#i know this is not what it looks like in skyrim but i play hunting horn in monster hunter and i love it

[babyblueetbaemonster]

Did you ever try any of the creations? Like bards college expansion or the firearms one?

You're not gonna believe this, but I haven't play Skyrim for a long long time. But I'd love to use the power of music to buff my friends on battlefield.

Also guns are cool. I'd use guns.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 7 thoughts

hmm. hmm. that is the sound if me pondering what i just watched.

(i understand that this episode was an analysis into mulder's self-destructive behaviors when faced with overwhelming grief, but. that does not mean i enjoyed vampire hookup time)

well. we shall start from the top!

i read that it was an episode about vampires which i thought was a weird narrative choice because. hello. scully still gone??? but then i remembered that i too ignored the main quest in skyrim to hunt some vampires and that i had no place to judge

(granted, my main quest wasn't finding scully though. might have given that a bit more priority than saving the whole world. because she IS my whole world)

we open with a guy that looks like joe biden meeting with an attractive young woman. they're making out in a hot tub and we just know someone is gonna get slurped upon. and woe, it be upon us! double vampire attack.

back in DC, mulder gets his old office back! it's covered in plastic. he takes some of it off. he adjusts his calendar from may to november, so we see how much time he and scully had been assigned to other tasks, which also has me wondering how she managed to get a new house that quick.

(also, this calendar is... scantily clad women posing next to tools such as hammers and saws. was this allowed? was this acceptable? was it normal? were the 90's a lawless wasteland and mulder an irreparable freak?)

well. scully is an x file now, and he puts her glasses and id into an evidence bag and closes the filing cabinet which was sooooo evil. but he can't bring himself to put her necklace away. oh man. oh he's gotta have it in case he finds her. he has to hold her close. i'm Fine this is Fine.

so. he goes out to california to deal with the joe biden looking fellow being murdered. and he is not wanted on the crime scene. we know this because someone greets him by saying "nobody called the bureau" and he says "well, they should have" and lifts up the tape to let himself in. because one thing about him is that he's gonna let himself into a place he isn't wanted.

he sees the writing of a bible verse in blood on the wall and says something about their grasp of biblical knowledge being "feeble and literal" and i was like okayyy need to have a theological discussion with him

he then scares the other guy who originally wanted to kick him out by reciting a LARGE amount of facts related to similar cases and it's very much giving photographic memory. got me thinking, have we ever seen this man forget something? (directions don't count. they're confusing. but everything else sticks in that man's brain)

he just needs one thing: a phone book. which he uses to call a blood bank and ask about a new guy. who must be the vampire who did this!

so he rolls up to the blood bank and i'm over here struggling because i do Not Do Blood, and i knew at this point this was gonna be a tough watch, but i didn't anticipate the non-blood related reasons why this would be true

anyway he's sniffing around the blood bank and he hears some slurping and wouldn't you know, this dude is tearing into a bag of the red stuff like it's a capri sun. somehow he gets him into custody, where the dude refuses to talk because the lights are on, and mulder comes in with a lamp he put a red filter over, because he was prepared for vampire interrogation.

the vampire is going on about how what he did isn't murder because it's not like animals hunting prey is murder which is. not the greatest approach in terms of legal defense. mulder tells the guard that the guy is delusional and it's best to play along, and he believed this to be true... until he, quite literally, burned to a crisp in the sunlight. and died.

he's talking to the coroner and rattling off a bunch of vampire facts and says he didn't believe in vampires which is so funny to me because like. why is that where you draw the line, my friend. not at bigfoot and definitely not at aliens. but man. vampires are just too out there for spooky mulder. until now!

the coroner has a very funny line: "you are really upsetting me... on several levels" which seems to be the general effect fox mulder has on people. and also because i felt the same way about his dumbass actions during this episode.

coroner finds a stamp on the dead body's hand, which seems to come from a nightclub. so naturally our fbi agent ends up there.

you often see posts saying that "(insert character here) should be at the club". i fear that this is not the case for fox mulder, but it's possible that it's his suit and tie that are throwing me off. he just doesn't seem like he belongs there. i ask myself, where should he be instead? perhaps some sort of star wars convention would suit him better. a book signing with some author he likes. idk, an interior decorating festival. not here.

i shall use my verbatim words to walk you through the next scene:

"pause. he's talking to a woman who was looking into a compact without a mirror. so. vampire suspect. and now why are they getting so close together. and getting a drink. okay now they're leaving to a new spot together? AFTER she admits to vampirism"

(here she did some stuff that required me to look away from my screen due to my Weak Constitution. but also it would have felt necessary to look away anyway because it was getting... charged)

she tries to get him to... suck on her finger... but he won't do it because aids. which is fair. i think that's a smart move, actually. it's just that getting flirty with a vampire he knows was involved with a ton of killings was such a stupid move, i don't know why it's now the braincells start to kick in.

that kills the vibe, though, so she gets another guy to take his place and things escalate.

mulder pulls in at a restaurant called ra. nice! the sun god! and he is... through a window, witnessing some more slurping action. he seems to want to intervene and save this poor soul being feasted upon...

but the poor soul is no poor soul at all! he comes out and decks mulder, and delivers this line with stunning conviction: "i don't know who you are, freak, but we're two consenting adults" and with this, he is forced to flee.

and yeah. it made me laugh. my expectations for the genre were subverted. he signed up for that shit! what he did not sign up for, however, was the next part, where he was killed by the other vampires.

cut to investigating the crime scene. mulder has brought along a forensic dentist, which is a job i had no idea you could go into. he needs to see about those bites, which are very human.

next they go to vampire woman's house. it's a very nice place. mulder... opens her oven. and sees a loaf of bread in there. and i'm thinking, man, i hope this doesn't go where i think it's going. baked goods... ovens... i never want a vampire pregnancy arc. but he cracks open the loaf and something red spills out and somehow, this to him means that she is gone and isn't coming back. he can read the signs of the bread. so add that to his resume. what did the bread tell you, my liege?

he seems to have stayed in her house, however, because he's there when she's back, and says he knows she was using the bread as a charm to ward off evil. because apparently that's an eastern european thing, blood bread to warn off evil. sound off if any eastern europeans in the chat wanna confirm or deny.

anyway. he's IN this woman he thinks is a vampire's HOUSE? what the hell. mulder seriously i need you to stop and think. like you should have stopped and done some thinking a while ago. honestly i'm not mad i'm just disappointed. and he's like "i want to save you come with me before they kill you" ohhh big tough man needs to save her huh. make him feel good inside. huh. certainly no ulterior motive here...

she's monologing about her horrible childhood and how sweet blood tastes. um girl. don't lie to him like that. i have busted my lip open before that stuff does NOT taste sweet and dangerous. it's like a penny with rust that you found in a parking lot.

it seems her vampiric origin story, if to be believed, is that things simply got too kinky. which is a new take on the genre.

(it's also about being caught in an abusive relationship and the damage that inflicts, but it seems abusive boyfriend came into vampirism at his kinky parties and things escalated from there. which. well. it blew the eyebrows clean off my head, to be fair)

at this point we see that he is WEARING SCULLY'S NECKLACE? he says something like "it's from someone i lost" and she says that she "hopes he finds her"

i did not like the undertones here and certainly not the overtones. because i knew where this was going. he was shaving in her bathroom. and let me tell you something: there is only ever a shaving scene in media because the writer needs a way to get some blood out of someone's body and into the real world. and man. i knew it was coming.

but what i didn't see coming was her SHAVING HIM??? girl. i am uncomfy. and she does, of course, cut him, and then they kiss. aggressively. terribly aggressively. can anyone answer what was going on in a satisfactory manner?

but the gag is: the original vampire- who burnt to a crisp in the jail cell, and was the abusive ex she spoke of- HE'S WATCHING THEM THROUGH THE WINDOW!

he breaks in and taunts the vampire woman about how he had to "wait for her to finish" and i was like cool. thank you SO much for that mental image i'm super happy with it. i definitely don't feel like i need a shower. but then he's going on about how he can't be killed.

here, at the tail end of the episode, we learn the rules of vampirism in this world: a vampire cannot be killed by a non-vampire. and a non-vampire BECOMES a vampire by consuming the blood of a believer and also taking a life. it is only here we realize that this woman is not an actual vampire yet, she just appropriates their culture by drinking blood unnecessarily.

mulder's still sleeping in her bed and she's like "you need to leave" and she stabs the wall to make her evil ex think she's killing him. but when they go to break out, mulder ties him up quite handily and he gets in the car to escape with vampire woman. until ANOTHER vampire woman jumps on the hood of their car. and main vampire woman knocks her out for a bit by running into her with said car, which is super effective.

mulder's leaving the place in shambles, his shirt still unbuttoned, wandering down the side of the hill. back at the house, now that we know the vampire rules, main vampire woman says she can finally kill the evil vampire ex. and he's like how!! you haven't had the blood of a believer or taken a life. so. she licks the blood off her hands (unclear if it's hers or mulders tbh) and says she'll take her own life. and drops a match after pouring gasoline.

so. that brings that to an end. and shabby looking mulder sits on a hill as he learns all four in the house died.

the episode ends with him playing with scully's necklace. which i don't even sort of feel like unpacking right now but maybe another time.

probably not, though, because i just didn't like this episode. and yeah, a lot of it comes down to me not wanting to see mulder hook up with people who aren't scully. can you blame me? is it so wrong to have preferences in this world?

but also, narrative wise- do you honestly see the guy fucking off to cali while scully's still missing to deal with an unrelated problem instead of devoting every hour of his life to finding her, like we saw him do in the last episode? you expect me to think he just puts it off for a lil while? the guy who, just last episode, pulled his gun on the ski lift operator to get to the top where she might be a little faster, and then choked his one and only suspect out of fury? you're thinking this is the guy that's gonna go soak up some west coast rays?

and yeah, he was obviously not himself through the episode- very cold and analytical- but c'mon. we all want to bang a vampire. he's not special. i just personally wouldn't do that if my friend were gone. like how is that gonna help the situation. be so for real. time and place!

and also the whole only learning the rules of being a vampire about 5 minutes before they need it to be plot relevant. that annoyed me too.

overall, mulder, like i said, i'm not mad, just disappointed.

let me know what you thought on this episode- i try to not be a hater, but i also understand that hating in small doses can be good for the soul. if it's a widely beloathed episode i'll feel better in my judgement as i join a long tradition of haters who have come before me.

