#jinx and cait will not make it easier

[sieglinde-freud]

timebomb arcane spinoff but its no longer the gritty action show we’ve all been watching its a comedy where jinx shows up in front of ekko like “boo! im not dead but dont tell vi…” and ekko has to deal with trying to date his friend’s sister while also pretending shes dead. “i miss her so much, ekko,” vi says. ekko nods solemnly. jinx is hiding on the ceiling. they have a date planned in two hours. what will he do now.

[the-dumpster-fire-of-life]

Hiii, loved to see that you a writing for arcane again. Tbh I just loved Isha and Jinx, so could could you make headcanons for how Jinx, Vi and Cait would be like taking care of or rising a kid with a girlfriend or s/o?

Sure I can! I don’t want he post to be huge though so I’ll break it up into three separate ones! Enjoy!

Family Bound

Raising or looking after a kid was not easy by any means, but taking care of one with Jinx was even harder

Jinx does not know how to be a paternal figure, or an older sibling kind of figure

She has really bad experiences with the only ones she’s ever known, so how was she supposed to fix that with some kid she’s not even related to?

But, for your sake, I feel like jinx loves you enough to try

If the kid was your sibling, I feel like she would be more reserved and distant from the child

In some way you and your little sibling remind her of herself and Vi when they were young and it’s not a good thing

She’s only able to take care of the kid once she separated those two things and finally able to bond with the kid

It takes a lot of time and patience from you for Jinx to be able to bond with the kid

If y’all found the kiddo, I feel like it would be easier for her to take care of it more than it being your sibling

When she does come around, Jinx can be very protective of the kid

She’s more the parent that doesn’t discipline and lets the kid get away with stuff, which causes some behavioral issues and arguments between you two cause that’s not really a good thing

So she has to learn from you how to take care of the child

She teaches the kid lots of things like how to invent gadgets, to make sure they work, how to protect yourself, and lots of other things like that

On more positive notes:

You’re the main bridge between the two so when they’re left alone together, they have no clue what to do or how to bond

But you do find little bits and pieces of a genuine bond forming between the two

You see the little smile Jinx wears when she finds genuine joy in taking care of them

She wonders how anyone could abandon their child or harm them when the one she takes care of with you is so beautifully innocent and childlike

In a way the kid heals the inner child and the Powder still inside of Jinx

She takes care of them in the way she wished Silco or Vi was

And she understands them in a way not even you can, especially if they show signs that Powder and Jinx did when she was young

She likes goofing off with the kid, and she likes playing around with them

You’ve found them roughhousing and giggling more times than you could count

and you’ve found them testing out bombs, which only happens when it’s in a safe place and a safe distance away

Jinx would never intentionally harm your guys’ child

She loves them so much that sometimes it’s scary to see how attached she has become

She doesn’t know what she would do if anything happened to you or the kid

She doesn’t ever wanna scare them, which has only happpened once

Jinx was having a freak out after everything has happened, probably after Vi was found to be an enforcer or after their fight

She was going through it, yelling, breaking things and crying and screaming

She didn’t notice how scared your guys’ child was until they started crying

Jinx felt her heart break, and even if she was ashamed of doing it, she ran out

She didn’t know how to handle the gaf she scare them so much

She was gone for a while and when she came back she was visibly distant

It took a lot of patience and reassurance for her to come back around the kid without being hesitant about every move

But the kid loved her, and when she saw your child was more sad about the fact she was gone, it broke her heart and almost healed it at the same time

She doesn’t know what she would do if they feared her badly

She loves coloring with the little girl or boy, and she likes helping them figure out outfits

She likes running around the lanes with them, or going to the old hideout

The two also love messing with Sevika as the woman has now joined your little mini family

Jinx and the kid often pass out together, both on the ground or wherever and limbs tangled and snoring with drool on the corners of their lips

Which means you have to carry both to bed a lot of the time

Jinx loves. Showing he kid to invent, and how to fight and everything

She loves seeing the sparkle in the kids eye when she shows them fireworks and anything Jinx

She and the kid have a bond you don’t know how to describe

She also doesn’t try to keep the fact of who she is and the things she’s done a secret from the child

Sometimes she can be harsh, but it’s from a space of love even if the kid gets hurt feelings

She always makes up for it though

[nyxi-pixie]

ambessa straight up saying that vi leaving left a vaccuum in cait that she could fill is SOOOO. bc fascism Does prey on loneliness and hopelessness and grief by offering a false solution. its Easy to blame and hate people instead of pursuing the gruelling process of actual change, but its easier still when hating people gives you community. cait blames jinx already, and expands it to zaunites at large because thats easy for her, and ambessa is able to stoke that by putting her on a pedestal For that. and with no one else, with her mentor dead, her mother dead, her father withdrawn, jayce gone, and having denied vi the chance to stay, cait is completely alone. and ambessa benefits from it by offering closeness and understanding, by drawing similarities between them to make cait feel seen.

but the way out of a mindset caused by misdirected hatred, and the kind of irrational thinking and instability that solidifies it, is finding community outside of it. when it comes down to it, despite how she thinks at her worst, cait still loves vi. She still loves her mother. Seeing someone she loves have a chance to save a parent by going against the side caits chosen for herself, the side only resulting in death and destruction, is enough to bring back some recognition of right from wrong, enough to convince her to do some good after so long of only causing damage.

