#it wouldn’t drive her to abandon the entire purpose of her family by revealing herself as the Ultimate Detective in order to get to him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ilikekidsshows · 3 years

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Hey, I was wondering if you could talk more about what you thought about the conflict that happened between Ladybug and Chat Noir in the new york special?

Certainly. Mainly, it’s the same issue we saw in ‘Glaciator’ but manifesting in a different way: these two tend to misunderstand the relationship between them because of their personal experiences and expectations, which tend to naturally be in conflict because of the very different pasts the two characters have. I also think the conflict was two-sided and only one side of the issue at hand was solved. We had Cat Noir’s dishonesty and Ladybug’s inability to act as a comforter, with only the former being solved.

Since it's the one that gets resolved and it's more straightforward, let's start with Cat Noir's side. He's the child of a strict, emotionally abusive father and we've repeatedly seen that he projects his relationship with his father into his relationship with Ladybug, and here it happens again. Gabriel would not let Adrien do what he doesn't allow and we've seen what he does when Adrien disappoints him: punishes him severely.

Strict parents don’t raise obedient children, they raise children who lie well. And Adrien had more of a motive to be deceitful than most. This special was the first time Ladybug gave him responsibility over something. If he said he couldn’t do it, would she ever trust him with anything again? Or, would she simply tell him to suck it up and do as he’s told, forcing Adrien to choose between her and his father in their demands of him? And Plagg, who I will point out, has been actively more helpful in season three, actually helped Adrien come up with a plan that, to their reasonable expectations, would not have led to anyone being hurt or disappointed, so Adrien obviously saw that simply not letting Ladybug know that he wouldn’t be physically present in Paris would work out. Adrien even was responsible about it; he kept himself actively informed of the situation in Paris up until he was made to put his phone away. And then things went to hell in a handbasket at the worst possible moment.

However, here comes the fault in Adrien’s reasoning, which was very reasonable to him and his implied-to-be equally abused Kwami: Ladybug is nothing like Gabriel. Marinette would have heard him out and they’d have come up with a plan together to deal with the situation, as long as Cat Noir got a hold of her soon enough for them to meet up and make a plan. We don’t really know what the time frame is between Adrien finding out and the departure of the plane to New York, but, considering Plagg stopped Adrien from contacting Ladybug, and no time constraint was mentioned, they’d have had plenty of time.

This is the beginning and end of Adrien’s half of the conflict. After this point, he’s merely reacting to what he thinks are clear signals from Ladybug. He tries to help with the villain the best he can, while Ladybug keeps distracting him by berating him in the middle of the fight, finally breaking his will to fight entirely by declaring she can’t trust him anymore, one of the nightmare scenarios I mentioned earlier. Add to that the villain using his power to harm Uncanny, he was convinced that Ladybug would be better off with any other partner. When Ladybug didn’t refute his assessment that he was a failure and no good hero, he decided he was right and abandoned his ring. However, when Uncanny revealed to him that Ladybug did, in fact, still need him specifically as her partner, he came back, deciding that it didn’t matter if he was a worthless failure as long as Ladybug would find a use for him anyway. Adrien repeatedly describes himself negatively in comparison to others, his self esteem is awful, but that wasn’t really a matter being handled in the special.

When Cat Noir made it to Ladybug and was instantly welcomed back, he apologised for not being honest and Ladybug signalled her forgiveness with a fistbump. This gesture signalled to Adrien that he could trust Ladybug and that Ladybug trusted him back, that the things she’d said in anger were just that. This showed Adrien in a blatant way that Ladybug was nothing like Gabriel, who would have lorded Adrien’s failure over him and punished him, instead of accepting his assurance that he’ll do better next time. This was an important lesson to Adrien, because he needs to be as honest with Ladybug as their secret identities allow because they’re a team and can’t go doing things independently when it affects them both. Adrien’s experiences in the special are ones that will specifically help him overcome his character flaw of being too distructful of others’ intentions when it comes to Ladybug.