[morihaus]

Breath

"I thought it would make for a good story!"

A son of Skyrim sits on a log far, far away from the snowy shores of his birth. Beside him sit two fellow warriors, one from this land of dragons in the East, and the other from a land of swords even further East than that. When Njorri bellows out his explanation, the Yokudan cracks a small smile, while the Tsaesci's eyes bore into him.

"It's a lovely fine country you have here. It's hot! But not as hot as Morrowind, so it suits me more! And I ain't got any ash in my beard, like my cousin Holf is always complaining about."

"That's why you're interfering with our sacred hunt?" Siek-Shirue asks, eyes sharp like her tongue.

Njorri laughs and waves a massive hand. "Oh, nooo, I wouldn't say 'interfere!' I'm fit to help you! My da use to hunt dragons all the time."

A laugh bubbles up from Ensaf, the third who has merely played the spectator up til now. "Quite the name to live up to."

"Ain't nothin' special. Not like traveling all this way out East-- across that cursed ocean no less!"

The armored Akaviri turns to Ensaf now. "And why are you here?"

The trained fighter can recognize an itchiness about her 'host's sword-arm, the way her hand sits on her opposite thigh, inches from her scabbard; she knows that, even without any apparent weapon, Ensaf could produce one out of thin-air with only a breath.

"Me? Well, I'm looking for a story of my own." She adjusts herself on the log, easing up on her posture to try and relax the other woman. "You see, in the land where I come from, just about every swordsman's done something incredible. There's nothing left to make a name for yourself. But here... I can do something no one else has. At least no one from Yokuda." Leaning back, she tears her eyes away from her host and looks up at the clear skies of the steppe where the day is giving way to nightfall. "I'd heard rumors from sailors about an island full of dragons to the West... wasn't sure they were true until today."

"You've got no dragons back home?" Njorri asks, leaning over Siek to do so.

Ensaf shakes her head. "Afraid not. Plenty of serpents, but none that fly through the air like that... I would've picked a better opening if I had realized how fast they move."

"No dragons??? Skyrim used to be lousy with dragons, and so did this place, I hear, before Sek here and her pals--"

At this junction, Siek shoves the tall Nord back with a sudden burst of force, barking out a single syllable as the thrust of her hand sends him spilling across the grass of the camp. "Siek." She affirms, curling her lip up at the boisterous foreigner. Her fellow blades look over at the commotion, hands at their swords before she waves them off, assuring them things hadn't broken down... at least not yet.

Ensaf narrows her eyes in the split second it takes place, perking an ear and trying to tune in. As Njorri's dusting himself off, she leans forward again and looks to the Tsaesci. "That was the same technique you used to disarm my Shehai, wasn't it?"

Siek turns to face her, but defensive walls are clearly still up. After a moment of eyeing her up, she replies. "Yes. The Kiai is the greatest power we wield as Tsaesci."

"It's a lot like the Thu'um!" Njorri remarks, unbothered as he returns to his seat.

Siek whips her head around to him, riled up by that notion. "NO, it is not!

"You shout, things happen, sounds like Thu'um to me."

"You are a moron and an interloper! Your know nothing of what you say!"

Ensaf interjects. "Care to explain what it is then?"

"Ooh, please! I'd love to hear a story from a Tsaesci!" Njorri enthusiastically chimes in, the two warriors looking to their interrogator with inquisitive eyes.

She stops and takes a breath to center herself, finding it important to tell this story right, even if it's only for the benefit of two strangers who meddled with their hunt.

"Long ago... these lands were ruled by dragons. Our ancestors worshiped them as gods, fearful of their power, but in truth, their power came from the spirits of the world itself. Our arbitrary masters had stolen it with their domineering language. Our Mother, Tserida-Shak, learnt this from the Teacher, Boesha, who taught her the path of Tsaescence and the secret language of creation. Using the world's alphabet, Tserida-Shak spoke the first Kiai into the world, using it to kill the word in the dragon's throat. With our new martial art, we began our hunt to destroy all dragonkind and our duty to defend creation."

Njorri and Ensaf listen intently, poring over the words of this legend.

Predictably, the affable Nord replies first. "Not a bad story, but, it's a little tired, ain't it?"

"What?" Siek asks, disgusted.

Njorri waves his hands to and fro as he talks. "Men ruled by dragons, someone teaches them how to fight back, they do-- I mean, we Nords for example, we learned it from Paarthurnax, since Kyne told him so--"

"'Paarthurnax?'" Siek grows suddenly inquisitively, as well as revolted. "A dragon??? You were taught by a dragon???"

"Well, sure! How else do ya expect a man to learn dragon’s talk?"

Siek suddenly regards Njorri with an odd mixture of pity and loathing, wondering whether his people were still living under a different sort of tyranny, or if they were all-too willing servants who traded their dignity and humanity for power over other mortals.

Ensaf cuts through the tension. "It's actually not too different from how we learned sword-singing..." She offers, successfully distracting Siek from her disgust. With both of the other warriors looking at her, she elaborates. "Our people have always had many enemies, without and within, and many gods of the sword took pity on us. Onsi taught us how to make them, but it was Leki who sang us the secrets of mastery. She made the sword our soul. From there, we learned to make our souls to swords."

The Yokudan stretches out her open hand and begins to speak, or sing, her own language, belting out a few syncopated notes. A bright glow emanates from her whole body before beginning to coalesce, traveling down her arm and taking shape in her hand. With a flash, she now holds a long, curved sword that seems to shimmer like the surface of a pond. Even as Ensaf stops singing, Njorri and Siek can still hear the blade humming the tune.

"That's..." Siek begins, her voice fallen to a hush.

"Shor's Bones! You're doin' that all on your own???" Njorri interjects, leaning in closer to inspect the weapon. "That right there's some clever craft if I've ever seen it! Never thought of usin' the Thu'um for somethin' like that!"

Ensaf laughs, taking the Nord much more lightly. "I'm not sure it's all too similar to what you two do with your voices... I'm not communing with any spirits. Put simply, this is all me." She takes a moment to admire her Shehai, a great point of pride for her as a Sword Saint. Even if the battles she's won or the quests she's gone on pale in comparison to many of her illustrious peers, this sword still stands as her one grand accomplishment, totally unique to herself.

"You're right..." Siek is still quite amazed at the display. "We use our own spirits in the Kiai as well, but we don't... at least, I have never heard of a Blade who could call upon such a well of power from within." She manages to tear her eyes away from the still-singing sword and look Ensaf in the eye. "That aerial slash of yours-- I thought Ilni's winds had carried it for you, yet it was this 'Shehai' of yours?"

Ensaf nods. "Though now that you mention it, I suppose I could've used some help in landing it. Maybe next time I'll ask them." She offers Siek a smile along with this well-meaning jest. In all honesty, the woman's story had piqued her curiosity. It could be interesting to bring a few of her tricks back to Yokuda with her.

Njorri loudly concurs with Siek's observation. "I've heard rumors-- tall tales and all that, not so trustworthy as they are entertaining-- that some Tongues can use the Thu'um to change themselves, the way we can change the Qethsegolle by arguin' with 'em."

"Arguing?" Siek interjects, glancing back at Njorri as he once more leads her to question his morals.

"Aye, arguin'. Y'see, we Nords can't go about it exactly like dragons. With dragons, they just shout so great and loud that the Qethsegolle go 'alright, alright!' and do whatever it is they want. Blast this mountain over there, blow these clouds away, set that man on fire-- that sorta thing." The way he describes the interaction so simply, like a children's game, rubs her entirely the wrong way. Whether Njorri is blissfully ignorant of this or simply affords fellow men the same irreverence as he does the spirits, she does not know, but he continues speaking nonetheless. "We men ain't as loud as dragons by nature, so we've got to be a little more subtle, eh? Persuade the spirits! It's all about spinning the right words with the right tones, making this-do-that or you-go-here or whatever it is you're tryin' for! The Qethsegolle aren't a prickly sort-- 'least most of 'em aren't. They're busy keepin' the house Shor built standin' upright, so they're distracted most of the time. It's easy to slip things by 'em if you say 'em right."

