#like bard magic lore in tes?

[aniniskyrim]

i love reading through the uesp wiki when i wanna develop ocs and finding the most obscure random facts ever

like ARE YOU KIDDING ME/?!! THATS LITERALLY SO COOL??? IM LITERALLY MAKING AN OC TO ROLEPLAY THIS IMMEDIATELY??!! AAAAA

[lairofdragonagelore]

DLC: Jaws of Hakkon - Frostback Basin, Stone-Bear Hold Avvars - Part 2

Although it is often referred to as a single entity, the Avvar are actually groups of small tribes who share their beliefs and culture but otherwise operate independently of each other. They were part of the tribes of the Alamarri who crossed the Frostback Mountains in -1222 TE [more than a thousand years before the creation of the Tevinter Imperium] to escape what legend says it was a "shadow goddess".

In this post, the following topics inside the DLC are treated

Stone-Bear Hold: houses and statues

Trials and Justice

Miscellaneous objects

The Hakonnite and Avvar’s understanding of their Gods

 [This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

Stone-Bear Hold: houses and statues

The Hold has two entrances; one through the Swamp, which path is guided by statues of a variation of the Keepers of Fear.  

This entrance guides us to the cliffs where we see more avvar statues made on stones over the sea, in this case a variation of a Keepers of Fear. It’s curious they are giving their backs to the sea, and the scream is directed to the Hold.

The other entrance of the Hold is placed at the south of the map. In this part, we find people carving the stone, creating a standard Keeper of Fear and, for the first time, we see a statue of Korth, the Mountain-Father.

The throne of Thane is very tribal and humble. We find these monoliths with ropes, that are easily seen all over Ferelden [Crestwood], and behind the throne, a big statue of a Dwarf with long limbs, probably as a tribute to the presence of Dwarven lineage among the Avvar [and other descendants of the Alamarri like the Chasind]. There is a spooky pottery beside the throne too.

In another house, we see a room for celebration such as a marriage. It’s particularly cosy and well decorated.

Inside this celebration room, we find a bard who explains to us the legend-marks, the names that replace the "family name” of the Avvar. These marks work like a title related to their actions or to an iconic aspect of a person.  We also can infer the avvar surname system: it’s basically a way to say of who you are daughter or son. Men use *name_of_parent*-sen while women use *name_of_parent*-sdotten. 

The rest of the houses look like ibero-celt houses, circular buildings with a central fire in them.

Visiting some houses where they work on the storage of food of the hold, we trigger codices such as The Naming of Stone-Bear Hold, where the legend of the stone-bear hold is explained: time ago, the people of this hold had lost hope in finding food and shelter during a hard winter, but one of them saw a great bear that guided him to his place. When the person inspected the bear closely, he realised it was made of stone, thus the name of this hold.

Another codex triggered in a house that was curing meat is On Avvar Cuisine where it's explained the hard work Avvar have to do all year in order to preserve and storage a good amount of food for the winter. They live the rest of the year preparing for the next winter in an endless, hard-to-endure cycle. Despite this rush, they always leave high-quality food offerings to the spirits around the hold, because they protect them.

Curiously, on top of the hold there is a statue that in Emerald Graves: The open we have found with the unreliable landmark called The guide, telling us that this could potentially be a representation of Falon'Din, but I doubt it. We know that Falon'Din being the "guide" was a posterior misinterpretation of the Dalish. The truth is that we don't have a more or less reliable source to know what or who this statue represents beside this codex.

By the end of the Hold we find the house of the Augur, which I talked about in the first part of this post, and the Trader Helsdin’s house, quite a peculiar, funny character. 

Trader Helsdim is the one responsible for the codex Mysteries of the Frostback Basin that we collected all over the Basin. Pretty much like his codex, his house is a mess of magical glyphs, items, papers, portraits, and cheese. He feels to me like a joke of Bioware, to laugh at the most wild theory-crafters of the fandom. “This is how you look like, people”, Bioware seems to say, lol.

We know that the older trader taught him how to read, write, and trade with lowlanders, and this man used these skills to get lost in conspiracy theories, lol.

 Trials and Justice

With an offering to the battle master, the Inquisitor can participate in the Hakkon's trials.

As the Avvar have these trials, their gods [aka spirits] see them. Solas explains us that in this way, spirits are taught to help the avvar by giving them small improvements in these trials that they could be vital in real conflicts: such a second of strength or a glimpse into the future to see a deadly attack that can be avoided.

Beside the trial arena we find this variation of Keepers of Fear.  

The arena for the trial of Hakkon is surrounded by four statues of Korth, the mountain-father, observing the combat from the four cardinal directions.

These trials are sometimes used to solve petty conflicts in the community. When there is a fight, a Thane can determine to settle things with tests. Tests of the Lady of the Skies is a contest of climbing, the test of Korth, mountain-father, is to fight with verses, and for the test of Hakkon, is a non-lethal fight with blunted weapons.

 Miscellaneous objects

Interesting miscellaneous objects can be found in Skyrim after playing this DLC  and picking the Avvar decoration: 

We have this statue of an owl, representation of the Lady of the Skies. I find interesting in her design the ring around her head: small little spikes that may be related or may have inspired artistically other symbols in the game: the thorns that we have seen many times in vines, which have elven influence [after all, the Avvar have a strong elven influence in their culture if we can consider the tale of ��Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path as more or less reliable with respect to her lover of leaf-like ears], 

or could be an inspiration of a sun, later taken to accompany the figure of Andraste in a cult that will turn out to be the main religion of the land. 

This piece of art also appears when you activate the Avvar decoration inside the Skyhold. If anything, it looks like a branch-hand holding a bowl.  It gives me the impression of a sylvanian hand. 

And the last decoration: a very detailed representation of Korth, the Mountain-Father. His face, so filled with beard, and his body, short and thick, makes me see a dwarf in him, which would make sense with the dwarf influence that the Avvar have. In another post I will compare the common roots or similarities that Korth has with Elgar’nan and with The Stone / Titans.

Also, as a very curious detail that I’m not sure how much I can trust, is seen in the Arena of Hakkon: during combat, some avvar warriors use these tower shields. This could mean nothing, but I think this drawing reflects a bit of elven influence that the Avvar have [maybe because Trydda’s lover has a deeper mark in the Avvar culture, or maybe because the Avvar have always been too related to spirits, learning from them, and Elves and spirits have a long History in common as well]. The Avvar shield shows a ram with horns depicted in a similar style that the elvhen golden halla.  The animals on the shield have “google” eyes, which are similar to some of the eyes we found in those elvhen murals as well. They even have a “mark” that could be considered a rudimentary vallaslin or even a tear-like mark. 

