"HOW Do You Imagine Yourself Surviving As A House Telvanni Wizard???!!! You Don't Even Know THE BASICS!!!!"

Fic Lines! Tag Game~

Thank you to @dirty-bosmer @kookaburra1701 @elfinismsarts @friend-of-giants @mareenavee @ehlnofeh and... anyone else who tagged me that I might have missed. It's been hectic irl for me, and I haven't gotten a chance to devote a lot of time to Tumblr Tings, but this seemed like a lot of fun.

I'm gonna try to pull from "Breathing Water" and "Liminal Bridges", since I'm currently working on the latter -- so I'll include some unpublished stuff from that as well!

The rules are to share:

A line from your fic that makes you laugh

“You’re in a mood,” Neloth declared through a chuckle. “And you’re distracting me. Which is not helpful, mind you.”  Teldryn leaned in a bit closer. “Is that a bad thing?” “Shoo. Away with you.” Neloth flapped a hand at him. “Let me do my work. Unless you had a terribly important reason for coming to find me.”  “Maybe I just missed you.”  “Yes, well, absence does make the heart grow fonder. So go away.”

(from Liminal Bridges) Neloth and Teldryn's banter makes me laugh a lot.

A line from your fic that makes you sad

“I do…” Neloth began, and Teldryn jumped ever so slightly. Neloth’s voice was so ragged that he felt a little startled himself, barely recognizing the sound. He cleared his throat. “I do… feel.” He twisted the stiff bedroll between his fingers. “I do.” Teldryn said nothing, continuing to look straight ahead.  “It’s just…” He didn’t know where he was going with this, but the words were clawing their way out of him, like some kind of sick, emaciated animal emerging from a cave. “I don’t think I… feel… correctly .”

(from Breathing Water)

A line from your fic you're proud of

For a long moment, all he could see was darkness. Then, the shimmering light of his spell began to catch the edges of shapes, vague and distant. Dozens of ships, scattered like the splintered bones of giants across the ocean floor.

(from Breathing Water)

A line from your fic you think could have been better

Neloth hadn't quite gotten used to the new way of things.

(from Liminal Bridges) I actually went in and altered this line to read: "Neloth had difficulty adapting to the new way of things." but I'm still not entirely satisfied with it. Bleh... best not overthink it too much, I reckon.

A line from your fic that makes you want to punch a character

“It’s not like you even teach me,” Talvas argued. “You just use me as a–a slave.”  “I’ve owned many slaves, my dear boy. If you view the meager work I assign to you as akin to slavery, then there’s no doubt you are just as weak as I previously anticipated. You would have found yourself in shackles had you lived in Morrowind not two hundred years ago.” He sneered, beginning to turn away. “But very well. Get out of my sight. Such spinelessness is unbefitting of anyone who wishes to carry on the legacy of House Telvanni.”

(from a yet-unpublished chapter of Liminal Bridges!) I want to punch Neloth often. It's why I love him so much.

A line from your fic that makes you go 'aww'

“Cold are you?”  “Damn you,” Neloth retorted, looping a leg around one of Teldryn’s. He was as hot as a furnace and Neloth groaned at the warmth, wriggling his frozen toes beneath Teldryn’s calves.  “Aye!” he yelped, trying to jerk away. “You have icicles for feet, you bloody frost troll!” “It’s your duty as my partner to warm my feet,” Neloth argued, tugging the covers up around his shoulders and shifting down to press himself against Teldryn’s side.  “Partner, is it?”  Neloth looked up, a flicker of panic catching in his chest. He’d said that, hadn’t he? Partner. Teldryn was looking down at him with soft eyes, the barest hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.  Neloth cleared his throat. “Would you prefer a different term?”   “No.” Teldryn slid further beneath the covers, wrapping a warm arm around Neloth’s waist. “No, not at all. I… I like that.” He pulled their bodies together, no longer flinching away from Neloth’s cold feet. “And I certainly need to uphold my duties.”

