#breton girl writes

[bretongirlwrites]

The Falmer gone off in persistent search of my Thrown Voice, and the chaurruses likewise having scuttled away like cats to the rattling of their food-bowl, I bent beside the chest, – which I had determined was either not Falmer; or else some Falmer, tired of spiky grey minimalism and chitin plate, had decided to try a new design. I would not put it past the Falmer of Blackreach, – it must get dull down here, – once the novelties of scrap Dwemer metal and exciting new species of mushroom had worn off; but I was convinced this was from the above-ground; and made by the decidedly not scuttly. The wood had begun to crumple a little; and the hinges had fared little better; but there was a magic on it which even the miserable mizzle of Blackreach could not get to, which my own magic went determined into, and bounced straight off. 

‘Oh!’ said I: ‘do you know a better lockpicking spell?’

Marcurio looked askance at me, and said that the first thing every student learns, when clambering back to the university after a night of revelry, with the curfew in full force, is from the renowned book It's A Hard Lock Life For Us. – I therefore invited him to try. His spell, – o I could not imagine him revelling!, – bounced straight back as mine had.

‘If experience is anything to go by,’ said he, ‘the hardest locks guard fifty-seven septims and an iron dagger. – We ought to keep moving.’

‘Oh!’ I returned, ‘I want to see, – it rattles, listen, –’

And so after much deliberation, we decided upon trying a combined spell; joined hands, summoned it; and not knowing quite if combination worked, tried it regardless. The poor battered box looked miserably at us; creaked; and gave up entirely.

‘A crimson nirnroot!’ I cried at once.

‘Julienne, we already have thirty, –’ Marcurio protested. 

I must scowl and pick up the thing (which was damp quite beyond the norm for a nirnroot, more on the slimy sort of scale); and putting it carefully between two bits of paper, slide it in with the rest. The others in my bag were still chiming, faintly; this one let out a pathetic little whine and fell silent.  

‘Julienne, –’ said Marcurio suddenly. 

He thrust his hand into the box, and drew out the thing I'd wholly ignored, in favour of the sad nirnroot. – A thing which had kept its lustre, despite or perhaps because of the nirnroot-slime at the edges; which was so golden as to half blind us, in the thin darkness of Blackreach; and which we thought, somewhere in our unconsciousness, that we recognised. It was long, thin and perfectly unearthly. It was an Elder Scroll. 

Marcurio whistled: held the thing up as if to read it: thought better of it, valuing despite everything his sanity; and so kept it rolled up and wielded it quite fit to hit someone over the head with it. – I looked about for Falmer and doubted they’d succumb to a whack with a scroll. – The place still empty, – for my Voice had echoed over cliffs and chasms and possibly directly into a troll-nest, – he beheld it eyes gleaming, and said:

‘This must be what we’re looking for! Someone’s been to Mzark before us, –’

‘Oh!’ said I, ‘I hope they haven’t done anything stupid.’

‘They have left an Elder Scroll in a box in a Falmer camp,’ said he, ‘I don’t think we can hope for too much.’

‘How will we know if it is the right Scroll?’ said I.

Marcurio feigned having already been inspecting the thing for identifying marks. He was just about to declare that a particular engraving looked like a dragon; when suddenly he deflated, and cried:

‘The damnable, – the bloody, –

And all at once, he unfurled the Scroll and held it before him; I jumped forwards and feared we’d both be blinded and the ceiling collapse and the world end, – but nothing happened save that Marcurio put his head in his hands and threw the Scroll in my general direction. It did not blind me; nor was it inscribed in enigmas and mysteries; it said at the top: Special Limited Edition; and in the rest of it, things which cannot be related for reasons of decency and copyright. In the early Fourth Era, it seems, there had been a fad for novelty books, which had exceeded the boundaries of decorum, and also of people’s bookshelves; and which had, apparently, gone so far into the tacky and out of the other side, that we’d both of us been fooled. A run of popular books had been printed in the form of Elder Scrolls; and for reasons known only to a certain debauched actor of deepest history, one of them had been The Lusty Argonian Maid. 

‘I want to gouge my eyes out,’ said Marcurio. 

I looked at him; at the scroll, foolishly; thought the same thing; wondered if a Moth Priest had ever been driven to voluntary blindness by bad erotica; and burst out laughing.