We also find this statue of a Dwarf with long limbs. A bigger one is present in the main chamber of the Thane throne. As I said before, it makes sense considering that the avvar have dwarven lineage in their blood. As inhabitants of mountains, Avvar also have some relationship with the stone, reflected in their respect to Korth, the Mountain-Father. 

 The Hakonnite and Avvar’s understanding of their Gods

When we meet the thane of the hold, we have a lot of information about the Avvar, the Thane herself, the Hakkonites, and the way Avvar see their gods. This information can be summarised as:

Svarah Sun-Hair was born as Svarah Janesdotten, and her legend-mark ended up being Sun-Hair because she fought with her hair on fire once.

Their hold-beast is important for their hold, the hold draws strength from it. When it gets sick and dies is an ill omen. This creature ties them to the gods/spirits. 

The hold-beast is free to roam everywhere like the Avvar are, because it’s considered kin. This implies that Avvar are a culture free of slavery.

Avvar respect their oaths and don’t break them easily, but they can find some holes in any promise that can take advantage of. When their promise is broken, they try to fix it with gifts.

The hakkonites’ current thane is Gurd Harofsen, who lost too many of his hold to the Darkspawn during the Fifth Blight, so he became obsessed with fighting.

Hakkonites only care about the god Hakkon, they gave their back to the rest of the Avvar gods. This is a similar situation to the one we saw in DA2 [Mark of the Assassin] with that cult of the Lady of the Skies: a tribe sometimes wants to focus entirely on one god, and something terrible happens later. In the case of DA2, the whole tribe disappeared, although it is implied that eagles saved them from the Tevinter invasion and slaughter. In this case, the Hakkonites end up disappearing as well due to the excess of fighting. 

Hakkon, god of war and winter, is not evil. He represents the times for fighting.

 After some time showing good-will, the thane of the hold trusts us with a truth that seems to be common knowledge for her: What the Hakkonites are trying to do is to free the god who was bind to a mortal form ages ago, and bring war to the lowlands, which is what we learnt that Ameridan fought against. They did it in the past, and in doing so, the "avvar lost Hakkon".

When a god/spirit is bound to mortal form, it cannot hear prayers nor speak with the augur. He was felt to the Avvars as if he had vanished, instead of dying and returning in the typical cycle that spirits follow. 

There is a deliberated resemblance with the silence of the Old Gods for Tevinter or the silence of the Evanuris [who had a spirit-like nature] for their first priests, such as we read in The Lost Temple of Dirthamen. There is a lot of potential in this DLC to tell us why the Gods of the past went silent.

  The avvar would not fight a war against lowlands unless there is a need for resources.

If the hakkonites succeed in freeing Hakkon, they would have freed a great beast. She explains that the wars, when they are needed, should be done without the intervention of gods/spirits.

Avvar consider that the gods/spirits belong to the land of Dreams, they don’t take mortal form.

Curiously, we can discuss that the Lady of the Skies took mortal form as Tyrdda’s lover according to Tyrdda Bright-Axe Path. Strangely, Svarah seems to dismiss this aspect of the tale.

As a note of my own interpretation, I think it’s worthy to look for the truth of the past understanding the Avvar and not dismissing their knowledge just because they are humans, the last race that appeared in Thedas. After all, Avvar are too related to spirits and elves, Avvar is an elven word, meaning our taking [check the wonderful explanation here] If the elves and the spirits lived and coexisted in a pre-Veil time, the avvar are living with the spirits and coexisting with them in analogous way to the elves but in the Waking World [having been guided by an Elf/spirit/their own goddess of the Skies]. The fact that they allow the possession of child mages gives them access to a lot of knowledge lost in the past that only the creatures of the Fade still remember and reflect. For this alone, their knowledge should be taken into consideration to perceive how much of it has been twisted along the ages or merely misunderstood in the translation spirit-human. 

Honestly, anyone who is interested in a deeper understanding of the Avvar, go check posts like [this] or [this] or read Avvar History Reconstruction in AO3. Ammocharis’ work is very detailed in terms of naming sources, which is something I appreciate a lot, and anyone who reads this blogs probably will enjoy as well.

[volzaannir]

WIP Wednesday!!

i was tagged by @korvanjund !!

i dont really have any good TES related WIPs?? but i do have like, almost all of Signe's storyboard layout that technically counts so ill just use sections from that each time im tagged LMAO

[[Words in RED are ideas that can conflict with lore or the storyline eventually, and are just placeholder ideas until I can either change them or cement them]]

---

1. Signe as a young child with her parents living in the Rift (Age: Birth – 6 yrs) || [[ 6 yr time span ]]

a. Born on the 9th of Evening Star, 4E 173. This gives her the birth sign of The Thief, which is immediate foreshadowing.

b. Is taught Norse (or Old Norse in our case, as TES is set in a semi-medieval timeframe I’d assume; So their version of Norse is our version of Old Norse/Icelandic/Norwegian), Nordic runes, basic sword wielding, and basic hand-to-hand combat by her father, Ragnar.

c. Is taught archery, basic spells, the lute, and some singing by her mother, Freya.

d. Father = Ragnar the Berserker, infamous mercenary (retired), previous Companions member, and honorable fighter. Made it a point to only kill those who truly deserved it. While he is a traditional Nord and focused on Norse culture/his roots, he is not a Talos worshiper; instead he worships Akatosh and Kynareth. (Called Kyne by Nords)

i. Pure himbo energy

ii. Can’t wear a shirt to save his life

iii. A literal loyal puppy dog

iv. Doesn’t sing often, but found he has a soothing and low voice whenever he sang lullabies to Signe

v. APPEARANCE: Fair skin that’s lightly tanned, muscular rectangle build; Dirty blonde/golden hair with hints of ginger, kept in various braids with adornments, trying to grow it out as long as he can; Clothing style is leather/steel armor combo, either shirtless or with minimum chest coverings/armor, wears carved runes on a necklace alongside amulets of Akatosh and Kynareth; Multiple scars, usually covered in dirt or grime (before retirement), tattoos [runes, sayings in ancient Norse, old scriptures from Akatosh or Kyne, small illustrations of his adventures, one tattoo dedicated to Freya, and one dedicated to Signe. Upper ears are pierced.

e. Mother = Freyja, a Nord Dark Brotherhood assassin (retired) and spell sword. Unaffiliated with any religion, and is a non-traditional Nord, but not against her kin’s customs.

