littledragondork

[littledragondork]

Champion of Cyrodiil

realized waaaay too late that jousting isn't even a thing in the ES universe but whatever I wanted to draw Waelin suited up in Imperial themed jousting regalia (and horse). yes this is technically martin lives au copium. see below:

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drawing i made of taliesin back in 2023 as an example

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Also a colored sketch of my Miraak headcanon

The colors I have in mind for him are actually really specific and they highlight the fact he's been decayed by Apocrypha over time. His dragon soul and blood did not make him immune to rot [as seen with paarthurnax and durne]

The reason his throat is exposed like that is because hermaeus cut it open and peeled back the skin. It is a punishment. Whenever he speaks it hurts, whenever he uses the Thu'um it hurts.

A punishment for speaking terribly of Mora to his many eyes to witness, cruel words spoken from his throat made to hurt him eternally...so he often chooses to speak to others through their minds instead of with his actual vocals

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I was extraordinarily bored, so I made a goofy little quiz

enjoy :)

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Besides entering negative years, you can also enter negative hours and minutes. During negative hours and minutes, while there is still a day and night cycle, the sun never appears leaving the negative day even darker than the negative night.

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"Oh, the dancers? This one didn't write a report on them. She had considered interviewing them, but... they never really stopped dancing, you know? And there was something... upsetting, about them. She can't put her finger to it, just whenever she got the thought to interrupt, she felt... sad. Like she would be intruding on something very precious. And when the gala ended, she hoped to find them, but they were just gone! As if they'd never been there at all!

If you really really want information... Well, at one point this one took a break to dance, and she overheard this exchange while dancing nearby them. She wrote it down, but... she's never going to publish it; You can read it if you want.

On a piece of notebook paper, the following exchange is written:

'How many times does my heart need to break over you, Martin? Always once more? I tried tearing it out, putting it in a jar, covering it in butterflies, throwing it down a well- but it's always yours, no matter what I do. The isles are going to drown in my tears at this rate.'

'I wish my loss didn't hurt you still.'

'And I wish I never lost you.'

'... And I you. But here we are. We can't change the past, love.'

'...It's not fair. The party's almost over- And I can't go with you, and you can't go with me and... I- I don't think I can bear it, having you for a week just to lose you all over again.'

'If we're lucky, perhaps next year we can meet here again.'

'Since when have we ever been lucky?'

'This week we were.'

'...That's true. We really were.'

Finishing up my submissions for the gala, a picture of what's the game's technical 'canon' and definitely bad ending for my HoK and Martin- in that ending Rory mantles Sheogorath (leaning more towards Dementia as that mer is Depressed and Traumatized), and Martin mantles Akatosh- their natures demanding the lovers be separated for eternity.

But! The Gala doesn't operate by standard rules.

With the magic of the gala, in a space outside space and time, maybe- for just one week a year- they can finally be together again.

This is my last submission for the week- thanks for the wonderful time everyone, with special thanks to @tes-gala for putting this all together for us!

[ Image ID: An altmer Sheogorath and Martin Septim dance in a ballroom with a vibrant night sky in the windows behind them. The altmer is dressed in a chaotic outfit- a train of dark rags is carried by red butterflies as he dances. Around him are odd magical effects that seem to glow and twist in the air. Around his neck is a ribbon held in place by another red butterfly- his partner has a hand on his shoulder, and vibrant colors bloom across the altmer's shirt in response to the touch. On his face is a half mask, with one half of the mask being a light, cheerful purple, then shifting into a dark, green grey with winding branches and glowing cracks. On his head is a gnarled wooden crown with a grey eyeball in the center. The altmer is smiling, but he has tears running down his face. Martin has a hand on the altmer's cheek. He's dressed in glowing golden robes, with golden bracers, a scale mantle on his shoulders, and a scale line down his back resembing a tail. On his hips are a pair of v shaped golden frames, draped in translucent, glowing silk to resemble wings. On his head is a translucent silk veil attached to a headress resembling horns, decorated with red jewels. He's looking up at his partner with a sympathetic smile. End ID]

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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.

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To face down your demons, you've got to free them To seize all your demons, carpe demon

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Reblog if your art project has not, does not, and never will make use of generative ai at any point in your creative process.

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Nexus Mods was acquired by Chosen, a company focused on growth and monetization of gaming startups.

Reddit thread

Dark0ne, creator and ex-owner of Nexus Mods, stepped down today in an update post:

NexusMods post

Users on Resetera were able to found out more about this sudden change of ownership:

Resetera thread

Victor Folmann, CEO of Chosen, published this "Gaming Startup Monetization Cheat Sheet" on his LinkedIn

Link to the post

Users are already sharing their fear of NexusMods allowing more bigoted mods in the future, and taking down inclusive ones to follow the current "anti-woke" trend in the gaming industry

Reseta threada bout their change in moderation concerning bigoted mods following Oblivion Remastered launch

Another User, this time on NexusMods forum, noticed queer and inclusive mods being removed following Dark0ne's post

Link to the forum post

It is also worth mentioning that Chosen and its CEO are seen using AI generated images on their website (including generated images depicting Tracer from Overwatch) hyping up ChatGPT on his Linkedin account, and are including "rewarding gamers with crypto money"

Users speculate that Chosen buying out NexusMods is to potentially train an AI model that generates mods

More about Nvidia's AI "RTX Remix" and future projects

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I hope y’all are ready to see this man’s legs hiked over his head in the future

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they aint slick

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I bet Sheogorath love trans people.

It just makes sense for the god of madness to love people who reject binaries and the boring rules of society.

I bet he would give cheese to everyone.