Miraak kept silent. The stars glistened and his eyes glistened with them.

Time stood still.

"Even those who reside at the Tower now and claim to praise the Lady do not know her true blessing. Like trout trying to hear a nightingale serenade the stars, they run out of air before the song begins. Not even their master is capable of teaching them, for such is his nature. It could be tamed, but not changed.”

“But don’t we both have the same nature?”

“You do and you do not. He is made from infinity. You are time and hour, endless yet finite. In knowing both you will know the music.”

reblogging this with a link to the first chapter of ahst dinoksetiid aka the fic about these two losers (and some other stuff) where this scene is from. finally posted the first chapter and hoping it doesn't take me 20 years to write the rest.

“I thought there might be some measure of hope still left for you.”

“Hope?” The word was uttered with disdain. “I thought you were smarter than that, elf,” Miraak said, turning his ethereal form to the surrounding peaks. “I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I would sooner spend a second eternity in Apocrypha than allow it to poison my mind.”

He turned to Solinar again.

“There is no hope, only action.”

new year's presents for my friends this year

“Thank you, I suppose you of all people would know about the dangers of daedric influence,” was what he wanted to say. But what actually came out was—

“Are you worried about me?”

Solinar thought he imagined Miraak’s eyes widening slightly.

“What if I am?”

“I—”

He did not know how to end that sentence.

“I thought there might be some measure of hope still left for you.”

“Hope?” The word was uttered with disdain. “I thought you were smarter than that, elf,” Miraak said, turning his ethereal form to the surrounding peaks. “I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I would sooner spend a second eternity in Apocrypha than allow it to poison my mind.”

He turned to Solinar again.

“There is no hope, only action.”

tes ocs (and miraak) brainrot hours yet again

Round 4; A bouquet of red spider lillies, forget-me-nots, purple hyacinth, deadly nightshades and white lillies Vs Plastic/Fake strawberry flowers

First, let's talk about the bouquet of red spider lillies, forget-me-nots, purple hyacinth, deadly nightshades and white lillies

Why these flowers were chosen and their meaning: Spider lillies: Death, final goodbyes etc. Often used in funerals and grown around cemeteries. | Forget-me-nots: self-explanatory, but also a symbol of true love. Which in this case is subverted. | Purple hyacinth: deep sorrow, regret and a desire for forgiveness. I think this one's particularly interesting because it doesn't symbolize her directly but is, rather, very strongly tied to the impact her death had. | Deadly nightshade: also self-explanatory. Symbolises betrayal. In addition -- a plant that's (both in her universe and ours) historically been used for its poisonous properties. | White lillies: purity of the departed, when talking about death. Also for white of snow. Four out of five flowers here are a popular choice for funerals/are associated with death. She died really young, betrayed, at the hands of the person she loved and trusted a lot, so I thought it would be fitting. Also in terms of color -- all of these together in a boquet would look like a splatter of blood on snowy and rocky terrain, which is fitting to the circumstances of her death as well. Description: This character died more than three thousand years the story she is from takes place. She is related to the protagonists in two ways: first is that she's probably their great-...-great grandparent's sister. Second is that they [...] look very similar to her in terms of facial features. This is significant because the guy who killed her ends up surviving and meeting them. He's a changed man at that point. [...] indirectly, she also saved her great-..-nephew's life at least once. She lives on, very strongly, in her killer's (former lover's) memory. It's not a "haunting" or even "regret or sorrow" sort of thing, per se, but it is there. What matters the most is that he denies himself the thoughts of her because he can't admit to making a (ginormous) mistake and also because even if he wanted forgiveness, there's no one left to give it. So he just represses it further. So that guy could become what he wanted to become above all else, one had to give up what they treasured most -- could be a thing, a person, or an action. So her killer had to trick her and then carve out her heart and eat it in order to prove his loyalty to his overlords and gain what he desired. Problem is -- he ended up detesting that as well (for other reasons). So not only was her death tragic, it was also essentially for nothing. Her actual personality has been erased through time (fancy for "she's defined more by the impact she's made rather than by her actual self") but she did have an affinity for magic and was also very fond of crows. TLDR: woman killed, influences the rest of the story in many unforseen ways, gives killer ptsd which he denies having for the rest of his extremely long life until he doesn't

