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unsettlingcreature · 27 days ago

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This probably isn't what anon expected but I don't know any other way to explain what mods I have and why.

Foreword

This post will be a comprehensive overview of the mods that I use for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (AE) and why I choose these mods specifically.

When I play Skyrim, I'm looking for survival-gameplay and a level of realism that can't be found in the base game. I dislike the idea that my character can defeat Alduin, Miraak and Harkon, as well as all manner of other enemies from both vanilla questlines and modded, in the span of a few months or years. As such, my aim is to make Skyrim a dangerous land that takes years to fully explore where my character will struggle to survive before they can thrive.

With the mods below, you'll find that you fall into a nice gameplay loop of exploring dangerous dungeons and completing quests while camping, returning to safety to rest and deal with non-fighting related business, and finally planning your journey for the next quest.

This post is split into the following sections:

Character creation

Survival

Non-combat mods

Travel

Combat

Weather

Miscellaneous

This post doesn't include:

Tutorials for installing any of the mods mentioned

Mentions of per-requisite files, compatibility patches or bug-fixes

Aesthetic/visual mods (such as retextures, city overhauls, new armour/clothing or animation replacers)

Companion mods, story/quest mods or expansions

Character creation

I'll quickly mention the race overhaul that I use - Aetherius. I like that each race is instead given a passive ability rather than the powers in vanilla Skyrim.

First, there's the Alternate Start mod. I like this as it not only allows me to skip the opening cutscene which I've seen far too many times, but also lets me start to think about what my character was doing before the start of the game. Starting with a faction or property in any of the holds allows for an easier start but typically I'll go for something that drops me right into the thick of it.

Immediately upon spawning in the world, I activate Dealing With Backstories to further flesh out my character's history. You'll start with detailing your character's childhood, from their parent's station in life to the chores and hobbies they had at a young age. You can start immediately with the "Coming of Age" stage or further flesh out more of their life. Something I love about DwB is that you can reactivate the mod to simulate time passing - which I love doing after completing a few major questlines.

Next, I make a point to travel to Riverwood - not just to start off the MSQ but also to choose my starting Patron God in Blackfall Temple. Rather than having to curry favour with the gods, this simply has you select your patron god (which can be changed at any time). It's simple and non-intrusive - something that's nice compared to the many other mods I have!

Survival

The absolute core of this comes down to three mods: Frostfall, Last Seed and Wounds.

Frostfall is pretty simple in that it's the mod that makes your character feel cold. You'll need to prepare for journeys to the colder parts of the province with warm clothing and plans for setting up camp once you can't tolerate the cold anymore.

Last Seed handles your main needs - Hunger, Thirst and Fatigue (with each being linked to health, stamina and magicka respectively). It also has other features, such as diseases which grow in severity the longer you go without rest or vitality which serves as an overview of your character's overall wellness - with support for Frostfall and multiple other mods that will be mentioned in this section, allowing them also to contribute to your wellbeing!

In order to keep your character fed, I recommend using Simple Hunting Overhaul which allows you to hunt animals for meat, as well as sell their carcasses for money. Combined with Skills of the Wild, you'll find your character improving as a hunter, allowing them to skin/butcher animals with more efficiency (and saving daylight in the process). I will warn that this does remove the compass and HUD - meaning you'll have to rely on the map and landmarks to navigate! I used to hate this but now I love getting lost.

The last of our core survival trio is Wounds which makes it so you can be injured in a variety of ways from bruises to concussions to broken bones. Similarly to the diseases, these can get worse if left untreated and will often leave you weakened from pain (or even unable to hold weapons, in the case of broken and unsplinted arms).

A final addition to round it out is Stress and Fear (and Stressful Darkness) which means that your character will become more and more stressed the longer they are in dangerous situations, such as combat or dungeons. You'll find your character isn't able to keep going without breaks, whether that's from disease, injury or stress. Eventually, they'll need to take a break!

Since my ideal living situation for my character is them being unable to afford a house of their own (helped along with Evolving Economy), you'll be spending a lot of time in the inns of Skyrim - which are a fair bit more pricey thanks to Coherent Inn Prices. A useful mod to go along with all of this is Extended Stay - although you'll need to adjust the prices in the console to match CIP - which lets you rent a room for three days, a week or even a month and gives you a safe chest for storage.

Once in the inn, you'll be able to wash off the dirt and blood from your recent travels with Keep It Clean. Not only will you be viewed more favourably when clean (through a speechcraft boost), but it keeps you healthier too since your disease resistance is lowered when you're filthy.

Finally, when it's time to sleep, make sure you have Idrinth's Dream Framework so that you have the chance to have a dream or a nightmare while you snooze. Make sure to add the various dream mods (all of which can be found in the "Mods requiring this file" section).

Non-combat mods

It's all well and good saying it's time to let your character rest but you'll still want things to do during that time. As such, here are a handful of mods for that exact purpose! First, overhauls of existing mechanics.

Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul does exactly what the title says - overhauls cooking and alchemy! I love making my character learn how to cook and improve over time and it links nicely to Last Seed, in that it gives you so many more foods to eat. The new alchemy additions of grenades and weapon coatings also give you more options during a fight!

Immersive Jewelry gives... so many new types of jewellery for your character to wear. I think that accessories can really tell a lot about your character and the many new styles will help you find something that fits your character more than the limited rings, amulets and circlets in vanilla. And even if you don't want to wear them yourself, you'll be able to sell them for plenty of money!

Thaumaturgy is my enchanting overhaul of choice, it isn't overcomplicated and just rebalances the vanilla enchants and adds some fun new ones.

Personally, I love playing scholarly characters which makes Immersive Spell Learning my favourite of the mod category I like to call "mages should be nerds". Learning spells will take time, particularly if they're of a higher level of understanding than you've currently achieved in that school of magic. It's also compatible with like... every mod that adds new spells. My personal favourite is Apocalypse.

Another mod in my academic-skyrim repertoire is Train and Study. With this, you can use skill books or training dummies to improve your skills. If you use this in tandem with Bibliophile's Arcanaeum, you'll be able to borrow skill books from the College of Winterhold. Great for waiting out the many, many blizzards in the north!

If you're more musically inclined, Skyrim's Got Talent lets you play a bard. Just be prepared to suck at first. Once your character gets past the beginning stages, it's nice to be able to whip out an instrument and sit back and listen to them play a song. In the same way as CACO, you'll find that this is something that your character will improve upon gradually.

Of course, I'm always looking for more mods to give me things to do during my character's downtime. I've recently been looking at Tavern Games, but if anyone has any suggestions then please send them to me.

Once the resting is done, it's back on the road! I like how I have to plan out my journey ahead of time - which quests do I want to complete now and which can I save until later? What quests and dungeons can be found along the way? If I get sick or injured, are there any nearby towns or villages for me to rest before I head to a city? Can I survive the cold at this time of year? Many things to consider!

Travel

Starting off with Journeyman, this mod overhauls fast travel. Rather than restricting fast travel entirely, this mod requires you to have a travel pack in order to do so. You can either craft or buy them but they do weigh quite a bit. I like this as sometimes, I don't want to have to walk up the seven thousand steps every time I need to chat to the Greybeards or Partysnacks. It means I will typically be on foot for most journeys but have the option to skip tedious journeys if I want to.

Some more mods to skip the on-foot tedium are Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul and Sforzinda's Destinations. These allow a number of ways to shorten the amount of walking you need to do.

However, exploring the world on foot is very beneficial with the Experience mod. This overhauls how the player earns experience, with it being gained through completing quests, clearing dungeons and even just discovering new locations. Something else to find on foot are Skyshards - collecting three of them gives you an additional perk point which I love a lot! I'm indecisive so I like having extra points to throw into skill trees without worrying whether I'll end up swapping playstyles later on.

Finally, I love the convenience of Convenient Bridges. I wish I was joking about this but there have been many times where I've looked at a river and thought, "wow, I wish there was a bridge so I could cross this" and then I look slightly to the side and there's a bridge there thanks to this mod. Considering that going in the water can risk hypothermia with Frostfall, this mod will really help in avoiding freezing to death.

Combat

Of course, where there's travel, there's danger. To start with, we have Arena which overhauls encounter zones. To put it in simple terms, certain enemy types are best left for certain level ranges and enemies will be harder overall... I think? I still don't fully understand but I do know that I frequently get my ass beat with this mod. Which I love.

Next is Manbeast which overhauls werewolves. My favourite part of this mod is the forced transformations - once, I had a character with several broken bones and a concussion. Though he was trying to recover in the Bee and Barb, the beast within threatened to break free and he had to go running across Riften before he transformed in front of everyone. It's counterpart for vampires is Scion, which is also in my load!

Can you tell I like the simonrim mods? Because here's another one - Stormcrown! Along with overhauling the shouts, you can meditate on them with Paarthurnax in order to permanently buff them (for the low, low cost of one dragon soul!).

As for dragons, I use Simply Stronger Dragons to make our scaly friends more of a threat and Dragons Awaken to add named dragons at dragon mounds (yay! more opportunities for death!). Finally, I add in Cult of the World Eater to encourage me to hunt down the dragon priests, lest Alduin be unkillable once I reach him in Sovngarde.

Weather

I don't have a neat transition to this category. Weather! Yippee!

First off is Frostfall Seasons. This makes it colder during winter and warmer during winter. Self explanatory. Then, it's Wander which adds some new types of weather but I primarily use for the darker nights. Next, I add True Storms which makes storms in Skyrim a thing a beauty. I love storms and this mod makes them incredibly intense.

Wonders of Weather adds rain splashes, shooting stars and rainbows, while Wet and Cold adds some visual effects to your character and NPCs based on the current weather.

Miscellaneous

Finally, we have the mods which I couldn't fit into the other categories.

Skald's Mail adds a mailbox for you to receive all of your letters in, rather than a courier running up to you every time. You can also send packages between mailboxes and order stuff from shops, if you have their catalogue. I love this mod so much. I want a mod that adds spam mail. I want mods that give me more mail. Please. Please.

Immersive Citizens overhauls the AI of friendly NPCs to make them more... immersive. Yeah. And Realistic Dark Brotherhood Kidnapping makes your kidnapping more realistic too! Also, I know I said I wouldn't include any quest expansions but I will sneak in Destroy the Dark Brotherhood. I always found it unrealistic that you just get to wipe out their sanctuary in one go and I personally enjoy hunting people down.

At this point, I've been making this for four hours on about as much sleep. I am COMMITTED to the grindset. jk i'm going to bed after this.

There's a lot of mods that I didn't include since they are down to personal preference. After all, not everyone is going to want crows flying overhead or is excited by the prospect of a completionist museum. As such, here's some special mentions of mods that I enjoy but are (ultimately) down to personal preference.

Fashions of the Fourth Era

Replace Nirnroot Sound with Windchimes

Spaghetti's Overhauls

Keeping Warm - Scarves and Mufflers

Improved Alternate Conversation Camera

Obscure's College of Winterhold

Ordinator

Genuinely Intelligent Soul Trap

JaySerpa's dialogue and quest expansions

Mephala's Curse

Dark Forests of Skyrim

#skyrim #skyrim mods #blaise <3 tes #long post #VERY LONG POST BTW. ITS LIKE. 2K WORDS. OOPS.

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kiana12113 · 2 months ago

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Modern AU︎ ₊˚⊹౨ৎ

Red Dead Redemption Headcanons, in which:

The Van der Linde Gang lives in the year 2025 — where most of them are in college.

Note: Very fluffy; I had a field day writing this. I know these dudes are in their mid-twenties. Let’s just play with our dolls a little. ( ´꒳` ) <3

John Marston

✦ Who shares a dorm with Javier. Despite the noisy rooms filled with the constant blaring of electric guitars, the dorm is quite well-kept. Mostly, the cleaning of Javier — who makes sure the room is presentable.

✦ Who owns band shirts for a living. An avid listener of Nirvana, Radiohead, Deftones, and Foo Fighters. There are posters put on his walls, along with his black Stratocaster.

✦ Who owns an electric guitar, put stickers on it, and thought it would make him cooler than Javier. He thought it would get him chicks, but it instead made him look more of a loser than he already was. Javier borrows the guitar frequently, using it more than John does. Argues that he knows how to play more songs than Smoke on the Water.

✦ Who won’t let Arthur touch it, though.

✦ Who doesn’t necessarily fail his classes, but doesn’t necessarily pass them either. He does them with incredible finesse that he is always at point 50/50. John barely studies before tests, either, claiming his stock-knowledge will help him pass.

✦ Who uses 7-in-1 shampoo. He complains about having dandruff, searching YouTube tutorials how to get rid of it — stubbornly refusing to stop using the shampoo even though Arthur had told him multiple times to drop it. John argues it’s because it’s effective, but it’s really just because it’s cheaper.

✦ Who crashed Arthur’s car, not once, but twice. After the following tragedies, Arthur no longer let’s John touch the steering wheel, getting an earful every time he even got close.

“Hey, maybe we should do this more often.” John says, in the passengers seat.

“Maybe we could if ya stopped crashing my car, Marston.” Arthur replies.

✦ Who gets high in his dorm’s bathtub, body wholly soaked in water as he listens to “Creep” by Radiohead. Tears flow down his red eyes.

✦ Who writes his number on a bathroom stall with a Sharpie. No one messages him, unfortunately. He told Javier about it and the Mexican laughed his ass off. “You’re truly something, John.”

✦ Who spent all his money on a concert, had the time of his life, and about a slideshow in his Instagram story. He ate canned corn and tuna for the whole week after, earning a trip to the clinic after ridiculous diarrhea.