It sounds like just another deceit to Siek, but Njorri, of course, views it all in good fun.

He turns back to Ensaf and guffaws. "Guess your sword-singin' cuts out the middle man, eh?" The Nord bellows out a laugh.

Ensaf joins him, but she also notices Siek still hasn't quite come around to the two strangers just yet, fascinated as she may be by her Shehai. If they were going to have any chance of sticking around and seeing this hunt through, they'd need to find some more common ground.

Her spirit sword still singing, Ensaf looks up at the stars above them. "We have a lot in common... but there's an old saying in Yokuda: 'you can't see the view from atop his feet.'" She gracefully turns the point of her blade down to the ground, resting it against the earth. "No two people can really, truly see the same thing the same way. Right now, we can't see the same stars, because I can't sit where you're sitting. I don't know anything about dragons or earthly spirits because we couldn't be farther apart when we were all children. We could spin yarns all night and we'd still be no closer to understanding it all."

Njorri easily accepts this treatise on subjectivity given his cultural proclivity towards tale-telling, though Siek waits to hear where the Yokudan is going with this.

"But different as we may be, I've always seen two things that all us folk have in common." Ensaf smiles. "We breathe, and we sing."

"Sing?" Siek raises a brow.

"Oh yes! We Nords love to sing! I s'pose I should've guessed Yokudans do, given the sword and all!" Njorri cranes his neck down to look at their captor. "What of you, Siek? Do the Tsaesci sing?"

"Well of course." She replies almost defensively. "But I don't see why that--"

"Go on, share a song with us." Ensaf urges. "All this talk of your great hunts and dragon-slaying, you must have some raucous ballads."

At the continued insistence of these two interlopers, Siek-Shirue relents. She begins to regale them, softly at first, with some anthems of war, rhythmic lyrics that sing to the glories of Tsae and the noble cause of the Tsaesci. Njorri begins to slap his knee to the beat, while Ensaf nods her head and taps her foot. The two even start to pick up some of the words.

Their impromptu and largely unintentional revelry does not escape the attention of the rest of Siek's unit, who become easily gripped by the infectious songs of their people. Before Siek knows what's happened to her, she's leading her whole company plus two foreigners in the devotional ballads of Boesha 1-13.

It's only natural that a Tongue and a Sword-Singer would take to song so easily, learning more, perhaps, from the joint fervor of this merry ritual than they ever could have through idle conversation. As the night wears on and tensions subside, they even share some of the songs of Skyrim and Yokuda with their new fellows, and just as they had learned, now the Tsaesci learn of their new companions through the most expedient method: their breath, and their songs.

[msviolacea]

why you should play elder scrolls online in 2023

Okay, I've been considering making posts about "why to play X game I love" but finally decided "what the hell, no time like the present." And since ESO is on my mind today, it gets first dibs!

What is ESO??

It's an MMO set in the Elder Scrolls universe - think Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc. It's the Elder Scrolls theme park in the same way that FFXIV is the Final Fantasy theme park. But, in the same way, it's not exclusively for people who have experience with the previous games - it's a fun, immersive fantasy world whether you know anything about previous lore or not.

You should play ESO if ...

You like immersive fantasy worldbuilding. Listen, if there's one thing the Elder Scrolls team can do, it's worldbuild like motherfuckers. Do you want a story that reaches back thousands of years and covers dozens of countries/empires/territories, where you can find lorebooks around every corner, and expansive essays on the internet about the briefest of details? ESO has you covered.

You love overland exploration. This is ESO's bread and butter. The explorable areas are expansive and varied and absolutely gorgeous, and the game is built for the player who just wants to travel and collect things and see the sights. Tamriel has pretty much every biome you can imagine - you want medieval Britain? Head for High Isle! You want an Arabic-style desert? Alik'r Desert is your place! Rugged arctic landscape? Listen, there are FOUR SEPARATE Skyrim areas for you. You're like "I just want weird fantasy things that don't look like anywhere on earth?" Vvardenfell and its surrounding areas have you covered. You can explore as you play the story, you can go on a hunt for the perfect screenshot location, you can find an RP location that fits your character exactly, you can make it your goal to complete every exploration achievement in the game ... you can do it all.

You want a game where exploration isn't gated behind your level. ESO made the switch to what they call "One Tamriel" fairly early in their development cycle - this means that all mobs and quests are synced to your level in the overworld, and you can start or go anywhere you want no matter how low level you are. You can play through the storyline in release order, or you can say "I want to start in the newest expansion," or you can go "listen I'm only here for vampires in Western Skyrim," all of these are valid and possible ways of playing. You don't have to go "man the new expansion looks great but I have to put in HOW many hours to get there??" It's all available to you from level 1!

You love decorating houses. Listen, if there is one thing ESO does better than any other MMO (at least the ones I've played), it's the housing system. You can own ALL THE HOUSES. SO MANY HOUSES. Small and large and every conceivable style! You can buy land with no house on it, and build your own structures! You can decorate without having to learn how to glitch or press six buttons at once! And housing feeds very well into the rest of the gameplay - you earn furnishing plans from pretty much every conceivable gameplay system, so it becomes an excellent reason to go do your daily stuff and explore. And the housing community in ESO is one of the most creative groups I've ever seen, I could watch their YouTube videos and streams forever.

You like MMOs that allow you to play mostly solo. None of the story progression is gated behind the need to group up. There is plenty of group content, but it's all optional. There are bosses across the landscape and in public dungeons that require multiple people to kill, but you'll always come across people who want to help kill them without having to group up. And with the last few expansions, you now have companions - NPCs you can unlock and have follow you around everywhere. They can be set and geared to perform any role - tank, healer, DPS - and the AI is good enough at any of those to get you through pretty much anything overland you want to do. (And as a side note, some of the companion quests are really good, and they've been getting really, really good voice actors for the companions themselves - see: Laura Bailey, Brandon Keener - and they have fun dialogue as you wander.)

A couple of caveats:

If you play for story, your mileage will vary. Don't get me wrong, ESO has some very, very good stories within it! But it's not a linear story a la FFXIV or single player MMOs - it has a main storyline for the base game zones, and each DLC/expansion has its own storyline that sometimes connects into what happened in the base game, but for the most part ESO's story is a fragmented experience, and you have to go searching for the stories that connect most with you. Can you find them? Yes, but be ready to put in the time to look. (My personal recommendations? The vampire story that starts in Rivenspire and continues in Western Skyrim and The Reach is my absolute favorite; Elsweyr is also very good, but is more of a direct continuation of the base game story than anything else, so would probably need that context going in. A good portion of the fanbase will cite the larger Morrowind-Summerset storyline as the best the game has, and it's very good, but didn't quite stick with me as much as the others mentioned.) ESO tends to be more about the story of the world at large than about the stories of individual characters.

And speaking of story, the game is absolute balls at directing you to places where starting the story would make the most sense. If you want to experience the story in a vaguely linear fashion, here's what to do when you create a character - immediately head to whatever city is your chosen faction's starting city (Daggerfall, Auridon, or Stonefalls), and wander around until you trigger the "Soul Shriven in Coldharbor" quest. That starts the base game main story, and is the best place to start as a brand new player. The other tip: the fancy striped quest markers are indicative of the "main" story quest in each zone, do those when at all possible.

And speaking of factions, those only matter if you want to play PvP - and only Cyrodiil and Imperial City PvP at that. Otherwise, it's just flavor these days.

In conclusion:

ESO is my comfort "explore and collect" game - I find it very chill to just wander around, level new characters, dig up antiquities (ANTIQUITIES, my favorite side system, seriously I could look for leads and dig things up forever), collect materials to sell in my guild trader, and vaguely achievement hunt while listening to music or YouTube. The scenery is beautiful, the character creation is robust and turns out very cool looking characters, and the combat system is simple enough that I easily remember how to do things even if I've been away for a little while. And it is free-to-play, after buying the game; you don't need a subscription to access anything you've purchased, you just miss out on a few good quality of life features. (The craft bag, I could not live without my craft bag, seriously.)

Some version of ESO will be free on the Epic Game store starting tomorrow - my assumption is that it will be the version that contains all DLC/expansions except the Necrom chapter, which was just released last month. I highly recommend picking it up if you play on PC, just to check it out, if anything above sounds appealing to you! (And if you want to splurge, I can very highly recommend Necrom - the new class it introduces is maybe my favorite class to play yet, the two companions it introduces are fantastic, and Apocrypha is a fascinating area to explore if you like creepy eldritch horror type stuff.)

If you want to know more about ESO, just give me a shout! And if you're a mutual who decides to try it, hit me up, I have many gifts to give people!

[tranquilwilds]

Some wolfish games to try out!

- Wolfquest, a classic, both the original and anniversary edition are amazing to play, though anniversary edition is a lot more accurate to real life wolves. You play as a yellowstone wolf, you can roam the lands, find a mate, claim territory, raise pups, etc! There is a multiplayer function too, so you can invite the whole pack to play, awoo!!

- Neva, an upcoming game where you play as a woman named Alba, who shares a bond with a wolf cub. It’s an action adventure game, and over the course of the story your wolf cub will grow, and you will fight together. The art looks gorgeous, and it looks as if it will be a tear jerker, likely with environmentalist themes. It can be wishlisted on steam now!

