#vanco

[wishfulsketching]

This is what the dynamic was like

[hexhomos]

Jayce/Silco mirroring & other stuff Ive noticed

Starting with the big season 2 opener as pointed out by sage-nebula:

Zaun/Piltover figureheads rushing to save a loved one with their respective creations (Shimmer/Hextech); said creations leading to corruption and a loss of control. Silco frequently referred to as the Industrialist, leading Zaun into a new age, Jayce is posited as the Innovator, making Piltover more profitable than it's ever been. Misery following both choices.

Jayce's endgame look shares a lot of visual aspects with Silco's main coat, incl. the red gilded lapels and all those straps. His body is also being corrupted by hextech into unnatural scar tissue. Scars are more prominent in the wild rift model even if the colors are a bit off from the show itself (2nd pic)

(Text referring to Jayce's new legendary skin, dealing with arcane act3)

And if you remember, these two actually had a pretty big scene in season 1, which echoes the above sentiments and has Jayce pushing a negotiation for Zaun's independence - at this point in time, it's the closest we got to Silco's dream being realized before the big meltdown:

This feels like a really interesting scene now in the context of how he was asked to sacrifice jinx. And now jayce's entire world outlook is shaped by constant sacrifices to avoid impending doom.

There are a few more twisted parallels to this too; silco killing vander, jayce killing viktor in the name of preserving their ideals - vander being mutated by singed, again singed mixing viktor's blood with vanderwick in the act 3 teaser.

Previously I had compared the ep6 jayvik kill circumstances with vander's blinding rage leading him to try and drown silco in the river but I don't think the parallels are so clear anymore. It's looking like the further we go into the story, the more jayce/viktor change into a blur that mixes vander/silco's motivations together - viktor's weird, corrupted peacekeeper front inside the cult and how he connects to vander's memories admiring the man that he was in life. Jayce feeling in the flesh that the only way forward demands firsthand pain and power and sacrifice, not placidity.

Interested to see where act3 viktor goes. Vander working with enforcers = Viktor working with noxus I guess 😭😭 well I just hope they beat eachother 1v1 style. and I hope he ends up following through with his pledge for Zaun's independence

[regieluciferi]

Imagine Silco looked that good before Vander tried to kill him. And they were best friends to. That's one of the things that's so cool about Arcane. It's not all black and white, like movies usually are, with obvious good guys and bad guys. It's like real life, a lot of grey zones and everyone is a little bit bad and a little bit good.

He kept the glass.

[sosooley]

zaun romantique

силко палец в рот не клади

[alisha-on-arcane]

One of Vander's last actual memories of Silco is this:

but the (first!) image that surfaces when Viktor looks into his mind is this:

...I have to forgive everything I didn't initially like about Arcane season 2. I got what I have been writing fanfic of for years, really.

[sandraharissa]

The events of arcane are wholly Vander’s fault cos he clearly just wanted to raise kids and own a bar in peace and he had the perfect opportunity to become the trophy husband he wanted to be and he fumbled it so bad. All he had to do was go ‘uh huh' to Silco's yapping.

[withercrown]

So Silco's coat was placed to the left i.e. over Vander's heart.

[fire-in-my-woods]

I think Vander pressing his forehead to Silco's while his big ass manly ass hand chokes him out all while Silco has a knife buried deep in his side changed me

[maxdibert]

Felicia basically placed the responsibility on Vander and Silco to secure the future of her offspring because she shipped them even before they started down the path toward the tragic political homosexual saga they got caught up in. Essentially, she made them godparents, but they still thought they were too heterosexual and didn't understand. The first to realize was Vander after divorcing and then many years later Silco after nearly loosing Jinx. This is totally canon. This is what real happened. The real dramatic climax of their doomed relationship.

[pluto-rainstorm]

There's not enough young Vanco fics now that we got a glimps of their past, so I've taken it into my own hands!

I'm gonna write a fluffy fic, an extension of the scene we got with Vi and Jinx's mother!

[thief-of-eggs]

and if i said queer platonic silco/vander? what then?

[wishfulsketching]

If you don't want me to draw shit like this, don't put Silco's JACKET INSIDE VANDERS JACKET

[aidens-ocean-galaxy]

VANDER AND SILCOS EYES BEING THE SAME COLOUR IN SEASON TWO IS MAKING ME BALL MY EYES OUT WTF

[teawithghosts]

I'm sorry but Silco having his jacket tucked inside Vander's is just so intimate.

[shmlnbstrcnd]

From my observations of the Arcane fandom

[space-blue]

Disappointed in the Vander backstory

I fully expected that it was coming, but I'm disappointed in the timeline all the same.

The "Vander got upset because a fight against Piltover Silco instigated killed the woman he loved" was literally my first draft for my longfic Fathers and Daughters, and I ended up scrapping it because I felt it was too cheap and wouldn't justify the violence of his actions against Silco.

"When she died I lost my head" he says in the letter.

