crazycal999

[crazycal999]

@gooseworx i saw this at my county fair being sold at some random booth alongside similar packs for "Dragonbead Super", "Avevgers: Engame", "Super Brothers", and "Ninja: Masters of Spinjitzu"

my girlfriend bullied gently persuaded me into purchasing it after we were done laughing our asses off; i promise i will spend an equal or greater amount on actual merch to make up for this sin jawthfjdgdsfg

[crazycal999]

I need someone to make a video essay about Robot Alchemic Drive because this game is a specific kind of weird where there's got to be a story about why it's like this. a juicy one.

okay wikipedia says they made the engine for a canceled giant-robot anime tie-in but then made their own story, but that seems like just the surface.

This game is so weird. The plot is expecting you to be a big fan of 1970s mech anime (for a 2002 PS2 game), it's a visual novel with WAY too much voiced dialogue, the voice acting is profoundly shit, and then in-between hours of dialogue you fight giant robots with your giant robots, but you have to do it from the perspective of a highschooler who doesn't even get inside the robot. she just has to find a good vantage point and control her robot remotely.

The dialogue itself is... the protagonist befriends a homeless elementary student, who then turns against you when she learns you, too, control a giant robot, just like the one that killed the student's grandma.

Then some lady shows up and starts yelling about how all these robots are too expensive and now you have to to watch the budget while protecting tokyo from giant robot attack.

also the story starts with establishing this is an AU where all the astronauts died. all of them. as soon as you leave earth, you die. There is no life in space, there is no life possible in space, you can't even travel through space.

Then we fastforward to some "modern day" and the alien invasion begins.

Also despite this being a completely-voiced game, it lets you pick from three protagonists: two male and one female. They're all voiced, and this never matters for dialogue.

This game is some of the Most Japanese media I've seen and yet they released it in North America like 3 months after Japan. What? Who thought this would sell? (it didn't, reportedly)

Also the game has two control schemes you have to pick from at the beginning. One of them is "press forward to go forward" and the other is "you have to alternate pressing R1/R2 and L1/L2 to move each of your robot's feet individually".

Please. I need to know why this game is like this. There HAS to be a story there .

[crazycal999]

happy PRIDE i’m here i’m queer and i believe the land should be given back to the proper indigenous stewards.

[crazycal999]

its depressingly, morbidly funny to me that the 'no cops at pride? what about the good cops 🥺' discourse happened like 12 hours before the LAPD were ordered to arrest every single person in downtown LA

[crazycal999]

happy PRIDE i’m here i’m queer and i believe the land should be given back to the proper indigenous stewards.

[crazycal999]

i know this is a really long post but Nukapedia / fallout.fandom.com is so so so SO fucked like holy shit, this is just the tip of the iceberg

Cult is a very strong word with a specific meaning. A cult is not a shitty person who is popular, or a group who is eccentric or mean.

A cult is a system of abusive control mechanisms designed to influence or commodify a larger group for the personal and strategic benefit of a very small circle.

The leaders of a cult are "always right" because they have designed layers of obfuscation, laundering, and plausible deniability which allow them to abuse people without consequences.

They create institutional pretense for abuse and vocabulary to normalize it, and then they pretend the abuse is something they have no control over. They paint the outside world as a corrupting force.

They push false narratives and become immediately hostile to anyone who questions them, contriving reasons to treat them as malicious and corrupt, never acknowledging the content of their speech.

Everyone in a cult outside of the inner circle is a victim. Even if they suck shit as a person.

The Nukapedia Discord - the Discord of Fandomcorp's Fallout Wiki - is a cult. The wiki is a vassal of the Discord.

The people resisting it or trying to get away from it are cult survivors.

The purpose of the cult is to grant the inner circle power over a cycling influx of isolated people, especially minors and disabled people, arriving to Fandom from google.

Fandom attempted to sever this Discord.

We are removing the links to the server from the core Community landing pages on the wiki. We believe that the situation on the server has become so detrimental to the mission and wellbeing of the community that we can not permit our platform to be used as any endorsement of joining and participating in that server. We will review this situation, including whether to re-link the server, upon request by the current admin team if the server can return to its core purpose of fostering community growth and collaboration.

The link was never removed from the Welcome Hub, only the Discord page. Despite this, the admins have incessantly screamed and cried and continued to operate through the Discord, which has remained a racist den of abuse driving contributors out of the community in favor of non-contributing trolls.

They are obsessed with getting an "all-clear" from Fandom despite the link remaining because this is not about the link, it is about narrative control. The inner circle have repeatedly claimed "Fandom dismissed all allegations against us" but this is simply a bold-faced harmful lie they are telling because they are cult leaders. No such absolution was granted.

NP have made zero positive changes. A mod was globally banned and they never once acknowledged what he did to earn it. They have only denied that anything is wrong & consolidated power while calling it progress, while all progressive users continue to be attacked and driven out.

I'm sure the Fandom staff that have been in our server during these months would agree that the environment there is very welcoming to users from all walks of life. New editors and members of the community should be given the opportunity to join us there.

One of the main reasons they do all this is to push alt-right propaganda on young people. Anyone who calls out coded alt-right activity at Nukapedia will be banned and shamed, no matter how important they used to be. If a user with zero edits says something bigoted, and an elder with 5,000 edits calls them on it, the latter user will be punished and the former will be rewarded, every single time. Being far-right is important to the inner circle and the wiki is not.

Over half of the problem users never ever add new content to the wiki. They promote far-right politics under the pretense of "neutrality" & mercilessly dogpile anyone who acknowledges their ulterior motives. They accuse people with explicit guiding principles of "admitting to having ulterior motives." They accuse people who compromise of "admitting to being wrong." They are bigoted liars who cry victim whenever held to account for their decisions and retaliate mercilessly.

The users who wrote the policy openly brag that they wrote the rules and have unique right to interpret them and use them against people.

Some of the most unreasonable and aggressive people involved originally arrived as minors in the 2010s.

Many minors were granted chat mod status. The ones who are still there proved themselves unquestioningly loyal to the older staff.

This place deliberately attracts minors, lovebombs them, then pressures them into bad behavior.

Those who do the right thing are silenced and treated like criminals. Whenever young users are "caught" talking to older users they actually trust about these problems, both are punished and shamed for subverting the cult leaders.

Staff stalk people offsite to harass them and gather kompromat. They use their tools to hide evidence. Staff always cry "harassment," "stalking," or "kompromat" when their public behavior at Nukapedia is called to account. One attempted to remove 100 evidence images citing "violation of personal copyright law" and was not demoted.

They call tumblr a place where "alternative sexual lifestyles" are "pushed" and paint all of its users as predators and criminals. They consider your tumblr account grounds to call you a predator.

As far as i know they have effectively purged all voices of color. The last I was aware of left this month after extended harassment and gaslighting.

Bringing up race in a progressive context will earn you a ban with the listed reason "insensitive racial comments." Alt-right rhetoric is explicitly allowed in parts of the Nukapedia ecosystem but it is bannable to accuse any other member of spreading alt-right rhetoric.

The first result when you type 'fallout [anything]' in a search engine is a site controlled by an abuse cult

In the most serious way an adult can tell another adult something, I'm telling you it is not safe to treat fallout.fandom.com like anything but a predatory organization.

Fandom's response has been so irresponsible and incompetent that it is not safe for young people to invest themselves in any social community centered on that website

We are cult survivors. They are doing what cults do to outcasts who try to raise awareness of the truth.

