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simplyskipper · 5 days

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What Fallout Games Should I Play?

Hello! My name is Skipper, and the Fallout games has been a special interest of mine for a few years now. With the resurgance of the fandom, and new people coming from the shows, I figured I'd make a post helping people figure out what games to play!

This is going to be the main 6 games (1-4, 76, NV), though I may add more if I play some of the other games. Feel free to add on, ask questions, or generally interact with this! I'm always happy to help people get into the games and love talking Fallout with people. :)

This is going to be as spoiler-free as possible, though I may mention some game locations vaguely, so be warned if you think that may ruin the experience.

For further reading, I highly reccomend the Independent Fallout Wiki! A lot less ads in your way, and the people over there are lovely. However, be careful, as there are spoilers there!

TLDR; New Vegas for story, Fallout 4 for gameplay and introducing concepts, Fallout 1 for authenticity, and Fallout 76 for multiplayer but absolutely nothing else of value.

Table of Contents

Fallout 1

Fallout 2

Fallout 3

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout 4

Fallout 76

Last Updated: April 22, 2024

Fallout 1

Released; 1997

Setting; Southern California, 2161

Wiki Page

Almost a hundred years after the bombs fell, Vault 13's water chip has broken, and the Vault Dweller was selected (through random chance) to venture out into the wasteland and save their vault.

Pros:

The Original Fallout Game!

One of my favourites, story-wise.

Harold!

The game is relatively short compared to the others, and the story isn't overly hard to digest, in my opinion.

The 'talking heads' animations are super cool (Aradesh, Harold, Etc Etc)

Later character who I won't name but once you meet them YOU'LL KNOW

There's no limit to how many companions you can have at a time

I generally love the setting.

Cons:

The graphics do not age well. Even for the time, they were a bit lacking. (For reference, Doom came out in 1993, 4 years earlier).

Bit of a learning curve! But once you get it, it's pretty easy to use. The turn-based combat was the hardest to get a handle on.

The game DOES NOT hold your hand. Later games have objective lists and markers, but this game just has a list and memory. Pretty fun, if you're into a more difficult game!

Combat and general survival is difficult. The experience is authentic - which means you can and will die during the first combat scenario. Again, once you get it it's not that bad, but combat will remain difficult. But for some this could be a pro!

Fallout 2

Released; 1998

Setting; Southern California, 2241

Wiki Page

80 years after the Vault Dweller's heroic rescue of their Vault, the village of Arroyo is suffering a severe drought. The Chosen One, a descendant of the Vault Dweller, has been sent to retrieve a G.E.C.K. to save their village.

Pros

The story again is very good!

A lot of the strengths of the previous game.

There's something melancholy about exploring the world of Fallout 1 with so many changes and losses. It's perfect for the setting.

Sergeant Dornan. You'll see when you meet him.

More Harold!

Cons

This was released only a year after Fallout 1, so a lot of the graphics & gameplay remain the same, if that's not something you're a fan of.

This is where the idea of "wacky vault experiments" is introduced, something I've never super loved, but that's subjective.

Fallout 3

Released; 2008

Setting; Capital Wasteland (Formerly Washington, D.C.), 2277

Wiki Page

200 years after the war, the 19-year-old Lone Wanderer's father has mysteriously left their home at Vault 101. It is up to the Lone Wanderer to track him down and figure out what's going on, all while navigating the dangerous Capital Wasteland.

Pros

Brought the Fallout series into the modern era!

Some pretty cool locations, like Megaton and Rivet City

Sort of a pro and con, a lot of the game is spent in the underground Metro system. This is cool, but I'm not a huge fan of interior spaces. Still - it feels like a real DC Wasteland!

Galaxy News Radio is introduced, which is great background noise - and I love Three Dog. He's so silly.

No sprint button. It's not felt super bad in this game compared to Vegas, but it still can be annoying.

It feels like a post-apocalypse. The whole world is this muddy, almost sickly green, grey, and brown colour. All of the sets are carefully designed, full of dirt and debris and trash. Buildings are crumbling or outright hollowed out, the ghouls look like walking corpses (as they should be), the mole rats are nasty and all of the creatures feel gross. As they should be! This is a post-apocolypse, everything should be gross and dirty!

Lots of good world-building. Because this is based in the Capital, we get to interact with a lot of old-world history, and see how similar and different it is from our own.

Cons

Story is... not great, in my opinion.

Some of those DLCs physically hurt me. They definitely lean into the 'silly' aspects of the games, but I feel it hurts the worldbuilding and realism.

NOT Bethany Esda's best work.

Leans more into the 'game' and less on the 'role-playing', which was a big part of Fallout 1 and 2. The protagonist is 19, their father is James, and we see a bit of what their childhood looked like. You can work around it, but it's not as fun as the other games.

Sometimes the npcs are annoying. There's collision in this game, but sometimes if you step on something it'll move and a npc will shout 'Watch where you're going' or something, which gets on my nerves. Also, if you so much as look at a locked container, you get a 'That's locked for a reason'. Probably minor, but annoying.

Fire ants.

Fallout: New Vegas

Released; 2010

Setting; Mojave Wasteland (Formerly Mojave Desert), 2281

Wiki Page

Courier Six, or just the Courier, is in the middle of a delivery when they are interrupted by Benny and shot in the head - though they make a miraculous recovery and now need to figure out exactly what kind of mess they've landed themselves in this time.

Pros

I mean, it's Fallout New Vegas. This is a lot of people's favourite, for good reason. Story is phenomenal, the entire world feels real and interactive. If you shoot someone, there's consequences, and the other npcs will acknowledge it.

THE BEST radio. All of the music slaps and helps you feel the setting. Plus, I love Mr. New Vegas, the radio host.

The characters are amazing.

The world is not too silly but still silly. Like yeah, this makes sense for a post-apocalypse. But it's also so objectively funny. Some of the best memes come from this game.

Yes Man.

As usual, I love the map design.

Instead of greens for Fallout 3, this game is bathed in oranges and brown - making it feel warm, perfectly capturing the desert setting, and dusty.

the DLCs are amazing!!

We love the companions in this house.

I love how morally grey it is. No one is perfect, no faction is outright good or outright bad (except the Legion, fuck those guys). It's up to you to pick which you think is the lesser evil, which is the best future for the Mojave. Or you can kill them all, up to you.

Cons

The development for this game was pretty famously rocky. It was outsourced to Obsidian, and they were given only 18 months to make it. Therefore, this game is very similar to Fallout 3, with some general improvements here and there.

There is still no sprint button, which is definitely felt here. A lot of the stuff is spread out, so thewre's a lot of wandering through desert, slowly making your way to your destination. It also feels more empty. The great city of New Vegas is sparsely populated, quiet, and desolate - despite it being such a big deal and supposedly so popular.

Honest Hearts DLC :////

Fallout 4

Released; 2015

Setting; The Commonwealth (Formerly Boston, MA), 2287

Wiki Page

In 2077, the Sole Survivor (default names Nate or Nora) is ready to start a family. In their little neighbourhood, with their white picket fence and infant son, it is a time of new beginnings - despite the war raging around them. Unfortunately, the war quickly catches up to them, and their family is forced to take shelter in Vault 111, where they are frozen in time for 210 years. They emerge following the kidnapping of their infant son, into a time so different to their own, battling this new world alongside the ghosts of the old.

Pros

The graphics have been updated, and it looks great! Mostly. Instead of washed-out greens and browns, this game is bright and vibrant.

Some more awesome companions. Honestly, I love them so much.

I really like the level-up system in this. I prefer 3/NV, but the tier system is fun and visually neat.

Better crafting system. And more crafting systems in general.

Settlements!!! This game introduces settlements, which basically means there's a bunch of set locations around the map that you can take over and build in! You get a lot of freedom and are responsible for meeting the needs for people in the settlement. You can get some mods for more freedom/flexibility, and you can mostly ignore it if you want.

Cons

The story is... also lacking. It feels almost... unfinished? Some beats are strange and it's just like. What.

Playing this before Fallout 3 pissed me off so much, because there's so much that is ripped off of Fallout 3. The Commonwealth is brought up, the radio music is the same, the vault numbers so similar, there's even an early version of Vault 111. It feels lazy. Fallout New Vegas was more creative, and they had a fraction of the time 4 has.

40-50% of the game is spent in loading screens.

Preston Garvey deserves so much better. "AnOtHeR sEtTlEmEnT nEeDs YoUr HeLp!"

Nick Valentine is non-romancable.

It's so easy to forget about the main objective, and hard to really care about it. This is a common problem I've heard, so it's not just me.

Radio host gets on my nerves :/

Nuka-World DLC is frustrating. But at least it's not. Sideyes Honest Hearts (Fo:NV).

Game is... easy. Too Easy. Deathclaws are supposed to be dangerous and difficult to kill.

