#i don't think silco believes she should forget about vi

[thenationofzaun]

Love this observation, but the way I see it, her nailing the bunny in plain sight isn't at odds with Silco's words. It's exactly what he imparted to her.

where she's accepted her sister's role in shaping her, but also Silco's advice.

That WAS Silco's advice. He never asks her to forget her old life or try to stamp out memories of it, just to let her old self die. Accept that your old life happened and always remember the horrible situation it culminated in. Including the loved one who hurt and "abandoned" you, remember her and what she did. Make peace with it and try to see it as a positive thing. It was meant to be, to teach you a lesson that your old self cannot feasibly survive in this world. And to finally unleash the strong person that was always hidden under the "weak" exterior.

Don't fight it. Let the transformation happen. So when you go back into that room and work on that gemstone, you will no longer be the scared little Powder who was hurt by it. You will be Jinx. Strong, fearless, unbowed by trauma. It will not be able to hurt you the way it hurt Powder.

Silco's equivalent of Jinx nailing Vi's bunny to the wall would be Vander's knife constantly stabbed onto his desk. Out in the open to serve as a constant reminder of the lesson. It's not a "don't look back" message. It's "when you look back, see it as another lifetime that had to happen to make you who you are now. Never forget it and never GO back."

A small observation regarding Jinx's mental state

In episode 5, Jinx tries out the gem stone and gets badly triggered by the resulting Arcane explosion (on top of her recent Vi-lookalike trigger). It blows the box under doll-Mylo's feet, revealing the Flare and the Bunny plushie.

Shortly after she confesses to Silco she can't do it and gives up, probably a very concerning attitude on her part, given that the events of episode 4 happen solely out of her driving need to constantly prove herself useful. No wonder that Silco decided this was concerning enough to take her down to the Pilt for his pep talk.

There he tells her to let Powder die, become Jinx etc. She seems to take him to heart... And as we learn in episode 9, to her it's Vi who "created Jinx". So interestingly, when we next see Jinx, finally making real progress on hextech, the bunny is not back into the box :

It's overseeing her work, pinned to the wall like on a cross. Like having Vi (who is dead, as far as both Jinx and Silco know) being a more prominent part of her life is necessary to embrace Jinx. Of course, the flare also doesn't go back in the box...

Sevika changes everything by reveling Vi is alive and kicking, but the moment Jinx is at her most efficient and happily working away is in that sweet lull, where she's accepted her sister's role in shaping her, but also Silco's advice.

One is left to wonder how things would have gone for Jinx if Vi hadn't returned, or hadn't confronted Sevika. I mean, Arcane is basically the "what if" show as every other plot point tips us forward into more disaster, but you know...

Tl;dr : Up until Silco's speech to her, Jinx was ignoring her sister.

She has no doll for her. She keeps her mementos in a BOX.

Away from sight. After Silco's speech she's shown using both of them, most likely in an attempt to fully realise "Jinx".

You'd think that's when she's put the bunny and flare *away*, but it's literally when she takes them OUT of storage

[matchamilkislover]

In The Darkest Corners, 13.

pairing: vi x fem!oc (reader with a name)

warnings: mature themes, just an overall minors beware, violence, just general arcane-ness. this one’s still pretty fucked up, at least for my standards.

word count: 2,957

author’s note: i low key feel sadistic after writing this chapter. but anyways, yes i know my paragraphs are long, no i won’t be changing them 😁 enjoy !!

don’t forget to read the other parts first!!

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Caitlyn's steps echoed in the damp corridor as she approached the cell where Vi was held captive. The dim light cast long shadows on the walls that seemed to follow her as she walked. As Caitlyn reached for the door, the clink of metal against metal reverberated in the cold air. Her voice pierced the silence as she whispered into it. “Vi? Are you there?” A quiet echo bounced off of the cold, hard walls of the cell, but the resounding silence made her nervous as the seconds passed. After what felt like forever, Vi's voice cut through the silence, sharp and incredulous.

“Caitlyn? What the hell are you doing here?” Vi hissed back, rising out of the darkness of her cell to approach Caitlyn. Her defenses prickled at the memory of what went down in front of the Council. More importantly, what she lost that day.

Caitlyn paused, her hand lingering on the lock. She met Vi's gaze, her expression unreadable. "I'm getting you out.”

Hope flickered in Vi’s chest, but it was quickly dampened by doubt. The skepticism dancing on her face hardened into a scowl. "Why? What's your game, Caitlyn?"

"Look, I know you may not have the best impression of me, but I’m here for Olive. She’s been missing, and I talked to the bartender at The Last Drop. He last saw her with Sevika, until she passed out and Sevika dragged her off. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about this?” Caitlyn replied, her tone measured.

