Posted on 2018-01-16 02:18:38
Score: 1 (vote Up)

Artist in response to the question "What does the Mindflayer think about Joyce? since she's the "other" mother": she would… tolerate Joyce… to the best of her ability. After all, Joyce would be the main means through which Will gets his care; she feeds him and takes care of him to keep his body alive and well and that’s pretty much the extent of what Mother needs her for. Because the possession process starts all the way back around the time Will was originally rescued from the Upside Down, it progresses much slower than it did in season 2 canon, so Mother needs him to stay healthy and well-kept for the longterm game.

Other than that, Mother doesn’t like Joyce, just as she doesn’t like any of the humans that Will is close with. She tries to manipulate him into isolating himself from them, and sometimes even tries to alienate them herself just with the sheer oppressive aura she can emit from within him. She sees Will as her prodigy, and–quite literally–the brood mother for her little demogorgon babies, and so this drives her to be possessive him and jealous of anyone he gives attention to.

As for Will, at first he tries to keep the distinction between “mom” (Joyce) and “mother”/“mama” (the Mindflayer), but as his poor brain gets roped in deeper to her possession and he finds himself melded closer and closer with Mother, he almost subconsciously starts to change the way he addresses his real mom. I actually have this pretty humorous scenario that one morning after breakfast or when being dropped off at school, Will would mindlessly drop the phrase “thanks, Joyce” as if it’s a normal thing to say instead of “thanks, mom”, and he doesn’t even really realize it, which leaves Joyce to start up with her Mom Stress™ because ?? is her little baby growing up too fast ?? oh no ??? lmao

Anyways yes this is a great topic I love Joyce that poor woman goes through a lot more than she needs to. Even tho I’m totally putting her through more shit just by doing this AU,,, hahaa
THANK YOU FOR ASKING THO i have so much stuff i wanna talk about and theorize so @everyone keep the questions coming!! Void Queen AU is my favorite thing right now aaaa,, I have a couple of ideas bubbling around about Eleven and the role she might play, as well as some other Mike stuff since, clearly, my ass craves more Byeler forever.

(idk if u wanted to be tagged in just fics or everything about this AU in general but!!