Maude Lif

Appearance

Maude Lif is a stout 5' 6" and thick 164 lbs. woman. Her dull black hair is cut into an even bob with bangs. Typically it is cut to her jaw, but she is often known to let it grow longer or to forget to cut it until her bangs start to cover her eyes. She has light, icy blue eyes, and a small button nose. She has trouble showing expression on her face and even more trouble portraying the correct emotions. More often than not, she doesn't emote and thus looks neutral and disinterested. However, Maude does excel at portraying anger, with a great skill set in looking large and intimidating, and a glare that could turn lesser men to stone. It is rumored that Maude has once been seen smiling, but reports are unconfirmed.

Her body is an apple, meaning she’s a big top heavy with large breasts (D cup). She has defined muscle with especially impressive biceps and broad shoulders. While naturally fair-skinned, Maude has dark farmer's tan and a few moles from being in the sun too much. Her hands and feet are calloused and she has more than a few scars.

Maude has very proper posture and stands in very formal manner, no slouching or leaning. Typically, she has her arms crossed over her body in one way or another. Maude has trouble maintaining eye contact and, as previously stated, has trouble emoting. This all combines to give her a very stiff, closed, bored, or uncomfortable tone of body language. Maude's most expressive and telling parts of her body are her arms. A simple guide to reading Maude is based around where her arms are and how she is holding herself:

• Gripping her biceps - Excited, happy
• Folded over her chest - Anger, irritated, threatening
• Wrapped around herself, gripping her sides to apply pressure - Nervous, insecure, scared
• Loosely wrapped around herself - Sad, depressed
• Set on her hips - Curious, open

When Maude is upset, she'll cross her arms, puff up her chest, glare with varying intensity, and raise her voice. She has a habit of putting herself between things we wants to protect and potential threats. She rarely moves into other's personal space, instead usually just standing her ground and not reacting until the problem either goes away or incites further action.

When Maude is insecure, nervous, uncomfortable, or embarrassed, her first reaction is to hold her sides. She'll become quiet, her face may flush, and she'll look up at people instead of down as she usually does. Her posture may start to suffer as she curls inward and turns herself away from others. If she cries, she will try and hide it, but never succeed. It is very easy to tell when Maude is sad. She's avoidant, but bad at lying, and easy to read when she's upset.

Even when Maude is happy, she appears rather reserved. Her smiles are faint, her chuckles seem stifled, her banter is snide, turn away to hide her expressions, and she seems to play around her interest in things as if it is nothing more than minor amusement or curiosity. She is, however, known to give wide, sincere smiles and hold her arms when she's excited.

When Maude is interested in something, curious, or relaxed and casual, she may finally open up her body language. Her hands will sit on her hips, she may lean on one side of her body or bend one leg, and her conversation is light. She also has a habit of cocking her head to the side when she's curious or confused without knowing it.

Maude canonically wears very cheap, undyed, linen shirts, pants, and leather boots. That being said, Maude is a character that can exist is pretty much any setting so just give her some cheap clothes and she'll fit right in. Her typical outfit is a light purple, short sleeved shirt with a small V cut into the collar and the sides, as well as visible black stitching. With this she wears off-white capris that cut off just below her knee and also has small V's cut into the sides with visible stitching. Maude prefers to be barefoot when she can. She also processes a tool belt with two pouches that usually hangs a mallet and any other tools she needs. Alternatively, Maude has been known to wear more homely country outfits with pattern fabric and skirts. In addition to her everyday work clothes, Maude does own one blue, square-cut, a-line dress with lighter blue accents and a matching owl mask for a masquerade she once "attended." In winter, she doesn't wear anything different, unless absolutely necessary or forced by her loved ones, because being cold is for people with less meat on their bones. At night, she wears an old shirt and shorts as pajamas.

Maude is commonly associated with the color purple. I also like to think of her as having dark jewel green and orange to give her a secondary color palette

Voice

Maude's voice is a baritone. Although she attempted to train her voice to sound more feminine with the help of Nerina, she did not find much success. She made enough adjustments to sound womanly, but never quite mastered any of the techniques. For instance, Maude does not speak from her chest, but also cannot speak entirely from her head voice. Her voice is higher than her male voice, but still lower than most women, being pitched at about C3. While her inflection is still not as varied as the average person, she has gained the flow and mannerisms of a woman. This is in addition to many other improvements Maude has made to her tone, her vocal patterns, and other aspects of her speech. As far as Maude’s gender does, she sounds like a woman who happens to have a deeper voice.

Without the background of Maude’s vocal training, her tone and inflection would be described as bored. While her vocal mannerisms resemble those of a woman more than a man, she’s still monotone and flat. She speaks in a quiet grumble that sometimes that sounds as vaguely irritated, inconvenienced, and disinterested as a teenager. Even when she’s interested and trying to portray friendliness, she has a habit of coming across as sarcastic. Ironically, her attempts to tell jokes also don’t land effectively. She’s too serious sounding and generally ridiculous for anyone to know if she’s kidding. Maude also has a habit of talking very slowly. She does this because she’s trying to think about her words carefully before she says them. This adds a sense of uncertainty or lack of confidence to most things she says. It also adds an even stronger sense that she doesn’t want to be talking right now, which to be fair, is usually true. The only exception is when she’s upset. Maude’s consideration of her words stops the second she’s the least bit upset. When she’s sad, she loses all self control and speaks whatever worry is in her mind. But when she’s angry, she goes from a quiet grumble into a wretch that can be heard for blocks. It’s quite impressive how good Maude is at yelling, even though the damage to her throat is probably causing the gravel in her voice. Maude sometimes has days in which she talks very little or not at all

