#Anti-Thalmor Dragonborn

[setarmare]

in love with the idea of the db's followers being as remembered in history as the db themself. imagine:

engineers, for generations, mumbling the formula called 'Remiel's Constant' under their breaths as they develop machinery, because it's such a foundational discovery on Remiel's part for a new age of engineering

in contrast, future alchemists agonizing over Xelzaz' thousands of alchemical discoveries a night before their finals, bemoaning why he was so diligent in cranking out formula after formula because now they have so much to memorize

historians and casual history buffs alike locked in discourse on whether or not the last prince of the Thalmor actually colluded with the Dragonborn in the Second Great War to help bring down the Dominion, with vaguely-worded correspondence for evidence

adaptations of the tale where every single follower is at least someone's 'blorbo'

the ballad of Inigo the Brave being a cultural touchstone for Khajiit rep and spawning Tamriel's version of the rogue, underdog hero archetype. even when it's a totally fictional work, if the protagonist (or charming side character) is weirdly charismatic, roguishly handsome, and with a heart of gold, chances are the creator was inspired by Inigo's legacy.

the massive misunderstandings of the dragonborn's original history. Thanks to anti-Thalmor sentiments long after the Second Great War, Nebarra was deemed as a traitor figure to the Dragonborn, but this sentiment was overturned centuries after uncovering contemporaries' journal entries on their friendship

when you ask someone who they think Sir Kaidan was to the dragonborn, there's an equal chance of them firmly believing he was their lover, platonic best friend, or loyal but professional lieutenant. they will have reams of evidence to back it up, no matter which stance they take.

many who have felt that they never perfectly fit into the demands of their faith or community, not just bosmer, resonating with Auri's story. realizing that while they may be an outlier in their own eyes, they can still do a lot of good in the world, and that has to count for something.

common sayings based on (real or not) stories of the followers. if a place is crowded, it's common to joke, "guess the dragonborn's in town."

just. yeah.

[elderscrollsconceptart]

How does Ulfric expect to "take the fight to the Thalmor" when he basically needs the Dragonborn to win his war against a *single* legion of Imperial auxiliaries?

Even High Rock is leaving Ulfric on read. I assume most other nations would be similarly disinterested. Presumably Ulfrics greatest hope is to lead an alliance of nations (along with The Empire?) against the Thalmor.

IMO the free nations of Tamriel are waaaayyy too divided and mutually hostile to somehow unite with enough force to defeat the Aldmeri Dominion.

Cyrodiil: hates Ulfric (duh). High Rock: aloof and loyal to Cyrodil. Morrowind: hates and distrusts all outsiders and foreign powers, especially post-Oblivion. Black Marsh: pretty much the same as Morrowind and possibly even worse. All that leaves is Hammerfell and even they have lingering issues with internal political stability. The others could perhaps be convinced, but I'm not sure how or why they would risk joining Ulfrics alliance unless the Thalmor were actively attempting to invade those nations.

IMO the best best beeesst hope Ulfric has is a potential alliance with Hammerfell against the Thalmor.

"That alliance could win since Hammerfell alone fought the Thalmor to a standstill!" Yes maybe! But Ulfrics war would have to be an offensive war. Hammerfell fought defensively in friendly territory. Offensive wars are by nature far more costly for the attacking force and the alliance would have to remove the Thalmor from any territory on mainland Tamriel *at minimum* for a meaningful victory.

"Kill elves in big heroric battles" isn't a plan. Removing Thalmor puppet governments and liberating occupied territory is. The hypothetical alliance would have to enter hostile territory and attempt to liberate Valenwood and Elsweyr. I'm sure there's anti-Thalmor factions in those places that would help as best they can, but the victory would have to be won via outright military means.

All in all, even a revived and unified Mede empire would have rough odds against the Thalmor. Im not sure what Ulfric expects his path to victory to be.

Perhaps he's more inspired than i give him credit for, or perhaps his confidence is all a naïve delusion on his part. I'm biased but I suspect it's the latter.

[dynamite124]

I have questions!!! Or just one to be exact.

I've a character who's not necessarily the dragonborn, but I do play her in Skyrim- she's a Redguard who's parents died in a Dominion attack since yanno, they're probably real pissed that Hammerfell is one of the only places to successfully fight back Dominion and Thalmor influence and invasion-

Anyway what would be his reaction to her being just so fucking anti-Dominion and traumatised by the events that she gives a whole (very tearful) rant about how 'your kind' ruined her life and how she's 'all too happy to show you the same pain you did to my parents' when she meets Tally. Like how would he convince her to spare him?

Also bonus question. If they did somehow end up travelling together, how would he feel about her joining the Stormcloaks purely out of her hatred for the Dominion, which now extends to the Empire for allying with them?

Sorry if these questions are too heavy! I'm just curious how he would resolve the situation of their initial meeting and all that.

This is a tricky one.

When the player meets Taliesin, he's not expecting to be met with friendly arms. He's hostile to the player at the start because he's literally backed into a corner, he's expecting to be put down. That's why when the player decides to help him, he's caught off guard. He expected that moment to be his last because everyone he's met that wasn't in the Thalmor has been hostile to him.

He's use to hostility. Being patient and caring is new.

So your character giving him a rant and being "You did this, you deserve this, how dare you kill my family" would just be met with the rolling of eyes. They wouldn't be the first to say this to him and probably not the last.

He's not there to change minds. So their insults and backlash towards him wouldn't be heard. He'd respond with:

"So is this how you're going to kill me? By talking my ear off? If that's your tactic than I'm afraid Elenwen is far more talented at that this this pitiful attempt."

[moodcrab]

Fixing Skyrim's Main Quest

Part One, Setting

Obviously it's set in Skyrim, but let's tweak it a bit.

Time

First of all, if there's one thing we can all agree on from Skyrim and Fallout 4 it's that Bethesda doesn't know how long 200 years is.

It's a very long time.

For reference, two hundred years back from the time of writing this Mad King George was king of England, it wasn't even the Victorian Era yet. The American Civil War was decades away from starting. The entire industrial AND technological revolutions as well as BOTH World Wars and the collapse of the British AND Ottoman Empires happened in that time, with plenty of room to spare.

