meepi morpicus jibius

I think the second big appeal is they are functionally equals that contain a lot of complimentary tropes. And some are more one sided — cocky rogue with the sheltered heiress, cheeky subordinate + details boss — while others they play either part. They’re both the tortured hero opposite the kindhearted damsel, they both have a fall from grace to hit different but equally devastating rock bottoms to save the other from, they both had childhoods missing something the other one has, freedom in adulthood they weren’t afforded in youth, fish out of water, being shown a new world, being the first person to recognize the other, they break up with the other one, save the other one’s life, etc. They’re the rich + poor from two different worlds romance story we’ve been telling for millennia, of course we can write them like that in a million familiar ways.

TBH, they’re much closer to what makes a typical m/m ship popular, which I’ve noticed is a supported theory by a hilarious number of times I’ve peeked a fic author’s history to see all m/m until Caitvi. I myself used to be a yaoi girly lol and I can see Caitvi echoing the m/m ships I had in like ninth grade on fanfiction.net lmao (1x2 iykyk)

And then you combine this smorgasbord of complimentary tropes with the fact that a lot of their conflict is circumstantial. The circumstances can demand they be enemies, so you can believably write them as enemies, or you can take external conflict away and they’re just as instantly believable as childhood friends. They argue and bicker about the how but they agree about the what, and push come to shove they work together so you can throw anything at them.

It’s like a big old basket of ingredients and you can pick and choose and make whatever type of dish you crave. And as long as you write them with complimentary traits they work to fit, which makes them excellent dolls to play with. You can take almost any story and put either one in either role. You want to do a comedy? They’re a pre-built buddy cop team where either one can be the stubborn impulsive idiot who says fuck the rules when it comes to problem solving. Want to do a romance where one coaxes the other into accepting love? Caitlyn’s too work focused OR Vi’s never had a chance to live for herself. You want to do whump? Cait’s delightful to torment emotionally, while Vi can get thrown in the pear wriggler. Even background swap - rich Vi + poor Cait - can still work and be fun to explore how their personalities would handle it.

The other thing too is, besides the playful banter from LoR bits, we mostly only know them by their flaws in times of high stress. We have NO idea what their happy moments look like, which makes it really easy to not get wrong lol.

Now this part is meant just observationally and non-judgemental at all, because I think AU fanfic shouldn’t be held to any standard beyond being a creative sandbox, and I fully cop that many people have said the same about my writing, but I find (still being completely true to themselves) to be a little YMMV, as imo one of the reasons lot of the fan works are so diverse is because personal experience/biases are interpreting the characters in hugely different ways. There’s a lot of fics that don’t interpret the girls anywhere close to how I do lol, to the point that feels to me they may as well be original characters; but the characters that are written are still complimentary in terms of traits. And I think people still enjoy those because it’s the complimentary energy Caitvi offers that they’re after in reading fic, plus a space to explore situations/gender/lifestyle etc. , not so much ‘analytical process of would she fucking say that’.

(I think a lot of people want to get seduced by a confident Vi and rewrite Cait as a relatable proxy which, understandable fantasy, but not what I’m personally going to fics for)

I don’t think OOC is necessarily bad. For an example, Rumours Vi is OOC. I know she’s OOC, I could never imagine Arcane Vi to be Like That lmaoooo. But I wanted to have fun lampshading fuckboy behaviour and Arcane Vi does have a cocky posturing habit, so I just RAMPED that shit up in order to have fun with it. And her being Like That was the goal to lead her into evolving into a more recognizable echo of Arcane + League Vi, and I think that fun and recognizable evolution is why the fic got so big (despite the fact Vi’s obnoxiously ooc lmao). I made Caitlyn a quieter version of herself to be complimentary, but I kept her impulsivity and stubbornness. Going into Players, they’re both being written with their League personalities in mind so now I get to pick different flaws to ramp up for my own tastes and amusements.

But getting away from myself, that’s more or less why I think Caitvi works for a lot of people. They’re a super fun dynamic and complex characters made up of very familiar stories we’ve grown up, which makes them ripe to pick and choose traits to isolate to play with, or throw them into different plot mazes and see what paths they work out.