#Arcane: League Of Legends

[neo--queen--serenity]

I need to stress how important it is that Jinx made that prosthetic arm for Sevika.

Jinx, for as long as the audience has known her, has only ever made inventions for her own personal use. She designs them in a way that is specific to her whims and interests, which gives the overall impression that no one should be using her creations without instructions. And they're made to suit her fighting style, which is why we don't see anyone close to her, like Silco, using them.

That prosthetic arm she designed for Sevika is quite possibly the first invention she's made that is purely and entirely for someone else to use. Jinx saw how Sevika mourned Silco, saw that her unrelenting loyalty for him still held layers of resentment and rage, but that she still grieved him anyway.

It's not coincidence that immediately after this encounter (during which she saw Sevika struggle to repair her old mechanical arm), Jinx creates this prosthetic for her, pouring all her creative innovation into it. She deliberately designs it as a gift in every sense of the word, wrapping it neatly into a bow like a present, for a woman who may or may not even be her ally anymore.

And the second Sevika puts it on, we see Jinx's trademark eccentricity, her wild colors, her manic machinations whirring to life. It's a sparkling, visual reminder of Jinx's affection on her body, a physical manifestation of her desire for Sevika to live and succeed. She gave the arm tricks, weapons, instruments of brutality--things we expect to see from her--but also music and fireworks, features that serve no purpose in combat other than making her smile.

We have never seen this from Jinx before, never seen her do something like this for someone else. When Sevika asks why Jinx made it for her, knowing the novelty for what it was, she'd simply responded with, "It was something I could fix."

It's no surprise that Sevika continues to protect Jinx aftewards. Whether Jinx was consciously aware of it or not, she had been openly declaring, "this is my ally; attack her and face my wrath."

[yourstrulylightstar283]

Awesome! ^^

Getting a canon trans woman character was not on my bingo card but damn am I happy about it

[emocheremuha]

[whywoulditho]

the thing about that one scene where caitlyn and vi fight is that caitlyn doesn't meet vi's eye the entire time. go back and watch that scene again, look closely at their body language. "you stopped me." caitlyn says, her eyes are shut tightly, she hears vi's gauntlets drop on the floor. "i had the shot." her voice is confused and desperate, she's facing the wall. "that was a kid. what if you missed?" vi asks in equal confusion. cait turns to her in fervor, "i wasn't going to miss," her voice is louder, firmer, she's ready to face vi— except she isn't, because even though she turned her way, she's still just looking at the ground. her anger is a façade even to herself. she wants so badly to pretend she wants blood. "i keep telling myself you're different but you're not." she says to vi —with as much poison in her voice as she can muster— but she's still avoiding her gaze. so afraid of her resolve breaking at the sight of her eyes. cait's pupils tremble as she says this, as if looking for something to fix her gaze on, just so she doesn't have to face vi. she steps past vi when she can't find anything in the empty hall, she turns back ever so slightly to say "it's her blood in your veins." the words feel wrong in her mouth as she utters them, she ignores it, she has to prove to herself that she's brave enough, that she can push through. but she still can't look at vi in the goddamn eye. she tries to get away, reaching for the ladder. flight, she's bitterly aware. but vi catches her by the arm and she's stopped in her tracks, grabbing the steel of the ladder with one hand, the other clutching to her gun like a lifeline. "then why are you the one acting like her?" vi yells. her. Jinx is haunting their every thought like a curse. the murderer of her mother. sister of her love. she wants to hate her so badly. she hates her, she has to. vi's grab of her arm loosens as caitlyn struggles to catch her breath. she can't look back, she can't meet her eye, but she can feel vi's unwavering gaze on her neck. she's so open, so willing to give her everything she's scared to admit she wants. vi is leaning closer, tilting her head to see cait where her face is covered behind her hair. cait's breaths start to even for a moment, and vi's eyes relax and soften. that's when caitlyn draws her arm out and hits vi in the stomach with the back of her gun. vi grunts, topples over so easily. she hadn't seen it coming. cait finally looks back and her face is confused, surprised, when did vi start lowering her guard down so much around her? why did she? she turns her back and climbs the ladder as vi's wails echo in the room. all those pained sobs can't be from the hit, she knows it would take so much more than that to break her. but she still can't bring herself to look back. vi is the strongest person she's ever known, and she's crying like a child as caitlyn leaves her behind.

