#b: jorvik wild

[strawberrystreamfields]

Carolina's Journal Log 12:

Tea. I just need tea. Looks like I should've worn some warmer clothing yesterday, seeing as I might have gotten a bit of a cold. Should we have stayed back at Jorvik Stables? Probably. Did we? Absolutely not. Passing through one of the massive gates, we made a B-line for a nearby café. 3 cups of scalding hot tea later, we finally left Jarlaheim. Our pathway took us up the high road towards the Goldspur's farm.

We headed into Greendale, striding through the snow. Or, given how little green was still visible, Whitedale now. Some mushrooms and flowers were still peeking out from beneath the glistening snow. The thick, tightly knitted canopy of the forest only revealed a bare few patches of aquamarine-colored sky tinted with teal, light blue, green, and occasionally violet streaks of light.

The ramps of logs leading up to some extra layers were precarious to climb, but we made it up unscathed. Some of the layers of earth and roots covered in snow resembled cakes. And now I'm hungry. Nevertheless, we continued traversing the snowy landscape of Greendale as we went.

Rosedawn and I passed some violets peeking out from beneath the snow, as well as more mushrooms and a couple of fairy circles, careful not to disturb them. We headed down to the somewhat icy path to Wolf Hall Inn. That place gives me a bad feeling.

The earthen, root-decorated tunnel that connected Greendale and Wolf Hall Inn had a few squirrels as well as a rabbit hidden inside as we passed by, all of them bolting at the sound of Rosedawn's hoofbeats. We stopped inside the tunnel for a few minutes, pausing for Rosedawn to have an apple and for me to have a granola bar. I oughtta restock on snacks soon.

The pair of us practically bolted past Wolf Hall Inn, yelling out a somewhat strained 'hello' to Ed Field as we ran past in a blur, slowing slightly as soon as we were a good 100 meters away. A few things that guy's said give me a bad feeling. On a lighter note, Silverglade Castle sat in the distance, a visible landmark of the land. We crossed through the iron gate to Epona, trotting past the Dew family's old farm. Sad to see what it's been reduced to, especially after the stories Maya's told about what it was like.

Turning up the path to Guardian's Dale, we came across the Soul Riders all camped out. Seeing them like that brought back memories of our daring rescue of Anne. Speaking of Anne, she'd gone to grab some food from the tent when we showed up. She emerged a minute later, so the 5 of us talked for a while.

Bidding the Soul Riders adieu, we headed through the wild, winding path to the Dale. For a brief moment, I let myself get lost in thought. Rosedawn snapped me our of my thoughts with a light neigh. We'd made it.

Guardian's Dale looked magical in the snow. The four Guardians stood proudly, guarding the portal at the end. The portal. The last time I'd seen that thing, it hadn't ended pleasantly. Slowly, we approached the Pandoric Keystone, still hovering upon its stand. Aideen be with you. I won't lose another girl. There is so much I never got to tell you. I'm so proud of you. Because she loved you, we all do. Now you know where to go when you're feeling kinda low. The voices melded together in my mind as everything about that day came rushing back. Tears pooled in my eyes. I still can't believe she's gone, and I can't help but wonder if I could've done something more. We turned and left, the memories having become too much. Maybe one day I'll be able to stand here and say to her, 'We did it. Thanks to you, we did it.' But today is not that day.

[mossrootgrove]

for your ask game!

❗- What are the highest priorities to this oc (at a point in their life of your choosing)?

✨ - Tell something that makes this oc feel happy!

🧶 - Do they do any arts, crafts, or creative hobbies?

yippee!! thanks 4 the ask... also so sorry it took me foreva to reply…

(under cut because these are some long responses… i love my guy if you can’t tell)

❗.

Obvious answer but i don’t care… A) Their Family and B) Getting this shit over with. Does Aspen see what has been happening as a genuine threat? After that Cape Sorrow deal—no doubt LMAO. But also this is so dragged out and tiring for them. Their life is one huge domino effect of ‘when will the horrors end.’

Aspen has such a small amount of direct family left… like yeah they have all these cousins but they only have their sisters and grandmother left. Even ignoring the threat from the Bad Guys™️ Aspen is just such a protective idiot. They know realistically that everyone (except Claire) will be fine 9/10 but they are just a natural worrier.

✨ .

Aspen LOVES all their horses—all 112 of them! In canon, they get to have all the in game horses because they live in a weird valley, which is essentially just a big horse sanctuary / rescue. Some of these guys are actual horses Aspen rides, some of them are their old horses from Alaska, others come and go, some are hitchhikers (Jorvik Wild Horse) who wanted to go to the Human World…

Specifically Aspen’s little Icelandic horse gang… who wouldn’t love a bunch of fluffy little guys running around… those guys are their favorites! Just like, don’t tell the other horses.

