I’m working on a guide to Skyrim, so I had Copilot generate the questions for the outline. I’m not going to have Copilot generate more than that, because I want the guide to retain my voice. However, if you’re a Skyrim fan and would like to add to the guide, leave a comment with a question and its category. Also, the PDF is free because it’s all Copilot-generated. Feel free to write your own document- you are not stealing anything from me, you’re only stealing auto-generated questions organized with Styles in Word. I haven’t even customized the styles.
I’m doing this as a free guide to get my name out there as a writer. I’m planning to write my own answers, but to also include the best questions/answers from WordPress and reddit. It’s a labor of love, but it comes with benefit for me, too. If I give something away for free first and someone likes it, they’re more likely to buy the next thing.
I decided to write down what I do with my computers to make them work for me. This will go on Medium eventually, but the whole point of free software is to give it away. Here’s some free help as well:
I asked Carol for some non-fiction prompts on Skyrim because I like reaching out to other players. We can debate our play styles all day, we can do the same quests over and over, and with mods the game literally never ends. I have yet to finish either Oblivion or Fallout 4 because every time I think about trying a new video game, I get the shakes. I do not have the time to learn a new interface and new game mechanics when there are so many things that extend the life of the game whether you’re on old hardware playing Legacy Edition or belong to Steam and obtain every update (and will die mad about it, because it breaks the script extender every time. I wish the mod builders would work on the bugs in Windows 11 for Legacy Edition and go back to it, because I believe Steam’s whole game plan is to offer mods through Steam itself and the free repositories will be gone. I use Nexus Mods, and I have the GOG Anniversary Edition. This is important because GOG and Steam have their own version numbers, and you have to download the right version of Skyrim Script Extender. It is the foundation of mods, and the first thing you’ll want to download after the game. I also use Mod Organizer 2 because I have multiple Bethesda games and it’s a great manager for all of them. I am not much of a gamer. I just play it when there’s nothing on TV. However, since it’s been out such a long time, I don’t have to sit and play it for hours to get my fill. I’ve done nearly everything by now. It’s just relaxing.
Without further ado, here’s everything you can pick apart about me as the Dragonborn…. who is currently a wood elf named Quinn because that’s something my favorite companion, Lucien Flavius, can actually say.
The Social Aspect: Write about how playing Skyrim has helped you connect with other players. What shared experiences have brought you closer?
Skyrim is not a multiplayer game. You can play alone the entire time if you’d like. However, it’s more fun building a team through adding multiple companions. I have Lydia (with dialogue overhaul), (Serana, with dialogue overhaul), Lucien, Inigo, Kaidan, Hoth, Auri, Teldryn, and am debating on picking up Redcap as well. Lucien and Inigo are the most fleshed out in terms of being able to talk to each other in-game. Where the social aspect comes in is on reddit at r/skyrim. There are endless questions. Where do you live? What do you do? What’s your favorite view? In case you’re wondering, it’s the entire run up from Skaal Village to Saering’s Watch. Solstheim, from the Dragonborn DLC, actually feels more like home than Skyrim in some ways. However, my player home is a mod called “Haafinger Hall,” and it’s right between Frost River and Dragon Bridge. I have my own fish hatchery, which is A LOT more fun in the Anniversary edition because you can collect so many. I know this is not most players of video games, but sometimes I just swim in the fish hatchery and call it a day. ๐
Gamer Strategies: Interview different players to discover their unique strategies for overcoming challenging quests or bosses in Skyrim.
I am not the best person to ask about “gamer strategies.” I basically just hit things until they die. Right now I have sort of specialized into a battle mage, using conjuration magic to add companions and a bound bow rather than carrying one. I am deadly as a stealth archer, and everyone in Skyrim is deadly as a stealth archer. It’s the easiest way to level up because you get 3X damage on something if you’re sneaking. Once I got to where I enjoyed magic more, I relied on it. Mostly because caves and dungeons are dark. The alternative is to give all your followers staves, because they will light it up for you. It’s kind of funny, all my companions start with either a sword or a bow, and then as soon as I hand them a staff or teach them a spell, they stop using them. ๐
Modding Community: Explore the world of Skyrim mods. What motivates players to create mods, and how do they change the gaming experience?
There are many, many reasons that people choose to make Skyrim mods…. a warning for parents to actually look at what your kids are downloading. You can make a Skyrim character do anything. A mod I downloaded the other day that has been useful is called “SkyClimb.” You can actually use the mountains.
You can add hours and hours of gameplay with SUPERIOR mods. Here’s a list of quest mods that I use:
Vigilant
Glenmoril
Beyond Reach
The Forgotten City
Clockwork
Saints and Seducers Extended Cut (must be used with a new save game)
Legacy of the Dragonborn (it is so overwhelmingly large in scope that it’s its own game)
Dawn of Skyrim
Undeath
Darknd
Role-Playing Stories: Delve into the role-playing aspect of Skyrim. How do players develop their charactersโ backstories, and what impact does this have on their gameplay?
I am not speaking for myself. I have talked to other players, because I was confused about this as well. I said, “it’s not that I’m opposed, but you eventually get good at everything.” People who use it as a role playing game are much more serious than I am about it. They make their own rules of the game. Meanwhile, I don’t care about the rules of the game. I couldn’t find the laser gun they needed me to find in Fallout 4 (I’ve made it to the opening…. four months ago), so I turned on God mode and beat it to death with a 10mm pistol just to watch myself do it. Deathclaws were my least favorite villains in Fallout 3, so it was personal.
Bethesda changed the mode of gameplay after Fallout 3, and you can see it in Skyrim as well as Fallout. You can join factions. I love The Thieves Guild, The Dark Brotherhood, the Imperials, etc. You are alone as a single player, but there are many, many NPCs and you choose which ones you want to do. To this day I have never completed The Companions because I do not want to be a werewolf, and I have not sided with the vampires because every time Serana has turned me I have made an absolute shit vampire.
Skyrim Across Cultures: Investigate how players from different parts of the world experience Skyrim. Are there noticeable differences in play styles or preferences?
I cannot answer that, because I do know that the game has broad appeal. Even for mods, there’s nearly every language translation on earth, if not vocalized, at least in text at the bottom of the screen. I don’t know where my redditors are located, but presumably they are all over the world. There just aren’t any posts in the subreddit that aren’t in English, so it’s impossible to tell without slang where everyone is from. Frustrating, innit? What I do know is that we all have very firm opinions about the game, and very few people in our group with unpopular opinions. For instance, it is generally frowned upon to kill both Alduin and Paarthurnax. It is frowned upon to join the vampires instead of The Dawnguard. Although, if you do kill both dragons, it opens up a new faction called “The Blades.” You’re basically all hunting dragons together, but I’ll never do it because I’m the Dragonborn and her character is built to be 100% That Bitch at all times. Like, “it’s cute you think you’re special with that whole being able to swallow dragons’ souls, but I’m going to harp on you at all times that I’m in charge here.” They, according to Master Arngeir, “specialize in meddling in matters they barely understand,” and he hasn’t been wrong yet.
The Economics of Skyrim: Analyze the in-game economy and its effect on player interactions. How do players use bartering and trading to their advantage?
There are many, many ways to make money in Skyrim. You can escape to a town and just start working before you start doing any of the quests. You will mostly chop wood and gather ingredients. When your alchemy is quite high, you’ll be able to make potions that increase all kinds of attributes, as well as instant full health replenishing and things like that. If you want to get rich quick, find as many alchemy ingredients as you can and eat them. I would suggest turning on God mode when you eat something you know is going to kill you. However, it’s invaluable to get to the alchemy table and not have to craft things until you finally find something that’s worth money. You can also sell crops to local merchants, as well as any armor or weapons (arrows, bolts, etc.). You can also bake, and sell goods as well because those help like healing potions, too. As you get more and more wealthy, it’s easier to acquire more property. I am basically Dragonborn Realty, Inc. by now.
Gaming as Escapism: Discuss how Skyrim serves as a form of escapism. What aspects of the game allow players to immerse themselves in its world?
I think that for a lot of people, gaming is escapism….. especially taking into consideration who plays this game the most….. it’s the people whose lives would be changed by being able to own a house, plant a garden, have some bees, and occasionally go out on fun adventures. But the fact that you can both own a house and sleep eight hours to feel well rested is a lot of its charm. You also get spousal buffs if you marry someone. They generally become a merchant and they will make you one meal a day. I am on my own and live with my friends, so obviously I don’t play against type. The reason I don’t find it that immersive is that I can turn it on and off like a TV show. The first time I played, I was obsessed with the main quest, and after that it took me a long time to realize that’s only one quest out of about 1500.
The Evolution of a Gamer: Chronicle your own journey or that of another player in Skyrim. How has your approach to the game changed over time?
The first time I ever saw anyone play Skyrim, it was my brother in law on his Xbox. The game looked really fun because the graphics were good and the specs weren’t ridiculous. I didn’t even download Special Edition until I got my current computer. I played around on my own, and thought Paarthurnax was charming. I am also a member of the House Telvani, because Neloth is a bitchy queen and I cannot live without him. One of the things you ask him is “what does it mean to be a member of the House Telvanni?” He says that in 200 years when he goes back to Vvardenfell, I’ll be the greatest wizard in Morrowind. I believe the joke is that I won’t live that long. He also will not train you past a certain level because “he cannot have me being better than him.” If it seems like I game a lot, I’ve heard that line since, like, 2012. So, I used to be married. Now I’m not. That means I took an arrow to the knee, but now I’m an adventurer like you.
