#story: sithy bunch

[dirty-bosmer]

Snippet Someday

So I've been revisiting the earlier chapters of my fic and am stuck in a bout of editing paralysis where everything sounds blegh, but ahhhh so is life. I thought, what the heck— let me put a positive spin on all these writing woes and make a game out of it. Plus I've been meeting a lot of new writers this summer, and I figured this would be a fun way to get to know your stories and characters as I make my way through my bookmark list. Take this chance to showcase your fic. We've all been working hard. Let's be proud of how far we've come :)

Tagging: @atypicalacademic @skyrim-forever @justafoxhound @elavoria @gilgamish @thana-topsy @thequeenofthewinter @paraparadigm @chennnington @expended-sleeper @snowberry-crostata @sylvienerevarine @dumpsterhipster @nuwanders @daedrabait @wispstalk @rainpebble3 @nine-blessed-hero @mareenavee @miraakulous-cloud-district @ladytanithia Sorry for blowing up your notifications. If you're not tagged, please feel free to jump in and tag me if you see this and want to join! I'm not always sure who is writing fic and who isn't. No pressure as always :D

Rules: Revisit an old fic (or earlier chapters of your current WIP) and share a snip from:

Your first chapter

Your favorite chapter

Your most challenging chapter

Alternatively, if you don't write longfic, feel free to share your one-shots. Provide as much or as little commentary as you want.

From The Illusionist: Passion, Purpose, and Penance:

First Chapter: Skirting The Black Road (commence the moral decayyy 😈)

Admittedly disappointed by this virtuous facade, he saw the crack, only needed to slip his blade into it and twist. This, he could work with, for she was a murderer in the eyes of the Night Mother whether she accepted it or not, and he had no doubt that if pressed, she too would heed Sithis' call. They all did. New murderers were pliant, he found, like old snags of dead wood. One gentle push and the roots released their grip.

Favorite Chapter: 61— Us and Them (self indulgent disaster-ship is self indulgent 🤷‍♀️)

And when he looked at her, he felt dissolved, knew not where the salt of her tears became the salt of his blood, and if he could strip her from her skin just to drink the liquid dark behind her eyes, he would.

Most Challenging Chapter: 67 — A Small Death (Newly mantled Sheogorath is not a headspace I know how to work with 😅)

“Again, Nimileth?”

There was disapproval in his voice, faint, but not faint enough to suggest he'd been trying to hide it. Nim fought back the urge to growl.

“I had a bit too much to drink, that’s all,” she mumbled. Too much last night and the night before. Too much. Too much again.

“Don’t you think you should know your limits by now?”

'Don’t you think you should know your limits by now,’ she wished to spit back at him, make herself an even greater pest if only to feel more like the lowly, burrowing insect she had become. Or better yet, something limbless, blind. A worm. But Nim didn't have the strength to finish. She didn’t even have the strength to start.

Instead, she bunched the sheets in her fists and yanked them over her head so that she lay completely covered. What am I doing, she thought. The throbbing waves of her headache crested and crashed, grinding her skull down to coarse, ivory sands. What am I doing?

Lucien didn’t linger after that. He flung open the curtains, and when he left, the sun crept across her back. Shielded as she was beneath her sheets and behind her eyelids, she could still feel its glaring, angry flare.

“I see you, Nimileth,” it said, stretching its fingers across the room. Pointing, taunting fingers that seared and scraped at the raw wounds of last night's sins. “I see you. I will set and I will rise and I will see you again tomorrow. I will see you then. I will see you again.”

[dazzlerazz]

HI i just started my 72303094023234823058th skyrim playthrough and i absolutely need to talk about cicero bc all the hate from normie fans is so unwarranted imo? ok he's weird, so what. they're all literally assassins. killers. murderers. people die when they're killed by the dark brotherhood. how and why do you draw the line at a dancing clown?? besides, he was genuinely happy to be there. GENUINELY. imagine giving your life to the night mother and sithis only to go to the last remaining sanctuary in skyrim and find nothing more than a bunch of arrogant mercenaries who get their contracts by listening to gossip, basically. not only that, but they mock him, the actual keeper, capital K, and the night mother once they arrive. i ain't saying they deserve what they got, but also. what outcome were they expecting? they're lucky they lasted that long.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!! THAANK YOU!!!!!!!

Also starting my quadrillionth skyrim playthrough lmao

People don't want to listen to Cicero and hear his story because they think he's a deranged murderer who needs to be put down. Look at yourself hon, you also joined the dark brotherhood, you're no different <3

He can be annoying at times, yes, but I don't think he needs to die for it. When I was a kid I thought he was annoying before I could really understand what was going on on a deeper level, I mean come on I was like 10! As I've grown up with the game I've seen that there's so much more to Cicero than haha goofy jester. I was too much of a wimp to get that far in the story line, but even if I did, I wouldn't have killed him

I could technically say Cicero did absolutely nothing wrong, since none of this would have happened if the PLAYER CHARACTER HADN'T JOINED IN THE FIRST PLACE, meaning they condone murder for money. But also there is that part where he kinda attacked Astrid and Veeja (I think that's his name, it's the middle of the night rn and I'm tired)

People who look at Cicero and just see an annoying jester are willfully ignoring his journals, the progression of the story, the tenets, and even Astrid herself when she lays there dying, saying Cicero was right. Willfully ignoring it

Killing Cicero even makes Sithis upset. If you summoned Lucien earlier and he's with you when you crawl through the Dawnstar sanctuary, he'll tell you that Sithis doesn't want Cicero to die, he wants him to live

EVERYTHING IN THE GAME is telling you to let Cicero live. Everything.

People just don't want to see it

On another note, as unique as each assassin is, I think Cicero adds that unique flavor that brings the whole family together. In a perfect world, Astrid would have seen the error of her ways and accepted Cicero, not betrayed the brotherhood, and the family would stay strong. But Astrid was too worried about everything she built. I don't like Astrid at all, most likely because she's the villain when I think about Cicero, but I do understand her point if view. Change is scary, two people came in and threw everything up in the sky. I get it, doesn't make it right

But even then, there's no Morally Right in the brotherhood. We're assassins, through and through, it's hypocritical to talk about morals

[melancholy-marionette]

Deadly Desires: Lovestarved (otome/josei jam progress & WIPs)

Well, @lazypolarbearart beat me to posting stuff about our current jam project cos I’m a super slow snail who can’t social media still, haha. Basically, we’re working on a game that’s set in the same universe as Limbo Line (Limbo), but focusing on a different district with different characters, and this time, there’s some sweet, sweet romance :D (well… more like dark and disturbing as heck romance, but hey, there are still sweet parts in there somewhere, I swear!! x3)

You don’t have to have played Limbo Line to play Lovestarved as their storylines are totally separate, but for those who have checked out Limbo Line, there are a bunch of references in Lovestarved that I hope you might find amusing, haha.

Of course, there’s a darling yandere love interest to keep you on your toes, and this time, it comes in the form of Erys, a sithys (same species as Niard) who requires love as sustenance to survive.

As you can probably imagine if you met Niard in Limbo Line (whose sustaining source comes in the form of compliments), Erys needs to work a little harder to get a good meal x3 Whether you provide Erys with a mere snack or a fulfilling banquet will be entirely down to you!

Since the full game story script is around 55k words, we’re only covering around 17k in a demo for Otome/Josei Jam + limiting it to only include a masculine version of Erys and a feminine version of MC (with a choice of she/her or they/them pronouns), but for the full release, you will be able to choose a masculine or feminine version of Erys + Loni (the MC) too ^-^

I’m currently in the testing phase, so have some WIP videos of me testing out some stuff on the project x3

The first is a placeholder/general test of triggering a certain mode that can change the direction of an ending! I hadn't implemented full voice acting yet when I took this one >.< And the second is a snippet of turning on your radio :D Full VA was implemented at this point, so you can hear a sample of Nico's lovely voice!

