#meresti

[rpjournal]

Meresti 8/24/77

I followed the trail Evan King put me on and found The Family holed up underneath an old train yard. They have abhorrent, near-cannibalistic practices that they label "vampirism," but I realized that they were not a threat.

Understanding that they could be reasoned with allowed me to secure the safety of Arefu as well, and it made me realize that in some way, these outcasts are also looking for a place to call home and deserve the chance, different as they are.

I returned to Megaton at sundown to inform Lucy that her brother Ian was safe, and she didn't seem to care about what he had done in the past -- I just hope all of these people will be able to move forward together from now on.

[thefalloutwiki]

Fallout 3: Vance

“To be a vampire is a life commitment. It is not achieved by my words, it is something you earn by your own will and sincere meditation.”

- Vance, Fallout 3

Vance is the leader of The Family, a group of vampires that reside inside Meresti Metro Station. You can read more about Vance here:

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Vance_(Fallout_3)

[inverswayart]

just your local friendly cannibal&arts and crafts enthusiast

why couldn't they put the game guide info in game itself? like if you're gonna say weird stuff about minor characters at least commit to the bit and put it in dialogue or something

on a related note - did you know that Vance and Robert (the guard guy outside of Meresti) are like super close friends and fought slavers together in the past? Me neither lol

So i guess they are boyfriends now and also in polycule with Holly because why the hell not lmao

[helios1]

just finished the blood ties quest. i had just one hit point left by the time i got back to lucy west and the only thing that kept me going throughout the whole quest was constantly taking buffout and med-x and dodging all the traps as best as i could in meresti station. i am still terrible at this game. or maybe the map and enemies really are that brutal.

[justafoxhound]

Between us we set off almost every booby trap in the meresti station tunnels. If Talia and Jericho teamed up I don't doubt that's how it would go 😂

I finally hired Jericho for the first time. Offloaded some gear to him, including the red baseball cap from the Vault. Look at him 😭

This is the Talia save where she saw BoS fighting a deathclaw outside Megaton so she didn't want to leave alone. So she's done a lot of work/theiving to pay Jericho despite promising Burke she will rig the bomb. Gonna have at least one of 2 scary men angry with her if she does/doesn't destroy the town lol whoops 🙄

[purkinje-effect]

Nuka-Cherry

Ours Is the Kingdom, Chapter 4. Go to previous. Go to next. A little wasteland catechesis.

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”--Leviticus 17:11

Nineteen years ago

In order to investigate a rumor he’d heard at the Brass Lantern, August paused his jobs for those in Megaton and Girdershade to venture North a ways. The hematophagous protectors of Arefu could be the first truly omnivorous settlement he would encounter since moving to the Capital Wastes three years ago. The possibility he could have a place among them precipitated a visit. Asking around the settlement, which stood atop a section of still-standing overpass, yielded unnerved aversion from its inhabitants, but they were not shy to direct him to a place called Meresti.

Deep in the prewar tunnels had once run high-speed passenger subway trains. The damp, decaying walls felt like home already. Now, the metro station housed those who called themselves the Family, who knew of his arrival before he even reached the track-riddled bowels in which they resided. Their leader, Vance, was in his forties, with short dark purple hair and the palest skin he’d witnessed of anyone outside Appalachia. Wearing a leather duster, he stood watch over his adoptive brood from the balcony which overlooked the metro station’s lobby, stern, distant, and ever wary.

Vance already long since knew a great deal about the gangling dark-haired eighteen-year-old, and spoke with him as though a relative he had not seen since the boy was too small to remember him. He knew August had come to speak with someone about the Craving, and they conversed at length regarding the Five Laws of the Family. Ultimately, he left the decision up to August, whether to move in with them, and adopt their ways. As with all who sought shelter among the tunnels of Meresti, their leader sent him to reflect in isolation for three days, with the promise of his guidance if he accepted their ways as his own. In his guest room, he reflected upon his conversation with Vance, and did his best to determine whether belonging both to the Family and the Children of Atom were identities in opposition.

He worked his way in reverse through their tenets, observing a form of catechesis similar to that which he underwent when he first joined the Children. At the very least, the exercise could hone for him his connection with his faith.

The Fifth Law: Kill not our kindred: slay only our enemy. This is our justice.

