#because there is this one moment with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and guess who the fuck is missing.........

[lovecanbesostrange]

[frecklenog]

someone commented on a post of mine saying that fallout raiders are the only true evil in fo4 and. did we play the same game

firstly. the raiders are like. ultimately? disenfranchised people with very little means trying to make their way in a vicious world the only way they know how because the world at large has gone to such complete shit. but we do see them (through notes/terminals) have genuine emotional connections with one another and do what they feel is necessary to keep their own safe.

meanwhile we have like. the the brotherhood. and i’m not saying they’re all bad — but while anti-institute and ultimately with a noble goal (ie. protecting people), the commonwealth brotherhood is a branch of a paramilitary organization, led by an autocrat, who will kill a man who has dedicated his life to the bos without a moment of hesitation or any genuine remorse. his only regret is that danse turned out to be a synth at all, which to me just screams the exact same energy as “i’d rather have a dead child than a queer/neurodiverse/disabled child.” (i can’t speak for the brotherhood’s characterization in other games, but in fo4, they’re a racist mess.)

and then, of course, the institute. even aside from the whole “synths don’t count as having their own autonomy (despite constantly running away)” thing, the institute kidnaps people, replaces them with synths that, in many cases, actually believe themselves to be the person they’re replacing, and then conduct inhumane, likely painful experiments on the unwilling “subjects” they abduct, which ultimately led to the forced evolutionary virus and the rise of super mutants. which is, uh. Bad. i think. i think that’s a Bad thing to do. not to mention that they’re led by a guy who’s willing to thaw out the sosu from cryostasis only when he’s actively dying, just to see what they do, like his only living relative is just. yet another experiment. something to keep him entertained, i guess, before he finally kicks it. (maybe he does genuinely love them, in his own way, but like. that’s a hell of a way to show it my dude. the fuck was going through your head)

i’d rather try to reform a raider than an institute scientist, i guess is what i’m getting at. a raider could be given ample supplies and some addictol and might say “oh, sweet. i can stop raiding.” meanwhile if you did the same to someone from the institute, they’d just tuck it aside with all their other supplies because they want for nothing and are raised in a society that is actively trying to recapture escaped slaves synths. (plus, raiders are very often addicts in some form or another, and the villainization of that echoes real life sentiments Way too closely for my liking)

[kideternity]

maxwell mfin dillon

Mister lightning himself….

-Overall opinion of them: Completely unironically one of the most important characters in the history of planet earths existence to me. Ive liked him since I was 7 years old for over 10 years and I will keep liking him for over 10 years! Extremely under-utilised and under appreciated spider man villain. Literally cream of the crop to me. My oldest friend. Sometimes I get a little embarrassed that I care so much but when I remember there are people who like characters that are 100000000000000x times more embarrassing and I don’t feel bad anymore and who cares anyways. He's my guy!

– Gender/sexuality headcanons: Like Noriko Admittedly I think Max across any version can also just like encompass basically every queer identity imaginable (Insert here Gayle saying “Characters who are gay men and lesbians”) BUT to me- Bisexual because he like, already basically is lol or at least heavily implied to be in comics and nonbinary trans man + arospec

– Favorite moment in canon: SOOO many so once again like Shroud I will just list them off in a like greatest hits sort of way but- That one time he crashed Peter's tv interview to call him a bitch ass motherfucker cunt on live tv and walk away from it unscathed laughing. All of the interactions and fights with Daredevil but especially the issue where Max amidst having a mental breakdown keeps calling Matt shit like baby and cute. W@id is a cunt bitch irredeemable asshole but I also did genuinely the stuff about Max REALLY passionately getting into socialism. UHMM that one story where Fucking Magneto comes up to Max and asks him to join the brotherhood of evil mutants and Max said NO 😭😭😭😭 also Basically all of Max's scenes in “Light the night!” From 90s Spider-man #38-40. Even more so all of Max's scenes in ASM1964 issues 422-423 and ESPECIALLY 425. Okay im good

-Favorite moment in a fanwork: UHMMMMMMMM Im blanking on specific people but I've liked a lot of fan art I've seen over the years especially some of the redesigns…… Some of the fics were pretty good too and that i've enjoyed… yeah

–Favorite line, in canon or otherwise: “SO RESPONSIBILITY IS YOUR THING, HUH? THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE HUNG UP ON, RIGHT? WELL, YOU CAN TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS!”

– Characters I love seeing them interact with: IDK if I necessarily actually LIKE seeing Max and Peter interact usually but they like absolutely drive me fucking crazy insane bonkers batshit when I DO think about them. Literally on my hands and my knees asking for any writer ever to actually further their relationship in a meaningful way. I think I’m the only person with this take too but I actually fucking love the Daredevil vs Electro issues I think they have a hilarious dynamic HHRFUHFDUDJD Max uhmmm doesn’t have really positive relationships with other villains but I like it when he gets along with Sandman Flint and they should do more with that (: also IDC IDC but they should have done morewith the Magneto connection it woulda been funny. Also Noriko + Max should be besties and so should Max + Eric ant man

-Last thing before sleeping headcanons: man's made of electricity he don’t need to godamn sleep

– Sleeping habits headcanons: okay well to contradict my last point I think he doesn’t need to sleep but he does sleep anyways. Because it makes him feel less existential over his state of existence

– First thing after waking up headcanons: eat batteries and smoke cigarettes

– Favorite locations headcanon: honest to god don’t think Max has ever actually liked anywhere he's ever been in canon but if I were to wager a guess probably just anywhere with strong electrical currents running about- like concerts, power plants, clubs, arcades, etc. I don’t think he's picky but he’s just never one to get attached either

[sebastianshaw]

