I finally got around to reading Convergence and I was honestly rather disappointed with how they characterised Viktor. I know that Convergence is an AU, but still. Comparing it to his characterisation in "House on Emberflit Alley", Convergence Viktor is much more emotional - to the point that all of his major character beats are driven by emotion, he cares less about the lives of people he is supposedly trying to help with his augmentations (even being fine with them being used as cannon fodder). I couldn't see the Viktor written in Convergence helping Naph. I could see Convergence Viktor actually replacing Naph's head with a metal one, instead of shrugging off the wild imaginations of people who fear change.
Convergence Viktor is simultaneously less true to who the Machine Herald is meant to be, and truer to the horror stories that Fisher folk tell their kids to make them behave. It's sad seeing him get done like that.
Oh, you’re not alone there. I don’t think any of us were real happy about how dirty they did Viktor in Convergence. Just kinda seemed like they needed a completely morally bankrupt villain, and they molded Viktor to fit the bill. It just kinda… gave us all whiplash. Like, since his LoL release, they’ve retconned him to be less of a villain and more of a tragic victim. At the base of all of his stories, he wants to help the people of Zaun—to help make their lives and their jobs easier, to make living there safer. And while yes, he does go about it wrong sometimes, gets blinders on and gets into a pattern of thinking “my way is the best way, and they will come to see that whether they like it or not.” But generally speaking, Riot has done the work of creating depth in his character. Are there holes, sometimes massive ones? Yes. It’s Riot. But he’s come a long way from the generic mad scientist they released.
And then to go and do this? Completely strip him of his motivations, his goals, and just slap him back into the role of mad scientist. It was like… ten steps backward. (And I’m not saying I didn’t like Convergence. I was honestly happy to have new Viktor content and some of the panels were memeable as FECK.) I was also glad to see the Jayce and Viktor rivalry getting new content as well (although on that front they did Jayce kinda dirty too… like, he spoke several times to Ekko about how he’d “killed” Viktor, and he just… didn’t seem to care all that much. I know comics are a different medium, and you can’t jam pack all the micro expressions into every frame like you can with animation. But still… Jayce talked about killing Viktor like it was just another banal task on a Tuesday. Come on… these two were partners for a long time. I know there’s contention now, and perhaps the care is even gone. But there are people I’ve had falling outs with that I wouldn’t give the time of fucking day to… but I don’t want them to die. I don’t want to kill them as easily as swatting a fly on the wall.)
In the end Convergence was about Ekko coming to grips with the consequences of time travel. They needed something scary, something that Ekko’s family and friends could get involved in without compromising their characters. And they chose body augments. I just feel like this story could have been told just slightly differently, and it wouldn’t have thrown both Viktor and Jayce under the bus. Like… make it Van Klegg who wanted the mind-controlling tech put into all the augments. Maybe even Viktor doesn’t know about it. And of course misunderstandings arise, conflict happens, Viktor is still painted as the villain, but he’s not, he didn’t know, but no one believes that. This route could have at least maintained a semblance of the growth Viktor’s character has made.
IDK. I don’t hate Convergence, I’m just kinda indifferent. It’s an AU, and I’m gunna treat it that way—he’s not the Viktor we know and love. Same with Jayce. So I’ll enjoy it for what it is—amazing art of my favs I can ogle when I’m starved for content between now and S2 of Arcane.
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(convergence: batman and robin #1)
This was Jason's best costume post UTRH but this is a conversation y'all aren't ready for.
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Convergence#7 Catwoman by Amanda Conner
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Finished my last year of school and I decided to collect all of the JRWI doodles I made throughout all of my notebooks of 2023-2024 and count which character I drew the most from each campaign:
RIPTIDE:
Gillion: 48
Jay: 62
Chip: 92 (holy shit I didn't expect that)
Ollie: 6
Pretzel: 2
Queen: 3
Gryffon: 1
Edyn: 1
PRIME DEFENDERS:
Dakota: 9
Vyncent: 20
William: 16
Ashe: 1
APOTHEOSIS:
Thanatos: 3
Peter: 6
Rumi: 5
Lizard: 2
THE SUCKENING:
Emizel: 9
Void: 11
Arthur: 2
CONVERGENCE:
Alastyr: 2
Kroe: 1
THE SQUAD:
Slimecicle: 8
Condi: 1
Grizzly: 1
Bizzly: 1
Here are some of the doodles!!
In total I made around 310 jrwi doodles in my school notebooks/during class time!!! I literally have so many I can't begin to post them all, but I could probably post more in the future
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NEW STUFF ALERT:
✨THE CONVERGENCE UNIVERSE COMICS ARE OFFICIALLY RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC IN 20+ LANGUAGES✨
They are free to read and will be added to the codex' archive of canon content soon. If you're confused about the timeline or universe this takes place in, it was confirmed to be a non-arcane iteration of the main game universe here.
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