#mel meta

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[ithinkimnormal]

Sorry but It's actually so annoying how much people downplay the crucial role piltover's corrupt council games played in derailing jayce/viktor's work and pretty much putting shackles around their lives. The council is directly responsible for and directly FUNDING so much of the misery that happens in this show, before the story has even started. Before Powder ever finds the gemstone. They single-handedly doom half of the region to death.

Just during the show: Jayce wanted to create magic to aid and uplift the common people, the council wanted trade route instant teleportators to make themselves richer.

Jayce & Viktor wanted to work on technology to help miners and steelworkers and artisans who are trying to survive in the industrial hellscape of piltover and zaun; the council wants it shelved for another 20 years. (yes, heimer is part of the corrupt council - no matter how much his image is laundered by the fandom.)

They are inept and self-serving leaders, elected by themselves and their blood inheritances, utterly obsessed with ultimate profit. You can really see how parasitic their relationship is to the people at the beggining of act 1. Jayce is a token nameless life, so disposable to them that they were going to burn down all of his research and throw out all of his titles, making him not just a lower-house vassal but an EXILE, and the only reason why that doesn't happen is because they realize how much money they can suck out of his work.

This applies to Viktor too. See the way that Heimerdinger tells him over and over again that no other paths can be taken, he has 'fulfilled his purpose' and he should be content to die. See how Mel looks at Viktor like a bug she wants to squash under her palm when he rejects the idea of making weapons for council. See how they speak over him and only address Jayce, as if he's worth less than nothing.

You are only as valuable as the profit you're willing to create. You are a problem that has to be dealt with as soon as you refuse their orders. They have the power to ruin your life, and if they find an excuse, they will. This is a direct threat pointed at Jayce & Viktor during ACT2, when Jayce is pressured into becoming one of them to protect 'the bottom line profit' and, personally speaking, to avoid that ire being redirected towards Viktor. He's pushed into compliance and told a target has been painted on his back.

Arcane jayvik are doomed in big part not for wanting to do harm, but being forced to exist under the beck and call of billionaire leeches. They are both immigrants. They are both struggling to get a degree and keep themselves afloat and they want to help people so goddamn much but they have to keep postponing their dreams to serve uncaring masters. I really wish there was more fan content focused on these very real bonds of understanding and solidarity between them.

When Viktor says 'Jayce will understand' that's not a fluke; he's lived in this environment for years. He knows Jayce is being pushed down the same way that he is and that deep down they've been kept captive by the exact same people. When Jayce agrees that Viktor should do whatever he needs to do to keep himself alive, he means that from the heart.

[thomas-jefferson-miku-binder]

hey, remember when Viktor was arguing with Jayce while trying to disarm Jinx's explosive device, and he got riled up with Jayce's ignorance regarding his and the undercity's conditions and messes up, causing the bomb's countdown to start and– and Viktor hesitates for a moment. it's incredibly subtle, it didn't even come to me on my first watches, but he... does. he takes his time cutting the wire, which I can't tell if it's meant to be read as caution or- something else, because after it he turns to Jayce, affirming "there is always a choice", implying he just made one

[mollysunder]

Some Ambessa concept art from the Arcane DVD commentary.

Also, 10/10 things to say to your kid Ambessa. We need to applaud Arcane for making sure that the audiences know fathers AND mothers will do their best to leave as much psychic damage to their children before their time's up.

[machineheraldbabe]

arcane, populism, and why viktor is the odd one out (yet again)

as a piltover-anti, a silco criticizer, and a pacifist, i am very very interested in how arcane presents not just the political undertones of both topside and the undercity, but the characters/dialogue through which they communicate those undertones. allow me to use some political science bro lingo to air out some thoughts.

long, long post incoming.

there are 2 ideological struggles at war throughout s1 (and i can predict that the struggle will carry over into s2): neoliberalism and populism - in their broadest terms since we're talking ofc about a fictional show dealing with surface level political machinations. by neoliberalism, i mean a focus on the social, political, and cultural structures of a polity (piltover, for our purposes) refocused into a strictly economic vacuum. and by populism i mean a unifying belief that the existing political systems of a polity fail to adequately represent their constituents, so the masses choose to rally around a specific gripe or issue, i.e., class discrimination, xenophobia toward immigrants, etc. this, in turn, forms a populist party or movement. an applicable example i can think of would be Nasser's Egypt in the 1950s.

