#more vi from arcane!!

[inotaro]

i think my best attribute is loving characters that are underrated from different fandoms that deserve all the love. the issue with that? NO FICS ABOUT THEM!

[ann7av]

Spoilers for act 2

Isha is Jinx's inner child just as Warrick is Vi's inner monster and their mutual destruction is actually a pivotal event so they can both evolve as individuals, in this essay I will--

*start yapping*

No, I mean it, the hyper fixation kicked in and it kicked me hard. This is just about Vi's perspective in ep.5 btw but in my defense, she looks so tired

In the first arc, Vi starts to separate Powder from Jinx as a way of coping, she feels guilty about the destruction Jix caused and, as we know, Vi would never intentionally hurt her sister so the only way for her to try and stop her is to separate the two.

She can't kill her sister but she can kill Jinx (at least she thinks she can)

In ep.5 we see her spiraling into self-destruction, her entire character thus far has been taking care of others and now she has no one, and as such she doesn't think she has value simply as an individual.

Vi cannot accept change, that's her biggest flaw, she can't accept her sister's change or the change in the underground, and she begs Cait not to change in arc one. She somewhat recreated what her life in prison must've been like (she has a tiny apartment where she keeps herself enclosed, she's fighting on a daily basis, she's angry) so Vi's seeking familiarity in whatever she can find.

Now, she wakes up to Jinx in her little "protected" new reality, and her first instinct is to attack. She chokes Jinx (not her sister) and tells her off when she tells her about Vander, but THEN what happens?

Jinx starts to cry, and for a millisecond the illusion of Powder X Jinx is broken and Vi lets go of her, allowing her to say that "Vander is alive" and that "He needs OUR help".

Just like that, Vi's forced to face the possibility of change, she's not trusting that any of this is actually real and not one of Jix's "delusions" but it doesn't matter, the chance that someone NEEDS her help is enough for her to finally look at her own reflection on the mirror she broke in anger and denial, she has a choice to stay in the illusion or to take a risk.

Now, Vi follows her out and sees the mural. Not only does the mural depict Jinx (the person Vi is convincing herself killed her sister) as a hero but it also has Vander in it.

Jinx became Silco's daughter, the man who killed Vander and tore their family apart but for Zaun, she's also Vander's legacy of revolution. Vi is having to face that both things can be true at the same time.

They walk the tunnels and they start bickering, throwing things at each other's face and it's clear she's trying to avoid thinking too hard about what Jix is telling her.

Vi drops her gauntlets to make a point she doesn't need them, but her gauntlets are a physical symbol of her own emotional barriers, she takes them out when she's comfortable enough to let her guard down.

In this scenario, she's using her anger as a shield against Jinx, and anger is a safe emotion so she assumes there's not much risk, she doesn't expect Jinx to hit her, and when she does she hits back.

The thing is, that fight does not seem serious, they're not actually trying to hurt the other but rather just trying to prove their own points.

Now, Isha is serving as Jinx's inner child here and, as one would expect, she jumps in to help. But Vi's not expecting that and (as she does) she reacts.

She hits Isha (the embodiment of Powder) while fighting Jinx, she didn't mean to hurt the kid just like she never meant to her her sister all those years ago, but by fighting with Jinx (the sister she cannot accept) she does.

That's a visual representation of her inner turmoil, there's Jinx and there's Powder and she cannot see them as one, but she can't fight one without hurting the other, where one goes the other follows, they are one and the same.

Jinx goes to comfort Isha, and THAT'S when she puts her gauntlets back on, that's when she builds her defenses again, she can't allow herself to humanize Jinx or else she'll have to admit she's her sister and that she's changed.

Then we have Singed talking about Warrick (not Vander) something like:

"The beast was once a man victim of a great tragedy, but he had an incredible will to live, tolerance to pain, and was very resilient but it got lost in the bowels of the beast" - Yeah, sounds familiar?

We see in Warrick's pov, and he remembers wiping Powder's tears the same way Vi wiped Caits but Vi is blurred, her memory is still lost to him just like she's lost to herself

They find an office that belonged to Vander and Silco, and Violet takes one of her gauntlets off after she enters but keeps the other, her defenses are faltering but she's not willing to lower them yet.

