#is this about giopara. is it about talis. who's to say

[melancholiaenthroned]

basically the premise is imagine if something bad happened and then it created a ripple effect of more bad things. forever.

[badpersonboogie]

I think a lot about 2016 Jayvik (I think we call them vikjayce) and how horrified Jayce Takis would be to know Giopara fumbled the bag THIS BADLY. Like what do you mean he didn’t defend Viktor when his research was stolen???? AND GOT VIKTOR KICKED OUT OF THE ACADEMY???? I need Talis getting transported into that world, finding out what happened to Viktor, and then running down to Zaun to hug the Machine Herald and pledge his life to him bc he can treat him SO MUCH better than Giopara can

viktor going ??? ?? who the fuck is THIS guy??? (but also... maybe... feels touched? because he thought it'd be just a mere dream to ever hear jayce say that he'd stand by him. viktor had dreamt of that moment so many years ago and instead of jayce siding against him, jayce stands in front of him, no, beside him. viktor hates those dreams, what are they for?)

giopara being baffled by everything. another version of himself AND he loves viktor (AND he says so? that leaves a stone in giopara's stomach)

(...for angst (and because i can't leave a viktor without a jayce hehehe) talis' viktor has died so he devotes himself to this viktor)

(addition: on a more lighthearted note, talis being so angry because giopara fumbled a hot cyborg boyfriend??? THE hottest cyborg boyfriend even! hooooow does one do that?!)

[bringthekaos]

Heimer, Vi, Cait and Jinx all have attires that look fairly similar to their League counterparts, at least the color scheme and shape is there. But so far we have not seen anything remotely similar to Jayce's brown leather/fur coat or that long blue scarf Viktor uses. I wonder how they will incorporate them

Hmmm, idk, that’s a good point. Cuz fur is certainly A Statement, and as it stands, Jayce just… doesn’t seem like that guy. It’s very… peacocky. There’s always the possibility that they will remove those design elements and stick with something a little closer to the already established design, but… something I think they do quite beautifully with every character is signify mental and emotional change via visuals. And let’s face it… Jayce and Viktor are about to drastically change.

For Jayce, I think utilizing the fur would actually be a very interesting choice for him. It’s flashy and a little gaudy, and seems to say look at me, look at me. It’s definitely a loud way to tell us that Jayce’s personality has shifted. However, fur is also comfortable and soft, subtly implying that despite his tough, I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-you-think-anymore exterior… he still seeks comfort. Perhaps… a comfort that he lost?

And as for Viktor… he’s always been depicted in red. House Talis red, to be precise. And anyone who’s taken a lick of color theory knows that red symbolizes intensity and emotion, love and passion. And blue… blue is typically associated with calm, with rationality. Something Viktor professes to be all about in his Herald days. But (and I may be looking too hard into this, but bear with me here)… his cape/scarf/whatever is two-toned. It’s blue on the outside and red on the inside.

Which so clearly tells me that the passivity, the calm rational exterior is just masking the emotion within. That despite what he says, it’s all still in there. And I actually really like this idea—telling the story of Viktor hiding his pain and rage through visuals.

Now as for how they will implement any of this… I have no idea. I have a feeling they’ll just throw it at us one episode with no explanation, and it’s up to us to connect the dots (like we did with Vi and Jinx and Caitlyn after the time skip). I think it would be neat if maybe Jayce’s coat with the fur is a gift from the Ferros clan or the Gioparas (if they even bring them in). Would be another way to tell us that Jayce is accepting his new role as Defender.