Vi's fists clenched, the tension between them escalating. "You think I don’t know? That Silco wouldn’t dangle it in my face like some sort of fucked up little game? You think I haven’t been torturing myself in here, day in and day out, trying to figure out how to get to her?” She stepped forward menacingly as she spoke, until Caitlyn could almost feel her breath on her face. “But now you show up out of nowhere, claiming you want to help? For what, a Piltover PR stunt? Either get me out of here so I can fix this shit, or leave.”

Caitlyn's jaw tightened, and for a moment, the air crackled with unspoken conflict. "I know you don't trust me, Vi. But I need you to trust that I want to help you. To help Olive. Silco's grip on the Undercity is tightening, and we need to stand together against it." She paused, taking a suddenly shaky breath. “And…I, uh….I can’t lose Olive again.”

Vi scoffed and rolled her eyes, suspicion still etched on her features. "Why should I believe you? You've always been on the other side of this mess. You couldn’t even try to find Olive when she spent an entire year alone in the Undercity.”

Caitlyn sighed, the weight of their shared history pressing on her shoulders. "I know I haven't been the most reliable ally in the past. But circumstances have changed. We—"

Vi cut her off bitterly. "Save it. I don't need your explanations. Just get me out of here, and we'll go from there." Caitlyn was silent, caught off guard. Vi studied Caitlyn's face, searching for any hint of deceit. The cell seemed to shrink around them as the seconds ticked away. Finally, Caitlyn nodded, a begrudging acceptance in her eyes. She understood that the fragile alliance forged in the depths of the Undercity might not survive in the harsh light of the world above.

She pulled out some sort of advanced lock picking mechanism, and made quick work of the rickety cell lock. As the lock clicked open, the cell door swung open and Caitlyn stepped back cautiously as Vi quickly exited her cell. The tension lingered, a silent reminder of the delicate balance between trust and betrayal hovering around them. Caitlyn, acutely aware of the strained atmosphere, focused on the task at hand—getting Vi out of Stillwater. The dim light flickered overhead, casting erratic shadows on the walls. They were able to quickly sneak back out of Stillwater, Caitlyn following Vi’s quick, athletic maneuvering.

Once they were a ways away from Stillwater, Caitlyn put a hand on Vi’s arm to stop her. Vi flinched at the touch, like she was tempted to swing, but Caitlyn chose to ignore the movement. “Stop, Vi — where are we even going? How do you know where she is?”

The question made Vi sigh, like it was something obvious that Caitlyn was oblivious to. “I know Silco. I know where he keeps his facilities. I know exactly where he has her. Where he wants me.” Her face was hard as stone.

Caitlyn wasn’t convinced. “So what, we’re just going to walk straight into what is obviously a trap? The two of us? Even if we managed to get in, there’s no way we’d be able to get Olive out. Not without a full rescue team.” Her disbelief was palpable in her voice.



Vi closed her eyes, like she was thinking, and then shook her head. “I don’t care. I’ll figure it out. I won’t wait anymore. I have to find her.” She started walking again, but yet again, Caitlyn grabbed her arm to stop her, more forcefully this time.

“You’d be a fool to do this. Just wait one day, I’ll pull together a team of enforcers and we’ll face Silco and his followers together. Then we’ll have an actual chance.” Her voice was desperate, like she wasn’t just trying to convince Vi, but herself as well. Vi pulled away again.

“You can do that if you want, but I’ve learned my lesson with enforcers, and I’m not risking it again. Especially not with Olive involved.” She spoke with an air of finality that Caitlyn came to accept was not one to be questioned. She sighed.

“Fine. I’ll move as quickly as I can, but in the meantime, just…be safe. Please. For Olive,” Caitlyn replied in a gentler voice, softening in the subject of her childhood friend. Vi nodded, and then turned her back to leap into the Undercity, moving as quickly as she could while keeping her stealth.

—

This time when Olive awoke, she was alone. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved, or made more anxious by the absence of another person. She sat there in the silence, her back against the freezing wall of her cell, alone with her thoughts and fears. Was she really going to die like this? How soon would it be? Would, at the end of the day, it really be her own father that ended her life? A year ago, she might’ve been grateful to be free from the pain and confusion…but now, she had something to lose. Someone to lose. Even if it was a someone who left her. Alone. In the rain. Someone who she wasn’t even sure she would ever see again, if she did survive this. Before Olive knew it, she could feel tears dripping down her cheeks, and her ears suddenly registered the sobs leaving her throat. Her cries seemed unending, the cold in the air and the burning on her wrists disappearing into her sorrow. After what felt like forever and no time at all, she finally heard footsteps tapping down the corridor towards her, a mocking “tsk, tsk, tsk,” being murmured by the figure as they approached.

“What?” Olive choked out through her sobs. Suddenly, it didn’t feel worth it to save her words anymore. “Here to taunt me more? Make me feel worthless, hopeless, despaired?” She took a shaking breath and continued, “Well, I’m already there. You did your job. What else do you want from me?” The door to her cell clanged open and shut, but Olive still kept her eyes squeezed and trained on the floor. It wasn’t like she could use her hands to wipe her tears while they were changed behind her back, so squeezing the excess liquid out of her eyes was the best she could do. She listened intently as the figure knelt in front of her and grabbed her face in their hands. She wished she didn’t recognize their touch.

