Good, the ends justifying the means. In the vacuum left by her betrayal of Vi and the loss of her mother, that influence gets to her. But into that vacuum of Vi, she also lets in Maddie, who appeals to her better angels.

In the absence of Viktor, Jayce flails, burying himself in work and withdrawing from everyone around him, working himself into a froth. He stabilizes a little under Heimerdinger and Ekko's influence, but when he learns the truth(?) about Hextech and what he has done by unleashing it, it pushes him over the edge. Without Viktor and Heimerdinger to talk things through, he jumps to all his own conclusions and goes rogue.

And it happens on a larger scale, too. In the absence of a figurehead like Vander, Zaun ends up putting Jynx on a pedestal, because she's the only one to successfully fight back. Others cling to Viktor, who seems like he must have all the answers. We'll see in the next few episodes if Sevika succeeds in stepping into a unifying role or if Zaun is too divided. Similarly, above ground, in the vacuum left by the council, Piltover looks to Caitlyn-- because of her family name and her job, not because they know anything about her.

But influence isn't absolute. Despite Vander's influence, Vi abandoned Powder in her moment of grief and pain-- even if she regrets it within minutes. Cait does the same to Vi years later, in her own moment of grief and pain, but despite Ambessa's influence, she doesn't completely lose sight of her desire for good and justice. (We know from the dialogue that she personally forbade the use of Stillwater's worst cells-- her own baby prison reform.) And when Vi gives her the opportunity, she still knows what's right.

It's just example after example of someone filling an absence with their own influence, sometimes intentionally, often unintentionally. And even outside of "good" or "bad" influences, at the very least, the influences feed different parts of their existing nature. Despite Silco's influence, Jynx still has a soft side, and when Isha feeds that instead of her resentment, it changes her. Cait's grief and anger, and her fear of Jynx, when fed by Ambessa, blind her to her desire for actual justice and peace.

I just think it's neat, okay?

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Detective Agnes and her .. uh.. dog?

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ahh caitlyn my beloved.

let's talk about the trauma she has around jinx, in particular, in a way i think is more related to being targeted by jinx than just grief.

don't get me wrong- grief is a huge part of why caitlyn is all over the place this arc (season?). she probably came to the conclusion that her softer, pacifistic attitude from the first season is the reason she ended up hurt. clearly the rocky relationship she had with her mother adds a layer of bitterness and regret caitlyn is feeling regarding her death. alongside a million different reasons, which i might discuss in a different post.

but there's a clear difference between the anger and coldness we see from caitlyn when she discusses catching jinx and bringing her to justice, than when she faces jinx head on. in the latter, she suddenly loses her cool and acts all frantically, so unlike anything we've seen from caitlyn so far.

in her mind, in episode 1, she sees herself as collected and calm, aiming her rifle at jinx. btw, take note of how jinx is depicted here. her eyes are glowing.

but in reality, she's very much NOT cool and collected when she thinks that exact scenario is about to be replicated.

that's caitlyn's pov btw:

again jinx with the glowing eyes- caitlyn had seen what jinx looks like in other circumstances, but THIS is the version of her that she visualizes and then irrationally reacts to.

we see it again when she shoots jinx in the finger

no composure, no deep breathe, no thinking. she just shoots on instinct. it's nothing like she used to.

and then her frantically calling vi to move out of the way as she keeps firing, almost like shes blind to everything but jinx- the kid and vi, who are both in harm's way, don't stop her.

i know it's easy to just paint it as anger and grief here, but there's something about it that strikes me as almost like animalistic fear. she sees jinx and just goes feral mode, but its almost more of a prey instinct than a predator.

and i think it's because whenever she faces jinx, properly, it's not the grief and radicalized anger she's feeling, it just sends her back to this moment

with all the "jinx murdered her mom" talk its easy to forget that jinx also directly, and cruelly, targeted caitlyn, tried to kill her, kidnapped her and held her hostage for who knows how long. it's not just anger that caitlyn feels towards jinx. it's a trauma response. and like, welcome to the club, caitlyn! most of the arcane cast are acting out of trauma. but i better not see people think her trauma is somewhat lesser than some... other.. characters.

