#save me mel medarda

[viserya-firstofhername]

I would put that in the tags usually, but have it in main instead (this segment was originally at the end of the post, but as soon as I wrote it I realised the only reasonable action was to put it in the beginning. Because.): Save me Mel Medarda. Save me Baela Targaryen. Save me Maeve Millay. Save me Bonnie Bennett. Save me Storm. Make of these what you will.

As a white woman raised in a time and place where there were too few black people to ever meet one in person (if you find that hard to decode—try a millennial from an ex-eastern bloc state), in a household where racism was explicitly spoken against, and by a man who was more feminist than most women I know today wish they were, I realised quite late in life what a fucking massive issue this is. Misogyny is something I had to deal with in my personal and professional life since the dawn of fucking forever, but misogynoir is a whole different game really, and while I never entertained the arrogance to claim understanding of what black women have to go through, I am and forever will be baffled why a human is judged by the colour of their skin and their chromosomes first, and merits and flaws later. Joke's on me, I guess. Also, it stands to be noted, I rarely voice my opinions about societal problems I cannot grasp the full spectre of implications of (due to my demographics, that is. I can voice all the opinions on bisexuality you wish to read), exactly because I find it disrespectful, just as I find it offensive to be speaking up when one lacks basic media (or any) literacy. Sigh. 'Tis much more often I stress if what I say/write does take into account experiences I do not fully comprehend. Anyway. The thing is.

This post needs to be printed on as many morning cups of coffee, on-demand printed t-shirts, subway walls, corporate building entrances, Tumblr walls, X-or-whatever-twitter-I-don't use-the-thing-walls, people's retinas, etc., as possible. Worded as is. So here. Have it. Read it. Digest it. Engage your brain with it. Read it again tomorrow morning. Be like me—read it twice in a row.

— this fandom has a vast misogynoirist problem and, yes, this also applies to YOU reading this right now; a post filled w unsorted thoughts you should read if you genuinely want black fans to feel safe in fandom spaces with you

i am going to preface this right away w how disappointed i am in some of the people who follow me, who will occasionally like a post calling out misogynoir but only if its comfortable and only if its worded nicely and only if its against someone they dislike and not someone they do like. i am directly talking to my non-black followers because i do not expect black fans to expose themselves to this kind of hatred and thinly (and not so thinly) veiled racism we are faced w on a daily basis. some of you have a big following and a big portion of that following is white and YOU have the opportunity to use your POWER (and, yes, even in fandoms there are different power dynamics because logging onto twitter dot com does not remove the burden of blackness within overtly white spaces, this too is a space where having white privileges will get you places) and talk about these issues that have been becoming more and more prevalent.

our voices are not heard and when they are heard they get twisted by white and non-black fans who prioritize their love for shipping and their male centeredness over racism within fandom and more importantly: racism that is perpetuated by them. a very loud portion of this fandom has painted an image of "angry black women" without ever actually calling them black women because they are socially aware enough to know that it is racist to say so. instead they say it in different ways: they call us rabid, they call us delusional, they call us homophobic straights and love to strip us of our queerness in the same breath, they call us ableists even though this fandom has had several conversations about this, they call us aggressive, they say we are jealous of a mlm ship, they say we are irrational, they call us everything but the one thing we are: black. yet the painted picture is very clear to me and surely every other black person who has ever engaged dominantly white spaces: the big black bully! this is the easiest way to "aggressive black woman" your way through genuine critcism without ever saying it w those words nor acknowledging the thing you are criticized for.

and it becomes even more obvious when you read-over and over again-those attempts at demonizing an overtly black part of fandom (which mel/meljay fandom is and which i will come back to later) while NONE ever mention the things black people ARE saying because whenever you get ratioed for cuck art, whenever you get asked why you erase mel from the story, whenever people ask where mel is in arcane character group arts, whenever you mischaracterize mel for a mlm ship, whenever you strip her of her feelings, whenever you make her an abuser, whenever you dehuminaze her, whenever you deify her, whenever you cry that you cannot criticize her yet dont ever criticize her outside of that ship you so like, whenever any of this happens black fans HAVE and WILL tell you that this is antiblack, its misogynistic, but most of all-since a word for this phenomenon already exists-it is misogynoir. you are participating in misogynoir. your every like is supporting misogynoir. the active erasure of a black woman in fandom is misogynoir. whenever you strip black fans of their credibility to speak out against racism bc we are just "crazy shippers on an agenda", that is misogynoir too. people who arent in this fandom have been clocking this. they see us saying this. they avoid watching the show or engaging w this fandom because the misogynoir is so prevalent here and it is unchallenged by everyone but black people and a few allys who actually mean their shit when they talk about allyship.

