just a gibbering floating urn-organ @floating-in-urns - Tumblr Blog

Me: ok, let's try writing something lighter...

Also me: *writes mind control and brainwashing where the protagonist spirals between awareness and contentment*

#writing #sigh I have finally removed the mind control #admittedly it's much better without brainwashing

So I was doing some research for my shivering isles fanfic side project, and found what might (or might not have been) a gut churning historical fact I probably won't want to slot into the story.

You see, Black Tar from the dementia variety of mushroom sapling has a damage fatigue, damage health, damage speed, and shock damage effect.

Tar could be used for tarring ropes, to turn into oakum (ie. split the rope into individual fiber). Oakum can then be hammered into the gaps between wood (eg for a ship) then sealed with hot pitch/tar to caulk it.

Here's the thing. Oakum in the imperial Britain was once recycled from old tarry ropes. Workforce? Prisons. Especially for those who were unsuited for heavier labour. Kids, for instance.

And if prisoners were sentenced to hard labour?

They had to pick between 3 and 6 lb (1.4 and 2.7 kg) of oakum per day.

Like, don't you have a better way of tarring ropes? Nothing at all that would break down the old tar?

But my rabbit hole went down further. Turns out the "isolate and reflect" system in prison was inspired from monastic traditions?

Come on, I'm trying to make my fanfic lighter. Don't keep pushing me darker ideas.

#shivering isles #somehow my fanfic keeps getting darker and edgier #like if I want dark I already have real life

I think that Valaste needing a long rest after the quest makes a lot of sense.

Sure, Valaste seems like a collateral to screw with Shalidor, but as a mindscrew, I'd find Shalidor's reaction terribly... dull. How very Shalidor. Just like the last time!

And why screw with one mortal when you can screw all three at the same time? (Or two, if your character only cares about power)

Shalidor hasn't changed. He still ignored the fact that the quests has been taking a toll on her. Even if you chose Valaste, he hadn't even apologised or acknowledged his role in this. And if you chose power, his regret was... Letting the madgod win.

Not the lost of a brilliant mage, but it's losing to the madgod again that really hurts him.

And Valaste probably heard that, in the spell fog, the same time when she gets a personal experience of how it feels like to be taken by the Madgod because of someone's choice, whether it's for power or for the greater good. Now Eyevea's past is no longer a secondhand story. And with everyone else thrilled about having eyevea, she is left wondering:

What is this legend that I looked up to? Oh, and she truly enjoyed learning under Shalidor too.

Well maybe Shalidor changed. But Valaste at one point said:

"Well, look on the bright side. You're still upright on two legs. You're not inside-out, or bright purple, or afflicted with new, angry limbs. It could be worse."

So, what if this worse hadn't happened on her, but the new member? A mere adept?

And then things moved on. Mages came to Eyevea. While she still absolutely remembers the Fog, and one might have to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. That's what she did to the adept as well. And that kind of being useful... Isn't the same as truly belonging.

Yeah, that's why she's a shell of who she was. But also I guess the dev never coded any sequel quest lines for her.

#ESO #valaste #shalidor #the elder scrolls #sheogorath

On the intelligence vs wisdom thing, I think I can finally make sense of it.

Hermaeus Mora is intelligence. Sheogorath is wisdom.

Does that also mean a character with high wisdom is... not necessarily wise?

#certainly won't be wise to make a deal with #DND #sheogorath #hermaues mora #you know wise like the old and kind character that helps you #maybe that's the good aligned ones with high wisdom

Alright my Shivering Isles DLC fic is finally halfway through, so I'm doing a shameless self-plug.

What do you do when there are so many unspoken taboos that you don't have the words to write about your own country and race?

You write a fanfic, because it's got nothing to do with your race or your country (maybe)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/68232781

#shivering isles #fanfic #global south #tes fic

Ok I can't hold it anymore, I need to talk about this, and i don't care if this is a monologue.

(tw: refer tags)

I was in a shit low point in my life when I started playing oblivion a few years ago, looking for a new story to escape to. And boy, shivering isles dlc is the perfect poison dream.

Wdym, the hero is going to lose himself forever and become Sheogorath? That's nice. You're saying that's supposed to be horrifying? That Sheo is yanking my tail? Wdym, that a problem?

(I mean, fuck, I get to grow a beard and get called a gentleman with a cane, that was dream come true as a gender dysphoric repressed sad blob)

Yes, I know it was right, and something was wrong, but I wasn't feeling it. I fell asleep thinking about it, wakes up remembering it. I devoured fanfics.

None of that was enough. I wanted to make it real.

