#Orianna LoL

[bestwitchsam]

AND FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! ORIANNA IS HEREEEEEEEEE! I'M SO HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[hexhomos]

One of a kind 🪞💎

[ this is a print! ]

[softr0bot]

Team rocket

(Idk how many ppl play wild rift or know about Orianna’s gothic skin so extremely small target audience? They would vibe)

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Finally got my old Orianna VGU concept finished! With Arcane season 2 coming out now I had to get her finished before it finishes dropping just in case she makes a surprise appearance.

Reference sheet + reference photo! Also apologies to Ball. I had no ideas for Ball.

[cenfitto]

one for the orivik club lets hold hands and hope arcane doesnt kill us dead

[tourmelion]

You know how arcane season 2 is really shit, well I got to thinking, why don't we write our own

And then I tried, and I think it's kinda decent as a replacement for season 2

Or at least, a better skeleton premise for part of the rewrite, it's kinda a big project

So, if anyone is interested in joining in the writing effort or is just interested in seeing what I've got so far DM me

I've also got an expansion of caits starting point of her arc on @tourmelions-arcane-blog

I've got some solid ideas for caits, Viktor's, jayce's and heimerdingers arc

As well as a proper introduction and character fleshing out of blitzcrank and orianna

Along with some themes to go along with them to symbolize things in the story

[junkyardescape]

Orianna + League's New Lore Direction

Canonizing Arcane and cutting short stories contributes to a feeling I've had for a little while about the storytelling in League, but that I couldn't really articulate until now.

It feels to me like Riot has a list of characters who are canon to the lore, and everyone else kinda just... exists. And this choice to focus more on the high-budget, long turnaround forms of storytelling (they pointed out Riot Forge titles and the season start cinematics) are not sustainable, or even practical, for telling smaller stories about League's "less important" champions.

That's kinda what I value most about the short stories; they can present little vignettes from the lives of characters, and in some cases, were genuinely the only way a champion would get anything more than their bio. Orianna has been out since 2011, and in terms of canon Runeterra appearances, has literally only a bio and a short story. I have other thoughts about Fieram, but that's for a different post lol. Orianna isn't very popular, but I genuinely love the incarnation of her we have right now; I know there's the semi-popular theory that she is Singed's daughter in Arcane, but I'm A) not totally convinced of it in the first place and B) not exactly excited about the prospect of that because it fundamentally alters her character. I think there's quite a few champions in this position, and I wish they wouldn't choose to unify the lore by completely cutting out the means by which "less important" champions get their storytelling.

Certainly some of these champions will get places in cinematics and Riot Forge titles and things, but like. I'm not holding out for a standalone Orianna game, nor for her to appear in any capacity more than cameos like Corin Reveck's brief references in Convergence. I really like the position her character can hold with regard to smaller stories, and I don't think she works on a bigger level like characters like Jinx + Vi, Viego, Ashe and so much of the Freljord, Lux, Sylas, and everyone else who feel more like "main characters". And there are so many characters who are suited to these smaller narratives.

Orianna's narrative is internal. Right now, its solitary. Fitting her into larger stories like this does her a disservice because it makes it harder to explore her, and she's already been done so much injustice in the writing that does exist about her. Every one of the characters in this universe has the ability to be a "main character" in some capacity, but not all of them will do it through such high stakes narratives.

I think Riot Forge is gonna be really cool for the champions who get to have their stories presented through it - Song of Nunu looks great, and if you told me Nunu would get a standalone game when I started playing when Yasuo was released, I'd think you were insane. But for some champions it feels like they're going to lose what makes them them to better suit them for the larger narratives of the story or be completely left out to dry.

[funnyscienceman]

funniest thing about the singed = corin reveck theory is that if turned out to be true then the wiki and tv tropes pages will have to be edited, the ao3 tag will have to change to singed | corin reveck, and if you go to orianna's league universe page there's a chance you'd see singed's goofy picture in "related champions"

[league-of-skins]

Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork

[mimustical]

Space Groove Orianna fan design! I'm just happy she is played so much in Worlds

hopefully she will get a visual update as a result 🙏

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x09 - “The Dirt Under Your Nails.” ↳ "Everything I've done is to cure her."

[bestwitchsam]

Viktor, Orianna and Singed Scene Photos High Quality

[felcure]

[mollysunder]

Orianna's inclusion in Arcane really drives how the show depicted Piltover as passive as possible instead of the active agent of misery it was in the original lore (or at least by comparison). In Orianna's OG lore, she was dying because she chose to bravely help Zaunites that were caught in a large chemical disaster after an explosion either brought on by the poor conditions of Zaun or it's general structural instability (or both) broke a gas line that released dangerous fumes that destroyed her lungs in short order as she helped others breathe.

