#caitlyn stan

[chronicsyd]

"you're gonna hate Caitlyn after S2!" who? me? that's cute (but really, if Jinx stans are allowed a certain level of bias towards her after what we've seen her do, I think I should be allowed that same thing as a Caitlyn stan dontcha think? also don't get me wrong, I'm probably not gonna agree with Everything that Caitlyn does this season but that's like-- the Whole Point of the show. And knowing me, I'm probably gonna make a long winded rant about why I'm still defending Caitlyn and not gonna start hating her...)

(Also I'm starting to feel like we're heading into Abby Anderson territory with the way I'm already seeing people start to talk about her with S2... and LOOK, you can not agree with everything that she does and all that jazz but ISTG if I start seeing y'all send death threats Katie's way I'm Gonna LOSE it. Dislike the character, Whatever, but Leave The Cast ALONE. you can wish death on a character All you want, i may not agree with it and I probably won't be able to change your mind on it; but sending those same threats to the actors makes you rather pathetic)

(I also forgot to add that Katie's already been through this when she played Cho Chang in Harry Potter and let's just say the Harry Potter fans were... not the nicest to her, and that's putting it Very lightly. so I Expect Jinx stans to behave nicer to her regardless of your feelings of Caitlyn this season)

[snakes-of-the-undercity]

DIVORCES

SO MANY DIVORCES

OR DEATH

ALL THE HOMOSEXUALS ARE EITHER DIVORCED OR DEAD

[atomicjellyb3an]

Katie Leung watching the Caitlyn discourse online after season 2

crying bc she basically said “idk why people are hating her so much”

nobody is a bigger caitlyn fan than her own VA and i love that for her

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

catra: constantly abuses adora physically and emotionally, gaslights and manipulates adora, doesn't try to better herself even though she is offered several second chances, continues repeating her toxic behavior even after her "redemption arc"

fans: omg relationship goals! we love toxic yuri 🎀

caitlyn: hits vi once because she is overwhelmed by the grief of losing her mother, corrects her actions after meeting up with vi again, tries to help vi rescue vander, never repeats her toxic behavior and supports vi unconditionally afterwards

fans: what an abusive bitch! vi deserves so much better!

[zeddylux]

I'm just going to take a moment to acknowledge the "oh just because I excuse Caitlyn's actions doesn't mean I do in real life. She's not real," crowd for a moment. You might think this way of thinking is harmless because Caitlyn's just a fictional character but it effects the way you think and behave whether you want to admit it or not. It effects the way you engage in discourse, your ability to hold real people accountable, and your ability to see other people's experiences as valid. Caitlyn defenders have got to be some of the most passive-aggressive and entitled people I've seen in a long time. The fragility and ego of her stans betrays their inability to take any kind of constructive criticism and instead choose to turn those arguments around and perpetuate harm within the fandom. I swear you behave just like her because you see yourselves in her. You don't stop to question whether this writing or behavior is harmful because it's reinforcing your worldview. The writing chooses not to hold her accountable and you just accept that as fine because it doesn't affect you. I wonder how that might show up in real life? How might the reinforcement of your biases in fiction reinforce your bias of real people? It's hard to say but it genuinely concerns me and I will not bow to your petulant whining no matter how loud it gets. There are some sins so evil that no amount of "forgiveness" in the world will be enough to erase them.

[mvmnbnv]

why are yall mad at maddie but not caitlyn for this affair they got going on...? its not maddies fault cait cant wise up and go fix shit with vi, she didnt even have the decency to try and ask her if she was okay after she tackled her for no good reason...after everything she'd done to her before all that. and the "maddie's just a rebound thing" just makes cait sound even more awful because maddie looks emotionally attatched but cait cant even bother to offer the same thing...literally just played this girl like a fiddle because she cant do right by vi for shit and yall are mad at maddie?? dont play in my face, yall are gonna stop blaming everybody BUT cait for cait's fuck ups.

