#tes stuff

[saltheria]

lets take greenmote together 💚

[boyslit-moving]

my little Skyrim guy is a killer bc i haven't done the dark brotherhood quest line in a while and i missed playing a weird little murder hobo

zarathes is a drifter, always on the lookout for easy money, little to no sense of personal space. doesn't understand why people think he's after power, he just wants something to do and some pocket money while chillin. reads all of Cicero's journals without parsing that journals are personal and you don't read other people's, and then goes to tell him he really enjoyed the one where he posed as a fervent fan of the Grand Champion and merc'd the dude in the woods

loves snowberries so northern Skyrim is heaven. i think he'd be happier living in a converted cave or ruin than a fancy house you can buy in town.

[paraparadigm]

WIP Wednesday, in this economy?

It happens. Thank you so much @thequeenofthewinter, @mareenavee, @saltymaplesyrup, and @dirty-bosmer for tagging me into this. I am for once, on time, but only on a technicality. Tagging forward, @rainpebble3, @archangelsunited, @gilgamish, @thana-topsy, @tallmatcha, @inquisition-dragonborn, @elfinismsarts and really whoever wants to do one of those. From an as of yet untitled project, set in TES Oblivion for a change of pace.

Cheydinhal hadn’t changed much since his last visit, which, he supposed, was to be expected. Windows cast soft orange rectangles onto the cobblestones. Wisteria vines thick as a forearm climbed white-washed walls and dangled from porches in frumpy curtains. The geraniums in the windowsills—more of those bastards every year—jostled for dominance in floral warfare, their garish reds and pinks muted to soft violet in the long, blue twilight of the Valus foothills. The air smelled of spring—new blooms; old sun-warmed stones; something rotting in the canal. Hopefully something, and not someone, but this was Cheydinhal, and hope had nothing to do with it. If only he’d been so lucky. The Market District was still busy, though most of the day’s remaining throng were aiming their feet at the nearest tavern. He glanced up, squinting at the cerulean sky, an angular zigzag of it trapped between the roofs. Newlands Lodge had equipped itself with a brand new balcony, and—as was the way of all balconies where buildings stood close enough together—some enterprising neighbor had already commandeered its support beams for a clothing line. It wouldn’t stay if the guards had anything to say about it—which, they usually did. More so lately, or Kassius wouldn’t be here, sent from the Imperial City straight to the armpit of Cyrodiil. A well-groomed armpit, in comparison, but that didn’t change its nature. “Stop scowling at the walls,” Rivvi chided at his side. “Save the glower for Mach-Na.” He knew better than to turn, or acknowledge her jape, but he did tilt his head ever so slightly to keep her in his periphery. His own appearance rarely drew much attention—Kassius Irenius was perfectly nondescript, and he’d cultivated that instantly forgettable patina over the two decades of his increasingly long (if not quite yet dragging) career. Rivvi, of course, drew the eye even less. His excluded, but that was to be expected. “As if my glower ever worked on that damn Argonian,” he grumbled under his breath. Rivvi made an unimpressed noise, which he ignored. The point, such as it was, remained. Rumors of corruption usually had one of two sources: someone was truly lining their pockets with more than the polite allotment of silk, or someone, somewhere had nursed a grudge longer than the Green Road, and had finally sharpened it into a timely report. A timely report that found its way with commendable inevitability to Kassius’s long-suffering desk. The best part about corruption, as far as its weaponization went, was that the accusation stuck like pig shit, even if no evidence could be found. Which made his job of investigating said pig shit a bit of a foregone conclusion.

[iustine]

Hello ^.^ I was tagged by @haledamage​ to present one of my OCs. Thanks for prompting me :), otherwise I would probably still put it off XD.

I will tag @ihavethemindofamaster​, @becksterr​, @doodlin​ and @risualto​, but please, feel no pressure. If you prefer not to do it then that’s good too.

