#the skaald

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

Happy 6th Anniversary to Dreams of Freedom!

Wishing everyone a happy May 25th, 2024! It's been a long six years of writing, editing, clawing for inspiration, and celebrating together as chapters and books come out.

For some of you, Tiffany and Fiona have been steadfast companions; for others, you're just barely meeting them. Some of you have horses (aka OCs) in this race, and some of you have stayed quietly on the sidelines watching the show. No matter who you are or how long you've followed the series, you're here, and that's what counts.

To celebrate this occasion, today I've launched a YouTube channel. On it, I'll publish chapters of Dreams of Freedom, narrated by yours truly, in audio-book format. The first chapter is already up, with in-game footage and accompanying legendary soundtrack, so head on over to the new channel, Skaald of the Hearth Fires (or just @/theSkaald) and check it out!

[stillchugging-captisjuice]

I just have an itching to read something in particular right now....

@skaald-of-the-hearth-fires I'm bored. Where's the next chapter?

[i-mybrunettelady]

sometimes i think how, if nyra were to somehow not be present in the story, sanne would be comm but i can't write a commander!sanne au bc nyra will yell at me. i think y'all get it

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

HEY ALL, GUESS WHAT? IT'S ALMOST MAY 25th!!

May 25th is the anniversary of my first long-term fic, the Tassof Series. It's being rewritten/remastered and is gonna be posted on my sideblog, @skaald-of-the-hearth-fires, starting (you guessed it) on the 25th! Check it out, there's some cool stuff there already!

It's a GW2 fic that's written to be accessible to all readers, even those who aren't familiar with GW2 - so if you like GW2, or if you're interested in seeing what fic by me would look like, check it out!

[ratasum]

I'm in immense amounts of pain this morning but I just want to ramble about something that doesn't get talked a lot in the community and I wish people would consider because it's one of the most tragic and fascinating parts of asuran lore, and that's the fact that their culture is cobbled together from the bits and pieces of what they could carry brought by refugees who fled a home overrun by monsters hundreds of years ago.

I feel like the norn have similar issues, but with their tradition of oral storytelling, it may be less prevalent. (On the other hand, who knows how many skaalds they lost when they fled the north.)

The asura have their technology. Some of it came with them during the exodus. But they lost immense amounts of knowledge, huge chunks of their own history, and unfathomable cultural practices that just couldn't survive while they were trying to stay alive themselves.

I honestly think it may be one of the reasons they come off a little insular as a culture. They've lost so much and have had to fight tooth and nail to rebuild what they have now. And then they lost some of that again, to the very organization that had been formed to preserve their history and knowledge, in the Thaumanova disaster.

Like. I don't think it gets talked about enough. It's significant that the asura are a race of refugees. They do not belong here. They are painfully aware of this. Hell, it's in the opening crawl when you make a new asura.

We are the asura, lords of the deep domains that are now denied to us. Overwhelmed by numbers, power, and brute force, we have been forced to this open sunfilled world and forced to recreate our civilization. That we have succeeded is a testament to the indomitable spirit and innate intelligence of our people.

They lost nearly everything when they fled Quora Sum. Who knows how much they truly lost. And that eats away at me so much you have no idea.

[saberwitch]

Deathsong.

Before she became a Necromancer, Saskia was training to be a skaald. For most of her youth, she was Saskia Veerlesdottir, a name she despised.

Her mother was not a good person. For Norn, infamy is often just as valid as gaining personal glory through more "respectable" means, and Veerle took that to heart. She was a gambler, a cheat, a thief and a rogue. She held very little personal responsibility for anything and was not trustworthy in the slightest. She became known as Veerle Rot-heart.

Veerle had little interest in raising her daughters, whom she referred to as "bad gambles". As both Saskia and Ruenar have strong familial resemblance to her, their father (or fathers) are unknown. Veerle did the bare minimum, but she stopped short of simply abandoning the girls in the woods, because apparently she did have one or two lines she wouldn't cross.

When Veerle disappeared, Saskia took over the chores of raising herself and her younger sister. She became fiercely independent and would not take shit from anyone. Despite outward appearances, Ruenar absolutely adored her sister and looked up to her in all ways.

When Saskia was eighteen, Raven gave her a vision. Saskia told Ruenar that she was going away for a while, up into the mountains. She told her sister that she was looking for a sign, though not even she knew what she sought or why.

