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randomnameless · 18 days ago

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Thinking about the Elites in some "how could they be thought/written as something else as people who slaughtered a bunch of lizard hippies to get their hands on super shiny weapons" -

Canon wise, at least from the "we forgot to hire a continuity guy lel" interview, the Ten Elites happened because humans learnt how to craft powerful weapons from Nabatean parts, and wanted to create more powerful weapons...

But then Nopes also had Seteth give this ominous line to Yuri :

One of the Ten Elites was originally afflicted with a terminal disease. After receiving their Crest, this individual made a full recovery.

So maybe we could imagine that some Elite, let's say Daphnel for consistency, got a terrible disease, or worse, one of his loved ones (maybe a kid for more drama?) was affected with a terminal disease.

Daphnel pleads to Marcel the Nabatean, to give him some remedy and/or cure to help him/his relative, and Marcel laughs at Daphnel, telling him to fig himself.

We know Marcel could heal people from "terrible illnesses" with a drop of blood, but Marcel didn't want - for good or by virtue of being an asshat - to give Daphnel that drop of blood, condemning him/his relative to death.

In this situation, if Thales/Solon/Cleo told Daphnel that they were going to loot Zanado and murder Nabateans to steal their treasures and "remedies", maybe Daphnel would have joined, at first, to save himself/his relative from this fatal disease...

And then we could have some discussion about how fair/just it is to kill someone to ensure your survival, if the "killing" isn't something done in self defence or something.

Like, sure, Marcel was an ass, but is being an ass - and holding the remedy to your incurable disease, a reason to warrant death?

Would Daphnel know, or have known at the time Nemesis was launching his raid, that only a sip of Marcel's blood was necessary to heal him, and not his liver?

Granted, given how bonkers the party went (walls of the canyon painted in red per Rhea's recollection, they weren't only looting/harvesting one or two lizards out there) I suppose Daphnel must have realised, or was too taken in the festivities, to realise that, uh, sure thanks Nemesis'n'pals for helping him find a cure, but must we kill every lizard and debone them?

Or maybe, in that scenario, Daphnel wouldn't have known that only Marcel's blood was needed and killed him out of frustration because Marcel had "the remedy" but didn't share it... only to learn, later, that the remedy was Marcel's blood, and he ingested it, gaining a crust and a new lifespan?

Now, I picked Daphnel because of the Nopes' mention about Rhea apparently sharing some "wisdom regarding land cultivation" to Dimitri started some discussion, especially since we know Galatea's often facing food shortage and the likes.

If Nabatean have the tech/magic humans need... should they share it?

That is what Sothis did, and Thales thanked her with nukes and giant robots.

(or, alternatively, this is what Rhea did with Adrestia, and in the game, the Empire turns against her)

But if they don't, humans will become desperate to get their hands on said tech/magic : what Daphnel did to find a cure, aka participating in a large scale massacre to "steal" this power.

Sci-fi shows usually have this dilemna painted in broad "are those people mature enough to receive this tech, or not" terms, let it be from advanced beings being willing (or not!) to share their tech with humans, or, humans, being willing (or not!) to share their tech with other beings.

Now, here, we're (apparently?) only talking about land cultivation, what if whatever Rhea told Dimitri could have helped Ingrid's fam and people to make their lands suddenly arable? Maybe, maybe not. But sharing that knowledge earlier (maybe some generations ago) might have been helpful? Was she keeping this knowledge out of malice, or was it in some "humans must learn and master this tech themselves" way, even if, in the meantime, it means some people die?

Or maybe she delegated the "help people there" duty to the Western Church, who understood "kill me and promote xenophobia" instead? Or maybe Rhea didn't want to intervene more in Faerghus, given how Adrestia is still on her case, more than 500 years after Loog's victory?

We won't know, but back to the original point, maybe the "minor dispute" between the Nabs and the Elites/humans would have been more centered on that tech and advancement, with humans wanting tech/magic Nabateans refused to share, and what humans were willing to do to get their hands on said tech, even if it meant slaughtering an entire village and race-profiling the survivors to "steal" their powers.

