#fallout critical

[deacons-wig]

I'd prefer if we never got to see the origin of Vault Boy and Vault Tec's branding in the same way I'd rather not get a canon answer of who started the War or how. That's the point of War Never Changes.

Vault Boy is a sinister figure in his cheerful embrace of Armageddon. Giving the Vault Tec brand a face and a name and a backstory feels so unimportant to what is actually interesting about Fallout. What's important to me is the big picture pre war, and the details of what comes after.

What is interesting to me is exploring how propaganda is designed to convince people how close they are to annihilation--or homelessness, unemployment, obscurity, or being The Other and therefore destined to suffer--in hell, in oppressions, being ostracized. Honestly insert any sort of marginalization or suffering here. Crony capitalism uses propaganda to market products designed to manipulate people into buying distance between themselves and that annihilation. Putting themselves "behind the thumb" of Vault Boy, so to speak. Buying a lifestyle. Vault Boy does it with a wink and a smile, inviting those who can afford it to buy their way to safety while using capital and fear to perpetuate the cycle. I don't need the specifics to understand this.

Some ghoulnaysis below the cut:

I'll admit, my initial reaction to pre-war Ghoulgins being the inspiration for Vault Boy was funny! Mr. Cooper Howard, washed up actor experiencing an existential crisis being shoehorned into corporate propaganda that then haunts him for the next 200+ years? Selling manifest destiny, racism, the Rugged Individual, the revisionist history that cowboys were a) white and b) more than a brief footnote in the history of the colonization of North America's west. The commodification of entertainers/creatives/public figures. Selling identities to be packaged into a product that will outlive them? Only to have that person live alongside that role they regret (?) playing... kinda tasty, if we have to give Vault Boy a backstory, though I didn't get a clear sense of his actual feelings about being used as a propaganda guy which I think is a failure of the show to commit to the narrative they set up, which happens with a lot of the show's (lack of) engagement with Fallout's larger themes anyway.

But The Ghoul (stupid name!!! weird and boring choice!!!) is just such an uncompelling and repellent character to me. I love a good bad guy or even anti-hero, but honestly he lacks any interiority. He's an evil karma character (eats people, waterboards and mutilates people, sells people to organ harvesters...like? that literally makes you evil in the games...) but the narrative pushes him as an antihero or someone with gray morality because he what..."likes" dogs? And isn't as decayed or unsettling looking as other ghouls (implying handsome=good or interesting). People aren't afraid of him because he is a ghoul, they're afraid of him because he's evil and will hurt them! Sometimes for no reason! I see the callback to the director telling him to shoot his co-star and Cooper saying he's "the good guy," but is that why he becomes so fucking evil post war? Really?

I don't know why he does what he does other than...the world sucked before and sucks now so he might as well represent the basest of human behavior? That seems to be the thesis of the show--unless kindness and community is engendered (by the vaults, by Management, by a civic government, by corporations) people will descend into chaos.

So why have this poorly executed anti-hero be the origin of Vault Boy? What are the narrative choices being made here? Is it just Rule of Cool?

Personally I would like a pathetic, rotting wet cat of a ghoul, some sort of carved out husk of a washed up movie star either trying to relive his glory days, or avoid them--having given up hope of finding his family after 200 years--being dragged into Lucy's orbit and being constantly reminded of his Vault Boy fame, that she is a walking Vault Girl with her Okey Dokey's and Golden Rule. He'd be a joke, a footnote of the old world. He'd be mean and snarky, even unpredictable and uncooperative--have a public persona of friendly curiosity and a private, cynical one.

Pathetic Ghoulgins would remind audiences of the cost of capitalism and imperialism without resorting to the thesis that war never changes means that people are inherently cruel and will resort to violence, rather than existent corporate and political power structures intentionally create the conditions in which people accept perpetual cycles of exploitation and harm for the sake of their own safety and comfort, despite knowing the cost of maintaining the status quo, and not seeing or believing that distance between the status quo and total annihilation is measured by the smiling thumbs up of a cartoon mascot.

I'm sure there are other ways The Ghoul could have been a successful character as well but.... That's satire. That's interesting. That's Fallout.

