maiaphaelsource

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what do you think happens when rapha looks at his own new year's table one day and realizes that half of the downworlders in NYC are there because one way or another him and maia helped them and they consider him his family? does he have that moment of "holy shit, i'm just as bad as magnus"? does he cry because he didn't think he could have a family after he lost rosa, and yet there he is, table full of people and vibrancy and he's at the center of it all? does he just watch everything with a private smile, basking in all of it?

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every once in a while, it hits a little too close to home for maia. getting a new wolf who's just out there crying, in denial, desperate because they already had nowhere to go and what the HELL are they supposed to do now - it just hits so close to home and she tries so hard to keep herself strong, to fulfill the role of the parent who holds everything together for them so they can break down. she holds their hand and strokes their hair and tells them that she knows what it's like, but that they will find that they have a family in the downworld, that they will have people and bonds they never thought they would. and as they start to feel a little better, grounded by the idea that maybe, after so long of running and feeling alone, there might be other people who get them after all, maia feels a little better, too

but once they fall asleep the exhaustion of it all hits her and she stumbles into bed with more than a few tears in her eyes and the memories of being that scared girl, feeling betrayed, having no one. and raphael, who had left only because maia had asked so she could have a heart-to-heart about being a wolf and so he could make them some soup, immediately goes to her, holds her, kisses her forehead, and says, "it's okay, cariño. you're okay". and she says, "i know, i know, i'm okay, but it's just so much sometimes, and i need to be strong for them-" but rapha tells her she doesn't need to be strong for HIM, and if she needs someone to be her rock while she collapses, she deserves that as much as everyone else. and maia falls asleep in his arms, and wakes up to rapha smiling down at her, and when rapha asks how she's feeling, she says "better", and she means it

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in short maia and raphael become the new serial adopter power couple in the downworld and almost every week there is someone staying at their place while they go through the transformation, get used to the cravings, etc. they think of all of them as their kids and are so incredibly helpful and loving and their little found family spreads across the whole city and aaa i just love them

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and the fact that maia and rapha would not at all want to pressure any downworlders into joining their clan/pack but really just find something good for themselves, because they both also have experiences with being in spaces with... questionable leadership lmao. of course most of the people they help end up sticking with them anyway - the bond is there and most newly turned downworlders lose all their previous friends and family, so of course they latch to it - but it's great to know that even if they decide to go maia and rapha won't be mad and they'll still let they stay at their home and help them adjust into downworlder life while they decide

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thinking about maia helping bat and about raphael helping simon and how they obviously feel responsible for new downworlders and in a way indebted to give back the help they've gotten from magnus and luke. creating taki's so the downworlders have a place to go to, becoming pack/clan leaders, all the responsibility and love they obviously have for their fellow downworlders just makes my heart warm and i love to imagine everything they could accomplish together, both on a big scale - like creating places where downworlders can hang out and feel comfortable - and on a small scale - like helping individuals who need a place to stay and adjusting into downworlder life

[maiaphaelsource]

[image ID: gifs of maia roberts, luke garroway and bat velasquez from shadowhunters. they are divided in two vertical lines, each of them consisting of a scene

first line: with the background all in purple, it shows a young maia inside an ambulance truck. she gets up, distressed, and cries, "this isn't happening!". luke stops her from leaing, and says, calmly, gently, but intensely, "you gotta fight. and those who care about you. they'll fight with you". maia, with tears in her eyes, blinks, anguished.

second line: with the background all in grey and black, it shows bat staring at his own chest, covered in a huge claw mark, saying, "this isn't happening". maia, sitting by his bed, says, "you're not alone. i promised". bat looks around, scared. end ID]

                                        "I don’t have anyone that cares about me.“                                                             “You do now.”

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[image ID: several gifs of maia roberts from shadowhunters. they all have pink and yellow backgrounds, and are bust shots

first one: maia smirking as she tilts her neck, stalking towards someone

second one: maia slowly turning as she looks at something under her

third one: maia holding Jane Eyre as she sits at a table, turning her head away from it to stare at someone as she says something

fourth one: maia leaning back against a booth and laughing

fifth one: maia grinning, a little nervously, as she mouths, "hi! i'm maia!"

sixth one: maia grimacing in an awkward way, before turning two outstretched fingers in a kind of salute

seventh one: maia almost laughing before narrowing her eyes, turning towards the person she's talking to, shaking her head

eightieth one: maia smiling very softly and almost shyly during her double date, saying something, amused. end ID]

And just because Luke let you back into the pack, doesn’t mean I won’t kick your ass. Don’t ever speak to me like that again.

happy birthday @jennifcrpierces!!!!!! i love you so much, thanks for always making me laugh and listening to me. hope it’s a great one 🛸 ❤︎

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[image ID: two gifs of maia roberts leaning against a bookshelf, looking up and talking slowly as she searches for something. the bookshelf is colored purple and light pink. end ID]

“does this library have a daylighter section?”

