#im completely normal about him guys def dont doubt it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jazzmckay · 7 years ago

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fallout 2 liveblog, lads. got distracted with things and took awhile to finish this post up but it is finally here

this is incredibly excessively long. fo2 is like 5x the size of fo1 and i just ramble a lot more this time too

seriously i just popped the text into word out of curiosity and this is 10.5k ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- the beginning is so vastly different from fallout 1 and its great. there are a couple cinematics, including a chilling introduction to the enclave, and an introduction to the elder of your tribe, in contrast to the one with the overseer in fallout 1. super cool, feels fresh. also the upgraded game engine is def noticeable. starting in a tribal village instead of a vault is rad

- so, fallout 2 is not messing around. the TUTORIAL kicked my ass so bad i ended up restarting it lmao i was able to figure out what i was supposed to do alright but the combat was brutal until i got a technique down. also this was my favourite part:

- early fallout games, a summary:

- checking out everything in arroyo was nice. tons of little things to do and people to chat with, some of which are stated to be relatives of the chosen one which is neat. i already feel more connected to home here than i did with vault 13 in the first game, while still feeling like character creation is fully up to the player; they arent IMMEDIATE relatives, its just a “this is a family and community” feeling without forcing certain close relationships. real good. it doesnt force you to act a certain way because of relationship bonds, but it does make arroyo feel like home

- most notable things i did in arroyo: rescued a dog named smoke from some geckos. bless. the geckos kicked my ass pretty easily too, i ended up sneaking past half of them to get the job done; fought some sentient plants in the shaman’s garden. interestingly, these are similar to the plants you find in vault 22, zion, and big mt. how did big mt.s death plants get over here

- off to the first town; klamath! i helped a guy guard his brahmin. i bought everyone a round at the bar. nearly got killed by some more geckos

- also stumbled into a crashed enclave vertibird (fun fact, in fallout new vegas, one of the enclave remnants members, daisy whitman, says that the only time she ever crashed a vertibird was by klamath so we can assume this is hers), complete with some corpses. one of them had a keycard on them and i have no idea what thats about but im guessing itll be important eventually?? guarding the vertibird was a damaged robot

- between that and this quest ive got to kill some “rats of unusual size” im starting to encounter all the references fallout 2 is known for

- its time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel

- the rats ALSO kicked my ass. everything is kicking my ass. normal rats are fine because you can manipulate their action points but anything bigger than that is tough and the boss itself, was REALLY tough especially because i only had one gun and the gun only had one bullet

- so, i took a break and went back in town to pick up my first companion: sulik! he’s really awesome i love talking to him. my charisma is 7 so i think that means i can have 3 companions but theres way more than that in the game and i want to travel with all of them at least a little but i have a feeling im not going to want to ask sulik to leave hes my good pal.

thanks, small child

- anyway sulik and i ended the rats it was good. other than this one mishap:

- got to the den which was initially pretty unsettling. in the time between fo1 and fo2, jet has been invented and most unnamed npcs in the den are addicted to it. there’s a slaver guild on one side of town. also, all the kids in the den try to pickpocket you when you pass them. atmospherically, fo2 is a lot lighter than fo1, but the subject matter is much more mature. that said, i started going around and picking up little errands i could do for people and theyre all very nice. not as scary as i thought it would be. i rescued a guy from the slavers and got a new companion: vic! when im much better equipped, i am coming back here and killing the entire slaver guild, no doubt about that, but sadly i still have barely any decent equipment for myself, let alone anything to equip my companions with

- theres a ghost hanging out in an old house and she wants her locket back. ghosts exist in fallout. cool. got the locket and she turned into bones, which i then went and buried in the town graveyard. i checked out all the other headstones and they were incredible here are some of my favourites

- a guy in the junkyard is willing to sell me a car if i bring the right parts. i can have a CAR 0: definitely dont have the parts OR the funds yet but...... im coming back for this car

- while heading for vault city, i discovered modoc, a quaint farming town going through some struggles due to a drought and a farm up north that is apparently run by ghosts and is decorated by dead bodies. wild

- lots of the quests here required some sleuthing and running all over the map talking to people but i think i got it all figured out. turns out the bodies are faked to scare people away and the ghosts are just some people living underground under the farm. i managed to resolve things peacefully and now i think modoc will be okay, yay!

- i got myself into an eating contest, also, here’s the eventful part of it. i will let anyone reading this experience what happened for themself

this reminds me of the time mass effect tells you just how many balls krogan have

- continued on to vault city and man just. a real roller coaster of an experience. at first, vault city looks like the most safe and stable settlement ive seen in fo1 or fo2. its very clean and organised, its well populated, it has good defences, has a more elaborate (reminiscent of the old world) social structure etc. a GECK was used here and id say part of this areas purpose in the game is to show you what youre actually trying to do for your village

however, vault city is full of self-righteous, bigoted, slaving assholes. “outsiders” are kept outside the bounds of the inner city until they can get a day pass and theyre searched before they can go in during the day, if they make it that far. there are slaves but the people claim its not slavery and get mad if you call it such. i hate these people.

and they sent me off to a ghoul inhabited town because the power plant the ghouls live in is infecting their water and its pretty understood they want me to kill the ghouls and destroy the plant or whatever. no sir.

- so yeah vault city sucks BUT I RAN INTO companion number 3: JOHN CASSIDY!!

hello soon-to-be father of one of my all time favourite fallout companions!!! welcome to the group

- headed up to the ghoul town, gecko, to see about this malfunctioning power plant. its so good and refreshing after vault city, i love this place and all the people in it so much. here comes a lot of screencaps of chats i had with some lovely ghouls.

harold again!!! and since fo1, he’s gained the famous tree, herbert, or bob or whatever.

this ghoul, lenny, came from necropolis and also saw the vault dweller. i believe hes a potential companion but i couldnt ask him to join, either because i already have 3 or maybe my reputation in gecko isnt up yet. hes excellent though and i will come back for him when i have a convenient chance to leave a current companion somewhere safe

i love this

ghouls are so good

relatable, my dude!!! also you can play that card game with this chap. i did so and won. now i have two sets of cards. im the king of games

idk why but this is so fucking funny to me. that ghouls in general can just go on an epic power nap and be assumed dead. and that this ghoul in particular just wanders off and sleeps for ages. i got a quest to find him. he was at the den and in a coffin and one of the citizens was convincing people to pay to see a “mummy” and honestly? honestly. this is one of my favourite fallout quests across ALL games, maybe. its so funny. heres a bit of it:

you tell woody to leg it and he just thanks you and bolts. incredible

- I GOT THE CAR (feat. vic, cassidy, and sulik)

- we drove in the car down south. i’m aiming for ncr territory because a) i think thats where the main questline advances and b) im ready to see tandi again, who at this point is like 96 years old i think. super excited. however, new reno is on the way so i thought id pop in and check it out real quick, not intending to stay and do anything yet but then SOMEONE STOLE MY BRAND NEW CAR.

- getting my car back cost me almost all my money. god damn

- anyway i took off right after to the ncr and then vault 15 to move along the main story. once again, the khans are causing trouble and really the only option is killing them. i guess the khans change a lot between the early games and new vegas. certainly explains how frustratingly anti-khan the ncr is in new vegas though. in rare ncr playthroughs i get so mad about how the ncr treats a potential alliance but. man, i know the history now. getting to see where faction tension came from helps, especially since in new vegas you mostly hear about bitter springs, not all the crap that happened before that to make the tension more two sided. im still mad at the ncr and think they could stand to be more civil after what happened at bitter springs but its still interesting to know how things progressed. the khans caused trouble in the first two games but eventually chilled out and the ncr still hasnt gotten over it

the fight with the khans was VERY difficult. lots of them had automatic burst fire weapons id never even seen before this point and it took a handful of times to get it done to my satisfaction. BUT this is where i encountered my first sniper rifle, my preferred weapon in the first game, and it proved just as useful this time around

- i looked up how long i had before all the dream sequences (id only gotten the first by this point) because i was anxious about the “time limit” and it turns out i have all the time in the world to mess about so main questline went on hold. time to drive around to all the places i bypassed earlier and return to other places to finish things up. also it occurs to me that the chosen one had probably never even seen a car before leaving the village?? they just fucking buy a car and cruise the wasteland in style despite having no prior knowledge of cars. i cant believe the companions willingly get into the car with them. other than sulik who i imagine is down for whatever. i love sulik

- stopped in broken hills and hit someone with my car. remember how i literally just said that the chosen one doesnt actually know shit about cars

broken hills is great, its super mutants, ghouls, and humans all living in peace and the sheriff is marcus, who you see in jacobstown in new vegas!! you also find out marcus’ backstory a bit more. in nv he does talk about naming jacobstown after a friend but you get the longer version here, which is that jacob was actually w/ the brotherhood of steel and they were fighting each other but so evenly matched that they ended up just talking and becoming friends. everyones very nice and its a neat town. theres a scientist with a scorpion hes experimented on to make it smarter and stuff and you can test your own intelligence, agility, and perception against it. i won agility and perception but failed to beat the scorpion at chess rip. the main quest here requires getting something from new reno though so i moved on. ill get back to it on the way back south

- dealt with some raiders i wasnt properly equipped for earlier (the first time i checked them out i barely made it past the many many traps and the scorpion den). went back to vault city to let them know the raiders were dealt with. they made me a citizen after i fixed the power plant in gecko and tbh i hate that the npcs here call me citizen now i hate this place lmao that said, i left vic here, in his daughters shop. as far as i know, companions will just wait exactly where you leave them even if you never come back, they dont actually return to any kind of daily routine but in a roleplaying sense i like the idea that ive parted ways with vic here so he can try to work on his relationship with his daughter. after that, i went and got lenny, the ghoul from gecko whod been in necropolis when the vault dweller blew through. cassidy keeps says he smells. shut the fuck up, cassidy. also vic used to complain about sulik and that is why hes the first to get cut from the crew, js.

