#and i have nothing to do with M. in rdo anymore

[rdr2screenshotscollection]

You have the best game in a niche that has one of the most consistent and dedicated fanbases. You make the single player one of the best games in the fucking decade, if not in gaming history as a whole...

And then, instead of giving even 1/5 of the attention you gave GTAO, you just toss RDO in the garbage.

You have a golden goose (that you made) and instead of feeding it properly and caring for its health, you just yeet it in a muddy pen and wait for what exactly? To be as successful as GTAO when you pay it as little attention as possible?

And when it doesn't meet your financial expectations, you just toss it on the road and wash your hands.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Like, we knew what was going on back when they stopped with the passes but it still stinks reading their latest newswire.

[12timetraveler]

Faced a lot of Griefers on RDO tonight and I just needed some sweet Flaco to make it better. Nothing fancy or long, just short and sweet. 

Also I did my best to keep this reader gender neutral. 

You held your side tightly, despite the burning pain that it caused. Eyes narrowed against the blizzard before you, other hand held out to try to shield you from the snow, you stumbled and limped to the top of the hill. God you hoped you really were where you thought you were. If Cairn Lodge wasn’t just over this hill, you were dead. If you didn’t bleed out, you’d freeze to death. You’d likely already have been mauled by wolves who followed your bloody tracks through the snow, if the blizzard hadn’t pushed them into their dens. 

You could cry with joy when you crested the hill and saw the faint outline of Cairn Lodge across the frozen lake. Maybe, just maybe, your boss would let you shelter here and nurse your wounds while the storm blew over. Flaco put up a tough, angry exterior, but as you’d come to know him, you’d found he was actually... sweet. You doubted he’d kick you out in this storm. 

You staggered down the hill, moving as quickly as your frozen feet and injured knee would let you. You let out a squawk as your foot came in contact with a rock, while the other one lost its grip in the slippery snow. You did the splits for a moment, before you went tumbling down the hill. What was a couple more bruises at this point? You were already covered head to toe. 

You lay face down in the snow for a minute, gathering the strength to pull yourself up to your feet once more. It would be so easy to just... not. The cold snow was numbing your side, numbing all your injuries. It would be quite easy to just slip away. 

No. You’d never been one to give up before, and you were so close to shelter. With an agonized groan, you pushed yourself up out of the snow and shakily to your feet. A pool of blood stained the snow where you’d been laying, coming from the wound in your side. You stumbled toward the cabin, nearly losing your footing, but by some luck managing to keep it. You weren’t sure you’d be able to force yourself to your feet again. 

Finally you reached the cabin. You fell against the door, feet not wanting to pick themselves up anymore, and fell face-first into the cabin, letting out a little cry of pain as you hit the floor. Your side screamed in agony, and you clutched at your wound. 

You heard Flaco gasp out your name, and heard the thunk of his boots as he moved to your side. You let out another cry of pain as Flaco rolled you over onto your back. He took in your state in one glance, brows furrowing, all business. 

“Who did this?” He growled. “What happened?”

“Posse of men,” you managed, speaking through clenched teeth and barely suppressed groans of pain. “Ambushed me... little north of Lake Isabella.” You tried to explain. “Shot me. Beat me. Outnumbered. Blizzard hit. Stole my horse. Left me to die.” You grabbed Flaco’s arm, pulling yourself up. “I’ll be okay I just... need some shelter... ah!” You cried out in pain as your movements jostled your wound once more. You would have fallen back to the floor if Flaco hadn’t caught you. 

“Don’t move, you fool,” Flaco growled, pulling you into his arms and carrying you to lie down on his cot. You cried out once more when he set you down, your side wound screaming in pain. “Sorry, sorry,” Flaco mumbled, grabbing his bottle of whiskey. “Here. It’l help with the pain.” He said, helping you sit up just enough to drink some. The whiskey warmed you instantly. But it also made you drowsy. Or maybe that was the blood loss.

“‘M not...” You mumbled, the world becoming fuzzy. “‘M not weak.” You said. 

“What?” Flaco said. You didn’t miss the concern that passed over his face as your eye went in and out of focus. 

“‘M not weak. “M not. ‘M no...” You trailed off as you fell into darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next few days were restless, even if you spent most of it unconscious. You were hot, always trying to throw the big warm pelts off of you. You remembered strong hands pinning you down, bundling you up, making sure you couldn’t get out of them. 

