Silvia: Taking Responsibility For Things That Aren't Yours (Patreon)

((Sorry that this took so long. But this one was what originally inspired the series of author's notes because I was thinking about it while it was the more Silvia Centric episodes regarding to how she is processing everything that happened and I wanted to wait until those were free to read so- felt it was better to weight so there was more context lol))

Content warning this one gets a bit more directly personal and also discusses trauma/guilt etc.

Silvia (and technically Sophia) is sort of in the middle. She's been between the generational shift as she was growing up. 

She's one of the few who is witness to 3 matriarch's in her time. Alette, Abrielle and now Athalie. Where as we - the audience- and Camille (through which the story is mostly told) only REALLY know of one. Since Camille can barely remember what Abrielle was like as a Matriarch and only knew her as a mother.

Alette as we've discussed - was cruel and demanding. She was extremely unkind to her sister (Selene) who is Sophia and Silvia's mother. Selene (who we likely will not see in the comic itself) is a much more soft spoken woman but still more or less goes along with the rules dictated by the family. She doesn't have much of a voice of her own after years of being in Alette's shadow. 

As such... Silvia has an okay relationship with her mother but not one that is particularly strong. Where she was more or less independent and on her own in a way to try and have her own little bubble that Sophia wouldn't try to take. 

Then we have Abrielle. Abrielle- though only about 10 years or so older than Silvia - was very much more of a mother figure. She was kind but she was also very firm and direct with her beliefs and wants. She corrected Silvia and Sophia when she spotted their bad behavior (but that just made Sophia like Abrielle less as opposed to finding any security in the boundaries and rules) Silvia admired that in her - and thus was inspired to try and help like her. The difference is that the Severin family as a whole and the well being of Camille and Chloe aren't ACTUALLY Silvia's responsibility at all. But she took these tasks onto herself because it gave her a sense of direction. She wanted to help Abrielle achieve her vision and also keep her secrets. 

When the fire happened, Silvia was pushing 19. Younger than Camille is now.  But she was the only one to not be directly injured by the fire. That being said - just because she was burned - didn't mean it wasn't horrific. She had to be the one to call for help and try to keep Camille alive until they showed up - while having to wrestle with the reality that Abrielle and Chloe were dead. 

Silvia is, honestly, the character that is the most like myself. (Not physically, obviously. The character design was 1st place in the OC contest back when Muted was still on canvas and designed by Corbeau!) but internally. 

Not entirely like me of course, her age difference to Camille is inspired by my older sister - who told me once that when my parents were moving out of Montana (where we'd grown up) she nearly felt compelled to uproot her life to move back to MT so that I could continue to live there instead of moving out. This of course was not her responsibility and in the end worked out for the best (if I hadn't moved to Washington I wouldn't have met chase. and also this story wouldn't exist.)

But her relationship with sexuality growing up is most similar to mine (i am also aroace), and the way she is usually the calm/rational authority in many situations and the way she pushes her feelings down and tries to channel them into productivity.  

and her relationship with trauma. Not to go into specifics. But I was around a lot of stuff happening growing up - but I thought of it in much the same sort of dissociated way. "These are things that I'm witnessing happening TO someone" as opposed to "These are things that are happening TO ME" because I felt witness to family problems that were not my own family, as mine was fairly distant still basically nice.

Being 18-19 and witnessing an event like the green house fire and then having Camille's life in your hands... is traumatic. But for a very long time it was very much a feeling of "Well I was not IN the fire, I did not get burned, therefor what happened to me was not as bad" 

So she very much had the mindset of "Abrielle is gone, but I promised her that I would take care of Camille" Even though that was not actually her responsibility. And since she hadn't processed her grief - since she had to be the responsible one while taking care of Camille's recovery - when Camille started to act out even more she realized she didn't have the capacity to care for her so relented to sending her back to Athalie (who she didn't particularly like, but didn't think at the time that she was the monster that she is)

There is the 13 years after the fire that we don't see where Silvia is mostly on her own, the first while was battling with her grief now that she couldn't take care of Camille to distract herself... and then it fell back into "taking care of Abrielle's vision" and trying to reach out to families like the Dupre to open those roads up again like Abrielle had wanted, and taking care of the house and improving the manor with various renovations because it helped to keep her busy and work through things. 

So that helped, for a time. But then when faced with the reality of what had happened to Camille she found herself very much wondering what else she could have done instead. She felt responsible for Athalie's actions in the sense that she allowed Camille to go back to her instead of taking care of her herself. Would Camille have turned out any better? It's hard to say. I think their relationship would be worse now if cam had stayed - because they were both in very bad places and Silvia would have never had time to heal and work on herself. 

But then on top of that wonder, Silvia is very swiftly realizing that even if she HAD taken care of Camille... that would still have left Avaline completely alone because she hadn't given her as much thought because she had written her off with Sophia and Athalie - she focused on Camille because Camille was Abrielle's.

So now it's very hard for her to not feel any guilt regarding Avaline, feeling like she could have done more, when in reality - as always- the problem was Athalie. Silvia shouldn't have HAD to felt responsible for two children that weren't hers, but thanks to Athalie- she does.