Fallout 76

Released; 2018

Setting; Appalachia (Midwestern US mountain range), 2102-2104

Wiki Page

25 years after the bombs fell, all members of Vault 76 have been kicked out in order to rebuild society.

Pros

It's. Multiplayer? Kinda.

I made some friends on there, which was neat.

Return of item condition. So.

CAMPs are fun. Like the settlement but without NPCs to look after and allows location flexibility.

Has. Some new songs on the radio?

ALMOST HEAVEN. WEST VE-

Amazing map design! The outside is gorgeous and feels like Appalachia, for the most part.

Honestly, I prefer this version of VATS (the game's targeting system). In other games, VATS will pause and slow down combat to help with aim, and can be kind of annoying. Here, the combat speed is the same, you just spend some AP (stamina) for aim assist.

Cons

I prefer settlements tbh

What's not to mention? Story sucks, game sucks, etc etc. It's pretty famously bad.

I usually love the story, but checked out very fast and spent most of my time running around. But I honestly didn't last long even then.

The game is broken. Like, fundamentally broken. You are constantly subjected to crashes, bugs, etc etc. Fallout 4 is buggy, but this takes it to an extreme.

50-70% of the game is loading screens.

The interiors are huge, and there is no local map, so you very easily get lost.

Generally the story is so stupid.

Fallout 1st is a cash grab.

Unbalanced.

Bad.

Some videos I like about Fallout 76

Internet Historian's video on the history and release. I'm iffy on Internet Historian as a creator, but I do like the video. Let's just hope it's not plagiarised.

Joseph Anderson's video on the game at it's released state. Primarily focuses on how poorly the game plays and how broken it is. Super funny.

PrivateSession's video released in 2023, reviewing a more current version of the game. More focused on story.

PatricianTV's 4-part series released in 2023, reviewing a more current version of the game. More focused on the game and gameplay.

In conclusion; thank you for reading! As I mentioned, any criticism, questions, and suggestions are welcome! I hate/love fallout and am always happy to drag people down with me.

Also, would people be interested in a post discussing the story/setting/timeline? Like where I infodump further about the universe. To make it easier to digest and answer questions. Or give me a chance to infodump further about fallout.

#fallout #fallout show #fallout 1 #fallout 2 #fallout 3 #fallout 4 #fallout new vegas #fallout 76 #fallout amazon #fallout tv series #fallout games #fallout info #basically i infodump about fallout for way to long

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mecachrome · 3 months

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for an incredibly new f1 follower, what would you recommend for getting up to date with teams and racers and performances and history? apart from dts lol

oh that is a good question!!! i don't think i'm even the best person to answer this but honestly i think it all comes naturally if you pick a specific thing/team/person you're interested in and set out to learn more about that topic, because everything is so connected and with time you can fill in those knowledge gaps pretty quickly :') more under the cut:

dts is imo perfectly acceptable for learning names and faces for the first time and basically creating a vague outline of a given subject (i've said it's like using duolingo for learning a new language lol), so if you watch it and are like oh—i'm interested in charles or mercedes or learning more about technical regulations or whatever, then you can just dive deeper into that via wiki / youtube / podcasts + published media + old race archives and build up from there!

otherwise i think the main thing is just to start watching the actual races when the season gets underway, and in order to properly appreciate them then also read up on + watch videos about the technical/strategy side of the sport as well. back in the day i used to really like chain bear and i still always recommend it to anyone who asks! after that i would just seek out like... a community/server/place where other people are discussing news real-time; this could be meeting people on tumblr and twitter, but personally i'm subscribed to r/formula1 because it's the most active composite source of f1 news and Discourse. if you're reddit-averse i also just keep a big list on twitter with a bunch of random data accounts, official driver/team accounts, journalists, etc. that helps me keep up with the season in a tidy fashion—though honestly f1 journalism is so unserious that you don't really need to do that because most journos regurgitate the same three quotes in slightly different formats, so if you want to follow One Guy who won't disseminate bs info i'd recommend chris medland. or just general sport publications like autosport, motosport.com, the athletic if you're already subscribed to it (pretty lacking for f1 though since it's american lol), etc... some sites like the-race are very contentious though so i'd say just tread with caution!!! on the data side i personally enjoy fdatanalysis and f1telemetrydata (i've also used f1-tempo to do my own telemetry analysis but idk if that's useful). but again i'd highly recommend the subreddit since it keeps everything i just mentioned in one place anyway 😭

other media recs:

f1tv, if it's available in your area, has pretty much everything you need to follow f1 in its entirety. i hate to shill for paid media but i genuinely think it's good; you can watch every f1, f2, f3 session real-time, as well as go to the archives and revisit old races for each series from most seasons. it also has technical shows and a whole host of minidocs with bite-sized info that are probably less sensationalized than dts. if you don't have f1tv though then a lot of decent content is cross-posted to the f1 youtube so honestly the official channels are all pretty good for keeping up with the sport.

podcasts: if you're an auditory person then podcasts are a great way to deepdive into f1 history. personally i believe that 80% of men running f1 podcasts should be legally barred from ever having an opinion on motorsport, so i don't listen to that many, but i do enjoy the official f1 podcast beyond the grid (i listen to it on spotify but you can also find full transcripts on the f1 site) since, you know, they get official personnel on and i appreciate the wide range of personalities interviewed—from drivers to tps to various types of engineers. i've also heard good things about shift+f1, the race, and engine braking, but i haven't checked them out so i'd recommend just looking podcasts up yourself and seeing what vibes with you! though some podcasts are just like... I'll eat this because you're interviewing my guy but i would never watch/listen to you otherwise. (cough pit stop...)

books & autobiographies: again if you want to dive more into old f1, then you can always read a book!! i read jenson's autobiography life to the limit earlier and was very endeared, it's a super breezy but charming read ❤️ adrian newey's memoir is also a decent overview of a clearly brilliant and accomplished mind, i enjoyed the technical details and found his early career path especially interesting.

docus, movies, tv: there's also plenty of f1 media outside of f1tv, so you can always check those out; f1 movies aren't necessarily that accurate or frankly good but sometimes it's fun just for the Vibes and the love of the sport. for ex rush (2013) covers james hunt & niki lauda's rivalry, netflix has a schumacher (2021) doc, the brawn gp miniseries ft. jense came out last november, just things like that... some current individual drivers also have their own random miniseries so you can always seek those out, for ex i watched maxv's anatomy of a champion the other day just for the fun of it LOL.

i don't know whether any of this is helpful... but maybe other people can reply with their own recommendations!!!

also if you're interested in f2, f3, etc. then honestly just follow feeder series on whatever platform since they cover everything pretty well; feeder_series on twitter, r/f1feederseries, plus they do interview podcasts on youtube/spotify so i like watching those to keep up with young drivers. you can also watch chasing the dream for succinct f2 narratives; it used to only be on f1tv but it gets uploaded on youtube now so it's fairly accessible. lmk if you have any other questions or something specific you'd like more info about!!!

#ask

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zil-street · 5 months

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Dungeons and Daddies wiki

Hey guys! I don’t know how many of you are using our fandom’s wiki but they seem to be having a big overhaul over there. They are making a lot of changes (removing unfinished character articles, there are plans to split the wiki) and as a user I am a little concerned. The major problems with upkeep seem to do with a lack of editors there. People who are working on it seem very stressed and are trying different ways to make stuff manageable which is affecting the content we’re seeing.

So I just want to implore people who are passionate about this fandom and have some free time to maybe consider becoming an editor or start contributing to the wiki. I think having some more help would allow the team to make the wiki really good and allow their workload to become more manageable.

#fandom wiki

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futubamaids · 2 months

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Resources!

Hey folks, I'll be provided where I get my information and images of each maid I come across, so you can go on your own journey of discovery for them! This will make it easier for us as a community to gather even more details on the maids, as well as helping archive them so they won't be lost to the past.

It will go from most information, to more obscure methods to finding information for the maids.

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Safebooru (Provides SFW images of the maids, Danbooru provides the full catalogue. NSFW content warning, obv.)

Pixiv (Provides a large collection of maids. NSFW content warning.)

w.atwiki.jp (Holds information of almost all the maids made during the Futaba era! EXTREMELY useful! But you have to use a translator. I highly recommend using deepL translator, but it won't be perfect, of course.) Pixiv Wiki (Don't get your hopes too high, a lot of the pages aren't filled for the maids ); )

404-Maid's slideshow (Covers the majority of the maids, very useful! They have links to their sources as well!)

Nijiura Maids on OS-tan Collections Wiki

Futuba Channel Briefing

Futuba Archival Board

Nijiura Wiki Definition

Nijiura Maid Nijikaku MUGEN

Nijiura Maid Figure Collection

And other links I'll provide information on further... Thank you 404!!!

/jp/ Otaku Culture Boards (Just search for each maid and hope for the best... Good luck trying to find source images posted there. The image quality on there is usually all you get...)

aibooru (Heavily lacking in information. But it's a pretty list.)