They find a letter from Vander apologizing for what he did after the riot (the thing that broke them apart and later on separated Vi and Jinx)

Warrick came back to where Vander's apology to Silco was never read, he's roaming a familiar place with no purpose, desperately trying to find something he doesn't even know what means anymore.

And what guides him to the sisters is Isha's blood, the blood that was shed when Vi struck her in her fight with Jinx.

Jinx says everything might have been different if Silco had found the letter, and that same thought could apply to them.

If Marcus hadn't taken Vi away before she could come back to her sister, if Jinx had known what happened, if they had talked sooner after reuniting

Vi's defenses are crumbling here, they're both thinking the same thing and for a moment Jinx and Powder are the same, she almost comforts her with her uncovered hand, Jinx is being vulnerable, but Vi hesitates to trust her, so instead of reaching for her she reaches for the gauntlet again, putting her defenses up.

They leave back to the tunnels when Warrick finally catches on, and Vi sees this "beast" running towards them

It doesn't matter Jinx is telling her it's Vander, because Vi is still not trusting her, all she can see is Warrick and he himself is not stopping either, he can't recognize his daughters.

The only person who trusts the beast is Jinx, but she's not the person who can stop him at this moment, Vi is, and she does. Just like she has always done she gets in the way to protect the people she cares about.

Now, now, something very interesting about how this show deals with details is that Warrick was following the scent of Isha's blood so when he jumps to attack the camera focuses on the two.

As I commented, these two characters are being used to show Jinx and Vi's inner turmoil, and the fact Vi's inner monster (Warrick) is specifically aiming to hurt Jinx's inner child (Isha) is very telling.

But what is even more telling is that Vi is the one to stop him from hurting her, and by extension, she's protecting Jinx.

Just like before we see that Vi cannot attack Jinx without hurting Powder here we see that she can't protect Powder without protecting Jinx as well.

And THAT'S when we have the Jinx X Powder separation cracking

She says he's going to kill YOU, she's not worried about herself here, and the way she tries to protect them is to fight.

Vi always tries to fight her problem away by either violence or avoidance and now is no difference, she tries to fight him but here she's metaphorically fighting her own anger, the same anger that hurt her family and herself

The problem is that you can't fight fire with fire in these situations. Anger will not beat anger, punching will not stop the fight it will only make it worse.

They fight and he throws her against a wall before turning to focus on Isha but Jinx gets in the way and for a moment he recognizes Powder again

Jinx has been trying to protect Isha while making them stop and she tries again, but this time Vi is willing to hear her out,

She doesn't see Vander inside Warrick yet, and as this ginormous thing is barreling towards her she makes a decision, and for the first time, she trusts Jinx again, lowers her gauntlets and stops fighting. Vi's accepting the beast

There's a sequence where the image goes from Vi to Warrick repeatedly and they have similar expressions but then her eyes change and she calls for her father again.

Everything goes dark then, and we see Jinx completely terrified holding a lighter and looking for them. She doesn't know what she's going to find, she doesn't know if she was right in blindly believing Vander was still there.

The lights were bright during the fight but now everything is dark, and the dark is often used as a space of uncertainty and vulnerability Jinx couldn't save her sister from the beast and all she could do was try to guide her into saving herself.

Violet tried everything she knew, she tried fighting Jinx but in the process, she hurt the child, she tried avoiding the connection with her sister and by extension avoiding the family history but Warrick caught up with them again nonetheless, and when he did she tried to fight him off but the beast can't be killed by the same violence that created it.

In the end, it was the act of trusting Jinx that brought Vander back, Vi hugged him with the same gauntlets she used to hurt Warrick, she recognizes Jinx is also his daughter and by doing so she opens a door to seeing her as her sister again, even Isha got pulled into the hug.

Important to add that I do see Vander and Isha as more than just inner versions of Vi and Jinx but this show makes so many connections that everyone is everyone's inner something at one point tbh

Also, wdym both Cait and Jinx go to Stillwater and yet there was not ONE little detail of them thinking about Vi while my girl is literally hallucinating and only thinking about them? ONE MENTION

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 1x05 - "Everybody Wants to Be My Enemy" ↳ "Undercity's gonna eat you alive."