[violent-viscera]

okay, so most definitely an unpopular opinion considering the amount of caitlyn fans/stans (in addition to fans solely bc of caitvi) but i wanted to articulate my thoughts on her s2.

firstly, i loved the idea of her character in s1. along with jayce, i understand that they were both fundamentally flawed due to inherent, latent prejudices that they held against zaunites. they often misspoke and stepped out of line when speaking to ppl like vi and viktor just on the basis of their privilege of being born piltovan.

but it was interesting to see how their good hearts and intentions led them to being forced to face their troubled and unfair prejudices. of course, i didn't agree with how they viewed zaunites, but i was rooting for them to become spearheads of change and reform.

anyway, i digress to where i am now where i am feel incredibly disappointed by the writing of her character.

i love a good villainess and was actually quite excited to see where her fascist arc would take her. it would be such a diametric, polar opposite of her character in s1 where she was slowly beginning to see piltover's role in the systematic oppression of zaun.

it would've been compelling to see her become completely lost to her grief and rage and the message behind how the repercussions of cataclysmic calamity that she and jinx cause as mirrors of one another would've been interesting (ie. jinx shooting a rocket launcher at the council in her loss of silco vs. caitlyn gassing innocent civilians in a bid to discover jinx after losing her mother)

but again, the writing didn't do much for me in the way of caitlyn or her mother in s2 in so many different ways.

i understand that there are nuances and complexities in difficult mother-daughter relationships and i understand caitlyn has every right to grieve. but her grief is not parallel to the grief of vi or jinx or any other zaunite when most of the misfortune that befell zaunite deaths can indirectly stem from the choices made by ppl like cassandra and the council.

yes, cassandra built systems to ensure that the grey did not completely suffocate zaunites. but this still by no means absolves all her other sins in her complacency in the oppression of zaunites–not to mention her attitude towards zaunites or anyone else that she deems "less than"

caitlyn's villain arc was watery and diluted at best. it was initially really interesting to see count caitlyn and her cape step up to the plate under ambessa's encouragement, but by the next episode she was already wavering and uncommitted. it seemed like a pointless route to entertain with how brief it was. and as others mentioned, caitlyn was being a cruel asshole without the direction of ambessa with the usage of chemical warfare.

caitlyn's choices had very little repercussions throughout the season. she hits vi with a rifle and turns her back on her and is basically instantly forgiven. she performs chemical warfare and her guilty conscience is the only real consequence she faces. she loses her eye in a fight, yes, but it is also a battle she invited when she accepted tutelage under ambessa to sustain a fascist regime. she makes it blatantly clear that she accepts vi bc she views vi as an entity separate of the rest of the animals of zaun and there isn't really any content that implies these views have changed or that there will be any reform imminent for enforcers/piltovan-zaun relations aside from reluctantly allowing Sevika a spot on the council

i dont even want to get into how vi become completely a shell of the amazing, compelling character she was in s1 and how the heart and soul of the show (the sisters' rs) was essentially abandoned to make caitvi happen rather than rly considering the optics and pragmatism of having an oppressed, falsely imprisoned, vulnerable zaunite being with an enforcer without due sensitivity and consideration of what needs happen to make caitvi happen in a sensible fashion.

i just feel like by the end of the show, caitlyn ends up right where she started where she's a privileged piltovan living her cushy life with no repercussions. there was no real reason to write her as an empathetic character, struggling with what she knew as a piltovan vs. what she sees when she is with vi down in zaun, bc in the end, the empathy did nothing to change how she treated zaunites or how her enforcers operate on the day-to-day.

and i actually think if the writers didn't try to play caitvi off as being a healthy, beautiful representation of a lesbian relationship instead of toxic one marred by power imbalances, it would've been a compelling and tragic message.

TLDR: i think many ppl have expressed their disappointment in how vi (and jinx) were written in s2, but i also think the writers did a terrible job in writing caitlyn as well.

