#don't make deals with daedra kids

[incorrectdaedra]

please give a synopsis of carnival goldfish that's such an intriguing name. how does this relate to our prince of wishes?

Okay so

so

so

You're absolutely right, this is Vile. Vile the character AND vile the descriptor.

A common trope in family slice-of-life stories is for a small child to acquire, love, and accidentally kill a pet fish. The adults, not wanting to deal with the fallout, run frantically to the pet store to find a fish that vaguely resembles the one that passed before the kid even notices it's dead in a story that can only be funny because fish are considered too insignificant to mourn.

Carnival Goldfish is a disturbingly light-hearted story about what I think would happen if Clavicus Vile took a mortal lover. Vile gets overly excited and forgets that mortals are delicate creatures, he kills it, whines to Barbas that it's been sleeping for too long, and Barbas rushes to the mortal plane to find a replacement before Vile realizes what he's done. Mortals all kinda look the same anyways, it shouldn't be hard.

So, yeah! That's the basic gist. As fun as it is to read mortal x daedra romances, I don't think any daedric prince could really love a mortal as an equal (except maybe Sheogorath, since he's crazy). I do know plot point by plot point what happens in this story, but I haven't moved past the outline yet because I haven't come up with OCs to be the lover and the replacement yet. I don't experience romantic attraction and I don't write many OCs, so this is just generally pretty alien to me I guess? Anyways, I hope I can make this concept into a story that keeps people up at night. Thanks for the asks, guys :3 :3

@ego-osbourne @gergoats-gogurt

[ongoingaccident-deleted]

The Bargain

Just wanted to chat about the bargain Ae made with Meridia and how it came to be. All the details under the cut to avoid clutter, as usual.

So Summerset happens. There’s a few people who are around for the events: Z is off helping Raz to do ~spy things~ and keep the Isles intact and mostly stays out of Artaeum, Tam is focusing on helping the remains of the Meridian cult there after they’ve been mostly destroyed by the Court of Bedlam, Raewyn is mostly handing around the Psijics and lending her magic to the cause, and Ae is the one going through what would be considered the main story, kind of helping out everywhere. She also ends up being the only one going through the Crystal Tower with Leythen and Darien, and their deaths both hit her very hard. She’d come to respect Leythen a great deal through their time together, and of course she’s had a massive crush on Darien for basically forever.

She withdraws far, far into herself after Nocturnal is defeated, not speaking to anyone unless she has to and not showing any sort of emotion, which is somewhat jarring for everyone after she’d started to be more open recently. And then she goes to the palace to convince the Sapiarchs to defend the tower, and she hears the guards talking about the book. She looks into it, sees what Darien said, and kind of snaps.

She’s not “thrown into a rage” or anything, she just leaves Alinor with the journal and without speaking to anyone, and rides hard to the shrine where they spoke to Meridia earlier. She’s not sure what she’s going to say or even really what she thinks is going to happen - it’s not like Meridia is just going to give up Darien for free.

Ae basically starts by going in there and going “hey wtf you told him he’d be free you lying jerk” and Meridia just... doesn’t care. Using Darien to further her own ends was pretty much her plan all along, not to mention that Meridia doesn’t even really consider him a person. Not to mention that this tiny mortal basically calling her mean is pretty much the least of her concerns at this point.

So Aellai gets a little desperate, and kind of half-threatens, half-begs Meridia to just set him free. Part of the bargain is that she will never mention or try to get revenge for the fact that Meridia got her and nine other soldiers killed, and the other part is that she will drop everything and act as Meridia’s champion one more time if she needs it. She knows that that’s not a smart idea, particularly when she doesn’t think Meridia really likes her, but she’s kind of desperate and it’s the only thing she can think to offer.

Meridia says “hmm yeah okay here he is” and gives her Dawnbreaker. Ae is upset and a little angry, but this is kind of Meridia’s insurance policy. She tells Ae that it’s theoretically possible to pull him from the sword, and maybe if she comes and helps Meridia out enough, she’ll do it for her. There’s a lot of levels to this play: she insures that Ae will hold up her end of the bargain and come to help, she potentially ropes Ae into being her champion and doing her bidding as much as she wants, and she marks a well-known hero as her follower. So kind of a win-win-win for Meridia (not so much for Ae, but what can you do?).

Aellai is determined to find a way to just get to the Colored Rooms and fight her and take Darien back, but we’ll see who wins that fight. (She has a pretty decent track record when it comes to beating up daedra, though.)

More to follow eventually, hope y’all enjoyed listening to me aimlessly ramble about characters.

[omiramotakiart]

The House Sotha headcanons cause screw it (sketches that I may or may not have posted before as visual representation of some)

Plenty of traditions of Ald Sotha are closer to their Ashlander roots than the average Chimer, though modified for an easier lifestyle, still can be traced back to a group of Ashlanders who decided to settle in the now Ald Sotha generations upon generations ago.

