Oh how I’ve missed the Arcane fandom. This community never really went away thanks to an active stream of fics, art, and theories in the three years since the first season aired, but now the fandom is back and more active than ever.
Every single social media timeline I still bother to frequent is filled with discussions about the first act, art depicting their favourites all dressed up in new outfits, alongside thoughtful criticism and theories about what’s to come. Most of all though, this fandom is an incredibly thirsty bunch of fruity horndogs waiting to be let out of their pen. To my shame, I’m right there with them. Lock me up before I escape and start barking at Caitlyn.
Arcane Has A Drink For Every Kind Of Thirst
The champions that headline Arcane have been a part of the League of Legends universe for over a decade, but the way in which Fortiche and Netflix reimagined them is exactly why they have stuck so firmly in the memory. Vi was once a brawler designed for the male gaze, while Arcane transforms the Piltover pitfighter into a shorter, more butch woman with clear queer coding smattered across her design. Her facial features, body language, and tone of voice are completely different and fiercely representative of the world she was raised in.
She is also incredibly hot, with a lesbian friend of mine telling me recently that their dating life is in ruins because no matter how much she vibes with someone, they will never be Vi. Imagine creating a character so drop-dead gorgeous that you bring an entire sexuality to its knees. Absolute icon behaviour.
When I spoke with some of the show’s creative team ahead of act one’s release, we talked the intentions behind Vi’s design, particularly how Arcane has transformed her into a more masculine character, but one that still values her womanhood: “Vi was not a violent person in the beginning, she was a very sweet girl,” co-director Pascal Charrue explains. “When we go back to the first [character] design on the bridge at the start of season one she was very kind and loving, just like Powder, but then she saw her parents die. And during this moment, she changed.”
Vi and Caitlyn being the signature romance of Arcane and also a femme/butch lesbian couple never fails to make me kick my legs like a schoolgirl. They’re so perfect.
This acknowledgement from Fortiche has been celebrated across the fandom, with a butch lesbian at the forefront of one of the biggest animated shows in the world being a form of representation queer people have been waiting for. It’s only made fans more attracted to Vi and everything she stands for, and how she’s become a symbol of both aggression and vulnerability.
Then you have Caitlyn, a more feminine sapphic character who towers over Vi in both stature and authority, equally appealing in appearance and personality while still managing to be flawed, complicated, and a perfect foil to Vi’s own disposition.
Its Romances Go From Tragic Yuri To Toxic Yaoi
Then there is Jayce and Viktor, whose interactions in the first act have me convinced that the writing team on Arcane has been reading fanfiction. Instead of saving the realm from coming destruction, Jayce decides to use the Hexcore to save his dying partner, even if this means it will see him transformed into a magical messiah corrupted by the arcane.
When Viktor is up and walking around again, there are several touches between the two men that tease a bond that is more than platonic. I was exchanging glances with a friend who quickly had to Google whether they were a canon romance or not, because they certainly gave off a very fruity vibe.
A fan even predicted the opening scene of Arcane season two years ago in their own comic dedicated to Jayce and Viktor. I told you it was fruity.
Animation in Arcane is so intricately detailed and deliberate that fans like me are bound to be reading into every minute detail, right down to eye movements and body language that tell us more about characters than dialogue ever could. Let’s look at the kiss scene between Vi and Caitlyn, and how it was initiated. Caitlyn makes the first move, making it clear she has the most authority and Vi often waits for her personal space to be entered. Then, after glancing from Vi’s eyes down to her lips, she pulls her into a long and passionate kiss. Yes, I may have watched it back several times…
But it’s this detail, and how it brings characters to life so intimately, that has given fans drive to create their own art, write their own stories, and to do so in a lewd yet creative manner. It is a story and a cast of characters thrust into the unfair circumstances of adulthood, so you expect this to be accompanied by feelings of romance and lust, canon or otherwise. I have seen GIFs of Caitlyn just walking around that queer fans treat like the Mona Lisa, or closer examination of Vi’s manspreading and how that reinforces precisely what makes her butch presentation so alluring.
This Thirst Isn’t Exploitative, Its Celebratory
Fortiche seems to be right there along with us too, with how many characters are depicted in thirsty and attractive ways that seem purposeful. Vi moves with a beautiful aura of confidence that cements her queer identity at every turn, while Caitlyn is a fierce, authoritative, yet also vulnerable leader who is desperate for the touch of another woman to make her feel like she’s worth something.
The first season hints at these depictions, but so far the second season takes them so much further and, in some ways, feels like a response to everything we loved and wanted to see more of from Arcane. Previously, I thought it impossible that Vi and Caitlyn’s romance would be made so explicit, and now Netflix is using it as a marketing pillar. It’s well aware that its characters look incredible, and there is appeal in not just the stories that are being told, but how the characters within them look, behave, and interact.
I’ll always be blown away by the speed at which artists create new pieces mere hours after trailers and episodes are released. I wish I was that talented…
Jayce and Viktor aren’t canon, and likely never will be, but there is more than enough fuel for us to draw our own conclusions and tell new stories outside of that. Arcane fans are a thirsty bunch, to the point of sometimes being overwhelming, but it only takes a few seconds to learn that these reactions are coming from a place of love, understanding, and feeling seen for the people we are. Vi and Caitlyn are also just really, really, really, pretty.