#captainmarkarth

[raunchyandpaunchy]

For the ask game, let's hear your Skyrim picks!

OHOHOHOHO thank you VERY much for asking, this is definitely one of my all-time fave fandoms and there are a TON of characters to choose from:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): Brynjolf, because sleazy, charismatic, sewer-dwelling men are apparently my type.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped): Gwilin! Love that lad.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): Nazir is criminally underrated, which I do not understand, because how do you see a smoking hot snarky assassin with a sexy voice and NOT just lose your goddamn mind.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): I saw Drevis Neloren and Ingun-Black-Briar and went "y'know what these characters need? A whole backstory. Also, their backs blown out"

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): So many. Top three would be Astrid, Mercer Frey and Maven Black-Briar.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): Overlaps with the above question because he's undoubtedly also a poor little meow meow, but Ancano, who I do go to town on with the Trauma Truncheon in a fic I'm not writing.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): Honestly, I'm not sure? Several deserve it. I feel like this has a Correct answer, lore-wise, but honestly I'm 20% in this fandom for the lore and 80% in it to Make The Characters Bang so what the fuck do I know lmao. That said, possibly Ulfric Stormcloak? This is the only question I don't have a strong answer to, surprisingly.

Thanks again for the ask, and letting me have a good ol' ramble about one of my fave fandoms! Original post is here.

[leahazel]

🌍🏆💡 for the reader asks!

For this meme.

🌍 What is your dream AU?

I feel like people who follow me on Tumblr must know this already, but I would be delighted if for every Omegaverse fic there was another AU that just went absolutely ham on misinterpreting and sexualizing non-wolf animal behavior. It doesn't even have to be a queen bee AU. Just a million fics that are nothing but thinly veiled excuses to blather about weird animal reproduction facts.

🏆 What do you wish more authors in your fandom would write about?

Right now I'm only actively writing in two fandoms, 7KPP and Skyrim. Skyrim fandom has literally thousands of fics and has reached an "everything has been done" stage where people either write the same things over or get really weird with it. I like the weird stage because unpredictable things happen. I wish for every writer to feel comfortable getting as weird as their little hearts desire.

On a more mundane note, sometimes I feel like the way people write about the civil war is strongly influenced by the obnoxious debates about it in the fandom. I always like it when people write about the factions from a perspective that doesn't seek to defend or justify them. "Make your faces look bad", basically.

For 7KPP, it's a tiny fandom, so I'm ecstatic every time I see a fic that revolves around the NPCs and not the MC.

💡 Tell me a headcanon (and who you wish would write it)?

I had to think about this hard because I tend to get so involved in my (major) headcanons that I forget they're not properly canon. Like, when I integrate my perception of out-of-universe factors, I legit forget that it hasn't been confirmed anywhere that the Empire is about to fall apart. It's just that all the clues point to it, and it's thematically consistent, and it has such high potential for storytelling chaos, and setting ESO during the interregnum almost feels like foreshadowing, and...

Anyway, I'd love to see some of the fandom writers who gravitate towards "big picture" stories take on a radical redrawing of Tamriel's political map. Provinces getting broken down and new borders forming. New political powers rising to fill the power vacuum. Independence of the Reach. A new Empire, not centered on Cyrodiil. Argonian ascendancy. A new world order, reshuffled completely from previous expectations.

Print out a B&W map of Tamriel, break out your crayons, and go absolutely hog wild.

[girlboss-emporium]

Riften NPCs as dril tweets

Inspired by the iconic Markarth NPCs as dril tweets by @captainmarkarth

[learielle]

Valsanna Wall-Hewer | Queen of Cups 

for @captainmarkarth 

[nientedenada]

"Madmen of the Reach" and "The Bear of Markarth": A Close Reading of Ariannus Arius' Works

@captainmarkarth asked that I put this old post up next. It's been three years since I wrote this on r/teslore, and it's the first in an impromptu trilogy of Markarth Incident posts I wrote, so there is more to format and post on tumblr.

