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txttletale · 2 months ago

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hey what DO you watch on youtube? seems like you'd have some neat recommendations :3

i really loathe the like super-highly edited sound effect post-mrbeast slop most of youtube is now so i mostly like stuff that's like... calm and sedate. stuff i've been watching lately in no particular order:

northernlion vods and clips. he's an OG. i especially like his react court series, i must have watched all of them like five times.

speaking of OGs i've been watching zero puncutation (now fully ramblomatic) for like ten years and if anything it's only gotten better. best game review content on the internet. been really enjoying his more recent, slightly longer and more thoughtful 'extra punctuation/semi-ramblomatic' series too.

any austin's skyrim unemployment rate videos. instant classics to me, it's just a guy going around in skyrim trying to figure out the unemployment rate in every town. it's a very dry kind of humour, he plays it admirably straight, and it's weirdly calming.

kitten arcader's foot the bill videos. in a kind of similar vein, he watches the saw movies and then produces an itemized bill for everything jigsaw needed to buy to make his traps. it's kind of like... if cinemasins was fundamentally curious instead of fundamentally incurious, it scratches a similar sort of nitpicky detail-oriented quantifying itch but without inimical to the concept of art.

shuffle up and play. it's a magic the gathering play series that has enough editing that the gamestate is actually legible but not enough editing (or at least, not enough obtrusive in-your-face editing) that its annoying. i also like that they reguilarly play non-edh formats like cube and pauper.

spice8rack. i'm pretty picky about video essays but spice8rack has very obviously actually read books and has interesting things to say about the topics it discusses (mostly magic: the gathering). sometimes it has a kind of grating Theater Kid Energy but the fact that it actually meaningfully structures essays and analysis to earn the silly long runtimes is a rare delight from a video essayist.

jenny nicholson is a long-time favourite and another permanent fixture in my rotation. she's just extremely, remarkably funny which makes her the only 'basically just summarizing a thing' youtuber i think is worth the time of day.

i watch some sketch comedy, mainly wizards with guns and aunty donna, who both consistently put out really funny stuff that's kind of ITYSL-adjacent in its barefaced absurdism and contenmpt for concepts like "stopping a joke at the logical punchline". i also really like alasdair beckett-king and binging the old clickhole backlog for short-form comedy on youtube.

wolfeyvgc is right on the edge of the level of editing i find tolerable but as a long-time fan of multiple esports he Has It, he's absolutelyt fantastic at t elling the narrative of a tournament, explaining plays clearly, and generally making competitive pokemon esports thrilling and interesting ti someone (me) who#s never played it and doesn't care about pkoemon that much

i religously watch every elliespectacular/dathings YTP, the absolute best in the game right now, top tier snetence mixing and really good at actually setting up and paying off jokes in a way it feels like a lot of ytp doesn't. verytallbart is also pretty good.

trapperdapper is a channel i recently binged, it's a really fucking funny parody of minecraft challenge content that veers slowly from obvious angles of parody into pure absurdism with tons of blink-and-you'll miss it subtle visual gags.

too much future is a great youtube series where the two guys from just king things/homestuck made this world play through every fallout game and analyze them in that context. extremely funny and also just top-tier very sharp analysis. really good

another one of the rare good video essayists is jan misali. they're really funny and will go into topics that kind of seem narrow or strange to begin with in such depth and make them so interesting that it's consistently astonishing.

oh and finally sarah z makes pretty good videos. 'the narcissist scare' is an absolutely brilliant deconstruction of one of the most annoying pop-psych phenomena of the last couple years. and remarkably well script supervised i think did anyone else watch it and think 'wow the script supervisor on this must have been, a mind geniuse'

ok i think that's all i've been watching lately. hope you like whcihever of these recs you check out :)

#ask #Anonymous

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maverick-werewolf · 3 months ago

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Daily Werewolf Thoughts - Days 1-9

I've been writing some daily werewolf thoughts in various places, and now, at last, here's a collection of them for Werewolf Wednesday! I'll be posting collections on my Patreon and Tumblr, since I don't want to spam those every day for such short posts. Here's the first set from days one through nine.

The formatting on these isn't the prettiest, but it'll do! They're not big blog posts, just thoughts for fun and stuff.

Day 1- I'm obligated to open with the undeniable importance of The Wolf Man (1941). Werewolves never had a definitive book that shaped the popular perception of werewolves. The Wolf Man, although a film, is to werewolves what Bram Stoker's Dracula is to vampires. When you think of "a werewolf," it was influenced at least in some way by The Wolf Man.

Influenced by folklore but taking elements from various sources (not just werewolf legends), Curt Siodmak created the werewolf that currently lives in our perceptions as THE werewolf. The Halloween werewolf, the classic horror werewolf... and still the coolest kind of werewolf.

Great film, by the way. You should watch it. It's free on the Internet Archive, so you have no excuse. It's still one of the best werewolf stories ever told. Classic. There's a reason everyone ripped off the formula.

Also, there's a Werewolf Fact for this: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-fact-68-the-importance-of-the-wolf-man-1941/

Day 2- There's great variety in werewolf designs out there, but I've noticed the most classic werewolf look has a body hair pattern and lacks fur on the face. Everything from Halloween masks to films to cutesy plush use this as the most immediately recognizable werewolf look, no doubt inspired by classic wolf-men like Werewolf of London (1935), The Wolf Man (1941), and Curse of the Werewolf (1961).

I went through a phase of being adamant about preferring werewolf completely covered in fur, but I realized that, even when I was a contrarian child and then teenager, my favorites never actually looked like that. Then again, I like an insane variety, to be honest, so I'm not that picky... as long as it looks like both a human and a wolf instead of neither of those things or something completely different.

Day 3- Something many modern werewolves lack, or did for a while (I think the phase is ending, puns intended), was the howl. A wolf howl is a unique and chilling sound that has haunted the psyche of man for time immemorial. It's an obvious element of werewolf horror and werewolves in general.