[crazycal999]

theme for a 1977 british mocumentary about terraforming the moon because the earth is uninhabitable

vats of goo is a direct cover of this track, which makes it the original version of the fallout theme

the nucleus bgm, being a vats of goo reprise, is also a direct and recognizable cover of this song

[crazycal999]

Every time I hear people talk about satanic imagery or satanic propaganda I think about that tweet that was like, some people view Satan as a video game villain where he gets stronger the more people worship him

[crazycal999]

come the fuck on

[crazycal999]

when i did the write up of the Goodsprings Festival for NP, one of those MAGA freaks tried to remove the part where i said tourists are asked not to enter the goodsprings cemetery

i had to go find a place on the internet where the people of this tiny town had asked the world to stop doing photoshoots and leaving items in the place where they bury their families

that editor is still staff btw. he recently had the last content mod removed for the crime of not being MAGA & talking back to the cult leaders. what a hell hole

[crazycal999]

[crazycal999]

Samus has a request for you.~

Drawn by the wonderful @tanblaque for her Patreon sketch tier! You should throw her money btw!

[crazycal999]

i am the primary author of the essay Themes of Gay Identity and Homophobia in Fallout: New Vegas and the original writer of the Disability representation page on Nukapedia, the Fandom Fallout Wiki.

The Fallout Wiki is a severe ongoing danger to the marginalized people and youth of our community.

The alt-right gang who have occupied Nukapedia for the past 12 months is trying to abolish voting. They have been talking about it for a month and this morning they announced their intentions to fast-track it. They want to do this so admins can efficiently silence all disobedient voices immediately without evidence or possibility of community assessment.

This morning, an authority used an unprecedented "admin decree" to excommunicate a teenage boy, admin of the Fallout Fanon/RP wiki. They are trying to demonize and excommunicate him because they were unable to privately pressure him into promoting an adult he was known to be uncomfortable with. They also explicitly condemn him because they discovered he had told adults what they did to him.

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:UrbanAnge1#Clarification_about_comments_in_Discord

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:Arcaneous#Notice_of_Affiliation_Termination

They are saying Fandom "dismissed" the Vote of No Confidence he cosigned, and call it a "campaign of misinformation." They argue this supposed "dismissal" proves they are all innocent of all charges and insinuating they must punish anyone who challenges them, including anyone who signed that document 6 months ago.

Edit: the document was deleted by a rogue community elder acting alone, during the writing of this post. the elder is technically a Fandom employee and used me to disseminate confidental Van Buren documents, deliberately withholding information about how that could affect myself and the community. learn more here

In reality, one of their ringleaders buried the document without Fandom permission, and was subsequently issued a global ban and stripped of rights. They are simply lying and trying to intimidate everyone into complying with their abusive false narrative.

Fandom also told Nukapedia "the situation on the server has become so detrimental to the mission and wellbeing of the community that we can not permit our platform to be used as any endorsement of joining and participating in that server." The In-Group have aggressively pretended the server is still a formal function of the site. Fandom absolutely did not "dismiss" any criticism against these people whatsoever in the past year, they are simply malicious liars.

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:Jspoelstra#Clarification_on_'admin_decree'_terminating_MD_affiliation

O'saa is a misogynist and a psychological abuser. Mara is a far-right bully who celebrated the purge of everyone who made white people uncomfortable. Urban has abused multiple minors. This will be illuminated for the community over the course of the following weeks. They all frame themselves as victims and anyone affiliated with me as subhuman because I tell the truth about them.

As their next project, they plan to fashion special pages for an 18+ server where alt-right talking points are explicitly allowed, as well as discussion of beating and sexually degrading a banned woman. The admins of that server referred to the previous NP head as a "whore", an 'old crying bitch,' and a "street walker." They and their users "joked" about finding her in real life, siccing a dog on her, and stabbing her. They shared old screenshots with NP staff of her being bullied to her face for being a "whore." At least four prominent ambassadors from NP encouraged this. Again, this will be unpacked in every bit as much detail as necessary.

multiple open catholic christofascists have been given egregious special protection by admins after blatant acts of politically radical harassment and vandalism, such as "Catholic Crusader," unbanned by the head admin despite his only contribution being malicious vandalism of the LGBT page.

They run their "lovebombing-gaslighting-emotional blackmail" routine on anyone who displays potential in the space, including corporate employees tasked with handling them.

In all my past PSAs I have urged the community to stay away. But kids keep getting hurt at Nukapedia. We cannot keep ignoring it or hoping it fixes itself. They have their next targets in their crosshairs and they will always find more kids to torment. We have to do this.

The people orchestrating this number about 10, they can gather around 20 votes at most, and they survive on absolute and brutal narrative control. 3.4k people engaged with my first PSA about NP in a week.

For the safety of the youth and disabled of our community, I'm asking you to make a Fandom account with usernames different from your tumblr and Discord user names, and to simply speak up when you see anything concerning. Several community forums will occur soon, which will ping all editors, so make a contribution, poke around, and attend discussions. Ask questions. Do not let strangers pressure you into compliance without evidence of their narrative.

When you see the blatant consolidation of power in the hands of those who already hold it--AND YOU WILL--object openly and do not apologize.

They want you to think you are 'not a real member' and they are, but many of them do not edit the wiki at all. All you need to do is join, read the rules, and speak common sense in community discussions. I've written some advice here on how to effectively participate in improving the space.

Today I'm just hoping to attract a few adults willing to speak sense and call out bullying when they see it. The goal is harm reduction, and in such a small room, every voice makes a huge difference. I recommend you coordinate with the progressive people you meet there, out in the open.

This is a minor PSA i'm opting for because frankly i've been awake for a long ass time watching this implode and the coming weeks are going to shape the future of the community. They intend to allow this to escalate tremendously, hopefully that won't be necessary. A structured project of resistance and accountability will be launched in the coming days and will continue until progress is made.

This is necessary because children are going to keep coming to the site through google and these people are going to keep predating on them. They single out talented young people and pressure them to join in their alt-right bully mob, and those who refuse are inevitably targeted with harm, harassment, defamation, gaslighting. Month after month they keep fucking with kids, disabled people, queer people, and people of color. Talented young people keep pouring out of this place, abused, pursued by white men fixated on slandering their name and finding them offsite.

As far as I know, they have purged all queer people and people of color out of any position of power or respect, save some alienated elders they occasionally lovebomb. Their tokens have slowly been purged, leaving them a coalition of MAGAboys, cryptofascists, and gamergaters united under casual White Nationalism. The very few remaining marginalized staff and elders simply maintain silence out of fear they will be next. They need you to change the temperature in the room so it will be safe to speak.

The leaders and their enablers are reading this and laughing together, posting popcorn gifs and calling me insane, boasting that they are sorry for nothing. They are competing to signal loyalty, grandstanding about how nobody has ever done anything wrong at NP except for the banned crazy women they hatestalk. The inner circle will discuss ZERO of these incidents in detail. Zero. No matter how much proof. Zero. Ever. The truth being revealed means permanent immunity 100% of the time. The more proof, the more unfair they say it is. That is how dark and melted this place has become.

Some of the offenders have been there for over 10 years. They BRAG that they personally wrote "the policy" and have unique right to enforce it, and they stalk people offsite as a team to mock and provoke them. In October, an evidence document was posted, detailing many of their offenses. Today it was hidden from you. It cannot be allowed to continue.

[crazycal999]

Themes of Gay Identity and Homophobia in Fallout: New Vegas

Revised and extended 4-30-25. Much of this essay is no longer available on the wiki. Please read attached PSA at conclusion.