‘It isn’t funny!’ said he: ‘we wasted so much magicka on that damn lock, –’

‘Oh!’ said I, ‘we have a crimson nirnroot, –’

It was too dark to see what else was in the box: but perceiving glimmers which reflected the distant pinpricks on the vault, I put my hand in. I found a coin or two, – what I hoped for fear of worse, were the wet remains of another nirnroot, – then, at last, after all our treasure-hunting efforts, my fingers fell upon something smooth, something cut, something faceted, –

‘A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON! –’

[nostalgic-breton-girl]

Character who pretends to be a powerful mage, but actually only uses potions.

‘The new Archmagister,’ exclaimed Nirya, in too loud a whisper, ‘is a perfect fraud.’

And she, – who had spent all of the last three days at the door to the top quarters; and some of the night listening a little licentiously at the keyhole, – ought to know; or else ought to be able to spin a convincing lie about it. Her contemporaries gathered about her, would always feign being fed up with her stories; but nevertheless, fearing that one day her gossip would be valuable, they leaned in closer.

‘A fraud!’ cried Tolfdir: ‘that’s a fine accusation. Have you proof?’

Nirya’s hands were so excited, that she sat on them; and said revelatory: 

‘That big cloak they wear is filled to the brim with spell-scrolls. A perfect library in there! They have only to do some hocus-pocus outside, to distract from the using of one; and then, –’

‘Don’t we all defer to spell-scrolls, sometimes?’ said Drevis, ‘when absolutely necessary? There is nothing wrong with, –’

‘I have never used a spell-scroll,’ said Phinis the picture of honesty: and Drevis blushing, bade them all ignore him. 

‘Really I thought the coat was for the cold,’ said Tolfdir: ‘they after all, are not used to the weather up here. And Savos used to have a heavy sort of coat, –’

‘Maybe Savos was a fraud too,’ said Nirya quite cutting: to general displeasure and muttering all about her. ‘Anyway there’s room for potions in there, too, – lots of potions. Have you seen their quarters? They’re growing glowing mushrooms all up a log in the centre. For potions to fortify destruction, you see.’

‘This is all a conspiracy,’ said Faralda at once: ‘you haven’t any real proof, and you know it.’

‘Well!’ said she: ‘the Psijics put them in charge, didn’t they? Because now they’re in charge. The new Arch-Mage doesn’t know anything about magic. They’ll defer to the Order. And so will we have to, –’

‘Conspiracy!’ cried Faralda again. 

‘I am not sure,’ Tolfdir intervened, ‘that we can judge the Arch-Mage not to be a mage.’

‘They’re just an Arch,’ protested Nirya, ‘an Arch-nothing.’

‘The new Arch-Mage,’ Tolfdir went on, ‘is after all the Dragonborn. Who possesses greater power than any of us. Which is saying something, –’

‘Which is saying nothing,’ said Nirya, ‘they never had to learn, nor study; they do not know how magic works; they just speak some word they learnt somewhere, and things happen beyond their understanding; it may be thrice as powerful as a spell-scroll, but it’s as good as a spell-scroll nonetheless. The Arch-Mage, – the Dragonborn, – it’s fraud, it’s all fraud!’

‘Nirya,’ said Faralda tongue sharp, ‘remind me again what your research-project is about.’

Nirya stood up so suddenly, that she knocked over her stool; and in stooping to rescue it, hid a rising pallor. For a moment it seemed that she might slap Faralda; but in the presence of the others, a smack of a glare must suffice. In this angular sort of mood she appeared too thin for her robes. The more observant among them, noticed a hand slip within; some quiet clanking; then retreat, when at last, subdued, she managed:

‘You would not understand it!’

before disappearing, – quite as if by magic.

[thana-topsy]

A short comic based on the ACTUAL in-game dialogue between Colette and Urag that was so cringe I had to get it out of my brain. Thanks to @kookaburra1701 for pointing it out and cursing me with this.

Featuring Enthir being a menace.

[the-elder-polls]

Hello! I'm taking advantage of this friday to tell you about a new oc I'm trying to develop and eventually write about. I am asking if anyone thinks she's cool to please please please peer pressure me into writing about her!!! My main oc has become the CEO of my brain and thinking about anyone not in her universe is hard :P

ANYWAYS This is Gwenivar, she is a Breton and grew up with her mother in a Glenmoril Wyrd coven in remote High Rock. She ends up getting expelled from the coven in her early twenties (ish, working on the timeline) because the Elder of the coven received a vision during a meditation that she was “wanted by foreign gods” and thus couldn’t commit herself to them. She comes to Skyrim and is trying to learn to adjust to “normal society”, got caught by the Empire while picking herbs and you know it goes :P

She is spurred on by me wanting to combine my tes and witch obsessions

This would be her peak-Coven era (character make here Monster Girl maker by Waffalet)

i am peer pressuring you personally. i love your writing and definitely want to read about this ominous witch lady

[wispstalk]

wip wednesday

tagged by @sylvienerevarine @dirty-bosmer and @elavoria over the last couple weeks, thanks y'all <3

tagging back: @throughtrialbyfire @everybodyknows-everybodydies @jiubilant @nostalgic-breton-girl @babyblueetbaemonster if you have any art or writing in the works u wanna show off

first draft of the thalmor party scene. i don't know how 2 spell hord'ourevers. hors daeiouvres. orderves fuckin... FRENCH APPETIZERS... and i refuse to look it up

(text below the cut)

“Indeed,” she snaps, “the High Queen is here, and two jarls who know well what I am.”