[hishighnesstheprincess]

Caitlyn really heard her mother say "the people of the undercity deserve to breathe" and then immediately decided to use chemical weapons like omfg she really wasn't joking when she said she and her mother couldn't agree on anything 😭

[yoursaltytears]

Girlhood is a spectrum

From an officer to a dictator

To an angry oil slick lover

A cupcake, mongoose, and certified girlkisser

[the-mpreg-guy]

Idk it's just exhausting to watch a show reward the fascist cop, punish the suicidal mentally ill "terrorist," and then watch an entire fandom go "you're stupid and media illiterate for being annoyed with this choice and also you hate sapphics you stupid sapphic."

I support womens wrongs but Aracane was soooo copaganda it was honestly embarrassing for them.

[n1blakelover]

man imma have to stay off the arcane (specifically caitlyn and vi) tags for a long ass time bc the amount of people shitting on them from the stuff that’s leaked is pissing me tf off, i’m gonna be in the goddamn trenches defending these two in s2 just as i was in the trenches defending vi in season 1

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

so i saw this fanart on instagram (not sharing it here) where the artist drew caitvi scenes from arcane, but with catra and adora in their places. and here's the kicker - they drew the scene where caitlyn hits vi, with catra as vi and adora as caitlyn.

like??? i don't think these two ships are similar but if we're talking about that specific scene, shouldn't the roles be reversed? it's not just the fact that catra is the one who never hesitates to hurt adora, but also the fact that the horde is more like piltover than it is like zaun. they are the oppressors.

a few people in the comments pointed out that the roles should be reversed and the artist was like "this is how i see them :)" and "i just want a reason to draw emo catra lol". i mean, you can draw emo catra if you like, you don't have to compare her to vi.

at the end of the day, people can draw what they want and i'm not trying to tell anyone what to do. i just find it absurd the way people constantly mischaracterize adora and catra, and act like adora is the abuser.

[zeddylux]

I don't know who needs to hear this but your dismissal of real peoples experiences of oppression and police brutality in order to justify Caitlyn's actions says more about you than her or any of the writers decisions in Season 2. I wish you would just admit you haven't done jack shit the last 10-15 years about anything that's been happening to marginalized groups around the world and likely never will.

[elpeadro]

Part 1: The Good Ending

Part 2: The Bad, Tragic Ending

If the writers wanted CaitVi to be their canon OTP so bad, they had two ways of going about it…sike there was a secret third ending all along!

THE DISJUMBLED, TONAL MESS OF AN ENDING WE GOT:

Despite the pacing and dialogue issues of the first three episodes, I have nothing bad to say about Act 1’s ending. Caitlyn’s corruption arc, while extremely rushed in getting to this point given where her characterization was at in season 1, reaches its climax as we see just how far she has fallen: being willing to shoot a child, lashing out and hitting Vi, saying some incredibly bigoted things toward Vi, and, the pièce de résistance and one of my favorite scenes in the entire show, becoming the dictator of Piltover as the enforcers and Noxians beat their chests in salute to her. When Ambessa drapes that cloak over her shoulders and Caitlyn thumps her fist against her chest, it feels like the birth of a monster - and I mean that in the best way possible.

And she is a monster…except her actions are mostly confined to two music montages in episodes 3 and 4 and then shuffled off to the side for Warwick in Act 2 and the Machine Herald War in Act 3.

Just as it is a major problem when she goes from naive and priviledged, but good-hearted S1 Caitlyn to “let’s commit war crimes against a civilian population” S2 Caitlyn in the span of the Heavy is the Crown + Hellfire montages, it is even more a problem when the near-entirety of her dictator era is confined to the Paint the Town Blue montage. Because while I would begrudgingly accept the former being rushed to set up the latter’s payoff, the writers don’t pay it off.

