Jayvik - Blog Posts
Viktor recognized his fatal flaw and almost saved the world from the existence of the Machine Herald by being willing to die rather than have the irresistible temptation of the hexcore continue to exist.
His mistake was not realizing he entrusted that destruction to Jayce, the one person whose fatal flaw was being unable to let Viktor go.
kind of obsessed with the characterization of jayce and viktor as fundamentally good people who will also go absolutely batshit insane if you separate them because theyre also ridiculously codependent to a degree that is concerning for everybody else's wellbeing. they were literally away from each other for a couple of months and almost ended the entire world
Yall think that there might be an "original" timeline that happened "first" that the Herald Viktor that saved Jayce and his mom came from? Because the logic of Viktor going back to save Jayce and give him the crystal, therefore causing them to invent hextech therefore creating himself is circular and would require lots of woowoo time travel science bullshit to not be nonsense, so that means either Jayce was Always going to get obsessed with creating magic or that originally he was supposed to be saved by a different mage, and I find the idea of baby Jayce watching his mother die and barely surviving a near death experience, which eventually leads him to obsessively searching for ways to save other people and stumbling into forbidden magical arts, more likely.
And the reason I think any of this matters is because I am SO HEARTBROKEN over the idea of a Viktor who met a damaged and traumatised orphan Jayce at the academy, and believed in him with no evidence he could be right, only for them to create the hex core together, and all the following horror together, and the reason the dead Jayce is actually kneeling isn't the same as our Jayce surrendering to Viktor hoping he could get through to him, it was because he wasn't fighting him at all and was his partner in the evolution and that Viktor still looked human because a Jayce who was helping him with his cult wouldn't have killed him and been the catalyst for his final trnsformation. And that Jayce knelt before his partner, simply accepted being consumed at the end, along with the rest of the world. And then Viktor realised the mistake they made, and made the choice to go back and save his partner from ever being that broken child who would help him end the world, out of all the events he could have changed, because he was sure that Jayce's heart was the one that could save them.
"What was the whole deal with Viktor not being 'broken' and Jayce's confession in Episode 9?"
Some ramblings I had but decided to make it its own post
"But you were never broken, Viktor."
This line is about Viktor's self-esteem and worth as an individual.
While a confident character (especially in Act 1 of Season 1), Viktor lets himself be weighted down by people's negative perceptions of him.
When introducing himself to Jayce and talking him down from jumping, Viktor uses extremely negative words to describe himself (and literally "crippled").
And with the beginning of Viktor's health decline from then on so do his confidence and relationship with others.
Viktor refuses to be on stage with Jayce when they first present Hextech. (And Jayce respects his decision and doesn't force his hand!) He doesn't want to be publically acknowledged as Jayce's partner.
We don't actually see Viktor being close to anyone but Jayce. Especially during the more dire breakouts of his disease coinciding with his research on the Hexcore. He becomes so obsessed that he pushes everyone away. While I don't think he has ever loved Sky romantically, she was still a colleague of his with a good opinion of him. And yet we see him reject her companionship (which could have been kept perfectly friendly and platonic!) and lose himself in his work, quite literally.
It is shown to us explicitly that Jayce cares about Viktor's health (he leaves Mel to come to Viktor's bedside). And yet Viktor lies to him about potential treatments, in fear of what Jayce would think. What he wouldn't understand. Without even knowing what Jayce would think (and as season 2 has proven us, Jayce did in fact support the augmented hextech solution) he immediately comes to the conclusion that Jayce would reject him. This is a sign of low self-esteem.
What happened to Sky was extremely traumatic and he clearly feels an overwhelming amount of guilt. However we don't really see him confide in anyone, don't see him relying on anyone for moral support. He bottles it up and keeps his worries and guilt to himself, which doesn't work well.
When Viktor attempts and literally toes the line about suicide, this time Jayce is the one preventing him from jumping. And it is because of these circumstances I believe that Viktor finally admits a part of his wories and guilt about Hextech to someone. And still he doesn't tell the full story (Jayce only learns about Sky in season 2)
Viktor's confidence comes back in full bloom in season 2, once he becomes fused with the Hexcore and gains access to a perfect body. (Note that I use perfect here because this is what the Herald of the Arcane believes).
Fuck, he catwalked into the council room vhen he confronted Jayce in episode 8. We have literally never seen this character do that before. He is cocky, he is literaly the one on top of Jayce. He oozes confidence and charisma.
During the various scenes in the astral plane, Viktor is often depicted as this grand, majestic and huge figure. He towers over everyone, looks down on people. He is confident in himself and his abilities. But when Jayce rejects his vision ("my partner died in this room") and defeats him with Mel, we see Viktor become physically smaller. Cuddled and small on the floor, rejecting Astral Sky's touch.
Once again, his physical appearance reflects his own inner worth. He believes that Jayce doesn't want him = he shifts back to a ""weaker"" state and immediately rejects others' comfort.
This rejection is also what directly links to him shedding all his humanity to achieve this "perfection."
And when the mask comes down (literally) after Ekko threw him time in a bottle at the end of episode 9, and a part of his real, human face is revealed, Viktor once again becomes smaller.
Here the shift is radical. He goes from being meters tall to smaller than Jayce's height. Viktor tries to protect, to shield himself. He doesn't want to be perceived in this weak state.
This is why it is such a pivotal point that Viktor reverts back to his own body after Jayce showed him the truth, that he turns to face Jayce as equals in their human forms. This is Viktor finally accepting himself as who he is, accepting his worth as a human being.
When Jayce tells Viktor "you were never broken," he means that Viktor was always a whole person, not lesser than. That he was always worthy of compassion, love and respect just like everyone else. That there was nothing "broken" about him that could justify a negative perception of him.
