#Like it's his vain hope that anything could help Duncan as this desperate parent who's spoken to several doctors already who couldn't help

[twosides--samecoin]

I think it bears asking what it takes to survive in a world like Fallout, not only in action but in comportment. MacCready's selfishness is sensible/pragmatic to me - like yeah, when you grow up in an extremely dangerous world where adults are not there to help raise you, and when you survive the consequences of a world that whittles you away and takes your family from you - it's reasonable and true to me that it creates someone who's default is to distrust others. But what is MacCready's selfishness, really? It's bare minimum survival if you don't grow up within the safety of places like Diamond City or Megaton. To give, to trust, to share is probably more difficult for your average Wastelander than we give it credit for. To accept help, to see someone approaching you with generosity and goodwill - well that person would come across like a liability to someone like MacCready, who knows a lot better than the Sole Survivor does.

It makes sense that he comes across as annoyed with the SoSu and how giving and helpful the player can be. Social norms have changed, and the SoSu can display a whole lot of "not getting it" and opening themselves up to being taken advantage of when they do work for free. And that kind of character reaction is compelling to me! My fave part of writing MacCready is exploring the pathos that creates such a person. Sure, he's been through it, he's been shellshocked, and in writing him I love exploring the trauma that lends itself to survival, and to him being an asshole. I don't think he's malicious, I don't think he's evil. There's goodness in him, there's a moral code - he's doing what he can for his child, he quit the Gunners after learning how indiscriminate they were in collateral damage. He stops short of being a Raider-in-olive-drab like them. But that goodness is layered and hidden away. And it's fascinating as hell to explore as a writer. I'm not interested in "I could change him uwu", I'm interested in the totality of a person that arises from an unkind world. And there is so much to explore with MacCready if you're trying to examine Fallout 4 as a world with any veneer of concreteness. And that's before getting into economic/social privilege difference between people from the walled cities vs people living in the Wasteland which deserves its own post.

i kinda don’t get people who characterize maccready as like… secretly generous, or having a heart of gold or anything. like don’t get me wrong i don’t think he’s downright malicious or anything, but the dude is absolutely a selfish jerk once you get past the charming facade. that’s the part that’s compelling!

like, he’s nice enough and open enough with the player once you get high enough affinity with him, but his reactions to player actions still point to him being a jerk overall. the sosu just happens to be in His Circle of people he can be vulnerable with. that includes you, his son, and maybe daisy. everyone else can kick rocks, the same way it was in little lamplight

he HAD to grow up with that kind of “us vs the world, every man for himself” mentality in the capitol wasteland. doing so otherwise gets you killed or taken advantage of, which is just protracted death anyways. having grown up in a place where slavers run rampant, people are all pushing each other further down just to boost themselves up and live one more day, and it’s literally impossible to make renewable food sources because the ground is so poisoned i genuinely don’t blame him for ending up a little tight fisted. the fact that he was the mayor of little lamplight just meant that he ended up being able to accept a few people as His To Protect instead of being a total lone wolf.

the way he reacts to the players open generosity isn’t just for show, he Actually Dislikes when you give stuff away without expecting anything in return. you might need that thing and now its just gone!! that person might see you as a sucker! you give an inch and they’ll take a mile! and it makes sense for his character to be like that considering everything. i don’t get why people want to change that into him just being kind of tsundere.

i understand that having your babygirl blorbo comfort character be a canonical asshole in ways that aren’t just kinda charming can be offputting, but like…. the way he treats the sosu is a very notable exception to the rest of his life & it’s a much more interesting dynamic imo. especially if you’re playing a goody two shoes martyr. but that’s just me

[thevaultturtle]

Fallout Greatest Fears

Fallout 4 Human and Synth Companions + Maxson

Just a little something that I got inspiration for a few weeks ago. As the title says, it’s about each character’s greatest fear, and I tried to tie most of them into each character’s lore, so if the character has some pretty sad or dark lore, then their fear will probably be sad and dark, too. 