It's a VERY long time!

Placing a two hundred year gap between Oblivion and Skyrim was a bad decision considering how very little actually happened. Tamriel should be drastically different, like they should have cars by now.

The major events that did happen, the Rise of the Medes, the Rise of the Thalmor, The Red Year, The Infernal City, The Void Nights, The Great War and White Gold Concordat could easily happen within one lifetime, so we're going to say the events of Skyrim take place in 4E64.

From a writing point of view, this small change makes it a lot easier to keep track of things that were a bit of a mess in vanilla, like the life of Ulfric, or the backstory of Gaius, Karliah and Mercer, which were all over the place if you were actually paying attention. It also means you can talk to people who actually remember these things happening, who were children during the Oblivion Crisis. You could even change Esbern's name to one of the younger Blades members you meet in Oblivion seeing as Esbern has the role of lore depository.

Religion and Culture

The next setting change is to remember this is Skyrim, not Cyrodiil. The Nords don't worship the Nine/Eight. In fact, the only reason the Nine/Eight exists as a pantheon at all because of the Nords stubbornness around the worship of foreign gods.

The Temple of Kynareth is now The Temple of Kyn, and Gildergleam Sanctuary is the home of Kyn's Holy Order. The College of Winterhold is no longer Hogwarts but the Chantry of Jhunal (a 'college' is a place of study, research and academia, not just a school). You might meet The Vigilant of Stuhn on the road, who don't live in a hut but a temple. Instead of a priest of Arkay in the Halls of the Dead we have priests of Orkey. Tsun, a god we actually meet in vanilla but has no shrines or altars, will replace Zenithar. And, most interesting to our story, a cult of both Alduin and Herma Mora - our two villains - gods to be placated rather than worshipped.

This said, the Imperial Cult will definitely have a strong presence in Skyrim and Talos, being an Ysmir, is particularly venerated (as is Ysgramor and Wulfharth). Yes, over the centuries the Imperial Cult and will obviously have spread into Skyrim, we can lean into this with the Civil War, putting a much bigger emphasis on the more "Imperialised" Holds siding with the Empire and the old school Atmoran Holds siding with the Stormcloaks. It never made much sense to me that the "true Nords" were more upset than the Imperials over the whole Talos situation, this change makes it so that while both sides are pissed off, one reacts with frustrating diplomacy and patience while the over reacts with stubborn honour and impulse, a more cultural divide rather than a pro/anti Talos one.

The Imperial position would be to play along with the Thalmor in the open, but to secretly fund and organise cults to other men-turned-gods and Imperial/Nordic hero gods such as Pelinal, Wulfharth, Ysgramor, Reman, Alessia and Martin, as well as the concept of Ysmir (which would actually include Tiber Septim and The Last Dragonborn). They would not openly support nor allow any arrests or persecutions of these cults by Justiciars. The Stormcloak position will remain "Fuck that bitch this is Skyrim."

Geography

This might sound crazy, but Skyrim was too hot.

No I'm kidding, I'm not so in love with the lore that I think a game of endless snow would be anything but boring. But there are some things that were cut out of the land that left Skyrim wanting. For instance there are hardly any settlements. Amber Guard, Granitehall, Nimalten City, Reich Corigate, Lainalten, Oakwood, Pargran Village, Laintar Dale, Dunpar Wall, Dragon Wood, and North Keep are all Skyrim cities that are missing from the game. Like not even abandoned ruins, they're just not there.

I totally understand there are size limitations but this is meant to be a country. It has five town sized cities and three village sized cities. And some villages. And they mostly look like Riverwood. Seriously, what exactly is the difference between Karthwasten, Falkreath, Shor's Stone, Winterhold and Riverwood, all towns from different Holds? It's like if shopping malls were made of wood.

The other thing about the vanilla settlements I didn't like was Bethesda seems to be stuck in Fallout style post apocalyptic design. Solitude has been there for thousands of years but no one has ever thought to shift these boulders from out of the middle of the street? There are ruins in better shape than Windhelm and Markarth? You can sum it up with Whiterun's Western Watchtower, which looks exactly the same after a dragon destroys it. Surely the ravages of civil war and the dragon crisis would have a bigger impact if things weren't already destroyed.

In fact, let's address the Imperial Fort situation. At the start of the game only 3 forts were occupied by actual soldiers, two of which were destroyed in the early game (Helgan and the Western Watchtower). Literally ALL other forts are in ruins and occupied by bandits or other undesirables. Consider that Skyrim is a country that recently took part in the Great War, but is currently dealing with a Civil War. Forts are not easy to build, and are insanely useful for medieval warfare. It truly beggars belief that practically none of them are maintained and fortified until the Player Character decides to get involved. To strain credulity further, many of the war camps you encounter in the wilds are literally in the shadows of major fortifications that have been left to rot. There is even a side quest to reclaim a Nord's fort from bandits, which is also a ruin. Is the implication that the man lives in a ruin? Or is it that in the short time the bandits have been there they've done a century or two of damage? Why would they do that?

Skyrim has a lot of dungeons, and a lot of quests that are basically "clear dungeon", we can't sacrifice some of this boring content for some more towns or forts, with characters, and things to do?

[cogandstar]

random idea i had and so decided to do: a summary of the ttrpg characters i've played before

D&D 5E

Cyrus, a human warlock, with a Fiend patron. An old archaeologist, who made a deal with a devil to learn ancient magical martial arts. Based on the concept of Sword-Singing from Elder Scrolls Lore, and specifically a post (or maybe a couple of posts, it's been a while) on r/teslore wherein a Redguard makes a deal with Hermaeus Mora to learn the art of Sword-Singing during the war against the Thalmor. The campaign this guy was in didn't make it past the first session.

Tarhun, a dragonborn warlock, with a Celestial patron. A middle-aged guy who'd made the pact with a celestial to defend his small village from an attack and subsequently was exiled, and then wandered around the world helping people. Specifically disliked green dragons, due to fighting one during his military service pre-retiring to the village. This guy was in a Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign; he wound up dying partway through, fittingly enough against a green dragon.