[shentheauthor]

Breaking my Arcane silence to say Caitlyn Kiramman is my favorite character and s2 has not changed that.

Bigotry preys on vulnerable people like her. It gives them someone to blame rather than helping them through whatever it is they’re going through. It’s like how lonely, depressed men often become incels. They are given someone to blame— women— and become misogynists because of it.

Of course there is often some internalized bias there. I don’t think Cait has deconstructed her classism much by the end of s1, and right now, that’s being made worse. She’s been given an enemy rather than support, so she doesn’t have to stop and think and process her grief. It’s easier that way.

She’s also great representation of what happens sometimes when grief is incredibly fresh. You don’t WANT support or help, because those people want you to process it. They want you to think about it, and right now, that hurts too much. Or they’ll tell you that you’re wrong, and even if they’re right, you don’t want to hear that. That’s Cait right now. Vi is right, and Cait doesn’t want to hear it because it HURTS.

I know it seems like she’s had plenty of time to think about what she’s doing, and she definitely has… but the real key here is she hasn’t given herself time to think about her mother. She threw herself into finding Jinx almost immediately, and it doesn’t help that Piltover is on the brink of war with Zaun. She hasn’t had any time to process her feelings, which is incredibly important to making good decisions.

I love her so much. She’s flawed, and she’s going down a terrible path, but her writing is so important. It’s important to see these stories, because this happens in real life (although most of the time it isn’t as extreme as war and gassing people). Cait is such a well-written character, and that’s why she’s my favorite character in Arcane.

[bluntblade]

There's something interesting that I haven't seen remarked on; both Cait and Vi's "coping" mechanisms in Act 2 turn out to be anything but, once you dig down. To me, they feel more like the two women punishing themselves.

Vi's case is the more obvious: her pit-fighter era is a red-misted oblivion. At first, the montage shows us a bravado-filled highlight reel, but as it goes on the focus starts to slide, and not just to the drinking. We see Vi being smacked down and biting dust as often as she wins. When she thinks of Caitlyn it's dreamy and peaceful for a second, only for that to shatter. Reality snaps back violently, and that violence means another wall between her and the rest of the world. Everything speaks to a loss of control - the same problem Vi has had before in her need to look after her loved ones, but now without even that focus. Her life is dictated by the schedule of matches, by her anger and by drunken, gut-level impulses. I was going to flippantly call it her Raging Butch era, and then realised the parallels to Lamotta's self-destructive slide in Raging Bull are actually painfully acute.

With Caitlyn, it's subtler. Her hairshirt is the cloak Ambessa drapes over her: Caitlyn is now enacting the occupation she wanted to avoid, after her more limited (yes, harmful, but more limited) method failed (and indeed caused harm in Piltover too when Jinx hijacked the Grey). She plainly dislikes it (just as she bridles against provocations by the Noxians) but there's also a sense that she's punishing herself, again, for her mother's death and her own previous failure (as she sees it). It would be easier to back down, or more comfortable... and in her current headspace, comfortable is wrong. She failed her mother already, fatally. She doesn't deserve comfort.

It's also there in her sleeping with Maddie. There's no real warmth there, and I think you can perceive a sense of guilt in Caitlyn around that. Again, I think it's plausible that she welcomes that sense of guilt. Especially as she leans away specifically from Maddie's displays of affection (leaving aside the fact of the little traitor being a little traitor).

And these are really the same flaws that led them making the mistakes they did during the raid. Caitlyn assumes as much responsibility as she can (and more than she can shoulder safely), while Vi lets herself be carried along as support, challenging Caitlyn too late to avoid the situation going horribly wrong.

So when they come back together, the thing which makes it work this time is that they let themselves want the things which they really need. Cait gives up her need to assume all the responsibility and all the choices, even as she looks as Jinx, sees someone swept up in the same cycle as her, and tries to break them both free. Vi finally acts for herself - she still fights for others, but it doesn't consume her own interests like it did before. Where they both got lost in loneliness, now they come together (no sniggering at the back!), and that's a real solace for the two of them.

[imagine-a-sanctuary-like-this]

Some early thoughts on Arcane S2

Just a few thoughts on the 1st Act of the new season. No strong commitments or opinions just yet, it's still early on in the story. I'll start with what I especially liked, then cycle into things I'd have liked to see done differently.

