I'M CAPTAIN KIRK

due to not wanting to deal with the House Problem but still wanting to Skyrim, I took Malgrave the orc out for a spin yesterday.

I took her up to see the Greybeards, which I'd actually done before on her but, you see, Skyrim hates anyone who has the temerity to run more than one character and lumps all your saves together into one big list, so that particular save got... saved over by Rilli. The first version of Caro got saved over in a similar fashion, because I'm a moron. So this time when I saved-and-quit I threw down two diff saves in the same spot, because ha, can't get me now forgetfulness and lack of reading!

Regardless, I've added a few things since I last played her, a few mods and the official dlcs mostly. You know, minor things. Dawnguard and Dragonborn made themselves known almost as soon as I got to Ivarstead; I popped into the inn to grab the Shroud Hearth Barrow quest, you know, as you do, and exited it to find a Master Vampire heading in at exactly the same time. This resulted in an extremely confused fight where one of the dude's thralls got stuck in the inn, someone's corpse got rubberbanded off into infinity, and Uthgerd (who is Malgrave's follower and also wife) vanished for a bit, possibly to go into the inn and finish off that one guy.
Once I got back from mopping up the barrow, a courier arrived to give me a letter! So did some of the Dragonborn cultists. Turns out though that they're actually quite polite as cultists go, and will wait patiently for you to finish up your business with the courier before they launch into their spiel about how dare you claim to be the dragonborn, you will pay, etc etc.

Spoiler: screenie

Here they are letting the courier do his thing. It almost looks like they arrived with him, like they ran into him on the road and got chatting and found out he had a letter for me, and were like 'oh hey, we're looking for her too, mind if we tag along?', and then they liked him enough that they wanted to give him a chance to do his job before trying to kill me. Which is honestly quite polite of them, and almost makes me sad I then disembowelled them with an axe and left them lying in the road which, if Rilli's save is anything to go by, will be their resting place for the next eternity. Malgrave is a generally more decent sort of person than Rilli, so maybe I'll at least drag them into the bushes next time I swing by.

Clearing out the barrow was only notable for Uthgerd getting an attractive new facial piercing.

Spoiler: screenies

Um. Wife? Are you- are you okay? I think you've got a little- little something on your face, there. And the back of your head.

...Ah, I see you're completely fine. That's good, then. You... carry on. Do you mind taking it out in the bedroom, though? It might get in the way of Activities.

After chatting to the Greybeards, and Malgrave rather frustratedly reflecting that it is in fact way easier for her to learn dragon language than stupid human language, and one of them getting rather too up close and personal with her wife-

Spoiler: screenie

Get away from her, it's your own fault you decided to live on top of the biggest mountain around where there's not a tiddy to be seen

- we went back to hang out with the Companions. Whether it was in good taste to join them after marrying the woman they threw out for being too killy is a question I ponder regularly, but regardless I must have done something in a previous playthrough because we got catapulted straight into hunting for bits of old sword along with Farkas. Malgrave rather likes Farkas, because he speaks simply and is plainly as dumb as most people assume she is, and will laugh at her poorly-phrased jokes even if he doesn't get them. A woman who only just speaks the language can appreciate a man who answers 'who were those people trying to kill you' with 'people who hate werewolves' and nothing else.
Malgrave does not hate werewolves, which is handy, because she's going to be one soon. At least not werewolves who can clearly control themselves. She doesn't really hate the Silver Hand either, because she honestly isn't someone who hates many people, but she certainly doesn't approve of their willingness to try and kill her new friend, and also herself. Turns out Malgrave dies way easier than Rilli does, probably because I put her in the middle of things a great deal more. Time to smith the fuck out of everything until she has armour that can take it!
You get the 'critting people will chop their head off' perk way faster levelling two-handed than one-handed, although I'm not sure what the fuck I did to this guy's face.

Spoiler: screenie

Where's it gone?

