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 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. 😛
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. 🙂
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 characters’ 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.
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 Brené 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/mo…. 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 money… 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 space……. 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 fictional…. 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 storage…. 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 computer….. 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 writing…. 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 house…. 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 traps…… 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 jewelry… 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 it…. 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.
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” 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. 😉
“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. 😛
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. 😉 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.
The last thing I did for play/fun was finally install Skyrim: Anniversary Edition on my new desktop. At first, I didn’t think 512 MB of VRAM was going to be enough for that game, but it runs flawlessly, even with scripts running in the background. I like Bethesda games because I have no problem toggling God mode and carrying a thousand pieces of firewood if it means only having to make one trip.
If you’ve never played Skyrim, it’s not really a video game so much as a classic role-playing game. You can buy a house. You can get married. You can invest in local businesses, or add a mod where you can literally build your own town (I use Silverstead Mine, but I like player homes so much I have mods for Dawnstar and Haafinger as well. Of the vanilla houses, I like Severin Manor the best, and if we’re not including Dragonborn/Dawnguard, I like Hjerim. Honorable mention to Vlindrel Hall, but even in video games I have trouble navigating steps, so seriously. Fuck Markarth and Proudspire Manor. 😛
The mod I use for a player home in Dawnstar is called “Morskom Estate,” and it’s just the most fun house I’ve ever had because it has a sauna and a dock with travel boat. In the Anniversary Edition, apparently you can take it fishing, but it’s most useful getting from Dawnstar to Solitude or Windhelm. Interestingly enough, it will only take you to Windhelm. It doesn’t make sense that you can’t “drive yourself” to Solstheim.
I also like the Serana Dialogue Overhaul, because it adds follower tweaks that Serana doesn’t have in the vanilla game. The best is that you get a spell to bring her to you. Before that, I had a bat file to take me to her, because Lord knows if you need a companion they are off doing God knows what…. Except Lydia. Lydia is always in front of the door you need. I get “Companion’s Insight” from a Black Book on Solstheim and I will literally hit her with a shield to get her to move out of the way. I do not advocate violence, but I do not have time for Lydia’s foolishness. She’s gotten me killed more than once.
Now that I’m an advanced player, I have access to magic that will actually accomplish something, like conjuring warriors instead of fighting myself. I also have spells that will cast a bow or a sword if I don’t want to carry them. I didn’t think those spells were very powerful, but I have taken down several things that I didn’t think I could. I enchant everything to make archery easier, so I’m guessing that spell is particularly powerful (the spell is called “Bound Bow”).
In fact, I downloaded a clean save that has all the main quests finished. Nexus has clean saves of all kinds, because we’ve all heard the same dialogue a million times. I have killed Alduin so many times I think he thinks, “oh my God. Not this bitch again…” Even with all the main quests finished, there’s still hundreds of hours I haven’t played, because I haven’t been able to install Anniversary Edition. Therefore, I haven’t had access to those mods (included in the game, but made by fans), nor have I played the most famous ones like:
Beyond Reach
Wheels of Lull
Vigilant
Darkend
Interactive College of Winterhold
Beyond Skyrim: Bruma
I’ve downloaded more than that, but these are the ones I haven’t done a complete playthrough. Beyond Skyrim: Bruma is particularly massive, because it’s basically putting half of Oblivion right into Skyrim (Oblivion is the previous game in The Elder Scrolls. I didn’t find it as much fun as Skyrim because there are no dragons there. However, the storyline is a banger and the main quest ended me emotionally. I have never in my lifetime been that surprised at a plot twist. I nearly fell out of my desk chair. If you haven’t played Oblivion, it will run on your computer far easier than Skyrim and it’s worth a look. But again, you can’t fight or ride a dragon………).
The best mod I’ve found if you like playing an explorer type is “Legacy of the Dragonborn,” and it’s even more beautiful in the Anniversary Edition. Basically, the museum is located in Solitude, and you can store all your stuff there. They’ll even give you a safehouse with every crafting station you can possibly imagine. There’s even a replicating device, so that if you want to use a weapon or whatever, you can make a fake and the original stays in your inventory. You’re walking around Skyrim doing archaeological digs, finding old coins, old weapons, etc. Just fascinating because it also covers weird gems, sea creatures, and a weird quest in which you go into your Natural Science wing and every creepy creature you’ve previously put stuffed on a pedestal comes alive…. except the dragons, because you have already taken their souls. I also don’t believe they can fly inside.
The best part of Skyrim is just exploring things. It would be fun even if you disabled all the combat, because you’re just meeting people, crafting items, selling stuff, and decorating your home.
