#obrs

[bjornar-gustafsson]

[sofiaruelle]

❄️☃️The SDV Girlies in their winter garb!☃️❄️

One side how i interpreted their lil avatars and then the other side is just me playing dress up lmao.

“Bois when?” Dunno. 🤷🏽‍♀️ I will if anyone donates screenshots.

[nuwanders]

While I respect what you're trying to do and I agree with the general idea and sentiment behind there's just the problem that boycotts don't work in our contemporary world unfortunately, especially on big companies like microsoft, I remember when this happened with hogwarts legacy and it didn't change anything, in the end that just became a sort of weird purity test, I din't buy that game cause I had no interest and even if I did I hate jkr, but I don't see any use in shaming people who do.

I don't think you're doing purity testing or anything similar, and the effort is admirable, but I think believing that people that buy the game don't care about palestine is wrong, I think it's more that they don't see the use in trying a boycott that will fail.

Btw I hope the boycott succeds I sincerely don't think it will, I myself am not buying the game for a while and will probably pirate it, but it's my personal choice and I don't see the use in shaming people for playing it as it won't win them over and will most likely make them bitter towards the cause, people are fickle and selfish by nature, and the same thing happened with hogwarts legacy. People said it revealed those who played ad unworthy allies, but I don't think we should exclude people by worthiness, you don't win by having "quality" you win by having "quantity".

That's just my two cents on the subject though

consumer boycotts can and do work. a few highlights taken from here (emphasis my own):

Affirming the role the BDS movement has played in the Israeli economy’s “spiral of collapse,” as 130 leading Israeli economists describe it, in September, the Chairman of the Israeli Export Institute said: “BDS and boycotts have changed Israel’s global trade landscape.” He added, “Economic boycotts and BDS organizations present major challenges, and in some countries, we are forced to operate under the radar.” Israel’s projected annual GDP growth rate for 2024 is 0%, according to leading credit rating agency S&P, and some 60,000 Israeli businesses are projected to have shut down during this year of ongoing genocide. Global sales of McDonald’s, a prime BDS target, “fell by 1.5% between July and September, the biggest decline in four years, more than twice the size forecast by analysts. It followed a 1% drop in the April to June period.” In October, fossil fuel giant Chevron, a priority target of the BDS movement, halted a $429 million expansion of an Israeli-claimed fossil gas field amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its brutal bombings in Lebanon, Syria, and beyond. In August, in a significant BDS win, French insurer AXA was forced to sell its investments in all major Israeli banks. In November, Carrefour closed all branches in Jordan due to BDS pressure. Carrefour’s partner in most of the Arab World, the Majid Al Futtaim Group, reacted to BDS Jordan’s boycott pressure by ending all business with the French retailer in Jordan. In November, the Boycott PUMA campaign confirmed that, following relentless BDS campaigns worldwide, the German company had ended its complicity with Israel’s apartheid regime. In December, the Strauss Group, a complicit Israeli multinational food and beverage corporation, was forced, due to an effective BDS campaign, to sell off its shares in the US-based company, Sabra, which mass produces the culturally-appropriated popular Arab dip, hummus."

looking further back, boycotts, divestments and sanctions played a crucial role in dismantling the apartheid state in south africa. from here:

Boycotts may have been a form of activism that was easier to implement on a variety of different scales, but it provided a very extensive impact on apartheid in South Africa. The very threat of boycotts of South Africa in the 1984 Olympics pushed the leader of the IOC to go against the Olympic Charter and keep South Africa out of the Olympics – making the decision as early as 1981. This showed the power the boycotts had built up, and the authority they carried. The boycotts were seen as being so effective that even the IOC would not be able to withstand their financial and diplomatic fall-out. South Africa would finally rejoin the Olympic community in Barcelona in 1992, “following the commencement of governmental talks to finally bring an end to apartheid.”

that targeted boycotts can be extremely effective is not up for debate. but i think the crucial thing to acknowledge here is that they are one of the most easy and accessible forms of protest because they do not require you to actually do anything.

your argument would hold water if i was demanding that everyone go out and start blowing up embassies or setting themselves on fire. but BDS is literally just asking people to do nothing at all.

this isn't a moral purity thing, it's a statement of fact that boycotts only work if people participate. and they fail because of the exceptionalist arguments you're spouting here: "it's my personal choice." ok, sure. it's my personal choice to not get vaccinated. it's my personal choice to vote conservative.

the other thing is that microsoft is one of the more egregious targets on the BDS list, for reasons better outlined here. i know that this isn't the fault of the folks working at bethesda, who will be several degrees removed from the heinous shit happening at the top. but BDS has specifically listed Microsoft's gaming division as a key component of the boycott, for the very fact that video games are perhaps the easiest product for the average consumer to opt out of.

tldr;

boycotts are effective

they are easy

they only work if people participate

BDS has specifically named bethesda

people should therefore boycott bethesda

i don't think i'm being unreasonable in expressing disappointment at the large swathes of TES fans who see themselves as above it

[ego-osbourne]

I drew them bc I love them

There are some models that look really good in obre. I think the dremora are some of those rare few. They’re so pretty

I think they’re friends :]

[nekioka]

Apparently in Oblivion Remastered Jyggalag has a beard.

