#and Circe is such a good rhaayn song

[league-of-blorbos]

So, on a reddit post I made (it was on potential Arcane seasons) someone in the comments convinced me to write a whole essay on Rhaayn and despite writing it in an hour long hyperfixated haze I like how it came out so I'm posting it here too for the people who want to read my analysis on why their relationship could work:

Ok, so for myself my favorite thing about ships is when you can see what each member offers to the other, or you can see why they fell in love and chose to spend their life with that person specifically. And what Kayn and Rhaast have in common is that they are both lonely men that have been traumatized by war. Swain even says in a voiceline to Kayn that what he really wants is love, since as a child soldier Kayn has only ever known hate. On the other hand, the darkin have all lost themselves from their war with the Void and from being isolated for centuries in their weapons, and the other darkin we see all remedy their isolation in different ways: Varus’s heart is changed by Kai and Valmar, Naafiri embraces being a pack mother and wants the darkin to come together like a pack of wolves, and Aatrox calls his darkin brethren to him so they can have one last war together. Rhaast would never admit it, but I think him toying with Kayn instead of spending all his energy trying kill him is his remedy, he’s the only form of interaction he’s had in so long and deep down he knows he’d be isolated all over again without him. 

From there, we know from their Odyssey voicelines Kayn is much more susceptible to getting attached to Rhaast, he still tries to talk to him after he’s killed Rhaast off and reminisces on the fun times they shared, which makes sense. Kayn is much more of a serious edgelord while Rhaast is still edgy as hell, but more in a Dante from DMC and always joking around kind of way. Kayn could use someone less serious to balance him out and keep his mood from getting too dark. Kayn is also someone who desires praise, he wants to impress Zed any way he can and in Odyssey he wants the galaxy to bow down to him as emperor. What I’m saying is Kayn has an obvious praise kink. And in his own way, Rhaast praises Kayn for being both a worthy opponent and a worthy vessel.

Which brings me to Rhaast, and I have an idea for how he would fall for Kayn which relates back to his desire for a worthy opponent. Rhaast rejected many possible vessels back in Noxus because he knew they wouldn’t give him a good fight, and were therefore too weak for him. But he respects Kayn’s power and wants to fight Kayn head on for his vessel. But what would happen if someone other than Rhaast brought Kayn near death? Rhaast feels like the type of character who wants to fight Kayn as his full power and have a fair battle before he would slay him (back with the DMC references, a very Vergil thing to do). I could see that turning into Rhaast being very protective of Kayn and even using his hemomancy to heal him during fights, as he can’t have someone stealing his kill, he needs Kayn to stay strong and healthy for when they have their epic duel to the death! Then once the time for that duel comes, Rhaast finally realizes he doesn’t want to kill this man he’s been protective over, who is just as bloodthirsty and lonely as he is, and who he sees as an equal. 

And from there, there are so many ways their dynamic could go that doesn’t involve them killing each other and they could spend the rest of their time together doing whatever they want and bickering over the dumbest shit imaginable. (may have strayed a lot from the rom-com idea and got too into character analysis, but that’s the beauty of this ship is that there’s a lot of different parts of their dynamic you could focus on and find the romance in, they just work so well together.)