Thank You For Answering This So Thoroughly! Your Response Was Fascinating. Little Simra Poring Over Charcoal
Thank you for answering this so thoroughly! Your response was fascinating. Little Simra poring over charcoal glyphs scratched over the hearth is one of my favorite bits of imagery so far. But most of all I relished the chance to learn more about Simra’s mother. As with Soraya, her presence is felt more immediately through her impact on Simra and his father than through the rare glimpses we get of who she was otherwise - for me, the effect is reminiscent of the feeling you get craning your neck to see something through a barred window or the slats of a fence. What details you do manage to pick out are all the more vivid for the strain of searching. For instance, I remember returning again and again in my mind for days after I’d read it to the image of a soft leather jacket left behind with Verru (unfinished?) after her death, that she’d intended as a wedding gift for Soraya.
I have to confess, though, about an hour after I sent my question off I suddenly remembered that I already knew that Simra’s parents were literate - he writes them both at least once, doesn’t he? And the letters for his father are couched in a rather touchingly careful Dunmeris, even. So I felt like a huge dork all morning. (⌒_⌒;) Guess I should have slept on it instead of rolling out of bed in the middle of the night to ask, huh?
If I remember correctly, most Ashlanders are illiterate, forgoing a written tradition in favor of an oral one. Assuming that Simra's parents follow convention in this, then how did Simra come by his letters? And what does Simra's mother in particular, as a former wisewoman-in-training, think of his unorthodox affinity for the written word?
[This is a very good question. Mostly because it does something my favourite questions do. It asks something for which I don’t already have an answer. But it asks something that needed to be asked. It’s something useful to me. So already, thanks for that.Simra’s parents were travellers of Ashlander extraction. They didn’t spend all their time with the Zainab. So yes, while they were raised within and each participated within an oral tradition - particularly on the part of Ishar, his mother - they were literate to one degree or another.It was actually Ishar, rather than Simra’s father, who was the better linguist, reader, and writer. His father never learnt more than a few things outside of Dunmeris. Her background gave her more of a respect for knowledge, however the knowers store it and keep it known, orally or literarily.Bringing up her children in Skyrim, it was she that educated them in mixed Tamrielic and Dunmeris: reading, writing, arithmetic, bits and pieces of history, theology. She would not have her children go without the skills that they’d need to live as something other than Ashlanders.Admittedly, young Simra paid more attention than Soraya. This learning did not come from reading, however, but through listening. Even Simra’s literacy comes from watching his mother scratch letters and words in charcoal above their fireplace. And the oral nature of these lessons is perhaps part of the reason Simra has such a good verbal memory.In short, Simra’s no Zainab. He’s Dunmer, and part of Morrowind’s diaspora. He’s of Zainab blood, raised by parents who were raised Zainab. He himself admits that he’s a Dunmer of Skyrim, however — inheritor of some Ashlander traditions, but barred off from others, and proud of both.So he’s an unorthodox Dunmer in one sense. But he was raised by an unorthodox womer, after all — why d’you think she didn’t ever become a full-fledged wisewoman? For the most part it was Ishar who refused to acclimatise to this new place and new culture, his heart living with his wife and children, but belonging back in the Grazelands.]
More Posts from Foundinthegrass and Others
bi/ace/pansexual wallpapers!!! suggest other sexualities or genders if you’d like!
Witch Tip
The color gray can help reduce loneliness or sorrow. This is also a color for neutralizing or balancing energies.
The rage that white men have been expressing, loudly, violently, over the very idea that they might find themselves identifying with characters who are not white men, the very idea that heroism might not be particular to one race or one gender, the basic idea that the human story is vast and various and we all get to contribute a page - that rage is petty. It is aware of its own pettiness. Like a screaming toddler denied a sweet, it becomes more righteous the more it reminds itself that after all, it’s only a story.
Only a story. Only the things we tell to keep out the darkness. Only the myths and fables that save us from despair, to establish power and destroy it, to teach each other how to be good, to describe the limits of desire, to keep us breathing and fighting and yearning and striving when it’d be so much easier to give in. Only the constitutive ingredients of every human society since the Stone age.
Only a story. Only the most important thing in the whole world.
The people who are upset that the faces of fiction are changing are right to worry. It’s a fundamental challenge to a worldview that’s been too comfortable for too long. The part of our cultural imagination that places white Western men at the centre of every story is the same part that legitimises racism and sexism. The part of our collective mythos that encourages every girl and brown boy to identify and empathise with white male heroes is the same part that reacts with rage when white boys are asked to imagine themselves in anyone else’s shoes.
