#All I know about skyrim is cheese wheel

[noneedtofearorhope]

one of my complaints with vintage story is that the food system is shallow, which is funny since i know i've seen it used as a promotional selling point, boasting something like 'cook over 10k unique meals!'. actually, just looked it up, the 2022 promotional trailer on the front page of their website says it's 350k! but there isn't really a mechanical reason to explore all these combinations. most are functionally identical, boiling (heh) down to just a few basic types. like, there is the 5 food categories, which keeping full gives you more health, which is certainly something. but the astute among you may notice that 5 categories only gives 31 possible combinations a meal could be, a far cry from 350k. on average you have about 11k ways to make each combination of food types. but why?

food and cooking is interwoven with its production, so the different soil nutrients and different temp ranges adds some depth. but really, you get such an abundance of food from every harvest, you only have to figure out one crop from each of the three soil nutrient types and just stick with those. gets too cold/hot, who cares, you already got more food than you know what to do with, no need to rotate crops seasonally. i mean, you get multiple harvests in one season as it is (which ive heard from vets is preferable to when farming times were more realistic). and realistically your grain is going to be flax, because you need the fibers, so that's your k crop, and you can just use bushes or trees for fruit, and since you already need animals to fulfill dairy might as well use the meat for the protein. the only food category left is vegetable, which you can find in both n and p soil nutrient types, with onion being perhaps the best choice because of its longer shelf life. which i guess shelf life is another supposed layer of complexity and depth but as i just mentioned its still just an easy minmax type thing. but also it doesn't matter because its just so easy to have an overabundance of food. so outside of aesthetic or roleplaying reasons, there just isn't really a reason to have real diversity and variety. flax and berry porridge. meat and onion stew. and wash it all down with sheep milk.

to be fair, it's really not an issue exclusive to vs. i felt the same way about rimworld, tho i did find myself having to continue to pay attention to soil type and growing times for longer into a playthrough, even if overall it was more shallow, due to fluctuations in settlement numbers and various disasters. skyrim i guess has different effects you can get, but honestly you can just spam wheels of cheese or w/e to restore health and not worry about any of the rest. plus im not sure if the magical effects type thing would fit vs. maybe temporal or cold resistance. i enjoy playing with the xskills mod, which gives buffs like increased mining speed thru 'quality' meals. but yeah, just doesn't feel like a vanilla vibe. and yeah, without a skill/leveling system in place, effects are more limited. no buffing destruction skill when it doesnt exist...

[nightcoremoon]

dark souls isn’t hard, you just suck.

time to discuss definitions!

hard = requires an exorbitant amount of effort to succeed in

suck = refuses to put in the effort needed to succeed

dark souls requires a minimal amount of effort. you have to read, you have to look around, you have to listen, you have to press more than one button at once, you have to use your spatial reasoning skills, you have to accept that every single mistake you make is permanent, you have to remember shit, you have to prioritize exploration over boss fights, and you have to accept that you need to play through the game more than one times in order to see everything and get all of the content. these are all skills that anybody who has been playing RPGs from the last 35+ years should know by now, and if you haven’t played anything by squeenix, interplay, bioware, black isle, blizzard, any of the classics, THEN WHY PRAY TELL THE FUCK ARE YOU STARTING AT THE SIXTH INSTALLMENT OF A FRANCHISE KNOWN FOR BEING A LITTLE MORE DIFFICULT THAN SKYRIM, THEN BEING SHOCKED THAT IT DIDNT GIVE YOU A FREE WIN???

yeah you have to put in a little bit of effort to learn the mechanics. obviously. you can’t fucking jump into starcraft multiplayer and then being like “wow this game is bullshit” because you have one marine out, 24 SCVs in your mineral line, 1200 minerals in the bank, 6 supply depots queued up, and then got swarmed by 12 zerglings at the 8 minute mark. you can’t fucking jump into minecraft hardcore and then be like “wow this game is bullshit” because you can’t kill three zombies with a wooden pickaxe. you can’t fucking jump into doom on ultraviolence and then be like “wow this game is bullshit” because you can’t move and shoot at the same time. learn to macro, learn to craft, learn to strafe, LEARN TO FUCKING MANAGE YOUR STAMINA.

every game has a learning curve, and dark souls is no exception. the PROBLEM is that if you approach dark souls like it’s skyrim or dynasty warriors or some other schlocky piece of garbage that requires no skill to just spam attacks, then yeah, you’re going to get your ass kicked. devil may cry came out and everyone said it was the hardest game ever. if you were alive and conscious in 2001 then you heard about how bullshit that scorpion fight was. and then ninja gaiden sigma came out and dethroned it. but now we look back on them as the precursors of the entire character action genre and now everyone loves bayonetta, god of war, metal gear rising, nier, no more heroes, okami, the world ends with you (cult classic though it may be), etc. and those games are actually tough as nails and require a lot of diligence to beat. dark souls? not so much. people are just too used to games coddling them, developers implementing systems such as Difficulty Adjustments and AI Mercy and allowing you to quicksave every five seconds just to save scum so you don’t have to drink a health potion and eat a cheese wheel every time you fuck up your stealth archery segment, and having the difficulty selection screen being “I’m a literal baby / I have played a video game before / I eat broken glass for breakfast” and all it changes is how much health that your enemies have. the 2000s were a weird decade for games. there was so so much good, then so so much mediocrity, and then so so much good again. technology advanced rapidly. we went from halo 1 to odst. and people got shittier at gaming.

[aardvark-123]

~The Trouble with Mods~

Here's a little something I wrote to celebrate Skyrim's twelfth birthday. It is, in fact, too long for tumblr, so you'll need to read most of it on one of the websites down there.

~Summary~

It was a day like any other in Whiterun, until somebody decided to install some mods. Suddenly pot plants are materialising all over the city, houses are turning into towers and mansions, mannequins are coming to live, and are you sure porridge existed yesterday?

This strange day takes a turn for the worse when a rambunctious child gets lost, trapped in a house shifting, growing and sprouting new rooms around her. Ria, Aela and the courageous Sigurd are determined to rescue Braith, but for all of them, the chaos is just beginning...

~The First Bit~

Aela the Huntress was sitting on the garden wall outside Jorrvaskr, the grassy ledge comfortable beneath her thighs. The sun shone brightly over the wall, but the breeze was enough to keep her cool while she had her savoury porridge.

Most of the Companions were having breakfast inside, and no-one was out for training yet, so she had the courtyard to herself. Just Aela, the smell of the lavender swaying in the breeze, and a delicious breakfast - what could be better?

Breakfast... It was a funny one. When Aela thought back on her years spent as a Companion, she couldn't remember a single time when she'd had porridge. Apple pie, yes; vegetable soup, definitely; bread, grilled leeks, roasted mammoth snouts and whole wheels of cheese, absolutely. But porridge? Never.

And she may well have been missing out, Aela reflected as she swallowed spoonfuls of creamy oat paste. The bowls of porridge Tilma had laid out for them that morning had seemed perfectly at home, steaming among the cups and bottles on the long tables. So why? Why had she never had any before?

The sounds of feet clomping across the courtyard brought Aela out of her pondering. "I say, Ria! Come here a minute," she requested.

Ria came there a minute, jangling past the veranda in her scaled armour. "Did you need something? I'd be happy to learn from you!" she said hopefully, taking a seat beside Aela.

"This is important. Have you ever had porridge before?" asked Aela.

"Por, porridge?" Ria blinked. "I-I don't know... Why? Was it all right?" she asked, noticing Aela's empty bowl.

"It was good," Aela said carefully. "But the thing is, Ria, before today... I don't rightly know if porridge EXISTED."

"Oh. Is that so?" Ria scratched her head. Still wearing that brown nail varnish, Aela noticed with some amusement. "Well, I do think porridge is real, Aela. There's history behind it. N-not that you've lost your wits or anything, it's just that-"

"Think about it, will you? Have you ever eaten porridge before, or even seen a bowl of porridge anywhere in Whiterun?" insisted Aela.

Ria bit her lip. "Well... Actually, no!" She turned up to the blue morning sky, her eyes wide. "But we both know what porridge is, and you had some for breakfast, didn't you? So porridge has to be real! Things don't just start existing, appear from out of nowhere."

Aela nodded, then she screamed.

"Aela! Oh, my days!" Ria jumped from her perch. Aela had been hurled a clean thirty feet into the air. A round bronze pot full of pale golden flowers sat on the grassy ledge where she had been.

Ria's eyes darted between the pot, pressing into the orange grass where Aela's bottom had been mere seconds ago, and Aela, spinning helplessly as she plummeted towards the courtyard. She screwed shut her eyes and offered a silent prayer to Akatosh.

After a few seconds without splat or scream of pain, Ria opened them again. Aela was dangling by the collar of her armour, bobbing up and down among the pink and white blossoms of a tall tree.

"Are... Are you all right?" Ria asked gently.

Aela grunted. "Oh, I'm doing wonderfully. Get me a ladder- Aiyeeee!"

The branch snapped. Aela fell flat on her face with a soft, heavy flumph noise.

"Oh, Mara! Oh, Stendarr!" Ria ran to the foot of the tree, which seemed to be growing straight out of the cobblestones. Aela was lying there, breathing heavily, splayed out like a bear skin rug. "Should I get someone? I'll get Farkas."