That's all for now, but I'll be working away cos there's a hell of a lot of testing & more left to do, haha. Time to go mildly insane x3

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Ok, ok KOTOR--good move. I like the twist. It's got me reflecting on the story so far. Not a fan of the writing, but the twist works...

I dread playing KOTOR. It's slow moving, repetitive, and the writing is a disappointment. I've not been compelled to play. This is simply a slog I must push through to say, "Yeah, I've played it" and get on to thee games I'm really excited about. That said, the plot twist was a good move. I'm not sure I'm all "OH SHIT--that's mind blowing!" as I am, "Oh--all that bad writing before makes more sense. Ok, ok...let's see where you go with this."

Bad writing is a bit harsh. But if I were to use a binary system, I would call this bad--not good. But if you threw in a game like...Well like any Resident Evil--though I love those games more, the dialog is pretty atrocious. So RE has bad writing, but good plot and ok characters. By comparison, KOTOR would have ok-to-good writing, with decent to good characters, and bland-to-good plot. As far as the plot, that twist is what's keeping it alive.

SO--where we left off was Kashyyyk. An old Jedi wanted me to get rid of poachers. I feel like he was ok with me using lethal force, but I lean towards not killing and fighting where I can. I tried to use the force to make one of the poachers abandon his post, but he interpreted that as murder his comrades! WHOA--no, that's not what I said...Anyway, I found the "non-violent" way--which allows a large, murderous monster to chase them away.

Next, we found a star map guarded by a holographic questionnaire. Apparently you needed to prove your connection to the original creator, owners--something. That meant making strategic choices in hypothetical situations. Being a good-leaning dude, I tried to choose the most noble answers. Those were "wrong" and killer robots were sent after me. I could not beat them. Given it's just a questionnaire, I chose the correct answers, which were usually sacrificing the lives of the innocent to gain tactical advantages. Whatever, starmap found.

I then wandered around Kashyyyk, cleaning up side quests. This has been the easiest of the worlds. No back-and forth. Just a bunch of "While you're out there, here's a few things to pick up." It reminded me the most of World of Warcraft which then made me reflect on how World of Warcraft-like the gameplay is. It especially reminded me of when I made a private server with bots that I could control, so I was in a squad of 5 and I could make different characters use their abilities. Then I was like, "Damn, I wish I could just be playing WoW right now."

So, if there's anything I like about KOTOR--it's the similarities to WoW.

After helping the Wookies sort out who should be chief (I went with the Wookie that wasn't going to sell their own people into slavery), the Wookies rebelled against the corporate forces occupying the planet. It was a good victory for the enslaved Wookies, but then they began to discuss how outsiders would no longer be welcomed on the planet. I get it--they're having some trauma, but xenophobia isn't the answer either. The problem was slavery and exploitation--that's where you focus your attention. Not "outsiders bad, wookie good".

Somehow Carth learns the son he thought was dead is on a planet the Sith use for a homebase of sorts. Not only that, but he's training to be a Sith. Carth is upset, and deciding to focus on people, I sent us to that planet immediately. I was a bit anxious at first as we need to blend in as Sith-friendly. While almost everyone recognized me and companions on Jedi, they assumed we were converting to Sith. That's nice.

It was an interesting set of missions. I took on a Master, who immediately asked me to betray the head Sith school teacher--or whatever he is. To sound Sithy, I agreed. I also learned that I could get to know this master and her sob-story that led her down the sithy ways. Turns out she's not all bad, just making terrible choices that lead to a lot of death. There's a strong theme of redemption and "no one is too far gone." That's going to play into the twist.

Which...it's interesting, cause according to the guide I did the sith world out of order. And the twist happens when you finish the third planet. So according to the "order" I wouldn't visit the Sith world until I had experienced the twist. That's weird. Knowing the twist changes the context of that planet, as well as making the fact that I wandered around unbothered completely crazy.

anyway, I have to explore some tombs with some kinda ok puzzles to collect stuff and prove my sithiness. I also "pretend" to kill some Sith that have decided they don't like it. There were opportunities to encourage Sith-wannabes to abandon the dark path, and I took it as much as possible. I could also try to befriend my master, who was very cutthroat when I met her.

In the end, we end up killing the grandmaster of the school and then we fight. She surrenders and I'm given the option to execute her. But I encouraged her to head back to the light (we're friends after all). I kinda wanted her to join my team.

We also found Carth's son. He was being all angsty, but given how angsty his dad is--what else would one expect. I accidentally skipped the part where we convince his son not to be a sith, so I ended up replaying 2 hours of the game so I could get that win. I needed Carth to be happy. Er...something.

Leaving the planet we're intercepted by a Sith ship and Darth Malack is on his way to see us. While being interrogated, the commander says some things and I'm like, "What do you mean", and he's like, "OH, you don't know the truth--haha, wait till you learn the truth about your 'friends'"--which basically said, "OH SHIT YOU'RE REALLY THE MASTER SITH THAT THEY SAID DIED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME AND YOU HAD MEMORY LOSS."

They really revealed their hand on this one. So when they try to pull a Fight Club later and show you flash backs that hint at the truth of your character actually being Darth Revan, I was like--yeah, I'm already there. Thanks for catching up with me though. Maybe the writers are fine that they spoiled their own twist. Maybe the writers did just to make people like me feel smart and superior. I don't know--but it did have me reflecting on the game. I've considered much of the writing to be rough, sexist, xenophobic, and without much diversity. But with the context of this revelation--maybe some of it works...

So the writing, my issue is the dialog choices are pretty shit. They either are A. multiple choices that say the same thing. Or B. represent a cringe perspective of the writer(s). Like with Bastila--the game constantly tries to get you to hit on her. And it's not in the sweet, romantic, "I think our connection is moving beyond friendship"--it's more of the affectionately aggressive, no-means-yes, Han Solo way. And quite often when other characters are getting heated, your own choices are very passive-aggressive, or condescending commands. Especially with the Wookie on Kashyyyk. Maybe there's an implied racism in your character, but you're encouraged to talk down to him. And there's just a general lack of boundaries.

To continue with my rant--good listening is asking open-ended questions. The game does not practice good listening. You're often given choices to demand that people share their backstories, and when they refuse to do so, your choices are often snarky or aggressive. There's no good listener wanting to empathetically build intimacy with their crew. I'm curious if anything impacts the dialog options--like intelligence, class, light-dark side?

I get that people love Han Solo. I don't. When I watched the old Star Wars, I was interested in Luke. I naive brat that wanted everyone to do the right thing. While he was naive and foolish, he still valued being good and was willing to do for others as much as himself. Han, on the other hand, was not a particularly good guy. He was very selfish, a little sexist, and very aggressive and inappropriate with his affections. I think of those Hoth scenes where instead of saying, Leia, I have feelings for you and I don't know how to express it--he just says shit like, "I bet you wanna kiss me you love-starved horn-dog" and then walks off. While that's a character flaw and great for drama, I think people too easily identified that as "cool, alpha male" behavior.

Anyway--that's what this writing feels like. It's not about choice or expressing yourself as a player--it's about being a cool, alpha. Maybe. i don't now. Maybe it's good.