“Yes, it’s a party. You often see your acquaintances at them.”

“But what do I do?” She covers her face with her hands. “My friend taught me all he could of etiquette, and it’s all gone out of my head.”

“Then hear me well.” Sheo takes out his cheese knife and menaces her with it. “There will be expensive cheeses here, and if I see you use a fork to eat a single bite of them, so help me—”

She looks at him aghast. “How can you be thinking of food?”

“How can you not, fool girl?” He steers her by the arm, toward a banquet table laden with horse divorce.

[sylvienerevarine]

Youth is Wasted on the Young

I was somehow overwhelmed by the urge to write something through Ulfric Stormcloak's POV. This will probably never happen again.

---

Ulfric Stormcloak doesn’t care for this new Dragonborn.

She’s irritatingly short, for one thing. It’s not healthy for a man’s neck, looking down that far all the time. And that shrill voice of hers pierces his eardrums even when she’s not Shouting. She’s bossy, nosy, self-righteous. Not to mention her wilful insistence on being a foreigner. Everyone knows Kyne gifted the Thu’um to the Nords–there’s no reason She should also be gifting it to one of those uppity half-elf Bretons.

(It should have been him, it should have been, what was the point of spending half his youth with the Greybeards otherwise?)

When the letter arrives–excessively wordy, written in a looping schoolgirl script that’s almost unreadable even with spectacles–Ulfric is tempted to throw it in the fireplace before he’s halfway done. He has frequently and loudly asserted that the only time he’d share a room with General Tullius is if the man was surrendering, which seems unlikely under the circumstances.

That’s not even considering the rest of the missive, every line of which is absurd. Alduin has returned to eat the world sounds like a pathetic ploy to force a compromise. The type of lie a little girl would tell her estranged parents to make them reunite. 

(He’s seen the dragon, though, on what should have been his last day alive, and hers as well. He’s certain the beast looked at her, just briefly, like she was a long-lost relative.)

In the end, of course, he goes to High Hrothgar, if only out of some morbid curiosity. Endures the disappointed looks from his former mentors, says good afternoon to Tullius like a proper diplomat, refrains from Shouting Elenwen’s skinny Thalmor arse off her chair. He’ll be good, if he must.

She’s there, of course, in a gaudy velvet cape and bright yellow dress. She looks at them like a queen looks at her subjects, or a teacher looks at bright but unruly students. A mongrel foreigner, a mistake the gods made, the only hope anyone has.

“Am I right in assuming,” she says, “that none of you would like to be eaten by a dragon?”

And Ulfric admits, silently and grudgingly, that one needn’t like the Dragonborn to respect her.

[sheirukitriesfandom]

WIP Whenever

Got tagged by @elavoria and finally have some writing I can show to the public :D From A Change of Seasons: Foe, chapter 20 (unreleased):

Winterhold was full of ghosts. 

Some, whispers in the night when the college was fast asleep; some spectres in the fog when even the bravest fishermen dared not set sail; others more tangible, the blurry visions of drunk students or elusive scholars long forgotten by even the gods. It had been seven days since Rashkan joined their ranks.

Seven days of haunting college grounds, hiding from his fellow mages, yet yearning for them evermore. How foolish to think he could ignore his hunger. To believe everything would return to normal. Feeding on Phinis had sustained him at first, but like Valdis preyed on Winterhold, hunger crept up on him one meal at a time. Then two, three and four per day until his fellow college members transformed into tempting red spectres that tormented him even through the thick stone walls, their beating hearts a luring call louder than a dragon’s roar; their scent sweeter than psijic ambrosia. A feast for the senses, torture for the mind. Tagging: @elavoria (right back at you), @skyrim-forever, @nostalgic-breton-girl, @thequeenofthewinter, @theoneandonlysemla, @dirty-bosmer and @rakaiawriter

