#like. as vi is giving herself up to the enforcers
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
I acknowledge I am incredibly emotionally biased here but I think if the writers were trying to subvert the cliche of the big damn hero the problem is that Vi very literally is never the big damn hero. She’s actually constantly fails to be the big damn hero.
She is stopped from giving herself up to the enforcers by Vander in episode 2. In episode 3 she fails to save Vander and Mylo, Claggor, and Vander die in her rescue mission. She then lashes out at Powder in a moment of anger and is stopped from running back to rescue Powder and fix things between them by Marcus.
Then in act 2 when she finally reunited with Jinx everything goes wrong. In act 3 she fails to get her sister back or stop Silco and can’t stop Jinx from shooting the rocket at the council.
In season 2 Vi makes multiple mistakes that culminates in her stopping Caitlyn from killing her sister which isn’t framed as a narrative win because she is left abandoned while Caitlyn becomes a dictator and the undercity is subjected to martial law. In act 2 her plan to save Vander fails again, Vander and Isha die, and while she does save Jinx’s life Jinx still ends up in jail. In the finale she fails to save Gert, fails to save Vander, fails to save Jinx, and fails to have any role at all in resolving the plot.
She never gets a win to the point it’s a bit ridiculous.
And I think if you want to have a subversion of this idea you have to be a bit more pointed in the resolution like having Caitlyn tell Vi that it doesn’t matter to her what she can do but rather who she is or something along those lines.
This isn’t meant to sound harsh I really hope it doesn’t come across this way I just think if it was meant to be a subversion it wasn’t executed very well.
Thinking again about how the last we see of Isha it’s from Vi’s perspective, not Jinx’s, and what an interesting, and seemingly odd choice that is given how much closer Isha was to Jinx.

And after mulling it over for awhile I kind of feel that Isha is actually the linchpin of Vi’s whole arc in season 2, perhaps even more so than she is for Jinx.
I saw someone awhile back point out that Isha appears in Jinx’s life right after Vi officially joins the enforcers and makes the commitment to hunt her sister down (the sister who she in fact disowns). Isha basically takes up the loving, protective sister role with Jinx that Vi chooses to abdicate at the beginning of the season. Jinx even states (or at least suggests) that her relationship with Isha is what she wishes her relationship with Vi could have been.
When Vi crashes out between acts 1 and 2 she completely loses that protector aspect that’s been so central to her character. She basically becomes just a mindlessly violent brute that fights because she has nothing else left to do. Isha is the vehicle through which Vi regains that protector role. Not only does Vi directly protect Isha in eps 3 and 5, but Isha indirectly reconciles the sisters by allowing Vi to see Jinx’s humanity and (indirectly) reminding her that Jinx is still her sister.
And then at the end of ep6 one of the last things Isha sees is Vi holding Jinx back, Vi *protecting* Jinx again. It’s as if Isha took on the responsibility that Vi had forgotten about or tried to get rid of until Vi was ready to pick it back up again.
Then, in ep8, after Vi’s striking dream-vision of Isha, the first thing Vi does when she wakes up is go defend Jinx to Caitlyn.
#plus I like most other characters’ roles in the finale#everyone else gets a win#but vi just doesn’t#at any point#it’s a bit frustrating#it kind of just feels a bit cruel at that point#it’s also kind of confusing#because the show wants to commend vi on keeping her good heart#and then doglike her at every turn#oh well#I guess I just have to accept it at this point#but wow was Vi the shows punching bag in the last act
114 notes
·
View notes
Text
Still not over the fact that vi and jinx/powder had a love song in Arcane tbh
#like. as vi is giving herself up to the enforcers#sacrificing herself so powder doesnt get endangered#what was that. every song in this show is intentional and thought out and made for each scene#i like to think of it as a song of vi's love for powder especially if you look at the lyrics#and i dont mean this necerassily in a romantic love context. more just. every kind of way. powder is everything to vi#those lyrics for vi and powder i am. ahskdjd. does any one else see the vision. do u see it.#the life that we live and the love that i give to her. each day it grows. more and more im sure it shows#well#our love is a bubbling fountain (our love) that flows into the sea (our love) deeper than any ocean (our love) for eternity#LIKE OKAY GODDAMN ARGH#vijinx
56 notes
·
View notes
Text
Mmmm Jinx AU where after being taken in by Silco, thinking she's been abandoned by Vi leads to her not latching on to Silco as the most important thing in her life who she must be loyal to above all else, but full on swinging into the direct opposite direction and becoming like Sevika.
[This AU is in part inspired by the idea of Jinx becoming more idealogically like Sevika, but also from OG Jinx's personality.
OG Jinx is a character who's primary drive is her own personal enjoyment and happiness. Which comes from building weapons, causing explosions of all kinds, and pranking Piltoveans.
Jinx doesn't go out looking to kill people, she goes out to to have a good time, and if people happen to die while she's having her good time, then that doesn't really concern her.
Like there's this one quote about OG Jinx that basically boils down to: "If Jinx found a box of firecrackers that had a person sitting on top of it. She'd light the fireworks without even thinking about the person on the box because she was so focused on her excitement about fireworks, that she didn't even notice the person."
OG Jinx has prioritized her own personal enjoyment over everything else, that people potentially dying as a result of whatever she's doing is so completely irrelevant, to the point of her being effectively unable to perceive the potential collateral damage.
It's not even that OG Jinx wants to kill people, or enjoys killing people, it's just that people dying while she's doing what she loves isn't even a linked phenomenon in her brain. Because people (who die) are going to die eventually with or without her actions, so why shouldn't she enjoy herself even if people happen to die while she's doing so.
Jinx's loyalty to Zaun is prioritized in the same way in this AU. People are going to die with or without the revolution happening, so they might as well have the revolution.]
Loyal to the dream of Zaun over any individual leader.
I mean, she still comes to love Silco as a father figure, and he still comes to love her as a daughter, but also much like with Sevika, they're both fully aware that if Jinx ever comes to the conclusion he isn't the person who's the best bet for securing Zaunite independence, she'll abandon his gang and possibly go elsewhere.
Or even more so, if she comes to the conclusion that he's worse for Zaun than he is good, possibly kill him herself.
Which I feel like wouldn't stop him from loving her more than anything else.
I think he'd just consider it another aspect of her that makes her the ideal Zaunite. The ability to put The Cause even before her personal feelings and attachments, something he's still not able to do.
Basically this Jinx thinks of her loyalty to Zaun and her personal love for individuals in her life as entirely disconnected to each other, with Loyalty to Zaun being her default.
Which adds a number of complications to her relationships. Specifically her being totally unafraid to fight to the death against her loved ones without an ounce of remorse, and then thinking of it as a complete non-issue in the aftermath if they both survive.
Like she fully still considers Ekko her friend by the time Vi gets out of jail in this AU. Full on "We try to kill each other on alternating Thursdays, but that's no reason to stop being friends" feelings.
Which also results in her not feeling an ounce of shame in helping him and the Firelights out when it comes to basically anything they do that isn't in direct opposition to SIlco.
I mean, the Firelights are also working towards bettering Zaun just like she (honestly believes) is, they just have different opinions and methods of how to do so from Silco's gang. While also serving different parts of the community.
[And yes, Ekko and the rest of the Firelights have complicated feelings about Jinx in this AU. None of them know where she stands with them.
She'll help them without expectations one day, and then turn around and kill some of them in a confrontation without an ounce of hesitation the next.
Some of them hate her, some have mixed feelings. Others just think she's completely mentally unstable, and shouldn't be trusted considering she seemingly flips between being ally and enemy with no warning.
Ekko's feelings are especially complicated, as you can imagine.]
None of this is to say Jinx doesn't feel just as deeply about the people she loves, as she does in canon. It's just that trauma has convinced her that unequivocal loyalty to an individual vs an idea is a very easy way to be hurt.
Detached logical decision making as a way to avoid being harmed by making emotional mistakes. Which is what she feels is why she failed so much as Powder.
The belief, that she was so obsessed with gaining approval from individuals in her life, she never had a real personal goal to strive towards that she could measure progress and growth to. Resulting in her always feeling like a failure, even when she was doing good, or at least improving.
She's still deeply hurt by Vi choosing Caitlyn over her (as far as she could tell), the Firelights taking Vi, and her accidental killing of Silco while spiraling in the wake of her Shimmer surgery. She's also extremely frustrated by her freak out on the airship where she shoots Eve (pink haired Firelight).
Because she feels like those are instances where she gave into the impulse to emotional over reaction to specific individuals that caused all of Powder's problems.
She was so focused on Vi, and her desire for Vi's approval, that she couldn't fight the Firelights as effectively as she normally would.
She was so focused on Vi seemingly leaving her to go off with Caitlyn that she couldn't focus on fighting Ekko on the Bridge, resulting in her getting far more injured than she normally would have, and nearly not succeeding in getting the crystal back.
She was so triggered by thinking she was seeing Vi on the airship, that she completely lost it and started shooting indiscriminately and caused the job to go south and injured people on her own side.
She was so caught up in her spiral and hallucinations at the tea party, that she shot Silco based entirely on instinctual protective instinct when hearing the hammer being drawn on a gun on her vulnerable loved one, rather than anything intentional on her part. Which she'd previously had always sworn would be the case should it ever come to her killing Silco.
That if Jinx ever killed another of her loved ones, it would be because she knew with certainty it would result in the betterment of Zaun, not because she made a mistake because she was being an over emotional idiot.
I think the only major change from this Jinx's actions in the Season 1 part of the story would be how she went about stealing the Hexgem, and why she did so.
In canon she does so because she failed a job, and felt like she needed to do something big to prove to Silco that she was capable, in order to gain validation from him that she was. Even though he never tells her he doesn't think she's capable, just that she needs to take some time off because she had an episode.
He said "take a mental health day, even if you don't think you need it," and she responded, "so you think I'm a fuck up?!"
In this story. it's more that Jinx is so focused on what she could potentially do with Hextech to help the revolution and Zaun as a whole. That she was already planning to steal some research notes and crystals to get experimenting with it on her own terms, before the job gone south, and the new advancements in Hextech being whispered about for progress day.
Getting her hands on the newest form of Hextech is just her getting lucky.
This also means she doesn't steal it the same way. She doesn't do anything to kill any Enforcers, but she does cause a distraction with what seems to be a box of fire works going off prematurely on "accident".
With her swooping in to steal the notes and hexgem while everyone's busy with trying to contain the panic the fireworks accident is causing to really pay attention to what she's doing.
Which the Enforcers do react to, but everyone but Caitlyn disregards as an accident. As once it's clear that nothing other than a few decorations got ruined and people getting startled came of the fireworks incident.
They're far more concerned with the stealing of hextech that's happened, and Viktor's testimony of a young woman with long blue hair sneaking out of their lab.
With the fireworks incident being dismissed as an accident that's completely unrelated to the burglary of the Hextech lab. Beyond the burglar potentially using it as a convenient opening.
Caitlyn's not convinced, and it's already happened so close to the airship shootout incident, so she still goes down and ends up freeing Vi from Stillwater with some of Jinx's drawings as evidence, from the airship shootout.
Which does mean that her trajectory in the Season 2 part of the story would be a bit different.
She still goes into a depression after Silco's death. Mostly because she feels that she's broken her most important self imposed rule: not killing because of personal feelings about someone, but for The Cause.
She killed Silco not because she felt killing him would make things better, but because she was scared and spiraling and in that vulnerable emotional state, she defaulted to the same way of thinking that had gotten her loved ones killed the last time.
She protected Vi who she loved, and couldn't defend herself, based on gut instinct. And it resulted in the death of another loved one, and the complete destabilization of Zaun.
Now because Jinx is more focused on Zaun than on her personal relation ships, I don't know if she fires on the Council immediately after Silco's death the way she does in canon. I don't really think she would.
I could see her doing it because she's still in the peak of the Shimmer high, which is heightening all her emotions. Driving her to seek revenge on Piltover in her grief. Even though if she could think more clearly, she wouldn't do it, and would instead wait to gather an actual following and doing an organized and planned strike to be the most effective.
But I could also see SIlco's death snapping her back to reality as she sees it. That she simply takes the gem, her guns, and Silco's body and Disappears, vanishing into the night with neither Vi or Caitlyn knowing of the weapon she's built or what she's going to do next.
Which could have interesting repercussions on the story. Considering Piltover's council would to have agreed to Zaunite independence on the conditions of handing over Jinx.
Except the man they made that deal with is now dead, no one (except Sevika) knows where Jinx is to hand her over, and the Undercity is and of itself divided on handing one of their own over to Piltover (to potentially be executed, because of how dangerous Hextech can be, and a lot of the counsel fully thinking Zaunites are inherently dangerous, not to mention thanks to Caitlyn, Jinx is a known weapons builder, so what else do they think she'll do with access to Hextech other than build weapons) in order to gain independence.
I'm sure the chem barons would have no issue handing JInx over, because then they'd be free to divide up territory and completely take over with no one like Silco holding their leash, or PIltover dictating what is and isn't legal on their side of the river in the first place.
Oh the Firelights would be around to oppose them, but they'd never really were able to gain any ground beyond causing problems for Shimmer production.
But I'm not sure how more ordinary people would react.
I mean, in this AU it's pretty well known that Jinx holds the idea of Zaun above anything else, and was willing to help people who weren't affiliated with any specific group, as long as doing so wouldn't harm the independence movement of Zaun.
She's not really shy about expressing that stance, it's just up to everyone else to believe it or not.
Jinx, who would use her high position in Silco's circle to help ordinary Zaunites. Be it from one of the gangs overstepping and trying to start rackets Silco had forbidden, from unjust arrest from Enforcers, or even pointing them in the direction of the Firelights if she thought that was for the best.
Declaring that so long as the help she gave random people didn't harm or slow the march towards independence, helping her fellow Zaunite was helping Zaun, was part of the fight toward an independent Zaun.
She's the Loose Canon, shooting for Zaun and no one else. Loyal to no kingpen or Chembaron, but to The People of Zaun as a whole.
She has a bit of a following even without firing on Piltover or turning the Grey back on them. She's a bit of a living folk hero to some people, especially those she personally helped out of a bad situation, for no reason other than "I could, and doing so doesn't hurt anyone else. So why wouldn't I?"
Not to mention I definitely feel like Jinx would be way more intentionally politically educated in this AU than she is in canon.
JInx as she is in Arcane, never really gave a shit about Zaun's independence beyond what it meant to Silco (and later Isha), and she very obviously never bothered to learn anything about politics. At least nothing Silco didn't force her to learn.
But with Jinx's primary drive being Zaun, I feel like she'd definitely be way more politically minded, and while I do think she would consider turning herself over to Piltover to secure Zaun's independence (in a direct parallel of Vi's willingness to hand herself over to get the Enforcers to leave the Undercity alone to keep her family safe).
I don't think Jinx would actually go through with handing herself over.
Not with the Undercity being actively torn apart by gang disputes in the wake of Silco's death, no way of ensuring Zaun's prosperity after handing herself over, and no way of securing actual tangible betterment of conditions in Zaun even with Zaunite independence.
I mean from what we're told, Piltover's offer of independence was essentially cutting the Undercity loose.
Stopping their dumping of industrial waste into Zaun's water supply, ceasing utilizing of Zaun's air duct and water system for the climate control of Piltover's Hexgate system, release of Zaunites from Stillwater (or at least transfer to Zaunite custody)), and the Kiraman family handing over control of the vents that suppress The Grey over to someone from the Undercity weren't anywhere in that deal from what we're told.
[I don't think everyone on the counsel would have agreed to it if it was, they're all complete capitalists, no matter if some of them value sapient life more than others (Mel, Cassandra) on a conceptual level.
I believe the ones who outright hate Zaunites (which some of them clearly did) would have staunchly opposed if it meant having to alter how they actually approached how they ran their businesses, vs just cutting Zaun loose.
Hell I think those councelors would have gotten even more lax with their business regulations. I mean, Zaun wouldn't have been part of Piltover, and their citizens not their legal responsibility any more.
So why should anyone from Piltover worry about them dying? The trenchers wanted independence and if they can't survive without Piltover's support, how's that anyone's problem but the trenchers?]
It was, if you hand over Jinx, we'll legally make you not our problem any more.
Which I don't think a politically educated Jinx would go for. It would just leave Zaun to the messy power struggle that appeared because of the power vacum caused by Silco's death. None of the Undercity's actual problems would be solved, besides Enforcers no longer being able to harass them.
So the Zaun Piltover conflict would stay more political and less outright invasion than it is in canon as a result.
#arcane#arcane AU#Jinx but give her Sevika's revolutionary priorities and Greater Good morality#also I just kind of wanted to explore a bunch of different ideas that could potentially result from that#like Jinx already having a following in season 1#or Jinx being seen as a kind of hero by the Undercity#or Jinx not firing on Piltover but still killing Silco [because I feel like a lot of AUs have those two things directly linked]#or Jinx not killing enforcers but still stealing the hexgem#or addressing the fact that the offered independence of Zaun isn't really all that fleshed out from what we're shown on screen#and wouldn't have resulted in anything good happening for Zaun if it went through#long post#did I lower the stakes for some of the characters? Sure did#Piltover doesn't have anything other the stealing of a hexgem and the bridge fight to be pissy over#and Caitlyn is there to testify that the bridge happened in part because Marcus was a dirty cop who tried to kill her#and the two witnesses she was bringing to testify about the undercity drug ring she'd dug up and the identity of the hexgem thief#so Caitlyn has no personal vendentta#Ambessa has less leverage to work with when it comes to reasons to let her faction inject herself into Piltover's problems#Ekko and the rest of the Firelights don't all completely hate Jinx and consider her a lost cause#but also you have to keep in mind that Jinx just Has Fishbones the whole time this is going down#he's never been fired in this AU and Jinx ponders everyday if he ever Should be fired but he's around if she ever needs him#also no Viktor cult because he never dies in the explosion and fuses with the Hexcore#Viktor does get Jayce to destroy the Hexcore#and starts becoming the Machine Herald more similar to how he is in the OG lore with automale style prostetics and synthetic organs#so that's one less faction to worry about but also means no way to temporarily retrieve Vander's mind inside Warwick using magic#and no apocalypse threat forcing Zaun and Piltover to work together because that was dumb and a complete cop out#Ambessa's Noxian forces never get as involved because Piltover never goes into martial law because the Counsel is alive and well#so they're not a major threat either#Jinx does still find and connect with Isha and heals her inner child via bonding with her#which does have her stop holding the people she loves at less of a distance and opens her up to actual reconciliation with Vi and Ekko#rather than her just completely disconnecting herself from how her actions affect her personal relationships
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why The Arcane S2 Finale Fumbled, Part I
arcane season 2 was artistically beautiful and thematically cheap. every interesting and meaningful thing it did with its characters (even in season 2 act 2) was reduced to romanticized bullshit, utterly divorced from its season 1 roots. it's so bad it can be considered pro-status quo propaganda (and i do mean that). good ships aside (and i do mean the caitivi, jayvik, timebomb holy triad), this season squats and shits on every zaunite character in the show. not just their zaunite-ness, but how it literally shaped who they were as characters.
Let's start with Vi:


Vi and Vander:
Vi's loyalty to The Lanes always went beyond Powder. Zaun was her father's, Vander's dream. Zaun was her friends and her family. When she's giving Caitlyn a tour of The Lanes, we see how much she embodies and revels in Zaunite culture (esp in the food scene). She took responsibility for the vulnerable, like Vander taught her to. Her "protective" trait extended to ALL the vulnerable in The Lanes, because Vander taught her that. It wasn't EVER just Powder. Zaun is her HOME. As a child, she wanted to make a name for herself IN ZAUN "one day, this city's gonna respect us." You can make the excuse that Vander's death meant that side of her died, but it clearly didn't because of how she regarded it while showing Caitlyn around. "Family" to Vander, extended to the vulnerable of Zaun, which is how Vi and Powder came to be his "daughters" in the first place. Because Zaun was for THEM. Zaun WAS THEM. Vander and Silco "weren't allowed to fail" at Zaun (i.e. the two daughters).