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Here are some other Tumblr Users who have dedicated themselves to posting maids! Though, they seem to be inactive.

nijuuramaid

404-maid

crocbot

Kishiren

pqe

nijiura-maids-blog

02062

nijiura-maids-channel

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Hopefully this will help you all on your journey! Please be sure to share any information you find that you believe to be important, so I can refer to it here!

#nijiura #nijiura maids #futaba #2chan #/jp/#maidcore #webcore #animecore #2000s #nijikaku #futaba channel #futabachannel #maid

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iviarellereads · 4 months

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My reasons for reading the Wheel of Time

Are you unsure about reading the Wheel of Time? Whether or not you read along with my blog project (explainer here and WOT link index here), this post may be for you!

If you don't want any spoilers before experiencing it yourself, I will just say: watch the first two seasons of the TV show, first. The adaptation changes a lot of the details, but the show is taking elements Robert Jordan wrote 30 years ago, more than a generation removed from today's sensibilities, and he changed his mind on a lot of things as he went on. Rafe Judkins is doing an incredible job of adapting to accommodate changing sensibilities/expectations, a change in medium, and the things RJ didn't decide to make part of his world until later books.

If you don't mind some light expectation-setting spoilers, I'm going to lay out why I love the Wheel of Time, some reasons to pick back up and/or keep going with the series if you ever started and fell off, as well as content notes by way of the downsides so you know what you're getting into.

I can't say whether any of my cons will be dealbreakers for you, or if the pros will make it worth the cons for any individual reader. All I can say is, knowing the bad, I still reread this series because it was worth it for me, and a lot of folks like me agree. If you don't think you can do it, full respect, hopefully I'll see you when I take breaks from this series. 🫡

My rationale

This is probably one of the dearest stories to my heart, and the one that I started refining this format with. I've been in this fandom for almost 15 years, and I wouldn't trade… well, maybe a second of it, but not much.

One of the most chunky fantasy series that exists, the Wheel of Time was begun in the late 1980s by Robert Jordan. When he passed in 2007, his wife and editor chose Brandon Sanderson to complete what they thought would be the final book (but ended up being three books) series with the help of extensive notes he left behind about his intentions for the story.

Even though it's over 30 years old, and there have been active discussion communities on just about all the social interactive platforms you can think of in that time, the Wheel of Time lacks a lot of spoiler-free resources. There are a couple of attempts to make spoiler-free wikis, but they just can't ever quite compare to the full-spoiler ones. There are Discord servers with first-time-reader channels, but not a lot of options for double checking what's safe to say at any given point for full-readers, OR ways for first-time readers to double check information, like if they think they misheard something, without asking and potentially getting spoiled by someone who misinterprets.

So, besides having keyword searchable notes for myself, my ultimate purpose in creating my notes in the first place is to help folks who haven't read the books, to have access to that sort of summary without having to search and get major later-plot spoilers. And since that led to everything else that led to this blog, I think it's only appropriate that I do, eventually, revise my notes and post them here.

I will probably be taking breaks between books. Most of the books in this series have 40, even 50+ chapters. I've already gone and entered it in my Google calendar for tracking (are you really surprised I do that?) and the first book will take me two and a half months to cover, all by itself, though the chapters only average out to ~15 pages each. We're going to be here at least 3 years, and with breaks between more like 4 or 5. Even so, I think it's right for me to do this one more time.

The Pros:

WIDE cast of characters, including women who get their own deep personalities, motivations, and arcs. Women are often in compare-and-contrast mirrors to men's similar experiences happening in parallel, and only rarely rewards or prizes to be won. (Caveat: even some people who have read the series may scoff at this one, but part of my efforts will be to help make the subtextual things a little more noticeable, because a LOT of character is in the subtext in these books because of the close-third unreliable narrator effect. It's fair to interpret them more shallowly, hell I used to, but then I started looking deeper and found so much more than I expected.)

Setup, foreshadowing, and payoff. Many plot seeds are planted, nurtured, and harvested at perfect ripeness. RJ was a conoisseur of foreshadowing in the subtext, text, and supertext of the story, and when each was most appropriate. Many of the old web rings, forums, and fan sites are long, long dead, but I can attest that this series does some absolutely incredible work with giving readers plenty of information to theorycraft widely and wildly. One particularly (in)famous mystery lasted 8 books across 17 years, and that's not even the longest one, just the easiest for us to point at.

Rarely introducing a new character where an old one will do. While there are over 2700 named characters, a lot of comparable stories would have near doubled that to tell this much story. It's really fun to see names pop back up in unexpected places, and track people who don't get POVs across the world as they say hello from different places and nudge the background plot along.

Evil is no simple thing. It's kind of a spoiler, yes, but I think it's fair when you look at the landscape in which it was written, and if we have a different standard today, it's due in no small part to the Wheel of Time's influence. The 80s and 90s in the fantasy corner of the publishing industry were not bastions of moral complexity. The Wheel of Time has the big literal supernatural capital-e Evil, and the humans who sign on to support it for their myriad reasons, but there are also multiple acknowledged human evils in opposition to it. The heroes and villains get a similar treatment of depth. Some people are nearer to the unquestioned poles of Good or Evil, but your fave is probably a war criminal at some point either way. This story goes on for 14 books plus a prequel, and that sort of simplicity doesn't inspire the sort of deep fandom these have. Nobody is as shallow as they seem at first glance, and most long-time fans have faves in the Light, the Dark, and everywhere in between.

Unreliable narration means there's a LOT more to this series than a surface reading indicates. There's a lot to the surface reading, and there's nothing wrong with it, unless you count "you don't really, fully understand a lot of the characters until you understand the discrepancies between their thoughts and their actions". My first reading was completely superficial and I still had a blast. But my second, and third? Especially after interacting with more of the fandom and honing my skills at media analysis, there's SO much more there to discover. Hopefully this read will help surface-readers get a bit more of the deep understanding, and if your surface reading previously felt unsatisfying or left you hating a lot of the characters, maybe this will help you better appreciate what's going on.

The Cons:

The sexism and gender binary. Gonna level with you, there's a lot of very heteronormative and gender essentialist vibes in here. It's cis binary genders only (with a singular terrible exception we'll deal with when we get to, but know that it's coming and it's handled pretty dreadfully even though you could give it a more charitable reading if you wanted to) and no matter the country or culture they're from, women and men each have very strange ideas about what the other gender is about. Robert Jordan was a US Southern cishet baby boomer Vietnam veteran, he almost certainly had some really unhinged ideas about gender relations. (Why it's not as much a con: two reasons. First, see unreliable narration above. Second, I think that one of the themes that really gets missed by a lot, a LOT of readers is that imposing binaries divides and weakens us. I will be exploring this whenever I remember that it's relevant to talk about and you may get real sick of it by the end. But, I think a lot of RJ's writing in this direction was intentionally drawing attention to how destructive it is. It's just never really stated out loud, it's once again in the subtext, and it doesn't always land the way I think he hoped. I promise, I will have the citations to back up my assertion by the end.)

Queerness: none good. There's one sweet sapphic relationship which is relegated to "gay until graduation" status at what amounts to a girls only boarding school, and never spoken of again except as friendship. In the encyclopedias, the characters in it are explicitly defined as straight. There are several lifelong lesbians who are explicitly one or the other of the kinds of evil. There's the one singular bad trans rep character. After the Sanderson portions start, there's one man who's said to be gay. RJ maintained in interviews that of course gay people existed, the story just wasn't any of theirs, which still burns me. (The show is making this MUCH better. I genuinely had faith in Rafe Judkins's adaptation after something he does in season 1 in this vein, and I have zero problem adding a little queer goggle view to all the interactions.)

We go six books where sexual assault is barely a concern, then get a handful of them all back to back in one book, with a few more sprinkled through afterward. There's a particularly troubling one against a male main character that a lot of the fandom doesn't even acknowledge as having happened. I'm not even gonna try to defend this, it's inexcusable, and if I'd known, I might not have read it, even if it's one of my favourite stories today. (Hashtag Please Fix It In The Show Rafe Judkins.)

The start is rough. The first book is very much a Lord of the Rings homage, where RJ hopes you'll see the places he diverges and stay along for the ride as he defies the standard fantasy outline of his day. The "come play with me in this space" of it means there are a number of potentially really interesting things that are just abandoned and never mentioned again, in alongside the things that were refined along the way. I won't always point these out because spoilers, but it's good to be prepared for some level of disappointment that the thing you want to see explored, isn't. (And hey, you can always explore it in fanfiction!)

