nerevar-near-and-far

[nerevar-near-and-far]

Gorillaz - "Cracker island"

[nerevar-near-and-far]

Stages of Morrowind fast travel awareness :

1. Oh god the rumors were true, there's no fast travel

2. Oh the Silt Striders

3. Huh, there's also boats and the guild guides and intervention spells

4. Where the fucking hell did intervention send me this time. Why is it Ald'ruhn when I was almost on top of Gnisis

5. Mark and Recall HELL YEAH

6. I can barely contain this spaghetti bowl of possible connections in my brain. I have a London taxi cab driver's knowledge of Vvardenfell at this point but I still always end up passing through Ald'ruhn somehow. Vivec City can cry about how important they are all they want. Ald'ruhn is Grand Central Station of this island

7. CHIM

[nerevar-near-and-far]

What Was Going On With Nerevar, Really, is such an interesting topic because also howwwwww did the corprus cure work. how? why? the nerevarine is the only one cured. there's something different about nerevar and the nerevarine. because azura is a daedra. she is locked in oblivion by the dragonfires and the coldharbor compact. there's only so much she can physically alter in nirn.

it really makes me wonder about the son of boethiah bit. yeah it's only one source and yeah fa-nuit-hen, confirmed boethiah baby, has a completely different demigod thing going on, but it's also in character for boethiah's child to be secret. an orphan. have to live through struggle and all that. maybe the nords via wulfhearth or whatever his name was, that shezzarine guy, saw something "in" him the people all close to nerevar didn't?

also if there was a son of boethiah and a son of azura running around, even if they were just metaphorical titles, there's a 100% chance there was also a child of mephala being creepy somewhere in the mess

i always imagine the heart of lorkhan had a sort of irresistible pull to everyone around it. once you find it and see it, you want to use it. you need to find some way of using it. you will stop at nothing to discover its secrets. it is a pull no mortal can resist. its the literal heart of the world. it wants to be used.

which is why its fun to imagine why the fuck nerevar seemed immune to it. he is the most power hungry dude around at that time. he went from a caravan guard to king. you dont just do that by accident. even if it didnt have an irresistible pull its weird to go "huh. why is that"

[nerevar-near-and-far]

i always imagine the heart of lorkhan had a sort of irresistible pull to everyone around it. once you find it and see it, you want to use it. you need to find some way of using it. you will stop at nothing to discover its secrets. it is a pull no mortal can resist. its the literal heart of the world. it wants to be used.

which is why its fun to imagine why the fuck nerevar seemed immune to it. he is the most power hungry dude around at that time. he went from a caravan guard to king. you dont just do that by accident. even if it didnt have an irresistible pull its weird to go "huh. why is that"

[nerevar-near-and-far]

M'aiq wonders why he always sees adventurers sleeping in their armor. M'aiq tried doing that once. He couldn't sleep. Too uncomfortable.

[nerevar-near-and-far]

"im sensing a lottle trauma here"

this line is so fucking funny to me, its one of the radiant blades convos with martin when martin initiates

imagine youre thinking like “im lonely and feel like shit… im going to talk to one of the blades bc i want to be friends :)” and youre like “hey do you have a moment to talk?” and he goes “ye- wait are you okay sire?  ARE WE FUCKING UNDER ATTACK??? ITS THE WINDOWS ISNT IT??!?!?!??! THEYRE COMING IN FROM THE WINDOWS !!!! BLADES TO ARMS TO ARMS!!!! OUR BLOOD FOR THE EMPIREEEEEEEEE and youre like oh ok

[nerevar-near-and-far]

this isn't elder scrolls related originally but it's perfect

the nerevarine, shoving ebony trinkets into their bags: i'm fine

the nerevarine, as their encumbrance steadily rises: by Talos this can't be happening

I’m fine

[nerevar-near-and-far]

Pro: almost impenetrable to dragons

Con: markarth

Pro: technically empire, but has chillest possible thalmor agent and has a talos shrine

Con: still markarth

Pros and Cons of Living in Markarth

Pros: Beautiful Scenery, it's Located in Ancient Dwemer Ruins

Cons: It's Markarth

[nerevar-near-and-far]

Oblivion at the end of Knights of the Nine: Hail Crusader, Champion of Cyrodiil! May you always serve and protect the glory of the Nine!

Meanwhile, as I'm looking down the barrel of Shivering Isles and then Skyrim 200 years later: yyyyyyeah about that. the nine. hoo boy

[nerevar-near-and-far]

TES III Morrowind post -

A Nerevarine that, for all their humility, does not escape the power of the Heart. They wielded the Tools. They touched it even closer than the Tribunal or Dagoth Ur ever did, as the Nerevarine removed the Dwemer spell barrier channeling the power through the Tools. The Heart of the world, that was made to satisfy the other, that laughed at destruction and loved existence too well to cease. The same Heart that changed the spirit of Voryn Dagoth into Dagoth Ur merely by proximity.

A Nerevarine that chooses to not become a god. Not because Vivec never revealed the technique, nor because Indoril Nerevar chose not to in the past, nor because Azura is watching. But because they see the wreckage it made of people that might have once been true friends, Nerevar and House Dagoth and the Tribunal, and how the blessings the Tribunal thought eternal were, in the end, as impermanent as their underlying mortality. The Heart and its power was not theirs, but the world's.

A Nerevarine that touches the Heart, twice-insulated by Dwemer gauntlet holding knife and hammer, cutting at the pericardic seal on its overflowing power. And a Heart that "sees" a little mortal creature who chooses to accept the struggle given from their shared creator, Lorkhan. The Heart does not have a will of its own, but it is made to satisfy the other.

