curlythenord

[curlythenord]

no cuz yeah. quests take FOREVER to accomplish and I’m broke buying healing potions

[curlythenord]

no yeah it doesn’t get better than this

best part of valorant is when it’s like [sova dart] [reyna blind] [someone badly spraying into the eyeball] [YOU WANT TO PLAY? LET’S PLAY] [jett dash] [jett dies] [I AM THE HUNTER] [omen blind] [earth shattering reverb of chamber ulti] in the span of six seconds all while you’re trying to get one (1) smoke down

[curlythenord]

planning on streaming tonight. still picking between league and valorant tho, let me know what you think!

[curlythenord]

[curlythenord]

[curlythenord]

Some more exclusively Skyrim content coming soon because I am just about finishing the Miraak quest, but I just wanted to say, hey I’m a.j and I make art too! I’m also a student, which makes everything a lil harder as someone who’s trying to create more.

Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch for sum more stuff from me! all @ curlythenord.

I’ll have a more consistent posting schedule soon enough, hope you’re all hanging tight nonetheless!

note: on Twitch i stream only Skyrim atm. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have something scheduled for this Friday at 5:30 A.M. EST. Pop in if you’d like to say hi!

[curlythenord]

I Caved

I finally got a lil sick of not playing Skyrim, so I finally created my own PlayStation account and created a new character. I couldn’t stay away any longer after blogging about how I hadn’t played for awhile, and I basically spent a good six hours playing despite having family over for most of the day (today was Mama’s day).

Her name is Cahira, she has yellow face paint, and I love her. She kicks ass. Literally.

I think I’m going for a battlemage build right now. And despite my brain knowing that Breton is the traditionally ‘best’ race for playing (resistance to magic, and all them other magic wielding perks) I made her a kickass Redguard because yes.

And also because the extra Redguard face paint designs are SO COOL. IM serious. I was looking at the presets for Redguards, because they’re all really pretty, and came across hers and I absolutely lost it. I kept trying to go a create a Breton that might look similar but nah, this Redguard preset was the best by far. After playing around with hair and eye color, I chose the Redguard valiantly and named her Cahira, because I’m a sucker for powerful lady names.

Now knowing how to play the game and being better at the mechanics, the beginning was a Lot easier... and didn’t take me an extra fifteen minutes to get out of Helgen because I couldn’t jump from one building to another. I also realized that when I was playing on my brother’s account I must’ve messed up the controls somehow because my character NEVER ran. I didn’t know how to do it. Seriously. Like instead of the run button being on L1 (like it is now) it was sneak beforehand. And instead of sneak being on L3, it was change POV, which always sucked when I was fighting because I press down hard when I get stressed. It’s much less annoying now cuz now it just sneaks whenever I press that.

Still gotta work on fixing my muscle memory though, so I’ll stop running when I’m meant to be sneaking. Otherwise? It’s a great structure and really comfortable, and I still have no idea how I ruined it on my other account.

This time I went straight into everything and became a Thane of Whiterun as soon as I could. I intend to go straight to Winterhold once I finish a quick mission for the Companions (I joined them early this time) and go visit the good ol’ Greybeards. I honestly felt really bad for Farkas when Aela and Skjor were making fun of him. Plus when he was showing to me to the quarters he was like, “They enjoy making fun of me, but they’re good people” like Bruh. I felt So Bad. I love Aela but I wanted to post up. Like yes, Farkas might have dumb bitch disease but they don’t need to be so Mean. Same with Vilkas. I know he’s the stronger and smarter one but it sucks how they all talk badly about Farkas. Ugh, I gotta stop defending videogame characters like they’re people.

I got a note from an unknown male friend (so I know it’s not Delphine) telling me to find the power in Valthuim, which I’m not even sure I know about so I’ll have to check that out once I get all those magic powers I want at Winterhold. In a way, I’ll be doing the same thing I was doing as Toril, except with more knowledge of how to play well, but with a lower level character.

