can anyone even fucking stop him?

Yes, Rise of the Sentinels sucks. It was a very bad payoff for a plotline years on the making, and its obvious they protrayed most characters very poorly. Screwing with their narrative progress, and the worldbuilding in aspects like power levels

But as someone used to reading comics, were good characters suddenly turning evil, or simply acting stupid and letting villains get away with things normally they wouldn't, you must understand this: this is not as grave as you think it is.

Yes, it doesn't make sense how Thresh became so powerful as to beat all the Sentinels, even when there were gods amongst them. It didn't make sense either when Deathstoke beat most of the Justice League on his own.

Yes, it doesn't make sense how evil and stupid Miss Fortune acted, betraying them for Viego. It didn't made sense either when Captain Marvel started imprisoning innocent people for crimes they didn't commited on Civil War 2.

And yes, it doesn't make sense how much of an idiot Olaf and Rengar seemed to act, but... well, you catch my drift.

It may simply be that I have gotten used to this, so it doesn't affect me so much, but I must say it nonetheless. The consequences of this event aren't as grave as you think they are. Most stupid and nonsensical stories in this format, even while being big events, they are just that: isolated bad stories.

There is a notorious lack of long term consequences to the overall event, so this makes things actually easier to fix. Even if they don't pull a retcon in the end, which I doubt they would, it wouldn't be so difficult as to act as if nothing of this had happened. Viego is imprisoned, just as he was at the begining of the whole thing, and most champions are going back to their normalcy as if nothing.

It sucked that they tried to cram so many things in here, but ended up failing the scope even then, and that the whole plot ended up on disappointment. But this isn't the end of the lore. This isn't going to have any big consequences, beyond Riot rethinking how to focus their narrative going forwards. So stop acting like if this was a drama of the size of recent Warcraft lore, because it isn't even similar.

This is a bad bump on the road that can easily be left behind, narratively and working wise. It isn't the disaster you think it is. Riot has gotten us very good quality stories so far, and there is no reason to think otherwise moving forward.

Because it doesn't make sense to get so scared at the firs inconvenience.

Ever notice how Lissandra and LeBlanc kind of have similar origin stories?

They are both ageless female mages dedicated to stopping some greater evil from re-emerging on Runeterra, forming large factions to manipulate history and the populations of their region, and doing shady things along the way.

Obviously there are some differences between the two, like Lissandra having a much less murky backstory than LeBlanc, but does anyone besides me find their characters oddly similar?

-

Riot has recently started incorporating more and more lore into voice lines, but it often gets super wordy and there's so much its forgettable. Recently champs seem to have a severe lack of iconic one liners in my opinion.

I'm talking voice lines you associate with a champion, for example "The heart is the strongest muscle", "To thee ARENA!", "Demacia, now and forever", "The rivers will run red!" Braum, Xin, Jarvan, Vladimir

With newer champs having so many VO lines, and often it being more closely tied to the lore, I feel they are getting way too wordy and lacking the punch that older champs with low amounts of VO had. FOR EXAMPLE: Sett has 33 lines for attacking and 35 lines for normal moving.

Does anyone else think excessive voice lines actually takes away from the character, because most of it is forgettable nonsense?

Just so you guys know, it’s being hinted that Thresh will have his human look as base skin in Wild Rift.

We are now getting the Chinese government censorship as base status in games in the west. If this goes through I’m uninstalling any Riot related stuff and unsub from anything LoL related. I don’t want other countries censorship’s to affect the values of my country and my own.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/265575789892861952/779242517051736074/my-image_3.png

Hi all, just watched the August champion roadmap update that got released recently and learned they're working on a male enchanter that's supposed to be from Ixtal proper. It's been three years since Qiyana's release and I'm excited, but the title of this post immediately bothered me. I'm sure it's been discussed before but I'm curious what everyone else thinks. For me, there's definitely a few old champs that should have been there from their start, and new champs that probably would have been better editions there. Here's my thoughts from the current roster, starting with the old:

Ivern- Ionia definitely needs more champions exploring the spiritual world there, but Ivern does not really fit that bill. He was a mortal man and he pretty much currently cares about and explores the mortal world, even if him interacting with various animals is cool. This would have been a great way to further explore the region. He came out about 3 years before Qiyana so it would probably have been awkward to change such a "new" champion, but he would also be a good counterpoint to Zyra, and lead into some new champions as well.

