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the-glorious-evolution-fanart · 2 months ago

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The text of behind-the-scenes writing has confirmed what I was suspecting was going to happen since watching season 1: the writers absolutely did not understand the Machine Herald.

Let’s skip the terrible implication of their words that disabled people who are missing parts of their body or use prosthetics somehow „lack humanity“; the writers show they were only viewing Viktor through the concept of transformation, no matter what that meant. They were convinced that all Viktor needed to do to become the „Herald“ he’s famous for, was to go through some as gruesome or eerie transformation as possible, stripping himself of emotions in the process.

Let me be clear that this is completely wrong.

Obsessively removing parts of one’s own body in order to upgrade more and more with tech is not a motivation on its own, it is a consequence of some deeper problem. It is a manifestation of something that is hidden in the mental level.

And while at first S1 might have gone the way of a disabled character getting „addicted“ to becoming more and more able-bodied and even transcending abilities of an average human body (which is still kind of an iffy take when framed as strictly negative), the subsequent degradation and complete digression of Viktor’s character arc with the transformation instead being forced on him in Season 2 by Jayce’s misguided attempt to save him, highlights that the writers did indeed hold the aforementioned idea of „eerie transformation“ as the top/core thing that makes Viktor the „Herald“, instead of his motivations for a transformation.

Even season 1’s possible idea was stopped in its tracks because at the end of s1, Viktor is written making a clear choice: hurting others for one’s own benefit is crossing the line, and he resigned to dying. He completed his arc.

This created a problem for season 2, as Viktor was written by s1 as effectively being too moral of a character to do a transformation. Enter the forced/brainwashing effect of magic on Viktor, a band-aid to force the plotline the writers wanted for him. Altering his mind and convincing him that the way to help others is to strip them of all agency and emotions.

No matter how many times the writers say they wanted Viktor to „make a mistake out of a genuine but misguided desire to help“, viewers continuously voice what they see, what the writing actually portrays – a lack of agency of the character. If text is badly written, it fails at conveying what it intended to.

Going back to the Machine Herald and what I said about self-augmentation (at least in his case as a fictional character) as just a symptom of a different problem, it’s even explicitly confirmed in Viktor’s accompanying release text:

„People deal with grief in many ways, and Viktor did it by replacing his body parts with robotic limbs.“

I’m honestly shocked that I have to copy-paste these things so often and that professional writers yet again missed the point.

The Machine Herald was a very layered character. The self-augmentation is just the top layer which makes him cool. The deeper levels are what makes him compelling.

He went into self-augmentation using his own technology as a way to propel himself again to the top of his profession, both in terms of cutting-edge achievements and in terms of recognition. He had an impression that nothing short of shocking and utterly bizzare would be able to beat his previous stolen achievement and cement him at the very top of Zaun’s scientific community. This is also supported by how theatrical his behaviour is as the Machine Herald, explains why he has vanity items like a cape and why his hair is still out. He felt betrayed by his own mind for cursing him in naivety, jealousy and depression for who knows how long. He also had issues with self-image, smashing his own face on a framed photo that showed him standing proudly next to Blitzcrank. He tried to distance himself from his previous identity of a vulnerable, very human and very empathetic student who wanted to better society by aiding in the waste reclamation process. Blitzcrank was made for cleaning Zaun – and who is idealist enough in such a self-serving city-state to attempt something like that. This he shares with Ekko, and Ekko is very clearly a hero.

Viktor’s moral ambiguity was not supposed to come from the narrative trying to obfuscate if „removing free will“ is a bad thing – because it is, it will always be an evil thing. This free will point didn’t exist in his release lore, it’s entirely the addition of 2016. Universe bio. I also believe the story gets downgraded and loses its potency if it picks a side and makes Viktor „slide into villainy“ by „completely losing his humanity.“ His ambiguity originally came precisely from how his actions towards his own body make the readers feel. It was entirely up to the readers themselves to decide whether they saw self-augmentation as cool and badass, or as unjustified self-mutilation. It’s a type of interplay between the story and its readers. A character within the story itself, Jayce, made up his mind and held the opinion that it was not a good thing.

Viktor is a „mad scientist“ and although this trope can be very reductive, it also carries some truths. Viktor went mad. His self-augmentation was never going to be justified by sensible, lucid motives, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have reasons. He was in so much pain and felt trapped, and yet despite that he found a way to build himself back up again piece by piece, and undergo such a tremendous transformation entirely relying on personal ingenuity and resilience. The key difference between his inside perspective and our (and other characters’) outer perspective, is that his reasons and pain are of mental nature which makes them way more hidden to us.

His story can develop in the direction „backwards“, him integrating back into society to an extent while maintaining this dislocated perspective of infinite self-upgrades, infinite scientific achievement – because he’s shown it already! He wants and has a need to interact with others! His acolytes, him trying to ally with other researchers, the need for recognition. Another thing awaiting the Machine Herald is reality’s cold shower that one genius still can’t solve systemic problems, and the question what he will do once his technology inevitably gets abused, but this time finally carrying his name.

And I believe all these layers are infinitely more interesting than an unfortunate story of a man who gets turned into a manipulated creature of limitless magical power who doesn’t even have control over his own decisions.

#viktor the machine herald #arcane critical #viktor league of legends #the machine herald

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avelera · 2 months ago

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Y’know, I’m actually warming to the idea that Viktor (Arcane) could canonically be a trans man. I mean, I’m always in favor in fic, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a difference between canon and popular fanon and while I understood and supported the idea as fanon, I didn’t necessarily think that’s what the show intended.

But now we’ve got Lest as a canonical trans woman character in Arcane S2 and I’ve been going back and doing a full rewatch of the show in anticipation of Act 3 dropping, and I was just noting how a few things:

1) His back brace is exactly in the right place to both suggest and obscure top surgery scars (as if the Undercity wouldn’t have a surgeon who could do it mean honestly, they’ve clearly got very advanced body mods down there, this would be tame by comparison). Now in S2 his body has been completely remade so any old scars are totally gone and the back brace has become a part of him, but he’s also literally been transformed. Like if anything, it makes it a continuation of his story.

2) His build and lack of any stubble somewhat lend to the possibility. It’s more noticeable because Jayce always has a trace of stubble visible so there’s a distinct contrast there. (Not that other male characters all have stubble, a lot of them don’t, but it is noteworthy when we see Viktor and Jayce contrasted so often in the same frame). And while they haven’t gone full frontal really on anyone in the show, we did see Viktor mostly naked and there was nothing to contradict the theory in what we saw.

3) I mean, the Machine Herald’s whole schtick is around transcending humanity, transcending evolution, not just going along with what nature gave you. That feels… very conducive to a trans man read of Viktor that such a background would further lend to his rejection of the notion that our biology is our destiny, in addition to his illness and disability.

Anyway, I don’t mean to offend anyone, I just found it interesting that this fanon at least for me went from “Huh, plausible but probably not intended,” to “Oh hey, it’s plausible and could very well BE intended and actually it aligns with things the character says on screen now!” as of S2.

#arcane #arcane meta #arcane spoilers #viktor arcane

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narnian-neverlander · 8 days ago

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I got hit with the worst flu/cold I’ve had in freaking years, meaning I did not get nearly as much done on my next Viktor x Reader fic as I would’ve liked (which is annoying me most of all cause I was so pumped to write this one), so y’all are getting a preview while I continue to chip away at it 💞

Would You Fall in Love with Me Again (WIP)

[Machine Herald!Viktor x GN!Reader]

You slump back against the door for support, chest heaving and unharmed hand coming up to cover your face; a desperate and all but pointless attempt to hide the tears and stifle the sobs.

