Arcane

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Fandom
Name: Arcane
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: Christian Linke, Alex Yee
Date(s): November 6, 2021 – present
Medium: Animated series
Country of Origin: France, USA
External Links: at Wikipedia
Official Website
Fanart for Arcane in the style of a movie poster, featuring many characters.
Fanart by spidertams
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Arcane (titled onscreen as Arcane: League of Legends) is an animated action-adventure series created by Christian Linke and Alex Yee for Netflix. Arcane is set in the League of Legends fictional universe, and primarily focuses on sisters Vi and Jinx.

Enemy, the song by American pop rock band Imagine Dragons and American rapper JID for Arcane, released on October 28, 2021 and became an online viral hit. It trended on TikTok, thus increasing the series' popularity. This success is largely due to the band's comeback after a long hiatus, as well as the video clip that depicts scenes from the series along with animated versions of the singers within the Arcane/LOL universe.

Canon

Amidst the escalating unrest between the rich, utopian city of Piltover and the seedy, oppressed undercity of Zaun, sisters Vi and Jinx find themselves on opposing sides of a brewing war over clashing convictions and arcane technologies.

Main Characters

Other Characters

Fandom

Connections with League Fandom

The Arcane fandom is largely separate from the League of Legends fandom - most fans do not play League, and it has been commented that many have not read up on League lore [citation needed]. In fact, a common comment made when Arcane had just come out was "I don't even play League", referencing that they were surprised to be so invested in a fandom they hadn't been in previously.

Those that have played League or are aware of the lore sometimes make meta about the foreshadowing in Arcane, or about the similarities and differences in characterizations between the show and the game.

Profile Picture War

On TikTok shortly after Season 2 Arc 2 released the fandom started to split into factions of Jayce defenders and Jayce haters after the divisive character did something that some consider unforgivable. Those that side with him have a green tick over Jayce's face as their profile picture, against him have a red cross, undecided a yellow question mark. This has since spawned other characters pictures being involved, edits to Jayce's face and more. [1]

Wisdom Kaye’s Arcane High Fashion

On the 5th February 2025, Wisdom Kaye, a stylist with a large following, posted a video of himself styling several high fashion pieces as Arcane characters.

Shipping

Gen Relationships

Common Pairings

Rare Pairings

Moresomes

Ship "Wars"

  • CaitVi vs JayVik vs Timebomb - none of the pairings are competing for the exclusive shipping rights to the same character, unlike most ship wars. On Twitter, most of the arguments seem to come from how good of a representation a pairing could be, typically on topics of racism, interracial relationships, ableism, mental health, orientation, politics, sexism etc, resulting in fights regarding which pairing is the best in relation to others. Some fans see this as being the result of purity culture in fandom. With CaitVi, many fans compare real political and historical events/actions to Caitlyn’s arc and see it as reason to fight fans of the ship. With JayVik, the pairing is not canon, and sometimes devalued by shippers of the other two due to this, particularly by younger or newer fans, to whom canonical status seems to be very important for shipping. Twitter grown generalised perceptions of the pairing and fans, such as “all Jayviks/Jayvik are racist” also are part of ship wars. With Timebomb, the pairing was seem by many as erasure of the characters’ bisexuality or queerness, since they’d been shipped with same gender League characters before Arcane’s popularity. The fact that Ekko, a black man, is with Jinx, a white woman is also seen as lacking value by some. This pairing is also devalued because it is straight.
  • MelJay vs JayVik - With its epicentre on Twitter. The ship wars typically come from headcanons or discourse developed within more or less isolated twitter groups, creating echo chambers, which then clash with canon interpretations or common tropes, and vice versa, from the opposite pairing. They may also come from bad faith interpretation of headcanons or even canon. Seemingly more commonly started by some MelJay fans, who have been accused of policing JayVik spaces while not creating fanworks for their pairing, or by anti fans who purposefully search for “problematic” content, and then lash out after feeling uncomfortable. It’s very common to use perceived racism, social injustice, purity culture and anti rhetoric during ship wars as a way to justify arguments, and in many cases, justify harassment and dogpiling. "Proof of sin" and harassment lists are in circulation on Twitter, but they typically contain misleading, false and out of context evidence (it’s common to accuse fan works of being racist, for example, yet real cases of racist or xenophobic harassment tend to be ignored if they are against the fans who created the supposed racist fan work - common anti modus operandi). These ship wars have led to several fans leaving Twitter as a way to protect themselves from doxxing and further persecution, as speaking out against accusers has sometimes led to death threats and constant online harassment. It’s also common for some accusations to be taken at face value, such as racism in the JayVik ship, which has led to skewed perception of fans in fandom - this has been called hypocritical by many and, although part of the Arcane fandom in general, it’s sometimes used as a "MelJay is the superior pairing" justification (such as the statement “JayVik fans are racist” being widely accepted on Twitter mainly due to fan works/headcanons which have been seen as racist, even when called out by JayVik fans, but “CaitVi fans are racist” not being common, even though there are many openly racist posts on Twitter, such as the notorious Mel Funko figure smashing, which was condemned as racist behaviour by the fandom at large).
  • MelJay vs Melora - On Twitter, many MelJay fans, particularly those who see the relationship as intrinsical to her character, see non-Jayce Mel pairings as a way to free Jayce for Viktor, devaluing the pairing and fan works themselves, with some even accusing fans of racism. This has led to some harassment of fans of these pairings, with Elora being commonly used as an example and with MelJay fans gatekeeping who is "allowed" to ship Melora and how, sometimes judging how deserving fans are of shipping the pairing based on their artistic talents. Just as with other anti-shipping behaviour, it’s likely that these MelJay fans aren’t aware of “what makes a pairing tick” if it’s not theirs, and assume how ships would work, leading them to find Elora, a companion to Mel, as an obvious choice for a secondary Mel pairing without intrinsic value, and thus categorise shippers of the pairing as fake, and accusing them of being fujoshi (used as a derogatory term) in hiding. Characters with established queer sexualities or even Word of Gay presence (Lest) are less accused of this, but there is still harassment and gatekeeping questions when fans on these Mel pairings are encountered (such as "When did Mel and Sevika meet?", which is a trick question). It’s not common for Melora fans to “fire back” in these ship wars, as many of these MelJay fans on twitter are known for incentivising harassment and taking statements our of context, besides being in far greater number. Common spark arguments that lead some MelJay fans to start ship wars with Melora fans are:
    • Melora fans not liking straight pairings
    • Melora fans believing Jayce isn’t good enough for Mel
    • Melora fans having other Jayce ships, especially if that ship is with Viktor
    • Melora being a small ship
    • Melora fans finding Jayce and Elora physically similar, or comparing them in other ways
    • Melora fans disliking the “power couple” dynamic in MelJay
    • Melora fans giving more importance to Elora and Mel’s long time friendship, instead of a brief romantic connection with Jayce