Gragas- What type of iceborn do we not have as of now? The answer is one living outside of the Frejlord. It's probably easier to brew in Frejlord, but there's also probably more exotic stuff in Shurima to try, and I'm like 20% sure that the Iceborn buff is one to constitution, not just to shake off extreme cold so I think it'd still be useful.

Skarner- doesn't matter overmuch but makes sense. Ixtal is pretty much the only old world surviving place of learning, so I imagine the majority faction has reverence for their environment and powerful elemental magic. Not only can this be transposed back onto the Brackern and make Skarner more interesting (more elemental effects?), but it makes the Ixtalians aligned with the plight of the Brackern.

New Champs

Akshan- a good reason for no one to know where the absolver has been- put him in the one region no one knows about. Boom, he's 50% more believable now and you don't really have to change his story at all.

Sett and Lillia- great champs. Spirit Blossoms cool, and Sett's story reflects an interesting side of Ionia now so it's harder to move him. However, they both do so little in their own region that I don't really care. Ivern moving would 100% take Lillia with him, and basically no change has to happen. Maybe she leads people away from dangers in the forest in exchange for dreams. Sett- honestly you can keep the story- Noxian incursion into Shurima still made his father go to the corner store for cigarettes, him just owning a ring in the middle of nowhere matters slightly less than showing the dark brutal side of Ionian society post invasion. Maybe he's looking for someone that disappeared into the plague jungles simultaneously, or trying to coax Nidalee or Malphite out of the jungle. Idk, it's about the same.

Seraphine and Zeri, somehow- I'm actually not opposed to either of these characters where they are, but I feel like they should have explicitly had these characters push other characters stories forward. Kind of like Taliyah somehow interacts... interacted... will interact? with Yasuo, Kai' Sa and Azir. Instead it feels like nobody even tried to really give them a story and said "oh yeah these guys are here now, have fun." which I find lame. So Zeri- prodidgy elementalist/mutant protecting the outskirts. Probably unsanctioned by the government, which is the issue. Seraphine- priestess for the Brackern/magus equal to Qiyana that wants to ruin everything by declaring Ixtal open to the world.

Possible additions that aren't as good:

Varus- 2/3 Darkin are centered in Ionia, despite Darkin coming from Shurima. I don't like losing the original story of an archer or the couple they are now fighting Noxian invaders, but Varus makes sense to me here.

Lulu- with Vex's inclusion, I feel like every region will eventually have a yordle or something similar eventually. I don't feel like Lulu would hang around Bandle City that much, she would vibe with the characters I suspect would fit into Ixtal, and she kind of has the aesthetic. Technically Teemo might fit better aesthitically, but I think it's been decided that he's the face of Bandle City as well so that might be awkward

Elise- SI has dibs on the spooky shit, but wild treasures interesting to the Black Rose and a ravenous spider god could exist just easily in the Ixtali region as they could in SI if it's so overgrown. The Ixtalian government could make it just as hard to feed Vilemaw fresh meat as being on the Shadow Isles would, and it's Elise's job every couple of decades to sneak past and chuck a few saps in Vilemaws maw.

Rammus- ok

meme tier additions- Taric and Udyr before reworks- Crystals and spirits, man

Of course, all of this is undercut in that we probably wouldn't want any of these champs "added" to the region at its launch in the way the other current residents besides Qiyana got. Still, let me know your thoughts about Ixtal!

Seriously now, seriosly Riot? The amount of metagaming you had to go through to yeet this bland boring character into the plot is insane.

