#jinx doesn't even hallucinate him much

[thenationofzaun]

Wait... it just hit me that 6 episodes in and we didn't even get Silco being a kind, encouraging voice in Jinx's head

[lady-griffin]

Jinx's Hallucinations + Ekko

Before Act III drops, I wanted to talk about an aspect of Timebomb that I'm quite fascinated by -

Ekko isn’t a trigger for Jinx’s hallucinations.

He has even stopped her hallucinations – not intentionally or anything, but more than once Ekko's presence seems to have a nullifying impact on Jinx.

Which is odd, right?

One would assume due to their history Ekko would be just as triggering to Jinx as anyone else, if not more so, and yet the opposite seems to be true.

In Jinx's first reunion with Vi, she quickly becomes overwhelmed and has an episode due to a whole combination of factors, but notably because her hallucinations of Mylo and Claggor start attacking her, largely because she's starting to breakdown and is getting overwhelmed (a self-perpetuating cycle).

Jinx can't even begin to calm herself down, in fact she yells at everyone to shut up, because she needs to think.

Then she hears Ekko’s hoverboard and suddenly the hallucinations are completely gone.

Jinx isn’t sure if what she heard was real or not.

Which is a great detail, since it indicates Jinx is aware that the voices she hears aren’t “real," meaning she knows other people can’t hear them too. So, it's rather telling (at least for me) that she asks Vi to confirm if she too heard the hoverboard sound.

It's also impressive Jinx was able to instantly recognize the sound of Ekko's hoverboard, despite her being in the midst of a mental breakdown and unable to think properly.

It’s almost like Jinx’s brain went into fight mode or something, because seemingly all the hallucinations stopped at once because there’s now a much bigger threat Jinx needs to be on guard for – Ekko is heading her way.

I really can't emphasize how much I love that.

While not traditionally romantic, in any sense, this shows the amount of respect Jinx has towards Ekko and the threat he poses to her. He’s someone she actually has to take seriously when fighting.

Which is a bit unique for Jinx.

Throughout S1 we saw Jinx being far more scared of her hallucinations then actual real, physical threats, but in this moment it’s like her brain recognized Ekko as being the far greater threat than her hallucinations.

Which he is - but that’s also true for many of the other things Jinx faces and isn’t scared of.

Jinx does “glitch out” while fighting Ekko and the Firelights in “When These Walls Come Tumbling Down,” - but it’s more of an asset than a problem, as she easily dodges the Gorilla Mask Firelight (at least I think it’s a gorilla).

Then when Ekko disappears, Jinx's psychoses come rushing back; obviously, this has less to do with Ekko himself and everything to do with him taking Vi, but nonetheless, it's still a slight repetition of the pattern that keeps happening between them.

In "The Boy Savior," during Jinx's bridge fight with Ekko, she once again specifically doesn't experience any hallucinations; even though she was just experiencing them not too long ago.

Mylo was this 'demon' on her back that while she could initially argue against, the more upset she became, the bigger his presence was.

She saw Caitlyn as this devil figure, laughing and mocking her and her psychoses even blocked Vi almost entirely from her sight; whether literally or symbolically, Jinx clearly wasn’t fully aware she was shooting at Vi, despite her obviously seeing Vi and then shooting in her direction.

Then Ekko bursts onto the scene and suddenly no more hallucinations. Which is just...

I honestly don’t know what this is. I really don’t.

To be clear, I absolutely love this whole thing despite not knowing what it is exactly, because honestly, I'm just fascinated by this dynamic, because for whatever reason, Jinx isn't triggered by Ekko nor does she hallucinate him.

In S2, Jinx’s hallucinations have significantly decreased, but in “Paint the Town Blue," she's suddenly bombarded with pretty much everyone’s voices because she’s beyond upset and panicking about Isha being taken by the enforcers.

She sees pretty much everyone - Silco, Vi, Mylo, Claggor, Sevika, and Isha.

Jinx seeing Vi, Sevika, and Isha shows us that she can/does hallucinate people who she knows are alive.

In addition, Isha being one of her hallucinations shows us that Jinx doesn’t need to have negative or even complicated feelings towards someone for them to become a part of her psychoses, as Jinx largely thinks/feels positively towards Isha.

Though it should be noted, the hallucination of Isha isn’t acting aggressive towards Jinx, not like the others are.

Finally, Ekko or Vander are the only two she doesn't hallucinate, but we know Jinx has hallucinated Vander in the past, making Ekko the odd one out when it comes to Jinx's hallucinations once again.

Which for the millionth is absolutely fascinating to me.

Because why?

Why doesn't Ekko trigger Jinx? Why isn't he one of her hallucinations? How come he's the only one we've seen having the ability to stop Jinx's hallucinations altogether (even if it's completely unintentional)?

For whatever reason, Jinx’s mind has seemingly categorized Ekko as being different than everyone else and while it’s obviously not this big thing the show brings your attention to, it’s also clearly there, albeit subtly.

And yeah...

I don’t really have much more to say, I just wanted to talk about this interesting aspect of Timebomb before we get to the last and final arc of Arcane.

[q8qwertyuiop8p]

Why I HATE the Silco and Vander Flashback

As a Silco fan I was so hyped for it but now I wish it hadn't been in the show in the first place.

1- Ruins the Character's Reaoning

The only question this scene actually answered was why Vander betrayed Silco, and it answered it in one of the worst (and most annoyingly cliche) ways possible.

We knew from S1 and the writer's responses that Silco and Vander led the revolution, what happened on the bridge changed Vander, and then he betrays Silco. Most people came to the conclusion that, seeing the destruction and orphans, Vander decided fighting back was too risky and advocated for peace. Silco, on the other hand, believed that they needed to continue fighting for freedom and refused to give up. Vander, fearing that Silco would instigate more destruction and destroy more families, attempted to kill him to protect his people.

But now we know Vander apparently tried to kill him not because he was worried about his people, but because he was mad that his one friend died. This just makes Vander look way worse and takes away from the nuance of his character. Vander didn't take in the kids because he felt guilty for what he did, but because he knew their mom and had a duty to her to take them in. Did Silco's guilt for starting the fight that killed Jinx's mom cause him to adopt her, too? Everything being about their mom takes away from the character development and uniqueness in why these characters did what they did.

2- Left Questions Rather than Answers and Created Even More Inconsistencies

We already knew before Season 2 that Silco and Vander worked in the mines, that at least Vander was familiar with Felicia, and that Silco intigated the bridge fight by throwing a molotov, but so many things are unanswered or now incredibly inconsistent.

What is Benzo's relation to Silco and Vander? He knew Silco well enough to recognize older him in thick fog. Why does he hate Silco so much? Did he ever know Felicia, or did he only show up in Vander's life after the betrayal?

If Silco instigated the fight, why does Vander say it was also his fault in the letter? Why does Vander say to Benzo "We both know there's worse things than enforcers out their"? What is he talking about? He seems to be talking about Silco since he touches the brace covering the scar Silco slashed on his arm. But this makes no sense for Vander to talk so badly of Silco if he also blames himself and regrets what he has done to his brother so much.

Where was Silco after Vi and Jinx were born? We see Vander interacting with the kids and their parents after, but not Silco, and the kids do not recognize him in s1e3. It's like he just vanished and there is no clear reason why.

Why is Silco so eager to kill Vi and Jinx in S1E3 despite him knowing their mom and making that promise to her? The reasoning for him wanting to was already very murky but this just makes it worse and once again takes away from the nuance.

3- Silco's Design

Yet another inconsistency. I personally hate Silco's new hair and think it looks really stupid, but it is what it is. The real problem with it is that it doesn't fit with what we see in season 1.