And if anyone else sees it and considers it fun then please have a go too. The more the merrier ^.^

Honestly, I wasn’t going to create it right now. I meant to do it after monday, but I really had to unwind some recent events, so here it is :D

Around 2 years ago I started playing Morrowind and I really got into it. Ranith is a character that accompanied me all this time, evolving far beyond my expectations XD She is the one that forced me to return to drawing/writing after stopping for literal years, she is very dear to my heart. I have a sketch of her, but it is the very first thing I drew digitally, so I ‘must’ redone it before posting it anywhere XD

B A S I C S : 

Full Name: Ranith Cyreriil

Gender: Woman

Sexuality: Demisexual

Pronouns: She/her

O T H E R :

Family: Maerven Cyreriil (adopted mother)

Birthplace: Unknown, after birth given to Temple of Kvatch in Cyrodiil, Tamriel

Job(s): Adventurer, Blade, Member of Mages’ Guild, Member of Thieves’ Guild (sort of…) Member of Twin Lamps, Nerevarine, Ashlander

Phobias: Abandonment, Fire, Losing control of her magic (Not really phoby itself but can send her spiraling)

Guilty Pleasures: Using magic when it is not strictly necessary (levitating whenever it is possible, Vivec doesn’t count as there it IS necessary), spending money on things she doesn’t really need, creating completely useless potions for her own amusement (healing potion that poisons)

Hobbies: Writing, Drawing, Reading, Experimating with spell creation, Alchemy, Cooking, Mixing Alchemy with Cooking, Taking care of animals (she really loves guars)

M O R A L S :

Moral alignment: This is a hard one. She starts being a Lawful/Neutral Good, being raised by (and also being very close with) a priestess of Maternity/Family and all. After ‘things’ that happend later, her being sentenced to death, being sent off to Vvardenfell it changes to Chaotic Neutral, eventually she ends up as Chaotic Good. (Her chaotic neutral also isn’t as dark as it could be I suppose, it is mostly connected to her episodes of loss of control.)

Sins: lust / greed / envy / gluttony / pride / wrath / sloth

Virtues: charity / chastity / diligence / humility / justice / kindness / patience

T H I S - O R - T H A T :

introvert / extrovert

organized / disorganized

close-minded / open-minded

calm / anxious / restless

disagreeable / agreeable / in-between

patient / impatient

outspoken / reserved

leader / follower / flexible

empathetic / unempathetic

optimistic / pessimistic / realistic

traditional / modern / in-between

hard-working / lazy

R E L A T I O N S H I P S :

OTP: Ranith/Julan (From @fallingawkwardly​ “Julan, Ashlander Companion” mod, hands down the best mod I have ever played)

Acceptable ships: Ranith/Ashabranirr(Asha), Ranith/Haran

BROTP: Ranith/Asha, Ranith/Ajira, Ranith/Haran, Ranith/Shani (also from Kateri’s “Julan” mod). Ranith feels an affinity to outcasts, people who don’t really fit. As I imagine it she was a Dunmer in a primary human town, her adopted mother was an Altmer. Even in Vvardenfell, dumner homeland she is still outsider, “outlander”. Her closest friends belong to discriminated beastfolk races, Julan himself in an outcast too. She and Shani bonded over a very traumatic event, and with her help she eventually managed to get over with it and finally start to heal. 

(Asha is a Khajiit and Ranith’s closest friend. They met in Bruma’s Mages guild shortly after Maerven’s death, she has been with her during her worst times. Haran is an Argonian, member of Twin Lamps that Ranith freed from slavers right after leaving Seyna Neen. They tend to travel together from time to time freeing slaves in Vvardenfell.)

NOTP: Ranith/Caius, Ranith/Martin, she was raised in Kvatch and she was a kid at the same time Martin was a priest there. Noneless to say, she considers him an older brother.

