#modoc the shaman

[azelmaandeponine]

My friend saying to me that Ford wouldn't have met Bill if Stan did not have ruined his future. First, Stan did not ruined Ford's future, it was Bill. Second, even if Ford entered in West Coast Tech, he would still have wanted to study anomalies and ending up finding Gravity Falls. It was Modoc the Wise who had written the incantation to summon Bill in that cave in Gravity Falls. If Ford ended up meeting Bill it was that shaman's fault not Stan's.

Your friend is...well, I think they kind of lack media literacy. I do think even if Ford HAD gone to WCT he would have still ended up in Gravity Falls.

Like. BILL is the abuser here. Why are they averse to putting the blame on him instead of Stan?

[korncobb]

im just waiting for someone to draw Bill x the shaman who predicted his downfall (Modoc???) because like CMON that was his first human!! And the one who was the biggest threat to him until Ford came along.

[mrneighbourlove]

The Long Years Ahead: Ch 1. The Sunset

The age of peace came by, every year building a golden age. Sitting on her porch, Leere strummed her guitar, trying to come up with a new tune. Walking onto the porch, Sunny took a seat beside her. The blonde rancher had a radiance to her, even with years of experience now. Leaning over, she kissed Leere on the cheek, looking at her with almost pure fascination. 

Leere looked back over to her, being happily puzzled by her wife's expression. With a chuckle, she stopped her strumming. "What?"

Sunny shrugged, shaking her head. "Oh, just admiring the best choice I ever made in my life." 

Leere knew the feeling. Today, the two of them celebrated their 35th anniversary. It was a day of mostly relaxation, cooking each other their favourite meals, and receiving some gifts from old friends and family. The sage put her hand up to Sunny, brushing her cheek. "I feel the same way."

Despite their difference in age, with Leere being much older, out of the two of them, Sunny was the one with wrinkles on her face. Some of the golden locks of her hair had also started to turn a silvery white. Looking her over, Leere had a twinge in her expression. This was something that Sunny picked up on immediately. "What?"

"What do you mean what?"

"Leere Dragmire Ingo. Don't give me that. You have something brooding in that noggin of yours. What is it?"

Setting her guitar down, Leere knew she couldn't hide anything from Sunny. Relenting, she spoke her mind. "Sunny. You only grow more beautiful to me with the years. But I look at you, and then I look at myself. I don't have the same wrinkles as you. And I don't think I can grow white hair."

"You know many women would kill to look as clear and young as you."

"Sure, girls maybe. Those who don't have the wisdom to know that growing old with those you love is a blessing." 

Sunny raised a brow, before chuckling. "You have a way with words. You're probably a late bloomer. Maybe Mortuus are like those Hasai folk. You look amazing till you hit eighty or ninety, then age suddenly catches up with you. When that happens, I'll still love you. Prunes and all."

That got a roar out of Leere. Laughing, her worries were set to the side. "Prunes eh? I'll hold you to that."

Perched not too far away in a barn, Modoc, once known as Bonegrinder, shaman of the Echidnan’s and leader of the Hive organization, watched the couple carefully and quietly. After the war between Chaos and Balance, Modoc opted to live a relatively quiet life. For a while, Blue and White pestered him to return to Omisha. Yet, there were too many memories there for him of his mate and hatchlings. Mother even offered him a place in training the next generation of Echidnan shamans, but he declined for the time being, wanting some time to himself to reflect. 

Of course, there was the very irritating fact that he could not be separated from Leere for long. Since she had brought him back, and his fate was tied to hers, being apart was physically painful. So, he had opted to stay on the farm with Leere and Sunny. This made it very easy for him to annoy the necromancer whenever possible, but he was always courteous to Sunny and did as she asked. When Joy visited, he was more than happy to be her mentor and spend time with his nephew, Napochi, as well. 

