#translimen

[foulserpent]

for ned: where did you learn how to cook? i'm sorry if it seems like a really weird question. it's just that i've only known you as a merc, and it seems like that sort of occupation would've had you traveling constantly. like, where did you find the time?

“Huh? You have to cook while travelling. Can’t just eat rocks and- um. Tubers or fucking something. I mean I’m nothing impressive with cooking like, I don’t know many recipes. Kind of mostly just put ingredients and spices and bones and stuff into water and let it go for a day and then say “Behold! A stew!”. But it does always taste good. Like I have the flavors.

Uh... I think I started cooking for myself in not-shitty ways when I first left home, heading through Elsweyr. And the food back home was really good, but it was mostly prepared as a group so I never did much for myself. And when I left I forgot to pack like. Any spices or seasoning or-or anything of any use? Whatsoever? 

So the cook for the caravan I was guarding.. Ugh, I forget his name. He saw me eating this like.. fucking pitiful unseasoned mushroom I roasted on a stick like a complete dunce and was like “What is wrong with you” and I’m like “Man I don’t know I hate this too” . And I’m like 20 at the time so basically an infant, my life was falling apart and it was just like “yeah might as well live like this”, and he felt bad for me so like. Just let me use his supplies and spices and stuff. And gave me some pointers here and there.. So I started learning to cook for myself. And when we split up at the border, he gave me one of his travel pots. And I had that thing for AGES like, literally took it with me everywhere. Lost it when Kvatch burned down though.”

[tonal-modulator]

(i'm sorry i always come with with asks for milia and talvini. ngl have a soft spot for them :s ) how about milia from the ABC's of OC questions. A.4. and talvini W.1., P.3 and P.5?

Please don't apologize I'm so glad you like them! :D

A4. what things are they bad at? for Milia

So Milia is supposed to be pretty well rounded as a Buoyant Armiger. Like she has to be good in a fight, but she also has to be well read, etc. And then I couldn't think of that many skills that one could be good or bad at so I had to enlist @daggerfall for ideas. (And then I landed on something else entirely but the brainstorming was still v helpful!)

First, I think she struggled a bit with the "poet" side of the warrior-poet balance when she first joined the Armigers. Like she's a perfectly fine storyteller and can sing and probably play the lute well enough, but really creating stories (or especially poems) is hard for her. Vivec pushes her to work on it and she does get better, but it always remains a relative weakness. And I think it has a lot to do with her being not as emotionally secure as she wants people to believe. She's outgoing, excitable, a people-pleaser but not in the meek way. She makes sure she gives off an energy that makes people happy. Her outward personality is based around what she thinks people enjoy being around. Anything that breaks that mold, she recoils. She won't outwardly admit to experiencing less pleasant emotions like pain or sadness, or even neutral ones like longing—she'll hardly even admit those to herself and the people closest to her—because she's convinced herself that the only correct way to carry herself is with exuberance. I mean, she'll get angry on occasion, but it's only impersonal, righteous anger. Anger because someone else was wronged. To get angry on her own behalf would be to admit that she was hurt, and that's making herself too vulnerable. To really reach inside herself and feel things, feels wrong. Repulsive. Terrifying. She can't accept it, and so she resists as hard as she can.

Also, she's not very good with restoration magic. She can heal cut in the field well enough that she/her target won't die on the way to a real healer, but that's about it.

And for Talvini:

W1. do they drink enough water?

She tries to—she'll usually have a glass of water nearby, but sometimes she hyperfocuses on what she's working on and forgets. And sometimes she just drinks a lot of coffee or some sort of alchemical tea when she's really trying to focus. (Although I guess tea probably isn't that bad for hydration? idk I don't really drink tea.)

P3. what of their personality do others love?

She can get analytical in a way that can be very useful for problem-solving in the real world. But in more personal situations, she gets really excited about the things she likes and will talk a lot about them if someone's willing to listen, and people who love her (e.g., Milia) love to listen and actually engage with her rather than just nodding along, because she'll get even more excited and involve her interlocutor more and it's just A Bonding Experience.

P5. do they hate anything about their personality/about other’s personalities?

She's not nearly as assertive as she wishes she could be. Whenever she tries to stand up for herself or someone else, she stumbles, or hesitates, or overthinks and can't come up with the right words until her chance is gone.

[gronglegrowth]

i have one idea for a skyrim cryptid that would work well with the frostfall mod. in certain areas of skyrim, especially in the northern holds. what if a traveler heard a voice calling out from somewhere within the snow storm? like calling for help? and whenever you go out to find the person calling, they seemingly get further and further away each time. could be fatal for a player character using frostfall. no new textures/models needed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not sure how to script that...

What if it's one of those spectral npcs that says "Over here!" "Come here!" etc, but as you near them they vanish and appear a distance away, for say, five times? But only when the weather is snowing.

[gronglegrowth]

from the ask game: what are your thoughts on follower mods, or just followers in general? :o

Followers? I only take them if it fits the character I'm playing.

