#arcane vi character study

[trashnotfound]

ARCANE WRITERS EXPLORE VIS MENTAL HEALTH AND TRAUMA CHALLENGE

If you really think about it Vi has never had the time to process her truama properly( I mean she’s literally been in fight or flight mode since she was like 7) and I’d love to see them explore that more in depths with how it would change her as a person but also how it would impact her actions. Would she be less guarded, not be a prone to fighting

We’ve seen how she handles mental breakdowns ( with alcohol and fighting, which kinda mimics her childhood surroundings. With her dad owning a bar and her constantly fighting) she automatically diverts her attention to the one thing she is 1 good at plus has known since she was very young. It’s almost like her comfort of sorts ( once again very BAD comfort she is not mentally OKAY)

But when you think about her and what she’s been through, it’s too much for a young mind to handle ( as we saw with jinx)

First she’s thrown into a prison, beat, tortured and isolated for god knows how long. By the time she’d process what has happened more would be on the horizon ( as we know she got beat almost daily) plus it probably lead to some stint in her development either mentally or physically ( which is a whole other can of worms to process)

then when she FINALLY gets out she learns her sister is a war criminal, her uncle has drugged the under city, she gets stabbed and beat up repeatedly, almost dies, gets kidnapped, mentally tortured and then witnesses her sister commit and act of terrorism

The only time in the show she could of mentally processed what she’s been through is the weeks after the attack on the council ( since she was staying with Cait * it’s assumed) but I doubt she would have since she was probably too busy making sure Cait was okay plus thinking about how to stop jinx. Or when’s she was a pitfighter but as we saw, she just drunk her issues away and when she felt that anger towards people she went and fought individuals who had no connect to that feeling, just to have an ounce of control over her mental state.

I’m getting the sense too that she was only taught how to protect others and not herself. She’s kinda self destructive ( in the nature of getting into usless fight, putting her self in danger and being impulsive) she doesn’t know what to do when mentally crashing, she doesn’t really know how to read her emotions properly and that leads to her impulsiveness because she thinks she’s feeling a specific way and thus acts upon that feeling. Not taking the time to process her emotion and figure out her thoughts!

I just think Vi is the most interesting character in arcane when you REALLY sit down and study her character. So much underling lore exists to her when you dig deep into her actions specifically and I’m so sad the writers didn’t focus on that this season. They could make her one of the MOST complex characters but just stick with “anger issues and she likes to fight” but they never explore WHY she does those things. I know a lot of it is *show and not tell* and as I said if you actually use your brain you can figure this out and use just general knowledge. their putting to much trust in the viewer to read between the lines. When most just wanna be told what’s going on and how characters feel or think.

I just really like Vi guys….

[frenchublog]

[m-mmoonshine]

As someone who loves animated tv and movies I can say with certainty that the way arcane uses micro expression is so special.

The animation of expressions is simplified in most media for obvious reasons but when arcane animates expression they seem to actually take advantage of the ability to animate each frame to really detail these micro expressions.

They add so much depth to the characters and the story in my opinion. Allowing for the audience to see the conflicting and underlying thoughts and emotions behind a characters actions.

Movement in the ears, eyebrows, lips, jaw, flickering of the eyes or eyelids. Even the way a movement can be faster or slower, halting or assured. All of it tells the story of what the character is going through or thinking better than words can.

This is why I don’t really think much about the arguments that revolve around “they never explicitly talked about this, or apologized, or gave forgiveness etc” cause it’s the little things arcane shows visually like these micro expressions which paint a much more complex picture that doesn’t need words to communicate.

[srslylini]

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

[viviandarkbloombartylusversion]

The way I see people say that Silco was just blatantly manipulating Jinx the whole time, but actually he genuinely believed a majority of the things he told her (he was heavily projecting as he saw himself in her as he went through something similar with Vander) when he tells Jinx everyone leaves or betrays us, its just us (or smth like that), he genuinely believes it, he's not just trying to keep Jinx close, he feels it's true after what happened with Vander & Vi and is projecting that onto Jinx, when he tells Jinx to let Powder die its because he also left his old self die, hes definitely not like the young Silco we see in flashbacks, after Vander tried to kill him he clearly changed and put who he was behind him for something new, for something stronger, he's far from perfect (obviously) and wasn't the healthiest option for Jinx but he really wasn't this master manipulator some make him out to be (when it came to Jinx)

[vi-arcanes-left-biceps]

So I wanted to talk about Vi and Jinx...

