#silco and Vander

[win3aunt]

[audrac-blue]

I was so happy to see them alive 💙

lazy mornings at the Last Drop ☕☀️

[thewistlingbadger]

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VANDER'S AND SILCO'S POLICE DEAL IS THAT VANDER MADE PEACE WITH THE ENFORCERS AND SILCO MADE THE ENFORCERS HIS BITCH.

Marcus is only a sheriff because of SILCO. Silco fucking OWNS HIM and this is apparent every time we see him. Silco puts Marcus in his place whenever he even THINKS about stepping a toe out of line. Silco literally shows up to his fucking house and makes threats on his daughter's LIFE, WHILE PLAYING WITH HIS DAUGHTER. There is NO mistaking who's in charge in this relationship. Not only does Silco have no enforcer involvement in Zaun, but he also has Marcus LITERALLY covering his tracks. Silco has been a drug lord for years and how does the council know him as? "Silco The Industrialist"

But Vander? Vander had no control over Grayson. Grayson was clearly the one calling the shots in their dynamic. For a "peace deal" that Vander claims to have had "no choice" in participating in, it sure is a shitty way to keep the peace because we know that the enforcers still mess with the zaunites even when this deal is in place. And afterwards, when it's broken? They turn the undercity upside down in the span of only a few days. This was a weak ass deal and Sevika was correct, it made him look weak. And I can understand why Vander would involve himself in a deal like this as a means to potentially keep his people safe...but then I remember that Felicia was Vander's fucking friend and she died by the hands of enforcers right in front of him. If I was in Silco's shoes I'd be equally as disgusted by Vander.

"I hated you for what you did, but you kept my respect. Until you made peace with them, started playing lapdog after everything we suffered."

Mind you, Silco is not a petty man. To move him, some pretty fucked up shit must have occurred, shit that we never even got to see in the show. The way he says "after everything we suffered" oh there is some TEA there there's no way Silco does everything he does without there being a fucked up reason behind it.

[oporayamm]

Could anyone please help me figure out how old silco??

specifically: during Felicia's flashback on her pregnancy, the riot he lead and Vander's betrayal?

i did my own calculation and seeing it with my own oc looks like the police are going to after me-

when felicia was pregnant he was in his 20's right? and the riot- he had a shorter hair (? i think it was just his hair tied to a bun) and when he was drowned by vander he had his hair cut short but in another flashback (when vander turn to Warwick) he had his manbun and the scar (???)

im going in circles at this point-

[queermentaldisaster]

Hi! I'm here to throw a fanfic at you! It's Zaundads/Vanco porn with plot DELICIOUS MEAL honestly and it's canon divergence with Warwick!Vander.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62029042

There's the link, it's by @seiya-starsniper here on Tumblr or @/starsniper on AO3, I genuinely recommend it.

[notawomanimagod]

Love this so much

"Blisters and bedrock" and The Flashback

So I know the flashback scene with Felicia in s2e5 is controversial. So I wanted to take the time to understand it properly, and do a close rewatch.

And I realized that even though I watched the episode like four times before, I never properly evaluated what was going on with Vander, I wasn't thinking of him as a character in his own right, just as a symbol of Vi and Jinx's past, and hence I didn't understand the scene until now.

Of course, it's all about "blisters and bedrock". That phrase is the name of the episode, the line is repeated three times, obviously it's important. So what does it mean?

The first time we hear it, it's in Vander's garbled memories. The memory that's most impactful to him is the failed rebellion on the bridge and its aftermath.

There's fighting, there's Silco looking at him sadly, with almost child-like sadness, there's Felicia's dead body, then Vander trying to drown Silco.

Those memories are followed by his recent experience killing the enforcers at Stillwater, then by seeing Powder, and a still-blurry image of Vi, even though he hasn't actually seen her yet since he awoke as Warwick, almost as though Powder's presence implies Vi.

Then there's the image of Felicia at the jukebox, and then a disfigured Silco, toasting "blisters and bedrock". It's ghostly, almost accusatory, said as Vander's being faced with the gory injury he inflicted. But what it means is a mystery.

