User talk:Bitter Lily

The gender and the writing, and the relatives
Hi! I'm not sure I would recognize a writer's gender by their style, even in my mother tongue. But you're not the first person to tell me of such a relation. What's behind this? What exactly made you think, a female is writing? (And no, be sure I'm not offended.) Is it the style, the wording? Or did you think more of the contents, I'm talking about, the perspective, the points of view?

And of course you may say you to me. (LOL)

Relatives near Wolfsburg? The "I live in Niedersachsen" on my profile – Niedersachsen is Lower Saxony. And Wolfsburg is near to where I live. 'til later, --CompleCCity (talk) 16:11, February 16, 2017 (UTC)


 * You're aware this is a public place? And everybody, even Google, can read what you're revealing about your privacy?


 * So, what term would a man choose if he wants to express, something's "lovely"? (And for my choice of it: it was a direct response to "I loved the description […]" Which doesn't mean, I would not use "lovely" otherwise as well.)
 * Interest in relationships and fleshing emotions out… Why would – or should – a man not do this? Okay, admitted, I seem to be a little different from the common man, roaming the ancient and the modern realms. My psychotherapist thinks, I'm an empath, and several people, my ex-wife in the first place, say I've more feminine traits than the average male. In my eyes, this is what a man should be. I feel definitely male, I don't see this as disadvantage, au contraire, and I can behave typically male – dominant, numb, rough, pragmatic, whatever –, too. So what?


 * I can't tell you half of the amount, you did, about my family's past and alike. My mother's parents were from Pommern, too, though not sure about her father, I think that was another region there, in the east. My father's originated from here, countryside, a farm.


 * I live in a city, a "big one", but not Wolfsburg. (And I'm not going to say where exactly, at least not here, publicly.) You've visited Germany, so I don't have to tell you that cities here, and their architecture, look different from what you know. Though my city is much older than Wolfsburg, which was founded only in the 30's of the last century – and does look this way.
 * But I can't tell you much about it, I'm not the person being much on the road. In the city. Museums. Shopping. And I do no sports, and I watch no sports.
 * We do have museums here, of course. But none of greater importance, as far as I know, such as a Hall of Fame for whomever. We have a cathedral and a castle, a "palace", too. A good theater company. And the city looks and feels like a city, not what Wolfsburg's trying to do in that place… (There's a saying: In Wolfsburg I don't even want to hang dead on some fence. ;)


 * Mind telling me what you did study?
 * And what's a leaking river?
 * And – to not forget our roots – how's Anissa?

CompleCCity (talk) 13:51, February 17, 2017 (UTC)

Gender and Geography
I fully agree with you that having lots of feminine traits makes a man a better human being, and is clearly an advantage. But then, I have to agree: I married such a man! :D FWIW, most men might call a conversation "great" or "enjoyable." "Lovely" doesn't actually mean anything related to "love" or "like" (anymore). It's actually "beautiful" or (in our context) "delightful."

Um, is mentioning the name of my city (w/ a population of hundreds of thousands) actually a security risk? When my last name does not appear in a public way? If so, please delete my comment from your talk page. And I'll change my profile! I didn't mean to pressure you for info you thought was imprudent -- forgive me!

Compounding my foolishness, perhaps: I studied English & German (literature) at a Minnesota college, although I started in Linguistics at Konstanz. I went on to take the classes I needed for a doctorate in Linguistics -- but never got a graduate degree :( -- at Northwestern University, in the Chicago area. I know that German education arranges things differently from our BA, MA, PhD. Did you go to a university? Do you feel like telling me where or in what?

Wow, you live in the area your family is from. I envy you the rootedness. I don't live that far from the city that my great-grandparents moved to when they immigrated (Chicago), all things considered -- only 350 miles. But still, my roots in this country can't go back any further than them.

And I envy you the old architecture. When I studied in Konstanz, it was so much fun for me that going to get groceries I had to turn right at the 17th-century building. I got so used to the route, it became blase for me. I guess there may be 17th-century buildings in a few places (maybe?) on the east coast of the US, but even there you're much more likely to find 18th-century ones -- and of course those are "landmarks" and set carefully apart from everyday use. Growing up in the Midwest, which wasn't settled (by Europeans) until the 19th century, I've literally toured 19th century homes as special monuments to the past. But in Konstanz, something from the 17th century was just the place to turn to get to the grocery store. Quite a contrast! "Oh, no museums here, no -- 'just' a cathedral and a castle and a palace." (Oh, do I envy you the architecture!)

I've heard it said that in America, 100 years is a long time, while in Europe, 100 miles is a long way. I think both are true! And what about 100,000 people? Is that a big city to you, or not? Here, it's nothing special.

