#Deckard likes his explosives

[melmedarda]

arcane ep 1 dashboard simulator

🌉 pilt-power Follow

did we all hear about the explosion in the kiramman building in midtown? somebody's getting fired and i hope its old cassie

🗝️ kirammankitty Follow

literally get off her case? yes it was an apprenta from her clan whos apartment was blown up but its not her fault. she is a mother and a fully functioning member of society you're just jealous you'll never be as rich and influential as she is

🌉 pilt-power Follow

don't know how to tell you this but she's not gonna fuck you.

#some people wanna eat the rich and not in the cannibalistic way #anways fuck the kirammans

🏚️ zaun-and-zest Follow

deckard won't admit it but he got his ass handed to him by a girl. so much for his hardass exterior

🥊 fist-in-your-face Follow

are you saying girls can't fight?

🌐 worldstarzaun Follow

i saw thatttt bro, she let him have it. we were like let him get up, let him get up #deckardassbeating

🏚️ zaun-and-zest Follow

no i'm implying he is weaker than a girl do not put words in my mouth i will enforce my foot up your ass

🍃 downthesump420 Follow

i swear to janna if that pleasure house yordle makes eyes at me again i'm jumping into the pilt and filing a restraining order

🏩 babettes-saggy-tits Follow

why is it you. what do you have that i do not?

👤 life-in-the-lanes-deactivated-3404985 Follow

those damn kids have got the fucking enforcers breaking down my door and for WHAT. this is why i don't want kids they are too much trouble. normalize celibacy

🍺 alkaholical Follow

you won't have that chance have kids bc nobody will sleep with you unless you pay them

👤 life-in-the-lanes-deactivated-3404985 Follow

my mother will know your name

🐹 deathtoheimer Follow

you aren't living in zaun if you don't have multiple organ failure!!!!

🐹 deathtoheimer Follow

👮🏾 grayson-fanpage Follow

Grayson sighted in the Lanes, at Benzo's shop.

🚨 graysonsulimatefanboy Follow

grayson pick me please pick me please pick me please pick me please pick me please pick me im on my knees pleace pick me plouse pick me come over i'm at 69 sidereal st

🫄graysoncocksleeve Follow

mommy longdick just landed back in the lanes!!!!!! welcome mommy longdick!!!!

🚓 graysontheemilf Follow

now what is she doing in the ghetto? free my milf!!! grayson come home baby, the kids miss you!!

🔗 graysons-left-asscheek Follow

humilating how you all are begging over an enforcer who enables piltover's unjust presence and occupation of zaun. disgusting!!! the gray has muddled your minds. that being said, i need grayson to dom me.

🚫 defundthenenforcers Follow

using this post as a blocklist, all of you are sick fucks

🍻 thelastfop Follow

fuck that piltie marcus his stupid face makes me want to kill someone

💦 dilfvander Follow

a fellow marcus hater on my dash??? legendary because i hate that sleeze bag too. i hope he stubs his toe every morning and gets an itch he can never scratch and falls into the pilt and is run through a ship propeller and his remains float out to bilgewater where he becomes fish food. dishonor on him and his family fr.

🍻 thelastfop Follow

bro said

[unknownmoonchild]

You know, I was thinking about how we joke around that if Ekko hadn't scammed Jayce then nothing bad wouldn't have happened and such but if you really think about it, Silco was coming for Vander either way, he was already working on Shimmer before the kids were even in Piltover. The only thing that would change was that Sevika and Co. probably wouldn't have turned against Vander because there were no Enforcers harassing people thus no reason to think Vander was weak.

That means the kidnapping, wouldn't have happened outside Benzo's, most likely it would've happened at the Last Drop which means everyone there would've been likely to get kill, included Sevika.

Vander gets kidnapped and the kids go bust them out, then it does look like they have the opportunity to escape (right before Powder exploded everyone) but there's no guarantee they would have gone too far with Deckard on the chase, this is the first time they come face to face with Shimmer.

Meaning Vander probably would've sacrificed himself to save the kids.

They are alive and together and Powder keeps being Powder, but Vander still dies and Silco still spreads shimmer everywhere.

And then there's the other side of the coin, Hextech. The explosion creates Hextech, if Jayce hadn't been judged for the explosion, Viktor wouldn't have heard about Jayce's research (because it looks like Jayce had no intention to share), so then he wouldn't have help him figure the things out. Who knows if Jayce alone could've eventually come to the same solution.

Granted, Hextech advanced more quickly than the Shimmer did, but for a period of time Silco would actually have something to threaten Piltover with even if Jayce figured it out on his own.

And then you have more obvious things like Grayson wouldn't have die or Caitlyn and Vi wouldn't have met at least the way they did.

And that brings me to another point, if Grayson doesn't die, then Silco doesn't have the sheriff on his pocket, that means he didn't have the way to supply the Shimmer (or whatever it was they were doing when the firelights attacked the ship) to whoever he did, so maybe he would've have been caught sooner or maybe not.

Don't mind me I'm just rambling lmao can it be Saturday already?

[one-chaotic-neautral]

Ok quick post before bed, but in s2 the reveal of Felicia (?) Vi and Powder's mother knowing and being friends with Silco and Vander adds a bit more complexity to Silco's relationship with them.

When I was rewatching s1 earlier I had a theory that Silco may have intended to try and recruit Vi (if she would be convinced, otherwise he probably would have killed her). It makes sense; she's a very strong fighter showcased by her taking down his big henchmen, she resembles a younger Vander, and her attitude toward piltover aligns moreso with Silco in that she wants to fight them. Then adding her mother into the equation maybe he wanted to give her a chance out of maybe old fondness or guilt for her.

What made me think this specifically was that scene in episode 3 where he tells deckard to 'find the girl' after the explosion.

At first it seems 'to kill her ofc' but he didn't mention mylo or claggor, who he had no way of knowing where dead at that point (for sure). So he had Vi in mind specifically, and said 'find' not 'kill' or 'deal with'.

But what more is in Episode 6, when Silco ambushes Vi and Caitlin at her childhood home. First off Huck was the one who gave up their location, but I think Silco also knew where she might go if he knew their parents, cause that's Vi's childhood home. Makes sense why he got there so quickly even if he got told by someone else.

When they're talking he calls her 'Vanders prodigy', so he was obviously aware of her skill as a fighter, likely before their encounter in ep 3 (cause I feel like it is an old title that would've come about from him being aware of her being trained by Vander beforehand)

(Contrary to some others theories, I don't believe he was involved at all in their childhoods, likely observing from afar.)

Then he reveals he 'thought she was the prize of their secondhand family', so he was obviously aware of her for a while before adopting Jinx.

This is the main reason why I believe he wanted to recruit Vi instead. If he was that aware of them already he was probably having them watched and likely knew about her disagreements with Vander over fighting topside.

So if this theory is correct, he likely never planned on outright killing Vi and Powder unless he had to. Which now know about his friendship with their mother makes even more sense.

On the other hand, if this isn't the case, then I think it would make arc 1 Silco even more evil as he was willing not only to kill Vander and some kids, but the kids he knew were the children of his old friend, who'd died in front of him, and made him promise to make a better future for.

[mollysunder]

Does Sevika Have What it Takes to Run Zaun?

The power vacuum in Zaun is sure to be a major source of conflict next season. There will be plenty of figures, both known and unknown, that will try to gain control of what's left of Silco's Shimmer empire and thus the center of Zaun's black market. Of all the candidates that could possibly replace Silco, one of the strongest contenders is Silco's right hand, Sevika. Sevika has many of the qualities that make her an excellent candidate to take Silco's place. Sevika is one of few key players that is trusted by the members of Silco's organization, brutally competent at her job, and genuinely believes in Zaun's independence. The real question is, can Sevika handle Silco's mantle?

Sevika has a lot going for her, but just as much against her, and one of her main problems is that she uses Jinx as a crutch for her shortcomings. When the Firelights destroyed the shipment of Shimmer that was supposed to go out on Progress Day, she laid the blame for the operation's failure squarely on Jinx. It's true that Jinx did injure at least one member of her team in friendly fire and failed to protect the cargo, but everyone else failed too, including Sevika. Not only were all of the crew easily ambushed, none of them had any countermeasures for a known enemy. One guy grabbed a harpoon gun and missed miserably with each shot. Jinx herself wouldn't have gotten involved if Sevika and the crew were better able to work proactively, maybe by investing in a net gun.

Worse still, Sevika claimed she could have handled the situation without Jinx, which is practically a lie. Without Jinx, the Shimmer would have been destroyed much faster, there would have been no one to delay the Firelights or take down 5 of the 8 that were present. But Sevika would rather use the situation to cast more focus on Jinx to undermine her position rather than manage the critical failure in defense that the rest of the team demonstrated under pressure. Silco even pointed this out, the audience was just more inclined to see his opinion as biased.

You can't let Jinx be the excuse for why everything goes wrong, all it does is make everyone zero-in on just Jinx's mistakes rather than take a few steps back to examine why things went wrong. If that actually happened, then someone might actually ask, "How did the did the Firelights know there'd be an important shipment going out on Progress Day?". Or "How did they know which ship they'd be using if they obscure any identifying information on the ship manifests?". And more importantly, "Is there a mole?". Instead, you get a team that drinks and parties after a real shitshow because their direct boss confirms that all their problems are just one person.

