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bwat5-blog · 2 months ago

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My Hero: Arcane Fanfic

(Rough attempt at a scene I like to imagine went down in 2x05 behind the scenes)

The dim light shifted lazily with the creaking and groaning of the squalid little apartment. Jinx moved softly, not daring to risk waking Vi in this state. She had been coming to the pits for weeks since she found her… trying to work up the nerve, trying to figure out how to approach her. But she was afraid. Their last meeting hadn’t exactly gone well.

At first, she had been able to pretend there was some sick amusement to be found. Cast out by her trigger-happy Piltie girlfriend, left all alone after putting on the uniform, Violet was back where she belonged. In the muck with her people, covered in blood and sweat… but it wasn’t that simple. Jinx knew that after only the first fight.

She’s giving up…

She had watched Vi decline over the last few weeks, getting slower, not protecting herself. She went down. Hard. Almost every night. She was only making enough to fund her next drink and barely eating. She was killing herself… and all the Zaunites around her didn’t lift a fucking finger to help. Jinx had been planning on revealing herself the next time she came down anyway… and now Vander…

We have a chance… maybe we can… we can fix this…

So it was that she found herself holding her breath… until she had crept close enough to see Vi fully. Her stomach dropped, and she forced a hand into her mouth, biting down to keep from crying so hard that she drew blood.

Vi looked like a corpse. She was pale and drawn, still muscular but… not healthy. Her hair was crusted with thick black grease paint and what Jinx could only assume was dried blood. Her face, disturbed even in sleep, was a mess of white and black grease paint and bruising. She wore only black leather pants that were fraying and dirty white wraps around her chest.

“I’m sorry, Vi… I should have come for you sooner,” Jinx whispered, wiping tears away.

She looked around at the trash and empty bottles of booze and shook her head, kneeling down. She took a deep breath and started to move to gently touch Vi but stopped. This was the first time she’d really been this close to Vi without a fight or something else happening… the first time in years. She looked down at her older sister’s body clothed only in the wraps and leathers and had to choke down a sob of horror.

Vi’s body was covered in scars. She had taken plenty of licks as a kid, sure, but… her flesh was a tapestry of abuse and pain. Years of torment played out over every inch of her worn but still muscular frame. Far beyond the wear and tear of Vi’s childhood or even the meat grinder of the Undercity fighting pits. Vi had been tortured.

Jinx scrambled back quietly into a corner of the room, hugging her knees to her chest and biting down hard on a strip of leather from her cloak to keep from sobbing out loud. She shuddered, trying not to wake Violet, as she heard her voice from that day they first saw each other again:

“I tried to come back, I promise I did, but… I got arrested.”

Vi’s voice echoed in her mind.

Seven years… seven years in that goddamn place. Jinx gritted her teeth and tried not to scream. She thought back to Vi begging her to come with her, to just pick up and go. Telling her she loved her and how sorry she was. Sorry for what?! Getting kidnapped and thrown in a place where they did that?!

Jinx curled up tight and bit down on the leather so hard she was afraid her teeth would shatter. She remembered Vi’s hand on her cheek when they were little. Telling her how strong she was, how she couldn’t lose her…

Finally, she was able to stand slowly, wiping her eyes. She walked forward carefully, making sure not to step on anything that would wake Vi before she was ready. She looked to the dingy little cracked mirror on the wall and saw a black stick of grease paint, smiling sadly as she picked it up and whispered:

“Well… if you choke me out when I wake you, at least I get to go out looking like my hero,” she whispered, leaning down and gently blowing across Vi’s hair before going to the mirror and marking her name on her cheek.

#arcane #arcane season 2 spoilers #vi arcane #jinx arcane #vi and jinx #powder #arcane vi

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arcane-ish · 12 days ago

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more rambligns on Vi and her role in the finale and arc issues in season 2

@vi-is-badass //response to this discussion

I came over to read it and wanted to possibly start a conversation

No worries, I love big damn essays and I often seek out people who also do big damn essays because I hope that means they will also be more okay with my tumblr skewing so heavily towards big damn essays.

A big part of this issue is that I don't think the second season really backed up the claims that "Vi always chose Jinx to her own detriment" and that "Vi never would have let Jinx go".

Fully agreement with you there. I feel like this arc, this message is there in the writing, but it's mostly in what Jinx says (particularly in the scene in the cless where she runs off to try and kill herself), but the interviews of the writers do A LOT of heavy lifting/very little of that made it to the actual screen.

I will say that this is a problem of several stories, that fairly essential scenes were left off screen.

Vi simply doesn't choose Jinx to her own detriment in season 2.