"Don't bother," growled Aela, clambering up on her hands and knees. "That settles it. We don't HAVE a tree in the courtyard! Just look at it, it's going to get in the way when we're exercising. Something's very wrong here, Ria."

"Yeah..." Ria offered Aela a hand up, and flinched a little when she grabbed the hand and hauled herself to her feet. "C-can you walk?"

"Obviously. Thanks." One of Aela's knees was bleeding, but it didn't seem to bother her.

"You're welcome. I believe you about the porridge, by the way," said Ria. "I would definitely have noticed the tree, and those plant pots..."

"Hey, you two!" Farkas was coming around the corner, his armour clanking as he ran. "There's something very strange happening to Jorrvaskr. Furniture appearing from out of nowhere, potted plants and..." He noticed the tree and stuttered. "And-and a... G-gildergreen...? We don't- we don't have one of those."

"We noticed, but thanks for the warning," Aela said wearily. She wiped a trickle of blood from her nose. "Ow."

"What happened?" asked Farkas.

"I was hurled into the air by a... pot plant," spat Aela.

"Well, isn't that just typical? Kodlak wants to see us all out front. Until we've got a handle on this, no-one's meant to go inside the... Building..." Farkas stared up at the tall stone walls bedecked with banners. "It's not safe inside while Jorrvaskr might be having... growing pains."

"I can imagine not," said Aela. "Since when did we have a castle?!"

"Look, up there!" Ria pointed above the three-storey-high towers with pointy yellow rooves and Dwemer-style bronze panels. "Ysgrammor's boat. Is it... bigger?"

The upside-down longship was perched between the six towers. Alongside the old shields, countless banners were nailed to her hull alongside snowberry wreaths, rivers of ivy, and two mammoth skulls hung with gold jewellery.

"A bit bigger," Aela said in a small voice. "What have they done to the old girl?! She's a warship, not some jarl's personal carriage!"

"There's a point. I don't want to think about how much tax we'll have to pay on a whole castle," Farkas said grimly. "Come on, they're waiting for us."

Putting a hand on Ria's shoulder, and keeping a respectable distance away from Aela, Farkas ushered them to the front of the great castle.

~Read the Rest on Your Choice of Fan Fiction Website~

[depresseddepot]

live blogging my starfield thoughts under the cut

- the music is interesting. I'm crazy about it in some scenes but others feel almost like minecraft music? Not a bad thing at all but definitely an interesting direction

- do you think you get to pick your crew/recruit different npcs??? Also: YES GOD ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION. YESSSSSSSSSS my alien: isolation heart is so fucking excited abut that!!!

- ahhh, I see how they got around the "open world" question. I was wondering how they would make a game that could run well w that many locations completely open world that didn't feel empty. I'm not too upset abt it tbh, I'd rather it play and run well than be completely open world. I feel like the expanse of space would get boring going from solar system to solar system after a while anyways

- new atlantis. What a metal name lol

- CONTRABAND????? YESSSSSSSSSSS

- oh im getting dbh vibes. Im trying so hard to be normal but its not working very well

- i hope there are parts of this game that's like. Scary. Horror lol

- oh that good old bethesda conversation zoom in with absolutely no emotion

- "the united colonies" now. girl i don't know about that

- the freestar space system looks cool DANCING HUMANS IN ALIEN SUITS????

- CHARACTER CREATION PORTION LETS GO

- walk style yes. im a little disappointed by the customization being only blending facial morphs together but until i mess w it myself ill have no idea what it can actually do

- BACKGROUNDS YESSSSS. TRAITS YESS. THE ADORING FAN YES HE CAN JOIN YOUR CREW????? also you can choose the trait where you just have parents you can go visit AHSHHAJAJA.

- THEY KILLED HIM????

- ohhh the skills are challenge based now. I actually like that a lot, it tells you specifically what to do to upgrade that skill.

- vents....omg.

- i wonder what earth is going to be like? is it destroyed etc? I want to walk on OUR moon

- OHHH YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE OF YOUR SHIP >>>>>

- ugh. our character is so badass

- some of these ships are NOT capable of spaceflight btw but I can suspend my disbelief for the excitement lmfao

- ill admit, the ship battle system looks EXTREMELY irritating to control for me personally, so I hope they have things that help aim/steering.

- sandwiches are the new cheese wheel lmfao

- GRANDMA?????????????? OH MY GOD IS THAT THE SKYRIM GRANDMA? IM GOING TO START CRYING

- i cannot wait to play this game. This is the first game i want to play without any spoilers bc i want to explore so badly

- the lighting is so hazy and nice....the quiet sandy moons....im so excited....

- so it seems like the artifacts give you special abilities a la shouts??? I don't care abt guns so i have nothing else to say on the weapons section lol

- ohhh IM SO EXCITED. ITS FINALLY HERE

[priestofberath]

Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were caught trying to cross the border, same as us, and that thief over there. Fuck I forgot the rest. Uh. Damn you Stormcloaks, if it hadn’t been for you, I would have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell. We’re all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief. Shut up back there. Wait, you, you’re Ulfric Stormcloak, leader of the rebellion. If they’ve captured you...gods, where are they taking us? Shor, Mara, Dibella, Akatosh, Kynareth-- Divines, help me. Hey, where are you from, horse thief? Why do you care? A nord’s last thoughts should be of home. Rorikstead. I’m...I’m from Rorikstead. Okay I really forgot how it goes after this, fucking, like. Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl from here. I wonder if Vilod still makes that mead with juniper berries mixed in. Imperial walls and towers. It’s funny, when I was a boy, they used to make me feel so safe. End of the line. You’re not going to kill me!! Halt! Archers! Anyone else feel like running? Who...are you. Are you with one of the trade caravans, khajiit? Your kind always seems to get into trouble. What do we do? She’s not in the book. Forget the book, she’s going to the block. Alright. I’m sorry, I’ll make sure your remains are returned to Elsweyr. Uhhhhhh. Some here in Helgen call you a hero, but a hero doesn’t use a power like the voice to murder the High King and usurp his throne. You started this war, and now we’re going to end it.  Fuckin. As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you-- Let’s get this over with, I haven’t got all morning. My ancestors are smiling on me, imperials, can you say the same? As fearless in death as he was in life. Next, the cat! What was that? A dragon! Toor...Shul! Gods...everyone, get back! Still alive, prisoner? Follow me if you want to keep that way. Okay yeah I’ve got nothing I forgot how it goes past this point. Fucking Hadvar. It’s like, I always go with the imperials because I always play as either a Khajiit or an Argonian and it just doesn’t seem like it’d make sense to join the Stormcloaks as anything other than a nord, but they tried to cut my head off that one time, you know? I didn’t do anything. It’s not like Skyrim’s border is like, closed. People cross it. That happens. The protagonist just happened to be present during a Stormcloak vs Imperial thing and got caught up in it. Hadvar even said, hey, you’re not supposed to be here. And yet, they try to kill you anyway. For what? You can mention that to Jarl Balgruuf and he’ll just make a comment about not caring about your apparent criminal past. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I am innocent, have been personally victimized by the Imperial Legion, and want a written apology and maybe a gift card. You want me to help you with the dragons? Give me a 100 septim gift card to the Bannered Mare. General Tullius, fucking get on it, okay? I’ve never done anything wrong. Sure, I have stolen some things, but that’s their fault for leaving cheese wheels out unattended. You’re gonna arrest me over some cheese wheels, nord boy? I’m the dragonborn, and if I am going to have any luck trying to fuck Sheogorath, I need cheese wheels. Get off me.

[utilitycaster]

The only video game I can play is angry birds, portal (levels before guns only), the Myst series, and edutainment from the late 90s and early 2000s but anyway is Pike's house in Skyrim

[choilacanth]

12 Skyrim questions, tagged by @friend-of-giants :] This one got long, so the other 10 are under a read more.  

I tag @olibavee and @elfyris but no pressure hue hue hue

1. What's your OC's favourite tavern?

The Retching Netch, always. She, Teldryn Sero, Glover Mallory, and Dreyla Alor become the late-late night “put the lights out when you’re done” crowd by the end of her stay, and the food and sujamma is homey but excellent. If the ash yam and horker stews aren’t enough, she can always pop outside to buy some skewers to bring back in.

2. What about their favourite beverage? 

Sujamma is best! She pilfered her dad’s stash as a young woman, though she will also happily go for spiced wine or a good ale. Recently, though, she is much more likely to be drinking some hangover/indigestion cure-all of hackle-lo and turmeric from Solstheim. It tastes like turmeric and doesn’t really work.

3. Who do they travel with?

Since Inigo took a full-time job with the Dawnguard, Darra has been traveling with Teldryn Sero and her horse, Frost. Inigo joins them sometimes. She is also likely to join up with people she meets on her travels for a short while. In the past, she has journeyed with Zora Fair-child, Borgakh the Steel Heart, and Meresine, and who knows who else. In the future, she will travel with Serana, Lucien Flavius, possibly Elyas Salvi, Rumarin, and who knows who else. 