He’s a scientist, an engineer. Solving problems, fixing things, improving lives; it’s what he does. What he thrives in. Yet he doesn’t know how to fix this. So he zeroes in on the one thing he can fix.

“Let me see your hand.”

But you don’t let him. Curl in on yourself and angle your body and injured hand away from him; it makes you seem so much smaller. So vulnerable. So defeated. Good. Maybe if he can drive you away even further, then…

“You are… a distraction. A hindrance to my work that I can not tolerate. You do not belong here and it would be better for the both of us if you left and never returned.”

With the mask gone, the mechanical edge to his voice is missing as well, but every word still stings like the cut of a blade.

“So turn around and let me go. You’ll never have to see me again, I promise.”

‘Well, yeah, I promised you after all, and I’ve never broken a promise before.’

He knows all too well how seriously you take that part of yourself. Every promise, no matter how small or menial, a solemn oath, never to be broken. He can not let you make this one; every part of himself rebels against the very thought of letting you walk out that damn door, even if it would be the logical thing to do.

Stepping closer he gauges your reaction and when you don’t recoil from him any further, he rests his hands on either side of you and drops his forehead against the old, worn wood above your shoulder.

“I can’t.”

#arcane viktor x reader #machine herald viktor #epic the musical #would you fall in love with me again #wip

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fanartka · 7 months ago

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So, who on the council will be probable dead or injured? Jayce has a scenario armor, most likely he will only get a stylish scar, mental wound and strong motivation. But look at Mel Medarda's mother, Ambessa. She is stern and goes into battle, there is rage on her face, but somehow tired. Mel had her back to the window (by the way, it’s great that they lowered the dome over the council when Jayce was tried at the beginning of the story, but now they’ve forgotten about it.) and could have suffered the most. And that's why Ambessa looks so depressed through her belligerence - if her children are dead, why fight? To take revenge first, and then what? Who should I leave the inheritance to? It seems to me that a good scenario would be to cripple Mel or disfigure her wonderful beauty.

Frankly, I admired every time she showed on the screen. I like the fluidity of the panther with which she walks, how gently she manipulates everyone around, but not for the sake of an evil goal, on the contrary, she is a pacifist and a supporter of reasonable decisions. Her mind is sharper than anyone else in Arcane. Viktor could compete if his passion was politics, not science (and not Jayce, sorry, this is canon), and if his health was better. But in addition to intelligence, bribery and flattery, she skillfully used her charm and the fact that people are more willing to contact attractive people. It would be an excellent move not to kill her, but rather to deprive her of what she is accustomed to consider her inalienable weapon - beauty.

And, perhaps, deprive her of the opportunity to walk so gracefully, whitening herself with gold tattoos. Although there are cyber prostheses in this world. I think this would cause Ambessa to start tearing things apart because she will always avenge her children.

I imagine Mel hiding half her face behind a golden mask, with an exoskelkt in her beautiful back, and I can imagine how much her disposition might change when she experiences severe depression.

What I am sure of is that Mrs. Kiramman, Caitlyn's strict mother, is dead. It’s enough just to look at Caitlyn's bitter face, and there was a shot somewhere in Internet where her father looks tired of life, and in front of him lies a bouquet of white flowers, similar to a funeral one. Yes, she's definitely dead.

What about Viktor? He wasn't shown in the teaser, but I'm sure this is just to tease us even more, he will definitely be in the second season. Riot Games has stated that Arcane is now canon and that they will be rebuilding canon, but something tells me that one way or another this poor talented boy will become Machine Heralt, just this time for a different reason. I think the explosion will critically wound him, but the hex will prevent him from dying. He will be so seriously injured that there will be no other choice but to mechanize part of his body and let the hextech heal the rest. (I wonder who Jayce will rush to first when he sees their wounds, Viktor or Mel? Most likely to Mel).

And I'm sure that the creators will not disappoint us, the first season shows how bold they are in their creative expression, I think that all other studios should learn from them (yes, Marvel, I'm looking at you (how dare you be so lazy and carelessly when you wrote the story of Supreme! look at the work of Riot Games and Netflix, that's how it should be!))

In any case, I think we will have to wash ourselves with tears, but it will be done at the highest level, because the creators treat their characters like beloved children, not slaves to make money.

I'm looking forward to it, good luck to you, the characters I liked so much. I hope you remain more human Viktor than Machine Herald, poor clever boy.

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twomoreseconds · 2 months ago

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Arcane theory - The first timeline

Now this might be a bit long so please bear with me. I absolutely loved the ending of Arcane (we win jayvik nation) but there are a few aspects of it that I can’t quite wrap my head around. If anybody has a different perspective than me please do tell I’d love to hear it.

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Now for what I don’t quite understand (I’ve never been good with the logic of time travel)

1. What was the first timeline like? How did the story play out the first time round? Ik time doesn’t work like that and ik about the bootstrap paradox but I’m still so curious. And how did Viktor know Jayce would be the one to save him?

2. How did Viktor know that he was giving Jayce a different rune each time? Is there like some history tab in the Arcane??

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I’ll now try to answer these questions but again it’s all purely my speculation:

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1. What was the first timeline like? How did the story play out the first time round? How did Viktor know Jayce would be the one to save him?

We learn that each time Viktor ends up destroying the world he goes back in time in an attempt to stop himself. He says to Jayce “In all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this (this being the fault of his ideology).” This means he is certain that Jayce is the key to stopping him.

Now as to how he knows it’s Jayce and only Jayce that can free him from his false ideas. I have two theories.

A) He’s literally gone trough ALL other possibilities.

He’s nudged all people in and around Zaun and Piltover in the direction of developing hextech and through trial and error he finds that Jayce is the one. - This has many faults and is more of an idea than a theory

B) In the first timeline that started their loop he had already met Jayce.

If he had already in some capacity come into contact with Jayce and seen his desire to prove himself, his drive and kindness. He would know that that’s the person who’s to be his conquests undoing. - This theory sounds more plausible to me and thus is what I’ll be going with

With this established we can move on to what the first time line was like.

Since Viktor wasn’t there to save his mother, Jayce grows up to be an orphan (I can’t remember anyone ever mentioning his dad). I believe he would still gravitate to becoming an inventor/ scientist, but with no funding he would probably be someone’s assistant or some such.

Viktor wouldn’t have met Jayce so early so he would still be Heimerdingers assistant. Eventually though his illness would start showing and in my mind, Viktor wouldn’t want to die without his life meaning something, without helping the people of Zaun.

I believe he would go see Singed just like he did in our timeline. Singed wouldn’t have the support from Silco like he does in our timeline since there would be no explosion in Piltover, thus no arrest of Vander, thus no death of Vander, thus no Silco leader (presumably).

This would mean that Singed would seek more drastic measures for example hextech. I believe he would have given Viktor some hextech crystals and shimmer, maybe as a part of a deal maybe out of the goodness of his own heart.

I think Viktor would start researching hextech which would perhaps catch the attention of Jayce, leading to them working together on hextech in secret.

As his illness would progress Viktor would again corrupt the core and enhance his leg. This time though since there is no funding for their illegal study there would be no Sky, meaning there would be no accident (don’t even dare to tell me it would kill Jayce I don’t want to even think about that).

If there is no accident then maybe Viktor would use the core on himself sooner. Become the machine herald as he would have no guilt (Sky) making him hold on to his humanity.

If he becomes the machine herald so soon Jayce wouldn’t have much time to talk him out of everything. Not only would there not be enough time to talk, since they met so late their connection wouldn’t quite be what it becomes in our time line.