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[image ID: several gifs of raphael santiago from shadowhunters, all with emphasis on yellow, red, and blue

first gif: raphael laughing as he removes a knife from his own chest quickly, saying "oh, please"

second gif: raphael turning to someone, clearly tired, as he says, "the living are so exhausting"

third gif: raphael sitting casually on a couch, arm over the backrest, as he smiles teasingly and says, "we have caskets now, they're made of 14 karat gold"

fourth gif: raphael with his back to his clan, staring at someone through a grid, saying, intensely, "you see, us vampires look after one another. we take care of our family"

fifth gif: him glaring at someone as he says, angrily, "shadowhunters have no business interfering with the night children's affairs. you may look to the clave for justice but the vampires look to me"

sixth gif: raphael talking softly, almost tearily, alternating between looking far away and focusing on the person he's talking to, as he says, "when I was a boy I went to church every Sunday, Magnus gave me the strength to understand that where I came from wasn't gone forever, that I was that person. I just had to find myself again"

seventh gif: raphael pausing for a second, before he says, slowly, "I'm just not interested in sex"

eightieth gif: raphael, teary eyed, talking softly but emphatically to rosa, saying, "he couldn't say why, but it broke his heart to leave and he promised you, if you ever feel lonely, all you had to do was look at those stars and know that your big brother was out there thinking of you"

nineth gif: raphael looking resolute and resigned as he says, "i must atone for my sins, so be it"

tenth gif: raphael smiling and talking excitedly, saying, "I stood in line today. amazing". end ID]

Raphael Santiago appreciation post (for Anonymous)

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[image ID: three gifs of maia roberts, all from the same scene. they have a green background. they show her looking to the side, before she turns to glare at someone in front of her, and says, "no." she shakes her head, adding, "I spent too much time... thinking about the past, you know?". she almost laughs at the end, humorlessly, and finishes with, "going back won't help me in the present". end ID]

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raphael and maia taking cooking classes together <3 raphael and maia making new foods together to share with simon and meliorn <3 cozy nights in with good food and a (funny) bad movie to throw popcorn at after <3 they all falling asleep together on raphael's big couch ! -maiaisbia

aaaaa amazing!!!! tbh i can't imagine rapha taking cooking classes fr or at the VERY least he'd complain the whole time. he's like "taki's is a family restaurant this pretentiousness is going to ruin the essence of the food" and maia is like "you are the most dramatic man i've ever met" and rapha's like "i'm still right"

she tries to convince him with her reasoning - they never ran a whole restaurant before and it might be good to know a bit of the tricks from the pros even if taki's is and will always be a family restaurant. but what really convinces rapha is the "come on, for me?" and that little pout she makes as she looks up at him

(for a vampire, rapha is very, very weak)

anyway they go and rapha is lowkey in despair like "they are treating this like a science. they are sucking all the joy out of the food. this is terrible" and maia has to keep elbowing him to shut up, which really just means rapha keeps complaining, but with a teasing smile on this time

anyway cooking classes turn out to suck ass because the teacher is some pompous french guy who wouldnt know good food if it hit him in the face, considered spices to "taint" the food and constantly belittled non-white cuisine saying that our techniques are "wrong" and that our cuisine is "unpolished" (this is a direct nod to YOU, erick jacquin. fuck your ethnocentric white supremacist ass)

rapha and maia are both seething after like 10 minutes of this bullcrap and they only stay with the explicit purpose of Making Him Mad. they go extra hard on the chile and force him to eat a dish so spicy rapha would have cried. rapha uses superspeed to get rid of his chair right as he was going to sit on it at least once. maia seriously considers setting him on fire. they both still pass the class because they KNOW what theyre doing, thank you very much

anyway the next time they decide to take cooking classes they go to a little class with a wonderful black cuban teacher who Gets It and actually gives them a few tips on restaurant-running specifically since the most difficult parts are the ones unrelated to cooking susnsid. and they end up actually having a lot of fun together and learning a lot of things they didn't know. the environment is one where people are encouraged to share their knowledge and culture and there are people from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and yeah, they have fun. they even end up making a few good friends, even if the relationships are limited due to the fact that theyre mundane

rapha begrudgingly admits that okay, maybe cooking classes aren't so bad if the people in it actually care about food. and maia agrees that okay, no more pretentiousness

