THIS WAS HEARTBREAKING! | ARCANE Episode 9 'The Monster You Created' Reaction & Review 

It's been 84 years

The gemstone powered the propulsion system and possibly helped her to lock on to the target, but the actual explosion is chem-based. Will be huge but not hextech nuke levels of destruction. Mel is wearing some sort of solari armor, which tells me it'll automatically shield herself and those directly behind her (Jayce/Viktor), possibly at the cost of her own life and/or limb. Most of the others are toast though. Conjecture though, we'll see what happened later this year.

I think you've probably got it there. Or, to be honest, there's the other option - Silco might just flatly reject the deal, and decide hey, we're in the open now, how about we go a few more rounds? You send your Enforcers in, we cut them to ribbons, and then see if you will honour my demand of BLANKET AMNESTY later? We have very little to lose down here, whereas your people do, so... you know. You're not getting her. Try again. I find it interesting to note that Vi was all "you can't negotiate with him, it's impossible", and yet the moment a proposal was sent, Silco was there, negotiating. It's almost as if that was, in fact, precisely what he wanted all along :P

Oh shoot, her mom was at the meeting wasn't she?! But I still have hope for Jayce, Mel and Viktor being alive... so maybe she'll be okay? But it's definitely not looking good LOL

I’m curious about it too 😂 like usually I’m someone who can always find a bit of common ground with a character - I think I said it in this video (?) but we all aren’t hunchbacks locked in bell towers yet we empathize and relate to Quasimodo’s feelings of being an outsider and wanting to belong somewhere. I see characters as sort of “really specific packaging which delivers something more general about what it means to be human”. And what you said is definitely the more general human-ness of it. It's hard to explain but it's almost like I see the package and I see what's inside of it, but it wasn't actually delivered to me (or my heart or whatever we're saying LOL). I was entertained by the show, I feel like it was an incredibly well written show, but I wish I felt something stronger that persisted after the reactions. I've been thinking about it more though cause reflection is always important and I wonder if this is why (I'm talking about things post-timeskip mostly): 1. A lot of the stuff I like tends to focus on a friendship or a specific group/faction. I remember at the beginning of the show, before I knew anything I was like “Oh a gang of thieves, this reminds me of Locke Lamora” and obviously that didn't happen. And I don't hold it against the show for not being that - but this show feels a lot like "how the lives of individuals are intertwined to each other in passing or by fate" and maybe it's the individualism of it I guess. Not that I need something that has friendship as a theme - but when characters are in a team (RWBY, Spider Riders, Persona 5's Phantom Thieves, Kingdom Hearts' Trios) as long as you like one character, you can use them as an entry point to warm up to the other ones. Like in RWBY terms, say I loved Fox and felt lukewarm about everyone else - I'll probably grow to love the other members of Team CFVY or even other characters, because I'm able to experience them from Fox's POV in a way. With Arcane, we didn't REALLY get to see Ekko's dynamic with his crew (even though I do like his character a lot). We get to see him reunite with Vi but it's so brief that it's not enough to bring out Vi's more charming points (for someone like me that's a bit iffy on her). I like Caitlyn and Caitlyn could have been a good vessel to latch onto Jayce a bit more, but they get separated etc etc etc. I guess a tldr; way to put it is that most of the time characters are around people they are in opposition with, characters they need to perform in front of, or characters they just met. Like with Vi, because she's lying to Caitlyn so much I remember being confused about what she really wanted for some episodes, how she really felt about things etc. So I feel like I didn't really get to see the "real them" for most of them. I wonder if that's why I like Heimerdinger and Mel's mom so much (especially Mel's mom has mystery and different sides to her - but also has no filter). Caitlyn is earnest enough to immediately understand and so is Ekko when you find out his identity. 2.5 And kinda a 2.5 related to that - being around your friends, or people you feel safe with makes you vulnerable, and in turn we get to see sides of characters we don't usually see. And obviously we do see characters in vulnerable states but sometimes it's more like another character stumbled upon them vs initiated that. Like when Vi hallucinates about Jinx around Caitlyn it's vulnerability by accident. When Viktor finds Jayce about to jump, Jayce has vulnerability around Viktor but not **because** of him. And there probably are a few "But what about this scene????" moments where it did happen but maybe not enough, I don't really know. Like a moment that really stayed with me was Mel's mom saying that she couldn't take the disappointment in Mel's eyes, and that was the reason why she sent Mel away. Like it was a nice subversion because I was thinking it was because Mel wasn't good enough, but it's that she's "too good" for the world that her mother lives in. (And now Mel is probably going to die LOL). We've seen Mel enough in different situations to gauge how she feels when it's just her and her assistant, how she feels when she's with Jayce, and see her revert back to being her mother's daughter around her mom. And Mel is one of the only characters who does have a "confidant" she is presumably honest with. 3-ish - Especially when it comes to Vi, I think a lot of people got "down bad" for her during the "what will it be" scene. And usually I'm a sucker for that type of dialogue but because of the context of where it's happening it just gave me the ick. And it works because Vi isn't supposed to be a good person, she's trying to lose Caitlyn, she doesn't want Caitlyn's help. But it seems like a lot of people took that moment as "Vi is so sarcastic and charming and hot" and I just couldn't get on board with that being evidence of chemistry. I'm excited for season 2 and Hunter and I will definitely react to it together (as long as we're still here making videos LOL). I guess musicals (since I watch a LOT of those) get to take an easy way out because if you want your character to be vulnerable with the audience one-on-one you give them a song to get the job done lol. Maybe the dynamics of Season 2 will clarify some of the things I'm feeling. Or some stuff just hits you at the "wrong time" and one day you wake up like "wow I totally get what Jayce was going through" or something haha. But yeah I'm definitely interested in discussing this more at some point in a video when we re-watch Season 1.