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About this blog

Greetings everyone! This page contains my various Bethesda blogs. At the time of this update, it contains my troubleshooting playthrough series, my Skyrim modding diary, my mod cleanup case study series, and my Shout Like a Virgin beta test blog. You can access all the entries from the sidebar on the right side of your screen.

 

Playthroughs

I've recently exceeded the 1000 mod threshold, and it's time to start periodically doing brief playthroughs to ferret out hidden conflicts and other bugs. In this series, we'll do shorter, more focused adventures where we try to tell an interesting story and also talk about what problems we ran into them and how we addressed them.

 

  • Charley's Story: Charlotte Ellison survived a nuclear war by spending more than two hundred years in stasis. Now she has to survive in a very new world, facing very new threats. A Fallout 4 playthrough.
  • The Spider's Web: Kirstia's search for answers has taken her to the island of Solstheim. Now she must uncover the secret of The Teacher - also known as Mephala - and continue the journey to master her powerful magical heritage. But can she survive as her enemies, new and old, close in? 
  • The Curious Case of Forrien Hlaalu: A year after she returned to Northpoint, Kirstia is back in Skyrim and looking for answers. The strange events that occured during her search for Sybil Fjotra continue to trouble her, as does the ongoing influence of the strange gods of the Forsworn. After a chance encounter over drinks, a wizard from the College of Winterhold sets her on the trail of a scholar who may have the answers she needs...
  • The Search for the Sybil: Exiled from Skyrim to the remote land of Northpoint, Kirstia Bjissen has fallen on hard times. Just as she hits rock bottom, a voice speaks to her and charges her with a sacred quest that will take her back to her native land - and likely into danger. Can Kirstia find the new Sybil of Dibella before her past catches up with her?
  • Shout Like a Virgin: Miraculously saved from death, Monilee of High Rock finds herself in Skyrim, a land riven by civil war and harboring dark secrets. While she tries to build a new life in this foreign land, she's haunted by half-remembered dreams, and in chasing them she discovers her role in the turning of the ages. However, Monilee has not gone unnoticed by powers outside the mortal realm. Used as a pawn in the struggle between Nocturnal and Dibella, it will take all her wits, endurance, bravery, and stubbornness to reclaim sovereignty over her body and her soul.

 

Modding Diary

This series tracks my modding projects in-between playthroughs and case studies. The main focus will be on the technical processes of cleaning, editing, and integrating mods into a large load order configuration, including managing emergent multi-mod interactions. 

 

Modding Case Studies

This blog reviews the tools and techniques that authors and end users can apply to make their mods as stable and compatible as possible, as well as how end users can integrate complicated mods into a large load order setup. In addition to coverage of well known techniques such as automatic mod cleaning, this blog delves into more complicated issues such as navmesh repair. 

 

Entries in this blog

Kirstia's Second Adventure

Battle on Ice, Snow, and Marble (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 14)

If guards or sentinels hadn't already seen me it would have been a stroke of incredible luck. Consequently, I didn't take any chances. I drew out my bow and advanced as fast as I could without the risk of slipping on an icy spot. I've never been a very good snap shot with my bow, but if archers were waiting in ambush it was still better than rushing in with sword in hand. Worse come to worst, I could always switch weapons on the fly if I needed to.    As it happened, I was right to pre
Kirstia's Second Adventure

The Frozen Lake (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 13)

The ghostly figure stood before me, for the moment at least making no acknowledgement of my presence. I approached him slowly, trying to close the distance without making any move that her might see as agression. Soon I stood face to face with him, and his cold eyes watched me impassively.   "Who are you?" I asked.     "It is not time for me to answer that question," he replied. "We will meet again, but for now, I am content to watch."   When he chose to
Kirstia's Second Adventure

The Living Depths (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 12)

While I'd been resting, I had taken a moment to look through the abandoned books on the shelf. Most of them concerned the mythology of the Dark Elves, but one stood out amongst them: Ayleid Inscriptions an their Translations. I flipped through it, with my bauble helpfully hovering over my shoulder to illuminate the pages. I admit I was more skimming than properly reading, but my eyes passed over some interesting bits of advice: 'wisdom learned by pain is a reliable guide in dark times,' for one.
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Spiders and Bears and Trolls (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 11)

I descended into the dark carefully, not sure what to expect. Certainly, I knew I had to be on the watch for Falmer, but I recognized there were other threats as well. Certainly, the copious spider webs warned that I might encounter hungry arachnids. I could only guess at what other sorts of monster hid in the shadows. My little bauble seemed equally concerned, flitting about left and right and zipping off towards any little sound that broke the silence.   "Hey buddy," I whispered afte
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Departures, Hugs, and Spanks (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 10)

