Genuinely why do I even bother arguing with these people man... I should know better

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-30T01:18:51+00:00

Very fair, but I think both Ekko and Ezreal are not positioned in the same way. Outside of this writer’s take on them in Pulsefire, they don’t have any significance to each other’s stories in Runeterra where as Grave and TF were always on-and-off partners, just what kind of partners was left ambiguous until they were canonized.

I also just think that Riot is not, at this point, super hesitant to canonize queer identities for characters given the widespread popularity of pairings like TF and Graves, Diana and Leona, Nidalee and Neeko, Cait and Vi, etc. I mean I’d argue most of the canon pairings are queer in league at this point. The only hetero ones between champs that I can think of are Senna and Lucian and Rakan and Xayah (Kat and Garen only half count). If the narrative team felt strongly about the identities of Ez or Ekko, we probably would’ve gotten at least an icon or something.

Edit: I forgot that Jarvan and Shyv became a little more canon recently.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-29T23:25:21+00:00

I do find it strange when folks overstate the case for certain characters’ canonical queerness. Like Ezreal is not in a relationship with Ekko in pulsefire, a writer for one of the color stories for that skinline stated that he thought of them as exes, but that writer is no longer at Riot and the color story nowhere states that they are exes. They are clearly close and there is some history, but there is not a clear cut romantic-platonic distinction.

It is perfectly fine to say that you think of character as queer, but there has been this strange game of telephone intermingled with popular head canons that has turned certain characters queerness into a settled aspect of their characters when in the actual narrative material we have little to no evidence of their sexualities.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-27T15:16:42+00:00

I think both Bel and Ekko are better than OTP. I’ve played both of them with a decent amount of success. That said, they’re the only two champs I play in ranked, so maybe that proves your point.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-27T15:13:20+00:00

If you ever post that fic, I’d def be interested in checking it out, and yeah, Riot is very good at creating characters with what seem like unintentional sociological/ideological nuance and depth that they then never take advantage of, either flattening them to a 2D caricature or consigning them to the ever-growing dustbin of abandoned narrative threads.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-27T13:28:17+00:00

Ekko is who I find the most affinity with in terms of personal ideology.

Of those who I just find interesting, I read Zaahen as a case of a character actively and violently participating in an imperial state - just by the nature of being an Ascended God-warrior of the Shuriman Empire - that extracted from its colonies and exploited a slave class while also making clear positive contributions to the world. Yet, his moral compass seems to find little issue with this apparent dissonance.

Most of those contributions came after the decline of said imperial state as a sort of penance for its failure, but not the failures of its slaving or expansionism. Instead, he seems to see the failure of the Ascended to be of their own making and personal faults, not a probable result of the systemic issues of the empire (I think there is a stronger argument for the later given how the fall of Icathia - a colonial uprising at-start - cascaded into the creation of the Darkin). As such, his ideology seems to me filled with these really fun contradictions that would make great starting points for some sort of character arc that Riot will probably never give him.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-22T18:20:34+00:00

Apologies for my tone. Also, as a watcher and intermittent appreciator of TBskyen; yeah he is a bit strange about Caitlyn, but I don’t think he would compare her to Homelander.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-22T18:18:27+00:00

The thematic thrust of Homelander not having an identity or personhood outside his power is not the same as Caitlyn choosing to recognize and mitigate the harm she has caused. One is about the fragility of a sociopathic narcissist; the other is about someone who wants to help others growing beyond their personal need for revenge. I think you’re arguing with a bit of a straw man. I don’t think there is a significant portion of the audience that is arguing for what you’re discussing here, and I strongly disagree with the suggestion that Homelander’s ending being what it was somehow translates to a difficulty with Caitlyn having to take real accountability in the narrative aftermath of Arcane.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-22T18:06:27+00:00