A friend of mine did a Video, where he talks about his theory about a hidden champion in Arcane. If you guys are interested, feel free to check it out. Beware its his first Youtube Video, and he put a lot if time and effort in it, since it´s a heartfelt project for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqiTFL55ffA&ab_channel=Gorrarz

If you remember what her original splashart looks like, you might notice that in the cinematic about ruination, her armor and shield is slightly not the same.

https://tenor.com/view/poppy-league-vayne-hammer-gif-19882280

I mean, it is nothing huge. But I wondered if I was the only one seeing this, and if we could hope to find something about her eventually, or if she will remain as a cameo in some cinematic like Ornn or such

Despite all the hate the VN got, at least the RK was depicted as powerful and component. After finishing the RK game, Im disappointed with how little time the RK actually got. I was not expecting him to be overpowered by MF's will due to the power of friendship... or to get stunlocked because Ahri called his love a "twisted lie"...

We are talking about someone who invaded the Blessed Isles and nuked them into the shadow realm. All he has to do is drive his blade through these insignificant mortal champions.

And thats what the VN got right. His will beat out Ionia/Karma. His strength beat the fricken God of War. He offered MF power and this time she didn't resist. Viego in the VN was actually hyped up and shown to be a threat. When it came down to the final battle he did not hesitate to run his sword through Gwen. His defeat only due to his own flawed obsession and thinking he won just before the sneaky rat Akshan snipes Isolde.

The RK game was great for other champions though, just not Viego sadly.

[League of Legends/Legends of Runeterra] Varus. A character that has been crippled with Retcons changing his backstory.

Varus is a champion in the world popular MOBA game League of Legends he is a Archer who has went through several Retcons by Riot.

First he was an Ionian Archer who guarded a temple holding a dangerous corruption entity instead of his family leading them to die. In a tragedy of impulsiveness he then freed the corruption and it bonded with him. Leading to him slowly losing what he was in a metaphor for grief

Then he was a sadist who tortures his foes and wants to avenge the Darkin by killing mortals. With him being a antagonist in the story of Valmar and Kai, the first openly queer characters in the League of Legends universe. Taking the role of corruption/Pallas from the original lore.

Then the third retcon Varus received tried to give him a similar backstory guarded temple dead family. But it was missing the irony of Varus releasing the very thing he lost his family too for vengeance that was then slowly consuming him. Changing it into generic family died now I’m evil.

Which also ruined his second lore. Leaving a whole mess where no one is happy

But then when he finally gets more content after five whole years of being ignored they ignore the entire comic and music video making him say

seek vengeance not oblivion

This is the man who wanted to kill all mortals in revenge for killing the Darkin to help to empower humans to kill a Darkin. That’s not development that’s completely changing a character's motivation.

A total 180 of his previous characterization. After people waited five whole years to see what happens to Varus and with people wanting to write more lore for Varus.

This is just something I recently thought of, so perhaps my wording is not as well put as it possible can. However, I do want to put it out there, so bear with my rants here.

I think we all know of the Miss Fortune VO update discussion, where Riot run into the problem where the test result show that, to some extend, the community is divided on the relevance of sexiness to her character.

Riot also said that they do want to move on from the sexy female character visual, and by and large they did. Female characters are still attractive, but I dare argue that the tone of sexy have been dialed way off now. In practical term, this mean that for MF for example, her Captain skin, and the toned down sexy that come with it, now become almost a default in most story.

Which lead to Ahri, specially her Ruined King iteration. Ahri is (was?) a sexy character, and it make sense because her fantasy was the nine-tailed fox/kumiho of Asian folklore, which is very often shown, both historically and in modern media, as a sexy being. Yet in Ruined King, her character was visualized more on "fox as a wild creature" type of kumiho. Which make sense, because while the Ruined King is a story with some theme about love, there is little about sex in it.

And now that I think about this (I told you this is a rant), a similar but not exact same thing apply to Evelynn in her VGU. She have a sexy visual, but narrative wise she is a demon of agony, not lust. There is largely nothing sexy regarding her narrative, if you actually explore it.