And yet, given how Fodlan ultimately wants the player to believe that everything will suddenly be better if the self-insert ends up ruling over the world, I don't think a bleak "but humans will always want to "steal" the nabatean's powers" message could have made the cut, earl grey notwithstanding.

#random musings #fodlan nonsense #rather fodlan AU at this point because it means giving more thoughts to background characters than the ones we have on screen #imagine if Nopes gave Rhea some lines and had her explain her POV about various stuff #and not left us with so many threads that ultimately go nowhere since she's fridged #granted given how Fodlan showed quite drastically the 'advanced tech/magic' thingie with Shambala #and alluded to it through the Nabs #I genuinely believed it'd go somewhere #at least anywhere else than 'my IdEaLs (that i'll conveniently never spell and flesh out)'#oh well

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queenofthursday6599-blog · 5 days ago

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Mmmm Jinx AU where after being taken in by Silco, thinking she's been abandoned by Vi leads to her not latching on to Silco as the most important thing in her life who she must be loyal to above all else, but full on swinging into the direct opposite direction and becoming like Sevika.

[This AU is in part inspired by the idea of Jinx becoming more idealogically like Sevika, but also from OG Jinx's personality.

OG Jinx is a character who's primary drive is her own personal enjoyment and happiness. Which comes from building weapons, causing explosions of all kinds, and pranking Piltoveans.

Jinx doesn't go out looking to kill people, she goes out to to have a good time, and if people happen to die while she's having her good time, then that doesn't really concern her.

Like there's this one quote about OG Jinx that basically boils down to: "If Jinx found a box of firecrackers that had a person sitting on top of it. She'd light the fireworks without even thinking about the person on the box because she was so focused on her excitement about fireworks, that she didn't even notice the person."

OG Jinx has prioritized her own personal enjoyment over everything else, that people potentially dying as a result of whatever she's doing is so completely irrelevant, to the point of her being effectively unable to perceive the potential collateral damage.

It's not even that OG Jinx wants to kill people, or enjoys killing people, it's just that people dying while she's doing what she loves isn't even a linked phenomenon in her brain. Because people (who die) are going to die eventually with or without her actions, so why shouldn't she enjoy herself even if people happen to die while she's doing so.

Jinx's loyalty to Zaun is prioritized in the same way in this AU. People are going to die with or without the revolution happening, so they might as well have the revolution.]

Loyal to the dream of Zaun over any individual leader.

I mean, she still comes to love Silco as a father figure, and he still comes to love her as a daughter, but also much like with Sevika, they're both fully aware that if Jinx ever comes to the conclusion he isn't the person who's the best bet for securing Zaunite independence, she'll abandon his gang and possibly go elsewhere.

Or even more so, if she comes to the conclusion that he's worse for Zaun than he is good, possibly kill him herself.

Which I feel like wouldn't stop him from loving her more than anything else.

I think he'd just consider it another aspect of her that makes her the ideal Zaunite. The ability to put The Cause even before her personal feelings and attachments, something he's still not able to do.

Basically this Jinx thinks of her loyalty to Zaun and her personal love for individuals in her life as entirely disconnected to each other, with Loyalty to Zaun being her default.

Which adds a number of complications to her relationships. Specifically her being totally unafraid to fight to the death against her loved ones without an ounce of remorse, and then thinking of it as a complete non-issue in the aftermath if they both survive.

Like she fully still considers Ekko her friend by the time Vi gets out of jail in this AU. Full on "We try to kill each other on alternating Thursdays, but that's no reason to stop being friends" feelings.

Which also results in her not feeling an ounce of shame in helping him and the Firelights out when it comes to basically anything they do that isn't in direct opposition to SIlco.

I mean, the Firelights are also working towards bettering Zaun just like she (honestly believes) is, they just have different opinions and methods of how to do so from Silco's gang. While also serving different parts of the community.

