#toricanon

[dearophelia]

multiples of 3 for Tori/Liam/Jaal?

3. They end up going to a party? What couple are they? Ex- Clinging to one another? Just there to steal some free food and leave? Both want to party?

Tori’s there for the free food; she’s never been a Party Person, but she makes a good effort at it (mostly because standing in the corner keeping guard over the crab cakes feels awkward after ten minutes). Liam’s there to socialize for a couple hours and have some good food. Jaal happily dances and talks to people until the end of the party and helps the host clean up while his partners either a) help clean up too, because then it’ll go faster and they get to go home quicker, or b) pass out on a couch from sheer exhaustion because it’s like 4:15 in the morning.

6. Who would be more likely to hug their partner and pick them up off the ground?

Jaal. Jaal.

9. Who is being way over the top and dramatic and who just nods and cheers on their partner from the sidelines?

It’s easy to send Tori over the edge into dramatics (she calms down really quickly, she just needs to be overly dramatic about for short bit). It takes Jaal a minute (and some explanation from Liam about hyperbole) to realize that she isn’t actually going to cut Tann’s head off with a rusty spork (”What is a spork, Ryder?”) and then he is 100% Team Cheering My Girlfriend On. Liam is in that murky territory between not knowing if he should really be encouraging this, and YEAH BABY FUCK ‘EM UP.

12. Who is the one who does the cooking while the other helps prep the food?

Tori never learned to cook properly because she was always so busy. Liam and Jaal both love to cook, so they take over those responsibilities.

She is an amazing prep cook, though. Everything is done with surgical precision. Liam has never seen onions chopped so perfectly.

15. Who would give the other their jacket because it’s cold?

They all would, but Tori’s the one who gets coldest the easiest out of them, so she’s usually the receiver of jackets. Two of them. Guys, why am I covered in jackets. Guys, I’m fine now. I’m actually hot. Jaal, where did you even find a hat like this, we’re on a spaceship.

[otp questions]

[the-harbinger-of-sorrow-archive]

#mom mom mom this is my beau #do you approve ma? #(in which fenrir is showing steve off to boda WELP)

but like

Fenrir (or all of Boda's kids, really) bringing the person they like home to her

and being like "ma, this is _______." and being nervous about it.

bODA'S BABIES BRINGING THEIR LOVERS HOME FOR HER APPROVAL

[dearophelia]

do 'em for victoria!

B A S I C S

full name: Victoria Elizabeth Ryder

gender: female

sexuality: pan/poly

pronouns: she/her

O T H E R S

family: Alec & Ellen Ryder (parents); Scott Ryder (twin brother); Liam Kosta & Jaal Ama Darav (husbands); Claire & Nathan Ama Darav (children, twins, biologically Liam’s); the entire Ama Darav family

birthplace: Indianapolis, Indiana

job: formerly Pathfinder, currently head of trauma at Meridian Medical

phobias: drowning, flying bugs (crawling is fine, wings are No)

guilty pleasures: Blasto movies, all of ‘em

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: neutral good

sins - pride, dear lord pride; also a good dose of envy

virtues - diligence, kindness, patience

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert/extrovert: extrovert

organized/disorganized: organized

close minded/open-minded: open-minded

calm/anxious: calm with an anxiety disorder

disagreeable/agreeable: mostly agreeable, though it depends on who you ask

cautious/reckless: cautious when other people will be affected; it’s not so much reckless as impulsive when it’s just her

patient/impatient: patient

outspoken/reserved: outspoken

leader/follower: leader

empathetic/unempathetic: empathetic

optimistic/pessimistic: optimistic

traditional/modern: modern

hard-working/lazy: hard-working, to a fault really

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: n/a

ot3: Victoria/Liam/Jaal

brotp: Tori+Raeka and Tori+Lexi

notp: really anyone that’s not Liam and Jaal

[world-building meme]

[dearophelia]

27, 29, 31 Tori/Jaal/Liam

27. What makes you excited for their relationship?

They’re a lot of fun to write and imagine.

