brainrot containment zone

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tags: episode in SxEP format; characters by full name; fanart; meta; memery. possibly others which I've already forgotten

markdown editing Exists now but anything not in the fancy rich text editor (e.g. sub-bullets) will revert, if it displays at all. editing posts also defaults to the rich text editor. alas I have succumbed to just using the fancy editor for speed and convenience.

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extremely necessary theme HTML changelog:

removed unnecessary options

post titles: clickable to permalink + h2 (why... all h1s...)

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first icon^ from this edit, found on reddit

idk who actually made it but here's the "Caitlyn Source"

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current icon is from this incredible art

1: Untold Stories

Back in the “Bridging the Rift” series (expect me to reference it again; henceforth abbreviated BtR), and/or somewhere in the official artbook which I have definitely finished reading, it was mentioned that they had to scrap an entire draft of the pilot because the concept Was Not Working. Something about Vi as Silco's stray and Powder/Jinx... becoming a pirate? Based on the thumbnail of this video, $20 on finally getting the scoop on this concept. or i riot.

"Jinx is always a bit, over the top character, you know?" yes, and this is a show full of batshit bombastic personalities. very much including the guys who don't even get to be League champions about it. Good for her.

The musical arm not being in the script. Mwah. Everything I hear about Fortiche bringing new things to the table has been a banger.

TIL how mise en scene is actually pronounced by a French speaker

hey. "This sequence is visually connected to Jinx's emotions." can we rewind on that for a second. is my little pet crack theory about the trajectory of the show (or at least certain scenes) roughly aligning with her mental state, as psychological storytelling do. hey

Utterly charming little blips of the not-quite-rendered models clipping through each other. I am barely a full 2 minutes into this video yet. Why does liveblogging a whole >40-minute episode constitute a whole-day affair, again? The world may never know.

So that was the intro, huh! We're just jumping right to the next thing. Was sorta hoping for a more documentary-style BtR-type minishow, but I ain't complaining.

they fuckign 2d-animated the nametags btw

"your guess is about as good as mine past that point [of Jinx running off and Vi joining Silco" thank you co-creator of hit series arcane that's my writing process too

JINX AND VIKTOR???? Oh man, I've seen the occasional little thing* about how Powder/Jinx and he would've gotten along (*am not around that side of the Fan Content much so idk if it's big), and I'd like to congratulate that crew on their bigass bottles popped.

"[Jinx and Silco] was a much richer story, despite how much fun it is to watch Vi punch things." correct! Resonant storytelling > Cool Factor alone!!! (you guys realize you're raising my expectations for whatever you do next right. Do Not Fuck This Up)

Love that he refers to Vander/Silco backstory as "a bit of headcanon." Where's that post about the sliding scale of canon/fanon and how one could factor creator commentary into it, or not. "Creator-sponsored headcanon" is a nice way to look at it, I like that way.

"bald silco from the storyboards didn't make it to final and can't hurt you" bald silco from the storyboards:

Silco and Benzo, one of those relationships we don't get (I don't think we get...?) a crumb of onscreen, but is easy enough to assume Happened from what we do know. Fascinating. Sticking a pin in the idea of Vander having this bottled-up resentment and turning on Silco as... "original sin" is not the correct term but like a Primordial Wrong, the individualist's spur of systemic conflict.

Mel and Silco, NOW we're talking.

MEL AS PILTOVER'S SILCO...? IS THAT WHERE THIS IS GOING??

the track they're playing here, too; very distinctly wrong, I want to say it's during a Jinx hallucination. possibly when she's strapped to Singed's table? Quirky. Off-beat. I enjoy it

"Piltovian." y. you stick an I in there?

