beauty // pain

sideblog to @lookedinfinite. any mutuals can reblog edits but please make sure you have some sort of maeve tag x

꧁ grief and rage - you need to contain that, to put a frame around it, where it can play itself out without you or your kin having to die. ꧂

꧁ you can burn the dress and run away ꧂

꧁ maeve && permanent struggles ꧂

 sadly,   the easiest answer to this is simple:  maeve will likely struggle for the rest of her  -  usually too brief  -  life to see herself as permanent to people or truly worth loving.   life has taught her she only has a place in people’s lives as long as she is useful.  foster families kept her until they got a more ideal,    easier,    child.   the donovans only decided to keep her once they realised how smart she was.

her life has been time and time again of people sending her away the moment she’s not what they want and I think there’s a part of her that will never truly be able to understand when people truly do want    &&   value her.   she’s too smart,   too observant,   to pretend she doesn’t know they mean it,   she just…    doesn’t understand why.   it’s part of why maeve loves they so freely   -  and why she asks for so little in return.

if they don’t love her as much as she loves them,    she’ll walk away first.    not for herself but because she thinks they deserve to find someone they truly would be happy with.   in canon maeve dies just out of reach   &&   it’s a willing sacrifice.   the only time she’s willing to let diane win by choosing to die is to save spencer.  so it’s very much in her nature to be willing to die for those she loves.  

꧁ maeve && affection ꧂

 when maeve gets close to someone romantically…   cheek kisses are a thing.   if she trusts someone and is really happy about something they did for her,   she’ll lean up and kiss their cheek before rushing off to focus on whatever it is.   they’re not all the time,   but it’s her way of showing affection   -   that and gently squeezing people’s arms   -   and if you reach the point where she’ll do them you should know she’d jump off a cliff for you.

 basically,   if she knows the other person is okay with it,   maeve is extremely   (   yet still very,    very subtly   )   tactile with the people she loves:   a contrast to how she loathes anyone she doesn’t trust even standing in her personal space.

 the closer you are to her emotionally,   the closer you’re allowed to be physically.   because of her being shorter than a great deal of people,   it can feel intimidating   /   uncomfortable when people are in her space with their hovering over her.    so whilst she’s usually still very warm   &&   friendly to new people,   her hesitation can sometimes be palpable.   this is especially the case if she knows they don’t like her:   she’s fine letting them dislike her,  or misread her   -   but she’ll never initiate any kind of contact.

꧁ the haunting of hill house ꧂

꧁ let me stay ꧂

꧁ maeve && her relationship with love ꧂

maeve has a complicated relationship with love  -  not just the romantic kind.  as a personality type,  she does crave it:  her life has been for the most part a very lonely one   (   often as a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts    )    &&   in canon   ‘ ghost ’   her does joke about her guilty pleasure being cheesy rom com films.    she has no need to be anyone’s first choice,   but maeve would deeply wish to be someone’s last choice   -   the person that they’re actually happy to just…  stop with. 

I’ve said in previous headcanons that maeve’s main issue is seeing herself as temporary in people’s lives,    after all,    her entire childhood wasn’t people leaving her but rather her being sent away.  she views her time in any team / family / friendship as a temporary one where she will automatically go to leave when her ‘usefulness’ has been fulfilled.  

as discussed here,  her relationship with her ex-fiance bobby was:  emotionally abusive at the bare minimum,  controlling on his behalf   &&   described by her parents as ‘her first serious relationship’.   she’d been in love before,  someday I’ll write something up about those failed relationships,   but they never worked.  even with bobby she tried for long enough to get engaged but it was never a healthy love.     bobby  -  in the words of bly manor  -  mistook possession for love.

after this  &&  after her coma,  maeve still is desperate for love and connection.   how could she not be?   her life feels like endless running.  her efforts to heal meant once again she removed herself from the few people left in her life    (  her mother and reid,  since her father dies when she’s in her coma  )  and didn’t even contact most of the old friends she’d lost touch with when diane came into her life to tell them she isn’t dead.  she literally doesn’t contact people to say   ‘ I’m out of the coma! ’   because she doesn’t think it would matter that much.

꧁ maeve && one night stands ꧂

 nobody asked but I’m emotional over how for maeve,  friendship trumps anything?  she’s the kind of person who has never really felt like she’s permanent to people  -  and whilst she’s a romantic,  and does want love…   she doesn’t value platonic love any less.

 all of her lasting relationships have started off as friendships.  in canon we know bobby was her first serious relationship and I’ve always viewed that as several years of very toxic on-off-on-off before she finally called off the engagement because she accepted it’s better to be lonely than be with someone her own mother later describes as ‘a controlling bastard’.

before him,  maeve had plenty of short term relationships and a lot of one night stands that tended to evolve into very genuine friendships.  because once you get to know her,  you know how to spot the fact she’s not emotionless she’s just…  shy and subtle.  she wears her heart on her sleeve but you have to learn how to read it?  

