#his father died when he was just 2
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The boy stops in his tracks. “I know you,” he says, tilting his head curiously. He’s not tall, but he’s regal nonetheless, dressed all in white. Something about him makes Leia’s hair stand on end, and although she hides it she feels a stirring in her own chest. I know you like I know my own soul, she thinks wildly, and wonders where it came from. Has she gone insane?
“That’s nice,” she says, and shoots him anyway.
He deflects it in a flash of light, a glowing blue laser sword appearing in his hand like magic. She’s only seen one of those before, and it’s Vader’s. If this boy is anything like Vader, she realizes, she’s in deep shit.
She’s smart enough to know when she’s outmatched. Leia makes the tactical decision to run for her life.
Later, as she’s getting the hell out of there, she wonders why he didn’t try to stop her.
She remembers being young and tugging on her mothers skirts, demanding to know why their guest was so sad. “Does he not like it here?” She’d asked, and then, trembling, because Kenobi always seemed saddest around her. “Is it…because of me?”
“Oh, Leia,” her mother sighed, lifting her into her arms. “It’s not that, I promise.”
“Then what is it?”
“Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, years ago.” Breha’s eyes grew deeper, darker. “It was not his fault, but he blames himself. You remind him of that child, that’s all.”
Leia had quieted at that, contemplative.
The next time she’d seen Master Kenobi, she had given him a hug. He didn’t seem to know what to do with that, so she resolved to give him more of them. “He’s lonely,” she’d told her mother. “No one should be lonely.”
Looking at Obi-Wan Kenobi now, the memory seemed so far away. He’d aged thirty years in the ten it had been.
He looks, Leia thinks with a small twinge of regret, very lonely.
“Leia,” he greets. “It’s been a long time.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Leia sees a glint of white.
Kenobi freezes in his tracks. “Luke?” He whispers, and through the distance Leia can hear it as if he’d been speaking directly into her ear.
Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, her mother whispers in her head. He blames himself.
In an instant, Leia understands everything.
Kenobi is still staring at the boy he’d lost so long ago when Vader cuts him down.
Later, as she’s pacing around on the Falcon to Han muttering darkly about Princesses and supernatural abilities, she rememberers the way the boy collapsed, as if all his strings had been cut. Vader was too occupied with him to even look at her as she shot at him desperately.
Luke. She hates him more than she hates herself.
“They know where you are,” he hisses frantically. “They’re coming for you. You have to run.”
“Wait!” Leia quickly pulls up their sonar. Nothing yet, but it would explain the distant queasiness she’d felt since they’d landed. She tended to trust her gut. “How do you know? How much time do we have?”
“Not important, and not enough,” he says. “I have to go, and so do you. You need to leave yesterday.”
“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know who you are.”
He pauses. “Call me Skywalker.”
“That’s not an answer, Skywalker.”
“Yes it is.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but there are faint voices on the other end, drawing nearer.
“Shit,” Skywalker mutters. “I have to go. I’ll be in contact, okay? Don’t ever tell me where you are, or where you’re heading. Vader and Palpatine aren’t shy about reading minds. Just leave as soon as you can, and figure out the rest.”
“But—“
It’s too late. The comm has disconnected.
She stares down at it, disbelieving. How would the Empire know they’re here? Why should she trust a stranger who somehow got her personal comm code?
Gut feeling or not, on paper this was a perfect location. Supplied, armored, and most importantly, extremely well hidden. There was no real reason to think it would possibly be found out.
It’s probably a trap. Almost definitely a trap.
Han sticks his head in the door, a sour look on his face. “Hey Princess, can you tell these idiots—“
She makes a decision then and there.
“We’re leaving.”
“What?”
“We’re evacuating, effective immediately.” She pushes past him, and he follows so close he’s nearly stepping on her heel.
“Why? I think it’s pretty cozy here. Actual sunlight doesn’t hurt, either.”
“Apparently too cozy.” She grabs the first person she sees, a pilot who stares at her with wide eyes. “Emergency evacuation. Spread the word to pack everything you can and leave, I’ll let you know where we’re headed when we’re in orbit.”
He salutes and scurries off.
“Woah, hey now.” Han snatches at her elbow until she turns around to face him. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a new informant. He told me the Empire knows we’re here. They’re coming for us.”
“And you trust this person because…”
“I don’t have a choice,” she snaps. Someone runs past them, holding three packs filled to the brim with rations. “It’s either he’s lying and we’re not in danger, or he’s telling the truth and we’re going to die if we don’t listen. It’s not exactly hard math.”
It could be a trap of course, but he hadn’t suggested any sort of direction or destination to follow, and Leia wasn’t inclined to share. Especially not after his tidbit about Vader and Palpatine reading minds.
He squints at her. “That’s not it.”
“What?”
“I don’t believe you,” he insists. He’s so infuriating. Leia doesn’t know why she hasn’t kicked him out yet.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do, and you’re either gonna tell me why, or find a different transport when we head out of here.”
“Who said I was riding on your hunk of junk?” She demands. She actually was planning on going with them, since the Falcon has more than enough room for all the supplies that can’t fit in the other ships and none of the trustworthiness of the other pilots, but Han doesn’t need to know that.
“Well?”
Damn him. Damn him for knowing how to read her. She doesn’t know when she let that happen.
“I feel it,” she admits, defeated. “Something tells me he’s trustworthy. We’ll wait and see if it’s right.”
He studies her. She holds her head high, but inside she’s jittery at the scrutiny. They don’t have time for this.
“Yeah, all right,” Han finally says.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” He rolls his eyes, like she’s not acting absolutely insane by putting all her trust in a random man she’s never even met. “Now come on, Princess, weren’t you the one who said we had to hurry?”
What is it about this man that makes it impossible to tell whether she wants to punch him or drag him into the nearest supply closet? They don’t have time to find out.
“So there’s good news and bad news.”
“Bad news first,” she demands.
“They know there’s a mole.”
“Shit.” Of course they know, how could they not? She should have been more careful, less obvious about the correlation of their movements with the Empire’s plans. “The good news?”
“They’ve tasked me with hunting down this ‘pathetic rebel spy,’” Skywalker says, humor in his voice. “That should buy me some time.”
Leia can’t quite stop the snort she lets out. “Seriously?”
“Yep. You’re speaking to a professional mole-hunter, here.”
“Well congratulations on the promotion, Skywalker.”
“Thank you,” he says grandly. Then, quieter, “It won’t last, Princess. They’ll find out eventually.”
“I know. Just hang in there, it will be over soon.”
“Will it?” He asks, suddenly sounding very young. She realizes that she has no idea how old he is. She doesn’t know anything about the man who has saved them more times than she cared to admit, and the idea rattles her until they sign off.
Later, she looks up the name Skywalker in their archives. There are a few results, but only one sticks out.
Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and hero of the Clone Wars. Killed at the hands of Darth Vader. There are gossip articles too, speculations on his relationship with the pregnant Senator Padmé Amidala, who died around the same time Skywalker did. The baby, it seems, died with her.
Unless he didn’t.
It’s ridiculous. It’s impossible. The idea is so ludicrous that Leia almost rejects it entirely.
But it makes sense. By the Maker, it makes sense.
The child of Anakin Skywalker, it seems, would be a powerful Force user indeed. Powerful enough for Kenobi to take the baby and run. Powerful enough for the Emperor to want him for his own gain. Powerful enough to send Vader after Kenobi and take the boy himself.
Maybe even powerful enough to shield his mind from Vader and Palpatine’s intrusions.
Powerful enough to hide the fact that he’s a spy.
Leia sinks into her chair, covering her face as she laughs.
Maybe Luke isn’t so bad after all.
“No, no, no,” she mutters, digging through the smoking wreckage of the TIE fighter. “Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.”
“Princess…” Han lays a hand on her shoulder that she immediately shrugs off.
“No, he’s not dead. He’s not. Luke!”
A faint cough answers her, and she’s so relieved to hear it she could cry. Behind her, Han starts bellowing for a medic and, “Some damn help here, do you expect us to move all this ourselves?”
“Luke, it’s me,” she sobs. “It’s Leia. You’re at the Rebel Base. You’re safe.”
More coughing, and there’s a worrying rasp to his voice when he says, “You know…my name?”
“I figured it out.”
“Smart.” This time, the coughing is so bad Leia and Han both wince.
“Shit, kid,” Han says, moving another piece of rubble. “Don’t talk. We’re gonna get you out of here, all right?”
“Stand back,” Luke chokes out.
“What?”
“Stand back. Please.”
Han protests, but something in Leia knows they should listen to him. She drags him back, and motions everyone else to fall back with them. They do, albeit reluctantly.
“Clear,” she calls, hoping Luke can hear her.
The TIE explodes.
