#fallout 3 my flawed beloved

[elegaeica]

the lone wanderer is only 19 years old. do you hear me. SHE’S ONLY NINETEEN

[doomsdaydicecascader]

wow you’re the first person i’ve seen actually support the retcon, that’s cool

i’ve always been neutral on it but would you be down with explaining your opinions on the retcon?

so my number one feeling is that the way homestuck is most like a game is not in its framing or its many subsystems within itself, but in that homestuck is a challenge to the reader first and foremost. it challenges a lot of existing preconceptions about what stories are, what stories can be.

sometimes this is in some stupid ways, but a lot of the time, it's in very palateable ways. hussie describes stuff like the juxtaposition of the earthbound walksprite panels and hussnasty mode as a "creative power move", something that keeps readers on their toes, something which kind of prods at your expectations and why you have those expectations.

and it helps to ask, what challenge is homestuck presenting to me, the reader, by doing this. this is the repeated motion of homestuck, like. "oh, what, it's insane that there's a whole playable game", "oh, what, it's insane that the fallout and consequences of an entire session of the game is being given in just three walkarounds". rose's arc is a challenge to the idea of a "coming of age" story, how do you come of age into a world where the metrics for growth and maturity and adulthood are denied to you? what if "adulthood" and "maturity" were fake ideas all along? well, if nothing matters, maybe you should have a drink to rest your mind about it.

one of the most direct challenges is the challenge of what death means in a story - there are a lot of stories where death is a bad end for a character. an impactful enough character death can change culture around itself for as long as it remains relevant. but that's not what death is in homestuck. death in homestuck is the freedom from being in homestuck. this is most prevalent with its deployment of gnostic ideas - yaldabaoth's treasure being homestuck itself expresses this most directly. the creator has made a flawed world and encourages the suffering of its inhabitants.

death is freedom from this flawed world, and this is expressed in terezi: remem8er. characters who did terrible things, horrible things, unforgiveable things, can find peace in death.

and i think the retcon is far and away the headiest challenge, the final boss of storytelling in homestuck's terms, because it directly challenges the idea of continuity, which is, by the way, TOTALLY FAKE.

continuity isnt actually real, its a thing youre actively constructing as you read. the drawings, the words, the music, the animation, the gameplay - all these things can help shape the idea of art, but the art itself, that's produced by you, the reader. and i think this is a good time to switch over to talking about the never-ending story for a moment.

the never-ending story is a story about atreyu. he goes on a fantasy quest, one which involves the death of his beloved steed artax, the plight of the world of fantasia, and confrontations with the nothing, this devouring force which threatens to end it. and ultimately, he loses. the forces of the nothing are just too overwhelming for a fictional character to overcome. the stakes are too high, no ending could be satisfactory and not contrived.

but then he doesn't lose.

because the never-ending story, the movie, is about bastian, and the relationship and empathy he builds with atreyu as he follows him on his adventure, and bastian, as the reader, is capable of caring about atreyu and fantasia even as it's been reduced to nothing. and its bastian caring about it, and bringing his own context, his own experiences - the name of his dead mother - to the story, that allows it to be reborn as something that can be completed.

and then he rides on the big luck dragon falkor and barfs on the bullies from the start of the movie.

homestuck is doing the same thing, but filtered through the language of video games. if youre playing ff9 and lose to black waltz #3 or whatever, it's a video game, that's to be expected. just do better next time. you wiped on the trial, it's normal, regroup and pull again. youve got 90 minutes. and in that time, in that regression, you become the kind of person who could overcome that challenge.

and it's a powerful challenge! it's one most readers don't overcome, because they are still stuck in the terms of thinking about things in what they expect out of it, instead of what it is. and this is kind of the core idea of homestuck.

hussie put it the best themself:

Homestuck, as an examination of all forms of creative practice, whether cosmic or artistic, isolates the tension between perfect, celebrated idealization and specific, flawed instantiation. The purity of the ideal is what's initially sought, but the imperfection of the specific is what has true value. Conflict and suffering arise from the guilt and stress associated with overvaluing the former. Deliverance and humanity come from recognizing and embracing the latter.

and honestly, i like what the retcon does for basically all the characters it changes dramatically. people take issue with rose's alcoholism plotline being resolved with vriska_slap.png but i don't really, because rose's alcoholism isn't like, of itself if that makes sense. it's alcoholism as an extension of nihilism, in a way that doesn't reflect real alcoholism, but it doesn't have to. s'a story. things can mean things nonliterally.

and vriska regresses as a character, but i think this specific regression is the core of homestuck. you get the platonic ideal of vriska-ness, one who didn't see and feel the trauma she inflicted on tavros, one who has completely supplanted gamzee's role as the plot-mover guide in the alpha session. and one who only makes token gestures at reparations and atonement for her misdeeds. one who is still obsessed with being at the center. and between 2016 and 2019, i was so certain that she had died a heroic death in act 7 that it is an immovable core plot point of my own comic.

(homework: why would homestuck call act 7 the rapture?)

and like, those pre-retcon characters literally do still exist, they show up in remem8er. remem8er goes unbelievably hard on giving every single dead character in the comic the best catharsis available to them: deliverance from having to be in homestuck. and i mean that entirely sincerely! the best ending for a homestuck character is not being in homestuck. and that's a tough thing for people to get their minds around.

but again, it kind of comes naturally with taking homestuck as it is, and thinking intently about what it's doing, what conventions it's challenging and how it's challenging them. because sometimes it's deeply stupid (decade-plus of thought on the matter has not made the incest any more palateable or understandable)

but sometimes it's the best shit in the whole world

[grace--le--domas]

Mission Impossible Rant ? Part 2

Continuing from Part 1. Last couple of weeks have been the most stressful ones of my life. So, I you have some good vibes and good luck, a girl could use some. I feel like I am falling apart. On that note, let's continue.

SPOILERS FOR MI:7

Mission Impossible- Rogue Nation: I consider this one the love child of MI:1 and Ghost Protocol. Rogue Nation introduces my fave, the icon, the legend- Miss Ilsa Faust herself. Rebecca Ferguson is a national treasure. What's interesting about this film is that it somehow doubles as a spy thriller and a rom com- Boy meets girl, boy goes on his first date with said girl , girl seemingly betrays boy. All very wholesome. The action pieces are great, but they don't take the central stage. Rogue Nation is more cerebral, a bit more noir-ish than its predecessors. And I loved every second of it.

2. Mission Impossible- Fallout: Fallout is my second favourite, tied with RN. It surpasses every movie just for that one shot of Henry Cavill reloading his arms (I'm only half kidding) . The storyline has a million villains in it, but honestly it melds with the action so well that you wouldn't even notice.

Fallout also introduces one of my faves of this series, one Alanna MItsopolis (daughter of Max from the first film). Vanessa Kirby is kooky in the best sense of the word as Alanna, girl just oozes charisma. Fallout also has a great story at its heart, and highlights Ethan's fatal flaw- loyalty to his people extremely well. It also drives the Ilsa-Ethan storyline a bit further (Might do a post on just these two at some point).

(And the score slaps too)

3. Mission Impossible- Dead Reckoning (Part 1?): Yeahhhhhhhhh. I might get flack for this but I didn't enjoy this as much. Following up a masterpiece like Fallout is difficult, but this film lacks soul. The enemy is an AI that growls. No, I am not joking. AI as an enemy is hard to do in an action thriller (Westworld s3 fumbled the bag too). The stakes are not well defined and the second half just drags on.

And now coming to the biggest issue of all, Ilsa's death. You are telling me that Ilsa Faust, spy extraordinaire, would lose a sword fight to a rookie? I call rats. Fridging a beloved female character so as to drive Ethan further is tasteless in my opinion. Unless she's not dead, in which case I take everything back.

It also retcons Ethan's past, which was always flimsy to begin. That being said, it's not all bad. Henry Czerny's Kitteridge returns (Revenge, Ready or Not), Pom Klementieff is an assassin and Cruise jumps off a cliff on a motorbike. This one just lacks heart, after Ilsa's death it all just seems so pointless.

I might to do post for Ethan-Ilsa and another for a fan theory I have. Bye and don't forget to be awesome :)

[wondereads]

Personal Review (10/09/22)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

This is another one of my full series reviews! As such, there are spoilers for the books scattered around in here, so proceed at your own risk!

The Lightning Thief 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This book is the blueprint. Seeing or hearing the phrase "Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood" makes me froth at the mouth. This is the perfect introduction to the series; it sets the tone, introduces the basic worldbuiding, and builds up some amazing characters. This goes for all the books, but Percy is an incredibly likable protagonist that still has his flaws. His introduction is amazing, and we know from the start that he's a struggling kid that tries his best and comes to find himself as a demigod. The Lightning Thief is only the first book, but it has a great plot twist that has a ton of impact on the rest of the series, plotwise and emotionally. It's one of the best first books I've ever read, resolving things while still having that overarching plot to continue off of.

The Sea of Monsters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The second book is generally considered the weakest of the series. Don't get me wrong, it's still an absolutely amazing book, but compared to the others it is missing thing. My theory is that it doesn't contribute as much as the other books to the grand scheme of things. The biggest development is at the very end; the rest of the story is interesting but ultimately unimportant when it comes to tying into the other books. However, it does introduce Tyson, an amazing character, and it establishes the empathy link. I just think that if there were any of this series that didn't quite meet the standards for a 10 it would be this one.

The Titan's Curse 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Ok, this one is my personal favorite. There are so many developments in this book. We get to know Thalia, we meet characters like Nico, Blackjack, Bianca, and the Hunters, and the relationship between Percy and Annabeth develops a lot. This is also the turning point of the series where things get a lot darker. In this book, we have the first death of a major character, and it's done very well. The characters react accordingly, there's fallout after the fact, and Percy in particular has a lot of survivor's guilt. It's done in a way that keeps it appropriate for the target age group while still imparting the gravity of the situation. We also get to see Percy in a more authoritative position. Up until this point, he's been the one receiving orders and being cared for, but his interactions with Nico in particular put him in a position of authority that he's going to be expected to fill more and more.

The Battle of the Labyrinth 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I think this book is the best for the side characters. Annabeth and Grover in particular really get to shine. Annabeth finally gets her own quest in the labyrinth while Grover is continuing his search for Pan. Other than The Lightning Thief, this book might have the most worldbuilding in it. The labyrinth is a great tool for seeing new pockets of mythology in the US that have previously gone unnoticed. Also, this is one of the most comedic books in that Percy interacted with no less than four people who had crushes on him and had no idea. Going back to the side characters, Nico and Rachel got some amazing development, and while you'll know something's up with Quintus, I doubt you'll be able to guess what it is (I actually totally forgot about it so I got to be surprised all over again). Also, Mrs. O'Leary my beloved.

The Last Olympian 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I have read this series multiple times, but I was still grinning like an idiot the last twenty pages of this book. This is an amazing conclusion to the series! It's suitably grand, a battle with very high stakes, and the character development is top notch. Percy finally feels secure and content, Annabeth's family issues, biological and found, are resolved, Grover has a plan for his future, and Luke is... there. Sorry, I hate Luke. It also does a really good job of setting up the sequel series without detracting from the finale. The perfect end to a near perfect series!

The Author

Rick Riordan: American, 58, also wrote The Heroes of Olympus, The Kane Chronicles, and Magnus Chase, created Rick Riordan Presents

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every week, and I do themed recommendations every once in a while. I take suggestions! Check out my about me post for more!

[stinkerarchetype]

ELVIN !!

+ this cool fallout oc questionaire template i found and probably should have went to bed instead of filling out!

game said to tag some pals so. the only pals i know with fallout ocs are @publiclypining, @feigeleh, and @corvidayyy. have fun, beloveds.