But sometime in the early 2010s or so, a lot of people decided that howls were "corny" and too expected because that was around the time anything classic/traditional became just terrible and everyone wanted to disassociate werewolves from... wolves. So werewolves started exclusively roaring or, at best, weirdly bellowing instead. This can be found in everything from Underworld (undoubtedly a huge influence on this) to Skyrim* to the MTV Teen Wolf series and many others. I'll never forget a pivotal scene in a late Teen Wolf season where Scott was told to howl and he just... roars. Wtf? Everything did this at the time.

Sidebar: The MTV Teen Wolf series absolutely shocked me when it first released. I watched it fully expecting it to be teen werewolf tripe, but Season 1 really is fantastic werewolf horror. Just do NOT watch any season beyond the first one. Everything past Season 1 is total garbage with only a few cool moments in like one of the season 4's (I forget all the numbers) and is much more what I expected from the series. Note that the linked clip is not from season 1.

*: just another reason why Morrowind: Bloodmoon is superior

Underworld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v-JtvyLvSlo&abchannel=Movieclips

Skyrim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXwkSA2_02o&ab_channel=Servilius

Teen Wolf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWjJME4Vl3A&ab_channel=coolghighi

Day 4- Silver. The idea of a "silver bullet" has become all but ubiquitous for something's only weakness, like saying "Achilles' heel." Obviously, this originated with werewolves... and again it actually originated only with The Wolf Man (1941). Silver was never a werewolf weakness in legend.

Curt Siodmak, when dictating to the world what werewolf concepts would be like forever after, created the idea that only silver can slay a werewolf. In legend, werewolves had no particular weaknesses, unlike vampires. They could walk holy ground, holy artifacts had no effect on them, wolfsbane and belladonna did nothing in particular, some were immune to all forms of injury (except in human form) and had to be cured, silver certainly was never mentioned, and some were slain through ordinary means.

It's possible that Siodmak got the idea of silver harming werewolves from "witch-creatures," shapeshifted witches. In some tales, witches were harmed specifically by silver. This had no relation to werewolves whatsoever. Other speculate Siodmak did this because silver is related to the moon in ancient alchemy. Regardless of why he did it, werewolves being slain by silver specifically begins with The Wolf Man in 1941.

I should note that some dispute this, citing the Beast of Gevaudan legend (which in itself I don't even really consider a werewolf legend) and claiming that silver was used to slay it, as told in Henri Pourrat’s Historie fidèle de la bête en Gévaudan. But this book is not from the time period of the Beast of Gevaudan - it's a novel published in 1946, well after The Wolf Man was released and established.

Curt Siodmak is the reason we associate werewolves with "silver bullets" (although it was a silver-headed cane that slew the werewolf in the movie), so you can thank him again for his massive influence on our culture abroad and certainly our now classic conception of the werewolf.

There's also a werewolf fact for this: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/silver/

Day 5- I love etymology. My favorite word is "werewolf." Today, it's common to see people shunning the word "werewolf," thinking it corny, or else they do so in favor of shorthand or other general word butchery or kreatyvity. Before I get into that, I'm going to go over what "werewolf" actually means.

“Werewolf” comes from late Old English, a combination of “were,” meaning “man,” and of course “wolf.” Werewolves have had countless names over the centuries, but this is the one that stuck, after its first use (that we know of, at least) by the English King Cnut, who reigned 1016-1035; he used it in his Ecclesiastical Ordinances XXVI. By the way, please ignore any modern scholars who like to claim now that "werewolf" means "wolfwolf," because that is so preposterous it makes me want to cast myself into the sea with stones on my feet.

Unfortunately, a lot of people like to avoid even using the word "werewolf" as if their success depends on it. They have what is obviously a werewolf in a story, but it's very carefully never referred to as such, because then - in their minds - audiences wouldn't take it seriously. Thus, we end up with things like "lycan," a butchery of "lycanthrope" that takes the "lykos" (meaning wolf) and only the beginning of the "anthropos" (meaning man). You end up with a nothing word that sounds like something green growing on a log. Many people also use only the "were" prefix, which means "man," and thus you have things like "weretouched" (Mantouched? How does it even imply shapeshifting?) to mean a variety of beast-people*. Still others use a word they made up just so they never have to say "werewolf," like "worgen" or "blutbad/blutbaden" or even just "wolfblood/wolfbloods," among others. These may or may not be used in a world that otherwise uses normal terms; if it does use other ordinary monster names, it makes the kreatyv werewolf name all the sillier-sounding.

Anyway, "werewolf" is a great word. More people should use it. A rose by any other name...

*: I won't get into how I feel about "werecreatures" being a bunch of werewolf spinoffs, although I may end up ranting about that sometime this month.

Day 6- Werewolves and the full moon always go together. A werewolf without a full moon just doesn't have quite the same ring to it. This is, you guessed it, yet another thing you can thank Curt Siodmak for - but it actually didn't originate with The Wolf Man (1941), and it also has some basis in legend. Or, at least, I would argue it does.

Firstly, The Wolf Man (1941) actually didn't start the idea of a werewolf transforming at the full moon. In the original film, we have this werewolf rhyme (written by Siodmak)...

"Even a man who is pure at heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright"

Hence, the werewolf turns in autumn when the wolfsbane blooms.

However, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Siodmak changed the rhyme and the timing of the werewolf's transformation...

"Even a man who is pure at heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms

And the moon is full and bright"

So, now it's every full moon.

I've seen some scholars argue there is no basis in folklore for the full moon werewolf myth, but I dispute that. Sabine Baring-Gould specifically mentions in The Book of Werewolves (you can buy a fully edited, translated, formatted, and footnoted copy of that by yours truly, btw) that many southern regions of France believed werewolf turned on the full moon even well into the 1800s. He mentions that "men transformed into wolves at the full moon. The desire to run comes upon them at night."

Likewise, there's a potential moon connection as far back as Niceros's tale, as retold by Petronius in The Satyricon, though it exists in other and older forms told by other writers. It's an oft-cited werewolf story that mentions "the Moon shone brought as day" when a man turns into a wolf, though there's no obvious description of the moonlight itself being some kind of trigger or necessity for the magic. It did, however, let Niceros witness the transformation and become mentally scarred by it.