I think one of the most beautiful things in Arcane re: the sisters is how reconnecting is, for both of them, only possible when they break out of their pre-conceived notions of each other that they've been dragging since childhood.

To reconnect with Jinx, S2 Vi has to acknowledge her as an independent adult and let go of the perception of a small vulnerable child that she needed to protect at all times. S2 Jinx, to reconnect with Vi, has to see her sister as someone vulnerable, both physically and emotionally, and not as this sort of always-strong, idealised protector.

Only when they break their childhood dynamic they are able to see each other as equal and find a common ground.

And I love their dynamic in season 2 because despite all the bagage they have you can see how they are getting to see each other as their own persons, while also being silly af like only two siblings can be. It's very little time, but you can tell they are maturing together.

I think many 'arcane critical' Vi takes fail to understand this. They are trapped in S1 Vi's and Jinx's minds. They are still expecting them to conform to the unhealthy dynamic of protector and protected; and fail to see what Vi and Jinx see of each other in S2. Vi is no ideal protector nor a hero of the vulnerable: she's a flawed, young woman with tons of emotional bagage. Jinx is not an uwu baby who needs protection and is unable to do things for herself: she can very much protect herself, she's independent, a survivor, as well as deeply traumatised too.

And this is not subtext at all. Vi points out in the mines that Jinx hasn't needed her in a long time -she's realised her sister is more than capable of fending for herself. Jinx makes teasing observations of Vi's soft spots throughout S2: telling her she knows she's soft on Caitlyn during Act I finale, calling her a "sentimental excon" in act II... And she's seen her become an alcoholic due to all her unprocessed trauma and the situation after act I (and also makes a comment about that).

Their whole journey in S2 is about how they cannot, and do not, conform to the dynamic they acquired when they were children. They are two different persons now, and they are also mature enough to understand each other as multi-dimensional, as oppossed to their one-dimensional perceptions of each other as protector and protected that they had in S1 Act I and that dragged on S1 as a whole.

Criticising Vi's character for not going after Jinx after their last encounter is failing to understand many things, but mainly, it is a symtom of being trapped in the dynamic they had in episode 1, when most of the story of their relationship in the series is guided to tell us how this is not who they are, and these perceptions frozen in time are hurting both of them.

"Everyone in my life has changed" says Vi in S2 Act I finale. It is true: she's been locked in a jail cell, where all of the Lanes, her family, her friends... remained frozen in memory, and now she doesn't know who this people are. She's struggling with years and years of emptyness in which everyone she knows has grown and changed and she's been stuck -she's changed, too, but that's harder for her to see. She doesn't know who Jinx is, and until S1 finale she is unable to see this fact. Her behaviour in S2 Act I is, among other things, a backlash reaction to this realization, also a mistaken, unidimensional perception of her sister -not a perfect victim now, but a perfect perpetrator. Jinx also takes her time to get to see Vi for who she is now, but she's finally able to in S2. That doesn't mean they understand each other -quite far from it actually- but they are able to see and accept each other as complex people, with deep rooted bagage, part the same they were as children, part completely different.

Then it comes S2 ep8. Vi's fight with Caitlyn about Jinx demonstrates how Vi is now able to understand Jinx as a multidimensional character, see her complexity, her humanity, and argue she's different than they (both Caitlyn and Vi) thought she was. Jinx's conversation with Vi underscores how much Jinx recognises their dynamic has been hurting them both ("You're never going to give up on me") and how Vi has wishes and feelings of her own, even if she's repressing them to play her part as the big protector sis. These observations fuel Jinx's suicidal ideation, and Vi's incapability to give up her protector role, despite knowing Jinx doesn't need it anymore, gets her to have a breakdown. Neither know what this moment did to the other, because they still don't know each other that much. But they cannot save themselves without having had this conversation.

It's a perfect tragedy where a childish dynamic is entertwined with guilt, pain, and tons of trauma. It is a barbed wire that traps them both - it hurts when they are still, and it hurts more when they try to break free. Only with help they can disentangle themselves and one another; and that's where Cait and Ekko come in, too (and for Jinx, Isha and Sevika also did a part).

Anyway, I love me some doomed sisters dynamic.

[pretzel-bitz]

Arcane style is mine now

(I recommend doing style studies for this show SO hard it's saved me)

[merryfight]

vi arcane my beloved <3

[sapphic-boyfriend]

not enough ppl talk abt vi and the visceral experience of having ur childhood and teenhood completely snatched away from you, and now you’re an adult who just has to live & deal w that fact.