Then comes Marinette’s side, and this one is more complex. While how badly she was distracted in that fight and how badly she distracted Cat Noir was an issue in and of itself, it wasn’t the thing on her part that escalated the conflict. It was merely what set up her state of mind. What escalated the conflict were the things she said in anger that she didn’t take back while Cat Noir was clearly falling apart. Marinette was understandably upset by what happened in Paris, but she made a very big mistake with how she handled that: she focused only on herself. Marinette needed comfort because she couldn’t heal Paris, but Cat Noir needed comfort because they could do nothing to help Paris, he’d just temporarily killed someone and he felt like a failure as a partner. But, when Cat Noir didn’t instantly move to assure her that she was fine, Marinette turned her back on him and walked away. She wanted space, because Marinette usually finds a quiet corner to think when she’s dealing with something, but Adrien saw that as a rejection. And when Cat Noir voiced all these things going on in his mind, she was silent, making him feel like she was condemning him, seeing him as worthlessly as he did. So he decided to leave her so that she could find a better partner.

Marinette also has her own misconceptions about her and Cat Noir’s relationship. This is another thing I noticed in ‘Glaciator’: Marinette doesn’t think Cat Noir is an actual human being with real human emotions and problems. She got better about it after ‘Glaciator’, like accepting his feelings for her as genuine, but she still doesn’t understand that Cat Noir can get hurt emotionally and might need a bit of support every once in a while. In fact, in ‘Timetagger’, she blatantly shuts him down when he’s looking for affirmation, claiming he “already knows he’s the best”, when Adrien actually has very poor self esteem. I mentioned in another comment that Marinette sees Cat Noir as a fae-like being, someone who only goofs around and supports her, and is never touched by worldly things like pain and sadness. The only threat to him are the supervillains they face. Every time one of them has shown a need for comfort, it’s been Ladybug, and Cat Noir has always been the one to comfort her. They’re stuck in these roles, and Marinette doesn’t know how to break out of them when Cat Noir is the one needing comfort and support. To drive this aspect of the conflict home, this is the direct reverse of the situation in ‘Miracle Queen’. In ‘Miracle Queen’, Marinette makes a mistake with real consequences, gets Fu’s identity revealed to Hawk Moth which led to his capture, but Cat Noir overlooks that to support her instead. In the special, Cat Noir’s mistake causes property damage in Paris that they can’t undo, but Marinette can’t overlook it to support her partner through his mistake.

Here’s the thing: Marinette has a good life. She has a supportive family and supportive friends. This gives her a solid foundation as a superhero and it means she’s used to people picking her up when she falls down. It’s not just her relationship with Cat Noir that’s characterized by the idea that support just shows up when she needs it. Heck, at the end of ‘Love Hunter’, Luka seemingly magically appears for the sole purpose of giving Marinette some comfort. However, we’ve seen some hints, mostly in ‘Weredad’, that at least her dad wants to overly protect her. We don’t know how well Marinette would actually take Adrien rejecting her, but, considering how miserable she was repeatedly in season two over just not getting to see him, I suspect not well, and her dad was convinced she’d go as far as being easily shattered by that. Children need to feel small disappointments to be able to handle the actual hurdles they’ll face later in life. The way Marinette becomes an anxious mess over failing at something reminds me of myself as a teenager, and I was a very shielded child. My mom pampered me, not by much, but enough that I had to learn to pick myself and others up at a later age. And I feel that’s a lesson Marinette needs to learn as well.

We saw from what Marinette said to Uncanny that she didn’t think Cat Noir’s mistake was irreparable. She didn’t mean the gestures I described earlier as how Adrien saw them. She didn’t mean to turn her back on him to reject him and she didn’t mean her silence to be read as her agreeing that he was a bad partner. But she never once considered that she might be sending Cat Noir these signals, even as Cat Noir told her how he felt about himself in relation to her. Instead of supporting her partner by saying anything to refute his self-disparaging comments, or even sharing their pain together, Marinette remains silent, experiencing her own pain alone and leaving Cat Noir with his. Marinette is a good leader, but she’s not a good partner, because she lacks the ability to support Cat Noir. This isn’t her fault, it’s a character flaw like Adrien’s distrust of others to consider his well being in any scenario. However, it’s one that’s harder to fix than Adrien’s, because Adrien’s flaw is one of perception, so he just needs to see contrary evidence to learn better. Marinette’s issue is that she lacks important skills for comforting someone: spotting a need and responding to it. I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen Marinette actively comfort anyone during the entire series. It’s very likely she’s never had to do so before the moment with Cat Noir in this special.