Wise Women were still a thing and they ran the place, grandma Varethim was among the last one, she was a no-nonsense woman who claimed to be old enough to have not only met but slept with Saint Veloth (obvious exaggeration though she enjoyed the face everyone made when she scared guests with that claim), that lady had seen it all, had three kids of different unknown fathers.

Speaking of, we have the oldest, Theda, who takes her mother's role of running the House, surprisingly a good diplomat for someone so temperamental, can give a speech of why House Sotha needs more trading routes and cut your fingers with a kitchen knife later, she's Sil and Nall's mom. Aunt Talesa, a bit nosy, good healer, monitors the folks working on the land and will tackle people stealing stuff on the market. Then uncle Taeloth, sailor by trade, fisherman, local drunk with the best stories, can wrestle a dreugh if motivated enough.

Despite being a nobles they still weren't part of the big Houses, if anything they were a bit isolated, enough to have their own dialect, even the ones running the place would work at the docks, fields, markets fisheries and such, it wasn't uncommon to find Wise Women in training in the same boat as fishermen, all in their linens just grabbing fish with their bare hands.

Most contact with outsiders besides business trips came from wandering traders who stopped by. Ald Sotha's main export was fish, even clay and crafts as there were quite a few clay deposits around the place, even a weaving industry. Even the occasional pearls.

On the topic of outsiders. Sil and Nall's father was a Telvanni. Or former Telvanni, a mer named Esum, the story told by their parents is that Esum left House Telvanni for a simpler life with the woman he loved. Their grandmother says that some Telvanni had made a tower in Ald Sotha and were causing disrupts around the town until Theda began to threaten them, the whole town drove them away, Esum decided to stay as he had taken a liking to the lady with a knife glaring daggers at him. Judging by the ruins of a Telvanni tower on the north of Ald Sotha, the kids know who to believe. Said ruins were lost after the destruction of Ald Sotha and only remained on maps of the town.

Esum by the way taught his kids well while he could. At least a toddler aged Sil, Nall had stunted Magicka, Sil however was already accidentally floating and setting things on fire as a baby, to his mother's dismay. The kids don't remember much of him, he had some interesting views on the Good Daedra which he wasn't so secretive at all, some say he may have made deals with Hermaeus Mora though those are rumors, he went on a business trip one day and got caught in a storm. His body washed ashore in a couple of days. Tapestries of the deceased are made and hanged on the House's burial site, Esum's was destroyed a couple of times.

While young Sil had talent, some were a bit cautious about it, generally the elders called it Azura's blessing, knowing his father's history though, some began saying the boy was cursed and it would bring no good. Sothq Sil himself never saw it as anything related to Azura, while his mother's side were devout and Nall was for a while, he never quite got into Azura worshipping, taking after his father or what he could make out of diaries.

Their mother began hiring a nanny after their father's death. Letu, who was young enough to be mistaken as their older sister, child of one of Theda's friends, she stuck around to help all the future kids born into the family. At first overprotective of Sil and Nall yet with time she was more like the occasional voice of reason and an older friend rather than a nanny.

Nall began her training to be a Wise Woman during her teens, though was a bit less orthodox in her way of learning. Gave grandma some headaches in the way, spent some time traveling on her own during the years Sil was with the Psijics. She joked that they should just let her wander around, break the tradition and let Sil take over the town.

We don't know how she managed to show up to Arteum once, rumor has it, Sil and Divayth had portals to places in Vvanderfell kept in secret (which would explain how they got to sneak Chimer dishes), so perhaps Nall wandered into one of them (on purpose most likely) and it took a while for her to leave.

Despite Sil's poor social skills he does surprisingly well aiding his mother in meetings with other Houses, or at least their representatives, mostly being the most reasonable one. And occasionally translate the dialect for the rare traveler that comes to the town.

Actually, there was that time Sotha Sil invited Divayth Fyr during their time among the Psijics. After sneaking out to Telvanni tower ruins, a fishing trip that ended up in being bitten by slaughter fish and judged in unexplainable ways by the grandmother of the family, Fyr refuses to talk of said experience.

One would not take Sotha Sil for one to work like the other members of the House yet he still participated on his way, building mechanisms to facilitate tasks (such as a system that retreated nest out of the water based on much their weigh), helping to grow medicinal herbs, assisting at the local forge, granted, he was a seeker of knowledge since birth, it was not strange to see him distracted at work, thinkering new projects, hiding somewhere with a book, while his skills were appreciated, it got him into trouble at times.

Also worth mentioning that his early years of magic were self taught, though methodical enough to make anyone think he had any sort of mentor besides a dead father.

A fact of Ald Sotha sadly lost to time was the storytelling traditions, tales sung in acapella by the elders of the community, though lost with time and the town's demise, it is said that some melodies are played by the factotums of Clockwork City and the lyrics had been stored in the Mnemonic Planisphere, although Seht himself is by no means a musician, Vivec is rumored to have tried to recreate some pieces.