Feahu, a half-elf barbarian, following the Path of the Totem Warrior. The bastard son of a human knight's wife and an elven adventurer, he was raised as a mostly ignored child until one day his human half-brother bullied him, provoking a body-twisting rage that resulted in him breaking said brother's legs. He was kicked out and subsequently taken in by an elven druid, who taught him to control his rage. Feahu's based on Cu Chulainn. He was Tarhun's replacement in the LMoP campaign, and made it all the way to the end.

Glider was my character for a weird Hunger Games hack. I forget her details, except she was like, a hacker-computer girl. She died early on.

I've probably played a few other D&D characters, in one-shots and campaigns cut very short, but I don't really remember them.

Scion 2E

Kara Concord, Born Scion of Freya, was my first Scion character. She was a trans lesbian librarian with a shotgun named Friðargandr (my best attempt at Peace-Wand in Old Norse) and a sapient-but-not-talking cat named Arthur. In this chronicle we prevented an attempted human sacrifice born of a misunderstanding with the fae (who just wanted some new employees), recovered a stolen anti-fascist warhorn from a troll via a riddle-match, and tried to get Dian Cecht to cure a teenage girl of vampirism. The chroncile petered out as we started to do our quest for Dian Cecht in exchange for his curing.

Keraunos, Created Scion of Zeus, was one of Zeus's thunderbolts forged into the shape of a person to deliver justice to a cyberpunk dystopia. He almost always introduced himself as "Keraunos, DESTROYER OF THE UNJUST!" He was very hammy, being a living lightning bolt using pankration to fight people and generally causing trouble for the megacorps.

Rajesh Gupta, King Arthur Reborn, was, well, King Arthur reborn as an anarcho-communist. This chronicle didn't really get off the ground after the first session, so I didn't have much time to get into Rajesh, sadly.

[aftanith]

With a Hunger to Swallow the World... 

Malene wakes on a cart to Helgen, where an Imperial axman waits to chop off her head. Then her day gets worse.

With Skyrim's civil war raging on at the behest of Ulfric Stormcloak and the Aldmeri Dominion breathing down the neck of the empire, everything was already bad enough before dragons started reappearing in the skies for the first time since the Merethic Era. But as Mal soon discovers, the situation is far worse than anyone could have ever imagined: Alduin the World-Eater has returned to Mundus to either enslave the world or end it.

With the help of a snarky housecarl named Lydia, a bloodthirsty elven mercenary named Jenassa, and a hopeless hero-wannabe named Hjoromir, Malene will rise to embrace her destiny as Dragonborn--even if it means going to Sovngarde and back to save the world.

[hamletbot]

I love legacy of the dragonborn bc the way Auryen runs the museum is legit unhinged…

oh hey dragonborn :) if u want to we can just fool the public and use only replicas as displays so you can run around using mega powerful and dangerous shit, its not like they’ll notice ;)… hm whats that? You found a lich vault? yknow what? lets just take all of our super powerful daedric artifacts and stuff em in there and replace it w replicas here… oh what is that? the amulet of kings? wouldn’t it be sick if we reforged it lol. also could you just casually steal these stuff from the blue palace they wouldnt donate it to us hm? You want to use the decrepit old basement?? what for? Oh you wanna stuff it full of decapited heads and skulls? sure why not man… ill have it ready for displays by tomorrow:) oh also the museum is haunted… bye! have fun fighting the mammoth and the giant in the natural gallery… wait while we are at it you know what would be a great team building exercise? Yeah you guessed it falmer infested ruins :)) anyways have fun love you

[custom-whats]

Feeling rlly bad for Cary if team dragonborn comes along for the first encounter. Imagine already being on edge trying to convince a very dangerous hero who’s presumably anti-thalmor aka everything you are technically supposed to be family wise that ur an ok person . And then for good measure they bring along a fucking giant dude decked out in black armour, a khajiit with enough quality arrows to supply a battalion, a telvanni lawman with probably lethal poison on his person ready for use and a 13 year old apparently ?

[andromedasummer]

Summer plz do the blorbo post for elder scrolls / skyrim if an entire franchise is too many to pick from, OR your fire emblems

LAURA ILY okay i will do both canon elder scrolls characters and also custom followers because... they tend to have more personality AND i will also do my beloved fire emblems

Elder Scrolls + Custom Followers:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

Lucien Flavius okay hes just. Hes my dragonborns best friend. Her unrequited love. Her walking dictionary. The person that proves shes still capable of falling in love. The person and reflective of the world she wants to protect. The person she hopes shes friends with till the end of time. Hes important to her and hes important to ME.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

All of the kids characters but especially and specifically Sissel and Britte. Both girls are abused by their dad (with one girl taking it out on her sibling to cope) and its a tradition to use my thane pass kill him in every playthrough i do and adopt his kids. Have done so for the past 10 years of playing this game. They are my babies. I will raise them well.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

I really love all of the companions even though I hate the companions history. I feel like characters like Athis and Ria don't get enough love compared to more popular ones like the twins and Aela. Ria is like the nicest person to you when join! Shes still learning and likes hanging out with Vilkas! Shes nice! And Athis is the only elf unless you play an elf character. Which opens up a lot of cool dynamic stuff about his own experiences in the companions and how your presence could change things!

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

Any of the shitty racist stormcloaks. Any of the shitty racist thalmor. Nebarra specifically in convoluted and irritating ways.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

Everyone is so MEAN (in a funny way) to Martin Septim yes hes weak monk white boy but have you considered when he died I was 13/14 and he was my HoK's best friend and the only part of the game i remember is him sacrificing himself for you and all of Tamriel and I cried so hard my parents wouldn't let me use the family computer afterwards??? Have you all considered that???