- Werewolf: The Apocalypse, always a great go-to for tabletop RPGs, I have never personally played this one myself, but I have heard great things and hope to get a group together one day!

- Skyrim, now hear me out here, play as a werewolf! especially with upgraded perks like being able to call upon different wolves to aid you, it can be really fun and feel very wolfish! if you want a little more unpredictably, go to falkreath and get the ring of hircine so you will transform at random. Now you are a true uncontrollable beast of the night!

- Lonley Wolf Treat, this is more for calm, cute story-based game lovers. You play as Treat, a wolf who is just looking to find a calm place to settle down. Along your way you’ll meet rabbits, foxes, witches, cats, other wolves, etc. This is a much more human than animalish portrayal of all of the characters, but still a fun game, with a lot of cute moments and plenty of callbacks to them being actual animals. It is also free!

- Okami, this game is well known to be a masterpiece, you play as Amaterasu, the japanese sun goddess in the form of a white wolf, as you restore the lands. It was originally made for the ps2, and you can somewhat tell, but it is another of those ps2 games that knows what it was doing with it’s console and made something beautiful to work alongside it. Very good game, and actually playing as the wolf is a huge positive!

- Tyto Ecology, may be an odd addition to this list, but it’s a super good game to really feel out how ecosystems balance themselves. You play in a birds eye view in a little dome where you build your own ecosystem by adding plants and animals into the area strategically. Can be a little tough to keep everything stable at times, but a nice calm game and a good one for learning about our ecosystems.

- Lost Ember, a truly beautiful experience, you play as a shapeshifter, though for a large part of the game you play as a wolf. It’s all about exploration through your many forms. It is currently for sale on steam!

- Werewolf, looking for a fun in-person game? Find someone to run your game as you and a group inhabit the bustling town of Miller’s Hollow. This game is not dissimilar to ‘Mafia’ but it’s with werewolves! Strategically kill and pin blame on others in your group as a wolf, use your powers to hunt down the wolves amidst your town, or use your precious vote wisely. This is the most fun with a group of around 15-20 people, but can be enjoyed even in a smaller group of 5 or with more players than that. There are official card games and such of this, but really all you need is someone who knows the rules to run the game!

I hope at least one of these games caught your eye, if you give any of them a go, feel free to leave your review in the comments or in a rb! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Happy howling!!

[exhausted-eternally]

Fic Writer Interview

Saw Topsy did this and it looked like fun so now Imma pester y'all with one.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

35, currently, and only 1 is for a fandom other than The Lego Movie lmao

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

496,195 over the course of 6 years

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1- Reboot To be honest, I'm kind of baffled by this one. I started it just when covid was really starting to take off, lost where I was going with it before I was even halfway through writing it because I got SO swamped with work that writing was taken off the stove entirely for a while, and a lot of it was honestly just half-assed to get it finished but so many people LOVE it. I don't think I'll ever stop scratching my head about it, but at this point I've just accepted that it's my most popular fic ever. 2- Atonement Still ongoing and without a clear ending in mind yet. I had 2 ideas I was wanting to play with when I started it- wingfic, and house arrest. I've been having fun with it so far. 3- Prizes, Plunder, and Adventure This one was actually written based on a friend's doodles & half-finished ideas. I took them & ran with them as far as I could lol. I'm honestly happy that this one's in my top 5. 4- Hot Spring Another one that I'm kind of baffled by. It's a oneshot that's barely over 400 words. People like their coppernauts fluff, I guess lol 5- Time Travel Troubles This one was based on a prompt a friend gave me when I complained that I wanted so badly to write but had 0 ideas, lol. Of all my oneshots, I'm glad this one made it into my top 5.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Most of the time! Sometimes I can't think of a response though, and once I got overwhelmed with like 25 comments on one fic in one night from the same person so my brain kind of short-circuited lol. I definitely read and cherish every single one though.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don't really do angst tbh, so none of my fics really have angsty endings.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

That's a tough one to pick, I always write happy endings. XD; I guess I'll go with Starting Over Again.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Sort of; honestly I think they'd qualify more as AUs than proper crossovers, but sometimes I just get bit by a bug to write all my favorite characters in some other media settings for shits & giggles. Murphy's Law (Skyrim), Space Shenanigans (Star Wars), The Stranger (Myst), Octan Nights (1001/Arabian Nights), and Hollow Heart (Beauty and the Beast)

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah, when I first started posting Murphy's Law on ff.net. Honestly it just made me laugh, it was so obviously some kid doing a shit job of being a troll.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I tried once. It was SO awful that I ended up deleting it and swore off ever trying again.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. The fandom I'm in is pretty small so no one's bothered to translate any fics in it, at least as far as I know.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Oh, eons ago when I was still just a little baby birb. I wrote a pitiful attempt at an OoT fic with 2 of my cousins that never got far. All my works since have been solo.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Coppernauts. C:

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Lord I have SO MANY. Think I'd pick Tech Support though (with a much better rewrite to boot, so no link for this one. If you want to read the atrocious original, you'll have to hunt it down yourself :P).

15. What are your writing strengths?

I'm told I'm pretty good with characterization. I'll choose to believe it. ;3

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Describing literally anything. I am terrible for just... not doing it. Which is something I REALLY need to work on if I really want to reach my 300k goal with The Umiran Amulet.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

There's only one language I can speak in any capacity, so I just stick with English. If it's something that's meant to be in another language, I just italicize it. Only every once in a blue moon will I use a word in another language, like if a character is swearing in their native tongue, and only if I'm absolutely 100% certain it's the right word.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Ocarina of Time. It was the fic I mentioned earlier that I wrote with my 2 cousins.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

I don't really have any, at least at this time. I am very, VERY slow to move between fandoms & ships and am probably still going to be quite happily writing for TLM even when there's literally only 5 of us left lol.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I'd have to say The Atlantis Expedition, which was my first ever fic for the TLM fandom, and the first one I'd ever finished period. I have others that I love just as much, but this one will always have a special place in my heart.

[callsignbaphomet]

Heyyy!!! I'm here to gift your inbox with a post work vibe post lol

What skyrim race comes to mind when I think about the boys! (Purely off vibes given i don't 100% know what they actually are)

So with Uthorim we all know he is orc but I also feel there's some redguard in there! Gives some speculation to his ever mysterious parents ;p

LoLo pops up in my head as Nord but with speckles of wood elf. Very strong, agile, and deadly! 💚

Jelani of course comes up as dark elf/redguard. Very mysterious, very stabby stabby, very loveable!

Angelus is high elf or more so snow elf! Big I'll end you and make it look beautiful vibes ✨️

You're the best as always! <3333÷

Lol love that Uth!

Honestly, you are very on point!

Loke and Jelani are both half Nord, half Redguard. Ingvarr is a Nord and Sanaa is a Redguard.

Now, Bethesda handled mixed children rather poorly. See, in Bethesda's terms both Loke and Jelani should have looked like Sanaa since the children will all look and be the race or species of the birth parent. I honestly hate that so it's one of those lore rules I break and throw away because it just does not make sense at all or work in the case of Jelani.

Jelani (in Oracle) is mixed, his dad is a white man and his mom is a black woman. I even designed both parents according to him since I made him first. He has Ingvarr's eye color and hair texture. He has Sanaa's nose, lips and her dark skin. Personality wise he's all Ingvarr lol.

As much as it pains him and he hates it Loke has a different birth mother and he has her red hair and very pale skin, eye color, as well as a bunch of inherited conditions. The freckles he got from Ingvarr.

Now, Loke is kind of a "problem" when it comes to the AUs because Loke is Sanaa's adopted son. Both treat each other and consider each other mother and son. Not once has he ever referred to that woman as his step-mother or Jelani as his step-brother. Sanaa is his mother and Jelani is his brother.

But the birth mother is not present in any of the AUs except for the FO76 AU. So going back to Skyrim, Fallout and any other AU where this is the case we just have to hand wave the fact that Loke looks nothing like his mother 😅🫣

Lol Loki wishes he was agile. That boy is all strength and tanking. Only times he's agile is when he's tossing and turning while asleep, when Jelani was a kid and wandering a little too far from town for his own liking and when he's making Uthorim bounce and jump on--

Actually, the parental thing comes into play in the story. Which I have a document neatly detailing Loke and Jelani's entire (TES) history. It's not finished yet.

As for Angelus...holy shit I don't know if you guessed or what but yes, he's half High Elf, half Snow Elf. His mom's a High Elf and his dad was a Snow Elf. Was, he was part of a tiny little group of Snow Elves that had survived all that time but ultimately all of them were killed. That would be thanks to Angelus's bitch of a grandmother. She's.....a very vile and horrible person, let's just leave it at that. When she found out her one and only daughter "ruined" the bloodline when mixing with a lowly race (to her everything not Altmer is low) she hired some people to hunt them down and kill them all. His mom died of a disease when he was 3 and he was raised by his grandmother. During those years she had no one opposing her teachings unfortunately so Angelus was well on his way to being just like her. Since he doesn't have that (god awful yellow, sorry not sorry, I really hate it) skin tone she told him and everyone else it was a rare defect.

