Ok So I Realized Something:

In all timelines—

I just want my partner back.

Honestly? I’d be super curious to see more “Jayce got sent to the Powder reality” or just any other reality where he inhabits his own body there (so not S2 Jayce/S1 Viktor fic I mean fic where Jayce gets the Ekko treatment) but where Jayce just… tells the truth about being from an alternate universe right away?

Because really, if ANYONE would accept the possibility of alternate universes RIGHT AWAY, it would be Viktor, or Heimerdinger, or in general people from the circles that Jayce very much moves in as someone working on the theoretical edge of science.

The reason I’m thinking about this is I feel like I’ve seen a few of these fics now where a lot of sort of predictable drama gets generated by Jayce trying to blend in and pretend to be his AU self with absolutely nothing to go off of, but to me that seems 10x more difficult and prone to disaster than just… trusting that his science buddies will be open to the possibility that a very weird scientific event is happening to the guy who was fiddling with HARNESSING MAGIC WITH SCIENCE and needs some help right now.

Idk, maybe it’s my penchant for thinking in straight lines. Maybe I just need to write it. But I also genuinely have a story… Frustration? With unexamined tropes and stories that immediately assume that talking about or asking for help about the magical or supernatural things happening to the characters would get them consigned immediately to some insane asylum.

Like, unless someone has a HISTORY of struggles with reality, I think most people are willing to play along a bit. If one of my friends or even my partner ran up to me and said “I know I look like myself but I’m actually from another dimension inhabiting my counterparts’ body and I need your help getting back.” Idk, I’d like to think I’m pretty genre savvy and have a decent sense of humor. I’d be willing to play along until they get tired of the game or provide me with some hard evidence that something legitimately out of this world is happening. I’m not going to immediately have them arrested or committed, ffs, even if they’re my worst enemy. I MIGHT check in with someone close to them to ask if they’ve been acting strange lately or if they have suggestions in case this person is legitimately having a psychological event of some kind, but again, my first response isn’t to freak out at them, it’s to ask for more details and get a sense for what’s going on here.

But to get back to Jayce, in general, he has people in his life experimenting with the bleeding edge fringe of theoretical science and I think he could count on a fair number of sympathetic and even helpful ears. At least, people willing to entertain his hypothetical for a bit if he brings it up as a possibility rather than a thing actively happening to him right now. I think he’d definitely have more success going to an AU Viktor or Heimerdinger and asking for their help with such a theoretical scenario than he would stumbling around trying to pretend to be his alternate self when he has no frame of reference for what this AU’s self is even like. After all, Jayce is a scientist, not an actor, and he knows it. He can give a speech but I’m not sure that translates to like… playing along with an entire life that isn’t his, full immersion LARPing type stuff.

And for the record, it’s not so much that I’m critiquing these fics. I get the reason for the tropes and how they generate the drama and the plot for the story the author wants to tell. It’s more that it’s a trope I’ve seen turn up in a few unrelated authors’ fics and that always gets my trope-contrarian brain buzzing with, “Ok but does this trope MAKE SENSE? Would Jayce or anyone in his situation be actually under so much pressure to disguise what happened to them as this story is implying they would be? Would anyone actually get locked up or in trouble for floating that they’re their AU self? Heck, wouldn’t it almost be SAFER to bring up the hypothetical, even as a joke, just to see if it’s like a known experiment in this world or a thing that regularly happens that everyone knows about, or at least to make some allies amongst your AU loved ones, rather than stumbling around getting in ACTUAL trouble in a world that could have completely different laws or customs than you’re aware of?”

Tropes, people! They should be interrogated!

Chosen of the Wolf

god the jayce&viktor divorce has me SICK every time I think of it. To viktor, jayce is the only one who appreciates him, the only one he views as a friend. But when jayce revives him his morals and his fear for annihilation collide once again. Viktor has repeatedly been unwilling to harm others for his ambitions, shutting down his projects for hextech when sky died. But what happens when the only one who understood you breaks those morals? But what happens when you’re the one who’s injured? But what happens when your ethics and love and ambition meet each other and you can’t reconcile with that? What happens if the one you need most is the one who crosses the line? What happens if the one you need most gifts you the curse of life again when you had embraced death’s grip for your hubris, the ambition you spent your entire life yearning to satiate? What happens if out of misery and confusion and sorrow you look to the one you need most, and it’s the one that harmed you the most, and now that you can no longer meet their eye, you can’t turn to anyone else? What happens if the one you need most is tainted forever in your vision, and you are left to wander the world without a piece of your soul? What happens if the one you love is the one that breaks you? IM SOBBIGNF

All nighter 💤

i hc that jayce got his brow scar bc of a bad fall. his mom gifted him a dark blue blanket (the 1 he gave viktor) after their hike thru the blizzard so jayce could pretend he had a cape and look like the mage, and jayce tripped on it while running to show her how cool he looked and hit his head on the corner of a table. he had to get stitches and everybody at school thought it was a cool fight scar. no he’s just a nerd who tripped on his blanket because he wanted to be a mage. my blorbo

lazy mornings at the Last Drop ☕☀️