#it would be the shimmer factory debacle all over again.

[tarraxahum]

This was gonna be a reply to a reply but I thought maybe I should just make my own post. Yes this is about Vi again.

It's no secret that "Vi should've fought for Zaun" and the expectation of her being Vander's prodigy and feeling like the plot dropped the ball on her in that regard and the betrayal at the fact that she's living comfortably in Piltover now are. Frequent sentiments in the fandom. Which I get, but also I feel that this line of expectations is. Diverging from who Vi actually is by the end and what she was realistically capable of.

Vi in season 2 is basically running on fumes and because she has no other options. It is a well known thing in irl activist spaces that to participate in any kind of fight for justice you need to take care of yourself, otherwise you won't have the energy to be any kind of useful to your community. Ekko also says this - "It's not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live". Vi has been surviving and not living in any shape or form for years, she's exhausted and broken in places. That's no mental state to fight for Zaun or make any kinda change. I think it's extremely realistic and human and hardly a flaw of writing or the character if by the end the only thing she was able to do was collapse into the safety and peace she was offered for the first time in forever (aka Caitlyn). It's clear that in her last scene she's still recovering mentally - Cait seems to be excited to have any sign of life (singing) from her at all, and the "Are you still in this fight?" question is very loaded. (But it's indicated that Vi is very much still in the fight, so? It's really anyone's guess what she'll do once she's healed and remembers how to live. And don't bring up LoL's Vi brutality thing, it's clear they're different characters).

I think in wanting to see Vi stand up for Zaun or be Vander's prodigy we often deny her the flaw of being a breakable human and forget just how much she's held together by duct tape. Just because she was full of this 'fuck Piltover' fire as a kid doesn't mean she is still capable of matching that energy. Sometimes after lots of trauma humans grow up into tired adults who just want to sit down and feel safe regardless of where it happens and how questionable it might look (re: living in Piltover). Not to mention, that even as a child Vi's main reason for fuming at the Topside was wanting safety for her family and herself. Well, now she's all out of family, she's estranged from the community of Zaun thanks to being in prison for 7 years and Silco changing the place so much, and the only person who's offering her safety and not more fighting (which she's exhausted and thoroughly burnt out from!) is Caitlyn, so. How is where she ended up any kind of surprising or a failure of her writing/character?

Yes, a lot of people wanted a revolutionary, no, Vi isn't one. Dare I say, never really was one. At her lowest, when she's got no one left to protect, she's not trying to fill in that void by taking on protecting Zaun and becoming a vigilante or something, no, she spirals. That is not something on her radar, that's not something she's visibly cut out to do, she cares so so much but on a smaller scale. Even the whole shimmer factory debacle was less about Zaun and more about her desire to hurt Silco personally for what he'd done to her family. If Jinx agreed to run away with her back at the tea party Vi would ditch the entirety of Zaun (potentially leaving it to Silco forever since he's still alive at that point) in a heartbeat to keep her sister and save Cait in one move. She puts on an enforcer uniform BECAUSE she cares for Jinx (through convincing herself that at the very least she should take her out of her misery herself rather than leaving it to people who don't care, yes) and Cait both.

Perhaps a hot take, but not becoming a leader despite being good at taking hits to the head and caring about people in general and being a daughter of one does not make Vi a badly written character or a bad person. It just makes her a person. And a character whose arc culminated in choosing herself. And choosing yourself sometimes means leaving the fight to others (perhaps temporarily, considering the final dialogue). And that's okay.

Arcane is tragedy about flawed people, not a feel-good story about a successful revolution and rich people paying for their crap, and it was never going to be. Ergo one of our main character isn't an upcoming hero in shining armor who was allegedly robbed of her potential. She's just a broken young woman who barely knows how to keep her own little life together and her biggest victory by the end is allowing herself to take a breath and live for once. Yes, while her home down there is still in shambles. Yes, that sounds selfish. For some people a bit of selfishness is the greatest thing they can ever learn for themselves.

