#vanco family

[sandraharissa]

I remember ppl used to joke a lot about an au where arcane is just vander and silco having a custody battle over powder/jinx but really arcane already is a custody battle over powder/jinx between silco and vi, vander’s parentified eldest daughter and the closest thing powder ever had to a mother.

[mollysunder]

I still hold on to this semi-official art by Riot's HKSG Team because it lets me think of a world where Vander (Warwick) and Silco reconciled and raised Vi and Jinx together. Though I have to accept that they'll never get Silco's face right (his scar's on the wrong side), and I guess he took up surfing.

[goathag]

A shippy little comic about young zaundads learning the charms of Piltover

[goddessofroyalty]

Aughhh your Zaun family stuff is so absolutely adorable I am in love!!! Silco is so sweet with his babies I just want good things to happen to him. If you’re up to it, I’d love to see Vander comforting Silco when he’s feeling crummy and it’s just Vander worshipping his heavily pregnant hubby’s body 🙏🙏

Fandom: Arcane

Pairing: Vander/Silco

Tags: omegaverse, mpreg, pregnancy

--------------

Vander almost feels sorry for the man sitting in his bar after close when Silco walks in, the omega’s mood clearly already sour. But the young alpha wouldn’t be waiting for his boss if he had been doing his job right.

“Don’t,” Silco says with a sharp look at the man, his hand braced against his stomach from the pup he’s growing. “I have already dealt with enough incompetence for one day.”

“But-“

“If it couldn’t wait until morning you wouldn’t have waiting until I got back to tell someone,” Silco says. And Vander had asked when the man told him he needed to tell Silco something if it was something he had to deal with but apparently it could wait for Silco. “I would suggest if there is anything that may mitigate the damage, you go do that. But I doubt you are smart enough to even identify what that might be.”

“I don’t have to take this shit from you-”

Vander is already coming over from the bar before the man even has a chance to finish his sentence. Standing at his husband’s side so he can quickly move to protect both Silco and their unborn child should he need.

“I suggest you head home and sober up,” Vander says, wrapping an arm loosely around Silco’s shoulder.

“I suggest you start looking for a new job,” Silco adds.

The man seems to contemplate his options for a second and Vander resigns himself to cleaning blood off the floors before opening tomorrow. But the young alpha makes the right call in the end, swearing at them before shuffling out of the bar.

“I’m going to bed,” Silco says as soon as the door swings shut. He shrugs off Vander’s arm before heading downstairs in as close of a storm as he can manage in his current state.

Vander follows after finishing his close. Reaching their room before Silco has even managed to get his shoes off. The omega sitting on the edge of his side of the bed and trying to reach past his swollen belly to get to them.  

“Let me,” Vander says, coming over to slip Silco’s shoes off. Much easier for him to bend down and slip then off for his mate. “You just relax.”

“I’m not incapable,” Silco spits as Vander slips off his second shoe. Placing them together at the foot of the bed where Silco likes them and coming back to slide Silco’s socks off as well.

“I know.” Vander has never questioned Silco’s capability. Despite the pregnancy weighing on him Silco was keeping up with all his duties in ensuring Zaun’s progress. “But I want to give you this.”

Vander silently massages Silco’s feet. Thumbs digging into the arch before he moves up to rub Silco’s swollen ankles, earning him soft moans that slip past Silco’s tightly kept guard.

He looks up to see Silco’s eyes shut and the frown on his forehead starting to soften.

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” Vander says, putting Silco’s feet back down against the bed.

“Of course.” Silco immediately starts working on undoing the buttons of his shirt. An efficiency gained from years of getting dressed and undressed.

“Here.” Vander takes over once all the buttons are undone. Pressing a kiss against Silco’s sholder as he pushes the shirt down. “You just sit.”

Silco gives a snort at it but stays where he is, waiting as Vander puts the shirt in the pile of dirty clothes.

“Are the pillows right?” Vander asks when he comes back to the bed and Silco shifts back so he is sitting against them, making room for Vander to join him on the bed.

“They’re fine.”

“Good,” Vander says, shifting closer so he can resume his stripping of his husband. Adjusting Silco’s pants until they are under his husband’s stomach and he can rub along the base of the swell. “You’re amazing you know.”

“You’re just saying that because you’ve knocked me up,” Silco says even as he relaxes against the pillows.

“I’m not,” Vander says, leaning down to nuzzle the stomach currently containing their child. “You carry them so well.”

“I would hardly say that. I am huge with them.”

“You are. You’re giving them so much space to grow in,” Vander says as he runs his hands over the expanse of Silco’s stomach. “So big with them.”

“Only you would be happy to see me getting fat,” Silco says because even before he was pregnant Vander has been trying to get his husband to eat more. To look after himself half as well as he did those around him.

“You’re not fat,” Vander corrects even if he would be relieved if Silco would have a bit more weight on him in generally.

“No – I’m just carrying your huge child!”

Vander laughs at it. Ignoring Silco’s grumble and kissing against the high-point of the swell. He kisses the path up Silco’s stomach to between the swells of Silco’s bare breasts. His hands settling on Silco’s hips feeling how they have broadened from the pregnancy’s progress, and as he’s been informed arching as a result.

“All of this for our pup,” Vander mutters against Silco’s skin. “And you’re working so hard to give them a good life.”

“Nice to see you recognizing my work.”

“I’ve always recognized your work.” Vander’s brilliant husband – vicious and clever and unafraid to get his hands dirty if needed.

Silco hums at it non-committaly. His hands coming to rest on Vander’s shoulders but otherwise seeming content to let Vander explore his body.

“Your child’s getting hungry,” Silco says suddenly. It’s always Vander’s child and never him. Silco liking to act as if he is too busy for the basic care his body needs.

“Tell me what you want and I’ll make it.” Or get it, although Vander has made it his business to learn all of Silco’s favorite dishes.

“Just something simple,” Silco says, his hands moving from Vander’s shoulders to rest on the bed. “They seem to hate most foods and are making me suffer for it.”

“Alright, something simple.” Vander presses a kiss against Silco’s forehead as he gets up. “You just stay here. No more work tonight.”

Silco gives him an unimpressed look as he leaves but does look set in the bed, relaxed against the pillows with his hands resting on his stomach. He might actually still be there when Vander gets back. If Vander’s lucky.

[revelisms]

Excerpt: An Artificial Sun

Silco recounts a past life.

From 'bitter bright wings,' a character study of Silco and Jinx set after Episode 5. Full story on AO3

"In the river, you told me..." She turns her cup in her hands, warm against her palms. "You told me you let—let a weak man die."

He tips his mug into a slow sip. "I did."

Her nails click over the porcelain. "I guess I—I was just...curious." 

He waits for her to elaborate further. She doesn't. "About what?" he prods, and glances down at her. The fire of his left eye glows in the dim. "Who that man was?"

"Well—" She curls her fingers slow about her cup. Shrugs softly. "Yeah."

He turns back to the skyline. There's a pause in the way he lifts his cigarette, something one might call hesitation, before he takes another drag. He lets the smoke sit in his throat. Breathes it out. 

She hates it, when he's quiet like this. She hunches upon herself, so close to ripping the words back; spitting out forget it, or I'm sorry, or fleeing, entirely.

"I spent years, looking for purpose," he says then, and his tone is strange. "In the dark. In the mines."

He tacks off the ash from his cigarette, peering absently over the balcony's metalwork to the sea of emerald-fogged buildings cobbled below. "Digging through the rocks, until your fingers bleed," he continues, faraway. "One can lose their minds, down there. No matter how hard you fight for something—there's always more earth to slough through. More tunnels to carve out. Every hour longer than the last; every day bleeding to another."

She looks up at him, quietly. The wind has loosened his hair from its usual coif, scattered over his brow. He's dug one hand into the crook of his elbow: the cigarette turned slow, pensive, within the other. The light washes out the red of his shirt to a bloody brown.

"That sort of life," he mutters on, embers in the words, "it starves you, for reassurance. That every bone you've broken has been worth something—and all the time you've wasted away will pay off, in the end." He stares out over the smog, the winding dark of the rooftops, the ghoulish giant of a city on a hill high, high, above, and chuckles, bitterly. "Can you blame them?" he muses. The fire of his eye burns on something she can't see. 

He takes another drag, slowly. "I was willing to do anything, to get out." Venom, in that word—and she has heard it before. He's never shied away from baring the ruthlessness of those years in the filth, climbing rung after blood-stained rung. In some ways, it is a mantle: a declaration of achievement, fought for tooth and nail. The cigarette bounces in his fingers. "But," he says quietly, and his mouth turns tense. "You spend so long underground, it roots inside you. The sun turns cold. And everything you spent months, years, scavenging for feels like dust, blown away."

She looks down into her cup, fingertips caught on the smooth slope of its clay. His words pause again, muddling—but it's alright, now. She focuses on what she can. The city is never quiet: but this early, a stillness blankets it. A breeze whispers about the building's edges.

Smoke unspools blue above him. "Then, one day," he continues, frowning, "someone comes along, who lights that fire in you—and you forget. All the fight you had in you; the power you gave yourself. You burn it all away." He rests his head against the rough stone of the Drop's old wall. "That faith in something that is not your own—it breaks you. Turns you reliant." The word stings, like a blade. "An artificial sun, replacing whatever that dead thing in the sky used to be—and when you lose it..." The words trail out to a whisper. He taps the unlit end of his cigarette on the railing, once, twice. "You're nothing." 

The memory festers, in the quiet. It fills the space between them, thick as oil. He takes another drag. "Or," he breathes out, waving the embers towards their slow-built empire. "It frees you. Reminds you why you survived, before. How you survived, before."

She rests her cheek on her knee, and swallows. She can feel his eyes slip towards her: weighing out his words, turning them over. 

