#not a hatepost

[questionablecuttlefish]

Okay Fine Let's Talk Timebomb and Season Two.

I do want to talk about this because I have a Lot of thoughts and feelings and it has been building up and building up, not only based on what's happening in other social spaces, but what people keep bringing into mine despite my best efforts to avoid it.

This isn't any kind of hatepost, I don't think I could hate Ekko or the ship if I tried, I just want to explain my very mixed feelings about the whole thing.

My likely-to-be-very unpopular take on Season Two's Timebomb romance is that it left me feeling uneasy and uncomfortable.

Not with what was in the show itself, I feel like that was perfect. Powder and Ekko sold me completely. They made me feel things. I even liked how Ekko and Jinx's story ended. I think it was beautiful, poignant, perfect...

...until.

'The Discourse' since, the way the fan culture has exploded around it, and particularly some of the creators' commentary on it, has made me sour on the whole thing.

It feels like I'm suddenly part of an increasingly small subset of people who saw what they did with S2 Timebomb and applied our media literacy to what was on our screens and got something very different to what the fandom consensus seems to be.

For context, I semi-shipped TB before this. Though I've always been Team Lightcannon, I had a lot of respect for timebomb, I understood it, I had read a few very good fics, I was just in the space of "Jinx has hurt Ekko too much for him to ever fully forgive her for murdering his friends, they might come to an understanding, and there will always be a silent undercurrent of love beneath the hurt, they may fight together on the same side again someday, but whatever bond they had as kids is broken and they can't go back, and both know it."

I respected, and still do, people who shipped them romantically, but I've always seen them as a broken childhood friendship being a much more interesting dynamic, and being hot for each other lessening that to an extent and not really adding anything to it.

All of his interactions with Jinx in season one are violent; she murders five Firelights point-blank in front of him in her intro scene, and Ekko reacts particularly upset to the pink-haired girl, Eve or Eva, whom Jinx shoots in the back. It's clear this isn't even the first time she's fought them. We don't know how many of Ekko's found family she's put on the Memorial Wall or how close he was with any of them.

Ekko is clearly convinced that "Powder" is gone, and the person who replaced her is a cold-blooded killer who can't be reasoned with. Leading to the Bridge confrontation, and this:

This is the first time Ekko catches a glimpse of "Powder", yes, but more importantly, this is the first moment he recognizes Jinx's humanity. He's hurting her, killing her, and he can't do it.

....and she knows he can't do it.

So, to save him the weight, she pulls a grenade, with the intent to kill them both, foreshadowing quite neatly where Ekko/Jinx (but not Ekko/Powder) is going to go in S2.

Fast forwarding from Season One here, Ekko disappears for 2/3rds of the second season, completely offscreen.

When we catch up with him he's woken up in the S2E7 AU; the Powder Timeline.

Here's where I start to get a little confused by the fandom take. Because, you know, I've seen enough Star Trek and Stargate and Supernatural and Batman the Animated Series and Quantum Leap to know exactly what this is.

This is the 'bottle episode', this is the 'Perfect World' trope, where the protagonists find themselves in an alternate universe - or trapped in a dream - or they've died or think they've died and this is their 'heaven' - where they have everything they ever wanted.

This is familiar storytelling and E7 follows a familiar pattern, the protagonist struggles to adapt to the surreal new circumstances, they are seduced by the illusion, particularly falling in love with someone in the Perfect World, but eventually, they start noticing something incongruous - something isn't quite right - (In this case, it's Vi's death, and Powder holding back her genius and hiding her grief to be support girl for others) - that reveals the Perfect World to be not as perfect as it seems.

And the hero has to choose to go home, because he realizes that this isn't real, it doesn't belong to him, he doesn't belong here.

Which is exactly what happens with Ekko in E7.

Which brings is to AU!Powder and Jinx.

And here's where I really start to struggle with the seeming consensus that the romance between Ekko/Powder automatically leads to Ekko/Jinx, like you can just transfer the one to the other.

I'm sorry, fam, I thought my basic media literacy was telling me that this girl:

Is not the same person as this girl:

....and I am not getting into any debate about "Jinx" vs "Powder" as identities within our current Jinx. I'm talking about Powder in the E7 AU.

AU!Powder is literally a different human being.

She may have been the same person up until the explosion in Jayce's laboratory, but from that fork in the timeline, she becomes a FUNDAMENTALLY different person to Jinx, shaped by different experiences, different relationships, different life events.

