#whatever. I'm having fun playing Skyrim for the first time in my life

[arrgh-whatever]

NNOOOOO HADES II IN EARLY ACCESS

I'm missing out once again

[chrysanthiee]

Skyrim Modded/Vanilla Tandem Playthrough

Part Zero (Idea, Preface, Rules, Characters)

Idea

I had an idea. So, Skyrim, right. I have this dusty musty crusty copy of TES5 Skyrim SE on my equally dusty musty crusty switch. I also have Skyrim AE on an upper end PC, which is modded to no end. Just to really soak in the extent to which mods change the game, I'm going to play them in tandem. I feel like I take for granted just how good modded Skyrim is, and have forgotten how genuinely broken regular Skyrim is.

Preface

For my mods, I'm using the Gate to Sovngarde (GtS) collection, plus a few additional ones I'll make note of as they appear. Check the list out here.

As you may have noticed, modded Skyrim has the AE upgrade, while unmodded Skyrim is still on SE. I'm not going to get the AE upgrade for my switch—for one, I'll pass on spending $20 on a copy of Skyrim that I'm playing again for the first time in years. Secondly, I don't even like the AE content all that much (the spells one is nice I'll admit, but the rest is hit and miss). Thirdly, I'm not even sure if my switch could handle that.

That said; some packs became free for all users on the launch of AE. Survival mode is the important one. Now, my modded playthrouth will be using a modified version of creation club Survival—but my switch simply cannot handle it. On one hand, it wasn't any fun because vanilla Skyrim is so empty, and on the other, the game was freezing up non-stop. So, that's not happening sadly. The other free AE content, I'll probably use as it becomes relevant... I guess.

Rules

No console commands UNLESS it's to fix an issue.

No extreme exploiting in unmodded (maybe...)

Must play a dragonborn player character.

Play both copies in Adept.

Characters

In my modded playthrouth, I will be playing as Genevieve, a half Nord, half Imperial (Nord race in character creation) woman. She's a Robinhood-esque character, who used to lead a life of wealth and privilege (but little agency) in the upper echelons of Cyrodiil, until she fled to Skyrim with little else but the clothes on her back in a desperate attempt to take her future into her own hands. (It's going to be taken away again the moment she hits Helgen mwahahaha)

Before I get into what character I'm playing in unmodded Skyrim, I'm going to gripe a bit (yes, already, I can't help it). I think vanilla Skyrim is best enjoyed as a evil or morally questionable character. The main thing coming to mind is the dark brotherhood and the daedric quests. Like, yeah, there's some alternate routes. But they SUCK. "Oh, you wiped an entire guild of assassins? You killed their leader? Hmm... 3000 gold?" Pretty sure there are some quests where you have to do objectively evil things with no way around them as well. More than sure I'll find them during the playthroughs. So with that being said...

Skrunky is a chaotic evil Khajiit who does whatever he wants. He's based off of my cat, but completely unhinged, without consequence, and with infinite power at his fingertips. (This is deeply unserious but after picking the cobwebs off vanilla Skyrim, I have a hard time taking it seriously so just bear with me)

All that setup said and done, you should follow me to stay updated on this rollercoaster ;)

[thirstyforred]

the thing about Skyrim, for me at least, is that the PC is so devoided of characteristics in the attempt to make them everyman that every player can mold into whatever they want, that actually making my own Dragonborn seems pointless, none of the quests and their resolutions actually provides me anything about what kind of person my Dragonborn is, so despite having well over 100h before this current playthrough i never finished the main plotline or any other questline really, other than the Dark Brotherhood. there's a lot to do in this game but a lot of it is also kinda nothing, and role-playing anything seems to me senseless

well, up to now, kinda

so starting this playthrough i decided to not make a new PC and just play the game with my oc Namrevlis, i already know this character so i don't have a problem with playing with some blank-faced nothing i can't develop, and bc Witcherverse so kindly comes with multiverse build in, Skyrim version of Nam is not some AU, it's her after everything that happened to her in Witcher and Cyberpunk, she's at the endgame of her development as a character and the state of her abilities, Skyrim is her retirement so to speak, she has fun with this new land knowing that ultimately nothing she does there matters

the very first night Nam spent under Skyrim's two moons and the night sky, she had an absolutely terrible dream, and the very next day she learned she's now something called Dragonborn, and there was Destiny for her to fulfill, and well, Nam being Nam, just accepted it as the thing she apparently needs to do now, to kill Alduin

in Helgen there was a bit of confusion when they asked her the standard race/name questions, (bc i fucked up) bc she's Aen Elle, but doesn't actually look like Tamriel Mer, but she's also over 2 meters tall, and she still claims to be an elf, so they wrote down "Breton (giant)"