Released in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas actively concerns itself with the realities of gay existence, and is widely recognized as a noteworthy work of queer science fiction. New Vegas extensively examines social attitudes towards homosexuality among the game's major factions, and primarily conveys this lore through gay and bisexual characters describing their own experiences. It also allowed the player to mechanically set the Courier's sexual orientation. By taking both available perks, the player character can be bisexual. By choosing neither, the player can opt out of seeing flirtatious dialogue options.

Uniquely, Fallout: New Vegas explores homosexuality in the context of wasteland societies, and touches upon related issues. The core theme of New Vegas is that the desire to recreate the past is driven by irrational nostalgia, and any endeavor to manifest past glory is dangerous and doomed. The social issue of homophobia is used as a demonstrative example. The resurrection of corporate and military power structures presents new avenues for Old World problems such as institutional homophobia to reemerge. One of the many issues that divide the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion is the latter's open persecution of gay people. The NCR is described as tolerant and even accepting of same-sex relationships, though acceptance tends to fall off the further one moves away from the developed, urbanized core of New California.

In recent years, the Republic's rapid economic transformation has led to an unforeseen erosion of the humanitarian ideals which it was founded to serve. In practice, to recreate America was to take on its shortcomings and its sins. As subsistence scavenging has dried up, the people of the NCR increasingly turn to wage labor, entrepreneurial venture, or military enlistment to keep their families fed. Meanwhile, their government enacts morally corrosive imperialism (narrative verbiage from the PRIMA guide), their dominion expanding indefinitely as their infrastructure crumbles from within. This has led to a profit-based imperial monoculture which must conquer, consume, and coerce to perpetuate. As personal politics and service labor grow in importance, people find themselves more inclined to present as "normal" in the interest of financial stability and political expedience. A loading screen visualizes this culture of artificial social normalcy: the portrait of President Aradesh on the NCR 5$ bill neglects to depict his unibrow, earring, and facial scarification, overall portraying the once-chieftain so cleanly-cut as to be unrecognizable at first glance. He also appears to be wearing a collared shirt or suit as opposed to the robe he wore in Fallout.

In the Legion, Caesar has mandated that every legionnaire take a wife and produce children, citing high infant mortality rates and the constant need for soldiers, and going as far as instituting child quotas. He treats human beings as a resource to be exploited for war. Ostensibly in this aim homosexuality has been declared a capital offense punishable by death. Historically, routine demonstrations of violence towards women and gay people are a deliberate feature of fascist societies, the only logical cultural conclusion of a government devoted entirely to war and control.

In Forlorn Hope letter 9, an NCR soldier wrote wrote the following to his boyfriend:

Dearest Andrew, Writing this seems pretty morbid, but tomorrow we march into the no man's land between our camp and Nelson, which is crawling with Legion. The Major insisted I write this damn "if you get this, I'm dead" letter so here it is. What a crock. I have the luck of the devil and your love on my side, so I'll be home soon. Keep the porch light on for me. We'll party in New Vegas when I get back. I love you. —Devin

Devin believed he would prevail over the Legion because his love would keep him safe. He was found dying or dead on the battlefield, the letter was found on his body. In a post-release patch, the injured soldiers were removed from the battlefield for performance reasons, and never re-implemented.

Driven largely in reaction to the Legion's hyper-masculine posturing and misogyny, rumors persist across the Mojave that gay male relationships are not only common within the Legion, but condoned. These rumors are repeated commonly in NCR society. A closeted NCR Major mentions that the Legion is "a little more... forgiving" about close male "friendships," speaking in a hushed tone to avoid suspicion. At the same outpost, the player can encounter Cass, a bisexual civilian woman. She may flirt with a male Courier, who may imply they are gay, prompting her to imply gay men are more common in the Legion. Even as gay men fight and die in the name of love under his command, NCR General Oliver may remark to Courier Six at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam: "If you think after all that's happened, I'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the Legion..."

This writing pertains to institutionalized homophobia which manifests in practice though power structures and social interactions without being written into law. Simply put, in his derogatory remark, the general expresses to his army that military surrender is gay, much like their gay enemy. From the brevity and bluntness of this remark, it's clear that this sentiment is already well understood among his ranks. Logically, to project strength in the eyes of such a leader, one might also project homophobia by scrutinizing and harassing one's peers and subordinates. In this atmosphere, the expression of homophobia is not only normalized, but materially incentivized. For the ambitious, it becomes a tool, and a way of casting shame upon rivals. For the closeted, homophobia becomes a survival tactic, hoping to throw scrutiny off oneself. This is why Major Knight is immediately frightened when a male Courier flirts with him. He is so profoundly alienated that he romanticizes life as a gay man under the Legion. The Legion punish homosexuality with death, and yet Knight characterizes them as more "forgiving" than the NCR. Through these apparently disparate events, the audience can trace how a distorted perception of gay people emerges among insecure men in a military environment, and subsequently becomes ingrained in the corresponding civilian culture.

At the 188 Trading Post, a lesbian from the Brotherhood of Steel named Veronica also wryly remarks that she believes legionaries have gay sex about as often as straight sex. She also notes that this only applies to men, as women have no rights whatsoever in Legion society. In this aside, she conveys a pre-existing frustration with lesbophobic social norms. Veronica also mentions that the people of her bunker would rather she remain on the surface.

The Mojave Brotherhood of Steel has no official policy prohibiting homosexuality, but an implicit attitude among its dominant members that their limited numbers require everyone to have children to avoid extinction. Numerically, this may seem logical on the surface, given their reluctance to recruit outsiders. However, given their tiny population, this is an ineffective countermeasure, as they do not have nearly enough members to maintain genetic diversity for more than a few generations. 

This approach is not universally supported by all family units within the Brotherhood, but every individual is ultimately at the mercy of the elder. Veronica was in a lesbian relationship, but they were quietly separated by Elder Elijah, due to the dominant culture of enforcing heterosexual pairing among their population. No Brotherhood character makes any remark conveying hatred or disgust towards homosexuality; malice is not a necessary ingredient of homophobia. Fear, ignorance, tradition, and control are forces that shape their society, resulting in the needless oppression of gay people. The subject remains subtextual, apparently taboo, which may reflect their culture's origins in the U.S. Army. Additionally, the Brotherhood's medieval theming dovetails intuitively with these themes of traditional propriety, regressive superstition, and closed-minded stagnation.

Caesar's law has not ended homosexuality within his domain. Despite the obvious risks, some legionaries have continued to pursue relationships behind closed doors, especially given their access to slaves. So long as members complete their societal obligations and fulfill the child quotas, they are able to pursue romance with other men in secret. One line suggests homosexual relationships in the faction are relatively equal to the average Legion husband and wife in some ways, apparently a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" sort of open secret policy. Despite this, gay legionaries must always make sure to keep their activities hidden.

A centurion was once almost caught fraternizing with the teenage boy he had chosen to tend his tent. Despite previous "romantic" intentions, he quickly resolved to dispose of the slave to dispel suspicion. Had they been caught together, the centurion would have been charged with homosexuality and sentenced to death. This story is only known because the enslaved young man, Jimmy, managed to escape execution. Further illustrating the cruelty intrinsic to Legion governance, it's stated that homosexuality was the crime, and not the rape of a young slave; in fact, it seems Jimmy was forced to contribute to the child quota despite being a gay teenager, and the experience left him traumatized. He has resolved to never have sex with another woman, as the very notion triggers memories which fill him with disgust, and (in his own words) makes him feel like a slave all over again.

