Bloch

and then he comes out of his garage smelling like sweat and motor oil because he hasn't showered yet after working on his cycle, and he tells a lame joke that no one laughs at. Then he runs into a wall because he was staring at Mare and not paying attention.

anyway, universities in the rq world are canonical, as we learned in iris’s pov. but i’m about to come out and say that maven is an elara-pleaser to his core and would likely choose the track that most suits elara’s agenda—international relations for good diplomatic insights or economics so he could join in on national trade agreements would be likelier college tracks for him. in my mind, elara’s all about control. whether that’s just within her immediate family or as the queen of her kingdom. with her son only the third most important man in norta, she’d want him to have the edge in internal politics more than cal, so that in some ways, maven still is capable of contributing to nortan politics. also, she would never let her kid go into an artistic field, i see her as someone who doesn’t even realize she’s repressing her son. she sincerely believes making maven an efficient politician is her way of showing her love for him.

and maven would simply go for it because he loves her so much. he’ll choose economics or international relations and try his best to be good at it. to be good enough for elara. after all, it isn’t such an isolated case. many children even in the real world often choose college tracks entirely based on their parents’ wishes, discarding their own desires. which is precisely what maven does throughout the series.