[mollysunder]

There is a theory that the way children play serves as a means to simulate and prepare them for the tasks they'll take on as adults. So for all the narrative weight both Jinx and the story give the boxing machine at the arcade it would never have prepared her or the kids to take on Piltover.

What are the two things that Piltovans excel at over their Zaunite counterparts to keep the hierarchy? Weapons and technological development.

When you look at the way Piltovans invest in their children, they don't prioritize hand to hand/melee combat training. Piltovans focus on giving their children experiences in handling firearms, a pursuit that is both leisure sport for the wealthy and a key offense against dissenting Zaunites.

And from the show notes even Jayce, whose family occupies the upper middle class, was sent on educational excursions across Runeterra to explore the world and learn what it had to offer. Without Jayce's education abroad he would never have been inspired to pursue the concept hextech.

It's no wonder that the two figures that are set to be Piltover's biggest threats from Zaun are Jinx and Viktor, becasue they engaged in the same kinds of games and activities as their Piltovan counterparts.

Jinx didn't have an entire forest preserved to help her practice her sharpshooting like the high houses of Piltover, but she did excel in the few games at The Rift (the arcade) that built on her talents. She's the only Zaunite thus far who's long distance offensive is a strong counter to Piltover's forces.

Viktor couldn't travel the world like Jayce did, but for better or worse he managed to stumble into an opportunity to get real opportunity in research not offered to his peers through Singed. It was through that experience that Viktor knew to turn to Singed when he was at the end of his rope, and the consequences of that will be fully realized in season 2.

Ironically, the kind of skill the boxing game champions is only good for keeping other Zaunites in line. Vander's days of fighting Piltover were way behind him when we first met him, and Vi spends season 1 primarily fighting other Zaunites. It's no surprise the Zaunites who embody the old ideal of strength in Zaun that the game portrays, Vi and Vander, are largely at the mercy of Piltover and end up collaborating with them to avoid further harm.

Zaun's future as an independent city-state couldn't happen if they stuck to their old ideals. The people who stand a chance against Piltover are the ones that not only succeed but excel at playing Piltover's games against them.

[firebird378]

Arcane shitpost I made at 2am

[joejhang]

i love you tragic sibling dynamics. i love you doomed siblings. i love you siblings that could've been so powerful together but were forced apart by circumstance (and shitty parenting). i love you siblings born to fight together forced to fight on opposite sides. i love you jinx and vi. i love you sirius and regulus. i love you azula and zuko.

[thenationofzaun]

"If only Season 2 had more episodes/if only the show had more seasons it would be better"

No girl, more episodes and seasons would have just been filled with more bullshit. If you were only saying this about S2 Act 1, I'd get it. But after all 9 episodes have dropped y'all are still saying this as if "rushed pacing" was the end all be all issue of this season?

Having more episodes wouldn't have fixed their garbage politics and horrible messaging baked into the show's very foundation. It wouldn't have fixed the glaring plot holes opened up by the idiotic flashbacks. Nor the juvenile Disney Junior "resolution" of conflicts (because the writers genuinely don't think Piltover's oppression of Zaun is that big a deal). Nor the terrible characterizations of most characters (how can more episodes fix Vi for instance, when it didn't even register to the writers that prison would have traumatized her?) It wouldn't have fixed the plot devolving into MCU avengers-assemble-to-defeat-the-zombie-horde drivel either. That was always the slop they were heading towards.

I think so many people have way more faith in the writing team than I do. They truly think that the only issue with Season 2 is that the writers were screwed over by Riot and not given enough screentime. That if they did have the time necessary, they could have fixed the show with their wonderful writing. But from what I see in season 2's limited screentime, it's the writing itself that completely lacks any maturity or intelligence.

Give the season 12 episodes, and you'd have ended up with 12 episodes of the same old nonsense, just with more meandering in between. Give the show 50 episodes instead of 18, same result.

[lady-griffin]

I can’t help but think that for Jayce, Undercity woman are an entirely different breed of their own.

Jinx is this larger-than-life monster.

Vi is not even close to being like your average person.

Now there’s Renni.

