Evolution of lore through Variant skins and Neeko

Recently came Neeko and variant skins, with as usual many debates. For the first one about how "unidimensional" Neeko is (I truly don't want to go into this, but geez, why so much posts for such a detail?), and how poorly executed/money grabbing the variant skins are for the second. But there are some points that a lot of people seemed to miss, which is why I want to aboard it with you !

• Variant skins

If you're an old player (at least 3 years) and a lore lover, you may be nostalgic about the biggest lore event LoL got: Bilgewater: Burning Tides. There was a lot of stuff which came for the players, a gamemode, skins, the gangplank's rework and of course a big lore writing, but the thing I want to point out is the skin of Gangplank. For those who didn't know, Gangplank got a rework, but suddently was unplayable because dead in the lore. And when he finally came back, he had a new basic skin to match with the lore update he got, while the old one became Captain Gangplank.

The link between variant skins and Captain Gangplank is the lore potential that can bring variant skins, in the same idea of Gangplank. We lack of character's evolution today, and in a story, the main character must evolve through his journey if you want to make him interesting and/or relatable. I know there are 142 champions, as well as I know not everyone didn't get updated. But I'm confident, this will change in the future, and with the different lore which will come, variant skins could be the in-game link to the lore. It can be by getting old (Taliyah, Ekko, Darius...), by changing faction (Riven, Ziggs...), by injury, by gain of power (Janna, Syndra, Xerath...) or even just a disguise to fit one specific arc (Lux, Leblanc...). Whatever it can be, as long as I can see my favourite champions changing through the next years !

• Neeko

For this part, I will bring back an interesting topic: the Runeterra we know today is 1/6 of the real Runeterra. I consider there is one problem with this information, how can you create stories from a new place, when there isn't any character known from there. I mean, we have legitimately 135 champions which come right now from the 1/6 of Runeterra, making this 1/6 complex, interesting and developed. But how can you make the rest of Runeterra as elaborated as Valoran, Shurima and Ionia? Well, there ain't any trap, you have to work on it, with new champions primary.

And so is one of the interest point of Neeko, I'm almost sure she comes from these undiscovered 5/6. The sooner we had a champion coming from there, the sooner we could get some new information, some hints about the direction which is taking Riot to explore those 5/6. The only thing which kinda bother me is the amount of lore we'll get from it. I'm repeating myself, but for 1/6 of Runeterra we have 135 champions, or should I say we need 135 champions, so how many years will we need to know more about the 5/6 in comparison? How many new champions, lore update and potentially new videos will we need to reach the same level of complexity of Valoran, Ionia and Shurima in these new places? And also, how will it be explained that we never heard any word about it before?

Well, now I would like to know what kind of evolution would you like to see on your favorite champion? And how do you feel about the idea of a whole new continent/bunch of isles? :3