29. What are your favorite moments between them?

The fic I’m perpetually writing - the one where they have to explain Harry Potter to Jaal and Tori has the facepalm realization that she has A Type and her type is Hufflepuff Guys.

Also that they’re a constant cuddle pile.

31. Share anything you would like about the trio!

The angara being very Feelings was the best thing to ever happen to me, because it made me write Victoria and Liam actually saying what they’re feeling and allowing themselves to feel it instead of just mumbling that they’re fine and walking away. That’s a huge change from what I usually write, and it’s spilled over a bit into a couple of other OCs, and definitely for the better. 

[dearophelia]

Questions about creating your OCs. For Victoria Ryder - 1, 17 and Nora - 1,16, 18.

Tori:

1. What was the first aspect of your OC that you remember considering?

That she was a redhead. And she would’ve stayed a redhead, had the red options in Andromeda been anything other than one-dimensional variations on a fire engine.

The second thing - and the first thing I thought about that stuck - was her name. Even though I wasn’t writing a lot of Ariadne at the time, I was thinking a lot about Ariadne at the time, and one of those things was what her Divine name would be; I really wanted her to be Divine Victoria, but having two of them back to back felt weird. So Victoria got transferred onto Ryder.

17. Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

I like that she ran off to Omega. But I regret that the sole impetus for her running off to Omega was Ellen’s death. I buy her being sad about Ellen dying, but she wasn’t close with her mother at all, so I don’t buy that she was so totally grief-stricken she ran away from her life. I wish that I’d put more into it about her father - that Alec shut down, and because Tori was never close to her brother, she was suddenly alone. Ellen could still be the catalyst for it, but she wouldn’t be the reason.

(I also wish I’d put a little more thought into why and when she left Omega; she’s a doctor, and leaving because she’d be “useless” during the plague seems pretty bullshit to me. I wish I’d just backed that up by about a month, so the plague hadn’t started yet.)

Nora:

1. What was the first aspect of your OC that you remember creating?

Her relationship with Olivia. Early Nora didn’t really have a “how,” she just was, but I knew early on that she and Liv were going to continue the Liv and Hannah tradition of “the Shepard family has good and healthy mother-daughter relationships.”

16. What is something about your OC that can make you cry?

Ahhhhh I can’t tell you because spoilers! But there’s a scene! There’s a scene no one (not even my cheerleaders) has seen yet and it is by far the most heartbreaking thing I have ever written. And that includes Anthem.

18. What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC?

That she spends about 5-10 years (my timeline in this universe is fucked and I have stopped trying to unfuck it) as the human ambassador to Tuchanka.

[questions about creating your OCs]

[dearophelia]

tumblr appears to have had an update that renders xkit’s reply function completely useless so... @black-rose4 said “color me intrigued, what’s this about omega?”

Victoria basically lost her mind when her mother died. They weren't particularly close, so the incredible heavy grief caught her completely off guard and she didn't know what to do with it or how to deal with it.

Because of schooling, she'd been out of the house since she was fourteen, and didn't have a close relationship with Scott - they didn't really know how to talk to each other besides Mom Died Do You Want A Hug. She had a slightly-closer relationship with her father, but he threw himself into his work and she hardly ever saw him.

So going home for her mother's funeral was terrible in a lot of ways, and she just desperately needed to get out. A former intern emailed her about Mordin's clinic, and Victoria booked the first shuttle out. Unfortunately for both Scott and Alec, this was an impulse decision made right after the graveside service, when Scott thought she was just going home.

She spent almost four years on Omega, working for Mordin and also for Aria as the in-house doctor for Aria's gang. A lot of bad things happened to her while she was there, but also a lot of good.

Omega hardened Victoria in a lot of ways (for starters, it's how she knows how to fight - and fight dirty), but it also really reinforced for her how important it is to find the hope and light in every situation.

