#AND THEN FUCK UP SOME DRAGONS IN ESO

[kaija-rayne-author]

Review 8 in series of Dragon Age Veilguard

60 hours in 58 actual gameplay

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Part 7 is here.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard

Critical review CW strong language.

Well. If I'm right about who the Gloom Howler is, and I'm almost certain after the Cauldron... I really fucking question the reading comprehension of whoever wrote that arc.

She loathed doing what she was ordered to do to the griffins. She saved the last clutch of eggs, left secret clues on where to find the nest kept in stasis, and answered her calling early so no one could get the information out of her. All in the hope that future generations would be worthy of griffins again. And now she's doing the exact opposite? Seriously?

I mean, I'm aware that the supplementary material isn't something everyone is gonna read, but as far as I know the printed materials are considered canon. Which means they've taken a sad, epic story and completely reversed it in a retcon I'm not sure I can forgive them for.

I've marinated myself in the Lore of this world. That's an incredible disservice to her sacrifices to save the last remaining griffins. It's a disservice to the writer of Last Flight, too. That's not even touching on the 'of course when you shove a blade into the bones of a roughly 400 year dead arch demon... it will come out bloody?' Excuse me now? Someone has watched too much jurassic park, because that would be utterly impossible.

Once again, I'm asking myself What. The. Actual. Fuck. were the devs and writers thinking?

Surely they know at least some of us have read the printed stuff?

Did they think we'd have forgotten? Unfortunately for these retconning incompetents, (I am so, so sick of retconning in general, and fed the fuck up with it in this game) autistic and AuDHD folks like me tend to have razor keen memories about our special interests. Whoopsies.

Last Flight wasn't my fav of the books, but it was beautifully written and heartbreaking with a gleaming golden string of hope.

And this is the end of that story? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I can honestly think of only one way they could make that make sense. And my trust in Bioware writers now lives below sewer level, so I'm not hopeful they'll go that way.

It's possible that I'm wrong, but understanding and critiquing media is my actual job when I'm not recovering from a pulmonary embolism. And yes, absolutely, I could've written far, far better material.

How. Can someone please tell me HOW a company that has something as successful as DAI under their belt... makes... this? I swear this game (DAV) is like some of the worst AI written shite I saw in ESO back when I played that years ago.

I guess I should say machine written. Whatever. I've heard ESO was doing that a long while ago. And the blah storylines and boring assed questlines proved it.

This game reminds me of that. Though, I think they were probably written by actual humans... I really have to question where exactly they scraped up the writers for them.

The street? A back alley? A mud pit? Did they give apes access to a keyboard and use whatever claptrap they came up with? (Yes. They did. Humans are apes.)

It's common enough in Hollyweird that writers working on a particular IP (intellectual property... IE Dragon Age or Witcher etc.) often utterly loathe the source material. I fail to understand why or how that would be okay, because we can fucking tell, you know? You can tell when a writer loves their work, and when they don't. And we wonder why so many things in hollyweird fail.

Is that what happened to DAV?

They had a fucking blueprint for fuck's sake! DAI was RIGHT THERE. It won GOTY if I recall correctly. No one wanted a game exactly like DAI but dear fucking gods something... not this... would've been far preferable. If they'd used DAI as a sort of map? A guideline or outline? DAV might’ve been a good game. And the sad part is that it actually could have been. With just a little more care, less streamlining to mediocrity, better editing and writing? This could've been another win for Bioware. As is, if it wins anything I'll be suspicious of bribery.

It's just so... meh. Where it's not outright bad.

And even though I'm under media blackout so I can write a truly unbiased review... it wouldn't surprise me if some fans were going gaga over this travesty of a game. Just because it has Dragon Age in the title.

It sucks when you want desperately to love something. But you just can't because you can see the flaws. And the flaws far, far outweigh the good parts.

And none of those good parts are even unique. They're just lifted from other games.

And I got the load up with no CC glitch again. Lost about an hour of playtime figuring out when it happened and which save to reload. I'd really hoped the damned hour long update would've taken care of that.

What a sad mess this game is.

Though on the positive, I do love the new takedown mechanic. And it's oddly satisfying to clear blight. I like tracking things. IRL too. I grew up in a subsistence hunting family. Though, I always just used a camera. I know how to track stuff, so that's fun. I like the ballista and zip lines. There are good parts of the game... but they aren't the parts that really matter.

I had to turn Taash down for Romance because it happened way too fast. I barely felt like I knew them, and my demi ass needs more than what we got before committing to a relationship.

It's warming up with Lucanis, Emmrich, and Davrin. I'm not decided yet. And this is where a polyam mod would be great. There's no reason polyam shouldn't have been included in the game. It could've been just a few characters okay with it like BG3, but the rep and possibilities would at least be there.

I'm incredibly fed the fuck up with the narrative that turns Solas into an awful person. They're trying so fucking hard to paint him that way. They're hammering it home so hard I really can't recommend (at this point) that Sollavellans play it. It's possible that will change, but... sigh. They've even got my Rook saying negative shit about him. Shouldn't that be a choice that I get to make about my Rook? How they feel about Solas?

