#I don't even play fallout 4 I just love making this joke.

[saint-lajka]

going to boston. like in fallout 4- [i am shot in the head with a shotgun]

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

Thoughts on the Fallout 3 Intro (and Some on the Fallout 4 Intro, Too):

Cut added due to length.

If I'm 100% honest, the opening minutes of Fallout 3 weren't as bad as the reputation it's garnered over the years lead me to believe it would be.

I'd argue the main problems with the intro are the length and the ham-fistedness of it. You don't need to literally show the player being born and their mother dying of cardiac arrest during said birth to make them feel empathy for/connection to the character backstory "my mother passed away when I was born, but my dad and I are very close even if he's quite busy". Fallout 3 needed more/better shorthand for the story elements it was trying to portray.

Personally, I think making the whole series of events playable was a mistake. Making me play boring stuff doesn't automatically make me more invested in it simply because you made me play through it instead of turning it into a cutscene or something. There are ways to show Butch's inner conflict/Amata's struggle for independence from her dad and acceptance from her peers/the Overseer's potential as a villain-type without basically smooshing your face into it and holding it there for several minutes too long until you can't breathe.

Overall, I see what they were going for and the struggles they would've had trying to achieve it, and I can appreciate both. I definitely entered the game proper with some nice, sentimental moments under my belt. I saved Butch's mom (a very surreal-feeling interaction because of the way it was staged and voice acted) and he was grateful and gave me his jacket, a nice peek at him having some potential development away from "intentionally meat-headed and unsympathetic bully". I chose not to kill the Overseer because he wasn't directly attacking me, and so Amata and I had a brief, but sort of bittersweet moment of saying goodbye before security showed up and ran me off. Developing the Lone Wanderer's connection with Amata probably worked better than anything else they were shooting for.

Don't get me wrong, though: there was plenty of stuff that was just dumb, too. The birth and toddler scenes were completely asinine and could've been cut easily. I unironically thought that the Revelations quote on the wall in the apartment was a joke from one of the mods I'd installed or something (between the on-the-noseness of it and the incredibly goofy font), but all of the sudden the dad was talking to me about it and how much my dead mother loved it...and I just started cackling. Hilarious. Very "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards"-coded. James is also too much of a blank slate to develop the sort of attachment the writers clearly want you to have to him before he runs off on you; Liam Neeson's warm voice performance is the most likable thing about him. Well, that and him being unnecessarily sexy...

The birthday party scene had quite literally no reason for existing other than to give you the Pip-Boy, and that could've been done at any other time. It doesn't even really succeed in villainizing the Overseer except for making him seem a little weird. The next time you have conflict with the man, he's trying to have you killed, so this doesn't work in my eyes. At the very least, the scene didn't need to be so long; with the foresight of knowing that many of the people who attended the party will be dead before I leave Vault 101, some by my hand, it comes across as a cheap way to endear you to a bunch of flat, lifeless characters whose only identity is having a name assigned to them.

The entire aftermath of your dad's escape takes the pace from feeling too slow to too fast. Yes, it pretty effectively manages to give you that feeling of "What do you mean my dad's gone???", but it mostly comes from confusion and not from any feeling of disbelief or worry. And I know the Overseer is supposed to be seen as this incredibly unreasonable person, but the reaction of everyone else just going along with his murderous attitude doesn't track to me. This is especially so if it's true that James and the Lone Wanderer weren't even born in Vault 101, so people have come and gone before. People reacted like the world was ending, and only one person was willing to spare the life of a nineteen year old they've known almost their whole life.

I dunno why they didn't just have 101 be equipped with a G.E.C.K and have James steal it when he leaves or something. Or maybe have him be forced to kill someone in self-defense when he tries to leave. That would have at least made everyone's severe, panicky reaction, and animosity towards his abandoned child make more sense.

Over the course of the whole thing, there was just a whole lot of "telling" instead of "showing", and when they were "showing", it was more like "punching you in the face with it". It feels very much like the writers and devs sort of don't expect their players to be smart enough to pick up on what they're trying to do, so the whole thing has a mild air of condescension to it. I mean, they're literally treating you like a baby who doesn't know how to walk or hit "interact" to open a gate.

In terms of whether Fallout 3 manages to have a "better" opening than Fallout 4, I'm not sure I'd fully agree with that idea, myself. I think I see them more as openings of comparative strength that also have an equal number of glaring, but different, fatal weaknesses. The two games really could have benefited from sharing some ideas back and forth (you know, if that were temporally possible for the Fallout 3 team). 3's concept for its intro is solid, but it's limited, and it's shakily executed. I see what they were going for, and I see why they struggled, but I can't really envision it being a ton better without a complete rework. Fallout 4's opening, I would argue, has more original ideas at its bedrock, and more potential at that, but it similarly fails to bring any of that potential to fruition. It also saddles itself with some really shitty story choices that hamper many players right off the bat. No one wants to go looking for that damn baby!

4's setup has a hundred and one issues of its own (ha), many of them equally significant in scope, but I'd argue the biggest one is the whole "Shaun" of it all. I would think that it'd be easier to get the average player off the street to care about their in-game dad than any in-game baby, even if you tell them that the baby is theirs. Everyone technically has a dad, regardless of whether or not you have a relationship with them, so they have at least some sort of emotion to tap into regarding that personal connection. Not everyone has or has had a baby, and one as young as Shaun also has almost no discernible personality, so it's not like you can give him a few cute or snappy lines of dialogue to endear you to him. Very telling that the writers make you fail to feel more than mild concern as you're stuck helplessly watching someone murder your spouse and kidnap your kid. It's about as emotionally resonant as watching someone steal a baby doll.

I wrote a whole post about how when I play Fallout 4 as Nora, I can't help but imagine her feeling free and not choosing to even look for her son. They really do fail to make you care much at all about him or Nate, so I always just sort of wander off and start building houses, fucking ghouls, etc. I definitely agree with the original anon that Fallout 3 ultimately does a better job of making you care about your in-game family through its opening game play. Cogsworth cares about the whereabouts of that baby about a million times more than I do.

In terms of the pacing, neither game exactly has the edge. Fallout 4's intro feels long as well, and has plenty of moments that could've been cut or replaced with something more substantial, but it also has noticeable "lag" in the timing between interactions with NPCs, which is obviously intended to give you time to explore your home and look out the windows before you exchange dialogue and/or make progress. Like the intro for 3, this isn't such an issue on a first playthrough, when you don't have as much reference for the events that are about to unfold. However, on a repeat playthrough, it gives the intro a stilted, almost alien quality, as none of the conversations or interactions feel like they happen naturally. I know this is more of a problem with the storytelling format than the game itself, but it feels awkwardly paced nonetheless. Too much time is wasted staring at Shaun swaddled in his crib, talking to Codsworth about nothing, exchanging pleasantries with your spouse that do nothing to make you feel any actual connection to them.

I really like the Vault-Tec rep, but the interaction where he comes to your door to sign you up for your spot in Vault 111 is too long, poorly placed, and comes off pretty dumb/way too coincidental. Granted, I did just see a billboard in Fallout 3 still advertising Vaults that literally said "It's never too late!", but that's not really true, is it? When you leave Vault 101, there are skeletons on the ground along with signs demanding/begging to be let in. A whole community sprung up comprised of people who didn't make it into Vault 101. You see another group of people begging to be let into 111, the Vault-Tec rep included, only to find them largely vaporized when you come back outside.

There were plenty of people for whom it was "too late". That's kind of the whole thing, right? So, the idea that you can sign up for a Vault half a block away like five minutes before the bombs hit is kind of tough for me to swallow, especially when the TV show established that spots in the Vaults are costly (which would make sense, as there's a limited supply and also Vault-Tec would still want to be raking in cash) even if they do often come with unseemly strings attached. Remember, Barb Howard wasn't content to let Cooper just pay for a spot for their family. She insisted they be in one of the "good ones".

All that considered, though, I still think the Fallout 4 intro has a lot of strengths and a lot of potential. I think starting the game before the bombs fell, even if it's only what feels like a few minutes beforehand, is a really cool idea that gives us a taste of Pre-War life that we aren't typically given by the Fallout franchise. The moment when the newscaster starts to read off the notice that the bombings have begun could be real stomach-dropper, but the way they transition into the action feels awkward and kind of flat. Seeing your neighbors fleeing their homes, passing people at the gate who you know will be dead in minutes because, unlike you, they have no place to go, could have been a great way to pile on to the guilt you'd feel about surviving when your spouse is murdered. I'm kind of obsessing over how I'd rework this intro right now, but I'm still trying to decide if my ideas are any better than the game's.

I fully admit that I might be prioritizing "good potential with shitty execution" over "okay potential with okay execution" when it comes to Fallout 4, and maybe my opinion will change by the time I finish Fallout 3, but at the end of the day, I wouldn't necessarily be able to choose between the two for the title of "Best Intro".

Looking forward to exploring more of the game.

[romanoffblitzer]

An Abridged History of YachiFumi

This will not be an exhaustively researched post. This is just me telling stories off the top of my head.

The first interaction between Yachiyo and Fumi, in the main story of ReLIVE, goes something like this:

Some people think that YachiFumi grew out of this single interaction, but I don’t really think that’s the case. After all, there are numerous interactions between the Revue girls, and most of them can be turned into shippable moments, but only YachiFumi exploded the way it did. Rather, I think YachiFumi filled a niche that people were looking to fill: an angsty ship that dealt with the fallout of Fumi leaving Siegfeld.