I still play Adept difficulty, but I’m currently at level 5 so I don’t think it matters. I’m focusing a lot more on smithing than I was previously, and dove straight into collecting ingredients for Alchemy. My favorite strategy right now is honestly just chugging a bunch of health potions mid-battle and hoping not to die. Making money is also soo easy, though I’m sure it was before and I was just really bad at saving it; I almost found myself buying a place in Whiterun immediately, but I figured I’d explore a little before that and just chose to join the Companions instead. My inventory isn’t that full yet and I haven’t collected any books, so right now I’m more focused on exploring.

Also, I decided to go with Ralof in the beginning this time. I still think the Stormcloaks are assholes, and genuinely do prefer to stay on neither side, but damn it is fun as hell to act all ballsy when running into the Thalmor. They suck, and it’s fun to just get in their way. I tried once and died Immediately though because I was too weak, but next time, I won’t mind being an asshole to them by letting someone run free.

I have some pretty small goals for right now, which is 1) Not to kill Lydia by accident again, 2) Meet Ulfric since people say he’s an interesting character and 3) Get really good at magic. I know, boring, but I just wanna see all the powerful magical options since originally I just focused on fighting and heavy armor. I still love that way of playing, but I figured a battlemage is just gonna be slightly out of comfort zone but also just really fun to play as. My character is dope as as hell and is still fresh so she just has a lot of potential.

Also maybe me choosing my characters based on how pretty I think they are is probably gonna get in the way, but frankly I don’t mind. I chose the mage stone in the beginning, despite initially wanting to have a cool warrior character again, but it’s ok. I can still live my powerful warrior lady dreams through Toril, whom I still love very much and am missing despite how how awesome Cahira also is.

As I keep leveling up, I’m gonna use my perks on blocking, any magicka stuff, and one-handed weapons and armor. Sure I’ll broaden that as I go, but that’s what I’m mainly focusing on. I’m definitely gonna pay more attention to blocking and armor than I did before because those just seem like really useful skills, and an insanely easy way to make money. I bought some iron ore off a black smith and saved myself so much after smelting it into a ingot and creating hella weapons to sell it back to them. Once again, I’m sure everyone has already done this, but it’s new to me and I’m a little slow at being good at games. But I’m getting there!

So yea, that’s it for today. Me and Farkas have dumb bitch disease, though I still don’t like him Like That™, and I’m still very obsessed with this game. I’m waking up and doing my assignments immediately tomorrow so I don’t slack off the rest of the day, but as soon as I finish chores and excercise I’ll get on it. I’m pretty sure I’m failing gym because I keep forgetting to turn logs in, but it’s fineee. Skyrim will protect me from my fear of failure. Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

[curlythenord]

Hi! I’m still very devoted to Skyrim and my game, I promise, but there’s been a mix up. My brother got suspended from his account for awhile (he’s been given a stern talking to about kind words and how not to repeat the things that other people say to him in PlayStation messages) and literally all of my skyrim files are on his account.

I didn’t transfer them over to separate one before the suspension, so I’m just a little stuck not being able to play unless I wanna start over. I’m thinking of maybe doing that sometime this month but I’m really in love with my Toril character, though it’d be nice to see what it feels like to be a thief in-game so idk.

I have a draft I was working on from last time I played, but got caught up working on writing and school work and excercising with my brother (woo-hoo) so I’ve just been rather busy. The suspension is a month long, so we’ll see when I get my hands back on. And I’ll see when I update for the next post!

Thank you for reading! Also school has been confirmed not to return (as I’m sure in the case for many) so I might just be able to delve into skyrim entirely once the whole suspension is over. Bye!

[curlythenord]

The Impossibility of the Winterhold College Quest

So I decided that when I headed off to Winterhold, I would go through doing the College quests so I could improve in magicka and learn more about it. Even before I learned more about the Elder Scroll(s).I had only been using destruction and healing spells... plus some alteration to use the candlelight spell. I figured it’d be cool to learn some more and not just waste perks on it.

