#(again - due to merkingdom politics) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

athenaofthesea · 6 years

Photo

Athena Ray, Life before WH Timeline

(TW: abuse, bullying, death, depression)

1 day old: Athena Myrina Ray was born in April 11th of 1892 to Melinda Ray. It was a windy, chilly night at 10:13pm in West Hollow right before the evening rain and thunder. She was named after a war Goddess (Athena) and an Amazon queen, destroyer of Atlantis (Myrina). Melinda looked at her new daughter, trying to drown away the feeling of regret and fear and focus on making her far stronger than she ever was.

1 week old: Athena wouldn’t know about the merkingdom. And she would never, ever know about Melinda’s family or that her mother was a mermaid too. Never. Melinda swore this to herself.

5 weeks old: Melinda moves from West Hollow to New York, finding an apartment right outside the bureaus of New York city. Athena would always believe she was born there.

1 month old: The baby was quiet and sweet, always sleeping on time and hardly crying. But when she would, of hunger, hygiene or lack of sleep, Melinda would want to cry herself. She was so stressed, so tired of being a mother. Could she really do this?

1 year old: The day Athena finally discovered her tail was a month before her birthday, and she wondered why her mother was so angry. Athena was afraid. She was taken away form the tub and left in a small blow up pool in the basement for 3 hours at a time everyday from that day forward.

2 years old: She called daycare home, as she was almost never home with her mother. Athena was being raised by strangers. Every night she’d go home and spend a couple hours in her small pool before bedtime.

3 years old: Melinda was tired of working odd jobs and started to look for better work to support herself and Athena. Her little girl was growing to be more curious, adventurous and energetic every day. It was exhausting.

4 years old: Athena wanted to follow the monarch butterfly. She ventured outside the boundaries of the backyard and tumbled down a hill, breaking her arm. Mom had never looked so scared before. But she was even angrier after everything was okay. Athena learns from the hospital that she’s very sensitive to medication, and has bad side effects to most.

5 years old: Melinda finds a stable job as a secretary. She hires a nanny to care for Athena. Her name was Esmerelda and Athena loved her. Athena wants to go to the beach for the first time, but Melinda’s yelling scared her so badly, she doesn’t ask again for many years.

6 years old: Athena spends the next 5 years of her life hardly aging, and Esmerelda suspects the little girl is different. But she loves her, and teaches her everything she knows. Athena asks about her father, and Melinda says he was a horrible man but won’t say anymore and tells her never to bring him up again.

10 years old: Esmerelda discovers Athena in her pool one night, realizing she forgot her purse and going back inside the house. Melinda was in the shower. When she realizes what happened, Esmerelda is fired and threatened. Athena never cried so much in her life. Athena discovers she likes to sing, and sings to critters, making them come to her and do things. She feels like a Disney princess.

11 years old: Athena finally looked old enough to go to school, but she was far advanced by then. School was easy, school was boring. Kids teased her. She was alone. She asked to go to the beach again, and she’s locked in her room for 2 days. Athena asks for a dog for over a year and finally gets one.

14 years old: Athena looks much younger than her classmates, was so much smarter and she comes home crying too often from the bullying. Melinda transfers her to a different school. Athena asks about her father again, Melinda yells at her. Athena wants to sing at a school talent show, Melinda yells at her. She is prohibited from singing in public and her dog is given away as punishment.

17 years old: Athena is transferred school 4 different times before Melinda settles to hire someone to homeschool her. Matthew Morrison is a good tutor, and eventually becomes like a father to her. She tries to sneak out of home and go to the beach, but a scary man brings her back. He was a witch, she’d learn many years later, hired by Melinda.

20 years old: Athena looks 15, but she’s tired of being held back in school just because of that. She secretly tells Matthew who she really is, but he doesn’t run away. He cares about the girl and pretends he knows nothing when dealing to Melinda. Athena finally starts college after manipulating the school president to let her. She meets a fellow freshmen and crushes on him. She realizes that witch is still preventing her from doing anything against her mother’s wishes.

21 years old: Matthew is killed in a car accident. Athena is devastated. She’s left alone with Melinda now, who yells at her too much and won’t let her do anything. She’s forced to stay preoccupied with things like clubs, sports, college, and extra curricular activities. Athena loves art club most. She has sex with her crush for the first time, than he leaves her. Melinda moves them to a house almost half an hour away from the city. She makes an indoor pool in it for Athena begrudgingly. Athena wonders how her mother was able to afford any of that.

25 years old: Athena graduated with her bachelor’s degree and high honors but her mother was too busy to come to graduation. Athena suspects her mother has been suffering from severe depression for years. She tries many times to go swimming in the sea and is prevented by some kind of magic. Athena confronts her mother. Melinda tells Athena that as long as she’s alive, she will never be able to go into the ocean.

30's: Athena begins fighting for women’s rights and going to rallies, while still trying to keep herself distracted and away from her mother. Athena begins to discover she’s not the only strange person in the world. Could there be more mermaids? Could there be even stranger things out there? Athena tries to find out, and Melinda creates more blockages that prevent her.