There’s a lot about it in for saviours if you’re interested in the detailed bits!

[dearophelia]

What was Victoria's first impression of Omega?

That it’s a shithole, honestly. It’s dirty and dark and has some pretty questionable smells about it.

But Omega isn’t Indiana in the summer, Omega isn’t her parents’ house with her brother she doesn’t know how to talk to and her father losing himself in his lab, and Omega doesn’t expect anything from her. She can just be. And she can grieve, she can work, she can do whatever the hell she feels like because the only expectation Omega has of her is that she show up to the clinic and save some lives.

So in that regard, she steps off the shuttle and thinks Omega is heaven.

[dearophelia]

Yep! Nathan's a couple hours older (which actually gives them different birthdays); Claire did not want to come out.

[dearophelia]

3, 11, and 12 please!

3. If given the chance, do you think your Ryder would be a good Nexus director?

She’d probably be decent at it, but Victoria would hate every waking moment. 

11. Does your Ryder consider SAM a friend, a sibling...?

Kind of a stepmother, actually. A good one, and a very sarcastic one (and one who is way too privy to her sex life). SAM’s not quite in a parental role, and she also wouldn’t categorize them as a friend (and certainly not a sibling), but they’re still close enough to be more than That AI In My Head, so she settles on step-parent. She asks SAM what gender they prefer for the noun, and SAM leaves it up to her.

Victoria’s really wary about SAM - for as good as she is with people, and as quickly as she makes friends, she’s very reserved and doesn’t talk about herself a lot; so having something in her head that immediately knows everything is terrifying to her (even after they have the Privacy And Boundaries chat).

12. What’s your Ryder’s favorite location in Andromeda?

between Liam and Jaal

Havarl. She loves the thunderstorms, and finds the glowing plants soothing. She could do with fewer surprise dinosaurs, but that’s an Andromeda-wide situation.

[dearophelia]

For the Ryder Appreciation Week meme: 7 and 14! (I can't remember which ones you haven't done, so if you've done those...whichever number you wanted to answer that no one asked!)

7. Is your Ryder good at driving the Nomad?

Actually, yes! She’s good at video games that require hand-eye coordination, and there was a game she and her roommates played in medical school that was an off-roading driving/racing game. Its controls were not dissimilar from the Nomad controls. She takes about a week to get used to driving a thing instead of sitting on a couch with a controller, but then it’s as smooth as it can get.

14. How does your Ryder feel about the fight between Kallo and Gil?

Victoria’s irritated that they keep blowing her off about it despite it clearly being A Thing. 

She ultimately sides with Gil, because this is a new galaxy and we need to adapt to it. She understands that Kallo’s coming from a place of emotion and friendship, and while those are admirable things to hold important, applying those values to spaceship maintenance isn’t going to keep anyone safe from the kett.

[dearophelia]

6 & 19!

6: already answered here!

19. Does your Ryder like memes?

I arrive at the hidden angara city.

Hair: orange

Hands: up

Sass: out

I am forcibly escorted to the resistance headquarters.

(once Jaal has confirmed that Evfra won’t actually kill her for it, nor jeopardize any official alliances, Victoria sends this to Evfra and he does the stare into the camera thing for approximately ten years)

[dearophelia]

5 and 15 for Victoria?

5. What’s your Ryder’s fighting style/class?

Bad Life Choices: Victoria Ryder’s Combat Story. 

She’s mainly a CQC biotic specialist, who occasionally turns invisible and carries a flamethrower, and rocks a nasty shotgun.Her boyfriends have a Victoria No expression on their faces 100% of the time, but she’s pretty deadly. And is, thus far, the only one to not need medical attention in the Nomad on the way back to the Tempest.

