So you've watched Arcane and have some interest, however faint, in the rest of the universe the show is set in?
Let me humbly present my pitch for where to go next, complete with links and helpful tips gathered below... presenting the gay pirate cowboy husbands that are arguably the closest we've gotten in League proper to a M/M pairing that's about the same level of ssssso nearly canon/an extremely open secret as Vi/Caitlyn*: Twisted Fate and Graves.
Let's start off with the first golden rule of getting into the surprisingly rich and rewarding world of League of Legends lore, whether through Arcane or through some other route:
1) Don't play League of Legends, kids (I certainly never have lol). The lore exists completely separately from the game itself, so there really is no reason to if you just want to engage with the world, stories and art. Not Even Once, Just Say No etc. etc.
Okay with that one out of the way, let's go. If you enjoy the style of art, animation and character interactions in Arcane, I'd suggest checking out this animated short as an introduction to the characters and their dynamic:
Holy Tulio and Miguel Energy Batman
And if that brings you some entertainment or makes you intrigued as to what their deal is and if it's that cheerfully homoerotic the whole way down (spoilers: it absolutely is, and even more so actually!), read on!
(tbskyen also has a wonderful breakdown both of the animation in this short and the gayness here, if that's your sort of thing! He's done similar stuff for Arcane as well, and his breakdown of the Jayvik 'wait this is not my bedroom!!!!' scene had me crying real tears of laughter.)
I recommend these two as a place to start a) because I love them and I want to take all of you down with me, b) because they're a rare case in LoL in that they've had actual character-, emotional- and plot development over time! c) their story is largely self-contained -- their arcs revolve pretty much around one another and their relationship, you only need to know the barest minimum of the setting and surrounding characters to understand what's going on, but it's still very easy to go off into the rest of Bilgewater lore afterwards and d) over the years they've actually amassed a decent chunk of meaningful content to get into, which is also frankly a rarity!
(Please skip these next two paragraphs if you'd like to go into their story blind/without as many spoilers) The basic story of their relationship is as follows: they meet when they're young and both cheating at cards during the same game. They hit it off immediately after putting eight aces on the table between them -- one of their bios call them 'kindred spirits' :') yes this is a meet cute do not @ me -- and they become partners in crime and inseparable for many, many years. They steal from the rich, they swindle the foolish, they pull some of the most daring and ingenious heists Runeterra has ever known, most of all they grow to completely trust and depend on each other -- until one day a heist goes wrong and Graves gets caught. He's thrown into a real shitty prison in Zaun known as the Locker. It is a Bad Place. Graves thinks the reason he got caught is that T.F. betrayed him and swears vengeance, so when he breaks out of prison after many years he makes it his life's mission to track him down and confront him. This Tom & Jerry chase scene-esque status quo persisted (both in real life for a couple of years and in the story) until the events of Burning Tides, one of the short stories listed below, when Graves finally catches up to T.F. and they get so caught up in homoerotically tearing through all of Bilgewater and having feelings at each other that they don't even notice they're being used as pawns in the power struggle between Miss Fortune and Gangplank for rule over the town until they're caught by Gangplank's men and almost executed.
Once they're forced to actually y'know talk to each other while they're chained together awaiting said execution, it turns out T.F. didn't betray Graves back then and even went back for him to try to break him out, but he failed and all of the rest of their crew died in the course of the rescue attempt. (This is the point where he changes his name to Twisted Fate, in what sounds like nothing so much as a burial ritual, btw. 'There is a me I thought died with you', huh.) Graves having heard the truth of what actually happened, and after they both take turns trying to die to save each other (just partners stuff <3), they reconcile and agree to pick up their partnership again. Graves very understandably has some trust issues and trauma that need working through, but in the current day they're back together and an unquestioned duo once more. (The animated short is set at roughly this point.)