This all bleeds into another main issue of hers. Every time Sevika's in a confrontation, she thinks like an individual rather than a leader. The first time she fights Vi, she let's two of her underlings runaway rather than help her. When Vi comes back for round 2 with the same special hextech that caused so much mayhem at the Shimmer Refinery, Sevika tells the entire crew there to leave so they can go 1-v-1. Everytime something comes up, Sevika chooses not to delegate work or strategize with others around an obstacle, she'd rather take on the responsibility for problems like this by herself.

You could argue that Sevika was the only one capable of fending off Vi, especially with Sevika's new prosthetic's enhancements. But Sevika left no room for support in the background to at least distract Vi or give Sevika cover. If we go way back to the Cannery, Silco has to hold back Sevika from fighting Vi because he thought it was a better idea to use Deckard than do the same thing over again. And he was right! It was better to throw a Shimmer'ed up Deckard at Vi, and reserve Sevika when everyone else lost to Vi. If he hadn't Sevika wouldn't have saved him from the explosion.

If all this wasn't enough, the way Sevika is portrayed in terms of power, doesn't bode well for her potential as a leader. Plenty have pointed out that smoking is a symbol of power in Zaun, those with even a modicum of power smoke. What isn't always pointed out is how anyone who's interrupted smoking, inevitably loses power.

The first time it happened was with Vander, Marcus snatched his pipe and extinguished Vander's flame in his drink. The next episode Marcus' deal with Silco sealed the end of Vander's regime. A man on a smoke break at Silco's refinery (probably a manager) is immediately held at gunpoint by an enforcer part of the raid, where everyone caught was likely arrested and lost their jobs. Silco never actually lost his cigar, and so when he was killed, it wasn't politically motivated, it was an accident.

Curiously, Sevika and the Enforcers from the Progress Day attack actually smoke the same kind of cigarillos. These enforcers happen to be the only Piltovans we see smoke in the series, maybe because they're lower class or former Zaunites themselves. Unlike all the the other times, no one had to directly force them to stop smoking, Jinx made them drop it by simply terrifying them. And Jinx would go on to kill at least a score of enforcers including the Sheriff. Jinx likely threw the chain of command in disarray, doubly so if she killed at least 5 councilmen who the Sheriff would report to.

It makes for an interesting parallel when Vi first attacks Sevika and knocks out her symbol of power. In that scene Sevika managed to win her card game with Trump cards that heavily resembles Jinx and Viktor, but even when she wins, she still loses her cigarillo. All Vi needed to do was catch Sevika off guard and apply force, the same as the other enforcers (and even the Firelights). Later she'll let Finn light up her cigarillo while he affirms her strengths in Zaun.

By the finale, we see her after she's been beaten by Vi, Sevika chooses to go to Silco's office to smoke one of Silco's cigars while he'sgone, but she can't light it on her own. While this might foreshadow that she'll try to take Silco's place, Sevika struggles to light the cigar because if you notice in her hand is a lighter with a fancy "F" on it, Sevika's using Finn's lighter. Silco, Vander, and Finn all had their own matches and lighters. To light Silco's cigar, Sevika uses means by which she took from Finn, a man she just killed for an ill planned selfish gambit for power.

This alone wouldn't look too bad, because as I see it, in Zaun, it's not the act of smoking but the imagery of smoke itself that's associated with power, and you don't need to smoke to have smoke. Look at Jinx and Vi, both command considerable influence on the ongoing developments between the two cities and align with strong figures. Neither of the two smoke, instead they cover themselves in smokelike tattoos, Jinx's tattoos literally resembles the blue smoke of her first succesful bomb. In contrast to their predecessors both manage to embody their power more wholly onto their person in a way that's less vulnerable than the smoking tradition to usurpation. Sevika herself also wears smoke like patterns on her collar, which are less prominent or permanent than Jinx and Vi's tattoos.

Each issue alone is cause for concern in the viability of Sevika's potential leadership role, but altogether they create a solid line of doubt for if she can pull it off. To make it work she needs to shape up Silco's former crew because she can't be the only one pulling any weight. They're all going to face a conflict that will only grow more complex, demanding, and fast changing as time goes on. A situation like that prior to Jinx's rocket would have easily have incapacitated them, now it's all going to happen on a larger scale. Sevika needs to recognize what went right and wrong for Silco, Vander, and Finn.

Tldr: The chance for Sevika to be Zaun's new leader will be an uphill climb for her for sure. Her biggest problems is that she takes the lead rather than utilizing the team, she gets easily caught off guard, and Jinx can put blinders on her perspective. She's kind of like an older more seasoned Vi that never gave up on Zaun's independence warts and all.

[saintheartwing]

Analyzing Arcane: Vi

Last time we talked about Jinx. This time, I'm talking about Vi, Jinx/Powder's sister.

Vi, even at a young age, is given clear characterization as the more responsible, mature, has-her-shit-together sister out of the two. She's the one who told her sister keep your eyes shut while we're walking to safety. But even she can't hold it together when she sees her parents are apparently dead. It's upon Vander to help get them to safety, carrying the load. He can't carry their grief, but he can carry them.

We also see though that Vi has both equal hate for Piltover and it's high society pricks...and desire. She wants to go where those people are, as in the words of the Little Mermaid! And hey, compared to where they end up stuck, who wouldn't?

We also see that she's a clear, natural leader. She's the head of her little gang, and treats their thefts topside not just as simply a way to help pay the bills...but also as adventures AND a kind of "break" in an of itself. Them being up top is dangerous, but freeing.

We also see that despite the hardship she endured, it hasn't made her cruel or heartless. When Powder says that one day she wants to ride in one of the big, impressive zepplins flying by, Vi smiles at the thought...and when Mylo says "And one day I'm gonna shoot one of 'em down", she whacks his arm away. She clearly doesn't find THAT funny. He's not just being a little mean (given how he likes to bust Vi's balls you can argue he's going "yeah and I'll shoot your ship down when you get on it" to piss her off), he ruined the nice moment they were having. Way to kill the mood, Mylo!

When she sees Powder is afraid to jump to the next roof, she helps ease her over, and then catches her when she's just about to fall, showing she's still a responsible older sister figure. Her compassion, her responsibility, her natural leadership skills are all here...along with a bit of wit. Yeah, Vander will probably kick their asses if they screw up... "So DON'T SCREW UP."

We also see she prefers the direct route. They can't get the door they need open and Mylo says "I'm the only one who knows how to pick locks"...but Vi just "cuts the Gordian Knot" and kicks the door open. Problem solved. Now, granted...this ALSO shows a bit of recklessness, if someone HEARD THAT...they'd be in huge trouble.

We also see she's smart. She figures out, looking at all of the machinery in the room AND the complex equations on his chalkboard they must be in an inventor's house. AND she's also a skilled fighter, which we see when she fights off Deckard. Even when he's got a knife, her sheer FEROCITY makes him back down. Now, unfortunately things don't quite work out. Powder tries to escape with the loot they got...annnnnd she drops the bag while running from one of Deckard's goons. It understandably gets her friends kinda upset. But their father figure Vander's even MORE upset when he finds out what they did.

He tells Vi that the kids look up to her, and when you're the leader...you CAN'T be selfish. You have to put THEIR needs above your own, you have to be more responsible, more careful, because whatever happens is on her. Heavy lies the head that wears the crown, as the saying goes. And on top of that, violence in the end doesn't solve problems. It just makes more.

Later she has a talk with her sister, who thinks that maybe, she's just a jinx, worthless, of no help to the gang. Vi tells Jinx that truth be told, they all have bad days, and as long as they stick together...they'll be fine. But...she makes a mistake. When Powder shows off that she kept the jewels from their job...(which we, the audience know, cause EXPLOSIONS when they hit stuff), Vi tells her not to tell Vander about them. She's trying to protect her sister because Vander had said "nothing can tie you to that job topside or you'll get in trouble". The thing is...them TELLING Vander about this probably WOULD have been the smart thing. They'd find out what the things can do and either find a safe time to sell them, or they'd get rid of the things...and there wouldn't be any heartache later on.

Things go bad when Enforcers find them based off a tip from Deckard. Vi KNOWS Powder has the stones from up top, they gotta run...and run fast. They barely escape, but then Silco shows up not too long after. Ekko's father figure is killed, and Vander is taken. They know WHERE he's taken though and intend to get him back. There's just one thing...Powder wants to come.

But now, after all those talks with Vander AND him being taken away, Vi's thinking more carefully. If this all goes bad...she doesn't want to lose Powder. Even though she tells Powder "You're not ready", she asks Powder to stay behind, saying she couldn't bear for her to die if the rescue mission goes badly. She's trying to soften the blow. She also gives her a flare gun and tells her that if they come after her, shoot the flare and she'll come running.

Unfortunately Powder has kind of a fit. She angrily tosses stuff around and then she finds one of the blue gems and realizes "Wait, it makes stuff explode, I can use it to help save Vander"...only for it all to go downhill. What she does not only loses Vander, but kills Mylo and Claggor too. Vi's left with almost nothing...except the person whom she TOLD TO STAY HOME.