*i know these are weighty topics with very real world implications! i just want to separate the theory to apply to our favorite fictional world.

the political struggle in question is put forward immediately by piltover, who, though presented as a technocratic state, embodies crucial neoliberal ideals emphasized especially by up-and-coming counilor mel medarda, much like how fresh-eyed american economists blew up the economic scene in the 1980s with a revival of capitalist, free market enterprise. take how she seizes the advent of hextech, for example:

she quickly sees hextech's potential yet not from the solely intellectual standpoint that jayce and viktor do - for her, it is profitable, literally and in terms of international relations. her goal is for piltover to prosper, but she has no rose-colored glasses on; prosperity means capital gain, and she's willing to override piltover's political and social systems to achieve her goal. an important caveat is that she draws the line at ambessa medarda's progression into militant authoritarianism, which deserves a whole post of its own!

piltover's populism moment will come later. first, let's unpack silco, who is probably arcane's most blatantly political figure, and a masterclass in the merits and failures of left wing, class-based populism.

silco, having been spurned by the classism and xenophobia that piltover's elite proliferate, and assisted by his rampant shimmer operation, fills the vacuum that vander's pacifism opened up. though silco's methods are unilaterally cruel (argue with the wall), the undercity clearly invested faith in him at some point, especially as vander's credibility as a guiding figure wavered over the years. he was fighting alongside vander for zaun's right to exist as their own independent body. in other words, he was uniting the undercity toward a common cause because the existing political system failed their constituents. to quote councilor shoola: "they may not be our preferred constituents, but they're still our people."

the track record of populism in our real world frequently ends in the ruin that silco himself brought upon the undercity. the kingpin is too dedicated to self-preservation, sees himself as too central to the movement, which prevents both compromise and/or a necessary armed revolt (insert your own politics about self-determination here). see italy's right wing populism party, Lega Nord, as a real-time example of this phenomenon.

but arcane makes an interesting plot decision with jayce, a very unexpected and "unwilling" contributor to piltover's abrupt dip into right wing populism. the showrunners love foils!

in arcane lore, i think it's safe to say that jayce's moniker "the man of progress" is pretty tongue-in-cheek. both he and viktor have a bemused tone about it in the run-up to his speech, and jayce is taken aback by heimerdinger's insistence that he deliver said speech. but the glowing, savior-esque imagery can't be ignored, nor can jayce's quick switch into his councilor role, no matter how reluctantly he makes it.

jayce is confronted by 2 forces that he seeks to combat in his quick tenure as councilor: internal corruption and an ineffective governing body. the latter goal is inspired almost solely by viktor, playing into jayce's naivety as a fresh-faced political figure, but this will be especially important to note later on. the innocence he offers up to mel is quickly erased, transformed instead into an uncomfortable - and inexperienced - militancy:

important in the bridge scene to my analysis is the populist "out group," or the designation populists give to those whom they actively oppose, and this opposition serves as their basis for organization. in this case, it's the undercity (keep this in mind for viktor's role!!).

jayce's combined frustrations at the unrest in the undercity and the council's (namely heimerdinger's) refusal to act, to both save viktor and to deal with the undercity's looming violence, motivates him to act like silco for a short time. unsatisfied with the status quo, he unites a likeminded individual, vi, along with the enforcers, to undercut the political system he feels is unable to represent its constituents or act in an effective manner. however, UNLIKE silco, jayce's realizes the inevitable cost the method of violence has and refrains in the end. he returns to the council and capitulates to some of silco's demands in the name of a peace piltover and zaun always thought impossible.

jinx's complete undoing of this underscores the failures of populism, especially as an extended movement over time. she wasn't accounted for. it's common sentiment at this point that she didn't attack the council for political gain. she was not invested in zaun's independence. she did it out of her and silco's twisted parental bond, and thus undid piltover's brief instance of compromise and compassion.

so...where does viktor fit into all this? and what are his implications for neoliberalism vs. populism in season 2?

viktor is neither wholly within nor wholly outside the populist outgroup - though jayce unintentionally shoves him back there in the pivotal bridge scene. furthermore, viktor also makes use of piltover's technocracy. he seems to have had a "raise yourself up by your bootstraps" history in arcane, contrary to left wing populist insistence that neoliberal ideals make this impossible.