Now, because the Universe page -- where all the League lore is stored, btw, if you want to go check out the Arcane champions there as well! -- is famously hard to navigate, let me get their champion pages and short stories in one easy to find place so you won't go astray
Twisted Fate's bio (in which you'll learn why this dude seems to have so many names and why his real name is hilarious)
Graves' bio (meeting T.F. 'changed the course of his life' u guys 😭)
If you want to understand the main storyline of Bilgewater you might also check out Miss Fortune's page -- she's the redhead easily besting them in that animated short (which is entirely characteristic of their general dynamic lmao) and I love her, adore her, she flirts very openly with Vi in their Legends of Runeterra interactions and it's great. She's one of my very favourite things in the whole lore, and the way they present her in the game is a fucking crime against one of the coolest and most fleshed out characters they have. Just make Captain Fortune her default in game appearance already you cowards
Now to their shared short stories!
Burning Tides, widely considered to be one of the best pieces of lore and part of the best lore event in League's history, which I personally put down largely to the fact that it has a really fucking solid and heartfelt core of T.F. and Graves' story that gives it an engaging emotional arc that's sometimes lacking in LoL short stories, as well as the stuff going on with Gangplank and MF, which is more about the world building/progression side. I especially enjoy the unreliable narration in this one -- the way Graves' POV keeps framing his emotional landscape as rage but if you read between the lines even a little there's just so much grief and hurt and betrayal, the way it can only really be with someone who meant so much to you and how horrible and humiliating it is to think you meant nothing to them after all. (Thankfully that's not true at all and it's very cathartic. Especially after Arcane it might be nice to have a story where good things do happen and old wounds can heal hahaha.)
It's in three parts with an epilogue.
Destiny and Fate (which is like... maybe The shippiest thing you could call a short story about them haha, Destiny is the name both of one of T.F.'s abilities and Graves' beloved shotgun), which gives the backstory of how they ended up in the predicament they're in in 'Double Double-Cross', and also how they've been working on rekindling their marriage and how it's been very good for Graves' mental health. (well that's certainly the subtext anyway lol) It has such delights as Graves splashing water on T.F. to tease him and giggling, and also Graves reading as a little giddily flustered at one point when T.F. worries about him being hurt. Graves' POV voice is so funny and charming in this, Anthony Reynolds never lets me down when he writes for him.
Here's the map of (the currently known continents of) Runeterra, because it makes it easier to get where all this is taking place. T.F. and Graves are technically Bilgewater champions, but they've been active conning & stealing all up and down the coast of eastern Valoran, and especially in Piltover! (Graves' bio short story is set in Piltover, for example, and the Locker, the prison he was in, is in all likelihood still in Zaun even if it's technically not stated anymore in his current lore state. It was probably not the same prison Vi is in in Arcane, though, since the Locker was privately owned and kept secret.)
Bilgewater is like... pirate town for pirates tm, but also some vibes of Americana (T.F. and Graves both have Southern accents for some reason, hence the cowboy part of cowboy pirates, and Tahm Kench is straight out of the bayou) and also it gets regularly overrun by an army of ghosts in soul-reaping raids called the Harrowing, plus there are huge unknowable sea monsters out there and part of the city's economy is based in catching them and butchering them for parts in a process reminiscent of the heyday of whaling in our world. It's got a lot going on, is what I'm saying, and it's made gloriously more than the sum of its parts by it, I love this stinking horrible bar brawl of a town. (Graves is from Bilgewater originally, T.F. is from one of the nomadic peoples of the Serpentine river delta on the Shuriman continent reasonably nearby, but they spent a lot of time in Bilgewater back in the day. I like to express it as him being a Bilgewater champion essentially by marriage at this point haha.)