(Ranith won’t know peace for quite some time. After dealing with primary Vvardenfell troubles she will get mixed with Oblivion crisis. I created her having in mind that she would later help Hero of Kvatch (and Martin would actually survive) and save Vvardenfell from a ‘horrendous’ idea of a former living god.

[paraparadigm]

Many thanks for your tags, @gilgamish, @mareenavee, @changelingsandothernonsense and @kookaburra1701

Rules:

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love!

Tagging forward: @dirty-bosmer, @thequeenofthewinter, @saltymaplesyrup, @polypolymorph, @archangelsunited and anyone else who has a sudden itch to tackle the self-promotional genre :>

WELP I'm failing on WIP Wednesday because it's that kind of week, but I can do this one. The problem with "recs" is that I'd much rather be recommending other people's stories, so instead of recs, how about "the ones that forced me to the page, for better or for worse?" These are all stories that just grabbed me by the throat, tumbled out, and wouldn't let me sleep for x amount of time.

My Dear

A prompt fill for a cursed ship, featuring Maven and Elenwen. This was one of those "never did I ever think that" and now I want them to be happy, and am heartbroken that I made that structurally unlikely. It was a joy to write, and is I think one of my favorite short fics.

Dreamstride A narration of Erandur's life, from a Daedric Prince's perspective. I occasionally do somewhat more experimental writing, and this one is among them, alongside Whispers (TES, Errant Souls Archive series) and Uncertainty Principle for Pathfinder WOTR. Those all share a sort of non-human narrator (in all cases, some kind of cosmological force of varying "alignments").

Always Read the Fine Print and subsequently Gathering Souls (and the Errant Souls Archive, in development with my co-pilot @polypolymorph). ARFP started as a side project, I had exactly 0 expectations of continuing it or even a sense of where it was going while I hammered out chapter 1 and yeeted it. The characters were rattling in my head, and so the only way to deal with that was to release them into the wild and then move on. I fully expected for it to become one of those unfinished WIPs with 3 chapters posted and me too lazy to delete the damned thing, but no, here we are many words and several years and one COVID pandemic later, and not only has it grown into a completed fic, it spawned a sequel and an entire 'verse/overhaul of Skyrim, now shared as a collab between two people (because 2 braincells is better than 1). In retrospect, ARFP started out as a long-winded argument with the isekai genre, or maybe with its reputation in fandom, but in the end sort of unfurled based on its own rules, and ended up answering some questions I didn't know I was asking. And then with the series it belongs to, that spawned a pretty deep dive into TES lore and trying to understand some of its sort of "naturalized" elements (like souls and enchantments and soul trapping, and the core predatory nature of some of the worldbuilding, and what might it mean cosmologically and so on). It's one of those stories that is probably one foot in original but not quite, and that's maybe one of the reasons it makes me return to the page.

[paraparadigm]

1 and 11 please for the “Spread the Love” asks! ❤️

Thank you for the asks, Winter!!! 1. "A fanon characterization that you love."

Ok! Let's go! This is impossible to pick because I have too many ridiculously talented writer friends who sell me on pretty much whomsoever they write, you and your Ulfric included (one of those "never did I ever, and yet here we are"). And then, and then... So we will end up with a list longer than my cat is ears to tail (and he is a large critter). So let's go with some abstraction: a fanon approach to a specific character I've seen enough to identify as fanon, and that I loved. Pretty much any canonically villainous or morally questionable character (Ulfric, the Silver-Bloods, Maven, Neloth, Mercer the list goes on) who is written as complex, or minimally complicated. One of my favorite things about fanfic specifically (as a genre or what have you) is when an author does the magic trick of "what you see in canon is the surface, but actually..." and seamlessly adds depth. It's magic.

11. Recommend a fic with an unusual/original headcanon or characterisation that you loved I will forever and ever plug my friend @ktyxdovahkiin's interpretation of Dovahzul, as a play onChina Mieville's Embassytown. It can't be helped, I'm a language nerd. Before the Dovakhiin Came found here. It'll make more sense if you've read Mieville's work, which happens to be one of my favorite books so I am not at all biased.