Sighing, the Anagari lounged in a large cherry tree near the property. Galaxia had shouted at him to move his ass, but he had ignored her and the others. He did not necessarily care for Sunny's siblings, seeing most of them rather shoot him on the spot instead of treat him like an actual being with a soul. Grumbling, he popped a few more cherries into his mouth and tried to think of when Joy's next visit would be. She was very happy in Omisha with Napochi and expanded her studies of Echidnan magic and medicine.

Leere gave her wife another kiss, thinking things over. “How about this. No more magic.”

That certainly surprised her. “What do you mean by that?”

“Maybe if I stop using magic, I can actually start to look my age. I think I’m in my eighties. I’m a great auntie for crying out loud. I should look the part.”

Sunny held Leere’s hands gently. She knew how much of a commitment this was. “You sure?”

“I am. I love you my sunshine.”

“And you my moonlight.”

~

Leere kept her vows for another ten years. Time forever marched forward. Around her, those she loved grew old. People she cared for walked into the embrace of death. Siblings. Family in Law. Friends. Every day Leere looked in the mirror, looking for change in her appearance. But age had not touched her.

Her daughter was a fully grown woman now. Joy looked so much like Sunny in her prime. A prime that had since long vanished for her wife..

Sitting on a bench, Sunny was retired now. Her muscles had since softened, her hair had turned fully white, and her skin no longer smooth. This didn’t change the love Leere had for her, but it did break her heart. 

Making her way over in a blue dress, Leere sat beside her wife. “Hello beautiful.”

“Hello gorgeous.” Sunny watched as Leere’s lip curled into a smile. Every compliment her wife was given was an easy way to get her to feel better. “How was your day?”

“Fine. Just fine.”

Sunny, seemingly satisfied, slowly offered a hand. “Come here.”

Hiding her pain, Leere took her wife’s hand and nuzzled her nose. These days, Sunny enjoyed sightseeing on the bench and around the ranch. Leere took a long look out over the land of Hyrule. After all she did, why was she being punished?

Sitting together, Leere felt Sunny gently rub her head against Leere’s neck. It was comforting for certain. 

It didn’t take long for Sunny to fall asleep on the bench. Careful to not wake her as she rose off, Leere draped a blanket over her, making sure she’d be comfortable. Once she was done, she silently crept her way to the barn. Gripping the wood, silent tears came down as she cursed herself. “Please… it’s not fair.”

To the Anagari, time was creeping by way too slowly for his liking. Modoc had been dozing in the barn when he heard Leere make her entrance. Here the woman was lamenting her fate again. Grumbling, he tried to bury further into the hay but could not drown out the noise of Leere's silently sobbing. This was getting old really quick, especially during his nap time. Lately, Leere was so upset about Sunny aging, that it was driving the shaman up the wall. He figured it was something to do along those lines once more, groaning as he slithered out of his makeshift nest of hay with a loud yawn.

"What are you sniffling about this time?" Modoc leaned over the loft to look down at Leere, "You've been such a crybaby lately, just like when you were little."

Modoc’s callousness caught Leere off guard more than him hiding. With a quick wipe of her eyes, she turned to him. “What?”

"Look, if you're blubbering about Sunny or Joy, then you really should have thought through what you were doing in the first place." Modoc was still bitter about Leere bringing him back to life, and had very little patience with the woman now. "What's the big deal with you getting so emotional about them aging anyway?"

“I’m not aging with them you bastard!” Leere was bitter and reaching a breaking point. “I don’t know why!”

"... pfffffttt..." Modoc tried not to laugh, but failed in doing so. "Leere, are you really that dense?"

“I haven’t used any magic in over a decade now! I’ve cut my ties as a sage to the shadows. A Mortuus should be showing some kind of aging by now, shouldn’t I?”

"For all your brilliance, I never assumed this would fly right over your head." Modoc was not sure whether to laugh some more or actually feel sorry for Leere. Then again, it was her fault he was still stuck here, stuck with her. Sighing, he rolled his wrist in a dramatic flare, "If you want some proper answers, why don't you go ask that lovely death goddess you made a deal with?"