The Strip is indifferent to gay people, viewing them as another opportunity to make caps. Both the Gomorrah and the Atomic Wrangler are interested in maximizing profits, and their prostitution services cater to clients regardless of their orientation. The openly gay Jimmy works at nearby Casa Madrid, but there is some tension among his peers due to his co-worker Maude's blatant homophobia. She supposes he's "okay, for one of those," and if propositioned by a female Courier, Maude will direct them to Sweetie for such "perverted" services. Pretty Sarah must regularly intervene to keep the peace among her staff.

New Vegas ventures further into themes of healing from the trauma of sexual violence, from the perspective of a lesbian character. NCR sharpshooter Corporal Betsy is a survivor of rape, and suffers with PTSD from the incident. Her unprocessed trauma has manifested as a maladaptive tendency to aggressively and explicitly proposition the women she encounters, in an effort to reassert a sense of control. This defensive hypersexual impulse has negatively impacted her ability to connect with other women. A male superior officer notes that her behavior is inappropriate for anyone of her stature, but abstains from disciplining her out of sincere concern for her mental health. The Courier can help her begin to recognize these problems, and convince her to seek treatment from Doctor Usanagi at the New Vegas medical clinic, which proves helpful to her as she processes and heals from her trauma. An NCR side-quest involves finding and killing her rapist.

A more significant movement out west, the Followers of the Apocalypse only control one major outpost in the Mojave, the Old Mormon Fort, somewhat ironic given the social and historical connotations of Mormonism. They allow outcasts and downtrodden to take shelter among their tents here, and do not stigmatize sex workers or addicts. A bisexual ghoul sex worker named Beatrix Russel can be encountered here, and the Courier may do business with her.

The Followers tend not to form hierarchies, and insist that the Courier choose non-violent approaches while carrying out their quests, which involve directly bettering the surrounding community of Freeside. Among other tasks, the player may be tasked to distribute Fixer (a medicine comparable to methadone) to homeless people experiencing withdrawal, or aid those abused by chem dealers. The main quest giver for the faction is community coordinator Julie Farkas, a doctor with a bold and unusual mohawk.

At Red Rock Canyon, the Courier can help a young man find purpose and kinship by convincing him to leave home and join the Followers. Jerry the Punk is a Great Khan who has been ostracized for writing poetry, and the upcoming masculinity rites expected of him by his small, tense village give him reason to actively fear for his life. Jerry has positive memories of the Followers from his childhood, because there was a time when they would bring books to share with the Great Khans tribe. The Punk finds a sense of purpose and connection when he leaves his isolated home settlement of harsh, angry men to live among the Followers, who see value in his gentle, creative nature as opposed to belittling him.

At the time of the events of Fallout, the Followers of the Apocalypse presented as benevolent secular monks who opposed the Children of the Cathedral cult. In the wake of the Unity Crisis, the city of Boneyard peacefully joined the NCR. The fiction of New Vegas establishes that, in pursuit of their founding principles, the Followers developed into a transgressive force for leftist values, openly critical of the NCR's capitalistic profit-based society. Director J.E. Sawyer freely acknowledges that the values of the Followers of the Apocalypse were informed by leftist philosophy:

"The Followers of the Apocalypse: Libertarians, socialists, communists, or greens?" Sawyer: "They vary significantly, but range from anarcho-syndicatists to socialists to communists. Their general tendency to be inclusive and non-hierarchical means they don't have a single outlook or 'platform.'"

The distinctive character design of faction representative Julie Farkas resembles an archetypical punk woman. Being a far-left counterculture of a capitalistic empire, the Followers of the Apocalypse generally evoke and directly mirror the goals and organizational methods of the modern punk movement--more acutely, they embody the sensibilities of America's rail punks, a highly transient subculture who overwhelmingly emphasize volunteerism and anti-imperial philosophy, as opposed to the sensationalism of the reactionary punk rocker scene, which is defined by the moving target of aesthetic/social transgression. This read is further informed by the Followers' inclusiveness, abundantly evidenced in their care for people marginalized by other wasteland societies, including unhoused people, addicts, sex workers, gay people, tribal people, political dissidents, criminalized people, and mutated people.

The most prominent member of the faction is Arcade Gannon, a player companion and openly gay man, who was born an illegal person under NCR law. Upon meeting Courier Six, Arcade offhandedly makes his gayness known, unprompted. The audience must face the fact that Arcade's apprehension of the Legion is far from abstract; under Legion law, he would be put to death.

Arcade will not hesitate to abandon the player if he disapproves of their actions, but if his trust is carefully earned, he will reveal his origins. Arcade was born into the Enclave just before it collapsed. He hides this because his existence is a crime under New California Republic law. He abandoned his fascist background to serve the Followers' ideology of learning, harm reduction, and antifascism.

Additionally, Arcade is critical of the NCR, and encourages the player to re-route the power of HELIOS One to Freeside rather than the NCR power grid. Should the Courier sell Arcade to the Legion and subsequently lead the NCR to victory at the Dam, Arcade will ultimately be identified as Enclave-born and arrested from his position of slavery to spend the rest of his life in an NCR prison. As a gay man originally born to the Enclave, his very existence is criminalized under the law of both the NCR and the Legion.

Another possible ending provides further insight into Caesar's hypocrisy: should the player sell Arcade into slavery and leave Caesar alive, he will keep Arcade as a personal physician and philosophical advisor. They intellectually spar at length, and Caesar grows singularly fond of him. Accordingly, Arcade imitates the historic suicide of Cato the Younger by disemboweling himself, rather than suffer the favor of the mad Caesar. The Legion's remaining medics attempted to save his life, but none were Arcade's equal. Caesar understood his doctor's final gesture of contempt, and mourned him for months.

In Old World Blues, the Think Tank are five floating brains in jars who express themselves by waving robotic arms bearing screens depicting facial features. Before the War, they were federal scientists who committed crimes against humanity in the name of weapons development. Each is stuck in some sort of neuro-bionic feedback loop which prevents them from moving forward with their projects, mentally binding them to their central laboratory. Walking through their homes at Higgs Village, it's clear each was deeply neurotic before they were transformed into floating brains.

Now without bodies, they attempt to maintain the illusion that they are exempt from sexuality as purely mental beings, but each displays obvious interest in the human form. They have codified this shaming with the term "formography." Most of the men are obsessively defensive over their complete disinterest in penises, which they talk about constantly. However, the shameless Dr. Dala shows overwhelming interest in observing and recording any and all human functions. Already androgynous in her pre-War life, Dala has taken to self-identifying as a "gender neutral entity" (though she is not known to use they/them pronouns). Regardless of the Courier's gender, they may coquettishly scratch themselves, clear their throat, and stretch in front of Dala until her biomed gel decoagulates. Dr. 8 also responds positively to graphic masturbation advice from Couriers of either gender.

The X-8 research facility is ostensibly a massive immersive shrine to Doctor Borous's hatred of Richie "Ball-Lover" Marcus, a long-dead child who bullied Borous centuries ago. He also clings to his resentment of one Betsy Bright, who refused to attend a dance with him, supposedly so she could "go smoke with RICHIE MARCUS." Clearly arrested in development, Borous has literally built a temple to the fantasy of torturing his adolescent romantic rival and feeding him to dogs. His frozen, static characterization of the jock Richie Marcus as a "pinko-commie" who "likes balls" reflects the shallowness, pettiness, and overall misanthropy underlying his patriotic identity.