"Sometimes," Silco murmurs, and it is gentle for all the fire that sits in it, a furrow creasing his brow, "we have to kill parts of ourselves, to remember. But those parts of you—they never leave you." He swirls the dark pool of his coffee. Takes a slow sip. "Not completely."

[purplefangirl42]

I Found You

Summary: After an argument left Silco apart from his partner, he is left to reflect on his mistake. A song at Jinx's wedding causes him to make a realization about his relationship and pushes him to fix things before it's too late.

Pairing: Silco/GN!Reader

A/N: This is belated birthday gift for my friend @deny-the-issue 💜 love you lots Jasper!

Tags/Warnings: Fighting/Making Up, Wedding Planning/Weddings, Modern AU, Fluff, Slight Angst, Song Fic, Background Timebomb, Past Vanco mention

Song: Until I Found You by Stephen Sanchez (edited to make it GN)

AO3 Link

Silco stared out the window of his office, letting the lights of the city outside fade in and out of focus as he contemplated what the next day held for him. Tonight had been a disaster, not that he had expected anything different from the situation. The only thing that seemed to have gone well was that Jinx had enjoyed the evening, which he supposed was the most important thing. He didn’t have a lot of experience with weddings, but he thought that they were generally a happy event, even with family drama. Namely drama between a parent of the bride and his partner. 

The empty seat beside him at the table tonight spoke loud and clear. You were still upset with him and hadn’t even bothered to put up a happy front and deal with him for an evening, not even for Jinx. Then again, you were still present, just seated somewhere else; so he supposed you had chosen to support Jinx at her rehearsal dinner after all. He had only gotten a glimpse of you as you pushed past him on your way out of the hall, never getting the chance to even speak with you.

“Dad?” a quiet voice asked from behind him, interrupting his inner turmoil. 

Silco turned his chair around from the window to face his darkened office. Light from the hallway spilled in through the open door, where Jinx was standing. Even in the dark, he could see the sparkles on her blue dress winking at him. Jinx had a concerned expression covering her features, and at the confirmation that he was in his office, she stepped in and closed the door behind her.

“Are you okay? You left early.”

Silco sighed and stood from his office chair, circling around the desk to meet his daughter in the middle of the room. 

“I’m fine, Pumpkin,” he said, reaching out with his thumb to smooth the worry lines between her eyebrows. “Just tired.”

The comforting motion was something you always did for him when he was stressed. It seemed he had picked up one of your habits during your relationship. He wondered if he would ever feel your soothing touch again. Jinx wrapped her arms around his midsection in a tight embrace, grounding him.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Silco pulled back from her embrace to look down at her in confusion.

“Whatever for? If anything, I should be apologizing to you. This is your weekend, you don’t need to worry about what’s going on with me.”

“I know the fight was my fault,” Jinx said, averting her gaze. “If I hadn’t gotten so upset about what happened, they wouldn’t have spoken up and you guys wouldn’t have fought.”

Silco pulled Jinx back into his embrace and placed a soft kiss on the top of her head, swaying her back and forth gently to soothe her. She had been doing so well lately, apart from the outburst of a few days ago. He would do anything in his power to help her maintain the blissful state of mind she had been enjoying.

“Don’t even think about it like that, Jinx. What happened wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own. I shouldn’t have snapped at them like I did. I caused the fight, not you.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

Jinx pulled away from the embrace and stared up at him. Her bright blue eyes narrowed as she pointed one of her manicured fingers at his face.

“You better be in a good mood tomorrow. If you spoil things, you know Vi won’t be happy.”

Silco rolled his good eye at her threat. He couldn’t think of a time her older sister was happy with him, even when she was a child. He didn’t blame her, as she had been raised exclusively by Vander, along with her and Jinx’s brothers. He doubted there had ever been a good thing said about him in that household.

At least he had Jinx.

“I promise I’ll be on my best behavior tomorrow,” he said, placing a kiss on his daughter’s forehead. “I won’t let anything ruin your special day. Not even me.”

Jinx lowered her accusatory finger and beamed up at him. She hugged him one final time before turning and exiting his office, leaving him alone with his thoughts once again.

Jinx paced wildly back and forth across their living room, her long blue hair streaming behind her. Silco sat patiently in his arm chair, waiting for her to tell her what had upset her so badly. So far, all he had gleaned from her muttering was “who does she think she is” and “stupid Piltie”, which gave him absolutely no context. 

Jinx finally stopped in front of him and threw her hands up in the air for a moment before angrily throwing them back down to her sides.

“What am I supposed to do?!” she cried.

Silco leaned forward in his chair, taking her hands in his. 

“About what, Pumpkin?”

Jinx started ranting about how one of her bridesmaids, a girl she knew from art school, had mono and wouldn’t be able to be at the wedding. In an attempt to smooth over the situation, apparently Vander had suggested that Jinx have Caitlyn, Violet’s girlfriend, step in to fill the empty spot at her side.

Silco cringed as Jinx told him about Vander’s suggestion, which Violet had supported. Jinx had walked in on the girl trying on the dress meant for the missing bridesmaid to see if it would fit or need some last minute alterations. He knew his daughter was not fond of her sister’s girlfriend, and the thought of her inserting herself into her special day must have triggered this reaction.

“Would you rather have someone else step in?” he asked her. 

He mentioned your name, saying that you could wear the outfit already chosen for you. Jinx replied that you would already be stepping in for a different part of the wedding at the reception and would likely feel uncomfortable being involved in the ceremony as well.

“You can always ask them,” he suggested.

“Ask who what?” came a voice from the door.

Silco and Jinx both looked up at the sound of the voice to see you entering the room. Jinx released her grip on his hands and threw herself in your direction, nearly knocking you over. Silco sighed as he heard her start to ramble on once again about the bridesmaid situation. 

“Would it be easier to only have one?” you asked.

“But both Claggor and Mylo will be standing up for Ekko, so one of them will be without a partner!” Jinx shouted, releasing her grip on you to return to pacing.

Silco watched as you furrowed your brow in concern at his daughter. You looked over at him and caught his eye, which he responded to with a shrug. His involvement in this wedding had been mostly financial, as he made more money than Vander and Benzo combined. He had agreed to walk Jinx down the aisle, as was his duty as a father. Since he shared that role with Vander, the dance went to the other man. He hadn’t planned on participating much more than what he needed to.

After a few more minutes of aggravated pacing, Jinx stopped in front of his chair again. She looked at him with pleading eyes, tears forming at the corners. He knew what that look meant. She wanted him to fix her problems for her.

“Jinx, this is something you need to deal with,” he said. “This wedding is your responsibility. I can’t fix it for you.”

The only response he got was a pout, followed by loud stomping as she left the room. The sound of a slamming door upstairs made him flinch. Silco sighed heavily and rubbed his good eye with his hand. Soft footsteps approached him and before long, he felt your fingers smoothing the lines of his furrowed brow. He glanced up to meet your gaze, seeking the warmth of your affection. He was surprised to find a look of disappointment on your face.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you murmured before looking away.

“Out with it.”

“You’re her father, Silco. Your advice on what to do about a stressful situation means the world to her.”

Silco huffed in response. It didn’t surprise him that you were in Jinx’s corner. You always worked hard to smooth things over whenever he had an argument with his daughter. Usually in her favor rather than his own. It was something he loved about you, even if you weren’t on his side most of the time.

“She doesn’t want my advice. She wants me to fix it for her so she doesn’t have to do anything herself. She’s getting married, so she’ll have to learn how to do things without my help.”

“You don’t stop being a parent just because your kid gets married, Silco.”

Silco scowled and shook his head. He had already had enough stress revolving around this blasted wedding, and he was ready for it to be done. It was bad enough having to deal with Vander’s constant involvement, the last thing he needed was an argument with you. 

“I know I don’t know much about raising children…” you started.

“That’s right. You don’t.”

Silco heard the words leave his lips before he could stop them. They had also come out much harsher than intended. He felt you flinch away at his tone.

“I only meant…” you started again quietly.

Silco waved a hand at you impatiently. 

“Just go up and talk to her, since you seem to know what’s best,” he snapped.

The expression that covered your face was a mixture of surprise and hurt. Silco instantly regretted his words and wished he could take them back. He inwardly cursed his temper and stressed mind.

As he thought over the following argument between the two of you, Silco kept picturing your hurt expression. You had eventually left, heading back to your own place, leaving him to deal with Jinx on his own. 

He should have called you the following morning to apologize, but he hadn’t. His foul mood had followed him into the next day, his pride keeping him from taking the steps needed to fix things. How was he supposed to fix Jinx’s problems when he couldn’t even solve his own?

The situation that had caused the problem in the first place had been dealt with. Jinx had agreed to let Caitlyn step in as her bridesmaid after a lengthy conversation with Violet over the phone. She hadn’t needed his help in the end, solving the problem on her own as he had advised. 

Silco wasn’t sure if that counted as a win or not. 

A few days had passed before he had heard from you again, and then it was only in the form of a voicemail. You had said that you wanted some time apart from him. When he had tried to call you back, you hadn’t answered.

He had hoped to talk to you this evening, but that had not worked out. He had been distracted and hadn’t been able to speak with you. When he asked her about it, Jinx had informed him that you were still coming to the wedding, but had asked to be seated apart from him. Something Vander had noticed, leading to their argument in the hall, which had been his distraction. By the time he had returned from his scolding, you had disappeared without a word.

He was providing quite the scandal. Father of the bride with not only one ex-partner present at the wedding, but two. At least that’s where it looked like things were heading.

Silco sat alone in the corner of the reception hall sipping on his drink, trying to tune out the loud obnoxious song playing over the speakers. One would think that the owner of a nightclub would be used to loud music, but for some reason, this time it was getting on his nerves.