Jayce would get pretty close though since after Viktor achieves his salvation of the human race and realizes its faults, it’s Jayce who he trusts to save everyone.

Now he would come up with the plan to inspire Jayce sooner, so he develops hextech sooner, so they meet sooner, so Jayce has more time to stop him.

This only eventually works when Ekko buys him more time, otherwise he still wouldn’t have enough time to convince Viktor. (Ekko is the goat fr)

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Now for with the one that makes the least amount of sense to me.

2. How did Viktor know he was giving Jayce a different rune each time?

In episode 9 we are explicitly shown and told that Viktor went and tried all kinds of different runes in hopes that one will give Jayce enough time to save him.

Let’s say he starts with rune A, it doesn’t work so when he’s in the “world rid of humanity’s imperfections” he decides to give him rune B.

Now if it doesn’t work, the Viktor in the past who meets Jayce with rune B becomes the Viktor in the present.

Only problem is new Viktor is here for the first time. He presumably doesn’t have the memories of old Viktor, so how could he know that the rune he decides to try this time isn’t one he’s already tried for example rune A.

How does he know that he’s not already in an endless cycle of going between A and B. Never even trying C.

I believe the only explanation would be that the Arcane is somehow giving him access to all his “past” memories from his past timelines.

Although time doesn’t really work like that. Time is a loop a cycle it doesn’t have an end or a beginning who’s to say that it wouldn’t give him memories of the acceleration rune working.

But I digress since I can’t think of a better solution.

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If anyone actually read it to the end thank you and sorry that it lowkey read more like fanfiction than a theory.

If anybody has literally any other ideas please comment I wanna hear them so bad you don’t even know.

In conclusion going by my theory Jayvik are truly meant to meet in every timeline and Viktor is the direct downfall of Vander and Vanders Zaun. (What a silly guy am I right or am I right)

#jayvik #arcane spoliers #arcane act 3 #arcane ending #jayce talis #arcane jayce #jayce the defender of tomorrow #jayce x viktor #viktor arcane #viktor machine herald #arcane #arcane theory #guys this is my way of coping #I might be delusional so what #my brain has to work so hard to even attempt to understand all this and the implications #it’s entirely possible that im way off #arcane season 2

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janceezer · 2 months ago

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⚠️⚠️ arcane spoilers below ⚠️⚠️

I think I found the most fitting song for jayvik in the last episode (and beyond). I will be putting down lyrics from the song & then talk about how they relate to Jayce & Viktor.

The song:

(⚠️⚠️this is where the spoilers really start ⚠️⚠️)

„I swear I’ve known you for centuries”

Viktor has been searching for Jayce for like FOREVER. He’s probably spent months, YEARS, looking for the Jayce that would help stop the calamity that Hextech would cause. It probably felt like a great relief seeing Jayce.

„You’re heaven-sent, how you save me”

this can point toward Jayce, Viktor and frankly the both of them. In the greater picture, it fits perfectly onto Viktor’s conclusion of how „In all timelines, in all possibilities, only you, could show me this” > pointing to how they’re literally made for eachother. So you could say they were made by a higher power (whatever you believe in), to meet.

Then: in a way Mage!Viktor in season one, makes sure Jayce lives, so you could say he’s heaven sent and saved him. In every universe. & they save one another from suicide, jayce brings viktor to life again with the hexcore, etc etc.

Jayce got sent to a timeline in which total devastation happened, being observed by Mage!Viktor the whole time. It is Viktor who helps send him to Jayce’s original universe, in order to kill Viktor there, in order to save not just him, but also his entire universe. Even though Viktor becomes the Machine Herald, we later see Jayce save him „Because I promised you” & „We finish this together”.

„In our final hour, call on higher power,

Erase my sins, my communion,

Til death do us part, it’s a union”

This final hour literally refers to their final hour together (I personally do not believe them to be dead, but either way) in which by using the rune in Jayce’s arm, Viktor’s acquired power as Machine Herald, etc, they call on a higher power.

Viktor tries to push Jayce away, because he takes responsibility for having turned the commune into robots (taking away their lives), but Jayce insists. Jayce insists they do this together. They’re a union, a team, soulmates. Destined to find eachother in every universe. We pan to them touching foreheads, hands finding support on eachother. It’s a Union.

„A guiding light,

you’re my love divine”

Viktor has literally ascended to another plane by having transcended humanity. He died TWICE (jesus also died and lived again). He is compared to Jesus multiply times (on purpose I’m pretty sure). He has his hood over him like multiple saints in Biblical imagery, he performs a miracle by healing people who could not otherwise be healed. Then the kicker:

Here he is, being illustrated with the traditional divine circle around his head. Something that is seen in countless of Catholic, but more specifically Greek Catholic / Eastern European Orthodox Icons of saints:

So yeah he is LITERALLY put down as Jayce’s and so many others (which we see in the countless specks of gold around Jayce) “saviour”. But specifically pertaining to Jayce: he has been his guiding light, throughout the story. He saved Jayce from suicide, he guided him as the mage standing at Android!Jayce’s moss-overgrown corpse. They’re literal divine lovers.

Everything I have touched on so far, can be applied to the rest of the lyrics! It for me, really got to the core, of the depth of their connection. The song is accompanied by Organ instumentals, which really SELLS the Divine Worship image to me.

If you’ve read this far, THANK YOU!! I hope it was worth it! Please add to this in the comments with more connections to the song if you wish to!!!

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schraubd · 1 year ago

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The Conservative Experiment at New College is Failing on Easy Mode

[Hey -- I recently found out that my cross-posting trigger wasn't putting up new posts. I won't be able to give you everything you missed (check out The Debate Link if you want to scan my posts from the last few weeks), but I'll manually upload the most recent ones]

I'll admit: when Ron DeSantis and Christopher Rufo announced their intention to convert the New College of Florida into a conservative indoctrination camp, I thought they might succeed. Not just in the enshrining conservative orthodoxy part, but in doing so while maintaining or increasing New College's numbers along traditional metrics of academic excellence.

Simply put, the New College is a small place (fewer than 700 students). And so my logic was straight-forward: are there 700 young conservatives with reasonably good test scores who are eager to devote their college experience to a crusade in owning the libs? Probably! Especially given the largesse that undoubtedly would be funneled to them by the DeSantis administration in support! And given the high profile of DeSantis' and Rufo's machinations, it would be easy to attract that sort of young right-wing zealot to the New College campus. Any right-wing culture warrior who would find this sort of endeavor appealing no doubt would have heard of the New College and what's being done there, and would quickly put it at the top of their application list.

The problem, I thought, was always going to be one of scalability. Sure there may be 700 such students who could make the New College experiment into a "success". But are there 10,000? 100,000? The factors which would make the New College experiment work could not be replicated across the education sector as a whole. Try this at the University of Florida and you'd just have the academic wrecking ball of mass faculty departures and an enraged student body, and nothing to show for it. So my prediction would be that some of the "cream of the crop" currently going to Liberty or Patrick Henry might redirect themselves to the New College, thus giving a false impression that there was untapped demand for the product Rufo was selling, and then we'd have to explain that redistributing the small set of baby conservative crusaders is not actually evidence of a plan that can work at scale.

But it turns out I was still giving Rufo and DeSantis too much credit. Because the early returns are in, and while they've certainly done a number in terms of destroying the New College's academic reputation and standing (over a third of the faculty have departed, alongside dozens of transferring students), the new crop of students coming in are actually less impressive than those the college attracted before the takeover.