[cordeliaflyte]

an email so nice you're like woagh i need to be in academia... no girl you need to be in publishing with a master's degree in your impractical dream field of choice. you can occasionally write a research article but be real you don't want this to be your whole life. but i kind of dooooo. ideally in redacted city which is a fever dream. but it would be so cute for my esteemed professors to be my peers... we could have coffee... i could say WOAGH :O when they tell me about the books they're writing.... legitimately my #1 desire is to live in redacted city and all my friends have to live there too they have no choice. or at least visit twice a month. depends on which some aren't allowed to some i need to see 5 days a week. they can go on holiday sometimes i guess.... and i live with my girlfriend but my bestieees live right next door so we can have privacy but we can also spontaneously choose to have breakfast together whenever or come over to cook dinner or watch a movie or help out with something.... and i cook delicious food at home 90% of the time and 10% of the time i patronise all the cafes and food trucks and old breton men selling crepes.... sorry when i was living in this city i spent 80% of the time suicidal in my room but i will never stop romanticising it this time i would treat it right.... i love this city 4ever...

[illumiera]

Hello there! For the firsts ask: 4, 15, W, Z, 🌍 and ‼️

oh, thank you so much for the ask, Senu!! 💖

✨ ask game! ✨

4. first time experiencing grief

Elentari's from a small family—no uncles, no aunts, and as I headcanon that Bretons live a good while thanks to their mer blood, her grandparents had already passed on by the time her parents got around to having her (or did so when she was very young). that means her first time experiencing grief was, unfortunately, when her mother, father, and little sister were killed by the Dark Brotherhood, and while Mara could save her thanks to the divine in her (in other words: that dragon soul!), her family's mortal bodies could never have withstood the touch of a god. she misses them so, so very much. (and blames herself for their deaths, too.) 🥲

15. first thing they remember feeling proud of

for Elentari, this must have been something magic-related! though it was considered "improper" for highborn girls in Daggerfall's restrictive noble circles to learn the arcane arts, her mother insisted upon teaching her and her father encouraged her. I think it was a very proud day for a young Ellie, the moment she tried and tried and finally cast a spell and did it well, and after that, she began dreaming of becoming a great mage or a travelling healer.

W. first time they realised their relationship is endgame... or isn't

I can't help but think that Elentari and Miraak have always had the sense that their fates are intertwined, whether it's to be with one another or to be the death of one another. how much they (well, Ellie, really, considering she's the one so deep in denial they could find evidence of her in Ancient Egypt) are prepared to acknowledge that, though, is another question entirely! destiny aside, they'll realise that their relationship is endgame through the little things: how they can feel safe with one another and seen with one another, how they can laugh and cry and learn together, through late-night cuddles as they talk each other out of nightmares, and through winged flights with the wind in their hair. for two Dragonborn who have always felt like strangers walking on Nirn, at home with neither mortals nor dragons, this is one of the most precious things of all.

Z. first time they said "I love you"

while they're both very loving when it comes to words and actions, both Ellie and Miraak are usually the sort of people who let their I love yous go implied and so unspoken it's downright obvious in all the things they do and say. that said, should there come a moment where they're both ready to become a couple, and to accept that through time and destiny and life and death, they've chosen one another again and again? that's where we'll find them saying "I love you." 🤲 (oh, and perhaps their fic's title counts as an I love you, too? because I'm a sucker for when stories find a way to include their titles in prose or dialogue, and so i fear no fate (for you are my fate) will most certainly be spoken aloud At Some Point!) 😼

🌍. first attempt at worldbuilding, or a notable piece of worldbuilding you're proud of

ah, I love worldbuilding, and it almost certainly shows at least a little in my writing! probably one of my favourite pieces of worldbuilding (and some of the first I came up with, now that I think about it) is the lore I have for the dragon cult and Atmora. canon doesn't tell us much about it, which more or less gives me free rein to invent personalities for the dragon priests, make up some rules Miraak would have lived under, and think of what life would have been like back then... which Ellie gets to see, too, both through Miraak's recollections and through dreams that take her through time!

‼️free space! tell us about a notable "first" in your writing journey!

here's a first! I'm a shy sort of creature, so while TES isn't the first fandom I've written for, it is the first fandom in which I've worked up the courage to involve myself as anything more than a lurky lurker from Planet Lurk. it's been so fun, getting to know/scream with/ramble with talented friends and mutuals and bouncing braincells/ideas/jokes back and forth, rather than just... "I have finished a chapter. lo, it has been released into the wild. the proverbial crickets are chirping a lovely song tonight, aren't they?"

[fdelopera]

Welcome to the 14th installment of 15 Weeks of Phantom, where I post all 68 sections of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, as they were first printed in Le Gaulois newspaper 115 yeas ago.