I know everyone here is SICK of my Duggan hate but-- It strikes me, he really just CAN’T write complex characters? I’ve noted many times over how he’s dedicatedly stripped Shaw of anything likeable or human not only the present, but actively retconned events to make him a 2D sack of evil (and frankly, inept evil) in the past as well. But he also goes out of his way to do the reverse for Emma, retconning that she’s ACTUALLY been a good person All Along even when she was at her most evil (so. . . what about her neverending journey to be a better person then, if she always was?) and actually Always Helped Other Women (which is like. . .pretty laughable to anyone who has read her past issues) to fit his ‘feminist’ theme. And there’s also, as many others have noted, how the secondary cast is just. .  .bereft of character, or likewise one-not. Bobby, Pyro, Shinobi, and Bishop can go for ISSUES without speaking, and when they do, it’s like. . .one line. They show the bare minimum of personality most of the time, and while sometimes Duggan can hit a home run (Shinobi’s remark about how he and his dad have done well in not trying to kill each other so far) a lot of it is just. . . why are they there? No, really. They don’t really do anything, and the “plots” he gives them are typically underwhelming and resolved in one issue.  Pyro, as @sammysdewysensitiveeyes has noted, hasn’t been demonized into a total strawman like Shaw, but he’s also really not at all recognizable as Pyro either. His character is entirely a one-note buffoon who is there for stupid comic relief, and there’s zero discussion about his past prior to coming back---his time with the Brotherhood, his battle with the Legacy Virus, the changes he underwent as a person when he was at death’s door, or even the stuff before that as a wartime journalist in Southeast Asia. None of that is there, there’s just this chaotic frat boy joke that Duggan pretty much entirely made up; he only even acknowledges Pyro is a Gothic Romance novelist after 20 issues, and even then it’s to make him look like a joke some more. Like Shaw, he’s just got one dimension now. Duggan seems to WANT to talk about abuse, specifically at the hands of men, which both Christian and Shinobi have experienced, as both were abused by their fathers. But he never, ever brings that up. Instead, he retroactively invents that Shaw abused Lourdes, and tacks on an abusive backstory to a female villain. I don’t think he thinks men can be abused? Or just. . .doesn’t care. His male characters are the ones who suffer most from flatness and having to be inept, evil, or both while the Cool Women Do Things, and I guess he, like lots of men, thinks that’s what Feminism (TM) is, just he’s not whining about it and is performing it instead. Speaking of that female villain, Wilhemina is a nasty evil sadistic little girl who not only happily kills/hurts people, she also kills and tortures animals, especially kittens. And you know what? I bet in the hands of a skilled writer, she very much COULD be made sympathetic and understandable. But what Duggan does is he just takes her and literally in ONE SCENE is like “oh she understands it was wrong now and is SUPER SORRY see she’s CRYING and also she did it because she was SEXUALLY ABUSED” and bam, we’re supposed to feel for her. There’s no buildup, no exploration, just a sudden explanation and remorse and that’s. . . .it?  Compare MANON AND MAXIME whom I’ve written about before. They’re two children who were traumatized, abused, exploited, and made to hurt others by their abuser, which they seemed to enjoy doing. Now that they’re free and living on Krakoa, they do still exhibit unacceptable behavior at times, sometimes out of vengeance, sometimes in self-defense gone too far, and sometimes out of a desire to help and please others but lacking the tools to understand boundaries and appropriateness and respect for other’s autonomy. They’re a very unsettling blend of being sweet, childlike children, too eager to please adults, and little gremlins who seem to take joy in messing with people’s minds---or who just don’t understand when it’s wrong even when they mean well. Unsettling, and realistic. Psychic powers aside, I find the twins to be much closer to real-world victims of abuse, especially children, in that they’re NOT “good victims” or “bad victims”. They’re not the “abuse makes you evil” trope, but they still have fucked-up behavior so they’re not the “little abused angel who just sobs beautifully but whose symptoms are all sympathetic uwu” either, which is just as rare and as damaging a stereotype in its own way because it holds that up as how survivors of abuse “should” be. And, as said, that’s rarely it. Most survivors come out of abuse with behaviors that AREN’T sympathetic but DID help them survive, and they ARE NOT BAD PEOPLE FOR IT. This shit is complicated. Then there’s Wilhemina, who starts out as just a monster (even though, realistically, if a child is hurting animals, they probably DO need help) and then the moment her tragic backstory is revealed, she also recognizes and regrets all her wrongdoings. She jumps from one extreme to the other in the space of a few panels, but remains totally one-dimensional either way. And of course, Lourdes. We didn’t see to much of her personality BEFORE Duggan got ahold of her, but in her two issues pre-retcon, she showed a surprising amount of depth and moral ambiguity. She was a member of the Hellfire Club and high enough in its ranks to try to prevent Shaw from being nominated as Black Bishop, claiming she’d seen how it changed people. She clearly had seen some shit and despises it, yet she remained within it. She also seemed content with the idea of Shaw and Buckman experimenting on mutants as guinea pigs, her concern was more doing it on the X-Men specifically and that Buckman would betray Shaw. And she had far more agency when she chose to give her life to save Shaw’s, than Duggan’s version that needed Emma to tell her what to do. Duggan’s Lourdes is a brainless doll who talks like a little girl and needs Emma to handle everything for her, despite it largely not making sense that she would, given her own resources. She’s more morally pure, perhaps, but also one-dimensional. Only room for ONE Woman With Agency here, honey! TL;DR Duggan really can’t write characters that are more than one or two notes, and it shows. 

[mobius-prime]

126. Knuckles the Echidna #25

Childhood's End

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Manny Galan Colors: Mark Bernardo

It's finally time for a reunion a long time in the making - the reunion, of course, between Knuckles and Locke! Due to this being the 25th issue, it's not part of a larger arc, it's standalone. Knuckles is helping Julie-Su clean up the mess left behind by the fight against the Legion in the base where they were both held captive a couple issues ago, when upon picking up Benedict's robotic skull, he spots a reflection on its side that stuns him. He drops the skull as Julie-Su calls after him, racing after the figure he saw reflected and ending up on the streets of the city.

There's a lot of things Knuckles could do here. I'm sure many people expected him to be angry, yell at his father for leaving him and keeping secrets, act on any feelings of betrayal he may have. But in the end, this is a teenager who, according to the intro page, hasn't seen his father in six whole years, ever since he jumped into the wall of fire in front of him, and so he begins to cry and embraces Locke, saying how happy he is to see him. They just stand there hugging for a moment, and then Knuckles begins to boil over with questions, wanting to know everything. Locke leads him away so they can talk more privately, and they head out jut as Julie-Su emerges onto the street as well, looking for him.

Ooh boy, I sense a conflict coming up. Locke and Knuckles get into a shuttle and Locke pilots them to Haven, which Knuckles asks for more information on, seeing as he didn't spend very long there before and thus didn't get many answers about it. And so Locke begins a flashback-laden history lesson, pretty much par for the course for anything Kenders gets his hands on. Haven was originally built by the fire ants to be a base for the current Guardian, Steppenwolf (remember him? Son of Edmund), to carry out his duties. Eventually Steppenwolf had a son, Moonwatcher, and trained him to be a Guardian as well. However, soon enough, Steppenwolf realized that there might be more danger to the Floating Island than just that from within.

Man, why are the Overlanders always so evil in these earlier issues? It's like the entire species is constantly plotting to take over everything and kill Mobians just because they can. Then again, the ones up there are led by a Kintobor, so I guess the Kintobors have always just been a crappy family. Steppenwolf senses their insincerity, and proceeds to mind-torture them with extreme pain until they agree to never set foot on the island again. Geez, man, I get they were traitorous, but did you really have to go that far? Turns out it was the fire ants with their telepathic powers that were able to warn him of the Overlanders' intentions. Steppenwolf had a chat with his fire ant mentor Christopheles, and together they agreed that there would always be more people trying to invade the island, so they should take extra security measures to ensure it would be properly protected.

As Locke tells this story, they land in Haven, and Knuckles begins to ask about it again, prompting Locke to reveal that it wasn't always kept a secret from the current Guardian. He continues his story - originally, Steppenwolf decided that there should be more than one Guardian always at the ready to protect the island, so he brought Moonwatcher to Haven, and they began to trade off duties. One would explore the surface of whatever landmass they were flying over, while the other would remain on the island and look after everyone on it.

I like how Harlan looks like a totally normal Knuckles clone while Rembrandt looks like this crazy hippie who decided to only dress himself in articles of clothing he found at grandpa's garage sale. The family line continued up to Rembrandt's son, Aaron, which is probably the most normal name for any echidna we've seen so far. Aaron was on the surface of the planet one day when he encountered a squad of Overlanders roaming around with, to his shock, some Dark Legionnaires, who, upon seeing him and recognizing him as a Guardian, tried to capture him. Aaron tried to run away but ran straight into Menniker himself (who was still alive because of the slower passing of time in the Twilight Zone, if you'll recall Kragok mentioning before), next to a giant missile. Apparently the Dark Legion was conspiring with the Overlanders to just straight up explode the Floating Island, and, panicking, one of the Overlanders fired the missile prematurely, to Menniker's fury. Aaron jumped up and managed to land on it, and was doing a fine job of disarming it midair until Menniker landed on it as well to stop him.

Both Aaron and Menniker were vaporized in the explosion, and Rembrandt and the rest of the Guardians were distraught at the loss. However, the family line didn't end there, as Aaron's younger brother Jordan offered himself up to become the next Guardian in his late brother's place.

Thus began the tradition of a father training his son in isolation on the island, then disappearing to Haven when the time was right to allow their offspring to take over their duties alone, this time never leaving the island's surface. Knuckles is somewhat relieved to hear that his father never abandoned him all those years ago, though he perhaps may have been slightly less relieved if he'd known that he was spying on him all that time, including all his private conversations with friends and Julie-Su, but I digress. When Locke mentions something about Knuckles' training being more important than any other Guardian before, Knuckles presses him on the issue, insisting he's ready to hear the answer when Locke hesitates. Locke explains how one night after being married to Lara-Le for a while, he had a nightmare of a strange series of events, which included a giant robot looking kind of like Robotnik destroying a city while his future son faced it down. He awoke in a cold sweat, but had this dream again and again, which prompted him to go to Athair of all people for advice, who told him it was a dream of the future that he must prepare for.

Yes, that's right. Locke altered his own genetic material so that he could shoot mutant super-sperm into his wife to create a superpowered baby, without telling her any of what he was doing, of course. But then he wasn't even satisfied with that! As soon as his wife laid Knuckles' egg, he took it and stuck it in the Chaos Chamber where he blasted it with radiation from the emerald in front of the rest of the Brotherhood. This is the true backstory of Knuckles' birth, and his apparent destiny. I've heard it summarized before as "had a bad dream, better microwave the baby," which, yeah, that's basically exactly what happened. Locke could have, with his foreknowledge of things to come, simply worked on training his son adequately for the future he saw, ensuring as well that he had the full backing of the rest of the Brotherhood for his entire life. But no, instead he did… well, this. (Ironically, the vision as seen in his nightmare depicted above never even slightly came to pass over the course of the comic, due to things like changing storylines and new head writers. Perhaps Locke's actions averted that future, or perhaps he really did just have a bad dream and microwave the baby as a result - there's no way to know for sure.)