This is why Adrien leaving her was so important to Marinette’s future growth as a partner specifically. Technically Marinette needed it to happen. Marinette had to learn that you can’t expect someone to be there indefinitely if you never let them know you want them there, and she had to learn that Cat Noir needs her to reciprocate the supportive relationship between them instead of only enjoying the benefits of her partner’s almost unwavering support. An unequal relationship will not last. If you just keep someone around for their comfort, they’ll leave you once they have none left to give. If you just keep someone around for their good days, they’ll leave you once their bad days come. But in this special we saw Marinette taking the first steps towards realizing her partner’s humanity, ergo, fixing the part of the issue that’s in her perception: she was still thinking about him when she was Marinette. I noted in ‘Glaciator’ that Marinette usually stops thinking about Cat Noir once she’s Marinette again, which is part of that whole “seeing him as otherworldly” thing. Breaking out of that mindset is as important as it is for Adrien to break out of the “everyone would turn on me if I didn’t please them 24/7” one.

Basically: the conflict was resolved, but it showed where development still needs to happen.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #ml meta #dats chats #long post #popular

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thegremlinofransei · 5 years

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Welcome to the Family | Ch. 1

Resident Evil 7 AU

Fandom: Split, Glass

Rating: M for strong language as well as gory and disturbing violence (it gets worse)

Word Count: ~3K

Summary: It's been three years since Kevin disappeared. However, when he sends Casey a cryptic email detailing his location, she's thrown into a long night of pure, grim horror.

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Why the hell am I doing this? It's clearly a scam, Casey thought to herself as she chugged along the interstate in her beat-up station wagon. He's probably dead, why would he show up now?

You're doing this because he was your shoulder to cry on throughout your uncle's trial, her conscience replied. You're doing this because you fell in love with him, he's supported you since that day you met on the senior trip to the zoo, you discussed a long-term future with him, and damned if you won't try to bring him back.

There's no turning back now, I suppose, Casey conceded, and she flipped the right-turn indicator for her exit. As a precaution, though, she took out her cellphone and hit the second speed dial option. A low, friendly voice asked confusedly, "Hello?"

"Hey Marcia. It's Casey."

"Hey girl, you alright? You didn't show up to Claire's party the other night. We were talking about it during Prof Staple's lecture and you seemed really thrilled about going!"

"Yeah, no, I'm fine...it's Kevin. I don't think he's dead."

Marcia's voice jumped an octave. "Wait, they actually found him? How? What happened?"

Casey sighed. "I...I don't know how...but he's back somehow. Maybe it's a prank, he wanted me to come pick him up and bring him back to Philadelphia."

"Well, where is he?"

"Dulvey. In Lousiana."

Marcia was stunned. "Hon, that's really far! Besides, it's been three years!"

"I know, I know!" Casey exclaimed, her voice shaky with nervousness. "But...what if it is him? I just...I need to find out what happened. The zoo's been covering up the details of his caretaker assignment since he disappeared, and I need some answers. Best if it comes from him."

Marcia sighed in exasperation. "All right. But you better be back as soon as possible!"

All Casey could muster as she pulled up to a tree-shrouded driveway was a subtle "mhm," and she hung up. She shifted the car into park just off the road, shut it off, and stepped out into the oppressive bayou humidity. Examining the address written on the e-mail printout crumpled in her sweaty palm, she knew that this had to be the right place.

She started up the overgrown trail and continued until she came to the front iron gates of a dreary, looming house. A rusted intercom was perched on one of the rails, and she tried the 'call' button, to no avail. She then tried to yank at the gates themselves, but they were tied together with a chain.