Animation

Visually, this season's a step up from the last. I've especially enjoyed the differently-stylized into sequences to each episode (the charcoal-like funeral, the overlords' last supper and the Grey, respectively). I've read some complaints about the music-video-esque treatment of the fights, but I enjoyed that. The music's not my thing, but it fits the steampunk/sci-fi-fantasy aesthetic pretty well.

Vi/Cait

Good to see it become canon! I also like the tragedy they seem to be setting up, and I do like how they wrote their relationship. Again, have read complaints about them getting together and breaking up too quickly, but I think it makes sense - the kiss is a pay-off to almost a season's worth of build-up. The breakup is the result of the gap between the characters' beliefs, conditions and natures. There's always been tension between them, and they're not perfect for each other, so them getting together all at once would not have been believable. Also, since Act 1 sees basically everything uprooted and thrust into chaos, it makes sense for them to make impulsive decisions trying to find comfort. Sure, they're probably not deeply in love, they've known each other for a short time, but they've clearly liked each other for a while. I don't really get where the people that think it's rushed are coming from.

Cait's arc set-up

I really like where it's going! The arc they seem to be setting up looks like it'll be about the effects of grief on perpetuating hatred and violence, which fits right in with the story. I do wonder if they'll attempt to take Cait to the 'extreme' and then bring her back in a sort of redemption arc. It seems like that might be difficult to do after some point. But I'm excited to find out where it's going.

Jinx, Isha and Sevika

Not much to say here, I like how Jinx's family themes continue even after Silco's death. All kinds of nice parallels going on. I like it.

Alright, now for the stuff I'm not so positive on. There's quite a bit, but simply because it is easier to criticize than to praise, especially when S1 has set a very high standard.

Too many plotlines

I've seen people talk about pacing issues, and I do agree, but to me the more fundamental problem (which is the cause of the first) is that this season's juggling too many plotlines. Just the ones that come to mind:

(1) Zaun vs Piltover, undercity uprising (2) Mel and the Black Rose (3) Ambessa's Noxus interference (4) "The Arcane is waking up" (5) Vi, Jinx and Warwick family drama (6) Victor's becoming (7) Vi and Cait relationship drama (8) Singed

My hope is that these will be bettered by uniting some of the plotlines. Victor and the Arcane will probably end up one storyline, same with the Black Rose and Noxus. Still, the story feels over-loaded with STORIES, and not in a very water-tight writing kind of way, but rather in a 'there's too much going on' kind of way. I'm afraid that they will not have enough screentime to set up, develop and pay off all of these, while also doing justice to the character arcs. I might be wrong, we will see.

For now, I feel like they should have cut one of the plotlines above to make more space for the story to breathe. It's also a little thematically messy. There's usually at least a loose thematic connection (family, using magic/science for good/bad, dangers of the arcane, oppression), but sometimes it feels too loose. Again, I'm sure some of this will come with time as we get these 'looser' plots developed, like the Black Rose, Noxus's political interests, etc. Hopefully, they can pay it off right.

A consequence of so much going on is, yes, some moments are not given enough time. This was most evident for me in the Jayce/Viktor goodbye scene. Perhaps it is meant to be underwhelming and this will be relevant later, but as it stands, it's rushed. I've seen someone given another good example, Jayce and Heimer's reunion scene - it should have been tensed with residual conflict, but there's kind of... nothing.

Another consequence is that some characters screentime feels insufficient for their story importance (e.g., Jayce, Viktor, Ekko), while others', excessive (Maddie, the enforcer dudes). Isha's screentime is fine, since she works as a parallel to Powder, and Salo's is also alright because of politics plotline. I've seen some leaks about Maddie which I will not detail here, but I'm not sure that they justify her abundant screentime.

Scale of conflict

I quite dislike the seeming shift away from the core Zaun vs Piltover conflict towards a more 'global' feel. Makes sense for S2 to have a bigger scope, but this is a little too big for my liking. Both the Arcane waking up and the Noxus stuff is very global, and since the show is more about Arcane than about world politics, I would've preferred to have seen the latter cut down in favour of more screentime to the former, as well as main characters from S1.

I also quite dislike the 'let's put aside our political differences to save the world' direction that this all seems to be winding up to, because it kind of puts the more interesting, interpersonal conflict on hold, and takes what I'd consider the 'easy way out' of the moral difficulties of the conflict. I do not know if this is what they will do this season, but it feels like they're edging towards that with the Jayce, Ekko, Heimer and Victor stuff (and possibly the Grey?).

Viktor and Agency

Once again, with so little screentime it's difficult to tell, but the set-up seems to suggest a certain direction here, which I can't say I like. It's unclear whether Viktor is controlled or mind-addled by the Hexcore, but I do dislike the seeming lack of emotion. If he's controlled, it kind of takes away from what S1 was building towards. I do like that Jayce is pushed to use the Hexcore on Viktor (he chooses to do it, despite promising to destroy it), but I feel like the fallout would have been more compelling, especially in terms of Viktor as a character, if he'd seemed more in-control.