In season 2, young Silco has long hair and bangs like Jinx's. But in season 1, during the betrayal, young Silco's hair isn't even shoulder-length and his bangs are way shorter. So perhaps he cut his hair sometime before the fight? But we see that even on the bridge, during the revolution, Silco's hair is long. His hair is even long when Warwick hallucinates a post betrayal Silco, even though Vander has seen Silco with shorter hair.

This is especially bizarre considering the inconsistency with Vander's hair in season one. During the drowning scene, he has no beard and is young, but during the bridge scene he has a beard and looks much older. The writers have stated that this was due to communication errors with Fortiche and that Vander and Silco were not meant to look so much younger during the betrayal, so that they would make a similar error again is odd.

(Speaking of the design, a 100% personal reason I was disappointed was that in the concept, Silco wears a sleeveless outfit that shows off his muscular arms, yet they once again gave him long sleeves. I know what you may be thinking, but imagine they showed Vi's abs in the concepts but didn't actually show them in the show. Keep in mind that not only is Silco the only major character to die before season 2, he is also the only one who we don't get to see fully or partially shirtless (even Heimerdinger can be seen shirtless in the s1 Chinese Artbook). I thought they would at least give us a brief glimpse of those arms but instead they took the extra time to model sleeves. I will never understand how we got to see shirtless Salo before Silco's biceps. ☹️)

Besides that I felt like the way Silco especially was animated was very off, like the animator had never seen a Silco scene before and knew nothing about the character. I knew he would be a bit different, such as being less pessimistic, since this was before the betrayal, but it was just way too off. It's difficult to describe and I'm still trying to put a finger on what exactly was the problem, but one thing I noticed was that his smile looked unlike the way he normally smiles. His eyes are usually half-lidded, even in the S1 flashback, but they aren't that way at all. And no, it isn't just that it's weird seeing him with two good eyes, because he never felt off at all in the s1 flashback. He just overall gave off Jason Spisak vibes instead of Silco.

I also really hate that the way they were animated gives off a bit of a feeling that they were both into Felicia. Please not Snape and Lily again.

[golden-redhead]

One thing I will say about this season is that it really emphasized just how much Silco and his actions contributed to Jinx's issues and how much his presence affected her negatively going forward.

Most of all, though, I think it proved once for all that Vander and Powder had a special bond where he deeply cared for her and genuinely saw her as his own. Especially in season 1, I think a lot of the fandom latched onto this idea that his relationship with Powder was much more shallow than the one with Vi and as a consequence, she connected with Silco so strongly. But just because Vi and Vander were close and he acted as her mentor in many ways doesn't mean he didn't care about the others and didn't have his own connection with Powder. Just because we didn't see it doesn't mean he was neglectful or cared about her any less. He and Vi had a special bond, yes, but that's because they are similar. I also think that in some ways, he saw himself in Vi, just like Silco saw himself in Jinx. He wasn't a perfect father, he wasn't without flaws, but it's clear he did everything in his power to keep his kids safe and ensure a peaceful future for them.

Through their interactions this season and that alternate universum jumping, we found out that they both deeply cared about each other and Vander fully accepted Powder as his daughter. He clearly loved her a lot and she also saw him as a father figure in her life.

Moreover, even though alternate universe Powder also dealt with grief, this time over using Vi, it's clear that Vander was able to give her the support she needed. She didn't turn violent, she didn't struggle with constant hallucinations. She grew up to be smart, resourceful and compassionate. She grew up to be a healthier, stronger version of herself. Someone who's loved, appreciated and has her own place in the world. And all that even after facing the enormous loss that Vi's death must have been.

It speaks volumes about how much Silco projected his own trauma onto her and prevented her from ever realizing her full potential. I don't think he did it intentionally, I don't think he doomed her to be like this as a choice... He certainly loved her and in his own way wanted what's best for her.

But regardless of his intentions, that's still what happened.

Hurt people hurt people.

That's one thing that Arcane made blatantly clear.

[sunderwight]

Not to theorize on Arcane with only three episodes left to go or anything, but I do think that there's a reason why the scenes we get of Viktor where he's actually acting like his old self, with Sky also acting reasonably human, are in some kind of theater of the mind/magical space/etc, rather than just Viktor in-person talking to Hallucination Sky in his shimmer dome or something.

Like, think about it. The first few scenes we have of Viktor post-cocoon, he sees Sky as a hallucination in physical reality, and it's disjointed and an obvious sign that something has gone Wrong. It's creepy, and weird. He's got one foot in physical reality and one somewhere else (and it's styled very differently from Jinx's hallucinations, too, which handily indicates that this is not the same sort of thing).

But then, after Jayce returns and we see that Viktor has established his cult, his personality seems to be entirely contained within this otherworldly space. He can perceive reality, but it's no longer overlapping. He has become somewhat quarantined from himself, with Sky there as well, acting way more like "herself" than she did as a hallucination before but also essentially chaperoning Viktor's consciousness. Like a golden retriever put in with a zoo cheetah to keep it calm.

What's interesting is that, internal Viktor is pretty much the usual Viktor he's been since S1, more or less. Like, that's definitely Viktor, who worries about Jayce and focuses on complex problems and wants to help people. But in-person Viktor is weirder. He's not a completely different guy by any means, but he doesn't emote the way that the internal Viktor does, and he says more weird shit in weird tones. Based on the decisions he ultimately makes, I think the internal Viktor is still calling the shots -- but I also think that he's increasingly on his way out.

He's been disconnected from his own physical reality by several degrees, observing it more than interacting with it. And though he sees that there's another influence on Jayce, there are heavy hints (such as Sky appearing right when he says that) that he's in the same boat. But because the process is happening gradually, and is happening within him, he can't recognize it. Every time he tries to, he is presented with a new distraction, or discussion, or there is a reassuring concession that seems to validate that he's still in control. Plus it's probably just difficult to perceive because it does seem to be basing a lot of its outlook on things off of his own. How do you discern the "wrongness" in something when it's the same flavor of wrong that you yourself tend to be?

It's difficult from the outside to definitively say whether this is just Viktor undergoing some funky character development, or if Viktor's another victim of something else. Maybe Viktor's just sequestering his own humanity a bit? Maybe it's all just intended to depict how he navigates through magical energy?

But I think another big indication that it's not just Viktor, is Salo. When Jayce comes back and asks if Salo's still in there after Viktor talks through him, Salo just calmly reasserts himself, and acts as if the idea that he's being forcefully subjugated is absurd. He's not being attacked or imprisoned, he's just engaged in a willing partnership with a benevolent power. If we didn't know what he was like before, or if the old Salo had been a very calm and altruistic individual to being with, it might even be convincing. But the disconnect is way more obvious here because the character we met in past episodes is way further removed from the serene cultist we see Jayce smash with his big hammer. We know that even a grateful Salo is not the kind of person who is going to put on a beige tunic, forgo his many vices and fancy parties, and join a commune just to thank his benefactor. No matter how happy he was to have his legs back, it would only be because it got him his life back -- he wouldn't want to regain his mobility just to up and abandon that life.

Outwardly it would seem that the thing that has subverted Salo's will is Viktor. But if Viktor is also being gradually quarantined, if the same thing is happening to him, then that further implies that another will is at play. One that is disguising itself as Viktor, or if you will as an evolution of Viktor.