He could see Jinx and Ekko jumping up and down along with their guests in the middle of the dance floor, Jinx’s long blue hair flopping carelessly around her as she danced. She looked like she was having the time of her life, which lessened his sour mood the tiniest amount. Her happiness was all that mattered today. That was enough to get him through the evening.

When the loud music came to a halt, Silco muttered a quiet thank you to whatever deity had heard his prayers for it to end its onslaught of his ears. The DJ announced that it was time for the happy couple to have their dance to their chosen song. Silco threw back the rest of his drink, ready to go get another from the bar. He could see his daughter’s dance just as well from there.

As he waited for his fresh drink, the song Jinx had chosen began to play. A spotlight was pointed at the couple as they swayed back and forth in time with the music. Silco hadn’t known what song she had ended up choosing, but based on the rhythm of the music, he felt she had made a good choice. He stood leaning against the bar listening closely as the lyrics began, tapping his foot along with the beat. The first few lines passed over him but when it reached the part he guessed was the beginning of the chorus, he felt his heart lurch in his chest.

“I would never fall in love again until I found you. 

I said, ‘I would never fall unless it’s you I fall into.’ 

I was lost within the darkness, but then I found you. 

I found you.”

Silco had never been one for sentimental feelings, especially in songs, but something about the lyrics hit him like a truck. He had never heard something so accurately describe how he felt about someone. How he felt about you. After things had ended so badly between himself and Vander, he hadn’t thought love would be possible for him again. That had all changed when he met you. Now he had screwed that up as well, leaving him in the ‘darkness’ once again.

As the song continued to play, his gaze drifted over the crowd until it settled on a form at the edge of the dance floor. You were standing there, looking spectacular in the outfit Jinx had designed for you. Silco watched as you swayed in place to the rhythm of the song, a small smile on your lips as you watched the happy couple in the center.

The song came to an end with a final reprise of the chorus that had touched his heart so deeply, the music slowly fading away. The gathered crowd clapped as Jinx and Ekko left the dance floor hand in hand. Silco could still see you through the dispersing crowd, as you had remained in your spot to talk to someone near you. This was likely the best chance he would have to try and get your attention so he could talk to you.

Abandoning his half finished drink, Silco pushed through the throng of people, keeping you in his sights at all times. He eventually reached your side and came to a stop next to the person you were speaking with. He cleared his throat to grab your attention, which caused you to switch your focus from your conversation to him. 

“Excuse the interruption,” he said, trying to maintain a polite facade. “But could I steal you for a moment?”

You gave the other person a smile before nodding to him. He held out his hand for you, and you surprised him by placing your hand in his. He gently pulled you to a door that led outside the reception hall so you could talk privately. The cool breeze of the night air blew through the loose parts of both your outfits, but Silco felt it was refreshing after the stuffy heat of the hall. Once the door closed behind the pair of you, Silco felt you pull your hand from his. The loss stung, but he made sure to not show it in any way. 

“The event has been lovely,” you said, taking a few steps away from him. “Jinx looks really happy.”

“Indeed she does. I’m glad things worked out in the end and have gone smoothly with no further problems.”

Silco hadn’t brought you out for small talk, but he wasn’t sure where to begin. He figured an apology was a good starting point. He said your name softly to refocus your attention, which made you turn towards him.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior. I should not have said the things I did to you, and I should have called you as soon as possible to set things right.”

Silco looked in your eyes as he spoke, so he could see your expression soften as he was speaking, which he hoped was a sign that you would be able to forgive him.

“I know you said you wanted some space, which I will respect,” he continued. “But I wanted to at least try to make some kind of amends. I also wanted to make sure that you knew that I love you.”

Your eyes widened at his words, likely in surprise. Silco had expected that reaction, as it was the first time he had said those words to you, at least directly. 

“I don’t say this to manipulate you in any way or to pressure you into forgiving me. It just seemed like something you should know.”

His heart pounding in his chest, Silco turned away from you and started back towards the door. A soft call of his name stopped him in his tracks, but he didn’t turn. He heard the clicking of your shoes on the pavement as you closed the distance between the two of you, followed by the gentle touch of your hand at his elbow.

“You tell me you love me for the first time and then you walk away?” you asked as you came around to stand in front of him. “Not even giving me the chance to say it back?”

Silco inhaled sharply at your second question. Did you intend to return his sentiment?

“You didn’t need to pressure me into forgiving you, Silco. I already have. Do you know why?”

Silco shook his head and avoided your intense gaze. Out of the corner of his field of vision, he saw you raising your hand in the direction of his forehead, no doubt to smooth the wrinkle between his brows. He made no effort to stop you, leaning into your gentle touch when your fingertips touched his skin. After removing your thumb from his face, you leaned in to place your forehead against his.

“Because I love you too, Silco.”

It was said so quietly that he almost didn’t believe he had actually heard it. Regardless, the words sent a beam of light straight to his heart, chasing away the impending darkness that he had feared would consume him once again. A snippet of the song that had pushed him in this direction flowed through his mind, leading him to a solid conclusion.

“I asked to love you once again.

You fell, I caught you.

I’ll never let you go again like I did.”

A/N: Give this a like, comment, and reblog and let me know what you think!

[ravenkinnie]

Sometimes family is you and your (reluctant) daughter stuck in a haunted graveyard of a city together. Silco & Jinx with side Vanco, almost 7k words, mature, written for Dead Dove Bingo prompt 'Fevers' but i can only ever do loose takes on the topic lmao

ao3 link

The bones wash up in spring.

All kinds of things do, with the warm heavy rains overflowing the river, the sewers and pumps, flooding basements up to ceilings. In the worst of it, the sewers burst so much you wade through an inch tall layer of sewage on the streets, the stench so thick it empties out markets. It’s not uncommon to see things floating in those waters, lost or discarded, secrets brought out into light, unclaimed by anyone.

The bones, though. The bones feel different.

Pilt is a pit, a hole dug in the ground that swallows up its contents with dirt thrown back on top. Things disappear into the river, but they never come back out. At most, when the tides get so high the river turns into the ocean, it will spit out creatures from its depths, dried out fish and anemones and jellyfish decaying in the sun until the bones get swallowed up by sand the way they should have been by the waters.

The bones come back clean. They come back damaged too, some with cuts or teeth marks on them if they've been in the river long enough to become homes and sustenance to Pilt’s horrid life forms. They come back inhuman, skulls with sharp teeth and angular bones, but they come back human too, femur and ribcage and skulls that can't be mistaken for anything else. They line up the riverbank like a nightmarish collector’s pride, from striking white to greyish and brown discoloration.

Silco turns one over with his shoe, the large leg bone that he can't identify the source of by sight. The ones washed up this high, meters from the water, are drier, streaks of ground sticking to the yellowed bone as opposed to the ones soaked in mud lower by the shore.

He doesn't come down closer, cartilage of his throat already feeling bruised being in proximity to the waters. He doesn't come down to the docks, not unless his presence is absolutely needed, impossible to be replaced by Sevika.

Sevika, few steps ahead on the muddy bank, picks a smaller skull with her hand, one that can't be mistaken as any other species, one that is too small to end up in the river amongst the others, the ones with knife marks and unhealed breaks. The moment the fingers of her Chemtech arm close around the bone, the arch by the empty eye socket disintegrates in her grip, breaks off into shards.

He presses fingers against his own, fingertips to the browbone, like it could stop the pounding headache about to start at the sight. Sevika’s barely contained flinch is a testament to the strangeness, her reactions usually much better restrained. "Must have been there a while," she comments, keeping her voice even and gruff.

Steps away from her, Dustin lets out a strangled sound that grates on Silco’s nerves, along the throb in his eye socket and the humidity sticking to his skin; it rained all through the night and the morning, the air heavy with the acidic smell of the undercity rain. "Anyone you know?" He keeps his voice thick with distaste, his dissatisfaction clear.

Dustin has the brains to straighten his back, but not enough to keep quiet. "Gives you the creeps, y’know."

There are far too many people clearing out the bank to let the choking heat curling in his throat since he could smell the river stench a block away spill out in a fit of cleansing rage, so Silco simply purses his lips onto a tight line, steps back, away from the bones, tries to look away from the waters.

As aggravatingly dull as Dustin is, he is not wrong. Silco can't shake off the eery feeling either. An oddity, considering how close to the surface death is in undercity, how it’s layered over every stone, every way you turn them you'll see a new face of it. Graves deep in the inhabited parts of the Sump, the sweet smoke of burned bodies higher up in the Lanes where there was no space for such sentimentality. Instead, the shrines tucked into so many corners, white and blue for Kindred standing out against the muted greys and greens and rich neon of Zaun. It’s outright, it’s visible, unlike the marble mausoleums Topside and the clean way they have of hiding the bodies before they can be noticed, before the ugliness of it can be confronted.

Here, on the shore, there is something unsettling about it, more than a simple high tide spitting out garbage.

Silco’s gaze tries to sweep over the piles and piles of bones on every inch of the bank, catches on a small figure down closer to the river. Far too close to the river, feet nearly brushing the water. He moves before he has time to process. "Jinx! Away from the water."

She makes a face at him, her teenage foulness hiding the little surprise in her eyes at his outburst, the same one reflected in Silco’s own tightly wound chest. It's the river, putting him on edge, making him feel like an open throbbing wound.

Jinx bounces the skull in her hands, steps back from the water. It's a small skull, sharp teeth, a whump that must have fell into the water and drowned ages ago. "Not like he can grab me." Her voice is playful, teasing, her smile almost as sharp as the bared teeth of the skull.

Before Silco can react, she grasp it with one hand, lobs it into the river until it disappears with a splash. Then, without a step missing, she picks up one of the large rocks in the mud. Face full of focus, eyes squinted, she poorly tries to skip them across the surface.