[magic5ball]

Lucky Pong of PONG CORP

In the Year of our Lord 60,022, fifteen thousand years after the third Dropping of the Bombs, Lucky Pong of the latter day Pongses, 6th Scion of PONG CORP, had a most terrible nightmare. A vision so blasphemous he immediately jumped out of his nest and had his assistant sousaphone the board members- all 1600!- for an emergency meeting in his office at TOP-OF-THE-WORLDTM. The Simians of the Board soared there as fast as they could on genetically implanted wings, pterodactyls, turbosaxes, and all the other wonderful inventions of PONG CORP, to where Lucky Pong, still in his satin nighties, waited for them in the Boardroom.

“Gentleapes, Ladies.” The chimpanzee addressed them before they could so much as scooch in their sitters. “I have called you here in an hour of dire crisis. But first, a PONG CORP brand preyertm!”

The Simians rushed through the preyertm to the Capital, the Free Market, and the Holy PONG CORP, the once and forever true scion of Capital (may it forever guide them).

The ritual complete, Lucky Pong told them of his vision.

“A monstrous, despotic turn of events had occurred! One I had not ever considered possible even in the most absurd of circumstances. Of course I awoke right away, which is why you now all sit before me. Gentleapes, Ladies” Lucky Pong inhaled, the board staring in hushed silence. The idea their beloved CEO could show anything less than pure confidence was absurd to them.

“I had a dream in which PONG CORP did not known everything!”

The simians of the board, unsurprisingly, went apesh!t.

Had their stock NOT been rising exponentially for the past 10,000 years?! Wailed a gorilla.

Had Genghis Pong, Lucky Pong’s own Grandfather, not acquired the rights to Heaven and Hell in a fierce sixty year legal battle?! Howled an orangutan.

The current Pong culled their outrage with a blast from his goober-whistle.

“Ladies and Gentleapes, I chide you now, I chide you! This behavior is what I’d expect from Liberals, not Simians of the Board!”

Still, the Board Members perched in their chairs: eyes covered, so they could see no evil. Ears blotted, so they could hear no evil. Mouths adjourned, so they might not speak evil.

And indeed, they could not see, or hear, or speak evil, because thousands of quarters ago, Lucky Pong’s Great-Great Grandfather Hong Pong had outcompeted evil, forcing it to declare bankruptcy. For the past 1,000 years, it had scraped by as a maintenance worker in Lucky Pong’s toilet-factory.  

“AS I WAS SAYING!” Hooted the indomitable CEO, bearing his fangs. “The implications for this are dire. For if I can dream of a place where we do not own everything, then by logical deduction, there must be a place out there that we DO NOT OWN!”

This was, of course, completely ridiculous, even in a world of where monkeys sat in board rooms nattering about market growth. But they did not question, because their brains had at birth been lopped out and replaced with PONG CORP brand Brainztm. These were fortified with a lifetime’s supply of vitamin C and came in over sixty designer colors, but were, in an ironic twist of fate, not particularly good for critical thought. So when the Board saw Lucky Pong quiver, they quivered with him.

The simian CEO took a swig from a pitcher of Earl Grey tap water.

“I request you all look into this matter immediately! Meeting adjourned!”

The board members loped away with their knuckle walks, leaving only the CEO to mull over the ruckus.

.   .   .

And mull he did, all the way back to his nest-palace, as the sun shone on another PONG CORP brand Dawnetm (Now with more vitamin D!). Oh, how the synapses in his brain fluttered and flackered! So much they sputtered sparks all over the floor.

And by chance, one of them hit a spider, which at the time was busy scrounging for flies on the carpet. The spider let fly a squeal, darting ziggard-zaggard across the carpet…

Right into the dustpan of Freddie, Butler-Domo of PONG CORP.

“What is troubling your mind so, Master Pong?” Instigated the glorified servant. “To stress the lifetime warranty of your magnificent brain?”

“A dream! A terrible dream!” shrieked Pong.

And he lay his pains on Freddie in a most obnoxiously eloquent manner. This was not an unusual experience for Freddie. Unfortunately.

“Well, funny you should mention dreams.” Began that servant. On the terrace, the PONG CORP ZunTM now shone high in the sky. “Because here, in my dustbin, I have a most remarkable creature!”

“Pray tell! Pray tell!” Howled the CEO.

“Observe!” the servant held up the spider. “The glorious DREAM WEAVER!”