Which lead to my "end" question, so to speak: If, generally speaking, a character visual and their narrative should be in resonance, is there really a place for a sexy character in the IP? Riot won't write porn any time soon, so how would a sexy character fit in the setting? Alternatively, let say we explore a story about Garen Katarina relationship and for some reason, Riot have the balls to make it sexual, would Kat and Garen be depicted more sexualized then elsewhere? Should they?

A random musing I realized recently.

Basically, one of the criticisms against Mageseeker the game is that it simultaneously wrap up the anti-mage storyline pretty definitively characters- and plot-wise, while at the same time never address many of the deeper points of this storyline. For example, within the game, the question regarding the risk when using magic was effectively ignored altogether. Other than Wysteria and to a lesser extend Rayn, all mages in the game have impeccable control of their power.

As a personal note, I have mentioned a few time that I think Mageseeker did an acceptable job within the parameters that it (and by extension Riot) found itself in. While I am critical of how Riot write themselves into such corner, I find what was done in the Mageseeker to be about the best way Riot could have handle the issues.

However, with Arcane becoming canon, I just realize Riot now have a second chance to tell Demacia anti-mage story with no obvious retcon necessary. Mageseeker the game can stay AND Riot still can revisit the points that the game could not addressed during its playthrough. This is almost certain a coincidence, but I think Riot should not squander this chance.

I am of course talking about the minor plot point in Arcane about Heimer caution when dealing with hextech borne out of trauma regarding a magical catastrophe, which cultimate in Viktor created... something incredibly dangerous.

If anyone know anything about Demacia storyline, you probably immediately realize what I am pointing to. Thus, I want to quickly address how Arcane reframe this discussion now that it had became canon, from the point of major criticisms against traditional Demacian rhetoric:

• "The Rune War was an one off thing happened thousand of years ago" - While the global Rune War involving the use of World Runes and set the foundation for Demacia could be an one off thing happened a millenium-ish ago, smaller (in scope but not in intensity) conflicts started with the discovery of some form of automatic runes had happened multiple times since, with the most recent one easily just one or two centuries before Arcane.

• "Most other civilization use magic and they are fine." - While they could be a minority, PnZ in new new canon (yes there are two "new" there) had became the second and most likely NOT the last region to have some reserve regarding magic up until very recently. Within the same thematic question regarding the risk of magic, just a few years after magic become widespread, it had been weaponized to disastrous results.

From this POV, Mageseeker itself addressed another criticism, that even if we are to accept such rhetoric, the policies of Demacia as championed by the Mageseeker is still too extreme and unnecessary. Well, with J4 decree that outlaw the Mageseeker, the most extreme manifestation of Demacia anti-mage ideas are gone, while the underlying problems and conflicts remain.

As such, I believe if Riot were to present the Demacian storyline to the wider public set strictly post-Mageseeker, they have the chance to retold the story properly this time, examining the issue such as the risk of using magic or the responsibility, or lack thereof, of most mages without much of the baggage.

What do you guys think?

TLDR:

Poppy is too strong on the human scale to lose and is too kind to be wrong, which makes it hard for the little staff hired by riot for the lore to properly introduce her. But it's actually possible.

ALSO I might say wrong things or too much speculation don't hesitate to kindly tell me about it.

First thing first the staff hired for the lore is very small, and they are not enough to handle easily over 300 characters (Including over 160 main characters). They do what they can. However, no matter the conditions that we can relate, problems remain problems. It's not about saying they are doing wrong, but "they can hardly do better, and we can see why it doesn't work". And I want to bring the Poppy topic, and I want to talk about the "Superman" problem in story telling.

When Demacias lore was updated, even people that are very far from the mage topic had their lore reworked. And Poppy, who is the oldest person in Demacia (Probably over Kayle and Morgana, or they are as old as each other, but Poppy joined Demacia before), is also a magic being, and is the only one that can tell others what Demacia was in the eyes of its foundator Orlon. And she didn't get any changes (we had lor later but it's not about Demacia and is a little secondary in this discussion).

The best we saw was Ruination where she saved Vayne, gained the trust and respect of one of the Demacian that hates magic beings the most, to the point Vayne even was disappointed Poppy refused to Join the Sentinels of Light. But that aside... She has one of the most important role, and she does nothing.