So yeah, he was raised without knowing who his father really was, never knowing of his full heritage and being pro Aldmeri Dominion and just looking down on anyone being a High Elf.

So what happened? His grandmother was trying to get him to marry into a family she chose so he wouldn't do what his mother did. Problem was he didn't want to be forced to marry anyone, much less at 19, and he's gay. His grandmother chose a family with only daughters. So he took the inheritance his mother left him, changed his name to something not Altmer sounding (Angelus) and moved to Skyrim because he knew his grandmother wouldn't follow him there. He spent a few years there and his mentality slowly began to change and when he was 27 he met Jelani (18 at the time), Loke and Uthorim and over the course of a year living with them his attitude about everything drastically changed and it was during that year he slowly fell in love with what he calls "his little bat".

His attitude and mentality may have changed and he denounced everything his grandmother taught him but he's still a spoiled brat who likes to spoil his boyfriend and his two fathers-in-law.

In Skyrim he'll also get a chance to maybe discover and explore his Snow Elf side.

Also omfg you're the best and ilu! 💖

[archangelsunited]

12, 13, 16!

Choose Violence Ask Game (Skyrim edition? Rolling the dice on this one. I am so sorry if this was meant as a star wars ask)

12.) The unpopular character I like and why more people should like them.

I think I can like any character enough, if they are written well. In my own works, I've had push back on Harkon and Madanach, so let me talk about my violent love affair with political nightmares. As with most things Skyrim, this is conjecture.

Harkon fascinates me, because he is an itty-bitty part of a vast daedric game that has been going on since the daedra have been in play. And he's been mostly silent player- while he was able to gather at least two elder scrolls. He's lord over the vampires, which means he's got to manage a large swathe of area, while being hamstrung for half the day. And I think he's good at it. I think he sends the right people to do the right job. He has the two ambitious members of his court fighting each other, and the competent members overseeing areas- where do we need eyes, where has something gone wrong. I think he looks at problems and finds solutions. I also enjoy the fact he has a terrible family life and that opens so many doors. He's also in a weird place historically. He's a funky little dude. He turns into a smurf (dm whoever came up with that, because it was hilarious) . He's evil, he's good at his job, he's nigh on indestructible. What's a funner villian to play with? Alduin? He couldn't last past the Merethic Era. Miraak? You either play the game of daedra or die. He ended up imprisoned for four thousand years. Please.

Madanach: From a purely democratic standpoint, the Reach already belongs to the Reachmen. They have the majority of settlements- and it looks like theirs are more populated. So any commentary on the rights of Ignmund or the Silver-Bloods being the proper rulers is, to me, null and void. Every single job you take in the Reach involves killing Reachmen. (Not including Peyite's quest and the Dragon roosts) Your job, as a mercenary, is to kill Reachmen. The guards job, it seems, is to kill Reachmen. The Jarl has decided, when he is giving the jobs, that his duty, is to kill Reachmen. Please consider this to be a sign that the Reachmen are being hunted and systematically killed. I understand a player could be offended that they shot the almighty dragonborn with their arrows (which are worse than iron arrows), but if an armed stranger was coming near my settlement with a weapon I would assume (I hope this isn't out of left field for anyone) that they were coming to kill Reachmen. So, Madanach, little cockroach that he is, survives the systematic killing long enough to take over Markarth. Then he waits in a dungeon for /over a decade/ and both handles the busybody Silverbloods and his fight for the rightful rule of the Reach. He holds onto hope for /over a decade/. I would have given up much sooner. Also, I think his speeches are really good, and that he seems like the sort of verbose person who you never wonder what they are feeling. This delights me.

13.) Worst Blorboficiation

Who to offend.... Who to offend...... Honestly, probably Farkas. (this does not apply to @elfinismsarts, whose fic makes me love Farkas in a way I did not know I could) Very sweet man- also ripped several people to shreds in front of you and sends you to go hunt vampires on your own for 100. 100. It doesn't matter if you are level one or level ninety. That is highway robbery.

16.) I can't understand why so many people like this thing

Aetherium questline. Just. All of it.

[fallrimxreader]

Can I please request Brelyna Maryon(am I spelling that right?), Uthgerd the Unbroken, and Ralof reacting to their Altmer S/O finding snow extremely fascinating in a kind of childish wonder?

Thanks for all the writing!:D

I had to look the spelling up myself but yes you spelt it right!

Ralof:

Ralof and the Dragonborn were headed to Windhelm. Ralof had convinced the Dragonborn to join the Stormcloaks. He walked down the same path he walked every day, not noticing anything different or unusual. Not even noticing when a small flurry of snowflakes began to fall around him.

“Is that ash?” The Dragonborn asked.

Ralof looked to the Dragonborn, who was staring into the sky. He looked around him and noticed the snowflakes.

“No that’s just snow.” Ralof answered.

“Snow?”

“Yes. Snow.” Ralof noticed the quizzical look the Dragonborn was giving him. “Have you never seen snow before?”

“We don’t get snow back home.” The Dragonborn said, shaking their head. He was surprised. He had been raised in Skyrim his whole life; snow was something he saw on a regular basis. He couldn’t quite believe that someone had never seen it before. The Dragonborn extended their hand, catching a few flakes in their palm. They admired the tiny white specs, smiling at the shapes.

“It’s so pretty, look.” They thrust their hand towards Ralof. He laughed, taking a look at the snowflakes.

“Indeed, it is.” Ralof looked ahead and saw the snow falling heavier, so he gently took the Dragonborn’s hand and led them a few feet further down the path. Large heavy snow was falling all around the pair. The Dragonborn laughed, holding up both hands and trying to collect as much as they could. Ralof watched, smiling with joy. It had been a long time since he had seen someone’s first reaction to snow, he forgot how entertaining it was. The Dragonborn was also reminding Ralof, that even if there was a war, there was always time for some joy in life. The Dragonborn began to spin round, trying to collect as much show as they could. They then paused and looked at their clothes, admiring how they were covered in the soft fluffy snow. He never thought he could love the Dragonborn anymore than he did, but they proved him wrong. He watched them, his heart swelling with love, they were adorable and he was so happy he was here to witness his loves first time in the snow.

“Let me show you something, a game I liked to play as a child.” Ralof collected some snow from the floor, packing it all together in a tight little ball. He showed the ball to the Dragonborn, who smiled and oohed in amazement. Ralof did feel slightly guilty about what he was going to do, taking advantage of someone who had no idea. Yet he also thought it would be entertaining. “Stand back a little bit.”

The Dragonborn took a few steps back and watched Ralof, smiling at him. He lightly gripped the snowball, then with one single movement threw the snowball at the Dragonborn. The ball exploded against their chest. They gasped in surprise, then glanced down at their chest, touching the splattered snow with their reddening fingers. They looked at Ralof with a frown. Ralof felt a small pang of guilt. Then the Dragonborn smirked, bent down, collected their own ball of snow and threw it at Ralof. Out of guilt he wanted to stand still and take it, but out of instinct he dodged out of the way. The snowball hitting the tree behind him. The pair looked at each other in silence, a knowing nod shared between them. They immediately began making and throwing as many snowballs as they could, laughing the whole time. Barely noticing the cold bite at their fingers.

Brelyna Maryon:

She met the Dragonborn while out on a college task near whiterun. She was hunting for a certain type of flower to help boost her power when she stumbled upon the Dragonborn collecting said flower. The Dragonborn shared their loot with Brelyna. She took the flowers gratefully and started a conversation with the Dragonborn. She told them about the college of winterhold. The Dragonborn showed great interest, so Brelyna decided to take them with her back to the college.

However, they got side tracked by helping other people, or completing bounties and falling in love. Months later, and a marriage behind them they finally made their way to the college of Winterhold. By the time they got close, the snow had already fallen and settled. The ground completely covered in thick white snow.

The Dragonborn stopped in their tracks a few feet from the snow. Brelyna stopped and whipped her head around thinking they may have seen a threat.

“Are you ok?” She asked.

“I’ve never seen white grass before.” The Dragonborn replied.

“What?”

“White grass.” They pointed at the snow. Brelyna laughed, thinking they were joking. She laughed for a while, the Dragonborn still staring at the snow, before she realized they were not joking. She should have known better; she should have remembered that most Altmer have never seen snow before. She felt a little insensitive. She cleared her throat before speaking.

“Sorry for laughing, my love. Have you never seen snow before?”

“Snow?”

“Yes, snow. It’s frozen water, it falls from the sky instead of rain when the air gets extremely cold.” Brelyna explained.

“Oh, I see.” The Dragonborn got close to the snow, crouching next to it. Yet they were hesitant to touch it. Brelyna joined them.

“It’s ok, go ahead.” She touched the snow first, showing the Dragonborn it was safe. She brushed her fingers through it, disturbing the perfect top layer. The Dragonborn extended their hand and touched the snow, then immediately withdrew it.

“It’s cold!” They gasped. Brelyna tried to stifle another laugh.

“It is indeed cold. It’s often best to use gloves when touching it.”

The Dragonborn tried again, now that the surprise of the cold had passed. They brushed their hands through the thick fluffy snow, squishing it between their hands.

“It’s very soft.” The Dragonborn smiled. “I feel like I could play with it forever.”