Antis in the Arcane Fandom

There is a huge presence of anti fans on Twitter. Twitter's algorithm facilitates toxicity and negativity, causing some fans who interact with anti posts to have their dashboards frequently flooded with the same type of posts. The Three Laws of Fandom are very commonly disregarded, with anti fans calling each other to arms in policing content, calling actions such as "block for your mental health" detrimental to the cleansing of the fandom, stating that blocking will only allow for more problematic content to proliferate. Most instances come from the anti understanding that fictional depictions of tropes and characters in fanworks are as impactful as those in mainstream media, act as propaganda for certain behaviours or that they have the ability to indoctrinate fans into doing things (typically illegal or immoral things) they otherwise would never do. Even so, many antis' actual objective seems tied to the popularity of their pairing, with many openly stating they want fans of other pairings to stop drawing/writing for their ships and instead cater to theirs.

Due to each anti fan having different views of purity and problematic themes, it's frequent to encounter instances of "backstabbing", in which, for example, anti fans who view rape in fan works as wrong and illegal, will feel betrayed by fans who support the same idea, upon discovering that they see rape fantasy in fanworks as permissible. This has led to many instances of call outs and group harassment on Twitter.

There seems to be a tier of permissibility of tropes, with most antis and even fans who do not see themselves as antis agreeing that racism (such as fantasy racism, horror tropes that could be viewed as racist when abnormally applied to a non white character - such as murder or torture -, kink in which submissiveness/humiliation is attributed to the non-white part of the pairing - such as pup play or worshiping - , comparisons between disenfranchised characters and non-disenfranchised characters -even if their disenfranchisement does not occur in the setting of the show or fan work, but would be present if they were real people etc.) and ableism (depicting disabled characters with other disabilities, depicting ill characters as getting better or being cured, depictions of DNR violations of disabled characters etc.) are not permissible in fandom depictions. The agreement to the non-permissibility of these in fanworks has, of course, also led to fans, who don't see themselves as anti, suddenly finding themselves in very toxic anti environments, where disagreement over problematic matters easily leads to bullying.

Some anti behaviour has led to less fan works of given characters being created, such as Mel, as many fans on Twitter have explicitly stated they would stop drawing her, out of fear of being accused of racism and then harassed, or Viktor, since what constitutes ableism is also very murky on Twitter, and depicting Viktor's illness and disability also leads to accusations of romanticising and fetishing his conditions. Some fans have attributed fear of bullying as the reason for much of Mel fanart being portraits, and there being almost no content that explores Mel's darker side or her motivations without making her a woobie or altering canon.

Anti-fujoshi and anti-yaoi sentiments are also common on Twitter and Tiktok parts of the fandom, with many seeing the term Fujoshi as an insult and using it as such. This has led to some confusion amongst fans and factions of fans, such as the administrator of the Mel community on Twitter, eifavoritedango, accusing Jayvik fans of being misogynistic towards Toks Olagundoye, Mel's voice actress, because she'd been made aware Olafundoye, having shown support of the Jayce/Viktor pairing, had been called fujoshi by JayVik fans. Meanwhile, JayVik fans had been using the term for themselves and had meant only that Olafundoye was "one of them", not believing that liking a yaoi pairing was something to be seen as bad or misogynistic. Genderbending has also been seen through an anti-yaoi lens, particularly by CaitVi fans, who have shown great dislike at having their yuri "yaoified", which as also led to accusations of lesbofobia and harassment.