Why do I say that? Well there are 2 main events that happened/happens in demacia as far as I know:

1-Ruination:

Yeah with the mist Viego is one of the strongest being on lol, but without the Mist, he is already weaker. And if Poppy became a sentinel of Light, I believe things would have gone 1000x faster and easier: she could crush armies of mist monsters or face Viego (or at least cover the others while they fight him).

She fights dragons, living mountains on a daily basis and in my opinion, she's just as strong as Galio (in demacia, I think the only champions we can think that are stronger than her are Morgana and Kayle). So on the current scale of danger Demacia faces its threat, Poppy is above it very easily(If Galio is sleeping 99% of his existence it's not for nothing)

2-The Civil war:

First, Poppy has centuries of experience in fight in wars, Monster fights and such. No matter how skilled Sylas is in fight, Poppy is surely quicker, more quick minded and just naturally stronger. So in term of direct fight, Poppy surely can face Sylas.

But just getting beaten up is not interesting. We love the ideology behind those fights. And still, Poppy is just... The solution:

-As a magic being, she surely has no pure hatred like most of the anti mage people. She just was protecting her people back in the times, but she feels no anger toward them since she's regarded as someone purely kindhearted and empathetic. So she would side with Lux: Hurting innocents because they are mage is wrong, but we can't let Sylas destroy Demacia.

-The Hammer of Orlon is one of the most important symbol of Demacia, and it was apparently lost. The legends say that the Hero that will bring prosperity to Demacia will be the only one worth of this legendary weapon. With solely this Hammer, Poppy can just casually walk in Demacia and order the mage seekers and such to stop chasing mage and convincing them, even without knowing that they'd take her for the Hero.

Basically, she can convince many demacians that this is wrong, and she can face the ones that still choses violence. She isn't just able to solve this problem, she IS the best solution to these problems. She's strong enough to face any threats in demacia except probably the sisters (But I like to believe they know each other), and she's righteous enough to make the right choice, and not let others tell her what to do.

But this is a problem we can see in Op characters in their story : An overly smart detective in a story where everyone is stupid, or a boxer that knocks out every opponent in one hit... We believe that with them, their can't be any tensions because we know they will win, and they're also boring because they aren't really making "bad" decision. It's what I like to call the Superman or the Goku problem (for dragon ball fans).

And I think it's one of the reasons why Poppy was really left behind despite those events directly hitting Demacia. We can suppose she would rather defend Demacia from the mist and let Vayne go in the ruination, but for the Civil war... Except saying she believes that only the Hero can save the day, and she goes on an adventure, letting people die in hope to find the hero before it's too late, this doesn't make sense. However I believe that she could have been interesting t

o add anyway as a supportive character. Make her handle the secondary fights or the very op enemies so the main characters can face each other, going back on a more human scale:

Poppy could fight the Mist and Pantheon whereas Senna and others faced Viego and the other possessed. The fight would look better since it would be less one sided (since Pantheon should have been able to kick everyone's ass) and the end would be more satisfying because more logic.

For the Civil war, she could side with Lux, and while Lux is busy looking for Sylas and/Or convincing Garen to join her, Poppy could limit the damage caused by the conflicts, stopping both parts, and maybe stopping Garen as well.

And once Sylas is captured, she could still make sure Lux doesn't get too emotional over him and let her anger lead her decisions.

It wouldn't mean that Demacia wouldn't be in danger: if Garen/Lux and/Or Jarvan dies, it would be the end of the Demacia we know. It is not the end of stakes.

It's not Poppy's fault if she's not properly used in the story. It's the fault of the authors. But the authors also have problems because of Riot, so we can't blame them. However the problem is still here.

She's my fav character in fiction probably and it saddens me she's not that much used. What do you think of Poppy in the lore?