(from Liminal Bridges)

A line from your fic that's full of symbolism

Neloth said nothing, chewing nervously at the side of his tongue as Teldryn slipped a hand beneath his linen undershirt, running a warm, smooth palm across his sides. What on Nirn had possessed him to say ‘partner’? It was supposed to have been harmless banter; their usual back-and-forth. Now, the future stretched before him in branching uncertainty, sprouting delicate buds of possibility that could so easily be clipped or stunted by the cold.

(from Liminal Bridges) A continuation from the scene that "makes me go 'aww'". Honestly it took a while to pick a snippet. I write in unintentional symbolism all the time, or so it's been pointed out to me lol. That, and I love metaphor.

A line from your fic that contains an Easter egg

“For now, we need to try to talk our way out of this. I don’t think I’ll be able to cast any time soon.”  Teldryn let out a low chuckle. “Well, luckily, that’s something I can do.” He unstrapped his bracer and pulled his right glove off. On his middle finger sat a glimmering ring – a moon and star. “I can be incredibly convincing.”

(from Breathing Water) The Moon and Star ring has a charisma boon -- it fortifies personality and speechcraft LMAO.

A line from your fic that's shocking

He looked down at his own body and a wave of sickness washed over him, coupled with the feeling that what he was seeing couldn’t possibly be real: a sword protruding from the center of his stomach.

(from Breathing Water)

A line from your fic you want to talk about more

Agatha huffed a laugh under her breath, removing an empty alembic and replacing it with a kettle on her alchemy workbench. “Your charisma is one of your greatest strengths, Mister Sero. You would make a good diplomat.” “I beg to differ,” he scoffed. “Look at all the good it did me in the First Era.”  A sudden coldness settled behind his breastbone at his own words. An odd slip-up. He’d taken great care throughout his life to separate himself from Nerevar. The phantom memories that came to him in dreams, the loyalties he couldn’t seem to shake, the opinions that seemed to spring from his head fully formed, as if crafted by decades of experience… No. It was the result of knowing his history—knowing Morrowind’s history. Teldryn Sero and Indoril Nerevar were not the same person. To imply otherwise was too frightening.

(from an unpublished future chapter of Liminal Bridges!)

The difference between past Topsy writing Breathing Water and current Topsy writing Liminal Bridges, is that I've actually PLAYED Morrowind now and have a lot more insight into the whole Nerevarine business. And I really wanted to dig a little harder into Teldryn's relationship with being the Nerevarine, specifically what that means for him psychologically. I know there are 100 different ways to spin the reincarnation, but I've settled on the shape of "He's literally just Nerevar".

I tag @vidvana @trickstarbrave @tkwritesdumbassassins @daedrabait and anyone else who wants to jump in and hasn't already been tagged!

Tagged by @the-sunlit-earth

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5 songs I listen to a lot recently:

Fair and Guiling Copesmate Death by Theatre of Tragedy *

Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids by Cradle of Filth *

Aquatic Gardens of Extra-Celestial Delights by Shpongle

Herr Mannelig by Garmana

Damien by Iced Earth *

My Lost Lenore by Tristania

ok, it's 6

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(*) recommended for metalheads

Schoolyear's coming, gonna be drawing a lot of Talvas crying over books. Hence this practice piece.

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The second piece: the Dunmer of the Raven Rock. I love Solstheim, gonna move there after I die.

Medieval dress Linariel

Lil mushroom enjoyer :3

just another masta neloth wannabe

pictures i made today with corpses

"I saw the imperfections in everything I ever attempted," said Seht, glancing at the map of Nirn.

"Even imperfections in my pursuit to rid myself of them.

Yet I could never stop tinkering. I could never stop creating. I loved her too much. I will give no instruction to you who have already come to know love."

"Stolen Sweetroll"

Your dad may have most of the money in Skyrim... but stealing that sweetroll was still worth it. Just for the thrill of it!

He definitely overuses his privilige of being recognized as the hero of Skyrim because of you.

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No I'm not two different people - but yes, I'm learning envrionments and I've changed my style a bit.

My first artwork with so much perspective :)

Talvas, breaking his busy schedule for a moment.

I've heard that he's a bit of a screamer.

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Uhhh, I hope I won't get thrown into a certain kind of jail for posting that.