And did it work? Did Locke's son, in fact, come out of the egg as a superpowered savior of echidnakind?

Oh, did you think those were just part of his gloves installed there to help him punch better? Nah, out of all the echidnas, only Knuckles has actual echidna knuckles. Somehow, this one tiny detail was enough to convince Locke that his genetic alterations worked and that Knuckles would be the ultra-powerful savior of the echidna people, even though it could also have been, I dunno, a genetic defect caused by all the mutant sperm and radiation that went into making this child. Of course, Knuckles is intimidated by all this - I don't think anyone has ever had a positive reaction to hearing they're a genetically-engineered destined hero - but Locke retorts that he had similar misgivings when he was still a Guardian trainee, and that his decision to microwave his baby was also really hard for him, calling it a decision between "sacrificing the world or siring a son to save it." I'm still not buying it, Locke, but Knuckles seems placated for now, and Locke suggests that, for the time being, they just spend some long-overdue time together as father and son. Knuckles happily agrees, exchanging "I love you"s with his father for the first time in who knows how many years.

So my opinion on all this? Well, I've already given some of it above, but honestly, I think that Locke far overreacted to his whole nightmare situation. He's been awful to Lara-Le both through their entire marriage and after as a result, constantly lying to her, keeping secrets, and interfering with her attempts to be a part of her son's life. He put his son through a lot of emotionally traumatizing experiences, allowing him to believe his own father had incinerated himself just to try to teach him self-reliance, and then spying on his every private moment from afar. The thing is, every bad guy sees themselves as the hero. And while I don't necessarily categorize Locke as an out-and-out villain, I do believe that, in almost every decision he ever made, he was in the wrong. You can even see it in the way the other members of the Brotherhood treat him, where even though most of them went through the same training regimen with being left behind by their fathers and all, nearly everyone in Haven, especially his own father, thinks Locke is too distant from his son and should reveal himself to him. Locke waited this long - Knuckles is almost sixteen, as we'll see in more detail next KtE arc - and almost every one of his plans went awry somewhere along the line, causing a lot of strife, bad feelings, and chaos for Knuckles throughout the course of the comic. Locke had the best of intentions, and the worst of executions.

Here's the thing. Kenders has said before that he based Locke on his own father, with whom he'd had a difficult relationship when he was younger. I see nothing wrong with basing a character on someone that one knows in real life, but one must also take into account the ramifications of such a thing, seeing as you wouldn't want to portray someone you care about as a bad guy. As it is, I feel that Locke would make a much better villain than… well, than whatever he currently is. If some plot points, character attitudes, etc. were changed, Locke could end up as this mastermind behind a plot that Knuckles would have to uncover, only to heartbreakingly discover his own father behind everything he'd been through. If Knuckles then rejected his father's path to instead carve his own, Locke would become angry, and there would be a lot of strife, a lot of fighting that could come of such a thing. But he wouldn't be a pure villain, either - he'd have a redemption arc, where he'd begin to understand just how badly he'd messed everything up. Then there would be more conflict concerning whether his self-awareness came too late to repair any kind of relationship with his son, let alone achieve forgiveness, or indeed forgive himself. Kenders is trying so hard to portray his own father-insert in a sympathetic light that there's this weird disconnect between how his selfish actions are portrayed by the writing in the comic, and how they come across to anyone looking critically at the plot. I understand his intention in writing everything this way, I really do, but ultimately, he was unwilling to put good storytelling first, and now we've ended up with this muddled mess.

That said, I know I've talked about this before, but I'm far less… I don't know, hateful of Kenders' work than many people in the Archie Sonic fandom. I think he's put together a truly fascinating world here, with many varied characters and a lot of potential for conflict to arise out of any situation naturally - true character-driven conflict, where the mores and values of different people clash dramatically causing strife, which I've always seen as the most interesting kind of conflict. The problem with his work, in the end, usually comes down to execution, and to, well, his own limitations as a writer of dialogue in particular. Seriously, not to insult him too harshly, but his dialogue is so often stilted and awkward that I really think he'd be better off as creative director of any project he worked on, coming up with characters and plots and worldbuilding and the like, while leaving the actual writing to someone else. In addition, quite frankly, he needs an editor that's willing to tell him "no" sometimes, but I've also heard that he's quite hard to work with, always wanting his own ideas to go exactly the way he wants them. And while as a writer myself I understand to a point being protective about one's own ideas, if you're working on a comic like this, dude, you have to be willing to work with others.

But anyway, I've rambled on far too long about this. One textbox aside next to the panels of Locke's nightmare promise us an epic upcoming "Knuckles Twenty Years Later" story in a future Sonic Super Special. As anyone who's read the comics already knows, that whole shebang is kind of infamous for being… well, boring, uninspired, and ultimately unimportant to the plot of the rest of the comic. It's one of the few parts of Kenders' work that I'm wholly uninterested in, not really even a little bit, but I'm still going to cover it once we come to it (which isn't for quite a long while, actually), as there's a lot of criticism to be had there, and what's a comic review without a healthy dose of criticism, eh?

[bottlecaps-and-brimstone]

Since one of my betas is in the middle of exams and the next chapter plot is being fucky and uncooperative, I decided I’d fill out this meme I found @beckiboos​ in the FO3 tag. Feel free to do it yourself!

1. What was the first Fallout game you played?

It was Fallout 3, which I picked up back in the summer of 2015 since I was a deprived child when it came to video games, and also really bored with nothing better to do. Before then, I’d only played Elder Scrolls games (mostly Skyrim), but once I adapted to the mechanics I fell in love with the franchise, hard. And now here we are, and I am an endless font of useless 50s references.

2. What’s your favourite faction? (Any game)

Tough one, because I love the FO3 version of the Brotherhood of Steel, but in other games...not so much. I guess I can’t go wrong with the Followers of the Apocalypse, then, it’s trying to actually do some good, has a kickass name, AND has got handsome snarky doctors with tragic mysterious pasts.

3. What’s your favourite romance?

Unfortunately you can’t really romance characters in the older games, unless you count Benny in NV and that’s...no.

4. Your favourite non-romanced character?

WHAT KIND OF SICK MONSTER WOULD ASK ME THIS AND FORCE ME TO CHOOSE Shit. Shit shit shit. I guess it’s tied between Arcade and ED-E, because I didn’t expect to get attached to them NEARLY as hard as I did. Actually no, ED-E. Definitely ED-E. Holy shit I love that little robot so much.

5. All time favourite quest?

There are SO many good quests but without a doubt, the one that gets me giddy just thinking about it is Stealing Independence. It’s a ridiculous, historically heartwarming adventure from beginning to end.

6. Your funniest moment? (What made you howl with laughter)

It’s a tossup between the ENTIRETY of the Wang Dang Atomic Tango quest, guilt-tripping Arcade into being my companion through usage of shitty drug-dealer whiskey to lower my INT stat until he was wholly convinced my Courier could not be left alone without adult supervision, and another event (also from NV) that I have infamously dubbed the “conga line of failure.”

So I’m wandering the Mojave Wasteland, primarily just to pick up map markers for later fast travel. No problems so far, except when I get over a ridge near Bradley’s Shack and realize the area’s lousy with Jackal Raiders, and I, being a low-level who’s had my ass chewed on by geckos recently and no spare Stimpaks, have just been spotted. I’m now fleeing and shooting wildly with my 9mm, determined to either kill the Jackals or lose them as I go for another marker - the Old Nuclear Test Site, because I figure, hey, feral ghouls are made of paper and don’t shoot back; now THOSE I can deal with.

Except there’s feral reavers there. That I didn’t know about. That are meaner and nastier than the ones in FO3. And they hit like a fucking tank.

So now I’ve basically screeched off into ANOTHER direction to get away from the ghouls now; my health dangerously low; crippled from mis-use of explosives; geiger counter going fucking ballistic; still on the lookout for stray Jackals, when I encounter a herd of Bighorner. I think “oh thank god”, because I figure if I don’t get TOO close and don’t bother ‘em, they won’t bother me and I can get my bearings and find a safe place to rest up and heal.