[viktor-leagueoflegends]

Hi, recently found this page in these trying times and I'm so grateful for it. I love league Viktor, specifically 2016 but I'm finding 2011 Viktor just as enjoyable. With Arcane season 2 now fully out and the whole arcane is canon thing , I got so worried everything would just be gone for the league versions of Viktor that I physically summarized (it was still seven full pages) both 2011 and 2016 biographys for Viktor. So finding this has been really cool! And if you wouldn't mind, how do you think one should go about tagging say fics or fanart with 2011/2016 Viktor? I'm planning on using the year and then clarifying that its not arcane Viktor but I overthink and my brain has convinced me that's not going to cut it. BUT ANYWAY I LOVE JUST SCROLLING AND SEEING ALL THE VIKTORS HERE THANK YOU <3

Hey, thanks for stopping by! Like you, I threw myself into a project to ease my own worry of losing everything in the post-arcane depths lol. It’s really interesting how most game viktor fans I've seen do not care for arcane but the arcane merger is going through for the sake of …? appealing to tv show fans who are never gonna touch the game because they think we’re sweaty? idk. but i digress.

In terms of tagging I really don’t have a clear cut answer for you, unfortunately. I’m being 100% here when I say the worst part about arcane viktor in terms of his impact on the fan ecosystem is that he doesn’t have a last name — at least with Jayce, one could tag Jayce Talis vs Jayce “”Giopara”” in order to differentiate their arcane/2016 iterations, and the fandom more-or-less stuck to that etiquette. Viktor is a mess however because you can’t even try and tag “league of legends” because arcane fans will also use the league tag because arcane is a league show. and can’t use “the machine herald” because that’s his title, and they’re posting about viktor, aren’t they? not to mention…. whatever that was we just got. so viktor is especially difficult in terms of finding a tagging system that everyone will intuitively pick up and continue to use properly so that our spaces can be separate. 

Sorry that ended up being more of a complaint tangent than an answer, but I think the year and the “not arcane viktor” addendum is good and clear to communicate your intentions. In terms of other lore fans being able to find it, i think the best thing we can do as a fancommunity is to build these strong mutual chains and amplify each others’ creations. you know, blaze it the old fashioned way. despite not having a strong tagging system, the viktorsphere on twitter was able to survive (pre-arcane at least) just by rt-ing each other’s stuff and replying to each other so I hope we can find a way to maintain something like that in the aftermath... and of course, you can always tag me and i'll bump the new stuff to the top of the queue 👍

and i'm glad you're enjoying the archive! ty for the ask :)

[danidoesathing]

Ooh, Giopara hang to learn about Viktor's illness from their Arcane counterparts is such an evil idea-especially if his Viktor is part of that conversation when it happens.

Giopara's pissed that Viktor actively hid the fact that he was dying from him (and that he didn't question his partner's deteriorating health). Viktor's EXTREMELY pissed that his alternate would reveal something he's been trying to hide for almost a decade, and is furious at Giopara's sudden pity.

Meanwhile, Talis and the Herald of the Arcane are watching their counterparts argue with increasing concern. (They're the ones who have to break up the fight.)

it'd be SUCH a fucked up and messy conversation. like their arcane selves explaining how exactly they got like. you know that. and one of them mentions them creating the hexcore to look for a cure for viktor disease and all of a sudden the entire tone of the conversation shifts. giopara starts asking "illness? what illness? you were sick??" and despite MH Viktor trying to signal to his other self to please god NOT say anything but its kind of hard to read someone's face behind a mask so he admits that he was dying. and yeah giopara kind of loses his shit after that.

giopara: what do you mean you were DYING?? why didnt you tell me???

mh vik: it not relevant-

talis: what did you not get the call from the hospital when he collapsed? or did you just not care

giopara: YOU COLLAPSED??? AND WENT TO THE HOSPITAL???? WHY DIDNT I GET A CALL????

and the from it just spirals into Giopara and MH Viktor start arguing about why he didn't tell him. it's as nightmarish and explosive as most of their verbal fights and Talis and Arcane Vik are the background watching like

[caeloservare]

Dash Game: Behind the Mun

NAME: Herami

PRONOUNS: she/her

MOST ACTIVE MUSES: James. It's impressive how he just refuses to die, regardless of my opinions and feelings about rwby or how other series tempt me. Jayce Talis/Giopara has good chances to beat Jimbo one day, but I've got stuck working on nearly-ready multimuse blog again. He can't win this race if he can't even get started 😂

EXPERIENCE: I don't even remember when I started role-playing. Surely as teen, table-top and some chats at first, forums, then a friend showed me Tumblr in 2017 and here we are.