🧶 . Aspen used to be one of those kids who would only paint / draw landscapes when they were younger (whether they were good or bad drawings is another thing). That was probably their main hobby until they were old enough to start riding, then it slowly dwindled. He got back into it after moving to Jorvik as a therapeutic thing but also because who isn’t going to jump on the opportunity with this place being such a wide variety of landscapes. Aspen also does portraits now! Mostly of their gf :3

They’re also a musician! Plays Tenor Saxophone, Keyboard, Violin—and then after the events of Saving Lisa, they started to learn the Harp. Their original learned instruments were a coping mechanism due to The Incident™️. I think they’d be more focused on their Harp Skills now, for the same reasons of coping but also because pretty sound… I can’t recall the music that plays in the Home Stable but! For me that is coming from Aspen practicing in there…

so pov ur maya walking in and u hear the most beautiful sad song ever. u look up and there is aspen. fucking around on a harp.

[winterlleaves]

plane, couch w/ lamp, horse, magic wand! -sleepytimestables

thank you for the asks!! :> i've answered the horse but i'll write the rest for them here

🛩 [PLANE] -> Was your Original Character born on Jorvik or did they come here from somewhere else? If so, what was their reason to come to Jorvik?

she's from california. kind of debating back and forth which city lol but regardless in her family she's kind of a delinquent. she has a fraught relationship with her parents and siblings so it was great for her to be moved into a private school in jorvik city.

🛋 [COUCH W/ LAMP] -> Where does your Original Character live? As in, where do they reside - one of the many stables across the Jorvegian Peninsula, or do they own an apartment/home within one of Jorvik's Cities?

she's a couch hopper and doesn't really stay in one location. though preferably around firgrove/valedale lake/mistfall area because the commute to jorvik city is shorter

some small descriptions about where she stays

starshine ranch- ghostrunner is usually housed there. close enough to lisa to crash on her couch sometimes

mistfall local hotel's frequent guest

valedale the house in avalon's meander or lodging? near the stables

moorland somehow close enough to the moorland family to get a room there for free. though she insists on paying them since she doesn't use it often

jarlaheim crashes at linda they often have movie nights

aunt's apartment in jorvik city. doesn't like staying there because her aunt is intolerable towards her. she does have to go there on weekends for some sort of financial deal she's made with her family and aunt. she'll stay there when its convenient after her weekend jobs. that room's mostly empty and she mainly uses it to store clothes (she also has a history staying there for school but its kinda too much so whatever)

other places she goes to b&b or motel whatever she can get

🪄 [MAGIC WAND] -> Does your Original Character know about the magic powers existing across Jorvik? Do they know of the Sisterhood and the Keepers, of the Herds in Wild Woods, or Pandoria? If not, how do they explain some of the things happening around them (e.g. whatever Devil's Gap got going after the latest Main Quest)?

well aware. it's a little strange for her but she's adjusting fine outside of difficulty in learning her skills

[duskastormgrove]

the demon in my brain made me buy another jwh

meet TimeSong, aka Epona!

i got the name from someone here on tumblr but i cant find the post, it’s so clever!

[indigobees]

» I will find you here inside the dark I will break through no matter where you are  «

[gabrielle-darktree]

i normally try not to spend star coins on tack or anything but horses/mane styles/hair styles, but the warriors set felt worth it lmao

[soulrider]

Then you're left in the dust, unless I stuck by ya You're a sunflower, I think your love would be too much Or you'll be left in the dust, unless I stuck by ya You're the sunflower, you're the sunflower

[windpeakofficial]

i’m gonna have nightmares after this one

[sso-noodlelord]

“gee -fuckin’- wiz why do we keep falling through the ground ?? what even ??.” - Allison

 It’s a given that it must rain heavily here in Mist Fall as the ground sucking up Allison and their horses up- fairly quickly and often. Probably not what she was planing to do with a new horse, at all.

[sso-emotree]

Went for an early-morning WWAU photoshoot. @daine-s-adventures and I are super excited for this AU to make a comeback. I can’t wait to see where this story goes. Speaking of, I’m just adding a little character-note beneath the “keep reading” thing here.

@carina-go-lightlee / @ssowildwest

I’ve thought of a few things since I made that little ramble post and Willow’s form. Well, not really a few things. It’s more a quick note. Willow’s been on the run for about a year (basically since the last story), so part of me (and a few friends, thank ya’ll for helping me figure this out) that during that time, Willow would’ve humbled out a bit? There’s no way she’s on team-good-guys. But she might be starting to go somewhere in the middle? Because her whole life she’s lived one way and suddenly it’s changed and it’s just kinda like. Damn. She has control of her life now. It’s not her parents, or Dark Corps, or anyone. But I don’t know. I’m very curious to see what other people think/where Willow goes.