In retrospect, I made one pretty big mistake in those posts. In fandom, we often use "The Markarth Incident" to apply to the entire chain of events in Markarth, from the Nords taking back the city to Ulfric's arrest sometime afterwards. In game, the characters only refer to the final bit with the Thalmor showing up to complain as the Markarth Incident itself.

Not another Markarth Incident thread, you may cry, but I hope I can make up for how this topic has been rehashed to death with a close reading of Arrianus Arius’ two works on the Forsworn. ( I’ve come to Elder Scrolls Lore from my usual life as a history buff.)

I'm sure you all know already that the main detailed source for Ulfric’s participation in war crimes committed during/after the Markarth Incident is the book by Arius, The Bear of Markarth. It’s absolutely an anti-Stormcloak propaganda pamphlet in its language and tone, and can be unintentionally hilarious. For example,

In all the bravado and epic yarns the skalds compose of his exploits, you would think Ulfric to be a giant of a man, equal to that of Tiber Septim in his cunning, leadership, and decisive actions.

And then the pamphlet insists he isn’t like Tiber Septim because actually Ulfric is a bloodthirsty conqueror of the Reachmen …. The Irony!

But I think a lot of discussions of Arius and his bias misidentify what that bias is exactly. He’s often discussed as an apologist for the Forsworn, whose sympathetic anthropology of their culture provides an explanation for his impassioned defence of their Kingdom and denunciation of their oppressor Ulfric. I think that’s a misreading of Arius’ texts. Arius is certainly sympathetic to the plight of the Reachmen, but his primary purpose as a propagandist in The Bear of Markarth is not to champion the Forsworn, but to uphold the Empire. The text in fact ends up upholding the very people, the current Nord establishment of Markarth, who are oppressing the Forsworn at the time of Arius’ writings, the people his other work obliquely criticizes.

I’ll begin with that other work, because I think it provides a lot of context for The Bear of Markarth. Arius’ book The "Madmen" of the Reach: A Cultural Treatise on the Forsworn subtitled A defense of the Forsworn is often pointed to as an example of the author’s bias. And yet, of the two works, this one is way more honest about the Forsworn’s dark side, and has some odd contradictory interplay with The Bear of Markarth. The two works don’t actually fit together very neatly at all.

Right off the bat, Arius in Madmen starts with Tiber Septim

Since the legendary victory of Tiber Septim over the "barbarian natives" in the Battle of Old Hroldan, Imperial and Nord scholarship has cast the people of the Reach as little more than savages, prone to irrational fits of violence, worshipping old, heretical gods, and fetishizing beasts and nature spirits that any civilized person would best well avoid. In truth, these accounts are little more than "victor's essays," a perspective narrowed by the Empire's constant strife with the ancient, proud people that lived in this land far before Tiber Septim walked the soil of Tamriel. In light of this, I hope to create a more complete, accurate, and fair assessment of a group that has long suffered under the role of "enemy," "troublemakers," and "them."

This intro is ironic in light of his opening salvo in Bear that Ulfric isn’t anything like Tiber Septim in his treatment of the Reach. Arius shows here that he knows exactly what the parallels are and he’s choosing to deny them in Bear of Markarth. It’s a good example of how the latter work functions as propaganda.

Arius continues his investigation of the Forsworn. The motivation he states in-text is the Legion’s issues with the Forsworn.

Let us begin with the Forsworn, the so-called "madmen" of the Reach. The Imperial Legion classifies them as little more than brigands, noting their constant raids and ambushes within the Hold. But none of their military reports asks the question of "why?" If they were merely a group of bandits, surely they would be focused on acquiring gold and minimizing deaths among their own. But the opposite is true in Forsworn attacks. Large sums of coin are often left behind, and their fighters easily throw away their lives rather than risk capture by Imperial soldiers.

It is this incongruity that led me to Markarth, the capital city of the Reach, in search of answers.

I think I can buy this curiosity was at least Arius’ original motivation in researching the Forsworn, even if he becomes heavily emotionally and politically involved later. Because the rest of his text is a very sober answer to this question, and it absolutely doesn’t whitewash the Forsworn.