The next instance of the phrase is in Vander's apology letter. He gives his little explanation for his actions, and signs off, "blisters and bedrock." Still not super clear. The letter itself is kind of weak, as far as apologies go. And then there's this cryptic phrase at the end.

Finally, Warwick/Vander is drawn to the girls by the scent of Isha's blood. When he first sees Vi, she almost looks like a two-headed creature from his POV shot, with her massive gauntlets looking sort of like heads, with the glowing hextech gems as their eyes (And I think I need to make a separate post about Vi in this episode, because it's so good). They fight. But then she lowers her guard and he sees her, and that's when we get the full flashback.

Right off the bat, it's established that Vander and Felicia are close. He knows that the song she picked has some special significance. The way they look at each other is kind of flirty too.

They're celebrating the opening of The Last Drop, which they intend to be a pillar for the community of the Lanes (which is a very shop-local approach to politics, but whatever). We knew this was Vander and Silco's endeavor, and Felicia is the only other one there, which means she has a special place in their lives.

Silco is largely passive in the scene. We get a cute little bait-and-switch where it seems like he's going to be a super-serious revolutionary, but then he says something playful instead ("I'm bozo one"), so we get a glimpse of what he used to be like, and what the dynamic of his relationship with Vander was.

And then we get to the reveal that Felicia is pregnant. Now, I think what happens next has been twisted through discourse, so I want to quote it directly:

Felicia: The second I told you I put you on the hook. You two are going to figure this Zaun thing out. I don't care if you have to carve it out of the bedrock covered in blisters. You're not allowed to fail anymore. For her. For me. Vander: What’s the point if we can't raise an ankle-biter or two? Silco: To Zaun, then. Blisters and bedrock.

I've seen people characterize this as Vander and Silco promising to look after Felicia's child. It's not that at all. She's not telling them to look after her kid. She's telling them to succeed at winning independence for Zaun for the sake of her child.

"I don't care if you have to carve it out of the bedrock covered in blisters. You're not allowed to fail." That is: Do whatever it takes. Even if it's hard, and ugly, and painful. That's how you'll help my child.

Vander agrees - what they're fighting for is future generations of Zaunites.

And Silco turns it into a toast. Blisters and bedrock - whatever it takes.

So now we know that in the first ghostly flashback, "blisters and bedrock" was an accusation, it was a manifestation of Vander's guilt. "We said, 'whatever it takes'. And look at Felicia. Look at me."

"Blisters and bedrock" gives Vander's apology letter new meaning too. It turns a kind of weak explanation into something much more meaningful. He's saying he'll do what it takes to patch things up.

In an episode all about regrets and missed chances and forgiveness, it really resonates.

And there's one more instance of "blisters and bedrock" being used - in the song "The Beast" off the season 2 soundtrack.

Vander isn't really able to express himself as Warwick. So the songs providing a very literal window into what he's going through is useful. The lyrics of "What have they done to us", used towards the end of the episode, are just straight-up what Vander's thinking in that scene. I don't think the lyrics to "The Beast" are used in the show, but they're very straightforward too.

Here are the lyrics to the bridge of that song:

What happened to the place where we left off Any progress erased, I was dead wrong Couldn't carve out a place, every dream that we chased Through the blisters and bedrock

Vander is recognizing his failure.

When Vander put down his gauntlets to look after Vi and Powder, he wasn't keeping a promise to Felicia. He was *breaking* his promise to her.

The flashback frames the conflict between Vander and Silco in more personal terms too. In terms of what united them, they both promised to fight for Zaun for the sake of Felicia's child. But when those two things are posed against each other, Silco is willing to kill kids in order to fight for Zaun, while Vander gives up the fight for Zaun to protect the kids.

I think it's significant that the flashback doesn't end on "blisters and bedrock". It ends on Vander suggesting a baby name, showing where his priorities are going to be

And when he sees Vi, as Warwick, he sees the girl who he gave up the fight for. He's remembering his failures, he's tormented by his failures. But Vi, and Powder, are worth it for him.

[q8qwertyuiop8p]

Thanks for the most useless answer possible. Miraculously, after Vander drowned Silco and Silco went into hiding and was not in contact with them, "stuff happened" between Silco and Benzo. Seriously? You could have just blamed on Silco having a bunch of people ripped apart in front of Benzo or Vander lying about what happened ("there's worse things out there than enforcers"), but no, you need to create even more plot holes. Why even answer that question? They really just don't care about them.