It remains apparent throughout Old World Blues that the Think Tank are all chronically sexually repressed, which is inseparable from the values of the violent and judgmental pre-War culture which created them. With time and isolation, this ingrained repression has manifested as various intense and deranged psychosexual behaviors, including rage-fueled homophobia, voyeurism, and the obsessive performance of puritanical pretense.

____

“Although I’ve been out for a very long time, I made a conscious effort to be out with relation to this project, as I wanted to be visible as a lesbian in the game industry. New Vegas itself is, I think, one of (if not the) best games out there in how we treat homosexuality – and all of that is very intentional.”

“If my work on FNV, if my being out has helped even one gay person, then I have succeeded.”

— Tess “Obsidian’s Gay Cowgirl” Treadwell

____

written (with help from other editors) for Nukapedia.

NUKAPEDIA HAS BEEN SEIZED BY AN ALT-RIGHT HIGH-CONTROL GROUP WHO TARGET MINORS AND MARGINALIZED PEOPLE. THEY HAVE HELD IT FOR ONE YEAR. THEY HAVE NEAR-COMPLETELY PURGED QUEER EDITORS AND EDITORS OF COLOR FROM DISCORD AND STAFF. THEY ARE ABOUT TO TRY TO ABOLISH VOTING.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ESSAY PLEASE IMMEDIATELY JOIN THE COMMUNITY AND BE VIGILANT. THERE ARE 20 OF THEM LEFT AT MOST. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF YOU. THEY SURVIVE ON NARRATIVE CONTROL. IF YOU SIMPLY PARTICIPATE IN COMMUNITY FORUMS AND STAFF TALK PAGE CONVERSATIONS THEY WILL BE UNABLE TO CONTINUE.

PLEASE SEE THIS POST FOR MORE INFORMATION

[crazycal999]

i am the primary author of the essay Themes of Gay Identity and Homophobia in Fallout: New Vegas and the original writer of the Disability representation page on Nukapedia, the Fandom Fallout Wiki.

The Fallout Wiki is a severe ongoing danger to the marginalized people and youth of our community.

The alt-right gang who have occupied Nukapedia for the past 12 months is trying to abolish voting. They have been talking about it for a month and this morning they announced their intentions to fast-track it. They want to do this so admins can efficiently silence all disobedient voices immediately without evidence or possibility of community assessment.

This morning, an authority used an unprecedented "admin decree" to excommunicate a teenage boy, admin of the Fallout Fanon/RP wiki. They are trying to demonize and excommunicate him because they were unable to privately pressure him into promoting an adult he was known to be uncomfortable with. They also explicitly condemn him because they discovered he had told adults what they did to him.

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:UrbanAnge1#Clarification_about_comments_in_Discord

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:Arcaneous#Notice_of_Affiliation_Termination

They are saying Fandom "dismissed" the Vote of No Confidence he cosigned, and call it a "campaign of misinformation." They argue this supposed "dismissal" proves they are all innocent of all charges and insinuating they must punish anyone who challenges them, including anyone who signed that document 6 months ago.

Edit: the document was deleted by a rogue community elder acting alone, during the writing of this post. the elder is technically a Fandom employee and used me to disseminate confidental Van Buren documents, deliberately withholding information about how that could affect myself and the community. learn more here

In reality, one of their ringleaders buried the document without Fandom permission, and was subsequently issued a global ban and stripped of rights. They are simply lying and trying to intimidate everyone into complying with their abusive false narrative.

Fandom also told Nukapedia "the situation on the server has become so detrimental to the mission and wellbeing of the community that we can not permit our platform to be used as any endorsement of joining and participating in that server." The In-Group have aggressively pretended the server is still a formal function of the site. Fandom absolutely did not "dismiss" any criticism against these people whatsoever in the past year, they are simply malicious liars.

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:Jspoelstra#Clarification_on_'admin_decree'_terminating_MD_affiliation

O'saa is a misogynist and a psychological abuser. Mara is a far-right bully who celebrated the purge of everyone who made white people uncomfortable. Urban has abused multiple minors. This will be illuminated for the community over the course of the following weeks. They all frame themselves as victims and anyone affiliated with me as subhuman because I tell the truth about them.

As their next project, they plan to fashion special pages for an 18+ server where alt-right talking points are explicitly allowed, as well as discussion of beating and sexually degrading a banned woman. The admins of that server referred to the previous NP head as a "whore", an 'old crying bitch,' and a "street walker." They and their users "joked" about finding her in real life, siccing a dog on her, and stabbing her. They shared old screenshots with NP staff of her being bullied to her face for being a "whore." At least four prominent ambassadors from NP encouraged this. Again, this will be unpacked in every bit as much detail as necessary.

multiple open catholic christofascists have been given egregious special protection by admins after blatant acts of politically radical harassment and vandalism, such as "Catholic Crusader," unbanned by the head admin despite his only contribution being malicious vandalism of the LGBT page.

They run their "lovebombing-gaslighting-emotional blackmail" routine on anyone who displays potential in the space, including corporate employees tasked with handling them.

In all my past PSAs I have urged the community to stay away. But kids keep getting hurt at Nukapedia. We cannot keep ignoring it or hoping it fixes itself. They have their next targets in their crosshairs and they will always find more kids to torment. We have to do this.

The people orchestrating this number about 10, they can gather around 20 votes at most, and they survive on absolute and brutal narrative control. 3.4k people engaged with my first PSA about NP in a week.

For the safety of the youth and disabled of our community, I'm asking you to make a Fandom account with usernames different from your tumblr and Discord user names, and to simply speak up when you see anything concerning. Several community forums will occur soon, which will ping all editors, so make a contribution, poke around, and attend discussions. Ask questions. Do not let strangers pressure you into compliance without evidence of their narrative.

When you see the blatant consolidation of power in the hands of those who already hold it--AND YOU WILL--object openly and do not apologize.

They want you to think you are 'not a real member' and they are, but many of them do not edit the wiki at all. All you need to do is join, read the rules, and speak common sense in community discussions. I've written some advice here on how to effectively participate in improving the space.

Today I'm just hoping to attract a few adults willing to speak sense and call out bullying when they see it. The goal is harm reduction, and in such a small room, every voice makes a huge difference. I recommend you coordinate with the progressive people you meet there, out in the open.

This is a minor PSA i'm opting for because frankly i've been awake for a long ass time watching this implode and the coming weeks are going to shape the future of the community. They intend to allow this to escalate tremendously, hopefully that won't be necessary. A structured project of resistance and accountability will be launched in the coming days and will continue until progress is made.

This is necessary because children are going to keep coming to the site through google and these people are going to keep predating on them. They single out talented young people and pressure them to join in their alt-right bully mob, and those who refuse are inevitably targeted with harm, harassment, defamation, gaslighting. Month after month they keep fucking with kids, disabled people, queer people, and people of color. Talented young people keep pouring out of this place, abused, pursued by white men fixated on slandering their name and finding them offsite.

As far as I know, they have purged all queer people and people of color out of any position of power or respect, save some alienated elders they occasionally lovebomb. Their tokens have slowly been purged, leaving them a coalition of MAGAboys, cryptofascists, and gamergaters united under casual White Nationalism. The very few remaining marginalized staff and elders simply maintain silence out of fear they will be next. They need you to change the temperature in the room so it will be safe to speak.

The leaders and their enablers are reading this and laughing together, posting popcorn gifs and calling me insane, boasting that they are sorry for nothing. They are competing to signal loyalty, grandstanding about how nobody has ever done anything wrong at NP except for the banned crazy women they hatestalk. The inner circle will discuss ZERO of these incidents in detail. Zero. No matter how much proof. Zero. Ever. The truth being revealed means permanent immunity 100% of the time. The more proof, the more unfair they say it is. That is how dark and melted this place has become.

