#automaton viktor
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arcane-aesthetics · 2 months ago
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"Allow us a moment of civility, Jayce. We must talk."
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alostpolyglot · 5 months ago
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I wonder if there is some type of connection between his design and that of an automaton...
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hellfridge · 3 months ago
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@avelera more evidence for your theory
Noticed a thing while screencapping for a totally different post (coming soon).
So while Jayce is staggering through the commune at the end of 2.06, he is having all these flashbacks/hallucinations of the torment nexus timeline.
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These go by super quick and the first time watching this episode we don't know what they are at all, because we haven't seen any of that yet. We just know that Jayce is Having a Bad Time.
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Among them is this quick succession of images:
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Husk Jayce and two flashes of Mage Viktor's hand.
So at first I was like ah yes, this is Jayce's POV of Mage Viktor opening his hand to reveal the anomaly and send Jayce back to his own timeline. Except we see that and Mage Viktor opens his hand like this:
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It's the palm-up, open, offering gesture instead of the palm-down, taking gesture which we see in one very specific context.
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Which leads to my theory that these two flashes:
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are actually other Jayce's, husk Jayce's, memories of being assimilated.
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sapphiresaphics · 6 months ago
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The reason Season 2 ends with a big robot battle is because throughout the entire show, everyone thinks that to solve the conflict between the two cities you just need either bigger violence or the more correct form of violence.
Silco’s brilliant takeaway from the failed bridge revolt that began Arcane is that he just needs to have an even BIGGER attack. “For respect.” Right?
Jayce’s big plan to solve things was to team up with Vi to take on Silco. Because just getting rid of Silco will solve everything… right?
Jinx’s hatred and anger is taken out on the council, blowing them up in a fit of rage and retaliation. Surly that will stop things from getting worse, right?
Ambessa believes that Hextech weaponry will solve all her problems with the Black Rose. Remove them and everything will be okay, right?
So much of the justification for peace, is through acts of violence. Something Caitlyn herself remarks upon in season 2. But notably each time the violence escalates, the retaliation escalated too.
Jayce’s attempt to stop Silco resulted in him killing one of the Chem-Baron’s kids. That same Chem-Baron then attacks the memorial for the counselors which in turn sets off Caitlyn to attack the undercity, which in turn sets off Jinx to attack Piltover, which in turn forces Ambessa to seize control of the city. Every time, the violence escalates larger and larger.
The cycle continues.
And as things get worse and worse and worse, Viktor comes up with the ULTIMATE form of violence:
Forcefully remove ALL choice and agency from ALL people in the world and impose his own will on everybody all at once.
Viktor’s “glorious evolution” is the inevitable culmination of this attempt to stop the conflict between the two cities. It’s a different type of force, yes, but it’s still a force against your will all the same.
Viktor’s robot army is a visual representation of what the cycle of violence will ultimately lead to. It’s taking away your choice, your individuality, your emotions and fears, against your will.. by force. Reducing you to just a blank, faceless, obedient, automaton. You have no agency. You have no purpose. You don’t even have a voice to scream with.
But as future Viktor observes: “when all equations were solved, all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude.”
Arcane begins with the tale of two cities entrenched in the cycle of violence. The political machinations don’t leave the show, it just gets more and more heightened as the show goes on until it balloons out of control and becomes this enormous war over the very concept of individuality. Arcane needs to end with a big robot battle because that’s a visual metaphor for what happens when the cycle of violence continues. When you keep thinking “this act of violence will be the one to stop everything from getting worse” this is the only logical end game.
Just as doing science for the sake of science gets you the Atomic Bomb and the potential of Nuclear Destruction, violence for the sake of violence will only result in devastating consequences and a loss of rights and freedoms.
Anyone who thinks season 2 did away with the political messages of season 1 is lying to themselves. Season 2 is just a continuation of what was happening in season 1 and it only gets bigger and more intense as the show progresses until it reaches its breaking point.
