Interior

Pre-release image for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Oblivion Portfolio - Screen 1

Game Design portfolio for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Art and design by Todd Broadwater

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but theres something so jarring about fandoms in general and how white-dominated they are

i first played morrowind before i had internet access. i didnt know about fandoms, i didnt know fanfiction was a hobby other people actually did seriously, and i didnt know there were whole online communities of people who got together to discuss their fav games

when i played morrowind and saw the ashlander characters for the first time, i was instantly struck by how familiar they were to me. in my little kid brain i thought to myself "oh theyre just like my family! thats so neat :)"

it was the first time i ever felt that kind of familiarity in fiction. u could say this was the first time i ever felt actually represented in media (obviously other romani characters existed before, but they were largely VERY racist so.) TO ME, the ashlanders were my very first exposure to representation that was anything like me and my actual family (i clarified in another post BUT im a mixed irish-roma-mongolian which is why im addressing these specific cultures)

anyway. it was really cool to have this, it was awesome to feel represented in this way for the first time in media that i liked. i was so excited about this, i very soon after started using the internet so i could talk about my Favourite Game Morrowind and how awesome it was and how i wanted to talk about how cool it was to have the ashlanders be a group of character that felt so familiar to my culture

only to come online and get immediately BLASTED by elder scrolls fandom endlessly musing about how WEIRD and ALIEN and UNUSUAL and STRANGE the ashlanders were and how they could NEVER IMAGINE living anything like them or BEING anything like them

i thought this was a pretty well known thing in tes for many many years considering ashlanders literally live in gers (they call them yurts in-game but its a different word for the same exact structure; ger is just the actual mongolian word)

mongolian culture is also just something ive noticed a lot of fantasy writers/designers like to rip off bc its a culture that is seen as "unusual" by most westerners, and in particular fantasy artists like to take a huge amount of inspo from mongolian fashion and traditional dress to make their fictional cultures appear more "fantastical" (again, because traditional mongolian clothing is seen as "unusual" in its style)