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movie marathon 🩵

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"Shut the fuck up, Goose."

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Started this one ages ago for my soulmates fic Draggin' the River but since i only ever worked on it at work, it took a while to complete 😂

Anywho- here's Ghoulcy with their pets

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A Story of Touch

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Full version of comm by @alicewav for my Ghoulcy playlist, tysm! 💛♪~

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another adorable piece by @alicewav for my ghoulcy playlist! ❤️

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"The End" and "The Beginning"

It's interesting to notice that the first episode of Fallout is called "The End" and the last episode of season 1 is called "The Beginning". But that's because there are a lot of hidden meanings.

"The End":

The reason this episode has this name is because it specifically refers to the big moments going on in Lucy's and the Ghoul's lives.

The "End" of Cooper Howard:

We open on October 23, 2077, with Cooper Howard performing for a kid's birthday party. During the party, the Great War breaks out as the bombs fall on America. This marks the fall of America.

But it also marks the "end" of Cooper Howard. Because the last we see of Cooper, he's riding away on Sugarfoot with Janey as the bombs fall. When we next see him, he's the Ghoul, and he's very much suppressed any attachment to the identity of Cooper Howard. He wears a tattered jacket and a bandolier over his old movie costume, and he's pretty much done everything to disassociate himself from his old identity, right down to using the Southern accent he used in his movies as his main accent.

The "End" of Lucy MacLean the Vault Dweller:

The episode being titled "The End" also fits the fact that we're seeing the final days of Lucy's life as a naive Vault Dweller. After all, a common theme amongst the Fallout games where the player character starts in a Vault is that you're irreversibly changed when you set out into the Wasteland.

And for Lucy, this moment where she passes through the vault door might as well be a metaphorical "death" scene, as demonstrated by how the blown out lighting makes it look like she's stepping "into the light".

"The Beginning":

This episode's title is also about pivotal moments for Lucy and the Ghoul, but also a few others.

The Beginning of the Great War:

This one's technically a bonus. But this episode is where we get to see the exact moment the Great War actually began: in a dimly lit room where Barb and other collaborators from Vault-Tec and other big corporations met.

The New Beginning of Cooper Howard:

Over the episodes that follow the Ghoul's little misadventure with Lucy, we see that her refusal to break despite his efforts to bring her down to his level have instead had the effect of helping him rediscover his old morals.

Here's the notable things the Ghoul does between the Super Duper Mart and when he meets Lucy again:

He takes the heat for Lucy's killing of the organ harvesters and some of the feral ghouls under questioning from Sorrel Booker.

He re-adopts CX404 and renames her Dogmeat, something that's intercut with flashbacks of him with Roosevelt, his pre-War Border Collie.

He shows sympathy for Lucy over her feeling betrayed by her dad, given he went through the same thing.

But the most telling clue that Cooper Howard has found a new beginning is the fact that his last line of the season is said in his own accent, not the Southern twang he's used as the Ghoul or in his movies:

The Beginning of Lucy MacLean the Wastelander:

A common thing we've seen across the Fallout games is that Vault Dwellers who leave their vaults can never go back.

The Vault Dweller from Fallout 1 gets banished from his Vault due to having been radically changed by his experiences in the Wasteland.

The Lone Wanderer of Fallout 3 fled into the Wasteland after nearly being killed by the Overseer. But they can't go back to the Vault for the sake of maintaining piece there following a civil war.

Lucy continues this grand tradition.

When she left Vault 33, she only went out with the intention of rescuing her dad and returning with him to the Vault. But as Wilzig warns her, she'll change, whether she wanted to or not.

Wilzig: You come from a world of rules, of laws. This place is indifferent to all of that. I do not think you would be willing to do what it takes to survive up here. Lucy: I'm not going back without my dad. Wilzig: If you insist on staying, then you will have to adapt. Question is will you still want the same things... when you have become a different animal altogether?

We see that Lucy does change. She becomes more jaded, cynical, violent, and less trusting of others, though she refuses to compromise her morals.

But once she gets to Moldaver, she ends up learning that all these things she was forced to endure these past two weeks were done on false pretenses: her dad's no saint at all. He's a war criminal responsible for the deaths of over 30,000 people out of petty jealousy because his wife dared to take Lucy and Norm away from him to live on the surface.