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

I love Brelenya and Onmund and J'zargo they got so fucked over by the college's insane shit happening. only students at the country's single academy for magic and we all only ever had one lesson truly the worst college experience <3

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

Goodbye Ulfric you stupid shit. I'm taking over the Stormcloaks, wiping out the racist scapegoat-like moron opinions of it all and focusing on being anti-thalmor, anti-genocide and pro-immigration i am calling ALL peoples of skyrim to fight for its independence i am calling hammerfell to help and high rock to help i am uniting tamriel against the thalmor and i am make them die.

Fire Emblem:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

ROBINROBINROBINROBIN shes my girl shes my oc shes mine fire emblem shes my girl shes been through so much I am writing a 75 part story about her I have word docs full of aus about her past i love her so much my friend commissioned art of her for my christmas present shes my sister my queen my everything

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

i would kill for owain you all dont understand thats my fucking boy. adhd/autistic king of naming swords. extremely romantic and also a nerd. gone through so much but still so full of goodness and love and SO creative and articulate i'm so fucking mad they screwed up his romance in fates because the romance he has with the player character in awakening is uncomfortable i refuse to date the 2nd gen characters.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

you are all so ignore Frederick. literally enemies to lovers with robin but instys fucked it up. fantastic husband and father in awakening. hardworking dedicated man

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

i think it would be funny to put ingrid in a jar and shake her till all the racism falls out. might take a while but i am good at causing hurt.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

edelgard was right minus the fascism. she had every right to destroy the church though and i would do it again. just.... maybe not put her in power next time. shes not really got the ability to consider many other peoples opinions. ironically too set in her ways.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

Gatekeeper fucking obviously. That my boy.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

if youve been on call with me while talking about fire emblem you would know about the vicious hatred i hold in my heart for corrin and how weak of a fucking character they are. They actively make me mad the entirety of all 3 fates storylines with their shit decision making and flimsy ideals. i hate them with my entire life they can fuck of.

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Random ass AUs cause I've been playing Skyrim again.

1 AU (Now called the TokoDeku Skyrim Adventures)

Izuku and Tokoyami fall into Skyrim like right before the start of the game. They find themselves in Riverwood.

Now given Hagravens and all that, some might react in fear to Tokoyami, but then they find out boy and go: wait what?

Anyway eventually they just decide he has to be some sort of Beast Folk and ignore it. There's some rumours about bird people anyway.

Not the point. So Izuku and Tokoyami are there. But Izuku doesn't have OFA and Dark Shadow can be passed off as magic but given mind of his own...

So they're dealing with that. They held Gerdur at the mill and slowly become friends with one another.

Then they go hunting one day, and get caught by Imperials convinced they're Stormcloaks.

Tokoyami is nearly killed but given he's been acting pretty chill, eh. He is doused with anti magicka which surprisingly keeps Dark Shadow at bay.

Anyway, game goes on, blah, blah- Izuku is Dragonborn and now they're off to High Hrogthgar. Except they get lost a few times and stumbled into various places they shouldn't. Suddenly they find themselves being under the protection of the thieves guild, and Izuku has no idea how the hell he became the leader but okay he guesses?!

Oh shit they sold their souls to a 'evil' god. Shit.

But anyway- Izuku saves Skyrim, they end up part of the thieves guild and the stormcloaks cause Izuku is like: They're awful but the Thalmor suck more so...

Then suddenly they're back in Japan after everything. With for some reason a portal between worlds (Thanks Nocturnal) so Izuku and Tokoyami can keep up their duties there and also become heroes.

Also like one of their parental figures comes with them cause why not?

2nd AU (Now known as 'Dragonborn Raises Izuku')

This AU has the Dragonborn and her husband Scouts-Many-Marshes being dropped in Japan as a joke. Thanks Shegorath. Thanks a lot. But anyway, so they're in Japan and they stumble upon orphan Izuku whose parents are dead due to a villain attack. (Or well, his mom is. His dad caused it but no one knows that.)

They get attatched and then adopt him. Our hero, now named Oliva cause that's my current Dragonborn's name (and yes she married Scouts-Many-Marshes) is a thief and forger so she's doing that. They teach Izuku what they know and SOMEHOW IZUKU HAS THE THUUM. THEY DON'T KNOW HOW.

Oliva: What the shit? I did not have a kid.

(That is a very long side plot that if I ever write, Imma keep it secret here)

Izuku is taught the powers by Oliva who also teaches him thief shit and he gets into UA.

Oh and like someone in the government knows about different realities and shit and helps Oliva and Scouts-Many-Marshes and also Oliva technically is a retired hero. I dunno.

[taylsthetrap]

Hey! I'm being genuine here, but could I get some actual evidence why Ulfric is racist??

Bc he personally doesn't SAY anything racist as far as I recall, and other than that, it's just... Segregation in Windhelm. And there'd definitely be interracial violence if it weren't for the Grey Quarter and the Assemblage.

A few people in the city are definitely racist. A few Stormcloaks are racist. There's the occasional racist dialogue line from Stormcloaks soldiers.

But I know of naught proving Ulfric racist. It just so happens that his anti-Thalmor Nord-Culture stance is one that the racist assholes respect too.

Well for one segregation is racist in its self forcing the dark elves to basically live in the slums, he also holds a position of power and has the respect of many of Skyrim's Jarls and many of Skyrim's Nords,

The Argonian Scouts-Many-Marshes says this after the Imperials take over Windhelm (if you side with the Imperials) when the Dragonborn asks them "Are you glad to see Ulfric Stormcloak gone?" they respond with "You have no idea. Did you know it was his decree that forbade the Argonians from living inside the city walls? I hope in his next life, he's reborn as an Argonian forced to live in a slum because of some bigoted Nord dictator. I'm joking, of course, but I'm a lot happier seeing the Empire running things in Windhelm."

Aval Atheron also adds to the evidence that Ulfic is a racist as when the Dragon born asks "You live in the Gray Quarter?" he responds with "I'm a Dark Elf and I live in Windhelm, so yes, I live in the Gray Quarter. You must be new around here, or you'd know they don't let my kind live anywhere outside that slum."