But damn this whole difficulty accommodating is hard. I went into the Saarthal expedition, expecting it to be a little easy. I had just gotten level 21 and thought, “Okay I can do this with restoraton spells and about two health potions.” Yeah. No, I really can’t.

All the draugr kicked my ass. Every single one, and don’t even get me started on the ones who can use the Thu’um. I had to change my difficulty level to novice because I was dying so easily and I couldn’t handle two opponents anymore. I mean I guess I should’ve improved on the game right now but these guys were embarrassingly hard to kill, no matter what I tried to use. 3-4 unblocked hits from one and I was outie.

I managed to get to the point where you pass the first puzzle, which isn’t much of puzzle, I know. I keep estimating the puzzles to be a lot more complicated than they actually are. Then I headed into this room that has a draugr with a battle ax and y’know, normal armor. And it is completely destroying me. I originally faced it after turning the difficulty back up to Adept, but realized soon I had to turn it back down or I was just wasting away and dying. Eventually I was like, “Okay I’m just gonna go get some health potions and tackle this again later” and I headed back, only to realize the door I entered in with Toldfir was closed/had literal bars on it now.

I looked back at my loads and the ones I have before Saarthal are back in Acadia’s Cauldron in Whiterun, so after a little rage at that, I stopped playing. Mostly for my sanity. And desire to keep playing, though nothing this game throws at me could ever really change that.

But I’m gonna try again today later, and maybe try some new strategies. Maybe using an arrow, or being more creative with my shouts. I’ve already tried attacking it with magic, so I’m gonna have to see.

I will say, the trip to Winterhold was a whole event in itself. The difficulty level was a huuuuge issue for even the most simple enemies? I got attacked by a couple of wolves outside of Windhelm, and one of them was a snow wolf that completely messed me up. It was so annoying, but I guess that’s on me for being careless when usually fighting them. And then on the way to Winterhold, right before the Shrine of Azura, I ran into this white bear who was destroying me.

I tried shooting it from afar. Even sneaking, which didn’t work. I tried double-wielding. I attempted a shield and my uncharged Dawnbreaker sword. It was the worst. Had to look online for some help and found an archer that said they use things that get in the way of the bear. So I tried that. Climbed/Jumped onto tall parts of the path that are hard to get into, when the bear was charging my way, but as soon as I got up onto one and shot it, it ran away. For some reason it annoys me that the opponents are sometimes smart in this game. I headed down, looked for the bear from a far away distance, and couldn’t find it. Then I looked at the map and realized this wasn’t even the fastest way to get to the shrine.

Sooo I climbed up the side of the path again, except I kept going and basically scaled the mountain until I was overlooking the Shrine. I saved and headed down, trying not to break my legs. It worked, and I didn’t run into the bear again. Maybe it disapeared? Or it’s spirit when into the draugr that are kicking my ass. I don’t know. After the Winterhold college quest I’m gonna go buy and brew some potions so I can go back to my old strategy of downing a bunch of health potions like they’re skooma.

What the fuck is up with skooma by the way? I haven’t tried any yet, and the only affect the description says is that it helps stamina. Does your character get addicted to it? Do you hallucinate? I dont even know. I sold what I had to Acadia so I hope she doesn’t think I’m a recovering addict.

Also I got into a brawl in the middle of the night at Windhelm while trying to find an inn to stay at. I didn’t relaize at all that the Candlelight Hall was the inn and I felt kinda dumb after searching the whole town for one and being very unnsuccessful. It was right in front of me too. I kept getting annoyed that the place had so many doors and the buildings in the city all looked the same. The structure of Windhelm is metally and so weirdly organized compared to the rest of the towns I’ve visited, so it got confusing really fast. Same for Riften at night.

Anyway, this guy near the entrance (dont remeber his name) asked me if I was a Dark-elf-lover and I just felt this compusion to throw hands. And after he bet me 100 that he could kick my ass, I was very excited to earn my 200 gold. And I did, obviously, because I was wearing Blades armor and he was drunk.