In today’s installment, we have Part III of Chapter 6, “Le Violon Enchanté” (“The Magic Violin”).

This section was first printed on Wednesday, 13 October, 1909.

For anyone following along in David Coward's translation of the First Edition of Phantom of the Opera (either in paperback, or Kindle, or from another vendor -- the ISBN-13 is: 978-0199694570), the text starts in Chapter 6 at Raoul's inner dialogue, “She’s staying at the Setting Sun Inn, must be, it’s the only one!” and goes to the description of the old church at Perros, “The sacristy door opened onto this gruesome rampart, a feature of so many old Breton churches.”

There are some differences between the Gaulois text and the First Edition. In this section, these include (highlighted in red above):

1) Compare the Gaulois text:

Cet anniversaire et votre apparition si subite l’autre soir dans ma loge, tout cela m’avait reporté loin, bien loin dans le passé, et je vous ai écrit comme une petite fille que j’étais alors, comme une petite fille qui joue et qui serait heureuse de revoir, dans un moment de tristesse et de solitude, son petit camarade à côté d’elle…

To the First Edition:

Votre apparition si subite l’autre soir dans ma loge, m’avait reporté loin, bien loin dans le passé, et je vous ai écrit comme une petite fille que j’étais alors, qui serait heureuse de revoir, dans un moment de tristesse et de solitude, son petit camarade à côté d’elle…

Translation from the Gaulois:

"That anniversary and your sudden appearance in my dressing room the other evening, all that took me back, far back into the past, and I wrote to you as the little girl that I was then, as a little playful girl who would be happy, in a moment of sadness and solitude, to once again see her little friend by her side..."

Translation from the First Edition:

"Your sudden appearance in my dressing room the other evening took me back, far back into the past, and I wrote to you as the little girl that I was then, who would be happy, in a moment of sadness and solitude, to once again see her little friend by her side..."

2) Compare the Gaulois text:

Le jeune homme veut la prendre dans ses bras

To the First Edition:

Le jeune homme veut la saisir

Translation from the Gaulois:

The young man tried* to take her in his arms

Translation from the First Edition:

The young man tried* to catch her

* Note: I have translated Leroux’s use of the historical present using the past tense, as is more common in English writing.

3) Minor differences in punctuation and italicization.

Click here to see the entire edition of Le Gaulois from 13 October, 1909. This link brings you to page 3 of the newspaper — Le Fantôme is at the bottom of the page in the feuilleton section. Click on the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen to turn the pages of the newspaper, and click on the Zoom button at the bottom left to magnify the text.

[tothepointofinsanity]

𓆉⋆.ೃ࿔*:･𖦹𓇼𖦹⋆.ೃ࿔*:･𓆉𖦹

Welcome to my miscellaneous art/dump blog ↓

- - -

Name: ttpoi/Caspian

Pronouns: He/him

Gender: Just Some Guy • Schizoid

What I do: Draw things I like. I also talk a lot about games and media. Frequent nonsensical ramblings.

Language: CN/ENG

DNI Criteria: If I see that you are unpleasant I will simply block.

Blog Tag Navigation Guide:

• ttpoiart (art)

• ttpoiwrites (fandom writing)

• ttpoilog (personal writing and My Things)

• ttpoicharacter (my OCs)

• pre-grief syndrome (Sayaka Miki art)

• Sayaka Archives (Sayaka-related introspection, analysis, thoughts, pondering)

• Fav art shelf (other people’s art that I reblog here)

• (?) Archives (For extra works that I also like and am obsessed with on the blog. To use, input a name of said thing plus the archive label. E.g Grass Archives.)

For OC art, you can also go to @library-mother because some works are archived there.

- - -

Here's some other stuff I'm interested in, but otherwise, have a good day (((;ꏿ_ꏿ;)))

𓆉⋆.ೃ࿔*:･𖦹𓇼𖦹⋆.ೃ࿔*:･𓆉𖦹

Music:

Maretu — Girl Eraser, Namida, Magical Doctor, New Darling, The Taste of Cockroach, Brain Revolution Girl, aishiteitanoni, Packet Hero, Miseenen, Dokuhaku, Koukatsu, Last Day

Masa Works Design — Rondon Slag Pathy HI, God of Marie, Soap Lagoon, Paris Green, Himitsuno kingyo

Itimatu Suzuka — Yes I am, yumenokeloid, hana-arashi

Mitski — Stay Soft, Francis Forever, A Pearl, Me and My Husband, Washing Machine Heart, This is a Life, Should Have Been Me, Your Best American Girl