Next step is, of course, retrieving the wife, and then proving Malgrave is totally worthy to be able to turn into a huge ravening beast. In b4 'she's an orc she's already a huge ravening beast'.

 

This is the most relatable thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I finally solved the house problem myself by having more or less the same idea about basically what I wanted to do for three years while not playing the game, and also resigning myself preemptively to failure by promising myself that when none of this works out and I hate it, I will install a ridiculous user created mod house that will have everything I ever wanted and we can live there instead. This is the long way to do it, obviously. So far I don’t actually hate any of the choices I made either, so go figure.

RIP in peace save files. I can only be glad that this wasn’t as bad in Morrowind when my sister also wanted to play because of course she did, it was awesome. I think it conveniently listed your character name and had a thumbnail of whatever you were looking at. I miss that.

Is that where the cultists came from?! I had completely forgotten! That uh, explains a few things. Like why they look like they might have been Dunmer.

I found the second body! It’s also right outside my house in Solitude but down the road just a tad. I think when I’m standing by one, the other is usually obscured by a pile of firewood or something, so I thought they were the same naked dead guy. I bet they get that all the time.

In any case this entire scenario is fucking hilarious. Poor Malgrave! Can’t even go to the inn in peace these days. Sounds like she handled it admirably, and it was pretty decent of the cultists to wait their turn. I hate killing people who just made friends, so witnessed to that.

How fetching! It really accentuates her durability, which I think we can all agree is a very attractive quality in a wife and traveling companion. Heck, my horse got his jugular pierced once in a brawl with an archer and then blinked peacefully at me as I made healing magic at him just for good measure. Wouldn’t want any swelling or infection of your demon masquerading as a horse, you know. I was very impressed with him. Some people take an arrow to the knee and give up on adventuring, but the best of us get right back on the pierced horse. Or be the pierced horse as is most convenient.

Your wife, a fashion champion, looks completely unimpressed with whatever murmur of a chat up line is threatening her eardrums at High Hrothgar.

Skyrim is a long litany of reasons to buy apology stationery in bulk. I think it’s inevitable that by the time you save the world, you will have racked up an impressive and varied list of ways in which it was the very least you could do, considering.

Phyriel would probably have been more willing to give Farkas a chance if she weren’t so very used to people making rude comments about elves to her on purpose, even other elves, who generally dislike her for being the wrong sort of elf, which doesn’t stop people who aren’t elves from talking to her like a slightly shorter, off-color, less cultured Altmer. (This maaaay have some bearing on her nearly obsessive desire to be seen looking more expensive and exclusive than anyone else. She will eat your fucking culture with goat cheese and look great doing it. Why this old thing? Yes it is the uniform of the mysterious Nightingales... or is it? Haha, my tailor is an artist, and no I can’t give you her name, she likes her privacy and she’d absolutely kill us both, haha. But you look lovely! Let me guess, Radiant Raiment? Ah, my friend, then you understand about murderous tailors.) She truly believes that Farkas didn’t intend to offend her, and yet she is still ready to yodel her discontent right in his loud face whenever he falls asleep. She likes him a lot better now that she realizes that he’s also facing discrimination. She may disturb his rest, but he is one of hers now and nobody talks to Farkas like that, or tries to murder Farkas like that.

Malgrave’s take is damn delightful, though. She sounds like a thoroughly decent sort. I can’t even imagine what people’s ideas about orcs combined with linguistic issues would do to Phyriel’s view of things, or how many tens of people would survive it. Cicero, I need to borrow your hat, I’m feeling hilarious.

Fuck damn it Skyrim, how can you have so many ravenous Nord dead wandering your burial plots and think orcs are the real monsters? If Malgrave ever wanted a hand with that, I know an elf who’s ready to threaten a jester for his clothes and be right there. She will pin the damn jingle hat to her wolf fur if necessary. With an arrow, as is the fashion. I’m pretty sure a werewolf wearing a bell hat attached with an arrow speaks for itself in any language.

