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all the stars- sun included- are holes in the sky that gods made when punching through the fabric of reality, like a thousand kool-aid men, like some benevolent god punching holes in the plastic wrap of a tupperware housing a million bugs.the moon? oh, no, no, you mean moons. there's two of them (those are also gods, but when they're both new that's a third, forbidden god everyone hates). luckily, gods are also the laws of physics (""laws of physics""), which is how i guess the tides are chill with not flooding everywhere all the time. oh- and the planet actually IS the center of the universe. i'm 99% sure that if i listen closely enough i'll be able to hear copernicus rolling in his grave, even a universe away. and that's not even starting on the cannibal elves, or the scalies that reverse-invaded hell, or the MAMMOTHS!!! THERE'S MAMMOTHS, GUYS!!! also there's also dwarves but they were dicks and yote themselves out of existence too so who cares.okay. okay. sorry if this is a bit of a mess- I'M a bit of a mess right now. and this is the first journal i've had since getting here, but there's so much i want to write- there's just so FUCKING much that's happened- okay. Okay. i'm being told to breathe, which is good cause i apparently forgot to for a second there. okay.okay.let me start at the beginning.13,8 billion years ago, the universe happened. and then a bunch of stuff didn't really happen for a super long time, but then it did, and that's where we begin our scene: 2011. the year everything changed. and you're reading this, so you already know what happened, but let me record it here for posterity: it was the year we were bequeathed, like a wide-eyed child accepting a priceless family heirloom, todd howard's magnum opus. that's right. i don't need to name it. you already hear the nirnroot sound in your head, don't you? or ragnar the red? (nirnroot, by the way, is actually really pleasant to listen to- especially in real life, like this. it's almost... zen. it's like if binaural beats made sweet love to an otomatone, and then they put that noise in a plant. mark my words i'm going to get one growing on my windowsill.)fast forward a few years, a couple political nightmares, and i figure: hey, i'm a Gamer (tee em), i've played undertale and mario kart and yu-gi-oh: duel links, why haven't i played this... sky's rim thing that i've heard so much about? so then i definitely completely legally downloaded it, and that's when nothing changed. i suffered through the opening sequence, failed to realize there was even a choice between stormcloaks and imperials at the beginning?- and boy, isn't that a whole other mannimarco can of worms- got lost on my way to riverwood, and gave up being a mage a few quests in to become- you guessed it- a sneakarcher (pour one out for my hours of dedicated research that went into planning my high elf destruction/restoration mage LMAO). and it was all fine and dandy until i accidentally fell asleep with the game still running, which is, like, just ASKING for some dimensional bullshit to whoop your ass into next friday. or next fredas, i guess. and boy, did my ass undergo a whoopening.i won't bore you with the details, but tldr okay scratch that, i AM boring you with the details, because i just got the dirtiest look ever when i said i was going to paraphrase to save ink and paper. okay. don't really know what i expected.right. so.some fluffy dumbass in their 20's with seven depressions and no survival skills wakes up in the middle of the forest with the lord of all hangovers, and is like, "what the fuck," because they landed in a pile of sticks that ripped their nice-ass space pajamas. (they got fixed later but, that really didn't make them feel better about the giant hole inconveniently placed right over their right tit. f!)they lived in the pacific northwest, so the "waking up hungover in a forest" wasn't the weidest thing that'd ever happened to them, but it took them all of half an hour to rescind that thought when they came across some murderous larpers with, deadass, actual bows and arrows. bows and arrows? like actual ones? that was new, and sufficiently weird to spook them into booking it straight into a giant rock. a giant rock in a group of three. no, not stonehenge. that would've been less weird. at least i wasn't concussed, though tbh i'm still not over the fact that i apparently don't get standing stone bonuses no matter how hard i slap them. (in retrospect: maybe it was because i slapped the rocks? i can see how thatd be disrespectful. note to self to go and leave flowers at the next stone we find, maybe take it out to a nice dinner. maybe that'll make it like me?)first i was like, "wow, that's a really accurate replica of the standing stones outside riverwood. i mean, why? but okay, i guess. i mean, i support performance art!" (they were not performance art.)then i was like, "am i concussed?" (i was not concussed.)finally i was like, "holy shit, i have a really trepidatious* feeling about where the fuck i am." (*there's probably a better word in a language that isn't english, i'll ask if it exists in dunmeris or tamrielic- but you know how you already know what you're going to find and you're feeling that plus a trial version of all the feelings you're going to feel once you find the thing? you know?)then i speedran the five stages of grief in what i guess was like, the entirety of the half hour walk to riverwood. if i remember correctly my thought process was like (approximately):
nooo fucking way (terrified). nooo fucking way (confused). nooo fucking way (shocked). maybe i got kidnapped? maybe this is another of bethesda's weirdass marketing things and they like, borrowed a corner of norway and stole a bunch of gamers and plopped them out here? they've done weirder. : ~ 5-7 MINUTES?
