#ixtal

[aurelion-solar]

Brock - TFT Unit Splash Art by Valentine Tran

[burnout-requiem]

⠀⠀⠀⠀❝ i know what danger stirs ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀beyond ixtals borders. ❞

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀★.⠀⠀⠀⠀ixtal stamps ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀. . . ♡ + ⎙ + ↻ appreciated !

[skatankata]

Qiyanas face kills me and I couldn't get a good pic of Zyra but LETS GOOOOOOOO

Also #arcane for engagement

[kenyizsuartblog]

LoL - Skarner Is Right

"Oh man, I wonder if I'll draw other champions from this game later down the line"

<proceeds to have an idea that requires half the goddamn roster>

Famous last words, huh?

Real talk, delete that last sentence from the final paragraph of Skarner's bio:

"The only one Skarner can trust is himself, and he'll do anything it takes to protect Ixtal and its people. Even if that means becoming the root of their destruction, himself."

And his "destructive paranoia" immediately gets downgraded to "fully reasonable and healthy paranoia". I bet I haven't even pictured a fifth of all the insane bull-- going on outside of Ixtal, and half of the things on the pic would be enough for me to vote for eternal isolation, thanks.

This was a lot of fun to put together, even if it took a bit longer than I would have hoped. I ended up reading and/or listening to quite a few lore bits, all of which I really enjoyed... and my god, the story of Nasus and Renekton just nuked my heart. I want the god-warrior bros to make up and live happily ever after! I don't even care what happens to Azir and Shurima in the background, I want the brothers to get a happy ending, pls, Riot!!

So what's the lesson to learn from all this? #SkarnerIsRight

Other LoL-related works

Skarner sketchdump 24-04-03-06

2024.04.13

[questionablecuttlefish]

A Bluebird in the Green, Chapter 3: The Empress's New Fool

Rating: Explicit (Smut, canon-typical violence)

Ships: Jinx/Neeko, Jinx/Qiyana Yun Tal

Genre/Tropes: Action/Adventure, Smut, Shameless Smut, Jungles, Hidden Cities, Action & Romance...well 'romance', Political Intrigue, Prisoner, Escape Plans, Battle Training, Toxic Situationship, Trans!Fem Jinx, Qiyana is Everything.

Chapter 3: The Empress's New Fool

Summary:

For Jinx, formerly of Zaun, raidin' a Piltie poacher camp deep in the Shuriman jungle with her new freaky, shapeshiftin' sweetie, Neeko, should've been a walk in the park. Only one complication; they weren't the only interested party... And now Jinx finds herself the 'guest' of the mysterious and hidden jungle empire of Ixtal, specifically, of the prodigiously talented-and extremely aware of it-Yunalai princess, Qiyana. With this self-absorbed but searingly hot mage almost as intrigued by Jinx's knowledge of their mutual enemy, Piltover, and her talents with its arcane machinery, as she is disdainful of everything else about Jinx, just how will Jinx navigate a deadly dance of wills with the most powerful mage in Ixtal, while planning to get out of this secret mage empire, back to her adorable Lizard Girl and her quest for her airship...? And, more importantly, how can she make this uppity bitch want her so bad it makes her look stupid?

The first thing you have to learn to survive Qiyana, is that Qiyana is everything.

No, you don’t understand. She’s a princess of the Yunalai, daughter of the current masters of the whole civilization, top tier royalty in this complicated ruling caste of mages–the Yun Tal. She makes Caitlyn Kiramman look positively proletarian.

Oh, and she’s a born, natural, effortless magic prodigy. That too. Mastery of three elements–Magma, Water, and Nature, as she’s proudly fond of reminding me–unprecedented–unmatched, both in her intuition and her aptitude for learning.

She’s a rising star, a perfect storm of brains, beauty and unrivalled badassery. She’s destined to be Empress. She has no equal in the academies or among the Yun Tal themselves, and soon, they will all know it…

Who’s ‘they’? That’s gonna take some explainin’ cuz, like, everyone here? Mages. Mages mages mages. Holy crap, there’s some mages.

