#makes more sense it'd be ionia

[noxianwilled]

considering the comic threw away some stuff in the short stories and bios, i was thinking about the timeline, and I think it may be fair to assume kat's first mission was in ionia, not demacia. (i'll still use the bios to try to make sense of it though bc.... yeah)

i already thought that made more sense with cass' bio saying she was 'little more than a child' when soreana was poisoned, and months passed and brought them closer, and an unspecified amount of time passed but didn't seem that long with "When the general was recalled to Noxus to prepare for the long-awaited invasion of Ionia, he took Katarina with him, but Cassiopeia remained in Urzeris."

if cass was little more than a child when her mom was poisoned and her dad left months later, i think? it may be fair to assume she was 12-13ish?

kat thinks in the comic 'we were still kids when father sent talon to kill me' by which I assume they were no older than 15ish, but would personally set closer to 14, which would be aligned with marcus leaving for the ionian war and taking katarina with him and cass being 12-13ish.

on top of that, there's the zed dream - which honestly seems to further imply that connection (I'm assuming talon would have been? adopted before they went to shurima? and that he was also taken to ionia, given if they were raised as siblings he likely was part of the family already and the fact it's the three of them facing zed in her dream also seems to suggest that, to me)

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Are there any champions from Piltover/Zaun or beyond, who didn't show up in s1 of Arcane, who you'd like to see in s2? Both from a “this character would work really well with the story” perspective, and a “I just really like this champion” perspective.

Mm... I'm really wary about introducing more characters, honestly. Arcane's first season was already absolutely crammed to the gills with characters and one of my criticisms of Season 1 is that while everything that was in it was very very good, it was also so incredibly dense that the audience barely has time to breathe.

It's the kind of delicate balance where it feels like they just barely had the time and space to tell the stories of the main ensemble, and introducing more champions into that mix might make it all tip over.

That said, they do have the advantage that all the introductions and worldbuilding have basically been done now, and there's probably room to introduce one or two more characters to shake things up.

Instinctively I want to say Camille, except it makes no bloody sense why she'd only turn up in Season 2 and have been a complete non-presence in Season 1. Like, there was some shit happening that she should have been involved with in the first season.

Renata Glasc is an option. Zaun is going to have a big power vacuum and she would slot in very nicely as the new major power in the undercity. On the other hand, she's also perhaps a little bit too much like Silco 2.0, being partly based on him in the first place, and I think there's a solid argument for bringing the chembarons from season 1 back to fight with each other instead. Especially since one of them has a literal death vendetta against Jayce now.

Then there's Orianna, who in this canon seems to be Singed's... daughter? Some kind of family member? If all of Singed's research in the first season was about trying to find a way to save her life or bring her back to life, then she'd be a natural character to use to expand on Singed as a character in season 2. I think she'd have to be substantially redesigned, though - "music box ballerina" would be a weird thing for Singed to want to build her into.

Seraphine and Zeri are non-starters, I think, primarily because they are both mages, which would make absolutely no sense in the Arcane universe. Like, it is kind of important to the plot of Arcane that mages are essentially as rare as cryptids in this world. Same reason I don't think they'd introduce something like Janna either. She's a literal demigod, it would raise too many unanswerable questions.

There's no reason to bring in Ezreal, Zac, or Dr. Mundo, but Urgot is... not out of the question. He's the kind of relentlessly dogmatic, bloodthirsty cult leader that would make sense as a figure in the chaos and violence of the war that's likely to erupt. Twitch could also cameo, I suppose, but only as a cameo, I don't think it makes sense to make him a central character.

Outside of Piltover and Zaun, I'd say the main champions we are likely to encounter would be Swain or Darius (Darius specifically was most likely teased by Ambessa), and if Darius shows up there's a greater than average chance he'll have Draven with him. It's not impossible that Samira could show up for a bit of a cameo, as some kind of Noxian bounty hunter getting in the way of things. Katarina and Talon are... not impossible, I suppose, Noxus is probably going to want to assassinate someone, but I also doubt they'd introduce a champion character to fill that role in the narrative. It'd be wasteful.

If Noxus is making moves, of course, there's a non-zero chance that there'll be like a Demacian diplomat at some meeting, which... makes it possible that Xin Zhao or Garen might cameo, and if Noxus wants Piltover's technology to prosecute their war in Ionia, hey, maybe there will be Ionian diplomat characters showing up to plead their case, which opens the distant possibility of someone like Irelia or Shen showing up.

