Alright I told myself I wouldn't interact with fandom when s2 came out, and I haven't and don't plan to except to say this about people deciding Caitlyn is the Worst or that the writing is OOC.

As someone who has had a family member violently killed, I cannot stress how much it shakes up everything you thought you were and stood for. My beliefs in proportionate compassionate justice and the rights of all human beings are some of the strongest I have (stronger now because of the way that experience affected me personally), but they were pushed to the absolute limit when it came to an individual who had killed my loved one, showed no remorse, and laughed in our faces outside court, among other things.

People generally like to believe it wouldn't be them or their peace-loving family members being talked down from seriously considering violent revenge, consequences be damned. People like to believe they wouldn't lash out at people closest to them under that pressure, that they wouldn't build walls around the kindest and most sensitive parts of themselves because those parts are the ones feeling pain you never thought possible, that they wouldn't stalk the killer, make notes on all their family and friends, and fuck up their hands punching walls in anger wishing so badly it was flesh and bone because they can't handle the fact that there's no way to turn back time to stop it all from happening. People like to think they're "better" than that. But the reality is messy and painful as hell.

With Caitlyn, she has the added guilt of having actually had the opportunity to stop Jinx before she fired the rocket, but she hesitated just long enough for it to result in the deaths of her mother and other councillors and in the cities being plunged into chaos. Not only that, but the person close to her she's lashing out at is the person who caused her to hesitate, and just so happens to be the sister of the killer.

Furthermore, her behaviour is entirely in character. We have seen her set up as someone who becomes obsessed with achieving a goal and will do pretty much anything she wants to get there. In S1, we agreed with her methods because her goal was exposing and taking down Silco, and because it led to Vi being released. In S2, she's doing a similar thing but it's fuelled by fear and a type of pain she doesn't know how to deal with, rather than being fuelled by a need to prove herself and solve a case, and it leads to her making morally questionable decisions and to hurting Vi. She admits herself, albeit privately to Vi, that she does not know what she's doing and doesn't know how to fill this hole in her chest (and the hole in the city leadership). She has been sheltered from the real world for almost all her life, and as a result she has no experience of functioning or making decisions under this kind of pressure. The real world blew up in her face in the worst way and she was given power and a loaded rifle, and then shoved into an even more elevated position by a very experienced warlord who is manipulating the shit out of the whole situation.

I'm not saying that you have free rein to hurt people when you're grieving and facing extreme stress. (If you think that's what I'm saying then idk I'm not sure there's much hope for you in terms of critical thinking skills). What I'm saying is that Caitlyn is exhibiting pretty normal human behaviour that most people would be susceptible to in those circumstances, not the behaviour of someone who is some kind of heartless abusive bastard.

TLDR: Caitlyn is being written in a way that completely makes sense and is also not OOC, and if someone told me there would be no chance of them reacting in similar ways I simply would not believe them.

ok i swear to god i'll shut up about this but y'all the scream i let out when caitlyn, althroughout the funeral of her mother, held in her tears and stayed composed, poised. she regally showered her mother with petals, not a single speck of emotion—as expected of someone to be next-in-line for the kiramman name.

but when she and vi were alone, one word from vi (mind you, not even a question like are you okay?, it was just hey.) and she broke down. she cried and was vulnerable.

despite everything that happened; vi was, and still is caitlyn's safe space and that makes me cry.

Spoilers for Arcane s2 under the cut

ahh caitlyn my beloved.

let's talk about the trauma she has around jinx, in particular, in a way i think is more related to being targeted by jinx than just grief.

don't get me wrong- grief is a huge part of why caitlyn is all over the place this arc (season?). she probably came to the conclusion that her softer, pacifistic attitude from the first season is the reason she ended up hurt. clearly the rocky relationship she had with her mother adds a layer of bitterness and regret caitlyn is feeling regarding her death. alongside a million different reasons, which i might discuss in a different post.

but there's a clear difference between the anger and coldness we see from caitlyn when she discusses catching jinx and bringing her to justice, than when she faces jinx head on. in the latter, she suddenly loses her cool and acts all frantically, so unlike anything we've seen from caitlyn so far.

in her mind, in episode 1, she sees herself as collected and calm, aiming her rifle at jinx. btw, take note of how jinx is depicted here. her eyes are glowing.

but in reality, she's very much NOT cool and collected when she thinks that exact scenario is about to be replicated.