this compounds as a double alienation for viktor, who also is straddled with the complications of his disability. a lot of his story is searching for a fellow in arms, if you ask me, and he had that with jayce until the pendulum swung, hence his return to singed.

if we stop there, viktor represents the failing of these 2 very flawed political ideologies. he fits nowhere and arcane uses him adeptly as a symbol of the failings of binaristic ideologues and systems. but let's speculate some more!

i'm convinced that viktor, due to his ambiguous 3rd party role in the story so far, will be one of the central villains (if not THE villain, if you allow me to be admittedly hopeful/biased) in season 2. consult the innumerable very well written theory/meta posts about the subject for more details, but one piece of evidence i want to focus on is this inherent physical, cultural, and ideological separateness that is innate to his character.

can we see him allying ever again with piltover, knowing that there's a split incoming? even without outside knowledge of league lore, singed's damning prediction ("if you take this path, they will despise you") cannot go unheeded. alternatively, then, can we see viktor allying with the supposed jinx-as-revolutionary side? no. personally, i see him as becoming increasingly unwillingly to compromise his a) immediate survival; and b) his ideals, especially after being endlessly sidelined in his attempts to express them in acts 2 and 3. he's also just a loner, guys.

there's some controversy on this point, but i'm convinced that the finger-printed cultists/followers we saw in the s2 trailer are devoted to viktor. starting with the shimmer addict he touched in the teaser, he is accruing a following all his own. and since noxus is here, touting their authoritarian militancy to replace piltover's outdated liberal ideals, nothing that jinx's revolution OR viktor's following does can be apolitical. to organize and to fight is survival under s2's raised stakes.

there aren't any binary spectrums when it comes to political theory in my opinion, so i am prepared to witness viktor introduce an entirely separate totalitarian narrative into arcane. where it will surely lack in militancy, it will make up for in its domination of the arcane. my biggest speculation is that, as they always do, piltover will fold and compromise at the last minute, perhaps yield to noxus, and invest wholeheartedly in taking down viktor's BBEG cultist regime. and by isolating his narrative repeatedly in s1, the writers planned this out expertly.

even if i'm wrong about viktor as third party, i like to think my observations still stand about the specific and qualifiable political divisions between piltover and zaun. the biggest hole this leaves for me is the question: will arcane ever take a stand? they seem very averse to making a blatant political statement, but i think their pervasive anti-police thread makes it clear that we're not meant to sympathize with piltover yuppies or their seasoned, jaded councilmen. let me know your thoughts!

also, as a jayce fan and a fan of arcane's overall story, none of this is meant as a CRITIQUE of him, mel, or silco. as silco said, "we all have our parts to play." i believe arcane's very greatest strength is their archetypal storytelling, and these distinct character roles are crucial to the success and vibrancy of the story.

if you read all the way to this point - ily <3

[blood-starved-beast]

Thinking about what Melinoe's birth must've meant for Zagreus and how upsetting for it to have been for Chronos to show up and muck it all up. All throughout Hades 1, Zagreus had subjected himself to both verbal and physical abuse so that he can bring back his birth mother. Having to own up to his own mistakes and put the affairs of others in order and resolving family drama and conflict. Putting in a lot of work so that in the end, that he and his family are in a better place than before, with that intent from the start or not that was the result. So that in the end, his parents decide that they're willing to try again with another kid, in an environment that is much better than what he had, no doubt due to Zagreus's own efforts. Mel may not be his kid, but that sense of accomplishment must be there you know? For her birth.

Only for all of that to be ripped away the moment Chronos of all people, the one factor no one (other than like, Hera lmao. And the Fates too I guess) could have foresaw. Then when he undoubtedly wakes up he's gonna find that his kid sister grew up a child soldier with her own problems and her own relationships and he and the rest of the family have no part of. Man, for the God of Relationship counseling Blood himself that's gonna be brutal to swallow. Like bad medicine or something. I no doubt believe he's gonna try to play it off ok to not give the impression it's Mel's fault or something but if I were in his place I'd be very very mad at Chronos. Like the House decorations are secondary all that emotional labor lost for that. I hope that's touched upon in H2.

[space-blue]

This is DEFINITELY the destroyed throne room of Mel's childhood.

But it really doesn't match Mel's design, or that of the dead princess. There's also no flower in the OG scene, and no obvious cracks in the wall. I'm inclined to think it's a new character and located there either before or after.