And...WELL, she lashes out.

And I get why. Vi has literally lost just about everyone but Powder, and Powder is the reason WHY she's lost just about everyone. All the built-up frustration, anger, disappointment she's been holding back not just because as the leader she needs to be strong but as Powder's sister...she CAN'T anymore. The love she feels for Powder turns to hate. Even when Powder uses her full name...

Which BTW, in writing is basically what you do to show things are really serious...

Vi can't help it. She calls Powder a jinx, saying Mylo was right about her...then she realizes "Oh my God I just hit my sister", looking down at her hands in horror.

She remembers what Vander said. Violence just makes more problems.

Boy was he right. But she's hurting right now. She's torn between her love for her sister, her horror at what she did, her horror at what SHE did, and her anger, and she just can't deal. So she walks off as Powder calls back that she needs her.

Vi, however...needs space. She needs space, she needs time to grieve, to process.

All she can do is slip into unconsciousness, assuming her sister is gonna die.

So...we've learned a lot about her. Despite how flawed she is, even when she was at her lowest point, the SECOND she sees her sister is in real, genuine danger she's immediately running off to try and save her and it's only INCREDIBLY BAD LUCK that keeps her from doing that. Remember, she has EVERY RIGHT to just be like "f--k her" after all Powder did, a lot of people WOULD angrily leave Powder to her fate.

But Vi loves her sister.

She can't just abandon her. Even after she's taken EVERYTHING from her. Because the core of Violet...is responsibility...and love.

Years later, Vi's changed a bit. She got way stronger...more buff...and tons of tattoos too. Caitlyn, an Enforcer from Piltover, goes to Vi and asks for her help, and Vi recognizes the particular GRAFFITI left behind at the crime scene. She'd know that monkey anywhere...it's Powder's.

So, Caitlyn busts her out of prison. And Vi naturally runs back to the Undercity. She's overwhelmed with emotions. It's like riding a bicycle, familiar, almost comforting.

Yet...also sad. Her best and worst memories are here, as she looks at what happened to Vander's bar. She tries to find out where Powder is, but by now Powder has changed SO much as Jinx...that basically nobody BUT Ekko has realized who she is. But the thing is, while she's gotten tougher...she's not invincible. She gets badly hurt, and Caitlyn saves her.

The good news is that Vi's hopeful. For the first time in a long time...she might get her sister back. That's when she meets Silco.

"What have you done with my sister?" "I have freed her. Candidly? I thought YOU were the prize of your family. But Jinx? Oh, she's more than I ever imagined!"

And the thing is...

Jinx has something. Something from her past.

The flare gun Vi gave her.

Despite how cruel and twisted she's become, Jinx has held onto the memory of Vi and what she represents. The hope...that Vi will come back to her and they can be sisters again. And Vi sees it.

Vi tries to apologize and Powder says she's changed, and Vi's not mad. "You did what you had to do to survive, what matters is we're together".

Unfortunately...this happy moment doesn't last. When Jinx sees Caitlyn, she begins to slip into a psychotic episode. Just when it looks like MAYBE Vi is getting through...Ekko's gang shows up and makes things worse. The sisters are separated yet again. And Vi finds out what's happened with Ekko.

It's a strong moment for them. Vi's just glad to see a friend. She thought he was gone too. Ekko's glad she's back, and he's also remorseful too. He thinks maybe if he'd gone with them, they could have saved Vander and Powder wouldn't be Jinx. Vi tries to tell him that for all he knows HE could have died too, or ended up perhaps another of Silco's goons. But she still thinks she can save her sister. She saw the recognition in Powder's eyes. She was CLOSE. She can do it.

Ekko shows her a mural...it's everyone they lost. All the ones they loved...and Powder is there too, because even though she's not gone...she is. Cuz Jinx pushed her down a well. Jinx works for Silco because she WANTS to.

But Vi insists...she has to try.

They find out that a pure gemstone is what Jinx wants for Silco. If they bring it back topside they can hopefully make some degree of peace, and bring Silco to justice. But Jinx uses butterfly bombs to attack when Caitlyn and Ekko get caught by Enforcers, and almost everyone BUT those two die. Vi, horrified that Jinx was so casually willing to kill, manages to get Caitlyn to safety and leaving Ekko to fight Jinx. Vi's clearly hurt that Jinx fires on her and Caitlyn, but she leaves all the same.

Later on, Caitlyn and Vi are bonding as Vi talks about her sister. She used to play a game where she and Powder would pretend to be monsters. Then the game turned into Vi chasing monsters away from Powder.

But then a real monster showed up...and Vi just ran. And Powder ran into the monster's arms.

Vi and Caitlyn present their findings to the Council. They tell them about Silco but the Council doesn't seem to want to intervene the way Vi wants.

Vi's naturally frustrated and furious. She went through all this, has possibly lost her sister AGAIN...and nobody's doing ANYTHING to help. Caitlyn tries to calm her down, but Vi says there's nothing they can do. It's oil and water.

Even them. Oil and water.

Even though Vi clearly doesn't want to believe it. She's obviously hurt. She allowed herself to dream of a better life...and instead she's left with disappointment. This is what happens when she gets her hopes up...they're dashed.

But...there's one person who seemed to listen on the council. Jayce.

And Jayce...has power fists.

She recognizes Jayce is someone Caitlyn trusts. If Caitlyn trusted him...maybe, just maybe...he can help. If they can trust down the shimmer manufacturing plants, where he makes the drugs...they'll shut HIM down. And Jayce is just as sick as Vi of doing nothing but TALKING ALL DAY.

It's time for action. Vi has decided to go the direct route...and just bust.

Down.

The door.

What's the time?

HAMMER TIME!

And it goes great! They beat the SHIT out of the shimmer-enhanced guards...

Until a stray shot from Jayce's hammer gun hits one of the workers and he realizes... "Oh fuck. FUCK. There's CHILD WORKERS HERE."

Jayce decides he simply can't keep doing this. Not if it means more kids might die. He'd rather make a deal with Silco. Silco gets his nation of Zaun if he shuts down shimmer production, gives over the gemstones and Jinx.

Caitlyn goes to blow off steam...by beating the ever-loving shit out of the enforcer of Silco who'd stabbed her before and nearly beaten her, whom Caitlyn saved her from previously. Now, all she pretty much wants...is revenge. And she's gonna get it in an act of symbolism...taking back Vander's bar. Starting from the bottom all over again.

She almost loses...but a vision of Vander speaks to her. Vi...Powder needs you. The Undercity needs you. You can't lose.

And she doesn't. She finally wins...and with only ONE power arm.

Just...when Jinx shows up to take her.

Jinx really seems to blame Vi for creating her...that her leaving is what made Powder into Jinx. Vi apologizes again for leaving and says NOTHING will stop her from being her sister. And as you might remember when I talked about Jinx...she's set up a unique dinner.

Silco and Caitlyn are there as prisoners. And Vi notices...Jinx has not only created DOLLS of Mylo and Claggor...she got Vi's favorite toy. The bunny Vi talked about someone tossing up into some phone wires that never came down. She's only NOW beginning to realize that Jinx's delusions might, just MIGHT...be far stronger than anything else. She's getting a peek behind the curtain and it terrifies her. And Jinx gives her a gun. "Make her go away". She says. She wants her to shoot Caitlyn...and Vi can have Powder back.

Vi pleas for Powder to stop. They can just leave. They never have to see Silco again.

Caitlyn gets hold of the gun and is gonna shoot Jinx, but Vi pleads with her not to. "She's still my sister". Even after EVERYTHING, Vi wants to believe Powder can still be Powder. That it's not too late for her. Unfortunately...Jinx gets the gatling gun back. Vi tries to plead with her to remember their family, while Silco gets hold of Jinx's gun. He's about to shoot Vi and Jinx in turn shoots HIM. As you may remember from the last time I talked about it, Silco lives long enough to tell Jinx she’s perfect just the way she is. The affirmation she always wanted from her family.

She sadly sits in the ��Jinx” seat she’s labeled at the table…totally given in to the dark side.

“I thought maybe you could love me like you used to. Even though I’m different. But you changed too. So...here’s to the new us.”

Vi kept hoping, even after everything Jinx did...that her sister was still redeemable. That they could be happy again. But they can't. It's never, ever gonna be the same again. Jinx ignores Vi's pleading...and then decides to go launch a rocket at the Council Chambers at Piltover...

The big problem with Vi...is that love isn't meant to be unconditional. If you truly love and respect someone there ARE conditions. Responsibilities. You have to be open and honest, you have to really respect what both your partner or your family wants...within REASON. Because there's no such thing in real life as an unlimited right.

Jinx had chance...after chance...to show she could be stronger than her dark side. And Vi, over and over again, tried to do what was right, and to do the responsible, just thing. But the series keeps punishing her.

Watching this is rough. I'm not gonna lie. It gets hard to watch, knowing that no matter how hard Vi tries to do what's right, and to do right by her home and her sister, and the woman she's come to love...it keeps all getting f--ked up.

