First, let me just say:

Don't knock it before you try it...(or judge me!)

So I was bored for a minute before leaving Helharchen Hall, so I figured "Hey, you know what my old lady would get a kick out of? Me sneaking up and casting FURY on her!" So I, well, did that.

Next thing I know, she is screaming and cussing at the mannequin on the 2nd floor, while hacking away at it with her dagger. I'm not kidding: she'd take a few swings, step back, talk a bunch of trash, then act like it called her the C-word or something and charge the thing.

Funniest thing I have seen in a long time. A very long time. As in, good thing I can't do that thing where you laugh hard and shoot milk out your nose, cause I'd of done it just now.

Nice I have a reason to get married now.

Ysolda is the only NPC I dislike. I sneak attack snipe her from the Bannered Mare balcony and watch Brill and Jon Battle-Born beat the crap out of her on my behalf. Every chance I get....

Good. The savage mannequin deserved it. She was justified in attacking that blasphemous thing.

Started attacking a mannequin? Something I would love to see. I haven't married anyone yet, but I want to marry Aela. I might save it, then marry Ysolda and buy the house in solitude just so I can try it.

Oh yes, at the friggin' mannequin. Her tirade went outside too, and while Gregor, the kids, Kharjo, and the carriage driver guy are all doing chores and what not, she's running up to everyone saying something like "YOU'RE AS GOOD AS DEAD!" with this scowl like a crazed berserker on PCP, but it would instantly melt away into an expression that said something more like, "oh dear God, I'm going to die..." then she'd turn around and run while begging for mercy.

The BEST PART was when she had been attacking Shadowmere...I had hit her with Calm but it wore off while she was in front of everything, so she charged and attacked the carriage driver and his horse. Out of nowhere, Shadowmere comes running down the yard, jumped on top of the carriage (took like 3 jumps) and like half jumped, half flew off of the top right toward Ysolda, who's looking up in total terror as this huge horse just lands on her like a giant bomb, then starts beating the royal bejeezus out of her.

Shadowmere's jump totally looked like old school WWF stuff--like Jimmy Snuka or Randy Macho Man Savage's elbow off the top rope or something. It was priceless. I recorded some of the mannequin stuff with my phone (THANKS, XBOX!) but couldn't have seen that WWE moment coming for the life of me.

Morrowind has more depth, Oblivion has fun quests and lots of unintentional humor but Skyrim beats them both in the awesome insanity category (or insane awesomeness).

Oh I hear you. Can't stand her either. But you know what? She's less annoying than about 95% of the other eligible bachelorettes in the game. Aela and Njada aren't bad, neither is the owner of Radiant Rainment, or Senna, the priestess at the Temple/Dibella, in the front room.

If you marry this other priestess, can't remember her name, she will literally go to the house you picked out after your wedding to meet you, say 1-2 words to you, then she immediately turns around and begins to walk back to Markarth...sometimes she even looks like she's trying to use the carriage, but the game probably isn't set up for that, and if you go fetch her at the Temple and say you wanna move, she'll go to the next house, say 1-2 words...then proceed to walk all the way back to Markarth.

What I like about them is that they're witty and have funny lines, like "leaving? Take the world by storm, dear..." But good God, a lot of the passive aggressive comments (which are hilarious at first), like "dear, this ____ of ours just isn't adequate. get me out of this ____hole, you ____ing ____. Oh, FWIW, your children are going to grow up to prosttutes and low level, unsuccessful human traffickers. Also? I think that both of them had massive lead poisoning as toddlers, so they're just hopelessly stupid dullards..." that they practically reply to EVERYTHING with gets old.

So after a few playthroughs with the mean wives, I'm doing this one with Ysolda, who I originally just use to marry because she has a house and...well, an amulet of Mara is a lot cheaper than Breezehome, so... it was sorta like how I pick women in real life!