Raven's vision led her to a massive fortified encampment of the Sons of Svanir. For a month she stalked and harried the camp, picking off patrols and killing those who slept. She painted her face with a skull, and her attacks spooked the Sons to the point where they thought they were being hunted by a ghost.

During her campaign against the Sons, she began to realize she could sense and, in the dark, even see the ebb and flow of blood and lifeforce in their bodies. She could call to it, rip it from its fleshly prison and weave it into magic. This was the beginning of her career as a Necromancer, and when she realized that, she saw nine ravens flying across the sky over the camp: her sign.

Embracing her gifts, she sought new ways to empower and fortify herself with lifeforce, crafting a shroud of darkness around herself and preying on the blood of her victims. She took trophies from the dead, and crafted her first construct: a faceless form of bone and sinew that helped her wreak havoc in the camp.

Thus weakened and on edge, the Sons were no match for the massed assault of Lionguard and local steading owners who had become tired of their constant raids and had been waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Once the camp was obliterated, Saskia packed up her things and, with her new construct in tow, returned home to her sister and proclaimed herself Saskia Deathsong. Ruenar of course immediately adopted the surname as well.

While no longer planning to become a skaald, Saskia uses her training as the basis for her art, singing her constructs to life and terrifying her foes with funereal dirges sung as she enters the battlefield.

[khorren]

She is Norn.

Home is where she wanders. Every inch of Tyria offers great challenge and great reward. While there is no feeling quite like the enjoyment of a Great Moot, there are legendary battles to be had everywhere, friends to be found, challenges to overcome, and many celebrations to be had.

She is Norn.

The way she holds herself in battle, to how she holds conversation - whether to friend or foe. The tones in her voice ranging from booming orders to quiet, soft melodies, singing the songs of the skaalds. She carries generations of history in her, and thanks to her actions, her people will continue to tell stories.

She is Norn.

GW2 Commander Week (I'm a little behind. Shh) Prompt #1 - Race

[wyldblunt]

hey with queer-as-used-by-tolkien/skaald-of-the-hearth-fires popping up again, additional reminder that if your gw2 blog is a sideblog you need to go to the settings of that sideblog, scroll down to the blocklist, and input the relevant urls to block manually. the dropdown>block from hitting the three dots on someone's blog/post ONLY applies to your main blog, it doesn't automatically block someone across all your accounts

unless i'm missing it (and please correct me if so!!), it doesn't look like it's possible to do this on the mobile app — it lets me go to my settings and VIEW which blogs i've blocked from here, but i don't see a way to add new ones. you have to go to tumblr.com/settings/blog/SIDEBLOG NAME HERE on desktop or in a mobile browser, and then the little pencil icon that lets you add more blocked urls will show up. deeply annoying

[discocannon8002]

Do You Know?

tw: emotional abuse/manipulation

Every night, every day.

I’ve been thinking something's changed.

It has, I know, deep down in my heart.

But for the better, or the worse?

I’m not too sure, but this I know.

I’ve been trying every day

To make things better, restore it all.

Restore and fix the damage I caused

But although it’s improved,

It’s also grown worse.

Trauma bonding, I’ve heard it’s called.

But is it on purpose?

Does that even count?

Just today, you said,

“It’s blank how you think that I care.”

I didn’t hear how you described it,

And it was just because of a race.

Who got the front seat in the car?

So does it really count?

Or matter at all?

Do you even know how I feel?

Do you know how I struggle to sleep?

Do you know how my heart breaks?

Do you know how often my soul weeps?

Do you know how you build me up, and tear me down?

Tell me you love me,

Then take out frustration on me.

Get worried when I’m saddened,

Would you protect me?

Say it’s not my fault,

Yet take out your stress, your fear, your sadness

You take it all out on me,

Get snappy and defensive.

But then you get worried and stop suddenly,

As soon as you hear me crying.

Letting out my tears, long pushed down.

The ones you caused, and the ones you didn’t.

Tell me it’s not okay that you took it out on me,

Apologize, try to help me back up on my feet.

But then the very next day, you do it again.

Do you know, realize what you’re doing?

I heard once we take it out on who’s close with us

Heard it was ‘cause we know they’ll forgive us.

Do it subconsciously. We don’t even know.