4. Are they wealthy? How do they make money?  

The good news is that you made a lot. The bad news is that you spent more. (Cut ‘Em In, Anderson .paak)

Darra has a good sense for business, making money, and keeping money, but refuses to go back to a sensible white-collar job and would rather have her adventures fund themselves. Many folk of Skyrim are willing to have her trek out into the wilds or exorcise the ghosts in their family tomb for some coin, but fortunately, dragon parts are a rare find and a lucrative venture, and many dragons seem to have a bone to pick with her. She also flips armor and weapons she picks up, having Balimund repair them and placing an enchantment before selling it off to another smith. She also has part-time employment sourcing research materials for the College of Winterhold for a small amount of gold, plus free tuition and books. She has a similar arrangement retrieving old scripts for the Bard’s College. Most of the coin goes right back into food, spellbooks, paying her rent, and maintaining her horse. Especially the horse.

5. Do they worship any aedra or daedra?

Darra finds comfort in the rituals surrounding the worship of Azura by common folk, but more out of familiarity and remembering her family than any real devotion to Azura. While he was still alive, her father was business-minded and quick to downplay their more contentious beliefs upon moving to Skyrim, so Mephala and Boethiah weren’t fixtures around the home either. Instead, their family was also quick to adopt the symbol of Zenithar for trade and solidarity with the workers and craftsmen they dealt with. Darra was given Zenithar’s anvil, but mostly uses it as a fancy paperweight. There is also a mysterious cheese wheel in her room that no one is allowed to move… 

6. What is their biggest fear? 

Facing the axe in Helgen strikes the biggest fear in Darra’s heart: dying without having lived her own life or living her own story. She ends up wandering Skyrim to figure it out, living some odd combination of “try everything now” and “but I can’t die trying oh no we’re really in it now help help.” Also, she is scared of Dwemer animunculi, going to jail, being captured by the Thalmor, falling off the stairs in Markarth, lightning magic, and hostile mages. 

7. Any pet peeves? What she thought was an awful humid basement bedroom in her little Riften apartment turned out to be the perfect cheese storage room after some temperature controls. There are a few other pet peeves like excessive cold, as well as working in accounting and logistics. 

8. Do they like being dragonborn? Or do they see it as a burden? Darra enjoys the bonuses (cool shouts, fun history, stream of high-value dragon parts for trading and alchemy) but wants none of the pain, prophecies, and doom. She can’t really imagine a long-term future and resists dealing with it, but she’ll come around and carry her burden eventually.

9. Favourite Skyrim faction?

The Bard's College and the College of Winterhold have the most amount of money to pay her with the least amount of potential jail time and hostility towards elves, so Darra likes working for them. Those, and the Greybeards. Also, at least one of them will help her unravel the mysteries of dragons and dragonborn powers (and pay her).

10. Any object they carry with high sentimental value? Teldryn has accepted he is never wearing his second scarf again. She wears her armor with pride and appreciation, namely, Glover Mallory’s refitted Blackguard armor and two sets of Master Destruction robes. 

11. What about hobbies? 

Darra has picked up and dropped many hobbies over the years. The main one that stuck is magic, but she also reads novels, arranges flowers (not expertly at all), collects liquor and cheese, goes fishing, and dances with revelers. 

12. Favourite Skyrim city?

Riften, always. Messy but warm, kind of like her.

[tastesoftamriel]

So you know how it's human nature to do really stupid shit just to see what our bodies will let us get away with, including dumb food challenges? What kinda dumb extreme food challenges do the people of tamriel get up to?

I'm of the belief that stupidity extends to all things, right down to food itself. While I strongly suggest not trying any of these challenges yourself, you're always welcome to watch people making a fool of themselves by doing...

Altmer

The prim and proper High Elves don't so much participate in dumb food challenges, but they are competitive when it comes to their food and wine. Gastronomy gurus in Summerset often "duel" each other with blind tastings to demonstrate one's superior palate, from types of rice to extremely specific vintages. It's pompous, pretentious, and downright ridiculous to an oafish nebarra like myself, but as a chef, I can say they're arses.

Argonians

Black Marsh is home to a whole host of delicious seafood, but Argonians like to test their luck with what they call Sithis' Kiss, made from the flesh of the poisonous Michinitl. The fish is served raw, and sliced thinly with expert precision. While preparing the fish properly removes the dangerous toxins, unskilled chefs have unintentionally killed many a tourist and fellow Argonian alike with this dish.

Bosmer

The Wood Elves are brilliant hunters, but sometimes take things a little far in the name of a meal (unthrappa being a case in point). There's a common saying that the more dangerous the catch, the better the meat tastes, and this has led some to participate in ridiculous, and at times disastrous hunts. One story that haunts me is a hunting party that accidentally led a wild timber mammoth through a village, where it gored an old woman and grievously injured many others. Pick on something your own size!

Bretons

Rivenspire hosts an annual competition where a huge prize wheel of sharp Northpoint cheese is rolled down a very steep hill, and Men and Mer alike roll themselves after it to the finish line. The first to reach the bottom of the hill wins the cheese, but injuries aplenty occur during the cheese race- I will personally stick to buying my Red Northpoint from the store!

Dunmer

For some reason, the Dark Elves quite enjoy eating live things, and sometimes with dire consequences. It has been a trend on Vvardenfell to catch small octopuses, which are served live with a dip of salty saltrice sauce, pickled comberry, and saltrice vinegar. As you can imagine, the application of sauce generally incites rage in the octopus, which will sometimes choke its eater to death from inside the esophagus. Please don't do this, and eat your food dead.

Imperials

Wine is one of Cyrodiil's major exports, and the Province is swimming in it- literally. Wine-diving is a sport where a bunch of grapes are tied to the bottom of a vat of wine, and contestants must swim to the bottom and bring the grapes back to the surface with their teeth alone. The winner is whoever does this is the shortest time. As the hands are often tied behind the back to prevent cheating, this game has also led to a boozy demise for a few poor souls, who presumably died doing what they love: being submerged in wine.

Khajiit

It's no secret that Elsweyr cuisine is often loaded with chilis, and the Khajiit love challenging themselves and their guts with increasingly spicy chili eating contests. Participants are each given a glass of milk with moon sugar and are given up to ten different levels of fiery Oblivion to pass through. You don't normally win a prize beyond being known as that crazy jeek who can breathe fire, but it's a reputation that might just be worth the pain (not that I'll ever come close to winning).

Nords

You've heard about the famed eating contests of Skyrim, but do you really know about it? Participants starve themselves for days before the contest, or stretch their stomachs by gorging themselves, or just have naturally voracious appetites. There are only two rules: no throwing up, and no cheating, especially with magic. Everything else is in the hands of Ysmir the second you take a bite of turkey thigh. Only the truly gluttonous will win an eating contest among Nords. Attempt at your own discretion.

Orcs

The tuskiest of Orcs often step up to the plate when it comes to eating dangerously, but at the expense of one's teeth. While it's not common, bored Orcs have been known to challenge each other to chewing and swallowing increasingly hard foods, like tough jerky to whole solid dried bonito blocks. Unless you have teeth of steel and a stomach of malachite, it's not advisable to attempt this.

Redguards

The Alik'r is home to many dangerous creatures, including vipers and giant scorpions. Some crazy Redguard once upon a time mixed the venom from these two creatures, poured it into a glass with a shot of double rum, drank it...and survived. Many others have not been so lucky. While this dangerous drink has been decried by the law for years, you can't stop people from doing dumb things when they've really set their minds to it!

[theggning]

I Hate the Alternate Ending of Blind Betrayal, and Here's Why!

DISCLAIMER THE FIRST: Massive spoilers for Fallout 4 abound. This post discusses Blind Betrayal, a quest with suicide as a heavy theme. Content warning applies.

DISCLAIMER THE SECOND: This post discusses cut OFFICIAL content from Fallout 4 that has since been repurposed into multiple mods. I am not criticizing any modders or their implementations of this content. Mods are fun and people can enjoy whatever the hell kind of game experience they want with whatever mods they want.

I am ONLY interested in discussing the original cut content as Bethesda had written it, and how it would have impacted the story and lore of Fallout 4.

So, yeah, it seems there was originally going to be another way to conclude Blind Betrayal (BB).

As described in this Kotaku article (citing this post by Tumblr user tentacle-explosion,) there are unused audio files of Danse’s dialogue that show an alternate ending to his pivotal quest. These lines are the only evidence we have of this ending (suggesting that it was cut fairly early on, as no other actors/characters seem to have recorded for it.)

From what we can tell, in this alternate ending of BB, Danse comes up with a possible way out of the sticky situation re: his identity as a synth. According to the Brotherhood Litany, he is able to challenge Maxson’s authority as Elder via combat. If you agree to this idea, you go with Danse to challenge Maxson. The Paladin and the Elder duel one another, Danse wins, and Maxson dies. Then Danse names the Sole Survivor the new Elder-- or with a hard charisma check, you’re able to convince Danse to take the job himself. It is unknown how the main plot would have progressed beyond this point, as there is no other evidence of what being (or influencing) the Elder would have been like or what choices it would have given you.

There is understandable disappointment in learning that this ending was cut. Choices in games are great, and it could have been fun to have multiple different options for how to resolve the quest. In many gaming circles, people complain that this theoretical ending is superior to the one we got and shouldn’t have been axed. The Kotaku article calls it a “way better” ending, and you’ll see many players lamenting that it wasn’t implemented, saying Bethesda was bad at writing for cutting it, etc.

So why did Bethesda get rid of the Elder ending of BB?