15. What does your Ryder think about Shepard?

She never met Olivia, or really heard about her until she unlocked the memory with Garrus’ father. Victoria was on Omega at the time of the geth attack on the Citadel, and while news definitely reached Omega, it was pretty filtered down and she had other stuff to be thinking/worrying about, so “The attack was repelled by Commander Olivia Shepard” wasn’t a piece of information that stuck.

They are connected through her father, though. Alec was an instructor at ICT when Olivia was an N1, and Olivia hated him. When Liara mentions that she’s been advising an Alec Ryder, Olivia goes on a rampage for like half an hour about how much of an asshole he is.

[dearophelia]

You may have already talked about this somewhere, but what made Tori want to become a doctor?

I have not, actually!

It wasn’t really one thing - it’s not like she had That One Experience that inspired her or anything. She just…wanted to be a doctor.

The OB/neonatal specialty came later, when she was looking into types of doctors. A teacher asked her “what type” when she said she wanted to be a doctor, and she didn’t have an answer, so Victoria spent the next four days reading about every possible specialty. OB/neonatal was the most fascinating to her and, because she’s Victoria and is ultra academically competitive and driven and always has to do The Most, she decided to go for surgery as well.

[dearophelia]

If I'm not too late: Ryder Appreciation Questions 13 and 17, please?

Never too late!

13. If your Ryder could give one gift to their LI, what would they give?

To Liam, she’d locate the car and point a telescope at it so they can watch it coming.

To Jaal, she’d give him a star map of Heleus so the three of them can work on his holoprojector image together.

17. What is the one lesson your Ryder learned in Andromeda?

Don’t charge the Ascendant. 

On a more serious note, she learns that she actually can be a good leader, not just someone who happens to be in charge. She doesn’t enjoy it, but she can do it.

[dearophelia]

6, 12 & 20 for the Ryder Appreciation Week Meme thing!

6. Does your Ryder get along well with Tann, Addison, Kesh, or Kandros?

Kesh, yes. Immensely. They have a standing friend date in Vortex during open mic night. Sometimes Tori sings or plays, but mostly they drink and encourage everyone.

Kandros, mostly. Victoria wishes he’d accept her invites to open mic night. He doesn’t even have to perform! She promises!

Tann, she’s a sarcastic asshole to him, but they do largely get along in a work environment. He’s not a guy she has interest in interacting with outside of work hours, but she can make it work with him.

Addison, man. Talk about the Bad Decision Dinosaur of the Andromeda Galaxy. Victoria knows that she made all of those choices out of desperation, but something about Addison rubs her absolutely the wrong way. It was probably the “I’m not your new mommy, if that’s what you’re asking” line.

12. Already answered here!

20. Which song would represent your Ryder well?

I keep coming back to the playlist for For Saviours (both of those are links, since for some reason Tumblr’s taken away any indication of a thing being a link on web), but that’s eleven songs and I’m not going to cheat that badly (won’t stop me from linking it though)

Sia :: Unstoppable

i put my armor on so you’ll know how strong i ami put my armor on, i’ll show you that i am, i am unstoppable

[dearophelia]

9, 10!

9. What does your Ryder enjoy about being the Pathfinder?

The people she meets - Raeka, Sloane, the Moshae. Liam. Jaal.

10. How does your Ryder feel about the memories they’ve unlocked?

At first, she’s kind of “Okay, why did you lock these from SAM?” and then she gets increasingly more conflicted, to the point where she’s downright furious when she finds out that Ellen’s alive. A lot of bad stuff - probably the worst things in her life - happened as a result of Ellen’s death, and she’s alive and her father kept that from her. 

And once she works that out, and she has time to process the whole reaper situation, she feels even worse - because she’s known that Penny and Albert and everyone are long dead, it’s a fact of Andromeda, but that they were maybe killed instead of just died is horrifying to her (they were not; Penny, her wife, and Albert all survive the Reaper War and, because I love interweaving canon with itself, Penny and Malia probably end up doing something Important in Olivia’s post-war canon, but Victoria has no way of knowing that).