Bookish Trash

it’s fine actually that andrew and neil are together because kevin isn’t queer and it’s easier and it’s FINE. except it’s getting harder to look at them after night practices, pinkies brushing up against each other on the car console while he’s in the back seat and having to split off from them when they head to the roof and it’s Easy to tell himself it’s cause he misses Thea until she finally breaks it off because last time it was avoidance and now it’s distraction. and then jeremy and jean are official and god kevin has been told he’s second most of his life but this is the first time he actually feels like he’s falling behind, tripping up half a step out of sync with the rest of his perfect court. and it’s not their fault they’re not doing anything. it’s just kevin who feels like he’s losing his mind because if it was just the gay thing he could probably handle it but instead he’s haunted by every man he’s felt that pull deep in his gut about, two of whom are at his side every waking and sleeping hour of the day except for when they’re not because they’re off together somewhere. how is he supposed to handle this ffs how is he supposed to pick but he doesn’t Want to pick that’s the problem underneath the problem.

jayce and viktor are, for a number of reasons, such interesting mirrors of each other, but also such important reflections of their respective homes!

At a very superficial level, Viktor does not make Many impactful choices throughout the first season, and his big one towards the end is something that has pretty immediate and irreversible ramifications. Even though in some capacity it’s out of his control (he tells jayce to destroy the hexcore, jayce ignores him), the one time he takes control of a situation, that’s kind of it, there’s no coming back from it.

On the other hand there’s Jayce who from the beginning gets the opportunity to make a lot of decisions—what to do with hextech, how to use it, how to announce things, to not make weapons, to make weapons—and he’s usually making, narratively, the wrong choice but it always feels like there’s a chance for him to try again, change his mind (for all the good it’s doing lmao)

and i think that’s a) so interesting for their characters but also b) so indicative of the shows depiction of zaun and piltover. the bad choices of a few end up causing major ramifications for the citizens of zaun but that’s really all we as viewers are seeing on screen. meanwhile piltover is systemically fucking over their neighbors, and even when it’s so clear that as a nation piltover is going down a bad path, they almost get…excused from taking the brunt of the blame? And not even just by shifting the blame onto Zaun, but even by the decision to have Ambessa stoke the flame of the conflict. It takes away the responsibility Piltover should be facing for their treatment of Zaun.