Steampianist — The Singing Tumor, Candle Boy, Dream Eating Machine, Hero of the Abyss, Black Hole, Ang Cariñosa

Cosmo Sheldrake — The Fly, Tardigrade Song, Piloscene, The Moss, Linger Longer, Come Along, Pelicans We

Games:

Yatoimtop — GREENER GRASS AWAITS, Liminal Ranger, Pearl Grabber, Tropic Jim’s Sweet Island Adventure

Yames — Discover My Body, Water Womb World, Via Negativa, Discover Our Bodies

Taylor Swietanski — THAT NIGHT STEEPED BY BLOOD RIVER, Spirits Mirror: Digital Possessed, Caged Bird Don’t Fly

Modus Interactive — Iketsuki, Beneath a Withering Moon, Groaning Steel

Comics/Webtoons/Manga:

Bread and All Variations of the Aforementioned, The Dummy's Dummy, Cursed Princess Club, Shoujo Jiten, Apocalyptic Horseplay, Curse of the Three Sisters, Berserk, Blade of the Immortal, Uratarou

Misc. items of joy:

Breton hats, stickers, keychains, music boxes, aquariums, puppets, vintage dolls, ventriloquist dummies, wooden toys, angel statues, paper stars, cats, old animated fairytale movies, nutcrackers, traditional clothing, the Christmas atmosphere, seashells

[bretongirlwrites]

‘I must confess,’ said I though I’d confessed it before, and numerously: ‘that I cannot keep all the details straight: I am no historian, and especially not of Morrowind.’

‘It is not a history-lesson exactly,’ said Caius as he’d done before: but added as he’d not, that: ‘I know I have had you look at the big picture; but the least details may be just as important; and I think I might be sending you for more pieces to it, in time. It befits a spy to know the territory intimately, before they venture into it, –’

‘Then I had better know,’ said I, ‘what it is that the Emperor wants.’

I spread my hands as if to say: the cards up my sleeve are mediocre; and leant over more interested yet in his shaded documents, than I was in whatever his truthful answer might be. Caius made to hand me a bit of paper, which I recognised as his decoded cipher; but thought better of it, and retreated before even I had untied the first knotted capital of his scrawl. He pushed his glasses up his nose and read the thing as if he’d never seen it before; or as if he couldn’t read his own writing; whereupon I in the painful silence, said suddenly:

‘There is a gentleman who comes here sometimes, when I have been out. A High Elf, I think, nearly a foot above me, –’

‘Tyermaillin,’ returned Caius blinking.

He was too tall a man to be skirting around in the shadows; but noble enough, I’d thought, for a man who had pretended, in meeting me on the street, that he didn’t know me. I’d never known, not knowing him, why he’d needed to pretend; I’d supposed, in moments of prejudice, that an Altmer saw me much as I saw a ragged child hardly up to my waist. 

‘One of your other agents, I suppose,’ said I: ‘I know all this is bigger than me. Than both of us. That it goes all the way up, that the upper echelons are shaken, and the world with them. – This man, this Tyermaillin, –’

‘One of the other agents in Vvardenfell,’ replied Caius still distracted by his paper, hoping perhaps it were a mistranslation. ‘I had forgotten to introduce you.’

‘I suppose too,’ said I, ‘that you have forgotten to tell me a good many things that you have told him. I am missing pieces, great pieces, and cannot put it all together. But I have suspicions, and must have suspicions, because I am a spy, –’

Caius too, was missing pieces of the thing: and I did not quite see it, in the moment: saw his papers as some disparate whole I didn’t know about, and not as they were, as disparate only. He took up another bit, compared it, wondered which to pass me, if I ought to know at all.

‘Oh!’ said he, ‘we all have suspicions. Of course we do. But without more information, we are all at a loss, and, –’

‘You are looking for a Nerevarine,’ said I flippant, ‘or if you cannot find one, you mean to make one.’

Caius continued only to blink at me. I took this, and the glance at his papers, quite in error; and set forth upon those suspicions I’d had, – that this all came from the Emperor himself, – that a pet Nerevarine, who’d topple gods and remake a province, would be a fine asset: a finer one at least, than a shabby pipe-smoker and a scrawny thief. That prophecies cannot be talked of, without their beginnings arising in shadows and side-glances and things half known: that if the Blades believed Nerevar was to return, then he'd return, in the first face which half fitted the description. 

And it was ridiculous, and it was superstition, and if Caius meant to mention the simultaneous proliferation of congested ash-things, then he must not underestimate though he had seen their forms dusty as the gathering Ghostgate air, – simple coïncidence.