Another part of why the river makes him hide his shaking hands in his pockets, squeeze them into tight fist to release tension somewhere. Down in its darkness, with the bodies and the garbage and the toxins, it holds all the memories that make his skull feel like it might split into two at the eye socket now.

Back when him and Vander first worked at the docks, after the mines but before the Lanes, Pilt was much murkier, the odour of decay and pollution crawling across all the blocks around it, windows closed tight even in the thick of summer. But working the ships, you got used to it quick, so they spent hours by the waters, between shifts when it made no sense to collapse on the mattress in the small room they split the rent on few lanes down. His mind now colours it in much brighter shades than he remembers the truth of it, no split and bruised skin from muggings walking down the alleys from nightshifts, no jobs busted so heavy they had had lay low with gnawing hunger in their stomachs for a month, no fights so harsh they rattled the walls of their tenement.

Silco remembers the sun in the suffocating heat of the summer tanning Vander’s skin golden, the snow melting on his lashes, long and almost unfitting on his rugged handsome face. Vander learned fishing from a girl further Topside, sweet youthful thing born and raised by the Promenade who has never tasted the thickness of Gray on her tongue. She skipped stones playfully with a flick of her lean wrist, her lips quirking at Vander’s flirtatious teases, her pockets opening at his words easily without fingers prying them open. Funny, the obtuse belief that sweet words can't hide anything behind them. Vander plucked her clean with teases and light touch, then came back to lay it all on the floor for Silco, lay with him on the thin mattress they elevated off the floor with bricks, lay his hands and mouth on him, lay beside him into dark hours before dawn where they both got up for another shift at the docks. Funny, the hot anger that nested in Silco’s admiration and love for Vander back then, how he imagined himself as the only one with a beast this insidious inside, Vander’s own emotions and rage visible on his face and in his fists so easily.

It raises to the surface so light and buoyant; he finds himself speaking as if the words were someone else's, "You don't hold it right."

Jinx pauses, squints at him, the rock between her thumb and a pointer. It's something Vander must have never shown her, the way he's shown Silco with his hand warm on Silco’s own. Maybe that's why he extends his hand towards her, waits till the impulse to throw the rock at him passes through her eyes, till she hands it over with petulant curiosity. He takes it between his thumb and middle finger, his wrist jolting from her touch before her fingers can brush over his.

Jinx squeals with a childish delight when the stone skips across the surface before drowning. High-pitched and with none of her usual manic cackle buried in the sound, it surprises him, as it always does, how playful and innocent she can still be. It gets hidden so well under her vicious remarks, smell of gunpowder on her clothes, the bruises and scrapes marking her arms from being out in place by Sevika’s supervision during assignments gone wrong.

There's dried blood under Jinx’s fingernails. Her bullet missed, grazed a major organ but not enough damage for a quick, clean job. Silco had to show her how to hold a knife, how to find the right artery on someone's throat. Her hand shook slightly, her shirt soaked with blood, the cut more an amateur saw job than a clean cut but she took it in, the determination to correct her mistake, the importance of cleaning up after herself.

Jinx doesn't need help locating the pulsating vein of old foolish memories on him for a cleaner cut. He doesn't need to leave these false memories of Vander that he thought he knew staining her like the blood under her nails. The dissection of those, of the parts that his mind discoloured over the years and the ones that Vander twisted even back then, it would do no good for either of them, the delusion of them having any value now. It would do no good for Jinx to share her own, the man he's come to respect and despise in the years between.

She turns the stone in her slim fingers with thought before putting one foot behind her, tongue caught between her teeth, face full of focus as she flicks her wrist to throw it. Heat spot in his throat means choking down rage, burning and churning and awful, but this one, the warmth somewhere in his ribcage, is worse, like a fire in the mine eating away the ground until it collapses on itself.

A low voice behind him makes him turn, catch Sevika’s evaluating gaze before she looks away. She's looking for the spot where the ground collapses, the soft mulch she can turn over to find everything turned to ash, nothing useful anymore.

Anything but a clean job, she said with blood still fresh on Jinx’s skin and her eyes still shaken but turning angrier. Silco stopped explaining his reasons a while ago, the way Sevika’s comments have fallen to a mumbled line here and there. You don't build a weapon overnight; fallbacks are to be expected. But Sevika, for her many qualities, has never been one for patience.

Still, if Silco's the eye watching, Sevika's the hand that turns over every death marked stone in Zaun. If there's a whisper of his position being undermined by anything, she would catch it, squash it, bring it back to him. He has to consider her.

Besides, she's not entirely wrong.

Silco steps back, turns to walk away. "Don't touch the bones."

He can only assume the disappointment he catches on Jinx’s face is brief.

***

The stench makes its way through Zaun in the summer.

It's a suffocating hot year, humidity punching breath out of your lungs. Once the smell starts, once it crawls through the alleys and lanes, grasps onto buildings and wisps itself through open windows and doors, it empties the streets within a week or two. The perfumed masks and clothes can't hold it back much longer than an hour, the agony so high it brings people to their knees, gagging and shaking with the need to expel it from their bodies.

It's rot, meat left out in the sun too long, decay sweet and sticky layering itself over openings and orifices and membranes like thin film that can’t be picked out with fingers. It's death, with the emptiness and silence of the streets cleared out by the palpable disgusting odour that nests in fabric and makes its home on skin, impossible to get out anymore.

The Last Drop becomes a point of minimal relief, the ventilation system installed barely before the start of summer providing small breathing room. The stone walls of undercity buildings keep cool fine, but they can't help the humid air, made worse by the need to keep the windows closed. Silco feels the sickness in his own stomach, his own throat, constantly now, watery saliva filling his mouth, making him pause, press fingertips into his temples to keep it at bay. The sharp throb in his head is constant now too, heat and nausea making it worse.

It's not just the high heat and gut-wrenching stench, though. Shimmer injections have been wracking his body more than in the years prior, he knows it. The bone deep fatigue after each dose doesn't leave anymore, the soreness of joints leaving him in constant discomfort.

And the headache. It makes it hard to think, leaving him paralysed in his dark bedroom, chills and spasms of pain running through his body.

Silco tries to blink away the aura of an upcoming episode, focus on Jinx perched on the desk in front of him. She’s sulking, after being told to stop hunching, to let him actually see the deep purple bruises on her fractured ribcage. They aren't as spread out on her back, only a ring around her torso. The ones on her chest, though, the sight made his throat spasm at the horrifying blue and purple bruising all the way around her ribcage, brushing her stomach, reaching far up into her cropped top before Jinx turned around, shrugged it off, pressed her shirt to her front for the sake of modesty before he even had to tell her this time.

Jinx smoothes out the bandage wrap over her chest when he hands her the end; he wraps it around her torso, waits until she smoothes out the front again. He'd rather Singed had a look at it, he would be able to feel out fractures and breaks better than Silco. Jinx wouldn't have it, though, injury or sickness making her sensitive to unwelcomed touch, bristling like an angry cat and shrieking like she was being burned with hot iron. Last time he went against this precaution, the year she came down with chicken pox, she bit down on Singed’s hand so deep the scars are still visible in light. Her nails barely missed Sevika’s corneas in her struggle to get out, stopped only by Silco’s intervention.

Silco can't chastise her for it, as much as Sevika believes he should force this disobedience out of Jinx. She's young still, an open wound that needs time and work to stop festering; he used to grovel the same, attack first when a hand on the shoulder made his skin feel on fire, adrenaline shooting through his toxin destroyed veins. The knife wound on his side still acts up from time to time, from being stitched too tight but he didn't have the skilful touch them, nerve endings still out in the open. People maintain their distance much easier these days, just like they do with Jinx already, leaning back from her offensive attacks on their personal space. She learns fast.

She's still petulant, though, prone to her moods. "I didn't do anything," she argues, voice tight with pain, the only leash on her anger.

"I will find out sooner or later." She huffs when Silco’s hand brushes against one of her vertebrates, then holds her breath when he runs it over the wrappings. Left side is the offender then. "I think you should prefer it was from you."

He keeps his voice level, calm. Accusation or any drop of viciousness, of a threat, only works to aggravate Jinx more. Under the calmness of his words and steadiness of his hands she drops her shoulders, her voice taking a whiney quality. "I didn't."

She pauses but Silco can tell the cogs in her head are spinning, toeing the line between deciding to say something and staying silent. He keeps the same repetitive motion, waits for her to adjust the wrapping on her chest before tightening, her hand fisting the material of her shirt so tight it wrinkles badly. "Sometimes I-" Jinx hesitates, then changes direction. "Vi broke her wrist once. And then I woke up and mine snapped too, just like that," a flick of her wrist, a quick snapping motion, "overnight. And she caught a knife on her hip another and she didn't want me to know. But I have the same scar now."

Silco should dismiss her, tell her to stop weaving such childish tales to herself. He can still recall this feeling though, unmoored by years and not discoloured by memories, him and Vander so close in the rented room, in the small tapestry of their converged life as if Vander’s inhale was Silco’s exhale. Back after the cannery, before Jinx was Jinx and her nightmares were still waking him up with horrific screams, he thought he could feel his veins bulging in the darkness of the Last Drop at night, feeling out the Shimmer swollen arteries that were never there with his fingers, his healthy eye tender like he was nursing a black eye, blood coming off his lip that was never split open.

"The dead can't hurt you," Silco tells her the way he told himself the same then. "Rather, they can if you let yourself believe they can. We know better than that, though, don't we?"

Jinx mutters something in reply, too low for him to hear. She bounces off the desk once the wrappings around her chest are secure in place, shrugs her shirt back on, tattered thing that falls down to her thighs on her small frame. She's out the door before Silco can tell her to mind her ribs.