They seem to have chosen to go with something else, and I don't doubt they have an idea for his arc, but I wish there'd been more of the original League concept in Arcane's Viktor. As it stands, all the desperation from S1, the anger and helplessness, have sort of... gone, without a good conclusion (I don't really consider Sky's death a good conclusion). Or at least, without one for now. I thought that S1 had been building up to the Machine Herald stuff. Maybe this is an intentional subversion. I've never found Viktor's character to be very compelling, but he was at his best when pushed to desperate measures by his dying body.

This is a matter of personal enjoyment, but I do genuinely hope they bring some emotions back for him, and I really hope he is not controlled by the Hexcore.

[zaunitecait]

im seeing a lot of people being sad/annoyed/upset over the fact that vi is becoming a cop but listen. thats the best thing she could do if she wants the people of zaun AND jinx safe. (english is not my first language so bear with me)

putting jinx aside (for now): caitlyn is very influent in piltover, whether she likes it or not, so if shes now pairing up with a woman from zaun, and what she wants is a better relationship between piltover and zaun, then people might start thinking differently little by little. caitlyn would never want the people from zaun to suffer (her league of legends lore/personality makes it even more obvious), and vi is vi, so of course she wants to change the way people in zaun live and the police brutality they suffer.

now, about jinx: caitlyn wants revenge for sure, but i think, after all the anger fades out, she wont want jinx DEAD, you know? vi wouldnt be by her side if that was her plan. also, by becoming a cop it would make it much easier for vi to keep an eye on jinx and also on the police itself, knowing (and probably even being a part of, if cait becomes sheriff) all the decisions they make about her.

[glitter-garbage]

ok I'm not saying i disliked arcane season 2 at all, it was very fun to watch and gorgeous

but like. having rewatched season 1, season 2 really is all over the place with the plot 😵‍💫😵‍💫

(dont read below if you loved it? no reason to yuck your yum. these are just my personal opinions, and once again, i really enjoyed watching it nonetheless)

the first thing i disliked initially was Vi joining the police force. she is so heavily against it in season 1, spends years in prison, has the entire backstory of them killing her parents. that really diluted her character for me, it would be easier to believe she was aiding the police rather than joining

then Caitlin being appointed as General (by Ambessa?). i might be missing something here bc i don't understand why the city would go for that, why even the police would go for that. she seems to have very little success in anything she does in season 1 up to ep 1 of s2.

(that being said Ambessas's motivation is very clear and she sticks to it so well, it's great for her to have someone she can manipulate easily so she goes for Cait, etc. She is one of the high points of the season for me)

the black rose thing and Mel's kidnapping was fun but very confusing. In the end what bothers me is how generic Mel's powers are, and how they seem to be able to do anything but what they're described as (?)

Isha and Jinx adopting her was also very underdeveloped for me to believe in it. From the beginning it's clear they introduce Isha as a redemption and downfall for Jinx, though I do like the motif of parenting bringing humanity to "evil" characters. The flaw in this for me is how Isha has very little background, we know nothing about her so she serves as a plot point for Jinx and barely anything else. I did love the watercolor-esque memories sequence and that was what i wanted more of i guess, more of her perspective and her wants and needs.

also i don't understand why she would do what she did. its a bit beyond suspension of disbelief that she would blow herself up for me.

obviously Caitlin immediately flip flopping to Vi's side after that montage of training with Ambessa (where once again there is the motif of parenting) is very confusing. I believe in the power of lesbians but this is a bit too much even for me. Gimme a bit more to work with to make this believable yknow?

There's something about Viktor's arc that bothers me too but I'm not sure what yet?

something else that stuck with me is how the final fight is set up. isn't it a bit too easy to call for all people from topside to zaun to come together? they spend half the season making the relationship between these territories worse to then solve it immediately with the classic we must come together to face a worse enemy. i think it would have worked great if season 1 hadnt done an amazing job of showing how nuanced and complex this relationship is.

i just wanted to write all this just to organize my brain, so it's all scattered thoughts, sorry abt that

[arcanegifs]

tagged by @adawongs thanks for the tag ♡

before/after gif challenge: rules: from your creations, choose as many gifs as you’d like and do a before and after to show off your colouring and sharping skills.

My thoughts with coloring my Arcane Gifs under the cut:

So.... Arcane... soooo painful to make gifs sometimes lmao. Anyways, for around 95% of what I make, I have a base Arcane PSD which you can see in the first 3 gifs of Vi, Jinx, and Cait. Then, I adjust the curves, color tones, and color balance when necessary. Most of the time, it turns out okay, and I really like it for brighter scenes.

But oh god does it STRUGGLE in dark gifs like the one for Cait lmaoooo. A LOT of colors need to be adjusted, and even the Caitlyn one doesnt come out perfect. Since it's super dark, I can almost never use it for large gifs. It's why I just cherry pick which scenes to make into larger 540 x 540 scenes. The darker ones I typically either leave alone or make smaller crops so that you don't get to see much noise. I really need more practice on coloring them.