✦ Who has about 500 followers on his TikTok, who apparently like to watch John’s rants and fit checks. He’s always talking and yelling about some niche issue like why there has to be different levels of water needed for specific rice. His video is always unGodly cropped, too, always just showing most of the ceiling and his face only until his nose.

✦ Who has people ask why his beard is like that and John says it came from a wolf attack just to seem cool. No one believes him anyway.

✦ Who was crossing the street once, in a really bad mood, when a car had stopped to only honk at him. He stared at the car for a moment, as if trying to discern if they were serious. He gave whoever asshole inside that car a middle-finger. It wouldn’t be uncommon to see John go viral for doing something vain and stupid.

✦ Who has large canine teeth, always showing when he smiles in pictures.

✦ Who has an hour in screen time for the calculator app and notes app. Not because he is a poet or a mathematician, but because he pretends to look busy when passing by people.

✦ Who almost burnt down his dorm one time trying to cook “gourmet” food. The CCTV footage of the event is pinned in the Van der Linde GC.

✦ Who survives off of food in convenience stores and ordering food. The only time he gets to eat real food is when Javier decides to cook (rarely) and he goes out with Arthur.

✦ Who meets a girl named Abigail — who Javier had suggested. They hit it off for the meantime, John frequently texting her and thinking to himself if he looked a little too desperate.

✦ Who played Mario Kart with Arthur when they were kids and he never won against him. He would always threaten to throw the console (Arthur’s) as he yelled out insults to him.

✦ Who has about $2 to his name.

Javier Escuella

✦ Who does pretty well in his classes, and actually tries.

✦ Who actually gets girls, unlike John. Although he never gets in a relationship that lasts more than two months. He always ends up getting cheated on, for some reason.

✦ Who played “Hotel California” by Eagles in a campus event and killed it. He got about 50 DMs after, him and John playing a guessing game on how high the numbers of notifications he would reach. Anyway, he gave his phone to John to reply to them.

✦ Who is well kept, clean, showers daily — unlike John, he actually has a deliberate shower routine and process.

✦ Who’s always talking to himself, muttering and mumbling in Spanish. John is weirded out when Javier’s toes hit the legs of the coffee table and it looks as if Javier’s cursing its whole oak family in Spanish. He’ll also do it in his sleep.

✦ Who gets baked. He contemplates the meaning and purpose of his life for an hour, then stares at the empty wall in front of him in silence for about twenty minutes. Promptly passes out after.

✦ Who loves his guitar more than himself. So much so that he actually named it “Boaz”. He accidentally hit it on his knee once and despite yelping in pain, he checked if the guitar had gotten a scratch first. It’s more expensive than his life.

✦ Who had gotten drunk off his ass once, and tried to serenade a woman. He was so wasted that he didn’t even notice it was merely a life-size cutout of a celebrity. People stared at him weird.

✦ Who casually has knives displayed in his room. John stared at him weird, entering once. “What? It’s a hobby. Never heard of it before?”

✦ Who cooks like a housewife, with music, hands on his hips, and with an apron on. He’ll even point at John with the ladle if he tries to steal his stuff.

✦ Who stares at the mirror for twenty minutes before leaving. He squints his eyes and makes sure his ponytail is nice, his clothes aren’t wrinkled, and he still smiles the same.

Sean MacGuire

✦ Who’s roommates with Lenny. He usually makes most of the noise, except for when Lenny crashes out while studying for an exam.

✦ Who’s naked most of the time, too. He’s found walking around the dorm without a shirt on and his boxers. Once he answered the door forgetting that he had nothing on but his underwear and he wondered why the pizza delivery guy was stammering and stuttering in confusion. “Whut? You wanna hang out?”

✦ Who is chronically online. He knows all the latest trends, the latest memes, the latest emojis being used, even brain rot. Presently, he’s been talking Lenny’s ear off about his undeniable hate for “Tung Tung Tung Sahur” or whatever.

✦ Who comments on most of the posts he sees. Arthur posting on Facebook about horses? “Well ya look like one, so that’s another one.”

Bill’s angry rant on Twitter? “Chill out Billy Badass!”

Karen’s Snapchat story? “I swear, they stared at me first. Honest.”

And he’ll spam Dutch’s posts with likes for fun. He’s a menace like that. Dutch’ll tag him minutes later in their group chat and go,

“@Sean MacGuire, stop liking my posts repeatedly. It’s not funny.” Sean’ll react a thumbs up to his message and keep doing it anyway for shits and giggles.

✦ Who’s always early to posts, too. So if the gang members are hoping it’s some thoughtful comment and compliment, it’s actually just Sean fucking around.

✦ Who switches his profile picture and changes his username every few weeks. People will wonder who this person liking their posts are, but it’s actually just Sean’s third account who’s changed his profile picture the second time this week.

✦ Who has his social media stories updated every day. Admittedly, they are entertaining, even if it’s just full of shit. He’ll post a picture of him and Lenny and the next picture once you tap it is an attempt at thirst trapping.

✦ Who’s beaten everyone in a drinking game before. He’ll bug everyone in the gang to drink with him and find a way to make it competitive. He’ll even throw in his phone for a time-lapse so it’ll be funnier.

✦ Who Lenny will try to help with his devastating grades. Lenny will say how he has no future ahead of him if he continues passing late homework and projects and Sean grumbles and mutters complains and rolls around the couch in annoyance.

✦ Who studies for a test one time in his life because it was worth half his grade and still gets a 49%. He had to retake the test after.

✦ Who is great at singing, especially in the shower, much to the annoyance of the people next door. Unfortunately he won’t be stopping because he’s realized his power and talent one time he tried duetting with Javier.

✦ Who copies off of Lenny’s work. (They have different classes).

✦ Who lost his front tooth in a sad attempt at skateboarding. Had it live streamed on Tiktok, too. He had to play it cool.

✦ Who stayed up so late with Lenny once finishing Breaking Bad. They vowed never to do such a marathon again because the following day their head hurt like hell and they stayed on the floor the whole day. There laid a comforter, though, despite it being covered in crumbs of leftover chips.

✦ Who has the most unhinged wallpaper ever. Like his profile picture, it changes every few weeks.

✦ Who’s the only one active in the Van der Linde GC. He keeps trying to change GC name and profile picture but Dutch always changes it back the next day.

✦ Who gets so drunk out of his mind after a party and slept with his mouth open and legs wrapped around itself. Lenny took pictures with flashes that night. Sean doesn’t remember a thing that happened, but claims he had several girls chasing after him then.

✦ Who jokes at the worst times, accidentally upsetting Lenny even more after joking about being a failure in life. Lenny had just failed an exam.

✦ Who celebrates Halloween for the whole month. His costumes are always top tier with realism — it’s the one thing he takes seriously other than St. Patrick’s Day. “Let’s fockin’ go, Ireland! Long live the Irish!”

Lenny Summers

✦ Who gets invited to parties, though mostly rejects them if he has something more important to do. He takes Sean for an example. But if he doesn’t, though, he’s going to get drunk, piss drunk until his legs feel like wet spaghetti and barely gets his keys to open the door. He tries at least ten different combinations of putting it in before it opens and his body falls down on the floor.

✦ Who has a part-time job, usually busy and exhausted the moment he comes home. Imagine being tired and seeing Sean without clothes greet you. That’s his life.

✦ Who is active on social media, taking care of his account. It’s actually organized and have meaningful posts.

✦ Who’s natural habitat is the couch, watching shows that rot his mind even more. Sean’ll have the remote in his hands and go through Netflix, asking “How about this one?” for hours because Lenny has seen all of them already.

✦ Who walks to his classes with EarPods on and blasting “Sunflower” by Post Malone and Swae Lee because he has to get through this day even though the dread is already catching up to him. He copes by pretending to be Miles Morales.

✦ Who knows how to drive a car properly. In fact, he’s the only one Arthur trusts driving the car other than Hosea. Maybe not while drunk, though.

✦ Who had once a long-time girlfriend when he was in high school and hasn’t moved on from her. He’ll be sharing posts like “still thinking about you” even though she’s blocked Lenny on all social media sites.

✦ Who can’t sleep without a blanket because he gets cold easily. He keeps adjusting the temperature in the dorm and Sean’s sleep walking ass keeps turning it down.

✦ Who banged his head against a wall so hard out of annoyance, it grew a red sore spot the next day. The annoyance got to him after trying to memorize all the acts in his Textbook. He looked like a clown.

✦ Who bought spicy Korean noodles once and attempted to eat it while on live stream with Sean. They cried.

Kieran Duffy

✦ Who got a one person dorm and loved it. He had all the space to himself and he didn’t need to get along with anyone — well, at first. Except his neighbors, and that Irishman who wouldn’t stop singing in the shower. He doesn’t get sleep.

✦ Who one time studied for a test so much he came to class shaking. No, not because he was nervous or scared (maybe), but because he drank so much coffee he was sure he was about to collapse. To add, he didn’t shower the whole week. He passed out after the exam, his unfortunate stinky body found by Sean.

✦ Who went to a baseball game and got a baseball directly swung at his nose. He wasn’t able to see baseballs the same for a few weeks, especially after how his nose-bridge shattered upon impact, bleeding endlessly.

✦ Who is financially stable. He’ll have savings and plans and control his spendings. He is the richest broke college student ever.

✦ Who still freaking loves horses — he’ll scroll through his TikTok For You Page and all that is there are about horses. He has his horse, Branwen, waiting for him back home. He visits frequently to see his Mammy and Pappy, as well.

✦ Who got invited to a party once and got more girls than Sean did that night. He left the party with his face filled to the brim with kiss marks of lipstick, and numbers written on paper in his pockets. How? He didn’t know.

✦ Who doesn’t use his phone much. While some people are reliant on in these days, he doesn’t see the catch. He’d rather spend his time elsewhere.

✦ Who regularly uses emoticons like “:)” and “:(” when he texts someone or posts something. He’ll be like “Went to visit Brawnwen today :)” in his story or “Bad news, guys :(”.

✦ Who is techy — for some reason, he knows how to fix a PC, the WiFi, the monitor. He says his Pappy taught him that when he was a teen.

✦ Who has the clearest, 20/20 eyes however has astigmatism in his left eye. He wears glasses sometimes when he wants to.

Arthur Morgan

✦ Who takes the gang in an outing once in a while — Dutch’s idea. They went to a beach once. On the way there Sean had blasted music and people in the back seat decided to eat inside his car even when he explicitly said not to. “I said not to eat in the car. You are all insufferable. All of ya shouldda squeezed yurselves in Hosea’s car instead.”

✦ Who groans every time Sean says “Are we there yet?” and John has to say “No, Sean.” and shut him up with a disappointed face. Lenny is admittedly annoyed out of his mind but cannot for the love of him talk to anyone in the backseat.

The only time Arthur had peace in that Godforsaken trip was when everyone fell soundly asleep and the radio played “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman.

✦ Who owns a 1965 Blue Ford Mustang. He cursed John when he crashed it, causing the car to have a few scratches. He takes care of it very well.

✦ Who makes a living off being an artist and lives in a comfortable home with Mary. There also lives his dog, Copper.

✦ Who gets incredibly worked up when there’s traffic. He’ll grumble and insult everyone in front of him, honking his horn loudly if they’re on their phone while driving. He’s an impatient man when it comes to these situations. He loses his mind when the traffic light suddenly turns red just when’s he’s about to cross.

✦ Who has some knowledge on how phones work, as much as he doesn’t use them. He uses Facebook the most, scrolling through everyone’s posts and occasionally reacting a “haha” emote on a funny post. He’s usually at the Facebook Marketplace, though.

✦ Who won’t replace or buy something new unless it’s completely unusable. Those boots and shoes he’s been wearing? Yeah, that was from 2011. Still going strong.

✦ Who hates Starbucks. “It’s so damn expensive, ‘n for what? Cup of coffee?” He’d rather eat at the diner nearby — he isn’t a picky eater. He has a burning hate for minimalism, too. He wonders why people need to simplify already simple enough things.

✦ Who’s always the provider, bringing food when he comes to visit people. Times when he’ll get invited by Hosea and Dutch to do something he knows to bring at least two bottles of Whiskey with him. Or when he visits Charles.

✦ Who’s also unfortunately John’s babysitter — even if he’s gone to college already. He’ll pick him up in a random house after getting drunk beyond comprehension.

“Don’t throw up in the seat — open the window,” Arthur warns.

John begins to hurl.

“No no no not here — John!”

✦ Who has so much shared posts in Facebook it’s scary. It’ll cover a wide range of emotions. “Appreciate what you have in life”, “Careful who you ignore in high school”, “This deer decided to enter the pub”, “Traffic incident today”, “Happy Wife hapy Life” “20 minute sketches” and “Easy Baking Soda trick to remove stains from non-stick pan”.

✦ Who still prefers to journal with a pen and paper. He feels like it’s right.

✦ Who cried when he watched “Up” by Pixar. He couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.

✦ Who’ll need reading glasses when he’s settled down on the couch to read a book. Dutch gifted him a book written by Dostoevsky once and he’s been meaning to finish it so he can tell Dutch he did. He’s kind of confused, but he’s got the spirit.

✦ Who you’ll find in the deepest trenches of Reddit and Quora scrolling down to find the answer to the questions he asked for.

✦ Who’s the type of guy who’ll die before the grocery bags are lifted up two times. He needs to have all of them in his arms even if it weighted more than him, because he’ll be damned if he has to go back to the car when he’s already in his house.

Charles Smith

✦ Who lives alone and peaceful out in the suburbs — he’s the farthest from everyone. Most of the time he’s out, anyway.

✦ Who occasionally has boxing matches. He uses it to take out the anger in himself. If it isn’t enough, he has a punching bag that he uses daily.