Maude also speaks with an accent. Specifically, she has an Atlanta accent with a lilt, but not a drawl, or maybe just a slight one. Her lilt means that she turns single syllable words into two or three syllables such as Hill “Hee-ill”, Calm “Cah-alm”, and Bed “Be-od.” She also collapses other words into single syllables such as kitten “ki’in”, twenty “twenny”, and fire “fi’r”. Maude also collapses contractions like doesn’t “dudden”, isn’t “iden”, and waden “wasn’t”. When there are too many hard consonants together in a word, Maude will likely break them up with vowels, nuclear “nucular”, theater “thee-ate-er”. Maude may occasionally drop the g in -ing words like, fixin’, cookin’, and kickin’. Maude may also sometimes show a drawl by elongating certain vowels. Mainly this happens with i such as in I “aah”, but also occurs in -oy like in boy “bohy”, in -eh like in pen “pin” and -aw like in draw “druh”. It becomes slightly more prominent when she’s upset. Lastly, Maude has miscellaneous tag words. The following are said to sound the same: Pen and Pin, Feel and Fill, Poor and Pour

Personality

Maude’s most prominent characteristic is probably her standoffishness. As mentioned previously Maude doesn’t usually emote and her voice is flat. Often this makes it seems as if she’s bored, uninterested, and irritable. While this isn’t always the case, it often is. In her natural habitat, Maude is just kind of indifferent or neutral to most things, as seen in her primary inspiration. She might let some dismissive words slip out or make a rude comment without realizing, but ultimately she’s just kind of got her own thing going on and she doesn’t really care. Personally, my favorite brand of comedy through Maude is introducing her to new ideas and having her respond with ridiculous criticisms: telling Jon he’s too small to be an adventurer, not understanding the mail system, ect. That being said a majority of the stories I’ve told about Maude have taken place during very bad period in her life when she was dealing with grief, alcoholism, and depression. I want to make a distinction between Maude’s usual neutrality and the bitchy holes she was in for a while. Maude is certainly a moody bitch who’s easily upset, but I think I wanna retcon just about irritable she was during most of her canon. It got to be a little extreme, but I enjoy the idea that those actions were coming from a bad place that she’s since starting working out of.

On a similar note, Maude is rather anti-social. She’s beloved for her exaggerated introversion and sarcastic remarks about how little she wants to be talking to other people. Her main conflict in any setting is that she finds social interaction to be very difficult and has trouble navigating conversation. She always tries to start out on the right foot. No matter how frustrated she gets, she has a policy about putting her best effort in on first introductions. However, as Maude starts to stumble and get confused, she starts to feel as if she’s underperforming. Eventually, her emotions get the better of her and she’ll either begin lashing out in rude remarks or purposely sabotaging herself because failing makes her feel inadequate. The unfortunate consequence of Maude’s inability to interact with other people is insecurity and loneliness. Through passive aggression and comparison to her extroverted sister, Maude’s parents instilled in her the idea that she ought to be more social and ought to try harder. Additionally, Maude genuinely wishes to connect with other. Despite Maude’s passionate insistent to the contrary, she deeply wishes she spent more time with people and that she could be better at socializing. The whole “friendship” thing seems fun, but she wouldn’t really know. It’s probably stupid…

Maude is also a very hard working person. She prefers working with her hands in a position of labor such as agriculture, carpentry, construction, and so on. She’s well organized, efficient, very skilled, and produces a high quality of work. She’s more than willing to put in additional hours or work around obstructions, even if she’s a bit grumpy about it. Occasionally she can overwork herself, but typically this is because she enjoys working and takes pride in what she makes in a timely fashion.She’s also more than willing to pick up new skills and learn new tools. Recently she’s started to learn how to carve wood and has been added nice garnishes to her products and making small wood items like chess pieces. This is in addition to other family values she holds such as generosity, loyalty, financial security, and so on. Maude is very giving and hospitable, as is her southern upbringing. She’s undying loyal to those she loves, even many she’s just met. She can just as often be a bit protective and overbearing, but she means well. While her family business didn’t flourish, she is does have a lot of entrepreneurial experience. She understands economics fairly well, known how to account on a large scale, can haggle expertly, and is generally a very knowledgeable and skilled business woman. When it comes to home finances, she usually balances the check books and budgets for a month. Maude can certainly let her traditional values go a little far. Her inability to live up to the standards taught to her growing up is a major point of insecurity. However, I don’t want to always portray her conservative ideas and upbringing to be a bad part of her. For as many problems as they cause her, they’re equally capable of inspiring her to strive for good attributes and actions.

On the topic of Maude’s “traditional values”, she is minorly critical of them, at least at times. I never really get the chance to show it, but Maude is a curious creature. Most of her understanding of the world came from a limited view point in a way that makes her wonder how things really are. She’ll prone to trust what she knows and doesn’t go searching for new information very often, but is sometimes interested when they are presented to her. In particular, she’d love to learn more about other cultures but hasn’t really had the chance to. She’s fairly negative and close minded, but is sometimes willing to try new things with insistence. She will sometimes ask silly questions about things she doesn’t understand, which can show a comical misunderstand of common concepts. She enjoys hearing stories, although prefers ones based on real events. She’s not one for fantasy. Jon’s adventuring stories, for instance, are right up her alley.

That all being said, I think Maude’s most important characteristic is her emotionality. And I don’t mean that just in the “she’s cold on the outside but has a heart of gold” kind of way. Maude is absolutely defined by her emotions. She’s so completely incapable of controlling, understanding, and expressing them that they run her every action. Every little frustration sends her into a temper tantrum. Every minor inconvenience puts her into a depression. She tries to buries things but time and time again is shown to be incapable of filtering her thoughts. Her sincerity can be crippling to watch as she’s just unable to keep anything hidden. She first kissed Jon with a drunken lack of self control. She’s constantly letting personal things slip out in conversation, especially when drunk. It’s incredibly easy to tell when she’s putting on a front and yet whenever she actually wants to express her feelings, her thoughts will just come tumble out in hard to follow rambles and she’s never happy with the result. She’s just so vulnerable. She has so many emotions and she doesn’t know what to do with them. She’s constantly putting herself out there whether she wants to or not. When she’s rejected, its painful to watch. You just want someone to help her, to take what she’s giving and help her deal with her problems. And thankfully, someone has, but I don’t think Maude will ever change from being the sensitive woman she is. She might not feel so bad about herself or maybe she’ll be able to deal with herself in a healthier way, but she’s always let things slip out and she’ll always let her emotions rule her. A Maude that can effectively handle her emotions and keep things to herself like a functioning adult, is not Maude to me. Maude is defined by being emotional and crushingly vulnerable at almost all times, but that’s what people like about her, I think. It’s what I like. I like that she feels things so much and that she’s a big goof who pouts all the time. She’s relatable and sympathetic. It lets all of her faults feel natural, even if she’s kind of ridiculous. The core of Maude’s character is that she’s just a girl who feels sad sometimes and tries so hard to get better, even if she almost always fails or feels worse, because every once in a while, she succeeds