He then held up one finger, "And no, I'm not telling you cause I don't want you yelling at me for the next hour."

“I- I made a vow of no magic. Would she even come to see me?”

"You don't have to use magic when you go to her temple, just a sacrifice of blood." Modoc reminded Leere, "There's one here in Hyrule, in Omisha, or in Lorleidi."

Leere took a breath. “Can I ask you to look after Sunny while I go to a temple? Or is that too much to ask?”

"Of course I can look after dear sunshine," Modoc stretched lazily and then slithered down from the hayloft. "She's tolerable, unlike you. And she's nice to me."

“You don’t have to be so cold.” Grabbing a horse by its reins and leading it out of the barn, Leere mounted herself up.

"And you didn't have to suddenly avoid me when you wanted to play house all those years ago, but you did." Modoc snorted at her words, the bitterness evident in his voice. He was close to ranting. "I was there for you, and you just... forgot about me. Forgot about us. Shunned me and the others because you were so afraid of 'monsters' influencing your precious baby girl." He scoffed, "Didn't even want us around. So, do forgive me if I'm still a little salty about that, not to mention the fact that, oh, I don't know, you brought me back from the dead?" 

He waved the conversation away in dismissal, "I'll keep an eye on Sunny and help her into the house. You go." 

Leere felt her mind race with over a dozen retorts. But they didn’t matter. She doubted he would listen. With a lash of the reins, she rode out of the barn and jumped over the fence to ride towards the temple of death. 

On her journey, Leere felt a sense of looming dread come over her. Frowning, she tried to shake it off as she arrived at her destination. Getting off and tying her horse to a post, she thanked some of the temple clerics for letting her in so late. Asking for some privacy, Leere was led to the central chamber. Here, she was handed a knife before the clerics left her to her dealings. 

Carefully, Leere took the knife, cutting her finger open. She let the blood drip down into a bowl. “Zarazu. Black as the night, cold as death. I summon you to answer my prayer.”

The goddess of death did not expect to be called upon by Leere so soon. Of course, time was different for deities than it was for human beings. To the heavens, time passed by so slow, while to the humans, it was fast. Rising from the black water, the goddess was accompanied by her beloved poes who existed to serve her and the rest of the afterlife.

"Shadow Sage," Zarazu floated in front of Leere with an expression of surprise mixed delight, "What brings you to my temple?"

Leere noticed that the poes that flew around the Goddess of Death this time were different this time. Instead of two brothers, four sisters flew around her. Red, Blue, Green, and Purple. Giving a customary respectful bow of the head, Leere spoke her mind. “Zarazu. I haven’t been a Sage for over a decade. I haven’t even practiced any magic. Yet I have not aged a single day. Time marched forward for my brothers, my sisters, and my wife and my daughter. Some have even been taken by your embrace. But time has danced around me. Thy own flesh has not wilted. My hair has not turned grey. I am watching those I love progress around me, while I stand still here. What is happening to me? Why am I still not growing old?”

The Poe with red flames laughed harshly. “This fool doesn’t know.”

The one in blue cackled in return. “I don’t think she does Joelle.”

“Maybe her brain has rotten Beth. What do you think, Amy?”

The Poe in green spun her flames around. “I think the goddess of death should break the heart of her 4th favourite mortal.”

"Now, now, calm yourselves and remember your manners," Zarazu told her poes with a soft chiding to her voice, "Remember, mortals feel and experience emotions and life differently than us." Turning to Leere, the beautiful goddess supposed that the recent Shadow Sage did not truly understand the details of her previous deal regarding Modoc. The Anagari shaman had definitely blasphemed against her and her counterpart, Ba'puu, many times since he was revived, so it was no surprise he did not elaborate upon the inner workings of Leere's 'punishment'.