✦ Who’s closet consists of hoodies ninety-percent of the time.

✦ Who has insomnia and can’t sleep without turning off the lights and taking sleeping pills. He gets so irritated if he’s just closing his eyes but not sleeping because the man is so tired; all he wants is to rest.

✦ Who has a controlled diet and exercises regularly, running every morning, eating fish and vegetables, all of that fiber. He lifts weights, too — he has decent discipline.

✦ Who, despite this, still has days when he would lay on the couch all day and let his brain deteriorate while eating a tub of ice cream. He finished it all in one night — despite it being family-sized. What a miracle that he was able to stomach it for dinner.

✦ Who has gotten a cat enter his house one time and meow endlessly for food. When he gave it some, though, it never left. It stayed inside and made itself feel at home. Charles thought it was brave and fierce — he named her Taima. So now he’s a cat lady.

✦ Who has a stable job and sideline. He’s doing well financially, and despite having the money to eat outside, he much prefers to be inside and cook his own meal.

✦ Who owns a bike that he uses frequently to get where he wants to, usually his work. He’s willing to let people borrow it, however, no one does — considering how far he lives away. He’ll have a helmet on and all of that gear. Women around him will often greet him and giggle. He is complete eye candy.

✦ Who posts rarely. He doesn’t pay attention to social media, always saying how it’ll eat you alive if you don’t notice. He avoids using his phone much, which causes him to see messages late. Arthur will send a message in the GC and Charles will react to it the next day.

✦ Who is a really good drummer. He performed a gig in front of a crowd once and people loved him. He now does it occasionally. The gang will attend his shows.

“The drummer! Show the drummer!” Arthur says. “Woo!” And he’s literally playing jazz. They’re treating it like it was a Metallica concert.

✦ Who had gone offline for roughly three weeks one time that Dutch got worried and sent Arthur to look at his state. He didn’t need another Trelawny — he says. That time, Charles had left his phone somewhere.

Hosea Matthews

✦ Who is retired and happy. On most days he’s found sitting on a chair by his front porch and reading novels, or listening to a radio. He lives near Arthur’s so he’ll often see him out and he’ll yell, with a smile, “Hey, Arthur! Bein’ a great husband?”

✦ Who was the one Arthur turned to when he wanted to buy a car. Hosea’s immense knowledge and taste will forever influence everyone.

✦ Who has a bunch of polaroid pictures in an album of the gang when most of them were still very young. He has a picture of him and Dutch in his car, Arthur as a rebellious teen, John in his underwear, a group picture full of smiles, the girls as teens posing while putting excessive makeup on and Miss Grimshaw telling them it was way too much. He has some of them hanged on his living room wall, and a picture of Bessie in his wallet.

✦ Who will be on the receiving end of Dutch’s shared posts. Dutch will send him posts with captions like “life is great when you follow the right path” or “the best leaders always make the best results” and Hosea will give him a thumbs up and an “Of course Dutch”.

✦ Who still has an old gramophone and plays different songs that remind him of his young days. Sometimes he will be slow dancing with Bessie in the living room. “Feels like the good ol’ days, eh? Darlin’?”

✦ Who plays Word games on his phone occasionally, and will ask Bessie for a game of Domino and Scrabble every once in a while. Hosea always wins when the Gang is playing Cluedo. And he’ll cheat along with Arthur when the game of Poker gets too boring.

The chaos that ensues during Monopoly is indescribable. Hosea and Trelawny are filthy rich, Sean never gets out of jail, John is in absolute debt, Sadie and Karen are arguing with Arthur because he’s pulling “new rules” out of his ass, Kieran is secretly winning, and Molly is watching it all happen with coffee in her hands.

Also, someone’s been eating the pieces.

“Who the fuck is eating the pieces? Where’s mine? El hijo de puta! I just went to get water!” Javier yells.

A Reverend who has suspiciously been burping shrugs, “Maybe it fell under the couch.”

✦ Who watched Titanic with Dutch, John, and Arthur in a cinema once and kept glancing at John and Arthur who were bickering about who was gonna cry first. They both did — failing to hide it.

✦ Who is like their father, the way John introduced him to Abigail. He raised a brow at John.

“You’re too good for this,” And John frowns, “Hosea — don’t say that to her.”

“What? I was talking to the girl. She’s too good for ya.” and he chuckles.

✦ Who accidentally clicks the button to call the GC. Dutch answers first, ��What is it, Hosea? Is there a problem?”

Then Sean follows, “Ooh? What’s this?”

And then Lenny, Karen, and Bill pick it up as well. A few more minutes of silence ensure and Hosea’s camera is facing the ceiling, John and Arthur answer the call. Sean puts on a group filter.

Javier, Tilly, and Mary-beth do as well. The others catch up, all except for Strauss, Susan, Trelawny, and Charles.

Reverend frantically asks as he keeps incessantly sniffing, “What’s wrong?” And they’re left in constant confusion.

“Hosea?” Arthur asks.

“Who even called?” Karen adds.

Hosea picks up his phone because for some reason he could hear the gang. His eyebrows are furrowed while the camera shows his nose, the filter glitching in and out trying to detect his face. “Why are you all callin’?” He says, confused, and slightly irritated that his day got interrupted.

To which, in unison, they all say: “YOU called!”

Dutch Van der Linde

✦ Who is a big shopper. His clothes are all stylish and fashionable, making sure it makes him look classy and respectable. He takes care of his appearance very well, and his camera roll consists of primarily selfies and pictures of his rings and jewelry.

✦ Who is big on opinions, especially about current news and politics. Dutch will post a tweet on Twitter about the streets of America getting to crowded and how New York smells like shit — the only purpose it serves being a shiny pearl to foreigners.

He gets either two things: believers and non-believers. He’ll reply to them one by one because every notification from his phone is seen by him. Dutch’ll ignore the death threats in his DMs and say it isn’t even worth his time.

✦ Who’ll tag everyone in the GC every announcement, and every little thing. It annoys most of them. Arthur has considered muting the GC because of this — but he doesn’t, anyway.

✦ Who will also share every “inspirational quote” he sees and send glittery Good Morning GIFS in the GC.

✦ Who says games are a waste of time, yet is pushing level two-thousand in Candy Crush. He’s even got Hosea beat.

✦ Who will loudly talk to his phone, “Hey, Siri.”

“Turn the lights on and play Moonlight Sonata. Beethoven.”

He feels very powerful as the music starts and he begins to read a book.

✦ Who will try making those healthy shakes once. He’ll pretend to like it but secretly throw it away after one sip.

✦ Who has expensive wine cases and bottles decorated around his house. He has one of every brand, red and white wine.

✦ Who also regularly wears dark sunglasses, especially when outside or driving in his car. The man will smoke a cigarette, windows opened while his hand rests outside during traffic.

Someone will look at him wrong and he’ll further roll down his window, raising an eyebrow. “Got a problem, sir?”

Micah Bell

✦ Who will show up in gang outings without a word after saying he hasn’t got time to join them. He’ll give them a flashy grin and open his arms, expecting the warmest welcomes. “Well well well,” He starts. “Look who’s here. I’m sure ya all missed me.”

✦ Who is generally unemployed. He’ll try to pick up a job but will end up getting fired for inappropriate behavior. Then he’ll tell everyone he was too good for the company anyway.

No one knows where he’s getting his money from.

✦ Who is the master rage baiter. He is the rat whispering in everyone’s ears, especially online; primarily Instagram Reels. He’ll comment backhanded insults when someone changes their profile picture or shares posts. One time Arthur changed his profile picture to Copper and Micah replied, “Nice haircut, Arthur.” On other sites he will get banned every once in a while, though he’ll just make new accounts after.

✦ Who’ll also say the most unhinged and quite literally illegal opinions on 4chan. When it had shut down he shrugged and migrated to Twitter and Reddit — which he was using beforehand as well.

✦ Who also frequents sending death threats to people. He’ll get so worked up typing the longest essays in detail and will cry if they don’t reply shaking in their boots like he had imagined.

✦ Who keeps getting kicked from the GC by Arthur. Dutch adds him back a few hours later and will ask Arthur why he does this. In response Arthur will just tell him it was an accident, though it had happened about five times now.

✦ Who has one of those classic American motorcycles. It is well cleaned and kept, admittedly more than he is. He’ll go past the speed limit multiple times of the day, honk his horn for no reason, cut past people. He’s probably broken all of the traffic rules.

It’s his pride and life — his beauty. The love of his life, really.

✦ Who is often found in gas stations. He goes there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Oh, he’s hungry? Gas station. Oh, he’s thirsty? Gas station. Oh, he wants a little snack? Gas station.

✦ Who lives in a garage-like apartment. He will often fight with the landlord and strive to piss him off every day of the week.

✦ Who tries to take care of his hair. He’ll buy shampoo and conditioner for one month before giving up because it always reverts back to being greasy at the end of the day.

Mary-beth Gaskill

✦ Who’ll also share a room with Tilly. Their room is the cleanest of them all, filled with decorations, posters, and bookshelves. They take turns in all the chores and making dinner. Her natural habitat is her bed, her desk, or coffee shops — where she likes to study.

✦ Who’s stuffed toys from childhood, crocheted plushies, and Squishmallows have more space on her bed than she gets, though she likes it that way. In fear that people will call her silly, she doesn’t tell them they all have personal names.

✦ Who is the ultimate final boss when it comes to thrifting and ordering online. She knows all the great spots and places. She orders so much that she personally knows the delivery guy, and Tilly does, too. It mostly consists of books, sundresses, makeup, and so.

✦ Who makes “GRWM before class”s and it’s the most aesthetic, cutest video you’ll ever see. She also posts book reviews and writing tips on TikTok, with a staggering thirty-thousand followers.

✦ Who’ll put makeup on Kieran if he ever agrees. The young man is hesitant at first before eventually letting her. Mary-beth experiments on him, and it turns out Douyin makeup fits him the most.

At the end of the day, he’ll be filled with pink kisses on his cheek. Maybe it is worth it, he thinks.

✦ Who makes Pinterest boards in an organized manner. There’ll each be a board for different pins, like “Clothes”, “Book Quotes”, “Writing tips”, “Romance”, “Games”, “Study Methods”, and “Food”. She’ll put an emoji in each board title that matches what it says.

✦ Who is a builder. Her world in Minecraft is well-crafted and has a number of detailed builds, along with her houses in The Sims, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing.

✦ Who often visits the others with Tilly since they all study in the same university. Sometimes they’ll conduct group dates and movie marathons when everyone’s schedules are all free.

✦ Who also have a Tumblr blog and an AO3 account. She hides it from everyone, even though no one shames her for it. It’s like a little escape for her, especially with the stress and how College Life is. Her followers love her work, and she feels really appreciated.

✦ Who’ll cry with earphones on, listening to her playlist. Tilly never hears the end of “Enchanted” by Taylor Swift — especially the bridge.

✦ Who Tilly will find huddled in two blankets, sitting with the intense glow of her phone so close to her eyes she might as well go inside it. This is a common occurrence.

✦ Who’ll smoke a cigarette when she gets stressed, mostly about exams and her future. Constantly, she will ask herself, “What am I doing? Am I supposed to do this?”

Tilly Jackson

✦ Who’ll either come to class with a well thought of outfit or a “fuck this” one. The latter is chosen often because she couldn’t care less about what people said — she can’t fail Calculus looking all prety. She’d rather pass it looking like she hasn’t slept (and she hasn’t).

✦ Who will ask Mary-beth to go and get their hair done and nails together; in which they get sucked in a spending spree and end up spending more money than they thought they would. But it doesn’t matter, because they’re giggling and feeling good at the end of the day.

✦ Who will also ask Mary-beth to accompany her in a party. As much fun they have, drunk young adults try to woo them and invite them to their dorm. While Mary-beth will firmly say no, if the drunkards are too persuasive, Tilly will get ready to throw hands.

“Tilly, you almost made a scene there,” Mary-beth says in a worried tone.

“Well? What was I gonna do? Let ‘em harass us?” Tilly replies with sass.

“No, I’m saying you shouldn’t try to take three men in a fight.”

✦ Who went to an amusement park with John and Arthur when they were kids. She thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the roller-coaster before she ended up reciting all the curse words in the dictionary.

Arthur, after, asks her where she even heard those things. She shrugs, “It just comes to me naturally.”

✦ Who, as a kid, had been gifted dolls by Hosea. He thought she enjoyed them, with the way she was smiling and always had her hands full with playing. When Hosea came to check out how she’s doing, he discovers that Tilly has been making deliberate and highly detailed drama scenes.

“But I still need you! You’re everything,” Tilly says.

The old man peeks and raises a brow, listening intently.

“What about everything we’ve gone through? Where those all lies? You’re a bastard, Martin! A sick, cheating bastard!”

Hosea laughs his ass off.

✦ Who claims she doesn’t care about gossip, but will suddenly know where John was last Monday if anyone asked. She’ll pretend to think and ponder before eventually disclosing the story of how royally drunk he was. All the details are there and there are even point of views. No one knows who she’s getting this information from — but the reliability is definitely there.

✦ Who’s favorite show and movie as a kid was Tinkerbell (AKA The Pirate Fairy). Which leads to her favorite song, “Who I am” by Natasha Bedingfield.

Karen Jones

✦ Who presents a presentation in front of the class hungover and mind still fuzzy and bleary. Reportedly, she was stuttering and slurring a little — and yet got herself a high grade.

✦ Who hated Molly at first when she had to share living quarters with her. She thought she was arrogant, and only cared for herself. Molly herself returned the feeling of dislike while at the same time picking up Karen from being wasted in God knows where.