These days, we can point to Akira as the person other than Shiori most upset by Fumi’s departure, but back then, when no one knew anything of the circumstances that caused Fumi to leave or how the Siegfeld girls felt about it, speculation ran wild. I think people gravitated to Yachiyo because, for some reason or another, the other Siegfeld girls didn’t fit what people were looking for: back then, Akira was fairly aloof and cold, Mei Fan had a big crush on Akira, and Michiru was focused on Akira (and no one really understood her). That left Yachiyo, whose mysterious, detached demeanor could be hiding all sorts of things. What if Yachiyo was close to Fumi before she left? What if she was the one most broken up by her departure?

And so, fanfic writers and readers being the sluts for angst that they are, ran with this idea. As far as I can tell, people started shipping YachiFumi pretty early in ReLIVE’s lifespan. I can see some archaeological evidence for it dating back to November 2018, and it was definitely a big established thing by mid-2019—that was when I got into the ship myself. The ship was big across people of all languages: English, Japanese, Korean, and more.

By late 2019, however, discontent with the ship was growing among some (in the English fandom, at least; I don't remember seeing any such complaints in the Japanese or Korean fandoms). This was helped along by Chapter 8, Siegfeld's chapter in the main story, which revealed what Yachiyo's Deal was, and it had nothing to do with Fumi in particular. These people contended that Yachiyo's portrayals in YachiFumi fics were out-of-character; they took Yachiyo, who's a pretty easygoing and cheerful person in canon, and turned her into a tearful, depressed, clingy mess. (I've also heard from some that the YachiFumi fandom back then was loud and annoying, which didn't help their perception of the ship. I don't remember personally experiencing the "annoying" part, but they were certainly loud.)

As a person who shipped YachiFumi back then, but was also a thoughtful person who thinks of shipping two characters like putting puzzle pieces together, I also came to believe that the portrayal of Yachiyo in such fics was off the mark. Yachiyo is extraordinarily perceptive, but the old YachiFumi fics tend to make her ignorant as to why Fumi left Siegfeld; Yachiyo had trouble relying on others, but the old YachiFumi fics make her dependent on Fumi, sometimes making her barely functional without her; and a decent amount of the time, Yachiyo is antagonistic to Fumi for leaving Siegfeld and abandoning her, but it's not really in Yachiyo's chill personality to get mad at others. Rather than stop shipping YachiFumi, though, I instead started modifying my view of the ship and the two characters to fit the presented evidence.

Still, though, YachiFumi was enormously popular, even with the lack of canon content, something that was commonly joked about. People were clamoring for Yachiyo and Fumi to get some actual interactions, but they had no idea when they would happen. Then, around February 4, 2020, the unthinkable finally happened. Part 5 of the "Venus & Cupid - Angelic Thread of Love" event dropped, featuring Yachiyo visiting Fumi's apartment to get her to come see the play Shiori was going to put on, and the fandom exploded.

I am told that some people were disquieted by how Yachiyo and Fumi's interactions were starkly different from their angsty, emotional headcanons. I'll take their word for it, but I have not seen this for myself; mostly I saw people being very happy and excited, with the angsty YachiFumi writers simply incorporating the scene into their headcanons without discarding the previous angst.

(Around that time, fueled by passion for YachiFumi and discontent with the ship's portrayal in fic, I decided to take a crack at writing a fic for them myself, with the concept that Yachiyo would be the most perceptive and most understanding of Fumi's reasons to leave Siegfeld. It was a good fic for its time, but I consider it outdated now as my perception of both characters and their relationship evolved even further.)

After that, the YachiFumi fandom went on for a while, but as far as I can tell, the old conception of YachiFumi and its associated fandom eventually petered out around 2021 (at least in English; the Japanese YachiFumi fandom, while it lessened, still remains decently active and still upholds angsty Yachiyo to some extent). I attribute this less to lessening interest in the ship and more to probably inevitable lessening interest in ReLIVE itself (I've seen a lot of sleeper YachiFumi fans). Which is a shame, because all the good canon YachiFumi content dates to 2022 or later.

Orpheus Fumi came out in February 2022 and Ruler of the Court Yachiyo came out in June 2022, and the YachiFumi shippers that remained were excited (mostly in the Japanese fandom, although of course I was still around). These bond stories took their dynamic that was established in their initial interaction and built on it, creating a consistent narrative thread about Yachiyo and Fumi noticing and appreciating each others' changes. As far as relationships between ReLIVE girls from separate schools go, Yachiyo and Fumi's friendship ended up being one of the most consistently written. Then came Tsu the Crane Yachiyo in November 2023, the Holy Grail of canon YachiFumi content, and the YachiFumi shippers that survived to that day (who were largely Japanese) exploded, with many victoriously saying "YachiFumi is real now, I don't have to imagine everything into existence for them anymore!"

(There are a few people in the English fandom, grown out of the initial backlash against YachiFumi, who are insistent that Yachiyo and Fumi aren't friends at all, are supposed to have absolutely no interest in each other, and take any interaction between them to be forced and out of character. The canon evidence does not seem to support this.)

Quite honestly, if that was the last piece of YachiFumi content by the game ended service, I would have been content. But we also got Bard Orpheus Fumi, where Yachiyo tries to get Fumi and Akira to reconcile a bit, and Mochizuki Chiyojo Fumi, where Yachiyo seems to be quite pleased that the character Fumi is playing is her character's husband, so we got a little more on top of the absolute meal that was Tsu the Crane Yachiyo.

All else being told, Starira's end of service has done little to lessen my interest in YachiFumi, and I plan to keep thinking and talking about them for a long time.

[med-ex]

feelin rlly idk HAPPY?? over this franchise as a whole✨

I wasn't even alive for Fallout 1 & 2 - but upon entering the world 3 years after they were released, would grow up hearing its name constantly... never did i think it would take GTA's place as my favourite video game series. Like literally never thought the weird little isometric game talked about by my older cousins would be the one.

I played Fallout 3 at the worst period of my life- it became a pure escape from graduating high school, becoming a severe alcoholic and moving off my mountain into my province's capital city. I was in love with it to the point that when I came home to my family home to visit, I would haul my xbox 360 in my backpack and strap my little tv to my back with a rope- ✨that's✨ how addicted I was to it.

It resonated with me in a way no other game series has. No, I obviously didn't grow up in the same standards as the wastes, but could resonate with foraging for food, no clean water & mess, destruction and despair everywhere you turned.

Fast forward a year or so, and I try Fallout: New Vegas. This is where it finally became my favorite series ever. I could list all the reasons, but they're similar to what you'll see all over the net; it's just amazing. I already was all "fuck the government" since I was a child but it made me think- think about the rule of authority, think about perseverance, weigh out what "right" and "wrong" truly means and the blurred line between the two.

By the time I was 21, I tried Fallout 4. It took some getting used to in the terms of its modern graphics, but I really loved how I got to experience conversations that felt like I was actually having them. I loved building the world back up and when I was brave enough to try mods- then shit got real interesting. I was already obsessed with Fallout 3 & NV but we can thank Fallout 4 for getting me into the community as a whole.

I was one of the ones to make fun of FO76- the launch was a huge part of that, but I just didn't understand how it could ever truly fit into the Fallout series. I played it for the first time when I was 2022, and now after 2 years I wholeheartedly regret shitting on it so hard. There are so many cool quests/stories and though some of them are silly seeing as it's online-based and they need to cater to that and though it's a bit strange at first, it feels so cool to be around other players adventuring the wastes + actually having to persist to build your own base, feed yourself and survive- as console commands don't exist in the same realm they used to with the earlier titles.

Now, we arrive at the airing of the first Fallout television show. I seriously thought it was gonna be shit- I just couldn't imagine them being able to do a good job but as we can see, here we are. The show is amazing and I didn't even know it was something I wanted so badly. The only real-life renditions of Fallout I've seen is that one live action trailer for 76 + cosplay- so seeing it in film, is seriously so fucking cool.

Idk guess im just gettin a little ✨sentimental✨ towards a series that has given me so many lessons, so much ability to cope with my own shit + gotten me into such a fun community filled with funny jokes, amazing art, discussions and rich lore that maybe one day could leave the video game + TV screen and become even a book.

Ty to the crew of original artists who started this back in the 90s, and thank you to the crew of artists at Bethesda in this current century who kept this game going💖

[paintedbutton]

Okay, serious first opinion on Veilguard, let's go.

I've played about 10 hours of it so far, and while it's pretty fun and engaging, I'm not completely sold yet.

The combat, to me, is a major weak point. Sure, it's fun, sort of, but it doesn't feel like Dragon Age to me. It's missing a LOT of elements from the previous games. In a way, combat feels a lot like the exaggerated beginning in DA2 - everything's flashy, my rogue seems to be teleporting all over the place, you get it. For me, the build-up's missing. I couldn't even tell who was and wasn't a mage for a bit there because everyone seems to be glowing all the time. I'm missing the strategic aspects of combat a lot. Not just the ability to pause and position your party, but also the ability to actually think about what you're doing. I feel very railroaded a lot of the time what with the ui very insistently telling you that THIS IS A COMBO, THIS ENEMY IS WEAK TO THAT, etc. The classes don't seem to matter anymore. I've yet to get a warrior into my team, and the game doesn't seem to care too much about it at all. It's still fun ... I think ... but it feels a tad too much to me. Too button-mashy.