Additionally, Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't: forgiving each other and uniting so they could realize their dream for a free Zaun. A big reason why Zaun struggles to be free is because of their own internal divisions (the different gangs fighting for scraps). But if they united, they would be able to liberate themselves from Piltover (who is still the enemy). The whole reason the others are prosperous in the alternate timeline Ekko and Heimerdinger travel to is because Vander and Silco reconcile (not because Vi dies).

Vander also passes on his sense of responsibility to Vi. He tells a repeatedly vengeful Vi how her ambition to show up her oppressors can overshadow the more pressing priority of looking after those more vulnerable than her i.e. Powder. Like Silco, his advice to his daughter is steeped in his own trauma of getting so zealous he didn’t stop to think what it would cost.
Vi and Caitlyn:
Caitlyn was an interesting development for Vi, particularly because Caitlyn mirrored Vander's care for all people. Caitlyn was an enforcer that wanted to truly understand and help people. This challenged Vi's biases and also gave them a common goal. Caitlyn appealed to Vi because she gave Vi renewed hope for peace in The Lanes. That Zaun could be free through co-operation instead of violence. Her whole teaming up with Caitlyn, romance aside, was predicated on Vi brokering for peace between Zaun and Piltover (and getting revenge on Silco).
The first break-up between the two (Season 1's "Oil and Water") centred around Jinx, more or less. Vi believes Silco is a threat to peace between Piltover and Zaun (even though The Lanes aren't known as Zaun to her, I'm just using the names interchangeably). She believes Jinx is acting out due to Silco's influence, as well (and she isn't wrong). Had Caitlyn not been injured on the bridge (and had Jinx not felt betrayed by Vi), Vi was going to leave her in pursuit of Jinx. Vi has also never fit into Piltover (and that's also shown in Season 2 act 1-2). She makes no connections with Piltovians besides Cait and (an already disillusioned) Loris who we see for like two seconds.
Vi and Jinx:
This show was ALWAYS about a tale of two sisters/cities. When Vi becomes an enforcer, it isn't because she's switched loyalties. She wants peace for The Lanes, she just wants to take Silco's creation--Jinx--out of the equation so it can work. Her priority, like Vander’s, is to keep the vulnerable of The Lanes safe, and both were willing to co-operate with Piltover to protect the people they loved. She believes, like Vander did with Silco, that Jinx (and by extension Zaun) is her responsibility. That the reason bad things happened to Zaunites (Vi’s and Powder’s parents dead on the bridge, Jinx’s mania) is their fault.

Vi blames herself for creating Jinx as Vander does for creating Silco. The only reason Vi agrees to Caitlyn's plan is because, again, their two goals align: get Jinx. The difference is Vi wants to kill Jinx to kill Silco, while Cait wants to kill Jinx to get her city (mother) back. Vi is still explicitly concerned about Jinx, who she has come to see as a threat to other people she loves (e.g. Ekko, Cait, etc). Vi became an enforcer to protect The Lanes and the (appearance) of peace. Vi internalized Vander’s words and doesn’t want war, even if it means Zaun never becomes independent. But she is doing it as penance for what she feels she didn’t do that led Jinx to become what she is.

The show in season 2 TOTALLY LOST THIS FOCUS. Vi's guilt at hunting down her own people with enforcers is ALSO ignored a lot by fandom, especially because her post-breakup scene where she goes full goth is framed as regret for letting Cait down (rather than the self-disgust she would feel for joining her oppressors). Vi played a part in creating Jinx and her enforcer-arc is still centred around Jinx. This gets shoved aside for romance with Cait. All the time we could spend post-breakup focusing on the sisters, quickly circles back to Cait.
Cait, who, literally became a dictator and weaponized the air ducts her mother had created to SAVE ZAUNITES. The whole thing is viewed as Vi betraying Cait instead of Vi betraying Jinx/Zaun/her family and Cait betraying Vi ("promise me you won't change") and her mother. Cait was the one who sought to help Zaun (like her mother) but betrayed who she was when she was willing to kill Isha, an innocent child.

Vi would feel even more guilty at how she is literally in an enforcer's suit when she is about to kill Jinx, the only family she has left. She is literally hunting down Jinx, a Zaunite, like the enforcers had her parents. But we barely explore that. It’s just off to chasing Vander/Warwick only for it to not matter anyways!
(ALSO IMPORTANT: Just to further prove my point on how integral the sister's love for each other was, every show started with a record playing. The cover of the disc was Vi and Jinx. They were always the center focus of the story. The song that the record played? Likely "Our Love" by Curtis Harding and Jazmine Sullivan which goes "Our love is a bubblin' fountain, our love, that flows into the sea, our love, deeper than the ocean, our love for eternity." This love deeper-than-the-ocean can apparently crumble in the face of a dictator girlfriend you've known for less than a year lmao).
Summary of Fumbles:

-Vi's and Jinx's relationship becomes secondary not just to the entire plot of the show but to Vi's arc. Zaun and Piltover's conflict was set up to be the epitome of the show, and the fact that it got shelved for some (ahem military propaganda) epic battle between humans and robots is very telling about the writers and showrunners.
-Vi forgives Cait easily and prematurely, trashing Vi's true loyalties as established in earlier seasons/episodes and robbing Cait’s actions of their appropriate weight.
-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's interview with TheGamer) The culmination of love for Vi's character ends with Caitlyn and not Jinx. Vi's character, whose love is explicitly centred on Zaun and her family, reaches its peak in romance with a Piltovian. To quote Amanda further: "If Vi had no one left to protect, she would fall in love." As if Vi had no ambition outside of protecting her family. As if her dream since she was a kid wasn't tied so much into Zaun. As if the reason she wore an enforcer outfit wasn't because of Zaun. As if Zaunites aren't suffering right under her nose. As if she was the only kid in Stillwater Prison and struggled to survive the whole time she was there. I can't pretend to stomach it. (Again, it's not that Vi shouldn't be happy, it's that the ship had to shove this aspect of her character aside for it to work). If they wanted to really commit to the Vi-in-video game origin story, they should have set it up better and stuck to it.
-Vi herself takes a back seat in most of season 2, and becomes a passive, guilt-riddled yes-man to Cait
-Vander's re-introduction is almost completely worthless to the plot and narrative (he comes back just to die), and he is used as a cheap way to re-unite (and then separate) the daughters in a way that has no significance to the themes (also, Silco as Jinx's father is completely ignored during this time)
-Cait's deferral to fascism should have been permanent. Idc about the shippers at this point. Vi and Cait should have never come back from Cait shoving the back of her gun into Vi's injured side (let alone the gassing of the ducts). Vi would've never forgiven her, attraction or no. The fact that Cait could become a dictator after losing one parent is proof of their class divides (after all, Vi held onto hope despite losing all her parents to enforcers and Jinx was all she had left of her family). That should have cemented the death of that relationship (and it would have made for more compelling storytelling on class). I’m thinking it was kept because it matters more to white Western audiences to have a Romeo x Juliet rendition that assuages their classist sensitivities. Cait becoming a fascist made sense and was true to her character and the world. Vi forgiving her (and then having sex with her in the prison she was thrown into as a child?) destroyed both her character and the narrative.
Yeah, yeah, Vi was overwhelmed by the breadth of love and forgiveness Caitlyn had in letting Jinx go, but that's bare minimum shit. Vi "always choosing wrong" because she *checks notes* keeps trying to reconcile with her sister instead of letting her go since she isn't Powder anymore? So she resolves her guilt by choosing her own pleasure and putting herself first for once. Okay, I don't have a problem with that except that Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't--by reconciling! And you still won't get me to like the fact that so much of Vi's character arc gets held up in a Piltovian who encouraged her to do the worst shit to her OWN PEOPLE and then fucking turned on her when she couldn't kill her sister. It is frankly amazing how we're supposed to celebrate Caitlyn literally coming between the sisters. I'd rather Vi forgiving Jinx than Caitlyn. And if the whole appeal of Vi's relationship with Caitlyn is that she was overwhelmed with love for how Caitlyn forgave Jinx after she killed her mother, I don't see how a relationship with Cait automatically makes Vi feel less guilty, since Cait also makes her feel guilty for choosing Jinx (remember her accusation "you will always choose her" like sorry I don't want to kill my orphaned, traumatized sister who I ripped into for making an honest mistake as a child and who has carried that since). Caitlyn (as others have pointed out) got a whole ceremony for her mother and instantly turned on Vi's people. The Vi I know would have been like, "You really are all the same," and FUCKING DIPPED. And there's a little acknowledgement of this in act 1 where Vi accuses Caitlyn of acting like Jinx.
Both Jinx and Caitlyn are emotional labour for Vi. Vi still wants to protect Caitlyn from Jinx. There's not that much of a difference, lol, except that Caitlyn is a privileged Piltovian and Jinx is a victim of the abysmal childhood she suffered at the hands of enforcers. Yet the show is more or less saying Vi pursuing reconciliation with Jinx was a bad choice for Vi and the reason the cycle of violence continued (for some reason). The sister reconciliation was what I was here for, personally. Cute ships aside. But noooo, Vi should forgive Cait (not Jinx) to stop the cycle.
And having jail sex is a liberating act for her because it's where they had their meet-cute. (And we're all good bc Caitlyn gave up the Kiramman seat, lmao, like sure okay).
It's frankly made the ship that much more unpalatable. If Vi had to be destroyed as a character for the ship to work, then the ship wasn't all that good (even though it started off that way). It's honestly left such a bad taste in my mouth. What a fuck you to oppressed groups that whole subplot was. (And it's made worse by the fact that the creator thought that was somehow an empowering and liberating act for Vi, like fuck that).
Let's Talk About Victor:

Viktor and Heimerdinger:
Heimerdinger and Viktor were the most polar of opposites. Heimerdinger was not only a privileged, ulta-wealthy Piltovian, but he had a comparatively endless lifespan while Viktor's own human life-span was cut short due to being a Zaunite, born at the bottom of the barrel and raised on toxic fumes that led to his terminal illness. Viktor's desperation to unlock the Arcane was explicitly about him overcoming his circumstances, his illness, his premature death. It wasn't merely about his internalized ableism, but the unjust way in which he had to suffer. Heimmerdinger could afford patience because he had all the time and resources in the world, but Viktor didn't. Not merely because he was a mortal, but because he was a Zaunite.
Viktor and Singed:
Viktor's arc with hextech is foreshadowed with his childhood interaction with Singed. I understand that in the games, Viktor is a villain-type character and his catchphrase or whatever is "Join the Glorious Evolution," which the show hinted at from Season 1 when Singed explained his experiments to Viktor. While Viktor is horrified by Singed killing the creature that he eventually uses for shimmer, Viktor later says, "I understand," hinting that he saw the sacrifice (and death) necessary to "heal" the world of its ailments. Both Viktor and Singed grow up in The Lanes, and both have ailments they want to cure (for Viktor it is his lung cancer and for Singed its his daughter's dying). In season 2, Viktor tells Singed that while he understands what healing all those people could cost him, he will not sacrifice their humanity for Singed's cause. This is because of Sky’s death (which is partly why it is her who is in the Arcane with him).
Sky’s death is what makes Viktor beg Jayce to destroy the hex core, since he couldn’t do it himself. He is willing to die if that means no more innocent people do. But here’s where I get a little touchy. VIKTOR didn’t KNOW she was there. Viktor was simply desperate to live. Sky’s death was not malicious (even if it’s true to his character that he’d feel guilty anyways). It is at this point that Viktor has Jayce promise him to destroy the hex core (and by god is this where a lot of my contention with the finale comes from). Also, it is important to note that Viktor’s self-loathing is depicted only in regard to Sky’s death (NOT HIS BAD LEG). Now Viktor feels guilty not just for Sky’s death, but also necessarily for trying to live (AND PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND). TRYING TO LIVE is subtly treated as an AMBITION that, for Viktor, interfered with his ethics. (And please note that in the end, Singed, who repeatedly embraces unethical practices for reviving his dying daughter gets what he wants).

Anyway, in S2, Jayce blasts Viktor in the chest and all that conviction goes out the window. All this despite Sky (his conscience and “humanity”) being there with him in the astro-nether. Now Viktor's idea of becoming a higher being is just getting rid of emotion (apparently because Jayce did it or something). Jayce killing him without explanation was all of a sudden all he needed to become a divine dictator. The same Viktor that looked terminal illness in the face and preferred to spare others instead of himself? The same Viktor who's immediate action after waking up with a new body was to go and use the arcane he wished had been destroyed to help others? Because the arcane is corrupting him? That’s convenient for a certain political narrative. Especially because anyone would hesitate pressing a button (in Viktor’s case smashing the hex core) that would guarantee their death. Viktor was being human, not corrupt.

Viktor and Jayce:
Now, I think Jayce's speech had some merit and could have been framed better with a little more time and thought. The philosophical idea of perfection or a perfect world (one which Piltoverians strive toward) being untenable, maybe even undesirable, is a fascinating concept worth exploring. BUT MAKING IT ABOUT SOME INTERNALIZED ABLEISM FROM VIKTOR IS FUCKING STUPID!!!! I'm sorry, but Piltover being the city of progress until it actually included becoming progressive with Zaun was absolutely one of the things Jayce and Viktor's sub-plot was trying to explore.

Viktor WANTED TO LIVE. Viktor wanted his people to STOP SUFFERING. Viktor WAS RIGHT. He wasn't merely eliminating "imperfections" (and of FUCKING COURSE A PILTOVIAN WOULD SEE IT THAT WAY), he was trying to cure sick and dying people who did nothing to deserve it. He was buying them time that people like Jayce and Heimmerdinger had in spades, but Viktor and Zaunites had stolen from them.

Children dying of disease and violence in The Lanes was by Piltovian design! It was not some predestined cosmic necessity. Viktor WAS RIGHT TO HATE HIS FUCKING TERMINAL ILLNESS ARE THESE GUYS INSANE??! Wtf kind of message is Viktor embracing it as part of himself sending to vulnerable, impoverished and ill people? Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking comfort? Fuck off right to hell!
Like I'm glad if it resonated with any disabled people, but Viktor's struggle with his body was a protest against Piltover, not himself, and I hate that the writers gutted that character development. Viktor's and Jayce's paths "diverged a long time ago" because Jayce had the luxury and time of pursuing his dream while Viktor didn't. Viktor, even up there as a scholar of Piltover, was still getting the Zaunite treatment.

