#same with Ekko LOL

[dawnatlas]

timebomb warmup while i figure out how to draw again

[melmedarda]

"I missed you little man." ⸻ VI & EKKO, Arcane

[mollysunder]

Orianna's inclusion in Arcane really drives how the show depicted Piltover as passive as possible instead of the active agent of misery it was in the original lore (or at least by comparison). In Orianna's OG lore, she was dying because she chose to bravely help Zaunites that were caught in a large chemical disaster after an explosion either brought on by the poor conditions of Zaun or it's general structural instability (or both) broke a gas line that released dangerous fumes that destroyed her lungs in short order as she helped others breathe.

In Arcane, it's no longer important how she got sick because both her agency and affect on the world around her are irrelevant. Orianna's just a dying little girl that the audience will automatically sympathize with because she's a dying little girl (who's dad is Singed). In her place, it's Viktor who's sickened (offscreen) by the Fissure gasses instead of being victimized by Piltover Academy when the instution sides with the Piltovan professor that stole his work.

It's in the same vein as how in Arcane the ones who take those closest to Ekko aren't Piltovans working his parents for 12+ hour shifts or just straight up killing his friends like Ajuna. It's other Zaunites like Silco and Jinx that are the prime source of his misery as they murder his friends to his face. You can even argue this goes for Vi and Jinx's story because while they do say that the enforcers killed their parents neither can articulate it was the Council that sent them there in the first place!

[levelagain]

Every time I see this brain dead “oppressed x oppressor” shit it’s just The online leftist version of people should just stick to their own.

The rich should stay with the rich and the poors should stay with the poors am I right? 

[felecure]

I'd like to thank two people who made me resurrect and finish this old thing that gathered dust on my pc for years just like pulsefire ezreal once did on riot servers Michael Yichao (author of the canon pulsefire ekko/ezreal story) whose crypted messages on twitter about stifled creativity still have me rolling and @anothertina  for keeping this ship alive and by doing so making me remember about this wip. I wanted to give something back to you for all your wonderful drawings, thank uu

[tbhshaped]

who in arcane would actually survive squid game

[silcosgoodgirl]

exesbomb au

(inspired by what my friend tweeted)

(sorry if this is lowkey shit, I don't usually do this)

where they have a fight which triggers an episode for jinx where she breaks up with him, he leaves and they block eachother on everything and when they see eachother in public for the for the first time and jinx's sleeve is rolled up just past the tattoo ekko gave her. he thinks that she had removed and moved on, and jinx can see that he still has the blue highlights in his hair, wouldnt they have faded by now? no because he keeps re dying them because he can't let go, but once he thinks that she's removed the tattoo he goes home and in a fit of frustration, dyes the blue out of his hair.

Once they see eachother in public again, shes wearing a short sleeve for once and he can see that the tattoo is still there but she catches that she can no longer see the blue in his hair. She gets so upset that she has to leave and goes straight home. Once she gets home all she can do is look at the tattoo in the mirror, tracing it with her fingers thinking that he's over her and has moved on, she cries herself to sleep in her bed, wearing his shirt.

A couple days later, jinx goes to put on his shirt to sleep again when she realises that it doesn't smell like him anymore, all she can do is break down crying, hugging the tshirt looking at his side of the bed where he would lay, tracing her skin with his fingers, soothing her to sleep on bad days, comforting her after a nightmare, staying up late eating jerichos and talking shit about anyone and everyone. And while shes stuck there thinking about all that Ekko is at home with all the trinkets she made for him splayed out on his desk, just looking at them. He can't seem to get rid of them no matter how hard he tries.

The teddy bear she won for him at the fair is still on his bed, right next to his pillow, he can't move it from where she left it the last time she was over, the matching keychains she made for them two are still on his keys, he doesn't want it to be anywhere else but with him. The carefully made leather bracelet with J+E engraved on it is still on his wrist, it doesn't belong anywhere else but there, with him.

They both sit there on their own, without eachother thinking the other has moved on. They're both so distraught not knowing what the other is doing right now but little do they know they're doing the same thing. They're both mourning the love they had. Theyre both just hoping that one day they'll make their way back to eachother.

[disordercinema]

Also, I'm very pissed off they didn't show anything about Ekko in this act and Mel had even less screen time than in act 1. Sevika disappeared after ep 5 and Ambessa's motivations still lack so much development. Like, what are they doing with my black characters and characters of colour? Is it gonna hurt to give them more space in this? The goddamn scuttle crab thingies that Jinx and Isha were playin with had more action than Ekko

[alumi-san]

So I watched Valoran Town. Garen gives me the impression of a guy who would treat everyone shorter than him like kids (except nobles, elders, people he respects, etc.)