Okay and now to actually theorized I guess -- I think that this might be where Singed's assertions about Warwick/Vander being a necessary component of Viktor's evolution will come into play. Because Viktor himself is not going to sacrifice a man to achieve that, but whatever else is part of Viktor does want to evolve. And then it just so happens that Jayce comes out of nowhere, ostensibly being controlled or influenced by something else, and shoots Viktor dead. At which point it seems like the human part of Viktor goes out, and the Machine Evolution guy fully supplants him.

Yeah, I kind of think that Jayce did do a bad thing, but that the twist will be that when he touched the arcane, "Viktor" showed him a vision or gave him some kind of time travel-y experience that convinced him he had to go back and destroy him, so that Jayce would unwittingly kill the only thing holding it back before Viktor finished helping Vander, probably ran out of juice and died in the process, and quietly took this thing out with him. It would, unfortunately, be very on-brand for Jayce to take a decisive and violent action to try and prevent catastrophe, only to unintentionally make it worse. This show on the whole has stuck to the idea that shooting your big flashy magic weapon at a thing is a great way to make a complicated problem much much worse.

I'm not sure they'd break the pattern for this one.

[arcane-ish]

@alisha-on-arcane

So on rewatching I've convinced myself that the flashback is very, very rose-tinted. That we're seeing Vander's heavily processed memory of their lives together (though the vanco love shack looks pretty cosy) minus the fights and the hardship and the dirt.

The main thing I got from the flashback is that Vander is secretly the world biggest Silco simp and to him, through his mind's eye Silco was just the cutest most stylish little twink, complete with fuzzy water colors.

Now there are parts that are certainly real (the shack and the letter). But Vander's memories. Eh..

The problem is that there's always the character level and the meta level.

1.) Who is the flashback for?

IMO the flashback, particularly the music sequence to me is complicated that to me it doesn't feel like it is primarily about Vander.

In the end, this show is not about Vander and it's not about Silco. It's about Jinx and Vi (+ a little bit of Cait). And to me that Memories sequence felt even though within the story it is triggered by Vander, structurally, within the episode, I think it's much more about showing us young!Vi and young!Powder being happy. Because the whole vibe of the arc to me is about Jinx getting better and almost getting a better life unless if it brutally ripped away from her again.

Vi and Jinx reuniting for the sake of Vander, getting their family hugs in plus the memories montage about how happy they once were is supposed to make us feel wistful about Vi and Jinx so we can then be crushed by the Isha ending and Jinx going back to having her hallucinations.

Like how the montage imo shifts from a Vander POV (Vander thinking of Silco, Vander thinking about boxing with Vi at various ages) to the point of view of the children.

This is Felicia greeting her children, not Vander. This is Felicia giving Vi her glove, from Vi's POV, not Vanders.

This is Vi smelling the food and turning around and seeing her mom cooking for Powder, this is Vi remembering her mother cutting her hair.

To me those moments just don't feel like moments where Vander would have been around (ie the moment where the POV camera moves to look into the soup the mirror images contain Felicia, Vi and Powder but no Vander, so another vote for Vander was not part of this moment).

I don't think that there's any in-universe reason to why the memories switch in perspective. Like Vi and Vander's minds are connected. Or being around Vander makes Vi think a lot about her own mom. So I think the sequence is just "vibes" based. It shifts from Vander's POV to Vi's POV simply because somebody (probably Christian Linke....) wanted to have those scenes in there, whether they make sense of not and structurally/dramatically this montage is there as a calm before the storm before Isha eats it.

(also note that the sequence starts on Vander, his memories, then switches to Vi's POV and then the sequence exits on Vi, Jinx and Isha, with no Vander in sight:

, so yes, my read that it starts on a Vander flashback but it morphs into a Vi respectively Vi/Jinx centered one for artistic reasons)

2.) artist fuckups + fanwank or intentional varity or fuckup followed by intentional variety?

I have to find it but I recently came across another person complaining about the flashback and noting that in Silco's version of the The Drowning his hair is shorter and styled different and they also claimed that Amanda Overton said that the original flashback was a fuckup and Vander and Silco were not supposed to look that young.

So, here's my thinking. If Vander's POV is rose tinted glasses. Who says that Silco's version of events is the real one? Maybe the truth was somewhere in the middle?

And there is some basis for a "memory is relative" approach. Jinx has always had a warped perception of the world. But now we at least have Vi's flashes of Caitlyn. Or Viktor's version of Skye not having glasses and fewer freckles. Or Cait's warped view of the world or how she pictures Jinx right after her mom's death.

Now IF we take this line that ALL flashbacks are colored by the perception of the characters and we can't take any of them 100% per face value, that brings up a ton of interesting things to think about. (maybe Silco is the cutest twink in Vander's memories because that's Vander saw him, maybe Silco is much grimier and the world much darker because there's some self hate there, maybe Vander is scary and bearded on the bridge because that's how Vi sees him in this situation).

But even though this is a fun fanwank and you can get some mileage out of it, I always run into "okay, but how much are we just covering up production fuckups and the creators just being messy and not as careful.

To me the idea that Vander is still "lying" in his memories is a super interesting character idea to me. But the problem is that I have no faith that this will ever be anything but a theory. Because I don't think that with just 3 episodes left and so much shit left to cover we will get another dark version of those memories to reveal that there's a contradiction. Like it could easily fit in just maybe before the final Warwick transformation. But I just don't think it will happen.

But yes, as just a fun character theory, I can get into Vander being strapped down being tortured by Singed and just retreating deeper and deeper into happy memories of his cute boyfriend even if those memories aren't real, they need to be made even lighter and prettier because they have to balance out so much torture. Vander doesn't want to think about the dark things they did together because he's trying to preserve his sanity in the face of a ton of torture and chemicals.

sure if you like they can both have been in love with Felicia, though I think the jackets make a much stronger zaundads case, and 'three close friends' is a thing),

At this point my read is still 100% Zaundads were an item and they were friends with Felicia and Connol and they care about them as fellow friends. I can maybe get into the "but Vi looks like Vander and Jinx has Silco's hair" (but let's remember, Silco could just have styled her hair after she started living with it rather than that being a physical property), but just on what is being said, the looks being exchanged, my read is that they are just concerned friends. (especially with my read that at least part of the Memories montage is Vi gazing onto Felicia and not Vander gazing onto Felicia)

But yes, I can see why the normies might read it differently.

I don't need Vander to have been in love with Felicia for him to freak out after her death. Right now my pitch is, Vander was really into project ankle biter and lived a bit vicariously through Felicia and Connol's family.

And if Silco maybe does something reckless that gets Felicia killed this is more deeply symbolic about how he just doesn't respect Project Anklebiter at all the way Vander wants him to. (with my personal presumption that they maybe were on rocky terms about Project Anklebiter before)

(that said, if all that Silco did was throw a molotov cocktail that is still weak sauce if they are really not going to add anything to that. Like I was at least counting on Silco I dunno, wanting to fuck up the air vents or something like that. Especially since in Vi's version of the Day of Ash Vander still seems moderately into it at the beginning rather Vander never wanted Day of Ash because he wanted to stop way before Vi was born and Silco kept provoking more and more fights. And if Vander didn't lead the charge on the Bridge how the fuck did he ever get any reputation as a revolutionary if all he did was found a moderately successful bar. It feels like there should be more to the story, I'm just doubtful it will ever come)

ETA: I should probably note that project ankle biter doesn't just have to be read in a mpreg "Vander wants to breed his boyfriend" kind of way as much as a joke about it. It can also be seen metaphorically about what status children should have within their community. Especially if you consider that Silco's arc ended up being all about valueing Jinx's life and freedom over Zaun and this arc just ended with Jinx becoming a symbol for resistance and almost instantly her pseudo daughter gets killed. [and of course there's Ekko as the middle ground, who has child aged people fighting, but not doing full on revolution, so maybe there is a middle ground between kids should be tools or soldiers or ignored and kids need to be kept protected and in the dark]

[brain-depositary]

Okay, here are Arcane spoilers for Act 2. I have thoughts on Viktor, as there's been a lot of back and forth over whether what we're seeing is really him or if he is being controlled by the hexcore/arcane. And people are missing the narrative explanations, which seem to make what happened really obvious. And the biggest sign of this is that Viktor has been hallucinating Sky the whole time. The man has clearly lost his marbles.