I very, very much doubt it though.

tl;dr in my opinion:

Most likely new champions: Darius, Swain, Orianna, and Warwick (Warwick being Vander)

Not impossible: Twitch, Urgot, Renata Glasc, Draven, Camille

Extremely small Easter Egg cameos at best: Xin Zhao/Garen/Jarvan, Irelia/Shen/Karma, Azir (Shurima is Piltover's southern neighbor), Miss Fortune/Gangplank (Piltover controls the sea gate and trade between two oceans), Ziggs (Heimerdinger's best friend), Ryze (the science boys are starting to fuck with World Rune-level magic hazards), Vel'koz (might show up in a Void vision inside the Hexcore or something).

[twothpaste]

What are your thoughts on that weird cutscene with Lucas and the magypsy that awakens his PSI? (I forgot their name)

I don't view it as harshly as some folks do, but I do think the game would be better off without it. Or at least if the scene were framed & written differently. Tryin to figure out how to word my thoughts gently… I'll put it under a readmore, since The Mere Implication Of Sexual Assault is a heavy subject, even if it doesn't actually happen in the game. Content Warning for that, and discussion of transphobic bigotry.

Itoi writes the Magifolk about as sympathetically & endearingly as a clueless old cis man could, and has spoken fondly about them in interviews. He didn't do a great job imo, but I get the gist his heart was in the right place. He clearly didn't intend to demonize Ionia in that scene. The angle I suspect Itoi was going for, is like? He knew older players' minds would drift to the worst possible outcome. So he set it up, and deliberately subverted that expectation. You see that Ionia meant no harm to Lucas, and was only helping him awaken his PSI, and you go "oh." Itoi probably hoped older players would take this moment to reconsider their bigoted biases. And while younger players would be confused, he knew it'd make more sense to them later in retrospect. Maybe he hoped that these kids, upon encountering anti-queer propaganda irl, would be able to consider it more critically after experiencing this scene (and the Magifolk in general) in Mother 3. That's, ah. The most generous interpretation I can offer.

Regardless though, it's handled pretty badly. I think it's definitely framed as a joke. The player's expected to taken aback and bewildered and grossed out, and then expel a relieved laugh when it turns out everything's fine. Misleading the player into being suspicious of a trans coded character - in This Particular Way 😬 - is probably not the best method to go about critiquing bigotry & exposing biases. CSA isn't something to joke about or handle flippantly. Neither is the fact a lot of queer folks end up targeted, hurt, and/or killed as a consequence of "groomer" narratives (which conservatives have been pushing for decades). I see & respect what he was going for - but surely there must've been a better way to accomplish it. Dropping "see, our child protagonist didn't get hurt by the weird trans character" like it's a punchline just sucks no matter how I try to slice it.

There's a lot of clumsy handling when it comes to representation of marginalized groups in the Mother series. This scene and Reggie are by far the worst examples imo. I've seen some fans say this scene almost put them off of Mother 3 entirely, and truthfully I can't blame them. It's actually something I think new players probably deserve to be warned about before getting into the game.

If anyone's never seen it before, [ Here's a page from an interview ] where Itoi talks a little about it. I do think his perspective is super interesting, even though I don't like how he executed it.

[deathdxnces]

i can't find it to save my life so i am indeed here once again to point out why kai (varus') should be kai (irelia's brother) because it fits beyond the name ✨

1. irelia never saw kai dead. when she got home, her family had already been killed and buried. he could very well have been somewhere else entirely without her knowing, considering she had been in the placidium for some time.

2. kai is from navori, as is irelia's family.

3. dark hair and blue eyes

4. she was raised to follow karma's teachings. her family believed in harmony and balance and taught her and her brothers that, which is in line with kai's lines who, even as a slayer, says he serves the great balance

5. and admittedly i'm just going on with my bullshit now but i also just appreciate the idea that at the same time they were raised to put ionia first and care for the balance, they were also raised to protect what's important to them and with a strong sense of doing what's right and that kai immediately leaped to the temple's defense when noxus attacked with irelia in parallel having such a central role in fighting back (and it'd also be aligned with what's said about the rest of the family and how her father and her brothers protested when the noxians got to their village)

i just think val and kai exist so isolated when this would be such an easy connection to make (and!! the heartlight comic has all 3 of them being 'in control' of their body at different points; val talks to his mom to say they're leaving and looking for a way to be free again and i think it'd be fun to have that explored more let kai be her brother and let irelia talk to him thanks)

[warmothered]

Based on your post earlier. Is there any region that Ashe would like to make friendly relations with? Even if it's just a mutual non-aggression pact or anything of the sort?