I’d never since Marianne’s preachings on Mara’s all-loving embrace, held forth so against superstition; and breathless, I looked back at Caius, for I’d lost myself half in it. He sighed and passed a hand over his brow and gathering that paternal air I’d increasingly seen in him, picked out two or three of the papers to hand to me, –

‘And the man Tyermaillin,’ I said at last, ‘is tall, and grand, and his hair is high upon his brow, – he is an Elf at least, and may play the part to your liking.’

Caius squinted at me more than at his handwriting; and said, very slowly:

‘You think Tyermaillin is to be the Nerevarine?’

I must confess that I didn’t know: only that I hadn’t seen anyone else visit Caius’s house, save myself, – he winced, and I did not see it, in the moment, – and that I’d conjectured myself halfway to oblivion, and would not speculate so wildly again. The confession was not entirely out, when I realised it was not quite true; and that Caius was still looking at me in that strange paternal sort of way, as I supposed the Emperor might have looked at him, even as he gave him orders founded in dreams and superstitions and toy-soldier fantasies. 

‘No,’ said Caius, ‘no, it is not him. And I am not sure the thing is superstition. Stranger things have happened; and strange things are to come; but if I told you that Nerevar would reincarnate as Cyrodiil as you or I, would you, –’

‘I’d think you ridiculous,’ said I: and beginning to smile, shaky as the upper echelons, perfectly missed in the moment for it was convoluted, my own name, – repeated like a prayer, – winding and bound into those papers he curled beneath his fingers.

[elavoria]

WIP Whenever

Tagged by @sheirukitriesfandom and @dirty-bosmer, thank you! <3 I tag @nostalgic-breton-girl and whoever wants to join. :3

I haven’t been writing too much on account of resting on my laurels from finishing Evey’s fic and doing a lot of prepwork for ttrpg Pathfinder, but I actually wrote a little paragraph recently! Back to Isanna at Drezen:

The Hellknights weren’t the only ones to have arrived at Drezen that day, Isanna noticed during her walking rounds of the cidadel’s streets. As her eyes swept over the chapel, they were drawn to an aasimar with golden hair and eyes standing by its door. Dressed in gold and white cleric’s robes and bearing a golden holy symbol in the shape of Abadar’s key, she looked almost unnaturally pristine compared to her surroundings, save perhaps for the shrine to Abadar she had set up next to a table of wares. Although Abadarans’ mercenary approach to healing irked her, Isanna had to admit she was glad to see that reclaiming and rebuilding Drezen had drawn the attention—and, she hoped, the support and protection—of a devotee of the god of cities.

[hannah-heartstrings]

The First WIP Wednesday of the Year!

Thanks for the tag, @inkysqueed!

Tagging: @babyblueetbaemonster, @druidx, @inkysqueed again, @katastronoot, and @nostalgic-breton-girl (or any of your accounts)

I currently don't have access to my files because my laptop's battery and cord both went kaput. I could wait till the new ones arrive tomorrow, but nah. I still had to write somehow, so I've been writing in my drafts, I might as well just share one of those. XD

(But that's why the formatting is different.)

So here's Lecrinn and Garrus and my explanation for something in-game.

---------

"Why don't you sleep in the captain's quarters?"

"I just..." his gaze trailed down.

She looked annoyed, having a feeling she knew where this was going.

"I don't want a nicer bed than everyone else."

She was right. "You work harder than everyone else."

"Well... I suppose, yes, but-"

"Those shoulders," she poked one, "carry the weight of the world, they deserve a nice comfy bed to collapse into at the end of the day."

He considered. "The pauldrons do grow heavy."

"Mhm," she drug out with a hopeful smile.

Gaze shifting to her, he couldn't help smiling a little. "All right, I'll think about it."

Hers fell a little. "Thinking about it" could easily turn into "forgetting about it." Her lips pulled back up into a smirk. She'd just have to come back soon to check on him.

[umbracirrus]

15,16,17 for Elyse and Thorne and Lusine!

Thank you Kuri-!!! <3

15. Tropes, tropes, tropes! Do any come into mind for this character? Or do they subvert any?

I've answered this question already for Elyse here!

For Thorne, she's got a few little tropes which I associate with her. Most obvious is the 'criminal trying to seek redemption', as she goes from leader of the Thieves Guild to a member of the Companions. Another is she's part of the ol' reliable enemies to lovers trope with Vilkas! And the whole being a criminal in Riften thing really didn't help her out there on getting on his good books.

