TETHER - Hand-Holding for Followers

[KEI997]

12 hours ago, Dorabella said:

Isn't your PC attractive enough? 🤣

 

I did what the post said. I hooked the follower (Lydia) she didn't move , so I let go, moved a few meters away, and tried again: she's hooked and following me.

I suppose the real cause of the bug is a single animation package . OAR , It says that the animations ( for female character/female follower)are missing

I tried pasting the animations into Data\meshes\Actors\Character\animations\OpenAnimationReplacer\TETHER_run\FollowerFemale , and into Data\meshes\Actors\Character\animations\OpenAnimationReplacer\TETHER_run\PlayerFemale , Result: OAR confirms the animations; the follower moves immediately

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I agree that it's not the best method, but it might still help solve the problem.

No, the missing animations actually aren't the issue here. The animation data included in this mod is purely cosmetic.

This mod joins the hands together using Skyrim's Havok constraint feature. It sets the character's body as an active ragdoll and uses procedural animation to bind the arms, so you should still be able to walk while holding hands even without OAR.

The reason I provided the OAR folders in the first place is that holding hands with standard locomotion animations causes the arm to stretch way back in a painful-looking way, so I made custom animations just for male characters for now (the female ones will come later!). If the folder is empty, it should simply play vanilla or whatever custom sheathed movement animations you have installed.

As for the legs acting strange on stairs or slopes, that might be an issue with my animation rig. I'll look into it!

[KEI997]

On 8/13/2026 at 11:40 AM, MadMansGun said:

i hate that i will never learn how to do this level of black magic modding.

I deleted the image files. Since this is my first time using LL, I'm still not really familiar with the basic usage and site etiquette, so sorry about that!
I'd really appreciate it if you could keep letting me know if anything else comes up in the future.

[MadMansGun]

?????

were you trying to reply to someone else?

[KEI997]

Ah, my bad! I meant to click reply, but I accidentally quoted instead.
I was indeed trying to respond to you earlier, though. Since your post mentioned(https://www.loverslab.com/attachments/) and said "the less crap eating up server space the better," I went ahead and deleted the raccoon images and other files I had attached.

[sleepysaria]

Incredible!

[Ryo95]

I've been waiting for this for so long! But for now, I get a CTD if I change location while holding hands. I'll wait till it's more stable.

[Bluegunk]

I so want this mod to work in my game...

 

But the follower remains stuck to the spot, and may also start running on the spot, or keeping her back to the player. After which the follower is bugged.

 

Kei997 - have you any ideas I could try? What sort of thing could conflict with your Tether?  

 

 

Hopes for the future:

• When stopping with hand-held partner, after a few seconds a kiss or hug idle
• Walk arm about each other
• 🙃

Edited yesterday at 09:48 AM by Bluegunk

[Dorabella]

5 hours ago, KEI997 said:

No, the missing animations actually aren't the issue here. The animation data included in this mod is purely cosmetic.

It works anyway. There's just one detail that might be causing the problem where the follower sometimes doesn't move. In my opinion, the follower should turn toward the PC, but that doesn't happen instead, the follower takes the first few steps backward.

 

5 hours ago, KEI997 said:

As for the legs acting strange on stairs or slopes, that might be an issue with my animation rig. I'll look into it!

After walking for a while, your walking speed slows down significantly. Possible cause: custom walk/run animations? (GSLALAnim)

 

Still, you've done a great job . 

 

30 minutes ago, Ryo95 said:

I've been waiting for this for so long! But for now, I get a CTD if I change location while holding hands. I'll wait till it's more stable.

This also happens if you trigger a Sexlab animation while holding hands. For now, just let go of the follower to avoid the CTD.

 

22 minutes ago, Bluegunk said:

have you any ideas I could try? What sort of thing could conflict with your Tether?

We could try adding animations in all directions, but since they aren't included in the DLL, I don't know if it will work.

 

[Bluegunk]

Oh! It's started working for me! Well that's great!  😃

 

However, use of Tether seems to leave some kind of trace on the follower. The Hug Animation may glitch with the Hug-Death glitch afterwards.  

Perhaps the follower isn't being fully cleared of the Tether on end of the hand-hold?

 

Edited yesterday at 10:59 AM by Bluegunk

[TheStranger]

Absolutely disgusting! What's next? IK head pats?

 

...

 

On a more serious note: Great job! This is really cool. I've been thinking about how this would be a logical "next step", seeing that other mods have handled things like leashes and advanced IK alignments of characters. Seems like it may need some polish, but it is a cute and fun mod. Glad someone finally made it.

[sofzx]

16 hours ago, TheStranger said:

Absolutely disgusting! What's next? IK head pats?

 

...

 

On a more serious note: Great job! This is really cool. I've been thinking about how this would be a logical "next step", seeing that other mods have handled things like leashes and advanced IK alignments of characters. Seems like it may need some polish, but it is a cute and fun mod. Glad someone finally made it.

we need head pats fr 

[shrtjsrtj]

13 minutes ago, sofzx said:

we need head pats fr 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/130131?tab=description

 

It's from Billyy's SLAL Animation and Sub Lola also uses them, they're Sexlab animations though so they can take forever to start with vanilla Sexlab.

[Miaa11]

I laughed when i clicked to follow this mod 😅 Amaizing idea btw,thank you!

[FromWhomst]

I can see a great quest mod potential featuring a scene where you have to drag someone through burning hellscape

[Halleck2]

Thanks for the mod.  Any chance of a walking side-by-side animation?   For extra disgustingness.

[Bluegunk]

It would be interesting to see if Tether will work with Followers as Companions.  Unfortunately, that mod creates an ocean of script stacks. So it's not one I can recommend (unless someone fixes it).  I can't fix it, because I don't understand how scripts work.