No parts of him are broken because every part of him can be loved,
Viktor's disability and disease are a part of him but that does not mean Viktor himself is broken.
Jayce's confession is essentially a love letter to the person Viktor is ("a part of everything I admired about you"). It is not a comment about how Viktor shouldn't care about his health. It is a comment about Viktor's own worth and how he is deserving of love, truly and fully just as he is. That a perfect body doesn't make him worthier.
MORE JAYVIK DETAILS - THE PLANTS
So you know the scene where Jayce and Viktor discover that Hextech can "heal" the plants?
That one!
First, we have Jayce proving that once again his ideals and dreams have changed.
Viktor rattles on about all the amazing benefits this could have on people and lifeforms, but Jayce with THE DREAMIEST EYES EVER,
(Seriously)
JUST REPLIES "curing you"
It's the only thing he truly cares about by this point. He just wants to heal Viktor*
(*note that it only comes up after he has witnessed Viktor's decline due to his lung disease. Curing here refers to Viktor's deadly disease)
And that fact is cemented by the conversation Jayce, Ekko and Heimerdinger later have in Season 2
Ekko: "Did any of the plants survive?"
Jayce (with an incredibly pained look): "They weren't what we were trying to save."
Two things about that line:
1. Viktor did in fact care about the plants, or at least insofar as proving the remedy worked to help multiple people. It was Jayce who was zeroing on solely Viktor
2. "Save" bring used here just shatters my heart.
This line is so, so painfully about Viktor :(
And a little bonus, as a treat:
When the plants shrivel up, Jayce immediately puts himself between Viktor and the Hexcore to protect him
He stands fully in front of Viktor, ready if anything goes further awry.
We don't talk as much about act 3 of season 1 in terms of Jayvik here in this fandom (which makes sense because it is so fucking painful) but it's so amazing to see season 2 being a natural continuation, as Jayce slowly realises what he has come to truly care about :( (It's not Hextech and bringing magic to the people)
I'm just... to be loved by Jayce Talis, man :(
asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?
With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.
Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.
*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks
I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.
I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.
I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.
"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.
What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?
You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.
And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.
So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.
What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.
They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.
You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.
computer, show me jayce and viktor kissing on the mouth. show me jeyc and vikor having gay sex. show me jake and voctor getting it on. computer? computer, can you hear me?
is this tumblr enough
i can now proudly declare that my smart friend considers jayce talis and viktor from arcane to be the greatest characters ever written. ever. in any media. everyone say thank you, my smart friend. *and the crowd goes ballistic*
i can SEEE THE TOP SURGERY SCARS ON BOTH OF EM, THIS IS THE T4T JAYVIK I WAS TALKING ABOUT, THANK YOU, UNIVERSE MWAAAHHHH
Strawberry Platinum kisses
i think about this regularly because it hurts me in my core.
i look into his eyes and all i can think about is how he never could have dreamed what would happen to him. he probably didnt expect to grow old at all and then in adulthood he was faced with more doom than he could have ever guessed of.
i could say the same thing about jayce. i look at him and i cant imagine having him suffer through the cycle over and over.
they were bound together from the start, inexplicably intertwined in the arcane. and yet i look back at season one and they never couldve dreamed what they had created.
i hate them, i hate them, they are terrible for my health and i hate them. my life is ruled by thinking about jayvik and crying.
as a person in a t4t relationship, t4t jayvik means the world to me.
transfem viktor x transfem jayce? absolutely
transfem viktor x transmasc jayce? thats adorable
transmasc viktor x transfem jayce? im here for it
transmasc viktor x transmasc jayce? amazing
nonbinary viktor x- YOU GET THE POINT I LITERALLY DONT CARE, THEYRE SO CUTE, THEYRE SO TRANS I LOVE THEM AND I WILL NOT LISTEN TO ANYONE ELSE ABOUT THIS!!
seeing either of them with top surgery scars makes me literally cry, representation in media is important, even in fan content. all headcanons are valid and you should post yours because someones out there who will appreciate the shit out of it.
could i interest you in some jayvik edit?
“Have you seen THE Viktor edit?”
(Repost from Instagram, original belongs and can be found on Instagram; @Radfox__ )
He’s just a baby. Hi baby :)
(eyes are a bit disproportionate, but otherwise I’m pretty proud of him :)
He’s just a baby. Hi baby!!
Viktor getting what he deserves❤❤❤
they keep adopting strays it’s become a problem
Can I assume your friends call you Doc Ock? — My friends actually call me V. My enemies call me Doc Ock.
...and then jayce b. parker got thrown around the room for 20 minutes and didn't even try to help ekko morales steal the hextechmax head scientist viktor octavius's computer
thank you twitter user LEXHTTPS111 for planting the seed of doc ock viktor in my brain. i will be thinking about this for the next seven years.
of gears and vows, or: shit is about to go wild, but a girl can dream
Doodles based on coming home (but not to you) I’d die for professor viktor its so good
☕ alternate universe ☕ @jayvik-week - day 6
i'm a simple creature with simple needs~ so it's just cozy, modern AU for today <3 continued from - day 1 - day 2 - day3 - day 4 - day 5 -
bonus: meljayvik chatlog for those of you powerful enough
if mel and viktor had more screentime alone together the aura in that room would literally be INSANE. openly talking smack about their boytoy beefcake. WITH him in the room, probably. viktor's sass combined with mel's wit would've blown jayce's pants clean off.
Caitvi and Jayvik crops are being watered so well. Doesn’t matter if the water is gasoline you’re being fed.
Jinx: He doesn't deserve you. If he doesn't treat you right by now, you're gone
Viktor: I'm gone
Jinx: NOW GO CHOP HIS DICK OFF-