[disguisedweasels]

Something something they both became a monster in the end

[thief-of-eggs]

The casual intimacy of the Silco/Vander jackets scene makes me feel like they were the type to share a bed when the nights were too cold, and blankets too sparse. Like they were the type to be all up in each other’s business, speaking on each other’s behalf, fighting on each other’s behalf.

Like they were the type to offer each other casual touch and affection, when it was so hard for them to give to others. Vander silently grabbing a comb to brush through Silco’s hair, Silco wordlessly applying polish to Vander’s gauntlets.

I don’t know why the scene hit me so profoundly, but it did. Maybe it’s because there’s a level of intimacy needed in order to so casually hang your coat within another’s. You need to be trusting of the other person’s level of cleanliness, first off, to assume your own clothes won’t pick up some dirt, or a foul smell. And there’s the fact that a scent is likely to be picked up- Silco’s jacket then would smell like Vander, and Vander’s would smell like Silco. Whatever cologne or body wash or personal BO they had must’ve been strong enough to linger, given how Jinx tried sniffing their coats, even after all the years.

It also shows the heartbreaking layer of trust that Silco had for Vander. To slip his jacket into Vander’s, like a physical reminder that Vander was his protector. That he knew he was smaller and weaker but also knew that Vander would never hurt him.

Until he did, anyway. Despite how casually intimate they were, despite how trusting, how intertwined.

No wonder Silco went a little insane. Came back a little demented. Hell, I’d burn the world too if I were in his shoes.

[caffess]

WAIT DID SILCO ALWAYS KNOW JINX WAS FELICIA’S KID???? DID HE MEET THE GIRLS WHEN THEY WERE BABIES??

Cause Vander did. The memories shown in Blisters and Bedrock are Vander’s.

He saw Powder and Vi as kids, and in the letter we could see that Silco and Vander fell out after Felicia’s death.

Is there a chance that Silco recognized Powder? Because she wasn’t a random child. She was Felicia’s kid.

Is that the reason why he took her in?

And even if he didn’t do it in purpose, it would be just as bittersweet.

[thebackwardsstep]

One of the weird little things I love about zaundads is that it’s not even like Silco is a short king. like my guy could have really been the tower in the relationship with the right person but he just so happened to stumble upon a fucking GIANT and now he can never beat the pocket sized allegations 💀

[win3aunt]

[gildedpomegranates]

Obligatory meme altered for [insert fandom] post. This is my interpretation of how Silco and Vander co-parenting would go.

[thewistlingbadger]

I can understand why people are against the vander flashbacks of season 2. HOWEVER. I truly do believe that there are just a lot of misconceptions and misinterpretations about these scenes and I wanted to break them down.

1. Silco did not know the kids. When it was revealed that Felicia was friends with Silco and that he knew her when she was pregnant, people assumed that Silco was around while the kids were around too and was a member of their lives. People have criticized this because if this is true then it doesn't make enough sense for him to try to kill Vi later in life. However, this is not true. If it was true that Silco was just as active in their lives as Vander was, then the kids would remember him. Vi has no idea who Silco is in act 1 and neither did Jinx. If the flashback scenes were trying to tell us that, then they would have showed us Silco actually being present, like how they showed Vander being present. The flashback scenes tell us that Silco was friends with Felicia while she was pregnant but for some reason he did not involve himself in the lives of the kids. This could be for any reason.

2. Silco was not responsible for the death of Felicia. In one of the flashback scenes, we see Silco on the bridge, throwing a Molotov cocktail. It lights an enforcer on fire. The camera then pans down to show Felicia's dead body. While all of this is happening, we're getting cuts to the monkey bomb. This, plus vander's letter, made people believe that Silco had somehow accidentally killed Felicia on the bridge or was responsible for her death. This is not true. We are told several times in the show that she was killed by enforcers. We see in the flashback that Silco's Molotov hits an enforcer, not Felicia. The fact that the monkey bomb is included in this segment is odd, considering that Vander has no idea the significance of the bomb, or the fact that its impact was unintentional. Vander is completely oblivious to the fact that Jinx was there that day, that it was her bomb, that she is responsible for the damages and that it had been an accident. This flashback isn't there to tell us Silco is responsible for Felicia's death, it's there to tell us that Silco was present on the bridge the day of the riot, which is information we did not have before.

