At the outset of the Musteladies plot line, Jen hasn't yet met any of the other main characters, and she has only interacted with Mel online. This made it hard for me to think of a situation where they could have interacted in real life without having actually been face to face. However, with this little arcade episode, I think I may have found a solution to this conundrum. ;)

Mel and Jen are both members of the same high profile online gaming forum and community. Whereas Jen's participation is based on serious, thoughtful (even if a bit pompous) contributions, Mel's presence is that of a light-hearted troll who often derails conversations with silly humor and memes. Lots of memes. For this, Jen has grown to see Mel (or Melveroonie, as she is known online) with severe contempt, and through her impeccable Google-Fu skills (and Mel's carelessness) was able to gain knowledge of Mel's real life identity and appearance. She keeps that information in a private file, to be maliciously used in case the wolverine gets unbearably obnoxious in their online interactions. Here's hoping that never happens.

I guess it's a good thing that Jen hasn't really looked at the face of the person she's playing against, then. After seeing Jen make short work of challenger after challenger with a dismissive, arrogant attitude that seemed pretty familiar to Mel (even if she didn't make the connection), the wolverine decided to embark on a crusade to rid the poor arcade cabinet of the weasel's continued presence. While Mel is decidedly not as good a player of "Marvel vs Capcom 2" as Jen, she has played enough of it to be able to eventually counter Jen's admittedly cheap tactics. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, after all.

Poor Nat, as usual, was dragged into Mel's crazy scheme, and while she's patient and kind enough to humor her friend's little arcade adventure, even all of that has limits. And while Mel has finally been able to get one in on Jen, believe me when I say that Jen will be the last one to leave the cabinet. That's obsession for you!

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