Hi, I'm Annie! (She/Her) I'm 28, trans, and bi. Fomerly went by AedricDaedra, now I'm Vara Nara everywhere. I write TES fanfiction and draw my OCs a lot. I also love TES lore, so these are the topics I'll post about the most. That and some LGBT pride! :)
Made and uploaded my first Skyrim mod today to nexusmods! May it be the first of many. Eventually. Down the line. Some day. Perhaps.
It's called "Khajiit Speak for Khajiit Will Follow" and it is what it says on the tin. Makes your player character speak like a Khajiit in all the dialogue for my favorite follower mod, Khajiit Will Follow.
Pretty simple patch, all in all. Still, it got me learning the ropes of the creation kit and xEdit, and from that, it's given me some other ideas to try out.
I'm more of a writer, but the writing spirit in me would have a field day if I could learn how to create quests, characters and followers of my own. If I did though, it surely wouldn't be *my* voice being used for the character(s), I'd spare the world from hearing that.
Just finished playing through The Forgotten City quest mod for Skyrim, it's as awesome as I've heard. Definitely deserved that national writing guild award it got!
I got the good ending first try with it. ;)
I'd also like to mention how wonderful the Khajiit Will Follow addon for that mod is. I brought Ma'kara from that mod through with me, and it was very enjoyable hearing her commentary and interactions with the quest. :)
The ending had me in tears though, but not from the quest mod itself, but the dialogue with Ma'kara after it. Due to the way the quest ends...well, without spoilers, I'll just say it was very emotional, especially because Ma'kara is my Dragonborn's mate/wife. I loved that though, it made the experience all the more impactful.
Thank you to TheModernStoryteller for the Forgotten City quest mod, and robbobert for Khajiit Will Follow!
So apparently I’m not done gushing about the Thieves Guild questline. Because while it has some untapped potential, I love it with my whole heart and consider it the best in Skyrim, and here’s why: it’s a character-driven story.
Compare it to, say the College questline. Now, I love the College, its story and its characters very much (Winterhold apprentices my beloveds) but the story doesn’t depend on the College NPCs much. You could replace Ancano with just about any standard evil character with evil motivations and the plot of ‘you discover a dangerous artefact and someone tries to use it to destroy the world’ would still work. Savos and his friends’ doomed trip through Labyrinthian rips me apart every time, but… it’s not technically necessary for the plot to work.
The Guild, though? The Guild questline is totally inseperable from Karliah, Gallus, Mercer, and the replationships between them. Unlike the College NPCs, things don’t just happen to them - they make things happen.
A basic rule of thumb for writing a character-driven plot is that things should follow a cycle of characters having feelings, taking actions, and those actions leading to consequences… which give the characters new feelings. So let’s look at the Guild. Things kick off because Karliah has feelings (fury with Mercer, love for Gallus, determination to put things right). So she takes actions (sabotage the Guild’s allies to draw Mercer out). Her actions have consequences (the Dragonborn gets involved) which lead to Karliah having new feelings (can’t let another innocent Guild member die in Snow Veil because of Mercer), leading to actions (she blows years of planning to save the Dragonborn’s life) creating consequences (the Dragonborn is now out to get Mercer too, Mercer decides to cut and run)…
In other words, this entire questline happens the way it does not because some dragon god decided to eat the world, or an evil elf decided to do evil things with a magic orb. It happens because of one woman having emotions.
Remove Karliah or Mercer, and you lose that whole plot. Heck, you can’t remove Gallus without the narrative falling apart, and he spends the entire story dead.
This is not an original observation at all, but we struggle to connect to big, impersonal stakes the way we care for small, personal ones. I don’t know any Skyrim player who gets genuinely worked up about Alduin trying to destroy the world. We can get worked up about people having feelings. We don’t hate Harkon because he wants to put out the sun, we hate him because he’s an abusive father. We can’t relate to dragon gods trying to eat the world, but we can relate to grief, and guilt, and love.