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT: Angst. Fluff as comfort because hurt & comfort are the ultimate jam. Both angst and fluff needs some balancing, as writing either too often is just taxing. Forget I'll ever write smut. Fade to black is best I can give you and going to that point already requires a lot of chemistry between muses and communication between muns. Also, hear me out - crack! XD Let muses be silly, a little crazy, write some wild shit! It's fun!

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: Short. 2-3 paragraphs is most common for me, but I go with the flow. I'm aiming to give 2 para as minimum, but if I'm inspired or there's a lot of stirring in muse's head or emotions, I might write much more.

PET PEEVES: Worst pet peeve - untagged p0rn. I check Tumblr sometimes at breaks at work and I really don't want to see that kind of content. I never want to, but being in random public places adds an extra uncomfortable layer to it. Content warnings are there for a reason, use it! At least text is easy to scroll through but pictures... Ugh. (It's rare on rp space these days, luckily <3 But "for you" tab became a gamble after Arcane...) Otherwise... I really don't like seeing too many posts that aren't rp-related and I feel easily overwhelmed by blogs that post a lot daily. Extra grateful if they use tag system allowing me to block posts outside my interest from viewing. Makes it much easier to scroll and for my brain to handle. Kudos for all muns who do that <3 Also something I think mostly went away, but putting aesthetics over accessibility is awful. No point in engaging with blogs with posts I can't read (eg. too small text, too fancy fonts, extra spacing that goes ham, too high contrast that isn't black-white or too low contrast background-text). Really glad that I don't see this trend anymore ^^

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE: I wouldn't say so. There surely are some aspects that I draw from my own experience, but I mostly rely on instinct and observation. If anything, I started writing James much softer as my rebellion against vol8 bullshit and sometimes I'm worried I'm giving him too much of my sensitive nature.

TIME TO WRITE: I like writing during the day, which is a bit of a problem since I work regular full-time hours and so my most productive time goes into the animation. Then I have a lot of hobbies and other tasks for my evenings, so it comes rather random if I'd have time and inspiration to write replies or not.

TAGGED BY: @swanssongs ty! <3

TAGGING: @jocundcompany @fatedmuses @qrowings @nectaric + anyone who feels like it c:

[aevallare]

10 characters/10 fandoms/10 tags

tagged by the ever-gracious @anosrepasi <3

Sheik (The Legend of Zelda) - my relationship with gender is like. we're friends with benefits. i was born female and present that way about 98% of the time but it literally doesn't matter to me at all, and i think the first time that i came to that conclusion was playing ocarina of time and finding out that zelda was sheik.

Deacon (Fallout 4) - the first character that ever made me start to really unpack all the masks i wear. deacon changed the game because i don't think i even knew how dishonest i was being with the world until i dove into his headspace.

Jayce Giopara/Talis (League of Legends/Arcane) - it's hard to talk about jayce without splicing the league and arcane lore in an inconvenient way, but i'll say this - guy who tries his hardest and screws it up all the time but never gives up, driven only by a desire to make the world better? would that i had his grit.

Miranda Lawson (Mass Effect) - again, that feeling of being something manufactured rather than born. artificial rather than organic. i love an ice queen always, and though i think the execution of her character left a lot to be desired, i'll always have a soft spot for her.

Olivier Mira Armstrong (Fullmetal Alchemist) - unapologetically cold. inarguably a good guy. an unmatched girl crush of mine.

Morrigan (Dragon Age) - i don't know if anything has ever made me so angry as finding out a female PC couldn't romance morrigan without mods. a prickly swamp witch with negative social acumen. what more could i want in a woman?

Hana Song/D. Va (Overwatch) - i decidedly do not go here much anymore, but hana song was the perfect storm for me when overwatch fandom was at its height. still a child, she carried the weight of her country's security on her back, and did everything she could not to crumble.

Jaina Proudmoore (Warcraft) - my girl has been done so dirty by blizzard entertainment time and time again, but her rage spoke (and speaks) to me in a way that i have trouble putting words to. also i want my hair to look like hers.