I like the lighthouse as a base of operations, and I like how everyone finds their little home to hole up in there. It's interesting, and I'm looking forward to exploring it more.

Story-wise, I'm a little on the fence so far. It could be good, I think, but I'm a little irritated that Solas/we just unleashed two ancient elven gods on the world and everyone just shrugs and rolls with it. Some parts of the dialogue feel very wooden and expository, but I guess that's to be expected when you have a decade between games and need to give everyone the same base of knowledge. On the other hand, some stuff is hardly explained at all (the Veil Jumpers, what's even happened with the veil after Inquisition, etc). Some things (Harding getting magic) feel a little rushed. But I'll be interested to see how it goes. And I do like that Varric's little storytime sequences have made a return.

What I do very much like is that Rook is rooted in the world, and that not only their choices but what they say seems to matter. Kudos to that. Although, at least in my few hours of gameplay, some aspects do seem to be missing. I made my "practice" Rook and elf and a Crow, so I thought - city elf, obviously. When she uttered the words "our gods" without blinking an eye, I was a little miffed for a moment. Maybe there's opportunities later to flesh out Rook's backstory through dialogue or something, but so far they get a background and that's about it.

The art direction is hit and miss for me. The game is beautiful, the costumization seemingly endless, and none of the enemies are rooted in any sort of previous art design, which makes me kinda sad. I know we knew this from the trailers, but I just don't understand Bioware's insistence on redeveloping the wheel with every single game. I joked about the darkspawn, but seriously. The lack of consistency annoys the fuck out of me (as do the darkspawn in general tbh. They made something interesting, lore-wise, in DAO and built interesting aspects on top of it in DA2. I'm not sure I like the "we're throwing that all overboard because elven gods are cooler" is a direction i necessarily like). I couldn't tell what anything at all was supposed to be, compared to the earlier games. Except for nugs and halla maybe.

In conclusion: I'm having fun, but I'm unsure. It may be a Fallout 4 situation for me. Fun game, but not the franchise I've come to know and love.

[adultswim2021]

Delocated #8: “Decoys” | August 22, 2010 - 10:00PM | S02E01

Hot dog, it’s the good season of Delocated! 

Look, I don’t mean to suggest that the other seasons are bad. They’re fine! But season two is when the show truly was firing on all cylinders. It was also expanded into a half hour format, a change that would cripple lesser Adult Swim shows.

In this episode, Jon is optimistic that the new season of his reality program is going to catapult him to fame, while the Mirminski crime family steps things up by putting Yvgeny’s brother Sergei in charge, played by the incredible and menacing Steve Cirbus. The network colludes with the Mirminskis by asking them to kill people close to Jon in order to up the drama and the stakes. Jon is also dealing with the fallout from the previous episode wherein he showed his face for the first time, repulsing his girlfriend Kim who only ever saw him with the ski mask on. We also meet  Mighty Joe Jon, the black blonde, portrayed here to perfection by Jerry “January 6th” Minor. 

Jon, now on high alert after a few people get picked off around him, decides to hire a team of decoys. A bit of a love triangle forms between Kim and one of the Decoys after she makes out with him thinking he was Jon. This decoy I THINK is Daryl Wein, her one-time partner, which is why they can kiss with tongues on the show and not get arrested. 

This one has a lot of laughs, including Todd Berries playing himself to the fullest extent (immediately hitting on a beautiful woman the second he has an opportunity), a poem going viral (I gasped at this development) and the inexplicable business with the boxed candy involving Jon’s bodyguard. I feel like season one was admirably creative, and was always decently written, but sometimes the conceptual plots sorta clashed with character stuff. I feel like this season mostly nails the balance of character-driven story while also folding in weird ideas and clever jokes.

EPHEMERA CORNER:

MAIL BAG:

Ever notice how many of my write-ups just sorta end without a pithy concluding statement? This is done because I suspect that if I were to try very hard to do this, that I'd only come up with about 5 or 6 unique ones that I would plug and play in an alternating pattern and that it would expose me for being the shitty writer I truly am. Tonight, I was trying to come up with something while my attention was divided (I had a video of a Sega Saturn being lovingly restored on in the background). I typed something without even thinking, and then when I looked back at the screen I had somehow managed to type, without even being cognizant of it: "Good shit." by itself in a line at the end. "Good shit." Without thinking at all about it. It truly made me shiver.

"Aaron McGruder “left the nest” like so much Randy on Home Improvement at the end of this season" what the hell did this mean? I waited for you to come back to ask you about it.

I will humorlessly explain everything. 1) Randy, portrayed by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, famously left Home Improvement before the series itself ended. 2) a Nickelodeon Magazine article was focused on reporting this, using sub-headline to the effect of "Randy Leaves the Nest!" 3) This left an impression on my friend, who repeatedly refers to it in conversation 4) He also remembered that a little graphic of JTT as a bird literally flying away from a nest was included, but this has not been corroborated by an archive search of said article. 5) I am telling you this, because I assume you are a stranger, and not him, even though he reads this blog and often sends me spoof questions. I asked him point blank if this message was from him just hours ago, and he said it was not. Being a devout Christian, he would never lie to me like this. He is godly

carrie brownstein gif "I-O, PERRY!"

Hey come on man don't do another inside joke on here I will have to explain this one too, damn

[carriehobbs]

I saw you tagged Ellery Wiseman on that poem and am dropping into your inbox to ask for anything you'd like to share about your Button!! (Do you have more than one? Who do they romance? How is their relationship with Nick?) -wayhavenots

omg pd tysm for asking!! 💕💕 there is absolutely nothing in the world i love more than having an excuse to talk about my ocs

i (with some rare exceptions) am the kind of if player that makes a new oc for every romance route i play, so i actually have 5 buttons 🫣 (technically 6, rip elliot wiseman who was from my very first mind blind playthrough, when i just wanted to see if i liked the game. you were very depressed and never became a fully-realized button, but your sacrifice is remembered and your name is retired out of respect). i have a page with very, very brief details on my buttons (and also my detectives for wayhaven) and links to their tags here, but if you use tumblr mobile you've probably never had the opportunity to see it.

this got so very, very long, so the rest is under the cut

my 5 buttons are: ella, ellie, elle, ellis, and ellery (can you guess what naming convention i lifted from the game's default names? lol). what's universally true for all 5 of them (though with some nuance, they all have slightly different feelings about their relationships) is that they're as close as they can be with their parents (because i like john and hope as characters and i find "i really love these people but our relationship became incredibly complicated and we now have to find ways to reconcile our disappointment/anger/etc. with our love for them" to be really compelling. i love mess) and with nick (because i'm a middle child and i accidentally projected my feelings about my siblings (and especially my older sister) onto the button&nick relationship. i physically can't be mean to nick because i cried for about 45 minutes the first time i read the end of chapter 3/chapter 4 and for the first time really considered my sister's mortality, and that changes you).

for a (not really that brief, whoops) rundown of my buttons' whole deals:

ella: equally humorous and confident, very high insightful stat, romancing ambrose. she's independent, intelligent, ambitious, loyal, great at compartmentalizing, and, quite frankly, arrogant. she can be really abrasive sometimes (while she can be a kind and compassionate person, most people don't get to see that side of her and so she can come off as really rather unpleasant - think that know-it-all kid in your class that everyone kind of hates). ella naturally is rather funny/confident/intelligent/etc., but i think, after the incident with hope, she ended up amplifying these inherent traits of hers and making them into a sort of armour that keeps her safe, but also isolates her. i think she's afraid of showing weakness and i think she feels this subconscious need to prove to everyone (including herself) that she's capable. her relationship with nick is the worst out of all of my buttons (but is still incredibly high, think 160/170-ish approval), mainly because she and nick clash the most. she's very independent and knows what she wants and will pursue it (even if it's a boyfriend her brother doesn't like or a career her parents don't want for her) no matter what anyone else thinks, and nick can be a little hover-y (though this improves over the events of the game). she does really love nick (and does actually care about his approval, even if it won't stop her from doing things she knows he won't like), even if she finds him kind of annoying sometimes. she views the incident with hope as a horrible accident that wasn't anyone's fault, and i think she sees better than my other buttons how everyone in the family was affected by the fallout. fun fact: several years post-game, she and ambrose have identical twin girls (ella jokes that she wanted two kids so she and ambrose had twins because "we're efficient". they have girls because ambrose is a girl dad. i am not accepting notes) that share a birthday with nick (because i need ambrose to be forced to participate in a large yearly party that at least partially involves celebrating nick. do you know how many years nick rented a bouncy castle and then proceeded to bounce on the bouncy castle with the girls? it's every year until they decided they're too cool for it. nick's heart broke that day)

eleanor/ellie: more humorous than confident (with confident stat increasing through the game), but has a decent morbid stat too, very high insightful stat, romancing grayson. ellie fulfills my need in every if game/rpg i play to have at least one character who is so, so nice to everyone (my detective alina fulfills this need in wayhaven). she's kind, considerate, forgiving, has a strong sense of morals (except at work, where she's very expedient), and tends to blame herself when things go wrong. she really feels just unbearably guilty about most things: the incident with hope (if she'd acted differently, if she'd been different, etc., maybe it wouldn't have happened), nick's accident in chapter 3, nick having to take care of her through high school... she really struggled after the incident with hope because she needed nick and depended on him so much, but then hated herself for how much she needed him and feeling like she ruined his life (she did project this onto gray when he started hanging around, which is why she didn't like him at first, but over time she realized it wasn't his fault and moved on. and then she got goopy feelings for him). she's not blind to nick's faults, but she adores him (200 approval easily). i think a lot of her growth over the course of the game comes from learning to trust herself and to believe in herself. fun fact: she once made a joke to gray after they started dating (in front of nick and sally too 😬) without thinking about how there'd be "no kids or dog until we have a house". it was way too early in the relationship to be making a joke about having kids or a house. they didn't even live together yet. she's still a little mortified that she said that