Flaws

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Maude in nice flowery language, because I like her a lot, but I do not mean to diminish her faults. Maude is a very flawed person who needs to work on herself a lot. On a surface level she’s rude, aggressive, and confrontational. She’s very dismissive to strangers and lashes out against even her loved ones fairly often. Being in a bad place certainly doesn’t justify how mean she can be, not that her attitude is always linked to emotional distress. Sure, sometimes she’s projected like a motherfucker, but Maude is just as often just being an asshole. What’s more is that she’s not even apologetic after the fact. Maude is too stubborn to admit she’s wrong or that she did something bad, no matter how blatant. Jon has even called her out about this a few times. When she does apologize, they aren’t usually very good apologies and often incorporate self-loathing comments or exaggerations that defend the point of apologizing.

She’s greatly unsympathetic to other people. When I describe Maude as sensitive, I mean that she is very emotional and easily hurt. She is absolutely not sympathetic to others. She even has trouble with this when dealing with her loved ones. And I want to be clear that this is not due to any inability. She’s as empathetic as the average person. She just doesn’t care about other people very much. If Maude is kind or generous or helpful or social, it is because she was taught to value those characteristics in an individual. She wants to be able to call herself a good person and she wants to be able to do the things she was told to do. She doesn’t actually care about whoever she’s helping

Maude is very dedicated to the “traditional values” instilled in her by her family and community. Unfortunately, she is also very uncritical of those values. Maude holds onto inaccurate, unhealthy views of the world. She shuns any alternative ideas to a comical degree, which is unfortunate considering the distress these “traditional values” cause her. As an autistic trans woman with a broken family who let her family’s farm fall into ruin, shuns social interaction, drinks to excess, curses often, and moved in with her boyfriend before marriage; Maude can’t live up to the arbitrary standards she puts on herself. What’s even more unfortunate is the way she chooses to deal with this. Maude lives by a “sour grapes” philosophy. She passionately, hatefully denounces anything that she can’t have, can’t do, doesn’t understand, is insecure about, or is ashamed of thinking about; meanwhile excusing her own behavior as being acceptable exceptions to the rule for one reason or another. When other people swear or drink or start fights, they’re filth. When Maude does it, she’s just a good person who had a bad day. Her hypocrisy even extends to communities she is a part of. Her struggles with bigotry and insecurity lead her to project onto and condemn others, such as criticizing someone’s gender identity or ability to pass, revile other sexual orientations, and even chastise others with developmental disabilities. After all, she’s trying, why can’t they? She knows her gender dysphoria is real. She dresses like a girl, dates a boy, and tries to be social like she’s supposed to. Everyone else is clearly just not trying to be normal as hard as she is.

Maude is also notably racist. Not in the over-the-top, hateful, movie antagonist way, but in the gross, realistic way. Maude’s “traditional values” don’t include a lot of flattering depictions of people of other races, genders, sexualities, abilities, or any other status. Most of her understanding of other people comes from story book villains and southern comments about lacking work ethics and responsibility. She allows this to could her perception of people and frequently allows them to slip out during conversation. Maude is curious by nature. She’s genuinely interested in other cultures and how they do things. However, she expects others to present her with new information and defend themselves instead of pursuing new perspectives herself. She’s quite content to sit in her ignorance, judge people, and make discriminatory comments and actions until someone goes out of their way to argue with her.

Hobbies

Maude spends most of her time doing things around her properties, whether that be agriculture, repairs, cleaning, chores, or whatever. She enjoys being productive and working on things, no matter what her job is. Maude’s greatest interest is agriculture. She likes growing stuff. She knows how to very well and every place she lives in is full of green stuff from house plants to kitchen herbs and spices to window plants to hanging plants and so on. She particularly likes it when the plants have uses so she tries to grown things for cooking or medicine. One of Maude’s favorite daily chores is cooking. She loves making huge portions of good food. She’s more of a vegetable person so most of her meals are very colorful and healthy, but she knows how to put flavor in things.

When relaxing or not doing anything, Maude enjoys socially drinking. She doesn’t do it alone anymore to keep from depression and binging, but being around people who can keep an eye on her makes her feel in control and supported. Maude has also been learning to whittle and carve wood since Nex gifted her a wood file. She’s has a chess set she’s been working on for a few years. You can tell what order she made them in because they get better as time goes on. Maude will also fiddle with larger woodworking projects. Being a carpenter wasn’t all bad. I’d also like to see her take an interest in metal work some day.

When Maude is very stressed and in need of a break, she goes swimming. While she wasn’t able to, she’s now comfortable enough with her body to enjoy it. She likes the coolness of the water and the feeling of pressure on all of her sides and the weightlessness. It's a soothing activity for her to swim a few laps, float around, and mess around in the water and it's even given her some exposure to the zora, which is good for her

Backstory

Maude was born to Lillian and Jeremiah Lif. Typically she lives during a medieval setting in some stand-in for the American South, but works well in just about any time or location. Originally she existed in a fantasy world where her defining characteristic was that she was normal person, uninterested in magic and adventure, who just wanted to live her life free from monsters (her dating Jonathan, a typical fantasy hero, is a joke from that conception). She grew up in a small, relatively poor town and lived on Faith Pumpkin Farm, named after the original owner of the land, Faith Lif. Many of the details of Maude’s origins can be changed but that one cannot. It must be a pumpkin farm, no exceptions. The Lif family is characterized as conservative labor workers, usually imagined as stereotypical farmers or from an Amish community. Most of her ancestors had careers in agriculture, which is a point of pride to her family. Elsewise, they were labor workers, with a fraction notably being artists and performers. Despite not valuing the arts, artistic ability runs in the Lif family. Maude also possesses natural artistic talent, but lacks the skills or interest to develop it.