[IDENTITY]

full name: if I told you I haven't decided on that yet would you believe me.

gender: unfortunately most likely cisgender but him being a little queer gender wise is definitely not out of the question!

pronouns: he/him, but probably doesn't mind neutral terms or cool neopronouns at all :-]

ethnicity: he's very white it's kind of disgusting. I may change this over time!

pre-war job: model! modeled for Nuka Cola :-) catered to the Gays..

date of birth: well..

place of birth: somewhere in someplace

current age: 224? 225? me when i get cryogenically frozen! girl help vault tech and nuka-cola stuck me in an ice cube for two centuries!

biology: human! may have some cyborg-y parts, haven't decided.

current living place: well. it's somewhere alright.

[ALIGNMENT]

chosen factions: I haven't played him in-game yet!

role: companion, mostly? not sure what this means but. if he was ever a canon character he'd most likely be a companion in fallout 4. :-9

allied factions: anyone who doesn't shoot him and tries to take his cool gun! :-]

enemy factions: anyone who does shoot him and tries to take his cool gun! :-[

[PERSONALITY]

alignment: definitely chaotic good.

main qualities: lovely to be around, extremely loyal. golden retriever kind of guy. zap, zap!

main flaws: doesn't focus very well, easily distractable. will probably get killed very quickly if he didn't have quick, impulsive reflexes. also he has no idea what he's doing, he's learning as he goes. he was literally a model.

fears: most likely hurting people or letting others down!

[RELATIONSHIPS]

status: singlest pringle in the wasteland.

sexual orientation: undecided! most likely gay? one of them boylikers..

people closest to them: well. about that.

people they hate: he never hates people. usually.

family: tugs my collar nervously while sweating

[PHYSICAL]

height: like 6'2" or something, i don't remember. something really tall. maybe 6'5" actually, holy shit

weight: uh..

build: buff <3

hair color: blonde and platinum blonde in my head sometimes but never executed in my artwork of him. may change this! who knows!

hair style: short, superman-esque. kinda? i'm not sure how to describe hair styles.

eyes color: hmm.. blue. for now.

tattoos/scars/markings: we will see! he probably has something somewhere.

body/facial hair: barely any. not only that but hes also Blonde (as of now) so..

[ABILITIES]

spoken language: english, but he probably knows a few more, like spanish and french, etc.

strengths: socializing, upping general morale, being entertaining, making mouth-made, unnecessary sound effects doing literally anything...

weakness: feral ghouls, nick valentine being annoyed by him at any point in time, cool old food he finds in buildings that he has to be reminded not to eat..

favored weapons: a cute little sci-fiesque pistol that was never meant to shoot real ammo, if any at all! and yet he fashioned it to do so and it still, somehow, works.

[RANDOM]

favorite piece of clothes: his suit! y'know the one! the iconic one!

lucky charm: not quite sure he has one yet. at least one i could come up with on the fly. maybe a special little bottle cap?

favorite food: literally anything that is now inedible considering there was literally a nuclear fallout and it's all 200+ years old and could kill a man but hey! a man's gotta eat!

favorite beverage: guess?

favorite season: he seems like a summer fella. boobs out, arms in the air like he just doesn't care. sunburn, radiation burn,

[radscorpionsandrifles]

The Backlog update

February 2024- August 2024

(Warning mention of NSFW topics and the brief mention of possible transphobia, a game covers homophobia but it's presented in a, 'this isn't okay,' way. If you aren't chill with that, feel free to leave. :) )

Okay so oh boy, between everything I did get some games done, and I'll sum up my thoughts here on everything I didn't cover between when I fully left and now so.

The big boys:

Okami HD: 100% worth it's retail price and a gorgeous experience and game. LoZ if wolf. I can see now why people scream to the heavens about this game. It's very good. Not my personal favorite but I really enjoyed my time with it. Took me about 3 months to beat.

Fallout 3 achievement hunt (PS3): Oh boy this game. Alright, I've made it known on my blog that while I love Fallout, I am extremely critical of the major issues that plague the franchise. On replay the racism and not okay slavery shit stuck out more then fucking ever. Point Lookout is so bad on the racism end, while The Pitt tries to give you a dilemma but instead comes off as really iffy. God and Mothership Zeta is still ass. This on was rough in some spots, but honestly this was easier to achievement hunt then both New Vegas, and 4. The main story line I still like, despite it's flaws. My main issue is everything else. I could go on a full rant this game is so flawed. But still fun. Also this ran better for me on PS3 then PC fml.

Rock Band: I've been shouting to the heavens for years that Guitar Hero is one of my favorite games franchises. I grew up on it, and it's so fun. But not until this year did I touch Rock Band, and I also bought DLC for it. (Yes I know about Clone Hero, but I like having access to the songs on an official console release.) I think that this has a way weaker set list than Rock Band 2 (which I still have not beaten because of the fucking challenge mode.) But god damn does this game have some good songs, I just really wish that Tom Saywer was the original and not a cover.

Boyfrirnd Dungeon 100% All achievements: Figuring a 100% run is around 13 hours, I said, "fuck it why not." Honestly, very worth doing. I think that while the game isn't perfect, and has it's very clear issues. (especially with the whole mental health aspects being demonstrated in a light that I find to be very misguided.) I can see the effort and love here, and I enjoyed my time with this one. But if you aren't super into one or multiple characters from the cast, I would say you can skip it sense it is very much a smaller experience with some great stuff and some flaws that depending on the person can really ruin the game for you.

The first Baten Kaitos: I got a mutual on here that wants to go into this game blind so. Here's what I will say, I liked this game, I thought it was very good. I think that it's still worth playing, and am still stoked that this rather obscure set of JRPGs finally got some well deserved love. And were made way way more affordable.

Princess Peach Showtime: I wish I could say I loved this game. It was just alright. It felt mind-numbing after a certain point, and I was just playing it to beat it sadly.

Fire Emblem Sacred Stones Ephraim run: God I love this game man. Being able to say I saw both parts of the game feels great, and if you a major FE fan it is so so worth doing. But part of that is just because Sacred Stones has great map design, and overall fun characters. Seth my beloved.

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror: Hot take, this game is overrated as shit. I love Kirby, but this game is a hellfire to play. The map system and world design are such ass. The levels themselves are designed well. But the map in the game tells you jack shit. The doors connect in weird spots. I needed an online map to beat this game, how did kids beat this on their little game childs? Yeah um not worth getting a cart for imo, emulate it and find the maps online. It's okay at best.

Pokemon HeartGold: This game took me almost a year to beat man. The grinding was insane. While it was worth finally beating Red, I still have my gripes with Gen 2. Including the not so great spread of where Pokemon spawn, the awful leveling, and how crazy grinding is in the final section. It was worth it to say I beat it, but I don't think I'll ever want to do this again.

Fire Emblem Shadows of Valentia: Best Fire Emblem game ever imo. Amazing cast, great voice acting, great story despite being a bit predictable. Like man, the maps can be basic, but they are still fun. The graphics look good for the system. Please play this game it's a darling.

Cook Serve Delicious: Man I love these games a lot, so much. This first one is really fun and a perfect, 'not too hard but still challenging in comparison to the other entries. It's 100% worth the money if you like silly food games. (but the game turns 10 soon and is getting remastered so I am looking forward to that.)

Super Mario Galaxy 2: I wish I had a lot to say about this game, I do not. It's good, it's a Mario game so it's fun. I have no idea why they brought the stupid motion control ball stuff back, and I hate the motion control flying bird levels. Other than that, this is a very solid game, but you could tell they were running out of ideas at the end. Happy it was 6 main worlds and not 8. Also this game's OST is better then the first one's.

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon (DS): Man this makes me so sad that we didn't New Mystery of the Emblem in the west because I really like this game engine. It looks solid for the OG DS. Plus this game was very fun despite them being a bit generous with how many units you get. Overall I found this game to be fairly easy with a small amount of planning, and I think it's a good time.

Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story: This game was alright. I think the gimmicks overstayed their welcome despite being super creative. Writing is great, but it gets old too quick. Overrated game for me. It just didn't do anything for me. Despite owning this as a child I didn't beat it until now. Like not bad, just okay.

Weird games and shit:

Kirby's Blockball: It's cute and nonoffensive, not really much else to say.

Spyro Orange: I kinda... like this game... Sorry. I know it's objectively shit, I do. But god I had so much fun with it for some reason. Maybe I just like simple games like this, idk. I am still waiting to find a copy of Crash Purple, so I can 100% both of them, but we'll see.

Simpsons The Night of The Living Treehouse of Horror: No one remembers this Gameboy color exclusive garbage fire of a licensed game. I like the idea behind it, but yeah not great. Good time killer, and I liked the music for the Maggie fly level. I grew up on Simpsons so I always enjoy stupid novelties like this. Like the series has major flaws, but yeah it's a very Futurama situation for me.

To Trust An Incubus 100%: Yeah you heard me right. I 100%ed a NSFW dating sim, and got all achievements on it. To be fair someone I know gifted me this on Steam around the first year I came out as a transgender gay dude. So I got rid of some of my old farming sims and other shit that I couldn't be gay in. Since yeah. So this was one of the first games I had to kinda bask in my newly accepted identity. Oh boy this game it's just, weird. I mean, it has it's moments of being fun. And I can't deny that I really really like Harsi. I got the PDF of the guide from a dude on Steam thankfully. (normally you have to pay for it, but I'm not spending money on a google doc that I can get access to for free from someone hosting it. Also having one of the two only guides for the game locked behind a pay wall is ridiculous imo.) This thing is not a stain on my account like some people think it would be. This game helped me during a time were self acceptance was a major fucking struggle. Fully beating it was nice, but I wouldn't recommend it to others.

The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog: Sonic does Family Guy death pose 10/10 Jokes aside, cute and high quality for a little free game and it was very fun! Happy I played it.

YAGS: A Gay Story: This one took me awhile to bite on. The dev for this game has been very transparent about writing one of the characters better in the future. But as a trans person, it never really bothered me and wasn't presented in a light of, "trans people bad." Just, "this character has a genitalia preference and jokes about it." I can understand how for some people in the community, it may set something off. And while the game uses the F slur, the creator is gay and there's an option to censor it. It is used once in context of a character being homophobic and it being shown as not okay. But a lot of it is reclaiming. Which again might be uncomfortable for some people. I liked this one cause it tackled some issues that queer people deal with, and the dev seems chill and open to criticism. I think this a game that covers good topics, but isn't for everyone.

Freshly Frosted: I got this game for free on Epic, and it's one of the only times the Epic Game store had a game I legit wanted. It's a cute little puzzle game where you make donuts. Honestly it was great and fairly short, I would give it a shot if you like puzzle games.

So what's next?:

As of writing this I am 80% done with Sly Cooper 4. (which I have stated on here before that I have a ton of issues with the Sly Cooper series and it's heavy heavy racism.) So far I think the story was too throw together, and that the characters felt out of place, completely changed for the worst, oversexualized, or just no purpose/break of character development that was already pre-established. Game play wise this game is actually solid, and I like the game play more then 2 and 3... which is fucking wild. But it doesn't make up for the rest of the rotten shit.

Other then that yeah Rock Band 2 and Band Hero are on the chopping block next. As I want to finish PS3 stuff soon, as I'm trying to get a Vita some time in the next year.

While I haven't been buying too many games and things to play for various reasons, I do still have a lot to do. It's just been very slow this year.

I'm hoping to cut the list back down to 100 due to the fact I just have way too many games on Switch and PC still. 3DS got semi smaller this year, but I still have a lot of those old games to beat too.

[mayihavethisdanse]

“What is this, the Dark Ages?”

Or, Arthurian themes and allusions in the Brotherhood of Steel mythos as seen in Fallout 4. (But that’s a lot of words.)

