#Arcane critical

[sandraharissa]

the thing with the flag is that even tho it makes me mad it is an extremely cool visual and idea, and I wonder whether it was the animation team struggling to put as much meaning into the vapid script as they could so I kinda am thankful for it, but also, with this one they did shoot somebody in the foot cos it just highlights how irrelevant Jinx's role in the revolution was by showing how meaningful it could have been

the thing that really gets me is this look they gave her, I love it but this never happened. Jinx never came to understand that this is bigger than her, she never shows understanding and admiration for the vision of an independent nation, as far as it went is she just embraced that some ppl view her as a "big fat hero"

the insane thing is that I never expected them to have Jinx become a true-blue revolutionary, I thought that maybe she could still ultimately serve the revolutionary purpose while having personal motivations, but then they showed me this

and I was like 'oh we're doing it? like all the way?'

and then they didn't 🤦🤦🤦

[rowie264]

If someone criticizes something, it doesn't mean that they hate it. It also works the other way around. If you like something, it doesn't mean that it's done well from an objective point of view.

I love Jinx. Her design, her story, her personality, her character arc... I was just fascinated by her. Jinx has become one of my favorite characters in media in general. It was the continuation of her story that I was waiting for the most.

Jinx is still my favorite character in season 2. I love almost every scene with her. How she did Sevika's arm and the subsequent fight with the Smeech, the fight with Vi in Act 1, the prison break, search for Vander in the mines, epic appearance during the battle against Noxus.

I got a lot of positive emotions while watching s2 and especially during Jinx's appearance on the screen. But… an emotional response and objective assessment are two different things. And objectively, Jinx's character in season 2 is OOC and poorly written.

Removing very importand part of her story and personality. Her mental issues almost completely disappear. This is a very important aspect of her character. And no, Isha's presence and a "more favorable environment" would not heal her, the whole 2nd act is completely unrealistic and looks stupid, since all her problems with her mental health were magically solved off-screen;

Irrelevant piece of plot. Her arc of "Zaun symbol" passes by her - she becomes a symbol by accident, ignores the consequences and directly encounters all this revolutionary mood only during Isha's saving from Stillwater (at the same time saving her followers - an indirect action, not a purposeful one). So this arc is kinda about her, but she doesn't seem to participate in it herself, and it ends with literally nothing (like the whole Zaun revolution);

Making her more appealing to wider audience. Her hatred of Piltover and Caitlyn just disappeared. Yes, while she was with Vi in the mines she said "piltie goons who murdered mom and dad," but… that's all? Jinx doesn't kill a single enforcer in the entire 2nd season (although, for example, she could have in Stillwater) and tells Caitlyn "I didn't know your mother was there." Let me remind you that Jinx literally giggled in s1 when she killed a dozen enforcers during gemstone kidnapping, killed enforcers on the bridge without any care, she hated Caitlyn fiercely because she "stole" her sister from her, and she couldn't not know that Cassandra was a councilor. It isn't showed how and why she changed her opinion and this is important thing to her character, you can't explain such change with microexpressions or parallels;

Unrealistic happy family reunion. The reunion of Jinx, Vi, and Vander is a spectacular moment from Disney. Do you remember how Jinx reacted when Vi returned? Yes, she was happy but as soon as she spotted Cait she freaked out and immidiately thought that Vi betrayed her. Imagine what would happen if her supposedly dead - bc of her btw - father had returned and now looks like some animal;

Silco mattered much more to Jinx. A very "subtle" replacement of Silco for Vander in the role of father (Jinx calls him father, sniffs Vander's jacket and not Silco's), although Silco played probably a bigger role in this? And Jinx remembers about him like 2 times? Although it's been about 7-10 years since Vi's "death" in season 1, Jinx was still triggered by just a similar appearance. Apparently, Silco wasn't that important to Jinx (which is not true); I could still keep talking about Jinx, but let's leave it at that.

I love Jinx even in season 2. I like watching scenes with her. But my emotional attachment doesn't stop me from seeing that Jinx's character in s2 is not a continuation of Jinx's character of the end of s1. Her image is broken, the arcs are not completed, the relationships with other characters are poorly written.