Jayce had the time to pursue a better world, while Viktor had to struggle for a little more time. When Viktor becomes part of the arcane, suddenly he has all the time in the world to realize HIS OWN DREAM. Why would wanting a better world for others have to result in "dreamless solitude"? Why does wanting progress equal wanting perfection? You are changing the subject and that is cheating!!!!
Viktor becoming obsessed with fixing what ailed humanity was warranted, and his extremism was hinted to have been due in part to the effect the arcane had on him, but it still made the themes of arcane a joke. There was so much potential and the writers (and showrunners) just squandered it for some more romantic bullshit.
The Glorious Fumblings (A Summary):

-"Humanity, our very essence, is inescapable. Our emotions, rage, compassion, hate. Two sides of the same coin, intractably bound. That which inspires us to our greatest good is also the cause of our greatest evil.” That's a neat quote, but wars don't start simply due to emotions or whatever. This lacks class analysis, and it's annoying that the writers made this the whole theme of season 2 (and retroactively the show) in a story on class divides. Cait did not merely gas the Zaunites because of her mother, but because of her privileged upbringing that made it more acceptable to her to view Zaunites as animals (remember Ekko telling her enforcers “hunt us down like animals"). Cait knew the humanity of Zaunites was real. She just chose to ignore it because she could afford to. While it is interesting that Viktor would come to see being human as a flaw that destroys any hope of achieving peace (conflict theory would like a word with you), it ignored that fascism is not an inherently human trait and detracts from how or why it persists in the first place. It's almost the same as saying men/white people oppress women/poc because the latter were mean to them. It's victim-blaming (and false lmao). The British didn't colonize the Americans because the natives did anything to them. All prejudice is unjustified, that's what makes it prejudice. Again, Cait became a fascist when her mom died, but Vi still drew the line at killing children and even council members despite losing every single one of her family members to Piltover's violence against The Lanes. AND THAT’S JUST IT. Why the Zaunites do what they do isn’t simply because of love and hate, but because of the desperate circumstances they are forced into by their oppressors. Why the Piltovians do what they do, isn’t because of love or hate, but because they are bread in luxury and affluence. Pretending that’s not the case is an insult to the work put into Arcane’s first season (and anyone with a brain and basic empathy).
-Jayce's speech would have been cute in another story, but it's downright insulting in Arcane's. Yes, yes, Jayce's words would have been the only ones to have broken the real Viktor out of Arcane Viktor's grasp by appealing to this deep childhood wound, but Viktor's desperation was not to belong (because his leg kept him from playing with other children) but TO LIVE (because he was dying of an illness). Jayce's speech isn't bad, just misplaced. Like most of the finale.
-Viktor did not have to become a fascist-aligned deity in his quest to heal people. It is a typical MCU thing to have a "villain" that's technically right and then destroy their entire character to make their (correct) philosophy untenable by making them do something extreme. Typical pro-status quo propaganda trope. I DON’T CARE if it was so we could get some game version of him. Viktor was right in bringing progress and his discoveries to The Lanes instead of devoting his efforts to Piltover, the fake city of progress.
-While I am annoyed that the climax of the show hinged on Jayce and Viktor and hextech (a tool to explore the inequalities of Piltover and Zaun) instead of Jinx and Vi, I think it kinda makes sense. Hextech built what Piltover has now become. Jayce, Viktor and hextech kinda represent Piltover (what it could be) and Jinx and Vi represent The Lanes (and the Zaun it could be). Both would have been integral, but the story shouldn't have hinged on hextech, IMO. Hextech should have remained a tool to explore the politics of both cities, but instead it overshadowed everything, cheapening the story's themes, characters and world-building.
-Jayce calling the Zaunites to arms was downright absurd. But not as absurd as Zaunites volunteering.
And Then There's Jinx:
Jinx and Isha:
Isha's only use, as far as I'm concerned, was to be a reconciling force between the sisters. When Cait was willing to shoot her to get to Jinx, that should have stopped Vi right there and brought her back to defending Jinx 100% I DON’T CARE. When Isha sacrificed her life to save Jinx, that should have been Jinx's wake-up call right there and helped her understand why Vi kept leaving her out of missions as a kid. But instead what do we get? Depressed, suicidal Jinx and an astoundingly even more resentful and indifferent Vi. Now Jinx sees herself as even more of a poison to those she loves (because she can’t protect them like Vi can and frequently kills them while trying to do so). Jinx, who has always wanted to be useful to those she loves. Who pursued her own hextech inventions in order to give her siblings a fighting chance when facing down Silco. Who wants to give Zaun a fighting chance as Silco's daughter (and Isha’s surrogate mother). To be useful to the goals and dreams of her family. Isha was the perfect opportunity to bring the sisters together and get Jinx to embrace all she is (both the Jinx that Vi rejects and the Powder that Silco rejected), but no. Instead, the kid was some kind of foreshadowing to Jinx's own heroic self-sacrifice for her sister (a message that left both sister's arcs unfinished). Or perhaps, Isha was a commentary on the cycle of violence. But that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.

Why do I say this?
Because the cycle of violence is not a "Jinx" issue, but a Piltover one, and the writers making it an interpersonal issue instead of a political/sociological one damaged the story and what Jinx's character could have meant to mentally ill people like her. It wasn't illogical storytelling, just far less meaningful than it could have been. It would have been more powerful and moving and impactful for Jinx to realize where the true cycle of violence (as established the whole fucking show from the dead parents on the bridge, to Vander and Silco, to Jinx and Vi, to Jinx and Ekko, to Isha and Warwick, to Cait and Vi, etc) was coming from.

Jinx needed to accept herself and the love others showed toward her (Silco, Vander, Ekko and Vi). Jinx keeps blowing things up because she repeatedly rejects herself (both Powder and Jinx), ignoring the good she's done and tried to do. Isha was a call back to the good Jinx has done and can continue to do for Zaun and others. Isha and Sevika understood (even though Silco unfairly set it up) that Jinx was actually their good luck, their hope, more than just a hex (pun intended) on the city. After all, Jinx made Sevika her new arm (even though she's the reason Sevika lost her arm in the first place), which further proves that Jinx had the capacity to fix some of what she broke. It would have been better for her to embrace responsibility and have the faith to try and fix things (ESP her relationship with Vi). While it is not unrealistic or necessarily bad writing that she would fake her own death to run away and start over (or just die) trying to save Vi, the arc people she represented deserved was her embracing Vi back, not accepting that she was a curse in Vi's life. And most definitely NOT romanticizing her pain.
Jinx and Ekko:

Ekko's and Jinx's relationship is precisely an exploration of how Piltover's violence against Zaun forced these children with entire futures ahead of them (they are both child prodigies) into endless war and hellish heroism. Ekko and Jinx are repeatedly shown to be hesitant and even unwilling to participate in violence against others, especially their own. Ekko does not hate Jinx, though he wants to, and Jinx does not like who she is when she's violent. She is trigger-happy because she already expects Vi and Ekko to want to kill her (projecting her self-loathing on them, but not entirely unreasonably). She doesn't have faith in their love or mercy because she doesn't see any part of herself as redeemable or loveable, which is why she consistently sabotages her life (but not without help from Vi and others).
Ekko and Jinx are symbols of progress for Zaun AND Piltover (and Heimerdinger saw that, especially when Ekko insisted he had to go back to his timeline, even if the one he had landed in was better). Heimmerdinger saw what they could have been in the alternate timeline, all the genius that was squandered in The Lanes. Jinx and Ekko are the ones most willing to put an end to violence and injustice because both of them are nostalgic for their families. All that’s ever kept them going is the love of their families. Jinx just doesn't have the same faith in her ability to be their hero as Ekko does, but Ekko manages to convince her for a moment anyways.
Ekko recognizes (like Silco, Viktor and Isha) how integral Jinx is to the creation of a new world. She injects colour and life and hope into Zaun and is the only one who can unite all warring factions in Zaun in the first place. I know people have gripes with this Jinx being the hero of Zaun when she literally killed Silco, opening the market for other gangs, but her most famous act is the bombing of the Council, which pretty much all Zaunites were unaware was about to grant them independence. To the average citizen of Zaun and Piltover, Jinx was the symbol of a revolution (even if Jinx didn’t see herself that way and didn’t really want to be). Both her and Ekko are rebel leaders, but that is hardly used in Zaun's interests in the end. (ALSO THAT WHOLE CONVERSATION WITH VIKTOR AND JINX WHERE HE SAID SHE COULD BE USEFUL TO HIS WORK. This show would have won with a Viktor and Jinx team-up to unite Zaun--also in parallel to Jayce and Vi's team up. We could have had it all!)
Jinx and Silco:

This, is only second to Vi in the most FUMBLED things about Jinx. Silco was her guide once Vander died and Vi ran away. Silco not only took care of her, but gave her purpose (someone to love and be loved by and protect) and nurtured her talent (one that many others scorned). Silco accepted Jinx even though he weaponized her (which backfired for him). As much as Silco WAS WRONG to lie about Vi (manipulating Jinx) and even try to kill Vi (which was a dumbass move on his part), he wasn't wrong about Jinx's path to healing: self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. And even though Silco's own stupidity led Jinx to "embrace" Silco's version of Jinx to the point that she bombed the Council right when they'd granted Zaun independence (I wanted to fucking kill myself watching that), Jinx was still not ENTIRELY a jinx as Jinx (e.g. when she rescued Zaunites from Stillwater Prison). This fucked up dude did a whole John-the-Baptist thing where Vander tried to drown him with Jinx so she could embrace her Jinx-ness. But I don't think he was telling her to embrace that she was a curse like Vi meant it, but to embrace her new life (baptism is all about death and rebirth) and her new self and take responsibility for it.

Silco, like Ekko, was the one who saved Jinx from death and offered Jinx a home. While everyone else patronized Jinx for her own childhood trauma, Silco was gentle, understanding and provided space for that, even when her psychosis killed him. He showed zero resentment toward her. But when Silco dies and Vander returns, Jinx just . . . oopsie, doopsie! Forgets about Silco until one final hallucination she has of him in the jail cell. The only one she has where he talks. And what does he say? She needs to break the cycle. How? Not by eliminating Piltover or gaining Zaun's independence like he'd talked about and dreamed about. Not by accepting herself as Jinx and Powder, the inventor, the fighter, daughter of both Silco and Vander, but by offing herself? Leaving her family to think she's dead? Embracing the lie that she really was the poison in their lives and the reason none of them could be happy? The reason they died? NICE! SWELL! WHAT A SATISFYING, INSPIRING CONCLUSION! Even worse, they made her "death" staged. I'm sorry, but do we really believe that this same girl who killed herself multiple times in front of Ekko just 24 hours ago somehow found the will to live and escape into air ducts when she was falling with Vander? She decided to live right when she was about to die? And let's not forget that she was falling to the same song that was playing when she was trying to commit suicide. Why? And why would a heroic death (staged or not) be any form of character growth for Jinx in the first place? When her whole thing is distrusting the love offered to her? Or was she accepting herself by being the one to kill Vander because she knew Vi couldn't? Either way, it's cheap!
I Wonder Who Put All Those Holes In You (Fumbling Summary):

-Vander's letter to Silco could have been why she hallucinated Silco talking to her about forgiveness, but breaking the cycle here is about forgiving (unapologetic) Piltovians instead of herself, which needed to happen to complete her arc.
-Isha and Vander misery porn
-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's TheGamer interview) to paraphrase: "SO OUR GRAND CONCLUSION TO VI AND JINX'S ARC WAS TO CONFIRM THAT YES, JINX WAS INDEED A JINX (AND NOT PILTOVER OR ANYTHING HAHA) AND THE SISTERS WOULD ONLY HAVE PEACE IF THEY NEVER RECONCILED - JUST LIKE THEIR FATHERS BECAUSE THAT WORKED OUT SO WELL THE FIRST TIME! :D THE REASON THEIR LIVES ARE IN SHAMBLES ARE PURELY BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN PERSONAL FAILINGS AND NOT AT ALL BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION PILTOVIANS HAVE PUT ZAUNITES IN! XD WE THINK THIS IS ALSO A FANTASTIC THING TO TELL MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE." :)
-Jinx being the reluctant Girl Saviour of Zaun after clinging onto her identity as a jinx so she didn't have to take responsibility for Zaun should have been the completion of her arc, IMO. As far as Jinx's arc is concerned, she was meant to reject the identity of jinx that Vi gave her and embrace the identity of Jinx that Zaun gave her. Loveable and capable of doing the right thing and saving others. Using hex-tech, something Jayce and Piltover had levelled against her people, against them. And she does this to some extent, but we don't even get a hint as to why Ekko's speech worked (and how he got her to fight alongside him and the Firelights in the first place). We know she does so for Vi, but she so quickly gives up once she and her sister are back on the same team. She allies herself with her sister just to die and then fuck off to another land? BRUH! Like act 3 is SO FRUSTRATING!
Conclusion
If the focus had been on the coming war between Zaun and Piltover, then we could have better explored the internal struggles happening with Vi's and Jinx's characters. Using Isha and Vander as misery porn for Jinx was a bad move. I stand by that. Isha didn't need to die that uselessly. Jinx did not need more "trauma" for any character development (positive or negative). It's not unrealistic that Jinx would be depressed after Isha's death (and that Isha was likely meant to symbolize the constant cycle of violence), but that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.
These are where my gripes with Jinx's and Viktor's arcs in S2 really lie: the story tries to strip the political from the personal! Viktor, on waking up with the arcane in him, goes back to The Lanes, and what does he see? The cycle that Silco mentions in Jinx's hallucination in the cell. This cycle is not merely coming from the interpersonal struggle Zaunites have, but rather, the forces behind those struggles: the starvation, the lack of resources, the poverty. All caused by Piltover. Where Season 2 fails while Season 1 succeeded, is it points the camera away from Piltover as the origin of all this mess, and instead, makes it a stupid cosmic clash between chaos and order (kinda fascist ngl). Zaun lost, and Arcane Season 1 had the tits to show why those in The Lanes were always on a losing streak: Piltover. The commitment to saving Piltover instead of destroying it ruined so many arcs, most notoriously Vi's and Jinx's. This should have ended in a war between the two cities, not one where both fought against robo-people and Ambessa.
But what, instead, do the writers brandish as this solution to the cycle?
Fucking forgiveness (of those who harm and oppress you) and acceptance of your (physical) imperfections (like that's what we were apparently talking about, which no, it wasn't). By refusing to acknowledge Piltover's hand in the desperation and violence and struggle the Zaunite characters find themselves, the show inadvertently ends up excusing Piltover.
TLDR: Bad message to send to oppressed people, mentally ill people, and people dying of terminal illnesses, lmao. The Zaunites ALL LOST with this one.
And I'm going to make a Part 2 to really get into it, but from the perspective of three Piltover characters (and one Zaunite) that really prove my point: Jayce, Mel, Caitlyn and Ekko.
P.S.: It's okay if you think the show is good because it succeeds in many other things, I just think it drops the ball in the places I've mentioned. But if your main criticism of my criticisms is going to be defending your ships, please find another post. Oppression is a serious reality that deserves serious depiction and it's insulting to have such necessary political discussions devolve into dumbass ship wars.
EDIT: I honestly did not expect this post to get more than 20 likes lmao, and i must admit that this was more of a thought dump than a super-deep analysis, but i'm glad a lot of it has resonated with so many of you!
EDIT AGAIN: Here's PART 2.
#zaun#arcane#arcane season 2#jayvik#timebomb#ekkojinx#caitlyn kiramman#vi#vander#silco#jinx#ekko#isha arcane#jinx and isha#caitvi
3K notes
·
View notes
Text
Another instance I think of people zooming in way too much is when people try to say that Caitlyn grew as a character and She did lose things or whatever I don't know I can't remember off the top of my head.
But like zoom out and look at the stark difference in how violet has to integrate herself into piltovan society and Caitlyn never has to do anything similar. The woman only went down there twice once of which was to gas civilians. Cait never has to do/experience anything even remotely similar to what Vi has to do or go through.
She never even takes the coat off. She never takes off her uniform, She never has to step out of her mansion if she doesn't want to, She never has to come out of her nativity, She never has to like face the fact that the place she comes from and the job she works for is an oppressive force.
Like remember when Violet had that moment where she realized enforcers can be good people too which is so 😒😐 but anyway. Cait never has to make the opposite realization of "wow these people are shitty Like the whole system is shitty all the enforcers I looked up to as a kid were enforcing an oppressive shitty system" and you know why that is?
Because the writers themselves didn't give a shit about that, because if they did they would have shown the other side. Probably because if they did they would have to address enforcers being an oppressive tool used by topside In which would lead to topside being oppressive as a whole but that's too radical that would ruin their whole little centrist cop loving narrative they got going on.
I've talked about this before but I so badly wanted Caitlyn to have like a little montage of her taking her enforcer uniform and dictator coat off. I wanted her to think long and hard about where she comes from and the pain and suffering that they've caused the undercity and zanites and people just like Violet.
Whenever I talk to someone who defends season 2 it's always the same points and the thing is I would be inclined to agree if it wasn't for the context.
Y'all analyze this season and the episodes and the scenes and the characters inside of a vacuum but the second you zoom out your point crumbles.
29 notes
·
View notes
Text
Arcane x Ransom! Reader
Summary: How would the Arcane characters react if the reader was held for ransom?
Characters: Jinx/Powder, Violet "Vi", Caitlyn Kiramman, Viktor, Jayce Talis, Sevika, Silco and Licker (mention).
Warning: Slight cursing and suggestive themes/implied sexual themes.
A/N: I literally got the idea for this request from Helluva Boss, particular episode 6 of season 2. I hope you all enjoy this though, I know I did!
Powder/Jinx

“You have who?! Where are they?!… You want me to pay you for them? Oh I’ll pay you alright!”
Jinx doesn’t take the idea of you getting hurt lightly. She already is super overprotective of her little trinket, so when she heard that you were being held for a price, she wasted no time grabbing Pow-Pow, Zapper and a bunch of chompers to aid her in her “heroic rescue” for her princess/prince. As soon as she is where you are held, you don’t have to see her to know she’s there for you. Don’t expect any talking, just laughter and hollers followed by gunfire, screams for mercy and explosions.
Before you know it, the Loose Cannon is standing in front of you, pulling you into the tightest hug ever and dressing your face with kisses. She will ask you countless questions while freaking out, beating herself up over you being in such a position. But when she feels you touch her and assure her you’re okay, she’s on cloud nine. As soon as she laces the area with bombs to blow it to kingdom come, she’s back at her hideout, being super affectionate and touchy the entire night. Don’t expect anyone to be touching you for months unless they want their head blown off.
Violet “Vi”

“… What?… You… You just pissed off the wrong woman.”
First word that you were kidnapped, Vi wasted no time hunting your captors down and beating them to a bloody pulp. The woman is like a bull seeing red knowing you were somewhere cold and scared away from home and her arms. So until you were back to her, anyone was able to get a personal greeting from the pink haired fighter. Vi is pretty merciful, but in situations like this, she isn’t afraid to push the envelope by giving life threatening injuries to the bastards that hurt you.
When she found you, she didn’t bother asking any questions or giving any money to your kidnappers, unless they counted a mouthful of fists and kicks as payment enough. When she’s done with her punishment, she’ll immediately scoop you into her arms and take the both of you back home, where she checks you for injuries and asks if you are okay. Please comfort her. She may act all tough and cool, but the situation scared her due to thinking she lost you just like everyone else. As soon as she knows you are alright, she’ll promise no one will ever do that to you again.
Caitlyn Kiramman

