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"The Man I once was"

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do you think Viktor wore socks with sandals before

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On a more positive note, thank you to everyone who made an effort to get your voice heard, the over 80 fan letters about old Viktor the Machine Herald that people composed in agonizingly short time - this energy has been noticed and even a capitalist company like Riot which stopped caring about its players a long time ago, has acknowledged that this character matters to people.

Yes, they picked projected profit over longtime fans thus reworked him and made Arcane canon; made the old one just a single skin.

But the acknowledgement of the old design means two things - haters no longer have ammo ("old one was worthless!"), and new people will be able to discover this character slightly more easily in the future.

Remember how uniting over common goal can have more power than you think, and have this as an example. You have to have a smart strategy too. I encourage you to apply this to other problems in life, and work for a better future. This is just a fictional character from an online game meant for entertainment; other problems ask you to invest your strength, wit and compassion too!

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Information about the traditional skin placed right before the outro of an unrelated, unlisted video, where they've said they've been listening to the "Viktor Nation" (only Arcane Viktor fans call themselves Viktor Nation, not the league Viktor mains) and that's basically it. One skin as a consolation prize to hopefully make fans stop mentioning what happened with the rework.

I'm sad,

// There's a leak that Rito will release a traditional Viktor skin, which means they'll publically acknowledge their mistake - to an extent. Default one is still staying as Arcane, traditional is just a skin, which also uses the rig and animations of the new one which in my opinion are vastly inferior in terms of aesthetic (that's a different thing to animation skill)

Putting it under the cut

My thoughts now

Viktor is supposed to have black hair with a white streak. Sigh. It's the classic trope of a mad scientist, come on :P

Yay, he has his body type from before. But the pose doesn't fit, since the pose fits the dried up purple alien from Arcane!

The design, while surely of higher fidelity than the old one, is in my opinion inferior in many things because in shape language, it's flat and uniform just with lots of little irrelevant details which act as visual noise.

I like his chonky arms. I like his trousers; although I like that design for trousers, Viktor is an amputee, and shorts are extremely practical because they enable quick and easy access to the artificial knee joints. Here on new design, he looks like he's got normal flesh legs with armour over them.

The cape design is so... boring and bland. Compare it to the coattails-like split with an interesting pattern from before.

Staff looks like it's Lego. Previous staff wasn't super cool, but it did have fake Tesla coils and wires. Again, new one is missing the aesthetics.

Third arm - enough with the claw, making a fully functional hand is clearly a bigger engineering achievement, and is more unique.

~~~~

But ikleyvey! Why are you so grumpy, didn't you get what you wanted?? Aren't you ungrateful?

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// There's a leak that Rito will release a traditional Viktor skin, which means they'll publically acknowledge their mistake - to an extent. Default one is still staying as Arcane, traditional is just a skin, which also uses the rig and animations of the new one which in my opinion are vastly inferior in terms of aesthetic (that's a different thing to animation skill)

Putting it under the cut

My thoughts now

Viktor is supposed to have black hair with a white streak. Sigh. It's the classic trope of a mad scientist, come on :P

Yay, he has his body type from before. But the pose doesn't fit, since the pose fits the dried up purple alien from Arcane!

The design, while surely of higher fidelity than the old one, is in my opinion inferior in many things because in shape language, it's flat and uniform just with lots of little irrelevant details which act as visual noise.

I like his chonky arms. I like his trousers; although I like that design for trousers, Viktor is an amputee, and shorts are extremely practical because they enable quick and easy access to the artificial knee joints. Here on new design, he looks like he's got normal flesh legs with armour over them.

The cape design is so... boring and bland. Compare it to the coattails-like split with an interesting pattern from before.

Staff looks like it's Lego. Previous staff wasn't super cool, but it did have fake Tesla coils and wires. Again, new one is missing the aesthetics.

Third arm - enough with the claw, making a fully functional hand is clearly a bigger engineering achievement, and is more unique.

~~~~

But ikleyvey! Why are you so grumpy, didn't you get what you wanted?? Aren't you ungrateful?