the rest of you barely skim our texts or just go "well im not racist so this doesnt apply to me" instead of listening to us trying to explain what the issue is. you guys are so sure that you are a good ally, that you arent racist, that nothing you do is ever misogynoirist, yet you dont even realize that you dismiss or even silence black voices you dont like by villainizing every black fan who wants to talk about this and uplifting every black person who says the things you want to hear. to the point that a black user here can use the hard r and white people are trying to educate black people why that is okay or isnt okay. all while that person even apologized and had to tell you guys to not speak over black people in defense of them. do you not see that you are tokenizing the black voices you deem comfortable while ignoring every voice that asks for a little bit of accountability in your contribution to the horrid antiblackness on arcanetwt?

but, no, no, rest assured this doesnt just apply to the fans but to the character in question too after all there is a reason why meltwt/meljaytwt is so outspoken on this. it isnt about her partner being shipped w someone else, most of us dont even care for the ship, our issue is the constant attempt at erasing her from the relationship she was in and those are two completely different things even if you blatantly choose to look the other way and fabricate lies. mel medarda, despite always being spoken about as beautiful and complex and such a great character, so far even that people say they want her to leave jayce so they can have her for herself, has a very small following. she has less fics on ao3 than the others, barely any x reader ship despite so many people claiming to shipping themselves with her, she gets less solo art and even less w other people or her canonical ship. she is constantly being othered. just recently we had someone exclude her from group art and saying she was the teacher while her same aged peers were drawn as students. to many she simply doesnt exist and if you care about mel, if you actually do like her, if you seek out her content, this becomes abundantly clear real quick: mel does not exist as a main character to arcanetwt.

she is a side character to many of you. she is a side character like any other black women in fiction because you as fans were conditioned by young age to view black women as that. you are surrounded by the sassy black best friend, the angry black woman, the disposable black girlfriend who will always just be a temporary love interest, side character a and side character b - you grew up in a world where you view black women like that. that is why her fandom is so small. just like any other black female characters are small. no other main character gets this type of treatment other than her. and that her fandom is so small is just another indicator for that. and that it mostly consists of black fans is another indicator too because those very often are the only ones capable to see a black woman as a character in herself and not just a nice compliment in a sentence in between. this, too, is misogynoir btw and saying "well i just prefer this and this character" only works so many times before you gotta put the work in and question your racial bias and i am telling you YOU HAVE TO to OVERCOME that and i am telling you that because i too used to not care about black female characters.

i grew up in a very white society and was one of those kids who were trying to be as white as possible to cater to white ppl and i had to actively unlearn to ignore dark skinned women in any media and woah let me tell you once you do you realize there are so many beautiful characters to obsess over and so many new people to meet and it WILL change your view on a lot of things in fandom and it will make you AWARE and that is a good thing. you should be woke. being woke is a good thing no matter how many people say it isnt. its just nobody can do this for you but you yourself. you will see the mistreatment of fans and you will get angry about this and you will get uncomfortable too bc you might be nonblack you might even be white but that is just what it is and how its going to be and i appeal to you to be loud w us as well, to fight for a fandom space where white fans arent the only ones who get to enjoy sillies and whimsicals, where we can move and have fun w/o being confronted w unchallenged racism and people being too proud to work on their biases or even take any critcism, i beg you to not gaf about aesthetics and what you want your blog to look like and i beg you to not gaf about what your peers might think of you bc trust me you do not want to be the person belittling antiblackness for the sake of getting a few likes on an art piece where two people you like smooch.

this affects real black people even if arcanetwt wants to say we arent real or dont care about black issues. this is a black issue just like it'd be w any recreational activity

[melatonindeficient]

live laugh love mel

"Mel manipulated jayce" yeah you fucker she's a politician.