Ps: this is my own extrapolation from this brilliant post. Please check their analysis out as well!
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starschu · 7 months ago
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So, I had a thought while going over some of my fav high def photos from Episode 8 and…
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…the before and after is devastating actually
It reminded me of @discoedelysium ‘s post about how Viktor’s body language in the scene is a directly reflection of how much more confident he is now that he is inhabiting a body with no limitations; how he feels powerful, feels perfect, and is thus able to meet Jayce head on in a fight that is borderline flirtatious. How afterward—when Jayce rejects Viktor’s invitation to stand by his side, and he and Mel combine efforts to destroy the automaton—that all of his posturing crumbles and he shrinks down onto himself
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(I will forever be sobbing over Viktor’s face here when Jayce uses his hammer blast against him like jfc)
Anyhoo, I love @discoedelysium and the way they describe this scene so much so their post is tagged below!! Definitely check them out
Anyway, I’m gonna go cry. Peace out 😭
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the-uss-trash · 3 months ago
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It's the way it's all Jayce's fault.
The way he destroys the very world he was trying to improve, the way he distorts all the lives he was trying to save. All because he was ambitious hopeful arrogant enough to try and make the world better meddle in things he doesn't understand.
It's his fault every Cait, Ximena, and Mel are either automatons or forever frozen in fear as statues. All because Jayce wouldn't let anyone convince him his dreams were impossible listen to anyone who knew more than him.
It's the way Viktor's life goes in universes without Jayce. The way Viktor lives never knowing what's it's like to be loved in his entirety experiencing the horrific results of being loved by Jayce Talis.
It's his fault there are infinite Viktors changed against their will, into either unfeeling beings of a higher power or doomed to an eternity of solitude with the entirety of humanity and it's emotions crushed inside him. All because he couldn't let the only person who never doubted him, who believed in him from the start die thought he could outsmart death.
It's the way that "In all timelines, in all possibilities...only you can show me this" means "In every timeline where these events happen, only you will love me despite it all it's all your fault."
It's the way Jayce's love predetermines the fate of those who have it, that it's his own fault their narratives are doomed. It's the way he never asked for any of this it's all Jayce's fault.
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meownotgood · 6 months ago
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jokingly begging machine herald viktor to help you because your cramps are so bad. vik I know you want to replace my imperfect flesh please please pleaseeee this would be the perfect time to do it. viktor gives you an annoyed stare. hands you an intricate heating device he made for you, a little automaton that warms itself up and sits and purrs on your stomach. then he turns back to his work without a word
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bonesvoid · 4 months ago
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imagine the turmoil that would result if you were a noxian spy; your goal was to gain the trust the hextech inventors jayce and viktor by becoming their assistant after the disappearance of their former one. oh, how you would glaze them like honey spread on ham, with your sweet words and support. stroking the flames of doubt and frenzy in their hearts, you're a master manipulator, one of ambessa medarda's best assets.
your sights are on the mission, but you had to admit that working with viktor and jayce ignited a spark of pride in you. hextech was making a difference, it deserved to be in the hands of the people to better their lives. yet, you are noxian, the beliefs of 'survival of the fittest' and the honor of war are drilled in you.
you're there in the council room when it's bombed, next to viktor. when the dust settles upon the explosion, you find yourself gravely injured and beside a deceased viktor. your mission is forgotten, your mind is weary, and all you could do was scream for your colleague, your friend.
one of your legs is charred with burns from the explosion, unable to feel the now absent dermis. yet, you are noxian, you are made for this. you shout for jayce and he finds the two of you among the rubble; he tries to resuscitate viktor, but to no avail. jayce rushes off with viktor in hand while councilor mel medarda, ambessa's prized daughter, addresses your injuries.
you're conflicted, muddled with thoughts of disappointment and grief. you failed your mission, willingly so, by succumbing to such affections of care and compassion for the hextech inventors. during your stay in the hospital ward, you received extensive treatment for your burns via skin grafts, but they cannot eradicate the pain and return your functioning.