All of the weapons are fun, but truly the single escapism is being a wizard. I can light up the night sky with destruction or healing.
Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?
When I was a child, I had eight Cabbage Patch dolls, a “Kid Sister,” and an ALF plush (that was probably the worst thing I’ve ever given away). I didn’t like playing with dolls, but I liked having them around me as comfort objects. For instance, I did not make up elaborate stories about them. I enjoyed that they took up space in the bed. The last doll I loved was SpongeBob, probably the second biggest thing I’ve regretted giving it away because it wasn’t really a doll. It was more like a structured pillow, and I shouldn’t have cared that pillow was yellow and absorbent.
The last time I remember holding it clearly, I was in the hospital at Inova Fairfax, where I was being evaluated for appendicitis. There were too many people in the ER, so I got put out in the hallway and given something for the pain. It was very scary, because they got pretty close to prepping me for surgery (or it seemed to me, because they kept waffling). Then, they realized that I have a birth defect in my intestines (or something, I can’t remember…..) where there’s a hole that can get infected. It presents like appendicitis.
I don’t know why I stopped loving dolls as comfort items. Probably because I didn’t want anyone to look down on me and I feel everyone’s eyes everywhere… and I did.
I would be remiss to mention that Dana went to Build-a-Bear and built me a stuffed cat in her clothes with a voice recording in the paws and it still took me two years to figure out I should marry her. God, I’m such an idiot….. or at least, slow on the uptake.
But that was when I was older, maybe 27? At that point, it became a display piece to keep on my shelf, and it was a very cool one. I think I would have been happier using it as a comfort item, but “I was too old for that.”
I gave up dolls as comfort items until I moved to DC. My dad sent me a stuffed “Postman Pat” that I got in London when I was nine. It’s the only thing I own that I kept after the fire. I do not know what got him clean, only that he could use a little more stuffing but otherwise he’s perfect. Now, when I’m anxious, I do have something to self-soothe and I’m not denying myself anything. That Postman Pat doll is so rare that I’ll never find anything like it. It’s not a plush, it’s a fully knitted postman. I could not afford it in 2024.
But other than Postman Pat, I have given up the need to surround myself with comfort items when I sleep….. unless you count my tablet and phone.
I used to love science as a kid, watching Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon. Then, science became too complicated when they added math. It sucked all the joy out of learning, which I have re-found with documentaries, professional and on YouTube. It is fun to learn facts about science. It is not so fun to sweat over a chemistry exam. Therefore, my interest in science tapped out at about 8th grade, and I didn’t think it would return.
I think that’s why so many people are interested in podcasts like “Science Friday” and “Hidden Brain.” They both unlock science in the way that a layperson could take it in, and the TED and TEDx stages are very good at this as well.
Speaking of which, the first time I learned of “TED” was during Kathy Griffin’s “Life on the D List,” where she pressured Steve Wozniak in to taking her. Dating the Wizard of Woz was planned for TV, and I think Woz already had a girlfriend, he was just willing to play along. I love how she was surprised that Woz’s favorite restaurant is “Bob’s Big Boy.” Apple fame didn’t turn him into a completely different person. I bet he still plays with technology in his garage.
As would I, if I had a garage. I’m great at fixing desktops and laptops (and could learn to take apart phones, I’m just scared of both the glass and the glue currently). I’d also like to learn how to bend acrylic to install water cooling in a PC. I don’t advise it, I just want to do it because it looks cool.
I know this is getting off-topic (but what’s new?), but I don’t advise water cooling your PC unless you are dedicated to maintaining it like an aquarium. The distilled water/liquid coolant needs to be serviced, as well as making sure the seals keeping your PC water tight are still intact while the loop is empty. I air cool because I don’t want a pet.
Although I assume that if I had the money to buy such a gaming rig, I’d have enough to pay someone else to do it.
Besides, the air is always chilly in the house because either it’s already cold outside or we’ve got the air conditioner cranked down to Santa’s Workshop. My PC is mostly passively cooled. You can hear the whoosh when it boots up, but most of the time it doesn’t run because the air it takes in is already chilled. It’s why server rooms are kept so cold.
Computers are an interest I’ve never given up, and not because I can get down into the details about how they work in terms of capacitors on the motherboard, or how to program anything. I like figuring out problems, especially other people’s. It’s an ego stroke to walk into a room, spend a few minutes talking, and at the end the other person thinks you’re a genius. I’ve done that at many jobs, and that’s the fun part.
The not so fun part is that sometimes the problem is that the computer is not on, and someone ends up driving because they access the server remotely. They have been assured that the computer is fine, nothing’s wrong with it, of course they’ve checked to see if it’s on. How dare we not think of something so simple? You’ll just have to figure it out on your own. If you walk into that situation, the magic of seeing you hit one button is the same, it just doesn’t match up to the agony of driving for sometimes hours without really being given adequate compensation or a real thank you, because a lot of the time shit rolls downhill when they realize what idiots uninformed users they are. It’s not fair, but it is what it is.
It’s the same on a college campus, particularly miserable when it’s in Houston because nine times out of 10 when you arrive at a building after walking between a half and two miles, you’re dripping with sweat at the walk, the heat, and the 99% humidity. I’ve been in a bad mood over a printer that wasn’t on and getting a huge sunburn for my effort.
But sometimes, people are really grateful and if I didn’t love that part of it, I wouldn’t have stayed in IT so long. Over time, it just became draining when cooking gave me energy. I began to put more and more energy toward it because I actually loved it and I didn’t care that I only made pennies. It was worth it to be able to live Anthony Bourdain’s life for a while. I’d never understand him to the level that I do if I hadn’t worked in several kitchens where the lingo is all the same.
I left behind the professional part, but still enjoy impressing my friends. I don’t do much in the way of impressing myself because I prefer to keep my sensory issues down. However, I am definitely making myself a pesto and tomato pizza later. I took my Adderrall yesterday and the appetite suppression hasn’t worn off yet.
I’ve lost interest in food, and that love is so big it took over my whole life, and I do not regret it now. Maybe one day I’ll write a non-fiction piece that will revolutionize the culinary world. Well, “revolutionize” might be a step too far, because that depends on whether it resonates with the public and not just the service industry. But Bourdain has proven to me how he crafted his narrative, and how mine crosses over in a big way.
In “Road Runner,” I realized that we lived the same life. Wake up at noon or one, then prepare for the day and get to the restaurant early because “the mise” sucks when you’re under pressure to get it done. Then, you are balls to the wall until almost midnight, and then it’s time to go home and write. “Kitchen Confidential” was originally a short piece in The New Yorker. He was writing detective and spy novels then, most of them becoming actual books on the shelf. The adrenaline of writing all night is unparalleled, like Mike McD in “Rounders.” You buy in at 8:30 PM and all of the sudden it’s morning.
I showed up to work dragging ass a lot of the time because I was in a moment that I know I’d lose if I went to bed right at that moment. ADHD doesn’t lend itself to remembering an idea.
It’s a lot easier to write about the kitchen in retrospect than it was in the moment, because I was already exhausted. Exhaustion is why it takes my chef friends to jog my memory.
I didn’t so much stop loving it as I stopped participating. I genuinely wasn’t strong or fast enough. When I was cooking alone, it was the most hell I’ve ever experienced. I can do it because I’ve had to do it; it’s not my favorite.
Now, I do the thing that I’ve loved since I had a computer in my room since I was nine. I figure things out. I write text files. I play games, they’ve just gotten more complicated over the years….. so much so that I only understand two of them (Fallout 3 and Skyrim, respectively). Now, I’ve played them both so many times that I’m tired of it and wanted to install Ubuntu as a dual boot. I crashed my system because for some reason it crashes a lot of systems like my mini-PC. I don’t know how to fix it, because for some reason, my NVME is not set as “Drive 0.” That belongs to my SSD. So, if I want to install Windows on my NVME, it installs system files on my SSD so I can’t use it for anything. When you add a Linux partition, it will screw up both your Windows and Linux boot.
And that’s what I’m dealing with right now as I pull out my hair. The cable I bought for my 6 TB mechanical drive is not working, even though the hub is powered from the wall. Linux can see the drive, Windows can’t.
It’s so maddening. I’m going to go drink flavored water about it.
Because I’ve given up many interests due to lack of it feeding me. Computers are the one thing that make me feel powerful.
This is an entry that delves into both making a brand, wandering off into video games, and then explaining why. It’s all of me. Skyrim in particular. Wanting to spend time alone, and wanting to be a writer. Writing and video games are more soothing to me than going out because of sensory overload…….. I feel like this might resonate with other ADHD/ASD/AuDHD people.
We need to talk about it. You and me. That’s because WordPress is also a community of authors who like to share in hopes of going viral. If you go viral on the Internet, there is a better chance you’ll get name recognition before you:
Ask for a book deal that includes an advance; the publisher can see with numbers how popular you are and that gives them a huge indication as to how well the book will sell beforehand. Dooce and The Bloggess both hit the New York Times because so many people were invested, less so after she became an influencer, but in her books, she was still just as raw and real as she ever was at the beginning of her blog.
Getting a book deal over someone else because you’re good at social media is very much like getting a role over someone else in a TV show or film because more people follow them, the younger the better.
In terms of age, I seem to have two markets locked up. These are the same people who like Martha Beck, Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Brenรฉ Brown. I cannot break down my analytics as far as I need because those are paid plugins if you don’t run your own server, my next move if I were to make one.