There, I met one of the native peoples, an old woman who preferred to not be named in my writings. She told me of her family's long history. How she believes they originally came from High Rock, home of the Bretons (which would explain the similar faces and stature of the two peoples). How the Nords came and took their lands, their gods, and their culture from them. When asked about the Forsworn, the old woman would say that they are the "real" men and women of the Reach: those that refused to give in to the Nords. Those that still practiced the ancient traditions that the rest of their people had abandoned in exchange for peace.

In time, I was able to create trust with many more natives in my search that corroborated the old woman's story.

These investigations report the Forsworn side of the story in a fairly bloodless, vague way. They’re akin to Bretons (not a big surprise), the invaders took away “their lands, their gods, and their culture.” They still practice “their ancient traditions.” The actual details of the culture and traditions, which we know include Daedra worship and human sacrifice are downplayed here, which could be seen as Arius’ tendency towards whitewashing the Forsworn. However, this isn’t where the story ends, because Arius is just about to experience major culture shock.

By chance, one of them arranged a meeting between myself and what I thought was an elder member of his village. I was shocked to find that I was led to a camp, filled with the animal skulls, severed heads, and still beating hearts that I had read about from the military reports back in the Imperial City. There, I met Cortoran, a Forsworn, who seemed amused at the prospect of me writing down his story. Which I quote in full below:

"You want to know who the Forsworn are? We are the people who must pillage our own land. Burn our own ground. We are the scourge of the Nords. The axe that falls in the dark. The scream before the gods claim your soul. We are the true sons and daughters of the Reach. The spirits and hags have lived here from the beginning, and they are on our side. Go back. Go back and tell your Empire that we will have our own kingdom again. And on that day, we will be the ones burying your dead in a land that is no longer yours."

Arius’ “defence’ of the Forsworn turns out not to be a whitewashing at all. In fact, he confirms that the Imperial reports are right about them. What he objects to isn’t the bloodthirstiness of the Forsworn. It’s the way his fellow Imperials see them as aimless madmen rather than dispossessed people with a very rational commitment to terrorism to take back their land. His “defence” of the Forsworn is asking that people take them seriously as a real threat with real motivations that need to be understood.

Now, how that shades into his politics regarding the Reach is an interesting and difficult question. Madmen seems to be only the beginning of a larger inquiry into the people of the Reach

Let us begin with the Forsworn, the so-called "madmen" of the Reach.

That implies that his larger work would have included more on the “civilized” Reachmen, those who gave up the old ways “for peace.” From his opening concern that scholars need to stop “othering” the natives of the Reach, and his frequent reminders that the Reachmen are the original, long-conquered natives of the land, I think it’s safe to say he supports some form of self-governance and territorial restitution to the Reachmen. That’s borne out very clearly later in Bear of Markarth. His general message seems to be that the Empire needs to take the Reachmen’s history and claims seriously, else they’re just going to keep being bled to death there by the Forsworn. Arius, therefore, is just the sort of person who’d be sympathetic to the story of Madanach’s two-year-long Forsworn Kingdom.

Going from Madmen to Bear, there’s a huge switch in tone. They’re written by the same person, with the same sympathy towards the Reachmen, but the first is trying to inform its audience about the nuances of an issue, while the latter is a rhetoric-heavy argument to demonize one side: Ulfric Stormcloak and his militia. This doesn’t mean I’m discounting Arius’ allegations. There are some other sources in-game that I personally think can support at least some of them. But that’s a huge debate for another time. This post is meant to be a close reading of Arius’ texts themselves. Who is “Bear of Markarth” written for? And what is its purpose?

The Bear of Markarth The Crimes of Ulfric Stormcloak by Arrianus Arius, Imperial Scholar An account of Ulfric Stormcloak's short-lived independent reign over the Reach

That subtitle is interesting. “Short-lived independent reign.” As we’ll see, Arius’ text completely leaves out the Jarl of Markarth’s involvement in this story. It’s Ulfric Stormcloak ruling over the Reach and committing war crimes like crazy till the Empire has to step in and save the day. Despite the author’s sympathy towards the Forsworn, the main thrust of Arius’ text is actually a defence of the Empire and the current administration of Markarth. And part of the audience Arius is posturing for is the Aldmeri Dominion. He’s performatively carrying out compliance with the White Gold Concordat in the same manner as the Imperial author of The Talos Mistake. From Arius’ other work, I can accept that he really does feel for the Reachmen, but The Bear of Markarth is primarily a justification offered up for why the Empire shouldn’t really be blamed for any of this mess. (My personal headcanon is that Arius as a scholar with an interest in this area was commissioned to write this propaganda pamphlet for a more popular audience.)

