#melonxagata

[beautifulstarsbeastars]

What the Hybrid Project Took From Melon (Melon’s Redemption rant)

⚠️ The following rant refers only to events in my fanfic which revolves around Melon. It doesn’t follow canon or have any information about the Beastars manga or anime itself but does contain major spoilers to my Melon’s Redemption fanfic. Read at your own risk! ⚠️

I don’t normally make posts like this but I’ve been thinking about Melon in my fanfic a lot lately and I just need to talk about it.

Forgive me for this but I don’t know how to explain it otherwise: Think about your life for a moment. All your childhood memories, school years, every person you ever met or talked to, everyone you’ve ever known, all your goals and accomplishments…

Now imagine if it were all a lie. Everything I just listed was all orchestrated by someone else for their own agenda. That you never had true autonomy in your actions or decisions.

That your actions and thoughts were never truly yours. And everything you thought you knew about yourself and your life was just that…A lie.

That is the position Melon is now currently in in my fanfic and it’s difficult for me to write it out because, well. This!

We all know how Melon is in the manga (and in the anime!). In canon, Melon knows exactly who he is (or what he believes he is) and fully embraces it. That being a murderous ‘love failure, half-baked freak’ who hates the world and wants to see it burn.

There are times in the anime specifically where he seems uncomfortable with the idea of anyone thinking him more than that (correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Legoshi call him beautiful?). Similarly, times where Legoshi or even Yahya in the manga sympathized with him but Melon rejected them.

It’s not so much accountability as it is..I guess acceptance? Or self awareness? Like Melon never denies what he is or pretends to be anything different (except for luring his victims or being a university professor but that’s besides the point).

I don’t know if I’d say he’s proud of who or what he is but Melon sure doesn’t want anyone to think differently of him. No, I think his sense of self is the one and only thing he has and him rejecting any notion that he could be different or anything other than that is him protecting himself.

He knows he’ll never get validation from anyone for being a murderer or a hybrid (especially that) so he doesn’t bother seeking it out or, by extension, any hope for anything better.

Now imagine if that Melon were to go through exactly what I described a moment ago. If Melon were faced with the reality that not even his sense of self was his, how do you think he would react? How broken he would be?

- Side note here!: If the Hybrid Project happened in canon (and everything else stayed the same), I don’t know if Melon could or would be able to cope. Sure I do think that Legoshi would run to his side (to support him but also to understand what this is as it may affect him too) and Yahya might have Melon in protective custody and investigate it but Melon might not even want that help: He’ll either hurt himself or go after whoever these people are.

THAT is what the Hybrid Project takes from Melon. His sense of self and security, his autonomy, his bodily autonomy, and (and I don’t know if there’s a word for it but) the peace of mind that his life, his actions and his decisions are truly his!

The difference here is in my fanfic, Melon has Agata, the Shishigumi and Gouhin to fall back on. A support system to help him pick up the pieces of whatever’s left and move on from it but even with that, Melon would still be stuck with not knowing how to.

Like seriously I can’t imagine how that level of anxiety would feel like. Especially if we consider the fact that the Hybrid Project brainwashed Melon into responding to his killing instincts and kill people. So Melon has to learn to control his urges on top of everything else.

That is pretty much what Melon’s growth will be moving forward in my fanfic. Deciding who he is and how he grows into that person.

TLDR: I wrote Melon with a severe identity crisis and I’m loving it!

[agatanmelonsideblog]

AU where Agata n Melon broke up, but still hang out from to time and Juno is the new boss. (Also cursed so beware!)

[just-incorrect-beastars]

Melon: Agata, I was at the mall today and a little remote controlled car ran up to me. It was really funny and enjoyable! So I need you to go to a local gym, and ask men to pee in your hands.

Agata: I-I can’t see the connection here

Melon: Do I need to repeat myself? The car ran up to me! And it did spins and had flashy lights!Go to the gym, kneel down on the shower and ask man to pee in your cupped hands.

Agata:

[beautifulstarsbeastars]

Was it hard for you to write a redemption story for Melon when Melon is....well Melon. ^^; Loved Melon's Redemption, BTW!

Eeek! I love this ask! ❤️

It was hard but not necessarily because of Melon’s antics (I was actually worried that I wasn’t portraying him accurately. I still feel that way! 😅😆). There were two aspects about writing a redemption story for Melon that I really wanted to focus on though.

Firstly, how and why Melon would want to change and stop killing people.

We get a very good view of Melon’s perspective throughout the manga (and in the anime) so I dove into Melon’s thought process and how he’d reason things out in the story. It was fun but as the story went on and more of the Hybrid Project and how it involved Melon came out, it got difficult because I wanted to use it to challenge Melon’s entire perception of who he is and question everything he thought he knew and believed about society.

And secondly, how Melon’s relationship with Agata played out and what impact it had in the story.

As you may know, the Agata x Melon shipping is kinda controversial in the Beastars fandom (and I get it, there’s literally nothing in canon to suggest anything more than boss and subordinate between the two. The only leg it has is Melon having (somewhat) the most interaction with Agata out of all the other lions and Melon’s treatment of the Shishigumi could only be described as abusive).

Because the ship was a major starting point in the story, my first goal for it was how to make this ship (that is usually portrayed in a BDSM kind of light and/or hated by most people) actually work and something to root for. In this way, Melon’s antics made things difficult! 😆

But more importantly than that was I did not want Melon’s Redemption to read as ‘Melon became good because he fell in love’, ‘Agata changed Melon with his love’ or ‘Agata fixed/saved him’. I really dislike that kind of storytelling because it’s not realistic, does not address the crimes or bad actions the person has done and (more frustratingly) doesn’t explore why the person became a villain and as a result their redemption arc never feels complete or satisfying (and also begs the question if it’s even real or permanent).

In that way, the Hybrid Project and the Agata x Melon ship went hand in hand with each other: Melon did not want to change because someone ‘fixed’ him. He learned the truth about his past and the crimes he committed and in response he chose to break free from it so he could finally have real control over his life and Agata (and the rest of the Shishigumi) were there to help him pick up the pieces of what’s left.

I’m glad you loved Melon’s Redemption!🍈🦁 I’m sorry I haven’t been updated it as much as I used to but I am still writing for it!

[beautifulstarsbeastars]

This is based on a TFR prompt I found on Pinterest last year (they work so well with Beastars and this ship! I really need to do more of them).

Melon and Agata are (c) Beastars

TFR prompt (212) is (c) The Fake Redheads Writing Prompts

Art is (c) Me

[beautifulstarsbeastars]

Scene from the ‘A Day for You and Me’ chapter (Link here https://archiveofourown.org/works/31660844). This how I imagined Melon felt during that scene.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Melon and Agata are (c) Beastars

Art and Melon’s Redemption fanfic are (c) Me

[agatanmelonsideblog]

Agata came for a midnight snack, only to realize that the best midnight snack is right THERE!