#This is probably only for a target audience of me and only me but I think I'm funny

[arcane-ish]

Embracing the Monster: Why CaitVi kind of felt left out compared to Zaundads/Timebomb/JayVik

Let me start with some disclaimers: I have have wrestled with the way CaitVi was written in season 2 and tried to make sense of it in this post. And I have wrestled with myself and my tastes and why I actually feel very ill equipped to really say whether CaitVi is shippishly having issues or just being written for a different taste/target audience.

I have my very subjective often very oddball tastes of what I consider a good ship that often goes aggressively what either the general public or the popular fandom public considers good. In the end I can only report on what I saw.

IMO: looking at Arcane season 2 act 3 specifically there is just a really natural thematic flow.

Have you seen the meme: "Arcane was about love? Always has been"?

To me the overall message of Act 3 in particular (but that you can go back to and see traces of it in plenty of other act) is about Embracing the Monster.

And to me, despite the choppiness of much of Act 3, there's just a certain grace to how this is done.

It starts with Silco and Vander formulating the concept. They tease the promise, whether you see Silco or Vander as "the bad one" in this constellation, if you embrace, if you forgive, something great can come out of it.

This flows directly to Ekko who actively listens to it and tries applies it to himself

And it ends with JayVik symbolizing the concept. and ending the cosmic threat with it. Viktor expecting bad treatment due to his actions, Jayce embracing him anyway.

A lot can be said about the pros and cons of that theme (and I will do that), but there's just to me pure power in repetition and thematic congruency that just gives power and makes it hit more even for couples I don't actually like or ship all that much.

The problem is that even though CaitVi is the primary romantic couple of the show, they don't feel like they are part of this thematic trifecta of s2Act3.

CaitVi is too different to fit in, but not different enough to act as a counterpoint

From a story point of view, CaitVi could have been part of this general theme of big hearted understanding and forgiveness. I've seen a lot of discussion about has Cait apologized, has she apologized enough. I think that's besides the point.

We don't see whether Vander apologized to Silco. Jinx probably didn't apologize to Ekko and Viktor didn't in so many words apologize to Jayce. The point of this theme isn't about apologizing.

Considering the bad or misguided things Caitlyn did, she could have been part of that theme. But it would have required Vi to be a lot more horrified by her. To gulf between them would have to have been much larger so it can feel like a big deal for Vi to jump that gulf and embrace Caitlyn despite everything that has happened.

The show plays a little bit with "could Caitlyn become a monster", but in the end it doesn't go there in the way people react to her and how she carries herself. Because the show is hesitant to portray her as monster, for Vi to see Caitlyn as monster, they do not fit into the "embracing the monster*" theme that the other stories have going on. Again I speculate that that might have been intentional and that it might be their way of portraying CaitVi ultimately as a more functional couple.

There's catharsis in CaitVi's big payoff scene. But it's a different catharsis than what the other stories have going on.

Again, the theme of the other pairs is embracing the monster.

The theme of CaitVi is choosing happiness/being liberated from responsibility.

Picture a world where the themes of the other couples had echoed CaitVi? If let's say Ekko had actually felt burdened by his responsibility as a Firelight when he really wants to be with Jinx and him choosing her is about throwing away the shackles of that responsibility? If JayVik had been about Jayce's responsibility on the council and to Mel. If Vander's letter to Silco had been about "I thought I needed to expel you because people told me to, because of my responsibility to the Lanes, but I was wrong and I hate myself for it".

Can you see how if all stories, all relationships had been about choosing love over responsibility (whether it's Vi's responsibility to take care of Jinx or Caitlyn's feeling like she's supposed to live like her mother would have wanted her too), how that would have strengthened CaitVi's story. If the other stories had established a baseline how different characters deal with love and responsibility and set the baseline that this is an important topic that many people struggle with?

Or imagine the reverse, if rather than everybody joining CaitVi's theme, what if let's say rather than the relatively breezy/jokey/flirty/soft mood of the CaitVi scene pre sex had been about Cait having a full on ugly crying scene to the tune of "I'm a monster, I treated you badly, I went the wrong path, I don't deserve you" and Vi had embraced her anyway. If CaitVi had actually spelled out the implied confrontation that maybe went down or should went down between Zaundads, Timebomb, JayVik?

I'm not saying that it would have made a better show or made CaitVi a better couple. What I'm trying to explain what would have been required for CaitVi to feel like "part of the gang". And why right now they feel like the odd ones out, because the theme of three other storylines roughly match each other and CaitVi has a different theme compared to everybody else.

(MelJay is a different case for a couple of reasons)

In the end, it's not a crime that CaitVi doesn't follow everybody else's theme. I have speculated that it might have been intentional, that their theme is in the end maybe healthier/less dysfunctional from a future relationship perspective. Or maybe it's supposed to make them more special that their have their own unique theme.