you, a disgraced noxian, then seek guidance and aid in the depths of the undercity, searching for the one called 'the machine herald' with the gift of repairing such injuries and diseases. with all your might, you travel down and find the herald's commune, filled with peace and tranquilly.
you follow the path to the herald and to your shock, it's your friend, viktor. he greets you with a smile and offers you healing, explaining how he was blessed with such a gift after being revived by jayce's intervention with the hexcore. you don't believe him until viktor touches his fingers against your forehead, consuming you in light while mechanical parts swirl around you. when you open your eyes once more, you're repaired, your leg now metallic and splashes of golden white covering your body.
you live in the commune with the other followers and viktor, tending to the various gardens and such. relief washes over you when you finally shed your skin and abandon your task as a noxian spy. yet, the past always catches up with you when the noxian army locates the commune.
ambessa outs you as a traitor before the army and viktor, revealing your original intentions. despite viktor's supposed lack of emotions, his face betrays him when he understands that the months shared together were wasted.
tensions break when jayce, battered and bruised, appears before the commune and towards viktor's chambers. you try to stop him, you tell him the truth about yourself and plead for him to listen. jayce doesn't, as he drags himself into the chambers and-with a heavy heart-blasts viktor in the chest.
your mind disappears the moment viktor dies, your tether to the mortal world snapping into two. your body, like the other fallen commune members, engulfs in golden light and you're transformed into something unnatural and otherworldly; a puppet, a marionette.
the final salt rubbed into the fresh wound comes when viktor puppeteers your automaton form into the destroyed council room to fight jayce and mel; either of them recognize you. despite viktor's vice on you, you try to fight back, to free yourself of his influence. your only solace comes when jayce destroys your body with his hammer, your soul evaporating into the aether.
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saingirl101 · 4 months ago
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Sacrament of the Hound
(aka a Commune Jayce Dark-fic that isn't good or bad ending but a secret third thing)
Chapter 11: Finale (Part 2) - Sacrilege to the Wolf
Pairing: Jayvik
Fandom: Arcane
Rating: Explicit
PLEASE READ CONTENT WARNINGS AT THE START OF THE CHAPTER.
Chapter 11 Summary Teaser:
Viktor is nothingness. An empty husk of a being. Yet he is also filled with such rage that it's almost frightening. A contradiction that encompasses the absence and overwhelming amount of feeling. Viktor is distantly aware of his body moving, but it's more like an automaton that's been wound up and left to walk around on its own. He’s more machine than man. The human part of him is walled off, hiding from the horrible truth. Fleeing from the body (c̵͕̝̙͍͠ó̸̜̫̍̈́̃͑r̸̥͉͚̈́p̶̩͖̣̝̤̎̕s̷̰͙͇͙͇͂e̴̢̯̮̼͓͒) that had once been someone (J̷̮̈́̌͘a̷̦͖̘̒̔́̿̈́ý̸̢̨͉͕c̵̦̦̥̮̈́e̷̡̯͖̅̚,̴̛͎̩̜̾̈́͋̽ ̸̗͈̖̻̇h̸̟̆̄̄̀̉ȉ̷̧̤̼͗ͅs̶̢̙͇̄̽ͅ ̵̫̂b̶̰̯̣̂̀͒̎̎ĕ̶̖̰l̸̩̞͐͑̇͑ò̷͓̚v̵̳̻̆̓e̸̫͂͑́͝d̸͖̐͆ ̵̤̹͕̏J̴͎̪̭̖̈́̌̐̀̚ȁ̵͚͐̓y̸̜̣̞̳̑c̴̠̐͐̈͐̏ę̵̪̭̣͍̈́̃́). As he floats along he encounters dogs of war (m̷̥̔̎é̵̡͂́n̷̫̍̂̕̚͜) who block his way he feels a flicker go through him as their weapons fly out of their hands and slam into the wall. Some balk at his power and flee but the rest attempt to charge him. Light flares around him and they freeze before him, eyes wide with terror as something drips from his orifices. A creeping glitchy rot streaks down his feet to pool on the floor before it creeps towards the soldiers as if it is alive.
