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Entry tags:
app: karteria
Name: Kal
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact: PM is best
Other characters: N/A
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Name: Mel Medarda
Canon: Arcane
Age: Wiki says 33-34?
Gender: Female
Species: Human/Mage
Appearance: Councilor Medarda and Mage Mel and magic. And the outfit she is wearing on arrival (which is very Star Wars-chic)
Canon point: Season 2, Episode 8, before finding Jayce in the council room
History: Here and here. Please note - I haven't read the Ambessa book yet which apparently has some of Mel's childhood but I'm going off of what we see in the show Arcane.
CRAU details: N/A
Personality answers:
Inventory: Mel will arrive with the clothes on her back, the white cloak she wears at her canon point, and her Medarda ring. None of these have any special magical properties, they don't unlock any powers, etc. The ring is purely for sentimental value but it IS gold.
Powers/Abilities: We don't know overmuch about Mel's powers in Arcane-verse. I'm not taking her toolkit from League of Legends because... 1) I don't play League and 2) Arcane has kind of subverted League canon so I don't want to say something and then have it be debunked later. So let's talk about what is SAID about Mel's powers in canon and what we're shown.
Mel is told the following about her powers: she is an "empath", which is apparently rare; she is "attuned to the ethereal" and "able to sense others' inner selves and bend their magic; she is a "conduit and a mirror".
Ambessa's book (which I haven't read yet but I got to scrape some spoilers) reveal that Mel's father is a Solari mage, meaning he has light-based magic capabilities. I mention this just to draw attention to Mel's powers having light-based visuals: her body is covered in golden markings, all of her magic is white or gold in color, or some kind of translucent white-light color.
What we are actually shown about Mel's powers:
Samples: With Emet-Selch (TDM) & Hubert (TDM); bonus of Jayce for canon-specific introspection. All of these have minor spoilers for Arcane, mostly in Jayce's thread
Goals: Mel is coming from a very difficult time in her canon. She has lost almost everyone in her life: her assistant, her brother, her power as a council member, the safety of her city, her sense of self... The list goes on. She's been kidnapped prior to the game, left somewhere without food or water, experienced The Horrors... She's coming back from nothing and has only the most vague sense of who she is because her life is a lie. She is a bastard child with a mage, she IS a mage and has been hidden all of her life, and is wrestling with the understanding that her mother likely sees her creation as a step in creating a weapon. It's such a demoralizing place to be in.
With all that said, I am wanting to use the game to explore who she is outside of canon and without her mother and her councilor status. I have been turning over and over whether she should be Aves (for manipulation, vocal things, magic, etc.) or Carnivora (fox-wolf) because of the latter's symbolism for the Medarda family, with Mel as the 'fox' but Ambessa wanting her to be the 'wolf'. I would just love her to find herself, explore her magic - and Natural Soul - and really work to wrestle with the Natural Soul inclinations that push and pull her self towards and away from people. I may end up changing her Natural Soul eventually as her own transformation but for now, that's a back burner goal.
In addition, Mel's held so much quasi-privilege and it's come back to bite her that I want to explore this. For instance, she comes from a warrior culture but values diplomacy, and then she's given magic and might. She is the richest person in Piltover but the "poorest Medarda" with her worth tied up in her name and wanting to appease her mother; her ambition to be more and to prove her value has her perpetuating the cycle of wealth and power for the detriment of others that Piltover values. By the end of S1, she's one of the only voices calling for peace and for compassion to be given to Zaun, but this is after she's encouraged the creation of Hextech weapons for protection (which she is later rebuked for by her mother and Viktor; Ambessa tells her once you make weapons, you can't go back, and Viktor feels weapons goes too far). Her ambition and her manipulation of the council and Jayce for the good of Piltover's success (and her own) brings her into a collision course with her own morals and values. So while she has so many regrets about her actions in S1 at the start of S2, she doesn't get to voice them or work on them because - OOPS, kidnapped by the Black Rose. So I want her to have to confront these things on an emotional level, especially at her lowest point, because now she sees what her ambition (and her mother's) has cost her and people around her...and I want to see her work on atoning despite knowing she can't go back and some things can't be saved.
