#avoiding Hrothgar like the plague

[baellielurk]

How's your Skyrim replay going darl

darl (darling jarl)

[captain-of-silvenar]

1-5 for yera :)

Hehe, Yera time!

1. What is their background and backstory, summarised into a paragraph?

Yera is a blind Bosmer who left Valenwood because of the oppression of the Aldmeri Dominion had on her country and the powerless feeling she had to protect her home and friends from outside invaders. She meant to travel to Morrowind to be as far away from Thalmor influence as possible but ended up stuck in Skyrim because of destiny nonsense. There she very adamantly avoided anything to do with her prophesy because she didn't feel like getting caught up in another country's mess and because she thought she wasn't good enough to do the job. But after seeing the tragedy and horror of dragons plaguing the land she stepped up to the plate and embraced the title of Dragonborn and saved the land countless times against all manners of monsters and people. She might not be what people think a Hero of Destiny is, but she's the one chosen by the Elder Scrolls and she's doing her best job yet.

2. What “class” do they follow (i.e. warrior, archer, mage, thief, etc.)?

Archer Thief, the best (only) class in Skryim jkjk.

But no really she is an archer thief. Makes it interesting as how she aims while blind but she's had over 100 years of practice with a bow so half of the time it's intuitive shooting with muscle memory, and the other half is having Lydia make calls with specific distances that Yera remembers and just shoots for it.

3. How do they feel about being Dragonborn- does they identity feel right for them and did they embrace it immediately? Do they consider themselves a true dragon?

If you asked Yera when she just got to Skyrim, she would've denied it and asked how to get out of this damn country as fast as possible.

Yera was not interested in being in a spotlight position. She was leaving Valenwood to avoid that, so being some nameless face in the crowd was her goal. It was part of the reason she stayed in Riften when she went there to try and find a way past the mountains. Thieves Guild was mostly out of sight, she didn't need to be a face for the guild, and they had beds and coin to spare.

It was after a long while, maybe a couple of months, of living in Skyrim and seeing the destruction spreading across the land she began to reconsider. Maybe she could help out someone, if she really was the only solution to the problem. Maybe this time she could help instead of being powerless in the face of an opposing force. If she really was the linchpin to everything, it wasn't right for her to stand by on the side and watch everything burn to the ground.

After this realization, she embraced the title. She molded it to fit herself and herself to fit the Dragonborn title, utterly changed forever. How can you not be changed after eating countless immortal souls?

In my heacanon, the more dragon souls you eat the more you become like them. Behaviorally, Yera is more easy to temper, can actually breath fire in bouts of rage, and has an awful hoarding tendency that the Guild is NOT helping. Do NOT provide her with a vault to keep stuff in, she WILL FILL IT WITH JUNK.

4. At present, how are they perceived by the people of Skyrim? By the general population, and by different factions?

It depends on who you're speaking to with Yera.

In general, the people know that the Dragonborn is here in Skyrim and saved the land from the dragons and vampires and all sorts of dangers. Do they know what she looks like? No, most say it was a tall Nordic woman with a might sword and shield. Others will say no no, it absolutely was an elf, with a bow as tall as she was an shooting dragons down with one arrow.

Yera tries to keep a low profile still as the Dragonborn, and rumors help conceal her actual identity. But there will be some who recognize her on sight and speak of the good deeds she does to help the people out.

By Stormcloak and Imperial standards, she's a nuisance. During the Truce Negotiations in Hrothgar Yera had to reveal herself to the main forces in Skyrim with wonderful reactions. Stormcloaks balking at the idea of an elf as their legendary Dragonborn. Imperials balking at a small elf as the source of all these reports and rumors across the land.

Yera did not bend to any one side, personally disliking both sides of the war and refusing to give her name to any side. The peace talks were strictly to get them both to shut up for awhile before she killed Aludin. So neither of them think highly of her and wish to either persuade her to their side (Imperials) or discredit her achievements (Stormcloaks).

The Thieves Guild think she's the best thing to happen this era as the gold just keeps rolling into their pockets, and every Hold in the country now shutters at the idea of the Guild rising up again. Not everyone knows that the legendary Dragonborn is also the Guild Master for the Thieves Guild and she rather keep it that way. Someone has to fund her adventures, and it isn't always going to be cave diving.

5. How were they perceived before their Dragonborn identity became widely known?

A nobody, a small white haired elf. Pretty good huntress, but doesn't really share much of herself.

Stubborn as a mule, and extremely picky eater.

Yera did a good job keeping a low profile for the longest time before she embraced her title as Dragonborn. If she wasn't going to be a thief, she most likely was going to be a hunter to bring in meat for vendors and sleep in trees and meadows when possible.