Notably, there are many instances of transphobia in fandom tied to anti-yaoi fans and also TERF fans, such as some CaitVi fans being against depictions of Vi as trans, transmasc or even binding (which is canon), some even considering the term dyke to be a slur when used by queer fans, such as lesbians and gay men, and with Viktor, who is very popularly depicted as trans, (to the point of some fans admitting surprise when they find out he is cis in some fanworks) with the transphobia being tied to self-insertion, either because anti fans believe he's "being transed" for easier self-insertion by cis-women fans (whom many anti fans believe form the majority of yaoi shippers) or because they have yumeships with Viktor, and dislike seeing him as anything else but cis.

Fandom outside of Twitter and Tiktok has a lot less antis and a lot less toxicity. Bluesky, Tumblr, AO3, Reddit, Instagram and Discord channels with very strict non-harassment policies host most of the proship fandom. It's also notable that if Arcane fans don't have interactions with the Twitter and Tiktok parts of fandom, they aren't aware of how toxic it is, what certain canon events and headcanons are considered problematic, and tend to have a rude awakening when trying to interact with these types of fans.

Fanworks

Fanfic

  • Coming Home (But Not to You) by queercatfan, the most kudo'd Arcane and Jayvik fic on AO3, a University professors AU series, to the point of being known as the University professors AU in the fandom, with plenty of fanart and translations into other languages, When Viktor makes the reluctant decision to move back to Piltover after six years to be a professor at The Academy, he's forced to share an office with none other than his former lab partner Jayce Talis, the very man who caused him to leave Piltover in the first place. (2024)
  • I Would Bring You the Stars and the Moon by GutterWitch, the most kudo'd CaitVi fic on AO3, known as the NASA fic, Caitlyn has been assigned as the personal capcom to one of the astronauts currently on a year long expedition at the international space station. Cue long months of pining and desperate longing. (2025)
  • Fathers and Daughters by Blue_Daddys_Girl, a fic about the Silco's relationship with his adopted daughter Jinx, and how he also ended up a father to Vi, part of a Silco/Reader series, Vi is freed after only two months, without explanations. Back to the Lanes, she heads to the Last Drop in search of her sister. She's only got two goals now: to care for Powder and get even with Silco. Things get complicated when she realises she might have to pick and chose. (2024)
  • Hazardous Technology and the Minds Who Make It by ukulele_villian, the most kudo'd main pairing Timebomb fic on AO3, also a Jinx & Vi role-reversal fic, Viktor was instructed to remove any potentially dangerous materials from Jayce Talis’ apartment. He did not expect a child to be one of those things. An alternate universe where Powder was caught in one of the explosions at Jayce's apartment. (2022)
  • Never Knows Best by Calchexxis, a post-canon Lux/Jinx fic, mashing League and Arcane lore, "Killing is a cycle. The cycle only ends when you find the will to walk away." Jinx walked away, presumed dead and vanishing into the myths of Zaun. A year later, on the other side of the continent, Luxanna Crownguard meets a strange and fascinating young woman from the vaunted Mason's Guild of High Silvermere. But storms are on the horizon for Demacia, and unrest boils beneath the surface. (2024)
  • Someone Worth Sharing by fenfyre (Jace), a MelJayVik fic where Viktor is asked to join Jayce and Mel, becoming a thruple, Viktor had known this day would come. Had known it since he noticed the way Mel looked at Jayce. What he had not seen coming though was how this day would end. (2022)
  • my anger comes at my expense, there's always something to be up against by speedynavi, a post-canon MelJay get back together and miscommunication fix-it fic, "A wolf," she says as she opens her eyes again, meeting those of her mother across the desk, "is a very lonely being." At least the wolf her mother made her out to be. The room stays silent. Her thoughts stay loud. The inner turmoil grows from a slow grumble to a loud storm. Even the fiery taste of the liquor does nothing to stop her from feeling. "This is the mother I know best," a smile on her lips that doesn't reach her eyes, nor her heart, "Silent." (2025)

Fanart

Fanvids

Meta

Events

  • Arcane Tarot: An unofficial 78-card Arcane tarot deck || Status : Planning
  • Maddie Week 🍊: 7 days dedicated to maddie nolen | march 16-22 2025
  • Sevinx Week 2025: Sevinx Week 2025 will run between the 7th-13th of April!

Zines

Other

Archives & Fannish Links

Trackers

  • Arcane Fan Projects Tracker: Arcane Fan Projects is an account dedicated to different events and projects made by and for fans of the League of Legends based show, Arcane.

Archives

Communities

References

  1. ^ Tiktok Tiktok Scrolling through various profile pictures
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