#z nation universe

[disturbingstar]

Z nation trivia

• Several of the actors/crew lived together while filming the first season in Spokane, Washington, to save on costs. This included Anastasia Baranova (Addy) and Michael Welch (Mack).

• The first season was recorded on a tight schedule, with an episode being fully recorded within six days, with most shoots only allowing three takes.

• Keith Allan (Murphy) was working for The Asylum production company as a stage hand when they were tasked with Z Nation (2014). They suggested he audition for the role of Murphy and he ended up getting the part

• In one of the episodes, survivors are seen eating "Twinkies" - a nod to Zombieland (2009).

• As the character of Murphy continued to evolve, it was decided that the blue skin aspect of the character would be removed. This was largely due to the fact that the makeup itself was extremely irritating to actor Keith Allan, causing some minor skin complications as he had no choice but to wear the make up sometimes over 12 hours a day during filming.

• As of the end of season 5, 10K's kill-count is 8,999.

• Season 3 was still filming while the first episodes of season 3 aired.

• Russell Hodgkinson, who played Steven "Doc" Beck, also appeared in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017) in the same role.

• Kellita Smith currently plays Lt. Roberta Warren on Z-Nation. She then played Sergeant Roberta Warren in the movie Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015). Both are productions of The Asylum.

• On December 23, 2018, Syfy canceled the series after five seasons.

• Tom Everett Scott knew when agreeing to play Garnett that his character would be killed off in episode 6 Resurrection Z (2014). Before recording the episode some producers brought up keeping his character on longer but this idea was shot down.

• According to Karl Schaefer the apocalypse of Z Nation began on November 9th 2016.

• Russell Hodgkinson (Doc) and his wife came up with the idea for 'Z Weed' while gardening in their backyard. Simply grow marijuana using compost containing dead zombie parts.

• As of Season 4, although still listed in the credits as part of the main cast, Anastasia Baranova is no longer a regular member of the cast and has been reduced to "recurring" status. Anastasia's contract is non-restricted, leaving her open to pursue other projects. During filming for Season 4, Anastasia was already tied to 3 other projects, including 2 television series and a movie. The character of Addy has therefore been temporarily written out of the show until Anastasia could commit to working on it again.

• Katy O'Brian confirmed that her character, George, is gay.

• Four different actresses have played Lucy in the series as of the end of season 3

• In the episode "Welcome to Murphytown," The Man escaped hand cuffs by cutting off his own hand. This is a reference to the movie Deadpool (2016) where he does the same thing. It also occurred in The Walking Dead when the character Merle was handcuffed on the roof. He cut his hand off to get free.

• Anastasia Baranova wanted her character, Addy, to be bi-sexual to represent more of the real world.

(All trivia is from IMDb)

[realityrain]

ᓚ₍⑅^..^₎building a new DR script╭ ?! ‧₊˚ ↺┊

posted on my tt (@/probablylucid). anyway i haven’t had a new DR in like a year so i thought id might as well make a post while making the new script!!

[that1-trashman]

If anyone's wondering...this the photo of my header. Yes I made this collage. It's of my favorite characters. Go ahead. Analyze it. Call me out on my patterns.

[project-sekai-facts]

While no real-life social media sites are mentioned due to copyright, a few are referenced via slightly-altered names. Most notable is Nightcord, which is a substitute for Discord based on the name and UI.

Other notable examples include TrickTrick, a video sharing site with lots of popular dance trends, which is a substitute for TiKToK, and PicShare, an popular image sharing site that Ena uses to upload her selfies and art, which is probably a substitute for Instagram (coincidentally, there is also a real site called PicShare).

In the English localisation only, Ena references Twitter in her Social Media Obsessed Artist 1* story. Additionally, an in-universe site called Z was given as a possible answer in the Proseka National Exam, an obvious substitute for Twitter's new name, X.

[zvaigzdelasas]

A North Korean propaganda song extolling Kim Jong Un as “a great leader and a friendly parent” has gone viral on TikTok, with mashups and dances racking up millions of views, leading to South Korea banning the tune due to “psychological warfare.”

Seoul’s media regulator on Monday announced it was blocking access to versions of “Friendly Father,” the cheery propaganda hit that became an unlikely social media sensation.

The song was unveiled in April during a nighttime concert to mark the completion of a housing project in the capital Pyongyang, according to North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Its lyrics praise Kim [...] as “a great leader and a friendly parent,” and the music video depicts North Koreans enthusiastically belting out the orchestral song proclaiming that Kim “takes care of us with affection.”[...]

The song went viral after content creators around the world used it to make their own edits of the music video adding dances and unserious captions to their own short one-minute clips on the platform, garnering over 2 million views.

“This isn’t Gen Z suddenly declaring allegiance for the regime,” said Alexandra Leonzini, a Cambridge University scholar conducting research on North Korean music.

“They’re laughing at the regime not with the regime.”

Nonetheless, South Korean security officials came down on the parodies. The Korea Communications Standards Commission decided to block 29 videos of the song, following a request from Seoul’s National Intelligence Service. But some versions of the song on YouTube were still accessible to users in South Korea as of Wednesday.[...]

The ban was not a surprise, as the country’s National Security Act blocks access to North Korean government websites and media, restricting exposure to Kim’s autocratic regime and penalizing behaviors promoting its authoritarian and nuclear-armed neighbor.

22 May 24

[centrally-unplanned]

The trick on the whole "Israel banning UNRWA" thing is that most militaries - like say the US in Afghanistan for example - directly provision aid. American soldiers would often be handing out food packages themselves, and even if they weren't the aid organizations would be directly contracting with the US government and the Department of Defense. You have a group in the military and the government that is like, okay, how do we feed people, let's hit those targets.

So if Congress decided to ban the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in 2006 from operating in the country or whatever, that bill would say like "we hand over its mission to USAID, which has been allocated $2.1 billion dollars in FY-2005 to do X Y Z". It would probably be a dumb move that would create unnecessary friction and cost lives for political bullshit, but that is also life, people dying for political bullshit is a universal constant. It would probably be pretty small bore in the scale of things, like switching over contractors.

That isn't how Israel does things. I might be wrong about this, Israel is deliberately opaque about these things and I just gave this the ol' half hour of googling, I am open to being contradicted here. But my current understanding of net spending by the government of Israel itself on aid to Gaza is...$0. They do not provide aid. They permit aid from other organizations, funded by other countries, to be provided! But they don't take responsibility for the provision; meeting targets, outcomes, etc, none of that is their job. (I am sure it isn't literally zero btw, but I think you get my point)

It is really telling that when you look up pro-Israel statements by say AIPAC on aid, their headlines are:

Israel Facilitates Humanitarian Aid to Gaza as Hamas Continues to Attack

And they criticize the UN because the UN trucks aren't being delivered:

The United Nations and other international agencies are largely responsible for the existing delays in aid deliveries into Gaza. The U.N. has not been able to distribute aid at the rate that Israel is processing it, causing back-ups at the border crossings after Israeli inspections are completed. On March 3, the U.N. received 234 trucks in Gaza but only distributed 131 trucks of aid to civilians in the enclave.

If this was the US military, and the UN was getting aid trucks and failing to send them, we would send more of our own trucks? That we have? Because aid is part of the military operation. But Israel doesn't do that - because it doesn't have any trucks. Because aid isn't part of the military operation.

Which is why the bill banning UNRWA that is being passed does not mention aid provision to Gaza:

The international community has raised alarm over the legislation, which was passed without a plan in place for a humanitarian agency to replace UNRWA.

Again going off news sources here, link for the actual bill is currently down, if I am wrong will correct here, but I think it all tracks. So in the article above, you get statements from the government when people ask about aid, they reply, oh yeah these other aid organizations will fill the gap.

Then you ask the aid organizations themselves and they go, no, we won't fill the gap! We don't have the resources to do that! Which is logical when you realize Israel isn't funding those orgs. They don't know or care about their funding status. Hopefully someone else will figure that out - aid is someone else's problem. Those government remarks are just off the cuff, they aren't a plan.

Which I want to loop back around to the casus belli for the ban - UNRWA having ties to Hamas. That, to me, is one of those "uh duh, and?" things - Hamas is the government of Gaza. UNRWA runs schools there? And medical clinics? You think they do that...without contact with the government? This is just silly, the UN Mission in Afghanistan obviously had connections to the US Government! Government officials, working in both, par for the course.

But, and this is far more important, it is irrelevant. I completely agree that UNRWA has many people who are sympathetic to Hamas in it, because obviously they do. You want to ban it, dumb but okay. You propose a bill outlining the $2 billion dollars and the 5 partnered aid organizations and the 400 IDF trucks that will deliver aid to replace their work, sure. Whatever man, do your small bore politics bullshit.

That is not what they are doing.

Now, Israel has in fact allowed a bunch of aid in Gaza, I don't doubt that like USAID and the non-profit community and the governments of the UK and Japan and so on are gonna pivot funding to a bunch of organizations that will do herculean work stepping up operations and interfacing with the IDF checkpoint system and get aid in. Maybe they will do such a bang-up job that the cost in suffering won't be that high. Israel did give 3 months after all, they aren't the literal worst they could be.

But I do think at a certain point, the line between indifference and malice just ceases to matter. The UNRWA bill isn't some breaking point or big policy shift - it is just a highly revealing moment in the Israeli approach, why the war there has gone the way that it has. And it is, as the kids say, not a good look.

(h/t @loving-n0t-heyting as this was initially a reblog of their post, but they mentioned getting drama in the notes so I split it off; sorry to deny you the precious +1 internet point)

[ns-imagines]

Nikto никто

Nikto Character Introduction

If you find yourself drooling over possessive and obsessive!Ghost or König lemme introduce you to Nikto…

SFW [ all cannon information ]

Word Count: TBA its a lot

Warnings: Disorder mention; Torture mention; dissociative disorder mentioned;

A/N: Lemme talk to you for a moment…

My new masked crush. Heart and coochie go brrrrrrrrrrrrr

Post has not been checked for grammar corrections / Not requested :D

Cannon Information:

Nikto (Neeek-toe) is a Operator in Spetsnaz for the Allegiance faction which is within the KorTac Organization. Basically hes a contractor for the contractors. Its cannon that he has facial scarring which is why he wears a mask. Not a turn off for me ah ha ha

So he isn’t necessarily a good guy like the 141 guys (even though now they’re considered war criminals I suppose) but he’s also not a bad guy. In summary, man does what he gets hired to do.

Anyways, after going AWOL in October 2022 from the Russian contracting military group he resurfaced in June 2023 (also the introduction of his character in the game). He resurfaced being the leader of a military group which was overtaking the Dutch city of Vondel.

On the Official Wiki he is only given two paragraphs of biography. You can read it here -> https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/Nikto

Also mentioned on the page [ for the COD Mobile universe ] is that theres cannon beef between Ghost and Nikto!! Yes, you heard me right. So on the wiki it is mentioned that Nikto was working for a guy named Templar. Whom is betrayed and killed by Ghost. Then when Ghost went after everyone else in the helicopter he shot Nikto. It was thought that Nikto died from the shot but he didnt….

Nikto reappears when he takes a group of people hostage and records a video explaining that the world has failed them and has left people like (Nikto) to beg and then fight over the scraps. Price (yes Price) tries to convince Nikto to let the hostages go and to basically chill out but Nikto wins by blowing up the building. With the hostages inside.

Okay maybe he has beef with all of 141… and is kinda a bad guy I can change him

SO then time passes and Nikto reappears again seeking a gun deal with a dude named Gunzo. Gunzo asks Nikto “why a man wanted on every continent, doesnt have guns” this pisses Nikto off. Nikto replies with “i dont need guns” then proceeds to buy the guns from Gunzo. Then Nikto gasses the fuck out of Gunzo and his men with Nova Gas. Nikto explains to Gunzo that the world is failing blah blah. He then goes on to brag about how he doesnt need a gas mask to breath like everyone else because hes that edgy and then he just executes Gunzo. We can fix him

Nikto disappears again only to reappear flying a F-85B Bullshark and leading a military riot. He then orders a attack on Prices convoy (video below) and basically down their helicopter. In the video below you can see small arms fire, an RPG, and then a finishing shot. Which was shot by Nikto’s aircraft. Okay maybe he is bad, we can fix him ?

Which you can watch here -> https://youtu.be/dDaCTCu82t0

In game bio from MW, CODM, and MW2

It is referenced in his bio MW and CODM that he has acute dissociative disorder. Which according to WebMD

“Dissociative disorders involve problems with memory, identity, emotion, perception, behavior and sense of self. Dissociative symptoms can potentially disrupt every area of mental functioning. Dissociation is a disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of who he or she is.”