“Fuck!” Han goes back in, Leia on his heels with the terrifying feeling that she’d just allowed Luke to die, before they both stop in their tracks. Around them, the broken pieces of the TIE are floating.
And curled up in the middle is a man dressed all in white.
“Luke!” She pushes past Han to start dragging him out, and after another moment of staring around them, he helps her.
As soon as they get clear, the pieces fall to the ground with a clatter. Luke falls limp with them.
Han is still looking at the TIE. “Can you do that?” He asks quietly.
Leia pauses her examination of the unconscious man in front of her to glare at him. “Is that what you’re most concerned with right now? Really?”
“Excuse me for asking, Princess!”
“It’s white,” Luke grumbles, pulling at his hospital gown bitterly. “I hate wearing white.”
“Should I be offended?”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t even. You look great and you know it. I just feel like I never left.”
“Well,” she says gingerly. “I guess it’s a good thing you got sick of it. If we went around in matching outfits all the time, people might think we’re twins.”
He snorts. “Yeah, right.”
#star wars#star wars fanfiction#luke skywalker#han solo#leia organa#imperial luke skywalker#exactly when luke was taken by the empire is totally up to speculation it could honestly be anywhere from newborn to 5#as for why luke has his dad’s blue lightsaber here instead of like a red one or smth- well you see your honor I thought it would be a slay#but also when you think about it for more than 5 seconds you’re like actually yeah that’s sick and twisted of palpatine and vader actually#you’re carrying your fathers most treasured weapon#you don’t know your father once fought the rise of the very empire you stand to inherit with that blade. you don’t know who he defended#you don’t know your father brought about the end of the republic with that same weapon#he killed the younglings with it. he fought his closest companion with it#you’re carrying what was once your fathers most treasured weapon. you are your fathers most treasured weapon#just as your father is a weapon now#also I didn’t make it clear but obi-wan has his ‘strike me down and I become stronger’ moment like he still dies on purpose to cause proble#but when he saw luke he couldn’t look away. he had to see him with living eyes one last time#can u tell I had So Many Thoughts on everyone else’s perspective in this fic too#han is having a constant crisis in the background because 1) force is real 2) princess is annoying AND pretty which sucks for him#in particular and 3) pretty princess is learning to use the force and is hot while doing it. Chewie is laughing at him. life is hell#good lord did not mean to put an entire essay in the tags. i love their super special twin powers (cosmic entity that binds their souls)#edit: GUYS I FORGOT TO NAME THE FUCKING AU#AND WHEN I TRY AND FIX IT IT GLITCHES OUT ON MEEE 😭😭😭
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every time I try to discuss the Spyral arc with someone for the Nightwing comics I have to take the Sisyphus route of going “one must imagine Bruce Wayne to be a bad father…”
#nightwing#dick grayson#when mf dies and then gets beat up and convinced to go on a secret mission#secret mission where none of your family knows you’re alive except for your neglectful father#shortly after the death of your younger brother#oh haha his heart just stopped now’s a good time to introduce him to several months undercover operation#hmmm what if I beat him up to convince him#this is a sane father thing#Nightwing deserves better#bruce wayne#look we KNOW he’s not a good guy in half the canon dc comics in the last 2 decades#but seriously I can forgive him in under the red hood but definitely not here#dick grayson needs a hug#and probably a restraining order
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#Am i evil for wanting to sacrifice pa kent sometimes#love him hes great hes done his job with clark#but i always toyed with the idea of clark getting grief for development later in life#i dont think any of his adoptive parents should die well into him being an established superman#but what i do think is one of his parents dying would do him a service in his later years character wise#pa kent is generally agreed upon to be the most sacrificial ( sorry pa kent.. )#a time in clarks life where his father is gone and he just has his mother to look after seems like it would be#a refreshing pov for him to remember what he has left in this world...#there are all sorts of iterations btw. some where both parents die at the same time from tragedy (car crash)#or where one dies#i personally love superman: braniac where clark fails to save his father as a young superman#which shows him..not even a superman can save everyone - a rude awakening. so its just him and his mother.#while i do think of making the braniac origin my canon definitively i also love the pa kent interactions w clarks league friends#like that one time batman visited and they chatted was nice ( standing )#we will see! will probably sacrifice pa kent i mean if a comic origin story did it + a movie i meannnn.#but that means i would have to rework how clark comes back 2 life in death of su.perman#also last point here: clarks a mamas boy i love him being the young son taking care of his ma ( sighs wistfully at MOS scenes when he visit
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As someone who went to Germany and spent like 70% of the time in churches, Von karma sibling growing up Christian head canons is so fucking personal to me
#ace attorney#von karma siblings#miles edgeworth#franziska von karma#if anyone is curious the reason was i was on a choral music tour with my schools chapel choir#a series of words that i know require so much explaining but take it#german church architecture is fucking bomb though just saying#absolutely stunning#i may dislike almost everything about Christianity in practice but they did go hard with the aesthetic#mvk would be Christian. he just would. he has that christan religious flair#i bet he like talked all the time about how laws come from religion#he like said one prayer about Gregory and thought he was fogiven and in no eay in the wrong#and Miles spent every fucking waking second there thinking he could never be forgiven for murdering his father#he probably becomes an atheist after he moves back to America because he needs that rational explanation for everything#but probably still thought he was damned because the only thing thay can over come Edgeworth's insistance on logic is his self hatred#fran probably had such a fucking complex about being a perfect Christian but it probably gets deconstructed eventually as she recovers#honestly i think its gone by 2-1 probably due to her father being a perfect christian but also a murderer#because she is really chill with channeling#it's probably something she loses when MVK dies
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I'll never be able to take the theory that Vincent is Sephiroth's real father seriously cuz I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to the plot that Vincent wanted to fuck Lucrecia and did not get to.
#once again i jest but now i have to actually talk about it#like. okay we have no proof of any actual timeline for the dirge flashbacks other than. it was at least 30 years ago#so who knows how long they were at the manor. could have been weeks before The Incident. or months. or maybe a full year! who knows#but to me a timeline of like. they fucked and like a week later vincent found The Evidence and lucercia had her little breakdown#AND THEN EXTREMELY QUICKLY SHE AGREED TO THE EXPERIMENT AND IT COULD GO ONE OF TWO WAYS#1. she knew she was pregnant and thats why she agreed to the experiment cuz there was already a usable subject#and therefore she must have fucked hojo like a week after she fucked vincent AND THATS STUPID FAST FOR THESE EVENTS#or 2. she didnt know. agreed to the experiment. fucked hojo. and therefore thought seph was hojo's and NOT vincent's#AND BY THE WAY. i dont even actually believe hojo fucked either!!! cuz theyre both scientists so why wouldnt they think IVF was the best way#okay. well.... hojo is canonically a fucked up little freak. so. he might have taken the opportunity to... get in there.#also when did ivf even start being a thing? cuz that may play a factor into this if nomura even considered that#well either way lets just unfortunately assume hojo got in there#ITS STILL AN ODDLY FAST TIMELINE#also. fuck man doesnt lucrecia have a later line in dirge where she actually says shes in love with hojo? or something along those lines#IMPLYING ITS BEEN AWHILE SINCE SHE HAD THE FALLING OUT WITH VINCENT. YOU WOULDNT FUCK THE GUY AFTER ALL THAT SHIT#AND WHILE CLAIMING TO LOVE/CURRENTLY FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOJO!!!! LIKE CMON MAN!!!! SHE SUCKS BUT SHES NOT THAT KIND OF A MESS#i dont think vincent would fuck her until they sorted out their issues anyway and that CLEARLY didnt happen.#its VITAL that that did not happen!!!!#its just. if vincent and lucrecia fucked. everything would have had to happen EXTREMELY fast within like a 2 week timespan#and im just talking about up to when vincent learns shes partaking in the experiment. it was probably another week or two until vincent died#SO. logically it must have been like#fall in love->learn about the gimoire incident->refuse to speak to vincent->get obsessed with hojo->fall in love(?)#and then thats where i think its ambiguous on did the experiment become an idea before or after seph started to exist?#like chicken or the egg ya know. experiment idea or sephiroth zygote?#that feels fucked up to say. im so fucking sorry to seph to talk about this. yeah sorry i have to debate who fucked your mom bro#god imagine telling him that. like not even as a reveal thing cuz he knows who his father is. just like as a sick joke. your mom joke.#NO OH M Y GOD I HAVE A QUESTION NOW#in accordance to him having a photo of lucrecia in ever crisis. after he reads that jenova is an ancient (incorrect btw)#does he think that picture is still her? what about when he takes jenova's body from the lab????#oh my god 30 tag limit. FUCK. i need like a rant blog for all this vincent talk now. my brain is going a mile a minute
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Something that makes reading TOA so devastating is how fucking much Apollo feels about Everything. There’s so MUCH. Like I don’t even know how to describe it to you if you haven’t read the books yourself. He has so many complicated thoughts and emotions about just about everything and he cares about everything so much and there is just SO MUCH going on in his head. And yet none of it ever reaches his mouth!!