I don’t have to use WordPress, and I can add analytics and search optimization into my HTML documents for free instead of paying $99/year for the professional version of WordPress (that doesn’t include the plugins for analytics, those are paid separately), or a business account, which is $300/moโฆ. and the plugins you need for analytics are also paid separately even though you’re forking over way more money than these things actually cost.
There aren’t many more features that you get in the business account itself except the ability to basically do what you want with the code (leading to more monetization and they’ll let you keep the moneyโฆ ads in the free tier make the money go to Automattic (in honor of Matt Mullenweg, also HSPVA. I don’t know him, and my relationship with him is still complicated. He made my job a lot harder once WordPress hit it big and started running almost 30% of the web at one point.).
I also know that with WordPress Business I would get enough subdomains and e-mail addresses; it’s more functionality like Google Education, making blogs with a lot of authors easier to manage.
That being said, I can find something open source and code it on my own. What I lose in that transaction is that I don’t know two things.
The first is whether WordPress is still available in its original form, where you install it on your own server without installing their ridiculous “app store.”
My perfect version got wiped out about 8-10 years ago and was replaced by a block system that lets you know nothing about HTML, and more specifically, layers and Cascading Style Sheets.
This is because WordPress used to have a feature where you could put a layer on top of the text and have it “float” so the text wrapped around it closely, except for the amount of padding you code into it.
I could also sort of “edit” the picture on the fly by making borders to separate the text from the image even more without having to add it in an image editor. CSS will do that on its own.
What I did do in an image editor was cut down the file size, because if you upload a 4 MB image and tell the web browser to scale it down, you could make a sandwich in the time it will take that image to load.
On a related topic, this is why I’m saying once and for all that camera phones are getting too intense for the average user. Apple and Android both require so much space for pictures and now there’s not really a way to turn down the quality so you have to edit it later, even if the shot was perfect in the beginning.
I wonder if absolutely any of this is tied to wanting to upload your pictures and then when it runs out, sell you server spaceโฆโฆ. because neither Apple nor Samsung nor Microsoft nor Amazon is uninterested in moving everything to the cloud because you’ll never lose it, and you’ll pay what the market will bear.
Those are your grandkids and the house might burn down (this is not fictionalโฆ. Lindsay and I lost most of our first family pictures to a house fire in 1990, because we gave some of them to our grandparents. The rest were smoke damaged and stuck together because they were wet.). It’s the reason I would buy server space if I didn’t have my own storageโฆ. and even then, I have a 6TB backup drive I can use through USB.
I don’t have to keep anything on my boot drive except Skyrim, because an M.2 drive has the best loading time, but since I’ve added an SSD, the loading time is fast enough that I can store the large textures on my “scratch drive.”
As I was saying the other day, I have a new mod for Skyrim that will make your computer take it easy on your VRAM by unpacking all the textures beforehand to decrease loading time because of the extraction running on the CPU. If I had a media workstation, it would have enough dedicated RAM that I wouldn’t need it, but shared RAM is so much different that this is a game changer. I am now wondering if I buy a bigger SSD, it would work for other Bethesda games as well. Fallout 4 is just as huge an undertaking for my computerโฆ.. and yet, I still haven’t gone back to it because I don’t like the interface. The one time I went into town and got a decent weapon, and even remembered to pick up the ammo for it, it wouldn’t fire.
So, I did what any of us would. I toggled God Mode so I could take down a Deathclaw with a 10 MM pistol, and live to tell about it. I know people don’t appreciate it that I’ll actually admit I toggle God mode in tough situations, but I don’t care about winning and losing. I care about the writing. Besides, the story of a Deathclaw being taken down by a woman without any real armor and a pistol is much funnier than “I was so overpowered I killed it in one shot.” I did that in Fallout 3 already. Not as funny.
I just hated the interface, because it was made for console and adapted to PC. I couldn’t get the hang of it. If I’m ever interested in seeing what happens, I’ll catch it on YouTube. At least I can find out if a mod is interfering with that weapon firing or whether it’s not supposed to work and you’re supposed to find something else.
I’m still autistic when I’m playing a video game. I don’t do well with surprises at not being prepared. So, I don’t watch videos with any spoilers until I get what the best start is and a few of the high level weapons you can find easily before you find yourself shooting and pistol-whipping a Deathclaw.
In Skyrim, the best moment I’ve ever had was when I realized my magic had come up enough that I defeated one with conjuration spells and a bow that appeared when I cast it, I wasn’t carrying one on me.
This is because in the past, I’ve kind of played a weenie, what most people think of when they think of the stealth archer build. That’s because you’re so overpowered, even in the early game, because a sneak attack counts for more damage than shooting an arrow when the victim can see you.
However, since I’m so late in the game, I’m adept at any build. There are just the weapons I like carrying, and the ones I don’t. When I leave my player home (the one place you can store your stuff and know it will always be there when you get back), I am only carrying about 76 pounds of supplies. I carry a truly overpowered bow and sword, but no shield because I have a spell in my other hand, generally conjuration because that adds extra followers.
Speaking of followers, right now I have Lydia (with her dialogue extension) and Lucien (with a patch for Lucien to interact with Lydia). Lucien also interacts with other followers, but only the previous version of Kaiden supports those patches and Anniversary Edition won’t work with it. If I find out that Creation Club sucks, I’m downgrading.
Serana also has interactions with Lucien, Lydia, and Remiel, who is a Dwemer specialist and a ton of fun. We’re going to go and get her right after Serana becomes my follower.
I haven’t gone to get them yet, but I also have “Khajit Will Follow,” which comes with three in one, Inigo (who has interactions with all followers), Auri, and Hoth.
The reason for this is simple. My favorite mod in the whole game is “Legacy of the Dragonborn.” It comes with a Safehouse that can be modified so that your followers’ rooms are personalized to them with “Safehouse Plus” and its follower room patch. I can’t wait to see all of it, and I just got the key to the safehouse.
Plus, Remiel has a plugin for Legacy of the Dragonborn, so I can invite her to be a part of “The Explorer’s Guild.” She’ll freak because she’ll find more Dwemer shit than I will.
I’m also thinking about downgrading because some of the mods have not been updated and some have. This mostly affects dependencies, because one mod is looking for the old file name when it’s been renamed in the Anniversary Edition. So, you can’t really decide which mods you want to install. It matters so much what version you’re actually on.
I do not think that I am capable of live-streaming Skyrim unless it was a comedy show. I am so bad at this game, and yet I still play it because of the writingโฆ. particularly Lucien’s, because I’ve just downloaded him and he’s hilarious. We’re supposed to warn the Jarl that a dragon is attacking, and Lucien’s voice is very posh. So, it makes you fall over with laughter when you walk into Dragonsreach and he says, “let’s chat to the man in the big fancy chair.”
Kaiden is the one I’ve spent the least time with, but I’m liking him more and more. His dialogue is sometimes clever, and I think it will get better once the main storyline with him starts. I know this because I sort of got a spoiler, an overhaul for his houseโฆ. so I know he eventually finds something.
When I get to Skyrim, the first thing I buy is a player home. I don’t do any quests, I start crafting potions and weapons. That’s because there are potions for smithing that give the weapon more damage, and then you can enchant them with very strong magic effects to decrease the time it takes to get through anything.
I’ve added a mod called “Summermyst,” which comes with all new enchantments without changing the current spell or enchantment perk trees (my problem with Ordinator, etc.). I’m excited because I just got my second favorite. It’s called “Death Shroud,” and when people get within 25 feet of you, their lifeblood starts draining. It is, unsurprisingly, found on vampire armor.
There is already a “fire damage” enchantment, but the one from Summermyst is much better. It’s called “Fire Damage Lingering.” When you hit them with that, they start burning at the rate of X per second (depending on strength of enchantment). If they aren’t dead when you shot them, they will be shortly.
I have something similar on my bow right now, shock damage and shock damage lingering. It will hit everyone in the vicinity with shock damage at X per second.
I also have armor enchantments that my followers cannot go without. I will not let Lydia within 25 feet of me if she doesn’t have a “muffle” enchantment on her boots. I make sure they all have it, because it keeps them from setting off trapsโฆโฆ on Lydia’s, I also fortify “sneak” instead of one-handed attacks.
Lydia is the only one I make all the weapons for because I’ve seen her use everything she picks up on her own except magic. So, depending on what armor I make for her, I make her every weapon that line offers. If they don’t do enough damage, they will when I’m done with them.
The other thing I do is that in addition to armor enchantments, I make them all jewelryโฆ necklace, right and left hand rings, earrings, capes, and hoods. This is because you can wear all of that if you’re not wearing a helmet and each item can be enchanted. A ranger hood makes a very good head armor when the circlet is just worn for the enchantment.
I do all of this beforehand so that they’re armored for the late game as well. I do not know if they’re marked essential or not, because they’re all incompatible with a follower manager because they run their own scripts.
Speaking of which, I found the coolest one (to me) because my second favorite Marvel hero after Black Panther is Dr. Strange. I think it’s funny that my first and second favorites are my personality. The first is fighting for social justice, the second is the humor of watching Dr. Strange in the hospital and having known a thousand doctors just like him.
Anyway, I found this mod called “Strange Runes.” When you cast a spell, it takes a second. The original animation is still there, but when the spell is ready to cast, it throws out a bright rune in the color of your spell.
Also, I have to admit that it’s a lot of fun going to Apocrypha and collecting all the black soul gems because who hasn’t thought of putting Nazeem in one and using him to enchant something as cheap and worthless as his personality.