Yep. We're doing this. 

First, some obligatory caveats: there is no single Arthurian canon, just 1500 years of assorted fanfic based on the whims of whoever was writing at the time. For this extremely highbrow Tumblr meta, I have ignored most of it and drawn on my favorites. Also Wikipedia.

Also, I am not an expert in Arthurian literature (or Fallout lore, come to that), and I preemptively beg the pardon of anyone who is.

Finally, in no way am I claiming that all these parallels and thematic echoes are deliberate or even significant. In fact, I'd break it down into:

Clearly deliberate allusions, whether in or out of universe;

Probably coincidence, but could be someone deliberately capitalizing on a coincidental similarity;

Almost certainly coincidence, but fun to speculate about; annnnd

Blatant Monty Python references. (Because of course there are.)

I'll start with the big one.

Arthur Maxson, boy king and unifier

(source)

So across all the retellings and variations of King Arthur’s life story, there are a few consistent elements, particularly in his early life and rise to power. Some of these threads are echoed in the Fallout universe, specifically (and unsurprisingly) in the person of Arthur Maxson.

Both the legendary King Arthur and Arthur Maxson were born with a claim to power lying in their ancestry, both were fostered away from their families, and both proved themselves in combat at a young age. 

King Arthur united the warring kingdoms of Britain into a single entity, making them stronger against outsiders and receiving general admiration and acclaim. Arthur Maxson united the divided factions of the BoS after the events of Fallout 3 and is held in similarly high regard by his men.

The name Prydwen is a reference to the ship of the original King Arthur. Presumably, Arthur Maxson (or someone in the BoS who anticipated his promotion) christened the airship in a deliberate homage to the Arthurian myth.

King Arthur is associated with his legendary sword. I think it’s notable that Maxson’s legend is associated with a bladed weapon, too. ("He killed a DEATHCLAW with a COMBAT KNIFE!”)

Probably coincidence, but fun: the historical emperor Magnus Maximus, who pops up a lot in early Arthurian legend, was known in Welsh as... Macsen. (⌐■_■)

Round Table, but make it dieselpunk

(Continued under the cut.)

Moving away from obvious allusions and into some looser parallels:

Like the Round Table, the Brotherhood is an exclusive knightly order with its leader being the one able to open it up to his chosen few.

Like the Round Table, the BoS sees itself as defending human civilization against forces of chaos. (I’ll touch on their tech-hoarding tendencies when I get to the Grail stuff.) This idea of civilization in the face of chaos goes back to the BoS’s founding, even though the level of isolationism we see in most of the Fallout franchise is not exactly what founder Roger Maxson had in mind: “Notably, Maxson's ultimate intention was to establish the Brotherhood as an organization that works closely with people outside of the Brotherhood, as guardians of civilizations, not its gatekeepers.” (source) In a lot of ways, Arthur Maxson represents a return to his ancestor’s original ideals.

Renegade knights? Internal politics? Traitors within? We gotchu.

In both the medieval legends and in all chapters of the BoS we’ve seen, there’s a big focus on bloodlines (ew). Ironically, it’s probably Arthur Maxson’s unquestionable ancestry that allows him to be more progressive than either of his East Coast predecessors when it comes to boosting Brotherhood numbers by recruitment (even though you can still see a clear division between “born Brotherhood” and recruited soldiers, but that’s a topic for another day). Maxson sees himself as an Elder who "cares for the people"—however misguided and patronizing that attitude might be—and whatever else you might say about the guy, you can't say he doesn't believe he has a duty. Which brings us to…

Know Your Enemy: Danse as Gawain

Before I start this section, an acknowledgement of authorial bias:

Gawain, as portrayed in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is my very favorite of King Arthur’s knights. (Other stories aren't always as flattering, but like I said at the outset: I'm sticking to the ones I like.)

That poem is my very favorite piece of medieval Arthurian literature. In this section, I'll refer to the modern English translation by Simon Armitage.

...that’s it, I have no other biases to disclose. 

What? 👀

(Art: Clive Hicks-Jenkins)

All right. So in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, you’ve got this himbo loyal knight of Arthur’s who finds himself caught up in... you know what, let me just paste in the Wikipedia summary. (The Toast, RIP, also did a pretty entertaining and more-or-less accurate recap.)

It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle where he is a guest.

Don’t worry too much about the plot details, though; for this post, I’m more interested in the thematic parallels. The Green Knight story is full of contrasts: order vs. chaos, civilization vs. wilderness, mortal man vs. Other... but let’s start with Gawain himself. 

Some stuff to know about Gawain:

He was "as good as the purest gold, devoid of vices but virtuous and loyal". Gawain took his principles more seriously even than the rest of Arthur’s knights, not out of pride but out of humility: "I would rather drop dead than default from duty," he says. 

He’s faithful and honorable and never even tempted to betray an oath, even when offered every variety of seduction and riches, except for a single moment of weakness in a desperate desire not to be executed for random shit by powerful forces for reasons he doesn't understand.  

Even though he doesn’t really understand why he needs to die, he sticks to his oath. Gawain's one weakness is a moment of desperate, private, human desire for survival. He'll submit to the headsman’s axe if he has to, but he'd still rather live. 

Above all, Gawain is the ideal of a human man: he might be the bravest and loyal man there is, but he’s still fundamentally human.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

A few more fun facts about Gawain that resonate with Paladin Danse’s story:

He’s got a bunch of really shitty brothers. (No comment.)

Gawain (SPOILERS!) doesn't actually end up beheaded, but he does willingly kneel for his execution and gets a cut on the throat as a reminder of his sin. And, uh, Danse can also get his throat cut! It doesn’t end as nicely but it’s, you know, a thing that can happen.

Gawain might be a really good guy, and he tries really hard to be one, but in the end he’s nothing more than that: there’s nothing supernatural about him, he has no special powers beyond his own principles and devotion. He’s just a dude doing his Best. 

Wait, why not Danselot?

Oh, that guy? Here’s the thing.

Lancelot personifies the continental ideals of courtly love that became popular in the High Middle Ages. Central to his story is the prioritization of personal relationships and romantic feelings in a way that you don’t really see in Gawain's, at least in the Green Knight tale. (Later stories hook Gawain up with an extremely delightful lady, but even that is a different flavor of romance than Lancelot's and has more to do with Gawain honoring his word and his egalitarian treatment of women (hell yeah). In the poem, Gawain is impressed by Bertilak's wife but resists her temptation; in fact, the biggest risk is not that he'll yield to her advances but that he'll be discourteous to her, i.e., violate his principles and cause dishonor to his king and his host.)

Lancelot is driven by passions over principles in a way that Gawain never really is (at least in the stories I’m talking about; later writers have committed character assassination to various degrees). Yes, you could argue that both Gawain and Lancelot betray their oaths, but Lancelot’s betrayal is never, um, blind. He knows what he’s doing and makes a deliberate choice to prioritize his love for the queen over his love for the king. It doesn’t make him a bad guy—he too is an ideal knight with one fatal flaw—but his character isn’t as comparable to Paladin Danse. 

Yeah, Gawain is (in most stories) a prince and a kinsman of Arthur’s, but he’s ultimately a native boy who doesn’t break the mold of a Knight of the Round Table. Likewise, Danse is portrayed as competent and valuable to the BoS, but not exceptional or breaking the mold of what a BoS soldier should be: he simply represents the ideal. Meanwhile, Lancelot is a foreign prince who was marked from childhood as special and fancy, and his storyline goes alllll over the place. (Much like this post.)

For example, Lancelot goes to absolutely absurd extremes to prove his devotion for no other reason than to prove it. (“I’ll do any useless humiliating thing you want. I’ll betray every oath except the one I made to you. That’s what love is!”) Gawain would never. Danse would never.

Ultimately, Gawain's tests are of his character and not of his love. And like Gawain, Danse’s devotion is to service and his principles, not to another person—even Arthur Maxson.

All that said, there are some similarities: both are beloved by Arthur, both are held up as the ideal of what a knight should be. And even if their fatal flaws are different, both make the point that no matter how good and brave and loyal they might be, no human being can be perfect. 

(Except Galahad. Who is, as a result, very boring.) 

I’ll conclude this section with a quote from someone else’s take on the Greek Knight poem:

I like Gawain. He’s not perfect, but he’s trying his best which is all any of us can do. He’s not like the other knights in the Arthurian legends who occasionally ‘accidentally’ kill women on their little adventures and then feel hard done by when they have to deal with the consequences of that. Gawain holds himself to a high standard – higher, it seems, than Arthur and his knights hold him to considering how hard they laugh when Gawain tells them how bad he feels about the whole thing.

I think Gawain is very relatable in this story. We all want to be better than we actually are.

And that, more than anything else, is Danse.

The Grail myth

What’s that? Lost relics of power? Better send some large armed men after ‘em!

The parallels to the BoS’s tech-hoarding ways are obvious enough that the games themselves lampshade them (albeit by way of Monty Python). But it also ties into the larger themes of “purity” versus “corruption” and the BoS’s self-image as a bastion between civilization and chaos. (See Maxson's line in response to the Sole Survivor’s quip about the Dark Ages: “Judging from the state of the world, it wouldn't be a stretch to say we're living in that era again.”)

But the ultimate futility of the Grail mission is also worthy of note. The BoS might want the power of prewar tech on their side, but they’re no more to be trusted with it than any other group of human beings. No matter how they try, the “corruption” of humanity can’t be overcome as long as they’re striving to harness power for their own ends. You can only achieve power by surrendering control of it.

The death of Arthur

The nature of gameplay being what it is, it's not guaranteed that the Arthur figure will be fatally betrayed, bringing Camelot down with him—but it's not unlikely, either.

Awkward.

Some final spitballing:

Outside the Brotherhood, there are some fun parallels of the Arthur myth with the rest of Fallout 4. Betrayal by one’s own son, for example.

The key difference between the BoS and the legendary Round Table: King Arthur’s knights, for all their flaws and human weaknesses, are usually presented as unambiguous Good Guys. The BoS is... a little more ambiguous...

...but damn if they don’t think they're the good guys. 

A-ad victoriam, fellas!

[galsinspace]

Who is the cringe and problematic man who you own??

See I said I'll never tell but I'm weak to questions so I'll tell you.

Once upon a time I played Fallout 3. It was one of the first video games I ever played and it was a really immersive and emotional experience, and in this video game I met a little boy named Arthur Maxson. He was shy and kinda sad, hid comic books under his bed and wrote lil stories on his terminal, had a crush on Sarah Lyons (very relatable to me), and he was so lonely he tried to befriend a giant war robot. In my heart I immediately adopted him. I knew he was in Fallout 4 too but I all I knew about that was that he was like, a grizzled older guy with a beard.

Then I actually played Fallout 4 and my sweet little boy was a huge dick with a whooping case of sci fi racism. Just awful! He says cringe things like how a robot man "wasn't born from the womb of a loving mother" and he's basically a fascist. My beloved flawed faction the Brotherhood of Steel was generally warped beyond recognition from any of its prior appearances in the series.

Sooooooooo I just kind of ignore that. I own this cringe and problematic man and his cringe and problematic faction. In my mind there's a version where the dude is actually a 20 year old struggling with shouldering too much responsibility and not having had a normal childhood, and the BoS isn't completely divorced from the BoS in Fo3.

This isn't something that's easy to admit to because liking the BoS is shunned in some circles of Fallout fans because they see them as equivalent to the US military, something I reject as the canonical backstory of the faction is that it was formed in reaction to discovering human rights abuses of that very military. Also generally shitting on Fallout 3 is popular in large part because of that hbomberguy video, a video that makes a lot of good points but also has some glaring blind spots - specifically in regards to the BoS, the appearance of which in that game is completely dismissed as Just Not Right without exploring any of the actual story there. (Side point but it's still pretty wild to me how that video manages to sing the praises of the original Fallout for telling such a good story with so many little indicators while completely ignoring the little indicators that tell stories in Fallout 3 as well. I could talk about subtle storytelling in Fallout 3 a lot.)