Which is explained to be from when he was tortured by Mr. Z. That event is also where he got his facial scarring from. Although he is Russian; in current MW2 timeline his nationality and language is [ REDACTED ]. I was looking around on the internet for why and Reddit believes its due to current world current events/tension. Rewording to: we can accept and love him. I dont think we can fix him.

I don’t expect this post to get a lot of attention but for those who like it my requests are fully open ❤️

i will definitely be posting more Nikto content and what I think Nikto looks like and how he acts.

Thank you for reading! -Kiv

[arinzu]

My Headcannons for Yoichi Isagi, Rin itoshi and Alexis Ness💕

Part 1 l part 2

Might not be accurate

💗💗💗

Yoichi Isagi :

✿He took a photo once of his hair slick back and his fan went absolutely feral.

✿He time to time stalks Rin to observe what he does.

✿Isagi probably stares at the ceiling when he's about to sleep and think about all of the opportunities he missed.

✿If he played any other sports it would be chess, since his vision is great for mental games.

✿Tbh is he was a sin he would be greed/gluttony.

✿If he could ask anything from his parents, it would be to have a little sis.

✿Does skin, body and hair care every few days.

✿Swears in videos games often. Those little brats think they're so gOoD but once isagi finishes his puzzle he'll devour them

✿Tried to hit Kaiser in the head with the ball after a practice match, but Noel Noah was there

✿Gossips with kurona and hiori about kaiser and ness, It's perfect since kurona doesn't know what they're doing but hiori has a lot of dirt on them.

Boyfriend Headcannons💤

♡Plays football w/ u and teaches you by beating you, not even to destroy your self esteem.

♡ such a sweetheart while you are on your menstrual cycle (if you're a girl)

♡ gossip about every teammate with you, like a whole book of players he wants to gossip to you about

♡ once you were sick, he drove to the local store at 2 am just for you. He's so sweet.

♡ Cooks very well like he'll cook food decently

♡ Not that toxic? Maybe that's probably up for debate

♡tells you about his problems like it's the national news to be discuss

♡ Has that romantic playlist he made just for you and him to enjoy.

♡Due to being in blue lock he hasn't texted you often so in return he tries to send gifts every month

♡ Calls you darling and sweetheart multiple times a day

Rin itoshi

✿Drools in his sleep (Me too Rin)

✿I feel like he'll stand awkwardly in a party not even interacting with anyone

✿Is good at cleaning, not barou level but up there

✿Perfect grammar, also TOP at his English

✿Never uses any gen-z/alpha slangs or any type of slang infact

✿Dry ass texter...

✿Gets really weirded out by any of his THOSE fangirls/fanboys... Like wdym you wanna have the reproduction LIKE HE'S ONLY 16

✿Knows knife play at some point, don't ask him why (he doesn't know)

✿Artistic in secret... Like he'll paint the beach or anything that shows the happy times of him and sae

✿Gets nightmares of that day... (Pretty sure everyone has that headcannon by now)

Boyfriend Headcannons💤

♡Cuddles every time he gets a chance with you. That kinda prevents him from getting those dreams....

♡ even if he's not as romantic as the others, you guys still go on weekly dates and THEY are expensive or just casual date like movie date🫶

♡After getting traumatized by sae, he almost broke up with you, Thank goodness, that you manage to make him snap out of it.

♡ After getting convinced by your and his parents he went to couple counseling and saw his mistakes

♡One of his favorite things to do with you is Playing football, I mean two things he loves in one? Count him in!

♡ Bring extra clothes with him whenever you're around, just in case it gets cold and he doesn't need to give you his hoodie.

♡Does not have much of a soft spot for you BUT, his eyes sparkle whenever he sees you like the good old times

♡ Almost made you cry when you both were on a movie date, it was those scary ahh movies that you don't know what's coming next.

♡Has a separate Love notebook from his early days of middle school that he reads when he misses you.

♡Calls you lukewarm as a word of affection when he sees you

Alexis ness

✿Would probably be in good terms with isagi if it didn't end like this

✿Has a mental breakdown every few days because of kaiser paying too much attention to isagi

✿Makes Kaiser a birthday cake every year and even bought him EXPENSIVE stuff from his hometown

✿Keeps the magician outfit he had when he was just a child, he cherish it like it's the most valuable thing in the whole universe

✿Would be friends w/ Charles if they interacted more, I mean like opposite friends, Ya'k

✿If richer than his awful siblings back home, if not then... It's because of the plot.

✿If he didn't met kaiser he'll probably be better than what he is now.

✿Has surprisingly good fashion taste, It's better than most blue lockers I can tell you

✿Has that changing color book lamp at the side of his bed he use when he's upset or just sad

✿He would like science if it weren't for the fact of his childhood

Boyfriend Headcannons 💕

♡Is actually quite the gentleman to you and your family members, since he a very toxic household

♡Always makes your favorite dish, if he doesn't know the recipes he'll find it by your guardian/ by how you like it.

♡Gives you a lot of gifts, I MEAN A LOT like everyday you'll find things that you enjoy at your doorstep

♡Due to being away from blue lock, he gets awfully jealous of the boys around you. Even if it's just a friend

♡Husband material frfr

♡ Punch a dude that was making you uncomfortable, and then ran with you to flee the scene.

♡Prefers the value of affection than the materialistic value of a gift you give him

♡ Loves being the small spoon but if you want, he can be the big spoon, anything for his precious angel.

♡Yandere tendency!!! Whether a girl or boy, he will get jealous if you spend more attention on them than him!

♡Call you angel or any kind of German words of affection, he will use it

That's it y'all💋

Thank you for reading this! It too me longer than expected!

So thank you for staying till the end even tho it was just 3 blue lock characters!

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

[judassmyvirtue]

Hey folks, just dropping some resources here for those of you who, like me, are always on the hunt for free reading material, whether it's for research or just to satisfy your curiosity. Check these out:

Library of Congress: Absolute goldmine for academic researches and historical documents. You can spend hours diving into their collections.

Z-library: A treasure trove of books, articles, and papers on pretty much any topic you can think of. Quick downloads, no fuss.

Project Gutenberg: Free e-books galore, especially if you're into classics. Saved me from many a boring commute.

Internet Archive: A digital library offering free universal access to books, movies, and music, plus archived web pages. Endless hours of browsing joy.

Google Books: Sometimes you just need a quick peek inside a book without committing to buying it. Google Books has got your back.

Google Scholar: It scours through scholarly sources, journals, theses, and more. Just be ready to sift through some dense material.

JSTOR: Another heavyweight in the academic world. JSTOR is packed with scholarly articles, books, and primary sources across various disciplines. Some stuff may be behind a paywall, but there's still plenty to explore for free.

Newspaper Archive: Want to browse through historical newspapers? This site has a massive collection spanning centuries and covering a wide range of topics. Perfect for digging up primary sources.

Newspapers.com: Need more historical newspapers? Look no further.

Perseus Digital Library: Focuses on ancient Greco-Roman materials, perfect for those deep dives into classical history.

Digital Public Library of America: Another treasure trove of digitized materials, including photos, manuscripts, and more.

Europeana: European cultural heritage online. Images, texts, the whole shebang.

DOAJ: Open access journals. DOAJ indexes and provides access to high-quality, peer-reviewed open access research journals.

Open Library: Another digital library offering over 1.7 million free eBooks.

Librivox: Audiobooks for when your eyes need a break.

National Archives (UK): Offers access to a wealth of historical documents, including government records, maps, photographs, and more.

Sci-Hub: For the rebels. Access to scholarly articles.

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): Looking for free scholarly books? DOAB has got you covered with a vast collection.

Digital Commons Network: Free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide.

Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR): Find open access repositories worldwide.

Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France): French flair for your research.

DigitalNZ: Your gateway to New Zealand's digital heritage.

[sorceressofthesky]

Piltover and Zaun Lore Deep Dive

I've been doing extensive research into the history of P&Z for a Silco and Vander origin story fic, and I figured it could be helpful to share my findings here too!

My main goal was to try and integrate known Arcane lore with League lore and iron out some of the creases, to nail down exactly what the world of P&Z looked like in Arcane. I've done a lot of extrapolating and theorising to make sense of it all, but if you're just interested in the raw data from canon, I've compiled all my notes on a Google Doc. All sources are listed throughout.

The contents of this post are as follows:

Part 1: Chronology (the timeline)

Part 1.1: Chronology in League of Legends

Part 1.2: Chronology in Arcane

Part 1.3: Integrating the timelines

Part 2: Geography (the layout of P&Z)

Part 2.1: Existing maps of Piltover and Zaun

Part 2.2: Geography in League of Legends

Part 2.3: Geography in Arcane

Part 2.4: Integrating the layouts

Part 3: Modern Zaun (ft. Silco and Vander)

Part 3.0: Preamble

Part 3.1: The timeline of Zaun’s creation

Part 3.2: Vander and Silco’s early life

Part 3.3: Golden age of Vander and Silco

Part 3.4: After the betrayal

Part 4: Wrap-Up

Summary of the timeline

~~~

Part 1.1: Chronology (League of Legends)

Information derived from the LoL Fandom Wiki and official LoL website, with most details corroborated by various Reddit threads and similar forums. BN means Before Noxus, and AN means After Noxus.

6000-5000 BN: Westward Migration. Humans began to migrate from the eastern hemisphere to the western hemisphere, towards the Shuriman Continent. Settlers founded many new nations and cities. Among these was a sea port called Oshra Va’Zaun (also referred to in some places as Osha Va’Zaun or Kha’Zhun, but I went with what was most consistently used on the Wiki). Oshra Va’Zaun connected the Shuriman Continent to Valoran via an isthmus, or artificial land bridge, that allowed for free trade between the continents and also comprised docks from which sailors could travel in and out. The people of Oshra Va’Zaun worshipped Janna (then known as Jan’ahrem), the wind spirit. As a spirit god, she relies on prayers to keep her strong. Sailors and merchants would pray for calm seas, and she would deliver.

2000-3 BN: Various Wars. The fall of the Shuriman Empire (2000 BN), the Darkin War (550 BN) and the Rune Wars (25-3 BN) all took place during this time. Janna protected Oshra Va’Zaun from every conflict, preventing it from becoming rubble.

772 AN: The Collapse. The people of Oshra Va’Zaun planned to destroy a portion of the isthmus connecting Valoran and the Southern Continent, allowing for safe sea passage between eastern and western Valoran. The plan was to use thousands of Chemtech bombs to crack open an area of the land so that a cavern could be created. Instead, the bombs triggered a series of earthquakes that completely destroyed the isthmus and sank large districts of Zaun. Thousands of citizens were killed, and poisonous gases leaked into the city’s surviving areas. Allegedly, Janna saved many of the citizens by holding back the seas to prevent floods.

790 AN: Piltover is Established. Over the last 18 years, the ruins of Oshra Va’Zaun underwent extensive reconstruction. The Sun Gates were established to regulate travel through the oceanic passage that had opened up where the isthmus used to be. This essentially forced all ocean transport through these waters, which brought wealth to the city and spurred the development of Piltover - named after its construction over the Pilt River. Merchant clans dominated the trade route and built up towards the sky, while those still living in the ruins built down into the fissures.

~~~

Part 1.2: Chronology (Arcane)

The only traces I could find of a timeline were on the League of Legends Universe Wiki, where birth years are given for several of the main characters. Most were given a range, as follows:

676 AN: Heimerdinger is born

959-963 AN: Jayce is born

961-968 AN: Viktor is born

966-970 AN: Caitlyn is born

967-971 AN: Vi is born

972-976 AN: Jinx is born

In Season 1 Act 1, Heimerdinger specifically states that he is 307, and Jayce states that he is 24. The writers also stated that 7 years had passed between Acts 1 and 2. This gives us a good base to work from, especially since Heimerdinger's birth year is the only one that is dated precisely. 676 + 307 = 983; thus, Act 1 takes place in 983 AN, and Act 2 onwards takes place in 990 AN. Working backwards, we can determine that Jayce was born in 959 AN, and everything works itself out from there.

676 AN: Heimerdinger is born. He is 307 (Act 1) / 314 (Act 2 and beyond).

959 AN: Jayce is born. He is 24 / 31.

961 AN: Viktor is born. He is 22 / 29.

966 AN: Caitlyn is born. She is 17 / 24 (honestly 17 seems too old to me based on what we see of her in Act 1, but 966 is the earliest year listed on her wiki page, so this is what I’m running with).