“Oh, dear, sweet Olive tree, don’t cry,” her father’s — no, Teeter’s voice made a terrified shiver go down her spine. He wiped her tears for a moment, but she flinched from his touch, now glaring straight into his eyes. Instead of pulling away, his grip on her jaw tightened. His voice turned from a fake sweetness to a true hiss. “Don’t you worry, dear daughter,” he drew out the pet name like a snake, “it’ll all be over soon anyways. We’re just missing one piece of our puzzle.” Olive took a deep breath, and glanced down at his hands before looking back into his eyes. Wordlessly, she reeled back slightly and, as hard as she could, spit straight in his face.

Her screams followed quickly after. “YOU MOTHERFUCKER,” she bellowed, her voice scraping even as she ignored it, “YOU FILTHY MURDERING FUCKING TRAITOR, YOU’RE DEAD. YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD. I WON’T LET YOU DO THIS AGAIN, I WON’T. YOU COWARD,” her voice echoed in the cell and down whatever corridors connected to it. Teeter grimaced and angrily wiped the spit off his face, using that same hand to then cover one of his ears as Olive screamed, the other keeping a tight grip on her face. He suddenly let go of her face and immediately slapped her as hard as he could, making Olive’s eyes blur and tears prick in her eyes. Before she could react, he gripped her face in one hand again, this time so tightly that her cheeks were completely squished together by her mouth.

“How dare you, you little bitch,” he snarled, pulling her close to his face. Even though her cheek was bright red and felt like it was on fire, Olive ignored the pain and returned Teeter’s glare silently. He huffed and dropped her. “Sevika!” He called in a suddenly airy voice, “I think our bitch needs a muzzle.” As Sevika turned from the wall outside of Olive’s cell and strolled in as requested, Olive’s stomach filled with dread. Her heart pounded against her chest, and she scrambled back against the wall, as if she would somehow be able to escape this. Teeter simply watched her and laughed cruelly. Olive’s eyes were wide as saucers while she watched Sevika approach, spinning a metal muffle gag in one finger.

Sevika’s voice broke through the momentarily quiet room. “I’ll take it from here,” she spoke gruffly through a half-smirk, only glancing at Teeter, who nodded and looked to Olive one more time. She continued glaring.

“I’ll see you later then, dear daughter,” he said sinisterly, kicking her once in the abdomen lightly and ignoring her whine. “Can’t wait for our next talk…” He turned and slinked out of the room, leaving Sevika to her own devices with Olive. The taller woman nodded a goodbye and focused her attention to Olive, who was glaring up at her from her position against the wall.

Sevika smirked. “Oh, my little bird, I wish we could do this in different circumstances,” she remarked cruelly, approaching Olive with the so-called ‘muzzle’ in her hand. “How nice would that be, hm?” Her voice was that of a mocking murmur, only fueling Olive’s hatred and dread. Olive bared her teeth in a grimace, holding back the urge to spit again.

“You’re disgusting,” Olive replied in a hate-filled voice. Sevika only laughed. Her laugh made something in Olive snap, and she reeled back and then spit straight into Sevika’s face (or as close as she could get from the floor). Disgusted, Sevika grimaced and then whipped her gaze back to Olive with a newfound anger in her eyes.

“You really want to act like a bitch? Then I’ll treat you like the little bitch that you are,” Sevika barked, roughly grabbing Olive’s jaw in one hand and yanking her up to where Sevika could more easily reach her. Before Olive could recover from the shock and spit a retort, the muzzle was being shoved onto her face. Olive half-choked on the gag as it invaded her face and mouth, making Sevika grin maliciously. With a click, Sevika latched the device on securely and shoved Olive back down to the floor, still gagging a bit on the new sensation and desperately trying to force her body to breathe out of her nose. Once she could breathe, she sent a hateful glare towards Sevika, who sighed and leaned down a bit. Her large body approaching Olive’s made the smaller flinch away, as if she would be able to get away. As if. Sevika rolled her eyes.

“You know, little bird, I would be a lot nicer if you made it easier,” Sevika said to her with a sigh, catching Olive’s chin with one finger as she tried to turn away and lifting Olive’s gaze to hers. “So pretty…” she murmured, “we’d have so much fun, you and I.” Olive could do nothing but glare in response. Sevika sighed again and removed her finger. “It’s too bad that you’re too much of a prissy bitch to take an opportunity when you get one,” she grunted and took out a cigar, lighting it and placing it between her lips to take a long drag before speaking again. “You could’ve had it good down here. But instead, you chose someone who won’t even attempt to help you. How sad.” Olive’s glare became fiery, and she lurched out towards Sevika, as if she could do anything. The chain holding her hands wasn’t even long enough for her to stand up, much less reach Sevika, and Olive was yanked back down by the chain as vigorously as she tried to get up. Unsurprisingly, Sevika laughed and cooed mockingly. “Aww, want to fight back, do we?” her voice hushed suddenly, “You’re ours now, little bird. And there’s no fighting back.” With that, she turned around and left the room, leaving Olive to moan in pain at the new restriction on her face.