I fucking love Mel's character and do not talk about her nearly enough, and going with the more ~good-hearted (and still very much manipulative! thee traits are not in conflict!!) approach was a pretty solid move. Now I do want the version of that sunset meeting where Mel meets Silco instead of Jayce, though. (Speaking of him, hilarious that the bathhouse manipulator talk turned into what it did. Ambessa W)

Aww, a fan shout-out section... that reminds me there was a whole multi-part AMA a few days ago too, gotta look into that

Riot/whoever makes these bonus-features clips can get kiiinda self-backpat-y at times and it does make me want to roll my eyes a little, but that said. like. do they not deserve it? Does the creative team not fucking deserve it??? I love that they have fans in cosplay here.

that said we did not need 3 of 10 minutes of this video to be gushing I could find in any upvoted reddit post. ya lost me at the skin shill at the end a little bit there, guys.

2: Behind the Music

FUCK yes a music spotlight!! A+ choice for the thumbnail scene, naturally. There are additional behind-the-scenes videos on the music producers' channels, too; got links & thoughts on those somewhere in the Discord void. I know so little about music theory but it is fun to point and delight at Thing Good. please don't use 3 of these 13 minutes on a self-shill

"the Arcane Faniversary event" you're just gonna say that? without context?? I mean I know this is some kind of anniversary special release but we need the CONTEXT guys we need the DOCUMENTARY with TWENTY PARTS—

see I feel like the show being musically bookended with the bridge song is the kind of factoid that I scrounged up a while back, went "ohhh :O" about, and then forgot about again juuust enough to get to have a second ":O" moment about it just now. nice.

i hear like 0.2 seconds of "To Ashes and Blood" again i immediately want to vibrate out of my seat and gnaw on the curtains. it is a Good fucking sequence.

Forgot which video it was mentioned in, but they had an actual children's choir for this song, too! Which, can't go wrong with Ominous Chanting Children; also Adds Smthn when one of the ongoing themes is how this whole violence cycle affects children, specifically.

oooh, the comparison to Viktor in S1. need to revisit that. Messing With What You Shouldn't---although S1's version of it gets juxtaposed with a sex scene, which. tilts head. thematic implications there which i Need to dig into besides "the hexcore got him pregnant" (/joking /but visually,)

anyway! hm, that comment about "not going too far with it," because story and entertainment comes first. Are we doing soft/theme-based worldbuilding, here? Like, in the show itself absolutely, but that strikes me as an interesting thing to just say outright when there's gotta be reams of actual nitty-gritty detailing that went into the thing.

(paraphrasing) "we need to make this an actual record that someone would actually replay" well gg guys for WEEKS after watching the show I had various soundtracks on loop. I still loop various ones here and there, and probably will for the rest of the day now that the hype neurons in my brain are buzzing again. Music Good

"a lot of these characters are going on arcs that are very antithetical to what we had established them in season one" and for the LAST TIME this was a DELIBERATE CREATIVE CHOICE and not the writers being lazy or inconsistent or phoning it in they KNEW. what they were DOING. if you must gripe about the execution at least start with THAT

mfw I didn't realize caitlyn had a season 1 theme

"she's powerless" over the shot of her stepping up to Giant All-Consuming Hole in the Council Building. mwah. oh all this commentary is good. confirms nothing I have not already thoroughly devoured but it's nice to have it spelled out

"a bit childish" as a description for the Jayvik doomed yaoi scene! huh!! childish. gestures at comment on children motif above, also considers that this whole thing IS the culmination of both their childhood dreams. GOD. that's good.

i hope the jayvik fans are enjoying their crumbs of naked model jayvik in like one split-second shot on a blurry computer screen

okay so what I'm getting is that most if not all major characters have their own Motifs (sensible, thorough, 101 musical storytelling box checked) but there ISN'T a separate one for Warwick-mode Vander? hello???

lmao, the bit where people on reddit were like "it's the same theme!" and now here's the composers going "oh! it sure is!!". handshaking them all

oh if we're talking about the sex song can we talk about the airplanes and "American classics" lyrics bc ever since I saw those pointed out it bugs me So Much.

