Uhhhhh, hey. Hi. Heeeeey. Hiiiiiii. Errrr, I was wondering if like maybe it would be possible for you to like...mmmm...maybe help me pick up a few items. They're not sketchy at all. Don't think about them.
-Drakestone
-Sela petrae
There was this cute guy in a feathered cloak who asked me to get them. I was too distracted by his giant manifesto to get more details. There might have also been a cat.
kthxbye!
[squints]
[googles sela petrae because I know what drakestone is]
I am so humbled and honored by this beautiful piece of art. @thequeenofthewinter slid into my dms today and offered me this beautiful rendition of my name. I love the colors so much and the background! *screams*
This community is so incredible. Every day I am so grateful to be a part of this lovely space!
Thank you again my wonderful friend. I love it so very much!
Uhhhh…I have something for a—[squints] JENNYS? JANICE? [shrugs and shoves package into your arms]
[Inside you find a lit birthday cake with three candles and a banana sticking out of the top. The frosting has melted and is dripping off of it. Honestly, you’re unsure how this isn’t a fire hazard. The text reads, “ STNKI BAMFNA.”]
I would love to hear about your Mercar. <3
Monkshood and morning glory, please friend. :)
Hi!!! 👋 @thequeenofthewinter omg thank you 🥰❤️😍💕
Answered for Magdalena Mercar from Immortally Yours
Monkshood: Does Rook ever think about their own death?
Honestly?? No lol.
Magdalena has #been through it and has more than a little bit of survivor's guilt; she kind of goes through life not caring whether she lives or dies. She pushes herself to help others quite foolhardily, because her life is worthless anyway, might as well help someone with it? She puts her whole Russy into helping slaves, and then stopping Solas and then The Evanuris because Why Not, maybe it’ll all mean something then, a last gasp in the plastic bag of her long, miserable life.
When Emmrich told her of his fear of dying, internally, she was probably like: why :/ do you not crave the reprieve of death wtf :/
But then stupid sexy perfect Emmrich makes her realize life is worth living; and you don’t have to be weighed down and haunted by the past or whatever 🙄💕
Morning Glory: What is something Rook’s partners could do to make them melt romantically?
Literally? Anything. Emmrich showed her one ☝️ ounce of kindness and Mags was like
“Ew gross wtf. Get away from me. I’ll both kill and die for you btw”
But specifically she’s a words of affirmation girly, reassurances and loving words were things she Did Not have for the vast majority of her life, and she still gets so overwhelmed by them that her insides tingle and she has to deflect with humor.
She loooves when Emmrich writes her beautiful, poetic, adoring notes, because she can blush and gush in private; and read them over and over again in a covetous, gluttonous way, trying to soak up the admiration and warm feelings that are so foreign to her.
Excuse me marching in here unannounced. I decided to send some asks, and well, I thought that perhaps you might also like these questions. (Feel free to answer in your own time or ignore as your spoons allow. <3)
I know we love to talk about breaking the rules in writing and obviously, that not every piece of advice is one-size-fits all, but there is a lot to say about being able to speak with each other about what we have learned during our journey. I was wondering if you wouldn't share. (I also plan on poking some of the others to see what more we can shake out. The more the merrier, no?)
What is the most useful/helpful pieces of advice you ever received during your formal education in relation to writing?
Once you started to write, what was the most important thing that you learned about writing or its process?
Has your real life had any influence on your writing? If so, how?
What advice would you give to aspiring writers (be it fanfiction or original)?
No need to apologise, I appreciate the ask. Fortunately I've got the spoons right now.
I have no formal education in writing, but I did go to a workshop at a nearby library, with a professional author. Her advice to us was to try to describe an orange to a blind person. I've followed that for my descriptions ever since.
Write badly. Just get it out of your system. Leave it on the burner and go back and edit later. Nothing is set in stone until it's published. It's okay to change your mind.
Only my dismal view on mankind and the knowledge and understanding that my POV isn't a universal one. That counts, right?
Perspective matters. All of the cultural baggage that you assume everyone else shares with you? It's just yours. Idioms, sayings and opinions vary. Personalities vary. Write women and queer folk as people. If you don't know something, research it. Be a nerd. Go into a project with the acceptance that you probably have no idea what you're doing. Keep in mind that a lot of movies and TV shows are more "aesthetics" than accuracy. Study and travel, broaden your perspective. Always be open to learning new things about the world. Add it to your writing. Don't worry about "everything having to fit the plot", a story is more than just plot.