—

The night wrapped Silco's stronghold in a shroud of darkness, broken only by sporadic lanterns casting long, eerie shadows. Vi moved with calculated determination towards the looming warehouse that covered Silco’s underground hold, her steps muffled by her strategic movements as she approached. Ideally, she would slip past the guards and into the stronghold unnoticed, but when it came to Vi, this wasn’t a very realistic option. Instead, she left a trail of unconscious guards behind her, bodies hidden by random objects or pushed behind barriers and into shadowy corners. Soon enough, she was within the twisted corridors of Silco’s headquarters. The echoes of distant conversations and clinking metal reverberated as Vi navigated the labyrinthine passages, her keen eyes searching for any sign of Olive. The information she had extracted from Caitlyn and Grint had led her here, to Silco's inner sanctum, where he practiced the majority and most important of his operations, as well as kept his long-term prisoners. Her heart pounded in her chest as she descended lower and lower into the hold, eventually approaching a heavily guarded door. With practiced finesse, Vi disabled the guards without a sound, their unconscious bodies now silent witnesses to her intrusion. The door, fortified and imposing, seemed to defy her entry. Vi gritted her teeth, muscles flexing as she used all her strength to pry it open. The hinges groaned in protest, but the door finally yielded. The corridor beyond was dimly lit, revealing rows of cells like crypts in the Undercity's secret catacomb. The air hung heavy with the scent of dampness and despair. Vi scanned the cells as she advanced through the corridor, her eyes searching for a familiar face. Eventually, she spotted a battered form huddled on the ground on the floor of the farthest cell, quiet pained breaths leaving the person’s body. Vi rushed to the cell, hands coming up to the bars as she looked in. Instantly, her heart sank as she recognized that the form was in fact a shivering Olive, seemingly unconscious on the floor of her cell.

"Olive!" Vi whispered urgently, her voice barely audible above the oppressive silence. Olive’s body didn’t move. Vi shoved the door open, nearly ripping it off its hinges, ignoring the fact that it was suspiciously unlocked as she rushed to Olive. She gently took Olive’s face in her calloused and wrapped hands, inspecting her as she whispered pleas for her to get up. “Olive, Olive please…wake up, Olive, please…it’s me, its Vi,” she begged, her voice breaking as she spoke and a breath of relief leaving her chest when Olive’s eyes blinked open.

But instead of looking relieved, Olive’s eyes widened and she immediately squirmed to try to escape Vi’s grasp, her instincts surging with panic even though she had yet to realize who had awoken her. Vi gently grabbed one of her arms and rubbed, continuing to identify herself until Olive finally seemed to hear her and paused, wide eyes meeting Vi’s. At first, she looked shocked, then relieved, and tears welled in her eyes as Vi pulled her into her grasp and held her for a moment. Vi then pulled away, moving to release her from her binds, but Olive’s eyes grew wide again, and she started to scream from behind her mask, muffled sounds being all that came out as she stared at something behind Vi and desperately tried to free herself again. Confused, Vi’s ears finally picked up on footsteps approaching from behind, not having heard them before as she focused on Olive. But by the time she realized this, it was too late, and something heavy hit her on the head before she could even turn around, the world going dark.

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tags!!: (lmk if you want to be added!)

@forestnymph666 @sevviesbabe

[chaoticvi]

I think it's also worthy to notice in what circumstances and to whom Vi calls her sister "Jinx" or "Powder". I don't think I have a very clear point and I'm not the best at verbalizing my theories, but i feel it's an important thing so I'm running in circles around this topic lol (I didn't do a full rewatch before writing this so i might be wrong and missed something).

Start with how many times Vi called her Jinx. 1) episode 3 in we all know which a heartbreaking scene. 2) episode 6 with Caitlyn "What was the name Sevika gave you? Jinx?"

"Right , Jinx. How could i forget"

which feels like Vi talks more to herself rather than directly answers to Caitlyn. The conversation shifts then and moment later Vi talks about Powder.

3) With Jinx herself.

"Powder, it's okay."

"Stop calling me that. It's Jinx now. Powder fell down a well."

"You're not a jinx. God, I never should have...'

4) With Ekko in episode 7 with their whole "see what you sister has become now vs no i know better i have to reach her" conversations through the episode.

And 5) To The Council.