As a child, Maude was very detached and independent. She was late developing language and often didn’t talk at all. She didn’t like being touched and would sometimes move her hands around in wildly, though she would occasionally want to be hugged tightly on her own terms. Her body language didn’t seem to acknowledge anyone as she was turned away, avoided eye contact, and usually preferred to do her own thing away from others. She was relatively adventurous, exploring the areas around her home, climbing trees, running around and getting dirty. She has an old memory of drawing faces on pumpkins and naming them. Although, she didn’t like actual people much and didn’t socialize. In fact, she was very upset in crowds and loud areas and responded with loud outbursts and tantrums. She had trouble controlling her emotions and seemed to be set off by very minor things. The only person she had an interest in was her mother, whom she mimicked. Maude also had an interest in femininity, though she was scowled for this. She spent most of her time with her father and began working at a young age. Maude did appreciate the routines of farm work even if she hadn’t developed good listening skills. She got better at the work as she got older and was gradually given more responsibility, which she took to well so long as it was consistent.

Maude was about 7 when Nerina was born. Initially, Maude was disinterested in her sister and didn’t interact with her unless necessary. However, her parents believed that all responsibilities were shared in the house and since Maude was too young to do real farm work, she was usually in charge of Nerina. The two ended up spending a lot of time together, wandering off and getting into trouble. Maude taught Nerina how to climb trees and catch animals and other adventurous activities she liked to do. Maude has a memory of Nerina catching a fish and while pretending to be a zora, attempting to eat it raw. The fish slammed her in the face repeatedly until she started to cry. She then did the same thing with leafs and rocks to be a deku and goron respectively. Nerina also became Maude’s through line to begin communicating and socializing with others. Maude was quite content to let Nerina do the talking for her and to feel included. Unfortunately, she never really learned how to socialize without Nerina and found dealing with others to be difficult and overwhelming. While she was never very present in social situations, not talking or contributing much, it was still a good experience for her to have had.

However, as the two got dirty or hurt or did something they shouldn’t, Maude’s age meant that she was the one who got in trouble. Gradually, Maude stopped taking Nerina to do fun things and started discouraging her to keep them out of trouble. The lesson didn’t really stick for Nerina. Maude, on the other hand, was indicated with lessons on responsibility. As the older sibling, she began to be labored with more chores and less free time. In the same vein, Maude was taught that an older sibling is supposed to protect the younger one. Being as rules-oriented as Maude is, she gradually stopped childhood play and took on a more serious and strict personality. Her focus was no longer on just taking her sister around with her because she had to. It became specifically to protect her from things and get her to do what she was supposed to, like Maude did. Around the same time, Maude began to be chastised and punished for her emotional outbursts and child-like behavior. All of this combined to put Maude through a rapid period of growth, changing her from the independent, emotional child she was to a more obedient and quiet young adult.

When she began puberty, Maude began to feel uncomfortable in her body and seeing herself in the mirror triggered intense emotional distress Others around her started to grow into their roles as men, but she stopped being able to relate to them. She felt out of place and anxious. Her interest in femininity only grew as she shunned masculine activities and tried to copy her mother. Unfortunately, people’s response to her only became more extreme and awful. Scared by those reactions, Maude was forced to repress her feelings. She tried to distance herself from them and compensated by taking on more traditionally masculine characteristics and roles. The more masculine she became, the more easily people forgot of her girlish childhood. Although living this way left her with a constant, vague internal unhappiness and distress.

Meanwhile Maude’s relationship with Nerina continued to dwindle. Their parents were always the kind to criticize. It was exceptionally common for them to compare their children. Maude was often told to be more social like Nerina, go out more like Nerina, liven up a bit and stop acting so odd all the time like Nerina. They were particularly harsh on any behavior they deemed to be abnormal in one way or another. Desperate to win their approval, Maude did her best to appear more “normal” and act more sociable. She stopped fidgeting in the presence of others and tried to learn to emote better. Often she copied whatever she observed from Nerina. But no matter what she did, neither people or her parents were sympathetic to her stiff conversation and flat affect. Her failure left her feeling in inadequate and bittered to Nerina. Maude felt like Nerina was given less responsibility and more lenient punishment than she was as a child. She thought they liked Nerina more than her, despite the fact that she was the clear favorite child. She lectured Nerina to grow up, criticized her interests, and tried to her her in trouble when she felt she deserved it, furthering the rift between them.

Of course as we all know, Nerina didn’t stick around for very long and ran away from home when Maude was about 22. I don’t think I want to figure out exactly what happened after Nerina left. I feel like that’s a little dark, but it's easy to say the house was never the same after. Maude’s mother had the hardest time dealing with things. Everyone’s perception of Nerina changed drastically once she was missing and assumed dead. Before she was the problem child, but now she was idolized and remembered lovingly. I say that with a harsh tone, but the family did lose a child. I think they’re allowed to reinterpret reality to ease the blow, but then again, we’re here to talk about Maude, not Nerina. In the swing of mourning Nerina, Maude was largely swept under the rug. Any hope she had of living up to her parents standards and gaining their favor over her sister were completely dashed. The rule were wildly reinvented in a way that was stacked against her. Suddenly everyone loved how many friends had, how she care about more than work, how she sung and danced. Nerina was no longer the enemy to out-do, she was the goal Maude was pressured to reach but expected to fail and her family was never very subtle about that. Maude too fell into the wave of newfound appreciation for Nerina. She reimagined their relationship to be better than it was and herself to be less cruel. Memories are inaccurate either way of course, but I’m the author so I can say what happened.