He could rationalize the respect and unity in not killing Family out of anger or revenge. To not kill one another in any way, though. Confessor Cromwell and Mother Maya both preached the glory of the day Atom--Megaton’s eponymous bomb--would send them all to Division. He’d visited the Apostles of the Holy Light the year before, in the misguided expectation they too might follow the divination of Mothman. The Acolytes of Eternal Light had descended from the original Cult of the Mothman which had inhabited the Lucky Hole almost two hundred years ago. The Apostles, however, were Children who had broken away from Megaton. They believed in purposefully irradiating themselves, gradually, rather than awaiting a single great act of irradiation such as Megaton’s eventual detonation--and that diligent irradiation could bestow ghoulishness upon the faithful. To them, ghouls were the Exalted, angelic agents standing as proof Heaven was the Earth in the wake of the Great War’s Rapture. Their ultimate goal in faith was to remain on Earth as long as possible and serve Atom, past humanity and on to ghoulishness for centuries. Megaton’s Children revered ghouls, such as the bartender’s assistant in Moriarty’s Saloon, but Apostles regarded all ghouls with steep reverence, believing non-feral ghouls’s erratic behaviors and rasping diced language to bear the flame-tongue of Atom which no human can parse.

He very often stifled the desire to slay those who disrespected Gob. The ghoul was only doing his best, and it maddened August to know the ghoul had been bought out of slavery into his current position under Colin Moriarty’s management. Surely, there had to be a better lot for Gob. Maybe the Children, or the Apostles, could amass enough tithes to buy him from Moriarty, and free him altogether...

Since his separation from the Acolytes of Eternal Light, he’d struggled to find any alignment with others’ faith, scavenging bits and pieces from larger movements and amending them to his own. Atom’s path thus far shined brightest to him: Surely, Mothman forever chased Atom’s holy light. To him, also, the vessel was just as vital as the world-soul it contained, a physical manifestation of the galaxy he’d cultivated. He could come to emit the same light he sought in the world, if only he could cement his purpose and faith. In his baptism by Quantum at the bottling facility, he’d accepted Nuka-Cola would be his eventual portent of the great things he knew Atom had in store for him. Perhaps sooner, rather than later, Atom would send him a sign.

Ultimately, he decided it was right that only those who deserved to die, should die, and that lust killing should be consensual. That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the act--simply that the act needed to serve explicit purpose. He needed to remember to ask Vance whether consuming Family, especially fallen Family, was against their ways. Raised an Acolyte of Eternal Light, he was no stranger to finding food wherever possible, and in many occasions it was the highest honor for them to preserve kindred in such a mode of self-sacrifice. They wasted nothing, not even each other. If it was not by Atom’s guiding hand, the only death he found righteous was for protection of the innocent or himself, or for sole sake of sustenance. It wasn’t up to him when a person’s world-soul might disperse its galaxies.

The Fourth Law: Seek not the sun’s light; embrace only the shadows. This is our refuge.

To find refuge in the dark only served to contrast the Light. August supposed that such an asceticism which could heighten one’s appreciation and acuity for even the smallest Light. The darkness had been as familiar as another relative in his childhood, as his first family had lived deep in the bowels of the West Virginia mine known as the Lucky Hole. Noticing even dim lights, the slightest presage, came easily in such an acclimation. Bright lights did hurt his eyes... and many of his fellow Brothers and Sisters in Atom did find it unusual that he tended to worship in the bomb’s wellspring at night rather than during the day.

He could find peace in the reflected light of a full moon.

The Third Law: Feed not for pleasure; partake only to nourish. This is our dignity.

He wondered whether indulgence could be divided in such a way. The flesh had needs, and pleasure was a need. The Acolytes had always taught this, and it been an uncomfortable patch of adjusting to the meek ways of the Children. He could see dignity in abstaining from killing solely for sport, but no dignity in denying oneself due sustenance or denying oneself the satisfaction in it. He earned his meals, worked hard for them. And he should savor them.

Some needs held priority over others--and pleasure. Pleasure of every kind did seem to him the greatest obeisance one could make to the Eternal Light. It was pleasurable, to act on its behalf, to add to his world-soul, to become the greatest galaxy he could in his lifetime; pleasurable, to savor adding those unworthy of their world-souls to his own. And it was pleasurable, to admire what his faith had given him, to worship what Atom had made of him... like the limb that following Moira Brown’s guidance, alongside that of the Confessor, had bestowed upon him.