- finished up a couple things in gecko and modoc then headed for the den. got a monty python reference special encounter

i got too caught up in it and forgot to screencap the last question oops. but they asked for the prerequisites for a specific perk, and the potential answers were various levels or agility points. i think i guessed agility 6 but i was wrong and i died lmao

- got back to the den and killed all the slavers finally. feels good man. the citizens seemed pleased. one of the bar owners even paid me for it

- suddenly started getting this mysterious message even though i was standing in the middle of the street and my cursor wasnt even on “tell me about things im pointing at” mode. i have no idea what this means

- went down to redding. the first thing i see is this kid

- as if that werent enough, a bartender and a shopkeep both refused to properly speak to me and kicked me out of their places just for having a ghoul in my party. redding is on my shit list

- its a mine town and i was asked to help get one part of the mine up and running again. theres a chip missing and also the mines are full of “critters”. it turns out redding is kind of the place where the politics between multiple factions starts to become more noticeable. there were hints of it between vault city and ncr, but redding is a small town with literal gold mines underneath it, and the chosen one gets to decide who to put in charge of the mine once they get it back in working order: the crew that wants redding to join the ncr, a faction thats aiming for expansion and prosperity and ruling out as much criminal behaviour as they can, or new reno, a vice city ruled by a bunch of competing families living in casinos and bars. considering the one time i went to new reno my car was immediately stolen i think id be in favour of the ncr side even if it were the ncr as they become in new vegas. there has been an undertone of “the ncr wants to bring as many towns into the fold as possible and enforce their laws across all of the state” in other places, but you get more of an active say in it, here. a precursor to the major mojave changing choices you get to make in new vegas

- i got a bit ahead of myself there with the politics and rpg game design talk. i didnt even mention yet that the critters in the mines were aliens

yeah. THOSE aliens. at first i thought it would be just a little easter egg and the rest of the critters would be a mix of rat variants or maybe id finally see some deathclaws but nope its all aliens

they were kind of reminiscent of deathclaws though. they were certainly on the perceptive side and while they didnt hit as hard as a deathclaw, it was easy to get swarmed by a lot of them and still take lots of damage fast. for the first time while playing the classic games i had to pull a stealth move. i do it occasionally in new vegas but kind of felt like in these old games going in alone was a quick way to die. but it worked wonderfully. i left my companions on one level of the mine and then me, my sniper rifle, and my mediocre but decent enough sneak skill went and cleared out the rest with no trouble at all. aim for the eyes and all that. im not sure how sneak criticals work in these games but theyre effective

also i inspected one of the corpses just in case there would be more flavour text and just

fair enough.

- once i finished up small quests in redding, i continued to new reno. i kind of still didnt want to do anything there tbh it all kind of seems like Bad Karma stuff going on here. but i needed that one part in order to help out broken hills. pretty much got the thing and left again, just like last time.

- finally got a deathclaw! in was in the mine where i fixed the broken hills air purifier and it was called “lesser deathclaw” which makes sense because i killed it in one shot. a very easy first deathclaw encounter

- after finishing up most of the broken hills stuff i went back to the ncr because id literally only done the main quest and then taken off again. except everyones like “well we have this problem but dont ask me about it youll need to talk to this specific dude” and I Cannot Figure Out How To Get To Him

- so instead i drove west until i hit san francisco just for the hell of it. i just wanted to know where it was. and also i want to get into the brotherhood asap for power armour and special stat implants tbh but the brotherhood dude asked me to fucking infiltrate navarro alone and im not super prepared for that, first of all, and second of all i really feel like anything to do with the brotherhood and enclave is solidly “act 2″ stuff and this is fallout so you can do whatever you want but for the sake of a good First Time Playing story progression it makes sense to finish the whole vault 13 geck thing first u kno

- but those ncr quests were bothering me and so i went back and continued trying to figure out what i was missing, which ended up being that im just. allowed to ask the guard to be let in. i could have sworn the previous time i tried to interact with someone on the other side of a force field i got the “you cannot get there” message so i just ASSUMED... BUT. not in this case, it seems. before i even got to that though i did the caravan run for him thats available through a merchant in town and thought that would be fine and easy and might make working for the dude easier. in the first game, i escorted a caravan once and we just had to kill one pack of raiders and that was it. nothing to worry about. [freeze frame] little did i know this would be the worse mistake i ever made

- first of all i got the second dream sequence just as we left ncr. pretty sure im still several months away from the last of them but it did remind me that Time Is Advancing, SECONDLY there were like 6 encounters along the way and two of them had super mutants & abominations, one of them had multiple deathclaws (tough ones this time), and the others were raiders and such. it was all i could do to keep myself and my companions alive, especially against the super mutants holy fuck. after a truly harrowing journey, we made it to the caravan destination, redding, and we were without the car. i never thought i would miss the car so, so much. walking from redding back down to ncr took FOREVER and the encounters were near constant. once again, keeping everyone alive was not easy. cassidy especially was having a lot of trouble; one of the encounters included him getting absolutely swarmed by centaurs and having to run out of combat while saying things like “my heart is giving out!”. HARROWING. eventually we made it to new reno, which is about half way between redding and ncr to do some trading and take a damn breather, but we still had just as far to go and time was ticking faster than it had since we first got the car. everything happens so much. i think overall, this took like 2 months. before the brahmin run i was like “i have SO MUCH time” but after the brahmin run i was like “okaaaay time to get back to the main quest then i guess”. not to mention that i felt like doing something Different after that, so in the end i never even went to talk to that one dude

- so!!! vault 13. the vault has new inhabitants and i love them

hell yeah!!!! they were all so nice and cute. i was even allowed to go into the deathclaw mother’s cave and talk to her, though my companions had to stay outside. there were some humans living here, including a mother and daughter who’d found safety with the deathclaws, a person who’d been at vault 15 before and i had a pleasant talk with, and a terribly depressed man whom the deathclaws were trying to help, even by way of medication. these deathclaws are so good they are So Good.

- and here we have...... a new companion!!! hello there pal

i had to leave lenny behind in order to recruit goris, but how am i to resist a deathclaw friend? i figured vault 13 with all these lovely deathclaws would be a perfectly safe spot to leave him for the time being [cue dramatic irony if anyone reading this has played the game themself]

- i offered to help the deathclaws fix their computer, because the voice recognition was broken. popped over to new reno, got the thing, went back, the deathclaws love me

- i went right to arroyo with the GECK and discovered that my entire village was killed or taken by the enclave! ay! i already kind of knew this is what happens no matter how long you take getting back with the GECK (ive read that even if you speed run to vault 13, you still always get the last dream sequence after that says everyones dying and even so it wouldnt really matter because the enclave ends up being the problem, not the lack of water and food rip). in retrospect, i guess this means theres no point in rushing and its beneficial to stick around in places and gain as much xp as you can to level up. i suppose if you dont get the car as soon as possible youd run out of time a lot faster. but even if the outcome is the same i still Feel Bad for not going faster in a roleplay sense, you know so its fine im glad i continued as soon as i felt prepared and equipped to do so. in these classic fallout games i certainly felt more compelled to advance the main questline for the sake of the people waiting for me waaay more than, say, the main questline in a game like skyrim. dragons are rising all over the place and killing tons of people and the fate of the realm rests on the dragonborns shoulders? yeah ill be there in a year leave me alone. i like that the urgency in fo1 and fo2 is felt honestly even if you have a lot of time left or the enclave will show up and ruin everything no matter how long you take

- since i was already so far north, i came back south by way of another round trip through the towns with decent merchants to unload some more inventory because im constantly overloaded, cassidy is constantly overloaded, the car trunk has no space, i need to Stop Hoarding. at vault city, goris told me he sensed his pack was in trouble and said he needed to leave. i didnt really think that much of this, just thought it might be a minor thing. it was not a minor thing.

