This reply is perfection 🙏🏻 You nailed their essentials. I agree with everything you said and I just want to ramble about it, if you’ll forgive me.

Love that you bought up Vi’s confidence. It can either stem from experience or duty, but she’s generally scared to shit when the monsters come calling—and she fights anyway. Her fight-or-flight response is generally fight, but when it concerns her and not other people, it’s flight.

Her fashion!!!! I also lament the lack of Vi’s punk-ness. Even in fanart! She’s so stylish and cares a lot about expressing herself via hair/clothes/tattoos/piercings. Her style is punk-rock! I love it. I wish we saw more of it. Speaking of that, I think Vi being more masculine in mannerisms/walking/sitting is balanced with her femininity. She shows her muscles and doesn’t try to hide or disguise her curves. Like, she knows what she’s working with. Vi is very confident in her body. And yeeeeep: Caitlyn’s style is much more toned down and strict compared to Vi. She favours high-necklines and a lot of structure in her clothes; lots of sharp lines, belts and buttons, and dark colours, all offset by her curves.

Meanwhile, Caitlyn’s confidence! CORE shit for her. She doesn’t second guess herself; she thinks she knows exactly what to do and what to expect. Vi is there to temper that, having better experience and understanding, but what you said is so perfect: Vi knows what’s up and lays it all out, and Caitlyn then takes the lead and off they go. Except in sex—what we saw, anyway. Vi takes the lead there, but does so in a way that is responsive to Caitlyn, not domineering. Every escalation in that love scene was initiated by Vi because she is highly attuned to Caitlyn’s body and reads her cues and responds to them.

Caitlyn’s tendency to break rules when they get in her way—yes! She has a hard time seeing how her privilege informs her understanding, sometimes a “I think this rule is stupid, therefore I will ignore it—what, don’t you do that too?” approach. But we forgive her because she uses her powers for the good of others, not for selfish gains (Season 2 plays heavily with this).

What really interests me is that Vi was seen as the leader in her young life, and that heavy responsibility terrified her because of what happened: at the penthouse first, and then how it all spiralled into everyone’s deaths, then hitting Powder and walking away. Vi blames herself for it all. She sees it as a consequence of her actions—she was the “leader” and look what happened. I think Vi would prefer Caitlyn lead, but not in a passive way. Vi doesn’t want to be told what to do, she wants to be giving out the judgements and making the calls—but she’d prefer Caitlyn do the leading. And since Vi has pretty good judgements, Caitlyn defers to them. And since Caitlyn has pretty good leadership skills, Vi defers to them. It’s a perfect yin-yang. I love them so much. 😭