As with the fifth law, he understood the difference between murder and killing. The Children made no room for either. They made sharp distinction between self-preservation and self-defense... and denied themselves a majority of pleasures altogether.

The Second Law: Bear not the child; welcome only the exile. This is our fate.

With August’s predispositions, this preclusion would be the least trying law to live by, and the simplest to understand the logic behind. He’d once heard the aphorism, that the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

Blood, thicker than water.

Consanguinity. Through condition, not through breeding.

The Acolytes and the Children both upheld this ideal. Virtue and ideal offered magnitudes beyond mere birth rite.

Only just recently eighteen, August only had a few years’ personal understanding of coitus. He had asked Vance whether abstaining from fathering children meant a total abstinence. The Family’s father figure had replied in affirmation, that they did not self-populate, but were not expressly celibate. They did not force induction through marriage, and did everything it could to avoid passing down the Craving through lineage. August simply was forbidden from fathering children in this law, but Vance had every enthusiasm for welcoming anyone with the Craving into the Family, as a sibling, or a cousin, or even an avaunt or parental figure. The Family sustained itself solely through adoption, regardless of the familial role an individual came to fulfill.

The Family existed to accept the forsaken and afflicted, and help them overcome their shame. In recent years, while it had made them somewhat less of a secret to the Capital Wastes, they’d found greater purpose in protecting Arefu. They did not consider Arefu or Meresti a holy ground, yet protected both inexhaustibly. Megaton and the Lucky Hole were holy, were they not? He’d protected them. He could defend Arefu and Meresti in kind, if they would have him... and perhaps, in effect, come to understand their sanctity. Though, he wondered whether he’d ever find anyplace that felt as vastly holy as Appalachia, or as potently holy as the crater.

The First Law: Feast not on the flesh; consume only the blood. It is our strength.

While he could make broad peace with the other four tenets, the first and greatest roiled in his heart. For the first two days of his isolation, he’d worked his way ascending and descending the rules of this refuge to exhaustion, trying to find an understanding for how the Family might justifiably live in such a way. Here, again, it beset him in a grimace as he lay back on the bare mattress in thought.

Within his cobbled-together faith, he had found his most current definition for the Craving which had compelled him since childhood. The world-soul resided in the blood, and he could appreciate an ideology which upheld its sanctity. Consuming blood consumed the world-soul, added its constellations and systems to one’s own galaxies, the sacred geometry of strangeness, charm, and nobility. To waste blood was unspeakable.

Yet, Vance had told him, consumption of the flesh is unclean. Filthy. Humans treat us like animals when we consume their flesh. We are not animals. We are the Family. We do not eat the flesh of those we kill for food.

He had been raised in a holistic fashion. Waste nothing. Use everything. The Acolytes of Eternal Light had taught him to tan, to butcher, to cook and preserve. If one had to kill, or if one had to die, if at all it could be helped the life taken should not be in vain.

Unlike the Savage Divide, such meats were a rarity in the Capital Wastes. For the past two years, he’d made do in Megaton knowing how to discern between iguana and other wasteland meats when they happened to crop up in the various craterside establishments. He would take an errand from Moira as an excuse to step out and cut down a convenient raider, anytime only a fresh kill could sate him; the Super-Duper Mart was a favorite nearby hunting ground of his. No one in Megaton, Children or otherwise, had indicated they took kindly to purposeful cannibalism of any sort. The local raider-turned-mercenary Jericho may have noticed his preference for iguana at some point, but said nothing, when he’d spent time with him so the old man could teach him to use a rifle.

The Children had taught him shame alongside humility, blurring the notions indiscreetly. He had not known shame until he traveled outside the Savage Divide, and he’d hoped to find pride and modulation here with the Family.

For a time, blood was the one thing from a kill he didn’t consume, instead favoring crafting Stimpaks from it. It was easier to obtain blood packs from Moira or Doc Church, under the premise of medical provisions, than ever actively seek out iguana in town, though. In his adolescence, he’d learned how to craft Stimpaks from human blood, as well as how to craft something they called Skeeto Spit from the mixed blood collected from Bloodbug sacs. Stimpaks healed the injured after ceremonial wasteland battles as well as after defensive encounters, while Skeeto Spit increased the longevity of those who stood for sake of the cult. Such that non-human blood might function in kind with the chemistry required of the intravenous prewar healing device, he had taught himself how to refine the compatibility between the two formulations, only to later develop in this practice the deepest ritualism he would ever find. Up until the cult’s demise, he had kept his technique to himself, noticing in his own self-experimentation that the use of Wasteland Stimpaks magnified the Craving--a trait that, while not shunned by the Acolytes, not all Acolytes exhibited, nurtured, or actively invoked as wholly as he did.