The show is very clear that Sky is not there physically, but she's also absolutely not there mentally, spiritually, magically, whathaveyou. Her ghost isn't in the hexcore or whatever. There's simply no way.

It's not that we know for sure there are no ghosts in the world of Arcane. It hasn't been proven one way or the other that they exist. All sorts of fantastical things exist in Arcane and maybe ghosts do, too. But we know Sky isn't one because it makes no narrative sense for her to be.

Thematically, all of Arcane has been about people handling grief and loss not just poorly, but destructively. Powder hallucinates the people she's lost as critical voices and behaves erratically and dangerously whenever they do. Both Vander and Silco twist Vi and Powder's mother's dreams of peace into more violence and oppression. Jayce can't deal with the loss of Viktor and uses the hexcore to save him which Viktor specifically told him to destroy. Caitlyn becomes a dictator after her mother's death and uses the ventilation system her mother created against the very people it was intended to help. Ambessa has gone on a rampage for her dead son who preferred bloodless subterfuge, and I have a feeling Singed's daughter would approve of all the things her father is trying to do to bring her back, had she ever had the chance to know.

But Viktor, after losing Sky and her dreams, just kind of gets her back, and fulfills them? Yeah, no, I'm calling bullshit. Viktor is not going to be the only one exempt from the Arcane pain train. This would be bad writing.

Sky isn't a ghost here. She's gone. The version of her in the hexcore is purely a product of Viktor's imagination. We don't see Sky a lot, but what little we do, she's different, much more confident. It's not her. Viktor is handling his loss badly, too, but his method of doing so is just wholesale denying that it happened. Sky isn't dead, she's right there. Her dreams aren't gone, they're perfectly within reach. It doesn't matter if he dies now because he's succeeded in his goals of helping people. The sick are healed, the hungry are fed. The commune is thriving. Everything is great.

With whatever power he gained from the hexcore, he's able to project this denial onto the real world, at least for a little while. Everything in his little bubble DOES seem great, but the cracks in the facade come early. When Salo talks to Jayce in the overflow chamber, Jayce's breath condenses, while Salo's does not, implying that he's not breathing. Also, Salo's turnover at the commune is disturbingly quick -- his original personality just does not seem to be there anymore, despite his insistence otherwise. The "no weapons" rule, while idealistic, cannot realistically be enforced -- as much as Viktor denied, reality was going to come crashing in and he was going to be unprepared for it, because he just decided he didn't have to be. Huck didn't even seem afraid at all denying a heavily armed warlord and her contingent entry without disarming first when literally his only character trait has been being cowardly. There's nothing in him anymore.

So, is Viktor being mind controlled, or is this the same Viktor we've known the whole time? Well, it's not really either. This is Viktor snapping and having a mental breakdown. This is Viktor's equivalent of Jinx's tea party at the end of season 1, except he has far more power to make it last longer, seem nicer, and drag far more people into it. Probably, the hexcore is taking advantage of Viktor's vision to build its hivemind, but the vision itself is all Viktor.

So, given all this, my prediction is: Viktor will be salvaged and revived by Singed. He will get a reality check, that Sky is really gone, that the people he healed are hollowed-out husks, that the peace he created was too fragile to last -- and he won't care, he will try to get it back by any means necessary, even if he doesn't have the arcane abilities or ability to completely deny reality that he used to have. And this will create a bitter person, similar to the character we know as the Machine Herald from League of Legends.

[dusty-siltstrider]

Alright I'm properly boozed and decently numbed. I promised to bitch excessively on here if our boy became a name on a missing poster. Here the fuck I am.

For reference I'm focusing on Viktor and Jayce here. More than enough has been said about everyone else. Y'all ate good. Let us starve in peace. Lots of this comes from lengthy discussions on the Viktor Nation disc.

To start - no, Viktor does not appear in the new trailer. I'm sorry, he just doesn't. Not even a voice line which should have been pretty fucking easy. Over at Viktor Nation we spent nearly an hour going over the trailer frame by frame brightening shit to see if he shows. He does not. No, not even a far-off shot of his arm. We got more Viktor in the teaser from two months ago than the official trailer.

However...

100% Glorious Evolved. Fingerprints around their faces match what appears to be Viktor face-grabbing that Shimmer addict from the teaser trailer. Similar rune carvings. This is his cult. Which uhh right off the bat is much different from any other interpretations?

Basically confirms they're going all-in on runic magic for Viktor and largely veering away from classic Machine Herald. Which I have feelings about. That will be reserved for the season itself once we see it play out.

And before any smartasses come in with "lol at least you got a shot of his feet" jokes those definitely aren't his. Just one of the random cultists floating judging by the angling. And Viktor's would be full grape Fanta. The silvery/gold texture is interesting. Some kind of manipulation of metal through magic?

Don't even.

Also been seeing a lot on the shadowy golden-eyed figure and we figured that's near-certainly not him either.

Looks sick, I'll admit. I kinda hope it's him, in fact. Most likely not him. Face shape is slightly too squared off, ears stick out too far, yes I went in deep on skull shape for this and I'm at least 75% sure that ain't him. And Viktor's magical influence/Hexcore spookiness has been defined by purple sinews and more organic forms than this more fantastical shadow tendril thing. This seems to be a new force entirely.

I won't discount it outright since Viktor's eyes are indeed associated with gold/amber but for all I know this could be Mel. Eye socket shape/nose does vaguely match. And Viktor's eyes would likely lean more towards a purple voidy glow in S2 if they're going all-in on the Hex Core.

Possible Jayce cameo? Very obviously meant to be his wristband gem, maybe somehow got fused with his skin. The grip on the object appears heavy so it's not Viktor's cane/staff. Could very well be the Viktor/Jayce confrontation since if you squint there might a robed figure standing in front of that weird fuckin magic doodad.

Speaking of...

Saw a pretty interesting post from @nylloth saying this could be Viktor's "hospital" or maybe some kind of Glorious Evolved temple. It does resemble the fucked up glowing sinewy appearance of the Hex Core so perhaps some kind of hallucination or vision that Viktor is having of his potential. Would love to hear more thoughts on that though. It's very obviously related to "the Arcane" as a broader more mysterious force.

Wanted to be angrier here but I'm honestly just disappointed. Which is ass because pit fighter Vi and Ekko and revolutionary Jinx are all things I'm genuinely looking forward to but I can't rally it. I'm very glad everyone else ate good though. Does indeed look sick and I'm still excited. Pit fighter Vi especially. Holy fuck. But I'm just too bummed out about Viktor, call that dramatic or childish but idc it's how it is.

Be stingy about appearances and character designs but it could not have been difficult to include a single voice line. Don't even bother including it in the show, get a couple trailer-only lines or a "Glorious Evolution" or SOMETHING. Don't give me that "well their fates are still ambiguous" No they aren't lmao they just aren't. By this point everyone knows Jayce and Vik live and 50/50 on Mel.