And if I could kick the incredibly unintelligent and massively fucking annoying Lace Harding off a cliff, I absolutely would. Hard. And laugh while I did it.

Everyone blames Solas. Why is everyone so far up Mythal's asshole that they're forgetting it was always her requiring her bound servant IE enslaved spirit who never even wanted a body (forgetting that part?) Solas to do what she said. That he tried over and over again to dissuade her?

You know, as a friend said, they could've hired a bunch of Ao3 fic writers and paid them in pizza or waffles and come out with better story lines than this.

Oh, but no, it's all Solas's fault. And the narrative is so fucking heavy handed on that that it's honestly nauseating me a little.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Section 9 here.

[the-elder-polls]

salem pls pls pls go on the rant about Neverar's death I NEED it

oh how thou enable mine soul. i apologize in advance because i am scatter brained and bad at formulating my thoughts (doesn't help that this topic is so weird) but here we go.

OKAY. so. i'm gonna start with foundations that i'll reference throughout this. starting with seht, specifically, seht's eso dialogue. i will link the uesp page HERE (ref point 1) to keep from having to copy-paste big swaths of text. i'll also link ayem (ref point 2) and vehk's (ref point 3), PLUS ayem (ref point 4) and vehk's (ref point 5) morrowind pages. if anyone wants me to snip the exact dialogue i'm referencing, please just lemme know.

SO. some main principles i want to draw from all of those are:

seht is upset about but accepts his place as a npc. he knows he is a npc, he knows he cannot change this, he just seeks to try to affect what he can. (ref point 1)

vehk knows he is a NPC and wants to be the Prisoner, aka the player character, because the Prisoner can be anyone, whereas he can only be vehk. (ref point 1)

almalexia seems to share the same knowledge as the other two, but denies it in favor of attempting to create her own narrative. (ref point 1, 4, and 5)

next, we'll talk about our beloved lorkahn, freak extraordinaire, god of mortals, spirit of nirn. his uesp page will be ref point 6.

obviously, lorkhan's heart is tied to nerevar's fate. it's tied to SO many fates--the tribunal, the nerevarine, dagoth ur, nerevar, the dwemer, etc which is rather fitting for the god of mortals i think. (i also won't go into my ramble about nerevar's parallels with lorkhan because that's a whole other ordeal)

vehk claims that nerevar and dumac fought and fell from the wounds inflicted upon each other. simultaneously, vehk straight up admits to killing nerevar (ref point 5), then just as easily says no, they didn't, actually (ref point 5) and says that that's just a lie spread by alandro sul. vehk is an infamously unreliable source. he lies as easy as he breathes, if not easier.

the battle of red mountain is an entire fucking thing. i really cannot even try to explain what happened during it because of the conflicting sources (see: the previous paragraph where vehk vehks ominously) but we DO at the very least know that the heart was struck, the dwemer disappeared, and nerevar died. whether or not he died DURING the battle or AFTER isn't entirely clear; again, conflicting sources.

aaaaaaaand then, there's dagoth ur. he loves nerevar, he hates nerevar. nerevar betrayed him, he betrayed nerevar. again. conflicting fucking sources. yet another "entire fucking thing" that i can't really go into detail on because i would derail myself so fast.

whatever happened at the battle of red mountain, at least two things are certain: nerevar died and the dwemer disappeared. we genuinely do not know what happened. is it likely the tribunal killed nerevar? yes, it's incredibly likely. but we do not have a 110% concrete answer of "yes, the tribunal absolutely killed nerevar" because even the tribunal don't seem to genuinely know. i think it's part of what is driving them out of their minds. even they don't know. because, like seht mentions/implies, they are bound to the will of the writers and the writers have not given any concrete answers.

i am personally a fan of the idea that it was a dragon break kind of situation, where all realities are simultaneously true and false, because it just feels the most...right, to me.

i had to significantly trim this because oh my god i rambled so much but. tldr we don't know and probably never will. also please nobody yell at me it's 4 am here and i'm just doing this

[obscene-beans]

you didn't ask for it and here it is!!! This is the adoptables website that I discovered on my very first forum in 2011 (Kataang Forever RIP) that is entirely about dragons and I love it forever.

edit: Here is a link to my scroll if you want to just lurk!

Here are some of my favorite dragons + their lineages that I bred myself

This first one's lineage is the ace flag (the spirit ward dragons sprites change based on the time of day, during the day its black) with a good ol' elder scrolls reference in the amethyst gemshard line, finished off with my most favorite and personal quote from Avatar that is just Toph saying "I'm not looking for anyone's approval. I know who I am." This is really important to me and my identity as an asexual, hence why I made it with dragons! I breed Cathal Darktide and Eat the Dreamer every thursday so it will (50/50) produce a purple gemshard egg that goes directly to the abandoned page to be picked up by other collectors.

Next: A lyrical lineage that I spent a great amount of time planning for, based on one of my favorite songs Tulip by Jesca Hoop. The lyrics are meant to be read the way the lineage goes, starting from the right and at the top going down, generation by generation. Also earlier today I stated that Amphipteres are fucking cool, and I stand by that by using an amphiptere breed as the lyrical dragon. I might find a way to add in the chorus with a different dragon but that involves planning and I am currently hyperfixated on ESO.