So yeah, wandered around on the Sith ship. Explored a bunch stuff, killed a bunch of sith, and stole all their junk. I've finally learned how to use my special abilities, like throwing a light saber, ha! Also learned that my equipment was preventing me from using abilities like resisting the force. Damn, I could have used that while attacking the Sith world. I read a guide that insisted on using heavy armor, but my Jedi robes aren't heavy armor and I actually haven't found any heavy armor worth wearing. No idea what that was insisted upon.

I had thoughts about the silly moral system and it's connection to the antagonistic dialog options. I'll save it for later.

I fought Malack, and the truth that the Jedi had brain washed my character so he wouldn't realize he was the greatest, most evilest sith to have lived. It's made some of the dialog make more sense, including Balista's grumpiness towards me. I would have liked to see more subtle clues. Like Carth didn't trust me from the get go. He explains he doesn't trust anyone. But if he had known I was Revan, then it would have made his doubt more logical.

There's also an ethical issue--while yes, we're saying anyone can be redeemed--what the Jedi did was pretty bad. They brainwashed their enemy to manipulate him into giving them access to military advantages. That's such a personal betrayal. If a person is their consciousness, then to destroy Revan's consciousness to make him a Jedi again is kind of murder. And then they've filled his force-sensitive shell with a more docile, obedient ally. All for a leg-up. While the Sith are definitely bad--this is really bad.

We'll see how it all goes.

[cinlat]

Whumptober 2021: Day 12

No. 12 - IT’LL BE FUN, THEY SAID torture | made to watch | begging

Characters: Ma’at Stasma Techtmar/Tuathal Techtmar�� Fandom: swtor Affiliated Fic(s): The Sithy Bunch

Word Count: 341 Rating: T Guest: Tully belongs to @kunoichi-ume​ *art by dingoat

The agony on Tuathal’s face burned into Ma’at’s memory. She stood at his side, unable to touch her husband, unable to speak or gain his attention, while he stared in horror at the bodies of his mangled children. His knees gave, gloved fingers digging into his hair and forehead pressed against the rough ground. Ma'at couldn't hear his cry, but she saw it in the way his shoulders shook.

Ma’at avoided looking at the line of corpses. She’d caught a glance of familiar clothing and immediately averted her eyes. It was all a dream, a hallucination brought on by whatever demon plagued her husband and hid him from her senses. 

“It’s not real,” Ma’at gasped, her throat constricting around the words. “Please, my love, tell me where you are. Tell me how to find you.”

Tuathal didn’t respond. He curled in on himself, flinching away from the source of his torment. Ma’at knew that her husband was alive, she knew that he was imprisoned, but no amount of resources or Sith powers could find him.

Ma’at’s vision dimmed around the edges, and she lunged for Tully before she could be ejected from the dream. Her fingers grasped smoke, and Ma’at sat up with a gasp in the comfort of her bed. The world snapped into focus, more real than the dream that would haunt her waking hours. Talos snored quietly on the other side of the large bed, and Ma’at slipped from beneath the blankets so that she wouldn’t wake him.

The lights in Ma’at’s office brightened enough to match the light level in the room she’d left behind, allowing her vision to adjust without blinding her. With a gesture ingrained in her from youth, Ma'at swiped the panel in the far wall open and studied the web of rumors that she prayed would lead her to Tuathal. He’d been missing for three years, but the dreams were becoming more vivid. Her husband was out there, somewhere. “I will find you,” she promised the maze of digital paths. “Don’t give up.”

[cinlat]

Hahahaha I love these girls. "You better tell us, before one of the parents finds out." Will always be my favorite line. There are so many of them.

So @cinlat and @dimigex talked me into a month long prompt list a few months ago that got pushed back to May cause school and life suck. They chose dialogue prompts with a bonus word to include (that I often ignored).

Prompt:  “It’ll only hurt a little, I think…” (Dance) Characters: Bridae, Zaria and Nuada Techtmar and Ari Drellik Story: Sithy Bunch Word Count: 1367 A/N: Nuada and the twins are Tuahtal and Ma’at’s children, Ari is her son with Talos who is every bit a part of the family as any of them. Bonus points if you can tell which movie was an inspiration for this.

Eleven-year-old Zaria Techtmar paused at the end of the hallway to peak around the corner. Hugging a freezing cold bowl of ice to her chest, she scanned the connecting corridor for any sign of an adult that would want to know what they were doing. The Knights didn’t bother them much, as long as they weren’t being attacked, they were safe enough for the guard’s satisfaction. It was the family that was the problem. Uncle Pierce might not ask what they were up to or might not stop them if they answered honestly. He was kind of cool like that. Almost anyone else would put a stop to their plans and this was one of those times where it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Once she saw that the coast was clear she looked over her shoulder and nodded at her twin Bridae. Together they hurried around the corner and down the hall to the royal family’s private apartment. Once inside they repeated the process two more times before finally reaching their bedroom. 

Zaria set the bowl of ice down on her desk next to their other supplies: candles they had snuck out of their parent’s bedroom, a lighter Bridae had nicked out of Uncle Andronikos’ jacket, and a needle from Uncle Mal’s infirmary. Bridae deposited her bowl of cut geldan sun apples pilfered during their kitchen raid next to the ice and grinned.

 "That’s everything!“ She declared, turning to eye Zaria. "You ready? You’re first.”

 "Who says I am going first?“ Zaria stepped back from the table, eyeing their supplies warily. "Why not you?”

 "Because you’re the oldest remember?“

 Zaria groaned at the reminder. Usually she liked to make sure her sister couldn’t forget that she was older by a whole whopping 3 minutes but this time she wasn’t sure she wanted to be first.

Though, going second would mean actually preforming the act first… Zaria wasn’t sure which was worse. 

While she was debating about which was the lesser evil, Bridae had started playing with the lighter after lighting the candle. Both girls had always loved fire, but she was by far more enthralled by flames than Zaria. The slightly older twin was far more drawn to explosives and the rush it was to see something explode and know she had caused it.

Watching Bridae playing with the flame, playing a game of chance of whether she was moving her fingers fast enough to avoid being burned, Zaria had an idea.

"Rock, flimsi, scissors. Winner gets to wield the needle.”

Bridae looked up from the fire and grinned impishly at her. “You know I always win rock, flimsi, scissors.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Zaria said, holding her hand out in front of her. Bridae mimicked her gesture.

Keep reading

[tastesoftamriel]

So you know how it's human nature to do really stupid shit just to see what our bodies will let us get away with, including dumb food challenges? What kinda dumb extreme food challenges do the people of tamriel get up to?

I'm of the belief that stupidity extends to all things, right down to food itself. While I strongly suggest not trying any of these challenges yourself, you're always welcome to watch people making a fool of themselves by doing...

Altmer

The prim and proper High Elves don't so much participate in dumb food challenges, but they are competitive when it comes to their food and wine. Gastronomy gurus in Summerset often "duel" each other with blind tastings to demonstrate one's superior palate, from types of rice to extremely specific vintages. It's pompous, pretentious, and downright ridiculous to an oafish nebarra like myself, but as a chef, I can say they're arses.

Argonians

Black Marsh is home to a whole host of delicious seafood, but Argonians like to test their luck with what they call Sithis' Kiss, made from the flesh of the poisonous Michinitl. The fish is served raw, and sliced thinly with expert precision. While preparing the fish properly removes the dangerous toxins, unskilled chefs have unintentionally killed many a tourist and fellow Argonian alike with this dish.

Bosmer

The Wood Elves are brilliant hunters, but sometimes take things a little far in the name of a meal (unthrappa being a case in point). There's a common saying that the more dangerous the catch, the better the meat tastes, and this has led some to participate in ridiculous, and at times disastrous hunts. One story that haunts me is a hunting party that accidentally led a wild timber mammoth through a village, where it gored an old woman and grievously injured many others. Pick on something your own size!