"Well, shit," Casey muttered as she looked back up at the house. She turned to walk back to the car when a side trail, curved around the gates of the estate, caught her eye.

This is a dumbass idea Cooke, her conscience screamed, trying to go back on its conviction to rescue her boyfriend. However, her curiosity won out, so she strengthened her resolve and began to follow the path.

As she journeyed on, she found a dilapidated white van parked- or, rather, broken down- by a busted-open side fence. Whose van is this? she wondered as she cautiously approached it. The door, albeit crooked and beaten in, slid open easily to reveal an interior furnished only by a manila folder.

Casey plucked the folder up and examined it. The words SEWER GATORS were emblazoned across the front, accompanied only by the caption, Sneaking into a Louisiana ghost house. The folder was full of scripts and jotted notes and half-baked ideas, but the red writing on the back of the folder sent a chill down her spine.

JOIN US.

Shivering, she took a step back from the van. Nothing was stopping her from turning back. And yet...she couldn't. It may have just been that the van resembled the one that Kevin drove for the zoo, but she remembered her purpose and steeled her nerves. Stepping toward the fence, she made out another cryptic phrase scrawled on a piece of plywood in a substance resembling mud:

ACCEPT HIS GIFT

I can't do this, I can't do this, Casey screamed internally. This is way too fucking creepy, why is he at an abandoned house like this? Was someone else looking for him too? Her mind raced in terror, attempting and failing to process all of the blatant red flags.

And yet, her legs moved her along with a mind of their own, fueled by all of the memories. The initial awkward smiles as you bumped into him at the tiger exhibit. Holding his hand in the courtroom. Him helping you study for your Intro to Zoology final. Curled up in his apartment under the zoo because Marcia kicked you out for her date night, Casey recalled, trying desperately to think about anything other than the van and persuade herself to trek onward.

The swarms of insects grew thicker, and Casey became increasingly unsettled by the overgrown path and that ever-notorious feeling of being watched. Every time she turned her head to absorb the scenery, she thought she saw something- or someone- just out of the corner of her eye. However, when she whipped back around to look, it always vanished.

After a few more minutes of paranoia and reminiscence, she was snapped back to reality by a murder of crows darting out of an alcove. She peered in and saw that they had been feeding on a deer carcass. Used to the sight from hunting trips with her father, she shrugged off the initial shock and pivoted back to the path.

Casey regretted her entire train of thought up to that point, horrified by what she saw next. A wreath of cow legs was strung up from every angle on the tree branches and rocks, and circular saw blades dangled from it like disturbing Christmas ornaments. She brought her left hand up to her mouth and gasped, attempting to hold the vomit at bay.

Come on, Casey, she told herself as she lowered her quivering hand. Tears were forming in her eyes, and she had to force her trembling jaw to close so as to prevent bugs from entering her throat. You're in redneck country. There's a lot of weird shit like this. Just keep going…

She gingerly approached the monument of flesh and, careful not to touch the rotting carrion, grabbed an exposed rope to duck underneath. All was calm again, until she happened upon a scattered murder of freshly dead crows in the trail. She gulped down her fright, slightly numbed by the eccentric wreath from earlier, and pushed forth.

The trail ended at a small ledge, which overlooked a dead clearing adorned by mangled trees, steaming puddles, and a small house. Casey almost turned away from this obvious event horizon until it caught her eye.

Kevin's Philadelphia Zoo backpack.

It was the first sign of him she had seen in this seventh circle of Hell, and, acting against her better judgment, she hopped down. She ran to where the backpack was rather haphazardly lying against a boulder and unzipped it. Sure enough, Kevin's driving license was on top, except it was covered in black mud.

Wait, this isn't mud, Casey thought. What the hell is this? Wait…this was what was on that sign at the fence…

She dropped it in disgust, jumped back, and looked to the house. Thick ivy had trailed all the way up the chimney, and the forest seemed to have claimed the roof. Seeing as there was nowhere else to go, she made her way to the porch and stepped up. All of the sunlight that lit her unsettling amble prior to this seemed to disappear, as the porch had been draped over by the omnipresent ivy. The only light she had to see by was anything that filtered through and a dim, cone-shaped lamp perched on the wall just to the right of an open door.