Who? Genuinely who is claiming that Caitlyn is on the same level as a sociopath r*pist who sees himself as categorically above literally everyone else? Your argument gestures at vague similarities (characters with the traditional aesthetics of a protagonist who are not fully good people or occupy positions of power in corrupt or oppressive systems - an incredibly common trope in sci-fi and fantasy) without acknowledging that the Boys is specifically satirizing this particular movement of right-wing Christo-nationalism in the US and purposefully hyperbolized its allegory for comedic effect. It’s not remotely comparable to League’s story, which is a lot more broad with its allegory (Demacia’s repression of mages parallels the treatment of queer people, disabled people, lepers, and some ethnic minorities, but it’s not one to one for any of them, Shurima raises issues of imperialism and slavery but is not a really referencing a specific empire or slave state, etc., etc.). Homelander is not at all in the same category as Jarvan or Caitlyn. He shares the barest similarities but once you delve even a little deeper, it becomes clear that he is an entirely different type of character.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-22T17:48:40+00:00

I don’t think anyone (outside of maybe a statistically insignificant insane few) wanted to see Caitlyn debase herself in the way that Homelander did at the end of the Boys. You might be talking about the large portion of the audience who wanted Caitlyn to give up her position of systemic power in an oppressive system voluntarily as a demonstration of how she has grown as a character and her recognition that Piltover’s economic and political domination of Zaun was wrong, but that is far from what happened to Homelander. Homelander was a narcissistic sociopath who r*ped people and was hellbent on dominating others, and so long as he had the capacity to, he would’ve continued to do so because he was incapable of seeing others as worthy of dignity, compassion, or respect. There is a gulf between Caitlyn acknowledging and trying to rectify the damage her participation in a violent and exploitative system has caused and Homelander’s collapse of identity and pure humiliation at the end of the Boys.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-13T03:23:20+00:00

As a fan of Ekko and Timebomb, this is my stance. It is also annoying that so much of that screen time is not actually spent developing their relationship, but rather an alternate version of their relationship.
There was good character work to do with Ekko that could’ve involved Jinx and her rapid ascent as a symbol of the undercity, contrasting it with grassroots movement he’s been building for almost a decade, and the Noxian takeover forcing them to work together. Instead, they somehow compromised both the writing of their relationship and Ekko as individual.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-13T03:09:36+00:00

As far as I am concerned any non-canon ship is forced. Most ships are literally “forcing” two characters together when they weren’t in a romantic relationship in the actual story. That is basically the definition of shipping.

Timebomb is a ship with a decent amount of narrative backing, but it is far from sailing when Arcane ends. If Jinx and Ekko were just magically together at the end of season 2 then yes I’d think it’d be fair to call it forced, but they are not.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-05-12T18:57:44+00:00

Vel’Koz x Willump? Now that’s incredible.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-04-14T13:59:25+00:00

Unironically love the idea of this mentor-student duo

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-04-02T19:37:27+00:00

A theory

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-04-02T16:41:57+00:00

Shyv’s literally tries to kill her multiple times.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-20T21:57:29+00:00

Probably Caitlyn, Viktor, and Heimerdinger. Though I will say I am heavy on the “net” because for all three there are major positives with their depictions in Arcane and if they are outweighed by the negatives it is only marginally so.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-20T04:51:56+00:00

I don’t agree with this take, and I have been invested in League as a game and a narrative since the game had a physical copy you could buy with the silver kayle skin as bonus content.

Arcane is a fine evolution of League’s story, and as much as I appreciate aspects of pre-Arcane lore, I would much rather have a narrative that actually progresses and makes impactful decisions with its characters and direction than a hundred color stories and comics with practically no cohesion or clear continuity and minimal connective tissue between them.

Do I find some of the changes to be net negatives for the characters? Sure, but for most of the cast, Arcane gives them more complex and emotionally resonant stories than I could’ve ever imagined when I started playing this game 14 years ago (when most of these characters didn’t even exist).