I've always drawn him as empty suit of armor with glowing white dots for eyes but I started wondering what he'd look like with beard.

[blissfulbluee]

In-ho putting a talkie-talkie to the dying player AND making Gi-hun think it was him before shooting the guy...is messed up.

imagine if Gi-hun finds out who actually died back there? sure, "Young-il" wasn't real and actually the Frontman working against him, but the person who he heard getting killed was real.

and the guilt knowing that In-ho was able to end the guys life bc of the ammo he gave to him?

hii thanks for the ask :)

yeah that was incredibly cruel both to the guy and gihun

god gihun would so blame himself for “stupidly trusting” inho, which directly put others in danger. (although i think inhos plan was to get gihun alone and have those players die in the game, but still)

the ammo was used for those two players plus jung bae. gihun would think that if he didnt give him the ammo maybe things would turn out differently. inho certainly doesnt help since he does verbally blame gihun for how the rebellion turned out..

i wonder if he will ever find out about young il??? if so i am both excited for it and dreading it. 💀

[arnesia]

some screenies from cheydinhal (first one is nearby cheydinhal)! this game is so prettttttty

[bforblitz]

I feel like I’m going crazy. like I know other people are noticing that the elves in obre are eerily close to or are just straight up racist asian caricatures but no one is talking about it??

[haskillswife]

This drawing is now ugly to me and outdated BUT

It’s the first drawing I did of us 😭😭😭 I need to redraw it.

[mjrdm]

FINALLY some Haskill appreciation…idk maybe I just don’t look in the right areas (and sometimes I don’t think I want to, lmao) but it’s hard finding other people who See The Vision™️, haha. Anyway, sorry for the random ask but I love your posts of him (and yes, I went through them because I am silly).

HIII tbh over the past 5 years Haskill appreciation grew in numbers, in my opinion. a lot of wonderful artists succumbed to propaganda and drew him a lot! Haskill fans are well fed as of lately. the hope is not lost, maybe in ten years he will become a tumblr sexyman, I believe in that <3

I can name haskills-husband sanderrabbit siorafede fridgrave and relmyna-verenim form the top of my head lol. my fav SI artists

[emblazonet]

I just encountered someone commenting that ppl who claim Morrowind is their favourite TES aren't actually going to be playing MW now, they'll be logging more hours in Skyrim.

My head was shaking like a bobblehead toy in an earthquake, because I've spent 1-4 hrs a day playing MW in the past few weeks. And I cannot remember the last time I installed Skyrim. Maybe 2019 at latest.

Morrowind is my beautiful kinky wife and I will always come back to her.

[bjornar-gustafsson]

[jarnshell]

GRAHHH SO FUCKING CLOSE PLEASE PRAY FOR ME

[masterofiodine]

já vim, že chodím pozdě dost často, ale jak pozdě je moc pozdě?

protože tu mám (zatím) 6 obrázků na témata od @kocourmokroocko z tvoříjnu 2023 (prosím nekoukejte na aktuální datum a už rozhodně ne na rok)

[ego-osbourne]

I have tried to make a nice introduction to this post many times and keep fumbling it so I’m just going to jump right into it.

There’s a few posts/reblogs going around discussing the—for lack of a better term—racially charged designs of elves in the Oblivion Remaster. You can find the post here—op expressed that they didn’t want to continue the conversation on their blog, and I’ll try to respect that as much as possible, but I wanted to contribute to the argument because I feel like a lot of people are missing the point.

To summarize, an anon pointed out to op that NPCs like Mankar Camoran and Mannimarco look like racist Asian stereotypes, the kind you’d find in WWII propaganda (extremely slanted eyes, talking in a way that emphasizes their top row of teeth, etc.). The counterargument by op was that they did not agree with the assessment, saying OBRE’s Altmer were not much different from the Altmer of Morrowind, Skyrim, and ESO. In a reblog, op added that many of OBRE’s character artists came from various Asian backgrounds. In a final reblog, op added that TES’s elves have always been based off of potentially offensive stereotypes of Asians (with exaggerated facial features and hastily-woven inspirations from various Asian cultures), but since the studio behind OBRE probably didn’t intend to offend anyone, it shouldn’t be of much concern.