I don’t see the Bighorner Bull that’s been aggroed until it’s too late, and I’ll be damned if that son of a bitch didn’t headbutt me and send me flying off the ridge right into the ghoul pack I was hauling ass to get away from.

Anyway, THAT killed me, and to this day, it’s been legendary for being such a hilariously bad string of luck. Thus, “conga line of failure.” It wasn’t until a similar incident involving nightstalkers, radscorpions, giant ants, and explosives did I even get close to surpassing it.

7. The best glitch you experienced?

I was kiting a raider and a deathclaw and when I killed the deathclaw it glitched and literally went flying across the screen to smack the raider in the face, who then ragdolled and wrapped around a tree. 10/10 A Bethany Esda Classic.

8. Good or Evil?

Good. I may be able to threaten to send kids to horribly abusive orphanages in Skyrim, but Science Dad makes me feel guilty about stealing so much as a tin can.

9. Your favourite OC?

Okay now I absolutely will NOT be playing favorites here. But I will say that Peri and Zir are probably my most *developed* since I’ve had those two the longest. ASK ME ABOUT THEM.

10. Your favourite Fallout game? (Can be a DLC if you want)

FO3 will always be my favorite, and anyone who says it’s trash can fite me. Point Lookout was practically like hanging out at home, what with the cult of inbred mutant cannibals and the terrifying swamp life.

Plus, don’t get me wrong, New Vegas is absolutely an improvement in storytelling, and mechanics, and characters, and is just plain fun. But FO3 will always feel like a true post-apocalypse to me, feels like a real story of struggle and hope. Feels like home.

Don’t know why I left the homestead, I really must confess...

[saintheartwing]

Fallout is the Bomb

I can't believe I've only brushed over this series before. There was a whole, beautiful, irradiated world to explore within its boundaries that I never knew of! Lemme explain. Fallout is, well, post-apocalyptic. That alone had me worried. I'm not a big fan of the post-apocalyptic setting because of how it essentially gets so misanthropic, and assumes everyone turns into the kinda scumbags you'd see in "Violence Jack". The good news is that Fallout actually has a sort of "out". You see, in all of the series...well, most of it, anyway...you play as a Vault Dweller, someone who was sealed away along with others in big, social experiments set up by the government before a great war between China and the USA over resources that ended in nuclear fire. The Vaults have everything you'd need to survive for decades, even centuries! But not for all of them. You need to leave your Vault eventually, either to get a much needed Water Chip that will ensure your people can survive, or to find the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit", or you're forced to leave because the head of your Vault is a big fat jerk, or you leave because your SON has left the vault long before you while you were essentially frozen in suspended animation, and you've gotta track them down. In New Vegas, it's different, but I'll get to that later. Fallout 1 and 2 introduced the factions that basically dominate the universe. The Brotherhood of Steel, who sealed themselves away and hoard technology, hoping to someday come back up and revive the best of mankind in better days. The Super Mutants, mutated humans infected by a virus made by a lunatic who thought that as long as there were differences of ANY kind in humans, we'd keep tearing each other apart. Hence, why not make a race where everyone looks and sounds basically the same, AND is super strong, AND can easily withstand the radiation-filled wastes that fill America? There's the Enclave, the remnants of the previous government, heads of corporations, the rich and powerful, who helped MAKE the Vaults, and who basically think any life that's out on the Earth at the moment isn't really human because their DNA isn't like the "old world" humans anymore. Even if it just means people just have an extra toe or the like, they think you're a subhuman mutant as bad as the two-headed, skinless cows that now walk around. There's Ghouls, people who are heavily bombed to s--t, their skin burned off, looking like they've been flayed alive and yet linger on, some who are very intelligent and still retain their personality, others who are feral and twisted and evil. And then there's the NCR, the New California Republic, founded by war heroes and remnants of the army who are trying to sort of rebuild America or at least, what it stood for, out primarily on the West Coast. Their leadership's too concerned with bureaucracy and the amount of red tape and incompetence can be a real issue, but you can clearly tell most of them, the soldiers included, are just trying to stick together and do as much good with as many people as possible. In the first two games, it's a sort of isometric perspective. In the third, it switched to a sort of first person shooter mechanic, and the series has kept it like that, with RPG elements throughout. You have "perks", abilities like being able to carry a ton more, being able to avoid fighting with wild animals because they all like you, having a random, mysterious, gun-toting stranger randomly pop up to help...and you can choose how you want your character to look and act, like in most open world games. Now, which one is the best? I'm not sure for everyone, but for me? New Vegas is the best blend of old school and new. You play a courier who's lived out in the Wasteland. It was your job to deliver a "Platinum Chip" to Las Vegas or, as it's now called, New Vegas. But you got caught by some fancy dressed mobsters, shot and left for dead. It didn't stick. Now you wanna find that Chip, find out WHY it's so important, who the hell killed you, and maybe...or rather, most LIKELY...get revenge. There's a problem, though. For one, you don't know where the mobsters went. And you've got to contend with raiders, the NCR who aren't sure if they can trust you, wild mutated animals, and everything in between. AND...a new, Roman-themed faction that's raping and pillaging every town they find, selling the women into slavery and following a mad lunatic named Caesar. And I do mean Roman-themed, they wear Roman armor, have centurions, the whole shebang. The Legion's boss, Caesar, actually gives a damning condemnation of Democracy in the game. After all, it was Democracy and electing the idiots that were in the govt that cared more about the Red Scare than people having fresh water to drink that led to the war. Might makes right. The good news is you can play someone who's both good and bad, someone who's a blend. There's not merely morality, but "reputation". You can have a good reputation with the Brotherood, but be HATED by the NCR. Or idolized by the NCR and despised by the Legion. If you're smart enough, or charming enough, or have the right perks, you can talk your way out of almost anything, or, if you've the skill, blow the beejbus outta anyone you want with a ROCKET LAUNCHER! HAHAHAHA! KIBBLES AND BITS! It's fun watching baddies explode. And there's a lot of funny moments too. Take, for example, a subquest at the Atomic Wrangler, as you try to earn money to gain access to New Vegas, for you need 2000 bottle caps to get in, and that means you need to either sell a lot of highly valuable stuff...which you probably don't have...or you've gotta get dirty and do things like be a pimp for a whorehouse. Which I had to. The boss says we need a ghoul cowboy, a charming older lover, and a sexbot. Then when you tell him you've got the sexbot, he's all giddy like a schoolkid, making it abundantly clear the sexbot was for HIM. Which he tries in vain to pretend isn't true. And of course, the guy who shot you has a talking droid. Because of course he does. His name is Yes Man. When you tell Yes Man you're the Courier his boss shot? Yes Man: Hahaha! I know that's not true, because you still have a head!

Courier: I'm serious. 

Yes Man: Hahaha! That's... not funny... you getting shot in the head. I really shouldn't have taken so much pride in how I set that up, huh? ... I feel really bad right now. Yes Man has a lot of great lines. Oh, and did I mention Elvis Impersonators run a good chunk of the Strip? Because of COURSE they do. Of COURSE they do. Guess what they have to say about their HQ? "Near as I can tell, it was some sort of religious institution. Oh, I know it says "school" out front, but everything in here seems to be related to the worship of some guy from back in the day. People used to come here to learn about him, to dress like him, to move like him. To BE him. If that's not worship, I don't know what is." Hey, if you're gonna imitate ANYBODY, why NOT the King? And yes, in Camp Searchlight...deep breaths... THERE IS...a set of HOLY HAND GRENADES in the Church.  The sign just reads, "Pull pin and count to 3." And the grenades will make a bigger boom when you count to 3. Don't believe me? Look for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZUFKe-uYw&feature=youtu.be It's too beautiful for words.  ^_^

hbomberguy on Youtube did a really good analysis of the themes of Fallout. And as he said, “FO1's villain is 'the future', represented by mutations, evolution, technology and so on. The Master embodies this by being a mutated machine-man. The old world is gone, and the future is coming to get you.

FO2's villain is 'the past', in the sense that the largest threat to the world is the stuff that destroyed it the first time. People are trying to move on, inventing new money, but the real threat is that we haven't changed enough, and are still doomed to destroy each other. Hence the theme of newly-invented drugs, money troubles and so on. You're chasing an artifact of the past to survive, but that past killed the world. How much of the past is it good to dig up? The Enclave dream of a return to the prelapsarian america that already had its chance and got blown up.

