writing TES fanfic in winter, or as i like to call it, "getting the immersive skyrim experience"

it's winter, so I'm playing Skyrim again

Skyrim Warhammers Tiered on Whackability

F-Tier: Dawnguard Rune, Orcish, Ebony

These are far too pointy and lack weight. Especially Dawnguard Rune. I enjoy the elegant cylindrical head, but it's giving aluminum. The Ebony Warhammer is actually quite ugly and inelegant, and the Orcish Warhammer has such a large mouth that it's no good for whacking at all. BAD.

D-Tier: Iron, Steel, Dwarven

Mhm, mhm, yes yes. Much more solid here, however, both steel and iron are still far too pointy. Dwarven is perfect for cudgeling, however, it unfortunately looks too small and lacks weight. 0/10 would not whack it.

C-Tier: Nordic, Daedric, Glass, Elven

A truly reprehensible level of pointy, however, these hammers clearly have some weight to them and can WHACK. I especially feel that the Elven Warhammer would be excellent for whacking.

B-Tier: Volendrung, Champion's Cudgel, Ancient Nord Warhammer

Volendrung could feasibly be S tier but they overdesigned it and made it fucking POINTY. Solid whack but NO POINTY.

Champion's Cudgel is pointy done correctly. Love the tenderizer. But not higher because I don't like the looks of that head weld.

Ancient Nord Warhammer is one solid whack, however I doubt its structural integrity, I do feel that the handle may snap.

A-Tier: Dragonbone

NOW THAT'S A SOLID WHACK. Idk why it has a little keychain holder but sure. Who tf is gonna run up on the guy with a dragon hip bone hammer? Structurally solid. Based. Nice quality welds. If you're using any hammer below this tier, kill yourself.

S-Tier: Stahlrim Warhammer

This is the SINGLE GREATEST WEAPON IN SKYRIM. THIS IS A GIANT PIECE OF ICE ROCK ATTACHED TO A HANDLE. WHACK. WHACK WHACK. WHACK WHACK. 10/10 WOULD FUCKING WHACK.

Ough my god a dragon just attscked helgen we are so fucked I'm gonna fucking throw uop

wizard college is going to kill me I swear to god. I just saw someone without a component satchel reach into their pocket and pull out a handful of LOOSE tapioca to use as a substitute for blood in their fell ritual. and it worked. I've never been so fucking mad.

experiencing microaggressions apparently

Does Urag go-Shug mean NOTHING to you people??

at this point I feel like I'm employed at Skyrim's tourism board

Just heard a lady on the news misspeak and sign off saying “Live in Riverwood- I mean live in Riverside…”

You should have acted, they're already here.

Skyrim Fanart from 2022

L - stylized text

Art asset for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

*Art credit Unknown* If anyone knows the artist comment below

Disco Nirn is back!

with chapter three! it's only been 100 days what do you mean?

as essentially a first time fic writer, I'm so grateful for the kind comments I received on the first two chapters :)

I've had fun writing it, and I still have more ideas for where to go from here

...no promises lol

my friend sent me a tiktok of someone going through the fics on Ao3 written in Latin and what fandoms they're for etc.

if they had mentioned Skyrim I would have died

I guess I may as well link them

they're not, like, particularly good, either as fics or as examples of good Latin prose, but I suppose if you wanted some translation practice that was a little different they might be fun

I do like to think that some guy went to the trouble of going all the way up to every wolf infested cave, Nord tomb, and ancient Dwemer city in the mountains of Skyrim to put a little sign outside, just so everyone knows it's called Dead Horse Pit, or Fucknar's Elbow, or Mkrngthrgtham

Hi! I was one of the quest designers at Bethesda working on Skyrim back in the day, and one of the storylines I was working on before I left was the Bardic College.

Originally, the college invited you to join as an inspiration to the other bards, and as such they would assign you a bard to follow you around and witness your deeds so that they may be remembered in song. I had planned to give the player a bardic companion who would sing songs based on things the player might do.

There was a quest with a fun junior bard who would compose a song about you based on how you acted in the quest and solved problems, and have that song spread through the inns in the world. This sort of heavy branching-and-remembering is something I loved doing in Fallout 3’s Wasteland Survival Guide, so I felt the extra dialogue budget would pay off. The goal was to give the player their own version of Sir Robin’s minstrels in Holy Grail, because we knew what sort of nonsense players get up to.

(Speaking of “nonsense players get up to”, I also designed the Sanguine quest where you retrace your drunken steps, loosely inspired by the classic “I played Oblivion blackout drunk and here’s what I found the next day”. We unofficially called it “Dude, Where’s my Horse?” But that’s a different story.)

Anyway, they ended up cutting that quest along with the orc clans storyline and a bunch of other things I had in the works. That sort of thing happens a lot, especially in ambitious open-world games, but between that and the terrible pay and other issues, I ended up leaving Bethesda to work at another studio. In return, they bumped my name out of the designers’ credits and down to “Special Thanks”, with people’s kids and dogs and the like. Shame we don’t have a union or anything to prevent that, but that’s hardly the biggest problem in the industry.

And that’s the tale of the Bard’s College Quest That Cold Have Been! And if Bsoft doesn’t sue me into Oblivion for saying all this, maybe someday I’ll tell you about the game of riddles that I wrote for Sheogorath.