In December 2020, after the Fallout 4 Cast Reunion, Danse’s voice actor Peter Jessop answered questions in a private signing session on his Instagram. Peter Jessop is an extremely kind and gracious man, an avid gamer, and a huge fan of Fallout. During the stream, he reflected on the alternate ending and remembered recording the lines, but stated the content was ultimately cut because Bethesda decided it was lore-breaking.

Peter Jessop is right. Bethesda was right. The Elder ending of BB is a bunch of dumb nonsense. It sucks, I hate it, and I’m glad they got rid of it. And now I’m going to tell you why!

SIDENOTE: King Shit of Fuck Mountain

There is no wrong way to play a single-player video game. If you are having fun, then you are accomplishing the task for which the game was made. Good for you! Play it on easy. Play it on hard. Mod it. Speedrun it. Make up an intricate roleplaying scenario. Perform “challenge” runs. Kill everybody you see. Ignore the story and run around collecting wheels of cheese. Games are meant to be fun and there is nothing wrong with enjoying a game however you damn well please. This is especially true for RPGs like Fallout, which are designed with player freedom in mind.

There is an RPG playstyle I like to call King Shit of Fuck Mountain: a naked power fantasy in which your protagonist is the most powerful person ever, even beyond normal RPG plot significance. Through brute strength, incredible charisma, or having completed tons of quests for world-breaking artifacts and weapons, your character wields godlike influence, able to control people, factions, and the fabric of the world itself. A game enables KSoFM gameplay when it allows the player limitless freedom to gain as much power as they like with zero consequences to plot or storytelling.

A great example of this is the Dragonborn in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. If the player chooses to pursue every questline in the game, one single person can become Harbinger of the Companions, Archmage of the College of Winterhold, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Nightingale and Guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild, hero of the Imperial/Stormcloak army, the chosen one of like, 11 different Daedric princes, a bard, a Blade, and otherwise just, absurdly goddamn powerful in completely unrealistic ways. And that’s not counting DLCs. A fully-kitted-out Dragonborn is King Shit of Fuck Mountain.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing KSoFM if you like to. But I’m not a big fan of this style, personally. Sure, my first Skyrim character became KSoFM while I was figuring out the game, but after my first playthrough I preferred my characters become coherent figures in the story of the world. I pick one or two character traits and things that my Dragonborn is good at, focus on them, and make them part of some overall story. My honorable Imperial paladin werewolf is in the Companions, and hunts vampires on principle. My Argonian sneaky archer is a gleeful thief, but would never jive with the College or the Dark Brotherhood. I like creating protagonists who fit into these settings immersively. I don’t care about power fantasies or being in charge. I don’t WANT my character to be all-powerful, because that ruins my immersion and my little story.

Additionally, in a plot-driven story-focused game like Fallout, KSoFM tears the narrative apart. Skyrim is fairly light on story, so the Dragonborn can be the leader of the Companions and the Dark Brotherhood and whatever other factions without any of them noticing or caring. But FO4’s themes, faction drama, and the main thrust of the plot don’t work at all if the Sole Survivor is able to become too powerful or too influential. The Sole Survivor cannot become the leader of every faction, solve every problem, or eliminate every inconvenient bend of the conflict because it makes the lore of the entire setting implode. Thus, the game forces you to choose between factions. You cannot be with the Minutemen and the Nuka-World Raiders. You cannot be with the Railroad and the Institute. And you cannot become Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel.

So if you’re the kind of person who loves playing KSoFM, if you like plots that your character can “solve” with relative ease, or if you just think it would be super cool for your Sole to become Elder regardless of surrounding storytelling, then you might think the Elder ending sounds super cool. You are absolutely allowed to disagree with me here. Install all the mods and write all the fic and have all the headcanons you like. I respect that. There is no wrong way to enjoy a single-player video game. Have fun!

But if you’re a big nitpicky pedantic lore nerd like me, a fan of cohesive storytelling, or if you just want to hear how the Elder ending of BB absolutely fucking ruins Maxson, Danse, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the entire plot of FO4 from a narrative perspective, read on!

1. The Synth Thing

The Elder ending requires the stupid plot contrivance of the BoS forgetting about Danse’s synthhood.

One of the biggest problems with the BoS as an institution is their strict and dogmatic beliefs, which include a widespread dislike of non-human species. Perhaps more than any other non-humans, the BoS hates synths. Synths are, in their eyes, machines given free will, a violation of the sanctity of human life and the ultimate example of technology run amok. To them, synths are not sympathetic, they are not slaves, and they are not victims of circumstance. They are weapons that left unchecked will destroy all of humanity for a second time. Synths are anathema to everything the BoS stands for, and finding out that one of their most beloved and trusted Paladins is one is an earth-shattering blow to their integrity and sense of security.

It is completely absurd that the BoS would allow a synth within their ranks, particularly as they are waging war against the Institute, who created synths in the first place. It is even MORE absurd that they’d allow one to influence their Elder, or even worse, to become Elder. It completely undermines their mission in the Commonwealth, and the core tenets of their extremely rigid beliefs. No matter the Elder, no matter the Litany or obscure BoS law, no matter how valuable the Sole Survivor is as a soldier or how much influence they wield. Danse is a synth. He’s the enemy. He is physically the embodiment of everything they hate.

Not only wouldn’t they trust a synth in general, but the BoS specifically believes that Danse is an infiltrator for the Institute. Even Danse believes that he is a danger, that the Institute may be able to take control of him and use him as a weapon. Sure, we know none of this is actually true, or possible, but the BoS don’t know that. And given how quick they are to order Danse dead without even the possibility of surrender, I don’t think there’s any charisma in the world that’s going to convince them otherwise.

According to Peter Jessop, this, ultimately, is the reason why the Elder ending was cut. He talks about it around the 11:30 timestamp in his Instagram stream, linked above:

“We recorded an ending where you keep Danse alive and you take over the Brotherhood. But there was a question of content… there’s no way the Brotherhood, once they knew he was a synth, would let him be even the right hand of the person in charge.”

Bethesda correctly recognized the incredible narrative contrivance for the BoS to shrug off the reason they’re trying to execute Danse in the first place. Whatever other beefs I have with this ending conceptually, they all come in second to just what a big dumb leap it is to get beyond this first and most important problem.

2. The Complete Death of Conflict

The Elder ending of BB destroys the conflict of the quest, and potentially the conflict of the entire game.

Greed is a poison. There is no such thing as a perfect ideal or a perfect organization. Power corrupts. Humanity has the choice to build back better. War never changes. The Fallout games are full of themes, depicted by the characters and quests and factions we play out.

Blind Betrayal is rightfully praised as one of the most powerful quests in FO4. Not only is it well-acted, but it puts the player in a very difficult position. The BoS has given you clout and glory and free power armor and lots of firepower, but now you see the price: unquestioning obedience. You are ordered to execute your friend and mentor Danse for the mere fact he is a synth. Are you going to follow that unjust order? Are you willing to give up your principles on command? Or is this where you can no longer stay quiet and stay in line?

To be honest, I’ve always thought the fact you can talk Maxson out of killing Danse but still remain with the BoS in good standing was a cop-out. BB goes 90% of the way to forcing you to choose between a companion and a faction, and then chickens out at the last second to let you have both, if your charisma is high enough.

(I believe this has the fingerprints of Skyrim’s development on it-- Bethesda’s writers got nervous about doing another Paarthurnax choice involving the fan favorite Brotherhood of Steel. That’s right. Danse is the Paarthurnax of Fallout. Frankly, I understand why they chose not to go there, but damn, wouldn’t it have been wild? You want to run with the BoS? Then kill your friend and feel the burn. THIS is what it means to follow orders without question.

As for me, I’d pick Danse every time and sleep soundly without the company of shitty bootlicking dieselpunk LARPers- but I digress.)

Anyway, you know what would have REALLY been a copout? If the game asked you to make a difficult thematic storyline choice, and you solved the problem by just not choosing at all.

You are supposed to feel uncomfortable when Maxson orders you to kill Danse, because the game is telling a story about how it is maybe a bad thing to thoughtlessly follow orders without question. It is asking you to think about what the BoS is, what they are doing, and how they are going to run things, if you choose to let them “win” the Commonwealth. It is pointing out that there is no room for gray in the BoS’ black and white. That a good, loyal man may die because of the way he was made, through no action of his own. That soon, you’ll be killing other people on command. The Railroad. Fleeing Institute synths and scientists. Others, down the line. It all depends on who’s giving the orders. Are you going to follow those orders?

Eesh, that sounds thought-provoking and unpleasant and difficult! Let’s just skip it by killing Maxson and making ourselves the boss. Now we get to tell everybody else what to do!

It’s unknown what powers the Elder ending would have granted the player, or how it would have interacted with the other factions. There is speculation that you’d have been able to ease back on the BoS’ dogmatism, or change some of the later events of the game. For instance, perhaps you could talk the BoS down from attacking the Railroad, sparing popular characters like Glory and Deacon who must die in the normal BoS storyline. Perhaps you could have made the BoS a kinder, gentler faction and directed them to run the way you want them to.

If this was indeed the case, then the Elder ending would not only suck the gravitas out of BB, but torpedo the entire main plot.

If you can get rid of any and all downsides to siding with the BoS, why in the hell would players side with anybody else? With the player given total power, the BoS becomes a perfect faction with no drawbacks, no weaknesses, no tough decisions to be made. Screw slumming it with the Railroad or the Minutemen, let’s take over the BoS. Free power armor and a giant robot! Forget the whole intolerance thing, I hereby proclaim the BoS No Longer Problematic! Now to force all the factions to get along, completely removing all conflict and nuance from the plot!