i. Big dick energy

ii. Sassy, comes off as cold as first, but easily warms up if your vibes are good

iii. A bark so bad you’d wish she’d just bite instead

iv. Heavenly singing voice; poses as a bard when on an assassination mission; can sing and play lute. This is foreshadowing to Signe’s future position as a Nightingale, as the term comes from a bard named Nightingale mentioned in the tome "The Real Barenziah IX", who later turned out to be a battlemage

v. APPEARANCE: Fair skin, a slim rectangle/hourglass build with muscle toning mainly in core and legs; Very athletic, as her job requires her to be fast, nimble, aerobic, and have a fair grasp of acrobatics; Long, thick, light blonde hair that’s kept up in neat wrapped braids when she’s on the job, or let loose to fall around her shoulders if not on a job; Clothing style consists of tight and dark colored cloths/leathers with hoods and masks or scarves (when on the job, before retirement), or usual townsfolk clothing. Faint scars or burns here and there, hands/arms have variety of burns and scars from magic; No tattoos or piercings.

f. Her parents met when Freya was assigned to kill Ragnar, who was deemed too dangerous and unpredictable, since he took contracts from any political party. After getting distracted and messing up her stealth, Ragnar mistakes her as a lost traveler and attempts to flirt/woo her, and she ends up falling to his stupid charms. Together, they deserted their occupations to run away together to the Rift, telling only their close and trusted friends. With a sufficient amount of wealth from their jobs, they knew they’d be fine living in a small cottage in the Rift, as well as caring for a single child.

[bigmeatymudcrabchitins]

A not-so-brief overview of my Skyrim Dova OCs bc i need to scream to the digital void about my ideas

Freyora Lind, more commonly known by her strange alias “Bjorne Icepick”

A Nord-eventually-turned-werewolf who orphaned during the Great War and taken in by a Dunmeri mercenary whose residence was in Windhelm’s Gray Quarter. Grew up in a cramped boarding house setting among desperate mercenaries of varying backgrounds. Many of them would all come and go, but there was always some sort of a familial bond between them all.

From a young age she got in a lot of fights against people who insulted her for living in the Gray Quarter among the dark elves. Eventually she took a fight too far and was jailed for murder around 14, but was broken out shortly after by a band of masked vampires. Turns out some of her mercenary comrades unwittingly caught vampirism during a contract to clear out a vampire den and had to skip town, but not before ensuring one of their own wasn’t left to rot.

Lived in Cyrodil for about 15 years, but returned to Skyrim pursuing rumors surrounding a cure to vampirism, as her adoptive father would be nearing the end of his elven lifespan and had wished to die a normal death.

Seeing as she was literally a fugitive, and her long-belated parents were somewhat renowned for their battlefield prowess, she took on a false identity. AND an act to match it.

She’ll eat raw meat, chase prey with swords instead of using a bow like a normal person, harp about irrational conspiracy theories, and more. Everyone’s foul reactions to her outlandish act are plainly hilarious to her and only encourage her to act even stranger.

The alias “Bjorne Icepick” was simply the most ridiculous name she could think of.

Not the most morally outstanding. Besides drunken brawling, she’ll steal from anyone who angers her, even if it’s things she literally won’t ever need such as all the goblets in a household. It’s the pettiness that counts. “Try drinking your damn high-end wine now, jackass.”

Calls Dwarven Automatons “Gundams.” Including she herself, no one knows what that means.

Joins the Companions out of homesickness and a desire to fill in a gap that leaving home left.

Hasn’t bothered curing herself of lycanthropy because her whole schtick is being incredibly resourceful, and that includes using any means of power necessary. Still doesn’t fancy Hircine’s Hunting Grounds as her desired afterlife, though.

As her journey goes on, however, her lightheartedly eccentric face starts to fall off as a number of events push her to begin to question the legitimacy of her actions up until that point.

Some of which include the eventual death of her adoptive father (and how she was indirectly responsible for it even if it was what he wanted), Delphine’s ultimatum, the civil war as a collective, learning the tragic history behind the Falmer and the original Companions’ role in it, and killing of Vyrthur (no matter how much he genuinely deserved it).

She grows disgusted by herself down to the core. She takes to skooma to cope, and starts to be plagued by serious skooma-induced side effects. She ends up shutting herself away from all her responsibilities and distancing herself from her friends.

Does she get better? Maybe. I haven’t thought up anything past this point lol

Moureneris Alta

A very, VERY ancient vampiric snow elf, (though it’s notable she was born a considerable amount of time after the razing of Sarthaal)

Survived many atrocities. Stayed in isolation with a band of vampires for countless years out of sheer disgust for the nature of the sapient races. (I’ll explain her full story some other time. It’s pretty complicated)

She was abducted from her isolated lifestyle by a certain person i’ll talk about later. She managed to free herself south of Skyrim, and uh, walks right into that Imperial ambush. The rest is history.

Super ignorant to modern society as a result of centuries of isolation. Exploited for comedic relief. (“What in the name of Oblivion is a Cyrodilic Empire? Are you messing with me? And please, how does levitation magic simply get outlawed by this hypothetical Empire? What are you to do when you fall down a crevice? Just... let yourself perish? How degrading.)

She reintegrated herself into society with vengeance in mind under the belief that all humans are savage bloodlusting murderers who had to answer for their treachery. (And she was royally angry there was no Dwemer left to spite, but partially satisfied at the same time). But she grows conflicted after being shown genuine kindness, even as early as being freed from her binds in Helgen.

Subsequently has a very muddled redemption arc. Queue Dragonborn hero stuff

She has impaired vision, but she cultivated detect life magic to aid her in daily life and combat (think Hyakkimaru from Dororo ‘19 and his soul detection or Toph Beifong from ATLA and her seismic sense). At her peak, she can detect life from about a kilometer away.

She can just barely read, but only if she holds the text incredibly close to her face, not to mention her Cyrodilic lessons were left unfinished after her abduction, making reading a very taxing process. Weary travelers are often spooked at the sight of a floating, ghastly looking elven woman with her nose pressed up against crossroad signs, and it has become somewhat of an urban legend.

Isn’t as nearly as skilled with detecting the dead and tenses up in burial crypts or around other vampires for that reason. Unfortunately, being the Dragonborn and all, she finds herself in a lot of crypts...

When questioned about her background due to her unique appearance: “Oh, yeah. My mother was one of those mer from the east. You know the ones. Dark elves, I think? And my father was one of those er, tall elv- no, sorry, HIGH elves. Yeah. They both died in a big fire or something though. It was horrible. I can’t get the noxious smell or the deafening screams out of my head. Good talk, but never ask me about that again.”

Queue sheltered old immortal antics: “Wow, you’re THAT old? Enlighten me on how it felt witnessing the fall of the Dwemer. Or perhaps the rise of Tiber Septim’s Empire. The Gates of Ob-“ “Oblivion if I know. I lived in someone’s basement for thousands of years. And I still don’t know what everyone means by Empire. You all are messing with me, aren’t you? That really annoys me.”

She ultimately returns to faith in Auri-El and makes it her life’s purpose to help the Betrayed find peace, as well as to seek out any remaining snow elf groups. Probably good friends with Gelebor or something.

Had a crush on Serana. We all know how THAT went. Damned temples.

Was originally gonna spiral into a much darker corruption arc (another ATLA comparison being Jet or Hama) but I just felt bad for her. Moureneris can have a little found peace. As a treat.

That’s her preliminary design made. I’ll need a mod to properly play her, because that right there was made by choosing Dunmer as her race. But I can’t do that. I’m on console, and while I got the Steam port a month ago, my PC’s stone age specs can’t handle Skyrim yet and I’ll need to wait until I can afford a better graphics card (thanks economic inflation)

Alexandre Armasi, jokingly nicknamed Alexandre the Curious

A complete and unapologetic export of my character from a dead and unfinished DND campaign. Except there are no Aasimar in Skyrim, so he’s half Altmer half Bosmer. And his initial last name was Armas but I thought Armasi suited his Skyrim counterpart more, as subtle a change it is.

He’s mainly Bosmer in appearance and constitution, save for his hair and eyes, which are more similar to that of his Altmeri father’s.

I can’t really export his original backstory though because the campaign wouldn’t translate well into TES lore at all.

He’s a writer who came wandering into Skyrim in search of inspiration. While he mainly writes dramatic fables, he wanted to divert his focus to crafting his own bestiary and herbal compendium surrounding Skyrim’s fauna and flora. The ones at home are simply too vague to him!

He’s very altruistic, wishing to spread cheer wherever he goes, through the art of song (even though he was a cleric in DND and not a bard. My bad.) However, many of his verses are just blatant self promotions of his published fables.

But he’s too naive for his own good. Dangerously so. In fact, he says what’s on his mind with little forethought, with little grasp on the consequences of his actions, which lands him in lots of trouble. “I don’t favor him myself, but you guys kill people over Talos worship? That’s not very cool. A bit scary, if you ask me.” or “A Stormcloak rebel? Didn’t your leader kill a bunch of Reachmen rebels years back, or so I’ve heard. By the divines that’s not a man I’d make a symbol of nonconformity.”

He’s also insatiably curious. The type to ACTUALLY shove alchemic ingredients in his mouth with no knowledge of their properties, experiment with dangerous rune spells, throw rocks at pressure plates, and more. Needless to say he’s very accident prone.

Doesn’t know common curse words. People exploit this for laughs. Think that episode of Spongebob.

Everyone is a little baffled that HE of all people is the prophesied Dragonborn of legend. This agonizingly imbecilic writer who has absentmindedly wandered into burial crypts, troll dens, bandit forts, and more, too busy juggling his manuscripts to pay attention to his surroundings.

His past doesn’t exactly reflect his outlook on life. His mother and father fought in the Great War aligned with the Imperials despite their elven background. Both managed to live to see the war’s conclusion, but his father vanished without a trace shortly after, and it seems his mother knows something she won’t tell him.

With plenty of exposure to bad influences, his innocence is slowly lost throughout the course of his journey, and his altruism begins to grow twisted. But nevertheless, he maintains his jovial, social persona, except this time with much darker undertones. Kinda like a creepy dentist or something.

Whoops. He winds up becoming a feared Dark Brotherhood assassin. (Haha get it “Innocence Lost”???) He somehow deluded himself into thinking that the life of an assassin was the right thing to do. But he’s a funky little guy so he gets a pass for his heinous crimes against society

[emblazonet]

Everything I Hate About Skyrim

Disclaimer: I legit don’t care if you love Skyrim. You’re entirely correct to love a thing you love! Please, continue to love it!

If you don’t want to read hate, please do not peek under the cut. I’m just shedding the whine from my system to move on with my life.

Cathartic negativity under the cut:

To begin at the beginning, the intro sucks and is long and chaotic and irritating and I can’t tell anyone apart and I hate it.

The dragons are small and unimpressive and I’ve always been disappointed by them.

Skyrim tries to be too gritty but it’s a fucking TES game; it tried to create moral complexity somehow by making everyone an unlikeable asshole. Greeeat. 

THE UI. WHY IS THE UI SO TERRIBLE. SkyUI is the only thing that made the game playable for me. 

The graphics were kinda lame even when the game came out, why was the palette so dull

Magic is so boring and pointless and nerfed to fuck and back. This is actually so huge it could be its own rant, but magic in Skyrim sucks and the devs should feel an amount of regret, damnit.

I mean, it’s an action game pretending to be an RPG

Fucking everything is dungeon delving even when it shouldn’t be; see also: The Bard’s College.

BARDS. You know what’s cool? Bards. Music. Solving things in noncombat ways. Exploring lore. Guess what the Bard’s College teases but never fucking delivers? Yeah. WHY BOTHER WITH IN GAME LUTES IF YOU CAN’T HAVE MAGIC MUSIC. Fuckers.

Literally nothing is satisfying because it’s too easy, it’s just a power fantasy with all fluff, no substance

They did nothing creative enough with their viking-esque Nords to interest me at all

The game gives off this hypermasculine vibe that I never got from Morrowind or, frankly, even Oblivion

I hate the physics engine, not because I hate laughing at terrible glitches—look, I howled as hard as anyone when I realized what giants could do—that’s not the problem. The problem is that I feel like the physics and the way the engine is built is so clunky that I find interacting with the world frustrating and immersion breaking. The mechanics of the game and deeply unsatisfying to me, and that’s not something any mod can fix. (Which is why, though I love Requiem in theory, I end up not playing Skyrim anyway. I just hate being in the world.) There’s a sort of lagginess and a kind of barrier to every action you take. I felt this in Oblivion too, but Oblivion was less offensive to me.

I hate the engine so much I will never take a look at Skywind, despite loving the music & concept art and having a great respect for anyone who embarked on that venture.

What’s the point of perks? What’s the point of classes? They basically annihilated the fun of character creation. Never forgive.

Some of the voice acting is downright terrible.

The world feels really small

I don’t really care for any of the factions. I have no emotions, apart from mild ‘ugh’, about most of them. The civil war plot I played through once and never again, because I frankly hate both sides. The Thalmor are one-dimensional villains. In general, faction questlines are short, easy, disappointing. (I had some fun with the thieves guild but. still.)

Skyrim’s not as good as Morrowind, nyah.

Anyway, good thing in 2020 Morrowind is more playable than ever thanks to its incredible modding community and also the fact that it was a super cool game out of the box.

This has been a completely arbitrary and entirely personal rant, brought to you by an Amber that is somewhat dreading TESVI.

[tes-trash-blog]

Maybe this is because I read Ender’s Game and hated it, or maybe this is because I generally hate most war fiction floating around that can be summed up to “we good, they bad, they dead, we win”, maybe I just hate lazy colonization fiction in general. Either way, it’s started an itch about Ysgramor, the Return, and the circumstances surrounding the extinction of the Snow Elves.

So that’s exactly what I’m going to rant about tonight.

TW: Everything.

Part 1. The Circumstances Surrounding The Return, aka Saarthal

So, it’s established in Nordic lore that Saarthal was the first Atmoran city to be constructed. As to where the other Atmorans that braved those seas before Ysgramor’s initial arrival went, your guess is as good as mine. Tamriel was always a safety valve for malcontents and yearners, and there certainly were humans there before the Harbinger. Strangely enough, there doesn’t seem to be remains of the potential villages in Skyrim. Same as the Snow Elven cities that surely dotted the landscape. Hm.

I digress. Saarthal is, for the intents of this rant, the first real city. For reasons lorekeepers are divided on, the Elves attacked. Modern consensus is that the Atmorans discovered the Eye of Magnus, and the Elves wanted it. Elven lorekeepers argue that the attack was a result of various provocations from the city. Either way, the city was sacked, in spite of the city’s best efforts to fight back. Tragic, no matter which way you parse it. So much that Songs of the Return asserts that Ysgramor’s grief was such that he cried tears of ebony, and his son forged Wuuthrad with those tears. On a boat. Using lighting as a forge, and the seawater to cool the metal. All that, and he still managed to get that lovely detail of a caricatured Elf screaming in pain!

Three mourning people, and already their thoughts are not on how to go home and lick their wounds, but how to best kill Elves. Not a single thought to maybe arguing for peace in their homeworld, instead they braved the war torn Atmora to gather warriors.

Violence is not an answer. It is a question, and already Ysgramor’s was shouting a hearty “Yes”.

Part 2. The Return, or Fantasy Manifest Destiny

So in spite of Atmora being a war torn hellhole, Ysgrmaor and his two boys go back. He commissions boats, and finds able warriors to sail with him.

I feel like I don’t need to tell you how expensive boats are. I guess I’m trying to say is the dude had money, or enough social capital to have them commissioned. Either way, he ignored the ongoing war in his own home to wage another across the sea.

“But tes-trash-blog! These were people who have been traumatized! This is their grief talking, and grief does things to you!”

And yet. From Songs of the Return, Volume 2:

“Yngol, the elder, was the brave strategist, bringing his learnings to bear on the battlefield that his enemies would be defeated before they even know the battle had begun. Ylgar, the younger, was possessed of an unwavering spirit that drove his singular prowess to overwhelming feats in war. Together, the mind and the arm, they were capable of sowing a destruction most thorough and glorious to any foe who stood before them.”

So… Three perfectly peaceful, grief-stricken and traumatized folks, but one was strategic enough to “end a battle before it began” and the other was basically a berserker. And yet the Night of Tears was a massacre of innocent civilians. Ysgramor felled a number of Elves during the attack, but they were all innocent civilians.

A goddamn Word Wall says not to ask for peace for peace is weakness, but hey. They were innocent, peaceful people, their hands forced by “treacherous Elves”.

They apparently found battle, “though none remain to tell what those battles entailed”. How convenient. They took slaves, and cut out their tongues.

This is all under the banner of grief, of anger. It’s seems a bit too systematic to be purely emotional, and Songs of the Return even says the Companions were shrewd and sharp. They knew what they doing, but let’s assume they were purely acting out of grief. Let’s assume they only wanted vengeance. Let’s assume their only goal was revenge against those Elves for killing their kind.

Surely they stopped there.

Spoiler alert: they didn’t.

Part 3. A Homicidal Maniac Drives A Race To Extinction. What Happened Next Will (Not) Surprise You

The Elves are dead! Vengeance is complete! Surely Ysgramor, now fully vindicated and no longer hearing the screams of his dead friends, can rest.

Well.. No. As it turns out, he and the rest of the Companions didn’t stop. They went as far as Black Marsh where they killed Argonians, to Elsweyr where they met, killed, and skinned the Khajiit. They even reached Hammerfell, where they met round eared folks. But they were different, so they too found war. It almost seems like grief and trauma and what have you were flimsy excuses to drive an entire culture to extinction.

It almost seems like those Five Hundred Atmorans were a war-hungry bunch, bent on colonizing. The Songs of the Return only ever continues to echo this sentiment, with talk of “rightful claims” and “bringing the light of the proper gods to the heathen land of elves and beasts.”

It’s fantasy Manifest Destiny, plain and simple. It’s a genocide of an indigenous people, and the invasion to other lands because “we good, they bad”.

At best, this is a story of people going mad with grief and rage, and being unable to reconcile that pain. Given that the Companions are still a highly respected faction in Skyrim, one can assume they never learned their lesson.

Part 4. So Where Does This Leave Us?

KA Applegate said it best, in regards to the controversial ending to her Animorphs books:

“Here’s what doesn’t happen in war: there are no wondrous, climactic battles that leave the good guys standing tall and the bad guys lying in the dirt. Life isn’t a World Wrestling Federation Smackdown. Even the people who win a war, who survive and come out the other side with the conviction that they have done something brave and necessary, don’t do a lot of celebrating There’s very little chanting of ‘we’re number one’ among people who’ve personally experienced war.”

And John Kessel doubles down on that in his essay “Creating The Innocent Killer”, which I highly recommend:

“Ender gets to strike out at his enemies and remain morally clean. Nothing is his fault. Stilson already lies defeated on the ground, yet Ender can kick him in the face until he dies, and still remain the good guy.  Ender can drive bone fragments into Bonzo’s brain and then kick his dying body in the crotch, yet the entire focus is on Ender’s suffering. […] As Elaine Radford has said, ‘We would all like to believe that our suffering has made us special—especially if it gives us a righteous reason to destroy our enemies.’

But that’s a lie.  No one is that special; no one is that innocent.”

Substitute Orson Scott Card’s self insert Gary Stu with Ysgramor, the names of his enemies with Snow Elves. Go ahead, I’ll be right here.

Genocide is genocide, be it caused by grief or rage or land dispute or magic eyeballs.

And yet that pride over genocide, that elevation of Ysgramor is one of the Nord’s more defining traits. They’re a proud, boisterous people who frown on magic because it’s the work of “weaker races”, who honor the Companions even though they’re basically mercenaries with a genocide fetish (see: The Silver Hand, the Glenmoril Witches), who drink and get rowdy and are so goddamn proud of their axes. It’s an open carry nation that makes it abundantly clear that outsiders aren’t welcome. They are descendants of killers, as are most races in Tamriel, but they never let you forget it. Hell, the more popular skald song is “The Slaying of the Falmer Princes”. In game, you can barely walk into a tavern without hearing a bard say “Kill Ulfric!” or “Kill the Invaders!”. The latter is pretty ironic, if you think about it.

Once I heard someone somewhere say, “Well, the Elves deserved it.” I can’t remember where, it may have actually been an argument in real life, but they refused to say anymore. I assume this is what all arguments for Ysgramor and against the Elves boils down to.

So. Did the Snow Elves deserve extinction? Did the Elven civilian at modern day Fort Greenwall deserve to be cut down? Did his daughter, who wasn’t even born when the Night of Tears happened? The women and priests deserve debasement and slavery? What of those whose tongues were cut out from their mouths, those who were crushed under black quarry stone while forced to build Windhelm?

Or is “they deserved it” just an excuse, a candy pill to swallow so the offender can avoid bitter truth?

[kaiju-z]

DnD 5e One Shot - The Dragon and The King

So, last saturday our group had our second one shot. I’m writing this up first, because the first One Shot was a Winter Solstice one that takes place in the near future of our party and stuff happens in it (will write down an episode on that once we catch up).

Our ranger @unholysavior​ was the DM for that one, so our regular dm @lozwithasideofcheese​ got to play with us again as a player.

Our party consisted of:

Reed, the Firbolg Ranger (as played by our Goblin Barbarian player Hayden) and his companion, the mountain lion and BEST GIRL Ginger;

Kit, the Changeling Rogue (as played by our DM);

Gamin Steak the Eldarin Necromancer (as played by our Half-Orc bard @langsty-mc-langstface​);

Nemo Olzien, te Aasimar Paladin (as played by our Air Genasi Monk, @kittehr​);

and lastly Esteban “Ban” Carrera, the Halfling Cleric, as played by me.

We started at 5th level and were called to the court of King Adavier (a rather empty court as we found out later on). He tasked us with the job of arming ourselves in the town of Greenburrow/Greenborough (I’m not sure on how it’s written), climb a nearby mountain and fight a 500 year old tyranical red dragon atop the Stone’s Peak of the mountain.

He will pay us “handsomely” 40 gold pieces each for the task and immediatelly we should’ve figured something was wrong with the job. It felt off. But I think we were mainly distracted with Gamin’s shenanigans. Gamin was a bit unhinged (and by a bit, I mean a lot) and almost dove out of a window.

He also secured himself bones from the royal catacombs??? I don’t think we ever followed up on that.

After some shenanigans (for some reason I wrote down that the king sleeps commando style?! Gamin was great, XD) in the court and introductions to each other outside the king’s castle, we made our way to GB. On the way there we avoided a fight with highwaymen?? I think that was a thing that could have happened. But we were too perceptive to be caught by surprise, so they never made their move.

Ban, after some reluctance, ended up riding on Ginger’s back along the way to GB and Reed talked to some horses to get their take on how they were doing in the service of rent horses (Tap once for doing ok, tap twice for nah).

Kit basically robbed Gamin in plain sight, but we all rolled low enough to where we didn’t see her pull that off.

We learn that Gamin doesn’t remember where he lives, but he wants to go home. He wasn’t always like this, the insightful Ban understands from his rolls (It felt so nice to play a character, who doesn’t roll low on wisdom checks X’D). And before we reach the outskirts, everyone but Kit flexes. Yep. Even Ginger.

In the outskirts of the town we meet a black dragonborn named “Dennar” (or Donnar? I’m not sure on the pronounciation), who lives outside of town in a barn, painted black. Gamin adopts him immediatelly.

From Denar’s snoot to our ears, we learn that Sleekclaw isn’t a baddie. In fact, he’s the protector of these lands. Kind and wise. Which gets us to start questioning the king’s motives. (Us not being locals, but travelers from our own paths, we don’t know much about the local lore).

It seems that ever since the king took the throne, he has been a tyranical ruler, who would wreck any town within his kingdom??? He held hostility towards all the non-humany races (Dragonborn and Tieflings included).

We comfort the troubled DB and he basically joined the party from that point (cue the dm making a sheet for Denar, while we have a break).

We continue on the way to the town and find a sword amidst burned buildings. But not from above, which corroborates Dennar’s story to us. We learn, through Nemo, that the sword is cursed and that diamonds are growing from it. According to Reed, the sword is infused with Conjuration type magic. After some more shenanigans between Ban and Gamin (They have a very Order vs Chaos dynamic developing here), Gamin uses a clever way to carry the sword, as it may be useful for later.

The king took power 5 years prior and since then things have been going bad. My favorite quote from the one shot came next. “ It’s like a royalty card! You need to punch a card in corruptness.”

We reach the town, which is covered in diamons of various sizes. It’s disconcerning as we enter town. Greenborough is a small town with a few shops. But that doesn’t really matter, because it’s overrun by these black, red and purple diamonds that have grown all over the place.

Further north in town is the castle of the Lord and Lady, who run the township. Gamin looks at a tree and starts crying after a trip to the secret chat. My heart 8(  Dennar taps him. “You ok?” Gamin: “Peachy!”

Big oof.

Gamin suddenly decides to run for the castle and we end up following him inside. Once in, we all make will saves and for all we know, we all pass. We find the lady, a green tiefling with heart shaped horns,curled up close to the staircase, looking traumatized. There’s blood up the staircase.

Ban tries to comfort the woman, while upstairs, Gamin finds a door blocked by diamonds. And starts magic missiling the shit out o the diamonds. Once he hears a faint cry for help from the other side.

After a perception check (we made SO MANY in this one shot, amazing), Ban noticed that diamonds were slowly growing on the woman’s wrists and throat. It seems that some kind of diamond plague had reached this town???

Gamin shatters a diamond and sees a red tiefling, stuck under diamonds inside the room that was blocked by the diamonds.

It’s at this point that things go bad. Dennar’s legs are petrified to the ground because of diamonds, growing on him (I guess he failed his save D: )

Through quick thinking on everyone’s part we managed to save the Lord and Lady AND Dennar, thanks to Kit’s swing with the greatsword, taking out the crystals on the lady, Reed bringing the Lord to Ban and Ban using some spells to restore both the Lord and Dennar to a non-plagued state.

The couple embrace and we learn more about what happened.

Yep, the king’s a piece of shit and needs to go down. We discuss a gameplan and ultimately agree to talk with Sleekclaw for back up. (I mean, come on. You give us a dragon, we gotta talk to the guy at least!) Ban promisses to keep Kit safe, as she doesn’t want to die before becoming an adult.

Also further developement happens between Gamin and Ban. Ban explains his faith (He’s a Life Domain cleric to Lady Istus). and Gamin is not impressed. Ban understands.

The party go to Aurora’s peak, where Sleekclaw’s cave is. We have a Proclaimers montage. It’s great.

After a callback to when Gamin befriended Dennar, Sleekclaw joins the party and flies us to the king’s domain, where he disguies himself as a person. Kit stealths like a boss and basically becomes a backpack for Nemo.

Before entering town, more shenanigans happen between Gamin and Ban. Ban gets frustrated to a point where he has an outburst at Gamin and asks him to “MAKE SENSE! PLEASE MAKE SENSE!” and I think he cured him (if temproary?!)  of his madness?!

Because Gamin rolls a history check and suddenly remembers EVERYTHING O_O!!!

In tears, on his knees, he reveals his story. His name is Simon Everwinter. He was married to a man named Luke, who tragically died. Simon tried to bring him back through necromancy, but things went wrong and his mind was taken away. (PAIN!!!!)

Simon begs the party to help him remember this, should he forget it. Ban swears to him that he will do his very best to help him remember.

And so, we enter town and meet with the king. We bluff well enough and Reed ends up stabbing the king, initiating a fight that lasts less than two rounds of combat.

Simon ends up with the HDYWTDT for the game, much to Ban’s chagrin.

An argument starts between Ban and Simon over what to do next. Simon wants to raise the king as a zombie, Ban wants to revivify the king and have him stand trial for his crimes against the kingdom. Ginger bites a chunk off the king in the meanwhile (holy shit). The time for Ban’s revivify passes and he ends up distraught over the situation (god, the feels of the whole ongoing narrative between Ban and Simon. Big oof </3).

With the king slain, we have our wrap up. And learn that this game takes part in the same universe as Seon Adventures. But on a different continent. And through a mirror we see our characters from the main campaign.

And that’s how the game ends.

[prettytamagnii]

I posted 4559 times in 2021

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4546 posts reblogged (100%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 349.7 posts.

I added 137 tags in 2021

#skyrim - 37 posts

#i kinda want to talk about my tes ocs so - 21 posts

#back on my tes ocs - 19 posts

#reblogged - 10 posts

#oc: nidara - 9 posts

#the elder scrolls - 9 posts

#tes v skyrim - 9 posts

#oc: hassiri - 9 posts

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#tes v - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 133 characters

#i see many problems with the empire as well but ulfric just sounds like the populist that claims to be anti-system while upkeeping it

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Head canons for your skyrim ocs 😊❤

hello!! I'm so happy you want to hear about my ocs! I must warn, however, that the context in which I imagine them is still undefined, bc I started creating them inspired by a post from another skyrim blogger, that imagined an AU where the real dragonborn died at Helgen and their soul had to be split, therefore creating many "dragonborns"; this idea originally belongs to @najimiosana, so I want to credit them. the context in which I developed my ocs merely takes inspiration from the original poster.

however, even if not in that context, there are some things I can tell you:

they are a group of ten, each belonging to one of the playable races in TES V.

The oldest is Vingarion, an Altmer bard (48); the youngest is probably Seren, a redguard warrior in-training (24).

They would meet and eventually work together during the events of TES V: Skyrim (whether as collective ldbs or something different);

I want to focus principally on how would they work together and eventually form relationships considering their different personalities and baggage.

Alessia (age undefined), Juillen (38) and Vingarion are mages; Alessia has mainly studied the schools of Alteration and Restoration, and has created some spells that change her appearance and ease her dysphoria/allow her to affirm her gender identity. She's still perfecting her combat-based magic, which is more of Juillen's speciality.

Hakon (34), Seren and Glasha (39) favor weapons - war axes or greatswords (Hakon), one-handed swords and shield or dual wielding lighter weight blades (Seren), warhammers or battleaxes (Glasha).

Ardriel (37) strikes me as the stealth archer™️, occasionally using one handed weapons in close combat; Hassiri (30) also prefers a stealth approach first, and in close combat might use his claws instead of weapons; Drujja (age undefined) is still perfecting her bow and arrow skills, and in close combat might dual wield sharp daggers; finally, Nidara (41) often uses the stealth element in her favor, daggers and smaller blades being her favorite in combat; occasionally, she might use fire based combat magic.

Although she has traveled and studied in western Cyrodiil for some of her young adult years, Alessia is originally from the Nibenay region, in Eastern Cyrodiil.

these are some headcanons I've been working on for now. still need to study the lore of each "country" in Tamriel to better develop their backstories and how do they travel to Skyrim.

5 notes • Posted 2021-10-09 09:50:54 GMT

#4

ATTENTION ELDER SCROLLS TUMBLR:

Mean Girls but make it Daedric✨

[left to right: Mephala as Gretchen, Boethiah as Regina, Azura as Karen]

#theelderscrolls #theelderscrollsv #tesvskyrim #theelderscrollsfanart #meangirls #mephala #boethiah #azura #fanart #artistsoninstagram

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A post shared by Inês Nunes versão "Artista" (@softphiart)

11 notes • Posted 2021-10-13 09:05:40 GMT

#3

where is that post about the dragonborn dying in Helgen at the beginning of skyrim and their soul splitting in 9 or 10 so a group of characters ended up being all the dragonborn? because I can't stop thinking about that idea

18 notes • Posted 2021-05-17 09:54:11 GMT

#2

All of our bodies are fucking fine the way they are. I hope one day it will be easy for all of us to look at ourselves in the mirror and love what we see, because we're looking at us. And our bodies hold all our organs responsible to keep this unique human being alive. This human being that is loved, needed, wanted in this earth. The world wouldn't be the same without this human being, that we see when we look in the mirror.

18 notes • Posted 2021-05-03 10:13:57 GMT

#1

Here for you, with you (JJ X Reader)

Fandom: Outer Banks

Trigger Warning: ANXIETY, ANXIETY ATTACK

Disclaimer: I am a person with anxiety, and I decided to write this oneshot after an anxiety attack I had recently. I don't want to romanticize anxiety, or sugarcoat the reality of how it really affects us; what I want is to put my feelings to paper (screen, wtv) as a way to cope with my struggles. Anxiety is NOT solved with an hug from your crush, it is something that must be continuously treated, with help from a therapist. The support of your loved ones is definitely important, and that's what this oneshot is about, but don't forget that mental health issues like this require professional help and treatment, and that healing is not a linear process, but a continuous journey.

Summary: You have an anxiety attack during a Pogue's party, and JJ, your (not really) unrequited crush stays with you throughout it.

Tags: Oneshot, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Outer Banks imagine, Pogue! Reader.

***

Loud music, strong drinks, euphoric people messing around - that's what a typical Pogue party looks like. That's what tonight was all about. An abundance of young people, pogues and kooks alike, gathered around the front of John B's house, everyone with a cup on their hand, you included.

You didn't really like the taste of beer, it was too sour for you, but you often drank so you would fit in - you'd never admit this, of course. Kiara always assured you that you didn't have to drink if you didn't want to, you should never do anything out of pressure. You understood that, you knew your friends wouldn't mock you if you didn't drink, but a feeling of invisible peer pressure still haunted you during those parties, where not everyone was your friend, not everyone cared if you were uncomfortable with the noise or the alcohol. So, you'd drink. You'd try to blend in, to relax, to ignore all those feelings that hurted you, haunted you.

Tonight, you couldn't do it.

It had been a rough day before the party started, and the stress of this party environment was just strengthening those heart-wrenching thoughts and feelings. It was like there was no air left to breathe, your body was clenching around itself and you felt like you would explode. As your vision got foggy and the floor escaped your feet, you ran away into John B's house and looked for a place to lay down and escape that awful feeling.

There was a spare room, kind of a guest room where you always stayed when you stayed for the night. As you made your way into the room, people couldn't help but stare, some of them worried they saw a person looking so distressed. You ignored it all, for all you needed was to close that door and lay down in the comfortable bed. Just as you did it, you closed your eyes, allowing all of the tears to leave your eyes. It hurted inside, but it also freed you from the pain. There was peace in letting your tears run free, until there wasn't anything else to cry about.

"Y/N?" you heard Kiara knocking on the door. You had no energy to talk, but you managed to answer her.

"I'm in here."

"Are you OK?" she asked "You disappeared out of nowhere, everyone is worried about you."

Everyone? You highly doubted it. Out of everyone who was at that party, your friends were John B, ever since you two were very young, and Kiara, since you've always been classmates. Throught them you've also became friends with Pope, a very nice guy and the responsible one of the bunch, Sarah, the kook girl with a pogue heart after falling in love with John B... And JJ. Young, wild and free JJ, whose snarky smile and ocean eyes had got you smitten a long time ago. You kept your feelings a secret from anyone you knew, however, since something inside you, a gut-wrenching voice, told you repeatedly that he saw you as nothing more than a friend. You've tried to get over your crush, but these feelings wouldn't leave you. They stood strong and stubborn against the voice of your insecurities that told them to give up.

Tears kept rolling down your face as the face of the golden haired guy invaded your mind. Now that was no place, no time to think about him. A one-sided crush was the last thing you wanted to occupy your head as you tried to battle an anxious episode. Not another thing to be sad, worried, anxious about.

"For fucks sake, now is not the time!" you heard Kiara yelling, but she wasn't talking to you. Another voice reached your ears, unmistakable.

"Why not? I wanna see her" JJ's assertive voice shook your heartbeat.

"She doesn't sound OK, JJ" Kiara insisted "She's definitely not in the mood to party, let her rest."

"I'm not going back to the party, Kie. I'm staying here with her."

Having said this, the door opened and you lifted your head up to see JJ and Kiara walking into the room. You hoped they couldn't hear the beating of your heart, faster than light.

"Y/N" he called you. You tried to look him in the eyes, but you didn't want him to see your tears. Too late.

"Y/N!" they both approached you.

"I told you she needed to rest!" Kiara scolded JJ, before turning to you "I'm sorry-"

"It's alright" your voice was frail. You looked up, both your friends were obviously worried.

"Are you sure?" Kiara asked. Your eyes met JJ's, a part of wanted to scream. You had heard him saying he wanted to stay with you. And god, did you want that too. But at the same time, you were scared. You shouldn't lean on an unlikely hope that maybe, just maybe he could feel about you the way you felt about him. Yet another instance of wishful thinking, no solid truth behind it. Fuel to those oppressive, heart-shattering feelings.

"I want to stay here. Go have fun, you two" you told them. Kiara nodded, assuring you you could call her should you need anything. She went back outside, but JJ didn't move. The usually laid back, charismatic guy now looked so shy before your eyes.

"Y/N" he called.

"Yes?"

He held his breath.

"Do you want company?"

It caught you off-guard. You blinked, in disbelief.

"What?"

"It's... I'm, sorry, it's fine if you want to be alone" he stuttered. Your gaze couldn't leave his, as you took a step in the front.

"I don't want to be alone" you said "But I don't want to hold you back either."

JJ waved his head in disagreement.

"You're not holding me back. I want to stay here with you, if you want me to."

You tried to ignore your heart nearly jumping out of your chest as you heard him. Conflicted between your small hope and what was real, so you thought, you looked him in the eyes and spoke.

"I would like you to stay here."

He nodded, approaching you. He smelled like the ocean waves clashing against the rocks and sand, a long day at the beach, and maybe a little bit like weed. Still, his presence filled you, and you couldn't help but lean on to hug him. You shyly wrapped your arms around him, and a wight was lifted off your chest when he hugged you back, his arms holding you tight against his body. His hands running through your head, soothing you as your tears ran free.

"Hush now, Y/N" his voice sounded deeper than usual, but caring. You wanted to cry even more, not out of pain but out of commotion.

"Why does this has to happen to me?" you cried "Why am I like this?"

"It is not your fault, Y/N. We all have our inner demons, it's not always an easy battle to fight" he answered, pressing his lips softly against your forehead. You melted into that gesture, a cathartic moment when your wounds were attended to, mended with his touch. It still hurted, but in that touch there was hope that the best was yet to come.

"My demons are such motherfuckers" you said, a small laugh leaving your throat. You smiled as you heard him laughing too.

"But they are no match for you" JJ kissed your forehead lightly again "They are no match for us."

"Us?" you looked up to meet his eyes again. He pulled you closer, until your noses touched.

"Us, because I'm here for you" he answered, smiling "Maybe I haven't showed it, but you are very special to me, Y/N. I like you a lot."

You must have misheard it. Misunderstood it. Could JJ feel the same way about you as you did about him? It seemed so unreal. Too good to be true.

"Are you serious?" you whispered lowly, the thought of stealing a kiss from his lips never leaving your mind. He was so close you could almost feel the warmth of his mouth in your skin. That's when you realize, his lips rest in near the corner of your mouth.

"I am" he answered and you couldn't hold yourself anymore. You pressed your lips against his, briefly kissing him, and pulled away for a moment.

"Is this okay?" the question leaves your mouth. You look at his face and his eyes shine before you.

"Y/N..." he mumbled, but stopped at a loss of words. Instead, he pulled you for a kiss. You melted into him as his lips brushed against yours, soft at first but progressively becoming more eager.

"I have been wanting to do this for so long" he confessed, his lips still lingering on yours.

"So have I..." it was your turn to confess. It still felt so odd that it was really happening, that the guy you were sure didn't have any feelings for you had kissed you. It seemed to good to be true. But as your hands wandered from his shoulders to his face, and he smiled, playing with your hair, you knew it was real.

The party would go on through the night, but you still didn't want to go back. Instead, you fell on the bed, relaxing with JJ by your side. He held you in his arms, soothing your inner turmoil, a reminder that no storm lasted forever. That even when it didn't seem like it, there was hope. There was always hope.

*thanks for reading *

89 notes • Posted 2021-02-20 23:39:55 GMT

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