Through the door, Casey could only see an old window shutter leaning up against a worn wall. Everything else was pitch black, so she took a few steps inside to get a better look.

creeeaaak- WHAM!

Casey nearly jumped out of her skin as she was plunged into a total abyss of darkness. She fumbled at her belt with her flashlight, clicked the button on the end, and whipped back around to the door, now firmly shut. She ran into it full force, trying to ram it with her left shoulder, but nevertheless, it stayed. Moving the flashlight up to her teeth, she proceeded to shimmy and tug the doorknob with her trembling hands, trying to push the door back open, but it refused to budge, and the doorknob wouldn't turn, indicating that it was locked.

"FUCK!" Casey spit out as she slammed her right arm against the door one last useless time.

She turned back to the room. There was only one other door and an empty corner to curl up and panic in. Knowing it could be her only chance to find an escape route, she puffed her chest and strode up to the other door.

On the other side was a long hallway scattered with lattice and wallpaper, lit by the exposed part of a window covered mostly by a worn-out wardrobe. Every board creaked underfoot as Casey proceeded to the end of the hall. She entered a cluttered kitchen and regained hope for escape when she saw an exposed pair of windows. However, they were only a few inches from a ridge outside upon further inspection, far too tight to squeeze through, and she was back to square one.

The table behind her held a closed soup pot and a newspaper. She reached out to lift the lid from the pot, and, upon seeing the slimy, rotted contents, nearly added a new ingredient to the disgusting concoction. The experience was only worsened by a cockroach skittering over her hand by the rusted lid. She let out a small shriek in disgust and hastily flicked her wrist at the opposite wall a few times until her unwanted partner came free.

Casey moved back to the wall housing the tormenting windows and continued to poke around. Reaching the fridge, she pulled on the handle, but the door only opened the slightest bit. She wrapped her other hand around the door itself and, with one hard pull, threw the door open. The inside was coated with a disgusting goo, and she let the hinges do their work to pull the refrigerator shut again, opting to look at the newspaper back on the table.

Over 20 Missing In Two Years

Casey's mind began to spiral with hopelessness as she backed away. This was a fucking mistake. Kevin's dead. I'm going to die here. She whipped her head around to look at the next set of windows. Boarded up. I should have brought someone with… wait! She went to pull her phone out of her pocket, but terror dawned on her as she realized that it wasn't there. I put it back in my pocket...didn't I? Oh my God, it must have slipped out when I jumped into that clearing.

Keep moving, the panic will make things worse, she reprimanded herself as she continued into the next room. A set of stairs was immediately to her right, so she chose to ascend.

The room at the top was as dilapidated as everything else in the house. A button with the word Stairs carved on the metal plating above it sat crookedly on a support pole. Casey pressed it, praying for some miraculous stairway to the roof so she could slide down, but it didn't respond. She rounded the corner of the room and found a lonely oak dresser donned with a crooked lamp and a VCR tape. She picked up the latter, frantically turned to look around the room for anything else of use, and dejectedly went back down the stairs.

To her right as she descended was another hallway, so Casey began to investigate. Her search took her to another door leading into a sitting area. The furniture was pointed every which way, and papers were strewn all over the floor. As she entered, she noticed two things.

One, there was a fuse box with one fuse missing.

Two, there was a TV turned on, set to play from the VCR.

Casey turned the tape over in her hands, crossed her fingers that it had even one iota of useful information for how to get the hell out of there, and pushed it into the player slot.

A man resembling a rat wearing a suit looked exasperatedly at the camera, then back to his producer, who towered over him. "Where did you find this guy?" he asked.

"Give me a break, Joseph."

"Hey! I only work with professionals. Speaking of which, make sure the sound is right this time, I don't want a repeat of Amarillo."

"That was two fucking years ago!"

"I don't do ADR."

