#not morrowind

[theendingofthewordsisalmsivi]

Honestly why stop at fallout 5? Let Obsidian make elder scrolls 6 too. They couldn't do worse than Emil Pagliarulo

[dagothurthegod]

There is an Altmer TikTok grifter trying to convince teens and young adults that when they do poppers the feeling they are experiencing in their head is the transcendence of mind that comes with them gaining access to CHIM. There’s all sorts of things wrong with this and obviously it’s leading to mass misunderstanding of what CHIM even is. The people of Morrowind are cunning and would be a bit wiser than to just buy the first take on something as major as CHIM that they hear but Americans love to jump at any sort of new Caucasian hoodoo. You people will all be mired in the tar, trod upon by the wingless angels you beckoned down from the battlements before it was their time to descend.

[thescrolls-haveforetold]

the dwemer queen

[theendingofthewordsisalmsivi]

The real reason it's taking so long for TESVI to come out is because they have Emil Pagliarulo locked in a dark room torturing him until he can come up with a story that isn't just "guy who was born yesterday trips over becoming legendary hero 80s ninja movie style" again. According to leaked internal documents from Bethesda, they finally taught him what a theme is two weeks ago after a particularly long sustained session of waterboarding.

[theendingofthewordsisalmsivi]

I was talking to my girlfriend about this but Oblivion is kind of the most fascistic of the games isn't it? I know that's contentious but like, I'm not calling todd howard a nazi. What I mean is it relies the most on tropes and rhythms which agree with the verves of fascism. Oblivion doesn't directly espouse hate. But it does throw ideological support behind the concepts of strong patriarchal nation states and the aesthetics of Christian morality and Tradition so they can be used to rebuild society in the wake of The Dreaded Other coming to subvert them.

Like Uriel Septim being assassinated and all the sudden demons from hell start destroying the world (and the first thing they destroy is Kvatch and all that's left standing is a church) is barely even a metaphor, it's just directly saying "if the monarchy falls then the world is doomed." Martin Septim is cast as the savior immediately, because of course the only way to save the world is to preserve the bloodline relight the dragonfires by crowning a new emperor. And of course part of Martin's plan to recover the lost holy relic that the enemy stole is to turn to the lost heroes of old, recover the armor of a past hero and reify the goodness of the Correct Gods to thwart evil. And the obvious goes without saying of course, that the enemies you fight in this struggle are cultists that seek to cast down the gods, and they work on the side of Hell. Like it's just satanism. The satanic cults are working to destroy western christian civilization. Where have we heard that before.

It doesn't just concern the main quest either, it permeates the whole game. The mages guild quest is concerned with an ancient evil, a necromancer, endangering the souls of the innocent flock of Christ Arkay. The Knights of the Nine questline just totally flanderizes the concept of crusaders, whitewashing the history of european mercenaries who were paid to brutalize and destroy as much of the arab world as they could over the course of a dozen wars on the orders of the Catholic church and the dime of white empire, into Good Guys Who Do Good. Now of course dungeons and dragons did that way before Oblivion did, but to regurgitate that thoughtlessly is kind of the whole problem here. Oblivion is thoughtlessly fascist, which is unfortunately common for a lot of american video games because a lot of americans are thoughtlessly fascist.

Anyway. I don't really have a point here. It's just something I've been noticing as I'm playing more of Oblivion.

[theendingofthewordsisalmsivi]

Types up a whole thoughtful reply to someone on a post of mine then check out their blog and they're posting harry potter in 2025. The only racist wizards I wish to see on tumblr are the Telvanni, and honestly they're on thin ice.

[theendingofthewordsisalmsivi]

RE: Daedra and missed potential, how do you feel about Hermeus Mora? I've always thought he was a very fascinating interpretation of a lore keeper/knowledge based deity, and wandering Apocrypha was my fave part of Dragonborn. Curious what you think of him given how long it's been since I played!

HUGE missed potential tbh. Apocrypha was the best part of skyrim for me hands down but I think they played it too safe. Apocrypha should've been a place where lore got turned on its head in some way, but to be quite honest I don't think Emil Pagliarulo is a strong enough writer to do Apocrypha justice. Skyrim's writing is kind of uninspired everywhere but imo Apocrypha is like the peak of missed opportunity bc they turned a cosmic level concept into just a kinda pushy librarian in a dungeon that just uses books for walls and pretends it's deep.

I will give a modicum of credit that some books found in Apocrypha aren't anywhere else in the game, that feels very fitting. I just wish there was more of That. All the black books basically felt the same because they were just dungeons. If they had NPCs in them who could actually Talk to you About Something they'd have immediately been way more interesting. I want a realm of Hermaeus Mora to have At Least a single philosopher in it y'know?