Some of the offenders have been there for over 10 years. They BRAG that they personally wrote "the policy" and have unique right to enforce it, and they stalk people offsite as a team to mock and provoke them. In October, an evidence document was posted, detailing many of their offenses. Today it was hidden from you. It cannot be allowed to continue.

[crazycal999]

i am the primary author of the essay Themes of Gay Identity and Homophobia in Fallout: New Vegas and the original writer of the Disability representation page on Nukapedia, the Fandom Fallout Wiki.

The Fallout Wiki is a severe ongoing danger to the marginalized people and youth of our community.

The alt-right gang who have occupied Nukapedia for the past 12 months is trying to abolish voting. They have been talking about it for a month and this morning they announced their intentions to fast-track it. They want to do this so admins can efficiently silence all disobedient voices immediately without evidence or possibility of community assessment.

This morning, an authority used an unprecedented "admin decree" to excommunicate a teenage boy, admin of the Fallout Fanon/RP wiki. They are trying to demonize and excommunicate him because they were unable to privately pressure him into promoting an adult he was known to be uncomfortable with. They also explicitly condemn him because they discovered he had told adults what they did to him.

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:UrbanAnge1#Clarification_about_comments_in_Discord

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:Arcaneous#Notice_of_Affiliation_Termination

They are saying Fandom "dismissed" the Vote of No Confidence he cosigned, and call it a "campaign of misinformation." They argue this supposed "dismissal" proves they are all innocent of all charges and insinuating they must punish anyone who challenges them, including anyone who signed that document 6 months ago.

Edit: the document was deleted by a rogue community elder acting alone, during the writing of this post. the elder is technically a Fandom employee and used me to disseminate confidental Van Buren documents, deliberately withholding information about how that could affect myself and the community. learn more here

In reality, one of their ringleaders buried the document without Fandom permission, and was subsequently issued a global ban and stripped of rights. They are simply lying and trying to intimidate everyone into complying with their abusive false narrative.

Fandom also told Nukapedia "the situation on the server has become so detrimental to the mission and wellbeing of the community that we can not permit our platform to be used as any endorsement of joining and participating in that server." The In-Group have aggressively pretended the server is still a formal function of the site. Fandom absolutely did not "dismiss" any criticism against these people whatsoever in the past year, they are simply malicious liars.

.https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:Jspoelstra#Clarification_on_'admin_decree'_terminating_MD_affiliation

O'saa is a misogynist and a psychological abuser. Mara is a far-right bully who celebrated the purge of everyone who made white people uncomfortable. Urban has abused multiple minors. This will be illuminated for the community over the course of the following weeks. They all frame themselves as victims and anyone affiliated with me as subhuman because I tell the truth about them.

As their next project, they plan to fashion special pages for an 18+ server where alt-right talking points are explicitly allowed, as well as discussion of beating and sexually degrading a banned woman. The admins of that server referred to the previous NP head as a "whore", an 'old crying bitch,' and a "street walker." They "joked" about finding her in real life, siccing a dog on her, and stabbing her. They shared old screenshots with NP staff of her being bullied to her face for being a "whore." Again, this will be unpacked in every bit as much detail as necessary.

multiple open catholic christofascists have been given egregious special protection by admins after blatant acts of politically radical harassment and vandalism, such as "Catholic Crusader," unbanned by the head admin despite his only contribution being malicious vandalism of the LGBT page.

They run their "lovebombing-gaslighting-emotional blackmail" routine on anyone who displays potential in the space, including corporate employees tasked with handling them.

In all my past PSAs I have urged the community to stay away. But kids keep getting hurt at Nukapedia. We cannot keep ignoring it or hoping it fixes itself. They have their next targets in their crosshairs and they will always find more kids to torment. We have to do this.

The people orchestrating this number about 10, they can gather around 20 votes at most, and they survive on absolute and brutal narrative control. 3.4k people engaged with my first PSA about NP in a week.

For the safety of the youth and disabled of our community, I'm asking you to make a Fandom account with usernames different from your tumblr and Discord user names, and to simply speak up when you see anything concerning. Several community forums will occur soon, which will ping all editors, so make a contribution, poke around, and attend discussions. Ask questions. Do not let strangers pressure you into compliance without evidence of their narrative.

When you see the blatant consolidation of power in the hands of those who already hold it--AND YOU WILL--object openly and do not apologize.

They want you to think you are 'not a real member' and they are, but many of them do not edit the wiki at all. All you need to do is join, read the rules, and speak common sense in community discussions. I've written some advice here on how to effectively participate in improving the space.

Today I'm just hoping to attract a few adults willing to speak sense and call out bullying when they see it. The goal is harm reduction, and in such a small room, every voice makes a huge difference. I recommend you coordinate with the progressive people you meet there, out in the open.

This is a minor PSA i'm opting for because frankly i've been awake for a long ass time watching this implode and the coming weeks are going to shape the future of the community. They intend to allow this to escalate tremendously, hopefully that won't be necessary. A structured project of resistance and accountability will be launched in the coming days and will continue until progress is made.

This is necessary because children are going to keep coming to the site through google and these people are going to keep predating on them. They single out talented young people and pressure them to join in their alt-right bully mob, and those who refuse are inevitably targeted with harm, harassment, defamation, gaslighting. Month after month they keep fucking with kids, disabled people, queer people, and people of color. Talented young people keep pouring out of this place, abused, pursued by white men fixated on slandering their name and finding them offsite.

As far as I know, they have purged all queer people and people of color out of any position of power or respect, save some alienated elders they occasionally lovebomb. Their tokens have slowly been purged, leaving them a coalition of MAGAboys, cryptofascists, and gamergaters united under casual White Nationalism. The very few remaining marginalized staff and elders simply maintain silence out of fear they will be next. They need you to change the temperature in the room so it will be safe to speak.

The leaders and their enablers are reading this and laughing together, posting popcorn gifs and calling me insane, boasting that they are sorry for nothing. They are competing to signal loyalty, grandstanding about how nobody has ever done anything wrong at NP except for the banned crazy women they hatestalk. The inner circle will discuss ZERO of these incidents in detail. Zero. No matter how much proof. Zero. Ever. The truth being revealed means permanent immunity 100% of the time. The more proof, the more unfair they say it is. That is how dark and melted this place has become.

Some of the offenders have been there for over 10 years. They BRAG that they personally wrote "the policy" and have unique right to enforce it, and they stalk people offsite as a team to mock and provoke them. In October, an evidence document was posted, detailing many of their offenses. Today it was hidden from you. It cannot be allowed to continue.

[crazycal999]

Themes of Gay Identity and Homophobia in Fallout: New Vegas

Revised and extended 4-30-25. Much of this essay is no longer available on the wiki. Please read attached PSA at conclusion.

Released in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas actively concerns itself with the realities of gay existence, and is widely recognized as a noteworthy work of queer science fiction. New Vegas extensively examines social attitudes towards homosexuality among the game's major factions, and primarily conveys this lore through gay and bisexual characters describing their own experiences. It also allowed the player to mechanically set the Courier's sexual orientation. By taking both available perks, the player character can be bisexual. By choosing neither, the player can opt out of seeing flirtatious dialogue options.