For instance, after I am the Thane of Whiterun because I killed a dragon and absorbed its soul, and the whole city supposedly knows who I am, and I am in and out of the palace almost every day for a while, that dick still says, “do you get to the Cloud District often? What am I saying? Of course you don’t.”
When I’ve defeated the boss dragon and saved the world, then beat the Dragonborn before me, even then everyone treats you like crap unless you overhaul all the dialogue.
I have single-handedly built two towns, and have hired guards. However, because the guards don’t have any different dialogue after all that happens, even in my own house, where I am basically the laird, I still hear “speak, Elf.”
But this time I’ve added a whole bunch of mods that overhaul dialogue, from Interesting NPCs to AI overhaul as well. Plus, I’ve added “Settlements Expanded” and a whole bunch of things that make the cities bigger, thus more people to talk to as I’m walking along.
I’ve also added a new quest mod I didn’t have before called “Project AHO.” I haven’t started it, again, not much time. But I found out that one of my favorite characters is in it (Neloth) and I couldn’t resist, even though people were talking so much shit about it on reddit. I don’t use reddit for opinions, ever.
However, Neloth is coded as a bitchy queen, and treats his assistants like he’s Murphy Brown and Christina Yang all rolled into one. I need more dialogue from him, and it will be worth it in the end, I think.
There are also so many dwemer mods in which Remiel has dialogue that I’ve gotten those, too. The few hours I’ve played with her are priceless because she’s a bookworm like me.
And that brings us completely back around. My “brand” is bookworm. I am really lost as to how to take myself to the next level, but also know I’m ready for itโฆ. both the collaboration and the dedication to my writing time.
The reason I write about Skyrim is that it makes me stand out to Skyrim fans. The reason I write about any media and include lots of media references is that my fans aren’t just American. That’s why I say things like, “if you aren’t familiar.” It’s not because I’m trying to speak down to any of you. It’s because there are going to be many, many readers who don’t give a shit about installing Skyrim but like hearing the way I talk about it.
The gamers will get all the inside jokes, and we all win.
But in order to be able to do all that, I need help. Share me on Facebook when you find something you’re comfortable sharing. I know not everything is comfortable or easy. But to the extent that you’re able, it would really help me for you to subscribe to “Stories That Are All True” on Facebook, because that’s where I put my author page content, and the way I’ll eventually get paid- through blog posts and memes and being a Facebook “rising creator.”
I get more shares and followers on WordPress than I do anywhere else, because that’s an audience that already likes to read. It helps me when you’ve read something you liked because people are more likely to take the time to read something if you’ve vetted it first.
I’m also not the friend you don’t want to warn someone about, because you might bring them in on an entry about history, but who knows what you’ll find the longer you dig into mine.
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
When I am not writing, I am obsessed with television and video games as much as I am with reading, because it’s a different style and structure in each medium and I want to learn them all.
My favorite writer on TV right now is Issa Rae, because “Insecure” hit Netflix and all of the sudden, I realized how brilliantly her pilot was constructed when it came together…. but not enough to keep you from clicking “Watch Next Episode.” Maybe the pilot could work as a standalone. Maybe.
But what I learned is that I wanted to keep learning from her, because I wanted to see another episode in which she built up a plot in one way, and then unravels the sweater so that you don’t see it coming. The way she does it is by using emotional intelligence gathering on herself and others, which is every bit as interesting to me as watching espionage, because in both stories, there are things that go horribly wrong by not having the right information and consequences cost a lot more than they can pay….. one literally, the other emotionally.
Issa Rae’s comedy and drama comes from gathering intelligence and it turns out that either her perceptions are completely wrong, or her friends’ are. She digs into the complexities of really trying to own yourself, because you become stronger when you can admit that mistakes have been made.
In every book, TV show, or video game, it’s the writers that draw me in. The second thing is the composers. Once I’m done with a video game because I’m tired of it, I still listen to the score a lot. For instance, the full orchestral version of the Fallout 3 score is as beautiful as “Galaxy News Radio” is entertaining.
Now that I’ve played the intro to Fallout 4, I’m glad that Galaxy News Radio has been replaced by a DJ that plays the same music, but he sounds like he doesn’t know anything about being a DJ. There are lines that are so funny that I’ve fallen over, and I’m impressed at how Bethesda has continued the details that made Fallout 3 great. The reason I’ve only played the intro is that I could tell quickly that it was a console interface that had been adapted for PC. I hated it because I had to learn it, when Skyrim and Fallout 3 had the same game game mechanics ( and I rearranged the keyboard so that it was the same as Skyrim and Fallout 3).
I also would hate to start a game that didn’t have console commands, because it’s so handy in Skyrim. The game is stable on its own with a few unofficial patches, but the more mods you add, the more problems the game has with starting quests correctly, etc.
I am also very, very picky and I will not stick around for bad writing. I either like no writing at all (like match three phone games), or huge, epic sagas. I will look up the intro to Oblivion on YouTube and put it at the end. It grabbed me even more than the opening to Skyrim, because here’s what happened.
Video games are programmers. Most programmers are neurodivergent. Most programmers are also used to extensive documentation. So, Patrick Stewart was hired to do only the introduction, and he showed up to a bigger dossier than he’d ever been given for any character in his life. He said it was delightful…. actually, he’s said it several times, and I appreciate it because it has promoted the game many times. It’s one of the best opening cinematics in any video game because of THAT VOICE. I’ll put it at the end.
I played Oblivion when it first came out and got bored with it pretty fast because I was older, and when you’re older and you’ve played video games since you were a kid in the 80s, the more complicated keystrokes/controllers seem like too many buttons. Believe me, they are. I haven’t even figured out how to favorite weapons in Skyrim for easy access, and it’s been 10 years.
However, I didn’t come across Skyrim on my own. My brother-in-law had an XBOX (I don’t remember whether he’s upgraded or not, but you don’t need to update hardware for that game. Anyway, I was watching him play it and I loved the story, but hated the controller. So, I got it for PC and found the game mechanics much easier. It’s fun to fight the battles, but at the same time, the main storyline has to be compelling for me to even finish the game, much less play it twice.
I will say that since I have played both Oblivion and Skyrim now, I liked the ending of Skyrim’s main storyline, but the ending of Oblivion’s A plot made me fall out of my desk chair…………. just like I did in the 90s with StarCraft (iykyk).
Speaking of which, when it came out (I don’t remember what year, but not recently), StarCraft Remastered was $10 on Blizzard.net, and it was the best $10 I’d spent for the last several years. It’s a great storyline, and it’s so damn quotable. I remembered the interplay between Jim and Sarah like it was yesterday. Sometimes I’ll still start up a campaign just for old time’s sake, like keeping an old NES.
In terms of being able to study structure in writing from books, I find that I get the most and the least out of Stephen King. That’s because we write in exactly the same style. We don’t start with a plot, we find it. His “On Writing” is one of the best books in the world, but I still can’t figure out how to let go and get the story out without thinking too much about it. That’s because I’m not the kind of writer that can think all the way to the end of a story, because I don’t know which direction I’m supposed to go after a while and it all becomes character study.
I want help, and I don’t. That’s because if someone helps me with the plot, then it’s not my story anymore. I want to be able to tell it the way I want to tell it. I’m talking about things like craft and research to have enough information about a subject to know which way it would go in a real situation.
For instance, I’ve been trying to figure out a sermon that makes sense comparing Jesus’s escape to Egypt as a toddler to a modern ex-fil op since “Argo” came out. It came to me during the scene when Tony explains to the higher ups at State that “the only way out of Tehran is through the airport. We send in a Moses…………….” If I hadn’t already been sitting in the theater I would have needed a chair, it hit me so hard. That being said, I’ve put it off and put it off because when I write spy jargon, it doesn’t sound real. I need to read enough declassified operations that would fit my theme, and the most interesting part is that I need recent ones the most because they’ve taken place in the Middle East. It can’t happen, though, so I’m combing through a lot from WWII to The Cold War, both through newspaper articles from the time and non-fiction books.
Here’s why I want to learn what really happens during an ex-fil and how it would go down in The Middle East. My father told me about 35 years ago (and he got it from Harry Emerson Fosdick, then pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan) that “every good sermon begins in Jerusalem and ends in New York, or begins in New York and ends in Jerusalem.” It’s a code for being relevant. Start with the past and connect it to the present, or start with the present and tie it to the past. I have found that the latter works better, because when I start with the news or history, it is interesting, but the people are sitting there thinking, “how in the hell is she going to tie this all together?”
Then, when the light bulbs go off in their heads as to what dog you’re walking, you’re going to get one of three reactions. The first are smiles and excitement like they’ve gotten to the part in a novel where they can see the plot twist at the end. People have known these stories for years, just not necessarily new ideas on them unless their pastors are really digging into different interpretations/criticisms.
The second is tears, because sometimes the message really drives home something powerful going on in their own lives What I know for SureTM is that if you touch a nerve, people will say “it’s like you were only speaking to me.” “How did you know that’s exactly the message I needed to hear today?” In today’s lingo, I have no doubt that as I was shaking hands at the back, at least one person would say, “you didn’t have to attack me like that.”
It’s the point of church to begin with- to have community when those things come up for you…… which is why we had several atheist members at bridgeport and as far as I know, we still do. They don’t have to believe in God to believe in social justice.
