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#cyrodiil but awesome
imthepunchlord · 9 days
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ratlibrarian · 2 months
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I want to talk about The Elder Scrolls and its lore for a minute.
The lore is, officially, whatever you want it to be. (If you ask the only person worth asking.)
Do I enjoy the games that released after Morrowind? Absolutely. Oblivion is Janky Hilarity, Skyrim is Delicious Fantasy, ESO won't run on my PC, but I'm sure it's awesome too.
But to me, personally, there'll always be a divide. The Morrowind-Lore, and the rest of the lore. Because the Lore in Morrowind is so extra, so alien and weird and how it hints at weirdness in the other provinces, the other games feel like letdowns.
Cyrodiil was meant to be this expansive, unnavigable jungle, where one had to stick to the rivers to traverse it. Where the Imperial City was meant to house a thousand temples for a thousand religious beliefs. And beyond the civilized cities of the province, the jungles would hold mystery and danger. Would one be able to encounter an Ayleid? Or a tribal Nede? Who knows?
And we got...
Oblivion. A fun game. Hell, a good game, kind of. But not what had been built up.
Same, but different, with Skyrim.
The political machinations of the Nords. The struggles between local petty kings, the High King, and the Empire. The worship of the Nord pantheon, with Alduin, Herma-Mora, Kyne, Shor, etc.
Skyrim is a great game. It was my first taste of TES. It sparked my love for the series. But I play Daggerfall more often than Skyrim these days, and I barely ever get around to Oblivion.
I don't mean to strip away anyone else's fun or enjoyment of TES. As Micheal Kirkbride said, the lore is whatever you want it to be.
Mine is simply one where the was lore built by Kirkbride and continued by fans ever since. Where Hermaphroditic God-Kings rule through authoritarian Theocracy, where Men and Women and Elves and all sorts attain Divinity through Action, Cunning or Sorcery.
Where the Godhead's dream will Never End.
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dawns-beauty · 1 month
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do you like any expansion mods for skyrim? there are soo many and im not sure what to try first haha.
I don't know if I've really played one I'd 100% recommend yet... but also, I am insanely persnickety.
Maybe some folks will sound off in the comments as well?
I have played:
Beyond Reach (completed)
Pros: the mystery was intriguing. I kind of liked how grim it was (at parts.) The setting was decently cool, especially the non-Nirn realms.
Cons: JANKY TO THE MAX. Does not feel like it takes place in the world of Tamriel. Super dark themes, frankly dumb takes on Orcs and Reachmen, the modder clearly had a thesaurus at hand while writing dialogue. Really dumb "gotcha" twist at the end. Do not recommend.
Moonpath to Elsweyr (completed)
Pros: neat little linear story, impressive for being one of the first ever mods, it's about Khajiit.
Cons: it is one of the first-ever mods, and shows its age. Maybe play once, but be ready for some jankiness.
Clockwork (completed)
Pros: SUPER strong opening, one of the best openings of a modded quest I've played. It's nice and spooky, and pretty technologically impressive. Insanely gorgeous, detailed house.
Cons: mostly becomes a series of fetch-quests, and at least one part where you have to retrace your steps, until you get everything upgraded. You do get a cool house and transport system out of it, if that's of interest to you. Nothing tops the first part, imo.
Project AHO (not completed)
Pros: very Morrowind, if you're nostalgic. Very, VERY pretty too. Has a tool that lets you craft spellbooks.
Cons: the story. There's a particular part that annoys me, where you feel railroaded. This is also just my opinion, but... I hate the house it gives you and I hate that it adds huge metal Dwemer struts all over Skyrim. They're hideous.
Carved Brink (completed)
Pros: insanely pretty
Cons: story is okay? nothing to write home about. The special way of navigating gets old.
Here's a list of other mods I want to try someday:
The Forgotten City
Skyrim Extended Cut - Saints and Seducers (the Extended Cut project is something I really hope to see completed, the idea behind it is awesome)
Sirenroot (idk if this counts as an expansion, but I do want to try it!)