Horrigan (the main villain) embodies this. He 'is' the ideology of the past, personified. He wants to kill you because mutants must die, and you must be a mutant because he's been ordered to kill you. Symbolically we're seeing that humans have a thirst for purity, and this thirst is itself our greatest flaw. You also HAVE to kill him with violence. It's not possible to talk him down, and the real challenge is how you deal with that fact. It's a nice final twist. Your first proper conversation allows you to claim you believe peace is always possible - and the last one is a counterpoint, saying - but the other person has to be willing to try this too.

The game criticisms mankind's inner violence, but then points out that to escape this, violence becomes necessary - it just has to be used differently from before. Being able to recruit some Enclave soldiers AGAINST the main Enclave soldier is a fun moment. The military industrial complex is bad but can be wielded against itself.All FO's main villains and central characters are rendered 'faceless' by masks or armor or mutations, because they represent something prevalent in humanity itself, more so than any one person. it makes them larger than life, like you're battling a concept. The Master is a monstrous creature-machine, Horrigan is always behind a mask, as is Lanius, and the burned man and Ulysses are similar too. This is one reason why making the villain of 3 just 'some guy in a jacket' really annoys me. Make me contend with the faceless monster that is the darkness in man. Don't make me shoot some southern-talkin' dude.Even then, I can see that being a really cool twist on the formula. But it's so badly done. Poor Autumn.”

Indeed. The main “villains” of New Vegas are sort of “faceless” and represent greater concepts. Mr. House is, in many ways, a refusal to let go of the past. He wants all of Las Vegas to be like his snowglobes: perfectly pristine and preserved under a glass bubble, unchanging. Caesar’s idea,, the LEGION’S idea of the “future” is a take from the past as well, a sick, dark past, the ROMAN heritage, embracing the past’s more cruel elements in the name of a greater organization and unity. Sort of similar to the Master’s Unity, but this time not coming from looking to the future, but to the past. The NCR is the present, and they are, in a way, a problem as well, something to contend with. Because people are suffering here and NOW, and they’re stretched so thin and so tied up with red tape that people slip through the cracks easily, or they just use outright violence instead of better, smarter solutions. They can’t see ahead properly, and aren’t learning from the mistakes of the past. Cassandra Moore, in particular, is a good example: every solution she has involves killing someone or a group of people. She refuses to open up to the idea of diplomacy. She’s as closeminded and narrowminded as the idiots who helped cause the bombs to fall to begin with. By only seeing other factions as enemies and never considering they could be allies or friends, or dealt with more kindly, you close yourself off to better, more moral, or smarter solutions.

The Brotherhood of Steel are similar: they want to preserve the elements of the Past, but they can’t see that their refusal to really help those in the present is dooming them. They’re well-meaning, they CARE, but...they’re wrong. They’ll just die out if they just stay inside their bunkers. They need to take a more active role in the world outside.

So what I'm saying is...play Fallout: New Vegas when you get the chance. Check out the Fallout series. There's a lot to love in there that might surprise you. I know it surprised ME.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #136: Iron Man: D.O.A.

June, 1975, originally though May, 1972

So we go from the Celestial Madonna Saga where Iron Man died to a new story where Iron Man dies?

Well... no. To either.

Because this is a reprint of Amazing Adventures v2 #12 (sans a couple pages, for some reason). Englehart’s first credited work at Marvel, actually.

I guess after such a huge story, he needed a month to plan where the book will go next. And either rerunning his first Marvel work inspired his direction going forward or he already had the plan and reran this story to set it up.

Because. This isn’t really an Avengers story. It has Iron Man. And that’s it. But it becomes relevant to an Avengers story. So its all good.

If I had already covered Amazing Adventures v2 #12, I would just link that post and call it a day. But I haven’t so I can’t so get ready for some rerun action that’s new to you possibly.

Although the angry glaring faces of Captain America, Thor, and the Vision sure make you think that this might be an Avengers story. Also, Beast is blue. So this cover liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiies.

So we start off with the Beast (can’t tell if he’s supposed to be blue, purple, grey or heavily highlighted black) fleeing from people hunting him.

To summarize in this summary, Beast quit the X-Men and got a job at the Brand Corporation, doing genetics research, mostly on himself. In order to confront some spies without revealing his mutant powers, Hank McCoy drinks some chemicals that mutates him into his more iconic furry beast form, with enhanced abilities. But he done goofed and didn’t drink the antidote in time and is now stuck in this form.

And now he needs to get back into his lab to try and search for a cure. But he can’t go waltzing or even charlestonning into Brand looking like a beast. He wouldn’t get a moment of peace with all the people trying to shoot him.

So he steals some books on the art of make-up and disguise from the library, steals some supplies from a costume shop, and uses an old photo of himself to try to create a Hank mask using modeling wax and rubber.

He works through the night creating failure after failure before managing to create a copy of his own old face.

So I guess in this setting, anyone can make a perfect latex mask with supplies easily found at your local costume shop and with a little know-how. HOW IS EVERYONE NOT A PARANOID WRECK?

Anyway, he also creates a set of gloves to cover his gnarly beast hands because when fully dressed, only his hands and face will be showing.

But that’s not enough. His posture as the beast is hunched. People will wonder if he hurt his back or something. So using straps he creates a harness that forces him to stand up straight. Which cannot be good for his back.

With a disguise finally arranged, he finally falls into bed to sleep the rest of the day off.

The next day he returns to Brand. He can’t help making private little jokes about his situation but he also snaps and kicks everyone out of his lab.

Chastising himself for blowing up, he excuses it as the mental and physical strain of his disguise. But wonders. What if the concoction deformed his mind as it did his body. What if he’s becoming truly bestial?

And then he doesn’t even get time to work on his cure because his boss Mr. Grant calls him up and tells him to expect visitors.

And who else visits but good old Tony Stark and his then-fiancee Marianne Rodgers.

Tony is looking for new directions to move his company in, so he decided to check into other types of industries. The genetic research of Hank’s particularly intrigues him.

Hank’s assistant slash girlfriend Linda Donaldson comes into the lab. And for a moment, she eyes Tony Stark like a piranha eying a bleeding cow. Rather than just being a lab assistant slash love interest, she’s actually a spy for the Secret Empire. Brand was apparently chock full of spies from the Secret Empire but Linda killed the rest of them in the previous Amazing Adventures adventure.

So although she would love to seduce Tony Stark, defense contractor, she was assigned to Hank McCoy, boy genius. And she’s short-handed around Brand since she killed the other operatives.

Anyway, she wanted to invite Hank out for lunch but he’s clearly busy here with important VIPs so bye.

The instant she’s gone, secretly psychic Marianne tells Tony that there’s something wrong about Linda. Something evil.

But she’s been having this conversation right in earshot of Hank who doesn’t react well to aspersions being cast about his girl. He punches a sciency looking control panel and decides to join Linda for lunch after all.

When Hank is gone, Marianne clarifies that she thinks the bad vibes she got off Linda were from her ESP. Tony believes her and decides to pay Brand a visit later, as IRON MAN.

Meanwhile, Hank catches up to Linda.

Hank: “After three whole seconds of serious deliberation, I’ve decided that a hamburger with you is worth more than a talk with Tony Stark any day. Let’s start all over from the point where you say: “Hank, let’s go to lunch.” (Just look at her! I can’t believe that there’s a bad bone in her body! I can’t -- and I won’t!) Then I say, “charmed, Miss Donaldson,” and we stroll off into the sunset.”

Linda notes in surprise that Hank ran all this way after her and isn’t even sweating. Hank jokes that he only sweats on alternate Thursdays but he’s probably soaked under that rubber mask and suit.

Or is he? Most hairy animals don’t sweat because all the hair. They have to shed heat other ways. Like panting or through their paws. Beast never pants so are his shoes a figurative swamp right now? Is that why neither he nor Tigra like to wear clothes?

I’m asking the deep questions best left unasked.

Linda suggests that instead of lunch, they just sit on a bench and relax. Maybe make out a little. But Hank realizes that he can’t kiss her with a rubber face. Either because she’d notice something was off or because he can’t actually make his rubber mouth do kiss stuff. ... How is he getting his rubber mask to move to ape expressions and mouth flaps anyway?

CURSE YOU COMIC BOOK DISGUISES!