3. Silco did not promise to protect Felicia's kids. He canonically didn't promise her ANYTHING when it came to her children. As previously stated, he didn't even know her kids. Silco toasted to Blisters and Bedrock, the idea that Silco and Vander should do anything and everything possible to achieve the nation of Zaun, specifically for Felicia and her children, though we know that was not his only motivation for wanting independence.

4. "Silco and Vander knowing Felicia's kids/having promised to look after Felicia's kids cheapens the relationships between Jinx and Silco and Vi and Vander." This is an opinion I've seen that I find to be inherently flawed because like I have already said, Silco didn't know Felicia's kids and he didn't promise to protect her kids. Canonically only VANDER knew Felicia's kids and although we never actually see or hear of a promise between Vander and Felicia regarding her children, this wouldn't be a far leap to make. To me, it was ALWAYS clear that Vander and the kids had known each other prior to the bridge. You can see the way Vi relaxs once she recognizes Vander as Vander. The fact that Vi is able to wordlessly ask about her parents to Vander and the fact that he knows exactly who and what she's asking about both suggested that they were aware of each other prior to this point. This makes logical sense because we know Vander was the leader of this rebellion and Vi's parents were rebels in this rebellion. They subscribed to Vander's beliefs and his cause, so it makes sense that they would know each other. So to me, the flashback in season two didn't cheapen the relationship between Vi and Vander, it just hard confirmed something that had been heavily implied at the start of the show. It also didn't cheapen Silco and Jinx's relationship because they both are unaware of the fact that they share a mutual connection through Felicia.

5. "Silco and Vander adopting the girls makes so much more sense now that we know they knew the girls before/knew their mother." This is definitely an interpretation of what we were told, I just feel disagree with it. Silco and Vander adopting the girls ALWAYS made sense. It makes sense when you only watch s1 AND it makes sense when you only watch s2. I feel like those who truly subscribe to this interpretation seriously have misunderstood the show. Even though Vander knew the girls before the riot, it is not the sole reason or even the biggest reason why he takes them in. The biggest reason he takes them in is STILL what it was in s1 it STILL is because he finally sees the drastic and unethical consequences his rebellion is going to require. Silco doesn't take in Jinx because he knows her or because he knows her mother, because he has no idea who she is. Silco has no idea Jinx is Felicia's daughter. He has seemingly never met her before this moment. Silco takes in Jinx because she is a reflection of him.

6. "Vander trying to kill Silco solely because of Felicia cheapens the story between Vander and Silco." It is easy to come to the conclusion that Vander and Silco's falling out was solely because of the death of Felicia. However I don't think this is actually what was trying to be said. Because if this was the case it WOULD be too shallow and petty. I believe the inclusion of Felicia in the silco/Vander dynamic doesn't take away from Silco and Vander i personally think it adds to it. The impact of her actual death isn't why Vander betrayed Silco. I believe that Vander betrayed Silco because he saw what their dream would cost them and he decided it wasn't worth it. It was not worth having complete freedom as a zaunite if it meant it came at the expense of the lives of other zaunites, especially if it cost him the lives of those he cared about. The fact that Felicia was also Silco's friend and her death did not give Silco any pause at continuing the fight for freedom was why Vander betrayed him. It was not because of her death, it was because of the principle that was highlighted by her death. To Silco, one person, even if it was someone he cared about, was not enough to stop fighting. But Vander came to the conclusion that night that he was not willing to pay the price their independence would cost them. The fact that Silco wanted to keep going even after seeing all the harm it did made Silco a threat, and so Vander tried to kill him. I also argue that Felicia's death was actually a major inspiration for Silco given that she chose to die fighting for the Nation of Zaun but this is only an additional note.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

they really went all out when they wrote silco. visually impaired cunty ex revolutionary with a beautiful nose and a situationship so bad he almost drowned. AND he's a girl dad

[mademoisellebianx]

Vander and Silco in Arcane: League of Legends

➥ bonus: