#faendal are you lonely

[joznii]

Sorry I have to send my ask through my main blog, but it is soooo nice to see more Sven and Faendal shippers out there. I hadn't ever thought of it until a couple years ago when someone here posted their fic and it was only the 2nd? or 3rd fic for the two of them to ever go on ao3, BUT IT JUST MAKES SENSE!!!! They are the PERFECT enemies to lovers!! I can't see it any other way anymore tbh. Your art and ideas are great and I can't wait to see what you do and who you convert!

THEY REALLY ARE !! Their dynamic lends itself to SO MUCH i honestly thought i was going INSANE when i looked for content of them and there was so little like HOW!! Tailor made enemies to lovers like AHGGGHHHH

Im glad u enjoy my art, i hate to say they single handedly pulled me out of a YEARS long artblock its so embarrassing lmao

[artbyblastweave]

Still playing Skyrim. And I’m interested to report that the game is actually better than I remember, on balance. But I’m kind of fascinated by what’s going on with Lydia, mechanically and narratively.

Lydia is the first follower who gets shoved in your face just by virtue of following the main quest. There are others you can pick up earlier, but not without finishing errands (for Faendal and Sven), by forking up a pretty big chunk of change for the early game by hiring Janessa, or by going out of your way in some other manner. If you’re completely new to the game and you’re just powering through the main story as it’s presented, she’s the first option for a follower that the game highlights for you in giant blinking neon lights. And as a quest reward, she’s mechanically kind of a godsend at that point in the story; a doubling of carry capacity, an excellent meat shield and distraction, a way to extract utility from weapons and armor you don’t want to use yourself. More subjectively she provides the impression of a stalwart ally or companion in what can be a very lonely worldspace to exist in. There’s very little reason not to take her with you, and once you have her, the majority of companions being equal, there’s very little reason to get rid of her until she stops level scaling.

Despite the mechanical utility Lydia provides at a crucial point, and the resultant likelyhood that you’ll haul her along for the ride, she’s only a couple steps up from the companion cube. She has no specific, non-fungible impact on the narrative beyond demonstrating Jarl Balgruuf’s favor. Her deferral to you is automatic; if someone is actively paying her a salary to help you defile graves, cut deals with every deity on the continent and invade the afterlife, it sure as hell isn’t you. It isn’t clear what her gig under Balgruuf was before she was assigned to you. She has no personal narrative. She has no personal side quest. One of her biggest inklings of personality is when she expresses vague dissatisfaction with being treated as a pack mule, but then she does it anyway.  She’s party to world-shaking events and political upheavals, but she’s present purely in her capacity as your appendix, so reality simply treats her as your plus-one. 

She’ll block doors you’re trying to get through, and she’ll get mad at you if you push her out of the way. She’ll charge into battle or set off traps while you’re trying to sneak. She’ll microaggress you with stock Nord dialogue while pulverizing your enemies, a plurality of whom are also Nords. She’ll distract bosses long enough to buy you breathing room for a healing spell or a potion. You’ll kill her by accident with an ill-timed area-of-effect spell, roll your eyes, and, ultimately, probably reload your save. Because she might only be a couple steps up from a companion cube, but the whole gag with the companion cube is how ridiculously low the threshold is for the audience to get genuinely attached to something in a video game. A thin character invites apophenia. Behaviors that are purely downstream of dev thoughtlessness will still imply character traits if taken at Watsonian Face Value. In this case, inexplicable undying loyalty, reserved comments on impressive landmarks, and comical stoicism in the face of some of the weirdest events it’s conceptually possible to encounter.  So here’s to weird, underbaked companions in Bethesda Games, and everything we can project onto the void they provide. And Here’s to that related genus of character- units in squad-based tactics or management-sim games with permadeath mechanics who last long enough and accumulate enough equipment, skill points, etc. that they become your Special Little Guy despite otherwise lacking any deliberate character traits.

[devilrose]

@orfeolookback You asked! I have maaaany thoughts about this.

Faendal's mistakes:

Chiefly, the stupid spat with Sven (and involving the Last Dragonborn in it);

But also just moving to Riverwood in the first place. He says he misses Valenwood, and he says that Riverwood is "agreeable enough... for a Nord village" and that he "escapes into the forest whenever possible". He really doesn't sound like he's very happy in Riverwood.

Additionally: we don't know for certain why he left Valenwood, but, given that the only thing we know about Valenwood in the 4th era is that it was overtaken by the Thalmor and that resulted into a lot of political dissidents who fled (Malborn, for instance) ... I think it's pretty likely that Faendal fled Valenwood as well for similar reasons. That would explain why is he so far away and yet so begrudging about it.

But then, if that's what happened to him, for whichever reason he ended up moving to a town where he gets to be the ONLY elf in town. Man, that must suck. If the Last Dragonborn is an elf, his greeting is "Good to see a familiar face so far from home". He's so lonely.

But so, he's left Valenwood for probably pretty sad reasons, he moved all the way to the bumfuck of Skyrim where he's the only elf in town, he lives in a little shack on the outskirts of the outskirts, and misses his land, but he tries to make the best out of the situation. He can even grow to appreciate the woods of Skyrim, and he can even get a crush on Camilla, though he's too shy to confess;

And for that he gets Sven on his ass. Can't have anything in Skyrim, apparently.

Depending on how that quest goes, Sven may go out of his way to antagonize him and insinuate he's an elf supremacist (and if my theory about why he left Valenwood is true, that would be SUPER fucked up). Or, Faendal initiates contact with the Last Dragonborn and starts the stupid feud himself - big mistake.

This incident may become the last straw for Faendal, and that's how he decides to follow the Last Dragonborn instead.

In particular, the first time I played, I didn't like the idea of picking either side and sending around any fake letter on behalf of anyone, so I chose the third option: talk to both Faendal and Sven, get both letters, and inform Camilla about both. Since in that situation the quest had been initiated by talking to Sven, I got the perspective that Sven is out to attack Faendal, so afterwards I chose to talk to Faendal and see if I could tell him that the whole thing sucked and you really behaved like a brat, but anyway Camilla knows about the whole story about both of you, so make of that what you will. And when I went to talk to him, he said something like, "I suppose I deserved that" and offered to follow. Ten years and I've been trying to replicate the conditions that may have led to that line of dialogue and it has never happened again, to the point where I wonder if I hallucinated it, but my wife was playing with me and she remembers it too, so ???

But this is the reason why I respect Faendal and always bring him around. We read that line as, he got it, this was a big fuckup, and then the fact that he immediately wants to follow is like, wanting to get away from the whole situation. He's done with Riverwood, it's time to rebuild himself away from Camilla and Sven and the whole situation, and he owes a big favor to the Last Dragonborn for opening his eyes.

Day 7 of @tes-summer-fest: Companion -

I can never resist bringing Faendal along for adventures. Riverwood is not doing good for him anyway. Best to get some fresh air, away from the entire love triangle mess and all his mistakes...

[lavampira]

some skyrim things from playing my paladin-ish save

viria spent at least two days in riverwood just chopping wood, tanning leather, and forging weapons and armor

hey google how can viria fist fight sven, faendal, and lucan then leave the shop to camilla because she deserves so much better

all these neat items sitting around labeled red as steal smh

trying to play a lawful good character in this game sure is a challenge huh

got lost on the way to bleak falls barrow but viria did get to meet an old lady in a cabin who seemed a little lonely

getting better at block mechanics

ngl the underground tunnels remind me of dragon age. so do the undead skeletons that pop out of their caskets to fight.

viria made it to whiterun and immediately brawled a bard for the honor of a vegetable merchant / single mom

“I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee” THE MEME WORDS HAVE BEEN SPOKEN

met the jarl and he’s just like “hi nice to meet you now can you go slay this dragon right now right this minute” wtf dude

oh so the dragonborn absorbs the souls of slain dragons to get their power? that’s metal as fuck

she YELL

viria liore, first of her name, the last dragonborn, thane of whiterun,

[obsidianshadow]

1, 2, 3, and 6 for either of the beloveds, please and thank you =]

Strangely enough, I don’t talk much about Faendal, despite the fact he’s basically my son-in-law oc-wise LMAO

1. How did you and your beloved meet?

Whenever I tell the story to my daughter, Eithne, I tend to embellish, a lot, heh. I say that a tall, handsome stranger rode into Riverwood on a horse, clearly injured and chilled from the awful snowstorm we had that year. We actually met through Ralof. They escaped from Helgen and came running to Riverwood, telling wild tales of a dragon attack.

None of us believed Ralof at first. After talking with Gerdur, it was decided that Kelus speak to the jarl. He’s not a Skyrim native, so he needed a guide to Whiterun. Gerdur told me to accompany him, but I would have volunteered regardless. It’s not everyday we get a Dunmer with memory loss disturbing the peace of our wall-less and, um, flammable, village.

2. What’s your favorite thing about your beloved? 

I have to choose one thing? (laughs) He’s quiet, and while it looks like he doesn’t care about others as much as they care about him, it’s quite the opposite. Kel remembers things people say in passing, and makes note of it. When we were on the road a lot, I told him stories about my childhood, growing up on a farm. I mentioned that I missed the barn cats which took up residence in the stables. We’ve since settled down by the seaside, and just recently he surprised me with a box of kittens. They’ve since taken over the house, but we don’t have any problems with rats. He’s very soft-hearted, although most people don’t see past his, admittedly, grumpy Dragonborn persona. Kel’s currently asleep in a chair, and the orange tabby has claimed the lap, for now.

3. What’s your least favorite thing about your beloved?

He can get lost in thoughts and ignore the outside world, especially when he’s working on a new invention. I try to support him when he has these bursts of creativity. However, it’s...lonely. He doesn’t sleep when he has an idea, and he has to be reminded to take a break. Household chores usually fall to me, which can be somewhat overwhelming. Kel has a tendency to push me and Eithne away when he’s busy. I would never say this to him, but he acts a lot like his father in that regard.

6. What’s your fondest memory involving you and your beloved?

After we left Riverwood, never to return (for many reasons), we had also left behind the place we could truly relax, a hidden glade that Kelus discovered. When we moved to the seaside and settled in, our first mission was to find a getaway place. We found an abandoned lighthouse, but Arabella and Celeborn had claimed it as their spot.

Nothing could ever replace the glade, but we did find a meadow on the island. Things have changed, however, and Kel will visit the meadow with Eithne, too. She loves the wildflower. I wonder if we have a mage on our hands...Finding our place and settling down like we had always imagined has been a wonderful memory.

Aaa thank you, this was really fun to write! :3