Underrated JayVik Moments/lines (11/∞)

super late to post this but aj @morphogenetic commissioned me to make their genius comic idea a reality :)

I mean I just have to add a bunch of Astral Viktor to this because he's SO expressive

People: Viktor is not externalising his feelings, he's the master of microexpressions

Actually Viktor:

Listen… this ship is really good💜✨🔥

That's what being an Aoipei shipper felt like when the game was first released, yo

Bingo Card for Rarepair Fic Writers

Rosa Diaz was my inspiration while fleshing out Tiafel and her childhood/backstory.

Thinking about how Rosa’s parents kicked her out of the house as a teenager when she couldn’t handle the pressure she was under and how they welcomed her back a decade later only to tell her that they still won’t be able to love her the way she is.

Thinking about how lonely and scared she must have been out on the streets until she woke up one day and decided to stop giving a crap about everyone except herself.

Thinking about how she’s so closed off to the people around her because she was conditioned to believe that she’ll never be a positive force in someone else’s life.

Thinking about how she put herself through college, study abroad, medical school, business school, flight school, and countless other programs on her own. Thinking about how her self-esteem must have dipped every time she realized that she wasn’t happy where she was.

Thinking about how it must have felt the first time Jake called her a friend, Amy told her she looked up to her, Charles brought her homemade lunch out of sheer kindness, Terry complimented her, and Captain Holt told her he was proud of her.

Thinking about how she hadn’t experienced those things for so long that she must have forgotten what they felt like.

Thinking about how she’s still tough and badass but more receptive to others and more willing to let them in than she used to be. Thinking about how the good in her life now outweighs the bad. Thinking about how far she has come since we first met her seven years ago.

Rosa Diaz deserves all the happiness in the world.

truth had gone, truth had gone, and truth had gone. ah, now truth is asleep in the darkness of the sinister hand.

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

Part 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/7½/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20

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this has empire siblings energy

Vex: I hate you, Delvin

Delvin, in his head: Enemies to lovers slowburn, angst with happy ending, 300k+ words.