[technoturian]

Okay, I have to rant about the one thing about the Fallout show I just hated.

The Ghoul.

I'm sorry, I think he is the weakest character in this whole series. Believe me, it pains me to say it. When I saw in the trailer I was like, "Oh yes, a clever and charismatic, morally ambiguous rascal". I was expecting Boyd Crowder. I got a busted up Punisher/Deadpool mashup who stands out in the open, runs his mouth, then survives every scene only because every other character is made an idiot who can't shoot straight and is forced by the narrative to stand there dumbly, a captive audience to his monologues. His plot armor is ridiculous. He's just terribly written in my opinion.

Were it not for his screentime, his top billing and his flashbacks, he would just be a cartoonish secondary antagonist.

The thing about a good anti-hero/villain/whathaveyou is not knowing what they're going to do in any situation. I knew exactly what he was going to do every single time. Run his mouth, murder everyone in the scene, smirk, repeat. He's not morally gray. He's not complicated. He's not interesting.

And, I'll say something even more controversial, I don't even think he's that well written in his past life. Although I *did* enjoy the flashbacks leagues more than I did his post-apocalyptic self, he was kind of a plot device to get to their VaultTec conspiracy story more than he was a compelling character.

Also, his one funny line was the one in the trailer. I said it.

[selfish-solace]

i have to say it’s kind of funny seeing people reblog my poorly made fo4 essay after the show came back. welcome back haters. If anyone’s curious about my thoughts on the tv show, it’s not my thing. i don’t really like it. i think the props department and the set people did a fantastic job but i think all the problems ive pointed out about fo4 carry into it heavily. and everything about like. everything. I don’t like the brotherhood as a milita, and it’s. Weird. To see west coast brotherhood portrayed as that.

to be clear, i have not finished the show nor do i plan on finishing it. i got about halfway through and im not going to hold the parts I haven’t seen against it. for the purposes of this rant, pretend that all you’ve seen is 4 episodes. act like this is still cable. and don’t get fucking weird about the fact I decided I wasn’t into it and dropped it. i don’t care if you personally think these issues are fixed by the end of the show.

ive always been an insane fallout conspiracy theorist and i was expecting to at least get super mad about the lore but im just. kind of apathetic. i think personally, that it’s fucking baffling that they decided to make their one main black character . like that. Maximus is like, constantly failing or being incredibly cruel to another person. like, when he put a razor into his only friends shoe for no reason other then social clout. i don’t know if they considered the optics of making the entirety of the brotherhood horrifically abuse the only black character because i genuinely believed for like the first three episodes that there was going to be some kind of “this brotherhood is racist” reveal, but no. I don’t think they thought about that. i don’t think they thought about much, to be honest. it feels like every new bit of information we get has to be delivered to us in the most unsubtle of ways. And that makes it boring to me. i don’t like how there’s essentially nobody normal in the wasteland except Lucy, because like. that’s really never been the case.

yeah, sure, there’s a bit of cruelty in everyone in fallout. that’s how this world works. But this show beats you over the head with the conclusion that everyone must be not trusted and everyone is to be feared and the wasteland really has fallen into complete anarchy. i think the complete destruction of shady sands and the ncr is a direct concequence of that choice. bethesda fallouts are kind of stuck in the old world apocalypse, and i just. think that’s kind of boring. the whole fantasy of fallout is seeing how things can change, and it feels like sometimes Bethesda takes “war never changes” too literally. like yeah. but that’s not what the quote means. it’s about how conflict is always the same, not how the world around it stays the same always. i also just think the fact there’s really nothing new or original to explore here is .. boring.

Quite frankly, im tired of the brotherhood. Im tired of the ncr. Im tired of the “find your family” plot. Im tired of the enclave. there’s nothing to mix up the formula. and im sorry, but i think the characters are boring too. i think that Walton goggins ghoul is not very interesting. I think Lucy’s arc is just. kind of predictable. because she’s literally just doing what people tell her with a kindness twist. fallouts always had these cool ass side characters, like, every dlc character from new Vegas. obviously it’s hard to translate that into a show, but who’s favorite is going to be the weird old lady? who’s honestly going to be interested in the horny farmers plight? does anyone care about that guy maximus was friends with? every character just falls flat for me. and that’s why i dropped it. because the new things it brings are just.. boring. and the things they keep the same are boring too. Genuinely, i had a better time watching the resident evil netflix show. at least that was interesting. I don’t care if you like it. I don’t think you’re a bad person for liking it. I get why. I just didn’t. be respectful in the notes please.