Bretons

Rivenspire hosts an annual competition where a huge prize wheel of sharp Northpoint cheese is rolled down a very steep hill, and Men and Mer alike roll themselves after it to the finish line. The first to reach the bottom of the hill wins the cheese, but injuries aplenty occur during the cheese race- I will personally stick to buying my Red Northpoint from the store!

Dunmer

For some reason, the Dark Elves quite enjoy eating live things, and sometimes with dire consequences. It has been a trend on Vvardenfell to catch small octopuses, which are served live with a dip of salty saltrice sauce, pickled comberry, and saltrice vinegar. As you can imagine, the application of sauce generally incites rage in the octopus, which will sometimes choke its eater to death from inside the esophagus. Please don't do this, and eat your food dead.

Imperials

Wine is one of Cyrodiil's major exports, and the Province is swimming in it- literally. Wine-diving is a sport where a bunch of grapes are tied to the bottom of a vat of wine, and contestants must swim to the bottom and bring the grapes back to the surface with their teeth alone. The winner is whoever does this is the shortest time. As the hands are often tied behind the back to prevent cheating, this game has also led to a boozy demise for a few poor souls, who presumably died doing what they love: being submerged in wine.

Khajiit

It's no secret that Elsweyr cuisine is often loaded with chilis, and the Khajiit love challenging themselves and their guts with increasingly spicy chili eating contests. Participants are each given a glass of milk with moon sugar and are given up to ten different levels of fiery Oblivion to pass through. You don't normally win a prize beyond being known as that crazy jeek who can breathe fire, but it's a reputation that might just be worth the pain (not that I'll ever come close to winning).

Nords

You've heard about the famed eating contests of Skyrim, but do you really know about it? Participants starve themselves for days before the contest, or stretch their stomachs by gorging themselves, or just have naturally voracious appetites. There are only two rules: no throwing up, and no cheating, especially with magic. Everything else is in the hands of Ysmir the second you take a bite of turkey thigh. Only the truly gluttonous will win an eating contest among Nords. Attempt at your own discretion.

Orcs

The tuskiest of Orcs often step up to the plate when it comes to eating dangerously, but at the expense of one's teeth. While it's not common, bored Orcs have been known to challenge each other to chewing and swallowing increasingly hard foods, like tough jerky to whole solid dried bonito blocks. Unless you have teeth of steel and a stomach of malachite, it's not advisable to attempt this.

Redguards

The Alik'r is home to many dangerous creatures, including vipers and giant scorpions. Some crazy Redguard once upon a time mixed the venom from these two creatures, poured it into a glass with a shot of double rum, drank it...and survived. Many others have not been so lucky. While this dangerous drink has been decried by the law for years, you can't stop people from doing dumb things when they've really set their minds to it!

[jyndor]

Syril is a fictional character. Plenty of people love Vader, even Palpatine and they are both worse. Preference in fictional characters says absolutely nothing about what people would support in real life.

Ah good I've gotten a bunch of new followers recently, so I guess it's time to cull the herd of weirdos who think fiction doesn't influence reality <3 if you don't agree with me, just try to hear me out but if you won't, just unfollow I have no patience for fascism apologia, fictional or otherwise.

When I say stan, I am talking about a fan that defends their fave no matter what. I'm not talking about someone who just finds a character interesting. I do have Opinions about people who watch Andor and find Karn to be the most interesting of the characters because there is a trend of white fans finding the white side character more interesting than leading characters who are racialized as non-white. But to be clear I think Syril Karn is a FASCINATING character. I do. He is a well-written and acted neo-nazi in the making. I'm not talking about people who think he's a compelling character. I'm talking about those who gravitate towards him over a main character who is coded as an immigrant and as indigenous and who, coincidentally, is also sort of written as having a redemption arc of sorts and who we literally see murder an ally in his first scene in Rogue One.

I was just thinking about Vader's fandom. Of course Vader and Palpatine are worse, they're the og Imperial baddies.

I don't know a lot of fans who think Palpatine is good or redeemable though. I know George Lucas had a Stupid Idea about some girlfriend scorning him and then that's why he goes evil... lol that's dumb and I hate it but thankfully that's not canon. There's not a whole lot of people making excuses for Palpatine, or begging for a redemption arc. Why? Because we understand that he is too far gone, that he has crossed a line that he will never come back from. He has no interest in redemption, he is a true believer in his sithy shit. That doesn't mean he isn't a good character or a great villain. He is, of course he is. He's iconic for a reason.

Anakin has a sob story and his stans are annoying tbh - he's got a horrifying background, he was enslaved and his trauma is never really dealt with properly. I have empathy for him. But he is also undeniably not someone people should stan - his views on politics are not great even when he's 19. and then despite all the good he does as a Jedi and the decency he has in his heart, he goes fash and kills a bunch of kids. Commits genocide and then enforces Palpatine's will for decades.

It's interesting that in the original trilogy we don't see him actually doing a whole lot of fascist shit - he holds Leia back from Tarkin as Tarkin commands Alderaan be destroyed, but he's more or less meh on the whole death star thing. He's a fascist because he's an Imperial, but he is focused primarily on Luke most of the trilogy. His arc is not so much about the Empire in the ot is about connecting with a past he thought he lost, connecting with Anakin Skywalker as well as Luke. A father's love for his son, that self-sacrificing love parents should have for their children. The redemption works because Anakin hates what he has become and recognizes that he was the reason he never got to have the family connection he wanted his whole life - he experiences self-awareness and growth, and that is what allows him to break free of the Emperor's control and save Luke - and ultimately save the galaxy. But Anakin's redemption is also only in Luke's eyes. To the rest of the galaxy Darth Vader is a war criminal. He would never be allowed to live in the New Republic. He would have to atone for his crimes. So Anakin has to die on the Death Star, he isn't allowed to just go join up with the Alliance and finish off the Imperial Remnant.

Darth Vader is less overtly in control of the Empire - even in ANH it's fairly obvious that he's not the top dog. It's like, Tarkin is a fabulous character but no one would want him redeemed LOL.

And of course there are people who have faves that are bad people. But I've seen this film before - the Kylo Ren stans come to mind most notably, but yes Anakin stans are weird too. In TFA Kylo Ren was not sympathetic - he had literal royalty for family and a privileged upbringing because of his parentage. He was a mess - violent, angry, cruel and a mess. He was actually a compelling villain at first because he was intended to be a villain - he wasn't some woobified romantic antihero bullshit that he became thanks to R*ylos, Rian Johnson and then ofc JJ Abrams. Kylo Ren was a metaphor for a neo-nazi, even if Disney shied away from precise politics in the sequels.

Redeeming him was ridiculous because the cause for him was the point, not the consequence like it was with Vader. Kylo Ren was a true believer who wanted to finish what Vader started - blah blah comics blah blah books I'm sorry, the movies showed us what they showed us and everything else was damage control to make him more sympathetic.

I don't care what Luke did in TLJ, I don't think it's in character for the guy who thought Vader had good in him, but let's say it's totally in character and makes sense and was wrong. Okay but trauma does not excuse genocide. Trauma does not excuse mass murder. This should be obvious - and of course since you can divorce fiction from reality, anon, I'm sure you wouldn't excuse Kylo Ren's actions.

There is no moment when Kylo Ren, whose whole thing IS the cause, seems to understand that he was wrong to believe in the cause of the Empire and the Dark Side, there is no real redemption. He just thinks Palpatine's granddaughter is hot ig and saves her.

