#and it has an evil/morally gray ai character as the narrator

[oflgtfol]

so my one coworker i've talked about now knows that i'm into both venom and malevolent and that i use tumblr which says an awful lot about me but then my OTHER COWORKER TODAY started talking to me about ai characters. my purse bag thingay has hal 9000 and edgar electric dreams pins on them and we've literally spoken semi at length about 2001 and how much we love hal but somehow today we got to talking about the like media trifecta of ai characters. hal glados edgar AM etc yknow. and they sent me a fucking link to a tumblr post memeing about them. i am so severely tempted to reblog but it but i DO NOT WANT to provide a tangible link to my blog. screams. anyway the meme contained halman so i was talking to them about halman LMFAOOOO. like just fucking having a casual conversation about this shit in a public space. anyway said coworker then went on a half an hour long rant about the rainworld ai and at one point they were like "five pebbles gave himself cancer" and i said how does a giant supercomputer get cancer and they said "oh. well, there's meat in there" and literally, my first reaction was to gasp and exclaim, completely serious and ecstatic, "oh i LOVE meat i LOVE when machines have meat in them." me and this coworker having a deep philosophical conversation about death and meat machines and also halman in front of our like 17 year old coworker who has an ap exam tomorrow morning and another coworker our age who's falling asleep at their desk

[meatcrimes]

so i finally finished The Frontier. here’s my final thoughts:

new vegas runs so much faster and smoother since uninstalling the frontier and all related hotfixes

i will say one positive thing about this mod and it’s the sheer variety of different items in the world. not just the guns, but the consumables, workbench & campfire recipes, combining consumables to make healing items that are on par with the wasteland omelette or fiend stew.

i know this mod was being developed before fallout 4 was released but this would have been so much better, from a technical standpoint and from a story standpoint, if this were a fallout 4 mod. if this was essentially a Where Are They Now mod that explored what the ncr/legion/bos did following the second battle of hoover dam, this would have been a better story. for example, legate valerius becoming the next Caesar after the deaths of Edward Sallow and Legate Lanius and how the changes he implemented made the legion almost unrecognizable

speaking of legion, i played the legion quest line and most of the crusaders quest line so these are all opinions from that perspective

the de-fanging of the legion was disappointing. i wanted to play with the villain faction, or at least a morally gray faction who is no better than the other choices. the legion could still be evil even with the “liberal” valerius in charge. the ending where the northern legion abolished slavery, gave women equal rights and power, and allowed modern technology was disappointing because they were clearly trying to remove a lot of what made the legion evil in the first place. a “liberal” legion that, for example, uses slavery as a punishment for crimes that you’re freed from when your sentence is up, is still evil and still villainous

or a legion that allowed women to have limited roles as priestesses, doctors and frumentaria (which i hc that the mainland legion is already doing but wtvr). that could have been what the “liberal” new caesar has done while still maintaining the legion’s misogyny

SPEAKING OF WHICH. legate valerius had an epiphany and supported women’s equality when his daughters were born which is unintentionally hilarious because that’s how a lot of real life men start caring about women’s issues

the mission where you have to kill a slaver and when you get to her you find she’s already been captured by other slavers. and how that was the end of the quest. and you lost karma for killing her or setting her free. there’s a lot to unpack here but let’s just set the whole suitcase on fire

also the indigenous coded tribe that was wiped out by an STD. yeah. not over that

and the Followers doctor who knowingly gave the courier a blood transfusion from someone with syphilis

the other followers doctor, Welick, who blamed all of his problems in life on arcade gannon

