arcgayne

Latest Posts by arcgayne

Everyone is happy AU 💖

Something is different 🍂

“I look forward to hearing what you have to say in another four months.”

(read left -> right) it's here!! the chapter 5 comic is done (for now, i might want to come back and do proper lines and colors at some point). i just couldn't choose one part of the Big Moment to illustrate so i did.......all of it (ᵕ・ᴗ・)

scene from differential burdens in displacement

bisexuality demons were kicking his ass

A continuation of that comic where Jayce thinks Viktor loves Heimdinger.

she is but a cute little alt girl that can casually build a time machine uvu💙

I could only see a better me in your eyes

we finish this together

blasian cait i doodled last weekend

+ a vi to match her cait

Those who live in glass houses something something

MA MEILLEURE ENNEMIE x

grown man pouts unconsciously

has this been done before

It feels have red and blue… is it the blanket？:O

----

HIS LITTLE SMILE FOR HER

MA MEILLEURE ENNEMIE x

uhm so... screw it better?

MEL MEDARDA in ARCANE 1x04 Happy Progress Day!

Day 70 cleansing the #caitvi tl

Before vi start teaching cait to jump over buildings, needs to test her balance ha ha ha

I think it's kinda interesting how Mel doesn't really fit into the disposable black girlfriend trope and yet a lot of fandom still treats her like she does.

The poor writing with Mel puts her in the independent black woman stereotype (even though she was very much not independent) more than the disposable black girlfriend trope. It doesn't take Jayce loving Mel to have some sort of epiphany about Viktor. It takes him literally having to eat raw lizards with a shattered leg in the depths of a cave, and the epiphany he has isn't even a positive one. He doesn't have to be "freed" from Mel or dispose of her to be with Viktor—they were torn apart by circumstance and he had a moral obligation to be with Viktor.

Basically what I'm saying is that if you need to discredit and disrespect a character in order to make your ship work you need to do some self reflecting.

But I've participated in ship wars and I'd rather just talk about the whole "independent black woman thing" because it has to do with her as an individual, rather than as a part of a pair or an obstacle.

"Mel is a queen" she's not. She's stunning and an amazing character but she very much is not. Mel is so dependent on other people. She needed the council to work in her favour in order to achieve her personal goals. She needed Jayce and Elora to be vulnerable with. It makes Ambessa's treatment towards her all the more hurtful; she needed her mother, and her mother's approval, and was punished for it. I don't think we actually take the time to comprehend how devastating it would be to be, what, 19-20 years old and be exiled because you were too soft for your mother, only to be told years later that it was actually because your she loved you and she didn't want to (if my mother told me she kicked me out because I weakened her I'd probably instantaneously die of a broken heart). Obviously it was more complex than that, but Mel is the child in this situation; she is not going to see it through Ambessa's eyes nor would she want to.

Mel likely got really good at feigning independence but I doubt that, with the way she grew up and the service she would've been able to afford in Piltover, she even knew how to cook. I'm sure she depended on other people not only for the major aspects of her life but also just to keep her basic needs in order. And she's not strong either; because she was raised in Noxus she can likely fight with knives and swords, but it's not like she was this phenomenal mage when she got her powers.

I hope the Noxus show doesn't pretend that she's some strong and independent person, because that's not what Mel has ever been. She's smart and savvy and shrewd but not independent. I love her so much but I'd rather see a real portrayal of her—probably struggling not only with her magic but with trying to stand up on her own—than the fake solo act it's easy to pretend that she is.

i just think about him a lot

more "Viktor stays in Zaun" AU, i need to figure out the story that goes with this, i'm winging it

Ximena being great at all types of cooking.

And we thank her for that

In all timelines, in all possibilities.

As much as I love the cold open in 2x9 where Ekko repeatedly saves Jinx from blowing herself up (one of my favorite scenes of the show), Ekko's sudden and impeccably timed appearance feels....a bit contrived. But it occurred to me that there's a possible really cool in-universe explanation for it that I haven't seen anyone suggest yet; namely that Jinx's Hexgem bomb effectively summoned Ekko back from the alternate universe.

Recall in 2x5, in the scene where Jayce returns from his AU. His re-materialization in the main universe is immediately preceded by Salo manipulating a Hexgem "battery" (for lack of a better term) that we see has started to deteriorate

Salo pulls the battery out, starts to carry it away, and then the Anomaly appears and Jayce re-materializes.

I don't think the timing is a coincidence. I think Salo's physical manipulation of this deteriorating Hextech device triggered the Anomaly and Jayce's reappearance at that particular moment.