And the series remained a work in progress to the end. RJ always thought he was just two or three books from done, ever since book 3. He wrote book 11 believing there would be just one more after it, but after his passing, his wife/editor Harriet McDougal, Brandon Sanderson, and the rest of what we call "Team Jordan" decided there was no way to fit what was in his notes into a single book, so they split it into the final three (books 12-14). So, sometimes things will feel like they're hurtling toward a destination that you know, from the rest of the stack, has to be several books off for a satisfying arc of it. Alls I can say is, at least we know the series has an end that it seems most people who reached it found fairly satisfying.

Adjacent to this, The Slog. There's a plot slowdown in the middle, not unlike the "middle of a trilogy" problem but it goes on for, at least for some readers and by some reckoning, 6 of the 14 books. Readers who like a fairly dry focus on politics and subtle character interaction more than plot will find this less painful. Readers like myself who need a plot to keep us hooked and moving forward will feel like the series drags its wheels in the mud for a couple thousand pages. This is anecdotally where a lot of readers quit the series, and they often cite this as a main reason. I can promise you the ending is worth the Slog to get there, if you're like me. But, my notes go from over 100 pages in Google Docs for book 4, to 57 for book 5, and just 12 pages for book 10, if you want a comparison of how thin the plot gets. (A lot of long-time readers will try to gaslight me about this, because they come out of the woodwork every time it comes up, and I'm telling you now: that's a great way to get blocked, because I have the receipts. I'm not saying the slog exists as a moral judgement against it or anyone who likes it. I'm literally just stating provable fact that the plot slows down and at least this reader feels it really hard.)

#blog housekeeping #wheel of time #the wheel of time #wot #twot

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branzinos · 5 months

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the new hbomberguy video reminded me of the time that me / danganronpa wiki got badly plagiarised lol. essentially at the time, 99% of the danganronpa v3 main page was written by me (as I was one of the main active mods of the site at the time), using information from the japanese version of the game based on mostly japanese articles and Lets Plays of the japanese game by english streamers, with translated names for all the new post-game bonus modes (of which v3 has many). these translated names and other new jp-only features were either by me directly or by other members of the fandom to help explain the new concepts, but were obviously fan translated versions of terminology and not official and so almost unique to this page since translation from japanese involves a lot of personal interpretation. danganronpa is a series that has a fuckton of pop culture references in it that don't always translate well to english, particularly in the more off-beat and comedic parts of the games, and so typically the official translations are very different to the japanese terms and names for things - and the bonus modes themselves have extremely goofy names that don't translate well. our wiki policy is that all fan translated content has a large, highlighted heading that signposts that it includes fan translated content, and a link to the original translator's socials or wiki profile.

when v3 was finally released in english 9 months later i was keeping a close eye on review scores and so on from different outlets to add to our critical response section. lo and behold, I find a supposed review of the english game that stuck out like a sore thumb to me. see, even though the game had been out in English for less than a day, screencaps and video of the post-game bonus modes were already circulating online, so we had official English names for all of them, which I then updated the Wiki with. the combined post-game for V3 is many hours longer than the base game, but a person would not need to actually play or complete them to see the mode names from the main menu - only the base game.

However, this particular review, presumably written using a free review copy of the game from the publisher and prior to me being able to update the Wiki, used the fan translated terminology and bonus mode names featured on the Wiki. "Huh." I thought a first glance, "a bit strange that someone with an actual copy of the game would need to lift the incorrect English names from the Wiki." But when I pulled up the Wiki page I'd written just to double check I wasn't seeing things, I realised he had not only lifted the fan translations with no attribution despite it being clearly labeled on the Wiki page (the minimisation and lack of proper crediting of fan translations in jp fandoms is another can of worms), but he'd lifted nearly the entire bonus mode section i'd written word for word, with barely any re-writes at all, and no indication that they had any personal experience with the gameplay even on a basic level.

now, don't get me wrong, Wikis are Creative Commons and lifting of content from them for information is to be expected - if I got mad every time a youtube video or strategy guide used content I researched and wrote (or ripped directly from the game, or translated, or spent hundreds of hours transcribing, or creating easy-to-read tables for data, or...) with no credit to the Wiki (I don't expect personal credit, it's a Wiki), my head would explode - but this review was quite clearly not the review of someone who had actually completed the game and played these modes. I know that game reviewers are under tight deadlines and DRV3 is a long game, but I felt this was a quite clearly a deceptive review that wasn't actually reviewing anything they had experienced themself. something about it really pissed me off, and so I shot an email to the site's editor. the site apologised and pulled the bonus mode section from the article entirely, but then, about four days later, emailed me again groveling to ask if they could re-add it with attribution to DR Wiki. I agreed, although I urged them to update their copy to reflect the English names and not use the uncredited fan translations. That's really all I ask for! It's unreasonable to ask for personal credit because of the ways that Wikis are written with multiple contributors, but this section (which comprised of about 30% of the entire article) was my own work and research that had been lifted nearly 100% in a deceptive "review" by someone who hadn't even finished the main game to be able to see the post-game game modes on their menu. it was such a strong example of how the work of wiki contributors is taken for granted as free, exploitable fan labour and not the work of just a handful of people (statistically speaking, most wikis are often only written and moderated by one or two people, unless they're a huge fandom like star wars. even a wiki like ours with 2mil hits per month only had about five of us writing it) volunteering their free time to document things - even by our own webhosts at Fandom/Wikia who routinely dick us over with increasingly awful features just to line their pocket. please remember that wikis have real human people behind them!

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theneighborhoodwatch · 6 months

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Hello! I wanted to say how much I love the wiki you created! It’s amazing, I really like how every character has its own page with their favorite colors. It’s a really nice detail, and I know the ton of work it takes to do something like this. I love Welcome Home and seeing people creating wikis about it makes me really happy! I also like seeing people having fun creating their own AUs and stuff, but I enjoy much more the canon content of WH and the original work made by Clown, so I really appreciate it.

Now… I want to reveal something and I hope you don’t hate me for this… But I’m one of the bureaucrats in the WH Fandom Wiki. I was accepted as a staff member there some time before the big website update that made WH skyrocket in popularity, and since then I’ve added a lot of info in the trivia, relationships sections, secrets and images in the galleries, because I adore Welcome Home and when I arrived there the wiki lacked quite a bit of information.

Wait! Don’t think I’m here to tell you off, to make you delete your wiki or something like that, it’s actually the opposite. I wanted to thank you because thanks to you and other people (and some incidents that have happened during the years I’ve been working in the Fandom wikis) have made me realize that Fandom as a platform has changed a lot for the worse and they don’t really care about the hard work the editors do in there. (As an example, they actually deleted all informational and replaced an entire article about a character named “Grimace” to turn it into a giant ad just because McDonald's payed them to do so and without telling anything first to the bureaucrat of the McDonald's Fandom Wiki. But there are more things that have happened.)

I’m going to be honest, I’m a bit lost about what to do right now. I’m even thinking on leaving Fandom, or at least not be as active as before, but I don’t want to leave the people that is in there or abandon all the work we’ve done either. But in the other hand, I think I’m doing something really bad by continuing visiting and helping in Fandom Wikis after knowing what Fandom/Wikia does and how much people hate them right now.

I joined Fandom Wiki years ago to know more about my favorite media and help as much as I can. This was a passion of mine, but now this stresses me out more and more every day.

Sorry about all the rambling. I just wanted to let you know that someone in the own Fandom WH Wiki is rooting for you and your own WH personal wiki, and that you helped me open my eyes. And sorry for sending this anonymously, I fear that people will figure out who I am in the Fandom Wiki if they read this.

well, first of all, thank you for taking a look at my wiki! i worry a lot about whether i'm missing anything, which is why i always ask for feedback whenever i put a new page up, so it's actually a bit of a relief to hear that other wiki editors think that my work is up to snuff.

second of all, i want to make it clear that while i have Many issues with fandom.com as a platform (i didn't even know about the grimace thing, but yeah, add that to the list) i don't resent any of its users. fandom.com was the most popular wiki-hosting site back in the day for a reason, after all - the userbase isn't responsible for the intrusive advertising or the unintuitive site design or any other number of poorly thought out decisions that led to the site's decline in quality; more often than not, the people editing each individual wiki are doing the best they can with the tools they've been given, and that includes you.

i'll be totally upfront with you: i know i've mentioned being a bit disappointed with the fandom.com WH wiki in the past (and to be clear, most of that just comes down to personal taste) but one of the first things that stood out to me as a positive back when i first went through it was that it was extremely thorough in its citations, to the point where i actually used it as a reference for sourcing almost all of the trivia currently on welcome to welcome home. if that was all you (or, all 200-ish of you, if i remember the wiki server's numbers correctly) AND you've been beefing up other sections of the wiki at the same time, then you have every right to be proud of your work!

if you still want to move to a new platform, but understandably don't to lose any of what you've written so far, i would suggest floating the idea of moving everything you have now over to another wiki-hosting service (i.e. mediawiki or miraheze) to your fellow editors. in the event that this is too much to move all at once, you can also use breezewiki to try to make fandom.com pages less clunky.

good luck! and thank you for the well wishes; i hope things start looking up for y'all soon.