I also have an entire group of dragons dedicated to silly names. Here are some of my favorites:

There is plenty more in the link provided

thank you for listening.

[kemendin]

Hap birth to one of my favourite OCs ever, Seeker/Caspian! (and the only one with an actual assigned birthday so I figured I'd post something for the occasion)

This lad was born in Wildstar (RIP) a number of years ago, and to my continued astonishment and delight has subsequently made his way into other games right alongside me: Fallout 4, SWTOR, Secret World, ESO, and most recently Baldur's Gate; and if all feels right he's my top pick to be my newest Dragon Age protagonist in a few days.

While Seeker's certainly surprised me with how he adapts to each new setting (SWTOR Cas would be a little horrified by how Cypher's turned out, and Seeker was NEVER supposed to have pointy ears and then BG3 happened), he's always managed to maintain some key his core traits - logic, defiance, a need for answers and a knack for cracking codes, and always a refusal to allow any higher power to dictate his own destiny. Not to mention getting his left hand fucked up in every single universe, because his player said so.

Anyway, I adore this lad, and I'm looking forward to many more years of Seeker shenanigans!

[boyslit-moving]

sometimes i feel bad about everything i've put Essara through but i have also written 'good' timelines for her. like a taproot, every choice creates a new vein of plot.

but the one that lines her up to be every single tes hero (for the games ive played anyway) 🔽

the vestige reclaims her soul from Molag Bal

through some fuckery is slain and sealed away in a soul stone (I'll be honest here I played a fair bit of ESO a long time ago but for some reason the fuckery in zenimax's account management has prevented me from logging in or even downloading the game so i said fuck u and stopped trying lmfao)

soul stone lays in the hands of a powerful necromancer eventually slain and their stash looted

soul stone ends up in the personal collection of the Imperial City's archmage

passed down to subsequent archmages, and eventually given as an ostentatious gift to one of the Septim princes, Enman

Enman is fooling around with one of the palace clerks, plying her with declarations of love, cheap gifts, anything to draw her to bed with him

a sudden bout of handsiness pushes her into a cabinet and dislodges his precious gifted soulstone. once it clatters to the floor, he can see the light has gone out in it. it's ruined, empty. he's furious

Elatherin is fired from palace work at the prince's decree, and blacklisted from basically any other clerical work. she and her 4 year old daughter move to the the waterfront, unable to afford anywhere else

Essara is born a few months later, and in afew years orphaned with her sister, who join a band of street children who thieve and beg to survive and share their resources

after her sister is arrested, they move to the sewers for safety, have a few fallings out, and the leader tosses her out to make her own way. starving and alone she pickpockets ever-vigilant watch captain Lex and gets arrested

stops speaking after traumatic event and is released to the healer's care. Khajiit looks after her for a long while as Essie recovers, until she's poisoned by an unknown assailant. Essara can't cure her and is unable to keep the alchemical business going afterwards.

Essara is jailed due to some legal snafu with the business and Jo'qorra's death, ends up in the 'secret' jail cell the Emperor and blades are trying to escape to, and thus is she snared by fate to become the Champion of Cyrodiil

manages to rescue a mage from Vaermina's clutches which he had gotten there through his own idiocy

builds up the dark brotherhood, saves it from another infiltration attempt and then retires. just wants a quiet life

settles in Anvil, marries, has a couple children. things are nice for a while! they go visit her friend in the mountains who's a powerful mage and has offered to train her son in use of magic

she's also the granddaughter of Vaermina, and Vaermina is still pissed about losing one of her cattle. she's ordered to bring Essara before the prince, and Vaermina curses her to a sleep of unspecified length

anguished, the granddaughter and Essara's family store her sleeping body in a mausoleum guarded by atronachs to keep her safe. there's no telling when she'll awaken.

she doesn't awaken until it's time to get arrested at the skyrim border for the TESV: Skyrim plot :D

of course she doesn't know 200 years have passed and is pissed that they're arresting the champion of the oblivion crisis, the emperor will hear about this! they're like. did u bump ur head lady

and then the dragon roast happens and shes like well im not gonna die here so she skedaddles and despite her best efforts still ends up obligated to save skyrim from dragons bc somehow she has dragon blood. who knew? not her!

she's annoyed to the max about all this bc all she fucking wanted was to live a quiet life after all that oblivion shit with her family but no! but maybe she can build some kind of life here in skyrim. there's so many war orphans who need nurtured, and she picks up a couple that pluck at her heart

this is also the timeline where instead of just infiltrating Elenwen's party she seduces her to get at the info. for fun and for ghey shit u know

maybe i should post that one, its very poignant

but anyway. looking forward to TESVI whenever they deign to work on it and finish it so i can put my evil little fingers into the strings of fate and pull them to call on our Heroine once more >:}

[trickstarbrave]

Again I think there is a miscommunication of what I’m saying which is that there are multiple ways to read this blog post (likely intentionally) and that people are biased. Was Tiber Septim a shitty guy who used a giant robot to commit war crimes? Absolutely. There’s likely a lot more about him that simply isn’t covered in the lore because we go between complete condemnation of him and complete worship. Even if the agent is Zurin’s penpal, what information has Zurin missed? Is there anything he might not want to tell the player? Like how many atrocities was he willingly complicit in he isn’t disclosing? How many things were ‘his’ idea rather than Tiber Septims? Are there good things Tiber did (that don’t erase the bad he’s done obviously) that he won’t disclose because it doesn’t further his goals?