- since goris left and lenny was also back at vault 13, i stopped in broken hills to recruit marcus. we went back to san fransisco, i left all my companions with the brotherhood guy who wanted me to solo infiltrate navarro and took off on my own

- cue me making the following hard save:

- as expected, the road to navarro alone was not easy. the first time i did it, i encountered centaurs that heavily irradiated me before i was able to kill them all on my own, and then an enclave patrol that just obliterated me. the second time i did it, i encountered the cafe of broken dreams special encounter!! which means i could get dogmeat from the first game :D unfortunately i couldnt keep him. the whole point of this trip is to be without companions, after all, but the cafe stayed on my map so i can go back for him if i want to

- finally got to navarro and was able to convince a guy at a gas station that i was a recruit. he gave me a password, but then when i tried to go inside, he got all “this is private property, leave”. idk what i did wrong but whatever i killed him. it didnt turn anyone hostile because they werent close enough to see or hear it. i think maybe the greeter was directing me elsewhere and i just missed it? it was nighttime, so its possible the darkness made me not see it properly. to reference the enclave remnants quest in new vegas again, one of them (i think its cannibal johnson) mentions the sergeant finding a recuit out of uniform and im assuming thats implied to be the chosen one. i figure there was a way for me to get in on the ground level where that incident would have happened, but instead i went down into the basement and geared up there instead

- infiltrating navarro ended up being on par with exploring the glow. theyre both atmospheric and scary as hell, just in different ways. the glow is more environmental, more “if my rad-x wears off ill probably die of radiation poisoning within a minute”, and navarro is more about being undercover, more “if i say the wrong thing to the wrong person i might reveal myself and be alone against an entire base of enclave soldiers”

- but i pulled it off okay. the first person i encountered was suspicious because i wasnt in armour but when i said i was new they told me to go gear up in the armoury, like i mentioned, which gave me my first suit of power armour and also a bunch of other goodies. i released a trapped intelligent deathclaw, got put on guard duty by the sergeant (who patrols around and will force you back into place if he sees you somewhere else. it was very scary), aaaaand.........

dog dog dog dog!! his previous owner was super shitty and had a soundproof lab because he ran gross experiments. he disabled the robodog for biting him and you can find a part to fix him and also kill the scientist (thanks to the soundproof room no one else is hostile) and take k-9 with you instead :D my dog now, asshole

- here are the overly cautious save files i made while navigating navarro and feeling like things would go bad any second

- got back to san fran, gained access to the brotherhood bunker which is super small, just an outpost really, but it had brotherhood power armour which i immediately passed on to sulik because i desperately want him to make it out of this game alive. and it also had the special stat implant computer and i was able to take charisma right away. i think i must have picked the module up in navarro? i didnt know what it was when i grabbed it so i didnt take much note of it. i didnt even know that in this game you need the modules in order to get the stat upgrades. but boosting my charisma by one did indeed allow me another companion, so i was able to bring everyone with me even though i also had k-9. also the computer had a kind of ai named “ace” and told me they were lonely. god damnit :( ill come visit u as much as i can, ace. they said some really sad stuff about artificial intelligence developing mental disorders god i didnt ask for these feelings

- then the enclave showed up and killed my new brotherhood friend while i was out shopping. enclave can you fucking stop

- decided to go back to vault 13 bc i wanted goris back but the old military base the vault dweller blew up was on the way, so stopped there first

- there were a ton of wolves around and at first they didnt mind me passing through so i got right up on the door and all the rubble from the explosion and then suddenly the wolves all swarmed together and attacked us. wolves nooo

- marcus threw a flare at the wolves. my throwing skill across both games has been very bad and also im stubborn and cant be bothered to equip flares so this was literally the first time id ever seen a flare in use. incredible. thanks marcus for showing me this mechanic i refuse to use myself

- the military base was full of rats, super mutants, and some dead enclave soldiers. we fought through the first two levels but left the third alone because my companions had been taking some heavy hits and were kinda soaking up my stimpacks. didn’t really matter, i got another set of power armour and another stat implant module so i feel like i got the best the military base had to offer for the time being. i can go back later if i really want to. gave the power armor to cassidy. marcus cant wear armor, being a super mutant, and ofc k-9 cant either so i officially had enough power armour for every member of the party who could actually equip it

- made it back to vault 13 to discover that the enclave came by and slaughtered all the deathclaws. ENCLAVE. STOP. all thats left are blood stains on the floors. im so sad. goris was still alive, though, and luckily so was lenny. i was worried for a second that the map would be effectively reset somehow and hed be gone but he was still there. i left marcus with him so they can pal it up in a nice vault that is. now. all theirs. :( and took goris back with me instead.

- travelled back to san fransisco. i still hadn’t done much in either san fran or new reno. i know i missed a companion in new reno but from what ive heard i wont like him nearly as much as the crew i have now. if i could take another on, id would be marcus or lenny still, so. also i think you can get a robobrain as a companion from a location you only get through a quest but im not sure?? what that is. its fine. again, i really like the crew i have.

- the captain of the ship that will take the chosen one to the enclave wont chat unless you get some reputation, so i talked to a fella who gambled away his spleen while drunk. yep. another amazing quest, honestly.

not quite on par with the ghoul mummy quest, but its up there man. its up there.

- NOW the captain is willing to chat and tell me what to do to get this ship going. it requires a couple things from navarro and vault 13, and fuel. luckily some of that was already done. unluckily, simply getting fuel proved to be on the complicated side. the main faction of san fran has all the oil and obviously they wont just hand it over, i had to do some stuff for them. they wanted the same item the brotherhood dude wanted and since brotherhood dude just made a copy, i still had the original and could immediately pass it over. cool. the second thing they wanted was for me to kill the leader of the enemy faction. im not normally the type to go in guns blazing without seeing if theres something i can do for the other side and maybe resolve things peacefully, but the hubologists are. unsettling. and remind me of the children of the cathedral from the first game. i did try talking to the leader first and his only offer was to get me to kill the shi leader instead and i wasnt about that so. had some fun shooting my way out of there

- the shi allowed me to have the fuel and now all the citizens in the streets have much nicer floating dialogue. before it was stuff like “are you a spy?” and “leave us alone” but after taking out the hubologists its stuff like “guess youre alright after all” and “you did a good thing for us” so i guess..... thats good. still not sure if there was a peaceful way of handling things or if it really was simply “pick a side” but from the reaction, i think i made an okay decision

- to install the parts on the ship i had to go below deck and found a shit ton of aliens, centaurs, and floaters. it was a real pain in the ass tbh, these enemies are only hand to hand combat so they swarm you and you cant MOVE and its so hard to see whats going on bc the outlines all overlap. they suck. there was a lost person down here as well that i could help back up to the deck

- and with that all squared away, off to the enclave oil rig!

you got it, cassidy. there’s my endgame crew: sulik, cassidy, goris, and k-9. mightve been a good idea to bring marcus instead of k-9 but. dog. his damage output isnt the greatest but sometimes he knocks people over which can be helpful.

- there was a terminal right inside that i could use to disable some defence systems but anything more than that was above my skill level, it seems, and i got locked out. i took a staircase down to the next level and found my tribe as well as the inhabitants of vault 13 whod been there before the deathclaws took residence. we shot our way through a ton of enclave soldiers and scientists but luckily it seems that defence disabling i did meant some robots on this floor never attacked

- that said, i still lost goris almost immediately on this level. while most of the robots had been disabled, the turrets were not and they sure can do some mean damage. one of them took goris out in one hit. rip deathclaw friend

- i couldnt free everyone right away, the leader of the vault 13 folk told me the best bet would be to disable the power generator 3 floors below.

- the next floor down included a maze with electric floors. it was. troublesome. after a couple attempts i ended up leaving my companions outside the maze and working through it myself until i was able to get rid of the electric floors, at least, so we werent all constantly taking damage while i figured this crap out. there were two supply rooms on either side of the maze as well so i got some more useful items AND another geck. ive got two now, incredible. for some reason the guards in both siderooms werent armed at all??? i pretty much stood in the doorway which allowed only 2 of them to get close enough to attack and even then they were punching and kicking which isnt very effective when your opponent is in advanced power armour so. that fight was more time consuming than stressful or anything

- after that is a floor with very powerful enclave soldiers protecting the president. in contrast to the unarmed losers on the previous floor, these guys had energy weapons and miniguns and shit. did not go well the first couple times. i ended up doing kind of a cheese thing which was going down alone, getting a sneak critical on one guard, and then sneaking back up the staircase, ending combat. eventually enough guards were coming over to investigate that sneaking was no longer possible so that method only worked a couple times but after that i brought my companions down with me and we worked our way through everyone whod been alerted.

- then i stopped to do some healing maintenance before figuring out the best and safest route to the president and............. the game crashed. this was the first time either classic game crashed on me. i dont think it liked me spamming “heal yourself” dialogue with cassidy or something. or maybe its completely unrelated. i HAD been bouncing up and down staircases a lot so maybe the frequent loading was unappreciated

- so we had to redo some of the fight but luckily id been saving a lot bc i wasnt sure if my weird tactics were gonna get me in a rough spot haha

- met the president. killed the president. killed the presidents vp and secretary. fun times. its at this point that you get the most clear idea of what the enclave wants to do: kill every mutant, but not just full mutants but anyone who has been exposed enough to the outside world with all its leftover radiation that theyre “less than human” so basically they want to kill the entire world except themselves and the people who were still in vault 13. it seems to me at this point, most vaults have either opened naturally, been forcibly opened, or have metaphorially or literally self-destructed so yeah good plan, enclave. there is no one left by your shitty standards and also get over yourselves, mutants are the Best. have you seen lenny and marcus? have you?