The tragedy of Vi is she's had far too many crosses to bear than anyone should. And keeps giving second chances to someone who proved they already had their third and FOURTH chance...and just chose to be selfish over everything else.

And to think...I'm not even at the SECOND SEASON yet. I'll dive into that later. Hope you all enjoyed reading.

[ethandoesathing]

The RX-64 starships of old were highly robust spacecraft. Their modular frames allowed the nimble ship to be customized for a variety of different jobs, like cargo, law enforcement, private transport, so on. The RX-64 was a favorite amongst many spacers.

However, the RX-64 series was discontinued after the 2039 Warp Ring incident, in which the pilot of an RX-64 attempted to engage the ship's FTL drive at Starport 217. XanCo, the interstellar corporation that developed the RX-64, had overlooked a glaring flaw in the development of the FTL drive, where the fusion coils that power the internal dynamo would produce more heat than was initially calculated, causing damage to the dynamo.

The coolant systems could not keep up with how much heat was being produced, so the drive would go critical. This is exactly what happened, and caused a catastrophic explosion that took half of the Starport to oblivion.

One of the only remaining RX-64s in service belongs to one Luke "Quill" Deckard, a young Martian bounty hunter, who has kitted his ship out with enough weaponry to match a small fleet of battle frigates. It is affectionately named the "Claymore."

[writingforfun0714]

Hey everyone, while I work on a few different fics, I wanted to talk about Arcane. I haven’t really seen anyone talk about this or make comparisons so I thought I’d put in my 2 cents.

Warnings: Spoilers for Arcane, contains theories/thoughts for S2, lemme know if I need to add more

Ok so we all know that moment when Powder makes her monkeybomb and lets it loose in the building right? It was devastating, yes and I really loved seeing the different perspectives of the bomb going off so we got to see what happened to everyone.

But I’d like to talk about the first person to get hit. Deckard. Powder also gets hit around the same time and gets blasted off the window ledge, but I wanna focus on Deckard. At this point, Deckard is the closest to the bomb when it goes off, but he is a Shimmer-monster.

The first time I saw that scene, I actually expected him to be at least injured. I pretty much knew the bomb wouldn’t have straight killed him but I did expect him to be hurt. He seemed disoriented at first until Silco’s order of ‘kill them’ gets his attention.

I’ve seen Arcane 6 times start-finish along with watching individual episodes out of order and honestly, I hadn’t thought about Deckard a lot until a few days ago when I watched the finale and it finally hit me. I’m probably stupid or wrong about this and as an Arcane-only fan, I have no idea if this goes against the game or not, but I think Deckard was purposely supposed to survive Powder’s monkeybomb.

Lemme elaborate.

The setting of Arcane (currently) is Piltover, which is a huge city consisting of 2 parts, the ‘Topside’ (Piltover) and the Undercity (Zaun). They seem to be pretty opposite of each other so it makes sense that the technology available would be wildly different as well. In Piltover, we have the Hextech technology from Jayce/Viktor. In the Undercity, we have Shimmer/drug enhancements. Then we have Viktor, who merges the two, but that’s a whole other post but Viktor does play a role.

Anyways, this monkeybomb explosion is the first time we see the beginnings of both sciences interacting with each other. The bomb envelopes Shimmer-Deckard and even reaches Singed, his lab and Shimmer. And, as stated earlier, Shimmer-Deckard appears ok after the blast.

At first, I thought Deckard was supposed to be a sort of ‘sacrificial’ character to show the effect of Shimmer, but I also realize he’s actually pretty similar to Viktor. Both are from the Undercity and partner with a morally gray character (Viktor willing, Deckard not). Both are also forced to use Shimmer from their respective morally gray character (Viktor’s illness makes him feel like he has to while Silco literally kidnaps Deckard and makes him ‘volunteer’). And they both end up getting addicted to the Shimmer after their first use. Deckard willingly takes the vial Silco offered to him in ep3 as Vi+co try breaking Vander out and Viktor willingly goes to Singed for help in ep7 and is given a ‘variant’ of Shimmer, which Viktor merges with the hexcore.

Because Shimmer-Deckard was shown to survive the monkeybomb explosion *(which had 4 crystals inside)* with little injuries, I think that’s what’s gonna save Viktor from Jinx’s Fishbones rocket in the finale. I know I said I was an Arcane-only fan, and it’s true as I’ve never played LoL, but I did do some research about the game over the times I’ve watched the series. I used google, so please correct me if I’m wrong about anything.

Jinx uses a stabilized version of the hexgem to power Fishbones, but I believe the stabilized version is more powerful than the ‘un stabilized’ (jagged kind Powder found in Jayce’s apartment), but because Viktor has already merged Shimmer and Hextech, I believe whatever he’s created (that new kind of blood cell shown in ep7 I think) will allow him to survive the blast.

I believe Jayce is the only other Champion/playable character in the Council (I don’t think Mel is a LoL character) so I believe Viktor will also save Jayce as well. But Cait’s mom (Cassandra?), all those other council members and possibly, even Mel, will all die. I can see Mel going either way. One, she dies and Mel’s mom starts a war with Piltover. Two, Mel lives (is injured) and finishes her arc with her mother (the people who killed Mel’s brother still want vengeance).

But yeah, I just thought showing Shimmer-Deckard surviving the monkeybomb kind of foreshadows Viktor surviving Jinx’s rocket since Viktor’s also technically Shimmer-injected/fused as well.

Thanks for reading💖

*—2 in the body, 1 in the cymbals, 1 in the head

[evren-d]

I agree, I totally think he knows/ordered it! You've got so many supporting points up there I hadn't even thought of, but my reasoning has been that Singed was blown up in the cannery explosion, he was in no state to secretly have Vander dragged somewhere else, he was out of commission, just lost half his face, etc.

Silco was the one standing 10 feet from Vander's body, alive and well with what remained of his crew at his disposal. And I do believe that he planned to use Vander for shimmer experiments, that he had early designs to spitefully twist Vander's reputation as the hound of the underground. Vander's like, "I'm just not that man anymore." And Silco's like, "Bet."

I think that when Deckard reports on the mess the kids made topside and Silco's takeaway is, "Vander's in trouble - our timeline has moved up," he was moving it up specifically because he doesn't want to risk losing Vander to death or prison before he can abduct him. Then as Vander's turn the other cheek policy starts brewing a mutiny, that all helps as well.

I like to think that in Silco's mind, he has actually, finally put Vander to rest, that he has separated Vander and Warwick so completely in his head and heart, that he can have Warwick reports on his desk to review and then still go talk to his dead brother Vander at the statue in the square. Just like Silco did with himself, just like how he thinks Jinx has to be, the weak innocent is dead, the more deserving monster remains. Silco is ruthless, Jinx is strong, Warwick is his attack dog.

Does Silco Know?

I'm surprised by the number of people I've talked who believe Silco is unaware of what Singed is doing to Vander, that it is all happening behind his back. Here I wanted to go over the reasons why Silco almost certainly played a roll in Warwick's creation, and perhaps even ordered it.

Weapon of War

Silco needs terrifying, never-before-seen weapons if an overwhelmingly underarmed Zaun is to scare Piltover into submission- it's why he has shimmer created and why he instructs Jinx to create Fishbones. It is likely that Warwick is intended to be another one of these wildcards.

Money and Strength

Singed's funding comes from Silco, so it would be difficult for him to hide such an audacious project. Singed also doesn't have the strength to carry shimmer-Vander's corpse away to his lab, but Silco's thugs do.

Holding On

Silco's biggest flaw is his inability to let the past and his loved ones go, and the way he, like Jinx, destroys what he loves. Silco romanticizes the betrayal and reminisces of the time he and Vander fought together. He refuses to give up on Vander, even forgiving him for the drowning and trying to reconcile. Vander has moved on, he refers to Silco as "brother" only in the past tense, but Silco continues to call Vander brother, even after the failed reconciliation and his "death." When Silco finds Jinx on the bridge, he tells Singed to keep her alive, even insists that "she can't die," despite being warned that the process will be torturous and it would be more merciful to let her go. He can't bring himself to do this because he loves her too much, too selfishly, to give her up to death or topside. Would it be that much of a stretch to suggest he did the same with Vander?

Hallucinations

After the explosion, Jinx hallucinates Vi, Mylo, and Claggor because she knows she killed them or indirectly caused their deaths. Jinx's bomb also helped to bring about Vander's demise, and she saw Vander's corpse. Despite this, she doesn't hallucinate him- not until e9, when she is already in a severe psychotic episode and Vi yells his name. Plus, in the concept for her minigun, she has scrawled "THREE LIVES" into one of the barrels. Mylo, Claggor, and Vi, but what about the fourth? It seems that Jinx may be aware that Vander is still alive, but how could she know unless Silco also knows?

So, if Silco knows, why would he talk to Vander's statue and not Warwick?

A- Privacy

Talking to Warwick means talking in the presence of Singed, who we see in e8 Silco doesn't trust. It's bad enough before you remember that not only does Silco say that Vander, who the undercity turned against, was right all along; he reveals that he is in the same spot Vander was in and is going to make the same decision; he is going to choose Jinx over Zaun, the same choice that lead to Vander's downfall. Silco is not going to risk Singed knowing that.