Check her post here

Now, let's talk about the Plastic/Fake Strawberry Flowers

Why this flower was chosen: Because he is very germaphobic and also phobic of the things that are in flowers and thus hates nature because it’s dirty (his friends even said that he would be would be a plastic flower if he were one) and strawberry because that’s the smell of the shampoo his wife used and that he can still smell on the pillow she slept on that he keeps (in a plastic case) and hugs when he’s sad Description: He’s a detective. His wife was murdered and for three years after that he didn’t leave the house because his phobias that he had before got exponentially worse. He slowly did start coming out of his house and getting better trying to figure out why his wife was murdered while solving other crimes. He has 312 phobias [...] He has impeccable memory, doesn’t like people and will 100% put his phobias and needs over manners. He can clean his house in his sleep, literally. At the end of the day he is a very nice friend but annoys the crap outa his friends and often [...] doesn’t realise they consider him a friend [...] He also says “Unless I’m wrong, which you know, I’m not”. He always has his assistant carry wipes around and wipes his hands every time he shakes someone’s hand. He is very tight (as in with money) [...] and and its hilarious when he hasn’t paid his assistant because he doesn’t have money (while still buying copious amounts of cleaning supplies) and because he’s so non confrontational he doesn’t want to ask for a raise even tho it’s a totally legit ask (which is also hilarious in and of itself) he ends up just avoiding the subject in any way possible. He once was forced to decorate for Christmas (which he doesn’t do since his wife died) and he used not a fake tree but a paper cut out of a tree. He doesn’t at all know what would insult someone and rarely knows how to make someone feel better (often failing miserably but occasionally actually helping and being super wholesome). He hates/is scared of nakedness (and doesn’t even “look” when he wees) and there was a whole thing where he had to investigate a nudist [...](he was in the end more accepting of it but still freaked out) He also wears the same clothes every day and buys shirts checked by a specific checker in a factory that he actually sent a fan letter to [...]. Anyway he is very relatable for just introverted people or awkward people in general [...]. Apart from just mostly normal people, he is relatable for the people who share his mental conditions like my dad who is a germaphobe and even tho people still don’t understand germaphobia really, he knows that he gets it and he relates to him a lot. And he has a lot of other things like anxiety, and little things like not being able to deal with change and other stuff that just make him super relatable to neurodevergent people like me. When people first look at people with mental problems they say they are weak that so little sets them off but in reality, they are dealing with so so much that you can’t see and you don’t need to deal with and they- and he is (are) so incredibly strong. I love him so much and I would say more but I don’t want to reveal who he is

Check his post here

Hin Oblaan Dreh Bo

on one hand creating an oc for the sole purpose of giving miraak a pre-dragonpriesthood background (and millenia-long guilt supression attempts) might not have been a good idea. on the other hand hooray angst and (non-)human sacrifice %)

my tes oc -- Iueleai :)

me being very normal about my tes ocs (lying) also a miraak wip i've been painting since september lol

for some reason the image descriptions i made aren't showing up on desktop (maybe that's how it's supposed to work? no idea, i've never done anything like this before) so here's a list of notes i have for each picture:

1) silvarin (on the left) and solinar (on the right) they're both dragonborn siblings (twins, actually) and both kinda racist (in different ways) when the story begins but what else is new with high elves. red/blue but flipped and red is for the magically inclined solinar/blue for the physically inclined silvarin. i like to think that their souls are two shards of a too-big piece of Akatosh and they broke apart when 'falling' on mundus. or smth.

2) that's silsol's parents. solinar gets his affinity for magic from their father and silvarin gets his physical prowess from their mother.

their father is (was, rather) a famous historian of akavir, of all things. also the reason why silvarin fights with a glaive (it was given to morananthe by faelaron as a courting gift). 3) that's iueleai (don't ask me to pronounce that. i don't know.) she's a snow elf and is a sister to silsol's great-great-great-…-great-grandma. silsol also both have facial features that are almost identical to hers (except for the color). this is the first sketch of hers that i did. she was supposed to be a dude but i changed my mind halfway through drawing her %) 4) so iueleai dies a looong time before silsol's story begins. the way in which she dies is having her heart ripped out (and then eaten) by miraak. i made up some lore because i wanted miraak to have some sort of backstory before he became a dragon priest. in essence -- to become a dragon priest you have to give up the thing/person most important to you. in miraak's case that turned out to be her. sorry girl better luck on your next incarnation :(

5) i've seen a lot of people's representations of a maskless miraak and after much debate with myself decided to make him a redhead for two reasons. the first is that he was either going to be that, or a blonde -- since he's basically a proto-nord. the second is that i suck at drawing blondes. some people also added cool things like entirely black eyes/etc but i think that spending a couple millenia in apocrypha and remaining exactly the same might be worse, actually. so there.

listened to msi, tried out a new brush pack, painted kim's portrait a second time in a(lmost) month

pathetic & greasy & disco

teeth

got inspired by the DE skills artstyle i call this one "COURT JESTER"