Handsome Jack (Borderlands) - i fucking love this fucked up guy. there's nothing deeper here.

Astarion Ancunin (Baldur's Gate 3) - what, you thought he wouldn't make the list? looking at astarion ancunin is like looking in a mirror, and frankly, it almost makes me uncomfortable sometimes. no notion of self-worth (except where sex is involved, and even that is complicated), snarky little prick, outright mean when people get too close? yeah. he's just like me fr.

i'll tag @cosmolis @dwarfsized @neosatsuma @septemberskye @thedreamlessnights @burningdarkfire @mrs-theirin @crepsley @mantaphase @nuka-cherries!

[giohexora]

i love jayce giopara x jayce talis x machine herald, because yes, talis gets to be sandwiched sometimes, but. but. have y'all ever thought about how much of their shit talis has to deal with on a daily basis.....

[mercury-hammer]

What's the deal with Jayce Giapora? Is he neuro-divergent? Is that a popular headcanon? Is he a jerk with a heart of gold? Is he golden with the heart of jerk? What's his LoL relationship to Viktor? What makes Giapora Giapora and Talis Talis? This is an invitation to rant if you're up for it. From: An Arcane Fan with a lot of curiosity.

So! Giopara isnt, canonically neurodivergent in a “this is explicitly said” sense, HOWEVER, after reading all of his bio, his short stories/comics, and playing him and hearing his funny lines in the games, I heavily heavily read him as being both autistic and having NPD (which is a neurological disorder! Also isn’t bad! Just means he has a lot of self confidence and a shame affects him wayyyy worse than it would affect a normal person) mainly because of the way he acts AND the way he personally thinks! (Which thank you League bio and a quick fix)

Giopara is, a jerk! And also doesn’t have a heart of gold deep down, he kinda sucks, and I say that in the most loving way I can, He doesn’t really like people, like at all, because no one is as smart as him so he finds it hard to talk to them and relate to them and people can’t tend to stand him due to his elevated ego, which is fine by him really! He doesn’t like people, people don’t like him, it works out well. In League lore, Viktor and Jayce met at a Party, and both bonded over not wanting to be there (which is super funny to me) and then eventually start working together because they can vaguely stand the other (U have to do a lot of cross referencing whilst reading their bio’s because Jayce and Viktor lie a lot to make their side of things seem better) but the general gist was Jayce thought they were friends, and apparently Viktor hated Jayce.

The differences between Talis and Giopara are pretty simple actually, people don’t really like to admit they’re way more similar than they first seem, but I am also an autistic idiot that has watched arcane 10 times, I know the show inside out at this point so. But the main difference between them is that Giopara is Jaded, Hes tired, Hes an asshole for reasons it’s kinda hard to understand. Talis is obviously! Quite sweet, though a lot of that Giopara arrogance and stuff is in there too! Talis Means Well, he wants to help people and cares about a Lot of people, but he’s still not a people person and doesn’t like being around them (literally forcing a smile during that speech on progress day godbless) Hes just naturally good at faking being a people person, so good that he got onto the council.

Basically, tldr; Giopara is like sucky but Hes my beloved babygirl who I am so overly emotionally attatched to, and reads as having neurological disorders, him and viktor have weird consistency issues due to them lying but the general consensus is that they were buddies before their argument, and Talis is like when you get a new golden retriever puppy, and Giopara is like when you adopt an elderly crusty white dog.

[badpersonboogie]

☕️ anon here, and machine is over joyed with hacking new devices and getting to break apart and incorporate new tech into his body, even making special parts just for Giopara ;) (at this point, Gio and machine are an old bickering married couple, despite not being married or knowing each other to count as an old married couple.)

Jayce does significantly chill over the course of getting his memories back and learning about talis’ creation, but at the beginning he is fuming about viktor attention is bouncing between him and Talis. (And he may have considered killing Talis to get viktor attention on him, and only him, but was stopped by Gio smacking some sense into his baby brother.)