Also my relationship with the kids in the game is so weird. On one hand I absolutely detest them. They’re annoying and they all look the same. But sometimes the game makes me feel bad for them. I found the little girl who sells flowers sleeping outside and once I saw her in the morning I immediately bought all her fuckin flowers because dang, I felt so bad. I was just throwing money at her because I wasn’t gonna adopt her and that’s the best I could do.

I still don’t necessarily want a kid. Or a partner. Mostly because I was considering Farkas, because he seemed decently good at battle, but then I went on that quest with him and he fuckin just. Kept getting in my way. Whenever I tried to move. It was so annoying. I couldn’t back up because he was there. I couldn’t move forward because he was there. Whenever we were in tight quarters the guy just Would Not Move.

Anyways, I’m just gonna stay partnerless for now. Might need a companion soon though because I keep gettung infinintely bested by this game. I gotta go do homework now so I’ll update you guys later. Hopefully I won’t gently rage quit again! Bye!

[curlythenord]

How It Began

Hey, so this is new, and weird. But I have no one to talk to about this to without annoying them, and this is basically my new and only hobby. And I like it a lot. And most of us are stuck inside anyways so why not?

Skyrim is quite a few years old, so maybe some of you have wisdom to give. Or not, and you could just hear about my faliures/achievements and laugh. Either way, this feels therapeutic in nature, and puts two things I love together. Writing and... well, Skyrim.

So, three or four weeks into quarantine, and I was already pretty out of it. I didn’t have any solid hobbies to pick from and I was waiting on amazon book deliveries. Then, Jenna Marbles posted her video “A Tour of My House In Elder Scrolls Online” and I watched it and I really liked it. She mentioned how much she liked it many times before and something about the fantasy and quests just struck a cord in my bored little heart.

It’s like the attraction of Animal Crossing that a lot of us are having, except it’s with dragons and magic and swords. Both are still very valid.

That afternoon I downloaded Blades on my phone and played for literal hours. Something about swinging a sword and killing trolls and monsters really got to me. I wasn’t a fan of building the town and upgrading the blacksmithy but otherwise I enjoyed it. Then on Easter I kinda browsed through amazon, wondering if I could buy the game right now because of quarantine and all that. We have a ps4 at home, it’s my little brothers. I found a copy of the 2016 beautified version on Amazon, and then he went and found it on the playstation store for way less.

Soon enough I caved to my desires and I bought it. And I was immediately obssessed. I spent like an hour JUST creating my character. I wanted her face paint to be just right and her eye color was so hard to pick because I kept getting getting stuck between this hella striking blue and this really cool dark golden/hazel color. (I decided on golden) I chose Nord after debating about it for awhile, and i’m still not regretting the decision. She has really dark black hair and dope ass war paint on her eyes. I know Breton was probsbly the better choice but the Nord character hasn’t been an issue at all. I do always forget to use her war cry thougj. I think it’s because I can only use it once a day (in-game) so it makes me scared to use it. Even though days are just around 20-30 minutes long without fast travel.

Her name is Toril, which means “thunder”, and I know shes my avatar and everything but like... she’s so cool.

I chose the Warrior stone, because I genuinely just wanted to fuck shit up with a Sword. I always thought I was naturally super bad at console gaming becuase I tried playing COD before and I was terrible. Like really bad. Like propably shot myself more in the foot than I shot anyone else bad. But with Skyrim? I keep getting better each time I play. And my attack strategies are getting so much better.

My usual way to fight is a shield and a one-handed weapon. Two-handed is just too bulky and I like swords and the protection of shields. Also it just drains stamina so fast and I don’t like that. At this point I just carry Two handed weapons incase an opponent is Really hard to kill without it. I also do magic-wielding on left hand (usually restoration spells) and a one handed weapon on right. It’s prefect for combat with slow but really damaging enemies, like dragons or trolls that you can back away from.