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Finished binding another one! This is Desiderium, a fantastic re-imagining of AOT canon if Eren and Levi had joined the Survey Corps at the same time. Written by the wonderful @omnidirectionalmanoeuvregay! Gripping plot, the slooowest burn, hilarious voicing--everything about this fic is just! *chef's kiss*
Green and white for the Survey Corps colors, and gold keys for...well, you know ;D
This fic was so much fun to bind for so many reasons! Lots of firsts: first time splitting a single fic into two volumes (390k words will do that to ya!), first time doing a full-cloth case, first time hand-sewing headbands, first time I get to use my new imprint logo! I'm super pleased with the results.
Thank you so much for letting me bind your work, Wilde! I adore this fic and am soso happy to finally have it on my shelf <3
any sort of sex positivity message that refers to its readers as “dearest perverts” is invariably going to alienate ppl who are uncomfortable with sex and sexuality, and they’re the ones who need it most. “embrace how disgusting you are” rhetoric is not going to benefit people who struggle to convince themselves that they aren’t actually disgusting
A shout out to writers who support writers
Writers who may be feeling insecure out their own writing, yet still enthusiastically reblog and comment on someone else’s fic.
Writers who may struggle to find time to write their own stories, yet still read fics and take the time to let the writers know how much they like it in tags, asks, comments.
Writers who can appreciate and share a fic even though it might not be their ship or their “thing” because they respect the quality and the writer.
Writers who have tons of followers and share lesser known fics to help them get exposure.
Writers who have a small number of followers and will still reblog the popular fics.
Writers who will help another writer brainstorm or get through a tough part of their fic.
Writers who beta for other writers.
Writers who are kind and secure enough to support other writers.
I see you, and appreciate the hell out of you.
Ok Dr. Phil’s wife, Robin, (yes groan, but listen up) has this new app out (iPhone and Android) that’s for people in abusive relationships. It’s called Aspire News and it’s disguised as a regular news app, but when you go to the “Help” section of the app, it leads you to...
Books!!!! I am all out of time order lately, haha. One of these, the one with white-and-gold endpapers, was mostly done before when l posted about After The Storm, but my cricut software had been giving me trouble. Well, I sorted that out, and also sorted out copies for the other coauthors as well!! I've been adjacent to these creators for... wow, many years at this point, and it's so rewarding to be able to put hard copies of their work into their hands :D
People will tell you that emotional abuse isn’t real and what you’re dealing with isn’t that big a deal and you’re just exaggerating, but let me tell you something.
If you’ve ever been wary of everyone you know, even people you trust, because you’re expecting them to get angry with you over literally anything, make fun of you, or start making threats, something’s wrong.
If you’ve ever had to plan things in anticipation of a potential tantrum that you fear will be taken out on you, something’s wrong.
If you succumb to someone’s demands because you’re never sure if their threats are empty or legit and you just want to play it on the safe side, something’s wrong.
If you find yourself jumping at smaller noises in anticipation that they’re a warning sign for a tantrum, something’s wrong.
If you hide things - especially things that make you happy - because you’re so afraid that they’ll make fun of you for liking them, scold you for liking something they don’t, take them away, destroy them, or that they’ll defile them and ruin that love you have for them, something’s wrong.
If you find yourself being silent in the face of mild disagreements or thinly-veiled insults, rather than standing up for yourself because you just don’t want to start an argument and make things worse, something’s wrong.
If that very lack of standing up for yourself eventually leads to you never offering your opinion in any sort of discussion out of fear of ridicule or being scolded because that’s what you’re so used to, something’s wrong.
If you end up spending a lot of your time in your room keeping to yourself and keeping any trip outside of your room to an absolute minimum because you don’t want to risk putting one toe out of line and setting off a tantrum, yet you’re also aware that hiding out will also cause an issue and you’re probably just minimizing the risk instead of erasing it entirely, something’s wrong.
If you ever habitually glance outside the window to keep watch for your supposed abuser’s car to return from their work, errand or trip, and then heading to your room or other hiding place to keep out of their way, erasing any obvious signs that you’ve been out and about in the rest of your living space, something’s wrong.
If one of your greatest fantasies involves not a dream career or winning the lottery but instead an escape plan succeeding, something’s wrong.
If you could basically summarize your life as living in constant, subtle fear, Something. Is. Wrong.
Emotional abuse is very, very real, and it has lasting consequences that can affect people’s relationships, their jobs, and their lives all-around.
Don’t you dare tell me it isn’t real.
I like the “plays for the other team” entendre because it implies that asexual people play for no team. We merely watch from the stands, confused by the world of sports, just like I do in real life.
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