Even singed is surprised Jayce is alive, confused on how as he was struck very hard and violently by the Typhon before he was taken to the medical bay… then disappeared…

As it turns out, Singed wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know what happened to Jayce. He is curious about the unique scaring Jayce has because it isn’t from a Typhon attempt at healing, and it seemed to spread just below the edge of the shirt Jayce was found wearing that was suspiciously not what he wore when hit.

Like I said with Jayce, he couldn’t remember who the person who saved him was, besides him wearing a white robe and the smell of moss and ozone…

It’s mage viktor, mage viktor saved him, seeing how this Jayce didn’t needed to be saved in the blizzard, the mage waited till Jayce was near fatally wounded to be save as mage viktor is a sentimental old man with a bad habit of saving Jayce as an apology for killing him in his own universe.

But nobody knows that, not even Jayce, all they know is Jayce was supposed to be dead as the hit was lethal and he isn’t, and the scar he has on the back of his neck to upper back is weird and ain’t from a Typhon.

Meanwhile Talis is noticing something is following them, dipping out of sight when he turns to see it fully, even knowing when he is using Typhon shifting to look behind him without looking behind him… which is weird and concerning that someone knows when he is looking.



...when they make their way to earth, the machine shifts into a laptop giopara carries and when ximena asks giopara if he came with someone (his own viktor perhaps?) the machine makes itsekl known, form shifting from a laptop to this very tall humanoid form. ximena is shocked so the machine just says hello then turns back into a laptop

(oh ximena knows that giopara and the machine are a married couple immediately. and congratulates giopara on finding a spouse! giopara freezes then sputters, v isn't his-!! while the machine goes ah, spouse, that is a mate, isn't it? jayce isn't his mate)

(thinking of the machine finishing that sentence with an i already have a mate. and giopara's head snaps towards it. the machine continues, in fact i have several mates. and i even have offspring. offspring?! giopara yells. yes, you and talis have met some of my mates and offspring. you and talis have even killed some of them, the machine says. sorry? talis awkwardly offers. unnecessary, i had warned them that both of you are dangerous and they didn't listen. their deaths are their mistakes, the machine says

do you remember the electrical typhon who controls operators? the machine asks. wait, is it one of your mates? giopara asks slowly. no, that is one of my offspring. and the typhon that goes between the sleeping quarters and the kitchen-is your offspring too? ximena asks. yes, the machine answers. wait. is that why you threatened to kill me and my team if we touched it?! giopara asked. yes) (the electrical typhon is blitzcrack and the other typhon is naph! they're like the machine, evolved typhon that can "eat" objects and understand and speak human speech. though only blitzcrack talks to giopara bc naph dislikes giopara lol)

oooo will talis tell everyone someone is following them?

[danidoesathing]

My HC on why Giopara and Talis look so different is that they have different mothers. They both have Mr. Talis as a father, but in Arcane's timeline he married Ximena, and in the base League timeline he married someone else.

(Jayce Giopara's family situation is... Complicated. We don't know anything about his actual parents (they might be dead? We're not really sure), but we do know that House Giopara sponsored him at a very young age, similar to how the Kirammans sponsored Talis in Arcane. He probably wasn't born to House Giopara, but they were his main sponsors for a long time. (I personally HC (and this is just my own headcanon; this has no real basis in anything, so take this with a grain of salt,) that the sponsorship was also a "you live up to our expectations as the child we sponsored and we let you stay with us and use our name" situation-which would admittedly explain a lot about Jayce Giopara's personality and attitude.))

(With that interpretation, it akes sense why he'd latch onto the first person who actually treated him like an actual human being.)