Oh I almost forgot, regarding hating Ysolda, since she makes my skin crawl half the time (and, really, I only get married in the game now because leaving kids alone -- that's the case at Breezehome, since Lydia annoyed me so deeply and profoundly that I shipped her off to the Blades, and she's the ONLY PERSON THAT I SENT TO DELPHINE, SO...uh...have fun Lydia! Fighting dragons...by yourself... -- or with your weird housecarls makes me feel like one of those awful parents who gives their kids mayonnaise sandwiches for their school lunch and start drinking the second they're out the door), our marriage = me constantly tormenting her, while she says happy-go-lucky, sugar-coated, idiotic nonsense about everything, and nauseatingly nice things to me, while acting sweet and innocent, etc., etc..

Yes, she has a saving grace in being part sociopath re that sleeping tree sap stuff, and finding out that she's a ruthless mid-level thug who sends some guy on a suicide mission and doesn't bat an eyelash when you tell her that you found what was left of him after a giant clubbed him to death is kind of cool...but dammit...when your answer to "How are the kids? [in RIFTEN...]" is "fine, love" and that "the weather is perfect for playing outdoors!" you deserve to be humiliated and tortured every day, if for no other reason, to maybe shock some human-like traits into your dead-behind-the-eyes personality!

Or at least that's how i justify waiting for her to get between, say, Iona and Kharjo, then casting Fury on her just to watch her get bashed half to death...oh, and there's the waiting in the shadows with a crossbow until she looks like she's having a happy thought, or when she's watching the kids do something dumb with a big, sincere smile (like she's, I don't know, proud or something...? WTF, lady...), then just shooting her, as Will Ferrell would say, "right in the baby maker," (hey! It's not like I use the exploding bolts...even if my main reason for not using them on her is that those are expensive and hard to make, ya know? And don't nag me about "morality" or whatever...she's immortal!), and I cannot forgot how much fun I have casting paralyze on her (especially in a doorway--if you close the door right on a paralyzed NPC's torso, they flip around like a fish and your kids laugh at them! Ha! Fun for the whole family...except Ysolda, I mean...), and in case I'm being too vague, I do mean that, if I'm bored, I just keep casting Paralyze on her. Repeatedly. Just because I'm bored. Sometimes she gets upset but she's pretty tenacious about being obnoxiously, creepily happy all the time.

One of the only times where she says anything remotely valid, non-delusional, or not as if she were taking a bath in liquified Paxil is at Vlindrel Hall in Markarth...though the closest she can bring herself to calling the place a dump is saying something about how there doesn't seem to be enough guards or something…

Now that I think of it, you know how i feel justified torturing my in-game spouse like some kind of borderline serial killer? Ever seen her walk around Whiterun with that stupid basket of flowers, like she just won a trophy for being so utterly stupid (I mean really, what is that even about?)? Bam--THAT'S IT. (FYI, I always sprint into her and knock those out of her hands....or just punch her, so she drops them...it's such a hilarious visual!)

Well... we all know the Mannequins are secretly alive.

Watching...

Waiting...

planning...

That's a good one, I might try it.

Funniest thing that eventually got old on me today (eventually) was when Serana caught Delphine with one of those ice storm spells she's chucking around now...they took alternate turns at beating each other to their knees, then repeating the process when they recovered. I have to admit, Serana was getting the best of it...Delphine's obviously showing her age.

http://www.ladymoiraine.com/forum/gallery/38/2020-090713050330.jpeg

Lucky I wasn't sleeping and woke up to find him there. Too creepy.

I ran up the stairs, did a bit of renovations on the table, ran around the corner, past the bed on my way to the enchanting table and got a fright when I barrelled into this. Scared the crap out of me, lol!

Now, lately, when I enter my Heljarchen house I'll find that mannequin off his podium and positioned in a new spot, as if he's headed somewhere in particular. I make him return by activating his pedestal, so he's not totally broken.

Edit: Image needed editing. Oops.