Vi calls her sister "Powder" 99% of the time. She talks about Powder with people she feels she can trust and is close to her and it's the same people she called her "Jinx" as I listed before: it's Jinx herself, Caitlyn and Ekko. Which makes The Council even more out of pocket if we look at that. Because clearly The Council are far from Vi's list of trustworthy people. And I don't believe the writers suddenly slipped and gave us OOC. Which makes me agree even more with the previous rant about how Vi knows "you should give people what they want". This isn't a "Vi finally accepts who her sister is now" point in the show either, she continues to call her Powder during the tea party, she has yet to fully accept it and it's something I'm sure will be in s2. We have yet to see Vi refers to her sister as Jinx out loud, especially in a conversation with Jinx herself. Because for Vi there was a separation between "Powder" and "Jinx" perhaps not clear, once again she hasn't fully accepted (at least not until the end of ep9, we will see Vi's reaction and reflection on what happened) what she has become and even if deep down she already realizes it's not her baby sister Powder anymore...the feelings are feelings and Vi has to try and save and protect her sister. Vi blames Silco for many things and he is her #1 enemy , she's clear about it to The Council too, that Jinx strongly associates with Silco and does all these horrible things thanks to Silco's commands and influence, so by defeating Silco she will free and save her sister. She can "give" them Jinx as something so they can move forward, and as it says in prev rant, it was nothing more than a name. Vi didn't sell out "my sister" or "Powder"

I'm sorry I will end here because like I said I don't have a well written analysis of it , I just think it's an important moment to go through and take in mind when we talk about that whole scene with the Council.

imo it's a shame that they needed a convenient name drop for everything to happen in the last episode and they sacrificed vi's character to do it... telling the fucking council who jinx is? she would NEVER. she would literally never. i'm upset they threw vi's character under the bus for The Bit :/ like honestly just seems like a shallow writing mistake to me...

[arcane-ish]

I want to throw myself and them off a bridge.

Well don't do that, not even figuratively ;)

I agree with a lot of what you said and disagree with a lot of what you said. We have had a good discussion so far and it is fun!

One reason why I'm on tumblr is because I love in depth debates, so it's always great to have one that can happen without people having too hard feelings about it.

The only reason I don’t like to play the “what if” or “should have done” mental exercise or condemn him for what he did do, is that to me personally, it shifts my view from what actually happened and trying to understand what happened and why it happened, // Maybe I hate it so much because I do that too much in my own life and I hate what it does to me mentally lol.

I will always sympathize with people not wanting to engage with some aspects of fandom, but I do think people should always stop short of forbidding other people from engaging with things differently.

I find "what if/what else" interesting to discuss as a way to establish a baseline that characters are acting against. Like what exactly are we comparing it too when we say a character did something wrong or badly.

AND it imposes what we know onto the characters when they are not operating with our same knowledge or experiences.

Agreed, that's why I tend to try to stay away from "well he should just have taken her to therapy" arguments and try to lock it down more to things that still seem reasonable to me within their world.

My frustration comes when people make blatant sweeping statements about characters without taking nuance into account—like in that original, original post we were both replying to. I don’t think you could make a sweeping statement saying Silco was a good parent, either.

Agreed.

Would a more adjusted person have made a better parent? Obviously.

As you said, sweeping statements are a problem and the original post did demonstrate that, but to me these are still pretty sweeping/pretty big claims:

"I do not think he was “toxic” or a “BAD” father,"

and

"he did the absolute best thing any SURROGATE parent FIGURE could have done FOR JINX"

and

"He honestly tried his best to give her the knowledge that helped him survive and thrive IN THEIR WORLD. That is all any parent who loves their child and wants them to succeed EVER does."

and

"I really don’t think Silco was an abusive or manipulative or “toxic” or “Bad for Jinx” parent."

and

"tried to cheer her on in every sense of the word."

And I do think that if you make more generic sweeping statements like that one does need to be careful and back them up with something deeper than "I just really like them".

And I do think that there is a danger of being too in love with the beauty of a tragedy to forget that it's a tragedy. Ie it's kind of baked into a tragedy that the scenes being shown are not supposed to be a good thing. That's what makes them tragic in the first place.

I just like thinking about her character and story within the framework of what actually happened and what I believe the story’s intent is.She’s a tradegy.

But isn't it/couldn't be part of this tragedy "it's a really bad and tragic thing that she ended up with him"? And talking about the characters within the framework doesn't really mean that you can't grade their actions, the ones they actually ended up taking on some scala of good/bad. Like people still have to try to find a way to agree on what we are actually discussing even if your interest is on the "why" and not the "what if".

Basically, there is a difference in whether somebody is discussing "why did this really great thing happen" or "why did this really bad thing happen". And in that I do think it's valuable to discuss which parts of Sico's parenting they consider bad (ie things that even need an explanation if you walk in with the understanding that his intent is to be a good parent) versus which ones they consider not a big deal.

When discussing with Vi fans I have sometimes thrown around the idea that they seem to be taking in the events as too much from Vi's point of view and buying into her "Everything was great and we had no problems before Silco came along, everything started sucking when Silco came along, Silco is at fault for all problems" view.