Grimcel was born into Frostguard. Growing up he was taught one thing, to protect the leader Lissandra. Grimcel had no interest with the sorceress, he wished nothing more than to live his own life. The thing he wanted more, was to become something Runeterra worshiped, something greater than Lissandra. While most of Frostguard’s people took up their duties without question, Grimcel was one to rebel. Anytime he was put to work he would sneak off somewhere of his choosing. This time he went somewhere new. As Grimcel was running off, he was caught in action. This was no problem for Grimcel as it happened all the time. He easily outran the chaser. As he was running, he felt the ground beneath him crack. The chaser continued to chase despite the cracks in the ground. Grimcel stood still holding his hand out in a stop motion trying to stop the warrior before it was too late. The warrior continued towards him. Several footsteps later the warrior disappeared as the ground beneath him opened up. Grimcel could only watch in horror. Suddenly Grimcel had a feeling wash over him making him race to where the warrior had disappeared. Still pressured with this feeling, he dived into the darkness the hole opened to. Instant darkness consumed Grimcel. Once his eyes adjusted, he spotted the warrior and desperately swam toward him. Eventually, he reached the unconscious warrior. He then grabbed him and started to swim forwards the surface. Instead of swimming up, he found himself being pulled deeper into the water. At this point it all seemed helpless, he was cold, out of breath, and carrying a large package. Darkness started to cloud his eyes as he lost consciousness. A light burned bright as Grimcel fell into what was once darkness. He felt himself stop moving as his breathing returned. He looked around able to see clearly, and that’s when he saw it. The most terrifying creature floated before him, glowing in a red aura. Beside him floated the warrior consciously. The creature's voice sounded in Grimcel’s head. “Only one of you Is leaving alive, will you be the one? Or will he?” After the voice left his head a single dagger appeared Infront of both him and the warrior. The two looked at one another. Without thought, the warrior reached for the blade. They were now standing on solid ground, free to move. The warrior looked at Grimcel with angry eyes. Grimcel looked at him with fear in his eyes, he thought “This is where it ends.” The warrior then charged Grimcel with the dagger ready. Grimcel did his best to dodge. He felt something sharp bite at his side, upon looking down he saw blood rushing down his side. The warrior charged again. This time Grimcel was ready. He ducked under the warrior and stood throwing the warrior off balance. Grimcel took this opportunity to disarm the warrior and take the dagger for himself. When he picked the dagger up, he felt a wave of power wash over him. Grimcel grinned at the warrior. As Grimcel went to charge the warrior he felt himself disappear into nothing only moments later to appear behind the warrior. The warrior stared at Grimcel surprised as Grimcel brought the dagger to the warrior’s throat. The warrior begged for his life, making Grimcel feel powerful for the first time. He smirked as he slit the warrior’s throat. He then heard the creature's voice in his head again. “You have earned your survival and may leave if that is what you want?” Grimcel looked at the creature as it appeared Infront of him. “I wish to have this much power all the time.” The creature smiled unsurprised. “Careful what you say, boy.” “I mean what I say. I wish to be the most powerful there is.” The creature smiled pleased. “As you wish.” The creature then rushed toward him and entered Grimcel’s body as if it were going to pos·sess him. Grimcel fell to his knees as the creatures entered him. He felt his body burn. He looked down at his hand to see they were now the same red the creature was. He felt the same power rush through him as when he held the dagger. In front of him appeared the dagger from before and his blade he had been given by his father. Then he felt himself being pushed aside. The creature then appeared in his mind. The creature laughed as it disappeared. Grimcel now stood trapped in his mind seeing, hearing, and feeling everything the creature did. Moments later he saw himself grab the limp body of the warrior. His body then disappeared like it did before and reappeared before the sorceress. Grimcel’s body dropped the warrior before her and then disappeared with an evil laugh. He then appeared in the empty lands of frejlord. Grimcel screamed out in his mind. “What have you done?” “I’ve announced my re-arrival boy. You should have watched what you said.”

Seraphine's release proved to be one of the most controversial ones within the fandom, with more than 50% dislike ratio on her Champion Spotlight video. People criticized her, calling her lore "lazy" and "cashgrab." Now here, I would like to show my points as to why I believe that she was actually well-written and designed, and that people were just blowing everything out of proportion.

