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valtsv:

"MELANIE: [Charged tones] Yes, the bullet was bad, right, but it didn’t make me angry. Anger is… Anger’s been all I’ve had for a very long time. Years. Maybe since… oh, I, I don’t know. But everything I’ve done, everything I pushed for was because I was angry. 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. I hurt someone. And then one day, I suddenly have this thing that takes all that rage, and it holds it, tells me it’s right, that it’s me. It didn’t stay in my leg because of some ghostly master plan. It stayed because I wanted it." (from The Magnus Archives Episode 131: Flesh).ALT

i think a lot about the phrasing of this monologue. melanie could have said “it stayed because i let it” or “because i needed it” and absolved herself of some of the responsibility for her actions by framing herself as a passive participant, detached herself from her actions and emotions and agency during her time as an avatar of the slaughter, but she doesn’t. she admits that it felt good to hurt people. that she enjoyed it. that she chose to let her anger out and use it to do harm when given the opportunity, that she actively made the decision to embrace it rather than resist it. that despite knowing how bad it was, a part of her still misses it, even now. misses the power it gave her over others. misses the feeling of being in control. in a story where personal agency and the lack thereof is as central as it is in the magnus archives, it’s simultaneously sympathetic and sickening to hear someone candidly admit that that felt too good to want to stop, no matter the cost. it stayed because i wanted it.