» — >  ⌜ OOC ASKS⌟ , always accepting

— @dolls-runeterran-dollhouse

honestly, to put it simply, i don't think so.

"My tribe will bring peace to the North! The South should fear us." "They think me cold. I have seen things the Southerners cannot imagine." "Are all southerners so weak?"

but i'll elaborate.

despite what i said there, demacia might be the most likely ally — if only because of sylas eventually allying with the winter's claw, and them being at war with the avarosans. even so, ashe would sooner ally with sejuani than with the southerners. i guess jarvan could try diplomacy and she might ultimately see the benefit to it, especially if noxus is being troublesome. but it'd not be that she wants to make friendly relations with them as much as circumstances would make it beneficial.

we know the freljordians aren't on good terms with noxus, because noxus has been trying to expand that way too. as a result of that, i find it hard to believe she'd ever make friendly relations with them, and that any pact of non-aggression would be done with 0 trust and preparing for when it'd be broken, if they ever even reached the point of making one at all.

then there's ionia, which we know freljordians at some point used to raid. while i don't see ashe and her people doing anything like that, i don't see them necessarily seeking a friendlier relationship either. for the most part, i think she'd be pretty neutral.

which is how it goes for the rest of the world, mostly. many of them are just way too far. none of them would survive the freljordian winter, the way ashe sees it; to put it plainly, they'd have to earn her respect to make her want to be on friendlier terms.

piltover and zaun might be the ones that intrigue her the most. ashe is a clever leader; she'd know technology can go a long way, and her people have been settling semi-permanently in some areas, as well as planting crops and raising livestock. anything that could help make that easier/more reliable (in the sense of, say, aiding in protecting the crops from the more harsh temperatures, for example) would be of interest, so fostering good relations with the more technologically advanced nations would probably be a good idea, the way she sees it.

but she still would see them as weak, and she'd also know there's little reason for piltover to be interested in the freljord, so she wouldn't expect much from that either. out of all of them, it might be the one nation she's more interested in being friendly with, though.

[deathdxnces]

am curious. how would irelia feel about knowing kayn is born noxian?

or in other words, what's her opinion about nature vs nurture.

— @axewhirl

GOOD QUESTION, IT LIVES IN MY HEAD RENT FREE THANKS FOR GIVING ME AN EXCUSE TO SHARE MY THOUGHTS ILY REY

so. irelia's feelings about noxus and noxians are very simple, of course — they deserve to die. i've spoken before about the dehumanization of the enemy and how it was also a coping mechanism to her, but when it comes to long-term effects, it definitely impacted her ability (and willingness, perhaps more importantly) to show them any sympathy. they're not people. she's content to look at them as barely human, in a way. of course it's not that easy, but she had no reason to challenge that notion so far (except, perhaps, during the sentinels event with riven but... bleh i don't like how anything about irelia and being a sentinel was handled).

which is an overly rambly prologue to get to the real question. how would she feel about learning kayn is noxian? i think there's no ultimate answer for that, because to a point it depends on her relationship with kayn. were she to see him as an enemy, wouldn't it be simple to blame how awful he is on his noxian birth? but i personally don't think an enemy is ever what she sees in him; she doesn't look down on the yanlei as much as many other ionians, because she is well aware their origin as an order and her own path aren't that unlike. they chose to fight. they did things considered extreme. so did she — even if not to the same extent, and even if there are things she disagrees with them greatly, such as the matter of wild magic.

in game, her interaction with kayn is the same as for other 'ionian villains' (zed, syndra and jhin iirc). she wants to believe there's good in him, as she wants to believe there's good in any of the others. would she still be as hopeful if she knew he was noxian? honestly, without a personal connection, maybe not. but i'm inclined to say regardless of having any sort of relationship with him, knowing he's noxian by birth wouldn't ultimately result on her regarding him as a lost cause. because despite everything, kayn is ionian in every way that matters. he was raised as ionian for a good portion of his life, he fights for ionia too. he hates noxians as much as she does. how can she possibly just throw him along the rest of them?

so, yes, i think despite her views on noxus as a whole, she wouldn't think he's fated to be just like the other noxians because he's noxian by birth. of course, that might force her to question some of her other stances towards noxians, who she'd have dismissed as all being the same (because if he is not, others may be different too — and he wasn't even raised as ionian from early infancy, so when does one draw the line? when do they become irredeemable?). it's something else to consider whether or not she'd want to make that distinction for other cases. personally i think she'd be content to just make him an exception (because that's easy, and comfortable, and she would have seen him as ionian well before she saw him as noxian; it's easier to ignore the other implications), rather than truly let that change her outlook on things more broadly.