[eilistraeees]

That post going around which says something like "people being surprised that bos is shitty and abusive in the f*allout show, did you even play the games"

Did you? Did you play the og games? Heck, did you even play fallout 3, new vegas or 4? Did you ever once encounter the brotherhood branding their members, abusing them for no reason, acting like catholic priests? Did you ever once see a brotherhood knight fleeing from combat and abandoning a fellow member of the brotherhood? Did you once encounter a bos knight who essentially side-tracked his mission because he "really wanted to shoot something" No. Because that did not happen in the games.

The brotherhood of steel are assholes yes, but only to outsiders and they value their members.

[anneapocalypse]

I think Operation Anchorage has officially eclipsed Mothership Zeta as my most hated Fallout 3 DLC.

The first time I tried playing Zeta on console I couldn't even get through it because of how bad the visuals hurt my eyes (which I think I'll probably be able to adjust for better on PC), but I eventually got through it and the story grew on me a bit, whereas I think next time I replay I will just skip Anchorage altogether because it's so Not Fun for multiple reasons.

[cheekios]

Glasses Machine Broke.

I am legally blind and my prescription is extremely expensive. I have to use glasses to drive and work. My lenses are thick and it costs extra to thin them out. Diabetes took my eyesight. Even if I was to raise this money today it would take a week to get them. So please be mindful this is an urgent request.

Goal: $400

CA: $HushEmu

PP: emuslayter@gmail.com

[vinndas]

the two worst and irredeemable men make each other miserable for years and make it everyone elses problem, hundreds dead, a courier struggling

[psykersomatic]

[chimaerakid]

(possible) final draft for my arcade charm! I want it to be double sided :) I'm also thinking about making it into a sticker design as well.

please please please give some feedback if you have any! I've never made physical merch before & I'm planning on using vograce to get them made ^_^

EDIT: Here's the final design!! also read the tags in that post for some extra info :-)

[fjorests-of-wildemount]

Orym is so depressed he can infect other people with it now (aka cast Hex)

[deacons-wig]

Todd Howard, possessed by the spirit of Vault Boy: You know boys, I think what would really make this story pop is giving the cartoon mascot of disaster capitalism a backstory

[sharkfight32]

omg its percy

[slocumjoe]

Biggest complaints about each companion

Warning, reference to in-game dark subject matter.

This is subjective and mostly me wishing for a more thoughtful story, with themes beyond robot racism.

Cait: TDLR; Her backstory is too much for how it's handled

It feels like Cait got thrown every bad thing she could have. With trauma in characters, less is more, and in Cait's case, it doesn't help that her writing is more interested in her trauma than who she is as a person. Like Cait only matters as a character because of what she went through and what that demonstrates about the wasteland, rather being a person first.

I would like to point out, her parents waited until she was 18 to sell her. Because, apparently, age of consent matters to sex slavers. It demonstrates a lack of commitment to the dark topic, which usually means you should tone it down. Leave one aspect, and keep the other. Abusive parents or slavery, not both.

Since Cait is our only basegame raider companion, you could use her to humanize raiders by showing how the cycle of trauma creates them. "But Gage—" is a little bitch.

Codsworth: TDLR; Focuses too much on his pre-war relationship to the player

What was Codsworth doing those 200 years? Did he just hang out in Sanctuary? Did no one ever come to Sanctuary in the meantime? Codsworth has no relation to the plot or world beyond Sole.

I think Codsworth should have had a quest about how he went out and tried to help where he could, but now doesn't know where those people are, and wants to know what became of them. Something to give Codsworth a connection to the wasteland. Or maybe Codsworth shouldn't have been the Sole Surivor's robot at all, just one that wandered into Sanctuary and met them. Then you could have a point that the first human the Sole saw after freezing (Kellogg) was cruel, but the first 'soulless' machine was kind, which makes a point about the main plot and the idea that being human doesn't make you 'human.'

