#Maven the Meathead

[yellow-faerie]

Anyone want to hear about my HTTYD OC?

[reifromspace]

My girlfriend is reading the red queen series for the first time and she’s gone in mostly blind save for some of the memes I’ve read her, she’s had some commentary I would like to share with you:

“How can shade be everyone’s favourite character if he’s already dead?”

“Evangeline? How can anyone like evangeline? Why do you like her?”

(About Brie and treymie) “we love some dumb loveable meatheads”

“Ptolemous, you should have died here you dumb slut I feel like it would make everyone’s lives better”

“I really like maven and mare and I’m really scared he’s going to turn evil.”

[obdurare-archive-blog]

au wishlist;; Black Flag AU: Hector the younger as a bb assassin in Nassau during the hunt for the Observatory. Gets injured on a contract, breaking a hip and finding himself not able to perform the feats of pushing physical limits the way he could before, and bows out, going back to full-time pirating. Later is a mentor for bb assassins learning the ropes. Still deadly with an armblade. Elder Scrolls/Skryim AU: Dark Brotherhood assassin, member of the Thieves Guild - acts more as a contact than actual member. Part-time relic hunter and full-time pirate on the Abecean && Sea of Ghosts. Delves ruins and deals with daedra equally, sending souls to the Dread Father of the Void, all while raking in septims dealing in information for Brynjolf and company. Grudging respect for Maven Blackbriar. Psst, the Companions are a bunch of braindead meatheads that smell like wet dog. AU of AU: Vampire Lord. Fallout 4 AU: Someone please come play with my Sole Survivor Hector. He's a dick. Minutemen General, heavy for the Railroad, temporary Overboss of Nuka World until he shuts that shit down. "There, Garvey. Your raider problem's been taken care of. Permanently." Homebase is in Diamond City, no companions romanced, Institute destroyed. On the Synths Are Human Too side of the debate because fuck the Brotherhood of Steel, that's why.

[yellow-faerie]

Ok so, book Maven!

Book Maven is the younger (half)sister of Thuggory the Meathead. She's the daughter of Mogadon's second wife, of whom he's had three, and is a little bit on the smaller side - she wasn't born early or ill or anything but sometimes childhood just hits you and you're a bit of a weed.

It really doesn't help that she's (over the course of the books and probably beyond) absolutely committed to the idea of becoming a witch like her grandmother - something that is incredibly embarrassing to Mogadon.

Because of this, in any sort of 'canon' version of her, she is mostly left on the Meathead Islands during the various books until she gets caught up in the whole Dragonmarkers thing.

(here is the sort of reference sheet I made for her - the staff looks a little ridiculous when she's younger, especially since the Fernwinder (I don't have a good name for him yet) sits on top of it like an overgrown bird, but she grows into it)

(also imagine that everything's she's wearing is some shade of black or grey)

The AU bit did actually get quite big so it's under the cut:

With au Maven we first glimpse her in the first book, just before Hiccup has his initiation test, because Maven snuck on the boats when her father told her not to so she could watch Thuggory (who she adores) do his own initiation test. She doesn't get involved in any of the later story, just stands at her father's side, and Hiccup only knows who she is because - despite Mogadon's best attempts - it's very difficult to hide that you have a bit of a weirdo for a child in the barbaric archipelago.

It should possibly be said that another reason that Thuggory is open-minded to what Hiccup has to say (beyond being a decent sort of guy (I really love him if you couldn't tell)) is that his own sister is a bit of a weed yet she is not a complete write off.

We really meet her in book three where she gets kidnapped along with Cami and Hiccup and Fishlegs because Alvin wanted a few of the chieftains at each other's throats and when the kidnappers had gone to find Thuggory, they had already kidnapped the others and made the assumption that ALL viking heirs were a bit small and weedy.

This does not change much to be honest, she's just kinda there. Mogadon doesn't even start getting at anyone's throats, he's just kinda pleased that Maven has vanished and he can finally stop worrying about her (he does feel guilty but he's a Viking and he's convinced himself he's doing the right thing).

Thuggory on the other hand ends up stealing a boat with his peers in dragon training and going to find both Stoick and Bertha to find out what's happened (Thuggory doing things while Mogadon kinda shrugs and goes ah, well, it is what it is is definitely a running theme). So he's there when it all comes to a head and the heirs fall out of the observation balloon onto the deck.

(I'm imagining that the kidnappings were made to look as if the other two tribes had teamed up to steal the heirs).

So for the fourth book it could go one of two ways after the Meatheads come and join the Freya'sday Friday celebrations (because I'm just adding them in everywhere).

First, Maven doesn't get ill and she sneaks out from her brother's close watch to go on a crazy quest and ends up tangled in the potato quest somehow.

OR, and I'm honestly more fond of this one, Maven gets ill because she gets ill every winter with something and she ends up at Old Wrinkly's at the same time as Fishlegs, and Old Wrinkly is like 'one of them has vorpentitis' kinda missing the fact that it's Hiccup who has it.

And then Thuggory ends up joining them on the crazy quest on the chance that it's his sister who has vorpentitis (he has So Much Faith in Hiccup, he and Cami have a sort of Hiccup fan group going on and it's a bit disconcerting). He's a big typical viking so Hiccup spends a lot of his time being like 'stop thinking with your axe, please'

Again, not sure on the specifics but they get back and everyone's fine until Hiccup goes down and Fishlegs saves him.

In book 5, Maven joins them on Lava-Lout island mostly talking about Doom and things like that because she does actually have seer blood which means she does actually get Vibes and stuff (like, the witch thing is genuine).

