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so many fics describe caitlyn as having a neat, elegant handwriting

reminder that this is what her handwriting (and general paragraphing) looks like

she doesnt put too much thought to the readability of the final product, as long as she can make out what it says.

also so many people assume she's organized and has everything perfectly filed. reminder that the only part of her room the maids didnt touch looks like this

her jinx board in s2 has the same look as well.

this is a character whose thoughts are so rapid she can barely put them to paper fast enough, who has her own internal logic to the chaos in her brain. i hate seeing this part of her erased- something about caitlyn living in this huge mansion that is squeaky clean and grandiose and yet her spaces in it are these little pockets of madness is so special to me.

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Food of Arcane

Part 3: Prison, Progress and the Taste of war

Aka: stuff I forgot before and couldn’t categorize to either Zaun or Piltover

Part 1: The Undercity of Zaun

Part 2: Topside bakery of Piltover

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#Arcane family face studies part 1!

-Basically a lil project on the arcane style as I LOVE how the show designs related characters and makes them so similar yet so unique/different. Justice for Tobias here as his genes did try yall but cass practically copy and pasted. Im planning to do Jinx/Vi and their parents next and afterwards the Medardas!

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Caitlyn Kiramman‘s Rifles

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made some silly lil arcane reaction memes

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Post-season 2 delirium in full swing

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"So THIS character actually never did anything wrong and THIS character never had a good bone in their body to begin with!!" Wrong on both accounts, and you can apply this to just about everyone in Arcane. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

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ahh caitlyn my beloved.

let's talk about the trauma she has around jinx, in particular, in a way i think is more related to being targeted by jinx than just grief.

don't get me wrong- grief is a huge part of why caitlyn is all over the place this arc (season?). she probably came to the conclusion that her softer, pacifistic attitude from the first season is the reason she ended up hurt. clearly the rocky relationship she had with her mother adds a layer of bitterness and regret caitlyn is feeling regarding her death. alongside a million different reasons, which i might discuss in a different post.

but there's a clear difference between the anger and coldness we see from caitlyn when she discusses catching jinx and bringing her to justice, than when she faces jinx head on. in the latter, she suddenly loses her cool and acts all frantically, so unlike anything we've seen from caitlyn so far.

in her mind, in episode 1, she sees herself as collected and calm, aiming her rifle at jinx. btw, take note of how jinx is depicted here. her eyes are glowing.

but in reality, she's very much NOT cool and collected when she thinks that exact scenario is about to be replicated.

that's caitlyn's pov btw:

again jinx with the glowing eyes- caitlyn had seen what jinx looks like in other circumstances, but THIS is the version of her that she visualizes and then irrationally reacts to.

we see it again when she shoots jinx in the finger

no composure, no deep breathe, no thinking. she just shoots on instinct. it's nothing like she used to.

and then her frantically calling vi to move out of the way as she keeps firing, almost like shes blind to everything but jinx- the kid and vi, who are both in harm's way, don't stop her.

i know it's easy to just paint it as anger and grief here, but there's something about it that strikes me as almost like animalistic fear. she sees jinx and just goes feral mode, but its almost more of a prey instinct than a predator.

and i think it's because whenever she faces jinx, properly, it's not the grief and radicalized anger she's feeling, it just sends her back to this moment

with all the "jinx murdered her mom" talk its easy to forget that jinx also directly, and cruelly, targeted caitlyn, tried to kill her, kidnapped her and held her hostage for who knows how long. it's not just anger that caitlyn feels towards jinx. it's a trauma response. and like, welcome to the club, caitlyn! most of the arcane cast are acting out of trauma. but i better not see people think her trauma is somewhat lesser than some... other.. characters.

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ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x06 - “The Message Hidden Within the Pattern” ↳ "Remember this Caitlyn. Tunnels in your eyes. Lava in your veins. Shadows in your heart. This is the truth of combat."

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napkins are for the weak

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Ambessa believed in you.

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all of caitlyn's scars

right eyebrow

acquired during jinx's bombing attack on progress day

left leg

also a jinx special. a shrapnel wound from the bombing on the bridge. we don't actually see this wound after it's healed but I'm sure it left a mark.

literally every one of her other scars come from her fight with ambessa

right side of abdomen

stabbed by ambessa

underneath right eye

kicked in the face by ambessa

nose and lower lip

backhanded by ambessa

forehead

a gnarly headbutt from ambessa

left eye

ambessa's blade and caitlyn's sacrifice

one scar that I'm not quite sure about...

left cheek near the ear

I think this may be a scar she acquired off screen somewhere in between s1 act 1 and 2? her hair is in the way most of the time so it was hard to catch. as far as I can tell she already has it at the time of the progress day bombing, but doesn't appear to have it in her childhood scenes. if anyone has any insight on it let me know.

