beauty // pain

[byeloveyou]

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

headcanons, edits, verse summaries. basically where everything gets dumped before it's reblogged over on main.

[byeloveyou]

꧁ maeve looks: phd years ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ 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.

when she’s had enough or is pushed to it,  she can end a fight.  getting her to that point is incredibly frustrating though and good luck trying it.  maeve is very good with pain,  with hiding all kinds of emotions,  and frankly?  her distaste for violence is one of her core characteristics.

[byeloveyou]

꧁ 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.

 visiting maeve’s office is very much like entering another world,   where everything has a story,   everything is seemingly ancient despite the room itself being very modern.   it doesn’t feel cluttered    -    unless she’s in the process of boxing / unboxing    -    but it still feels like a reflection of her mind when she’s in a good place.   it’s as much a learning space as her lecture halls are and it’s always open to students who need help or just to talk.

[byeloveyou]

꧁ you WILL die for this ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ the leaving season - jihyun yun ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ the truelove - david whyte ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ maeve && languages ꧂

 something I find really funny is that maeve never mentions she’s good at languages.   since she spent her early years almost completely nonverbal  (  hence her often using ASL when she’s talking and not paying attention  ),   maeve is an extraordinary listener.  her whole career is based around seeing patterns,    remembering things,    and languages are something she enjoys because it means she can stay alert and aware.  she’s not forcing anyone to adapt to her,  she’s willing to adapt to them.  the fact people don’t know how fast she learns them also is a good way to manage expectations of her.

so when she does let her knowledge slip,  it’s in tiny bursts when she’s not paying attention to herself:   like saying    ❝   huh I thought it meant [other, probably more complicated, option]   ❞     to herself when someone is translating around her.    maeve is never one for bragging,  and she doesn’t learn languages for the sake of it.  she adores knowledge and values communication because she was forced to become verbal to the point rambling is now often an anxious response to silence.  

 in threads,    the more comfortable she is with a character,     the less she speaks.   and from her that’s a sign of trust because she’s trusting them to be okay with her not trying to be anything but herself for a few moments.

[byeloveyou]

꧁ maeve && faith in the afterlife ꧂

maeve is,    very much,    a woman of science.   she believes in things she can see:  she believes in the things that she can prove exist.  she is also a jewish woman with a very complicated relationship when it comes to…   well,  god.   the answer to this also varies very much depending by her age.

as a child  (  and honestly several years into being a teenager overwhelmed and lost at university  )   maeve had constant nightmares about drowning.  they were nightly terrors that were less about a fear of dying and more a constant reminder of how very small and helpless she felt compared to the size and brutality of world around her.  the fear was never dying,  it was the being lost forever amongst the tides.  the concept of an afterlife wasn’t something that really crossed her mind.

by the time she’s an adult,   working full time alongside studying various degrees,  maeve’s relationship with her faith is simple.  she doesn’t truly believe in a god,  but sometimes she wonders if it’d be less lonely if she did.  her religion is her culture,  one she does care for and respect deeply.   but to her death is a mystery she doesn’t need answered for:  it’s living that’s her current struggle.  when her adopted mother, mary’s, cancer first returns maeve’s priority is just to work to help her as much as possible  -  she never lets herself consider what will happen if mary doesn’t recover.

and then diane happens.  months of being hunted,  of fear,  of feeling more lost than she ever has before.  she has to listen to bobby be murdered before diane’s game continues  (  she fights death,  refuses to jump,  refuses to ever give diane that victory  )  -  she’s ready to fight until it’s spencer’s life on the line…  then she redirects diane’s attention to herself.  she’s willing to die to protect him.

so then there’s maeve post coma:  post a year of being cold,  alone,  of darkness.  whilst before she didn’t think about it,  maeve considers the coma a death of sorts.  during her recovery,  during the time she spends running and trying to heal…  maeve truly,  deeply believes that when she dies,  there’s nothing waiting for her.  just more hollowness,  more loneliness.   it’s not helped by the fact her adoptive father passed away during her coma,  giving her no time to mourn him in the immediate aftermath. 

it’s part of what makes her fight so hard to heal.  