[fulcrums501st]

S2 skipping over Jinx and Ekko bonding, rallying zaunites together, and both realizing they can built a new future, motivating them to fight for Zaun is the equivalent of taking s1 ep9 or arcane, keeping it the exact same, except the dinner party scene happens off-screen and we just cut to Jinx blowing up the council.

[thenationofzaun]

My Jinx was missing from Season 2.

Where was the Jinx who lured enforcers into a trap, taunted them, then murdered them while laughing?

Where was the Jinx who killed a crow just because it surprised her, and just because she could, then used its feathers as bookmarks?

Where was the Jinx who massacred Firelights with no hesitation or remorse, and was so violent towards them that even Vi was shocked?

Where was the Jinx who straddled Silco and repeatedly stabbed him in the face because she thought he lied to her?

Where was the Jinx who blew enforcers to pieces on the bridge, then stalked through the bloody aftermath, mercilessly picking off survivors one by one while humming a song?

Where was the Jinx who smiled while tormenting Vi by pretending she had Caitlyn's severed head on a platter?

Where was the Jinx who tied Sevika up, hit her, and threatened to cut her other arm off just for an interrogation, then strung her upside down after she got her answer?

Where was the Jinx who smiled like a gleeful child while shooting at people and when told of all the enforcers she killed?

Where was the Jinx who, in rage and grief after losing Silco, fired a Hextech rocket directly at the Council while hearing his voice telling her to let them burn?

Where was the terrifying and threatening force of destruction I fell in love with? She appeared a little in Season 2 Act 1, then never again. Did Baby Yoda give her a personality transplant along with curing her mental illness?

Where was this girl?

[sex-drugz-rockroll]

Legit got jumped in a comment section this morning by a certain subsect of the shippers (I'll give you 3 guesses 😒) like, I ship them too, but like, they make themselves sound stupid with how they are dick riding the same execs that refused to give us representation for DECADES. the rep is good, but it could and should be better

by the way. people are allowed to complain about this season feeling rushed. i don’t know when it became a thing in this fandom to completely jump people who have valid complaints like YES arcane is a fantastically produced and beautifully animated show and nobody will be able to top it but they did start things with some characters only for it to never go anywhere so it can all be wrapped up in three episodes 😭

[lullabyes22-blog]

Arcane Fandom drinking game.

tw: racism, misogyny, classism, ableism.

tw: fandoms in general, ig?

Take a shot if:

Sevika is reduced to this exoticised, hypersexualized, sub human caricature with no exploration into her motivations, her family, her issues as a disabled woman or her experiences as a working class person who grew up in a literal slum - and instead serves as a sex toy with body heat, who exists solely to get the reader off.

Take two shots of she is neutered instead of oversexualized, and reduced to the Mammy stereotype wherein her only purpose is to roll her eyes and provide commentary on the (white) characters/readers' antics, the latter of which drive the plot.

Take a shot if:

Mel Medarda is reduced to a living example of the Jezebel stereotype: oversexualized in the most dehumanizing and demeaning language possible, made a literal receptacle for other characters' desires with no attempt to engage with her motivations as a politician or her feelings as a woman, or else blamed for every single problem in the show, because apparently an ambitious woman is synonymous with 'The face of pure evil,' a woman who has sex and uses it to express agency is an insatiable slut, and a black woman is literally the devil incarnate.

Take two shots if she's taken the other extreme, and her ambitions, flaws, and sexuality have been wiped away completely, leaving only a hyperperfect husk of a character behind, for us to rally around with empty cries of 'Yaas Queen!' and no attempt to critically examine a) the problematic nature of the praise and b) the essence of what makes her human, and what drives her forward, in the first place.

Take a shot if:

Ekko is reduced to his crush on Powder/Jinx, with no attempt to engage with the complexity of the fact that his best friend warped into a monster, nor the ways in which he himself is a product of Zaun's poverty and his relationship with his community, the impact of trauma on children, his complex relationship with violence and his own moral compass, nor the fact that he is an activist, a freedom fighter, an artist, and an engineer, all at age eighteen.

Take a double shot if the characterization veers the other way, and he is portrayed as 'Forever Alone' because black men cannot have healthy relationships, do not deserve to have a full range of complex emotions, and should be punished by having their most deeply held wishes, friendships, and loves crushed to dust before their eyes, for daring to dream of a better life and a world that loves them.