Legacy of the Dragonborn (I'm a sucker for museums and collecting)
Beyond Skyrim: Bruma (but I may just wait for BS: Cyrodiil, due to low content)
Sorry, I wish I could come up with some actual recommendations! I am just terrible at actually playing quests (I like picking flowers and walking around XD)
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tallmatcha · 2 years
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Antonina Lepida from @glaukobiblion’s awesome fic :) Here’s a little snippet!
It Ends With Wolves by Glaukobiblion (AO3)
Summary: What do you do after you save the world? The Dragonborn needs a cause. Tullius desperately wants it to not be him.
The general studied her again. Perhaps he had known her parents in Cyrodiil, except he famously did not broke with nepotism, and anyway he needed to be alerted when he was expected to provide it, not trust in some perceived family resemblance. Dark hair, the flat amber-turning-green eyes that were so common in parts of Cyrodiil. He did not know this woman at all. 
“Should I?” he said. 
She made a sound like a cat being trod upon and slammed the door to Castle Dour closed behind her.
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astraphel · 4 months
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Today is the 10 year anniversary of my ESO account ❤️ To date, I've played the game for over 1,000 hours.
I remember the childlike excitement I felt at the announcement of this game. You mean you can play ANY of the races IN THEIR HOMELANDS? THE FUCK? THAT'S AWESOME. I joined the beta with two of my friends and have played it ever since. Well, not TOO often in those initial years. The game was a little rougher in its infancy.
This game is the only MMO I've played, and honestly, I feel a strange sense of pride at how far the game has come since the beta. God, playing the game now is like cutting butter with a warm knife compared to those first couple years.
Sometimes I just log in to gather mats and run away from every enemy. I've never played the PVP part of the game. I only went to Cyrodiil because I wanted the Explorer title. I ran into an enemy player in a cave, we both paused, then ran away from each other.
One of my characters has the entire map completely explored except for the books. Three of my toons have completed Cadwell's Gold. I've been kicked out of groups for playing the lute and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to learn how to optimize armor. Sometimes I like a challenge but mostly I play to enjoy the nice little moments and the scenery.
Here's to another 10 years! 🍾🎂
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londonhalcyon · 2 years
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Don’t have time to write this week, so here’s more Skyrim:
But it wasn’t the Divines that saved her at Helgen. When the black wings of Alduin the World Eater, the Scaled Prince Alkhan, descended in flames, it had been Nords that had pulled her from the blaze. She survived because of the help of others. Then her life became progressively worse, and not only because of the dragons’ return.
Two weeks after escaping Helgen, Ivy was attacked by another dragon. She killed it. She actually killed a dragon—leaped onto its head, grabbed its horns, and bashed its skull in with a scavenged mace while Whiterun guards rained down arrows into its thick scales, which was completely fucking awesome. Then the dragon had burned and she had burned, its soul searing itself into her very bones, and she had found herself in deep, deep shit.
Ivy was Dragonborn. The Last Dragonborn to be specific—Laat Dovahkiin, with emphasis on the “Laat.” Nothing good came of being the last anything. It was a title that accompanied a species hunted to extinction. “Last” was destined to turn into “None.” And she had no interest in being the Nooe Dovahkiin.
(According to Arngeir, it would actually be “Nid Dovahkiin,” something the Greybeard said to her in dead seriousness. She immediately wondered if there was a Shout that would let her safely jump off High Hrothgar—anything that would put those seven thousand steps between her and the Throat of the World as quickly as possible.)
Akatosh, or Alkosh, had blessed her apparently. No fucking clue why. She was a Khajiit from nowhere. Now that she was Dragonborn, everyone wanted to kill her—or sentence her to a painful death as Skyrim’s glorified errand person, which meant Alkosh had blessed her to die.
Lucky her.
Because she was Dragonborn, everyone wanted something from her. They wanted her to serve the Jarls, to be their Thane, to fight their war. They wanted her to save them.