That’s some real anticlimactic “tell Legate Lanius to go home and then he does it” bullshit right there. King Shit of Fuck Mountain!

Look, it might be nice if there was a perfect path like that to take through the game. It would be cool if our characters could be that powerful and the game was that tailored to our individual choices. On the other hand, “I change all the factions to suit my exact liking” might be a fun idea for a fanfic, but it’s an incredibly boring plot for a video game. “I get to make everything in the world exactly how I want it” is Minecraft, not a story-driven RPG with a complex and intricate plot.

It would be great if complex conflicts could really be solved that easily and effortlessly, but hey, you know what? War never changes.

3. The Assassination of Arthur Maxson (Literal)

Arthur Maxson’s death is too significant and fundamentally disastrous for the Elder ending to make any sense at all.

Hero, villain, leader, monster, tortured soul, brutal dictator, immature twerp, bearded sex hunk. However you personally interpret Arthur Maxson, there is no denying that he is a venerated, popular, beloved figure in the BoS. He is the blood heir of the organization’s founder, a powerful warrior, a brilliant tactician, and a charismatic negotiator. He is responsible for reuniting the East Coast BoS with the Outcasts, leading the new, stronger BoS with a sense of shared purpose. There is a damn good reason his name is Arthur and he named his ship The Prydwen, echoes of King Arthur and the legends of his glorious kingdom of Camelot. Arthur Maxson is so beloved that many view him as a demigod, a messiah sent to lead the BoS into a mighty and prosperous future.

So I’m sure nobody’s going to be upset when some wasteland jackass recruited a month ago stumbles in with a synth, kills him, and takes over his job. Right?

It doesn’t matter that it’s “honorable.” It doesn’t matter that it’s done “by the book” via obscure BoS rules. There is no codex or litany or rule so binding that it’s going to overcome the cult of personality around Maxson. There is no way that the BoS is going to accept the death of Arthur Maxson, a man whose reverence borders on worship, especially not when he is immediately replaced by a wastelander, or a synth.

The death of Arthur Maxson removes the unifying glue that’s been holding the BoS together since mending the rift with the Outcasts. Maxson’s death eliminates the one person that both sides of that conflict agreed could steer the organization in the right direction. Some level heads may try to keep the focus on the mission and the Brotherhood tenets, but Maxson loyalists will never forgive the new Elder for his death, and that amount of passionate righteous anger will not be quelled by appeals to the rules. The new Elder’s war on the Institute is basically over before it begins, when the forces splinter and start infighting over the change in leadership.

And this is if the new Elder lives long enough to actually give any orders. I give them around 24 hours after the duel before some angry Maxson loyalist “accidentally” pulls the trigger and “tragically” empties a clip into their back.

24 seconds, if it’s Elder Danse, the dirty synth abomination.

4. The Assassination of Arthur Maxson (Figurative)

The Elder ending of BB falsely pretends that Arthur Maxson is the biggest and only problem with the BoS.

In the Elder ending, as written, the conflict of BB is considered completely and totally solved by the death of Arthur Maxson. The core problem, that Danse is a synth and considered an enemy by the BoS, has not gone away. But by getting rid of Maxson, this apparently no longer matters. Nobody else is going to take offense to Danse’s nature or protest his presence. Nobody else is going to attack him or try to follow through with Maxson’s prior orders. Nope, that meanybutt guy who gave the order is gone, and everybody else is going to welcome Danse back into the fold like nothing ever happened.

I touched on this a little bit on an ask about Maxson a few weeks back, but a lot of people seem to believe that the FO4 Brotherhood of Steel is the way they are purely because of him. That he is the one making them treat non-humans as second class citizens at best, and enemies to be slaughtered at worst. That it’s his fault the BoS is so vehemently against synths and the Institute. That he is the one influencing their imperialistic tendencies, and treating the Commonwealth like territory to be conquered and people to be ruled over by their betters.

He’s not. That’s the Brotherhood of Steel, guys.

The charitable, altruistic, virtuous BoS that many of us met for the first time in FO3 were outliers. Lyons’ group was literally disowned by the rest of the faction because their kindness to wastelanders had gone so far astray from the “core” tenets. The BoS as a whole has always been exclusive, isolated, and seen themselves as “superior” to the average wastelander. They have long disliked or outright hated non-humans (and even Lyons’ BoS in FO3 use ghouls, feral or not, for “target practice” if they get too close!) The rigid dogmatism of the BoS is not something that Arthur Maxson started, but has always been part of their fabric.

Now, it’s true that Maxson is absolutely going hard on the BoS tenets, and extremely dedicated to upholding them. His BoS are the way they are and act the way they act because he believes that this is the way it should be. Is it possible that a different leader may be a little more flexible? Absolutely. Could a skilled Elder eventually show them the benefits of a softer approach and a more generous worldview? Totally. Is getting rid of Maxson and replacing him going to make that happen overnight, or going to make the rest of the BoS who supported him shrug and follow suit?

Nope.

Blaming Arthur Maxson for everything unsavory about the Brotherhood is unfair to him and also foolishly ignoring the deep, massive problems that are far older than he is-- problems that plenty of its members wholeheartedly believe are not problems at all. Getting rid of Maxson does not make the BoS kinder or gentler. Even pretending Maxson isn’t as personally beloved as he is, any new Elder who steps in and starts trying to fundamentally alter the way the BoS operates and what they believe in is going to face some major, immediate pushback.

Like, a full clip of bullets in the back type of pushback.

In the face if it’s Elder Danse, the godless freak of nature.

5. The Un-Redemption of Paladin Danse

Last, and my personal least favorite!

At first glance, Paladin Danse is a steely jackboot, a die-hard Brotherhood loyalist who fully and firmly believes in their cause. Many immediately dismiss him as a humorless brute, or completely ignore him because they think that’s all there is. But if you spend any time with Danse at all, you’ll notice a sort of weariness in him. He is tired, overworked, and his years of service are starting to weigh on him. He has watched friends, comrades, and mentors die in horrible and gruesome ways, and he suffers from PTSD. Though he has always been told that his own sacrifices, the sacrifices of his brothers and sisters have been” worth it,” he’s starting to question if that’s true.

After telling of the incident where he personally executed his best friend Cutler, who’d been turned into a super mutant, the Sole Survivor is able to console him:

Player Default: You did the right thing. Danse: {Somber} It's what I was taught. I don't know if it was right.

This line is an excellent summary of Danse’s entire character arc. He learns to question whether to believe what the Brotherhood has taught him, or to believe in himself. His gut feelings. His sense of justice and his own ideas of what’s right and wrong.

(In the interest of not turning this into an essay about Danse’s character, I won’t even get into how this also applies to his beliefs about his worth as a person. But keep in mind, that dimension is there, Danse just covers it up by making everything about the Brotherhood.)

During Blind Betrayal, after getting the orders to execute him and hearing Haylen’s plea for mercy, we may expect Danse to be ready to fight back or flee. But when you confront him in the bunker at Listening Post Bravo, he’s compliant and suicidal. Danse is so deeply poisoned by the BoS’ rhetoric that his own feelings or will to live don’t factor into the conversation. He demands that you follow your orders and execute him, because he believes, as the BoS does, that all synths are dangerous and must be destroyed.

Danse: {Stern} Synths can't be trusted. Machines were never meant to make their own decisions, they need to be controlled. Technology that's run amok is what brought the entire world to its knees and humanity to the brink of extinction.

{Confident} I need to be the example, not the exception.

Through various dialogue options, if your charisma is high enough, you are able to talk Danse off the ledge. He is able to consider, at least, that the BoS’ merciless judgment of him is wrong and that what he was taught isn’t right. He is a thinking, feeling, self-aware synth, and that makes him as much a person as any human. Danse is no danger to humanity-- and maybe, most synths aren’t either.

Danse is an example, not an exception.

Later on, if you manage to get him out of BB alive, Danse shows further acceptance of his nature. His approvals about synths begin to soften slightly (or many of them do, at least… it’s not perfect.) He is still struggling with his identity and reconciling it with his former hatred, but his dialogue suggests that he’s on the road to being more open-minded and understanding. Along with this, Danse learns that he has value as a person beyond the Brotherhood. He no longer needs to define himself with BoS beliefs or judge himself by how useful he is to them. He learns that he is worth caring about, worth being friends with or being loved because of who he is-- not what he is, in any regard.

[SIDENOTE: Many players, myself included, are frustrated that Danse’s arc leaves off sort of midstream there. Due to the open-ended nature of the game, we don’t get a real conclusion to his arc-- even though much of his idle dialogue doesn’t change and he still espouses pro-BoS sentiments ( an unfortunate by-product of writing for a video game) there is every indication that he’s started down the right path, but understandably has a ways to go.

Also, Peter Jessop agrees with us.]

Meanwhile, in the Elder ending, Danse doesn’t get a redemption. His entire character arc, actually, hits the skids and does a total 180.

He never leaves the BoS. So scratch the need for Danse to ever think about himself as separate from them. He never needs to question what they’ve taught him or whether they’re right or wrong. He never needs to find any worth in himself beyond his use to the BoS. Why would he? He might be the Elder. The BoS is all he needs to care about anymore. The BoS is all he ever needs to be, ever again.