After the liberation of Windhelm the Dragonborn can ask Aval Atheron "Have things changed much with the Empire in charge?" to which he responds "Well, not yet. The Empire hasn't been in charge for that long, and real change takes time. Still, having a just and honorable man like Brunwulf in charge can only be an improvement. Unlike Ulfric, Brunwulf has shown a great willingness to work with the other races and make us feel more at home here. For the first time in a long while, I truly believe that there are brighter days ahead."

Whilst there is more evidence that points to Ulfric being a racist I'm tired and cannot be bothered to source more information.

Information is sourced from the respective character pages on the Fandom wiki I'm too lazy to find the individual links but they're not hard to find.

[veshialles]

I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes.

My favourite anti-Thalmor rebel returns!

[sassyfahliil]

23. write a story about a lie

"You know that was way to dangerous, right?"

"Pffft," she remarked as she chew on her piece of jerky, "things work out in the end at least, right?"

Inigo looked anything but thrilled as he rubbed in temples, "Ugh, but still ..." He looked off pondering. While he couldn't blame Delphine, the Blade who set up the whole thing to get more info, he didn't like how things played out. "Are you sure they can't just figure it out it was you?"

"Inigo, please" as she pointed her tiny piece of jerky at him, "I am confident in my illusions skills to fool them long enough. I also gave them a false name so its fine! ... Also because I am sure I can kill whatever agent to send their way."

Still, Inigo shakes his head, his tail swooshing rigidly, "I do not trust her, not completely." Lily looked at him and couldn't blame his distrust. The Embassy mission was a mess and quite frankly even she herself would rather to never redo anything similar again. Although, it was amusing to kill a few of their numbers, although unnecessary. Although the dragon attack provided good cover as well.

As for Delphine, Lily couldn't help but understand her reasons to be paranoid. You cannot be too safe, but for now she is a good ally and anti-Thalmor is good enough. For now, she sighs, "as long as she provides good info about this dragonborn thing or about ... Alduin, I won't complain about her methods."

After all, its not like she ever used her actual name in years. Not since entering Skyrim, not since entering even Cyrodiil. And she cannot drag this conversation any longer. The longer it goes on, the more Inigo's words sting. She should be honest with who she is to him of all people she met in the past few years but she couldn't help but still keep quiet about it. The less he knows the better she keeps telling herself.

"But!"

"No buts! The Greybeards, they don't know. Delphine probably doesn't know either but she..." she walks towards the window, looking onto the quiet, dark streets of Solitude before pulling back the curtain, "she is the best lead we have"

Inigo crosses his arms and sighs, "I hate that you are right."

Lily smiles, "good, we should rest for tonight before heading back to Riverwood tomorrow. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Lily stared at the ceiling trying to fall asleep. To be fair she doesn't really want to deal with Alduin. His ability to bring dragons back to life, having more dragons attack her and his presence screams danger, screams uncertainty. She quickly shakes her head, I am not afraid nor shaken. Not afraid, not shaken, not at all ...

[tes-trash-blog]

🌙 hmm... an age old question but opinion on the whole Imperials Vs Stormcloaks fiasco Skyrim tried to feed us?

*cracks neck*

Goodbye follower count, I’m going in!

I’m going to preface this with a confession: In my first ever playthrough of Skyrim (2014), I did side with the Imperials. On my second, I sided with the Stormcloaks. Since then, I have done three more playthroughs on the Stormcloak side, and three more on the Imperial side. In four more still my Dragonborn was neutral, slaying Alduin without ever taking a side. In my playthroughs, especially the ones after 2016, I’ve developed my own opinions about the Imperials and Stormcloaks alike.

In order to better articulate my opinion, we must first briefly examine four factors: the American landscape in which Skyrim was conceived, Skyrim itself and its portrayal of the Imperials and Stormcloaks (and the Thalmor), and Umberto Eco, the usage of terms like “fascism” and especially “Nazism” in American popular culture, and how this all relates to the Imperial/Stormcloak fiasco.

So let’s get started.

Part 1: Thanks, Obama.

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States. It was a landslide victory against Republican runner John McCain, a conserative who frequently brought up his service in the Vietnam War (and his time as a prisoner of war) during his campaign, as well as his years of service in political office. In a move to make his (very white, very male) campaign seem more inclusive in the face of the frontrunners of the Democratic campaign (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama), he appointed Sarah Palin as his VP. She was the only conservative woman who agreed to be his running mate, as all three  conservative women in the Senate already said no, and the Republicans couldn’t find a black conservative.

(I’m not making this up.)

Anyway, come 2008, the conservatives lose their goddamn minds because Bush’s reign of actual terror was over, a Black man is now President and Whiteness is in peril. This was before the term “triggered” became a popular sneer in the conservative dictionary, but “snowflake” was used a lot. Come 2009, the Tea Party emerges. And now we get to the crux of my, uh, observation.

For the young, uninitiated, or non-Americans who are thinking “What the fuck is wrong with America”, the Tea Party Movement was/is a rash of hardline rightwingers who, still licking their wounds from a sound beating by the Democrats in the 2008 election, sought to rebrand themselves. With some bootstrap lifting and millions of dollars in funding from media tycoons such as the Koch brothers, the Tea Party made its official debut in 2010 after the signing of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Their message was simple: It’s time to take America back from the lazy, the entitled, and the “uppity”. What was really just a rehash of a song and dance that’s been turning its ugly white head since at least 1964 gained something of a stranglehold on America, in spite of its relatively small size of active members. It hit all the notes: a populist movement rooted in the perceived threats to their faith, their culture, and their social and economic capital.

They also believed shit like this:

For instance, Tea Partiers are more likely than other conservatives to agree with statements such as “If blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites,” and are more likely to disagree with statements like “Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class.” (Williamson, 34)

Like I said. Since 1964.

What made the Tea Party different from the other conservative temper tantrums was one thing: Internet access. All of a sudden, these angry white men had an outlet for voicing their rages, and an open recruiting forum for other malcontents and disaffected youths. I’m not implying the Tea Party had anything to do with Gamergate, nor that Gamergate had anything to do with the rise of the alt-right or whatever these tennybopper neo-Nazis are calling themselves now, but I am saying those circles at least touch in a Venn diagram.

