Someone just alerted me that the new season of Game of Thrones begins tonight. You know what that means. More politics, pussy and Peters. My favorite is still Dinklage. He was really good in that movie about the trains. Anyhow, I hope they do a recap because having read the books I have no chronological awareness when it comes to this series.
I may have mentioned this before, but sometimes I like to write to music. Morviah Hlaalu I put together while deliberately spamming that scene in Casablanca where Bogey walks up to Ingrid Bergman and tells Sam to stop playing. Now, I don’t know if the 1940s was more romantic than the present day – scientifically speaking, I’m quite positive nothing has changed – but those hokey black and white films just feel more romantic, in the way all old things do when given the burnish of time.
Either way, it’s given me an idea for a blog post – NPCs characterized through music videos. Naturally, these don’t exactly fit, and that’s a good thing given we don’t want any character in the mod to mimic or be exemplified by a four minute song. Still, there’s enough of a similarity in tenor and theme to make it work.
Another ground rule I should establish is that I haven’t listened to a single new song in the past dozen years. The other day I was watching a baseball game and there was some singer named Robin Thicke performing the anthem, who apparently is a big deal. Not only have I never heard of him, but I have heard of his father, who was the dad on Growing Pains. Jesus Christ I am old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-3xn91FOaU
For the first NPC, let’s start with some break of dawn, Sunday morning highway music. This is the kind of tune that makes me wish I had a convertible and somewhere to drive to. Or at the very least, three Pips of my own to karaoke with. In any event, this song almost perfectly mirrors a certain NPC’s life, and by mirror I mean everything’s the same except backwards. It’s actually kind of a depressing story if you think about it. This poor dude struggles to make it in LA and has to go back to Georgia a miserable failure. On the other hand, Gladys Knight is moving back to Georgia just for him, because love conquers all or something like that. Again, it’s the same but backwards.
Also this show is produced by someone named Burt Sugarman. That sounds like a good name for a pimp, not a pasty white record executive, but this was the 70s. I’m sure his wife was named Cleopatra Sunbeam or something befitting the Age of Aquarius.
This song is just creepy, but in an awesome way. While it’s supposedly a metaphor for drug use, it does work well on other levels. Although in Skyrim you can actually take it quite literally, because there are spiders that want to eat you and love you and upside-down Kirsten Dunst you. Except in this instance, we are using it as a metaphor for an NPC who is about to be eaten alive by a scary, wine-drinking spider of a woman.
I don’t really have a good comp for this NPC. So have some Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQYw49saqc
Similarly, I couldn’t think of a song befitting this NPC. I suppose it would be good to just throw in a song from this century, and the NPC does think himself the Clint Eastwood type, even if he’s useless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmbOjpvbCR8
This is almost too easy. Some low hanging fruit right here. Oddly enough, this is an incredibly tame video. Not just because it’s Madonna and the subject matter lends itself to excess, but the fact that it’s the 1980s and the 80’s were a fucking absurd time to be alive. MTV, Gordon Gecko, Arnold and Stallone, cocaine, keytars and Reaganomics. It was truly life on steroids. According to ballplayers, they say you inject steroids in the buttocks. Of course you do.
Given all that, Material Girl wasn’t nearly as wacky a video as I expected it to be. Now this, this is a music video from the 1980s.
The weird phone skit at the beginning is what gets me. First of all, the phone actually rings. Like it’s an actual phone number. Second, what kind of dickwad would just call you, spit a bunch of poison in your ear and then just hang up? Fuck you, Frankie. The only thing funky going down is the stank from your lies.
Lastly, another video from the 1980s. Honestly, do bands still make music videos? I can’t imagine they could ever be an event like they were back then, but I suppose with Youtube they have a new place to establish their relevance. I actually had to cheat and Google “songs about rivalries” because I damn well couldn’t remember one on my own.
The best part of this video remains the knife fight at the 3:30 mark, when the two gang members decide to tie their off hands together in some bizarre knife ritual. I tried this with a Draugr once and he just split my skull in two. If I had to take a guess, either the rope is there to prevent someone from running or to compensate for their hilariously poor depth perception. Unfortunately neither of them seems to have visited the gang-approved optometrist in the past month, because their stab attempts still miss each other by a good three feet. Just kiss already.
Welcome to another episode of screenshots. Today, I ditched Daenlyn in favor of one of the newest followers, Bear-Foot Froa, and continued gallivanting around Skyrim. Don’t worry Oakhollow fans, I’ll pick him up again if and when his new lines are recorded, but as of now I don’t want to add any more to his queue with quests lines being a priority.
After doing a speed run through The Immortal Coil, the first thing I needed to check was whether the roaming Thalmor I added was disabled, and to do that, we needed to return to Markarth.
Serana was quite pleased, because it gave her a chance to relax and dip her feet into this bear. Can’t say I blame her. Looks comfy.
For those who don’t know, blood and silver are what flow through Markarth. If you didn’t know you must not play a lot of Skyrim, because they say it a lot. The blood and silver thing. Of course, if Markarth is known as the City of Stone, then it also stands to reason that you can’t draw blood from it. This is a terrible joke I made up, not only because it is unfunny but because using idioms in the presence of Serana is never a good thing. She tends to take them literally.
Little Cosnach has waited his entire life to sit at the big kid table. No more holiday dinners sitting with his toddler cousins who can barely eat solid foods, let alone hold an intelligent conversation on why girls are gross and whether it’s better to be Kolb or the dragon. No, Cosnach is a big boy now, and he’s welcome to all the perks that come with.
Still no shipments coming in though.
Look, the effects of solitary confinement on the mind are well documented, so I don’t mean to make light of Serana’s array of mental illnesses, but man, not a day goes by where I don’t turn my head around and find her doing something positively crazy.
Of course this is my fault for saying you can’t draw blood from a stone. Tell Serana she can’t do something, and she will break the rules of the universe to prove you wrong. Well, not this time, nutto. Maybe unwavering belief will work in your Chinese cartoons, but out here in the western fantasy world, logic and reason rule the day.
While the blood never came, what Serana did manage to draw was the attention of the guards. Although I suppose they would’ve come anyway given I refused to surrender. Fortunately the more bodies pile up the greater the effect of the Ritual Stone. Yesterday’s foe is today’s friend. And with a small army at my back, I decided to capture the city.
No one has ever broken out of Cidhna Mine, but has anyone broken in? Now I was thinking with Seranas. Unfortunately, an invisible wall thwarted our attempt, although I did try consoling my way to Madanach and slaughtering everyone inside. Also, this happened.
Ultimately it didn’t matter, as Froa and Serana alone were enough to take down Madanach’s crew. Well, all except for Grisvar the Unlucky, who briefly ran out, took one look at Froa and trotted back to his hole.
At this point I decided to Oblivion with this city and went after all the remaining guardsman in Markarth. Froa got to kill Ondolemar, which must’ve felt good, and Serana got to run around and shoot sparkly lights out of her hands, which is always a treat for her. All in all another successful adventure, although I only managed to write a handful of lines.