Nam had an intense eye-fucking/crime-witnessing moment with Ondolemar which i already described here but then their relationship developed further, Nam invited him to her house (from mods, it has a sauna and i think it's a sex thing, but idiot Ondolemar keeps sleeping on the floor and the only voice lines he has are his vanilla ones so he keeps asking if she saw any Talos worshiping, way to ruin the mood idiot😒), and then they kinda-but-not-really went together to the party in Thalmor embassy, and then was the peace treaty and like thanks gods Elenwen didn't mention Nam is as good as Thalmor asset, Ulrich would storm the fuck off, and even Tullius might be like hey wtf?!

(now, why would such a good Dragonborn be chummy with elven supremacists, and well, have you actually seen Wild Hunt recently? and Namrevlis is at her core a solder, a tool, she can get by on her own, totally, but if someone gives her a quest she will likely just do it just because it's something to do, it works well for video games ofc, but also i see Red Riders as child soldiers, in need of certain structure, even when they manage to escape, and Thalmor is paramilitary, its structure itself, Nam may not know their goals, or be actually in their ranks, but being just adjanced reminds her in some way of life back in Tir na Lia, both bad and good of it. it's messy, Nam is a messy character and i love her)

the first Daedric quest she did was Molag Bal's House of Horrors, and she take away from this situation was "I never fucked with Gaunter O'Dimm, but if these Daedric guys are all like this loser then I'm probably more than fine"

Nam did The Whispering Door quest after becoming the Listener and the whole time kept addressing Mephala as Mother, while Mephala was like "Um, no... Again, I'm just the Whispering Lady..."

speaking of Dark Brotherhood shenanigans: Nam did adopt Aventus Aretino (thanks mods!), because she has a soft spot for fucked up kids (say hi Alvin~); each time she stumbled upon Black Sacrament she would take Nightshade and heart as a way of acknowledging the ritual; she has a weird "not sexual, but still not-not sexual" kind of thing going on with "sweet, sweet Cicero" (one of my mods made him into a twink and y'know...)

[arrow-dodger]

Oblivion is a scourge upon my life. I hate this game. I hate everything about it. I would say that I'm having fun playing it but I wouldn't go that far. I am, however, completely obsessed with it, so that's too damn bad.

So the worst fucking possible thing happened to me and I accidentally became a vampire. I have no interest in being a vampire and I'm not sure if the game glitched somehow or if I just somehow forgot between sessions that I had been bitten, but holy fuck, it took me like an entire real-life DAY to cure the fucking vampirism.

First of all I don't fast-travel, because I don't like to and also why would I when I HAVE. TO BE. JUMPING. ALL OF THE TIME. so it just took a fucking long-ass time to do every little goddamn task I needed to do. THEN the game crashed, THENNN it bugged. So I had to redo parts of this fucking vampirism cure quest TWICE. An entire day spent fixing a thing that I DIDN'T MEAN TO EVEN DO. WHY would this happen. Skyrim would never do this to me. I became a vampire, leveled up vampirism fully to get the trophy, and cured myself within the span of a few hours. I don't even remember how I cured myself, because it was THAT quick of a process! Fuck!

So I was already at my wit's fucking end, and THEN my character was UGLY. However, this was fixed the next time I booted up the game, and it's a good thing it was because I about lost my damn mind. Take my fucking time and effort and whatever, fine, but DON'T MAKE ME UGLIER THAN I ALREADY AM. EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE IN THIS GAME IS AN EYESORE AND I CAN'T STAND IT.

And holy shit, right now I'm doing the thing where I have to get recommendations to get into the Mage's Guild or whatever, who cares, I'm pretty sure this mission is bugged already too, but why... WHY is every single mission "I have lost a thing"? The entire Mage's Guild in Cyrodiil is just a group of people going "I have never kept track of a person or thing in my entire life. I have lost everything and everyone and I hired a guy to find it all and then promptly lost him too." I feel like I'm working at an old folk's home.

Right now I think I'm about to dive into a well. And for what. I truly don't understand why I'm even doing any of this, especially when Sean Bean is waiting for me to go find a fucking Wabbajack or some shit so that we can climb into a portal and fight James Cameron. Sean Bean is literally in mortal peril and I'm like "sorry, I had to go crawl around in fucking caves for two in-game weeks because I accidentally became a vampire, and now I'm jumping (yes, more fucking JUMPING) down a well for no reason."

