Wandering in Fields of Dreamless Solitude

🏳️‍🌈🦋🏳️‍🌈 Happy Jayvik Pride! 🏳️‍🌈🦋🏳️‍🌈

I was so deeply proud and thrilled to represent Jayvik at London Pride on July 4! 🏳️‍🌈🦋🏳️‍🌈 I went crazy at Michael's buying all sorts of crystal stickers and 3D butterflies and flowers to embellish my tribute to Jayce and Viktor's cosmic love story for my very first Pride. It was a bit tricky to pack it well for the overseas flight to the UK (my first time visiting!). The Pride celebration was unforgettable: Throngs of rainbow-decked queer folks having fun, communing together, and even a few kissing! My soulmate and I couldn't have felt happier to be there right in Trafalgar Square and Soho celebrating with everyone -- and meeting Jayvik fans, too! Several folks loved my sign and wanted to take photos of me with it. There was one person who was shocked and thrilled to see Jayvik at Pride and said that my sign was their favorite in the whole Pride event! We quoted Viktor's "in all timelines, in all possibilities" line to each other!

Once I realized that my partner and I would be able to attend our first Pride in the UK, I knew that I had to rep Jayvik. Jayvik means everything to me and deserves every moment of visibility in the spotlight for what they give to each of us in being seen for our diversity, disability, and queerness. Here's a shoutout to everyone who has felt touched by Jayvik's cosmic, unconditional love in their life!

🏳️‍🌈 🦋 🏳️‍🌈 🦋 🏳️‍🌈 🦋 🏳️‍🌈 And happy Pride all year long! 🏳️‍🌈 🦋 🏳️‍🌈 🦋 🏳️‍🌈 🦋 🏳️‍🌈

Happy Birthday to Jayce Talis, our favorite Man of Progress and my all-time fave character ever! To celebrate his special day, I wanted to share my Top 7 favorite Jayce moments. This was so hard to narrow down but also very fun — there’s so many aspects of Jayce that make him a compelling and beautiful character (and too many Jayvik and Meljay moments that I adore but couldn’t include 😭). We all love him in different ways, so feel free to share your own favorite moments of the Golden Boy in the comments!

Keeping this Top 7 because duh, his bday is July 7, but I had to include one honorable mention: A twin moment from the council attack that reveals the depth of Jayce’s care and the transparency of his emotions when those he loves are endangered. Everything about him is conveyed in his eyes. He nearly loses the two most important people in his life. His whole attention focuses on Mel to ensure her wellbeing, his gaze full of gentle, urgent, wholehearted love. But seeing Viktor crushed by rubble, his world shatters — eyes so wide with horror and welling with tears. Nothing else matters. His heart is torn apart. Viktor just can’t be dead, can he? He must try to save his partner. My heart breaks for him.

Jayce is the Defender of Tomorrow — rallying cities to arms and battling the Herald to save the world. But now he realizes that he’s caught in the very moment where his other self was killed in the apocalyptic alternate reality he’s trying to stop. He’s literally kneeling in the very position of his future death. You can watch the subtle passage of emotion on his face, the realization, the shock, and then the surrender. We don’t know what the Mage told him, but it’s clear that there’s no turning back from this moment. And he accepts it. He lets Viktor approach from behind and doesn’t fight back. It’s the most vulnerable position for him, but in the end, he trusted his partner with his fate.

Jayce is a person defined by his free expression of emotion and affection, whether part of his open-hearted personality or early in a relationship. Seldom do we see a man shameless to express his own vulnerability. This moment when he confides in Mel and lays his head on her lap is iconic for this reason: Even she’s surprised at the ease with how he trusts her completely. He kisses her hand sweetly and pours out his heart over Viktor’s terminal diagnosis, and he listens to her story of exile from her homeland. This is just one of many moments where Jayce reaches out to touch and be touched in return, whether to stroke Viktor’s back gently when they’re stymied to find a cure or to hold Cait’s shoulder while she’s angry in grief over her mother’s death. Jayce is a rare example of what healthy masculinity looks like when it’s in touch with its emotions.

Jayce dives deep into politics because he dreams of “putting magic in the hands of the people.” He fought against corruption and then played up to powerful councilors to keep that dream alive. But as he told Heimerdinger once, “people can’t wait for progress.” Faced with Viktor’s terminal diagnosis due to poisonous gasses in the fissures where he grew up, he mourns how their work was forced to stray from the real problems facing the Undercity. Because trade routes weren’t ever his goal. Jayce is the only councilor who wanted to improve the lives of Zaun through his life’s work. He yearned to solve real issues that people face, alleviating their suffering and making their lives better.

I’m surprised this scene doesn’t rank higher for me, because honestly it’s perhaps the most breathtaking moment that I’ve ever witnessed in visual media. Cast within the spellbinding energy of the Arcane and the heady stakes of a city on the edge of destruction lies Jayce’s ultimate act of love. He went beyond the fight to save everyone to find just one lost soul. Jayce looked straight through that Herald’s mask into Viktor’s heart. Even as the Herald of the Glorious Evolution drained his life force — moments away from turning Jayce into another drone of his army to change the world forever — Jayce poured out his deep admiration of his partner. Jayce saw that every part of Viktor was beautiful. Viktor waited a lifetime to hear those words of unconditional love.

Jayce Talis comes into his own as head of the High Council when he negotiates peace with Silco, head of a drug empire and agitator for Zaun’s freedom. It’s the moment that marries the realpolitiks of leadership with the compassion and moral purity of an idealistic scientist set on leaving the world better than he found it. The council couldn’t give a fuck about Zaunite lives, but Jayce does — and he’s willing to make peace with his enemy to save those lives from the outbreak of war. Yet he knows the price of that peace: Jinx. He won’t apologize for the shitty part he plays. He gives Silco a choice: Zaun or Jinx. He’s the only person to leave the drug lord speechless. It’s a rare, thrilling moment of compassion and ruthlessness as Jayce embraces his role of leadership over a flawed city.

This moment is the bedrock of who Jayce is. He’s pursued a singular dream his whole life. He glimpsed the unspeakable as a child, traveled the world to gather its crystals, and worked alone for years to crack the secrets of his world that could change everything. His conviction is palpable as he bares his soul to a hostile audience that holds his fate in their hands. His offer is nothing short of radical: Magic can save lives and transform society. Altruism meets fearless ambition. He’s more than an idealist — Jayce is a visionary conceiving of a future no one else has yet imagined. Who can resist that heady cocktail?

In my opinion, this isn’t just Jayce Talis’ crowning moment but the most radical act of benevolent justice in the entire show. For three hundred years, Piltover gained fabulous wealth at the expense of Zaun, oppressing its people and leaving its most vulnerable locked in poverty. Once Jayce realized the lie of Piltover’s elites and saw the Undercity’s plight with his own eyes, he set to make things right. He accepted Silco’s demand for Zaun’s independence without even haggling. He invited Viktor, his Zaunite partner, to announce the proposal. Jayce fought for this cause against a hostile council — risking his reputation, career, and dream for the sake of strangers he’d never meet. He set aside that dream that he nearly ended his life for so that Zaun would have a chance at freedom (and would have succeeded if it weren’t for Jinx’s bomb). Most of the characters in Arcane fight for their own side or family, yet Jayce was selfless for a community not his own.