“But tes-trash-blog! What do the machinations of American politics have to do with Elves?” you may ask. Well dear reader, this leads me to..

Part 2: Hey, you! You’re finally awake!

Skyrim was an overnight hit. On release, The Elder Scrolls 5 generated 450 million dollars on its opening weekend alone. This game sold for around 20 million copies, not including Special Edition, VR, or Switch, and continues to see an average of around 10,000 players a week 9 years later (Steamcharts).

And 20 million people see one thing first: A strong, noble Nord in captivity, telling you that you’re on your way to be executed by the Imperials, who are in bed with a scary, sneering bunch of High Elves dressed in black.  20 million people already were told who was the clear bad guy in this game, and it wasn’t the strong, noble Nord in captivity. I’ll be going into this more into Part 3, but suffice to say, the Imperials were already coded as Bad Guy by association. The Imperials decided to execute you, the player. They shot a man in the back because he ran from his own execution. He stole a horse, which was a crime punishable by death in those days. The game doesn’t tell you that part, and is content to say that Lokir was killed because he was in the same cart as the Stormcloaks.

Speaking of Imperials, the Third Empire is written as obtuse, corrupt, uncaring, and cruel. The Septim Dynasty is wrought with scandal and intrigue, plagued by conflict, and powerless to do anything about the Oblivion Crisis that almost ended the world. They flat out abandoned Morrowind and Summerset to better protect their own, offered no help during the Void Nights that destabilized the Khajiit, and worst of all, signed a treaty outlawing Talos worship. That is the crux on which the Stormcloak/Imperial conflict lies. These damned outsiders telling these humble Nords what to do and what not to do. They’re corrupt, lazy, and know nothing of the hardships these people endure, and now the nanny state Empire is telling them they don’t have the freedom to worship what they want? How dare they!

Going further, in the seat of Imperial power in Skyrim is none other than Jarl Elisif, a young widow who relies heavily on the advice of her (overwhelmingly male) thanes, stewards, and generals. She’s weak, thinks mostly of her dead husband, and is written as someone who overreacts to scenarios; the “legion of troops” to Wolfskull Cave over a farmer reporting strange noises, banning the Burning of King Olaf in the wake of her husband’s murder via Shout come to mind. Compare and contrast that to the seat of Stormcloak power, Windhelm. Ulfric spends his time pouring over the map of troop movements and discussing strategy when he’s not delivering his big damn “Why I Fight” speech. Elisif is weak, Ulfric is strong. The Jarl of Solitude is even told to tone it down during the armistice negotiations in Season Unending. She’s chastised by her own general. The first thing you see in Solitude is a man being executed for opening a gate. The first thing you see in Windhelm is two Nords harassing a Dark Elf woman and accusing her of being an Imperial spy.

Both are portrayed as horrific, but only one has bystanders decrying the acts of the offender. Only one has a relative in the crowd proclaim, “That’s my brother [they’re executing]!” The best you get with Suvaris is her confronting you about whether or not you “hate her kind”. Even a mouth breathing racist would be disinclined to say “yes” when confronted with the question of whether or not they’re racist, but that’s how the writers of Skyrim think racism works.

I acknowledge that this was an attempt at bothsidesism, but the handling was.. clumsy.

Part 3: Ur-Fascism, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Bash The Stormcloaks

And now we move on to Umberto Eco, fiction writer, essayist, and writer of the famous essay Ur-Fascism. In short, Eco summarizes 14 separate properties of a fascist movement; it’s important to stress that this should not be treated as a checklist if a piece of media is fascist, or if a person is actually a Nazi, or to say “X is Bad Because Checklist”. It’s frankly impossible to even organize these points into a coherent system, as fascism is an ideology that is, by its nature, incoherent.

With that in mind, let’s run down the points:

1. “The Cult of Tradition”, characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by Tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.

2. “The Rejection of Modernism”, which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.

3. “The Cult of Action for Action’s Sake”, which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.

4. “Disagreement Is Treason” – Fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.

5. “Fear of Difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.

6. “Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class”, fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.

7. “Obsession with a Plot” and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society (such as the German elite’s ‘fear’ of the 1930s Jewish populace’s businesses and well-doings, or any anti-Semitic conspiracy ever).

8. Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak.” On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.

9. “Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy” because “Life is Permanent Warfare” – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to NOT build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.

10. “Contempt for the Weak”, which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate Leader who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.

11. “Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero”, which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, “[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.”

12. “Machismo”, which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold “both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”

13. “Selective Populism” – The People, conceived monolithically, have a Common Will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the Leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of “no longer represent[ing] the Voice of the People.”

14. “Newspeak” – Fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.

I did copy and paste the list from Wikipedia, but you can read the full essay here. It’s 9 pages long. You can do it, I have faith in you.

You may notice that you can’t really shorthand these concepts, or at least not in an aesthetically pleasing way. However, you can point to the most infamous of fascist regimes and take their aesthetic instead. You see it in Star Wars with the Empire (hmm) and the First Order, in Star Trek with the Mirrorverse and the Cardassian Dominion (hmm), and in the.. Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue..

Oh, yeah. The Thalmor. They dress in dark colors, are a foreign power trying to exert their influence on the downtrodden Nord, enact purges, and scream about Elven superiority. The Thalmor express every surface level perception of a Nazi in American popular culture. TVTropes has already pretty well covered this ground in their Video Games section of A Nazi By Any Other Name, so I won’t go too much into here seeing as I’m already at the 2000 word mark. Suffice to say, it’s hard to think Bethesda wasn’t trying to make the player associate the 4th Era Altmer with the 1930’s German.

And in doing so, they accidentally created a group that is.. Well, you’ve read the essay or at least the 14 points. Try and tell me how many of them don’t apply to Nordic culture. What grabs me the most are points 9, 11, and 13: life is a perpetual struggle in which you must emerge victorious, a culture of Heroes impatient to die in a glorious fashion, and the Common Will that is enacted and reinforced by one strongman leader. You see these elements in play in Nord culture, in Stormcloak ideology especially. I, for one, hear what Galmar really means when he says “We will make Skyrim beautiful again”. I hear the echoes in George W Bush’s speeches and McCain’s campaign when Ulfric talks of duty and service, of “fighting because Skyrim needs heroes, and there’s no one else but us.”

