#her companions are her family

[wildskissed]

I love that Gale gets to see Mystra on his own. I love that he gets to stand on his own two feet and confront her, and come out of it admitting to Tav that he doesn't see her in the same light he did before...I love it. I really do, because it's growth for him. I just also wish Tav could have gone too just for the chance to say, "FUCK YOU" to Mystra's face. I've been dying to tell her off since Elminster came to camp, but I digress...

[transmasc-rose]

I'm thinking about the horror of the Doctor from the perspective of non-companions again, especially as it relates to people those companions know.

Rose? "Ran away" (not wrong) for "a year" (a week) with a "man" (alien) "twice her age" (approximately 50 times her age but yeah, he is Time Lord middle aged), and then gives absolutely no explanation for how or why that happened, except that she was "travelling".

Then when her mum does get an explanation (which, frankly, is only comforting because of the unfamiliarity of the alternative given. The devil you know.), Rose barely checks back in.

She almost dies for him. When she thinks he's dead, she's changed in a way her family doesn't know how to handle. Then she's gone for who knows how long and comes back with the Doctor wearing a new face.

When her original tenure as a companion ends, and Rose lives in Pete's World, she works for Torchwood/UNIT (they become the same organization). She volunteers for the Dimension Cannon. She explains to the alternate earth how to rig up a time machine.

She's changed in ways that no one else can really understand.

Amy? There's everything with River Song of course (though I'm still not there in my viewing), him running away with Amy the night before her and Rory's wedding, and also the connection between the Doctor and the Time Crack being the reason all of Amy's family's dead. Obvious stuff.

However he's also the strange man who broke into this child's house and made a mess of her life that she never got over, that promised to take her away from here, that she wrote about and drew and carved and made her friends dress up as.

And they sent her to psychiatrist after psychiatrist without any help. In their perspective, to work through what she imagined. In her perspective, to tell her that her reality wasn't real.

And then he comes back.

And to some extent, later, when he shows himself to everyone, isn't that more frightening? That the story your child told you, of the strange man she met as a child, of time travel, of nearly being stolen away, hadn't been a lie, or a misinterpretation, or an imagining?

And so he shows up at her wedding. And steals her away again.

Donna I feel like has the least horror until her final episode. I think exploring the in between section of her meeting the Doctor and finding him again would be interesting, but not exactly horror. More an exploration of how obsessive the companions can get about him, how it eats their whole lives with even one encounter, even as it makes them better people.

And then, obviously, the horror of having your mind altered and erased against your will by someone you trusted. For your own good, of course. Because he knows best. How could you know better than him? He's ancient. He's practically all knowing.

Shouldn't you be grateful?

(And he's forgiven.)

[gorgynei]

thank you laura bailey and brennan lee mulligan for this scene. they get it. they get it

[blaiddraws]

today i bring you family sleepy cuddles. tomorrow? who knows....

[perenians]

oh merrill...

[haunted-xander]

You ever think about how Ryne probably got a more honest yet closed-off Thancred while Minfilia got a more disingenuine yet open Thancred?

Like, the Thancred Minfilia knew and grew up with was the one we saw in arr, the flirty, teasing and sassy but friendly man who was clearly not very honest seeing as no one- not even Minfilia- noticed how worn out he was from his constant work. Even just by hw he's noticably more prickly and. not quite rude but. more outwardly cynical? He's always been kinda cynical, but in arr his teasing and banter hides it well, which never disappears but is more. natural? genuine? now. Krile directly points out that he's much more brusque than she expected of him based on how Minfilia described him.

And sure, you could attribute that behaviour to his grief and stress (which is certainly a part of it) but considering he acts much the same in ew, when he's finally moved on and come to terms with everything (and is also post-shb character development), I think it's safe to say that this is the most honest we've seen Thancred be.

But this is all Ryne has known him to be. She's never seen Thancred be flirtatious or as social and friendly as he is in arr, she's only seen him be brusque and cynical but still teasing and kind. But he's also far more closed off from her (and others) bc of That Whole Deal going on. Urianger has told her more about Thancred's true feelings than Thancred himself has. and even that's not a lot, for Urianger is not only not a mind reader and doesn't know everything that goes on on Thancred's head, but also is reluctant to share more than is necessary since it's not his place to divulge these things (and also he himself is not free from the folly of emotional self-isolation).

With Minfilia though, he's open enough that she's never doubted that he cared for and loved her even when he couldn't spend much time with her, and she felt comfortable enough to admonish him when he did his usual self-destructive behaviour (you know, becoming an alchoholic at 17 and All That Entails)

Just. food for thought

[redlyriumidol]

Sera and character development

So Sera is a character who (imo) gets somewhat the short end of the stick in terms of character development. She's a very polarising character and many people can't stand her- personally I love her now but I wasn't keen on her at all when the game came out. She's brash, rude, has very strong opinions and freely expresses them to the Inquisitor and to others. Sera is also very young, the youngest out of the companions, and I think her immaturity is obvious. She's got internalised racism up to her eyeballs and this makes it particularly unpleasant to romance her as a female elf, which I think was a disappointment to many.

I don't think this initial characterisation is a problem, the problem is that unlike some of the other characters we never really see her tackle her issues over the course of the game. It's easy to blame her for her opinions about elves, but realistically, this hatred includes herself, and therefore it must actually be very painful for her. it's also somewhat antithetical to her goals as a character as someone who stands for the little people- anyone can see that in Thedas, these are disproportionately elves, so caring about elves would actually be logical in her position. Sera's alienation from her identity as an elf is severe, and while I actually do think her feelings are worthy of sympathy (again, this is internalised racism, not a human character who is bigoted towards elves) they're not healthy, they actively obstruct her self-realisation. it's herself that Sera blames for the situation with the baker, it's herself that she hates, her own identity. she's from the alienage but hates people from the alienage. that's really sad, honestly.