“You kidnapped Y/N? Why would- Who do you think you are? You better let them go right now!”
Caitlyn was used to people being kidnapped on the job, having to save them or negotiate with criminals for their safety. But she would have never imagined such a thing happening to you of all people. When she was told you were being held for ransom, she understandably panicked before taking deep breaths and thinking of how to get you back to her. The enforcer can easily scrounge up the money for you to be freed, because you were more important than any coin that reaches her pockets.
So when she arranges a meeting with your kidnappers and finds you so scared, she finds it hard to stop herself from grabbing you and making a run for it. If the kidnappers pull a fast one on her though, all bets are off and bullets are flying. When she has you back, she will watch you like a hawk and be on the defensive for a while. But if you assure her enough that you are okay, she will lighten up. On the bright side, after the incident she’s more romantic and spends more time with you in and out of work.
Viktor

“Look, I’m sure we can talk about this. I’ll get you the money, just. Please don’t hurt them…”
Viktor beat himself up when he heard you were taken away from him for monetary purposes. He just doesn’t understand how he would let this happen- How he would let someone easily take you under his nose and put you in harm’s way?! He could’ve waddled in his sorrows, but he couldn’t. He had to save you and he had to act fast! It would hurt him, but he would ask for assistance from Jayce and the council if he can. And if they can’t help him? Well. Maybe it was time to break out those so-called dangerous machines Heimerdinger warned him against using.
When he finds you, he’s wasting no time trying to negotiate a way around matters so you could be freed. And if those negotiations don’t go according to plan, then he’ll use his machinery and his brain to outsmart the criminals into freeing you. When you are back together, he’ll just. Hold you. Like you are a precious gemstone. He’ll promise you this will never happen again. No one will ever lay their hands on you again…
Jayce Talis

“Is this supposed to scare me? If anything, you should be the one scared- Do you know who I am?!”
Jayce does not take threats lightly, especially when it comes to his family, friends and his loved ones. As soon as he was told you were held for Ransom, he let his anger and determination to get you back fuel him to do anything to send a message and bring you back to safety. You will immediately know your boyfriend got the message because in a matter of hours, enforcers are barging into the area you were held like they were entering a war, shooting, punching and slamming anyone who got in their way from their goal; You.
And Jayce is in the middle of it all, swinging his hammer without remorse before running to your rescue as your knight in shining armor. As soon as you grab his hand, he’s walking you back to his place casually through the enforcers destroying everything in their sights and leaving a message for the assholes that took you; Never. Ever. Touch the councilman’s lover. Don’t expect to go anywhere without guards following you if Jayce isn’t, whether you want to or not. Jayce just can’t take the chance for you to be taken again. Is it extreme? Yes. But it was worth it.
Sevika
“Ransom? Seriously? Please, that’s nothing. And I’m about to show you why.”
When it comes to ransom, Sevika wasn’t new to having her friends or past lovers be kidnapped for money. So when she heard you were being held hostage, she casually grabbed her poncho, fixed her arm for a brawl and headed outside to round her co-workers up. When she found you and the ones that took you, she wasted no time kicking in the doors and sicking her co-workers on everyone before she made her way towards you after knocking some skulls in. She’ll ask if you are okay and especially check you for any injuries before grabbing you and joking how you found yourself in this predicament.
The fight rages on as soon as she places you outside for safety. Saving you wasn’t enough. No, she needed everyone to know that when someone messes with you, they have to deal with her and the rest of Zaun. When everything is over and done, Sevika will take you both back home and treat any injuries you want before kissing your cheek and simply talking as if you weren’t kidnapped to begin with. If you think she doesn’t care, then hoo boy. The way she’ll treat you that night in bed will make you think otherwise.
Silco
“Hmm… If I were you, I’d beg for mercy when I get there…”
Silco is never one to be threatened because he’s always the one making the threats. Hearing about you being held for Ransom made him immediately go on the move to round up Sevika to follow him in bringing you back to him. If he gets there and doesn’t find you anywhere, he will deliver a silent signal to bring the house down. But if you are present, then he won’t need violence to be delivered by his Right Hand. He’ll just need to put the fear of gods into your kidnapper.
He’ll paint them a picture of how he’ll find their families and let them listen to the melody of their bones breaking. How he’ll have Licker carve paintings into their bodies and let them choke on their own blood as they beg for mercy. What do they think of that? They wouldn’t like that at all. As a matter of fact, they would hate it so much that they would release you and fade from existence right there. As soon as you are back to Silco, he’s going to take you back home as if this was only a minor inconvenience. But as soon as you two are behind closed doors, he can’t help from keeping his hands to himself and make promises against your skin.
If you have any requests for Arcane, X-Men '97 or Blue Eye Samurai, send them my way!
Likes and retweets are always appreciated! I love you all, stay safe, stay hydrated and have a good day!
#x reader#x female reader#x you#x male reader#arcane x reader#requests are open#arcane x oc#arcane lol#arcane imagines#arcane headcanon#jinx arcane#jinx lol#jinx x reader#jinx x y/n#vi arcane#vi league of legends#vi x reader#caitlyn kiramman#arcane caitlyn#caitlyn x reader#caitlyn x y/n#viktor x you#viktor lol#viktor x y/n#jayce x reader#jayce talis#sevika x reader#silco x reader#silco x you#headcanons
4K notes
·
View notes
Text
domestic caitvi ୨ৎ



caitvi x reader
cw: pet names, kissing, hickeys, biting, gets a little hot and heavy but idk what else.
a/n: I love writing domestic scenes this brought me joy:)
You met Caitlyn first when you got into the training academy to be an enforcer. She quickly took an eye to you watching you train combat when she would do walk throughs in the facilities. Meeting eyes through the window that goes into the hallway, she gives you an approving smirk. You smile back at her your face covered in sweat and chest heaving.
After that she made sure to bring Violet with her to show how good of a fighter you were. Violet was greatly amused watching you drop a man on his head. She leaned up against the glass becoming more invested in watching how your body moves with every hit you land. Caitlyn looks over at Vi and Vi looks back at her sharing the same look of understanding and excitement.
This leads to you getting called into her office for outstanding work and being taken out to lunch for it. Which leads into you meeting Vi and eventually being invited to outings having nothing to do with work. You were quick to accept their offer of going out as an item after building steady tension filled friendships with the both of them.
Caitlyn’s poise and Vi’s playful demeanor contrasted so beautifully. But you soon learned that wasn’t the truth about them, this only furthered your intrigue with the two women. They took care of you in a way you never thought possible. Making past relationships feel like a distant nightmare. There was only Caitlyn and Violet.
That’s what brought you to the present. Waking up in Vi’s boxers and Caitlyn’s silky tank top with the bed empty. You groaned at the sun hitting your eyes shoving a pillow over your face. There’s a depression on the side of the bed and the sound of a cup being place on the night stand. You feel two strong arms pull you and man handle you.
Vi’s dopey face looks down at you as you lay limply across her lap. “Good morning sunshine.” She giggles as you huff out an annoyed whimper not yet opening your eyes. “I know I know~” she pushes hair out of your face and litters kisses all over your cheeks in an attempt to pull you into consciousness. When your eyes finally do open your met with a beautiful vision of a backlit angel that is your girlfriend.
You smile sleepily and sit up to wrap your arms around her neck, pressing your face into her skin. She scoops you up holding you with one arm her other holding her coffee as she walks you to the kitchen. Your legs wrap around her waist and you place a kiss to her jaw inhaling deeply to fill your lungs with her scent. Caitlyn hears heavy footsteps looking over her shoulder. She abandons her place at the stove coming to rub your back.
“Are you hungry my love?” She whispers softly fixing the strap of your tank top. Vi let’s you down to your feet softly. “Very.” You move stiffly to go sit at the kitchen table eyes squinting from the light. Vi can’t wipe the dumb smile off her face as she makes you a cup of coffee. Her and Caitlyn giggle to themselves and you perk up. “What.” You ask plainly looking up at Vi as she hands off your cup to you.
“Nothin’ your just cute.” Her tone is sweet and low it’s like honey coating your ears. She winks at you before turning away. You sip your coffee watching Vi hold Caitlyn’s waist as she cooks. She hums to herself swaying the both of them. Watching them like this fills you with warmth. The way Vi whispers sweet nothings into Caitlyn’s ear. You overhear Caitlyn tell her, “It’s only 9 am.” And you roll your eyes resting your head against your palm.
“Do you need help Cait?” Calling to her she shakes her head. “No I’m almost finished honey.” She sweetly calls back you to.
“I’m not talking about the food.” You smirk smugly your eyes shifting from Caitlyn to Violet. Caitlyn laughs and Vi looks at you as she kisses Caitlyn’s shoulder smirking back at you. “You just stay put where you are sweet stuff, you’ll get your loving in just a second.” You throw her a fake pout bating your lashes in exaggeration.
Caitlyn plates up your food bringing you an almost mathematically perfect omelette. They sit down on either side of you talking about the plans for the day. That and internal affairs you probably shouldn’t be hearing. Not that you actually pay attention to all the technical stuff. You ramble on about your coworkers in the lower ranks. Being well on your way to being an esteemed officer Caitlyn listened intently while Vi cackled at the the shit you and your coworkers do during training.
Once breakfast was finished you join Caitlyn in the bathroom to get ready for the day. Leaning closer to the mirror to do your mascara you feel her come behind you, both her hands caging you in against the counter. Her hips pressed against you and you stand up straight with your back against her chest. Turning to be face to face with her, her tall figure looms over you. Caitlyn’s slender fingers move hair from off your neck and she presses a trail of kisses from your jaw to your collar bone. “So pretty baby.”
You smooth down her silk robe and bite your lip looking up at her. “Speak for yourself.” She raises her brows at you. “Yeah?” She questions her eyes trailing down your figure.
“Yeah.” You replied nodding as you spoke. Vi was watching in the doorway not daring to make a sound. That is until Caitlyn was pushing herself between your legs and kissing you deeply. Already messing up your makeup, when Vi pipes up. “It’s only 9 am!” She said in a mocking playful tone. Caitlyn continued even after hearing her only breaking away to to give her a short reply. “Well it’s 10 now actually.” Caitlyn retorts and you giggle but quickly stifle it seeing Vis change in expression.
“Somethin funny pip squeak?” She walks over and leans against the counter its hard to focus with Cait kissing and nipping at your neck. “N-no.” VI’s eyes reading darker than usual didn’t make you feel like challenging her. She smiles at you sweetly, “Didnt think so.” joining Caitlyn in attacking your neck.
“So pretty isn’t she?” Vi mumbles to Cait. “Mmm that’s what I said.” Caitlyn and Vi talk about you like you aren’t even there going back and forth. “Her skin is so soft.” Caitlyn adds. “I could just take a bite.” Vi says softly biting your shoulder. You were almost limp from all the affection, all of your senses stimulated at once, whimpering and lulling your head back. After they’d been torturing you for a little Caitlyn smiles into your skin moving to kiss your cheek. “Need a break sweetheart?” She asks stroking your cheek. You shake your head no but she stops anyway looking at the time.
Vi doesn’t get the memo instead taking up the space Caitlyn left. Her arms wrapping around your waist and her lips finding yours. Caitlyn rolls her eyes fixing her hair in the mirror before deciding the both of you had enough and pulling Vi by the belt loop. “What! It’s 10 am.” Vi remarked hand still gripping your waist.
“Go put your shirt on and finish getting ready we need to get going.” Caitlyn sets her straight and Vi backs away with her hands up. “Aye aye Captain.” Caitlyn looks at you with a soft annoyed smile and does a double take at your neck. “Shit.” She spins you towards the mirror with a look of utter shock. You were covered in small red marks except for one especially deep purple mark Vi left on your shoulder.
Both were equally guilty but Caitlyn was unfortunately right there to take the blow. You looked back at her in the mirror unamused your arms crossed. “Your covering this up.” Caitlyn nodded her lips in the thin line.
“Of course. You do look cute though.” She teases you one last time before you huff at her. She kisses your temple and pulls out her makeup again.
Thank you for reading!
#caitvi#caitlyn kiramman#caitlyn arcane#violet arcane#vi x reader#caitlyn x reader#caitvi x reader#violet x reader
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Okay first, I said friend not friends. And what they meant by death flags is that isha was potrayed as the kid who is clearly made to be cute and then be killed trope. I'm here talking narrative wise since you talked about the tragedy genre.
Second I also have a problem with Silco's words at the jail but others have pointed out so I'll only discuss how it played into Isha's death.
"Killing isn't mercy," Jinx said. The problem is how exactly she arrived to that conclusion? Has this always been a mindset that she held? If that is so, it's not a revelation. If this is a revelation I can't see where she get that conclusion. When Isha died, barely any killing happen on jinx's personal level that would give her that conclusion. The only killing that happened was Isha killing warwick. But what idea that she held before that was changed because of isha's death? If isha's tells her killing isn't mercy, then she must hold the idea before that killing is mercy. This sounds... unlikely? I never saw jinx killing for mercy so I cant tell if she holds that ideation.
The same with killing is a cycle. Now killing is not a cycle (but an effort to stop the cycle) does maybe sounds like something jinx might believe. Kill enforcers so they stop killing us which only lead to more killing. Still, how does isha's death proved to jinx that killing is not not a cycle? Isha wasn't killed by let's say caitlyn whose mom was killed by jinx or even enforcers. She sacrificed herself.
The entire warwick situation was because of the arcane which really has nothing to do with jinx. Literally nothing she could've done could've prevented jayce from getting thrown to a fucked up arcane invested world coming back home and immidiately one shot viktor without talking. And no, this is not the inevitability that i'm talking about. The inevitability should come from the respectable character's action.
Besides, Jinx kinda already break the cycle, right? You can call it running away but Silco literally said "walk away" so jinx not joinning the revolution is already walking away. In fact she already said this, "jinx is dead" and her entire plan at the janna temple was so that jinx could just die. If the message is walking away, she already does that and now you call it inaction. You cant call two same action as different thing when it convinience the argument. Silco saying "you should walk away, jinx" as if she has not done that already??? (Again i have problem with the killing is a cycle speech anyways so dont take this as my belief)
The problem she has caused the cities and vi <- honestly this will branch out to another critique that I have but the problem was NOT jinx. The problem was the system, jinx is a product of that system, S1 already establish it. In fact, silco said it himself, "killing is a cycle, one that has started before vander and I" the problem has started BEFORE Jinx/powder was even born. Also, what did she exactly do to Vi?
Jinx faking her death is another problem that i have but it's not that offensive but also, she still avoid the situation, my guy. Until the very end, she never resolved her trauma, she just pretend it never happen.
Isha emulating jinx is a silver lining I gotta say i do like that she sacrifice herself with Jinx's gun, sorta like, baby blue you taught her this. But still, isha's death has more to do with jayce shooting viktor than jinx's influence. It was not caused by Hamartia and i cant really follow the thought process of isha death to death isnt mercy and killing is a cycle. Isha did not have to die in that situation. That's why in my original post I said I thought the theme was passing the torch, isha continuing jinx's creation while jinx died in a free zaun.
Isha death isn't my biggest complaint. As I said it's just a missed opportunity.
ARCANE WASTED POTENTIAL (PART 1)
I feel like a dumbass because I actually didn't expect that Isha would die 😭😭😭. But I suppose that was my fault since my friend told me the deathflags were everywhere.
I thought Isha's story was about PASSING THE TORCH. Like– like think about it. I thought Jinx was going to die and Isha will continue Jinx's creation but with better mindset, in a better living condition. Like, it makes sense, right?
Vander and Silco grew up in Zaun that were so oppressed that the air was lethal to breathe on. Isn't this was what Felicia was worried about? Like having kids? In this damn economy? I think it's agreeable that Zaun is doing better when Vander and Silco took over (or at least closer to independence). During their time together and after their fallout. But both died never being able to see an independent Zaun.
Imagine what could have been.
Silco passed down the torch to Jinx. Jinx was reluctant at first, having being a Jinx and all that. But then during the Stillwater prison break, she realized that as long as Zaun is under Piltover's oppression, Isha will always be in the risk of danger. Ekko could come in, showing/reminding Jinx of another side of Piltover oppression that does not involve the enforcers, he could also show Jinx too the effect of shimmer on the kids who fell victim to Silco's shimmer empire.
Jinx then decided she'll do it. She'll take Silco's torch. She knows Silco's vision (and arguably Vander's too but maybe we can insert Vi into this). But she won't be like Silco. She won't sacrifice the cause for the end goal. She won't stay still like Vander aswell. Keeping status quo will only mean the only torch she will pass down to Isha is the current one, the oppressed, contaminated, covered in blood, grief, and trauma kind of life.
So she'll learn from them two. She'll fight for the children. For Isha, for the future generations, and for her inner child. For Powder that was never able to grew up in a healthy environment. Besides, acceptance by her people actually feels kind of nice. Jinx's story will be about her successing the mission her fathers failed. Achieving what all three of her fathers fought for. And for that, Jinx then will die breathing in Zaun's independence.
She then passed the torch to Isha, who despite having to spend her childhood under Piltover's oppression, will have the chance to grow up in a better Zaun. It won't be perfect but at least Zaun will be undergoing reformation during this time. Isha will be Jinx but without the psychosis that was often debilitates Jinx. She'll have a healthier mind, a healthier vision and view of Zaun. Then one day, she will pass it down to her own children, the kids who will grow in a reformed Zaun.
I just think it's such a missed opportunity to use Isha only as plot device and emotional leverage for Jinx. Besides, it'll tie up nicely with the parenthood theme in S1. That the strings of event passed down from Silco, Vander, then Jinx was not just tragedy for the sake of tragedy. It's about the struggle of these people passing down a torch for their children, designing it as such to their best effort so that their children won't get burnt holding it.
50 notes
·
View notes
Text
do y'all not even realize jinx altered caitlyn's entire arc by kidnapping her and that bcuz of it caitlyn had a good enough reason to hate jinx before jinx even bombed the council and killed her mother in the process??
yes, jinx kidnapped her but it was heavily implied jinx kidnapped her from her fucking bathroom. i'm sorry but how fucking terrifying is that? the one place where you're at your most vulnerable, literally naked. then, jinx must've forcibly dressed caitlyn up in her enforcer uniform (you can argue she just politely waited in a corner for caitlyn to finish showering and get dressed but it was late evening and caitlyn had nowhere to go and no reason to put her uniform on after a shower, and even if you claim jinx allowed her to get dressed herself - why the fuck would caitlyn choose her uniform, considering who was kidnapping her), then jinx took her to the undercity and held her hostage there by herself for an entire day before she got silco and vi to join the tea party.
during this time, of course caitlyn would've tried to escape, like did we all see her with that broken wine glass? she was just waiting for a chance. but the fact that she couldn't escape likely means jinx was there with her the entire time (aside from when she was gone for silco and for vi). and what do you think happened between them so that caitlyn wouldn't try to escape during the time jinx was gone? what do you think jinx had done to make caitlyn flinch when she approached her?
we may never know but i'll give you a hint. when jinx tells vi she made her girlfriend a snack, she pulls off the cloche to reveal... a single cupcake.
how would jinx know about that unless she'd forced caitlyn to tell her? vi gave jinx her name. that's what she was, a jinx. of course jinx would've wanted to know what name she'd given caitlyn. but you're so sweet, like a cupcake. of course caitlyn wouldn't have wanted to tell jinx that, not only bcuz of its implication for her relationship with vi but for the fact that it would only make jinx angrier, more insane and more destructive - her only reason to kidnap caitlyn and want her dead in the first place was the fact she thought vi had replaced her with caitlyn. so she somehow got caitlyn to tell her. eventually. if i had to guess how, i'd say jinx waterboarded her - since caitlyn's hair was wet when jinx pulled her chair in, and there's no way it wouldn't have dried since her shower (24hr ago), even though it's also possible caitlyn was so scared and nervous that it was sweat.
and unless i'm mistaken, vi doesn't call caitlyn cupcake again up until after caitlyn tackles her on the border of the noxian camp. so perhaps vi connected the dots after seeing the cupcake and this became yet another thing she felt guilty for her sister doing to caitlyn, or perhaps there just hadn't been an appropriate moment to be flirty again after caitlyn's literal mother died. but vi hasn't called caitlyn cupcake again since. and, metaphorically and only half-jokingly, caitlyn stopped being sweet. the caitlyn we knew from season one was gone. and i hate to say it, because i strongly advocate that vi calling caitlyn cupcake is not what made her decide to betray ambessa, but it had a grounding power over her and i wonder if it would've made a difference in caitlyn's choices if vi had done it sooner. if she'd been reminded sooner of who she was, and what vi meant to her.
#arcane spoilers#arcane season 2 spoilers#arcane speculation#arcane season 2#arcane 2#arcane s2#arcane season two#arcane silco#arcane vi#arcane powder#arcane caitlyn#caitlyn kiramman#vi#jinx#silco#ambessa medarda#arcane ambessa#arcane caitvi#caitlyn x vi#vi and caitlyn#caitvi#caitlyn arcane#vi arcane#jinx arcane#arcane
2K notes
·
View notes
Text