And I think, most horrifying of all, this Danse never needs to change his mind about synths. On the contrary, one of the surviving dialogue files includes Danse’s speech to reassure the rest of the BoS of his stance:

Danse: I want to make one thing clear to everyone. This body might be synth, but my heart and mind belong to the Brotherhood. The Institute is still a tremendous threat to the Commonwealth. They possess technologies that need to be confiscated or destroyed. And even if that means I have to pull the trigger on my own kind, I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

Elder ending Danse doesn’t grow more understanding on the nature of synths. He doesn’t accept that synths are people, or anything more than technology run amok. He won’t even accept that for himself. Elder Maxson wasn’t wrong about synths-- they’re the enemy and they need to be destroyed.

But, see, he was wrong about Danse. It’s okay for Danse to exist in spite of his nature. It’s okay for him to never fully accept his own personhood, and to outright deny it to his kind. Because his body is a machine, but he’s different from the rest because his heart and mind belong to the Brotherhood.

He’s the exception, not the example.

CONCLUSION:

The Elder ending of Blind Betrayal is dumb, contrived, stakeless, character-derailing powergaming crap at its finest and I’ll happily dance on its grave.

People give Bethesda a lot a shit for their writing-- whether it be stuff they left out, stuff they left in, or stuff that they never, ever could have made work due to the limitations of writing for a video game. Plenty of it is well-deserved, or at least worth a discussion. But from the minute I found out about its existence, I have always wanted to extend a congratulations to Bethesda for cutting the alternate Elder ending of Blind Betrayal. It was a good choice. A very good choice to cut a very dumb plot that would have fundamentally altered the story they were telling, and characters that I’ve grown to love. I think the writers deserve some credit and a hearty handshake for the wisdom of this decision.

Now as for why Nick Valentine isn’t romanceable--

[callmearcturus]

alright so what about Breath. I know what you said in discord but I'm still asking because I'm like that. I love you and cause you pain (affectionately)

for the curious, yes, when i am "done" or the asks dry up, i will have a masterpost for all this

god breath kind of pisses me off tbh. i mean our major breezy boys are Tavros and John, and I do like Tavros a lot but John drives me a little fucking batty for the exact reasons I think he's Breath?

So my take on Breath is that a Breath player is here for their own personal, non-game-sanctioned quest, and if that happens to overlap with the Actual Objective, that's a pure coincidence. They aren't rebelling against the structure, they aren't trying to break they game, they simply do not give a fuck. These are the folks who have 450 hours in Skyrim and Oblivion and Fallout 3 and haven't finished any of them. They like Pokemon and Minecraft. They will make their own fun and their journey to collecting all of the fucking cheese wheels is DRAMATICALLY more satisfying than any authored content, okay.

Which is not to say they don't do important shit. Like, that personal quest might be very important to them, but the important thing is they are self-driven and extremely dedicated to that journey.

There is also something about them. Like, they aren't playing the game as intended, but they aren't like... breaking it. In fact, the game doesn't seem to resist them at all. To literalize the aspect, they are wind. They can slip into and through any space and make their way through. They don't so much as force the structure to accomodate them as they just..... slide through, no hassle.

Breath players, you are very driven and focused about specific things and don't give a single fuck about anything else. You might, unfortunately, be mistaken for naive or kind of a dumbass, but you're not, your area of expertise is just specific and not as Marketable as the shit you're """supposed to""".

You all drive me a little fucking batty, but more power to you.

ETA: my friend Joy who is Hardcore Breath says Breath is the ADHD Aspect and I literally had a sentence about that before I deleted it, so I concur.

[rpmemes-galore]

Out of context things I’ve said while playing Skyrim  {Sentence Starters}

"And I drank poison."

"That right there's a ghost."

"Why are you on the roof?"

"I'll steal the clothes right off ya."

"My husband is stuck in the wall."

"Oh god, I angered a floating cow."

"Why can't I boop a dragon's snoot?"

"I'm gonna steal stuff from the ghost."

"That's... that's not how you do that??"

"You can't hurt me, I'm a floofy doggo."

"Didn't know those could fly, but alright?"

"Why can't I decorate my home with bones?"

"Oops... didn't mean to yell at you that hard."

"I wanted that gold, but it's stuck to the plate."

"Fine, stab me. But, I'm taking all the alcohol."

"Okay, sure, TECHNICALLY that was my fault."

"How did you...? I shot you. I freaking shot you!"

"Why are you trying to sell my trash back to me?"

"I think you need to drop the sword and sit down."

"Oh, he just yeeted himself out that window, okay."

"I would feel bad about that, but he was being rude."

"I have befriended the goblins! I am the goblin god!"

"Heh, I'll clear your skies, if you know what I mean."

"Oh. Oh no, these are drugs. You're selling me drugs."

"Why is there a dead dude here? Who killed this dude?"

"I have never considered punching a child until now..."

"I have thirty wheels of cheese and it's still not enough."

"I have six skulls in my pocket, solely for the aesthetic."

"Yes, hello, hi, I would like to purchase one drug, please."

"Note to self: don't yell at the plates, people don't like that."

"He kicked me in the face and still didn't know I was there."

"Why can I pickpocket a necklace, but not a piece of bread?"

"Why are you hitting me? WHY ARE YOU HITTING ME?"

"Ooh, brutal death and dismemberment... been there, buddy."

"I just drank forty bottles of wine in a row. I should be dead."

"Hold up, stop hitting me for a second... I need to eat cheese."

"I'll punch you right in the mouth. I don't care, I'm invincible."

"I just picked up a flower, why am I carrying too much to run?"

"I can ride dragons. And I'mma ride one right into ____'s house."

"The  F-I-N-E-S-T  weapons and armor... we both know that's a fib."

"I'm afraid of him sneaking into my house and trying to sell me stuff."

"Let me out of the door. Let me out... let me out of this freaking door."

"How to be a Hero of Myth and Legend... step one: take all the cheese."

"I did nothing to deserve this... except stab that dude. And rob that house."

"If I get a dragon stuck in my house, does that mean I can keep it as a pet?"

"I just levitated in front of you, and you're gonna talk to me about desserts?"

"You keep sassing me like that and I'll send YOU to the 'Cloud District', ya get me?"

"I didn't push him off the top of the tower. He fell off. After I hit him with a few arrows."

"Just hear me out: what if a buncha monsters just, y'know, happened to show up and kill him?"

"Sure, I might not be able to sneak, or stab people, or aim my bow, but I'm still a deadly assassin."

[changeling-rin]

Ok I am very bored so... The Chain jumps through a portal and finds themselves in a cold, mountainous land, known as Skyrim by the locals. A new Link appears, wandering the wilderness, fighting all foes in sight, and snacking on whole wheels of cheese. Apparently he's the Dragonborn. What chaos ensues? (Bear with me I'm hyperfixating on Elder Scrolls)

(Just so long as you bear with me, as I know almost nothing about the Elder Scrolls)

New Link has the truly unfortunate circumstance of both knowing a language that Lore hasn't met yet, and having that language be a magical shouty form of Absolute Explosive Power. It's basically everything Lore loves wrapped into a new sibling and he will not be letting it get away

[felassan]

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but... How exactly does lyrium potions work? I mean, lyrium can't be digested because it's literally poison, right? So how do mages replenish their mana during fights, given that they are unable to simply sip the mixture and throw the bottle away? Is there any explanation of this process?

hi Nonnie, no you’re fine, it’s not stupid. I encourage folks who have questions or things they’re wondering about to hmu like this becuz I genuinely enjoy talking about this stuff and tryin to help :) I put this answer under a cut because it became quite long (although Tumblr coding is doing something whack with it idek).

as you say, lyrium is a really dangerous and volatile substance, and can cause both psychological and physical harm, especially to mages. there’s not an out-and-out explanation on your query or how lyrium potions work that I’m aware of, but there’s a few things at work here. (mages are definitely able to sip the mixture of a lyrium potion and replenish mana for the record! we see this in the books, and drinking lyrium potions also grants mages such things as the ability to enter the Fade when fully awake and temporary short-term access to power levels far greater than their natural magical potential. this is supported in the lore. mages also don’t need lyrium potions to perform magic, it only enhances what they can do and speeds up the replenishing of their strength. the average combat-experienced mage can probably cast more than three spells in battle without needing to chug a potion.)

now first, the explosive and seriously dangerous kind of lyrium is actually lyrium in its raw form, the ore as it is untouched in the earth. the most experienced members of the dwarven Mining Caste are capable (just about) of safely mining it. they can do this due to their natural resistance, though it must be noted that they’re not immune, that the resistance is only partial, and that if they go to the surface it’s lost over time. they then process and refine it into a form which is less dangerous. it’s this processed, refined lyrium which is in lyrium potions. the reason why we don’t know much about how the dwarves go about this mysterious process of processing and refining is because they keep it secret, and a jealously guarded one at that, to the point that only a handful of Mining families know how. but whatever they do, it renders lyrium into a variant form which is less dangerous, although not harmless of course. it needs to be processed like this for mages to even be able to approach it.