She can no longer recognize the man she once idolized and called her dad, because he was never real. She can no longer recognize herself as 'Lucy MacLean, Dutiful Vault Dweller" because that girl died when she stepped out of Vault 33. Her whole life has been nothing but lies.

And that feeling is only reinforced by what the Ghoul says: "You want to know how I know your daddy, don't you? Let's just say that everything about your whole little world was decided over 200 years ago." And while the Ghoul continues talking and tells her that she'll be killed by the Brotherhood if she sticks around, he's blurred out, visually conveying that Lucy has tuned him out and her inquisitive mind is stuck on the last sentence.

She wants answers, and the one who can help her find them is the man who pistol-whipped her, used her as bait for a Gulper, cut off her finger, and sold her organ harvesters.

She can't go back to Vault 33 again. Maybe she returns to rescue Norm and Chet, but there's no way she can ever live there again.

So she does the only thing she can do in this situation: she puts her mom out of her misery, and embraces the identity of "Lucy MacLean, Wastelander".

Ella Purnell said it best: "By killing her mum in a mercy kill, she’s doing exactly what the Ghoul did to Roger [in episode four]. She’s learnt from him. She has turned into him. When she said, “I’ll never be you,” maybe that’s not true. And in that moment, when she shoots her mum, it means so many things. It means, ‘I’m coming with you.’ It means, ‘I’m gonna meet my makers.’ It means, ‘I fucking hate you, but I have turned into you, you were right.’ It means she’s letting go of her golden centre."

The Beginning of Lucy and the Ghoul's partnership:

And of course, "The Beginning" is the start of Lucy and Cooper Howard's partnership.

It's a big shift for them to have gone from Lucy being his hostage...

...to her being his traveling companion.

Now it can truly be a mentor-mentee relationship where they bring each other to a sort of middle level, where Cooper softens and rediscovers his old ideals while Lucy hardens without compromising her morals.

I think Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins described this best in Variety's interview about shooting the Griffith Observatory finale (skip to 17:55):

Purnell’s lightbulb moment hit when she realized it all came back to the Ghoul. “Part of the Wasteland that I carry with me literally is, it’s not the Wasteland; it’s the Ghoul. I’ve turned into him when I said I wasn’t going to do that,” says Purnell. “Most of Lucy hates herself for what she’s turned into, hates him for what he’s turned her into. But she doesn’t have a choice. She can’t stay here. When he says, ‘Do you want to go meet your makers?’ Lucy is never going to say no to that. And so, it’s not a broken ‘okie-dokie.’ It’s an acceptance of what’s happened to her. It’s an, ‘OK, there’s nothing else for me to do except put one foot in front of the other.’” Goggins says the scene was one of the “most fulfilling parts” of the project since it started so brutally and ended slightly softer but not overly sentimental. The actor is glad the co-creators didn’t lean into that sentimentality. “It isn’t father-daughter,” he says. “I think it is a person who has seen the loss of innocence in another person and deeply empathizes with it because he himself went through a similar experience 200 years earlier and is still reeling from the loss of that innocence that his tone changes. And when he says, ‘Are you coming?’ I just think that’s a pretty cool way to go out.”

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Lucy: my mom starved to death in 2277 (episode 4)

Lucy: I was 6 when my mom died (episode 5, not verbatim)

Show: happens in 2296-2297

Me: oh Lucy's 25-26 years, all right

Script for "the End": Lucy is 20 and Norm is the older brother at 22, these exact words

Me:

The math ain't mathing. Either Lucy is dumb as all hell in basic maths and never found it weird that she remembered her Mom while being older but her mom theoretically died when she was 1 year old, or they changed things later during filming and editting but not in the script.

Considering the confusion Fall of Shady Sands vs Bombing of Shady Sands, I bet on "changed things".

This not including that Hank arrived at Vault 33 in 2268 and presumably married Rose not long after, and I doubt 10 years before the first kid is acceptable in the Vault, considering the purpose of procreation and such.

I tried to see if the marriage dress has Rose's name but it's hard to read all the names (around 9:30 in the episode, at least the one I have downloaded for checking things easily). There's a something-aiar K Smith, married in 2272; a Ruth Cherry from 2281; someone that seems to have the middle name Luce B-something from before 2272 and after 2234, it's really hard to read the date; some P Helle from 2234, unable to read first name; apparently Andy Y. Cl-something from 2291; and lastly Steph from 2294, before Lucy adds her own name We don't know Rose's previous last name or if she had a middle name. Maybe there's another wedding dress that Rose used, or maybe they just didn't think of adding her name to it. I find this curious, because Steph kept her maiden name but Rose took Hank's last name... I wonder how these rules work in the Vault 🤔🤔🤔🤔

Also, Betty is missing in it. Not a single Betty or Pearson from around 2248 or later, when she was unfrozen. It appears she was unfrozen only to serve as Overseer, never to marry, which is curious considering the Vault's objective.

