I Pretend The Disaster Twins Arent My Favorite Duo And Then I Forget Other Characters Exist In My Fanfic

I pretend the disaster twins aren’t my favorite duo and then I forget other characters exist in my fanfic

Fandom discourse is the worst when it gets too character focused rather then plot focused.

I took an adult course in English and a large part of it was media literacy. I remember reading the first short story assigned to me in class and in my first draft I kept trying to materially justify that the landlady killed the protagonist in the story.

I was overly focuses on clues like the how he tasted almond in the tea he drank because cyanide tastes like that. What was the thing I was supposed to use as evidence was how the author set up the atmosphere, the language used to describe the hotel and the lady and the weather. All of it.

I had a media illiterate fandom passerby in my head arguing with me that "oh but that doesn't mean the landlady is a serial killer just because the wind is howling and biting" I had to relearn media literacy.

I learned to read implication again and be okay with indirect non-literal interpretations. Let go of the idea that confirmation is everything. Story language is as strong evidence as the words that the characters say because characters aren't people, they have no thoughts and feelings. How they dress does say something about them other then "they just like the style." as what we would assume with real people.

The lack of media literacy that disturbs me the most in fandom is how the potential thoughts and feelings of a character are prioritized over their function in the story.

Your favorite characters are Vi, Jinx, and Caitlyn and you're watching Arcane as a tragic sci-fi fantasy family drama. My favorite characters are Jayce, Viktor, and Mel and I'm watching Arcane as a tragic sci-fi fantasy political drama. We are different people

I hate drawing wings

Why Viktor Could Die in S2

“They won’t kill a champion because—“ okay just pause for a second and humor me. I’ve made a lot of arguments in the past about why every Arcane character is fair game but that’s not what I’m arguing here—I’m arguing from a narrative standpoint.

Viktor’s my favorite character in Arcane, but I believe him dying in the series finale is the most likely conclusion to his arc. Here’s why:

Viktor’s whole arc is about life and death as a concept—what really constitutes “living”? (Posed by the scenes with Rio) Why is a human life inherently valuable? (Posed by capitalizing on his aggressive need to leave a legacy) Which is more important—a person’s effect on the world around them or their effect on their loved ones? (Viktor realizing too late that Sky valued him not just for his output but for who he is)

There’s also a ton of foreshadowing to Viktor’s demise coming about by a fault in his technology or by the careless way he relates technology to human life (usually himself but not always), and it’s often disguised as humor (the “of course not” scene) or hidden behind false foreshadowing for death by illness (basically everything to do with the Hexcore in eps 5 and 6)

I’ve theorized about it on here before, but I believe at the end of the series the Hexcore will be destroyed (probably by Jayce, specifically to call back to the promise he made to Viktor), effectively ending the threat of the Void overtaking Piltover. Viktor will be so connected to the Hexcore by the finale that destroying it will kill him. He reaches his Glorious Evolution, yes, but it destroys him in the end.

And yeah there is merit to the “how can you live with yourself” kind of approach to ending a character’s story, but that conclusion has the strongest impact if the character’s arc is about learning to live with your mistakes. Most of the character arcs in this show pose that question, but Viktor’s arc really doesn’t?

As far as we can tell with Viktor so far, there’s very little grappling with that concept up until his last 5 or so minutes of screentime, and even then it’s more of a blip that resolves itself (“In pursuit of great, we failed to do good. We have to make it right.”) If Viktor’s story is about defining the respective values of “life” and “humanity” then the most bittersweet ending to his story would be by letting him die after briefly coming back to his humanity.

At the same time, in Ep 5 of BtR Alex Yee says this when talking through writing the script for S2:

“It’s, like, die or accept some things being imperfect. That would be the way that they could go back to humanity.”

So if we assume he’s talking about Viktor covertly here (he very well could be talking about some other character, but yk “going back to humanity” is a very Viktor-coded issue) we could also speculate that they may try to end Viktor’s arc with him accepting the Glorious Evolution just…doesn’t work. I hope that’s not the case because that kind of kills his whole shtick but anything’s possible lol.

To round off this thought by comparison—there’s no chance Jinx dies by the series finale because her whole character arc will inevitably move from “Am I Powder or am I Jinx?” to “Okay, I’m Jinx. How do I live in that identity with the knowledge of my past mistakes?” Her dying at the end of the series would be an unsatisfying conclusion to that question. Same thing with Vi. Vi’s arc was about trying to “fix” things. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were, and they just can’t. Her arc is probably going to be centered around her grappling with grief over losing Powder AGAIN and learning to accept things will never go back to how they were before. Caitlyn’s arc is going to be her exacting revenge and maybe living with regret and bitterness. None of those character arcs logically conclude with “and though they found the answer to their life’s question, they died.”

Viktor’s probably will.

Also here’s a link to a longer more in-depth theory I had a while ago—kind of a adjacent to this thought (for some reason it won’t work as an embedded link) https://www.tumblr.com/arowyn-m/755893249865039872/jayceviktorhexcore-situation-in-s2?source=share

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Jayce/Viktor/Hexcore situation in S2

Okay I've seen a lot of S2 theories circulating so I just wanted to get my two cents out there before we get any new information beyond the

Would literally do anything to look like Carmy Berzatto and I say this in a very trans way