Curie: TDLR; Should have been related directly to the main plot

Curie is a robot that is put inside a synth—which is, biologically, completely human in all but a chip in their head and the circumstances of their creation—and is totally fine. She learns to breathe, gets thoughts and feelings in a way a Ms. Nanny wouldn't, and handles sensations without bricking.

Send this bitch to the Institute and BOS, are you kidding me? Curie is walking proof of synths being more than machines. She has wants, imagination, potentially even dreams and nightmares. This is never brought up by anyone.

Also, Curie is a robot, and then inhuman, but still a person, and she uses science and her compassion to help the wasteland, where those who would destroy or enslave her use it to further their own egos.

Danse: TDLR; MAKE HIM SAY SORRY TO NICK AND HANCOCK

Danse's real character arc starts at his final affinity post BB, and then it doesn't go anywhere. He never learns to accept himself, or synths, or ghouls. Danse is a character that shows the terrible function of 4 Affinity Talks, because he needs, like, 10 of the things.

Danse needed his likes/dislikes updated after BB, interactions with Nick and Hancock, and a proper character arc where he unlearns his worst traits and the BOS's bullshit.

Deacon: TDLR; Dead wife? Really?

Can Deacon not just be a goofball man who used to be a bigot, and now works hard to help the people he hurt? Because Barbara and her death implies that Deacon didn't change because it was the right thing to do, but because bigotry personally affected him.

If there must be a death, make it that his community tore itself apart trying to find synths among them. Y'know, like...a witch hunt? In Salem, maybe? Since we didn't do anything interesting with Salem, one of the most interesting places in the USA? Deacon sees this and sees that it doesn't matter if synths are human or not, hatred will inevitably hurt anyone, because it doesn't actually care who you are. Hatred doesn't need a reason, only a target. The Synth plot should have been an allegory for McCarthyism instead of slavery, change my mind.

Hancock: TDLR; He's a historical LARPER that doesn't do anything in terms of a narrative.

No, Todd. You can't make John Hancock a ghoul and call it an OC.

Hancock could have had a story about identity crisis, idolatry, and trying to escape your past. We also get hints at a complex political issue in Goodneighbor about the push-and-pull between the desire for total freedom/anarchy, but the need for some kind of law and order. Hancock has a casual friendliness, and acts like 'one of the people,' but he is the mayor. There's tension there. Can your leader be your friend? Can your friend call all the shots while still being on equal footing with you? Can you lead a group of people who look up to you as a hero, and still retain modesty and not subconsciously separate yourself?

I like Hancock, he's fun, he has a lot of interesting narrative stuff. But he doesn't do anything with it. It could have been a nice parallel with Elder Maxson, too.

MacCready: TDLR; Small inconsistencies + dude, go get your son???

Mac doesn't ever go back to Duncan, and Duncan never comes to the Commonwealth. I understand that the former is for game play reasons, but the latter feels like the writers forgot that Duncan exists.

MacCready has some issues with the likes/dislikes. I think they're mistakes instead of intended, but still. For example, in the Vault 81 quest. MacCready likes letting Austin die. He dislikes it if you give the cure.

There's also Sheffield, the soda addict in Diamond City. MacCready claims to have never seen someone with a sugar addiction, but Zip, from Little Lamplight, had an addiction.

Mac is mostly fine, aside from these inconsistencies. The Dead Wife thing sucks, but I allow it because it's pretty fundamental to his story, rather then being tacked on for sad points.

Nick: TDLR; Eddie Winter is a stupid bad guy with a stupid quest and Jenny Lands is a stupid tragic backstory

Eddie Winter being the first ghoul ever is mind-bogglingly bad. You're telling me that they made ghouls before the bombs? And even if they did, Winter couldn't be the first. How the fuck would anyone know that radiation makes you immortal if you do it right, otherwise?! So, that's a contradiction within an already contrived premise. And not only that, but he just. Leaves a bunch of holotapes with a number on the back, that make a code to the basement of his favorite sandwich shop, which just so happens to be on the same street Jenny gets fridged?

