so im gonna flat out say that im an idiot; i think i did something wrong with the initial extraction of Aric's and i may have been screwed from the beginning; that is to say, i didnt extract the mod and place it into App/data/roaming/strive/mods, but only placed the folder that says something like 'put this in app/data/roaming/strive/mods' in there, and thus may have cocked up any chance i had of the mod working from the start; so im gonna uninstall it, reinstall it, hit myself with a hammer for obvious reasons - it may knock common sense into me, who knows? - and erase strive as well. i barely had any save data anyway, so im not too bothered. ill get rid of both the mod AND the game, reinstall strive, reinstall aric's and actually follow the instructions to the letter instead of going 'i dont know what that means and why its worded like that so blah blah its ignored'.
am vurry big dumb.