I dozed on and off through the day. As it turned out, I was a lot more tired than I'd thought, and the time I'd meant to spend preparing my gear for exploring the cave ended up getting used for rest instead. Fortunately, Millonce was kind enough to let me use her bed; while it didn't compare with the wonderful mattresses and blankets at the College, the bedding was good enough that I could regain a lot of my spent energy.   While I dozed, I dreamed. I was crouched under Millonce's tabl
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Prurient Interests (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 9)

I dreamt again of Nelacar. He had followed me to my tent in the wilds west of Dragon Bridge, begging me all the way to dominate and humiliate him. The more I ignored him, the hungrier and more desperate he began. At last, I relented and started to mock him for the size of his small penis. A perverse smile spread over his face and all he could do was whisper, "more, more!" as I hurled progressively more hurtful insults at him.    And then, just like that, he was torn apart by wolves. I
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Old Problems (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 8)

It didn't take a second demand for me to leave the Arcanaeum; indeed, now that I had a lead on Millonce Curio, I resolved to leave the College campus in its entirety as quickly as I could. I gathered up my gear as quickly as I could; I had a strong suspicion that if I lingered for any length of time, then I'd find myself given little choice but to remain. Certainly at least until the mages had satisfied their curiosity about me. Right until the moment I reached the bottom of the bridge, I was ex
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Scholarly Pursuits (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 7)

Evening was starting to settle over Winterhold when I reached the base of the great bridge. Fortunately, the wind had largely subsided and while the air still held a chill it was entirely bearable. As I climbed the smooth ramp at the foot of the bridge, and elven woman stepped from the shadows to confront me.   "Cross the bridge at your own peril," she intoned. "The way is dangerous and the gate will not open. You shall not enter." Her words had a ritual character to them, as if she'd
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Dreams and Reality (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 6)

I dreamt of warmth. I was at the fire pit, not just lying beside it but actually atop its iron grille. Waves of heat flowed through my body, but I didn't burn. I only felt a deep, intense sense of relief as all the aches of the road fled my body. Then a warm hand brushed against my thigh, and I rolled my head to the side, lazily opening my eyes.    A golden-skinned elf stood over me, his hands brushing lightly against my body. It took a moment before I recognized him: it was Nelacar, t
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Back Into The Cold (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 5)

So after all that, I was heading back to Winterhold. Rather than reverse my course - and risk crossing the front lines of the civil war again - I decided to make my way north to Dawnstar and then hire a boat to take me to Winterhold. While the old city itself was perched high on a cliff, there was a small landing at its base from which I could ascend to the city - and its college. The backtracking part of my journey - passing through Whiterun Hold by way of Riverwood - was uneventful, though as
Kirstia's Second Adventure

A Hidden Place (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 4)

When I wiped the oily fluid away from my eyes enough to see, I quickly realized that I wasn't at the lake anymore. No longer in ankle deep water, instead I was lying on a rough stone floor. My armor and weapons, which I'd set aside while I used the standing stone, were nowhere to be seen - nor was winged bauble.    I seemed to be at one end of an underground passage. Some light cast down through cracks in the wall and ceiling, so I couldn't be too far underground, but I had no idea whe
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Misplaced Toys (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 3)

I have to admit, if I didn't know he was a Hlaalu, I would have mistaken Forrien for a Wood Elf. The antlers just screamed 'Bosmer.' But then again, I had antlers, and I'm not a Bosmer, so perhaps it was just evidence that this was indeed the mer I needed to speak with.   Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be doing any speaking with him. His loose-fitting robes might have hidden the most graphic signs of his violent end, but rolling him over I could see the slit in his robe where a sword
Kirstia's Second Adventure

A Late Arrival (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 2)

This awaits you on the path you have chosen...   I fought for a while to catch my breath, those whispered words echoing loud in my head. Even though what I'd experienced had clearly been a dream, it had set my heart racing and filled my gut with ominous tension. The fact that The Teacher's children started shifting, agitated, inside me did nothing to salve my discomfort.    I kept thinking of The Teacher's words as I ate my breakfast. If her intention was to warn me away from
Kirstia's Second Adventure

Chasing Answers (Kirstia's Second Adventure, Chapter 1)

It's hard to believe it's been almost a year since Mother and I sailed for Northpoint. The time we spent there, if not especially exciting, was important to me. Not only could I show Mother where I'd spent the last twenty-odd years of my life, but we settled a lot of unfinished business during our time there. We even bought back Father's house, and arranged tenants to maintain it in our absence. A wise move, as it happened, because the longer I stayed there the more acutely I felt the the call t
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 31 January 2022