Life went on after that. There was a sober tone over the home that never really went away. Maude continued to learn and grow. She took on more responsibility, first in place of her mother and then over her father. Eventually her father inherited her the land when she was 24. This was surprising early. Jeremiah was 32 when his mother passed the farm down, but explained that he didn’t need to wait, saying, “I already know you’ll make a fine owner because you already made a fine Lif” Maude took on full responsibility of the business and handled it well. She was well trained and skilled in the position, with the occasional support from her family.

Things were alright for a while, but then Maude’s mother passed away and her father followed not too long after. Canonically, I think I’ll say this was due to poor living conditions and possibly sickness, but Maude sometimes says that they died of broken hearts. From that point on, Maude was completely alone on her isolated little property. Initially it didn’t seem so bad. Maude had never liked people and now there was no one left to criticize her except her crippling low self esteem. Without any prying eyes, she finally had the opportunity to explore her gender and began transitioning. Unfortunately all that privacy also met that she was completely isolated from everyone else. No one in town had liked her much before and now she was shutting herself away. That would be rude on its own, but rumors were going around as to what she was doing in there. Her extended family never reached out. Maude was alone, one woman working day in and day out to maintain a huge property on her own until one day things stopped growing. She poured her blood, sweat, tears, and every ounce of her knowledge into the dirt, but the soil was dust and nothing was left. She was never able to figure out what the problem had been: poor crop rotation, drought, overworking. Later in life she would stay it was (the) God(s) telling her it was time to move on. No matter what, the ground was dead and there was nothing she could do to bring it back. Even if she was about to reach out for help, she wouldn’t have been answered. Maude was forced to leave home

Maude traveled around for a bit. She went to different towns and did different jobs, usually labor positions but she did once notably work as a baker. She was fired for poor customer service. After a couple years, she ended up in Clock Town or some other stand in for a fairly large city. She hated Clock Town possibly most of all the places she went to, but by that point she was too tired and too depressed to care. She got a job as a carpenter and quickly worked up to a higher position fairly quickly. She was in charge of a small crew of carpenters and ruled with an iron fist. Maude hated every single one of her workers and yelled at them constantly. They all underperformed and made mistakes frequently. Some of the things they have canonically done include: knocking down 3 of the walls of a house while putting up the forth, talking shit about Maude only for her to hear it, burned down a construction project during a smoke break, set up for a festival that uses many large mirrors and break the mirrors often, clean up the broken glass in a way that made Maude tread carefully at said festival. Whether this was because they were genuinely as lazy as Maude complained or because she overworked them and criticized them regardless of their effort is anyone’s guess. Either way, she hated the job and all the overtime she ended up working at it.

Needless to say, Maude wasn’t in a good place when she came to Clock Town. She was depressed, grieving, and drinking fairly often. Her transition was still a work in progress that left her insecure, anxious, and often harassed. She hated her job. She hated herself. She hated her life. She missed her home and her family. But she couldn’t go back home so now she was here, in this loud, bright, crowded city that overwhelmed her. And all of a sudden, things changed drastically. Because all of a sudden, there was Nerina.

Nerina wasn’t happy to see Maude. Maude was rather surprised to see her. Nerina was rather surprised Maude looked the way she did. The two had a lot to talk about. They talked about almost none of it. Maude went into their interactions with the expectation that Nerina would justify her actions and would automatically be interested in a relationship with her. She put her protective older sibling dial on overdrive. Nerina was interested in none of those things and it did not take long for her to get sick of Maude’s attempts to insert herself into her life. Eventually, Nerina told her to get out in a justified, yet brutal display. Maude didn’t take the rejection well and finally tipped over into alcoholism to cope. At one point she had to start avoiding bars and drinking alone, because she didn’t feel safe with herself.

Thankfully, she had Jon. Jonathan was a local guard and adventurer who Maude had been introduced to at her usual bar. They two had an immediate connect. Jon’s cheeriness and vulnerability encouraged Maude to open up about herself. Though their friendship was rocky a lot of the time, they ended up spending a lot of time together. After Nerina cut Maude off, she went to Jon for help and he supported her through hard times. From there he was an endlessly positive influence on her, giving her advice, getting her to try new things, helping her cope in healthier ways. They were very close and Jon truly helped her grow and improve into a better person.

Clock Town was a really good experience for Maude. I mean, sure, she hated it, but it exposed her to a wide new variety of people, ideas, and experiences. She got to expand her borders and try new times. She gained some hobbies and skills. She learned to swim and to carve and to fight with a two handed weapon. She learned to work in a team semi-effectively. She went to festivals and parties and danced. Once she was kidnapped. Another time she fought a dragon and carried her best friend’s severely injured body a great distance, and hey, those are new experiences. She was forced to talk to people and met persons like Farrah, Nex, Jon, Selene, Axel, and others. She had a couple relationships. One was very odd. The other is still going for some reason. She gained a daughter (unrelated to her the aforementioned relationship). It dragged her out of her isolated, conservative home and forced her to look at the world beyond her limited, unhealthy view point. She whined the entire time, but it helped her. By the end of her time in Clock Town, Maude was a more rounded and stable person. She was more open to new ideas and able to be vulnerable. She was down to try more things. She was better at socializing and in a committed relationship. She had healthier ideas about herself and was better able to cope with her problems. She was ready to move on to something new.

After a few years, Maude and Jon moved out of Clock Town. They traveled a fairly long distance and visited a few places. Maude is surprisingly well traveled for her character. During the trip, they passed through their old homes. Everyone in Maude’s home town was fascinated by Jon. No one recognized her. Currently, they live in Farron, or some other stand in for the rural Midwest, on Sunrise Farms. Life and adventure continued.

