Ok I'll sound pretentious for a moment and say I love having Delphine and Nazeem in Skyrim. Even Heimskr. I think it's nice to have beef with a character and feel like you can do absolutely nothing about it either because the character is essential for a questline or the location just wouldn't be the same if you don't hear their condescending voice every time. It makes the whole experience memorable. You can't just kill someone for being annoying. I mean you CAN, but that's not how the world works is it?
There are more hateable characters in the game with bigger roles that add absolutely nothing to the experience like Harkon for example (he reminds me of my dad. yes i know it's bad) But we don't fantasize about brutally murdering him nearly as much for reasons I could also make a pretentious post about
CLAWS CLAWS CLAWS I love how you draw the deranged creatures' nails they are perfect
Not only is the deranged creature equipped with some fabulous claws, it's actually part of the larger headcanons I have for the mer races... All elves have claws to me!!! :)
It's a bit funny, because at first I was drawing them subconsciously, since I genuinely think flat human nails look gross (no offense) and I find claws easier to draw. And then I started indulging in my own headcanons about how elves are actually a bit more nonhuman than what you'd assume. I love how genuinely alien they look in TES, and I don't intend on hiding that fact!
Of course, everyone is an individual so features vary, but I made a little study sheet for mer (and the honorable mentions: bretons and ohmes khajiit) I guess it works like a little guideline for me.
My idea for a TES game featuring Elsweyr is that the protagonist/player is the mane but nobody believes them because there's already a corrupt leader claiming to be the mane. And of course there's an end-of-the-world scenario where you have to prove (or fail trying) that you are the mane. I'm sure they can come up with some reason for why the mane can be some other race too due to the lore claiming the mane is actually a reincarnation who is born again and again in different bodies, which is why there can only be one at a time. And I think someone could make this in the Skyrim engine before TES 6 comes out
As you may know, I'm redesigning every dragon in Skyrim because they look lame in the game to me. I have been a bit lazy with drawing lately but I finally got a coherent visualization of Paarthurnax down, I'll color him in properly later. I want him to look old and wise and friendly enough even though you could easily imagine him being a cruel leader in the past.
I have nuanced feelings about him, because it's hard to dislike him obviously, and even though I think he's cute I think giving him the Little Guy treatment undermines his complexity - essentially, to me, he represents indifference, and while he certainly feels shame over his past, his solution to fix his mistake is to simply remove himself from the world and let time heal the destruction he caused. Time on top of the throat of the world feels almost still, from there he can watch the world below move on from him, but up there in his isolation he is still clinging on to the very fact that he betrayed Alduin, his brother, which he also feels shame over, and even after thousands of years he knows it will come back to bite him.
To me, deep down Paarthurnax is scared of himself, so scared that he'll mess up again in an attempt to do better, that he chooses inaction and is thus unable to completely move on from his destructive nature. We know his famous line of overcoming it, but I don't think it's entirely true; no creature is born evil, but everyone is certainly capable of it, every action can unintentionally cause great harm, it is an unavoidable fact in life.
And this, I think, is a good parallel to Faenil, whom also struggles with shame about their past, a betrayal, and the terror of their very draconic being, but is a creature driven by action, and thus much more likely to cause harm.
Not to poke the wasp's nest but I need to let something out that I've been thinking of for a while. I'm forever mad over how badly Bethesda fumbled the Nords in Skyrim...
They could have made them cool, they could have given them some interesting culture and depth, instead they just put a vague and bland viking vibe there. They could have done something cool with runestones, but the best equivalent we get to that is like... word walls. Vikings also loved art and song/music and sports and textile arts and hygiene and they had quite an extensive law system and societal structure, but of course all we really get is like, skaldic bards, smiths, and the jarls in their longhouses, because their society is Brutish and Harsh and they value Strength over Sophistication. Because the Imperial race is actually the Sophisticated race and that's what sets the two apart. But Oh No! the Imperials have fallen victim to the Evil Elves and now the Savage Nords are actually the ones fighting for what's right! ...Right?
Dare I say, the way supremacists have idealized vikings and appropriated them for their own use has probably done irreversible damage to the whole concept at this point. The Nords just come off as the angry racist fantasy white guys faction (But remember! The racism is Justified™) instead of something... Real? Because the Nords literally didn't give a fuck about the imperial pantheon before TESV came along, but that's another thing.
There's the whole phenomenon where vikings either get the romaticized noble savage treatment or the wild violent heretic treatment, and it's almost hilariously prevalent in Skyrim to me, hell, they even put the goat horns on the helmets! Genuinely I don't understand why the norse inspired race has to be diminished to the dirty, violent and stupid trope when most ancient Scandinavians were ordinary people tending to their homestead trying to get by. But this is literally true for every single human society that's existed! You only hear the stories about the glorious wars and think that's all there is to it.
And it's not really that the American Christian undertones are painfully obvious in Skyrim, I think Bethesda could easily have taken some inspiration from the Christianization of Scandinavia and referenced the conflicts that came with it with the civil war, but it all kind of falls flat and becomes nonsensical because of the franchise's inability to understand polytheism and their strange "both sides are bad" message. And I'm not even gonna get into Skyrim's political climate now, my point is that it's frustratingly bad writing in assumption that the player is too stupid to think about it too hard, and at this point I'm in too deep to hate the game.
POV: you're a prisoner somewhere in Summerset and a high profile politician is in dire need of your two kidneys - oh and the surgeon is coming off of a weekend long skooma binge.
I started thinking about Faenil's backstory a bit deeper and was like "what would a surgeon from an evil elven supremacist society look like anyway" so there they are. Idk if I'm cooking or if this borders on insanity because I was high as balls too but I enjoyed drawing this more than I probably should
Reminder that this mer is supposed to save the world from Alduin???
I was going to make a ref for Wolpnil but I needed to workshop the concept more. At the withers this thing is over two meters tall but they're also built for speed. It's all going to be so incredibly awful.
Werewolves, to me, represent a total loss of control of your mind and body, and among all the metaphors I like the one about societal trauma the most. I think the werewolves in Skyrim are pretty awesome but at the end of the day feel very underwhelming to me and it's just that there is little drawback to being one. I fail to see it as a curse, unless you happen to be as unlucky as Sinding. You can transform at an instant and you have total control of your actions. As much as I like this idealized version of lycanthropy, I unfortunately also like tragedies, so I'm going to lean in more heavily on the negatives instead.
The transformation itself is painful, and you need to keep track of the moons and plan ahead in order to avoid hurting anyone you care about. The only time you get any restful sleep is immediately after the rampage, and the rest of the time you only become more and more sleep deprived until you can no longer hold the beast back again. Now the dinner table looks like those you slaughter, and your hunger for it makes you sick. Animals go quiet near you. The more you lose control the more people close their doors on you - no need to keep the monster close after all. Some say that with enough mental strength you can learn to control this, but at this point the idea seems ridiculous. Some others say you can lift the curse.
I want to play an Evil Game where I trick you beautiful TESblr inhabitants into telling me about your TES OCs. So, you can reblog this or comment with your responses.
Here: tell me 5 things you like about your OC and also 5 things you dislike about them.
If you can't come up with 5 things, you still need to even out the likes & dislikes amount so that it's balanced. For example, if you respond with 5 things you like and 3 things you dislike, you lose my Evil Game.