Tl;dr: the Thieves Guild NPCs aren’t just there to fight the player or point them to their next objective. The story is actually about these characters. They have backstory, they have some depth, and it affects what happens to the player character. (And I love them very much.)
A/N: Short poem about my pre-transition self coming to terms with my identity. :)
Ever was I told, as a boy, growing old, that opposites do attract.
Confused then I was, for each crush I had,
Was similar beyond contrast.
It took a while to learn
That love to me was but envy,
Of a life I could only yearn.
But I could not, or so I thought,
So I sought out the woman from my dreams,
For if by chance I found her,
With her love, maybe I could be redeemed.
I looked far and wide to find her, from the mountains to endless water.
I took rest beside the ocean, closed my eyes, and let my mind wander.
Alas, were it so simple, to conjure this woman, as readily as my dreams.
But when I open my eyes she's gone,
and I'm only left with the sea.
It was then, in the reflection, that I first saw her,
and found that the woman from my dreams, was me.
I’m getting a fierce urge to replay Skyrim, and it’s got me thinking about the Thieves Guild questline. It’s one of the best in the game imo, mostly because its major NPCs actually have some depth and backstory - but I’m still sad about the huge amount of potential it has that didn’t really get tapped.
Maybe once I’ve replayed it I’ll think about how I’d properly rewrite the quests themselves, but for now, have a bunch of largely cosmetic changes I’d make to really exploit some of the narrative potential:
When you arrive in Riften, you learn from ambient chatter (and perhaps the conversation with Maul) that the Thieves Guild used to be more like its Oblivion incarnation - humble the rich, support the poor, etc. That ended abruptly 25 years ago, and the guild threw its lot in with the Black-Briars shortly after in an attempt to halt its decline. (The poorer residents, especially the beggars and Black-Briar employees, will lament this change.)
After joining the Guild, you learn from Brynjolf that this change began with Gallus’s death. He’s wistful for those days and for Gallus’s Robin Hood-esque management, and says the Guild’s decline is partly because they once had a small army of invisible spies in the poor, the beggars and the servants who knew the lives of the rich and were always happy to sabotage them. He hopes you can help the Guild become what it once was.
Mercer gets a complete personality change, so that he’s not an immediately unlikeable figure whose betrayal you see coming a mile away. He’s much more charismatic, acting like his change in the Guild’s focus, and his alliance with the Black-Briars, were necessary evils to keep the Guild afloat. He tells you that all he cares about is protecting his own in the Guild, and will do whatever it takes. Players might therefore actually be surprised when he betrays them.
It’s also discussed in ambient chatter that Mercer canonically (according to Gallus’s journal) came from ‘wealthy stock’, and you’ll hear Guild members wondering whether he was actually glad that Gallus’s death gave him a chance to hold onto the Guild’s takings, because he’s used to feeling entitled to money and influence.
The Path to Ruin | The Void Nights: When Jone and Jode Fall
A/N: This is a rewrite of the prologue for my TES fanfiction called The Void Nights: When Jone and Jode Fall. I haven't replaced it on the main story yet, but it's a nice ominous read on it's own, so enjoy!
Smoke from the roaring southern forest fires shrouded the moonless night sky. The fiery glow reached all the way to Cyrodiil, past the barren northern desert. Screams of terror were heard from all directions. Starving Khajiit wheezed and coughed from the smoke during their march, and their young Suthay children followed behind with eerily vacant eyes.
The shadows cast by the line of limping, wounded Khajiit gave the image of an army of the dead. They passed the sand-buried ruins of Orcrest, Riverhold and Rimmen, and a wall of dust caused the horizon to disappear from view as it enclosed upon them.
A large Khajiit with pale white fur and an ornate dark robe walked ahead of them into the sandstorm. He ignored the pleas for help from the others, and stepped over the bodies of his kinsmen without skipping a beat. He walked with unflinching determination, and had his hands clasped behind his back.