He almost never says what he’s feeling. What little comes out of his mouth about his thoughts barely even scratches the surface of what he actually means. Like he’ll be having a long ass monologue about how incredible someone is, showing a deep understanding of them as a person and empathizing with them so hard you’d almost think it’s projection but it’s not he’s legitimately just mind melding with this random person he met like a week ago and he’s thinking the softest, kindest thoughts about them like he knows they’re fucking incredible - and what comes out of his mouth is just like, “you’re a wonderful friend :)” AND ITS LIKE. THERES SO MUCH MORE UNDER THE SURFACE. the sheer admiration and adoration he has for everyone around him……… UGHHH!!! But he never VOICES ANY OF IT!!!!!! He never tells anyone about what Zeus did to him……. He never tells anyone except the reader about his realization that Zeus is abusive…. He never even tells commodus about how much he adored him, not then and not now… he refuses to tell anyone when he’s in pain or tries to justify the things he does when he actually had Decent Reasons for why he did something… I’m. I’M. AUGH. AHHHHH
HE DOESN’T EVEN TELL US ALL OF HIS THOUGHTS IS THE THING. THERES EVEN MORE THAT HE IS NOT TELLING US!!!!! THE FUCKING OCEAN OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS HE HAS ABOUT EVERYTHING IS THE CLIFF NOTES VERSION. I AM IN DISTRESS.
And YET…. Even what slips out of his mouth is so fucking devastating it is SO devastating. He’s so fucking kind and gentle with Harley and Meg and and other younger Demis and his kids… he’ll act like an obstinate idiot and then turn around say something that drags the core of the person he’s talking to into the light like nail on the fucking HEAD like he reached into their soul and gave them the words to express something that they were struggling to say aloud or that they didn’t even realize about themself. Around the 2nd book he starts putting voice to some of his feelings and thoughts about others and even that tiny fucking sliver is overwhelming to the people he’s talking to bc he’s SO. AUGHHHH
#this is why ‘reading the TOA books’ fics fucking slap btw. because as embarrassing as his thoughts can be#so many of them are just incoherent screaming about how he loves everyone around him. devastating#like imagine helping out ur loser deadbeat dad who you don’t really know much about bc he’s flighty and hard to read#and finding out ‘wow he cares about us a lot more than I thought’#bc he literally almost dies to save you/your siblings and keeps following you all around everywhere#but he’s still like. your weirdo absentee dad. u don’t know hardly anything new about him other than an apparent suicidal streak#and then u find out that the whole time he was whining about chicken nuggets or whatever he was internally sobbing abt how much he loves u#and every time u were nearby he was going ‘MY BEAUTIFUL PERFECT BABY… JUST AS INCREDIBLE AS THEIR MORTAL PARENT!!!! BEAUTIFUL LIKE THE SUN!#HOW DID I EVEN MAKE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL PERFECT BABY. UNREAL. THEY CANT BE MINE!? BUT THEY ARE!!! LOOK AT THEMMM!!?!!! IM SO PROUD……#my beautiful perfect angels… all of their parents best traits and none of our worst…. I am Barely restraining myself from sobbing#i would give u the WORLD if my father wouldn’t kill me for it :(‘#and it’s like. wow. okay dad. um. would have been nice to know that when we were all dying in The War#Please Hug Me Though.#imagine being a Random Ass Demigod who didn’t go on a big special quest or something like you are literally just Some Guy#and finding out that this weirdo loser god u gave a sandwhich to or something thinks you are so fucking cool#your own parent doesn’t know ur name but Apollo knows u on sight and read ur soul within the 2 seconds yall talked and he thinks you rock#how are you supposed to respond to that.#snack time#toa#longpost
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OMG you like moral orel?? who is your favorite character :]c *Blinking and fluttering my eyelashes beautifully*
i watched the whole thing in a few days, ended yesterday. My faves are nurse bendy and joe (together and as a unit), stephanie (individually and then as a unit with the reverend but i dont like him individually), + danielle, of course
#idk how to feel about it in general i know there was more planned but it got cancelled but it still ended too suddenly ykwim#i liked what we saw at the end with orel finding family elsewhere (before he grows up)#i like orel himself outside of the wacky edgy adult themes of it all as a Kid who is Good#when i was watching that last episode i got a bizarre kind of emotional bc when he first poses the Big Question i Knew#that the answer was that the only good thing abt his father was that he had a hand in making him#i get so sad with stories involving children like dis 😭#i feel like even if it was fully complete the show had more potential ykwim....i know the Tonal Shift makes the impact more...impactful#but i feel it cldve been handled differently or in different amounts. idk!#skunk mail#pawzcore#i also get its bc the eps are short but nature 1 and 2 didnt impact me the way it did others#like. idk. i knew beforehand it was the serious moment(s)/episode(s) but it wasnt presented in a way that#actually shifted My mood when watching it...clay's nonchalance from the eyes of me as a viewer#just comes off as humorous rather than serious ykwim? not that its funny but it doesnt feel high stakes at all#the whole thing didnt feel high stakes or serious unless u remove it from the context of the show youve been watching#for 2 seasons#its fucked up when you see it on paper but then in the show its different....if that makes sense
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sorry okay im rewatching whole cake w a friend and got obsessed with the vinsmokes this time around okay. sorry. however i am a liker of themes and motifs and doomed characters. sorrey.
#i just looovvee the ways the different families this arc are portrayed. big moms as an empire to be expanded.#beges as a loyal bond and structured organization#and ofcourse the vinsmokes as an army bound only by blood and not by love. and a commodity to be used/force to be strengthened#like sure they're all related but like. they do not act like a family even in the slightest. they don't even seem to really like each other#LOL just even w the charlottes you get the feeling they care about each other to an extent (ie katakuri and brulee or chiffon and lola)#but we rarely see any of the vinsmokes hold a conversation with each other let alone act like siblings.#(unless you count them like. abusing sanji as sibling bonding)#which i why i OBSESSSS over when reiju gets hurt you see one of them call out in concern.#n the (admittedly anime only) scene of yonji like helping a little. bear guy get a fruit off a tree. that shit cute as hell.#you get these like. moments of humanity with them that seep through the cracks of the carefully-constructed image of the Evil Germa Army yk#the way all the siblings turned out and the ways they compliment and contrast each other makes me think ab what could have been you know.#iirc reiju wound up how she is because her mother encourgaged her emptions and instilled a sense of humanity in her. proving they are all#capable of having that sense of morality the others just...didnt get it 1) bc sora died when they were so young and#2) bc judge had a VICE GRIP on them.#so they were doomed from the start.#their father wanted a perfect unfeeling obedient army of soldiers and he was going to get it by any means necessary#even if said soldiers are supposed to be his children#i do think the vinsmokes are deeply unforgivable but i also recognize tht like...they were victims of circumstance.#smthn smthn nature vs nurture#in another life i think they would have kicked ass together#idk im fuuucked upp off the green tea rn yk how it goes.....#.txt#idk how to be coherent abt them they just make me feel like pacing around my room with my head in my hands#its been said better by ppl with better grasps on character analysis than me but. abuse victims who suck. and are also assholes.#you mean everything to meeee
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Last Juneteenth, I told yall all my ocs are black via an edit and labeled their present faces as a "codeswitch mask" so to speak.
Then I reminded yall, my main oc @themadvigilantist V is older than the timeless child, with vigil being the baby but older than timeless by a few years.
