#liveblogging with Mel

[mandareeboo]

Jayce has such golden retriever energy tbh. Like yes he wants to do science and business and speeches but after a long day he just wants a pretty girl to stroke his hair and tell him he's a good boy.

[feenixmork]

New year, same blorbos

[acesartemis]

it's driving me nuts that they have rocker popping in being his normal lovable weird self when it was his teammate originally that was killed. like you're telling me rocker just doesn't care? like he wouldn't be trying to hunt down the IDs right along with 20S? like he wouldn't have offered to help Chris and Latasha move Erika's stuff out of the apartment? c'mon. I know he's a side character but give him more depth since he's obviously an important character to the narrative and y'all love mentioning him. thankfully, this somewhat changes in the future from what I've seen

[bubblesandpages]

Love getting to watch the opening because it's just a slide show of all my favorite characters, and I get to do this at the screen every 5 seconds

[4c-aperture]

“the regent will have her own secret entrance.”

“she should have a kind, fat face—clever, to charm her subjects, but pliable, so we can mould her”

“you would give me a throne?” “I would give you the world, child, if you prove you can take it.”

[applebuttercringe]

Episode 5 immediate thoughts

Spoilers ahead!

-Oh hey it's the big guy who used to be on Caitlyns strike team.

-Get em Vi

-Jinx is betting on Vi's fights

-Average lesbian breakup experience

-Did she dye her hair black? Or did she just cry enough eyeliner onto herself that it turned it black?

-THE SISTER REUNION

-Vi is reminded by the shimmer tear that Jinx isn't fully in control of herself.

-Proud of Jinx though for being able to be in Vi presence without a breakdown

-Last time they saw each other Vi was fully ready to kill Jinx. Most brutal fight in the series. Now they can work together? Thats kinda rushed.

-Caitlyn using her detective skills again!

-"Peacekeeping operations" Yeah right Caitlyn.

-Caitlyn is full on racist

-Full on fascist

-The Caitlyn stans are gonna be fighting for their LIVES trying to defend her.

-This is the first time we've seen Mel not collected, or at least put together and considerate.

-ELORA!!!

-Mels brother?

-Mels brother!

-Well Vi got over basically all the Jinx stuff pretty quick.

-I mean this is basically what both of them really wanted, to be a family again, and it was achieved with very little ceremony.

-Did Jinx find out the mushroom aren't toxic by eating them? Does she eat every new thing she finds just to check?

-If Vi thinks this is Jinx lying why would she follow her?

-"BITCHMITTENS"

-Typical sibling behavior

-Vi is a child hitter confirmed. Considering Jinx's lingering trauma from Vi's reaction to the explosion in S1 Ep3, I'de think she would have a worse reaction to Vi hitting Isha.

-Whaarwhick is more savage than any beast in Noxus? Knowing Noxus from league I find that hard to believe.

-Wait, did Silco kill Vi and Jinx's parents? Is that why they split? I need to rewatch this frame by frame.

-Singed holding his daughter

-Singed real name is Dr. Reveck

-If Mel and Kino are surprised Ambessa has a love child, were they her hatechilds?

-Mel herself is a magical maguffin for the cult running a foreign nation. I thought she was just a super cool girlboss.

-Jinx is a jacket sniffer.

-Was Vander in love with their mom? I thought he was their adopted dad, has he been their bio dad the whole time?

-Vi defending Jinx 🥺

-Is that Singed daughter on the record Felicity is playing.

-Oh no young Silco is hot

-Felicity sounds like Jinx when she says "working up the nerve"

-That one tweet was right, Arcane music is horrifically literal.

-I don't care if it's rushed. This scene is straight out of a feel good fix it fic and I love it. Happiness and family for the Zaun sisters!

-Is this Salo after being healed by Viktor?

-Knew it

-Jayce, where ya been buddy?

-Viktor broke Jayce out so he could come see him. I mean it is probably not Viktor, it's the hexcore taking people over, but still.

-And once again the dynamic is reversed

-Just leaving Ekko and Heimerdinger in their huh?

-JAYCE STRAIGHT UP MURDERED HIM! HOLY SHIT! WHAT!?

-I THOUGHT HE WAS JUST GONNA BONK HIM TO KNOCK HIM OUT!

-WTF HAPPENED TO HIM!