If Viktor had not appeared in that teaser TWO MONTHS ago for like 2 seconds then it would be reasonable to assume he got erased from the show entirely lol. We have a shot of his arm to go off of until we hopefully get a proper Viktor poster. Cool. Nice arm.

That is all. For now. Please refrain from discussing leaks. I don't need any more temptation.

[kiyrian]

I just realized: Jinx in S1 talks about how her & Vi situation is so much different than Silco & Vander. Now though we know they are very very similar and it's just that Silco never told her what really happened.

And we do see that he omits parts of the story - he shares new insight with her during the baptism scene after she mentions that they already went over it several times. Maybe he does it because some things aren't for children to learn, maybe because he struggles with sharing his real weak points.

Still, in the case of Jinx and Vi's parents I wonder if it's guilt - the same guilt Jinx feels over the death of her brothers. Or maybe fear - fear that Jinx would leave him if she found out her parents died after (and here I'm guessing based on Vander's flashbacks) Silco threw a Molotov cocktail at the guards. Hard to tell if he was the first to attack or it was a retaliation but the ending is the same: the parents died and Vander blamed Silco. Just like Vi blamed Jinx. Until Vander didn't but Silco never got to learn that. Until Vi didn't but she came with an enforcer and there was no time to talk.

How much easier would it be for Jinx if Silco shared the whole story? If he showed her that the similarities run deeper and that even after all this she (I assume) still saw his as a father figure -> she too deserved love despite her mistakes. Hell, if Vander ever talked to Silco or Silco tried to find him before S1 the whole problem would probably be solved before it even started.

And then what about Jinx sharing the whole story with Vi? How Silco was her father (was he good at it? that's a different topic. Still she grieves him as his daughter, she misses his lessons and guidance). How she didn't mean for the things to happen. How she needs help with her hallucinations (Silco tried to help with those and do they even have any kind of mental health professionals to offer real help? probably not. Still, not treating it as an excuse for her behavior but a real problem she's struggling with would do wonders.) We get some of it in S2 Act 2 but they are always in action and there are so many "almosts". Vi almost touching Jinx's shoulder. Jinx almost reaching out. The talk about future. They get family hugs with Vander. But this doesn't solve the grief, the hurt.

Here's to hoping the girls can break this circle of "All we needed was one honest conversation and then work on our relationship but we could have made it. Instead all we have is grief and useless legacy."

(Yet how often we don't get to have those kind of conversations in real life? How often we lose people because we never really explained? I love and hate how well Arcane portraits it)

[shadows-flames-and-ink]

Finished Season 1 of Arcane last night, and I can honestly say I will most likely not emotionally recover from this within the foreseeable future.

That being said, I start Season 2 today! Before I do that, I need to rant about... everything? I guess?

Spoilers under the cut

Vi finally gets back to the undercity after the timeskip with Cait, and she tells Cait to flirt in the rooms behind The Last Drop for info, Vi asks "man or woman?" Then Vi's little smirk when she sees her with a woman when she's walking out? Could not have been less subtle, adorable, 10/10 star foreshadowing

Jinx immediately lighting the flare, desperate to see her sister, and the gut-wrenching tension with her reaction to Cait, the Gemstone, the Firelights, Vi's first glimpse of Jinx, Jinx's reaction to losing her sister again? Died inside, loved it

On the subject, Jinx's reaction to Sevika and Silco? Surprised they kept their heads, even more that they lived as long as they did.

The Firelights base, Ekko trash talking Vi, immediately followed by Vi hugging him for how much he's grown. Ekko scared at how quickly she set herself free, then hugging back? Wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry

Viktor? The Hexcore? The running scene? The Hexcore getting cracked and looking like it's breathing after everything with Viktor's blood? The Hexcore Thanos-snapping Sky? Viktor immediately getting sick again, like the Hexcore was punishing him? The parallel of Jayce stopping him from jumping like when Viktor stopped him before the timeskip? Now I'm sad, scared, and confused

Ekko vs. Jinx on the bridge, with flashbacks to their play-fights as kids, then the rewind where Jinx shoots the same way, and Ekko doesn't get hit this time? Implying that he memorized her attack patterns for years?!?

The exploding firelights, a callback to when Jinx was tinkering with one during Progress Day? Jayce and Victor saying the craftsmanship of the one grenade is crude, but showing that she can make detailed and elegant tech, further demonstrating her genius? Absolutely stunning

Mel's mom encouraging war so she can take weapons back to Noxus? And who is this nameless dude she's so scared of?

Vi v. Sevika - awesome sequence, Vi taking a drink halfway through, panning to all the dead Shimmer thugs, Vander's lasting words, RIPPING SEVIKA'S ARM OFF!!! Insane, amazing, perfect fight scene

Jinx post-bridge-bombing, nearly dead and hallucinating Cait and Vi killing her? The Shimmer making her eyes glow purple, making her even scarier? Silco talking to Vander's memorial, the camera panning to a silent Jinx? Cait thinking about Vi, then her mirror being marked with Jinx's calling card? The entire final exchange at the "party;" Jinx shooting the Mylo dummy, the few seconds where it seems like she killed and cooked Cait, asking Vi to choose between killing Cait and getting Powder back, Cait v. Jinx standoff, Jinx killing Silco, the final manipulation, Jinx realizing Vi loves Powder, and she's not Powder anymore. The Council agreeing on peace, and getting bombed? As a member of the PJO fandom, I don't do well with cliffhangers, so believe me when I say I'm terrified

Overall, I haven't stopped mentally screaming for the last 15 hours (I didn't sleep well if you can't already tell), so I am looking forward to see how this show breaks me next

If you're still here, thank you for listening to my rambles. Have a nice day

[asexualfromhell]

These are some very rough ideas, but here's what I would've liked to see in season 2. Feedback is welcome.

[ ] Jinx is, at first, very apathetic after Silco's death. She buries him in the water, but with no monologue this time. As he sinks, she stares down, closing her eyes before changing her gaze to the surface. A determination and silent rage is apparent in her eyes. She slowly swims to the surface, gasping for air. She is now colder, calmer, and more calculated vessel of chaos. She will avenge, but now on her own terms.

[ ] We will explore Vi's trauma more. She will have a panic attack in training, as she realizes they are learning exactly what they inflicted onto her when she was in Stillwater. When interacting with other enforcers, there will be a scene where she flinches near one, much to the amusement of the others.

[ ] Vi sees Jinx planning something and allows her to go through with it. Caitlyn finds out and cue divorce.

[ ] Vi will be much more resentful towards Caitlyn when they eventually reunite.

[ ] Ekko will have a much bigger role. He will be seen as the symbol of revolution. He sees the people of Zaun suffering because of Piltover. Due to increased, escalated police brutality, the firelights teach them to defend themselves and how to be self-sufficient. They establish a strong community. Zaun is now more united than ever. Ekko's stronghold could also expand into the undercity, offering Zaunites hope and stability. However, due to the movement gaining more traction, it will become more of a target for Piltover.

[ ] In the case of Ekko's and Heimerdinger's dynamic, Heimerdinger will be made more aware than ever of the subjugation implemented by Piltover, and Ekko will call him out on his ignorance. Heimerdinger, in his regret, informs Ekko of confidential council intel. Jinx listens in.

[ ] We will also explore Ekko's trauma more. He had to grow up so much more quickly, and we will have a flashback of the direct aftermath if season 1 episode 3, where he realizes no one is coming back, he is on his own.

[ ] Jinx sneaks into firelight base, and fixes a couple things. Ekko recognizes her signature touch.