For in-game, I want her to explore the Katalyth and see how it relates back to her home canon (she and others have wondered if it's like a Hexcore crystal or something else), and try to engage with others and gain allies. While she will be pretty hostile inwardly towards Patho-Gen, she will be outwardly as patient and cordial as she can manage, and probably do some scheming to stop them if they are lying and are truly a threat. Not anything game breaking, promise! I just love the potential conflict of a group that is doing something for the good of the worlds/universe through unsavory means, and how Mel might interact with that.
I'd also like to (if possible) go dual-soul at some point. I have some ideas to incorporate a weird aves-carnivora monster to incorporate who Mel was with who Mel will be, but I'm here to go with the flow too.
Soul Choice: Aves! Kind of a combined style of Starling-Lyrebird (mirroring/echoing voices, manipulation) with Phoenix-type visuals of gold and the symbolism of rising from the ashes. Dark hues dotted with gold, and a neat gold exoskeleton on both half-shift and full-shift.
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact: PM is best
Other characters: N/A
Permissions & opt-out: Permissions, Opt-out
IC INFORMATION
Name: Mel Medarda
Canon: Arcane
Age: Wiki says 33-34?
Gender: Female
Species: Human/Mage
Appearance: Councilor Medarda and Mage Mel and magic. And the outfit she is wearing on arrival (which is very Star Wars-chic)
Canon point: Season 2, Episode 8, before finding Jayce in the council room
History: Here and here. Please note - I haven't read the Ambessa book yet which apparently has some of Mel's childhood but I'm going off of what we see in the show Arcane.
CRAU details: N/A
Personality answers:
Who in your character's canon influenced the most growth in your character? What do they think about this character?
I chose both Ambessa and Jayce because the truth is that they have both shaped Mel in irrevocable ways. Ambessa has taught Mel how to be war-minded, conflict-driven, and ambitious. But Mel's desire to be more like her brother, who values diplomacy, put her at odds with her mother, and Mel despised bloodshed. Ambessa's emotional rejection of Mel has pushed her to heights of ambition to try to make up the difference, to be seen as worthy in her mother's eyes, and she uses political maneuvering to show she is capable of achievement without violence. Jayce, however, respects Mel as an ideal of accomplishment without sacrificing morals. At the end of S1, Jayce's affirmation and acceptance of Mel helps empower her towards turning away from her mother's motives of conflict. Mel knows her mother to be a calculating woman who says she loves her children - but her emotional neglect and machinations say otherwise and make her unreliable as a support. Jayce, meanwhile, doesn't wear a mask; he is plainly genuine, warm and kind, and someone Mel doesn't need to assess and evaluate at every turn.
What does your character think about physical appearances? Are they the sort to meticulously primp themselves, or could they not care less?
Mel seems to pride herself as being meticulously dressed and well done at all times (barring late S2). As a councilor in Piltover and the face of House Medarda in that area, she has to show herself both as competent and as a symbol of power. Her hairstyle alone shows meticulous care and the gold dotting her hair shows money, investment, and elegance. She often wears dresses, but specifically ones without sleeves (and frequently without backs) and with slits up the side to show off her golden tattoos. She is a walking statement and prefers it to be that way, exuding a quiet kind of strength that politicians would show. Late Season 2 puts her in a white cover almost like a cloak and it's the exact opposite; it's like she uses it to hide her changes, her tattoos, in part for protection and in part to let people underestimate her or find her unassuming. But for Mel, appearances are everything on the political battlefield, and while she doesn't begrudge someone's inability to spruce themselves up, it can tell her a lot about them, and she can use that as a weapon.
What is your character's biggest ambition at their current canon point? To what lengths would they go to see it to fruition?
Her current greatest ambition is to stop her mother from conquering Piltover, ideally without bloodshed. Ambessa is bringing Piltover to heel and Mel wants to step in and dissuade her from violence or even to send her back to Noxus. Mel goes so far as to try to appease her mother by offering herself up as the 'weapon' her mother wants, offering to follow Ambessa home to help her seek revenge on those who killed Kino. And for Mel, who vacillates from closing herself off from her mother to striving to please her, and with all of the revelations Mel has faced about her mother's actions, it's a desperate move for Mel to make here. And while Mel is later revealed to have made a plan to flush the Black Rose collaborator (LeBlanc) out with Ambessa as bait, it still is striking that Mel is willing to give up on her ideal of living apart from her mother's ambition in order to save Piltover from her.