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// There's a leak that Rito will release a traditional Viktor skin, which means they'll publically acknowledge their mistake - to an extent. Default one is still staying as Arcane, traditional is just a skin, which also uses the rig and animations of the new one which in my opinion are vastly inferior in terms of aesthetic (that's a different thing to animation skill)

Putting it under the cut

My thoughts now

Viktor is supposed to have black hair with a white streak. Sigh. It's the classic trope of a mad scientist, come on :P

Yay, he has his body type from before. But the pose doesn't fit, since the pose fits the dried up purple alien from Arcane!

The design, while surely of higher fidelity than the old one, is in my opinion inferior in many things because in shape language, it's flat and uniform just with lots of little irrelevant details which act as visual noise.

I like his chonky arms. I like his trousers; although I like that design for trousers, Viktor is an amputee, and shorts are extremely practical because they enable quick and easy access to the artificial knee joints. Here on new design, he looks like he's got normal flesh legs with armour over them.

The cape design is so... boring and bland. Compare it to the coattails-like split with an interesting pattern from before.

Staff looks like it's Lego. Previous staff wasn't super cool, but it did have fake Tesla coils and wires. Again, new one is missing the aesthetics.

Third arm - enough with the claw, making a fully functional hand is clearly a bigger engineering achievement, and is more unique.

~~~~

But ikleyvey! Why are you so grumpy, didn't you get what you wanted?? Aren't you ungrateful?

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I’m so fascinated by your version of Viktor, I love reading about him in your posts . do you have any more headcanons to share ?

Thank you Anon, sorry it took me so long to reply! This ask is from 26th of December 2024.

I do! I have a mountain of headcanons that were made for the purpose of telling a complete character arc for him in Becoming the Herald comic. Here are some of them.

Viktor felt pretty bad for not fulfilling his father's hopes of following in his footsteps and going into medicine. His father was a surgeon in Zaun's state hospital. It's not that medicine didn't interest Viktor, it's just that techmaturgy always interested him way more. When the whole PhD fiasco happened and Pididly stole the credit while other professors and his colleagues kept silent and refused to lift a finger, when he fell into depression he ended up questioning if he had made the right choice at all going into techmaturgy. Viktor's auto-amputations and merging with his work is also in some part him reclaiming his father's legacy.

He participated in the student protests in Zaun that resulted in elections and many brand new ministers being chosen in the city-state; Zaun is in a unique political system where ministers do not have to be from the same ruling coalition. Viktor invested a lot of his time and energy into the protests (which later on caused him to be deeply disappointed when he saw the system which had apparently been changed, still be terribly unjust towards him.) This happened when he was third year at College of Techmaturgy and was just one of the factors that prolongued his study. He was at CoT for a decade! (And I assure you, this idea completely predates the student protests that are actually taking place in my country right now, I swear. I manifested this or something)

As you could find on his character page on my blog, Viktor has a driving licence of A and B category, but his motorbike is still parked in his parents' garage, gathering dust. You'll have to imagine an appropriate bike design that would fit Zaun's dieselpunk-electric aesthetic for now though! Despite this, he likes public transit because it allows time for sight-seeing and thinking without the stress of driving. He was never a daredevil-type biker, but far from a terrible one. It was more like a pony that rich parents buy for their little prince. (Jesus, what am I writing XD)

Viktor is an anxious person, yet he never shares the burden of that anxiety with others. He overcomes it internally alone and doesn't let it prevent him from working. He used to be more talkative when he was younger - the trauma did a huge number on him and made him much more short on words, sarcastic and sour. This just means that he would again gradually become very talkative if he connected with someone he trusted, especially on subjects that interest him. One of characteristics of talking to him is that it can be felt that he listens to what the other person is saying with complete attention. He doesn't invade people's personal space, unless they're his friends. And he hasn't had friends in a long time.

Viktor values his hair greatly and considers it one of the symbols of his masculinity. He pays attention to other people's hairstyles and how well they wear them/execute them. If he doesn't like someone, all the chances are he will first insult their hair, then their intellect. He uses hair wax. (I made sure to check this with more than one source ok guys, men with similar hairstyles confirmed they use hair wax so the case is closed!!!)

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Show me your custom Viktor old look mod gaming!

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Clank

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is there a way to view old viktor's model in a model viewer or somewhere?

