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ask-the-riders · 3 years

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Ret Torments Nootmare (feat. fluff with Ret and Fam)

Uhhhhh welp

Yeah. Like the title says, this is essentially Retribution showing up in Nightmare's castle and being a little shit, intentionally pissing him off

It shows a new side of Ret which,, I had a lot of fun exploring

And then an added bonus: some fluff with him and Famine

Nightmare couldn't believe what he was seeing right now.

He'd just come back from a mission and headed to his throne room, only to find one of his many duplicates in his seat.

One of Night's duplicates was currently sitting in his throne, holding himself with confidence and pride, as if he thought that seat actually belonged to him.

Drawing in a deep breath and attempting to remain calm, he folded his arms behind his back as he began to approach the throne, arching a brow bone, "Alright, explain something to me, boy. Last time you were here, I made it clear that I didn't want to see your face in this castle ever again. Did it not occur to you how idiotic this decision is?" Retribution hummed in acknowledgement, arching a brow bone back as if trying to be subtle about mimicking him, "Mmn... Perhaps. Perhaps not. I was actually wondering something, though." Nightmare tilted his head, "Such as?" A smile tugged at Retribution's teeth as he mimicked his original again, also tilting his head, "Aren't commoners supposed to bow when they're standing before a throne?"

Nightmare's socket twitched and one of his tentacles shot forward. Just before the appendage was able to touch him, the rider's body seemed to melt into a puddle of darkness, darting out of the throne and slipping behind it. As he reappeared, his original's tendril slammed into the backrest of the throne, causing a small crack to form. Sneaking a glance at Nightmare from around the side of the throne, Retribution chirped, almost sounding amused, "Missed me, Tar Pit." Nightmare growled in annoyance again and hissed, "Are you ALWAYS such an insolent brat?!"

The rider pretended to think over the question for a brief moment, "No, not always. Just to you. I suppose that makes you special." The goop covered guardian moved closer to the throne, another tendril slithering around the chair. Seeing it capture his cloak first as if planning to drag him backward, he scoffed, merely unclipping the item and shurtcutting away.

Reappearing near the center of the room, he spoke again, "Before it escapes me, how would you feel about indulging in some self-care?" Nightmare narrowed his socket, "That would be disgusting, and I can't believe you'd even suggest something like that." A look of confusion crossed Retribution's face, and soon after, a look of realization settled in its place. He made a face in response, "Oh, what's this?... It looks like my original counterpart has a nasty case of the gutter brain. It'd be a real shame if anybody found out about that."

Nightmare's cheekbones turned the faintest shade of cyan and he scowled, "You wouldn't DARE." His non-goopy duplicate tilted his head and arched a brow bone, offering the other a pleased smirk, "You're me. I think you already know the answer to that." He briefly paused, easily sidestepping as a sharpened tendril came sailing toward him again, "That's not why I'm here, though. I actually wanted to talk with you about some things." Nightmare kept his single cyan eye narrowed in suspicion, "Oh really? Like what?"

Retribution watched his original closely, taking a moment to gauge his body language, "Well, I was hoping you'd explain to me why it's so important to you that you murder Dream. Why do you wish to kill the only person who ever truly cared for you, and who still believes you can change?" Nightmare stared at the rider blankly, "Are you dense or something? I don't care about Dream. I need him dead so I can attain the last golden fruit."

Keeping his gaze fixed on his original, Ret spoke, genuinely interested, "If you were to get your hands on it, what would you do with the golden fruit?" The goop covered guardian sighed deeply, rolling his eye light, "Destroy it, obviously. If I get rid of it, all positivity in the main multiverse will fade away and I would become so much stronger than I already am." Retribution hummed, doing his best to maintain a straight face, "I see. If I had a golden fruit and offered to give it to you, what would you do?" Night's gaze hardened and he balled his hands into fists, "You wouldn't do such a thing. You couldn't. Not since all of the golden fruits from your timeline became corrupted too." Retribution slipped a hand into his satchel, withdrawing a golden fruit and holding it up for his original to see, "Are you sure about that? This looks like a golden fruit to me."

