#put jayce in The Horrors

[puckpatties]

mfw i have to Kill my wife

[fantasticgothicpeachsludge]

[theartintrying]

the other day my friend said "jayce in a double breasted suit" and my mind immediately went to a kingsman au

so here's some fun quick sketches for that

[svissalan]

i’m gonna make him Worse(tm)

[guernicakigai]

I’ve been having a lot on my mind…

[goldandlights]

At Arcane 2.07 and even though I already saw so many people crying on the dash

I was not prepared

EVERYTHING'S GOING TO SHIT WHY

[sage-thetravler]

I want to put Jayce and Nikolai in a room and see if it has the same affect as Vi and Jayce in a room.

I would also like to put Viktor and the Darkling in a room. For science.

[sanjipussyindulgence]

just reread viktor gives jayce a wet willy for the first time in a hot minute. what was wrong with me when i made this.

[inanator]

I just watched S2 episode 5 of Arcane and holy shit!? Nobody told me Jayce suddenly becomes hot!

[sulkybender]

I’m so fascinated by this moment here:

Seeing the horror of everything he’s done, his first impulse is to shove Jayce away.

It’s a mirror to the moment when his mask first breaks.

His first reaction is to shrink away from Jayce. He curls up as small as he can.

The mask moment is a little easier to understand. It reads very readily as shame. He’s ashamed to be seen.

The shove, though—the second moment when he puts as much distance between himself and Jayce as possible—there he’s ashamed to see.

And more than anything, I think, he wants to protect Jayce from himself when he shoves.

So that’s two moments when he forces Jayce away, and one final moment when he tells Jayce, “You must go.” But Jayce refuses to be pushed away. And he won’t leave.

[fdblaize]

uggggghhh im still here so just imagine singed!jayce trying to take apart and see what makes machine herald tick thinking that the secret to his viktor's "cure" is somewhere inside him. uughhhh. augh even

enough jayce gets sent to au gimme mh viktor gets sent to au where he dies of his disease and he meets singed 2.0 mr man of progress himself. see how he deals with that.

[avelera]

Hnnn oh man I just realized. I keep saying Jayce is more like Singed than Viktor is, and there’s actually additional truth to that.

S2 revealed that Singed is actually Oriana’s father, Dr Revek. Dr Revek wasn’t from Zaun, he was from Piltover, and he lost his position and means of supporting himself up there when he began pursuing a way to bring his daughter back.

Jayce chastises Viktor for going to see his “friend from the Undercity” for answers in S1, but on that point he’s wrong too. Singed is located in the Undercity but he’s from Piltover. He was Heimerdinger’s partner once.

ALSO, Singed’s horrors are not some twisted Zaunite depravity as Caitlyn calls them. They’re from the mind of a man from Piltover who lost everything.

So again, by breaking his vow to Viktor and the Ethos and putting the Hexcore in Viktor’s chest to bring him back with mad science, Jayce was always more like Singed than Viktor was and what’s more, Singed was always closer to Jayce in background than Jayce realized, because he too is a man from Piltover who lost the person he loves.

(Viktor was always Rio in the jar, the mutation that must survive so Singed could bring his daughter back. Perhaps that is why, on a deeper level, Viktor reacted with such horror to the sight as a child.)

[arciam]

Underrated JayVik moments/lines (18/∞)

"I was supposed to die."

(I can NOT get over how absolutely livid he looks.)

I always did wonder what precisely Viktor meant by that.

Because although we are led to believe that the main reason for his ire is that Jayce broke his promise to destroy the HexCore, not only would this line be entirely unnecessary for that, but this is the line that sees the focus fully on Viktor's delivery and expression (whereas his comment on Jayce's broken promise is instead "shot" from behind, with the focus falling squarely on Jayce's reaction).

All this - and adding to it how inherently striking a statement it is to tell someone you were supposed to die in the first place - goes to put a much heavier emphasis on this line over the other one, really. But why?

I believe it is because (though their parting was likely already inevitable at this point due to additional factors such as the HexTech weapons) it is in fact a crucial part of what informs Viktor and Jayce's disconnect in this scene. As I see it, one of the various ways Jayce goes wrong here is in dwelling on the HexCore and interpreting Viktor's disapproval as solely targeting Jayce's failure to "cling to principle", when the scene direction already told us he was supposed to have paid closer attention to the line above instead.

So, since the show insists - let's unpack this, I guess.