- when dealing with the pres i tried out a new gun i got off an enclave guard and holy shit

im not as accurate with it as i am with the gauss rifle but damn

- you can convince a scientist in this area that what theyre doing is bullshit and to give you the fev cure and also cure your village/the vault 13 inhabitants before flooding the oil rig with fev to kill everyone else. this seems like its a really handy and useful thing to do but on this particular run, both cassidy and i died and when i went through the next time, this scientist joined in the fighting and i wasnt able to talk to him again. oh well

- the next floor had the power generator. i put an explosive near it and took off. the path back up to the top floor drops you in an area i never bothered to clear on the way in and we were Obliterated. i tried a few times but seriously this floor was tough as hell. i started doing the stealth thing alone again and that is when i discovered that if you dont have your companions with you, you can just walk through most areas because youre in enclave power armour. i am a Fool. everything could have been so easy!!! i could have left everyone chilling on the top floor, gone off to take care of stuff in simple style, and waltzed back out to the boss fight. but it was too late. i had to reload pre-destroying the generator anyway so this time i did indeed leave my companions in peace while i took care of it and it was so much easier. god. goris could have survived this easily if id done this in the first place. oh well, next time ill know exactly what im doing i guess.

- so with the countdown going and only the frank horrigan fight left, i talked my way into getting an enclave group to join my side. youre supposed to be able to access the terminal here to get his own turrets to turn on him as well which presumably makes for an easy fight but OF COURSE this is the computer i fucked with when i first arrived and got locked out of. i had the enclave group support but let me tell you. they were not the most effective. they were a distraction at first, but i still only made it out of this fight with almost no stimpacks and one less companion. cassidy died here, unfortunately. in the middle of the fight i had to loot his corpse for all the stimpacks id given him because i needed them for myself, it turns out. it really was tough, and i also ended up using chems for the first time. i dont like using chems in fallout, generally, but i was willing to take whatever edge i could to actually finish the game

- a couple of the enclave people on my side survived, and sulik and k-9 were ok as well. we headed for the exit with about 5 minutes left on the countdown to destruction. classic fallout protags really have a habit of blowing shit up

rest in pieces!!!!!

- cue ending slideshow. to summarise: the arroyo villagers and the remains of vault 13 used the geck to settle a new community together, the den, modoc, and san fransisco simply prospered well, gecko was taken over by vault city because i optimised the power plant and i suppose that caught vc’s interest but vc ended up withering away themselves and were taken over by the ncr so i hope that means my ghoul friends were eventually free again, redding joined the ncr as well, broken hills dispersed peacefully (and we know from nv the super mutants from there settled happily in the mojave), ncr and vault 15 did well and expanded, the vault 13 deathclaws were unfortunately killed by the enclave and the end card kinda blamed me for it :(, new reno stayed exactly the same because i never bothered to do much there oops, and while there were no ending cards for it, we know from nv that the ncr took over navarro pretty shortly after the enclave oil rig fell.

- and there you have it! sulik, k-9 and i were deposited back on the docks of san fransisco and i now have the option of finishing things i didnt do before (like new reno) and/or exploring around gaining levels until i either reach 99 or im bored. i will check out new reno and prob go chat up some of the major characters who may have new things to say now that the enclave is gone and TOTALLY NOT get distracted for ages by fallout week and replaying the entirety of fallout new vegas which was really great now that ive played both classic games. oops- anyway, picked up lenny and marcus from vault 13 since sadly, my party was halved by the oil rig adventure. in future playthroughs i think it would be kinda cool to assemble all the companions and leave them hanging out in vault 13 when theyre not with me like how you can send everyone to the lucky 38 in nv

- started driving around to places with good merchants again because as always i am overencumbered. i lost some good shit on the oil rig when cassidy died because sulik and i could not carry it :( first stop was ncr for selling shit and checking in with tandi. she wouldnt speak to me and her bodyguard/secretary dude also told me to fuck off. kind of thought they would be willing to comment on the enclave deal but i guess not, fine.

- then back to vault city, where i DID get new dialogue about how awesome i am and was also instructed to go log my exploits in the vault 8 terminals. i put my pip boy in the terminal and got some behind the scenes info as well as a cheeky hint to go look at a certain other terminal which, when interacted with, gave me so much xp i instantly levelled up. i did it twice more and levelled up even more. what the heck. incredible. all this levelling up would have been even better if id had marcus and lenny with me because especially marcus has not travelled long enough with me to completely level up BUT EARLIER ID TRIED TO BARTER and the people CALLED FOR THE GUARDS and everyone WENT HOSTILE because i had a super mutant and a ghoul in my party HEY VAULT CITY JUST A REMINDER I HATE YOU

- whatever. i decided to drive around unlocking the rest of the map even though im pretty sure there are no new locations, it just looks nice to have it all coloured in properly. got some combat encounters on the way and prior to dealing with the enclave i tended to skip ones that seemed too dangerous but now im like COME AT ME this party is 3 ppl in power armour, a cyber dog, and a super mutant, with guns that will disintegrate you. TRY IT

- one of the encounters i got was this fucking incredible thing:

this person just kept saying “oil can” over and over so i grabbed the can off the ground, used it on them, and then they opened up dialogue to thank me, saying theyd been stuck there for ages, and then walked off. lmao what a wild encounter. curious that theyre in enclave armour. did they find the armour and not have training in proper use and management? is this a former enclave employee that just fucked up? who knows

- speaking of former enclave i totally forgot that when i went back to ncr i talked to a doctor there and got new dialogue to ask if he knew about the enclave and it turned out to be dr henry, one of the remnants and eventual residents of jacobstown o: i DID notice they had the same name but i assumed henry would have been at navarro like the rest of them. turns out he had a falling out with the enclave before everything went down and the remnants left to the mojave together

- based on the end clip, i wasnt sure if id find my village in arroyo or not. the voiceover described the new settlement as “miles away from their old home” or whatever but that might have been about the vault 13 ppl specifically, which arroyo IS far away from. also its not like the settlements that disbanded or anything in the slideshow already look like that post-storyline so really i did not know what to expect or if i could actually access my people again. unfortunately, the bridge to arroyo was still destroyed and everything still looked pretty bad up there. so i guess we do not get to know where everyone eventually went

- i still had an outstanding quest in broken hills as well. first of all, a sentient plant wanted to be moved to a different garden which was a simple thing but required a shovel that i didnt have at the time. it was p funny, i went up and immediately used the shovel and the plant was like “dude dont just start digging me up give me some warning first” IM SORRY. but yes i talked to the plant and then moved him and then he gave me a hint on how to defeat that scorpion at chess that i was playing against ages ago. also, one of the ghouls in broken hills is the son of set, the ghoul leader of necropolis from the first game. if you get him a bunch of stuff he’ll eventually tell you the location of some “treasure” that ends up being bottle caps, the currency of the first game. kind of weird that they went back on the bottle caps as currency thing in fo2? i wonder why. glad the new games have caps again. but anyway the chosen one was not amused by getting caps instead of money lmao the caps were in a well so you have to enlist some help and then you get so riled up about it being caps instead of money you forget to help the guy back up

- OKAY. NEW RENO.

- i went to talk to this myron bloke ive heard so much about since i know hes a possible companion and god he annoyed me so fast

- this is the first time ive ever pissed off a talking head enough for the animation to change to their “angry” face i think. i once pissed off killian darkwater in the first game but i have no idea what id done to cause it since it was after id already worked with him and it wasnt nighttime or anything i think it was a bug idk but with myron i was intentionally smartassy with him bc he was just SO ANNOYING and also hes the creator of a drug that has fucked up a lot of people and he doesnt seem to even understand what hes doing?? or care??? not to mention hes got slave labour. when i saw that going in i was kinda feeling like id be more likely to kill him than ask him to join my party (which was already full anyway, i really had no intention of bringing him along) but huffs i dont think theres a quest attached to that kind of thing so it would probably just be considered assault/murder and maybe get more people hostile than im willing to deal with. so. i just left

- so that aspect of new reno sucked as expected but then!!! THEN!!! i became a BOXER! i convinced a guy named stuart little to hire me as the lone woman boxer, he gave me a list of nicknames to choose and i decided on “hurricane” and then i beat the hell out of a guy

this is the second guy i fought, after id gained some popularity and i fucking killed the dude. i killed him. i was really scared for a second that id have to fight the entire room but they didnt even care, accidental death is just something that happens in this line of work sometimes i guESS?? okie doke. but after literally murdering a man in the ring i decided to take a break from boxing

- theres a dude in new reno that i spoke to once ages ago and im not actually sure what his deal is but i talked to him again since last time he passed out and it looked like hed finally got back up. he had new post-game fourth wall breaking dialogue and he gave me a book that acted a lot like the terminal in vault city, it gave me a shitton of xp AND levelled all my skills to 300%, which is the highest they can go. holy shit?? im just. as op as possible now. nothing can stop me.