I’ve barely been outside her chambers because I’m technically not supposed to be here–and only Qiyana and her most loyal retainers know I exist, on pain of death, because no foreigner has set foot here in a like a zillion years–but of course, I’ve snuck around a bit and–from what I can see of this place—hah!

Piltover, City of Progress? Progress? Pilties would wet their knickers and run scrabbling back to their chalkboards if they saw what the Ixtalis do in their sleep. Makes the Marvels of Hextech look like toddlers bashing toys in a playpen.

Their city’s a shiny white stone colossus just … sticking up out of the jungle, from what I can see through Qiyana’s pleasure palace windows, it sprawls out into the distance, white mathematical lines slicing through the jungles to the nodes of other satellite cities. Looks like the fabled petricite cities of Demacia, only not so stuffy and hung up on statues of boring swordy kings and knights and stuff.

This place is all sleek geometry and floating rocks and floating fountains and–look lotsa stuff floats–even the freaking corridors are temperature-controlled through elemental magic.

And it’s entirely self-sufficient, self-contained, and self-maintaining. A perfect feedback loop that could last another thousand years even if the world outside was burning.

Remember stealing some Piltie plans for architecture like this. Someone’s benevolent plan to purify the air and fix the dirty poors in the Undercity by rebuilding it–and gentrifying it–as a self-contained eco-system. It actually already is, but they meant completely sealed from the polluting environment, even the air, clean and safe and tightly controlled…by their hand, of course.

Gross. Don’t need to explain why the thought of that gives me the heebies, but, fortunately, theoretical, decades of research away, never got funded, pipe dream…

They called it an ‘arcology’. And I recognize that’s what this is. Pipe dream for Piltover, but the Ixtalis actually did it, this city, this Ix-…ixtaco–Ixiewhatsit–

“Ixaocan, Ee-shao-can!” Qiyana snaps at me for the hundredth time in my–weeks?–of hiatus from my quest in her clutches, “The city of Ixaocan, the Empire of Ixtal, you insipid cackling macaw. Pay attention, Qiyana does not waste her breath on your hollow ears!”

—yep, that’s pretty much QiQi and me, in a nutshell.

Anyway, her city, once I pronounce it, is pretty freakin’ cool. They don’t even really bother with technology, though? They just will stuff to happen and it happens. Feels like cheating, but it’s not…

…cuz it ain’t as easy for ’em as they try to make it look. See, it’s not like everyone here shoots outta their mom’s babyspitter as a baddass elemental demigod like Her High Frickin’ Amazingness, Princess Qiyana The Magnificent.

All of their amazing crap has to be constantly upkept and maintained by mages and their special gifts. Hextech kinda did its own thing once you used runes to tell it what to do but here? Literally people-powered. And that means everyone’s gotta be bare minimum competent for the engine to run smooth. There’s all kinds of elaborate hierarchies and oligarchies and blah-blarchies, there’s magic academies and levels of teacher and student and what is permitted or forbidden to be known by whom and bla bla bla…

And I’m starting to feel like it might actually be, low key, much stuffier and more rigid than Piltover. I’ve never been to Demacia and I think the magic in this place would make those guys spontaneously combust, but it sounds maybe even stuffier than there!

Soo…. according to my gracious host, after thousands of years of isolation, Noxians are building their military outposts up north, Piltie Clan ‘exploratory parties’ are popping up all over to plunder the jungle’s resources and they’re poking at the edges of this lost empire…which kinda explains a lot of Neeko’s stuff, now that I think about it.

But the Yun Tal guys apparently let the whole of Ixtal think the rest of the world just up and died in some ancient war of heebiejeebies and they’re the only ones left, so they’re stubbornly playing the ‘la-la-la-nothing-to-see-here’ game with these foreign intruders and only QiQi here has the stones to wanna go kick their asses out before they get a foothold.

And they won’t let her.