#anonymous #ask

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time-slink · 1 year

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help me, how do i start watching hermitcraft... its so daunting and i tried starting at the last epsiode of season 9 and i find myself so confused and i feel like im missing stuff auhguhruhghgurhgurhurhguhghurhgurgh

if you really want to be filled in on everything from season 9 so far, i recommend binging the recap channel— you may recognize the voice of pixlriffs, also well known as an empires member, who was recently on the hc server himself! you could probably also skim the wiki if you want but also, season 9 has now been going for a solid ten months, so there is a lot of content to catch up on. thankfully, you dont need to! yeah, its confusing at first, but you could honestly just pick up with the latest episodes of like one or two hermits and after a couple weeks you should have a decent idea of what's going on :) i dropped in near the very end of season 7 myself, and while it took me a bit, i caught on! reminder that unlike a couple other popular smps, hermitcraft isnt really lore or story focused. its more about friends building and goofing off together! there are stories too (this season's king ren plot, season 8's ending, season 7's mayoral race and turf war, etc etc) but they arent the main focus, and you won't have a heavily diminished experience from not knowing much. tl;dr: just have fun with it! don't worry about lack of knowledge— ive never seen someone in the fan space make fun of another for not knowing the plot, we're all just here to watch our favorite mc personalities and have fun :]

#shush slinky #asks #a lot of people pick gr1an (censored so i dont fill the tag) as their first watch bc he interacts with so many other people #he's like a great launchpad to finding the person u like watching the most #he's also the most popular guy in most fandom work so you'll see a lot of content for him #theres a flowchart somewhere on the reddit i think. abt which styles of content u like and which hermits they fit #if u wanna go looking for that #also!! if you're ever curious about anything #feel free to ask me! my inbox is always open but also feel free to message me at any time #i like talking to people and i dont bite :)

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agallimaufryofoddments · 7 months

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hey, i really wanna help out with the baccano wiki, what do you suggest i start with?

Hallo, hello, hullo!

I appreciate you reaching out!

I think many major characters' chronological sections leave much to be desired. Of course, this is partly my fault, for neglecting them, but still. You take a loot at, say, Huey's or Nile's or Dekurō's pages, and wham bam, there is much missing. Frankly, really, if anyone takes a cursory glance at many of the character articles on Baccano! Wiki, one will see the chronology sections are either lacking (as is in the case of the many neglected articles) or sometimes overmuch (as in the cases where I wrote far too much bloat and wasn't reprimanded).

So! Perhaps if you could add content to the pages with obvious missing content (which are many), that would be swell! With references, I should ideally hope, based on the precedence of other pages that already exist, but I can add references after the fact, of course.

Some people start out with minor things like typos and obviously inaccurate statements. If wikitext is intimidating, I can easily advise on that front! I can do anything.

If you've never edited on a wiki before, I'd say editing easy existing content is an easy way to ease yourself into it. By going into source mode and fixing typos or the like, that way you can familiarize yourself with the editor interface.

I would recommend creating a FANDOM account if you're serious about contributing to the wiki. There's the supposed promise of less ads (I sometimes wonder how firm that expectation holds, these days), but there are other benefits, too.

Perhaps, if you mouse over the menus in the top menu, you'd see the Special:Community menu, or you'd see the Community Portal menu, or the Policy menu (the subpages of which I do need to update, very embarrassing). Perhaps I need to update all of it, so perhaps it is all embarrassing.

----

At any rate, to speak the point, I do think many major characters do lack adequate chronology sections. Character articles tend to be the most visited. I understand that chronology sections can be a bit overwhelming or intimidating, since they require referencing many novels and compiling a character's actions over the course of many novels into a cohesive summary, but on the other hand, perhaps chronologies can be a bit more straightforward than, say, summaries.

In any case, know this. Many of the character articles, including the major articles, are woefully incomplete, surely in part due to my neglect.

I also know my Manual of Style hasn't been updated in a while, and I surely haven't enforced it for scaring off editors (scarce as they are).

In any case, if there is anything you think you'd be good at or would prefer to do, I can happily advise you here or on the wiki itself.

I do expect that I can trust your judgment for the most part, for if, say, you use the wiki casually and find xyz elements lacking (like, say, a character article that woefully lacks much of a chronology), you could easily contribute. There is much that is woefully lacking.

When it comes to prose, I know that mine own prose can be unfortunately blathering and...well....I ramble a lot. I know the chronology sections I wrote can be too wordisome, too detailed. I don't mine people paring them down. I hope also that others don't mind if I edit their edits, if it comes to it.

Summary: A lot of character articles still lack filled chronology sections. Some also lack Personality sections, but I totally recognize that those can be much harder due to the need to balance subjectivity with objectivity. Look at what is lacking, what you wish was there but wasn't. I guarantee you will find many things.

#baccano!#baccano #Baccano! Wiki #anonymous #asked and answered

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teamcivilian · 2 years

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Insult to Injury: The Director's Cut — Ch01 [Revised]

Warnings: Intense scenes of violence including torture, sexual content, nudity and language, allusions to childhood trauma/abuse.

Rating: M

Genre: Crime/Drama with a side of romance.

Summary: A troubled psychiatrist desperate to escape past criminal ties is drawn into a far more insidious schism. [Post-Skyfall, Pre-NTtD]

07/15/2022 — This is going to be the final rewrite. Aside from some big fixes (Madeleine’s profession as a psychatrist rather than psychologist, aging her up by one year, switching "college" to "university", giving the PSD its own name, etc) I made an effort to tighten up the dialogue and characterization overall. At the time I was originally working on this (2020-2021) I pulled a lot of information from fan-wikis; as such, there were some conflicting details I overlooked for the sake of convenience. It still might not be perfect, but I’d rather move forward than stay trapped in development hell.

Whether you’ve been reading since early 2020, or are new to the story in time for 007 Fest 2022, I hope you enjoy what’s in store! —Dorminchu

— ACT I —

“Most rich people have a gangster in their ancestry somewhere.” ― Ken Follett, Winter of the World

I: FORGIVING WHO YOU ARE, FOR WHAT YOU STAND TO GAIN

2003; Madeleine was eighteen, fresh out of Ermitage International School. Just a week before, she’d talked things out with her academic counsellor. Mental health was a very important subject to her. She had always admired those who could help others who lacked the knowledge or courage to take the first step. She wanted to go into psychiatry. Looking back on it, she probably sounded like every other self-impressed trust-fund looking to cajole his or her way into advanced placements.

The counsellor simply sat behind his desk and listened, nodding every once in a while. He was getting paid either way. “Have you decided what university you will be attending?”

Madeleine explained that she had put in a few different applications already.

The counsellor said, “These positions go quickly. Put in a couple more. Oxford is a good choice.”

Madeleine paused. Money was not exactly a problem for someone attending Ermitage, but she didn’t want to go flaunting this around. She thanked him for his time and information, and left.

The very next morning Madeleine opened her laptop—a birthday gift from her father, kept for convenience’s sake—to a series of emails confirming her acceptance into Oxford. Tuition payments. High-priority placements. So on, so forth.

Her father never wrote. Never gave any indication that he had a daughter in his life, until she had gotten her baccalaureate.

With tears in her eyes, she read the messages over to make sure she was not mistaken. She composed herself, called her Aunt Droit and relayed the message. The tremble in her own voice mistaken for elation.

But the warmth in Droit’s voice stayed with Madeleine for years. “Congratulations, dear. You’ve worked very hard at this.”

Madeleine bit the inside of her cheek and hung up.

⁂

She spent the next four years at Oxford, plus one in the Sorbonne during her residency. Once she was a practicing psychiatrist, she could support herself without outside interference.

She embraced the temporary comfort of acquaintances who knew her as Madeleine Swann; disciplined in her studies, but always cordial to the part-time students. The type of person who was drawn into the orbit of socialisation. A tough nut to crack. Colleagues sought her advice on research projects. Some vying to get into her good graces. A couple guys might ask for her number and end up studying together for weeks. Most were appreciative, but eventually Madeleine earned an unshakeable reputation for being frigid.

Of course, not everyone was so disingenuous. Madeleine attended her fair share of lunches and off-campus events for the sake of networking opportunities, melding into a small-knit group of undergraduates with comparable grades. Arnaud, who was studying to be a clinical psychologist, only stuck out in her mind because he kept finding excuses to hang out between classes. He may as well have been making conversation to a brick wall, but his presence gave her an excuse to get out of parties and potential dates. She let him accompany her to and from the library without complaint. Even after he’d graduated, they still kept in touch.

After becoming a licensed psychiatrist in 2008, she immediately turned to non-profit work. That summer, there was a water crisis in Bolivia. Tuberculosis outbreak in Laos. 2009; aftermath of a military coup in Ethiopia.