Warnings: Some of these might be a bit sad and dark, as described above.

Cait

Cait is terrified of becoming her parents. Even while they rot in the graves that she put them in herself, Cait's parents still manage to haunt her every day; the memories of abuse and betrayal that they left her with aren't easily forgotten, no matter how hard she tries, and no matter how many chems she takes to try to purge them from her mind. Those memories have also left her with a deep-seated fear of being left behind, betrayed all over again while those who took advantage of her move forward without her. She has a lot of trust issues because of these fears, and the thought of being anything like her parents, of doing to someone else what they did to her, makes Cait more nauseous than any hangover or withdrawals ever could.

Curie

Being useless. Curie put everything on the line, down to her very life, just so she could be more useful to others. Becoming a synth, gaining the capacity for inspiration and a greater ability to learn- all of it was in the hope that she would be of greater use to mankind, and the thought of all of that being in vain never fails to throw her into a panic, and a feeling of aimless hopelessness never fails to wash hover her whenever she goes for any extended period of time without making a new discover that will be beneficial to others or at least making some progress towards one.

Danse

Danse is haunted by the fear of losing himself, which makes the truth of what he really is all the more heartbreaking. Maybe at some subconscious level, he always knew what he really was, because this fear has been with him since his earliest memories. Maybe those memories are what birthed this great fear of his in the first place, those fake memories of a fictitious life that he never really lived; he already lost himself once for one reason or another, whether he can remember it happening or not, and maybe this fear was just his mind’s way of trying to tell him not to let it happen again. Whatever the case may be, the more conviction that he felt towards the Brotherhood's ideals and the more he felt like he belonged with them, the stronger his fear grew, and now that it came to fruition all over again…he's not sure that he can handle it happening again.

Deacon

It's almost hard to even think of what Deacon's greatest fear might be, given that we hardly know anything about Deacon.  He may have told us the truth about his past, but given that he is a known pathological liar, that could have all been a lie as well, but in those lies, you can find the fear that Deacon tries to hide so desperately: the fear of himself. Whether he really was a bigot towards synths, whether his past really did lead to the murder of his wife, or if none of that was true at all, for some reason, Deacon fears himself, what he has done, what he will do, what he wants to do. Even if he has never revealed the whole truth of his past or of who he really is, he obviously did something egregious enough to instill this fear in himself, and he will go to his grave ensuring that no one else sees the entirety of that truth.

Hancock

Hancock is terrified of repeating the past, namely as it relates to what happened to the ghouls in Diamond City. It's a past that he simultaneously tries his damnedest to forget every day yet also refuses to let himself forget. He's haunted by the guilt of this past, but he also tries to use that guilt as motivation to do better. It's a guilt that he's reminded of every time that he looks into a mirror, and he refuses to let that guilt grow any stronger. Because of this past, he will never stand by idly while good, innocent people suffer, and he will do everything in his power to ensure that bad things only happen to those who deserve it.

MacCready

There are two fears that occupy MacCready’s mind, and those are failing his son and becoming a monster, and the two are intertwined in a way. Duncan means everything to Mac; that's his baby, his progeny, and he's one of the last few pieces of Lucy that Mac still has. Mac wants to be a good father more than anything, to do right by his son, and he would die for Duncan in a heartbeat if the need arose, and no matter how hard things get, he lives and keeps going to ensure that his son stays safe. He can't stand the thought of failing his son, and that thought would be an imminent reality if he became a monster, which he was on the verge of doing while he was with the Gunners. The caps were great, and they all went towards saving Duncan, but the actions that he took to get those caps and what he saw the Gunners doing were things that he knew his son would be ashamed of him for.