Either way it's nice to see that Noxian business will get screentime, and while it could be tied to Ambessa, I'm carefully hopeful for Mel.

[kinardsevan]

Wait. I have an addendum.

So I can understand why they pulled the henren scene now. Because as much as we’re losing our collective shit over it, those two concepts can kinda compete. We have them presenting as the protective siblings, questioning Tommy’s intentions, if he has pure motives, etc.

BUT THEN. We get Bobby later on in the same shift, telling Buck that he knows Tommy is “good people” and that he’s good for him. (This also makes the context of “how do you know” make more sense when we understand that they’re moving slowly. So in a version of their relationship where they’re having sleepovers but not sex, I can see where he’d be like “wait we’re not even boning yet, how do you know it’s good for me?”). Thus, you have a conflict of interest.

AND THE FACT THAT THEY DECIDED TO GO WITH THE ONE THAT DIGNIFIES IT AS A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP.

Idk man. Just like. What a fucking love story they’re telling us. And to still give us the deleted scene after, so we can see what we missed, but not contextually have it detract from the core of the story. Logistically, this means (to me at least), that someone saw the conflicting information in both scenes and decided to go with the version that spoke to the importance of the relationship in Buck’s life. Because at their core, both scenes serve the same purpose: his loved ones deciding on if they approve. We were given the one that told us unabashedly that they do.

[melmedarda]

Mel and Caitlyn foilism here we come 🤪🤪🤪 When season 2 becomes about Caitlyn becoming the wolf just as Ambessa wanted for Mel. When Ambessa manipulates Caitlyn's anger and grief to make her into a woman after her own image. When goodness is no where to be found and now Caitlyn is no longer "weak". Not like Mel was.

When Mel is again on the outside, not just of her mother's favor, but of the city she cares so much for. When her mother takes her city and turns it against her... Turns the people she cares for against her. And when she is ostracized again, an exile in her city for having a heart of compassion, a heart for peace when it seems everyone wants war. When her mother makes her city a battle ground... What then? What then.

[dandelionjack]

it seems the folks over on gallifreybase are miles ahead of us. look at the quote they posted! i was getting a bit skeptical about the tv show theory because some people on here disillusioned me, but this has reaffirmed my faith in it

it’s your life, Doctor. it’s telling the story of your life.

lights, camera, action. go figure!

[teleportationmagic]

The main reason why I want Mel Medarda to live is because she is my fave, and because I love her.

The secondary reason why I want Mel to live is because the Undercity - and with it, Piltover - blowing up is first and foremost, her fault.

Our introduction with Mel starts by Elora telling us that she's the wealthiest person in Piltover, and we can see the influence of that - through her political and social power. While there are a variety of seats on the Council, it's made very clear that Mel holds more cards here. It's her who we see making moves to get people on her side, it's her who does notable alliance and coalition building, and it's her who the other council leaders follow. We see a few notable votes throughout the show - to pull Jayce into the council, to eject Heimdinger from it, and to vote for Zaun's independence, and in each of those votes Mel's either the one to prompt it, or Jayce is and the rest of the council members follow after she votes. When we speak of the council as a political entity, you have to speak of Mel Medarda. It's through convincing her that Jayce can ultimately bring the council on his side.

And so, the council failing Zaun is her failure. The council ignoring Zaun is her ignorance. The council allowing for the oppression of this people is her allowing for the oppression of these people. Not through malice, but simply because nobody is moved to make things better - because the status quo has enriched her, and the council, and Piltover, and why make changes if it's getting you what you want? The only other person who has something close to her power is Jayce, and he's largely coming into politics as a newcomer. She actually has the ability to do something, and she hasn't. Especially across the years bridging the time skip - it's clear that it's her who fashioned Jayce into being the kind of celebrity that he's becomes, and it's very likely that her political capital would've risen with his technology. And yet, she's done nothing.

Ambessa herself makes that point - that she's let the problem of the Undercity fester for too long. And to Mel's credit, she does look. Once the Undercity starts eating Piltover, she starts, finally, giving concessions. Once it rises to a moral point that she does understand, that balancing act between peace and violence, she finally makes the right choice. Only, its far too late, because she confused peace for goodness, for okayness, when really all that meant was that the violence was away from her eyes. She should have to confront that failure head on - that for all her diplomacy, she missed the place where she actually could have done the most good, because she was too busy lining her own pockets. For all her dread at becoming her mother, in many ways she already embodies her, just draped in gold.

