#OC tag: Maeve | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

didasgomas · 8 hours ago

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MEAH introduction

Brand new au for MiM called "Monstrous Eyes And Hearts", or just MEAH for short, though for this one, I have to restrain myself from revealing stuff even more than I do with Mop, because there's two types of "secrets" in this story Monsters in Mayweather belongs to @moonlightsmasquerade

(TW for psychological and emotional abuse on the last section)

Locations:

Venus Café - A small café in the "savage" part of Mayweather (where monster attacks are more numerous) that is quite popular and seen as a "safe spot", as no dangerous or overall supernatural phenomena has ever been reported within or even just around it.

It was created in 1968 by Venus Jennetts as a way to make some more money, as although she was the only child of Holden and Klara Jennets, and thus heiress to their dance school, Effervescence, founded by her grandparents, Venus had found herself pregnant at just 19, and her child's father and boyfriend, Armond, was an exchange student from Canada who could only stay for a year, and although he did try to send money regularly, Venus still opened her café to support the expenses of having a child.

After Venus' son, Dove, turned 21, she passed the business onto him and took up her parents' role as the head of Effervescence so that they could retire.

Even after a major personal loss for Dove, the café business remains afloat, though oddly, Angela Diaz and her supposedly missing son Cyrus are banned from ever entering the establishment, for a reason that Dove refuses to explain.

Rosewood family home - A mansion built in 1928 after newlyweds Marvin and Judith (née Evans) Rosewood moved from West Virginia to Ohio, it is oddly built inside Black Oak forest, not too deep, but way deeper than most other Mayweather residents would be comfortable with.

The family owns a timber business, Rosewood & Daughters, in one of Mayweather's neighboring cities, and are likely to inherit private property rights to a hotel in the same city in the future.

The Rosewoods are sort of the "odd people" in Mayweather, seen as "eccentric" at best, "insane" at worst, due to many strange and somewhat concerning behaviors from the family's members, one of which is their hobby of hunting every month, not for food, as they have more than enough money to not have to, but rather for sport, sometimes seeming to have caught nothing and still claiming a "big win".

Characters:

Dove Chastain (1969):

Baring his father's last name, despite never having met him, Dove is often mistaken for being much younger than he really is, despite his unusual height at 6'3, due to his enchantingly beautiful and fragile-looking appearance, enhanced by his makeup, which has stolen many hearts over the years, but he is in fact in his early 40s and a widower, though he doesn't mind flirting with his "admirers" from time to time.

Being a very social, charismatic and cordial person, Dove is a people magnet, both at work and in parties, thus most people assume he has never had problems with loneliness before, though this isn't necessarily true. Dove had to fight a long year of grief and depression after his wife Raven's death in 1996, which he still hasn't fully recovered from, but for the sake of her memory, his mother and his employees, Dove returned to his role as owner of the Venus Café in 1997, after a long while of leaving everything to his assistant manager.

Despite this personal tragedy, Dove tries to keep pushing forward, especially for the sake of his two younger employees, whose well-being he considers his responsibility.

Lai Tang (1970):

Though Lai almost always anglicizes his name when speaking to non-Asian friends, his birth name, 唐雷 , with the family name first, is pronounced 'Tō Rai' in Japanese. While he'd much prefer people could adapt to pronouncing 'Tō', he refers to his family name as 'Tang' to make it easier for others to say and to honor his Chinese heritage.

Lai has been described by others as a "troublemaker", if not outright "chaotic", but it all boils down to the fact that he treats others based on how they treat him. If someone treats him badly, he can become incredibly sharp-tongued and cruel, but if treated kindly, Lai can become the person's most loyal and supportive friend, much like he is with family.

His father Haku (魄) is fully Japanese, and quite a "ladies' man", causing Lai to have three older half-siblings, and his mother, whom his father is married to, Min Hou (민 侯) is a Korean-Chinese former photographer who settled in Japan upon meeting Haku; thus Lai and his two fully biological sister and brother are fluent in all the three languages, plus several dialects.

Lai's move to the US happened in 1991, after he met Maverick Kalvsdon, a newly graduated sociology bachelor on his vacations, the year before. The only other romance in Lai's life had been a nice boy from his high school called Gaho Tomura (戸村牙保), whom he had been briefly engaged to in 1988 after high school ended, but later broke up with for an unknown reason.

Maverick, on the other hand, was not only charming and attentive, but also seemed to be set for life, working for and being the successor to an especially successful car dealership business. Though it was quite the lengthy move, and both family and friends had reservations about Western culture, they accepted Lai's decision as long as he stayed in touch and didn't forsake his homeland.

Lai has worked at the Venus Café since 1992, after having grown bored with all the free time that a high-class life provided, given that the Kalvsdons had dozens of servants, something that Lai's own family, despite their comparable wealth, didn't have the need for. Besides, Lai enjoys the work experience and having his own money, having risen to assistant manager after just two years.