Then I showed you what they look like under the "codeswitch" via illustration
This Juneteenth, I am reminding yall again that they are part gallifreyan, part another alien species thats of my own concoction. via by showing their real age and how their real age affects themselves. And yes, I will be sitting down and drawing them (I already drew Vin, her brother (and showed him shrunken in the same form)
#{gonna take a nap}#bw: out of ethos#{this is what happens when your uncle aka your dad's baby brother pass away and all your grief fall into what cheers you up}#{while using present events as where the ocs are doing that day for fun}#{because if u arent having fun with your ocs you'll just end up crying while scrunched up in a ball again for 7 weeks now up til his death?}#{and then at a reprieve for fathers day but then he dies at 2 or 3 am after fathers day while holding my dads hand so ur back to crying?}#{and now u call out of work for today because uncles funeral is today but at noon? yeah yup GREAT FOR LORE DUMP YALL WHEEE}
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tfw your last words in the play are low-key in the format of an epitaph
#thinking abt the highschool production of julius caesar where This scene got to me the post. in the whole play#possibly because iirc portia’s ‘i grant i am a woman’ lines that mention cato were cut or modified?#bcs brutus was Also a woman so. they didn’t make as much sense. and idk if brutus’ cato namedrop was in there either#but they DID keep this scene and like young cato just came on full of desperate anger. yelled this and then died#and You The Audience are like. who the fuck was THAT. idk if the og audiences of jc would be more familiar with who cato the younger was#but nowadays. probably most people Do Not Know. which makes young cato’s attempt to embed that memory of cato and himself into the scene of#his death super extra tragic because you get the name!!! but none of what it Means#like an inflection of pompey’s ghost of a great name.#wait fuck this is just the word that causes death’s defeat again#the knowledge of the possibility of words to memorialise standing in place of the knowledge of what they actually memorialise#ANYWAY. i think it’s extra interesting that young cato is talking like a tombstone when MARCIA in pharsalia book 2 Also does that#when her argument for the Goth Anti-Wedding is that she has already picked out matching tombstones for herself and cato#and she was of course young cato’s stepmother!!!!!!#i think all of this should have been in the body of the post. whoops.#wait also. insane that he says we will proclaim his own name and then. doesn’t. ok sure he has the same name as his father#but he frames it as his father’s name and not his own. hrgh. this is soooooo lucancore#julius caesar#cato the youngest#beeps
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also dainkae in canon is so much better than whatever the fandom was cooking up the past 2 years GODDDDD 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
#HOPEFULLY this tasty fresh dynamic bleeds into fanworks because... we need to purge the ao3 tag.#i hope they meet again🙏🙏🙏🙏#i'm more concerned wth is hoyo trying to do with kaeya's backstory cause we learned so much yet nothing makes sense#him being caribert is an interesting thought to entertain but before i saw the theory i thought caribert had... died?#just. perished in some way when we saw him there... though it wasn't confirmed....#also i need a confirmation whether he and his father time traveled to mond or not😭😭😭 this is a bummer i wished that was the case#cause i deluded myself into thinking that for the past 5 years#but from my current understanding the alberich clan found a way to lift the curse?... and then kaeya really is a descendant and not someone#from the past?#not the past 5 years FAWK#I WAS TRYING TO SAY 2
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tumblr had to shut me up omg #censorship
#CRYINGGGG i wasn't aware there was a tag limit oops just started ranting in there#is anybody in this country going to be brave and write a whole analysis for this series :( please thank u#widows' war#[cont. i guess]#- paco absolutely punching the shit out of jericho bc he was drunk & got startled just to get all jolly & friendly when he realized who he#was LMFAOOOOOO#but these extra paco & jerico scenes...idk. again if the pacing was good i'd appreciate them much better. but rn it just looks so out of#place#but to have paco as like an extra reason to explain why jericho did what he did. it's good i guess#& jerico going 'mission accomplished paco' in the cell. woah. chills.#also why is he in there. here's the man who essentially murdered one of the MOST powerful family in the country & he's just. in some cell.#w some guys who r probably only locked up bc they got into a drunk fight at some birthday party. sa kantuhan. emiee jk jk#WOAH HOLD ON. HIS FATHER'S TRANS???? THEY'RE JUST GONNA DROP THIS BOMBSHELL & NOT EXPAND ON IT????????#like that's heartbreaking but why did they reveal it this way it's so lazy & rushed & does no justice to her character at all#like what's her story? why did she disappear? where did she go? did she just dip completely? left her family & never told anyone or did her#siblings know & they rejected her? & she had to run away? her history on that mental health facility...did they force her in there? was tha#why she had to escape?#but also.....[elvis voice] wauough mama..........#she's a milf. like she's so prettyyyyyy :( this show just had to murder me one last time :(#but also did jerico know she was his parent or was he still hallucinating. was he feeling Some Vibes or he just saw this random woman & wen#'hi do u mind if i misgender u for no reason'#also lmfaooo they really didn't even give any indication that they're mourning sam huh. no funeral whatsoever. they hate this bitch fr#oh u died a tragic sudden death? & we still don't know who the culprit is? damn...but at least u left behind a cute baby#it huuurts. having to see this wrapped in such a half-assed shitty bow. u look at this credit roll w/the beautiful cinematography from the#earlier eps remembering how absolutely refreshing this show was at first. how absolutely brimming it was with potential. how groundbreaking#& then we're just.. here. :/#rebecca's part wasn't even green screened what 😭 WHERE WERE THEY WHAT WAS THAT PLACE. WAHT HAPPENED HERE#& the cut in her monologue???? did they shoot this scene like 4 minutes before the episode aired#need someone to like. explain what happened behind the scenes bc this is crazy. 2 m3
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walked up to my cousin’s step son after the wedding to see if he was doing ok & i was like ‘what u up to :D’ & he said ‘i got a new pet !’ & we looked at the table to see a yellow jacket he caught under the cup, which he described as a bee …. APPALACHIA
#stream#ALSJALSKLAKSLAKSALSKALSJALS#i fell in love w him then & there like ok …. ME AS FUCK#he’s 8#loveeee my 2 new cousins ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ the child & his father !!!!!! 😭😭😭😭#hicks & animal enthusiasts !!!!#also so my new cousin’s brother (my cousins new husband’s) died like 10 years ago (i’m not sure how maybe it was an overdose ? i didn’t ask#it’s not my business at the moment i’ll let the new cousin tell us when he’s ready to talk abt him which he does talk abt idk we just didn’t#know him so it’s not like ‘relatable’) BUT the mother at the wedding saw a dragon fly & took the stepson over said ‘look it’s xxx ! he’s at#the wedding’ like u know how u continue to see the spirit in animals after they pass - or pennies that’s another major one - or 2p coins too#bc it’s both our grandparents or maybe it’s just one w us then u know but our grandfather shows up in hummingbirds & i find my grandmother#in frogs so it’s like especially nice bc idk if the new cousins family knows that abt us but my auntie was telling us at lunch the other day#like it just means a lot like i found a 2 cent euro in the airport & i found a pair of pennies on the way to the airport i found a 2p a#few days prior & then i found a pair of pennies together when i was moving in so like im ON THE RIGHT TRACK I KNOW I AM#also my new cousin gave me a dollar & i’ve kept it next time i see them i’ll show them the dollar i think it’s funny#idk im sentimental like my bestie from highschool gave me 2 1$s saying ‘im poor i love u this is all i have & i want to show u how much i#love u’ we were probably drunk like also when she touched my bare foot bc she HATES feet like i’ve taken these DOLLARS EVERYWHERE#& now i’ve one of the lil like u know wallet photos that kp had for one of his visas so he goes w me too lol#i flat stanley him#anyway#I BELIEVE IN CHARMS IDK SUE ME FUCK U#IM SUPERSTITIOUS NO I DONT OPEN UMBRELLAS INSIDE NO I DONT WALK UNDER LADDERS NO I DONT WEAR A HAT INSIDE (UNLESS ITS A PUBLIC BUILDING LIKE#A SCHOOL OR WHATEVER IF ITS AN OFFICE ITS COMING OFF) ALSO I DONT WALK UNDER THOSE ROADS SIGNS ON 2 POLES IF UR IN THE UK U KNOW WHAT I MEAN#BC THATS LIKE BASICALLY A LADDER W 1 RUNG but i do make exceptions & it only took me 8 months to make them#see a magpie u salute
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trying to nail down eli's character rn (aka my fanon version of danielle)
so here are some characters i can see her taking after
#i'm considering rolling youngblood's character into hers since i'll be honest as a character he rlly isn't THAT#distinct or unique enough where i don't think much would be lost if i were just axe him and fold him into eli's character#him and dani are both child characters who show up have 2 eps where they're plot relevant#again they're not like SUPER well defined as characters#they both just kinda act like your standard child character in a cartoon would imo#so the backstory i'm currently brainstorming for her is that instead of being danny's clone she's a girl that went missing a couple yrs ago#and was never found she's basically a runaway who tragically died and likes to play pretend/read books as a form of escapism#from the crappy life she had when she was still alive and living w her parents#ig if you're wondering as to why she's not a clone here is bc imo i think valerie could've served danielle's role in the narrative just fin#had the writers actually fleshed out her mentee/mentor relationship w vlad actually#so in my eyes it's not necessarily plus why have vlad idk like try to actually emotionally manipulate danny after bitter reunions#and get him back into his good graces instead having him yk make clones or w/e#like i think it's funny how vlad's like 'man i rlly want danny to abandon his father and be my son'#(proceeds to do literally NOTHING to make that happen bc he continues to just be an asshole to his nephew once he knows the truth lol)#also for as much as i extend sympathy to maddie/jack bc to me they're brown immigrant parents who are clearly flawed but trying#i don't want eli to get adopted by them simply bc yeah no offense maddie/jack but you guys literally fucked up the 2 kids you did have#so maybe let's not add a 3rd one to the mix ok#also i should mention that eli's name is a nickname (her given name is elizabeth but doesn't rlly like going by it anymore)#robi rambles
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Broke: everyone fights over whose Batman’s favorite
Woke: everyone fights over whose Dicks favorite bc Dick isn’t an emotionally stunted loser (I shit talk Bruce so much but I love him, he’s just also a loser) and trying to get in the bats favor is like trying to catch sand in a sieve
————
Damian: obviously I’m Graysons favorite I was his Robin
Tim: dude I was the first Robin he trained and we still talk every day I am 100% the favorite
Steph: fuck you! You disappeared off the the face of the earth when he was Batman I was actually here I’m 100% the favorite everyone knows Wing loves me.