Mel isn't telling people what to or what not to think or convincing them to make drastic changes to their lives or personalities in order to bend them to her will. She just knew how to appeal to certain interests in order to achieve a goal. Jayce is an honest and sincere person—say what you want about her, but she was honest and sincere to him as well.

Not only that but she was a politician brought up by a narcissist who quite apparently skewed her perception of what relationships should look like so can we be so fucking for real.

Mel saw an opportunity for some sort of positive change and improvement and took it, and along the way she softened and began to actually love jayce. She didn't have to hold on to him any longer than season one. Hell, as smart as she is if she really didn't want to embark on a romantic relationship with him, she probably wouldn't have had to. And dude, jayce talis might be naïve but he also performed illegal operations in his apartment and performed immense scientific feats by the skin of his teeth. It's not like he just sat there without a thought in his head while him and mel first interacted.

And it never sat right with me that one can be so quick to call Mel a manipulator for wanting to use Jayce's knowledge to create hextech weapons while ignoring that that logic makes Viktor a manipulator in joining forces with Jayce to advance his own search for personal perfectability. I mean, they're parallels for a reason. And it doesn't seem so at first--because they worked as partners in the lab, but Viktor knew he couldn't do that without what Jayce knew, and he couldn't make the most of what Jayce knew without getting close--but Jayce and Viktor's lofty ideals of progress prove that they are flawed once the two of them begin to start working separately for different goals (as Jayce creates a hextech weapon and Viktor insists they must stop).

And in the end, who's the one who uses Jayce's knowledge for worse rather than better? Vik.

In addition, I saw a comment somewhere saying that when she met Ambessa again (in season 1) she realised that she didn't want to continue the cycle of transactional, manipulative relationships which her mother started and began to try and change in the way she viewed relationships, and in turn in the way she loved, and that's so fucking true like holy shit.

Jinx's projection of Silco says that "the cycle only ends when you walk away" at the very end of season 2, but Mel breaks her cycle far before she has her final encounter with her mother in episode nine of season two. No, Mel broke her cycle when she realized she didn't want to do to her great love what her mother did to her. When Ambessa tried to sink her teeth into Jayce.

(Meljay is my endgame I scream as they drag me to my enclosure)

[nikolaiar]

Meljayvik I see and hear you

Also Jayce shut up why are you so hard to draw

[proxythe]

two wolves cuddling 🐺🌞

[stealingpotatoes]

Mel Medarda

you agree

I DO AGREE!!! I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY!!!! mel makes me go CRAZY both bc her character/story is so incredible and also bc like... those arcane modellers knew what they were doing ok--

[guardianbee]

Hi everyone I came back because Arcane S2 treated my girls Mel & Sky like absolute GARBAGE and then Ekko is rewarded with absolutely NOTHING for saving everyone from themselves and I'm here to reblog shit AND talk shit about it.

I mean, I cannot BELIEVE the disposable black girlfriend trope was used TWICE in a show within TWO episodes of one another, oh my GOD. I cannot BELIEVE they had Jayce verbatim spew out the same anti-Mel talking points this fandom has had since Season 1 Act 1 Episode 1. I cannot BELIEVE they had Sky comfort Vik the same way Mel comforted Jayce in S1, had her be his emotional rock through all his changes with the hexcore only for him to kill her a SECOND TIME. I cannot BELIEVE how little screentime Ekko had this season given how pivotal he is to Jinx and Vi's backstories AND his overall importance to the main plotline (which was totally sidelined in the last act, wtf).

Like what the fuck black characters can't have anything lol, lmao even.

[miraofhearts2point0]

i still havent processed how insane ep5 is.

like wdym Caitlyn frees Vi from the prison she's been in for YEARS. wdym Jinx almost beats Vi's high score. wdym Vi calls Caitlyn hot. wdym Caitlyn agrees to pretend to work in the brothel. wdym SEVIKA is a regular at said brothel (!!!!!!!!) wdym Jayce and Mel's sex scene is framed as Jayce cheating on Viktor. wdym we get the Jinx baptism scene. wdym Imagine Dragons is a canonical band in the Arcane universe. wdym Sevika's cards forshadowed Viktor's transformation. wdym Viktor is dying and again, is framed like Jayce cheated on him. wdym Sevika/Vi fight (butches save me save me butch lesbians). wdym Sevika hip reveal. WDYM CAITLYN SAVED VI A SECOND TIME.