Yes, the site Khada has enabled the viewing of all old Viktor models!

And a note from me, I personally use the first texture design for Classic Viktor from 2011 because I vastly prefer its mask design, and I'm a black-hair-Viktor truther. The wild black hair with one white strand above forehead is the archetypal mad scientist hair!

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Can I share an idea for a fic here and get feedback before deciding whether to publish it?

Yes you can! You just need to decide if (I guess my) opinion needs to determine whether you create some piece of art or not. I do not approve or like everything, but I also do not and should not have authority over what other people create. If you're instead looking for feedback on how to improve writing, in the event that I decide that I can, I can try to the best of my ability. And, if it's the case of using some of my ideas and character designs, then yes you'd be strongly encouraged to get my permission.

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Meta theory:

Viktor's associated colour is acually red. That's who he is (Prototype colour). The surface level of blue on his cape is just his depression

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// Real life motivation

// We're living in deteriorating times. It's difficult for many of us to even take care of ourselves, but keep in mind that we need to have empathy for others who are suffering as well. If you think that you are powerless, that's not entirely true - what we can do is band together. Students in my country from every University have united, and are persistently protesting for the sixth month in a row, despite false media targeting, government henchmen being sent to beat us up and ram cars into peaceful protesters, and a sound cannon - an experimental weapon - being used by the state against its own people who were standing motionless in silence. A significant number of people have died due to the direct actions of this government in the past, which is systematically removing experts from crucial positions and replacing them with yesmen, destroying the environment with deadly, polluting industries operated by foreign companies and many more terrible things, all out of greed and hatred which manifests through corruption, media blackouts and tabloids, and oppression. Can you believe that 99% of faculties have completely halted for half a year already, to demand basic human rights to be respected and for institutions such as the justice system to start doing their jobs? And that a mind-boggling number of common people have risen as well and are protesting? It's real.

There's way more of us than them. Change for the better comes when large groups of people carefully unite over common goals and persistently stop participating in the system that keeps the villains in power. If all workers stop, the industry can't run. The country halts. It's hard, but it's doable - just watch my people. This is how you create pressure on the system. We are peaceful because violence would only give an excuse to those in power to suppress "the violent uprising with justified force". People also need to be ready for personal sacrifices, because those in power count on the commoners not having the nerve to risk their livelyhood - they purposefully organized the system this way. It's not doable for everyone, but it's doable for many. Non-inflammatory education is how you reach the common people who have been poisoned by tabloids. Some of them might need years of education to break free, first focus on those who are close to thinking with their own head and don't despair.

You need to know how to communicate with others carefully, because uniting over common goals is possible. Of course there will always be some "us vs them", but try to reduce the number of "them" as much as possible when those commoner enemies, from what I've seen, are that just due to miscommunication. Find a way to effectively communicate goals. For example, I'm sure everyone wants to have good healthcare. For violence to stop.

The point is, start talking more with others over uniting. Unite a lot of people before starting protests. Be mindful how the uninformed might misinterpret out-of-context isolated protest incidents.

"Oh no, this protest movement failed." Oh? Well the past 12 major protests in my country have failed after a couple of weeks. Look at the protests now. You can search for "studentske blokade", "svi u blokade" and "blokade FDU" to see photos and videos of the current events. We're trying to prove that it's doable, you just have to be united.

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So I'm thinking,

Since Viktor led a team of doctoral students that worked on Blitzcrank (a robot designed to aid in the waste reclamation process, it's a machine designed to work in the field of ecology); and he went to ask Jayce for a collaboration -

That points to Viktor probably being the type of person to chase after people to ask them if they all want to work on the same project. I wouldn't put it past him to expend this offer to other scientists in Zaun now even as the Machine Herald, if he got burned by his attempt to collaborate with someone from Piltover. (Funny... first he got betrayed by fellow Zaunites, so he thought "well then Piltovians might actually be pretty good people when Zaunites hate them". Then he got burned again.) He's probably made peace with the way Zaunites are, and is willing to collaborate even with someone who he wouldn't be friends with. But he'd stick with Zaunites, as he's a Zaunite as well and they have a pretty strong patriotic streak to them.