YEAH SAME obligatory my lore knowledge is iffy at best, this is all probably nonsensical and this mostly my half assed interpretation BUT!!

when it comes to the alternate timeline versions of the characters (aka the skins) there’s a good amount of odd physical variation so it’s clear while they are consistencies in a lot of timelines and I’ve always assumed it’s due to either due to different parentage or hitting a different order in the genetic lottery (ie Caitlyn being blonde in the battle school universe or Vi being a noble in the gilded/no zaun timeline). Jayce has a few really weird variations like being blond in one or two and straight up having blue hair and glasses in another (could be died yeah, but that universe is a piltover/zaun fusion and theres plenty of weird natural hair colors down there), but for him it’s particularly strange because of his last name. In Arcane he’s born into the name Talis (or possibly married into? He looks a lot like the image of the late Mr talis but I know there’s a few theories/headcanons that he’s an immigrant too. Hard to say because we STILL don’t know what the fuck they were doing in that blizzard or anything about Talis’s dad really), but in the lore we have no clue what kind of family Jayce might’ve had, if he had any at all. I doubt he’d be apart of House (or clan? I know it’s called different things in the lore) Talis if the House still exists at ALL anymore. Him becoming part of the Giopara house was more or less a business transaction.

And I think that lack of genuine familial connection to them + his lack of connections to other people in general made him a lot more stubborn and mean. It’s also ingrained this need to prove himself and be right, because he had to prove himself a worth investment to this family otherwise he might not be in it tomorrow (not exactly like Talis people pleasing tendencies, but not too far off from it). Which obviously fucked with his perception of relationships and self worth a LOT. Which is reflected a lot once he starts having a genuine friendship with Viktor because he doesn’t really know. What to do with this or how to not be combative and stubborn about everything (neither does Viktor to be frank. it’s a very new experience on both sides. its one of the reasons their relationship was so explosive and ended in the way it did). And like he still wants to do good and be good but he doesn’t know how to connect with people really and I do think he being treated like an asset before a member of a family fucked with him a deep level.

(I do think as he got older, and especially at the rise of his popularity as a hero, his want for approval fades a lot. At that point he's mostly realized he doesn't give a shit what other people think anymore and stops putting on a performance for everyone. he's still emotionally constipated, lonely as hell and has yet to get over himself but he's getting somewhere, at least.)

Talis never really liked people much either or had many friendships but he can at least say that he had some sort bond with his mother and Caitlyn before Viktor. I think he was a lot more of the kind and naive person in comparison because he had an environment where he could be that. i dont think Giopara ever had that. (To be fair, Talis ALSO has a good amount of problems that stem from his childhood, mostly from the blizzard, but this aint about him rn).

tldr Jayce Giopara and Jayce Talis at their core are the same, but they lived entirely differently lives that shaped them into different kinds of people.

(In a similar sense, I don’t think arcane Viktor ever could’ve become like Machine Herald Vik, or at least not as extreme, solely due to his experience with Rio and Singed. It deeply ingrained the fear of being forced to live too long + being robbed of his anatomy + getting fundamentally changed against his will, all of which are things MH Vik has pretty opposite views about. He had to be forced into this role of inhumanity against his will and actively KILLED for him to start going ‘humanity is the problem’. MH viktor (I assume) never had that horribly traumatic experience and thus developed different values. there's probably more to their childhood that created such a difference but they gave us fuck all with arcane vik's backstory)

And honestly I think him actively trying to evolve everyone is partially because he does want to help and the DEEP internalized ableism but also because he’s desperately trying to have some sort of control over himself by claiming that he’s better now without his humanity, like it was his choice. even though it wasn’t and the idea of having nothing of his own self deeply terrified him. But that’s a tangent for another time)

[danidoesathing]

I thin the Talis vs Giopara confrontation is going to result in a lot of confusion and sheer "What the FUCK" on Giopara's end. Because Giopara has very clear moral boundaries that he Will Not Cross-and Talis is calling him a monster for NOT crossing those lines and for rejecting Viktor. Giopara feels like he's going completely insane! (And that's before he meets the Biomechanical Alien Horror that is Arcane Viktor.)