Take a shot if:

Jayce Talis is not even acknowledged in fanworks as a mixed race man, nor as a person of color, with no attempt to engage with the complexity inherent in his experience of privilege, and the ways in which he is a product of his upbringing, and where these factors intersect with class commentary. Take a half shot if the character is whitewashed, and turned into the kind of bland, boring, vanilla caricature that we're used to seeing in media in perpetuity, who exists as a foil to the villains, a symbol of virtue, and a blank slate on which the viewer is meant to project themselves and their own beliefs.

Take a full shot if the character is the epitome of the white savior trope: a smug, paternalistic, know-it-all white man, whose self-assurance in his own superiority allows him to walk in and take over a conflict, then tell people what to do.

Take two shots if characterization veers the other extreme and he's just a sweet, dumb, himbo puppyboy with no personality, no goals, no desires, and no motivations of his own, save for making Viktor happy and doing his best to be a good boy.

Take three shots if Mel is the one leading him by the nose, because nothing says 'nuance' like making a black woman the villain for the sin of having agency and not existing solely for vilification.

Drink the whole bottle if:

Caitlyn, an Enforcer and a Councilor's daughter, is portrayed as a sympathetic sweetheart angelcake, without being forced to confront the actions of the state and the institution of which she is a part, without being forced to face the consequences of her complicity in the system that oppresses others, nor without being forced to recognize the fact that her actions and her words are not, in and of themselves, inherently just, and the fact that her privilege does not automatically grant her moral authority.

Drink another if she is portrayed as a damsel, an innocent, a child who needs to be protected and cared for, rather than a full person with agency and a complex emotional landscape of her own.

Drink again if the characterization leans the other way and she is turned into a classist caricature, an entitled bitch who doesn't even realize she's the bad guy, or gets turned into a literal Nazi because, once again, folks cannot engage with complex topics such as classism, racism, ableism, etc. and instead resort to infantilizing, simplistic, and reductive portrayals.

Stop drinking and switch to cyanide if her characterization hinges on her relationship with Vi, within which Caitlyn is the dominant top here to 'tame' this feral subhuman, with no understanding of the uncomfortable and undeniably harmful implications of such a power dynamic.

Drink the rest of the alcohol stash if:

Vi, an adult, a former convict and a street savvy survivor, is reduced to an angsty, moody, petulant puppydog off her leash, unable to take responsibility for her own actions, and her trauma is treated as an excuse for her behavior.

Drink another bottle if she is portrayed as a hypermasculine, toxic, violent, and Cait is the one forced to tame her, make her behave, and bring her into line, and her relationship with Vi is portrayed as inherently parent-child, or worse, caretaker-charge, without any regard for Vi's autonomy and right to be flawed as a human being.

Drink a fifth if Vi is portrayed as a hypersexualized aggressor for the audience's titillation, with no attempt to engage with the fact that butch lesbian women have more complex emotions than 'sex starved nymphomaniac', nor the ways in which Vi's abuse, abandonment, and trauma have impacted her relationship with intimacy and sexuality. Drink another if the characterization shifts the other way and Vi becomes a sexless robot who has no personality or wants, nor is given room to grieve for her family, her home, or her own trauma, and is instead expected to bounce back, get over it, and move on as nothing more than Caitlyn' Brave Buff Gf (tm).

Drink the entire bar if:

Viktor, a disabled man, is depicted as a neurotic, fragile, jittery wreck. Take two bottles if his disability is treated as a punchline, or the defining characteristic of his existence, and the only time we're meant to consider his body or his physical pain is when he's having an episode and collapsing, or having a coughing fit, and it's treated as a joke, rather than something which affects him and his ability to function.

Take three bottles if he's taken the other extreme and he is twinkified and babygirlified, and his sexuality and his love life are the only thing we're meant to care about, and his romantic relationship with Jayce is the only thing he's allowed to have, lest the audience think too hard about the ways in which he and his work might benefit Zaun, or how the Council might respond to a disabled person from an underprivileged background.

Take a fourth if the characterization shifts and he's reduced to a hypersexualized toy: a broken doll to be pitied and fetishized and cared for, and Jayce is his Daddy, his owner, his caregiver, his knight in shining armor, all in one.

Take a fifth if, in the midst of all this, his relationship with his disability, and the ways in which it has impacted his life and his choices, is completely glossed over.

