Mewness

Unfortunately I don't think there's any way for the civil war to progress without the player taking sides. (Pity. I rather like the idea of just defending Whiterun.) I don't think it's necessary to own a house in order to finish the quest line, though. I've only played through the civil war quest sequence once (on the Imperial side). I don't remember the Companions doing anything during the Whiterun battle (and I think I was harbinger at the time). I could be wrong, though.

My idea when I started playing a stealthy archer with a bound bow was to leave no signs behind at all. (I don't steal anything, either.) But those bound arrows can be remarkably persistent...

Right. Fortunately I hadn't given it to him when I started backtracking.

I've started a blog which is pretty much a shameless ripoff of Chris Livingston's inspired Elder Strolls series, in which a boring, unadventurous character (i.e., an NPC) travels around in Skyrim avoiding doing anything exciting. If this is of any interest to you, here it is: 210 And All That

Don't you have to sacrifice someone to get Eola, though? He may not be a real follower, but he hardly deserves to be eaten. I've never been willing to go through with the cannibal quest with any character. Whenever I go to Belethor's, I use Fus Ro Dah to try to create as big a mess as possible with just one shout. I've tried all sorts of angles. I hate Belethor, and watching all the stuff fly around his shop while he's in the middle of a speech about how greedy he is makes me smile. I like running down extremely steep cliffs. Looks ridiculous and hardly ever kills me!

I don't tend to pick up things like that either--although I do like to search locations fairly thoroughly, I'm not that concerned with picking up every valuable thing, and I sometimes miss important items that I'm not absolutely required to pick up. For what it's worth, you can revisit the quest locations and pick up these items after the fact (I'm not sure about the Eye of the Falmer, but I think the map markers direct you to pick that up anyway). I did this in my current playthrough after finishing the questline. The only item that gave me trouble was the East Empire Company Map in the warehouse. When you visit that location later, the guard automatically stops you and talks to you even if you're hidden. I actually murdered him to get in (I was also Dark Brotherhood and had few compunctions about that sort of thing). Once I was inside I found that the guards had buggy behavior--they kept on walking up and telling me that I was trespassing, even though I was hidden, so I had to kill a few more people. All the other items I managed to get with no problem, and they show up on the shelves just fine.

So like many of you, I like to do things in the game that make sense in terms of story and character, even it doesn't make any real difference to the game. I had two quests open that involved the Thalmor: one was the Embassy quest (part of the main storyline), and the other was the sidequest where you rescue the Greymane fellow from the Thalmor fort. I'd already determined that there was no peaceful way to free the Greymane guy, so I decided to do the Embassy quest first, since the doing the rescue quest had, in theory, the capacity to expose me as an enemy of the Thalmor, which could lead to my not being allowed in as a party guest. (In metagame terms I felt pretty confident that it wouldn't make any difference, of course, but it was still important to me to do the quests in logical order.) However, while I was in the general vicinity of the Thalmor fort doing something else, I COMPLETELY forgot about this decision, and unthinkingly invaded the fort, killed everyone, and rescued the guy. Then I suddenly remembered that I still had that party to go to, and what if someone had escaped and reports had already reached Solitude?!? So then I thought, "In all likelihood, I have the fastest horse in Skyrim." (I'm using Better Horses, which makes palominos faster than other kinds of horses, and my character was riding Frost, who is a palomino with even better stats than normal.) "If I gallop back to Solitude--" (so my thinking went) "--I will arrive ahead of any news about me, and I can still go to the party." So I get on Frost and gallop back to Solitude as fast as my horse's endurance will allow. Just outside Solitude, I am greeted by a guard who says something like "I hear you're the one who gave the Thalmor a black eye." ------ Someone else has already mentioned Aela coming back to life in Jorrvasskr. Along those lines, I visit Jorrvasskr one day looking for work. (I'm harbinger. I'm also traveling with my wife, Borgakh the Steel Heart.) I hear Aela talking to someone, and realize from the substance of her side of the conversation that the person she's talking to is Skjor. But Skjor is dead--he was killed by the SIlver Hand! Then Skjor himself comes into view, looking as hale and hearty as ever. I can't resist: I ask him for work. He tells me that there's an escaped criminal I need to hunt down. Then I look across the table. My wife, Borgakh, is walking slowly BACKWARDS around the table. And it's a huge table! She walks backwards all the way around it. I'm mesmerized. I can't figure out what she's doing. I watch her moon-walk all the way around. Shuddering in horror at this surreal scene, I leave, and attempt the find the escaped criminal that perfectly-healthy-looking-ghost-Skjor has sent me after. But whenever I consult the map looking for the criminal's location, he has teleported to some wildly out-of-the-way place. First he's at Battleborn Farm. Then suddenly he's near Solitude! Then.... I really should have taken the backwards walking as a sign.

Cross-dressing! I'm actually (sort of) serious about this. I'd like a mod that enables men to wear dresses and women to wear pants. Well, mostly I just want men to be able to wear dresses. Default clothing is weirdly nebulous and changes its construction depending on the gender of the person wearing it. I have no idea whether changing this would be easy or hard. Who's with me?! ... Well, it never hurts to ask.