The producer waved to the cameraman to follow him and Joseph, and they hustled up to the derelict house. The cameraman could hear Joseph bitching about him to the producer mixed in with spouting ideas for what shot to use for an intro. Their humble band of three journeyed along the veranda to the closed door.

"Are we rolling?" Joseph asked impatiently. The cameraman gave a thumbs up, and he finished, "Alright. Let's go."

The door was locked, but with one swift kick, the producer gained the motley crew entry. Joseph pushed his way past and asked, "Why are we in hell this time?"

His producer rubs his head in exasperation. "Do you ever prep?"

"What is there to prep? Shitty house, spooky sounds. Ooh, is it haunted?" Joseph grunts in disgust. "I was an anchor, you know."

"Weekend sub, Joseph. Not anchor."

Indignantly, Joseph turned back to his producer and asked, "So, what's the story, Jai?"

"Abandoned farm house. Missing family. Foul play suspected. The usual. Been vacant for three year-"

"Fletcher, get a shot of this! It'd make a great cutaway. So, Jai, Hillbilly Joe and his family go-"

Jai scoffs. "Not hillbillies. The Smiths. Dennis and Patricia Smith. And they were quiet, not backward. Lot of bad rumors about their son, Luke." He took off into the next room while Joseph stayed behind to whine to Fletcher about his shoes. However, when he started calling for Jai again and no reply came, Joseph only grew more pissed.

"I swear to God, this is the last time I work with that guy!" Joseph exclaimed as the pair ventured down the hallway to the sitting room. "I mean, producers come and go, but...a good cameraman like you, Fletcher? Y-you stick with me."

Joseph reached the door to the sitting room just as a raucous clanging sounded from the other side, sending him into another furious outburst. After he cooled down, he reached gingerly for the doorknob and pushed it open.

"Jai?" Joseph called. "Where the fuck is he?" They ventured around the helter-skelter furniture and Joseph crouched by the dusty fireplace. "What the hell?" he exclaimed, tugging at a hidden handle. After a few creaks in the walls, a secret door opened across the room.

"A-alright, new deal. We find Jai and go," Joseph grumbled in a quavering voice. The men crouched and ducked through to the hidden room. Apart from a few crates, the room was notable only for a ragged hole in the floor and a ladder down through it.

"You first," Joseph whimpered out. "Need a nice hero shot of me c-coming down the ladder." Fletcher let out a quick huff, shoved his camera and flashlight into his sweatshirt, and proceeded to descend.

Retrieving his items, Fletcher slowly turned around to find Jai standing like a pillar, facing some pipes along the wall. He reached out and grabbed his shoulder, but Jai's body was limp, and turning him around revealed that his face had been smashed against the pipes as he had a considerable gouge through his right eye and blood poured from his broken teeth.

Fletcher screamed as he fell back, bringing Jai on top of him. The camera began to cut out, and the last shot featured an approaching person in heavy workboots, followed by more shrieks.

Casey didn't have the willpower to hold in her vomit anymore. Assuming that whoever murdered the men in the video wouldn't mind even more filth in their already decrepit home, she stumbled over to the furniture and emptied the contents of her stomach underneath the coffee table.

After wiping her mouth with a crumpled sheet of paper, she weighed her options. She could take a chair to the front door, but it was obvious by this point that she was being deliberately trapped. She could also try to pry open a window, but who knew if her captor is watching from every angle. Hell, she could just give up and await certain death…

But Jai specifically said three years ago. If Kevin is here, I need to know.

Finally, she begrudgingly turned her head to the fireplace.

It was the only way.