Brelyna smiled. She had been living in the college for so long that she had gotten used to the snow, it had lost all of its charm on her because she had seen it every day. She found it refreshing to see someone new react to the snow. It made her remember her first time seeing snow, that was a fond day for her and she felt grateful to the Dragonborn that they had reminded her.

“Watch this.” Brelyna said, she then turned around and laid her back into the snow, her arms and legs extended. She then stood back up and looked at the imprint her body left in the snow. The Dragonborn gasped in excitement and copied her actions, making their own imprint in the snow. Brelyna smiled, she had forgotten what it was like to find joy in the little things. She thanked the gods for setting her up with the Dragonborn, everyday the Dragonborn was able to bring her joy and happiness even with the simplest of things. The Dragonborn carefully leant over their imprint and tried to draw their facial features into the snow.

“What about this?” The Dragonborn grabbed Brelyna’s hand. With their hands entwined they pushed them into the gap between their imprints, pulling back it looked like their imprints were holding hand.

“You are so cute.” Brelyna cooed. She then pulled the Dragonborn into a tight embrace. The college once more a distant thought in her mind, she was quite happy spending all her time playing in the snow with her love.

Uthgerd the Unbroken:

The pair had hired a carriage to take them to Dawnstar, as the Dragonborn had never been before and did not know the way. Uthgerd kept a watch all around, keeping an eye out for any sort of trouble such as bandits or dragons. The Dragonborn was watching the road ahead, taking in their surroundings.

Uthgerd noticed they would soon be approaching Dawnstar as heavy snowflakes began to fall around them. She was glad she had her heavy armor on the keep her warm, from the size of the snowflakes she new it was going to get very cold very quick.  

“What is that?” The Dragonborn gasped.

“What?” Uthgerd yelled, her head whipping around trying to find the threat. Even the carriage driver was startled by their outburst.

“That!” The Dragonborn pointed to their leg, upon it was a number of snowflakes. Uthgerd sighed, then settled herself.

“It’s snow.”

“Snow?”

“Yes. Have you never seen snow before?” The Dragonborn shook their head. Uthgerd should have figured, most elves had come from homelands that did not get snow.

“Snow, wow.” The Dragonborn watched as the snow piled onto their limbs. They sat completely still, not wanting to disturb the collection.

“Here we are.” The carriage driver said, stopping the carriage a little way from the town. The Dragonborn finally looked away from the snow on their limbs and looked out, spotting the white ground. The Dragonborn gasped and jumped over the side of the carriage, they began to pick up and play with the snow from the floor throwing it into the air and crushing it between their fingers.

 Uthgerd laughed, she did not see snow often but she was not entirely fond of it. She found it too cold, and hard to walk through when it got particularly thick. However, seeing her love playing in it brought her great joy. She was starting to see the good in snow, in that in can bring happiness to many. A thick layer of snow had settled, going up to their ankles. The Dragonborn was jumping through it, listening to the crunch of the snow.

“Listen to that, it’s such a nice sound.”

“That it is.”

The Dragon born started running through the snow, laughing and trying to catch the still falling flakes. Uthgerd watched happily, she had been sad and lost for a long time before she met the Dragonborn. But now that they were together her life was filled with blissful happy moments such as this. Uthgerd could have enjoyed watching the Dragonborn forever not wanting to ruin the moment, just wanting to let them be happy. However, since she was standing still the cold began to seep through her armor.

“I never really liked the snow.” Uthgerd admitted, making the Dragonborn stop moving. “However, there was one thing I did love about when it snowed.” Uthgerd walked over to the Dragonborn, rubbing the tips of their red ears.

“And what’s that?” The Dragonborn asked.

“When it gets cold like this. It’s a great time for some close, cuddle time so we can warm each other up.” Uthgerd smiled, linking her arm with the Dragonborns.

“Oh, I like that idea a lot. I think that definitely makes snow my favorite weather.” The Dragonborn cheered. Together they walked towards the town.

“You know, I’m starting to like it a lot more.” Uthgerd smiled, watching as the Dragonborn stuck their tongue out trying to catch some snow.

[rapifessor]

So, I've been thinking...

I consume a lot of Pokémon content on YouTube. Whenever I'm dead tired after work or just looking for something to have on in the background while I'm playing Skyrim and whatnot, I'll put on some Radical Soda or Fatguy703 Pokémon videos and chill.

And yet, I have to this day never played a mainline Pokémon game. A crime against nerdkind, I know. I figured it was time to change that. After thinking about it for a little bit, I thought it would be cool to buy and play all the classic Pokémon games. Everything pre-3DS era, definitely everything pre-Switch era, before the games kinda... objectively went to shit. They're expensive and hard to find, but... I like owning cool shit, and I want to experience the series from a lifelong fan's perspective. I didn't really understand the hype about Pokémon at first, although I thought the cards were pretty cool as a kid, but now that I've seen the games in action I decided I wanted to be a part of it.

So I did some research on prices, and embarked upon my Pokémon game hunting journey. I didn't expect to find much. I went to six different stores: three local hobby stores and three GameStops. Most stores I went to, I completely struck out: not a single pre-3DS Pokémon game in sight. I did pick up a used copy of Pokémon Moon for $20 though. Low priority, but out of all the 3DS games I decided Sun & Moon were at least worth a shot, and for that price, why not? This one even came with a case, which wasn't important to me but it's nice to have I suppose.

I did manage to find two of the games I was looking for at one of the GameStop locations: Black 2 and Soul Silver. But boyo, they did not come cheap.

Yes, DS era Pokémon games really are this expensive. $75 was about what I expected for Soul Silver, but $90 seemed a bit steep for Black 2, until I realized that trying to get an authentic copy for $80 would be pushing my luck. I feel quite lucky to have come by Soul Silver, in any case. I hear the Johto remakes are highly sought after.

The store I got these at also had original Black and White, Diamond and Pearl, Heart Gold, and surprisingly, Leaf Green. I skipped all of them because I felt the asking price was too high based on my earlier research (the Leaf Green cartridge was priced at a hundred fucking dollars). Additionally, a friend of mine has offered to give me his copy of Pokémon Platinum. Once he finds it, that is. So I had no reason to buy Diamond or Pearl anyway.

I've got two of the games I knew I wanted for sure now. Just six more to go. Thankfully, the only other game that's crazy expensive is Emerald. The rest are all a good bit cheaper than what I had to put down for Soul Silver and Black 2. I'll post some more when I can get my hands on the others.

As for everything 3DS era and onwards, I'm still debating whether or not to play them all. The games can all be had pretty cheap but there are so damn many of them, and for offering such a subpar experience I'm not sure it's even worth it to play them all. This is partially why I was willing to drop ninety bucks to get Black 2; it gives me a complete, quality Pokémon experience and is still cheaper than buying five modern Pokémon games that are all mediocre at best.

So for now I'm focusing on picking up the classics. I've tested my Soul Silver and Black 2 to make sure they work and are authentic, but I'm going to put off playing them for now. I want to try and play all the games in chronological order, so I need to get my hands on Yellow first.

I think posting about my experience with all the Pokémon games will be fun as well. Not sure exactly what I want to do, but it'll probably be a "Pokémon Diary" kind of thing. Similar to how I used to post daily updates on my progress in Genshin Impact, but more personal and less me nerding out over min-maxing in a gacha game.

Anyway, time to go troll eBay for deals on Pokémon Yellow.

[little-engineer-who-cant]

3 and 5 for alla stone shield!

Thank you so much for the ask and I am sorry for the delay, life got a little busy! This does get long and has mild spoilers for the ongoing Damnation Saga, so I've put part of it under a cut.

3.What are their religious affiliations, and how does their worship (or lack thereof) affect their day-to-day life?

Alla didn't to think much on religion at the beginning of her story. Growing up in Windhelm, she worshiped the Nine but modeled herself after her parents in their more casual devotion. Tossing a quick aside up to Talos, offering prayers at the temple when needed for holidays and harvests, but her personal religious beliefs did not play a central role in her upbringing. To her, the Nine are real and very important forces, but they don't do much for her daily life.

However, she was VERY aware of how religion affected other people and politics. Her close proximity to Ulfric's ideology (fueled by religion) lent her a unique view into the systemic use of religious beliefs to further the ambitions of a political entity. Windhelm is a place where everyone is listening to everyone else for a lick of dissent, a climate that grew more extreme the longer Ulfric's war dragged on. While she herself is not very religious, she is conscientious of all the ways one can speak that displays their religious, as thus likely political, affiliations.

All this changes after she awakens her Dragonborn soul. She now has a new place in the cosmos, amongst and in opposition to the aedra and daedra. To others, depending on how the Dragonborn legend is viewed by their culture, she is a god made flesh. She's now directly in divine crosshairs and this leads to an ongoing religious crisis that is steadily building throughout Acts 1 and 2 of look into the eyes of damnation and bare your teeth right now and will continue as her destiny unfolds. Prayer becomes more important throughout her journey, especially as the influence of the likes of Akatosh, Hermeaus Mora and Molag Bal (and others but that's big spoilers) become more overt.

5. Would they be able to live off the land if they were lost in the wilds of Skyrim? How skilled are they at foraging and hunting?