On to reading the pamphlet,

Ulfric Stormcloak is considered a hero by many for his part in quelling the Forsworn Uprising. It is said that when the Empire abandoned Skyrim, and the natives of the Reach rebelled (undoubtedly due to the Nords poor treatment of them), Ulfric Stormcloak and his militia was there to retake "their" land from the Forsworn. In all the bravado and epic yarns the skalds compose of his exploits, you would think Ulfric to be a giant of a man, equal to that of Tiber Septim in his cunning, leadership, and decisive actions.

I’ve already mentioned the ironic invocation of Tiber Septim here. There's an interesting discrepancy in the history here. Madmen doesn’t focus on the historical role of the Nords as occupiers to the exclusion of the Empire’s strife with the people of the Reach. In fact, Madmen constantly reminds the reader that the Empire bears a lot of historical responsibility for strife with the Reachmen, and that their current ignorance is also to blame. In Bear, the only important motivation for the Forsworn rebels is “the Nords poor treatment”.

But the truth is far more revealing. Yes, from 4E 174-176, the Forsworn did in fact rule over the Reach as an independent kingdom from Skyrim. Yes, this was accomplished while the Empire was beset by Aldmeri Dominion forces and could not send the Legion to re-establish order. And yes, Ulfric Stormcloak did quell the rebellion without Imperial assistance. That much is true, but what the bards often fail to tell in their stories is that the Forsworn Kingdom was quite peaceful for those 2 years they were in power.

Arius’ claim that the Forsworn Kingdom was peaceful in that short period is very curious indeed. It’s not what I’d expect from his investigation of the Forsworn in Madmen. However, Madmen doesn’t discuss the Forsworn Uprising in particular. Its depiction of the Forsworn is at the time of writing the book, ie. Some years after the uprising?, with some assumptions that what he sees now is deeply rooted in the Reach’s history. It’s actually very possible that the Forsworn Kingdom did avoid some of the violence they later descended and/or returned to. But . . .

True, some crimes were committed against former Nord landowners (often those accused of being the harshest towards their native workers),

If you’ve read even a smidgeon of history, you’ll recognize this phrasing as the favourite refuge of those trying not to acknowledge the atrocities of their favoured side. “Ok, some of them got murdered, but they deserved it. Let’s move on.” (True, judging by the Silver-Bloods, they may have deserved it.)

From all we know of the Forsworn elsewhere, including from Madmen, those deaths were probably pretty gruesome, and excellent for motivating Ulfric’s militia. But it’s very likely true that there weren’t that many crimes, compared to the later reprise against the Forsworn, just because there are way fewer Nord landowners and overseers than regular Reachmen.

but on the whole the Forsworn ruled their lands fairly, and were making overtures to be recognized by the Empire as a legitimate kingdom.

In the wake of the aftermath of the Great War, you can imagine the backlog on stately matters the Empire had. Before a peace treaty could be resolved with the Forsworn, a militia led by Ulfric Stormcloak sieged the gates of their capital, Markarth.

Raise your hand if you think the Empire was quiet just because they were backlogged working out the White-Gold Concordat. Anyone? Nah, I think they were very relieved that Ulfric’s militia resolved this particular problem, which would have upset the Empire’s relationship with Skyrim’s political establishment. They waited out Madanach. But as usual in this text, Arius’ main concern isn’t actually defending the Forsworn’s state, but the Empire’s track record.

What happened during that battle was war, but what happened after the battle was over is nothing short of war crimes.