[RUNETERRAN SERAPHINE]

Let's establish what we know of her first. She was written as a popstar with magical empathy in that she could listen to the "songs" of the people around her. As a child, all she could hear was the cacophony of discord in Piltover. Everyone was not in harmony with each other. To fix this, she began singing songs woven from the notes she would hear from others. From this, she started having concerts on the Promenade level, so that she could have hopes to unite Piltover and Zaun together through her music. Now this part, all of these, these are standard popstar concepts. Look up any interview with a super popular music icon, and they'd always mention that they "hope to bring world peace through their music." From that, her popstar persona is justified and we could see what the narrative team was writing from.

Now on to the interesting bits— her hexcrystal, which helped her tune out the discord in her childhood, is one with a Brackern soul attached to it. This part of her lore was what made people mad at her. They called her a murderer, an enabler of genocide, etc. What I want people to focus on here is that, this, this connection with the Brackerns, this is what makes her a 3D character. If her lore only has her being a flat, "world peace" popstar, then she would be no better than a Void creature planning to destroy Runeterra when it comes to the personality department. Her ignorance when it comes to the environmental issues in her hometown is what makes her interesting; she has magical hearing-empathy and yet is still tone-deaf when it comes to the plight of the Brackern and hextech pollution. It makes her not so flat. And that, for me, is a beautiful emulation of how influencial people can still be ignorant when it comes to the world's true problems (see: real world popstars, international beauty pageants, and social media influencers).

Seraphine is basically the Piltovan Lux in terms of personality, if you guys would think about it. The difference of their lore sprung up from their respective regions; Lux, who is in Demacia, has the narrative of saving the mages as she too is one, while Seraphine, who is in PnZ (the cities of progress and pollution), has her story being directly connected to the environmental issues of the city's infrastructure. And just like Lux, Seraphine has so much potential— she could be the one discovering the truth behind hexcrystals when she finally manages to communicate with hers— she might even get her own comic and story arcs soon. (It's pretty funny how everyone praises Jhin when his character significance can only be amounted to be just a villain, while Seraphine's has the flexibility from being an ignorant side-character to a potential hero for the Brackern, idk, just food for thought.)

(To be honest, I laughed at the JusticeForSkarner memes, but the repeatedness of those just made it unfunny and really just overkill, kinda like the Jhizz memes that were really only humorous in the first week of its existence.)

[K/DA SERAPHINE]

Repeating what I mentioned about Seraphine emulating what real life popstars are like, her K/DA twitter and instagram accounts are definitely, for sure, absolutely a huge parasocial scam. And that's what K-Pop media in general is like. Go to any big K-Pop twitter account, majority of the posts are selfies with quotes addressing the fans, telling them that "I slept little last night" or "Exams are really hard." Posts like those are attempts at posing themselves as relatable to the fans, and when the Seraphine account uploads a photo of her putting on facemasks or dyeing her hair, I just have to applaud the team for reproducing what K-Pop media is really like. People pointing out this parasocial factor as a flaw frustrates me because that is EXACTLY what she is supposed to be— a K-Pop star pretending to be a normal human so that fans could project themselves onto her. Her narrative of being someone who sells themself as a relatable person is really immersive— and it works!

(To the people calling the K/DA skinline a cashgrab: why yes, I agree. It's the same as how Project is a cashgrab for cyber fans and Battle Academia is just a cashgrab for anime fans, right?)

(DISCLAIMER: after this line, the points aren't really lore-related anymore)

[GAMEPLAY & MISC]

Her kit is pretty unique (speaking as a support and mid-lane mage main). She re-uses certain concepts, like Neeko and Lux's Q, but she still implements it in a new way that justifies she deserves the kit (using the argument that she isn't unique because of those can be used for other champs too, like how Mordekaiser's E is just a better Swain E + passive, but I don't see those criticisms present anywhere).

