Chapter Text
AU EXPLANATION AND BACKGROUND;
feel free to skip this chapter if you dont want to read this part! below explains the purpose,
These are notes about the universe this story taked place in for myself to help visualize and write the story as best as I can! I decided to put my notes in the story as a seperate chapter for anyone wanting total immersion, as well as context. It's not mandatory to understand the story, but you may want it if you're a visualizer like myself.
A slightly modern school au, where Piltover and Zaun are in a rather healthy truce. Zaun's air and general enviroment have improved greatly from when Jayce and Viktor were young. The council gave way to members who were born in the undercity, a few years before Viktor and Jayce were born, leaving room for progress and great improvement for Zaun.
Everyone's age is going to be adjusted, so they're obviously not going to have the same age gap in Arcane. Everyone is a lot closer in age than in the show, but Powder and Ekko still remain younger than the rest. To help envision the story better for more visual readers (like me), age will be mentioned a few times in narration after time skips!
In their teenish years(15-19), where most of the story will take place, technology like movie theatres, phones, subways, and buses have been invented. Not a lot of buses, and everything has that steampunk aesthetic to it. Phones have a lot less usage than modern ones do, and the internet doesn't really exist.
The school system is like this,
Zaun and Piltover decided to have the same age groups for the grades.
1st: 5-6
2nd: 6-7
3rd: 7-8
4th: 8-9
5th: 9-10
1-5th: Elementry
6th: 10-11
7th: 11-12
8th: 12-13
9th: 13-14
6-9th: Middle school
10th: 14-15
11th: 15-16
12th: 16-17
13th: 17-18
10-13th: High school
In Zaun, it was a lot more socially acceptable to drop out in 12th grade, since not a lot of people had plans that required 13th grade. The very few colleges in the undercity even accepted early dropouts, depending on a few factors. In Piltover, you were more preassured by expectations to complete all grades, causing burnout for a lot. School years start October 5th and end August 5th. they also have seasonal breaks, spring and fall being 1 week and winter 2.
Singed in this AU raises Viktor, as he was able to get over his daughter's death healthily. He obviously still mourns, but Viktor stumbling in his life helped the heavy load. Instead of working on shimmer, he colaborated with top scientists from both Zaun and Piltover to increase enviroment standards in the undercity, as well as build a stronger bond between the citizens of both cities. His fondness of the natural world as a child led him into a new light, and his daughter's shared intrest in such only increased his motivation for his work. Viktor was the last addition to his life to make him realize he can't give up on this field of work, finalizing his devotion. Despite all of Singed's contributions, he decided to stay hidden for the most part, letting already top-name having scientists take most of the fame to leave him with Viktor and his work.
Zaun was in a much better condition than shown in the show, however the air was still bad enough to develop Viktor's disease, causing early-rising difficulties with breathing and permanent impaired mobility in his leg. As Singed was able to work towards fresher airs as he grew, his breathing became healthier as well, and his mobility issues never got worse. He needed his cane, and moving his leg without it caused pain more times than not, but he had a feeling it could've been so much worse. His lungs were still rather weak compared to others, but he managed. Think back to his health in the first few episodes of season 1!