꧁ maeve looks: the old guard ꧂

꧁ maeve && being called kid ꧂

whilst I do - often - blame maeve's shyness for a lot of the ways she presents herself:  in truth,   from the moment the donovans started fostering her,  that shyness was only used to shape her into mary's idealised version of the perfect little scientist. being a woman in the scientific community isn't an easy thing...  but it's all the harder to be so very young and trying to get people to listen to the way she can see patterns and results in a way others can't. 

she was 14 when she went to university,   and since then she was in labs a lot of the time:  young,  brilliant,  a quiet girl people wanted to dismiss because everything about her was threatening to them.  the very thought that someone could be so smart naturally - yet still worked so hard - who would achieve more in the start of career than they had over decades.

maeve never wanted to be a threat to anyone, she just wanted to use her smarts to help people.

so whilst in general maeve doesn't care what people call her ( be it doctor,  donovan,  just maeve ) but she really can't help disliking being called kid. if you’re male and young and impressive kid can be a compliment... but for a young woman in the scientific field? her age was a spear, used to invalidate her, sharpened and thrust at her when they couldn’t think of anything better. she knows most people mean no harm with it but she hears it and internally expects some sort of attack to follow - just because some people mean it as a compliment or observation doesn't change how many negative connotations it's gathered over the years.

꧁ maeve looks: historical ꧂

꧁ maeve && nail polish ꧂

generally, maeve's nails are always perfectly painted white. they're seemingly never chipped, never streaky, and never really something meant to grab people's attentions.

I've discussed before in canon how maeve says to spencer about women being turned against each other in the scientific world. it's something that brings maeve a great deal of sadness: she's not a competitive person. she knows how smart she is, she's always known, it's the only worth she's ever had to people. but she's an easy target for others to hate - she's the 'competition' after all, it all comes 'naturally' to her.

maeve refuses to buy into the 'not like other girls' or 'femininity is a bad thing'. she knows what men have held against her before: always telling her she's too young to know what she's talking about, too delicate, too feminine.

she's a quiet thing && she controls her emotions to give them less ammunition, she won't let people claim she's hysterical or emotional. but she never lets people forget that she's both a scientist and a woman, and she refuses to apologise for that.

it’s elegant, simple, understated but is also her making a point of embracing her femininity despite it being a ‘bad’ thing to the old annoying men she works with in the scientific community. maeve apologises for a lot of herself, she hides an awful lot more, but she's both a woman and a genius and a scientist and those cannot be denied.

꧁ maeve looks: phd years ꧂

꧁ maeve && arguments ꧂

the most incredibly frustrating thing about maeve  -  besides her absolute inability to view herself as permanent - is very much the fact that outside of very very rare situations…  you never argue with maeve.  you argue at her.  

she was raised by a scientist after all  &&  mary went out of her way to teach maeve to never show her emotions in an argument.  to always be composed, to stick to facts,  to never do anything men could then use to label her as hysterical no matter how right she is.

it takes all her willpower not to shut down in personal arguments, but it’s rare for something to push her into saying much.  so if you’re angry with her,  often she’ll seem like nothing is sinking in,  when actually it’s taking all her effort to make herself stay or not go nonverbal.  she never invalidates and she never belittles,  but for a lot of people her lack of obvious reactions must be hell. it's too easy to assume she doesn't care, when actually it's a sign of how much she does care.

꧁ bonus: maeve && sparring ꧂

this also extends to verses where sparring is a thing.  I’ve mentioned before that in verses where it’s needed   (  i.e. star trek,  stargate  )  maeve isn’t entirely defenceless.  yes,  there’s not a single violent bone in her body,  and yes she absolutely hates it.

but maeve is,  above all things,  observant.  it shows in her chess strategy and it shows in situations like these:   because once she’s watched you a couple of times, she can do a very good job of predicting your moves  /  knowing where your weaknesses are.

so why is this so annoying?  because maeve is very fast...   but she’s also almost entirely a defensive fighter.  come at her and she can avoid pretty much anything she needs to  -  but unless you go out of your way to irritate her,  she’s not going to try to bring it to an end.

꧁ maeve && her office space ꧂

in general,   when maeve stays somewhere long enough to actually decorate her office,   it is a mix of busy and disturbingly tidy.    seemingly ancient hardback copies of books are full of pencilled in notes,   post-its and little white cards where she’s illustrated something linked to it to help explain a concept to a student asking for extra help.   dried flowers in frames and framed interesting bugs    (  usually given to her as gifts  )   rest on various shelves,    a burst of colour from the outside that suits the usually plant heavy space.

꧁ you WILL die for this ꧂