The third reaction is raucous laughter, because I have to make sure everyone is still awake. If nothing else, I do two things to make sure even those people get something out of it……. the ones who are weaving in and out, lost in their own thoughts and then paying more attention because they didn’t know why everyone else was laughing….. I also make sure there’s a soundbite. I don’t leave it there, though. I don’t sum up scripture in, what is it for Sorkin? 11 words?
No, I find a way to have several illustrations that all tie back to that one line, so even if people can’t remember the entire sermon, they’ll definitely remember the tl;dr.
However, I haven’t been asked to preach in a very long time, so now my foray into an intelligence operation of Biblical proportions, it would just be a theological essay- as I am wont to do even while telling you about a million other things. I’m just not there enough to really tie a point together like I really want to, because the best way to knit a sweater in a story is detail, the immersive experience of playing a video game, reading a novel, or watching TV. The difference is that it’s all self-help based in reality, not “grandfather in the sky.” Divinity is too close for that.
I hope that, as in past entries, I’m making it clear that theology is one of my special interests, not that it has to be yours. I’ve said it before, but I accept everyone. I don’t care if you’re an atheist or not. I’m trying to impart lessons to an international audience, and Biblical references are something that connects a lot of the world. However, I don’t use Biblical illustrations for everything because it’s not the only way to use a world language as the world gets closer through the same cultural media. The internet and VPNs have changed the way we watch media, both here and abroad. I love setting my VPN to Canada or Australia when my browser will allow me to do that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It depends. It always works on my desktop, it sometimes works in the app.
And sometimes, those illustrations work better than Biblical ones because the Bible is ancient and pop culture is happening right now. There are so many sci-fi TV shows/movies that I think represent the same self-improvement I use in Christianity by quoting nearly anything. I wasn’t kidding when I said I quoted Snoop Dogg in a sermon. My friend Kina was going to be there, and she was in a band called “Twisted Whistle” that did an acoustic version of “Gin and Juice,” like The Gourds except in four part harmony.
So, I knew I could make her smile if I worked it into my sermon, and it just so happened that the lectionary couldn’t have been more perfect. The Psalm that day was particularly beautiful, so, I started with telling everyone that the Psalms were written like poetry, and, like all Biblical stories, have had music set to them for centuries because setting a tune to the words is what helped people remember them before they could write. Then, I said that I knew it worked, because I knew all the words to “Gin and Juice” because Kina had finally slowed it down enough I could understand the lyrics. I got a little closer to the mic, and I sang Kina’s bluegrass version of the very first line, which is the only one I *could* sing in church……..
Then, I told my mother’s favorite memory of her mother. In the end, she had very bad dementia. She could hardly remember a thing, but tears rolled down my mother’s face when a music therapist got her to sing “Jesus Loves Me.” My mother had never heard her mother sing before, but showing again that theology is imparted through music.
Then, I sang the first line of the Psalm from the Episcopal setting I’d learned years ago……. from memory.
So, after establishing how it was finally written down, I explained the context around why it was written the way it was written. No one will remember that part of it because it was just color commentary However, I’m going to bet that if you know any of the songs I’ve mentioned, you started singing them, too. I sang the first line of the Episcopal setting to close as well, because you can get people to remember things if you set them to music….. or so I’ve been told. ๐
The quadratic equation is “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
What “Plotting by Notting” means is that I am taking in a fire hose amount of information when I look at other stories, no matter what form they’re in. Even when it looks like I’m not wiring and I’m just sitting there or gaming, I am still lost in my own head, trying to figure out how this or that plot device will work for me in the future. I have so much energy for writing, though, that the “notting” part takes me a while to det to because it’s so far down on the list of priorities.
The last author that really got me hooked in a way that I couldn’t let go until I’d finished the last in the series (at the time) was Diana Gabaldon. It took me three or four tries to get into Outlander, but by Dragonfly in Amber I was reading a thousand pages in two days. It was insane how fast I inhaled it.”Go Tell the Bees” is my least favorite because Gabaldon told us we’d get answers to questions we’d had since book one, and we didn’t……. and this is supposedly the last book. In a lot of ways, it was a “choose your own adventure” ending…. or, “Monty Python and Quest for the Holy Grail,” I think there’s more story to be told, but no one asked me. I’m sure that there’s fan fiction that addresses a lot of my questions, but I don’t want to wade through the D papers to find an A. I don’t have that kind of time.
What I’ve found with my “Words are Hard” fiction prompts is that I’m pretty good at short story ideas, but there comes a point quickly where I say, “this is as good as it gets.” I think this comes from my father’s preaching advice……. “when you run out of things to say, stop talking.”
I don’t spend time fleshing anything out more than that, because these are training exercises…. or at least, that’s how I see them. I am walking before I run….. this is “couch to 5K.”
Oh, and I almost forgot. Here’s the intro to Oblivion, with Patrick Stewart. As soon as he stops speaking, one of my favorite brass intros in any orchestral starts, called “Reign of the Septims.” This is the kind of music that makes me glad game soundtracks are available so I don’t have to play to enjoy the symphony and/or choir. Even if you don’t play video games, you’ll enjoy this:
Do you play in your daily life? What says โplaytimeโ to you?
I do not like the WordPress editor and how it handles images, but I thought that since I’ve written about Skyrim before (recently- the blog prompts tend to repeat), then I’d add screenshots to this one. Some of them are just pretty; some are intended to be dark enough to use as a desktop background (like the entrance to the Thieves Guild). Skyrim is a wonderful place for walking around and “taking pictures,” especially with a mod called “immersive HUD,” so you can turn off your heads up display if you want an uninterrupted screenshot of something. But let’s start with something simple…… a picture of me. ๐
“I’m” wearing what’s called “Stahlrim” armor, and in Skyrim, Stahlrim is an ancient enchanted ice that’s harder than steel. My arrows are made of dragon bone, and coupled with a dragon bone bow, I’m fairly unstoppable. Shortly after “this picture was taken,” though, I started playing a mage-type character, because honestly the relighting mod I used makes it where when it gets dark, it is piss your pants dark…. not Bethesda dark.
I also took off my ranger hood for the photo, but it’s got an enchantment on it that gives me a circle of light. It’s nice because I don’t have to keep casting a candlelight or mage light spell (candlelight puts a ball of light over your shoulder that travels with you, magelight you point the spell and a ball of light sticks where you put it). Both of my hands are free for destruction or conjuration spells. I prefer conjuration because it’s more fun to watch other people fight than it is to fight myself, and casting Dremora Lords or Storm Atronachs will clear out a tomb in a hurry….. and that’s all Skyrim really is….. cleaning out tombs and Bethesda-ing up a mountain.
That term comes from a redditor whose name I now forget, but it’s basically a universal idea among Elder Scrolls/Fallout fans. Basically, if you just work the controller enough, you’ll be able to climb mountains you aren’t actually supposed to be able to climb. Failing that, you can buy a horse that somehow defies the laws of physics (at least in Fallout: New Vegas, anyway). They can Bethesda up a mountain faster than you can. My horse in Skyrim, Shadowmere (yes, I am leader of The Dark Brotherhood), is my traveling house just like I used to keep everything in my car. But that’s what your horse is for- carrying all the crap you just don’t want to manage. But truly, where a horse comes in handy is when “you can’t get there from here.”
Oh, my sweet summer child.
Very few places in Skyrim is this true if you have a horse or a wooden plate. I can’t explain the wooden plate glitch because I’ve never used it, but It is a Thing. Apparently if you hold it, you can glitch through textures. Now that I have discovered sprinting and destruction/conjuration magic, I’m ditching my gear and the horse at home. I can even leave all my weapons now, if I didn’t want to carry them. I’ve found that conjuration plus a bound bow or sword is sufficient. Especially if you enchant your armor and jewelry to make you better at archery, “bound bow” is one of the most powerful spells in the game. You can also equip any arrow that you want, so I generally use frost or shock, because I can’t enchant a bow that comes from Oblivion and goes back there when I’m not using it.
There’s only two things to remember with “bound bow.” The first is that when you cast it, you’ll lose whatever is in your opposite hand, whether it’s a spell or an item, because of course a bow and arrows are a two handed weapon. However, if you just retract the weapon, you’ll go back to having what was in your hands before. This is good to know when your bow is still going strong, but you need to cast more destruction/conjuration.
I’m late enough in the game that I can take down a Frost Troll all by myself with just this one spell, because the base damage on all my spells is high before the archery enchantments on my armor.
But if I have a favorite weapon in terms of looks, it’s the Nordic series. I love the Nordic Carved Armor, and all the weapons that come with it. In fact, nearly every display in my player homes that has two swords and a shield end up being Nordic because I can’t think of anything prettier to do with them. ๐
I’ve played this game so many times that I’ve memorized most of the quest lines, and it’s still fun because maybe you’re not playing the way you normally do. For me, playing against type would be being armed to the teeth with either an enchanted greatsword or warhammer, because I don’t like two-handed weapons except for the bow. I’ve gotten more handy with a sword over the years, but most of the reason I carry one is that there are a few dungeons where you have to cut down boards to get through and I’ve been there. I’ve been the one standing in front of a nest of frostbite spiders or whatever and no sword to cut through the webbing, or three loosely placed pieces of wood that are supposed to indicate “maybe we shouldn’t go this way.”
I don’t know whether a bound sword would do it or not- probably would, but I haven’t had time to try it. If it does, I’m not carrying swords anymore, either, because with melee attacks I tend to switch to two daggers/war axes than a sword and shield. That’s because I can craft legendary daggers that will have twice the stopping power of a sword alone. And now, that would be true with or without enchantments, because the base damage on a legendary weapon is going to be a lot whether you enchant it or not.