To me, the key to understanding is the question I posed in the very beginning; the question of which of Viktor's two possible deaths this line is actually referring to - his prognosed death by disease or his de facto death in the explosion (neither of which Jayce was "supposed to" avert by using the HexCore). And after some consideration, I think the answer is this:

It makes precious little difference to Viktor - and a world of difference to Jayce.

Let's take a look at the situation from their respective points of view:

"Promise. Me."

When Viktor made Jayce promise to destroy the HexCore, it's not like he wanted to die (even his suicide attempt was more of a bid to escape his guilt and despair than a death wish), but he was coming to terms with the inevitability of it. He may not know that he has only hours left to live here, but at this point, what's the difference really?

And then, something extraordinary happens:

While we don't get to see it, it is heavily implied - both by the way Viktor saying "We have to make it right" is played over the image of Silco reading Jayce's request for parley, and of course, by how he and Jayce end up presenting it to the council together - that this negotiation for peace with Zaun is a joint endeavour.

After all of the lonely struggles Viktor fought over the course of acts 2 and 3, he spends his final day working united with Jayce the way they used to be, and his final moments seeing his people be granted independence through his and Jayce's own efforts.

With him dying - or at least being knocked unconscious - instantly in the explosion, this was the "roll credits" moment of Viktor's life, and he would never have to learn how everything went to shit.

If your death was inescapable anyway - what moment could have been more beautiful to leave the stage?

...Only to wake up in a body horror nightmare, standing less than human before the person you needed to trust more than anything having broken his promise to let you die on your own terms.

"I was supposed to die." - Why did you put me back here just because you could?

"Okay... Okay. I promise."

When Jayce promises to destroy the HexCore, he doesn't want to, but he would hate to deny Viktor's plea even more. And I do genuinely believe he would have gone through with it, too.

However, imagine how exactly Jayce is interpreting what is being asked of him in this moment. To a staunch optimist like Jayce, while a devastating blow, this is not the end of all hope. This is not a DNR.

In a way, it is merely a "back to square one" - the prospect of spending however many months remain working urgently to find a different solution, perhaps. But more importantly:

It is the solace of still having those months.

(If nothing else, then just to prepare emotionally. As someone who lost her father to illness young, believe you me when I say that having the time to prepare for what's coming is invaluable.)

Jayce is not imagining the death he is unwittingly promising Viktor here to be a sudden, frantic thing. Bloodied and dirt-streaked amidst rubble and smoke, his body cast aside and broken against stone like another piece of furniture that happened to stand in the way of the blast.

Jayce is not imagining ever looking at Viktor's corpse in a state that suggests he never mattered at all.

And Jayce - no matter what Viktor thinks his promise should entail - did most definitely not promise to be able to keep his head cool and his heart detached in a situation so far removed from anything he was ever expecting to handle when he gave it.

"I never asked for this!" - It was never fair of you to ask me for this!

Speaking of fair: that's another thing I want to touch on real quick.

Because even though Viktor acts like it should have been a matter of course for Jayce to accept Viktor's death, I have often wondered what Viktor wouldn't have been willing to do if their roles were reversed; if it was Jayce caught in the blast instead. (After all, Viktor knows he is a doomed man, but not Jayce. That's not how it's supposed to go.)

Now, I don't know that he would have gone full Singed, but luckily, we don't have to know. The show tells us exactly what Viktor would do to save Jayce's life, over and over again if need be.

Forget breaking a promise - how about breaking the very fabric of time and space itself? I know we often talk about Viktor as being the one "doomed by the narrative", and while that is true, make no mistake:

For whatever it's worth, Jayce was "supposed to die" too.

If not in the snow storm, then perhaps by his own hand, or through the Glorious Evolution. All of which Viktor simply... refuses to let happen, cosmic integrity be damned.

Long story short: In Jayce's defence, your Honour - Viktor is equally unwell about him.

Additional thoughts I didn't know how to include:

The idea for this entry is very closely tied to this video edit I made (although in a classic "chicken or egg" situation, I wouldn't be able to say which inspired which first), so if for some reason you'd like to see these themes put in a music video format - there you go.

For more on "Jayce is the one doomed by the narrative", please do read this meta by @zecroswe. While I don't agree on every detail, I absolutely see the vision and highly recommend giving it a read.