that's caitlyn's pov btw:

again jinx with the glowing eyes- caitlyn had seen what jinx looks like in other circumstances, but THIS is the version of her that she visualizes and then irrationally reacts to.

we see it again when she shoots jinx in the finger

no composure, no deep breathe, no thinking. she just shoots on instinct. it's nothing like she used to.

and then her frantically calling vi to move out of the way as she keeps firing, almost like shes blind to everything but jinx- the kid and vi, who are both in harm's way, don't stop her.

i know it's easy to just paint it as anger and grief here, but there's something about it that strikes me as almost like animalistic fear. she sees jinx and just goes feral mode, but its almost more of a prey instinct than a predator.

and i think it's because whenever she faces jinx, properly, it's not the grief and radicalized anger she's feeling, it just sends her back to this moment

with all the "jinx murdered her mom" talk its easy to forget that jinx also directly, and cruelly, targeted caitlyn, tried to kill her, kidnapped her and held her hostage for who knows how long. it's not just anger that caitlyn feels towards jinx. it's a trauma response. and like, welcome to the club, caitlyn! most of the arcane cast are acting out of trauma. but i better not see people think her trauma is somewhat lesser than some... other.. characters.

Getting a canon trans woman character was not on my bingo card but damn am I happy about it

Hercules is the most visually creative of the Disney Reneissance films. If not any Disney film ever.

The three Fates sharing an eye.

Hades’ flaming hair. 

The various designs of the mythological monsters and titans.

The diverse faces and body types of all the minor characters.

It’s a very visually engaging movie.

How could I forget the Underworld

And the opening sequence

Y’all need to get off Walter Disney’s cock

Jeez, I just said the movie looks nice. No need to get antsy.

Also like, pretty sure WD didn’t make that movie. It was the effort of various animators who sometimes get overlooked because we don’t see them WORKING on it for so many days, just the two hour long result.

Pretty sure that Walt Disney didn’t work on Hercules since it came out decades after he died.

Fun fact! The reason Hercules has such a unique style is because Musker and Clements brought illustrater Gerald Scarfe (famous for his work on Pink Floyd’s The Wall) to be the conceptual character artist. His original character designs are wild

Hey kids, did you know that you can be critical of a company and acknowledge how shitty it is in its business practices, and appreciate that it produces a lot of good art, much of which is created by artists and animators who have nothing whatsoever to do with the aforementioned shitty business practices?

Fucking wild that you can do that.

I’m glad this thread went exactly where I wanted it to

A letter to my trans friends

To my fellow trans friends (you are all my friend)

I see you.

I may be writing from far away, but my heart is with you, especially during these truly unimaginable times. (Holy fuck). To every trans person feeling the weight of the world - please stay with us. Please choose life.

You're part of a brilliant and amazing community that has faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles before and emerged stronger. When they try to erase our stories, we will write new ones. When they try to push us into shadows, I know we'll shine brighter.

To the young trans people feeling scared and uncertain: Let our history be your armor. Learn about the pioneers who paved these paths before us, the ones who refused to be silenced. Read about every time our community has risen up and declared that... "We exist. We persist." I want you to study how we have created families of choice when biological ones failed us. How we've built underground support networks, safe houses, and communities that have sheltered generations. How we've survived through mutual aid, through art, through love, through sheer stubborn determination to live in our authentic self.

You are not a mistake. You are not wrong. You are not alone. You are part of a legacy of strength, of beauty, of resistance. Your existence is an act of courage, and your life has value beyond measure. To those struggling to see tomorrow -- we need your voice. We need your story. We need your future. The world becomes more beautiful and true with each of us who stays to live another day, who stays to fight another battle, who stays to celebrate another victory.

You are loved. You are important. You matter.

And to those who would rather see us disappear, this community has persisted and survived before and I know we'll survive this too. Our joy is our strength and our resistance, and we're not going anywhere.

Cheers from the other side of the world,

A.J.

Begs the question, young Kiramman: what are you shooting for?

Hey, I wanna talk about how we do fandom! I've come to realize that I, personally, tend to differ from many others in that I highly prefer to only engage with a text as it's written, so I don't tend to really like fanon/extremely ooc characterizations and I find it hard to get invested in ships that aren't canon. My way of doing fandom isn't better or worse than anyone else's, but I am curious about how much of a minority I'm in! So:

*We've all seen ships of characters not from the same media and stuff like shipping the concept of ennui with the color blue, okay, I'm asking what you, personally, find compelling!

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Lorenzo!