#season 2 is gonna be tough on the firelights especially ekko

[mollysunder]

Shimmer, Plants, and Firelights: Is the Firelights' Tree HQ being Sustained with Shimmer?

One of the most impressive things about Ekko's community, the Firelights, is that they were able to build a real home for one other another against the brutal struggle to survive that the Undercity has been caught in for centuries. Arcane best shows the Firelights' success in community in their ability to build and manage a green community. In the Undercity, a place of Iron and Glass, where plants and clean air are such luxuries that they count as status symbols, the Firelights are practically bathed in it in their Treehouse HQ. But then when I rewatched the series, I remembered Ekko said they FOUND this tree. The Firelights didn't grow it from seed to massive old growth themselves (especially if the timeskip was just 6-7 yrs at most), they certainly cultivated it in a way that allowed the tree to support itself and them too. After finishing Arcane it was so easy to firmly associate successful plant cultivation and the hope it brings for the Undercity with the Firelights, to where I had forgotten that the plants do grow in the Undercity.

The first time we see plant life in the Undercity is at the Crab Palace, better known as the Cannery. Through the cracks in the ground are leafy ferns (I think they're ferns) and generally very healthy looking weeds. At first I'd assumed maybe this area was in a slightly less polluted area in the Undercity, but it's literally by the place Silco was drowned. The place where the river is so toxic it eats muscle tissue. And yet, in the light of day plants grow. In fact, even underwater vegetation seems to be able to grow too. And everytime we see an instance of vegetation growing and surviving in the Undercity, there is always a source of Shimmer and/or Shimmer production nearby.

In the Cannery we can see the literal veins of Shimmer (Void Veins?), act as a medium that allows plant growth.

In the time it took for the sun to set on 2nd episode we can see that even more fern saplings are growing on and around the Void Veins.

In Singed's cave where he is cultivating Rio, the mutation related to Shimmer's production the cave is filled with bioluminescent plant life. I don't know if this a normal plant in League of Legends, but in the real world there are no naturally occurring plants that actively glow in the dark. Not only do they exist in a cave system that's fed with water visibly polluted with visible chemical runoff they manage to grow in decent looking clusters with limited light.

Later in the season, Viktor's experiments with the hexcore show that the Void is capable of stimulating the growth organic life and Shimmer may be the key to maintaining it.

By the end of the season, Shimmer production is shown in a very controlled environment like the factory where plant life would be weeded out to avoid accidents and prevent damage to machinery. When the show reaches the Firelights' HQ, audience members like myself already forgot Shimmer's association with plant life. But looking back, it seems few requirements are needed for Shimmer to make plants grow. All the plants probably needed was light, moisture, and a healthy supply of Shimmer.

It makes sense that the Firelights' treehouse was able to grow so large and grand in a place like the Undercity with the help of Shimmer. Shimmer is a literal magic wonder drug (a super steriod) for humans, and magic doesn't need to understand basics of biochemistry, it's the Void. The real question is where is the source that's feeding the tree? The easiest answer could be that Silco dumps subpar quality Shimmer around the area, maybe the batches aren't strong enough but inadvertently make good fertilizer. The more worrying answer is that the Void Veins over the years have dug deeper into the Undercity than anyone, except maybe Singed thought was possible.

No matter the answer, if it's true the tree was only able to survive before the Firelights reached it would be devastatingly ironic for Ekko and his group. Shimmer, the drug that elevated their enemy and upended their lives also made their home possible. It could be an opportunity to look once again at the nuances of Shimmer's applications once more, especially as previously the Firelights and now Piltover are hellbent on destroying it. But it also makes their home an even bigger target.

Somewhere there is a reserve of Shimmer sustaining the Firelights' tree in a time where production in its industry has been effectively shut down. They are possibly living on an extremely flammable gold mine. The gold mine may or may not be closely psychically conected to other Void-connected transmutated people like Jinx and Viktor. It also doesn't help that Piltover's quick to storm in first and ask questions later in high tension situations.

#arcane #ekko arcane #silco #ekko #singed arcane #viktor arcane #firelights arcane #arcane season 2 speculation #season 2 is gonna be tough on the firelights especially ekko #they all looked a little too happy at the end of the season #also I'm pretty sure we're going to have a flashback of Heimerdinger’s village burning so thatt #that'll be a tough parallel #a bunch if things are gonna go wrong for them #i have more to say #arcane speculation #arcane meta #the firelights