No hay banda! There is no band! Il n'est pas de orquestra! This is all... a tape-recording. No hay banda! And yet we hear a band. If we want to hear a clarinette... listen. Un trombon "Ć coulisse". Un trombon "con sordina". Sient le son du trombon in sourdine. Hear le son... and mute it... drop it. It's all recorded. No hay banda! It's all a tape. Il n'est pas de orquestra. It is... an illusion!
actually I think you should be normal about ordinary citizens of authoritarian countries and yes that applies even to that country you're thinking of right now
Coming to the idea of Vianca from the perspective of a mostly surface level viewer who's only seen VIP in sporadic bursts (and is still just getting over all the Lisa Gilroy episodes reflecting a level of disturbance in Host!Vic) can you drop like. Vianca 101 for dummies? who and how are these people related (literally or not)
tldr; the host is a gay nonbinary anti-union washed up reporter with a freakishly gorgeous face and every mental illness. lacking all other prospects, they've taken a job as a daytime talk show host in a nightmare dimension. bianca jocasta is their (ex) stepdaughter / keeper / coworker / boss / subordinate / (ex?) best friend / hated adversary / family / tether. they're, like... in love, maybe? it's a fucking mess.
i am taking this ask as an excuse to lay out a high-level retrospective vianca timeline covering lore reveals and fan theorizing/shipping. for better or worse, i've been with this stupid ship from the beginning, and i do so love documenting fandom history.
let's dive in, starting with season one:
DECEMBER 15, 2023: enter player 1
dropout begins airing an experimental new improv comedy show: "Very Important People" (vip)
hosting the show is comedian and dropout personality vic michaelis, who is playing the character of (host) vic michaelis. they are deep in character, with a backstory partially inspired by surface-level details of their own life.
the "host" character is a bad and weird person: they are an abusive boss who thinks they are too good for this job, and while they are desperate for friendship and validation, they prove too much of a husk for anyone to stick around long.
this is an interesting soup. welcome to the Soup.
JANUARY 12, 2024: enter player 2
episode 3 of vip airs, entitled "Vic's Ex Step-Grandmother"
we learn more details about the host's family life and childhood. it starts to make more sense why they are Like This.
we also learn about an offscreen character who seems very important (ha) to the host: bianca.
what we know about bianca: 1) she is the host's stepdaughter via their husband and lives with them, 2) she is working on set as a pa, and 3) the host has an odd obsession with her, continually bringing her up and speaking to her as she stands offstage.
the host kind of wants bianca dead. they also desperately want her attention. perhaps weirdest of all, they seem to actually trust her?
MAY 3, 2024: original vianca nuke hits
the "Martha Tops and Lucian Azathoth" episode airs, containing both a lore reveal and a plot development related to bianca.
the lore reveal: bianca and the host are "the same age". this fact completely reframes bianca and her relationship with the host, not to mention the host's relationship with their husband (bianca's father).
the plot development: a curse is placed on the host that "[their] life will crumble until they mend the bond with their stepdaughter". the host references feeling a wing grow out of their back accompanying the curse (hence the winged host headcanons widespread in the fandom, popularized by brilliant artist @owleanders)
JUNE - NOVEMBER 2024: first hiatus
bianca is still a faceless character during this period, and the fandom is uncertain how to pick up the pieces of shattered headcanons left behind by the recent loredrop.
the closest thing to public vianca content in this period was this lovely graphic, though i must assume it was not intended in a shipping context.
NOVEMBER 7, 2024: season 2 starts airing
oops! the host character's personality got worse somehow.
they still really don't want to be working this job -- the trapped animal energy is palpable.
DECEMBER 5, 2024: bianca face reveal
in a brief cutaway, we learn that bianca has been cast with an actual actor this season: the spectacular talia tabin. this shifts her from an offscreen improv tool to an actual character with agency (albeit limited by how removed she is from the interviews).
now with a face to attach to the name, there is an explosion of fanworks related to bianca -- as much as a small handful of people getting really excited can be classified as an 'explosion'.
behold beautiful art
a theory post speculating on the possibility of the host and bianca having a fraught friendship which predated the host's marriage circulates, generating interest in the host-bianca relationship.
a multichapter fanfiction tagged host!vic/bianca is published in full, having mostly been written over the season hiatus, laying out a potential past for the characters which explores their dynamic.
bianca fever is taking over -- again, as much as something can 'take over' such a small fan space.
