#in queen she was blandly average looking. like. she was not pretty. she was not ugly. she just was.

[sparklestheunicorn]

The cruellest thing erika johansen did to kelsea glynn was change her face.

[hpysprkl]

Yeah... sadly, this will never happen. I'm not even going to bring up the disproportionate ratio of male to female companions. No one at Bethesda seems willing to write female companions that are actually whole people with compelling flaws and interesting character traits. They write female companions that are blandly pleasant and more or less agreeable, and also usually conventionally attractive (by white North American beauty standards) so they will strongly appeal to a very specific lonely straight white male portion of their demographic.

Now, I will admit they're slightly better at writing female NPCs in general, but still only so good. They've given us a few decent ones over the years, like Moira Brown, Daisy, Glory, or Proctor Ingram. Hell, they even manage to write female children that are way more spirited, nonconformist, and interesting than the adult women in their lives (think FO4's Nat Wright, FO76's Daphne and even P.I.T.A., and Starfield's Cora Coe).

Now, when it comes to female ghouls, the ones we see in game tend to be more or less tough, sassy, and opinionated... and also look like ghouls. None of those traits are things that lonely straight white men (who likely have the most disposable income to spend on games and related merchandise) fantasize about fucking.

I was just articulating this to my husband and 15-yo daughter in the kitchen last night because I'd finally been able to put my finger on why I (queer/demi/female, for reference) had never had any urge to romance any of the female companions in FO4, and why I straight up ditched Sarah Morgan (Starfield) after her second affinity dialogue despite finding her physically appealing.

There's nothing truly compelling about them, and they are designed to be talking blow-up dolls, whereas ghouls are in general are just incredibly interesting characters. They're older, they've seen a lot of shit in their time and are pretty fucked up about it (even when they're not prewar, and yes, I like sad characters, sue me), and they've just generally got way more life experience and complexity and nuance than your average short-lived smoothskin NPC.

Let's take Starfield as an example. You get thrown in with Sarah Morgan, the super pretty thin blonde with the cute British accent (also, why do so many of Bethesda female companions have accents that really stand out? Literally none of the men do. NONE. Don't say Codsworth because his voice isn't unique, it's all the Mr. Handys). All she talks about is how great exploring is and how she's afraid of letting down the people who are counting on her to lead them (o noes, she has the nerve to go out and do what she enjoys instead of micromanaging the League of Extraordinary Spacefarers all day long). She misses her old mentor because she has no one in her life now that she's close to, and she's never ever made time for romance because she's too busy being a Girl Boss™️ and doing Cool Stuff™️ and having people count on her.

Sam Coe, on the other hand, is a single dad who manages to raise the galaxy's smartest, most adorable little girl, bringing her along everywhere he goes. It would be the perfect excuse to shoot down your flirting during his affinity dialogues, because maybe he feels like he has to put his kid first and he's got enough on his plate. But no, Sam doesn't give you some bitchy ice queen shtick where he pushes you away every time you try to get close. He actually goes along with it because hey, he can be a hot dad and a space explorer and a sexual human being all at the same time. He can have his fucked up family drama, and sad boy feelings about the legacy he's expected to live up to, and a complicated af relationship with his ex, and want to find weird artifacts and be a good dad and chuck grenades at everything that moves, and still also want to get his dick wet (but like damn, Space Husband LOVES his grenades. It's adorable).

Sam gets to be a whole person, Sarah doesn't. Like, I can't even begin to describe how much more alive and three-dimensional he feels compared to Space Barbie.

When it comes to Fallout, MacCready gets to be traumatized, and ridiculously cocky and confident (something we see so little of in female NPCs), and desperate to save his kid, and trying to move on from his wife's death, and wanting to get laid and do weird shit with mutfruit; Piper's life goals are to expose the Institute and eventually ride the Sole Survivor. Don't even get me started on the ethics of romancing Curie, who literally didn't even know what it was like to have a human body or sexual desire until the Sole Survivor showed up and magicked her up a hot synth body... Ick. Also, she's more or less the Survivor's granddaughter. Ick ick ick. So much ick.

So that is, in a very tired, over-caffeinated nutshell, why I'm 99.9% sure we won't get a female ghoul companion in Fallout 5. Thank you for coming to my boring feminist Ted Talk.

(I just wanted add that I don't have opinions on Cait because her accent annoyed me too much and I couldn't stand traveling with her, so maybe she's the exception to all of this, but I wouldn't know. And don't tell me Cass or Veronica were great or whatever, because Obsidian wrote them, not Bethy. Obsidian also gave us wonderful female companions like Ellie Fenhill and the precious Parvati Holcomb)

We deserve a female ghoul companion in Fallout 5. Look at all these male ghoul companions we get in the other games, but no girl ghouls...

We don't even get female ghouls as temporary companions. COWARDS, I SAY!!!