Every official who worked for the Forsworn was put to the sword, even after they had surrendered. Native women were tortured to give up names of Forsworn fighters who had fled the city or were in the hills of the Reach. Anyone who lived in the city, Forsworn and Nord alike, were executed if they had not fought with Ulfric and his men when they breached the gates. "You are with us, or you are against Skyrim" was the message on Ulfric's lips as he ordered the deaths of shopkeepers, farmers, the elderly, and any child old enough to lift a sword that had failed in the call to fight with him.

There were war crimes in the aftermath of the Markarth Incident. Arius’ account here squares with Madanach’s story and the testimony of Braig in Cidhna Mine, as well as comments by Raerek. There are some issues with squaring the timeline, and a lot of implication that the war crimes didn’t just happen back then, they’re going on till the current day. So it’s not all at Ulfric’s feet, whatever the truth is.

But putting aside the ever thorny question of Ulfric’s responsibility, Arius’ account is interesting for how it completely omits the Jarl of Markarth, Igmund’s father, Hrolfdir. (It’s the Jarl whom Braig accuses of personally having his daughter killed, for example.) I don’t just mean that Hrolfdir isn’t committing atrocities in Arius’ version. Hrolfdir doesn’t exist in his version.

In-game, Igmund is very clear in telling the story of the Markarth Incident. Hrolfdir and co. promised free worship of Talos in exchange for Ulfric getting the Reach back. Igmund’s version can probably be trusted because it doesn’t actually reflect well on him and his father. He’s admitting their participation in the mess. But in Arius’ version, this offer never happened. The free worship of Talos will be demanded later in the story, from the Legion.

So, the first outcome of Arius’ propaganda is to prop up Igmund’s governance of the Hold. And that’s really weird, when you think about it. Isn’t Arius supposed to be the defender of the Forsworn? And yet he comes up with a version of the Markarth Incident that legitimizes its current Nord governors – the same ones who are supposedly responsible for the Forsworn Uprising – by leaving them out of the entire Markarth Incident. Ulfric takes all the glory and all the blame.

It’s weird in terms of Arius’ sympathies, but when you consider this is an Imperial defence, it makes a lot of sense. The Jarls of Markarth, legitimate rulers under Imperial law, get omitted because they’re part of the current Imperial organization of Skyrim, not because Arius seems to personally care for them.

So when a "grateful" Empire accepted Ulfric's victory and sent soldiers to re-establish the rule of law in the Reach, it was no surprise that he would demand to be allowed to worship Talos freely before the Legion could enter. With chaos running through the streets of Markarth and the reports of deaths rising every day, the Empire had no choice but to grant Ulfric and his men their worship.

Again, no mention of the promise from Hrolfdir before Ulfric arrived. In this version Ulfric came up with the ultimatum, made the ultimatum to the Legion, and the Legion only accepted it to save the lives of the poor people of Markarth from Ulfric. I try to weigh various possibilities, so it may be that Arius believes this version. Maybe Hrolfdir wasn’t too vocal about his deal with Ulfric beforehand. Possible. Not very probable, since Igmund seems pretty up front about how it went . . . If Arius missed that detail, he’s a very sloppy scholar. But I think it’s more likely he’s left the deal out because it makes Ulfric seem sympathetic and Hrolfdir treacherous or stupid.

Did the Legion, separate from Hrolfdir (though likely with prodding from him) accept the condition of tolerating Talos worship? I’m going to say yes. In an account that consistently defends the Empire above everything else, why would Arius single out the Legion’s assent if they weren’t involved? My own reading of the situation goes like this.

Hrolfdir makes the deal with Ulfric.

Ulfric’s militia takes Markarth. Hrolfdir is restored.

The Legion, which is not very strong on the ground in Skyrim yet, gets to Markarth now it’s won back. Ulfric (and Hrolfdir?) get their co-operation before officially letting them in.

It’s quite possible, by the way, the unnamed Legion commander was worried about atrocities within the city, Even if they weren’t morally outraged, they might be worried about Hrolfdir sending the situation in further chaos and disorder.

It’s also possible this hypothetical Legion commander didn’t care at all about any atrocities and was completely happy to agree to this wonderful plan his fellow veteran Legionnaire had come up with.