IMO there's potential logic to going against the grain. But imo for my personal tastes, CaitVi not sharing the same theme would have worked better if they had actively contrasted the other stories by being completely different.

That's the problem of CaitVi being different, but not different enough. Because Cait does physically hurt Vi just not as aggressively as Vander hurting Silco or Timebomb trying to kill each other. And Cait did go down a dark path and lost herself in darkness the way Jinx or Viktor likely did. But it is not treated the same way.

The potential is there, but because the involved people react so differently to the situation it doesn't feel like it's the same theme, not "part of the gang". But it shares too many elements to feel like counterprogramming.

Again imagine a show where CaitVi are the one couple who feel full on differently. Who manage to stay sane and loving and supportive all the way through. If rather than Cait going all "Zaunites are animals!!!" and hitting Vi with the butt of a gun they had a sane and supportive breakup where Cait just tells her "I'm sorry, I can feel like I'm losing myself and I know I cannot be in a relationship now. Just go away, you probably have your own issues to handle first", And the rough corners of the plot had stayed the same of CaitVi being apart in Act 2, Vi doing her Jinx and Vanderwick arc and Cait losing herself in police work and responsibilities, but they always stay respectful and communicative with each other while all the other people around them are way more dysfunctional and hurt by poor communication.

IMO, for my taste (again as somebody who if firmly not a wlw shippers, just an occasional shipper of wlw couples), CaitVi would have resonated more powerfully if the show had gone for either option: join the same theme as the other characters (at the risk of making them more dysfunctional as a couple) or be a more aggressive contrast/the haven of difference and sanity and health in a chaotic world (at the risk of making them more boring/less melodramatic/less meatily shippy).

ETA: I hope it's okay that I tag CaitVi rather than anti. Because this is written from a place of affection, of "what could the show have done differently to make them pop more" (with the stipulation of "for a general audience" with the understanding that that might never have been the goal in the first place)

*I should probably add the "monster" here is naturally metaphorical most of the time and it's not about portraying Jinx, Viktor, Vander&Silco as monsters and more about whether you are missing out by seeing them as monsters, whether monsters like Vanderwick are actually a lot less monstrous than they might seem, that you can come back from anything etc

[miserable-something]

the court physician and the second born

[c1nto]

=> zenkaiger x BL <=

[stylosha]

please amc do you know you have 30 minutes

[chronic-cynic]

I know everyone wants a Solitaire movie (and so do I) but I honestly think they'd fuck it up beyond anyone's imagination.

[gatzbright]

find me in the future

[a dnf howl’s moving castle au]

Dream: George ... I'm going to blow up. Come with me.

Dream: That's my boy!

dreaming up dream and george in nunki @demonstars Howl's Moving Castle au. happy birthday nunki !!!!! ur howl dream au means Everything to me &lt;3

[vampyriix]

rtgame on puppet history. can anyone hear me

[kardulis]

my fave thing about the wad polaroids tumblr account is the way so many of the twitter people have kpop-related usernames... when im on twt and see a new pola i don't register whether the op is a kpop stan too bc my tl is full of it (and dnp) regardless but on tumblr the username is the first thing i notice

being a kpoppie really convinced us to not even blink before buying a merch item just because it comes with a silly little photocard 💀

[spatio-rift]

pov you just talked during saiko-samas info dumping time

[rainbyte]

All of Identity V as TF2 classes 💥

[kangyeosaang]

eunkwang · weverse live · 230707

[prick-up-ur-ears]

finally convinced my teenage cousin to watch twilight and had the horribly cursed idea of an imodna twilight au

[shiryawashere]

you ever miss your comfort character so bad you gotta go outside about it

[junkmailmusubi]

taking the "write for yourself" thing a bit too seriously and writing a crossover fic for fandoms in which i think i am the only overlap between,

[eddiezpaghetti]

Okay so I was listening to the "Mike's Basement Beats" playlist--don't fucking look at me like that--and this fucking song came on.

And my old-ass-stupid-ass-nerd ass immediately went "Why does this sound like they made it with the goddamn Zelda II soundfont?"

And I'm far too fucking smug about the fact that I made Mike play Zelda II whilst hungover in From Vecna to Van Nuys.

Somehow, this makes me feel like I've got this boy pegged. This pigeonhole is absolutely stuffed full of pigeon. No one can tell me otherwise.

[m00ngbin]

I feel like barf and I spent a bunch of time stress studying for a bunch of exams that are two months to a year away so I can't say that my commentary is going to be spectacular and everything that these next two chapters deserve but by god I'm going to try and that's all that I really need to do anyways