Uniquely, Fallout: New Vegas explores homosexuality in the context of wasteland societies, and touches upon related issues. The core theme of New Vegas is that the desire to recreate the past is driven by irrational nostalgia, and any endeavor to manifest past glory is dangerous and doomed. The social issue of homophobia is used as a demonstrative example. The resurrection of corporate and military power structures presents new avenues for Old World problems such as institutional homophobia to reemerge. One of the many issues that divide the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion is the latter's open persecution of gay people. The NCR is described as tolerant and even accepting of same-sex relationships, though acceptance tends to fall off the further one moves away from the developed, urbanized core of New California.

In recent years, the Republic's rapid economic transformation has led to an unforeseen erosion of the humanitarian ideals which it was founded to serve. In practice, to recreate America was to take on its shortcomings and its sins. As subsistence scavenging has dried up, the people of the NCR increasingly turn to wage labor, entrepreneurial venture, or military enlistment to keep their families fed. Meanwhile, their government enacts morally corrosive imperialism (narrative verbiage from the PRIMA guide), their dominion expanding indefinitely as their infrastructure crumbles from within. This has led to a profit-based imperial monoculture which must conquer, consume, and coerce to perpetuate. As personal politics and service labor grow in importance, people find themselves more inclined to present as "normal" in the interest of financial stability and political expedience. A loading screen visualizes this culture of artificial social normalcy: the portrait of President Aradesh on the NCR 5$ bill neglects to depict his unibrow, earring, and facial scarification, overall portraying the once-chieftain so cleanly-cut as to be unrecognizable at first glance. He also appears to be wearing a collared shirt or suit as opposed to the robe he wore in Fallout.

In the Legion, Caesar has mandated that every legionnaire take a wife and produce children, citing high infant mortality rates and the constant need for soldiers, and going as far as instituting child quotas. He treats human beings as a resource to be exploited for war. Ostensibly in this aim homosexuality has been declared a capital offense punishable by death. Historically, routine demonstrations of violence towards women and gay people are a deliberate feature of fascist societies, the only logical cultural conclusion of a government devoted entirely to war and control.

In Forlorn Hope letter 9, an NCR soldier wrote wrote the following to his boyfriend:

Dearest Andrew, Writing this seems pretty morbid, but tomorrow we march into the no man's land between our camp and Nelson, which is crawling with Legion. The Major insisted I write this damn "if you get this, I'm dead" letter so here it is. What a crock. I have the luck of the devil and your love on my side, so I'll be home soon. Keep the porch light on for me. We'll party in New Vegas when I get back. I love you. —Devin

Devin believed he would prevail over the Legion because his love would keep him safe. He was found dying or dead on the battlefield, the letter was found on his body. In a post-release patch, the injured soldiers were removed from the battlefield for performance reasons, and never re-implemented.

Driven largely in reaction to the Legion's hyper-masculine posturing and misogyny, rumors persist across the Mojave that gay male relationships are not only common within the Legion, but condoned. These rumors are repeated commonly in NCR society. A closeted NCR Major mentions that the Legion is "a little more... forgiving" about close male "friendships," speaking in a hushed tone to avoid suspicion. At the same outpost, the player can encounter Cass, a bisexual civilian woman. She may flirt with a male Courier, who may imply they are gay, prompting her to imply gay men are more common in the Legion. Even as gay men fight and die in the name of love under his command, NCR General Oliver may remark to Courier Six at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam: "If you think after all that's happened, I'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the Legion..."

This writing pertains to institutionalized homophobia which manifests in practice though power structures and social interactions without being written into law. Simply put, in his derogatory remark, the general expresses to his army that military surrender is gay, much like their gay enemy. From the brevity and bluntness of this remark, it's clear that this sentiment is already well understood among his ranks. Logically, to project strength in the eyes of such a leader, one might also project homophobia by scrutinizing and harassing one's peers and subordinates. In this atmosphere, the expression of homophobia is not only normalized, but materially incentivized. For the ambitious, it becomes a tool, and a way of casting shame upon rivals. For the closeted, homophobia becomes a survival tactic, hoping to throw scrutiny off oneself. This is why Major Knight is immediately frightened when a male Courier flirts with him. He is so profoundly alienated that he romanticizes life as a gay man under the Legion. The Legion punish homosexuality with death, and yet Knight characterizes them as more "forgiving" than the NCR. Through these apparently disparate events, the audience can trace how a distorted perception of gay people emerges among insecure men in a military environment, and subsequently becomes ingrained in the corresponding civilian culture.

At the 188 Trading Post, a lesbian from the Brotherhood of Steel named Veronica also wryly remarks that she believes legionaries have gay sex about as often as straight sex. She also notes that this only applies to men, as women have no rights whatsoever in Legion society. In this aside, she conveys a pre-existing frustration with lesbophobic social norms. Veronica also mentions that the people of her bunker would rather she remain on the surface.

The Mojave Brotherhood of Steel has no official policy prohibiting homosexuality, but an implicit attitude among its dominant members that their limited numbers require everyone to have children to avoid extinction. Numerically, this may seem logical on the surface, given their reluctance to recruit outsiders. However, given their tiny population, this is an ineffective countermeasure, as they do not have nearly enough members to maintain genetic diversity for more than a few generations. 

This approach is not universally supported by all family units within the Brotherhood, but every individual is ultimately at the mercy of the elder. Veronica was in a lesbian relationship, but they were quietly separated by Elder Elijah, due to the dominant culture of enforcing heterosexual pairing among their population. No Brotherhood character makes any remark conveying hatred or disgust towards homosexuality; malice is not a necessary ingredient of homophobia. Fear, ignorance, tradition, and control are forces that shape their society, resulting in the needless oppression of gay people. The subject remains subtextual, apparently taboo, which may reflect their culture's origins in the U.S. Army. Additionally, the Brotherhood's medieval theming dovetails intuitively with these themes of traditional propriety, regressive superstition, and closed-minded stagnation.

Caesar's law has not ended homosexuality within his domain. Despite the obvious risks, some legionaries have continued to pursue relationships behind closed doors, especially given their access to slaves. So long as members complete their societal obligations and fulfill the child quotas, they are able to pursue romance with other men in secret. One line suggests homosexual relationships in the faction are relatively equal to the average Legion husband and wife in some ways, apparently a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" sort of open secret policy. Despite this, gay legionaries must always make sure to keep their activities hidden.

A centurion was once almost caught fraternizing with the teenage boy he had chosen to tend his tent. Despite previous "romantic" intentions, he quickly resolved to dispose of the slave to dispel suspicion. Had they been caught together, the centurion would have been charged with homosexuality and sentenced to death. This story is only known because the enslaved young man, Jimmy, managed to escape execution. Further illustrating the cruelty intrinsic to Legion governance, it's stated that homosexuality was the crime, and not the rape of a young slave; in fact, it seems Jimmy was forced to contribute to the child quota despite being a gay teenager, and the experience left him traumatized. He has resolved to never have sex with another woman, as the very notion triggers memories which fill him with disgust, and (in his own words) makes him feel like a slave all over again.

The Strip is indifferent to gay people, viewing them as another opportunity to make caps. Both the Gomorrah and the Atomic Wrangler are interested in maximizing profits, and their prostitution services cater to clients regardless of their orientation. The openly gay Jimmy works at nearby Casa Madrid, but there is some tension among his peers due to his co-worker Maude's blatant homophobia. She supposes he's "okay, for one of those," and if propositioned by a female Courier, Maude will direct them to Sweetie for such "perverted" services. Pretty Sarah must regularly intervene to keep the peace among her staff.

