#maybe the maeve line does in fact hold an intentional ref to a witcher's path. what about it

[msommers]

4, 16, 18 for maeve, meredith and jorina!

ok listen do NOT look @ me for this taking so long i WASN'T absorbed in laying in bed, staring @ the ceiling, constantly thinking thoughts but never writing them down. that's crazy talk. anyway thank u ily <333 // oc asks: childhood edition // placing the read more higher up than usual bc shocking nobody, i don't know how to keep answers short and i wanna save everyone's dashboards from this

4) How was your muse's relationship with their childhood guardians? Has it changed over time, and if so, how? Do they keep in touch?

so check it out. i read this question an entirely different way the first time i saw it and had different answers, doubted them for like 15 minutes straight, then redid it all upon realization. so now here we are

MAEVE — bad! not good!! never improved!!! i wouldn't even call Maeve's parents her guardians in any capacity because they were so horrible at that job. they started lowkey coercing her into developing her charm when she first caught a man's attention for being pretty because they wanted to get stuff out of it, emotionally neglected her the entire time she lived with them, made her feel guilty about the most ridiculous things on a regular basis, literally sold her to Carden the same day he voiced his interest in taking her away, etc etc add a dozen other offenses here. what changed over time would be Maeve having the distance and years to process how they treated her (mother straight up abusive, father on a lower level and mostly through his inaction), accepting it, and working on the struggles/damage they saddled her with. no contact at all, even if i did entertain the age old concept of her discovering where they moved to during her travels with a witcher or two, she wants nothing to do with them.

MEREDITH — so close to both parents, her father maybe a little more so due to extra time together but that didn't lessen the bond between her and her mother. Meredith and Bryce spent a great deal of time together as she was interested in following in his footsteps, and eventually being heir of the teyrnir, which required a ridiculous amount of educating (required is a strong term, but they both agreed it was excellent to have and she loved her lessons) and additional hands-on experience being at his side while he attended his duties. they knew how to make each other laugh, his hugs were her favorite thing in all of Thedas, and she was all but his official right-hand lady by the time origins came around tbh. Sometimes she'll make a snide comment that she knew he would have laughed at and it causes a physical ache how terribly she misses the sound. Eleanor was the one to initiate Meredith's rogue training to further her capability, and that's something she'll always be grateful for. Her mother taught her how to read maps, calculate numbers in a battle, properly host visitors, she was also the one to give her lessons in Alamarri to help preserve the language. They could soothe each other's nerves or irritation simply by being at one another's side, and held entire conversations through glances and expressions alone. Her mother's smile always filled her with warmth and she spends the rest of her life wishing she could see it just one more time.

JORINA — so much love was present, even in the times of trying to figure her out. she and her father were happy in their quiet art activities together, but she shied away from his affection when it became too overwhelming. her mother supported Jorina's fierce independence without question, but couldn't understand the introvert’s need to recharge and on occasion pushed her a little too far outside of her boundaries. they were most likely at the stage of classic moody arguments between a mom and teen before Wenna’s death and Jorina regrets that to no end. Renehn fell into a severe depression after Wenna was gone (plus some other events of the blight but who has the time to list) and it irrevocably altered he and Jorina's relationship as she was forced to step up in her mid-teens to provide for the family, but fortunately they get the time to heal from individual wounds and come together down the line to slowly rebuild their relationship with great patience and new understandings of each other. Jorina finding her own love helped an immeasurable amount with her coming to understand what her father went through because she doesn't know what the fuck she'd do with herself if anything happened to Aleksi. they kept in contact through Jorina's letters sent back home while she worked for the Inquisition (her siblings would read them to him until he was able to do so himself), and through the occasional visit when time was free for it. level of contact after events of trespasser depends on what happened there i guess lmao

16) If your muse could say one thing to their childhood self, what would they say? Would your muse want to meet their childhood self in the first place?

MAEVE — she would jump at the chance to meet her childhood self because the girl desperately needed love and attention that she’d be all too happy to provide, no matter how short their time together would be. trouble is!! this would likely be one of the rare scenarios where she’d struggle to find the right words, because her list of potentials would be so goddamn long she wouldn’t know where to start. she’d likely end up giving her a much-needed hug, a kiss to the top of the head, and telling her smth like “you are stronger than any deterrent that this world may try to put in your path, love. never doubt that.” bc y’know. soft girl gonna soft and not recognize the strength needed to endure all the shit she suffers to reach her happiness lmfao

MEREDITH — “never doubt your instincts. not even for a moment.” it was the doubt that Rendon could be up to anything truly horrible That EveningTM which led to Meredith holding her tongue, perhaps a gentle (or rather: intense as hell, calm down she's just a kid, mere-) nudge could alter that. could change everything, could change absolutely nothing at all, worth the shot tho.

JORINA — she wouldn’t want to meet her childhood self one bit, she'd get so depressed lol. even when she was young, Jorina was always trying to act older than she was and missed out on a lot of the youthful joy and activities she should’ve had because of that. she’d want to tell her to go play with the other kids, put down the chores for a few hours and just have fun, but i don’t think she’d be able to do it. she’d be too upset about the reminder incarnate of how she wasted her happy, full family years batting her mother’s helping hands away and insisting she could handle big girl things on her own.

18) What's one thing that instantly transports your muse back to their childhood? Why?

MAEVE — hearing a child being snapped at in a particular tone (most often by parents in the upper echelons of society) will, sadly, always send her back to being a little girl getting scolded by her mother. she can recognize later in life that she was being chastised for simply acting as an excitable child should, but falling back into those memories brings the shame of "disappointing" and "embarrassing" her mother back to the surface. 

MEREDITH — sometimes chatting with Delilah brings her back to their early teenage years, where they would trade gossip through whispers and giggle as they linked arms before gliding off to find a new source of information, or perhaps a private space to more openly discuss their findings. smth smth prime example of girlhood and she misses that innocent fun, wishes that it hadn't been taken by forces outside of her control. 

JORINA — counting her coin. whether it be checking what's on her person or what she'd been paid for recent scouting work, she'll sometimes flash back to the numerous nights she spent counting and recounting her limited household funds as if some extra money would magically appear and she'd be able to comfortably feed the family for the rest of the week.