A voice, familiar yet strange, near but distant, firm yet gentle talked to you, though you had no idea what it had said. Eventually the restless, fitful sleeps shifted into peaceful, whole sleeps. 

When you finally did wake up, well and truly wake up, you were immediately aware of the pain in your side. You let out a little whimper, squirming in bed, trying to get away from whatever was hurting you. As you senses came back, you remembered the wound in your side. 

“Can you hear me?” A warm voice asked. Slowly you opened your eyes, brows pinched in pain. Flaco leaned over you, eyes soft with worry. You groaned, but nodded. “How do you feel?” 

“Like I was hit by a train.” You mumbled, voice hoarse with disuse. You pushed yourself up against the pillow so you were reclining, not quite sitting up, but up enough that you could meet Flaco’s gaze without him leaning over you. 

“No offense, but you look like it.” Flaco chuckled. His shoulders visibly dropped, and you could practically see the stress melt away. “Here, drink this.” He said, uncorking a bottle of tonic and handing it to you. You brought the bottle to your lips and tossed your head back, downing the bitter liquid without letting it touch your tongue, then handed him back the bottle. 

“How long...” You asked after a moment. 

“Four days.” Flaco answered. Your eyes widened. “That wound in your side was bad. Real bad. You were nearly frozen to death when you stumbled in here. I was pretty sure you were gonna die there,” Flaco admitted, gesturing to the bed where you lay. “You had a fever. Lost a lot of blood. It wasn’t good. But after the storm passed, another of my employees came up here looking for work. I sent them for the nearest doctor. He stitched you up and gave you something that brought your fever down.” Flaco explained. 

“Thank you,” You said. Flaco waved you off. 

“Bah. Of course. I help my amigos.” He huffed. The two of you were quiet for a minute. “What do you remember?” He asked. 

“I was on my way up here to work a couple jobs, do some treasure hunting and regular hunting. Just the usual.” You explained. “I came across a posse on my way up here. They ambushed me, shot me, chased me up around Lake Isabella. They lassoed me off my horse. I think they would have kidnaped me, but I fought back. That only made them angry though. So they beat me.” You were quiet for a moment. “I think they would have killed me, had the storm not rolled in. They stole my horse and left me there to die.” 

“Don’t worry, those bastardos won’t find you here.” Flaco assured you. You hummed and nodded. 

The cabin was quiet a moment, before Flaco spoke again. 

“Before you passed out, you said something about not being weak.” Flaco said. “What did you mean.” You sighed and looked away. 

“I didn’t want you to think I was weak or incapable, just because I was hurt and asking for help,” you said. 

“Hey, I’d never think that,” Flaco assured you, patting your hand. “You’re my most trusted employee. You’ve never let me down.” He said. You just hummed in response. "Don't worry. I don't think any less of you. We all can get caught off guard sometimes. Happens to the best of us." Flaco assured you. "For now just take it easy. You can stay here until you're ready to head back out there. And don't worry about the bastards that did this. They've been taken care of."

“Thank you, Flaco,” You said. You reached up and grabbed his coat, pulling him towards you, pulling yourself up as much as you could to meet him. You planted a small kiss on his cheek. You weren’t sure what possessed you to do it. You’d been sweet on the old gunslinger forever, but you’d never acted on it. Maybe it was the near death experience, or the waning fever that gave you the confidence to kiss his cheek. 

Flaco blinked at you as you let him go and flopped back down on the pillow. Slowly his face morphed into a shy smile, unable to meet your gaze as he pushed himself to his feet. 

“I’ll, uh... I’ve got some beans. I’ll cook us up something to eat.” He said, ducking his head under his sombrero and walking across the room. You just watched him, a small smile on your face as he busied himself making you some food.

Who would have thought the Terror of the Grizzlies would be so cute? 

[enchantment1385]

My most magnificent mega must (have) mods memo.