Nick Valentine

Pre-Far Harbor, Nick feared the possibility of not doing the right thing. The Wasteland is an awful, merciless place, and with memories of what the world used to be like, Nick is even more aware of and impacted by this than most. Even in such a desolate world, though, Nick still hasn't lost hope, and he believes that doing the right thing, that giving people a helping hand when they need it the most, is the only way to make the world better for everyone. After Far Harbor, though, he's more afraid of forgetting himself, and in good reason, too. Not only is it highly probable to happen, but if he can't even remember who he is and why he's doing what he's doing, how can he even remember what the right thing is?

Old Longfellow

Stagnation. Even in his old age, Old Longfellow isn't one to sit around while the world passes him by. Stagnation means death to Old Longfellow, and like most people, he tends to try to avoid that. A life of stagnation means a life with nothing to do, nothing to work for, and that is a meaningless life in his opinion, one that’s hardly even worth calling a life at all. Old Longfellow, even in such a harsh world and even though he may seem so bitter, is still fascinated by life, especially with all of the adventures and twists and turns that it entails, and stagnation would mean that he's lost all of that. It's not necessarily death that he's afraid of since he knows that’s unavoidable, but it's the thought of not having truly lived in the first place that terrifies him.

Piper

Piper fears the unknown, of not knowing when being out of the loop means certain death in this unforgiving world. She will seek out the truth no matter what the cost, although that tenacity has led to a few more fears for her. People turned their backs on her when she became Diamond City’s 'nosy reporter'; everybody has something to hide, and they don't exactly like the thought of her airing out their dirty laundry for everyone to see. She's constantly looking behind her, afraid that someone will betray her in her quest for the truth, and that she'll leave Nat behind in a world full of lies.

Porter Gage

Losing. Gage doesn't like the thought of losing in general, but the lost that terrifies him the most is the possibility of losing to the world and to the life that it put him in. He was born into a pretty rough situation, as most people are in the Wasteland, but unlike many others, Gage refuses to be a victim of those circumstances, and he's going to live his life to the fullest even if it kills him. He wants to conquer the world that wants nothing more than to bring him to his knees, to survive and thrive so he can laugh at the 'fate’ that the world tried to fuck him over with. The thought of failing in that goal terrifies him, and he will avoid that fear at all costs, no matter who else might suffer in the process.

Preston

Preston fears failure. Preston has dedicated his life to the Minutemen, to helping the people of the Commonwealth and trying to rebuild the world. Because of this dedication, failure to him means the failure of the Minutemen, and the failure of the Minutemen would mean the death of the Commonwealth in his mind. This fear has already come to fruition once with the Quincy Massacre, and that nearly broke him. If his saving grace hadn’t wandered out of the Vault shortly after that horrific event, he wouldn't have survived much longer, and he can’t even begin to imagine what a repeat of something like that would do to him.

X6-88

X6-88 also fears failure, although the specifics of his fear are a bit different from everyone else's. X6 specifically fears failing his mission, whatever that may be at the time, because as agent of the Institute, even as a highly trained Courser, failing his mission would mean death, whether that death happens because of the mission itself or because the Institute chose to discard him because his failure made him obsolete. As cold and calculated as he is, X6 still fears death and he truly despises that about himself because there's nothing efficient about fear and he feels like it makes him weak just like the pathetic Wastelanders that he despises so much.

Maxson

Maxson's greatest fear is losing control, whether that be of the Brotherhood or of his own life, but more so the first option, mainly because he feels like he never really had control over the second one. From the day he was born, he never really had control over his own destiny; the Brotherhood always believed that he was destined for greatness because of his lineage, so greatness is what he was pushed towards whether he wanted it or not. Failure was not an option, no matter how much he craved it so he could pursue some sort of normalcy instead of what had been laid before him. Failure was not an option so when he eventually achieved the greatness that he had supposedly been destined for, he feared losing control again, this time over the Brotherhood that was put under his command. Even with that lack of control over his early life, Arthur still loves the Brotherhood, and he fears that losing control again will mean the death of everything that he loves.