If we're talking about back at home in Valenwood, she was the star of the town. Mother was Captain of the Guard and was trained possible to take after her if Yera wanted. I don't think Yera really wanted that kind of responsiblity, but she was an excellent provider for the town and would lead many hunts in the jungle for meat and goods.

Quite a number of suitors lining up asking for her hand in marriage, or to just have Yera acknowledge their existence. Yera never quite found the right one back at home, but maybe if she's lucky she'll find someone nice in Skyrim or maybe near by...

[illegiblewords]

Notes under the cut!

Having made a lady WoL collection, I decided to do a dude one too. As before I have more, but not all are leveled and I have some I’m more attached to than others.

I do want to push for more range honestly--I’m not sure how I wound up with three midlander dudes and a highlander lol. I should really follow through with a male au ra, hrothgar, and lalafell. I did an odd green/brown hair hybrid that I suppose could qualify for brunette, but otherwise my tendencies toward black and blonde hair came through real strong. Mysteriously absent are redheads. I may also want to experiment more with color palettes and cultural influences a bit.

For the guys, there are spots where I played into job expectations and spots where I defied them. I wanted to try designing some characters in ways I hadn’t seen so much in-game, as well as designing characters who would immediately evoke a specific tone! There are also definitely jobs where I deliberately tried to show some traditional masculinity where it’s less expected, which was fun.

Cenric/Black Mage Midlander: People have criticized hyurs before by calling them “too vanilla”, since they’re the human stand-ins. I figure though, they’re hyurs. Hyurs are imaginary and don’t need to follow real world biology. Play with color palettes and features so you get a more definite fantasy look if you want to. With Cenric, I specifically tried to go super dark and de-saturated to evoke a walking silhouette (sort of like drow) and gave him the palest eyes possible with strategic face paint so they’d look like they glow. This was all in the name of making a character who evoked Final Fantasy’s classic black mage, just going in a more adult and extra spooky-goth direction.

Maerec/Dark Knight Midlander: Maerec, I designed specifically to both be a step off of the default midlander from commercials and to embody the Dark Knight questline as best I could. Giving him some edge visually while still feeling reasonably natural was fun to balance! To this end, I knew dark eyes would be important to helping the black hair fit in. Going with a very dark red I figure it almost seems like he could have brown eyes until you look closely. Making him feel very Ishgardian was also fun, with the horned helmet and Fray-esque glamour. I also designed him to both parallel and contrast with Lahabrea given their stories are intertwined. If there’s scattered angel/demon imagery between them that works even more.

Sublime Tiger/Samurai Hellsguard: I know that my natural inclinations go toward bishonens lmao, so figuring out the angle I wanted to work with the SUPER BEEFY male roegadyns was wild! One thing that gave me inspiration at the time was realizing that, with their black noses, Hellsguard roegadyns can 100% evoke big cats--among other animals. I usually prefer designing Sea Wolves for lacking the black noses because my impulse is for it either to be visually unified with the rest of the face/body or go without--so I often feel a bit more limited with what kind of designs I’ll do for Hellsguard. With Sublime Tiger, originally he had both orange and black striped hair (one of the styles available works it) as well as the black face paint evoking tiger stripes. I found the hair more limiting with helms though so made it pure black instead. Deciding what glamour would look good and play well with proportions was also a process--wanted him to feel like he’s from Othard since there is a big Hellsguard population there, so samurai made some sense to me in building that. After experimenting though, I wound up going with a look that took a bit of inspiration from One Thousand And One Nights. I have additional ideas for what I might try going forward though.

J’mor/Red Mage Miqo’te: This was a combination of a lot of ideas! One was wanting to embrace the physicality of red mage as a job, and explore it as a worldly kind of caster who works well with ease of movement and does a lot of darting around the battlefield. Mages in-general are often seen as kind of ivory tower sorts, and by shedding the usual frills I wanted to show that it’s possible to have a caster’s knowledge while being very connected to the world at large. Also give a strong sense of SWASHBUCKLER where the magic kind of slaps you in the face with additional power. I also noticed I hadn’t seen as many black male miqo’te in-general, along with fandom stereotypes about catboys as soft. So I decided to design J’mor with that in mind--playing him as a very shonen kind of hero while the beard brings an extra bit of hardness to his features.

Asah’zi/White Mage Miqo’te: Asah’zi is another case where I wanted to challenge the idea of male miqo’te as soft, and I added to that challenge by making him a white mage when that is often filled by lady characters. I was also interested, lore-wise, in the tension between Keeper of the Moon tribes and Gridania (where white magic has very strong ties). That Keepers of the Moon are also very matriarchal gave added interest for me making a more rough and traditionally masculine-feeling white mage sort, especially since Keepers often build a lot of their lives around hunting through the Twelveswood. I also wanted to bring some sense of druid into white mage as a job, given the nature ties. With Asah’zi, using skydruid skins, claws, a wooden cane, and on all contributed toward the vibe I wanted to build for him. Using emotes that show off his fangs helps bring a bit of cockiness to him too, which is fun. And stealing Thancred’s hair lets him have a bit of a roguish vibe lol.