So, Eddie Winter (or one of his goons) was eating one day, looked out, saw the fiance of the detective hunting him and recognized her (????), shot her, and then presumably returned to his fucking sandwich??????

And then 2 centuries later, a clone of that detective somehow finds the holotapes, untouched, unmoved, still functioning and retaining the painted-on numbers. The numbers didn't...fade? Wipe off?

You can keep the concept of Nick wanted to finish something Pre-war Nick didn't get to, but this...this isn't it.

Like, Skinny Malone was right there. Maybe just Darla shows up when you free Nick, and then later Nick has to contend with Malone and the Triggermen in some grand conspiracy with Mayor MacDonough, Hancock, and Piper.

Preston: TDLR; The radiant quest mechanic fucked him over and his voice actor needed some retakes

The moment you get Radio Freedom, Preston should have stopped giving quests. Easy fix there. It would have saved him almost a decade of shitty memes.

The real problem with Preston is that his VA beefed it bad. I can quote some of his lines with perfect inflection because the VA just did it so poorly. X6-88's VA had to play a monotonous, little-emotion character, and he still nailed it and gave X6 a lot of personality and distinction. Preston sounds like a modded-in character. And Jon Gentry is a pretty good actor! He has a great live-action presence in his demo reels on IMDB. I think he just struggled to put his performance into his voice rather than his presence/body language, and they didn't let/have him do a retake.

Piper: TDLR; So much potential, so much failure. Piper is a shitty reporter, and that could have been a great opportunity to have commentary on the ethics of journalism.

Journalism is supposed to be a duty to the people. It has responsibilities and ethics that are very easily misunderstood or forgotten for the sake of the next article. A good journalist is not always accurate. An accurate journalist is not always kind. A kind journalist is not always good.

Piper is not a good journalist, because her writing is not informative, it isn't news or useful info. She writes about MacDonough being a synth—she's basically writing callout posts on her blog.

Piper is not an accurate journalist, because she never has evidence for this claim. She says MacDonough is a synth, that the Institute took the Survivor's baby even if the Survivor says no.

Piper is not a kind journalist, because she fearmongers and makes things worse for synths. She complains that no one believes or trusts her word, but the second thing you ever see in Diamond City is a man trying to kill his brother for fear he's been replaced.

This is all fine, if addressed and explored. But it isn't. Piper seems to be chasing the high of exposing authority, and both times, she's right. We, the player, know she's right because we find out later she is. Imagine if we didn't. Imagine that reveal scene never comes. Every issue of Publick Occurances is trying to start a witchhunt, and Piper doesn't notice that it's working.

So, let's make her arc about worrying about her sister.

X6-88: TDLR; BRUH HE HAS NOTHING

No backstory, no relationships with other characters, no quest, no character arc.

TODD. You had the chance to humanize the Institute, or at least show what it's like being an Institute synth that isn't free. And you, instead, put all that time into fucking KELLOGG. You think I give a fuck about KELLOGG? I don't even give a fuck about SHAUN.

🌠Honorable mentions🌠

Gage: Hypocrite that thinks becoming the problem is fixing the problem, also he has both eyes. What do you need an eyepatch for.

Strong: Bethesda Super Mutants suck shit. Y'know Erikson fron Far Harbor? Would rather have him.

Longfellow: Dead Wife Man. Again, would have preferred Erikson.

Dogmeat and Ada: Perfect, no notes.

Best companions are:

Dogmeat, for being doggy

Ada, for being robot lady

Preston, for being perfect aside from two technical, Doylist issues.

[copdog1234]

I think some Fandoms kinda have a bias against black and brown characters unfortunately, it’s disappointing. There always seems to be less attention paid to the black and brown characters

Yeah... I know that's exactly the reason why, even if some are unaware of it themselves. I mean, I've seen how people in the bg3 fandom treat Wyll. But both him and my boy Maximus deserve all the love, damn it!

[somethingaboutmint]

Blocking every annoying fallout fan and taking away new vegas until you all learn to behave