In the spring of 2011, she moved back into Paris. Cycling between outpatient management at the hospital and private clinic; in the latter case, complete with her own office. The casual anecdotes she provided to her co-workers were about as as droll as her taste in décor—with the occasional concern about her walls being a little sterile, always passed along by the secretary. Not even a picture of yourself, Dr. Swann?

Out of the blue, Arnaud contacted her over email. He was a clinical psychologist now, working just a couple blocks away. How would she like to meet up again, just for old time’s sake?

Detached from the stress of a full-time enrolment, this gesture lost its annoyance. It was honestly flattering. She wasn’t that busy.

They caught up over in a local bar Madeleine forgot the name of. Arnaud was busy teaching, over in Hauts-de-Seine. He was a Senior Psychologist now. How was she doing, these days?

She mentioned the clinic, no problems there. The hospital as well. She had her own new circle of friends. He kept looking at her as she talked. On impulse, she offered to buy him shots. A belated celebration of their graduations.

Arnaud said, “You, drink? I’ve never seen you touch a glass.”

“That’s because I don’t, usually.” She took half a sip. Cringed. “Sorry, it’s been a while.”

“You don’t have to finish that.”

“Neither do you.”

Arnaud chuckled.

She said, “My mother used to drink a lot. I guess I thought I would always turn out like her one day, but that’s silly isn’t it.” She finished her drink. “You haven’t even touched yours. I bet I could drink your ass under this table.” She took his glass before he could so much as speak, downed it. She grinned. “See?”

Cut to half-an-hour later; Madeleine, vomiting her sandwich from six hours ago into the toilet while Arnaud kept her head up.

She didn’t remember much besides waking up on the couch in her apartment, still in her clothes from the night before.

“How are you feeling?” said Arnaud.

Madeleine groaned. She grabbed throw-pillow and mashed her face into it. “What time is it?”

“It’s just past two.”

Madeleine lay there until the faint odour of stale vomit was no longer tolerable. Cursing, she swatted it aside. “You didn’t have to stay.”

“It was no trouble,” he said. “You never told me you had family.”

“What?”

“That’s the first time you’ve mentioned any relatives.”

“I was drunk,” said Madeleine. “Don’t worry about it.” Madeleine lowered her hands, squinting at the light. She could make out his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept very well. “Well—what did I say?”

“Something about an aunt, and your mother. I didn’t catch all of it.”

A pit in her stomach that had nothing to do with her recent choices. Madeleine looked Arnaud in-between the eyes. “I’d rather forget about this, if it’s all the same to you.”

Arnaud frowned. “You’re not troubling me at all.”

From then on, she’d accompany him for walks in the Parc Georges-Brassens if the weather permitted. See him for lunch, or dinner. From every other weekend to every weekend.

As the months progressed it was difficult to find excuses to remain platonic. Not because she felt any particular, immediate attraction. She just couldn’t bring herself to relinquish her grip on someone so easily accessible. A heartless woman would string him along with false hope and drop him at the first sign of commitment; Madeleine accepted his offer to cohabit his apartment in Vaugirard. Separate bedrooms. Plenty of space to keep to themselves.

In lieu of a car, they’d share public transit. He’d tease her for checking the corners of the bus each time, but he would also wait up for her on long shifts. Whomever came home first fixed dinner, so on, so forth.

Two years later, they were still together. Her co-workers wondered how she and Arnaud could balance their careers and relationship when she made three times as much as he did in a year.

⁂

In the winter of 2013 Madeleine applied for a position as psychiatrist with the Médecins Sans Frontières. A week into March, she got an email confirming her placement. A three-month mission in Conakry, Guinea, May through July, with the possibility of an extension. Madeleine had relayed this information to both the clinic and the hospital, so there was no worry.

Now it was April. Sitting in the comfort of her office, reading over electronic pamphlets and advisories. In a couple weeks she would be working in far less hospitable conditions. Non-profit work always looked good on a résumé.

Checking her laptop, tabbed over to a different page: Guinean Visa and Passport Requirements: All non-ECOWAS foreigners are required to have a valid Guinean visa and a vaccination card in order to be granted entry. Yellow fever vaccination cards are verified upon entry into the country at Gbessia. Approval for the visa necessitated a seventy-two-hour window of clearance.

She sat back with a headache settling just around the base of her skull. Alone with four polished wooden walls and the analog clock, the fluorescent lighting fixed her to a single moment in time.

A knock at her door snapped her out of contemplation. It was the senior consultant. Madeleine motioned him in, closing the laptop.

“I’m surprised you don’t sleep in that office,” he said.

“That would save some money on bus fare.” She opened the cabinet of folders under her desk, filing away documents from that day’s session.

“How’s Arnaud?”

“He’s doing well.”

The consultant nodded. As she packed up, walked towards her door he was looking at her with something close to sympathy. “You are serious about this mission in Conakry?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

His face darkened. “Have you seen the news lately?”

“Oh, I doubt they would be looking for applicants if the situation were that severe.” Madeleine smiled dryly. “But, there is always a chance I’ll die doing what I love. I can’t think of a better way to go.”

The consultant’s uneasy laugh caused the secretary to glance at them through the doorframe. Madeleine hit the light on the way out.

⁂

Late at night, the weather was on that precipice between winter and spring. An overcast sky, grey and still. By the time Madeleine was opening the door to the apartment, she was grateful to get away from the chill seeping into her skin.

Arnaud, still dressed for work, was sitting on the sofa with last month’s issue of The International Journal Of Psychoanalysis. Without her pitching in, he’d be working part-time shifts at the clinic and teaching night classes just to make end’s meet. He looked up and said, “You’re back late. I took care of dinner.”

Madeleine shrugged out of her coat. “Thanks. I got held up at the clinic.”

“What for?”

She went over to the closet and hung her coat up. “Just lost track of time. I had a pretty busy shift. I’ve been weighing my options lately. This year, I’ll probably be moving to a different clinic. I’ll have to relocate to Spain, or Switzerland. Drag you along.” She looked at him because he hadn’t said anything. “You have enough to worry about.”

Arnaud readjusted his glasses. “I’ve got my degree. I can get a job just about anywhere you go.”

For the most part, Arnaud was easy to live with. Their schedules did not always leave time to get acquainted with each other’s inner thoughts.

Madeleine said, “Can I get your coat?”

He looked up at her, sitting up and shrugging out of it. “Yes, thank you.”

She took his coat, walked back over to the closet, paused. “I put in a position with MSF a few weeks ago. It’s possible I won’t be back until August.” The silence protracted. Madeleine came back into the living room. “I meant to tell you earlier.”

“No, no. I’m grateful you decided it would be convenient for you to tell me at all.”

Madeleine stiffened. “Don’t start this now.”

“Last year,” said Arnaud flatly, “you were gone for six months on some psychiatry tour, you wouldn’t tell me where. This year I had to ask around your office. Conakry? You know what’s happening over there?”

“That’s exactly why I need to go. They’re in need someone with my skillset.”

“You ever take a moment to consider what would happen if you don’t come back?”

“It’s a risk I am willing to take.”

He scoffed. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Because you’ve never volunteered outside of a mental health ward, let alone this country.”

“Not everyone has the luxury of working eight-hour shifts or leaving the country for months at a time.”

Madeleine stiffened. He had no right to use this against her. Everyone made mistakes, it had just slipped her mind, and now he wanted to turn it into a bigger issue. “I don’t need to be paid to make a difference in someone’s life. Why is that so difficult to understand?”

“Jesus, listen to yourself. This isn’t a competition.”

“If you’re so worried about it, maybe you should come along. Make sure I’m not in any real danger. Why not take some pictures while you are at it? You can put those on your wall at work.”

Each time they went out to dinners with old colleagues, now, they would say—oh, you’re still doing volunteer work abroad? That’s so admirable, Madeleine—and Arnaud nodded along with a tight smile. Each of them had found success in their respective fields. Arnaud and his colleagues spoke about their personal lives with an ease, an intimacy which Madeleine could never quite reciprocate.

Arnaud took his glasses off. “Right. I’m no different that that furniture set. Something you buy to make your life a little more complete.”

Madeleine’s eyes hardened. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say.”

Arnaud shut the magazine. “Aren’t you going to have some dinner?”

“What about you?”

“I was out with some friends. I’ve already eaten. You can have some if you like.”

Madeleine frowned. She went into the kitchen. Leftovers from the night before. A quiet dinner for one.

“I should have told you,” she said again, while Arnaud came back, prepped the dishwasher to run. “I’m sorry.”

He paused with his thumb on the extra rinse button. “You should have your own life and interests, outside of mine. I’ve never volunteered abroad. I’m sure it’s very rewarding.”

He walked out. Madeleine could not argue to an empty room.

⁂

By the end of April, she was getting ready to depart. Arnaud was still asleep when she left for her 06:30 flight.