B- Pain

Throughout the show, Silco disassociates from pain, both his own and the pain he causes others. You can see this from the way he romanticizes his trauma, flinches and looks away at the cat being ripped apart, and reacts to the death of Renni's child. You can also see this when he kidnaps Vander- the blank, distant expression on arrival, the way he looks down and away when Benzo dies and Vander is punched, and how his good eye shines on the verge of tears. But he doesn't cry and he never does, because in his situation, to feel pain and empathy is a death sentence- the perfect way to prove your weakness and turn your allies against you. After all, it was his empathy towards Jinx that caused him to love her, and it was his love for her that turned Sevika and the chembarons against him. If killing Vander's friend and knocking him out was that painful for Silco, imagine how much worse it would be for him to see Vander disfigured, barely alive and in a constant state of mind-shattering agony, being sliced open and pumped full of chemicals. Singed had to drug Silco to keep him from going crazy over Jinx's similar transformation. Silco simply cannot bear to face the pain that he puts Vander through.

[masonyouryandereloversblog]

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: The Base Violence Necesary for Charge

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: child! jinx/powder 𝐱 child! ekko w/ an child! oc who roller skates 🛼

𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐧/𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: 🆂🅴🆁🅸🅴🆂

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: It’s progress day, Powder and Kara are older (were still in the backstory 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐍𝐎𝐖)

𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬: 𝐁𝐨,𝐕, 𝐥𝐨, 𝐂𝐚𝐠𝐲, 𝐕𝐚𝐧, 𝐊𝐚𝐫

Recap of ‘The Base Violence Necessary for Change’

Benzo got knocked down by something they were right in front of me.

[Kara] No.No.NOOOO!

the man looked my way, i was scared

[Kara] shit!

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑢𝑛 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑒， 𝐼𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝐹𝐴𝑆𝑇 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝐹𝐴𝑆𝑇𝐸𝑅

—————————————————————————

I’m running away from this monster that looks like Deckard, i made it to the last drop i went downstairs to the room and sat I didn’t wanna tell them where I actually was at so I lied.

Don’t lie idiot!

[Kara talking to Mandy] Sorry!

[powder] what?

[Kara] nothing

I wonder where Vi is?

——————————————/——————————

With vi:

VI’s POV: BASEMENT

[Vi] NO!

Vander was knocked out by a big monster

[Vi] NOOOOO

The creature picked up Vander’s limp body i know he’s not dead he’s just knocked out COLD.

I drop down crying on the cold floor on my knees, i open my eyes as the lock started to rattle the door opened showing EKKO.

I stand up as i spotted him he must of saw i hug him as he cries

[Ekko] I saw everything. Be… Benzo. They…

[Vi] What about Vander?

[Ekko] They took him.

[Vi] Where?

—————————————————————————

Beth’s POV: BASE OF VIOLENCE

I was in my human form instead of my ghost form. I was rubbing Deckards back as he throw up poor guy has to go through this mess that silco’s got him in.

[Silco] The base violence necessary for change, But we both know topside won’t listen to anything else.

They throw Vander he spits out blood

[Vander] Even with your monster, you won’t win a war against Piltover.

[Silco] I don’t have to, I just need to scare them.

Deckard grunted as the weird man with tattoos laugh at him.

[Silco] They won’t dare set foot in the underground again.

I continue to rub circles on his back

[Vander] You’ll get people killed. For what? Pride?

[Silco] For respect, Opportunity. Everything they’ve denied us.

[Vander] You had my respect. The Lanes respect, but that… that was never enough for you.

[ Silco ] We shared a vision, Vander. A dream of freedom.

[ Silco ] Not just for the Lanes, but the whole of thr underground, united as one. The nation of Zaun.

[ Vander ] What i did. to you I’ve never forgiven myself. You were my brother.

[ Silco ] No, you still don’t understand, can you imagine what it’s like?

[ Silco ] the River toxins eat through your nerves.

Deckard and me were pushing a huge chair

[ silco] Perhaps, But now you do shimmer we have the power.

My Dad shakes the shimmer

[ Vander] look what you’ve done, Benzo these kids

Kids… he has KIDS!! Jeez i swear this corset is killing me.

The outfit:

————————————————————————— (this is going to be Kara’s (KARMA) new body after the explosion because her body gets infected)

The hair: (anyway)

Violet’s POV: BASE OF VIOLENCE

Claggor, Mylo and I, we’re sneaking in the ‘base of violence’.

I saw Vander he was beaten to the bloody pulp, we snuck over to him he spat out blood…

[Vander] Vi? What are you doing here?

[Vi] We’re breaking you out. Mylo

[Mylo] On it.

[Vander] H-How you get in? There’s guards everywhere.

[Vi] It was easy. We found an open window and…

[Vander] Oh god. You have to get out. Now

[silco] Welcome.

—————————————————————————-

3rd person POV: OUTSIDE

After calming down Powder, They went to go help Vi and the others.

They came through the tunnel and saw ‘The Base Of Violence’ Kara and Powder exhales

[Powder Whispering] We can do this.

[Kara signing] Here we go.

______________________________________________

Violet’s POV: BASE OF VIOLENCE

[Silco] Welcome. You have my congratulations.

We got in front of Vander.

[Silco] But I’m afraid, this will be a very short reunion.

[Man 1] Hmm.

There were a lot of people ready to fight I mean come on I think I can take them…

[Silco] Have you heard of the rumor? Vander the coward fled town with his children.

Ugh. I frowned glaring at Silco.

[Silco] And they were never seen again.

—————————————————————————-

I was getting ready, to fight this big dummy.

[Vi] Claggor, see if you can find another way out of here.

[Claggor] Okay.

[Vander] You don’t have to do this.

I turn around slowly and…

[Vi] Yes. I do.

[Vander] Vi!

I walked of over to the top of the bridge, I was wearing Vander’s gloves.

[Man 1] Hmm.

Here we go.

______________________________________________

Powders POV: BASE OF VIOLENCE (OUTSIDE)

Me and Kara were climbing up the wall of ‘the base of violence’.

I saw a big man, he had blue lines all over his body, I gasped which made Kara skate over and look.

[Kara] Whoa is that… VI?!

[Powder shushing Kara] and I think so.

[Kara] I hope she doesn’t get hurt.

Anyways we finished climbing up the wall, the broads creaking, footsteps and fighting god I really hope shes okay.

—————————————————————————-

Vander’s POV: BASE OF VIOLENCE

Vi was going to fight these bloody guys I need to save her, get her out of here before she gets hurt.

He tried to stab Vi but she blocked just in time, and did an upper punch that’s my girl.

Blood was flowing out his mouth, Silco looked surprised but changed into his poker face.

Another went next, And got thrown off the bridge, she was kicking there asses I knew she had it in her but not much in her.

Mylo is still trying to get out me out, Claggor was looking for a way out and Vi is kicking their asses.

Mylo broke the key he was using as a tool to get me out. SHIT

—————————————————————————-

Kara’s POV: OUTSIDE

[Kara] Look she’s kicking there asses!

We had to climb up another wall, I mean we have to go all the way up, to get a good spot to test our monkey bomb, we finally made it to the top.

We looked into a window, and saw Vi fighting a bunch of people.

[Powder Giggling] She sure is!

Wow. Uh oh, The ‘thing’ was back it was going to hurt her and we can’t let the HAPPEN

______________________________________________

Writers POV:

Well that’s it for today I will be posting another one Tmr or whenever I can anyways have a good night/day.

FUN FACT: This was in my drafts for months lol.

[a-gal-with-taste]

When do you think Silco/his goons realized he has a soft spot for Jinx? The fact he gives her a pass whenever she screws something up must’ve been known for a while, considering he'd probably punish someone else for doing the same thing.

In my humble opinion, they knew something was up with Silco the moment these scenes happened:

"But Gal that's literally the first few minutes of Silco meeting Jinx-" Yeah, and what's the first thing he's doing? Hugging her, comforting her.

And in the first gif, not doing a damn thing when she throws herself at him for a hug.

And that HAD to have sent off some weird, 'boss, wtf' signals to the remaining goons around him, consitering literally everything that they witnessed/experienced in the last... hour? 30 minutes? Maybe 10??

Because for context, THIS is what happened in the last 60-10 minutes in that warehouse:

As a quick note before we dive into this; I personally do not think, despite the image of Silco walking up to her with a knife, that he was going to kill Jinx.

Do I think he was capable of it? Yes, and I think the shots ominous shots of him with a knife, standing over a crying Powder/Jinx, was meant to represent that he is 100% capable of doing it. But I do not think that was his plan.

Threaten/intimidate her if she proved to be as hard-core as he saw Violet to be, and definitely as bait if Vi was still alive, but I don't think he would've killed her here. I imagine the ones in his gang in this scene were 100% expecting him to, but I do not think he was going to actually stab Powder/Jinx in this scene.

(I honestly also don't think he would've killed Violet either. I personally see the image of him coming around the corner with a knife, as him preparing to stab Vander a second-time, as he's unsure whether or not he's truly dead yet based on the INSANE amount of Shimmer Vander had to have taken, definitely more than Silco ever had Deckard take.)