Follower mods though, hm. I would die for Brhuce Hammar and M.H.A.R.P.H.I.N.. I also have been known to take Sofia around, and Imp from Carved Brink is also enjoyable. I haven't played with Inigo in a while. I'm planning to setup a character so I can try out the Mharphin creator's other follower(s), because Mharphin was everything I could've wanted from a follower quest mod involving Dwemer. Oh, I also use Rumarin from Interesting NPCs - Rumarin is a good mer who I must protect.

Vanilla followers... I don't get Teldryn's appeal. Lydia is kind of boring, I always sacrifice her to Boethiah. Serana is Ciri's wife, I don't dislike Serana although she could be better.

[tonal-modulator]

⚙️- i've been thinking about the planes of oblivion a lot as late, and she came to mind because she stepped out of time and could have ties to hermaeus mora & whatnot. how does she handle the likes of miraak? would she be comfortable being dragonborn (in that particular timeline she is dragonborn), and also, how would she react to the many dwemer ruins dotting skyrim's landscape? (it's kind of a combo question i'm sorry :< )

Any number of questions is always good!

I don't think Bthunkagr necessarily knew Miraak prior to "waking up" even in the Dragonborn/Hermaeus Mora timeline, because I think she kind of remained in a weird unconscious stasis from the time she stepped out of time, until she ended up in Skyrim, even if Hermy yoinked her into Apocrypha. So I doubt she has any sort of pre-existing baggage around the idea of being Dragonborn. Miraak might have known her, though, (or at least known of her), and it might be interesting to imagine his reaction to Hermy basically being like "yeah Nirn needs a Dragonborn for prophecy reasons—I'm just gonna morph this random Dwemer who's been sleeping here for a few thousand years into having dragon blood" when there was a perfectly good Dragonborn right there.

But once she meets him for the Dragonborn questline, I think she would have mixed feelings about him. She would be wary of anyone who chooses to serve Hermaeus Mora—herself included, really. She finds Hermaeus Mora distasteful and also thinks that for the most part it doesn't make sense to serve a Daedric Prince just for the purpose of amassing knowledge when you could just learn stuff yourself. (Of course, that's not why she sought him out, and may well not be why much of anyone seeks him out, but that's her general perception nonetheless.) But if he served Hermaeus Mora because he felt like that was his only option to fight back against the dragons, then she might have some sympathy for him, as well as terror at what might become of her. Because she, too, sought out Hermaeus Mora out of a sense of desperation, when she never would have even considered doing so otherwise.

(Thank you @daggerfall and @the-greymarch for helping me understand Miraak a little more.)

As for Dwemer ruins, yeah... On one hand, she wants to explore them because they're at least Like her home (she's from Vvardenfell but at least like culturally similar). Plus if she can ignore reality a little, it's kind of neat to be able to explore places that would otherwise be off-limits and maybe get a sense for what people were studying or whatever. (She didn't know what they were doing to the Falmer though so that was a big What The Fuck.) But also, it's hard to ignore reality that much. And it's a little haunting to be in a place that was certainly once a lively home of her people and now they're just. Gone. Because of a project she worked on, that she failed to stop. Also I think there are certain parts of ruins or entire strongholds that she can't stand to be in for very long because there's Calling that has gone out of tune over the years and it just sounds like discordant screaming.

(Send me an emoji and a question about an OC!)

[tonal-modulator]

from that uncommon oc asks prompt: 2. for Bthunkagr and/or 25. for Milia?

2. How easy is it for your character to laugh? (for Bthunkagr)

Relatively easy. She's not like super super serious or anything, even if she sometimes tries to be.

25. What are their thoughts on marriage? (for Milia)

Oh she and Tal get married a few years after the events of ESO wrap up, once their lives are a little more consistent and normal. And I think Milia is the one to propose. So yeah, generally favorable!

[gronglegrowth]

hi! 🔮for nu-kinmune :D?

🔮 If your OC existed in the real world, what would their favorite real theatre production be?

I don't have much knowledge about plays unfortunately (which makes one wonder why I made this ask game....) but generally Nu-Kinmune would like the plays and operas which involve political intrigue. I can't name any exactly.

[tonal-modulator]

from the 40 questions of oc development part 2 post: 36. for Bthunkagr? also question #40 if you're up for it? idk

36. How stubborn is your oc? Are they easily convinced of the opposite opinion, do they not agree but let it happen anyways? Or do they cause conflicts with their inability to budge in their decisions?

Bthunkagr likes to make decisions based on as much information as possible. She's relatively slow to come to a conclusion in the first place, but once she's there, she's unlikely to move unless she has a very good reason. She's not always going to feel good about her decision, especially if there's not an obvious moral option, but she'll at least be able to say that she put enough thought into it. It can definitely lead to conflict, the biggest example being the entire war that broke out after she told the Chimer about Kagrenac et al.'s plans to use the Heart of Lorkhan for potentially catastrophic means.

40. Are there any habits your oc has picked up from people around them? Do they know where they’re from? Does your oc try to stop themselves from doing it?

I think she probably spins tuning forks on the table/surface in front of her and probably had a tendency at one point or another to put tools in her mouth for safekeeping. Not sure who she learned them from though, if anyone. I think she def kicked the mouth thing as quickly as possible, but she probably still spins forks unless there's something important going on that requires silence.