complaint box vol. 1, or "i suppose you all hate whimsy"
in making this blog in part to cordon off my complaining, i now have the opportunity to complain more broadly rather than messaging a friend or two with "this is unfortunate" or similar. whether or not this is an improvement that will result in more mental well-being rather than less is up for debate.
anyways, the average Arcane Poster on social media (not to be confused with the average Arcane Fan, who may or may not also be an Arcane Poster; Posters are outspoken while Fans may be content to just enjoy the work) has at least something of a dislike for whimsy, kitsch, or otherwise actually having fun in the space. this is displayed prominently in my experience when Posters talk about the design differences between league and arcane.
in particular, today i will be complaining about (and broadening out into wider complaints from there) an instagram reel that was thrust upon me in my latest excursion into the instagram tags/discovery page to try to find neat fanart of jinx, whose arcane outfits i do quite like. i will not be linking the reel, because i have made a promise to myself to not copy down links of things that make me mad, because then i will click the link at some point and feel bad again. anyways, it was a reel of the WR caitlyn and jayce animation (which i also quite like) and the original poster had written over top of it that they'd wished caitlyn had gotten her top hat in arcane as they like it as a design piece. anyways, i will now give you a moment to guess what the comments were like. please click the read more at your convenience.
my brief observations of the comments revealed the following categorical trends:
people saying the hat was stupid/ugly/etc. and arcane was good for removing it.
subcategory of 1: people saying her league outfit is a "porn parody" of herself, which i think is a reasonable comment for release caitlyn's duds (although in the spirit of whimsy, i do have a fondness for it) but is actively incoherent for WR/LoL's current look.*
people saying that her hat was totally there, in a cameo and/or in the strange peaked-top cap she wears in S1 for three seconds and in a few scattered pieces of promotional material. this is missing the point of the post.**
people more broadly calling arcane a "glow-up" for all characters.
people calling LoL/WR jayce's outfit or general appearance bad/ugly.
people somehow discussing the LoL vi tutu/ruffle detailing, which was mentioned approximately nowhere in the post.***
*need i remind the gentle reader that her enforcer outfit, or whatever it is, in S1 is bare-legged? and if they are talking about her S1 purple outfit, that has more cleavage than WR/LoL ASU if we're using "showing skin" for "porn parody" criteria. if they're discussing S2, i again really do not see how WR/LoL ASU is more sexualizing than anything from there. perhaps all of these people googled Caitlyn League Of Legends and google "helpfully" returned her first model, but that does not explain commenting on a reel that visually showcases WR's outfit that it's a "porn parody".
** as a hat goes, i think the arcane hat is a bad and goofy-in-the-wrong-ways one. it is tall and has no meaningful brim so it looks bad in silhouette, and the overall design doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the enforcer outfit design language at large imo. caitlyn also being 6ft or so makes the hat especially poor, as i imagine the reason it was used so infrequently is because retaining between-character height constancy in any form while one character is 6ft with a hat that's taller than their head is going to make every single shot look bad. we already know height constancy was played around with in order to achieve some shots, anyways.
i am not going to go check the show again, as i like myself, but i believe very few enforcers are shown wearing the hat in the first place, and that out of the named enforcers caitlyn is the only one wearing an outfit with a skirt and no pants/leggings... ever. maybe some background enforcer was in S1. either way, this gives the in-universe impression that caitlyn's enforcer outfit is not standard-issue for women (standard-issue would be non-ideal, as it would imply some form of gender-based outfit expectations in a world that overton keeps saying has none of that (untrue statement, another post another time), but at least would give logical explanation for why caitlyn is wearing it) and she chose it herself. this does not really make sense for something that someone of low-ish rank would be allowed to do, at least in my opinion.
***the tutu also remains in vi's enforcer outfit in S2, so i think broad and non-nuanced praise re: "fortiche glow-ups" should be tempered somewhat. it exists as a vague signifier and/or in-joke in the same way caitlyn's hat is cameo'd or singed was reveck-baited in S1 and confirmed, due to fan speculation according to the artbook, to be reveck in S2. it's not meaningful, really. jangle the keys for the league players and do nothing more.
all in the span of a few scrolls of the comments. the poor original poster was left to say variations of "i just liked the hat and wish she'd worn it, not that it was a cameo" repeatedly and maybe luck into one or two commenters who agreed that they too liked the hat.
this finally brings me to my initial point after much subnotes and winding about (which will presumably be a hallmark of these complaint boxes, if they continue), which is:
so do Arcane Posters just hate whimsy and having fun? (overgeneralization for comedic effect.) these reactions feel like a step-to-the-left (pun intended?) version of a subtype of Superhero Comic Book Movie Poster: the guy who thinks Supes' comics trunks are stupid, and that whatever part-costume part-CGI outfit design the DCU (or god forbid, Arrowverse) puts out is actually the best thing ever because you can see the Realistic Textures and It's Very Serious. which is a valid opinion, since design preferences are an individual thing, but also fundamentally misses something that i personally think is important about superhero comics^... that it's fun and fantastical, actually, and that sometimes people enjoy fun and fantastical and "not realistic" designs.