Oh, another note -- I’m totally down with something happening to Koda because fuck that would really shake Willow. After that, she’d probably get either Rebel or Hawkeye.

[socksonvideo]

new sso mc….. except they’re Literally aideen and has just been prancing around as a teenager every so often

aideen was just like peace…. my powers will be reincarnated into someone and they can be me. but nah. forcefully reincarnated every so often with full awareness of who they actually are. is essentially a babysitter. always on top of trends now. she’s amazing at history and it’s the main reason she ends up meeting the generation of soul riders (she either a. has to tutor one or b. is attacked by one of them asking how the hell she knows everything)

becomes increasingly scared for each generations eventual trauma and especially with the current gen. she has her own trauma each decade but hell let’s all go to group therapy

wren is a jorvik wild and just shows up at their doorstep randomly. they too are self aware of this endless cycle. cat is never surprised anymore.

[writingonjorvik]

Jorvegian Myth: Aideen Is Dead

That's a big claim (and kinda an overdone one in fandom) so let's just get into the reasoning. Spoilers for the most recent quests under the cut.

We've known for a while that Aideen hasn't intervened with, anything on Jorvik really, for a really long time. This started me on two theories on why that might be. Generally, I don't believe Aideen is the only entity of her kind. If that was the case, what about the rest of Earth? Aideen is only described as to have saved Jorvik, but what about the rest of the world? Did is not die? Was is just left alone to recover from Jorvik's survival? This gets supported by a comment Ydris made in the most recent quests if the MC chooses to say that they have faith in Aideen. Ydris laughs at the comment, implies Aideen is unreliable, and suggests putting your faith somewhere else. I'll address the fact that she's unreliable to him later, and just point out that this implies there are other entities to put one's faith in in Ydris's mind.

The assumption then was that either a) Aideen is like a Shinto kami or b) she can no longer be corporal because she was wounded/killed. In the instance of situation a, Aideen can't help Jorvik because there isn't enough faith in her and/or the land has become too wounded. In situation b, which I'm finding more likely, she can't intervene because she's dead. In either situation, I think this better sets up narrative agency for the MC but I will get to that in a bit.

We know that Aideen now is in all living things. She's basically the Force and this reveal from the Catherine quests has been widely debated in the community. However, we also know she had to be, at some point, corporeal. If for no other reason than the fact that we have physical depictions of Aideen, Aideen had to, at some point, be physical enough for people to have the legend of a girl coming to the island, riding over its waters, and healing it (likely started by Fripp and the JWHs). This fact is consistent so far with all three versions of the creation myth of Jorvik. So how did Aideen go from a physical form to an incorporeal one?

The answer actually fits into the myth that seems to be the basis of the Soul Riders, a myth I covered forever ago on this blog: a variant on the myth of the Triple Goddess and her fourth form. Most of you probably know the Triple Goddess myth, Maiden, Matron, Crone/Matriarch. It is a highly prominent goddess archetype in Celtic and Norse mythos, which SSO has always drawn from. But the Triple Goddess excludes a fourth Soul Rider, the Lightning Circle in particular, unless you include her fourth form. The Tempest. And the Tempest is the dead version of the Triple Goddess and the wild magic that came out of it.

So to return to the point, both things are true about Aideen. She did come through with Fripp as an incredibly powerful entity on a cosmic scale, likely to deal with Garnok. In healing Jorvik though (and potentially binding it to Pandoria), Jorvik needed more power to restore itself so that one day it could be cut off from Pandoria again. And Aideen's life force was enough to do that. So Aideen, after gifting Jorvik with horses and the Soul Riders and magic, gave herself to become the life force of the island. She died but her power lives on in the island, feeding it so one day it can survive alone once more. And that's Fripp's job to solve on how to separate. But now that she's dead, like Ydris said, she's not exactly a reliable source to call on.

This I feel is more supported by the comic @ellipuukangas just released with SSO. We see Aideen in a corporeal state here. But the text is what interests me. "Seeds of a dead world." Jorvik was dead, it was a dead rock, that's been in the Jorvegian and witches' creation myth. "Life and death at once." The two are inseparable, trading spaces. Jorvik's survival for Aideen's life. One has to die for the other to live. All magic comes with a price. Fripp has been the biggest proponent of that mantra. Aideen, his friend whom he traveled to Jorvik with, gave her life so that Jorvik would live. He knows the real risk of magic more than anyone because he say the greatest price paid. (There's a whole aside to have here that this specific event might be what shattered Fripp's memory because PTSD can do fun stuff to memory, but not the point now.)