It’s less of a dog whistle and more of a foghorn if you ask me. And to go back to part 2, this is a message that 20 million played. Not all of them are Stormcloak stans, but that compelling message was still present. Americans love being a strongman hero in their media; we eat that shit up. The setup was enough: you’re a lone hero about to be executed by milquetoast Imperials and Nazi-coded Thalmor. The story was enough: a strong man rebels against a system gone awry, one that seeks to destroy his way of life. 

It was enough to compel a “fashwave” artist to take on the monkier Stormcloak(Hann). It was enough that Skyrim was lauded as a “real” game instead of say, Depression Quest, and to justify ruining a game developer’s life over it.

It was enough that when Skyrim came out in 2011, the game did not do so well in Germany because of these elements, because the game was written for you to be sympathetic towards these very white, very blond and Ayran-coded Nords. I can’t speak for the popularity of the game now in Germany, but when I lived there, there were a few raised eyebrows among my age group about the message of the game.

I think about that a lot, especially when the tesblr discourse heats up about the Stormcloaks. I see how visibly upset people get when someone throws shade at Ulfric. The talk of “it’s just a video game” and “lul get triggered” starts to look less like passive dismissal and shoddy trolling and more a kind of funhouse mirror to how they really think.

I can’t lie, it reminds me so much of 2009, of these angry people screaming racial slurs on the Internet because there’s a Black president or posting sexist screeds because Michelle Obama wanted kids to have access to healthy meals. It reminds me of the kid in my sophomore class who said he was going to “take out” Obama on his inauguration day. He was 15 years old then. He’s a father now.

Hell, it reminds me of right now, of Republican Senators demanding civility and tone policing as they kowtow to an actual fascist. The Stormcloak in the Reach camp “had to do something” about the Empire telling him and his what to do, and the neighbor I used to dogsit for had to do something too. I don’t watch his dogs anymore. When I told him I wouldn’t, he tried to make himself the victim and say I was getting political about dog sitting. It’s just two dogs. It’s just a video game. All political messages are just imaginary, snowflake.

But it’s really not, is it now?

TL;DR and Sources

TL;DR: The imperials are portrayed as weak and effectual, as the bootlicker to the Thalmor, and the writers were so busy trying to make one side look bad and weak they inadvertently made actual fascists.

Even though this is pretty long, this really only scratches the surface of the.. Well, everything. In all honesty this is just a very condensed version of my opinion. Big shockeroo, there.

Do keep in mind that this isn’t a condemnation of Skyrim. Lord knows I love that game, or I wouldn’t have this blog. This also isn’t a damning of people who play the game and side with the Stormcloaks, or think Ulfric is hot, or don’t like the Thalmor or what have you. You do you, fam. You do you. This is my observation and opinion on one aspect of the game, just with some tasty sources to better paint a picture of where I personally formed my opinion.

This also isn’t to say that I’m trying to draw a 1:1 comparison between The Elder Scrolls and reality, or that Ulfric is obviously a McCain/Trump/Hitler expy, but Skyrim is, like all things, a product of the minds that created it. Skyrim didn’t happen in an apolitical vacuum, and apolitical stories about war simply do not exist. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply reinforcing the status quo, and it is our responsibility as people who consume this media to question it, and that status quo they so dearly wish to hang on to.

Also, Elisif hot.

Sources:

Eco, Umberto. “Ur-Fascism”. The New York Review of Books. 1995. https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf>

Williamson, Venssa, Skocpol, Theda and Coggin, John. “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism”. Perspectives on Politics, Volume 9. March 2011. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/williamson/files/tea_party_pop_0.pdf>

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Steamcharts.com https://steamcharts.com/app/72850>

Schreier, Jason. “Bethesda Ships 7M Skyrim, Earns About $450M”. Wired. November 16, 2011. https://www.wired.com/2011/11/skyrim-sales/>

Hann, Michael. “‘Fashwave” - synth music co-opted by the far right”. The Guardian. December 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/dec/14/fashwave-synth-music-co-opted-by-the-far-right>

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

I’d make a Inferno Quote (”Thence we came out, and saw again the stars!”) here but I’ll just let you know right after I took this screenshot and recruited Slyboots for the start of my Count of Montecristo like revenge, a series of bullshit started happening:

1) The “Trinimac Fanatic” (A Thalmor) guarding the Trinimac shrine nearby added by Wintersun is attacked by a bear and some wolves, responding to them in kind, but attracting the attention of the Mourning Giant (A special VANILLA Giant mourning the death of his beloved mammoth nearby, and is never hostile to anything least they attempted to damage said Mammoth or due to multiple attacks against him), which destroys the remaining survivors before returning to keep watch on the mammoth.

(Actually, pretty good plot wise, Shaglak pretends to be a Trinimac follower when he tricks you into getting enslaved, so having a Trinimac Shrine right outside the settlement might not be so out of place now, and the Mourning Giant is probably too filled with grief to fully understand the horror that is happening just nearby).

2) As soon as I reached the shrine of Trinimac to get it on the map, the second and third member of the Sinister Seven showed up.

Sinister Seven is a mod that adds a dynamic assassin system to the game, spawning from level 14 onward every 2 levels a member of the titular Sinister Seven in a fixed place in the world, and then sending them to hunt you down. Is good for roleplaying purposes (IE, you left Cyrodil and went to Skyrim to escape a dangerous past but said past is sending the most ruthless assassins in the empire to hunt you down). You can also mix via the MCM of the mod if said boss like enemies happened to have grunts with them, or if minor bounty hunters were also hired to hunt you down, as I did for maximum difficulty.

(The backstory has been mentioned earlier for me. My Altmer dragonborn was a member of the Mages Guild Chapter of Kvatch, ended up managing to commit some... forbidden experiments, she barely understood, to bind the fabric of time and rewind the clock back to the great war in the great Chapel of Akatosh there, so she could stop... everything, what happened to her dads, their PTSD, their scars, their wounds, the horrors her friends and family had to go through, her losing her eye during the sack of Kvatch (She was barelly 14 at the time), the following ostracization against them for being Altmer, thinking them as spy...