“Why’re ya always pickin’ me up? Can’t ya just leave me alone, Molly?” Karen says sluggishly.

Molly will only huff and cross her arms.

✦ Who’s active on Snapchat for a few months before dreading to open it again since all she gets there are creepy men who follow and Snap her — along with Sean replying to every story she adds. It’s like he knows when she’ll post.

✦ Who’ll get high in her room, once. She started seeing patterns and had the feeling that someone was behind her. No — never again, she swears.

✦ Who, like Lenny, has a moderated account in Instagram where she posts meaningful posts. Like stories when she leaves town, or went to the mall with the girls, sunsets, like that.

✦ Who, in the morning, will listen to her voice recordings from last night she didn’t even remember making. Karen has got a confused look on her face while she listens to herself cry about an exam she failed seven months ago.

Her notes app has also got the most unexpected things. It will be normal for the most part, like grocery checklists and passwords, and then there’ll be a gut-wrenching poem out of nowhere, followed by one-word notes.

✦ Who’s helped numerous women after a break up while drunk in a bathroom stall. She has the best advice, too.

“You don’t need ‘im, girl,” She hiccups. “Damn men. You said ya needed a pad, too? ‘Ere. Have ‘em all.”

✦ Who occasionally keeps herself sane with yelling as loud as she can in a pillow.

Molly ‘O Shea

✦ Who always looks and smells good. Her outfit looks stunning, she’s got effortless makeup on, along with perfectly curled hair. She says it “doesn’t take too long” but the truth is — it does.

✦ Who replies back in a second, due to the fact that doesn’t have anyone else in her messages other than the GC and one or two people. She’ll also stalk people’s accounts when she’s got nothing else to do, scrolling through the profiles with her cheek rested on her palm.

✦ Who regularly reads “Am I the Asshole?” on Reddit and will get too invested.

✦ Who is the watcher. She’s practically known everyone’s secrets and what they’ve been doing. She doesn’t even do it in a way that she wishes to bring people down, she just can’t help it.

Once she had accidentally overheard Karen talking to herself, mumbling about how she could feel someone.

The time when the gang played Monopoly she had the time of her life. She did see Reverend eating the pieces, she did see Arthur smuggling cash, and saw it all. But would she say something about it? No — they were about to set the table on fire; it was too entertaining. Then, the next moment, John had flipped the board in complete anger and wrath. That day, a war had started.

✦ Who has a mini fridge. It’s full of Pomegranate juice because somewhere she had read it helps skin glow. Her diet is usually healthy, with her cooking her meals herself — enjoying the process.

✦ Who listens to sad songs made by women. She’s got a whole playlist in Spotify filled with Lana del Rey. She will buy Spotify premium if that means she won’t get interrupted by ads every two songs. It pisses her off beyond measure.

✦ Who’ll gain thousands of likes from a single picture. She’ll post a selfie once and the next moment her phone will be bombarded by notifications — but none of them befriend her for the sake of being friends. She sighs.

Others

✦ Sadie, who’ll buy a motorcycle for chores and work, before realizing it has garnered much unnecessary attention — from mostly women. They’d wave at her and giggle amongst themselves. Sadie will flash ger wedding ring. “Sorry, ladies.”

✦ Susan, who, despite rarely using her phone, will occasionally tag the gang in text messages if they’ve done something wrong.

“@Arthur Morgan, I heard someone in a BLUE mustang yesterday went honking around the highway.”

Arthur will reply, still like a teen, “It wasn’t me. It must’ve been Micah going around.”

✦ Reverend, who’ll send voice mails in the GC about the constant danger of the world ending. Dutch will tell him to stay off the Morphine.

✦ Bill, who is constantly lurking on Twitter. He’ll get in a bunch of petty arguments and fall for one of Micah’s accounts. Then, he’ll get banned, as well.

✦ Trelawny, who is barely active, if he is at all. The gang will suddenly find out he’s been in California with his family and the other day went to Japan.

✦ When the gang went to the beach, John stayed out of the water and had to stay under the shade with the ladies.

✦ Micah was “complimenting” them and other women on the beach, though he ended up being reported to staff.

✦ Sean flaunted his nonexistent abs and got sunburnt.

101 notes · View notes

daggerfall · 9 months ago

Text

M's Updated New Player Guide for Elder Scrolls Online

I have to simplify a great deal of this information since the intended audience is people brand new to ESO looking to get into it for questing (not pve or pvp), so if anyone thinks bits of this are a little wrong or lacking nuance, please understand it is likely intended. Credentials: trust me.

Top 3 Important things to know before you get started

Character creation: You pick your class during character creation and this can never be changed. Trust me, people miss this. Your race, appearance, and name can all be changed but for a cost (crowns, the in-game micro transaction currency), and little bits of your appearance can be changed with cosmetics that may or may not be free. Any class can quest just fine, some will be better at solo content than others, but don't sweat this. Some classes are also DLC (warden, necromancer, and arcanist). All classes are capable of all roles for the purposes you, a new player wanting to quest, care about. Make the character you want and can stick with, as you will need a Main for purposes of crafting, and crafting knowledge can't transfer to other characters you may make. Also, plan for them to deal damage primarily. Supports are not needed in questing and you'll often be alone anyway - save yourself the pain of killing enemies at a snails pace and invest in damage with a smidge of survival.

Alliances and the Main Quest: The start of the game for new players should always be the base game main quest and your respective alliance's main quest. Unless you started with the expansion that unlocks any race any alliance, your alliance will be tied to your race. Bretons, Orsimer, and Redguards: Daggerfall Covenant. Dunmer, Argonians, Nords: Ebonheart Pact. Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit: Aldmeri Dominion. Imperials are DLC but any alliance. This can be changed later for crowns, but only affects what alliance you fight for/against in PvP zones, minor dialogue interactions, certain cosmetics, and which version of certain quests you get during the main quest. The starting city/zone for each alliance is as follows: DC: Daggerfall, Glenumbra. EP: Davon's Watch, Stonefalls. AD: Vulkhel Guard, Auridon. When you leave character creation, you'll be sent through the Coldharbour tutorial and spat out on your starter island (DC: Stros M'Kai. EP: Bleakrock Isle. AD: Khenarthi's Roost). Finish those storylines until you hit your starter city, and the main quest will progress again with meeting the Prophet at the Harborage.

DLC, Chapters, and ESO+: Depending on the version of game you got, you may be pushed or tempted to play the newest DLC (chapter or smaller zone DLC). This is a trap. ZOS advertises the game as play how you want and in any order you want, and any longtime player hates this marketing strat. Functionally, any DLC can be played at any time in ESO, but you will miss certain bits of dialogue and story by playing out of release order. Characters will remember previously meeting you if you play in order, but not out of order. They may drastically change their appearance to the point of the story making no sense if it happened in that wrong order, or even die and reappear with no acknowledgement of their death. If this is your first time playing ESO, I Highly recommend playing everything in the intended release order at least once, and then decide for yourself what stories you think work as independent stories for other characters you wish to play. Don't listen to the devil telling you to play some random dlc because you like dunmer or vampires. Listen to me, some guy on the internet instead.

The intended order is (without listing every single dlc) the Coldharbour main quest and your alliance's main quest at the same time ➡️ Cadwell's Silver and Gold (the other two alliances' main quests) ➡️ Imperial City (PvP zone with a solo storyline, but can be skipped/played at any point) ➡️ Craglorn ➡️ all dlc in release order (including dungeons, zone dlc, and chapters). Dungeons can be done in any order (base game I and II dungeons should be done in the numeric order) up to Wrathstone, which is when year-long story arcs began and included dungeons in the plot, and more returning NPCs appear in dungeons.

The Infamous "ESO DLC flowchart" can advise you the order of when you should play certain storylines (base game and dlc), but it's just the release order and natural flow of the storylines. It updates too often for me to post the image here, but you can easily find it by searching those terms. Another good ESO starter guide I like is this one, that explains which story points to hit and when.

The base game alone is good and contains hundreds of hours of content. Get through the base game's main quests and decide for yourself if you like the game enough to continue on. And if you do want to continue, then the best way to play DLC is to buy the subscription ESO+. Among many other things, the main use for the sub is access to every single DLC in the game* while the sub is active. If you play consistently, you can play through the dlcs faster than it would cost to buy them individually, and you can end your sub whenever you want/need. The sub also gives free crowns each month which can be used to purchase permanent access to specific DLC for if/when you end your sub. Or spend them on a cute outfit. Up to you. You might get addicted to the craft bag in the meantime and keep the sub forever.

*ESO+ does not give access to the newest chapter, until the next one comes out usually a year later.

ALRIGHT big stuff out of the way. More advanced stuff for once you're already in the game and playing now. And some M brand yapping.

Start researching item traits at crafting stations ASAP. The timers for research grow exponentially with each trait, so an early start is good. This is necessary for crafting later on, and everyone should have A crafter (ideally their main for resource reasons)

First I wanna address the final barrier a lot of people have with starting an MMO: the other people. To which I'm going to quote something I have found incredibly therapeutic: I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much. There are absolutely ways to avoid interactions with other players - playing in offline mode so people cannot whisper you, and hiding zone/say chat to avoid seeing other players talking - but generally speaking, other players do not care about you or others enough to bother you. The overland is not PvP enabled outside of both players choosing to duel, you're not going to get made fun of for being low level or whatever, and you're not going to get harassing messages just for existing. Others have their own lives and things to do in game. Just play the game and embrace the goofiness of someone's name or how wild their costume looks. Be brave and just Do It. Have fun! Okay? Okay back to the actual advice.

Avoid any quest that goes into your journal as a Prologue - delete it right away. Prologues are like introduction/teaser quests for zone DLC and chapters. Doing prologues out of order should also be avoided. Once you're onto playing DLC, there is a prologue for each starting with the Morrowind chapter.

Find the stable master early on and begin "training your horse" each day for 250 gold. Also buy a mount there. It takes 180 real life days to fully complete on each character, but you'll notice the difference with your mounts speed and stamina, and to clarify, inventory means YOUR inventory. That's 60 more inventory slots! And mount training affects all mounts on that character!

Speaking of mount speed - once you reach level 10 on a character, you should do the Cyrodiil tutorial quest (I promise there's no PvP required for this). Use the alliance war tab to queue into a campaign (any works but go for one that isn't all that busy. Under 50 ideally), and complete the tutorial IN FULL. Do not accept the option to skip parts of it because you know what you're doing. You'll reach rank 3 in the assault and support skill lines and gain a few skill points, all while never having to do any actual PvP. Take the first passive in the Assault skill line to gain access to Major Gallop for faster horse speed. You want this on all your characters. Finally, leave Cyrodiil using the wayshrine.

Find the bag merchant in town and spend your gold on maxing out your inventory space when you can afford it. Bankers can also be found in each town and you can store a lot of items in your bank with them FOR FREE. No other player has access to your bank. Your bank space is shared across all of Tamriel and all of your characters as well, to allow for easier item transfer to alts

Back on crafting, don't worry about materials or crafting your own gear for a long time. You pretty much need ESO+ to be a crafter due to the craft bag. Just put on random gear you loot off enemies or get as a reward, and replace it as you level up and outlevel your old gear.

As a quester, you can use any gear and any skills you want - with a few suggestions. Don't use heavy armor as your primary armor type (a few pieces are okay), ice staves, 1 hand and shield, or restoration staves. Those are primarily support armor types and weapons. Also, read your tooltips and skill descriptions, and don't use skills that state they will taunt the enemy. ESO's aggro system works differently than you may expect from other MMOs. Anything else is free game. Though I will advise this isn't Skyrim, and using skills will deal far more damage than spamming "basic attacks", or light and heavy attacks. Stealth archer isn't a thing here, sorry.

DON'T fall for the crown store trying to sell you respec scrolls, werewolf and vampire skill lines, etc. You can redo your skills and attributes at any point for gold in a capital city, other players can give you lycanthropy or vampirism for free upon request. Merchants and banker assistants from the crown store I don't consider a scam. Those are good uses of crowns once you're further into the game.

The build advisor for each class/role is painfully out of date as it hasn't been changed since launch, and entire skills/morphs have changed over the years to be entirely different. With no nuance to avoid it getting complicated, stick to either investing in magic or stamina as your primary resource, and most of your skills costing that same resource. Skills scale their damage with your highest offensive stat, so splitting evenly doesn't do anything besides make your pool bigger, but you can use both stam and mag skills and they will deal similar damage. You just might run out of your "off" resource faster. Light armor benefits magicka users better, medium benefits stamina users better, generally speaking.

And if you mess up your build or change your mind about wanting to play mag or stam, you can respec whenever. There are shrines to respec skill points/morphs and attributes in any base game capital city or chapter big city. It costs gold, scaling with how many skill points you have. Additionally, you can use the free armory station (from the crown store) to save builds and revert back to them for free. A good use for this is to save your generic PvE/questing setup and a second different setup for PvP or playing another role like healer. Currently it saves everything except scribing setups.

Join the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild ASAP in your starter town. Regardless of RP, they have storylines you'll want to complete, as well as skills and passive abilities you may want, and it's better to get a head start on this leveling process. Undaunted is related to dungeons and can be skipped early on, but if you start doing dungeons, make sure you join! It has no respective storyline.

Weapon and class skill lines progress by having those skills on your bar upon gaining experience while On that bar, not with each cast of the skill. Individual skills rank up and can morph into other skills by gaining experience with that skill on your bar. Guild skill lines have their own unique progression requirements - read your tooltips!

Main quest marker icons appear slightly fancier than generic quest markers, and I would advise to avoid taking them out of order. Most main quests will guide you to the next quest giver easily, so if you find yourself going far out of your way, you may be getting lost or starting a different storyline. Blue quest markers are for repeatable daily quests.