- so with my newfound opness i decided to start working for whichever of the new reno families seemed the least shitty. the wrights are by far the easiest to talk to; the bishops are practically impossible to communicate with in any meaningful way, the salvatores arent bad but sure do have twitchy trigger fingers, and the mordinos seem sketchy as hell in general and are the ones already mostly in charge. the wrights wanted me to investigate the murder of one of the familys sons and it turns out one of the other families poisoned him. then they sent me to the sierra army depot to look for weapons, presuming there might be a fight with the other families. the wrights seem nice enough, all they really want to do is protect their family, not necessarily fuck everyone else over so. alright. and i really wanted to get to the sierra army depot one way or the other

- it ended up being even cooler than i expected. its surrounded by turrets which didnt stand a chance now that im op as hell, and the doors are super sealed shut so i got to fire a massive howitzer gun at it to blast them open. i felt really cool

- inside are lots of robots but again, 300% science skills means hacking everything without problem. this place has a LOT of amazing loot. most of it is useless to me now but i did pick up a lot of stimpacks and other drugs that are valuable and weightless so why not. i also found a cookie. doesnt seem to have use but hey, i have a cookie now.

- turns out an ai here wants to get out and see the world, and tasked me with making a robobrain body for it. this involved finding biogel and looting other robobrain corpses and such for parts. also there are terminals where you can literally harvest a variety of brains and other organs. i know robobrains and other splicing was being done at big mt. but it looks like a lot of that stuff was happening here, too. ive got a human brain in my inventory now, as well as an eyeball that i can use to give me retinal scan access. im not sure why the eye is just. there. actually. ALSO there are holodisks you can pop into your pip boy to learn about some old world shit and it was actually fascinating. it was all great but as a canadian and a lore gremlin, this was my fav part

there is SO MUCH going on here. so much. god. all the info in these disks was incredible. the entire location was really fucking interesting and i loved searching and reading everything. i saw something about like. viruses/plagues and stuff on one of the terminals but i couldnt see everything before it shut down, im gonna have to reload a save or just. keep it in mind for future playthroughs i guess. amazing

- but back to the ai thing. i assembled “skynet” a robobrain body and was able to recruit them. unfortunately i already had a full party, so theyre still chilling there. eventually ill need to drop off a couple companions at vault 13 or something and grab not only skynet but dogmeat, who is still at the cafe of broken dreams on my map, just waiting for me to return.

- so when i went back to the wrights, they said i was now part of the family and i got to take a name with them just like i did when i became a boxer. there were a lot of really good and funny names available, but since i tend to prefer long range weapons and stealthy combat, heres what i went with

- id had a quest for the salvatores but didnt finish it before becoming part of the wright family and now when i go back to them, theyre pissed and attack me haha WELL ALRIGHT i guess that makes sense but i think that also means im pretty much done with new reno already. i suppose if youre methodical about it, you could work for all the families until the end of each branch, like you can do with the factions of new vegas until you piss them off too much by working with others etc but i did not plan anything going in. its cool though, i like the wights well enough. theyre the only family that didnt outright threaten me or something so its all good. too bad i dont get to see how this would change the slideshow card for new reno in this playthrough. next time, though

- and thats it for real now!! as far as i can tell, ive done everything still available to me unless its something bad karmaish that im not interested in doing in this particular playthrough

- another random thing: since i did a lot of driving around the map just because, a fair bit of time has passed in-game and my age went up. the game actually kept track of how much time has passed and acknowledged my birthday. thats actually SO GREAT

if you read all of this, thats p incredible. this is long as hell. thx ily

that was really a wild ride and i loved it. its so much bigger than fo1, such an enormous expansion, both in gameplay and in lore. the world really does develop massively between both games, and i found the tone shift to be very interesting. the first game, in my opinion, is definitely post-apocalyptic, as the name calls it, and even dystopian. its very dark and creepy feeling, and the music really backs that up. some of the music tracks are creepy as HELL (”the vault of the future” always creeps me out, especially when it plays in vault 22 in nv god and “city of the dead” really does make you feel the way the title suggests). the first game nails a desolate wasteland atmosphere incredibly well.

the second game, though, is what id call post-post-apocalyptic. there are a lot more proper settlements with a lot more people to talk to and do quests for. in the first game, shady sands is smaller than modoc, the tiny farming village. in fo2, ncr territory is massive and incredibly well off, with vegetation and force fields as security and shit. people are making it work, in fo2. but the further we get from the old world, the more things change, too. tribal culture is a thing. many mutants of the wasteland have settled down well, now that theyre away from the influence of the master. post-war chems have been invented. slavery is a new problem. people have been able to survive well enough that theyve gone back to age old ways of being shit to each other. people do things not to survive but for profit or fame or just because they want to. you, the player, can have sex on multiple occasions in multiple ways for multiple reasons. the world is full of so much again! the first game is about survival and power struggles and adapting to a new status quo. the second game is about living, and about people. theyre both remarkable in their own ways and do such a good job setting a tone both times. honestly, i dont think i can say, at this point, which i liked better because they were both the best at being what they are. maybe after time and more playthroughs ill settle into a favourite but for now all i can say is both of them were so solid in unique ways.

gameplay-wise i definitely found fo2 more challenging, though once i upgraded to advanced power armour and a gauss rifle it felt like i was at the top of the food chain. something i love about fallout games is you usually start out so squishy and end up godlike, which makes you feel like you progressed as a character while progressing through the story and get to constantly do more and more awesome, badass shit. they also improved some mechanics with the companions that made life a lot easier which was great. my only complaint is that there isnt a single female companion. at best you can argue that certain characters dont have a gender (k-9, skynet, technically marcus as a super mutant but really all the mutants get gender coded anyway, i dont recall there being a mutant who wasnt blatantly male or female aligned, so,,) but pretty much katja is the only female companion across both games. but i suppose ill let it slide bc in new vegas they give us an incredibly diverse selection including both a gay man and a lesbian so alright alright. they improved majorly.

anyway. i already want to replay both games lmao. since i did character creation mostly based on what would make life easy and a more blank slate in terms of personality since i like to go into first playthroughs just doing whatever i feel like at any given time, i might like to actually craft a specific kind of character and do some more serious roleplaying. nice

thanks for reading.... again... since i failed to stop talking after the first time i said it. [finger guns]

#bruce plays fallout

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comicteaparty · 6 years ago

Text

January 10th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on January 10th, 2019, from 5PM - 7PM PST. The chat focused on Chasing Little Lights by Evelyn Shi.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!

Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Chasing Little Lights by Evelyn Shi~! (http://www.cllcomic.com/)

Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

my favorite scene so far is probably...well okay its not really a scene so much as a moment in a scene. but when soren is walking around with valentin and noticing that valentin already has like 1 billion friends. i can just severely relate to soren in that moment. it has some fantastic facial expression and i just love the panel framing too. theres kind of this sense of isolation whenever you see valentin interact. and even though soren is there, you get this sense he is the one out of place. and i just really think the visual aspects alone express that kind of loner thing he has going on

eleviken

haha hi! i'm the creator of Chasing Little Lights and i'll stick around here for a bit!

RebelVampire

glad to have you, @eleviken ~!

eleviken

i'm really glad you took note of that scene! i wanted to capture their different personalities - they are friends and get closer as the comic progresses, but soren is quite shy and valentin is a classic extrovert! i think valentin doesn't intend to single out people sometimes but he can give off that vibe

RebelVampire

actually honestly i really love valentin and soren's interactions. theyre very different people, and usually when you have an extrovert and an introvert they kind of butt heads. but nah, in this case valentin is like "hey buddy lets get bubble tea" and to me thats just super refreshing to see.

another scene i really like was the fencing scene. it played out exactly how i imagined it would: elena got her arrogant butt beaten by someone with infinite more years experience. but what i like more is that she doesnt expect this. instead to retreats further into her belief that she just wasnt on her a-game. cause i feel this is a moment that is true to how a real person would act.

and i also like how it preps for future drama

eleviken

that's great!! yeah i wanted valentin to be a good hearted person inside, even if he gives off an absentmindedly popular vibe! but of course there will be fights between the characters>:)

mhm! for me the fencing scene got quite tedious actually, as i wanted to have the action play out in maybe a few weeks, rather than dragging on for over a month. but i can only make a page per week with school and all, so i'm glad you enjoyed that!

all the characters are good people despite their flaws- elena's is arrogance obviously. we'll see how her character growth plays out in the future!

