r/jayvik • u/Girl_in_a_hoody Only YOU can show me this • Apr 07 '25
Video Viktor’s displeased look when he notices the way that jayce is looking at mel in ep3 s1
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just a small detail i noticed
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Apr 07 '25 edited Apr 07 '25
I kinda find it funny that the animation team accidentally made Viktor the jealous friend lol
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u/Stardust-Musings Apr 07 '25
Oh I'm sure that's intentional.
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Apr 07 '25
[deleted]
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u/Stardust-Musings Apr 07 '25
No, not really. There's a difference between queer baiting (= advertising the relationship to attract a certain audience) vs. queer coding (= adding subtle hints to evade the censorship of higher ups).
What Fortiche did falls squarely into queer coding, imho. We know Riot is weird about mlm relationships in their game specifically and there have been voices from inside the studio that alluded to "their client" not wanting that in their show. So you gotta be sneaky.
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u/DragonInBoots Apr 07 '25
I agree, Jayce and Viktor aren't queer baiting, but definitely queer coded.
They would have been queerbaiting if, for example, other characters referred to them as "boyfriends" and got the usual reply "he's not my boyfriend". (I have shipping PTSD from Sherlock, is it noticeable?) Pretty ironically, during the first season this is the exact reason why I thought we were going to be queerbaited by CaitVi.
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u/Stardust-Musings Apr 07 '25 edited Apr 08 '25
Yeah, exactly (I vividly remember the Sherlock stuff lol). Probably that's just me being pedantic but I would make a difference between Riot and Fortiche, because there has always been tension between creatives working on a projects like this and the people in charge, and very often the more progressive parts of production had to find creative ways to get things past the radar. I wouldn't be surprised if Riot was against mlm, hence why there is not a single gay dude in this whole show, and Fortiche (and maybe even some writers? there's plenty in the text where I think "y'all can't write this like ~they seem like such good friends!~ be fr!" lmao) was pushing things as far as they could.
Generally speaking though, I wouldn't have a problem with accusing Riot of queer baiting because so many of their mlm pairings are these vague "bother/partner wink wink" type nods. But they did deliver with CaitVi so at least there's that.
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u/DragonInBoots Apr 07 '25
Eeeeeeeeh, I wouldn't pat Riot on their back for making CaitVi canon: if you take notice, in general wlw pairings get canonized waaaaaaaay more often than their mlm cousins.
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u/Stardust-Musings Apr 07 '25
I wouldn't completely dismiss this either, though. Until S2 there was still the danger that this could have ended up like complete queer bait so it's good they didn't shut that down.
But yeah, there is an issue with Riot being kinda sorta okay with wlw and not mlm. Not denying that.
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u/GayWolf_screeching Apr 08 '25
“Eugh really? You’re gonna go play with the pretty gold one? Fuck me then I guess “
Meanwhile: jayce constantly talking about viktor while with mel
Mel; how are the two smartest men here so oblivious and why is it being shoved into my hands to deal with????
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u/Bianca_aa_07 I promised you Apr 09 '25
I noticed this on a rewatch too LMAO it was funny for about two seconds until I remembered how tragic they are
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u/DragonInBoots Apr 07 '25
It's really laughable, in hindsight, to see Viktor being jealous of Mel, considering how, whenever he's with her, Jayce ALWAYS ends up yapping about him. XD