He rolls down his sleeves, the vest forgone in the blistering heat, but collar and cuffs done up. He needs to get downstairs, get Sevika for a meeting requested by Karvyq soon. He heads towards the door but takes a moment to pause in front of a large painting behind the seatie.

It's a massive landscape, a dream of one really, an imagine Silco hasn't seen but can imagine so easily when he closes his eyes: the breath he takes is crisp and cool not stuffy and choking, the water still and so clear he sees nothing hiding at the bottom, the shade of the trees bent over the water welcoming instead of menacing, nothing hidden in the shadows. For a while after the commission was put up on the wall, he could have sworn there was element added, an outline of a person behind one of the trees, reflected in the water. Bulky tall frame, hair curled around its head, a vague shape of a beards distorting the jawline.

By the time the figure dissipated into greens and blues of the actual scenery, the artist has been dealt with, taking the brunt of the unexpected additions. It doesn't matter that the dark shape is not there, though, Silco can point exactly where it used to be, trace its outline with his finger on the canvas. Each time his eyes catch on the spot, his mind wanders, to the cold spots in odd places in the Last Drop, the faint laughter he knows so well that Silco swears he can hear in the bedroom. Sometimes, on the nights where his body gives up enough to allow him to fall into deep sleep, he could swear the mattress dips under the weight of another body, that he wakes up with the ghost of touch still on him, fingers on his face, his chest. Sometimes, this one he's sure of, he awakes with his throat burning, spasming trying to catch breath as if just barely escaped constraint around it.

He knew Jinx might feel it too, with her constant flickering gaze that can never rest on anything too long, her low breath monologues to herself that sound more like one-sided conversations than not. When she was younger, she was plagued with smells, strong odd scents giving her headaches that she complained about constantly, that no one else could smell. The awful bruising on her ribs is the worst Silco's seen on her, but there were others, smaller spots of burst vessels and cuts Jinx couldn't explain, that seemed a surprise to her as well often. The skin on her cheekbones splits constantly, both sides of her face sporting matching faint scars.

It's fitting. That it would be the violence, the betrayal, that haunts every room, the gory painful reality of what they've buried.

Silco shakes off the ridiculous idea; the pain in his temples meddles with his thoughts, makes him more prone to believe in stories. He gives the painting one last sweep, eyes falling briefly on the spot under the tree, the one where he could just trace the figure if he wanted to. He foregoes the vest and the coat thrown over the back of the seatie, the outside of the Last Drop likely to be unbearable.

It's much louder downstairs already than it would be equally in the early afternoon, the cool interior of the bar a refugee. Few steps away from the bar, through the noise, though, he hears a snippet of a louder, mora aggravated voice breaking through the crowd.

"-batshit crazy. Probably a goner already. Better her than us is what I say."

It gets noticeably quieter as he stops by the table, backs straightened, and replies hushed. "Elaborate."

As the owner of the aggravating voice sputters under his gaze, Silco regards him, tries to recover any memory of him. Lanky, short, young but not young enough to excuse lack of restraint. The veins on the insides of his wrists when he lays his hands on the table, turns them searching for explanation, glow purple faintly. Probably a runner, one of many.

"It's just a story, boss." His gaze stays on Silco despite the slight panic in his voice, Silco will give him that. His eyes don't fall on any of his companions at the table, no search for rescue that wouldn't come with how pointedly they turn away from the conversation. "How this, the whole city," he makes a roundabout movement with his finger as Sevika steps behind his chair, "is so fucking rotten. Dead under the ground and in the water, bursting with all the crazy so bad it could explode any time." His throat ticks in a swallow, his words coming to halt for a moment like he expects to be interrupted. When he sees Silco’s calm interest, he continues. "We need some people to carry the crazy, right? So it doesn't take us all out. It might break the girl soon, but it will leave us, none of the stench or dead bodies again," the boy finishes with some verve, slamming his hand flat on the table to emphasise before catching himself.

Silco folds his hands behind his back, tilts his head back, looks at the ceiling in consideration. "I see." The beams down in the bar don't make up a small maze a person could crawl on, cobwebs and dust covering the wood in heavy layers on tops. He blinks, half expects splashes of paint and blue braids trailing off the edge. He's not sure when it became a habit. He's not sure it should be a comfort.

He grabs the knife in his back pocket and in a swift movement drives the blade through the boy’s hand. He drugs it out in another as the boy’s shriek is covered by the thud of his chair toppling to the ground. Sevika grabs him by the back of his shirt, hands him of to someone else to be dealt with. She nods as Silco wipes the knife clean, tucks it back into his pocket. Her eyes don't speak of full approval, but she knows better than to undermine him in public.

Silco covers the open, sensitive spots on himself; he'll do the same for Jinx. A chink in her armour is a chink in his judgement, after all. No more to it than this simple fact, Sevika should know.

***

Silco doesn't dream of drowning. His dreams hold no pain in his chest, no desperate burn in his lungs, painful taste of saltwater filling his mouth, his nose. There is no adrenaline coursing through his veins, the panicked beating of his heart or flailing arms until he breaks the surface.

Instead, he dreams of dying. He dreams of the peace of his body failing, accepting resistance as futile. He dreams of silence under the water, his slowing heartbeat the only pounding in his ears. He dreams of nothingness, the absolute emptiness in his mind moments before his heart gave one last kick, last one spike of a fight that he grasped onto. Sometimes, he slips into sleep deep enough that he loses the separation of memory and reality, his heart kick jumping into wakefulness, pounding as he catches his breath, a reminder that despite all, he is still alive.

Tonight, though, Silco dreams of the fight. Burn in his throat, eyes, in his nose, his throat scratched raw and gasping on gulps of disgusting polluted water. Fire in his ruined eye, eating through bone underneath, fraying nerves until they feel like they push through the surface of skin, on display to be pulled on. Each time he wakes, his body feels surreal, unreal, pain detached but somehow still there, right before slipping back under, slipping back into the painful, destroyed body. Sometimes, when he wakes shaking, feverish, chills down his spine, goosebumps on his arms, he feels a gentle touch at his temples, his cheeks, carding through his hair. Simple, light, a voice he thinks he recognises but can't place before his mind blacks out again.

Silco wakes once more at some point, sleep clothes clinging to his skin with sweat, drenched like he is back from the river, like he never left, could never hope to leave and his mind clears enough to recognise the voice, if not the touch.

"Jinx." Her name comes out in a croak, each letter razor sharp, turning his throat bloody. "What-"

Palm laid over his forehead that Silco is sure he tries to shift away from, touch uncomfortable on the nerves he is sure are pulled apart on his face. His body doesn't move though, not an inch, and Jinx only shushes him.

Heavy touch on his eyelids, keeping them closed, too tangible to be mistaken for ghostly. "You told me a story."

Fingers brush sweat matted hair off his forehead; Jinx presses her cheek there, her breath hot on his face. "There was a crow once, scavenger like they all are. A hungry, selfish thing, cast out by his family because he couldn't stop." A ticklish brush over his pulse point, his throat where he swallows painfully. His fingers twitch, wishing to grasp her hand, to hold it still but his blood turned to lead, holding him down, unable to move. "On a thin night, he found it buried in tall grass, a corpse of a cat, with naked skin, patches of fur gone, plucked and ready all for him. It took him so much, made something swell in his birdsong chest he picked at its paws only, then left." Jinx turns her head slightly, to press her lips against his mangled eyelid. Silco flinches, the sudden movement sending daggers of pain through his skull. "But all the crow knew was hunger. So, he came back and plucked some more and covered the wounds with bits of flesh to stop himself, only to come back again and again."

Silco thinks he might have fallen asleep again. He thinks he might be in a nightmare, not death or drowning but something else, something creeping into open pores of his skin like poisonous gas, igniting warmth in his chest, lulling him closer with Jinx’s low voice, her cheek against his forehead. Or maybe this is dying maybe he's never come close to dying before so he didn't realise it’s never peaceful and now he's being goaded closer and closer, into a tale of his decaying heartbeat. "Each time the hole deepened he plucked a feather. Each time it festered, he went days without eating, until it was too much, and he came back to the cat. And then one day, he goes too deep, his beak hitting the ground underneath. He grabs his wing in his beak, ready to break the bone when he sees it." A hand slides under the collar of his shirt, presses against his burning chest and maybe dying isn't a lesson, a guidance, maybe it's plainly a scare, a chill of terror and disgust running down his spine. "The cat’s chest rising."

The hand slides out, the warm face against his disappears, a floaty uneasy sensation making Silco feel sick, making him shiver and slip under again.

Before he goes underwater, he feels Jinx press her face against his shoulder, the weight of her arm over his chest.

Next time he wakes, he's alone. Dawn creeps into the bedroom through slips in the blinds, cold and grey. It's still dark enough that opening his eyes doesn't reignite the headache but he can see the bedroom in full: the crumpled bedsheets next to him, Jinx’s thick pink bathrobe on the floor, the door cracked open that he always closes but Jinx doesn't. The sheets smell vaguely like the sickly-sweet lotion Jinx lathers herself in after her bath.

His body hurts, sore and heavy with fatigue, the cold of the morning combined with the sweat still damp on his skin making him shiver. Silco stumbles into the bathroom, no mind left to pay to how ungraceful his movements are, grasps onto the sink to keep himself upright.

Cold water splashed on his face helps, first full gasp of air making its way to his lungs, his mind clearing the tiniest bit. Silco turns off the tap, reaches for the towel, tries to untangle the Web of dreams and realities in his memories.