And do you know how many goddamn Oblivion gates I've even closed? Oh, just the one at Kvatch. Because I dove into one not that long after that and I got lost as hell and got my ass handed to me over and over and just decided it wasn't worth it. I have avoided them since. Let the gates open all over the country, everyone can get titty-fucked by the spider daedra, it's fine, I'm busy Being Inside A Well, I hATE IT HERE AND I AM SO GOOD AT PARKOUR.

Oh, but Mazoga the Knight has my entire heart now, just saying.

[inqyblots]

Story Time!

So many years ago, I got my first big name computer game that was all hyped up and I was super excited for, and unlike most games, I got it within the first year of launch. Normally I'd have to wait several years for it to go on sale or go clearance or be forgotten by time, because I was a teen at the time and had no allowance bc my parents controlled every. Single. Aspect. Of my life. (Including which places I could consider working, all of which were places I didn't want to work bc my coworkers were my jerkwad classmates and no ty)

So my birthday rolled around and this game had come out about six months prior and I had expressed how exciting this was to them in such a way that they listened for once. So when I opened gifts I saw the franchise name on the box, got excited, opened the wrapping the rest of the way and got confused. What is this? It's got the right franchise, it's got the game name on there, but it has other writing on it. So I read the box...

My parents actually tried. And I was honestly grateful for it, because even if they bought me the box of dlc content without the main game needed to play it, they remembered the game name, the franchise, and tried. I thanked them for trying, explained why I couldn't play this right away, and said that I know it's expensive to get the right one, but I can wait for Christmas.

Now my birthday is close to the end of the school year, and I was graduating high school. So they took me to the store that day and had me look at the games to make sure we get the right one this time and explained they'd consider it my graduation present. I told them over and over they didn't have to, but they didn't listen and got it for me anyway. So by that night I was playing TES: Oblivion and having a great time. After sinking literally hundreds of hours into Morrowind (bought from the clearance section for $10), this was amazing. The graphics were amazing, the characters spoke to you instead of you having to read it out, why did the vast number of weapons disappear, look at the ruins, the environments were stunning, and it was fun laughing and groaning at the facemaker.

Later that year, when I was still taking my time and slowly working through the game, exploring and savoring every bit, my older brother moved back into the home. Now when I say savor, I do mean it. I spent time finding areas I found beautiful and stared at them. I didn't use uesp or anything to tell me what quests were where or stats or whatever. I wanted to find it all myself and enjoy. I didn't even know they existed at the time. The moment I found the hidden passages in certain castles... Both happy and somewhat horrifying.

The computer was in what would be his room. He took to the escapism like a duck to water. A game where you can be a cat or lizard or elf, and he picked the most boring imperial character every time. Same face every time. Ran through the game at lightning fast pace and, granted maybe wanted to share in that with me, but my slow savor was gone because now he was finding things and telling me and going "what you haven't found this yet?" And that ruined it for me. I'm playing and minding my own business and then he's over my shoulder explaining the not very hidden quest I hadn't activated there and how to make it work. Suddenly I have mods downloaded to my game that I didn't want or ask for or know we're being added.

For Christmas while he was still living with us, he bought me the expansion. I felt so thrilled because yay it's more of the game for me, followed by the sinking knowledge that it was given to me but was really for him. And this the pattern continued through that.

The game was so thoroughly ruined for me, left so much of a foul taste in my mouth, that I couldn't touch this amazing gift for years. Even when Skyrim came out. Even after I moved out. When my wife got me a copy of Skyrim to play, I had to get firm with her, telling her this story and telling her that I can't have spoilers or be rushed or anything else that my brother did to ruin oblivion for me. (She was amazing about it and there's a very good reason I married her <3 ) If I ask or come to her, then fine, but let me experience it myself without interference. Even after playing through Skyrim, I couldn't... And my Skyrim playthroughs were colored by him.

It's been a decade since Skyrim came out. I'm replaying Morrowind, both on stream and for grins. I remembered on stream the awe at the beauty of that foreign land, it's strange mushroom trees and flying jellyfish entrancing me and making me want to sketch it out like I felt so long ago. I created a character and used console commands to make her super-powered just for the sake of exploring the landscapes of Vvardenfell and sketching. Her name is Bobbi Rose (bc I am not Bob Ross by any actual stretch).

But with some amazing friends in the background, I've installed oblivion again for the same reasons I found my greatest pleasure in the game all so many years ago. The scenery was beautiful. I want to sketch it. This is the first time in a long time I've felt the desire to touch the game.

Wish me luck.