Jason: Dick willingly went to Gotham to spend time with me even when he was mad at Bruce. Has Dick ever been in Gotham when he was mad at Bruce for you guys? No? Didn’t think so?
Damian: ….
Steph:…
Tim: that’s because you sucked so much he thought you’d get blown up trying to have to bludhaven.
Jason: oi! Low blow, you can’t use a man’s death against him
Damian: shut up we’ve all died before
Steph: you literally said you were allowed to break Tim’s laptop bc you died b4
Jason: yeah it’s MY DEATH I can use it how I want
Tim: we really gonna call your 14yr old 4’7 self a man?
Cass: he helped me train when B rejected me I’m the favorite
Tim: you can’t be Dicks favorite you’re already Bab’s favorite those are the only 2 likable older members of the family. (They’ve decided Alfred doesn’t count since he’s legally not allowed to have favorites)
Dick: Duke is my favorite
Damian: what?
Tim: how?
Jason: this shit is rigged
Steph: What?? You barely spend time with him?
Duke who has been eating popcorn quietly this whole time:???
Dick: he doesnt steal my suit and murder people
Jason: …
Dick: or tell his friends I threatened to send him to Arkham when I told him to get therapy
Tim:…
Dick: or break into my apartment at 3am because he can’t communicate with his father
Damian:…
Dick: or make me believe he flatlined on the operating table
Steph: …
Dick: or tell me he can’t meet up for a bust because he’s too busy fighting Wonder Woman a hero we work with over text with no context and then go AWOL for 5 days
Cass:…
Dick: or overload his plate with 50 million things I will have to come in and help with
Everyone:
Steph: he started a cult tho??
Dick: was it before or after he was fostered bc if it was before it’s. Not. My. Problem.
Duke: I’m the favorite???
Dick: also I feel like if I died you’re the most likely to take over my duties and not go on a quest for vengeance or try to clone me or put me in the Lazarus pit.
Jason: ID NEVER PUT you in the Lazarus pit…. No comment on the rest tho.
Tim: ditto
Damian: meh you are superior to Todd and he’s relatively functional post the pit I don’t see the issue here.
Steph raising hand: I wouldn’t-
Dick: or help TIM do it
Steph lowering hand:
Dick: plus you have a parent so I don’t have to do 80% of the child rearing while giving Bruce credit
Duke still a little star stuck bc that’s nightwing: IM THE FAVORITE.
#nightwing#dick grayson#batman#batfam#bruce wayne#comics#jason todd#tim drake#batfamily#damian wayne#duke thomas#stephanie brown#cassandra cain#red hood#red robin#Robin#black bat#spoiler#dicks favorite sibling is the one who gives him the least ulcers
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Why The Arcane S2 Finale Fumbled, Part I
arcane season 2 was artistically beautiful and thematically cheap. every interesting and meaningful thing it did with its characters (even in season 2 act 2) was reduced to romanticized bullshit, utterly divorced from its season 1 roots. it's so bad it can be considered pro-status quo propaganda (and i do mean that). good ships aside (and i do mean the caitivi, jayvik, timebomb holy triad), this season squats and shits on every zaunite character in the show. not just their zaunite-ness, but how it literally shaped who they were as characters.
Let's start with Vi:
Vi and Vander:
Vi's loyalty to The Lanes always went beyond Powder. Zaun was her father's, Vander's dream. Zaun was her friends and her family. When she's giving Caitlyn a tour of The Lanes, we see how much she embodies and revels in Zaunite culture (esp in the food scene). She took responsibility for the vulnerable, like Vander taught her to. Her "protective" trait extended to ALL the vulnerable in The Lanes, because Vander taught her that. It wasn't EVER just Powder. Zaun is her HOME. As a child, she wanted to make a name for herself IN ZAUN "one day, this city's gonna respect us." You can make the excuse that Vander's death meant that side of her died, but it clearly didn't because of how she regarded it while showing Caitlyn around. "Family" to Vander, extended to the vulnerable of Zaun, which is how Vi and Powder came to be his "daughters" in the first place. Because Zaun was for THEM. Zaun WAS THEM. Vander and Silco "weren't allowed to fail" at Zaun (i.e. the two daughters).
Additionally, Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't: forgiving each other and uniting so they could realize their dream for a free Zaun. A big reason why Zaun struggles to be free is because of their own internal divisions (the different gangs fighting for scraps). But if they united, they would be able to liberate themselves from Piltover (who is still the enemy). The whole reason the others are prosperous in the alternate timeline Ekko and Heimerdinger travel to is because Vander and Silco reconcile (not because Vi dies).
Vander also passes on his sense of responsibility to Vi. He tells a repeatedly vengeful Vi how her ambition to show up her oppressors can overshadow the more pressing priority of looking after those more vulnerable than her i.e. Powder. Like Silco, his advice to his daughter is steeped in his own trauma of getting so zealous he didn’t stop to think what it would cost.
Vi and Caitlyn:
Caitlyn was an interesting development for Vi, particularly because Caitlyn mirrored Vander's care for all people. Caitlyn was an enforcer that wanted to truly understand and help people. This challenged Vi's biases and also gave them a common goal. Caitlyn appealed to Vi because she gave Vi renewed hope for peace in The Lanes. That Zaun could be free through co-operation instead of violence. Her whole teaming up with Caitlyn, romance aside, was predicated on Vi brokering for peace between Zaun and Piltover (and getting revenge on Silco).
The first break-up between the two (Season 1's "Oil and Water") centred around Jinx, more or less. Vi believes Silco is a threat to peace between Piltover and Zaun (even though The Lanes aren't known as Zaun to her, I'm just using the names interchangeably). She believes Jinx is acting out due to Silco's influence, as well (and she isn't wrong). Had Caitlyn not been injured on the bridge (and had Jinx not felt betrayed by Vi), Vi was going to leave her in pursuit of Jinx. Vi has also never fit into Piltover (and that's also shown in Season 2 act 1-2). She makes no connections with Piltovians besides Cait and (an already disillusioned) Loris who we see for like two seconds.
Vi and Jinx:
This show was ALWAYS about a tale of two sisters/cities. When Vi becomes an enforcer, it isn't because she's switched loyalties. She wants peace for The Lanes, she just wants to take Silco's creation--Jinx--out of the equation so it can work. Her priority, like Vander’s, is to keep the vulnerable of The Lanes safe, and both were willing to co-operate with Piltover to protect the people they loved. She believes, like Vander did with Silco, that Jinx (and by extension Zaun) is her responsibility. That the reason bad things happened to Zaunites (Vi’s and Powder’s parents dead on the bridge, Jinx’s mania) is their fault.
Vi blames herself for creating Jinx as Vander does for creating Silco. The only reason Vi agrees to Caitlyn's plan is because, again, their two goals align: get Jinx. The difference is Vi wants to kill Jinx to kill Silco, while Cait wants to kill Jinx to get her city (mother) back. Vi is still explicitly concerned about Jinx, who she has come to see as a threat to other people she loves (e.g. Ekko, Cait, etc). Vi became an enforcer to protect The Lanes and the (appearance) of peace. Vi internalized Vander’s words and doesn’t want war, even if it means Zaun never becomes independent. But she is doing it as penance for what she feels she didn’t do that led Jinx to become what she is.
The show in season 2 TOTALLY LOST THIS FOCUS. Vi's guilt at hunting down her own people with enforcers is ALSO ignored a lot by fandom, especially because her post-breakup scene where she goes full goth is framed as regret for letting Cait down (rather than the self-disgust she would feel for joining her oppressors). Vi played a part in creating Jinx and her enforcer-arc is still centred around Jinx. This gets shoved aside for romance with Cait. All the time we could spend post-breakup focusing on the sisters, quickly circles back to Cait.
Cait, who, literally became a dictator and weaponized the air ducts her mother had created to SAVE ZAUNITES. The whole thing is viewed as Vi betraying Cait instead of Vi betraying Jinx/Zaun/her family and Cait betraying Vi ("promise me you won't change") and her mother. Cait was the one who sought to help Zaun (like her mother) but betrayed who she was when she was willing to kill Isha, an innocent child.