She fails and ends up with a pet arcane raven that might or might not be Kyne’s Avatar, and with her already scarred body marked outside the flow of time, never needing to sleep, eat, time freezing briefly every time she wants to drink a potion, switch a spell, eat something, not able to even feel the taste...

So, she’s running away from the Synod after they discovered her experiments, who wants to get her ageless body back to dissect her and see what makes her tick, the Order of the Hour, crying vengeance against their desacrated chapel and dishonored god, the Auriel chapter in Alinor following suit (Which means the Thalmor will also want to get her to see how she ticks, especially after their spies in the Synod revealed what they managed to discover about her experiments), but not the Alkosh chapter in Elseweyr, by now a shadow of their former self after the advent of the Riddle’Tar, and the Alduin one in Skyrim, since the Northern Pantheon has been lost by 2 centuries and the Nords have been succesfuly assimilated into the imperial pantheon, following fake, propaganda based “tradition” barely 150 years old and abandoning their actual gods in favor of a lie about a dead emperor.

She chooses Skyrim due the political turmoil making it easier for her to disappear there (Sadly true as she is indeed disappeared, first by the Thalmor who manage to recognize her and capture her, and right after her escape as she managed to make Kaidan flee the Thalmor Prison in the Rift, getting separated from him in the kerfuffle, and right after that by the Dunmer Slavers of Sedtrith Kagran.

(Her family are followers of the moderate chapter of the Syrobane Phynaster and Xarxes doctrine, the one that believes that everyone, even men, can ascend to godhood much like Xarxes and Syrobane did, and professes how, like Syrobane and Phynaster, it’s through an alliance between all races in harmony and peace united under a common goal as they go against their real enemies... the Sload, bastards who deserve all the harm it will get to them. The chapter had to escape Summerset Isles after the Thalmor took power, their “moderate” views of men and other races not exactly seen kindly under the new regime...))

(Let’s just say all the shit she had gone trough in her life (The war, the loss of a eye, the scar on her face, hidden by her hair,the ostracization, being hunted down like a dog, the Thalmor capturing her and torturing her, the Slavery... hasn’t made her the most trustworthy or “peaceful” of mer at the moment, plotting her revenge against all that hurt her and her only friend in Sadrith Kagran, Ra’zhirra, aiding his escape back to his family in Elsweyr, delivering him from slavery, but vowing to take revenge for him too against those who sold him to the Slavers... The Stormcloaks, colluding with the settlement and knowing full well what is going on in their land, and even profiting from it as Ra’zhirra clearly says.)

3) Anyway, the Second Member is a Dunmer Frost Mage, the Third a Nord Stealth Archer. It’s implied they are... pretty close, like sisters, to quote the awkwardly not as Anti Raegan as it should have been given the circumstances  broadway musical Rent.

The first member, a Giant Orc, actually managed to gain access to Sedrith Kagran, probably having ties with Shaglak own slave catching gang, so he showed up at the appropriate level, but both archer and mage showed up together (as the archer outright BEGS in her letter to her gal pal to do after the first of the Seven doesn’t report back when he went alone).

4) After we manage to kill off the 2 members of the sinister seven, a fucking CHALLENGER challenges me to a magic duel, right in the same fucking swamp... followed by him.

The man, the myth, the legend...

THE MOTHERFUCKING COURIER.

I started AHO at level one.

I’m level 18 now, almost 19.

He gave me so many fucking letters guys, you have no idea, organizations that knew about my action in the settlement and knew about the slavery (Like the Ravencroft Manor Arena), or people like Cassia, who have sent letters of help to everyone and anyone the courier deemed worthy of such thing...

As well as Jarl’s Sigurd’s letter, inviting her, a no name altmer, for “dinner.”

It seems not just the stormcloaks were colluding with the slavers... After all they do mention how many members of northern nobility were happily aiding in the slave trade, even profiting from it, not just the Stormcloak ones...

So, now she’s distrustful of everyone and everything, and burning with the desire of hurting those who hurt her...

Not running away anymore... But fighting back, stopping this problem at the root, find out what that Bastard Shaanath is planning, suck dry every ounce of goodwill, of riches from those... Parasites, make them believe she’s content with the riches they have promised her, and then, when they wallow in their fungi, sated and happy their settlement is safe and that reckoning shall not come for them...

Kill them all, and trap the ring leaders onto the soul cairn like they deserve.

Starting from the bastards who aid shaglak in his slave catching ring, the remnants of the by now defunct Camona Tong, camping out, oh so conveniently, right on the road to the dwemer ruin her so called “master,” now lost in the fumes of his hallucinogenic tea, ordered to go.

[rakastyi]

Ra’kastyi the Himbo: A Study

So my Khajiit is definitely a himbo.

Evidence:

1. When Mehrunes Dagon said “I. Have. Spoken.” Ra’kastyi responded “Well, Khajiit is Dovahkiin, so his voice is louder!”

2. Went to punch Grelod the Kind, ended up Suplexing her instead.

3. When Proventus said “I don’t see any sign of him being this, what, Dragonborn.”  He Fus’d the steward and spent a night in jail before he could advance the main quest.

4. Despite deep mistrust, he instantly forgives Inigo because the guy just looks so pitiful sitting in prison like that.

5. Was genuinely confused that the Dawnguard were mad he became a vampire to get through the Soul Cairn.

6. Is convinced that pictures of Khajiit children will convince Elisif the Fair to support the anti-thalmor resistance in Elsweyr.

7. Cried when the Blades turned out to be just using him.

8. Cried when he heard that Kodlak had been killed.

9. Cried when he thought he had a sweetroll for his daughter but then remembered he ate it.

10. Abs you could cut meat on, but he’d advise you not to because you’d get fur on it.

The evidence cannot be ignored. Ra’kastyi, for all his scholarly bent and heroic nature, he has some deadly himbo tendencies. In this essay I will