So, I’ve been putting this off (big surprise!), but the time has come! I am going to try and provide some recommendations of my favorite mods. Mods I will not play the game without, or mods I love so much, I can’t recommend them highly enough! Hopefully some of you will find a new excuse to play one of these games again! I will split the list up into games so you skip if you don’t play a certain game. Again, these are my personal recommendations, so please don’t get all bent out of shape over this people. I also won’t be adding the very amazing utility mods (such as SkyUI or mcm or mod organizers) as I feel these are required mods. Today's installment -  

~Skyrim~

VIGILANT  +  VIGILANT Voiced - English Addon Okay, where do I start with the amazingingness of the mod? It’s massive, compelling, scary (chapter 3 holy fucking shitballs, batman!), and just absolutely perfectly executed on every level horror mod! This is not a mod you complete in a couple of hours, this you need to put aside a day or 2 and go through all 5 chapters! 1 guy made this. 1 awesome japanese dovha, alas it’s not as adored as it should be as, when originally released, the english subtitles (literally translations from Google) didn’t really translate well... or at all at some points. Hence why you need the voiced addon which makes this mod a 15+ hour, fully awesomely voiced adventure to seek out daedra, and be physically, and morally tested by the one and only Daedric Prince of domination, Molag Bal. Your choices WILL affect the outcome. This mod gives you everything you want from a mod. New weapons, new armour, new enemies, dark soul like boss battles, new places, new people, new land. With Halloween quickly approaching, this is the perfect time to give this a shot! 

Legacy of the Dragonborn

I stayed away from this mod for SO long thinking it was just a massive oversize player home to put all your crap on display. I was wrong. I was SO wrong. This mod is the ultimate scavenger hunt turned up to 11. It adds some of the best mods out there and puts them all together to make you WANT to go find that bloody staff, or helm, because A, it now looks amazing, and B, there’s a place for EVERYTHING in the museum, it must be filled! It adds old relics, new quests, a very gorgeous fair sized player home, you get to go to Elsweyr, and even get an airship you CAN use later! And trust me when I say, there is nothing that looks quite as impressive as your dovah walking around a city with your massive ass airship looming overhead. The way everything gets placed into the world is fucking flawless, and if you’re bored or just want more out of Skyrim, this is the mod that does that, and WAY more. Also a massive bonus, it has several patches for other mods that didn’t get incorporated (vigilant being among them) to add extra wings for you to display the items from other mods! 

Interesting NPCs

Another mod I stupidly avoided to begin with. So as we know, vanilla followers are... meh. But now with all these new battles and exploring you have to do, you might want someone watching your back, right? Forget vanilla, time to go interesting! This mod adds -

• 250+ Voiced NPCs • 25+ Followers with Location Based Commentary • 15+ Marriage NPCs 

This mod makes Skyrim feel inhabited, but with REAL people. People who you can, should, and will want to talk to. The voice acting is just fantastic, the characters are an absolute joy, they fit into the world so perfectly you’d never know they weren’t there all along! Well... Except for the fact they’re actually interesting, and have more than 5 things to say! It also has something called ‘Super Followers’. These followers actually comment on what’s happening in your story. Just about to go kill your first dragon? They have something to say about it. Just joined the college of mages? Have a chat to see what they think! I can not express how much this will change your game, but 151% for the fucking better! Oh! And just in case you were running short on things to do, this also adds 50+ more quests! *(footnote) Pleaaassssee go to Soljund's Sinkhole and take Rumarin with you. What he says when you clear that place out has me laughing my ass off every time.

Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul

Are you tired of being the only one is Skyrim who actually seems to DO anything? Are you weirded out by the fact when you walk into an inn at 4am everyone is doing the same thing as they were at 2pm last week? Confused as hell by the comment ‘Do you hunt? The plains outside Whiterun are ripe with game.’ How the fuck would you know, Anoriath?! You never leave Whiterun, dude! EVER! That ends with this mod. Now people have routines. They sleep, they eat, they walk around, they don’t just stay in one place all the time! It makes the npc’s go from a static feature and changes them into actual people, or goes a long way to help! Even people like carriage drivers now have a lil tent near the carriage, and will even take shelter under cover if it starts raining. (if it’s not too far from the carriage!) Random people will now not try and fight the big dragon who is burning everything to a crisp, but instead run away and take shelter, you know, like a normal person would? Which is helpful, as I tend to hit them with a stray spell then get into shit for accidentally electrocuting the blacksmith or someone who shouldn’t have stood in the way of the MASSIVE FUCKING DRAGON IN THE FIRST PLACE! Anyway... This mod is awesome and makes all the vanilla npc’s less static and weird!  