Wise Women often wore face paint in the shape of Azura's signature moon and star during rituals, Sotha Nall has been said to have the same symbols painted on her at the time of her death, though hard to tell due to the state of her body.

There had been findings of Dwemer technology (or pieces of Dwemer origin) on the ruins of the town, House Sotha had no real relation to the Dwemer, although considered blasphemy, according to Divayth Fyr, young Seht used to (by unconfirmed means) steal Dwemer artifacts and study them by taking them apart or using them to build some of his own, early versions of his future creations, this is only backed up by what Fyr refers to as "a drunken confession in at Arteum."

Most avoid visiting the now destroyed Ald Sotha. For some the mere thought is sacrilegious, for others it is a rite of pilgrimage, among those there are devotees who build makeshift shrines to Sotha Sil leaving Roland's Tears as offering, fish, whether it be food or simple bones, the boldest one leave inventions of their own, not always mechanical of nature, as the simple display of creativity is seen as enough. Sotha Sil's opinion on the matter is not known, some historians devoted to the Clockwork God have tried recreating pottery and weavings to use as offerings. Lord Seht's opinion is also still a mystery too.

How exactly Almalexia of House Indoril ended up in such a place is unknown, it is common knowledge that she and Sotha Sil held a friendship since little. The unknown bit is the relationship she held with Sotha Nall and her visits to the town to pay respects. She used to pin up Nall's hair with Roland's Tears, get her dresses, Nall would paint Ayem in her art, braid her hair, for a good time Almalexia his her status as Indoril though sadly once her duties as queen came, she had to cut her and Nall's relationship as her position was making it hard to keep a stable relationship.

Sotha Nall was an artist, in paintings and music, it was common to find her painting by the coast or humming a song she was working on as she went on with her day.

Sotha Sil cooks. And actually is fairly good at it. From his boyhood making tea and helping his mother at family meals or his adult years recreating childhood recipes for the sake of nostalgia. Some say the food of Clockwork City is only tasteless paste. That's not fully the truth, it is the one mass produced by automatons however not only are residents allowed to cook but encouraged to do so. Sotha Sil himself has cooked for his Clockwork Apostoles at times, though the food of Ald Sotha is a bit of an acquired taste for whoever is not familiarized with it.

Common recipes include saltrice dough being filled with scuttle and flattened, cooked on a flat surface, served with pickled ash yams and sauce. Fish fried and covered in flour and kwama eggs then fried. Fried Marshmerrow with beetle-cheese, among others.

Also have a poor explanation of Chimer pupusas and my attempt at a recipe with my awful handwriting, been saying Ald Sotha had these for a while

[argisthebulwark]

I saw Rune mentioned a while ago and your ancient headcanons about him.. you feel like sharing with the class?

bro i am astral projecting back to my high school self. the unlined jack skellington notebook. the terrible cursive handwriting. the stubborn belief that being in the thieves guild is the only quality necessary to make a character hot.

sexual/suggestive themes. Minors DNI

below the cut so i don't destroy the tl.

Rune would be so reserved when you're getting to know him. He doesn't know how to share anything about himself other than his tragic backstory. You'd ask him what he does for fun and he'd say 'research shipwrecks.'

As I've said, he'd be a great father. He doesn't want his kid to grow up feeling anything remotely similar to what he felt. He would teach his kids everything that he knows and recruit all of his friends to help, to give his kid the best childhood possible.

I also think that he'd be intimidated by the ldb. even when they're a new recruit he heard that Brynjolf saw something special in them. They move through the ranks quickly, deal with the whole gallus/karliah/mercer issue, and speedrun becoming guild master. He's flustered and doesn't know what to do when they start flirting with him.

I also think he'd be really romantic but only in a way that people with Thief Brainrot like me would be into. Like. His idea of a date would be showing you the secret walkways and hiding spots on the tops of buildings while trading stories about Tragic Backstories and Trauma. He's a great thief and an alright pickpocket, so dates consist of trying to see who can steal enough to pay to go to dinner.

He's got to be like. Way intelligent. He's been to every corner of Skyrim to talk to the smartest people he can find. He's been to the College of Winterhold to get their help. He's probably done decades of research on his own and organizes anything that the investigators send to him.

Idk why but I feel like he'd be really into stars/constellations. He could tell you the story of every celestial body and how they relate to the different aedra/daedra they might represent.

I also think that he'd be unaccustomed to attention. The other Guild members are all specialists that can train you at something like archery or lockpicking, but he's just some guy. He isn't sure what to think when the ldb starts spending their free time asking him questions about how his search is going or walking through the Cistern to find him, but he finds himself liking it.

I also think that, again, dick would be bomb. He'd be so eager to please, to do whatever you wanted to make you feel good. He also finds that he really like the way his name sounds when the Guild Master is moaning it.