That was lengthy. Anyway, I love the full moon and werewolves. I also love werewolves and silver, even if that wasn't in folklore, but Baring-Gould alone does tell me that I think there was indeed basis in folklore for the connection between werewolves and the full moon.

Also, there's a Werewolf Fact for this, if old and not the best written: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/full-moon/

Day 7- What do you think of as the "typical werewolf color?" It might not necessarily be your favorite, but it's the one that stands out in your mind as the werewolf color - although I love them all, so obviously this doesn't apply to me.

I think brown. Sometimes grey.

Throughout my childhood, wolf-man style werewolves were usually brown and the wolf-headed ones were more likely to be grey. There were and are exceptions, of course. But even today, you're still most likely to see brown or grey, including in Halloween decorations, even if there's more variance in designs today (and you're more likely to find wolf-headed ones than you were in the past).

Day 8- One of the weirdest misconceptions I’ve run across in my life of werewolf obsession is this idea that “we need woman werewolves in media, we’ve never had many and they weren’t in the legends.” That couldn’t be less true. There have always been female werewolves in both. It's much safer today to assume the werewolf of a murder mystery will be the woman, as that's the new "twist." I'm much more shocked if it's ever the man anymore (it isn't). Werewolf women have been common even in early film, though the most popular examples begin around the 2000's. In fact, you could easily argue the first werewolf film (though it was about a witch turning into a werewolf) ever recorded in 1913 was about a female werewolf. It's lost to time now, though.

There were plenty of werewolf women in legend, too. I have a werewolf fact for that: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/werewolf-women/ (my personal favorite has always been the 1615 treatise by Jean de Nynauld, for some reason)

There's a lot more to say, but short post today since I have a lot of work to do. See you again tomorrow!

(in the original version of this post, I had 4 images, all of female werewolves from film, including Cursed, Ginger Snaps, The Howling, and Skinwalkers, though I could pull plenty more examples)

Day 9- Something I discuss a lot in The Werewolf: Past and Future is the point when werewolves "went mad," essentially. In pop culture, all the best werewolves are mad/uncontrollable at least for the most part, as inspired by The Wolf Man. It's a much better story and what makes a werewolf a werewolf in modern perceptions (including mine; those are the best werewolves). But it wasn't always the case in the legends.

Sure, there are several legends in previous time periods of mad werewolves (such as Sigmund and Sinfjotli, among others), but you'll remarkably find the majority had full control of the bestial form. This was especially common in older Christian works, such as about werewolf knights, in which being a werewolf was a test of the judgment of others or a test of one's own will. This also wasn't uncommon in ancient Greece and even Rome, such as the Arcadians taking the form of a wolf and returning to human form as long as they didn't devour any human flesh.

It was only in the Renaissance and/or Early Modern Period, with the rise of science and the popularity of slaughtering wolves (real ones), that werewolves became seen as these uncontrollable, evil, insane killers who were "diseased." In the past, being a werewolf was a magic curse. Then, it became a madness and an illness - called "lycanthropy." Some say Christianity caused this, when in actuality, it was secular divisions and the rise of scientific thought, as proven by older Christian werewolf works.

I have several werewolf facts on this subject, and I discuss it a lot in my book, too.

Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1949227022

Post 1: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/curse-not-disease/

Post 2: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/when-werewolves-went-mad/

#werewolf #werewolves #werewolfwednesday #werewolf wednesday #folklore #thoughts

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justgivemethephd · 2 months ago

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04.11.2024

It has once again been a while since I posted. The migraine is still kicking my ass, and despite me taking some time off to stay away from the evil fluorescent lights at work it seems to not be getting any better. I went to the GP last week and on top of giving me some much stronger painkillers (which are still not helping, but alas), they have also scheduled me for a blood test and an eye test. Hopefully I can get some answers soon.

Other than that, I think being able to rest has done me some good. I have come back more productive and far more proactive, and I'm doing a lot better at staying on top of my to-do list. I'm also getting more and more into coding, and I'm still finding it really fun! Once I finish this course I'm hoping I can find some more exercises and practice data sets to really test my skills, but we can cross that bridge when we get to it.

I also went to a Halloween party this weekend with the people from my lab and it was honestly quite nice to get out of the house. I've been finding it harder and harder to socialise lately but this was a really nice experience. I'm glad I pushed myself to go!

Hope everyone had a very spooky weekend and a great week ahead!

_____

🎧 - Breakin' Dishes by Rihanna

🎮 - Skyrim

📖 - Les Indes Noires by Jules Verne

#study aesthetic #study blog #study inspiration #study motivation #study space #studyblr #studyinspo #studyspo #study tips #phd life #phd adventures #phdjourney #phd student #phdblr #phd research #academics #grad school #grad student

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ironwoman359 · 3 months ago

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Hey so like I’ve been following ur blog since my sanders sides days but like genuinely wondering, what fandoms r u in now?

oh gosh, well hi! Thanks for sticking around so long ^.^

It's kinda hard to answer what fandoms I'm *in* per say, because I don't really participate in any particular communities as heavily as I did in the sanders sides community back in the late teens and early twenties, but this is the stuff I'm into/writing right now!

I've started reading books again! I've become one of those "reads 100 books a year" people with a storygraph and a big spreadsheet and an aesthetic book journal and everything, it's really fun. If anyone wants book recs please encourage me I will dump a whole list on you.

The fan community I'm actually participating in a bit right now is the cosmere fandom (fantasy books by brandon sanderson), as I'm in a fandom discord server for that with @mug-of-beans. Currently reading Words of Radiance and losing my mind (affectionate).

I'm writing a Skyrim fanfiction that is my pride and joy, and I recently went into a fugue state and wrote a Battinson oneshot? Batfam is one of those fandoms that I exist in tertiarily (other such fandoms include dp x dc, gravity falls, and good omens), because I follow people who reblog it a lot and I'm in some discord servers that have a lot of those fans as well.