People all have biases. Tiber Septim is dead and we cannot even give our own biased first person accounts of what he was like, we have second hand information at best and that means there will always be something missing. Or even that trying to chase an idea of “who someone REALLY is” is a fools errand, doubly so if they’re a dead historical figure, triply so if they’re a dead emperor and have the soul of a dragon that demands conquest and subjugation.

What is Tiber Septim REALLY like? We dont know for certain. We never see him. We have to guess based on the incomplete information that will paint an incomplete picture. There’s a lot we will truly never KNOW.

For his writing I don’t think it’s word soup that he’s using to disguise the fact he means nothing. He’s copying specific styles. In fact I think he copied them a little too much. I get that unless you’re the kind of weirdo I am where you go “let’s read different translations of the Bible to compare and contrast and also dig up and analyze various occult texts” that will not be apparent. But it does mean stuff. The 36 sermons are so heavily inspired by the book of the law it literally quotes it at some points and the meaning is basically similar to what Crowley was going for irl.

And like. Annoying fans are going to be annoying. I have seen the most obnoxious people in various other fandoms who misunderstand what authors are saying while also taking that misunderstanding as gospel and that I don’t think you can pin on those authors either. Acting like it is his fault removes the personal responsibility from the people being annoying assholes and also muddies the water of actual shit to criticize him for like intersexism and transphobia.

Because I see people who hate kirkbride’s work and think the 36 sermons are “lies and historical revisionism” saying ESO isn’t canon. I see kirkbride fanboys say that when ESO has help canonize a bunch of weird forum and blog posts he’s made. I think it’s really dumb to say either way that esp is 100% non canon because fuck you when obviously it is lol and it’s dumb to ignore the sheer amount of content in it for arbitrary reasons.

If I see one more person credit Elder Scrolls's worldbuilding to Kirkbride I'm going to crash out. Everyone who says that should be forced to play Arena and Daggerfall for a mandatory 10+ hours and see that most of the series's major worldbuilding happened before MK was even a writer or concept artist. And even then MK didn't actually do much of the writing for Morrowind, either, he wrote a few lorebooks that make no sense and actively conflict with other parts of the game (ex. The Arcturian Heresy saying Zurin is not the Underking when the GAME'S OPENING CUTSCENE accredits a quote to "Zurin Arctus, THE UNDERKING"). And yes this could theoretically be in-game lying but then so is 36 Lessons of Vivec which is the other major thing Kirkbride wrote, which would mean that basically all of MK's major canonical contributions to TES lore would be lies lmfao

Put some damn respect on TED PETERSON'S name, he's the real fundamental TES worldbuilding writer all the way from the beginning with Arena, through Oblivion. History of the Empire, On Oblivion, 2920, Feyfolken, The Warp in the West, and so many more fundamental lorebooks in the series written by HIM. There are, fairly obviously, many MANY other writers for this series. It's been going on for decades. But since everyone seems determined to attribute all of TES lore to one guy, at least pick the correct one

[punkfairy2004]

Hello internet friends.

This tumblr is for me to mentally escape to simpler times.

I am 33 years old, going on 15. Some age-regression stuff will be explored. Basically, being an adult is hard and sucks sometimes, and the world is a fucked up and harsh place, so sometimes I'd like to pretend that I'm 15 again when things were... different.

Interests include but are not limited to ---

Vampires, fairies, witches, pirates, werewolves, fantastical creatures of all sorts.

Fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, animation, cartoons.

Reading*, writing, fanfiction, drawing, arts n crafts.

All genres of rock really (emo's not dead), and I'll happily listen to most music.

Casual gamer - ESO, The Sims, Spyro, Dragon Age, and others.

Gay as heck.

*I will be pretending we are in an alternate universe where JKR is not a fucking terf

[ann-chovi]

When u spend over an hour on comic work and get the lineart done and flats laid out and have started on the bg and your art program has "backed up" your work multiple times but then you get a phone call and go to set your tablet down and this somehow causes everything to freeze and crash and you reopen the file to find that despite the frequent "backups" the program made every single thing you've done since WAKING UP is absolutely GONE and may as well not have happened

[theelderscrolling]

Could've sworn I saw a post on here that was something about Molag Bal being some kind of offshoot of Anuiel's power aspect (I forgot what the original post was but it explained it much better than this) and Jyggalag deriving from the aspect of control. Or Jyggalag straight-up being what’s left of Auriel (order) when Akatosh goes off with the power.

