Meet Cupid Twitch. Cupid Twitch is a skin concept for League of Legends character Twitch, the Plague Rat. The impetus behind this design is that Twitch is the last bow-and-arrow wielding character on the roster, and with Valentine’s Day approaching, adding him to the Heartseeker family of skins. The idea works two-fold, as it provides an opportunity to present a character known for filth and pungent odor in an ironic manner to be suddenly a romance-spreading Cupid, firing his arrows upon champions on Summoner’s Rift, as well as holding true to Heartseeker trends of utilizing bows and arrows.
The basis for the idea was taking a hairless rat, which are already all pink and cherub-like colored, and giving it Twitch’s weapon, modified to at least have a Heartseeker theme. Add wings, and superfluous hearts, and voila, it’s Cupid Twitch, ready to spread love in surprise double and triple kills.
However, Cupid Twitch does not actually exist.
I created Cupid Twitch.
If there’s one thing that I like about Riot Games is that they like to try and make events out of every little occasion, be it major holidays like Christmas, to more or less niche holidays, like Chinese New Year. Over the last three years, they’ve put a modicum of effort into Valentine’s Day, with the release of skins in the past such as Heartseeker Vayne, Heartseeker Varus, Heartseeker Ashe, and last year, Sweetheart Annie.
Along the way, champions in the Debonair skin family (Jayce, Ezreal, Vi, Galio) were lumped into the Valentines umbrella, because I guess dressing dapper associates with romance which means Valentines.
Admittedly, I was not a fan of last year’s Sweetheart Annie, because of two reasons:
- It broke the convention of being a play on Cupid and his arrows, as all the previous Heartseeker skins were characters who used bow-and-arrow weaponry
- The character design of Sweetheart Annie was basically taking Heartseeker Ashe, and putting her into a time machine. The end result was an identical color scheme with very little conceptual change going into it; I felt as if Riot phoned it in with effort
- Okay, three reasons: Annie has more skins than any other champion in League of Legends, even prior to the release of Sweetheart Annie. I love Annie as well, but spread the wealth, Rito!
Recently, I saw a post about this year’s Valentine’s Day skins, and was surprised to see that they would be releasing two new skins this year; Heartseeker Orianna and Sweetheart Sona.
This Nickelback song exemplifies perfectly my reaction to seeing these two “new” skins.
Honestly, I don’t even really know where to being. For starters, it legitimately feels like Rito has once again phoned it in this year in terms of creativity, basically stripping Ashe of her outfit from 2014 and slapping variants onto Orianna and Sona. It’s like they’ve created this imaginary pressure that they have to churn out new content because that’s what they’ve always done, but haven’t realized that it’s better to release nothing, than to release something sub-par.
In all fairness, Heartseeker Orianna looks a little cool, because she’s never been a character that can easily be objectified and whittled down to the lowest-common denominator, because she’s a robot, and not a tit monster that they can shear off fabric and sexualize just a little bit more. She definitely has an Alice in Wonderland vibe to her that doesn’t look half bad, it’s just the overall package is something all League fans have already seen before.
I do object to her being named “Heartseeker,” because I felt that such distinction was and should be limited to those with the bow-and-arrow weapons, to make that pun about Cupid’s arrows. Instead, her ball is adorned with all these forced hearts, and in fact, the whole package is shoehorned with a bunch of extraneous hearts that really serve no purpose in terms of aesthetic at all, but for the sake of having hearts.
As for Sweetheart Sona, I don’t even know why Rito even bothered. There’s such a severe lack of creativity with this design that it’s almost insulting that they’re asking people to pay actual money to get it, and should probably be complimentary to anyone who already purchased Heartseeker Ashe. The etwahl (her weapon) is more or less a scaled-up and fattened version of Ashe’s Heartseeker bow, and she’s basically wearing Ashe’s top and Annie’s skirt, with superfluous heart tassels hanging off, like Arcade Sona.
Furthermore, both Orianna and Sona already have a bunch of skins already. Prior to these releasing, Orianna has five skins, with the last one being Winter Wonder Orianna, released in December 2014. Sona on the other hand, has six available skins before this one, with her last one being the highly-touted (and expensive) DJ Sona skins that was released in February 2015.
In Orianna’s defense, she’s at least a champion that is heavily contested and played frequently in competitive play, as well as by professional players; some variation from default and Bladecraft couldn’t hurt. Sona on the other hand, despite her general popularity, is basically obsolete currently, but she does have the biggest boobs among all female champions, which is probably justification enough.
Meanwhile, champions like Yorick, the zombie grave digger, have two available skins, with his last one being Pentakill Yorick, released in June of 2011. Considering well-designed skins are often used as excuses for people to play particular champions, I’m not saying the Rift needs a purple-pink-and-gold Sweetheart Yorick, perhaps a decent-looking skin at some point, might just stimulate some people to play him again?
Anyway, boo on Rito for such low-hanging fruit for this year’s Valentine’s Day skins. I will not be paying money to get either of these skins, but I most certainly would have, if Cupid Twitch actually existed and were made available. As much as I am a fan of Riot and League, I generally am feeling like creativity has been going downhill over the last few years, and it’s stuff like this that really helps put stamps on that notion.