Here’s the thing we don’t talk about when we talk about enchanting……… you can make better weapons than any of the ones you find in the game, which means that you’ll love collecting them; you won’t ever use them. Chillrend has been in my basement for months. So has Bloodskaal Blade (my favorite when I do have to use a two-handed weapon). But when you compare that to having the two enchantments per item perk, the most iconic weapons in the game cannot stand up to them. Last night I one-shot killed a Draugr Death Lord, which will not be impressive to anyone who hasn’t played the game, but it illustrates my point. I created a weapon so powerful that it downed one of the toughest villains in the game with haste. I like it that way, many people don’t.
I don’t play Skyrim for the combat, and a lot of people do. I like to be so overpowered that I don’t have to focus on it- every fight is done quickly and I can move on to picking flowers or whatever the shit the kids and Serana have me doing. ๐ I have Silverstead Mine and Hearthfire adoptions, so with the Serana Dialogue Overhaul, she becomes marriageable. With Hearthfire adoptions, we have four kids, not two. There may be room for more- I think there are six kids’ beds at Silverstead, the only problem being that unless you obtain an equally large player home, no one is moving. Good luck. God bless.
I also love Haafinger Hall, and use it when I want to avoid the kids (I’m not an avoidant person when it comes to children- you just haven’t met the kids in Skyrim………) You really have to have the kids for a while before they become interesting. Like, at first they don’t say much. Yesterday, Sophie told me she’d adopted a fox. Can we keep him? Of course. When they’re tamed, they look like chihuahuas.
It hasn’t happened in this playthrough, but when we lived at Haafinger Hall, we had a fish hatchery off the back deck. I come home one night and there is a slaughterfish flapping around on the steps and my son asking if we can keep it. I thought, “son…. I’m not sure you know how keeping fish as pets works.” Trust me, of all the pets your Skyrim kids can bring home, the fox is the least annoying.
I know there are stray dogs all over Skyrim, but I’ve never adopted one. Therefore, my Bethesda connection in all of this is that I named the fox “Dogmeat.” (For non-Bethesda people, Dogmeat is the name of your companion if you adopt him in the Scrapyard in Fallout 3. Pro tip: get the Puppies! Perk as soon as you can, because I have never seen a grown woman cry harder than watching me see my dog die during combat. The Puppies! Perk will ensure that if Dogmeat dies, there will be another dog waiting for you at Vault 101). ALSO, UNLIKE LYDIA, DOGMEAT HAS NEVER GOTTEN ME KILLED.
Lydia.
One of the most storied characters in video games because absolutely no one knows what to do with her. She can’t sneak for shit, so if there are any enemies around, they’re going to know we’re there immediately…. because she’ll run out into the middle of the room and announce our presence like fuckin’ “LLEEEEEEEERRRRRRROOOOOYYYYYYY JENNNNKKKKINNS!!!” She’s also terribly helpful. If you need to go through a door, she’s blocking it. If she’s having trouble fighting a villain, good luck getting a clear shot. In the Skyrim early game, you only have one challenge…… getting Lydia to move out of the way.
But now that Serana and I are companions, I don’t use Lydia that much. Serana uses magic, but I also give her a legendary enchanted dagger for melee. Lydia will probably become my housecarl in either Morthal or Falkreath, because I think those are the two homes where you can dismiss followers to be stewards. In my case, this means “watch my kids while I go off and save the world……. again.” I hate the thought of adventuring with Serana and leaving Lydia at home, but I can think of 50 followers I’d like to have in Skyrim and Lydia is simply not on the list.
I have Amazing Follower Tweaks installed, so I could have 30 followers if I wanted. Therefore, this time, it’s really not me. It’s Lydia.
It’s what I’m thinking about as I’m Bethesda-ing up the mountain.
I’ve finished up my Christmas list, and it was harder than I thought it would be because I really don’t need anything. I could upgrade my Fire tablet, but I have an iPad Pro (First gen) and a basic Kindle (I lost my Oasis in the chaos of the fire). If my current Fire can’t handle something, the iPad Pro certainly will. I’m not a gamer, so that’s why cheap tablets work so well for me. Even if I wanted to install an emulator for things like NES and Playstation, those games are so old that it would not tax my current tablet or newer. In fact, to replace my current tablet with something I’d like more would be a substantial jump in money for something that is just cool, not necessary.
I’m actually surprised at how well my current Fire HD 10+ does split screen, so if you need a laptop, I highly recommend you pick one up. Because it’s not the newest release, it will be maybe $80. With a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, you’ll gain the functionality of a full desktop and your bag weight will still be manageable. The newer version of the 10-in only comes with 3GB of RAM as well, but it has a faster CPU. In order to get 4GB, you have to upgrade to the Fire 11 Max, which is stunning hardware and not enough motivation to upgrade because you can’t install stock Android on it and there’s no 3.5mm headphone jackโฆ.. omg, this wigs me out so much, this whole going to Bluetooth and HDMI/Thunderbolt for everything. I have a very nice stereo system that only comes in wired. I hate having to charge my headphones. It’s at least as big a form factor as the 10-inch, so saving space isn’t it.
I don’t think I should have to replace my audio equipment just because computer companies are short-sighted. In order to get the same usage out of your Bluetooth headphones that you could out of wired, you’d need 10 pairs to constantly keep charging them, and if you forget your cable on the go, good luck. God bless. The best pair of headphones I own are wired Sony that cost less than $20, and because it’s a wired connection, much deeper and richer than Bluetooth. Audiophiles do not like Bluetooth. It’s knowing how to use a Nikon and settling for a phone cam. So, I will be staying with my current iPad and Fire for now, because by now they are like pets. ๐
I’m not doing anything but surfing the web, creating documents, and watching videos. I don’t think there’s any percentage in upgrading until I have a reason for it, like editing video and thus need more RAM. RAM doesn’t make your tablet faster. It makes it where you can keep more applications open at one time without it lagging. I would recommend at least 4GB for the current build of all Google apps. Chrome is a memory hog in and of itself, but 4GB of RAM will allow you to put it side by side with something else and have full control in both windows.
Plus, things will change when my new computer arrives. I’ve never had one with DDR4 or an M.2 drive, both things that will seriously pick up the pace in my desktop department. That means I can use USB-C to transfer files back and forth from my Fire tablet and edit them on that drive instead. It won’t mean much in terms of text, but it will mean everything in terms of audio/video.
Even then, I didn’t pick out something STUPID fast, I just joined the 21st century. Linux has astounding support for the AMD gpu, so Ubuntu will install right out of the box and it already comes with Windows 11. Since Windows 11 is going to contain Skyrim, I’m going to add a separate SSD with something like Linux Mint.
I know the M.2 drive is faster, but I’m not sure whether I want to partition it yet. All of these things are to be discussed with myself when said computer actually arrives (Saturday). What I do know is that I’ll plug it in and use it as is so I can activate the Windows 11 license and add it to my Microsoft account. Then, I can uninstall and reinstall everything to my heart’s content. The one thing I like about having DRM on Windows is that I don’t have to have a key every time I reinstall. I spent the 90s memorizing Windows keys, I shit you not. I must have had to install it 500 times, and I stopped having to look down at the jewel case on install 48.
The only reason you ever need to reinstall Windows right off the bat is if you buy a pre-built and there are proprietary applications you just can’t delete. If that is the case, I will be downloading my own installation media. I hate that stuff the same way I hate Fire OS. The Fire tablet did not have to reinvent the wheel with Fire OS. Nearly everything in the Google Play store requires Google Services Framework, so if you have Fire OS, you either have to hack it to run GSF or suffer life without them. You can download some apps from the Aurora Store, but what you’ll find is that anything you really want to install has to come through Play.
This is not true if you’re a Microsoft person, and if you are, that’s great. Microsoft apps like office and Edge (a derivative of Chrome) will install just fine. If you use Gmail, the e-mail application that comes with Fire OS is mostly elegant and will incorporate your calendar as well. However, you will not have access to Google apps like Drive, Docs, Sheets, etc. It was a bad decision to branch off into FireOS, but at least they only tell you that Google Play isn’t supported, they haven’t shut down the homebrew community altogether. XDA has made what’s called “The Fire Toolbox,” which will turn off all the Amazon apps you don’t use and install Google Play services for you. At one point, you could also install alternate launchers, but I think that may be the one thing that is locked down.
I have said this before, but it bears repeating that Amazon is making some stupid awesome hardware and selling the products for what they’re worth. There is no reason that they need to lock me into their version of OS hell while they’re at it. I would love to be able to install stock Android or Ubuntu Touch or whatever it is that I like on the hardware that I purchased. Even Steve Jobs recognized there was a use case for installing Windows on a Mac and that’s why we have BootStrap.
I would understand if the Fire Max 11 came with lockscreen ads and FireOS because it was a loss leader to get you to buy into the Amazon universe. It’s not. Other companies are selling equal or better hardware for the same price. The only place I hear Amazon is really competing with Apple is that their new stylus is comparable to an Apple Pencil. But I’ve only heard that from tech reviewers on YouTube, I have never used one.
And while we’re on the Apple Pencil, let me tell you that it is the coolest thing on earth and I love it to absolute piecesโฆโฆโฆโฆ I’ve used it three times this year. I like to color, but I don’t like to handwrite things. My iPad has a touch screen, so I don’t need it as a mouse. I have a matte screen to make the Apple Pencil feel real, as it it actually sounds like graphite scratching across the “paper,” and yet it still feels like once keyboards came out, pens were so over.
