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Britney Spears in 2003 ｡⋆ ˚ ｡☆

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Frames I from my Stark siblings Sinking Town meme!!

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JIHYO THIS IS FOR, 250712

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mare barrow fanart in 2024

love ur work @vaveyard

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Rereading Red Queen to get to chapter twenty-six has made me emotionally distraught over Tibe & his sons (he calls Maven “my boy” and him telling Cal “this isn’t your fault 😭) and Maven’s inability to look his father in the face as he betrays him because somewhere deep down he probably still loves his dad too.

I’m unwell.

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sometimes posting on here feels like im getting stabbed hundreds times but ik im being irrational. Exposure therapy or something like that idk

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🚨🚨I changed my opinion on something🚨🚨

I don't think Elara was actually capable of removing and/or adding in anything to Maven nor do I think she directly altered Maven's feelings towards Mare. Instead I think her manipulation relied more so on heightening and subduing parts of Maven, meaning everything Maven feels was already within him. For Mare, I think the only way his feelings for her were impacted existed as a byproduct of his feelings of jealousy towards Cal being heightened.

To start my explanation I want to explain how I believe Elara's ability worked. Elara cannot add or remove anything so cleanly, rather she adjusts what feeling is prioritized. For instance, Coriane was already extremely paranoid and depressed before Elara began to manipulate her- Elara just strengthened her feelings of paranoia, she didn't add them. Another example- Maven's fear of the dark. Maven implies that Elara directly just removed this, but I think, given everything else I've said/will say, it's more likely that she subdued his fear enough that he ignore it, for a lack of better words, until he naturally grew out of it. However, for Maven it does feel like she just cut it out fully even if that's not really what she did. Thomas is something that Elara did try to fully remove and she failed. Rather than be removed, it's now just painful for Maven to even think about him and so I think this is why she didn't try to outright remove anything moving forward.

(Now I think it could be argued that Maven losing his ability to dream is evidence against this, but I think that really just comes down to how you want to look at it. I'm a bit split on it myself. Due to everything else I think it's unlikely that Elara was able to fully cut it out. However, because it happened around the time she tried removing Thomas, it may be a possibility that Elara was successful with this but didn't want to risk attempting anything like it again due to the risk factor. I think it could also be argued though that Elara just subdued his ability to do so and with all the stress and paranoia Maven deals with, it was that much harder to regain this ability. Could also be that Maven suffers from memory issues! I wouldn't put it past him given that regardless of what Elara is doing, it's still screwing with his mind! So he might be having dreams the entire story he just can't remember any of them when he wakes up.)

All in all- Elara's ability and how she changes Maven's mind relies mostly on a system of bringing things to the forefront or pushing them into the back of his mind. Maybe I was just taking it wayyy to literally when Maven said she was removing things lol but this is my new outlook on it

So back to Mare and my belief that Elara didn't directly touch his feelings for Mare. I say directly because ultimately Maven's feelings for Mare are altered as a byproduct of his feelings for Cal being screwed with.

Throughout the series, Maven never really changes his treatment of Mare. He consistently views her as a somewhat safe space and she is quite literally the only person he truly opens up to. While he does hurt her, he has moments, such as the torture scene, where he shows he still cares for her wellbeing and wants her to be ok.

I'm going to try to explain this as coherently as I can, so in order to do that I'm going to talk about Maven's displays of cruelty individually

The end of GS

Maven's worst act to Mare individually is this scene. If you don't remember, Maven forces Mare to walk through crowds of hateful Silvers to him, proceeds to leash her, and makes her kneel at his feet. In this scene Maven is acting out of his grief for his mother and his rage towards Mare for being her killer as well as holding her body up on a broadcast. Part of my evidence for why this is him making a decision fully uninfluenced by Elara is that it doesn't end up conflicting with anything as far as we can see. What I mean is that there is something Maven does, which we'll be talking about, where he shows some shame/embarrassment because I believe he's aware that it was a moment of him losing control and acting due to his feelings because skewed. With this, Maven really doesn't ever show much remorse for it because Maven was the one making the decision uninfluenced by Elara.

I think this is really important for the story as well. It's really meaningful to me that Maven's first action after Elara died, an action she had nothing to do with, is incredibly violent and cruel. It conveys to the reader immediately that Maven isn't going to suddenly "get better" now that she's gone and it confirms to the reader that Mare was right in her assertion that Elara was just holding his leash- things are about to get much worse because now no one is holding Maven back from doing things like this.

2. The brand

This is the thing I hinted at before. For this, I have to explain my thoughts on Maven's feelings for Cal. Elara, no doubt altered Maven's feelings for his brother- subduing his love and adoration for him and heightening his hatred and burning jealousy instead. Mare's impacted by this because when Maven is thinking about Mare in relation to Cal, or "prioritizing" Cal, he reduces her to an object either brother can possess. When prioritizing Cal, Maven can't view Mare as a person he loves much less a person at all, she just becomes something Maven can hold over Cal as proof he's better. Maven's desire to have Mare at his side is heavily influenced by this burning jealousy for Cal- it's not only about him loving her and wanting her with him, it's also about wanting proof that he beat Cal at something meaningful.

