#melamonth2021

[taiey]

Melanie has this self-image that she's—not just angry but dangerous, a hairsbreadth from violence. We hear it in 131 when she talks about her past:

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.

@melaniemonth I don’t know if this is Platonic, or Health: therapy&recovery, or simply Self, but it is very, very Melanie.

[elfkissing]

[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.]

Just barely getting my Platonic Week entry for @melaniemonth in on time! I like to think about if Tim and Melanie had gotten a moment to bond over how much their situation sucked 😔

[welcometogrouchland]

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".

The second image in the middle shows melanie, now blinded and using her cane. She looks content. The background is done in pink tones, and shows a faded image of georgie smiling and holding the admiral. The text "I didn't know I was lonely til I saw your face" can be seen next to Georgie. Hearts are floating around georgie. The borders between panels are done in a light yellow color. End image ID]

[irradiatedsnakes]

[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.]

these don’t necessarrrrrily correspond to specific @melaniemonth prompts but they were drawn for that purpose, so! melanie time

[melaniemonth]

[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.

- mod angel

[gerrydelano]

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 ;-)

this took me so long to revamp, but i portray georgie as trans now! and a lot of this hits way differently now without even needing to be altered. that said, i have made some significant changes and i’m told it feels a lot more real now.

[femmedionysus]

characters: Melanie King, Tim Stoker, Melanie King’s dad (mentioned), Danny Stoker (mentioned) rating: teen & up relationships: Melanie King & Tim Stoker tags: set late season 3, tim & melanie day drink on the institute roof because fuck this job, not quite fluff? it’s a reprieve from the genteral angst of s3, trans female character, indian melanie king, malaysian tim stoker, t rating for drinking & some swears word count: 1,101 my contribution to platonic week for @melaniemonth ! featuring melanie & tim quietly bonding over how much this job sucks, & remembering lost loved ones.

[terriblelizbians]

[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

idk how much of @melaniemonth i’ll manage to participate in but at the very least i’m so excited for all the melanies i’ll be seeing/reading from other people!!! yay!!!

[tchotchkeshelves]

[ID: Four pencil sketch drawings of Melanie King, Georgie Barker, and The Admiral at different points in time. Melanie is a thin mixed Chinese-British woman with dark hair and various facial and ear piercings. Georgie is a fat Black woman with a dark afro. The Admiral is a cat with grey fur.

The first drawing shows Melanie and Georgie early in their relationship, sitting on a couch. Melanie’s hair is long and she wears a t-shirt. She looks off to the side and dialogue from her reads: “Y’know, I do like The Admiral... I’m just not much of a cat person.” Georgie lays her head on Melanie’s shoulder and looks up at her with a slight smile. She wears a long sleeved shirt and a headband in her hair, dialogue from her reads: “hmm?”

Text above the next three drawings reads: “Some time later...”

The second drawing shows Melanie healing from her blinding. She sits on a couch and bandages cover both of her eyes. Her hair is chin-length and she wears a sweater and light trousers. The admiral sits on her lap, and she pats his head and back. Dialogue from her reads: “Oh hello there...”

The third drawing shows her brushing her teeth, a little while after the last drawing. Her eye sockets are empty, and a white cane leans against the counter. Her hair is tied back in a messy bun, and the sides are shaved. She wears a t-shirt, and The Admiral wraps himself around her back.

The fourth drawing shows Melanie around the same time period, holding The Admiral and smiling. Her hair is down and she wears a long-sleeved shirt and eyeliner. Dialogue from her reads: “Look Georgie! I’m the favorite!!” End ID.]

This is a bit messy as dysgraphia hand cramps decided to pay me a visit, but as one of Melanie’s many number 1 fans, I couldn’t not post something for the first day of @melaniemonth, here’s some little sketches for the prompt “the admiral”!!

[taiey]

@melaniemonth this is a late entry for Platonic: Ghost Hunt UK

Not a meta, just a quote compilation plus Rambling.

My co-host, Andy Caine

Me and Andy live together 

Andy seemed happy enough, but he’s one of the most laid-back people I’ve ever met, so no surprise there. 

We got whatever daylight shots of the Cambridge Military Hospital we needed almost in silence, though Andy kept trying to strike up a conversation.

Then Andy decided to take what he called “a bit of a holiday” from the show, and I wasn’t sure if he was coming back. If he did, I thought maybe we could find a new team and keep the show going. But he didn’t. As far as Ghost Hunt UK is concerned, he’s still on holiday, and it’s just me.

Co-host and they lived together—he was a massive part of her life. Easy-going to the point where he just... eased out...

Antonia Farron, er, Toni, doing camera work

Toni came round to pick us up. She’s the one with the van, so generally does the driving. 

(She smoked constantly, so we had to ride with the windows down and the van was freezing.) I could tell Toni was having a hard time too. 

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.

The others were dealing with their own stuff. We struggled through another year, but it wasn’t the same. Toni was the worst. She just got harder and harder to pin down for shoots, and then I struggled to reach her by phone or email. When she moved down to Bristol in March, she didn’t even tell me. 

I am evolving a theory that ‘Sarah Baldwin’ did more stuff than we heard about that night, that Andy and Toni never talked about anymore than Melanie told them about her arm... or just, what, an utterly inexplicable itch?