She held up a hand, palm upturned, "Leere, do you recall the deal that you made before the war of Chaos?"

“Yes. We needed a powerful warrior that held knowledge of long forgotten magics that could be used against the forces of Chaos. Modoc was wrongly taken before his time, dying as a host for a God. He deserved another chance at life, as well as a chance to avenge his family. I took the oath after resurrecting him. That Modoc and I would be bound till death. If one of us were to die, the other would quickly follow. Come old age or combat, given the war.”

"Yes, exactly that." Zarazu still saw the confusion in Leere's eyes, so the goddess realized she was going to have to clarify. "Leere, if one of you were to die. Echidnans live several hundred years. Humans do not live so long." The goddess saw Leere's expression slowly start to change. "You tied Modoc to yourself, and in doing so, you also tied yourself to him." She gave a soft frown at the sudden realization dawning on the poor woman. "You will not age because Modoc is not aging."

Leere’s red eyes opened wide, the revelation hitting her hard. Her mouth left a gap, Leere couldn’t find her nerves for the moment. “I- I can’t-“

Flying around her, Meg, the sister in purple cloth and flame taunted the woman. “You can’t age. You won’t age. And we both know you don’t have the nerve to take your own life. Leere Dragmire. Did you think you were free from consequences? You made a point to live a long life, to deny Death of the flock she deserves. I’m surprised you are upset. You cheat death often enough. You will have a long, healthy life ahead of you. And when you die, Hell can have you.”

Leere looked to the Poe sister, anger being the first emotion to come back to her. “No! That’s not my fate!”

Meg split herself into four copy images, dancing around Leere. “In your youth, you destroyed the souls of others to keep yourself young and powerful.”

“Criminals! Murders! Rapists!”

“You denied them redemption or an afterlife. You are not a Goddess or a Demon. You never had the right. And then there is your friend. You tore him away from his afterlife.”

“To save the world!” Leere looked back to Zarazu, somewhere between pleading and yelling. “I don’t deserve this! I’ve done so much good in the name of others! Please! Let me grow old! Let me be with my family in the afterlife!”

"Leere, what's done is done," The goddess of death hated to see the woman so distraught, but it was part of the terms of the deal. The magic was already sealed. The deed was already done. It could not be broken. "You have done both wrong and right, bad and good, all which argues your case, but to mess with the soul of someone who has lived their time, comes with a price." 

She reiterated, "Sharp and Flat both agreed that your deal was fitting. It gave you the results you wanted, but also came with a downside for you. That downside... was being denied death yourself." Zarazu stated slowly, "Just as you denied Modoc his eternal rest."

Leere gripped her fists, shouting out towards the Goddess, her voice full of desperation. “Then sever the link! We both want to die and be with those we love!!! You have that power!”

"I do have the power to take the souls who are ready to pass on, Leere," Zarazu corrected the Mortuus with a sad smile, "But you have reset the clock. My touch," Her hand wafted through Leere as she was a specter, having no effect on the woman, "Cannot collect your soul until it is time. I cannot sever any links. I cannot give you death while your soul is still in the hands of my counterpart."

“I’m not a fucking martyr! I heard what Klinge did. He’s your servant. I’m not going to wait hundreds of years till natural death to be your puppet for another hundred!”

"Klinge made a deal to have the souls of the dead as an army," Zarazu told Leere, crossing her arms, "Not to bring back a loved one. In exchange, he is to be my servant until all of his line passes." She shrugged her shoulders, "Who knows how many hundreds of years that may take." Then she waved a finger in front of Leere's face, "No, not my puppet, my dear, you made no such deal. When you pass, then you have no work left to do."

The poes grew restless, each of their flames burning with anger, spite, and petty cruelty. Meg once again taunted Leere, cackling with her sisters. “She’s going to deliver you to the gates of nothingness, Leere. A fitting Hell for the empty woman.”

“No! I don’t accept that!”