Story Cover Art Commissioned from: Wetcatjayce / Howling-wizard
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arcane-aesthetics · 1 month ago
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nabexis · 6 months ago
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"Do you think he'll do it? The other version of me? Will he stop this from happening?" "I don't know, but I have hope."
These two are living in my head Rent free. Especially future Viktor? I want to know all about him. More about him. uuuugh I need a fic about him and if this is him bringing more jayces into this universe or if only the acceleration rune Jayce made it? Did he give out more than one of each rune? Is this just how he spends his time? Attempting to prevent all other universes from being destroyed like his? Is this even his own universe or just one where it all went wrong?
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Would he actually still see Jayce, his Jayce, connected to him? Or is it a hallucination of Jayce, hoping he'd still see him. I headcanon his Jayce to be much unchanged from pre-Alternate Universe Hopping Jayce, if this is indeed his universe where Viktor wasn't killed by Jayce during the cult era. Jayce had no reason for him to look disheveled and wild, since no Viktor like him sent him to another universe/time. It doesn't even look like ruins Jayce had facial hair? Not that it matters since he was at least partially turned into an automaton, rather than a husk the way other people fleeing the city were. I'll just say artistic liberty and leave it at that. (Though personally, I prefer rugged Jayce. What a glow up).
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Anyway, their secret little place they used to hang out is destroyed, but there is still one like it in the building. But Viktor spread Sky's ashes from the middle hole in the building, not the far right. so it's not quite the same. Viktor can get to it because he can teleport (I think? That's my headcanon anyways lol)
Speedpaint:
youtube
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countlessmoviethoughts · 7 months ago
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//SPOILERS FOR ARCANE SEASON 2
It could be nothing, but I love thinking about how the dark outfit we all love so much on Jayce makes him seem so isolated in the big fight scene in the council room.
Think about it…
The scene starts out with him and Mel getting into a fight over Mel’s perceived deception against Jayce. Not only are they at odds in terms of what they’re discussing, but also visually in their outfits.
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(The quality of these photos are so bad I’m sorry, I got these off YouTube 😭)
Mel is wearing her gorgeous white outfit, and Jayce is wearing exclusively dark colors. It’s such a striking contrast both to Mel and to all his other looks in the show up to this point, when I first saw him in it my initial reaction was a deep sense of dread.
But besides that, these outfits are the most textbook contrasts of each other out there, immediately putting them at odds. And then when Viktor shows up?
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This is ofc pre “Glorious Evolution” Vik, so he’s in an automaton/doll body of one of his transformed followers. Where the color scheme is, once again, white and gold and contrasting Jayce’s outfit completely.
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Him and Mel aren’t on the same side obviously, but it’s interesting to see how the two people that Jayce fights with in this scene are in similar/same color palettes, visually setting them apart from him.
It’s also interesting how after this, white is incorporated back into Jayce’s color pallet, almost signifying that he’s back to being a team player (for lack of a better term).
Which is ALSO interesting because it puts him solidly on Mel’s team as she wears white until her big fight with her mother. But after this is also when Viktor finally transforms into, Yknow,
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This, where there’s no hint of any light colors and definitely no white, once again contrasting the white in Jayce’s coat.
The only time we see those light colors come back is in everyone’s hair in the… inner world? Is that the right term for it?
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Which is where the two of them eventually reconcile and fix everything!
I can even link this back to S1 real quick (because I was looking for better photos for this) and you can see that white is used as a way to tie them together as partners even then with them both being in white vests with similar accent colors!