What would be your character's lowest, darkest moment they've lived through? How did they respond to their troubles and face their demons?
Being taken by the Black Rose put Mel at her lowest point. Kidnapped from her own office, her confidante and friend Elora murdered in front of her, Mel is left in a cave with no food or water. She is manipulated by someone masquerading as her brother, and when she exposes her manipulator, she also has to accept her brother is truly dead. The Black Rose shows that everything Mel knows about herself is a lie: she is her mother's bastard child with a mage, she has powers she's never known before, and her mother planned all this so Mel could be a weapon to protect Ambessa's legacy. New power be damned, she no longer knows who she is. But even in her weakened state, she is able to gain the upper hand and attack her captor, break the illusion, embrace her power (as best she can), and go back to Piltover to confront her mother directly to get her answers. She puts aside her fear and loss to face all of the unknowns, and to drive her mother out of Piltover if she has to.
Inventory: Mel will arrive with the clothes on her back, the white cloak she wears at her canon point, and her Medarda ring. None of these have any special magical properties, they don't unlock any powers, etc. The ring is purely for sentimental value but it IS gold.
Powers/Abilities: We don't know overmuch about Mel's powers in Arcane-verse. I'm not taking her toolkit from League of Legends because... 1) I don't play League and 2) Arcane has kind of subverted League canon so I don't want to say something and then have it be debunked later. So let's talk about what is SAID about Mel's powers in canon and what we're shown.
Mel is told the following about her powers: she is an "empath", which is apparently rare; she is "attuned to the ethereal" and "able to sense others' inner selves and bend their magic; she is a "conduit and a mirror".
Ambessa's book (which I haven't read yet but I got to scrape some spoilers) reveal that Mel's father is a Solari mage, meaning he has light-based magic capabilities. I mention this just to draw attention to Mel's powers having light-based visuals: her body is covered in golden markings, all of her magic is white or gold in color, or some kind of translucent white-light color.
What we are actually shown about Mel's powers:
Shields: Mel can conjure up shields made out of light, and these shields can be used either on herself or around others. She was able to fend off all damage from a giant rocket landing in the middle of the room from behind her. She is able to use these shields as ricochet to smaller materials (like bullets), and she uses this to effectively kill someone by ricocheting a bullet from one location to another shield, to another, and then through the person's head.
Sight/Empath: Mel is able to see/sense magic in the ruins she is being held in, and is able to solve the puzzle inside. She is also able to 'see' the face of LeBlanc eventually towards the end of canon when she effectively goes inside LeBlanc's..."dimension"? It's kind of unclear. But it looks like she is able to infiltrate LeBlanc's magic and see her for who she really is - at least by face, though it's unclear if Mel can see LeBlanc's true potential. I think it's logical to say she can 'see' that someone is powerful magically but not to the full extent, so if they are hiding powers or are waaay too powerful, I think there's a limit on what she can perceive. Especially now, with her being very new to magic.
Mirror/Conduit: Not sure how else to call this. But when Mel is captured by the Black Rose and bound up - and when the Black Rose attacks her later with the same method - both times she is able to channel her magic into those thorns that hold her and shoot her magic back towards them. I think this is the "conduit and mirror" that is spoken of before, that she can take someone's magic and push it right back to them on her own terms. This is also shown in a recent trailer for Noxus called "Bite Marks" where she pushes her magic back into the bindings that hold her and strike her opponents that way. So this is a kind of... Mel can mirror magic back to people when they attack her with their own. It goes well with the 'shield' part of her power.
Bend Magic: Again, not sure what to call this, but just mentioning that she is able to 'break into' LeBlanc's dimension of magic (or whatever it's supposed to be called, it's not clear at all in Arcane what it is). Mel has a different appearance here, all white and gold, and I think this is both Sight (being able to see LeBlanc and her dimension) and also the power to bend that magic to break into it. I want to note that being able to step into this place alone is not enough to disrupt the magic; she has to purposefully be the conduit and lash back out with her own magic before she's able to actually disrupt and bend the illusion.
