There's a question which the west coast Fallout games are quietly litigating, which is that age-old gotcha about what you do with the remaining orcs once you've deposed Sauron. In the original Fallout, the Super Mutants are basically universally aligned against the quote-unquote "good guys," for whatever value of that term is applicable to the wasteland at large, but subsequent games make it clear that this was an ideological thing, and a product of the political moment of the mutants creation rather than an ontological quality that they have. The game is very aware that this is something that was done to them, and the tragedy of that; the first mutant you're likely to run into is dying scared and alone.
Fallout 2 presents super mutants who've broken in every direction ideologically in the aftermath of the Unity's collapse; the peacemakers under Marcus at Broken Hills, Gond as a member of the abolitionist NCR rangers, reactionary remnants of the original mutant army, genocidal self-hating fascists like Frank Horrigan. Fallout: New Vegas iterates on this beautifully. The mutants dovetail perfectly with the theme of how every faction in the wasteland is trying and oftentimes failing to reckon with the weight of history. Their utopian movement imploded outside of living memory, closer to the apocalypse than to the present day. The survivors- who can only dwindle in number due to their sterility- have been left to reckon with that in whatever way they can. And they have their backs to about a hundred and twenty years of that reckoning not going particularly well, of being the bugbear and boogeymen for bullies and ideologues whose grandparents weren't even alive to suffer from the Unity's actions. The lack of a collective future for mutantkind casts a pall over even the best ending for Jacobstown; humans are collectively resilient within this setting, but through violence, and accidents, dementia and senility, the day will inevitably come when there are no mutants left. And worse still will be the day before that, when there's only one mutant left. Finding some form of satisfaction or contentment within that dwindling window, with the world against you, is a task that falls to the individual mutant. (Take Mean Sonovabitch, for example. He seems to be doing alright for himself.)
Then we slide on over to the east coast games, where the mutants are.... morons. Cannibals. Marauders. And when you meet one who isn't, the game throws itself a ticker-tape parade for containing such an audacious twist. To go back to the orc thing, it's like if The Hobbit had contained a lengthy, empathetic subplot about the rich internality and fleshed-out-if-deeply-flawed ideology of the orcs, and then there was a pivot to treating them like a monolithic block of ontologically evil marauders in LOTR. While staring you straight in the eye the whole time, unblinking. Daring you to say something
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please reblog for sample size.
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good job dude
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i have been permanently banned from nukapedia for this post
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the following posts were screencapped and posted to nukapedia as the other reason for upgrading my 1yr ban to permanent
several patrollers have resigned in solidarity or disgust
you can read the bans and see for yourself, where admins repeatedly vaguely accuse me of presenting these messages under false pretense.
i was also harassed by a nukapedia admin on tumblr who attempted to delete the message before i could engage with it. when i mentioned it to the other acting admin, i was told to re-read the harassment so i might be a better person in a year.
further, a channel was collectively scolded last month by an admin who had been triggered upon being compelled to review the messages of the anti-Woke mod. during an argument, the mod had compared transness to blackface in defense of JK Rowling, earning him a 3-day ban. when i said i was traumatized from dealing with his targeted harassment of myself and my queer peers throughout pride month, i was accused of "emotionally manipulating admins"
all of this had begun two months ago when someone shared a personal anecdote about a racial microaggression they had experienced and wrapped it up with "such a white thing to say." for weeks thereafter, this woman was namedropped by the mod whenever racism came up, as an example of a racist. he would ultimately accuse her of being no better than a holocaust denier because she said "the far left is not associated with mass murder and bigotry."
during the mod's three-day ban he participated in the coordinated monitoring and harassment of a minor. the user sent five replies to the effect of "you are never to contact me in private" and "stop talking to me" before the mod stopped messaging him. this was not addressed when the mod was unbanned. however, the morning before this, the woman mentioned above was banned for leaving an incredulous emoji react face on a backhanded admin post targeting her.
the mod believes he is protecting the community from "reverse racism." he has also asked me if i "think hostility towards white people is justice" and when i excused myself from the conversation he asked if i was "triggered"
at one point i announced i would be absent for several days to attend a funeral. the mod invoked me by name and characterized me as a bad person while i was attending my grandmother's service
he remains on-staff, surrounded by silence. my 1yr ban was prompted by my confronting the community with proof of him stalking a minor, but that incident did not come up at all in the text of my ban
please reblog for public awareness. please show this to every fallout fan you know.
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do you know how difficult it is to hear the words Chevy Impala and not bring up Supernatural? It's like "What do you mean they bought an Impala to go to their normal job and do normal stuff? She's meant to be on the road hunting monsters"
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