We should overhaul our perception of "support"

Work with me here, folks. When someone says "What does support do?", everyone's common answer is "Protect the team" or "Protect the adc", right? Right...but why? Why isn't "support" more along the lines of "support the team's efforts"? Why is the goal of the role so starkly in that one area when it comes to the community mindset about the role?

For example, "mage supports", right? Now, when I say "mage supports", I don't add the stupid quotations, but others do because no matter how much Riot tries to push Zyra and Brand as support options, people think of them as mid laners taken bot lane. Why? Because they hit like mid laners. They're less about protecting people for 40 minutes and more about putting some damage out, with a side functionality of peeling and zoning. I mean, yeah, this is true, but they're still supporting the team, right? Outside of their ridiculous in-kit damage, they're not your team's primary damage dealers. They work primarily to supplement what you already have, much like any other support would, and they work well working off of others. Sure, their game plan is a bit more kill-happy, but they're still supporting the team.

This is honestly why I harp on itemization so much if you look in my recent history or if you've seen me posting on this topic...which I've done a bit more often while waiting for the season to reset. Because everything's defensive, it hammers in the point that supports just sit in bushes and spam shields and heals while others go get the shit done...but why are we restricting what we want supports to do to that? Why is Riot themselves, on one hand, saying that they want more engaging support game play...but they don't give us the items that would encourage us to seek that game play out? They do for everyone else, right? If you wanna dial back risk, there's items for that for the carry roles. If you want to amp up the pressure and damage, tankier roles have those options. Where's the itemization for supports that wanna crank things up and roll their advantages? And don't say "buy a Luden's", please. I don't tell a marksman to "buy a Zhonya's", now do I?

If I were to make a comparison, I'd compare my expectation of the support role, or at least some of the champs in it, to my old Raichu I built for VGC in Pokemon OR/AS (bear with me here for a sec, guys). Raichu, in the hands of a more casual player...is shit. Doesn't hit too hard, doesn't take many hits. It's as fast as Gengar, so it has that, but that's it. But when you really break it down, it learns a few good moves that carves out a niche for it. It can force opponents to lose out on a turn with Fake Out, it has Lightning Rod to protect allies from super-effective Electric-type moves, and it outspeeds a good deal of the roster while learning Electro Web, which slows everyone it hits down. Thus, you slap it on your team and it protects you from Electric-type moves of all kinds just by being there, steadily doing chip damage while slowing your opponent's pokemon down so your real heavy hitter can outspeed and sweep things that'd otherwise bury it. Now, if I honestly needed a ko and Raichu could land it, it still had Thunderbolt for that, but otherwise, it wasn't my main damage dealer more than it was complimentary damage and utility.

THAT was what I was expecting from the role: Complimentary damage and utility. We actually have champions that could emphasize that type of game play, like Sona and Lulu. Champs that won't be doing a crap ton of damage, but it's decent enough seeing how they're off-mages. What we have, however, are champs like these being forced into more defensive play since that's what they're going to buy. Lulu's got a higher win rate maxing her defensive abilities (E and W) over her Q as is, but Lulu's supposed to be a pick that can pivot between defense and buffing and offense with disrupting. Why do we only emphasize half her kit? Real question is why does the community and Riot collectively choose to emphasize half her kit?

My point here is that perhaps we can tackle the issues with no one wanting to be a support by tackling what I think is a negative mindset about how to tackle the job. Everyone's idea of "what a support should be" is boring as hell. Of course no one wants to be a ward bitch with a Locket pocket for 40 minutes. The reason why support isn't picked is because what supporting is, at least in the eyes of this community, is 1-dimensional and ultimately not fun like the rest of the game is (for most players).

Side note: Had to delete and repost since I posted in the wrong sub-section the first time.