On to the last paragraph, which really makes it clear why Arius is writing this.

We allowed them to worship Talos, in full violation of the White-Gold Concordat with the Aldmeri Dominion (which recognizes the elven belief that Talos, as a human, cannot be one of the Divines). In jeopardizing the treaty that so many sacrificed for during the Great War, the Empire was wrong. But what choice did they have, I ask you? Against the Bear of Markarth, Ulfric Stormcloak, "no" is not an answer.

The Markarth Incident needed to be explained and a scapegoat put forward. Ulfric Stormcloak, the war criminal whom even the Empire could not fully resist, but who they are now rightfully pursuing, is that man. Apologies to the Aldmeri Dominion, of course we’re still complying with the White-Gold Concordat. And we’ll write a pamphlet to make that very, very clear. The plight of the Forsworn is the side issue here. Arius cares about them, but that's not the point of this text.

[mxnzies]

WIP Something

thank you so much to @captainmarkarth for thinking of me for this WIP [Something]... thing! challenge? basically you post a snippet of a current WIP for people to read, which is such a super cool idea!

anyways, it means a lot and it's so thoughtful! thank you again lovely ❤️ for my tags I'm gonna go with: @jellyfitzjelly @setaflow @kahootqueen69 @bup-iv-icaine @fighting-naturalist & @caravaggiosbrushes 🥰❤️ please feel free to do it even if you weren't tagged though, everyone's WIP collections are always fun to take a peek into!

this is a WIP I've been mulling over for a while now, the beginning of a oneshot between Lady Dimitrescu and an OFC. dunno what it's called, but hey when the horny calls the horny calls. just some minor TWs for blood drinking and a mature/T rating for this bit. hope you enjoy!! 💖

Crackling flames spread warmth across her skin as she lay limp in her Lady’s arms, breathing slowly as caresses from cool fingertips ghost across her body.

She does not know how long she has spent in this embrace. Time slows when her Lady commands it, every sensation upon her body magnified by powers unknown to her. She is never frightened, never worried, never hesitant. For she knows her Lady will only take what she needs. For she knows her Lady will bring her ecstasy in return for her offering.

The wooden beams high above are out of focus. She jolts as her Lady’s hands move lower while whispers of praise wash over her like water. A sense of purity comes from those words. She has been given a holy purpose: to live and serve the rest of her days within these warm walls, dedicating her every breath, her every heartbeat, to her Lady.

A breathy moan escapes her throat when she feels lips press against her jaw. An unspoken command is issued through the action: bare yourself to me.

The fire swims like water before her eyes. Tightness builds in her chest; she knows what her Lady is to do. She longs for the spark of pleasure that floods through her body at the piercing of the skin. It is an addiction. Her Lady merely crooks a finger to indicate her want, and she comes, eager to give patronage.

A moment later, her back arches in pleasure, the tightness dissipating wonderfully. Fangs suck her blood like honey, a deep moan reverberating through her Lady’s chest. You are a delicacy, the memory murmurs in her mind. Never before has she felt so whole in another’s arms. She can barely recall a time where she ever felt as complete as she does now, keening with her pleasure.

The haze in her mind only increases as the warm blood is drawn to satiate her Lady’s hunger. Once, she did feel fear at the thought of her Lady drinking so much her body would dry, but her Lady is anything but selfish with the blood flowing under her skin.

Fingers gently fist themselves in the fabric of the satin night-dress as a climax from the feeding alone causes her whole body to shudder. A large hand rests across her abdomen, but does not travel lower. If this is enough to make you squirm, I cannot imagine how easily you would break if I were to stimulate you further, my Maiden.

Pitiful groans leave her dry lips when she feels the fangs retract from the vein in her neck. A gentle huff of amusement fans across her exposed skin at the sound; she can feel the smile on her Lady’s lips as she gently swipes her tongue over the small puncture marks to seal them. “You have done so well,” she purrs; the appraisal makes the woman nestled in her lap smile tiredly, the fists loosening and dropping down as she curls further into her Lady’s embrace.