967 AN: Vi is born. She is 16 / 23.

972 AN: Jinx is born. She is 11 / 18.

983 AN: Events of Act 1. Key events here are the raid on the Kiramman warehouse and the subsequent invention of Hextech.

990 AN: Events of Act 2. At the start of Act 2, Heimerdinger says that Piltover is turning 200, so this works out perfectly with the League of Legends timeline.

~~~

Part 1.3: Chronology (Integrated)

So, how exactly do Arcane and League lore fit together? The answer essentially boils down to: there isn't one. Everyone in every thread has a different solution, and the timeline is so messy that there is even a dedicated Wiki page to all the various contradictions. I'm going to spend this final section developing my own theories and solutions based on what I know; feel free to take or leave any of this.

Pre-772 AN: From everything I’ve read, it seems like there are hardly any indications of Zaun and Piltover’s history before the events of the main timeline. There is no mention of Janna at all in Arcane, but subtle imagery of her is sprinkled throughout the art, which suggests that she could still be a figure present in the history and protection of Zaun. Thus, I think we can reasonably assume that everything was much the same up to the collapse. There don't seem to be any lore inconsistencies prior to 772 AN that would make the timeline impossible (other than Heimerdinger having supposedly lived through the Rune Wars, but Yordle lore is a whole different ball game that I'm not even going to touch lmao).

Post-772 AN: From the collapse onwards, there are two main issues I ran into in getting the lore to match up. One of these issues is the absence of the Sun Gates in Arcane. Instead, the Hexgates play the role of facilitating trade, which is treated like a new and revolutionary invention. This raises questions regarding how exactly Piltover came to prosper for ~2 centuries before Hextech. It’s possible that the Sun Gates did exist at a point in time, but were destroyed for one reason or another before we get to the main timeline. Otherwise, it could just be that they flourished through maritime trade for a while without the Sun Gates, given that they are still positioned at the intersection between continents (the Hexgates facilitate air travel, not sea travel, so that would have still been a pivotal change). The council is made up of wealthy merchant clans, which suggests that Piltover was still a place of high traffic for traders. We also know that Piltover and Zaun are realms of innovation, and with Heimerdinger at the forefront of Piltover’s establishment, it seems viable that they had a lot to offer that made Piltover attractive to other regions. This also raises the question of what exactly Piltover was inventing before Hextech, but I'm going to shelve that question, as it integrates slightly better with the next section.

The other issue that came up is with regards to Chemtech. In League lore, Chemtech is consistently listed as “Zaun’s answer to Hextech”. The Wiki also mentions that it has existed in Zaun “since the early 900s AN”, but wasn’t widely used until “the later half of the 900s AN”. There are two issues with this. Firstly, the lore specifically mentions that Chemtech bombs were used to explode the land in 772 AN, which means that it did exist before the 900s. The second issue is that Hextech was not invented until 983 AN, which contradicts the notion that Chemtech was “Zaun’s answer” to it. We see green lights all over the Lanes in Arcane Episode 1, so it was definitely in use before Hextech existed. So the questions that arise are 1) What was the timeline of Chemtech usage in Zaun?, 2) Why wasn’t it ever used in Piltover?, and 3) Why was Piltover the city that prospered through trade and innovation, if Zaun was the one who had Chemtech?

I think the most sensible answer to question 2 is simply that it's toxic. People in Piltover are terrified of change, judging by the council’s reaction to magic the first time Jayce brings it up. If a Chemtech bomb was what caused the destruction of Oshra Va’Zaun in the first place, it makes sense that Piltover would have avoided using it. This could also help with the answer to question 1. If we believe that Chemtech wasn't widely used in Zaun until the 900s, it could just be that they were afraid to touch it again for a very long time after the collapse. That just leaves question 3, and I think to answer this, we need to return to that earlier question of what exactly Piltover invented/traded that cemented their position of affluence. The official League webpage for Piltover talks extensively about Hextech, and also includes images of Piltover's inventions under the umbrella of "Hextech". However, there are three images in that category that stand out to me as different:

In the bottom series of pictures, three of the images are in black and white, and look more like sketches than the fully-rendered designs of the other inventions. The first of these images is just a string of merchant clan sigils, which don't give us all that much information. What I'm most interested in are the second image, which is a dome-shaped streetlight:

And the third image, which is a "Pneuma-Tube Conduit":

The black-and-white design of these makes them look older, as opposed to the modern designs of objects like the gauntlets, which we know are newer. That indicates that these inventions existed before Hextech. The light source looks like it has a wire running through it and a switch of sorts, which suggests that they had some form of electricity. Another possibility is that it functions using solar power, given that the Zaunites, despite being inventors in their own rights, seem to rely mostly on Chemtech for light and haven't been able to built light sources that can pierce darkness/the Grey. It would make sense if they simply don't get the sunlight down there to operate them properly.

The pneuma tube is the most notable to me, given that it seems to match the tube Grayson gives Vander in Episode 1 as a method of contacting her ("this will reach me, and only me") - again, before Hextech existed. What's interesting about that tube is that, when I went back to the scene where Vi decides to turn herself in, the tube arrives with a puff of gas and a small lime-coloured light that turns on. There's also a green-tinted lamp in the police station where they appear to be located. It looks very Chemtech-like, which I'm intrigued by; it makes me wonder if Piltover actually does use Chemtech to some extent, but in much smaller doses with extensive safety measures to keep the gases from escaping.

I also found a Weebly website, which looks very unofficial (i.e. I cannot verify any of the information on there) but has a ton of lore for various regions, including the only mention I could find of a Piltovian energy source that wasn't Hextech. The site mentions that Piltover uses liquids and gases from a nearby marsh to power the city. This seems like a viable option to me, especially given the detail of the gases coming off the tube, and the images of factories with smoke coming from the underground. So I guess, rather than being Zaun's "answer" to Hextech, Chemtech is more like the toxic and volatile version of the various controlled gases and liquids that Piltover uses as an energy source.

On the topic of other things Piltover invented, here are some additional notes from my research:

Weaponry - There are guns everywhere in Piltover, particularly for the Enforcers. Presumably one of the wealthy clans had to manufacture these.

Tools - We know that the Talis family gained wealth and notoriety for their invention of various tools, including mostly hammers and the "collapsible pocket wrench".

Lock System - Amanda Overton stated that the Kirammans became wealthy for building "the very important lock system in the channel that first allowed trade between regions". I suppose this must have been instead of the Sun Gates, if we're assuming they don't exist?

Other Systems - The Kirammans also appeared to be the ones who built the underground ventilation system for Zaun. The tube conduit is also an example of a miscellaneous system invented by someone in Piltover, as well as presumably whatever wiring system allows the streetlights to function.

Machinery/Machine Parts - It's mentioned in League lore that the Medarda clan became wealthy for their invention of the piston, which is part of an engine. It's unclear whether this is still the case in Arcane, though.

Prosthetics - In the story The Lady of Clockwork, it's said that Corin Reveck was renowned for his design of prosthetics. Arcane canon calls him a "revered academy alchemist", so it seems like his creations there had more to do with chemistry and magic, but prosthetics could have been the specialty of someone else in Piltover.

Clockwork - I've also seen Corin Reveck described as a clockwork inventor, so revolutionary clocks and time-based inventions could have also come out of Piltover.

Cameras - Caitlyn has a camera in Act 1 when she's investigating the crime scene after the Firelights raided Silco's shipment. The flash has a blue tint, so this could have been a Hextech invention, but I was interested to see that it had a green pipe running along the side; perhaps it was a Zaunite camera that she asked Jayce to modify for her.

Food/Drink - In S1E4, it's mentioned that Councillor Hoskel ships wine to Noxus. Perhaps some clans in Piltover accumulated wealth from unique food/drink products that other regions could not cultivate.

Various Gadgets - Mel's very first scene shows her choosing a gift for Hoskel from an assortment of mechanical gadgets. These could have been a smaller byproduct of Piltover's invention boom. This category also covers the items in Jayce's lab, many of which seem to be assorted gadgets like the nose hair trimmer, the spinning mobile on the ceiling and the "real Valdiani".

So, to recap, here's a summary of the integrated timeline for P&Z in Arcane:

Pre-772 AN: Westward migration led to the establishment of the sea port of Oshra Va'Zaun. Wars ravaged the Shuriman Continent, but Oshra Va'Zaun was protected through all of it, until their own innovation caused the collapse of the isthmus via Chemtech bomb.

Post-772 AN: Piltover was gradually built over the ruins, and formally established in 790 AN. Meanwhile, those still living underground were forced into labour, working in the mines and factories to provide for Piltover's inventions. Piltover became richer and richer as trade increased, while the people of Zaun had nothing themselves.

959-972 AN: Births of the leading cast members. Jayce is the oldest, and Jinx is the youngest.

983 AN: Events of Act 1. Vi, Powder, Mylo and Claggor raid the Kiramman warehouse. Hextech is invented. Vander turns himself in for the raid, Silco intercepts the arrest, and Vander, Mylo and Claggor end up dead.

990 AN: Events of Act 2. The main Arcane timeline starts here.

~~~

Part 2.1: Geography (Maps)

Figure 1: Piltover and Zaun in the wider landscape of Runeterra (source)

Figure 2: Piltover trade routes per the Medarda Heirloom (source)

Figure 3: Piltover and Zaun map in Arcane (source)

Figure 4: Map of Piltover and Zaun from Jinx Fixes Everything (source)

Figure 5: Map of Piltover and Zaun from World Anvil (source)*

*I'm not sure of the exact source for this map; the page I found this from is a fanmade D&D campaign but the creator has a disclaimer that they sourced the artwork externally and do not own it.

Figures 6 and 7: Maps of P&Z from Arcane and the Medarda Heirloom respectively. The Arcane map has been rotated to align the structure of the land masses in the Medarda Heirloom.

~~~

Part 2.2: Geography (League of Legends)

In League, Zaun is built quite literally underneath Piltover; there are some absolutely beautiful official artworks depicting this. In the League version of Zaun, there are three levels, as per the Wiki page:

Promenade Level: The top level of Zaun. Described as an "entertainment and commercial zone", this is where Zaun's wealthy reside, and where the line between Piltover and Zaun blurs. Some of its features include a thriving marketplace on the boundary (several regions are named specifically; the Boundary Markets and the Skylight Commercia), a pump station to move clean air from Piltover into Zaun, and the College of Techmaturgy.

Entresol Level: The level just below Promenade, this is considered the main hub of activity for Zaunites. It's one of the most populated districts between the two cities, and is also where the Zaun Grey lingers most. Some of its features include augmentation parlours for prosthetics and other bodily augmentations, a breather station where Zaunites can find reprieve from the Grey, the Chemtech Seam in the cliffs where compounds for Chemtech are sourced, markets and greenhouses, and laboratories for science and invention.

Sump Level: Zaun's deepest level where the light doesn't reach. It's chaotic and grim, with disorderly piping everywhere and discarded waste from Piltover. This is the origin of the Grey, from polluted waterways and grilles. Some of its features include a pump station for removing sewage, a prison mine where convicts are forced to mine Chemtech compounds, factories and warehouses, a surviving clock tower from Oshra Va'Zaun, densely-populated slums, the Black Lanes where merchants and thieves do business, sewers, an orphanage and an asylum.

Other Features: There's a large cliff in Zaun that makes up part of the Promenade Level, and is home to shipping docks and the Sun Gates. There are also Hexdraulic Conveyors in various locations throughout Zaun, which allow Piltovans to descend into Zaun - some available to the public, and some for private use, especially for the Chem-Barons and wealthy Piltovans.

As for Piltover, per the Wiki page, there are only two main regions - North Piltover and South Piltover:

North Piltover: Most of the clans have their mansions and "heavily guarded workshop compounds" here, in a region called Bluewind Court. The north also contains a menagerie, theatres and workshops, a promenade of cafes and bistros, and a region dedicated to banks and secure vaults for the wealthy.

South Piltover: Not much is mentioned of South Piltover, but it seems like it involves several shopping districts, more workshops and lavish residences, and the fissures where Zaun is located.

I recognised a lot of the location names on the Wiki from the map in Figure 5, so presumably the north just means everything north of the canal and the south is the region on the other side; then Zaun exists directly underneath southern Piltover, carved out of the land underneath the fissures.