[ ] Shimmer is now made illegal. After a while, her shimmer depletes. And collapses, as her body was relying on its supply to fuel her. She goes through brutal withdrawal, her hallucinations rear their ugly head stronger than ever before. She is found by a firelight kid, Isha.

[ ] Jinx doesn't try to fight against her delusions anymore. She doesn't resist any parts of her, which makes her all the more dangerous.

[ ] Vi, after the divorce, does become a pitfighter for a while. She doesnt head back to the firelights immediately, as she believes 1. Ekko is dead after the explosion on the bridge. 2. She feel she doesnt deserve to return after what she had inflicted on the undercity as her brief time as an enforcer. Ekko will be the one to find her, not Jinx. She heads back to the firelight base, and there is tension between Ekko and Vi at first. She offers support, relieving some burden from Ekko's shoulders.

[ ] If even incorporate Warwick at all, I want him to only have brief glimpses of clarity and be horrified of what Jinx has become

[kaoskuantico]

In case someone hasn’t seen Act III yet, ARCANE ACT III SPOILERS

Mirroring my previous post about things I hated about Season 2 (click), here's another list with the things I LIKED

The art, animation, soundtrack...I think we can all agree Arcane created a before and after in the Animation industry and artists all over the world (although I only liked Ashes and Blood, Isha's song and Remember Me. The rest are a bit meh for me)

Jinx realizing she can be a good person when she met Isha. And she almost realized she doesn't have to choose between Powder and Jinx personas, she's both.

Sevika bonding with Jinx, both of them mourning Silco and getting to work together. Jinx making a whole new arm for her, basically.

Vi realizing Jinx has good in her when she saw how Jinx treated Isha.

Ekko stopping Jinx from killing herself five times and being patient with her.

I don't like Timebomb, but the dance scene being at 4 fps representing Ekko's ability to rewind time 4 seconds was on top.

Ekko not even hesitating to find the way back home, choosing to leave this perfect life and timeline behind.

The pianist who went to the war. He wasn't made for this, but he chose to be there.

Loris leaving Vi when she pushed him away. Loris tried to help her, but she refused it, so he had to leave for his own good.

That Jinx's follower who first touched her shoulder in prison, dying just like that during the attack. I liked how they showed people were dying without it being spectacular, they're just gone.

Vi trusting in Jinx when Vander/Warwick found them in the mines and was berserk. Vi chose to hug him instead of fighting, as she has always done with every conflict.

Jinx's first action when she found out Vander is alive being to look for her sister and find him together, not wanting to commit the same mistake.

Jinx being unable to shoot Vi when she had the opportunity to do so, in Act I.

Sevika ignoring the original plan and protecting both Jinx and Isha.

The Jinx vs Vi fight from Act I, they weren't trying, at least not as hard as Sevika and Cait. Vi had Jinx at her mercy a few times but didn't kill her, and in the second half of the fight, Jinx basically only slaps her face.

Jinx and Vi's interaction in Act II. It felt refreshing, seeing them 'fight' in a much lighter tone.

Jayce telling Viktor there's beauty in imperfections, that he admired him. It contrasts with Viktor's desire to make everything perfect (but including Viktor's terminal disease was weird).

Viktor and Jayce meeting in every timeline, Jayce being Viktor's salvation.

Viktor saying that trying to heal Warwick was a risk worth taking.

Isha seeing Jinx beyond the Powder/Jinx dichotomy and being the one to bring that happy nature from her (I loved Jinx acting as commentator just to make it fun for Isha).

Jinx being OFFENDED because an enforcer insulted her pants.

Jinx using her new mechanical finger (with a face painted on it) to give the middle finger to the enforcer who hit on her.

Sevika knowing how much Isha meant for Jinx, and Sevika not making fun of her when Jinx had another hallucination (after months of not having them). Sevika looked concerned.

Jinx protecting Caitlyn in Act II (although Cait never did something similar for her).

Mel's story centered on her family and not any romance.

Jinx's skills with her gun and her enhanced abilities thanks to the shimmer. She's so cool with her gun and managed to stay on her feet against Warwick at the beginning.

Jinx writing her name on her cheek just like Vi did (and it's funnier because Jinx did it by following the image in the mirror).

The voice acting. Especially Ella Purnell (Jinx's voice actress). They're all perfect for the roles, and Ella's raspy voice is the cherry on top.

Powder in the other timeline still having the hallucinations but showing she became Jinx because of her environment. She's much healthier and se's a genius in both timelines, it's her environment which decides if she'll use it to create weapons or to have a fun science competition.

In Act II, when Jinx and Sevika go to save Isha and the others, when the Enforcer they want to use to get arrested and taken to Stillwater: I liked how she relaxed once she saw Jinx, not firing at her immediately and even...Having a normal conversation with her

The designs. They made Vi SO MUCH BETTER. And I absolutely love Jinx's design as well, they're so perfect

When they were fighting in the mines and Jinx slaps Vi's cheek, the cave glows. And then they start fighting pathetically on the floor like actual sisters and the cave glows at the rhythm of their hits xd

I'll keep updating the list for a few days.

[vi-fans-wall]

Theories S2 Arcane (Part 1) [little SPOILERS]

I'm going to analyse the theories that arise (my opinion) after the content that has been shown about the second season of Arcane.

I will start with the most obvious theories.

VANDER IS WARWIK

This is the truest theory of all. The vast majority of us who know Runeterra lore know that Warwick is Vander. For those of you who are only familiar with the series and know nothing about this League of Legends champion, I'll briefly discuss why we're all saying this.

If we check the character's biography on the League of Legends website (link) we can see that it describes Warwick as a former gangster who left that life to live a quieter one (as Vander did).

A little further down he indicates that he remembers a girl's voice, but does not know what it says. That little girl is probably Vi, since she was the person who saw him die. But it could also be Power, or even both.

And finally, it is known that Singed, the creator character of the Simer, is the one created by Warwick, and this has also been advanced in the series, at the beginning of the years.

JAYCE VS VIKTOR (Lore link)

Yep! Maybe there are other theories for you that are more confirmed and catch you by surprise, but this is more true than Cait and Vi's kiss in this season.

Currently the lore of Jayce and Viktor is partly different from that seen in Arcane. For example, the teacher who was with both of them at the academy was not Heimerdinger, but Stanwick, who we saw in episode 4 of the first season as Heimerdinger's partner and founder of Piltover.

It is known that as a result of an invention they both have, they end up arguing and parting ways. In the original lore, Viktor's illness is barely mentioned. It is mentioned that before entering the academy, when he was a child, he enhanced his body with pieces of metal, which we haven't seen yet, beyond the ‘enhancement’ with Simer + Hextech.

I'm not going to say too much because it would be a SPOILER, but surely, because of Jinx's rocket, their paths will separate in such a way that they will become enemies.

CAITVI KISS SCENE

Let's get down to what we've all been waiting for. The long awaited kiss (and possible sex scene) that some of us have been waiting for many (too many) years.

We know that Cait and Vi are very attracted to each other, even if Vi said ‘we are oil and water’, in her warm heart she is in love with Cait and vice versa. Partly, I think, what happens to Cait's mother Cassandra after Jinx's rocket will drive a wedge between Cait and Vi, why?

We know that Cait and Vi are very attracted to each other, even if Vi said ‘we are oil and water’, in her warm heart she is in love with Cait and vice versa.

Partly, I think, what happens to Caitlyn's mother Cassandra after Jinx's rocket will drive a wedge between Caitlyn and Vi, why?