So yeah my cringe and problematic man is Arthur Maxson. He sucks. He's my little boy and my exploration of teenagers becoming adults under pressure. Fallout 4 is a bad video game

[redphienix]

fallout ramble for the umpteenth time for fun because I love the series

The more I think about it the more it feels like my lineup rankin' fallouts is

Fallout 1

Fallout NV + 3 for very different reasons

Fallout 2

Fallout 4

Tactics I guess

Being eaten alive

Fallout 76

(edit, 4 is so forgettable that I forgot to include it at first oh my god, no I didn't forget BOS I'm just pretending it doesn't exist right now, it's better than 76, I think that's a fair guess.)

It's just fun to look back on how my love for the series evolved- to think I went a long time loving 3 more than anything for being my introduction, and for being unapologetically the shallow, aesthetic over substance, black and white morality- but fun as hell romp it was.

Then I played through NV, loved it, then started to resent it, then I started appreciating NV despite my "why is the entire game orange and brown, the factions are doo doo because I can't live out my fantasy of making things perfect >:(" assholery because it has a LOT of great narrative lines and mechanics- and while it didn't fulfill my need to earn a best ending because the options are "robot hell" (definitive best end), "give power to a rich piece of shit" (lol no), "corrupt government who's failures are modeled after the utterly garbage failure's we're enduring in real life right now" (lol NO fuck off), and "this is the evil ending, give it to the totally stable slaver woman haters who in most endings are depicted as being doomed to internal conflict the second Caesar dies" (lol no)-

It fucking TRIED some shit, man. And it's interesting to see the folly of the factions, and sure it makes sense I can't "fix" one as one dude or dudette, but it's a viddy game and I should be able to nuff said >:( lol

So I'll be irrationally grumpy about the factions forever for me not being to like, fix the NCR fully across state lines and not just in some minor ways around the mojave which don't fix the overarching issues, or let me do more to make yesman's ending not menacing and that's my personal character flaw to endure.

The rest is fucking stellar, and an ending ain't the end-all but man- the game has so many awesome narrative lines! Then the end is always "shitty options or the good one that implies a future robot uprising".

OH.

NEW VEGAS ALSO HAS THE BEST NARRATIVE THAT BEING THE ENTIRETY OF SIERRA MADRE, MY HEART REMAINS IN THE SIERRA MADRE.

Also Ulysses sucks. That's not related to anything. I'm just contractually obligated and have to say it every time I say anything about New Vegas. Especially if I waste time whining about not being a god figure who fixes all wrongs in the game or praise my beloved Sierra Madre.

But man, despite all that interest in NV or appreciation for the dumbshit in 3, playing the classic games gave me so many good vibes for the series.

It really is Fallout 1 at the peak because it's oozing with style, substance, and a perfectly paced amount of game to dive into, a respectable but not rude distance below are the modern Fallouts for reasons implied above and a lot more, I mean in non-bias terms NV wins out as the better game but man, FO1 hits things off just right!

Soon after is Fallout 2 for being Fallout 1 with more going on which is great! But also means it started to bog a bit when 1 already hit it out of the park and was better paced to me,

4, is fucking stupid. It sure is more fun to shoot things in! I sure did put way too many hours into it just like I did with 3 and NV beforehand, but OH boy 4 is just fucking stupid! Plays good though.

Fucking idiot ass game. I like it more than I imply, but I also have no interest in revisiting that dumb ass idiot game which is not what I'd say for 1, 2, and NV (and 3 is only off because I recently DID revisit that one). lol

Tactics I never beat but enjoyed faffing about in, and 76 gave me motion sickness through always online meaning 'always enduring latency' :D lol

What a great series! I will likely never buy another one until Bethesda stops fucking making them :) lol

[acabang]

Nerding out on the Borderlands

I finally got around to playing Borderlands 3 and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Personal order of preference for the franchise: Tales ≥ BL2 > BL3 > BL1 > TPS

Depending on how the DLC goes though, 3 could be just as good as 2 for me. Unlikely but it’s possible.

I really enjoyed playing all the Vault Hunters, Zane in particular, even if it seems like he lags behind the rest of them. And while she’s fun as just a straight up gunner, my only real bummer is Moze. For me when it comes to the playable characters, it’s all about their Action Skills and if I don’t find myself using it regularly then I hope they have something fun in their skill trees to make up for the lack of it other than shooting guns exceptionally well (ie. Gaige with Ricochet-Anarchy stacking abuse, Krieg with Flame of the Firehawk-Raving Retribution Hellborn madness, etc.). The idea of Iron Bear is rad but vehicles have never been useful outside of a means of map traversal, which this mech isn’t for, and if I’m gonna give up the benefits of my gear then it better be fucking OP or at least viable, especially at the highest of difficulties. So far it’s not looking like it is and I don’t expect it ever will get to that level. For the most part though, she’s still a lot of fun to use as a Plain Jane FPS character.

Overall, I actually enjoy all four initial characters pretty much equally which I can’t say about the other games. I still had fun with them but I didn’t like Roland, Salvador and Nisha as much as their fellow Vault Hunters in their respective games. I’m really looking forward to what DLC Vault Hunters they have in store though, they’ve all been pretty solid and just plain fun to play as.

                               -SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT-

I liked the story well enough and felt engaged the entire time. I didn’t really feel bogged down throughout and enjoyed the pace. Even the sidequests I thought played along well with the storyline missions, they didn’t feel as jarring with too much backtracking or as tediously boring as The Pre-Sequel had it. Although, all the games are guilty of this, the Underdome/Circle of Slaughter missions are still lame.

I loved pretty much most of the new NPCs, however major or minor a role they played. Lorelei was interesting and I want to know more about her, the same goes for Clay, who I could both see becoming Vault Hunters themselves (hopefully) in a future game. The Katagawa-Rhys dynamic was fun, as was BALEX and GenIVIV. I loved Wainwright Jakobs and I especially loved Typhon DeLeon, two of the more likable and wholesome characters in the entire franchise. They don’t hold a candle to Loader Bot & Gortys from Tales but still very admirable in a universe full of assholes and psychopaths. Even some of the minor villains were fun, the Traunt Brothers and Pain & Terror specifically.

Now it’s going to be unfair to compare the Twins to Jack but... they still could've been written better. Brats with god complexes and one with an inferiority complex to boot is fine, not the most compelling, but wait! They’re also streamers because *nudge, nudge, wink, wink*. Despite that, the VA performances of what they were given were both still very well done. When they start to actively antagonize each other is when they started to turn around for me, especially with the power corrupting Troy to the point of almost killing off Tyreen. The Twins being the children of Typhon is a neat twist reveal but I feel like if you’ve been discovering his logs throughout the maps you can put two and two together long before they outright state it.

Though I should probably give credit to the Twins for being a part of why I love Typhon so much. With him being revered the way he was, especially by Tannis, as the first Vault Hunter, it’s refreshing to see a fabricated myth actually turn out to be mostly a myth and not a 100% accurate depiction or historic event like most other games usually do. Even the damn posters of Typhon got him all wrong which I loved. He’s endearingly flawed and his admittance to not being the best father to Tyreen & Troy after they lost their mother actually really got to me. He wasn’t around for long but it was smart of Gearbox to have built up his backstory through those logs, it allowed his character to make some sort of impact like it did on me which made his death actually quite poignant.

Thus leading to probably what I can only assume, since I haven’t bothered to read other people’s reaction to it, is the most controversial part of the game. I love character deaths, especially for ones I adore. When done properly it brings more meaning to them and for the character that may have taken their lives. Bloodwing and Roland helped build Jack up to be even more of the villain that most people love (to hate). Hell, even Sasha’s death in Tales actually had me crying... then immediately laughing because I totally got baited by it especially after already losing Scooter.

Now, like I said, I love character deaths and I’m totally fine with Maya being the one we lose but the way she dies was more of a pathetic wail than whatever Gearbox was hoping to achieve. And for what? All I hope for in a character death is to have more meaning to it than a passing of the torch to a cipher of a character that was basically just introduced and I have no real connection towards, good or bad, because going forward from then on certainly isn’t going to be positive at all. Who knows, she could end up being a favourite character of mine in the future as she develops more but as of right now, no, the only reason for her existence in this game world so far was to take the place from two beloved characters that hasn’t been earned yet.

The other character being Lilith as she sacrifices herself to keep Pandora closed. I don’t believe she’s actually dead, gone for now but at least not dead. It’ll probably be the main focus of the next game, if not in a DLC, in figuring out a way to get her back from Elpis, if she’s even stuck up there. It’s sad to lose her immediately after regaining her powers back but at least she went out with Alicia Keys singing her a fire swan song. Unfortunately, before going off to save the day and Gearbox not being entirely satisfied yet with shoving Ava down our throats the first time, Lilith hands over protection of Sanctuary III to her. Hopefully Ava is given an extremely satisfying character arc in the proceeding games because woof, that’s going to be a tough mountain to climb especially if it takes another 2-5 years for the next game to release.

I don’t actually hate Ava, I just don’t care about her. Also our Vault Hunter(s) were right there, technically, and as was Tannis. She may not be able to fight but she’s more than capable of leading the Crimson Raiders. She’s also the most consistently well written character that’s shown growth over the games that she’s been a part of in the franchise, in my opinion.

As for the rest of the characters, I’m good with moving on from Vaughn now. He was unexpectedly funny to okay during Tales but yeah, he’s already worn out his welcome for me. Rhys was fine, not as good as he was in Tales but he wasn’t really even my favourite character from that game anyway. Who I was missing was Fiona, I really wish that she had shown up but hopefully that might still be a possibility in DLC. Maybe she’ll show up alongside Athena & Janey, continuing her VH training somehow saved from wherever she disappeared off to. Preferably with Loader Bot and Gortys as well. It’d also be nice to run into Axton, Sal, Gaige and especially Kreig considering the whole Maya situation and her promising to see him again.

Then there’s also the B-Team, which a part of me wanted to interact with more but another part where I think I’m okay with what we got. I was disappointed in Tina’s development however, I didn’t expect a full maturation of character but I also hoped she wouldn’t be the spaz that she was when she was a young teen. Even in Dragon Keep she showed a little bit of growth with her acceptance of Roland’s death but I guess they wanted to keep her annoying, which was fine back in 2 and TPS when she was basically a kid but I believe she’s supposed to be at least 18 now? I guess it’s fine as long as it fits the dynamic between her, Brick and Mordecai. I will also say that Mordecai’s side quest to attend his protégé’s birthday party was really bittersweet, I loved that brief respite from the chaos that is the rest of the game and a stark reminder that Pandora sucks.

Aside from the actual plot and characters, I thought they did an even better job at world building the rest of the universe. The mega-corporations side of Borderlands has always been fascinating to me and I feel like they often take a backseat by most fans since they’re just these ever present entities in the universe and not actual characters themselves, despite each of them having quite unique “personalities” in the products they manufacture and the individuals that represent them. We had Commandant Steele & General Knoxx show off a militaristic side of the original Atlas as The Crimson Lance, then there was Jack as the face of the Hyperion we knew, and the fallout from his demise during Tales. There’s also Tannis giving us slight tidbits of how Dahl operated on Pandora between the first & second game and, of course, Mr. Torgue with, well, Torgue and I guess now he’s in charge of the battle arenas. Now we get insight on the current incarnation of Atlas with Rhys at the helm, Maliwan with Katagawa Jr. and Wainwright as the heir to Jakobs. It’s just fun to see these corporations steadily being fleshed out with each game and I’m interested to see how Tediore, Vladof and maybe even S&S Munitions, if they ever make a return, will turn out.