elle: confident, very high insightful stat, romancing kent. i love elle because she's kind of relentlessly forward-thinking. she doesn't really dwell on the past except to figure out how to improve the future. she believes strongly that it's what someone does that matters. she's my button who's the most interested in trying to get herself into the npo program. like ella, i think she views the incident with hope as a horrible accident that isn't really anyone's fault, and i think she really makes an effort not to dwell on it or assign blame for what happened. she also has terminal foot-in-mouth disease (talking about bondage with kent in front of your brother, best friend, and instructor after revealing that you'll probably get tortured together, anyone?), which is the bane of her existence. while i think all my buttons struggled with some agoraphobia post-the incident with hope, i think elle really struggled with it: she loves dogs and used to volunteer at an animal shelter, but had to stop because she couldn't handle being outside of her home without sally or nick (she could go to school if she spent the entire day with sally, and then would go straight home) and it took several months for her to feel like she could go places without one or both of them again. once she was able to leave her home independently, she started volunteering at the animal shelter again, and is still there. fun fact: post-game and further into their relationship, she ends up accidentally moving in with kent. it starts by just spending a lot of time at his place because it's so close to nick's (i think a lot of her and kent's dates just involve hanging out together), then more and more of her stuff migrates over, until one day she realizes she's been there for two weeks and all of her clothes are in kent's laundry. she formally moves in after that. she's also my button who's most likely to elope!

ellis: humorous-morbid (slightly more morbid than humorous), tentatively more innovative than insightful (i keep swapping the stats), romancing sally. he's "just some guy" (affectionate) to me, if "just some guy" had gallows' humour. he's been kind of desperately in love with sally since he was 13 and figured out what love was. ellis is the kind of person who looks fine on the surface but really isn't. whereas elle doesn't dwell on the incident with hope because she wants to move forward with her life and not have this one event define her, ellis doesn't dwell on it because doing so will wreck him. he was the closest with hope growing up, since they shared a sense of humour and he felt that she really understood him, and it profoundly hurt when she started to pull away as he got older. he trusted her more than anyone growing up and it hurts a lot now to think about how the people he relies on most now are nick and sally instead. he's not as forward about the guilt he feels and how it affects him as ellie or ellery are, but it's still there. he's also very close with nick and really admires him: nick is ellis's model for what it means to "be a man" (more so than john, but i don't think ellis is really aware of this). ellis also views gray as a sort of quasi-older brother figure and is actually more likely to ask gray for relationship or life advice than nick (mainly because he'd feel a little awkward talking to nick about stuff like relationship advice - also look at nick's relationship track record, gray's probably the safer bet). fun fact: ellis is either the same height as nick or one inch shorter than nick (i can never remember), so if they're out together and the topic of height comes up, he tells people that he's at least two inches shorter than he actually is. this is because nick will lie about his height to make himself taller if given the chance, so ellis gets there first and forces nick to be 5ft9 for an evening (nick hates this).

ellery: humorous, higher insightful stat than interpersonal stat, romancing (m!)glitch. she's such a smartass. she's all jokes and has a quip ready for any situation, but, like ella, i think these are inherent characteristics of hers that get amplified as a defense mechanism. i think it's in chapter 1 of the demo that there's the line that says it's better to have people laughing with you than at you, and that really fits ellery. ellery blames herself for really everything to do with hope and nick, but if she brushes it off with a joke she can pretend to be fine (she's incredibly not - her guilt defines a lot of her relationships with other people and how she views herself). she's also incredibly devoted to her family (to the point where she can't listen to someone criticize them professionally because like. that's her dad. this sometimes causes issues in her and glitch's relationship, because glitch is unafraid to criticize unity when appropriate, but they figure out how to manage it over time). speaking of glitch: she is such a loverrrrrrr 💕💕💕 they really are intolerable together because they're that couple that's just all over each other. everyone around them hopes they'll tone it down after the honeymoon stage ends but they do not 💕 i imagine them moving in together incredibly quickly too. i don't know the exact timeline of the game so far, but even this early on, ellery knows that he's it for her. ellery makes me think the most about what it would actually be like to not only grow up with people who are able to hear your every thought but to never live with someone who can't read your mind. i always imagine ellery as being very comfortable communicating telepathically when she chooses to (she almost got held back from preschool because she didn't speak until she was 3/4 - not because she had speech or language delays, but because why would she speak out loud when she could communicate telepathically? eventually telepathic communication had to be (temporarily) banned in the house to get ellery to speak verbally, and once she did the ban was lifted). telepathic communication also means an entirely different way of communicating between people: visual jokes, jokes where the comedy isn't in the punchline but in the way the joke is constructed before it's been told, being able to rely on the person you're talking to picking up subtleties from your thoughts if you're having trouble expressing yourself in words, etc. and glitch is the first person she's ever lived with who can't read her mind (sometimes she'll be in another room half way through a conversation with glitch in her head and she'll ask him for his opinion on something she thought, only for him to have to remind her that he cannot hear her. luckily glitch finds this funny when it happens and lightly ribs her about it). she gets incredibly frustrated with herself sometimes because she doesn't know how to explain to him how much he means to her or how much she loves him. she tries, but she never feels like it really encompasses the depth of the feeling (it's the one time she wishes he was a ment, so he could hear it). fun fact: about a year into their relationship, ellery wrote glitch a really bad love poem to try and express her feelings for glitch in a way that's meaningful to him. glitch loved it and insisted that it was beautiful, but she thinks it's amateur and is kind of embarrassed about it because he quotes actual love poetry to her all the time. this poem does actually exist because i wrote it to try and get in her head space and figure out what she'd say, and it's mid at best (i am not a poet)

[imagine-silk]

Fallout 4 Yan!Girls Meeting your Assaultron Girlfriend

》Darling shows off the Assaultron and says to them: "Hey, say hello to my Girlfriend C.A.L. (Cute Assaultron of Love)."

【Cait】 She's not happy about it but you want her so she's yours. The assumption is monogamous but if you told her you wanted both she would give herself as she always will. That doesn't mean she's kind to C.A.L. She'll spit at her and make it very clear the second you give the red light she will scrapped her and makes sure she destroys the chip so she'll never come back. C.A.L is rubs it in a bit by calling her a guard dog. "And I'll rip you to shreds when the time comes."

【Curie】 Not fully aware of how to classify her feelings and that's why you weren't together. But this feeling was burning. She made her disapproval known and asked if C.A.L could leave because her presence was offending her. Of course you decline because that was your girlfriend. She walked away and you thought that was the end of it. But then you saw her with a shovel, shoving it through C.A.L until nothing was salvageable even while you told her to stop. "Now I have no problems." And she walked off.

【Piper】 C.A.L is quickly destroyed. You were just playing a joke but it wasn't funny so please don't do it again. I can't say anything other than you were a fool to put that in front of her and expect a good outcome. No matter how upset you are she'll hug you and tell you it's alright. "I'm sorry I broke your toy."

【Haylen】 This woman is an engineer. I don't think you heard me; This woman is an engineer. More than that she thrives off of making you attach yourself to her. She doesn't voice disapproval or spit at C.A.L. She tinkers with her little by little. C.A.L stops saying please and thank you, she wants to spend less and less time with you. Haylen acts confused and tells you C.A.L is fully sentient so this is all real. Seeing you break-up and run into arms for comfort is delicious. "It's okay. I'll take care of you."

[lost-in-interwebs]

NOT to be weird but i found your take on fallout 4 so interesting as someone who is also from MA. when i played thru it initially on release i was all jazzed about it for that exact reason, but over time/the years ive grown bitter about fo4 because i feel like it failed to capture the culture/charm of MA outside of some set dressing (even then, i felt like they often didnt capture the "look" of MA very well if that makes sense). ANWAY didnt mean to dump this as a weird confession, im genuinely curious to hear abt ur thoughts as someone also from MA who played through fo4 if u dont mind me asking.. what helped amplify the experience for you?

Oh my god I felt the same god damn way. Over the years the charm is gone. It's all set dressing. THEY DONT EVEN HAVE CLAM CHOWDER. There are no rabbits. Maine gets rabbits but we don't get rabbits???

For me, it was just personal memories. The Swan Pond was just devastating. As a child my mother took me out in the swan boats and I dropped my favorite Dumbo toy in the water and was bereft. The entire boat stopped to help me get it back before it was submerged in the deep. We have pictures of that day. Kilmore Square is really important to me because I used to go into the old Church on Newbury Street to work with a professional choir in the summer. And it also led to the Women's Mental Health facility I spent time at when I was suicidal. Seeing super mutants take over that familiar road and raiders sitting pretty in Hangman's Alley just broke my heart. That road is familiar. Malden Catholic was one of my school's rivals in basketball. Seeing the Boston Children's Science Museum empty and in a little building was infruriating. There is no Boston Aquarium. And I get it, even Emil jokes in the text that there just wasn't enough space to fit it all.... but no Make Way for Ducklings? No Blueberries for Sal moment in Far Harbor? Come on Emil, you lived here. Breath some fucking life and character into this place. We have the second largest Chinatown behind New York. My father used to buy me ceramic chopsticks and fans and silk pajamas. I loved Chinatown and it isnt there. I live near Salem so seeing the Witch museum was wild especially after living in my first apartment alone down the street from it. But it's all submerged. Beverly is gone. Salem is gone. There's nothing there. And that'd my home home that's the Northshore that's my home. And there's nothing...