I've been wanting to expand on Jayce's POV on the necromancy thing ever since part 2 (where I said Viktor "knows that Jayce broke his promise to destroy the HexCore, but not of the wide-eyed desparation with which he scrambled for any way at all to save Viktor"). On that post, @luciansuir made a comment that I really want to include here because they kinda nailed some of my thoughts all the way back then:

Jayce fumbled so bad that he pulled excuses like “maybe the HexCore wasn’t so bad, maybe Heimer was wrong” Man how was that ever about the features of HexCore? Of course Viktor was convinced that you experimented with his death and treated him as a sample. Just tell the truth that you were so desperate and couldn’t bear the thought of losing him

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[binomech]

In Viktor and Jayce's first encounter and the subsequent Hextech discovery was motivated by a desire to use science as a tool to put the power back in the people's hands (understanding the people as the proletariat, mostly in Zaun), and there is clearly a class component that stands out in a narrative that, for all of that first season, leaned really hard into both-sides-ism. Part of the appeal of the conflict for me was that it was specifically them that were working on it. We are shown science and a common goal as an equalizer and an excellent tool for "progress" (a vague keyword that we frequently use in the real world as well in relation to science at the service of capital, but that's a post for another day). But it soon becomes apparent that science is ideologically neutral and that their personal backgrounds are at odds, with Jayce being from a piltovan petit bourgeois background (while still existing in a plutocratic industrial metropolis) and Viktor being a disabled zaunite whose presumed working class background is nevertheless light years away from those of other zaunites who are in the same circumstances as him but still living in the Undercity. And of course, the industrial use of the arcane soon becomes tied to the economic interests of said industry, namely weapon manufacturing and international trade (led by the plutocrats governing the city.)

The Arcane as a corrupting power (someone playing god and being punished for taking what isn't rightfully theirs) is a theme that is being hinted at throughout this season. While I do think it makes for a very good background for a tragedy, we love the Greeks, etc., I'm not sure it's a narrative I find all that compelling in the context of a story where the main point of conflict is class war. If taking what is not rightfully yours results in punishment, the underlying thesis is that the Undercity was punished for trying to take something that wasn't rightfully theirs ("welfare state" would be the more clout-friendly term I could use, but I won't: They were trying to seize the means of production that were hinging on the use of exploited labour of Zaunites and all the social and physical consequences that are born from this oppression).

I am hoping that the depiction of imperialist endeavors as something negative (at times cheesy in its obvious visual signifiers) through Caitlyn and Ambessa, as an aristocrat on the police force veering right in a moment of political turbulence and a general in an expansionist empire's army with a material interest in Hextech weaponry, is treated not as a "they also flew too close to the sun" but as people whose economical interests need that there is an oppressed class (be it Zaunites, Ionians, or whomever) whose labor sustains them. But my hopes about this also tie into Jayce and Viktor and their shared plotline.

I think it's a delightful, painful irony that the Zaunite guy who has been working in Piltover for over a decade comes back to Zaun all full of magical wisdom and cures the disabled addicts who inevitably turn to worship him for ending their plight. There is a side of horror to this when you consider Viktor's personal relationship with disability and professional goals in the Hextech investigation, and I'm very worried about the implications of both "the disabled guy gets punished for curing his disability with magic" and "using magic to improve human lives is playing god and one must die to restore the balance of the universe" which right now, one day before act 2 of season 2 airs, seem increasingly possible takes. I hope I'm wrong. Jayce, on the other hand, is facing the consequences of having understood their investigation and invention of Hextech devices as an isolated endeavor when he realizes all the industrial detritus has been an active component of mass death in Zaun. And the soundtrack and his horror at the anomaly put the audience in a spot of thinking that once more the horror lies in trying to control the Arcane, in human hubris and ambition, and not in the class horror of killing poor people by the hundreds in the name of an abstract value of progress that clearly only benefits the proverbial patron.

The Act 2 posters for Viktor and Jayce have been released, I've written extensively about how I think making Viktor's narrative about bodily autonomy and agency is a possibility and also what I think the character deserves, but I am wondering about the design choices for Jayce hinting at the fact that he embodies some of Viktor's pre-cocoon traits. I understand the appeal of Jayce also getting "infected" by the hexcore, sustaining matching injuries to Viktor as he heals him (the leg brace, the bracelet's gem embedded in his forearm, the glove, the glow of hextech in his chest and pauldron). But I dislike the thought that this whole exchange once again exists in the premise that the Arcane is punishing human hubris and demands.