[sevikas-biceps]

Caitlyn looked at Maddie and saw an awash version of Vi, the same way Jinx once looked at Caitlyn and saw a shinier version of herself.

Red fades to orange. Powder blue to indigo.

Replacements. That's all they are.

[artzymaiuz]

School starts TOMORROW, but I squeezed in this Arcane style study using my Sona! Last-minute style study before the arki plates take over my life tomorrow. ☠️ This style study definitely fried my brain 🧠🤚🏼. It's not accurate but its definitely..uhh something 😅.

Also I'd like to thank the people who reposted and supported my work 💖 THANK YOU GUYS SOOO MUCH it really means a lot to me😍🍪✨

Art commissions are still open tho ehe~. DM me!

[godlygivenanxiety]

look, not to be a hater but the whole ekko/jinx alternate universe situation only proves that jinx was only ever loved entirely and completely by silco, that's kinda the point of how tragic jinx really is as a character,

vi either only sees her little sister out of guilt/sense of duty mixed with a desperate need to come back to something or as consequences to her own actions(taking away agency from jinx in the process);

ekko sees her through the eyes of an idealist which is exactly what he is and that's not bad by itself, but it makes her either A Problem or Someone That Needs Saving, that's what's going on in his head after that AU he transported to. he's comparing jinx to powder and he likes powder much better, so he wants jinx to be powder or to reignite the powder in her - basically, he thinks how vi used to think;

isha is a complicated matter because she did show kindness and affection towards jinx that wasn't equal to anyone else's, it was pure and idolizing, she loved what she knew of jinx.

the people of zaun don't love her, not by a long shot. she became a symbol to some(as we can notice in the reunion by vander's statue) and overall the assumption that she would get involved more after her attack and silco's death is a fair one; that doesn't mean they like her,

sevika maintains a connection to jinx through grief and a sense of helplessness along with familiarity, silco's death affected jinx's psyche but it also affected sevika's dream of zaun, they feel left behind by him;

vander... well, he only got to see powder and warwick quite literally just had the memories,

the ONLY character we see that meets her as powder and stays with her as jinx is silco; yes, he isn't a good guy and he does cause the whole separation, he sharpened her edges to make her into a weapon, he lied to her and manipulated her at times, none of these things exclude the fact he does love her so strongly, with zero conditions.

she fucks up in missions, she does as she pleases around zaun, she kills their people, she stabs him in the eye, has psychotic episodes and breakdowns, she kidnaps him, ties him down, SHOOTS HIM, she doubts him and his love, keeps running after the past when he's done everything to strengthen her and she was, at a point, the only thing keeping him from his dream of an independent zaun - none of these perceived sins and flaws made him wish for anyone other than her, as she is.

all silco wanted was to keep her, while everyone else either wants another version of her or none at all. that's the tragic part, even if she suddenly decided to be good, she would feel like a burden for not being entirely like people want her to be.

[the-dragon-hearted]

Love in Arcane

There are a lot of themes in Arcane but an overarching theme is the dangers of love. Often times, love is put on a pedestal and mistaken as sacred. Love is always good, always "pure".

Arcane actively pushes against that.

I think a lot of the discourse surrounding some of the relationships wouldn't be as big if we recognized that love is just... not always a good thing. Silco and Jinx, Powder and Vi, Mel and Ambessa, they all display that - let me explain.

Silco and Jinx: Probably the most obvious example of this

Silco loves Jinx. This earnestly cannot be argued, he was willing to throw away his dream of an independent Zaun because he could not handle the idea of betraying her. Not losing her - betraying her. Hurting her. He was willing to give himself up, telling Jayce everything she did was what he ordered. It is not a possessive twisted love where he wants her near - he has spent her entire life promising that he won't betray her and he meant it.

BUT!

That does not mean Silco is a good father. He loves her - absolutely. But love is not always good. Everything Silco passed on to Jinx was an example of how he saw the world. Silco was a paranoid, hurt man and as such he made his daughter a paranoid, hurt woman. Love forms us, it teaches us and builds us. Silco loved Jinx but he hated Piltover. He was willing to use violence and use people to get to his goal and he taught Jinx that those methods were acceptable. And he loves Jinx, so she learned.

And after he dies, part of her healing is unlearning those lessons. It's no mistake the ghost of Silco she sees in that cell is a somber one - warning her about the cycle of violence she knows all too well. It's no mistake that Silco's solution was one he never managed to do.