Take six if his relationship with his disability is not even acknowledged.

Switch to cocaine if:

Jinx, one of the most complex characters in the show, and the only one with any sort of internal consistency, is reduced to a whiny helpless brat who just wants a hug and an explanation for her widdle feewings from a big strong grownup.

Take an eightball if her relationship with her sister, her trauma, and her mental health is reduced to the 'Hot Psycho' trope: an excuse to play up the 'cool' aspect of her personality while completely ignoring the trauma at the heart of her actions/behavior. Take another if the characterization swings the other way, and she's reduced to a one-dimensional villainess, a demon, an amoral monster, and the only motivation for her actions is the fact that she is a crazy bitch, and the only reason for her existence is to serve as a foil for Vi's goodness and the audience's own hangups re: mental illness and critically engaging with the more unpalatable aspects of human behavior.

Switch to crack if her relationship with Silco or Vi is not even mentioned.

Pour a glass of absinthe if:

Silco, a single parent, a survivor of violence at the hands of a loved one, a victim of systemic abuse, and a revolutionary, is portrayed as the ultimate villain, and his desire to fight for a better life for his community is somehow worse than the Council's decision to literally silence everyone in the undercity via chemical runoff, political neglect and police brutality.

Pour two if he is a cartoonish, hamfisted boogeyman, with no sense of his humanity, nor the ways in which he is a product of the same systems that hurt every undercity character, and the ways his actions replicate the cycle of abuse and hurt the ones he seeks to save in turn.

Pour a third if he becomes an unrepentant sadist, a child abuser and a sexual predator, and there is nothing loving or fatherly about his relationship with Jinx.

Pour four if the character is taken to the other extreme and he's sanctified as a literal martyr and hero, and all his wrongdoing is glossed over because he's just a ~victim~, and everything he does is justified, no matter how terrible, because he had a traumatic childhood or his abusive ex didn't die soon enough. Eat the sugarcube if his bond with Jinx is suddenly a wholesome Disneyfied gag-fest wherein he calls her "Pumpkin" and babies her like a toddler, and their relationship has zero codependent overtones, and she's suddenly a sweet innocent who doesn't have blood on her hands, same way he's not the one who sanctioned it.

Eat the bottle of absinthe if Silco is given the tumblr sexyman treatment, and suddenly he's just a walking Daddy Kink, with no regard for the ways in which he is a complex person, nor the ways in which he and other characters might actually interact, or his history or his trauma or the way it impacts his life.

Drink the whole liquor cabinet if:

Zaun is portrayed as a dystopian hellscape rather than a robust, vibrant, diverse community, with a wide range of experiences and a deep and nuanced relationship with authority, power, and violence. Break into the cellar if, instead, it's just a shitty stereotypical ghetto, full of criminals, addicts, and victims.

Light a cigarette if Piltover, a technological juggernaut that also has a diverse immigrant population, and a vibrant and rich cultural identity, is reduced to a bland, generic, vanilla utopia, and is full of pompous blowhards who have never engaged with the undercity outside the scope of the narrative.

Light a molotov cocktail if it swings the opposite direction and Piltover is turned into an neoliberal nightmare, a soulless, shiny, hollow, plastic, faceless wasteland, populated only by vapid, shallow, self absorbed stooges and shills who have no depth or personality of their own.

Throw the molotov and light the house on fire if:

'Piltover and Zaun' is not even mentioned, and there is no acknowledgement of the way these two cities shape the cast of characters who reside within these systems, much less a mention of the ways in which the characters might not be fully representative of the communities they are a part of, and the fact that they are still very much human beings with individual experiences.

If you didn't get alcohol poisoning, a whopping hangover, or a charge of arson: congratulations.

You win.