Sleep now, Maiden, her voice comes as if in a dream, though it is spoken in a low tone. Until tomorrow.

[raunchyandpaunchy]

Okay you know I gotta ask about 49-893-1100

Ohohoho, had a feeling you might ask about this one. This is a non-con work, so I'm gonna put this under a read-more:

I don't have a lot for it so far, pretty much just the premise of the fic, which is: Dojima's men, during the Empty Lot incident, take a different tack on how they put the screws to Kiryu (by going after Nishiki instead). It's uh, yeah. It's not gonna be a fun time for either one.

The only thing I've written so far is the opening, which actually does explain the title somewhat, so here that is:

Kiryu’s halfway through his third whiskey of the evening when his pager beeps. It’s from Nishiki. The numbers 49-893-1100 flash up on the screen—urgent, yakuza, and then, more puzzlingly, video.

(Pager code/goroawase is super fun. Also, hopefully this gives away just enough to hint at what might be going down)

[leahazel]

[Reply to this post, transcript behind the fold.]

L-O-L I know you would be screaming in my mentions as soon as you read the chapter. Don’t worry, it’s only a week. And I promise it’ll be worth it.

captainmarkarth said: You are KILLING me with the cliffhanger on this one. Absolutely illegal lmaooo (I love it, ngl)                          

[raunchyandpaunchy]

I'm not sure if you remember 'Exile Pitbull to Alaska', and if not I encourage you to look it up, but where in Skyrim would you exile Pitbull if given the choice?

So, this has been sitting in my inbox for like a week now because I've been busy pondering this question, which feels like it has an objectively correct answer. And after much deliberation, I think I now have it!

Mr. Worldwide's next gig is gonna be in Skaal Village, Solstheim.

(PS: I'd somehow missed Pitbull being Exiled to Alaska, so thank you for sharing this with me, lmao.)

[leahazel]

Immediately after making that post, the Fates struck me with a nosebleed for my hubris.

Anyway, I'm posting chapter 47 tomorrow, so you have almost 2 months to guess who the NPC is.

[leahazel]

💭, 🌝 and 👖 for the fic asks!

💭 What is a headcanon you have about your own work?

I... actually managed to work in most of the peripheral details, for BFS. A lot of the stuff about Corinne's family is being held in the wings. As it's shaping up now, I don't know whether we'll get to the point where we see them in person, especially the older sister, Danilia. There are things that I implied but didn't directly address, and there are some hints that I dropped that will get revisited, later.

Oh! I don't think I ever clearly stated anyone's age, except Corinne's. At one point, I decided to make Thonar a full decade younger than Thongvor, because I thought it would make the dynamics more interesting. But hey, it turns out that most adults don't constantly discuss their age. It dies, however, mean that the age difference between Thongvor and Corinne is fully triple that of the age difference between Thonar and Betrid. Which makes Betrid about a decade older than Corinne, which again, never needs to come up.

It also means that Thonar was no older than fifteen or sixteen when he ran off after his brother to join the Legion. You can imagine how his parents felt about that.

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

I thought about it over Pilates class lol, and I decided that the top Skyrim characters I've not yet written are probably Astrid and Balgruuf. Of course, I could maybe still write a Balgruuf POV later, but I don't know whether I'll be able to fit him in. And Astrid could only fit in a flashback chapter, which I don't think is a good use of my story space, right now. I was going to say Elisif and Tullius, but we're definitely going to see them later, even if they might not get POV chapters. There's only one character who's definitely never getting a POV, and I'm not gonna say who that is.

I've written a fair number of other Skyrim fics (most of them years and years ago), and I was only recently cataloging the POV scenes in BFS. So actually, I've written more characters than I'd realized. Then again, Skyrim is a huge game and it has hundreds of named NPCs. I'm not ambitious enough to write all of them.

👖 Are you a planner, plantser, or pantser? Is it consistent?

Consistently a plantser, at least as a grownup. As a teen, and in my early twenties, I was very precious about the written word. It was easy for me to imagine that once I had set something on paper, it ought to be untouchable.