It's a bit disconcerting going up a mountain with a small girl declaring your Doom and your best friend just agreeing with her (Fishlegs and she are quite good friends now after the whole vorpentitis thing where they ended up in old Wrinkly's hut together, but they do have a habit of having each other's negativity rubbing off on each other).

And maybe Thuggory joins them. I am honestly very fond of a bunch of weirdos and this one incredibly enthusiastic Proper Viking who's following them because one's his sister and one's Hiccup.

(This is much to Mogadon's consternation because losing Maven is fine (it's not but he pushes down the pesky feelings of care and affection he has) but losing his Hope and Heir?? Not happening)

Book 6 is the whole book heist of the Meathead Public Library - this one Maven helps with because she's the good sort who's willing to help break into her own library for a friend. She had been on Berk in the first place because her father had been getting rid of her by sending her to learn things from all the elders in the archipelago (in the hope that maybe she might end up missing without a trace).

She even comes back to Berk and ends up having to got home to explain to her father what happened to the Hairy Scary Librarian which rather cuts her time learning from Old Wrinkly off (she was rather enjoying herself as a lot of her time was this spent with Hiccup and Fishlegs instead because Old Wrinkly was a bit of fraud quite a lot of the time and didn't really have that much to teach her).

She does wait a few days though - after all, it is Hiccup's birthday (she had made him a new notebook).

And then there's book 7, the intertribal swimming race - I'm adding the Meatheads into the race, and so Maven gets snatched at the same time as Fishlegs and Hiccup and Cami and ends up going along with the rest of the book like that. I also like to think that since her stay on Berk, she's been getting Hiccup to teach her dragonese and so with not much else to do on the ship, he continues the lessons.

(Fishlegs has quite a good understanding of it already and used to speak it, in my own headcanon, due to being raised by a dragon. He doesn't let on about this because he's bullied so much already, he doesn't want to add on to it. Cami kinda joins the lessons too. Again, there's not much for them to do.)

(On a side note: I kinda want to make an OC who's the heir of Norbert the Nutjob and is just as tired with Norbert's antics as anyone, and it's a bit of a crowded crow's nest throughout that trip - I just enjoy the idea of Hiccup charming every heir in the archipelago even if their parents hate him)

I don't think she actually ends up in book 8 at all so her next appearance would be book 9 where she sees Excellinor is like 'a real witch :D' and then five minutes after having a bit of a fangirl, Hiccup tells her it's the Evil witch he was talking about and Maven is like D: and declares vehemently that she's doing witching wrong.

Maven isn't technically a young warrior yet despite finding her own dragon (the Fernwinder she found and basically nursed back to health from a potentially fatal wound so now it follows her around, mostly doing its own thing but weirdly protective of the little weirdo that saved it) so she isn't part of the sword fighting competition.

The main thing here is I'm not sure whether Maven would turn her back or not: see, I think she would (for much the same reason as Cami), except for the fact that she is a stubborn viking at heart and she is vehemently opposed to anything Excellinor proposes.

My sort of middle ground is that she doesn't turn her back but when Hiccup looks at her, she refuses to meet his eye (she's having a little internal battle about slave marks and the like).

She ends up in the slavelands very quickly because as a sign of good faith, Mogadon kinda sends her himself (he is not a good dad to her (although he is to Thuggory)). This is something Thuggory is furious about and he would have stopped talking to his father entirely if he wasn't deeply aware of how staying away from getting enslaved himself was his best bet to getting his sister back...somehow.

Anyway, she and Fishlegs get really close during this time, spending almost a year together (looking after Eggingarde) before the dragon gets Fishlegs. Then Hiccup comes and while Maven refuses to talk about Fishlegs when anyone else can hear, when everyone else is asleep, she tells Hiccup the truth (because she recognises that he's actually Hiccup evening through his Cunning Disguise (probably because of something witchy which gives her a slight advantage)).

Anyway, she becomes one of the Companions of the Dragonmark along with the Fernwinder (who had been living in the bogs outside the slavelands since she had been enslaved out of loyalty).

This makes the companions a nice round 12 which I think is very satisfying (considering the twelve books).

Book 11, she ends up following Fishlegs and Cami on the back of the deadly shadow so she sees Hiccup being "killed" but she agrees with Camicazi on him being alive (something surprising even to her because usually the Vibes she gets from the universe are all about Doom).

When they find him and attack him, Maven asks the Fernwinder (due to the fact she has very passable Dragonese at this point: another year (I think it's another year, or at least another few months) of living with Hiccup and a bunch of dragons improves ones dragonese very quickly) to follow him and make sure he's alright, and so the Fernwinder is the one that Hiccup hitches a lift on to the castle.

Things carry on as they carry on - Maven kinda makes up with her father, gives her brother a hug when she sees him again, and then they watch Hiccup face Furious and everything comes to a head.

After the war, Fishlegs is obviously the royal bard and Camicazi is the royal guard, and Maven then takes a place as the Wise Woman (which - as she puts it - is like the royal witch but better) who's job is to advise and occasionally be a seer and look imposing (she's got a very good death glare and doesn't tend to smile as a general rule).

And that's the general life of Maven, at least in an AU. Like I mentioned earlier, in this same AU I would probably sprinkle in a few other Hopes and Heirs who get helped by Hiccup so that when he takes the throne, there is an entire generation who knows and remembers him from their own childhoods. Probably a Beserker heir and one for the Murderous tribe, and I would probably want a Peaceable in there (because otherwise they're just kinda There)

@just-a-very-random-side-blog

Anyone want to hear about my HTTYD OC?