(from subtext we can gather that Arcade exposed illegal/unethical things Welick was doing and the reason everyone “had arcade fever” was just them acknowledging that Welick was wrong. and the reason he “left” the followers is that he was actually kicked out. welick is an unreliable narrator but i’m willing to bet 35 bottle caps and a wrinkly $5 NCR bill that most of the players did not pick up on that)

scrapz my beloved ❤️

seriously scrapz was the highlight of this mod. you know that post that’s like “when you know you can do a canon character better so you just steal them and make them your oc”? that’s what i wanna do with scrapz. he deserved a better mod

also… the fact that we can flirt with scrapz with a black widow check (and i think confirmed bachelor too but i am not replaying this mod in order to see) and he openly admits to being horny on main for humans (paraphrased, but honestly tell me that doesn’t sound like a real line from this mod) and yet we can’t have sex with him!??

he clearly has advanced enough AI to give him the ability to consent, since he leaves the player if you get too far in the crusaders quest line (and i assume ncr too but once again. not replaying to check). we can fuck the chem-obsessed Argonian queen. we can fuck a deathclaw. but we can’t fuck a robot despite being able to have sex with FISTO in the base game

the entire Dr Voss quest. i’m still not sure what that was. it’s just a blur of blood sewers, finding keys, and increasingly incomprehensible notes

when callidus revealed AJ was his sister and he didn’t want you to kill her but capture her and reunite them. and then i killed her anyway because it’s what she would have wanted, between death and the legion

“you prevented silus from being interrogated” x103

the weird romance-but-not between legate valerius and the courier. like he lets you sleep in his bed for a well rested bonus, his personal quest is called I Was Made For Loving You, his weird protectiveness of the courier, and of course that unintentionally erotic interrogation scene. and near the beginning i swear there was dialogue with him that was like “you were out cold for days, but I never left your side. it looked like you weren’t going to pull through, but I ordered my men to spare no expense to ensure you recovered. i tended to most of your wounds myself, working late into the night to set your broken bones and repair your torn ligaments” etc etc you get the point

the NCR commander named Tiberius Rancor who no one suspected was a legion plant

the radioactive super mutants that had a melee weapon called Kitchen Sink and it literally was a whole entire kitchen sink ripped from a building. and the courier couldn’t use it

the repair tool for the cars in the game but when you used it, it kept giving you the achievement for knocking down enemies so it was basically a source of infinite xp

the fucking space enclave. the enclave, in space. they never were defeated by the chosen one or the lone wanderer, they just fled to outer fucking space for some reason

the cannibal ice ghouls with 3500 hit points. you know what i mean. the fact that this mod was set way too far south to be seeing them, and basically did nothing accurate to the mythology at all except that they were cannibals, and didn’t even pluralize the word correctly. i understand this was probably inspired by fallout 76 but 76 should not have had those creatures either

in conclusion: i was determined to finish this mod and i’m glad i can say i did, but was it worth it? was it really worth it? no

[lunaannkoenig]

On my quest to the ultimate list of tropes, here is what I have so far.

-Drop your weapons...All of them (followed by character dropping and ungodly amount of weapons)

-Chosen/Found Families (Band of characters with familial bonds though few or none are related)

-The Calvalry to the Rescue

-Chosen One

-Love Triangle

-Underdog Defeats Powerful Foe

-Old Grumpy Mentor Comes Out of Retirement

-Villain Redemption Arc/Antagonist to Ally

-Character who hates everyone sacrifices self

-Morally Gray Characters

-Antihero who is really a hero

-Love Interests bandaging each other's wounds

-Insta Love

-Trauma Love (2 characters fall in love through traumatic experiences)

-Platonic Love (2 friends with matching sexuality— as in heterosexual or homosexual— do not fall in love with each other)

-Missing Person with Dark Secrets

-Teenage Detective Solves Cold Case

-Marriage of Convienience turns into True Love

-Not Like the Other Girls

-Loud Outspoken Best Friend

-Nerdy Kid with Popular Friend

-Key Witness Has Amnesia

-Boy Who Pretends He Doesn't Love Girl (But Really Does)