She had spent twenty-three years on a farm in Cyrodiil. She had been in Skyrim two weeks. Now she couldn’t go home again. Not before the end of the world, at least.
She didn’t know how to save the world. She didn’t know how to save anyone.
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mothermara · 2 years
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unsent letter #1
Tels,
You’ve got to fucking HELP ME. I have no idea where I am or how I got here- I thought I was in northern Cyrodiil, you know, in the mountains near the Rift- but I have a feeling I’m not in Tamriel anymore. I mean, I can feel the number forms, but the song is all wrong and different.
Okay, I’ll start with what I remember. I was having some kind of spooky hell dream where daedra were chasing me, then I saw this glowing lady, I guess? I can’t really remember. Now I’ve got this FUCKING THING ON MY HAND! It really hurt at first, but I’m okay now. Apparently I blew up a chapel and killed thousands of people. I thought, yeah that’s believable, I have wacky moments- But then like, later there was this thing, I assume they’re kind of like time wounds because it was replaying the past. This wrinkly old lady was being killed by a shadow guy and I walked in on them, so it looks like I wasn’t the guy who did it. By the way, this whole fucking time they were talking about straight up executing me. Until the last part where I “stabilized” the time wound, now I’m basically a living saint? It’s so fucked up.
There’s this bald guy I really don’t like, not because he’s bald but because he’s a little pretentious. Short guy with a bow, he’s cool because the mean lady doesn’t like him and I don’t like HER. Also a sexy agent or nun, I don’t know which one yet. Also, they keep saying I’m “a bit of a runt” for my kind, which is so weird and rude.
Anyway, tell Rexie I love him and that he gets the castle if I don’t make it out.
Sincerely,
Ezimar
P.S just realized I have no way to send this! FUCKING AWESOME! <- that’s sarcasm.
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cthulhubrain · 2 years
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in the meantime lemme post about my sister and I partaking in elderscrollsonline’s current whitestrake mayhem event: the pvp event... where you go to cyrodiil and the imperial city and players outside of your alliance are looking to murderize your ass. constantly ;w;
cyrodiil is fine. cyrodiil is fun.  cyrodiil is big enough to not run in to any other players.  cyrodiil is big enough that other alliance players will just let you go on your way because chasing one or two randos who aren’t even near any forts or takeable points is a waste of time and energy.  Plus cyrodiil has siege weapons and stuff and its combat is varied enough to be fun and interesting no matter the outcome.
the imperial city on the other hand, is not this.  there are a lot of cool alleys and ruined buildings to duck in and out of, but the place is swamped with npc enemies that attack everything.  And they’re all set to hard mode.  The debuffs to players in the city make combat a slog; healing/leeching-based characters will not work nearly as well here (healing and defensive buffs are cut in half when in the city), the enemies tank damage like a mountain, and they all swarm and chase you forever -__- which wouldn’t be as much of a problem if eso allowed you to escape via doorways when you’re ‘in combat’.
Now on to the other players.  It’s a mixed bag.  getting butchered again and again is almost always annoying (i had an exception to this playing my archer lizard who was killed whenever she dropped down off the alliance platforms: i saw 2 dominion players working in tandem with awesome distraction tactics who i could not get around. they were really impressive.), and it’s more annoying when you’re trying to do daily quests in the city.  But you go into the imperial city expecting this...
Still. Last night my poor sister, who was playing a squishy fancy assassin boy (who depends on leeching abilities, see above on how that’s a prob) kept getting sniped in the back by invisible archer players.  And it quickly became clear she was being targetted specifically.  We travelled all over the place in a district our alliance owned, but these (daggerfall?) players kept gunning for her (when my character wasn’t even lvl 50 yet, and standing right there).
I had another annoying time when i was playing on my own traversing the sewers trying to get back to my alliance’s base.  Dying is the quickest way to get there, but in the imperial city if you die you lose half your zone-specific monies earned via playing (tel var stones), and since i had like, more than 10 i thought ‘ugh the long way back it is’.  I underestimated how long it was.  I went all the way from a different alliance’s territory in the sewers to eventually survive getting to right outside my alliance’s base.  Then i got murderized by someone from a diff alliance camping outside our doors.  When i just wanted to get back inside -__- 
i keep trying to give pvp a chance. but fjkslfdsa, it’s had too many chances from me.