KNUCKLE VELVET, TORN ON MY TEETH
❝ VI!ONE SHOT ❞

pairing. pitfighter!vi x bartender!reader
warnings. eighteen+, nsfw content: arcane season two spoilers, soft angst, smut, bartender!reader, crashout!vi mends her cold heart, inexperienced!vi, switch!reader + vi, fem coded reader, coded alcohol addiction, slight spit kink, strap use.
KNUCKLE VELVET TORN ON MY TEETH, there's something charming about the pitfighter who doesn't stop drinking until she reaches the bottom of the barrel and the bartender who keeps walking her home.
wc. 7k+
rayray yaps. popping my vi!oneshot cherry, hehe, and i'm happy to do so. the vi brainrot has been real as fuck lately. i fear it's not going away anytime soon. but i wanted to give a special shoutout to @hypnagogics for proofreading this fic, means sm to me ily + my sweet bubba, @absfawn for the title name, i could kiss you until my lips fall off. the best people ever, i love them so much. okay, now i have yapped enough! happy reading, hope you enjoy.
Trapped in the abyss, just when everything had been taken from her life seems to sacrifice another offering on a silver platter. Something else that she thought could be hers, but wasn’t. In the end, all of it was the same. Life is the same. She takes three steps forward, circumstances out of her control take her apart like enforcers imposing their will on Zaun, and she’s forced to move five steps back. It’s all she feels, powerless.
Wanting nothing more than to drown her sorrows, forget all that she's lost. For everything that’s been taken, Vi feels an overpowering loss, threatening to take over everything she’s trying to build. But Vi thinks of none of it now, she can’t afford to think of one more thing. So, she doesn’t. All of her mind forgets. She forces herself to.
Zaun, Piltover, Jinx, Vander, Silco, and Cait.
She drowns in blood, sweat, and liquor for nights to come. She forgets everything and you are just the cherry top on this one shitty sundae. Anytime she’s here, Vi manages to get herself into a fight. Each time. Every time she tries to apologize or hold an ounce of guilt in her eyes, you see right through her crystal blues. From the very first night, you called her bullshit. Even if Vi didn’t give in, it was hard to hide her small smirk.
She lets herself think it’s because you’re a bartender. You practically get paid to read people, listen to them vent about shit you probably don’t give two shits about and break up the fights that erupt every thirty minutes. Overinflated egos and drunken assholes weren’t a great mix. The jury was still out if you though Vi was one. She could have both, she didn’t really talk much. Vi fought, drank until she couldn’t see straight, and you helped her up to her small apartment right across the street and up the steps into her said apartment.
No matter how hard she tries, it always ends the same. Vi looking like an imbecile and you, the pretty bartender who shuts down every advance she throws your way. Vi wonders who had a stronger shell, what you’re hiding in order to protect yourself.
Maybe she is just an asshole.
“You don’t have to walk me up here. I-I can make it just fine on my own.”
As soon as your fingertips let go of her fragile frame, Vi’s inebriated body collapses on the concrete steps, grabbing onto the metal framing as if her life depends on it.
“Really? Now you wanna prove a point?”
“For your information, I’m always in it to prove a point.”
Even if your words are harsh, with a soft smile and a hand open, Vi takes it as you let her lean on your weight as you assist her up the steps. There’s little shame to be had once the two of you make it in. It isn’t like the first time and when she noticed the scrunch of your nose in taking the smell, tequila and grease. Vi thought it was cute but she halts any further thought.
Quickly, Vi disposed of her leather jacket and pants she’s left in boxers and the wrap protecting her chest. The part of her life that seems to be kept together. She doesn’t really mind it though, you. Seeing her like this. Even more so, she enjoys it. You’re always so dismissive at the bar, hardly holding eye contact, turning down any flirting she hurls your way. Just like the vomit Vi had nearly thrown up on your shoes but made a quick diversion for the bush to the right of her instead.
This is truly the only time she knows you want her. Not so subtly, your eyes trace her like each pinpoint of your gaze is painting her on a clean canvas, one Vi wonders if she’ll like or not. When she’s been around you, she’s been wondering about a lot of things — thoughts she quite literally can’t afford.
It’s her, nothing ever ends well when her feelings can get crushed on the other side.
Everything she touches burns to ash before she can even hold it for a moment, a second of symphony retaliates with years of misery. How could you be any different? She wishes you would burn her underneath your gaze, put her out of the misery she feels growing every day, but you don’t. You’re always pulling her out of trouble when you truly don’t have to. It’s not your job to take care of her or hell, even look after her.
But you do and she can’t seem to figure out why.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Just shut the fuck up and let me help you. Not everyone has a motive. Some people just like to help when someone is so clearly struggling.”
“I’m not—”
You give her a glare that seems to shut her up. You draw a bath for her. It’s easy to find her towels in the only cabinet. It’s an acute studio apartment. More so of a small room with a stove stop, minimal counter space, and one bathroom enough to bathe and brush her teeth in. There isn’t much left of it but it’s hers. Grabbing the first aid kit, you kneel between her legs, the mattress sits on the floor, her legs spread and stretching out in front of you.
“Let me help you. Alright?” Vi grumbles, a incoherent complaint, but she lets you tend to her wounds.
It’s mainly just cleaning off her dry blood as she still complains in the process, but there’s a few cuts on her face and her cheeks are already beginning to bruise. It’s not a secret, she bruises like a peach but she always makes sure her opponent is leaving a lot more with just a few cuts and a bruise the size of a plum.
It’s then, when you’re concentrating on the cuts on her face, the busted lip she’s sporting; she looks at you. Maybe it’s the first time she has, but without even realizing it, she gets lost. Not in the way Vi doesn’t know who she is, that she’s completely lost on, but Vi sees you.
Bright-eyed, optimistic, helpful, kind — all attributes she couldn’t claim but wears like a badge of honor. As if helping others instills you with a sense of purpose, something that’s always been a lost cause to her. Fight until the next fight, and the next, and the next. That’s what she’s done, she's always been a fighter. She’s fallen back on it when needed. It’s clear to her. Like a vision she could see, crystal clear through some stupid ball, it’s always been about survival.
But how much longer does she want to fight and how much more does she have in her?
“Thanks.” Vi speaks softly.
Not knowing where to place her palms, she settles for her thigh. Silent as she watches, nearly analyzing every moment, every glance, every little thing you’re doing. It’s sobering to say the least. You don’t need to be delicate but you are. It’s more kindness than she deserves, nearly leaving a bitter taste on her tongue but when you offer a small smile and a soft whisper, you’re welcome.
It’s the sweetest thing Vi has ever seen.
There’s something different in the way you look at her. The soft omission exposes how sweet on Vi you may be. Definitely more than you’d let on, which was well…none. Up until tonight, she thought you hated her. With each word uttered in your direction, Vi assumed you’d rather swallow bile than stomach her slurred, flirty speech.
“Why do you want to help? It’s not like I’ve exactly been—”
“Kind?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
This time Vi lets the smile reach her eyes and your smile gets even sweeter. She can practically feel the sweetness rotting her teeth as she speaks. It’s the first time she feels something new, something as bright as the light radiating through your eyes.
“You just seem different. Even if you do try to hide it.”
With a flush of crimson coating the apple of her cheeks, she’s never been quite as exposed as this. The next few weeks are spent with less drinking, but Vi frequents the bar just as much as she did before. She orders a few pints just to talk to you. She’s learning more about you, slowly but surely, you’re opening up more. Divulging information you wouldn’t have before, trust is earned. It’s something you told her the first night you met and to this day, Vi still remembers it.
Regardless of how drunk she’d been when you said it.
It’s a typical night. Vi flirted with you but you aren’t being dismissive tonight but you’re careful enough to not let her know exactly how you feel. Everything you say is guarded enough you keep her on her toes, for a moment she thinks she might have to become a ballerina. It’s a slow night, Wednesday. Go figure Vi thinks. There was a woman who’d also been flirting with you all night. Vi thought she was beautiful, sweet, funny…certainly was making you laugh all night.
Part of Vi wanted to feel jealous but it feels too good hearing you laugh, she says nothing. Maybe you just don’t like women. Vi was known for reading into things too much, thinking everyone thought with their heart first just like she did, and assuming every hot and attractive woman was into other women — just like she is.
But the brunette left before closing, leaving Vi and a few other regulars paying their tab as they stumbled home with a belly full of liquor of their choosing.
“Alright Vi, don’t you have somewhere to be? Maybe getting some sleep for the night?”
“I don’t sleep much, it’s better if I don’t.”
“Keeps the nightmares away.”
All Vi does is nod.
“Story of the century.” You take Vi’s empty pint before washing it dispersing in the sink before cleaning up the remainder of the bar top. “Everyone’s got one around here and the new one is usually even more depressing than the last.”
“What about yours?”
“If you wanna hear that, I’ll have to be the one doing the drinking.” You smile but it’s the first one Vi recognizes as insincere.
“Yeah, seems to be the stone cold requirement for a heart to heart.”
Vi’s silent as you vent to her about the customer who refused to pay up tonight until you threatened to kick his ass and that wasn't enough, you threatened Letty on him. Vi found herself only slightly entranced as you spoke with such color, your animated voice doing impressions of the stubborn patreon, moving your hands as you speak, eyebrows furrowed as you finished the story.
You’re done cleaning and are ready to close by the time you finish, locking the door as Vi stuffs her hands in her pockets, “Can I ask you something?”
You cling to your bag like a lifeline. Vi notices how tight your grip is on the strap, almost as if you’re afraid. Of what? She has a craving to find out. “Why’d you turn her away? She seemed plenty interested. Not your type?”
You take a step forward, just as close as the last time you were in her apartment, tending to wounds she wouldn’t have really cared about but still she let you clean them.
You didn’t have to know that. Not yet, anyway.
“No, not really. I like my women a little rough around the edges, stumbling out of bars so wasted they can’t even walk home by themselves.” You smirk, grabbing the lapel of her leather jacket as you tug her closer to you. “Or is that what you want me to say?”
“Is it true?”
You both know the hope in her eyes is dangerous.
Hope.
A foreign concept in Zaun. If you get too close to the flame, you’ll get burned, dusting into ash as if you never existed. It’s what shimmer did to people, wipe them off the map until they reformed into a shell of what they used to be. You didn’t just get out of a place like this, not without some help. Vi could barely even help herself.
The both of you know it’s a bad idea. A terrible, god awful idea, but you still move in closer to her. Vi notices and she wipes the smirk off her face, your warm hands finding purchase on her exposed hips, drawing soft circles on her hip bones. She likes it, even when her heart feels torn from being blown to bits by a certain blue-eyed beauty.
Vi likes you.
“Your skin is softer than I thought it would be, smooth like pure silk. Not that I’ve ever touched it before but I’ve got to believe it would feel a lot like this.”
Vi feels a tingle up her spin, your touch is overwhelming, more than she bargained for really. A stumbling, messy kiss is all she really expected if anything. Not this. Clearly, you knew what to do. Leaving Vi a little clueless in that department, she’s knocked off her feet once again but this time in a way she wants to be. But actually bringing something this special to anything more than a few flirty quips? It never seems to be her strong suit.
So, she puts her best foot forward. Her big stupid mouth, one she can never quite fully silence. “I can guarantee my lips feel a lot softer.”
“Vi—” You speak her name like a warning, an unspoken law you’re breaking by entertaining your feelings and the bubbling sentiments you hold for her close to your heart. You know better than to keep it so close, but the halo in her eyes blinds you to reason and you let it.
“It’s Violet but you can call me whatever you want, sweets.”
You chuckle at the pet name.
“Just one night. That’s it. Just to get it out of our system.”
“One night, sweets. It’s all I need.”
—
It’s how you ended up here, the third night in a row since the first, trapped under the web of Vi and her eager mouth. Slender, perfectly sculpted fingers feel like a hex to your cunt, every moment causing you to fall further into her spell. To say she has a certain talent would be considered an understatement. It’s clear Vi’s enjoying herself, fuck, damn near suffocates herself in your weeping cunt. Last night wasn’t nearly enough, she needs to have you, again. Not that you were complaining.
As much as you hate to admit it, there has been no one as generous as her. As good as her, as sweet, as kind, and she did whatever the hell you asked for. Nothing has beaten the first night, her thumping clit nudging against your as she hiked one of your legs over her toned shoulders.
It’s not a secret how built she is, far from it, but it’s another thing entirely to watch her flexed bicep ripple with every grind of her hips. Each movement seems to be calculated with precision, focused on doing more than just making herself feel good. With pure determination, glazed over crystal blue eyes, and a pouty scarred lip, she makes sure you’re enjoying this as much as her. With each moan you let slip, her confidence only grows until she’s commanded full control over you. She takes what she wants from you and in return you’re seeing stars behind your eyes, constellations created in the shape of her name as you come.
“That’s it pretty girl, just for me, yeah?” Vi talks you through as she works you through your orgasm with her strong hips, not stopping even after you’ve cum. She wants more and Vi pulls three more orgasms out of you before she’s done for the night. You expected her to be good. There was no shocker there but you didn’t expect her to be so sweet afterwards. Vi is a drunk, an addict, whether she wants to accept it or not. You could be just another object she’s addicted to. Somehow, you convince yourself it’s just a one time thing. It doesn’t mean anything, it won’t.
Truthfully it feels much more than just a one night stand, more than an itch being scratched — the blossoming ache in your soul feels tethered to your heart every time Vi makes you feel an ounce of love — even when she tries to hide it behind a wall. Whether you’re aware, the wall can’t seem to stop crumbling. Brick by brick, it’s coming undone just as you have. Weak-willed and with purpose, you fall into her.
There isn’t an inch of your body Vi didn’t kiss. Her lips tattooing every inch of your skin with marked affection, almost as if she’s mending your skin with the burn of her lips. When she claims your soft lips, haunting you with the salvation of perfection as her velvet tongue invades your mouth, the taste of you melting from her tongue to yours. The silent declaration you didn’t ask for but craved, the carnal moan leaving her mouth as she chuckles when your hips pathetically grind into hers.
Vi enjoys your company, that much is clear, but this time you bring her to your place. It’s more or less the same. Both of you coming down from the highest of highs, you feel sticky, dirty, and damn right heavenly. Vi disappears into your bathroom, grabbing a wash rag before dampening the material underneath a warm faucet. Carefully, she kneels by your hips, legs twitching softly as her skilled fingers find your slit before Vi’s sucking the digit in your mouth.
“I just wanted one last taste before I clean you up.”
As she has before, Vi makes good on her promise and cleans you up. She enjoys when the pad of her thumb grazes against your clit, terribly overstimulated, your stomach twitches. All Vi can do is chuckle.
“I’m just a little—”
“Sensitive?” Vi smirks as you hide your face in the palm of her hands, the pad of her thumb gently caressing your skin.
It’s the lightest she’s felt in weeks. Almost as if she’s floating on a cloud, she wants to stay up there in the cloudiest of nines. Just you and her and an aging mattress as she offers you everything she can give. Albeit, it isn’t much but she’ll still freely give.
Like a dog with a bone, Vi corners you on the third night when it’s just you and her in the bar. Closing time has long since arrived and vanished into the crisp air of the night but Vi has you bent over the bar, desperation clawing at the weathered countertop of the bar as Vi’s fingers fucks your pretty little hole while her tongue laps at the slick that’s dripping out of you. Your pretty little skirt pushed up, your panties pushed to the side as she laps and sucks at your juices. She can feel you dripping onto her chin and it only makes her that much more eager to swallow every bit you have to offer.
“We shouldn’t be doing this—” Fuck. Vi starts doing tricks with her tongue, sliding in another finger, pushing against the soft spot buried deep as she toys with you in the way knows best. “We, um, Vi we said just one night.”
“Shut the fuck up and take it like a good girl. Or did you forget?” Vi moans into your cunt, the vibrations causing your thighs to shake under her mouth. “It’s not like you were complaining last night.”