Real tangible memories I can return to as I please but they are ruins in this game. It's so much easier for me to roleplay as a Pre War mother who grew up in Boston only to live to see it fall.

I had to ride the blue line, the one where you find Nick Valentine, for my first job interview. The game is haunted by ghosts to me. But it's my ghost. Also I had to contend with the fact that everyone I love would have been dead in 200 years. My mom, my sister, my cousins, aunts and uncles, friends, enemies. Only I remain to tell their stories. AND I WISH YOU COULD DO SOMETHING WITH THAT. That's tangible.

Fallout 4 is so close and yet so distant. I feel like in order to truly be there you have to be able to smell how bad that ocean water must smell. You gotta feel the slime on the rocks as you climb up out of the ocean. You need to feel the barnacles scrape against your knees. You gotta taste the salt of the water before it turns sweet on your tongue. But you can't get that in a video game. You have to live it.

Also the addiction... Addiction is so prevalent here in Mass. There's not a soul I don't know that wasn't effected by the opioid crisis. And they treated it soooooooo vaguely. It's empty. And the jab at AA and personal therapy was so.... mean spirited as an addict myself.

Also our entire fishing culture is just.... gone. No mention no game mechanic to do it. Save that all for Maine. Which is fucking bogus. Also the voices.... the voices and the accents. Some you can tell are acted. Some feel real enough. I wish they would got some fucking guys off the street to voice a few NPCs. ALSO LYNN???? You didn't do anything with "Lynn Lynn the city of sin you won't come out the way you came in"??? It's fucking perfect. There could have been something with that. Maybe something like Evergreen Mills but functional and cooler. idk these are such insane ramblings and if you can glean any answers from this take it.

[lost-technology]

What if... they played Fallout?

So, a thing came across my dash showing off Wolfwood's amazing carrying capacity and it led to me joking about what if Wolfwood were in Skyrim? Honestly, Fallout is more like their world and I've given thought to how the characters of Trigun would play the Fallout games - whether they were caught in a crossover that put them in a world even more bleak than the one they live in or they...discovered video games and played. (This accounts for characters making play-characters that actually reflect themselves if latter. I mean, I'm a weakling who loves to play a heavy-melee and sometimes big guns characters... I doubt I'd be able to lift a sledgehammer with ease in real life, but my motto in game is "Super Sledges don't run out of ammo!") Vash - Small Arms specialist. High agility and perception. Uses V.A.T.S. constantly (I think hey may canonically have some kind of Plant-inborn version of V.A.T.S!) Downs more Nuka-Cola Quantum that that Petrovita-lady. Luck stat is in the toilet. Is one of those "Hold my beer, Bethesda!" pacifist-challenge players. Despite a low luck stat, he has the Mysterious Stranger perk for whatever reason. It's Wolfwood. The Mysterious Stranger is Wolfwood and Vash gets P.O.ed when he saves Vash's life by killing a tough opponent. Meryl - Small Arms specialist. High intelligence. High Charisma. Takes on a lot of the sidequests that let you explore the world and find out little things about it. Definitely there for the lore. Stampede version Meryl is doing ALL of Piper Wright's quests and will take her as a main companion. Wolfwood - Big Guns. Uses V.A.T.S. sometimes, but prefers a simple target and rapid-fire. High medical skill / all the Medical-related perks. Hoards and owns ALL the Stimpaks. Milly - Big Guns. Carries a Mini-Gun because it reminds her of her stungun. "I had to kill those Supermutants, Mr. Vash, it's just a game! Don't worry about it!" Likes all of the good karma quests were she gets to help people. Would probably enjoy Fallout 4's DLC Striker (the gun that shoots bowling balls). Likes anything with abnormal ammo. Elendira the Crimsonail - Concentrates on doing all of the little quests / getting all of the blueprints for building the Railroad Gun and hoards every railroad spike she finds along the way. Uses the Railroad Gun exclusively. Millions Knives - Melee specialist. Starts out with things like switchblades, graduates to swords as soon as possible. Isn't much for the sledgehammers, but will take a baseball bat and mod it to have razor blades / Bladed Swatter. A murder-hobo who slaughters everything, especially every human he comes across, settler and raider alike. Doesn't do any main quests, just kills stuff. Probably feels some kind of kinship to one of the non-human or left-of-human downtrodden races, like the robots or synths. Ghouls are probably still too human for him to like. Legato Bluesummers - Being more of a telepath than heavy on weapons, I imagine him finding that Vault in the Fallout 4 DLC you can run or downloading Fallout Shelter and running a Vault - in the most evil way possible. Just horrible manipulation on the human residents to torture them and see how they tick.

[sillyandquiteawkward]

Ngl, Far Harbour is actually an amazing and fun DLC. It made me the most emotional i've ever been playing through a video game and I got so attached to some of the characters, and despite the writing flunks, it was a pretty solid DLC, in my opinion.

But there is one major issue I have with it, and it's that, as the player, you're SEVERELY limited in what you can do.

When I was going through, I made the decision to not tell Avery she was a synth. When I went back to do the Replace Tectus ending, I also did some quests for the people of Far Harbour to be trusted by them. There was one point where I had to talk to Avery to advance a quest, and it WOULD NOT let me advance that quest until I told her she was a synth. I tried. All the options were either to end dialogue or some varying degree of "You're a synth, Avery," until I told her and THEN it let me talk to her about the quest. I was so frustrated by it.

I also remember having to dismiss Nick at some point because my actions were just upsetting him too much when I was trying to get the Children to like me so I could get inside the Nucleus. Like, why couldn't I somehow explain to him that I was going "undercover" to help everyone out?? He's a detective, he'd understand that whatever I'm talking about is just to butter them up and that I don't actually mean anything that I'm telling them, right??

Not to mention, when you uncover stuff about DiMa, or the Children, or the people of Far Harbour, you're pretty much forced into this stringed out series of events rather than being able to intervene in certain situations. Like, why can't we intervene with DiMa's death? I understand that's their law, but we seriously aren't even given the choice to say anything, and we're forced to watch him be murdered like a bystander who hasn't been waist-deep in this situation the entire time?

(On a side note: I understand the limitations they established with the 4-option dialogue Fallout 4 has, among the limitations in potentially making this DLC more "fleshed out" than is already is, but c'mon. I felt like I was just a guard rail for a bowling ball towards a certain ending rather than being the person who threw the ball itself.)

[Also extra side note: It's been literal years since I played that DLC so there's some things I may not analyze well or misremember

i agree 100%. there was always some sort of railroading or limitation when it came to far harbor. its def not just a part of the 4 option dialogue, i think there couldve been a lot of improvements to give the player more options of actions even with the limited dialogue trees.

also on ur note, i wish we couldve pulled a bit with nick and go undercover with him. would love to see some actual sleuthing and lying thru ur teeth with nick giving you the thumbs up behind you. maybe there couldve been a part where nick pulls you aside after that and is like hey that was cool and all but you sounded really convincing. hope that aint how you really feel. and you can reassure him it was a bit, or that yeah its how you really feel, etc. make a joke (sarcasm option). i think it couldve made that part of the game a lil more fun and you wouldnt have to piss nick off bc all the companions dont understand what lying is due to game mechanics.

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Okay, there is something I've wanted to get off my chest for a few days now... and my therapist has already heard it all. Warning: This is political. Warning: This will unveil a part of the Shadsie Lore that may make some of you unfollow me or even block me. I do not care. I thought "I shouldn't talk about this on the Internet, even on a place unconnected to my real name" until this article just slapped me in the face and told me that I needed to talk about it:

Ex-Felons Responding to the Trump Verdict I spent a chunk of my high school years visiting my brother in prison, where he served just shy of 4 years for an incident that he is lucky to have survived - he's white, he was arrested by sleepy-desert-town country cops who like the guards of Whiterun in Skyrim mostly deal with drunken brawls and petty thievery and weren't as trigger-happy as the city-cops. Knowing his stories, I know that the American prison system needs reformation badly, as it doesn't rehabilitate people so much as just give them a lot of trauma and, in some cases, makes them worse. And then... came time... Crime Time... for me. *Sad, scared little squeak talking about this.*