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shandars-sorrow · 6 months
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Saturalia, a Breton celebration that heralds the New Life Festival, is held on the 25th of Evening Star. Originally a holiday for the god of debauchery, it has become a time of gift giving, parties, and parading. Visitors are encouraged to participate.
Found another great house mod that adds Christmas Saturalia cheer to Cyrodiil. I got a new laptop and since it's the winter break I just now got around to installing Oblivion again. Basically all I've done so far is add a few house mods, including this one, which I believe is called Wannhame Castle by TesDiesel (aka RunaUlfgar). If there's one thing that can get me in the Christmas spirit, it's trying out new awesome house mods while sipping a glass of wine. This house mod is one of my favorites because the Christmas Saturalia decorations aren't too gaudy and don't look too out of place for TES.
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morihaus · 3 years
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hi ok i literally JUST saw ur reply bc i forgot tumblr is. weird ab how sideblog replies work BUT do you have any thoughts on specific Ayleid magic that may've gotten lost to time? I know there's a lorebook mentioning that the wells/varla stones/welkynd stones are kinda all that's left and there's an implication that they were privy to other stuff that didn't end up preserved.
Also do you have any hcs ab their interactions with/relationship to Meridia? I mean there's. Kinda already a good deal of canon stuff ab that but theology/religious society hcs slap All The Time
(sorry if im a lil off ab any lore in these q's- i'm rly interested in ayleid stuff but i havent had the time to comb through all of it just yet OTL)
gosh ok so like... the ayleids had this entire deal of preserving the dawn magics- or in perpetuating their use, in contrast to the aldmer who thought to lock these things away before they became something lesser in mundus. there's SOMETHING about cyrodiil imo that made this especially easy for them, and in addition to that their language ayleidoon is derived more closely from ehlnofex (the language of the first mortals or possibly the et'ada) than aldmeris or the other elven languages
@ankhitsu has made me a believer in "ayleids had airships they used to collect starlight" which is based on lore from shadowkey- pre ayleid and the words are never used but yknow. game theory. stars are super important bc that's magic directly from aetherius and something about cyrodiil must have made it the best place to construct these things and collect them as much as that "cyrodiil is the center of the universe" thing is propaganda and kinda :/ from a meta standpoint it IS interesting to think that there's some kind of confluence of dawn era magical construction that just meets in the middle there... like the wiring or tubing so to speak. this environment helped the ayleids preserve and/or rediscover dawn era stuff, which could work potentially reality shifting magics via the use of ehlnofex. recently learning some project tamriel ayleid lore that lays an importance on words and names for people and places and the ability to manipulate them by knowing them and i like that... words and language are so important
as for meridia she DEFINITELY seems like one of the most popular daedra to the ayleids. i think mostly ESO lore cemented it with the addition of like, 3 notable city-states devoted to meridia, but umaril the unfeathered being champion of both her and the ayleids against the alessian revolt implies that they lay a lot of importance on her. maybe due to her connection with the magna-ge, and therefore the purest forms of magic? there's meridia Deep Lore that connects her vaguely with lorkhan, admiring his work and choosing to remain with it instead of fleeing with the rest of her siblings of the magna-ge, and interestingly sews the seeds of her rivalry with molag bal via her working to create mehrunes dagon as a successor to lorkhan and destroyer/liberator of lyg, bal's own little world of creation it's mostly just one guy but molag bal seems like the second most mentioned daedra irt ayleids, and it makes me think the interplay between bal and meridia and their rivalry colored ayleid society in a lot of ways... ofc i feel like throughout the diverse city-states you could find all assortments of daedra and aedra, even brushing shoulders in pantheons and traditions, but meridia and her champions being the last restort daedras certainly imply some interesting things
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custom-whats · 2 years
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I do feel like in a lot of games that take place in the same universe but in different lands of that universe, the land you start in just becomes ur home despite how cooler the later lands may be
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foulserpent · 5 years
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theres a lot of things knights of the nine shouldve been (for instance nonexistant) but one of the things that could give me more sympathy for it as a DLC is if you mantle morihaus instead of pelinel  and it was like congratulations you are a cow man now
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autumnbrambleagain · 2 years
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todd howard, my sweet todd howard
emil pagliarulo, my dearest emil
do you guys have tumblrs, can i tag you with this?