She should have to confront that, the enormity of it. She should have to try to make it right.

[specialagentartemis]

I like digging into the worldbuilding implications of settings where some people have surnames and some people don’t (or at least don’t seem to). And Piltover and Zaun (as portrayed in Arcane at least) present one of the classic applications of it.

We see only a limited number of people who are given surnames—Caitlyn Kiramman, Jayce Talis, Mel Medarda. Cecil Heimerdinger. Probably Sheriff Grayson and several of the councilmembers. And then the characters that don’t—Vi, Powder, Ekko, Viktor, Silco, Vander, Sevika. A pattern emerges.

Especially as early on it’s made clear that Jayce belongs to House Talis, a family of skilled toolmakers and craftspeople, it seems like surnames mean you belong to a House, a lineage, an established and recognized family organization of hereditary power, position, or trades. You have something worth inheriting, something worth keeping in the family, something recognized. Belonging to a House may not necessarily mean you’re somebody important, but it means you’re somebody.

And it seems to be mostly a Piltovan thing. (Though not all residents of Piltover seem to belong to a House—Sherriff Marcus is never given a surname—but all the characters with surnames do seem to be from Piltover.) in Zaun, Vi and Jinx hardly have anything respectable to inherit. Viktor has no family members with social clout to call on, Ekko has no recognized lineage to trace. They don’t have surnames. They don’t need them.

In situations with a city like Zaun with lots of people with no surnames, though, you tend to need to clarify who you are and who you’re talking about anyway, and you frequently see matro/patronymic names become established—X son of Y, A daughter of Z. It’s not really a last name and doesn’t function like one, it’s more like a clarifier. Or a claim to who you are. (The image of Vi introducing herself as Violet Vandersdaughter gave me an attack of emotions. Okay, continue.) In the boiling-over tension between Zaun and Piltover, I can especially imagine it being a point of spiteful pride for Zaunites. Who your parents are, where you came from. Yeah, I’m Ekko Innasson, and you can’t make me be anything else.

(Jinx is no longer Powder Vandersdaughter, though. She’s just Jinx. Everyone knows who she is. She doesn’t need anything else.)

Which makes the apparent surname Grayson, for a woman who is Piltover’s Sheriff, interesting this context. It suggests to me that Sheriff Grayson is from a new House, that House Grayson was elevated and established only a generation or two ago. A matro/patronym became an inherited surname. And Sheriff Marcus is desperately trying to handle this shit to try to prove himself and to get his family established and elevated into a House as well for his daughter to be part of this class.

[mellorine-dreams]

The extreme contrast of personalities and familial roles between Shiro and Satan when they share the same appearance is so fascinatingly handled in Blue Exorcist. It makes the dynamics between Shiro, Satan, Yuri, and the twins so incredibly insane.

Like from Shiro’s perspective he saw Yuri, the woman who loved him and who he loved back but was too proud to admit, fall in love with Satan in the body of another Azazel clone, give birth to Rin and Yukio, and pass on. Then he had to raise the twins as his own, and he probably wondered if kids between him and Yuri would have looked like the twins. Which probably made him wonder every day about what a life with Yuri and the twins could have been like.

And then there’s the twins, Rin and Yukio. Shiro filled the role of being their father figure, so they closely associate him with that parental role, but Shiro ends up killed by their biological father Satan. Which is already crazy enough, and that already traumatizes them. But then they have to go on and fight Satan, who is possessing another Azazel clone and looks like Shiro as a result. Which must remind them of their father figure, Shiro.

Seems like a lot of psychological and emotional torment for Shiro, Rin, and Yukio.