On the other end of the spectrum and more of an active danger to the universe are the Vaults, their purpose and the monsters contained within, one of them called the Timekeeper who we have yet to encounter. Also more insight into who the Eridians were, the siren Nyriad’s role with their eradication and warning of a seventh siren who shouldn’t be found. There’s definitely plenty of seeds that were planted, it’s just a shame that it’ll probably be a long time from now before any of them get answered unless they start pumping out these games which I hope they don’t. Oversaturation and fatigue can ruin a franchise.

This has been my TED Talk, thank you for reading.

[thelittlesushithatcould]

Fallout Meme!

I saw this on @courierspikeee and I noticed one of the tags was anyone who thought ED-E was the goodest boy, and i am 100% in that camp, so I hope nobody minds if I do this ;) Rules:

1. Choose an OC.

2. Answer them as that OC.

3. Tag 5 people to do the same.

1. What is your name?

"Doctor Wanda Thompson, of the Institute!” She laughs “oh, don’t give me that look”

2. How old are you?

"well that’s what we call a ‘complication’ . In reality I’m somewhere around 245? Give or take a few years. Being flash frozen really does a number on your sense of time”

3. What do you look like?

"Me? Oh, you know...curly brown hair, tan complexion, I’ve gotten a little softer as I’ve gotten older, more curves than in my youth.” She rubs her hand “I’ve also gotten some radiation burns during the course of my research. My hands, particularly, and a bit over my lip” She laughs “I like to think I look like a proper scientist, as well as a mother”

4. Where are you from? Where do you live now?

Wanda thinks for a moment, a small smile on her lips that catches on her scar, turning it a little lopsided “I was born on the cape. Over by Hyannis.” She pauses “I moved to Boston after that, to attend the Institute.” She shakes her head “i still live in Boston. just...under it, I suppose”

5. What was your childhood like?

“Wonderful” She laughs, and claps her hands together with a jovial grin “Simply wonderful! I spent more days than I could count out there on the sandy beaches, collecting samples of sea critters and studying them in their natural habitats” She leans on her hand , smiling “I can still smell the salt in the air, when I really think about it”

6. What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions?

“The Institute” She says without missing a beat “I’m their Director after all.” She waves her gloved fingers dismissively "I took the liberty of changing our standards and practices away from Playing God and into actually helping someone for a change.” “As for allies...well. I met this nice man who claims to have been a courier once. Rules Vegas now, he says. We hit it off fairly well.. and heavens... I suppose there’s the woman who took over Pittsburgh from those slavers...”

7. Tell me about your best friend.

“Nick? He’s fantastic” She points “I’ve never met a finer detective in my life. Even if he refuses to let me help mend his synthskin. Stubborn old bastard”

8. Do you have a family? Tell me about them!

“My husband. He died when we were all frozen, but...there were some strange circumstances involving Institute tech that helped us find one another through the barrier of life and death” She pauses, and frowns slightly “ah. And we had a son. but he turned out to be...well. We don’t like to talk about him”

9. What about a partner or partners?

“Curie! My beloved!” She hugs herself with an ear to ear smile “the cutest robot I’ve ever met in my entire life. I helped her get a body, you know. And for the longest time it was just me and her in the wasteland! Now Thomas, Curie and I all intermingle in a lovely little poly amorous triangle”

10. Who are your enemies, and why?

“oh hoho...” She covers her mouth “Bandits. The Gunners. the Enclave. The Brotherhood of Steel. Covenant. Rogue Institute Personnel..Honestly I’m probably forgetting a few”

11. Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?

“They call me the Bane of Steel for a reason” She smiles,  though there’s something almost vicious in it “When they tried to ‘help’ the Commonwealth by killing anything they wished and hoarding tech...” She mimes shooting into the sky “My one regret is that I didn’t keep their airship. Oh well”

12. What about The Enclave?

“HAH!” she laughs out loud, clapping her hands together again “Terrible! The worst idea I’ve ever heard! America fell, you old loons, rebuild it as something new instead of rehashing the same mistakes all over again”

13. How do you feel about Super Mutants?

“Fascinating creatures. I only wish I could meet the ones from the early West Coast. They’re a real testament to the FEV. If only they’d stop trying to fill me with holes long enough for a proper interview..”

14. What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in?

“oh...” she sighed “the time my friends and I destroyed the BoS?” She shrugs slightly “I went up into their blimp, and walked right up to that pompous ass who called himself their leader, before vaporizing him. I did manage to preserve his coat” She smiles slightly “Then we had to fight our way out of a sea of trained soldiers to get back to the ground and organize the destruction of their funny little blimp”

15. Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?

“Heavens yes, and I wish I hadn’t. They’re too gorgeous to kill!”

16. Do you like fighting?

“not really” She folds her fingers together with a sad look in her eyes “It’s always sad to have to harm someone or something. And to take a life is always a weight on the soul” She closes her eyes “but to fix the world, you have to survive...”

17. What’s your weapon of choice?

“Energy Weapons” She says with a bright smile “nothing like holding a buzzing laser rifle in your hands and feeling the raw INNOVATION that went into it” She shook her head “i also have a serrated revolutionary war sword I hooked a battery onto that i’m fond of”

18. How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?)

“Intelligence” She said , holding up her hand “with a side helping of Charisma. You need to have a keen mind in the field of science. To analyze, theorize and know how to convince others to put those theories into practice...” She tapped her head “that’s the key to changing the world”

19. Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?

“I’ve always hated Vault Tec. They invited me to join their little experiment, but I declined in favor of continuing my research into radiation and mutation. And then the damned bastards froze me!”

20. How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?

“I wrote several studies on the effects of radiation exposure on the human body! hah, so I have some ideas on how to prevent it. Some lead lining in the clothes, lots of Rad-x and Radaway transfusions....building decontamination arches over all my doors. The usual stuff”

21. What’s your favorite wasteland critter?

“I love those funny little geckos” She smiled “They’re just so precious!”

22. What’s your least favorite wasteland critter?

“Cazadors” She frowned “i knew the idiot who made them back in the day. Hated him then. Damned fool made a flying plague”

23. How do you feel about robots?

“I ADORE robots” She says with almost girlish glee “I’ve always found them so interesting! While I’m a biologist by trade, I’ve always appreciated the sheer science of a robot. That glowing chrome...that hydraulic power...” She looks like she’s going to go on about this for a distressingly long time.

24. How many caps do you have on you right now?

“More than enough to fix the Commonwealth”

25. Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?

"Nuka Cola is absolute swill” She sniffs “ I’m a Sunset Sarsaparilla girl, myself. and just a little side note from one of my studies: Nuka Cola can melt a crab. A whole crab. Just saying!

26. Do you do chems?

“Mentats, Sometimes. I hate the damned things, but damn were they useful during particularly long and stressful studies”

27. Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?

“All the time. I remember it in all it’s glory...in all it’s faults. It was a flawed society built upon fear...but it was also peaceful, and comfortable... a place full of friends I’ll never see again...” She bites her lip gently “...I’ll help the Wasteland become something better... the Old World without it’s flaws..”

28. What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?

“Everything. I would have spoken up about the ethical issues I saw in the Institute before the war even began. I would have found another way to survive that wasn’t Vault Tec and it’s Trap. The ...the synth project maybe. I don’t know. I can’t dwell on this question too long without regretting almost everything I’ve done prior to my choice to change the Institute and fix the wasteland”

29. What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve?

“Which leads us into this.. hah. When my son passed away, he left the Institute to me. in my hands. He trusted I’d keep us on the course he chose...but he was wrong. The Synths were an exercise in needless cruelty. A species created, given sentience and then called slaves and tools. I ...reorganized...the head committee, and demanded a stop to the hunting and production of synths. No more bodysnatching. no more ‘property retrieval’ . No more. There were those who fought me...and there were those who tried to remove me. But I’m stronger than I seem.” She smiled grimly “I got them to see things my way eventually. And with that, the Institute’s copious resources could be turned outward...and used to help the Commonwealth at large”

30. What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world? ”I want...” She looks into the middle distance for a moment in thought “A world where we can all live in peaceful co-existence. Ghouls. Synths. Super Mutants, humans, true robots, and anyone else in that great wide world...I want a world where we can all work towards a mutual understanding and betterment of this wonderful Second Chance we’ve all been given”  And now for the tagging <3 @queenofblackcrows @spookdoggy @corpsewyrm @ all those who think Curie is a sweetheart @ all fallout fans who may see this? idk <3

[text-to-speech-impediment]

THE VAULT IN OUR STARS

An Opinion Piece on How Bethesda Survives (And How You Can Change Them!)

A/N: I wrote this op-ed for funsies. As you may know, I am known to warm myself at a corporate dumpster fire from time to time, but this one is especially close to my heart. I may replace with an actual edited version but for now, just enjoy it in its raw & unpolished glory. If you’re a Bethesda fan, you’re used to it anyway.

           In the words of Todd Howard, “I read on the internet…that sometimes it doesn’t just work.”

           Indeed, after just over two weeks since its 14 November release date, Bethesda Softworks’ release of survival multiplayer sandbox “Fallout 76” has more than merely failed to impress most of its players. The game has garnered an infamously low average score of only 54% on popular game journalism site, Metacritic. It fares no better on Youtube, with dozens of popular influencers obliterating the high expectations of even the most devoted fans of the Fallout franchise; but this will not be another essay to dishonor the multiple technical, immersion and storytelling woes that plague beleaguered “Fallout 76”. That’s for another essay.

           This criticism is one that many previous public complaints have touched on, flirted with, but seldom fully explored while caught up in the disappointment they had in “Fallout 76.” Specifically, this essay is leveled broadly at Bethesda Softworks LLC, the video game publishing division responsible for “Fallout 76”, as well as ZeniMax Media Inc., the parent organization of Bethesda and many other well-known game developers such as Arkane Studios, id Software and more. The upper management of these companies is removed from all but the finances of their industry; they are abusing both their content creators and consumers to calculated effect, remaining foggy at best on the aim of the products their teams are producing and out of touch with the end user’s interest.

           What more can we say against corporations of this staggering size? Corporations and mergers, time and again, continue to exploit art production and consumption then shrug off the backlash by driving screws into their overworked employees and letting them take the fall with the public. Unless we look at past events, this trend of blame shifting isn’t obvious. It’s hard at the moment to see that Bethesda Softworks’ colossal failure to recreate their previous endearing successes with fans in “Fallout 76” didn’t happen overnight.

It is for this reason that I sit on my soapbox today, somehow about to make an analogy of the gaming marketing industry by using Hazel and Gus from good ol’ John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars.” Never did I imagine I’d see those concepts together, but here I am smashing them together like this is fanfiction(dot)net. Don’t get too excited, though, because none of the wholesome aspects of Hazel and Gus make it into this analogy; no, this essay is all about the essence of what happens when you take a beautiful thing and strip it to the bare bones. Being a gamer in today’s culture of parasitic marketing is roughly akin to being desperately in love with a dying cancer patient. With their pants down and tumors exposed, Bethesda is giving us a rare glimpse into exactly what has made them cancerous: a lack of Vision (not to be confused with Activision.)

You see, Bethesda doesn’t have a vision. If you asked Todd Howard today what Bethesda’s vision was, his response would essentially amount to “get bigger, bigger than we’ve ever seen before,” and you would never be quite sure if he meant to say it would be the games, the bugs, or the pocketbooks that would be getting “bigger.” Bethesda has no vision because they are blinded by what I like to refer to as the survivalist mindset, cancer that has spread through their higher management and public faces so quietly for so long that Bethesda has only just noticed it rearing its ugly head. They have ventured through the past 20 years producing games that fans would merely refrain from harshly criticizing. If only they had seen their culture of undiluted survivalism in time to integrate it into “Fallout 76.”