 

I loaded up Rilli again and, long story short, vampires killed at least three (3) people in Riften.
Two of these people are probably resurrectable but I'm not sure about the one who got turned into a pile of ash. Considering the two I can probably bring back were merchants, I'm... gonna do that, most likely. They might not have much money but listen. The amount of loot I usually bring back, I need all the merchants I can get.
On the other hand, apparently the people of Riften are surprisingly capable of taking down a Master Vampire and two thralls all by themselves with (minimal) casualties?
In minorly related news, I have a pet vampire now.I'm pretty sure she'd object to being called a pet but I found her in a weird crypt with a funny purple fire glyph I probably shouldn't have touched and she's following me now, so whatever.
I took her home to meet the family, who I'd told to move to Hjerim in Windhelm as a temporary measure, only to find that Sapphire had neglected to go anywhere and my children had vanished. This is fine. They're immortal, so I'm sure they'll show up... somewhere. Soon. Probably.

 

Oh, and a dragon killed both of the Riften Stables staff members, so I'm not sure who's going to look after the horses now. Hmm. Well, that's a problem for future me, probably.

 

the moral of the story is never let the dragonborn live anywhere near your town

 

HONESTLY I'm about on the way to do that, I found a nice one on nexusmods, but given the difficulty persuading my one remaining spouse to move even to a completely vanilla house I'm wary of that as well. The problem is probably that she is a modded wife, and I should be satisfied with marrying people the game itself deems suitable. But I am a wild spirit who will not be shackled by hodd toward's ideas of ideal matrimony, so the game is just going to have to deal.
Or maybe Sapphire just doesn't like Hjerim because I pointedly didn't ask to have the serial killer's murder room cleaned up. Who knows?

Skyrim also has both of those, they're just small and also I suffer from a debilitating disease called Never Really Paying Attention To Anything. Please donate to my cause so I can get a brain transplant

YEAH they shuffled on over from Solstheim to be angry that you have the same title as their mind-controlling dragon priest buddy, and apparently there's a lot of them and they're very angry because I didn't bother to go to Solstheim for a while on Rilli and she was getting assaulted by them every time she poked her nose out. Congrats on finding the second body by the way! Maybe you should bring him over to corpse near his friend so you stop mistaking them for each other and they have some company if they're going to just stay there.

Poor Malgrave is going to get assaulted by cultists and vampires until I get round to dlc-ing, which I'm sure she's going to enjoy. By which I mean get extremely tired of.

Rilli has some of the same damage, except she just leans harder into the savage asshole trope to disconcert people. Actually that's a potentially great reason to get her to go join the Companions. The only werewolf she's met thus far is the one in the Hircine quest, whom she allowed to live before changing her mind and circling back around to kill him after all because I needed both of Hircine's artefacts and he'll give you both if you do that, maybe if she knew she could have an opportunity to be a genuine savage beast she'd put up with the Companions' whole... everything. Though her opinion of them is very low at present.

Malgrave is... well, she's not super young; she's probably late thirties or early forties, and she's spent all her life prior to plot living quietly in the mountains on her own because her mother fell out dramatically with her clan and decided she'd rather be a hermit than live there any longer. Then, one day, she went out to hunt somewhere she usually didn't, got caught in a snowstorm, stumbled across the Skyrim border and got hit around the head by an extremely jumpy Imperial soldier who didn't appreciate a giant tusked figure looming at him out of the fog.
As a result of both this and just not being a person who is particularly gifted at languages, her grasp on the lingua franca is shaky; she can definitely understand more than she can vocalise, and she is stubbornly improving, but she's always going to have a heavy accent and wonky grammar. Her life chilling out on a mountain raising goats has lent her a rather zen view of things, however, and she has a tendency to just Keep Going regardless of how many things she manages to trip over or upset or cause to happen due to Hum'rous Misunderstandings.
By the end of the main plot she will probably be able to hold a fluent, comfortable conversation in Dragon with Paarthurnax, though.