Vi would feel even more guilty at how she is literally in an enforcer's suit when she is about to kill Jinx, the only family she has left. She is literally hunting down Jinx, a Zaunite, like the enforcers had her parents. But we barely explore that. It’s just off to chasing Vander/Warwick only for it to not matter anyways!
(ALSO IMPORTANT: Just to further prove my point on how integral the sister's love for each other was, every show started with a record playing. The cover of the disc was Vi and Jinx. They were always the center focus of the story. The song that the record played? Likely "Our Love" by Curtis Harding and Jazmine Sullivan which goes "Our love is a bubblin' fountain, our love, that flows into the sea, our love, deeper than the ocean, our love for eternity." This love deeper-than-the-ocean can apparently crumble in the face of a dictator girlfriend you've known for less than a year lmao).
Summary of Fumbles:
-Vi's and Jinx's relationship becomes secondary not just to the entire plot of the show but to Vi's arc. Zaun and Piltover's conflict was set up to be the epitome of the show, and the fact that it got shelved for some (ahem military propaganda) epic battle between humans and robots is very telling about the writers and showrunners.
-Vi forgives Cait easily and prematurely, trashing Vi's true loyalties as established in earlier seasons/episodes and robbing Cait’s actions of their appropriate weight.
-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's interview with TheGamer) The culmination of love for Vi's character ends with Caitlyn and not Jinx. Vi's character, whose love is explicitly centred on Zaun and her family, reaches its peak in romance with a Piltovian. To quote Amanda further: "If Vi had no one left to protect, she would fall in love." As if Vi had no ambition outside of protecting her family. As if her dream since she was a kid wasn't tied so much into Zaun. As if the reason she wore an enforcer outfit wasn't because of Zaun. As if Zaunites aren't suffering right under her nose. As if she was the only kid in Stillwater Prison and struggled to survive the whole time she was there. I can't pretend to stomach it. (Again, it's not that Vi shouldn't be happy, it's that the ship had to shove this aspect of her character aside for it to work). If they wanted to really commit to the Vi-in-video game origin story, they should have set it up better and stuck to it.
-Vi herself takes a back seat in most of season 2, and becomes a passive, guilt-riddled yes-man to Cait
-Vander's re-introduction is almost completely worthless to the plot and narrative (he comes back just to die), and he is used as a cheap way to re-unite (and then separate) the daughters in a way that has no significance to the themes (also, Silco as Jinx's father is completely ignored during this time)
-Cait's deferral to fascism should have been permanent. Idc about the shippers at this point. Vi and Cait should have never come back from Cait shoving the back of her gun into Vi's injured side (let alone the gassing of the ducts). Vi would've never forgiven her, attraction or no. The fact that Cait could become a dictator after losing one parent is proof of their class divides (after all, Vi held onto hope despite losing all her parents to enforcers and Jinx was all she had left of her family). That should have cemented the death of that relationship (and it would have made for more compelling storytelling on class). I’m thinking it was kept because it matters more to white Western audiences to have a Romeo x Juliet rendition that assuages their classist sensitivities. Cait becoming a fascist made sense and was true to her character and the world. Vi forgiving her (and then having sex with her in the prison she was thrown into as a child?) destroyed both her character and the narrative.
Yeah, yeah, Vi was overwhelmed by the breadth of love and forgiveness Caitlyn had in letting Jinx go, but that's bare minimum shit. Vi "always choosing wrong" because she *checks notes* keeps trying to reconcile with her sister instead of letting her go since she isn't Powder anymore? So she resolves her guilt by choosing her own pleasure and putting herself first for once. Okay, I don't have a problem with that except that Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't--by reconciling! And you still won't get me to like the fact that so much of Vi's character arc gets held up in a Piltovian who encouraged her to do the worst shit to her OWN PEOPLE and then fucking turned on her when she couldn't kill her sister. It is frankly amazing how we're supposed to celebrate Caitlyn literally coming between the sisters. I'd rather Vi forgiving Jinx than Caitlyn. And if the whole appeal of Vi's relationship with Caitlyn is that she was overwhelmed with love for how Caitlyn forgave Jinx after she killed her mother, I don't see how a relationship with Cait automatically makes Vi feel less guilty, since Cait also makes her feel guilty for choosing Jinx (remember her accusation "you will always choose her" like sorry I don't want to kill my orphaned, traumatized sister who I ripped into for making an honest mistake as a child and who has carried that since). Caitlyn (as others have pointed out) got a whole ceremony for her mother and instantly turned on Vi's people. The Vi I know would have been like, "You really are all the same," and FUCKING DIPPED. And there's a little acknowledgement of this in act 1 where Vi accuses Caitlyn of acting like Jinx.
Both Jinx and Caitlyn are emotional labour for Vi. Vi still wants to protect Caitlyn from Jinx. There's not that much of a difference, lol, except that Caitlyn is a privileged Piltovian and Jinx is a victim of the abysmal childhood she suffered at the hands of enforcers. Yet the show is more or less saying Vi pursuing reconciliation with Jinx was a bad choice for Vi and the reason the cycle of violence continued (for some reason). The sister reconciliation was what I was here for, personally. Cute ships aside. But noooo, Vi should forgive Cait (not Jinx) to stop the cycle.
And having jail sex is a liberating act for her because it's where they had their meet-cute. (And we're all good bc Caitlyn gave up the Kiramman seat, lmao, like sure okay).
It's frankly made the ship that much more unpalatable. If Vi had to be destroyed as a character for the ship to work, then the ship wasn't all that good (even though it started off that way). It's honestly left such a bad taste in my mouth. What a fuck you to oppressed groups that whole subplot was. (And it's made worse by the fact that the creator thought that was somehow an empowering and liberating act for Vi, like fuck that).
Let's Talk About Victor:
Viktor and Heimerdinger:
Heimerdinger and Viktor were the most polar of opposites. Heimerdinger was not only a privileged, ulta-wealthy Piltovian, but he had a comparatively endless lifespan while Viktor's own human life-span was cut short due to being a Zaunite, born at the bottom of the barrel and raised on toxic fumes that led to his terminal illness. Viktor's desperation to unlock the Arcane was explicitly about him overcoming his circumstances, his illness, his premature death. It wasn't merely about his internalized ableism, but the unjust way in which he had to suffer. Heimmerdinger could afford patience because he had all the time and resources in the world, but Viktor didn't. Not merely because he was a mortal, but because he was a Zaunite.
Viktor and Singed:
Viktor's arc with hextech is foreshadowed with his childhood interaction with Singed. I understand that in the games, Viktor is a villain-type character and his catchphrase or whatever is "Join the Glorious Evolution," which the show hinted at from Season 1 when Singed explained his experiments to Viktor. While Viktor is horrified by Singed killing the creature that he eventually uses for shimmer, Viktor later says, "I understand," hinting that he saw the sacrifice (and death) necessary to "heal" the world of its ailments. Both Viktor and Singed grow up in The Lanes, and both have ailments they want to cure (for Viktor it is his lung cancer and for Singed its his daughter's dying). In season 2, Viktor tells Singed that while he understands what healing all those people could cost him, he will not sacrifice their humanity for Singed's cause. This is because of Sky’s death (which is partly why it is her who is in the Arcane with him).
Sky’s death is what makes Viktor beg Jayce to destroy the hex core, since he couldn’t do it himself. He is willing to die if that means no more innocent people do. But here’s where I get a little touchy. VIKTOR didn’t KNOW she was there. Viktor was simply desperate to live. Sky’s death was not malicious (even if it’s true to his character that he’d feel guilty anyways). It is at this point that Viktor has Jayce promise him to destroy the hex core (and by god is this where a lot of my contention with the finale comes from). Also, it is important to note that Viktor’s self-loathing is depicted only in regard to Sky’s death (NOT HIS BAD LEG). Now Viktor feels guilty not just for Sky’s death, but also necessarily for trying to live (AND PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND). TRYING TO LIVE is subtly treated as an AMBITION that, for Viktor, interfered with his ethics. (And please note that in the end, Singed, who repeatedly embraces unethical practices for reviving his dying daughter gets what he wants).
Anyway, in S2, Jayce blasts Viktor in the chest and all that conviction goes out the window. All this despite Sky (his conscience and “humanity”) being there with him in the astro-nether. Now Viktor's idea of becoming a higher being is just getting rid of emotion (apparently because Jayce did it or something). Jayce killing him without explanation was all of a sudden all he needed to become a divine dictator. The same Viktor that looked terminal illness in the face and preferred to spare others instead of himself? The same Viktor who's immediate action after waking up with a new body was to go and use the arcane he wished had been destroyed to help others? Because the arcane is corrupting him? That’s convenient for a certain political narrative. Especially because anyone would hesitate pressing a button (in Viktor’s case smashing the hex core) that would guarantee their death. Viktor was being human, not corrupt.