I am not against redemption arcs. I love a good redemption arc WHEN IT WORKS. Zuko in ATLA works because he realizes that he is wrong, he condemns the system he supported as a child and actively works to repair the harms done by him and his ancestors. Vader's works because he kills the Emperor and dies after making amends with Luke (and only with Luke, which again is why Anakin's redemption is a personal one but not a political one).

So why is Anakin's redemption more believable than what someone like Karn's might be? Well for one, we have NO evidence that Karn is even capable of redemption. There is nothing in his actions that signifies a change of belief or conflicting feelings about ideology. He seems to understand that he is in over his head on Ferrix, but this is a man who shows instead all signs of DOUBLING DOWN. Even the ISB officer who shuts Pre-Mor down points out that Karn is PROUD. This is a man who lines up nicely with most of Umberto Eco's 14 characteristics of fascism, which I am planning on writing further about.

What is there to sympathize with? A mom who he has a complicated relationship with? So does Cassian. And yet, people are literally justifying Karn's belief in corporate rule because some cops fucked around and found out. They are writing the very copaganda that the show is actually trying to combat.

Not for nothing it doesn't escape me that the Star Wars fandom has a bit of a problem with fascism, and unfortunately I think that is due to a number of things:

poor media literacy

poor critical thinking skills

poor understanding of history

aesthetic over substance

It has real-world consequences. These people have harassed POC in star wars viciously. They have made fan spaces unsafe for marginalized people. I'm not saying that Karn fans are like the Geeks and Gamers level shit, because I doubt those idiots are even watching Andor.

Fiction impacts real life. I can list the studies that show Black children playing with white dolls and internalizing that Black people are uglier, or stories about how Law and Order: SVU literally has had victims of SA go to police and be re-traumatized when the cops did not support them. I will also never forget that American History X, which is explicitly ANTI FASCIST, has a massive neo-nazi fan base because the fascists look cool. They didn't get the memo because they didn't want to.

Of course it doesn't mean everyone who likes Karn is a neo-nazi, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of white fans of his who can see themselves more closely in Syril Karn than they can Cassian, and that is concerning given who he is and what he represents, and what he has NO evidence to suggest he ever WILL represent.

Anyway. Fuck Syril Karn stans.

[swtorpadawan]

This is for the "new ask game for writers."

7. Favorite author, 8. Favorite trope to write, and 22. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

New ask game for writers Thanks for the asks, @sithy-tricks !

Favorite author. I have a bunch! But that might take a while… @taraum and @inyri have been among my favorites since back in my ff.net days. More recently i've become immersed in the respective worlds of @raven-of-domain-kwaad and @starknstarwars . I heartily recommend all four!

Favorite trope to write. Fluff. I have a few couples who i find cute, and I enjoy that process. People seem to respond well, too.

How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you? Oooooh. This gets involved. It depends on how thorough the first draft is in fleshing out the actual story. I've produced drafts that made me depressed that they were not even outlines. That's happened a couple of times. And it required … more than eight drafts. (Yikes.) Usually, its three or four.

Thanks again for the asks!

[asirensrage]

WIP Tag Game

I was tagged by @passionatewrites to post all of the WIPs currently in my drive rn. There are...many. It does not help that I have a bunch together in one doc. Feel free to ask about any of them.

Erudite!Eric - a study in intimacy (eric x oc)

dreaming of falling (eric x oc)

Tammy Thompson Takes on the Upside Down (oc x steve harrington)

Empty Halls to Echo (billy russo x oc)

Matt and Billy and OC make 3 (matt murdock x billy russo x oc)

Tammy - Alternate POV

there's a heaven above you (oc x the lost boys)

well well look who's at it again (jax x oc)

season 2 (sequel to crossfire sam x oc)

season 3 (third in crossfire series - sam x oc)

cassia and varro (varro x oc)

serendipity - Wick fic (john wick x oc)

steve and barb AU (stranger things au)

Ice Ice Baby (eddie x oc (emma))

steve & darcy

favours (undecided eliot x oc or quinn x oc)

For the Children (eliot x oc)

Between Discord and Rhyme (derek hale x oc)

Riptide (spencer reid x oc)

and then a bunch of docs filled with ideas (ex plane ideas and sleep deprivation), plot notes (skywalker rewrite), or scenes (lotr). There's probably more wips. I didn't include original things like Alpha or Beverly or the AoS Coffee Shop AU lol. (there are over 70 docs....not including the folders for certain specific stories...)

soft tagging: @faithfire @nadja-antipaxos @chickensarentcheap @richitozier @margoshansons @karimac @arrthurpendragon @chrissymunson @eddiemunscns @bubblegum-barbie @booty-boggins @cantfighthemoonknight @captainrcgers @veetlegeuse @lovebarefootblonde @wordspin-shares @sithy-tricks and anyone else I missed or who wants to do this

[jessicas-pi]

📖

Thanks for the ask!!! :D

Oh, man, I had, like, three daydream fics i was debating between for this. I'm going with one that i call Philosophies, Prophecies, And Even More Found Family (or, We Didn't Mean To Redeem An Asthmatic Sith Lord But It Kinda Happened Anyway?)

It's kind of dumb and nonsensical and i made it up a like 2 in the morning and it features me ignoring canon and making up a bunch of nonsense but in the end i figure, it cant be any weirder than what i've done before, right?

Anyway It's the story of Daesha and Derriphan. Daesha is a fifteen-year-old purple Twi'lek girl. Derriphan is her padawan-sister—the same age as Dae. Derriphan (or Derra, as Dae likes to call her) is also a Sith.

Like, the species.

In this AU, a lot of history has been lost over time. And a long time ago, the light side users and dark side users weren't quite enemies. In fact, they were allies. There were always two—a Jedi and a Sith. They worked in pairs, trained apprentices in pairs, and kept each other safe.

(While i agree that the Dark side is presented as Not Good in canon, here, it's a bit like... a hurricane or tornado. Not evil; just a neutral power that can cause A Lot Of Damage To Everyone if completely unleashed. With a Jedi there to remind their Sith about their calming breathing exercises, this problem is pretty well solved.)

And with that in mind: something went wrong. There was a temple on a Dark planet, supposedly as a center of research into the dark side. But the Sith didn't know what it would do to them. They Fell. Like, 100%, psycho murderer, galactic conqueror, Fell. They're the Sith we know.

When the Jedi and the Nice Sith (I'll come up with a better name some time, probably) found out, they went to stop the Sithy Sith. It turned into an all-out battle. Malachor was devastated, and the Jedi and Sith were nearly wiped out.

But some of the bad Sith survived, and made their way into the wider galaxy to hunt down the remaining Jedi and "false Sith" (aka the sith who don't try to murderize everything in their way.) About this time, Derra and Dae's masters experienced a powerful force-vision.

They saw that their Padawans could be important to changing the future. And that if they stayed where they were, the Sith would kill them all. So, they took a few holocrons with as much knowledge as they could, brought their Padawans to a Jedi temple, and left them with the cryptic message: one shall teach the apprentice, the other shall teach the master.

And they sealed the girls inside a wall, in a kind of stasis (a la han solo in carbonite.)

A few thousand years later, the girls are released, completely by accident, by a fifteen-year-old Jedi apprentice named Ezra Bridger.

They're wary of each other at first, and there's a lot of confusion regarding what's happening, especially when Derra makes the mistake of identifying herself as a Sith. But eventually, they come to a sort of mutual agreement and cooperate to get out of the temple. Kanan's a little confused when his padawan comes back with a kyber crystal, a message from master yoda, and two (2) dazed-looking force-wielders who talk like they're from a Space Shakespeare play.