Powder's physicality with Ekko, as you can see in those GIFs, the casual intimacy, the clear affection, the way she touches him, looks at him, her awareness of him in her space, is so utterly opposite to the way Jinx interacts with him that if anything, it nailed home to me how savagely absent this kind of feeling is from his relationship with Jinx.

Powder loves Ekko. She leans on him, snuggles into him, touches his hands, dances with him, kisses him.

Jinx cares so little about him she barely makes eye contact and would casually kill him without blinking.

And I thought that was the point.

I really thought that was the whole point of E7. Being in the perfect world, getting his perfect love story with his perfect Powder, the girl Jinx could have been, but can never be, drove home for Ekko that his feelings for Jinx, both romantic and resentful, were tangled up in his illusions of "Powder", and it took living those illusions as a physical reality for Ekko to see his mistake.

To be true to himself, and true to her, Ekko had to let that go and go home.

To face his world's Jinx, and be there for her in her darkest moment, even if it meant giving up the love he'd found with Powder, a love that belonged to a different Ekko, for someone who could never love him back.

To me that was Ekko's most heroic moment, an act of selfless sacrifice. But that's what it was - a sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Season Two Jinx is not aware of any of this. The last time she saw Ekko was on the bridge where she nearly killed him, and for all we know she might have thought she succeeded.

She never talks about, thinks about, refers to, or even has scribble-nightmares about Ekko, not even once.

Season Two Jinx is, instead, having a love story of her own.

And Isha was and is a PUZZLE to me. Because she's more plot device than character, she isn't necessary except as a way to give Jinx a villain-to-hero arc and a way to reconnect to her humanity.

But she could have been Ekko.

If they really, really wanted us to have Timebomb Canon, instead of confining the entire arc to a bottle episode in an alternate timeline with a literally, physically different girl, they could easily have given all of Isha's considerable screentime to an Ekko and Jinx romance.

I'm sure Amanda Overton would have been on board with that. But that's not what we got. It's almost like reading two different fix-it-fanfics for the same character, put into the same show and running in parallel.

I'm not crazy, this is what's happening for Ekko in s2;

While this is happening for Jinx at the same time.

But Jinx's love story, too, ends with a tragic sacrifice.

And here's where the two stories finally intersect.

When Jinx is in her darkest moment, her absolute rock bottom, Ekko comes back into her life, a miracle, impossible, a Boy Savior.

But she's still ready to kill him.

Because she didn't dance with Ekko. She didn't invent a time machine with him. She didn't sit and watch the city lights with him and share a tender kiss and a heartfelt gift.

That was Powder.

Jinx and Ekko are resuming right where they left off on the bridge, right back to "I pull this pin and we both blow up".

They've both loved and lost, but their stories are absolutely unknown to each other. Ekko Doesn't Know About Isha. Jinx Doesn't Know About Powder.

It's only when Jinx (a genius, a reminder here) sees monkeys of her own design inside the Z-drive - recognizes her own handiwork, but knows SHE didn't make those - that, I think, sheer curiosity stirs her out of her darkness.

She has to know what that was about. She hesitates, just long enough for Ekko to speak. And, though offscreen, he tells her his story, and maybe she tells him hers.

And it's enough, just enough, to set Jinx back on her Redemption Arc, to become the hero Isha always saw in her.

Maybe even the hero Vi and Ekko saw in her, too. Her new costume is full of references to all of the people in her life who never gave up on her.

(side note, the yellow stars and crowns puzzle me, though - they're quite prominent, but who are THEY for? Isha? Maybe? Yellow isn't a color associated with anyone in Jinx's life, but that crown's identical to the one she scribbled on Demacia in Fortiche's map, is... this a very subtle future Lightcannon tease? Nah. I'm not that crazy.)

I mean her costume is also almost literally both a Fishbones and a Fiddlesticks cosplay, with her hair as Fiddle's tongue, so take from that what you will.

It's clear Jinx and Ekko war painted each other for the battle, but the Firelights are also similarly painted up, and (with Linke even confirming this) there really wasn't time to develop anything else, guys.

And I am, honestly, fundamentally angry at anyone who would suggest that, even if she'd been in any space to want it, our boy Ekko, one of the most genuinely good men in recent fiction let alone in Arcane, would take advantage of a girl he just talked out of suicide.

Moving on. During the battle, Ekko is knocked out and lying not far from Jinx. She doesn't even look at him, she leaps up to defend Vi instead.

And that's their final interaction on the show.

Instead of returning to Ekko, Jinx chooses one final act of sacrifice.

Ekko's final shot of the show is this.