The Arcane is nothing, it has no essential properties, it's not sentient. The Hexcore heals because Viktor spent months teaching it how to heal. The Hexgates transport ships because that's the input they have been given. I would maybe like to consider the environmental aspects of Hex crystal harvesting as more of a "hubristic endeavour" rather than an "angering the gods" story (I miss you, old Skarner). I want to focus on the social structures the discovery has supported, on how Viktor's and Jayce's current predicament is a product of socioeconomic neglect because they believed in the certainty of science as the objective truth, as politically neutral, as inherently good, and now they are trapped, injured, losing themselves and their very mortal and human bodies because they were cogs in a bigger machine convinced of their importance.

This story is at the same spot it began: With Zaun crushed under Piltover's boot for demanding dignity and freedom. Will this anomaly trip change the stakes at all? Can we understand the literal, physical transfer of Hextech-induced sickness onto Jayce through Viktor as a narrative of accepting the demands of the oppressed as one's own to finally work for liberation? To become a class traitor as an act of love?

[le-panda-chocovore]

DON'T DO THAT TO ME I WAS TRYING NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT

It’s crazy how if you think about it, JayVik follows almost exactly the same road as SatoSugu

[iguana-braces]

That sub!Jayce post really popped off, huh?

Ehehe okay here's my rambly thoughts about it (I'm literally sitting at work clocked out writing this instead of going home because THOUGHTS)

Building my theory off of this post:

And this one with all the examples of how Jayce's love language is clearly physical touch

*Disclaimer: there's a lot about season 2 that irked me in terms of plot and characterization so this is me retconning a little bit and picking and choosing what examples make the most cohesive argument. Like, in season one they're like "Jayce has this brotherly relationship with Caitlyn and him and Mel have this deep, meaningful relationship" and then season two was like "No more relationship building, it's time for trauma now" but, I digress*

First things first, he's a people pleaser. He does what he's told, clearly (against better judgment but like). And he's clearly committed to the people he cares about. HE BROUGHT VIKTOR BACK FROM THE DEAD (AND THEN KILLED HIM) AND THEN DIED WITH HIM AGAIN. You can't tell me that wouldn't translate to an "I'll do anything for you" attitude in the bedroom too.

I already did the bed gif but I also have to draw attention to the following:

Okay but season two, post-horrors!

Mr. Dopey Heart-Eyes McGee is NOT the one calling the shots here.

Season one Jayce? That man is whipped. One glance from his partner and he's on his knees like it's a religion. Whoever you ship him with! Mel, Viktor, both, a secret fourth option--

He spent an indeterminate amount of time alone, in the bottom of a pit. He's touch-starved but also! Traumatized!

Imagine, if you will, that he survives the astral plane. Imagine he goes to find Mel, or Viktor also survives, or imagine your own y/n, OC insert scenario here. Whatever floats your boat.

In such scenario, and in the aftermath of his self-awareness epiphany where he realizes that yeah, he's kinda been used (by everyone really), I think that in regards to any potential sexual relationship, he would have to become more dominant, more in control of the situation. Especially if it's with Mel, since he does pointedly blame her, or even Viktor, who has literally shaped the course of Jayce's entire life since he was a child. The man needs to set some boundaries with people and good for him.

So I think dominant, scruffy Jayce does have a time and a place.

However, I don't think he'd stay that way forever. It's kinda like him trying to be a politician-- it's a different role that he can pull off, but it doesn't fully scratch his itch.

BONUS HEADCANON: Wouldn't it be just so interesting if he survived the astral plane and goes back to whoever, and while he's looking for comfort and reassurance and all that physical contact he's been deprived of, he realizes that he really doesn't like people touching his head.

I hypothesize that in regards to canon relationships, Mel and/or Viktor, once they regain his trust and show that they're not trying to use him again, he's 100% going to be simping for them even worse than before. Like, that relationship would've gone through the fire and only come out stronger on the other side. You might even say it's been vulcanized.... 🤭

From the on, he can go back to letting his walls down around them and letting them be the dominant one because he knows there's solid trust and respect there now.

Feel free to agree or disagree 🤷‍♀️ also please feel free to tell me all your thots about this too!!!

He's got all this beautiful hair that needs to be tenderly pushed away from his eyes by a loving hand, but he's a little fucked up from the times Mannequin/Mage Viktor did that little murder mind meld.

Like, he put his head in Mel's lap TWICE, you know it would kill the man if he couldn't do that anymore because having someone's hands near his forehead is too reminiscent of... well, basically his death.