Nightmare was caught off guard, his socket briefly widening in surprise, "What the hell? Where did you get that?! They're supposed to be gone! And how the hell are you able to hold that without corrupting it?!" Completely casual, the rider shrugged his shoulders, fighting the urge to smile, "Oh, I just brought it with me from home, in case I needed a little snack at some point." Night continued to gawk at him, "That doesn't explain how your touch isn't corrupting it, though!"

Retribution sighed, rolling his eye lights, "The answer to that is simple, genius. I learned how to adjust my level of corruption at will, and I built up an immunity to positivity. The fruit is in no way hurting me, and if I saw fit, I could corrupt it at any given moment." The darker guardian began to approach him, "You're bluffing. That isn't possible." The rider kept his attention focused on Nightmare, calmly lifting the fruit and taking a bite from it, ignoring the faint stinging in his mouth as he quietly chewed. Seeing this, Night was once again caught off guard, "Alright, explain to me how in the actual HELL you're doing that. That REALLY shouldn't be possible!"

Swallowing the mouthful of fruit, the rider arched a brow bone, "I already told you, idiot. I built up an immunity to it." Lowering his gaze to the fruit, he gave a low, thoughtful hum, "I don't know that it'd be the same as Dream's golden fruit, but do you think this one would do the trick? In destroying all that remains of positivity in the main multiverse, and all that nonsense." Nightmare remained silent as a look of genuine uncertainty etched itself onto his face.

Retribution reached out to him, offering the darker guardian the fruit, "Here. Take it." Nightmare's uncertainty rapidly shifted into a glare, "Oh, please. Do you really think I'd believe this was anything other than a trick?!" Ret shook his head, "It's not a trick. I'm offering it to you because as a version of yourself, I understand the pain you've endured, and I understand how important this is to you." Nightmare stared at him for a moment, attempting to read him and pick out any of the telltale signs of deceit.

When he found none, he cautiously began to reach out, intent on accepting the fruit from his duplicate. Just mere seconds before the goop covered guardian could take the golden fruit, Retribution's magic released it's hold on his aura. Allowing his corrupting touch to work magic of it's own, the golden fruit became black, and just for good measure, Ret forced more of his corruption into it, completely unphased as it began to rot. Nightmare's eye widened in surprise and he drew his hand back, before his surprise transformed into rage and he roared, "You IDIOT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE JUST DONE?!"

Calmly dropping the rotten fruit on the castle floor and ignoring the disgusting splat sound it made, the rider arched a brow bone, "What have I done, hm? Kept the fruit away from a maniac like you? Saved the main multiverse from any unnecessary chaos? Please tell me what I did, Nightmare." The guardian growled, reaching out to grip a handful of Ret's shirt, "You little bastard! I should kill you for that!"

Acting more on impulse than logic, Retribution's hands quickly found his Morningstar, looping the chain around Nightmare's arm and beginning to squeeze, "Then do it. KILL ME, DAMNIT. I'M BEGGING YOU TO DO IT." Nightmare hissed, his eye dark with absolute hatred as a tendril surged forward, plunging itself through his duplicate's chest. For a moment, time seemed to slow; The tendril curled, crushing more of Ret's ribcage as it went, and Ret stared at his original in shock.

And then the rider smiled, mischief flickering in his eyes. Nightmare blinked in confusion, staring as the other's body began to shift. Rather than melting into shadows again, his body softened, and feathers began to slowly float to the ground. Withdrawing his tentacle and allowing his duplicate to fall, his confusion turning into disbelief as he watched the rider vanish, replaced by a feather pillow. The Morningstar's chain that had been wrapped around his arm became nothing more than someone's belt, and Night was at a loss.