(really, she was just nervous about Taki's, because this is all new to her and she wanted to be As Prepared As Possible. and the french guy was considered the best, so, why not go to the best? rapha hugs her and kisses her forehead for her troubles and says "i'm sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted, cariño" and maia feels a little better)

(besides, she knows they're gonna rock this as long as they're doing it together. if they survived that cooking class, they can do anything)

and they come back with so many ideas and immediately go to the kitchen and spend all afternoon there trying out stuff like crazy scientists, which then inevitably everyone (luke, alaric, magnus, simon, mel) is invited to try and give their opinions on. most of what they've done is incredible and they're all delighted. magnus lowkey entertains the idea of using a spell to get rid of the fullness so they can eat more and there are STILL leftovers. they take them to an elderly home because of course they do

and then yes lying together in the couch and cuddling and laughing about their wonderful day together, the success of their dishes, and the stupid french guy's face when he fell off the chair 🥺

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[maiaphaelsource]

ive been noticing for a while now how every time maia smiles she always ducks her head as if to hide it, and also how she usually catches herself doing it and ends up always raising her head right afterwards, as if making it a point to challenge herself for not allowing her smile to be seen

and projection ahead but i feel like thats a huge abuse survivor mood, especially when ur in a romantic abusive relationship, like... there's this whole thing where being happy or excited about things you like is dangerous, because it's almost guaranteed to get u backlash. because abusers will take that as u flirting, or complain that ur too excited about something and are not paying attention to them, or just immediately try to undermine ur positive feelings and convince u that ur being stupid for being happy, etc...

even if u dont directly make the association that u being happy = them fighting you, in some level u do make it and u learn to tone down ur happiness, not let it be too bright so it isn't seen as a threat. and that keeps u safe. and we know maia's been in an abusive relationship with jordan so im very sure that that's where this comes from

also, the way that she seems to catch herself doing it and then purposefully look up as she smiles/laughs tells me that, at some point, in her journey through healing from that, it became important to her to fight it. that even if she can't stop subconsciously looking down, she's going to make an effort to look up. it seems very deliberate, purposeful, to me

and then i started thinking about how raphael rarely smiles, and when he does, he's usually away from the clan's space, and how living with camille, especially as someone who's connected to magnus and also very loyal to the vampires, not to mention rosa, raphael also had to learn to be very careful about hiding his positive feelings because they could very easily be turned into weaknesses. and as a vampire having to deal with shadowhunters (plus just stereotypes/expectations of vampires being all stoic and all that crap) it was extra important that he kept himself stoic and poised and hid what he felt as well

and just as a whole having lived in the clan under camille for fuck knows how many years had to teach him to hide and dissimulate his affections and desires and just happiness in general

and the parallels between the two are certainly making me Have Thoughts and Feel Things

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whenever maia's semester is officially over, it is tradition that she takes the next week off from everything (she was already off taki's, bat and raphael running the place together while she had to focus on her studies anyway). the first day is spent almost entirely with her wrapped in a blanket, watching shitty television and just Not Having Thoughts. and raphael is always there with her for that day, bringing her hot chocolate, massaging her shoulders and kissing them slightly, telling her that it's good she's getting some rest. ahe almost always end up falling asleep on his lap, him petting her head, and she wakes up from it more recharged than she's felt in ages

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raphael, as we know, is a Cold Boy, and he's also pretty protective as almost second nature. when he was a kid, he used to sleep with rosa a lot, especially when she had nightmares, and as she moved a lot and they both hated the NY cold, he got used to pulling the covers over her while she slept to make sure she didn't wake up

it's second nature now, so whenever him and maia fall asleep, especially if they are cuddling or spooning, he pulls the blanket over her. time and time again. and maia, born and raised in cold weather and already warmer than most because werewolf, has to keep pushing them away so she can sleep properly. and even asleep raphael keeps doing it every time he touches her and realizes it's a bit colder there. so they play reverse tug of war half the damn night

she never tells him about it tho, cuz, even as it's a bit annoying, it's sweet, and she appreciates it more than she cares to admit

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[image ID: four gifs of maia roberts from shadowhunters. they have an emphassi on brown, black, and white

first one shows her turning around from the shadows and out into the sun, distracted

second one shows her looking at someone as she speaks very seriously. her expressions seems tight

third one shows her saying something almost to herself, before breaking into a smile and blinking slowly

fourth one shows her saying something, amusedly, a lopsided smile on her face and eyes shining. end ID]

Alisha Wainwright as Maia Roberts in Shadowhunters