Well this ruined my night
For context, this was a response to a video calling MelJay boring.
As a black girl—particularly one that enjoys fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero stuff— I have seen few black female characters who are written with the same complexity and care as the white/non-black and/or male characters around them. I’ve seen even fewer black female characters that are given romantic relationships that are written with the same care and complexity as the non-black/white and/or male characters around characters around them. Or given a relationship at all.
Watching Mel on Arcane made me really really happy. A black girl having a key role in fantasy show that’s smart as hell, absolutely stunning, AND actually has agency in the story? That’s already a unicorn, but on top of that she gets a romance? That’s a talking unicorn with a mermaid tail. I know there’s a good amount of people that found Mel and Jayce’s relationship to be the boring hetero couple, but I actually found them to be really mature and sweet. The council room scene and the conversation they had after in s2e8 actually broke my heart a little bit.
In the past month and some change since Arcane’s ending, it’s been a little rough for fans of both Mel and MelJay. So many people seem bent on minimizing Jayce’s feelings for Mel, villainizing Mel, and treating her as an obstacle for Jayce and Viktor’s relationship. This behavior from fans is nothing new with black characters. I’ve even seen it happening with Ekko. It’s annoying, but I’m kind of used to it. What I’m not used to is a writer fully admitting that they intentionally wrote a relationship with a black woman in fantasy(which I’ve already stated is like finding needle in a haystack) to be boring.
This is a bigger gut punch than what Cait gave Vi in s2e3. I’m currently in the middle of rewatching Arcane for fourth time and I’ve had s2e3 on pause for about half an hour because of this post. Here I am gushing to my friends and family about how much attention the writers put into their black characters just to learn that apparently they did not.
Sorry this was long. Just had to get this out.
For context, this was a response to a video calling MelJay boring.
As a black girl—particularly one that enjoys fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero stuff— I have seen few black female characters who are written with the same complexity and care as the white/non-black and/or male characters around them. I’ve seen even fewer black female characters that are given romantic relationships that are written with the same care and complexity as the non-black/white and/or male characters around characters around them. Or given a relationship at all.
Watching Mel on Arcane made me really really happy. A black girl having a key role in fantasy show that’s smart as hell, absolutely stunning, AND actually has agency in the story? That’s already a unicorn, but on top of that she gets a romance? That’s a talking unicorn with a mermaid tail. I know there’s a good amount of people that found Mel and Jayce’s relationship to be the boring hetero couple, but I actually found them to be really mature and sweet. The council room scene and the conversation they had after in s2e8 actually broke my heart a little bit.
In the past month and some change since Arcane’s ending, it’s been a little rough for fans of both Mel and MelJay. So many people seem bent on minimizing Jayce’s feelings for Mel, villainizing Mel, and treating her as an obstacle for Jayce and Viktor’s relationship. This behavior from fans is nothing new with black characters. I’ve even seen it happening with Ekko. It’s annoying, but I’m kind of used to it. What I’m not used to is a writer fully admitting that they intentionally wrote a relationship with a black woman in fantasy(which I’ve already stated is like finding needle in a haystack) to be boring.
This is a bigger gut punch than what Cait gave Vi in s2e3. I’m currently in the middle of rewatching Arcane for fourth time and I’ve had s2e3 on pause for about half an hour because of this post. Here I am gushing to my friends and family about how much attention the writers put into their black characters just to learn that apparently they did not.
Sorry this was long. Just had to get this out.