(That's just my two-cents, I could go on for hours about Episode 3 and what the hell I think Silco was doing/thinking, but I'll keep it short here, y'all can request more rambling if you want.)

Regardless, put yourself in a henchman shoes: Your base of operations just blew up. At least a dozen of your fellow goons are unaccounted for, probably dead. All or almost-all of the Shimmer, made to be a weapon that evens the odds against Topside, has literally just gone up in smoke...

(Sidenote: Do they even know at this point how the explosion happened?? It had to have come out of NOWHERE from their POV, so, I'm sure they're still reeling from that alone)

Sevika is missing a limb, most just got their asses-handed to them by Violet, and then by an extremely pissed off yet still weakened Vander. (If you headcanon as them living at the cannery) then they probably just lost their damn home too.

They witnessed their boss stabbing Vander, while being actively strangled, before Vander turned into a Shimmer-induced monster that obliterated THEIR shimmer-induced monster (Deckard) the one thing that made their normally cool-headed, no holding back, I'll turn one of my henchmen into a shimmer-beast no-problemo, 'we're-going-to-war-with-Topside' boss take ONE look, and be like:

"Yeah, we're not going to even try to salvage anything here, fuck this, everyone out."

This all happened, MAYBE 10 minutes earlier?? And now Silco's just...

Hugging? This random crying child outside of their blown-up base?? Their boss, Silco? Allowing and then SHARING a hug??? And if they recognize Powder/Jinx as one of Vander's kids, then they are 100% in the mindset of:

"...what the hell? Why are you not shoving this kid off? Why are you letting her sob all over you? What the fuck are you even doing? Literally everything just blew up in our faces, PROBABLY because of these damn kids, why are you just siting there-... you're hugging her now?"

In their eyes, if they know for a fact that this is one of Vander's kids, and if they suspect for a moment that she had something to do with literally everything going to hell not minutes earlier, it's no wonder they're watching Silco interact with this kid with these kinds of expressions:

Because, they had to have seen Silco do some dark shit under his employment. They know what kind of lengths he plans to go to for his goals, they know what kind of man Silco is, and that he'll go to the absolute extremes to get what he wants.

They know exactly what kind of stuff Silco is capable of doing by now, and while it may not have been in Silco's plan (in my theory) to stab the kid on-sight, they 100% expected him to be capable of doing it. Especially if it's a kid of Vander's, even more so if they suspect Jinx had anything to do with the ordeal of the last 10-30 minutes.

But he doesn't. And their obvious confusion/perplextion at watching him NOT do it, speaks volumes, because this just. Isn't. Something. Silco. Does.

(The more I watch parts of Episode 3, the more I'm convinced this is one of the closest we get to true, almost open-vulnerability from Silco, except in Episode 9. It's not verbal, and he has some incredible control of himself for most scenes, but make no mistake: the man was slipping in this episode. Reacting with emotions, trying to keep it cool when he's clearly on the verge of 'going-thru-it'. ('You would die for the cause but you won't FIGHT for one/heard the rumor/You had your chance!') Like, there's SO much bottled-emotion that's slipping out just from his lines alone in this episode, he's not at his 100% here)

((Again, could ramble for a while, but I'll spare you the scrolling for now))

We know that Silco gives Jinx a LOT of leeway after the timeskip. And it started right here, though I'm sure no one expected it, least of all Silco, to go to the extent that it does in the future of the show.

But I think everyone knew something was off when their boss decided to hug Jinx here. They didn't know to what extent, but they knew this went beyond a 'oh, he's just playing along' or 'no, huh, this isn't normally like him.'

No, I think this is the moment, literally the first, that they're seeing Silco vulnerable around Jinx. Possibly in front of them as well, but mostly, they're witnesses to how he drops a fragment of his walls with this child. The first moments of where he's developed that protective, needing co-dependency with her, that's going to define their characters.

I don't think any of them knew it yet, how massively defining this moment is to... well, EVERYTHING. But they clearly know there's something up with the image in front of them, based on the fact that is just... not something they expect their boss to do. Although based on his response to all of Jinx's antics for the rest of the show, I doubt they could be surprised, after seeing THIS as his first-response to Jinx-

In conclusion, Silco's gang knew something had changed the moment Powder/Jinx flung himself into his arms. His response to her, the fact that he allowed her to do it, and then reciprocated it?

Yeah, they knew that something had changed here. They knew it the moment Jinx came into his life, but they had no idea what this would mean in the long-term. Only that yeah; something was definitely changed here.

[majahu]

Would you be willing to do Silco with a reader who’s normally level headed but has been hiding their anger issues and one day someone pushes them too far and they snap? Like just goes absolutely feral in-front of him

Note: This story takes place in act 1, in Silco’s warehouse by the docks. The reader (GN) has been working for Silco for a while, but recently they’ve felt like they were beginning to disappoint him…

I had a lot of fun with this one and kind of want to write a part two :).

Word Count: 1443

Warnings: Violence, brutality, needles.

Your knees ached as you kneeled on the ground, sweeping up shattered pieces of test tubes that littered the floor of the warehouse. Singed had been working on a new formula for shimmer and this batch had been a little more… explosive than expected. The scientist had stepped out for a while to discuss the development with Silco and you were left to pick up the pieces.

You had first met Silco a couple years after Vander had betrayed him, he was looking for a few people to join him, people he could trust to help build an empire from the ground up. He was young and full of a passion you had never before seen in the Undercity where so many were beaten down, forced to live under Piltover’s shadow for so long that they began to sink into it and accept their role as lesser people. But Silco was different, he had a fight in him, a spark. From the first time you heard him speak, you knew you wanted to join his ranks; with him you could find purpose, you could finally be something bigger than the slum you were born into.

You wanted to show him that you could be valuable.

Silco never put much trust in you, never confided in you about exactly what had happened with his former partner, never crossed the careful boundary of professionalism. He was your superior and that was all; still you ached to prove yourself to him in whatever way you could and eventually he began to see you more as an equal than just some grunt.

He took you off of the streets, had you working as Singed’s lab assistant most of the time now. He had even asked you to meet with him to give updates on the status of shimmer when Singed was too busy.

The explosion in the lab had stressed you out and you were glad for some time alone, time to cool down and process your anger. You and Singed had been working with new formulas for months and still you couldn’t find a way to stabilise the compound. Your most recent struggles relied on making shimmer shelf stable; if Silco wanted to ship it out of Piltover, you couldn’t exactly have airships exploding mid-transit.

You inhaled deeply through your nose, trying to focus on the bubbling sound of water behind glass; on the soothing movement of sea creatures as the writhed in the water. As creepy and dark as it was, the lab was always able to provide an escape for you when you were feeling overwhelmed. Singed was so quiet a lab partner that sometimes you didn’t even notice he was there. The two of you had a good work dynamic, only talking when you needed to.

The crunch of glass on the floor pulled you out of your thoughts and you looked up to see a pair of old leather boots positioned in front of your face.

You looked up to see a sandy blonde boy, Deckard, one of Silco’s more recently recruited lackeys, standing above you.

“Do you mind?” you raised an eyebrow at him, motioning to the glass scattered across the floor, his boots crushing the shards into even smaller pieces that would be more difficult to clean up.

“What, just thought I’d come in here and help you with your job,” he said, moving over to lean against one of the lab benches.

You hadn’t interacted with the boy much, but you knew he was more trouble than he was worth, and definitely didn’t come to offer his assistance in cleaning up out of the goodness of his heart.

“You don’t have to be so sour all time,” he continued, “maybe then Silco would think about making you more than a glorified custodian.”

You ignored him, walking past to dump the glass you had collected into a receptacle before returning to your position on the floor, “I mean look at you,” he stepped towards you, bending down so his face was close to yours, “on your knees, cleaning up another one of your failed experiments,” you gritted your teeth as your kept working, he’d get tired soon and leave you alone. He was just looking for a reaction.

“You know, when I first joined, I thought you’d be someone more… important. But now, especially after today I’m not so sure,”

You wrapped your hand around a piece of glass on the floor, its sharp edge cutting into your latex glove.

“I don’t think Silco’s sure about you either, in fact, I’m pretty sure I heard talk of replacing you.”

“You’re bluffing,” you said, finally bringing your eyes to his.

You were so focused on the boy in front of you that you hadn’t noticed the additional presence of two others in the room; not that they made any effort to interfere in the situation developing before them.

“Maybe he’ll even promote me,” Deckard said, a cruel smirk playing on his lips, “after all, I think anyone could do a better job than you’ve been doing,”

Your grip tightened on the shard of glass in your hand as it began to break the skin; you were too wrapped up in Deckard's words to care, mind too clouded with anger to worry as traces of shimmer mixed with your bloodstream.