There are very rare times wherein the base PSD doesn't work, like the last Vi set, which had to be colored entirely different. I just don't like seeing a lot of yellows on my gifs (as a personal preference), so I decided to have a different coloring for it. I might experiment with more coloring next time, since I almost never feel satisfied with my colorings. But I still find my base PSD to be good enough for majority of the scenes. I’m still deciding if I should stick to an even more basic coloring style to preserve the original animation.

My sharpening settings are the same across the board, I don't really do anything else other than my smart sharpen and gaussian blur settings.

Overall, Arcane for me is pretty difficult to color lol, but it's mostly because I always struggle making dark gifs. I love the series, so I still try my best to make as much gifs as I can. I'm not much of a graphic maker though lol, because I'm not that creative. I usually just stick to making basic gifs instead. I’m always so awed at how other editors color and edit their Arcane sets because they’re all so good!

I'm really glad that I finally managed to have a base PSD so that it makes coloring a lot easier! Hopefully, I can continue to make more when S2 comes out.

[sir-adamus]

So for curiosity, how do you feel about how Cait and Vi's reconciliation was handled? Is there anything you wish they'd had more time for or do you think it was handled as close to perfect as they could?

i didn't have a problem with it, i thought it was fine

i feel like - and i have to speak about this season in general, you can feel the constraints holding things back through this season. my overall enjoyment isn't affected but it's clear that they had to sacrifice a lot of stuff to fit in the limited runtime

season 1 is primarily centered around like 6 or 7 characters with only 2 or 3 narrative through-lines because until Jinx fires Jawbones in the finale, the story is contained primarily to those characters, but with the looming threat that it was going to spill out onto a wider scale. so season 1 ends with the event that's going to cause things to start rapidly escalating which season 2 had to deal with pretty much hitting the ground running

and the problem with the story no longer being contained to this small cast of characters but to an escalating conflict spanning both cities with outside actors also making their play is that a lot of scenes that would have helped convey internal character conflicts and fleshed things out as they progress either didn't happen or were instead inferred through the means of a music video as a bit of a narrative cheat to get a point across because there's only so much runtime that can be dedicated to it

because if you look at the soundtrack of this season compared to season 1, there's twice as many songs, and a lot of those were used for precisely that - because unlike with season 1 we didn't have enough runtime to get all the meat out of it because there's so many more moving parts (this is why episode 7 is one of the best ones because it's contained to three characters and completely removed from the main conflict - and even then, Heimerdinger's character arc feels inconclusive), and i think the final two episodes are where this is most noticeable because Jinx is at her lowest point, then Ekko shows up to talk her down and next we see her she's leading the Zaunites alongside him with a new look and seemingly in a better place (as her attempted sacrifice wasn't something she planned)

but the problem is you have to infer a lot about how we got from point A to point C because point B happened entirely offscreen to the point that it felt like they were really struggling to pack everything in and because you can make those inferences it was one of the easier things to cut, when those scenes would've done a lot to show that turning point for Jinx, and using her position as Zaun's symbol (could even use a music video sequence there to show Ekko sharing his experiences in the other timeline to set up a potential future reconciliation of Piltover and Zaun cos now he knows it's possible, as well as show Jinx and Sevika commiserating over Isha), and set up her choice to get the airship and leave without letting anyone know she's alive (again, inference, Caitlyn is holding the head of the same monkey bomb that Jinx used in her final scene, so you can conclude that when they got down there to try and recover her body they didn't find her or Warwick, and Cait's trying to figure out how she might've survived)

this season would've really benefited just from having an extra episode in each act to pace things out more and let us sit in those moments that had to be montaged past - like overall i had a good time, this is going to be a show i come back to over and over, it's the kinda show where it being bittersweet and open-ended makes sense, but i can see the holes that had they been filled would have elevated it from good to great, and that like a lot of good shows, it's an ending ultimately held back by the limitations of the run time, the structure (three episodes per act across three acts), and possibly budget limitations too

[le-panda-chocovore]

Oh so they're sending toxic gas to arrest people easier and make sure they can arrest everyone ?

Yeah so right now I have more empathy for Jinx than for Vi and Cait

[ravenkinnie]

when in the same room with someone jinx doesnt like (not hate like with cait she just dont fw them) would jinx just shoot at them unprompted or bully them unprompted? or would the person have to interact with her first to provoke her to do either of those things? or would jinx pretend they dont exist? (they're literally not trying to annoy her btw they're just existing)

even though jinx is obviously a maniac at the same time i can get confused how specifically wild she is under more mundane circumstances. like idk if its just me but sometimes it can get confusing how to protray wild characters with little to no inhibitions like jinx without making her cartoony or two-dimensional.