As an adult, I want to write longer, more complex works. Or short works! But that are still complex! Anyway, I find that the effect I want to achieve can be done only with a certain amount of planning ahead, but I need to keep an element of surprise. Both so that I can maintain my own interest in the story through what's called "discovery writing" (a flattering synonym for pantsing, if you will), but also so that the story can remain flexible to its own emerging themes.

This is most obvious with my fanfic. The most planned of my long-form fics is Snowfall, and it's also the one with consistently the slowest update schedule. Compare that to Decline and Fall, which I wrote thousands of words for, over months, before losing steam and slowing down to a trickle (partly because of the canon and the spoiler element). What works best for me is to harness that "new fic energy" to get a big lead on the start of the story, and then work up from daydreams, to unordered bullet lists of upcoming plot points, to an actual, ordered outline. All while writing, in parallel.

Lately, I'm trying to harness the energy that I put into fic, and try to find a way to use a similar methodology for original writing. It has not yet worked as planned, but someday I'll nail the formula, and then I'll be unbeatable.

[leahazel]

(Reply to this.)

Posting teasers to Tumblr is the best decision I ever made. I only just realized that this excerpt doesn't have a name in it.

[leahazel]

For the WIP meme: moon

[For this meme.]

Meant to answer this yesterday, got distracted.

Also of note, I just discovered that Draftin has a global search feature, and I really wish I'd used it on Tuesday. Alas, most of the search results were for posted fics.

1. Down in the lower city, she could see patches of dark between the lights, like the shadow of a crescent moon in a starry sky.

[This line appeared once before for this meme, bless Verity and her dramatic scenery descriptions.]

2. Clad from top to toe in steel plate, the strange knight's pristinely black tabard bore a silver design like a crescent moon, its beams angling downward.

I could've sworn I had more than these two, but apparently not.

[leahazel]

BfS--4, 9 and 16!

4) Who's your favorite character to write?

This one was more difficult to answer than I expected.

So, I love writing Corinne. Loving being inside the head of my protagonist is essential to my writing process and to my general happiness, even when I'm jumping between POVs, as in BFS. However, Corinne's viewpoint can also feel pretty claustrophobic, over time, because of her numerous and extensive blind spots, especially with respect to her own faults.

So I end up really enjoying any character who I "take for a spin" for just one chapter. Relatively recently, that was Silda, the Nord beggar who teaches pickpocketing in Windhelm. And not just because I got to slip in my pet headcanon, that Silda and Elda are sisters. There's another (secret) one-time-only POV I'm really looking forward to writing, but there's a lot of ground to cover before then, too. I've been planning towards it for a long time.

9) Was there ever a scene or character you ever had to cut?

This happens a fair bit, due to my habit of writing scenes nonlinearly, as a method for coping with writer's block.

I wrote a piece of dialogue between Corinne and Tamira twice, cut the first version when it didn't fit into continuity, and then had to fit all the same information into later scenes between them. I also had two versions of a scene between Corinne and Thongvor in Windhelm, when I decided that changing the POV from hers to his makes the reveal punchier. Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

And, of course, I recently cut a bit of distant backstory for a minor OC that hasn't yet appeared, when I discovered that I had the canon continuity all screwed up in my head. There's nowhere in the timeline that the backstory I was thinking of would have worked.

16) How long is the story/draft at the time of answering this?

I keep the story in multiple drafts, so this was a bit of a calculation.

On AO3, BFS is currently a whopping 152,233 words.

Totaling all my drafted but unposted chapters, snippets, and so on, they come to about 7700 words.

Altogether, just shy of 160K.

[raunchyandpaunchy]

Whiterun NPCs as dril tweets Inspired by @captainmarkarth's Markarth NPCs as dril tweets and @jjgremlinson's Riften NPCs as dril tweets

[nientedenada]

Windhelm NPCs as Dril Tweets Ulfric Stormcloak, Calixto Corrium Galmar Stone-Fist, Ambarys Rendar Angrenor Once-Honoured, Rolff Stone-Fist

Inspired by Markarth NPCs as dril tweets by @captainmarkarth and Riften NPCs as dril tweets by @jjgremlinson