But when she died you actually dropped your gauntlets and picked up the girls and everyone has been assuming this was the moment you swore off violence...

The fact she goes on to let Vander name her kid, and seems to be thick as thieves with them, and ALSO tells them of the pregnancy before she builds up the courage to tell her partner... Tells me that surely... SURELY by the time Vi is 10-11, whatever she is on the bridge in season 1, she would KNOW SILCO as her mom's bestie, no??? Not just Vander.

It feels like this entire angle is pulled under the rug to simplify the conflict in act 1.

I do appreciate being right on the money with Silco knowing and being friends with the mom, and having known Vi as a baby. I think it makes sense, especially if he was an important community leader.

I just hate her death being the catalyst of Vander's actions against Silco. It means that the timeline actually like this:

Mom-Silco-Vander are best friends. Silco is "Bozo 1" and has been leading the transformation of the Lanes with Vander's help. He's already planning his nation of Zaun. His notebook is literally saying "NZ" for Nation of Zaun.

At an ONGOING confrontation with enforcers, Silco throws a molotov cocktails that doesn't seem to even kill an enforcer (Powder and her innefectual bombs parallel? The entire scene is intercut with the monkey bomb clapping so... The scene leading to a friend's death also parallels the events of Jinx's birth.)

As the smoke clears/the POV looks down, we have the reveal that the girls' Mom is dead.

Vander admits the blood was on his hands as well, meaning he either started this confrontation with Silco, or fought just as badly/increased the violence (and we see him murder enforcers later on). Anyway he admits to carrying the blame, and apologized in person to Silco for the dubbed "betrayal".

Then he went home, shaved, dragged Silco into the Pilt, and tried to drown him *because their common friend died at the failed uprising*.

He's then haunted, seemingly, by visions of Silco being dead:

To me it's sort of weaker and sadder, as it establishes Vander as someone more flawed and less ruthless. It's not that he wanted the Lanes, it's not that Silco was getting in the way of what he wanted.

Vander was out there happy with everything they were dishing out, right until their actions cost the life of a friend, and he broke, emotionally, and BLAMED it on Silco, going so far as to kill him (or try).

He surrendered his gauntlets, picked the children up, tucked them in at home, shaved (I cannot stress this enough), then took Silco into the fucking river and brutally attempted to murder him.

Then he massively regretted it and left little breadcrumbs of apologies in case Silco found them and returned to him.

So, canon couple, first off lol

Fellas, is it gay to hang your jackets inside each other's in your secret hideout? Is it gay that all your core hidden memories begin with your mate smiling at you?

Yes, yes it is. Zaundad is canon and I'm not taking commentary.

Secondly, that means Vander was an emotional ticking time bomb who wasn't ready for the price to sacrifice in order to gain their freedom. I really wonder what the alternative reality would have been like, were Silco the one dying on that bridge.

Anyway, it brings some twisted sadness to the situation, because the mom wanted Zaun "no matter what" for Vi's sake, her child's future. But Vander decided that lives weren't worth spilling over that dream and tried to kill Silco over it, before teaming up with Grayson to continue enforcing a status quo.

So that means that Silco, even as he raises Jinx, is continuing her mother's dream, of building Zaun, a country that's safe for her children, "no matter what".

But very sadly the show also acts like Silco doesn't know the kids, and like the kids don't know him. Powder, sure, but Vi not knowing Silco is just downright stupid. Not even knowing him by name? When her mom was out fighting alongside him??? The mom is ALSO a miner, very clearly working with Silco and Vander, alongside the nameless poor husband.

I feel like this doesn't really solve the issues that were already raised when we speculated about act 1. It just clarifies that Vander was truly, willfully a force of oppression inside the fissures, working against the revolution necessary for Zaun becoming possible.

But it implies Silco didn't recognise Powder and Vi, and that Vi didn't recognise him or understand how he knew Vander. It's a disservice to the story, because that tie, that old bond, could really have worked to dramatize the sacrifices Silco is ready to make, as well as the depth of Vi's hatred for him.

But the show acts like they're strangers and that Vander's death is the core beef between them until Jinx enters the picture.

And then there's the Benzo scene, when Vander holds his wound from Silco's knife, and says "we both know there's worse than enforcers out there" WHO ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT??? Yourself? You seem to be the worst thing around here! It seems clear he knew Silco was alive but had nothing to blame him for by then.

I'm left with holes that take the shape of "shock value" and "plot twist".

"Ooooh Silco knew the mom, twiiiist, but please don't think about the implications, because we wrote season 1 without taking this in consideration."

Feels like another job for fic writers, but IDK if I have the strength for it. I just like my own version better.

At least now we know that Silco did not IN FACT DO anything to "deserve" what he got. I'm sorry, but throwing a molotov at enforcers when fighting for your freedom is based and Vander was dishing death right there next to him.

The base violence necessary for change, eh? Vander just delayed the price being paid for Zaun's creation.