barbaric yawp

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

But what about the "Let's talk about the bitch behind their back like they're not in the room" song, or "singing s*** behing a bitche's back". There's a surprising amount of them.

"Belle" from Beauty and the Beast

"Scrooge" from Muppet Christmas Carol

"Maria" from The Sound of Music

"Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" from Grease

"You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from How The Grinch Stole Christmas

"Jackass In a Can" from Galavant

"Phony King of England" from Robin Hood

"Stepsister's Lament" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella

"Non-Stop" from Hamilton

And, of course, the man, the myth, the legend...

"We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Encanto

"Jack's Obsession" from The Nightmare Before Christmas

Why, hello! Are you interested in throwing yourself down the rabbit hole of lore for Dropout's "Very Important People"? Are you trying to drag a friend into the madness? Welcome! Hopefully this post can help. This all goes a lot deeper than you might expect after a casual viewing of the show, so let's get down to business.

In the past, the Host's stepdaughter, Bianca Jocasta, was something of a cryptid lurking at the edges of the show's lore. As of season 2, however, she has a face, speaking lines, and an implied crucial role in the meta plot. Us rabid Bianca fans -- and there are indeed a non-zero number of us -- simply never lose. Unless we get a week where Bianca doesn't show up. Which happens often.

PART 1: UNDERSTANDING the CANON.

Let's say you've watched the entirety of VIP. You have questions. Maybe you even have theories of your own. Welcome to the club, friend. Bianca generally pops up in only brief mentions -- amidst the chaos of the show it's sometimes hard to piece together exactly what's going on with her. Luckily, I've written it down for us!

Analyzing everything we know about Bianca (as of s2e3) for a review of the basics, plus some surface-level theorizing.

Analyzing the Host's relationship with Bianca (as of s2e3) for a more character-centered approach to figuring out what's going on here.

Revisiting the s2e4 loredrop.

Unpacking the s2e6 loredrop.

And of course, the sacred texts: this gifset by the talented @/avadaniels capturing their first on-screen interaction.

Dissecting the s2e11 loredrop.

welcome back, folks! this is a deceptive one, because on paper it's just two lines on a wikipedia page. here they are now:

the thing is, there's a lot of information compacted into those two lines. let's break 'em down together!

bianca and the host are alums of the same college. this is from the "notable alumni" section wikipedia page for the host's college (uc irvine as per s2e10), and this is definitively our bianca. these two went to school together. this is actually something i've been speculating about since the mid-season break (i talk about why in this post). this is a story, so there is no world in which this is a coincidence and they didn't know each other during their schooling -- this means the two of them go back at least a decade as of the in-world filming of season 2. "tethered" is starting to make more sense, huh? this is a long, long relationship, and it's likely that it started out as something very different than the current stepparent-stepdaughter dynamic. i'd hazard to say it's most likely that the host actually met their husband through bianca.

bianca graduated one year before the host did. i'm taking this to mean that bianca is in the class year before the host, and is roughly a year older than her stepparent. we know the host's birthday is in november, so assuming bianca didn't graduate early we're looking at an age gap of 3-15 months. absolutely beautiful stuff.

bianca's last name is jocasta. this is the big one, which is a wild thing to say after the massive reveal that these two have known each other for 10+ years. but, well -- that's just the point we're at. i've already been operating under the assumption that the 10+ years thing is true, so while it's fantastic to have confirmation i'm not overly shaken up about it. "jocasta", on the other hand? brand-new. unforeseen. unhinged. we can talk about whether this is her dad's previous surname or if she took her mom's after the divorce but i don't think any of that is too relevant to the story being told here. let's chat instead about the name itself, because holy hell is there baggage. in greek myth, jocasta was the mother-turned-incestuous bride of oedipus rex. a queen doomed by fate to marry her son, so on and so forth. absolutely classic, absolutely devastating. in freudian psychoanalysis, a 'jocasta complex' describes the erotic fixation of a mother on her child. oedipus complex but move it slightly to the left. in short: her last name is an incest reference any way you flip it.

bianca's wiki page has been viewed before. we've just "hacked into" the host's accounts, so i think it's safe to assume that the implication here is that the host has been hanging out on bianca's wikipedia page. i'm not going to offer any analysis here because you know exactly what i'm gonna say about That.

conclusion: yeah okay. i'm done playing coy about this. i've been trying to keep my biases regarding these two's backstory in the realm of fanfiction, where speculation on that level belongs, but this all essentially confirms that the show and i are on the same page. there is a romantic/sexual component to the relationship between bianca and the host, it is Weird, and it goes back at minimum ten years.

