Thank-you to all of my new Internet stranger friends for being so gracious about having my post shoved onto your dashboards. I loved reading all of your kind tags and comments! Both Martin and Bosco have been gone for several years now but for 24 hours, they felt very present in my life. I greatly appreciate this gift. ❤️
do you ever think about how Ekko was in love with Powder and then he tried to save her from Silco but she didn’t want to be saved and he forced himself to accept that she wasn’t Powder anymore? Or how he painted her portrait on the tree of people they’d lost because to him Powder was dead and he did mourn?
How he stepped up to fight her on the bridge so that Vi and Cait could get to safety and then she pulled the pin on the bomb, how he didn’t see Silco save her and she didn’t see him limp away alive so they both thought they killed the other and Jinx added another name to the list of people she loved and killed, another voice that haunts her?
or how when Ekko went on his trip through the anomaly he had no idea she was alive so he got to see the woman he was in love with, the girl who was his best friend, the one he killed, happy and smiling again as Powder? How he got to fall in love with Powder all over again and how he had to realize what could have been if she hadn’t become Jinx? How he still had to let her go in the end, how he got to kiss her but she wasn’t really his Powder?
how when he came back he found Jinx, broken and grieving Isha and killing herself again and again? How he travelled back four seconds each time to stop her, to save her? How she thought she was hallucinating him because she didn’t know he was alive?
how in the end none of it really mattered because she still died and he still had to mourn her for the 3rd or 4th time?
oh sorry i wasn’t listening i was just thinking about how alternate powder’s hideout has rails because she actually values her life
[ID: Arcane screencaps of Jinx/Powder's hideouts; both are similar in layout, but Jinx's is more harshly and colorfully lit and does not feature guard rails. End ID]
thinking about caitlyn kiramman and how her lack of words are so fundamental to the end shape of her character. cait doesn’t say “i’m sorry” when Vi yells at her about being Ambessa’s puppet, she yells “i know” because she’s intelligent enough to see the spiral of events but not enough to know how to stop it. she doesn’t say “i’m sorry” but the very next scene she attempts to make peace with jinx. she doesn’t say “i’m sorry” but she calls off the guards so Vi can secretly try to save her sister—a terrible plan but one that Vi needs to do.
caitlyn isn’t surprised to find that jinx escaped. she expects Vi to be locked away by her sister so that she won’t chase her. because that’s the doomed tragedy of them.
everyone knows Jinx can’t be saved except for Vi.
Vi wants so badly to believe her love will somehow save her sister but it never will. her fatal flaw is that she will always try and she will always fail. and then caitlyn knows Vi will unjustly blame herself, so she’s there at the cells to ground her and remind her that this is how it’s always been. you’re getting predictable.
and then vi finally understands that caitlyn pulled all the strings for this. that she gave her another chance to open a cell and go after her sister, even knowing it would never work. it’s an apology and it’s cait saying “i know who you are.”
caitlyn kiramman doesn’t use words, she takes meaningful action because she’s only half the charismatic councilor her mother wanted her to be. she’s grown up an outsider and keeps a careful mask for everyone except violet, which is why season one opened her up so magically. she’s naturally stoic and reserved but she’s bold.
and then vi has to kiss her right then in the cells. because meaningful action means so much more than words to someone like her, who just wants to be of service to the people she loves. what caitlyn did was a reciprocation of her love language. and then Vi acts more by instantly showing her love, giving caitlyn all her love, because she’s the only person in this story willing to accept it. without hurt or heartbreak, vi can pour this massive heart she has into the only hands capable of understanding it. of being tender with it.
because caitlyn knows that vi is devoted to such a massive fault, but it doesn’t deserve to be punished. not any longer.