can i get you to notice me?
can i get you to knife fight me in the street? i want to knife fight you in the streets
skyrim flirted so close to an interesting setting, interesting ideas, and instead you decided game of thrones was neat and rohan was cool in lotr, and you just, youu just went with that instead
the damage you’ve done is irreperable
instead of taking morrowind’s success and saying, “wow, people like how weird it is” you went “let’s make cyrodiil look like the place we work” you went “i know we said skyrim is weird as FUCK, but let’s make it generic and put in a hamhanded racial metaphor that wont’ turn on us in 5 years when white supremacy becomes normalized and they try to take over governments”
look at how morrowind talked about skyrim
The breath and the voice are the vital essence of a Nord. When they defeat great enemies they take their tongues as trophies. These are woven into ropes and can hold speech like an enchantment.
Wow, that’s weird, that’s so weird and awesome, instead we got: nothing
The power of a Nord can be articulated into a shout, like the kiai of an Akaviri swordsman. The strongest of their warriors are called "Tongues." When the Nords attack a city, they take no siege engines or cavalry; the Tongues form in a wedge in front of the gatehouse, and draw in breath. When the leader lets it out in a kiai, the doors are blown in, and the axemen rush into the city. Shouts can be used to sharpen blades or to strike enemies.
Instead, now 5 people can use shouts, and you can because you’re a super special snowflake because you bought the game :3 gone is morrowind’s ambiguity of what you actually are or why, gone is oblivion not even making you the main character, you’re the SUPER SPECIAL BOY and ONLY YOU get this SUPER SPECIAL POWER :3 no one else knows how to do this at all, just you :3
The most powerful Nords cannot speak without causing destruction. They must go gagged, and communicate through a sign language and through scribing runes.
That was like the one interesting thing you put from this into Skyrim, good job
The further north you go into Skyrim, the more powerful and elemental the people become, and the less they require dwellings and shelters. Wind is fundamental to Skyrim and the Nords; those that live in the far wastes always carry a wind with them.
the further north you go into Skyrim, the more it looks like the set of a bad viking video game or game of thrones reference
you cowards couldn’t even make akatosh the final boss of the game. you visit sovngard and instead of anyone FREAKING OUT THAT YES SHOR IS LORKHAN IS AKATOSH instead you get an empty throne and a throwaway line at best.
you’re so BORING.
knife fight me
knife fight me
knife fight me
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ebficnotes · 3 years
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An alternative ESO Planemeld, that isn’t such a cliché:
Learning that Tharn was originally intended to be ESO's big bad makes the whole MQ make much more sense, I think.
Tharn is a loyal Empire man to the core, and he's sick of all these itinerant Emperors gutting his beloved State. For better or worse, the Emperor must be imbued with Divine right, or the throne is inherently unstable (in his opinion). The chaos of the interregnum as a whole reflects this. Tharn believes in the Dragon, but sometimes needs must, and so he looks for a way to push the god's hand in divinely selecting a new favorite for the throne.
Mannimarco at this point is just a lobbyist in a cold war with Vanus over the public opinion of his favorite subject. Tharn meets him through a shared interest in magical studies. Mostly Daedric conjuration, but a bit of the old necromancy as well. His ideas for its use as troop support are especially interesting. He also seems to have an unusually keen insight into the nature of the Dragon. Mannimarco posits that Akatosh might be forced to pick a new fav if Nirn is somehow existentially threatened. Tharn doesn’t like this, but he's desperate, so they make a deal to engineer a threat so big that the Dragon can't possibly ignore it.