It wouldn’t be for many years of regular use of his dark craft that other side effects would manifest.

The Acolytes had not believed in world-souls, purely upholding the very present, corporeal, preternatural vitality Interlopers might bestow, and it was of his own spirituality adjunct to that of the Children that he had come to the understanding that Stimpaks surely held some key to discovering how the civilization that came before tangibly interacted with their world-souls. The Capital Wastes didn’t have Bloodbugs, however, and most of its wildlife didn’t have blood to collect directly either. It had been two years since his last synthesis of Wasteland Stimpaks, and he nearly left the area on several occasions just to resume his observances, now that he understood the greater connection of The Blood and The Life. He wasn’t sure what kept him in the Capital Wastes. He supposed he disliked the idea of straying too far from the crater, though entertaining a trip back to Appalachia under the premise of pilgrimage didn’t seem so fractious perhaps.

He had never found another who seemed to pursue personal growth in the same way he did, and it didn’t seem anyone in the Family held overlapping beliefs with him either. Vance agreed with him, though, that those with the Craving were either not born human, or became that way--and that the Craving was a deficit of soul. The leader had a word for those who drank blood and abstained from the flesh: vampire. For August, cannibalism was a form of transubstantiation, a transfusion by which he could feed an incomplete or once-absent spirit, and as an extension, Wasteland Stimpaks posited a way to add world-souls of wasteland creatures to his own--or at the very least, modify his vessel to be that much more capable of containing the world-soul he cultivated through piousness. Perhaps they were both right, and August’s aspirations sought to right that he had not originally had any world-soul to cultivate in the first place.

The Family tempered the Craving by drinking only the blood, and leaving the body for ceremony. Acolytes with the Craving tempered it by consuming only the body, and leaving the blood for ceremony.

A Child of Atom could belong to the Family, and a Child of Atom could belong to the Acolytes of Eternal Light... but an Acolyte could not belong to the Family.

He couldn’t make peace with the thought of one kill providing only one meal. One kill in the Savage Divide had provided easily a week’s worth of meat and offal, a good bit of leather and bone for crafts, and the blood... The blood couldn’t be the only thing taken from a kill. Yet, some of the Family preferred not to kill at all, and sustained themselves on blood packs donated from Arefu’s settlers in exchange for the Family’s protection. August perceived such an act as a communal blood pact. In this exchange between the Family and Arefu, he understood why they had grown so close so quickly. In a way, they were slowly acquiescing into one overarching shared world-soul. The idea of it harbored a deep dread in him, and even as his second day in Meresti closed, he still couldn’t discern whether the dread compelled or repulsed him.

He would stay one more day, to make sure he still felt the same by then, and then find a way to estrange a slaver from Paradise Falls before returning to the Church. His means of tempering his cravings as a way of protecting the wasteland’s innocents sufficed. The world-souls of raiders and slavers would be his, and he would use them properly in Atom’s sight. People who wasted their world-souls debasing others and sowing suffering were the greatest affront of all to the Holy Light, and if that was the purpose that drove the Craving, he could find peace and identity in it.

Perhaps after this visit with Vance, August could make better sense of whether he belonged under the guidance of Confessor Cromwell and Mother Maya, or under that of Mother Curie.

Go to Next »»»

[siderealsandman]

Happy Birthday! I hope you have the best one yet! Thanks for bringing a lot of fun to my dash!

[readyraccoon]

Happy Birthday!

💙💙 Thank you! Seriously, it means a lot to me 💙💙

[jakey-beefed-it]

Hey, in your Wraithblades painted as Banshees wip pic what is the model in the background by the pill bottles?

If you don't mind me asking. Thanks.

No problem! She’s Xiufang, Femme Fatale from Reaper Minis.