Speaking of Discord servers, I still feel at least a little part of the Sanders Sides fandom (even though I haven't actually consumed any new official content since WTIT), mostly because of my friends who still are active in the fandom, namely @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors whose fanfiction I am almost more a fan of than the original work at this point, and I'm in a couple different servers with la and several other of my sanders sides mutuals (some are, like me, less active in tss stuff these days but we all met because of sanders sides and so sometimes when we hang out it still feels like a fanclub for it, in a good way).

I don't watch Thomas as much anymore but I still watch a lot of youtube! I started watching Smosh for the first time about...twoish years ago? Just in time to get used to the current cast and its dynamics and in jokes and then be body slammed along with everyone else with the one-two punch of "anthony is back" and "shortney Real Actually." I cycle through different gaming channels depending on my hyperfixations (i go on and off with markiplier, rtgame, jacksepticeye, dougdoug, current big one is game grumps), I like 2nd Try and Mythical and I love video essays. Hbomberguy, Supereyepatchwolf, Dan Olson, Sarah Z, Mandalore Gaming, FD Signifier, Noodle, MothersBasement, probably several I'm forgetting. Oh, and @mug-of-beans and I own Terminal Montage's Blessed Kirbo plush because we needed the Holiest Boy in our house.

I'm also in one of those moods lately where I write a lot for my whump sideblog, so if you enjoy watching OCs in pain then you can come join me on @ironwhumper359, I just started an interactive story where the readers vote on certain outcomes!

I'm a little bit all over the place at the moment, haha, but overall I'm really enjoying the things I'm reading, writing, watching, and the people I'm hanging out with! Thanks for your ask, I'm honored that you and so many others are still following this blog after all this time!

#taylor talks #sanders sides #skyrim #youtube fandom #cosmere #batfam

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strangecloud · 4 months ago

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Do you remember your first Skyrim playthrough?

I played Skyrim on the 360 when it came out. I remember the starting Helgen cutscene making me uncomfortable, being carried to an executioner's block. The character I ended up playing was a paladin sort of dude who instead of shielding or avoiding blows would use Restoration to heal himself back up when he inevitably got hit.

I've been on an Elder Scrolls kick lately, playing Morrowind and Skyrim and even some ESO. I think they're good games, but I believe I've puzzled out why so many people prefer Morrowind over the rest of the series.

When I say the starting cutscene in Skyrim made me uncomfortable back in like, 2011, I mean it has since lost any of that power. I've just seen it so many times. I think this is the core of why Skyrim, despite being indubitably an absolute achievement in game design, seems to be less and less appreciated as time goes on. Simply put, most people have played it to the point that it's almost like a solved game.

This is a phenomenon that has happened to me across some games, even my favorite game of all time, Fallout New Vegas. I've just played it so darn much that the whole thing is predictable, like I can see all the decisions and consequences without even booting up the game. This contradiction of the medium has been commented on and explored by the metafiction of games like Undertale. The artificiality of an entirely predictable system, no matter how lifelike, will lessen your investment.

And it's not the game's fault. If anything, a game being good to the point of wearing out its welcome with diminishing returns because people just insist on playing it over and over again is a crowning achievement. However, transcending that, making a game that's quality to the point of beating that almost invincible limitation? That's on a whole other level.

Enter: Morrowind.

On the surface, Morrowind just looks like an old ass game. Everything is a little weird, to the way combat works to how it expects you to visually navigate the world with directions, sometimes daisy-chaining instructions on how to get where you're going. You know, go here following a path, to ask this person who actually knows where you want to go how to get there. And then follow a path again. The game expects you to study in-game lore books to figure out what to do. Like, actually roleplaying a researcher poring over tomes for answers. It's real weird.

But it makes a lot more sense when you consider, all of this, intentionally or not, contributes to a very interesting result. It makes the game a kind of perennial experience.

Even if you know what you're looking for, there's no map markers telling you where most things are in Morrowind. Some things might be easier to do off the top of your head when you're familiar with the game but even then, most of the time there's nothing for it but to knuckle down and search around. Like, actually paying attention to the world instead of some compass or map.

The character building works almost the same. You can steer your character into some set of gear you really want, assuming you know it exists and how to get it, but until then you're mostly gonna use whatever fits. Random magical items are more likely to dictate your effectiveness than anything else. You just don't control your builds and progression as much.

And the main story and lore are probably the best in the series. There's just so much to think about, find out, and discover. Even the little blurbs that random NPCs will spout about how their job works are very well written and made with a ton of thought. It's like the anti-Skyrim, the more you put into it, the more you get in return.

All this to say, playing Morrowind is still a rewarding experience decades after it was released, because there's a weird kind of harmony in its crazy designs. It's like it was made to be played and enjoyed forever, there's so much in there. Even if you've played it before many times, you might just forget where an important item is and have to navigate manually. You might decide to make a wacky character that leads you down factions and quests you've never done. You might find out some fact about the lore you've never really thought about.

It just keeps going.

I'm not one of those people who resent modern Bethesda for "dumbing down" or "selling out". I love Skyrim, but there's very little it can give me after all these years. On the other hand, Morrowind just keeps on giving.

I think that's the difference, and I think that's why people like it so much.

#my writing #video games #morrowind #skyrim #the elder scrolls

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sotgofficial · 5 months ago

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Hello! I'm currently OBSESSING over modded followers (specifically, followers I've overlooked; cardinal sin to overlook Auri, I know) but anyway, I find myself REALLY curious about what inspired you to make Auri? I've been really enjoying having her in all my playthroughs now that I've taken the time to get to know her <3

Hahah better late than never! Thank you so much for giving her a try! :D As for what inspired me... When I first played vanilla Skyrim, I was struck by how lifeless the NPCs were. Made an otherwise huge and living world feel hollow - so I started looking into mods. I discovered Interesting NPCs by Kris Takahashi, and ended up voicing a couple of characters in it. That inspired me to make a follower of my own. My first few attempts failed and were scrapped. I gave up for a few years and tried again, this time focusing on Bosmer lore, which I thought was woefully underrepresented in Skyrim. (It was only after I started working on Auri that I started getting into other standalone followers, which were a lot more rare back then! Inigo, Vilja and Sofia were probably the big ones. Then came Lucien and started a huge boom. :D Now we're so spoiled with followers to choose from, Skyrim certainly isn't hollow anymore.)