To see the birth of this cancer that is killing Bethesda, we will travel back in time to 31 October 1998, when “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard,” along with its related title “An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire,” were both resounding “commercial failures,” according to Stephan Janicki of Computer Gaming World. These two disappointments brought Bethesda to the edge of bankruptcy before ZeniMax Media swooped in and claimed them as a subsidiary in 1999. In the following years, Bethesda Softworks knew they had to succeed, or they were done in the eyes of both their corporate overlords and their fans. This is when the panicky, survivalist mindset set in. Feverishly they worked until, in 2002, they released “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,” and Todd Howard was relieved to find that “It just work[ed].” Upon the laurels of Morrowind, Bethesda skipped happily into the sunset, bringing us many more beloved titles like “Fallout 3,” “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Legendary Edition,” and “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition.”

But they never grew out of that survivalist panic. Like cancer, it festered in the background, that burning fear of “commercial failure,” which is a euphemism for rejection by their fans. Bethesda’s near-death experience had scared them. Their aversion to conflict and attempts to please every consumer instead of maintaining a focused design and lore quickly made them the endearing dweeb of game developers, merely slapped on the wrist for repeat performance flaws that would break the fans of other developers. “Cute” bugs in coding dating back several releases, consistently shipping products with technical difficulties unbecoming of a $60 price tag, multiple rerelease announcements and story-writing so poor that it’s common for players to joke about blatantly ignoring the main plot of the game, often for hundreds of hours, in favor of the things Bethesda did capture: exploration, immersion, and lore.

That brings us to the jokes. After Skyrim-related content pervaded their 2017 E3 press conference, it began to dawn on Bethesda’s corporate half that all those Bethesda memes were laughing at them, not with them. Shaken by flashbacks of Tiber Septim’s conquest of Hammerfell in “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard,” Todd Howard and Bethesda’s upper management knew they couldn’t sit by idly and allow for history to repeat itself. They couldn’t accept hearing rejection from fans, even if it meant directly ignoring their feedback. Tunnel vision set in in the wake of more Skyrim jokes and criticism over their Creation Club microtransactions. The cancer was consuming them and the only way to heal their fracturing friendly persona and silence their critics was to get bigger, bigger than we’ve ever seen before; but at E3 2018, two decades after their initial “commercial failures,” their realization came many years too late and they didn’t snap out of their survivalist mindset in time.

Their bigger-than-we’ve-ever-seen-before came in the form of “Fallout 76”, not an ambitious venture objectively but very ambitious for Bethesda Game Studios Austin Branch, formerly known as BattleCry Studios LLC, who had never coded a project using Creation Engine, which Bethesda has been using exclusively since 2011.

But wait! say the studious fans of Bethesda. If Creation Engine has only existed since 2011, why does “Fallout 76” have bugs dating back as far as Morrowind? Creation is based off a much older engine called Gamebryo (known as NetImmerse until 2003). A much older engine that has successfully supported huge multiplayer games, most notably the critically acclaimed “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.”

If the core of Bethesda’s Creation Engine is a game engine that can create an enjoyable multiplayer experience, then why can’t “Fallout 76” do the same? Well, spread this funny honey on a biscuit, baby, because the answer is more cancer!

The fact that Bethesda has recurring bugs dating back over multiple releases suggests that, rather than taking time to address technology advancements, Bethesda’s survivalist mindset has grown upon Creation Engine like a tumor, strapping framework on top in half-baked layers, as quickly as possible, reducing the flexibility and independence of asset files into a fragile, unstable, monstrous whole.

I genuinely do not believe that Bethesda Game Studio Austin’s game developers were incompetent or lazy. Since the “Fallout 76” announcement at E3 2018, many have suspected disorganization in Bethesda’s management as they encountered a truly new set of obstacles for the first time. No one knew what “Fallout 76” would become, not the end users and certainly not the management of Bethesda Studios that for years had ignored the desperate need for ease-of-use coding with conservative couplings (files dependent on other files). They threw BGS Austin, a relatively new team that was inexperienced with designing Creation Engine worlds, into a hyped AAA release with an enormous fanbase; and what it became was an unacceptable byproduct of that insidious culture of corporate survivalism. Bethesda officials became so concerned with what the public thought of them that they never thought to check. They fixated on getting bigger than we’ve ever seen before until their creation became confused and codependent. They obfuscated what brought fans to Bethesda in Morrowind and kept them coming back through every hiccup and every rerelease: the fun to be had in exploration, immersion, and lore, but most importantly, the Vision.

Oh, what a situation Bethesda finds itself in now! Even though they’ve finally seen a backlash from setting profit margins before considering their team’s capacity, many feel this call-to-god moment has come too late. Losing the reverent trust of large portions of their fanbase, they must either find a way to fix their cancerous, bloated Creation Engine or risk losing their Bethesda aesthetic by developing a costly new engine to proceed. Bethesda knows this, and they desperately hope that no one else does because they also realized that by promising not only a decade-anticipated new “Elder Scrolls” release but a new game franchise as well, they’ve already allocated most of their resources. They can’t go back on their promises now without a complete “commercial failure” from fans already stretched thin by “Fallout 76;” now more than ever they need all hands on deck. There is little time and money left to dedicate to the enormous undertaking of designing a new game engine from scratch, much less the even more arduous task of unscrambling Creation Engine, now so distorted that their employees don’t know how to fix it anymore or they would, just to stop seeing memes about Skyrim and floating Scorched Zombies. It’s hopeless. It’s arguable that they deserve help after insulting fans with the lack of focus and attention for “Fallout 76,” multiple buggy rereleases of a buggy title from 2011, and the general sense of not understanding what made a compelling story. They do not deserve sympathy for the vague unease of having to create your own purpose, a job which Bethesda has shifted to its fans to avoid facing its fears from 20 years of trying to please everyone for their own pride and not in the spirit of their consumers.

Bethesda may not deserve our help, but many still believe that The Elder Scrolls does, that Fallout does. If you’re one of those people, there is something you can do, and it’s to ignore the cries to boycott all Bethesda products “forever.”

Bethesda owns the intellectual property to The Elder Scrolls and Fallout; and while Bethesda is an abusive, frustrated company with—seemingly—a vision of self-destruction, they do still care what you think because of their all-consuming fear of the Redguard. But ZeniMax Media owns them, even the neurotic Todd Howard, and ZeniMax Media has only ever cared about your money. You cannot refuse to agree to buy the game you want Bethesda to make and still expect it to arrive, but you can refuse to pre-order their games and indulge in microtransactions for as long as it takes. The game industry’s security and stock values are heavily dependent on fan loyalty, digital merchandise sales and pre-orders. This money gives them their security blanket in case they create “Fallout 76.” Wrapped in their blankies, the management of Bethesda and ZeniMax Media will keep their narrow vision and continue to use their development teams as bad press sponges unless they experience some genuine fear of “commercial failure.” If consumers reject their vision, they will change their vision for money; because Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.

[isitepic]

Is It Epic? Sonic Mania (Plus) Review

Sonic Mania is a pretty special game, from it’s creation story to the end product we see before us today. During the days of the Dreamcast and the days following after, there would be several attempts to recapture Sonic’s glory days on the Genesis. Though none of them quite matched the quality of those games, for many, Sonic’s handheld adventures such as the Sonic Advance trilogy would be Sonic’s only 2D games for several years.

But that’s just for official Sonic games, meanwhile, there was a steady, lively community for Sonic mods and fangames, yet again trying to recapture that Sonic 16-bit magic. While many fell flat on their face, some of them actually came quite close. Enter Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley.

Christian Whitehead, also known as the Taxman, had coded his own engine, dubbed the Retro Engine, and showed it off at SAGE of 2009. This engine would of course, be used for his pitched remake of Sonic CD. Whereas games like Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 were available on iOS at the time, they ran on rather crummy emulators. This was different. This was a complete remake from the ground up.

Enter Simon Thomley, aka Stealth, who worked on several well known Sonic fangame projects like Sonic MegaMix, and possibly most famously his own version of Sonic the Hedgehog on Gameboy Advance Hardware. Being friends with Christian, he provided his own advice on the Sonic CD remake before joining him on the remakes of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2.

After a failed pitch for a Sonic 3 and Knuckles remake, the two would not be deturred. Enter Sonic Discovery, after a lengthy meeting with Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Mania was born. After it’s reveal at San Diego Comic Con 2016, people were excited, and I was right along with them.

After a frustrating delay for the PC version and dealing with the fallout of Denuvo, many people, including myself, were completely enamored with the game. But that was a year ago, and a lot can change in a year. I’ve certainly changed a lot in the course of a year.

With the new Sonic Mania Plus DLC that was released in July of this year, the game has changed quite a bit and the hype has died down significantly. With this in mind, I figured now is as good of a time as any to sit down and really analyze Sonic Mania, especially with the new 1.4 update.

The plot of Sonic Mania is unfortunately a lot of wasted potential. After discovering a mysterious power source on Angel Island that teleports whoever it is you’re playing as to Green Hill Zone, it transforms the surrounding EggRobos into the new Hard Boiled Heavies. Through one big adventure, The Heavy King faces off with the Egg Reverie and Super Sonic. After defeating them both, a portal opens up and Sonic is sucked in, kicking off the events of Sonic Forces.

In essence, the story only exists to advertise Sonic Forces and that ends up working against it. The original story saw Dr. Robotnik falling into a deep depression after the events of Sonic 3, with the Hard Boiled Heavies taking over, but that was scrapped for reasons I’m not entirely sure of.

But story was never the drawing point of Classic Sonic the Hedgehog. While games like Sonic CD or Sonic 3 had something of a narrative, it was never the heavy focus of the game. What really sold Sonic was his gameplay, and luckily, Sonic Mania excels in that regard. What made Sonic work in the original Genesis games were his physics and level design.

The key to good Sonic level design is fluidity, keeping Sonic moving is as important and his speed itself. Take Sonic 1 for example, all the best levels in that game are filled with slopes and loop de loops that Sonic can roll around and pick up so much speed that he can outrun the screen itself. Sonic Mania keeps such design mentalities in mind, as even in more rigid levels such as Titanic Monarch, skilled players can speedrun it as easily as something like Green Hill Zone.

What’s also important is Sonic’s physics, and by extension, his momentum. This is where Sonic Mania succeeds and something like Sonic 4 fails miserably. How Sonic reacts to the terrain below him is cruical, because if he doesn’t react properly, then the game won’t function right.

Sonic Mania is the first “Classic” Sonic game since 1994 to truly feel like it understood why the Genesis trilogy was so beloved, expanding on what people liked about them in every way. That’s not to say the game is without it’s flaws, however. Some of the bosses way overstay their welcome. Hydrocity Zone Act 2 in particular can really feel like a slog, being two full bosses back to back. Metal Sonic also can be a bit of a drag, but thankfully in the recent 1.4 update, it’s been updated to be slightly more forgiving, adding a checkpoint right before the final phase, which has also been updated quite significantly.

Some of the levels in general can also go on for a really, really long time, and that’s especially a bit of a problem when the save system saves only by Zone and not by Act. What’s especially strange about this is that the Sonic Advance trilogy, Sonic Rush games, and the Sonic 1, 2 and CD remakes all had this figured out, save by Act, and those levels are significantly smaller than those found in Sonic Mania. If I stop playing at Mirage Saloon Act 2, I shold, at the very least, be able to pick it back up again at Mirage Saloon Act 2.

