#melamonth2021

Anger is… Anger’s been all I’ve had for a very long time. Years. Maybe since… oh, I, I don’t know. ... Angry at being passed over, being disrespected, ignored. That sort of anger, it – it powers you. Right up until it slips out and hurts someone.

and in 190 when she talks about how she feels about the cult:

If I didn’t have Georgie, I think I might just snap and beat them all to death. ... I swear, if it’s another hymn I am going to break something!

But look at how she actually reacts to Arun:

MELANIE: [Awkward] Oh, okay, um… Right, so… Arun, I just think that the… GEORGIE: I don’t think either of us is particularly comfortable with your use of the word “redeemers”. MELANIE: That’s… that’s not how it works. Is it? John? ARCHIVIST: Oh? No. That’s not how it works.

John and Georgie are included to demonstrate what "person being distinctly less gentle with Arun than Melanie is" looks like. Actually, ‘gentle’ is a bit of an understatement—I might be better to say ‘timid’.

And it’s not like this is the product of the therapy or, idk, Georgie. This entire post is inspired by pronouncingitwang’s post pointing this out—rewind to her first appearance:

I waited for another five minutes, but when Sarah still hadn’t returned I started to get a bit worried. I should have woken the others, but if it turned out she’d just gone to the bathroom, I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of everyone. In that case she should have got one of us up to take over watching, anyway, but she’d hardly been the most professional while she was working with us, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if she hadn’t. After another five minutes, I decided to go look for her.

Like, Sarah is not fulfilling her responsibilities that she agreed to carry out. (and in a kinda dangerous way) But Melanie’s worried about embarrassing her.

In the end it was actually Toni that asked we not work with Sarah Baldwin again. Apparently she’d gotten “weird vibes” and didn’t feel comfortable around her. I agreed, though I didn’t share my reasons. 

She doesn’t even speak up first to say “let’s not work with her again”—again, this is kinda crossing the line from 'gentle' to 'timid'. Like, you can react to things that negatively affect you without over-reacting? (This is something she works on in therapy! Speaking up that she doesn't like 'Mel'; work-stoppage at her evil work: constructive responses.) (the apocalypse, uh, derails this a tad. :| )

What effect does the Slaughter have on this? Well, the next example is while she's got the bullet in her.

In episode 100, she's already tired and frustrated when Brian comes in. (let’s get this over with. I just don’t hold out a lot of hope for… coherence.) She does not get coherence. Instead she gets a panic attack. (Admittedly kinda her fault, because she said that the archives couldn't help with his spider problem. But like, that's more about the circumstances being objectively panic-inducing, she wasn’t being Mean or anything.) And... she's gentle.

I… Please, just… There’s, there’s tea there. Okay. Right. Yes. Okay, breathe. Yeah… well… Drink, drink the tea.

I’ll, I’ll get you some biscuits. I’ll get you, I’ll get you, I’ll get you… something… Just breathe! Breathe for me… [BRIAN TAKES SOME CALMING DEEP BREATHS] Okay, yes. Good. Good.

She's not confident or practiced or comfortable at it. She's out of her depth and kinda at the end of her rope and... gentle. Trying.

I think the through-thread is—people she has power over. She feels that anger and chokes it down because she could hurt them.

It’s difficult to strike the right balance, when you’re doing that.

(There’s another bucket of just—equals. Basira’s always there; John is for the rest of season 4 after 125; Helen :| ; Martin at least in season 5; etc. She has casual, unguarded conversations, too; and ones that are mostly focused on some goal, and ones where she’s getting what she wants, and all sorts of things.)

Towards people with power over her (the guy with the steady office job and authority over whether her experience counts as genuine; apparent boys’ club; evil mindreading murder boss; etc) she bites back. The difference is it's safe to do that because—one part she can't hurt them, and one part it'd be deserved. (Melanie as a comedian who always punches up.)

Except, you know... there's this bit in where 106 Basira and Melanie discuss how she 'literally' made Tim and Martin cry, and... while you can construct reasons they could 'have power over her'—seniority, gender—Basira's only been around since 092. Since that point, it's obvious that those aren't real power here. That's what the Slaughter is doing to her with her; validating seeing the world as more and more against her, handing her power and encouraging her to see herself as a put-upon victim, free to fight back guiltlessly.

And then she wakes up to a numb, wounded leg and stabs John. I wonder—what if "Right up until it slips out and hurts someone. I hurt someone." & "It didn’t stay in my leg because of some ghostly master plan. It stayed because I wanted it." in 131 are saying that - like - it wasn't taking out the bullet that de-Slaughtered her? That it was the wake-up call that she hurt John, someone who was trying to help her, and she didn't want to do that.

Didn’t want to be that.

[ID: A digital drawing of Melanie King and Tim Stoker from The Magnus Archives. Melanie is a white woman with choppy black hair down to her shoulders and bangs. She has a silver lip ring and is wearing a red flannel with the sleeves cut off over a black t-shirt reading “TRY ME” as well as dark jeans. Tim is a Malaysian man with short messy hair and visible circular scars dotting his face and arms. He is wearing a white button-down with the first button undone, an untied purple tie with pink flowers, and dark pants. The two of them are sitting on the floor in a dark room leaning against filing cabinets, backlit by the light of the office behind them. Melanie is looking towards Tim with a concerned look on her face while Tim looks off to the right, looking pensive. End ID.]