[thomas-jefferson-miku-binder]

I hate Mel Medarda discourse because she’s an insanely well-written character with a lot of depth, but people almost always have only two things to say about her: 1) evil girlboss or 2) never did anything wrong. both make me want to krill myself 🦐

In front of you, there’s a female character born of war who rejects the physical brutality of her family’s name and the regime she was born under. except said violence never really goes away because if it ever does leave, nothing else would remain

This character can and will reproduce the hatred she has always known, just in more palpable ways, ways where she’s allowed to look away — or even better, ways where she’s so distanced from the action itself that where she “looks” doesn’t even matter

It’s also so interesting to think that maybe Mel doesn’t dislike physical violence because it’s “bad” but simply because she does not excel at it The thought that if Mel was maybe stronger or a more skilled fighter, she would be just like her mother tickles my brain. yaaaas Although, to me, that's a more "what-if" scenario than the actual characterization Arcane deceipts

By the way, I do not think Mel is a monster. She clearly does try to be what she considers a "good" person, but the violence she’s always known sometimes escapes (just like in the Viktor scene above — she does not like to be disagreed with).

Sooo insane that she’s a diplomat/politician because yes. what other job in the world would allow her to exercise that repressed violence while also giving her the sense of duty—of goodness.

Mel is stuck at the scene of the execution form her childhood. All she does is repeat the same scenario in her head with different outcomes: sometimes one where she saves the prisoner, another where she doesn’t hesitate (that being the keyword here) to kill her

This reverberation of the violence she suffered is just her manner of coping with that traumatic scene. a way of lessening the pain without actually confronting its cause.

I feel like I need to clarify that no, I do not think Mel is “evil”. I don’t even think she is intentionally manipulative (most of the time), I think she handles people the only way she knows how to, which is probably one of the only reasons she survived Noxus at all (as, to how I see it, there's only a certain extent your House will guarantee your protection in Noxus).

I know the fandom talks a lot about Viktor and Jayce being idealistic, but I rarely see people mention how Mel is just as romantic. Jesus- that’s literally a huge source of conflict with her mother: Ambessa thinks Mel is naive, which to her means weakness, which to her is unacceptable.

I hate that Mel Medarda is forced to be subjected to fandom spaces, because, no, she is not a small bean. no, she’s not an evil girlboss.

Do I believe she is a good person? I think she tries to be (even if her notion of goodness is so heavily aligned with honor, too), and that tells me a lot more about her character than how successful she is at it

[mollysunder]

Mel has a once in a lifetime opportunity to pull of the most cutthroat move next season and sell out her mom to Swain. Your mom casts you out because you endangered her operation, what better way to show her you learned a lesson by doing the same thing to your mom.

It'd be a solid A+ parallel to Jinx and Silco's story in the finale. Except where Silco stood by his child and was accidentally killed by her, he's set to posthumously achieve his life's mission through Jinx. Now we have Ambessa, who banished Mel and is later betrayed in turn, once and for all destroying the last of the Medarda legacy that Ambessa desperately tried to protect.

Bonus points if Mel's actually pregnant next season!!! XD

[borgialucrezia]

do you ever think about the fact that in the show juan picked the woman that most closely resembled lucrezia (aka his own sister) to be his bride??!!? because sometimes I remember and i'm like MY GOD WHAT AN INSANE LITTLE DETAIL!! even cesare did not do *that*-- then again, ces was fully aware of his feelings for lucrezia being more than what a brother should feel for his sister, whereas juan was not. but his subconscious? definitely aware!! truly fucking wild. I love it.

delicious food like he wasn't even subtle was he? and this is us ignoring how he became a jealous sobbing mess upon seeing lucrezia kissing paolo lol. now let's delve into juan's wife's portrait. we know how maria historically looked or at least her features in case her portraits weren't too accurate. however in the show maria heavily resembles holliday's lucrezia like...the curly blond hair, full lips, big eyes, or chubby cheeks? this is definitely not a mistake especially considering how everything about this show leans heavily on subtext and metaphors!!

he's not even trying to hide it this point cause look at her...too uncanny like alright then juan!!

and bro was so extra especially when he asked for her permission to marry maria? there are layers to this like i appreciate how he's trying to make her smile but…

like why is he asking HER for permission to get married? insane!!!! stuff!!! no one ever did it like this family!!!! (i mean… do we even need to talk about how she purposely walked in on him fucking some girl instead he was excited to see his sister and pretended like everything was normal as if nothing weird or inappropriate was going on lol?)

speaking of cesare, i lowkey parallel this with when he became obsessed with ursula bonadeo, seduced her, and took advantage of her since he saw her as a surrogate for lucrezia, projecting his sister onto ursula. both juan and cesare are genuinely so unhinged when it comes to lucrezia like inject all this into my veins asap!!

amazing. showstopping. breathtaking. talented. brilliant. superb. never done before etc