Yelling Void

At first Dean is getting a kick out of it of course, he plays it in the radio of Baby while they're on the road to Sam's annoyance. He thinks it makes them sound badass being the criminals that have eluded police for so long, but he quickly sides with Sam that this podcast sucks ass when the girl narrating their lives —or at least, the public records available of them— starts to get it all wrong, accusing their father of somehow bring involved in the mysterious death of his wife, saying that the traumatic experience of losing their mother and being raised by an abusive alcoholic may have contributed to their depravity and devil worshiping, Dean refused to keep listening after that and just mumbled that it's a stupid podcast, Sam doesn't fight it on that.

You'd think that would be it right? Of course not, nothing is that easy for the Winchesters.

Some supernatural shenanigans make it so Sam and Dean are called over to a case in a nearby city, and oh how irony works that the girl being tormented by a vengeful ghost is none other than the author of their podcast.

They don't recognize her at first since she uses a fake name online, but she definitely recognized them when they came knocking at her down dresses as a repair man to check on a "gas leak" at her house, because had they listened a couple more episodes of the pod they may have heard were she went into detail about their MO of pretending to be government / city workers to get into the houses of their victims.

So she, understandably, freaks the fuck out.

She screams bloody murder and starts throwing things at them like her life depends on it — because it kinda does — until the commotion is so big the neighbors get involved and the brothers are forced to flee.

Now the brothers have to regroup and think of how they're going to solve this case when the authorities have already been informed that these extremely dangerous criminals are lurking around.

Dean feels tempted for a second to just leave and let her deal with this on her own, since she's made a living out of shit talking them online, painting them as these horrible sadistic murders when all they've done — all they've sacrificed — has been to protect the innocent. Sam and Dean always knew theirs was a thankless job but this time it was hitting closer to home than before.

In the end the brothers decide to do the right thing and find a way to help this girl whether she wants it or not, and it takes them sneaking into her house in the middle of the night, when they know the vengeful spirit of going to strike, and almost getting shot at by the girl —because america, she for a gun— and Sam being tossed around like a rag doll by said spirit before the girl starts to understand they're not what she needs to be worried about in this situation.

By the next day there's one vengeful spirit less to be worried about, another case solved, another live saved and maybe even a friend and ally.

The girl apologizes profusely once she understands the nature of their job and the reality of their actions, the brothers laugh about it a little, they can't blame her for being afraid, they know how it looks like from the outside, they only ask her to get her facts right before she starts misinforming the public about them in her podcast.

I want a story where Jayce Talis, young and successful bachelor of Piltover starts getting marriage proposals from some of the more powerful families in Piltover, all of them with the clear intent of getting their grubby hands on Hextech as it's being developed. And Jayce, not knowing how to tell those vulture to fuck off decides the best course of action is to fake already being married to someone he knows won't screw him over.

His first choice is Cait, she's the single daughter of the Kiramman house, she would be a perfect match except for the fact that she's like his little sister, just the thought of suggesting a marriage to his openly lesbian little sister makes him want to barf, he can't ask her that. Plus he doesn't fully trust Cassandra not to take advantage of their fake marriage when it comes to hextech and he would rather not risk it.

She other obvious option would be Mel, another member of the council they would make the best power couple in Piltover but again, it doesn't feel right to ask that of her, Jayce knows that Mel would understand his predicament and help him but it would be serving Hextech in a silver platter to Ambessa if she got wind of her daughter marring the Man of Progress.

The list of women he would ask this is very short, while all of this is going on Jayce realizes he really needs to make more friends.

Jinx is not an option, not even a consideration she would kill him for even asking and he would rather take his chances with the vultures than with her.

That only leaves one, the one person he really, really didn't want to ask but realistically was his better shot at.

Vi would laugh at him for two solid minutes until she realizes he's being serious, followed by Vi trying to carefully reject him because "You're a cool guy Jayce, but you're really not my type" which Jayce would sulk on later but for now he really needs Vi to agree to help him with this before he loses his mind.

It takes a lot of begging and a lot of yapping, a lot of appealing to Vi's good heart and the danger of Hextech falling into the wrong hands before she starts to listen. Vi doesn't understand why Jayce can't just tell them to fuck off but that's rich people's problems she doesn't really wanna know about. Until she finally, reluctantly, agrees to do him this one solid because in all fairness she took his gauntlets and never gave them back.

And so Jayce makes a public announcement to the investors who kept bugging him with marriage proposals to, respectfully, fuck off because the man of progress already has a wife. Now that's out of the way, another problem surges because Jayce Talis is not very good at evaluating the consequences of action, because now the council and the people of piltover want to meet Mrs. Talis.

Stuffing Vi in a formal dress is no easy task, for one because none of Cait's really fit her, and those that do are a little too long and Vi already stated that she's not wearing heels, she can handle a dress but those ankle snapping heels are off the table, it's her regular shoes hidden under a long skirt dress or nothing.

Taking Vi to a formal event felt like dragging a bull into a china shop and locking the door, Jayce's behind didn't unclench for the entire night as he shuttled her around the uppercrust of piltover, they'd made up some bullshit story about Vi's past since being a former inmate of stillwater was not a very compelling story. If any members of the council recognized Violet they didn't say anything.

Now you may be wondering where is Viktor in all of this? Wouldn't he have something to say about it? Well he's just enjoying the shitshow from the sidelines, because Jayce Talis forgot one crucial thing about the whole thing; there's no such thing as homophobia in Ruterra, and if the issue was Jayce finding a spouse quick Viktor would've been more than willing to play along for the sake of protecting Hextech, but before he could even suggest it Jayce was already digging his own grave and it was way to entertaining for Viktor not to sit back and watch it all go down. He would tell Jayce how dumb his plan was another day and watch the realization hit him, but for now he's just having a good time watching Jayce Talis trying to handle the toughest pink haired lesbian of all of Zaun.

TW: Big spoilers and correct opinions.

I really need someone to explain to me how Vi went from being a main player in season 1, a force that was constantly moving the plot forward thru her actions, to a secondary character who barely had any agency on the events of season 2.

Now I'm of the belief that there are no main characters in Arcane because all events are caused by a series of decisions made by multiple characters at once who all have the same amount of agency and who eventually connect with each other, but writing-wise Vi and her relationship with her family was always at the center of the events in season 1.

In season 1 act 1 she was the one that took Powder and the other boys to steal Jayce's lab, in act 2 she was the one that went out of her way to find her sister, in act 3 she was the one pushing Piltover to take action against Silco.

She always had agency and control and most of the time was following her own plan.

But then season 2 happens and suddenly she's demoted to a secondary character who only follows everyone else's lead.

The idea of forming an elite group to hunt down Jinx was Cait's idea, going after Warwick/Vander was Jinx's idea, healing Vander was Viktor's idea, going to war against the Noxian was the climax of the plot so of course she would be dragged into it.

The only real instance of agency Vi had in season two (that I can think of) is when she stops Cait from shooting Jinx in act 1, it feels like the only decision she ever makes on her own and everything else was her going with everyone else's flow.

She goes from a main player in the show to a side character.

And yeah I get it, in season 2 everyone's actions come back to bite them in the ass and that makes it harder for Vi — who has already been bitten in the ass several times— to stand out as a character, but still it left a sour taste in my mouth because I love Vi and she was one of the best characters in season 1.