Although right now I don't see Caitlyn as a person who thinks that for “being sister of” I hate you for no other reason, and she will want Vi by her side as Enforcer, to capture and/or kill Jinx, in case her mother dies (in my sincere opinion she doesn't die because there is still the lore with Corina), she will judge every action that Vi takes on Jinx, being this the trigger to “break” again. Recall that we have seen the emo Vi, and in the words of the screenwriters, at the Annecy festival, “what would happen if Vi has no one to protect?”. In addition to hallucinations seeing Caitlyn. [link]

The sex scene I think will be a flashback, I think they both had intimate relations at Caitlyn's house before going to the Council, that's why when they are caught by Jinx, I saw the image he has of Caitlyn, she is lying on that bed.

Piltover and Zaun vs. Noxus

I could already smell the battle. Piltover and Zaun are two cities in the continent of Valorant, which exist thanks to a pact with Noxus, since they are in its territerium, and it is a very important trading point, also with the region of Shurima.

Ambessa is uneasy. She wants to get hold of Hextech technology to defeat an enemy that terrifies her. From the lore it is known that there are two sides in Noxus, Swain, and The Black Rose, LeBlanc. We don't know which side Ambessa is on. We don't know if Mel dies or not, but from the previous season, we know she wants weapons, and she needs them now.

Ambessa is a warrior, she is a woman forged in war, and that means only one thing, control. She wants control. In the first season we saw her use that control. You have to be both a fox and a wolf. In the first season, when she was trying to persuade Jayce and her daughter Mel to create weapons, she was a fox, in this second season, the fox will show her wolf fangs. BUT. Piltover and Zaun are not Noxus. Mel (if she doesn't die), Jayce, Caitlyn, Vi, Jinx and Ekko will be in charge of preventing both cities from succumbing to Medarda's yoke.

More in part 2

[q8qwertyuiop8p]

Does Silco Know?

I'm surprised by the number of people I've talked who believe Silco is unaware of what Singed is doing to Vander, that it is all happening behind his back. Here I wanted to go over the reasons why Silco almost certainly played a roll in Warwick's creation, and perhaps even ordered it.

Weapon of War

Silco needs terrifying, never-before-seen weapons if an overwhelmingly underarmed Zaun is to scare Piltover into submission- it's why he has shimmer created and why he instructs Jinx to create Fishbones. It is likely that Warwick is intended to be another one of these wildcards.

Money and Strength

Singed's funding comes from Silco, so it would be difficult for him to hide such an audacious project. Singed also doesn't have the strength to carry shimmer-Vander's corpse away to his lab, but Silco's thugs do.

Holding On

Silco's biggest flaw is his inability to let the past and his loved ones go, and the way he, like Jinx, destroys what he loves. Silco romanticizes the betrayal and reminisces of the time he and Vander fought together. He refuses to give up on Vander, even forgiving him for the drowning and trying to reconcile. Vander has moved on, he refers to Silco as "brother" only in the past tense, but Silco continues to call Vander brother, even after the failed reconciliation and his "death." When Silco finds Jinx on the bridge, he tells Singed to keep her alive, even insists that "she can't die," despite being warned that the process will be torturous and it would be more merciful to let her go. He can't bring himself to do this because he loves her too much, too selfishly, to give her up to death or topside. Would it be that much of a stretch to suggest he did the same with Vander?

Hallucinations

After the explosion, Jinx hallucinates Vi, Mylo, and Claggor because she knows she killed them or indirectly caused their deaths. Jinx's bomb also helped to bring about Vander's demise, and she saw Vander's corpse. Despite this, she doesn't hallucinate him- not until e9, when she is already in a severe psychotic episode and Vi yells his name. Plus, in the concept for her minigun, she has scrawled "THREE LIVES" into one of the barrels. Mylo, Claggor, and Vi, but what about the fourth? It seems that Jinx may be aware that Vander is still alive, but how could she know unless Silco also knows?

When she finally does hallucinate Vander, she hallucinates scribbles of Warwick on or representing him.

So, if Silco knows, why would he talk to Vander's statue and not Warwick?

A- Privacy

Talking to Warwick means talking in the presence of Singed, who we see in e8 Silco doesn't trust. It's bad enough before you remember that not only does Silco say that Vander, who the undercity turned against, was right all along; he reveals that he is in the same spot Vander was in and is going to make the same decision; he is going to choose Jinx over Zaun, the same choice that lead to Vander's downfall. Silco is not going to risk Singed knowing that.

B- Pain

Throughout the show, Silco disassociates from pain, both his own and the pain he causes others. You can see this from the way he romanticizes his trauma, flinches and looks away at the cat being ripped apart, and reacts to the death of Renni's child. You can also see this when he kidnaps Vander- the blank, distant expression on arrival, the way he looks down and away when Benzo dies and Vander is punched, and how his good eye shines on the verge of tears. But he doesn't cry and he never does, because in his situation, to feel pain and empathy is a death sentence- the perfect way to prove your weakness and turn your allies against you. After all, it was his empathy towards Jinx that caused him to love her, and it was his love for her that turned Sevika and the chembarons against him. If killing Vander's friend and knocking him out was that painful for Silco, imagine how much worse it would be for him to see Vander disfigured, barely alive and in a constant state of mind-shattering agony, being sliced open and pumped full of chemicals. Singed had to drug Silco to keep him from going crazy over Jinx's similar transformation. Silco simply cannot bear to face the pain that he puts Vander through.

[fishbcnes]

          jinx and his hallucinations & self harm s2

in general i think s2 lacks the depth it originally gave jinx's mental health in s1 but im still gonna look at it

s2 i think we see another attempt. or the starts of attempt as hes letting silco go underwater. he wants so badly to follow him. forcing all her air out so she can drown and follow him faster. staying under the waves until every part of his being is screaming for oxygen and survival instincts force her above the water again. she lives, but is depressed and aimless. she's reckless and impulsive. nothing matters anymore so she shoots whoever she wants and does whatever she wants. this is passive suicide attempts. like walking in front of a car and not caring if it stops or not. she hopes someone catches her a kills her.

after vi and the enforcers gas her and come after her, she finds a new fury a new energy to fight. to kill vi and herself. to finish her family, which is why she fights back against smeech and teams up with sevika.

so she sets up the plan to be for her to die in the fight and then reroute the gas back to piltover as her final plan. but of course, isha stops this by interrupting vi right before she lands the killing blow.

after this we see jinx looking after and playing wish isha, while isha is going out and trying to take up the role of "jinx" for her. because she's given up. "jinx" died in that fight because that was what she planned for. he most likely just stays in his hideout with isha from this point on, cultivating their bond. isha becomes all the matters to her.

a start of an episode is triggered when sevika brings up silco and starts trying to guilt him into becoming a symbol. this when she goes to talk to silco. but he never appears.

jinx talks aloud hoping that he'd talk back, even a hallucination. but he never turns up. these two stressors build up and break when isha is taken.

only NOW does silco's hallucination turn up among the others and the specific audio lines we hear are mostly from the party scene. this is an episode triggered by guilt. feeling responsible for isha possibly getting hurt or even getting killed. feeling guilty for not wanting to fight anymore when silco gave so much to keep her alive. to her, its the exact same as when she shot him. only does physical pressure on her eyes take her out of it. but the energy is transferred to her shimmer. ( i think on my blog it probably took more extreme measures to get her out of this headspace, similar to the first episode we see with powder eg, head punching ).

to save isha and the other zaunites, he reembraces the jinx persona, only to meet someone who immediately challenges this again. i think this plants seeds of doubt that fester.

jinx's next attempt is fighting against warwick. they hear this huge thing coming to fight and see it turn an enforcer into nothing but a blood stain as well as barely react to her hextech gun and jinx thinks "well im going to lose but i may as well distract it so that sevika can get isha out of here".