Woo finished this in time for the @melaniemonth prompt "health". I decided to make a tribute to Melanie's recovery, both mentally and physically, by portraying the hardships she's been through and the better place she reaches! The words are from "I wanna get better" by the bleachers, which is an excellent song that always makes me think of melanie (and never fails to make me emotional) ((click for quality))

[Image ID: a digital illustration of Melanie king from the magnus archives. She is a chinese woman with black hair dyed blonde. The drawing is composed like a comic, with panels. On the right there is a 3 strip, which is mirrored on the left. In between these strips sits two drawings, split by a diagonal border, containing the words "I wanna get better".

Panel 1 on the right shows Melanie's face in shadow, as she stares at Sarah baldwin's stapled arm in horror. The background is maroon and a yellow starburst surrounds Sarah's arm, while lines indicating trembling surround melanie.

Panel 2 has melanie looking at not-sasha, confused and frustrated. Not-sasha's face has a question mark instead of facial features, and in the background is a mirror that shows the real Sasha looking with tears in her eyes. lines emanate from not-sasha. The background is a light green.

Panel 3 shows Melanie's leg, bleeding from a bullet wound. The background is red and the wound has indicating lines emanating from it.

The panels on the left look as follows:

Panel shows melanie as Elias reaches towards her. Her eyes are glowing and tears stream down her frightened face. Eyes float around her, looking at her. Her hair is a darker shade of blonde and her roots have grown out. The background is dark green.

Panel 5 depicts melanie holding a surgical scalpel. Angry lines surround her hand, and the background is made up of varying shades of red.

Panel 6 has melanie holding an awl up to her eyes about to blind herself. Trembling lines surround her hand, and a slight tear forms in the corner of her eye. The background is a rough gradient, starting as a dark green in the bottom left corner and ending in a lighter green.

The two illustrations in the middle also show melanie. The first shows melanie at therapy. She is sitting on a chaise lounge in the foreground, talking to her therapist, who is in the background listening. The background is in yellow/orange tones. A light blue speech bubble is connected to melanie, and has the following text:

"So I put a bullet where I shoulda put a helmet and I crash my car cause I wanna get carried away, that's why I'm standing on the overpass screaming at myself, "hey!". "Overpass" is drawn to look the plaque of a therapist's office, and "hey" is written in bright yellow block letters. There are also spiky lines around the word "bullet".

[ID: three traditional sketchy drawings. in the first, melanie and georgie sit on georgie’s bed in casual clothes, each holding a glass. they are smiling and talking, and georgie is gesturing with one of her hands. on the bed around them are some bunched-up blankets and a variety of stuffed animals, including a cheetah, a lion, and a komodo dragon. the admiral is curled up next to melanie, and she is petting him. the second image shows melanie and georgie from the waists up. georgie has her arm slung around melanie’s shoulder, and the other in her jeans pocket. melanie has her hand on georgie’s shoulder, and the other in her hoodie pocket. they both have a contented smile. in the third image, melanie is sleeping awkwardly on a couch, with her arm and feet hanging off edges. the admiral is sleeping on her back. end ID.]

[ID: a header image announcing melanie month 2021. the background is light blue, and there are lime green dashed borders on the top and bottom. on either side are two flat colored moth vectors partially cut off by the edges, hot pink on the left, navy blue on the right. centered in the image are three lines of text, scaling down in size line by line: the first reads “MELANIE MONTH” in bold, white text, the second reads “COMING SOON” in lime green, and the third reads “APRIL 2021″ in thinner white. /end ID]

hey everyone! as TMA draws to a close, i know a lot of us are wondering what to do next, which is why we thought it’d be nice to end the show with an event focusing on one of our favorite characters — melanie king!

this post is somewhat of an interest check! we have a list of three prompts per week throughout the month of april, following four themes: platonic, romantic, health and self. visit our carrd for a clear schedule of the prompts, rules, and other basic information!

if you’re interested, please reblog to spread the word! and if you have any questions, our askbox is always open.

Chapters: 2 / 2 Word Count: 7.5k Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jon Sims, Georgie Barker/Melanie King

Additional Tags: Butch Georgie, Character Study, Gender Identity, Coming Out, Butch/Femme, Trans Georgie, Nonbinary Jon, Femme Melanie, Jewish Jon & Georgie, Fluff and Humor, Comfort

Summary:

Georgie thought she knew what yearning was. It turns out all she knew were loose synonyms, the basic dictionary definition. Love has never been a foreign language. It’s not as if she’s been without. She’s been sure of what all of these things are, but now it’s like—   It’s like a hammer has been brought down on her heart and cracked it wide open.

Or, Georgie Barker discovers the butch identity, and where she fits into it.

babe wake up new butch georgie just dropped

and just in time for @melaniemonth romance week, too ;-)

[ID: a rough uncolored digital sketch of melanie king in teal and red lines over a faint pencil sketch. melanie has medium length curly hair and is wearing a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. she is sitting with her legs out in a wide v, her hands flat on the ground between them. she is looking down with a smile at a cat that is putting its front paws on her chest. /end ID]

got very frustrated with my inability to Art while trying to get this done but i really want to have something for admiral day so here’s a sketch i guess! melanie my beloved... admiral my also beloved... heart eyes