The situation in Guinea had not improved so much as stabilised. Madeleine was assured that the MSF members on-site had already taken precautions, and she’d be instructed further on what to do upon her arrival. She was advised to vaccinate, just to be on the safe side―according to her medical records, she would not need another round of shots until 2015.

Sometime around February, a group of diamond miners in South Africa had been exposed to an unidentified gas while working in the lowest depths. There were multiple deaths, and far more instances of atrioventricular block and cardiac arrest, ataxia, blindness, nausea and vomiting; all symptoms related to blister agent poisoning.

The official statement put forth claimed the gas came from a hidden stash of chemical weapons by terrorists. It had been struck mistakenly and exposed the workers to its effects. The pictures of the victims plastered all over news sites were reminiscent of chemical burns. So the mine had to be shut down for an indefinite period.

In the lobby of the Grand Hotel de L’independence Madeleine was introduced to the Project Coordinator; a shorter man in his mid-forties with a photogenic smile and toupee. He clasped her hand in both of his clammy ones and said: “Very glad you’ve made it, Doctor. We need you on-site as soon as possible.”

By the time she got to her room on the second floor, a fine sheen of sweat had built on her skin. Her luggage was waiting for her on the bench. Off-white walls and bedsheets, a couple wooden chairs. One lamp on the wall beside the desk, two flanking the headboard. The sofa beside the bed looked older than the rest of the furniture. The red and blue pillows as a thoughtful accent were probably new. Everything was clean, though the flatscreen television looked out-of-place. The air quality inside the room was stuffy. No point in lingering here.

On-site at Donka Hospital she met up with the Medical Coordinator and Psychosocial Unit. An isolation ward had been established before the MSF’s involvement, but they were at full capacity; the workers coming and going from there were all clad in full-body personal protective equipment. Another section of the grounds had been set aside and fenced off; rows of tents all lined up. No matter where you went the stench of rot always seemed to hang pervasively in the air.

The other members on the Psychosocial Unit were as amicable as the situation permitted. There wasn’t time to get to know each other outside of their professions and the given assignment.

All of them were good on paper but betrayed their inexperience through a shared level of idealism. Fresh into their respective fields, they were coming here not simply to lend their aid to those in need, but to make a difference. They were all observing the crises of the rest of the world through the same lens of journalism and commercialized empathy. It could not prepare them for the experience of actually sitting down and listening to what their patients talked about with prosaic sincerity.

Conversations were conducted in French, or else by way of an interpreter, though the sentiment in the voices of these patients was palpable. Death was an expected outcome. Implications of negligence or corruption in the government were a common topic of discussion among patients and hospital staff alike.

There was a growing disparity between the narrative put into circulation by the news and what was happening in the field. According to several members of the MSF and the staff at Donka, the media had grossly exaggerated the problem. The workers whose condition had kicked off the initial “chemicals in the mine” story had been subjected to long-term exposure. Most of the patients that came through after that were not as grievously injured, but showed traces of the same poisoning. The photos created a narrative that incited concern in the public eye and incentivized the need for donations. Now the government wanted to cover up the severity of the situation as not to detract from any potential business opportunities; until the MSF got involved, they were only employing the most rudimentary of safety procedures.

The rest of June crawled by without any major incidents. By July the MSF were in the process of dealing with an influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs). There had been a flurry of similar incidents in surrounding prefectures. Thanks to the cooperation with the local civilians and tireless efforts on part of the medical staff and MSF Medical Unit, there had been a forty-five-percent decrease in fatalities compared to the initial wave back in February.

But the hospital was overwhelmed. The topic of insurgence was the new favourite with patients; a consequence of the lack of tangible progress coupled with deep-seated mistrust of government officials. Now the Force Sécurité/Protection, or FSP, had been brought on in collaboration with an additional Protective Services Detail (PSD) by the name of SFT, to ensure the hospital and surrounding property remained untouched.

The latter was a point of contention. Accepting outside assistance from the government directly, rather than working out a compromise, allowed the possibility for interference. But the Project Coordinator was in full support of additional protection around the hospital, as well as the hotel.

Each morning, before work, Madeleine and the rest of the Psychosocial Unit were reviewing protocol in the event of an attack. Outright criticism of methods in handling the situation was discouraged. Madeleine was savvy enough to keep herself abreast of any controversy. For the rest of the Psychosocial Unit, they were either too naïve or willing to look the other way.

The one exception to this was the Vaccines Medical Advisor, Dr. Kessler. He worked on the Medical Unit. Madeleine had cooperated with him a handful of times at the behest of the Medical Coordinator and gathered that Dr. Kessler had gotten into a dispute with the Medical Team a couple days ago. Madeleine wasn’t around to hear the details, but some of the younger MSF members talked about him less discreetly. Kessler was just out-of-touch. He lacked consideration for the emotional states of those affected severely by these recent attacks. He was jumping to conclusions with faulty information passed on by hearsay.

As the situation in the hospital became more desperate he would stay behind on-site, late into the evening. Whenever they had a break, he would disappear on calls. He acknowledged her judgements but remained standoffish whenever he was not working. She found nothing wrong with his conduct.

Over one break, he said, “I was supposed to be home last month, but with the situation being what it is, I decided to stay on until things are resolved.” He did not sit down, his attention turned towards the path back to the infected ward. “Bringing in a proper security detail at this stage—we’re sitting ducks. Who the hell does the Project Coordinator think we’re fooling?” Madeleine ignored him. “Dr. Swann. The Medical Coordinator tells me you’ve been involved in volunteer work for a while. Perhaps they would be more willing to listen to someone with your expertise.”

“I was not selected for my personal opinions.”

Dr. Kessler chuckled. “Well, may I run something by you? In confidence.” Madeleine glanced over at him. “I think, what we are dealing with here is something more dangerous than a few terrorists. When these IDPs come in, with all of the cases I've seen, there is no evidence of the chemical agent on their clothing. The mines should have been shut down months ago, but they have not ceased operation.” He looked at her meaningfully. “Tell me, how does this make sense?”

A moment of recognition passed between them. She could not acknowledge him outright. Her father had many enemies and it was foolhardy to assume they would not follow her to the ends of the earth. She looked at Dr. Kessler and saw an honest man. She said,

“With all due respect, I wouldn’t know about the greater picture. I don’t want to say anything if I cannot back it up. It seems strange because we don't have all the information to explain it, but there must be a logical reason.”

Dr. Kessler nodded. Probably marking her down as another of those young idealists, just here to get her stamp.

So Madeleine changed the topic to something more palatable: “You have been late the last several times we worked together. May I ask why?” His expression faltered into a temporary window of vulnerability. “I shouldn’t have been so blunt. But you leave often enough on calls, and it appears to be taking a toll on you. The medical staff are not in a reasonable state of mind.”

“That’s all right. It’s just my wife and son. This past month has been no easier on them.” Then he looked at her. “A lot of these people we care for don’t have the luxury of a plane ticket home. Sometimes, I think it would be easier to do this work alone.”

Madeleine did not anticipate the conversation to take such a turn, nor did she plan to divulge much about herself. But she could not deflect from answers as she could in the clinic, and Kessler seemed forthright enough to warrant a harmless response. “I know what you mean. Right now, I’m living with a friend. We graduated from university together. He tends to lead his own life while I am away, but he is very understanding of what I do.”

“It’s a great deal to ask of someone.” Madeleine inclined her head in his direction. Kessler’s mouth was set, and his eyes behind the glasses disillusioned. “Few people would devote themselves to a thankless vocation as this out of the goodness of their hearts. Just remember that not everyone is going to want to stick around until you decide you’re ready to settle down.”

Madeleine’s smile did not touch her eyes. “He’s a psychologist. We have an understanding, that’s all. I don’t bother him about his social life.”

Kessler shook his head. In a few minutes they were back to work, as if their conversation had never happened.

As July carried on, she found her mind snagging easily on technicalities. She became less tolerant of the Psychological Unit’s personal hang-ups with the lack of resources and lack of any obvious moral closure. Smell of rot and disinfectant permeated into her clothing and hair until she had begun to associate the smell itself with a lack of progress.

She kept the window in her hotel room cracked, just to let some fresher air in. The room smelled like gasoline and sweat, but it was better than the alternatives. A little noise pollution kept her aware of her surroundings, alone with her own mind and the recorder. Conversations with the IDPs and their families circled back to death and terrorism. An overwhelming fear of retaliation from some formless, looming insurrection.

Madeleine paused the recording. She checked the time and cursed under her breath. Just past one in the morning. In six hours she would return to Donka Hospital and repeat the process. In a week she would be on a flight back to Paris.

