#shurima

Garen x Quinn, Jarvan x Quinn, and maybe Jarvan x Sivir?

No rush, I apologize if this upsets you, and have a good day!

Garen x Quinn I don't really buy, specifically because they are too similar in some ways, but also don't have that much to offer each other. They're both patriot soldier types, both emotionally constipated, they both have some serious complexes about their siblings, but their differences don't really lead to interesting tensions. Quinn prefers to be way out in the wilds, mostly alone, with her bird, and Garen is most at home during drill practise with his band of brothers.

Jarvan x Quinn makes more sense, at least from Jarvan's perspective that Quinn represents both an escape from his royal duties and a real chance at freedom, while still soothing his guilt that if he was out there with her, he would still be of service to his country. A desertion without deserting, you can see why he would find her perspective and worldview compelling and want to know her better. What Quinn would get from Jarvan though... hm, I mean she might be charmed just by the fact that he is The Prince, he might represent a sort of youthful fantasy of being a princess swept off her feet, and certainly there's a class tension between them there where he could give her access to the highest echelons of Demacian high society, a world she has never known before. Luxury and comfort. She would grow to hate it if she was stuck there, but I can see why she would be enticed by the idea of being able to visit it.

Jarvan x Sivir makes TOTAL sense to me, though. Jarvan would be attracted to her for similar reasons why he might be attracted to Quinn, but even more so. If Quinn is a fantasy of escaping his royal duty while still serving his country, Sivir is the forbidden fantasy of just fully running away from it all, escaping into the great wide world and making your own way, living on your wits. Sivir is herself a princess running away from her royal family (Azir, in her case), and BOY could that be a seductive fantasy to our erstwhile princeling.

Meanwhile Jarvan would be attractive to Sivir... well, without putting too fine a point on it because he is rich. He represents access to a whooole lot of money, influence and power, and Sivir is a practical woman. But also, Jarvan with his upper class noblesse obligé attitude and relentless moral character represents an interesting tension with Sivir. For all that she is running away from Azir and his blather about her "imperial duty to Shurima," Sivir isn't a heartless woman. She does care about the people of Shurima, and the idea that maybe as a leader she could do something to make a better country...

Rise of the darkin

Azir has been standing there in the lore doing nothing particularly problematic for 10 years now and people still get themselves into hysterics over how Riot is white washing imperialism.

Meanwhile any time Noxus shows up it's like a meme of "The leftism leaving my body the moment Noxus start doing imperialism" because people always act like no they're doing an imperialism with yassss qween energy so it's alright.

Right now twotter dot com people are complaining about Taliyah’s new Wildrift design and how it is too "shuriman empire-y" in a vague kind of way. And because Taliyah is "anti azir" that must mean that riot is trying to make you think Azir is good...?

Meanwhile last year Riot actually retconned Rell's entire lore (one of the few that actually critiques Noxus in a way that isn't an underhanded complement) so that it actually cut out all of the anti-noxian stuff and just blamed everything bad on the Rose and I didn't see near as much a peep.

A/N1: Stuck in church so I’m gonna ramble about how cool the idea of Zaunite religion was and how wasted it was after the temple fight scene.

In league lore, Janna was a Shuriman goddess brought to Zaun.

A/N2: Shurima is essentially fantasy SWANASA in league shh yes it’s orientalist it’s league man🫩

When some Shurimans emigrated to the budding city of Piltover on the continent of Valoran they took their worship of her with them.

A/N3: Now I’m still conflicted because, as of right now, Arcane being canon to League means that the lore around how Piltover and Zaun became separate is a hotter mess than before. The lore I’m going with is in some League articles, but may have changed so take this with a grain of salt.

There was a mining project either near or across the river Pilt that exposed a massive fault line essentially sinking half the city. The project was supposed to bring the city prosperity but was strategically planned around the poorer districts of the city in case anything went wrong.

The Shuriman immigrants were also now stuck in the sunk half of the city and suffered, while Piltover still managed to extract wealth from the mines and bolster their industry from it. Stuck in the mines, Janna’s worship took on a new form, one as a goddess of clean air as the fault exposed deadly gases to the sunken half of the city.

As mentioned in the temple fight, the miners kept her worship alive long enough for Vi and Jinx to grow up on stories of her salvation. Religion as tied to the needs of the oppressed is a real world phenomenon that has had a place in multiple revolutions (Haitians and Voudou, Enslaved Africans in the US and Rootwork/AME Church and more). In the case of Zaun, the deprivation of breathable air for (I’m gonna assume) centuries necessitated belief in a higher power who would provide it.

There are temples built in her honor, though no mention of any sort of priesthood or clergy. And Zaunites worshipped her long enough to develop hymns devoted to her, though no mention of holy texts exist and any associated rituals aren’t known.

This is where the failure of the writing comes in because if Janna was important enough reference in Act One’s finale, she should’ve been important enough to discuss the possibility of some Zaunites drawing inspiration from her and carrying on her worship as a form of resistance to topside.

Imagine scenes of other Janna temples being used as meeting centers for organized revolt, or as distribution points for aid and community among the undercity. Imagine the temples being better kept the lower and lower one travels (arcane geography is a bitch hush) and worship being more intense. Imagine Janna being given power by belief and in turn only generations of those who’ve lived and died in the lower layers can consistently breathe there through an explanation that can only be magical.

Imagine Piltover co-opting or attempting to standardize worship of Janna. Maybe the lack of clergy is Zaunite resistance to any further organizing of Janna worship because Piltover tries to supplant her message of defiant deliverance with messages of quiet survival. Any “priest” who wasn’t raised and brought up in the fissures or lower would be severely mistrusted because of this. As a means of Zaunite identity and resistance, Janna's worship has to be small-scale and communal. Maybe it varies from layer to layer.

Maybe there are annual festivals where Zaunites adorn themselves in the remnants of Janna’s Shuriman roots, her memory stronger than ever as they dance down the streets singing songs of deliverance and fresh air.

⠀⠀⠀⠀❝ the stone of shurima will stand ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀against those creatures. ❞