At the end of episode 3, Caitlyn ascends to dictatorship. At the beginning of episode 4, she is questioning Ambessa, the justifications for martial law, and Maddie even suggests she could reinstate the council and remove herself as dictator. Can you say ‘jarring’?

That’s not how this works! You don’t write a good character having a fall from grace into a villain arc, then fast forward through the lowest and worst points of said arc. It’s like they made her a dictator just for the flavor it would give her character combined with the angst of her and Vi breaking up. Which, that’s bad writing process to begin with, but it’s especially bad when the writing has her BECOME A FASCIST DICTATOR.

You absolutely cannot evoke the political imagery of fascism only to not follow through on it. It is a conscious, deliberate choice to write and animate the end of episode 3 and the opening montage of episode 4 as they are presented.

In the Paint the Town Blue montage, we see: 

banners with the Kiramman crest being hung up all over the city

security checkpoints for Zaunites with armed enforcers standing watch

a prison with watchtowers and tall, barbed wire fences

enforcers acting as riot police (complete with riot shields)

Zaunites throwing Molotovs at said riot police

unarmed Zaunites running from armed enforcers

a Zaunite prisoner being photographed standing against a wall with a bag over their head (I really want to point this one out)

an enforcer stepping on the head of a Zaunite who is already laying on the ground and being handcuffed by another enforcer

Zaunite rebels hiding in a boarded up shop from armed enforcers

Zaunite prisoners being marched forward with their hands behind their heads

an enforcer beating someone

a line of Zaunites kneeling with their hands cuffed behind their backs as an enforcer beats another prisoner

Caitlyn being framed in shadow with a brooding, sullen look

graffiti of Jinx as a revolutionary figure waving a blue flag

In short, a dictator’s regime putting up propaganda posters and symbols, political repression by the state, mass imprisonment, police brutality, civilian resistance against an authoritarian state, and people rallying around a revolutionary symbol. And don’t forget the opening of episode 3 where we hear the recording of Cassandra Kiramman say “the people of the Undercity deserve to breathe” only for Caitlyn to immediately go “umm actually no they don’t; time to weaponize toxic, carcinogenic smog against them and revoke the most basic of human rights.”

(Side note: “Paint the Town Blue” as the song for this montage doesn’t feel right, tonally. A bit too energetic and idk, peppy? This is a montage showing an oppressed group of people being brutalized by a fascist state. Maybe go for something somber and/or horrifying? Or something that makes viewers sick from how angry they are at the sight? Just a thought.)

If the writers were going to do something with all of this, then they did a good job - song choice notwithstanding. 

The problem is they don’t. Not a single character confronts Caitlyn over the atrocities she committed.

When Vi sees her - the woman who broke her heart, who betrayed her, who became a dictator and stepped on the necks of Vi’s people for a year - she’s more annoyed and mad at Caitlyn for attacking her on accident than she is for, I don’t know, THE WHOLE DICTATOR THING? Season 1 Vi would’ve let Caitlyn absolutely have it, if not outright fought her for what she did to Vi’s city.

In what is one of the most stunning bits of character assassination I’ve seen, Jinx APOLOGIZES to Caitlyn for killing her mom.

Ekko got written out of the story to where he never interacted with Caitlyn this season, because if he was giving her shit in season 1, then he would’ve let her absolutely have it, even harder than Vi did.

Sevika got written out of the story entirely after episode 4.

Jayce never comments on it once he gets back.

Mel never comments on it once she gets back.

The writers try to trick us with Vi and Caitlyn’s argument in episode 8, and then Caitlyn’s one-sided venting to Jinx in the jail cell about how they can never repay their crimes, but those are both so weak and half-assed.

We never see Caitlyn realize the weight of her crimes. She needed to have a scene where she “wakes up” and is horrified at how far she’s fallen and all the terrible things she’s done. We don’t get that. She’s already woken up and questioning things when we see her for the first time in episode 4. Nor does she suffer from the guilt of said crimes. Again, I’m going to complain about the blatant Macbeth reference in her part of the intro credits, because how do you deliberately evoke fucking MACBETH for a character who undergoes a villain arc and commits these horrible actions only to not have her crumble under the weight of her sins…you know…like what happens in Macbeth.