At one point she sustained a serious injury on her right knee in a monster attack. She recovered fine but it bothers her from time to time. Jon and her still spent a lot of time together, drinking and getting into trouble. Jon has adopted a small army of pets, including dogs, horses, and pigs. Farrah visits as often as she can. Nerina sometimes comes by for a place to stay. Maude and she are working on their relationship very slowly. Maude is active in her community. She likes going to the farmer’s markets and talking with people like her father did. Sometimes she’ll see Nex selling things. They’ll bargain with tea dates and food. She gets to come home every night to someone she loves, on a beautiful, thriving farm land. Someday she’ll probably get married and have some children. She’ll get to pass on Sunrise Farms to them, since Farrah doesn’t seem interested. Every day she’ll continue to grow and change. She thinks her parents of her parents from time to time. She doesn’t feel bad about old things anymore. She thinks that if they hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t have ended up where she is now. She wouldn’t have met Jon or Farrah. She wouldn’t have seen Nerina again. She wouldn’t have changed into the person she’s become. She feels like (the) God(s) were guiding her all along and she’s finally where she’s supposed to be. Sometimes she gets nervous that things are going too well and that they won’t last. But then she thinks that she lived through bad times once and she can do it again. And Maude is happy

Culture

Maude’s race and species can varying depending on what location she’s in; however, as a general rule, she’s part of the dominant/majority/default culture is. Her values and actions are designed to make her a racist white person or whatever the closest equivalent is. Similarly, Maude is a follower of whatever the dominant religion of the setting is. She’s defensive and elitist about her religion and no matter the values of that religion, uses it as an excuse for discriminatory believes. But of course religion isn’t all bad and Maude’s religion beliefs are an important part of her spirituality and experiences in life. It’s as good for her as any religion can be, even if I focus on the bad stuff more often. Lastly of course, Maude’s main cultural background is her socioeconomic class. She’s a blue collar worker, typically with roots in agriculture, and begins life in a rural, conservative small town community. That background has the biggest effect on your life, beliefs, and values for better or for worse.

Psychology

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Childhood

• Quiet/delay of spoken language
• Flat affect
• Poor socialization skills
• Dependent on routine and parental instruction for her chores
• Stimming (hugs from mom, but only sometimes, bouncy, fidgets with hands)
• Outbursts or dysfunction in response to breakage from routine or bad sensory feedback (bad textures, bright lights, too many people)

Adulthood

• Difficulty with interpersonal skills (trouble expressing or reading expression, body language, phrases, talking about or understanding feelings, maintaining relationships, mimicking, isolation, "rule oriented" conversation, eye contact)
• Flat affect
• Rigid routines and anger at those who don't follow routine (wood workers)
• Difficulty
• Disinterest in new experiences
• Sensitive to physical contact
• Special interests (kinds of wood, pumpkin farming)
• Poor motor skills (regularly injured herself in construction, difficulty learning to carve/whittle)
• Sensory sensitivity (bothered by city noise and crowds, notably irritable very often in cities, sensitive to certain textures)
• Stimming (pressure, wood grain, bouncing, finished projects, folds her arms tightly to keep her hands from fidgeting)
• Selective mutism (has days she speaks little to none)

Nerina

I feel like most of Maude and Nerina’s long relationship is covered in the backstory so I won’t go into too much detail here. I’ll just summarize by saying that the two have been in and out of each other’s life a few different times with different obstacles and strains on their relationship. At this point, they’re still working on it. I can’t speak for Nerina, but Maude is very invested in staying in touch with her sister. Now that she’s in a place where she doesn’t feel so bad about herself or feel the need to compare herself to Nerina, so she’s able to stop idolizing her sister and to start thinking of Nerina as the real, kind of messed up person she is. She’s starting to examine her actions and trying to be more reasonable about how she acts. She’s trying to listen to Nerina more and give her some space. It’s certainly up to debate how successful she’s is in doing that, but it seems to be working out better for them. I can’t really say where they’re at canonically since nothing has been written that far, but I like to imagine that they found ways to support each other from a distance. Nerina comes and goes from Maude’s house as she wants with free access to food and a bed. Maude mainly leaves her alone but helps her get whatever she needs. I think occasionally they talk about things, but stay away from any bad topics. They’re not really ready to talk about anything serious. Nerina likes the animals on the farm a lot and she’s getting to know Jon and Farrah when they see her. Sometimes Nerina might bring friends or animals with her because she’s like that and Maude always welcomes them. If one of them is a romantic partner of either gender, Maude can be notably uncomfortable and awkward but she tries to be inviting and friendly. Maude will try and engage with Nerina’s music, but it’s very “Are you winning, son?” so it’s not great for either of them. When Nerina is away sometimes she’ll write just so Maude knows she’s ok. It’s stiff and uncomfortable and awkward, but it’s ok for now and they’re working on it.

Lilian

Maude liked her mother a lot as a child. She often mimicked what she did and enjoyed learning things from her. Lilian had a very loving, if conservative, relationship with her husband that Maude idolized and hoped to emulate. Unfortunately, the older she got, the less time she was able to spend with her until she was actively discouraged and punished for taking such an interested in women’s things. Lilian was a kind and soft-spoken woman, but she was just as critical and cruel as those around her. She’s largely to blame for pinning Maude and Nerina against each other. Consequently, most of Maude’s interactions with her as a teenager were centered around disagreements with or complains about Nerina, which her mother loved ever so. After Nerina ran away, Lilian took the loss the hardest, slipping into a functional depression. Eventually, she started to shy away from her responsibilities as well, forcing Maude to pick up tasks she used to do around the house like cooking and cleaning. She spent her last few years quiet and empty until passing away due to poor living conditions. Maude remembers her fondly and thinks of her often. Sometimes that means still feeling like she’s a disappointment to her mother. Sometimes it means wishing she could show her how she’s doing or introduce her to her new family. Sometimes it means feeling like she’s there watching over her

Jeremiah

Since Maude was assigned male at birth, she was expected to spend a majority of her time with her father and to eventually inherit the family farm. She was given chores and responsibility from an early age and taught how to run a business. Her father was a very distant man. He didn’t show affection or gave praise much. He tended to be judgmental and considered little mistakes to mark poor character and poor future prospects. That being said, he wasn’t outwardly cruel like Lilian Lif sometimes was. She tended to deal in passive aggression and biting criticism. Jeremiah was very explicit with his conservative views and preferred to shun and shame his children when they did wrong. He wasn’t always so bad though. He was quite a social and hardy man and was beloved in his community. He had a loving relationship with his wife and he loved to talk up his children to others, even if he wouldn’t show them the same affection. Instead, he would sometimes take Maude out for a beer or spend time with her in other traditionally masculine ways. After Nerina ran away he became quieter and less cheerful. He focused on work more, spending less time with others, and seemed to soften from the hard man he was. Eventually he passed down the farm to Maude at an early age. He said that he didn’t need to wait and expressed his approval for the person she had become. Truthfully, tragedy had made him tired. He passed away not long after his wife. Maude admired his greatly and strives to be more like him. Much of Maude’s views on the world are echoed from him. Like her mother, she varies between feeling he wouldn’t approved of her anymore and thinking he’s watching over her proudly.

