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Instead the fandom prefers Hector’s rapist than those two

I’ve seen people who don’t really like Timebomb claiming that episode 7 is fanservice because of the ship itself but is it actually? Now we know that Timebomb is a popular ship in the Arcane fandom along with CaitVi and JayVik, the ship got pretty big and, like CaitVi, got attention from the people involved with the show. Reed Shannon ( Ekko’s VA ) is shown to be very supportive of the pairing along with Amanda Overton ( Arcane’s writers ). So let’s go talk about the episode along with debunking.

So Ekko has not appeared in act 2 at all and we wonder as to why he didn’t show up, it turns out that he was in an alternate universe which being that what would’ve happened if everything was okay.

We see him countering Adult Powder, he got cautious around her until he sees Benzo being alive but it’s not only him being alive but the others as well. Ekko ends up running into Heimerdinger and has a conversation with him about going back to their own universe until Powder accidentally interrupts their conversation by telling Ekko that she’s going to visit Vi and invites him over.

This turns out that despite everything in the AU being okay, it ended up taking Vi’s life instead, Ekko being confused as to how she died ends up asking Powder questions that weren’t really the best to ask her, she finds it very insensitive that she refuses to talk to him. The scene cuts to Ekko walking but the setting that he was walking on was actually the bridge where him and Jinx fight on, he started having a flashback of him looking over her unconscious body before it ended. Now we see him and Heimerdinger having a conversation about finding a way back to the universe and notice how Ekko was scooting over for Powder to see him? Powder did see him, Ekko gave a smile but she looks away thus leaving him feeling bad about what he asked her. He ends up painting a memorial of Vi as not only a way to ask for her help but to apologize. Now during the heartfelt conversation of them speaking about Vi, we can see that he’s still thinking about Jinx when he was speaking to her but then we get this quote “Sometimes taking a leap forward means leaving a few things behind.”

Now during the scene where Ekko, Powder and Heimerdinger were building the time loop, I’ve seen people pointing out which I didn’t know but it started making sense that Powder knows that this was definitely not her Ekko because of her looking at the notebook and the look that she was giving him like she knows that something’s off but just chooses not to force it out of him.

Now going to the party scene where Powder and Ekko have this romantic moment of them dancing together, during this scene, we see them siting together while watching the sky. We had a heartfelt moment of Ekko admitting that he dreamed of the undercity to be like the alternate universe and Powder comforting him. Ekko did ask if she ever wish she could just stay in one moment to which Powder responded the same thing that Ekko had said to her, “Sometimes taking a leap forward means leaving a few things behind.” Powder was about to lean in for a kiss but due to this being Ekko’s first kiss, he hesitated and ask her if they can pretend that it’s their first kiss to which they did.

Now I’m not sure if Ekko gave her that necklace but it does have his and Powder’s silhouette but if he did, it was definitely something for her to remember him by.

When Ekko was ready to go back to his own universe, Powder comes in to check up on him to find an unconscious body of her Ekko. This is the moment where Powder first sees Ekko and what I love about this moment is when Ekko at first gave her a sad look but then gave a heartwarming smile, it looked like he was about to wave a goodbye when he leaves.

I’ve seen people claiming that Ekko doesn’t love Jinx but loves Powder, I will say that this is false and ridiculous to say because they are both the same person. If we are talking about AU Powder then I will still say that this statement is false because if he only loved her and not Jinx then he would’ve just stayed in the AU.

I’ve seen people say that Jinx hates Ekko or doesn’t care about him. This is later debunked by the official artbook of Arcane where we see Jinx’s doodles, when we see Ekko on the page, she draws hearts around him and there is this walkthrough event where along with her doodles, we see the “Ekko + Jinx” on the wall and if she were to hate him then she wouldn’t bother helping him.

So this all comes down to the question, is episode 7 pure fan service? I would honestly say no as Ekko wasn’t out of character in this episode. I know that people will say “But Jinx killed a friend of his” or “But he ended up hitting her on the bridge” and I feel like people forget that this pairing is a enemies to lovers troupe ( also Ekko was defending himself when she was about to shoot him ). Enemies to lovers troupe is extremely popular when it comes to pairings such as Batman and Catwoman as an example. I have also seen people say “Ekko all of a sudden falls in love with her” and I want to point this out that Ekko didn’t randomly fall in love with her, the two were childhood friends and it’s been hinted that Ekko has a crush on her when they were kids.