"No one knows their fate until it is their time," Zarazu told the poes, "You can quit antagonizing her now."

“But it’s so fun.”

Leere scowled, looking up at Zarazu with a hatred burning in her. “After everything I did, this is my reward. When I see you again, I’m spitting in your face. Goodbye.” 

Angry, Leere turned the bowl over to sever the connection. Watching the Goddess disappear from sight, she held out a hand to say something, but was unable to. The poe sisters vanished alongside her as Leere stormed out of the temple. She would not accept this.

Back on the farm, Modoc had kept Sunny company after she woke from her nap. The Anagari was being good company to the old woman. Currently, she was laughing at a tale from the shaman's youth.

"Ah, I see how it is, laughing at my pain?" Modoc could not help but chuckle a bit too, "Yes, I know that it was pretty funny that I fell out of the tree into the river while I was spying on Akihara." He gave a small snort, "I never had the courage to talk to her, so I figured the best thing I could do was watch her from afar. Never thought the first time she talked to me, I'd be covered in algae and mud."

The old woman chuckled, rocking back and forth in her chair. “She had a sharp eye for certain. Sometimes playing the fool can have its benefits.”

"I certainly felt like a fool," Modoc gave a hearty laugh, "But I was a fool in love. It took me nearly a decade to woo her, you know?" He fixed the blanket on Sunny's legs with his tail, just in case she was cold. "I was training to be a shaman then. I didn't even have these yet," The Anagari rubbed underneath his eyes at the white tattoos there for emphasis, "She told me that she would be my mate once I became a shaman. You bet your ass I learned magic as fast as I could."

“I just had to scoot up beside Leere to win her heart. One look at me and she was head over heels.”

"Of course she was," Modoc grinned widely, "Leere has always had three weaknesses over her life. One, a pretty face. Two, a sweet personality. And three," He gestured in front of his chest, making a huge boob motion. "A huge set of tits."

Sunny merely smiled in response. “I’m glad I still have the first two.”

"You know that Leere was so smitten with you," Modoc rested his chin on his arms, lounging in front of Sunny. "That you were all she talked about for weeks. Of course, when I said I wanted to meet you, she vetoed that idea." He admitted to Sunny, "I'm still pretty salty about her saying I'd be a bad influence." The Anagari held up his nose, pretending to be super offended, but making light of it for Sunny. "Saying that 'monsters' have no place with humans." He then flicked his tail, "Joke's on her, I met you anyway."

“She never said that. It was a time of uncertainty. Raising a daughter during… that calamity. She never wanted Joy to be scared. But she never stopped caring about you Modoc. Leere just… you know how stubborn she can be. She doesn’t get everything right, but she tries her best.”

"Being stubborn never gave her the right to be a jerk." Modoc shifted his coils a little, "I should know, I was the biggest dick on the earth. Even when Prama was not influencing my mind, there were times I regret it as well. Even so," The Anagari sighed, the tip of his tail twitching back and forth, "Joy is happy. Napochi is happy. Sometimes, I wish Leere would just be..." He paused for a moment before managing to say, "Content. Always looking for, always expecting, always thinking of the worst. I used to be that way."

Before Sunny could reply, Leere galloped towards the two. Immediately jumping off her horse, her body was completely ready for a fight. Pointing at Modoc, Leere thrust her finger toward him, as if she could cut through as easily as a hot knife through butter. "Did you know? Did you know the truth?!"

Sunny called out, feeling the storm that was raging in Leere. "Know what? Leere, what's wrong."

"Modoc. He's the missing link on why I'm not getting any older. The bond we made is so that I share his lifespan. And because he can live for over a thousand years, I will too." Leere’s face was contorted with pain unlike anything she felt before. "Zarazu didn't tell me, when I made the deal with her. You can never take the word of a god, spirit or fey at surface level. But you could have saved me a lot of grief if you gave me time to process this. I'll ask again. Did you know?" 