#auri song of the green #asks

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aureli-us · 28 days ago

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HI, I may be a bit late to this, but from the ask game:

1, 4, 11, 13, for Tharya? 😍

SORRY THIS TOOK ME 93728292 YEARS TO GET TO!! i promise i've had this in my drafts forever i just had to finish it... for anyone interested the original ask game is here and i'd love to hear more requests!!

1) Does your OC have a voice claim? If so, who?

UNFORTUNATELY not! i have looked around a couple times though. in my head she has a an american accent since that, to me, is natural - but lately i've been looking into scandi accents and such! i'm sort of leaning towards a finnish or norwegian accent, moreso finnish a bit, i just prefer the way it sounds. in relation to miraak's accent she would probably have a bit of trouble understanding him early on since i assume his accent would sound (and is) very thick and archaic to her ears, and he speaks the common tongue slowly (on purpose). in-game he overpronounces/pronunciates things quite...thickly? i imagine his accent would be much heavier than tharya's, though possibly also recognizable to the nords as related to their own. tharya's accent would also be noticeably different to her countrymen bc her father is from cyrodiil, but idk what real world accent cyrods would have. same goes for her siblings! but unfortunately everyone besides miraak has american accents in my head lol

4) What song describes your OC & their partner?

okay i'm really bad at making playlists BUT i do happen to have a tharyaak one....i will link it here hehehe but my favs for them are probably:

lay all your love on me - abba

wish i knew you - the revivalists

put your head on my shoulder - paul anka

just the two of us - grover washington ft. bill withers

11) What was your inspiration for your OC?

HONESTLY what a question. tharya was born of my very first skyrim OC fane - the character i first created when i got the game + finished the main quest for the first time ever with. i was never 100% happy with fane though, and somehow as i grew increasingly bored with not knowing what to do with her, i decided to change her name. at first it was just that, but then i wanted to change her appearance too; i wanted an LDB who looked like the most boring run of the mill LDB possible: a blonde nord. i wanted that so i could give her intense characterization and depth that would pull people in after sort of tricking them with her appearance of being just another white blonde nord LDB. that's also why i made her a mage. i wanted her to exist as this dichotomy. a lot of tharya's emotional depth comes from me since she is my oldest running OC and i needed a place for my problems, so they became hers: estranged from her brother, struggling with femininity, self-image, love, intimacy. some of it i also just dreamt up to create a more battered and wearied LDB: alcoholism, her constant wish to return to sovngarde, her reckless self-endagerment, her feeling slighted by the world not recognizing her after killing alduin. i want her to be a tired hero who is kind and warm, but has fought with all she could ever give to be kind and warm. and, if you spit in her face, her kindness and warmth are not feeble, nor endless. sometimes she skips being nice because she's sick of it all.

13) Does your OC have a rival? How did it start?

HMMM. well besides early miraak lemme think... if i had to pick, maybe........

MAN i don't think she really does??? maybe i'm just blanking. i can't even in good conscience say miraak because they weren't REALLY rivals to begin with, more like star-crossed enemies....tharya's biggest rival may sort of be herself, at least in earlier years. she kind of got way too into her own head after killing alduin and it let to a pretty substantial depressive/alcoholic episode. i can't say ulfric either because she really didn't consider ulfric a rival, he was a lesser opponent, and an unfortunate duty to carry out. so idk if she has a set rival really in the sense we could think of a hero vs rival way. cool to think abt tho!

#skyrim #miraak #aurelius and tes #the first dragonborn #miraak/ldb #the last dragonborn #tes v skyrim #ask game #skyrim ask game #tharya stormhand #aurelius is answering #bougainvillea-and-saltwater

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firefly-factory · 6 days ago

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2024 Wrap Up <3

Getting to this a little late, but here's my year in art!

Thanks @thequeenofthewinter and @pocket-vvardvark for tagging me for this. It gave me a chance to look back on my art and made me realize how much more art I've been making since I found this community on tumblr (via the skyrim mer-simps pipeline lol). This past year had its ups and downs, but reconnecting with my art and fandoms (and making art for fun and not for classes or big projects) has been one of the highlights.

As part of the reflection, here are five of my favorite things I've made this past year (in no particular order):

"Out of Darkness/Into Light

My first fic on Ao3!!! I'd been lurking for months, but I finally worked up the courage to post a few things, and makes me really happy (and I love young Erandur so much).

The Astorvember "Cult" comic

Honestly I'm thrilled with how basically all of my comics for Astorvember turned out, but this was one where the final product really matched the mental image I had when planning it out.

"A Restless Night in Solitude"

This drawing with Ondolemar and Astra is one I love because it's just so sweet and the aurora in the background is so pretty. Looking back through my art, it makes me smile <3

Astra's intro post (with her library)

It's her! It's my girl <3 <3

A Sleepy Revyn Sadri

The first skyrim fanart I posted here, and still one of my favorites. I was honestly startled with how postive everyone's reaction to it was?? And it's fun looking back at the likes and reblogs and realizing, "Wait, those strangers that liked my art . . . I know them now! And they're all really cool!! I love them!"

(I'm talking about y'all. I love you guys so freaking much)

#2024 art summary #2024 wrap up #my art #I love you guys so much <3 #now in to the new year #my writing

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cy-cyborg-draws · 1 year ago

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I've been playing Skyrim lately, and one of the mods I have installed gives your character headtracking and expressions in 3rd person. The expressions on the argonians though, are hilarious at best, through no fault of the mod's creator. combine that with the headtracking being a little janky and it's giving "autistic person who forgot how to mask during the pandemic" and as an autistic person, I have never felt so seen lmao.