The servant released the little arachnid, which, as spiders are wont to do, skittered over to a high wall, and started to weave its’ web.

“Me no concur.” The CEO, scritched his puzzler.

The spider kept to its knitting, uninterested in Pong in a way that perplexed the simian.

“Yes…” said the butler, “But also notice how the Web connects things. And how it holds. Stronger than steel, even!”

Once more, the synapses of Lucky Pong’s cranium sparked erratically. “So with a big enough spider, we could weave a bridge between dreams and reality!” He gripped his butler, motioning dramatically to where the ZunTM shimmered through an open window. “Think of all the worlds we can bring PONGCORP’s glorious LiteTM to! Marvy! Splendiferous!”

“Then we must get cracking, Sir.”

“And crack we shall!” The chimpanzee hooted.

From the nest-palace jetted out millions upon millions of PONG CORP brand pongo-birdsTM, darkening the skies like locusts as they traveled to all reaches of the Earth and its’ moon, issuing a fresh new order from the boss.

While the gene splicers and the chromosome men in R&D handled construction, Lucky Pong of the latter day Pongses, 6th Scion of PONG CORP had to endure the most agonizing burden of all: naming the damned thing. After an hour of spinning in his chair, throwing darts at random letters, he had it.

“AltechTM! The accumulation of all our greatest biotechnology!”

Three generations of PONG CORP low-level employees (a little under a month) later, Lucky Pong, growing anxious, was informed by bumblebee that Project AltechTM was near completion. It just needed his personal touches.

Lucky Pong always hated this part of the process. Whenever he made a new beastie, he would always have to go to the bio-labs, which meant mingling with the proletariat and their hideous mutations. A hazard of his job, he supposed. Still, the moment he saw AltechTM, larger than a football field, soft auburn hair, obsidian pearl eyes; body gently heaving under the weight of the 7D Algae-ChainzTM tethering eight delicate legs, the all-seeing eye of PONG Corp emblazoned on her abdomen; he knew she was the finest thing he’d ever seen emerge from PONG CORP’S dirtied birthing-pools.

She was perfect. And yet…

“Why are the eyes open?” the great CEO interrogated to the High Chief Brainsman, overseer of the project.

“Because spiders don’t have eyelids!”

The Brainsman would have snapped. Of course, he couldn’t splatter so much a syllable before Lucky Pong flung him out for his impudence.

A call for a new Brainsman was in order. But first…

Pongo-birdsTM pecked at Altech’s eyes until the great spider rattled awake.

“AltechTM!” hooted the CEO. “Awaken, my child!”

The spider stared, disinterested in the little monkey. Lucky Pong found this most unnerving, but continued-“

“In our corporation’s time of need, I have created you to spin a web between this world and all the realms of possibility yet to be blessed with PONG CORP’S glory! For a great, horrible injustice is wrought upon our fair business…”

One hour later, the spider was staring at the little monkey as if he had told just told her the secret to the universe was 67.

Lucky Pong snapped his fingers, and the Algae-ChanizTM flew off, clattering to the ground.

“Now- WEAVE!”

But AltechTM did not weave. She didn’t feel like it.

Lucky Pong sighed. Time to be persuasive.

Pulling out his goober-whistle, he breathed through it a loud, shrill, note. This activated the electric eel implanted in AltechTM’s brain, sending a billion volts coursing through her nervous system.

Still, AltechTM did not budge.

Lucky Pong whistled again, and from the hidden corners of the room burst his personal shock jockey troops, brandishing their boomprods. Pong had invested a great deal in this prize, and would not let it slight him so easily. He came prepared.

What he HADN’T prepared for, however, was the great arachnid, simmering, steaming, and finally, EVAPORATEING into the ether, leaving only a small electric eel flopping on the ground.

Everyone stood still, staring at the marvel that had occurred before their eyes.

The great CEO said noting, but seethed in fury as if he would evaporate himself. Lightning bolts shot from his overstressed head.

By the time Lucky Pong had calmed, 99.99% of the staff working on the project had been fired; only a single employee kept on staff to explain the debacle.

“W-well, sir,” quibbled the newly appointed High Chief Brainsman “T-the best I can think of is that it escaped by folding itself into another dimension where the lab doesn’t exist.”