Delves are public instances and can be done solo. Public dungeons are public instances and may be able to be soloed depending on skill. Dungeons/group dungeons are for 4 people, not public instances, and you should not try to solo them. Trials are raids for 12 people, not public, and you very much should not attempt to solo them.

Depending on what DLC may have come with your version of the game, you may be pushed to try the various DLC features added with each chapter. This includes psijic order, antiquities, companions, tales of tribute, and scribing. All of these individually (except psijic) can be started/done early without spoiling yourself on future DLC. But there's no real need to rush through getting access/completion of them right away either.

There are daily login rewards that reset each month. Most of them are bad, but it's good to keep up on them for the monthly cosmetic or big reward. Sometimes they give AP which can level the PvP skill lines without PvP, sometimes gold, sometimes crafting materials, could be anything. There are also daily tasks to gain "seals of endeavour", currency that allow you to purchase things that otherwise can only be gambled for in crown crates. Keep up on them, and about twice a year, you can buy the most expensive mounts in the game. Golden Pursuits happen every few weeks/months, with multiple themed tasks to unlock a specific reward.

Add-ons (PC only) are allowed in ESO, mods and macros are not. The application Minion is how most of us download and update our add-ons for various UI and QOL features.

Once you reach level 50 on a character, you start gaining levels in Champion Points, which are shared across all of your characters. Once you hit CP 160, you will stop out-leveling your gear and can start making gear you plan to keep. CP goes up to 3600, but you'll hit the cap on effectiveness around 1500 (role dependent) I think.

The fashion system in ESO is either using the outfit station to apply motifs (purely cosmetic) you've learned to that character to your outfit, or costumes you can get with crowns or other means (questing, collectables, etc). Motifs learned on one character allow any character to use that motif in the outfit station, but only that character can Craft an item in that style.

There is no auction house system. There are guild traders instead - storefronts that guilds bid on weekly to gain ownership of and use for their guild to sell items to other players, for a small cut of the profits. Anyone can buy from them, only guild members can sell. Most of the junk you find in questing is worthless to other players, and most players use add-ons to know the marketplace average worth of any item in game.

Speaking of guilds, joining guilds is a good way to get access to free wayshrine porting for easier movement across Tamriel, and more. Porting to another player is free, even if you're not at a wayshrine. Many guilds also have a "guild hall" (player owned house open to all that has many resources depending on the owner). Plenty of social guilds don't even have serious requirements to join - a lot are aimed at newbies.

If you're looking to just make enough money to get by, you can sell all the random gear you loot to merchants. It will despawn from their inventory with enough time or items being sold. Once you get ESO+ and the craft bag, daily crafting writs is the best way to make easy money with little effort. Get certified in all 7 professions and do your daily crafting writs for about 5k gold per character per day. With enough skill point investment in hirelings that send materials in the mail daily, you never have to spend any gold to do writs.

Thieving is mildly good for making gold, but it has a cap on how much you can sell a day. Sell or launder at outlaws refuges in each city. Thieves guild and dark brotherhood are DLC content so don't look for them in the base game.

Before you start doing dungeons, at any level of difficulty, you should understand how ESO dungeon etiquette works. People here aren't as friendly as final fantasy, but hear me out before you say we're all mean. ESO does an extremely poor job of keeping the casual questers from the sweaty endgamers, and forces them to share the same dungeon queue when they're in that queue for entirely different reasons. Endgamers need transmute crystals quickly, questers just want to see the quest, and each person needs the other to achieve their goal, but you can't do both at the same time. Both are valid reasons to do dungeons. Quests can't be repeated on the same character, so they can't even do the quest with you if they already did it years ago. Quests also give a skill point for completing, which is another valuable endgamer resource. In general, if you plan to use the group finder to find a team for a dungeon, do not expect them to sit around and wait for you to sit through dialogue. At best they will wait for you to spam through it for the quest completion, if you warn them in advance. Randos aren't going to be overly social, even a "hi" at the start may be ignored. It's to be expected, but not intended rudely. If you want to see a dungeon's quest in full, this is the time to find a friend to group with you! It's an MMO! Be social! Many ESO dungeons are unable to be soloed unfortunately, for strange mechanical reasons.

Also, you need to know your role before queueing, and that includes knowing how to actually deal damage as a damage dealer. You don't need to be amazing, but please don't just spam light attacks. Don't queue as a tank unless you actually understand the basics of ESO tanking, same for healing. Look into resources online for beginner builds. If you don't want to learn your role or how to git gud, then I'm sorry but doing dungeons with strangers is not for you then. It's a team effort, and their time should be respected too.

Related, if you get to the point of wanting to try the trials (which do technically have a repeatable quest), normal difficulty is less scary than you may fear, but still requires coordination and a group. Ideally you come above 160cp in full sets of gear and a basic understanding of your role. Checking Craglorn zone chat or the in-game group finder for normal PUG (pick-up group, just sorta grabbing anyone that wants to come, versus an organized run) trials is the best way to find a group without using discord or joining a guild. But I do recommend finding a social guild that does casual normal runs! Just please read if they're doing normal runs or vet hardmodes runs, or if they want specific classes/roles. And of course respect the raid lead's requests and requirements

Be cautious looking for advice regarding builds. The top result when searching for a solo build is not necessarily the best build - it is the most Search Optimized build. And it's most likely intended for crazy strats like soloing vet dlc hardmodes dungeons for views. You do not need any of that!!! You at most need to learn how to block, roll dodge, interrupt, sneak, and walk out of damaging areas. When you hit cp 160, all you need is gear at your level, start looking to complete set bonuses, and some kind of self heal.

For your purposes of leveling, you should not need to grind out levels. You get various buffs as you level that scale your damage to the enemies around you within the base game. You shouldn't race to level 50 or CP 160 on your first go-around. Enjoy being a baby. You will hate the game if you spend your first hundred hours listening to sweatlords telling you that you need to pay them to level you to 50, and then pay them to make you gear.

I am willing to offer specific advice in dms or asks if people have build questions, but I prefer to not use Tumblr for this. Join my friends discord server in my About Me (pinned) if you want detailed answers!

This isn't meant to be the most strictly followed list of all time, but things that I end up inevitably telling people or wish I had learned sooner. It's meant more as something to refer back to and to gently guide you in the right direction, as well as get you in the right mindset for character creation when planning a character you'll play for Years of quests.

#eso #elder scrolls online #tes #the elder scrolls #m speaks #new player guide #fysh said im allowed to say this: dont be like fysh when making your first character #lovingly said. most of these bits of advice are like. dont do thing my good friend did and still deals with the consequences of akgjakfja #starting with a healer. never finishing the main quest. crafter main and antiquarian different toons. L Ratio

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zeehasablog · 5 months ago

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Canary & Sons' Small Piano-Forte

Voilà! I am happy to present my own "square piano" for your historical sims to hone their piano skills!

In an age when domestic music making was usually accompanied by a lady at the harpsichord or Spinnet, the advent of the square piano was hugely significant. These compact pianos were designed and made by John Zumpe and sold from his house and workshop in Princes Street, at the north-east corner of Hanover Square. The oldest surviving examples are dated 1766. Many harpsichord players took to them immediately – their tone sounded so charming to ears that had known nothing but the harpsichord and organ – and these 'small Piano-fortes' were so inexpensive! Plain examples sold for as little as £18 – about half the cost of a single-manual harpsichord from Jacob Kirckman or Burkat Shudi (these being the two leading makers). For thirty years the harpsichord and piano-forte existed side by side, regarded as equally useful instruments, depending on what music you wished to play. Consequently, in many homes, in London or in Paris, you might find both instruments, often in the same room, their owners deciding that a 'small Piano-forte' could be readily accommodated. It would take up little space, and when closed it looked much like a side table. (source)

Following manymany tutorials, I have decided on my finished product.

It is a fully closed square piano, with loads of deco slots on it, so you can clutter up the place, while still managing to practice your playing.

I decided on just two wood shades, and for variety, there's 9 different stool cushion covers.

There's so many different designs of square pianos. Some have pedals, some don't - some have levers, and dampeners.... There'd be parts of the top which open - so that you can see the strings, and tune when needed (or to increase the volume). From 1768 onwards, three levers were installed in that small space to the left of the keyboard - so this would open up as well, in order to access these.

I had to decide how much I wanted - do I want it open at all? If so, both sections? I am not really very good at making things in blender, so it worked out better for me to do it closed up.

I also decided to keep pedals: though I don't recall seeing an animation where the sim presses the pedals, the game has cones here for pressing, so it's definitely possible!

I worked supersuper hard on this, so I really hope you all like it!

Download now, for free, via Curseforge!

~~ Terms Of Use ~~

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juperder · 4 months ago

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rambles about the g-man and his connection with adrian shephard, because a recent conversation with a friend had me thinking about it

something hardly anyone ever mentions is that, while we call him "the g-man," his name is never actually dropped across the games. however, adrian himself has referred to him as a "g-man," the slang term for government man or FBI agent

what's interesting about this is that "g-man" as slang is rarely used today nor at the time of the black mesa incident, and especially not something any of the major characters in opposing force would say. it's like, thirties slang, being used by a twenty-two-year-old marine.

it might not mean anything, but i like to look at it as a little insight into adrian's personality, as even these diary entries written by him don't give us a lot to work with.

the tutorial chapter of opposing force shows us that g-man was making the rounds around the boot camp adrian was at,

it seems g-man was arguing for adrian's spot on the advanced training list, likely to prime him for indoor combat inside black mesa

the thing is, this was two months before the resonance cascade happened. why would g-man have done all this if he didn't consider adrian a critical resource? it was because adrian was his initially his primary candidate. he was the original "gordon freeman" in a sense

you can sort of see this in the contrast between g-man sightings between both games, as in half-life's beginning chapters, g-man is typically observing gordon from a casually approachable distance, like behind a door or from a catwalk gordon is able to cross

^ this is after the resonance cascade, adrian hasn't been deployed yet

as gordon is forced back underground by the presence of the HECU, g-man's sightings have become much more distant and sporadic

^ this is around the same time that adrian regains consciousness after his osprey crashed. gordon is much closer to xen by this point

why is this important? it shows a shift in g-man's demeanor the moment that gordon gains a reputation among the other survivors, meanwhile adrian is left behind on the surface, g-man doing the bare minimum to ensure he doesn't step out of line.

^ this is after gordon has become a hot ticket item. note that g-man is not trying to be discreet at all here lol

i believe g-man's physical distance between a potential hire can signify their value as an asset to him, with g-man becoming harder to reach once he takes interest in somebody, potentially in order to prevent himself from distracting them or inspiring them to get closer.

the speech g-man gives at the end of opposing force also has some interesting implications about how he views adrian

think about how g-man makes you, the player, feel. the answer you get will depend on who you ask, but most often you see people say they become curious, uncertain, or even just weirded out.

now, think about someone like gordon or even alyx here. people who at a glance, are just that; ordinary people. g-man speaks to them individually, with either emotional appeal or appeal to rationale.

g-man is awfully formal with gordon, much as his superiors at black mesa were. g-man also gives gordon something that he's rarely had over the course of the game's plot, that being a choice. he is allowed to refuse the offer of employment, even if doing so would be a guaranteed death. and canonically, gordon did accept the offer.

the difference between adrian and gordon's survival to g-man is that, despite his success in combat, gordon was hardly ever trained in it. gordon freeman is the everyman. this makes him easier to grasp, given that g-man can generally assume what gordon would want based on his quality of life. with this in mind, here me out:

adrian is unpredictable by being predictable. think about it,

adrian shephard is a combat soldier. he signed on, aware of the kind of situations he would be getting himself into, and he made it out of black mesa alive. all according to g-man's original plan, right? wrong.

people enlist in the military for many reasons. some are simply scooped up by recruiters. it would be a HUGE gamble for g-man to give adrian the same type of privilege as gordon by hiring him, since g-man doesn't know what there is to appeal to within adrian. for all we know, adrian might not have cared what happened either way!

not that i mean to suggest adrian is passively suicidal or anything like that, but we really don't know what would've been his ideal outcome for himself regarding the situation. we don't even know his motivation for fighting to survive black mesa, aside from his writing from beforehand which says he wants "change and adventure"

adrian being dangerous and hard to read conflicts with his potential as an asset to g-man, making g-man unsure on how to approach him. since there's not much he can infer about adrian, what does he do? he plays the "im just the messenger, it isn't my fault" card

all of this puts adrian's evaluation into question, specifically his status

it's as blunt as the rest, but choice of wording almost insinuates adrian is a criminal. not "delayed" or "on hold" but "detained"

#half life #half life opposing force #opposing force #adrian shephard #gman #not tagging gordon cause this aint about him #i dont usually make long posts like this #please forgive any grammatical errors #i write fanfic not essays #text post tag

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ravenstargames · 6 months ago

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✦ LOST IN LIMBO — 2024 WRAP-UP + 2025 MILESTONES

And here we are, after the holidays! Another year has come to an end and this one was simply incredible. You can anticipate what our most important milestone was for 2024, but there has been a lot going on this past year that maybe we all have forgotten. So let's see what these four friends have accomplished this year, and what's coming for a 2025 that already looks promising!

Good news is that we achieved every goal we set up for this year! Isn't that awesome?! We published our first demo, hosted our very first casting call (and it was nuts!) and so much more! Let's see it :3

✦ OUR STUDIO, RAVENSTAR GAMES, WAS OFFICIALLY FOUNDED ON JULY!