What in the hell had just happened???

On the far side of the room that was behind the goop covered guardian, the rider phased into the shadows, his body easily blending in. His magic gathered up another shadow, quickly shaping it into something humanoid, and as he released it, it soared toward Nightmare, nearly toppling him over. The shadow being began its own barrage of attacks on the guardian and Retribution took the opportunity to sink further into his hiding place.

Once all that surrounded him was darkness, he let out a deep sigh, his body finally beginning to relax. A set of much larger arms wrapped around him from behind, and yet he wasn't alarmed, not even as he was tugged back against someone. Tipping his head back and looking up, he raised a hand, gently cupping the other's face.

Another pair of sockets opened, one sapphire eye light meeting Retribution's cyan ones, the light from it bright enough to illuminate the former prince's face a small bit. Turning to face his taller partner, Retribution wrapped his arms around him, his voice soft, "Thank you, Famine... I couldn't have pulled this off without you." In response, Famine offered him a slight smile, "No problem, Firefly. 'M just glad you're alright and it went the way we wanted."

Wearing a smile that seemed uncharacteristically warm and gentle, Retribution lightly tugged on Famine's shirt. Knowing what his partner wanted, Famine's cheekbones dusted the softest shade of faded denim blue and he sighed, his expression softening. He began to lean down, very gently pressing his teeth to Retribution's. As Ret melted into it and returned the kiss, his own cheeks became a light cyan.

The darkness around them opened up just as they began to pull away from the kiss, and Famine looked around, taking in the surroundings, "My room, huh?" Retribution hummed in confirmation, tilting his head, "Mhm. Is that alright?" Famine nodded, an arm still wrapped around his smaller boyfriend and holding him flush against himself, "Yeah, of course. I just figured that we'd end up goin' back ta your room, is all." The former prince laid his head on the other's chest, completely at ease, "If you'd prefer my room, we can always go there. I know using that particular ability really drains you, so I thought it'd be good to get you into bed so you can rest."

Famine's entire disposition seemed to soften again and he leaned down, affectionately nuzzling the top of the other skeleton's head and murmuring against his skull, "Nah, this is fine, Moonbeam... You're really too good ta me, y'know that?" Retribution's cheekbones dusted a soft shade of cyan as he looked up at his taller partner. Meeting the other's gaze and holding it, Famine delicately touched his face, his voice still low as he continued, "You're definitely too good for me, too... That's for sure."

Retribution heard his lover's words but he knew the truth; Famine was too good to him. He knew what Ret had set out to do, and after they'd discussed it, Retribution had agreed to bring him along. He'd been hidden within the safety of the former prince's shadows, and it was there that Ret had placed a barrier of sorts, making it next to impossible to detect Famine's presence.

Retribution had asked his partner to create a simple illusion that would provide him the chance to escape once things had escalated, but he'd gone far beyond what the shorter rider had been expecting. Rather than a simple illusion, Famine had managed to fuse his magic and his intent, and the instant Nightmare's temper flared, he'd sent his intent out in pulses. His intent clouded the guardian's mind as soon as his guard had momentarily gone down, and as a result, he'd genuinely believed he was attacking Retribution.

The instant Ret had stepped into the shadows and joined Famine, he'd felt traces of his magic, noting how it seemed heavier than normal. His ability to cast hallucinations always resulted in heavier feeling magic, but this time... Something was different. It was as if the taller rider had expended more magic. Factoring in the substitution of himself for physical objects, Retribution could only assume he was correct.

The former prince's attention was drawn back to the present moment as he felt Famine shiver, and he blinked in surprise, taking notice of the blue tinted sweat that had beaded on his face. A drop of black saliva... Or at least, what he assumed was saliva, rolled down Famine's chin from the corner of his mouth, and Ret let out a deep sigh, beginning to gently guide his lover toward his bed, his voice soft, "Famine... You used more magic than normal, didn't you?"

