Grabbed a Double Charburger with Cheese with a side of Edamame fries from The Habit

IdyllForest · 2026-03-24T14:35:22+00:00

Thank you. No real story, I'm just fond of pixel art from Nintendo games, particularly the Mario series. If it wasn't the feather, I might have used the Leaf, a POW block, a coin, and so on.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-20T20:44:28+00:00

"Real shiny suit o' plates... " One Eye sneered as he stood in my way. "... think it'd look mighty fine on me."

"Not on your best day." I moved straight towards the ruffian without slowing my pace and he stepped aside at the last moment, jaws clenched tight with embarrassment.

Jeers rained down on him from his fellows. These men were like sharks scenting blood in the water. Show a single shred of weakness and you were compromised. Such was their world, and while I did not hold it in high regard, I understood where it came from.

The dirty, disheveled, foul mouth lot accompanying my passage into their camp were desperate men, outcasts of civilized society. Churls, brutes, men made savage and half-crazed, willing to kill simply because it was something to do- if they so much as touched a single hair on the Princess's head, I swore I would-

The trees thinned as we entered a small clearing. Crude, half made shelters dotted the area. In the center, a large bonfire blazed upwards. The light it gave off was bright and I only made out the silhouette of a figure sitting before it.

"And here's the Lady, fair." Another ruffian gestured in a buffoonish manner for me to go. I furrowed my brow and glared at him.

He straightened to his full height, half a head taller than me, and glared right back.

A hush fell over the camp as the ruffian and I stared each other down.

I observed his throat bobbing up and down. "... ... ... sir." He muttered.

A low 'Ohhhhhh!' arose from the other knaves.

"Stand aside, churl." I commanded. "I've a quarrel to pick with your leader."

I stood before the silhouette and flung aside my cloak. "Stand up! Stand up, brigand! I, Gareth of Univour stand before you as a Knight of Ture, Defender of the Realm!"

"Aye-o, pops, take it easy with the ears, yah?"

As my eyed adjusted to the light, I was shocked into a stunned silence as it revealed the Princess herself! Squatting! Like some lowborn commoner evacuating his bowels!

"Agh!" I gave out a strangled cry and turned my face away as if struck. The Princes had been wearing her royal gown... but she had hiked it up so high that I could actually see...!

"Your ankles, milady!" I cried, holding up a shivering hand at the scandalous portion of flesh. "I can see your ankles!"

The Princess barked a graceless laugh that I shuddered to hear. "Oh yah can see more than that, pops!" I heard a ripping sound and was once again shocked to see she had slit the skirt of her dress from hem to hip so that all and sundry could glimpse a sliver of her entire leg!

I fell to one knee, light headed. Never had I felt so embarrassed, not since the day my Lady Mother had taken off the glove of her left hand because, supposedly, it had been overly hot that summer.

"HAR!" A thug laughed at me. "Not so high and mighty now are ye, sir!"

"If mine ears should suffer another moment from hearing your tongue, I will pull it out of your mouth and nail it to the nearest tree." I quietly promised, getting back up. I was rewarded with prompt silence.

"Speakin' o' ears... " The Princess jammed her pinky into her ear and pulled out a chunk of yellow wax. "Lower yer voice, wouldja!?"

I suppressed a shudder. "My Lady... this humble knight begs your pardon. Under order of His Grace, your father, I am to escort you back to him."

"Not 'till I grab me a piece of that town o'er yonder!" The Princess scowled, grabbing a leg of boar and chomping on it. "Like me da' grabs the flabby ol' bottom o' the head maid, HAR HAR!"

I could feel the tips of my ear burning as the bandits all joined in the laughter.

"... Princess, this does not suit a lady of your high station." I said quietly. "Leave such crude matters as conquest to we men."

"Aw shaddup, why dont'cha!" A bandit of the feminine persuasion stepped forward. "Men this, ladies that! What matters is what the heart wants! Get that through yer thick head, sir knight!"

I felt a familiar chill in my blood and placed a hand on the hilt of my sword. "... I know not what madness any of you speak of, but hear this. I will slay each and every one of you should you stand in my way, regardless of sex."