Axel

Before Maude started dating Jon, she had a brief fling with one Axel Heartwell or whatever edgy last name he had iun’t remember. Axel was… a strange and abrasive man. One of Maude’s first introductions to him was while being kidnapped during a festival. Maude found him vexing and creepy. A lot of the time he just seemed to be messing with Maude to get her riled up. At the same time, he was one of the only people who didn’t really mind Maude yelling at him. He got fed up with her from time to time, but he was surprisingly patient and understanding. Every once in a while he was even kind and comforting. After all, Axel seemed to be dealing with things in his own way. He was good to brood and angst with and to have some laughs. They spent some time together and had a fun dynamic, especially after Maude got used to his antics and just started going along with things. Not to mention, Maude is a proud heterosexual woman and sometimes tall, dark haired, brooding men are of interest to her. She was a very sheltered kid, ok?

Axel wasn’t the kind to value the traditional ideas or societal expectation that Maude grew up with and gave her grief. Maude felt inadequate for not living up to the standards her family put on her. She was still transitioning and had a lot of internal guilt. She considered herself to be a disappointment to her dead parents, a deviant or delinquent, but Axel glorified delinquency. He showed her a different perspective she was sorely in need of seeing and opened her up to new ideas and experiences. Axel definitely wasn’t a good long term relationship. He had a lot of problems and his priorities didn’t really line up with Maude’s. They gradually sent less time together and drifted apart, which was easy since they were never really an item. But Axel was genuinely good person for Maude to have spent time with when she was new to Clock Town and going through some dark places. I still enjoy their dynamic and I think he was an important enough part of her past to be remembered. I imagine if they saw each other again, they’d be happy to see each other before continuing on in different directions

Jonathan

Jon was one of the first people met when she lived in Clock Town. They were introduced to each other by a bartender who was perhaps a little tired of hearing Jon’s stories and had a pretty immediate connection. Jon was kind, patient, and open in a way that encouraged Maude to open up to someone for the first time in a long time. They talked about the loss of their families and bonded over farm life. The conversation unfortunately ended on a bad note, but they continued to see each other and continued to talk. Eventually their bar meetups became a regular occasion and they grew quite close. Of course they also started to get themselves into trouble. They’ve gotten into multiple fights and broken a lot of property. They once had a drinking contest that turned disastrous. They passed out after smashing a few chairs and woke up, thinking they’d slept together. Neither took the news well, but an experience like that forms a bond between two people

A turning point in their relationship came after Nerina cut Maude off again. Surprisingly vulnerable, Maude came to Jon for help, who was happy to support her. He comforted her, gave her his company, and picked her out of the pity party she was throwing herself. He talked to her respectfully, but bluntly about her unhealthy and overprotective ideas about Nerina, helping to see the problems in her actions. He even built her up again to encouraged her to reach out and apologize. Maude was really touched by the effort and in a moment of vulnerability, she asked if they were friends. Of course, by that point, Jon felt the answer was fairly obvious. Nevertheless he answered that yes, they were if she wanted them to be and she was happy to hear that.

Maude and Jon were basically inseparable after that. The bar wouldn’t always have them so they would drink sometimes drink at home. They would visit each other at work. They went swimming in the lake. Jon taught her to fight and even dragged her on a few adventurers with him. She hated it, but she made sure he was safe, even if she had to drag him home. Jon was always friendly and welcoming. Maude was always supportive and loyal. They related to each other’s experiences, values, fears, and hopes. They found it easier to talk to each other over anyone else. They always anticipated their next meeting and truly enjoyed the time they spent together. It really came to no one’s surprise that they started developing feelings for each other, except to them of course.

Jon says that he wasn’t really aware of his feelings until later events. Maude, however, was very aware. At one point Jon pulled a trick where he pretended to be her boyfriend to rid her of some hecklers. Any denial she was harboring dissipated after that. Can you really blame her though? I mean yeah, Jon was supportive and nice and he made her feel deeply loved and accepted in a way she’d never experienced before, but more importantly he was fucking hot, let’s be honest. Listen, Maude is a proud heterosexual woman and sometimes 6 foot tall, blonde haired, charming men who fight monsters are of interest to her. She was a very sheltered kid, ok? At any rate, she wasn’t ready to talk about those feelings. Jon was a very important to her. He was the first relationship she had outside of family. She wasn’t confident in her social interaction and was still dealing with low self esteem, so she was afraid to jeopardize their relationship in any way. Plus, Jon was interested in another girl at the time. Maude thought the issue over a few times and decided that it was best not to say anything. Jon would probably fit better with a girl who was more cheery and social anyways. But then again, Maude has never been very good at keeping her thoughts to herself.