she fights until she can't anymore and then tries to go out via a chomper. the same way she tried to before with ekko. but warwick/vander stops her. and right then she realizes that she might be able to fix everything. vander was alive. and so, her new reason to live is both isha and helping vander, trying to rebuild the family she ruined before. this is why he goes straight to vi, having heard that she might be in the zaun fighting pits, she easily follows her. seeing her drinking habits and that she's taking out her anger in fighting, she isn't fully surprised, but feels sad and empathetic. another part of her is glad that whatever happened, happened though because caitlyn clearly isn't in the picture anymore.

there's another passive attempt or an acceptance when vi is choking jinx out. he doesn't fight in this encounter because he's coming to talk, coming to try and establish peace to help vander. but, she'd be fine if vi killed her right then and there. we can also see how vi cares little for jinx's mental health now. calling them as tricks and bullshit in comparison to how understanding she had been in s1 on the rooftop. later in the mines, vi also calls them fantasies and calls jinx delusional. im sure some of this is from her time spent in piltover and picking up on the ableist nature up there.

we see the second time the vi calls her delusional, it triggers something. originally not wanting to fight, but now feeling like she had to defend herself. because to her, they're very real and she often times can't tell between reality and mental health episode. it hurts to hear vi diminish this and so, she bites back. only for vi to follow with more ableist language with "psycho" to which jinx is exasperated that vi wants to fight right now. jinx then starts echoing what she's heard people say about her, calling her a hero. she's performing what people think of her for vi. trying to impress her. of course, the fight only gets worse, vi pulling on his hair until isha gets caught in the crossfire. fighting vi isn't important to her like isha is. finding silco's jacket down there is both grounding and triggering at once somehow. i think part of vi and jinx's future reconciliation stems from vi protecting isha from warwick. as well as vi trusting jinx about warwick/vander.

in the commune, jinx is the most stable we've seen her in awhile. vi even asking for her input on decisions. its also a huge deal for her when vi asks her to keep an eye on caitlyn, showing to jinx that vi trusts and cares about her more. of course, this all goes awry when viktor dies, losing vander again. trying to calm him down, she gets hurt and flung away which im sure would start something by itself but then right after this, isha grabs his gun and dives in.

jinx was going to go in after them but vi forcibly holds him back. losing isha was the final straw. she breaks. all energy and all fight is drained from her and she feels empty in a way she never felt before. he thought the pit couldn't get any deeper after silco's death but she was wrong. while mania/hypermania is his normal trigger response, instead we see an extreme depression. jinx surrenders. she is a jinx and a curse. theres nothing to fight for anymore.

she refuses to eat and drink as we see when caitlyn visits. intending to rot away in the cell. knowing it's caitlyn through the bars she, as directly as she can, asks her to kill her. we also see jinx's skin picking habit. making herself bleed, before seeing similar patterning on all her other fingers too. jinx has been sat in this cell harming herself in anyway they can without having the energy to formulate a real plan to die let alone execute it. "there are no happy endings" he says because any time he's gotten close, he ruined it somehow and the people he loved died. the very core of his being can't believe in happiness anymore. something is always destined to go wrong.

starved, cold, hurting. her hallucinations are at their worse. they feel real. (this is my excuse for why these hallucinations arent stylized like they always have been). she simply tells him to go away and that he's too late. there's not energy for them to feed into and she's given up. she keeps picking at herself while he's talking here. either trying to make the hallucination go away since pain had always helped (perhaps she had thought caitlyn before was one too) or it just being a habit now. he convinces her to leave. just in time for vi to turn up. he barely reacts to her sister. only moving to get what she wants, the keys, so she can get away to kill herself.

jinx cuts his hair, only out of necessity. he's lethargic, and silco isn't there to help her tie it up, so she cuts it off. a form of mental self harm as well in a way, destroying a huge part of her identity and forcing her to leave it behind. she burns down the last drop. one of the last places she felt safe. i think she tried to burn herself in the flames based on the shots of her in there and was unsuccesful, forcing her into another plan. making it back to her hideout to grab a monkey bomb, similar to what killed vander, mylo and claggor.

of course, then ekko turns up to try and stop her. the only thing that changes is when he says he doesn't want to blow up.

so, jinx jumps instead, not wanting to hurt ekko too. only then is he able to find the right words. ekko implying some kind of hope, and seeing the monkey on his z-drive, something she can only presume is good if ekko has it. i think she still doesn't have any hope. i think the final battle is more for ekko than for her. the whole time she's hoping she can die during a fight. thats why she uses her hideout as a ship. she'd got nothing left to loose. its the same as when she started playing into being a symbol, she's doing it again for everyone else. and damn is she a good performer.

i think as soon as vander swings at vi and jinx after they've crashed, jinx realizes he's gone for good. there's something in her expression that says it idk.

and then we get to her "sacrifice". i put it in quotes firstly; bc you cant establish a character as being suicidal (she literally brings her tool to do it with her to battle) and then in the next scene have them die and pretend it wasn't motivated by the want to end it all and secondly; riot loves jinx too much as a character she makes too much money to fully commit to killing her.

but anyway. she gives up on vander so fast bc she knew at the start of the battle he wasnt in there. its also a representation of her giving up on herself most likely, telling vi to get away and save herself rather than sticking around to try and help.

jinx is not letting anyone else die because of her, and so, she takes him out with her.

[jbk405]

"Blisters and Bedrock" is probably the best episode of season two so far, in and of itself. It's weighed down by the poor story setup of the previous episodes, but at least it doesn't add to them.

Vi's descent in the opening is told perfectly, and painfully. We see the fighting, the drinking, the fighting with herself, the drinking to escape herself, and always surrounded by 'what could have been'. Her hallucinating Caitlyn is obviously a parallel with Jinx's hallucinations. It specifically mimics her hallucinations after the fight on the bridge with Ekko, when Silco had brought her to Singed for repairs. This is a direct haunting at her lowest moments.

It's great to see Mel again, since she is always a fascinating character. We didn't learn much about what's going on apart from the idea that it's something to do with another child of Ambessa (Assuming that the child isn't Mel herself), but at least this indicates that we will learn something. I did love seeing her deduce that it wasn't her brother, since I always enjoy when characters that are supposed to be smart are allowed to be smart.

I find the idea that this monster is Vander to be idiotic, plain and simple. Just really, really stupid. We saw him die and that should have been the end of it, with his continuing presence reliant on everybody's memory and perceptions of him. But since they've gone and done it, showing us that flashback to Happier Times was perfectly positioned. As the scene transitioned I thought just for a moment that maybe they would kill off Vi here, so when we saw the hug I felt the relief.

Again, just a stupid plot idea, but they used it well.

The only thing I'm worried about is the way that they seem to be leading up to a reconciliation and forgiveness between Vi and Jinx. That won't work. Especially not if their only rationale is "We're family". For all the sympathy that I have for her, Jinx has killed dozens (Hundreds? Thousands?) of people, many of them innocents in the struggle between Piltover and Zaun, and even including people on her own side. She was a prime accessory in the vast distribution of shimmer that has left the Undercity addicted, deformed, and vulnerable. And though she occasionally shows remorse for certain specific actions, most of them have never gotten even a lipservice regret.

I honestly believe that no character is beyond redemption if that's where the writers want to take the story, but so far the writer's haven't done that. They've just had her stop doing new evil stuff, and if they're going to reunite her with Vi we need more than that.

But maybe they won't go in that direction at all, so maybe I'm worrying over nothing.