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Using genAI to do your shit is basically like taking off your pants and letting Big Tech grab you by the nuts

That isn’t the grok anime waifu fondling your balls vro that’s Elon Musk 💔

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how it feels rn

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I’ve written a substantial amount of fanfiction for Vulpes but he’s kind of his own character within my plans for him, at least partially separate from canon. So I feel a little weird posting actual serious writing for him because of these noticeable discrepancies.

Then again what is there to be ashamed of? Every man writes his own Jesus, Lord Byron has his personal Don Juan, and I can’t front my own interpretation of Vulpes Inculta from Fallout New Vegas? Ridiculous.

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Vulpes modern AU and he's known colloquially online as the "4chan roadkill fursuit guy" (self explanatory) and he has a kiwifarms page dedicated to his numerous public crashouts including: physically assaulting the owner of the Nip-ton strip club in front of the Nip-ton strip club, putting his boss (Edward Sallow) on call during a livestreamed Discord callout, and making fake social media accounts impersonating his detractors. People would ragebait him into going on long, pseudo-fascistic monologues (easy) on Twitter. He wears an ankle monitor irl. He had to explain to Edward- a balding, middle aged conservative man- what Fur Affinity is. There are multiple hour-long Youtube videos cataloguing his "downfall".

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They send Vulpes out for a recon mission and he comes back with overgrown hair + acne from stress and a poor diet and then Caesar forces him to go bald cause he sort of looks like a shadow of the teenage girl he (Vulpes) never was and that’s kind of disturbing

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I met up with my friend on Friday and he was showing me his MTG Fallout New Vegas cards.

He keeps them all in this Divorced Dads card case. Like yeah sure Caesar’s a divorced dad alright

The art on the cards are so good…

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Okay I feel kind of bad responding to this because I'm definitely part of the problem (especially because the art I make is pretty unserious) but I do have legitimate thoughts on this.

I feel like a lot of the issues with the way the FO community engages with the Legion kind of stems from how extreme they are as a faction. You see this more on other platforms but if you don't vehemently hate them you often get labeled as a Legion fanboy who's beliefs are adjacent to the faction. I think people in general are kind of scared to really get into that aspect of the story beyond criticism and absurdity (which are easier to signal to the reader) because they are afraid that their intentions would be misconstrued by other parts of the fanbase. Slavery and misogyny are nuanced topics, and it's easy to come off as insensitive even when discussing them in a fictional context.

And it really doesn't help that their lore and influence within the canon story is so unfinished, and that even the creators themselves are critical of the way they came off in the resulting game. People may be dissuaded from deeper conversation when basic questions (like how Legion society functions outside of the frontlines, details on the Cult of Mars, and extended information on the tribes involved) are left ambiguous for the players, as they don't get to directly engage with a lot of Legion territory. The Legion is so limited and self-contained within FNV that you end up running into people who have vastly different interpretations of the canon that still could work with what we've been given up to this point. Hence why they might come off as "less serious" than really heavily established factions like the Enclave or the Brotherhood.

However, I'm not the most familiar with the lore of Fallout (since I just started getting into the game) so take what I've said so far with a grain of salt.

As for the headcanons, I don't think they necessarily reflect their creators' inability to take the story seriously. I think it kind of just depends on how these aspects are framed in fan works. I could tell you about how I do have explanations on how my Vulpes views his transsexuality and how he fits into the Legion but I feel like that's a bit irrelevant to my actual point. Though I can see why people might view these headcanons as "unserious", I think it's possible to engage with them in ways that still acknowledge the canon themes and lore. I'm not saying I'm particularly good at this, but it honestly depends on the skill and intentions of the person making the headcanons. You could literally have Vulpes be written as an alien in disguise and still have it relate to his attitudes towards deception and hypocrisy within the Legion.

I also don't think "unserious" fan work actually get in the way of serious discussion? Like, these two aspects of fandom don't negate one another and are often done by the same people. It also really depends on where exactly you're looking for this dialogue, like what platforms or communities. Some websites are just more conducive to jokes and shitposting than others.

Still, I do agree with the main sentiment of the post and I think encouraging serious dialogue is a good thing. I'll keep my messages and asks open if anyone wants to respond to this.

I just feel like most of the issue with FNV legion content in the fan space is a refusal to take the faction seriously. Like yes, to US the reader they are a straightforward caricature condemnation of fascism worthy of ridicule but within the text theres no reason not to engage with them seriously when interacting with the world through player characters and fan characters, but no one does that so you get HC concoctions about Vulpes being gay and transgender because we've set the precedent that this isnt a character to be taken seriously. and no one wants to speculate whether or not the legion synthesized heliocentrisim or geocentrism into their belief system with me

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Man’s best friend is just another man in a shitty dog costume?!

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I fucking hate course planning at a university, like it’s so fucking stupid. Of course every single lecture I need to attend for next year has to be on the exact same Tuesday on the exact hour. Ah yes and of course there are no alternate lecture hours cause no one in this godforsaken school wants to be a philosophy major, great.

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I don’t want to be hormonally imbalanced anymore I don’t want to draw hot men anymore I want to be free like an angel with wings of pure light and productive intention

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Poor, beaten dog…

I’ve been stressed out by my summer university courses lately, and as a result, I don’t really have the time or energy to work on major art pieces. Instead, I harness my inner middle-aged alcoholic man and come home late to abuse my (digital) wife.

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“The god thou serv’st is thine own appetite…”

Artist’s Notes: Joshua’s hand casts an “anatomically accurate” heart-shaped hole in Caesar’s chest, and the end of the cigarette is also in the shape of a heart. I gave Joshua a tear mole at the corner of his eye, as they commonly foreshadow a life of pain and broken relationships. The ivy growing around the damaged statue of Christ symbolize both a form of redemption or transformation in the wasteland, but also simultaneously the act of clinging to the dead- which I feel fits both Joshua and Caesar’s characters in different ways.

The second illustration is a little rougher than the first one, mainly because I was writing an essay on Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus while drawing on the side. This was also where I got the quote above.

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Me (with an injured arm and swamped with work): yeah I need to draw toxic yaoi right now actually like right now at 12:48 AM before a school (university class) day

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I headcanon Vulpes collecting old world rosaries and crucifixion paraphernalia whilst being unaware of the original intentions behind the objects- to him they represent “the holy judgement of Caesar and righteous punishment within the wasteland” or something like that. As a man given to theatrics I’d imagine he’d be eager to remind onlookers what he’s capable of and what his role is within the Legion beyond simple espionage.

I also headcanon him as beautiful and toned and transgender but that’s more for selfish reasons than anything else.

Here’s more doodles surrounding the Nipton massacre and my courier oc Gordie, who’s gloriously addicted to many substances and constantly injured (partially on account of Boone’s trigger happy antics).

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Vulpes my babygirl…

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Using psychoanalytic theory to prove to myself that this guy I have a crush on is gay so that I don’t have to think about him anymore #diversitywin

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good things will happen 🧿

things that are meant to be will fall into place 🧿