They end up sticking around. While Kanan is understandably VERY WARY of Derra's Sith holocron (which, by the way, is green, because the unevil sith haven't gone all out red with their color scheme,) the knowledge in Dae's Jedi holocron is coming in handy.

(Sabine won't lie, it's nice to have some girls her age on the ghost. Turns out Dae is pretty handy with explosives. Everyone is mildly afraid of what will happen if they're left unsupervised.)

Fast forward to the end of s1, when Ahsoka shows up. she's fascinated by Derra's un-evil version of the Sith philosophies, and wants to learn more.

Derra realizes this is part of her Master's prophecy: Ahsoka was never knighted; she's still, technically, an apprentice. And Derra (and her holocron) are telling her about Old Sith teachings.

Derra is teaching "the apprentice," which means Dae will teach "the master..." whoever THAT is.

Fast forward again to Malachor.

Jedi aren't supposed to be jealous, but Dae can't help being a little envious of how Derra has already had her half of the prophecy come true and she's still waiting on hers, so when they run into this creepy Zabrak who introduces himself as "Old Master," she's over the moon. This is it. This is her half of the prophecy.

Except, it's not, and maul is a jerk who betrays them all and slashes Kanan's eyes out. but this time the injury is a little more serious. And Dae realizes that, and with Derra's help, she's able to Force-heal his life-threatening injury.

She feels a shadow loom over her.

HOW DID YOU LEARN TO DO THAT, Vader demands.

She panics and blurts out that it's a Jedi method, and Vader snaps. Because yeah he's super mad at the jedi for genuinely not knowing about this ability, it's been lost to time NOT TELLING HIM but he's even MORE mad at Sidious because he said there was no jedi method to save people with the Force!

Dae suddenly has a veeeery bad feeling about that whole teach the master thing.

[kalianos]

I will now badly try to explain the metaphysical lore of Elder scrolls. Catch me on the mistakes! Because I am speed running my memory.

Hokey! So. The story here begins before time. How? Because there was a previous universe that was reaching its end. The Redguards are from here by the way and right at the end. Their ultra advanced spiritual techno civilization figured out how to, "move between the ways". What did they call this ability to escape time and the end of all things to go into the next universe? "The walkabout." Side note, these universe birthing and ending cycles are called Tulpas.

So, the beginning exists. Redguards and another race noclipped universes to pop in. Akatosh now exists. Time flows. The two elder primordial forces exist. Sithis exists, it is chilling. Lorkhan and auriel are also chilling. All these major spirits are enjoying infinity. Lorkhan gets a random idea. A sweet banger. He calls it. Existence. He convinces a bunch of other spirits to spend their energy to make his grand vision. And like those people who solicit you on Twitter he just sucks your entire being into their project and ypu start realizing too late this is for negative profit. The smartest to realize this was Magnus. He and all but his daughter left creation. Magnus being huge and powerful, leaves a giant hole to aetherial where they escape. Thats the sun by the way. The stars are all the smaller holes in the sky. The daughter? Mixed. She either rebelled, lied to trick people because she was Lorkhans lover so was punished or chose to stay to help mortals. It was likely given how time works all three. She is now the Daedra Meridia.

Auriel was pissed and his people became elves. The twelve divines or aedra were the biggest suckers who gave almost eveything and became weak. The Daedra decided not to contribute much and got to enjoy all the rewards. So as punishment for this shifty group project, Auriel ripped Lorkhan apart, chucked his heart in his precious world creating red mountain. Nothing wrong here. Also he is likely Shor and the main character you play in the games are lorkhan. Which is divine comedy levels considering Morrowind.

Oh and Jyggalag existed. Got broken I to Sheogorath. Anyone else find it hilarious the god of madness looked like a banker with a pocket watch and green vest?

Sp time moves forward. A lot of things happened. The dwarves who are not dwarves but are super science elves who figured out how to make things last forever by using music technology. The music maybe the very vibrations of the universe but they may have the best rave parties.

Oh and there was a time traveling cyborg that was with St.Alessia to rebel against the first elves so man had a shot. That was cool. Somehow her right hand Minotaur became an emporer. Further down Tiber Septim came around.

Here where shir gets real. Tiber Septim was essentially a diety. He changed swampland of the heartland into the main imperial province. How? He achieved Chim.

What's Chim? Well it being able to see the truth of the universe and still exist. Why would that be so hard? Getting there to begin with is almost impossible.

Somehow you have to see the wheel with its seven spikes holding up creation while being creation itself. The realizing the wheel is actually the Tower when viewed from the side. Now Ancestor Moths and the Elder Scrolls themselves talk of this so congrats you made it here. Problem is going furthe lr.

You realize you and everything doesn't exist. None of this is real. You are just a figment in a dream of the Godhead that is asleep. Upon realizing this there are now two things that will happen. One, you accept this and become erased from everything. You never existed. How could you exist? You were a part of a dream. This is called Zero Sum. OR two! You see all creation and have the willpower to understand the paradox that you are not real. But here you are. And then you just have God mode. This is achieving Chim. There is also Dagoth Ur who did this backwards and achieved negative Chim but well thats insane as it is. (He believed he was the dreamer essentially or that he was another dreamer. Hard to tell. Doing this backwards makes you effing insane to make it.)

So yeah. None of Elder scrolls is real. Console dev commands are lore appropriate along with modding. And most people who achieve Chim eventually become bored and go away because....you can only lucid dream for so long.

Skipped a few things most definitely. But yay bored.

[reallystellacadente]

WIP LIFE IS A WILD FUCKING RIDE!

I was tagged a while back by @sleepswithvillains -- as always, thank you so much. It's nice to feel not forgotten when I've been out of the fandom for so long.

Anyway, the much-delayed Chapter 7 is almost done. I had some FUCKING LIFE SHIT go down, which I will expand upon under the cut. For now, two snippets from Chapter 7 of We Belong to the Light.

The story is an AU where my Sith Warrior Xhareen and her husband Malavai Quinn are estranged but not divorced after the Quinncident. Xhareen is about to embark on a life-changing endeavor when Malavai comes asking for her help: His sister, Kayda, has been kidnapped by persons unknown, and the Empire won't send a rescue mission.

From the opening scene of Chapter 7, on Nar Shaddaa, Xhareen and Vette finally speaking to one another after three years.

Vette stepped closer. “Look, I get that your Sithy life is complicated. Jaesa comes and goes so much trying to keep up with it.”

Xhareen took both of Vette’s hands in hers. “I don’t mean to take her from you. I’m ecstatic that the two of you are happy together.

“I just need to make sure the people in my life are spared the consequences of my choices. I haven’t been doing a very good job of that despite convincing myself I have.”

They stood there, saying nothing, for a moment, bathed in the riotous neon lights, the hum of shuttles a hundred meters below them buzzing like a million million insects.

Vette sniffled. “I accept your apology.”

And then, a few days prior, when Dr. Kayda Quinn, Malavai's sister, finally finds out where her kidnappers have taken her to.

They walked into a small foyer. Kazmow held his arm out to prevent Kayda from entering the inner doors.

“Gotta get scanned first. Gotta make sure we ain’t carrying anything bad.”

“He means the Jeddai-abbadai mostly,” Yalzen said.

Kazmow raised his hand to slap the boy, but Kayda grabbed him and twisted his arm until he fell to his knees.

“There’s no need to hit him for telling me the truth you’ve been hiding from me. I told you then and I will tell you now, if you had only asked, I could have brought more help than you knew what to do with.”

“We really don’t like outsiders but we’ll do what we have to to get what we need to fix what your kind broke here.”