& let me know if I've missed any

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the day before vs 3 months later. she's going through it fr

anyone else notice caitlyn aging like 10 years in the span of the few months since her mother's death? she's been through it

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we have caitvi at home

caitvi at home:

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What was Maddie's role in the attack on the memorial?

We have confirmation from writer Amanda Overton that Maddie is in fact Noxian and has therefore always been working for Ambessa. So I want to examine her actions around that memorial attack a bit closer.

I've seen it suggested that Maddie was somehow "protected" during the attack, because the armoured shimmer goon (do these armoured suits have a name btw?) was making a show of attacking her without actually harming her. I'll examine that exact moment a bit later but I do not agree with this assessment even a little bit.

Maddie is a deep cover agent. Presumably her entire identity in Piltover is fictitious. Careful planning and work have gone into integrating her into the ranks of enforcers over a long period of time. You do not take unnecessary risks with the identity of agents like this.

Keeping an agent like this "protected" from Renni's goons, would mean revealing her identity to every single Zaunite that Renni has recruited ("hey no one kill that redheaded enforcer, she's on our side"). If even ONE attacker survives this assault they have the potential to reveal Maddie's true identity. And imagine how it would look for these guys to be attacking everyone except her? And why would they waste their time playing around with her? It makes no sense. It's absolutely not worth that risk. Renni is used as a tool here. She is not informed as to who her actual employer is, and she is lured here by the promise of revenge against the person who killed her son.

If they really wanted to protect Maddie, it would have been much easier to come up with some excuse for her to not attend the memorial in the first place. But Ambessa has no need to try to protect Maddie. Maddie is a Noxian soldier. If a Noxian can't hold their own in an attack they are expecting then what good are they? Ambessa was willing to take the risk and accept the sacrifice if Maddie was somehow killed during this attack.

And Ambessa wants Maddie there because Maddie has a job to do. Maddie knows the attack is coming. She looks alert and on edge before it happens. We see her taking note of Renni's arrival.

So what were Maddie's orders? To protect the council.

Ambessa orchestrated this event to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Piltover, the council included. One of the attackers even gets up on stage to say “You aren’t safe, topsiders. None of you are safe.”

Making the council fearful and angry will motivate them to pursue the course of action that Ambessa has been pushing for. Dead council members can't give her what she wants. She doesn't want harm to come to Mel, and her influence over Salo means she'd prefer to keep him alive. Protecting the council is also something Maddie is in a position to do that will not look suspicious and is likely to give her career a boost.

But Maddie is very nearly killed in this operation. She is dazed from the carriage crash and pulled from the wreckage. She is screaming and fumbles her weapon. She seems genuinely afraid here.

This attacker is not playing pretend. He is seconds away from stabbing her...

... when Steb intervenes. His one and only L

Do you think that fall hurt? I hope it hurt.

But Ambessa very nearly overplays her hand here. By allowing someone who had a vendetta against Jayce to have access to him, he is almost killed.

And Ambessa doesn't want Jayce to be killed as she needs him to build her hextech weapons. Jayce dying would have been disastrous for her plans in Piltover. And what was the deciding factor in the end?

Vi.

But here's the thing. Vi was not planning to attend this memorial at all. How do we know this?

She's not wearing a ribbon.

[See this post for more info on these ribbons]

Vi had fought with Caitlyn and was on a bender. She had no plans to go to an event where there would be a chance of running into her. So why did she go?

Because moments before the memorial began a certain junior officer showed up to tell Vi all about how Caitlyn had sang Vi's praises to the enforcers, and how she was so pleased to have Vi in their ranks.

Now, there's no possible way that Ambessa could have known that Vi would end up saving Caitlyn and Jayce, but this entire meeting feels way too calculated for it to not be meaningful.

Perhaps Ambessa believed Vi would fight to protect Caitlyn and Jayce or other councillors, and was there as an added contingency. Perhaps Vi was a wildcard she wanted to keep an eye on. Perhaps she thought it wouldn't hurt to put Vi in the line of fire and maybe get rid of a potential problem.

In any case, when the dust settles, all of Ambessa's meticulous scheming is rewarded.

Maddie fought alongside Caitlyn, proving her courage and earning her respect. It is not a coincidence that the people Caitlyn later picks for her strike team are the ones she fought shoulder to shoulder with during this event.

And Ambessa succeeds in striking fear into the heart of the council and forcing them to act against Zaun. She also gets to be the big fat hero.

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Someone asked me about that black letter that Caitlyn receives in the mail.

It's an invitation to the memorial service for the deceased council members. It includes a ribbon for attendees to wear to the service.

We know this scene where Caitlyn is being haunted by thoughts of Jinx - and where she opens up about it to Jayce - is immediately before that memorial service because we see them both wearing that ribbon.

At the service itself, all attendees are wearing the ribbon.

We also see Rictus give an invitation letter to Renni, which is how she gains access to the event.

There are a lot of little details in this show that are hard to catch on the first watch. Hopefully this helps anyone who was wondering about this.