So, I did something that I am not proud of damn near 20 years ago. I will not elaborate save to say that: 1. A single felony and associated misdemeanours 2. No one was (physically) harmed 3. It was related to my mental health and how I got a diagnosis. 4. I served no time. 5. I was railroaded into a plea deal - I was contrite and fully confessed to the misdemeanours, but thought that the more serious charge that the DA wanted to pin on me was going overboard. 6. I felt like I couldn't win if it went to trial with only a public defender in my corner and so pleaded to the greater charge in exchange for serving probation. 7. I served 2 years of probation and it amuses me to this day that they gave me an officer who was pregnant. She had to give me over to another officer when she went to have her baby. I asked how she and the baby were and like to joke that I must have been one of the county's nicest criminals for them to give me a probation officer in a delicate condition. 8. This happened almost 20 years ago and it messes up my life to this day. It kept me from getting a job I wanted. (Thankfully I recently got a job with a company that doesn't look further than 7 years back). 9. Having had my record brought to my attention, I researched pardoning and gathered materials and sent off a package to petition my governor. At the speed of bureaucracy I expect to hear back about the initial filing process, let alone getting a hearing, *looks at watch and taps foot* oh, about when Pangea Ultima forms and the world has been taken over by the descendants of squids. Anyway, I've had mixed feelings all this week. On one hand, I'm elated - for once, the GREASED HOG HAS BEEN CAUGHT ON SOMETHING! Always nice to see the rich and powerful get some kind of censure, if not full justice. On the other hand, I see a lot of people online talking about felons not having rights and not having dignity and so forth - you know, the stigmas. Personally, I am never going to run for President, I do not think I would do well with a position of power and have no desire for it. In fact, I am skeptical of the morals of anyone who wants a lot of power. I am an anxious type who'd constantly worry about messing up people's lives on accident. I certainly could not do the President-thing of ordering war-actions (because my personal hero is Vash the Stampede... "thou shall not kill"). And, despite my favorite anime being Trigun and my love of playing Fallout... I don't want anything to do with guns in real life, so no worries on the gun-ownership thing. I live in a state that allows ex-felons to vote so long as they've served their time/probation. I may want to move to a state in the future where I am not sure that is allowed to be with family (One of my reasons for seeking a pardon). Between my brother and me, I am VERY concerned with the human rights and civil rights of repentant ex-cons and of those people in the prison / legal system. That said: Mr. Trump is NOT "one of us." He is a rich (or at least bluffs his way) and powerful and is being treated with the softest of kid gloves. (If I had pulled the threats and outbursts that he had in the courtroom during my hearings, I would have been jailed). I was silent, spoke only when spoken to. He'll never want for a job or money as even if he's more broke than he lets on, he has his slathering minions who send him millions of dollars in a day. He'll never have to rely on a public defender (as passionate and dedicated as they are, they are overloaded and not well listened to in the court system) - he'll always have excellent monied lawyers. I enjoy the HELL out of the idea that he's going to have a probation officer, but I do not think it will humble him. Covid, after all, didn't give him the impression of being a mere mortal man. If anything, this trial, even this conviction, highlights the disparities in the American legal system for me.

[nukaberries]

Fallout companions react to sole telling that they don't want to even lose them and then breakingdown. I need all the angst!

God, me too. As much as I say I hate angst, I'm definitely a sucker for it! This idea, especially, is super exciting for me since I feel like the Fallout 4 companions have a lot of opportunity for angst (I play through Nick's personal quest just to cry at the ending) Anyways, I hope you enjoy this one and it was worth the wait!

//

Companions React to Sole Breaking Down - TW: Mentions of Addiction and Suicide

(Includes: Cait, Codsworth, Curie, Danse, Deacon, Hancock, MacCready, Nick, Piper, Preston and X6-88)

Cait She isn't really sure what brought this on. Cait knows she isn't great at keeping herself safe or even having much concern for her own wellbeing, but she hadn't realised that upset Sole so much. Was it the chems? Maybe how she often charges head first into battle. Whatever it is, she admittedly feels guilty, not realising Sole cared so much about her. She isn't the best at comforting people, but she tries her best to make Sole feel better and reassure them that she isn't going anywhere. It may result in some awkward shoulder pats, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Codsworth It's probably not the first time that Codsworth has seen Sole break down. After all, he was the first living being they ran into after escaping the horrors of Vault 111. Still, this particular breakdown takes him by surprise, he didn't know he mattered that much to Sole. He's probably the best at comforting Sole, considering he knows them so well. Later on, he'll likely bring up how touched he is to know that he's important to Sole and promises he'll stand by them.

Curie She's extremely apologetic when she realises Sole's breaking down, at first thinking she'd done something wrong, before they explain that they can't stand to lose her. She understands where Sole is coming from, they're the most important person in her life and she doesn't want to begin to think what things would be like without them. She apologises if she ever scared them and reassures them that she's much more formidable than she seems

Paladin Danse He immediately panics when Sole starts to break down. Being in the Brotherhood, he's never known how to deal with his own emotions, let alone the emotions of someone else. He'll try his best to comfort Sole, but he definitely won't succeed. If he's still in the Brotherhood and him and Sole aren't extremely close - or romantically involved - he'll only insist that, due to his training, he's confident nothing bad will happen to him. However, if they're closer, Danse will go out of his way to make sure Sole knows they won't ever lose them, he loves Sole and he'd keep surviving so long as it made them happy.

Deacon He has no idea how to react at first. Sure, he'd been travelling with Sole for a while now, but he figured it was just out of convenience, since he was showing them the ropes in the Railroad. He'd figured his lying would've annoyed them by now and yeah, they were close, but he didn't know he mattered this much to them. He wants to crack a joke, but even he knows it's bad timing. Instead - because he understands how devastating loss can be, and he knows what Sole's been through - he actually does his best to comfort them, which he's actually good at, much to both his and Sole's surprise.

Hancock Like Cait, he initially thinks it's down to his reckless behaviour when it comes to chems and almost immediately promises you that he knows not to overdo it and if chems were going to kill them, they would've by now. He assures Sole that so long as he has them by his side, there's no way he plans on dying early, even though life hasn't exactly been kind to him in the past. Sole gives him a reason to keep going and he'd rather not ruin that.

MacCready Similarly to Deacon, he understands - maybe better than anyone - just how hard losing the person you love can be. The death of Lucy still haunts him, in spite of how much he cares for Sole, so he feels terrible that they share concerns he once had to suffer the aftermath of. He promises them over and over that they'll never lose him, no matter what happens. He even goes the extra mile and makes sure to be careful when they're outside the walls of a settlement, just to give Sole some peace of mind.

Nick Valentine He's better at comforting Sole than most, he knows a lot about their past and how they ended up in the Commonwealth, widowed and searching for their child. Besides, he's used to dealing with people breaking down in front of him - albeit, it's a little different since Sole means a lot to him. He knows he and Sole have grown close, so he understands completely why they'd be worried about losing another loved one. Nick will jokingly point out that if he's survived this long with only a few - a lot of - bumps and scratches, they have nothing to worry about. If Sole brings up their concerns again, he'll be more than happy to reassure them further.

Piper Wright She understands that with her line of work, she's a lot more likely to meet an untimely demise, but who doesn't die young these days? She's surprised she's made it this far with the amount of attempts on her life. She can stand seeing Sole cry though and instantly wraps them in a hug, telling them that as long as she's got them by her side, she'll be fine. Piper trusts Sole completely to protect her, just as she'd protect them. It breaks her heart to see them so torn up though and she almost feels guilty, deciding she'll find a way to make it up to them soon, even if she hasn't necessarily done anything wrong.

Preston Garvey As someone who often struggles with seeing the meaning in his own life, Preston is completely taken aback by Sole's worry towards his wellbeing. He instantly feels terrible for having any thoughts about taking his own life and apologises profusely to Sole, insisting that nothing bad will ever happen to them. He hasn't had an easy time recently, but having Sole by his side has helped more than he could've ever imagined and if they care about him enough to want him to keep fighting, then he will, without question.

X6-88 To nobody's surprise, X6 doesn't really know what to say or do. He simply clarifies that coursers were designed to be near enough formidable, so the likelihood of anything happening to him is extremely low. He does show some genuine concern, by asking if Sole would benefit from speaking to someone professionally, it's not enough to comfort Sole, but he's trying his best.

[doofnoof]

if you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog

Ough okay!!!!

Uhhh

1) I have a birthmark on the back of my right leg, it's lighter than everywhere else

2) I'm allergic to apricots!!! Apricot marmalade (or whatever it is. It's like a jam with many orange fruits in it but it's mostly Apricot and Oranges and I eat oranges all the time. Apricots are the only fruit included in the marmalade/jam that I don't eat much of) makes my throat and mouth itchy, which is too bad bc I think it's Delicious. At least I'm still good to eat peaches and nectarines!!! But not Apricots, weirdly enough. My aunt is allergic to peaches, so it Tracks.

3) I LOVE ZOMBIES SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!! The very first horror movie I ever saw was Resident Evil, and I blame it for my current love of zombies to this day. The way my mom has always recalled it to me, I was 4 years old and had seen my parents set up the PS4 to watch movies a few times and decided to try it out myself, and Resident Evil was in the PlayStation from the night before (the adults must've been watching it while I was sleeping) and I sat down and watched it, and then watched it again and again afterwards because I thought Alice was the coolest (most beautiful) woman I'd ever seen, and the Zombies were all super cool too. I was especially fond of the Lickers (the things with the long tongues) and I used to imagine taking one for walkies and scratching it's brain-head-thing like it was a dog. When I was eventually caught my mom was Very Upset but impressed that I'd figured it out all on my own and that I had it all figured out for like a week without anyone noticing, but the very first time I had a zombie themed nightmare Resident Evil was put on the High Up Adult Shelf never to be seen again until I hit double digits. Funny enough, a little while later I was watching my dad play Fallout 3 and when he walked into a bar and started talking to a Zombie Bartender I decided he was the most handsome man I'd ever seen and became Smitten with him. Come to find out, he was a Ghoul (not actually a Zombie) named Gob and he's still one of my most cherished favorite characters of all time. On top of that, when I was like 10 I could quote all of Zombieland word for word, for each and every character, and without even looking up from what I was doing list which zombies were in a scene. My Uncle found it kinda creepy the first time he saw me do it until eventually it became a game to see how long I could quote perfectly without messing up. I was entirely normal and not at all weird or obsessed with Warm Bodies (which absolutely didn't tap into my crush on Gob and my obsession with Romeo and Juliet, which I absolutely didn't read cover to cover in elementary school. /s. The school librarian wouldn't let me take the book I'd wanted home with me because it was Too Advanced so I picked a children's book out of spite, and once I was done reading it I wanted to read some more but had picked a book too far below my reading level, spotted a book abt the same size as the book I'd wanted at school on my grandma's bookshelf, saw the Ye Olde English, and decided I was gonna go for a challenge anyways bc Hecc You I Don't Do What You Tell Me. I didn't understand all of the jokes so I looked them up on the public library's computer later that week and once the stuff I didn't understand was Understood it became a personal favorite. I was insufferable abt it in English Class once I hit Highschool.)