While it’s nice to see the Elemental Shields get some more creative usage, they don’t really get enough of that creative usage. I mean, yeah setting fire to Oil Ocean Zone is pretty cool, and yeah, sticking to the ceilling in Flying Battery Zone is a pretty creative idea, but aside from setting fire to a bridge here or there in Green Hill Zone, that’s kind of it.

Sonic Mania also got paid DLC in the form of Sonic Mania Plus, adding two new characters, Mighty and Ray. It also adds some new Bonus Stages, new Special Stage layouts and a brand new Encore Mode, with new stage color palletes and slightly altered stage layouts. But that’s the operative word: slightly. Mighty is essentially the easy mode of this game, with a ground pound that can destroy certain objects and occasionally lead to different paths, and his shell protects him from certain dangers. Ray is essentially Super Mario World’s Cape Mario in the form of a Sonic the Hedgehog character, allowing him to glide over large distances.

The new level layouts don’t really lend themselves well to the new character’s abilities. By and large, aside from different entity placement, the levels are basically identical. The Special Stages have also seen a significant overhaul, with all new, much more difficult to find Warp Ring placement, the Special Stage design aesthetics going in reverse and being BRUTALLY unforgiving. One slip up, and at that point you may as well throw yourself off the track because you aren’t getting the Emerald.

The only reason I got all the Emeralds in my playthrough of Encore mode is, what I assume was a Debug feature left in the PC version by mistake that allowed you to instantly go up a speed level and the press of a button.

But as cool as it is to see these characters return after over 22 years of absence, and as fun as they are to play, these levels aren’t entirely built around these characters’ abilities. We have fewer Warp Rings and those are moved around quite substanstially, and we have a lot more harsh enemy placement, but that’s all, really.

To be completely honest, I am beyond the point of burnout with Sonic Mania. With over 100 hours on record, gathering all the footage for the video review and getting 100% clear on all files in Encore Mode, I am Mania’d out. I am taking a long, long break from Sonic games until Team Sonic Racing comes out.

Though I sound pretty negative in this review, don’t take that the wrong way; Sonic Mania is a gorgeous, beautiful game that serves as a love letter to fans of Classic Sonic. While not a perfect game, for the first time in many years, we finally have a worthy followup to Sonic’s adventures on the Genesis. If you fell in love with the potbellied hedgehog like I did, Sonic Mania serves as a beautiful reminder of why Sonic set the world on fire.

[bobbyshaddoe80]

Liberated Audio Reviews

Blake's 7 - The Liberator Chronicles Vol. 3

RELEASED FEBRUARY 2013

Recorded on: 9, 11 and 13 July 2012

Recorded at: Moat Studios

Review By Robert L. Torres

The Armageddon Storm by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott

'Del Grant, mercenary. Kerr Avon, freedom fighter.

Former friends. Former enemies. Linked forever thanks to Grant's sister, the woman Avon loved. The woman Avon killed.

Now their paths cross again. Grant has learnt of the existence of the Armageddon Storm, a terrifying new Federation superweapon.

Avon finds himself in a race against time, with his crew's lives hanging in the balance. But what will Grant do when he finds out about the blood on Avon's hands?'

First I have to say that this was a very impressive effort by Wright and Scott to push the boundaries of the narrated audiobook format by telling one large story split into three parts with three narrators instead of three individual stories with their own narrator. It does showcase very early on what Big Finish were pushing for as an example of the sort of serialized storytelling they would do for Blake's 7 once they started making full cast audio dramas.

With that being said, I still have mixed feelings about it and I shall explain why.

One of my problems with this release is that it should have been done as a full cast audio drama. It is far too epic in scope to be relegated to a narrated audiobook.

I appreciate the Liberator Chronicles as they serve as a means to provide insight into the thoughts and feelings of these beloved characters from this beloved series. That's all well and good provided the story has one character as a central focus/narrator.... this story has three: Avon, Cally and Vila. In addition, this story features the return of Del Grant from the Series B episode 'Countdown', once again played by Tom Chadbon.

The return of Del Grant is actually rather nice especially given the story is set after the events of 'Rumours of Death' from Series C, and Avon is still dealing with the personal fallout of those events. The interactions between Avon and Grant is a great highlight as it nicely recreates their tense working relationship as seen in 'Countdown'. Here though, the story allows the relationship between them to evolve and move forward.

The back and forth dynamic between them does sort of recreate a similar dynamic that existed between Blake and Avon, something that was often a highlight of the first two seasons (and was greatly missed during the latter two seasons).

The fact that Grant was brought back to interact with the Series C Liberator crew works rather nicely, and kudos to Chadbon for being able to slip effortlessly back into a role he played once 40 years ago. Credit also goes to Wright and Scott for allowing the Del Grant character to evolve beyond his single episode appearance while also recapturing personality: he is charming, focused, talented and a great asset to the resistance movement.

I'm pretty sure the Grant character was kept in mind once BF started making full cast audios set during Series C, but had not yet decided to recast the role of Dayna.

Anyway, the stuff during part two with Cally and Vila was pretty cool especially as Cally finds herself bonding with the rebels of Shorlan in a way she only ever experienced with her own people. This is significant as this story also takes place not long after the events of 'Children of Auron'.

We don't really get much in terms of Vila development, but we do get another example of the lengths the Federation are willing to go in order to keep their empire from collapsing in the aftermath of the Galactic War. This is greatly represented by the titular Armageddon Storm.

Doomsday weapons in reality are horrifying to think about, as our own history is full of examples of the devastating impact to life and property such weapons cause once they are deployed. This is why fiction writers find it a lot of fun to create even more terrifyingly devastating doomsday weapons for their stories. The Death Star ring any bells?

I can't talk about what the Armageddon Storm actually does to the planet Shorlan, but it definitely lives up to its name. The way it is depicted within the story is well worth the purchase.

We do get some great insight into Avon's doubts and uncertainties regarding his leadership skills, and kudos to the late Paul Darrow for allowing us to see some cracks in Avon's dispassionate shell. Kudos also to Wright and Scott for creating some retroactive foreshadowing here.

Avon's actions during this story tie in nicely to what was already established during Series C and throughout much of Series D... that the logical and unfeeling Avon would take bigger and bigger risks for very little reward, and in the process make more and more mistakes. Mistakes that would inevitably lead him to the events of Terminal... And all the way to Gauda Prime.

But we already know that story... Don't we?

Final score for Liberator Chronicles Vol. 3 in its entirety is 8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts.

It is definitely a flawed favorite, because as much as I love the epic scope of the expanded story, the first person narration began to grate quite a bit by part three. Had this just been a full cast audio drama, those issues would probably have been eliminated.

Still, this boxset is an absolutely essential part of the Blake's 7 narrative being weaved by Big Finish Productions. Trust me, these events will be brought up again in future audios... Probably when you least expect it.

[officialclaricestarling]

fallout: new vegas oc sheet for my beloved ex-ranger novak & her ghoul wife below, y’all are free to ignore or read these as you please, i’m just posting for tagging reference

Full Name: Novak Thaxton Nicknames: Courier, Courier Six Age: 55 Birthday: December 11th, 2222   Height: 5’11” Eyes: Blue (hazy with cataracs now) Hair: Salt and pepper, public defender Complexion: Sunburnt (no matter how much sunscreen she wears) Ethnicity: White Body Type: Soft S.P.E.C.I.A.L: S 8 / P 6 / E 6 / C 5 / I 3 / A 6 / L 6 Alignment: Neutral good

Pre-Game Status: Courier for the Mojave Express, former Desert Ranger, former NCR Veteran Ranger Post-Game Status: NCR Veteran Ranger (honorary reinstatement)

Relationship Status: Married (34 years) Spouse: Ida Thaxton (70, ghoul, they run a small homestead together out near Zion, Ida’s a baker and an adept gardener while Novak tends to the brahmin and makes some extra caps as pest control/mail delivery) Sexuality: Lesbian Gender: Female

Languages: English, middling Spanish

Religion: None

Family:

Ida Thaxton (spouse, ghoul, age 70)

Bill Thaxton (father, deceased when Novak was 12)

Florinda Thaxton (mother, deceased when Novak was 32)

Norma (adopted daughter, age 25)

Flora (adopted daughter, age 19)

Mac (adopted son, age 17)

Jack (adopted son, ghoul, age 45/technically 9)

Monroe (granddaughter, Norma’s baby, age 2)

Pets: ED-E, Rex

Injuries/Addictions: General age. Scars: Right forehead temple (Benny’s headshot), on back and minor on face (Old World Blues), left arm slash from a nasty encounter with a Deathclaw at 29 Make-Up: Unless homemade sunscreen that Ida mixes for her counts, none Clothing: Veteran Ranger Uniform when she’s working, or the ranger vest outfit if she’s not. She doesn’t often wear the helmet aside from combat situations, though.

Lifestyle: Prior to Benny shooting her in the head, she had a pretty sedate lifestyle, living with her ghoul wife on a ranch homestead near Zion Canyon where she took care of the brahmin and ran packages for the Mojave Express as a specialty courier (specialty here meaning a delivery that they felt needed an ex-ranger to handle). When she’d been a Ranger, she had a reputation as one of the best, and occasionally she pulls out the old helmet and Sequoia if there’s trouble in town.

Affiliations: New California Republic, NCR Rangers, Vegas, Freeside, the Kings, Boomers, Enclave Remnants, Followers of the Apocalypse Former Affiliations: Desert Rangers Neutral Affiliations: Brotherhood of Steel Enemy Groups: The Legion, raiders

Friends: Arcade Gannon, Boone, Veronica, Christine, Lilly, Raul, Cass, The King, Beatrix Acquaintances: Ranger Stella (a deep respect, because Stella straight-up bare-handed fought a Centurion and Novak had been worried merging with the NCR would kill the high standards set for the Rangers), Ranger Ghost, Col. Moore, etc Enemies: Any given member of the Legion, Mr. House, Benny, Van Graffs

Weapon(s) of Choice: Ranger Sequoia or an anti-material rifle

Strengths: High survival abilities from years with the Rangers, and a ton of experience from it too. Good instincts and a lot of common sense. She’s not the smartest but she’s durable. Cares a lot about people and wants them to succeed. Made peace with the NCR, and believes they are the best choice for the future--she’s willing to compromise. Also, she has no fear of radiation and is going to end up a ghoul like her wife. She can drink Cass under the table. Flaws: No fear of radiation, much to Arcade’s dismay. Also pretty low intelligence, and she is willing to compromise, which a lot of people view as weakness.

Likes: Her wife, their homestead. Warm weather and sunshine. Cactus flowers. A cold beer on the porch that she built, sitting next to her wife. Watching her children grow up into happy adults. Taking care of the future generations and leaving this world a better place. Helping out. Listening to The Four Seasons. The holiday season, and giving gifts. Making people smile. Dislikes: Snow. Wet socks, hot rain. Having to pressure people into doing things. Lying, for the most part. Bugs. Molerat chunks, but she’ll eat them if Ida makes them. Hates: Liars and cheats. People turning their back on people trying to help. Feeling helpless. Chem addiction. Favorite Color: Red Favorite Food: Ida’s homemade tortillas and grilled brahmin steak with jalapenos                                                        Favorite Drink: A cold beer or a Sunset Sarsaparilla with tequila  Favorite Snacks: Fancy Lads snack cakes

Random Facts:

She built most of their house herself to impress her new wife.

Raul is one of her best friends, and someone she travels with frequently even after the NCR takes Vegas. He didn’t believe she’d married a ghoul until she showed him one of her most prized possessions: a photograph from their wedding (he argued it was because he couldn’t believe anyone would want to marry her if they had any other options, not because he didn’t think a ghoul and a smoothskin could work as a couple)

Prior to discovering the Big MT, she was functionally blind (glasses helped some, but the riot gear helmet was the only thing that really did anything for her). She lost her sight from cataracts that developed when she was 35, but she kept on going (it just made her more legendary). The Auto-Doc in the Sink managed to give her back most of her vision (she’s still nearsighted, though), but her eyes still look cloudy, even if she can see.