This is still a much better backstory than Rilli's, which is under a spoiler a few pages back in this blogette and involves Fun Brain Damage Times

 

me: [sees a picture of some dachshunds]
me: these dogs... they are long. i desire one.

a family friend had a miniature dachshund for some years and he was a little bastard and i know they're prone to back issues and leg issues (you know... because they're long) but somehow my brain is still like. yes. acquire... the canine sausage

 

they are so long i love to watch them run

 

pickles, the friend's miniature sausage, used to get walked with our labs sometimes and he was like ridiculously smaller than them and yet he just pelted along determined to be at the head of the pack it was delightful

 

he was also shaped roughly like a barrel with a head and four stumpy-ass leggies glued on

 

i am so naturally irreverent that i started my media journey on tropes twisted for comedy and am now circling back round to wanting them played straight for a change

(this is a humorous exaggeration, but i do find myself wanting certain tropes just. taken seriously. more often these days. probably mostly because so many of the 'comedy' versions ping me more like people shitting on the genre out of genuine dislike, and i don't know whether i'm just oversensitive or if it really is more prevalent than it was. possibly a bit of both?
and it is also true that i've defaulted to comedy so often in my media consumption in the past that i'm a little bored of it now. which... doesn't at all stop me constantly trying to write funny shit or tell horrible jokes, never fear you should fear a lot)

 

idk man i do get a different vibe from someone like. lovingly poking fun at a trope they genuinely love and just pull through to the logical extreme for humor than from people doing the subversive humor thing for "look at how stupid this thing and people who like it are"
and i def prefer the former to the latter

 

in 2020 perhaps i should strive to be more like goat
-climb on all things
-be penned in by nothing
-eat everything
-make loud and disconcerting noises whenever i please
-respect neither man nor beast
-give tasty and nutritious milk (ed. note: perhaps not as feasible as others)

 

today i have: spent lots of money on music, put all that music on my phone & backup memory stick, backed up the important stuff from my laptop's files to the memory stick, and printed out some cross stitch patterns (& a knitting pattern) using my parents' wireless printer. somehow this all took quite a long time.

 

i have two new pokemon pcs i need to set down and establish at some point

 

bandwaggoning...

Spoiler: nsfw character meme

Spoiler: Maggie

1. She's vers, and she ends up domming a lot. A very sweet, small, fierce little domme.
2. ...She's. Too indiscriminate for me to think of any meaningful lists here. Though if you legitimately put her down she's not likely to fuck you twice at least. Or if you're bad at sex but don't want to learn to improve.
3. Not that long at all if you're doing it halfway right.
4. Titties, thighs and shoulders.
5. Exist and express a vague interest.
6. Probably at least once a day minimum, depending on who else is around and willing.
7. The middle of a gangbang.
8. When she was fifteen after dance rehearsals with two other girls.
9. It's not about the place it's about the person!
10. Oh undoubtedly, and she is very embarrassed about it for at least half an hour.
11. Pretty loud, except she tends to come quietly, buh-dum-tish.
12. Oh a few, but if whoever she's fucking doesn't bring their own she is fully aware she can probably borrow better ones than she herself owns from Poly.
13. She will happily do both.
14. As often as she can wangle it.
15. Buried Under Tower Heroes
16. Yes Please.
17. She's got a dancer's frame so her tits aren't especially big, but they do provide some squish regardless.
18. She mostly makes up super wild fantasies involving various people, aliens, etc.
19. Yes.
20. She has a lot of favourite things to do sexwise, but for relaxation purposes there's nothing much better than putting a leash on Hall and letting him go down on her for hours.
21. Probably on the Derelict, the Drifter's ship.
22. Shoulders or inner thighs.
23. She's too easy not to have run into too many people who don't know how to use what they got and won't listen.
24. She is the Queen of multiple orgasms. She can come more times than is sane or probably healthy.
25. Most of the time, but in a sort of low-key way that doesn't really interfere with her day-to-day functioning.
26. Not really.
27. As long as her partner wants it to, or until she gets bored.
28. She much prefers to have fun.
29. She owes Hall one (1) pizza roll per orgasm he gives her on an ongoing basis.