I admit, I've gotten to be a homebody. Downtown is sooo crowded, I just don't want to face it that much. I've missed museum exhibits I regret. Of course, I've also missed movies I regret, and I don't have an excuse! :( I actually have no interest in sports either, to be honest. Although my interest perked up when the Chicago Cubs fought the Cleveland Indians in baseball's so-called World Series last fall. BOTH teams are chronic losers. And I had the attitude that this time, I couldn't lose; "my" team was going to win, no matter what. The Cubs have a longer losing streak than the Indians, so I was glad they won in the end -- but it took them all the way to the last possible minute. I don't think the Indians lost, really -- they could still hold their heads high over it. It was fabulous!

Saying that Chicago is the city where the river leaks is a way of poking fun at the city (affectionately, in my case). The city is built on a swamp. So street level has to be well above ground level, although that's something most citizens didn't know. I mean, we walk around on the street, right? Who knew that there were levels of sub-basements & tunnels deep below, all the way down past water level to bedrock? It's cool for a railfan like me; the tunnels were actually built to house a private railroad that helped to install electrical & phone cables for all the downtown buildings, and then ferried coal-dust away from them (back when we used coal-fired furnaces). Once the railroad was shut down in the 1950's, only a handful of inspectors paid any attention to the tunnels. Management for a lot of the buildings -- including the major department stores and the Chicago Board of Trade (nation-wide exchange for commodities) -- theoretically had bricked up their opening to the tunnels. But, as it turns out, not in a way that was waterproof. Ooops! Well, you also have to know that the Chicago river runs through the city. (Thanks to thoroughly illegal 19th-century engineering, it drains water away from Lake Michigan and the swamp and takes it off to other rivers and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.) Well, some contractor broke open a hole in the wall between the river & those tunnels lying below water-level, and... gravity happened. (Not that the flood was instant; it started out a very small hole. If the inspectors had been vigilant... But they weren't.) Because of the electrical cables, the entire downtown area of Chicago had to lose power while they tried to drain the water out of the tunnels and some very big sub-basements. The entire downtown area of the nation's 3rd largest city got its power cut for days. All kinds of records had been stored in those basements, too -- and not in waterproof storage. Other cities just have hurricanes or tornadoes -- WE had a river that leaked! Bitter Lily (talk) 18:54, February 17, 2017 (UTC)


 * Today I make this one here first priority. Have to answer some questions, have I?
 * The last days were filled with browsing the Nexus and deciding which mod to install and which not – and I ended up with the same setting I used for my last playthrough, some two years ago, with one change for the AddItem script and some minor additional fixes. And a HUGE list of to-do mods, that I have to take a closer look into.
 * And I've started a game with a Dalish ranger, but am yet struggling again with decisions like: should he have a vallaslin, is his hair color black or brown, and so on…
 * But now back to topic…


 * I take your second paragraph there above as irony, at least in parts. There's no need for excuses or calling anybody foolish or alike.
 * Nevertheless I will elaborate on some points, and more…
 * I should have left you an explanation for why I removed your signature for editing the header on my talk page. Signatures are placed to – who would have thought of this – sign a post or comment on talk pages and in the fora. Other people's comments shouldn't be edited or removed by anybody. This doesn't apply to minor changes in e.g. formatting. Or placing or renaming a header for better reading or browsing. If you add something to your old comment that's more than just a missing word or comma, then you certainly should sign this edit. But not that one, that was redundant. And you always… Everybody always can take a look into a page's history to see what changes have been made.
 * And this would be the reason why deleting your comment from my talk would be useless. Okay, it's no more visible in the first place, and would need some research to find it, but the information would still be there.


 * Our talk made me change my profile. As the most wikis I'm contributing to are English wikis, I've changed "männlich" to "male" and "Niedersachsen" to "Lower Saxony".
 * No, I still didn't add the city. I simply don't want it to appear somewhere in conjunction with my pseudonym. If you do a Google search for me you find quite a lot of entries. Last time I looked, they were – except one, which was some typo – indeed all related to me. And I think, Lower Saxony's close enough to retain some anonymity.
 * Anybody, familiar with the region I live in or smart enough to use a map, and who has read my above description (and the following) would know my city's name anyway. But it is not mentioned verbatim, not named explicitely. And thus no search machine is able to use that information. That's why.
 * We have around double the population of what Wolfsburg has, but only less than the half of another city nearby. And around two-thirds of Cleveland. Though being a "Großstadt" by definition (Why's there no specific term for this in English? – Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. There are 77 of them in Germany.), it often doesn't feel like this. Hardly to go shopping or something without meeting someone you know. (This sentence correct?)
 * I don't know the etiquette for this, but I'm breaking in on your comment to guess that you mean: "It's hard to go shopping..." -- Bitter Lily (talk) 21:10, February 21, 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see talking about studies as foolish, anyway. So I will, too.
 * The graduation system has changed, out of globalization reasons and for conformity within the European Union, and we now have BA and MA, too, don't know about PhD. But that was after my time at universities.
 * I've tried three paths – informatics at Saarbrücken, architecture and psychology here –, but didn't made it to a degree, neither. (And yours and my reasons for this should probably remain un-publicly. )
 * Mind telling me what brought you to study in Konstanz, a German city?