He was stupid to think he's the only one plagued by the dreams, the ghostly imaginations in the night. Has he not caught Jinx in the hallway once, right outside his door? He did, Silco remembers now: her bare feet on the floorboards, puny shoulders under the thick straps of her nightgown, loose hair and startled expression. He was out in one of the warehouses far later than intended, a problem with a shipment, but Jinx knew that so she should have expected his room to be empty. The surprise in her face wasn't about such pragmatic lapse in memory, it was unearthly, sudden, like she's been startled awake.

His stomach turns when he remembers the other nights, the phantom touch of a hand under his nose, over his chest, checking for signs of life, of presence. The touch is much more tangible now than when he recalled it before.

He pushes himself upright, off the sink, but his ribs give a sharp stab of pain when he tries. The garish ring of bruises around Silco’s ribs is visible even before he pulls his shirt up fully. Too focused on covering Jinx’s softness, his own, he never considered the rot would start if left unattended, that it would show on the outside. That Jinx would be the first one to start picking at it incessantly.

He finds Jinx in the kitchen. She's sitting criss-cross on a chair, elbows resting on the table, hunched so deep Silco would see her sharp shoulder blades jutting out if her frame wasn't engulfed in a shirt far too big for her size. She pushed her bangs behind her ears but did nothing to contain the waves of hair spilling over the chair, the table, the floor, probably shedding long hairs everywhere. Something she knows drives him mad. She looks at Silco with mild interest, dipping a piece of bread into a jar of orange marmalade she's fond of, crumbs falling into the jar; disgusting but he waves it off by now. They keep it only for her sake anyway, Silco doesn't care much for sweet food.

His throat still aches when he asks, "Was the cat alive?"

Jinx scrunches her eyebrows at him in confusion, speaks around the bite of bread in her mouth, "You're finally going senile, old man."

He exhales deep; her face doesn't change. Silco turns to leave.

He pauses once Jinx can't see his face. "I think it was." No shuffling, no creaking of the chair behind him. She’s hanging onto each word. "I think it was alive the whole time. Because it knew the crow wouldn't return otherwise."

Because a needy prey is easier to capture, he doesn't add.

He leaves without waiting for her reaction, behind his back only silence.

***

The fires start in autumn.

First one takes down a building by the docks; the block of tiny, rented rooms, housing many young men working the ships. Not an uncommon occurrence in undercity, with the structures too old to handle new furnaces, furnaces too old to handle their purpose anymore. With people too angry to let some of them stay. Only the placement is odd, at first, with the pumps so close the fire shouldn't have eaten through the wood and stone so easy. Then, a whole block in the lanes, storefronts charred and turned to broken glass and rubble. Whispers of payments missed go across the Lanes, heads turned away because it’s the law of the land, no worth risking your own skin picking up on it. Silco turns his too, that part of the Lanes technically out of his overseeing, under Crimson’s control. He's not one to clean up someone else's dirt.

He makes his way to the Sump when one of the mines ignites. By the time Silco steps foot on the worn-out ground of the site, the fire has been long contained, burning out underneath the surface. The crowd that must have gathered around the site when the news broke first, hoping and pleading for survivors, has long dispersed too.

When the mine that took his father's life exploded years and years ago, he stood here, maybe in this exact spot, until the last fire underground burned out. His own hopes burned out fast too but his mother's haven't; she couldn't have waited here, though, not with her fragile back and diseased lungs. So Silco did, until it was clear there was no more waiting worth doing.

He gives a curt sympathetic nod when Voss complains about her loss, the profit drowned under the piles of collapsed ground. He swallows biter bile, leaves while she's mid-word. He doesn't wait for the fire to burn out, not this time.

Jinx is easy to find these days, holed up in her workshop deep in the Sump. He steps on blades carefully, even though he's made sure they were stable to handle any weight before bringing Jinx down here. The absolute abyss stretching down underneath them into the maw of the earth makes him uneasy, though he hides it from Jinx well.

She's stretched out on her stomach, up ahead on the same blade. He walks over the tally marks scratched out in the metal; he counted them once, Jinx rummaging through her clutter and giggling to herself somewhere in the distance. Well over a thousand, too high to be bodies. Other option, not much less gruesome to him, enough days to count a little over three years.

Jinx is picking at something, paint supplies and random scraps of materials thrown all around her, feet kicking in the air. He expects a painting, maybe one of those awful dolls she likes to put together and hang from the ceiling with rope around their necks. Maybe it's the flash grenade he assigned her a while ago, something easier to carry, to hide up one’s sleeve.

His stomach heaves, bile in his throat when he sees the skull in her hands, yellowed bone with teeth missing, part of the jaw gone completely. Patches of fur around the part of the jaw that is still intact, resemblance of a beard, the lines by eye sockets indicating crow’s feet. Macabre, disgusting, somehow impossible not to be recognised in a heartbeat.

Jinx looks startled at his approach, her hands dropping the skull to the ground, palms over the top like she's trying to hide it. She doesn't look sheepish, though, not with her chin jutted out high, her wide eyes with no fear in the corneas, burrowing right into his. She holds his gaze even as her hands shake a little, her grip on the skull firmer as she tries to conceal it.

Silco's proud of her for it in a way, truth be told.

His knees creak inelegantly when he sits on the ground next to her, harsh metal bothering him much more that it doesn't her with her youth, her bones seemingly so flexible she might as well be made of something malleable, bamboo or soft plastic.

He hears her breath catch when he starts, "I was younger than you when me and Vander started working at the mines. I was a hurrier, he was my thruster." Silco doesn’t slip down that mine shaft in his dreams anymore but for years he did: the darkness, the narrow tunnels, the way the ground never seemed stable enough to wiggle his way through them like that. Vander’s breath and his body pushing the weight of the tub behind him the only points grounding him in the darkness. "We were walking home in a group of boys one day when we heard it, the long pitiful mewl from the drainage pit. One of the colliery cats fell deep into the water and couldn't get out. We all felt bad for it, tried to kill it with rocks so it wouldn't drown until Vander stopped us." He still remembers the taste of his surprise, something like tiny pinch of betrayal at the break in his knowledge of Vander’s character. Jinx wouldn't realise maybe, the Vander he's met through bits and pieces of stories she let slip a mere shadow of the one he knows, a mockery of his memories. "He found a rope and a bucket somewhere and fished it out, then took it home with him."

Jinx's eyes alight, her cheeks flushed, she listens to his words with capture. She wets her cracked lips before asking, "What happened to it?"

Her voice is a little hoarse; on impulse, Silco lays his palm on her forehead, presses the back of it to her cheeks. She's burning all over, her feverish skin making his own feel hot again.

He drops his hand. "It died days later anyway, a sickly weak thing. Vander liked those, needy things."

Jinx scowls, an ugly expression on her petite face. "Is that what you were?"

She doesn't flinch, her instincts dormant or maybe contained when he reaches towards her, grasps her chin in his fingers. He tilts her head up towards him, her skin damp with sweat in his grip. Jinx only grabs onto his wrist but doesn't dig her nails into flesh, doesn't pull his hand away from herself. She lets him, watching him with the same scowl, the same bright eyes.

He loosens his grip. "No. That's what we were. So much for family." Her lip quivers, just the tiniest break, but her face doesn't fall. He's proud of her for that too. "Not anymore, though, is it?"

"No," Jinx replies, her voice echoing in the depth of the mine shaft.

"Good." He drops his hand, but Jinx doesn't let her grip on his wrist loosen. She holds her hand there, her face softening under the small praise.

Silco can work with this. The attention and regard from him that pulls back her hardened layers enough to reveal the rotten softness, like peeling skin off fruit. He can't keep his own covered either, not with Jinx digging her fingers into him relentlessly, knowing where to dig because she's so much like him. It might have been a mistake to recognise it in the first place, with Vander’s body behind her shaking pitiful figure, her anger and despair a vice-like grip around them both. She found all the damaged spots, the ones beaten into pulp enough to sink her fingers in. Silco can't force her to unlearn this knowledge now, but he can control where she stabs, where her violence can explode into fire and ruin and decay.

For now, at least.

[heartsforvalentinexx]

my roleplay info !! <3

hi there loves!! you may call me valentine, my pronouns are he/vamp/fangs/petals and i am 19 years old. this post is in dedication to everything that you need to know about me if you want to roleplay! it is very important to me that those who want to roleplay with me read this because it has a lot of my boundaries, my dni and byf/byi, comforts and discomforts and general information that i will need you to know and keep in mind while we roleplay. if you are interested in roleplaying, once you finish reading this post and if you find all terms agreeable, then you are more than welcome to message me or reply to this post! i'll get to you asap. <3

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do not interact: basic criteria (racist, anti lgbtq, ableists, cop supporters, fetishizers, pro-ship, lolicons/shotacons etc), people under 16, yagami yato supporters, jason spisak supporters, hyv apologists, vivziepop apologists, font users, ppl who don't credit art when they send it/when they use it on their profile, ai art users, uses the word "cringe" to be mean to other people, ppl who make mommy/daddy etc jokes, kaeluc shippers, vanco shippers, silco x viktor shippers, huskerdust/snakebomb/charlalastor shippers

before you follow/interact: use tone indicators when talking to me, please ask me before adding me or sending me a friend/follow request (ppl i dont know adding me without permission makes me really anxious), if you want my socials or my uid for genshin or hsr just ask, don't directly talk of feeding tubes/hospitals at me, don't talk badly about my pets/comfort things, educate/correct me etc when needed, dont ask about my eating habits, i make nsfw jokes lmk if i make you uncomfortable or if u want me to stop, i curse + use caps a lot without censoring, i'm an age/pet regressor, ask before venting to me, dont joke-flirt with me unless i say its okay

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roleplay information

• i only roleplay on discord, and i like to use private servers as a way to stay organized and store information.

