someone

it looks like magda is one of the few people that barbara both respects and likes so she's usually on her best behavior around magda, or at the very least not trying to start shit, so she just comes off as a bit childish and eccentric

what magda doesn't learn is that barbara and juven have the same personality and it's because juven and barbara have a 10 year age gap, which means that when barbara was born juven got a new favorite toy and barbara grew up idolizing everything her brother did no matter how dumb or uncool, they're very much ride or die and if juven were to say some insane shit barbara would "yes and" him without hesitation, they love doing bits together

juven also thinks of her as his darling baby sister that can do no wrong, he absolutely can and will enable her in literally everything, including manslaughter, she's kind of a spoiled weirdo exactly because juven is doing his best to undo all of barris' hard work parenting her

mostly my focus is on Mel right now because I LOVE how complex she is as a character. People love to talk about Jinx and Vi as daughters which is completely valid! but people always seem to forget that Mel is just as undoing as a daughter to Ambessa as Jinx and Vi were to Vander and Silco.

throughout my time in the arcane fandom whenever the conversation turns to Mel, usually all people have to say is: "she's so pretty she doesn't deserve Jayce i love her she's beautiful" and that's usually about it. Then the conversation quickly moves on to Jayce, and then of course Viktor.

We all know she's beautiful, we all know she's powerful, we all know about her and Jayce's relationship, what about her relationship with Ambessa? Her relationship with her city? Her relationship with the UNDER city? Her relationship with POWER? All of these things are so incredibly important to her character, and are almost always brushed off.

If her true character isn't brushed off, other times she's instead thrown under the bus. It's all about how Mel is incredibly manipulative and callous and shallow, when in reality she was one of the most level headed, anti-violence characters throughout the show. She saw potential in Viktor and Jayce and their knowledge and inventions, and because she wants the best for Piltover, she wanted it to be used!

She is such a social genius, and is very diplomatic and great at navigating conflict, despite being so young and KNOWING that war is always an option, but CHOOSING to leave it as a last resort. Mel is not a perfect character, nor are her morals perfect in every situation (namely when she proposes creating weapons in the event that they may have to use them as a last resort, but namely towards the under city. She is generally callous towards the under city, which is a fair criticism, but so is Caitlyn in season two!)

Maybe I'm reading too far into things, maybe I'm just not built for fandom spaces, and maybe a thousand people have said this before, but so many people love to brush off Mel's true power and intelligence and refer to her as the beautiful queen character before immediately shifting focus to other characters (almost always male characters at that!)