In Arcane, it's no longer important how she got sick because both her agency and affect on the world around her are irrelevant. Orianna's just a dying little girl that the audience will automatically sympathize with because she'sa dying little girl (who'sdad is Singed). In her place, it's Viktor who's sickened (offscreen) by the Fissure gasses instead of being victimized by Piltover Academy when the instution sides with the Piltovan professor that stole his work.

It's in the same vein as how in Arcane the ones who take those closest to Ekko aren't Piltovans working his parents for 12+ hour shifts or just straight up killing his friends like Ajuna. It's other Zaunites like Silco and Jinx that are the prime source of his misery as they murder his friends to his face. You can even argue this goes for Vi and Jinx's story because while they do say that the enforcers killed their parents neither can articulate it was the Council that sent them there in the first place!

[synchodai]

Arcane S2 wasn't as good because it wasn't about air

The common critique of Arcane season two was that "it didn't let the story breathe." I'm going to one-up that and state that season one set up an entire story about breathing and forgot that in season two.

Yes, yes, Arcane was a story about Piltover oppressing the undercity, but unlike a lot of other stories about social stratification, Arcane was very explicit about the methods Piltover uses to disenfranchise Zaun. Season one was clearly a story about eco-apartheid maintained through extractivist practices.

WHAT IS ECO-APARTHEID?

Ecological apartheid (also known as enviromental racism) is a form of disenfranchising and spatially separating a class of people through pollution, exploitation, and abuse of their local environment.

[E]nvironmental apartheid was largely instituted through rural marginalization, the use of rural space as an environmental means of marginalization... - Environmental apartheid: Eco-health and rural marginalization in South Africa

Topside and the undercity are basically one nation state with a blindingly stark fence between them. Piltover and Zaun are simultaneously connected and separated by the Bridge of Progress. Progress unites them and alienates them from one another. Progress is why Piltover is wealthy and clean, and it is why Zaun is impoverished and polluted. It is was on the Bridge of Progress that Silco incited the riot that led to Vi and Powder's orphaning and Vander's betrayal. It's where Ekko and Jinx have their standoff, and where the Hextech core is exchanged. In other words, progress is a border.

WHAT IS EXTRACTIVISM?

Prior to the proliferation of shimmer and the chembarons, industry in the undercity appears to be heavily centralized around one thing — fissure mining. Vi and Powder's parents used to be miners along with Vander and Silco. Jayce and Vi visit one of these mines and she explains the masks the workers use. Oh, and let's not forget the children don't have to yearn for the mines when they're dying in the mines!

The Zaunites' livelihood being dependant on the extraction of natural resources for the benefit of the Piltovans is what is known as extractivism — the exploitation of a resource-rich land and its people by a separate "global North."

In practice, extractivism has been a mechanism of colonial and neocolonial plunder and appropriation. This extractivism, which has appeared in different guises over time, was forged in the exploitation of the raw materials essential for the industrial development and prosperity of the global North. - Extractivism and neoextractivism: two sides of the same curse

The "North," in this case, clearly being Piltover. The resources being abused and exploited here aren't only the fissure mines, but also the bodies of the workers and those born around them. Viktor's illness, for example, is a product of growing up around the gaseous waste of the fissure mines. The Zaunites take the brunt of the side-effects of the pollution so that the topsiders don't have to. The "dregs" are kept below while materials, both people and things, that are deemed useful get to rise to the top. The processing of raw materials and shipping happens in Piltover, so it's the Piltovans who get a final say on the profits.

Silco and the chembarons establish their power by creating an industry that operates outside of fissure mining that doesn't rely on the patronage of the global North. Needless to say, drug dealing isn't exactly a noble trade, but extraction, processing, and distribution are mainly controlled and operated by Zaunites, which allows them a source of wealth and power that they can leverage against Piltover. To use a more recognizable phrase, they own the means of shimmer production.

I find it fascinating that shimmer is made by killing innocent underground creatures. Cannibalizing your own kind for a temporary boost of strength that eventually turns the user into a monster? It's a poignant metaphor about the infighting of not just the chembarons' gangs but of oppressed groups in general. And while shimmer offers power and brings in wealth, that's not what the undercity truly needs and only corrupts it even further.

Nah, the show has been very clear that what Zaun needs is breathable air.

SEASON 2 FORGOT ABOUT AIR

Even outside of the air pollution caused by fissure mining, the theme of breathing and air is everywhere in season one. Ekko and the Firelights' community is built around a tree — the clean air it provides is the reason they've been able to sustain themselves. It is considered an oasis in polluted Zaun. Jinx's is often heralded by brightly colored smoke, and the way she signals to Violet is through a flare that emits it. Silco's altercation with Vander involves him almost drowning — Vander literally choking the air out of him. Silco, in reponse to this traumatic event, teaches Jinx to willingly submerge herself in a place without air by baptizing her in the same filthy water he was choked in.

In other words, air is life and purpose. Zaun's aesthetics are defined by gas masks and smoke. Meanwhile, the scenes in Piltover are clean and clear. Ekko and the Firelights' tree represented hope and the possibility of clean air in Zaun. Viktor was similarly associated to flowers that grew in the underground, symbolizing how beautiful things can live even in the harshest circumstances.