For Lusine... Hmm... This is quite a bit harder for me to answer. Perhaps the closest thing to a trope is that she has very firm ideas on morals/what is good and bad, and is very hard to budge on it (thanks to Grelod). And can be stubborn. I don't know if this is more describing her personality as opposed to tropes though...

16. Languages! How many do they speak? Are they literate?

Admittedly... I'm not too knowledgable on languages in the elder scrolls to properly answer the languages spoken, though I know that if there is a common language all three of my girls would know it. Elyse is most likely to know multiple languages, being the child of a Nord and a Breton who grew up across High Rock and Cyrodiil before moving to Skyrim.

Elyse is also the most literate of the three of them, which is helped by the fact that Ingja was in a fortunate enough position in her youth to have a tutor, and Edwyn being a scholar and eventually a tutor himself - they passed on what they could in terms of knowledge and literacy to Elyse.

Thorne would also be quite literate, as though she lived in isolation for much of her life, knowledge was quite important to her family (specifically her mother, because of Thorne's grandfather being... let's say knowledgable with a curious mind) and it rubbed off on her.

Lusine is the least literate, because she spent much of her time simply trying to survive as opposed to things such as reading or writing, first at Honorhall then in the forests around Ivarstead. Wilhelm realises that she has trouble with reading and writing and tries to help her out alongside a few other people in Ivarstead (Klimmek had her join him on one of his journeys to High Hrothgar to see if she could read the tablets up the 7,000 steps, for example.) She does start learning properly about reading and writing with Vilkas' help when she joins the Companions though.

17. If they can, what’s their fighting style? If they’re a mage, how do they handle being silenced or running out of magicka?

So... Elyse is a combination of styles, and it changes over time. She starts out purely as a mage, using destruction spells from a distance. However, as her proficiencies more lie within the conjuration school, she starts relying upon that instead, conjuring familiars and atronachs. That soon transitions towards conjuring weapons... and her being a dual-wielding bound-blade user. She essentially is a battlemage/spellblade of a sort. When she runs out of magicka, she usually has potions on hand that she has crafted herself to restore it, and if in a situation where she is out of potions or silenced, she has one of either her trusty dagger which was given to her by Ralof in Helgen Keep that landed the killing blow on Alduin, or her mother's bow which she cherishes and has kept her family surviving for many years in her childhood.

Thorne is good with a sword. It is what she was trained in, and it's what she knows she can rely upon. Just good old one-handed sword, preferrably the Nightingale Blade when it ends up in her possession but Things Happen at some point which means that she has to rely upon a Skyforge Steel sword instead. She can use magic, but refuses to do so (another thing tied to her grandfather). If she can, she will try to use stealth to her advantage, but as time passes, she finds she prefers to be a bit more reckless because she can be - she's not hiding any more, so why should she continue to act as such in a fight?

Lusine admittedly quite enjoys a physical altercation. Fists? She's down for that. Blades? She'll give it a go. Hammers? Why not! Magic just does not come naturally to her, but she has a knack for anything which involves getting up close and personal. Bows and crossbows make her pull a face. Plus she's a werewolf, and she has no qualms about using a transformation to her advantage if need be (though restrains that to an extent when she joins the Companions, not wanting to ruin their long-held secret).

[alongtidesoflight]

back when i got started with modding and began advertising my stuff i'd always put it into coded words like "romanceable regardless of gender" or some shit so the cishet bethesda fanboys wouldn't start foaming at the mouth and just look past the gays as long as they get to have some dunmer or breton coochie and i think it's what ultimately broke my neck about finishing it coz i was just expecting it to blow over and my account to get troll swarmed if i ever put it up on the nexus because we're talking about the website that collectively lost its shit over a rainbow flag in spiderman in like what 2020

i'd be scared to write lines like a guy talking about his very same sex lover, or a girl being sweet on another lady or a nonbinary blacksmith and their partner and their children and i'd put them in then erase them the next day and put them in and erase them the other day again and it'd get even worse when a quest was kinda built on the history of that because at one point some voice lines were crucial to a script or a stage progression and i couldn't just cut them out anymore

i was trying to really keep it on the down low to avoid any backlash with the bethesda fanboys but the end result of that was hollow and didn't ring true and i just ended up getting increasingly anxious about the thing and couldn't look at it anymore lol and it's a shame because it's really in the stage of being close to an alpha release so if i could just stop being neurotic over the what ifs of the future for five fucking SECONDS yk

anway todd put canon gays into your game i beg you

don't just let a guy wear a dress and play it off as a joke in the trailer give me same sex relationships, queer people and gender modification so i don't have to create an entire condition to check if the player chose they/them pronouns for every voice line