And I would like to throw out the suggestion maybe Silco fans buy too wholesale into his point of view containing things like "People I don't like don't matter and I don't like anyone other than Jinx" and "As long as the broad strokes (Nation of Zaun, I love Jinx) are correct then the details don't matter" without stopping to think that that is a particularly reasonable position to take.

It's an effect of fandom that people can get too locked in into loving and defending a character in the context of fan arguments that they sometimes make some pretty big sweeping statements born out of these arguments ("Ooops, accidentally defended fascism?"). And I do think that this is something people need to be mindful of that "This is a great (as in well written) character/this character made me feel thing" shouldn't lead to too blanket "this character's actions are good/justified/appropriate within the circumstances".

He’s just a broken dude making the choices he feels are best.

I just do not think that intent can be divorced completely from effect. Very few people are aware that they are doing evil, but they still might be doing monstrous evil things. ie your average nazi. a good chunk of serial killers. a lot of real world physically abusive parents. Heck from that perspective you could say that there's nothing wrong with Piltover at all because they didn't mean bad/they were just blinded by prejudice/by their limited point of view. There is no reason to dislike Piltover and the situation between Zaun and Piltover because they are just doing what feels natural to them and it's just the intent of the story for them to be like that.

IMO for most people that just is going to be too limiting a restriction as a way of engaging with the text, to suggest that people shouldn't ask questions about it and just accept every action and every intent as face value.

Intent is something that means something to people IMO specifically because we think it affects the chances of reform. ie he could have been a better person or parent in different circumstances because his intent was to do well and if he had been told that doing x, y, z would lead to better parenting results he would have done that because being a good parent was his goal.

But I don't think that intent really changes that "bad thing" still happened and that in this case "he did a bad parenting" and "bad parenting happened onto Jinx".

I can genuinely love music, but still be an objectively terrible singer. People might still be touched by my obvious enthusiasm but that doesn't mean that that "she's a good singer" or "this song is being sung well" is a reasonable statement to make.

And there does still seem to be genuine disagreement over which of Silco's actions constitute "these are bad actions, even if he thinks they are good" and which ones "no actually there is genuinely nothing wrong with his actions whether intentionwise nor objectively". Which part of his parenting actions are part of his "falling short" and which ones aren't.

I'm never going to dispute people's right to take just a part, an aspect of canon, have it resonate with them and gain real meaning from it. To me that's the beauty and flexibility of art. That's your personal experience. You can take a small part, twists it off, turn it into something personal and something new. Like you can take a single page from a comic book and spin a completely new story from it.

It gets different when people 1.) make sweeping statements about a character ("a character is or isn't X" as opposed to "I like this character/I react to this character in this way") 2.) make sweeping statements about reality ("this action is good/okay/bad") 3.) try to limit what takes other people have ("people shouldn't call/perceive him as toxic").

Basically, you have a very personalized way of engaging with canon ("I don't like how things could have gone differently" or "I don't like it when other people apply modern ways of viewing onto the characters") , but then you shouldn't try to limit the way other people engage differently.

You are allowed to make your personal choice, but IMO a tragedy for me is basically tailor-made for engaging with it in a "what could have been" kind of way. What if Juliet had woken up sooner? What if the messenger had reached Romeo? and just because you in particular don't have that desire doesn't mean that it's a very unusual take that people react that way. Similarly, if modern views on parenting and mental health are different is because they have evolved that way for a reason. Because the events being portrayed are still "bad things are happening" even if the characters aren't aware that they are "doing a bad".

Again I would argue that people react to fiction using outside knowledge. Think about watching along with a horror movie and screaming "OMG, don't open the door, there's a killer there!!!" rather than only engaging with the scene only from the very limited point of view of the character in the scene. Heck I would argue that this seems to be a major tool of tragedy/that makes tragedy tragic.

I have really come to dislike the terms good/bad, healthy/unhealthy when labeling these characters. They (all the characters in the show) have made good and bad decisions and have aspects that are healthy and unhealthy.//It’s like Snape. People get soooo passionate about screaming Snape is good or Snape is bad. Snape is nuanced.

I agree, but I also don't think that nuance existing doesn't mean that there aren't differences.

I also think there is a limited value like doing absolute detailed morality rankings of characters, but I don't think that it's wrong for people say "on average that person did more evil than this person" or "on average/at the bottom line that relationship was pretty unhealthy".

Everybody being flawed/nobody being perfect doesn't mean that there aren't still differences in gravity.

A kid who steals a bubble gum once is different from a multi-billionaire stealing billions in tax dollars even though both are "flawed" and "nobody is perfect". Nuance is good but just throwing up your hands and going "you can never have an opinion on anything because everything is moral relativism" isn't the way to go either.

The understanding that there is nuance to basically any situation doesn't mean that we can let that debilitate us from ever having any opinions.

Especially when there is still (it seems to me) a difference in opinion on which actions people even see/accept as unhealthy. Or would you subscribe to the statement that "on average the relationship between Jinx and Silco was very unhealthy and pretty harmful to Jinx despite Silco's intention"?