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Arcane Season Two

Okay, so the first three episodes of the second season of Arcane have melted my brain, and I love it.

The first season I watched twice, both on my laptop while I played Mass Effect on my desktop. I planned to do the same for the second season, so I got ME all loaded up, started an easy mission I wouldn't have to give my full attention to, and hit play.

Five minutes later, a Thresher Maw ripped Shepard's face off while presumably Garrus and Wrex watched in bewilderment as she fired at Jupiter because I was unable to look away from Arcane for even a minute.

Truly, this season is teaching me how rampant my second-screening has become by making it impossible. I gave up on my Mass Effect plans, put Arcane on my big desktop screen, and spent all three episodes on the literal edge of my seat, screaming internally and frequently externally.

Some reasons (not exhaustive):

The fucking ART. Oh my GOD. I'm not even someone who has strong opinions about animation, but HOLY SHIT. Season One's animation and style was good, but this season has taken it to a whole new level-- a level that I did not know existed. I want to watch it on a giant IMAX, or like one of those Omnimax theaters at the Science Center, where it could literally melt my eyes out of my head. It's actually heartbreaking that I can't watch it in like a movie theater. I could cry.

The music, same, though to me the music choices are on par with the first season (which also did an amazing job with it). "Heavy is the Crown" literally shook me.

An extension of the above, the fight scenes and montages are both so fucking amazing, I don't even know what to do with myself. I've been shaking random friends by the shoulders who don't even watch the show, trying to explain why I'm suddenly feral.

I knew this would be a season where the characters would let out their dark sides. Cait's arc is so dark but so in-character for her, but in a way that makes me scream and scream. And when Vi said she was ready, we all knew she wasn't, but it was still so satisfying to see it play out-- how close she got.

Long story short, I can't believe that this season is set to surpass S1 in my mind, but I am so fucking ready for the next episodes to drop. I am suffering. I am screaming. I am squealing in glee.

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i'm a writer irl (can't say who because my agent would rightfully put me into a blender and press the button if i go and out myself as "balrogballs") and honestly the funniest and most humiliating incident of my life was the time my finished manuscript triggered a plagiarism flag with the publisher for two lines of prose in my literary fiction novel...

.... which was word for word similar to a paragraph in a certain explicit work on FFN starring elrond and his batsman from the hobbit films, aka that one elf that looked like he ate panic attacks for breakfast (i forget his name but it's Figwit II) where the lord of imladris bends said twink over his writing desk and gives him the battering ram treatment.

and if you think i had to sit in front of one if the biggest publishing companies in the world and admit that it was, in fact, me who wrote the fic where the lord of imladris bends said twink over his writing desk and gives him the battering ram treatment in order to avoid being wrongly flagged for plagiarism, you would be absolutely correct.

(yes they published the book)

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November 9, 1989 

The fall of the Berlin Wall

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Rio Vidal after she met Agatha Harkness

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Agatha All Along I Maiden Mother Crone

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i need them badly

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Rio & Agatha in Agatha All Along (2024) - 1.01 Seekest Thou The Road

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Growing up is actually all about realizing people don’t inherently dislike you and it’s a bit odd to assume they do

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This drives me batshit insane when I want screenshots or gifs to post when talking to other fans. Even if I BOUGHT THE DAMN THING on like AppleTV or Prime, it's still blocked. WHY IS IT STILL BLOCKED. I OWN IT.

(I know, I know, owning isn't owning anymore. We live in a copyright dystopia. But IT'S SO DUMB.)

“To protect their copyright, streaming sites do not allow for screenshotting of any kind.”

Hey remember VHS where you bought a box to plug into your tv and you could legally record whatever was playing and then own it for free forever

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Sometimes a family can be a recently opened cold one, an ace engineer, an ex-con priest, a lesbian pirate doctor, a survivalist expert with a tragic past, an emotional support himbo, a mad scientist, and a roomba.

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I know my g-valves from my catalyzers, and I can keep your ship singing.