This is where I find the most concern.

The biggest thing I want to address is the argument of intent. Many people claiming that the OBRE Altmer aren’t racially charged will say that the developers did not intend for these designs to be offensive, and intent should be a serious contributing factor when judging these designs. I agree! I do not think that the devs at Virtuos and Bethesda ever intended to be offensive with their designs. That does not mean that they still weren’t offensive designs though, and the devs not realizing that their designs could be seen as offensive is half of the problem.

Think of the artists and animators over at Disney and Warner Bros in the 1950s when they were making what we can clearly see in hindsight as racist cartoons. Whether it be the indigenous people of Peter Pan, the siamese cats of Lady and the Tramp, the black characters of Tom & Jerry, or the crows of Dumbo, each of these depictions likely weren’t seen as offensive by the artists creating them. If anything, these characters were probably seen as “accurate” for who they represented.

This same idea of “not stereotypical, just accurate” followed the attitude of minstrel shows. Many white people performing these shows would claim imitation as flattery—they weren’t making stereotypes, they were just living out the “Black experience,” and it couldn’t be offensive if it was “enjoyable” and “accurate.” The point is, something doesn’t need to be seen as offensive by its creators to still be obviously offensive, even when its creators are part of the demographic that is being the most affected. Minstrel shows were also performed by African Americans, and at least one of the crows of Dumbo was voiced by a black man (with the other voice actors being uncredited aside from one white voice actor). This phenomenon has been argued to be a blend of desensitization to offensive depictions (they’re “funny/accurate,” so what’s the harm in participating?) and as a way to appease those with more power (the white man) so that you’re seen as “one of the good ones” and can avoid being targeted in the future.

That^ is to say that the many Asian developers at Virtuos don’t discount the fact that these OBRE Altmer designs are still very uncomfortable to other POC people, especially those of Asian background. You can be “on the team,” so-to-say, and still do something that offends and disgusts “your team.” I’m very certain that the people over at Virtuos did not intend to make something that resembled a racist caricature out of elves, but intent starts to matter less and less when you are a big company that, purposefully or not, is reinforcing an ugly, exaggerated stereotype and desensitizing both white fans and POC fans to the point that they (the fans) will not only refuse to criticize designs like this, but actively fight against people who point out the harm these designs cause.

No matter your racial background, if you can stomach these designs and enjoy OBRE or TES as a whole, if you can treat this series as a form of escapism and have the privilege to live apolitically through it, that’s awesome. Escapism is a very healthy and valid way to process the events of the real world, and if you are able to experience that, great. That’s not what matters though.

Not everyone gets to live apolitically. It’s important not to disregard or discredit those who point out real issues in any media, no matter how you view it. You might see TES as nothing more than the Funny Elf Game, but there are many very valid people within the community who recognize the very biased hand of the author and cannot enjoy it to the same extent that you do. I found it baffling that so many people were so quick to disregard the arument responding to op as a “violent, non-intellectual group hounding a concept art blog” (paraphrased from many different responses, though all these words were used)—the use of “violent” and lacking “intellectual integrity” has been the common kneejerk response to POC concerns for decades on decades to discredit and devalue genuine critiques, thus shielding the offending party from having to think twice about something that makes them uncomfortable (I don’t think you intended to touch on an offensive and racially charged practice still used to this day, I just think you have been desensitized to that particular reaction so much you have failed to recognize how it can affect other minority groups, even if you yourself are part of a minority group (/ironic); the use of “hounding” is also a bit… silly? Much smaller blogs cannot “hound” a bigger blog, and it is the responsibility of op to understand that they are prone to considerable backlash just by virtue of being a bigger blog—there is no such thing as “punching down” on or “hounding” a bigger creator than yourself, especially not when the conversation remained as on-topic as it did; additionally, op is not just a “concept art” blog, if they were they wouldn’t have engaged in this conversation in the first place. They did not have to answer the ask.

To finish off, I want to make it clear that I am white. I have been a fan of TES since I was a kid, and did not recognize any racially/marginally charged aspects of the game on my own, because, obviously, none of those aspects have ever affected me. I am making this argument on the grounds that all of these things were pointed out to me by POC friends within the community (especially my Asian friends, in this regard), and I find it important that anyone from any background is able to validate the concerns of the marginalized.

This is my main argument, but I’m going to go into a few extra details in a reblog. If you’re interested in a very in-depth post from an Asian POC regarding this, @bforblitz has a project in the works.

[dire-straits-fn8ic]

first base for coworkers is greeting them by name unprompted. second base is connecting on linkedin. third base is doing a home related project together. fourth base is making out on the couch in the common area