 * We differ somehow in our mind and the way to see certain things. Partially this might be, because you're from the U.S., and I am from Germany. (There surely will be more reasons. No, not because of our genders. I don't see that many differences in general between females and males. Besides the physical aspects, of course. )
 * This, for example, affects our points of view regarding family and roots. I don't see the fact, living here, around 30 miles away from my parents and my brother's family, as "rootedness". It happened out of practicle reasons, I could have stayed in Saarbrücken as well, or moved to e.g. Berlin. (That indeed was an idea, somewhere in my past.) I was a trainee in Barcelona, in the late 80's – and I liked it there a lot. If I hadn't had a college place in Germany, back then, I probably had stayed. (Great architecture, there, as well. Lovely city! )


 * That statement about 100 years and miles sounds true. (Though in Europe no one uses "miles", we have kilometers here. And, yes, that distance I mentioned above is converted.)


 * I don't know the reasons for why you are using words, I have to look after more often, than other people I communicate with in English. (But, please, don't change this!) "Homebody" is one of them. No, actually I didn't have to look after it, it's self-explanatory, but at least I didn't know it before.
 * So, from couch potato to couch potato, I share your regrets and lack of excuses about missed movies and other opportunities. Somehow my life has become really computer focussed. Gaming's not bad, though, but there are attractive possibilities to spend the time in the city, too. Well, it's springtime soon – I'll see…
 * But no sports. No. I absolutely don't have any interest in our local soccer club (or even the football one), and I don't watch European or world championships, neither. No olympics, too. And I lack the knowledge about club histories and all sports related things, to be able to talk about. The orange category in Trivial Pursuit is not a friend of mine…


 * When did that leaking river incident took place? I can't tell from your (delightful) story, may be back in history or during your lifetime…
 * And you're a "railfan"? In Germany those are looked upon… um… with a little suspect. (And they're usually male.) Similar to stamp fanciers. No offense intended! I myself had some rail transport models in my childhood and own a small stamp collection, inherited from my mother and gathering dust somewhere in the attic, figuratively speaking.


 * I will be back to your comment on my talk page later, perhaps tomorrow, and will expand on our forum, too. But now there are some other things to do. And maybe I will play a bit – after I've made some serious decisions. --CompleCCity (talk) 14:53, February 21, 2017 (UTC)


 * Some quick notes, and then I have to run... I'll come back for the longer stuff. (I "wasted" all my time this afternoon looking through Wikipedia entries to solve the lovely puzzle you set for me! I think I've found your hometown, although Wiki makes it look like you have only the front of a palace -- but also an abbey that you didn't think to mention. And the whole time I was making goo-goo eyes* at the gorgeous architecture all over Lower Saxony! (*There I go again! I'm sorry my English is so challenging to you. I was just telling my husband how impressive your command of my language was, while my command of yours had degraded so badly! So I make you constantly "look words up," do I? I am sorry... But, OK, I won't change! :) )


 * Tell me you went with Valleslin! Please! You don't want the Hero of Ferelden to be some punk kid, do you?


 * While I'm busy leaving emoticons, is there a list somewhere of what to use to get them? I saw your wink, but I don't know what to type for :) or :D.


 * I did get a BA in English & German. (The latter being why I spent a semester in Konstanz; it's the Uni my college used for semesters abroad in Germany.) I didn't get a PhD, partly because I was studying theoretical Linguistics (syntax or grammar), which is about as job-worthy as theoretical Physics (maybe less). When I discovered how hard it was to get a college or university teaching job, my interest in actually writing a dissertation leaked right out of me. Now if I had only gone into Computer Linguistics, all would have gone differently... (OK, there were a whole complex of reasons; that one's true, but the only part I'll mention here.) But oh, syntax was fun! And a wonderfully rigorous training program in sheer analysis of complex data.