idk if shoot but I do think jinx can't deal with an emotion to a degree where she might hear them insidious demonic voices inside her tell her to start shit. I think she wouldn't care if she didn't give a fuck about a person unless she was in a mood but if she doesn't like someone then probably. like if you look at the scene with thieram/chuck she starts messing with him even before she starts vying for info because jinx just likes messing with people and i doubt chuck has enough personality to have a massive longstanding beef with jinx

when it comes to giving a character that dimension it's less about whether she would do it in general and more about the little nuances of when and how she does things. humans don't work like algorithms, even in the same situation you will respond differently depending on a lot of things and that could be whether she has another goal that fucking with someone would serve, whether she's emotionally distraught in some way or whether there's even another person in the room with her like silco or vi

when you look at a story as a whole, that one scene in context also isn't enough by itself to tip the scale into two-dimensional and flat characterisation if the entirety of the character arc is balanced. you kind of have to check on a larger scale whether you balanced all the aspects of a character well enough and made them feel consistent within that character so that they don't feel cartoony and exaggerated in their expressions and reactions even if they are a wild or big or whatever personality. and looking at reactions within contexts where they don't react to every scenario exactly the same is I think a part of that

a small way I like to add some balance to kind of sense check if I'm not pushing the scale in one direction is to add a micro-breakdown - this is just looking for a moment in the story where the pattern breaks in some small way. for character arcs I think thinking about when that moment could be makes it easier to visualise those underlying layers of characterization. so you have a character who has a strong, energetic and aggressive personality and you look at your story and think where is the context, emotional or external, where it makes sense for this wild pattern of behaviour to break for a moment, what could it say about why this pattern exists in the first place and how does she get back to her baseline but with new layer underneath now. if you look at s1 jinx a scene like this would be for example, the scene with silco in his office after she shoots up the airship - you see a break in that aggressive always on the offense pattern, she retreats and fawns and she's apologetic and she even touches on explaining that manic behaviour when she tells him about her hallucinations so you have another layer for the pattern that will keep returning

[archangeldyke-all]

I got hated indie this so I didn’t want to say it, but yes their relationship was too fast for me in season one. I don’t believe that ppl connect with each other that fast lmao. They’ve known each other for five days and suddenly they’re like ‘what about us ?’ What us??? Genuinely have felt left out of the fandom and lesbian community cuz I just did not understand them; I remember going to the last episode before their rain scene on Netflix just to check if I posed an episode. The feeling a were so high for two ppl that only met last week.

But I feel like season two will actually develop their relationship and give sth more than just that (imo) shaky foundation. I get connecting as friends and like having a bit of a crush and sexual attraction, but they both looked like they were neck deep in love with each other at the end of the series which was wild and confusing to me. They’re he first animated lesbians I didn’t ship and I feel so bad 😪

I love your reading on Cait. I don’t connect to her character but seeing other ppl’s perspectives makes it easier to like do that. Cuz she genuinely is cute and means well.

(Also I wondered if it was just me but do you see like Cait’s narrative purpose in the story ? Like, I feel like one of cait’s purposes as a character in season one was to create (unintentional) chaos between Vi and Jinx, given what she symbolizes for high of them and such, and that genuinely irked me. Though I could just be overthinking it.)

And can I be 🗣️ anon ? I always be talking lol

omg same i hope season 2 gives cait and vi some time to uhh... reflect? grow? go on like a normal coffee date and learn each other's favorite colors? simple things. cait didn't even know violet was an orphan and she was already giving her the lovey dovey eyes, they definitely skipped a few steps in their relationship in season 1 (but i get it, they were going through some pretty big individual and shared traumas at the time, they didn't really have time to get to know each other)

i think cait's narrative purpose is probably to give us an insight to piltover and how the majority of citizens up top think about the undercity. cait is completely clueless that people two or three miles from her home are living in despair-- it isn't until she goes to the undercity herself and learns from vi and ekko that she starts to realize. i think she is meant to show how piltover's managed to turn it's back on its sister city for so long-- it's people just live in pure ignorance both about the issues zaun's citizens face, and the fact that piltover's to blame for those issues.

and of course you can!! i love getting new anons heheeh

[viismyworld]

Caitvi: Expecting parents

Just a bunch of headcanons that involve a pregnant Vi and a very supportive Caitlyn

Vi and Caitlyn have been together for a while and at some point vi ends up pregnant.

It comes unexpectedly but regardless Cait does all she can to make sure Vi is comfortable and at ease while pregnant.

Comforting and treating her during and after morning sickness and being patient with her while her mood might be a bit erratic due to hormones. 

Making sure Vi never does any heavy lifting and is always in comfortable positions (especially as she starts to grow bigger)

Vi starts to develop some wild ass cravings at some point and even if caitlyn finds them strange, she always makes sure she has the items on hand and never runs out (asks vi to let her know immediately when she's even half way out of what she'd need). 

Upon first learning that Vi was pregnant, they were both taken aback and nervous, but Vi let's her know that it is what it is, and that she'd go through with it, and Caitlyn ofc let's her know she's with her through it.