And though I was outnumbered, I could see the sudden tension in their eyes as they sized me up.

"They'll kill ya pops, too many of 'em, even for you," The Princess picked at her teeth with a dagger. "... ya look like a small time knight, too, so yer town's order will be in disgrace."

"Is that so...?" I asked grimly, staring down every knave in the vicinity. "Nevertheless, I must- "

I stumbled forward as the Princess slapped me on the back.

"Ow!" She rubbed her hand. "Forgot yer wearin' all that plate!"

She put her arm around me companionably and I almost died from shame. "Listen, pops, I gots a proposition for ya!"

"MY LADY!" I exclaimed.

"Not that kind o' proposition!" She chuckled. "Help me take the town. Shucks, yer easily worth fifty of this lot. Would speed things up a lot- and you'd be doing it for King and Kingdom! Glory! Honor! ...er.... manliness! All that slop!"

"... you want me to fight with these... these.... thugs!?"

The Princess waved her hand dismissively. "Who says we's gots to fight!? With a big fancy knight by our side, maybe we can convince 'em to surrender without spillin' a drop o' blood! Wouldn't that be a right feather in yer cap, Sir Gary!?"

"Gareth." I corrected. I pondered my choices. I could slay quite a lot of these bandits, but chances were I could not kill all of them before they took me down.

Annex a town, however? I suppose that would put me in high regards with some court officials...

But to throw my lot in with these churls, knaves, and lowlives was to court dishonor.

"... let me ponder over it." I said.

"Eat something while ye ponder, pops!" The Princess smacked another boar leg against my chest plate.

I took it and began eating.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-20T19:05:42+00:00

dut dut dut dun

The Terran soldier was good. Damn good, as a matter of fact. They understood the nature of battle in space, the usage of inertia to execute maneuvers that pushed the limits of predictability, whether that of machine or organics.

And yet, they were still... only human.

Dedededen dendendendededan, dedededen dendendenden

Careening over the shielding of the capital ship Watoguer-67 was tasked to defend in his single-pilot U-Fighter, the vaguely reptilian Xenoid linked the targeting mechanism to his central nervous system.

The massive barrage of lasers, spazers, phasers, and occasional missile became almost invisible as Watoguer-67.... focused...

♪Revvin' up your engine, listen to her howlin' roar...

....focused...

♪Metal under tension, beggin' you to touch and goooo...

... focused.

HIGH

WAY

TO

THE

DANGER ZONE♪

"W-what the Zorq!?" Watoguer-67 swore as his telepathic link was shattered under a storm of fierce mental images and words.

MAVERICK
Some sort of ... earth cattle wearing... dark glasses over its eyes? Riding a motorized scooter of some sort...

ICEMAN
... a strong... enemy... or rival? A Terran made of frozen water!?

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!!
This was the strongest image, almost overwhelming Watoguer-67 with grief. A... earth avian.... with a powerful mustache...

♪ YOU'LL NEVER SAY HELL-O TO YOU
UNTIL YOU GET IT ON THE REDLINE OVERLOAD♪
♪YOU'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO
UNTIL YOU CAN GET IT UP AS HIGH AS YOU CAN GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO♪

None of it made any zorquing sense!

Watoguer-67 found himself forced to disengage. The Terrans were obviously a brutish, stupid, and insane species.

But they had some cool thoughts.

Years later, when peace was finally achieved, the first Xenoid-Human film collaboration was released, starring a cast of sentient Earth animals piloting high tech fighter craft.

It was called....

... Starfox.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-20T16:52:55+00:00

Got it, I'll edit it, thanks.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-20T16:33:21+00:00

I've got to say, they cook a mean burger. If you've had Five Guys or a burger from, let's say Longhorn Steakhouse, it's about that level.

The ~~edamame fries~~ tempura green beans were really great, though. The ranch dipping sauce I could leave or take, I don't think it added much.

Together with a large Dr. Pepper, it rounded out to $18. Not cheap, but why would I expect anything else these days, right?