And I’m starting to get Qiyana. Oh yeah. She’s not just a gigantic bitch with a gigantic ego for no reason. She really can back it up–she really is a freakin’ prodigy–and the whole culture around her is stonewalling her.

All that power and jack shit she’s allowed to do with it.

She’s trapped, too.

So…I’ve been in way less comfy prisons. But I think my warden here might also be my cellmate.

And sure, QiQi might smell a damn sight better than you’d expect from whatever prison buddy you’d get stuffed in a dungeon with in Bilgewater, Zaun or Piltover…but she’s far more likely to kill me. And there’s no way away from her.

See, I meant what I said at the start. Qiyana is Qiyana. And ‘Qiyana’ means everything.

Princess. Prodigy. Rising star. Inevitable top dog, hot shit, best bitch in this whole puppy show. Perfect, unmatched, and unbeatable.

First problem; she knows it. Wow does she know it. And wow does she make sure I know it.

Second problem; not everyone else does.

“Nine?”

My screwdriver pauses, in the middle of dissecting a Piltie walking machine amid the mess I’ve made of Qiyana’s trophy room.

My blazing pink eyes flash back over my shoulder, to hers, as she paces behind me.

“You’ve got nine sisters?”

“Yes!” Qiyana steams, stalking back and forth on those nice thick dancer’s legs like an agitated cat, “Nine, and they are all lesser than me, useless, conniving, stupid and weak–and yet the Yun Tal will always, always favor them! Simply because I am youngest!”

“Dang, and here I just got one big sister and we still managed to nearly kill each other a bunch of times.” I blow out a whistle and get back to tinkering, “Y’know what I always say, sisters! Can’t kill ‘em, can’t stuff ‘em back in–”

“–the ‘old babymaker’,” she snorts at me, “Yes I have heard that one before from you, several times, Jinx. Disgusting mind, outlander, but you do have a point…”

I cackle like a filthy old witch and wink at her as I pop the panel on the walker’s control mechanism.

“Of course! Jinx would never steer Her Magnificence wrong! Sisters! Ugh! Lemme tell ya the story of how mine got stolen from me by a stuck up tea-swilling cupcake-munching Piltie Enforcer with incongruously nice titties—”

She tries to keep her aloof haughty calm, but I can tell her curiosity and intrigue is piqued when the panel comes open and the machinery inside is revealed.

“Yes,” she murmurs, “Sisters. All of them, one and all, in my way.”

So nine older sisters, all roadblocks to her Empress-hood, are the eponymous ‘Yunalai’ our girl QiQi is the widdlest babiest addition to. Seems like family drama is the order of the day–and whaddya know? She’s got an ear here, a private one, she can vent to without any fear I’ll go tattling. Who’d I even tattle to? I don’t even have a language in common with anyone else in this city but her…

And we even have plenty of sister angst to commiserate about. I’m the perfect punching bag–I mean confidante, for Qiyana, Princess of the Yunalai. Go figure.

This might be more like my setup with Sarah than I thought.

When I lift my head again, though, Qiyana is watching me thoughtfully. And chewing that soft chestnut flesh of her lip. I only do it when I’m being an evil brat, but Qiyana, that’s pensive for her.

There’s a sudden heat in my belly, and between my legs, that I don’t recognize at first, because Neeko’s been a total sweetie and me and Sarah at our most fiery still clashed as admiring equals. I think Qiyana might be the most offputtingly arrogant bitch I’ve ever met. Why the hell is it turning me on?

She’s too hot to be this awful a person. It’s not fair. I wanna be the one chewin’ on that lip–it’s like an itch I ain’t scratched yet–but the caveat is, I gotta achieve my mission first.

I gotta make her want me so bad it makes her look stupid.

“Soooo…?” I roll my big eyes back at her, “What’re you gonna do about that?”

Her eyes narrow.

“Come with me.”

