I designed some mock tarot cards based around my favourite horror characters for halloween! Just for fun; not intended for use :)

Pyandonea

'I had never set foot on the white sands beyond the tempest. I didn't know how the salted breeze dulled the fierce touch of the sun, or how the roots of the trees clambered above the ground, as though they wished to be closer to the sky. I did not understand warm days bathing in the shallows, or basking in the dusky light, or the cool caress of the mists that split the islands from old Aldmeris.'

"What you have done here today is foul beyond measure, and you will grow to regret it - for the lives of gods are not what mortals think, and matters that weigh only years to mortals weigh on gods forever." And so that they might know forever their wicked deeds, Azura changed the Chimer into Dunmer, and their skin turned ashen, and their eyes into fire. "Let this mark remind you of your true selves who, like ghouls, fed on the nobility, heroism, and trust of their king."

Commission for @mareenavee

Nyenna is one of my favourites as far as Dragonborns are concerned and mareenavee's fic The World on Our Shoulders is amazing and really worth the read!

Thank you so much for trusting me with this <3

June Prompt Challenge | Here Do We Toil

For @the-storytellers-seer. Thank you for the prompt <3 Beta'd by @changelingsandothernonsense & @rhiannon1199. Special shoutout to @paraparadigm and @thana-topsy for reading it and always being so encouraging.

Here Do We Toil

A researcher wakes up in an ancient temple, plagued by nightmares of boneless limbs and of drowning in ink-black seas. A god-priest with a mask of gleaming gold pulls them from the roiling waves, and their mind is changed forever. How, then, does one enthralled by Miraak's mantra reconcile with their destiny? How, then, can the Last Dragonborn recover from a betrayal they did not know was possible?

--- I have seen Lord Miraak and He has granted me His favor. He stood among the hunched forms of Seekers, their ragged robes and tentacles blowing in a breeze that smelled of rot and ancient paper. Whirlwinds of books flapped and paper scattered and all I could see after a time was the gleam of His mask as I had seen in my dreams since the drowning.

I bowed before Him under the same storms from before, the ink black sea always roiling beneath me, almost beckoning. I will never forget the cold fury, always present. Prying orbs, always gazing. I am watched, and yet I am not. In a moment, I could drown again. I could wake up below those waves, and not, in fact, in an ancient temple chamber, book in hand, at the elbow of my mercenary. But Lord Miraak prevents it even now as I write. -> Read the full story on AO3

'Then, after what felt like a lifetime riding the waves over an abyss of my own thoughts, feelings, and fears, a woman came to me. She stood with the moons hovering over one hand, the sun in the other, and her brow was crowned with a diadem of gold and silver stars. Her hair had the ebony darkness of a raven’s feathers, and all their moonlit sheen, and her eyes were the vibrant flaming amber of a cloudless sunset over a still ocean. She smiled at me, and the smile she wore was my mother’s.'

🌜🌞✨

Art by Trickster the Confused

TESV: Skyrim

Mereth

The Kingdom of Mereth, also called Falmereth, was an independent falmer kingdom that once ruled over most of the province of Skyrim, before the Atmoran-Falmer war.

Thyra Elf-Skaal

Hello Rhi :D

Here's a goose Ask for you.

Can you talk a little bit about what would have happened if Thyra had been able to go to Pyandonea with her mother before the current timeline? How would her perspective might have been changed by the time she meets Teldryn Sero? Would she have even met him, do you think, or would it be an entirely different story?

Alternatively, following the closure of her current quest, do you think she and Teldryn would try and travel to Pyandonea together?

In either of these situations, please feel free to muse over the question or give us fragments of writing :D

I think if they had gone to Pyandonea ever, it would have been for more than a holiday, being so far away and all. I don't know that the Maormer would easily accept a Nord man and a half-blooded child into their society - they have a thing about being the true heirs of the Aldmeri people, and I think may have some of the convictions about racial purity that the Altmer have. I know in ES lore a child is technically the race of its mother, but I ignore that because it makes no sense and is in my opinion just lazy lore to explain why developers couldn't be bothered to make mixed race kids (but I digress!) I think for Thyra, Pyandonea is really a symbol of her mother more than anything. It's a homeland she can't reach and pines for but would likely never fit into in reality. So it's not implausible that if the family had ever gone there, they would have chosen to come back. I suppose that experience could actually have driven Thyra the other way, not wanting to be socially rejected again in the way she was by her mother's people, and compelled her to stay on Solstheim. Fate in the form of Teldryn Sero would have come knocking eventually, but she would likely have left Solstheim under very different circumstances and with a much grimmer view of the world and the people in it. It's possible that even after Thyra rises to meet her destiny and becomes very much an adopted child of Skyrim, she will still wish to see where her mother hailed from, but I don't envision her continuing to long for the grand homecoming she has had in her mind since childhood. She is slowly getting wiser and appreciating the life she had. Maybe they would visit, travelling around Nirn, but I doubt they would stay.

Devotional art of grand Lady Leto and Her blessed twins (inspired by Her statue)

Hello! Here's a question about the Pyandonean! What if Thyra had decided to return to Solstheim the first time she'd felt that home sickness? How would her development as a character change? What about her dynamic with Teldryn? Would they have parted ways upon her turning back? Would she be able to come back from what could potentially be a backward arc?

Hey! I think if she had returned home that first time, for a while she might have tried to settle back into life as it was before. But of course, she is the LDB, so fate is going to push her where it wants her one way or another. I think it only would have solidified her desire to leave more, and possibly led her to feel bitterness towards her home and her people. I remember when I first left the place I grew up I felt a huge relief, but when I was hit with homesickness, I wasn't able to go back - I had nowhere to go. So I had to ride it out. Because of that, when I came back, I appreciated where I grew up a lot more. I think if I had never left that resentment would still be there. Of course, Teldryn would not have returned with her - I guess he would have hung around the Gray Quarter for a while, then eventually left Windhelm to find other work. He took a chance on her in the first place and didn't really expect her to last more than a week or two before either ending up dead or wanting to go back to an ordinary life. I suppose he might have doubted her more if she had gone home, ran off again, and tracked him down.

I am poorer than I was this morning.

to sing, o! to sing to worshipful hestia! to  rejoice, o! to rejoice before she who lays the  banquet, who stokes the ever luminous fire so  that the home where i rest my head is wrapped in soft protection. kind lady of the hearth, i sing to thee — kind lady of the home, i worship thee. i pray to you to create a place within this wild world that is safe for me, where i may lay my  weary head, and eat without knowing hunger.  bless my home, o luminous goddess, with your  protective hands that knows the wills and ways of the fire — keep its rage banked so that i  may rest in the plentifulness of its blessing. 

“In the worship of the latter [Dionysos], women found a religiously approved vehicle for venting their feelings in an ecstatic manner that contradicted and transcended the male-defined mentality of the Greek city-state. When possessed by the madness of Dionysos, women suddenly found themselves free of the patriarchally imposed definitions of self, womanhood, and sanity. Hence, from a nonpatriarchal perspective, the madness of Dionysos had a certain logic after all.”

[Arthur Evans, “The God of Ecstasy: Sex Roles and the Madness of Dionysos”, 1988, p. 18]

May Lady Aphrodite lead you to self love

Do you believe there is a demimonde? A half world between what we know and what we fear? A place in the shadows, rarely seen but deeply felt. Do you believe that?

PENNY DREADFUL (2014–2016) Season One · Created by John Logan

Snow White