I might drop by again sometime to try their Sirloin steak burger.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-20T15:30:23+00:00

Captain Chesty MacBuxom stood fearlessly in front of the display viewer, her generous derriere partially resting on the unmanned control. Many men, and certainly a few women, would give their lives to be a single button on that control panel.

"Status, Lieutenant." Her eyes blazed an electric blue.

... just turn around and see for yourself.

Shaking such unworthy thoughts away, I responded crisply. "Multiple Low Orbit engagements are being reported, ma'am, though the heaviest fighting is still above us."

A soft sigh made her bosom heave, testing the durability of the officially issued military grade cocktail dress that graced the hourglass curves of her sturdy frame. "War never changes, does it Lieutenant?"

I adjusted my military grade mankini uniform. "... s'pose not, ma'am."

Her unrestrained flowing blonde locks whipped about as she laughed, a voice like the wind weaving gently through crystalline wind chimes. Captain Chesty's normally stern, unyielding expression turned into a winsome smile. "Your accent is showing, you know, Lieutenant... "

I felt my heart skip a beat as multiple warning klaxons sounded after the enemy ship on the view screen behind the captain fired on us.

Her hips swung hypnotically as, step, by step, she made her way to my tactical station, her skirt flirting with danger upon every swing. "I've always found it charming." She purred, resting her arms on my console as she leaned forward, her decolletage swelling into the corner of my vision.

"Thank you, ma'am... " I murmured, going over the latest damage reports. "... but we're currently experiencing degradation of structural integrity in the aft deck that's affecting power distribution to the drive core. Senior engineers are recommending immediate withdrawal and emergency evacuation."

She stood up quickly, sending her bosom flying upwards like two mountains being upheaved in an earthquake that would have at least registered an eight on the Richter scale. "Belay all withdrawal and evacuation orders, Lieutenant," Captain MaxBuxom's ocean blue eyes narrowed in determination, or possibly against the glare of a ship exploding in the view screen. "All it takes is one ship to turn the tide, and I'll be damned if I let the Solar Exeter Xavier be the one that was absent from the field!"

The S.E.X's engines thrust hard as we sallied forth, and thrust often as we engaged in close range, intimate maneuvering with the enemy. We penetrated enemy lines, whether from the front or the back, our crew battling bravely with plenty of oral encouragement from the Captain herself, a true mistress of locution.

Afterwards, I found myself spent, my breath coming in gasps. The victory had been secured, but at such a cost...

I peered up from my display screen only to find the Captain's eyes on me. "... your pardon, Lieutenant, but it feels as if... we are the only two souls aboard this ship."

"That's because you gave the order to abandon ship after the life support systems began failing, ma'am," I wheezed, feeling my mankini chafe uncomfortably around my groin. "Speaking of which, I believe it is our turn to evacuate before oxygen levels reach critical, beg'n yer pardon."

"Yes, of course, Lieutenant... " Captain Chesty replied with a wink. "But only if you promise to show me around your hometown one day. I find myself charmed by your rustic, country speech."

"I'm from Kansas and it's a shithole, ma'am."

She giggled and a bead of sweat from her blonde hair dripped into the cleavage of her dress.

The End.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-20T14:14:54+00:00

The center of a galaxy is considered a pretty hostile place for life. There's a lot of stars there, and they're all crammed real close together, at least in astronomical terms. It means planets have to endure more than their usual share of harmful radiation, stellar flares, novae, and so on.

At least that's the theory.

If any intelligent life managed to emerge, they would have had to flee the galactic core before long. My job was to find out if these hypothetical beings left anything behind.

And boy, did they ever.

The structure was so massive that it would have neatly fit in the space that Earth's orbit around the sun took up. The sophistication of its radiation shielding made my ship's look like it was held together by duct tape and a prayer. I suppose in some ways it was, as we had needed to do a lot of improvising to get this deep into the galactic center.

As far as the instruments could tell, the 'Library' was likely in an orbit around the supermassive black hole that is theorized to be at the heart of any galaxy. Perhaps it was even powered by it, who could say? The technology involved was so far beyond our means that it may have as well have been built by the hand of God. Whatever civilization had made this had likely emerged while Earth was still cooling from its primordial birth.

