#if anyone wnats any part of this post to be rebloggable just lmk and I'll make its own post

[papakhan]

@lynettethemadscientist replied to your post “Oh actually I think if you only play fallout 4 and...”:

Oh is this about me? I just only played Fallout 4 so far. I’m new to the Fallout series. Are people in fandoms not allowed to enter discourse until they’ve consumed every piece of relevant media?

​I didn’t want to make this its own post but I’ve written so much I kind of have to. I've turned off reblogs but feel free to add to this in my replies.

You put up a sign saying "I don't think raiders can be humanised, change my mind" and then argued with people who tried to have discussions with you. All 3 of the people who tried to engage in a discourse with you gave up and I can see why. You're ignoring their points and talking as if these characters in a video game have agency and are choosing to “dehumaniz(e) themselves” when they don't, they are lines of code written by somebody else with their own preconceived biases. What people are asking you to do when humanising raiders is to think outside of the mechanics of a video game and think about their nuances. What led them to this way of life? What do they think of it? Do they wanna get out or are they happy as they are? Forget yourself as the player character ready and willing to blast their brains out for a second and just think of them as people.

Here's the thing, I like Raiders. That doesn't mean I think everything they do is justified, but I like to think about how they justify themselves, which is something the og Fallout and Fallout New Vegas are very good at. Fo1 and FoNV's raiders are defined and their actions and rationale make sense and even if you don't personally agree you can still understand how and why they came to those conclusions. Fallout 4 and Fallout 3 are some of the worst games when it comes to talking about character justifications, including both raiders and normal wastelanders (and your companions!) Nobody in-game can explain why they're still living in the same bombed-out crumbling building full of skeletons because the writers don't care, they just want their wasteland setting and don't want to think about anything else. You coming in to complain about how "I have yet to see any backstories for the settlers" and how the prewar skeletons and raiders typing in terminals are stealing all the limelight with their "sob stories" when you've only played 1 game out of 6-8 is just silly. I promise you the other games are full of settler stories, it's just the game that you're playing and using as your source doesn't really bother with it.

I also don't have a problem with you only just getting into the series. I promise you that I'm NOT trying to gatekeep or anything like that, Fallout is a great series with a lot of stuff I'm sure you'll enjoy. However what you need to understand is that a lot of the games, especially Fo1 and FoNV are very politically heavy games and unfortunately you cannot engage in discourse with them without stepping on some people's political sensibilities. You acting like there's a hardline between right and wrong and stealing, dealing/doing drugs, and being in gangs are objectively evil things to do just comes across as you showing your ass regarding how you feel about actual real-life poor people who are right now in jail for doing those things just to survive. I don't know if those are actually your beliefs but that's just the nature of publically discussing these topics. Good and Bad, and Right and Wrong are very contentious topics and again you acting like the only thing that makes us human is being able to "*choose* right over wrong" and saying "An important aspect of humanity is self-control" is a bad look. Are you saying that people with self-control issues aren't human? Because that's how you come across.

I wanna finish this by saying I'm not mad at you. I didn't wanna pick a fight with you, hence why I made a vague-post instead of replying directly. I'll be honest with you I made that post because I saw your replies and was very disheartened and disappointed, maybe I shouldn't have made a post when I was emotional and for that I'll say that I'm sorry. However, the reason why I've taken time out of my day to write this huge reply is because I love Fallout and I want people to be able to enjoy it and have as much fun with it as I do, so I want you to understand what other people were trying to explain to you and why it might have felt like the discussions weren't going anywhere.

I encourage you to have discussions about this game and think about it as deeply as you want but you do need to be mindful about what it is you're discussing. This game has plenty to dissect but unfortunately, classism and racism are some of the things hard-baked into a lot of the lore by the nature of how old it is and who some of the writers/devs are. Of course I don't think you're those things, but it's important to me that you know where this comes from, why it's so important to be critical of the media you consume AND why so many people are critical of Fallout's writing especially when it comes to the Raiders. This isn't a You thing, I don't have a problem with you, it's just the writing choices that you're choosing to defend.