She is kind of able to survive the wilderness on her own. She's decent enough at foraging with a very workable knowledge of basic alchemy ingredients and edible roots/berries that one can find on the trails of Skyrim, but she's really shit at hunting and trapping. She'll get lucky every now and again, but that's not sustainable. Unless she found a way to build a shelter and have a makeshift homestead, surviving on her own long term is out of the question. This is why Kaidan is so valuable to her and Lucien early in the story, before they get to know him. He has wilderness survival skills in spades. Once they can no longer safely use roads, he becomes even more important. Though he does try to teach Alla how to hunt, it does not go very well. She's just not patient enough to find prey when a perfectly good berry bush is right there you know? (Best not to say anything about his single attempt with Lucien.)

Once prey is caught though, she's in her zone. As a farmer, she's had to butcher livestock and prepare them either for selling the meat or for prolonged storage and personal meals. Pelts and leather are also right in her wheelhouse so if she manages to snag something sizable, she's set for a bit.

[thirstyforred]

the thing about Skyrim, for me at least, is that the PC is so devoided of characteristics in the attempt to make them everyman that every player can mold into whatever they want, that actually making my own Dragonborn seems pointless, none of the quests and their resolutions actually provides me anything about what kind of person my Dragonborn is, so despite having well over 100h before this current playthrough i never finished the main plotline or any other questline really, other than the Dark Brotherhood. there's a lot to do in this game but a lot of it is also kinda nothing, and role-playing anything seems to me senseless

well, up to now, kinda

so starting this playthrough i decided to not make a new PC and just play the game with my oc Namrevlis, i already know this character so i don't have a problem with playing with some blank-faced nothing i can't develop, and bc Witcherverse so kindly comes with multiverse build in, Skyrim version of Nam is not some AU, it's her after everything that happened to her in Witcher and Cyberpunk, she's at the endgame of her development as a character and the state of her abilities, Skyrim is her retirement so to speak, she has fun with this new land knowing that ultimately nothing she does there matters

the very first night Nam spent under Skyrim's two moons and the night sky, she had an absolutely terrible dream, and the very next day she learned she's now something called Dragonborn, and there was Destiny for her to fulfill, and well, Nam being Nam, just accepted it as the thing she apparently needs to do now, to kill Alduin

in Helgen there was a bit of confusion when they asked her the standard race/name questions, (bc i fucked up) bc she's Aen Elle, but doesn't actually look like Tamriel Mer, but she's also over 2 meters tall, and she still claims to be an elf, so they wrote down "Breton (giant)"

Nam had an intense eye-fucking/crime-witnessing moment with Ondolemar which i already described here but then their relationship developed further, Nam invited him to her house (from mods, it has a sauna and i think it's a sex thing, but idiot Ondolemar keeps sleeping on the floor and the only voice lines he has are his vanilla ones so he keeps asking if she saw any Talos worshiping, way to ruin the mood idiot😒), and then they kinda-but-not-really went together to the party in Thalmor embassy, and then was the peace treaty and like thanks gods Elenwen didn't mention Nam is as good as Thalmor asset, Ulrich would storm the fuck off, and even Tullius might be like hey wtf?!

(now, why would such a good Dragonborn be chummy with elven supremacists, and well, have you actually seen Wild Hunt recently? and Namrevlis is at her core a solder, a tool, she can get by on her own, totally, but if someone gives her a quest she will likely just do it just because it's something to do, it works well for video games ofc, but also i see Red Riders as child soldiers, in need of certain structure, even when they manage to escape, and Thalmor is paramilitary, its structure itself, Nam may not know their goals, or be actually in their ranks, but being just adjanced reminds her in some way of life back in Tir na Lia, both bad and good of it. it's messy, Nam is a messy character and i love her)

the first Daedric quest she did was Molag Bal's House of Horrors, and she take away from this situation was "I never fucked with Gaunter O'Dimm, but if these Daedric guys are all like this loser then I'm probably more than fine"

Nam did The Whispering Door quest after becoming the Listener and the whole time kept addressing Mephala as Mother, while Mephala was like "Um, no... Again, I'm just the Whispering Lady..."

speaking of Dark Brotherhood shenanigans: Nam did adopt Aventus Aretino (thanks mods!), because she has a soft spot for fucked up kids (say hi Alvin~); each time she stumbled upon Black Sacrament she would take Nightshade and heart as a way of acknowledging the ritual; she has a weird "not sexual, but still not-not sexual" kind of thing going on with "sweet, sweet Cicero" (one of my mods made him into a twink and y'know...)

[juniperberries-canisroot]

404: DragonBorn Not Found

My first time playing Skyrim wasn't on the Switch, which is what I play exclusively on. One day I will get a PC ;-;

My first time was actually on an Xbox. I don't know what gen, it was old and second hand. Sis and I split the cost so I only paid 7$. Not sure if it came with Skyrim or I bought a secondhand Skyrim while at the GameStop cause I heard it was an open world fantasy game, and I love open world fantasy. I pretty much knew nothing about the game or the Elder Scrolls series as a whole.

Anyway I start it up one day and make a Dark Elf character cause I heard there was dragons in the game. I knew the main focus of the game was about dragons, and Dark Elves are natrually resistant to fire, so I thought that would help (I mean technically it does but I didn't know some dragons would breathe frost later on).

I get stuck somewhere in the opening scene where the mages are shooting fireballs at Alduin. I remember thinking to myself 'you idiots, he breathes fire, you can't hurt him with your fireballs'. I'm lost at this point (I'm extremely directionally challenged) and resort to letting myself get killed so I can start over, ish.

I get killed and teleport back somewhere and eventually make it out of Helgen and to RiverWood. I talk to the locals, get quests, make friends with Faendal and get some arrows and a bow. Since I only had two major quests, BleakFalls and go to WhiteRun, I figured the game must want me to go to BleakFalls.

I remember getting horribly lost while tryin to go there and trying to hunt deer in the nearby woods for food. I was really bad at hunting and archery.

I don't remember if I ever made it to the end of Bleak Falls and I don't think I ever made it to WhiteRun. Somethin happened (that wasn't related to the Xbox or maybe the game being second hand) and I ended up losing all my data. Which wasn't alot, for Skyrim. I lost my data for Fallout: New Vegas and Halo. Idk which one. We had like 2 or 3 different ones. My dad, who put in waaaaay more hours into playing with the console, lost his Khajiit Skyrim character, his completed Fallout 3 game, one or two FarCry games that he really liked, his Halo data, basically the whole console got wiped. Our player profiles where no longer on the system.

The culprit? Sis's now ex BF tried to connect the old gen Xbox to the WiFi. Somethin clearly went horribly wrong and it caused all its data to be erased.

Since I've been playing for over a year and have become obsessed with the game, I've had this idea that I want to 'honour the lost' Dark Elf character I made before, thou I really don't know how. I guess I kinda did that with my main, CL, by making her a Dark Elf. But CL has become her own character now who was actually based on an OC by the same name, so she doesn't resemble '404'. That's the name I call the lost Dark Elf in reference to the error code 404: Not Found. I forgot her original name.

I kinda want to make a save and story where the joke is no one knows who the DragonBorn actually is. They know the DB is doing things, like killing dragons, bandit camps, ect... But no one ever really *knows*. She's like a phantom, no one knows her name, what she looks like, they just know some entity called the DragonBorn is going around and doing things. No one knows the elf, her name, most will say they've never seen her before and if she isn't standing within their eyesight, they will have no recollection of a female dark elf with black hair styled in a Mohawk. She's a memory you just can't remember. The DragonBorn is a faceless entity, devoid of a phyical body. The most anyone was ever knows about them is what stories spread across the land spoken by those who have never met or seen them, and the remains of those fallen by their power.

[batsyforyou]

Hiya! for the OC ask game, 1 for any/all OCs you wanna talk about :)

Hello and thank you for the ask! I will be honest I kinda feel like I have been caught with my pants down cause I completely forgot I posted/reblogged that but I am more than happy to share my OCs. I think I am going to mention two that I'm working on and none of what is here is solid yet. Like, its not concrete! I keep forgetting the right analogies for these things, are they analogies?

I think one for Skyrim and one for whatever is happening on the other end of my fishing line lol. Also, I'm working off of minimal sleep and a high amount of caffeine so I apologize if this comes off as weird. Im sure it will.

Number 1 says, "What is their birthsign and does it have any large significance to who they are?"

So, I don't actually have birthdays or names picked out for these OCs so I'll just share some of what I do have. Vibes mostly but damn are they hot.

For Skyrim we have an Altmer/Nord Dragonborn Character, a mixed race character. For this one I have more plot then character but because the thingy said Skyrim originally it doesn't feel right to not mention her. I literally have over three pages of bullet pointed plot points and thoughts for her. I know it doesn't seem like much but for me thats a lot. She was inspired by a play through I just started and Taliesin. In an ask game before this I think I mentioned him but if I didn't he is an in progress fully voiced modded follower that I have been obsessed with recently. You can find the creators blog here. And I kinda want to use this OC in a fan fiction for him but we won't talk about that cause I actually don't know yet. But I really want to its probably gonna be after his release if I do. But unlikely cause I'm so slow af. And I have said I'd have Little Dove part 1 posted in a couple of days and well, its been like two months so...