[polymathart]

She never even speaks and yet Jinx let her follow her around all day. So was Jinx just yapping to Isha down the streets of Zaun?

[loveipromiseimnotinsane]

Insane how I'm seeing people say vi is ellie when Caitlyn is literally the one going on a murder spree after seeing her parent die

[valenshawke]

In Defense of Caitlyn Kiramman

No, this is not a defense of any of her actions or decisions she made after she donned the beret. This is a defense of the writing of her character and what (I believe) the writers are trying to do. With only one act down, there’s many ways the writers can take this. They could very well fumble it. However, I will give the writers the benefit of the doubt. With that out of the way…

The descent into darkness and the corruption arcs are classic storytelling. Where the protagonist, hit with so many traumas and setbacks, gives into her darker feelings, sometimes aided by a more devious figure in the background.

Given all the traumas that Caitlyn has experienced as explained by @bramblebeau, something was going to happen. Without Ambessa Medarda being that devious figure, would Caitlyn have gone full authoritarian at the end of episode 3? Maybe. I still think she would have, but perhaps not as far. But to argue that this is bad storytelling because Caitlyn did not keep her idealism and morality is… horrible missing the point. 

What are the points? When faced with trauma and the desire to retaliate and seek revenge, it is very easy to manipulate those who want those two things. And, in the world we actually live in, we have seen this time and again. Need I bring up the US War on Terror? Whether directly or indirectly, the cultural impact of the 9/11 Attacks, second Iraq War, and the US War on Terror has been and will continue to do so (and if you want a less subtle commentary on that, check out Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto also on Netflix). 

Ambessa Medarda not only manipulating Caitlyn, but the Piltover Elite, was masterful because it showed how easy it is when you can control the flow of information, control the rhetoric, and eventually dehumanize your “enemy” as something less than human. It’ll be fascinating to hear how Caitlyn’s speech changes and what type of language she uses when talking about Zaun.

At this point, we don’t know exactly what the writers are going to do. But it does raise some intriguing and exciting questions from a storytelling perspective. Caitlyn, right now, is at the edge of (the heart) of darkness. Is her blood-lust for revenge going to cause her to fall in? Will someone be able to talk sense into her? Can anyone in Piltover talk any sense into her? How, if at all, can Vi be the one to help/save her? Or will they save each other? How can Vi be that tiny light in the darkness when she has her own trauma to deal with? (There’s another point to examine how both dealt with the trauma by the end of Act 1. Vi went inward and, based on the trailers, went full self-destructive mode. Caitllyn went outward and became the public face of a fascist regime). 

Caitlyn already started taking steps to that darkness after she got the Kiramman key and decided that GASSING ZAUN (and all the implications THAT brings)  was the best option for her strike team to open its mission to capture Jinx, dismantle shimmer, neutralize any agents loyal to Silco. Whatever justification given, especially by Vi, is naive at best and delusional at worst. Vi might have gone along simply because she feels some blame and wants to support Caitlyn. But what Caitlyn did was unjustifiable. The moment you simply accept “collateral damage” as simply being a Tuesday, your moral dipstick is bone dry (credits to Fox Mulder for that one). But that isn’t bad storytelling. I’m supposed to feel that way.

Caitlyn’s descent, as it stands, allows the writer to either give her something of a redemption arc where she realizes the horrors of what she has done and what has to be done to fix it. 

This is classic storytelling 101.

And I am fucking here for it.

Thanks to @caitlyn-kirammans for listening to me ramble this out first.

[melody-fox]

just watched the first episode of arcane season 2

i can hear all the fanfic writers screaming and punching the air because they got so much of that RIGHT

[kuramassss]

Just beautiful

[coolauntlilith]

Caitlyn makes me lowkey so mad bc she's lived in objective privilege her entire life, even when she tried to be a grittier cop in s1, she literally has a true safe haven to go back to with her two parents to care for her and listen to her. In s2, yeah her mom has been murdered, but holy shit can you imagine how much food and other resources the underside could have gotten for the cost of that funeral and that casket? Caitlyn has her way because of her name, gets platformed to the highest degree for her name even if she's being manipulated. She still has every resources at her fingertips despite Jinx's terrorism.