RebelVampire

yeah theres no doubt in my mind theyre good people. but i love all their flaws because theyre poignant and feel super realistic. not to mention i really enjoy a lot of the elements that stress them out cause to a degree it helps to make them feel their age.

eleviken

mhm, in future chapters - especially chapter 4, which is coming up soon, there will be more dramatic/challenging obstacles in the plot that will test their innocence as kids

i wanted to emphasize the coming of age aspect in the story because some challenges force you to grow up

RebelVampire

exactly what im hoping for. cause these kids are def in a situation where their innocence is gonna be tested. what with all the air pollution.

this is not s etting of happiness

K.E. Karlsen

yeah thats a theme i like seeing in stories and i can definitely see it happening in yours, whatever may happen

can i ask where you got the idea of a setting with air pollution sickness?

mathtans

The little one is in bed for the moment, but I might have to leave unexpectedly. ^.^

Rebel - I kind of liked that scene with Valentin having all the friends, but I think what I liked more was kind of the follow-up, when Kasen sees Soren with Valentin and thinks, geez, that guy's already got a friend. Kind of a perspective shift.

eleviken

i live in Shanghai, China, and air pollution has been a pretty big issue here! it has gotten better over the past few years but it's still very polluted. air pollution is also quite bad in areas like mongolia and india and other parts of asia

mathtans

Nice closer to Chapter 2 also.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 2. The comic’s setting is one where air pollution can be rampant enough to cause a fatal sickness called contamina. Given Valentin’s blood-filled coughing, do you believe he has contracted contamina? Why do you believe he is so intent on hiding his symptoms, especially from Elena? If Valentin does have contamina, do you believe he’d come to accept it or continue to live in denial? Whether he has contamina or not, how do you believe the others will react to finding out about the coughing? Overall, do you think Valentin’s health problems will change the group’s opinions on how normalized the air pollution is? How might this change their future goals?

mathtans

Characters need flaws, or it's boring.

eleviken

mathtans - to add on i think soren and kasen are more similar in personality than elena and val, defnitely! but they face very different challenges, so i think it makes them different in that way too:))

i am also a high school student! so i think CLL is at least semi-autobiographical in many ways

mathtans

Truth, probably makes sense that the siblings are a bit alike too.

eleviken

on question 2 - i won't give away too much

mathtans

I've been reading most of your little author notes btw eleviken. I think it's very cool that you're using your location as a setting. (Also, your field trip to Mongolia sounds really interesting, possibly more interesting than it was, I dunno.)

eleviken

but of course val will eventually be forced to face the issue

mathtans

I think Valentin is hiding the symptoms for a couple reasons. One, if people start talking about it, that makes it "real" and harder to deny to himself. Second, since his parents died due to pollution, he doesn't want his sister to have to go through the same kind of thing again.

eleviken

what really!!! i love leaving the author notes as a record to what i'm up to that week, but i didn't expect too many people to take note! my trip was a culture/service trip and it was definitely interesting, as it was quite different from the big city life in Shanghai

RebelVampire

you mean val doesnt just gain immortality and thus is rewarded for his denial?

eleviken

Maybe val /is/ an immortal!

RebelVampire

see

confirmed

no problems here

O_O;;;;;

mathtans

I wonder if on some level, like subconsciously, Valentin is hoping for a breakthrough that helps out his own health. And Elena's dismissal of his attempts at research may not be helping with that (though I get why she does it).

Valentin - There can be only one.

eleviken: Yup, I'm one of those readers who tends to check out Q&As and Author Notes and stuff. In particular I was interested because I've never been to China or anywhere in the far East. Cool!

(I'm also a high school teacher, so there's that side of me, pleased to see students doing creative things. )

RebelVampire

i honestly feel the denial is more for valentin's sake than elena's sake. because hes what, 14? 14 is not the age where youre ready to accept mortality. 14 is the age where you believe youre super invincible and nothing ever bad will happen to you ever. can do whatever you want for you are the immortal one. and to accept he has contamina is to accept that whatever he had planned in his future is now kaput. and i just dont think hes ready for that, thus the hiding.

not to mention denial is the first stage of the 5 stages of grief

eleviken

valentin is definitely an optimist, and as the creator it even makes /me/ sad to see (or make lol) him suffer. he's definitely holding out hope for a miracle about his health, whether it turns out to be contamina or not. he is definitely at a point of denial, by filling his life with fun and his new friends to forget about the problem!

mathtans

Oh, the denial is probably more for his sake, you're right. The not telling might be for Elena's sake a bit though.

eleviken

mathtans - no way, that's amazing! Thank you for teaching, it's definitely hard work!

mathtans

Valentin is kind of the type to throw caution to the wind too, like I don't know the specifics of the disease, but he wanders around without a mask like that won't make the problem get worse faster or something.

Oh, thank you eleviken.

RebelVampire

eh i feel that the hiding it from others goes along with hiding it from himself. cause i get more the impression hes hiding it from the others to protect himself more than to protect the others. cause if he told elena, shes going to make a fuss and treat him like hes dying. and he cant very well live in denial about dying if everyone treats him like hes dying.

mathtans

That's a good point too, Rebel. (Who knows what's going on in his head!)

RebelVampire

although im sure there isnt no element about protecting elena cause of what happened to their parents. i just think self preservation is the overriding factor

eleviken

val and elena definitely have the petty sibling dynamic, but with their parents gone they are also looking out for each other. elena isn't good at expressing her emotions, though, so it's not directly stated that she's protective! i think part of his not-wearing-a-mask-stupidity is denial as well. as someone who's inclined to be happy, Val really wants to hold on to that happiness!

mathtans

Maybe Soren will come up with the cure. Can't kick him out of school if he does that.

eleviken

Ah soren's grade issue is quite important too! i think the pressure to achieve perfect grades is a reality for many students, and i especially see it at my school.

RebelVampire

although tbh i get the hint of a stigma? like at least that guy in the bathroom was kind of...apprehensive when he thought valentin might have contamina. even tho its established contamina is not contagious, its kind of got the cancer affect it seems. where everyone is like eww gross stay away from me sick person. and for an extrovert like valentin, that would probably be devastating. to be avoided because of something like being sick.

mathtans

Speaking as a teacher, I feel like society (well, North American society at least) is starting to put way too much emphasis on grades, and not enough emphasis on, y'know, actually learning stuff. Students tend to ask me "how can I get an 80%" not "how can I understand this unit better".

Rebel: Good point. It's said to not be contagious, but if people think that only poorer types who can't afford to replace their masks get the disease, that might be part of it.

eleviken

that's definitely very true at my school - as an asian school with an american system, the pressure to get 4.0s, have extracurriculars, and get into ivies is supersupersuper high. i'm under that pressure myself!

RebelVampire

haha that emphasis on grades over learning has been in the us for a looooong time. but now you have helicopter parents so a good portion of teachers in the us are just giving the grades anyway. because administration wont back the teachers up in the face of angry parents.

but i digress.

eleviken

mathtans - i'm going to admit i never thought about the "poorer people" part, that's very smart!

mathtans

You never know what will be read into things, feel free to run with it.

Yeah, it's not as bad here in Canada, but we still have some standardized testing. Anyway.

Hope you're able to weather the pressure, eleviken. The fact that you can keep up with a comic shows pretty good time management skills.

RebelVampire

i definitely feel that valentin's dilemma will make all the kids confront the air pollution. especially elena cause seeing another person she loves get contamina has to make her confront the idea that air pollution is bad and they shouldnt just go "nah its fine and normal were kids"

eleviken

thanks mathtans! i'm managing to keep up :))

i think high school can definitely be a bubble from real-world issues, and val's problem is forcing him to face the real world. that's a big coming of age part!

RebelVampire

yeah and i definitely love that about this story. that theres this whole conflict and theme of the child bubble world vs the actual world with all its huge problems that are overwhelming to deal with

mathtans

It's one of those things too where, if you see it every day, it just becomes normal. Why confront something that's normal? Whereas for the transfer students, it's not a normal thing, so maybe they can help with that.

Superjustinbros

peeks in

eleviken

hi!

mathtans

Good point, eleviken.

Superjustinbros

Hello there~

Just thought I'd drop in till the end

and this comic of yours is pretty interesting, @eleviken

eleviken

speaking of that, i am heading to class! i will still be here for the most part, though. :))

thanks!

Superjustinbros

You're welcome! Kudos too for representing all these different countries

(And shoutouts to Soren's hair)

RebelVampire

hey super~!

Superjustinbros

Hi Rebel!

RebelVampire

good luck in class, eleviken!

Superjustinbros

Secodned!

RebelVampire

and thats also true math. i definitely get that impression from val and elena

mathtans

All the best with classes!

RebelVampire

that theyre just so used to it they cant even fathom what clean air is like even

too normal

just everyday life

mathtans

Yeah, the choice to have a bunch of countries was cool. I like the little flags in the dialogue bubbles.

RebelVampire

although speaking of normalization though, i really loved that dialogue piece where kasen was saying "did you hear about that celebrity who died of contamina" to elena and elena just said what a shame i liked their music.

like man

mathtans

I'm also impressed that Valentin can already speak 5 languages.

RebelVampire

thats great characterization on how they view the world

yeah

valentin dying is a tragedy

dawgofdawgness

Is this still going? For CLL

mathtans

Rebel - Great point there.