Overall: Ok, so this felt rushed. The last 4 acts have been tearing these sisters apart, entirely centering on the traumas and outside forces that keep them from being a family. Then Jinx shows up and it takes one sentence to get Vi back, granted Vander being alive is big news, but Vi thinks Jinx is lying to her. Why wouldn't she be mad at Jinx?

Jayce straight up murderred a guy, I wish we got to see more of how he got to this point.

Caitlyn is still as much of a dictator as she has been all, but she does get consistently worse.

Mel is in a totally different story now.

Things are only looking up for Jinx and Vi.

Even with it being rushed I do like Jinx and Vis story here, I want happiness for them , sue me. But I don't see how they could possibly meaningfully redeem all the other characters in the 4 episodes left. Which means I think Arcane season 2 might not be peak anymore, entertaining? Yes. Interesting? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Peak? Maybe not. I still love it, but the cracks are showing.

[myimaginationplain]

MEL JAYCE & VIK ALL IN ONE ROOM! TALKING FOR ONE LAST TIME!! THIS IS ALL I EVER WANTED AAAAAAHHHH

[partyhatking]

ARCANE S2 EP9 SPOILERS

Mel medarda the woman you are

[stealerofthe2ndbraincell]

ARCANE ACT 3

LIVEBLOG TIME! 🎉🎉

(Once again, more like a reaction then a live blog but sssh)

S2 Ep8: Killing Is A Cycle

Mel in the Ebenezer Scrooge chains again (I know it was Jacob Marley that was in the chains throughout but still) :(

THIS TRANSFORMATION IS SO COOL.

Would be a bit cooler if she wasn't screaming bloody murder throughout but I get it.

They really took some of the excellent bits of her design and decided to really lean into them more for this.

I kind of wish the internet hadn't fucked over the word "empath" cause that made me giggle.

We can't see the sorceress from here but is she meant to resemble the girl from Mel's backstory?

I need to stop pausing to say this immediately before it happens.

Okay so it isn't her, duly noted. I would suck in a fight against this thing.

Did it really say "yeah you're cool but you can still be stabbed, so how powerful are you actually 🙄🙄".

Calamity and Red seem to be associated strongly cause I immediately thought of Breath of the Wild.

I'm living for this backstory.

She must be so cold.

It's all coming back :((

OH SHIT VIKTOR'S IN THE ORB NOW.

God. That's terrifying. Viktor is suddenly extremely terrifying to me.

I'm surprised Ambessa isn't remotely surprised at him mentioning Jayce. He was probably missing for months at this point.

"I will evolve all those willing" so everyone? Everyone in your cult, Viktor? Because they're a literal hivemind so I doubt he'd have much problem.

VI I MISSED YOU.

YOU DID NOT HAVE TO HAVE THAT ISHA FLASHBACK OMG:((

Why does it look like a pokeball? That's so distracting lol

God Maddie is failing across the board, it's embarrassing, girl...

This argument between Cait and Vi was so deserved to be honest.

Maddie is probably hearing all of this...

I never considered Jinx would surrender.

Is Jinx not eating?

Damn what if you just punched me in the gut wow...

Her nails bleeding HURT me so much

"no amount of good deeds can undo OUR crimes" I'm so interested in the "our" from Caitlyn....

Jayce, love ya, but I am not on your side in this argument.

Although, Mel I think calling him and Viktor a "wise investment" in this moment is probably not the move either but still

I was slightly concerned that Jayce's flashbacks (? Would that be the right term for these) would stop once Viktor was "killed". Apparently not.

I'm happy for this turnabout.

I thought in Act 2 he reminded me of S1 Jinx and I'm pushing with that idea now.

Oh nevermind. He almost shot Viktor again.

I know it is very likely one of his followers and not actually Viktor, but damn that robot waist line lmao

Poor Mel probably has very little clue what's going on right now.

I'm distracted by Jayce's design tbh. The black and red colour scheme is sooo nice on his new look.

....

...Well that caught me off guard...

He STILL wants Jayce to be his partner WHAT :'(

"My partner died in this room." OUCH

MEL, MY GIRL!!! 👏👏👏👏

I want to be more enthusiastic for her, but she looks borderline in pain whenever she uses her magic so far :((

WHY ARE YOU PURPLE, JAYCE??