Anyway. Hank quickly pulls back and claims that he wants to grab lunch after all.

The rest of the day passes frustratingly for Hank. A solution to his self-inflicted hell eludes him. And his disguise is hard to live with. At the end of the day, he gratefully tears off his harness and mask and revels in the freedom and power and breeziness of the Beast!

And as he’s cavorting, he runs into Iron Man.

Iron Man is feeling pretty reasonable today. His reaction to running into an unfamiliar ape-man is “Let’s have a talk.”

Beast isn’t feeling chatty. Because everyone knows that Iron Man is Tony Stark’s bodyguard. So why would Iron Man be here at Brand after house unless it was to hound Linda. AND BEAST WON’T ALLOW THAT.

Beast tells him to gtfo. He’s a trespasser who has no right to be here.

Iron Man is still trying to be reasonable and settle this peaceably. So Beast starts beating him up.

And after being kicked and punched, Iron Man is about out of reasonable.

So he starts fighting back with repulsors.

Beast is loudly insisting that he’s the hero in this fight. But he also has to caution himself to calm down and keep in control as the blood is pounding in his head and filling him with aggression.

But Iron Man blinds Beast with a chest-mounted spotlight and then throws him around, smacks him around, and eventually leaves him unconscious.

After all. As strong as the Beast is, he’s flesh and blood. And Iron Man is flesh, blood, and iron. Not sure if that excuse will hold up if the Hulk is involved though. But I’m also not sure where Hank falls on the power-scale.

Anyway, Brand security busts in. As does Linda Donaldson who insists that Iron Man must have a good reason for being here. And Tony being Tony decides that Linda must be a good person and that Marianne’s intuition must have failed her.

As Iron Man tries to explain his presence, Beast pops back up and starts whaling on Iron Man.

Security opens fire on the Beast but the bullet wounds heal up in seconds. A super-fast healing factor is also not something you think of with the Beast. Its still not Wolverine-tier as he can’t regenerate destroyed organs or severed limbs. But this is before Wolverine’s introduction so for this brief moment, Beast is the guy with crazy horned owl hair that heals super fast and suffering some anger-management issues.

Hmmmm.... One has to wonder....

But anyway, Beast is in a berserker rage and Iron Man can’t get two seconds to start fighting back. Beast knocks Iron Man to the floor and starts choking him and smashing him against the wall.

Iron Man begs Beast to stop but Beast just snarls “NO!”

But as he wades into the security forces to shoo them away from his ‘prey’, Beast realizes Iron Man isn’t moving at all. And he has no heartbeat. HE’S DEAD!

Some guy in the crowd shouts that Beast murdered him.

Beast: “NO! I lost control! I didn’t mean to -- Didn’t want to-- NOOOOOOoooooooo”

And then he jumps out a window and flees into the woods. To hide from any pursuers.

Iron Man obviously isn’t dead. This is a rerun and also not even Iron Man’s book. But weirdly, when Beast was going out of control in his adamantium rage, he seemed to go into a trance. And pause for a few seconds. And then ran off screaming that he’d killed Iron Man.

Something is obviously going on here. Which I’ll reveal here because the bottom of the page reveals it because this is a rerun of one issue of part of an ongoing story and they’re not rerunning the follow-up.

So what’s going on is that Mastermind of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was influencing Beast with his hallucinatory mental powers, trying to make him think he was a murderer so he’d think he had no choice but to join the Brotherhood. But in the end, Beast decides against joining them, and helped thwart them on a diamond heist. Then he returned to Brand and had a kind of Lois Lane-esque relationship with the new head of security Buzz Baxter, who kept trying to prove that Beast and Hank McCoy were the same person.

But in the here and now or at least the here and then, Iron Man decides not to pursue the Beast. He’s realized recently that he can wreck lives by shoving himself into other people’s problems. Looking into his eyes during their fight, he saw a soul in torment. And decided not to hound the Beast. So despite some color and ego overlap, Tony Stark is better than Gaston.

So that was the rerun of Amazing Adventures v2 #12. With this extra month to work, Steve Englehart gets back on track next issue with “a whole new batch of Avengers.” I wonder if we’ll recognize one of them.

There’s also some fun letters in the letters column. The shipping war continues, with someone getting salty over how Wanda was treated recently (they’ll probably be happy when they saw Giant-Size Avengers #4). I don’t feel like going into detail but I’ll imgur the letters column so you can peek into the fandom of 1975, if you like.

I haven’t mentioned it in a while but it has become apt considering this recent post. I’m rerunning my old Essential Avengers posts at @essential-avengers. I’ve been cleaning up old posts and adding images but I’ve gotten to the point where I have less work to do for each rerun.

[psylccke]

And another one! Which enemy has Betsy faced that's scared her the most? And don't cheat and say "oh, the enemy within!" because she's an X-Man and they can pretty much all say that. lol And by scared, interpret that however you wish: made her think she was going to die, made her feel powerless, just creeped her out to no ends, disturbed her with just their personality, scared her with raw power, whatever. Up to you.

shadow king.  hands down and easily, it will always be the shadow king.  he’s the closest thing to a nemesis that she has and she has fought him time and time again.  ( and i love my favorite blog for recently making a post about this because of astonishing x-men starting up with, you guessed it, betsy vs. the shadow king )

the first time betsy encountered him, she wasn’t sure who she had encountered or what was the end game but it took a visit to muir island later to encounter him properly.  she was able to disrupt his power source and he was ripped apart, supposedly never to be seen again.

it was years later after the whole mess with onslaught, he returned and took over the tribe that worshipped storm, calling himself Ananasi.  this was when everything went really, really, REALLY wrong for betsy for a while.  betsy went to the astral plane and was going to handle things like usual but it was a trap and it collapsed the psionic plane as a whole and REALLY hurt people on earth, telepath or not.  at least she had the crimson dawn still and it was the only thing that saved her and she took on the shadow form and was sneaking around that way while he tried to reach out to every mind on earth.  it left him vulnerable and this was when she focused all of her telepathy on him and trapped him but it cost her the ability to use her telepathy.  if she used it, it would free him and she saw it as a fitting sacrifice to save the world.  

granted she DID try to use her powers again in an attempt to save warren ( notice a pattern? ) and she was all but willing to give in to the temptations and promises that he could save him, but warren stopped her dumb ass just in time. 

except then she died and that released him again but rogue remembered how betsy handled matters last time and used the same trick.  when wanda pulled the NO MORE MUTANTS thing, it left a rift in the dimensions and it allowed the shadow king to return to this particular earth again and he was out for revenge.  lionheart defeated him this time though.  good on her.

then we have the more recent time in uncanny x-force.  he followed betsy through archangel’s mind where she had led him right to the cage containing the dark angel persona.  he was the one that freed him and turned the tide for warren and betsy was unable to stop him at the time -- besides, she did have apocalypse and four horsemen to fight.  but she had her chance to fight him again when he joined ( as farouk ) with daken’s brotherhood of evil mutants.  this was the worst encounter for her.  they battled for what spanned out as lifetimes in their minds but passed as only moments but he got the upper hand and for three days, he tortured her and fed on every weakness and insecurity she had.  it was also the one time fantomex wasn’t an ass and he put his mask on her to let her use the psionic dampening plates in it to protect her from him, but eh, got him killed in the process.

she had a final chance at battling him and she defeated him but refused to kill him.  at least on the astral plane.  she fed him into omega white and imprisoned him there, giving him to brian to be held captive in otherworld.  granted, brian decided that the gobi desert was better than the otherworld so of COURSE someone found it and released it.  but nightcrawler got to be the one to defeat him on the astral plane and trapped him again.  

now we’ve got astonishing starting in a few weeks and it opens with a massive psionic attack on greater london with betsy at the heart of it.  so i’m assuming when the mapmakers attacked the captain britain corps, some of their prisoners and the likes were able to escape or were perhaps liberated.  

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Tell Me Where To Find Shelter -- The Reboot

Okay, so -- this past Saturday, I brought back the Pentatonix/Lindsey Stirling cover of Imagine Dragon’s “Radioactive,” and commented that part of the reason the song was on my mind was because I’ve been really getting into Fallout 4, which I’m playing with Victor as my Sole Survivor. This mean that, of course, I have a Valice AU for the game -- “Tell Me Where To Find Shelter.” I originally came up with a rather simplistic version of the AU aaaalll the way back in 2016, based on what little I knew about the game (and the series in general) from getting into the Fallout Shelter mobile game and seeing a friend’s posts about her Sole Survivor. That original version could be summed up as basically “the prologue sequence, only Victor and Victoria are secretly in a poly relationship with Emily, who dies too when their kid is stolen, and Victor discovers Alice alive in the Vault as the only other one who made it -- they go out into the Wasteland together to discover what happened to Victor’s kid.” Pretty simple, right?