So I created a character and wrote 80k words about it. The draft was, in hindsight, the easier part. There were gaps and it was messy, but that's a draft. The editing though? It was harrowing, because how do you write something when your brain keep censoring certain words? Like no, you can't think that, not this either. You need to be good. You need to survive. It's hopeless. It's madness. Thoughts fly and drop dead. Terminated.

How could you know what you want out of a story, when you can't think? Sure, the main plot already existed. But what about the internal conflict? Because he's (i'm) not budging, and if he's killing his thoughts what the hell was I going to write about?

In Sheogorath and Relmyna I put the worst traits of my ex, several politicians, and my parents in there. I stacked everything against him, all to get a rise out of him (me). Maybe drive him out of the isles, to tell him - dude, wake up, stop listening to these shit people giving you shit ideas - but still wanting - yearning for him (for me) to stay. Because that's how the dlc will go.

Mostly though, it was because of one uncertain promise from the madgod:

"you'll die trying"

#sheogorath #writing #fanfic #shivering isles dlc #the elder scrolls #implied suicide #gender dysphoria #censorship #repression

earlgraytay

I am having creation ideas beyond my skill level- and worse, it's for a Skyrim mod, which is always frustrating.

I want to make a Skyrim follower who's a plural system, with a Sheogorath-centric quest about the Memory Wand.

I also want to write a Skyrim quest that takes Sheogorath a little more seriously than most of the game takes him. (Though not the lore.) Like, we all love the CHEESE jokes, but...

I have a complicated relationship with the idea of madness. Sometimes madness can be cruel. Sometimes it can be kind. Sometimes it protects you from worse things. Sometimes it stabs you in the brain.

I'd love to see a TES story that actually tackles that and tries not to just play it for 'lolrandom'. I know Shivering Isles Oblivion DLC gets into it a bit, but for some reason I bounce off Oblivion hard, every time- harder than Morrowind- and I'm going to try Saints and Seducers Extended, but I don't have high hopes, because what I want to see is the thing the way I'd write it.

#yes this!#the shivering isles dlc has the strangeness and cruelty but where's the comforter of men in there?#op if you write I would read a fic like this #sorry rant ends I agree with you #elder scrolls #tes #sheogorath

maxandkon

Shivering Isles vibe

Truly mad animation, about truly mad events. Probably the best expansion that tes overall has ever had

I hope all references are understandable, and animation smooth enough

It was super difficult animation, so until I get at least 10k views on tiktok, no way I start making the next one. Though I've reworked the animation and changed the idea so many times that tbh I have no idea what it's all about anymore

elderscrollsconceptart

#haha that Edam #the cheese reminds me of winxp era clippy art style then bamf I'm back to 2026 #or maybe 2020?#the elder scrolls #tes #Sheogorath #tes ponderings #tes memes #choese

madgod-of-kvatch

I've been thinking a lot about how Martin mantled Akatosh, the eldest of the gods, the one who literally brings life to the planet through sunlight and growth to everything on it through time, who is the source of empires and control, whose existence brought the concept of law into the world. And he did it in a single moment of desperate necessity, giving up everything and leaving the mortal realm forever for just a few seconds with the power needed to save it.

And then I think about how the Hero of Kvatch mantled Sheogorath, the (arguably) youngest of the gods, the one who was inadvertently created by the others and fills in all the spaces between them, who makes life worth living through music and color, who allows and enables the mortal mind to expand past the limits placed upon it by all the others, the only one who believes in free will and is willing to destroy anything to preserve it. And how they had chance after chance to turn back, to give up, but set their feet and held their ground and took the reins of eternity to protect a world that wasn't even theirs.

I think about how Akatosh is a reflection of Anu on the surface of Nirn, and Sheogorath is the Sithis-shaped hole in the world, and I wonder if that's why it turned out like this. If the world was meant to end in the Oblivion Crisis, and the two of them together re-anchored the pillars that support reality by mantling the two mortal-compatible aspects thereof. I wonder if they saved the world in ways they didn't even understand at the time.

I wonder if they know that they're still working together, even now, even if they'll never see each other again. I wonder if they know they're still halves of a whole, a Chosen Two who will never be remembered for what they actually did, only for what they left behind. Martin will only ever be a name he didn't know was his own, Septim, and The Hero will never be anything but their first harrowing battle, Kvatch, losing their own name forever by becoming Sheogorath.

I think about it, and I wonder. I hope they know. It seems the least of what they both deserve.

#tes #oblivion #martin septim #hero of kvatch #akatosh #sheogorath