RebelVampire

cause he seems super smart

yes it is~!

we still have another hour left

eleviken

DAWG!!! HEY!!!

dawgofdawgness

HALLO

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. Kasen and Soren are both characters who have to deal with academic and parental pressure for various reasons. Do you believe Soren will be able to maintain a 3.5 grade average? Or, do you think even with the help of the others he’ll continue to struggle and fall behind? Whether he fails or succeeds, do you believe the school will continue to honor their scholarship agreement? In the long run, do you believe Soren will be able to help pull his family out of poverty with his potential academic success? Kasen, being the headmaster’s daughter, has to deal with similar pressures. Do you believe that Kasen will be able to convince her father to let her go to art school? How might she accomplish this? Alternatively, do you believe she’ll give into her father’s reasoning? Lastly, how might these similar struggles help or hurt the groups’ relationships with each other?

dawgofdawgness

I saw your wall post lmao

eleviken

rebel - ngl i added that dialogue in later, probably about a year into the comic. i really wanted to emphasize the air pollution part!

dawgofdawgness

I thiiiiink that Soren is gonna have to make some sort of sacrifice to maintain his GPA

eleviken

ok i love these questions! i won't spoil but it's great to see this discussion

dawgofdawgness

I think what's keeping Sore n back is his self confidence lol, that's one of the things about his character - he's always putting himself down and getting really anxious about everything

Superjustinbros

That's pretty much what happens at all these CTP's

dawgofdawgness

and Kasen , she's a bright student but needs to be pushed - what's holding her back, I think, is inexperience

mathtans

Just want to add, I think all the characters have parental issues, even the other two mains because of how their parents passed on. It's an interesting theme.

Superjustinbros

That's sad.

eleviken

yeah! kasen is quite smart, but she doesn't want to ~try~ at school because she wants to do art. as a creator i think she still should to an extent, but the pressure from her father is quite high

Superjustinbros

I can relate to that so much

dawgofdawgness

oooh that's relatable

mathtans

Dawg: Yeah, I'm reminded of the "reading difficulties" thing that was alluded to, and how the book he was reading at one point said "you're going to fail" or words to that effect. So definite self confidence issues. I wonder if Soren does have some kind of learning disability though, like dyslexia or something? Or maybe just has trouble with English, is better with German.

eleviken

me too! i don't have plans to go to art school, but the pressure to do well is quite high

dawgofdawgness

ohhh right yeah

Superjustinbros

I was good in school but lots of times I would just zone out and think of making art/games because it gets really tedious.

RebelVampire

i definitely think soren has self confidence issues, but i dont think thats the only thing holding him back persay. i think hes probably suffering a bit from actually being educationally behind. because private schools have way more intense curriculum and generally better educational programs than public schools. so its like someone whose only taken algebra that now they have to do calculus.

dawgofdawgness

Soren maybe has a language barrier as well? Since he's going to a prestigious college out of the country

eleviken

mathtans - nope! english is just not soren's native language

yeah, and ASI is a very competitive school

Superjustinbros

But yeah just saying I can relate to that feeling of wanting freedom

mathtans

I also don't feel like Soren will be able to pull off the 3.5, but that maybe there will be extenuating circumstances (from his friends advocating for him to Soren discovering a cure for the disease) that might prevent him from being kicked out.

Superjustinbros

Perhaps

dawgofdawgness

wait what's soren's gpa at right now?

or is it unknown

mathtans

Rebel: That's also a good point, about private schooling.

RebelVampire

he mentioned it

its under 3.5

close but under

eleviken

under!

dawgofdawgness

oh ok

he'll be fine pfpfttt

RebelVampire

3.2

dawgofdawgness

I have a feeling that he's going to reach that GPA through hard academic studies, and then get kicked out for smoking weed or something

RebelVampire

http://www.cllcomic.com/comic/83/

Superjustinbros

These feels

eleviken

HAHAHA SOREN SMOKING WEED!!

it seems like the most unlikely thing he'd do but at the same time i can see him doing it

RebelVampire

i think he can do it cause hes super close to a 3.5. so he only has to do a smidgen better in a few classes and just not do worse in others

Superjustinbros

Meanwhile I'm looking at these pages and just feeling sorry for Soren

RebelVampire

this is what soren will do in college when he find out high school was worthless and basically a cruise ship

Superjustinbros

I second that

RebelVampire

buuuuuut

i also feel if he hits 3.5 theyre gonna raise the bar on him

and say "good job soren. now get a 4.0 or we kick you out"

cause i feel like that counselor would not care at all about the struggles and triumphs he went through to even get a 3.5

Superjustinbros

That's harsh.

RebelVampire

i mean not that im hoping thats the direction

but that counselor gives me bad vibes man

like theyre just waiting and hoping to kick soren out

Superjustinbros

Yeah.

RebelVampire

i feel bad for soren that its being put on him to pull his family out of poverty

especially cause his academic success doesnt even gurantee that

getting a job is a whole other ballpark

dawgofdawgness

With Kasen, wasn't it also implied that she has social problems on top of academic problems?

I remember there beeing a scene where she looks out the window and is sad i think

RebelVampire

idk if she has social problems? she seems better adjusted than soren socially speaking. although shes definitely less outgoing than elena and val

although i do get the impression shes maybe not the best at expressing herself?

like i kind of feel she holds back some

dawgofdawgness

oh right

ShaRose49

Hi!! I really wanted to make it to this chat cause I read all of the comic. I think poor Valentin is misguidedly thinking he’s being selfless in that he doesn’t tell anyone. And he probably doesn’t think it’s contamina

Superjustinbros

Oh hello there. ^^

ShaRose49

Hullo!

mathtans

Back. Little one was fussing in her crib.

Superjustinbros

Welcoem back!

dawgofdawgness

Yupp, Val's gonna have to accept his sickness or else he will have consequencesss

Superjustinbros

Hope the little one's doing alright @mathtans

RebelVampire

tbf val's acceptance is irrelevant to the consequences

dawgofdawgness

I gotta go, I have to do AP bio (which is a course that Soren takes) no wonder he has a 3.2 GPA the homework is ass

mathtans

I was wondering about that counselor, if she had hearing problems or something. Because the first time we meet her, we see Soren knock at the door, he comes in, and then she says "knock next time". I was thinking, like... he did? Where were you?

dawgofdawgness

goodluck @eleviken !! goodbyee

mathtans

SJB: Oh yeah, she's fine, just not much of a sleeper.

Superjustinbros

Bye!

mathtans

Dawg: Best with it!

(I was never into bio.)

RebelVampire

good luck dawg!

i dont think the counselor has a hearing problem

she was probably just focused

which i get

when im focused i legit cancel out all sound

Superjustinbros

aah I see, Math.

mathtans

ShaRose: Interesting point, about the being selfless thing.

RebelVampire

i think the counselor has a being a bitch problem cough cough

ShaRose49

@mathtans yeah I guess

mathtans

Prejudiced against Germans.

ShaRose49

Yeah that counsellor sucked

RebelVampire

but im sure she has reasons and stuff

Superjustinbros

I'd believe it if she did have a bitch problem

RebelVampire

but admittedly as someone who was as socially anxious as soren at that age

i wouldve been in tears if i had knocked and someone's reply to me was "knock first"

so that moment specifically angered me to no end

in the good way

mathtans

Yeah, character feels.

ShaRose49

Yeah I felt sorry for Soren. My Dad is German so I guess that makes me half

Superjustinbros

Soren is nothing but feels

ShaRose49

And nice hair

Superjustinbros

yes the hair too

I just want to hug him.

mathtans

I want to see Soren do some of his music stuff.

ShaRose49

Same

Superjustinbros

Secodning the music stuff

ShaRose49

Also the hug

eleviken

i love drawing soren's hair!

it's my favorite

RebelVampire

im personally more interested in seeing kasen and art stuff. cause just cause she wants to go to art school doesnt necessarily mean shes good enough to get in.

which actually would be an ironic twist

Superjustinbros

That would be interesting

Also great to hear Eleviken!

I love drawing characters with fun/wild hair myself, it can be pretty fun sometimes, is a biiiit hard.(edited)

mathtans

That's true. Kasen's possibly my fave character, just because she's in a tight spot by virtue of her father, which she can't do anything about.

ShaRose49

But the pollution aspect was really intriguing to me. It’s a real problem in China. But I can relate a little because here in Canada there have been so many fires in the summer especially BC that the air is all smoky all the time and some people have respiratory issues. I could be wrong but I think some people died because of it or at least got sick. I wasn’t bothered by the air when I visited bc

mathtans

Oooh, I should be shipping Kasen and Elena.

ShaRose49

@eleviken Hi there, author!! I was hoping you’d be here

Superjustinbros

That sounds scary, ShaRose

ShaRose49

But I was surprised that the air in BC didn’t really bother me at all

It was a little. I hope next summer isn’t bad. I’m sure it was very scary and awful for the people in BC @Superjustinbros

Superjustinbros

yeah...

Hopefully it's not so bad next year

mathtans

Roommate ships are best ships. ^.^

ShaRose49

Yeah. The news said the pollution because of the smoke was as bad as the air quality in China this summer

Superjustinbros

...Jesus christ.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 4. Despite her generally good nature, Elena has her own sorts of troubles to deal with. Do you think Elena should have been captain of the fencing team as she believes she should have? Why or why not? Do you think Fenya views Elena with the same disdain Elena has for her, or might Fenya feel differently? Regardless, how might their rivalry affect their teamwork? Overall, do you think that Fenya and Elena might be able to patch things up and become friends? As shown recently, Elena also has to deal with her parents having died from contamina. Assuming she finds out, how might Valentin’s situation change her opinion about her parents’ work (if at all)? In general, how might Elena’s experiences at school change her as a person?