[And yes, Ekko and the rest of the Firelights have complicated feelings about Jinx in this AU. None of them know where she stands with them.

She'll help them without expectations one day, and then turn around and kill some of them in a confrontation without an ounce of hesitation the next.

Some of them hate her, some have mixed feelings. Others just think she's completely mentally unstable, and shouldn't be trusted considering she seemingly flips between being ally and enemy with no warning.

Ekko's feelings are especially complicated, as you can imagine.]

None of this is to say Jinx doesn't feel just as deeply about the people she loves, as she does in canon. It's just that trauma has convinced her that unequivocal loyalty to an individual vs an idea is a very easy way to be hurt.

Detached logical decision making as a way to avoid being harmed by making emotional mistakes. Which is what she feels is why she failed so much as Powder.

The belief, that she was so obsessed with gaining approval from individuals in her life, she never had a real personal goal to strive towards that she could measure progress and growth to. Resulting in her always feeling like a failure, even when she was doing good, or at least improving.

She's still deeply hurt by Vi choosing Caitlyn over her (as far as she could tell), the Firelights taking Vi, and her accidental killing of Silco while spiraling in the wake of her Shimmer surgery. She's also extremely frustrated by her freak out on the airship where she shoots Eve (pink haired Firelight).

Because she feels like those are instances where she gave into the impulse to emotional over reaction to specific individuals that caused all of Powder's problems.

She was so focused on Vi, and her desire for Vi's approval, that she couldn't fight the Firelights as effectively as she normally would.

She was so focused on Vi seemingly leaving her to go off with Caitlyn that she couldn't focus on fighting Ekko on the Bridge, resulting in her getting far more injured than she normally would have, and nearly not succeeding in getting the crystal back.

She was so triggered by thinking she was seeing Vi on the airship, that she completely lost it and started shooting indiscriminately and caused the job to go south and injured people on her own side.

She was so caught up in her spiral and hallucinations at the tea party, that she shot Silco based entirely on instinctual protective instinct when hearing the hammer being drawn on a gun on her vulnerable loved one, rather than anything intentional on her part. Which she'd previously had always sworn would be the case should it ever come to her killing Silco.

That if Jinx ever killed another of her loved ones, it would be because she knew with certainty it would result in the betterment of Zaun, not because she made a mistake because she was being an over emotional idiot.

I think the only major change from this Jinx's actions in the Season 1 part of the story would be how she went about stealing the Hexgem, and why she did so.

In canon she does so because she failed a job, and felt like she needed to do something big to prove to Silco that she was capable, in order to gain validation from him that she was. Even though he never tells her he doesn't think she's capable, just that she needs to take some time off because she had an episode.

He said "take a mental health day, even if you don't think you need it," and she responded, "so you think I'm a fuck up?!"

In this story. it's more that Jinx is so focused on what she could potentially do with Hextech to help the revolution and Zaun as a whole. That she was already planning to steal some research notes and crystals to get experimenting with it on her own terms, before the job gone south, and the new advancements in Hextech being whispered about for progress day.

Getting her hands on the newest form of Hextech is just her getting lucky.

This also means she doesn't steal it the same way. She doesn't do anything to kill any Enforcers, but she does cause a distraction with what seems to be a box of fire works going off prematurely on "accident".

With her swooping in to steal the notes and hexgem while everyone's busy with trying to contain the panic the fireworks accident is causing to really pay attention to what she's doing.

Which the Enforcers do react to, but everyone but Caitlyn disregards as an accident. As once it's clear that nothing other than a few decorations got ruined and people getting startled came of the fireworks incident.

They're far more concerned with the stealing of hextech that's happened, and Viktor's testimony of a young woman with long blue hair sneaking out of their lab.

With the fireworks incident being dismissed as an accident that's completely unrelated to the burglary of the Hextech lab. Beyond the burglar potentially using it as a convenient opening.

Caitlyn's not convinced, and it's already happened so close to the airship shootout incident, so she still goes down and ends up freeing Vi from Stillwater with some of Jinx's drawings as evidence, from the airship shootout.