There seems to be a fundamental difference here in the definition of certain words, like what exactly does or does not constitute things like toxic and bad for Jinx.

And that's the area where I feel pretty strongly that Silco's intent doesn't matter in regards to whether his actions/parenting were toxic or bad for Jinx or harmful to Jinx. If I feed my child poisoned milk when I didn't know it was poisoned I didn't mean to poison my child, but the effect is still that the child got poisoned and the substance is still poisonous.

Heck, I have always said that it's one of the ironies that Ambessa being a bad parent and giving her daughter up for her personal goals might have led to Mel leading a better childhood and becoming a more well-adjusted person while Silco even if he genuinely cared for Jinx might have sent her on a path of pain and self-destruction and loneliness.

It's a good example of how intent/good intentions can be divorced from result. Love can be toxic even if it is genuine, positivity can be toxic. I don't think that toxic/having a toxic effect only applies if a person was being intentionally harmful. I don't have a problem with the take that reducing it down to only being toxic is reductive, but at the same time, I don't think people looking at the situation and coming away with the read that Silco/Silco's parenting was kind of toxic to Jinx (again whether he meant it to be or not) is that much of a leap.

Like, I'm unlikely to use it much/start off my essays as such, but if somebody made that part of their essay I wouldn't feel like I have much of a leg to stand on to say that their take is totally left field. I think it's still within the realm of reasonable takes/reactions on the situation. Like I might dispute certain examples or arguments they use in pursuit of arguing their case, but as a read I think it's still a possible one especially with people having different takes on what toxic means to them.

@arcane-ish (dude/girl/fren, these posts we are writing are so long i love it so much hahaha)

I agree with a lot of what you said and disagree with a lot of what you said. We have had a good discussion so far and it is fun!

I guess my take away from all of what you said is that it’s interesting to see how other people view things and through what lens they come at situations. I absolutely do think Silco fell short as a parent in ways. The only reason I don’t like to play the “what if” or “should have done” mental exercise or condemn him for what he did do, is that to me personally, it shifts my view from what actually happened and trying to understand what happened and why it happened, AND it imposes what we know onto the characters when they are not operating with our same knowledge or experiences. In that interview with the cast on Cartoon Universe last weekend, Toks was sharing how she related a lot with Powder because of her growing up in a bit of a similar place to Zaun, there were military coups and it was very violent (in Nigeria). While she shared, I just thought how meaningful it was for me personally, to watch Arcane and keep my observations grounded in their universe with the knowledge they have and the backgrounds they grew up with.

Silco is not perfect, you’re right. There are good instances of looking at his screw ups and learning from them as an audience. I love him and the relationship he has with Jinx even with those screw ups, probably more because of the screw ups. Thinking about his motivations about what really happened and not saying “well he should have done” is just more valuable to me in terms of understanding his character. And a lot of those what-ifs would only be possible if he were a mentally stable or emotionally intelligent person, which he isn’t. It’s pointless to me. Would a more adjusted person have made a better parent? Obviously. Would Jinx have turned out different with that person? Who knows. Was a better person available within the scope of the story? No. The facts are, Silco was the one who raised her. He gave her the unconditional love she craved, and he did the best he was capable of doing. Does that make him THE BEST Dad? No. Does it make him a toxic monster? No. He’s just a broken dude making the choices he feels are best.

The way I look at it, one of this show’s stories is how Jinx came to be. For me, within that lens, it does me no good to look at the ways her life could have been different because it was never going to happen that way. I don’t know if that makes sense. Maybe I hate it so much because I do that too much in my own life and I hate what it does to me mentally lol. I just like thinking about her character and story within the framework of what actually happened and what I believe the story’s intent is. She’s a tradegy.

I have really come to dislike the terms good/bad, healthy/unhealthy when labeling these characters. They (all the characters in the show) have made good and bad decisions and have aspects that are healthy and unhealthy. My frustration comes when people make blatant sweeping statements about characters without taking nuance into account—like in that original, original post we were both replying to. I don’t think you could make a sweeping statement saying Silco was a good parent, either. It’s nuanced. It’s like Snape. People get soooo passionate about screaming Snape is good or Snape is bad. Snape is nuanced.

I have officially lost the plot and am now rambling. lol. All I know is, when I read Silco was a toxic father and manipulated Powder into becoming Jinx and that he should have thrown her into therapy and gotten her drugs and just been a fundamentally different person, I want to throw myself and them off a bridge.

[space-blue]

Bahahaha, what a great rambly comment! A reader thinking this hard about my fic is the reaction I love, no matter the content of the thoughts! I'm just painting my picture, but I can't tell you what to see and enjoy, but I can see you looking and that's the thrill!!

Regarding the politics, Silco's goals are all extensively covered in my main fic, Fathers and Daughters (from my hcs).