DECEMBER 2024 - JANUARY 2025: continuing bianca appearances
on-screen, bianca continues to receive spotlight on the show.
in s2e4, she is cursed "to throw up in a place that is funny" through the host's actions (again, artist @/owleanders is responsible for the now-widespread headcanon of bianca's black ichor curse). we learn that bianca drives the host home from work, and that she's been promoted to producer over the season break.
in s2e6, we learn that not only is bianca's father cheating on the host, but he has been on a business trip for over six months (leaving bianca and the host living together during that time). for the first time, bianca has spoken lines.
the host continually insists on referring to bianca as "their stepdaughter", coming off as highly possessive and paternalistic. meanwhile, bianca herself watches and oversees the interviews with apparent apathy. even when things turn dangerous on the stage, she simply observes.
during this period, the ship name "vianca" is coined and fan creation continues; in general, fans of the pairing keep their interest pretty publicly quiet even as ao3 publishing intensities.
MARCH 27, 2025: second vianca nuke hits
the second vianca nuke was really earth-shattering and horrible and it's also really kind of inconsequential. like they just dropped it in like it was nothing. look at it:
behold. our sacred screenshot #ourscreenshot
so basically this is a portion of the vip universe's wikipedia article on UCI notable alumni. it tells us: 1) the host and bianca attended the same college at the same time, 2) bianca is 'notable' by wikipedia's standards, and 3) bianca's last name is jocasta, as in oedipus's mom. can anyone hear me. as in oedipus's mom. hello.
unlike the first vianca nuke, this one just kind of... confirmed all the unhinged fan speculation? like uhhh -- you gotta understand, i had just posted the last chapter of a vianca longfic where they had met in college the day before this loredrop. one day before. you can't make this shit up.
APRIL - JUNE 2025: fandom growth and tiktok popularity
i don't know much about this one
i just know there was a lot of tiktocking
i don't like tiktok it scares me sorry
BUT i'm glad it was able to introduce more people to the ship, and the vip fan space in general! yay.
i would say this is the timespan when vianca stopped feeling like a rarepair. we also started posting more about the ship on tumblr, a contrast from the previous discord- and ao3-based discussion places.
JUNE - DECEMBER 2025: second hiatus
in the season finale, the host is heading into a divorce with bianca's father -- and they dramatically quit the show.
there's momentum going now, yeah? there's a fan space than includes, like... maybe more people than you can count on both hands? woah.
for better or for worse, at this stage vianca has kind of cannibalized the vip fandom on tumblr. because it's an awesome ship. (my sincere apologies to all the good people who are sick of it but in my defense uhh. yeah . just checked and it's still awesome)
DECEMBER 4, 2025: season 3 starts airing
we learn that the host has been away working in hungary during the season break (after quitting the show), and that their divorce from bianca's father is going rough.
the host has been told that they need to get therapy as a prerequisite for their return to the show. they are making this everyone's problem.
DECEMBER 2025 - JUNE 2026: the loathsome biancapause
no on-screen bianca appearances for ten million years. famine and ruin. the people miss their princess.
during this time, the host continues to be weird about bianca, including displaying an uncomfortable interest in her sex life (s3e2).
we learn that bianca has been promoted yet again -- she is now 'head of news', which seems to just mean she is in charge of everyone and everything. #goodforher #whereisshe
the biancapause ends when we see a single cutaway to her in the penultimate episode of the season. she says nothing and is not mentioned in the dialogue. but she's very beautiful and we love her a lot.
JULY 2, 2026: the THIRD vianca nuke hits
every season includes a bonus content episode, and sometimes there will be bianca mentions in the bonus content episode: hopes were high, but tempered by the misery of the biancapause.
the thumbnail of the episode is the host and bianca hugging tightly. this is the first time they have ever even touched on-screen.
sheer vianca armageddon. they said on camera that they loved each other and all that. i'm not gonna recap it here you just gotta go watch it. they gave the fans everything they thought we wanted. or something.
JULY 2026 - ???: yet another hiatus
bianca's future as a character is unclear, but the fourth season of the show is likely already in post-production.
really the only thing to be done now is to join in on the fun of fan creation! my bianca masterpost is a bit outdated, but it contains some useful links to fandom tags on tumblr and ao3 alike to get you started. enjoy!
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