The merge between the Rangers had nothing to do with her retirement, though she begrudgingly admitted that she’d been worried the NCR Rangers were gonna bring down that historic title of Desert Ranger with disgrace, but they turned out to be just as tough as any of the old guard (of which Novak is one of the last)

Her name came from a book that her father used to read, it was the last name of one of the characters.

She knew the Survivalist back when he was a Ranger

Her family has always had Rangers in it--her father, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, great-grandfather... She can trace her lineage in the Rangers back to the Great War, and likely even further.

She met Ida when she was 20 in a saloon in one of the villages outside Zion Canyon, where Ida was tending bar and Novak was posted as a freshly-minted Desert Ranger. Ida didn’t believe Novak was genuinely interested in a ghoul, but Novak was persistent and got Ida to agree to a night out. They got married a year later and lived in a motel-turned-apartments for half a year while Novak rebuilt/renovated a homestead for her wife.

Ida and Novak never formally intended to adopt any children, but kids who needed homes kept appearing, and neither of them were cruel enough to turn away someone who needed their help (and, Novak argued, they had plenty of space in their home, they could share). Now they have a grandkid who calls Novak Nana and Ida Abuela.

She’s Soft

Most of her backstory was ripped from “Sundown” by Marty Robbins

[yoongihime]

Down for You

OC x Boyfriend!Yoongi Length: 2.0k (aka not a drabble dammit)  Type: Three Word Drabble... Cloudy with a chance of Fluff  Recommended OST: (x) or (x)  (a/n): FOR @an-exotic-writer BC YOONGI AND RAIN AND YEAH ILY 

Summary: Tired Yoongi is a grumpy Yoongi. He says things he doesn’t mean sometimes, but it’s a good thing he’ll always have people to push him back towards the right direction aka back to you <3 

Prompt request by anon: harsh, tears, comfort 

001. Harsh

Looking back on it, you should have known it would happen eventually. The second law of thermodynamics states that the universe is continuously increasing in entropy, which basically means just means that we’re inclined to be messy and imperfect. It’s human nature. Usually, that would have worked out fine, you and Yoongi have flaws and fallouts, but eventually you’ll end up finding your ways back to each other again. Except this time, you can feel the tension that’s etched into the crinkles between his eyebrows and the heaviness of his eyes as he struggles to stay awake long enough to export his newest piece of music.

“Yoongi, you should take a nap.” you sigh, resting both hands on his shoulders and peeking over at the program that’s running on his desktop, the oscillating lines conveying notes and sounds you can’t understand. Funny, the program isn’t the only thing you can’t seem to understand.  

“In a minute.” he murmurs halfheartedly, his gaze glued to the screen and shoulders moving to shrug off your hands. You feel a dull ache at the action, but disregard it, choosing instead to plop on the sofa behind his oversized armchair, studying his slouched form and the cold, illuminated screen.

Why is it that five feet of distance— probably less— can make you feel so lonely? Oh that’s right, because twenty four hours ago he was thousands of miles away, off doing what he loves. Now that’s he back, he’s as stressed as ever, the bags under his eyes so heavy they probably make him slouch. The thought makes you sigh loudly and like a domino effect, Yoongi returns the sigh with a loud grumble.

“Just go to sleep (y/n). I didn’t ask you to stay up with me.”

You glance at the clock, 3:08a.m god it’s almost dawn you realize but you give him a sleepy smile and assure him that you’re fine with it.

“Please? I will concentrate better and it’s annoying to lift you all the way to the bedroom.”

Oh.

“I’m sorry I’m a burden.” you mumble, words as quiet and lethal as the thoughts swarming through your head but he heard it, of course he did.

“I should have stayed at the dorm.”

Ouch. Yep, he definitely heard it.

The bed feels colder that night, the soothing comforter now a bed of needles; each sting of your thoughts causing you to toss and turn until you eventually drift into a fitful night of sleep. Yoongi is not there in the morning, causing the pang to return before you even have the chance to brush off the lingering drowsiness. Well, two can play at this game Min Yoongi.

002. Tears

Equilibrium is a strange occurrence, one wrong move and it’s disrupted, pushed towards imbalance. As it turns out, two can play at this game but ultimately you’re just not cut out for it. Everything about this situation irked you, from the empty “Good Mornings” all the way to the absence of “Good Night’s”, the lingering looks and the tight lipped smiles—you’re going crazy. Perhaps what pushes you towards the breaking point everyday is Yoongi’s nonchalance. He’s the picture of perfect calmness, a boat drifting along the stream, a glasslike surface of water, pristine in his unwavering perfection.  However, what you don’t know is it only takes one more drop of water to disrupt the tranquil surface.

Min Yoongi is not a confrontation type of guy. In fact, he’s more of a  why-should-I-give-a-shit type of guy, but when it comes to you he’s a wreck. After a solid ten plus hours of sleep, he comes to the conclusion that he’s fucked up….again. This isn’t the first time that his actions caused you to chide away from him but this is the first time that you’ve ever lasted this long without talking to him about it and the fear is eating him up from the inside out. You’re his precious home and the fact that he was the one to hurt you only augmented the guilt-ridden voices in his head tenfold. So he does the only thing he can think of at that moment—he runs.

“Okay hyung, that was the eleventh copy of the mix you’ve thrown out. You’re either going to tell me what’s wrong or I’m seriously going to have to reconsider my skill as a songwriter.” Namjoon groans as he stretches his aching muscles.

Namjoon knew something was up the moment Yoongi barged into his studio at 1a.m. claiming he wanted to “work” but all Namjoon heard was that he wanted a distraction. Amused and intrigued, Namjoon allows Yoongi to pull a plush leather chair into his monochrome work space and began to work. As expected, Yoongi was restless, sheets after sheets strewn down on Namjoon’s dingy grey carpet and curses started to drift from the elder’s lips when the notes in his head are as messy as his thoughts. Exasperated, Namjoon told him to stop and now watches diligently and waits for his hyung’s confessions.

“I— umm… (y/n)..” Yoongi mumbles, his head making a dull thud against the wood of the work desk and Namjoon smiles knowingly. He was never too good at telling people these things.

“Okay, since you seem to be having a little trouble, why don’t I take a completely wild guess and say you had a disagreement with (y/n) and you two are playing the little Game of Silence again?”

Yoongi lifts his head, his cheeks flushing as a result of Namjoon’s all too accurate guess, realizing with shame that this must not be the first time he’s done this.

“And if I may, I would say that you probably said something you didn’t mean— you tend to do that a lot— and she was obviously hurt and now you’re wallowing in self-pity because you’re just being you and overthinking things again.”

Yoongi heaves a breath to inquire exactly how many times he has done this but not before-

“So how many times will I have to tell you that she loves you and is waiting for you right now?”

It’s as if the key was twisted in a lock—a satisfying click of realization struck Yoongi and he’s gathering his things, hollering where his keys are but not before patting Namjoon on the back and shouting his thank’s and bye’s.

“It doesn’t matter how many times hyung, what matters is that it’s not the last!” Namjoon yells after Yoongi’s retreating form, jotting that line down because somehow he thinks another song will blossom after this is resolved—buds blooming after the rain.  

Rain pelts against the window sill, a soft patter that makes your heartache because this is when you would curl up next to Yoongi, rambling on and on about how you think the rain makes for a perfect lyric writing weather. A cold chill creeps up along your spine, so you rummage through your shared closet to land on his beloved black sweater. Tugging it on, you can smell a trace of his mint gum and cologne on the cloth, the scent so uniquely Yoongi that it hits you in the gut with a sense of longing. Missing him doesn’t seem like an action but simply a perpetual state of being you’ve found yourself in. Melting into the sofa, you will your body to relax, but the setting only makes you visualize him laying behind you; messy writing scrawled on the parchment of his journal, arms circled firmly around your torso.

A resounding click pulls you out of your melancholic thoughts and for a split second you tense, expecting a stranger to step through the door, but of course it’s Yoongi. I’d rather take on a stranger you sigh internally before you hoist yourself from the couch, the embers of hurt already beginning to reignite with the sight of him, so you escape before the unwelcome tears could come. You turned around so fast that you missed the hurt reflected in his eyes and his perfect facade cracking as he lengthens his steps so he can lock you in place with his arms.

“Let go, Yoongi.” your voice shakes, your heart leaps with elation from his proximity but the poisonous thoughts remain you’re a burden, they whisper. His arms are too restrictive, they encase you with those thoughts and reruns of his hurtful words. There’s no where to escape when you can feel his hurried breaths against the nape of your neck and his hair brushing against your cheek and you want so desperately to just relax in his arms.  

“After a week those are the first words you say to me.” his voice is gruff, harsh breathing like he just ran a marathon, the octaves low and gravely which only happens when he’s laden with emotion.

How unfair, you thought as you let yourself close your eyes for a second, sinking into the sense of familiarity and that’s when you realize that those treacherous tears have already escaped past your eyelashes. He seems to be just as affected, tightening his hold around your body and pressing his lips against the shell of your ear.

“I suppose I deserve it.” he whispers against your temple, his lips wet with the unwanted tears.

Min Yoongi rarely cries.

003. Comfort

That’s the exact moment you whip around in his arms, meeting his downcast eyes that are now wide with surprise and his tear stained cheeks. Cold fingers grip your waist and in turn your hands lift to frame his face, pushing away the stray strands of his ebony locks that are covering his shiny eyes.

“No Yoongi, you don’t get to say that.” you chastise, no matter how upset you are with him he should never think he deserves anything less from you.

You swipe at his tears, happy to see that they’ve halted and lookup to meet his eyes—raven orbs filled with as many conflicted emotions as the constellations strewn across the sky— as you try to decipher his words.

“I made you feel like you were a burden.” he breaks the eye contact, hanging his head low in shame because even he himself couldn’t believe he said such a thing.

“It’s o—“ you begin, but he shushes you with a slender finger against your lips.

“Don’t you fucking dare say it’s okay.” he growls, his other hand tightening behind your back, pressing you ever closer to him, as if the lack of distance will make up for the time he spent apart.

“You’re too good to me and don’t you dare forget that.”

“Okay Yoongi, I forgive you.” you allow yourself to melt into his frame, leaning closer to his face that your hands are still framing and letting your lips brush against his, “I missed you.”

He whines when you press a too quick kiss on his mouth, his lips chasing yours after you pull away, making you laugh at his kicked puppy expression when you step out of his arms.

“Well I don’t suppose you missed me that much. You’re so used to being apart after all.” you jest but his expression darkens, as he chases after you until he has you pinned underneath him-

“I missed you more than you know,” he captures your lips with his, his tongue swiping mischievously on the seam of your lower lip, nipping at the flesh, “but the extent to which I love you, I’ll make sure to remind you of it every second of every day.”

“You’re cheesy.”

“You love it.” he grumbles, blushing once again because yeah he is quite the poet when it comes to his muse.

Yoongi holds you close, until both of you are too tired to stay awake, the vacant spot on the bed finally filled with it’s usual occupants.

.

.

.

“Yoongi hyung is going to turn into the Taylor Swift of Bangtan” Jimin murmurs to Namjoon after Yoongi stormed off that night.

“God I hope not, then I’ll have to make them fight every time he’s uninspired.”

“There are other types of inspiration.” Taehyung suggests from across the room with a saucy wink and Namjoon aggressively crosses off Sexy Concept off the list because if there’s one thing that’s TMI between him and Yoongi it would be what goes on behind the “Do Not Disturb” sign.