Space★Tears

A little bit sketchier than usual, but last ask motivated me to finish these bad boys

Viktor has been a loner and an outlier all his life. It’s unclear if he’s ever had someone show him affection, be it from family or friends. The fact that Jayce openly touches him—that his first impulse to reassure him is to gets in his space, physically remind him he’s here, they’re in this together, and that he does it often—that’s a huge deal for someone who’s had to endure loneliness the way Viktor has. That display of comfort, camaraderie, and solidarity is something that everyone deserves, but he’s probably scarcely gotten from others.

There's a tendency of action media to lean into the fight scenes, to let us glorify in the violence. Look what they can do, look what they can be. And Arcane had those moments, of course, but it never let us dwell on them. Even in the first episode, every single time a blow was struck it told us that was inherently a tragedy. The first fight takes place and we cheer for our heroes until we take a look from Jinx's eyes and see she's horrified by the violence. That's why all the blood and bruises and broken teeth in the show mean so much, because the camera stops and makes us look.

The only fight that managed to stay calm and smooth all the way through was the Firelight's first attack on the blimp, before Jinx came out with guns blazing. And they were, notably, not there to fight. They came in fast, immobilized the hostiles without trying to harm them, and focused on the Shimmer. That wasn't a fight, it was a prevention. And it was the only one that managed not to carry that taint of tragedy.

The Jinx and Ekko fight was a battle between two champions with amazing abilities and an upbeat soundtrack. We were hyped for it, we adored it. And then it shows us the two of them as children, different shots juxtaposing the man and woman each of them became with the round-faced child that they used to be. When Ekko has Jinx on the ground at his mercy, face bleeding and eyes panicked, we can't glory in it. Because he stops to realize that this used to be his friend, and so do we. There was no triumph in that fight. He won, he faltered, and she blew them both up.

Jayce and Vi's fight was what we'd always been waiting for: the final use of Hextech in a battle. And it broke his heart. He killed a child there. When Vi announced she was keeping the gauntlets any lesser show would have had them fight, just to have the demonstration. Look at them, they're powerful, look at what they can do against each other. Instead Arcane had him walk away.

Even in the final moments of the episode, we never got the Vi vs. Jinx fight. Because that was her sister and there was no violence there, only grief. It was about love and family and being able to heal something that was broken and finding out that no, she couldn't fix it. Violence wasn't what either of them wanted and of course it's not what we got.

“how do you want to do this?”

bonus! d20 eyes