~~~

Part 2.3: Geography (Arcane)

The geography in Arcane was a little confusing to make sense of. These are the changes noted on the Wiki:

The Sun Gates do not exist

The fissures are narrower

Zaun does not have three levels, instead being divided into the Lanes which each represent one of the fissures

The tallest tower in Zaun is now the Chem-Baron tower, which replaces the College of Techmaturgy

There are no Hexdraulic Descenders, instead replaced by smaller elevators

The Lanes in Zaun are home to Babette's brothel and The Last Drop

The Firelight Hideout is built in a large, abandoned sewer

The north and south parts of Piltover are connected by The Bridge of Progress

In mid-Piltover is the University of Piltover, located near the Hexgates, where most council meetings take place

Stillwater Hold is located on an island just outside the eastern part of the city

I've read a lot of other forum threads, and it seems like there's no real consensus on where exactly Zaun is located in relation to Piltover. Some people say it's still directly underneath southern Piltover, while others think the entire region across the bridge (see Figure 3) is now entirely Zaun. I get the impression that a lot of the confusion comes from Arcane visuals that make it look like Zaun is just everything on the other side of the bridge. Vander also describes the Undercity as "our side", making it seem like Zaun is that entire side of the region rather than just a part of it built underground.

Personally, I'm inclined to think Zaun is still predominantly underneath Piltover, judging by the maps in Figures 3 & 4 from Arcane canon. It seems like the Alcove District, Low Piltover and South Side Harbour are still part of south Piltover, while everything around the Fissures are part of Zaun. The scene in Season 1 Episode 1 where Vi and the kids are running away from the Enforcers also seems to support this. They run through a corridor, then slide down a sewer grate, into the underground where we can see all of Piltover's metal scraps and parts discarded as per the lore. I presumed, from this, that the first place they entered across the bridge was still part of Piltover, and then they went down the pipe to get to Zaun. Deckard confronts them before they take the elevator even further down, and we know that this confrontation happened on their "side", per Vi's conversation with Vander, so this was likely an upper part of Zaun.

Additionally, we see this wide shot as they run across the bridge:

Figure 8: Wide shot of the Bridge of Progress from Season 1 Episode 1, timestamp 13:01

Figure 8 shows Zaun/South Piltover on the left side of the bridge, and North Piltover on the right side. The architecture immediately across the bridge still looks very Piltovian, while towards the back of the image, we can see large green towers and smoke, more akin to Zaunite infrastructure. This makes me think there's still something like the Promenade level at the same altitude as south Piltover, where the lines between cities are blurred, but most of the activity takes place underneath. The maps from Arcane are also specifically labelled "Piltover", which further supports the idea that the entire region is Piltover, with most of Zaun lying underneath.

~~~

Part 2.4: Geography (Integrated)

I don't think Zaun was just made up of the Lanes, as the Wiki page seems to imply. There's a line from Silco in S1E3 in which he says "not just for the Lanes, but the whole of the underground united as one". It seems like the Lanes were the region Silco and Vander had control over ("you had my respect, the Lanes' respect" - Vander, S1E3), but there were other parts to the underground too.

There's a really useful Twitter post here that proposes one theory as to how Arcane and League geography can be integrated. As previously mentioned, I like the idea that the levels still exist to some extent. The Promenade level bleeds into South Piltover, and looks to be where many of the factories and warehouses are located judging by the smoke - as well as, of course, the Chem-Baron tower where Silco gasses them all in S1E7. This is also where the fight with Deckard happened. Every theory I've seen that incorporates the levels places The Last Drop on Entresol, so I'm inclined to say that's where the Lanes are located, with The Last Drop a central feature, and quite close to the Sump. And the Sump is where the mines are, all the way down in the lowest inhabitable (using that term very loosely) part of Zaun. There are also ruins of Oshra Va'Zaun underneath this where it's completely deserted.

~~~

Part 3.0: The Creation of Modern Zaun (Preamble)

So all of this brings me back to the question at the heart of it all: where do Silco and Vander fit in? There are three big questions I am aiming to answer in this section.

Question 1: What is the timeline of Silco and Vander's past?

Question 2: What did Zaun look like before Silco and Vander took control of it?

Question 3: What was their vision for Zaun and how far did they get with it?

Before I can get into answering those questions, I want to compile everything that we already know about Silco and Vander. From Arcane canon, here is what we're given:

Vander and Silco started as miners who "had nothing" (Silco's words, S1E9), and had a shared vision for what Zaun could have been. Silco talks very distastefully about his experience in the mines, describing "air so thick it clogged your throat, stuck in your eyes".

They are said to have "built the underground", according to Sevika (or, at the very least, she says that Vander built the underground).

Zaun was governed by Piltover and their council; Silco and Vander wanted Zaun to become an independent nation in its own right.

Silco’s description in S1E3: “We shared a vision, Vander. A dream of freedom. Not just for the Lanes, but the whole of the underground united as one. The Nation of Zaun.” In S1E9, he also says "everything we ever wanted" when he's talking to the Vander statue about Jayce's offer of peace, so all signs point to them having both been set on independence for Zaun.

Sevika says that "Silco spent his whole life trying to rally the Undercity together" in S2E4.

At some point, Felicia joined their fight, and the three of them were seen at The Last Drop together around the time of its founding. Sevika and Connol also knew them in their youth. I don't believe it's ever explicitly stated whether Benzo knew them back then, but Vander mentions him by name to Silco, which suggests a mutual connection.

Felicia speaks about the vision for Zaun as theirs, not hers, so it seems like her role was not quite as prominent as theirs in the actual conception and construction of Zaun.

Felicia encourages Silco and Vander to "figure this Zaun thing out", even if they have to "carve it out of the bedrock, covered in blisters". Much like Sevika using the word "built", this seems to imply a very literal kind of construction.

When Vi, Powder and co raid the Kirammans' warehouse, Vi mentions that it's exactly the kind of job Vander would've done when he was their age. We know that Vi was 16 at the time, and Mylo and Claggor were also both older than Powder, so presumably she means 15-16.

In S1E2, Vander tells Vi that when he was younger, he "was angry" about the treatment of Zaun by Piltover, and led the bridge riot that killed Felicia and Connol.

Using this post and the Arcane artbook as a guide, I also pulled information out of comments from the creators, which I'm regarding as canon-adjacent:

The Lanes is the black market area of the Undercity, created through Vander and Silco's smuggling operation that gave them the chance to make money outside of working as miners for topsiders.

Silco "grew up working in the mines", which is where Vander, Silco and Felicia met. It's also mentioned that this is why he was the only one who could tolerate the gas in S1E7, but he specifically says that the Chem-Barons used to work in the mines as well (“The mines they had us in” / “I pulled you all up from the depths”), so that seems inconsistent. I'm inclined to believe that it's a combination of him growing up in the mines and continuing to live on the Entresol level (in The Last Drop), while the others lived on the Promenade level.

Silco and Vander led a movement towards independence. Both were unhappy with the "oppressive feeling" of being "under the thumb of Piltover".

In the artbook, it's said that Silco hated the way he was treated by Piltover and wanted to prove that he was more than what the world had made him out to be. He and Vander "tried to build this world together", with the main goal of independence and pride for Zaun. Ultimately, there were limits to what Vander was willing to lose, while Silco always wanted to keep fighting no matter the cost.

There's an image of young Benzo with Silco, Vander and Felicia in the artbook, confirming the implication that he knew them at that time.

The bridge riot was incited after Benzo got arrested, and Silco was the one really pushing for the uprising; hence he was the one who threw the first Molotov cocktail. This was when Vander decided that violence was not the way to achieve peace.

Amanda Overton frequently refers to that riot as the "Day of Ash". I could only find one source on this, a Fandom Wiki page with no additional references cited. According to this page, the Day of Ash took place on December 1st 979 AN, and involved a protest march on the Bridge of Progress in which over 100 unarmed Zaunites were shot and 84 died on the spot. This seems inconsistent with what we see in canon (the "unarmed" part specifically; Silco throwing the Molotov, Vander beating up Enforcers with his mining gloves), but I'm listing it here anyway for full disclosure.

The drowning incident happened after the riot, apparently after Vander had already taken the kids (so I guess he came back for Silco??? Or it happened a few days after?).

Something else worth noting is that in the Season 2 flashback, Felicia says that "tonight", their dream of turning the underground into a community became a reality. This obviously marks a very significant date for them, and they toast to the occasion. My assumption was that this was meant to show us the opening of The Last Drop, and that's what I ran with for much of my analysis throughout this section; however, I don't think it's ever actually specified which milestone they're celebrating, so this detail is ultimately up to interpretation.

~~~

Part 3.1: The Creation of Modern Zaun (Timeline)

All of the wiki pages I've looked at place Silco at 37-39 in Act 1, and 43-46 in Act 2; and for Vander, 43 in Act 1 and 50 in Act 2 (in the AU/as Warwick). As far as birth years go, this would translate to 944-946 AN for Silco, and 940 AN for Vander.

At the time of The Last Drop's opening, Felicia is pregnant with Vi. That would place this scene in either 966 or 967 AN. I struggled to find an official reference for Arcane character birthdays, but Vi's birthday is very consistently celebrated on December 19th across the fandom, which puts us in early 967. That makes Silco and Vander 21-23 and 27 respectively. Based on what we see of Silco in that scene, I'm inclined to place him at the upper end of that range, or even a year or two older. So more like 39-41 in Act 1 and 46-48 in Act 2.

The Day of Ash is an interesting conundrum. 979 AN, as per the wiki article I found, would make Vi and Powder 12 and 7 respectively. I'm not sure how reliable the source is, and my personal estimate would have been 977-978 AN, factoring in the kids' ages and the time it would take for Silco to rebuild his life from scratch.

Combining all of this information, we get the following timeline:

940 AN: Vander is born

942-944 AN: Silco is born

966-967 AN: The Last Drop is opened

977-979 AN: The Day of Ash

For the next few sections, I'd like to have precise years to focus on, so I'm going to run with these dates:

940 AN: Vander is born. He is 43 / 50.

943 AN: Silco is born. He is 40 / 47.

967 AN: The Last Drop is opened. This marks the birth of modern Zaun.

978 AN: The Day of Ash. Silco is betrayed, and Vander swears off violence.

~~~

Part 3.2: The Creation of Modern Zaun (Early Life of S&V)

Content warning for discussions of slavery/slave labour in this section; I'll mark the paragraph that includes this with ~!!~ at the start just in case anyone wants to skip it.

It's pretty solid canon that Vander and Silco started as miners, and built up their world of Zaun from there. The mining tunnels run all along the fissures, as per this map from the Jinx Fixes Everything minigame:

Figure 9: Map of mining tunnels from Jinx Fixes Everything

I get the impression, based on the prevalence of the tunnels & Silco's dialogue to the Chem-Barons ("We had nothing" / "Have you forgotten where we came from? The mines they had us in?") that the underground, at the time, was mostly just mines.

~!!~ I'm particularly interested in how this fits in with the original League geography of the Sump, given that's where the mines are located. In League, the Sump included a prison mine for "Chemtech compounds", factories, warehouses, and slums where the workers lived. There's one particular factory mentioned which involved "slave labour camps" and "tightly controlled torture chambers". This is a very dark but plausible look into one possibility for the Undercity's past. Since Silco and Vander were said to have grown up in the mines, I assume it's most likely that they were the children of prisoners, rather than prisoners themselves - although it isn't outside the realm of possibility, since Powder's visibly young age did not stop the Enforcers from going after her at the beginning of the show. Alternatively (if we want to assume the slave labour aspect did not exist/was very far in the past) we could just assume Vander and Silco were children of people who worked in the mines, and were essentially born into it.

Regardless, I don't think they had many other options outside of mining, so we can assume that this was much the same for most people living in the Undercity. Something I'm curious about is, with the interpretation that there was still some semblance of a level system in modern Zaun, when and how Entresol and Promenade came about.

My personal assumption for Promenade is that the level existed as a sort of gateway between south Piltover and the underground. The elevator from S1E1 is on this level, and it looks to be in an abandoned house, judging by the stairs, furniture and paintings on the walls. The decor is quite fancy and the people in the paintings are dressed similarly to the Kirammans in their family portraits, which makes me think this was the repurposed home of a wealthy topsider. One possibility is that Promenade held the residences of Piltovan elites who worked close to Zaun (e.g. owned factories, oversaw mining operations). I think it's unlikely that Promenade had anything to do with Silco and Vander's operations, since it's much closer to the surface than where they reside, but their revolution could have been the force that drove many of the topsiders out.

Entresol is where the Lanes and The Last Drop are located, so I'm inclined to assume this was the part that Silco and Vander built. This is also corroborated by the various references to the Lanes in S1E3, which I elaborated on in Part 2.4, that makes it sound like this was the part that they had the most involvement with. This was where both of them ended up living, and Vander says that Silco "had the Lanes' respect", suggesting that this was where they started out, too.