I would also skip the new Amazon keyboard case, because it has a touchpad that I can believe will drive you nuts from accidentally hitting it all the time. When I had a laptop, I disabled it and carried a mouse everywhere. I have not seen the keyboard settings in FireOS to know if you can disable it or not. Tell me how it works out. ๐
Eventually, I had to face the reality that while I’m a tech enthusiast, I don’t want to be one of those people who collects gadgets and therefore e-waste. I have enough already. If I ever upgrade, I wouldn’t even know where to start with the technology I already have because it’s so old it’s not really worth anything. I am looking at the reality of what I really do in a day, and basing my tech decisions on it. Every problem that I have with an application will not be fixed with a faster machine. A lot of stability on a tablet comes from network connection, because apps are basically front-ends for the web. If you’re going to get a new tablet, it’s more important that it does dual-band networking (2.4 and 5G) than the amount of RAM. I’m lucky in that dual band came out for the Fire with the last iteration, so there’s not even a reason to upgrade there.
I do think it’s fun reviewing new things, but there againโฆ. I can review it, but what do I do with it after that? I can only use so many computers at once. I am reaching saturation with technology and need it less, not more. I am learning to go off the grid when I write. I am learning that time is sacred. I am learning that my technology is not a leash that means “respond to everyone immediately or you’re a terrible person.” I had to learn that my time was valuable, that my writing was valuable, that even if no one ever read it that it was good for me to get it all out.
I just don’t have to spend a thousand dollars on a tablet to do itโฆ.. even if it was a really, really cool machine.
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
I am not posting so late because it’s Thanksgiving. I am posting so late because my keyboard decided not to work on Android anymore and I’ve been fighting with it most of the morning. I finally just charged my iPad because I want to watch “For All Mankind” when I’m done. Catching you up because that’s how my day has played out so far- autistic meltdown in which I proceeded to slap the shit out of my tablet and remembered breaking it was a thing I could do and stopped. Just red mist rage with absolutely no emotion behind it except hatred of an inanimate object.
I’m going to have to get a new computer soon, because my desktop is toast. I think it’s the motherboard, because the PCI lanes are hosed (professional opinion, not fact) and my external graphics card has joined the choir invisible. So, I switched over to the onboard AMD and that’s when I realized it wasn’t PCI that was fucked. It was the whole thing. I’m trapped because I really want a Raspberry Pi, but there are so many damn things that won’t run on it bare metal, because the software is written for Intel/AMD chips and not ARM. It’s like putting Windows software on a Mac with Parallels. Software emulation only works if the chip is STUPID fast to cover the gaps in coding.
For instance, I can’t realistically play Skyrim, the absolute only game I play (I used to play Fallout 3 because it’s set in DC, but I’m over it.). I imagine that it *might* run on the ARM version of Windows, but I can’t imagine it working out well. There’s plenty of emulation like Steam decks and all that, but it’ll make the game run like a three legged dog on a Pi.
The historical figure I would like to meet most is Linus Torvalds, because he’s the genius behind all of this. Raspberry Pi would not be a thing without Linux, and he lives in Portland……..
which is handy, because he might be the only other person in the city that celebrates Finnish Independence day with Bryn and me.
Linus and I have our differences. He prefers KDE (linux desktop- menuing system and all that). I prefer MATE (pronounced like the tea) and Cinnamon, which look like Windows 95 and 7, respectively. It’s a Windows-type interface and workflow that doesn’t constantly try to sell me something. Let me tell you, that is the beauty of linux in a nutshell….. which in retrospect is a good joke because Tim O’Reilly & associates actually wrote “Linux in a Nutshell.”
And here’s the thing. If you’re not married to Windows software, you won’t really notice a difference. There are certain things you’ll want to install, like Microsoft Office, with emulation and not that LibreOffice isn’t perfect when you create and maintain documents in it. Microsoft Office plays well with others most of the time, not 100%. I wouldn’t install Microsoft Office unless I was working for someone that required it, because the file format will open in Office and if something is wrong, I can just print a PDF instead. For every piece of Windows software that you have, there is an alternative. It’s just a learning curve that believe me is worth it. Every time I think about popups asking how likely I am to recommend Windows to my friends, or a reminder to buy Microsoft-branded server space, or subscription-model software, my eyes twitch.
The only thing I pay for in terms of software and security updates is my VPN. I flip it to Canada so I can be an American trying to be a Canadian while watching a movie about Americans trying to be Canadians.
This reminds me of a quick aside. The very first time I went to the International Spy Museum (and I know just how big a laugh I’m going to get here) it was at the old digs on F St. You walk in and there’s a collection of covers on the wall. They tell you to pick one, because you’ll be required to maintain it. What they do not tell you is that it is going to be a series of computer-based questions. So, I pick this kid named Colin from the UK, and I proceed to come up with mannerisms, accent…… like a jackass in front of all these people……. but I take most things literally. AuDHD for the win. That day, I did not consider myself as going to the museum. I was a whole ass exhibit.
Back to you, Bob. Let’s go to the phones.
Linux gaming is getting better and better in terms of graphics card support being equal to Windows, but there are really no Triple A open source titles. Xonotic is a ridiculously fun first person shooter, but it doesn’t look like Rocket League or anything. The one open source game that I think is really well done is 0ad. You build civilizations (you can literally think about the Roman empire), and the game mechanics are much like StarCraft. You gather resources and fight other nations.
OUTSTANDING.
Again, we would not have any of this without Linus, and I get to be astounded by its progress every single day because I started with an idealistic Red Hat phase in college. I flirted with The Fedora, but I married Debian. I call Red Hat “The Fedora” because it reminds me of the time someone snapped at Carmen Sandiego on the new Netflix series, calling her “Fedora the Explorer” and I died for a second.
Speaking of Carmen, I like how her backstory is ridiculously muddled from spy to thief. She has worked for all of the intelligence agencies (they phrase it as “so many she’s forgotten”), and in the new series is basically counterintelligence, stealing from thieves and collaborating with government spies. It looks like MI-6, but it could be anything generic. The English woman and the French man are partners.
On Carmen Sandiego, you will find my alias. He’s called “Player,” and his entire job is to sit there at the computer, also obsessed with news and intelligence. He takes in information as fast as I do, bright as fuck.
Coded autistic, especially because his graphical user interface looks a lot like The Fedora.
Thank you for everything, Linus. I hope you have a nice Finnish Independence Day. Next year…. in Jerusalem, eh?
What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?
I’ve actually put enough into Skyrim to enjoy it. I’m not the gamer in my family, my brother-in-law is. I started with Fallout 3 on a whim, and Skyrim is made by the same company. The gameplay is fun, but what makes it so enormous it’s hard to take in is the story and the score.
Oh my God. The score. I could listen to the Skyrim soundtrack for 12 hours straight, and other people agree with me because there are 12 hour Youtube videos that play it for background noise.
Skyrim also takes place in the equivalent of Scandinavia, and it’s fascinating learning how the gamers portray characters living in that amount of snow. Even the architecture changes as you go, and you can spend thousands of dollars on graphics cards and mods to make Skyrim look like you’re literally walking through it. Just photorealistic. The great part is that even the vanilla game is gorgeous. You just have to tweak it to run on Windows 10/11. That’s actually the hardest part…. being able to sort through all the memory managers to find one that works.
My character is a wood elf, because they’re archers and it boosts my natural ability there. She has gray hair in a short asymetrical haircut, purple makeup accents, and purple war paint. I wear Orcish armor not because it’s the best you can get. It’s the sharpest I can dress.
I set it on stupid easy level because the story and puzzles are the best part. Killing things gets repetitive and doesn’t move anything forward. I have also added a ton of mods that extend the storyline and let you collect cool things so that the game is less about fighting overall. In fact, I use an alternate start so I can go to Windhelm first and book it to Solstheim. That way, I can get the first Black Book, and the power that allows your companion to stand in your wake and not get hurt. This has been the theme of my life, finding that particular enchantment. I also enjoy wielding Bloodskaal Blade because of the energy that pulses through it. Then, I go on the quest to get the warhammer with the chaos damage enchantment…. mostly because it’s fun to destroy it and enchant a bow. Arrows are so much cooler when they also shock, burn, or freeze the victim.
Those three things set me up for the rest of the game. You’ll be ridiculously overpowered and one shot kills are really fun, particularly at long range. As ESO would say, “get wrecked, sir.” I also make a point to collect everything in the game at one point or another because there’s a spectacular mod called Legacy of the Dragonborn where you become an employee of a museum dedicated to yourself. It’s ridiculous and also makes sense in the context of the story. So, the game is more balanced that way because I’m not willing to be the bad guy without significant reward. Checking items off that list is crack.
My favorite storyline starts out with becoming a thief, because I had to set beehives on fire and get out before anyone noticed. It’s fun being able to test your smarts at deception without your life depending on it. I am not Jack Ryan, but I will never admit it.
In the vanilla game, my favorite player home is a toss-up. I have bought all of them except Hjerim. Windhelm sucks as a place to live because the people are coded as particularly hostile even though you’ve just saved their lives. So, obviously I work for the government.
Ironic because I think that’s actually the house I’d love the most. The best thing about the vanilla houses is that everything works. There’s not going to be a glitch where if it says a relic can be put there, it will hang upside down or something.
The mods make it where you can store everything you collect, so I also like my safehouse in the museum.