Rufo speaks a lot about academic excellence and the virtues of a classical liberal education. But as Steven Walker of The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in a damning July story, the incoming class recruited by the new administration has lower average grades, SAT scores and ACT scores than last year’s class. “Much of the drop in average scores can be attributed to incoming student-athletes who, despite scoring worse on average, have earned a disproportionate number of the school’s $10,000-per-year merit-based scholarships,” wrote Walker.

With all the publicity, and all the conservative cheerleading, and all the momentum of the right's latest culture war, the New College couldn't even attract a few hundred talented right-wing youth to create the impression of a successful reform? Hilarious.

And it gets better. Rufo defends the recruitment of underperforming athletes on the grounds that -- wait for it -- there are too many ladies at the New College.

Rather than reviving some traditional model of academic excellence, then, it looks as though New College leaders are simply trying to replace a culture they find politically hostile with one meant to be more congenial. The end of gender studies and the special treatment given to incoming athletes are part of the same project, masculinizing a place that had been heavily feminist, artsy and queer. When I spoke to Rufo last weekend, he offered several explanations for New College’s new emphasis on sports, including the classical idea that a healthy body sustains a healthy mind. But an important part of the investment in athletics, he said, is that it is a way to make New College more male and, by extension, less left wing.

In the past, about two-thirds of New College’s students were women. “This is a wildly out-of-balance student population, and it caused all sorts of cultural problems,” said Rufo. Having so many more women than men, he said, turned New College into “what many have called a social justice ghetto.” The new leadership, he said, is “rebalancing the ratio of students” in the hopes of ultimately achieving gender parity.

But gender parity is not necessarily compatible with a pure academic meritocracy, which Rufo claims to prize. Women are outpacing men in education in many parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia and Iran. In Hungary, nearly 55 percent of university students are women, leading the government to warn about the “feminization” of higher education. Selective American colleges tend to have more female than male applicants; to maintain something approaching a gender balance, some have adopted lower standards for men. In other words, it often takes deliberate intervention — one might call it affirmative action — to create a student body in which women don’t predominate. New College isn’t jettisoning gender ideology. It’s just adopting a different one.

Oh buddy, I hope upon hope someone sues the New College for sex discrimination based on these passages.

It's entirely appropriate to call Rufo's endeavors an affirmative action program for men. And while the SSFA opinion is about race-based affirmative action, even before that case conservative lower courts had been reflexively applying their affirmative action skepticism to sex-based programs (for example, in Vitolo v. Guzman, the 6th Circuit struck down preferences for women in COVID relief programs using essentially identical analysis to why it struck down race-based preferences). The logic of SSFA should, if fairly applied (I know, I know: that's one hell of a caveat), cover a case like this as well.

But even absent SSFA, the sex discrimination here is worse than a standard affirmative action case.Not only does the quoted language from Rufo suggest that the New College's decisions were taken "because of, not in spite of", the effect they'd have on women, they also demonstrate that explicit hostility to women -- a belief that too many women leads to "a social justice ghetto" and creates "cultural problems" -- was a motivating factor in the decision. This is far more powerful evidence of discriminatory intent than one would find in, say, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology case (where race-neutral changes to admissions policies were alleged to be motivated by discriminatory animus against Asians). Even defenders of affirmative action have never agreed that an affirmative action program could be justified by disdain for the overrepresented class. And one would struggle to find a more overt admission of misogynistic motivations than what one has here -- all in the service of further degrading the New College's academic quality in service of an ideological indoctrination effort.

There's still time for Rufo to, er, "right ship". If you dump enough money and resources into the New College, it will attract students no matter how bad its academic reputation gets. A lavishly funded subsidy program for right-wing kids really should be able to find an audience even if it's being run by incompetents.

But for now, this is just delightfully embarrassing. What a joke.

#affirmative action #women #misogyny #florida #academic freedom

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bringthekaos · 1 year ago

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fdslkgjslk I know I've come late to this fandom and I can't believe this is my first ask here but. The latest ones you've got have made my brain go BRRRRR. I think that Viktor as the Herald wouldn't be 100% machine and it's not only because of fangirling ok. This dude is gonna be a posterboy of What It Could Be for humanity. A symbiosis. There's the Hextech/Flesh mix he's made of some of himself, which he'd keep. There's the parts I think he'd def change into a machine entirely. As someone who does have chronic pain, I don't think he'd replace his entire torso, because he's already spent like ten years in a harness, and paradoxically if he replaces his lungs and heart and throat and spine, he'd like to feel what it's not like to be in pain and not be constricted there. Like, maybe he changed his ribs, or maybe he put metal over the sides, but not around the whole thing? So, that's a cyborg feature. I feel like he'd augment his left leg with cyborg parts (specially on the knees and ankles) but keep the flesh. And the hips and buttocks, same thing - Lower back and hips reinforced, flesh for the rest. There's a spiteful streak to him, after all.

And he'd keep his human face. To fuck with Jayce. To know that yes, he has a mask on, and he may believe the mask is his real face (hell, even Viktor feels like it sometimes); but he could take it off any time he wants to.

(Also the temporo-mandibular joint is def going to be metal tho, supported by the chin, because look at this guy and tell me he doesn't have bruxism. And I'm sorry about this huge thing, maybe I should've made a sketch X'DD)

Hiiiiii! I said it once already, but welcome to the fandom! We’re stoked to have you!

I do a lot of flip-flopping on how much I think he’s replaced as the Machine Herald. Sometimes it’s more than others. Like… he preaches the superiority of metal and how the human form can only be improved upon. But then… he enjoys sweetmilk. He has a sense of humor, even in League, where he has supposedly eliminated a fair share of his emotions. So there’s also an element of hypocritical thinking when it comes to Viktor. Like… he says emotion is a barrier between humanity and their highest possible form, but then he finds joy in the little things (like the aforementioned sweetmilk), which is a fundamentally human character trait. And on the other end of that spectrum, as you said, he’s spiteful and holds grudges. Like… my guy has deluded himself into thinking he’s above emotion.

Until we get a definite confirmation in Arcane on just how much augmenting he’s done, it’s fun to play with the options, as a writer. I can write a more detached Viktor, who has replaced basically everything except his brain. And I can write him with very minimal augments—really just what was required to save his life and stop his pain. It’s actually kinda nice, not knowing. For now, anyway. It gives me freedom. But when we do eventually know, I’ll get to write a whole bunch of new canon-compliant stuff!!

I don’t know that Viktor would do anything mod-wise specifically to fuck with Jayce… it kinda depends how bad their falling out is. I feel like Arcane may be stepping back from the contention between them, and making it more of a tragedy of circumstances with notes of personal betrayal. Idk though. If Jayce really does end up betraying him, then all bets are off. He builds parts of himself with the sole intent being to torture Jayce. And maybe even builds the mask so that he never has to look Jayce directly in the eyes again.

Ugh. Can’t believe S2 is still a year away. I NEED ANSWERS.

#arcane #jayvik #machine herald viktor #jayce talis #arcane viktor #asks #ace answers

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tamasin · 1 month ago

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Part 1 of 2 Link to Part 2

Chapter 1: Check Convict 157833: Chandler Hampton

The RD hangar was far busier than usual. The dark blue suits of Cathedral’s support staff clashed with the familiar grays of Castle’s.

The clashing was more than just visual in some cases, he quickly discovered as he stepped past the offices and into the hangar proper.

“What does this mean?” He heard the distinct sound of Haiely’s voice pierce the noise. He turned and saw her in a heated conversation with one of the new technicians.

