#however i've been thinking about exactly that scenario since forever

[drunkenskunk]

Welcome to another Drunk Skunk™ rant!

So.

I've had some time to sit and stew on the Fallout show, and I think I've finally figured out exactly what I want to say. Because kids? I got Opinions™ about this fucking series. I sincerely wish I didn't have all these Opinions™, because that would almost certainly cause me significantly less stress.

But here we are.

The Fallout show annoys me, but not for the reasons you think.

Let's get the good out of the way first. And by "good" I mean "damning with faint praise."

The Fallout show, as a piece of entertainment and experienced in a vacuum with no prior knowledge or context of the rest of the series or any of the other video games, is... fine. It's an entertaining television show. It's not great, but it's not terrible. It's okay.

The best part of the show is, unquestionably, Walton Goggins. Which is probably the coldest take here, everyone agrees that he's fantastic in this. And it's true! Granted, he doesn't look nearly as gnarly as he should, as the makeup is really giving Ryan Reynolds Deadpool Hugo Weaving Red Skull vibes, but I can honestly give that a pass. He steals every single scene he's in. He has all the best lines. Plus, all the pre-war flashbacks with him are excellent. That first scene when the bombs drop is fucking harrowing.

SPEAKING OF THE BOMBS!

The big reveal that Vault Tec were the ones to kickstart the apocalypse. My initial gut reaction to that was... Not Great. I didn't like it. In fact, I kinda hated it. I thought it was an answer to a question that nobody asked, because nobody cared, because it was never supposed to matter who shot first. The original point was that the end of the world was the inevitable outcome after so many years of war, so many years of stockpiling nuclear weapons, and so many bad decisions from everyone in positions of power on all sides of the conflict.

But the more I think about Vault Tec being the ones to destroy the world... I dunno, the more I... kinda like it? In a fashion. Sort of. As you can see by the remaining length of this fucking rant, I have Complicated Feelings about this!

See, Fallout has never exactly been subtle with its themes, but the show drops all pretense, and openly embraces a staunchly (and honestly, extremely surprising) anti-capitalist narrative.

The Fallout show pulls a Garth Marenghi unironically, and it honestly... kinda works?

Vault Tec were the ones to drop the bombs because they wanted to recreate the world in their image of a capitalist "paradise" free of any and all government regulation. The inevitable end result of the "great game" of capitalism is the literal end of the world, and the capitalists will do everything they can to destroy any attempts to rebuild any civilization not explicitly under their direct control. Because that's what capitalists do: they pursue an ultimately self-destructive goal that is not, and never was, sustainable, and will destroy everything else in their pursuit of endless, infinite, exponential growth, forever. Nothing else matters except Make Number Line Go Up.

Side note: it is extremely funny to me that Bethesda - a hollow shell of greed and excess who have been releasing the same game with different wallpapers over and over again since Oblivion - and Amazon - which is fucking Amazon - bankrolled a show where the villains are greedy capitalists who explicitly destroyed the world because of fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Like... guys, you do realize you two are Vault Tec in this scenario, right?

Ah well. That's capitalist realism for ya.

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more sense it makes that Vault Tec were the ones to drop the bombs.

HOWEVER.

Maybe this is just me being a cynical, drunken asshole here, but... it feels like this was a decision that was made, not because it was the best way to take the narrative, but instead as a means of enforcing the Status Quo of Bethesda Fallout.

See, the thing I liked about the west coast Fallout games was that it showed a world ravaged by the apocalypse, but it also showed that world beginning to heal. 200 years after The End, and civilization was returning. It was a natural evolution of things, emphasizing the post part of "post-apocalypse." It showed us a world that really sucked a lot of the time... but also gave us a small sliver of hope that, no matter what nightmares existed after The End, things could - and would - get better, so long as we put in the work to make it better. It was a world that showed us that nothing was ever so broken that it couldn't be repaired. We just had to fucking EARN that happy ending.

Bethesda Fallout, on the other hand, is just Wacky Wasteland Adventure Time. They are not interested in showing a world evolving or changing or growing, they just want a blasted hellscape that looks like it was freshly nuked yesterday. Why? Because that's the surface-level Aesthetic of Fallout. That is what is recognizable. And Aesthetic is all they know how to do. That's the mother fucking Brand.