The Molag Bal bit is kind of interesting in a “god the Dawnguard DLC could have had some better thematic relevance” way though because a) the design of Vampire Lords, with bat-like wings, claws and horns, bears vague resemblance to dragons, and b) Molag Bal has a bit of a history with dragons and craving what they have, to the point of making his own mimicked Daedric dragons (the Daedric Titans) from a captured dragon. That could have added some layers to the Dawnguard DLC, shame Daedric Titan lore wasn’t a thing until ESO.

(On an only slightly relevant note, this post was inspired by me learning that Dracula’s name is actually derived from Dracul, “dragon”.)

Also I guess in a super roundabout way the Jyggalag adds something interesting to Oblivion if the HOK, who has had a close bond with a Dragonborn throughout the entire story, becomes Sheogorath, who is the fucked-up chaotic form of Jyggalag. So its like Martin Septim got the power half of Anuiel and the HOK got the order half, but I guess they both didn’t quite manage to achieve either in the end because Martin Septim is not an emperor or a power-hungry person and the HOK as Sheogorath is chaos personified.

(If someone can link me to the original post/s of these theories that would be amazing because they were much better worded and very interesting!)

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

Side note, funny as shit how in Redguard Naafilgarus the Red Dragon is specifically set up as the violent tool of imperialism, as the subjugator, as the devout soldier of Tiber Septim enforcing his will on the subjugated Redguards, as an all around villain and monster...

Then ESO shows up and now Nahfahlaar the Red Dragon is one of the good guys saving the world because he's actually upholding Akatosh's will all along or some shit, the promotional material so much so as calling him an "Old Ally" of elder scrolls lore.

Like, holy shit, they turned the symbol of the Imperial Dragon, the instrument of Tiber Septim's imperial conquest, the personification of the empire, into one if the fucking good guys, and pretended he was a good guy all along.

You can't make this shit up.

[mathieubellamont]

A kind of partial goodbye -

TLDR:

made a new account and probably won't be back on more than maybe once a year if that, thank you for everything

Long version:

Oh oof so. I've really needed to remake my tumblr for a while and due to some personal reasons I caved and did, expecting to be able to join this blog on my new account as a member, like with my art blog. I. Apparently cannot! Now I won't be permanently gone, I don't intend to abandon this account but.... I won't be logging in again unless it's to post on this account and, I'll be honest, two main reasons are going to make this supremely rare. A) I already only rarely post on this account lmfaO, and B) for a few months now I've actually been completely avoiding TES games. I've promised I'm not going to play any TES games other than oblivion, morrowind, and ESO because Skyrim (and Dragon Age, and I'm betting any money the next TES game which I shouldn't be buying) are really bad for my connection to reality - the catch is I don't play morrowind, lost interest in ESO, and my oblivion, love of my life, is just..... broken even when redownloaded from fresh. I literally can't play it physically. Which means I'm not going to have much of a use for this blog, am I.

I actually have had a TES aesthetics blog for a while now that's been a wip so I haven't shared, but it's really the only thing I can take with me to the new blog (I'm still not up for linking personals on this blog) so I'll still be around there - @lakeilinalta - but that'll probably be about it, if I continue using it

Dunno how long it'll be til I post again so, you know, sad as fuck I may not get to see this blogs decade anniversary in... Two years? One year? And again it's not a permanent absolute leaving Deleting Bye but.... This blog already was barely used so oof.

So, teveryone who's followed me since around the beginning or recently alike, hey, thank you! Running this blog was literally the most positive social media experience I have ever had bar maybe only my formative years growing up on deviantart, making art and stories with friends and sharing memes and staying up all night on call when I was a baby teenager a decade ago, which was fan-fuckin-tastic and, as I said, formative to my existence so that'll have to come first... But honestly my years here were formative too, and even with barely being on this blog it's followed me growing up into adulthood and yall are a bigger part of the experience of running it than I an it ever could be, so sincerely, thank you.

To everyone who's never gotten a reply from me/to everyone who was the last to reply in a conversation: I'm so sorry, I do that to literally every single person, not a single instance of this was ever personal - serious when I say not a single person, I know who's in there and..... Its never been personal. To everyone I used to be friends with/otherwise here and drifted from (or didn't bloody reply to LMFAO), yall are cool AF, stay funky, sorry I had to leave yall hanging but none of you ever did anything wrong so remember that

Hopefully I'll be on in my usual Every Few Months manner but I really can't guarantee it BC I changed blogs before I started this one way back when, thinking it'd be temporary, and never looked back so..... Yall stay safe out there. Thanks for being such a positive force in my life ✌️

[charliebug3]

Alright so I cannot sleep it is midnight and I've been listening to Eighth Wonder by Lemon Demon on loop for about 2 hours too long so I'm about to briefly become the least normal person on tesblr.

WHY I'M RIGHT: Abnur Tharn IS Zurin Arctus, Deranged Sleep-Deprived Edition

(Take all of this with a heap of salt. I am joking with the "I'm right" thing. I could be completely and utterly wrong but that's the fun of it, innit?)

So basically I stumbled upon an old concept by ESO's first Loremaster and I've never been the same since. Long story short the concept had Abnur Tharn turn into Zurin Arctus... somehow.