“You can stop being so dramatic, I’ve seen enough,” the Khajiit said with a deep voice that befit his stature.
The landscape suddenly crumbled to dust around him, leaving only a starry nebula with the moons in close proximity, and large floating pieces of land dotted with ruined structures of an ancient era.
“And yet still you continue forward,” a disembodied voice replied. “Does it not concern you that your actions will bring about the end of your people?” It sounded as if multiple people spoke at once, and the vibrations caused the very ground itself to shift.
“I do not believe in the lies and misleading half-truths of visions. My lived experience is the only faith I need to know what I must do for my people.”
“And why should your lived experience determine the fate for so many who have lived different, happier lives?”
“Because they cling to the ideals of a world that doesn’t exist, and the cries of the many who fare the worst go unheard and dismissed, because it is a truth they do not want to hear.”
“And so instead of listening to them, like the wise leader you once were, you have taken it into your own hands to devise a ‘solution’ they never asked for.”
The towering Khajiit stopped and looked up at the sky. “No one should have to ask to be treated like a person instead of a pet!” he shouted. “No one should have to wish they were born with the basic dignity of being able to clothe themselves, to have thumbs, and simply to even speak! It was your ‘solution’ that caused all of this - when you cursed us to be born as monsters! When you decided that parents should herald children that could look nothing like them, and who will be cast aside by the society that you created!”
He closed his eyes. “I do this for them, so that no one has to live wearing shackles because of when they happened to be born.”
The sand beneath his feet whistled with the wind in the vacuum of emptiness. One of the floating rocks crashed with another, splitting debris that fell on the pathway ahead. A stairway led above to a platform where a temple once stood.
“The elves that you conspire with do not share that concern,” the voice said tauntingly.
He walked with a tired limp up the stairs. “And nor do I share theirs. It is an arrangement of mutual benefit.”
“Until it’s not.”
He scoffed. “You love pretending to care, but if my plan truly concerned you, you would smite me here and now, and put an end to all of it.”
He extended his arms to the sky. “So smite me!” he shouted. He waited for retribution, and when it never came, he laughed and proceeded further up the stairs.
“A mother should not coddle her children. I allowed you freedom, and that includes the freedom to destroy yourselves,” the voice said. “Besides, you are foolish if you think no one will dare to oppose your tyranny.”
“So, inaction and complacency. I should have expected nothing less from the mighty Azurah.”
A crack of thunder ushered through the realm’s void, and her rage could be felt through it.
The tired old Khajiit finally reached the top of the stairs, where he was greeted with a pedestal and an iron bowl in the center of the ruined temple. He approached it.
The apparition of Azurah appeared behind the pedestal. She was feline in aspect with a ghostly blue hue, and cold eyes that burned into him. He grunted in distaste for her choice of form.
“You know that what you seek is no longer here. You know where it is. Why do you continue to trespass in this realm?” she asked.
“My reasons are my own.”
He stood across the pedestal from his enemy. He stared coolly at her for a moment, and then unsheathed a dagger. Still looking at her, he pulled back the robe from his left arm and held it open over the bowl. With the other, he slowly sliced into his palm. He clenched and winced, and dripped his blood into the bowl, but kept his silver gaze level with Azurah.
After a few moments, he looked down and stared blankly at the result.
Nothing happened, only the reflection of his aged, maneless visage stared back up at him from the pool of blood.
He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.
Azurah laughed. “Did you not assume the other would take up the mantle?”
“I knew,” he replied solemnly. He rested his hands on the pedestal, lost in thought and struck with several emotions. A single tear rolled down his cheek. He bit his lip, shook his head and tapped the bowl with his knuckles aimlessly.
He took in a deep breath, held a vacant stare for a few moments, and then smacked the bowl across the room. He yelled wordlessly as it spilled the contents across the temple. The iron bowl clanged as it hit the ground and rolled in a circle until it found its rest. He regained his composure, turned around and walked away. “I found what I came here for.”