Outside her window she heard the distant voice of Dr. Kessler. He was conversing in German, from a few storeys down, right by the outdoor pool. As Madeleine came over to the window she understood him clearly:

“…we’ve seen evidence of PMCs coming through, exhibiting the same symptoms as the IDPs we treated back in February. How we can expect to make any progress if the Project Coordinator refuses to bring this up? We’re putting God-knows how many lives at risk waiting for a vaccine that we don’t know if we need—and even so, it won’t be ready for another month. There’s not enough time to justify keeping silent about….”

Madeleine closed the window carefully. She’d never been one to intrude on personal matters.

⁂

That night Madeleine’s dreams were interspersed with the sounds of sirens and heavy traffic. She woke up the next morning, unrested and sore, an hour early. Watching the shadows on the ceiling cross over peeling paint. At 07:00 she got ready for the day. Exiting her room, she found the Project Coordinator by the elevators, talking with the head of security from SFT and a couple Donka Hospital staff Madeleine knew by sight but not intimately.

Apparently a surplus of medical supplies had arrived by truck, around three or four in the morning. Several members of the Medical Unit had stayed on-site in order to determine if everything had been accounted for only to find out it was rigged. Thanks to the intervention of the PSD, losses were minimal. Several doctors had suffered chemical exposure and were currently isolated from the rest of the IDPs to receive immediate medical attention. Others, such as Dr. Kessler and the psychologist consultant from the Psychosocial Team, had been less fortunate.

Now there was additional pressure from the hospital doctors and Logistics Team to begin moving the high-risk patients to a safer area. The fear that this story would circulate and any chance of obtaining additional supplies would be discouraged could not be ruled out. So they would not be reporting this as a chemical attack, but as an interception of a failed attack by local terrorists.

The head of security, Lucifer Safin, noticed her first. Black suit, a leather gun holster on his left side. Distinctly scarred from his right temple to the base of his left jaw. Too intricate to be leprosy or a typical burn wound, yet the structure of his eyes and nose remained intact. Possibly chloracne? “Dr. Swann. I understand that you were one of the last to speak with Dr. Kessler?”

Up until this point, they'd not talked. She might just catch a glimpse of him walking with a couple soldiers in the morning heat; in spite of the weather she had never seen Safin without leather gloves.

There was a hushed quality to his voice which might indicate internal damage, but he was able to project without difficulty. Accent would suggest a Czech or Russian ethnicity, but his complexion and eye colour invited room for speculation. His manner wasn’t explicitly taciturn, more akin to the disconcerting silence one might experience while looking into a body of still-water—met only with your reflection.

“Yes,” said Madeleine, “but that was nearly five days ago.”

Safin glanced at the Project Coordinator. “I’ll speak with her alone.”

“Of course.”

They walked down the length of the hall back to her room. His gait was purposeful and direct.

Of all the useless things to be thinking about, his name was what stuck out to her. After growing up in a family with fake passports and birth certificates it was possible Lucifer was simply an alias.

Her attention went to the window. She’d forgotten to lock it.

He said, “I have just a few questions. What was the extent of your relationship to Dr. Kessler?”

“We talked once or twice. I didn’t know him that well. He told me he had stayed behind, in order to assist the medical unit. And he has―had a family, back home. He seemed close to them.”

“You have worked with him before?”

“Never directly. I have my own responsibilities with the Psychosocial Unit.” Safin said nothing. He was looking around carefully at the room, the furniture. His eyes came to rest on the window. He walked over to it. “From what I have gathered, Dr. Kessler and the Project Coordinator had opposing views on protocol.”

“Did he speak to you about these views?”

Madeleine thought about their last conversation. The desperate look in Kessler's eyes. That moment of connection, tacit and fragile.

“He expressed, in confidence, that he did not understand the Project Coordinator’s hesitance to bring in a security detail. He considered the possibility of an attack by outside forces to be imminent.”

“You are aware,” Safin said, “that once humanitarian action is subsumed into broader military and political intervention, it may be perceived as interference.”

He was looking at her closely. The early morning light put his disfigurement into a new, unsettling clarity. Madeleine said, “I think you would be better off asking the other doctors about this.”

“We have video surveillance in place on the Grand Hotel de L’independence. At around one in the morning, Dr. Kessler exited the building and contacted an unknown party by mobile phone. A minute later, you were at the window.”

“Yes, I had forgotten to close it.”

“Your room was the only one to show signs of activity at that hour.”

“I was reviewing my notes from that day’s session. I heard a voice from outside, though not clearly. It was distracting me, so I got up and closed the window. I don’t know what the conversation was about.”

“This is common for you?”

“I left the window open because otherwise I seem to find myself trapped with the smell of rotting flesh.”

Safin’s expression became easier to read, but not in a positive sense. Madeleine kept any apprehension away from her face and her voice tightly controlled.

“Without information about Dr. Kessler’s lifestyle outside the MSF, I cannot give you an answer in good faith. His work was sound. Whatever he said to me was assumed to be in confidence. Many people say things to one another in what they believe to be confidence that they would not admit to otherwise. If I had reason to suspect he was unfit to work, I would have contacted the Medical Advisor immediately.”

Safin held her gaze for much longer than was necessary. She did not dare avert her face. He said,

“The Project Coordinator is waiting for you downstairs. We appreciate your cooperation.”

The rest of the day she spent in a different wing of the hospital. The Psychosocial Unit was cut down from four members to two. Another day of thankless work that never seemed quite good enough. That evening, Madeleine was informed she would have to stay on to make up for lost ground, at least until August. The MSF offered a lot of flowery, empty apologies which she accepted because there was nothing else to do.

When she’d arrived at the airport she could stave off her doubts with shallow, private reassurances. Right now, you are just Dr. Swann the psychiatrist. Your father is many miles away and he won’t contact you again unless you call him to grovel. No one else will come looking for you in a place like this. Undoubtedly this hospital was safer under the watch of the Security Manager from SFT than it would have been with the FSPs alone. Why was she still tense?

⁂

By August, the sunnier days gave way almost completely to rainfall. The wing of the hospital that had suffered the chemical attack was still closed and they had lost several more staff members. Madeleine and the remaining MSF were encouraged by the Project Coordinator to take earlier shifts. Progress remained steady, neither faltering nor immediate, but there was no clear resolution in sight. The stench of rot imprinted into Madeleine’s senses to the point where she no longer consciously registered her own nausea. Discontent among the staff continued to bubble under the surface on account of the closed wing and bad press.

At night, Madeleine would pore over her notes, listening to the passing automobiles and indistinct conversation. She drew the curtains in her hotel room and tied her hair back. Even indoors it was impossible to avoid the cloying embrace of humidity.

The day started as just another humid morning at six AM. Madeleine rose and prepared herself mentally for the day ahead. There was an inordinate of activity on the road outside her window as she got dressed and left. Madeleine was thinking about how stress kept her mind working late into the night, but her position with the Psychosocial Unit barred her from working too many hours in the hospital. She was keeping up the pace, not yet to the point of exhaustion, but if they were seriously going to ask her to carry on into September she would have to find an alternative.

Outside the hotel she met up with the Medical Coordinator and a few members of the Logistics Unit. They spent about ten minutes standing idle in the humid air, too weary to speak. The usual FSP were on-guard by the hotel. Ever since the attack on Donka Hospital there were more of them standing around.

An unmarked black Jeep pulled up. The Medical Coordinator went up to it first. One of the FSP shouted in French. The Medical Coordinator’s head burst over the exterior of the vehicle, and Madeleine. The body slumped like a doll to the dirt. Madeleine wanted to scream but could not. She turned and saw Peter Miller, head of Logistics, facing down the barrel of a rifle. “Where are the rest of the MSF? Why are they not at the hospital?” Half a dozen more men stood behind him, all armed.

Miller opened his hands in supplication. “I don't understand what you're—”

Two shots. Miller joined the Medical Coordinator. The insurgent was looking at Madeleine.

“You are from the hospital?” The rifle jutted into her sternum. Warm blood spattered across her skin and clothes, pooling at her feet. The sight of dry earth briefly mixed up with wooden floorboards. “You allowed them to experiment on us and our families like dogs! Who gave you the orders?”

She tried to say, I'm sorry, I don’t understand, but all that came out of her was a weak little gasp. One PSD broke from the group and came directly toward her.

She caught his black eyes, under the balaclava. The scarification impossible to mistake. He turned and shot the insurgent twice in the the head. He grabbed Madeleine by the waist, the way you might handle an animal, and opened the backdoor of the Jeep. Shoved her into the backseat. Checked the seatbelt. Shut the door. The front doors reopened. Two men entered the car. The hands on the steering wheel were mottled.

Additional round of gunfire set her into a fit of trembling. She ducked with her hands over her nape. The distinctive voice in the front seat overtaken by the roaring in her ears. She heard a voice whispering, “Ne me tuez pas. Je n’ai rien fait. Je ne sais rien.”

#user: dorminchu #fanfic #fanfiction #canon divergence #madeleine swann #lyutsifer safin #original characters #teamcivilian #007 fest #007 fest 2022

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