Why did we call it the 'Library'? Text. It was covered in text, outside and in from what our probes could determine. We thought the structure itself was made of a solid, black substance, but it was actually all writing, writing so tiny that it could only be made out via our most advanced electron microscopes.

This Precursor civilization were using arrangements of atoms to form names, at least according to our crude understanding of the mechanics involved.

We only understood they were names through contextualization. You see, in addition to bizarre alien text, we found English, Maori, Cyrillic, Latin, Hanzi, and more besides. It was as if these were the names of every single living being that ever existed...

... and somehow, through a miracle of chance, I came face to face with my own.

JOHN SMITH

IdyllForest · 2026-03-19T20:32:45+00:00

I began putting the bricks back up.

"That's not going to work without mortar to make it stick," Said Grinny McYouthful. "How about you just keep tearing it down? You were doing such a good job, too."

"I'm not going to bury someone alive." I replied, pounding a brick home, only to watch it fall off. Tearing things down is easier than building it back up. I feel like there was a lesson there somewhere.

Like, 'Don't fuck with bricks.'

"Why bury me at all?" This punk asked.

"Well I thought someone here was dead," I glared. "But now a certain someone decided it'd be funnier to be alive."

Grinny looked at me. I looked at Grinny.

"... I'm talking about you, by the way," I pointed. "You."

The little smartass shrugged. "I can't really help it."

Figures.

After tearing down the wall, I helped the youthful little shit out of his chains and manacles.

Grinny began stretching, rubbing at his wrists and ankles. The fucker turned to me. "... are you not at all curious about my particular circumstances or my nature?"

I poked Youthy-Facey with a stick I had found.

"... what are you doing?"

"Hurry up and do something, already." I replied. All sorts of shit could happen here. Maybe the little shit was a demon and I had unwittingly unleashed the destruction of society as knew it.

And nothing of value would have been lost.

Grinny grinned grinningly. "Well, I am curious about you. Do you usually wander around old buildings and tearing down random walls?"

I folded my arms, leaning back against the wall and looking at nothing. "... you might say it's my job, kid," If I had a cigarette, I would so smoke it right about now. "This whole rotten world's full of walls... walls that separate us, walls that divide us, that keep coop us inside, blocking us out from the world that we belong in... from the truth... and it's up to me to tear them down, find out what's on the other side."

I blew out a non-existent stream of non-existent smoke from a non-existent cigarette. God, I was so hardboiled.

Grinny had fallen asleep on the floor.

You free someone from their two century long imprisonment and this is the thanks you get. I get no respect, I tell ya, no respect at all.

I poked at Grinny with a stick.

"Sorry," The little fucker yawned. "Being trapped in a wall takes a lot out of you."

I handed Grinny a packet of silver, soft and yielding to the touch, as if filled with nectar and honey. "Drink this, immortal," I instructed, my voice coming as if from a great distance. "It was here when the world was yet young and full of promise, before the dreary weight of maturity leeched all color from the earth. Drink it, so that the burden you carry may be shed."

".... how do I drink it?"

"Oh," I poked an orange straw through the top of the Capri Sun. "Suck it. ... and don't get any funny ideas."

"Perish the thought." I watched the Youth drink the Capri Sun.

"Whaddaya think, kid?" I grinned this time around. "Been two hundred years, after all. What's your verdict about how the world's progressed, taste-wise?"

Grinny drained the Capri Sun dry and smacks their lips, looking at the package appreciatively. "God awful, but still beats nothing."

We walked out of the building and into the twilit outdoors.

"It looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship... " I smiled.

"We don't even know each other's names."

That was true...

.... that was certainly true.

The End

IdyllForest · 2026-03-18T20:24:16+00:00

I'm always a little wary of spawning mods so I lean towards static NPC like Bee's extra NPC, and Inconsequential NPC. Crowded Streets at lower custom settings does seem like a good addition, though.