A parent can love you, but that does not change who they are. It does not change what they teach you. Especially if they think they're right.

Powder and Vi: this one hits a lil personally for me

Violet is a parentified older sister, she doesn't just feel responsible for Powder - it's her purpose. It's more than a role to fill or a job to do, if something happens to Powder it is Violet's fault.

And Powder? Vi was everything to her. She looked to Vi for praise, for guidance. Everything she was supposed to seek out in a parent she had to look for in a fellow child. And when Violet leaves her (not really but that's how she understands it), she is ripped away from the only source of dependency she has. So there's a level of resentment there and a fear of further abandonment. Because if the most reliable person in her life can leave her, who won't?

When they reunite, Vi is trying to fulfill a role Jinx no longer needs. Jinx is independent. A lot of people try to say that Vi made Jinx or Silco made Jinx but remember that at the end of the day, Jinx is Jinx. She is a person who makes her own choices and has to find her own path. Violet can't recognize that until it's too late - and then, because she's known her whole life that it is her purpose to take responsibility for Powder, she betrays everything she ever stood for, puts on an enforcer badge, and takes to the streets to try to atone for her failure.

Vi sees Jinx as her failure.

And Jinx? When Vi comes back she tries to find that dependency she once knew. She tries to figure out if she can still depend on that sister who once meant the entire world to her. But she can't. She never should have. And learning that the person you idolize most sees you as either a child or a threat is gutting. Jinx is not a child, so she must be a threat. Because Vi can't love Jinx, she loves Powder. And Jinx can't be Powder anymore, and if that's the case then Violet can't love her.

They both do love each other. They love the memories of the other. Who they once were. When they start to learn about one another again and rekindle that siblinghood it becomes healthier - it's more meaningful and respectful but before then? No matter how hard Violet tried, even if Jinx had chosen to be Powder again, their love would not have been healthy. Violet needed to learn that Jinx was her own person. And that she was not responsible for her, not anymore. Jinx needed to find herself and recognize Vi's failures. Recognize Violet as a person too.

Because siblings change. They grow. Apart and then back together, usually. Siblings love each other but you have to love more than the person someone used to be. Otherwise, you're just pouring your grief on the person they've become.

Ambessa and Mel:

Perfectionist mother meets over-achiever, independent daughter. This is the clearest cut of all the relationships, in my opinion. We know Mel resents that her mother sent her away because she wanted to stay. She wanted to make her mother proud and if she couldn't make her proud she'd damn well spite her. And Ambessa? She loves Mel. She makes that very clear.

But sometimes, love is not something to desire. Sometimes love is synonymous with prison.

Ambessa's love meant she wanted her children to be survivors. Fighters. Winners. She wanted her children to be her.

Mel? Mel figured out quickly enough she didn't want to be her mother, she wanted to be herself. She feared what her mother could do but recognized the tactics and skills she honed were granted to her from the cradle.

That last word: "You have become the wolf."

The nail in the coffin. All the love, all the adoration in that tone, and yet Ambessa's love condemns Mel to a life she never wanted. Because now Mel is her mother's daughter. She is the wolf her mother raised. The heir. Mel loses everything she built and fought for as her Mother dies in her arms, by her hands.

Love. Succession. They can coexist with hate and damnation.

You can love someone and hurt them. Being loved can be hurtful. Love does not mean healthy. It does not mean good. Because love doesn't really have a tangible definition. You can love someone with everything in your body and still be bad for them. Someone can love you with all they have and yet haunt you long after their gone. I think we've placed love on this untouchable pedestal that we dare not touch or critique.

Because: "If it's bad for you it can't be love. No - people who love you don't hurt you. Love is only good. Love is good!"

It's important to know that being loved does not equal being happy, fulfilled, or safe. Better love exists. Healthy, meaningful, caring love exists. But even that will not always be perfect.

Love hurts. Love can be the most hurtful thing out there. Adoring someone rides a find line with glorifying them - love doesn't do that. Love knows your faults. It comes with faults. And adding the right combination of faults can make love a twisted sort of thing. Toxic is a word that's thrown around a lot and often separated from love.

Love can be toxic. It doesn't always become some separate entity, it just manifests sickeningly. Arcane shows us that.

It also shows us love can be good. It can forgive and accept. It can cradle and hold and save. It can last through dimensions and centuries, even through death. Love, like anything else, has many forms. Good and bad.

Doesn't Singed do atrocious things in the name of Love?