New Vegas ventures further into themes of healing from the trauma of sexual violence, from the perspective of a lesbian character. NCR sharpshooter Corporal Betsy is a survivor of rape, and suffers with PTSD from the incident. Her unprocessed trauma has manifested as a maladaptive tendency to aggressively and explicitly proposition the women she encounters, in an effort to reassert a sense of control. This defensive hypersexual impulse has negatively impacted her ability to connect with other women. A male superior officer notes that her behavior is inappropriate for anyone of her stature, but abstains from disciplining her out of sincere concern for her mental health. The Courier can help her begin to recognize these problems, and convince her to seek treatment from Doctor Usanagi at the New Vegas medical clinic, which proves helpful to her as she processes and heals from her trauma. An NCR side-quest involves finding and killing her rapist.

A more significant movement out west, the Followers of the Apocalypse only control one major outpost in the Mojave, the Old Mormon Fort, somewhat ironic given the social and historical connotations of Mormonism. They allow outcasts and downtrodden to take shelter among their tents here, and do not stigmatize sex workers or addicts. A bisexual ghoul sex worker named Beatrix Russel can be encountered here, and the Courier may do business with her.

The Followers tend not to form hierarchies, and insist that the Courier choose non-violent approaches while carrying out their quests, which involve directly bettering the surrounding community of Freeside. Among other tasks, the player may be tasked to distribute Fixer (a medicine comparable to methadone) to homeless people experiencing withdrawal, or aid those abused by chem dealers. The main quest giver for the faction is community coordinator Julie Farkas, a doctor with a bold and unusual mohawk.

At Red Rock Canyon, the Courier can help a young man find purpose and kinship by convincing him to leave home and join the Followers. Jerry the Punk is a Great Khan who has been ostracized for writing poetry, and the upcoming masculinity rites expected of him by his small, tense village give him reason to actively fear for his life. Jerry has positive memories of the Followers from his childhood, because there was a time when they would bring books to share with the Great Khans tribe. The Punk finds a sense of purpose and connection when he leaves his isolated home settlement of harsh, angry men to live among the Followers, who see value in his gentle, creative nature as opposed to belittling him.

At the time of the events of Fallout, the Followers of the Apocalypse presented as benevolent secular monks who opposed the Children of the Cathedral cult. In the wake of the Unity Crisis, the city of Boneyard peacefully joined the NCR. The fiction of New Vegas establishes that, in pursuit of their founding principles, the Followers developed into a transgressive force for leftist values, openly critical of the NCR's capitalistic profit-based society. Director J.E. Sawyer freely acknowledges that the values of the Followers of the Apocalypse were informed by leftist philosophy:

"The Followers of the Apocalypse: Libertarians, socialists, communists, or greens?" Sawyer: "They vary significantly, but range from anarcho-syndicatists to socialists to communists. Their general tendency to be inclusive and non-hierarchical means they don't have a single outlook or 'platform.'"

The distinctive character design of faction representative Julie Farkas resembles an archetypical punk woman. Being a far-left counterculture of a capitalistic empire, the Followers of the Apocalypse generally evoke and directly mirror the goals and organizational methods of the modern punk movement--more acutely, they embody the sensibilities of America's rail punks, a highly transient subculture who overwhelmingly emphasize volunteerism and anti-imperial philosophy, as opposed to the sensationalism of the reactionary punk rocker scene, which is defined by the moving target of aesthetic/social transgression. This read is further informed by the Followers' inclusiveness, abundantly evidenced in their care for people marginalized by other wasteland societies, including unhoused people, addicts, sex workers, gay people, tribal people, political dissidents, criminalized people, and mutated people.

The most prominent member of the faction is Arcade Gannon, a player companion and openly gay man, who was born an illegal person under NCR law. Upon meeting Courier Six, Arcade offhandedly makes his gayness known, unprompted. The audience must face the fact that Arcade's apprehension of the Legion is far from abstract; under Legion law, he would be put to death.

Arcade will not hesitate to abandon the player if he disapproves of their actions, but if his trust is carefully earned, he will reveal his origins. Arcade was born into the Enclave just before it collapsed. He hides this because his existence is a crime under New California Republic law. He abandoned his fascist background to serve the Followers' ideology of learning, harm reduction, and antifascism.

Additionally, Arcade is critical of the NCR, and encourages the player to re-route the power of HELIOS One to Freeside rather than the NCR power grid. Should the Courier sell Arcade to the Legion and subsequently lead the NCR to victory at the Dam, Arcade will ultimately be identified as Enclave-born and arrested from his position of slavery to spend the rest of his life in an NCR prison. As a gay man originally born to the Enclave, his very existence is criminalized under the law of both the NCR and the Legion.

Another possible ending provides further insight into Caesar's hypocrisy: should the player sell Arcade into slavery and leave Caesar alive, he will keep Arcade as a personal physician and philosophical advisor. They intellectually spar at length, and Caesar grows singularly fond of him. Accordingly, Arcade imitates the historic suicide of Cato the Younger by disemboweling himself, rather than suffer the favor of the mad Caesar. The Legion's remaining medics attempted to save his life, but none were Arcade's equal. Caesar understood his doctor's final gesture of contempt, and mourned him for months.

In Old World Blues, the Think Tank are five floating brains in jars who express themselves by waving robotic arms bearing screens depicting facial features. Before the War, they were federal scientists who committed crimes against humanity in the name of weapons development. Each is stuck in some sort of neuro-bionic feedback loop which prevents them from moving forward with their projects, mentally binding them to their central laboratory. Walking through their homes at Higgs Village, it's clear each was deeply neurotic before they were transformed into floating brains.

Now without bodies, they attempt to maintain the illusion that they are exempt from sexuality as purely mental beings, but each displays obvious interest in the human form. They have codified this shaming with the term "formography." Most of the men are obsessively defensive over their complete disinterest in penises, which they talk about constantly. However, the shameless Dr. Dala shows overwhelming interest in observing and recording any and all human functions. Already androgynous in her pre-War life, Dala has taken to self-identifying as a "gender neutral entity" (though she is not known to use they/them pronouns). Regardless of the Courier's gender, they may coquettishly scratch themselves, clear their throat, and stretch in front of Dala until her biomed gel decoagulates. Dr. 8 also responds positively to graphic masturbation advice from Couriers of either gender.

The X-8 research facility is ostensibly a massive immersive shrine to Doctor Borous's hatred of Richie "Ball-Lover" Marcus, a long-dead child who bullied Borous centuries ago. He also clings to his resentment of one Betsy Bright, who refused to attend a dance with him, supposedly so she could "go smoke with RICHIE MARCUS." Clearly arrested in development, Borous has literally built a temple to the fantasy of torturing his adolescent romantic rival and feeding him to dogs. His frozen, static characterization of the jock Richie Marcus as a "pinko-commie" who "likes balls" reflects the shallowness, pettiness, and overall misanthropy underlying his patriotic identity.

It remains apparent throughout Old World Blues that the Think Tank are all chronically sexually repressed, which is inseparable from the values of the violent and judgmental pre-War culture which created them. With time and isolation, this ingrained repression has manifested as various intense and deranged psychosexual behaviors, including rage-fueled homophobia, voyeurism, and the obsessive performance of puritanical pretense.

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“Although I’ve been out for a very long time, I made a conscious effort to be out with relation to this project, as I wanted to be visible as a lesbian in the game industry. New Vegas itself is, I think, one of (if not the) best games out there in how we treat homosexuality – and all of that is very intentional.”

“If my work on FNV, if my being out has helped even one gay person, then I have succeeded.”

— Tess “Obsidian’s Gay Cowgirl” Treadwell

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written (with help from other editors) for Nukapedia.

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