I’ve had the model for a good long while but haven’t thought of anything particularly awesome to do with her yet. Maybe she can be the coach of one of my Blood Bowl teams. :p

[civilization-illstayrighthere]

love that I’m detected but they’re too busy recreating jackass 2277 to fight me so I just backed up and went back into the metro have fun you guys

[falloutconfessions]

“Not gonna lie, when Vance was explaining what drinking blood was like for him, it made me attracted to him.”

Fallout Confessions

[nuka-rockit]

If you could change anything about the family (the mutant blood cannibals living under the meresti station jic you forgot) what would it be

make em live up to their theme. everyone gets a cloak and has to hiss at the sun

[thefalloutwiki]

Fallout 3: Arefu's Name

Were you previously aware that Arefu shares its name with a village in Romania located near Bran Castle, better known as Dracula's Castle?

The nearby Metro Station, Meresti, is also stated in-game to be named after a town in Romania.

The quest related to Arefu and Meresti, Blood Ties, has the Lone Wanderer resolve the conflict between Arefu and The Family, a group of vampires living in the Meresti Metro. You can read more about Arefu and The Family here:

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Arefu

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/The_Family

[veshialles]

Mr RADical. the corpse. Mr RADical the corpse you find outside Novac. Love that for you OP <3

It's difficult for me because so many of my obscure favs aren't even canon characters, but NPCs from quest and companion mods haha.

Canon characters we got: Raquel of the Boomers, she's a bitch but i love her. Uh. Paulson, the funky cowboy from Mothership Zeta. Vance the wannabe dracula or whatever. Cliff Broscoe, I always buy a dino from him. Ellie Perkins, I wish she played a bigger role. And who could forget The Mariner. and Gilda Broscoe 👀... and Erickson, that super mutant with the dogs. Also, idk if he counts as obscure or not bc he's actually in many different games, but Harold! my friend Harold! Honourable mention: Cutthroat Rose from 76.

for non-canon characters, I'm obligated to say Jake Evans from SS2 bc I post about him constantly, I'm just so in love with that man. Also love Old Paul, he's fun. Also Vanessa FNV, even tho the voice acting is uh, very DIY. And of course Audrey and Mara R4-04 from Tales Of The Commonwealth my beloveds <3

whats everyone’s favorite obscure fallout characters mine are ignacio rivas and mr RADical

[skumpitt]

[rockshortage]

So I read the fallout wiki article on the Family (which mentioned wndigo psychosis as a possible reason behind their cannibalistic urges???) Which made me a little more curious about how Hector fits in with them, what he thinks about them, HOW he even ended up there and why, and mostly what they think about him, since he seems to be a lot more inherently vampiric than they are (not to mention actually immortal)

Pleased with myself for having eliminated one ‘either or’ scenario, I promptly followed that up with another, even more in depth one

I can’t remember when or how the Family ended up at the Meresti metro station, so I’m not entirely sure my first thought will work, but I think an alternative is easy enough to find. Also I feel like there was some mention of the previous leader of the Family that would also factor into this but maybe that’s something I dreamed up while thinking about this scenario a while ago

My thought was: Hector was in that subway tunnel first. This can play into Vance’s supposed gift of finding people like him, and it makes Hector coexisting with the Family despite differing views more plausible. Because if Hector didn’t have some sort of leverage, I’m not sure the Family would put up with him for very long. Sure they want to offer refuge to someone who seems very similar to them, but Hector also doesn’t seem to suffer from the same cannibalistic compulsion that they do. And if on top of that, he refuses to follow those laws Vance set in place? Then I don’t see why they would want to welcome him any longer.

But if Hector was there first, well, they are his guests and not the other way round. And maybe that won’t be an argument forever, but it would last a while at least. As for another thing that might be “leverage”… well, I’m not sure if that’s realistic or desirable in any way but it sure would be really funny – is if Vance thinks Hector is a Real Life Vampire and admires him for it. Since Vance’s goal is apparently to be a Real Life Vampire himself (along with his “flock”), judging by the laws he set up for everyone to follow. And on the one hand it would be amusing for him to become disillusioned with that once Hector rejected his ideology enough times, while Hector’s just annoyed as hell and can’t reiterate often enough that He Is NOT A Vampire.