I think one can read that as "Vi's interactions with Jinx improve because she has eased up on Powder". I haven't read your response to the schnee video yet, but I think that was one of their main points that the underlying motive of the show is accepting change and that for the most part people get punished if they don't accept change and rewarded if they do.

So you can read season 2 as "Vi learned and grew, became more open minded about Jinx, made better choices in regards to Jinx and so she doesn't deserve to be abandoned by Jinx". But I'm not convinced that that is fully the right frame either. Like my gut instinct is that Arcane generally isn't a show about "rewards" and "you did the right thing, you did the cookie". I'm not convinced that the writers really think of the show that way and yes it's a frequent way we the fans deduce meaning but I'm not convinced that rewarding characters for their definiotion of good behavior was necessarily how the writers thought about it.

OKay, this is getting long and rambly, it's time to make a cut for readability XD

(I remember they talked about in season 1 they had a guiding princinple of always defining what a character has a core want and them getting it but always in an ironic way. ie Silco wants indpendence but when he gets it he can no longer enjoy it, Vi finds Powder, but finds her changed; but they also talked that that principle fell to the wayside in season 2. so they always had a strange, dramatic ironcy/maximize the drama concept of rewarding characters in the first place and they didn't even stick with that consistently)

The other aspect is that their focus might just not have been Vi. They would have looked at it not as "Vi is getting punished" but "Jinx needs this for her character development".

Switching from "Vi is the main character on a journey in season 1" to "Jinx is now the character on a journey in season 2" would always have been a shock, but imo that could have been an approach, but to make that more satisfying it would have helped to maybe be more explicit of this duality (I think it is suggested in the fight in 2x05 where argue and Jinx she's the hero now) and if they made Vi support the other arcs this time she could still have had a very consistent support role and maybe even have a smaller arc within that support role.

And it's these two big things being what the final decision hinges on that makes the fact that the sisters' final scene was written before they wrote the rest of season 2 incredibly obvious because, with the way they had Vi progress, this ending doesn't make sense for her (to me).

Full agreement. Like I said, I do buy that they saw the scene as their "guiding star" and I do think they built towards it happening, but they built it up from Jinx's point of view. The seasons is all about Jinx's journey and building up to where she comes to the point of making this decision.

This is the big contrast to season 1 where Jinx was freakishly obsessive and possessive about Vi and jealous of Caitlyn.

Season 1, Jinx abducts Caitlyn and Vi and wants to kill Caitlyn.

Season 2, tadaaaa, character growth, Jinx tells Vi to be happy with Caitlyn and hopes out to follow her own path

I don't know how fixed all the elements of the last Vi and Jinx scene were (did they always know that Vanderwick was gonna be hanging from Jinx's leg? did they always know it was gonna be set against the backdrop of arcane threat Viktor's puppet apocalypse or was it more like the dialogue was fixed and the general idea of Jinx leaving/falling). But what sticks out to me about this scene how deeply deliberately it is from Jinx's side.

Jinx pulls up, precision hits the gem on the gauntlets, disabling the gauntlets, forcing the letting go. Jinx has a lot of agency in this scene (and even opportunity to show off her character), while Vi doesn't.

Jinx has an arc this season and Vi is the focus and the object of this arc.

We can gleam meaning from Vi's place in the story, but a lot of it is fanwanking, writer interviews and "facts not in evidence".

Like I think many have settled in on the interpretation "Vander parentified Vi, it wasn't healthy hat she felt that responsible for and guilty about Powder, it's a good ending that she ends up exploring a relationship and future with Caitlyn".

But in that sense it's frustrating how much of that is fan assumption and writer interviews.

Especially if you contrast it to Jinx in season 2. Jinx gets a bit of a resolution with her father figure. She gets a scene with Silco's chair where she essentially says "you'd probably want me to be out there and fighting Piltover, but I think I'd rather hang with Isha". And she gets a scene where she hallucinates Silco into telling her what she wants to hear/giving her permission for her chosen path (to break the cycle).

But at the same time, Vi never gets that with Vander. Vi never get a scene with her getting angry at being put in this position. Or a scene where Vander hugs her and tells her "hey kid, I didn't want you to tear your life apart over this, of course I wanted you to be happy".

Take the scene with the letter. In theory this scene should be super meaningful for Vi. She spent season 1 being convinced that Silco was the devil and this is how she finds out that he knew Vander and Vander felt bad about hurting him. This could have been her big "things aren't as black and white as she thought in season 1" scene. Or it could have been easily tweak to Vi getting from that that Vander spent his life in regret that he couldn't work things out with Silco, so she shouldn't let the chance to be with Caitlyn pass her by.