I think that’s kind of why I came to you guys. I knew it was what happened at the CMH that was breaking us apart, but I couldn’t actually talk to them about it. 

feeling like maybe you don’t know these people at all..? Now that’s going in a fic direction, lol. I feel like if they were all relying on her for transport then she was probably pretty reliable, y’know, before. It used to be simple for Melanie to reach her. More assertive than Melanie wrt ‘Baldwin’ but then she kinda ghosts them so.

Peter Warhol on sound 

Pete got cold feet a few days before we were due to head out. Apparently he just wasn’t comfortable with the possibility of asbestos.

Pete was always a flake to begin with

I had to hear [Toni was moving] from Pete; in the exact same call he said that he was thinking about leaving the team as well. 

give more notice scrub

idk

Even back then, I could feel all my old friends starting to distance themselves from me. Like they sensed I was crossing some unspoken line about what we were allowed to investigate.

I wonder when she stopped living with Andy, y’know?

[elfkissing]

Here’s my Admiral Day for @melaniemonth !! I like to think about him and Melanie hanging out before everything went sideways 😔

[ID: A digital drawing of Melanie King and the Admiral from the Magnus Archives. Melanie is a thin white woman with short choppy black hair pulled into a ponytail. She’s wearing a white tank top that has the word “lesbian” spelled out in ASL with the caption “Do I need to spell it out for you?” displayed underneath but mostly hidden, as well as torn dark jeans and a knife choker necklace. She has piercings in her ear and lip as well as a small silver ring on her pinkie finger. She has a tattoo on the arm facing the camera of a stylized moth with an arrow pointing through it and circled in a black line. She is holding up the Admiral, a black and white cat with a red dotted-collar, who is putting a single paw on her mouth. She is leaning back on a green couch and resting on a white pillow with a black striped pattern. Behind her is a window with a sheer curtain in front of it, all of which has been blurred. End ID]

[welcometogrouchland]

More @melaniemonth content! This time for the prompt 'romance', featuring me pushing my secondary characters polycule agenda

[amphitritemists]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30480237

April 2nd-8th: Platonic

This is to indulge my personal headcanon that Jon and Melanie have theatre nerd solidarity between them. Enjoy :)

[painboyridesagain]

“Just go back to your side!” “I’m on my side!” “Then why are you touching me?” “Maybe you’re on my side.” “Oh my god.” Melanie digs around for something heavy to put between them, then gives up and snatches her jeans off the floor. “Here. You don’t cross this, I don’t cross this, we’re both happy.” “I doubt that,” Jon mutters.

As the Unknowing draws closer, Jon asks Melanie for her help in scoping out the wax museum. This necessitates spending the night at a hotel. There is a minor problem.

Check out this fic I wrote for Melanie Appreciation Month! For the prompts “archives” and “platonic.”

[melaniemonth]

[ID: a banner announcing the upcoming prompts list for melanie month 2021. the background is light blue, and there are navy blue dashed borders on the top and bottom. on either side are two flat colored moth vectors, lime green on the left, powder blue on the right. centered in the image is a line of text that reads “PROMPTS” in bold white. /end ID]

hi everyone! now that there’s just two weeks left till melanie month, we thought it would be a good time to share the full prompt list so anyone planning to contribute has time to prepare.

we split the month into four weeks, each with a broad theme & three individual prompts under that theme for maximum melanie! but of course that leaves us with two bonus days, so there’s a special mini prompt for the first & last day of the month.

April 1st: Admiral day

starting the month off with the fluffiest prompt possible!  

April 2nd-8th: Platonic

archives

ghost hunt uk

family

April 9th-15th: Romantic

gender

georgie

other relationships

April 16th-22nd: Health

disability

therapy & recovery

solidarity

April 23rd-29th: Self

culture

supernatural

happiness

April 30th: Melabration!

if you haven’t gotten to yet, show us your melanie design! we want to see our lovely girl!

we’ll post a more detailed announcement for each theme closer to the start of that week, so stay tuned! as always, our askbox is open if you have any questions, and you can find more detailed info on our carrd.

- mod max

[thedreadvampy]

I'm still working on my platonic piece for @melaniemonth bc I don't know how to Art Fast but just know. that I considered doing an Archives piece too but very quickly realised I had already drawn the Archives platonic relationship picture that matters most to me and it was this one.

“Hey, are you ready for that drink?”

she’s having a little rant about Jon. it’s a good time. there are imitations. she’s very angry but she’s fun when she’s angry at Not You.

(I know that going out for a drink didn’t exactly go well in MAG106 but these guys for sure go out for drinks plenty in S3, and thats wooloowoo friendship baybeeeee)

[Image description: a digital painting of Melanie King and Basira Hussein from The Magnus Archives, sitting in a pub booth. Both women are laughing. Melanie, a short Indian woman with freckled brown skin, is gesticulating, stabbing at the table with one finger while waving her other hand. Her hair is dark, cut into a wavy bob and tied into space buns, with the tips dyed blue. She has large chunky gold hoop earrings, gold eyebrow rings, and a gold nose ring, and she’s wearing a tight green tank top and several necklaces. She is wearing bright pink lipstick, and there are dark shadows under her eyes. She is talking with a wicked grin. There is a half-full glass of beer on the table in front of her. Basira is sitting opposite her, holding a glass of Coke. She is a round-faced fat Somali woman, with dark brown skin and dimples. She wears no makeup or jewellery except for a men’s watch. She is wearing a dark red hijab and a stonewashed denim jacket over a beige long-sleeved t-shirt. Her face is scrunched up with delighted laughter, her mouth in an open grin, and she is holding a hand up towards her face as if to cover her mouth.]