Because She's A Whole Different Person. Entirely. It Doesn't Matter If Both These Version Started Out As A 9-year Old Powder. They Had - Blog Posts

I did like timebomb with Ekko x Powder. I don't like it with Jinx, but even with the Symbols and everything I didn't feel the ship was forced into Jinx and Ekko and I did appreciate that. To me it felt more like the two were reworking themselves to fit their "new us" together, not as a couple, but as a team to build up something new. They spent so much fighting and resenting the other while also missing the ghost of their childhood friend (and possible crush), I don't think they could ever work that out.

In the alternate universe what Ekko mostly gained was closure, he was able to say goodbye to Benzo and Powder. To me it meant a lot when Ekko corrected himself after almost deadnaming Jinx, I don't think it was because the last time she saw her she was Powder, but because Ekko was like Vi in season 1. They didn't want Jinx, it was Powder or nothing, because Jinx is Silco's daughter, the daughter of the man who killed Benzo and Vander deciding to remain loyal to such man.

It left me wonder: when Ekko said he gave her chances, did he ever gave Jinx one? Or did he only ever give them to Powder? The way he says "she is gone" to Vi implies that it was Powder the one who he extended his hand with.

Then there is Jinx, who he just found out trying to kill herself (in all shown it's clear that, even through everything, he doesn't want her to die). We don't know why Ekko was there, if he went there for Jinx, if he just apammed there after the arcane multi-verse travel or if he was there for something else, but he was there and decided to stop her. And the words that get through Jinx are this:

"It's never too late to build something new. Someone worth building it for."

That was something important for Jinx AND Powder in both seasons. First, her gadgets for the team, then the Hextech weapon for Silco, the Sevika's arm, then her new finger, then Vander's death, then her relationship with Vi, then this: Isha's sacrifice. To make it worth something, which is why the globe had the symbol of the bunny (Powder AND Isha's symbol) instead of her iconic symbol of the monkey. From Sevika's arm, while building is important, there is a shift from "building" to "fixing".

"It was something I could fix."

That is Jinx's whole plot during season 2, it's what gave her motivation in the first place after Silco's death.

We don't know how much Ekko knew, but if he saw that Jinx had taken his place, becoming a symbol of the one that take cares for the Undercity, then he had to give her a chance. With the closure he needed, he was ready to accept Jinx, even if she is not Powder and he would always grieve her and what it could have been if things have been different.

Forgiveness is not a theme in arcane, but something deeper. The characters never really forgive each other but learn to live with what happened and move forward accepting that the other person is there. Accepting that, they too, haven't done things right, so they really can't keep pushing against that person and pretend that they are justified in whatever are the consecuences of their actions.

Ekko and Jinx just started building, because people they cared about needed them to, and they decided to give it a chance because it was sonething they could fix. Whatever that something was their friendship, their battle efforts, the sacrifices made, ir didn't really matter. They just gave each other a chance, that was why the monkeys in Ekko's timeloop were important, not because they represented a "good version of Jinx", they represent Jinx, and Ekko was willing to add them, just like he was willing to add her now. To give her something to work with.

Now I'm aware I probably just got it the way I wanted it because content was cut short, I would have lost it with actual Ekko x Jinx content, but this ambiguous way it works and I'm grateful that I got it.

I also believ this is a ship you dislike more the fanon content than the actual content, as Timebomb shippers more often than not ignore that Powder and Jinx are in fact NOT the same person to try and force the Ekko x Jinx. Same individual yes, but not the same person. It's one of those ships you dislike more because of the fans disregard of canon and important content than the little we were given or oven force fed by the show. (Becaus c'mon, the whole tea party scene in season one was NOT so people could say "tHeY aRE tHe sAMe pERsoN")

How it feels to not like timebomb after s2