• my timezone is eastern standard time! (EST)

• i'm literate to novella. i write 3-5+ paragraphs regularly and i write in third person. i will only ever write under my usual length if i am unmotivated, tired, feeling rushed or feel as though my partner has not given me enough of a response to work with. my length usually depends on several things (how well i'm doing mentally/physically, if i'm busy or not, my motivation etc). if you'd like samples of my writing, or if you have questions, i'm more than happy to provide. i would just appreciate if you matched my length and pov.

• i will not be interested in anything if there isn't romance in it. soft romance has always been my jam. i'm more than happy to do familial or platonic pairings in roleplays and such, but if there isn't romance, i will be bored very quickly and likely give a very short response if i respond at all. i enjoy fantasy, adventure, drama, slice of life roleplays etc. i also enjoy angst, but i can't take a lot of it because i'm sensitive and it may upset me so please talk out anything you wanna do that's angsty before putting it into play. the only genres i won't do is horror, nsfw (erp, +18, etc) and anything with furries (nothing against them ofc, just not my jam).

• i would like to think i'm very creative when it comes to plots so i come up with things on the spot very easily, but i can't guarantee i'm always going to be able to come up with something and i certainly will not be doing all of the work to think a plot out. i would like it if my roleplay partner was invested in it as well. it's okay if you don't have anything in mind beforehand, though it is extremely helpful and less straining on both of us. of course i don't mind coming up with one together! i'm always happy to work something out and talk about it.

• i mainly do 1x1 roleplays and that is my main comfort because social settings give me a lot of anxiety. i may be interested in a small private roleplay setting, but please ask me first. i'm not too interested in public roleplay settings, so you can ask me about those, but i don't guarantee a yes.

• i am comfortable with doing both fandom and fandom-less roleplays. i am comfortable with cc x cc and oc x oc. i also love oc x cc, however i only do double-ups with that. my fandom list is below so you can scroll and go read that, and there are definitely more than what i put on there so you can ask me for more if you want. as for fandomless roleplays, i have many ocs to work with. i will send them and their information once we exchange discord users and get to talking. i am comfortable with bxb, bxg, gxg, bxa/gxa/axa, even polyamorous ships!! just ask me and i'll tell you if i want to do it!

• i'm typically almost always available given that i don't attend school or work, but that doesn't mean i will always want to roleplay or talk. i enjoy doing other things than roleplaying like gaming and watching movies/shows, i have friends that i like to talk to and spend time with, i have my mental and physical health that i need to maintain etc. please just be mindful that i can't always get back to you right away, and please for the love of the gods do not spam me. i also ask that you understand that my responses take time, usually 3-7+ days. you can send me a reminder if i haven't responded within over a week. please just understand that i will get to you when i can and so feel up for it.

• if you are comfortable, please send me your triggers. i'm not comfortable publicizing my triggers due to the fear of having them used against me, and i'd rather avoid that, so i will not post them here. we can send them into a channel made specifically to store our triggers once we make a private server. i want to make sure that we are comfortable with each other and know each other's boundaries, so only if you want to and feel safe to, then please send me your triggers and discomforts. if you aren't, though, then that's okay! just let me know that that's the case and i will be sure to be mindful. /nf lh gen

• please communicate your feelings and thoughts with me. if you wanna change something or start a new roleplay, or maybe you wanna stop roleplaying and part ways, then tell me. if you have an idea for the roleplay, tell me about it so we can talk about how we feel about it and if we wanna do it. i promise you i won't be mad at you if you talk to me about things, if anything i want you to. this also goes for outside of roleplay too. you are more than free to text me about anything at any time. i love making new friends and talking to people. i don't expect you to want to be bffs or anything, but if you want friendship, then don't hesitate.

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fandom list

• yona of the dawn

• snow white with the red hair

• fruits basket

• ouran high school host club

• fena: pirate princess

• skate the infinity

• genshin impact

● honkai star rail

• arcane: league of legends

• the arcana

• cherry crush

• marvel cinematic universe

• netflix's castlevania and castlevania nocturne

there's a lot more that i'm into other than this, so you can ask me !!

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[penhero]

This is a VANCO painted cream colored plastic fountain pen c. 1950s. The gold and red paint appears to be hand applied. The design on this 4 ¾ inch long pen is obviously derived from the Parker 51, including having a similar squeeze filler mechanism. VANCO was a Japanese pen maker and had a relationship with the Shobido Silver Store in Osaka, resulting in many high quality sterling silver pens. Both companies were owned by members of the Eto family. VANCO is a stamped on the gold filled clip. The squeeze filler unit is stamped THE NAVY PEN CO. LTD. The stainless steel gold plated nib is stamped SYMBOL over IRIDIUM over 2. #fountainpen #pencollecting #vanco #japan #urushi #parker #parkerpen #parker51 #aerometric #penhero https://www.instagram.com/p/CiI9uQnJgKN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[canadianjobbank]

Apply now: https://canadianjobbank.org/farm-labourer-5/

[sandraharissa]

To me the core theme of arcane is this specific type of conflict that repeats over and over again in all the main aspects of the story that centers around 'sibling relationships'.

Starting with the two cities. We have Piltover and the bad side of Piltover. Technically they're supposed to be one and the same but one is the 'golden privileged child' while the other is disadvantaged and needs to rely on the rich side of Piltover for support, they can't do it by themselves. And then the rich side of Piltover fails in its duties of taking care of/protecting/supporting/whatever the poorer side and a split happens. Zaun is created and it becomes so dangerous and volatile, it becomes a menace and an active threat to itself/the outside and there's no going back. It's the monster Piltover created and even tho the Undercity suffered unfairly at this point it has become so monstrous there may be no improvement/redemption for it.

And obvs that's the exact same thing that happens with Vander/Silco and Vi/Jinx. However it's also imo completely applicable to Jayce/Viktor and even Heimer/Singed. Jayce and Viktor will only reach their break-up era in future seasons but it's a given this will happen but I know I obvs need to explain the Heimer/Singed example.

Based on what we know about them Heimer is just naturally immortal/long-living, how lucky for him, and completely lacks any ability to relate to beings who from his perspective live short life-spans. Meanwhile Singed is just a human and on top of that he had a 10yo child who died from some kind of disease(maybe?). Currently he is obsessed with discovering immortality: experimenting on ppl, mutating them, resurrecting corpses etc. possibly in an attempt to find a way to heal/resurrect his daughter. And we know him and Heimer were partners and that Heimer didn't help him and threw him out of the university or smth for his research. So the exact same dynamic as the other pairs.

So notice how we've got the cities, and then each city has its storyline, and each storyline has a pair of protags who reflect the conflict between the cities, and then each pair also has the pair that preceded them which also reflects the same conflict. In Zaun all these connections are about family ties: brothers, sisters, fathers/daughters, with inherited political/social roles like the Piltover sympathizer and criminal/revolutionary. Meanwhile Piltover storyline connections are about 'progress': science buddies, mentors and students, with Jayce succeeding Heimer as the barely-scientist-moreso-a-politician and Singed/Viktor being mad scientists. We've even got zaunite 'older siblings' associating with Piltover and piltovan 'younger siblings' being from/associating with Zaun.

Just really nice parallels all around.

But I actually have an honorable mention to add here at the end lol.

Mylo and Claggor. Obvs they don't quite fit cos they never develop into this kinda dynamic and they were never meant to but I can't help but notice the similarities. Claggor being the pure hearted hero archetype, looking like Vander, naturally good fighter, seemingly lacking insecurities, seems like the 'second in command' after Vi (second best with the fighting machine, Vander speaks to him second to get info about what happened), meanwhile Mylo giving off 3rd child vibes, full of insecurities and needing to prove himself, physically looks like a stick bug, a bit of a bully, "weird" lock-picking talents that he struggles with and isn't respected for (like Singed/Viktor's science, Powder's bombs or Silco's dream) that are actually super useful and impressive (like he could have been robbing millions from Piltover banks if he got adopted by Silco instead lol).

[arcanefandomweek]

April 2022 Zaundads Bingo Cards!

This is the pinned post for the ongoing bingo event. You can grab one of these cards to work with, or request a unique one from the Zaundad discord server.

Check the main post here.

Check the FAQs and Rules of the event.

You can start creating now, but don't forget not to start posting until April 1st, and then use #Zaundadsbingo and @arcanefandomweek

[holysarenbabe]

I just want a Vanco au where they happily raise their 4 children (maybe even throw Viktor in there bc why not)

[goddessofroyalty]

I’m pretty sure this is so late it’s not even Xmas day for anyone on the planet. But it’s still the festive season and this fic is more going for that vibe than specifically Xmas.

Zaun Family holiday fic (but the more general Zaun Family verse not the specific one). Hope you all have a wonderful end of year however you personally celebrate that.

----------------

“So when are we putting the tree up?” Mylo asks sitting on the foot of the bed that Silco is recovering in. The kids all needing the time with Silco to reassure them that they aren’t going to lose him.

If Vander’s being honest he and Silco need it too. Spending time as a family again even if Silco is on bedrest, half his face covered in bandages laced in the doctor’s glowing ‘medicine’ to try and fight off the encroaching infection thanks to the waters of the Pilt getting into Silco’s blood and split eye.

“I already told you, we won’t be putting the tree up this year.” What with Silco still recovering and everything else they needed to organise for him to take his new role as representing Zaun in Piltover. Setting up a tree in the Last Drop just didn’t feel worth the effort. The patrons would understand and if they didn’t Vander couldn’t give a shit about their opinions. All things he had explained to the kids the other five times they had asked.

And yet, like those five other times he is met with a chorus of protests.

“We can’t not have a tree up. Where will our presents be!?” Powder says, sitting up suddenly from where she had immediately cuddled into Silco’s side as soon as she was allowed in the room.