I don’t think you do,

But then again I doubt myself.

Again and again, the cycle continues.

I don’t know how much longer

I can keep doing this.

How much longer, I can forgive you.

How much longer, I can take this pain,

Let my heart break!

I want to cry and scream it all out

But whenever I do you get concerned

And then I feel bad and hold it in,

And the whole time I’m asking myself,

‘Do you know?’

shoutout to @skaald-of-the-hearth-fires for getting me thinking and not pushing this back anymore. I wrote this tonight as a vent poem. I know there are probably tw in here I should add, but not sure what they are. Please please please tell me what they are so I can add them.

[gristlegrinder]

your local goth norn skaald is ready to BITE PEOPLE (she’s finally level 80)

[wellthebardsdead]

Evalien: *standing on the platform in apocrypha, holding Miraak upright after saving him from Hermaeus Mora by slicing off the daedras tentacle* Let’s make a deal mora- you let us both out of here and never bother us again and I-

Hermaeus Mora: And you’ll what? What do you have to offer me?

Evalien: *holds out a satchel, the cover of the oghma infinium peering out of it* you get this back.

Hermaeus Mora: *laughs* you puny pathetic mortal! For being a dwemer you truely are foolish, you’ll expire eventually, and the book will return to me-

Evalien: Not if I put it back in that box…

Hermaeus Mora: …Someone will open it eventually…

Evalien: I’ve moved mountains with my voice. I will sink it so far beneath the ocean nothing dead or alive could ever hope to reach it. And only my blood can open that lock… *shakes the bag at him* The infanium is the only thing of power you truely have right? You’re nothing more than a sorry amalgamation of scrapped ideas! You can’t create only corrupt! That’s why you wanted to know the skaalds secrets, why you got so pissed off when you found out I already knew miraaks shouts, that I didn’t need your help! You wanted to kill them for the knowledge of creation so you could make yourself whole!! Now do we have a deal?! You get this. We get to leave.

Hermaeus Mora: …Very well… *holds out a tendril making the portal out appear as he takes the bag* we have a deal…

Evalien: *quickly helps miraak to the portal* go go go go hurry-

Hermaeus Mora: A dwemer, trading infinite knowledge to save another mortals pathetic existence. And they’re still revered for their intelligence. How amusing… *pulls the book out from the bag and opens the cover to reveal-* The lusty argonia- YOU!!! You dare trick me?! *

Evalien: *standing at the portal with miraak* Trick? No, we agreed. You get that book. We get to go. I never said it was or wasn’t the oghma infinium. You just assumed it was because you judged it by the cover, just like you chose to judge my intelligence because I chose empathy over information I don’t need. But the jokes on you I’m afraid *holds up the real book now with the cover of the lusty argonian maid in place of the original* I was raised my narcissists. *jumps into the portal pulling miraak in with her before being spat out back in the skaal village, everyone alive, everyone safe, everyone free*

Miraak: *groans having cushioned the other dragonborns fall* Two questions… How did, you know that’d work?…

Evalien: He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, and he might be, but he’s not clever. With so many eyes you’d of thought he’d of seen the broken spine on the book cover…

Miraak: interesting… and my second question is… why did you save me?…

Evalien: I was your only way of getting out of there, wasn’t I?… you couldn’t leave unless mora had a replacement… you just-

Miraak: wanted freedom… *looks up at the snowy sky and takes in a deep breath, before nearly pissing himself as the tip of a blade appears right over his mask*

Kaidan: *staring down at him with heavy bags under his eyes* so you’re the prick who tried killing my companion ey?… We’ve been up and down this gods forsaken island with no rest for days now all because of you, so you’d better give me a good reason to not cut your head off right now.

Evalien: put it away Kaidan I didn’t save him so you could kill him.

[culminada]

I'm asexual! but I barely experience acephobia because my other three alienating traits are like shields that protect me from it 🙃unfortunately I do experience the -phobias people have of the other three things so. yaaay my ability to make friends? not to mention romance? ugh.

first up is that I'm multicultural and belong to a cultural minority. I'm not going to talk about it a whole lot because it's very confusing! Mostly it obstructs my social life from my end, by getting in the way of me feeling like I have anything in common with people - of my culture of origin OR general American culture - so yay.