And I’m presuming he could also meet Sevika, who would only confirm this idea.

Sure, Ambessa is a terrifying and intimidating Noxian woman, but Mel is also Noxian – so, it’s not quite the same.

It's not even that Zaunites are like no other, because the Undercity men Jayce has met and known - Viktor, Silco, and Ekko - are for the most part normal human beings, even Silco, the worse of them, Jayce could still make a deal with.

But Undercity women...

They're beyond terrifying.

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

we're back with my semi-coherent thoughts about arcane, this time it's about act 2:

the fuck you mean vander and silco were friends with vi and jinx's mom????

on a similar note: why is young silco so FI- ahem lemme chill

cait distracting herself from vi and her feelings by sleeping with MADDIE was NOT on my arcane act 2 bingo card

TO ME, isha's autistic (also i feel like i was the only person that thought it was pronounced i-sha...not ee-sha...)

^on the topic of isha, WHY IS SHE DEAD??? WHY DO THEY HATE ME?? SHE'S LITERALLY MY DAUGHTER

healed salo was giving so much more gender than normal and he got killed for it- gay on gay crime i swear

the amount of times jinx made me legit cackle was way too much

i actually screamed when warwick went "powder?" so do with that what you will

vi looked SO GOOD omg

i thought kino's voice sounded familiar so i just looked it up and IT'S HORDAK !!! gasp ! hey king !! long time no see !!

before mel did her glowy-glowy shit i went "bro mel can't die, she's a bad bitch" so...do with that what you will, part 2

warwick also went "don't touch my daughter" and i screamed yet again and that's on lowkey having daddy issues (i'm joking but i'm not)

jayce, you better explain yourself THE MOMENT act 3 starts cause what the fuck is your problem???

emilie agreste walked so singed's daughter could run (i mean she's not but you get the joke)

i'm also kinda loving sevika's hair...

[evie-doesnt-write]

I feel because of Jinx and Viktor’s popularity in fandom (having some of the most annoying fans in Arcane fandom) and the attention they receive in the show itself, people forget/don’t realise how bad they were done by the writers in s2

[chaos-and-sparkles]

Okay but can we PLEASE talk about how no hextech au Powder has a lock of her hair dyed pink, Vi's pink, a tribute to her sister to keep her close?? Because it made me physically sick and I haven't been okay since -

[manicpixiejinxgirl]

Anyone who makes a modern au of Arcane that doesn't include a freshly out of jail young adult Vi and a long suffering totally not shady businessman Silco having split custody of a pissy teen Jinx who constantly pits her guardians against eachother to get exactly what she wants is doing it incorrectly

[ganondoodle]

the closer we get to arcanes finale the more worried i am bc so often .. if not always .. things i like end in a way that i dislike so much it ruins everything else for me

and im so worried they pull a 'this is a multiverse' thing bc then they can say every skin is somehow canon bc its all different universes you seeeeee and jayce went mad bc he lived through all of them or something, or force it to end in a way that makes the champions end up like they are in game- Vi is a shitty cop, Jinx is just heehoo craycray bc xyz etc

[rosifire]

Obligatory “I don’t have a problem with CaitVi” but I think, for me, their story (separate from their own personal character arcs) would/will be more compelling if it ends up being irreparable between them.

I think Arcane is good at subverting expectations and tropes; the most memorable example I can think of is in S1E3 where Powder follows after Vi and the boys to save Vander. We’ve all seen the “friends are in trouble, but the plucky young hero comes in at the nick of time to save them against all odds” plot twist—but Arcane subverts that. In fact, Powder’s involvement and her monkey bomb finally working is the thing that, tragically, leads to Claggor and Mylo’s death, Vi’s injury, Vander’s death(?), so on and so forth. It worked, but it didn’t work. And to me, that's the tragedy of it. That good intentions weren't enough.

So, personally, I see a setup between Caitlyn and Vi: the Romeo and Juliet archetype, two initially-begrudging people working together amongst classism and prejudice, and finding companionship against all odds. Class, wealth, opportunity separates them; Caitlyn is a scion of one of Piltover’s most influential and powerful families, and Vi is… a nobody from the Undercity, wrongfully imprisoned, when they first meet. It’s a way for them to both see that the “other side” isn’t as bad as they’ve always been told. That there are Good People on either side of the bridge. That, hell, love can be found, too.