I am happy to elaborate on all of these further if needed and I'm fine with all kinds of nerfs. As I am taking her before the final fight of the series when she's just gotten back, I'd like to actively work on her learning her powers but still being held back, and for her to thread her power in with her Natural Soul form (like being able to see through illusions better as an Aves, sensing people have magic but on the downlow, shielding) without going crazy with it. I'm also happy to make permissions post and have them be opt-in, meaning I will assume Mel cannot do things unless a player expressly OK's it.
Samples: With Emet-Selch (TDM) & Hubert (TDM); bonus of Jayce for canon-specific introspection. All of these have minor spoilers for Arcane, mostly in Jayce's thread
Goals: Mel is coming from a very difficult time in her canon. She has lost almost everyone in her life: her assistant, her brother, her power as a council member, the safety of her city, her sense of self... The list goes on. She's been kidnapped prior to the game, left somewhere without food or water, experienced The Horrors... She's coming back from nothing and has only the most vague sense of who she is because her life is a lie. She is a bastard child with a mage, she IS a mage and has been hidden all of her life, and is wrestling with the understanding that her mother likely sees her creation as a step in creating a weapon. It's such a demoralizing place to be in.
With all that said, I am wanting to use the game to explore who she is outside of canon and without her mother and her councilor status. I have been turning over and over whether she should be Aves (for manipulation, vocal things, magic, etc.) or Carnivora (fox-wolf) because of the latter's symbolism for the Medarda family, with Mel as the 'fox' but Ambessa wanting her to be the 'wolf'. I would just love her to find herself, explore her magic - and Natural Soul - and really work to wrestle with the Natural Soul inclinations that push and pull her self towards and away from people. I may end up changing her Natural Soul eventually as her own transformation but for now, that's a back burner goal.
In addition, Mel's held so much quasi-privilege and it's come back to bite her that I want to explore this. For instance, she comes from a warrior culture but values diplomacy, and then she's given magic and might. She is the richest person in Piltover but the "poorest Medarda" with her worth tied up in her name and wanting to appease her mother; her ambition to be more and to prove her value has her perpetuating the cycle of wealth and power for the detriment of others that Piltover values. By the end of S1, she's one of the only voices calling for peace and for compassion to be given to Zaun, but this is after she's encouraged the creation of Hextech weapons for protection (which she is later rebuked for by her mother and Viktor; Ambessa tells her once you make weapons, you can't go back, and Viktor feels weapons goes too far). Her ambition and her manipulation of the council and Jayce for the good of Piltover's success (and her own) brings her into a collision course with her own morals and values. So while she has so many regrets about her actions in S1 at the start of S2, she doesn't get to voice them or work on them because - OOPS, kidnapped by the Black Rose. So I want her to have to confront these things on an emotional level, especially at her lowest point, because now she sees what her ambition (and her mother's) has cost her and people around her...and I want to see her work on atoning despite knowing she can't go back and some things can't be saved.
For in-game, I want her to explore the Katalyth and see how it relates back to her home canon (she and others have wondered if it's like a Hexcore crystal or something else), and try to engage with others and gain allies. While she will be pretty hostile inwardly towards Patho-Gen, she will be outwardly as patient and cordial as she can manage, and probably do some scheming to stop them if they are lying and are truly a threat. Not anything game breaking, promise! I just love the potential conflict of a group that is doing something for the good of the worlds/universe through unsavory means, and how Mel might interact with that.
I'd also like to (if possible) go dual-soul at some point. I have some ideas to incorporate a weird aves-carnivora monster to incorporate who Mel was with who Mel will be, but I'm here to go with the flow too.
Soul Choice: Aves! Kind of a combined style of Starling-Lyrebird (mirroring/echoing voices, manipulation) with Phoenix-type visuals of gold and the symbolism of rising from the ashes. Dark hues dotted with gold, and a neat gold exoskeleton on both half-shift and full-shift.