[byeloveyou]

꧁ maeve && names ꧂

maeve has a lot of ways she shows she has feelings for someone - how she looks at them, how she uses silence and touch to reassure them… how she lets her guard down or is even just capable of relaxing / sleeping near them. yes she’ll say the words ( after a while ) but that’s only after a long time of it being expressed in far more important ways. these don’t always have to be romantic feelings: she does say I love you to her friends, probably sooner than she would to someone it’s a different love for.

but maeve’s relationship with names is important. in general she does use what the person prefers, of course, but assuming she has freedom to work within that. she flutters between using long names vs nicknames - both allow her to be expressive without needing to use too many words.

addendum: maeve’s relationship with her own name is very complicated - it means, truly, nothing to her.

she was born merav delman, and for a bit, that’s who she was. in foster care an unusual name like merav wasn’t really worth much to temporary families: child small and seemingly unable to ever speak… so she offered no protest when she became simply mera.

when the donovans started fostering her, it was her father’s family that playfully nicknamed her ‘little maeve’ after his mother - her grandmother and the person who loved her the most. who understood her the most.

by her adoption at eleven, mera donovan easily started using maeve as a good enough name as any, the papers she had published during her teenage years all credited simply to ‘m. donovan’ genderless, ageless, devoid of a clue who she really was.

at eighteen, she finally legally changed her name to maeve ‘beatrice’ donovan, an ode to both her grandmother and another important figure in her life. so, over her life, she’s had many names and none of them really feel her own. it’s why they mean so much to her with others: they have power because they seem almost magical to her. a being without a true name is unusual and she’s always been odd.

[byeloveyou]

꧁ loving you was the most exquisite form of self destruction ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ ‘I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster,’ she thought, ‘and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.’ ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ zainab aamir ꧂

[byeloveyou]

꧁ maeve && section 31 ꧂

consider. the quote   'you are a flower,   my dear.   so sweet,   so gentle and so bright. though I fear that you will not survive the cold of night'   and how applicable it is about maeve’s relationship with section 31?   because maeve’s a genius,  but more than that,  maeve sees patterns and people’s true natures in a way few others do. 

 so she’s not naive.  when she’s told her only option is join section 31 or probably be locked up for the fact mary genetically altered her and hid the fact she was romulan?  she knows.  she knows they’re trying to turn her into a weapon.   they want to take away all she is and keep only what’s useful. 

 imagine being stuck in a situation where you know your morals / nature will get you killed. knowing you’re 100% smart enough and sharp enough you could survive if you just… surrender to being what she needs to be. 

 and yet still choosing no, I’m going down as me, nobody’s making me into a monster.  it’s akin to how in canon she says to diane   “if you’re gonna kill me, you kill me, but I am not jumping.”  she’s fully capable of staring down a barrel and still make the decision that if she’s about to die,  she’s dying as her.    especially in her star trek verse  -   she’s so aware of how mary changed her,  how mary never cared about who maeve was just who she wanted this child to be.  

she’s there to screw them over as much as she can,   and to help when something seems worth it.   at least in DS9 / voyager / etc eras she has a little bit of hope she’ll be able to get herself out of this once she meets people she accidentally starts openly caring for.

[byeloveyou]

꧁ verse summary: the old guard ꧂

NOTE:   this verse heavily heavily references @/ventureheart​’s old guard clara,   aka.  maeve’s immortal wife

maeve’s very first death, the one that started it all, came at 134 CE. she’d been engaged once && there were rumours that she and a roman scholar were much closer than anyone would have been comfortable with… though, the woman still known as merav, remained an odd creature for her time: brilliant, a love for children but none of her own, a dreamer in her own right who’d been found as an orphan when only a child.

when she awoke again, alive after being dead, her life as merav ended sharply. it would be another several hundred years until she’d chosen a final name for herself - but, once grief faded, she flourished. she’d always been brilliant, but endless time allowed her to work past people’s expectations of her as a woman. studying the birth of every science, each new philosophy, writing under pen name after pen name as she finally got to experience the world around her.

unlike her mortal life, she was finally not alone. both she and clara born into their new lives within years of each other: new, hopeful eyes, refusing to be hardened by humanity’s constant repetition of the same mistakes.

violence never came easily to her: it never really would become so either. whilst she can fight if necessary, maeve’s role to the team is her expertees. when they lost quynh, and clara travelled searching the seas for her, maeve left to see if science could offer a better way of finding a needle in an ocean. they kept in touch, as always, with love letters in a language of their own making - a mix of sanskrit and hebrew - but maeve’s path took her away from the others.

keeping herself invisible but over the centuries working in the lion’s den, keeping an eye on their enemies, whilst working as a geneticist to try and find the team answers. who they were, what they were, had to be in their blood… did it not?

her self-imposed isolation does not come easily and she loathes it completely. but maeve’s priority has always been to keep them safe… even if that means so much time alone, surrounded by the constant death that comes with mortality. she’s still ready to come running the moment she’s needed, she cares a lot, but she struggles a great deal regularly with what she is and having the weight of ‘helping’ her own kind by finding answers.

[byeloveyou]

꧁ I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed ꧂