I know, I spent way too long in all this lolol

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Shady Sands was bombed in 2283 and there is a very simple reason why this date was not included on the chalkboard in vault 4 but 2277 was.

The script for Ep1 clearly states the show is set 219 years after the Great War of 2077 so in 2296. It also states that Maximus is exactly 19 years old (there can be no mistake here, more on the subject in THIS POST) and that he was exactly 6 in his flashbacks. Based on that we can calculate Shady Sands was bombed in 2283. Except the chalkboard that Lucy finds in vault 4 states clearly: "The Fall of Shady Sands - 2277".

People who attempted to reconciliate what they perceived as contradictory information theorized that maybe the arrow after the date 2277 pointing to the bomb was supposed to mean the said bomb was dropped after 2277. Then, however, they would raise the question: why not include the exact date under the bomb picture?

Unable to find an answer, they'd conclude it was all a retcon after fans pointed out that Shady Sands couldn't be bombed in 77 cause it was still standing in 81. Except Todd Howard didn't retcon shit. He only said out loud what has always been in the script and just didn't translate on screen. The question is: why?

The year 2283 isn't directly included in the show because, contrarily to 2277, it's irrelevant to the current storyline.

If the date 2283 was written on the board, everyone would have focused on that date but it's essential that during the classroom scene Lucy - and by extensions the viewer - make a connection between the year 2277 and the bombing of Shady Sands even if said bombing happened at a later point in time.

The year 2283 holds no meaning, not to Lucy, not to a casual viewer. It could only mean something to a long-time fan of the games, NV in particular, as it would confirm that the city was destroyed after 81 thus keeping the timeline so far intact. A confirmation the show creators must have assumed was redundant as they gave us, the viewers, a bit more credit than we probably deserved.

The year 2277, on the other hand, holds specific meaning to Lucy. It's the year of the plague in which her mom presumably starved to death. A meaning of which we have been made privy a couple episodes earlier.

So at this point both her and us are meant to have the following information: in the same year that Lucy's mom died something happened in Shady Sands that led to it's destruction later on. This information will later serve to corroborate Moldaver's story about Rose and Hank.

The only question remains: why would the people in Vault 4 mark the year 2277 specifically as the year of the Fall of Shady Sands?

There are two important things we need to say about the people of vault 4 who are original to the surface and who wrote the timeline on the chalkboard: most, if not all, are survivors of the bombing of Shady Sands and they worship Moldaver whom they percieve as this semi-messianic figure.

While Moldaver might have always been somewhat prominent in Shady Sands, I think it would be safe to assume she only obtained this sort of cult following after 2283 maybe by telling the remaining survivors who'd initially gathered around her that she knew who was responsible for the bombing and that she'd avenge and then rebuild the city. She might have revealed to them that the bombs were dropped by none other than Vault-Tec in retaliation for harboring an escapee from one of their vaults, Rose MacLean, an innocent victim of one of their experiments whom they might have remembered arriving to the city in 2277 since a clean-cut lady in a blue overall would've been rather noticeable.

All that said, some of those people who had later taken residence in Vault 4 could have interpreted Rose's arrival to the city as the event that kickstarted the very fall of the city culminating in its nuclear annihilation in 2283 thus the date on the chalkboard.

You can find more theories about Moldaver and Rose in THIS POST.

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I don't think the date for the "Fall of Shady Sands" is incorrect or that it torpedoes New Vegas Canon.

If you talk to people in the NCR and outside- even the ones most patriotic and loyal to the NCR will say stretching out to the Mojave and fighting The Brotherhood for Hoover Dam was way too ambitious and they're stretching themselves too thin.

Citizens of the NCR feel neglected by their government and citizens of the Mojave feel overly meddled with by the NCR.

Imagine having a life you love in the NCR and then being conscripted into being a dirt farmer trying and failing to squeeze a few lousy tatos from an unyielding patch of desert.