what the fuck is wrong with bethesda? i swear to god i am going to break into todd howard's house himself and slap him with a raw fish for this. (followed by a couple of other increasingly humiliating threats.) : ~ IDK, MAYBE 4 MINUTES?
(doing that thing you do in the shower where you pretend to make arguments for theoretical debates and sound very convincing, except i wasn't in the shower) : ~ PROBABLY AN EMBARRASINGLY LONG UNIT OF TEMPORAL MEASUREMENT I'M REALLY BAD WITH THE CONCEPT OF TIME?
oh my god, my friends. i didn't really have many, but- would they know what happened? what if some of them are here too? i hope at least one person is... "gee i sure hope someone else came with me and almost got killed?" wow, i'm a terrible person. they probably won't even miss me. and besides them i'm not really leaving anything behind and (blah blah blah more being depressed about my life) : ~ THE REST OF THE WAY TO RIVERWOOD
nooo fucking way (with a huge grin, upon first entering riverwood) : ~ 3 SECONDS
my first conversation with a real live skyrim npc went something like this:ME: um, hello? um- alvor?HIM: (looks up like he heard his name and then says something totally incomprehensible)ME: oh, i- i don't know why i expected you to speak english. um, здравствуйте, вы меня понимаете?HIM: (more incomprehensible words, increasingly confused)ME: hell. uh, 今 わかりますか?? puhutko suomea? ymmärrätkö minua nyt?? (getting really worried now) les brétons sont basés sur les francais, non? il y a surement des brétons dans cette ville quelquepart, non?? des brétons?HIM: (giving me a once-over as i look nothing like a breton, now at max level of confusion) bre...tons? (incomprehensible mumbling to himself, stroking his chin, nods) (more incomprehensible stuff, but he leads me over to the only inn in riverwood and promptly introduces me toME: delphine?HIM: (gives me a funny look, says something to her, i think i caught "breton" in there?)HER: (gives me a funny look)HIM: (it at least seems like he's trying to help me? something somethign something breton)HER: (the long, weary sigh of a woman who's had to put up with too many monolingual cishet men today) (turns to me and says something in a language that sounds like french, old french, and ehlnofex got put in a blender with a dash of what kind of sounds like gaelic, and when i picked that out, i'll be honest, i felt a little bit of my soul die)ME: (silence of trying to figure out what the fuck that just was)HER: (silence of judgment and suspicion)HIM: (silence of confusion and concern)ME: merde.so yeah, it went really well and i'm actually adjusting relatively okay, though i think the fact that i am really good at getting people to pity me no matter if there's a language barrier probably has something to do with it. it really helps that i have a really patient teacher with what i now know is tamrielic- i'm putting whatever it is bretons speak on the back burner for now. every time i tried to parrot something delphine said, it turned out to be like, a swear word, or so badly pronounced i turned it into a swear word, and when i was working so much for her that first week that just... made it way more awkward than it already was.it was a lot of charades that first week. thank god my theatre background was finally useful for something: feeling no shame about making a total fool of myself in front of judgmental strangers! it was about the end of that week when i heard another word i knew, and knew so well that i'd recognize it over the sound of an inn at night: that's right! the mer, the myth, the legend, "dovahkiin". i almost whacked my head into one of those meat rack things, i looked up so fast- and then i heard hir NAME?? a very intense session of charades involving a map delphine had helpfully brought, i found out that the dragonborn was in whiterun, or was going to be there or something, and i successfully managed to convey that we knew each other. if delphine could kill someone with just the force of her suspicion i'd have keeled over that night, but i guess the idea of getting close to the dragonborn in any way was enough of a lure to get her to take me to whiterun.the day after that, she