Vi silences you as her pace picks up, her fingers fucking you at such a pretty pace, feeling the build grow in the pit of your stomach edging to come to a full bloom.
All of you begging for it to be released. Vi uses her free hand to slap your ass, sending you moaning and lurching forward. You push yourself back grinding against her tongue, before she removes her divine mouth as she kisses up your spine, her fingers stuffed inside you not faltering for a moment.
Vi continues to kiss up your spine until she reaches the nape of your neck, her breath kissing your skin, your body shivers into her touch. Full lips ghost over your ear before whispering quietly, “Are you sure you want me to stop? I will if you want me to. I just thought you might wanna, you know, take my cock tonight. Give it a good ride.”
The moan you let out would put Aphrodite’s to shame, needy and choked sobs escape you as her fingers thrust inside you faster than they have before.
“Oh? Do you like the sound of that, babygirl? Want to show me how good you can be for me?” Vi doubled down on her efforts, enjoying how much you arched into her body, your hips pushing back as you grind into quick fingers. She’s fucking you better than well…anyone.
“Vi, please.” Your voice catches in your throat, hoarse and full of need. An insatiable craving; one you fear only she can provide. A few mindless days and careless flirting to land in her sheets, her in yours, the details didn’t truly matter. A vampire out for blood, almost more venomous than precious canines breaking the skin, you yearned to suck on every last drop. But she didn’t seem to be in a mind frame to relinquish control.
“Please what? I’m not sure if I understand you.”
All of it, so tantalizing, so fucking infuriating. Three fingers inside you, effectively making you silent, shutting you up as she brings you closer to the edge. That’s the thing, truthfully, Vi has you right where she wants. Only a few thrusts away until you come undone around her. The black haired succubus increases the pace, thumb playing with your clit, her calloused fingers increasing your high as she applies more pressure on the thousands of nerve endings on your precious pearl.
“Shit. You’re gonna pay for this.”
“What? For making you come? I hardly constitute that as a crime.”
Your hands reach for the counter top, you’re not sure what exactly you want, but Vi makes you come for the first time that night. It’s a game, the push and pull. Dangerous. Intoxicating. Some disposition falling far from your fingertips, a game to her and a downward hill spiral for you. Addiction festering next to an open wound and the only antidote can be found on her tongue. Tasting the devil’s mouth is one thing but swallowing the sensation of the woman you’re beginning to love is something else entirely.
Vi, despite her best efforts not to, makes you fall over the edge. It’s more than her eager tongue and expectant mouth slurping at the vindication of your taste. The craving builds like an exposed vein. Her confidence irrevocably soars like a raven through the midnight sky. Even if Vi acts like she’s done this before, you could pull the curiosity intertwined with naivety a mile away. Violet has never done this before, not with a woman at least, you’re sure of it. She’s a fast learner and such a great accomplishment should replenish such a reward.
With the energy you have left, you push your skirt down first, as Vi puts your underwear back in place. She doesn’t stop touching you. She can’t. There isn’t much she feels she has control over, this arrangement being one of them. She’s good at this and Vi enjoys it. Every other part of her life, failure surrounds her, her ability not to please anyone in her life.
In a constant loop, she finds herself caught in the crossfire. Tugged between sister and lover, family and righteousness. Her enemy becomes her lover and lover becomes enemy — all of it poisons her blood and cures her core — and all of it makes her hear a voice she doesn’t recognize but it’s just as true as the four walls surrounding her.
Oil and water.
Collecting like scars on her porcelain skin, Vi feels herself sink like an obliterating star. There’s a wonder settled in her chest, it feels heavy and weak, two incapable fists unable to surround her heart with anything but loss, betrayal even. She can’t punch her way out of this one.
All of it wakes a fire in her chest, a dagger being punctured in her heart by the one Vi thought she could trust the most. She doesn’t want to admit it so she doesn’t.
But this? It feels easy.
She needs easy, light, even good. Maybe she doesn’t deserve it.
Vi definitely doesn’t, the sentence flows like a never-ending stream of waterfall continuously drowning her. The blood on her hands stains her perception of all things pure, she wonders how she even sees you at all. How you see her more vividly than anyone, possibly even Cait. There’s no judgment, no snarky remark of where she comes from. Even if she thought there had once been love, Vi questions it now.
When you come, it feels like a breath of fresh air, a golden wave washing over her sinful hands. Each stroke of gold, your grit and blind hopefulness soaks Vi’s entity. This is what she wants. There’s nothing more than this, someone she could love, who loves her. It’s uncomplicated but the feeling flees as you come to it. Vi can’t help but feel regretful as you cover your ass, it’s such a pretty sight. She can’t stop that she’s greedy, you’ve fed her for the first time in her life and now Vi feels full but she’s only human.
A sinner always craves more.
She lets her touch linger on the gold between your thighs, pushing the white substance back into you before Vi lets you feel how wet you are, the dripping slick feels uncomfortable caged into cotton underwear and she wants you to feel it. The breath Vi hears are still heavy, impossibly heavy, and there’s pride in hearing you center yourself, back pressed against her chest as Vi keeps you in place.
The pleasure within your body begins to slither away as you come back into the angel you are and not the sexual deviant bent over the woman who never pulls her punches.
“Felt good, yeah?” Vi says. Her angelic, sweeter than the cotton candy stick in your teeth, voice penetrates through. You like it too much. It shouldn’t make you feel as good as it does. Desperately, you want to keep this casual but you’re even losing your footing.
You pride yourself on the lack of attachment; you don’t need it. Never really had. But then with her it seems to change even faster than the seasons, your wall breaks somehow in between from spring to summer. With intent, you move around, her bright eyes have darken a bit but the fading light looks brighter than you’ve ever seen it.
Fuck, Vi is making this difficult.
“You could say that.” You speak softly, a tremble in your voice occurs but Vi says nothing but she does smirk. “Can I ask you something?”
You turn around and suddenly Vi is staring at your exposed cleavage, the one you use to draw in patreons and to fill your pockets with as many tips as one can muster. Vi had been one, a faithful one trying to drink her away to the bottom of every bottle until she found something else for her. Something that didn’t leave a burn in her throat.
“What is it?”
“Was it your first time? The first night?”
Sheepishly, Vi blushes. For a second, she contemplates lying but you’d see right through it. Right through her. It would only take one look in her blues and you would know.
“That obvious?” Vi struggles with her words next but she manages to murmur a lame excuse. “Stillwater didn’t leave much time for this.”
“And after?” You tease but the sincerity in your eyes soothes her.
“There could have been but there wasn’t. Some things just don’t fit.” Oil and water is what she wants to say but she bites her tongue.
“You should have told me. I wouldn’t have been so, I don’t know, selfish?”
“There’s nothing selfish about it. I wanted to make you feel good. Did you enjoy yourself?” This time she makes your skin feel hot. Fuck.
“Yeah, I did enjoy myself,” you pressed against her as your arms loop around Vi’s necks to bring her closer “but I think it’s officially my turn to offer my services. Don’t you think so?”
It’s how Vi ends up here, in your place, in your bed — soaked.
If there was one thing you knew, it was how to please someone. You managed to pull whimpers out of her she didn’t even know existed. The desperate plea coming from her shivering body as she spilled in your mouth the first time sent a shiver down her spine, the band in her stomach snapping as you sloppily spit on her cunt, constant circles of pressure on her clit seeing nothing but your eyes look up at her.
Not letting a single drop go to waste, you fucked Vi through it, swallowing her completely. Vi shed the wrap covering her chest next. Her body bruised from the pit fights but you couldn’t think of anyone more beautiful than her. You paid attention to her collarbones, neck, and her tits. Sucking on her nipples as Vi tries to come down from the high you placed her on, she doesn’t think she ever will.
She tries not to think that she wanted these things with Caitlyn. Cait. Cupcake.
Vi only allows herself to think of her when she’s dreaming, visions of what that could have been, what she used to be. All of it so trivial, so senseless when she thinks of you. How you make her feel is different and she tries not to think of what it all means.
One night.
Then two.
Now three.
In another life, maybe she was stronger, and didn't need to be wanted. Hell, even needed. She could wait for someone who she thought loves her but the other part of her doesn’t want to think, she wants to feel. Vi likes feeling the softness of your skin, the light in your laughter, the swell of your exposed chest, the way your greedy eyes take in her abs, your soft lips kissing every part of her skin. The smooth, the scarred, the unworthy — you take it all in such stride.
“Do you want to stop? I think I lost you for a second.” You inquire to the pretty girl beneath you, her hands find your waist, creating makeshift circles on your hip bones.
“No, that’s the last thing I want.” Vi brings you to her lips, capturing your bottom lip, tongue invading your mouth. She tastes herself as your tongue melts with hers and the rest of her worries melt away. It’s just you and her. “I want to keep going.”
“Then tell me what you want, baby. I’ll do whatever you want. It’s yours if you want it.”
It’s spoken as a reminder. All of this is her decision. Vi decides when she wants this, how she wants it, and you’re letting her take all of it in the way she needs. Vi tried not to think the first couple times, she never wanted her first time to be a big deal. Maybe with Caitlyn it could have been, but then she changed.
Vi thought maybe she could too. So, she did.
“Can you—” Vi stutters. Yet again her attention gets pulled to your tits, the softness of your stomach, she can’t stop looking at you. As if she’s trying to remember everything about you. She’s committed to it. Vi wants to remember the soft curves of your hips, the way you moan when she comes on your tongue.
The sight of you looking down at her makes she lose every rational thought, she wants to commit to memory forever. It won’t be something she easily forgets.
“Gotta speak up, babygirl. Especially if you want me to keep my attention focused on this pretty cunt of yours.”
You sit between her legs, tilting your head, you look at her glistening pussy, the way it shines with her cum and your sloppy spit. It would look even more exquisite with a little more. Taking a beat as you take your time, you gather enough in your mouth before spitting slowly, Vi whimpering as your spit makes contact with her lower pair of lips. She couldn’t stop it, it slips and you’re grinning, hips desperately bucking to feel more of it.
“F-Fuck, need your cock. Please? I need it more than anything.” Vi confesses. There’s no need for dignity, especially if she keeps it and you won’t give her what she’s itching for.
“Yeah? Are you sure about it? Don’t want you backing out just in case you can’t be a good girl and take it.”
She can take it but she can’t take the countless teasing, trapped underneath the images drowning in her mind. This is what she wants, someone to dissolve into her, make her forget everything that has happened, just a pretty girl with some pretty tits who knows how to fuck. Right? That’s all this is. It’s all it can be tonight. Her lip is busted from the fight tonight, knuckles bloodied and bruised, but you don’t seem to mind all that much. It’s all the same to you. Vi is all the same, that’s been clear from the start.
Then, she decides to let her mind get shut off, let herself fall into you. You did know how to take care of her and tonight she would let you.
“Let me know if it’s too much, okay?”
“I promise.”
Once the harness is on, you wedge yourself in between her thighs, tattooed and toned, brave and brawny but she transforms into someone else entirely once you’re sinking inside her warm walls. You think about what it would feel like to feel her. Is she clenching around your cock? Would you feel the throbbing heartbreak of her clit? What you can hear is the whimper, uncontrollable and breathtaking, you slip further into her as you make home in her beautiful cunt.
She’s made it yours to take. You’d do anything and everything for her, the thought alone scares so you do what you do best, you grind your hips slowly. Not wanting to overwhelm her too quickly, it’s the first time she’s taking penetration and you want it to be good for her.
“You’re so perfect. Doing so good for me, taking my cock like a fucking champ.” You whisper out, taking too much enjoyment in her getting lost in your soft thrusts. Vi’s chest starts to heave as her hips roll into yours. Vi never even imagined wanting this, or that she could really have it with someone else. It’s not like she’s experienced, she has nothing to compare it to, but it feels incredibly intimate.
She likes how you’re being with her. Soft, gentle, delicate. Vi thought she’d never want to feel that way, but maybe it’s just under the right circumstance in the right light.
“Shit, shit, shit” Vi chants as your hand grabs the headboard, giving her one particular powerful thrust. Perky tits spring to life, jolting against the sudden movement, her moan so fucking load, as you continue your movements. This time not as hard, but you pick up your pace, wanting to see if she would have any arguments against it but Vi doesn’t. Profanities and whimpers leave her mouth as you split her on your cock. Face half-smashed into the pillow, trying to muffle her moans and you offer this one mercy.
She’s still shy.
Now is a good time as any to fuck it out of her.
“Do you want more Vi? Want me to go…faster?” Placing a hand on her abdomen, the abs defined and clenching as you halt your thrust for a moment. “Do you wanna feel me in your stomach, baby?”
“Can you even do that? I’m not so sure you’re even capable. Looks like the rookie knows more moves than the veteran.” Vi bites back. But it doesn’t last for long. Vi thinks she must have said the wrong thing, pushed you too far, you slipped off her but only to move her body to the edge of the bed, placing her on all fours right in front of a very convenient mirror.
“Fine. Thought I’d be sweet but that isn’t what you really want. If you want to get treated like a whore, I’ll fuck you like one.” You take a beat to appreciate her wonderfully sculpted back, the artwork is truly exquisite. It feels so much like her but the foolish girl is smirking at you through the mirror.
You know you’ve been caught ogling at her body, checking out every inch of her exposed body, you slap her ass in retaliation but she just grinds her ass back onto you.
“I’m waiting.” Teasingly, Vi arches her spine more. “Where’s the whore fucking you’re muling about?”
In one move, you’re inside her, fucking her beautiful face into the mattress. Never in her life has she felt so full, so good, so sweet. You grab her by the meat of her hips, bringing you back on her repeatedly. Vi wonders what she would give to have this, have you, and the thought scares her just as badly. She instead focused on you.
Tits bouncing as you thrust into her at a punishing pace. Divinely and so perfectly you, making her see stars, she feels trapped. Not in a punishing way, but in a way that has her never wanting to leave the entrapments of your coaxing cock. At this moment, this is where she’s meant to be, just a toy for you to use.
But it’s more than what meets the eye. If Vi was just a toy, you’d be done after the first night. Tonight, you weren’t using her for your own pleasure. You seemed perfectly content to give. The shine in her eyes gave you something only she could, edging you even further, a constant wave hitting Vi like a tidal wave making home on the shore.
“God, you’re just too perfect. Fuck, just like that, take what’s yours.” Bouncing back on the strap, the words fall from her lips before she can’t stop them. Overflowing like a water fountain, it’s before she really even realizes what she’s saying, it just feels right.
“Mommy, please.”
Vi has had those words on the tip of her tongue but not that you’re fucking her into a different dimension, she lets the aching plea slip from sinful lips. It’s only once but it’s enough to set you off. You pull Vi up, her gorgeous back pressed against your chest, sitting on your thighs as you fuck up into her. Brutally, she takes everything you have to give.
Sweat glistening across her body, accentuating her chest as she tries to compose herself but you don’t give her the option. No. It would be too easy, wouldn’t it?
“I want you to watch, Violet. Watch yourself when you cum, be a good girl and show me how pretty you look, hm? Wouldn’t wanna disappoint, Mommy, now would you?”
Vi sucks on your middle digit, tongues swirling as she feels the tight band in her stomach, threatening to snap. She’s close. When the sensationally soft pad of your thumb applies pressure on her clit, Vi’s done for.
“Shit, oh my fucking god, baby baby babbyyyyy.” Incoherent murmurs and moans come in abundance as Vi bounces herself your cock, falling right apart as you toy with her clit, fucking her through the impending high. Your other arm tweaks around and up, fingers squeezing her tits, over stimulating her as she slumps against you.
It’s the easiest task ever done. Submit to you, your skilled fingers, the power of your sinfully sensational thrusts, she comes all over you. The powerful demeanor weakens before your very eyes. When you gently move her back on the bed, slipping out of her, Vi’s eyes begin to water from the loss.