Brief Character Description: We'll just call her Brye for now.

She was born in a place far far away that I have yet to choose but was raised in Riverwood by her Nord Dad.

Brye's Appearance

Eyes-blue

Hair- long and white (will be cut later down the line cause trauma)

skin- currently torn between olive or tan, probably olive

height- no specific number has been set yet but she definitely isn't small

Armor- In the beginning she goes with what she can afford so, either hide armor or steel if she can get her hands on it. Later down the line she'll have more assassin looking light weight armor. She does cover her hair and ears in a scarf like thing I can't remember the name to but like sailors use them so like? It's there and it is black and she wears a helmet over it.

Some character traits/insecurities/flaws: I'm not gonna put them all here just a short list.

Self-hate issues

trust issues

abandonment issues

mommy issues

Loyal

strong moral compass 65% of the time

Has high expectations of herself (perfectionist)

Loves the thrill of danger/hunting

Loves treasure/loot

can be lead astray from morals for treasure (and kisses)

loves feeling like she's doing good even if she is doing nothing and failing miserably. An example could be trying to make someone feel better and hoping her that her presence is enough cause they have someone who can protect them. Does that make sense? Probably not.

is a sucker for praise and attention from those close to her.

constantly wants the approval of others, kinda a people pleaser but not really. Like she isn't a floor mat... rug? Whatever she has boundaries + backbone and doesn't like letting people get close. But will feel guilty for hours after saying "no" to someone.

I'll leave it there for the Skyrim OC cause I said a short list and that is not short. Moving on to whatever is happening on the other end of the screen!

Pirate Elf: that I still don't have a name for.

I'm just gonna share a few of the images I have for him and what I'm thinking about for his bird and story/coping skills. Also, side note, the images I am gonna share were sent to me by a the lovely lady Flora and if you are interested in OCs I'd totally recommend her! She has many different blogs for different things but @floraroselaughter is her main one and @the-glade-is-my-delight should be her OCs blog. She is great with mood boards and her writing is super great as well so totally check her out if you have the time!

I didn't share all the photos but these are just some of them. I am adding to him still and doing some research but I have a semi done playlist that I'd like to share. And please let me know if the links don't work I'll fix em.

Playlist for Elf Pirate Captain 

Jonathan Young- Eye of the Storm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si3IJ218Chk

Valhalla calling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxptIpCYAJA

10HR Creaky Wooden Pirate Ship Rain Sounds for Sleep: BLACK SCREEN Pirate Ship Ambience for Sleep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCs4JM7dXX4

Pirate Ship Ambience- Captain’s Cabin Tropical Island Port, Bird LIfe| 1 hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft-lJyu_nuY

Pirate Ship Sound Ambience//Wooden Sailboat Ocean Waves Sleep Sound 8 Hours https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aylZ5naovxY

Footsteps on Wood floor black screen 10 hours loop| sleep| study|relax| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVumDbrIOFg

Footsteps on Hardwood Floor Sound Effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJbOrzd92Ec

Sound Effects- Walking on Wood Floor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfrLCXUo1hg 

Loud Parrot Chirping |Natural Parrot Sounds| Parrot Calling Sounds|| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9dUpGFc5Uc

Parrots incredibly talk to one other like Humans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlu504XxrYA 

Best Sword Sounds (Slice/Slash/Crash/Swoosh/etc) A little bloody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgRvVq8mStE

RPG|D&D Ambience -Sword Duel (Swords clashing, footsteps, heavy breathing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsHWwmXbcM

I had a mix of Sea Shanties that was really good but I couldn't find it so yeah.

For his bird he does have a green parrot not because I see a lot of other pirates with them but because my Grandma had a green parrot named Rocky who died a couple of years ago and I loved him to bits so, he has a bird named Rocky. I hope thats the right picture.

For the coping skill I mentioned I don't think he has one. Cause what I'm currently thinking is that he talks with his hands a lot, mostly to show off his rings, but that he puts all the stress of whatever is happening in a bottle and just keeps shoving it all in there. Until he is literally teetering on the edge of like super villain or defeat. Mostly supervillain. And by defeat I mean like breaking down and not recovering mentally.

An example of what could break that bottle would be like, if he fell in love with a human woman and he got married to her and had children and she died a normal death. He won't be fine for a while but probably won't go raging war on anyone. Verses, he fell in love with a human woman who he was going to marry but couldn't cause she was shot and killed and then he goes Super villain I'ma kill everyone mode. Or my personal favorite He gets married to the love of his life they have children together she still gets brutally murdered and he goes to start a war and I make another protagonist to take him out. And it be a simple family verses family story.

I have a ton more I'd like to say about him but this post is crazy long so thank you for asking! I'm sure this isn't what you wanted to walk into but hey, its late I'm tired and I have to turn in like three huge grade breaking essays. So, its all good!

Have a great night, stay blessed!

[livingobserver]

That's it! Skyrim's call is too strong. because, that World is "So me". "Resistance is Futile."

In that World I can still run and jump and explore as I used to do on any mountain, or any abandoned mansion here in the real world. While sitting on my damned Stroke crippled ass. Though absent Dragons and Drauger here in the real world. Good thing, eh? But in that world, the Skyrim World..., anything still seems possible. Not so much in the real world for me anymore. I ain't complaining. There was a time, as you know..., that these worlds were not available to us except in our imaginations. Do not think that they replace imagination. The reverse is often more true. They feed the imagination, which is why young minds need wise guidance in their use. For me? I am awed by the Art and Concepts, as an Artist. Each new (Worthy) Mod brings even greater graphics and depth to the story. The immersion grows strong. As the subject of a massive stroke, Skyrim strengthens my short and long term memory and aides in developing new neural pathways around the damage (Hand/Eye/Mind/Coordination) and damned if it don't come real close to walking jumping and running like a kid. If not a super hero. I mean, who else do you know that can call and ride a Dragon? Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V, it is a novel that has no end and I love a good novel. Especially a interactive novel that can be approached in many different ways. Not all "Games", are "Just a Game". SKYRIM, is not just a Game, it is Freedom for me. Least I go Mad from Cabin Fever. Playlist of a few others I indulge myself in when I need to turn to Escapisms: (Don't look for me playing "online, I've had my fill of that.) Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V Heavily Modded Sniper Elite: Up to and including Sniper Elite Italia Sim City: Up to latest release/Update Hunting and Fishing Games. But I find their Graphics to be less than they should be given the Tech (A.I.I ) available. The scenery in the latest versions is often Good, but the modeling is often Poor. Most of what I play must meet one primary criteria; that it requires strategic planning. None of that just running around on restrictive paths, just blasting away in hopes the Games A.I., is in a good mood. :P

[maximuswolf]

I quit working at Bethesda after 14 years during Starfield to go make my own solo indie game with no publisher it's a heavy metal horror game where you hunt monsters from folklore - It's called The Axis Unseen

I quit working at Bethesda after 14 years during Starfield to go make my own solo indie game with no publisher, it's a heavy metal horror game where you hunt monsters from folklore - It's called The Axis Unseen So I know a lot of people have thoughts on Starfield and how it is probably too big, should have been smaller, etc.I agree with a lot of that and while I enjoyed working at Bethesda a lot when we were about 65-110 people on Fallout 3 and Skyrim, I enjoyed it a lot less as it grew and grew. I had a lot of fun building spaces a lot of you have probably seen like Diamond City, Blackreach, Little Lamplight, I was lead artist on Point Lookout and Fallout 76 and more. Starfield was about 500 people or so and with four different companies involved (BGS, BGS Austin, BGS Dalls, BGS Montreal), and that's not including outsourcing. This just wasn't my style. There were so many meetings and it wasn't the way I liked to build games. I like being able to just move fast and build unique things.I always loved indie games and I figured, if I didn't do it now, I maybe never would. Unreal 5 looked really cool to me and it had way better open world support. So I quit on April 1st 2021 (seriously haha) and decided to build my own open world game. One that is not procedural, but 100% hand-built. The map is about 5x the size of Skyrim, but I tried something smaller and it didn't work very well. It's very focused on hunting and exploring and some of the creatures are pretty huge. So I needed a lot more space.It's all about exploring an open world hunting monsters from folklore. Instead of having scary violins for the music, I wanted something with heavy metal. It's a cool blend of primitive instruments and metal. I'm happy with how it's turned out though and the demo is out now if anyone wants to check it out. I got Clifford Meyer from the band Isis to do the whole soundtrack (I was psyched, I was a huge fan), someone to do the journal drawings and a few writers, but besides that, I built the game myself and I have no publisher. So I went as far indie as you can go haha. People have asked if I would do it again and absolutely, I would. I really enjoy being indie.I hope you all like it! Let me know! Also I am still excited to see what they do next, I hope TES6 is good (but I am super glad I don't have to work on that, talk about high expectations! haha) and I'm excited to maybe someday play a Fallout game I didn't actually work on, maybe when I'm 80 or something, lol. (I have no clue when it will be)If you want to see the trailer or check out the demo, it's up here:https://ift.tt/4jFn5Co Submitted October 07, 2024 at 11:48AM by JustPurkeyGames https://ift.tt/KBU0zcQ via /r/gaming