Amir/Dancer Highlander: Like I said, I tend to go for bishonen-sorts in designs a lot. HOWEVER! I do love this highlander face type specifically a ton, and think guy highlander proportions are well-balanced overall while being beefy. I knew for a while that I had a specific design I liked a lot for male highlander with Amir, and I definitely wanted to do something with him. The choice to make him a dancer specifically came from a conversation I saw just after the job’s release. An IRL male hip hop dancer mentioned feeling a bit bummed out because a lot of the animations felt like they played more to softness/grace and traditional femininity, and he’d been hoping for the option of a little edge with battle dancing because that’s what he does. Some players said he should just play monk, others were kind of mean to him and acted like what he wanted was somehow shitty. I felt for the dude to be honest since he was coming from a place of feeling frustrated by stereotyping, so I decided to look at the animations and see how much they could be integrated into a design that felt more traditionally masculine. I saw a lot of bright greens (especially with the peacock feathers) so I tried to unify that with a green glamour. The mask reminds me of rave aesthetics a bit, and I’ve seen dudes wear shorts similar to the Nezha ones before. I’m a big fan of the idea that fashion can be a way to create what you want tonally, and I tried to explore that in this design.

Navarre/Paladin Midlander: At some point it hit me that I have been avoiding traditional knight-in-shining-armor looks like the plagues in my tanks lol. This made me think a fair bit. What struck me was that if the only thing a glamour has to say for itself is “this is a knight”, that doesn’t feel so interesting to me. If it’s supposed to be a knight in shining armor specifically though, bringing an almost angelic, elemental feeling to the look is something I’m 500% there for. And weirdly, people don’t seem to do this as much. I’m less used to paladins compared to dark knights, warriors, or even gunbreakers--and since paladins are so associated with that holy knight-vibe I figured it made sense to go that direction. While I was looking into glamours, one thing I found was that a lot of them dyed with unchanging patches of black, had edgy red woven in, or otherwise came across as having been designed with dark knight or warrior in-mind. I decided part of what I’d do in this instance was really make a Warrior of Light who immediately screamed “yes I am the Warrior of Light” when you looked at him, and took inspiration from Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV toward that end too. Every piece in this glamour was carefully picked not just for whether it worked as a silhouette, but also how it would dye.

Cesaire/Dragoon Elezen: Cesaire has gone through a lot of design phases. Initially he was a red elezen, because it’s a direction I don’t see used a lot but has a very doable fantasy feel I think is fun. Then he was a champagne/cream color all over as inspired by a particular breed of horses. Now, having put a lot of thought in, he is deep gold with blue eyes. The underlying concept for him was that I wanted to make a golden dragoon who looks like he should be terribly heroic, but then in practice he’s a kind of blood knight WoL who is about as close to Zenos as a Warrior can get without going outright evil. I played into gold and more general adventuring gear for the reason that I think Cesaire has absolutely left Ishgard behind him, and strongly prefers to be someone defined by what they do rather than where they’re from. Given elezens’ wide shoulders I also had to think about what combinations would work for balancing proportions, and I wanted Cesaire to visually hold his own visual niche within my overall Famfrit lineup so a lot was chosen with that in mind.

[successfulcommunications]

Mastering Writing Skills Through Reviewing the Poem Beowulf

Written for my final assessment for my “business communication” course in University of British Columbia -- Published by The-Artifice magazine,  Sweden

What is the best literary work that you ever read? One of the earliest and most important texts in Old English is Beowulf. What made it as famous then as it is today and how it impacts the readers are important questions that need to be addressed. Beowulf has a dramatic writing style that manipulates the reader’s emotions. It’s the story of a great battle and a true hero. The protagonist; the titular Beowulf, comes to the aid of Hrothgar,King of the Danes, whose great hall, Heorot, is plagued by the monster Grendel. Beowulf is the greatest thane in history and as strong as 30 men. He is a noble Anglo-Saxon hero, and prince of the Geats. Since lineage passed from the father’s side, Beowulf is technically a Waegmunding, though he can claim descent from Hrethel. Beowulf becomes king upon his first cousin’s death, and he rules Geatland for 50 years. Finally Beowulf dies during the battle with the dragon. In his youth, he personifies all of the best values of the heroic culture. In his old age, he proves to be a wise and effective ruler. Beowulf leaves no heirs, so his kinsman Wiglaf becomes the next king.