[whatdidtheydotomygirljinx]

it's also weird that they choose to go with this mentally healthy and sane jinx version for season 2 because if they decided they didn't wanna write jinx anymore and were like "this character's too complicated man fuck it we wanna write it back to something more 2-dimensional" the obvious solution would've been to go back to crazy psycho killer jinx, the one that's literally in league and that is supposed to be the actual character in arcane. and it would've actually made sense because it would be right after silco's death and you could argue that it would be a realistic character progression

instead we get this entirely new character that is neither the league jinx nor the arcane jinx and it's just this whole new thing that comes out of nowhere

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

remember how in ATSV, Gwen's dad quits his job as a cop, because it required him to arrest innocent people, including his own daughter?

or how in Carmen Sandiego, Julia gives up her job as an investigator, after realizing that Carmen was a good person but the ACME still wanted to capture her?

i just wish we would have gotten something like this with Caitlyn. it's really disappointing to see a character with so much potential being completely assassinated like this.

at no point does Caitlyn realize that her job as an enforcer is only harming people.

at no point does she consider the fact that her own girlfriend was a victim of police brutality and classism, and that maybe she shouldn't continue to endorse and enable it.

there was an opportunity for growth, where Caitlyn realizes how much harm she has done, and thus decides to quit her job.

it's like the writers for s2 were completely different people, the way they entirely missed the point of the first season.

[endearing-dalliance]

The (justified) rage here gives me life.

The people praising Arcane seem to always only focus on specific stuff so I want to ask anyone to praise this:

1. Sevika's story, please go on. Praise it. Tell me how good she was after episode 4, I am waiting?

2. The firelights. Go ahead tell me how much we saw them and how the Tree came back and was tied into the story, tell me how they got screen time and how their story got told?

3. Ekko. Tell me how good it was to make him ignore his home after he went to Jayce to get it fixed. Tell me how great his character arc was after they got rid of everything else he liked.

4. Mel. I want you to praise how much screen time she had and how the black rose didn't come out of no where. I want you to tell me it didn't feel like they wrote her out of the story and I want you to look me in the eyes and praise how well they treated her in the last act. You know, with Jayce apparently only seeing her as a sex object. Women really won.

5. Praise the Robots.

6. Go ahead tell me how good it was to kill off all the suicidal characters.

7. I need to hear people praise the time loop/travel. It was so good and made so much sense and time travel isn't mostly a weird way to not resolve anything.

8. Talk nice about the side characters, please. Maddie, Loris, Isha, Steb, Lest. You know all of them were so necessary and weren't only there for one thing and then got killed or just never to be seen again. Praise how good their writing was, go on.

9. Go ahead and tell me how well they handled Vi's character. How they didn't just completely ignore her. Praise how they made her an alcoholic for 3 seconds and then she was just able to stop, isn't she an inspiration?

10. Go ahead, tell me how well they resolved anything that happened in the first 3 episodes. The Grey is just never mentioned again outside of it being used in the last war. Tell me how the people of Zaun just supporting Piltover is worthy of Praise.

11. Vi and Ekko never interacting was so good, wasn't it? So perfectly in character for Vi to rush right past him in the finale. That was perfect.

12. Praise it how good it was that Caitlyn just completely forgets her mother in the end, you know the reason the first 3 episodes happened. Praise it how her father is off hand mentioned in episode 8, never to be seen again. You know... the parents, her reason to go nuts like this. Damn that was good

13. Jinx getting to apologize in prison to Caitlyn. What a scene am I right?

go ahead, there is so much to praise, it must be tiring only focusing on one or two things

[rowie264]

do you remember that this shit was brushed aside as well?

[bumblebee-art-blog]

All of us Arcane critical people just gotta unite and team up and rewrite the entirety of season 2 of Arcane at this point

[fulcrums501st]

I hate to break it to the caitvi fans annoyed by jayvik having more content, but maybe it’s cuz the writers in s2 actually put effort into writing meaningful moments with them. Just a thought

Like one ship got to bang in a prison cell, the other got lines like “in all timelines, in all possibilities, only you” and what do you think is gonna emotionally resonate with people more?

[ladykalliope]

She needs to stay tf away from the Noxus spin-off, deadass. With Noxus being a brutal expansionist empire I'm bracing myself for how they will deal with the themes of colonial conquest and genocide if this is their perspective on Caitlyn's actions and Zaun's oppression.

Caitlyn literally let poisonous gas loose on Zaun, how is letting Jinx go atoning for this?

Another case of White writers taking real issues that POC and Black people deal with and incorporating them into their shows with white characters. There's never a deeper understanding of these issues, just trinkets to the story. In this case, trinkets to Caitlyn and Vi's romance.

And this part???

They couldn't even give Caitlyn and Vi a proper room, no bed, heck, not even a couch. I'm actually disappointed that their love scene happened in the same dungeon where suicidal Jinx was just sitting. Made no damn sense. Caitlyn and Vi deserved so much better.