Cus it's funny to me how he looks at Jinx like she's some kid while being only a year ahead of her.

[mollysunder]

One of my favorite things about the Gilded skin universe is that it shows that in a place 2ith no socioeconomic pressures, Ekko's a fun and flirty guy.

Look at him, Ekko's just on his way to make it to the Progress Day gala. In the card description he's using his chronobreaker to make sure his friends and him have the best time getting to the party.

When he gets there, Ekko's sitting and chatting with his friends having a good time, all the while multiple timelines of himself are flirting with the guests. It's all got a nice carefree prince aesthetic going on. And this is why in any college/shonen/shoujo au or something Ekko should be placed as campus prince.

Sidenote: It is interesting they gave Ekko pink eyes in this, technically in this au Zaun doesn't exist, but maybe Shimmer still does. Except that without the stigma of Zaunite poverty and Silco's brutality, Shimmer probably has wider mainstream use and regulation.

The Gilded universe definitely takes certain suprrficial elements from Arcane. For example, they used Ekko's motorcycle which we only saw in the Enemy music video. This au also explicitly did leave a design for Viktor out, probably because Viktor's Arcane version of the Machine Herald is getting a redesign. How much these illustrations go at potentially hinting at season 2 developments depends on the amount of copium you're on.

[quirktwerp]

i come crawling out of my little hole, scroll for ten minutes, then hide away again for months until the cycle repeats itself.

[starlooove]

Anyways nothing in the show made me cry till seeing ekko and Mel sitting there alone and it doesn’t even have to do with powder and Jayce it’s the fact that they have to get up the next day its exhausting like there’s so much work to do.

[thebigqueer]

arcanes soundtrack is so good because even though in the show the songs on there are dedicated to specific scenes / characters, when you listen to the songs on their own almost all of them can be applied to literally any situation or dynamic.

[foxballad]

I am not well with the Arcane finale 😭😭😭😭😭

[thefdtd-blog1]

I respectfully disagree. Ekko isn't incapable of seeing moral greys, otherwise he would have declared the "real Vi" dead (like Powder was "dead" to him) when the Firelights caught her with an Enforcer and the show would have ended very grimmly.

Instead he's willing to temporaly work with them, personally hand the Enforcers the Hexgem, risk his life for theirs and partially reconcile with Vi precisely because he sees them (a reluctant collaborator and an ignorant Enforcer who hasn't personally participated on any attrocities yet, people who he should still see as morally reprehensible) as the "lesser evil" (grey) compared to Silco and his movement/mafia, whom he sees as the "greater evil" (pitch black).

Also he does give people in the “lesser evil” camp a chance not only in the short term, but in the long term. Heimerdinger had no “clear and blatant” excuse to neglect the wellfare and internal stability of the nation-state he created and there was no common greater evil to unite them at the time. But Ekko welcomed him and they worked together for the greater good pretty quickly. (Maybe too quickly honestly).

He doesn't hate Jinx to the point he disconects her from his childhood friend/crush because she goes against his moral compass and he just can't accept that, he hates her guts because her dad/boss murdered all his friends and family when he was 12 and they've been engaged in low intensity gang warfare (which Jinx has been a participant in) for years.

Ekko's grudge against Silco and his minions is a very PERSONAL grudge, born out of the pain they have inflicted on him and his third family (the Firelights), not just an ideological dispute born out of self-righteousness (tho he would obviously disagree with Silco's methods to gain independence, ie shimmer production and distribution and the creation of a criminal sindicate which ruled over Zaun, from a moral standpoint even if this things hadn't personally affected him and the people he cares about).

I think Ekko's main flaw on season 1 is that this personal inter-Zaunite vendettas keep the Firelights from identifying and actively confronting the true greater evil in Zaun, Piltover's neglectful and abusive rule, which gave rise to the likes of Silco and Jinx in the first place. These are hurt, broken people but they ultimately did pretty monstrous things.

And Ekko can't just forgive them and see their own pain and work together for the greater good, not because he's on some moralistic crusade and all who oppose his project for Zaun MUST be evil. He can't just move past these things because they did those monstrous things to him. He IS bitter and it clouds his judgement and we should acknowledge this flaws and how they hold Ekko's own movement back. They make him a more interesting character and less of an archetype of a flawless hero. He did need the clarity to be able to be able to work with Jinx after so many years of hurting each other.

I just went on a rant about how overly critical we are of Mel and I just had a thought that the we give the same treatment to Ekko albeit inverted.