“Condemned? Condemned!” She was all but shouting at the man, “Condemned is for the burnt-out husks that the reclaimers bring in. Condemned is for a mech with a faulty OS that tries to fire an auxiliary when you turn on the compressors. Like hell if any of these machines are condemned.”

“There a problem here?” He asked as he pulled alongside her, giving her shoulder a light squeeze. She turned and glanced up at him.

“This new tech has written off half the mechs in this bay as condemned. Unfit for operation, recommended for immediate decommission.” She huffed in exasperation as the man looked her over, seeming annoyed, but ultimately disinterested in the conversation.

“This is bullshit,” Hailey muttered as she turned away, pressing her tablet into his chest.

He glanced down at it. It displayed the RD bay’s full list of machines with their ready status. Of the 15 they had, 9 of them were marked off as condemned.

He let out a held breath as he saw Eta wasn’t among them.

He looked it up and down again, something was wrong. Several of the machines marked off for decommission weren’t even present, they were out on patrol…

He gave the man a once over, the name on his jumpsuit said R. Hawken. He was older, face scarred, definitely been on Herald for more than a few years. Got a cushy job doing supplemental inspections after a few hard tours, that would normally be his guess, but there was something with his eyes, something hard.

Something calculating.

He felt the hairs on his arm stand up. He turned and handed the tablet back to Hailey, who had busied herself with papers laid out on a crate nearby.

Put up a fight, let him win, get away from him.

“Sir, our techs here are damned good. We’ve been holding to all the standard maintenance procedures. I have full confidence there has been some mistake,” he kept his tone friendly. He made wide sweeping gestures with his hands. Did his best to look like a passionate pilot.

R. Hawken looked him over, “You a pilot for one of the affected machines?”

“No sir, mine passed,” he said.

“Then you shouldn’t have any complaints, mind your own machine and do your best to keep the others in line when the decommission teams get here. No need for rowdiness today. You’ll have replacements soon enough.”

CJ let his face contort with frustration, easy enough, not like it all had to be an act.

He turned away, shaking his head. He caught Hailey’s eyes and jerked his head over towards Eta. She gathered up all of the papers and started moving that direction.

“Complete bullshit,” she started, keeping her voice low, “Sloppy bullshit too. Ian’s machine is condemned and they’re still out on patrol?”

“Same with Rook’s, they’ve been out since before Cathedral arrived.” He added as they walked into Eta’s bay. He glanced back in Hawken’s direction. The man's eyes were on them until the moment CJ met his gaze.

Hailey threw her papers down on the maintenance bench and poured over the tablet again, “No commonality with age, OS version, maintenance history. Did they just choose at random?”

CJ tapped his foot absentmindedly. Something was wrong, obviously wrong.

Finally, he let his nerves take over, “Was it just me or did that man make it sound like the decommission teams are here already.” He mumbled just loud enough for Hailey to hear.

“Fucking hell,” Hailey whispered, her eyes growing wide, “they’re going to gut our entire fighting force today? If there are any delays in getting the new machines in, we’re toast. Do they want us dead.”

A trill of anxiety shot up his spine. He let his hand brush against his sidearm, secured in its pocket holster. Was he being paranoid?

He pulled out his personal data pad, no notifications from command on this.

Actually, no notifications at all.

He glanced up at the ticker. Readouts for weather conditions, but none of the usual deployment and readiness codes.

“Hailey,” He asked, keeping his tone calm and level, “Is there any chatter on the maintenance network?”

She swiped her tablet over to the communications board, “Last message… No… last thread entirely was posted… 15 minutes ago?”

She looked up at him, concern in her eyes, but not fear, “What the fuck is happening.”

“Anyone new come into the bay,” He asked, glancing deeper into the hangar. From their body language, the pilots were agitated, technicians too. Most of them were watching the entrance, a few were busying themselves with maintenance.

“Eight techs, Cathedral’s colors.” She reported, “Decommission team here already?”

He felt a fire in his stomach. If this was what he was afraid it was, orders or no, they weren’t staying here.

He stepped back further into Eta’s bay, breaking line of sight with the entrance. He glanced across the hangar and saw Candice watching him intensely. He drew his sidearm. She nodded and stepped into her bay.

“CJ,” Hailey warned, her tone was low and measured.

“Get 77 in standby, strap in, we’re leaving” he said calmly as he pressed his back up against the wall.

She didn’t move, her eyes were tracking something else, halfway up the wall, “What, the fuck, is going on.”

He glanced up at the ticker. A code had appeared, repeated up and down the bay at regular intervals. Cast.-516 --- Bast.-618 --- B/B.

Deploy from Castle. Return at Bastille.

Blue on Blue.

“Hailey, now,” He hissed as he leaned out from the bay, keeping as much of his body behind the concrete structure as possible. He saw the techs; Hawken was addressing them.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flurry of motion as Hailey scrambled, heard the sounds of her clambering up the hatch.

With a sudden roar one of the machines in the bay activated.

Hawken and the technicians all spun. He watched a few of the techs pull firearms out of their satchels. Sub-machine guns.

The feeling that washed over him was more a dull thud of confirmation than a sharp pang of realization.

He raised his pistol, drawing a line on Hawken. Hawken’s eyes met his again. There wasn’t any fear in his face. No surprise, no hate. Just a moment of poignant frustration.

CJ fired.

The gunshot barely had time to echo before the bay was engulfed with the roar a firefight. He saw his shot go wide, missing Hawken by inches. The man ducked behind a concrete barrier at the entrance to the bay alongside the Cathedral technicians.

Not techs, it’s an inquisition squad.

We’re being decommissioned.

From several of the other bays a field of small arms fire flew towards the back of the hangar. Every pilot and tech had armed with pieces they’d scavenged over the past few months. Bosses orders.

What the hell did you know, Trina?

He watched one of the inquisitors take a few rounds to the torso, they fell to the ground but dragged themselves back to cover, it didn’t look like they were bleeding.

Body armor? He thought, Fuckers.

He saw a flurry of motion as Hawken popped up from the barrier with one of the SMGs, sending a healthy burst straight at him.

CJ ducked behind the wall as bullets blew out concrete inches above his head, the rest of them fragmenting against Eta’s skin.

He grimaced as he leaned back out, sending a handful of rounds back towards Hawken, forcing the man to duck down behind his cover again. The meager advantage was short lived as he was pushed back by another inquisitor pumping suppressive fire into Eta’s bay.

The Castle crew was armed with mostly handguns, a handful of machine pistols. Cathedral definitely had the upper hand in firepower.

For now.

Three more machines rumbled to life, He watched Snowbird and Redwing deploy, head for the front of the hangar, away from the immediate fight.

They probably have machines and aircraft ready for anyone fleeing.

There was no way Zach and Candice didn’t realize that.

They always did like being first to the fight.

Canary and Heron swung towards the back of the bay. He watched the Cathedral squad leap from their cover for the harder concrete pylons. The spot they were just moments before detonated into a cloud of shrapnel as Canary pumped a burst of 20 mm into the opening from her chaingun.

“You picked the wrong hangar motherfuckers,” he heard Bev shout over Canary’s loudspeaker.

From immediately behind him there was the telltale roar of Eta’s engines firing up. It had been a while since he had heard her come online from ground level. Eta’s loudspeaker cracked to life.

“CJ, Let’s move.” Hailey barked.

He peeked out from his position. Cathedral was playing smart. A few smoke grenades had landed just shy of the two units pinning them down. They were fanning out under the cover they’d gained. Heron pulled back from overwatch and out into the open as the cracks and thuds of heavy weapons fire filtered in from outside.

It was last call for Castle.