In return, Mannimarco will be hailed as a savior of the realm for his role in "discovering and aiding" the Dragonborn Emperor, and will receive a permanent appointment to the Elder Council: Something that would assure necromancers get a say in the laws of the land, thus solidifying his cult of personality and allowing him his longed-for ascension via hero-worship. Tharn doesn’t necessarily have to believe in this either. It only matters that Mannimarco does. Being a diplomat, Tharn would be familiar with elven beliefs.
The player would start the game the same, with Lyris helping us escape, and with Caldwell finding us a hole in the barrier to crawl out of, and with Varen using his knowledge of prophecy to be in the right place at the right time. In this version, an out of control cult of Molag Bal are the ones who sacrifice us, Mannimarco having pretended to ally with them in order to enact his plan.**
We would then continue fighting for one of the Alliances. All the faction quests would go as normal, but with only the other Alliances and Cyrodiil as enemies, not the Worm Cult. Or maybe the Worm Cult in some key places, since Mannimarco is now in charge of keeping Bal busy while they figure out how to undo this mess they caused. Meanwhile, we would slowly be uncovering the conspiracy, culminating in us re-sealing the liminal barrier in much the same way we do now, with Tharn’s and maybe even Mannimarco's help. As part of the reveal, moth priest Varen tells us that an Emperor is already preordained, so they'll just have to suck it up until the dude is born. Nice try, y'all.
Even the Coldharbour invasion can go as-is, given that we need to be inside Bal's plane to reseal the barrier. Vanus gets dragged into helping due to his greater influence outside of Cyrodiil, which doesn’t have the resources to mount an invasion of Coldharbour while still fending off attack from the three big babies/Alliance leaders. Vanus was supposed to get them to agree to a temporary truce, but our quest with him reveals how well that works out. His snafu with the teleport can go as is, and all/most of the Coldharbour quests can be pretty much the same.
Naturally, the public knows nothing of this, and just assumes that Bal randomly decided to invade all by himself. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all.
PS: It occurs to me that Tharn's actions in Elseweyr might be how his original MQ mission was supposed to go. The Elseweyr MQ was awesome btw. A few holes and clichés here and there, but overall very cool, and politically plausible too.
** Mannimarco could still kill us I think. That cut scene is way too good to just throw away. It would also be a good opportunity for some dialouge where we can choose to give him shit for it later, even as he helps us fix it.
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alding-art · 2 years
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There’s an awesome character sheet by cparrisart on twitter so I filled them in for my guys! Some of it is pretty flexible as there’s many things I’d never think of. Ages for Avrin and Karelle are from their earlier years in my timeline. By the time they move from Skyrim back to Cyrodiil you can add another ~20 on.
For once, this shows up better on phones if you want to zoom!
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2020 creator wrap
rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!  
tagged by @through-thevalleys (thanks for that!)
(anyway it turns out pretty much ALL my tes fanfiction is from 2020?? last year was a long one huh)
1. Aurora -- Julienne demands a greater understanding of the Clear Skies shout
(this being probably my most popular, and the one i am most proud of. it’s also the one i showed my tutor, if you were ever curious about that)
2. As Life You Shall Remain -- Frea mourns the death of her father
(at the time i think i called this a bit of a prose poem, when i was considering if my ‘thing’ was actually narrative after all)
3. Invitation to the Dance -- how Corvus and Millona Umbranox met
(not my finest in purely technical terms, but this one was so much fun and i love this couple so much)
4. Not Quite Cyrodiil -- Caius Cosades arrives in Balmora
(a coincidence of the experience of caius cosades and of the nerevarine. just something i thought would be interesting)
5. Taxes from Raven Camoran -- Hieronymus Lex demands tax money from a dangerous assassin
(also a really fun little piece. i found it amusing anyway. heh)
i’ll tag anyone who wants to do this :)
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