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A/N: This is my first time ever actually writing a fanfic, AU, et thetera so please leave constructive criticism! Please also reblog, like, give me credit, whatever y'all gotta do! I will update this as I have time to do so. If you want to be on the tag list, just drop me an ask specifically asking to be and I'll add you! 😘

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@heavens-in-my-mind

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evelynvanamstel-blog · 6 years

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look! it’s MARGOT ROBBIE! no, it’s just EVELYN VAN AMSTEL, the TWENTY-FOUR year-old MERMAID. she is a FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER & HERBALIST and makes hawthorne a better place to live in. she is CHARISMATIC and CLEVER, but also ENVIOUS and SELF-SERVING. they’ve got a secret too, but only time will tell what they’re hiding. [OOC: DANNAH | 25 | PST | SHE/HER]

(Okay, also read more is freaking out on my theme idk why, so if you’re on her actual blog there’s more, just open it up to read in a new window until I get the html fixed ughhh)

TL;DR:

Evelyn’s a mermaid who has never even been in the ocean and more than anything she wants to go back to where her parents came from and live underwater. She has never felt like she belonged on land and has never even met another one of her kind besides her parents. She has limited knowledge on her species and limited knowledge regarding the supernatural, but she is definitely determined and definitely motivated to get what she wants. Evelyn wants to live with her kind and she wants to be accepted by her kind. As far as she is concerned, nothing is going to stop her from reaching her goal.

BACKGROUND:

Evelyn’s parents left the ocean before she was born to escape persecution for the crimes of her father. The entirety of her life she has been aware that she was a mermaid, after all, it wasn’t exactly something that could be hidden, but Evelyn has never truly been able to take part in her nature or merfolk society. Her parents took up residence in southwestern Tennessee, far away from the ocean, and there was always an hour long drive every week to go hydrate in fresh water in the dead of night. Her life as a mermaid is far from what it should be, but Evelyn also doesn’t exactly know what normal entails. Her parents have purposely kept her sheltered from her kind and her nature to try and kill off her overwhelming desire to find the place that she is from. It never worked.

Although Evelyn has never met any merfolk outside of her family, she did grow up with the acquaintance of a few witches. Her parents originally connected with them in a way to protect themselves, but Evelyn also learned from them over the years. She wouldn’t consider herself a professional herbalist by any means, but she has learned a number of things over the years through observation and occasional teaching. Evelyn has also taken small amounts of ambergis for years after one of the witches mentioned that same vampires do the same with vervain to build up an immunity. Does it work the same way? Frankly Evelyn has no idea, but since she has never been allowed to truly use or explore her powers, she figures that it couldn’t hurt.

Unsurprisingly, it hasn’t exactly been easy for Evelyn to find people like herself, and although she started college at the request of her parents to try and get her fully integrated into human society, she never finished. Instead, Evelyn dropped out to start tracking and trailing every lead on merfolk that she could find. There were many supernaturals that doubted their existence, especially where she was from since they were so far from the ocean, and it wasn’t like she could put up a billboard in every city that bordered the ocean looking for her kind, and it has been a journey to even get to a place where there are rumors of people like her. Evelyn isn’t a person to get nervous, but there actually is some anxiety in her chest about finally meeting people like herself--she just isn’t sure what to expect.

Her travels and determination have also gotten her into hot water over the years. There are people that she has used and pissed off in her trail as well as people that she never should have crossed paths with to begin with. Where she’s from, mermaids are a rare thing, and in her earlier days of searching she made a few mistakes along the way in revealing herself to people and supernaturals that she shouldn’t have. Even though she has gotten far away from them as far as she knows, there is always the paranoia in her mind that keeps her looking over her shoulder no matter how much time has passed.

Evelyn is new in town (like literally is moving boxes into her apartment the day before Halloween) and really has no idea what to expect. Hawthorne is a place that she is in solely because of the supernatural rumors that she has heard flying around, but she has no official leads to go off of. She’s never one for winging it, but it certainly seems like this time that that is exactly what she will have to do. She knows the merfolk society that she is from, but that’s about the extent of her knowledge. She doesn’t even know how to get there. Evelyn also knows that they aren’t exactly ones to welcome back in people that have abandoned, so she knows that although the first step is figuring out where to go, the second step is to figure out how to gain their acceptance.

EXTRAS:

Evelyn has learned about herbs her entire life from her friends of her parents that were witches. She’s no expert, but she knows her way around the basics, and she knows enough to keep herself safe. The last couple years have been a learning experience, but by this point Evelyn has gotten pretty good at surviving on her own even with the occasional danger, and it’s not the first time she’s had to use a little vervain or wolfsbane to survive another day.

