#that how they view themselves thing is part of why I don't like Ekko/Jinx

[impossiblyatomictiger-blog]

I thought for like two seconds: the politics of Arcane suck, don't they?

Like, it's all about the cycle of violence, which is fair when it comes to the personal relationships, but becomes fucked with Jinx and Caitlyn in particular, as it is a microcosm of the Zaun-Piltover thing.

Like, Piltover has economic power over Zaun, what with its control of international trade, explicit ownership of Zaun's resources and many of its factories, and enforces that power through the Enforcers. While I do think that while Jinx's political strategy is non-existant, this oppression and exploitation needs to end, and non-violent reform will only perpetuate the system. While a peaceable revolution would be nice, the only real independance would seperate Piltover's richest from a lot of their wealth.

A similar thing is shown in how Jinx treats Caitlyn vs. how Caitlyn responds to Jinx. Jinx is a personal scale villain, kidnapping her and killing her mom; she resembles the stereotypical anarchist terrorist, but she chooses her targets much more carefully than that (or, at least, Silco does).

Caitlyn's response: take advantage of her status to restart the explicit subjugation of Zaun with the enforcers, and to gas them. Y'know, fascist stuff. Not a long walk from reformist to fascist, since being a reformist doesn't require you to think too hard about the system and how it doesn't work, and thus your biases remain unexamined.

The cycle of violence in the context of Jinx vs Caitlyn, and Zaun vs Piltover, suggests somehow that the relationships are even, that Zaun hurts Piltover, Piltover hurts Zaun, back and forth forever. Wonder what real world conflicts resemble this narrative, that they hit first, so we have the right to self defense even though we have all the power in this situation.

I really like Jinx as a character, I just want a fic that gives her coherent and actionable politics instead of the terrorist framing.

[theoddest1]

funny how time bomb managed to have better dynamic and than the main ship

I'm happy for my Timebomb homies, they were some of the major winners here, if not THEE winners cause they got damn near everything along with a huge supply of content to work with.

CaitVi....man, this sure is something. Started off realitively strong only to dwindle the more their dynamic was shown on screen in season 2 thanks to what happened to Cait. Does she even apologize ONCE for what she did!? I don't think she has. Like, I'm glad that Vi called her out, but where was the real accountability!? Acknowledging is the first step. Where are the other parts of the stairs!?!? That was CRAZY. Also, look I get it, Vi can only drive herself to save her sister so much, but after seeing Jinx CLEARLY showing huge growth, she would NOT have fucking sex the moment her cop gf enters the cell, like bitch that is NOT fucking Vi. Why couldn't we just get a sex scene by the end of the war after time has passed!? WHY IN THE CELL JINX WAS JUST IN!?!?

Hell, JayVik was weird af too. Jayce gets pissed at Mel for investing in he and Viktor's success as if it wasn't for the betterment of the country. I won't sit here and act as though she is allowed to be dishonest, but the way she did things was nit with malicious intent. She even gave him pointers so that he wouldn't get an unneeded target on his back. Where did he even LEARN of this? Did I miss something? And yes, Jayce DOES acknowledge Viktor's new vision was of his own volition, but him choosing to stay with his brother who is MOST DEFINITELY IN THE WRONG over his GF who has done nothing but support him is INSANE.

And yes, I am calling him his brother cause that's literally what Jayce calls him back in S1. I view their dynamic with the same lens as Vander and Silco. Bro, both the twinks go rouge in hopes for a better future while the buffer men stay true to themselves while also going through huge trials that change them majorly, if that isn't a fucking parallel idk what is, BUT that is how I view it. I am leaning further into this, though, after how shitty some Jayvik fans have been to not only Meljay/GoldenForge but to Mel and Jayce separately as characters [especially Mel]. Like Jesus CHRIST, some of y'all are just straight-up racist and misogynistic, and I don't fling those terms around lightly. I don't mindle in fandom spaces often, but JayVik fans genuinely put a sour taste in my mouth.

So yeah, TimeBomb slapped in a good and productive way. Various ways. Ekko, Mel, and Jinx carried this season HARD. Honorable mentions being Sevika and Singed cause, tbh they stayed interesting a good portion of the time.