WAIT SO WAS VIKTOR WAITING TO SEE IF JAYCE WOULD JOIN HIM BEFORE STARTING THE EVOLUTION?

After last episode I legitimately, for a second, thought Silco was still alive.

He's not a nice person at all obviously, but in Jinx's hallucination he seems to sound harsher to her?

I did not need to see her spit that out up close.

Wait. It actively fell from her mouth where is it?

O W

I AM SO SCARED, JINX. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE GOING TO "BREAK THE CYCLE"

Is there a reason Mel needs to wear the cloak?

"You will never be a passenger". Listen , I was actually hoping for more from my Jayce and Mel interactions. Both scenes they feel very off-kilter and standoffish of each other. A lot more tense then before (for understandable reasons considering what they both just went through) that I was hoping would start to heal.... but has'nt. However, that line hit.

I am obsessed with the designs of these background characters.

Am I missing something? Who is that playing that random piano??

I feel bad. I don't recognise him.

This entire sequence hurts.

OH. Wait I think I get the inclusion of the piano man. I hope I do otherwise I've just completely forgotten a character lol

[lemonycranberries]

AWWWWW. MEL WITH 6'S OUTFIT

[fix-me-sixteen]

the way ambessa speaks is so grating to me

[mandareeboo]

I don't doubt that Mel could kill Salo. Her mother beheaded women in front of her as a child- I'm sure she's learned how to kill someone. But whether Mel is willing to betray her principles like that is another thing entirely.

Also, pinning it on the undercity could cause further outrage between the classes, setting Ambessa up for her war regardless.

[daisyachain]

I wonder what the thought process was behind introducing Mel into the Jayce-Viktor subplot specifically. The game lore has them as a bread-and-butter flip of the superhero/supervillain dynamic where the supervillain is noble and the superhero is a jerk. Also hewing to the superhero/supervillain tropes, they’re close friends before they have an explosive blowup that turns them into devoted rivals. Classic, well-trodden, tropey set of mutually obsessed characters who read like X and Magneto (films) or Spider-Man and Green Goblin (Raimi films) or Wolverine and Sabretooth or Obi-Wan and Anakin or any one of approximately five billion matched sets.

While the superhero/supervillain sets have one more prominent character (the hero), Jayce and Viktor are designed to be equal parts of it in a trite well-neither-one-is-actually-good storyline. They’re specifically created to be equal and opposite. Mel is inserted right into the subplot of both of that duo. More on that later.

Now, Jinx and Vi are also a matched set of stories. From game lore, Vi is tied to Caitlyn’s lore. Arguably Sevika, Isha, Vander, Silco are inserted between them in much the same way. From just the basic source material, Viktor technically has Blitzcrank as his other major lore connection. Plus it’s League. Treating the source material with reverence…probs not a good idea for writing a narrative. Arcane has to sand down the really rough-sketched archetypes into something resembling a proper story.

The web of connections between the Zaun and Piltover characters does get fleshed out. Jayce gets connected to Caitlyn as her mentor-figure and (much more loosely) Vi as a bash bro. Viktor gets Sky as an OC story partner. Mel should be just another node in the spreading network that Arcane builds between the existing lore points.

What stands out is that she doesn’t have clear ties to the existing lore Jayce lab—as a new MC/Champion, it does make some sense to have her be her own central node rather than an accessory. She spends most of her time with new characters or with Jayce. In s1, mostly Jayce, in s2, mostly herself. Her alliance with Caitlyn starts up pretty abruptly at the 11th hour. Mel feels disconnected from the cast in a way that can highlight her as a sort of third party third way political leader, but also one that puts a lot of pressure on her relationship with Jayce to express and carry her character

The cracks become clearer when you refer to her mom. Ambessa’s in the same spot as a new champion, her only proper connection is to her OC daughter, and she integrates much more seamlessly into the show for better or for worse. Mel’s relationships with her spy, her assistant, Heimerdinger even Viktor show off Mel’s professional side, which tells us precious little about her under that surface. Jayce and Ambessa are the ones around which she reveals a little more. Ambessa, on the other hand, lives out loud and has a pretty emotionally intense connection with daughter (domineering mom), her henchman (possibly more…?), and Caitlyn (substitute evil daughter). Singed and Viktor are also in her posse, but we won’t count them as their dynamics with her aren’t illuminating.