Let me tell y'all that when you finish college, keep studying because it turns out the job market is absolutely devastated and cannibalized, and then have an existential crisis, the last thing you think about is saying "fuck it we ball" and open a studio. I mean, we are literally four people with no stable jobs (well, Kayden is an exception) and with no previous experience making a game entirely by ourselves.

So this was a huge step for us. A scary one. A terrifying one, and still is. But we've survived so far, so let's hope we can still do just that—survive at least long enough to start living. Calling this our job would be a dream come true, but there's still a long road ahead until that!

✦ WE SUCCESSFULLY FUNDED LOST IN LIMBO ON KICKSTARTER!

And you were right if you thought this was our most important milestone of the year!

Honestly, I low-key thought we weren't gonna make it. As I said—four people with no budget, paying for what we couldn't do ourselves with what our grandmas give us on Christmas—what were the chances anyone would be interested in helping us fund our game?

But we still had to do it, because making it this far and not risking not being funded would be madness. So there we were, opening Photoshop with tears in our eyes, watching our mediocre bank accounts get obliterated and working on the Kickstarter graphics with nothing but glitter and Jesus.

Also, we were asking for a lot of money and it was our first project. We've seen firsthand a lot of projects fail, a lot of people being scammed, and a lot of projects not going like the audience and devs wanted. So I thought we were a bit doomed.

Well, turns out there are people who believe in us and our project, so I was proved wrong. Maybe our graphics were really cool in the end, huh? I worked my ass off on those! /silly

So 980 people donated almost 60k euros and on September 27th, Lost in Limbo became officially a thing. Which is wild. I don't think I believe it still, honestly.

Of course, not everything went smoothly! As first timers we made a lot of mistakes, but we knew we were going to mess up something. Sometimes it was us, sometimes it was Backerkit or Kickstarter...Truth is watching a million YouTube tutorials, reading articles or learning about other devs' journeys doesn't make you ready to run a Kickstarter. There's some stuff you can only learn while running it!

So we ordered our merch, had our 🎉first delay🎉 because we made a mistake with our pins, and managed to deliver our digital goodies to our backers without blowing up (almost) anything.

✦ WE FUNDED OUR VERY OWN SOUNDTRACK!

And it'll consist of 19 original tracks by our wonderful composer Tomás Palazzi! 💜

✦ WE RELEASED OUR FIRST DEMO!

And overall, people seem to enjoy it! In fact, we recently reached +10k downloads and +71k views on itch! T^T

Of course, getting our demo out there was nerve-wracking, but we received a lot of love, and that includes wonderful and constructive feedback from a lot of folks who love our project and want it to succeed in its best form. Incredible content creators played our demo, reviewed it—and we've met amazing and stunningly creative people in the process!

However, as with anything you publish for others to see, not everyone is going to like it, and I think as a team we needed to also be exposed to that. There have been negative reviews that have helped us improve, and some others that have made us realize that our game, just like any other, isn't for everyone, and that's okay—our game isn't perfect and it won't ever be, and that's okay. As creators and creatives, accepting the critiques that help us improve is as important as letting go of the ones that contribute nothing, and to accept there are some things we don't want to change.

Of course there have been nasty or rude reviews, (most of them private) and albeit there were very few of them, but that was guaranteed. We try to have a few laughs at those!

✦ WE CREATED OUR OWN DISCORD SERVER!

And it's brimming with life!? We are almost 400 members and I may be biased, but it's full of amazing, supportive, and incredibly creative people. It feels so strange to see people talk daily about your game, about your characters—theorize, laugh, ask stuff...I can only hope our members feel at home as much as we do, because even if we can't interact with everyone all the time, just reading y'all makes us extremely happy :')

✦ WE STARTED WORKING ON OUR EXTENDED DEMO!

And it's going great! The script is doing better than expected, even if I'm editing more stuff than I originally planned. Implementing feedback we received during our survey is helping me improve the pace, storytelling and dynamism of the script. I'm an overthinker so I know I'm most likely editing / adding more stuff than I planned, but so is the way of the west.

Raquel has (as you all know) been working on the reworked sprites, and for now there's 4/7 done! 💜 We also have finished one of the new backgrounds and one is close to being done. That's 2/3!

Also, thanks to y'all buying extra stuff via Backerkit, we've managed to raise a bit more money and have been able to commission Airyn for help on the extended demo, as well as Allie (our editor) and the wonderful, the Ren'py Jesus, Feniks, to help us with our programming adventures! So technically we didn't reach our second stretch goal (outsourcing) but the extra coins have allowed us to hire some help!

That's all for 2024! Phew! Now, our plans for 2025 are quite simple (me when I lie).

First of all we want to ship our Kickstarter merch (more on that on a Kickstarter update coming soon!)

Finish production for our Kickstarter artbook

Release our Extended Demo

For now, we are aiming for a June 2025 release of the prologue, and the first chapter of every route will follow soon after.

Open our Patreon!

We have to think about this thoroughly, plan it, and make sure we can offer quality stuff worthy of your support. Some of you have asked a lot about a Patreon but we want to make sure we make it right!

On a personal note—this year I have been working on my OCD, as last year, and booked with two therapists. My therapist (the one who diagnosed me last year), and a different one specialized in OCD. This year has been full of highs and lows, but I'm in a much better headspace than I was last year, to the point of my meds being lowered! ✌️

I also enrolled for my PhD program like a month ago, and I got accepted after a lot of college shenanigans that almost became my villain arc. So this year is going to be funny for me!

Every member of the team has had their personal issues to deal with this year. Mental health, family, etc. It hasn't been an easy year for us, but I'm happy to say we've been there for each other.

And I think that's all! Overall it has been an insane year. Very productive, very nerve-wracking, and incredibly awesome. We can only hope this year is as good as 2024 if not even better, both for us as people and for our game. We hope your 2024 has been good, and we also hope you are excited to make 2025 a year you can be proud of; but most importantly, a year in which you can take care of yourself, be at peace with who you are, discover new things about yourself, and crave a path to the future you want to live!

Talk to you all soon! 💜

#lost in limbo #visual novel #otome #amare #devlog

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ollyissleepy · 6 months ago

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𝐖𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 = 𝐦𝐲 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲

summary: you and your boyfriend shed blood, sweat and tears in order to have perfectly wrapped christmas gifts. a/n: rafayel cries when really angry (i'm projecting) also you would think that last week of uni before christmas break would be all vibes but no instead you have to fight to survive (he says, as he wrote it during lecture) (I couldn't care less anymore tbh) (the professor literally was poorly reading from a presentation) (like dude you could sent it to us and we all could go home) cw: none

series masterlist

has no clue what is happening, is here for the vibes

"… and then you're done!" The person in the tutorial shows their perfectly wrapped gift. You look down at you, and while it's looking a little funky, it still looks similar to what was shown on the tutorial.

"That was pretty easy, right Xavier?" You look at you boyfriend, smiling. Then, you look down at how his gift looks like and you couldn't help but laugh.

His gift was a mess. The only thing it had the same as the tutorial is the fact that wrapping paper was used.

"Why didn't you say you're struggling? I could help you or we could watch the tutorial again" you look at Xavier, trying to figure out what he's thinking.

"I had fun, there was no point in stopping" the replies, smiling at you. Your heart squeezes at the sight of Xavier and his pure innocence.

good at wrapping, but gets mad easily

The wrapping on your part was going rather smoothly, the gifts you were tasked with wrapping were rather easy with them being simple boxes, since Rafayel decided to do the more complicated ones as the 'master wrapper' he claims to be. You were about to grab another one, signing along to the song that's playing in the background, when you heard Rafayel mumbling swear words under his breath.

"You ok over there?" You ask, looking over at your boyfriend.

"Yeah" he's not and you know that. His voice was shaking and his face was twisted in anger. You looked down at his hands to check what was making him feel that way. He was struggling with wrapping a particularly weird-shaped object.

"Raf, it's impossible to wrap to let's just throw in in a bag or something hm?" You put a hand on his shoulder and rub it in comforting manner.

"Yeah your right" Rafayel looks up to blink away the tears that were trying to spill from his eyes. You grab a bag,one of the few you bought just in case and let your boyfriend put the object in it.

avoids it, would rather pay/force someone else to do it for him

You hear Sylus sigh for like the fifth time in the last hour. It got to the point that you regret wanting to do it with him in the first place.

"Less sighing, more working, Sylus" you don't have to look up at him to know he's rolled his eyes the moment you said that.

"We wouldn't have to work, if you went with my plan" his voice has a sassy tone to it, his arms crossed

"We're not letting other people wrap gifts for OUR friends and family" you stand your ground and another sigh leaves your boyfriend's lips.

Then, out of nowhere, Sylus is right next to you, wrapping his strong arms around you from the back. He starts leaving soft kisses along your neck, hoping it would pull you away from work.

"It's not gonna work, Sylus. Get back to wrapping" you push him away from you.

"Worth a shot" he shrugs.

god-like wrapping skills AND super patient with your lack of skills

You watch Zayne skillfully wrap each and every gift with ease, his face in full focus that you usually see him have when he's doing patients paperwork.

"You know, if you actually did something else other than staring at me, we would be done by now" Zayne doesn't even look up from the gifts he's currently working on.

"How can I focus, when I have my boyfriend looking all hot while wrapping gifts" you lean against the table, smirking at him. "Besides, I have no clue how to wrap that thing"

"I'll show you" and boy he does. After finishing up with the gift he was working on, he comes closer to you. The two of you are so close, you can feel his warmth.

Zayne shows you all the tricks he knows when it comes to wrapping weirdly shaped objects. Even when you mess up something, he's there to help either guiding your hands or taking over and fixing it.

taglist: @leighsartworks216 @faeryminnyx @iloveboysinred @sstar-ggirl @bellagrayson-wayne

you want in? fill out this form!

#love and deepspace x reader #love & deepsace x reader #lads x reader #lads xavier #lads x you #lads x y/n #lads x mc #lads xavier x reader #sylus x reader #zayne x reader #rafayel x reader #lads zayne x reader #lads sylus x reader #lads rafayel x reader

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greenflamedwriter · 3 months ago

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If found return to Owner

Or other working title : Fish in an aquarium.

A/n; inspired by anima+ a manga where people can shift not fully into animals but certain parts like neko’s. So yeah.

Shen Yuan was the star of the show, and as such he takes it very seriously.

As he walked into the Silver Scales Atrium, it was hosted by a…type of circus? The chinese equivelent, that is if a Circus had demons and shifted humans as well then sure.

People, both the common and immortal came here to feast their eyes on the exotic and unique things they could never see commonly in their own mundane lives..

“Here is your pay for the evening.”

Shen Yuan hummed once he was settled in his Masters office.

The pay was meager compared to what he could earn but it was something. Shen Yuan counted, while his Master, Wu Cheng gazed at him with irritation.

Here we go again, the man never liked- or understood why he should be paying Shen Yuan and he always tried the same argument.

“Although I still don’t see the point in why you should be payed. this money is mine as are you so why not put it in my vault for safe keeping?”

Shen Yuan sighed after seeing all was in order placed the money on a pouch and hid it in his sleeves.

“Don’t you like my garments?” He asked raising the sleeves and showing off the vibrant sky blue to the critical look of Wu Cheng.

“And my make-up and for the dance lessons aided this one with new more exciting routines?” Shen Yuan used his (newly purchased fan) to hide his face and looked up at the Master coquettishly.

“Has all of these purchases improved this ones performance, and even raised the value of this one. After all Master Wu has received many…offers and each offer raising higher and higher. Now imagine what they would pay if this performer happened to have treasure affiliated.”

“Paying Money with money? I don't follow.”

“It wont be money they will be trading, sometimes people find items much more worth than gold. Such as those rather rare and expensive Solar crystals that you use for your show.”

Those crystals were very helpful for the ambiance light, face it this man was a wash up when Shen Yuan showed him the lights and how to utilise them his shows ended up becoming famous and gaining new clientels, from a washed up circus into a high brow entertainer Wu Cheng kept asking Shen Yuan for his insight.

Which he gave.

“This is an investment, to your most devoted and favoured specimen.” Shen Yuan would love to tie a cord around the mans throat and slowly feel him lose his breath beneith his hands.

“I still dont see why you need your own savings, what are you going to do with it?” He asked and Shen Yuan huffed, “Don’t you trust me? All purchases has been to enhance my performance. Water proof make-up and garments is difficult, and working a show under water and continue to keep it entertaining and not bore the crowd? How many fish do you have in your employ and do they do as well as me?”

“Very well Shen Yuan.” He conceded the truth was other than Shen Yuan all the other humans who shared his ability of adjusting their forms into an animal were forgotten but thats mostly the Master’s fault, he thought sticking them in a bowl for people to gawk at would be impressive.

Which it was at first but became boring quick.

And they weren't pretty, average but not as good looking as Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan had adapted, changing up his routine making them look and listen. When he was captured as a boy he made stories, like the little mermaid.

Yes, he plagirised, but as a reader of Proud Immortal Demon Way and only a few vague memories of his childhood and breaking through a tutorial mode on improving his shifting abilities he was going to do what it takes to survive, dammit!

He had slits on his neck, gills that opened so he could breath underwater, and his legs shifted to turn into a tail.

Luckily for him he didn’t have to be naked to change and then leave the aqarium. It was a bowl when he first met Master Wu and ended up making his circus a full time theatre troupe.

Shen Yuan was a man now, he grew into his looks and used make-up to accent his beauty and even tried to find ways to make himself look feminine if he pretended to be a women his value would go up.

Shen Yuan would leave if he could, but around his ankle was a thick iron band that had an array carved into it.

It was only eavesdropping that made him find out what the secret to unlock it was, fire.

Huh, smart for Master Wu but still dumb. Fire wasn’t a huge problem, and Shen Yuan of course may have played up his fear when he learned that as a child.