Mel and Jayce had the better love scene, I'm sorry. The galaxies representing pleasure, the focus on Mel and how she was feeling, and the music.

"It had to be better than that Mel and Jayce sex scene" I now see why they had that wet fart "conversation" at the end of season 2

that fucking amanda overton io9 interview is giving me so much psychic damage.

straight admitting that the only reason they ever bothered engaging with themes of police brutality in the first place is so that it would be the juiciest drama for her endgame cop/convict enemies-to-lovers ship.

caitlyn 'atones' for her little oopsie doopsie foray into fascism and authoritarian violence against zaun by... letting one (1) person go as a personal favour to her girlfriend, and fighting ambessa to save piltover.

don't worry about having to take accountability to all the other people she hurt and whose lives she ruined! she's fixing her mistakes guys!

cait feels the need to live up to her mother's expectations and the kiramman legacy! that's why she finds out about the kiramman vents and immediately uses them to gas the undercity, and also usurps the council's power as Supreme Leader! it's what cassandra would have wanted.

also just. i don't know if this is just me, but...

is this a weird thing to say? a weird way to say it? it feels like a really weird thing to say. and a weird way to say it. why would you say it like that. amanda...

[whatdidtheydotomygirljinx]

the entirety of act 2 season 2 is just fanservice for jinx fans but they somehow misunderstood why we liked her in the first place. like i liked jinx because she was a pathetic loser not because she was a hero and mature and great at one-liners man these writers just didn't Get It

[sandraharissa]

Ok, I am NOT done talking about the flag

The thing is that it references ‘liberty leading the people’ and while Jinx would not fit into the role of a leader or a very ideologically motivated person she already in s1 came off as a personification of change, the acceptance and embracing of change, chaos, violence, choice, freedom, liberty

It would have been SO fitting, so fitting to have her be a symbol to the ppl in a revolution

But then they nix the whole plotline and even before then it wasn’t clear why the ppl even looked up to her and why they viewed her as a symbol. I know why I viewed her as a personification of change etc but the jinxers don’t know shit about her personal life or all the stuff she did. It would have been so easy to have them express the same sentiment that was already expressed in s1 that ‘the younger folk wanna fight’ and then have her be adored for blowing up the council but they don’t establish that. Instead no one reacts to that at all and then they have her attack Piltover with paint, a way less anti-Piltover act, and that’s the thing that makes her popular?

It’s so fascinating to see the writers’ hands in action moving the pieces, moving the adoration that Jinx should have gotten to a later date, after they have enough time to make Jinx do smth else that seems way less political in nature or destructive, AND THEN have her be adored for... smth. Idk why the paint attack would be so much more inspiring to jinxers than her council attack. There’s murals of the paint attack and her being compared to pacifist Vander but no murals of the council bombing?? Okay.

The paint attack initially seemed like it would be a unique stunt in a slew of many, but in retrospect it was the only thing Jinx did this season and it was for the sole purpose of replacing the council bombing with a more palatable type of attack for Jinx to be adored for, one where no one was killed, especially not enforcers or politicians.

[flekh]

I just really really wish they had someone to proofread the plot. I understand how exhausting it can be to write from scratch, and for Arcane S2 of all things, but this is why you have people who come later and build over your script. Vi suddenly becoming a cop would have made so much more sense if they made a parallel with Vander. She's also young and full of rage, but then she also follows in his steps by caring most about the people she loves, not the revolution. This time, it literally includes a Piltovan. Character growth from being a righteously angry teenager to a more mature community protector.

Remember Grayson? A fan-favourite who got killed off pretty soon, but also was somewhat a mentor to young Cait? Vi knows they had a deal and had a lifetime to come to terms with it. They could have attempted the same with Caitlyn and her power over the enforcers. And Vi would have been proud! For a short while, she's the protector of her people, making deals with the topside! She would grow into her LoL form the same way Jinx did in S1.

Only to then realize that they're trying to recreate the past in the condition that no longer allow it, and there can be no peace and no second Vander. And this is where she starts to get radicalized by the enforcers and gassing her people should become her breaking point.

the thing is you can't use extremely loaded imagery of police brutality and jinx waving the french revolution flag and then shit on it and then act surprised ppl are upset