THE FUCKING THEATER FDBVKSDVNSDNKSDJGDVKSDGFDS I saw people talking about this clip but never watched it! they put it in the official bonus features video??!!!! asdfknvskfdjskfs lyric crimes forgiven actually. that is so Fucking funny.

looks at the timestamp. we are indeed spending 3 minutes of this 13-minute video (better, granted) on the fan gushing montage. fine w/e don't try to sell me anything this time

okay, points for ending on the composers talking about saying goodbye to the characters, and then it's fans connecting with the Emotional Goodbye stories. nice editing connection there.

if I ever get to it i Need to do just like. a single frame analysis of that shot where Jinx is tearfully aiming her gun at Warwick!Vander who's lunging at Vi. it's used in a song thumbnail and I was staring at it a regular amount while listening to the song a regular amount. compositional choices drive me insane

aww, they didn't even try to sell me anything except an idyllic community-based idea of fandom and a lesbianism shill. segment forgiven this time actually

+bonus from thewalrus45 in the comments:

I appreciate the fact that the offiical riot games channel will forever have a clip of a theater cheering for Caitlyn getting eaten out by Vi.

3: One Year Later

they really put caitlyn's pitiful close-up in the thumbnail huh. what are they talking about this time

Warwick has a great design and I get why they gave him a more recognizably ~human face for storytelling. it'll irk me tho. let the dog be a Dog

"rescued" is not the word I would use to describe Singed with Vander, but. sure! Sure. That ~works.

"it has to seduce the fans" are the monsterfuckers in the audience happy about their shout-out

the headshot at 1:07 with the Big Teef all Beauty and the Beast (Disney version)-like. that. THAT'S what I'm talking about!!

the fucking,,, Artistry of making the texture blend with the actual rendered hair (on which note: they actually did render hair-by-hair???). insane.

LOVE that split-second clip of the irl ref for Ww!Vander's jump. video references for silley animated movements my beloved.

It throws me off SO fucking much when voice actors have noticeably different accents than their characters. You don't talk like that on the regular? You're just putting that on????

the VAs being floored by the fans being nice... aww. sweetness ouroboros

"Oh, we're going to break their [the fans gunning for a Vander-Warwick revival] effing hearts." excellent. Wonderful. fantastique.

I like that the Caitlyn cape concept sketches include the note "needs to frame the head." correct, it Does need to be a protective fuckass cape. The fact it is big and extra and almost cartoonish-looking: obligatory.

"the Viktor team." Established thing, a Mass of crew which can be coherently spoken about like this. Love that.

"Caitlyn, she's quite a divisive character." 72-pt upside-down smile emoji. yeah a little bit

"but it was obviously from a place of fear" I AM SO VINDICATED. IN THIS CHILI'S. THAT THE CRUX OF HER CHARACTER IS FEAR

have I mentioned I need to look into the Viktor-as-"rune-giver" (not "mage" as I usually see fans describe it) thing as a retcon, bc that's an idea I've seen tossed around. Is not presented as such here.

enjoying the 2x08 Caitlyn/Jinx talk described as a "moment together" when it was largely Caitlyn talking at Jinx because Jinx is in a suicidal-depressive fugue about her child dying (a fact which Caitlyn does not seem at all concerned about). but also it is a big mutual character moment. chef's kiss

(side note, I don't not notice the conspicuous absence of Vi and Jinx's VAs from this whole series. Wonder if that's some kind of contracting issue (iirc they're both pretty big elsewhere?) and/or if they're just being ~saved for some reason.)

"complex, smart, vulnerable, beautiful... tall." everyone pack it up and go home that's all you need to know about this character. who else nails it but the va

that grayscale concept of Viktor and a ??young woman/girl, hello. Absolutely zero basis for this but I do get the vaguest Oriana vibe; smthn about the ethereality of it.

the Viktor-HuckSalo voiceover bit... can we just get like. one liiiiittle recording session. the DETAIL

the Ekko cosplayer pointing at the skateboard with that ":O" meme face fbvsndksdf god bless

AWWW the last end-segment being the creators themselves...

"that scene where Powder becomes Jinx and Silco kisses his new daughter" god WHAT a way to describe like. one of The most if not the single most pivotal scene of the series.

pity we did not get much of anything on Ambessa (Mel, Noxus in general) but I will file that under Probably Saving For Later

half the video btw. it's like 20 minutes. ehhhhh I'll allow it