That’s because in addition to tools like a forge and a workbench, I have archaeology tools there as well. If I want to display something in my home, I can make a fake. That way, I still have all my stuff and the museum fills up simultaneously.
I love that Skyrim feels so pristine and beautiful even though my computer was top of the line in 2014-15. I didn’t have to spend more than $60 for a graphics card that would play the hell out of it. I am sure that if I’d beefed up the graphics card more, I could play more recent games. But I haven’t played Skyrim enough to see all of it and I finish one story before moving on. I don’t really have time to game, so I don’t until I’m truly out of things to do.
Explaining my level of gaming is important because I don’t want people to assume that if they’re in a relationship with me, that means they need to know gaming is a huge part of my life. I play Skyrim when there’s nothing good on TV. It’ll keep.
Being able to Shout is a tremendous power, and something we don’t do nearly enough in our daily lives. We just have to manage how worthy the target is of that shout. If you don’t address something, it shows where your priorities lie. We’re responsible for telling you we’d like something to be higher priority, because if we’ve never expressed a need we’ve become part of the problem (that was Bryn’s idea). Whether you care about the outcome should mean less, because you’re not responsible for what someone else does, says, or understands.
In Skyrim, this shows up in aggression towards other characters. You absolutely get to decide how much shit you’re going to take from people and damn the consequences. What you have to decide is who is worthy when they state their own boundaries in return, and notice when they aren’t being set.
In short, if you kill undead soldiers long enough, you realize that everything and everyone is a spectrum. You have perspective on what matters. You will accept consequences from your partners, family, and friends. That’s because you can’t be vulnerable to the whole world. Protecting your energy enough so that you can fly under your own power is key. Getting too spread out is enormously frustrating. I am an empath fixer/pleaser, which makes me even more likely to shoot someone in the face to deal with my wallflower nature. I do the same things that other people do when I play violent video games and listen to rap. It’s just to blow off some steam. I can let them be angry enough for both of us. I can also let my character be braver and more dedicated than I am and let my character rise to meet theirs.
The more I write about myself, when I get some distance from a situation I actually love my character here, and I’m not saying that because I think of myself as fiction. It’s that to you, my audience, I am fictional because you live in India and I don’t. You’re falling in love with a story, not a person.
It is not lost on me that a huge part of falling for my beautiful girl was reading my own blog entries when I wanted to spend time with her while she was away. I didn’t just fall for the person she was, I fell for the person I made her in my mind and poured onto the page.
It is not unlike what I would do in a video game. I create a character, and then I read good or bad depending on the decisions I’ve made in my past.
My beautiful girl is not Supergrover, they’re the words I would use to describe her, and the actions I would have taken to make a future that had room for both of us. I am writing down everything I didn’t get that I wanted, not to guilt, goad, and provoke but to be able to come back later and read the story of what happened….. like all moms and sisters read baby books.
Trying to find the child in everyone is the only way to improve relationships. We all need to be sensitive to the fact that we are still the people we were in first grade, covered up by an enormous amount of scar tissue. If you take the time to reclaim your inner child and work from that place of vulnerability, your reactions will go back to what they once were…. when the troubles of the world seemed so small because you didn’t have to adult so hard.
Skyrim is a way to find out what that inner child really wants, and can choose all of it. It’s a do over for your life if you follow the story that way. You can choose to be a villain, but you also have to live with it. Living with those consequences isn’t the flex you think it is.
Yesterday’s entry broke me.
I sobbed all the way through writing it, and made myself cry several times on the train while I was reading it. Such a beautiful goodbye and “peace be with you” that even if nothing more happens, something did.
If I’d been at home, I would have played Skyrim to stop the tears. As it so happens, it was date night with Zac. We had the best conversation I’ve ever had about my blog tied only with my conversation with Bryn. I’d already been crying over my writing earlier, and Zac isn’t a fan yet. He’s said that he needs to be a die hard because it’s important to me, and yet it’s not. I am perfectly happy for him to be a fan, but I also love having someone who is oblivious because they haven’t already read what I wrote today so my conversation is fucking boring and they don’t know how to tell me. That’s my own interpretation, but it is not untrue because I can read microexpressions so easily.
He said something interesting, because he summed up everything I believe. He said, “if you come after me, I know you’ll only go after the parts of our relationship that are bad. You’re not going to come for me professionally because you know what I do.” I have not let myself get close enough to Zac to have bad parts of our relationship, therefore it was a very theoretical conversation. It’s not that I don’t trust him. It’s that I don’t trust me. I don’t trust me not to become lost in him, and to a certain degree giving up my drive to do and be more. It’s not that I would fall so in love I was blind. It’s that my personality is dedicated to helping someone understand themselves, and I would be so busy doing that because it affects my life directly that my audience might dwindle. As a person writing a book I hope to *sell,* that is a very bad thing.
One of the reasons I post so much is that it’s the best way I know to heal myself. I cannot speak for others, I can only let them read my experiences and decide if they want what I have. I’m offering peace for people who’ve been through a lot. I’m showing you how to get there because as I get happier, my writing does. Light begets light.
My only job in life was protecting Paarthurnax, and I found out that sometimes I’m Alduin. However, I would not have learned to accept the angel and the demon I am as one being without them.
I am fairly certain that I have mentioned before that I have monocular vision, but I don’t know if I’ve defined what it is. There’s probably a doctor that can technically explain it better than me, but I have the life experience.
People aren’t (generally) born with monocular vision. It is created (in my case, lack of oxygen in the delivery room), and there are two types. The first is injury resulting in loss of vision from one eye. I have the second kind. I can see out of both eyes, but they don’t track together. One eye fixates and the other drifts or turns inward. I have no control over what my non-dominant eye is doing, and cannot direct my brain regarding which eye to use.
My field of vision changes without my awareness when I’m wearing my glasses, so I put off getting them for the longest time. This is because when my left eye became much weaker than my right, I was right-eye dominant all the time. Here’s why it’s important: I only have a modicum of peripheral vision in the eye my brain has chosen, and absolutely none in the other. It leads to disaster when driving, and I lose things that were right in front of my face one second prior.
I used to drive all the time. I lived in the suburbs of Houston and I had no choice. It wasn’t until I moved to DC and was given the option of not driving that I considered stopping altogether. I was wondering if I could find data on how dangerous it was. According to a study I read comparing binocular and monocular vision in race car drivers (they all had binocular vision; monocular was simulated), monocular vision created accidents six percent of the time. That seems low until you realize just how much you drive, and you’re likely to have an accident six out of 100 times, all of them being your fault.
Monocular vision is noticeable, and I’ve had my fair share of teasing about it, even as an adult. I am very self-deprecating, and I make myself laugh all the time. It’s punching down when other people do it.
However, there is one aspect that I didn’t even think about until today. I like this game called “Feeding Frenzy 2.” It’s simple and ridiculous, but I have a hard time. The light bulb moment was when I realized I was playing on a widescreen monitor. I don’t see the fish on the edges of the screen unless I turn my head.
I am constantly turning my head…… all day, every day. The most common question I get is “which eye are you looking at me with?” I ignore that they ended the sentence with a preposition in order not to be Petty Level 3000, but apparently it is disarming to some people that one eye is either turned inward or outward. The absolute truth is that I don’t know, and maybe that’s why those words are one of my hot buttons.
In fact, about 15 years ago, I walked out on a job before it started because I was so mad at the recruiting company managing me (it was a temp). The recruiter met me a few minutes before the interview, so I was already nervous. He said, “I think it would make everyone more comfortable if you would announce the problem about your eye as you walk in.” I wish I’d called him out with an “absolutelyfuckingnot;” I felt about six inches tall, even though my future coworkers hired me on the spot. I was not interested in working with someone who punched down the second time I met him. I didn’t want there to be a third. I have enough problems beating myself up. I didn’t need anyone to “help.”
Between the way I see and the way I move, at work I am awkward enough. This is because you generally don’t get close enough to your coworkers that they feel comfortable asking questions. It’s easier for them to just write me off as weird and keep me at arm’s length.
The other huge problem is that people forget even after I’ve told them about my condition, and when I lose something or they want me to see what they do, they get perturbed. When I lose something, I’m considered flaky. Annoyance appears in people’s voices when I can’t see something….. “it’s right there. RIGHT THERE!” I have no idea what you’re pointing at- don’t even bother. I’ve gotten used to pretending I see a whole host of things, particularly birds and planes.
This is because in addition to my peripheral vision being absent, so is my depth perception.
I’m not very good at sports, although I can sort of fake it with soccer. It is easier to judge depth perception when the ball is on the ground. If I am catching a baseball or shooting a basketball, the difficulty is astronomical. Sometimes I make miraculous catches/baskets by accident.
I also politely decline and seethe inside when invited to a 3D movie, but only if it’s a friend I’ve told a hundred times that I can’t see them…. to me, the things that are supposed to jump out at you separate into two different colors and stay flat on the screen, turning to one side. It makes my head hurt and it costs more. I don’t like paying for migraines when I generally get them for free…. sometimes even a 2-for-1 special.
Speaking of seething inside, my movement and vision issues cause enormous self-esteem issues which present as rage, stuffed down because I use the buttons on my clothes to hold in my feelings. My self-esteem often keeps me from standing up for myself when I feel hurt by other people’s words….. I can’t even stand up to me.
but I have a hard time. The light bulb moment was when I realized I was playing on a widescreen monitor. I don’t see the fish on the edges of the screen unless I turn my head.
Stories That Are All True 