The way Sevika and Felicia both talk about Silco and Vander's work makes it sound like they built the Lanes in a very literal sense. This leaves us with two main questions; 1) What was there before?, and 2) How much of it was built by them?. Unfortunately for us, I don't think there's actually enough in canon to answer either of those questions with any real certainty. The best I can do is suggest possibilities. We do know that there were other parts to the underground outside of the Lanes, so one possibility is that there was already a community inhabiting Entresol that they took over as their own - perhaps a small rebel group, or colonies of Zaunite labourers who lived on that level. These are all the other options I came up with:

There were semi-intact ruins still lying around Entresol that they built out of.

There was a large, empty space in the place that would later become the Lanes. They built on top of this and filled out the entire region.

They literally built the Entresol level themselves. The mining tunnels had been dug out of nothing, and all that was lying on top of them was rock; they quite literally "carve[d] it out of the bedrock", as Felicia's phrasing would imply.

So in summary, I'm imagining that the Sump was the main region of the Undercity at the time, comprising a network of mines where the Grey originated, sewers for wastage from up above, and potentially factories or warehouses as well. Another question is what exactly was being mined here, and again, we can turn to League lore for possible ideas. The prison mines mentioned on the Zaun wiki page were for "Chemtech compounds". Amanda Overton described Silco and Vander as "miners working for topsiders", which makes me wonder - if they were mining for Chemtech compounds - what exactly the topsiders in question wanted to do with those compounds. This brings me back to my long-winded Chemtech musings from Part 1.3. I can think of three primary explanations for this:

The compounds in question could be used for a variety of inventions, not just Chemtech. Perhaps there were elements involved that had to be chemically separated; one of which was safer and used to power Piltover's inventions, while the other was highly toxic and was originally discarded as waste, but later became the basis for Chemtech.

Chemtech was mined and used in smaller doses/quantities in Piltovian inventions, while the people of the Undercity began to use it in larger quantities, harnessing the toxic properties that released the Grey as a byproduct.

Chemtech compounds were one of many things mined, and were used for inventions that were limited to the underground, like mechanical mining and factory tools (drills, bombs, transport, etc.)

Alternatively, if we ignore the mention of Chemtech, we could assume that the underground was rich in natural minerals and resources that Piltovans needed for their inventions. We could also assume they were mining for the other gases and/or liquids that Piltovans used as an energy source (it's mentioned that these came from a "nearby marsh", but I couldn't find an actual canon source for that, so I think it's fine to take some liberties with it). I suspect that there are many other possible explanations, with the foundational principle being that they were mining for materials which the topsiders would then use to boost their own wealth, one way or another.

~~~

Part 3.3: The Creation of Modern Zaun (Golden Age of S&V)

In S1E5, we see an old hideout of Silco and Vander's, with plans for the Nation of Zaun strewn all over the desk and plastered on the walls. I've compiled a list of everything we see in that hideout and where it's all located:

CEILING/TOP

Pipework

Low wooden beams

Lantern box hanging from the ceiling

LEFT OF THE ENTRANCE

Boxes/crates

Barrels

Mining gloves

Shovel

Something coiled and hanging on the left wall - perhaps a rope? Or a hose?

RIGHT OF THE ENTRANCE

Small wooden table

Vanity next to the coat rack

Another shovel

Time-worn plans covering the right wall (maps, tables, lots of illegible writing)

BACK OF THE ROOM

Left corner, storage unit/bookshelf (books, boxes, small lopsided paper bag, cylindrical flask or thick drink bottle?)

Left of centre, jackets and hats

Centre, flag with green, red and gold detailing, NoZ logo in gold

Right corner, coat rack and a ledge with hangers and a kettle

CENTRE OF THE ROOM

Desk (more books, flask, glass, tobacco pipe, letter)

Another crate

Knocked-over stool

Tall chair (for the vanity?)

TRIVIA

Walls are all boarded up with wooden planks and metal reinforcements

Vander’s number: 135 714 (from the canon scene)

Silco’s number: 132 219 (loosely interpreted from the very grainy image in the artbook)

I think it's safe to say that they started devising their vision of Zaun in the mines, with comprehensive plans for the nation that include maps and diagrams, a flag with a logo, and many long pages of writing. I'm guessing they were living here for a while, judging by the flask, the kettle, the paper bag that looks like the kind used to carry food, and the clothes hung up on the wall. The furniture is an interesting detail; I'm struggling to imagine that they got away with dragging all of that furniture down to the mines, which makes me wonder if it was there before. Perhaps it used to be someone's office down there? Or some kind of bunker/storm shelter? I have no clear answer for this so I guess it's entirely up to the imagination.

Then at some point, they got out of the mines and began a smuggling operation to make money. I assume this is the era Vi was talking about when she said the break-in was "the kind of job Vander would've pulled when he was [their] age". I'm not sure exactly how reliable this statement is, or whether it even really tells us anything; Vander could've snuck away from the mines to steal from topside when he was a teenager, before he had even developed the goal of an independent nation, or Vi could've heard rumours about Vander's past that weren't entirely accurate. Still, it's the best we have to go on, and if we assume this references Vander and Silco's smuggling operation, it would imply that they started relatively young. In my opinion, 16-year-old Vi saying "our age" could imply anywhere from about 15-18 realistically, and that gives us a maximum of about a decade between the start of their smuggling ventures and The Last Drop opening. We also have to factor in Silco being 2-3 years younger, which means I'm more inclined to assume Vander was an older teen, if not already in his 20s (unless we're meant to assume they were just extremely young when they started all this, but I think that's unlikely, given they already look like adults while still working in the mines). For the sake of the timeline, we'll say they started their smuggling operation somewhere between the late 950s and early 960s AN.

We also don't know for sure when the Lanes were actually built; whether they started with The Last Drop and built everything around it, or built the Lanes and opened The Last Drop as a finishing touch of sorts. Felicia's lines in the flashback - "You two are going to figure this Zaun thing out. I don't care if you have to carve it out of the bedrock covered in blisters." - definitely make it sound like The Last Drop was built first, and everything else followed. Amanda Overton also specified that the smuggling operation helped Vander and Silco make money, so it seems like they were selling their stolen goods (to topsiders?) and running a back-alley black market operation until they had enough to actually start building.

There were about 10-11 years between the opening of The Last Drop and the estrangement of Silco from his allies, which they spent building the Lanes. I was initially thinking this sounded insane, but from this Reddit thread, I gathered that it's actually a fairly reasonable timeline - especially if we assume that they had others helping them with the physical construction, which I'm certain they would've. One of the commenters in the thread brought up the city of Brasilia, which was a planned city built over the span of about 3.5 years. It has a total federal district area of 5,802km^2 built by about 60,000 people (not sure exactly how much of that area was actually built up; the Demographia World Urban Areas Report 2023 counts a total urban area of 963km^2, similar to the size of Buffalo NY).

There's another post I found by a Redditor who calculated the area and population of Piltover and Zaun using the height of streetlamps as a reference. These totals came out to 5.30km^2 (~100,000 population) and 4.12km^2 (~400,000 population) for Zaun. This was calculated under the assumption that Zaun and Piltover each covered one region on either side of the bridge, so the sizes might differ under the model with Zaun being mostly underneath. However, in this case, the Entresol level alone would be even smaller than 4.12km^2, so the task sounds overall very manageable. Worth noting that I think it's unlikely that Zaun was a precisely planned city like Brasilia was, and more likely that they built up the city around themselves, in response to the growing population and demands for facilities. Although we do see very thorough-looking diagrams on the walls of Vander and Silco's hideout, so I suppose you could reasonably assume any degree of planning.

In canon, we do see some glimpses into the post-Last Drop era through the sequence of Warwick/Vander's memories in S1E6. Here are all the memories we see, in order:

Vander and Silco in the mines

Silco sitting at a bar with a book open in his hands

The flashback from S2E5 with Felicia, Silco and Vander toasting in the bar

Young Vander and Benzo leaning over a counter; both look to be around the same age as they were in Act 1, maybe slightly younger

Felicia pregnant with Powder, and a man (presumably Connol) holding child Vi

Powder, Vi, Mylo and Claggor all standing in a group with their backs turned

Vi sparring with Vander, starting around the age she was in Act 1 and then morphing into her younger child self

Felicia and Connol come home with their mining hats and gloves, and Vi and Powder get excited to see them

Vi tries on the mining glove Felicia gives her

Felicia and Powder cook together

Felicia cuts Vi's hair

Felicia, Powder and Vi chase each other around a post

Felicia measures Vi's height

These being Vander's memories, it seems like the kids had a much more resonant impact on him at the time than Silco or the fight for independence did. This explains a lot with regards to the difference in ideologies that eventually divided Vander and Silco. We also see that Felicia and Connol were still working in the mines when the kids were young, implying that Silco and Vander did not shut down mining operations (perhaps they cleaned it up so the work was less dangerous?). The logo for the Nation of Zaun that we see on the flag & on Silco's notebook doesn't come up ever again, and seems to be absent from the modern timeline.

I'm guessing the focus during this period was on the physical construction of the Lanes, and accumulating more and more capital to distribute among the people of the underground. It definitely seems like they were intending to go to war for their independence, judging by Vander's assumption in S1E3 that Silco wanted to use Shimmer to start a war - as well as Vander telling Vi that he "was angry" when he was younger and wanted to fight for change (S1E2). The flag/logo in their hideout was presumably something they planned to fly once they had achieved an independent Nation of Zaun.

They never did end up engaging in a full-on war though, based on various context clues and dialogue exchanges implying that a) Vander and Silco's revolution was never successful, and b) war between Piltover and Zaun is only hypothetical, rather than something that has happened once before. Vander also indicates that the Day of Ash was a one-off incident ("we crossed that bridge once before" in S1E2), which is consistent with how peaceful his early memories are. I presume they wanted to focus on establishing Zaun as a thriving community first before escalating the issue with Piltover; they couldn't exactly fight for independence if there was no nation to fight for in the first place. They most likely didn't have the numbers to form an actual army either, especially not with the Lanes alone.

Eventually, Vander and Silco incited the bridge riot as what was meant to be the start of a bigger revolution, "thinking things could change". The riot was a massive failure for Zaun, and most of the fighters ended up dead. Vander decided that he had too much to lose and attempted to drown Silco to end the cycle of violence. I tend to assume this happened before Vander picked up the kids, but if you want to stay as loyal as possible to the creators' comments, I think this is a very plausible theory that explains the weird timeline and visual continuity errors.

~~~

Part 3.4: The Creation of Modern Zaun (Aftermath of S&V)

Bonus section to discuss my thoughts on what exactly happened to Silco after the Day of Ash; most of this is conjecture rather than fact.

It's pretty obvious what Vander got up to after the drowning attempt. He made a deal with Grayson to keep Zaunites off of Piltover's streets in return for peace. Much of the infrastructure in The Lanes was built during Vander and Silco's era, but I imagine construction continued into this era as well. However, any progress towards independence stagnated under Vander's leadership.

As for Silco, it seems most likely that he met up with Singed pretty soon after the betrayal. There seems to be a distinct lack of trust between them - Singed hasn't told Silco what his true motivations are, per him vaguely telling Silco "I, too, once had a daughter" (S1E8), and Silco tells Jinx that "you're the only one I can trust with this" when she suggests that he give the Hex crystal to Singed instead (S1E5). Thus, I'm inclined to believe it's a purely practical partnership, unlike Silco's relationship with Vander which was much more personal.

Silco's intention with Shimmer, as he tells Vander, was to mass-produce it at such a scale that it would scare Piltover out of entering the Lanes (many of the wiki pages say he wanted to start a war with Shimmer-enhanced soldiers, but he outright tells Vander that this is not the case). It could be that he wanted a bargaining chip too, given that "discontinue the production of Shimmer" was one of Jayce's conditions for independence in S1E9. So, Silco and Singed joined forces at some point to mass-produce Shimmer, Silco used a variant in the meantime to keep his eye infection at bay, and that brings us to the canon timeline.

I want to look a little bit into Singed and his past, as I'm very curious to know where Silco's vision fits in with Singed's motivations. We don't know exactly how much of Dr. Reveck/Orianna's story translates into Arcane, but we do know the following:

Singed was Dr. Reveck, a "revered academy alchemist" in Piltover. His work was "unparalleled", but he was dismissed from the academy with "no mention of his crime" (from Caitlyn; S2E5).