And yet when Vi, who is literally trying to kill her own sister, just didn't want Caitlyn to potentially shoot a very young child, Caitlyn acts like she has suffered more than Vi's whole existence. "I keep telling myself you're different but you're not." GIRL, YOUVE LOST IT. YOU HAVE NOW BECOME THE KIND OF ENFORCER VI FEARED AND HATED AS A CHILD. The mirror pointed back at Caitlyn with that sentence thrown at Vi is harrowing, holy shit.

[levabby]

nothing ever stays dead

[padmaddean]

Vi & Caitlyn Arcane: League of Legends s02e03

[sharkycal]

I’m a little late to this but LMAO

[q8qwertyuiop8p]

"Nothing Ever Stays Dead..."

Finally finished my Season 2 Silco Fan Poster, just in time for Arctober prompt #5 "Legacy"

This was created in Ibispaint X.

Brushes used:

Dip Pen (Hard)

Opacity < 100%, gives it a painterly look)

Dip Pen (Soft)

Airbrush

Flat Watercolor (Mix 2)

Flat Watercolor (Water)

Used to blend, gives it a painterly look

Dip Pen (Bleed)

Used for blood, gives unpredictable edges

Sputtering 1

Flecks of blood

Custom Hair

Strands of hair

Without text and Jinx Glitch

Layers

[thomas-jefferson-miku-binder]

I hate Mel Medarda discourse because she’s an insanely well-written character with a lot of depth, but people almost always have only two things to say about her: 1) evil girlboss or 2) never did anything wrong. both make me want to krill myself 🦐

In front of you, there’s a female character born of war who rejects the physical brutality of her family’s name and the regime she was born under. except said violence never really goes away because if it ever does leave, nothing else would remain

This character can and will reproduce the hatred she has always known, just in more palpable ways, ways where she’s allowed to look away — or even better, ways where she’s so distanced from the action itself that where she “looks” doesn’t even matter

It’s also so interesting to think that maybe Mel doesn’t dislike physical violence because it’s “bad” but simply because she does not excel at it The thought that if Mel was maybe stronger or a more skilled fighter, she would be just like her mother tickles my brain. yaaaas Although, to me, that's a more "what-if" scenario than the actual characterization Arcane deceipts

By the way, I do not think Mel is a monster. She clearly does try to be what she considers a "good" person, but the violence she’s always known sometimes escapes (just like in the Viktor scene above — she does not like to be disagreed with).

Sooo insane that she’s a diplomat/politician because yes. what other job in the world would allow her to exercise that repressed violence while also giving her the sense of duty—of goodness.

Mel is stuck at the scene of the execution form her childhood. All she does is repeat the same scenario in her head with different outcomes: sometimes one where she saves the prisoner, another where she doesn’t hesitate (that being the keyword here) to kill her

This reverberation of the violence she suffered is just her manner of coping with that traumatic scene. a way of lessening the pain without actually confronting its cause.

I feel like I need to clarify that no, I do not think Mel is “evil”. I don’t even think she is intentionally manipulative (most of the time), I think she handles people the only way she knows how to, which is probably one of the only reasons she survived Noxus at all (as, to how I see it, there's only a certain extent your House will guarantee your protection in Noxus).

I know the fandom talks a lot about Viktor and Jayce being idealistic, but I rarely see people mention how Mel is just as romantic. Jesus- that’s literally a huge source of conflict with her mother: Ambessa thinks Mel is naive, which to her means weakness, which to her is unacceptable.

I hate that Mel Medarda is forced to be subjected to fandom spaces, because, no, she is not a small bean. no, she’s not an evil girlboss.

Do I believe she is a good person? I think she tries to be (even if her notion of goodness is so heavily aligned with honor, too), and that tells me a lot more about her character than how successful she is at it