Really just any scene of Vi getting to reflect on he letter would have been good. Just some Vi and Jinx scene where Vi goes "So, Vander and Silco, crazy story, huh" and Jinx could have reacted by opening up a bit about living with Silco and how often he talked about his Vander trauma.

Instead, yes, Vi does get her Vander hug and learns to trust Jinx more. But within the context of her "choose her own happiness over familial duty/overcome her trauma with Caitlyn's love" arc, this isn't necessarily all that useful. She jumps right into protect/heal the family member with Vander. She still tries to rush in and protect Jinx in the battle where Isha dies and is held back only by injury and Caitlyn. She then wakes up in Caitlyn's spiffy mansion and rather than talking to Cait immediately rushes off to break Jinx out of prison. And in the final battle she is still paralyzed by seeing another "dead" Vander.

Based on how the second season played out I believe that Vi should have seen Jinx after her "death" to confirm to her and the audience that Jinx is in fact alive and been told by Jinx that she's going to leave Piltover. Vi is left with a choice: she can stay in Piltover and be with Caitlyn or leave with Jinx. In this moment she chooses to let Jinx go.

I agree that that would have made Vi's arc feel more complete. (or even just a small thing like having Vi be the one who deduces that Jinx ran off and indicating with facial expressions that she approves).

The core problem of Vi's arc is definitely lack of choice. My theory is that at the core of it Amanda's statement of what Vi would choose if she had nobody left to protect and that itself is a flaw like the writers and such as the show insist that Vi would never willingly give up her responsibility and duties, so the show operates on a logic that everything, every person, every responsibility, every choice has to be taken away from Vi.

IMO one angle is that Amanda writes Jinx/Vi/Caitlyn like it's a romantic triangle that she wants Caitlyn to win. That's why Jinx has to leave.

From Vi's perspective the happy end would be clearly that Vi gets to enjoy her romantic relationship and also have a good relationship with her sister/rebuild her relationship with her sister. But if you see it from the point of view of a rabid Cait shipper maybe that idea isn't as attractive, because you want Cait to fully have Vi and have all of Vi's attention focused on Cait. That doesn't mean that the character of Cait wants that at all. The character of Cait wants what's best for Vi. But the story sometimes acts this way.

The other aspect is that you can read season 2 as "they chose Jinx and Cait as the new main characters (evidenced by screentime) and wrote accordingly" The fact that Cait knows about Jinx's death and not Vi in the end makes sense if you are writing the season as Cait's arc. Cait gets an arc this season about being obsessed with hunting Jinx, she gets a moment of reconciliation in the prison with Jinx where she expresses a desire to end their emnity, is willing to let Vi spring Jinx out of prison and it concludes with Caitlyn smiling at the thought of Jinx getting away.

And here's where my personal convictions come in where I think the writers don't owe us a story. Like they didn't owe us to keep Vi as the main point of view character. They didn't owe us a Zaun becomes independent story. Basically, I believe in writers having a right to tell the stories they are interested in, even if I would have been interested more in a different story. IMO season 2 still has flaws beyond that. I can support their right to choose to tell a certain story and then point out they did a poor job of executing it. Like they had a right to shift focus from Vi to Jinx and Cait, but there's things they could have done to make things go over more smoothly if that was their goal.

IMO they could still have given Cait and Jinx the main arcs of season 2 and have given Vi a smaller supporting arc inside. That still would have been less satisfying for people who watch mainly for Vi but it would have just worked more smoothly if they had given her her own thing or at least make a better job of communicating why they think certain shifts are necessary. Like you said, be more explicit why Vi is being unhealthy. Or maybe make it explicit that maybe Amanda felt Caitlyn needed a dark arc because Vi was underestimating or putting Caitlyn on a pedestal in season 1.

For what it's worth: I think a scene where Jinx and Vi speak after the battle would indeed have been a satisfying conclusion to Vi's arc, but I do think it wouldn't have gelled with the mood the writers were going for. Like as fans of course we crave a good arc and a satisfying conclusion, but I think Arcane specifically wanted to end on some sort of perfectly imperfect/not as straight forward mood. I don't think they wanted things to be neatly tied up, they wanted it to be a mix between good and bad. That's why Sevika and the council are glaring at each other, that's why we have a montage about both Piltover and Zaun mourning the dead, that's why Mel's is journeying into the unknown with mixed feelings.

And to me that really does feel fully intentional from an artistic point of view. They didn't want to end on happy or easy or even concluded.

So something like Vi and Jinx having one more talk I think would have felt too neatly tied up to them compared to what they were going for.

She also doesn't know her place in the world.