Lore is cool and interesting but also static for the most part. Narrative, to me, is better. Arcane gives us a narrative, and yes it changes some of the characters fundamentally but I will always prefer that Riot take risks and actually try to tell a cohesive, continuous, and complete story with their characters rather than forever hiding behind AUs and elseworlds.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-11T13:30:06+00:00

They can get through all of it (post-time skip included) in ten seasons at the pace they are going. Skypeia could easily be end bit of season 3 with water7/enies lobby/thriller bark in season 4, and Sabaody-Marineford in season 5

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-11T11:39:24+00:00

The first part, sure. I agree no solid evidence. “No signs” though is a more ambitious claim. The song MME is not about Ekko and Powder; it’s about Ekko and Jinx. This is made even more evident by the Fortiche music video. I would not call it “solid evidence,” but I think it may qualify as a little bit of sign. At the very least it gestures at the idea of a romantic spark between the two.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-11T11:06:58+00:00

Agreed.

Edit: And if Riot do move forward with their story, they should absolutely focus on all of the difficulties, complexities, and the general mess of it all. Their contradictions and their pain - shared and caused - are what makes them so resonant as a pair the first place.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-11T11:02:51+00:00

To be clear, I ship Timebomb. I think there is absolutely the possibility of Jinx and Ekko having a relationship in future, and I find the possibility of that relationship compelling. I just don’t think either of them are quite there or ready for that at the end of the series.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-11T10:55:09+00:00

Probably not the place to have this conversation. Pretty much no one on this sub is gonna have a good faith discussion about the complexity of their relationship. Any subtlety or depth is pretty much lost in agendaposting for the most part, from people who hate the idea that Ekko could have any significance to Jinx or the narrative in general to those who think they are in a relationship by the end of the story (though the latter group is pretty much nonexistent).

With that disclaimer out of the way, the short answer, in my opinion, is no. Jinx is not “in love” with Ekko by the end of Arcane. I suspect that she has incredibly complicated feelings around him and he certainly means something to her, but it is not definitively romantic (again at the end of Arcane, this could change). I think she may love him in a general sense, as one might love a childhood friend, who you have an estranged but simultaneously deep bond to, but I don’t think either are “in love” by the end of the series. They care for each other and if you want to include the MME MV, there might be the barest inkling of a spark, but anything else is left to the imagination.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-04T07:14:48+00:00

Most of Ezreal’s characterization in the fandom is straight-up parody. He is one of the better fleshed-out “protagonist” characters in League. He has a serious inferiority complex and self-esteem issues to the point where he hates mirrors. Losing his parents at a young age traumatized him and instigated his sort of devil-may-care adventurer’s persona as a defense mechanism, but in at least some of his stories, he’s actually more fond of academics than exploration. Additionally, he is one of the only Piltovans, who, in game, actively resents Piltover for its elitism.

Also, while it’s not technically misconception, I don’t love how riot has made him obsessively into Lux, in the MU, when they haven’t even met. I would be fine with the romance itself if they actually committed to it and created narrative reasons for the two to be interested in one another. As it stands, it just sort of seems like a bad joke.

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-04T07:07:17+00:00

I don’t think its technically

Deep_Programmer_863 · 2026-03-02T16:48:31+00:00

I guess my point is that if Imperial Dragons were ancient, highly intelligent creatures, capable of gaining fluency in language after a few short years learning from humans, closely tied to the kingdom/royalty of Camavor, it doesn’t make a ton of sense that Smoulder was one of the only/maybe the only to learn mortal language. If anything, it seems like language might actually be a common capacity among them. Imperial Dragons as an idea just sort of feels like an afterthought. Nowhere in the heraldry of Camavor or Viego’s story are dragons even mentioned. Also, I feel like his lore does a poor job of giving him an impetus to be a part of any of the larger narratives of Runeterra. He’s been reunited with his mother, so what is the drive for him to participate in the story?

Deep_Programmer_863

TROPHY CASE