Spoilers for Arcane s2 under the cut
I’m feeling SO many things
The way Caitlyn hesitates and pulls away from accepting Vi’s affection while she’s grieving. Vi’s left her before, and Cait can’t risk it, doesn’t want to hurt any more than she does. She tries to close herself off, but Vi keeps worming her way in anyway. She asks Vi for help and Vi (understandably to the audience) leaves again. But Vi comes back, and Caitlyn wants to let her in, because they’re drawn together. But they’re both so hesitant. Vi latches onto Caitlyn as a proxy for her need to protect someone, and she hovers and clings and Caitlyn’s just waiting for her to leave again.
Caitlyn leans on the gas too hard, literally. We see that she’s only going after Jinx/Chembarons and from her perspective that’s acceptable. They’re the ones that started this, they’re the bad guys. We see how she doesn’t see the other people getting hurt because she’s too focused, has blinders on made of guilt and grief.
How Vi asked Caitlyn not to change, knowing she already was different but hoping she could stop it, save her from it. She probably expected they would be fighting Jinx solo. Thought she could stop this on her own, without the team, because Vi always thinks she can do it alone, and Caitlyn will be avenged with clean hands.
The way Caitlyn hesitated to accept Vi’s affection and then she’s the one who initiates the kiss because she finally trusts Vi. Because she believes Vi’s chosen her, and she can stop guarding her heart. It’s the one piece that hasn’t hardened yet. The kiss is a promise between the two of them, not just that Caitlyn won’t go completely cold, but that Vi has made her choice, Caitlyn over Jinx.
They both break that promise, in the other’s eyes.
Vi’s decision to drop the rest of the team almost kills Cait, who has to 1v1 Sevika (god this fight was incredible though)
How once Vi had Jinx in the final moments, Caitlyn lowered her weapon at first, accepting Vi would choose her and finish Jinx off.
The way Vi thought Caitlyn was accepting a kid’s death as collateral and trying to save her from an unfixable mistake that would be the final straw in Caitlyn’s ‘change’. The way Caitlyn was so sure she wouldn’t miss and Vi was denying Caitlyn her revenge.
The betrayal Caitlyn must’ve felt when Vi stopped her, saved Jinx again. Does Cait see it as Vi choosing Jinx again? Of having no faith in her abilities, not listening to her, something Caitlyn’s struggled with with the other loved ones in her life? And then for her to say Caitlyn was no different from Jinx - but that the one difference is Vi would keep choosing Jinx.
Vi grabs her wrist, holds her there, and Cait lashes out to get her to let go. She’s trying so hard to keep her composure, she’s running off of adrenaline and panic from Sevika almost killing her, grief and survivor’s guilt and betrayal and she crosses the line and she knows that. The way Caitlyn is just about to cry, and turns away so Vi (we) can’t see her falter. She won’t give Vi any more vulnerability.
Maybe she expects Vi to follow. Maybe she’s thinking, this time, she’s the one who walks away. She’s controlling the separation now.
She gave Vi the last good part of her, and Vi held it too tight to keep it safe, crushing it.
(The way, at the council meeting, holding back tears and lost in thought, Caitlyn rubs the wrist Vi had grabbed. Lingering on the last trace of Vi before Ambessa calls her forward. And then with the same hand, curled into a fist, she pledges to her new self.)
Oohhhhh I’m eating this pain up, the wait until next Saturday is going to be a long one.
jbbartram-illu
ellievsbear
jacobvanloon
dailybridgerton