Wow that was long!!! But zombies are super cool; as a metaphor, as a monster, as a marketing ploy, just. Zombies.

[theyarebothgunshot]

ROSE I AM FREAKING OUT HAVE YOU SEEN THE PREQUEL STUFF???? WHAT IS GOING ON, my god... I was literally about to go to sleep, decided to check Tumblr one last time and see this.... what WHAT!! WHATTTT!!!!!! I don't even know if this is good bad or what but just JENSEN IS PRODUCING A SUPERNATURAL PREQUEL AND DEAN'S GONNA BE THE NARRATOR OR Sth LIKE???? -🐸

YEAH i am normal about this <3 (jk i am also freaking out) welcome to: people screaming to me in my inbox about prequelgate ft. j/2 fallout theory. let's goooo!

Another copypasta and suddenly chaos machine is full on gay I love this prophecy

you know whats funny i just checked the j/2 tag and i feel like for the first time in a long time they are starting to realise that maybe THEY should be the ones who are "gutted" *sips tea*

ROSE HOLY SHIT ROOOOOOOOSE ITS HAPPENING HOLY SHIIIIIT

YEAH

Nevermind just read prequel and well good luck I guess but just you know kind of bleh who wants to watch John Winchester well let’s have hope anyways

i know a lot of people are bummed out but i am kind of very excited actually?? i trust robbie and even though yeah j*hn winchester turned into a nasty abusive bastard, it can be interesting to explore how it all started (imo). it's just the first of many stories they can tell.

I can only accept this circus if it’s Dean telling the stories to his and Cas’ kids and then we have a revival to show that the whole finale was in fact the end Chuck wanted there Jensen I fixed it

i would not say no to this

heyloo bee anon here

um- wtf is happening?

jackles prequel series?? why? i want to be excited about this but sheesh im scared

because supernatural is never dead <3

okay, but, jensen... john winchester ≠ jdm, you don’t have to go /that/ hard for him 🙃

true true... though i am waiting for jdm to comment on this, please i need it

WAIT A SECOND J2 FALLOUT THEORY TRUE??

LMAO HELL YEAH BESTIE

Rose you really picked the worst time to sleep for real

bestie it was literally 4 in the morning, what do you expect from me sdfjsfhsf

I can’t literally can’t we were all right LMAO j2 fallout theory is real and cockles (Misha supporting Jensen) is [gunshots] I’m just laughing cause what the hell is this timeline we’re living LMAOOOOOOOOOO

we would always end up here <3

Do we have the copypaste anons to thank for JP basically confirming the J2 fallout? lol 🦚

yes, everybody say 'thanks annoying idiots!'

ROSE, WAKE UP, COME HERE,

THERE'S A LOT GOING ON FFS

YEAH I KNOW BUT I NEEDED SLEEP

Anticipating that there's going to be a lot of yelling about the prequel on here: I am cackling, but also, I mean, the first time Dean got a look into his parent's past, Cas was the catalyst: literally entered Dean's mind and catapulted him to the 70s. So idk, it's not completely unreasonable to expect some Cas cameos, maybe setting up a parallel timeline since Dean is narrating. What I'm saying is, this is Jackles, he's getting JDM and Misha in on this lmao -Honeymoon Anon

you were right lmfaooo also i fully agree. misha's tweet further cemented that thought for me. he knew about this prequel and i dont think he is cas-baiting us, i think he'll be involved. i'd also be obsessed to see jensen and jdm act together again (though idk who jdm could play seeing as it's a prequel and he is way too old to play young j*hn)

longlivethetribbles heeft gevraagd:

Heyyyyyy bestie, are you SEEING the absolute madness going on right now holy shit

well a little late but I SURE AM BESTIE

bestie wake up pls s16 finale just dropped.

- 🍯

and WHAT a great one it was

I love coming home from work to see all of the chaos unfolding on Tumblr and Twitter. I'm absolutely buzzing right now. I'll probably still be here by the time you wake up and check tumblr 😂 - 🐢

lmaooo and were you still awake?? did you see my freak out??

Oooh bestie wake the fuck up, I know you’re gonna be excited for this one jsnsjsj

god i had SUCH a morning like. it's 12:00 now and all i did since i woke up is check tumblr rip

short summary: jen and dee gain the rights, they post on ig/twitter about a prequel ft john and mary that no one asked for, the fandom loses its everloving shit as usual, they trend on twitter thanks to the beloved twt intern who missed us, misha qt’s jen about cas possibly benefiting from being in the prequel, then j*red qt’s jensen abt how his feelings got hurt by him not being told about a prequel his character as no involvement in & he initially throws a tantrum, and the rest is history - 🦋 anon (ps: i hope this helps a little, i’ve been scattered brained trying to keep up with it all night lmao so pls let me know if i missed anything, bug crew !!)

thank you so much darling i figured it out eventually but this is a helpful summary!!!

I hope you enjoyed waking up to all of this XD -🐢

i sure did!!! also that answers my question about you being awake lmao

I WILL NEVER EVER EVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR SLEEPING THROUGH ALL OF THIS DRAMA AND NOT EXPERIENCING IT IN PERSON I DIDN'T NEED THIS SLEEP - tea anon

well the party was still going strong this morning so im not TOO "gutted" see what i did there lmaooo

Now that you are caught up with the news... So idk if you remember this but...didn't jarpad tell jackles he was up for a reboot in an online panel? And jackles answered that this was news to him??

-🍯

yeah i think you are right but he was clearly joking and didnt expect jackles to actually be working on something already

J2 anon spare more of those anons let's finish this - tea anon

please, we're having a ball in this bitch

I saw a post on tumblr where someone said now that Kripke gave J&D the rights, maybe they’re starting with a prequel just to end on a reboot in years time and honestly ? I wanna believe that so badly. This is tinhatty but what if this is all calculated in a way that makes it so that Jensen is slowly starting to fix everything that was wrong with spn - now that he has the rights and he’s slowly making spn his own story ?! I mean he did say in his ig post he wants to ‘fill in the rest’ - and maybe Mary and John’s story is only the beginning of spn related content from J&D to come ??? Maybe he wants to give spn the justice it deserves ?? Thoughts ??

i dont think this is tinhatty at all i think this is very possible and not that much of a reach. i could see this happening yeah for sure

want to hear something funny. I found out I had a ruptured blood vessel in my eye because I was sending my friend a video freaking out when the prequel news dropped and I noticed the corner of my eye was red af. and when I got back online jared had tweeted.

DJFHSJD ANON THE CHAOS OF IT ALL, HELP, are you okay? <3

rose.. bestie... how are you feeling about The News? nsfshsf being european is a curse </3 🐞

i feel GREAT im living for it i feel on top of the world tbh (and yeah it really is dsjfhs)

What am I waking up to I can't WHAT I rested my eyes for like 5 minutes help *hits reblog button* - anon anon

yep yep essentially djfhs

“Jensen and Misha are Co workers who barley talk”

I can’t be sure of course but I’m fairly certain that this is the copypasta that brought the j/2 fallout theory back to life. Who’s apparently ‘barely talking’ now? skansjsjsj. It’s almost prophetic, these j/2 anons have superpowers I’m telling ya.

-poker face anon

next time we get one of them we should be thanking them lmaooo

ok, but are we gonna talk about the "When Daneel and I formed Chaos Machine Productions, we knew that the first story we wanted to tell was the story of John and Mary Winchester [...]"-quote because the way this is phrased implies they formed CHAOS MACHINE Productions with the intent of telling this story (first), i haven't been in this dumpster long enough but the name just tickles me in that Misha way, isn't it so sus??? am i missing something???? i mean with this announcement they SURE lived up to that name... 🧩-anon

you are absolutely right, chaos machine SCREAMS misha and we are all here for it!!

hey hey hey. joining the clownverse, there's no way THEE cas girl danneel doesn't know just how much the fandom loves misha and cas. so 2 + 2 = misha in the spn prequel!

AGREED

So I think I finally managed to catch up on wtf happened while I was asleep and my brain melted. What a shit show to wake up to.

Anyway thoughts.

I don't hate the idea of a Mary&John sequel. I think it has the potential to be good (It has the potential to be really bad too, so I'm kind scared).

🕯️🕯️🕯️ manifesting Mary being badass and John being kinda useless🕯️🕯️🕯️

As for the Jensen and J*red thing.