The taller rider almost looked guilty, offering him a sheepish grin, "Y-Yeah, I did. It wasn't a whole lot more than normal though, I swear." Helping Famine into bed, Retribution rolled his eye lights and did his best to seem annoyed, "You're utterly impenitent, you know that?" Famine laid down on his side and made a sound in acknowledgement, earning a scoff from the former prince. Ret allowed his gaze to wander away from his lover for a brief moment, his cheekbones dusting the faintest shade of cyan as he crossed his arms over his chest, "If you keep being so careless, there's a good chance that you could push yourself too hard and get hurt. We both know how I feel about even just the simple notion of you getting hurt, and I-"

As Famine reached out and tugged Retribution into bed with him, Ret let out a surprised yelp. He felt himself nearly be crushed against the other's chest, and his cyan blush grew brighter as he growled lowly in agitation. Famine nuzzled the top of his skull, beginning to purr faintly as the shorter of the two delicately touched his face. As much as he would've liked to be a little annoyed with Famine's carelessness, he found his agitation rapidly fading away as he silently listened to his purring.

Allowing his semi transparent tentacles to manifest, Retribution cuddled as close to his lover as possible. Each of the tendrils curled loosely around Famine, holding him close to the former prince. As Famine's purring grew slightly louder, Ret sighed softly, unable to help the tiny smile that tugged at his teeth. The purring momentarily paused as Famine yawned, and the shorter skeleton pressed a gentle kiss to his jaw, murmuring, "Rest now, Honey Badger... I'll still be here at your side when you wake." The taller rider made a sound in reluctant agreement, his sockets drifting shut. Ret began gently stroking his cheek with his thumb, his smile turning affectionate as Famine leaned into his touch, clearly enjoying it.

To most, he was a deranged menace at best, and a homicidal maniac at worst. To the former prince, however, he was nothing more than an oddly endearing gentle giant.

#writing #retribution.exe #nightmare sans #riders of the apocalypse #four horsemen of the apocalypse #undertale #undertale au #famine.exe

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sleepymarmot · 7 years

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Adventures in house-hunting, gardening, and modding, feat. Lakeview Manor & Breezehome

A lot of the stuff in the previous post was happening on my way back to Whiterun to finally buy a house here... I do a favor for a jarl here and suddenly buy land from him. Okay...

The garden is pretty disappointing. I'm excited to grow ingredients, but I expected it to be pretty! Wild flowers are pretty and grow near each other, this looks terrible. I hoped to have my own colorful patch of flowers that attacts butterflies and bees... And why can't I grow a full size juniper tree if I want?

Also the interface flickers between "harvest" and "re-plant" pretty fast, and the harvest option doesn't have the enhanced UI mod's captions :(

It's also slightly immersion breaking that I can smith with only an anvil, but no proper forge. And I generally don't feel safe leaving it all out in the open, especially in the middle of nowhere...

Why can't I dismiss a steward without a mod?!

Why do I have to build an entire useless hall if I just want an arcane enchanter and an alchemy lab?

It's completely absurd that I can build a bedroom OR a greenhouse OR an enchanting tower. What if I want all of these, but none of the east wing options?

I finally reached Whiterun and bought Breezehome... Time to waste several hours on deciding between different mods, namely Breezehome TNF - Elianora's Flavour and Breezehome FullyUpgradable.

TNF works out of the box and is very beautiful. My favourite things are planters inside and outside the house, part pre-planted so they look pretty already, part free for me to choose. A detail that instantly made me like the mod before I even entered the house: chimney from the basement forge. And the tower is also very cool, obviously (with more planters!!). But sometimes it can be too much, like that armory with red carpet. That said, I love the bath; it's obscenely luxurious, but I feel like my Argonian needs it.

