...or is it "precision engineer?"

“Your bidding, muthsera?”

Dunmeris linguistics lesson time!

This clip is from the Morrowind Argonian greetings sound clip folder, meaning every Argonian with a high enough disposition will greet you like this. The developers really shouldn’t have had the Argonians use the honorific “muthsera” for everyone because Dunmeris has way too many honorifics, and they all imply different things about the person being addressed, the speaker, and the relationship between the two.

Muthsera is a highly formal, gender neutral term of respect similar to “master” or “mistress”, used only to address people who the speaker considers to be of a much, much higher station than the speaker. It is a term that an apprentice would use for their master, someone in the service industry would use for someone they are serving, or a low ranked servant or slave would use for someone who isn’t also a servant or slave. It can be used as a form of flattery, sarcasm, or to convey that the speaker feels the highest possible respect for the person they are addressing, to the point that they do not consider themself to be of the same class. Because of its formality, it is also used on legal documents.

Sera is an everyday, gender neutral term of respect similar to “sir” or “ma’am”, used between peers. For example, two merchants would use “sera” to address each other, but a slave addressing a merchant like this, or a merchant addressing a member of the nobility like this would be considered disrespect. It is the most commonly used honorific.

Serjo is a formal, gender neutral term of respect similar to “my lord” or “my lady”, used to address nobility. It can also be used between two non-noble peers as a form of flattery or very high respect. It is occasionally used by servants of high status to address people they are not serving.

Ser has the same connotations as “serjo”, but it is used only in informal and private settings.

Sedura is a gender neutral term of respect similar to “sir” or “ma’am”, used to address people who are wealthy, and who are generally not nobility. (Note: it can be used for nobility, but “serjo” is more appropriate.) Using this honorific can be tricky, because you have to 1) determine that the person you are addressing isn’t a member of the nobility, or else you may offend them for your failure to use “serjo”, and 2) determine that it is an appropriate time to acknowledge the wealth of the person you are addressing, and that they aren’t touchy about the status of their wealth, or else you are likely to offend them for drawing attention to their wealth. As a result, it is not used nearly as often as the honorifics above. It is often used by servants and slaves to acknowledge people of higher socioeconomic status. It can also be used between two wealthy people to acknowledge the other’s wealth. Appropriate times to use this honorific also include introductions, business transactions, and whenever referencing someone’s wealth is relevant.

Kena is a gender neutral term of respect similar to “doctor” or “professor”, used to address wizards, scholars, and tutors–especially Telvanni.

[Morrowind by day #2 | Back on track | 19.05.2026]

be loud

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and, most importantly,

Always Be Blogging About Your OCs

remember, it's your blog!

HE SHRIVELED!

i just had a professor read the first chapter of something and go on and on about how i must relate a lot to a character, because her disability resembles mine (i had not been injured at the time of writing it), and i get this dreadful feeling like people are going to make assumptions like that again and again.

I kind of hate it!

But it's very difficult to be like, "The author is dead! Do not pay attention to the author! Do not interpret the text into the author's life! But do follow the author on tumblr!"

Like, there is something fundamentally out of whack with the entire affair, which is kind of what my new book HOLLYWOOD, ENDING is about.

For a hot minute, a lot of people had opinions about me who did not actually know me, which was extremely disorienting and much less pleasant than I'd assumed famed would be. So I spent the last eight years writing about that.