woke me up at dawn and i "learned" how to ride a horse! it was mostly me clutching helplessly to delphine as (or at least it felt like, to me,) she sped over the mountains and across the plains like ghost rider on steroids, but i didn't fall off so... small victories?i noticed frost stabled in front of the city. i also noticed that frost looked WAY cooler than in-game. i also noticed, eventually, that the city was big as HELL and i was totally going to get lost if i didn't stop ogling the horses and follow delphine, so i did that. but i was right to Notice frost, because i distinctly remember giving frost to one of the dragonborn's followers... who was a mod. and hey ho! whaddya know! after following delphine up to the bannered mare, we found- well, i'll start with the dragonborn.i forgot how tall 200cm is in, like, real people height (not my fault they mostly ditched the different-race-heights thing after oblivion). was it weird that that was the first thing i noticed? something as mundane as hir height? maybe it was just my brain trying to take it easy, because when we made eye contact across the room- i know that sounds cheesy, but bear with me- something really weird happened.it was like... i BECAME the windows start-up noise, and apparently ze felt something really big too, because whatever it was it made hir drop hir bread and jolt like ze'd just touched a doorknob after moonwalking on a shag carpet. for me, it felt like being able to breathe properly for the first time in months. or finally getting water out of my ear, or, waking up from a really long dream. ze didn't even stop to get that bread (yeet) before bolting over to me and picking me up, like a cat, and staring at me with wide, wonderous eyes, also like at a cat."you're here," ze said, breathlessly, putting me down but not letting go of me. internally i was like, 'well, i was going to introduce myself like a normal person, but i guess we're past that?' before i could even say anything other than ": O", ze raised hir hand and did some magic thing i later learned was Recall, and the next thing we were in hir house in whiterun. it felt like a nightcore rollercoaster and i absolutely would've fallen over if not for hir hold on me. (i really dont look forward to doing it again, but ill learn to manage.)anyway. there we were, standing in the doorway, and i was like, "um-""you're real," ze whispered (for some reason? we were in hir house and ze didnt need to whisper?), touching my face like ze thought hir hand would go through it. (though i was kind of surprised it didn't, too.) the wonder looked at once incredibly strange and absolutely at home on hir face- i mean, i knew- know- ze has the soul of a dragon kicking around in there and yet, there ze was, staring at me like i was the fuckin easter bunny or somethng. "you're... you're real? by azura, you're real! and you're here!" hir laughter is contagious, and when it bubbled out of hir i was smiling, too (though partially because i was confused as fuck and i think my face just opted to go for the most pleasant expression i could make at the moment). "but... how? or- of course you've always been real, i- where have you been?" "what do you mean, i'm real?" i mean, i've been real my whole life, probably. vsauce told me so and thus it must be true, occam's razor, whatever.ze gave me this weird look i'm starting to worry means ze thinks i'm really cool, and basically told me that ze'd "felt a presence" ever since helgen- that ze'd prayed, as ze'd laid hir head on the chopping block, for help. for someone- anyone- to come and help hir make this world into something less cruel and uncaring than what hir parents thought it was, what it was beginning to look like it was. against all odds, ze'd said with a grin that was only getting bigger, "someone answered".when ze'd seen me in the inn, ze'd known instantly that i was that presence. the one that gave hir strange powers- that even brought people back to life- that did unbelievable things, even for hir, things only a god or something like a god should be able to do... or someone with no shame about using console commands. not that i said that, but i totally thought