So Iāve been playing a lot of skyrim lately, because itās video game comfort food, and I decided it was time for my Redguard Dovahkiin to settle down. (Actually I specifically just wanted to be able to adopt some of the random orphans you meet because I felt guilty about them, but you need to be married before you can do that so that thereās someone at home to take care of the kids while youāre off galivanting).
So I travelled around a bit, chatting up likely looking npcs until I found one I both liked and didnāt feel guilty about marrying (I feel bad if I marry one of the warrior adventurer types, making them be a stay at home mum) and settled on an obnoxiously cheerful argonian called Shavee because her life was frankly shit, and I thought sheād probably be good with kids.
So off I go to Riften to the Temple of Mara to arrange the wedding. I book it in for the next day, realise I didnāt bring anything nice to wear, and spend the night before the wedding robbing every house in the city in the search for something to wear. Eventually decide everyone in Riften has terrible fashion sense and break down everything I stole into raw materials and use them to craft myself an outfit and some jewellery that iām pretty happy with. I even carefully pick out my fanciest looking sword to wear.
(donāt know why I bothered, frankly, shavee turned up wearing a shirt covered in suspicious stains and weilding a pickaxe, itās like she doesnāt even care about this marriage)
(also for comedy purposes, bear in mind I play with survival mods that mean my character needs to eat and sleep to live, and I literally spent the entire ingame night on this and forgot to eat and drink anything either and then just downed four bowls of wolf stew right before entering the temple so I didnāt starve during the ceremony. also I discovered during the wedding that I am dying of rockjoint, which I contracted from sleeping in a pile of hay on the floor of a skeever infested cave, so even being six foot tall and jacked canāt make up for the fact that I am exhausted, running a fever, and probably covered in wolf which I spilled because my joints are slowly atrophying, and even the fanciest clothes in the world arenāt going to cover that up)
so I enter the temple, and my finance is there, and Lydia my housecarl, and some random NPCs the game thinks are my friends because I did fetch quests for them
One of the random NPCs is Lisbet. Atfter I did her fetch quest, I then did another quest in which I discovered Lisbet is secretly a cannibal and part of a demonic cult that worships the daedric prince of decay by kidnapping priests, sacrificing them, and then eating their corpses. Raw. I think the raw meat is the sticking point for me here honestly.
I ultimately decided not to sacrifice the random priest to a daedric prince in exchange for one magic ring and all the raw human I could eat, because frankly, that doesnāt sound like much of a deal to me. I was expecting there to be some kind of dialogue choice where I could nope out at the last minute, but it turns out there isnāt one, so after they drugged the priest and tied him to the altar, I just got out my sword and started swinging.
I killed most of the cult (including the town butcher, because I had brought meat from him before and was extremely pissed off that he might have been secretly feeding me humans) but a couple of them got away, which I figured was fine because they werenāt trying to kill me.
Except it turns out, if any of them escape, then every time you see them in the future thereās a random chance that theyāll fly into a violent rage and try and murder you.
Lisbet is at my wedding. Lisbet decides that clearly me marrying this random argonian woman with two lines of dialogue is the happiest day of my life, and she cannot allow me that happiness, when Iāve taken so much from her.
So she tries to kill me. Only she canāt, because Iām stuck in a pre-rendered wedding animation, and also sheās sitting next to Lydia, my faithful retainer and owner of a really big axe.
It also turns out that Lisbet is essential, meaning she can be knocked unconcious but not actually killed because sheās needed for some quest or other. And the minute she wakes up from unconciousness, she tries to kill me again, so Lydia knocks her unconcious again, and Iām stuck, I canāt move, because Iām supposed to be in the wedding animation.
Except Shavee has, not unreasonably, see all this and decided that she doesnāt like me enough to risk getting murdered, and has done a runner, leaving me at the altar, but more importantly, leaving me trapped in a broken pre-rendered animation, so all I can do is stand there at the altar, staring at the space where my fiance was supposed to be, listening to the sounds of Lydia trying and failing to beat a cannibal to death behind me.
Okay, I think, clearly this wedding isnāt going to happen, Iām going to go for the registry office option and complete the wedding using the dev commands. I do this. The priest gives me a wedding ring, and I can finally move again. I chase after Shavee, who has an impressive turn of speed on her, and eventually catch up right by the city gates. I try to talk to her.
Apparently using the console has completed the wedding for me, but not for her, because she still only has the same 2 lines of dialogue she usually has.
Clearly this is working, I canāt leave my kids with someone who can only say 2 things and doesnāt even know sheās their mum, thatās irresponsible.
I try loading from inside the temple. I get the same problem.
Eventually I figure out that I need to use the dev controls to disable Lisbetās entire existence in the universe.
Shavee and me get married. As the priest reads the vows, I stare at Shavee and wonder why she couldnāt even be bothered to put on a clean shirt. I wonder what kind of mother sheāll be.
Once the ceremony is over, and Iām happily married to the dirty green lizard of my dreams, and weāve agreed that until I can make her recognise my extremely nice modded house exists I will share her single bed in the unheated flophouse in Windhelm she calls home, I re-enable Lisbet, because Iām worried Iāll forget if I leave it too long.
Fun fact about skyrim, it loads in quite a lot of npcs and objects by dropping them from the sky. I have no idea why this is the case, but itās objectively the funniest way to load in objects.
I re-enable Lisbet. She falls from the sky, clips through the roof of the temple, and lands in the pew beside Lydia, stands up, draws a knife, and is immedately beaten unconcious.
I no longer care, because Shavee now has all the exciting new spouse-only romantic dialogue options like āCould you cook something for meā and āhave you made any money latelyā, and I know sheāll be a great mother.
I limp to the door of the temple, while around me the guests not involved in the Lydia-Lisbet murder cycle scream and duck for cover.
I open the door to the temple, immediately collapse and ragdoll down the steps, which is how I discover I am dying of rockjoint.
I limp to the orphanage down the street, adopt two kids, and then finally remember that Iām carrying garlic bread, which as we all know, cures all known illnesses.
When I emerge back into the street, full of the joys of motherhood and garlic bread, I find the town in disaray. Lydia is chasing Lisbet through the streets with an axe and a dragon is circling overhead, burning npcs to death. People are running for shelter, screaming, while the guards try to take down an entire dragon using only the worst bows and arrows in the game.
I decide that as a parent, I have to think of my own safety first and leave them to it.
I head out of the city, intent on returning home and figuring out why Shavee refuses to move in with me. A man hanging around the stables challenges me to a boxing match. For want of anything better to do, I agree.
Halfway through the fight he dodges at the wrong moment and I punch one of his horses in the head.
Two guards attack me while I desperately try to surrender. My kids will miss me, but Iām prepared to go to jail for my horse crimes, Iām an honest citizen. Also my horse crimes seem somewhat less important than the dragon.
The guards refuse to accept my surrender. I am stabbed to death. As I collapse in front of the indifferent horse, Lisbet exits the city, followed by Lydia. The last thing I see before I die is Lydia swinging her axe at Lisbetās face.