^a genre whose production history/choices, at least when it comes to the big two, has a significant amount of overlap with how LoL and Arcane work, in my opinion... perhaps for another post.
if i am a martian manhunter fan, for example (i am somewhat, although i've not read as much as i would like), i probably like or am at least neutral on his goofy shirtless-crossed-suspenders + blue briefs + matching calf boots. (don't worry mr. j'onzz. i saw your Chanel boots.) because that is part of his character design for decades, and because while it may be "goofy" and "not realistic" it's at least a fun, vibrant design that also is relatively simple. i (personally) do not very much like live action j'onns because they are afraid of committing to being faithful to that design, and overcomplicate it and dull it down in a way that i don't think needs to be the case. now, returning to league...
league designs are fantastical and, historically, not very realistic. they operate on rule of cool principles a lot, but that's okay because league historically was kind of goofy. i will not go so far as to absolve caitlyn's or vi's original outfit of sexism allegations, because to be a female league champion is to be sex appealed, but they were also fun designs for a game with minimal lore at the time and a relatively goofy tone. as for jinx, who as far as i know was primarily designed by katie de sousa, one can argue the bullet bikini and short-shorts are sex appeal, but i personally wouldn't attribute them to that. 2013 was a magical time in which a woman being flat-chested was actually a diverse body type, at least at riot internally. i do not think jinx was intended to be a sex appeal champion, at least by de sousa.
as a side note, perhaps the reason i like arcane jinx's outfit the best is that it's still somewhat rule of cool whimsical. does she need that "X" button-style detailing on her top? no. is it fun? yes. do her pants need to be striped? no. is it fun and something i originally read as^^ a homage to early piltover's predilection for pinstripes (see vi leggings and more)? yes.
^^the artbook blows this nice thought up by saying they're a hangover from a version where jinx... went off to bilgewater at the end of S1A1 and... became a pirate...? some things are best left on the cutting room floor.
anyways, it was a goofy setting and that let people do fun stuff. even LoL-verse VGU/ASUs historically kept more impractical-but-pretty-cool aspects in designs, in my opinion, at least until as of late. (skarner.) do i particularly like some of those VGUs or ASUs? no i think a lot of them took dedicated mains out back and slapped them around quite a bit. can i still say that i think that VGU swain, for example, is an interesting character design even if i have mixed feelings on him? yes. the coat's a cool piece. would swain in the arcaneverse be made to have a cloak-chain or cape instead to match that silhouette, because otherwise logic and rationality states his coat would fall off his shoulders? probably.
with arcane, it's all so... practical and down-to-earth, mostly. which works for the tone, i suppose. but now it's leeching back into league. caitlyn's blue, because the warriors cinematic and/or fortiche and co. thought purple was too out there probably. bright, saturated colors exist only for fractured jinx or whatever we're calling her outfit there. arcane chitinbug viktor is greys and dull golds. jayce doesn't even get to wear red, really. caitlyn's wearing purple for two brief outfits. vi's
"i heard you liked gold metallic detailing so i put some in your gold metallic detailing so you can gold metallic detail while you detail" is the hextech and piltover at large motto, which would be nice if the formula then wasn't "neutrals, jewel tones, and/or white and black" for the most part. cyan blue hair's too bright, make it more mid-blue. pink hair's too bright, make it more red. so many uniforms with only brief touches of character personalization, and that's in subtypes of gear worn (all the piltover war/combat uniforms i guess) rather than anything broader.
and all of this is fine for a realistic tone, or what have you, but is it an improvement? not really, at least to me. because for something to be an improvement on something else, those two things have to be playing the same game with the same rules. league designs are made to be fantastical and unique and visible from a top-down perspective. arcane designs are made to fit the setting (and elaborate on it visually, presumably - what materials are used where, small characterization trinkets, etc.) and have different silhouette criteria because it's a show not a video game.
it's apples and oranges. it's not "wrong" or "stupid" to like the league designs, because they are intended to fulfill a different purpose and were concepted by different people at a different time. in counterpoint, it's not "wrong" or "stupid" to like the arcane outfits, because they serve a different purpose. the issue occurs when Arcane Posters act as though there is some aspect of superiority in liking the more gritty-realism of the two, because of... pick your choice of rationale given by the Arcane Posters you've seen. i know that you have seen many rationales, if you are reading this and have gotten this far.
caitlyn's hat is iconic in the same way that her and others' weaponries are. in the same way viktor's pauldron and third arm are. it is not an unreasonable assumption that an adaptation would put caitlyn in her top hat or hats in general, considering that out of her 14 non-arcane non-prestige skins 9 have hats and a further 4 have some sort of headpiece (pulsefire has an updo, but no specific hairpiece so i don't count it).
just like how it is not unreasonable to assume viktor the machine herald would be machine-based, for what it's worth.
the point of all of this, in all its overblown and thinking-too-much sincerity, is that if one more Arcane Poster tells me or someone i know or some poor Arcane Fan Who Came From League that LoL designs are bad/stupid/ugly/goofy/etc. i will probably feel steam whistle out of my ears. i think perhaps people can express their disappointment in something minor and trivial, like not getting to see caitlyn in her cool hat, without getting a hundred or more comments on how they're wrong for thinking that.
why is it on the Arcane Poster's back to go some variation of "nuh-uh, that version's bad" in direct response? what compels the Poster to do that? i may seem hypocritical here as i have just complained about this phenomena for an extended period of time, but i also do not make a habit of going into the comments section of someone who is genuinely enjoying arcane to say "nuh-uh, that version's bad". even if i have thoughts about enjoying a show in which, for example, a character's mental health is depicted with all the sensitivity of a sledgehammer and the primary endgame canon pairing has an act of on-screen partner violence that is not meaningfully resolved or addressed. because it's not my circus, and it's not my monkeys!
going back to comics: at least in comics you can go find and read the comics that have your character designs and narrative tones of choice, if you're not into the latest live-action or other adaptation. might cost you a bit and there is something to be said about obscure issues being hard to find, but they are physically out there in the world. if you're a league fan and you don't know the wiki exists, for whatever reason, you're just out of luck for even looking at old versions of characters or their scant previous lores. but this is a topic for another time, i believe.
anyways, maybe if they put caitlyn in a top hat and leaned less "realistic" we wouldn't have gotten a show whose message is "maybe we can heal the political divide [in america, see linke's comments] by uniting against an outside force and using the underclass as canon fodder". food for thought!