Viktor and Jayce:
Now, I think Jayce's speech had some merit and could have been framed better with a little more time and thought. The philosophical idea of perfection or a perfect world (one which Piltoverians strive toward) being untenable, maybe even undesirable, is a fascinating concept worth exploring. BUT MAKING IT ABOUT SOME INTERNALIZED ABLEISM FROM VIKTOR IS FUCKING STUPID!!!! I'm sorry, but Piltover being the city of progress until it actually included becoming progressive with Zaun was absolutely one of the things Jayce and Viktor's sub-plot was trying to explore.
Viktor WANTED TO LIVE. Viktor wanted his people to STOP SUFFERING. Viktor WAS RIGHT. He wasn't merely eliminating "imperfections" (and of FUCKING COURSE A PILTOVIAN WOULD SEE IT THAT WAY), he was trying to cure sick and dying people who did nothing to deserve it. He was buying them time that people like Jayce and Heimmerdinger had in spades, but Viktor and Zaunites had stolen from them.
Children dying of disease and violence in The Lanes was by Piltovian design! It was not some predestined cosmic necessity. Viktor WAS RIGHT TO HATE HIS FUCKING TERMINAL ILLNESS ARE THESE GUYS INSANE??! Wtf kind of message is Viktor embracing it as part of himself sending to vulnerable, impoverished and ill people? Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking comfort? Fuck off right to hell!
Like I'm glad if it resonated with any disabled people, but Viktor's struggle with his body was a protest against Piltover, not himself, and I hate that the writers gutted that character development. Viktor's and Jayce's paths "diverged a long time ago" because Jayce had the luxury and time of pursuing his dream while Viktor didn't. Viktor, even up there as a scholar of Piltover, was still getting the Zaunite treatment.
Jayce had the time to pursue a better world, while Viktor had to struggle for a little more time. When Viktor becomes part of the arcane, suddenly he has all the time in the world to realize HIS OWN DREAM. Why would wanting a better world for others have to result in "dreamless solitude"? Why does wanting progress equal wanting perfection? You are changing the subject and that is cheating!!!!
Viktor becoming obsessed with fixing what ailed humanity was warranted, and his extremism was hinted to have been due in part to the effect the arcane had on him, but it still made the themes of arcane a joke. There was so much potential and the writers (and showrunners) just squandered it for some more romantic bullshit.
The Glorious Fumblings (A Summary):
-"Humanity, our very essence, is inescapable. Our emotions, rage, compassion, hate. Two sides of the same coin, intractably bound. That which inspires us to our greatest good is also the cause of our greatest evil.” That's a neat quote, but wars don't start simply due to emotions or whatever. This lacks class analysis, and it's annoying that the writers made this the whole theme of season 2 (and retroactively the show) in a story on class divides. Cait did not merely gas the Zaunites because of her mother, but because of her privileged upbringing that made it more acceptable to her to view Zaunites as animals (remember Ekko telling her enforcers “hunt us down like animals"). Cait knew the humanity of Zaunites was real. She just chose to ignore it because she could afford to. While it is interesting that Viktor would come to see being human as a flaw that destroys any hope of achieving peace (conflict theory would like a word with you), it ignored that fascism is not an inherently human trait and detracts from how or why it persists in the first place. It's almost the same as saying men/white people oppress women/poc because the latter were mean to them. It's victim-blaming (and false lmao). The British didn't colonize the Americans because the natives did anything to them. All prejudice is unjustified, that's what makes it prejudice. Again, Cait became a fascist when her mom died, but Vi still drew the line at killing children and even council members despite losing every single one of her family members to Piltover's violence against The Lanes. AND THAT’S JUST IT. Why the Zaunites do what they do isn’t simply because of love and hate, but because of the desperate circumstances they are forced into by their oppressors. Why the Piltovians do what they do, isn’t because of love or hate, but because they are bread in luxury and affluence. Pretending that’s not the case is an insult to the work put into Arcane’s first season (and anyone with a brain and basic empathy).
-Jayce's speech would have been cute in another story, but it's downright insulting in Arcane's. Yes, yes, Jayce's words would have been the only ones to have broken the real Viktor out of Arcane Viktor's grasp by appealing to this deep childhood wound, but Viktor's desperation was not to belong (because his leg kept him from playing with other children) but TO LIVE (because he was dying of an illness). Jayce's speech isn't bad, just misplaced. Like most of the finale.
-Viktor did not have to become a fascist-aligned deity in his quest to heal people. It is a typical MCU thing to have a "villain" that's technically right and then destroy their entire character to make their (correct) philosophy untenable by making them do something extreme. Typical pro-status quo propaganda trope. I DON’T CARE if it was so we could get some game version of him. Viktor was right in bringing progress and his discoveries to The Lanes instead of devoting his efforts to Piltover, the fake city of progress.
-While I am annoyed that the climax of the show hinged on Jayce and Viktor and hextech (a tool to explore the inequalities of Piltover and Zaun) instead of Jinx and Vi, I think it kinda makes sense. Hextech built what Piltover has now become. Jayce, Viktor and hextech kinda represent Piltover (what it could be) and Jinx and Vi represent The Lanes (and the Zaun it could be). Both would have been integral, but the story shouldn't have hinged on hextech, IMO. Hextech should have remained a tool to explore the politics of both cities, but instead it overshadowed everything, cheapening the story's themes, characters and world-building.
-Jayce calling the Zaunites to arms was downright absurd. But not as absurd as Zaunites volunteering.
And Then There's Jinx:
Jinx and Isha:
Isha's only use, as far as I'm concerned, was to be a reconciling force between the sisters. When Cait was willing to shoot her to get to Jinx, that should have stopped Vi right there and brought her back to defending Jinx 100% I DON’T CARE. When Isha sacrificed her life to save Jinx, that should have been Jinx's wake-up call right there and helped her understand why Vi kept leaving her out of missions as a kid. But instead what do we get? Depressed, suicidal Jinx and an astoundingly even more resentful and indifferent Vi. Now Jinx sees herself as even more of a poison to those she loves (because she can’t protect them like Vi can and frequently kills them while trying to do so). Jinx, who has always wanted to be useful to those she loves. Who pursued her own hextech inventions in order to give her siblings a fighting chance when facing down Silco. Who wants to give Zaun a fighting chance as Silco's daughter (and Isha’s surrogate mother). To be useful to the goals and dreams of her family. Isha was the perfect opportunity to bring the sisters together and get Jinx to embrace all she is (both the Jinx that Vi rejects and the Powder that Silco rejected), but no. Instead, the kid was some kind of foreshadowing to Jinx's own heroic self-sacrifice for her sister (a message that left both sister's arcs unfinished). Or perhaps, Isha was a commentary on the cycle of violence. But that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.
Why do I say this?
Because the cycle of violence is not a "Jinx" issue, but a Piltover one, and the writers making it an interpersonal issue instead of a political/sociological one damaged the story and what Jinx's character could have meant to mentally ill people like her. It wasn't illogical storytelling, just far less meaningful than it could have been. It would have been more powerful and moving and impactful for Jinx to realize where the true cycle of violence (as established the whole fucking show from the dead parents on the bridge, to Vander and Silco, to Jinx and Vi, to Jinx and Ekko, to Isha and Warwick, to Cait and Vi, etc) was coming from.
Jinx needed to accept herself and the love others showed toward her (Silco, Vander, Ekko and Vi). Jinx keeps blowing things up because she repeatedly rejects herself (both Powder and Jinx), ignoring the good she's done and tried to do. Isha was a call back to the good Jinx has done and can continue to do for Zaun and others. Isha and Sevika understood (even though Silco unfairly set it up) that Jinx was actually their good luck, their hope, more than just a hex (pun intended) on the city. After all, Jinx made Sevika her new arm (even though she's the reason Sevika lost her arm in the first place), which further proves that Jinx had the capacity to fix some of what she broke. It would have been better for her to embrace responsibility and have the faith to try and fix things (ESP her relationship with Vi). While it is not unrealistic or necessarily bad writing that she would fake her own death to run away and start over (or just die) trying to save Vi, the arc people she represented deserved was her embracing Vi back, not accepting that she was a curse in Vi's life. And most definitely NOT romanticizing her pain.
Jinx and Ekko:
Ekko's and Jinx's relationship is precisely an exploration of how Piltover's violence against Zaun forced these children with entire futures ahead of them (they are both child prodigies) into endless war and hellish heroism. Ekko and Jinx are repeatedly shown to be hesitant and even unwilling to participate in violence against others, especially their own. Ekko does not hate Jinx, though he wants to, and Jinx does not like who she is when she's violent. She is trigger-happy because she already expects Vi and Ekko to want to kill her (projecting her self-loathing on them, but not entirely unreasonably). She doesn't have faith in their love or mercy because she doesn't see any part of herself as redeemable or loveable, which is why she consistently sabotages her life (but not without help from Vi and others).