I can see Jensen not telling J*red even if they are still friends, because J*red is kinda good at accidentally telling Secrets. He could have told him right before he announced it so, so that J*red didn't have to find out from twitter. He was on the show for 15 years, he is bound to get asked about it. The public twitter meltdown was really unprofessional so. Like you have Jensen's number J*red. You could have sorted that out in private like a normal person, but instead you choose to act like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Is it weird that I'm actually going to be kinda that for them if the actually had a falling out, even tho I don't like J*red all that much. They seemed to be really important to each other and while I thought before that the might have triefted apart a bit, I didn't think that the where actively fighting.

- 🐌 anon

the thing is, the polite/normal thing for jensen to do was text him before announcing it on twitter. it's weird he didn't, and that makes me believe that maybe yeah they did have a falling out. especially with the way j*red responded to it on twitter. if he had no other reason to be this upset (no prior beef or falling out) you'd think that he wouldn't be responding like this. on the other hand, the man is a mysterie to me so who the hell knows. i'm not gonna mourn about it if they did/do grow apart because j*red is just.... awful imo.

[karazor--el]

Supergirl's Brainy Teases Intense Resolution to His Double Agent Storyline

Supergirl star Jesse Rath teased Brainy's confrontation with Lex, some 'intense' scenes, the return of his sister Meaghan Rath and more.

In the fallout of "Crisis on Infinite Earths," Supergirl's Brainiac-5 has embarked on his most difficult mission yet. On the advice of his female doppelganger, he distanced himself from the Super Friends and aligned himself with Lex Luthor in order to keep an eye on the supervillain's moves against Leviathan. As Season 5 moves into its final two episodes, this will come to a head when Brainy makes a decision that could nullify all the sacrifices he made to protect those he loves.

Speaking to CBR, Brainy actor Jesse Rath previewed what's in store for his character in the last two episodes of the season. He promised his double agent storyline will be resolved by the end of the finale, although some consequences will extend into next season. He teased a confrontation with Lex, some "intense" scenes, the return of his sister Meaghan Rath and more. He also reflected on creating a new voice for uninhibited Brainy, what it is like to work with Jon Cryer and why he'd wear his new comic book-inspired costume all the time if he could.

CBR: This season has been big for Brainy. I mean, his personality got almost an entire overhaul. How did you go about crafting this new voice for him?

Jesse Rath: I thought, for episode 10, it was important that each of the Brainies be distinct from each other. There was five of them, including my sister [Meaghan Rath], and two of them had transformations within that same episode. It was emo Brainy turning into the evil Brainy, and our Brainy Prime turning into the uninhibited Brainy. So I thought it was very important to be able to tell it was a different Brainy and a transformation through their voice. I thought it was very important that you could tell just by hearing that it was a different person. So I wanted there to be a distinct sound that could differentiate them between each other.

So yeah, the green Brainy -- uninhibited Brainy, who they referred to in the script as Suave Brainy -- is just like... I like to think of Family Matters when Steve Urkel takes the potion and becomes cool and he becomes Stefan Urquelle. It was more just uninhibited, more confident in himself and socially grounded. That's kind of what I was going for.

We've also seen a shift in terms of his looks, with a move towards a more comic book-inspired costume. Obviously, you're not wearing that getup all the time, but how has that changed your hair/makeup experience when do you get into it?

The green and blonde look? I mean, I love it. I would wear it all the time, if I could. I'd wear it home. I'm a big fan. It's made my life a lot more comfortable. I don't know if it's easier, but it's comfortable. I no longer have to wear a prosthetic forehead on on my face. That makes a world of difference, because it's very uncomfortable. There's a wire running down my back to turn on the lights and the thing is hot and I'm not very expressive in it and so it becomes hard to emote. You know, it's just a grueling process to put it on and take it off. So the fact that that's not in the mix anymore and that all have to worry about is being painted and get the wig thrown on me, it definitely is more comfortable and it's made my life a lot easier.

And you know what? Even if it was harder to do and more uncomfortable to wear, I'd still do it, because I love that it's the comic-accurate look and I know that it means a lot to a lot of fans out there that I look like this beloved character from the books and it means a lot to me too. I want to do the character justice and I want him to look the best he can. So it was a long time coming and I couldn't be more happy with the results.

Brainy has acted almost like a triple agent all season. Now, with the understanding that the season was cut a bit short due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, is that something we'll see a resolution to when everything wraps up?

Yes. You will. All that stuff comes to a head in these next two episodes. When I heard that we were obviously going to have to cut episode 20 from the schedule, I felt okay about it because episode 19 is such a strong episode. It's a great episode. David Harewood directed it. It's epic, action-packed. The whole storyline with Brainy comes to fruition. It comes to a point, and we leave on a cliffhanger. Whereas with episode 20, before we had time to resolve everything and see how the pieces landed, episode 19 will end on big cliffhanger, which is cool. I love it. It kind of puts Brainy in a very dangerous situation and I'm excited for everyone to see it. I think very strong episode. So I'm not worried about it at all.

How does Brainy's dynamic with Lex Luthor continue to evolve?

I think their patience with each other is wearing thin for both of them. I think Brainy can't really take it anymore. You know, knowing that Lex is actively manipulating him is a very frustrating thing for Brainy. You see in episode 18, he pulls the trigger on a decision and things start to crumble around him. He's aware that Lex is manipulating him and that, I think, is part of the whole reason why he's forced to work with Lex. It's working against all of his instincts that would put him opposite Lex, and so working with him, it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. I think you see, in these next two episodes, how that all unfolds.

You've been working pretty closely with Jon Cryer this season. What has that experience been like?

Well, it's a lot of fun working with Jon. He is a tremendous actor. I learned a lot from working with him, as I do with all my cast mates. It's great. He's a really down-to-earth, funny guy. Yeah, I've had a lot of scenes with Lex and then some more to come. We have a great one -- we have a couple great ones coming up in 18 and in 19, so I'm excited for everyone to see that. I think he does such a great job as Lex. I couldn't imagine anyone else playing that role now. It's so much fun working with him and I can't wait for you to see these next two episodes and see what happens with this whole Lex and Brainy storyline.

I'll admit that I'm particularly fond of the BrainNia relationship. That said, how will we see their relationship continue to grow?

Without 20 in our lineup anymore, there are certain scenes that I don't know if we'll see or if we'll have to wait till next season to see. But in this next episode, in 18, Nia does confront Brainy about everything, about him lying to her, working behind their backs and Supergirl and Nia do confront Brainy about how he's been acting. And in 19, I believe she starts seeing dreams of him. So yeah, there'll be some Brainy and Nia scenes. I don't know if it'll all be sunshine and rainbows, but we do get a lot of Brainy and Nia stuff to come in these next two episodes.

Last year, you had this frankly incredible scene where you ran through a gamut of emotions in about 30 seconds. As the season winds down, will we get to see a spiritual successor to that?

The closest thing I could think to that scene would be episode 10. I think that scene at the end of Season 4 of going through all the different Brainies maybe was like an audition in a sense to show that I could play multiple different versions of the same character. And I think that's what I really got to do in episode 10, which was physically embody all these different versions of Brainy.

But in terms of what's to come in these next two episodes, I'm not saying you should expect a bunch of Brainy cycling through a bunch of personalities, but things get just as intense and emotions are high and the situation is very dangerous. There are some epic scenes to come, and I think you'll be happy with it and I'm very excited for everyone to see. I'm very excited to it see myself!

Can you tease your favorite moment or scene from an upcoming episode?

Well, in 19, my sister comes back to the show. She will return to the show. So I have a handful of scenes with female Brainy, or Meaghan Rath, or whatever you want to call her. So I'm very excited to see those scenes. I always love working with my sister and I'm very grateful for her to come and do the show, so I can't wait to see those scenes.

Martian Manhunter actor David Harewood has directed a few episodes, and now Supergirl herself Melissa Benoist has made her directorial debut on the series. Would you be interested in directing, yourself?

I would! Yeah, I've always wanted to direct. It's something that I think is so cool, that Warner Bros. and The CW, that they allow their actors to direct. It's pretty cool. You know, I don't know any other networks that give us this opportunity and it's definitely something I'd like to take advantage of in the future. I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, I would like to do that. So who knows! Maybe Season 14 I'll be directing some episodes.

You joke, but look at Supernatural!

Exactly! Yeah. Fly in on my private jet and direct a couple. [laughs]

With Melissa directing the last episode, what was that experience like for you?

Oh, it was so cool. We were all so happy for her and proud of her and trying to support her. None of us had any doubt that she would be great. She's always filming and editing stuff on her laptop and she has a great eye for this kind of thing and, as you saw, the episode was amazing. Such a great episode! I love that whole sequence with "The Man Who Sold the World" song over Lex -- that montage of Lex giving speeches around the world. I thought it was a great episode, and I think she is a very talented director. We're all just very happy for her and very proud of her.

Do you have any game/book/TV/film recommendations for everyone stuck at home?

I've been playing a lot of video games. I play Mario Kart with my friends online. We've been doing a lot of Zoom calls and playing Codenames and games with my friends and family online. I watched all of Sopranos with my girlfriend and we really devoured that. We've just been making our way through television series. We watched Community -- for the fourth time, for me. I love that show so much.

I'm really taking this time to just consume a bunch of television and entertainment. It's really kept me going throughout this whole process. My girlfriend Holly and I, we're bunkered down here in LA, and we've been having a great time with each other, and we've been enjoying our quarantine. So we're making the most of it.

Airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, Supergirl stars Melissa Benoist as Kara Danvers, David Harewood as Martian Manhunter and Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers. The Season 5 finale will air May 17.

CBR.