Second up! The autism! I had to practice for YEARS before I got the hang of interacting with people I didn't know well. And in the meanwhile, no friends for m! Yippee! Stims, special interests (GW2, Trahearne, and fic of the same), executive dysfunction, etc make this Not Any Easier ugh

Dermatillomania, the incessant picking of my own skin! Like I said, red blotchy face isn't very attractive. Sometimes I'll be bleeding and not notice. yaaaaay. not to MENTION. the sheer TIME it takes out of my DAY. how am I supposed to learn the wifely skills of my culture when I?? lose HOURS to dermatillomania and executive dysfunction? (they have a feedback loop on each other.)

So yeah, by the time somebody infiltrates the layers of visual disgust, autistic communication barriers, and cultural differences, they're pretty well screened against something as simple and boring as acephobia. You don't get close to me without being VERY accepting of differences. (or just. yknow. capable of critical thinking and the awareness that people are different lolz.)

(I also tended to be that twelve-year-old who sighed wistfully and said I can't wait to get married, I want to get married ASAP, you know historically people got married at like. 13 right? and so everybody around me was always going OH DEARY YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY WAIT... LIKE SIX MORE YEARS IF NOT LONGER which I'm sure my fellow asexuals would have loved to hear, but my alloromantic brain was Very Unhappy about. it has now been 6+ or more years, for the record,)

anyway that's me. I got tired of repressing my aceposting and autism-posting and so on, bc my other blog is a fandom fic blog. btw go check out @skaald-of-the-hearth-fires that's the fifth, unofficial reason I feel alienated. (actually that falls under the autism heading, nevermind) my culture barely does video games. nobody in regular old boring American culture plays my special interest video game either. I find this quite distressing when people ask what I do and I say oh!! I'm a writer! I write fanfic for Guild Wars 2!! oh you haven't heard of that. ok. I'm so normal about that. so I've written the fic to be quite understandable to non-gamers, fandom-blind readers, and brainrotted fans alike :)

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

YEET it's been a while since I was on desktop but WOW they've just kept messing stuff up haven't they.

where are my profile icons. WHY DOES MY BLOG SAY 'reblogged by skaald' instead of 'reblogged from [prev]' ??!?!?!?!?

thinking of boycotting except for fic-posting needs. this is a need in my life anyway to take a step away from the social media. YIKES.

[i-mybrunettelady]

she's finally the skaald she was meant to be

[wall-legion]

🖊🖊 + Eshara

Eshara grew up sort of accidentally becoming the golden child after getting blessed by the wolf shaman. She was gifted in singing and playing the flute, so her mother started training her in the art of being a skaald as she was. She also started to show a knack in elemental magic, so she was sent to train with a local elementalist. Meanwhile, Njal grew resentful of his sister for being "so perfect". By the time they were teenagers, he disappeared with a group of Sons of Jormag and he has not been seen by his family since.

[ratasum]

1,13 and 25 for Pyxsi from interview questions

OC Interview Questions

1. Who makes up your family? How close are you to them?

"Just my mom. I never knew my dad, so it was just me and her for a long time. I... haven't really spoken to her. Not since I left Rata Sum, anyway."

She tugs her ponytail for a moment, brow furrowing.

"...I don't really think she'd want to hear from me right now anyway. Doubt she'd be too proud that I dropped out and went and joined the Inquest. She deserves a way better kid than I was ever able to be, and maybe she'll find someone who can give her that. I hope she does."

13. You’re given an unlimited budget to build anything you want! What do you build and where do you build it?

She seems to think long and hard about this, squinting and scrunching up her nose for a moment or two.

"...I think I'd build a library. Somewhere secret... safe. I'd collect all the stories of all the skaalds I could find and fill the library up with them. Somewhere I could read all day and never be bothered. I'd probably fill it with nice blankets and soft places to rest... places to make food and drinks. A live in library kind of, I guess."

25. Freebie! Come up with your own question for the character to answer! - Are you a romantic?

"Oh absolutely not. I've known too many men who only wanted one thing and then would leave you hanging, and too many of the women I've known are as liable to stab you in the back as anything."

She sniffs indignantly, pulling on her scarf for a moment.

"It's better to be alone, anyway. No one can turn on you when the winds change, nobody can hurt you. It's the only way to survive in this world. You look out for yourself because no one else is going to look out for you."