The Nerevarine changes. Perhaps it's the echo of dying near the Heart in a past life, perhaps it's because they chose to follow what others tried to force into a destiny, perhaps it's dumb luck. Mortals cannot stop change. Not even ageless mortals pretending to be gods, nor thrice-loyal stewards become devils, nor a hero healed of the divine disease and given accidental agelessness. The Nerevarine changes.

Are they Nerevar, or did they become a Nerevarine? Were they tricked, or have they tricked everyone else? Is this Nerevar a true rebirth, a reincarnation through sympathetic Azura reborn unaware? But would that also not leave them as processed through another's will as Trinimac was to become Malacath? Or would that be Arkay of death and birth, or even Akatosh of time, who ate and changed them? Does it even matter? It seems not to, right up until they are standing next to a power that makes death of immortals and eternal life of mortals. A known aid to Mantling. Hell of a time, when the Sharmat is breathing down your neck, to start remembering the trusting face of Voryn Dagoth. Or are the memories like dreams, and the Nerevarine has been sleeping this whole time?

The Nerevarine awakens, and changes.

Maybe now they always hear their heart and the hearts of others, beating away. Or they feel the current location and status of the Heart, locked away in magma flows and safe from tampering. Maybe they can change swiftly between Chimer and Dunmer, and Azura smiles and does not say if it's her power or their own. Or they can change between Mer and Man, or even Beast. Maybe it's only between their reborn shape, whatever species it may be, and that of Indoril Nerevar.

Whenever they look at the Imperial merging of Akatosh and Shor in tapestry or stained-glass window, the back of their skull aches and their heart feels ready to beat out of their chest. Sometimes they feel stabbing pains through the chest and their feet go numb and their face feels slack. The robe brushing their skin, the candle-smoke wafting into their nose, the chanting words pouring out of their mouth: it all feels like betrayal. Other times they feel ready to break into eight pieces, or like they might reach into their enemy's chest and pull out the heart without breaking skin.

(They tell none of this to Vivec when they return, or Almalexia when ensnared into her new scheme. They are surrounded by people in these cities named after gods who do not deserve it, people celebrating the defeat of Dagoth Ur and the return of Nerevar. Which the Tribunal now says they always knew was coming, but had to play the part.

And the Nerevarine wonders why they find themselves wanting to ask Sotha Sil for advice, when he is the enemy, and might even have been the first traitor of the three. Then they come upon his mechanical corpse, and before they realize the full implications, they think, Ah. Ayem went after the least resolute, the most likely to help me . . . Wait. Oh shit-)

Maybe they can feel where - although it's more like when, but sideways - time almost broke again, in the heart chamber. Was that the second time they were in there, if counting past lives, or merely the first? They can feel a . . . a something, a somewhen, a different time in which Vehk, Seht, and Ayem were gods from the beginning, or the Dwemer properly ascended, or the Nords overran Resdayn, or Nerevar believed Voryn and together they killed his teacher, his friend, his wife-

Time flows and they can sense the eyes of the gods looking at them through the veil. Either they go crazy and scream at them all like the Whitestrake did, or they choose - choose, again and again - to continue acting of their own power and volition. It's all a mortal can do.

[nerevar-near-and-far]

"I like Martin Septim well enough I guess, I haven't spent much time with him actually, and he doesn't have a lot of dialogue for a main character of an RPG"

Sees Martin in the Tiber Septim armor that I found for him, and that his UI name has changed to Martin Septim

Turns to Jauffre and starts sobbing "Joff our boy is all grown up"

[nerevar-near-and-far]

There's so much natural storytelling in Vivec's split skintone. Showing vs telling in its most distilled form. (Which is tricky advice - all writers must summarize by "telling" at one point or another. It's about knowing when.) Especially when you learn that he chooses to have it that way. The unnatural sharpness of the line, the immediate awareness to anyone looking that this guy is . . . altered from normality. The gesture to his people that he chooses to look like their new appearance and it's not a problem, how magnanimous, how kind, but that he also gets to keep the Chimer golden skin and evoke the ancient high period of Velothi culture. The blend of genders and the blend of color. Except no, he doesn't actually blend, he just draws a line down his vertical plane.

Vivec does not take the opportunity to be something new. He just assembles qualities onto himself and wishes, perhaps without realizing, that he becomes more than the sum of his parts.

I haven't played ESO but they did right by Sotha Sil's analysis of Vivec. "Vivec craves radical freedom - the death of all limits and restrictions. He wishes to be all things at all times. Every race, every gender, every hero, both divine and finite... but in the end, he can only be Vivec." And that's not enough? To be a god hero? "Not even remotely."

He just cuts right to the heart of Vivec. Appropriately enough for the member of ALMSIVI who actually figured out how to use the Tools.

[nerevar-near-and-far]

and the cycle of violence continues

[nerevar-near-and-far]

People in Skingrad will say things like ‘’the count is a powerful sorcerer’’ and when you meet him Janus Hassildor starts beating to death the three necromancers attacking you with his bare fists

[nerevar-near-and-far]

Thank you for saving me, with your fists, punch the necromancers to death.

[nerevar-near-and-far]

thanks Todd, but we got it from here

[nerevar-near-and-far]

Either I'm overleveled for the Knights of the Nine ghost trial, or my character unlocked some ferocious new power by channeling her inner rage when it became clear that the old Knights were all, without exception, men.

I think the writers just kinda . . . forgot Tamriel doesn't have the same cosmic microwave background sexism that Earth does.

At least they had a token Dunmer, or they'd be all capital-M Men, and thus have to face the same self-righteous speech she tried to give the Blades about clearly not trusting Elves when the future of the damn world is at stake