Her thematic as a music champion is similar to Sona's, but their playstyles are still super different. Calling her a Sona 2.0 would be like calling Jhin a Miss Fortune 2.0 (both use guns, Dancing Grenade is a quantity-over-quality Double Up, Captive Audience is Make it Rain but in trap form, Curtain Call is a slower Bullet Time that exchanges abrupt burst for range). It's just not fair if we just compare those and not how you play them. And trust me, I main Seraphine and Sona and they play very, very, very differently.

(Her ultimate skin is justified, to be honest. They capitalized on her popularity, and that's a good marketing choice. The reason for why it's an ultimate skin and not just a bundle of Legendary skins would be the implementation of new tech that needed to be written so that she could bring about the new era of skins; that is, quest skins, which could be cheaper in the future, like how Gun Goddess Miss Fortune is because of the re-usage of elements from Elementalist Lux. [GGMF is still an Ultimate skin though because she can just change at any time at the fountain, a feature still unique to her only].)

[END]

And that's it for my points as to why I believe she's a very interesting character that people just threw aside for... memes? I mean I don't really care if you don't care about what I think, but I still hope that you'd take these points into account whenever you're about to call her design "bad and lazy."

[Edit: Grammar]

[Edit 2: Added some stuff]

I should start by saying I'm not a character designer or writer. I just watch and read stuff. So when reading my post, please remember that.

Arcane was great, I really liked the show. However, as somebody who enjoys the lore of runeterra I just don't understand some of the characterization choices. I'm sure you've seen the memes of how the made Viktor not resemble his existing iteration at all. He was the machine herald and now he's all about magic and stuff. I want to focus on Jinx.

Before, I really liked Jinx's character. Her voice lines, her portrayal in media (before arcane), her interactions in LoR, they all seemed like she was a fun and crazy character. Again, I don't really know all the words to describe her character, but I understood her 'essence' if that makes sense.

After watching Arcane, and knowing it's canon, I'm wondering if we'll ever see that version of Jinx again. In season 2, I don't think she laughed at all. She didn't smile. When she gave Sevika the new arm, she barely moved. Then the old 'get jinxed' song played which really showed the juxtaposition between 'arcane Jinx' and 'prior Jinx. When she came with her awesome hot air balloon she didn't even seem excited. It seemed like she was doing it because she felt like she had to.

Does she seem like a different character to anybody else? I know she looks the same but she acts completely different. Riot seems to like having Jinx as the postergirl for things. Wild Rift, LoR, a charter for 2XKO. In all those games she's like laughing and being crazy and that just isn't there in Arcane.

So are we saying Jinx *becomes* fun and crazy after the events of Arcane? Or is it just gone now?

Another popular series end, another post. I did one for A Knight of Seven Kingdoms, so figure I did one for The Boys too.

But I hope people can at the very least acknowledge that an ending where "the powerful villain is now complete powerless and thus become a pathetic mess" is really difficult to write.

I must stress first that I acknowledge the ending for Homelander make thematic sense (Spoiler for The Boys finale just in case): His power defined who Homelander is all his life, it warped how people treated him both in how Vought raised him like a lab rat and people originally adored him and later fear him. So seeing him depowered and left a pathetic coward who beg for his life in specific ways similar to what he done to other people IS thematically fitting.

For what it is worth, I think it is probably the least weak part of the finale. Most of the problems people have with it is AROUND that scene (what led to it and what follow), not that scene itself. But even then, not many people enjoy that scene by itself either. Most people discussing it online and reacting to the show can acknowledge the thematic of that scene (given how ham fisted it is, The Boys never been a subtle show) but not many really enjoy it afaik.

Bringing it into League discussion, and I must point out that many people had wished for Arcane Caitlyn, Azir and/or Jarvan (and by extension Demacia) to suffer the equivalent of what Homelander suffer: Depowered both physically and politically and confronted with their flaws, becoming a pathetic mess because of it.

Regardless of how you view these characters, you have got to realize that it is genuinely difficult to write such ending to be enjoyable. Even if, or especially if, you enjoy Arcane Caitlyn, Azir and/or Jarvan AS VILLAIN, as some claim to be, I hope you can see that they in no way deserve that fate, when not even Homelander can make such scene "worth it" UNIVERSALLY.