Mel is a pivotal character in Arcane, more plot-critical than the nominal main (Vi) with far more screentime than the fan favourite (Ekko), and one of the few mains who doesn’t do a stint as a villain (alongside Vi and Jayce). Her role in the plot is to push Jayce’s research to the point where his magic becomes practicable (s1), then to take responsibility for her mother’s misdeeds (s2). She and Jayce arguably form the Big Good alliance to Ambessa and Viktor’s Big Bad; while not the emotional core of the show, those four get the last word in on the plot while the Vi-Jinx subplot gets foundered upon the rocks of ‘i forgor.’ (The character stuff for Vi and Jinx remains strong; they just cease to have any impact on the things that happen in the story). Mel is also The Mage; more than the hextech, she embodies the discovery that the show is supposed to be about.

So: Mel is the one true mage character in a series called Arcane and the one main character that Arcane needed to set up within its own runtime. The only connection she is given to the remaining world is via a relationship with Jayce, a character locked in binary orbit around one (1) single other character in the source material. It does make sense to have Mel introduced meddling in magic, pushing forward the research that will ultimately clue her into her own powers.

It does feel awkward to have her interactions be with a character who textually canonically is always thinking about something else. Mel is the one who gives Jayce the ideas that escape him—the mettle to reach beyond his caution, the sway and savvy to enter politics—because they’re living in two completely different worlds. The substance of their connection isn’t bonding over any shared interest in the process of discovery (Mel clearly holds her own as an arcanist as we see from her diagrams in the mind prison, but it’s not on screen) or in games of words/meanings/people (THE key character trait for Jayce is him being the most tone deaf man in the world). They are interested in magic, but the substance of their interactions is them each saying things at each other without communicating. The most intense moments in their relationship are mediated, triggered, or broken by Viktor of all people [trombone noises]. Who Mel doesn’t know from Adam.

In other words, Mel doesn’t have many characters to bounce off of to show different parts of her personality. The intent was to have her come off as cold in public with a soft side for Jayce, but we see so much of her soft side that she comes off as a straightforward nice rich girl coming out of her shell. To my memory, she doesn’t spend any time having much proper dialogue with Caitlyn (the nice rich girl gone cold to her cold rich girl gone nice), Viktor (literally always there), or even Silco (a fellow icy diplomat with a soft spot). While Jayce is around, she’s his girlfriend, which doesn’t work because Jayce is permanently, unilaterally, and plot-endingly tied to a different character to the exclusion of all else, carried from og lore into the tv show.

When Jayce isn’t around, her interactions with her spy do something to give her back her personality of a ruthlessly efficient operator. However, she gets locked in Character Development prison for half of s2 and fights her way out by…force of personality. Her magic use isn’t tied to the empathy that’s supposedly the source, and we don’t see her analyze it or take it to bits as fellow scientist Viktor does. As someone else pointed out, she loses the cunning part of her that makes her Mel and becomes just a white mage for the entire last quarter until she pulls her Black Rose double cross. Which is cool.

All that is to say in a very disjointed way: Mel has a lot riding on her, but it doesn’t come together. Jayce takes up a lot of her screentime for a relationship ultimately written to end, and not just to end, but to be preceded consumed and eclipsed by Jayce’s existing lore. She’s isolated by a cast of OCs without making the logical connections to the other main characters, and she doesn’t even have a distinct relationship written for a man she’s spent years with in the trenches (Viktor). She lacks a showy personality in a series full of characters designed to be as over-the-top hammy as possible, she lacks stakes in the pre-existing characters’ fight, and her ultimate power-up does not tap into her most distinct traits (thinking outside the box). She does get one crowning moment, but I was waiting a very long time for her to get out of them chains.

[acesartemis]

I know a male channeling is ~big Bad~ but mat you're infected by a dagger and dying without it and perrin you have yellow eyes and are telepathic with wolves and you're both like oh rand we can't be near you ??? like DUDES lmao

[anachronistic-falsehood]

MEL MY WIFEEE MY WIFE MEL….. OH SHE LOOKS DISHEVELED AND PANICKED. HELL YES. THE HORRORS

[genderqueerpond]

"Do we bow? Do we... curtsy?"

"Definitely." The Doctor nodded furiously.

The Doctor and Mel bowed in unison, then, they curtsied, just to be sure.