next, only a small quantity of lyrium is in a given lyrium potion (per the item description they have in one of the games). I suspect this (what feels to me as essentially amounting to dilution) also has an impact in lessening the potential for harm, or the extent of the harm done. this idea is supported by lore: “mages [consume it in a] diluted form... [overindulgence is bad,] particularly in more concentrated amounts”. in addition, to make a lyrium potion, the lyrium is “mixed with liquid”. this is just a feeling of mine, but I can’t quite imagine that a lyrium potion is simply a small quantity of lyrium diluted/dissolved/mixed up in a larger quantity of water. this is bordering on headcanon, but it’s possible that whatever other ingredients are in there, they help to render the lyrium to be.. more inert? more stable? less harmful to the body.

the lore also does actually acknowledge that lyrium potions have a damaging effect on the body for mages (see Vivienne’s comments on mana imbalance). there’s an element of what’s called gameplay-story segregation here. mages in Thedas aren’t truly chugging lyrium potions all the time on the field of battle the way we do in-game to restore mana, just like Dragonborns in Skyrim don’t really stop in the middle of a battle to eat ten wheels of cheese and five loaves of bread in order to regain HP. as a function of gameplay, spells require mana to cast, and so we require a way to restore mana. in reality mages wouldn’t be drinking lyrium potions anywhere near as often, and use of lyrium potions by (sensible) mages would be considered and measured. this is because the lore does actually say/acknowledge that long-term or excessive use of lyrium (i.e. potions) by mages can even lead to physical mutation (the uppermost magisters of the ancient Imperium reportedly became unrecognizable and inhuman-looking due to this). so it’s a resource that would be used sparingly and at time points which would be ‘spread out’, so to speak (or so I think). it should also be noted that unlike templars in the later stages of lyrium addiction, which is progressive and doesn’t get better, mages with mana imbalance are somehow able to recuperate from the effects. whatever the reason for this is, it’ll be do to with their being mages.

also, during the development of DAO, the effects of lyrium use and addiction were originally going to be shown in both mage characters and those with the templar spec. drinking the potions was supposed to yield diminishing benefits. DGaider wrote once on this saying:

The implementation we had was that, if the addiction developed, the use of lyrium had diminishing returns. You needed more and got less. The problem we encountered, is that mages pretty much needed to drink lyrium potions [note: this ties to gameplay-story segregation as mentioned above]. Addiction was practically guaranteed. So there needed to be some method of dealing with the addiction without rendering it pointless, and ideally some kind of story implication...

...and you can see why it suddenly became costly. If we could come up with some other implementation that was meaningful, I'd like to see return in the future -- it was something templar characters were meant to face as well as mages, after all.

ultimately they dropped it because they couldn’t find a way of implementing it that was both playable and cost-effective. the fact that this was dropped in this way contributes [on a meta level] a bit to the origin of where your question comes from.

hope this helps make sense of things somewhat :)

[askmerriauthor]

Skyrim Civil War Quest Alternatives

Because @techmomma and @askdeserteagle made me start thinking about Skyrim again.

I really dislike what we got in the Civil War quest line.  Mind you, I know I’m not saying anything new here - Skyrim’s been out for ages and we’ve all heard the discussions about how little influence your choices have, and that it basically has no impact on the game world either way.  But I’d still like to consider some alternative outcomes that would’ve been fun to explore and would like to invite y’all to give some ideas as well.

So to start with, we of course have the main three:

Join the Stormcloaks Side with Ulfric and give everyone you don’t like the boot, keeping Skyrim for the Nords and ensuring their religious freedom no matter who they have to crush along the way.

Join the Empire Side with the Empire and rejoin the fractured region under a single banner in hopes of standing unified against the Thalmor, despite an uneasy and extremely questionable “truce” with said Thalmor.

Don’t Get Involved Ignore the Civil War questline entirely.  Go fight dragons, eat entire cheese wheels, ignore the sporadic pockets of conflict between warring factions, be awesome.

See, now the trouble with all these is that there isn’t really any in-depth exploration of the ideas, implications, and consequences that come of your choices as a player.  In terms of overall impact you basically just pick whichever side you like/doesn’t suck as much to your tastes and the end result basically equals out the same.  Skyrim as a whole doesn’t feel substantially different at the end of it all.  Not getting involved, on the other hand, is basically just ignoring game content and also doesn’t yield any impact either.  The Civil War is touted as being this major element of the game yet you can basically ignore it for extremely little difference.  I’d love to see there be notable changes to the setting, the behavior of NPCs, and the nature of Skyrim itself when you picked a side or if you chose to keep out of it and let things play out on their own.  That’s sort of a core flaw for the entire game though; even when you do something really major like assassinate the Emperor himself that should logically have sweeping consequences, nothing actually changes.

Other alternatives I’d like to see are as such:

Negotiate Peace It seemed like we were supposed to get something in this vein but that it got cut from the final production.  In the face of the Dragon threat, the Dovahkiin gets the opportunity to call a ceasefire and bring all the various factions literally to the negotiation table on neutral ground.  Along the way some sleuthing reveals Ulfric is an (unwitting?) asset of the Thalmor, but we never get a chance to present this information!  In the end the whole thing basically goes nowhere - even if you keep everyone civil at the table, it all evaporates as soon as Alduin is dealt with.

The idea of Ulfric being influenced by the Thalmor and said Thalmor intentionally driving the civil war in an effort to weaken the Empire further is just so packed with potential.  It could drive Ulfric to change his ways and rejoin the Empire after recognizing the true common foe or send him further into zealous rage, blaming the Empire for allowing the Thalmor to infiltrate in the first place.  The Empire could have a new angle with which to rally the fractured Holds of Skyrim as they’d have clear evidence the Thalmor had already broken the White-Gold Concordat, or even try to use the revealed connection via Ulfric to counter the Thalmor’s efforts.

Ultimately, the “good outcome” of all this would be to present a single unified Skyrim with all factions coming together, driving out the Thalmor, and setting things up for a big looming confrontation as a new war promises to come soon.

Salt the Earth The opposite scenario to the above.  Instead of negotiating peace, the player has the option to go “you all suck, time for mayhem” and just goes ham on everyone.  The Dovahkiin becomes Public Enemy #1 and destroys not only the leadership of either faction, but the Jarls who support either side as well.  Total upheaval of power in Skyrim.  Since the Thalmor themselves have no core presence in the region there’s no directly harming them, but there could always be the option to wipe out their embassies as much as possible.  Since the Thalmor had a vested interest in seeing the civil war go on for as long as possible, it becomes a question of whether putting a violent stop to it all was a good or bad thing for them.  On one hand, the people of Skyrim will inevitably replace their leadership with a new, potentially stronger/unified force or even potentially rally behind the Dovahkiin as its conqueror/savior.  On the other hand, the Dovahkiin striking such a massive blow against the region on their own makes for a delicious opportunity to conquer Skyrim, hindered only by the threat of said Dovahkiin themselves.  After all, if this lone warrior could crush several armies on their own, maybe it’s not such a good idea to cross them...

Join the Thalmor I personally consider the Stormcloaks to be the “bad guy route” in the story choice, but let’s go even further and make a “really, REALLY bad guy route”.  Whether the player character is a High Elf or simply a useful asset of another race, they have the option of joining the Thalmor and furthering the chaos that is already consuming Skyrim.  Instead of overt conflicts and assaulting bases like we see in the standard Stormcloak/Empire route, this would result in a more subtle approach of infiltration, subterfuge, and sabotage.  Basically if you liked the Embassy Party stealth mission, the whole quest chain would be more of that.  You play all sides against one another and watch them tear each other apart, perhaps with some extra bonus options if you’re aligned with any of the various stealth/knowledge-based factions/Daedric princes.

Join the Forsworn You know who the real sons of Skyrim are?  Well, it’s technically the Snow Elves, but that ship has sailed.  In this case it’s the Forsworn who were forced out of their land by the colonization of the invading Nords.  While the Dovahkiin gets to learn about the history of the Forsworn in some considerable detail throughout the game, there’s nothing to be done with that knowledge.  The Forsworn remain a permanently hostile enemy faction just because.  Let’s go with a secondary route of making friends with the Forsworn and getting them some/all of their land back, be it through negotiation or uprising.

The Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal Regardless of what route you choose, there should always be at least one opportunity (if not several, ideally) to go rogue and turn the whole thing on its head.  Usher one faction to the cusp of victory only to suddenly backstab its leader.  Spend all your time undermining one faction for the apparent aid of a second, only to nip off and betray them both to a third party.  You should always have the chance to just upend everything, especially in the most dramatic and potentially self-destructive manner possible, for the chance of being a total mastermind or chaos agent.

[firstpuffin]

Some constructive suggestions for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2:

Breath of the Wild 2, sequel to the latest Legend of Zelda game, is currently in progress and while I haven’t bothered to look into an estimated due date, I’m hoping it will be soon. That’s also my viewpoint on the Elder Scrolls 6; call me lazy if you will but I consider it me being patient. Anyway, I really enjoyed the game as did plenty of others (although those who didn’t like it seemed to really not like it, oddly enough) and am looking forward to this new entry.

  The thing about Breath of the Wild 2 is that it’s Breath of the Wild two, which means it should improve on the first. As fun as it was, the first game was an experiment for Nintendo: open-world, different format, different clothes- it was not a very Legend of Zelda feeling game, which was only a weakness if you insisted on viewing as being another entry in the series. Which it was.

  Is there a better way of explaining this?

  Anyhoo, it was a fun game if taken by itself, but being an experiment it had some serious flaws. I don’t really do lists but here are a few improvements that Breath of the Wild 2 could do with.