Thank you for the asks! These were fun ^-^

[paraparadigm]

3, 21, 24!

From this here gremlin repository

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr 21. part of canon you think is overhyped 24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse PFFFT OK let's goooo

3. Not TES related because the question presupposes an absolute worst, not a relative worst. XD My absolute least favorite species of Tumblr nonsense which I will not dignify with fishing for screenshots is the logical fallacy that goes "vaguely socialist critique of capitalism" => "Oh you want to be a mindless slave to the ideological communist machine?!" The other worst take is the militant vegan "I don't eat honey because bees are exploited by bee keepers, uwu, but I will wear synthetic leather because it's so environmentally conscious, petroleum what petroleum." Fuck right off. 21. Overhyped canon: Ok, for TES. Ehhhh Not overhyped per se, just one that inherently doesn't interest me much? It's gonna sound really odd, and absolutely excluding talented writer friends who really dig into it and try to make it consistent, but magic. And maybe mage characters in general. I just...I think my brain has been distorted by the somewhat hardliner fantasy folks who go "first, build your magic system, make sure you have a system of limits and penalties, and be consistent." I'm not the biggest fan of magic used as a shorthand because people don't know how to write regular combat, so it's one of those things where I'm not easily sold on a mage character, especially because it tropes real fast. Either make it mundane, or make it interesting is I think where I fall.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse From what I've seen, the civil war takes. The game is ambiguous for a reason. Trying to draw real world equivalencies can be fascinating, and productive of discussion, but using that as a terrain to platform from at one's followers is, at best, a bit silly, imho.

[paraparadigm]

2, 5, or 12 for the fandom ask?

2.Tell us why you love one of your OCs or an obscure canon character (link to any fics/art you have featuring them!)  You wish me to pick ONE, @archangelsunited? Ok ok, let's play. Let's go with... Let's actually go with a sort of mixture of the two, which is to say an obscure OC LOL (Yes I have so many OCs at this point that I can afford to say some are obscure), and I just might have to pick Anman, Fihada's husband, from Gathering Souls. He was one of the first OCs in that story that just waltzed onto the page and took up residence. He was entirely unplanned. I needed an information broker for Teldryn to interact with in Solitude, and Anman was right there, behind the door of that shop, just...waiting.

I find it easier to show a character in text than to verbiate about them, so here's a little snippet:

"Is this a social visit, then?" Anman's tone was wry, but his expression stayed sharp. "I hear practicality is the root of all friendships," Teldryn parried. "Do you still trade in answers?" The Bosmer's eyes narrowed but he nodded. "I've always thought of myself as trading in better questions, but no matter. " "A coveted commodity these days, I'd imagine. And I assume Fihada's arrows are in equal demand." Teldryn looked around, letting his eyes linger over the overt signs of recently grown wealth. "Trouble with marrying a Redguard in the land of the Nords," Anman sighed, and folded himself into the chair on the opposite side of the small hearth. "The world could be crashing down around your ears, and he's happy as a pig in mud, because 'it could always be worse,' and 'you should've seen Hammerfell before we turned the tide'." A flicker of unease crossed his face. "Not that I'm complaining about trading pewter for silver, but it all melts the same. Wine? Don't worry, it's not poisoned."

5. Recommend three (or more) blogs to follow I will recommend ONE blog to follow because this question feels like some sort of trap. -pokes it with a stick- But you, specifically, might enjoy this one: That's Believable for your regular dose of totally unhinged, abstract humor.

12. Recommend some fanart of an uncommon character, place, or event I am an absolute sucker (SUCKER, I say) for landscape art (do we count that as uncommon for fandom?), so pretty much any of @arnaerr's landscape art makes me stare at my screen in quiet contentment, but especially the Skyrim and Witcher work.