 * Thanks for the geographical auto-biography! As for Großstadt, there IS an English word for it: city. I mean, to be a city, you've got to have at least 100,000 residents. (Although Wiki is a lot more coy about committing to a numeric threshold -- I admit, there are whole states that don't have any such urban area, and I suppose the residents still think of their bigger towns as "cities.") And according to Wiki on US Cities over 100,000, 304 US cities fit that def now -- and I learned that some places I thought of as cities apparently don't fit it anymore, as population in the Midwest shrinks and drains away to the South. Ten have at least 1,000,000, or we could go for a meaningful threshold of 200,000 (116 cities), I suppose. So it looks like what I wondered is true: yes, a city of more than 100,000 residents is a big city to you, but not that special to us. The distinctions in scale can be so odd...


 * Yes, the leak was during my years in Chicago (1992) -- I'll see if I can link it -- Wiki on the Chicago Flood. I'm glad you found my story delightful - but have I scared you away from using "lovely"?


 * So railfans are looked upon with suspicion in Germany, are we? Suspicion of what? Being terrorists? Criminals? Eco-criminals? Now, usually male... yes, that's true here, too.


 * I have a bit of youthful history riding passenger trains here or there, but I didn't become a fan of railroads until I met my husband. Now, he played all kinds of board-games, and I had played some. So we started playing games together, and I discovered that his (many) train-games were more fun for me than his wargames or other "knock the other guy down" games were. In most train-games, your goal is to build the best position for yourself that you can, better than what the other players build for themselves. In other words, they're still competitive -- but there's little you can do to even block another player, much less eliminate them from the game. So naturally, Debnor (his user-name) shrugged and started focusing his interests on train-games! But then I took it a step further, and wanted to experience trains from railroading's history. Especially after I found a truly lovely rail museum not far away from Chicago. And we went to Scotland the summer after we got married and had an incredible steam train ride through the Scottish highlands. Nonetheless, the hard-core railfans would consider us diletanttes, I'm afraid.
 * -- Bitter Lily (talk) 23:29, February 21, 2017 (UTC)

NMM et al.
Though I wanted to reply to other topics first, this seems urgent…

It appears to me you and your husband are using the same user account (on a Windows PC) and are playing the game, with possibly the same EA account as well, through Nexus Mod Manager.

NMM has a profile feature. (Haven't installed it right now, so I can only tell from memory.) It's on the top menu, one of the icons there. So what you could do would be, giving the current profile a name, your husband's for example, then create a new profile with your name. This at first will be a 1:1 copy of the source profile, but here you can (de-)activate mods without them being (de-)activated on the other profile.

It's a little more complicated for mods with empty folders. If you install a mod that's already there, but with a mysteriously empty folder, you would have to give it another name – by installing it manually, from a folder/download. Meaning, you don't chose the "Download with manager" option on the mod's page, instead "download manually" and save it to a certain directory. In NMM chose the "Install from folder" (or alike) option, move to the download directory and chose the file, then in NMM give it another name than the default one, when installing, so that it doesn't overwrite the old version of this mod, the one with an empty folder. Do this for all mods that seem to be corrupted.

Only thing you have to keep in mind afterwards is, you both always need to switch to your personal NMM profile before launching your game.

Sounds too complicated? I'm open for questions about it, and I've done some years of computer support, so I might be able to help you with this. --CompleCCity (talk) 06:56, February 24, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your concern, City. OK, CompleCCity. Yes, my husband & I share the same email address, which means we have to share the same account on a lot of sites, including EA. (And yes, the phone company will give us subsidiary email addresses for free, but it is more convenient for us to share one email address that we can REMEMBER and actually check for mail... every so often...) So I just don't want to fuss with NMM. Surely, I can simply uninstall the mysteriously purloined* mods, delete the folders, and install the mods afresh so much more easily. (*Now I'm trying hard -- "purloined" is an old word for "stolen" that we learn in high school and never, ever use. ) But I want to wait till after my husband is done with his game, just to be safe.


 * And I'll have to start my game over, anyway. As an example, one of the mods I'm missing is the one that makes your Warden's keepsake worth keeping and wearing; I noticed in the notes that you have to activate the mod before the Joining. Since I've only gotten as far as finishing Ostagar, it's not heart-breaking to start over. And it would be far more annoying to play the entire game through gnashing my teeth over a mere +2 Con! Or to abandon Daveth, and wear something else. (I do recommend playing a game where your PC joins the Wardens wholeheartedly. It makes that Joining cutscene so poignant and meaningful.)


 * Hmmm, when I do start over, I'll have to learn to try for screen-shots for my profile! (Talk about needing computer support...) So again, Auf Wiedersehen! -- Bitter Lily (talk) 15:05, February 24, 2017 (UTC)