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Anyways, thank you for coming to my Ted talk, this could be the ramblings of a deprived Arcane fan, or it could be something! I’ll let y’all decide :))
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jaycegonewild · 4 months ago
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S2 Jayce but he had to amputate his leg after he visits the commune. The pain of having to walk with it, paired with the repulsion of arcane energy from shooting Viktor, caused his mind to spiral as the hexcorisation of his fracture to crumbled apart.
cw! graphic desc of wounds and bodily fluids
And the decision was made for him when he woke up fitfully from his threadbare dreams to see his leg oozing out into the sheets of his bed. The arcane scar tissue has mixed in with the clotted blood as pearlescent dust, leaving a jagged emptiness in his limb. He can even see the shards of his bone poking through the rift in the muscles of his leg.
Bile rises in his throat.
He cries when his mind wanders back to Viktor. This is his punishment for killing his cloest friend. He fights to keep the acid in his throat as he sobs. Jayce barely even lifts his fingers as he watches more ichor saps out from his leg and starts yelling when the thoughts get louder.
His guilt, his pain, his regrets spiral around him. He doesn't notice when Ximena comes into his room and seeing the mess he's making. She holds him as he shakes in her arms, petting the sweaty strands at his nape, as she reaches over for the phone on his nightstand and calls the emergency line.
She keeps quiet as Jayce's sobs get louder the longer he's left with his thoughts. He nears hysteria at one point, when he remembers all the metal automatons he's faced and the horror when it flashes on Salo, and all those poor people in the commune. The paranoia from those months of agony seems lile the only thing he can feels as the warmth of his body recedes out through the wound in his leg.
Jayce loses time until he feels himself on his back on a cot. His mother is still there, her metal fingers drawing shapes into his palm.
Flashes of a wider smile, radiant eyes, and tawny hair with blond flashes in his vision, and he bites his lips until it breaks from the imagery.
He deserves this. He shouldn't be alive right now. His mother shouldn't be hear if she knew what he did. He feels sick again.
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mistresscitrusslice · 2 months ago
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Our Glorious Evolution - Chapter 7: My Candle Lit by Your Flame
“I have been dusting,” Viktor says.
Jayce sneezes. The dust particles are thick in the air. “You’re sure?”
They’re in the building adjacent to Viktor’s- their house. The decommissioned forge had been brought back into working order after Viktor moved, but remained dormant until Jayce’s arrival. The ground floor, even after being cleaned, has an eerie air of abandonment to it. Not even a single spider makes its home here. Jayce is willing to guess that most buildings in the neighborhood are this way.
They head down the stairs to the heart of the forge. Discolored stains mark the flooding from the chemical spill that devastated the area. The forge isn’t spacious, nothing like the Talis’ was, but he’ll have just enough room to work. Slumbering automatons line two of the walls. Jayce can pick out every single one of them from their fights and the raids on his lab in Piltover. Would he be considered one of them now? He focuses on what he’s comfortable with, trying to estimate how hot this forge can get, what implements he’ll be working with.
“There was a lot to clear out.” Viktor laments, “Admittedly, I have neglected this place. It seemed like a good idea to have easy access to a forge now that I have an able body to operate it.” He looks away. “I underestimated the skill required and the learning curve it would take.”
Jayce quirks an eyebrow at him, imploring to go on.
Viktor stays silent, gaze averted, until his words finally sink in. He grimaces as Jayce bursts out laughing, clutching at his sides when his stitches flare up.
“Gods, you… ha! You tried to work the forge? What, on your own, without guidance?”
He’s at least able to coax a few self-deprecating laughs out of his stoic partner. These past days, Jayce has tried to parse when and how high he has his suppressor settings on. It looks like a low day, which he’s grateful for.
“I tried to copy what I saw you do,” Viktor protests.
“Show me.”
“I refuse to humiliate myself for your entertainment.”
Jayce shrugs. “It doesn’t have to be today, but I am going to show you how to properly use this place, and you’re going to humiliate yourself then.”
His partner seems open to that, and Jayce finds himself looking forward to his stitches healing enough so that he can return to doing hardier labor. They won’t, he then remembers. His body will be replaced before they do, and his mind sinks into thoughts of how different this labor might be for him in the future. Try as he might, he doesn’t come up with any downsides. Will it be so bad to be a man shaped by the forge in the most literal sense?