One particular interaction between Inigo (another mod lol) and my giant Murder-Hobo Lizard Niitk caused her to kind of glitch and she got stuck with this creepy grin somewhere between the "angry" and "happy" expressions while Inigo just happily chattered away about Mr Dragonfly and I really wanted to draw it. Inigo doesn't care what his friend's face does, he's just happy to be there lol.

also I feel like I should mention the golden arm was also a result of another mod glitching and now I just interpret her as having a prosthetic lmao

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7grandmel · 2 months ago

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Rip of the week: 11/11/2024

Radical Halation

Season 2 Featured on: Rips of Christmas Past Also on: Now That's What I Call Quality!

Ripped by wheel able, wolfman1405, David Morales Boroff

youtube

Birthday Special!

Anniversaries, anniversaries...how they come, how they go. This week in particular is a pretty special anniversary, not just for the release of hit game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but for the release of ME: My birthday!

It's surreal how vividly I still remember when I wrote Your Silent Reality for my last birthday, covering a SiIvaGunner rip that's sat with me long since I first heard it due to the emotional ties I have to the material it utilizes. I began this entire blog as a way to give me writing practice, and I'd like to think I've grown a fair bit as a writer in the time since; but nevertheless, even a year and a half since the blog's begun, my emotional attachment to Season 2 of SiIvaGunner remains as firm as ever. The channel's output has grown to be more impressive than ever before, and last year's Season 7 in particular has had me in a chokehold with rips like Beautiful Dreamer (late but- happy birthday Minindo!) and The Paragoomba and the Wiggler...and yet, I will always keep coming back to the rips of that second season, to the rips that defined my ride-or-die fixation to the channel, and to the season that more than any other gave me feelings for things I didn't even know I was capable of caring so deeply about. Indeed, in direct contrast to last year's birthday rip, Radical Halation was the kind of gift I never knew I needed, yet one I will never stop treasuring.

Way back when I covered the rip Eterna's Cocoon, I wrote about how special it is to me to know that rippers on the team will continue to champion the works which have long since faded from public consciousness. Sure, SiIvaGunner leverages then-current events for comedy a fair number of times; a previous post on the blog's covered one such example in Lagplane, and one of the channel's most revered events back on Your Best Nightmario only came about as a result of a viral meme from that same timeframe. Yet just as often - if not moreso - the channel operates within its own bubble of time, with no care in the world for relevance or target audiences, a team making rips in huge part just for their own enjoyment. Take, for instance, the 1999 SquareSoft JRPG Chrono Cross; a game that, six years before its remaster in 2022, still existed as nary but a memory to many. Nevertheless, it was a memory treasured by two rippers in particular, a duo who had already impressed me time and time again throughout the channel's first two years. Be it Sog-Gee Ambiance, voiceless, Kass' Theme, or their previous collaborative work on 28 Saves Later, wheel able's stellar touch for arrangement and wolfman1405's unbelievable talents as a jazz performer are both some of the absolute highlights across the channel's early run. When the time came for one of the most important anniversaries relevant to the SiIvaGunner channel, the two took the opportunity to also honor a forgotten classic they both cherished – and in doing so, Radical Halation ironically became one of the first times I ever engaged with Chrono Cross. With the game's anniversary also just two days away, and the rip lying so close to my heart, I see no better time than to reciprocate that passion all these years later.

The sheer quality of Radical Halation should be made evident just a few seconds into listening; this is, as Wolfman1405 in particular specializes in, a ground-up cover and performance of the original Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel theme from Chrono Cross. The original theme already had a shockingly acoustic sound to it for its era, really plucking at the emotions just a few chords in; that emotional rawness in the track may well have been the core reason why it was chosen to celebrate this anniversary in particular. Indeed, the anniversary I alluded to beforehand as being one of the channel's most crucial is that of the very song the rip title alludes to, the song that sits at the very emotional core of SiIvaGunner's entire being: Snow Halation from Love Live. I wrote back on Waluigi Pinball (Beta Mix) that the Grand Dad meme is like the beating heart of SiIvaGunner's creative spirit, being the core that created the entire channel; by that same logic, I feel as if Snow Halation is like SiIvaGunner's *emotional* core, its "soul" for lack of a better term. Grand Dad may be the spark that sets new rippers into action even all these years later, but Snow Halation was the first thing that people got EMOTIONALLY attached to on SiIvaGunner – it was the core behind its first story arc of SiIvaGunner: Rebooted, it continues to effectively serve as the "protagonist" to the Christmas Comeback Crisis storyline – and its use throughout the channel continues to feel like a reminder of that same attachment, the one that the channel has to all of us. It's an openly sappy, almost overbearing song, yet one that represents so much about the love of remixing and rearranging that SiIvaGunner continues to focus on all these years later.

You take that emotionally-charged melody, put it in the hands of two stellar arrangers, and inject it into an arrangement of an emotional melody the soundscape of which said aforementioned rippers already appear to hold a close attachment to, and the end result is exactly what Radical Halation shows us. Throughout 2016, throughout the entirety of Season 1 of SiIvaGunner, we as the audience had gone on such an emotional rollercoaster regarding out attachment to the channel, its creatives, and its memes, with Snow Halation at the very center of it all; with the channel returned just in time for the holidays, it also happened to return just in time for Snow Halation's anniversary on December 22nd, ever so coincidentally aligned with the time upon which we were all wholly, earnestly in love with everything the song had come to represent. Many months before Season 3 and beyond would begin feeding irony into the discussion of appreciation for these melodies, right as the Christmas Comeback Crisis was just kicking into gear, and just long enough after the channel's return had occurred to make us truly accept that it was back, Radical Halation's release window struck gold in a way only truly comparable to the rips of the Season 1 finale a la Tupac's Empty House and THANK YOU FOR RIPPING.

I'm of course not aiming to frame Radical Halation as just being "the right thing at the right time"; beyond that emotional attachment, the simple fact of the matter still remains that its a hauntingly beautiful arrangement, even close to 8 years later. Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel's beauty sinks in just from the acoustic guitar lead-in, and is only emphasized by the time the rip's true "twist" sets in, of its lead melody being that of a Snow Halation arrangement played on violin. The two halves form an incredible, inseperable whole; not confined by the restrictions of a mashup, the hand-made nature of this arrangement means that both the guitar and violin segments are free to fill in for one another, to emphasize the sounds of Radical Dreamers ~ Unstolen Jewel or the melody of Snow Halation to different degrees on a moment-to-moment basis. I particularly love the section after the Snow Halation melody first plays - at around 0:47, the violin seamlessly leaves the Snow Halation melody and instead takes cues from the source track, yet never stops feeling as if its all from the same arrangement, even upon returning to Snow Halation at 01:10. The rip throughout has the same feeling as the best and most carefully-constructed mashups of today a la Eazystep or Maroonbound whilst in reality being a completely new arrangement and performance.