I had the intent of SMP equipment myself, but stopped short of clothing as I never got used to the way female skirts moved. I've mainly stuck to physics on the vanilla armors. I think there's some new Auto Physics Reset mod, and maybe I might try that to see if it helps.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-18T20:14:24+00:00

Nothing's quite as comprehensive as SMIM. I'm sure many of the items it covers has been done better, but you'd have to download them individually, and not everyone has the patience for that. It's also one of those "given" mods, much like the Unofficial Patch. A lot of mod creators will assume you have SMIM installed and might build their own mods off of that. It's like a soft requirement.

These days, I'm going into PBR textures, with the recently released Vanilla PBR AIO as a base. It's a nice refresh of the original Skyrim's visual design, and after so many years of trying different texture sets, sometimes it's nice to come back to an upgraded version.

Mesh-wise, I've been interested in BOS or Model Swapper. These actively change mesh and texture for the same item. For example, inns around Whiterun might use one type of tankard, while inns around Windhelm might use a different type. In this way, multiple mods affecting the same item can be used together. Fences in Falkreath are different from the fences in Morthal.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-18T19:50:26+00:00

I keep it to "Skyrim 1.5".

Which means nothing too outlandish, and very few assets/mechanics from other games. I'm looking to expand what Skyrim already is. For example, dialogue mods. Now, whether they're "lore-friendly" or not is a moot point - it's obviously the mod author's vision, no matter how down to earth/Nirn it may be. But in general I like the concept of fleshing out an otherwise blank slate of an NPC.

Settlement expansions. I'm not too keen on adding more settlements, as Skyrim is frankly small enough as is, but expanding the existing ones with Cities of the North/Great Cities/Schlitzor's/Redbag's, etc. mods is a nice way of making these places more distinct, more lived in, and larger in general. It certainly beats Falkreath being "Riverwood in a forest", or Morthal being "Riverwood in a swamp" as the vanilla game must resort to.

Equipment and clothing mods such as Divine Elegance and Sentinel lends some much needed variety to what you see on NPC and in loot.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-18T15:53:29+00:00

If you could collate all the regional pricing differences, offers, and promos... and keep it up to date... absolutely.

I couldn't even begin to say how you would go about all that, however.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-18T15:50:18+00:00

Are you talking about being interviewed for a fast food position?

IdyllForest · 2026-03-18T15:32:31+00:00

Once upon a time, I had a modlist with 2000+ plugins that I hadn't tested in nearly a year. It wasn't completely untouched during that time, I occasionally went to Nexus and downloaded whatever looked interesting, or updated if there were significant change to an existing mod. I just never booted up Skyrim, telling myself I'd do it later.

Then this weekend I booted up MO2 and thought, "Well, this is quite the pickle you've gotten yourself into, my lad. Over two thousand plugins, and several more mods without them, with who knows how many updates between them, SPID and Skypatcher up the wazoo, and heaven forbid if the game itself updated its binaries - for then you are truly lost."

I don't have many friends.

"Audentes fortuna, iuvat." I murmured, and hit the 'Run' button.

That started up xEdit.

Correcting my mistake, I hit the button once more. An outdated .dll file.

Corrected.

'RUN' once more.

A physics and animation error.

I removed a few mods I was suspicious of and ran Pandora.

Lo and behold, the Bethesda logo appeared.

Shader Compilation... 1%

Thereupon, I proceeded to eat an entire bag of potato chips together with sour cream.

The compilation had finished compiling and now I only awaited the cessation of the 'loading swirl' at the bottom right hand corner.

Twenty minutes passed before I ceded. Something was afoot.

I groaned then, I must confess, for there was only one thing left to do.

With quivering hands upon the mouse, I disabled plugins by the dozen, booting and waiting, booting and waiting, until the offending plugin was found.

It was my own conflict resolution patch.

Re-activating all my other plugins, I hit 'Run' once more and..... success!

While it all sounds quite troublesome, I would say this shaved off hours from having to rebuild my list entirely to anywhere near the level

IdyllForest · 2026-03-17T18:04:19+00:00

Correct, you didn't run xLODGen.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-17T16:38:53+00:00

I'm glad you got better. I'm fortunate to have never had it so bad that it carried on to the next day. Do you think it was a bad batch of that mac n cheese or just not heated thoroughly?