Full fic on AO3
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sapphiresaphics · 3 months ago
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The infantilization of Viktor and Jayce while simultaneously demonizing Cailtyn and Vi is everything you need to know about how fandom treats gay characters.
All 4 characters have done absolutely atrocious things. Jayne unleashed Hextech on the population. He murdered a child while being a vigilante. His actions as counselor resulted in a whole squadron of Enforcers to lose their lives. His refusal to listen to Viktor results (at least in alternate timelines) with the destruction of all life on earth.
Viktor abused Hextech and Shimmer. His tampering with the Arcane killed Skye. His ability to manipulate the core resulted in him being turned part machine where he slowly lost his humanity. He “saves” people by turning them into hive mind automatons. And his ultimate goal (which succeeds in alternate timelines) is to subjugate the world and remove free will from all of humanity.
Vi punches Powder turning her into Jinx. Jinx who then goes on to kill countless other people as a result of VI’s actions. She sided with Jayce and attacks Zaun, resulting in the death of a child. She sided with Caitlyn and did targeted attacks on Zaun trying to rid the undercity of the chem barons but resulted in unintentionally gassing citizens. As a direct result of her inactions, Piltover gets gassed by Jinx and hundreds of innocent people get hurt. She spends the next few months beating up people in pit fighting tournaments.
Caitlyn tries to work for both Piltover and Zaun, but because of her disregarding of orders and investigations she gets a whole team of Enforcers killed. She blames herself for her mother dying and not taking the shot that would’ve saved the counsel from being destroyed by Jinx. She eventually comes up with a task force idea to infiltrate Zaun using their own air against them and taking down the Chem Barons as she hunts for Jinx. Failure to do so results in her declaring martial law and oppressing Zaun further, while being manipulated by the authoritarian worshiping Ambessa.
But you’d NEVER KNOW ANY OF THAT if you just follow what the fandom presents in their art and commentary. According to fans, Jayce and Viktor are SO IN LOVE and clearly have kinky sex in the ethereal plane and never did anything wrong ever. According to fans, Caitlyn is literally hitler, the worst character in the world, and she colonized and abuses Vi routinely, preying on VI’s ignorance and poverty to get her way.
Fuck. Each. And. Every. One. Of. You.
The bottom line is that ALL the characters are flawed. But because a lot of the fandom is female, and fandom women love gay men, Jayce and Viktor get treated as gay icons of love while Caitlyn and Vi are treated like the oppressor X oppressed devil incarnates.
Doesn’t matter that Viktor is ALSO from Zaun, so being in love with Jayce would technically make them oppressor x oppressed too… but that’s okay because at least there it gives you kinky sex you can draw that totally isn’t in any way problematic at all!
No, you guys just hate lesbians and sapphic characters. Whatever reasons you use to justify it, that’s the end result.
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padthaifan · 3 months ago
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Breakdown of Machine Herald vs. Arcane Herald
For @hivemuthur
Hello! I’d like to preface this by saying I enjoy both versions of Viktor, I do not hate the Arcane Herald (many Machine Herald fans do… we’ll touch on that later) and this post is just meant to inform about the differences between two versions of the character. With that out of the way, let’s get into it.
Some backstory: Viktor has been a champion in League of Legends since 2012. When he was released, his lore wasn’t very fleshed out and he later had some updates that expanded upon his lore. The expanded lore is what I will be talking about today, and it is what most people are familiar with when we talk about the Machine Herald. I’m going to refer to this version of Viktor as MH (Machine Herald) to make things easier when comparing them.