CJ broke for Eta’s hatch, jumping up and pulling himself inside, up onto the internal gantry. Behind him he heard another salvo of gunfire. He stumbled a second as he felt some concrete or other shrapnel punch him in his lower back and knock the wind out of him.

He pulled himself back up and swung down into the pilot’s seat. He punched in the final startup commands and watched as the hatch closed. He swung the cage shut and strapped himself in.

Getting his feet into the control stirrups took some doing, he was shaking with the adrenaline of it all.

In front of him he saw the screens light up and the sensor displays flickered on. The form of Canary continuing to fire even as more smoke filled the space, some of it dark and thick.

His chest burned with the winding he had taken. He coughed as he tried to get air back into his lungs, he saw a mist of something dark and wet hit the screens.

He wiped at his mouth.

Blood.

Shit.

He took a few cautious breaths. Something was definitely wrong. Every breath burned and he felt something warm on his stomach.

He glanced down, A dark red stain had started to spread across the side of his flight suit from his lower abdomen, just below his ribs.

That hadn’t been shrapnel.

Shit!

He reached up past his left shoulder and pulled the trauma kit from behind the seat. He started blindly packing the wound on his back with gauze. For the first time since he got hit pain ripped through his back and stomach, radiating up his chest .

The screens washed him in a harsh light as Canary took a hit from behind. Something detonated. A gout of fire shot from it’s back. The machine started to fall.

“Are we moving yet?” Hailey called from the rear facing jumpseat

“Affirmative, he barked, trying to keep his voice from wavering. He let the trauma kit fall to the bottom of the cage.

He grit his teeth and pressed himself back into the seat, hoping that the packing and the seat’s padding would be enough, maybe for a few extra minutes.

“Fuck,” He wheezed aloud. He pushed Eta forward and swung her around towards the front of the hangar. He squeezed down on the trigger well before he saw the target.

The waiting KV12 took Eta’s 20 mm across it’s angular face. It reeled back from the assault. He traced the fire in a few short bursts to where he knew the cockpit was.

Castle had been running infantry suppression for weeks, almost all of the loadout they had was high explosive. Even with the KV’s lighter armor it wasn’t likely to penetrate, but it would be disorientating as hell for anyone inside.

However, there was one exception in the loadout.

-Target Locked.

Eta’s audio notification called from his seat’s speakers. He punched the secondary trigger with his thumb.

A line of shock vapor and an immediate shower of sparks appeared as her pylon mounted railgun landed a clean hit just above the cockpit. The enemy mech fell backwards, if not dead, heavily out of commission.

-Charging. Estimated 60 seconds. 4 Rounds remaining.

He coughed again, a mess of blood and spit landed on his pants.

-Component Repair.

He shook his head

Only place to fix this now is Bastille.

It was over an hour journey to the emergency fallback in an RD unit at a decent pace. At full tilt, maybe 45 to 50.

He felt his stomach drop, it wasn’t going to be enough time.

Maybe they’d run across staff fleeing Castle or friendly forces from the 35th, but either way pushing hard was his best bet at survival.

He threw the throttle to full as Eta cleared the hangar doors. Smoldering Castle mechs and Cathedral units scattered the pavilion, a handful still engaged in heated fights.

-Charge. 40 seconds.

Another Cathedral unit, this one a fellow RD mech with a stark white paint job, wheeled around one of the outbuildings. He didn’t even give them time to react. He slammed Eta’s bulk into it, the force and angle of impact overcoming the enemy unit’s balance and flipping it flat on its back.

He used the force of the impact to shunt Eta onto another course, pushing her towards the wall. He heard Hailey shout in alarm from the back of the cockpit.

“The hell are you doing.” She barked.

Escaping, surviving.

-Charge. 20 seconds.

The main gate was demolished, open, free.

He caught sight a vehicle column of Humvees and trucks barreling through it. Lines of fire flashed past on the other side. Through the smoke and debris, the dark forms of Castle’s units were visible holding the gate. Castle was evacuating.

-Charge Complete.

He couldn’t just barrel through with the convoy in the way.

He grimaced as he spun Eta around, her forward charge turning into a series of awkward skidding backsteps. The forces weren’t the worst he’d felt but he still saw his vision tighten to a narrow circle, mostly from the pain.

Behind them a battle group of Cathedral units was forming. He manually lined up the railgun’s reticle with the closest unit, center of mass.

He fired.

Between the sudden about face and the recoil, Eta threatened to keel back. He felt the haptics rumble along his thighs as Eta lowered her stance and kept herself upright.

On screen the railgun round slammed into the target, another KV12. The machine stalled and the impact hole belched fire, but it was still up and moving.

-Charging. Estimated 50 seconds. 3 Rounds remaining.

“Good girl,” he whispered, giving his control stick a weak shake before slamming it to the right and spinning Eta back towards the gate. Incoming fire whizzed past, a few rounds slammed into Eta’s bulk. For a moment the cockpit sounded like being under a tin roof in a hailstorm back home.

No alerts flashed, no alarms blared, it was all superficial damage.

The last of the trucks had cleared the gate by the time they made it though. Now free and clear past the wall everyone was scattering. He ran Eta parallel with Castle’s perimeter for a block or two before pushing away from the stronghold. These streets were far less likely to be congested. Hopefully less likely to be patrolled as well.

He did his best to keep Eta at full throttle, only cutting her speed for a few twists and turns. In the back of his head, he kept track of the bearing towards Bastille and tried to push that general direction where he could.

Sounds of cannon fire and the thumps of rockets echoed through the tangle. The fight was all around them now. Cathedral was pursuing.

Don’t want us linking up with the Rats? He thought.

Another fit of coughs escaped his lips. The blood wasn’t coming quite as thick anymore, but his breaths weren’t any easier or less painful. He was acutely aware of the outer edges of his vision starting to darken. He was having to focus to keep the lightheadedness at bay.

I’m still losing blood, he realized.

He gave the control stick another light shake as he pushed Eta hard again. They thundered out of the narrow street and into a massive loading zone. Two CJ units and an RA mech were ablaze here. No time to identify them, past the thick black smoke two stark white KV12s wheeled to face him.

He fired the railgun at the one on the left, catching it just above it’s left weapon mount. Its autocannon smashed to the ground.

2 railgun rounds remaining and 60 seconds back on the clock.

He slipped his hand around the ancillary stick and broke the link on the firing controls. He unleashed both of Eta’s rotaries, one on each unit. He focused on where he knew the machine’s primary sensors were.

Rattle the cage. Keep them blind.

Using the stirrup controls he slowly pushed her to the side of the open space, towards a narrow street just barley wide enough to accept the RD’s bulk.

He let up the fire and turned Eta down the street. Incoming fire alarms blared loudly as they pushed down the passage. KV12s were big, but not as broad as the RD units, they were going to be followed.

With a sickening metallic screech, he pushed Eta through a factory wall and out of the straightaway.

The factory floor was empty of people, evacuation orders would have gone out immediately once fighting began, probably even before, all things considered. The entire district was likely in the shelters.

Eta stomped across the floor, trampling machines and conveyors as she moved. With another screech she punched a hole through large roll up door, tearing it to shreds as she passed. The street here was wider, but not by much.

He had half a thought to turn and fire on the KV’s chasing them as they entered the factory but chased it out of his mind. The goal was escape, not adding notches to his belt.

A shadow passed overhead, a bicopter thundered past. He could hear the thuds of rockets impacting a few streets over.

Stay to the tangle, break fast through the openings.

Quickly, they picked through the tight streets. Pushing through buildings where they could.