Kayda let him loose but kept a fighting stance. “Don’t think your hulking body is any advantage against me. I don’t want to be here, I want to be home with my wife and child and I passed every Imperial fighting test on the first try.”

OK, IRL whining below the cut.

So my son is having a serious health crisis. For those who don't know, he's an autistic adult and lives at home with my husband and me. He wasn't feeling well, that went on for a few days, he thought it was kidney stones (having had one 3 years ago but has since changed his diet dramatically) so I took him to the nearest hospital. Side note, other than the kidney stone, the last time he was sick was when he was 5 and got chicken pox, in the days right before the vaccine.

Well, COVID fuckery kept him waiting 27 hours in the ER, mostly in a hallway, for a room, like 19 hours after a CT scan showed he didn't have a kidney stone (it was pancreatitis, just a little thing that runs in the fam) but he did have a mass on his right lung. It's more than likely a congenital overgrowth of blood vessels, but a week's stay and a biopsy and a bunch of other shit hasn't really cleared up the issue. There's almost zero chance it's cancer but he has to go in for ANOTHER BIOPSY before the inevitable removal of the entire lung because I saw the MRI and that sucker is huge. Oh, and the first biopsy caused a blood leak from the mass and gave him pneumonia.

Cut to the fact that I've been unemployed for almost a year, while all this is going on and I'm doing the 19th or 400th zoom interview, I finally get a job. Part time, but doing something I can do, something that's interesting, and that justifies my fucking master's degree finally. So I'm doing all this training, dealing with my son's doctor appointments (my son doesn't drive and the hubs can only drive sometimes due to serious anxiety) and tests AND THEN the job gets a huge and hugely important contract with the city to assist NEW CANNABIS BUSINESSES into existence!!

So I've been a bit busy. But I am going to try to finish and publish Chapter 7 this weekend before shit gets really out of control!

[jovishark]

Could you share a bit about your Skyrim AU Kenny?

yeah i uhhh guess i havent mentioned that before have i

kenny was technically born an argonian in black marsh but hundreds of years before the rest of the group. i dont totally remember my original origin story for him so i might have to rewrite it but basically he was sacrificed by a group in black marsh to appease sithis (argonians recognize sithis and some, when hatched under a certain sign, can be gifted to the dark brotherhood to train and eventually become shadowscales). instead of their intended purpose a bunch of daedra got together, struck down the group, and took kenny under their wing

he functions kind of like a spy? theyre all knowing but they like having a man on the ground as a champion for all of them but hes been going a little rogue lately now that they have the dragonborn to focus on (yes the dragonborn is active during this storyline but passively and will never be seen)

this is kind of my way of writing in kennys canon immortality/curse deal and no he doesnt really think its cool but he deals with it and he uses his powers to the best of his ability which is mostly just telling people facts about themselves that he shouldnt know and freaking them out

[the-skooma-den]

threw together a couple headshots of Syke cause i wanted to do a proper profile of her, so anyone curious about the character i spend so much time ranting about and drawing thats gonna be under the read more

Part 2 here 

directory to all posts about her and her siblings are here

Real Name: Ava Aurelia Cassia Camoran Tharn Latona. she has an untold amount fake names and identities for a wide variety of purposes, Nowadays she mainly goes by Syke Ivywood, and thats what most of the Dominion knows her as (and is also her in game name)

Age: turned 28 right around when the main plot started. I assume years pass through the DLC’s, including one year where she does the mages and fighters guild quest as well as a bunch of quests.

Race: Imperial. Her father was a bosmer and she takes heavily after him. Her grandpas a Khajiit, which is only relevant here because her dad took heavily after his dad. Hence syke’s weirdly golden eyes and slightly to sharp teeth. 

Class: Nightblade, focus on siphoning magic

Personality: One might look at her usual scowl and her serious demeanor and assume she's the typical lone wolf edgy assassin, and they’re only really half wrong. She’s not a loner by choice,she doesn’t hate people really, shes just not great at interacting with people. Anyone who knows who she actually is tend to be scared of her (even other members of the brotherhood) and that's not great for ones self confidence. In a few words, she’s just awkward and extremely introverted. That being said she is kinda grumpy, but if an evil god stole your soul you would be to.

As for the series Demeanor, that really just her face. She’s just not a smiley person ya know? She just as an incredibly flat affect and it either takes really strong emotions or a lot of effort on her part to break it. She’s actually pretty damn nice, even if she doesn’t really “get” a lot of social norms.Being raised in a assassin cult worshiping the void can do that to a girl.

What also does not help the usual perception of her, is her Bad temper and very very low bullshit tolerance. She’s not hard to piss off and it can be explosive. Usually not the yelling and screaming explosive but the getting right up in your face out of nowhere and quietly informing you that if you say one more word she’ll individually break every bone in your hand type way.

She’s what her mother would kindly call “strong willed” and what everyone else would call debilitatingly stubborn . Keeping in mind this is a woman who was wronged by what is essentially the demon god king of domination and then decided “I’m going to kick his ass” and then did. For good or ill she rarely if ever gives up.

Due to the fact she is technically a noblewoman, she tends to be extremely private as well. The other Cyrodilic nobles know of her and her family, but just know them as the family that for the most part gave up their titles and have no intention of trying to get them back, they have no idea that theyre a whole family of assassin in the Dark brotherhood. That does not mean that they ignore her or her family as even if her family doesn’t want the titles the fact they exist can mess up others claims to the throne.Especially Ava who suffice to say has a pretty decent claim to several very important titles. This has lead her to take on a variety of different fake names and wearing different masks to avoid being recognized both in her daily life and in jobs for the brotherhood...at least at first.

As it turned out she's a natural actor with one hell of a flair for the dramatic. She may have issues interacting with people as herself, but she finds it easier when pretending to be someone else. She got so into it that she has whole characters that she pretends to be for all kinds of purposes, like say if she needs access to mages or fighters guild resources or if a particular job for the brotherhood calls to act as a maid for a little bit.

as for how the Dominion crew know her, well they actually come closer to knowing her then most. When Raz dragged her out of the ocean at Khenarthis roost she was so out of it she was barely able to come up with a fake name let alone a whole character, so they all end up genuinely knowing her as she truly is. Turns out she doesn’t mind that as much as she thought she would.

Backstory (before the main plot): She’s a third generation member of the Dark brotherhood, and most of her direct family (siblings, parents, aunt and one set of grandparents) are apart of it. Her grandmother, A Bosmer noble named Cassa, married an Imperial nobleman when she was pretty young. Cassa wanted to get out of Valenwood and her husband was looking for a way to rebel against his family and found it in a hot bosmer lady. They ended up having one kid together, Lara

A few years later Cassa ends up falling in with and getting pregnant by a khajiiti baker her husband hired, and her husband is not to happy about that to say the least.  He fires and sends the Khajiit away and Cassa is less then happy about that as well. She kills her husband and so convincingly makes it look like an accident that if the brotherhood hadn't already had a contract out on him no one would have ever known it was murder. 

So Cassa ends up joining the brotherhood after her second kid by the khajiit man was born. She never really connected with the bosmeri pantheon or the Green pact, and she ends up taking to Sithis real well. She also as soon as she was able went to find her love and they were married as soon as possible. They all lived in Valenwood for a number of years and both her kids grew up in the brotherhood as well. 

 Eventually the younger one son, Tanis, marries an Imperial woman,Livillia. Also a runaway noblewoman,her mother was friends with Cassa and she was seeking sanctuary with her. Livillia is specifically one of Abnur Tharns kids, who no longer wanted to deal with the Tharn family drama. 