This is consistent with the first appearance of the Anomaly in 2x3 which appears to be triggered when Heimerdinger touches the deteriorated part of the floor in the same room.

Now, Jayce was at the Hexgate tower when Viktor essentially opened a portal for him back to the main universe with the Anomaly. But what if the other side of that poral (the one in the main universe) didn't open until someone (Salo, accidentally) triggered it or "unlocked" it in roughly the "same" location. In other words, Jayce went from the Hexgate tower in the AU back to roughly the same location in the MU, but the timing of his return was contingent on Salo accidentally triggering the Anomaly at that particular moment.

With me so far?

Ok, so what if something similar happened to Ekko? What if, like Salo with Jayce, Jinx unintentionally "unlocked" Ekko's portal back to the MU with her manipulation of a Hextech device?

Jayce's portal back was at the Hexgate, but Ekko's portal back was in Powder's lab in the AU, which means his point of return would be in the "same" location in the MU, Jinx's lab. Similar to Jayce, the point in time of Ekko's return was contingent on the release of energy of the exploding Hexgem in Jinx's grenade (or perhaps simply her handling of it before exploding it) which inadvertently opened the other end of the portal Ekko had created and was using in the AU.

Meaning that from Ekko's perspective, this

was immediately followed by this

Which would explain how and why he was there at *exactly* the right moment to save Jinx.

So the very thing Jinx was trying to use to kill herself actually ended up helping save her.

the first rule of making a mel medarda au is realizing that her core values of diplomacy and searching for peaceful solutions (however complicated or compromised they end up practice) will never change. the second rule is realizing she’s a social chameleon and absolutely WILL adapt to represent the flawless peak of whatever culture or situation she’s in to gain power. the third rule is that she will attempt to reconcile the first and second condition, and therein lies the central conflict of her character.

with arcane’s focus on visual elements, something that’s been nagging on me lately is mel medarda’s final design and why it compounds the tragedy of her story:

firstly, when we see mel in her flashback, she’s already wearing her significant white/gold, but tempered with blue—noticeably missing her mother’s greys and reds, even then, showing her idealogical differences

then in piltover, we see mel as her own self-actualization—all white and gold and black, colors connected to power, and with an elegant cut that still places her slightly apart from piltover fashion. it shows her place as a non-combatant (long skirt) and someone privileged (the pure white) and wealthy (the gold. so much gold.). this is mel medarda at the pinnacle she’s worked so hard to achieve—it’s elegant because she is elegant

which of course becomes subverted when we do see the gold accessories taken away and the white dirtied when she’s kidnapped by the black rose—this is the first and only time we see mel in actual disarray, and it shows how vulnerable she is when she’s outside the political sphere

and after her transformation, we have this costume change, where aside from the increased gold (now representing magical ability instead of just wealth), we have mel in a a skin-tight catsuit style getup, allowing for greater movement, and her hair done in micro-braids in a style that won’t affect her center of gravity. at first, when i was watching, i was confused (especially about the hair), but then i realized—

this isn’t mel dressing herself to reflect a change, this is leblanc’s vision of mel, where power is swiftness and she is markedly different than others in a way that is now impossible to ignore

and she tries to return to her previous sense of self with the white hood, going back to a trademark of her style, but notably this is an outfit worn to conceal, not reveal and show off like her previous iconic dress, and her change is visibly with even just the hood off

and when mel accepts black rose’s help and betrays them and her mother dies, the white hood disappears—try as she might, she cannot go back to who she was, and she stands before noxians as a mage and mother-killer and a wolf, something dangerous

and then, when we see mel leaving piltover, she’s wearing nothing of her original self, but a combination of black rose’s getup and her mother’s colors. there is almost nothing of “mel” in this outfit, as if she’s been subsumed by these two identities—noxian and mage

even her makeup has shifted, with the red line under her eyes and the gold in her lower lip directly copying her mother

this isn’t a mel who’s realized herself in a new identity. this is a mel who, when faced with the enormous loss of her brother, mother, lover and former identity, has fallen into the definitions and roles that were presented to her, and who is now primed to continue the cycles started by her predecessors

and moving on from arcane, i think it would be fascinating to see mel in one of the newer shows to see how she grapples with this and if she either falls back into tradition and dooms herself, or if she’s able to break free and reforge her identity on her own terms

Read them hashtags folks! Vik is probably reading High Hawk Season and Jayce..well, not so lucky.