Writing as a Khajiit

Post » Fri Mar 08, 2013 4:44 pm

To really immerse myself in Skyrim, I started keeping a character journal. It's making the game more interesting and I find it easier to suspend disbelief when I'm picking up the same quest for the 20th time when I think about how that quest would be looked upon by the fresh eyes of my character with their particular motivations and backstory. My wife is finding these entries great fun to read, but I have a bit of a dilemma.

Correct third person pronouns?
My character is a Khajiit. To write a journal as if it were written by my Khajiit character at the end of each day, I obviously have to do a lot of first person self reference, but saying "Ra'ksada did this" in every sentence sounds horrible. I've adopted referring to myself generically as "this one" or "khajiit" many times. Where it becomes an issue is with other pronounce. I've been using plurals like "us, we, our." I've so far avoided "me, my, he" in referenceto myself.

So which is correct and are there any strong examples of this. Despite playing around 900 hours of Oblivion, I can't remember for sure. I've just noticed that when I write "my" it feels wierd and maybe that's a result of something I'd heard in my hours played. But I can't find any examples either direction from any of the few lore books that have a Khajiit talking about themselves in that way.

Also, the word khajiit itself. If I say "but khajiit was not worried" do I need to capitalize the word? When refering to other races by their titles I do obviously, but when a khajiit refers to themselves in third person this way, wouldn't I just imagine it as non-proper title "one who deserts?"

I also wonder if there are very specific times a Khajiit would be more likely to refer to themselves as "this one" versus "khajiit" versus their name, or a given pronoun.


Journal sharing?
And, as an aside, are there any communities where people like to share these types of journals? I'm more than happy just keeping them for myself and my wife, but I figured if there are actually communities out there that enjoy it, I might as well share and maybe even get some proofreading/criticism/lore corrections. These are not simple text journals. I actually have made a point of getting the in game font, getting a paper texture, and even taking screenshots to go inside. Sure, the screenshots require suspension of disbelief when reading such a thing, but I've always personally found reading that stuff rather dull.

Below is an example and probably a poor one. I hadn't learned a lot of the camera tricks I've now learned, nor fully established my character. If I end up sharing these with a larger audience, I'll probably go back to the saves, take better pictures, ret con old issues, etc.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bnpw9mpkntbokra/002%20-%20Sundas%2C%2017th%20of%20Last%20Seed.pdf
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James Potter
 
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Post » Fri Mar 08, 2013 10:06 pm

I'd say either posting the entire journal or a transcription would be welcome here - the Lore forum plays host to a large amount of Monkey Truth and other fan-written content, and it tends to even inform some people's opinions on what is vs isn't canon. So... I'd say if you feel like posting them, then feel free to!

As far as writing goes, I have no idea really. Sorry I can't be more helpful there.

EDIT: For those screenshots, have you considered running a couple filters over them to make them look hand-drawn? If you do it carefully they should still look presentable and won't be quite as dangerous to suspension of disbelief. =D
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Guy Pearce
 
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Post » Fri Mar 08, 2013 6:21 pm

Actually, it's totally fine for a Khajiit to use "I" when speaking about himself. Take http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:J%27zhar%27s_Journal, for example.

As far as where to share it, since you have screenshots, I don't see why you couldn't post your entries in the http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1447966-show-us-your-screenshots-76/ threads in the Skyrim section. Many people use that thread to tell the stories of their characters accompanied with screenshots. They don't do it quite like you do, but I think it would be perfectly welcomed there.
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Travis
 
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