The nice part about all this, he thought, somewhat loopily, is that I don’t have to worry about collateral damage. Not like we’re the enforcers anymore.

A weak laugh escaped his mouth as they crashed through the other side of a ramshackle warehouse complex. Light washed out the cameras for a moment. When they adjusted he saw open space. They were at the edge of the highway, the only thing the tangle ever broke for. He confirmed their bearing. They had to cross.

He threw the throttle to full and pointed Eta at a gap between the buildings on the other side. He could faintly hear the sound of the bicoper in the distance. No way it hadn’t spotted them.

The distance closed quickly. The low whir on the speakers steadily grew to a roar.

A series of thumping rocket impacts shook the ground, rattling even Eta’s bulk. He threw the throttle into reverse, pulling her to a shuddering stop. He felt himself keel forward, his vision nearly blacking out completely. His abdomen screamed in pain.

As his vision returned a trail of fiery detonations traced the road a few dozen yards ahead. The bicopter soared past, already pivoting to stay on them. He swung Eta around to track it.

He opened up with both rotaries and her chaingun. The aircraft juked and dropped altitude to avoid the trails of lead, lighting them up with its own guns. A handful of shots pinged off of Eta’s hide.

Out of rockets? You’re not going to penetrate this with your pissy guns.

He thumbed a dial on the stick and loosened Eta’s fire control. The streams of fire became a cloud as the gimbaled weapon mounts ceased their automatic recoil corrections.

He watched as a smattering of cannon shots smashed home against the side of the bicopter and detonated. Shrapnel tore through its rotors and the machine dropped altitude fast, trailing a line of smoke down with it.

He breathed a sigh of relief before he realized Eta was yelling at him.

-ntact Left Contact Left Contact Left.

Her voice was faint, tinny.

He swung Eta left just in time to see the bulk of another KV12 slam into them. He felt the machine reel at the impact.

How didn’t I see it? He thought as his vision greyed out again.

Eta stayed on her feet; she was too good at self-stabilization at this point to go down

Oh. He realized as the narrow tunnel of vision returned.

The peripheral screens were all but impossible to see now.

The KV12 was centered in his sights now. His fingers went to squeeze the triggers instinctively, but he stopped them. He pushed the stick right, shrugging off the KV unit, and moved for the other side of the tangle.

Within seconds they were clear of the highway. Eta was at full speed again; he wasn’t slowing down for corners anymore. He trusted Eta to carry them through.

His vision seemed to narrow and gray with every exhale now but oddly enough the pain was gone.

…Shit.

Incoming fire warnings blared as the KV12 pursued. Shots flashed past; their impacts visible in the front viewscreen. He couldn’t see any of the other displays anymore. A few shots found purchase hopefully nowhere critical.

Eta was saying something again, he could hear her repeating it over and over again. But he couldn’t make it out.

He pushed her into another turn. An incredibly tight left, hopefully enough to juke the KV off their tail.

He felt her shift her weight into the corner to take it faster. Felt the skidding of her legs rumble through her chassis as they started to slide.

His vision completely blacked out from the forces. He could still feel himself in the space, though everything was a little numb.

He kept the pressure on the stick, pressing her hard into the blind left turn.

With a sickening jolt, he felt the bulk of the mech yield to inertia and pitch heavily to the right. For half a second, he felt the sensation of weightlessness. His vision returned ever so slightly, a small grey postcard of Eta’s interior structure. Faintly he heard the faint whines of Eta’s alarm mix with the screams of both Hailey and the steel around him.

Then everything went black.

#mecha #scifi #creative writing #tw blood

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yhekleaf · 1 month ago

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Champion rant-Viktor

This is directly inspired by NickyBoi and T B Skyen . I really liked their videos about the champions and decided that I wanted to rant to the void about them. It was going to be alphabetical order but I decided to do Viktor first definitely not because he is one of my favorites (how dare you say that, there is no favorites here?) but because we will soon get a different version more based on the arcane story. Next time I’ll go into Jayce as his bio might change to match with Viktor's vgu and I want to get ahead of that. For this I will only look at everything before arcane, that means no sick twink Victorian Viktor. So, enjoy a deep dive into the Machine Herald.

Viktor is in an interesting spot in league of legends, the result of riots obvious favoritism towards its golden children (Cough Ezreal, lux, mis fortune, Jayce cough), lack of consistency and a niche but passionate fanbase. Viktor was released in the end of 2011, like lot of different champion he has had different lore over the year until we get the modern version today.

LORE

Viktor lore is in a weird position because it contradicts itself and the fans don't really agree on it. Viktor is not a random villain of the week, but he is also not a pure puppy just helping. There is a couple things that are consistent throughout all the lore's, he is a scientist from Zaun who is trying to improve the city through technology, he builds Blitz crank, the credit of his invention get stolen, he decides to take away his emotions through augmentation, is a staunch supporter of transhumanism and he wants a GLORIUS EVOLUTION. Yet the rewrites have added more detailed or changed things to try and give Viktor a more sinister story. Notice that Jayce is not a constant, he didn't even exist when the first version of Viktor was released yet 8 months later when Jayce was released, Viktor would get his first big rewrite to link them together. Viktor whole "JOIN MY GLORIUS EVOLUTION" through free will or by force was not added until Jayce got introduce into the story, don't worry Viktor still had the GLORIOUS EVOLUTION thing just more of a "if you want?" Riot really wanted Jayce to be the good guy and Viktor to be the bad guy of the story, a foil to each other. In 2016 a bunch of rewrites happened to Piltover and Zaun, for Viktor it meant more detail and more links to Jayce, that's the lore we have today not counting arcane or the vgu.

Current lore has Viktor still be a scientist from Zaun who wants to make Zaun safer, he gets invited to the academy of Piltover and decides to attend. He meets Jayce and they are not friends more like rivals/reluctant classmates, Viktor still creates Blitzcrank from scrap to clean up a spill in Zaun and one of his teachers steals the credit and no one listen to Viktor about it, especially Jayce. This start resentment towards the world, Viktor and Jayce gets forced to work together in a project to build diving suit for people in Zaun but the chemicals in the water create hallucinations to the operator which end up causing them to attack and kill each other. Viktor realizes that this was a human error and decides "Hey why can’t we just take control of the body when this happens" Jayce and him argue about ethics and Jayce is a snitch causing Viktor to get expulsed. This adds another line to the resentment counter. Viktor goes back to Zaun and operates on himself to get rid of pesky emotions, and start operating on other people but realizes that he needed a crystal from Jayce to save a couple of people so he decides to steal it by sneaking into his lab and Jayce just goes "alright bet" and demolishes Viktor's lab and the crystal in petty revenge, in the process killing the people that Viktor was trying to help. That's the final line for Viktor and he decides "you know what humans are stupid either way, I’ll just get rid of all emotions, machines are better, they are my only friend" My favorite part of this Viktor is that people decide that he is a god and start a cult under his name called the Church of the Glorious Evolved but Viktor just ignores it? I could you not this comes from directly his bio

"Some in Zaun, hearing fragments of his philosophy and seeing the successes of his work, saw him as a messianic figure. Viktor couldn’t care less for them, viewing their quasi-religious cult as an aberration; yet another reason to eliminate emotional foibles and the belief in that which could not be empirically proven." -Biography

Don't you hate it when accidently you become a cult figure when the only thing you are trying to do is turn people into machines?

I like this lore, the part that interests me the most is his role in Zaun. I like to think about weather he is a helpful figure one who feels bad and wants to help his city or is he an opportunist who views the people who come to him as project that he can try his sketchy practices on. There is so much to explore about his character. Sadly this is riot and the only time they'll move forward in the lore of a character is if they are popular.