There's bits of that left over, methinks, in the way that House Tharn evidently, by Abnur's own admission, participated in keeping... political dissenters... under control. Now hehehe boy that's sure interesting. What um. I'm sure that will go well at some point in Tamriel's future, huh? Definitely won't ummmmmm uh something something Battlemage something cough.

There's also, of course, the way he's not particularly partial to continuing to serve under a banner that's committing mass atrocities. The willingness to give up everything for Cyrodiil. Eh, but those are just traits of someone loyal to a cause, hmm?

But regardless, none of that could mean anything. ZOS was forbidden to do anything with the Tiber Wars, or with Dragons, or with anything like that, right?

AND THEN ELSWEYR HAPPENED.

Whoopsie! Looks like the limits are off! Now comes the part where I get a progressively less coherent while making a bullet point list of things that Could be coincidence but um. Uh. Look it all makes sense together I promise.

• It's a little hidden in a line of dialogue during The Demon Weapon, but like right out the gate Abnur is directly looking for The FUCKING NUMIDIUM. Boom, first quest, it's literally right there. And where does he go looking? The Halls of Colossus. Y'know, the place where Tiber Septim and Zurin Arctus KEEP THE NUMIDIUM 300 YEARS LATER. Now of course it's a dead end this time and oopsie it's a Different horror released from the Halls but like. Come ON.

• Nahfahlaar. Hello? The crown jewel of Tiber Septim's army or whatever? He's literally just chilling in Elsweyr. And not only that, take a WILD guess who's the ONLY one present when Abnur pulls his silly little disappearing magic trick for gods know how long? Yeah I mean there's not much to say except there's a literal entire character directly from the Tiber Wars in this storyline. So we know for a fact the "no Tiber Wars" limit is off.

• Aeonstone. Hello, green crystal that amplifies the magic of souls (LITERALLY REFERRED TO AS LIFE FORCE IN MULTIPLE LINES OF DIALOGUE. FROM A VERY SPECIFIC CHARACTER.) to godly levels of power! Hmm! I wonder, just WONDER where else we might have seen this. Couldn't possibly be related to uhhhhhh the magic green crystal used to amplify someone's life force to godly levels of power. Y'know the um. The Mantella. I'm talking about the Mantella I cannot explain how much the idea that the Mantella is made of Aeonstone makes me froth at the mouth. It makes too much sense and there are like THREE people who know what Aeonstone is and does and hahaha GUESS WHICH ONE KNOWS THE MOST? Yeah it's. It's Abnur.

• Now of course there's the direct parallel of "I have lived too long and fucked up too much, I have nothing left please let me die" that's less spoken in Elsweyr than it is in Daggerfall but it is DEFINITELY still there. Like mr battlemage says "attacking Kaalgrontiid's lair would be a suicide mission" and then IMMEDIATELY is like "I am going to Kaalgrontiid's lair to attack him :)" hello??????? Ok.

• Can we just talk about the fact that of ALL the places to put the ESO storyline, it was, well. Elsweyr? The place where shit gets REAL fucked in the Tiber Wars, meaning everything we do and everyone we save in ESO: Elsweyr means NOTHING. Rimmen gets nuked by the Numidium. Senchal is home to a massacre at the hands of Tiber Septim's army. Hell, the third moon happens! In Daggerfall! ITS MANNIMARCO HE LITERALLY JUST HIJACKS KAALGRONTIID'S NEE MOON PROPHECY HGHGGGHHGBH- but boy all that amounting to nothing just. It fits. It fits so well, with the whole thing of giving up everything only for it to be taken advantage of and destroyed. And I mean. "Dying" (because neither Abnur nor Zurin actually got to die to Dragonhold or the Numidium, that'd be too easy) to stop something you ACTIVELY caused and were party to and it's 99% your fault and became so much worse than you ever could've planned for? Uh hehe. Yeah.

• I love the fact that we have literally no origin for Zurin (I DO NOT COUNT THE ARCTURIAN HERESY I DONT THINK ITS CANON. I THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW). All we know is that he's an incredibly powerful Imperial Battlemage who held the position of Grand Chancellor. Which I mean like. ESO literally gives us local incredibly powerful Grand Chancellor (it's implied that at full strength he can just casually KO a dragon and even weakened he can stand against Mannimarco (full power) long enough to not get completely obliterated). So like. It would at this point be a VERY smooth transition from one to the other.

• This is something that just completely drives me bonkers insane feral and may not actually be a connection, but uhhh the name of the Spymaster responsible for collecting info about Abnur for his Elsweyr Meet the Character article is. His. His name is FUCKING. ARCTUS. IM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP HIS NAME IS ARCTUS COVE. THAT IS NOT A COMMON NAME FOR AN IMPERIAL UNLESS I HAVE JUST COMPLETELY MISSED MULTIPLE OTHER USAGES OF THE NAME ARCUS. I JUST. AAAAAAAAAAAA

• Final little note but I think the little ESO green dragon imp pet from the Elsweyr event back in like 2019 with a model seen nowhere else in the game and a description that's literally a quote from Abnur is a. I think it's a Skakmat reference? From Daggerfall? Not entirely sure but it looks fairly similar to Skakmat's icon in Daggerfall's files. I dunno maybe I've fully lost it.

