TIMEBOMB Again

started thinking on how silco and sevika would be able to recognize mel’s political tactics and now i’m here

women, am I right

WIP of two love birds that I think you guys will LOVE

hand study as an excuse to draw mel

Cutie patootie

Sharing arcane headcanon/analysis tweets that spark joy to me :> (part 17)

babe i hear the ice cream truck

This post implores you to give some grace to Mel Medarda by considering what it's like to grow up in a household where achievement and success are valued above all else, and where virtues like kindness and generosity are trivialized at best and outright discouraged at worst. If you grow up in that kind of environment, even when you're grown and you've done work to unlearn the worst of it—even when you've gone low or no contact—there is still something viscerally frightening about slipping below that parent or caregiver's expectations.

For example, when Elora points out that Mel is the richest person in Piltover and she immediately responds with "but I'm the poorest Medarda," that's not coming from a place of greed or arrogance, but one of fear that she'll never measure up. I'm not saying she's perfect, or that other characters didn't have it way harder, but it's important to remember that every time she chooses kindness or diplomacy or compromise over force, she's going against a lifetime of conditioning—exposing herself to the threat of failure, which couldn't have been be easy.

You don't have to love her, but please give that woman a break. I am begging you.

nobody’s life is getting guarded when miss medarda is out and about

I think the Arcane fanbase as a whole is very quick to clock Mel's manipulative tactics & condemn them without ever asking themselves why it is she acts that way. They either go 'problematic girlboss go queen' or 'what a horrible conniving bitch!' and move on, and it's been bugging me for a while.

Mel is the daughter of a Noxian Warmonger, raised in a 'might makes right' sort of environment that encourages violence as the means to settle conflict. The strong are always the winners, the losers must die. What made Mel such an outcast is primarily her resistance to such violence. Mel, at her very core, doesn't want to hurt people. We see this when she insists to her mother in that flashback to her childhood that they should spare that girl to "show the people that we are merciful," as she puts it.

To Mel, manipulation is the only way to avoid violence. Being too directly honest, not appealing to people, can be dangerous. It can lead to bloodshed. And if you look at things through her perspective in that sense, it's kind of obvious why she's constantly utilizing her cunning to get her way- because the only other way would actively put lives in danger. Mel's conniving nature is quite literally a coping mechanism that's followed her to Piltover, fortunately for her that makes her a very formidable politician.