Spoiler: Poly

1. They will both fuck and be fucked, but generally dom at least half because they think they know best. They will sub, but it's reserved for people they know very well.
2. On: Play with them, don't take things too seriously, be willing to experiment. Off: try and put yourself over them without giving them a decent challenge to rise up against, or forbid brattiness.
3. They're very good at making themself last until the right moment, both through practice and through being an exo.
4. Apart from the installed genitalia, if you can get your fingers under their arm plating it makes them fizz.
5. 'Hello, would you like to fuck'
6. Not often, since a lot of the pleasure of sex involves partners for them. They tend to keep it for when they don't have access to anyone.
7. There's little better than the good old fashioned Bent Over A Desk And Spread Wide.
8. They've forgotten, but they never actually fucked at all as a human, and it took a couple of resets before they got round to it as an exo.
9. The world and all within it is their oyster in this respect.
10. Yes. They don't care. Would you like to join in?
11. They're actually quite loud for all they refuse to make words. They can still make noises, after all.
12. They own the motherlode of sex toys, the mighty Sex Closet, wherein lurk the widest variety of Sex Accoutrements one could wish for. It's an ongoing project that they're still refining. Sometimes they invent their own.
13. They do prefer giving, but they got a built-in pussy for a reason, so.
14. Usually very often, but as with everything else with Poly they're ruled by whim and every so often just refuse to fuck for an indeterminate period of time, or refuse to fuck anyone but one specific person, or refuse to fuck until they've finished a new Sex Project they're working on.
15. Honestly they're not really the type to have one specific Desire they chase after; they like trying new things, and will generally attempt to try them as soon as the urge hits.
16. Necessity is the mother of invention
17. What size would you like?
18. Who knows what Poly is thinking about at any given time, honestly. It could just as well be kittens as anything overtly sexual.
19. Please and thank you
20. They have a distinct soft spot for pushing the boundaries of Al's size kink.
21. They fuck Zener a lot, so. Corridors of Time is probably the most recent weirdness.
22. They think human kisses are funny. Put them everywhere please.
23. Probably their first time when they were a baby exo. They had no idea what they were doing and still had a lot of hangups hanging around. This may have informed their later Sex Knowledge Seeking Behaviour.
24. Yes, although they can't do it if they have what they consider a proper orgasm, which involves all their systems rather than just the ones hooked up to the sex parts.
25. Poly's mind is a mystery, but given available evidence probably a lot.
26. Haha no.
27. [insert picture of the Duracell Bunny here]
28. Where's the fun in being serious?
29. They take meticulous care of all items in their Sex Closet, and will freely loan them to anyone who desires provided they are promptly returned in a decently clean state. Failure to clean, or worse, failure to return at all, will earn Retribution.

Will do a couple more later, have these to tide you over.

 

in my professional opinion as someone who occasionally liveblogs the pokemon anime:
a) sunmoon is better when i'm not coming to it straight off a previous series. it lets it stand on its own a bit more. even warming up to the animation somewhat.
b) ash's pants are stupid

 

c) i'm so glad they didn't make rotomdex a feature in swsh even if they had to go do it to the pcs instead. at least the pcs don't follow you around making stupid comments

...i wonder if there'll even be a swsh anime, to be honest? what with them finally letting ash win the pokemon league, it feels like... an ending, I guess.

 

takes rotomdex and lovingly breaks it over my knee, then takes a hammer to the remains before bagging up the shards and throwing it in the ocean

 

i'm going to lop off Alolan Detective Locke (loki?)'s chin and make a toast rack out of it