Everything he's done since his dismissal was to cure his daughter. This included the creation of Shimmer, which he did using Rio (the giant purple creature in the cave) as a vessel through which to sustain the regenerative mutation he wanted to harness. When questioned by Ambessa, he says that he's trying to cure "death".

He runs his operations out of the cave in Zaun where Rio is kept. Viktor worked with him briefly as a child, but became horrified by the sight of Rio connected to a series of wires and clearly in pain, so he left. Later, he is seen working out of several locations that all look slightly different (the place where Warwick is created, and Silco's first office under the river), so either the cave is massive with many rooms, or he has several different HQs for his experiments.

Singed uses Chemtech and Shimmer for all his experiments, often a combination of the two. It seems like Chemtech has the potential to sustain life, and Shimmer has the potential to enhance it.

In comparison, these are the main details of Orianna's origin story in League of Legends:

Corin Reveck was famous for making artificial limbs with intricate brass designs.

His daughter, Orianna, was his apprentice. She was adventurous and inquisitive, and wanted to explore the world outside of Piltover, but Dr. Reveck told her it was too dangerous.

An explosion in Zaun ruptured a chemical line and released clouds of poisonous gas. Orianna wanted to help the victims, but Dr. Reveck wouldn’t let her.

Orianna snuck away at night and helped fix the damage, repairing respirators and installing esophilters (described on the wiki as “a Chemtech augmentation that allows people to breathe noxious fumes safely”). She offered her own mask to a child who was struggling to breathe.

After returning to Piltover, Orianna became terminally ill, lungs ravaged by the toxic fumes. Dr. Reveck built her a new set of lungs, and as the poison spread throughout her body, he continued to build new implants and prosthetics for her until most of her body was mechanical.

The process cost Dr. Reveck his entire fortune, which forced them to relocate to Zaun.

Eventually Dr. Reveck fell ill, and she gave up her last remaining human organ for him - her heart.

There are obvious changes that would have to be made to this story to fit with Arcane lore. For example, Singed was already living in Zaun by the time he met up with Viktor, well before Orianna was revived. It also doesn't seem like he built her "piece by piece" as stated in the original story, instead keeping her alive and unconscious until he was certain he could save her. However, I think a lot of these details can be integrated with Arcane lore, and I have some ideas about exactly where it fits in.

As with all things, I want to figure out a timeline first before anything else. This is what we know so far:

Late 950s-960s AN: Silco and Vander start their smuggling operation with the goal of establishing the Lanes

961 AN: Viktor is born

967 AN: The Last Drop is opened

978 AN: Silco is betrayed by Vander

983 AN: Silco and Singed are working together by this point

I found no information on how old Viktor was when he met Singed, so I'm going to estimate around 12-13 judging by his appearance and voice. This would mean they met around 973-974 AN, which matches up with the timeline, given that Zaun looks quite built-up where we see other children playing (although I'm pretty sure this takes place on the Promenade level? Since it seems to be in direct sunlight). It seems like Singed is a fair way into his venture when Viktor runs into him; he's managed to cultivate the mutation he is looking for, and he has a laboratory of sorts that he operates inside the cave, with a vast array of potions, many different vats and test tubes with mutilated animals inside, and a network of pipes and wires that power his equipment. From this, I presume he's been at it for at least a few years.

With this timeline, Orianna would have fallen ill somewhere in the late 960s, right at the height of Vander and Silco's golden age when they were still building the Lanes. An explosion that ruptured a chemical line is an extremely plausible event to happen during this era, for any number of reasons; a riot in the underground, Enforcers trying to halt the construction of Zaun, explosions used to clear rocks so they had a clear path to build, etc etc. It could've been any number of things. Orianna went down there, against her father's orders, and her lungs were ravaged by the gas. Singed started to focus his research on keeping Orianna's condition stable and devising a cure by testing on animals. His unethical activities were discovered, and he was kicked out of the academy in the early 970s for his experiments. He permanently relocated to Zaun.

Sometime after Silco was betrayed, he and Singed met. I am quite confident that Silco was the one to approach Singed, and my primary justification for this comes from Singed's conversation with Viktor in S1E7. Viktor tries to pretend that he wants to use Shimmer on plants, and Singed expresses that he knows what Viktor is really there for, by saying "I know the look of a doomed man". I am convinced that he is talking about Silco here. From what we see of Singed's past before meeting Silco, he had only experimented on animals, and the only human involved before Viktor was his daughter. None of that would justify him "know[ing] the look of a doomed man". I don't think he's talking about himself either, since his injuries don't appear to be fatal and we never see him using himself as a test subject.

So I think Silco somehow found out about his operations and came to him seeking help after the betrayal. Silco had no power without Vander - all their friends/allies that we know of were either dead (Felicia and Connol) or took Vander's side (Benzo and Sevika) - and after being exposed to the toxins in the Pilt, he definitely would have been at risk for a much worse infection if left untreated. He was already taking his injections when we first see him in canon, and it actually looks like Singed might have even performed surgery of some kind on Silco, given that he has both eyelids in the actual drowning scene but one of them is missing later on.

This also helps explain what Singed was getting out of the deal, since Silco couldn't offer him anything tangible at the time; he essentially acted as Singed's first human test subject for a cure. We don't know if Silco's early injections involved Shimmer though, or if he was using some other temporary cure (Chemtech?) that Singed came up with for him before Shimmer had been perfected. Singed mentions to Viktor that he has several different variants of Shimmer, and he was already working on it for at least a little while before Silco came to him, so I'm assuming it was probably one of these variants. If that's the case, I'd guess that Silco is using a stronger dosage after the timeskip, since he responds to it differently (in S1E1 he injects it very calmly with no visible reaction at all, while later on in the series, his body seizes up and he looks to be in pain).

I'm interested in what comes after that, too. I could absolutely understand Singed agreeing to help Silco out after the betrayal, since Silco is in a similar position to Viktor at that point, and a very valuable tool in Singed's research. What I'm curious about is why Singed then agrees to mass-produce Shimmer and "flood the lanes" with it, as it's often described. These are the two explanations I came up with:

Singed wanted to explore the effects of Shimmer on the "average person", so to speak. Flooding the Lanes with Shimmer means putting it in the hands of anyone and everyone, which means ample test subjects for Singed to observe and learn from. The main issue I can think of with this theory is that Singed does all of his research from inside his lab, and one of the key things he notes about himself is that he's a loner, so it doesn't seem like he was going out there and doing field research. There could have been ways for him to learn from afar, though.

Silco offered to make Singed rich. Silco knew Shimmer could turn the tides back in his favour, and he could have tempted Singed to join him with the promise of everything they could eventually have. Early in Season 1, they share an office space underwater, and they have many giant factories with regular shipments in and out of Piltover after the timeskip. We can only assume that both of them became wealthy from this, with Singed making enough money to continue his research, and Silco making enough to build the version of the underground that he always envisioned.

And finally, I want to jump back to the aforementioned discussions about Chemtech, because something is still bugging me about it. If Chemtech existed before Hextech, and it's supposed to be this brilliant but toxic formula at the heart of Zaun's inventions, why didn't they ever weaponise it against Piltover? We know that Jinx uses Chemtech for her bombs, and Renni is seen using a chainsaw powered by Chemtech - and we also know that Silco and Vander both wanted to fight Piltover. So if Chemtech is a power source exclusive to Zaun, why didn't they mass-produce Chemtech weapons or release toxic gases into the streets of Piltover as part of their fight for independence? And after the timeskip, when Silco is working on his own, why did he focus on the production of Shimmer when Chemtech already existed?

By the time we catch up with everyone in canon in S1E1, Chemtech is very widespread. It looks like the Undercity is essentially built on it, with green lights everywhere and massive structures powered entirely by chemicals. I think it's reasonable to assume that Vander and Silco were the ones who facilitated the widespread use of Chemtech. This would fill in a lot of the gaps with regards to the precise timeline of Chemtech usage; it could have been something they once used sparingly, for things like mining equipment and light sources, but when Silco and Vander built the Undercity, it became a staple of Zaunite infrastructure. Since there was a long period over which they were smuggling goods out of Piltover and preparing to start building their nation, they could have also used that time to start developing Chemtech. I'm guessing they would've recruited someone to do this for them, since neither Vander nor Silco seem to have a knack for invention.

This leaves me with three theories with regards to the potential for Chemtech to become a weapon:

Theory 1 - They did try to use it against Piltover, but their attempts were always unsuccessful (e.g. the Day of Ash riot).

This one is pretty self-explanatory. They tried to use Chemtech weapons against Piltover, but the Enforcers were just too powerful. There are two main issues with this theory; the first being that we don't know how exactly the Enforcers would have overpowered them without Hextech, and the second being that, when we see Silco and Vander on the bridge during that riot, there's no sign of Chemtech's trademark green. Silco has a very standard-looking Molotov cocktail that produces orange flames, and Vander uses his mining gloves to beat up the Enforcers using brute force. I suppose the Molotov could have been filled with chemicals, so it's still an option.

Theory 2 - Chemtech isn't powerful enough on its own.

I believe this is the most plausible theory of the three. Chemtech is an energy source, good for powering things like light sources and machinery, but in itself, we don't actually see any evidence to suggest that it's useful on a larger scale. Powder's bombs don't work when she's younger, despite being powered by Chemtech - and even then, Chemtech is never the main feature anyway, with her bombs either being smoke-powered or filled with nails. In S1E4, Councilor Hoskel describes Zaun's "ingenuity over the years", with specific mentions of "Shimmer" and "body replacements"; I would assume, if Zaun really was capable of making deadly weapons with Chemtech, he would have mentioned that as well. Chemtech does appear to be the sole power source behind Renni's chainsaw, but mass-producing chainsaws as a war weapon is not the most practical nor smart strategy. Chemtech just isn't effective enough to make weapons that can be used to fight Piltover with, or on a large enough scale to put them in the hands of average Zaunites.

A major point in favour of this theory is the fact that no one in the Undercity seems to have guns except Jinx, which I find really interesting. During the bridge riot, all of the Enforcers are armed with guns, while Vander fights with his fists, and Silco fights with the aforementioned Molotov cocktail. Later, we see that Sevika and Vi also fight with their fists, and the Firelights use hoverboards and spears. Vander has a dagger which Silco later uses as his own melee weapon of choice. So why does no one in Zaun have guns? Surely Jinx can't be the only person who's ever thought to make her own? The answer has to be that they don't have access to them; either the money to buy them or the materials to make them. The Enforcers are always armed with them, and families like the Kirammans are known to hunt recreationally, which seems to demonstrate that guns are a mark of wealth and status. Jinx is only able to make hers once she's living with Silco, who could easily source the supplies for her.

Theory 3 - They did manage to successfully weaponise Chemtech against Piltover, but Piltover was able to harness the chemicals for themselves before Zaun could take advantage of it.

We know in canon that Silco's goal was to use Shimmer as something powerful enough to scare Piltover off their streets. I think it could be interesting if this was initially the plan for Chemtech, but the council caught wind of this dangerous invention, and commissioned the academy to work on a solution - just like Silco does with Jinx when Hextech becomes an issue. Piltover created Chemtech weapons of their own, so that Zaun would no longer have a technological advantage.

This is where Singed comes in. I think it could be interesting if Singed was the alchemist recruited to work on Chemtech; perhaps even Heimerdinger too, given that Singed mentions them having worked together. Singed managed to extract the chemicals used for Chemtech and create defensive measures against it for Piltover, thus explaining why he had such a good handle on it when he transferred his operations to Zaun. Either he managed to safely extract it, and it was subsequently used for smaller inventions in Piltover (thus explaining the green lamp and the pneuma tube gas in Grayson's office), or he made weapons that were just as toxic and dangerous as those in Zaun, which had to be locked away in case of absolute emergency (this would make sense if we assume Heimerdinger had a part in it; there's no way he would let them use it freely). This theory also explains why Singed would be especially cautious about letting Orianna visit the underground, if he was working with Chemtech himself at the time and knew how dangerous it could be.

Here's my proposal for a rough timeline, using this theory:

Late 950s-960s AN: Silco and Vander start their smuggling operation with the goal of establishing the Lanes.

Early 960s AN: Chemical compounds are smuggled out of the mines, and a group of rebels start using it to develop new inventions, per Silco and Vander's plan.

967 AN: The Last Drop is opened; Vander and Silco start actually building the Lanes. Piltover catches wind of the construction and tries to send Enforcers down there to stop them, but they use newly-forged Chemtech weapons to keep them out. Enforcers are ordered by the council to stay out of the underground due to the danger. Singed (and possibly Heimerdinger) starts working with the compounds mined for Chemtech to develop stronger defensive measures.