Anyway nonsense post over go about your day/night have fun. I might add citations and sources and corrections in the morning when I wake up and am coherent. Please don't kill me

[saturniandragon]

For visitors of my blog

New to my blog, or a recurring visitor? In any case, hello! My name is Adra (short of Adrastea, my dragonsona name). Here you'll find various things of my interest, which you can check in list of my major interests!

I'm a digital artist, a fic author (none officially published atm), and also a staff in Indonesia's statistics bureau (Badan Pusat Statistik, BPS)! I'm 24 (as of 2025) years old cis bisexual man who uses government-assigned he/him pronouns.

Join my Discord server! (DM if link expires)

My sideblogs:

@su-35bm-flanker-e for Ace Combat and aviation stuff

@2017-mclaren-675lt for cars and motorsport stuff

@assigning-a-gun-to-your-fav where you can show me your fav character and I give them a gun. also firearm shitpost blog

Secret sideblog #1 containing horny stuff, unlock at friendship level 3 (or just, you know, ask me nicely)

Secret sideblog #2 for my darkest fetishes and kinks, unlock at friendship level 10+

Why not check out my most popular posts as a starter?

Some of these aren't that "popular" but I just love revisiting them from time to time.

Enjoy your stay, and don't break nothing!

Don't talk to me or your daughter ever again

teldryn

hazard to society

onion scrolls

responses to fuck you

onion scrolls part 2

lady elenwen that's a mirror

skyrim + tumblr

the elder tweets

the elder tweets part 2

back on my bullshit

spell tome: yeet

nb dragonborn mod

skyrim + discord

unashes your yam

bonjour (not exactly my post but i contributed)

picks up a potion i will never use in the game

my child is fine

oc: merri'sa

thu'umblr

hermaeus mora plush

zanri al-anaqi: short bio

zanri al-anaqi: story

Update 2

bread seller miraak by jirosan

responses to i love you

fictional alien race part 1

fictional alien race part 2

receiving asks in tumblr

love language

ace combat + screenshots of despair

f1 + screenshots of despair

stealth archer appreciation post

ebony blade

Update 3

ahravani al-karim

oc: adrastea

oc: aeryx

ask about aeryx by saxhleel

Update 4

a new face touches the beacon

vestige did you put your name on the amulet of kings

oc: adrastea (updated)

oc: mira

skyrim mod concept

can't sleep babe

music ask

dragons and dragons

oc: adrastea (eso)

oc: jesse

Update 5

systema saturnium (lore about my alien dragon characters)

systema saturnium, extras

future PC specs

Merri'sa megapost

skyrim writing prompt

why is everything so loud

eso: opposites react

inspiration behind my TES ocs

shutterstock alternative for stock images

oc: martin revello (maned wolf)

oc voices!

how soft are my ocs

Update 6

New gaming laptop!

tumblr sexy lizardman/woman poll

Adra's french toast recipe

incorrect summary of ace combat by adra

so, have you found a reason to boop yet? buddy.

Adra's trance music collection

eso fanfic: shadows of the past

ac7 fanart: magic spear

suffering from a disease called indonesia

Update 7

the myth of AK-47

DMDE file recovery tool

Furaffinity murdered Andrew Tate

the MTD

Adra's scrambled eggs recipe

No noise november

Cat

Update 8

Real life minecraft?

Zombie apocalypse weapon

Is this quiz for boats?

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch

pvp outside of the designated area

[daggerfall]

Isla Kingston for that oc meme!