40 years old: Athena tries to run away from home after months of planning, but is prevented by Melinda’s witch friend and is confined to her house for an entire month. She develops a deep depression and fear for her mother.

45 years old: A demon tries to hurt her, and angel Winter saves her. Athena spends most of her time painting the walls of her room and locking herself in there for hours at a time, reading and learning how to improve her art skills.

50′s : She spends too much time partying now, experimenting with both men and women. Athena falls in love with a man, and he loves someone else. She vows not to fall in love again. No one can be trusted in her life except herself. Athena begins fighting classes, training her body to be stronger with the hopes her mind and soul will follow.

60's: Athena tries to live as independently from her mother as possible, learning how to forge her own documents and get help to keep her identification documents changing due to her physical age staying unnaturally constant. She is allowed to walk along the beach now, but not touch more than the shore of the water. Athena tries to find out more about her father from her mother again, but Melinda makes it clear she’ll never elaborate more on what she’s already shared.

70's: Athena takes language courses and other types of courses to do something useful with her otherwise dull, imprisoned life. She takes them at Fordham University, and eventually forges graduation certifications and finds someone to put her into the system as having graduated from there recently with her past psychology major and art minor. She’s more involved in world politics and even more involved in humanitarian and environmental movements. So many men try to get her attention, but she doesn’t want any of them. Athena spends some time just sleeping with women, but not trying to find anything serious with them either. She is still continuing to train herself in combat.

80′s: Athena goes to Columbia University to get her master’s in clinical psychology and graduates successfully. She starts finding work waitressing and other odd jobs. Again, she tries to run away from home and is unable. She goes home to find her mother completely wasted, and asks about her father once more. She learns they met in West Hollow, Oregon, but that’s it.

90′s: After months of planning her escape, Athena attempts to flee to Oregon. She’s found out and punished by being locked in her house for a full year. She spends all this time vowing one day she’d be free from her imprisonment life.

100′s: Athena got better at hiding things from her mother, and slowly begins to research more into her past and the world around her. She dives deep into myths about magical creatures and the little town of West Hollow. Athena tries to go to mixed martial arts classes, but finds herself too advanced and gets a personal trainer instead.

110′s: She gets her ears pierced. Athena submits paintings to a contest and wins, but her mother is angry and doesn’t want her daughter bringing attention to herself.

120′s: Athena gets a job in an aquarium after years of begging her mother to let her do it. She quickly becomes the best dolphin caretaker. She’s finally decided to wait till the day she’ll get her opportunity to free herself from her mother. She decides not to waste her time trying to escape and try to live in the moment. Athena becomes a great artist, and has since learned a lot about her singing abilities.

125: Melinda Fray dies of a heart attack. Athena is free, magic no longer bounding her to stay. She quits her job, packs her things and moves to West Hollow, Oregon.

#westhollowtalk #╰♔╮❝ ᴡᴏᴍᴇɴ ʟɪᴋᴇ yᴏᴜ ᴅʀᴏᴡɴ ᴏᴄᴇᴀɴꜱ ❞ (ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ)#headcanon #// may be edited in the future to add more #// man these things have been sitting in my drafts for ages #abuse tw #bullying tw #death tw #depression tw

4 notes · View notes

rxttenfish · 2 years

Text

my biggest changes in merkingdom/miranda lore that are fairly important as i work on stuff i can show off over here:

miranda is the heir. she’s still the youngest of four sisters, and there is lore reasons for why it goes to the youngest-born in the royal family, but she is very much the heir. mostly this is because both, i was here before we ever even discovered miranda had siblings at all, but also because i just like it more. gives a tighter story.

i’m ignoring the fifth sister.

and most of the lore that comes out about the vanderbilts and each sister as time goes forward. i had my bellanda lore figured out before the bellanda ending came out, i’m not changing it.

there is only one merkingdom. there are no other kingdoms underwater. they effectively control all saltwater. this also has lore and lore implications.

the merkingdom has been isolated for millennia. they haven’t talked to the land or even made any indication to anyone else that they existed at all, and there are still laws preventing merfolk from interacting with landfolk. while its starting to lift a little with a new push to interact with the land and forge new political relationships outside of the merkingdom, only royals of a certain rank are allowed on land.

serfs and merfolk are entirely different things.

most people are only ever going to interact with one merfolk and its miranda. sometimes bellanda, they hang out more than in canon, again due to lore reasons.

basically no one goes what’s going on in the merkingdom besides what miranda tells them and what they learn from her.

no one has visited the merkingdom either. they get... touchy, about that. and also it’s not exactly safe.

the king has never and can never come up onto dry land.

the queen is dead, and miranda has never known what she was like in life.

bellanda is very much the black sheep of the family. miranda is the closest person to bellanda, and bellanda’s the closest person to miranda.

#all the care guide says is 'biomass'

17 notes · View notes