Late 960s AN: During construction of the Lanes, something goes wrong that results in the release of toxic gases from Chemtech (a "ruptured chemical line", according to Orianna's League lore story). Singed is the first in Piltover to learn about it, and Orianna overhears. He warns her not to go down there; she does not listen. She goes to help the victims, and falls gravely ill. Singed continues his Chemtech research as authorised, but starts a side project using the chemicals to develop a cure, with a giant vat of liquid to keep her alive in the meantime.

Early 970s AN: Singed's unethical experiments are discovered, and he is booted out of the academy and stripped of his status. He permanently relocates to Zaun.

978 AN: The Day of Ash; Vander and Silco lead an army across the bridge, Enforcers fight back, disaster strikes. It's the first fight for which Piltover brings out the locked-away Chemtech weapons, which is what makes it so explosive (we see Enforcers' guns explode on impact in S1E1, which they don't seem to do any other time).

978 AN (cont'd): Silco finds out about Singed's research somehow and they meet up. Silco knows that Chemtech is no longer an advantage for the Undercity, so he seeks a new solution. Meanwhile, Vander makes his deal with Grayson, and Chemtech weapons on both sides are destroyed.

983 AN: Singed tests his newest Shimmer variant on a rat. He determines that it's now adequate for a human to drink.

This theory does have a few minor holes - Hoskel's line in S1E4 again being one of them, as well as the fact that Silco doesn't consider the possibility of weaponising Hextech until after Jinx steals the crystal - but I find it to be the most intriguing, and could be a compelling way of tying all these stories together.

~~~

Part 4: Wrap-Up

PHEW. We've finally reached the Sump. If you read this entire post, congrats on making it all the way down here! This was over 12k words total so certainly a behemoth to get through; thank you so much for sticking with me <3

I wanted to include one final summary of the timeline, colour-coded to indicate where all this information comes from. I’ve used blue to indicate origins in League of Legends lore, green to indicate Arcane lore (according to the wiki), and red to indicate that I extrapolated the dates myself. In case anyone has trouble distinguishing red and green, I’ve also included an asterisk (*) next to all the reds.

6000-5000 BN: Westward Migration. Humans began to migrate towards the Shuriman Continent. One of the new cities founded was a sea port called Oshra Va’Zaun.

2000-3 BN: Various Wars. Several wars happened during this time; Janna protected Oshra Va’Zaun from every conflict.

676 AN: Heimerdinger is born. He is 307 (Act 1) / 314 (Act 2).

772 AN: The Collapse. The people of Oshra Va’Zaun attempted to crack open an area of the land using Chemtech bombs. The bombs triggered a series of earthquakes that destroyed the isthmus.

790 AN: Piltover is Established. The ruins of Oshra Va’Zaun underwent extensive reconstruction, and the new city of Piltover was built over the Pilt River.

940 AN: Vander is born. He is 43 / 50.

*943 AN: Silco is born. He is 40 / 47.

*Late 950s-Early 960s AN: Smuggling begins. Vander and Silco start their smuggling operation.

959 AN: Jayce is born. He is 24 / 31.

961 AN: Viktor is born. He is 22 / 29.

966 AN: Caitlyn is born. She is 17 / 24.

966-67 AN: Felicia-Vander-Silco scene. A milestone of Zaun's development is celebrated in The Last Drop.

967 AN: Vi is born. She is 16 / 23.

972 AN: Jinx is born. She is 11 / 18.

*978 AN: Silco is betrayed. Beginning of Vander's solo reign and an armistice between Piltover and Zaun.

983 AN: Events of Season 1 Act 1. The Kiramman warehouse is raided, Hextech is invented, and Powder accidentally kills most of her family.

990 AN: Events of Season 1 Act 2. The main Arcane timeline starts here.

I cannot emphasise enough that I put this all together on my own with zero knowledge of League lore going into it, so there are bound to be gaps and inaccuracies somewhere along the way. This is by no means intended as the be-all and end-all of Arcane lore guides, but hopefully there are things in here that someone else will find helpful!

Good luck with your fanworks ventures :-)

[postcardsfromheapside]

I thought I was done, but no, like Lewis Black I return to shout again.

I feel like a lot of you are upset because Veilguard raised a lot of complicated questions about how history is indeed actually unreliable and religion can be based entirely on a lie, and maybe gods or a creator doesn't exist and the universe could be unfeeling and unthinking and how do you square that with the need to be good people who take care of each other, especially knowing that in the past people WEREN'T and DIDN'T and it makes you uncomfortable.

And it's not the job of the developers to answer those questions for you. They presented them in the form of banter and cut scenes between companions and you are supposed to interrogate that with yourself. In the outside world. The game is merely telling a story. And it tells that story well. The rest of it is literally up to you.

I did see right after release that people were upset about how questions about the elven gods and Harding's questions about the Maker were handled but the game is not obligated to make you feel like there are answers to these complicated topics. You actually have to do some thinking, and some of it applies to the choices in-game, but the rest of it is meant for your own brain.

And even then. Veilguard is ultimately not about these complicated questions, even though they inevitably get asked because they're part and parcel with what the group is dealing with philosophically in the immediate.

Veilguard is a story about a strike force trying to prevent two absolutely insane beings from taking over Thedas, and preventing a third from letting his grief and regret destroy it afterwards.

*Inquisition* was a story about building a religiously motivated army to handle an event no one had any information on, and because it happened in a religious nation at a religious site, it was treated as a religious event. Maybe if it had happened in Nevarra, a Fade expert like Emmrich would have said "wow, so, not so much Andraste but x, y, or z” but that's not what happened, and Solas kept his lying liar's mouth shut and a religious army built itself up and gained political power (by the way Rook has zero armies or clout, Rook is not an Inquisitor) and now a lot of you are comparing two completely different games with two completely different regions and two completely different events.

Why are you comparing religious notes. Why do you care if Veilguard has many fewer mentions of the Maker or lady Jesus. It's literally a different story, about a scrappy bunch of weirdos, and they talk about their relevant religious nonsense *when it matters*.

[youryurigoddess]

After a brief but necessary interlude, we’re back to clowning about the ongoing Good Omens production, this time in a slightly more analytic fashion. Appropriate level of discretion is even more advisable — due to the obvious sensitivity of this material, please tag it accordingly and share only with the fans consenting to know potential spoilers.

The Teal Bookshop (and yes, I’m trying to be clever here — the walls of Till’s Bookshop in Edinburgh are painted in a dangerously similar shade to Teal We Meet Again) is not a modernised or parallel-dimension iteration of the A. Z. Fell and Co. Building, but an entirely separate establishment located in a short distance from it.

How do we know it? The sheer fact that the crew decided to film it on location instead of redressing the Soho set is certainly a clue, but it’s not all. The street signs used for the filming on Monday were labelled as Nannette Street and Oldburgh Street, belonging to the City of Westminster Borough (W1) in London. Of course, neither actually exists on the map, but just like Whickber Street is an in-universe equivalent of real-life Berwick Street, these two must also have their respective identities.

Option one: Nannette Street is an in-universe equivalent of Winnett Street.

In this scenario, the Teal Bookshop’s suggested location in real-life London could become 77 Wardour Street (remember how God likes Her sevens!), which happens to be the address of the Duke of Wellington, a similarly painted, spacious, two-storey Soho gay bar.

Photos courtesy of @rhosmeinir (left) and Nadia M via Google Maps (right).

This would make some sense orientation-wise: across the street from the bookshop set we could spot an entrance to the local park and a small park booth marked as “Soho Coffee”, whereas a London passersby would face St Anne's Churchyard, also known as St Anne's Gardens, a public park on Wardour Street.

Everyone focused on Aziraphale and his hair, but the coffee stand behind him clearly shows where we are in this scene! Courtesy of alphaleym on Twitter.

The whole original church was left burned out on the night of 24 September 1940 during the Blitz, apart from the tower, which was left derelict. The remains of the eastern wall, the only significant parts left standing, were demolished thirteen years later, the site deconsecrated and prepared for sale, and the parish amalgamated with its neighbours. The religious complex standing in the same place nowadays was opened only in 1991.

Option two: Nannette Street is an in-universe equivalent of Manette Street in Soho, named after a character from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. You know, the book that Aziraphale was actively selling in the 1859 scene cut from S1 and known nowadays as the “street urchin scene”.

Manette Street is a small thoroughfare that connects Charing Cross Road to Greek Street. Established in the 1690s, a bit after Aziraphale bought land in the area, it was originally called Rose Street before being renamed after Dr Manette, a character from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities who is described in the novel as living on a quiet street corner “not far from Soho Square” and spent eighteen years in secret as a prisoner in the Bastille prior to the French Revolution.

The Hercules Pillars, bar mentioned by Dickens in his 1859 novel, and a façade of the temporarily closed Simmons bar at 7 Greek Street with a visible entrance to Manette Street as the covered walkway on the left. (Photos via MyLondon and Campaign for Real Ale.)

Now, this street has some historical significance concerning anarchist movements in the 19th century. The Rose Street Club, which once occupied premises here, was renowned as a gathering place for radicals from various nations. And these crumbs of context seemingly strengthening my old theories about Aziraphale eventually considering revolution instead of reform in Heaven are not even the most interesting here.

Remember that time when I hyperfixated on Aziraphale’s desk contents enough to decipher a random historical document and proceed to research it further on location in London? And then found an unexpected connection between said document and another one in the bookshop, discovering a possible Aziraphale’s secret investigation?

A historic plate on Greek Street marking the buildings owned by Josiah Wedgwood and his company.

Manette Street branches off Greek Street, Soho, exactly between houses numbered respectively 6 and 7, right next to the epicentre of these theories — Wedgwood’s showrooms located at 12-13 Greek Street with the adjacent area formerly known as Wedgwood Mews, currently James Court. Conveniently, there’s also a public park in the area, Soho Square.

The wind of change for this neighbourhood came with the arrival of Foyles bookstore in 1904. Its owners, brothers William and Gilbert Foyle, rebuilt the southside of Manette Street to expand the bookstore in 1916 and again in 1929. In the result, it was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf length, at 30 miles (48 km), and of the number of titles on display.

Foyles Bookshop, corner of Manette Street and Charing Cross Road as seen from the latter, London, 5 November 1955.

Foyles moved out the shop to its new home further down the road in June 2014, and the family company itself was soon sold to Waterstones. As part of a large redevelopment, the whole site was cleared, and a new and quite distinctive office block was created — and in doing so, also the new courtyard and alleyway, which design are somewhat reminiscent of the yet undiscovered parts of the S2 Soho set behind the Dirty Donkey.

Assuming that we know where we are at this point, let’s move on to the next question: what can Aziraphale and Crowley be doing here? Looking for a specific book, perhaps? Like the one Crowley appears to be transporting in some of the BTS shots? Let me know what you think, just remember to hide your spoilers!

[hawkatana]

So, given everything that's happened in recent hours, I thought I might give people who don't know about Gundam some stuff to learn about. Hopefully I can give a balanced and not-racist take like some people.

What is Gundam?

Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino with help by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and animated by the studio Sunrise (currently Bandai Namco Animation, though I refuse to call them that), the original Mobile Suit Gundam released in 1979 to initially-limited success, though would gain popularity through a combination of fujoshis shipping the characters, the sale of plastic model kits referred to as "Gunpla" and a recut of the series into three compilation movies throughout the early 80's. And as of 2024 is the 66th highest-grossing media franchise of all time, beating out Scooby Doo, Minecraft and the Simpsons.

Also, I'm pretty sure it's what sparked Japanese sci-fi's obsession with O'Neill Cylinders.

The original anime takes place in the year 0079 of the Universal Century, where the Principality of Zeon: a nation composed of orbital space colonies declares a war of independence against the Earth Federation. This "One Year War" has already claimed half the human population by series start and is waged through the use of "Mobile Suits": bipedal mecha powered by a fusion reactor capable of effectively fighting out in the reaches of space.

Main character Amuro Ray is the son of a Federation engineer who lives in an out-of-the-way space colony, though soon finds his home under attack by a Zeon infiltration. After finding the secret Mobile Suit project his father was working on: the RX-78-2 Gundam, he fights off the Zeon invaders, though finds himself and a bunch of other kids conscripted by the Federation to fight the forces of Zeon aboard the ship the White Base. Throughout his journey, Amuro and the Gundam fight many battles against Zeon, including against their mysterious masked ace pilot Char Aznable.