So Caitlyn isn’t held accountable either externally or internally. This wouldn’t be a problem if handled properly. A villain doesn’t have to be held accountable nor realize they’re a bad person to be an effective, satisfying character.

The problem is the tone of everything that comes after the opening of episode 4.

It’s almost like the writers are actively trying to have Caitlyn commit as few on-screen, bad actions as possible during her dictator era. Really all she does is threaten Singed with the prison cells she has deemed too inhumane to use. (Oh yay! She hasn’t been as awful as she could have been). After that, she immediately flips back to Vi’s side to help save Warwick, has a very surface level argument so people can say “but Vi did call her out”, “wins” Vi’s affections over Jinx and has sex in a jail cell with Vi going down on her (that sex scene could be its own post god I hate it), gets to be one of the good guys in the war without any pushback, and gets her happy ending with Vi.

The framing of all of this, both textually and by word of God via the authors, is simply incompatible with the weight of her crimes. 

The jail cell scene is presented as Vi and Caitlyn reconnecting and finally coming together, complete with a happy pop song - ignoring Vi’s sister being clearly suicidal and Vi certainly having trauma from spending 7 years in prison where the warden beat her enough times that he didn’t bother keeping count, to say nothing of Caitlyn not having earned Vi’s trust and intimacy. (Also, Vi couldn’t have gotten any pleasure or attention? They couldn’t have taken it to an actual bed?)

The way Vi talks about herself going behind Caitlyn’s back is unhealthy and toxic. (“I went behind your back (for my sister, who has committed far less heinous crimes than you, who just watched the kid she sorta adopted die right in front of her and is now a mental wreck, after you locked her up using your unilateral power as dictator of Piltover.)”)

Vi being very, very emotionally fragile and in no way composed enough to have sex is ignored. (It shouldn’t have to be said, but if someone is this close to having a breakdown and has already punched the wall until their knuckles are bruised, you absolutely should not have sex with them when they’re in such a vulnerable state.)

The “I’m the dirt beneath your nails” line is framed as cutesy and romantic, when that’s actually a horrible, demeaning thing for someone who is a member of the oppressed class to say about herself when her partner is a member of the oppressor class and quite literally was a dictator that violated the human rights of people like Vi, called them animals, and said their blood made them this way.

And most importantly, Caitlyn never has to confront the fact that she became a dictator and did all of these terrible things while in power.

Which, I truly cannot believe I am having to say this, but if you aren’t going to touch on the fact that a protagonist went down a dark path and became a fascist dictator, DON’T WRITE HER BECOMING A FASCIST DICTATOR.

(Or you embrace the tragic, toxic nature of leaving that stuff unaddressed, as discussed in part two.)

TL;DR: the ending CaitVi got is framed as a happy ending, except Caitlyn didn’t put in any of the work for it to be anywhere near a happy, healthy relationship, so it comes across as hollow, forced, and tonally off.

[lazy-universes]

my girlfriend said she thought vi was pathetic in act 2 and i told her that if she ever broke up with me i'd make vi seem well adjusted and mature so we sat in silence for fifteen minutes

[littlerebels]

Caitlyn stans: Why don't you guys criticize Jinx, Silco, and Sevika as much as you do Caitlyn? Sevika is a baddie too! She was the right-hand to Silco's drug empire, and also let me proceed to tell you for the 5894th time about how Jinx-

Also Caitlyn stans: Caitlyn "gave" her Council seat to Sevika. Isn't that so niiiiice!

Me:

So... is Sevika an irredeemable monster or not, because if she is then Caitlyn actually did a pretty BAD thing "giving" her a Council seat... right? These stans never make any sense.