Immediately after their shock, they're already coming up with names for their potential baby and wondering what she'll be like. Wondering who the baby will look more like, or if she'd be a perfect mix of them both (like Cait is of her parents lol).

When Caitlyn leaves the house, whether for work or to run some errands, she's always looking for things that might make things easier for Vi. She'll find things like essential oils to make her relax, all different kinds of pillows, or anything that massages any part of the body (especially feet and back though because they would get pretty swollen and achy at some point). 

Cait also gets her a pillow that specifically helps pregnant people sleep better with their baby bump. (Vi started getting all pouty because she'd usually use Cait as a pillow and thought Cait didn't wanna cuddle with her anymore when it was just Cait needing space when she sleeps lmao. Vi got it through her head pretty quick tho so they're good)

They also like to wonder who the baby will take after more, or wonder if she'll be like both of them. A problem solving dork like Caitlyn, or a tough, stubborn mule like Vi lol. Either way she'd be sweet and compassionate like both of her mothers they think. Vi thinks maybe she'd get her love for art from her side of the family (Vi did her own tats and we see Jinx likes to draw and doodle). 

Vi's big on rabbit plushies (used to be her favorite toy) so she'd buy a few for the nursery they start creating with an extra room in Caitlyn's house (Caitlyn's still rich in this AU and has enough to have her own pretty decently sized place). 

Caitlyn's constantly talking to the baby, damn near giving her pep talks while pressing her ear to Vi's belly and "waiting for a response" (any kind of movement lol). 

Caitlyn also likes to put tape recorders with classical music playing on Vi's belly or headphones attached to a tape recorder playing classical music so the baby can hear it (she wants her to grow up smart lol). 

When they're apart for a majority of the day, they'll both be coming up with names and writing them down to discuss with each other later on.   

[tykobrian]

My Caitlyn Kiramman Meta: Part -1 // Why I think a so-called villain arc for Cait is most definitely NOT happening...

DISCLAIMER: Right off the bat, I want to be very VERY clear, this is not an invitation for people to come along and spoil me with the leaks. This is not a competition to see who can predict season 2 most accurately and then correcting them with spoilers. I'm simply writing everything I've understood from the show and the things I wish to see in future/ the things I'd love to see the writers exploring. Sure, I make speculations but THAT doesn't mean I'd appreciate people spoiling me. I'll see what really happens in a month after all.

Moreover, I'm not here to create or stir up fandom drama. I understand what I'm going to write may not be favourable to some people. That's why I've tried to keep this post out of the popular fandom tags. And no, I don't think less of people who expect things to go differently from myself in season 2. This post is not some kind of vagueblog at other fans or posts/ meta.

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Let me reiterate. The chance of Caitlyn having a villainous storyline is extremely unlikely. Why? It’s pretty straightforward in my humble opinion. Arcane is a show produced by an American/ Chinese company. Both countries have a strong bias towards portraying cops/ military positively. I think this was evident in the first season. Caitlyn’s mentor, Grayson, was shown as a good person striving to maintain peace but ultimately falling victim to the schemes of malevolent Silco and the duplicitous Markus. They even tried to make Markus as sympathetic as possible by depicting him manipulated by Silco from the start, emphasizing his role as a conflicted father (massive eyeroll). Sure, not all the enforcers portrayed in season one are the beacon of virtue. But that’s because Caitlyn will the portrayed as the missing link that will ultimately change the enforcer system for the betterment of both Piltover and Zaun. In earlier League of Legends lore, Caitlyn is depicted as an idealistic sheriff dedicated to maintaining peace between the two cities and refusing to take orders from Piltover’s wealthy elites. In season 1, the writers carefully made it clear that nobody wants to see Cait as an enforcer. Not the current Sherrif, not her own parents, not her pal Jayce. It is implied that she joined the force to solve the murder of her mentor, not for maintaining Piltover’s influence over Zaun. She has a strained relationship with her evil councilor mother for Christ’s sake! They made Mel not recognize her name when Jayce mentioned her to make it clear that she doesn’t hang around elite circles enough for people to know who she is readily. All of this is show that Cait is still an outsider who can’t really be considered to be participating in actively undermining the lives of Zaunites, even if she is the daughter of a Counciler, even if she herself is an enforcer. So, this will make it easier for her to prop up in the audience’s mind as a fitful person to take over the so called revamped enforcers! After Jinx’s attack on the city and her mother in S1 finale, I speculate that Cait might initially feel vengeful, but before she does anything truly harmful, the writers will likely make her regain her composure and act as the “bigger person”. They will never let her “stoop” to her arch-nemesis Jinx’s level and start doing stupid shit like bombing Zaun! She might even suggest herself to let someone like Vi, a Zaunite, to join the enforcers, demonstrating her fairness. I also suspect Ambessa’s character was introduced for mainly for Caitlyn to defend Piltover against an outsider (Noxian) force, making her a savior. Caitlyn will likely play a significant role in protecting the city from Noxian forces and emerge as a hero. Also, they could play the angle of OH CAIT WAS BEING MANIPULATED BY AN EVIL SCHEMING NOXIAN, you really can’t blame her for doing woopsie things a la Marcus- Silco storyline v.2.