Welcome back, everyone. With the successful completion of Skyrim at War tailoring yesterday, I'm a lot closer to being ready to stat my next playthrough than I'd previously expected. Consequently, today is going to focus on a couple of later-breaking edits followed by the prep work to get into a playthrough-ready state.   We started the day with 1,256 mods installed, 1,311 plugins active, and a final index of EF.   A Late Breaking Addition     Nocturnal Clean
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 30 January 2022: Part 2

Well it turns out that after some shoveling (I foolishly forgot to put my snowblower's battery on the charger yesterday night ) and a little nap, my energy returned and I decided to do some more work on this. The first thing I did was install a bunch of texture improvement mods that I've had backlogged for a while. I won't bother documenting these, since they are pretty much "fire and forget" deals where I just have to make sure the asset load order is correct.   Nocturnal's New Clothe
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 30 January 2022

Well, yesterday actually turned out to be a pretty productive day, didn't it? I have some time constraints today, since once the temperature gets up to close to its high for the day I need to go out and do some snowblowing to clear my driveway, but before then I have a few matters to attend to that are relevant to this blog. My main goals are to package and publish my BHUNP updates the Wench's Wardrobe (I got permissions to redistribute my edits from the author) and to install a few more locatio
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 29 January 2022

Hello, everyone. Hope those of you in the northeast USA are keeping warm today with this big blizzard blowing through. Yesterday we started updating the Toys ecosystem to its current version (including a release candidate version of the next framework release). Today we'll wrap up that process and then, if time permits, knock out a few more deliverables.   We started the day with 1,233 mods installed, 1,291 active plugins, and a final load order index of EF.   Toy Story
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 28 January 2022

Hello everyone, and happy Friday! Today we are going to have a bit of a themed day, as we'll be focusing on bringing the Toys ecosystem up to its latest versions (though there are a couple non-Toys items we'll be doing first just to clear the proverbial decks). We will also be doing another LOD & occlusion rebuild, but since I covered this recently I will only go into detail if we encounter problems.   We started the day with 1,231 mods installed and 1,290 plugins active. Our last
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 27 January 2022

Hello, everyone! Hope your weeks are going well so far. Yesterday we got some new armor and actors into the game and we scouted out a location that'll eventually add a lot of depth to the central part of the map. Today we're going to install some more of our Winterhold locations and then work through some line items on the to-do list as time permits.    We started the day with 1,219 mods installed, 1,281 active plugins, and a final index of EF.   Some Cleanup Work  
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 26 January 2022... Part 2

Hi folks, I hope you enjoyed part 1 of today's diary. Since it turned out I had some more free time this afternoon, I wrote up this second part to supplement the earlier entry.   As we touched on in part 1, there are a few things on the docket - some new armor items, an NPC overhaul, and more exterior location improvements in particular. Hopefully we can have a pretty productive day!   We picked up from last time at 1,216 mods installed, 1,279 plugins active, and a last index
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 26 January 2022

Welcome back, everyone. Yesterday we installed a few more locations in the Pale; we also moved a village that was conflicting with a nearby location. We added game mechanical support for Kirstia's magical bodily fluids, and finally, we got a number of new armor sets into the game.    Today we're going to finish up with the armor mod by creating a new distribution branch to offer them in lieu of Elven gear for non-Thalmor characters. This not only helps my ongoing effort to make sure th
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 25 January 2022

Hi folks, welcome back. After things went kind of sideways with my plan to chop up and repackage Wild Mountain Farm, I moved on to another worldspace item - filling in the Pale and Winterhold in order to cut down on the amount of empty space in those areas. We got three new settlements up and running, but when we went to do the fourth - Dunpar Wall - we found it was occupying the same geometry as one of the other settlements we'd just installed. Today, we'll move the hamlet of Dunstead so it's n
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 24 January 2022

Welcome back, everyone. Yesterday we went in and address a number of minor issues that I've observed over the past month. We also dusted off one of my long-neglected modding projects and finished it. You might be wondering why I posted it on the Nexus instead of the Lab. I normally post my SFW stuff on the Nexus and NSFW here - this way I don't have to worry about drama or censorship on my NSFW content, while benefitting from the Nexus' excellent cross-referencing features for my 'safe' material
Modding Diary - January 2022

Skyrim Modding Diary - 23 January 2022

Welcome back, everyone. Yesterday we did some fairly involved outfit integration, but ran into a wall trying to do a mashup outfit without heavy Outfit Studio work. If you followed the comment section, you'll know that I had a sudden insight hours later when I remembered I had made a mod last year that has the potential to exactly solve my problem. Today, we're going to get that outfit set up and also do some bugfixing.   Black Leather Armor - Finishing an Old Project    
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