This time around, I want to focus in on specifically Bianca's relationship with her step-parent, Host!Vic -- the facts, the paradoxes, and even some hints we can pull from Vic (the human comedian's) past work.

So... here's what we know so far!

The Host is borderline obsessed with Bianca. They bring her up incessantly -- most episodes have at least one reference to Bianca, and repeat guests (so far, this means Anna and Jacob) have made comments about this apparent fixation (see: "I don't care about your boy"). One interpretation is that this is a status thing for them. Having a stepdaughter establishes them as someone with power over another person on set even when the cameras cut. This behavior (always "my stepdaughter", or "my stepdaughter, Bianca") also doubles as 'reminding' Bianca of the dynamic between the two of them and reestablishing their control over her.

The Host relies on Bianca. At the end of the Leighanna-Jean episode, when Leighanna is applying lipstick to the Host, we get the following interaction:

This is vulnerable! This is open! The Host is trying so hard and Bianca "will tell them the truth."

3. The Host feels bullied by Bianca and expresses a desire to be rid of her. In Jasper and Casper's interview, the Host talks about their longing to throw Bianca into the sea, like Jasper and Casper's children. In Martha Tops and Lucian Azathoth's episode, the Host seeks a solution to the "bullying" they face from Bianca. "She's so mean to me," they say; they are also ready to sacrifice her until they realize what that might entail ("planes that the mind cannot comfortably conceive" and so on), at which point they respond, "We'll keep her for now," with the implication that they are 'keeping her' as a favor to her father more than anything else.

4. When the Host mentions people they'd (like to?) "sit and talk with" to Jukebox, they specifically mention their mother and Bianca. Their mother seems to be a source of pain and abandonment (see the Zeke episode's "sometimes your mom hates you even when you're not rocks"). So what does this shared context imply about the Host's relationship with Bianca...? Well, I'm not quite sure, actually. But there's something there. To me this line implies that they feel like they should have a closer relationship with Bianca.

5. Bianca genuinely seems "done" with the Host in her brief on-screen appearance. This is valuable to note because of how biased the Host's account of their relationship is; I don't necessarily trust them when they describe Bianca as 'bullying' them, for example, because that would require a power dynamic between them that is opposite of what we see on set.

So there are a lot of gloriously, humanly contradictory notes in here.

As we just discussed, the Host views Bianca as a bully, despite the fact that they have power over her both in the home and the workplace, and despite the fact that Bianca is apparently genial enough to be well-liked by her coworkers.

The Host is fixated in some degree on Bianca -- whether that's personal or just related to her role as stepdaughter. So, is this obsession based on a desire to heal their relationship? According to the Martha Tops and Lucian Azathoth episode, nope.

The Host is like a pathetic wet bird with a broken wing who is constantly making cries for help. This is just true. They're also deeply off-putting and weird -- but still, when I put myself in Bianca's shoes I have trouble imagining why she wouldn't try in some way to "save them". So what gives? How has the Host hurt them -- or was their marriage to her dad enough to create this rift? (This one is a bit of a reach, admittedly, because it relies on Bianca being a normal and good person, but I think about it a lot.)

The Host trusts and relies upon Bianca despite everything else. Indeed, it seems like Bianca is the only person they trust and rely upon.

Where does this leave us? With a lot of questions and a messy, messy relationship. Below the cut I'm going to share something a little different that opens the way to new theories: a sketch written by Vic Michaelis (the human comedian) that has some hauntingly familiar elements.

This is where we get into the groundless speculation and entirely non-canonical realm of "fucked up if true". So, uh, proceed at your own risk? Nothing that follows is real, but I think it's fun!

To begin, some basics about Bianca herself.

Bianca is host!Vic's stepdaughter via their marriage to Bianca's unnamed father.

The Host dislikes Bianca to the point that they are willing to sacrifice her to dark forces, they fantasize about throwing her into the ocean, and so forth (all to Bianca's face, mind you).