They have a kid together (That is of course Ava). Tanis’s older sister and Cassa’s first child, Lara, has a one night stand with an Altmer and has her own kid who she names Ceryneian (or Nia for short). And they all live pretty happily for a while, as far as anyone knew the family was just a bunch of nobodies, rich nobodies who kept all hours but still just nobodies. They had for the most part completely abandoned all noble titles, even if the nobles weren’t done with them.

When Ava was about 10 years old her great aunt Cilvia tharn found out that Livillia was still alive. She was well aware that if she tried to do anything to Elsweyr Livillia would likely act against her. Livillia may be a member of the brotherhood, but she wasnt completely evil. Cilcvia sent assassins after Ava’s parents, they missed her but her parents were taken by surprise and sadly killed. None of her family felt right staying in valenwood anymore, So Lara took Ava in and moved to the Gold coast where she had spent her early childhood and had inherited some estate.  Her grandparents Moved to Elsweyr and both Ava and Nia would spend summers there as kids. 

So Ava ends up “officially” a member of the brotherhood ,after toddling around the sanctuaries her whole life, at about 15 years old, and was never prouder. Normally they wouldn’t have let someone so young in but once again, she had literally been toddling in sanctuaries, they figured it was fine.

On one of her first genuinely dangerous missions, to kill a necromancer in Northern Elsweyr (chaperoned by her grandma of course), she came across one of said necromancers future sacrifices. This sacrifice happened to be a 13 year old khajiit boy named Thera (later going by Jo’Thera)  with some odd fur patterns, and fuck man he was just a kid (granted shes only a couple years older then him) and Ava couldn’t just leave him there alone. Ava saved him and took her back to Anvil with her after she killed the necromancer as according to the kid, he didn’t have a family or anywhere to go. Lara hears the kids story and is just like…. Welp… guess i got a 3rd kid now.  (as Thera grows up if there's one thing he gets from his adopted family its a love for drama and dramatic irony. He takes to necromancy pretty quickly)

That peace continued for a few years until she was about 19. At 19 years old she got the offer to join the Psijic order, Not because she was particularly powerful or even all that good at magic (at the time of course, she gets much better later), but due to her lack of formal teaching she had her own odd way of casting and working with it that caught their attention. Basically imagine that she did a really complicated math problem wrong, but ended up with the right answer and somehow accidentally discovered a new much easier formula to that particular problem, she did the magic version of that and showed a lot of potential even outside of that.

Then she said no, she was happy in the brotherhood and her current life and she saw no reason to leave

When Ava was about 20 years old, Nia ran away because, well she wasn't as fond of the brotherhood as her mother or cousin, and its not exactly something you can just quit and walk away from. It broke the whole families heart of course but Ava took it particularly hard. She had considered her and had been referring to her as her sister even before her parents death

What really set it all off though was when Nia popped up again alive and well in Valenwood using the last name of their grandmothers family. She didn’t send them a message or anything, it just got to them by word of mouth because Nia had disowned them and been talking shit about them. After she ran away she went back down to Valenwood to claim the title that was rightfully hers, it turns out that she had found proof of her birthright and between that and her uncanny resemblance to her grandmother she barely had to be questioned. 

So Nia is in Valenwood with her relatives and had completely disowned the entire rest of her family. Her grandmother, Her mother and her (now deceased) Aunt and Uncle, and Ava and their brother as well. she never made any concrete statement as to why per say outside of “Not wanting to go down the same path as the rest of her family” which most people assumed meant completely abandoning their noble heritage and titles, not to mention their bosmeri heritage as well (which was partially true, but it was mostly about the whole murder cult thing). So yeah, Lara was heartbroken and Ava was pissed off to oblivion and back and Jo’thera....he was just hurt, but all decided that if that was where Nia wanted to be they weren’t going to drag her back.

At about 23 Ava met her first real significant other, A Dunmeri noble. It didnt go well for either of them really, lots of drugs, lots of unhealthy coping mechanisms, lots of secrets. not a good time. 2 years later, The Dunmer actually proposes to Ava, and Ava not only says yes but Ava tells her everything about the brotherhood, her own noble status, all of it. The Dunmer seems okay with it at first, and admits she kinda suspected who Ava’s family was based on the little she spoke about it, The brotherhood was the real surprising part there. The knife in Ava’s stomach later that night Makes it clear what she thought about that. So it was a messier breakup then most.  

Ava doesnt like to speak much of the relationship, but it hurt her more then she lets on and makes her more nervous then ever to be in a real romantic relationship 

Well after that mess Ava threw herself back into the brotherhood hardcore and also into hardcore drugs and alcohol.for about 5 years. Over those 5 years between the Dunmer incident, a lot of self reflection, and all sorts of anxieties she’s an unstable mess. Like verge of a mental breakdown type of mess. 

When she was kidnapped and later sacrificed by the wormcult many who knew her assumed that she had offed herself for good. She was gone for long enough that even her own family started to assume the worst

[cinlat]

Don't worry, Tully. Ari will wear his brother down until he sees reason. The twins will totally fall in love with you soon, and Ma'at won't allow you out of her sight again. This is so sad but we know it'll get better. Then baby #5!

May Drabbles, Day 27 Prompt: hurts to be close (stranger) Characters: Sith Warrior Tuathal Techtmar, Sith Inquisitor Ma’at Stasma and their children - Ma’at and Ari belong to @cinlat but at this point let’s be real, we totally have shared custody of all of these dorks.  Word Count: 510

“Again papa, again!” A childish voice said, giggling loudly, and Tuathal’s heart plummeted. He didn’t have to look behind him to know that one of his daughters was playing with Talos.

Instead he stayed put on the couch angled toward one of the few windows in the Techtmar/Drellik wing of the Alliance base. Ma’at had sequestered several connected rooms to create a home for their family. She had said it was important for the children to have a sense of normalcy even if there was nothing normal about the situation.

While it should have felt like home and he had his own room, one to share with his wife, Tuathal had yet to spend a night there. She hadn’t questioned it but then, Ma’at always did have a way of understanding her husband even when he didn’t speak.

It hurt to be so close to his children and have them look at him like he was a stranger. Nuada had openly rejected him, his son far angrier at being abandoned than relieved to have this father home. To the twins his presence didn’t even have that much of an impact, they never knew him and Talos had always been their father.

It was probably not that surprising that of the four perfect children his wife had brought into the world Ari, the only one not of his blood, was the only one to ever approach him. Sure the boy had only wanted to know if some of the stories he had heard were true and ask about lightsaber training, it was still more of a conversation than he had managed with his own son.

At first Nuada had simply avoided Tuathal, if he tried to approach his son there would suddenly be somewhere else the boy needed to be. The last time he had tried, Nuada had yelled at Tuathal, claiming he didn’t “need” another father. Ma’at had scolded their son for it, but the sincerity in the boy’s words stuck with Tuathal. 

Valkorian had told him that his family would move on without him, that they would replace and forget about him. He hadn’t believed it was possible but now that faith was starting to waiver.

Another peal of laughter from behind him made Tuathal both smile and cringe. He wasn’t sure it was possible for a sound to both fill his heart with joy and pain, but it did.

“Tully?” Ma’at’s voice was soft as she sat next to him, hand resting on his tightly clasped hands. “Are you okay?”

Taking her hand in his, Tuathal nodded. “I am alright my love.”

Ma’at smile sadly, “no you aren’t.”

A smile tugged at the edge of his mouth and instead of responding he pressed a gentle kiss to the back of her hand. He didn’t know what to say, she was right after all. He wasn’t okay, wasn’t even sure what being okay looked like anymore.

But looking into Ma’at eyes, the warmth and love he saw there, was more than enough to reassure him that someday he would.