The fact that Piltover’s system is essentially feudal, with a severely skewed, undemocratic, and centralized power structure, doesn’t matter as long as a virtuous person like Caitlyn is in charge! Also, she is in love with a Zaunite, Vi, who is literally the terrorist Jinx’s sister. How can an evil person look past these and fall in love with a Zaunite, eh? Checkmate! It’s quite frustrating. I believe, everything I said boils down to: the narrative will go to great lengths to protect the only so-called good cop in the show, because otherwise it’ll be evident that the so-called law enforcement system portrayed in the show, which incidentally somewhat mirrors the system found in real-life, is inherently unjust and evil regardless of who is in power. The main problem of Piltover's law enforcement was that the "right" person wasn't in charge, you see! I think an American/ Chinese show would be the least likely place where something this radical would be portrayed.

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Well, that’s what I think they’ll do with Caitlyn in season 2. I really really REALLY hope that’s not how things go for her. But I’ll have to face the facts. Anyway, next I’m going to analyze the show as if it’s not a show written by people but rather something like a documentary. That is, it’s not a written things which is havily enfluenced by the writing teams' personal bias/ agenda rahter something that happened in real life in another universe. This will hopefully let me explore how Caitlyn’s character could have evolved organically. Perhaps I’ll analyze other Arcane characters this way in future.

[space-blue]

What are your thoughts on Vi becoming an enforcer in Arcane? Do you think there's any way for it to be well-written and how would you prefer it to go down?

I've talked about Vi before and especially how I don't appreciate how the rushed romance destroyed her character in the third act.

So enforcer Vi? I hate it. Unless they take a very bold, very dark angle on Vi's motivations or what it does to her to become an enforcer and betray her people, I genuinely don't expect good things.

Like, the poor, destitute, orphaned by enforcer child, to unlawful prisoner regularly beaten in isolation, to fucking COP pipeline should really never exist, unless it's to explore some sort of really intense psychological trauma and maybe Stockholm syndrom…

I'm scared because she's truly a cop in the game. She's got splash art in cliche cop gear eating donuts, and her voice lines (rehauled for the show) had police brutality jokes. She just wasn't "that deep", and the show made her final position a little more untenable. Knowing her background, it makes very little sense she'd ever align with Piltover. I really hope they don't use her interest in Cait as the main mean to get her in uniform…

Can't we have canon lesbians that aren't fucking cops?? I thought Cait would go more down the rogue investigator route, making her charming, using her family and wealth for her eccentric pursuits and obsession for the truth… But it's not really what we got.

The only way I can see this well done for Vi is if she slowly relents when she's not getting results alone, and resigns herself to asking Cait for help. Maybe then she'd find that she thrives as an investigator or mediator. Like, seeing Vi, throughout the season, slowly realise she's good at policing her own people, and they respect her, and maybe if she's the one doing it, then enforcers won't have to, and she can make it easier on everyone… basically becoming Vander 2.0, is the only way I can see her regularly collaborating with Cait.

That OR go broke and make her a class traitor! I don't mind! It's dark, it's fucked, but PLEASE just don't give us a bird brained Vi who follows Cait because she's horny and can't understand class politics 101. That would be so sad.

I want Vi to struggle with Vander's legacy, to realise that the brutality she's inflicting with her stolen gauntlets is exactly what he didn't want for her. That she's taking her place into the cycle of violence that keeps the place down. Even better if she struggles with Silco's legacy, and realising at last that she'd actually have been on his side if not for all the blood between them and her insurmountable distate for shimmer. 'Oh no, the guy you hate was right about something' sort of struggle. Especially if it pitches her against Cait and BOTH OF THEM have to actually acknoledge how fucked things are, and that patronising idealistic speeches to victims of oppression isn't 'change' or 'good enough'.

I'd love to see Vi demanding enforcer help on her terms because she blames the problems going on in the Undercity on them, on the council, and through Cait's endorsement, trying to use them to fix things. That's a way for Vi to slowly get used to their methods, to feel bad when one dies, to go to strategy meetings and slowly, slowly… become cordial. Even if it disgusts everyone else.

Urgh, idk, honestly. I try not to think about it too much. Cait and Vi are my biggest regret from season 1, as I felt like they were both weakened by the way they were used on each other. I don't expect either of their storylines to be my jam in season 2. I'm going in there for Viktor mostly. Got to see my boy finish drinking Singed's Nasty Juice and go full Machine Herald.

Him, Jinx, Mel and Sevika are my main draws to the show. That and the art and story were rivetting enough that I expect any sad Lesbian Cop disappointment to be dismissable.