I think the brand is an example of this. When Maven brands her, it's an obvious sign of his desire to possess her and it happens while he is prioritizing Cal. As far as I remember (sorry if I'm misremembering lol) Maven later shows some discomfort and potentially even shame over doing this, because he, on some level, knows that he wasn't acting uninfluenced. However, during the branding Mare mentions to Maven that he's breaking his promise to her of not hurting her given we know how serious Maven takes his promises. This to me reads as a sign that he's not acting out of his feelings for Mare but rather out of his jealousy for Cal.

3. The betrayal

Very simple- Maven's decision to go through with the betrayal fully was due to the kiss between Cal and Mare. I think it's safe to assume that by this point his feelings towards Cal had been altered so he was prioritizing his jealousy but also! Maven is irrational and impulsive and he was hurt by Mare! I think if Maven had been able to really sit and think he wouldn't have gone through with it, or at least he would have excluded Mare from it- but he didn't have that time or opportunity. I think this is why we never really see Maven bounce back with Cal besides their final convo whereas with Mare, Maven basically expresses regret immediately- borderline pleading with Mare to come back to him during the convo in the cells.

For everything else such as Mare's imprisonment, Maven choosing to meet with her so long as there's Silverstone, the notes, etc. I think that can be explained as Maven is irrational. He doesn't really think things through and his feelings for Mare are all over the place. He loves her but he also hates her for being the catalyst for all of this, he loves her and genuinely wants her safe, but he also is prioritizing his jealousy for Cal and his mother's desires. Elara didn't have to change Maven's feelings for Mare because his feelings for Mare were already so incredibly wonky and also! I don't think Elara realized how big of an issue this was going to be! I don't think Elara understood how much Maven felt for Mare and how that, alongside his feelings towards Cal, would ultimately doom him.

Idk I prefer this because I think it's much more Impactful if Maven's feelings and actions did ultimately come from him. Elara didn't insert any hatred or anger, she just enhanced what was already there. Maven was capable of that cruelty regardless of her presence, in fact when she goes that he fully goes off the rails with it (though he was already going off of them before she died for instance the note he leaves for Mare clutched in a baby's hand)

I hope I explained this well, apologies if I didn't!

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terfs would lose their minds if they were exposed to 2000s-2010s "a girl can do anything a boy can do, including beating them at sports" messaging like why are you all acting like nobody has ever said this and that it's radical to think that women aren't inherently worse at things. open your mind. read some feminist theory. touch some grass. the most basic banal middle-class white woman feminism of the 2010s looks fucking radical and visionary compared to the misogynistic victimization complex y'all are peddling

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fuuuuck i just realized that the future idealized version of myself cant exist without current me being the catalyst for change and doing hard things. has anybody heard about this

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Something I find incredibly tragic is that the people who know the most about what happened to Coriane, who know how fatal Elara's manipulations can be, are the same people who neglected Maven his entire life and essentially allowed for it to happen again on a much worse level. Even more than that, they borderline place the blame on Maven for not speaking up or fighting against Elara when, really, why would he go to anyone for help when they do nothing but antagonize and/or other him.

It's also incredibly tragic to me that for both Coriane and Maven, Cal is the only person who is around them when the abuse happens and who loves them enough that he would want to protect them from it, but both times he's too young to even notice it much less understand what's happening.

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wow😭😭

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✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #621 )✅️

Today was unlike any other.

We received a few donations and with them, we had our first real meal in over a month. For the first time in so long, we didn’t go to sleep hungry. We cried, not from pain this time, but from overwhelming joy and gratitude.

To everyone who donated, shared, or simply kept us in their thoughts thank you. You didn’t just feed us. You reminded us that we’re not alone. You gave us back a piece of our dignity and hope.

But the struggle isn’t over. We’re still in need of food, support, and a little more light in these hard times.

Please, if you can, continue to help. Every share, every dollar, every act of kindness makes a real difference.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you. And please, stay with us on this journey.

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mean it very literally when i say i can’t enjoy anything without involving Maven in some way

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Snowstorm!

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Here is your Thomaven (angst) for the day/night

(You can find the full drawings without the text under the video)

(I put the Slavic translation in parentheses for those who know the song by that version)

The doomed lovers!

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to contrast Maven’s hair growing in canon representing his failure to conform to the image of perfection established by Cal- fem!Maven starts the story with long hair that always has an obvious amount of effort put into it, and ends the story with her hair cut above her shoulders with minimal effort put in to style it- this is to show how she fails to conform to the image of perfection established by Evangeline🙇‍♀️

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their form has changed