So yeah, that's lore Viktor according to his bio, which should be seen as the truest version of the character. This is important cause he also has color story which is not really like the bio? I mean in the short story he helps out this kid from Zaun who is being pressured into sneaking into Viktor's lab by other kids. he gives him sweet milk and helps the kid scare his bullies away. He talks some philosophy. monologues and says some killer lines like

“Humans consistently ignore the endless infinity of possibilities in favor of maintaining the status quo.”-Viktor

But it sounds nothing like how the bio sets him up as? Bio Viktor is most likely to look at the kid and be like "huh free test subject" or "kid I'm going to give you an extra pair of arms and cool laser eyes and no you don't have a choice" instead Viktor is more like "if you ever want more permanent illegal mortification, I'm here" also he talks about drinking sweet milk and this is something with his design which will be my next section, but he wears a mask, he is more like a cyborg than full machine doesn't really follow the whole GLORIUS EVOLUTION when he himself still has human parts and feelings. I mean it could be seen as a hypocritical thing, a character flaw but riot never acknowledges that so I am pretty sure it’s more of an inconsistent writing, bad characterization and no direction of the character whether Viktor is an evil scientist who forces machines onto people or just a work obsessed guy trying to fix problem through a really extreme solution.im not even going to go into Jayce bio cause that one has things that contradict Viktor bio! And honestly if we talked about the inconsistencies of league of legends lore, we would be here all day.

Design

Viktor design is kind of messy? I mean its dark color palette, the angry yellow eyes, the cape and voice lines all give the vibes of a villain. The extra arm is a cool idea, as Viktor feels like a character that would built something helpful that the human body doesn't have, an extra arm to help around the lab and be a cool laser weapon. The rest of his design doesn't really tell his story, I mean it just looks like a guy in armor. I already said it but the fact that he has a mask goes against becoming a machine deal. His arm is cool but it’s on top of a really thick pauldron that makes it look clunky, just an add on instead of it being part of Viktor. The most machine part of Viktor is his pauldron arm that's fully mechanical. The rest of his limbs from what could be seen in the model are just normal. One of his leg has a brace which is a cool idea, it hints at something about him and the arcane writer used it to add depth to his character by linking it to his desire for evolution and help humanity, It’s also representation of braces, disabilities and illnesses that's often ignored by media. But league doesn't have that, there is really no reason given for the leg brace that I could find, a lot of fans kind of head canon what arcane did but lore wise it doesn't really make sense. Viktor is obsessed with reaching his GLORIUS EVOLUTION and believe humanity is the error that should be erased yet he is more human than actual machine, it doesn't make sense for Viktor to keep something so human like a disability instead of replacing it with technology. Don't get me starter on the skirt thing like it screams 80s cartoon villain and I wonder what material is supposed to be, actually that goes with his whole outfit it’s an amalgamation of metal and cloth but difficult to figure out where it ends and begins. I like his cape, it’s a cool shape I don't know how I feel about the red sometimes I like it other times I feel like it’s trying to replicate count Dracula. The staff is fine, I kind don't like the random cable on the top mostly because it feels like a weirdly design flaw that Viktor himself would never do. In conclusion Viktor design works, but it’s trying to do so many things and yet not enough, it really doesn't fit Viktor as a character fully and also it doesn't really fit what we view as modern Zaun, it fits more into a random mmo.

Skins

Viktor doesn't have a lot of skins he is over 10 years old, and he only has 6 skins, and the skins he does have are a bit of a mix bag. I'll be talking about a couple important ones

His best skin in my opinion is death sworn Viktor, a lot of the Viktor's skins don't change him much, they keep him as a scientist engineer and often has a tech theme to them. Death sworn Viktor changes him from a man obsessed with machine as the future of humanity to a man who sees death as the future of humanity. It’s an interesting take of the character. The blue and purple color scheme is really nice his vfx are good, I like the hand as an eye and I like the hood and skull mask, it manage to make him look less derpy with his animations and intimidating TBSkyen has a really good short about this skin.

Creator Viktor is ok as a skin, I'm personally not the biggest fan of it look wise, but technically speaking is the skin line where he is the most important in. Part of the battle cast universe creator Viktor is almost a what if Viktor really went with GLORIUS EVOLUTION to the max and replaced everything with machines. Creator Viktor is basically just a more accomplished version of normal Viktor. Sad thing is as the leader of the battle cast machines, he doesn't really stand out. I mean battle cast Skarner and battle cast Kog'Maw kind of overshadow him... by a lot.

Worst skin without a shadow of a doubt is prototype Viktor. It’s supposed to be kind of a lore skin, its Viktor at its early stages of augmentation, it’s one of the two skins he launched with which both are robotic themed on an already robotic themed character, innovation. There is a lot to say about this skin, the red and yellow color scheme is not appealing, it honestly hurts the eyes. It has too many buckles, it’s trying to be steam punk, but the colors are just off. I can’t get over them maybe if the colors were different, it could be less jarring. The hand is fine, it’s a bit weird that the hand alongside the pants and hair are the only things that's brown and grays.it takes away attention from the hand towards the bright top area My biggest gripe with this skin, that TBSkyen says so himself is that DAMN CAPE! the cape has bolts , it has a metal structure, THE CAPE HAS A METAL STRUCTURE. why? it screams add metal and that makes it steam punk. Honestly! Everything could have been done well and that god forsaken cape would have still landed it at the bottom.

Gameplay

I’m not a good player of any sorts so this is just my opinion as someone who plays Viktor semi regularly. I like his playstyle sometimes its kind slow. I find the coolest part is his passive with the evolve mechanic. Viktor’s passive is a stack every time you kill a minion or a champion you get a certain amount of point at one hundred you can evolve one of your abilities. It’s cool idea but it only has one evolution per ability, I feel like that’s a such a waste of a mechanic. If you play well as Viktor and its a longer game, you could by the 15 mark have more than 2 abilities evolved and by 30 mins you will have every ability evolved and then that's it, 20 more mins of playtime where technically speaking you should be at your strongest so it should mean more kills yet no more augments cause they are locked? His q is very simple, its a little blast that grants a shield and if evolved also speed, most of the game it just feels like an empowered auto. His w is a gravity field which slows down enemies and if evolved it grants slow to all abilities. this one is a bit annoying cause it’s so easy to just dodge, most often it can used as a way to deter an enemy from going somewhere but it’s a bit hard to actually make someone fall for it cause it’s so noticeable. His e is the most useful one though it can be clunky, it’s a laser you can choose where it hits. It’s fun to use and the evolved version just makes the trail explode. his ultimate is an electricity field that follows an enemy, pretty annoying to fight against but pretty funny to play with especially if you kill multiple at once.

Final thoughts

Here is when ill be talking about a bit of the vgu. I really the Viktor we have right now, he has his flaws. I like him in the game while he says “GLORIUS EVOLUTION” and I’m running around hitting people with lasers. As often is the case the game and the lore don’t match with each other. The lore is really inconsistent with itself too, the game version of Viktor just look like a villain, the bio says that he is a misunderstood yet mad driven scientist towards his goal of evolution no matter the ethics or consequences, and his story and a lot of his actions say that he is a scientist that is trying to prove himself to the world through a misguided solution. I am ok with his design, I mean it does the job better than Annie or Gragas, but it doesn’t really tell his story well, kind of I mean it does show case how contradictive this character is. and while I will miss this Viktor, I am hopeful that the vgu will make things more consistent and be for the better. I won’t say anything else because I will wait until it comes out for my full opinions and thoughts on the vgu.

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