#and also tumblr can you please behave. i'd like my ask box to start working again thanks

[bookwyrminspiration]

heyyyyy do you mind talking about Maruca? we see so little about her and I just. I wanna know more. If you'd like something more specific to talk about maybe how it's implied she has a lot of character development in going from kinda a bad person (w the Stina thing) to someone very brave and determined or how she's in the right hemisphere

tumblr please let me answer this. tumblr I am begging. I am on my knees. please. I don't know what is up with my askbox but asks keep disappearing from the desktop version and the number displayed is always wrong. But! I can now answer this one, and I would absolutely love to talk about Maruca! and thank you for the specificity, it's not required but it is useful!

Based on how she behaved in book 1 vs now, she's seems to have matured a lot in terms of taking things seriously and respecting others. My reasoning being that in book 1 (or 2? somewhere near the beginning) someone mentions that the reason Maruca and Biana fell out was because Maruca shared a bunch of her secrets (with Stina, I think) to get back at her for becoming friends with Sophie. So she was vengeful and petty and didn't respect other's trust or privacy. When she was upset, she was entirely willing and would go out of her way to violate people's privacy--people she'd apparently been friends with! Definitely not a great character trait, but I don't think she'd do something like that anymore. She might get defensive when it's brought up, but I do think she has genuinely realized how shitty it was of her even if she never directly says it.

It may be in part because she's older now, and the first time we meet her she's 12-ish and 12 year olds are still figuring themselves out (well, everybody is, but 12 happens to be during a big transition and makes figuring yourself out more of an immediate concern). But it likely primarily boils down to Wylie's kidnapping. She very suddenly and very seriously was made incredibly aware that there are much bigger things going on than the petty drama she was creating, and that they are to be taken seriously and are legitimate dangers. Up until Wylie was kidnapped, all the weird things happening to Sophie and her group were their deal, and they were strange and annoying and she didn't like them. And then it affected her family directly, and she realized she wasn't safe from it and that the people she cares about aren't safe from it, and that sobered her up quite quickly.

Wylie's kidnapping was a wake up call, and all of the sudden she was on the wrong side of everything and the places she wanted to be involved Sophie and her friend group. Additionally, they were suddenly the only friend group that would understand. No one else at their school has had involvement with the Neverseen or been targeted, so no one is going to understand her changed mental state or her fears, her need to know whats going on or her desire to get involved. All of that revolves around Sophie. She's the center of everything. Despite her past dislike of Sophie, everything was put into perspective for Maruca and she needed to rapidly mature (with a dash of trauma) in order to continue moving forward and reach her new goals.

But this is something we, the readers, don't see! Sophie can point out the difference in her snobby behavior vs her determined but uncertain demeanor when she asks to join the Black Swan, but she wasn't close enough to her to watch the actual shift. She doesn't know how it really affected her, or what she thinks of all. All she knows now is that Maruca is a part of her group and is in on things, though they may not be friends.

Maruca does still have a ways to go, new as she is to all of this. Everyone kind of jumped at the "Maruca's a psionipath this is a game/war changer!" thing and she was incorporated and added to missions without considering that she is a complete rookie. I mean, it was her actions that made everything so much easier for Lady Gisela in Legacy. Maruca acted hastily and it cost them, so her having an important ability doesn't make her an asset. She'll have to work to become one outside of what she can do. Her mindset has changed and that's the first step, now she needs to follow through to become the important player in the field she has the potential to be.

given how she's been introduced to the group, I'm assuming we're going to see a lot more of her in the last two books! So there will probably be a lot more to look at with her then. But until that happens, we can look at the off page development to try and piece her together, so thank you for the opportunity to do so!