#arcane act 2 episode 6

[auroragehenna]

I miss Isha.

[venator-signum]

I think the thing that kills me the most about ep6 of arcane is that in vander's memories, it's mostly focused on Vi

yeah there's powder and the others in there, but it's still mainly vi

and in a show that almost revolves around jinx and her actions (she's absolutely main character), it's refreshing to see the spotlight on her big sister and how she got to where she is and if im biased as an older sister who gets overlooked for the younger ones then sue me

[nathaniacolver]

guys i'm so sorry but "oinked poison" IS HILARIOUS

like i KNOW they're both MAD mad bc how do you not break at this 😭😭😭

(in her brain cait's already fucked her stupid)

((caitvi stop mentioning random animals challenge))

[thatoneguyfrom-redacted]

Jinx taught Isha how violence and joy could go hand in hand.

Jinx taught Isha that even though everything seemed shit, and where they lived was shit, and her situation was shit, she could paint silly doodles over it all with spray paint. That they could escape into a game no matter where they were. That no matter a persons past they could still love.

Jinx taught Isha how violence and love could go hand in hand.

[halhys]

Been practicing with gouache these days and after seeing episode 6 of Arcane and all the gorgeous art I couldn't resist and try to recreate one of them in painting!!

Overall super happy with the result!!

And I just won't be able to stop painting Viktor ahahahhaha .....

[midnightcatharsis]

CaitVi fans: Oh no, they really made Cait hit Vi and sleep with Maddie… How can this pairing possibly recover from cheating and domestic abuse? It's doomed…

Meanwhile JayVik fans after Jayce sleeps with another person, breaks every promise he has ever given to Viktor and violently murders him, seemingly with no regret, guilt or inner struggle, without even trying to talk to him one last time:

[helpwhatusernamesarenttaken]

If anybody finds or writes a fic about Episode 6 of Arcane where Jayvick ship sails and Vander and Isha live- pls tell me 😊

[watchmakermori]

my biggest TV critique pet peeve is 'the pacing was so bad, they needed more episodes'

I'm seeing it a lot with regards to arcane season 2. say it with me: if the pacing of a story is bad, that's a problem with the writing. not with the runtime.

If you have commissioned a 9-episode show, and you have to squeeze in plotlines and rush through character moments, then you need to take stuff out and rethink your narrative until it works. Poor pacing is usually a symptom of a wider issue rather than a problem in itself. It might be that you've got too many characters, or you haven't sorted out their motivations well enough. When you don't know what to do with characters or you're only including them for the sake of it, it squeezes the story and makes it rushed and unfocused. But crucially, the solution to this problem is often not to extend the story and spend MORE time on those characters. It's to cut them out or rethink their motivation.

I understand the impulse to say 'oh, if we'd only had more time, this plotline would have been much better'. But it's just such a simplistic approach to the problem. Season 2 of Arcane was rushed, yes, but it's problems would not have been fixed by adding more episodes. Season 1 had pretty much the same number of spinning plates (on top of the challenge of introducing us to the characters and world for the first time!), but the story was tighter and the writing was better, so the pacing worked. Season 2's real problem was the disconnect between the different plots and the number of messy, aimless character motivations. More time wouldn't have fixed that

We saw a similar thing with season 4 of stranger things with its ridiculously long episodes. Padding out the runtime did not make the characters or story better! The problem with modern stranger things is that it's got too many characters and most of them have jack shit to do.

It just drives me nuts when people critique runtime as the reason for pacing problems. Runtime is neutral and your job as a writer is to work with what you have. So you've got more ideas and characters than you can reasonably fit into the story? Tough shit! Cut something! Collapse some characters together, or remove them, and ask yourself if you really need that subplot you're so fond of.

Pacing and runtime are not unrelated, but runtime is not a solution to bad pacing. If the writer isn't using 9 episodes well then they probably won't use 18 episodes well either.