Just wanted to add a big fat yes. That's a big bugbear of mine. IMO the show could easily have dropped more hints that show off that Vi actually likes enforcering, giving us an image of what their future life will be like and what she likes about it. Whether she likes the investigating and the deducing, the camraderie, the helping of people. IMO that is something that could easily have been achieved without changing the overall openness of the ending or the focus on Cait and Jinx's arcs. Yes there are moments you can interpret that way, but you have to basically find them with a mangifying glass and a lot of headwank to make it happen.

They don't really allow Vi to move past her guilt and responsibility

For what it's worth I can picture that one could read as the message being there's no easy moving on, but at least Vi and Cait will do it together. I think that fits the mood of ending that we are shown the effects of the battle on Zaun and Pitover, we have Caitlyn still marked by her battle, we have Caitlyn's monologue saying that people likely fuck up again and not learn from the past.

I actually think that that is a really interesting contrast between Cait's monologue:

Our only consolation that with every loss, we found some good, some light, worth gaining, worth fighting for. And though we are doomed to revisit the error of our ways… spark ever more conflicts… our story isn't over.

And the monologue from Silco's apparition which Amanda said was the central thesis of Arcane:

Killing is a cycle. One that started long before Vander and me. And it will continue long after the two of you. We build our own prisons. Bars forged of oaths, codes, commitments. Walls of self-doubt and accepted limitation. We inhabit these cells, these identities, and call them "us." I thought I could break free by eliminating those I deemed my jailors. But… Jinx… I think the cycle only ends when you find the will to walk away.

I can you can definitely read this about Vi being somebody to his trapped in her commitment to protect the family, in her identity as sister. And the show does I think propose the idea that walking away from violence and walking away from commitment and responsibilities and expectations that feel like trappings is a good thing.

But I think it also takes the stance that just because it's a good thing doesn't mean its an easy thing. It's not you discovering that the cheat code is walking away and then everything works out. Walking away is hard and maybe has its own downsides, but it ultimately is the right choice according to them.

I was always fascinated with Amanda saying that she included Maddie also because it was Caitlyn trying to date somebody more appropriate from her mother's point of view (which I think doesn't make a lot of sense to people because it's never mentioned in the show and from a meta point of view Maddie is still underclass and she's an enforcer something we know Cassandra disapproved of). So there easily could have been a stronger theme of Cait, Vi and Jinx all stepping out of the roles and identities that trap them.

Cait wants to fill her mother's shoes in the beginning of act 1 and according to Amanda Maddie is part of that, but of course she ends up going with Vi.

Vi wants to follow Vander's last order to protect Powder/the family, but ends up not being successful at that and instead moving on with Cait.

Jinx of course rejects both Silco's message to focus on building a weapon and fighting Piltover and his message that everyone betrays them and it's only the two of them by forging new relationships and reviving old ones. But you can also read her to some extent maybe being trapped by the Jinx personality and the expectations that come with it (whether it's the expectation to be craaaaaaazy or the expectation to be a savior)and she breaks out of that.

This could have been more explicit if we had had a scene where Cait intentionally lays down her job as commander. In a "okay, I'm gonna stop messing with politics and walking in my mom's footsteps, I'll go back to being a normal enforcer, the thing she hated, as soon as things get back to normal" kind of way.

I am interested to hear what you think about this. I genuinely would like to know if you're willing and able to answer. I think you are good at expressing your viewpoint and bringing up a lot of good points that I hadn't necessarily considered.

Hah, I fear my response was very scattershot and all over the place. Maybe I'll eventually manage to rephrase it as into something more coherent. I do really enjoy gabbing with people who like to write long rambly metas just like I do. So never feel worried about meta-ing at me. I might not always respond, but if I don't it usually is always due to lack of time and not because I disapprove. In fact, I love it when people respond to my rambles with reverse rambles.

I also do want to say I don't want it to sound like I think Amanda is the devil or anything. It's just the situation that she has been the most open about her thought process and has taken a lot of both credit and responsibility for writing this particular story.

I actually do think that she both had the best intentions and that she is quite talented and likely has written quite a lot of things we do really enjoy in the show (I really don't buy into the idea that some season 2 haters have that everything they liked in season 1 was written by magical other writers and the big 3 (Amanda, Christian and Alex) had zero involvement in anything they liked. Plus she also seems to have an a lot more level headed take on fandom interaction and response than Christian but also many other writers.

I do think she wrote good stuff, but there are some tendencies in the writing that I don't think necessarily worked towards her stated goal of making a big fat but also messy and complex lesbian OTP and others that to me make more sense if you interpret with some favoritism or kind of fanficcy tendencies.

#arcane #vi #arcane analysis

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