He's sitting, alone, burning a mourning paper, where he sat with AU!Powder - where he and AU!Powder kissed - a place that has no significance to himself and Jinx, whatsoever.

It's little wonder who he's thinking about here, and which name he's burning on that paper. The girl he truly loved and lost.

For all he knows, Jinx is dead. But it's not only her he's mourning.

Or maybe he does know, or suspect, she's alive.

But either way, he's making one final act of sacrifice, too, with that paper burning into the breeze.

He's letting her go.

He's choosing his own story.

He's staying where he belongs.

Jinx may have become a symbol of the revolution, but it's Ekko who is, and always will be, the true hero of Zaun.

And this is Jinx's final shot.

Because let's face it, we all know she's on that airship.

She's "breaking the cycle". She's "walking away". She knows that Jinx has left too many scars on the people she still loves - on Vi, on Ekko, on the cities of Piltover and Zaun - for her to pick up the pieces.

She knows that if she's going to find out what "Jinx" might stand for now, she has to go very far away from everything and everyone. She has to leave it all behind and find something new.

Maybe even someone new?

And ultimately, that's why I feel the Timebomb we got was perfect, they shouldn't touch it, they shouldn't try to force it to be "Endgame", not because it couldn't have worked, but because that's the opposite of the story they told.

For the rest of my analysis, lol, this got a bit long but i have FEELINGS.

Now, I'm not saying I wouldn't buy Jinx and Ekko as a love story if they had actually told that love story. But they didn't. It had no screen time. They have less interactions in S2, maybe even in both seasons added up, than Vi and Loris. Let that sink in a bit.

We know it's Amanda's favorite ship, so she may have intended more, and may even actually give us all more at some point, but please, dear god, let's stop pretending they fucked or kissed or even held hands offscreen.

That's honestly a bit insulting to both of these characters, to insist hell or high water that this very important milestone in their relationship happened, but they just didn't even bother to depict it. That an entire love story (because it would be a whole one, remember, Ekko and Powder had a romance but Jinx did not experience any of that, she and Ekko are back at Square One) would just be cut for time.

They both deserve better than that.

Let's stop pretending there was some grand, horny, Forever Love story with 60 minutes of cut footage, all of it timebomb content, somehow left on the cutting room floor of an animated show where every single frame has to be deliberately hand painted.

Because if in some insane universe they had written, storyboarded, voice acted and animated an entire 60 minute additional timebomb storyline and then cut it from the show, that would itself be a searing indictment of the quality of the storytelling in that imagined arc, but that's not what happened. Anyone who knows how filmmaking works would shoot this one down, and the showrunners already have, so let's leave it behind.

I know Timebomb blew up hard, and I get it, but what we got on the screen is not confirmation that there is any relationship at all between Ekko and Current Timeline Jinx. If anything, Ekko and Powder's beautiful romance only highlighted the tragic 'never to be' of Ekko and Jinx.

And it's absolutely fine to look at the art book, look at the creator comments, and imagine what could have been. Draw the fan art, write the fanfic, imagine the what-ifs and the fix-its, those are all beautiful and valid expressions and deserve their space.

But don't go insisting it's "the canon" and going after the shippers of other ships for these characters as "not canon" or somehow offensive for existing, especially toward one particular ship that, yes, has been around much longer than timebomb, is uncool.

I think this is mostly people who are New From Arcane, it's Baby's First Ship and they don't know how to share space. The timebomb fans I knew pre-season two didn't do this, at least not often enough for me to notice or care.

But I'll just say to them, if a Timebomb follow up happens and they actually tell a good love story for Ekko and Jinx, I will accept it. Grudgingly, because I think Lux/Jinx is an untold, untapped story full of incredible character dynamics that would complete Jinx's story in ways that as much as I love Ekko, he's too tied to her past, he can't.

But I love Ekko, and I love Jinx, and I will accept it.

But I'll also say to them, if the followup doesn't eventuate, if things take a turn they don't expect, if Jinx's airship is heading for Demacia, maybe they'll have to experience just a taste of what it's been like for Lightcannon fans for ten long years.

And maybe that's healthy. Maybe that's okay. Maybe our endgames don't need to be 'canon' to have value and that's a lesson we should learn.

Maybe there's a new Light on her horizon, and that's okay too. Maybe Ekko won't be alone forever. Don't forget - until Arcane - his story had nothing to do with Jinx, and there was a whole lot of it.

More with the Firelights, maybe bring in the original Lost Children of Zaun from his old stories, his inventions, his parents, all could yet be in his future. Who knows? He might find a way back to AU!Powder - or she might rebuild what they worked on together, and come to him, no matter what butterfly effects that could set in motion...