-The Gruff Older Character Whose Life is Change by a Precocious Child

-The Plain Jane Who Gets Her Man

-The Unlikely Hero of Humble Origins

-Heroic Last Stand Against Overwhelming Force

-Wise Old Mentor Who's as Badass as Can Be

-Teenager Gains Power on Birthday

-Hero is Instantly Good at Everything

-Hero Struggles Through Training to be Badass

-The Prophecy Guides The Hero

-Magic Swords with Cool Powers

-Dysfunctional Characters Team Up on Quest

-Forgotten Ancient Technology

-Blacksmith Turned Hero

-Lovecraftian Ancient Horror God

-Magical School/Camp

-The White Savior

-Strong Female Character

-Girl Falls in Love with Rapist

-Interrogation Where It's Told in Splices Between Characters

-Interrogation Where the Stories Hilariously Conflict

-Manic Pixie Dream Girl (quirky girl whose entire purpose is to make a boring guy less boring)

-The Reluctant Hero

-Dark Lord

-Orphaned Protagonist

-Forgotten Heir

-Wise Wizard (who likely dies... Gandalf, Moirainne, Dumbledore, etc)

-European Medieval Setting

-Black & White Morality

-Summoning an Evil Entity to Make a Contract

-Magical Artifact/Object of Great Power

-The Quest

-Scientists Create/Find/Genetically Alter a Super Predator and Accidentally Release It

-Forbidden Love

-The Funny Best Friend

-Fake Dating

-Weird Small Town

-Privileged Villains

-Betrayal is the Name of the Villain (someone we love and trust is secretly our villain)

-Who Dunnit

-Villain is Someone Completely Unsuspicious

-The Final Boss is Not the Final Boss

-Religious Basket Case Villain

-Villain is a Monster

-Monster isn't really a Monster

-Unrequited Love

-Unrequited Hatred (You hate the villain, they barely acknowledge you)

-Magical Creatures

-Keeping Secrets to Protect Someone

-Character Finds Out Dark Secret and is Instantly Okay

-Bury Your Gays

-Choose Between Job and Love Life

-City Slicker Falls For Country Boy/Girl/Person

-Everyone Ends Up With Someone

-“I have something to tell you"" then they die.

-Enemies to Friends

-All Adults Are Evil

-Romantic Stalking

-Friends to Lovers

-Bookworm MC

-Roadtrip

-Consensual Romance (characters specifically ask and receive consent)

-Close Quarters in Romance as a vehicle for romance

-Power Couple (No power imbalance, even if their strengths are different)

-Romantic interest loves dogs (Hades and Persephone in Lore Olympus)

-Protective/Overly Protective Partner

-"Love Interest or Big Burly Guy who says ""Hey Buddy I'm protecting you from her."""

-Man who defies or hates his powerful father figure (sometimes an uncle)

-Grouchy love interest

-Rebel with a cause

-Charming Antagonist

-Bromance

-I'm not your dad but I'm your dad

-Dandy/Fop being witty and charming

-Big Scary Softie

-Drunken Confessions

-Accidentally overhearing key information

-Trapped in a closet

-Inanimate objects come to life

-Blind Prophet/Seer

-Bottom Storage (villain isn't killed off but is put in a glass prison in a basement somewhere)

-Over complicated board/card game that the audience only sees glimpses of

-MC assumes another character's intentions are the exact opposite of what they are by misinterpreting their actions

-Age Gap Romance

-Bottomless Bag of Usefull Stuff

-Anti-Villain

-Omniscient Narrator who Contradicts the Characters

-Dry jokes during dire situations

-Men who love their wives and talk about it frequently

-There's people chasing our MCs and where we've chosen to hide has us close

-Confession of Love on the death bed

-Kissing in the rain

-Cute But Viscious

-Strong female character who is actually bad ass

-Crazy Family

-Falling in love with an AI

-AI takes over the world

-Getting trapped in a game or book

-Resurrection

-Damsel (with no agency) in Distress

I know that this is incomplete and it includes tropes that need to die a firey death, but the ultimate list has every last trope. Is your favorite missing? Your least favorite? Let me know!