The visuals of the rip are of course just the cherry on top of it all. Viewers are made immediately aware that the rip is going to be something special not just through its audio, but from the cold-open visuals of pitch blackness fading into a view of the ocean from underneath the surface, the logo fading in just as the melody's played its first few notes. These visuals only change once Snow Halation is first quoted in the audio, changing from the undersea depths to the view of a beachside in winter, a quite literal mash-up of Chrono Cross' dreamy seasides and the snow-covered comfort of Snow Halation. None of this visual detail is particularly "necessary", it's not here to further a punchline; rather, in the spirit of rips like i love(d) you, the visuals serve to punctuate the emotional core of the rip. Visuals in any rip are a surprise, an often-time momentous occasion, and Radical Halation combines that knowledge with its purpose of celebrating Snow Halation's first-ever anniversary celebration on the SiIvaGunner channel to create a rip that, even with no ties to Chrono Cross at the time of watching, I just KNEW would be special back in 2016 just three seconds in.

All these years later, and a rip as special, profound and heartfelt as Radical Halation still manages to feel...forgotten about, in many ways, sitting at less than 25K views as of writing. In that sense, Chrono Cross may have been a more apt game to use for this tribute than its rippers initially thought; all these years later, despite its clear emotional core, the passion that went into it and the release of its remaster, the game remains a jewel swept away by the tides of the industry. We're soon nearing nine whole years of the SiIvaGunner channel's run, and with every day I run this blog I'm made all the more aware of how many gems just like Radical Halation continue to slip by the cracks, how much joy and love the channel's team crams into so much of its output despite never having any sort of guarantee that its audience will reciprocate that love.

But, even all those years ago, Radical Halation did reach me. And even so many years before the idea of this blog was even a consideration, before I was knee-deep in thought about the channel's existence and the people involved in its upkeep...I knew that I wanted to thank its creators. I knew that it was a rip that could only have been made out of outpouring love; love for a game years old, love for a channel that was still standing shakily, love for a leitmotif and its impact on an audience...and most of all, the love of creating and performing music outright.

I held onto those thoughts, kept them stashed away in the back of my mind – yet I feel as if subconsciously, they were part of why wolfman1405's arrangement and performance of Sunday Morning, three years later, hit me as hard as it did. The song was different, the subject was different, the context was different, the "joke" was no longer there; and yet it was as if Wolfman1405's creative, emotional spirit, that I'd felt so prominently years past, had never left. Put simply, beyond its inherent qualities that I'll forever applaud wheel able and wolfman1405 for, I feel...indebted to Radical Halation: it may well just be one rip, but its one of the most core pieces I can think of for why my love for the channel continues to this very day.

#todays siivagunner #season 2 #siivagunner #siiva #wheel able #wolfman1405 #David Morales Boroff #rip visuals #Youtube #chrono cross #snow halation #arrangement #chrono trigger #square enix #squaresoft #jrpg

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skyrim-forever · 2 months ago

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Your blog is like a rift for entering Skyrim. A portal. It's like these little spaces of museums where they sell related souvenirs. Yours is full of TES memes and art and fun, and of course, GORGEOUS THEOMAR SIMPING™. You're equally passionate about your blorbos, which is so inspiring and lovely to see, and you're also a huge elf lover, which is also so very relatable, if I'm being honest. . .🥰

OMG THANK YOU MY BELOVED FRIEND <3 I made this blog after getting back into Skyrim in July 2022, I started playing in 2019 (late to the game literally!) but it wasn't until I was in graduate school and honestly, having an awful time, that I wanted to get into the fandom. None of my friends have played Skyrim so I needed a void to shout in and had been on tumblr in some capacity since 2012, although this is my first time making my own fandom works (memes, fic, deranged headcanons) and making friends <3

THEODORA AND ONDOLEMAR LOVE YOU TOO <3 Theo had been my main character I played with but it wasn't until 2022 that she started to get backstory. Funnily enough do to me being afraid of Markarth do to getting swarmed by guards after the Forsworn Conspiracy (I forget what exactly happened but), I didn't know about Ondolemar until tesblr. Before that Theodora was loosely shipped with a character from interesting npcs (I've always had an Altmer thing hehe) but then I met him and everything fell into place; they were meant for each other <3 I originally did not intent for them to fall in love and end up together, but I liked them so much I couldn't tear them apart <3 First iteration of Theo actually outright hated the Thalmor that changed pretty fucking quick, which is better because that part of her character wasn't really developed so easy to scrap haha

Thank you so much for your kind words! I love shitposting here, I love sharing my beading, and I love writing fic <3 I could keep going on but already wrote an essay OOPS You're the best Gigi! <3 <3 <3

#tesblr #asks #beloved mutuals #thank you so much this was so sweet i cry <3

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pixiebombblog · 1 month ago

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Dev Diary #2 (December 3, 2024) - Winter Progress Update!

Hi everyone! It's been a little while since I officially announced my upcoming custom voiced Skyrim follower mod 🌸 Seraph 🌸 & it's time for some updates!

If you haven't read the first Dev Diary which has a lot of the broader details of the project, check it out here - https://www.tumblr.com/pixiebombblog/765529458207784960/dev-diary-1-oct-27-2024-it-all-starts-here?source=share

Since then, work on Seraph has been coming along well, the beginning involved creating a bunch of custom systems & mechanics unique to Seraph, which I hope will set her apart from any other follower out there, & also a tonnn of writing & quest planning!

Some development highlights from the past few months:

🌸 Seraph's core systems are all implemented, including her follower framework, her custom combat AI (which is a lot more sophisticated than the usual Skyrim NPC!), & a few of her fun advanced mechanics as well!