In terms of organization, I use a mod to keep track of everything. You fill out an item list, and then you say “store all,” and everything goes back into the cabinet. You link the cabinet to your workbench or grindstone, you don’t have to carry ingots and leather and all that crap on you. All my soul gems and alchemy ingredients are arranged the same way. Although I did download a fish mod, too, because I have a hatchery in Haafinger, and you also get one at Winstead Manor (the Morthal player home). I’m almost ready to join the Thieves Guild so I can buy Shadowfoot Sanctum. 😉
I’ve said this before, but I love The Thieves Guild because it reminds me of spy shows. It’s not smash and bash unless you want it to be. The smart way is to use invisibility spells and, failing that, a soul trap dagger. 😉 It makes me happy to enchant a sword with a bandit who tried to kill me and didn’t know who he was messing with. I enchant and improve the shit out of everything, so if I hit you with an arrow or a bolt, you’re probably going to be dead in one hit. This is because as a long-range archer, most of the time it’s a sneak attack. There’s 3x damage for that, and my bow’s base damage is 512 before the Chaos Damage and Fire Damage enchantments.
Speaking of Chaos Damage, I think it’s the most effective enchantment in the game, and you can combine it with anything. Paralysis or Frost/Fire damage is most effective, but definitely use Frost Damage on Stahlrim weapons because frost enchantments are 20% more effective. Even so, a Stahlrim bow just does not have the power mine does- it’s made of dragon bone, with dragon bone arrows. I also carry a dragon bone sword. I would like to say I picked them up in the Soul Cairn, but no. I crafted them myself.
I have climbed up the ranks in Skyrim so many times that I have scripts for all that now. I load a clean save and then godmode the shit out of it. I have one that will give me all my smithing materials, and one that gives me Daedric armor and weapons, all the enchantments, all the Shouts, 90 dragon souls, one of every alchemy ingredient, maxes out health, stamina, and magika, sets my level at 81, and gives me all the perks in every tree. I can do that now. I paid my dues. 😉 I’m not giving myself an advantage, I’m not starting over every time I reinstall Skyrim. It’s still annoying to start a new game because you still have to unlock all the shouts, destroy all the enchanted items to gain the “recipe,” and I have to find a place to store everything I’m carrying when one bat file means I’m carrying 3,400 pounds.
A few things about Skyrim:
I see The Blades’ point.
I have never agreed with them.
I have never even looked up a video to see what happens if you kill Paarthurnax, nor could I blow up Megaton in Fallout 3.
I can’t play an outright evil character all the time.
It’s always my Virgo nature vs. my morality in Skyrim because on the one hand, I don’t want to be evil. On the other, I cannot look at an empty display case. I must have the required item if it kills me.
My favorite player home has a glitch where even if all three Elder Scrolls are in my inventory, it always says Dragon is missing. That’s why I keep my stuff in the museum, and how I became a shady character. You really have to watch with player home mods, because they aren’t always as stable as in-game homes….. in case you, also, hate to see empty display cases.
Legacy of the Dragonborn feels like Indiana Jones and Satchel from “Atomic Blonde” had a baby, and I’m here for it. The best part is that LotD has been around for so long that you can add display cases for all your mods as well.
There are a few places in Skyrim that I could go over and over. For instance, I have spent hours wandering around the Ancestor Glade. It’s so beautiful I can barely take it in. I also really, really love my house in Dawnstar because it’s up on the hill across from the docks and looks out over the water. Plus, there are those huge cauldrons full of coals that you light in both the front and back yards, plus the hanging lights in the living room. It’s really funny, I saw a playthrough of Morskom Estate where this woman was saying, “how do you light those things?!” I thought, “lady… you are a wizard.” (you point the Flames spell at it).
This is the first playthrough I’ve ever done as a Nord, because the clean save character was Nord and I didn’t bother to change it except for makeup and hair. Normally, I play Bosmer because they’re naturally good at archery. Even as an elf, I still love the Nordic carved armor and weapons. Even though I carry dragon bone, I’m constantly making Nordic carved swords and shields for my display cases.
The one annoying think is that you can really punch up Auriel’s bow to crazy o’clock damage, but in the Serana Dialogue Overhaul, she gives you no small amount of shit if you carry it. It’s the bow that killed her father, so she will badger the piss out of you if you take it out. The only way to stop that dialogue is to put it in the museum. I haven’t done that quest yet, so it has a slot at Haafinger Hall. It has a display room for all the masks, paragons, Black Books, special weapons/staffs, etc.