“Powder careful,” Vander says because, as much as Silco tried to hide it, Vander caught the pained gasp his husband had made.

“I’m alright,” Silco assures when Powder immediately turns around to check on him. “And of course we will have a tree for your presents to be under.”

“Sil-“ The kids can go one year without it. They’ll still get their presents – more than a lot of kids in Zaun will be getting.

“Vander will go get one and you can all decorate it,” Silco continues, ignoring Vander’s attempted interruption.

“You’ll help right?” Claggor asks.

“That is probably above my current capabilities, but I can come up while you do it.”

“You’re supposed to be staying in bed.” The man who had saved Silco’s life had been very clear that if Silco didn’t rest his condition would deteriorate again. Vander can’t almost lose his husband again.

“It’s just upstairs. A booth isn’t that different to a bed,” Silco says, running a hand through Powder’s hair, watching Vander closely with his uncovered eye. “Go get a tree Vander.”

“Oh! Can Ekko join?” Powder asks before Vander has a chance to argue against the idea and how it isn’t worth risking Silco’s health for.

“Of course. Vander will go get Benzo to help get the tree and Ekko can come join,” Silco says, looking down at their youngest before meeting Vander’s eyes. “It has been a stressful year for us all. We should celebrate that we made it through.”

“Vander, go get a tree,” Silco repeats when Vander doesn’t move fast enough for his liking.

Vander knows there isn’t any convincing his husband off this plan. Once Silco’s made up his mind about something like he has there is no budging him no matter how Vander tries. His only option to try and mitigate what he can.

“How about I carry you up before I go?” Better that than Silco overstrain himself or trip as a result of his changed eyesight.

Silco stares at him defiantly but Vander just meets his gaze. If Silco wants this so bad he can accept the compromise.

“Any excuse to have me in your arms,” Silco says finally, breaking his gaze from Vander, as close of a surrender he will give.

The kids give a mixture of laughter and dramatic gags at it.

“Of course,” Vander says, coming over to the bed. Powder scrambling out of his way. “You know I want to hold you.”

Silco snorts at it but reaches up to wrap his arms around Vander’s neck as Vander reaches down to pick him up. Trying to be gentle as he settles his husband in his arms. Trying not to think about how Silco feels thinner than he normally does. Tucking his head into Vander’s neck, the fabric of his bandages rubbing against Vander’s skin as he does.

Vander nearly lost him and he wants to take a moment to remind himself that his husband is still here. Silco safe in his arms where he can protect him from those who hate the new deal with Piltover and want them dead for their part in it.

The kids have already racing up the stairs. Vander doesn’t give it long before they impatiently come and demand he hurry up – wanting the tree Silco promised them.

He’s mindful of Silco in his arms – climbing the stairs carefully and making sure he doesn’t bump his husband into anything on the way to the booth. Letting Silco brace himself on the backrest and table before putting him down.

Even with his care Silco gives a hiss as he settles into the booth. Adjusting the pillows the kids offer to him to prop himself up.

“Go get the tree now,” Mylo demands as soon as Silco’s sitting.

“Do you need anything else before I go love?” Vander asks Silco because he needs to know he’s okay before he’s going to leave.

“Nothing the kids can’t get for me.”

“We’ll take good care of him,” Vi promises, with the other three nodding around her.

There’s no point stalling any longer, he’ll only be met with frustration from them all. Vander still gives Silco a kiss before he leaves, gently cupping his husband’s face, his husband’s unbandaged half softening at it.

Benzo doesn’t look surprised at Vander arriving at his shop. His expressions shifts to it when Vander tells him why.

“Thought you weren’t doing that this year?”

“I got outvoted.”

“More like put in your place,” Benzo says as he starts shutting up the shop. “Can Ekko join too?”

“’course. Powder’d probably be disappointed if you showed up without him.” She’s always preferred hanging out with Ekko more than her siblings and doesn’t even try and hide that fact.

The boy in question scurries down from somewhere in the shelves at it. Clearly having been listening in.

“Go ahead while we get the tree,” Benzo says. It’s not that Ekko wouldn’t try and help them but it’s the kind of job that’s easier done without a kid underfoot. “But remember Silco’s still recovering. No getting into trouble with the others while you wait.”

“We won’t,” Ekko promises before hurrying off to the Drop.

“Always listening that one,” Benzo says once the boy should be out of earshot. “Gotta’ watch what I say sometimes. How is Silco?”

“Recovering.” Thankfully.

“You shouldn’t be surprised. He’s too stubborn to die, especially now he’s got a new group of people to go be a pain in the ass of,” Benzo says as they start heading towards the docks. “Is he joining us or is he still stuck in bed?”

“He’ll be supervising from one of the booths.”

“I’m sure. Right where he’s able to tell us how we’re doing it wrong then.”

“He just wants to feel like he’s in control of something.” The year had been a tough one for them all. Even Piltover’s olive branch didn’t feel like the win it actually was, just more work for them to find the time for. And it definitively wasn’t close to what Silco actually wanted from the Topsiders.

“Good to know even a near death experience can’t change him,” Benzo jokes because Silco had always liked knowing how all the things they were involved in were going. If Vander had to guess his husband probably knows Benzo’s shop’s books better than Benzo himself did.

They mostly talk about business for the rest of the trip to buy one of the trees the ships bring in this time of year. Most are destined for Piltover but Zaun money is just as good to the sailors, especially when it comes from the owner of the bar they frequent while in port. Dragging it back to the Last Drop was a pain but at least most got out of their way as they passed.

The kids had clearly worked themselves up in their excitement. All five of them impatient at the door as Vander and Benzo drag the tree in. Practically dragging them over to the spot it usually goes – tables hastily shoved out of the way to ensure there is enough room.

Vander looks over to the booth he had settled Silco into. Making sure his husband is still there and unharmed.

Silco meets his gaze for a moment. No extra pain in his eye from what had been his current state since he returned him.

“Remember to secure it down properly,” Silco says, breaking Vander’s gaze to survey the situation. “I don’t want to pay for anything it breaks if it falls down.”

“We’ll do it the same way we have every other year,” Benzo says because it has never fallen over in the past.

Silco makes an unhappy sound at it but thankfully drops it. Letting them get the tree up and secure before being shooed away by the excited kids so they can decorate it with anything shiny they could get their hands on.

“How you feeling?” Vander asks Silco, coming to his husband’s side to check on him.

“Same as I would if I was still lying in bed,” Silco says, watching as the kids all flock around the tree to decorate it. Hard to tell if they are working together or in competition as they shove and help each other.

“Do you need me to get you anything?”

“I’m fine Vander,” Silco says, his glare still harsh even with only one eye.

“You look better than I thought you would,” Benzo says, wondering over to join them. “Vander made it sound like you nearly died.”

“I did. And it will still more than likely take me eventually,” Silco says with a gesture to the bandages covering the damaged infected skin the Pilt-water left him with. “This is just to get me as much time as possible.”

“Right,” Benzo says, clearly uncomfortable with the idea that Silco now has a time bomb in his head. “At least it hasn’t taken you yet. Vander’d be lost without you bossing him around.

Silco gives a small laugh at it, watching the kids as Powder sits on her sister’s shoulders to reach the top part of the tree.

“He’s not the only one who needs me alive for a while yet.”

[space-blue]

More Arcane Pain

Video

It's truly remarkable, seeing the light come out of a reactor's eyes on episode 3, as it sinks on them that they're watching a tragedy, and not some power fantasy video game adaptation with cool visuals.

Video

Arcane is truly a piment cake. You bite into it because it's sooo fucking pretty, next thing you know your body is on fire and you're curled on the floor in a pool of your own tears.

Video

I love how it freaks men as much as women too. It has everything, death of cool characters, violence between friends acting on old trauma, violence between siblings on fresh trauma, kids being kids in totally shit situations... like, it's nice in a terrible way, that there's no romantic violence at all (Vanco shippers will see me after class). The drama here feels so much more inescapable, institutionalized, destroying generation upon generation.

Video

The show makes sweeping societal statements all under the lens of family drama... and I'm still not over how deep the chord it resonates in all of us is.

Video

It's bananas that we've all been calling video game adaptations cursed. I think Arcane proves once and for all that the problem was always soulless studio adaptations. Because LOL is pretty shit base material. I mean if you can fuck up a narrative based game like Assassin's Creed, how can one be hopeful for LOL??? But look, give any world and characters to talented writers with a vision, the OG creators...

Video

... And harvest the tears of your viewers. No one was there to tell them they can't show harrowing child on child violence. Can't show trauma oozing down generations like toxic sludge.

Video

It's so refreshing to see a western animation go deep in adult narratives despite a young cast. I had never really seen anything this gritty outside of anime before, and I'm so so excited for the doors Arcane is busting open for our side of the industry. I hope people are taking notes out there, turning our tears in valuable lessons.

[bughat]

Inbox till open for prompts/requests for little fluff headcanons. I struggle a lot with writing actual fic, but I've actually been having a lot of fun just sharing ideas and concepts.

I can't promise to accept every thing I get, but I'll give it a shot if it inspires. I'm open for

Arcane: Melvikjay, Silco, Vanco, Vander's family (the kids), Timebomb

Naruto: Sakura, Gaara, Lee (also as a throuple)

His Dark Materials TV: Lyra, Pan, Roger, Will, Lee, also open for AU crossover ideas

Hellsing: Integra/Alucard, Walter, Pip, Ceras, Alexander Anderson

One Piece: Strawhats, Corazon and Law, SanNami, SanGin, NamiSanGin

Gravity Falls: Pines family

Castlevania TV: SyphaTrevorAlucard

BNHA: Izuku, Ochako, Tenya as friends or throuple, EraserMight, AllEraserMic, Izuku and Hitoshi

Mushishi