ShaRose49

I think Fenya might be just ignorant but I could be reme,Bering her wrong

RebelVampire

i really love kasen and the dad's dynamics as far as the future goes. cause as a child i def was kasen, wanting to pursue that creative dream. but as an older adult i actually get a lot more with the dad is coming from cause creative pursuits are a hard path. which is why im curious how talented kasen is in the first place. cause she might come to realize that even if she wants to art, she may just not have the talent for it

K.E. Karlsen

no i dont think she should have been captain of the fencing team.

ShaRose49

I liked fenya she was big and strong and had green hair

Superjustinbros

Green Hair is always good

K.E. Karlsen

the girl who won (apologies its been awhile since i read, i have been reading since its updates and havent had time for a reread and forgot her name ;;;) i think it was best she won, she clearly knew more what she was doing

mathtans

Oh yeah! I wanted to mention that was real clever, having Fenya and Elena meet early on, then have them become rivals later. Though I don't think Fenya really sees Elena as a rival or with disdain or anything, like just, there's this other girl who fences decently but doesn't watch where she's going, whatever.

ShaRose49

@K.E. Karlsen @Superjustinbros yup yup

K.E. Karlsen

oh is her name fenya?

RebelVampire

yeah i agree. elena did not deserve to be captain. especially cause she was a sore loser.

yes her name is fenya

ShaRose49

Yup

K.E. Karlsen

ok thats who im talking about sorry!! im bad at remembering names

RebelVampire

thats okay

no shame in getting help with names

mathtans

I'm also bad. It's why I have the cast page up in another window. (For a teacher, I'm soooo bad at names.)

Superjustinbros

I'm bad at names in general

ShaRose49

I forgot too the question helped me remember

RebelVampire

fenya is a passable offense anyway cause shes more a side chara than main cast. so her name isnt mentioned a whole ton compared to others

i kind of agree that i actually dont think fenya views elena as a rival at all. i kind of feel fenya is just like "oh yeah its that teammate i wonder why shes glaring at me how weird."

Superjustinbros

Perhaps

RebelVampire

and that any rivalry elena has just created in her own mind

cause the world revolves around her

Superjustinbros

Plot twist: it does

ShaRose49

Just what I was thinking

mathtans

She's also an immortal.

ShaRose49

I really want the story to show more of the streets on China, like I’d love for them to have a downtown scene, and I want to see more of the relationship between the brother and sister characters

I want to visit China someday

mathtans

Actually it's funny, when I first went to the comic I saw the latest update, with Elena talking about how they were going to get Soren's grades up, and I thought, huh, is she their mother or TA or something but why are they all laughing. Made more sense in context. All that to say, Elena does have leadership skills in terms of motivating people, but I'm not sure about delegation and such.

eleviken

hey yeah!

mathtans

It would be interesting to see more China.

eleviken

rebel - kasen's artsy side has yet to eb elaborated on

Superjustinbros

Yeah, do some more worldbuilding and more excuses for epic landscape shots (edited)

RebelVampire

id be interested in seeing more of china as well. though more to see how the world in general deals with the pollution. like i feel thered be other world things goes on besides the masks.

math- i do feel like elena has potential as a leader, but i also think she lacks the humility to do so. i think as she is right now shed be a self absorbed leader. so concerned with her own skills and showing off than helping anyone else on the team to get better

ShaRose49

Like Leonardo ughhh

Superjustinbros

And I just realized that's why everyone wears the masks on the main visual(edited)

ShaRose49

But she’s not all bad

Hooboy ya just noticed now?! Lol it’s alright

mathtans

Good point, humility's a problem.

RebelVampire

nah i dont think elena is all bad at all

i just dont think shes ready to be captain

mathtans

SJB: It's because it's Halloween.

RebelVampire

cause arrogance is a big thing to work through and elena isnt confronting her own flaw as of yet

ShaRose49

@RebelVampire wow you seem wise

I’m not being sarcastic sorry if that’s weird

Superjustinbros

lol

Guess I'll wear a "sick" mask on Halloween

ShaRose49

RebelVampire

thank you i think XD idk if id label myself as wise, but i appreciate the sentiment

Superjustinbros

That'll scare the trick-or-treaters real good

RebelVampire

ya know the comic did give me halloween vibes from teh banner. so before i read it i thought it was gonna be some spooky halloween thing

ShaRose49

Yeah me too!

Superjustinbros

I did not think that at all, I jsut thought "why is everyone wearing masks"

ShaRose49

But I was pleasantly surprised. No offence but the other comics I tried were all too dark for me

mathtans

Huh. I didn't think about it at all tbh.

Just figured there'd be an explanation and there was.

RebelVampire

i was also guessing post apocalyptic so i was pleasantly surprised it wasnt that either

did not expect a coming of age story

ShaRose49

We got another wise person here

Haha I was kidding mostly I meant that @mathtans knew and we didn’t

Or well he guessed better

mathtans

Incidentally, any thoughts on the title? "Chasing Little Lights"? Like, I wonder if it's sort of metaphorical, like you need to chase after the people or subjects who bring light into your life... or if it's more about the idea of chasing grades and things, thinking they'll bring enlightenment or something.

ShaRose49

I think it’s a compelling drama I just hope it doesn’t get so sad it’s depressing

Maybe there are actually little lights that help stop pollution or something and that’s why they’re chasing them! CRAZY THEORY TIME

RebelVampire

i assumed it was metaphorical about chasing dreams or something

thats what val was talking about that elena didnt want to listen to

they separated the lights form the pollution

ShaRose49

I can’t remember that very well. What Lights?

Superjustinbros

All these wise people

mathtans

Oooh, didn't think of the pollution analogy.

ShaRose49

@Superjustinbros We a buncha sages we are

Superjustinbros

\o/

ShaRose49

I’m too into science fiction so my theory is probably too fun for this kind of story

Superjustinbros

Nothing like a tea party for all the Sages to gather

ShaRose49

Not that it sin’t fun

Superjustinbros

also Science Fiction is good

mathtans

Oh yeah, we haven't had enough crazy theories yet. So, Kasen is going to practice her art by drawing nude models of Elena, which is how the two of them end up dating.

ShaRose49

@Superjustinbros amen

mathtans

The modelling also helps with the fencing, in terms of seeing how Elena's weight is balanced.

ShaRose49

@mathtans I was thinking more about crazy theories about the pollution aspect I guess

RebelVampire

tbh i ship elena and fenya more

gotta have that slow burn rivalry turned to romance

Superjustinbros

we setting ships on sail already?

mathtans

Rebel: I am okay with that.

I still find Kasen precious though. Hope there's more of her. That was a cool image of her to start off Chapter 3.

Superjustinbros

Also before the comic tea party ends, I'd like to wish you luck with developing the story further, @eleviken. It's really developing well so far.

RebelVampire

they can bond when elena needs fencing help and asks for some private lessons

mathtans

Agreed.

About the developing that is, not the fencing. Though that'd be fun too.

RebelVampire

kasen is adorable though. i really like her hair in particular for some reason. its so fluffy and bouncy seeming

mathtans

"Don't fence me in."

ShaRose49

I don’t think this story is super romantic I’m not a huge romance person

@mathtans great pun

RebelVampire

oh its not. i will be surprised if theres romance at all. but shipping can be part of fun theory time

mathtans

True, I don't see the comic veering heavy into romance. (I just like adding yuri romance wherever I can.)

I also wonder if we'll see Soren's sister again. Like maybe one of the others will end up talking to her.

ShaRose49

I guess I like adding cartoony scifi wherever I can

Superjustinbros

No probs with that

ShaRose49

I loooove stories about siblings

mathtans

In fact maybe Soren and his sister is a parellel to the relationships between the Lins? Hmm.

ShaRose49

@Superjustinbros thanks I think you and I would get along fine XD scifi in me bloood

@mathtans oooh, I like this theory

eleviken

i am currently in class but i want to say thanks you all for coming!

Superjustinbros

You're welcome!

Glad to be here. ^^

ShaRose49

@eleviken thank you for coming and giving us something to talk about!

RebelVampire

i would like to see soren's sister again. cause theres gotta be a degree of tension there since soren can come off as the favorite since hes the one who gets to go to the prestigious academy

mathtans

Thanks for putting it out there, eleviken! (Also, maybe you shouldn't be messaging in class while the teacher is talking, the way Valentin got called out. )

I tease.

RebelVampire

thank you as well, eleviken~!

eleviken

i wil catch up later, sorry i couldnt participate!

mathtans

Rebel: Good point about that.

Superjustinbros

Have a good rest of the day/evening, Eleviken!

mathtans

I also wonder a bit why the headmaster's from Sweden, if they're in China. I wonder if that will be addressed.

Anyway, best with the comic!

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!

Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to Evelyn Shi, as well, for making Chasing Little Lights. If you liked the comic, make sure to support Evelyn Shi’s efforts however you’re able to~!

Read the Comic: http://www.cllcomic.com/

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #comic tea party #ctp #chasing little lights #evelyn shi

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