(I didn't want you to run out of ink while you're gushing.)
want me to gush about my ocs?
why thank you for supplying me with those! I will put them to good use! (as per usual, this got long lol) for the skyrim kids:
🖊 Both Ranni and Murien were characters that I rolled for rather than coming up with everything from scratch. At first it was just meant to be an exercise in character creation but it was so fun they became official OCs. I used Skyrim-specific generators on Perchance, character details on Springhole, and character creation tables on some TTRPG books, saved all the results, then used the ones that came up more than once or were similar enough. Finally, I named them and built the story around them. I cannot recommend this enough as an exercise! Also I should really compile a list of all the things I used so I can do it again lol
🖊 When he joined the Thieves Guild, Kieran became fast friends with Sapphire. He latched onto her because she reminded him of his older sister, and though she'd never admit it she quickly began to see him as a brother as well. They were each other's rock through his entire time with the Guild, and really his only regret regarding everything he did ten years prior (breaking into the vault, stealing what he could carry of the Guild's valuables, dumping Mercer's most prized possession into the canal) is that he didn't have time to speak to her and possibly bring her along. Growing up an orphan, raised by the Thieves Guild and losing her only friend who she saw as a brother is what gets us grumpy, backstabby Sapphire in game, so the headcanon goes. Eventually Kieran returns to Riften while looking for Esbern, having ignored his dragonborn blood long enough, and that means dealing with Sapphire again.
bonus: eons ago, I wrote about the two of them meeting again. I have plans to revamp and then repost my old writing on this here blog, but if you'd like a peek at the ole 1.0 version, it's here
🖊 Sweetroll named herself Sweetroll because she has absolutely no idea who she is, much less what her real name might be. She woke up in an island full of falmer with absolutely no memories, not even the most basic ones. Most things felt familiar, but she could not tell what they were called, nor what they were for, which led to some unusual situations such as biting into a septim, drinking a vial of mild poison, drinking an entire bottle of wine and passing out, and just in general ingesting a lot of strange ingredients because alone in an island with no memories made her go a little toddler mode. She finds she can still read, however, and becomes obsessed with books from that point forward. It is through books she relearns how society works, basically, but she still messes up quite a bit in social contexts. The first person who asks her name is Blaise, the boy in the Solitude Stables, and he tells her it's super cool that she doesn't remember, because that means she gets to pick a name. He says if he could, he'd name himself after something he likes - and sweet rolls are her favorite thing, so why not? Also no one's really sure what she is. Some people guess short nord, others imperial, but she's really good with magic so maybe breton? Really hard to tell. She'd hoped something about her appearance would stand out but really she is quite Generic Looking and it's no help at all.
🖊 Murien is a breton with a bit of a peculiar backstory. She has no idea who her birth parents were, nor where she came from; as an infant, she washed ashore near Dawnstar, neatly bundled and though cold, she was perfectly healthy. She was adopted by the nord couple who found her, and she was named Murien, 'born of the sea'. 'Sunbreaker' was a nickname given to her around the same time because she had very unusual, warm yellow eyes. As she grew, she decided to keep it as a last name. She left Skyrim for Cyrodiil when she was around 5, and grew up in the Imperial City. An incredibly boring life with parents who, as it turns out, were not ready to be parents and grew worse as time went on. She began working as a private tutor for increasingly posh families at 17, and also helped out with her father's blacksmithing business. By the time she turned 20, she could barely stand them both, but having grown up sheltered, lonely and manipulated, she stayed. At 25 she was the sole provider for the family, her parents' money being diverted to other ventures. Things reach a breaking point on her 28th birthday, when she receives a letter from her estranged maternal grandmother, who still lived in Dawnstar. As she makes it known that she would like to visit, a huge fight ensues, and later she books passage with a caravan going towards Bruma, leaving in the middle of the night with little else other than the clothes on her back and what little coin she could scavenge.
🖊 Rannadros' epithet, 'the Cursed', has quite a bit of history behind it. The man is, indeed, cursed, in the literal sense of the word. As a young young lad, Ranni, a nord, got incredibly drunk and woke up at the foot of a statue his own father, a dunmer, had built for Azura. He comes to find out that whatever it is he has done that night, she took it personally. Azura looked at this man and said fuck him specifically for what he's said, cursed him to slowly take the form of a dremora. He has no idea why, considering the dremora are not part of her domain, and he likely will never find out. All he knows is that after severe pain lasting over many days he woke up bigger than he was when he went to sleep and with a pair of horns that were both uncomfortable and terrifying to the average citizen. He tried apologizing, praying, going to a priest - nothing. He quickly became an outcast, lost his job, lost his friends, and even his family began stepping away from him. So he did what he would always do when life got hard: he drank. Twice as much as he did that night, a party that extended over another full day when he was invited by a shady man to find this place where wine ran like a river. When he finally came to, he was at Azura's feet again, but this time with a different name dancing on his lips: Sanguine. Sanguine, who found the whole thing hilarious and Rannadros too much of a snack to waste away being shunned by polite society. And so he bestows his blessing upon him: he could not revert Azura's curse, but he could at least slow it down and make it so others found him charming instead of terrifying. An already charismatic, confident Ranni turned the charm up to eleven and ventured forth to get his life back. And that is precisely what he did.
🖊 And finally, some quick facts about the kids: Kieran is addicted to collecting shiny things, that he later gives as gifts or slips into containers for people to find (but mostly hoards); Sweetroll has a horse named Horse, because she was really happy she remembered what they were called; Murien is a huge nerd, who studied Dovahzul for fun and becomes addicted to exploring dungeons once she manages to learn a combat skill to keep herself alive; Rannadros fell into an old well as a kid and found an old box from which he pulled the deed to a merchant vessel, which he kept hidden until he 1) found the damn thing and certified it was in one piece and 2) had to run away when the local lord's daughter started the rumor that she was pregnant with his child - he jumped headfirst into the sailor's life and never looked back.