But if Jinx is heading for a Light on her horizon, maybe Ekko might Explore some of his possibilities. Find a new Spark of connection. Just saying. Jinx isn't his only ship, either 😌

And it is okay for people to move on, and let go. Maybe, for two characters whose themes are letting go of the past, living in the moment, redefining their identities, and moving on, that's what their story should be.

[mostmagical]

did you guys know that you can choose to engage only with the things you actually like

[fruitsofhell]

Dumbest part of criticism of SU Future is when people say "Future is character assassination of Steven" and "The show trivializes/poorly represents mental illness" in the same breath. If you think a character whom has suffered immense interpersonal and physical trauma having breakdowns and snapping at people because of being triggered is mutually exclusive to a character being kind and empathetic, I don't think you have a right to speak on mental illness rep.

Seeing a character who is defined by kindness and compassion crack under that pressure of being there for everyone like that is crazy to see in a kids show. Personally I hadn't felt that seen by anything in a while, and it's just offensive as hell to me to say that a character acting traumatized in a way that isn't sad puppy dog eyes means they're mischaracterized or abusive now. That's half the point of Future that Steven didn't know how to express his problems within his role as precious angel.

He wasn't mischaracterized, he was recontextualized. It's like people can accept "this mean character was once nice but changed cause trauma", or "sweet character is now depressed cause trauma", but the reality that someone youre familiar with can change dramatically due to trauma - acting angry and abrasive instead of sad and demure - is blasphemous somehow.

Double points if they then say the gems or Greg were dumbed down to make Steven look better. Like, My Brother In Christ, they are exhibiting the exact lack of awareness you are thinking it's impossible for a person like Steven to have angry or vengeful trauma reactions.

EDIT: Actually not gonna leave this in the tags -

Something-something ableism, something-something not accepting dramatic and unpalatable expressions of mental illness in fiction and likely not for people IRL.

[snixx]

the word karma needs to be taken away from white people and also from billionaires and climate criminals and people who can’t even fucking pronounce it correctly and ESPECIALLY from fucking taylor swift and anyone who ever plays that godAWFUL song

[mpregbuck]

tommy drives either a big ass truck or a classic car. there's no in-between tim minear. you can't tell us tommy own's a car lift and then give him some fuckass honda civic. commit to the bit. i also need to see buck foaming at the mouth abt tommy being so into cars, watching him drive, watching him work on his car because buck never cared about anything like that until tommy. tim minear please. just this one thing.

[heckling-hydrena]

I don't want to rag on anyone for being disappointed because effects definitely aren't for everyone but it's really funny seeing people complain that staff "added something no one was asking for" instead of doing a qol update. first of all it's actually called a 'new feature.' you know, like eye types, like scenes. getting new surprise features is actually normal. in fact we used to like it.

second of all an update that required a 4 hour maintenance and a 1 hour pre-maintenance 7 days before the 4 hour maintenance was never going to be just a qol update let's be real here.

[flyingbuddiies]

i hope taco permadies in the finale. i hope she’s a victim of circumstance. i hope she dies convincing herself its for the better. that it’s her final punishment. that there was no other ending than this. that if her attempts to apologize for all the hurt she’s done didn’t work, she’s fully irredeemable. that there is no other fate best-suited for her other than death, and that in life there is no further point for her. i hope she dies believing she deserves it.

i hope she never gets the chance to tell microphone she loves her. i hope microphone is eternally left in the dark. i hope she never discovers the true extent of tacos remorse. her guilt. i hope she is left in silence to only ponder about how taco felt, hoping and praying that she meant anything to her. even a tiny bit. clinging onto any fraction of hope that taco could possibly feel the same way she does.

i hope microphone never finds out she’s dead. i hope she is led to believe that taco moved on from her. that she never meant anything to her. that she wasn’t enough again.