Which does mean that her trajectory in the Season 2 part of the story would be a bit different.

She still goes into a depression after Silco's death. Mostly because she feels that she's broken her most important self imposed rule: not killing because of personal feelings about someone, but for The Cause.

She killed Silco not because she felt killing him would make things better, but because she was scared and spiraling and in that vulnerable emotional state, she defaulted to the same way of thinking that had gotten her loved ones killed the last time.

She protected Vi who she loved, and couldn't defend herself, based on gut instinct. And it resulted in the death of another loved one, and the complete destabilization of Zaun.

Now because Jinx is more focused on Zaun than on her personal relation ships, I don't know if she fires on the Council immediately after Silco's death the way she does in canon. I don't really think she would.

I could see her doing it because she's still in the peak of the Shimmer high, which is heightening all her emotions. Driving her to seek revenge on Piltover in her grief. Even though if she could think more clearly, she wouldn't do it, and would instead wait to gather an actual following and doing an organized and planned strike to be the most effective.

But I could also see SIlco's death snapping her back to reality as she sees it. That she simply takes the gem, her guns, and Silco's body and Disappears, vanishing into the night with neither Vi or Caitlyn knowing of the weapon she's built or what she's going to do next.

Which could have interesting repercussions on the story. Considering Piltover's council would to have agreed to Zaunite independence on the conditions of handing over Jinx.

Except the man they made that deal with is now dead, no one (except Sevika) knows where Jinx is to hand her over, and the Undercity is and of itself divided on handing one of their own over to Piltover (to potentially be executed, because of how dangerous Hextech can be, and a lot of the counsel fully thinking Zaunites are inherently dangerous, not to mention thanks to Caitlyn, Jinx is a known weapons builder, so what else do they think she'll do with access to Hextech other than build weapons) in order to gain independence.

I'm sure the chem barons would have no issue handing JInx over, because then they'd be free to divide up territory and completely take over with no one like Silco holding their leash, or PIltover dictating what is and isn't legal on their side of the river in the first place.

Oh the Firelights would be around to oppose them, but they'd never really were able to gain any ground beyond causing problems for Shimmer production.

But I'm not sure how more ordinary people would react.

I mean, in this AU it's pretty well known that Jinx holds the idea of Zaun above anything else, and was willing to help people who weren't affiliated with any specific group, as long as doing so wouldn't harm the independence movement of Zaun.

She's not really shy about expressing that stance, it's just up to everyone else to believe it or not.

Jinx, who would use her high position in Silco's circle to help ordinary Zaunites. Be it from one of the gangs overstepping and trying to start rackets Silco had forbidden, from unjust arrest from Enforcers, or even pointing them in the direction of the Firelights if she thought that was for the best.

Declaring that so long as the help she gave random people didn't harm or slow the march towards independence, helping her fellow Zaunite was helping Zaun, was part of the fight toward an independent Zaun.

She's the Loose Canon, shooting for Zaun and no one else. Loyal to no kingpen or Chembaron, but to The People of Zaun as a whole.

She has a bit of a following even without firing on Piltover or turning the Grey back on them. She's a bit of a living folk hero to some people, especially those she personally helped out of a bad situation, for no reason other than "I could, and doing so doesn't hurt anyone else. So why wouldn't I?"

Not to mention I definitely feel like Jinx would be way more intentionally politically educated in this AU than she is in canon.

JInx as she is in Arcane, never really gave a shit about Zaun's independence beyond what it meant to Silco (and later Isha), and she very obviously never bothered to learn anything about politics. At least nothing Silco didn't force her to learn.

But with Jinx's primary drive being Zaun, I feel like she'd definitely be way more politically minded, and while I do think she would consider turning herself over to Piltover to secure Zaun's independence (in a direct parallel of Vi's willingness to hand herself over to get the Enforcers to leave the Undercity alone to keep her family safe).