 Feel like a Legend of Zelda game:

What makes a franchise identifiable? I personally feel as though I’ve been asking this question a lot recently, what with Devil May Cry 5, Breath of the Wild- and that’s all I can think of off-hand; there have been more, I swear. The answer is made up of a few things: music, visuals and gameplay are the big three.

  In the case of Devil May Cry, there was always a certain sound that the music had; a hard rock that moved into metal without quite leaning on the screaming that so many people dislike. Then DMC.5 (the reboot) and Devil May Cry 5 came out; DMC.5 went full on into metal with Cannibal Corpse and Devil May Cry 5 had more of a traditional sound to it. The Kingdom Hearts series has always had Yoko Shimomura as the composer and no matter how different the soundtrack, it always sounded like her; even the songs that weren’t originally hers.

  One of the complaints for Breath of the Wild was how unmemorable the music was and, apart from the Hyrule castle stuff, I have to agree. Yes, the themes were there and I’m listening to the soundtrack as I write this, but none of it stands out as you play.

  And then there’s the tunic: I won’t complain about customisation (I love that junk) but the famous tunic only appearing after a difficult and very optional side quest was not a good move, and the outfits that did have that telling silhouette were unlocked by the bloody stupidly rare Amiibo. Give us the option of looking like Link early on. Please.

  And then there’s the dungeons. Breath of the Wild balanced a fine line here, with shrines and Divine Beasts instead of real dungeons. Don’t get me wrong, this was probably the first Zelda game in a long time to have real puzzles, but c’mon. What’s Zelda without dungeons?

 Care for your weapons and they’ll care for you:

A range of usable weapons is a part of the customisation that I love so much, and weapon degradation was an interesting take that I liked more than expected. Despite being done so, so wrong.

  I think that this was a big problem for fans. The weapons didn’t last long, there was no storage system for resource management and worst of all, no means of repairing them. I think everyone develops a favourite weapon as they play a game, and seeing it break after maybe ten swings is infuriating. I think that most games with this system have a repair option, so it’s kind of unbelievable that Nintendo didn’t include one also.

  Having twelve different weapons that you picked up purely because you’ve lost the good ones sucks hard and was a terrible design choice. Not being able to store the good weapons for the end game wasn’t great either.

  And while we’re on it, why was I always finding two-handed weapons when I was trying to focus on one-handed? The big weapons were too slow and you can’t use a shield with them, and considering the image of Link built up through decades of these games… well, it seems clumsy.

Of course, could I really escape talking about the Master Sword? Like, I get that what with the weapon degradation they had to do something to force you to mix things up once you got it, but that’s not really hard to do.

  Rather than having the Master Sword somehow regenerate, just have it be outclassed by other, obviously rarer, weapons; except when facing “true evil”. It already gets stronger in the presence of certain enemies so just expand on that. Simply having the range of different weapons that the game already does means that people will want to mix and match. No need to force anything more.

 Speaking of mixing and matching:

Weapons and armour are an odd thing in Breath of the Wild. Why have weapon degradation but indestructible clothes? That seems almost odd as the limited dying system where you can dye some clothes, and even then there’s a secondary colour that you have no control over.

  And I could go into the bonuses that one: means you can’t mix and match without losing said bonuses, even if the clothes you are mixing have the same bonus, and two: have some really odd choices of bonus. Why increased speed at night but never day? Or all the time for that matter?

  I’d like true colour customisation, mixing and matching and, where possible, to wear the same clothes as the NPCs. Nothing bothers me more than not being able to pick up and wear a lab coat (not that Zelda has lab coats- that’s just a peeve of mine). I could comment on how difficult it is to fully upgrade the outfits, but that’s personal; more importantly I’d rather the outfits had more of an effect. Wearing a set of plate armour should surely mean I don’t get half my health eaten by an arrow, ragdoll down a cliff with momentum that I can do nothing to stop, and die. From max health.

  I don’t want to get rid of any of this, I just want it improved on. Oh, and the jewellery was great, I just wish they acted as a set bonus.

 Suck it up and poop like a regular man:

I enjoyed the cooking in Breath of the Wild, but I’d like it expanded on as well. Have meals only edible outside of combat, and have it influence hunger and stamina for the next day. Have a thirst and sleep meter-

  Or just abandon that half-explored mechanic and focus on the elixers which I preferred (for immersion among other things) and which seems less expansive than the meals. But yeah, the cooking was fun and a reason to use it other than health and other bonuses would be great. We all know the Skyrim cheese wheel memes.

 Speaking of half-explored:

This- is not a complaint of mine, but I get it. As my friend said (although I dunno if he coined it), Breath of the Wild is trying to do what other open-world games already do better. And yeah, he’s right. There is a lot of running between everything and very little to actively explore. Sure, go look behind that hill; what’s there? A korok maybe. Possibly a chest.

  There’s certainly no side-quests, or caves to explore or small towns. Let’s look at Skyrim: there’s stuff everywhere! Caves, abandoned forts, towns you likely would never go to intentionally; there’s side-quests, and characters expanding the lore and occasionally followers who desperately need to be improved for Elder Scrolls 6.

  Breath of the Wild has huge expanses with nothing; the few NPCs may say something banal and if you are lucky there’s an occasional side-quest. There are fights but they aren’t as common as you might hope. I want more places to find those one-handed frost-blades because I love them but they are rare.

  Give me various caves that I need warm clothes for, or to take clothes off for their fire equivalent. Let me explore, let me do. That’s why I spent so much time in Hyrule castle before the climax: it was probably the best place to just explore.

  I enjoyed the game oh-so-much. But I also can’t return to it because it is, honestly, dull.

 And that’s that. Yes, there’s a hell of a lot more but I don’t write this to complain, but instead hopefully to inspire.

  Not Nintendo of course, they won’t read this. But maybe someone else will and remember it when they are creating something of their own, or maybe just expect a bit more from others in future. Because quality is an acquired taste, and if we don’t pressure others for it, we won’t get it.

[americankimchi]

hellooo i was thinking abt getting into the dragon age series but im slightly concerned abt the game play cuz i havent played a lot of video games like at all and am a tad worried abt the difficulty of the game and how expansive it is. any thoughts or advice?

no worries friend each game has a difficulty setting so u can just put it to the lowest setting and go hog wild :L

but i don’t think dragon age is difficult at all! it might be overwhelming to someone who’s never played an rpg before but it really helps ease first timers into playing it with all the tutorials they give you :>

the games go like this from oldest to newest:

dragon age origins (dao) -> dragon age 2 (da2) -> dragon age inquisition (dai)

in terms of gameplay i think the mechanics get significantly more streamlined with each subsequent game. i personally think that dragon age 2 has the best combat, but dragon age origins has WAY more customization in terms of skill trees and builds… inquisition has the best boss fights though and they implement a scaling option that levels the enemies to match you so you’re constantly challenged

dragon age origins and da2 don’t have that so depending on how many dlcs you’ve got by endgame you’re actually a golden god… one time i left my warrior warden to just auto attack and left to get a snack; by the time i came back she’d single-handedly annihilated an entire combat encounter on her own it was glorious

as for advice, well i guess that depends on what kind of playstyle you’re going for, and which companions you want to bring with you!

each game lets you pick from three base classes: rogue, mage, and warrior

each main class has a variety of subclasses that you can pick from depending on what you want to accomplish (dao lets you choose the most, depending on how many dlcs you have installed)

for dao and da2 you get one pre-specialized healer per game but it’s not necessary to bring them along; you can either become the healer or just buy 18,000 potions and pray. potions do have a cooldown however so i’d use them carefully… none of that skyrim shove 50 cheese wheels down ur throat and walk backwards into hell shouting defiance to both god and man ghfjkghkfj (also in dao you can pick which subclass your companions spec into; like i said dao has the MOST flexibility in terms of leveling)

you don’t get any healers in inquisition but you do get a lot of damage mitigating abilities (e.g.: guard and barrier generation) so i wouldn’t be too worried about that unless you’re actively flinging yourself at enemies with little forethought ghfjghkjf

my advice would be if you’re really worried: try the game out on casual and if it gets too easy, well you can bump up (or down) the difficulty at any time in the options! you don’t have to restart it’ll just change the difficulty… i want to say the next time you load into a map? i’m not sure it’s been a while since i played;;

for rogues you can choose to be ranged or melee, and for warriors you can swap between sword n board (aka the classic sword and shield) or two handed

if you want to know my favorite subclasses to play for each game:

god its been a hot second since i played dragon age origins but in the order that i selected them:

mage: spirit healer+arcane warrior+battlemage

rogues: ranger+assassin+duelist (suggest ranged; scattershot is actually disgusting)

warrior: champion+templar+berserker

dragon age 2:

i HIGHLY recommend playing mage the first time around it provides the juiciest rp

mage: spirit healer+force mage

rogue: assassin+shadow (i really like melee rogues for da2)

warrior: templar+reaver (pick a weapon, any weapon, and hulk smash)

dragon age inquisition:

rogue: tempest (tbh… both melee and ranged are super strong. archers kill everything before they can reach you; melee rogues can one-shot anything that isn’t a boss)

mage: necromancer (walking bomb ft. michael bay)

warrior: templar (best tank in game imo; i’d go with reaver if ur 2 handed for the sustain)

this got really long but i hope some of this helped!!!