Maude, in a drunk haze, kissed Jon as they were counting down New Years on top of Clock Tower. She then passed out immediately after and had to have the night described to her because she did not remember. Anyways, they started dating after that. They moved in together in Clock Town for a brief period before moving out of the city to a rural area. They live together on Sunrise Farms, with Jon’s small army of pets. They still enjoy spending a majority of their time with each other and are growing everyday. I like to imagine their relationship as the typical silly and cute, lots of laying around the house and cuddling together with warm drinks. Maude loves Jon’s sense of humor and admires him greatly. He makes her feel safe and accepted. Jon loves how hardworking and caring Maude is. She makes him feel secure and loved. Their dynamic is like the typical attitudes about heterosexual marriage, but fun and pleasant. Jon teases her a lot and she nags him, but they both play along with each other and laugh about things. I think they both value intimacy and affection a lot. They like talking about their feelings, even silly dumb stuff just because they’re comfortable and they can. They’re all about sensual affection, hugs, hand holding, cuddling, spooning, sitting in each other’s laugh. I think Jon in particular really enjoys being the little spoon. He spends so much of his time thinking he has to protect others and be a man, but really he’s a damaged boy who sensitive about stuff and likes to feel taken care of.

I think one of the problems in their relationship is that they tend to argue a lot. They fight each other instead of fighting the problem. More often than not Jon will cede for convenience to get Maude to calm down, after which she won’t apologize. Occasionally, they can really get at each other’s throats. Maude can be abrasive and mean. She’s controlling over a lot of things in the house. She demands to do things herself without trusting others and still complains very often. She can be cold, distancing, and defensive; not to mention, close-minded, dismissive, and selfish.

I think Jon has a lot of problematic ideas on the role of a man, partially because he has a child’s understanding of manhood and partially because he’s compensating for childhood trauma. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to live up to those ideas and sometimes tolerates poor treatment because of them. He’s still immature and sometimes thinks of Maude not as a person, but as just a woman. At the same time though, he grew up with a lot less guidance than her and doesn’t really know how to take care of himself quite yet. On one hand, he’s relieved to have someone else around who knows how to do the adult things he wasn’t taught. On the other, he feels even more emasculated to be depended and not contributing. He copes by playing hero.

But hey, they’re still young and learning. They’ll grow into the relationship and become to old bickering married couple they’re destined to become. Eventually Jon will propose in an overly romantic, Jon way. It’ll make Maude giggle and she’ll love it. They’ll have a nice wedding on the farm. They’ll finally band since Maude is abstinent to the pain of both Jon and I. They’ll probably have a kid. Farrah will love that kid and will babysit often. Nerina will be indifferent to the kid but encourage them to commit acts of rebellion. Also she’ll babysit when Farrah can’t. Jon will be the big bad adventuring knight hero. Maude will be his infamously crabby farmer wife. They’ll both be known as stern leaders and people who embarrassingly melt in each other’s arms. And they’ll be very happy together

Farrah

Farrah is a child Maude tripped over on the beach one day and then got stuck with, hiding under a tree in the rain. Despite the rough beginning, the two conversed pleasantly. After Maude learned the girl was orphaned and homeless, she ended up taking her home. From then on, Farrah would commonly visit Maude either for food and shelter or for company. Maude taught her skills like cooking and they bonded over food, dancing, and other interests. Farrah began to treat Maude like a mother and Maude took on the role. Now a days Farrah is living pretty far from Maude but she still visits when she can. Maude fawns over her and stacks her up with food. They talk like mother and daughter, venting, giving advice, worrying over nothing, and so on and so forth. Maude is very proud of her healer daughter

Nex

Nex is a merchant Maude has worked with since her time as a carpenter. He’s kind of creepy and suspicious, but they seem to enjoy working together. He’s the first real exposure she’s had to other cultures. He taught her how to swim and gifted her a wood file that she learned to use. She continues to see him when she visits Clock Town where they haggle and have tea. Often Maude will give Nex food in exchange for goods. The only real problem they’ve had is that one time Maude maybe interrupted him in middle of a vulnerable, romantic moment with Farrah and perhaps threatened to hurt him if he didn’t leave her alone. Nex might not have been happy about that, but who knows? That’s all she wrote.

Themes

I would say that Maude’s main character concept is that she’s a normal person in a high fantasy setting with simple goals and interests, completely involved with magic or adventuring. From there I would get more specific to say that she’s a character who always holds the conservative views for whatever settings she’s in. The best role for Maude to play in a story is as a funny NPC. She may just be the grumpy shop keep or she may be more complex and have a side story that progresses in the background such as her relationship with Jon or Nerina. Simplifying from there, I would say that the main themes of Maude’s story are Connection, Self Imagine, Self Examination, Growth, and Moving On/Moving Forward.

Influences and References

Maud Pie - Maude is based on a My Little Pony character, Maud Pie. The joke with Maud (no e) is that she was hyped up as the cool sister of the super happy, super hyper character and she’s completely monotone and completely without body language. I love this character and would die for her. I copied the joke for Nerina’s hyped up sister. Like Maud, Maude doesn’t emote, has a monotone, is indifferent to most thing, has a mundane special interest she hyper focuses on, has a bobbed haircut, and is associated with the color purple. Of course Maude evolved pretty far beyond her inspiration but the influence is very clear and the comparison will always be amusing to me

Carpenter for Ocarina of Time/Majora’s Mask - On her original role play site, Sonata of Awakening, Maude filled the Carpenter role, based on the NPC from Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. This character is the angry boss of the carpenters who is always criticizing his workers for being lazy, even if they’re going their jobs well, and is constantly yelling. He is always shown with his arms crossed. His most biggest contribution to the story is being in charge of festival preparation and vehemently denying the moon is falling and protesting a city evacuation. All of this has been copied onto Maude, most notably the frequency in which she is depicted to be folding her arms. Ironically the carpenter boss from the games was in conflict with the guard captain, who Maude ended up banging on the reg

Possible Ideas

I really don’t know what happens to Maude after what’s been written. I mean I can make some general guesses, but I don’t think her story ends with just marriage and children, happy times all around. Life doesn’t just end with a happy ending and nothing else happens. At the same times though, I can’t plan what happens to her. The greatest benefit to Maude’s story is that it developed on its own as it was written. The best way to figure out what happens to her now is just to write it and maybe someday I will, maybe I won’t. If things did stop here then it would still be a nice story with a compelling character arc and a good ending. But the best part about Maude is that her story is just her live, so as long as she’s still living things can always happen.