I don't think Jinx would actually go through with handing herself over.

Not with the Undercity being actively torn apart by gang disputes in the wake of Silco's death, no way of ensuring Zaun's prosperity after handing herself over, and no way of securing actual tangible betterment of conditions in Zaun even with Zaunite independence.

I mean from what we're told, Piltover's offer of independence was essentially cutting the Undercity loose.

Stopping their dumping of industrial waste into Zaun's water supply, ceasing utilizing of Zaun's air duct and water system for the climate control of Piltover's Hexgate system, release of Zaunites from Stillwater (or at least transfer to Zaunite custody)), and the Kiraman family handing over control of the vents that suppress The Grey over to someone from the Undercity weren't anywhere in that deal from what we're told.

[I don't think everyone on the counsel would have agreed to it if it was, they're all complete capitalists, no matter if some of them value sapient life more than others (Mel, Cassandra) on a conceptual level.

I believe the ones who outright hate Zaunites (which some of them clearly did) would have staunchly opposed if it meant having to alter how they actually approached how they ran their businesses, vs just cutting Zaun loose.

Hell I think those councelors would have gotten even more lax with their business regulations. I mean, Zaun wouldn't have been part of Piltover, and their citizens not their legal responsibility any more.

So why should anyone from Piltover worry about them dying? The trenchers wanted independence and if they can't survive without Piltover's support, how's that anyone's problem but the trenchers?]

It was, if you hand over Jinx, we'll legally make you not our problem any more.

Which I don't think a politically educated Jinx would go for. It would just leave Zaun to the messy power struggle that appeared because of the power vacum caused by Silco's death. None of the Undercity's actual problems would be solved, besides Enforcers no longer being able to harass them.

So the Zaun Piltover conflict would stay more political and less outright invasion than it is in canon as a result.

#arcane #arcane AU #Jinx but give her Sevika's revolutionary priorities and Greater Good morality #also I just kind of wanted to explore a bunch of different ideas that could potentially result from that #like Jinx already having a following in season 1 #or Jinx being seen as a kind of hero by the Undercity #or Jinx not firing on Piltover but still killing Silco [because I feel like a lot of AUs have those two things directly linked]#or Jinx not killing enforcers but still stealing the hexgem #or addressing the fact that the offered independence of Zaun isn't really all that fleshed out from what we're shown on screen #and wouldn't have resulted in anything good happening for Zaun if it went through #long post #did I lower the stakes for some of the characters? Sure did #Piltover doesn't have anything other the stealing of a hexgem and the bridge fight to be pissy over #and Caitlyn is there to testify that the bridge happened in part because Marcus was a dirty cop who tried to kill her #and the two witnesses she was bringing to testify about the undercity drug ring she'd dug up and the identity of the hexgem thief #so Caitlyn has no personal vendentta #Ambessa has less leverage to work with when it comes to reasons to let her faction inject herself into Piltover's problems #Ekko and the rest of the Firelights don't all completely hate Jinx and consider her a lost cause #but also you have to keep in mind that Jinx just Has Fishbones the whole time this is going down #he's never been fired in this AU and Jinx ponders everyday if he ever Should be fired but he's around if she ever needs him #also no Viktor cult because he never dies in the explosion and fuses with the Hexcore #Viktor does get Jayce to destroy the Hexcore #and starts becoming the Machine Herald more similar to how he is in the OG lore with automale style prostetics and synthetic organs #so that's one less faction to worry about but also means no way to temporarily retrieve Vander's mind inside Warwick using magic #and no apocalypse threat forcing Zaun and Piltover to work together because that was dumb and a complete cop out #Ambessa's Noxian forces never get as involved because Piltover never goes into martial law because the Counsel is alive and well #so they're not a major threat either #Jinx does still find and connect with Isha and heals her inner child via bonding with her #which does have her stop holding the people she loves at less of a distance and opens her up to actual reconciliation with Vi and Ekko #rather than her just completely disconnecting herself from how her actions affect her personal relationships

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