i think the moment she learned about it, it'd be a shock (because, like i said, her view of noxians is really black and white; they're evil, they're monstrous, they deserve to die). immediately, there's no way it wouldn't have an impact because i don't think irelia would know how to feel about it (but the extent of that impact depends on how much she cares about him, too; like with cyn's kayn, where there is a relationship, then she obviously cares more, and in turn it is more of a shock to learn that he was born noxian than in a situation like canon, where they haven't really interacted). still, i don't think the confusion would manifest as aggression or rejection, and that it'd be pretty short-lived (both in the sense of an immediate reaction and in any lingering, posterior doubt). kayn may have been born noxian, and he may have spent the first years of his life a noxian, but he has long since left that behind. zed took him in and kayn embraced his new life, a life he leads as an ionian. if she accepted him as that before, knowing he was born noxian wouldn't change she accepts him as that still. knowing he was born in noxus doesn't change what he is or what he does now.

[deathdxnces]

according to the wiki, the noxian invasion happened during 984 AN and 989 AN and i'm just trying to make sense of the timeline more or less for my own reference which is why i'm not getting into what all the other characters were up to so

irelia's story suggests her family's death happens early on in the invasion, considering she returns home because "rumors of foreign invaders sighted off the coast" get to the placidium (so she's 11 when they die and she discovers her powers, in 984).

usan, having struggled with the kinkou's ways since the jhin investigation, finally leaves the order to fight noxus directly when the invasion starts. he's banished from the temple by kusho, but he isn't an enemy to the kinkou yet. i assume this is also in 984, since it takes some time of fighting before he goes for the tears. it's around this time he gets his first few followers, acting as part of the navori brotherhood (which irelia joins right after her family's death). it's also probably when he starts to be called zed.

it's suggested the vastaya (those of them who joined the war and fought beside noxus, that is) begun joining the noxians at some point around 985. this would also have marked the beginning of zed's hostility towards them, although it'd reach it's peak and become much worse following swain's capture of the placidium of navori in 986, which is suggested to have been made possible with the vastaya's help (more specifically, the one vastaya who is later rewarded by being made fae'lor's governor).

the war, at this point, has lasted around 2 years, maybe a little more and ionia's resistance is suggested to be on the verge of being vanquished entirely by swain. and it maybe would be, were it not for irelia, at "barely fourteen" according to her bio, miraculously succeeding in almost wiping out the entirety of the noxian high command present there — including swain himself, although he survives because of the demon. her victory makes irelia the (reluctant) leader of the growing resistance.

zed is not present at the placidium. the noxians isolate his forces in the siege of thanze, cutting them off from the rest of the brotherhood (purposefully, maybe? before irelia's stand, i assume zed would've been one of the most significant leaders/threats noxus had to contend with). after ensuring the civilians are secure in the tunnels beneath the village, that is when he returns to thanjuul for the tears of the shadow, claiming the temple and supposedly killing kusho. some of the kinkou die, but most are purposefully allowed to flee, while a smaller number choose to side with zed. this means the order of shadows is formed in 986.

kayn's bio states using the child soldiers was darkwill's plan to exploit the ionian's compassion after the disastrous battle at the placidium. it's unclear when exactly that starts, but considering it seems pretty desperate and the kids had like no training, i'd assume it was a pretty immediately employed strategy, or at least as immediate as it would be possible to regroup, conscript the children and take them to ionia. 987 seems a reasonable year to place zed finding kayn in the epool river.

i frankly have no idea what's going on for them in 988 other than uh they're still fighting in the war. irelia's bio says "reluctantly, she led the growing resistance for almost three years of grueling battle before her triumph at dalu bay", so that was either late 988 or early 989, and she was 16ish. this is said to be the victory that really drove the noxians away almost completely, effectively ending the war (with swain's coup happening the same year, and the grand general ending the occupation of ionia).