Environmental degradation, more specifically air pollution, is the raison d'être of topside-undercity conflict. Silco says as much when he threatens the other chembarons and reminds them of why he's in charge.

Have you forgotten where we came from? The mines they had us in? Air so thick it clogs your throat — stuck in your eyes. I pulled you all up from the depths, offered you a taste of topside and fresh air. I gave you life. Purpose. But you've grown fat and complacent, too much time in the sun. We came from a world where there was never enough to go around. That is why we fight. Do you remember? - The Boy Savior, Arcane S01E07

But by the second and third acts of season two, pollution may not as well exist in Zaun. How does Viktor's commune plant its flowers and grow its fruits? Does the Firelights' tree ever get cured of its corruption? Did everyone forget that the undercity is literally suffocating? Seriously, why is Ekko's storyline with the tree never resolved? Why give Jinx that monologue about a wispy goddess of air the fissurefolk pray to and never go anywhere with it?

JINX SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASSOCIATED TO JANNA

The Grey presented an opportunity for Jinx to be the revolutionary hero Arcane wanted her to be. The enforcers have clearly aligned themselves with pollution and poison, and Jinx could have been the herald of their wind goddess come to answer the people's prayers for relief. But the people don't rally behind Jinx because of her association to Janna, clean air, or her repelling the invading cops using bioweapons.

I firmly believe that Jinx being a symbol of the revolution because she blew up a government building is missing a few steps. She'll get radicals who already hated Piltover behind her, sure, but the everyday Zaunite would more likely blame her for causing chaos and bringing trouble to their streets. Because the average person doesn't really care who's on the council or if a politician so far from them dies. But they do care if the cops are suddenly at their door with tear gas because an extremist junkie decided to commit arson.

The first act of season two had me very optimistic that the show was picking up where it left off with its enviromental themes. The enforcers use The Grey, polluted air, to surpress dissent and hunt down Jinx. Jinx fights back under a mural of Janna, the goddess of clean air. Her plan involves her using air to push back The Grey and send the gust up to Piltover. After being actively gassed by the enforcers, Jinx and her association to colorful wind becomes a symbol of hope and revolution to the people of the undercity.

Except that's not what happens. The Grey is only shown affecting targeted criminals with no collateral damage to civilians despite it being deployed all over the trenches. The gusts of wind Jinx pushes up to Piltover don't make topsiders experience the air pollution Zaunites suffer. Instead, it just midly inconveniences them with paint splatters. In the end, The Grey is forgotten and has nothing to do with their fight in front of Janna's mural. Caitlyn gets a promotion despite gassing the entire underground with nothing to show for it, and the undercity idolizes Jinx despite her being the reason they were gassed in the first place.

ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION IS INTERPERSONAL RESTORATION

Unlike in the game, Arcane chose topside and the undercity to be originally established as one city — and I don't think that was done without reason. The nation of Zaun and its identity is established as a reaction to the suffering of those underground. A community developed centered around helping one another cope and survive through the pollution. In short, Piltover created Zaun.

Thus, the interplay between Piltover and Zaun extended to all plotlines and the relationships they explored and developed. Jinx and Vi, Vi and Caitlynn, Viktor and Jayce, Ekko and Heimerdinger — these are all relationships that reflect the tension between Zaun and Piltover. Family torn apart by civil war, bitter ex lovers, different ideological approaches to scientific advancement, intuitive inventiveness and practiced genius. Their relationships are born from a common desire and degrade because of that looming border inflicted by the pursuit of progress.

Piltover and Zaun is a single house fractured because of how it threw all its detritus in the basement as it sought to build a tower that will reach the skies. The whole building is threatening to crumble, especially now that someone threw a bomb at it like in the finale of season one. The status quo Arcane and we as a globalized eco-apartheid have is extremely precarious as is any foundation built on abuse and exploitation. A lot of people will cheer on the Jinxes who don't care so much about fixing it than they do burning it all down to express their understandable rage and grief, but that doesn't really fix the problem of having breathable air, does it?

Unfortunately, we'll never know how the show will wrap up the Zaunite plight because it was all but forgotten in season 2. The problem of Zaun was never that they needed to evolve or be perfect — it's that their environment and the people by extension were being suffocated.

In my perfect world, the finale would have addressed the lack of light and clean air in the underground. It would have mirrored how some bodies and relationships can never truly fully recover the damage that has been done. As in real life, restoration is not a substitute for not doing harm in the first place. But it could have ended with a hopeful message that burning it down and running away isn't the answer either.

When Viktor was healing Vander and decided that, despite the unprecedented effort and time, his natural, non-weaponized humanity was worth saving because of how much he means to his local community, I thought that was what they were going for. Alas, they didn't let the show breathe.

[parachuter]

wild rift star guardian team goes brrrainrot