Some fun official-ish TFGraves odds and ends from over the years:
- No, you're not imagining it, the homoerotic subtext was intentional and there from the beginning and it's grown only stronger and more beautiful with time, like a delightful weed that flourishes even in shadow and adversity. Everyone say thank you Devon Giehl. (And yeah, Riot as a corporation has an extremely questionable track record with a lot of things 🙃 the video game industry is frequently a 🎵nightmare🎵 to follow too closely)
May I also suggest this twitter thread from previous narrative lead (I think? one of the main writers at Riot before he quit, anyway!) Michael Yichao, where he's bluntly like 'yeah they fuck. they're best friends and they fuck. how on earth is this still in doubt.' He was only microscopically less blatant about stating this when he was employed by Riot and constrained by having to watch what he was saying. When I say it's kind of an open secret... this is the sort of thing I mean haha.
😌 (apparently this was posted by Riot themselves on an official forum that has since been taken down -- this was long before my time, so I don't know the details but from what I have heard: I think it was about popular ships and TFGraves was not actually mentioned in the post itself (there were only straight ships included lol quelle surprise), but this was the image for it anyway. Ah well, no matter what I will take this adorable art and run with it, hashtag canon enough for me, Graves canonically blushes when T.F. puts the moves on him and it's wonderful.)
- Legends of Runeterra is a digital card game that's free to play and honestly has as decent a business model as you can hope for in the modern video game industry -- you can quite easily build any deck you'd like just from earning cards by playing, and the cosmetic items you can pay real money for are just that: only cosmetic. There is a PVE mode, and it has small stories for the Arcane champions in it! LoR has some wonderful card art and its back is aching from having carried the world building and character designs of the entire IP for the last two years or so. All the Arcane champions are already in the game, so go look up their interactions on youtube at least if you're interested in them and their follower cards!
As of the writing of this post Graves hasn't turned up in Legends of Runeterra yet, but he's mentioned a few times in T.F.'s dialogue and Vi literally comes out and calls Graves T.F.'s 'better half' in their interactions. MLM/WLW solidarity at its finest babey
- A lot of Graves' in game character models have a T.F. card included, almost as if he maybe keeps one in his breast pocket to rest over his heart or something. (An informed speculation only, of course.) In his Sentinel skin (ssssh the details are not important we do not speak of the Sentinels of Light event) his death animation even includes taking the card out and looking at it before he collapses :')
- In the background of Graves' Snow Day skin there's an adorable photo of the two of them! (and also one of T.F.'s golden cards in the toolbox, for the eagle eyed)
- Don't Mess With Yordles is an animated short where Graves pulls the Runeterran equivalent of almost throwing hands with a 13-year old and hilariously reaps the consequences, while T.F. swoops in to save him like the longsuffering yet loving husband he is. The height of Graves' journey from hard gritty Western-inspired revenge thriller man to lovable bumbling comedy protagonist. He, as they say, has the range.
^This is the splash art of their young skins! (...Graves was even more of a brick shithouse back in the day than he is now huh cool cool cool)
- In the game 'The Ruined King' there's a lore snippet that's essentially Rafen, Miss Fortune's trusty second in command, writing TFGraves fanfic where T.F. is saving Graves from some bad guys fskaljfhsd (especially amazing since Rafen has actually seen a lot of the lore events with them from up close, so he fucking KNOWS he KNOWS!!! thank you Rafen.) Rafen is clearly also kind of horny for T.F. and honestly who can blame him the man has a Style going on.
This is the art from when Burning Tides was being released!
TL;DR if the Bilgewater crew ever get the Arcane treatment, that'll be it for me. I'll just transcend this mortal coil and become a being of pure emotion hovering around on the astral plane still whimpering softly or whatever
* well, I mean -- technically Varus is a darkins-are-complicated-but-basically-an-ancient-demon and two male lovers trapped in one body and there was quite a moving music video about it, but Riot fucking buried that shit, gave it no follow-up and you'll find absolutely nothing about it in the game itself. Valmar and Kai, I am so sorry, you deserve so much better. There's a nice comic with them on Varus' universe page, though.
There is as of this summer one actual canon F/F pairing, though, for those who are interested! It's Leona and Diana, our favourite starcrossed lovers, and the story is Rise with Me. The story is censored in several regions, but on the main US version of Universe we get an actual impossible to misconstrue kiss, folks :)
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