All he had to do was secure his future, if he had money then he could leave the troupe and never come back!

Master Wu saved enough to settle down in the Imperial city.

Big trouble for Shen Yuan, if the Heavenly Emperor caught wind of this he’d probably request their shows for a wife plot or something.

No thank you, he would rather be a thousand miles away from binghe.

In the timeline he guessed since the worlds were not merged they hadn’t reached the climax yet. Even so, Shen Yuan worried if the realms merged while he was in his fishbowl he may be boiled alive or spliced between two mountains- who knows?

He played up his fear of fire, then played in the interest of helping Master Wu, he acted more like a rich noble (which yeah sure he was the son of rich parents and spoiled so what?) and was honest that he could barely survive out there with the monsters and demons and demonic cultivators!

And he could barely cook for himself or dress himself! (Damn these ancient robes!) so it softened the Master with Shen Yuan being so helpful, taking the performance seriously and even making up stories as well as finding unique items to elevate the sound, make fascinating lighting techniques to make the show better and earn their money.

He was favoured and spoiled by the Master, but ot wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows, he had to throw his weight around and feel as if he was in charge.

Shen yuan, even on his best behaviour would be helpless when he would watch the Master decide to be petty and take a few coins, light an incence in close proximity making Shen Yuan tense and saw the smirk on the mans face as he toyed with the flame.

Shen Yuan knew, if fire happened to touch his leg and he was free he would kill the man and take that chance.

The braclet would of course force him to change, a fish out of water wouldn’t be able to breathe until he was rescued and carried to water immedietly.

He learned that lesson the hard way.

Even so, his Master couldn’t hurt him physically or leave a scar it would ruin his value.

Shen Yuan wasn’t some fish from a pond, he was a rare high class fish, better than the other merman here!

And he couldn’t leave yet- not without one more thing.

A locket tied around the Masters neck.

In his memories it was his most precious thing, and he knew he would need that with him when he leaves.

Master Wu taunted him with each chance he had.

He always liked to remind Shen Yuan who he was and how people looked down on shifters like him. He was lucky, sometimes shifters were hunted for sport.

But his situation was worse, a certain myth appeared that eating the flesh of a mermaid gave you immortality.

The only reason he wasn’t cannibalised was because of the protection of the theatre troupe.

He knew he had to plan accordingly before he left, his buyer waa finalising his contract and he knew he would have to leave soon.

Outside, as they were making preparations for the show tonight, Shen Yuan was making rounds, making sure everyone was doing their part and all costumes and props were accounted for.

He’ll admit he’ll miss this part, being a technician and a stage hand alas, as he was marking down what was needed and some last minute preparations there was a sudden commotion.

He turned to see a man dragged before Master Wu.

A man with black wings, and his feet shifted to look like claws, the men held him down and the Master gave him an appraising look.

Shen Yuan almost stopped breathing then forced himself to relax- it wasn’t Luo Binghe he may be handsome and have black wings but what are the odds a man would be captured by someone as stupid as Wu Cheng!?

However, having wings was a huge advantage, it helped his chances alot if he could have assistence from someone to fly away from here.

He could see it was about to become violent so he rushed over, placing a hand on tge mans shoulder speaking urgently.

“Calm down, its better not to fight.” The winged man turned his gkare to him but relaxed, Shen Yuan hated using his voice like that, a sirens song.

“With that restraint on your leg it forces you to shift but you lose all ability to use it. If you fly up chances are you would fall or break a wing.”

“Shen Yuan! I see your taken with our new attraction! A shame of the colour of his wings though if they were white we could’ve called him an angel.”

Shen Yuan shook his head, “There are so many possibilities with a shifter thats gifted with flight.” He spoke with meaning.

He looped his hand through the mans arms and looked up at the Master.

“Is he going to be our new star?”

“Don’t be silly Shen Yuan, no one could replace you.”

Shen Yuans smile stiffened but nodded, “I want to train him personally,” he felt the arm stiffen under his arm and patted it.

“Don’t worry you’re going to be wonderful,”

As they walked towards Shen Yuans room, he saw all the looks being give their way.

His nee charge was flighty always looking at every single person as they walked by.

He must notice the robes. Each colour and style helped differintiate the shifters and who were human and who were the entertainment.

And the quality of the robes as well, other fosh were in pale blue or off grey colours.

Meanwhile Shen Yuans robes were always better quality, strong blues and cyans along with golden threads with patterns of dragons or flowers.

Probably appraising the new member of their troupe.

“Just this way,” Shen Yuan escorted the man and shut the door behind him.

“Okay, oh I didn’t catch your name.”

The man glared and Shen Yuan worrried he was going to be killed then shook it off.

“Does a slave need a name?”

“Slave? Goodness no! We’re all performers here!”

Shen Yuan saw how the man was looking for an escape, or even taking in his room.

“So if I act like you, I would be goven a pretty cage too?” He hissed.

And Shen Yuan grimaced, “I admit bird shifters have it worse. Whenever any one sees a bird they want to possess it and clip their wings and remove the one thing they need for survival.”

His mood took a damp turn.

“So can you sing? Your a bird right you should be a good singer,” now the man looked offended again.

“Try to sing me a song, please?”

The man glared and sang, very badly and off-key. And Shen Yuan grimaced either he was really bad at singing…or he was faking.

Down playing his value? Makes sense.

As his new charge singing was very bad, Shen Yuan observed him and tried to figure out colour combinations for his wardrobe.

He wasnmt Binghe, but red would look very fetching on him.

“Okay. That was good,” Shen Yuan lied, then asked “But can you dance?” Now the man crossed his arms.

Shen Yuan stepped close and patted his arms, “Okay follow my steps,” he raised the mans arms and adjusted them and began to show him how to dance the first opening number on their act.

While they were rehearsing, as on cue the Master opened the door, not even knocking.

“Hmm oh you have him dancing, it seems you’ve done it again.” Master Wu looked at his new asset with glee.

Shen Yuan was familair with that look and smiled, “I already have some ideas for an act, two lovers cursed with forms never to touch each other again but return to human once and can join on land, one of the sea one of the sky.”

Master Wu nodded “Hmm, and Shen Yuan would play the lead role hmm?”

Shen Yuan shook his head, “Yu Ren has been practising she would be the star, instead while this one could play the villain who had cursed the two. Its good to branch out in new roles.”

The Master shook his head, “Ah it would be interesting but no, they come to see you. Seeing you as a villain would break everyones hearts.”

Oh for crying out loud! Give him a backing role so he can run away damn you!

This was toing to be harder than he thought.

“Or star crossed lovers, a raven kidnapping the mermaid and the two fall in love but the mer folk want to see justice against the kidnapper.” Shen Yuan sighed and spoke with long suffering. “I’ll pretend to be a women this time.”

The Master nodded “Anything for my a-yuan.”

The Master looked at the young man his gaze growing cold, “You should appreciate Shen Yuans efforts. We have nobles desperate enough to pay for lessons and he gives them to you for free.”

“Yes this one is truly grateful.”

“What do you call yourself?” The Master asked, and the young man grit his teeth. “Hei Niao.”

Blackbird huh?

“You are to do everything Shen Yuan says, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Shen Yuan, if our little birdie misbehaves that is a reflection on you.” Shen Yuan nodded “Yes, Master Wu. This Shen Yuan understands.”

With a flap of his sleeves the man left, as soon as the door shut Shen Yuan knew the time was now.

He slipped a hand under his sleeve and pulled out a slip of parchment paper and placed it on the door and activated the tailsmen.

He may not be a proper cultivator but he knows with the memories that his family came from a sect and with his knowledge of PIDW pre-transmigration he was able to cultivate enough for this.

He practised the tailsman by practising his singing during the night very loudly, no one said anything. He could tell Hei Niao was surprised.

“Okay- we don’t have long.” Shen Yuan spoke turning to the man and spoke quickly.

“Can you carry me and fly?”

“What?”

Shen Yuan placed both hands on his hips, “If I’m going to help you escape your helping me too, can you carry me and fly out of here yourself.”

This will make running away so much easier! Shen Yuan knew they would hunt him down and find him near the river banks. But with Hei Niao he could fly them away.

“What- hold on, you’re a cultivator?” Hei Niao asked still looking suspicious and Shen Yuan couldn’t blame him.

“Self taught.”

He approached Hei Niao who stepped back warily and Shen Yuan huffed, “I’m not going to hurt you, let me take a look at that cuff.”

Now he looked interested, “You know how to break them? But why havn’t you run away yet?”

Shen Yuan dropped down to his knees and tapped the mans legs, “Come on, lift up your robes!”

The man suddenly went very quiet so Shen Yuan huffed and did so himself.

Shifting somtimes shifts over clothes too, convientnent of airplane so people could shift and make a run for it and not worry about being naked and such.

“Hmm- okay this ones easy, wait here.” Shen Yuan stood up grabbing a boot and filling it with dirt.

“…what are you doing?”

“Your cuff is in tune with your animal. A bird in flight who never touches the ground so,”

He came back over and made him wear the boot and purposely buried the cuff in soil.”

“You’ll have to wear this for a sinchen, in that time I’m going to tell you the structure of the house. Lay low, and when the time is right we’ll leave.”

“What about your cuff? And once mine breaks how will we explain to the Master here why its suddenly gone?”

The man was very suspicious, Shen Yuan rolled his eyes.

He gestured to his own cuff and removed it, then reattatched it.

“Fire is harm ful to mermaids, but as humans not so much.”

“So what do you want out of this?”

“Help me escape,”

based in pidw, show Shen Yuan arriving at the Ring leaders office, have the man gish at his performance and give him a box which is full of scripts only for Shen Yuans eyes and since Shen Yuan did so well he has obtained new pearls for him to wear for the show.

Shen Yuan takes them but shows distaste that he prefers a wage instead, the other fish anima sneer that its unheard of for an animal to be payed something as human as money even the ringleader agrees so SY acts demure as he raises his robes and his make-up and the high quality jewealey that glisten even in the water for the audiance to see even so many yards back he does it all for the show its his investment and hasn’t he been nothing but a devoted servant? So the master nods and flaps his hand agreeing that yes SY has been an asset which is such a shame when they’ll depart with him until the contracts go through.

Sy tenses then relaxes, ah yes have their been a decision yet? No the master says their tradeoff is t goid enough unless they give them the tools that would enhance the show especially with sy’s absense. Shen Yuan inwardly scoffs almost like trading a fish for a surround sound system. All the tools they have, crystals, linen, costumes all fire proof, water proof the glow of the crystals being a good enough light source to avoid any hazardous accidents and giving the show an etheral feel. All sy’s idea. Not only that but fire is used to remove the manacles on their legs. Fire can harm fish and since sy gave the idea for the crystals that would make it more difficult for anyone to escape. Sy always played up his fear of fire as a child, the master even lit incense near him and looked amused when sy flinched or tried to move away the master even moved close as if he’d burn him then refrained. He has to act as if he’s in ckntrol afterall it was this fish that turned this backwater tent with holes into a well established theatre trope. They was even rumours circulating that their shows would be worthy to be seen by the Heavenly Emporer himself!

Luo Binghe hadn’t merged the realms yet, and sy planned on running away before the time came. He had nightmares some cliff would splinch him as he was inside his bowl for a show. Sy knew he was getting older and had recieved gifts from many rich collectors who wanted a fish in their own homes. Sy can turn intk a mermaid or back to a human very convenient it was a shame he almost felt sorry for them. The master always dressed him in womens clothes or water-proof garments and make-up and played up how feminine sy was and yeah compared to the rough men here he did look like a women until he spoke. Even so, he could see why men would pay so much money for a women and by recieving gifts they were used for the circus, the master was taking them for everything the had.

Sy one condition to not leaving the troupe was having a contract worthy of him and that someone with his level of talent to replace him, he would even train the new prodigy himself. Afterall if he played it up as retirment but still being passionate about his baby of a show, then they wouldn’t think about tightening his restrictions after all he never escaped even made it harder for escape on purpose. It was so they will be so secure that he likes being a pet they would be too shocked to see him walking out the feont door. By the time they realise he’s gone he’ll be miles away and they will never get him back.

He already knew how to get rid of his manacle he wasnmt scared of fire the opposite he was terrified of drowning. Even so he manged his fears as he had to do it over and over again. However the locket wrapped around the masters neck was the only heirloom of his family he couldn’t leave that behind no matter what, he had a feeling it would uncover some cave or key to finding a safe place so he told Hei Niao he couldn’t leave without it it was the only thing he had left that was just his, he wouldn’t expect him to understand but if the time came to leave and sy canmt make it then to go on without him.

The two plan to fly away during the show, making them believe its lart of the act, with both manacles gone and with how relaxed they were LBH flies them lut and finds an old nest and says he built loads just in case with how high up they are and how far they’ve flown they should be safe.

Sy tells lbh he can hunt fish and forage and knows whats food and whats poison (thanks to his pidw knowledge) and that when they find a city they can part ways. His companion stiffens so Sy explains he would feel safer with a companion and bodyguard to the place he is going however he doesnt feel comfortable having LBH trade one master for another sy would like him to stay but wouldn’t want him to force himself out of pity or obligation, relieved lbh says he has no where to go.

The next day when they cook food, as soon as sy takes a bite of the meal that was their joined efforst he stops eating and swallows staring at the food.

Was it bad? No…it was really good…

Lbh watches as sy looks at him, hand stiff on the bowl. You’re Luo Binghe aren’t you.

Lbh stares with surprise, sy when the other says nothing continues eating but more subdued, if it was laced with blood parasites one drop will be enough its too late however lbh doesnt know sy is aware of his abilities only meng mo is aware of such a thing.