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So let’s start with the lore. I highly recommend reading MH’s backstory here, but a quick summarized version of it is that he’s an inventor from Zaun that wanted to improve people’s lives. He moved to Piltover to attend their Academy, where he met Jayce, and the two worked together with a mutual respect. Viktor created a sentient golem (automaton) named Blitzcrank to aid in rescue efforts during a major chemical spill in Zaun and began to develop ideas about enhancing humans with technology. His work was stolen by a Professor at the Academy and even when he tried to report it, they didn’t care. He tried to get Jayce to back him up, but the other did not speak up on his behalf. Continuing his studies, Viktor’s beliefs became rigid, and he saw humans as inefficient and weak due to their error. He and Jayce ended up getting into an incredibly heated argument when they had to work on a project together and disagreed about removing the fear response in humans to help them work better. Jayce saw this as a breach of free will, reported Viktor to the Academy, and he was expelled.
Viktor returned to his old lab in Zaun, depressed. He realized his emotions were making him weak and decided to operate on himself to fix this. He replaced a lot of his flesh with mechanical augments and became obsessed with a vision of saving humanity from the errors of man by augmenting people with hextech (in League lore hextech already existed before Viktor and Jayce, Jayce just perfected it). He referred to this as the “Glorious Evolution”.
He saved many lives in Zaun by augmenting the injured and improving their anatomy, but his work was also dangerous due to unexpected consequences of augmentation. Some people in Zaun saw him as a religious figure of sorts, but he thought they were stupid. While trying to help victims of a disaster in Zaun, he realized he needed more energy than what he currently had in order to save them. He broke into Jayce’s lab and stole a crystal with hextech energy. He returned to Zaun and began to use the crystal to save the victims, however before he could finish, Jayce broke in and started destroying his lab. During their fight, the building collapsed and all of Viktor’s patients died. Jayce was seen as a hero in Piltover for this, and Viktor escaped the rubble with an even stronger desire to continue his Glorious Evolution.
When S1 of Arcane came out, fans were actually pretty excited about how they would turn Viktor into the MH in S2. S1 Viktor wasn’t necessarily at odds with MH’s lore, and there were only a few minor lore changes that could be worked with (a lot of art and fics made between S1 and S2 merge S1 Viktor with MH in really cool ways). However, when S2 came out, MH’s lore was completely overhauled. Instead of changing his body with technology, he was corrupted by the hexcore. Many MH fans saw this as a removal of his autonomy. Arcane Viktor became a god-like figure, and even if both versions sought to eliminate emotion from humanity, their belief systems seem very different and their way of going about doing it even more so.
So where does this leave “canon” for League of Legends? Most people assumed Arcane would be treated as an alternate universe (like how champion skin lines are in the game), and this is how it worked for champions such as Jinx, Vi, Jayce, etc. But for Viktor, they did a complete rework of his in-game model and lore. They changed his official lore to that of Arcane Viktor and changed his official in-game model to Arcane Viktor. MH was, essentially, erased from the game. Many fans were upset by this, both for valid and invalid reasons (some people are just being homophobic about Viktor’s new body shape for example). I think most MH fans like myself are just disappointed that it feels like Viktor and MH are different characters, and that MH doesn’t exist in canon anymore.
This is why I made my original post asking the fandom not to tag S2 Viktor as MH, because for MH fans we use that tag to find art/fics/posts with MH’s design and lore, not S2 Arcane Viktor’s. I understand why there is some confusion because S2 Arcane Viktor still becomes a Herald, just not the Machine Herald (his updated character is referred to as “The Herald of the Arcane” on League’s website). My favorite version of the character is still one where Arcane S1 Viktor is merged with MH, because I like the version of Viktor that it gave us and think the story at the end of S1 was leading to a reasonable point for him to break off and go back to Zaun to become the MH. But everyone has different opinions! Both versions of Viktor are cool, and I want to be clear that no one should be bullying anyone for liking one version over the other (what I'm saying is. Don't go on the ViktorMains subreddit lmao)
So this guy:
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is the Machine Herald, whereas this guy:
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is the Arcane Herald.
Here is what their in-game models look(ed) like:
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I hope that explains some things, and if you have any more questions about the differences between them I'd be happy to answer (I love to yap about MH), and luckily there is still a fanbase drawing and writing about MH :)
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