Full Name: Isla Ysara Kingston Gender and Sexuality: cis woman, bisexual Pronouns: she/her Ethnicity/Species: breton Birthplace and Birthdate: Imperial City, 22nd of Rain's Hand 2E 563 Guilty Pleasures: Phobias: daedric princes, to this day they still make her uncomfortable. daedric involvement in a problem in general makes her nervous. She's less impulsive to anger now than she was as a teenager, but she's seen how impulsive and powerful they can be with mortal lives if they wish. and knows how powerless she truly is against them without a lot of assistance. She'll fist fight molag bal but also knows sheogorath could just make someone walk of a balcony to their death if he felt like it and she can't stop him. What They Would Be Famous For: she's kinda saved Tamriel from every disaster that's stricken it for the last 13 years. She shows up in your town and you either know there's some big powerful meeting going on, or a disaster is happening What They Would Get Arrested For: sometimes she likes to steal from rich nobles because fuck them but also she can very easily talk her way out of actually being arrested with her prestige and "no one will believe you" OC You Ship Them With: no OCs, but her late husband is mister Darien Gautier uwu OC Most Likely To Murder Them: she doesnt share a universe with any other OCs of mine so no one really. She's more likely to murder her descendants for being daedra worshippers if given the chance Favorite Movie/Book Genre: she likes a good investigator vale novel or just murder mystery in general. Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: "and they all lived happily ever after". She lived through not just the Planemeld, but every disaster after and the consequences of them, the deaths that happened, and had to go on. Her story didn't get to end because the written one ended. No Hero lives happily every after Talents and/or Powers: she's always had a talent for magic from a young age, both with being able to pull magic from Aetherius with more ease than others, better control over it, and it being stronger. She's also a skilled ambassador and negotiator. Why Someone Might Love Them: she's the badass hero who cleaved molag bal in half, saved the lives of gods, fights dragons 1v1... she has a lot of admirers across tamriel for that. she would work herself into needing medical attention trying to help others. she's also pretty uwu Why Someone Might Hate Them: despite being a tamriel wide hero, she's still pretty loyal to the covenant and so people assume she's a cov spy a lot. She butts her way into problems without being asked because "i'm the only person who can deal with this", and while she is right because of how Heroes work, not everyone gets it (understandable as well). She's judgmental about daedric worship and necromancy and holds a damn good grudge (outside of offering people a chance to redeem themselves). She's been a Hero for long enough that sometimes she has to make decisions that are just the lesser of two evils and not everyone understands those decisions. How They Change: she mellows out of her teenage angst and works to unlearn her impulsive hate of daedra, undead, and the like. she grows to go from viewing being the Hero as the best thing that could have happened to give her life direction, to a curse she has to bear for the sake of tamriel. she dedicates herself to her daughter, to helping people redeem themselves from involvement in daedric cults, and working with the covenant to end or win the three banners war Why You Love Them: she's my first eso character, my main, my best girl. she perseveres as the Hero, not because she wants to, but because she must. she's the story of a hero who has been forced to give her life to the world, and slowly grows to want more than that, more than being a piece of the story.

[nightingaletrash]

If I had to rank ESO’s DLCs from my favourite to least favourite, the list would probably look something like this (not including Dungeon DLC because I don’t play those):

Orsinium (best story, most beloved, love to little pieces)

Thieves Guild (be gay, do crimes)

Dark Brotherhood (be gay, do worse crimes)

Markarth (everyone can live this time, as a little treat)

Morrowind (good solid story, the only dlc that treated Veya with any kindness)

Dragonhold (DRAGON FRIEND)

Elsweyr (DRAGONS also I learned way more about khajiit here than I did in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim)

Necrom (a pleasant surprise that it wasn't straight up a retread of Summerset's story; love the companions, enjoyed several characters, just a few details made me grumble)

Greymoor (some bits were Yikes, but gotta love that Fenn, Lyris and Svana dynamic)

Clockwork City (shoulda been Mephala shenanigans, but got to hang out with Sotha Sil and pester him with questions)

Murkmire (still kinda hm on the bbeg, but I learned more about argonians here than I ever did in Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim)

Summerset (main story is dead to me, murdered my boyfriend, forced me to kill my daughter AND disrespected my mother right in front of my salad, redeemed only for the good side content, Alchemy is best girl) - moved this one up because for all the shit I give it, at least it made me feel something

Blackwood (got to see Alchemy again and got to call in some favours for once, also my Vestiges got some kids out of it. Wish Eveli had retained any of her character arc and that the Brotherhood stuff had been better written tho)

Imperial City (deadass did not realise I could solo this for years. Also fuck Pact Campers, nice to get an immortal autistic person tho)

Deadlands (deadass didn’t give a fuck about my feelings, forced me to kill my son and no one gave a shit, gave me a cool rat friend tho)

High Isle (could have been its own thing, could have done something interesting with its villains and themes but chose to be boring instead, Ayrenn, Emeric, Irnskar and Caska were the only highlights while Za’ji and Jakarn both got reduced to one or two personality traits)

Firesong (should have been its own thing, threw in a ‘end of the world’ scenario because apparently a political story can’t be interesting on its own, only the cathedral scene got something out of me, the rest was just dull af and the best villain it could offer wasn’t even the Big Bad of the story, he was just some Bitch with a Birthright)

[azem-ghale]

I've never got the hate for eso well more so from those who have just played Skyrim like they played that lazy ass game where the quest all look like they snatched the drafts from the writers hands and shoved it non the game. The nords in Skyrim come off as nothing more than racist drunks and they straight up shit all over the forsworn tribes labeling then as savages.

Eso does a much much better job at them not perfect but it's pretty great. Though some people can't ignore some lore inconsistencies

Also eso has a lot of queer charecters that are done really well they didn't shy away from lgbt content at all and it doesn't feel like some shitty virtue signalling like it does in most games

I think a lot of the hate comes from how it started(which was terrible lol) and people just can't let go

Most of the quests are really good even side quest whet Skyrim is just go to place kill draugr pick up thing, eso while it does have some quests like that a lot of them have actual stories and pretty good dialogue

There are some quests that are or end in a really dumb way though and the fact they start new players off in the latest dlc zone is very stupid like start them off at the beginning??

Also dragons are actually threatening in eso and will fuck you up, oh what I'd of given for them to be like that in Skyrim rather than them feeling more like big angry birds.

It's also one of the few mmos where the premium stuff is actually good shout out to the bottomless crafting mats bag (no shout out to Minings/ gathering nodes been shared because they are dumb)

There's definitely a lot to do and what I really loved is they don't just make you the leader of all the guilds