Silco had explained, because he always does. He told Vi how his plan then had been to use shimmer to give people an edge during an attack on Piltover. Everyone would have been given a single vial, to use like a weapon. Withdrawal would have been shit and it wouldn't have mattered one bit, because Piltover would have been shocked into submission by then. Scared off from ever trying to police Zaun, forced to give them their freedom, or suffer another attack.

That's how I pictured the OG plan... The new plan was briefly mentioned, but will be delved in later, in much greater detail.

I am indeed not interest in the opnion of she-who-didn't-write-Silco-and-Vander-but-still-tweets-about-it.

I do like some of your ideas... They make me think! I feel like the timetable moving up is them going from the small single vial we see Singed using in episode 1, to the start of mass production of episode 3. And you're right, Silco is accelerating things because Vander's kids being the cause of all the chaos with enforcers is a fabulous opportunity.

My take, since I'm a rabid Vanco shipper, is that Silco wants the kids captured to get Vander back on his side, literally in any capacity. Either the kids are taken or Vander loses it and breaks his deal with Grayson by defending the kids. Given Marcus' failure, Silco moves anyway, wanting to capitalise on the unrest.

I think he had that faint hope, that Vander might still join... But is overall far too mistrustful for them to ever be equal again. And resentful enough that with everything gone to shit, the place exploded up, his entire plan potentially in flames around him, he risks his life to kill Vander and get his payback, if nothing else.

There's also an element of Vander being a drag for the entirety of Zaun. Because he's so respected/feared, Vander enforces the stagnation. The lack of conflict prevents people from rising up on their own. Silco probably believes that the least he can do for his "free nation of Zaun", afte having killed so many enforcers earlier that day, is to kill Vander now. In hopes that people would rise up again when payback comes around.

'Vander's a wall in the way of our progress, he has to go,' that was Silco's reasoning. 'Vander is the status quo that keeps our heads under water.'

Yes I'm quoting my blighted reader fic, I have no shame.

Vander’s problems would have been the most solved if he had just gone after Silco right after Marcus raids the last drop

See, I genuinely don't buy that Vander has any idea as to where Silco is. Because otherwise he'd be dumb as a rock to not keep eyes on him. And I don't think Vander would let Silco get away mass producing shimmer if he knew about it or where to find him.

He also looks so surprised when Silco comes out of the mist... Not the look of a man who's been keeping tabs.

That's why I ended up going with the angle of Vander being extremely guilty about what he did to Silco... but also not the type to look his errors face on (unlike Silco). He wants sooo badly to forget.

That's the duality of my Monster Within / Monster Without fics. Silco wants to master the name of Vander, and his emotions attached to it:

'Vander,' he says. 'Vander.' His amber black eye glows, his scared lip curls in a sneer, but the hatred doesn't blossom. His mind doesn't fog with bloodthirst. 'Vander—oh, I should thank you, one day,' Silco murmurs, fingers trailing down the gouges in his face.

While Vander wants nothing more than to stop hearing Silco's name, and forces him into further isolation by making the Lanes as a whole a place in which he can't safely exist.

Even as he settles in new routines, Vander's mind stays inflamed. He backhands a man for asking if Silco betrayed him. Punches another for comparing them. His knuckles are raw with Silco's name, and soon people stop asking questions. They fear the Hound and his short temper, the monster he takes no pain to hide away and wears like armour; but fear breeds respect and Vander looks after them dutifully.

I have had ideas on Silco killing Vander or vice versa, but no drive to explore them yet. I just don't find those narratives as compelling for these two, but I'll probably get there one day.

I do feel like Vander has no motif for killing Silco... Since he says he's "never forgiven himself" for what he did to him, and he rules with impunity, I guess he can take this superior approach to this small man he once nearly broke. Silco was weak. Silco is easy to kill. Silco is a dreamer. Silco was once loved. Silco (as Vander knew him) was not ruthless enough to be a real threat. And so Vander can afford to let him live, so long as he doesn't dare show his face.

And after 10+ years of not showing his face at all, he appears out of the billowing mist with a monster. Bet Vander did feel like an idiot then!

But all interpretations are good! I'm just building all my works off this pretty Dark!Vander take, with a very long gap between the betrayal and Act I, so I'm well aware I won't see eye to eye with She who should not tweet, and many other writers! Heck, I don't even give Silco a background in the mines, I'm basically a heretic by now!

A take on Vander knowing where to find Silco, the two of them co-existing actively, would be fascinating as well. It would make Vander even more complex. IDK if I could pull of the intricacies of these too running business in parallel!

Anyway, many thanks for the lengthy review and the opportunity to ramble on the topic myself! <3

There’s only one way their story ends, Silco knows. Yet still in their last moment alone together—their first in so many years—he offers Vander one last chance.

This is a sad Silco/Vander fic, almost closer to Silco & Vander, for all that it has a kiss. One long, final kiss. This fic is canon compliant and is coming after your feels.