[venstuffs]

just finished act 2 s2, do not speak to me

[atissi]

we're back guys arcane is good again

[human-space-heater]

Theory about Jinx in Act 3 of Arcane

Everyone is theorizing that Jinx is going to return back to her psychotic self and won’t want to lead the revolution. But I want to focus on something. We see that it's not Jinx that reignited the flame of the revolution, it's Isha. Isha was the reason everyone at Vander’s statues began to rally around, she literally lit the flame of the revolution on the shoulders of the statue of another rebel. Jinx is going to help the revolution not because she wants to but because this was Isha’s dream of her. This is Isha’s revolution in a way. Jinx couldn’t believe someone as pure and innocent as Isha could look at someone like Jinx and want to be like her. Even Jinx doesn’t want that as seen by the way Jinx tries to end her life (her fight with Vi and her fight with Ekko). 

Jinx is going to help the revolution because she doesn’t want to disappoint Isha. She feels that it's her fault that her little ‘sister’ sacrificed herself, it's part of her curse again. Then I remember what Vi told Jinx in their final fight. 

“You killed her! I won't let you taint her memory anymore.”

Maybe this will motivate Jinx? I don't know. I'm so upset about Isha’s death. We can see that Jinx will most likely cut her hair in the next act. This has been a part of Jinx’s identity for as long as we have known her, even when she was still Powder, she still had a braid. But she cuts it. Why? Is it because with the death of Isha, it's also the death of Jinx AND Powder? Is it because those braids no longer stand for Jinx/Powder but rather Isha? 

Another thing I realized is in the second episode of Act 1, Jinx was giving Silco a water burial. And she says something that stands out.

“Her and you, always bossing me around. And now it’s so quiet. What am I supposed to do with that?”

That’s the episode where we meet Isha, a character who doesn’t speak. A character who motivates Jinx, who gives Jinx a reason to keep going. Isha was influencing Jinx just as much as Jinx was influencing Isha. She stopped Jinx from killing Stink Maw, diverting her attention and presenting an idea that gave Jinx a new perspective. I’m nervous but also excited to see what happens next. 

[crazywolfsthings]

Bruh, Jayce just fucking koolaid an entire cult

[hellalesbiangirl]

I love how you can still see the cut on Ambessa from sparring with Caitlyn.

Its low quality but I tried

[scaredykitcat]

arcane has taken over my life GRHRVRH WHY DIDN'T I WATCH THIS SHOW EARLIER. IT HURTS BJT IT'S SO GOOD 😭😭 GIVE ME ACT III NOWW

[dao-the-starlight]

no one talk to me I just finished watching through act 2 of Arcane season two

[snakes-of-the-undercity]

My thoughts on the end of act 2 (heavy warning for spoilers) -

Vander’s end/the death of Isha -

Vander’s last love was violence. He could never escape it, he could never be separated from it. And so instead he buried it, turned his violence into fuel to protect his own, his first love; his family. But, as Jinx said in the first season, ‘nothing ever stays gone’. He was never delusioned enough to believe that his violence was gone, but he thought he could control it. He couldn’t and that manifested itself in Warwick. Though I doubt Warwick is dead, Vander now most certainly is.

He died to the hand of that which he loved; his family. He died trying to protect them, he died while bringing them together. I’m not sure what this will do to the family of the heart of Zaun but I hope this will not destroy them. They all carry something of his, it would be a shame to waste it.

Vi holds his violence, Jinx his madness, and Sevika his ideals, though those are only surface level things. Sevika also holds his violence and his drive for family, Jinx holds his want for peace (surprising as that is) and isolation, his escapism, and Vi holds his drive, his want for things to get better, his need for others to be safe. Of course there’s other things they embody, but at the end of the day the story of the heart of Zaun is a story about fathers. How Vander was a father to Vi and Jinx, how Vi was a sort of father to Powder, how Sevika’s own father shaped her into being this protector and king maker of Zaun, how they are dealing of the repercussions of fathers (Silco and Singed), and how they were all a ‘father’ in some way to Isha.

In that same way it is a show about daughters and death. How one single act of ignorance, a drive to help that was seen as such good at first can turn from beauty to bodies lain across the rubble of these cities. How Jinx’s sister, her ward, died trying to help. Died in the way Powder did. And now, once again, vander has died. Their family is shattered once again. And once again they lost their father to a well meaning little girl.

Because at the end of the day this is a story of fathers and daughters, of family.

And, at the end of the day, this story is a tragedy.

Authors note - Might not be cooking with this, I am very sleep deprived— just finished watching and typed this out so yeah! Probs will have more + some old art later