Doing something different would risk changing the Brand, and if that kind of change happens, then it's no longer easily marketable. So they just keep with what's familiar: freshly irradiated hellscapes, caps as currency, makeshift weapons, psychotic raiders with no purpose or goals beyond Fuck You, and more of the fucking Brotherhood of Steel. It's all the stuff we remember, so we can point at the screen and go "I recognize that!" instead of allowing the setting to evolve and creating something new.

And that's what annoys me the most. Because even though Vault Tec destroying the world in 2077 makes a certain amount of sense, it also feels like it only exists as a means of artificially enforcing the status quo of the setting. Which means that nothing will ever matter in Fallout ever again. It doesn't matter what happens, or what changes in the future, or who wins the next ideological conflict between the same factions that keep reappearing over and over again like radroaches. Because whenever something strays too far from the established setting, Vault Tec (or, more accurately, Bethesda) is just going to nuke it again, like what happened to Shady Sands.

And, y'know, Shady Sands getting nuked like that really does rankle. Not because I ever had any attachment to the NCR, but because destroying it in the way that they did just felt so fucking lazy. If they wanted to get rid of the NCR, there were easily half a dozen other things they could've done that would've made far more sense. The NCR was a fantastically corrupt government, making the same mistakes as the same governments that (up until the show) were responsible for destroying the world. California was running out of food and clean drinking water because of gross negligence and mismanagement, public unrest was high because of excessive taxation and the "stop tolls" of corrupt border guards shaking down people, and both the military and bureaucracy of the NCR was spread fucking paper-thin, due to their policies of violent imperialist expansionism trying to take far more territory than they could reasonably hold, far more quickly than they could ever manage.

And did any of that matter? No. Not at all. Pursuing any of those plot threads would've required the writers to actually come up with some new ideas. So, instead, it was destroyed because of a cryogenically frozen Vault Tec middle manager with family problems. It was such a fucking lazy solution to a problem that should never have existed in the first place. It felt like the Fallout equivalent of "Somehow, Palpatine has returned."

That's why this show annoys me so much. Because this show that exists without subtlety or subtext, is telling us, to our face:

Don't hope for a better future, because it will never come. The world of Fallout is a destroyed, irradiated hellscape, entirely devoid of hope, and it will never, ever change, ever again.

Because that's the Fallout Brand, and that's what fucking sells.

[1000punks]

mask and midnight for festé, roiben, and janus?

mask: Does your OC wear a mask, literally or figuratively? What goes on beneath it? Is there anyone in their life who gets to see who they are under the mask?

for festé i think their mask really is the calm stoicism, and the tendency because of past experiences to keep people at arm's reach. they seem warm but it doesn't quite reach their eyes, as it were. inside, it's a lot of constant rationalization for things that do actually hurt them. for example, the post-araj confession with astarion? hurt. being called a complication in that way? hurt. but for fear of upsetting him, they kept it to themself. to a certain extent, the two people they don't feel like they have to fully hide from are astarion and mordren - but even then, they're not the first person to admit to being hurt or vulnerable in any regard.

for roiben, the mask is vengeance and anger. his way of dealing with the whole of faerûn's problems was to kill (almost) everyone. he can't quantify empathy even though he really wants to, deep down. the only people he felt empathetic towards (to an extent) are gale, astarion, shadowheart, and lae'zel. all of them were easily swayed and corrupted, however. >.> along with that, the first person he loved(? if you can call it that) was astarion. something something everything i touch turns to ashes, something something self-fulfilling prophecy, and here we are. roiben does actually love astarion, but because he's so emotionally immature, he would rather bring him down to his level than rise up and admit it. in his case, i don't think anyone is allowed to see behind the mask. yet. <.<

in janus' case? their mask is their kindness (a lot like festé but with a healthy amount of "nobody is allowed to know how tragic my backstory really was" a la halsin). to compare, i think janus is a lot more mature (debatable because ... *) about their kindness, and doesn't deal with it by keeping people at arm's reach, per se, but truly cares about making sure nobody is suffering in any way (and not being mean just for the sake of being mean). let me take your pain away, i'll do anything i can do for you! i can see them sharing this vulnerability with gale around the same time he shares with them about the extent of emotional damage he's suffered from the orb and mystra. after letting gale's story breathe for a few days, of course. *node context: janus is a functioning alcoholic but their use has significantly lessened since 1. losing their memories and 2. since they've been on the road to baldur's gate.

midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?

in festé's case, it's the future. they're really tense about the fact that they are in love with someone who is immortal, when they aren't. the fact that they'll die and leave someone behind, best case scenario. not only that but the first person to love them for exactly who they are? hoo boy. they have to try not to think about it by focusing on a project in front of them. one, as i've explored in bonding., is sharpening their weapons, but i think others would be going for walks, moving around, cooking, gardening; things that keep them busy and require skill and effort for sure. it's hard to sneak away from your vampire elf husband though, so imagine astarion finding them in the kitchen baking bread and calmly guiding them back to bed with gentle admonishment.

roiben? the fact (well, he believes it's a fact) that he'll never be able to just... rest. it feels like everywhere he turns there's some sort of expectation on him whether from the gods above, below, or the earthly sort. he balked when thinking about how astarion wanted to keep him forever. he balked when he thought of serving bhaal for the rest of his life. he'll balk when he's fucking resurrected from purgatory and i think the both of those things are the reason he chose the ending that he did, after the netherbrain crisis. it's easier to become a mindless bhaalspawn than it is to continue contending with big emotional decisions. gods help this stupid murderer. i think out of the tri-soul, roiben would be the most likely to have an ophelia moment and just go... float in a body of water for a while. or see someone for pleasures of the flesh. anything to not think. i think nightmares are an absolute given though, given all the people he's choked the life out of. what if there's some small chance he'll have to answer for his misdeeds? naughty naughty

janus is more of the classic ptsd, night terrors, body sweats regarding their past. but they have nothing to connect it to due to the dark urge. because of the memory loss, i don't see them connecting the dots entirely until way late in the game. apart from that, i think they're anxious about being emotionally close to someone, especially someone like gale who is all about talking and connecting on a really deep level. i imagine them making coffee in the middle of the night and watching the fire. maybe astarion wakes up early from trance and goes to sit with them in a comfortable silence. or, later on, they move over to gale's bedroll/tent and curl up with him. hard cut to gale waking up to their arm tightly wrapped around him and/or half crushed under their weight. hahah questions are from this ask post

[waluigis-biggest-fan]

Brubabs Examination (With a Hint of Batjokes)

A while back, I answered a prompt from @multi-fandom-memes asking which I'd rather see, Brubabs or Jokebats and I don't think I properly dived into that whole can of worms, or at least I have more ideas.

Firstly, a quick recap of my thoughts on Jokebats: I don't like it.

I get that there are many versions of the characters but I like too much of the canon around Joker being a universally terrible person to get rid of it. If we get rid of the worst aspects of Joker's character we lose two of my favorite characters (Harley and Red Hood) as well as the criticism on the way heroes can be argued to create their own villains. The Joker only does things because he wants Batman's attention so in a way, everything the Joker does is Bruce's fault by association which is why the temptation of killing him is so great. It misses the point entirely to remove the one sided element of Joker's obsessive fixation and it replaces all that with an honestly pretty mediocre dynamic. Bruce and Joker are rivals because they represent the exact opposite of each other. Sanding down their edges and making them lovers removes everything interesting from their rivalry.

So anyways, with that out of the way, Brubabs. Jesus christ, where to start. Brubabs is a very complex issue, on one hand, the relationship has never been characterized as abusive or detrimental in canon (despite how obviously abusive it would be so in any realistic scenario), on the other, total annihilation of the bro code via sleeping with your son's ex-girlfriend. There's no overlap in the relationships but that doesn't make it better. Timeline is still: Barb and Dick break up, Bruce and Barb get horizontal, Bruce gets Barb preggers, Barb and Dick get back together, and Barb finds out she's pregnant and there's no way its Dick's. Still pretty bad even if there was no technical cheating.