Yeah, you can throw all that out. Now, I have actually played the game, spoiled myself on the main quest and a lot of the side quests because I don’t give a damn, and have done a bit of research on the history of the Fallout verse as a whole. (Short version: It sucks. It sucks a lot.) So I have a lot of new ideas, meaning it’s time to reboot this verse! I wouldn’t expect a full-fledged story to come out of this (you’ve seen me panicking over the size of “Londerland Bloodlines,” right? Which is based off an action RPG that is reasonably linear and has a timeline of a month? Fallout 4 is open world and while the main quest is linear, the fact that I’ve been able to ignore it for MONTHS in-game because I can’t say no to Preston Garvey is -- eeep), but I may at least do a few snippets and whatnot.

So! Let me share what I’ve got regarding Victor’s history as the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 -- I’m gonna try to keep it to more general thoughts as I’m not totally up on the history of the Fallout world, and things may have to be adjusted if I later discover that something in the canon strongly contradicts it:

-->I have got his birth date: June 9th, 2050. This makes him 27 at the start of Fallout 4, which I felt was reasonable based on the Fallout Wiki stating both Sole Survivors were likely born between the early 2040s and the mid 2050s.

-->I still want him to be born in England, and have his family move to America a little later in his life -- though when is complicated by the whole Euro-Middle Eastern War and the New Plague putting America under quarantine for a while. The latest I can imagine is them making it over in his early teens or so, having left the broken-down wreck of the U.K. to rebuild fortunes in America.

-->They do indeed rebuild fortunes in America -- Boston, Massachusetts, to be precise. William sets up an extremely lucrative fish-canning business and makes sure to support the military extensively. (The Four Leaf fishpacking plant is almost certainly one of his in this timeline.)

-->The Victor/Victoria/Emily poly thing still happens, kicked off by Victor’s parents pressuring him into dating Victoria (whom he likes), Victor making friends with Emily (whom he also likes) -- and Victor accidentally asking Emily to prom via trying to rehearse his lines to ask Victoria to prom. Feeling bad as Emily is coming off a really bad breakup with an ass named Barkis (who stole a lot of money from her in a long con), he clears it with both girls to take Emily, and later they help defend Victoria when Barkis returns during the party and try to rob her. This leads to a close friendship, which eventually becomes something more.

-->Victor ends up being pulled into the Sino-American war straight out of high school -- William attempts to buy his way out, but for once his money doesn’t work, and Victor ends up fighting in Anchorage, Alaska.

-->This version of Victor, while still into butterflies and moths, is also a tinkerer, and quickly becomes known among his fellow soldiers in Fox Company (108th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion) as “that guy who can fix anything with duct tape and Wonderglue.” (I do enjoy my armor and gun mods -- everything must be deep pocketed!)

-->I’m not sure what Victor does to earn his “decorated war hero” status yet (probably saved the lives of a lot of men with some quick repairs and shooting), but it’s enough to finally get him discharged around 2076. Victoria and Emily had gotten together while he was stuck fighting, but are only too happy to let him into their relationship. Victor officially marries Victoria to keep his parents happy, and they move into Sanctuary Hills with Emily pretending to be their “eventual live-in babysitter” to avoid scrutiny from the parents.

-->And then, during a park escapade, Victoria ends up pregnant. Baby Shaun is welcomed to the world July 31st, 2077. Everyone is thrilled, and Victor picks up a Mr. Handy soon afterward to help with baby care.

-->And then, of course, the bombs drop on October 23rd, 2077. Victor, Victoria, Emily, and Shaun just barely make it into Vault 111, and end up in cryonic suspension -- Victoria is later shot when her and Victor’s pods are reactivated during the kidnapping, and Emily dies quietly when the life support is cut to all but Victor’s pod. Victor is absolutely devastated by their deaths, and takes Victoria’s wedding ring and Emily’s favorite butterfly hair clip as mementos to remember them by before leaving Vault 111.

-->As for the actual game stuff:

Victor’s starting SPECIAL stats were Strength 4, Perception 3, Endurance 7, Charisma 2, Intelligence 8, Agility 3, Luck 3. I’ve been mainly improving Strength for carry weight, though I recently started working seriously on bumping up Charisma because I have realized making it a dump stat was probably not the greatest idea.

I can’t list all his current perks off the top of my head, but Armorer and Gun Nut are up there -- he’s very much a shooty-bang-bang kind of guy, and I believe I mentioned loving deep pockets?

Victor hasn’t met all the factions yet, but -- he’s definitely a Minuteman. I am so easily distracted by those quests, it’s not even funny. ...Well, it’s a little funny. XD He was only too happy to help Preston Garvey’s group set up in Sanctuary Hills, and he and Preston are best friends now -- aka, Preston’s the first companion who idolizes me and whose perk I got. He’s a LITTLE awkward about the whole “General” thing (”Preston, you’re the one always telling ME what to do”) but he’ll grow into it.

As for the other factions -- he’s met Paladin Danse and helped him out at Arcjet, but refused the offer to join the Brotherhood. . .he might go back and do some missions with them, but I don’t think he’s going to like Elder Maxson’s views on synths and ghouls (Super Mutants -- okay, Super Mutants are assholes). He hasn’t met the Railroad yet, but I think he’ll like them and join up to help, even if he thinks some of their methods need tweaking. The Institute -- I think he’ll be of the mind that their discoveries are good, but they’re using them for such evil purposes, and -- ugh.

That being said, I’d like to go for the Minutemen ending that does not require warring with the Brotherhood of Steel, simply because there are kids on that airship and I’d feel bad shooting it down. If there was a way to just get rid of Maxson and maybe yank the Brotherhood closer to its Fallout 3 views. . .and if not blowing up the Institute was an option, Victor would be for it. Getting rid of the top brass who have completely written off the Commonwealth is one thing -- but the building, with all its advances? That could be useful.

Oh, and yes, he is adopting Synth Shaun -- but he is letting the kid know who and what he is, to help him forge his own path in life. (Synth Shaun also correctly guesses his new Dad feels awkward calling him by his predecessor’s name, and they decide on “Chester” instead.)

As for companions he’s currently met -- mentioned already that Preston’s his best friend, and he’s a solid supporter of the Minutemen. He adores Dogmeat and has made him a doghouse to live in at the Red Rocket near Sanctuary. He likes Piper Wright and her desire to spread the news quite a lot (and finds her attractive too). Danse he admires for his commitment to his men and his cause, but doesn’t really know him beyond that due to not joining the BoS. He IS very thankful for the gun, though -- Righteous Authority is useful! Codsworth and he had some rough moments at the beginning (I gave Mama Murphy some Jet for a vision, and poor guy got in the way of some friendly fire on an early trip), but seeing Victor get his modding on has improved their relationship quite a bit (Codsworth sees it as Victor getting back to his old helpful self). He’s encountered Ada and has grown quite fond of the little robot, wanting to help her avenge her slaughtered caravan family (WHY CAN I NOT HUG THE ROBOT). And he’s rescued Strong from Trinity Tower. . .and ended up getting sick of the Super Mutant’s constant negative comments toward humanity and inability to figure out stealth. He was helpful in taking back The Castle, but currently Victor’s got him living with a couple of settlers as a “guard” of sorts, in the hopes it’ll keep him busy and out of Victor’s hair.

And now you may notice there’s a strange lack in this longer-than-I-anticipated write-up. . .namely, where the hell is Alice? Well, that question has three answers:

-->For the purposes of my playthrough, I’m designating Piper as Alice -- she’s going to be Victor’s romance option in this game. (Me turning my attention to boosting Charisma may have been inspired by being unable to flirt with her during an affinity conversation no matter how many times I reloaded.)