He enjoys buying gifts for his boss and co-workers, sometimes just outright giving them bundles of cash, not to flaunt around but to show genuine trust, and occasionally just to mess around given the ridiculous gifts he sometimes comes up with.

Maeve Campbell (1986):

Born to a poor family of Irish immigrants, Maeve is the second eldest out of seven children, and along with her older brother, has always sacrificed a lot of free time to study and eventually to look for small jobs, and thus be able to support her family.

Though this has given her a strong work ethic and a diligent demeanor, it has also provoqued a severe financial anxiety, and a short temper, due to the near constant stress. She avoids taking risks and lives a more frugal lifestyle compared to most, rarely paying for what she doesn't strictly need.

Maeve applied to the Venus Café in 2004, fresh out of high school, wanting to start earning a more serious salary to have her own home. Though she initially started as just a cashier and server, Dove promoted her to barista after just one year.

Though she gets along with Chen, she is far closer to Lai and Dove, with her boss being something akin to a surrogate parent to her, always looking out for her well-being, and Lai being the reason she can live in a two-floor-house instead of a cheap motel room.

Just a couple of months after she got hired, he offered to either outright buy her a house or cover her rent for one. Of course, Maeve tried to refuse, but Lai framed it as a bribe to keep annoying customers away rather than charity, and he still does so whenever he gets her occasional gifts.

Maeve has sworn to someday pay Lai, Chen and Dove back for their kindness, though none of them actually expect her to, or want her to, for that matter.

Hai Chen (海晨) (1989):

Born in Shanghai, Chen had a prestigious family background, with his grandfather Wei (卫) having been a successful doctor, his grandmother Yu (玉) coming from a wealthy family, and his uncle Jun (军) and aunt Mei (美) being the model PRC couple, with his uncle being a Colonel in the army and his aunt a teacher.

In stark contrast, Chen's father Zhì (志) was just a local census officer, and his mother Lian (莲) had given up ever working to dedicate herself to her son's education as a housewife. But no matter how hard his parents tried, Chen just couldn't live up to their ambitious expectations, unlike his older-by-11-years prodigy cousin Rui (睿), an academically gifted, physically adept and socially confident boy who eventually reached the position of 2nd Lieutenant inside the army.

As if by a cruel joke of fate, Chen was always too far off to reach even a portion of his cousin's brilliance: difficulties interpreting texts and keeping focus that resulted in disappointing grades, an inability to keep up with demanding physical activities, and a severe shyness and a stammer that only improved after puberty, made his teachers harbor little hope that he'd ever obtain a decent job.

Before the age of 12, Chen's parents hadn't been cruel; very strict, yes, but so were many other Chinese parents who wanted their children to succeed in life. Zhì and Lian even saved up specifically to pay for math and English tutors and enroll their son into special classes, including music, calligraphy and sports clubs, with the only one that Chen was mildly good at being his English studies, but even then, his score was below average for his age.

It was after he hit puberty at 13 that Chen's parents began to see him less as their son, and more as a walking inconvenience that still needed to be clothed and fed. Through the relentless insults to his intelligence, the non-stop comparisons to Rui and accusations that he was just being lazy and seeking attention, the only people who ever protected Chen were his grandparents, Wei and Yu, who were able to see that their grandson just needed help and often berated their own son for being so inhumanely cruel to a child.

The breaking point came in 2008, when Rui got engaged to a woman about to get her Doctorate in Astrophysics, and how after coming back home from the engagement party, and having endured the most brutal barrage of insults and condescending comments, Chen snapped back at his father and threatened to drop out of high school and move out of the country.

His parents went livid about it, but Chen had endured their abuse for far too long, and secretly reached out to his uncle and aunt for help in leaving. In a matter of weeks, just a few days before the end of winter break, his uncle Jun had secured that all the paperwork and visa process were dealt with, and had even managed to contact and get a deal with an expatriate couple living in the US, who agreed to house Chen for at least half a year.

With nothing else delaying it, Chen dropped out of school just the week before it started again, packed all his belongings and bought a plane ticket to the US with the money he had saved over the years. Though he has cut all contact with his parents, he still exchanges rare letters with and accepts money form his uncle's family and his grandparents, the only ones who know what state he's living in.

Chen met Dove accidentally while experimenting with a phone book, and he has been working as the main cashier at the Venus Café, which earns him enough that he can have a small apartment of his own. His boss and co-workers have helped immensely with his English and social anxiety in a new country, though his accent is still very prominent, and he still needs to have an English dictionary in his person at all times.

He still suffers from nightmares and other symptoms of the severe PTSD his parents left him with, but he's trying to save up enough to see a therapist in the near future.

#monsters in mayweather #original character #ocs #my writing #tw child abuse #tw abuse #meah the rosewoods #meah dove #meah lai #meah maeve #meah chen #meah #monstrous eyes and hearts #might add more tags later

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