[quote]Finally, Syd was sent to the crime-riddled city of Markarth on an important mission. There she met a blonde, blue-eyed young woman named Muiri who desired the death of her former lover, a man who had used her to get close to her adoptive family and steal their valuables. Just killing the man would have fulfilled the Brotherhood’s obligation, but Syd also murdered another of Muiri’s enemies, the adoptive sister who had forced her out of the family. Pleased by the demise of both of her foes, Muiri rewarded Syd for her efforts with an enchanted ring and promised never to forget her. Some time later, Syd returned to Markarth and requested Muiri’s hand in marriage. (Yes, this game lets you get gay married.) The two wed and settled in an ostentatious manor in the capital, Solitude. They adopted two orphaned children Syd had seen wandering the streets in her travels. Syd, the consummate warrior, had never imagined herself taking a wife or raising children, but something she saw in the determined face of the woman who had made her the instrument of her revenge had changed her mind. Perhaps they shared a certain ferocity. The first time I played Skyrim, when I was a teenager, I married Farkas, the least obnoxious male member of the Companions. (Yes, my closetedness extended to video games.) But this time, as Syd, I chose Muiri, and for obvious reasons: she was as close as any NPC (non-player character, for the uninitiated) could be to a dead-ringer for my college crush. Marrying Muiri seemed then to be the closest I would ever come not only to winning the affections of the girl I loved, but to any experience of requited love. When the ceremony was over, I felt accomplished, as though I’d finished building the fantasy life I hadn’t known I wanted. But I was also inevitably and painfully envious of my in-game alter ego. Who would I have to kill to earn a love like that? I didn’t go into the bathroom intending to kill myself. It was meant to be a practice cut, just to get used to the sensation, a rehearsal for the as-yet-unscheduled performance. I was so drunk and so enraged at myself for being deficient in so many ways, but I still struggled to mete out the punishment I thought I deserved. I went to bed feeling like a failure — too worthless to live, too weak to die. The next day, I got high and sat in the backyard, sipping coffee and staring at the roses. They’d only just bloomed, but already they were wilting in the heat. I decided that my failure the night before meant that although I wanted to die, my body wanted to live. All the layers of flesh that barricade my veins, the unbearable pain that attacked me as the point of the knife approached them: defenses set up to protect me from myself. Since my body had won the battle, I called a truce and stopped the war. I dedicated a week or two to learning to enjoy being in my body again. I ate slowly. I smoked less. I sat in the yard, warmed myself in the sunlight, and looked at the roses. I didn’t stop playing Skyrim after that night, but I did stop seeing my avatar as the embodiment of masculine perfection I could never attain and started seeing the life I built for her as a reflection of my unacknowledged desires, a road map to accepting and improving the butch woman I am instead of worshipping one I could never be. I started exercising and eventually picked up boxing. I set up an OkCupid profile and started dating. Nearly nine months after I’d arrived at my parents’ house, I got a job. I moved out the following summer. Doing these things made me feel stronger, more confident, more comfortable in my body and the clothing I choose for it, but I’ve since realized that the quality I most needed to take from Syd wasn’t her physical power or presumed sexual prowess. I didn’t need to be more like Syd at her peak, when she could go into any fight certain that she would be the last woman standing. I needed to emulate her at the beginning, when every battle was a struggle and just lifting that massive axe required an almost impossible amount of effort, when she would get knocked down again and again and keep getting up to take another swing at some monster twice her size. I didn’t need her confidence. I needed her persistence, her dedication to improving herself one battle at a time. It’s impossible to overstate now how glad I am that in those dark days, when death called to me constantly, I listened to the insistent beat of my heart and heard an injunction to live. I know many of you may not be able to relate to my love of a game that revolves around fighting dragons and collecting treasure, but I don’t know any gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer people who have never wrestled with themselves the way I did then, never been ordered by the repressive voices in the world or in their minds to justify their own existence. By offering me a non-judgmental, nearly unlimited stage on which to craft a show in which I was both star and audience, Skyrim enabled me to confront my fears of weakness and loneliness by enacting my fantasies of limitless strength and storybook romance. All of the strengths I imparted to Syd were my own perceived weaknesses. She was powerful because I saw myself as powerless, beautiful because I saw myself as ugly, loved because I saw myself as unlovable. But creating her inspired me to re-create myself, and loving her, loving this dark-skinned, undeniably masculine woman with my face, made it possible to imagine one day loving myself. I’ll never really be like Syd — my battles are fought with words, not axes — but being her for a few months gave me the courage to try again to be myself. And I’d like to think that in some alternate universe, Syd’s still out there in the mountains, slaying dragons, splitting skulls, and going home to her beautiful bride.[/quote]