Ekko and Jinx are symbols of progress for Zaun AND Piltover (and Heimerdinger saw that, especially when Ekko insisted he had to go back to his timeline, even if the one he had landed in was better). Heimmerdinger saw what they could have been in the alternate timeline, all the genius that was squandered in The Lanes. Jinx and Ekko are the ones most willing to put an end to violence and injustice because both of them are nostalgic for their families. All that’s ever kept them going is the love of their families. Jinx just doesn't have the same faith in her ability to be their hero as Ekko does, but Ekko manages to convince her for a moment anyways.
Ekko recognizes (like Silco, Viktor and Isha) how integral Jinx is to the creation of a new world. She injects colour and life and hope into Zaun and is the only one who can unite all warring factions in Zaun in the first place. I know people have gripes with this Jinx being the hero of Zaun when she literally killed Silco, opening the market for other gangs, but her most famous act is the bombing of the Council, which pretty much all Zaunites were unaware was about to grant them independence. To the average citizen of Zaun and Piltover, Jinx was the symbol of a revolution (even if Jinx didn’t see herself that way and didn’t really want to be). Both her and Ekko are rebel leaders, but that is hardly used in Zaun's interests in the end. (ALSO THAT WHOLE CONVERSATION WITH VIKTOR AND JINX WHERE HE SAID SHE COULD BE USEFUL TO HIS WORK. This show would have won with a Viktor and Jinx team-up to unite Zaun--also in parallel to Jayce and Vi's team up. We could have had it all!)
Jinx and Silco:
This, is only second to Vi in the most FUMBLED things about Jinx. Silco was her guide once Vander died and Vi ran away. Silco not only took care of her, but gave her purpose (someone to love and be loved by and protect) and nurtured her talent (one that many others scorned). Silco accepted Jinx even though he weaponized her (which backfired for him). As much as Silco WAS WRONG to lie about Vi (manipulating Jinx) and even try to kill Vi (which was a dumbass move on his part), he wasn't wrong about Jinx's path to healing: self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. And even though Silco's own stupidity led Jinx to "embrace" Silco's version of Jinx to the point that she bombed the Council right when they'd granted Zaun independence (I wanted to fucking kill myself watching that), Jinx was still not ENTIRELY a jinx as Jinx (e.g. when she rescued Zaunites from Stillwater Prison). This fucked up dude did a whole John-the-Baptist thing where Vander tried to drown him with Jinx so she could embrace her Jinx-ness. But I don't think he was telling her to embrace that she was a curse like Vi meant it, but to embrace her new life (baptism is all about death and rebirth) and her new self and take responsibility for it.
Silco, like Ekko, was the one who saved Jinx from death and offered Jinx a home. While everyone else patronized Jinx for her own childhood trauma, Silco was gentle, understanding and provided space for that, even when her psychosis killed him. He showed zero resentment toward her. But when Silco dies and Vander returns, Jinx just . . . oopsie, doopsie! Forgets about Silco until one final hallucination she has of him in the jail cell. The only one she has where he talks. And what does he say? She needs to break the cycle. How? Not by eliminating Piltover or gaining Zaun's independence like he'd talked about and dreamed about. Not by accepting herself as Jinx and Powder, the inventor, the fighter, daughter of both Silco and Vander, but by offing herself? Leaving her family to think she's dead? Embracing the lie that she really was the poison in their lives and the reason none of them could be happy? The reason they died? NICE! SWELL! WHAT A SATISFYING, INSPIRING CONCLUSION! Even worse, they made her "death" staged. I'm sorry, but do we really believe that this same girl who killed herself multiple times in front of Ekko just 24 hours ago somehow found the will to live and escape into air ducts when she was falling with Vander? She decided to live right when she was about to die? And let's not forget that she was falling to the same song that was playing when she was trying to commit suicide. Why? And why would a heroic death (staged or not) be any form of character growth for Jinx in the first place? When her whole thing is distrusting the love offered to her? Or was she accepting herself by being the one to kill Vander because she knew Vi couldn't? Either way, it's cheap!
I Wonder Who Put All Those Holes In You (Fumbling Summary):
-Vander's letter to Silco could have been why she hallucinated Silco talking to her about forgiveness, but breaking the cycle here is about forgiving (unapologetic) Piltovians instead of herself, which needed to happen to complete her arc.
-Isha and Vander misery porn
-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's TheGamer interview) to paraphrase: "SO OUR GRAND CONCLUSION TO VI AND JINX'S ARC WAS TO CONFIRM THAT YES, JINX WAS INDEED A JINX (AND NOT PILTOVER OR ANYTHING HAHA) AND THE SISTERS WOULD ONLY HAVE PEACE IF THEY NEVER RECONCILED - JUST LIKE THEIR FATHERS BECAUSE THAT WORKED OUT SO WELL THE FIRST TIME! :D THE REASON THEIR LIVES ARE IN SHAMBLES ARE PURELY BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN PERSONAL FAILINGS AND NOT AT ALL BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION PILTOVIANS HAVE PUT ZAUNITES IN! XD WE THINK THIS IS ALSO A FANTASTIC THING TO TELL MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE." :)
-Jinx being the reluctant Girl Saviour of Zaun after clinging onto her identity as a jinx so she didn't have to take responsibility for Zaun should have been the completion of her arc, IMO. As far as Jinx's arc is concerned, she was meant to reject the identity of jinx that Vi gave her and embrace the identity of Jinx that Zaun gave her. Loveable and capable of doing the right thing and saving others. Using hex-tech, something Jayce and Piltover had levelled against her people, against them. And she does this to some extent, but we don't even get a hint as to why Ekko's speech worked (and how he got her to fight alongside him and the Firelights in the first place). We know she does so for Vi, but she so quickly gives up once she and her sister are back on the same team. She allies herself with her sister just to die and then fuck off to another land? BRUH! Like act 3 is SO FRUSTRATING!
Conclusion
If the focus had been on the coming war between Zaun and Piltover, then we could have better explored the internal struggles happening with Vi's and Jinx's characters. Using Isha and Vander as misery porn for Jinx was a bad move. I stand by that. Isha didn't need to die that uselessly. Jinx did not need more "trauma" for any character development (positive or negative). It's not unrealistic that Jinx would be depressed after Isha's death (and that Isha was likely meant to symbolize the constant cycle of violence), but that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.
These are where my gripes with Jinx's and Viktor's arcs in S2 really lie: the story tries to strip the political from the personal! Viktor, on waking up with the arcane in him, goes back to The Lanes, and what does he see? The cycle that Silco mentions in Jinx's hallucination in the cell. This cycle is not merely coming from the interpersonal struggle Zaunites have, but rather, the forces behind those struggles: the starvation, the lack of resources, the poverty. All caused by Piltover. Where Season 2 fails while Season 1 succeeded, is it points the camera away from Piltover as the origin of all this mess, and instead, makes it a stupid cosmic clash between chaos and order (kinda fascist ngl). Zaun lost, and Arcane Season 1 had the tits to show why those in The Lanes were always on a losing streak: Piltover. The commitment to saving Piltover instead of destroying it ruined so many arcs, most notoriously Vi's and Jinx's. This should have ended in a war between the two cities, not one where both fought against robo-people and Ambessa.
But what, instead, do the writers brandish as this solution to the cycle?
Fucking forgiveness (of those who harm and oppress you) and acceptance of your (physical) imperfections (like that's what we were apparently talking about, which no, it wasn't). By refusing to acknowledge Piltover's hand in the desperation and violence and struggle the Zaunite characters find themselves, the show inadvertently ends up excusing Piltover.
TLDR: Bad message to send to oppressed people, mentally ill people, and people dying of terminal illnesses, lmao. The Zaunites ALL LOST with this one.
And I'm going to make a Part 2 to really get into it, but from the perspective of three Piltover characters (and one Zaunite) that really prove my point: Jayce, Mel, Caitlyn and Ekko.
P.S.: It's okay if you think the show is good because it succeeds in many other things, I just think it drops the ball in the places I've mentioned. But if your main criticism of my criticisms is going to be defending your ships, please find another post. Oppression is a serious reality that deserves serious depiction and it's insulting to have such necessary political discussions devolve into dumbass ship wars.
EDIT: I honestly did not expect this post to get more than 20 likes lmao, and i must admit that this was more of a thought dump than a super-deep analysis, but i'm glad a lot of it has resonated with so many of you!
EDIT AGAIN: Here's PART 2.
#zaun#arcane#arcane season 2#jayvik#timebomb#ekkojinx#caitlyn kiramman#vi#vander#silco#jinx#ekko#isha arcane#jinx and isha#caitvi
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