#i have no doubt that the ring of brass all genuinely loved and respected each other. and were real friends. but none of them call him pinch

[pink-lightsabre]

cerrit "my friends call me pinch" argupnin. who gets called pinch once in the entire series. by his coworker. and not at ALL by any of his best friends.

makes me crazy.

[profanetools]

bthemetz & rena relationship/domestic headcanon shit

(because my head is full of this and tbh this is what we all live for)

- since kagrenac’s debut in academia, & how that ended in a lot of stress/arguments etc. due to various factors, they’ve resolved to keep some level of separation between their work, so - with a few exceptions - they largely work in different areas of tonal architecture, though their work complements each other honestly.

(in the case of bthem, i think she definitely wants to stand on her own achievements and not be solely kagrenac’s shadow, although in all honesty, even if they worked more closely, i doubt that this would be the case, she’s well respected)

- i think this suits them both as it allows them to speak excitedly about what they’re working on with an attentive listener who can give an informed outsider’s perspective on the issues at hand, applying their own expertise. tbh this kinda speaks to their dynamic as a whole, they’re very different people who share similar passions & a similar position of trying to take on the academy from the outside (kagrenac, contrary to the reputation she has built for herself, wasn’t born into this by any means & had very few allies in the academy when she started).

- bthemetz actually tends to work on projects that take her to far-flung places on the edge of dwemer territory. she likes to travel, and she’s actually quite happy to work on the edge of things, and the distance between her and the politics of the capital suits her as she has been known to cause controversy and push against the edge of acceptable challenges to authority (& so she largely depends on kagrenac to keep her updated on the current situation). there are often times where bthemetz hasn’t seen kagrenac through her brass-form in months/years because of this arrangement.

- as established, kagrenac is able to travel to bthemetz’s actual location in the void, although initially this is an  operation that requires a fair bit of kit, big machinery with lots of pipes and pistons, heavy duty gloves, a switch that makes a giant clunk when you pull it, a big sparkly electric door. over time she manages to scale this down into something that might be mistaken as ‘an enchanted teleportation ring’ that can project such a door onto any brass surface (it’s basically that. who am i kidding). 

- kagrenac essentially has chambers of her own in the capital but is just never there and after she streamlines that process, essentially lives with bthemetz. this suits her perfectly because it is a little more difficult for someone to track her down after she’s stopped working. there are limits to this - the type of surface she can teleport on means that if she’s on the road, or if she’s in chimer territory, it’s not as easy to visit bthemetz. 

- basically they’re ldr queens :^) turn a distance of worlds apart into something workable.

- bthemetz is kagrenac’s closest confidante and kagrenac will just bitch to her about everything. bthemetz is a bit of a gossip fiend not in that she likes to spread it, but she likes to collect it and enjoy having lots of secrets. bthemetz knows a lot of the workings of the capital & the chimer intimately through kagrenac’s eyes and this is partly why she gains a reputation for knowing everyone, an eccentric social butterfly, who will know of you, your name, your work (& your reputation in kagrenac’s eyes, but she won’t tell you that) even if you haven’t been introduced yet.

(pretty sure bthemetz has been offered a ‘chief’ title by her adopted clan, but she’s turned it down several times. she doesn’t want the fuss. she’s admired enough by most apprentices that she’s trained & got enough of a reputation that she’s treated with the same level of respect even if she doesn’t have the exact title.)

- bthemetz likes to cook :) and often requests that rena bring her weird/odd ingredients home with her. she’s definitely got more of an aptitude & passion for that. rena would be content to subsist off like, kind whatever bleh meals, if it wasn’t for bthem lmao. it’s not that she can’t cook for herself, more that she largely thinks cooking is a waste of time, unless she’s helping bthem prepare something, & will happily assist in that case.

- bthemetz has difficulties sleeping while kagrenac is just, a very deep sleeper and refuses to get up early unless dragged out of bed. this results in a lot of bthemetz getting up early to cook her wife breakfast :^) (it’s something she enjoys doing... food really is a love language). sometimes kagrenac will notice she’s gone and try to drag bthemetz back to bed in a sleep-deprived state because 1. bthemetz hasn’t slept enough 2. she misses her.

- i don’t know if kagrenac ever takes to cooking but i am sure she does end up learning to brew tea for bthemetz and does this on numerous occasions. as mentioned a lot, bthemetz is a bit of a tea fiend as well, so this is one thing kagrenac does learn to do just for her.

- they read to each other a lot. a lot of lying on chairs/sofas that are adjacent and just minding themselves but also they like to read whatever has taken their fancy / whatever has captured them. often philosophy/scientific journal articles, but occasionally fiction as well.

- sometimes they will do this while bathing as well. they probably bathe together fairly often, being dwemer (who i headcanon as having a big bathing culture with lots of public paths) & this is just a fairly common thing for dwemeri lovers to do.

- i can’t remember if this was in twelve tones or if i cut this but they definitely help each other prepare for formal debates, for which the fashion tends to be a lot more ostentatious than usual (’dress like the god you believe you are’ is the expectation when performing on the debate, without being so elaborate that the outfits are impractical - it is very important to still be able to work one’s craft, theoretically, in said outfits). so there is definitely a lot of helping each other braid each other’s hair, put on jewellery, etc.

- they are both the only person who knows certain secrets about each other. so bthemetz knows a lot of details about kagrenac’s life prior to her arriving on vvardenfell that she just refuses to talk about to anyone else (she genuinely acts like the person before that was dead), including about her time while the nords were invading. kagrenac, conversely, is the only person who knows exactly how close bthemetz got to making deals with daedra before going her own way, and knows of her complex past relationship with boethiah & lorkhan. she knows she didn’t exactly decide to stop worshipping the latter as much as... it came to an end, but she also doesn’t see that as interfering. much in the same way bthemetz just understands kagrenac’s overzealousness and particularness as a way of coping, so kagrenac understands that bthemetz just won’t quite let go of that, she sees her anti-theism as a continuation of her old worship, and to kagrenac it doesn’t make sense, but that’s just a facet of bthemetz’s contradictory and often contrarian nature.

- they’re very different personalities and they both are aware of this and live rather different lifestyles outside of their home in some ways, but they both admire and respect each other tremendously, more than anyone else, and despite sometimes struggling to understand each other because of their differences, i think they just... absolutely cherish what they have together and refuse to let anything get in their way. i think they try to make time for each other, for energetic conversations, for a trip to a local museum or art gallery together, for expertly cooked homemade meals, for simple domestic rituals. there are times where it is more difficult - and often this is on kagrenac’s end - and they’re certainly not immune to arguments, but they make a great deal of effort to work past them. imo that’s just what i like the most about it. their relationship is very much a labour of love, at its core.