Read the rest on Ao3

[tafaha-means-apple]

Long been disappointed in how boring the Rose is as a secret spy organization, so here's some regional ideas to build in more intrigue into Leblanc/Rose/Noxus spy narratives so they have to actually be smart about their intel operations

Different regions have unique qualities to them. These qualities should be genuinely engaged with by narratives, not ignored. Qualities include some cultural, some physical, etc. and all alter how Leblanc/the Rose/Noxus operate and what intel they can even get:

Demacia: LB like most Noxians find Demacia a painfully annoying thorn in their side. Petricite walls and shadowy interventions of the veiled lady make most magically assisted infiltrations next to impossible. No clones, no teleportation, no swapping bodies, no magic assisted interrogations or information sharing, etc. Any and all espionage has to be done the old fashioned way. The Rose/Noxus has to play "fairly" or not at all. "Grit and spit" methods like trying to recruit local agents (Demacians can spot a foreign accent a mile away despite efforts to hide it), bribery, extortion, etc. However, this leaves Leblanc's plans dependent on mortals who are flighty at best of times.

Targon: LB can send spies and clones to Targon but doesn’t derive much value from them directly. Understanding Targonian celestial divinations is difficult enough at the best of times, and prophecy more often than not will bite you in the arse no matter what you do, but the mountain does produce a treasure trove of prophecies that she can use for misdirection elsewhere in the world. Isolated geography and the constant eye of celestial empowered inquisitors make intel missions high risk dubious reward so LB sticks to gathering divinations for use in other regions.

Piltover: Clan Inteligencers, particularly those empowered by hextech, are an equal match for Rose agents and other Noxian spies. The trade connections the clans also hold make them capable of similar global reach as the Rose and equal in blackmail and bribery potential. Tit-for-tat escalation is a high risk as agent actions in Piltover can quickly result in counter espionage actions by Inteligencers across the globe where the Rose might least expect. Infiltration of Piltover is easy due to its high level of societal openness, but care has to be done in order to avoid a cascade of reprisals across the Empire.

Ionia: Raum, a historically valuable asset, proved quite limited during and prior to the first invasion and was not much use in gaining intel in Ionia. Kinkou wards, the land's spirits, and peculiarities of Ionian burial practices made it difficult for Raum to consume secrets from Ionian dead. The demon was only easily able to consume the secrets of stagnant souls of Noxian dead that were categorically rejected from an afterlife by the spirit of Ionia. So his role was repurposed for gathering secrets on Noxians who fell in battle rather than on Ionia itself. Other demonic vassals in the Rose's employ were more useful to the war but ended up destroying most anything of value in the process.

Freljord: Lissandra and LB have long had a détente of sorts between them. Frostguard are near impossible to infiltrate due to their iceborn preponderance and cultish socialization, and Liss is limited to collecting dreams of Noxians she's able to seduce from afar, not break into Noxus itself. Harsh terrain, Freljordian culture emphasizing familial bonds, and territorial nature of the tribes make Rose infiltration extremely difficult. Secrets of Freljordian resiliency remain just out of touch.

Ixtal: A man after her own heart, Skarner's eyes are everywhere with his vibration-based panopticon which makes direct infiltration a no-go. Able to sense even the slight change in someone's gait after being replaced by a clone, many Leblancs and agents die quickly or have to avoid drawing any attention to themselves thus making their effectiveness severely degraded. Ixaocan isolationism and rigid caste structure based entirely on elemental magic similarly makes high value infiltrations unlikely simply due to an inability to blend in. Ixtal still has value, however, as the traps woven by the Ixaocan arcologies and the general Ixtali jungles are a bounty of for repurposing. Poisons, plagues, and new monstrous creations from the local fauna can be collected (at great risk, often resulting in death of agent).

A slight reoccurring theme is that despite being extremely well connected, LB rarely if ever can reach the "true value" in other societies, and is forced into just shallow repurposing. A good pararel to how Noxus deals with other cultures and how shallow their "inclusivity" really is.

[phalanxus]

Queen of Thorns

[mollysunder]

I didn't need any justification for Qiyana and Jinx to be the best of frenemies, but I still appreciate it. Seriously tho, I can totally see him here to just undermine Piltover's project. Zaun could always use more allies.