[mourn2]

Uhh so like. I've almost forgotten how to use this app but many things have happened and I finished arcane when the finale dropped. Is this anything. + More under the cut

[m4chine-her4ld]

Practicing drawing one of the prettiest women in arcane 🩷🩷

[maneskinwh0re]

me anytime someone says “hear me out” over arcane women:

it’s like a cis straight white man saying “hear me out” over megan fox

[cvntroach5000]

i love mel so fucking much but queen why are you wearing a fucking curtain to the battlefield

[notnotravenpond]

hi

Mel Medarda

[artificialcaretaker]

-Don’t get lost in heaven-

[Haven’t cleaned up a traditional peace in a while, so this was a real nice throwback for me!!

GOD. Mel my BELOVED. I feel so bad for my wife bro she just keeps going through it. Y’know what I’m thinking of, though? She is just. SO much more emotionally mature than everyone else. Like, barely anybody in this series can actually handle grief without doing something that fucks at least a couple people over!! Everyone else loses someone and decided to blow shit up about it!! Only other character I can think of who’s gone through significant loss and STILL hasn’t lost it is Ekko, probably. Maybe it’s just the black people, maybe we’re all just really calm and composed!! Or maybe we intentionally tone down our emotional reactions in order to still be respected because even the smallest slip up knocks you RIGHT down to the Stereotype Zone with the people around you. Idk if real world racism exists in LoL it’s prolly not that lmao.

But either way, Mel’s holding a lotta emotions back, and while I sincerely doubt she’s gonna start killing people about it like everyone else I DO hope she finds SOME way to truly and finally express all of it. I WOULD be like “Oh she’ll talk to Jayce and it’ll be a beautiful moment showing their mutual love and support for each other dawwwwww” but no he’s going insane and killing their boyfriend. And their boyfriend developed a messiah complex and became a cult leader. Oh and also her buddy-in-law became a dictator with her MOM. GOD she’s gonna be so pissed when she gets back 😔😔😔

[survivalove]

everyday i log on here to see a post that makes me happy jayce is sky dust (no pun intended) and will never be in any canon media with mel again 🥰

[pinkysberg]

the flash art for mel's arcane inspired league skin is stunning!

WHO THAT IN THE BAAAACK

in mel medarda's league of legends gameplay voicelines, if she kills jayce she'll say "another love torn away"

and here i sit, rly hyperfocusing on the word another. what love could she have lost? the one person that mel laments over the loss of (that isn't of familial relation to her) is elora.

in this essay i will-

[neo--queen--serenity]

I think it was a very fascinating and deliberate choice on the creators’ part to give the two people closest to Jayce—Viktor and Mel—the same imagery that evokes the mystery mage who helped Jayce when he was a child.

We see this visual callback first in Viktor, in Act I:

This makes sense, of course, once we know the mystery mage is Viktor—albeit a future version of himself. But what struck me is the fact that they also gave Mel Medarda the same treatment.

When Jayce first sees her after the awakening of her magic, he sees that image—a being whose mere presence caused his weapon to light up in recognition, paired with a robe covering their identity—and I think there’s a great possibility that he asked himself if this was the one; the mage who saved him when he was young.

Once she reveals herself, he visibly relaxes, and they reconnect. But the physical change in her is clear in her body language. She now moves like the mage in Jayce’s memory. She hides her face in her hood often, something she never used to do before. And her mannerisms are slightly different, which could easily be accounted for due to her not being used to the magic now alive in her body. But it’s the change itself that makes the viewer do a double-take.

It could just be that Mel and Viktor are the only mages we see up close in the series. Perhaps it is simply what happens when magic transforms their wielder in subtle, physical ways.

But I think the parallel holds narrative weight as well. The two people with the most affection and influence over Jayce both end up touched by the Arcane in ways that are both transformative and involuntary. The are changed after their bodies become vessels of magic.

I think that’s why the creators gave both Mel and Viktor the same iconography that would invoke a clear memory from Jayce’s childhood as the symbol that started him on the path to magic.

Viktor actually was the mystery mage from Jayce’s memory, and after the finale, the viewer knows why. But I think, implicitly, the point was that either one of them could have been.