FullyUpgradeable: Garden! That was my biggest selling point from the screenshots. It looks like I expected the vanilla gardens to look. It's convenient to have all crafting stations in the same room, though the guy is right: who the hell puts a smelter and a tanning rack in their basement?! Another plus is that the vanilla alchemy table on the second floor was replaced by a generic "study", so I can replace it with the children's room without hesitation. All upgrades have to be bought separately which makes it feel less like cheating. But it took a long time, I kept running out of money and missing the dialogue I needed -- which had only happened once or twice in the entire game before this mod! And I didn't really need all the storage -- I carry everything in my infinite inventory -- and without all upgrades, the basement looks too big and bare. When I first came down there, it was like a freaking metro station! Not to mention the rest of the lower area -- I was just looking for a small convenient house... Speaking of storage, the alchemy and enchantment containers are cool but I'm not about to return here for every single slow potion or banishment iron dagger! I live and work everywhere and this is just one of my stations, no reason to keep my resources here.

I wanted to try out every Hearthfire option myself, but watched videos instead and came to the conclusion that the vanilla houses are irreparably empty and ugly. The only thing I want to build is the greenhouse because it attracts insects, plus the two crafting tables -- is it worth to build a giant hall just for that? I'd be better off with a modded house that is pretty and useful from the start, instead of trying to polish this turd. There are mods for Hearthfire that swap the contents of the wings but is it worth it? Like, when it comes to mods I struggle choose the most beautiful option, and with the vanilla house I search for the least shitty.

I wonder if I can duplicate the "fertile soil" with Jaxonz Positioner... If so then I can make my Lakeview garden more lush and copy it over to Breezehome, right? And I should also try the version by Lupus since it's intentionally simpler which I want too. I actually like the simple and cozy vanilla Breezehome, and I'd like to preserve the general feeling, just with some polish and practical additions. I don't get why I'd need display cases or mannequins -- especially since they can glitch and start walking around! I prefer furniture that doesn't give me heart attacks, thank you very much!

The following testing was all done with FullyUpgradeable.

Okay, copying fertile soil doesn't work. This page recommends the "build fertile soil/planters" mod that I've already been eyeing.

Jaxonz cant't multiselect, but turns out there are other options! Cobb Positioner + Atronach Crossing looks powerful... I don't even think this is cheating at this point, the amount of effort is no less than buying stuff through the vanilla mechanics.

Testing Cobb Positioner. First of all, it can't copy-paste. Second, I wanted multiselect specifically for moving potted plants, and it selected the pot with no problem but managed to select a plant only once in all of my attempts. Third, I can't move the crafting equipment in the house ("Can't select this object, something is blocking it"); their counterparts in the city and other interactible objects work fine. It's probably because the modded Breezehome ones are molded into the house just like the fence.

Oh right, there's "Select console ref" for the normally unselectable objects! Now it doesn't even want to select the pot without that, lol. But it doesn't work well on plants, either: leaves stuff behind. I could move parts of the fence that way, but the crafting equipment still returns error messages.

Testing Craftable Hearthfire Planters. It requires Campfire which I don't need and which also for some reason conflicts with Simply Knock (why?!) The "Fertile Soil" activator is in a very large radius around the planter. Every time I activate the soil, it also shows the planter's "What do you do? Use/Pick Up/Exit" even if it doesn't have a pot. I can't move the soil with Cobb Positioner (but maybe I’m doing something wrong).

Atronach doesn't have fences :( Bye then

So, here's the interaction between the positioners and the fertile soil (both vanilla ones and the craftable mod ones). When you move the soil with something planted in it, the plant stays behind. It stays until respawn in about three days, when the old plant is deleted and replaced with a new one. The plant respawns even if it wasn't harvested and doesn't need to refresh the model. While the plant is waiting to respawn, it can be moved to the new spot separately. All of this is probably ABCs to anyone familiar with this game's mechanics, but I needed to see it for myself.