The dynamic is alright with them being pretty default besides the obvious daddy's girl element that nobody's really explored yet (the day they do, I'll fuckin' party because that's gonna be comedy gold and neat to explore). Of course all this can be avoided if you just alter the characters in a new timeline. Get rid of Dickbarb (and with that ship name I'm eager to do so) and age up Barb. Then again, if you change characters so majorly then there's no reason to just make new characters. There's no reason this aged up Barb can't just be a new character and have the old one remain the same. It expands the DCU. However, comics, and especially Batman, don't exactly view reboots or alternate continuities changing characters so majorly as a foreign concept, just look at the disparity in characterization between the Dark Knight, Batman Forever, and the Lego Batman movie, and its hardly the first time a fandom would discard canon to that extent just to make a ship happen, just look at my recent Dramione post as a perfect example. The fandom's Draco Malfoy is a calm collected intellectual who always has a sly comeback delivered with surgical precision and a completely different character to the canon Draco Malfoy who is a whiny, petulant, blood purist, elitist brat in the first half of the series and a sack of fear and coping in the second.

I feel like I should also clarify my position on Brubabs: its never been done well in canon. Its also basically only good for trashy fanfiction in its current depiction. I've thought about this a lot since their interaction in the Mystery of the Batwoman is one of my favorite ship dynamics, (You could argue I basically wrote a slightly more taboo Brubabs relationship with 2 of my OCs) but fundamentally, the whole thing is a train wreck that only hurts everything it touches and DC needs to have a strict rule that Bruce Timm can't have anything in his stories about it.

So yeah. that's my full examination of the ship. I'll also encourage you to give @gothamlioness1 's examination of Batjokes VS Brubabs a read through since it goes way more in depth into different canons and why Batjokes is just flat out awful and more problematic than Brubabs but both ships are far from squeaky clean. Thanks for reading this far, have a wonderful day.

[ijustcantfigureout]

hey uh. I'm blocking Lamda talk, so if you all could tag it as #lamda , i would be thankful

[apompkwrites]

reader impact || first meetings: adventurer edition

series masterlist characters: amber, bennett genre: fluff summary: a game has been released entitled genshin impact, consisting of otherworldly abilities relying on the basic elements of nature. the game follows the story of an interdimensional traveling twin in search of their other half. along this journey, they meet different characters that live in this world. including you. notes: i decided to put these two together since i've already done one for diluc!

amber's playthrough -

amber's more of an outdoorsy type of person but that doesn't stop her from streaming!

she likes doing camping streams where she just camps out in her backyard and shows her chat what she would normally do. and the occasional cooking stream to show how you can make good foods healthy <33

she has a little bunny that she shows on stream sometimes :))

there'll be some days where she just sits at home talking to chat about her day while playing with her little baron bunny.

she plays games occasionally, but their mainly adventure type ones that mimic the lifestyle she holds.

like minecraft, rust, any survival game really.

she's still very energetic so any stream of hers is just bustling with excitement.

she'd probably host some streams where she teaches basic survival techniques?? idk man i don't go out much AIHSDASHLDKJ--

anyway anyway, she got a bunch of requests asking her to play genshin ofc.

i mean?? cute game, cute models, cute characters, and aDVENTURE.

i feel like she'd go with the male traveler solely because it isn't very practical to go exploring/adventuring in a dress?? like girl's over here genuinely thinking about real life scenarios.

anyway she's sitting there after finding dvalin's corrupted tear and the cutscene plays.

she's there vibing with chat and her little bunny by her side because of course they'll be sitting there while she plays.

"hey you! stop right there!"

"aCK!"

please she screeched when you yelled at her--

and then she squealed when jumped in front of her character.

pLEASE

the camera showing off your cute little headband mimicking animal ears makes her melt.

and then you jump from the little cliff and you have to stumble to regain your balance?!?!??!

PLEASE YOU'RE SO CUTE

"may the anemo god protect you, stranger! i am (name), outrider for the knights of favonius."

catch her copying your little salute.