Giopara having the worst most bizarre day of his fucking life (which. given it's him is saying something). meeting an alternate version of himself that 1. was close and stayed close with viktor 2. invented hextech (WHAT) 3. had like. actual friends and was generally well liked 4. actually convinced viktor that humanity is worth keeping (WHAT!!!), which initially has him thinking "ah fuck. man am i the bad one"

but then he finds out that despite him clinging to his morals above all else Talis threw all of that to the wayside and was actually the one who turned his Viktor (who originally actually wanted to keep his humanity and had strong opinions about choices and autonomy. what hello) into an undead eldritch arcane vessel against his will. and Talis is the one calling HIM a coward and an asshole for not abandoning his morals for viktor too and hates his guts with a passion. like. hey. what the fuck.

[aevallare]

on the topic of jayce is literally one of the best characters:

PEOPLE DONT GIVE HIM ANY CREDIT FOR BEING SOOO KIND AND RESOURCEFUL AND PASSIONATE,,,like yes ofc hes made mistakes whatever hes a fictional character and also he always does what he thinks is necessary for good?? and hes been forced into really precarious situations that quite frankly DONT allow him to sit and think hard abt what his next step can be and often his gut tells him to just keep on going and try to save people-- not to act at the cost of everyone else-- and thats fucking amazing!!! hes genuienly trying to be a good guy!!!!! and also if he hates viktor a little bit...well yeah no fucking duh hes a little easily misled and he was told the man was /doing unethical human experiments on zaunites/ after they (tragically) broke contact OVER HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION....like yeah no DUH hes gonna think viktor maybe fucked up. anyways i believe in jayce supremacy bc hes really trying his best at a time where he really should be thinking about himself and thats. so admirable

CONT: sorry for the long ask just. as a league enjoyer and an avid league reader and also a long time fan (been around since the beginning of ur fics + read jaycevik Since They Came Out On League) I cannot STAND this jayce slander

wahh! hi! sorry that this took me a second; i needed to be on pc to give this the attention it deserves :angel: i'm so glad you enjoy my work!!!

OKAY. OKAY. you came to the right place. this is a safe place for jayce sympathizers and apologists. i have cultivated a garden, a society, of jayce-lovers, and this sounds like hyperbole but truly i'm only half-joking.

okay. let's get serious. i'll put it under a read-more. sorry in advance, bestie.

i don't think any fictional character is above critical analysis. like actually, i think that's... kind of the whole point? not to be a pretentious douche with an english degree (which i am) about this, but my problem with analysis of jayce's character by people that don't like jayce is that it's performed almost solely through a lens colored by the critic's perception of viktor.

you can't talk about jayce without viktor, and you can't talk about viktor without jayce, which isn't a problem unto itself! they have to have each other to create any kind of satisfying narrative! unfortunately, many arcane fans don't appear to understand that viktor is going to fuck up a lot and that he's going to fuck up bad. to fans of league viktor, this is THE APPEAL. he wants to cut out all emotion, but he's infinitely more pathos-driven than jayce is, even though the tropes played straight would make us think the opposite. the point of this, because it might seem rambly and incoherent (and it likely is both of those things), is that many people who love viktor arcane seem to think he can do no wrong.

and what that means is that it's damn easy to rake jayce over the coals for doing things that, from my perspective, are simply choices made by a man who is doing the best he can with the information he has at his disposal. viktor-lovers look at jayce and call him classist (which. like. dude is middle-class at best. my man apologizes as soon as he fucks up and says something classist on the bridge!), stupid (jayce is prodigal; it's not his fault that he's surrounded by a cast FULL of prodigies!), and ungrateful (because he didn't have a psychic link with viktor and had sex instead of rushing to viktor's bedside without anyone telling him viktor collapsed).

jayce cares so much. he cares about every injustice shown to him. he has an unbelievably soft heart. that's why long-time fans understand just how bad this is going to hurt (affectionate) when talis gets a little more giopara-fied.

arcane does a damn good job showing us that monsters are created by other people. you can't have jayvik unless jayce and viktor end up hating each other a little. jayce and viktor don't become jayce and viktor unless jayce lets viktor fall when his work is stolen, unless viktor makes compounding bad choices in the name of his glorious evolution.

it's opposing ideology wrapped in parallels, a man forced into being a symbol and another man who made himself into one (never mind that that wasn't his intent).