Imagine being a proud NCR patriot until brother after brother and child after child goes off to wrest some bit of nothing from the tribals and dies. And for what? So president Kimball can mention a successful operation in one of his speeches?

You're born and bred NCR but your life, your work, your love, your family is all back in Shady Sands. And even though there would be no NCR without Shady Sands. The NCR seems perfectly happy to forget about them.

2277 is the year Shady Sands fell because it was the year the NCR decided Hoover Dam was more important than all the rest of the NCR combined.

And it's just so fitting that while the NCR was celebrating holding Hoover Dam, Shady Sands got nuked from an enemy they didn't even know they had.

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Lol "can't wait to see Ghoulcy shippers so upset when Max and Lucy have sex in season 2"

BB I do not caaaaarreeeee Lucy having sex with Max doesn't prevent her from nasty filthy hot sex with The Ghoul.

I'm in it for the long haul and while I have hopes for season 2, I've never let canon get in the way of shipping

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I've seen it mentioned several times how during the gulper fishing scene the Ghoul would pull Lucy up from the water every minute so she wouldn't drown, or how he purposefully cut her ropes before sending her to the SDM so she'd have a chance to fight her way out.

There is however one scene that I've never seen discussed in that sort of context: the shoot out in Filly.

We all know how it goes: she gives him her pep-talk, he makes a step towards her, she shoots him with her tranq gun, he laughs her off and then pulls his gun at her, clearly intending to shoot her but get this:

HIS AIM IS OFF

If he fires that gun, the bullet is gonna fly just above her head and possibly hit the window behind her.

This is the man whom we have just seen hit targets in motion from a considerable distance and you're telling me he now can't properly aim at a girl standing still maybe 5 or 6 feet away from him?

This is even more evident later on when he aims at her again.

He's at least a head taller than Lucy but he holds the gun at his eye level (too high to hit her head let alone her chest which would have been a more logical choice since a chest is larger and as such easier to hit) and on top of that he even tips it upwads, ensuring that he'd in fact miss her.

Now what happens when he does in fact fire that gun? It hits Max' power armor's shoulder. THE TOP OF HIS SHOULDER NO LESS.

Just for reference, here's Lucy standing right next to Max in his power armor.

Do you see what I see?

Even if we adjust for the distance and Max being in a slightly bent position, the armor's shoulder is still definitely higher than her head. So once you consider that, it becomes obvious that the Ghoul was never actually aiming at Lucy. He was aiming just above her head because he never actually meant to kill her. He only meant to scare her off so she'd get out of his way.

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Something something Dad who didn't want the dog something something For Happy_Cow and their AMAZING fic Atom Bomb, Baby

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i wonder how the ghoul would feel about lucy in this getup?

she's such an intoxicating mix of his past and present; and her look here is a physical representation of that.

bandoleer and blood in this pre-war wedding dress.. not a trace of false vault-tec corporate polish; lucy makes everything her own. she's so authentically fierce and determined, and moral. stronger than cooper could ever be because yeah she was raised in propagandaland, and she does have that violent killer streak inside her, but lucy has an internal moral compass that cannot be missled.

and to harp on lucy in the old world dress more; this is something passed down to her but that doesn't quite fit. it is the perfect introduction to her character — a beautiful analogy. because, yes, she does have the vault-tec attitude. but that is learned, not an integral part of her. she's almost like a sleeper agent: in the vaults where it is always safe lucy's baser ruthless instincts stay dormant (except maybe in controlled environment such as shooting practice, which we see she's excels at) but when she's exposed to danger her inner being is unleashed.

in a way, this "transformation" is very reminiscent to the ghoul's. surely some of the more pronounced personality traits of the ghoul were present in cooper. he didn't reinvent himself over 200 years: he evolved.

however, in lucy's case we see (again) her unwavering conscience.

but! how would the ghoul of the finale connect to lucy in that dress? and the stark example of their similarities? and of his shortcomings? because clearly he has already identified them as kindred — oh, i'm you sweetie — but now that lucy has awakened the dormant humanity in him how will he react to being on the flip side of his earlier tauntings of being the same?

anger?

grief?

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Waitin' Watchin' That woman, she's gonna show I need this little bitty woman How much you'll never know... Baby, I need you How much you'll never know... Lord, I need this little bitty woman How much you'll never know That Certain Female - Charlie Feathers

commissioned my beloved @red-nightskies for some Ghoulcy art because these two rewired my brain last year and still have me in a chokehold ❤️