caitlyn kiramman doesn’t use words, but she keeps the burden of jinx locked away in her heart. all so that vi can finally know what a safe home and peace feels like ♥️ AUGH
thank you Arcane Season 2 Episode 8 for confirming my theory that Caitvi are the kind of couple where you have to loudly announce your presence before entering a room because the chance that these two freaks are going at it is NEVER zero no matter where they are
I think my favorite thing from the sex scene is just how goofy and fun it is. like don't get me wrong, it was hot, but it was allowed to be silly because sex should be fun. I know a lot of people wanted to see them fuck nasty, but I like them having a sweet silly time while making each other cum their brains out.
like it's soft, but you can see how much they enjoy it, how much they care about each other. How they both giggle at Vi fumbling with Caitlyn's belt or how Vi's eyes look after Caitlyn takes off her shirt and shows Vi the Kirraman estates. Caitlyn being honest with vi about what she did with Maddie in the last few months because communication is important, and Vi doesn't think it's important compared to what she feels for Cait right then and there.
It's not as majestic as the Mel Jayce sex scene in the first season, it's not as rough or dirty as some people wanted, but it just fits them in my opinion. that they're literally bare to the world, no commander or pit fighter, just two women in love. It's not perfect and titillating like unrealistic porn scenes, it feels just real and it fits the two of them.
That level of animation is wild. What do you mean hundreds of people worked on this frame just to make sure we knew exactly the moment that Vi manages to put one hand inside Cait's pants and uses the other to pull her closer by the waist while Cait uses Vi's shoulders to hold on better?
I want to talk about Caitlyn's line "You really think I needed all the guards at the Hexgates?" and how much of an admission of her love for Vi it is. A playful admission, full of light-hearted snark, but an admission nonetheless.
This is Caitlyn telling Vi that she trusts her, trusts that her decisions are the right ones to be made, trusts that Vi is right in saying that Jinx has changed.
This is Caitlyn telling Vi that she's letting go, that she's finally putting her love for Vi over her grief for her mother and her hatred for Jinx.
This is Caitlyn telling Vi she believes in her good heart, that she's fallen in love with that good heart.
one of the saddest things to me abt vi that i haven’t rly seen anyone talk abt is the fact that she never rly got the ability or privilege of learning how to do much else other than to be mainly good at fighting.
she’s learned that fighting is how you protect yourself and others, and protection is how you show love.
not to mention, she ended up getting unfairly sent to stillwater for years, and if caitlyn hadn’t broken her out, it would have most likely been forever.
she’s just never rly had the time to learn smth else to excel at.
I think about this so much! I've seen some people talk like she's dumb. She's actually really smart and considers the world around her. She clearly is not only willing to take in new information, but she's willing to adjust to what she learns.
But she IS uneducated. Like, nobody was teaching her anything from the second she was shipped to Stillwater. AND she was probably in survival mode for that entire time.
Which makes it no surprise in Act 2 she has a strong fight response again. She doesn't know anything else when she's alone. Like I know people were joking about why not Ekko before, but he's also gone. Literally, she lost everything again.
Mentally, she's alone and back in her cell. She lives in a room smaller than her cell. She's constantly fighting. And to the point of getting the shit kicked out of her (like she was beaten by the guards). She's back in that survival mode again.
She really is the most tragic character. She honestly has no business having a good heart like she does.
THIS ALL OF THIS. FINALLY, SOMEONE GETS HER SO WELL. 😭
ik i’m probably being dramatic, but vi getting stereotyped as a straight-up idiot or some jock who ONLY knows how to fight and that’s it literally annoys me so baddd, and it’s been a constant since the first season from what i’ve seen.
like… she’s NOT stupid. she’s naturally a pretty smart and clever person who picks up on stuff, especially when it can come to her advantage, such as manipulation (in S1, she managed to manipulate two very powerful ppl, jayce & caitlyn, to do smth she wants) or using the gauntlets.
she obv knows how to read people to an extent, and get exactly what she wants from them, even if it doesn’t always work out completely or 100%— she still gets at least part of what she wants most of the time when she does it & when she’s manipulative.
she just literally never got to grow or to learn much else and that’s why she is so, so tragic to me. 😭
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