On the other hand, cult leaders are charismatic, they drag you in and got you before you might even realize. From an outside perspective, Hector can tell very easily if he’s dealing with a cult since he’s so against them, but it’s probably a different story when he’s targeted with a rhetoric that resonates with him even the slightest bit. In this case: the hope to get some answers about who or what he is. And maybe at this current moment in time, he’s also having one of his identity crises and is more open to suggestion of that kind. Suddenly there are people who are similar enough, isolated from the rest of society through their lifestyle, sticking together and not trying to change who they are. Not entirely, anyway. So maybe Hector gives this whole thing a try. Maybe sticks with it for a little while, but I can’t see him ever really getting with the program. Science brain is just rooted too deeply and there’s no amount of meditation and preachings from Vance that can change that.

So Hector doesn’t stick with it, isn’t interested in following Vance’s laws if he can help it. Especially has a problem with the fourth one – avoiding sunlight. Hector has no choice but to stick to that one, because otherwise he will suffer physical harm. But everyone else? There’s nothing to suggest that the sunlight will hurt them. They’re just subjecting themselves to it because Vance thinks vampires are cool. He also doesn’t like Vance dictating everyone to only drink blood – again because of his vampire ideation. If people have a cannibalistic compulsion, yeah that’s probably bad and they need to get that under control. But in the sense that they won’t just kill randomly, in Hector’s opinion, and certainly not making up this weird rule that they’re only allowed to have the blood. And that drinking human blood is somehow pure while eating the meat is dirty and sinful.

I also mentioned that I’m not ruling out that Hector has partaken in some cannibalism, but I haven’t worked out the details of that. One option is that he was doing that already before the family showed up. The other is that he starts with it (takes it up again, having done it in the past already but stopped for a while) after they’re around. Mostly because food is scarce and the Family is leaving bodies in their wake anyway because they’re sucking people dry. But then they just leave the rest and that’s honestly very wasteful. And then the other part of that being spite. You see that Vance? You see Hector being sinful and impure but still be a better vampire than you will ever be? While enjoying a nice juicy steak? Yeah, fuck you Vance And Vance does get frustrated with that, but maybe he’s still excusing Hector’s behavior because after all, he is The Real Vampire and apparently also very old and immortal so he’s just much further ahead than they all are. He just counts himself lucky that Hector has neither the interest nor charisma to challenge his leadership position. And Hector wouldn’t be super in Vance’s face about it either, despite me phrasing it that way. It’s more passive aggressive than anything.

Or he’s actually pretty damn respectful - not following along with what Vance dictates, but keeping that mostly on the down low. Because this community, no matter how cult-like, does seem to help the people who are a part of it. Hector doesn’t think it’s the right way to go about it, but he doesn’t want to tell people what to do either. And to be fair, Vance doesn’t seem that bad. Some of his rules are pretty questionable, but he’s not actually extorting the members of the Family in any way like cult leaders usually do.

Whichever way it goes, the basic interest in working together due to similar lifestyles eventually gives way to all the disagreements. Despite maybe giving it a go, Hector would never be fully immersed in the cult aspect of this; or at least gotten out of it before they part ways. I’m imagining the others’ view of him as something like… some amount of admiration, an air of mystery around him, The True Vampire. And despite (or because of?) that being a bit of an outcast even in their circle, them not entirely understanding what he wants or what he’s about. Maybe Vance is in a difficult position because Hector does seem more suited to be the voice of authority here simply due to being more vampiric in nature, but Vance already established his rules and he has to stay firm in that, lest his conviction and beliefs are questioned.

I’m leaning towards Hector making the decision to leave rather than having the Family expel him, but his decision probably wouldn’t really be challenged. Everyone’s aware they have some glaring differences and it’s maybe for the best they part ways.

---

And a last side note about the reason behind the cannibalistic urges:

I’m not really subscribing to the psychosis explanation, mostly because it’s a sensitive topic and if I can explain it in a different way, I’m gonna. Or just leave it a mystery, saying some people just Are Like That (I think Ian, the guy you’re trying to get out of there in the quest, mentions that he was born with it). The psychosis isn’t really an explanation either since the phenomenon, if you look into it more, raises more questions than it answers. So as much as I want A Reason, maybe it’ll just be unexplained. You don’t really learn much or anything at all about the history of the individual members of the Family in relation to how and when their cannibalistic urges manifested. So while I can’t eliminate circumstances that could lead to a psychosis of sorts, it also gives room to make up something else.