Evelyn hasn’t talked to her parents in nearly a year after cutting off communication. She just couldn’t take the constant begging her to come back “home” when where they call home is no kind of home of hers at all. She misses them, she’s not too big to admit that she has left a couple voicemails from public phones to let them know that she’s still alive, but Evelyn knows that they want to stop her and she just can’t have that.

Evelyn has never touched salt water and though she’s finally in Hawthorne and ready to go through with that, it’s actually a super big and scary milestone. Even in the past when she’s been by the ocean when tracking down dead ends and false leads, she always made her way to a fresh water store because, even though she’d never admit it to anyone else on the planet, she’s kind of, really, very much terrified. Of what? She doesn’t know, but it’s a big milestone that she’s built up to be something that it’s definitely not.

WANTED

Familial Connections: Evelyn knows next to nothing about where she is from or what her parents left behind when they fled. Her parents have told her that she has distant family, as most people would, but she knows nothing regarding names or anything else. Evelyn has been kind of pushed in the direction to believe that all relations are distant and that there is nothing notable, but there is a part of her that just doesn’t quite believe it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has an older sibling that was left behind when her parents fled or if she perhaps has a cousin or aunt/uncle that remained in the ocean after her parents ran swam away.

Supernaturals/Hunters from the Past: Though Evelyn is pretty slick now, she wasn’t as sly back when she first starting searching for leads and her people. Her parents told her basically nothing about her personal history or the history of her people, so in the past she was a bit too outspoken about what she was when she assumed that the supernatural all held a bond of trust. For some in the inland United States, the thought of a mermaid truly existing was a lot to wrap their heads around, and rumors and myths regarding abilities but her in more danger than she had anticipated. I could go for probably anything here, but some options off of the top of my head would be maybe vampires who thought her blood could do something special, witches believing the same for magic, or just hunters that wanted to claim they killed a mermaid.

People she’s Pissed Off from the Past: Evelyn is driven when it comes to what she wants and she has definitely used people for convenience and information in the past. I definitely see there being some people that she has probably hurt (emotionally or physically could probably work I’m sure), or people that she has lied to/taken advantage of that definitely wouldn’t be happy to see her conniving face again.

A Surefire Way into the Underwater World: Evelyn doesn’t know much about where she’s from, but her parents have certainly put into her head the idea that she would never be accepted by her kind even if she tried to go back. Thus, Evelyn knows that she needs a way to be able to gain their trust. Right now she is pretty clueless as to how she would be able to achieve this, but I could see her going as far as to plan to turn someone in that might have left or escaped for a bad reason that might be wanted back. She’d get the idea from her dad, but even she couldn’t bring herself that far to betray one of her only two family members (she’s not quite that desperate yet), but she’d definitely be keeping her ears open to try and find someone or something that might fit the bill as a bargaining token.

Merfolk “Friends” to Get to Know: Evelyn needs information and she needs to learn. Any person that she learns is a mermaid is one that she will want to get to know better to see what she can get out of them. At this point in time she wouldn’t understand any of them, if anything she’d be irritated, jealous, etc. because she wouldn’t be able to comprehend why they would leave the ocean for this, but in time I’m sure that it’d be good for her because she’d be able to see that the ocean isn’t the utopia she has built it up to be in her mind. She needs exposure to people like her since she has never gotten that before, and perhaps in time they would be able to steer her away from throwing away her entire life to return to the sea and an entire people that she’s never met

Friends, Loves, Enemies, Etc., Etc.: Just like everyone else, Evelyn is new in town and she’ll need connections with more than just those listed above. Right now getting to the ocean and living there is her main prerogative, but I definitely need more than that to completely flesh her out and figure out who she is and where she is going in terms of plots and development. Anything that you might have, please send it my way. I’m excited for basically anything and I love plotting, so please let’s figure out something angsty and/or awesome!!

#memento:intro #evelyn van amstel #evelynvanamstel

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