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finally robotic beings rule the world

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WIP | 2011. Machine Herald

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what’s your take on this whole “viktor is czech” controversy im seeing so many posts about how we can’t say viktor is russian or any other Slav anymore because of harry lloyd saying he did a czech accent

(I'm answering immediately since this is kind of an active topic that will probably quickly die. Please first read my entire post.)

I am of the opinion that everyone is allowed to headcanon a character however they want, and that it's not nice to insist everyone else adopt one's own interpretation especially if it's not canon. Even if things are canon, people can always choose to purposefully ignore canon in favour of what they prefer. This says nothing about quality - that can go either way. Sometimes the original writing is bad, other times it's good and fandom interpretations are of low creativity/low understanding/quality.

This accent discussion is not a controversy, it's just a tug of war between some fans. Lower the bullying and arguments everyone! It's okay. There's not much point fighting between fans, when companies hold all the power.

~

The reality is more complex than "what canon actually says".

Previous League version

Originally, Viktor the Machine Herald was designed to on the surface quickly read like an Eastern-European mad scientist engineer, with "vibes" from the Red Scare (and things like Red Alert). It has roots in ideas about scary effective heavy machinery. He was made to have a stereotypical Hollywood Slavic accent. If people read into it as Russian, it wouldn't be incorrect, thought the company. That doesn't mean he's hard-coded as Russian. There's the opinion of the lead writer Praeco being shared online in which he says:

He makes the fast mental jump (just like many viewers/players) and lands on the surface-level stereotype, which he thinks is all there is to it. This is false. Viktor's original, release lore from 2011. has no cultural hints towards Russia nor those stereotypes. It is a great basis for developing a more detailed story, which people would certainly love if it was done in an animated medium.

What the lore does have, are similarities with Nikola Tesla, a Serbian engineer and inventor who was conned by Edison, had his work stolen and often been viewed as crazy. Viktor's in-game abilities are inspired by some of Nikola Tesla's hypothetical inventions. His staff has a Tesla coil on it.

I personally write Viktor as being Serbian-inspired due to this, and it's also easier for me as I'm Serbian, so I can make up a headcanon about old lore old Zaunites speaking this language thus explaining the accent when they speak Common; and not stress over messing up a translation. There's also the fact that we are very underrepresented in pop-culture, and even when we are, it's most often as unintelligent criminals.

That doesn't mean that people headcanoning League Viktor as being Russian-inspired are automatically incorrect.

2. Arcane Viktor

Here's the interview with the voice actor. There's a couple of things here to be noted. He says a "frail Eastern-European scientist"... meanwhile Czechs are Western Slavs, not Eastern. This tells me the Americans leading the show didn't pay much attention to ethnicities, as those things don't matter to them.

Then Nikola Tesla is brought up again - proving the original core archetype. But Nikola Tesla was Serbian, who are South Slavs, not Eastern nor Western.

To Americans, we are all interchangeable. They really don't care. They hired a British voice actor, despite there being countless Slavic voice actors they could have contacted. I can even reach a bunch of them.

The voice actor they hired had only practiced a Czech accent in one of his previous works, and it was "close enough". And what I can say is that he doesn't sound neither Russian, nor Serbian to my ear. Our accent is way more heavy and explosive (actually pretty similar to original in-game Viktor! Just less dramatic) while Russian would be way more softer. I've seen some Czechs say he does indeed sound Czech, and I think that's completely valid! But Arcane Viktor is Czech not by design, but out of necessity.

Czechs (Česi!!!!!) are also very little represented in pop-culture. Basically non-existent. They have also historically been behind the Iron Curtain, so you must understand their position. I think people have the right to headcanon Arcane Viktor as being Czech-inspired, despite what all the inconsistencies and frankly bad mixups have been said by the production crew behind-the-scenes. And they absolutely should not be bullied and forced into headcanoning Arcane Viktor as Russian or any other ethnicity! What's in the work itself sounds Czech, not Serbian. That said, I also think people have the right to personally headcanon Arcane Viktor as any ethnicity-inspired as they wish. Just know the state of things like I shared here, say what your personal headcanon is and don't vaguepost or bully other people. Those throwing rocks first should stop.

3. In the end, I personally view Arcane Viktor as Czech-inspired, League Viktor as Serbian-inspired, but it's not even wrong to consider him generally Slavic-inspired, as these nationalities really don't exist in Runeterra. Political situation aside.