“Bold-ur-DASH! The walls of this facility exist in all seven known dimensions!”

“W-well maybe there’s a-“

Lucky Pong slapped his subordinate, firing him on the spot.

“Villains and Treachery! Sodom and Gomorrah!” he barked all the way back to his nest-palace. Now, on top of everything else, there was a new dimension, on their very plane of existence, one his ancestors had utterly failed to seize the rights to!

He needed a break.

“What tires you, sir?” interrogated Freddie, seeing his master grungle into the nest-mansion.

“AltechTM! My beautiful, glorious, AltechTM! Adrift in the mists! The mists of a new dimension, yet conquered!”

Freddie patted his master on the shoulder. “Worry your head not, sir. The fault is mine. A spider is a PREDATORY organism. You know how those are, too clever; think for themselves. And eight legs! Sooooo many moving parts!”

From a nearby lamp, the servant plucked a leathery brown object.

“This moth, however! Dull! Obedient! Only six legs! But those WINGS! Why, if one were large enough…”

“…A single flap could tear the fabric of possibility! Rockenbach!” Finished the master.

And the pongo-birds filled the sky once more.

.   .   .

The moth was finished in record time- two weeks!-, which was a very good thing too, because AltechTM was popping back into reality, like an eight legged weasel, tearing PONG CORP oxygen-factories to shreds, shattering PONG CORP ley lines, and stealing away the best of PONG CORP’s think-tanks.

For the first time in millennia, PONGCORP’S stock dropped in value, although the simians of the board (those that had not offed themselves, at least) tried desperately to keep the situation under wraps, to no avail. Many PONG CORP employees, in fact, had cast their lot with the spider, with cults popping up like mushrooms. Yet, as world shattering as this was to the simians of the board, all that Lucky Pong of the latter day Pongses, 6th Scion of PONG CORP, could fixate on was his precious new toy, one that would surely best the villainous spider.

Even as the Lucky Pong and the simians of the board crouched before the Pong’s giant creation, now dubbed the GODMOTHTM, PONG CORP was at war with the spider, dumping Spore-bombsTM by the bushel on it, but to no avail.

“GODMOTHTM!” commanded Lucky Pong, and the dim-witted behemoth opened its’ eyes.

“Am I not your master?” he asked, to which the moth said nothing.

“Well?! Flap your wings, brute! Open the unexplored realms of dream for us, so that we may deliver our glorious brand to the multiverse!”

The moth, of course, complied, and…

The world shook as all across the planet, rifts to realms of dreams, places that might be, and all worlds of possibility were ripped into the fabric of reality.

The GODMOTHTM, in its’ dimness, had opened all possible rifts at once, without consideration of the consequences, because it did not have the capacity to question its’ master.

Apes screamed as they fell into the sky, or from suddenly being turned into a billion sardines, or suffered some other crude fate too gruesome to mention here. And the things that came from these rifts! Some innocent, but others monstrous beyond comprehension. Beings made of stardust and music, capable on murder just by breathing, they flooded into the Earth, bringing the eldritch rules that governed their home worlds with them. In this way the Earth was razed. All the assets, earnings, holdings, yearnings and dreams of PONG CORP shushed out in a great gust of multiversal wind.

Such was the end of Lucky Pong of the latter day Pongses, 6th Scion of PONG CORP.

…But for Altech, it was only the beginning. While cross-reality tempests scarred the 3rd dimension, the great spider waited in the bowels of the 8th, carrying the sad remnants of PONGCORP’S best and brightest on her back. Remnants that included, by chance, Freddie, former Butler-Domo of PONG CORP.

For immeasurable time beyond time, the GODMOTHTM flapped its’ wings, but eventually, it tired. Hearing the silence of the moth from her hiding spot, Altech finally remerged. And from her back sprang the brilliant minds, servants, and living toilets PONG CORP had cast aside, to repopulate the world, as their savior, using her webs, repaired the borders between the worlds of reality, dream, and everything in between. Her task complete, the spider left to the outer dimensions, where even now she will share her gifts and knowledge with those she deems worthy. As for the moth, it came to rest deep beneath the Earth, in the ruins of the old laboratory where it had been manufactured. And to this day, slumbers there still.