Relationship Dialogue Overhaul - RDO

Don’t know about you but, I’m kinda bored with the dialogue in this game. The same 5 lines on repeat, over and over and OVER again. I want people who hate me to say something a bit more nasty that ‘What do YOU want?’ This mod adds over 5000 lines of dialog that was never used. Braith finally has more insults to throw at you! Which is great, because I hate that kid and now you will too! Your rivals will be rude to you. Your friends will compliment you. And your spouse will finally say more than a handful of lines to you! With this and the AI overhaul Skyrim will finally feel like it’s come alive. It seems like such a small addition, but it makes a huge impact when you hear lines that you’ve never heard before! 

PC Head Tracking and Voice Type &  Expressive Facial Animation (M)  (F)

So we’ve finally got a living breathing Skyrim, and holy shit, it’s a beautiful thing, right? Time to focus on bringing you to life. Don’t know about you, but I found it plain fucking odd that I didn’t ever look at the person who’s talking to me. Like, not even accidently. I also found it creepy the only time I ever made any sound whatsoever was when I shouted. So the first mod is going to fix that shit. You’ll finally look at the person talking to you, or at that dagger you’re just about to steal. What's more, you’ll be able to assign a voice to yourself, so you’ll greet people who talk to you. Fun doesn’t stop there! You can download voice packs such as, Ciri, Yenifer and loads of others! But... What if you know who you want them to sound like and there isn’t a pack for them? Well, make your own! The page is really good and explains how. So we’re not a clueless goon anymore, we look and talk, but that basically makes us no better than the T 800 terminator. The second mod will make you actually have emotions, instead of constant blank face. You’ll smile at friends and loved ones, and scowl at people who you hate, like you Elrindir. For the last time, I didn’t mean to steal the fucking apple pie! But I think me spending HUNDREDS of gold should have made up for that and did NOT warrant you sending a group of thugs to come kick the shit out of me!  Sorry. Just... Some unfinished business between me and that bastard bosmer. 

Enhanced Lights and FX

I have a potato as a laptop, as such a lot of these amazing ENB’s are totally off the table for me. But... We all deserve a pretty Skyrim, right? Fuck yes we do! And this is the mod that does that for me. So there are two versions of this bad boy, and you will really want to think about which one you want to go for. You’ve got standard, or hardcore. The MAIN difference is, the hardcore version will make dungeons dark. No, I mean pitch black darkness. Really think you know bleak fall barrow? Install hardcore then go run through it. It make sense that it would be dark down in these places, but fuck me dark is now really dark, which I personally love, but you might not. Install at least the main file and the weather mod and I guarantee when you boot your game back up you’ll be saying ‘wow’.  

Enhanced Character Edit  OR  RaceMenu

Okay, first off you only need one or the other NOT both. Here’s the difference. If you want to make a character that looks like they’re from FFXV or korean mmo, you’ll want to get Enhanced character edit. They’re all so damn pretty! Even the men are pretty! If you want something a little less cute looking and maybe more mature, Racemenu is character creator for you. Both give you a TON more customization when creating your new oc, down to finger and toe length and what’s not to love about that?? 

Enhanced Camera

You finally have a body in first person mode. not just hands when attacking. Which FYI Bethesda, is creepy as fuck. Next mod. 

Familiar Faces

Right, last one as we could be here forever, but I need to do more of these things for other games so let's finish with something stupid, but awesome, shall we? You know who’d make the best companion? That spellsword character you made. Or the sneaky archer. Or that tanky as fuck warrior, but they’re on that other save.. No more! When you fire up the game with this mod installed, you get a portal stone placed in your inventory. Use it and get get warped into this empty hall. Go to any of the books on the pedestals and hit yes when prompted. You, your abilities, spells, shouts, game progress and inventory has just been recorded. Load up another save and do the same in a different book, then you can go recruit... you! You can even make yourself marribale! Got that perfect otp? Create them both and have them travel around with you! Want them to use their shouts? No problem! Want them to not use shouts? That’s fine too! Isn’t that overpowered? Who gives a flying fuck?! 

Now go have fun in Tamriel, Bahlaan fahdonne!