The series was responsible for the codification (but not creation, people get this wrong all the time) of the "Real Robot" subgenre of mecha, where the robots were relatively more realistic and used as weapons of war as opposed to the more fantastical "Super Robot" subgenre pioneered by Mazinger Z and Getter Robo.

A major theme of the show, and the franchise as a whole is "War is bad", as demonstrated through this meme:

Yes, this is the original version of this meme format.

Anyway, Tomino, a renowned pacifist who grew up in the shadow of Japan's involvement in WW2 tried to use his platform as an anime director to try and tell a story that would get people to realise war's futility and brutality.

So I hear you asking, "That's nice and all, but what about the space lesbians who beat Destiel on their home turf?" Well, let's get into that.

What is the Witch From Mercury?

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, or "G-Witch" for short is one of the more recent entries in the Gundam Franchise and a (very) loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Set in the year 122 Ad Stella, the solar system is under the de facto control of the Benerit Group: a megacorporation with borderline-medieval internal politics that maintains a system of capitalism that benefits Spacians at the expense of those who live on Earth.

Main heroine Suletta Mercury enrolls at Asticassia School of Technology owned by the Benrit Group at the behest of her mother: CEO Prospera Mercury of the Mercury-based Shin Sei Development Corporation, and wins a Mobile Suit duel against a bully in her own MS: the Gundam Aerial. This however means she has now won the hand in marriage of daughter of the Benerit Group CEO: Miorine Rembran, beginning a series of consequences that shape the very political landscape of the solar system.

G-Witch was a massive hit, both critically and commercially. The first episode: the Witch and the Bride attracting record numbers for the studio and the Gunpla kit for the Aerial is currently the best-selling Gunpla kit ever.

Contrary to popular belief, G-Witch is not the first piece of Gundam media to feature a female protagonist. That honour would go to the 2002 Japan-only manga École du Ciel, nor would it have the first queer main character, which goes to 1999's Turn-A Gundam (and if you were to ask any fan of the series, they'd so it goes back to the very beginning). But it became notable for its lesbian representation in anime (in spite of Sunrise's attempts to downplay it, to the anger of the director, writer, producer, artists, animators, cast, fans and even their own parent company Bandai Namco who forced them to back off).

One thing I need to clarify: You don't need to have watched the original series to enjoy G-Witch. They're not even in the same continuity.

So if you're interested in the series and you've only watched G-Witch, I'll give out three recommendations for you all to enjoy:

Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Gundam 00 takes place in the year 2307 (the only series to use our own calendar), where the world is divided between three global superpowers: The Union of Free & Solar Nations (The Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Japan), the Human Reform League (China, South, East, Southeast and Central Asia) and the Advanced European Union (all of Europe, including all of Russia west of the Urals) who each control a space elevator near the equator and wage proxy-wars in Africa and the Middle-East over Earth's dwindling resources. This eventually culminates in the emergence of Celestial Being: a terrorist group consisting of Setsuna F. Seiei, Lockon Stratos, Allelujah Haptism and Tierria Erde, all of whom use powerful "Gundam" Mobile Suits and try to forcefully impose global peace on the Earth.

00 is pretty slow-paced and is more about the world than the individual characters, but said characters are really well-written, especially the characters from the three power blocs who are the de facto protagonists as they try to stop what are in their eyes a bunch of crazed terrorists preaching a hypocritical and incoherent ideology of "peace through force".

And to address the elephant in the room, this series is VERY post-9/11. Constant talks about terrorism, proxy-conflicts in the global south (especially the Middle-East), religious extremism, dwindling resources and the wars fought over them. While the franchise has always been political and of-its-time, you can just tell 00 was made in the mid-2000's. Again, it's good. But just something to keep in mind.

Turn-A Gundam

Turn-A Gundam is one of the weirder elements of the franchise for a myriad of reasons. Not the least of which being its unique setting taking inspiration from the famous sci-fi novel War of the Worlds.

In the Year 2345 of the Correct Century, human civilisation is at a level of technology reminiscent of the late-19th/early 20th centuries, save for the Moonrace on... well, the moon. As part of their queen Diana Soreil's plan to reintegrate both Lunar and Terran societies, several scouts are sent to the planet to set up their return to the planet. One such scout: Loran Cehack integrates into Terran society as a driver for the wealthy Heim family, though at a coming of age ceremony for the family's second daughter, a member of the Moonrace attacks the technologically-inferior Terrans. However, a mysterious mustached statue breaks apart to reveal a "White Doll": the Turn-A Gundam, allowing Loran to fend off the invaders. rest of the series becomes more of a mystery to how the supposedly-peace loving Moonrace could allow of such brutality.

The setting of the Correct Century timeline alone is one of the draws of Turn-A, though its excellent characters and compelling mystery also help a lot.

I do however have two warnings for people interested in watching it. The first is that this series was never dubbed. While it did receive an official sub in 2015, there still isn't a dub for the series. So if that bothers you, there's your warning.

The other is that there's a pretty big twist in the latter part of the series that while I will not spoil it here, it's such a big deal that I can't not mention it. It doesn't make any sense, and it actively detracts from not just the series, but the whole franchise. You'll know it when you see it. It doesn't ruin my enjoyment, but a lot of people don't like Turn-A for that alone.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam

Favourite entry. Don't care. It's peak.

In the Year 60 of the Future Century, war has been abandoned by the nations of humanity in favour of the Gundam fight: a quad-annual fighting tournament between Gundams representative of the countries of the world where the winner rules space until the next Gundam fight, all while leaving the Earth ecologically devastated in the fighting. Neo-Japan's Gundam Fighter: Domon Kasshu arrives on Earth seeking information on his older brother Kyoji, who killed their mother and led to their father's arrest before stealing the experimental Devil Gundam to Earth, beating up every Gundam Fighter in his way. However, he eventually learns of far more dangerous revelations about the incident.

G Gundam is to put it bluntly: bat-shit insane. And I love it. It basically took a look at the then-stagnating franchise in the wake of the wet fart that was Victory Gundam and said "I know what can save this franchise, Bruce Lee movies!" And it somehow worked.

Word of advice: watch it dubbed. Mark Gatha absolutely kills it as Domon every time, and puts just the right amount of ham into every line.

So yeah, that's some stuff on Gundam. This was a long post to write out. I'm gonna take a break now.

[an-ruraiocht]

it's annoying when people say "english-speakers" when they actually just mean "USamericans". did you know not every english speaker experienced an education system resembling the us school system(s)? did you know not every english speaker's exposure to literature (modern and ancient) was shaped by the titles that happen to be common on US school syllabi? hell given that the US education system isn't, like, nationally standardised, i'm fairly sure this is the case even within the US, but it's certainly true outside it. "we all read X in high school" "English speakers are exposed to Y and not Z" your experiences are not universal

[agendabymooner]

the couple of the universe ! lewis h. x ofc (miss universe!ofc)

summary: everyone’s wondering why lewis is a careless being this season— and the announcement of his marriage (without further explanation) said enough about his attitude. OR felicia sevilla, the 2015 miss universe, gave him all the reason to be more free and happy.

content warning: use of explicit language, secret marriage, roscoe content, social media files, power couple vibes, a little backstory (they met through united nations soccer aid 2012 campaign done by lewis when he went to manila), literally just a pastime post lol, miss philippines!ofc (faceclaim: pia wurtzbach)

note: again… this is just a load of bs done as a pastime thing lol enjoy xx

a - n masterlist

o - z masterlist

💌re:moony’s planner is opened!!!

tagged valentino, liciasevilla, britishvogue

liked by kylieversoza, charles_leclerc, georgerussell63

mercedesamgf1 things you guys did: mothered and fathered 😌

user1 have my kids. either or 😋

landonorris she’s everything and he’s just lewis 🤷‍♀️ liked by lewishamilton

lewishamilton real 🙌

user2 barbie era lewis?!!!!

georgerussell63 babe wake up new barbie movie just dropped 😂 liked by lewishamilton

lewishamilton 😂😂

user3 my man lewis is just responding to everyone. are you finally gonna admit to being a simp for felicia???

lewishamilton imagine.

user3 LMFAO OKAY

liciasevilla yeah imagine. 😴 liked by lewishamilton

roscoelovescoco luvs my mummys and dads 🐶🐶🥰 liked by lewishamilton

liciasevilla rococooooooo my baby 😩😩

user4 my guy is really out here acting like he’s roscoe 😭😭

user5 let him be— i like this lewis. i like happy lewis.

lewishamilton me too

tagged liciasevilla

liked by pierregasly, charles_leclerc, mickschumacher

comments have been disabled

tagged lewishamilton

liked by mercedesamgf1, charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1

comments have been disabled

[cushfuddled]

I saw a post which claimed since Americans are spending unprecedented amounts of money on holiday gifts this year [1][2]...

the American public isn't actually as strapped for cash as we say or think we are, and

Americans didn’t vote for Trump out of economic frustration.

Like.

I hope you guys know Americans aren't splurging on gifts because we can afford to do so.

The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck [3], and yet vacations are on the rise, with Millennials and Gen Z-ers at the front of the trend. [4][5]

It’s not excess capital. It’s nihilism.[6][7][8]

"If you work hard and save your money, someday you can buy a house/raise a family/retire." So goes the conventional wisdom, now fine viscera under the wheels of an Amazon forklift. Even older generations can't afford to retire these days [9]. You can buy a shed for the price of a master's degree. And how are you supposed to raise a child when your full-time job barely covers your grocery bills?

Knowing they'll never travel as a retiree, people are splurging on plane tickets right out of school. Knowing class mobility is a lottery pull, people are dumping their last few pennies into meme tokens and other get-rich-quick schemes. Knowing they're already saddled with lifelong debt, people are saying "fuck it" and grabbing a shovel—because at this point, what's a car payment on top of every other loan they'll never repay? "Things will keep getting worse anyway."

Americans are spending stupid amounts of money on vacations [10] and extravagant gifts [11], yes—but they're not spending THEIR money. They're spending Klarna's money, and the bank's money, and when the bills come due people aren't paying them. We're all just doing kickflips on our way down the drain.

The question, "How does killing the UnitedHealthCare CEO solve anything?" misses the point. The shooter may have believed he was doing the American people a favor, but I don't think the majority of Americans are cheering on Brian's death because they believe it will manifest universal healthcare. It's just nice to see the rich criminals who profit off our pain suffer for their choices.

Even if the Dems had acknowledged our financial straits (I find Atrioc's video "Slowly, Then All at Once" to be very helpful re: why the numbers look good but nobody can afford to live)...I still don't think Kamala Harris would've won the presidency. Again, Americans don't believe progress is possible anymore—at least not via our current system of government. Extremists are banking on a wholesale descent into anarchy. Your everyday worker is distracting themselves from impending financial implosion with daily Beverages (I'm stopping here to take a sip of my Rockstar energy drink). Hope is a heavy burden. Instead, people keep their eyes on their feet. One day at a time. Sometimes on its way to the brick wall, their speeding car hits a CEO—and sometimes it mows down a crowd of schoolchildren. Sometimes we're all just trashing the bathroom.

That's Donald Trump's presidential win, to me. Let the horse take over the hospital, America declared—why not, if none of us can afford a hospital visit anyway. Let the nation descend into anarchy and fascism—why not, if we never had rights/liberty to begin with.

It's not logical. It's lashing out in pain like a cornered animal.

The rule of law doesn't apply to the wealthy, as emblemized by our incumbent president's 34 felony charges. It punishes the marginalized by design, for the benefit of corrupt institutions. Harris would've given us a chance to get back on our feet...but with her centrist prosecutorial approach, she represents the law. Donald Trump represents chaos. He's a champion of the CEOs who bankrupt and maim and kill us, but as a certifiable toddler with no object permanence and a suitcase full of ketchup packets and nuclear launch codes, he's also a fucking nightmare to babysit around the White House. That's the best some people can hope for in this country: To give their tormentors a headache. To "trigger the libs." To treat their representatives to the smallest taste of their own helplessness and hopelessness and fear and anger and pain.

People do not have money. People do not have hope. People do not have compassion.

I don't feel any sympathy for Trump voters, and I don't mean to minimize the role of bigotry in this election. This country was founded on genocide and slavery, and that legacy still permeates our culture. I only mean to explain—not excuse—some of this group's behavior. It's a trend suffered on all sides of the aisle: Nihilism externalized as sabotage, whether directed at oneself or others. People are so sick of watching this boat sink into the ocean they've set it on fire just to feel like they had a say in it.