[loverlesboy]

cait stans are a week away from saying vi was manipulating cait by crying after being hit or some shit like that

[girlishwhimsyy]

i think at a certain point some people are just putting wayyyyy more energy into hating on other drivers than being supportive of their favourites?? like at what point are you just not having fun watching this sport anymore. go for a walk in the sunshine or something idk

[silenthill2ps2]

finally breaking my silence on this discourse that's being going around on twitter because there are so many things wrong with this tweet and all of the arguments against AND for it

first of all the church was never shown in a positive light in the games. the religious aspects are merely part of the vampire hunting aesthetics + the church is directly criticized as the belmonts were banished by the church and they only asked trevor for help because dracula came back + they were desperate.

yes there are heroic characters who work for the church like sypha but she's merely doing it out of obligation because she's a witch and it's highly likely that she was working for them for survival, we all know what the church does to witches.

in the show trevor directly says that the vampire killer is consecrated so i wouldn't say the show is saying religion bad but rather church bad. i get this cuz the church was crazy in the 1400s that's a no brainer

HOWEVER this brings up another problem because the most prominent church in wallachia was orthodox, NOT catholic like in the show. this is an example of how poorly written and inaccurate the show is

tldr: all of you are fake fans who don't know jack about vania never talk about it again

[fifteenloove]

He is not Italian YET. We're working on that citizenship through marriage into the Sinner family as we speak. Give us time

[soapyishere]

im gonna squish him like a stupid roach

[spidermanifested]

the other thing that drives me nuts about the promised day is how utterly primed mei was to prove herself "worthy of the throne" by every single one of fmas own standards..... shes constantly putting other people first including that REALLY on-the-nose moment where she has to choose between saving hawkeye and grabbing the philosophers stone. and Duh she chooses to save hawkeye. but it should have been such an obvious demonstration of her capacity for leadership... if such a thing was supposed to be being demonstrated

meanwhile ling never really has to choose between the things he wants!! he gets handed the stone and goes dont mind if i do, and then his bodyguards take bullets for him and hes SAD about it, but we never really get the sense he should rethink his priorities. mei on the other hand has people on all sides telling her to give up on immortality and the stone. for some pretty good reasons, mind, but then those reasons are also doled out kind of unevenly across the narrative when you have al concluding "its okay to use the stone if you need to blow up a bad guy", and marcoh healing mustangs eyes with it, and etc... but thats another tangent and either way the point is. mei is constantly weighing all this input from other people. which she listens to! which youd think would be another quality that proves her leadership skills! her ability to take other peoples advice into account! ling does not really do that!!

really all the reasons the story gives us for why ling deserves the throne, are "he cares about his subjects unlike SOME people" and "hes just got so much youthful gumption". and if those are your criteria then i dont know how you can compete with meis gumption factor. waltzing right up to father in his goop form, going "let me solo him", and not waiting for permission. the fight should have ended rifht there. the MANGA should have ended right there

[the-lonelyshepherd]

mike flanagan fills me with rage and i don’t even know the guy

[aleenya]

my fave sangwoo scene is when he literally gets on his knees and starts begging ali like a pathetic wet rat to not let him die. like omg ali please. ali please die for me :( u don't understand i have a family to feed!!! a family ali!!! u wouldnt get it u don't have a family ... oh wait u do .... so um 🥺👉👈 you'll die for me right?? pretty please???

like sir?? what family??? ur 46 years old and have two. 2. TWO people in the world who give a fuck about you. one of them is your fucking mother. and the other is getting real tired of your bullshit. i wasnt aware you had a wife and ten kids all dying of leukemia waiting for u in ur shitty one bedroom apartment that smells like stale cigarettes and depression. a family??? Fucking PLEASEEEEEHFJHJBV ITS SO FUNNY NO U FUCKING DONT!! ur family consists of two ppl who u have actively attempted to ghost for thirty fucking years. that's ur legacy sangwoo like be fucking for real.

and like yeah obviously his language is very deliberate here bc he doesn't say a wife, or kids, he purposefully keeps it vague and just says 'family,' so it's not technically a lie bc he's referring to his mother .... but he knows ofc ali will immediately assume a family like his own and, by making that connection, he'll buy into his empathy. its actually so desperate and pathetic. but thats my blorbo ig <\3 manwhoring mansplaining manipulating his way out of every problem <\3

[empyreansentinel]

never understood why jack had a portrait of moxxi up in his casino. the place went under after BL2, and at that point they hadnt been together for years. and its not like what they had together was particularly happy or long lasting, either. they were together for maybe a month before breaking up pre-TPS, and thats not even mentioning what happens between them during the game itself, so... maybe its a trophy? it doesnt feel like one when theres also one of angel. but its all i really got because presumably hes been in a much happier relationship with nisha for years, even though the portrait does feel too sentimental for a woman hes hated for the past Forever. speaking of nisha, there's no portrait of her or his wives. which is doubly weird because surely theyd be here too if moxxi is. idk, moxxi and angel are just a strange pair to have it just be them. by themselves is fine, moxxi alone is easily a trophy. and imo its just weird for a portrait of angel to be in the casino in the first place. some secret siren, huh? but together? idk. it gives mixed messages.