What I mean is that with Mel, she got overly blamed and glossed over while with Ekko, he's held to a perfect standard...but still glossed over.

Now, all in all Ekko is the closest thing (other than like, the little kids) we get to a character who meets the ideal moral standard. But he isn't perfect.

The whole "boy saviour" title seems heroic, but both of those words should never under any circumstances go together. Ekko was 19-20 throughout the main storyline, and taking care of countless people, then fighting in a war, then taking on the burden of trying to save the world. But he was also 12 years old, realising only one of his friends had come back from a job and she was in Silco's grasp. Realising she wanted to stay there. Twelve years old, doubly orphaned, and deciding that from there on out he was going to help people. Bearing the brunt of trying to bring people hope.

Anyway, these are all things that everybody knows, but those specific conditions didn't make a perfect saviour. They made him bitter. They made him see the world in black and white and ignore all the shades in between. He lacks understanding because he has no desire to understand when his mind has been made up. To Ekko, there was either good or bad, and he campaigned against anyone who he declared was bad. When he paused (while fighting Jinx) before he could deliver the final blow, it was because he remembered their history, and her goodness, and he couldn't do that to someone who didn't fit within the boundaries of his moral dichotomy. His interactions with topsiders are all hostile from the beginning, save for Heimerdinger because they met while Heimerdinger was wandering around the street, because he doesn't give people a chance.

Now it feels like he does because the whole idea of the firelights rests on the idea of a second chance. The difference is that all of those people are victims to an obvious abuser (shimmer) and he could justify helping them. When he couldn't justify someone's actions with a clear, blatant answer, he wouldn't try to understand them, and they wouldn't get a chance.

Jayce went to the devasting future universe because he needed to understand that his vision of progress was NOT headed in the direction he intended and he needed to stop being blinding by his idealism. Heimerdinger went to the perfect one to understand that it was his passivity and personal failure as a leader that brought Zaun to that point (as it had taken a catastrophe and the efforts of Zaunites to heal their city).

Ekko went because he needed to see the world beyond the undercity's dimness, and understand that people are not inherently good or evil. That Jinx was a girl who was hurting, same as him, and had leaned on the wrong support system. That Silco was an angry, embittered man who had once been willing to reconcile if only Vander would ask. That maybe even he wasn't this protector of a moral good, and maybe he shouldn't have had to pretend he was. He needed to experience a world balanced between shades of grey, and understand that that's where peace lies, not within the boundaries of what is supposed to be righteous.

Still, he was never entitled to give people chances. It was never his responsibility to do all of the things that he did. That was the responsibility of all of the adults that were supposed to care for him.

Ekko doesn't represent a perfect character, he represents the failure of a system.

[jane-asmo]

Here’s a quick review of the amazing opening of Arcane season 2:

Vi seems to be struggling with her identity / Loss of identity

Vi is wearing the tank top that I believe is the one she wears under her enforcer uniform. That’s the outfit she’s wearing throughout the opening.

Jinx, who was hiding behind, rises and steps into the light—maybe a way of showing that she’s grown symbolically, that she’s now 'bigger.'

Ekko with his shadow resembling a clock winding back time.

Caitlyn is shown in her turtleneck (also what she wears under her enforcer outfit ? ), With a curtain to suggest a stage, she takes a deep breath before stepping into the light with a fake smile. Honestly, if I analyze it, we can say without much risk that she's in inner conflict, that she has to step into the spotlight and is showing a different face from how she really feels.

There’s so much to say about the other scenes, but others will handle that perfectly; I have a special focus on CaitVi (😂). Here they are again in the same outfits—the turtleneck and tank top. It’s an interesting way to present them, and there’s a lot that could be said, which I won’t go into, but I wanted to point it out. Cait and Vi are more vulnerable in these outfits; it’s very intimate, as are all the shots with them in this opening. We’re really in deeply intimate territory.

The looks are very intense, filled with hatred or something else? (my poor babies).

At first, I thought they were kissing, but now I think they’re fighting. They could be kissing or strangling each other in that shot; it’s hard to tell. In both cases, it’s very interesting because this little backlit scene with its colors is very intense. And, as I read elsewhere, very lesbian flag.

And Caitlyn is still struggling, with her shadow looking like the Evil Queen, I think (lol 😆). And the effect on her hands gives the impression that she has blood on them.

And I really like this shot because that's my Caitlyn; she has the look of someone who’s realizing, who understands. And maybe she’s coming back to her senses? So, there you have it—just my initial thoughts. I was so awestruck by this new opening that I just had to watch it again and again.