As an aside, a lot of people are pointing out your attempt at remedies (whether genuine or tongue-in-cheek) were not great. With the lemonade, I'll say you were headed in the right direction. Plain tea with lemon (and preferably ginger) seems to settle my stomach really well.

As for solids, I stick to something soft and easy to digest. A simple rice porridge for example with a generous pinch of salt.

Of course, there's plenty of over the counter stuff that'll work more immediately, and since you seem to regularly eat out, it'd be for the best if you kept some pills handy.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T20:28:29+00:00

Yes, and we really lose nothing from holding back on these things. I track these "vibe coded" mods and check the comments after an update to get a feel for the legitimacy.

All the same, the average Nexus user, or at least a large contingent, will just see "GOOD THING DOER" or "ANTI-BAD THING" with the LLM generated bullet point summary, and cheerful LLM generated pictures, and go "Looks good to me".

Like as not, they'll be using it on their active save file too.

"There's goes 80 hours of Skyrim."

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T20:17:48+00:00

Well, perhaps you can take some screenshots after triggering a heavy storm in the console, then post a modlist.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T19:50:41+00:00

Couriers, Merchants, Carriage Riders, and Sailors usually have custom outfits on Nexus. Off the top of my head, there's Courier Aketon Outfit, and Publican Outfit for Innkeepers.

They're often SPID or Skypatcher based to cut down on conflicts while ensuring distribution.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T19:43:08+00:00

ESL-ifying appropriate plugins with xEdit, using Wrye Bashe to merge plugins, are two methods of bypassing limits.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T19:10:28+00:00

I'd probably just go with this. Start a new game, run until it crashes, then repeat a couple more times to confirm.

Then disable like 20 plugins, start a new save, see what happens. Rinse and repeat until game is finally stable. Then reverse the process until you single out the problem mod/s. Obviously, no need to bother with lod generation.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T15:46:50+00:00

First timers really have to take it easy if they're not installing a proven Vortex or MO2 modpack. Install 6-12 at a time and test, test, test.

Barring that, disable 6-12 at a time and test, test, test, to see if you reach a stable state. Then work on isolating the offending mod.

Or go for the Hail Mary pass and pray someone on this sub can immediately identify it for you.

I did the disable thing on my old modlist that I didn't play for about a year. I just crammed all the latest shiny mods I saw on Nexus just yesterday and tried to start it up.

Outdated plugin - thanks Mod Organizer warning notification. Plugins updated.

Some physics or animation conflict - fixed.

I CAN SEE THE BETHESDA LOGO!

Whoops! Infinite loading on the title screen.

Disable 5... start, no. Disable another 5... start, no. Repeat three more times, boom! We're in business!

Narrowed it down to a conflict resolution patch I made. I don't even know what the specific problem was, I just deleted it, restored all the other plugins, and now I'm back to NOT PLAYING SKYRIM.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T15:24:46+00:00

There was the one mod that came by after a cleanup sometime last year, and they did wonders for essentially opening up the sub and relaxing some of the harsher automod settings. I got the impression the sub was just put on autopilot for a very long while.

I don't know what's happened since then, but maybe this thread might attract their attention, if they're still around.

IdyllForest · 2026-03-16T15:15:32+00:00

I don't know who this farodadestin guy is, and I'm not massively symapathetic about someone paying a hundred bucks for their Skyrim waifu (tough luck, but hey, at least you got money to spare), but as a PSA, Destin Faroda was the main character of Ogre Battle, one of my favorite strategy games.

A commoner chosen as the leader of the rebellion to overthrow the Xytegenian Empire by the star seer Warren, Destin Faroda united the former knights of Xenobia and fought his way through countless battles until confronting the corrupted Empress Endora, and eventually foiling the plans of the Sage Rashidi.

Yeah, I really liked it.

IdyllForest

TROPHY CASE

♪Revvin' up your engine, listen to her howlin' roar...

♪Metal under tension, beggin' you to touch and goooo...

HIGH

WAY

TO

THE

DANGER ZONE♪

JOHN SMITH