this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

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The Elder Scrolls Arena let you play as a black woman in 1992. Name another game that did that.

Pretty much every game has offered a world where both races and sexes participate equally, and no one really cares (Morrowind’s racism is always made alien and upsetting thematically).

In Morrowind you can’t be a lesbian with Ahnassi (although the guy who wrote The Lusty Argonian Maid is an equal opportunity HR disaster). One of the rare characters Oblivion bothers to spend time on in a faction quest line is very clearly gay. Skyrim everyone is pan.

And a lot of this is just the same in Adventure Construction Set a series Howard explicitly took inspiration from. The game doesn’t really give that much of a shit about what you look like. It’s far more effort to code in racism, when you start with that kind of open world model.

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[–] terry_jerry@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 hour ago

No shade on ur whole thesis but "Wheel of Fortune" for the Sega Genesis did let u play as a black woman and also came out in 1992.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 2 points 1 hour ago

Elder Scrolls is one of the most racist worlds there is. Every race hates each other. They enslave each other, kill, war against, just because of race. Hell one race even changed thier skin color.

But to your point, there's already one example of a playable black woman in the comments. I'm sure there's more. Don't forget ES lore was written before Howard showed up to remove features. So don't give him credit where he didn't earn it.