The first time getting strapped down is always a lot to handle, you’d still taken it easier on her, too afraid you would push her too far but by the blissed out eyes, she’d enjoyed herself. She had enjoyed herself and you couldn’t really ask for much more.
When the both of you are cleaned up, Vi cuddles into your frame and you let her. Even if your first instinct is to push her away, saying something you know that’ll hurt her, none of it finds any merit on your tongue. For the first time, you find it difficult to turn away a pretty girl, her lips kissing your collarbones, up your neck until she finds home on your own lips, sloppily invading your mouth with your tongue.
Hitting you where it hurts, she moans your name in her mouth, unable to contain the neediness she feels around you. It’s worse than Cait. This is pure addiction entangled with something carnal. Vi knows if she doesn’t get to fuck you again, you fucking her cunt again, she might as well give up on life now.
“I could go again.”
You chuckle. Of course she could.
“Don’t know rookie, that might be all you can handle for the night.”
It’s a challenge and you know she’ll bite the bait.
With ease she gets on top of you, and just as if she’s done it a hundred times, Vi sinks on your cock, “I think I can handle another ride, don’t you?”
#m'actually kinda proud of this one#(ᝰ.ᐟ) arcane works.#i hope y'all like it :')#lmk what you think <3#vi#vi arcane#arcane league of legends#league of legends#vi smut#vi x reader#vi x you#vi arcane x reader#wlw post#wlw fanfiction#lesbian#violet arcane x reader#vi x fem reader#arcane x you#violet arcane
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
Arcane is a masterclass in body language and how to properly use it in storytelling to get your message to your audience without thunking them over the head/spoon feeding it them.
Caitlyn's relationship to Vi vs her relationship to others is a great example.
Caitlyn is almost always trying to create less distance between Vi and her or "fill the gap" between them:
Cait steps over the red line in Stillwater to show Vi the evidence
After Vi ditches Cait in the brothel to jump Sevika, Cait seeks her out and saves her from Sevika
When she gives Vi the medicine for stab wound, they're breathing each other's air
She reaches across the space between them on her bed to caress Vi's face
She chases after Vi following the Council meeting not going their way
Fairly certain, she was going to go look for Vi after her shower if Jinx hadn't kidnapped her
She seeks out Vi after her dad, more or less, says he doesn't want Vi in their house. Not to kick her out but to find some comfort in being close to her (i think this is why she pushed so hard for her to be an enforcer, to keep her close)
Cait also does a fair share of looking at Vi's lips, slightly leaning in, and second guessing herself all within a span of a blink
Vi asks Cait not to change (she already has), so she closes the gap between them, and they share their first kiss as a form of reassurance
She takes down Vi mongoose style and again starts closing the gap between them by betraying Ambessa and helping Vander
Cait slightly/momentarily leans towards Vi's lips when she's pulling the bag over her head
Vi spits in her face and wipes it TOWARDS HER MOUTH and not away
After Jayce shoots Viktor and Ambessa attacks, Caitlyn has ample opportunity to go after Jinx, but she focuses on Vi and covering her back until she gets sliced across the abdomen and then she runs to her to help her to her feet
Now let's look at how Caitlyn creates gaps and space with Maddie even tho they're sleeping together:
Beginning of episode 4, while they're sitting in bed, Maddie tries to close the gap and create some intimacy. Caitlyn, in turn, leans away from her, creating space between them
Maddie is also the one trying to initiate/create emotional intimacy, and Caitlyn swerves her each time
Maddie kisses/nuzzles Caitlyn's neck, and in response, Caitlyn has the quickest expression of "eugh" before fixing her face and moving away from Maddie
Instead of leaning into the intimacy Maddie is trying to give her, Caitlyn gets up to work on something and says she'll come to bed soon
Caitlyn lets Ambessa dismiss Maddie from the room after (more than likely) overhearing the discussion about restarting the council (I really think if this were Vi, Caitlyn would've pulled rank and told her to stay)
Maddie is also very absent from the rest of s2p2, and given how we've seen Caitlyn actively seek out Vi in her absence, she honestly doesn't seem to care where Maddie is or how she's doing
And none of this is explicitly told to the audience thru dialog. All thru body language. And i just think that's really neat
#thanks for reading if you made it all the way thru#arcane#arcane brainrot#body language#body language in storytelling#caitlyn x vi#caitvi#vi x caitlyn#caitlyn kiramman#vi arcane#lesbian#sapphic#i can't stop laughing at how much Cait doesn’t want Maddie#maddie arcane#arcane spoilers
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
*my eyes burst open w a flash of light*
SEVIKA
Yadda yadda yadda jinx is generally seen as a loose canon, does whatever she wants type of character, totally unpredictable. When in actuality, up until the last few episodes all of her choices and actions r motivated by wanting to please someone else. Hell. Even in the last couple episodes, the very Last thing we see her doing is ENTIRELY MOTIVATED by devotion and love and grief for silco, she’s taking out her frustration at herself and the world, and also honoring his wishes and dreams. By shooting a fucking bomb at piltover, she’s ensuring his life wasn’t in vain, she’s honoring him. In that moment
Her entire, self!!! is centered around love and loyalty. Is centered around other people, She’s motivated by an insatiable urge to prove herself, to be useful to those she loves, to show that she can help them and be there for them and be WORTHY of there love. That they haven’t made a mistake in loving her. To prove that she can be as pivotal to them as they r for her. She goes to the ends of the fucking earth to do this. And it ends. Terribly.
She puts the people she loves on pedestals and supplicates at there feet, she has no motivations most of the show outside of making the people she loves happy… she yearns for connection and love and safety. For a home that will never leave her behind, or crumble under her feet, (an indestructible home, That she can’t destroy just by being her…)
Which is why.. it’s so. Interesting and intriguing. How now, she has no one on that pedestal to worship, no one to drag sacrifices and offerings to the feet of, no one to spiral around and build herself off of. She is a person so *affected* by her relationships w others, but there is no relationship now, no one is stepping up to the plate to love her. She’s too much. For anyone. The one person who seemed to have unlimited patience for her is dead, because of her. and maybe vi could still love her.. but. She’s already soured that relationship. Already broken that one too. Broken all her favorite toys that made her so happy. That were there for her. And scared all the rest away. (There is a limit to what vi can support and forgive to reconnect w her sister. And I believe terrorism is crossing that limit ghgh)
And maybe, jinx is cutting that part of herself out on purpose. To be stronger, she’s realized she just. Isn’t made for love. That she ruins it all in the end. That it just makes everything worse. Messier. More complicated. She’s better off on her own, but for what PURPOSE! Who will she be now! What choices will she make!?! Almost all of her actions in the show were for others, what is driving her now, now that she has this gaping void at the center of her being. Where love used to be… what kind of person will she become, Without a guide to follow… a sun to orbit around. it’s sad honestly ghghg-!!! like yeah it’s not healthy that she is this way but there’s no THERAPY IN ARCANE. THIS IS THE WAY SHE IS! And now. She’s alone… it’s rough. But also intriguing…!! And I honestly have no clue how she’s gonna act in season 2,,, or what sorta shit she’s gonna get up to. but I’m excited.
#I have just watched the newest teaser.. omg. she built Sevikas new arm#Sevika is defending her… jinx probably tried giving her the arm and Sevika lashed out and that made jinx upset and she ran away#but then Sevika felt bad and came to hELP HER SEVIKA#SEVIKA I WAS NOT SURE IF U WERE GOING TO BE ON JINXS SIDE OR NOT SINCE#jinx does not rlly have a SIDE per say honestly!!! she is just fumbling her way thru this world one explosion at a time#and I thought u might be mad at her cuz of the whole silco thing. but OMG SEVIKA#SEVIKA AND JINX…. Sevika hardened badass w a heart of gold actually…#cannot help herself from looking out for this runt. even if itd be easier to leave her on her own to sort her own shit out#like… ghghg I love Sevika pls I hope the season actually has so much Sevika and jinx yessss. yes!!! ha ha ha!!! yes!!!!!!#Srry for hijacking my jinx mental health post for reactions to the new teaser but I was! excited!!!#I wanted to talk about it and I thought it’d be funny to add it onto this post lol#arcane#pepper words#sevika#jinx#also omg watching those fucking steampunk Victorian England chucklefucks try to mess w jinx#the violence I felt within me… like… I kno she’s a badass murderer who can kill ppl so good. but like.. seeing those guys hurt her#rage…. rage inside me. who the fuck do u think u are. die#ghghgh like I got SO protective watching that like how fucking dare anyone ever hurt a single hair on this girls head she’s WOBDERFUL#ok????#alright anyway… there’s my thoughts on that teaser lol. I’m excited for Sevika and jinx interactions :)#(jinx building sevikas new arm and getting rejected and that being why she’s crying isn’t confirmed but it MAKES SENSE!! ok!#I would like if that’s what happened so I believe that that is the case ghghg- if it turns out I’m wrong then! whatever lol)#I think if jinx is actively terrorizing u or society u r allowed to beat her up I can give ppl a pass on that#cuz sometimes… u kno.. sometimes she does do that! and ppl have a right to defend themselves / there homes#but those motherfuckers we’re on her for NOTHING! she was just running down the street upset!! I draw the line at that u#if u haven’t been personally victimized by jinx u aren’t allowed to hurt her ghgh-#this addition is in regards to my anger at the Victorian England chucklefucks lol#I think it might be more accurate to say I wasn’t sure if JINX was going to be on SEVIKAS side… honestly. rather than the other way around#ALSO B4 I RUN OUT OF TAGS. I actually think she’s probably crying cuz she ran into fucking VI AND THE ENFORCERS B4 not cuz of Sevika!
81 notes
·
View notes
Text
Something that has really bugged me about season two is Jinx's hallucinations and PTSD. It magically disappears when Silco dies, save for two scenes. I remember when people on reddit were literally making jokes about the writers going this route because it would be so stupid.
One of the things I loved about season one was the realistic depictions of mental illness that you just don't see often in media. I don't know what it is like to experience schizophrenia, but I have experienced PTSD and paranoia, and seeing how it was represented in Arcane was actually one of the things that helped me through it.
And then season 2 comes around and they just completely neglect this side of Jinx.
PTSD isn't a switch that can magically be flipped off. Recovery is a slow and gradual process. In absolutely no world would Jinx killing yet another family member cure her of her conditions, it would make them 10 times worse. Not to mention just before killing him she has an extremely severe psychotic episode, which would only make forgetting her trauma even more difficult since it was just brought up fresh in her mind.
And what even about the end of s1 was it that healed her? I genuinely have no idea, because she finally chooses Jinx only to once again go back and forth between Jinx and Powder in season two, because apparently all that buildup for her final decision was for nothing.
She does experience two hallucinations (I'm not going to count the jail silco thing in act three because what even was that?) when she sees enforcer Vi and when Sevika talks about the attack at Vander's statue, but suddenly that is all that triggers her?
In season one, just seeing Vi, or even someone who looks like Vi triggers her. But now when Vi is literally trying to capture and possibly kill her she is fine, it's only the mask that bothers her? Wasn't that her worst fear, that Silco and Sevika were right, that Vi only wanted to stop her? And she is constantly triggered by Cait in season 1 but not 2?
And then there was the insulting ending, where jail Silco tells Jinx to 'break the cycle' (something he would absolutely never do) and Jinx finally finds redemption by realizing she is purely a burden and her family would be better off believing she is dead. So she literally kills herself after Isha kills herself in what is framed as an act of heroism (and if Jinx actually didnt, than what even was the point of that scene, besides a cheap fake out?) What happened to Ekko trying to stop Jinx from doing that? What happened to Silco having Singed revive her to save her life after she attempts to take it? Or Jayce and Viktor talking each other out of it? Or Silco choosing to keep fighting rather than give in to the "peace in water"?
On purpose or not season 2 frames suicide as a glorious, edgy, perhaps even necessary thing and it's disgusting.
#arcane#arcane critical#arcane season 2#arcane season two#jinx#jinx arcane#arcane jinx#jinx's hallucinations#mental illness#mental illness in media#ptsd#psychosis#paranoia#shizophrenia#silco#vi#caitlyn kiramman#bad depictions of mental illness
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
God, I'm so happy with what they did with Maddie Nolen.
I'm sure there will be plenty of people mad because obviously there was a weird backlash over a character who has sex with one half a ship, so I'm sure some people worry this will lead those people to feel justified in their initial response.
But ignoring people who can't emotionally regulate for a second, because those childish impulses aren't worth dictating the fun things a narrative can do: Maddie is SO INTERESTING as a character and she fills in a lot of the questions people seemed to have about the rest of the season.
Consider for a moment that it wasn't Caitlyn who convinced Vi to be an Enforcer. It was Maddie.
I know that some people took this line to be about Zaunites, a sort of obvious connection to the very racist idea of "one of the good ones," but since Maddie is talking about Marcus and his betrayal of the Enforcers just before this, I'm pretty sure her framing here is something else. The point she's making is specifically targeted at Vi's own beliefs and weaknesses, her desire to protect. That seems clear to me now with all we know about Maddie's capacity for manipulation.
She's not saying, "You're good, for a poor."
She's saying, "Wow, I agree with you, the Enforcers are really bad; it's so upsetting. I think you might be the only one who can change it, but only if you join us." This is what convinces Vi to do something she never thought she would.
Well, this and the fact that Caitlyn believes in her so much which, again, is information she gets fed to her directly from Maddie. It even seems like Maddie seeks her out just to say this, which on first viewing felt oddly convenient. Wow, Vi just happens to meet this naive girl who just happens to say exactly what she needs to hear to do something so out of character.
Except obviously none of it was coincidence. Everyone already knew how much Vi meant to Caitlyn and getting Caitlyn under control would require either controlling Vi or removing her from the equation. This was a push in that direction.
Then there's her more obvious role as the spy in Caitlyn's bed, there to reassure her that the Noxians are only trying to keep all of them safe. Then when Caitlyn expresses larger doubts, she's immediately ready to lay out an alternative. You could just give up, Maddie seems to whisper gently in her ear. Just reestablish things as they were before.
But she knows Caitlyn isn't going to go for that. She's not going to go back to the council as it was, because it's only going to remind her of the empty place her mother left behind. Maddie knows that Caitlyn isn't going to take this offer, which is precisely why she suggests it. She frames quitting as the only clear alternative to going along with everything Ambessa wants because she knows that Caitlyn will refuse, which leads her right back into alignment with Ambessa. She makes continued obedience into an active choice that Caitlyn affirms she's making.
Even Maddie's comments that suggest direct opposition to Ambessa — "you're our leader... I follow you" — are designed to frame herself and her true leader in direct opposition, just as Ambessa's own warning about entanglements is there to further that point. They both make a point of reminding Caitlyn that they are her true ally, isolating her further from anyone who isn't the devil and (other) devil on her shoulders.
This way Maddie and Ambessa can both tug at Caitlyn, pulling in what feels to her like opposite directions, all so that she lands precisely where they wanted her all along but with the illusion of active agency.
And look, I'm not saying my read on her is gospel, because I think they intentionally gave us enough room to really speculate and wonder about her, someone who could have been just a background nothing character but ends up being such a huge part of the second season. That's so interesting!
I especially love that she comes across as really naive and innocent, just some poor little thing swept up in the fervor, when in reality she's a true believer who has been manipulating things to go her way from the start.
#maddie nolen#arcane#arcane s2 spoilers#arcane spoilers#when maddie first showed up my immediate feeling was ''oh noooo they made a sweet and innocent cop''#BUT NOPE.#they did NOT and that's so fucking funny
1K notes
·
View notes
Note
Can I request angst for arcane characters x reader. Where they argued with each other and then later on reader is hanging on to dear life (READER SAVE ISHA FROM DEATH PLEASE! IM COPING-)
Arcane women with an s/o that dies after an argument. | Vi, Jinx, Caitlyn x Gn!Reader