Recently, I began dual wielding and it’s honestly so fun. I just hate how much damage I take when I do it against a group of bandits though, so I keep moving away to heal or take potions, but it’s such a fun strategy to use with dragons when they land or just against one opponent.

Anyway, the game is amazing, the characters are fun and weird and yea they’re fake but the storylines are so interesting. I decided to go with the imperial gaurd in the beginning, so I went to Riverwood, and then eventually took main residence at Whiterun. I was a little slow on joining the companions, so I used to just stay at the inn before I lived with them, but a couple days ago I saved up enough to buy the Breezehome. Both a good and bad idea because I still go back to Whiterun a lot, but my quests are now taking me farther and farther away and now I can’t really pop back in whenever I need to store an unneccesary weapon or some dragon bones.

I also hardly let myself fast travel because I really like the game for the exploring aspect. Even though the foxes have given me jumpscares multiple times with their guttural panting.

So yea. After maybe two weeks of playing I’m at level 20, and I’m guessing I’ve spent over 30 hours on the game. I play a little bit each day, but my sessions are usually 2-4 hours long and happen in the afternoon, and if I get on after my brother at 12 am i’ll usually play until 2 before I get too tired. I’ve only got like 13% done though, or at least only 13% of the achievements. My highest acheivement right now is doing alchemy though so I’m not doing great.

I’ve been focusing on the quest with Delphine and Esbern recently, and I’m at the point where I just spoke to the dragon master/teacher of the Greybeards, then spoke to Arngeir about going to Windhelm/Winterhold. I figured I might as well finally visit the college there because I wanted to improve some magicka skills without using my perks. It’s weird though, because as soon as I got back to Whiterun and then headed out to go to Windhelm, I got absolutely raided by dragon attacks.

First, one appeared outside of Whiterun, and me being the pussy I am (after getting my head bit off Multiple times) just shot arrows at it from a distance as the soldiers dealt with it, and then ran over when it was dead to absorb the soul. Then when I was past the farms and the guards tower next to Whiterun, another dragon appeared. I used the Whirlwind sprint to stay next to it’s wing to keep it from biting my damn head off, then used some restoration spells when it was in the air, and dual wielded (when I could attack it) with the Dawnbreaker and this enchanted sword I found at the Sky Haven Temple that deals extra damage when attacking dragons. Absorbed that soul and headed on up to the snowy mountainous area that was on the way to Windhelm.

After dealing with a couple asshole white bears and some whisps, I hear a dragon and absolutely lose it. Why was I suddenly getting bombarded?? I decided to sneak on this one, and got my bow and arrow out. Eventually I got close enough to see not one, but TWO goddamn dragons, before realizing it was Alduin raising one to life (and realized he was salty because I was trying to destroy him by getting the Elder Scroll). Eventually I managed to kill it, still using Whirlwind sprint, healing spells, and dual-wielding. Plus some potions too.

I had to try a couple times for each of these by the way. Even with the second dragon I kept forgetting to save once I was a mildly-annoying-distance-to-repeatedly-walk away from Whiterun, which sucked but it’s whatever. I learned my lesson though and started remembering to save.

I got to Windhelm, which was weird territory because it’s run by Stormcloaks, and had to physically restrain myself from pummeling this drunk guy while he talked down to a Dark Elf and accused her of being a spy because she wasn’t a Nord. Also sometimes guards that aren’t from Whiterun will call me a thief (I unnsuccesfully tried to help out the guy who told me about Esbern’s hideout back in Riften) and it’s a lil annoying because I try really hard to make my character a decently good person. Sucks though because one of the achievements is joining the Thieves Guild and though I don’t necessarily want to do that, I’m gonna eventually unless I create a new character, which I don’t wanna do yet because I like mine too much.

Anyways this is already really long. I’m making another post to talk about my current opinion on choosing between Imperials and the Stormcloaks. If you have any tips, or questions, comment them! Or send me an anon, either is fine. I could literally rave about Skyrim for hours, as you have probably seen. Thanks for reading!