Sometimes I Lay Awake At Night And Think About Arcane!Jayce And LoL!Jayce Being So Fundamentally Different

Sometimes I lay awake at night and think about Arcane!Jayce and LoL!Jayce being so fundamentally different that they're literally different characters. And yet, Arcane Jayce does not feel out of character (at least to me). They both feel like two halves of a single soul.

For me, it's because Arcane!Jayce is what LoL!Jayce would have been if even a single person in his life had fucking cared about him.

LoL!Jayce doesn't have a loving mother, no family, no last name. All he is is a brilliant mind and a mouth with no filter.

The clans of Piltover don't care about Jayce. Buying his apprenticeship like he's a piece of meat to be used and discarded. They only care about what he can create. They feed his ego until there is only the Brilliant Inventor and no more Jayce. They stroke his ego until he becomes insufferable and then he's even more alone but now they've corrupted and molded him into something else. cruelly morphing him into an egotistical monster so that he doesn't even realize he's lonely. He tells himself it's good no one likes him because he doesn't fucking need them! They'll only slow him down.

And then comes Viktor, a young man who's so alluring because he's brilliant just like Jayce. And then Viktor becomes his whole world. They do everything together. Jayce's ego and loud mouth don't scare Viktor away, not like the others. They work in tandem so well, moving as one. Jayce doesn't need people or love or attention or a family because he has Viktor.

And then they fight.

Viktor, perfect brilliant Viktor, has gray morals. He wants to help people by hurting them, by taking their agency away. Jayce can't let that happen. Agency is all some people have. It's a human right.

So they fight and they fight.

And now Viktor is gone. The only person in Jayce's life is gone. But Jayce can't let him go. Especially not after Viktor steals from him. He has to get his research back so he fights back. Crushed when Viktor tries to actually kill him.

Jayce doesn't want to kill Viktor. Viktor's all he has!

So he destroys Viktor's lab. Has to stop him. Get's the crystal back.

He gets home and Piltover sinks her claws into him once more. Creeping, crawling, corrupting tendrils curling under his bruised skin. They whisper in his ear and stoke his ego higher and higher until it towers above all else. They call him the Defender of Tomorrow and he believes them. He wears the title with pride. It's his duty to help others.

...but he wants Viktor...

So, they fight. They fight and fight and fight. For years on end they fight.

Because only in those moments can he see Viktor, can touch him, can hear his ever changing voice, and bask in his brilliance once again.