🌸 The Approval system is in place (think Baldur's Gate 3 but much more in-depth), with various options for player preference in how it's presented in-game. Your choices will matter w Seraph, & along w raising or lowering her opinion of you, she will actually remember specific player dialogue choices across your journeys w her, leading to a very immersive & varied experience for multiple playthroughs.

🌸 I've also gone ahead & built & implemented a custom lock-bashing system for her; Seraph may not be a subtle, sneaky type but she can still help you w some of those pesky locked chests & doors!

🌸 Seraph's introduction is complete, along w multiple options for when/how to recruit her after your initial meeting! Seraph is integrated into the world in a way most followers just aren't, and if you don't choose to recruit her, or want to dismiss her for a while *she will carry on living a life of her own & be part of the game world!* I'm working hard to give her a sense of realness outside of just existing to follow the player's every whim.

🌸 Much of Seraph's Four (or Five, for some players who may choose to romance her) Act overarching questline is written & plotted out, & Act 1 is deep into being implemented. Each Act is not one quest, but rather a section of questing. Seraph is looking to be the scale of a small DLC in her original quests alone!

🌸 Seraph's appearance is also implemented, & work between myself & my incredible 3D artist @legendaryfirewizard on the custom 3D models for her visual centerpiece is coming along great. I'll be honest, I've been waiting to divulge details about her character in part bc when I do, I want people to *see* what they're getting ✨️ I'm so excited to share more about her character outside of technical details of the mod, but it will be well worth the wait to see her in her full glory.

Overall, dev on Seraph is coming along really well so far. As pretty much entirely a one-woman operation, there are more & less productive days & weeks, but any dev time I do have is all going to Seraph. I haven't felt this passionate & driven about a project in a long time.

For those who are asking about Redcap/other work, Redcap v1.5.0 is fully on pause until Seraph is released. I may release some minor side things here & there, & you may see some new Redcap stuff in the form of collabs w other mod authors, but right now my main focus is Seraph. I've learned that I tend to spread myself too thin & overwork myself, so having one main passion project at a time has been so great to get back to lately 😊

I'm hoping there will be less time between Dev Diaries than there was between these first two, & hopefully soon I will be able to share some images & juicy character details. Stay tuned. 🩷

- Pixie 🩷

(Mod Author, Voice Actress)

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wispstalk · 9 months ago

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20 questions for writers

under the cut. Thanks to @everybodyknows-everybodydies for tagging🖤

Tagging back: @nuwanders @jiubilant @ervona @ehlnofay @druidx @blossom-adventures @sylvienerevarine @throughtrialbyfire @da3drat no pressure

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Five

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

198327

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just elder scrolls. I have a feeling that's gonna be it for me. I've been tempted to write stardew valley fic lately which would perhaps be classed as "crack" (I know what that is in theory but the way people use it makes no sense to me) but I took a cursory look at the tag and I don't think the stardew valley fandom is ready for a ray fic lmao

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Well. I have five.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try 🫠 it haunts me how often I've left my beloved mutuals on read..... but if that's u and I did, I am telepathically beaming this: !!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Making out sloppy style etc etc

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

lol. lmao even

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

.....within AO3 I guess it's "Morning" but also that's set at a refugee camp? I will say the skyrim story will have a more peaceful ending but up until now fic writing has been an outlet for my thwarted rage and covid brain damage soooo

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I mean this is generally a culture of positive feedback. Someone did yell at me once for hitting martin septim with the transgender beam which is a level of no-life-havin loserdom which could be classed as "hate" but came off as pure cope and seethe

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

I really bristle at the word smut sorry its too cutesy. I was a prodomme for seven years I don't do euphemisms lol. I wrote a sex scene into IITT to see how I felt about writing sex scenes. I learned that I am only interested in writing them if they serve specific functions. I have absolutely zero judgment toward anyone who wants to write about fuckin and suckin, that's just not why I'm here

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No but recently my household watched game of thrones together and my bf and his brother were cracking jokes like what if one of these medieval characters had a gundam. Neither of them read fic so I was like don't be too entertained by yourselves. I bet that has been written. looked it up on ao3 and sure as shit

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I'm not gonna lie I did find a fic where someone very obviously ripped me off but I don't wanna call them out. One specific instance where they bit my style was so clumsily applied as to be obvious, but their prose in general was fantastic so like. who care.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not as far as I know but that would make me holler

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Nope. I'm not opposed to the idea but it's hard to imagine how I'd do this given my process. I think I'd be pretty difficult to work with

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

?!? I dunno I don't have one. I put a lot of effort into writing martinhok but I could not say that one, due to how overwhelmingly heterosexual the tag is. I'm sorry but can everyone who's not a faggot please pipe down

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have my moments with the skyrim wip. I've signed myself up for something pretty complicated and challenging but I also learned that I can finish things so I'm not really worried about it. The fact of the matter is: I do not care if this is good. It matters that it is done so I can move on with my life. If parts of it are boring and overlong that's yalls problem

16. What are your writing strengths?

I get a lot of compliments on my worldbuilding. I do think a lot about the minutiae of material culture and think I have a talent for incorporating detail in engaging ways

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm a cornball. This is a corny activity. I don't really care because I'm doing it for free. Enjoy the unsolicited view into an internet stranger's terrible psyche

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I try to apply with a light hand. I'm a dumbass sheltered American and I can mostly make myself understood in a Spanish-speaking country but that's about it. I like playing around with language and the idea of multilingual societies matters to me so I include it, but I'm not a linguist so I try to work within my limits. Whether I am successful at this is up to others.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Elder scrolls. Never felt compelled until i spent a winter playing oblivion and went wow this game has an incredibly bleak narrative behind a silly aesthetic. Oops now I'm in a lore pit

20. Favorite fic you've written?

The Nature of Fire is my best prose hands down. I'm gonna be real with y'all I am desperate for people to read it. It is genuinely the best I can do at this point and if you like what I've done so far, well, whatever u read sucks compared to this fic.

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