Many years ago, I began writing for an online encyclopedia but, at first, my writings failed to get published. The first signs of improvement appeared slowly. There were many amazing articles about politics. After writing a few paragraphs in different articles in that encyclopedia, I found out there are some general rules that every writer must follow.

One of them is to write as simple as possible and with clarity. 1 Always use simple words, short sentences, and try to improve and clear the meaning of vague expressions. Avoid using complex sentences. Always use simple sentences consisting of one clause and try to write in an active voice. Check the grammatical structure. And have a good punctuation. The most successful articles are written using general, popular, simple, but highly professional words and clichés. Beowulfin form of a simple story with an outstanding narrative teaches a way of life.

Let’s review the first 3 terms which the Beowulf begins with:

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by

and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.

We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns. 2

Review the writing structure. It’s written in simple terms. The texts give a notion to the kings of Danes, and princes’ heroic campaigns. Therefore it starts memorably, and it raises the emotion of people who like classic and heroic tales. It is a fiction story, based on the real events of that era and the kings of Danes. It’s written by a poetic style. This writing style helps the reader to follow the narrative easily and passionately. Beowulf is a great example of a successful work, and it’s a noble work from the old-world era, and we would learn a lot by reviewing its writing style.

Another example of simplicity in writing in Beowulf (including simple terms and application of active voice):

It was the end of their voyage and the Geats vaulted over the side, out on to the sand, and moored their ship. There was a clash of mail and a thresh of gear. They thanked God for that easy crossing on a calm sea.

There are three more general rules to follow to write a high impact manuscript that would be described through the remainder of this article below.

Avoiding biased language is the second general rule. When one writes biased information, the article loses its scientific credibility. The author’s point of view shall not affect what the author writes. 3 Also some authors assume that every individual is male. When the author doesn’t write free of the gender, race, age, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation the author’s writing would get considered as another form of biased writings too.

The other general rule is making reliable citations. 4 Without reliable citations and references, not only would your article lose much of its credibility, but it is also impossible that an article with weak citations would be published by a good publication. When one is looking for some resources to cite them in an article, the one shall consider the credibility of its publisher and the scientific experiences of its author.

And finally the fourth general rule is sharing compelling and valuable information. Without a piece of different information there would be no difference between your works with the others. For example there would be 100,000 of books available in a genre about a subject that a person have decided to write about. And this person knows nothing more than the other writers who have written about that subject, or even this person knows less. Few people would read what this person have written, and even this person would have serious complaints to find a publisher to share that work with someone.

It’s not necessary that I quote many paragraphs from Beowulf which share compelling and valuable information, but as one of the oldest literatures in English it is full of valuable information regarding the old-world, its people, and their rulers.

However drafting an impactful writing relies on a great understanding of different people’s psychology and their habits. Higher understanding of people contemplative system, imaginations, and how to impress or persuade people would increase chance of getting succeeded in writings. Your writing is not what you think it is, it would be what the other people think about. It is not what you may imagine in your mind, it is what the other people would imagine. Also your own writing habits could be inappropriate for a proposal. An author must establish a high impact and affectionate writing style first, and then improve it. You can review a high impact published article first. It would help you build your writing habits. There are four main types of writing. It’s including expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative writing. Scientific writings are almost informative. They are either expository or descriptive. Fiction writings usually are narrative. And when people write to have someone’s agreement they would write it in a persuasive format.

In conclusion, proposing an impactful and affectionate writing relies on raising the audience’s passion and attention with respect to several rules. There are four important rules to follow for creating a proposal. Simple writing helps the reader to follow the scripture easily, understand them well, and it shall create a vivid image of the subject into the reader’s imagination. Avoiding biased language makes the writing more credible. Reliable citations would support the author’s statements. And when there are lots of similar works available about a topic, then sharing compelling and valuable information would make your writing different, and help it stands out of the other works. However the author’s writing and descriptions would shape in the readers mind, and it’s the author’s responsibility to artistically imply those concepts to the audience. Don’t forget that an impactful and affectionate story (including personal stories, fiction, and non-fiction) usually begins while written in a simple style and ends memorably. However writing for a higher impact is a difficult task. And it requires advanced writing skills. It’s an important thing that I could learn over time.

Works Cited

Paul Massari, Writing, clear and simple. The Harvard Gazette, January 23, 2012. ↩

Seamus Heaney and the Beowulf Poem, Beowulf. W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. ↩

Walden University Writing Center. (n.d.) Scholarly voice: Avoiding bias. Retrieved from http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/scholarlyvoice/avoidingbias↩

Middlebury Libraries. Why do we cite? Retrieved from https://middlebury.libguides.com/citation/whycite ↩