it, somewhere in between "what the fuck" and "oh thank fucking god i can understand people again". ze admitted, with some hesitance, that my presence and "boons" had mysteriously disappeared about a week ago, and while it didn't make it impossible to do things, it wasn't as easy, and ze worried about their companions' lives more than ever, and ze really missed having sweetrolls instantly spawn in hir bag.it was at that moment, as ze prepared to give me what looked like the most undefeatable puppy dog eyes ever, that two things happened:i realized, maybe a bit late but i'd been kind of distracted, "oh, shit. i obviously haven't been able to use console commands this whole time, no keyboard or computer and all, are these "powers" of hirs gone forever? fuck?"and with timing so perfect it seemed cinematic, two blue people, a bird, and a nerd all but tripped through the door, nearly crashing into me and the dragonborn if not for hir moving us out of the way. shockingly (that's only half sarcastic) i recognized all of them! wild right??? (delphine was also there, i'm sure quietly judging and/or planning five steps ahead. later she got testy with me about not saying i knew the dragonborn, but what was i supposed to say, like? "oh, your entire world is a game to me and i am the puppetmaster pulling the dragonborn's strings, mua ha ha!"- like that'd go over well. she's actually a really nice lady, just... tired, and very paranoid, so i don't blame her for being testy. i hope i can make her trust me soon, or at least feel comfortable around me, because it's an unnecessary stress that she doesn't deserve. anyway i think i bullshitted some excuse about being old, old, old friends from before helgen, though i'm sure she didn't believe me.)jenassa, one of the blue (well, more grey-blue) people immediately distrusted me. she was like, (and i quote) "what spell has this outlandish s'wit got you under? you, little man. release hir!" and the fact that i didn't do anything but blush when she drew a sword on me because- i mean i know she's already got her eyes on someone but who Wouldn't blush when a beautiful woman holds them at swordpoint? you know?"you can't believe that ze has friends you have never met?" asked the other blue one, chidingly, as he lowered jenassa's sword. then, teasingly: "or are you jealous? i have only seen hir get up so excited to see you, before-"jenassa scoffed and punched his arm, but did put away her sword. now not under immediate threat of beheading, i have to say i probably took longer than was socially acceptable to look at the other three companions. i mean, jenassa's beautiful, like, very very beautiful, but MODS??? i think i almost took inigo's hand off, i was shaking it so hard (oops), and after doing the same to lucien i think i said something about having been told a lot about them through letters, or something. even alena! alena, who's particularly interesting, because she didn't come with a mod, but it sounds like my personal idea of it is the one that, well, seems to be the case... i should probably start a list of mods i think might be "active" (?????)anyway, i'd made it clear that i knew them, but when they all asked my name i... i panicked, because i didn't want to give my deadname but i didn't want to give them a stupid sounding name either. luckily, the dragonborn helpfully gave one for me: emera. apparently it means "to guide" in altmeris, but it's also the root of "music"- ze'd already named me a long time ago, while i was "guiding" them, since i hadn't ever given my own name. (what a bard.) ze also basically said that i was "like family" to hir (tall, elven, muscles of steel), which i thought would get me (small, human, chubby) a LOT of weird looks. but it didn't! probably because ze's also said the same thing about everyone i'd just met.my hand's starting to cramp up- who knew writing with quills was this obnoxiously taxing?? i mean i did but Wow- i'm going to put the journal away for a second. but hey, future me, if you're reading this? let's not let the dragonborn down. let's make this world better than the one we came from, or let's die trying.(p.s. try not to actually die please)