As to how this all comes back to the story now, I think it sets up the opportunity for a better version of the "Aideen is in everything, so everyone is special." Because that message is rather mixed in this medium. I've talked about it before, so briefly, the MC has lacked a lot of agency in the story. They don't have any powers that we as players can actively control and they rely rather heavily on coordinating others to get things done. Which is more of a book hero than a video game hero. The one thing the MC had going for them was that they were Aideen reborn/champion/whatever and the Catherine quests took that away. They made everyone special. Which, grand scale, is an ok message and it sets up for more multiplayer focused narratives, but it takes away the importance of agency and choice for the player themself.

Yes, everyone is special and unique, but there are people who choose to be more. Who drive themselves to be better, to do better, to make a difference. Who stand for the fact that all things are special and therefore deserve the right to live. And the choice to go beyond should be what sets the MC apart, not above, but apart, from Catherine. And that's the same thing Aideen would have done. That some have to sacrifice more so all people can live in peace.

I think Aideen, along with her gifts, foresaw her death has being required to save Jorvik. And in doing so she created a challenge, a series of trials. Someone who was incredibly in tune with her magic, like Catherine and the MC, could choose to take up the mantle of Aideen, could take on these challenges, to become her chosen, to become the solution to Fripp's quest to free Jorvik, and the one would who defeat Garnok. And the choice to accept that destiny is what makes the MC different from Catherine. Catherine choose to reject destiny, to reject that mantle. She didn't want to be a chosen one, she didn't even really want to be a Soul Rider. She wanted to be loved and to love, and she finished that with Justin. However, the MC can choose to take up that challenge and both what Catherine said can be true along with allowing the player to maintain that agency.

Aideen may have died, but her power lives on. Her gift wasn't destiny, it was freedom. But sacrifice is required to maintain freedom from pure chaos. That is the choice of the Keepers, of the Soul Riders, and that the MC has to make. Someone has to make that sacrifice for the rest of Jorvik to survive. That was Aideen's choice, now it's the player's.

[ginnyzero]

Okay, recently I did an experiment where I ran across Jorvik to see the difference between the “human” run time and the “Horse” run time. Human almost 20 minutes. Horse around 7. This is from far side of Wild Woods to Cape West Lighthouse. (As straight as you can get, despite the human 10 minute work around I had to stop the clock for.) So, conclusion, horse is too slow and what the hell would a map 4 times as large actually LOOK like.

Since Tumblr does not like my images. My process was thus. 400% the map in it’s entirety. Use that as a GUIDE to where the villages etc from the original sized map should GO. Expand some things, keep most things the same, and then add stars of the original sized farms/villages/special places (Except Dino Valley those are for emphasis) and brown to signify how big villages could/should be.Then outline the zones. There is a space between Mistfall and Wild Woods b/c I’m pissy about Firfall and that’s where I’d put it. (Ren Faire, I want my Ren Faire. Argh!) And I’m not even going to speculate on “Mystic Valley” for this one. So, for a map you can BREATHE in:

[that-sso-raven]

7.11.18 commentary - pt. 2

holy ####

not certain if this was the direction they were going intentionally but i like the implication that ydris tried turning us into another 1 of those white lusitanos like he did the bobcat girls but because theres something special about us we turned sort of. solid gold looking instead (i dont think my horses tack was meant to stay on though)

she looks SO cool 

star stables magic horse effects are getting so good i kind of want new jorvik wild horses just to see what they can do with them

also i didnt catch this myself my first time through but i was checking other videos and this was what was in the smaller cages 

ydris what the f

going back a little i have kind of a moral quandary.. what happens to the bobcat girls now if i win? 

you guys are never going to let me live this down are you. we’re going to b having a soul rider get together like decades later and lindas going to be like Hey Guys Remember The Time Dakota Was A Horse and theyre all going to have a good laugh at my expense

PLEASE be foreshadowing

like xin?

wouldnt it be a big plot twist if xin was the pandorian and all of ydris’ “magic” was actually coming from him? the big circus bubble did only come up after xin caught us. though its more likely theyre both pandorian.. seems like an odd thing for ydris to lie about and to seem genuinely passionate about

does that have anything to do with concordes youth? or if it isnt the direct cause of it, is it stalling his aging? 

overall this weeks quests felt kind of brief but i liked them - i was pretty satisfied with even just that, so im excited theres more coming

[duskastormgrove]

SSO February Prompt Day 18: Valedale

[indigobees]

Shadowhunter “Nephilim”. No one can ever ‘own’ a horse like this. You either have the honor to be accepted by them or you don’t. When Sky met him, she knew he was not looking for her, but for someone else like he is missing a part of his own soul.