Doesn't Ekko recognize that even if he loves Powder, it's not his world. It's not his happiness to have. Doesn't leaving that love take strength?

Don't Viktor and Jayce find love in faults? In each other's shortcomings, not despite them but because of them?

Arcane encourages us to recognize Love's complexities and contradictions. And I think that's neat.

[sp-ace-demon-art]

little study I started to do. getting so inspired and infatuated with all the vi fan art out there (and caitvi fanart as well). just a small wip :3

[srslylini]

I could tell you about the moving of their throats, about their lips trembling and quivering, their eyes closing, not with each other but after each other because Vi needs to see Caitlyn to understand and Caitlyn needs to feel more than see.

I could talk about how Caitlyn was the first to leave her defenses behind by coming closer without her gun and I could also tell you how Vi, always the fighter, needed to see the safety until the last possible moment and then fall into it and hear Caitlyns voice and promise before she could let her defense fall. And with that I could also talk about how the weapons are still close to Vi even after losing them and how it shows, while she wants to, she can't yet leave her defenses behind completely. Not like Caitlyn at least.

I could talk about how they draw closer for the first kiss but with Vi still holding onto her weapons and distrust at first, are still away from each other.

I could talk about how Vi is the one who can't stop watching Caitlyns eyes and mouth and how her breathing is harder than Caitlyn's because she is still scared and so so in love and how Caitlyn is always fixed on her mouth.

I could talk about Vi's eyebrows furrowing and Caitlyn's jaw working while swallowing, Vi's nose piercing moving in sync with them, I could talk about how after their first kiss they found their footing together and left their last defenses.

I could talk about how that leaves them both vulnerable to each other and the world. I could talk about Vi's last breath after their first kiss before she lets her weapons fall and with that herself too.

And I could also talk about their embrace and how they are, now that the weapons are almost fully gone, completely there with each other, I could also talk about Caitlyn's fingers in Vi's hair-

well I could but uhm Im normal duh.

[jenhoneys]

so so tired of the debate of "powder would have been better off with vi as a caregiver" "no silco was better for her" like, no no! any way it goes, ALL of them loose -- there is no winning in this situation especially for power. this is the point! they are lower class people fighting to survive within a system that hates them and the result of that is rage and fighting that means everyone experiences loss; there is no vi/silco is better for powder, they would have both been detrimental to her growing up because of the elements around them -- without their traumas, outside environment, etc, yes they would be better and loving, but the fact is that they are both incredibly complex characters that work through their issues in flawed ways.

you don't think vi would have tried to fight the enforcers/silco post-warehouse? by this time, she is a tween, she's just lost her family, and she is so extremely full of rage. killing is a cycle, and at this point, vi hasn't learnt to control her rage the way vander does -- both vi and vander are full of love and full of anger, but vander only realises it needs to stop when it hurts someone he loves/he hurts someone he loves. and even though she did hurt powder, because vi is so young, I don't think she'd learn that so quickly -- she's just a child, she isn't equipt to deal with caregiving 24/7, no matter how good she seems at it, she's not equipt to deal with powder's episodes (which I believe would still occur -- more on that later) alongside dealing with her own anger towards silco/sevika/enforcers. plus, she'd be forced to take the adult role in that relationship, more than she already did, and it would be detrimental to them both, especially after experiencing such a trauma.

speaking of, I also think people blaming silco fully for jinx's mental state is assigning him too much credit -- he very much feeds into it by encouraging her paranoia (though I don't believe he does it intentionally, because he doesn't seem to be aware of the voices or taking inventory/staying updated with them as he does other things), but he isn't the cause. she isn't depicted using shimmer, and the same animation effect is already used when she was younger, before she lost her family, the loss of her family (and the realisation that she did it) just worsens her condition.

and with silco, though he loves her more than anything, he is an enabler, and he is also riddled with his own trauma. he maps his trauma onto her, and she inherits a kind of pseudo generational trauam by default. he is paranoid of people, of trusting, of lies, because of how he was hurt by vander, and so jinx has the same mentality. he believes he only has jinx in the world, and so jinx believes the same. he is not equipt to deal with a child, either, and yet he does because she is a child of someone he loved -- and while he seems to have done a good job in the other universe, the main difference is that vander is there, and vander is forgiven. he has worked through his trauma, assumably, with another adult, and he hasn't given it to jinx. he also doesn't seem to be co-dependent with her, because he seems to have other people he trusts in his life (mostly, from the scene in 2×7, vander).