But oftentimes, I believe this trope in particular ignores a lot of the real-world factors that could come into play with a friendship or relationship that “defies” station. The fact is, Caitlyn does come from a world of privilege, and Vi is treated differently by Caitlyn’s peers. The whole of Season two, Vi has been referred to as one of the “good ones”. Maddie explicitly says that it's good to know that there are still "good ones" around. The implication that you’re not like them. Time and time again, Vi is treated like an Other. A “good” other, but an other all the same. She's welcome in Piltover, but only just - and only when Caitlyn vouches for her. And at the climax of their story thus far, Caitlyn outright says to her, “I keep telling myself that you're different. but you're not. It's [Jinx's] blood in your veins”. I'm sure grief and anger are a part of why she says this, but that's becoming a catalyst for the discrimination she seems to be steadily believing in more and more. Whether or not she ends up meaning this, it's a ghastly thing to say.

And with the way things are developing with Caitlyn, who is actively weaponizing her privilege and power, and who is very quickly going down a very dangerous and fascist path, I don’t know if their relationship could — or should! — be rectified. She's a cop, and a very privileged one at that. I don’t know if this is a love that could “defy all odds”, and in my opinion, I think it would be more interesting, and more compelling, if it didn’t.

[mollysunder]

Before the first season of Arcane premiered Riot released this interactive visual novel for the Riot x Arcane event. The setting was a hybrid of LoL and Arcane's universe, Piltover literally on top of Zaun, Cait is the Sheriff, but characters like Silco exist. The whole premise for the story is that Jinx stole some hextech and tapped into the Arcane oand opened a rift between worlds.

That's a lot. Personally I enjoyed this more to just see some characters out in the wild. Silco gets to be his charming self to you, the self-insert reader that's trying to find the culprit of the heist, which he knows was his kid.

Here's Jayce hating on Silco for something Jinx did.

This came out before the show did, so it's interesting to see how the game wants us perceive the characters' dynamics before we get further depth from the show. Most of it's related to Jinx because she makes herself the center of controversy.

For characters like Vi, who's already an enforcer that works directly under Sheriff Caitlyn in this world, she's clearly over Jinx's actions and wants to squash any further escalations.

Sevika is just as harsh and plainly sick of Jinx. I do find it interesting that the novel makes it clear tha Sevika believes that Jinx deserves some kind of punishment, though Jinx did endanger them all by ripping realities into eachother.

The only sympathetic voice outside of Silco in this story comes from Viktor, who after finding out Jinx was responsible for the Rift between realities asks you to remember that she's a real person that lived a life just like him. He goes so far as to contemplate another way to solve the situation and avoid a confrontation that may end with terrible consequences. (It's wild because the show then dedicates a whole scene to him defusing one of her bombs).

My favorite part is near the end where Silco tries to stop Jinx from harnessing anymore Arcane energy because it threatens to upend their reality.

I WISH they got to talk like this to eachother in the show, but so much was happening already. Even better Jinx gets the last words in and it justlays out what's ALWAYS been there.

This scene helped me understand that Jinx was always going to fire her rocket at the council, because she and Silco have both always been motivated to by power. They both know what it's like to be perceived as "weak" and they way it destroyed their lives respectively. It's kind of the reverse of what Mel and Ambessa have going on, you've got the diplomatic intrigue parent and the militarily minded daughter who wants to go further and absolutely will when you're not looking. And that's always been the thing with Jinx, if you give her any form of power, either a gun, a grenade, a rocket, or even magic she will take it and she will use it.

Right after this confrontation you have to defeat Jinx with the Power of Friednship or something (it's been a while). But even as put an end to the near calamity Jinx created there's at least one voice before it ends affirming Jinx's personhood.

It's weird honestly, Jinx didn't turn into vapor or anything, the story's pretty vague about what happens as you try to defeat her.

Well the novel's good when it's good anyway.

[ramunnae]

ARCANE S2 A3 SCREENSHOT SPOILERS

The Art Of Arcane 2/2