What if I planted the garden by simple copy-pasting, without reusable fertile soil? It'd be more of a pain to re-plant it, of course. And it'd be almost purely for aesthetics, not harvesting. Normal plants respawn after 10 days and only if you don't visit the cell at all during that time; Hearthfire plants respawn every three days and you only need to leave the cell once.

Tried House Decorations - Plants and Flowers. The plant and the planter are a single active object that can be taken -- so, they can’t be harvested at all, and they’re bad decoration because the “take” message appears every time you mouse over them which is almost as irritating as Craftable Hearthfire Planters. Pass...

I think my Whiterun is broken. It refuses to reset after 10 days -- plants can’t be harvested, dead bodies lie in the middle of the street. I’ve noticed that the plants have never reset before, but I thought it was because of the bug Flora Respawn Fix would solve. But it’s like the entire cell is stuck. The flowers inside my house, Arcadia’s Cauldron’s shelves and all merchants’s inventories reset normally. Now I’m waiting for 30 days to see if that does the trick, even though it shouldn’t. Why make the player wait at all irl? I’m so tired of all this troubleshooting. I want to go back to adventures.

At least I found out that toggling free camera (tfc) makes waiting much quicker for some reason. Isn’t it possible to make a fast waiting mod based on that -- whenever player activates waiting, toggle camera back and forth?

I read advice on the internet to fast travel and wait in another location (I was waiting in houses inside the city and just outside the city walls). I came back, and it worked! The bodies disappeared and the “normal” lavender in the city (that was in the game from the start) respawned.

My test plants didn’t respawn -- but I finally figured out why! That’s because I copied them from the planters. I guess they’re just dummies without any respawn mechanic of their own, all scipts are inside the planter. Should have figured that out sooner, since even the models are different, and they respawn where the planter is, not the original plant... Eh, better late than never. Whew, that’s a relief! Of course this makes things a bit more complicated -- I thought I’d just grow stuff in a pot and then move it to open ground. But now looks like I have to bring them from their natural habitat. Can Jaxonz positioner go across load screens? I think it has a function to put items in the inventory. I guess I can just spawn anything I want with the console, somehow this option has never even occured to me during all this... But I guess this feels too cheaty. The point is not to build a Super Cheating Free Alchemy Area to break my game. The point is to make my property as pretty, functional and customized as possible. I can’t do it irl, let me at least have a house and garden of my dreams in a game! Give me my wish fulfillment!!!

Alright, I think I’ll stick with Breezehome by Lupus, at least for now. It’s simple and cozy so it doesn’t look drastically more luxurious than the rest of Whiterun and fits my character’s progression -- when I get obscenely rich, maybe I upgrade to a more overwrought mod. I like the rustic style -- and it’s very green with a lot of ivy (which I wish I could take...) and hanging moss. I kinda like that most of the clutter is bolted to the shelves -- in other houses I took all of the pretty gems and stuff out of habit / to see if they respawn somehow, which ruined the design, and it’d be hard to stop myself from doing that repeatedly.

Finally, I could leave Whiterun and take care of my other house. I completed my plans -- built an animal pen, made Lydia a steward and was about to move on... but it felt wrong. This isn’t a “manor” for me -- it’s a tiny refuge away from busy streets. I just come here to tend to my garden, craft something, rest for a bit and then be on my way. Why invite a stranger to live here, why make it a farm?

(And then, visiting Whiterun next time, I discovered that Lydia invites herself to Breezehome anyway. And I feel so possessive of them after all this trouble... Oh well.)

I did build an apiary, that fit the image. And now I think... I’m done? The garden is pretty good now with More soils for Hearthfires gardens -- though it’s hard to make picturesque because the plants come more or less in only two sizes. Maybe I should try to enlarge some of them... I started bringing stuff to decorate the house both inside and outside, so it looks more inhabited now. I even managed to bring some ivy at last! So I think I’m finally ready to return to the game proper -- I have only discovered about half of the major locations and they’re getting old!

#skyrim #blah blah blah

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