How did you know.

Luo Binghe has dark wings, black as night, is a good cook good enough to make the gods weep and is handsome. You’re also a cultivator with no sword not even a rented one, and with how well you carry yourself its impossible for you to be caltured so easily unless you meant to be caught. Why?

Lbh laughed shaking his head, “anima have been kidnapped and this lord wanted to in estigate. I figured you were part of it. The honey to lure them in in comparison to the masters whip. But you planned to escape just like the rest of them.” Wait investigated…?

“My wife has a little brother who was missing and we found the traves led to that theatre troupe. I was going to invite them to the imperial city however to appear before high society they may have done more than hide their dealings,” such as killing off anima who didnt behave or made all their buisness associates go into hiding.

“And this Lord was bored and decided it’d be more fun to seeing for myself how bad it was. My wives are dissmantling that theatre troupe now and finding the other lords affiliated with such a group.”

Ah, very well then oh…Shen Yuan looked down hiding his expression but wanted to fiddle with his earings, the ones binghe got for him because maybe it reminded him of the jade pendent he couldn’t get back from his mother.

“Well I guess we will be parting ways.”

“Why is that?” “You’re the emporer, to have you as my body guard is beneith you.”

“I said I was bored, helping a fish back home is the least I can do. So where is your home?” Well this was awkward.

“Cang Qiong mountain.”

“Are you playing a joke?”

“No I lived there, as a child some kids tried to drown me, I was swept away by the tide and then found by the troupe. All I know is that there was a place and I had a mother and father, I can barely remember their names of faces.” Luo Bi ghe was quiet and Shen Yuan smiled at him with a shrug. “I know what I will find on cang qiong, and know that what happened was an act of justice.”

“Everyone you loved would be gone.” Shen Yuan nodded “I knew when I first heard, I made my peace with it. But there is a hidden cavern.” He touched his earings “Some thing may still be there, my toys, paintings, letters or maybe nothing. I will go there and pay my respects and say that I made it home even if home is gone for me. It’s…closure.”

“Do you hate me, afterall I am the reason you have lost your home.”

“I’m surprised you havn’t killed me for being affiliated, I don’t blame you. It was justice.” Luo Binghe looked troubled and so Sy tried again. “You don’t have to come with me-“

“I’d like to, if you will let me- if my presence unnerves you then I will leave.” Huh, it wasn’t like binghe to play long con when he couod just kill sy here and now.

“If the emporer wants to accompany me then how can I say no?” Lbh looked like he was going to protest until he saw the smile and realised he was joking.

After the initial scare of realsing it was lbh he was with he was then excited to be travelling the worldof pidw with the protagonist he wasn’t actively trying to kill him!

Lbh sensed his enthusiasm but then realised something. “Ah shen yuan this lord didn’t really plan on bringing anything such as spare clothes, food or money.” He looked sheepish and of course it was probably a one time mission and didnt pack heavy.

“Oh it’s fine! I’ve got that handled,” lbh watched shen yuan in his nest and it made him feel things. Sy looked perfect in there up high in a tree away from the rest of the world and how he had his pearls around him sorting through them. And saw Shen Yuan pull them alart one by one.

Luo Bi ghe sat near him, “what are you doing?”

“Well with the way we’re dressed no one will believe we came by this much honestly we’ll be accused of stealing then be robbed ourselves.”

“Well you could get away with it,” sy couldn’t it was his stage robes which were damaged when they took flight they were proofed for fire and water and other things, but the harsh elements, dirt, branches and the wear and tear? His find stage robes were not completely destroyed but not very presentable.

“We’ll say we’re travelling cultivatirs who found some pearls by the water. We’ll hide our anima abilities. You become a target for such things and we’ll end up back at the beggining again well- Binghe can handle himself but I’d rather we avoid it altogether. You can survive anything, a little fish however? Not so much.”

Binghe saw how sy was able to bargain and pay for more better cultivating robes, binghe offered to pay him back but sy shook his head and he payed for their meal and rooms.

Sy fell asleep again after putting up protection talismans and binghe found himself watching Shen Yuan sleep peacfully, with uttermost trust. Luo Binghe reached out a clawed hand…and pulled up the blankets higher covering Shen Yuans neck. Luo Binghe moved to sit by the window but angled towards the door both in line of sight he goanced out into the street. And when his lips turned down he realised he was smiling.

…handsome huh? With just a few identifiers he was able to figure out it was the Heavenly Emporer. It was fascinating.

Luo Binghe became sy’s body guard, and when others spoke to Sy who seemed to have a sophisticated air unlike Binghe who could never pull of the gentrification unless he really tried but naturally? He wasn’t trying. They assumed he was sy’s servant which usually would be rude and something Binghe wouod punish them for, if it wasn’t for sy being offended on his behalf. They kept his identity under wraps but sy called him an extension of himself to being rude to his companion is a slap to the face of Shen Yuan! Who of course was able to sell his pearls and came across as a wealthy young Master.

Luo Binghe found it fun to be accompaning SY who was adament on being subservant to Binghe. Shen Yuan would forage when they were on the road, ended up stripping and diving into the water for fish and then show enthusiasm when Binghe cooked him meals, and SY was still under dressed figuring he may as well not bother putting his robes back on if he’s going to sleep. Luo Binghe was getting a few mixed signals. Providing binghe with food that he would prepare for, paying for other meals and a shelter over his head, his clothes and even being so under dressed in any other scenario be it demon human or anima- that was courting! Luo Binghe stayed his hand when othersise he woild oush others down, he just had a funny feeling that Shen Yuan wasn’t expecting anything from it. And Luo Binghe didn’t know what to say about that.

One time sy is fishing he see’s their camp ransacked and binghe was kidnapped!

Hilarity as binghe had always left sy to take care of people planning on kidnapping sy or finding out he was an anima, binghe always played the dutiful servant, unaware his missing acts made sy think he was saving some lady or wife number whatever and he was just dealing with his urges. When sy saves binghe and binghe seems shocked at the hilairity that hes saved sy so many times and yet here was sy telling BINGHE to be careful!

He wanted to kiss him.

Of course as they drew close to Camg Qiong, Shen Yuan claimed he felt no resentment towards Binghe and that his home was nothing but a burned husk that so many had fled and the ones who stayed had died, innocent lives caught up in the calamity caused by Binghe and Shen Qingqiu’s problems. The more they got close the more the burden of what Binghe had done was weighing him down. It was different when people died but knowing someone was a victim of this slaughter and that Shen Yuan forgave him?

Shen Yuan knew Bi ghe’s story, he read it. He only claimed he knew so much because of rumours and that he’s made peace that his home is gone but he always knew that either he died in that theatre troupe or sold off and would never return to his family without Binghe. So as he arrived he understood what happened he couldn’t forgive binghe it wasnt his place but he tried to tell binghe he was fine.

But Binghe assumed that sy knew so much about him because he always kept an ear out about cang qiong and maybe thats why he stayed in the theatre trope for so long.

They had to find the entrance, only the earings sy was wearing was a token that would allow them in. He said his baba wore whote robes while his father wore black. The names they called each other was A-jiu and Qi-ge. Luo Binghe didnt recognise such names. So they scaled the mountain trying to find places that was familair and yet because of the burned wreckage made it unrecognisable.

Sy as he’s walking around Qing Jing Peak aware that binghe was unconfortable and tried to make it as quickly as possible- ends up finding binghes destroyed pendent. Luckily binghe told sy about it and when sy presented it Binghe looked heartbroken. “I killed Ming Fan for this,” when he claimed he didn’t know about it it was the truth and Binghe clenched his hand around it, shame making him wilt, but sy thought its because of his destroyed precious heriloom. “We can fix it, I’m sure there’s people who can mend such things and restore it the way it is.” Binghe shook his head, no it should stay as it is. Fixing the pendent won’t bring back Ming Fan, wont return Cang Qiong to its former glory. Wont return Shen Yuan to his parents who may have died during Luo Binghe’s revenge.

Binghe had no idea fire would consume so much.

They find the entrance at Qing Jing peak right near the pendent.

Shen Yuan never in all his fantasies had guessed who his parents were. He had memories from both his lives of his loved ones, of warmth. Of the reassurance that he could come home and maybe one of his parents were smart enough to survive long enough to be there for him.

Binghe walked around the room- a nursury finding toys, drawings and other objects belonging to two people this was a home hidden away and protected from the fires of binghes rage. There was a scroll on a cabinent and Luo Binghe opened it up and read the first few lines.

He felt sick. He gave the scrowl to Shen Yuan and saw the others face read it. Unlike sy, Binghe knew there was no such thing as coincidence. That sy parents were nobodies.

Shen Yuan was taking it badly, he dodn’t cry, he didn’t scream or take it lut on Binghe he just hummed nodding and folded the paper back up. “I’m not surprised.”

So Sy had a feeling too? He looked around the room taking it in as an adult and finally seeing each of the objects and recalling such memories long forgotten.

The drums on a vanity, along with a fan. The scrowl said the fan was a goft to Shen Yuan when he came of age. Something his Baba wanted to pass down to. The scrowl told them they made SY from scratch. Some xianxia flower that allowed two men to make a child and they spoiled him rotten. He never thought to apply those memories of his loved ones, to that of the Scum Villain and Sect Leader.

It was wrong, because SY hated Shen Qingqiu, for how he treated Binghe, for being a scum villain as a fan of PIDW he got what he deserved he relished in his torture and knew he Shen Qingqiu shouldnve been castrated. The memories of his baba teaching him how to walk, being patient with him- caring for him? Doing his hair-

Sy bit his lip turning away from Binghe gripping his arms. He never could’ve conceived both were the same person - and that as a transmigrator he could have some distance as a fan to the story- but he had memories he experienced them he never thought his father was the scum villain.

He looked at Binghe for once almost in trepidition. He was the son of the man who tortured Luo Binghe- surely Binghe would use this as an opportunity- he did he already know? Was he going to reveal himself that he lretended to be kind to Shen Yuan before he dragged him back to Huan hua to use as leverage against Shen Qingqiu.

“Shen Yuan?” The looked he gabe Binghe was devastating. Luo Binghe had already felt the consequence of his actions but seeing Shen Yuan look at him in fear, expecting a blow or to be hurt-

“Don’t- shen Yuan I will never hurt you- you have done nothing to this Lord that would justify laying a hand on you,”

“But Shen Qingqiu-“

“Its done with.” Luo Binghe knew what he had to do. “Shen Qingqiu has payed tgere is nothing left for this Lord to do other than hurt others unnescarily.”

Shen Yuan didn’t look like he believed him. Luo Binghe huffed as he picked up the fan and looked at the patterns on the fabric. “I had guessed that you may be related to Shen Qingqiu in some way, as a disciple I heard rumours,” from Ning Yingying of course. “That Shen Qingqiu had changed, he used to be well not kinder but a little more easier to deal with. Until he lost his son. This Lord never understood why someone who can be so cruel could take out their aggression on others. Until I meet you.” Luo Binghe looked at Shen Yuan, and he understood how someone like Shen Qingqiu could be so enraged so devestated can be so unfeeling to others suffering to Binghe’s suffering when god knows what was happening to his son. Binghe had read the contract Master Wu had made and almost given Shen Yuan to the client before his escape. It made Binghe’s blood boil, and he knew Shen Qingqiu would want to hunt down both men and string them up their their wrists and paint the town with their instestines. Even Luo Binghe had kept markers on them smiling kindly to Shen Yuan but plotting revenge on his behlaf with him none the wiser. Eating a mermaids flesh can prolong your life. But these men wanted more than flesh they wanted to use Shen Yuan like he was a concubine, the things in that ckntract will even make a prostitue blush or wretch. And its the reason why Binghe showed no mercy to the ones who wanted to capture and lure SY and put him back in that hell. The one time Binghe was captured is because he slipped up but every single time they would look at SY in towns, charmed by his face, by his soft voice and his gentle demenour. “This Lord has only known Shen Yuan for a short amount of time, and can now finally understand why Shen Qingqiu was so cruel.”

Luo Binghe looked at Shen Yuan with such regret, and Shen Yuan so no reason on why binghe would have to lie, if he knew he would’ve dragged sy to huan hua and tossed him in the water prison.

“Shen Yuan, come with me to Huan Hua, its this Lords fualt you don’t have a home.” Whoop there it is.

“Will I be a prisoner?”

“No! You can read beastieries or even go on night hunts if you want you can leave anytime as long as you have protection, this Binghe swears to keep you alive as a small penance to what I have done. I can't return Cang Qiong to you, or your parents but I can help you find a place to stay, somewhere safe until you figure out what you want to do.

Shen Yuan nodded, okay.

Once Shen Yuan settled Luo Binghe applied a servant to help SY and left him to his own devoces. The servant even dropped hints that he could leave the palace as long as sy had his token to come back in. Sy realised binghe was trying really hard to make him feel at ease. It just made him feel more irritated as if he was made of glass. Theres no yse crying over spilled milk! He lost his home he knew that for years he made plans to settle down or make his own circus troupe but hired animas instead if kidnapping them and making his own shows and performance however after a close call he realised why binghe kept going out at night he had no clue he called so much attention to himself and realised he’d have to wear a disguise.

As he came back yo huan hua binghe was there he must of heard their run in with slavers.

Sy mentions he’ll wear a disguise and Luo Binghe nodded thinking it best. But doesnt tell sy he’s striking down on the discrimination against anima and the unlawful kidnapping and as emporer was able to do something about it.

#svsss #svsss fanfic #svsss donghua #bingyuan #Bingge #Luo Bingge X Shen Yuan #Shen Yuan #Og!binghe

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