"they're so cute!!!!"

she will point out the animal ears constantly.

and then your vision has a cute little ribbon at the end of it!!!!!!

"just! just! just look at them!!"

and then you join her party officially!!!

please she switches to you automatically--

she'll just jump around for a few minutes to watch all your accessories bounce around.

and she can just tell that your story would be a delight to read about.

when paimon mentions her mc's missing sibling, you sound so soft and caring and just aGH.

and then she gets to try out your elemental skill and it's the aNIMAL THAT YOUR CHARACTER'S HEADBAND IS BASED OFF OF!!!

if it's a bunny she would definitely find a matching headband she can wear when she plays :00

her chat's usually a really sweet place to vibe and hang out but of course, there's gonna be those kinda people.

she catches wind of some people badmouthing you and calling you the worst character in the game >:((

she's not too keen on banning people for their opinions so instead...

"hey, guys, can we just have fun with this game? if you don't like how i'm playing you can always just?? leave??"

please girl's fuming inside but she's trying her hardest to be nice about it >:((

back to you <3

she'd get another pet that matches yours and name it after you or your elemental skill.

she'd find ways to copy your outfit too ngl--

she'd definitely cook your signature dish!!

gotta make it all cute for you <3

bennett's playthrough -

ah yes, our unlucky baby boy bennett <3

like amber, he really loves adventures!!

he's still pretty unlucky for some reason???

idk man he's just vibing and his bad luck says too bad,,,

he's kind of a baby streamer if you catch my drift?

like he's new to everything so he's just trying to figure it out.

he used to be in a streamer house but... yeah.

we don't like them anyway, it's fine.

unlike in the game, bennett's bad luck didn't bring the other members harm, it was just... little inconveniences i guess.

but he left so now he's all on his own!

he's kinda inexperienced in all of this but he's trying his best!

for now he's sticking to gaming because that's a majority of what he knows.

lots of survival games!!!

and, sadly, luck-based games.

his chat just wants to see if his luck impacts games!!

and it does,,,

luckily they request genshin, which has the best of both worlds.

bennett's got all of the adventuring and his chat gets to see his misfortune in action.

sadly you don't appear in the main archon quests so bennett actually goes a long while not knowing who you are :((

veterans of the game, however, know exactly who you are >:))

first, they'd help show you off by posting links to your splash art in his chat.

bennett, being the baby he is, just clicks on the links without a second thought.

and he's in aWE!!!

LOOK AT YOU!!! LOOK AT HOW COOL YOU ARE!!

"woahh!! who are they? can i meet them soon?"

cri

they tell him he has to roll for you and he's sad, but only for a bit!

at least you're not an exclusive character because if he were, he thinks he'd have no chance at getting you :((

but he can get you whenever!

anyway, one stream he's rolling because he's stocked up a bunch of primogems (which took a long time) and he's like might as well use them up now.

he gets a lot of weapons :(((

he's basically dedicated his whole team to c6ing his characters he has now because he "knows" he won't get a good character.

luckily the pity systems exist so he gets the occasional four star <33

so he thinks it's another character he already has, so he's very prepared to get another constellation in.

he's looking through the trash weapons and then splash art appears!

"wait... i recognize that--"

IT'S YOU.

HE WASN'T EXPECTING IT BUT IT'S YOU!!!!

"THEY'RE HERE! THEY'RE REALLY HERE!!"

his chats hyping him up as he's running around his room because they love him <33

please i love this boy with a passion.

he'll put you in his team automatically with all of his c5/6 characters asdhaklsf

he doesn't even care you get everything and anything he owns in the game <3

"this is your team! it's really cool! i'm (name), leader of (name)'s adventure team! is there... do you think we could team up? i-it could even be just once!"

"they're staying on my team forever."

he loves you so much.

not just because you're a cool character but because he can relate to you--

anyway, he goes to your voicelines because that's the only time he can actually hear you fully :((

he's genuinely excited to learn about your story.

and then he learns that you have extremely bad luck too???!?!?!?

please y'all can be unlucky together!!

would that cancel out or just make you more unlucky??

huh.

he gets all sad when he hears you talking bad about yourself so he's here to reassure you (even if you're a fictional character).