“What was this…” he said in a tone of mock contemplation, drumming his finger on the bottom of his chin, “failed experiment number six? Seven? And just in the time I’ve been here,” your breath picked up, chest heaving, blood pumping faster through your veins, “If I’ve already seen what a failure you are,” he said, breath hot against the side of your face, “I don’t think you have very long before Silco decides to do something about it,”

You lunged at him, plunging the shard of glass between his ribs as you tackled him to the floor. “Fuck!” he hissed as you brought your hand to his throat, “If anyone is disposable around here, it’s you” you said, struggling to keep your tone even, “you’re a street lackey, just muscle he can use to push people around, to keep an eye on things in the Lanes.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Deckard said, a smug grin still plastered on his face even as you had him pinned to the warehouse floor, “boss gave me a promotion, he’s putting me in charge of training the new recruits we’re bringing in,” Deckard was still talking but you had stopped listening to what he was saying as soon as the words ‘new recruits’ left his lips. Silco hadn’t told you about any new additions to the team, maybe the trust you had built with him was slipping. No, Deckard was making things up, he had to be, he was just trying to get a rise out of you.

Still, you couldn’t stand looking at that stupid grin.

You brought your fist up to meet the underside of his jaw, sending his head crashing back against the concrete floor. Again and again, you punched him, and you would’ve kept going had he not brought his hand up to yank your hair back, sending you sprawling on your back, neck already cramping from the whiplash.

He was on you in seconds, the toe of his boot, flying into your stomach, “you think you’re better than me?” he called, taunting you as he continued to kick you repeatedly.

“I know I’m better than you,” you said, kicking his legs out from under him, grabbing hold of his hair as he fell.

“You’re nothing,” you said, slamming his face into the floor before bringing it up again so he could look at you; blood was pouring from his nose now and he had gotten a few teeth knocked out at some point, “you’re worthless,” you slammed his face into the floor again.

and again.

and again.

You didn’t hear as Silco began yelling at you to stop, that it was enough.

“You’re not going to fucking replace me,”

“Nobody is ever going to fucking replace me,”

You wanted to crush him into a blood pulp, you wanted to see his body go limp as the life drained from him, you wanted to-

You felt a pinch in the side of your neck as blackness began to creep into the edges of your vision. You saw your hand, now caked in blood, slipping from Deckard’s hair as you were dragged away from him, your limbs going numb. You thought you heard a voice behind you, Singed’s voice, but you couldn’t hear what he was saying as you fell into unconsciousness.

[space-blue]

What Silco wanted for Vander

Sorry @arcane-ish for the delayed reply.

Here's why I don't subcribe to, and don't even understand, the theory that Silco planned to use shimmer on Vander.

1 - Silco uses Vander as bait.

He's put in the chair, everyone hides and waits. This is clearly done to see who is on Vander's team and ready to risk rescuing him, and getting rid of them. They would be the opposition of Silco's group. It's just sad that Vander has no one else but the kids, but voila.

2 - Silco literally uses a euphemism for "killing Vander & the children"

"Vander Fled Town" doesn't sound like "Vander is becoming my shimmer super soldier" to me...

3 - There is no proof that shimmer has any mind control abilities anywhere in the show.

Deckard is a little dipshit who takes no convincing to jump on shimmer despite his misgivings. He's been part of Silco's crew for unknown time. He wants to prove himself, and once he's addicted, you can safely assume he wants to keep pleasing Silco and get more shimmer, sure, but he's on Silco's team. All the people in the picture above go against Vi willingly after she lays all of them out, including the biggest guy of them all. They're clearly loyal and willing to risk injury for their boss. Maybe they're too confident too, sure, but like, team Silco doesn't need coercion.

When Silco sicks the addicts on Vi, he's buying their work with shimmer. It's a straightforward "I will give you this if you do that". There are no orders being voiced. The show never shows shimmer as having mental effects beyond those of addiction. Otherwise I doubt so many people would be using it on themselves.

4 - Shimmer isn't ready, and Vander is an insane threat.

I don't understand how people see what Vander becomes with shimmer and think Silco would want even *risking* that. Shimmer isn't even properly finished. They're rushing their plan forward, and Deckard is, as far as we know, the first human being experimented on. I see absolutely no reason why the second human should be Vander? He's strong enough to go toe to toe with shimmer-deckard, after getting concussed, surviving an explosion, and shrugging off a concrete wall.

Vander is a monster sober. Why would Silco want to empower him and potentially risk him going wild?

Vander takes shimmer and keeps his sanity : he recognises Silco, reacts to the fear Vi shows, and makes a quick thinking decision instead of acting on urges. If Silco *had* given him shimmer, it would have been a terrible mistake. Clearly he would have broken out of the chair, and certainly killed everyone. I don't think Vander is the type to fold to addiction.

Silco KNOWS in episode 1 that Deckard will "volunteer" because he just got handed his ass to him by a teenage girl. In front of his gang. Deckard is a boy with a bruised ego, of course he folds under Silco's speech on power, and then he's addicted to the sense of power shimmer gives him. Vander is already extremely powerful, I'm sure it'd take a ton of mental torture for him to break down and be a slave to shimmer.

Conclusion - I have never seen it and hearing the HC has not changed my mind at all. I'm not headcanon bashing, because anything truly floats, but it's also a HC I don't understand and can't get behind. It just doesn't make sense *to me* in-world that Silco would ever want to go that route. He's way too careful and calculated and patient. If he did, he'd have to want to do a ton of experiments on shimmer first, to make sure he gets the desired effect. And yet he canonically voices to his entire group how Vander is basically like a dog "going to live on a farm upstate".

The only logic I can get behind is him killing him and then gifting him to Singed to try and engineer a mindless super soldier (even if it hurts my Vanco heart).

My reading of this entire scene is that Silco offers Vander a chance to rejoin the movement. Shimmer is the argument : with it they can truly destroy enforcers. Vander himself could take it, but even if he didn't, Silco would probably accept him in his ranks anyway (old sap). It's that or DIE. And Vander choses death.

"I'll show you what you really are" imo is just a threat. Silco will kill whoever comes for Vander in front of him anyway. He probably expects Vander to go apeshit at the sight (and I'm sure he would have if Vi had died).

What "Vander really is" is not a shimmer monster mindless slave. It's the Hound, a monster who drowns his best friend/ally/ex whatever to gain power. Silco is just infuriated by his meek act.

[liobits]

Okay second attempt at getting some Arcane thoughts out:

The peace treaty was never going to work out, for multiple reasons. Like, beyond the ‘Silco was never going to give up Jinx’.

For one, it was being negotiated between the Council and the worst crimelord in Zaun. I can’t trust Silco’s vision of a Nation of Zaun because he was willing to crush the people of Zaun beneath his heel to realize that vision, ignoring that a nation is its people. Silco has committed almost as much violence against Zaun as Piltover. A deal between two oppressive forces was never going to turn out well for Zaun. There’s a reason the Firelights were a thorn in the side of both Silco and the Enforcers.

Secondly, the treaty condition was another act of violence against Zaun. Piltover keeps demanding Zaun sacrifice its people to appease them. In Act I it was ‘give us a scapegoat and we won’t hurt you (more than we already do)’. In Act III it’s still ‘give us a scapegoat and we won’t hurt you more’. There’s a side order of ‘and I guess we’ll give you some rights too’ this time but... Peace that hinges on human sacrifice is rotten from the start. Piltover would’ve been within their rights to try and negotiate extradition of Jinx after the treaty was sealed, but Jayce telling Silco the peace was dependent on that was just... ghoulish. It was letting a personal grudge interfere with the fate of an entire city.

Third: the treaty was inspired by fear, rather than compassion or respect, and fear is an unstable emotion and it’s an unstable foundation for peace. The Council pays attention to Zaun because they’re afraid of Zaun getting enough power to finally hurt them back. And Jayce wants peace because he’s afraid of hurting other people. Like, Jayce wants to do good so badly, but he still doesn’t quite Get It. He still didn’t get it when he killed the Zaunite kid. He doesn’t want peace because he genuinely cares about Zaun and its people or he would never have made handing over Jinx a peace condition.

SO BASICALLY, one way or another, this peace treaty was going to blow up in everyone’s faces. Jinx didn’t ‘ruin everything’, she just sped things along to their inevitable conclusion.

The most hopeful thing in the finale to me wasn’t the council vote (false hope), it was Ekko talking to Heimerdinger. Because Ekko is all about compassion and helping and protecting people, and Heimerdinger is a Piltovian who is finally listening to a Zaunite.

Bonus thematic parallels: I don’t think the kids rescuing Vander was ever going to work out either. At best, they’d get away temporarily before being hunted down. More likely, shimmered-up Deckard would have busted down that door and murdered them. The moment of hope for everyone in that room, when it seemed like everything might turn out okay, came AFTER Powder’s monkey distracted Deckard. But the same distraction that bought them that brief reprieve was intrinsically tied to the explosion that followed, so it was always false hope.

Shiny Attention Grabber -> Moment of False Hope/Peace -> Everything Blows Up

Monkey bomb distracts Deckard -> Kids think they’ll get away -> Monkey bomb goes off

Jinx attacks Piltover -> Jayce and Mel think they’ll get peace -> FISHBONES

The fact that Jinx, like the monkey bomb, had to be set off to buy that moment of peace means that the explosion at the end was inevitable.