I’m a simple player, though. I get out there and either shoot long range or drink an invisibility potion. I don’t like to cut off heads, and I have in power moves. In fact, I just cut off Tilisu Severin’s head earlier….. not that I meant to, I just hit whatever mouse combination does a power move and her head sailed across the room. Oops, my bad. Should I leave a note?
Game mechanics are so weird. The funniest thing is using your Unrelenting Force to magically throw someone off a mountain. The best is a frost troll, no doubt. If I had to pick my least favorite villain, it’s the Forsworn, because there’s just so many of them, and they’re also good at ranged attacks. It’s amazing how many times you can be hit without noticing, then all of a sudden “thank God there’s a potion for that.”
Because Skyrim is so popular, it has been the source of many memes and is a fandom all its own… but really, there are only two rules. The first is “don’t kill a chicken.” Everyone in the town will start attacking you, and you’ll get bounties in whatever hold you’re in. I’ve never made that mistake, because it’s so storied I knew not to do it probably a year before I even played the game. The second rule is that you have to put a “muffle” enchantment on Lydia’s boots or she will 100% sell you out. She cannot sneak for shit, and she will get you killed, particularly in the early game when you have no way to stop her. There’s a mod called “Amazing Follower Tweaks” that helps with this, because you can change it where a companion never leads you into battle, they’re always behind you.
There are two mods that have made my playthroughs so much easier. The first is “Longer Candlelight and Magelight Spells.” It increases both spells to 10 in-game minutes, which is invaluable in dungeons because you don’t have to carry a torch. You rarely have to cast it more than twice. That way, you don’t have to use destruction magic, you can switch back to your bow or sword. Another thing I learned is that if you have “Candlelight” in one hand and “Bound Bow” in the other, you cannot cast a spell. That’s because “Bound Bow” becomes a two-handed weapon. If you know the game well enough to know what level enemy you’re going to be facing, it’s perfectly adequate. Just not as good as something crafted to “Legendary” status.
The other is Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul. It gets a little more specific. The first is that you can add a lanterns mod so it makes the carriages easier to see. The second is that it will take you to multiple places in the hold. You pick the hold, and then it will list the capital city and then a few around it. Like, if I’m going to Haafinger, it will ask if I want to be dropped off in Solitude or Dragon Bridge, etc. Very, very handy.
If I had to pick a favorite quest, it’s going to Wolfskull Cave and driving out the people trying to resurrect Potema, because the second half is so cool. I love crawling around in the Solitude crypts with vampires and skeletons. Also, “Marked for Death” and “Drain Vitality” are amazing shouts to use when you’re facing Potema herself.
If I had to pick a favorite character, there are three, all Dark Elves. The first is Geldis Saadri, owner and proprietor of The Retched Netch, the pub in Solstheim. The second is Councilor Morvayn, and this is totally because I think he’s hot in a weird way. The third is Neloth, the wizard that takes you to get the black book about Miraak. Neloth sounds like a bitchy queen and I love him SO MUCH. Just the way he talks alone. If we’re limiting ourselves to the vanilla game, it’s probably Karliah, but I won’t tell you why because I can’t tell you who she is without a spoiler. Perhaps you all do play Skyrim, and the spoiler is old, but I know my crowd. They don’t generally play any video games, much less fanatical about one.
I just enjoy playing this game once in a while. It’s more fun to be in that world over and over than it is to play new games because most people have comfort shows. It’s the same for me, mine is just interactive…. and because my computer is up to snuff, the game is stable. There is nothing like having an hour’s worth of gameplay hosed because of a scripting error. You boot the game up and think, “please have saved somewhere near where I was…” It hardly ever does, because Fallout 3 has a great mod for autosaving and Skyrim doesn’t, or at least, the ones I’ve tried haven’t worked, and in fact corrupted my save file worse.
That’s how I got onto the idea of “clean saves.” You need something that doesn’t already have dependencies on mods, so there are people who have run through the main quests at level one to make them as easy as possible so that the save still starts you out on a relatively low level. For some reason, there are people who like to make the game harder. I do not. I have potatoes to plant.
Whether I choose to plant them in Skyrim or Morrowind remains to be seen. I do so love Severin Manor. I found a mod called “TNF Homes” that redecorates every vanilla player home in the game. The only thing I don’t like is that Severin Manor already had all the crafting stations in the basement, and they took out the forge and the smelter.
And as we’ve established, that’s like half the game. I like to change clothes a lot. I just made mercenary armor…. for fun.
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.
Stories That Are All True 