So I may have taken this idea in a more extreme direction, ahaha... Anyway, thanks for the great request and I hope you'll enjoy!!<3
(I'm sorry in advance-)
Content: Heavy angst, arguments, spoilers for season 2, established romantic relationships, blood, fatal injuries, sfw
Reader has no set pronouns.
((Not proofread))

》VI
Your argument was a petty one. At least in her humble opinion, at least. She warned you not to push her too far, to not bring up Caitlyn when it wasn't needed. But you ofcourse refused to listen, and it ended in a full-blown screaming match she wasn't proud of. You were just looking out for her, scared she'll lose herself under the bright lights of the fighting pit and the flashing bass of the clubs. The alcohol consumption was destroying her, too, and you wanted to get her out of this hellscape.
You were always so kind and patient with her, something she was always so grateful about. So why did she tell you that she hated you? That you were overbearing? That Caitlyn was far better than you ever could be? She didn't know. She really didn't.
And any apology she may have had died on her tongue when you ran out of her dingy little showroom in tears. Oh, how her heart ached at the sound of YOU apologizing for not being good enough. The clarity of what she had done hit her like a truck then, making her finally see what she had become.
The shame made her turn even worse, your warnings and pleas feeling undeserving to follow. Days turned into weeks, then months, and she eventually forgot all about everyone... except for you. The image of your brokenhearted figure haunts her at every moment. Especially her dreams.
So when Jinx came to her for help, she saw it as a sign. She needed to apologize and get you back. She was desperate for it. She couldn't take it any longer without you. But alas... karma was an odd thing. Instead of hitting her like she wished, she found you being the victim of it instead. Whatever God was out there must've hated her terribly.
You were fighting with the Enforcers during the invasion of the Noxians and the Herald. Battle was never your strong suit, but you were never the type to back down from anything. Especially not when it came to the defense of your home. You had the option to leave. In fact, Caitlyn was the one to give you it. Yet, instead, you grabbed a uniform and headed to the Frontlines at her side. You were always so loyal, so goddamned good.
It was, therefore, not surprising that you threw yourself over Vi when she was being shot at. You had only briefly seen each other before it was time to move, and you gave her a welcoming, weak smile that made her heart hammer against her chest. She wasn't deserving of you. "Why... Why the fuck did you do that?!" She yelled over the sound of chaos above her, when she was finally able to get you somewhere safe. Giving her a bloody grin, you flinched a little at the pain in your chest, an arrow protruding from it. The crimson liquid drenched the blue of your uniform and Vi's palm that she desperately pressed against it. But there was no hope. It was over.
The gods wanted you dead.
Placing your hand over hers, you stopped her frantic movements with a chuckle turned cough. "I... I'm sorry-" "-Stop apologizing! I should be the one doing that! I'm the reason this all happened, I... I'm so fucking sorry." Her tears dropped onto your face, and you reached up with the last of your power to wipe them away. You couldn't breathe anymore. Your heart was beginning to fail, and the primal panic set in in the face of death. Intelligible words spilled out of your mouth, not making any sense to anyone but you. You wanted to tell her how much you still loved her.
But with a deep, rattling breathe your suffering was finally over, and your hand dropped to your side limply. Vi could only stare at you in horror, unable to say a word anymore, before she was dragged away by some Enforcers. She tried to fight her way back to you, yet there was no use.
The last thing she saw was your body being covered by debris from the falling ceiling.
》JINX
You and Jinx had gotten into an argument in the Herald's weird compound over Vander's well-being. Whilst she, too, didn't trust Viktor, she ultimately had no other ideas on how to turn him back to normal. And that's all she really wanted. She wanted her father back so badly that she and Vi were both too blinded to see how odd this entire thing really was. And it didn't help that you were worried about Isha's safety too.
Everyone here felt too robotic to be human. They didn't have real emotions or motivations other than what their leader had already preached about. It all felt superficial and lifeless, like they were husks and empty shells of people. But alas, you were the only one who saw it. Everyone basked in the warm sun and heavenly aura, never daring to glance into the darkness around them in fear of what they may see. The people that were "healed" didn't seem really healed. And you wondered if the Herald himself was blinded too.
Either way, it led to a huge argument in which you asked her to get Vander and everyone else rounded up to leave immediately. She was confused at first, but it started to frustrate her how you couldn't understand how much this meant to her. This was the first step to freedom and having her family back. A family she always wanted to have with you. Jinx got a small taste of that with Isha around now and never wanted to lose it again. But you couldn't shake the feeling that something really bad was going to happen if you didn't get out of here now. It ended with you both going your separate ways for the time being, mainly because you refused to argue in front of the poor small girl.
You avoided each other like the plague in the compound, and Jinx ignored you out of pettiness when you tried to reconcile. The safety of the family you've created was also important to you. More than she'll ever understand. But alas, no one could convince the blue haired girl of talking to you again. Not Vi. Not Isha. Even Vander tried his luck by slightly pushing her towards you. She always took everything so personally. So much so that her stubbornness often caused the death of others she cared about.
And just as she thought that she might have finally escaped that fate, the world had to once again prove her wrong.
The Noxians were attacking, wanting to get ahold of Vander, who had gone crazy and aggressive in response. Calming him down was impossible, and fighting off an entire army of trained warriors even harder. Jinx was panicking, trying to look for you and Isha in the dense, chaotic crowd, until she saw the small girl sprint towards the crazed Warwick with her gun in hand. She was quick to understand what she was trying to do and attempted to stop her, but Vi held her back. But the girl wouldn't die today. No, at least that part of her wish would come true, as she wouldn't lose her family today... just you. Her entire world.
You came sprinting out of the masses, practically tossing Isha into safety as you grabbed the gun from her. Aiming it up at Vander, things slowed down around you when your eyes met Jinx's horrified ones. Her screams echoed in your mind whilst you mouthed "I love you" to her and pulled the trigger, hoping that everyone made it out safe in the end.
》CAITLYN
The funerals of the deaths that were caused by Jinx's actions were all cold and grim. All of them evoke deep hatred in Caitlyn, who now stood at her last one, most guests having cleared out by now in grief. Looking back, she wondered when everything went wrong. After careful analysis, she came to the conclusion that your argument sparked most of the events in a way.
You were feeling betrayed by her lack of presence in her relationship ever since she and Vi had a mission to complete. She never let you in on what exactly they were up to, and she now realises that it was wrong of her. Cait could see how you might have thought that she had something with Vi that was never there. Sure, she was a pleasant company, and the only thing she had in very dangerous moments... but it was never more than that. She was a friend and that's it.
You, on the other hand, were her betrothed, the person she swore her life to and wanted to marry in the coming spring. Her mother had always approved of you two and practically pushed her to the next step, especially at how close she was with you. Cassandra had adopted you as your mother in law from day one, to say the least. And yet... she had disappointed her with the way she yelled at you to get a grip. Caitlyn was so stressed and exhausted in that moment that she couldn't think straight and let it out on you. Something she regrets deeply, perhaps even more than never being able to tell you how sorry she was now.
A hand came to rest on her shoulder, her mother’s stern, yet sympathetic expression greeting her. "It's time." She said, confirming the closing of your casket. Yes, this was your funeral. You had thrown yourself on top of her mother once the ceiling came crashing down. She lived with minor injuries whilst you were crushed by the debris. It was all so fast. Your reflexes were impressive as always. And it cost you your life. You were dead. Gone. She still couldn't believe it, even after gazing at your body for hours on end now.
The rage and anger turned into unspeakable hatred, one she could never shake for as long as she lived. She'd get her revenge one way or another. Even if it means to burn the entirety of Zaun down in your name to achieve it. But instead of voicing it, she took a deep breath and nodded. "Very well." She whispered, not trusting her voice anymore. The guilt was eating her alive, and she couldn't help but sway a bit on her feet at how nauseous she felt. You were always so scared of the dark and tight spaces. This was your worst nightmare, and she couldn't stop thinking about how scared you must've been in your last moments. Her mother said that you cried out Caitlyn's name before you stilled.
And so, as the casket's lid began shifting over your cold, stiff body, she stretched herself ever so slightly to catch last glimpses of your slumbering expression.
She may never forgive herself... but she'd make the undercity beg for her forgiveness instead. It was time for justice to prevail at last.

#arcane x genderneutral reader#arcane x you#arcane x reader#arcane x y/n#arcane vi#arcane vi x reader#vi#vi x reader#arcane Jinx#arcane jinx x reader#jinx#jinx x reader#arcane caitlyn x reader#arcane caitlyn#caitlyn#caitlyn x reader#caitlyn kiramman
906 notes
·
View notes
Text
"Clearly, Caitlyn Kiramman Should’ve Known Better at 23: A Masterclass in Ignoring Trauma and Believing War Criminals"
**Spoilers for all of Arcane**
Recently I made the mistake of delving into the comments of an otherwise excellent post regarding Caitlyn Kiramman and the aftermath of her time as "dictator", specifically in terms of were there enough consequences? did she do enough to make it right? should more have been done to her? that sort of thing. In the festering cesspool of those comments, I saw a variation of the following statement:
"if we were doing things based on what was fair and just, Caitlyn should have been executed on behalf of the two cities for peace"
It was more crude but you get the point. This person alleged that Caitlyn deserved death for what happened during those few months. Before we move forward lets review what we know about all of this. I have quite recently covered a lot of Caitlyn's arc so I'm not doing a deep dive here. Just enough to address this particular bit of idiocy.
How It Starts:
Like I said we aren't doing a deep dive here, so just for a quick reminder as to where twenty-three year old Caitlyn is mentally at this point(regardless of fault or nuance, just the facts):
Has been almost killed by Jinx three times
Almost killed by Sheriff of Piltover
Abducted naked from her childhood home, forced to dress in Enforcer uniform, bound, gagged, and forced to attend Jinx's tea party where Jinx tries to get Vi to murder Caitlyn
Violently knocked out
Shows Jinx mercy at Vi's request
Jinx kills her mother
Trying to become head of house Kiramman
Undercity attacks the memorial
Survives strike team operations
Brutal fight with Sevika
Vi stops her from shooting again
Very emotional split from Vi after hitting her and leaving her alone
So, with all of that under consideration, a Noxian warlord in her fifties who has commanded troops on various continents across Runeterra, calls her up and says trust me, i have your back, we will get justice for your mother. And Caitlyn folds... Le Gasp?!
Guys I know this is a little more snarky than my usual approach, but this really is just not that complicated. This is not even subtle. We literally see the flash back of Ambessa orchestrating the memorial attack to get us to this point. Caitlyn is an open wound mentally and emotionally, she never stood a chance. Lets take a moment to review some important points here by the way:
Ambessa came to Piltover for Hex-Tech. She doesn't hide this from Mel and is quite clear in her goals.
"If there is a chance hextech can be weaponized, we must have it". Mel responds "Piltover isn't your testing ground... I can't believe you'd start a war just to cover your ass" And Ambessa responds "i would set the world ablaze to protect our family". And the conversation ends with Ambessa ordering her daughter to "let the war unfold".
2. She executes her plan to make Caitlyn her scape-goat in front of:
Councilor Salo
Councilor Shoola
Large group of enforcers
Group of twenty plus people who make up as Ambessa states "every house and family with a modicum of influence"
Not a single, solitary person says a word when Ambessa brings a twenty-three year old grieving young woman with, if we're being generous two months of combat experience though probably less, and says She is in charge now! They let Caitlyn be walked right into the jaws of the wolf herself.
The Great And Terrible Rule Of Caitlyn The Creepy! WHAHAHAHA!:
What she gives her okay on:
Occupation of Zaun
Lawful (under martial law not normal law) arrests of those who cause problems
Yep... there it is folks. There is the great list of terrible crimes against humanity committed by the she-devil of Piltover herself. Checkpoints and arrests. Which by the way I am not justifying. People being arrested subjects them to Ambessa's brutality once they are inside. And as we clearly see Rictus uses the right to arrest to brutalize a Jinxer, and to break up the rally. And Caitlyn absolutely shares some portion of the blame for that. But um.. the way people reacted I was really expecting more public hangings and and labor camps.
**Not really a good place to put this but just fyi, despotic mad-women don't usually have to get up early to please a craftsman guild over supply complaints... just saying..."
"But OP! Sexy Zangief was beating people up and breaking up peaceful rallies!"
Well fortunately we talk about that!
"Was it for my encouragement that your man Rictus was instigating violence?"
How does Ambessa respond? Not with anger, or rage. First with guilt "You don't trust me", then with approval when Caitlyn responds the blade cuts both ways "fearless child, you never shy",
Ambessa is a master manipulator. Caitlyn is and was grieving her mother, and her whirlwind extremely intense romantic relationship with Vi. She had a gargantuan hole in her heart and a woman with decades leading and commanding soldiers and learning strategy slid right in. Recall that in bed with Maddie Caitlyn almost is defending Ambessa, talking about learning so much from her and the lives Ambessa saved with her assistance getting control of Zaun, so they could hunt for Jinx. Caitlyn has legitimately come to care for Ambessa at least on some level. I even believe that on some level Ambessa has come to care for Caitlyn.
2. "Arrests require cause"
When Ambessa is suggesting someone in Zaun knows where Jinx is, this is how Caitlyn responds. Not with orders to start dragging people out into the street. Not executing children in the street or burning down buildings. And when Ambessa tries to justify it "What greater cause is there than returning peace to the city?" Caitlyn responds:
3. "Why is peace always the justification for violence".. (Note Ambessa laying comforting hand on Caitlyn's shoulder during conversation)
Ambessa gives her this speech: "we've lost so many.. the anger, the sorrow.. it's tiring. Gods, I know it's tiring.. But you will never rest knowing that she's out there. Or maybe I underestimated you. Maybe you have the strength I do not.. to forgive.. and trust in tomorrow.. the decision is yours commander.."
"I know you are so tired, I know you are exhausted. I know you want this to be over. But you can't feel safe with her out there. I know you can't. Unless of course you can do what even I can't. Forgive your mothers FUCKING MURDERER. But ya know, up to you"-
If you truly cannot see the insidiousness of how Caitlyn is being twisted and manipulated, I envy you the charmed life you have lead. But be weary my friend, "you're off the edge of the map, here there be monsters." (POC 1)
"But OP! Ambessa was experimenting with Hex-Tech and committing brutal interrogations!"
I will admit the show does not explicitly state that Caitlyn did not know about this. Explicitly. However, given our context clues I feel quite confidant suggesting she did not:
See literally everything she said above
Every time we see them doing this she is not present
It seems like they are in some deep and away part of the prison when they are doing this
In private after the failed hex-tech experiment, Ambessa laments that they didn't secure the scientists before seizing control of Piltover. She is openly discussing that they are the actual ruling power. I seriously doubt she would be doing that anywhere Caitlyn may come knocking.
She Could Have Stopped At Any Time! Maddie Even Say So:
You mean that Maddie? The Noxian spy who keeps an eye on Caitlyn from her fucking bed, taking advantage of Caitlyn's grief and guilt over how things ended with Vi? Caitlyn is reminded she has a choice twice. The first time by the spy in her bed, and the second time by Ambessa herself. Her loyalty is being tested. Not her conscious. Ambessa literally put eyes and ears in her bed, and some of yall wanna argue Caitlyn wasn't being controlled. Ambessa assumed the role of Caitlyn's mother, and had her spy take on the role of Vi. And I will say this. Sure. Caitlyn could have gone to Ambessa and called it all off. No more war, no more martial law, the council is in charge again so no more imprisonment and hex-tech experiments. And maybe.. just maybe Ambessa would have row-row-row your boated her homicidal ass home. I rather doubt it. I suspect that conversation would have ended with Caitlyn getting this treatment:
We have been over this already but for a reminder:
Ambessa came here for hex-tech to fight the blackrose. She instigated the memorial attack for her cause.
"I would set the world ablaze to protect our family"
As we will come to see later, her last living child begs her to stop the bloodshed, even offering to go back with her, and all Ambessa can see is weakness.
Other indicators of how she is doing with everything:
"I never expected this to go on so long.. I thought.. I don't know what I thought.."
"Up again?" Maddie tells us Caitlyn hasn't been sleeping
Forbids the use of the cells Vi was kept in
REWIND BACK TO HELLFIRE:
I recently just did an in-depth doc on the strike team, the use of the grey, and what all of this means in story. So I will keep this brief here. but I do want to discuss it as "SHE WAS GASSING KIDS!" is still being vomited up by every double-digit iq booger eater with a keyboard.
Ambessa orchestrated the memorial attack to force Piltover retaliation
The strike team is an alternative to a full-scale invasion by Piltover.
They are hunting dangerous drug lords, destroying shimmer, and hunting Jinx. All three seem fairly reasonable. The issue is not if they are doing something wrong, it's the reason Caitlyn has them doing it. All you have to do is refer to the handy dandy song lyrics they use as Arcane always does to understand this:
"Can I do the right thing for the wrong reason? Is it bad that I'm making friends with my demons, and Living by a couple deadly sins Just to make sure I finish what you began And I ain't afraid to lose a life or ten If it means that I get to win in the end (woo) So I'ma do this on my own, step into the danger zone Pull the pin and watch it blow" (Hellfire Fever 333)
4. Using a crowd dispersal agent that incapacitates bad guys with no documented fatal effects (see multiple characters exposed who are all alive and seemingly well, those images of the people with health issues were from the unfiltered, unaltered smog the Undercity used to live with)to hunt a target who likes to blow shit up seems fair. Also the fact that it knocks people out means they don't have to kill them.
Caitlyn's Remorse And Attempts To Make Things Right:
Literally starts a war with Ambessa to save Vander
Saves a hurt Vi with Jinx's back exposed to her when she is armed
Takes care of injured Vi in her own bed and postpones any judgement of Jinx until Vi wakes
"I Know!"
"We can't erase our mistakes.. none of us"- Equates herself with Jinx
"No amount of good deed can undo our crimes"- Equates herself with Jinx
"Hating you.. I've hated myself.. I just don't have the energy for it any longer.."
Tender moment showing IMMENSE regret during she and Vi's big scene.
The Cost:
One statement I saw opined that there is a difference between remorse and punishment, and that Caitlyn should have been punished. That giving up her seat and losing an eye hardly qualified. Well! Boy oh boy do I have good news for you. Let's take a gander at the physical "not punishment" she acquires willingly leading from the front lines against Ambessa:
Cracked in the head with rifle stock, twice: Skull fractures anyone? how about a lovely concussion?
Stabbed in the stomach: Internal bleeding, bile leaks, intestinal obstruction due to scar tissue adhesions, bowel perforation, the list goes on.
Kicked in the midsection while still stabbed: potential to drive knife deeper lacerating organs and such, just massive pain, potential catastrophic bleeding if a blood vessel was hit, potential rupturing of stomach, kidneys or liver releasing harmful fluids into abdominal cavity, potential for long term chronic pain or permanent organ damage
Leg sweep by Ambessa driving Caitlyn's head into the ground: potential tbi, brain hemorrhage, or further skull fracture, potential vertebral fractures, potential long term cognitive impairment or loss of motor control if spine is damaged
Kicked again: We covered this. Knife is still there.
Ankle pinned/Leg kick/backhand: All sorts of fun things happening to ligaments and tendons. Potential permanent disability. Potential concussion and bruising as well as a whole host of lacerations.
Headbutt with War mask on: Concussion, skull fracture, brain bleed
KICKED OFF OF HER FEET
Pulls knife out of her own body: Potential fatal bleeding, massive pain, possible peritonitis and respiratory distress depending on what all was damaged during the fight with the knife still in her body.
Sacrifices her own eye
Now lets take a quick look at some reasonable assertions for the mental "not punishment" she will likely suffer from after all of this:
Massive potential for PTSD just from the wounds alone
Losing an eye impacts her shooting which is a huge part of who she is and a link to her mother
A woman she shared a bed with levelled a rifle at her neck and pulled the trigger. Caitlyn thought she was going to die.. that doesn't just go away..
look at her face...
She is twenty four people....
4. Guilt over death toll of war
5. Guilt over Vi's possible death from downward spiral
6. Guilt over Vi's possible death from explosion in commune all born from Noxian;s arriving there
7. Guilt over everything done to the Undercity
8. Guilt over perversion of her families ventilation system
9. The fact that from season 1 Act 2 til now, she only ages a year and probably not even a whole one. Refer to my list in the beginning. She has not a single fucking second to breathe or heal from any of that shit
RESTITUTION:
So aside from willingly leading the battle that most of the undercity walked away from until Jinx shows up and almost dying for it, how does Caitlyn start to make things right you may ask? (because it is a start, for those who don't get that. This is the beginning of a story not an end). For the first time in what we understand to be the history of the twin cities, Zaun has a seat at the table. People are REALLLLYYYYY underselling this. I guess because they wanted a whole political treaty signed and to watch Caitlyn get shame-nunned through the street or something. IDK. But what I do know, is that Caitlyn gave away the ancestral seat of house Kiramman, and all the power and authority that came with it, and it now belongs to someone from the undercity. An equal voice. And it's just the beginning. It's not perfect. It's not all wrapped up in a big shiny bow, it feels real. Change isn't instant. It never has been and it never will be, and if you need that to feel fulfilled I understand, but this show was never going to be that for you.
Caitlyn Should Be Executed?:
So back to the original statement. Caitlyn should be executed in the name of peace between the cities. Well, I'll say this. if you see a 24 year old woman who inside of a year had her entire reality imploded, fell prey to the manipulations of a violent war monger close to 30 years her senior if not more, yet found her way back to herself and shed her own blood as a war hero TO SAVE HUMANITY, and your answer is she should be executed. Sure! So long as you admit you have the humanity of a toaster oven you fucking idiot.
To those of you who have continued to read, and share your thoughts, and been open to kind debate and discourse in good faith. You all mean the world to me. As I have said many times, opening myself up to this community has really happed my "real" life in a lot of ways and I love getting on here to appreciate and celebrate this story with all of you. That being said, this particular issue is so god damn irritating to me I am done being nice about it. Have a wonderful day!
943 notes
·
View notes