#parashitposts

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A not very convenient flow chart for how to comment on fic (100% shitpost)

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Even if you steal his helmet, even if you manage your follower outfits with a framework mod, even if the sun doesn’t rise in the east, this man will find some headwear and plop it on, damn it. Rocking the pirate look there, apparently. (I think the hood is from the ebony mage set from Immersive Armors, but I could be wrong. Who knows where he found it.)

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Congratulations! You've been given the opportunity to create a brand new NPC for vanilla Skyrim, completely with vanilla bugs.

Who would this person be? How did they get to Skyrim? What are some funny things they might say in passing? Would they be a follower -- and if so, how would they fight? If not, why? and are they safe? Feel free to elaborate and answer unasked questions about this critter. (: This can be related to your fic(s) and/or existing OCs or completely separate just for fun.

Damn, that is SUCH a fun question. I was going to write about an existing OC I actually did make as a potential companion (my modding/writing collab and I have now accumulated a whole series of them based on GS, and set them loose in the game), however you said "complete with vanilla bugs," so... Paxius Duralius is a graduate student at the College of Winterhold, and immensely bitter at having his application to both the Synod and the College of Whispers rejected, despite his father's status as a prominent donor at both institutions (Paxius Senior did contribute a very hefty sum as a charitable gift to support the new alchemical laboratory expansion you might be familiar with if you use the Immersive College of Winterhold mod though, and that seems to have sealed the deal for Paxius Junior's acceptance). Now, it's not that Paxius is a bad student -- he isn't. He's perfectly mediocre: with average grades, average ideas (those mostly regurgitated from whatever popular opinion circulates in the more ritzy pseudo-intellectual salons of the Imperial City, though alas he has been in Skyrim for a few years now, and is a bit out of touch), an average pool of magicka, and no pronounced affinity for any particular school of magic whatsoever. Where Paxius does stand out, however, is in his linguistic pedantry. His tutors have taught him PROPER Cyrodilic and he won't let you, or anyone else, forget it.

Should you recruit Paxius as a companion, he will correct your speech, and that of anyone else he encounters. No being is too high or low for his interventions.

"Hear me and Obey!" says Meridia. "I truly think that 'Lo and Heed Me' would be much more appropriate, don't you agree?" says Paxius.

Etc. If you don't murder him by yeeting him off the Throat of the World, Paxius might have a quest for you to complete. It involves fetching his favorite socks from a dangerous Dwemer ruin. How the socks ended up there, or what makes the socks precious is never revealed. Paxius will get stuck somewhere midway through the dungeon because someone forgot to make the navmesh.

Paxius can be married, however since he is missing dialogues for the marriage faction tree, and isn't included in the Temple of Mara marriage scene, after the proposal he just wanders off and his alias eventually becomes disabled (we think it's on a timer, but we're not sure, his plugin crashes CK).

This is too fun an ask to not pass on, so @inquisition-dragonborn, @tallmatcha, @hogsbando, @friend-of-giants, @ktyxdovahkiin, @changelingsandothernonsense and any other TES mutuals who'd like to horse around (or not, totally ok to have a serious NPC in there too, I'm just in a ridiculous mood), consider yourself tagged.

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Hello again! Fandom/fic/character exercise first!

From either Vee and/or Teldryn's perspective, in their own words please tell us: What are five very good reasons Tamriel is an awful place to live? What are five reasons it's actually fine, after all? (:

(Feel free to out-of-character answer these at the end to, just for fun.)

You spoil me :> May I twist the ask into another "incorrect NPCs" prompt? I'll write them as ambient location-triggered dialogues one might hear in game. Just complaining banter on this one.

Teldryn:

[Major hold]: "One has to appreciate the hubris of Skyrim Jarls. 'Sure, your Resplendence, I'd be happy to risk my neck for a measly hundred septims.'"

[Bad weather]: "Damn this weather, and damn this gods forsaken country for abetting it. Ugh, it's repugnant." [Wilderness:] "I wonder how long it'll take the Nords to deplete their forests of timber and their mines of ore. Ahh, the gears of war and their grinding." [Giant's camp:] "I once heard a Nibenese scholar claim that giants grow so large as a corollary of their diet of mammoth cheese. S'wit."

[Bonus, if you're the one complaining]: "Ah, the smell of futile rage. I can offer to spar, if you'd like. I find that usually helps."

Vera:

[Bad weather]: "My toes are freezing. Probably should get warmer boots next time we're somewhere with... Well. Warmer boots." [Major hold]: "I've yet to meet a Jarl that doesn't make me want to slip laxatives in their soup. Think they exist?"

[Dwemer Ruin]: "In places like this, I always wonder who lived here before and what happened to them. Also, how long it'll take until the next extinction."

[Draugr crypt:] "More undead shits around here. Undead shits running around, making life miserable. There's a moral lesson in there somewhere."

[Bonus, if you're the one complaining] : "My advice is: run it out, fuck it out, or fight it out. Whichever's most expedient. Or, you know--sleep it off."

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“Your argument is derivative, your evidence circumstantial, and your citational format is inadequate. How many times must I say it? Author, Date: Page Number. A waste of ink. D+”

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Today in Skyrim glitches. “Joric was always a peculiar child. Sometimes he was seen casually lounging 3 feet up in the air, greatly disconcerting Aunt Marge, who considered this behavior unseemly.”

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Today in Skyrim nonsense: I don’t know if this is a bug in my game, or if it’s vanilla (afaik my soul captures aren’t modded), but let me get this perfectly straight: “Only sentient souls can be trapped in black soul gems, but some souls are more sentient than others.”

So I went spelunking (I mean I could test it I guess, for science) and then I found this delightful tidbit:

Thank you for the spite fic fodder, Todd XD

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Erecting nonsensical phallic objects, check. Brainwashed laborers worshipping said phallic objects, check. Miraak as an awkward metaphor for commodity fetishism; in this essay, I will...