-->An idea I had recently to put Alice in the verse was have her as a native-born Wastelander/escapee from a Vault (latter would probably be best to keep her history -- oh cripes, maybe she was from a Vault where BUMBY was OVERSEER, imagine THAT horror) who discovers the history of the “Order of Mysteries” (a group of women, lead by the old voice actress of the Mistress of Mysteries, who turned herself into a legit superhero post-Great War -- unfortunately betrayal led to the group dying out) and decides to take up the mantle, much like the Sole Survivor can become the Silver Shroud. She’d show up not long after Victor starts Shrouding around, asking to meet -- they’d have a little spar, end up fighting another enemy together, and she’d join up as a companion, leading to eventual romance.

-->But the first idea I had to get Alice into the story was. . .well. . .

Let me put it this way -- for quite a while, I was playing both Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines and Fallout 4 at the same time.

. . .yeah, I think this is going to need another post.

[theinsanecrayonbox]

KP watches Gifted ep 12/13

woooo! 2 hour season finale! and by 2 hour, they mean 2 episodes...lets see if this needed to be a double douse, or if we could’ve had 3 weeks of episodes after the winter break, instead of the stupid “on 1 week, off 1 week, on for finale”

this is super extra long so i’ll spare you with a cut

oh last time tells us that the Friends of Humanity equivalent are “Purifiers” ok...disappointing...but they are FOH until they actually show up then

gasp! diet-Sinister backstory?? we could’ve had this way sooner if we didn’t have all the Wonder Twins subplot...wow you really do sound like a HYDRA guy

still adoring the Cuckoos. and we reiterate that they’re “Purifiers” ok....and that event sounds an awful lot like the one that Bishop was sent back in time to prevent Senator Kelly from getting assassinated from in TOS and the event that Senator Kelly was killed at in the movies...though i know Pro-Human rallies are common...

Blink’s old criminal friends??? ZOMR is she a Creed???? oh...it was against the FOH...and eeee she hooked up with the Brotherhood!!! she could’ve worked with Victor. i’m taking it. first Lorna is Erik’s, now this; you are finally delivering Gifted

Lorna tell Marcos you’re a Magnus

oh hi Wonder Twins....are you saying your great-grandparents were building Eden? is that where this is going?

if not-Sinister wants to eliminate the X-gene...did Price use that research in making his corn in Logan?

yup gotta remind us that Mom and Dad Strucker aren’t mutants

heehee Roswell. sorry that make me chuckle

wow Andy, explaining the magic friendship bracelet sounds stupid when you say it too

ah so the *MAIN CHARACTERS* are gonna go off on their side quest to grandma’s house. gotchya. at least it makes sense in context and we’re not ignoring the people we wanna see...

pft Brotherhood ain’t backing this Johnny. they don’t have money. idk why you didn’t think Hellfire Club, it was mentioned by you guys before you know...

seriously Mom is the best Strucker, Wonder Twins go home

Lauren don’t nearly quote Spiderman, you’re not cool enough for that

oh we’re in North Carolina...did i know that?

haha say Campbell’s name all you want tv, he’s still diet-Sinister to me

that was a bad affect on Lorna’s knife...

billionaire mutant?? Warren??? or did she say it was a “she”...i might’ve missed that... awww no hint about Vic looking for Clair? gimme more Esme! you’re the best for exposition and easter eggs!

and the knife affects are still bad...how can you mess that up when everything else looks good?

and cut away to Struckers....feels a little sucky since we were having a cool moment with the B-team...and cut to commercial, so lets see who’s big dramatic moment was more important then as we’re a quarter through the finale...

oh i guess the Struckers are more important...ask a stupid question, and get the obvious answer i guess

season 1 is gonna end with Andy going off with the bad guys and Lauren staying with the good guys isn’t it? and Lorna will leave with the bad guys too...and not-Sinister will idk, change colors. i’m calling it now.

the senator from Georgia is in NC...ok? why not ask the NC senator?

hey back to the B-team! Frost eyes are purdy

oh it’s Blink’s eyes that everyone sees as weird not that she’s pink...again, colored contacts anyone? wait bad guys in your family’s past? are they keeping Blink’s familial relationship to Apocalypse? as far as i knew none of her family had the X-gene present...unless she was adopted young by Victor and doesn’t know they aren’t blood related? or...they are blood related here for some reason?? and if she was part of the Brotherhood, did she think Lorna was related to Erik earlier too? “you don’t wind up looking like me without the X-gene floating around your gene pool” (excuse the paraphrasing) i mean...what?? explain yourself Clair, i am very confused, and intrigued, and excited. are you...are you actually going to do the thing i said way back in the beginning with Clair and Lorna being parallels about dealing with their family’s legacies?

grandpa Strucker had an assistant...who is it??? Magdalene Rismen? idt she’s a real Marvel person... stop with the teen angst Wonder Twins

wait this FOH event has been going on for 10 years? 

ok touching moment Thunderblink, but now’s not the time to be having it...

oh yeah you’re pulling an Anikin Andy, turn away  from the darkside before it’s too  late!

is she squishing the cell reception? that...seems implaussible...yet makes more sense than internet ghosts hating red, so...

children meat shirleds-oh how evil! and showing off Johnny’s imperviousness-yay!

and oh halfway mark since we have a sudden cut away because these weren’t edited to be aired together. goodie... >>

Lorna backstory! and we revisit her bipolarness...neat...Evangeline the layer who can turn red demony...you’re Vange Whedon, neat!

and against since not edited to air together, lets replay the opening title and credits

ok time to count how many times they say Xmen in this half; count so far 2

it’s not too late Andy, stop going Vader!

oh hi Sentinel Services guy. you got some new knockoff Wonder Twins with their magic friendship bracelet

why is your blood red on your shirt Marcos when you bleed gold goo?

you’ve never seen a conference like that...even though it happens every year for the past 10 years? and yeah we’re really  going to highlight Lorna’s bipolarness now 

and Wonder Twins being emo... (Xmen count: 3)

Nice thigh holster Lorna. and Erik saw Lorna when she turned 13?? or maybe the medallion was mailed to her...but huh, i guess he decided to keep tabs after realizing he missed out on Peter’s life maybe? after, you know, waiting to see if she had powers...

uhoh Sentinel Services guy found the mutant hideout...hey it’s the guard guy from the first episode, hi!

you tell him Mom! also dude, why question that order; you don’t want to get the little kids out safely?

oh they can see the Cuckoos’ eyes change colors when they use their telepathy...wow that’s inconvenient...i almost thought it was just for us the viewer’s sakes

let’s dig a tunnel! why...didn’t anyone else think of that? and thank goodness for *MAIN CHARACTER* to take control of everything, not like there’s any other high ranking underground peoples who know what to do around...

oh you get a name Shatter? neat! who’s our strongman? and the teenagers get names that i couldn’t catch and won’t look up ^^;

why is Dad the only one with a gun? why aren’t there more people with guns?

“i’ve had friends who were bipolar, and assassination plots are not one of the symptoms” lol oh Blink, you are awesome and sassy and i love you

oh you brought out the other Hounds to attack now...that’s not good

oh sweet Mom can use a sniper rifle...i really hope she doesn’t die

oh Wonder Twins if you blow up the building you won’t die, you’re *MAIN CHARACTERS*, so your offer of self sacrifice is hollow to me...but the show down against  your knockoff version is pretty neat, ii’ll give you that

and a nice scene transition!

(Xmen count: 6)

wow that was pretty much an Erik vs Charles speech Lorna and Marcos had...fake explosion was fake though boo. where’d your effects budget go? it went to the Wonder Twins didn’t it? booooo

why are we in Nashville suddenly? haha “J. Kirby’s” though, cute

see the Wonder Twins lived, and so did Mom so yay! i was sorta worried there cause they kept making her so awesome...

oh wow you’re surprised that they’re backstabbing you Sentinel Services guy?

(Xmen count: 7)

Lorna why are you wearing that stupid low cut thing? are you the Black Queen now?

and yup Andy pulling Vader, so duh (Xmen count: 9) though pointless to take only 1 Wonder Twin there Cuckoos, don’t you know they’re useless otherwise

HA! House of M logo! yaaas! 

but ok, i almost called the ending; Lorna goes bad, Andy  goes bad, but not-Sinister didn’t turn colors...as far as we know. did i think these two episodes *had* to be aired together; oh heck no. i’m glad i didn’t have to wait sure...but i still think the on again-off again-oh we’re done scheduling was stupid. and if they had to air them together, they should’ve been edited to flow better.

but we are getting a Season 2, and i am looking forward to seeing where that takes us.