In the breakup dialogue with her she says (about herself) "You'd get it if you were smarter. If you understood what it meant to be elven." That's pretty telling of her insecurities and self-hatred, in my opinion.

I think it was a massive wasted opportunity in terms of writing and character development not to give her a questline that interrogates this issue and helps her move past it. The temple of mythal is very personally, viscerally upsetting to her. Despite her repeated denial of it, she does feel connected in some ways to her heritage and I think it's obvious that it's painful for her. So why is it never explored??

In Trespasser, two years on, we do see a Sera who is beginning to grow up. She's very likable in Trespasser imo, her diary gives her a lot of depth. She cares about absolutely everyone. If the Inquisitor is an elf, this is added: "Is s/he all right with the elfy stuff?" and she even shows empathy for the dalish at one point: "Not as bad for dwarves as was for Dalish. Maybe." That's coming from someone who once reacted with disdain towards an elf inquisitor. She's still sceptical, but is slowly becoming less extreme. I'd just have liked for us to see it more explicitly in the actual game.

[cafe-smut]

Yall . . . Boothill is getting to me. And as much as I love Guns'N'Roses . . . Think for a sec.

Trailblazer finding out about his past and his dead daughter and inviting Clara to the express while Boothill is there. And this man just melting for this little girl. He kind of reminds her of Mr. Svarog, but- different. Mr. Svarog is someone she cares about, and he's her closest friend . . . But Boothill. That's her dad now.

[essenceofarda]

OF BLESSED THYME & THISTLE | Chapter 1 | Page 7

Masterlist of Pages

Faramir’s cousin, Lothiriel, comes to Minas Tirith to become a companion of his new bride, Eowyn, something that he hopes will ease Eowyn’s rough transition into Gondorian Society. Eowyn, for her part, decides her new companion would in turn make the perfect bride for her brother, Eomer King of Rohan. Matchmaking shenanigans ensue 😏

lol Be prepared to be VERY peeved by some of the main antagonists in this fancomic over the span of the next few pages,,, Faramir's Auntie Terenis (Denethor's sister) and her late husband's niece Lady I’Rhetha (whom Terenis had been plotting for years for Faramir to marry, so imagine her bitterness when he married one of those "uncouth northerners" instead of HER prized niece) are kinda the worst kinda people 😬

Also I tried something new (simple) way of drawing Eowyn's headdress but i kinda hate it so rip my hand i gotta go back to painstakingly drawing every embellishment. That or next scene making her headdress less complicated 😅

[nightmarearian]

do you think the abyss healed Childe’s scars?

realistically I know it’s stupid graphics & model “limitations”

But do you think his skin looks as normal as it did before he fell.

Cause when they’re hit, an abyss monster.

They disintegrate.

Do you think Ajax’s scars healed like that? In the abyss? After it, too?

Do you think they burned? Or was it numb, as the darkened skin faded away with little, yellow, glowing particles?

That he has no evidence of his suffering for those three months in hell (and his only companion’s silence) but dull eyes no one wants to look at?

Callouses on his hands and feet that no one pays attention to? Takes care of?

That he shows his prowess and uncanniness and abyssal hunger because that’s the only way how? Yes. he is hungry and wants a fight. Look at him. He’s off. Broken now.

Look at him.

Please.

[mylordshesacactus]

[weary sigh] Do y'all wanna see possibly the most Myself TM, self-indulgent-nonsense thing I will perhaps ever write?

Literally this is more self-indulgent nonsense than the Ihz fic, and some desperate small creature is literally 7k of my Warcraft OC.

Anyway so I took the basic structure of Lady of Shalott and wrote an in-universe folk song about my fucking. mount and blade main. her name is Karik, she iconically is a horse archer who fights with a light lance, she has never raided a village or caravan and has on multiple occasions risked her life to drive third-party raids away from enemy villages.

The resulting poem is almost embarrassingly sincere but I am, unfortunately, genuinely proud of it.

Poetic structure, and then you'll also want the Loreena McKennit arrangement for the tune because it's phenomenal. (No thematic connection at all, to be clear, just the structure as a writing challenge to myself.)

[cipher-fresh]

Did Eleven ever tell Amy and Rory’s parents that they’re alive in the past? Or did they just go missing a few weeks after a third of the human population had heart attacks?

[sometimesraven]

anyway i'm just gonna drop this here and continue my block-on-sight spree, I've said what I need to.

[secretly-a-catamount]

Susan Pevensie being a companion of the Doctor, is that anything??

[marinaslibrary]

Fans of Emily Wilde's encyclopedia of faeries.... Boy oh boy have I found your next book to obsess over

[mod2amaryllis]

Pepper passed away this morning. last night jose called me over while tending them; she was dehydrated, lethargic, wheezing, I'd played with her normally the day before. she's been slowing down with age, but this was a crash. we gave her water and heat support, i was planning to bring her in to work first thing this morning, but when we woke up she was gone in the same cozy position we left her in. i believe she just faded peacefully.

we're pretty devastated. she was 14, our first animal, we've had her almost half our lives. she was very much jose's baby. it really hit me when i carried her to my clinic and prepped her for cremation; that's a task i do frequently after euthanasia and it's become a kind of ritual, but carrying your own animal is just so different. I'm really sad.