Bianca, in turn, is at minimum not receptive to spending time with the Host.

She works as a PA on the fictional VIP set.

She is well-liked on set.

She and the Host are the same age.

She, the Host, her father, and a certain extraterrestrial are all living together.

And, of course, we now know she is played by the wonderful Talia Tabin! Is this relevant to lore theories....? No, not really. But I'm very excited about the recent face reveal :}

To understand Bianca and her relationship with the Host, I think it's worth also talking about her father/the Host's husband. So far, the husband is a somewhat mysterious figure, but a picture of him is emerging.

Continued under the cut is what we know about him, alongside some more surface-level speculation about what this all means.

the whole “they’re making me pay $1000 an episode to be here” thing last episode has me rethinking that theory. but it’s still very possible the network enjoyed the popularity of the show but wanted host!Vic out, and their husband insisted on keeping them there.

all in all I think the marriage has “rich guy who took advantage of a pretty, traumatized younger person in order to have someone on his arm at parties” vibes written all over it. host!Vic is so deeply upset in their marriage to the point they’re not going home at night, and the way they talk about him sounds very much like someone trying to keep up appearances instead of a person in love.

I think it’s possible Bianca is angry at her dad for marrying host!Vic and that anger is in part being directed at them, bc anger is messy and even if she recognizes them as a victim of some sort in this situation, they’re still there, married to their dad.

Let's talk about the Host paying $1000 per episode line, actually, because that threw me for a loop as well. Vic mentioned in this great interview that VIP's real-world "People's Choice Awards" win also occurred in the world of VIP, meaning the show got a boosted budget (which the Host, beloved magpie that they are, squandered largely on trinkets to decorate the set). The Host also.... I mean, frankly, they really don't want to be here (though they did choose this over "an office job"). They're looking to do bigger things. This is, effectively, a stepping stone, a compromise to get to their dream job -- and they're almost there, if we take their word at face value that they might have some traction with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show! And yet... they're paying to be here? It's an odd statement to me.

My interpretation is either it's just another weird contradiction associated with the Host, a known freak, or they're just referencing that their husband is paying for part of the show; they have the vibes of a financially entwined couple (which I mean very derogatorily), so his money would reasonably be theirs by extension. This makes sense to me given the personalities involved. The Host likes to claim ownership over things, people, and money, so why not bring attention to this too?

Which is all to say: yes. My personal headcanon/theory is also that Vic was a (vulnerable in several ways) journalism student/recent graduate picked up by an older man; they then spent some time as basically a trophy wife before being offered the VIP gig, engineered by their husband. They don't find the job compelling, it's not the kind of journalism they were trained for, but they've committed themselves to being damn good at it and now they're trapped, again. This time they're trapped not in a marriage or even a job they don't want, but rather trapped by how well they performed in season 1 (now the show has gained a level of popularity, and they have made themselves significantly less dispensable).

- i think you’re definitely right on the “financial intertwinement” thing. host!vic told leighanna that they weren’t rich. by all means they clearly have money - the house, the jewelry, the glasses, etc - but I don’t think it’s their money.

- this is kinda dark but it’s very possible they married early, perhaps even pre-college, to escape their abusive family. it’s something that happens to a lot of people - a desperation to get away leads to rash decisions, especially if their partner is offering opportunity on top of the relationship. “you can get away from all this, and finally have your dreams on top of it” is a very tempting offer to a traumatized young person who thinks their future is a dead end. if this guy was offering to pay for their college, help fulfill their dreams on top of a way out… you can see how anyone would be tempted, let alone someone so easily manipulated. (and ofc, the same goes for a new college graduate in deep debt)

- it really seems like there’s not much love, if any, in this marriage. it’s very possible host!Vic’s husband knows about the cheating and just doesn’t care.

Eva Stratt the woman that you are <333

50% fine Merino wool + 50% British Longhair cat fur, mostly sport weight, 4.5yds/4.1m, .1oz/3g

step two: contort absolutely all stimuli in my environment to relate to the my wound in some manner, ideally one which justifies random acts of unbridled aggression and vengeance

* (I'm collecting them.

* (Right now, I'm 1,762 parentheses deep.

* There’s some guy who keeps opening them.)

* Right now, they think they’re 1,762 parentheses deep…)