[deathdxnces]

@axewhirl mentioned you on a post

@bladesdanced ...make a post about irelia and the thought of having kids-- if not already done

​i honestly had not even considered it until you brought up her passing on the family traditions and the dance and such but

i mentioned before irelia's family was nobility of some sort, and that, considering what happens to shen, it's not unlikely an eventual arranged marriage would be considered for her in some form. her family dies when she's pretty young (11/12ish) so i think any talk in that sense would've been... light, in passing, though the expectation for her to eventually marry and commentary related to it (even in the sense of her grandmother talking about her eventually passing on those dances to her children, perhaps!) would likely have existed on some form.

still, nothing big or serious or concrete, nothing beyond 'one day you'll have kids or your own to teach about those things' etc. but enough that, as a kid, she probably expected that would happen some day. and that's likely the extent of all thought irelia put on the subject in her entire life.

because after that, her family died and there was war, and she became a hero and a leader, and ever since all of that happened, even when there was peace, irelia has never been at peace. i said it before, but i think she fully expects to die in battle Soon™️. there's no long happy life she can imagine for herself. her story will end on the battlefield, as is only fitting; what she was made into fits nowhere else, the way she sees it. so even considering a family is pointless; she'll give her life for ionia. children don't fit that plan, and that's as much as she's willing to commit to a plan for the future as is.

i can't see her wanting children for as long as war looms over ionia, either, no matter how distant. she'd never want to have children to subject them to that. so honestly for her to even consider it? she'd have to be older and more mature, she'd have to have worked on her inner issues considerably (imagine caring for a whole other human being when you're so overwhelmed under the weight of an entire nation), she'd have to have some certainty her family could have a somewhat normal life. i also don't think she'd consider it alone; it'd take having a partner she loves and who'd also want that.

granted there's all of that, i still don't know if she'd really want it but i could see her considering it. in part definitely because she had a big, happy and loving family, and i think she always yearns for that a little. but she changed considerably, and there's too many obstacles before she'd even think about it (although i do think she's great with kids actually, should she ever decide to have them).

[deathdxnces]

♧ Any part of their canon portrayal you dislike?

the mun's interpretation

— @rebelquilled

the ruination event....

for the most part i do like what canon does with irelia (and have more of an issue with things not being touched on, such as how she deals with the vastaya, for example, than with disliking what is actually done), but i. didn't really like how irelia was dealt with there, for several reasons.

while i think she could fit with the sentinel aspect of fighting to protect the world, personally i think her development previous to that would have made her a better candidate to be ruined (there is a common theme among the ruined champions that viego sort of played up/preyed on their inner negative feelings and doubts and resent; anger and resentment and grief and guilt are all so important in how irelia was portrayed before that, including her short story and all). instead of dealing with that, which could lead to posterior character development, it simply put her once more in the position of bearing a burden (with the threat to ionia's very spirit and thus the need to save it) and taking a stand that... she's already done before. it's not that she wouldn't, or that it goes against her as a character, because like i said she can fit very well the role of stalwart defender and leader that inspires people (but it's not like she really. gets to be that even as a sentinel).

more so i just think the sentinel storyline doesn't add anything to her as a character, and it felt like a very forced way to put her and riven in the same room — and i say this as someone who thinks there's so much potential in forcing her to interact with noxians, especially the ones who have issues with what noxus is and their actions in the war. even then, the story had so much going on and there's no proper development that justifies irelia's willingness to work with riven and change her opinion on her (something that could be so spicy in the sense of forcing irelia to see noxians as actual people). irelia has so much resentment and anger she is so capable of holding grudges, it'd take so much for her to be willing to trust someone like riven, even more to be friendly towards her. 'but mel she saved irelia's life at one point' and???? that's like, a start kasjndfkjasndf

i just think for irelia, personally, as a character so devout to ionia, it'd have made more sense to want to remain in ionia and help those of her people she could help, instead of leaving with the sentinels and joining them. on top of, for a character as dutiful as irelia, to do something like joining the sentinels of light and then just. peace out when the ruination is over doesn't make sense. if she ever committed herself to something like that, it'd be to remain a sentinel, i feel. she doesn't make pledges lightly, and she wouldn't pledge herself to a cause that isn't for ionia.

and that may come across as pet peeve-y but. the relic weapons? don't make sense? as in, how would they have something lying around that perfectly suits how irelia fights when it's so unique but even more important for her as a character, replacing the weapons that are literally the last thing she has of her family, that kept her alive after they died, that she is connected to through magic and that have so much personal significance to her? eh. lor's suggestion it was her blades imbued with light (The Sentinels saw Irelia's spirit for what it was; a shining beacon of hope, determination, and strength. It was that which imbued her blades, and they flew farther, and cut deeper, than ever before) makes more sense, but during the event that's not at all what's suggested.

a lot of it can be excused with BUT THE WORLD WAS ENDANGERED AND THE USUAL MEANS OF FIGHTING DON'T WORK ON WRAITHS, i guess, but i just don't think it's satisfying narratively or presented in a way that really makes sense or adds to her as a character or the story as a whole so i just. deeply dislike it. the only thing i like about it is the possibility of letting irelia interact with a bunch of characters she'd not usually interact with :/