[arcane-ish]

Book Of Silco: Chapter 1

We fade from a shot on Vi, Powder and the city to a shot of Silco’s underwater lair of evil. 

Silco: You were supposed to follow them and not interfere. Deckard:  I'm sorry. They just caught us by surprise. Silco: Now his accomplice is asking questions about you. That's not a risk I'm willing to take. Deckard: The kids. It was their fault, the explosion in the upper city. Silco: That was them? Deckard: Yeah. The topsiders are up in arms looking for 'em. Silco: Vander's in trouble. Smartest thing you ever said, boy. Get him a meal. But keep him off the streets. The very first shot we get of Silco is of his injector. 

Our first better look of him is of him in the shadows as he talks to Deckard.

And of course the instant raised level of interest when Vander’s name comes up.

Some other things that are interesting about that scene are: 

1.) Deckard is lying to Silco. Silco says they were not supposed to interfere. Deckard says they were taken by surprise. Within the scene, it’s actually Deckard that first initiates contact with Vi and antagonizes her and corners them.

2.) When he talks about Vander’s accomplice asking questions, he probably refers to Benzo and this scene. Isn’t it weird that Silco refers to Benzo as Vander’s accomplice? Considering they clearly used to know each other in the past and at least Vander and Silco used to call each other brothers. Is Silco just being coy in front of Deckard, is it a reference to Benzo having been an accomplice to Silco’s drowning or just a snide way to referring to Benzo?  3.) Silco telling his men to give Deckard a meal seems like a very interesting detail to me, to show that Silco is an attention to detail kind of guy. 

[jynxd]

There was a certain beauty to the way the rocket took to the sky. The way the beam of light was almost like a destructive shooting star. Jinx found herself entranced by it all. Entranced as it hit its destination and created such a beautiful explosion, not unlike the one that had been made at the Cannery. Only this time its destruction was completely intentional.

She remembered events leading up to that day. Silco had tasked her to follow Deckard, to make sure he wasn't seen or heard. She was always good at sneaking around, so this had been an easy task for her. Something Deckard had failed, he hadn't even put in the effort when they came back around after the explosion. The idiot confronted them and almost ruined everything they worked for. He failed and she didn't hesitate to tell Silco everything.

However, two good things had come out of that mission. One being that it pushed them to pull the trigger on the shimmer experimenation. But the second, that was where she had acquired those pretty hextech crystals. One of the guys, Mylo she had heard the bigger guy call him, had managed to drop 3 or 4 of them out of his pocket, nearly causing an explosion there. Those were the crystals that had been their undoing, that destroyed the Cannery, and led them to this exact moment.

The way the buildings tumbled down instantly caused her own shimmer-pumped heart to skip a beat. What was once a dock, where a building stood, was now ashes and ruin. Made all the more special by the fact that Silco was here to see the beauty of it with her. Silco, who was the only one who could truly see what she saw. Could experience and she found that it was all she ever wanted.

"No longer do they have the upper hand on us, this is our game now. No more playing nice with topside." She watched as Silco ran his hands along fishbones jaw. There was excitement in knowing that he was proud of what she had accomplished, for them, for Zaun. "Part of me hopes they choose war, I would take everything away from them like they did us."

Jinx's blood still boiled, knowing that they had thought they could convince her father to turn her in. Just like the traitor had tried to turn her against him in turn. Never again. "I know where the hextech wonder boy keeps the rest of his gemstones,I could take them and he would never know."

She, too heard the alarm, and like that she could see the logic hit him by facial expression alone. With hesitation she lowered fishbones, the jaw now facing the floor. He was right, it would not take them long to connect the dots. However, she did frown at the mention of Sevika.

"About that, when I nabbed the traitor, it was after a nasty fight with the ogre. She wasn't looking so pretty. The traitor did a real number on her."

Her anxiety didn't go unnoticed. Silco was so in tune with her now that he could sense her unease. He could almost feel the ghost of Violet being addressed behind him when Jinx hissed out threatening words to her. His words would have to suffice in the battle against her own inner demons, and so they had. She came back to him again, tears running down her face from the appreciation of his gesture. He wiped the shimmer away with his thumb as she set about introducing her creation.

Fishbones. He liked that name. It spoke of a sort of morbid rebellion, not unlike a name given to a sword by a pirate. He admired the creativity with a huff of a laugh.

"Topsiders will focus on their own minuscule inconveniences, rather than the enemies outside our walls. It's another one of their grand failings." He trusted her judgement of Topside. She had been a successful spy of his for many years, even posing as an enforcer or academy student to gather information about council operations and the latest Hextech developments. She would return to him days later, full of secrets and intelligence. They would share it with one another as he braided her hair, a task he found relaxing rather than tedious.

Sometimes, halfway through, he would hand the braid to her to finish as he started the next one. She would have to know how to do it on her own without him one day, after all. Except now, that day was further away than he could think of, with his renewed body and health. He would be there to braid her hair for some time yet.

He watched as she primed Fishbones, loading the Hextech gemstone into its charging compartment. It became alight with arcane energy, drawing his gaze entirely to its shining underbelly. The light spread to its mouth, practically spilling out of it as the rocket primed itself to launch. He stood behind her, ready to catch her should the blast send her backward, but she was steady as it fired. She was stronger than he thought her to be, always surprising him.

He watched as the trail of blue light cut a line in the night sky, eye wide open with awe.

The destruction was glorious. It was astonishing. It was beautiful. He took it all in as the building was blown to pieces, strewn far and wide. The cloud of arcane plumage burst forth like a smoke bomb, only four times the size of any small explosive. It all took him back to that night, at this very cannery, when Jinx had first set off an arcane explosion. The blast had been devastating to his shimmer business, but even then he had admired the beauty of it. The blue of the arcane energy bursting forth toward him was still a memory that woke him from his sleep some nights. Such power was now at their fingertips, thanks to her.

As the dust settled, he took his daughter by the shoulders, squeezing gently with excitement. "Do you see, Jinx? This is only the beginning." He pointed toward the skeleton of the warehouse. "The Piltover elite will see the power we now possess. They will have to make a choice. Give us what we want, or begin a war." He chuckled lowly and slipped his hands off of her shoulders, instead touching Fishbones along his freshly fired from jaw. "If you can get your hands on more Hextech, we could create even more like Fishbones. Arm the underground with the power to finally fight back. This and shimmer... Finally we can seize our dream."

He heard the distant sounds of alarms from Piltover's side of the river, and saw glints of torches exploring the area. They were quick. Logic began to creep back into his mind past the elation of their accomplishment. "We must go back to the Last Drop. Staying here will draw too much attention too soon. Sevika will need to hear about this."

[lacependragon]

I finished Arcane Act 1 today (first 3 eps) and I have some Thoughts.

Fun fact! I have somehow managed to completely avoid spoilers to 90% of this show.

Please don't fucking ruin that for me. I have all the relevant trigger warnings. I'm all good.

Thoughts below the cut.

Holy fuck. I want Silco to fuck me so bad and I know it makes me look stupid but god please

Jayce is just James Ironwood but browner and younger and a little more idealistic. What the fuck. That's fucking amazing. I love him so much.

Jayce and Viktor are exactly my favourite kind of ship dynamic and I know things are probably going to go terribly for them but right now I'm gonna enjoy the "fuck the science out of your head" scenarios in my brain.

BODY HORROR BODY HORROR BODY HORROR. THIS. THIS IS MY JAM. THIS IS MY SHIT. I'VE BEEN WRITING THIS SAME CONCEPT INTO EVERY FUCKING HORROR STORY/FANFIC I'VE EVER WRITTEN AND I AM SO. FUCKING. STOKED.

Mylo ;-; I had no idea he was the one going to die. I assumed it was Deckard because of the "how long will he live?" "long enough" comment. God damn and the goggles. But Mylo. He was just junkrat but without the crazy. I loved him.

Hey so like. Okay. I know this isn't Powder's fault in the grand scheme of things. She only had the crystals because Vi took her to a theft, Vi only had the intel because Ekko followed Jayce, and Jayce was buying things illegally that Benzo shouldn't have had anyway. Plus, there's all the tension in the underside because of the Enforcers and Vander and people picking sides. Silco is a fucking madman and there's all of that. But also holy fuck Powder that is some fucking incredible power you have there. Like. Okay. The blown up apartment, all the people that got hurt that way, Jayce losing his sponsorship and his schooling, Enforcers coming down into the undercity to deal with things, Silco making his move against Vander when and how he did, Mylo and Claggor's deaths, VANDER'S death, the explosion, all those hurt people, Silco being able to take over the undercity... like in some way or another Powder caused all of that. And that's not her fault but mother of GOD no WONDER Vi's mad. I'm not mad at her but I GET IT. God I love them both. They were almost there. They were home free. But they WEREN'T. Because there was no way Silco was going to let them go. They were all scared. Vander and Vi were hurt pretty bad. Silco had Deckard and all his goons. They weren't getting out alive. But like they had the hope for just a moment before the explosion hit.

I am genuinely amazed at how well Arcane is handling the fucking MESS of League's bullshit worldbuilding. It's genuinely impressive how coherent it all is.

I still want Silco to fuck me. God. Murder daddy.