Modoc already felt highly annoyed at Leere's anger. While the Anagari had always cared for Leere, and considered her a part of his family, after she brought him back from the dead, he was a bit more callous. More bitter. Definitely distant. Yet, he figured that he had to make the best of the situation for the time he was stuck here. The shaman figured he could at least watch after Joy and his nephews once more.  With an irritated sigh, Modoc rose upward from his comfortable, curled coils position and turned to face Leere.

"And what if I did?" Modoc retorted, his arms crossed, more so out of aggravation than any other emotion. "Why do you think I made you swear not to bring me back? I know the price of necromancy, the price that the goddess of death demands, I've seen it happen to others. I did not want that for you."

"I didn't have a choice. I wanted to save the world. And- and I wanted my friend back." Leere felt incredibly light, admitting her reasons; both selfish and selfless. "How could you not tell me?"

"How could I tell you?!" Modoc raised his voice a little, sounding a bit broken, even a touch desperate. His scales flickered across his body, an obvious sign of distress. It was clear this subject was bothering him. "How could I tell one of the people that I treasured the most that they're going to be stuck here?! Because of me?!" He threw his hands up, "And that there's nothing I can do to change it?! To make you hate me less!!!"

Leere's emotions boiled and boiled, and like a switch, all her magic she repressed started coming back to her. Dropping to her knees, she curled her hands into fists. Raising them in the air, she let out a primal scream of agony, slamming them into the earth. As she did, black ghastly energy surged out, screeching like exposed exhaust. 

Using her strength, Sunny found the courage in her to approach her wife. Kneeling down to her, she gently took hold of her. "Leere. I'm here."

Raising her face, Leere held an expression of complete defeat. "It's not fair. I'm going to lose you. And I won't get you back." 

"I'm here now."

"I'm so sorry Sunny. I'm so sorry for doing this to us."

"You did what you thought was best." 

"The spirits hate me. You should too."

"Hylia's light will always love you. And so will I."

"What- what do I do? What can I do?" 

"You cry. You cry..."

The Necromancer looked to her wife, listening to the softness of her voice. The comfort amidst the pain erased the woman’s guard around her emotions. It was in that moment of Sunny’s comfort that Leere's red eyes spilled over with tears. She held onto Sunny, afraid that she would lose her if she let go. Not since the loss of her mother, did she wail so much in her life. 

Modoc had no words for Leere. One of the benefits of being an Echidnan shaman was exposure and mastery of all kinds of magic, with the exception of necromancy and celestial. A downfall, however, was knowing all of the consequences. Now, since he and Leere were connected by their souls, his time was hers. It was a curse for the woman. There was no deal to be made with deities which did not have a price to pay.

As Leere sobbed and held onto Sunny, Modoc did not move from his spot on the porch. What could he do? He had been in Leere's position before when his family was taken from him. He wanted to die... but he could not.

~

Seven more years passed. In that time together,  Sunny’s strength started to whittle away. A much smaller woman, her hearing had started to go. Then her ability to travel far on her own. 

Every day, every single day, Leere would do her best to be happy and lively for the both of them. She would sing to her, dance when Sunny had the energy, and tell stories. 

Joy, a much older and experienced woman herself now, would visit often to check on her mothers health. She didn’t take to Leere’s curse with any enthusiasm. There was a day she stood side by side with her parents for a photo op. After looking at the photos, Joy felt her heart ache when she saw how old Sunny was in appearance compared to Leere and how she was older than her other mother, Leere, in physical health. Leere knew it too, and whenever they stared at one another for too long, a deep sadness grew between the two. Despite the familial bonds, truth was, Leere was starting to lose that sense of connection with her nieces and nephews as well. Both her and Joy were sometimes thankful the latter chose to not have any children. How would they ever explain to them the curse that had a hold on their grandmother?

One day, after Sunny was found slipping in and out of consciousness, Joy performed an examination on her. As Sunny slept, Joy sighed, looking at Leere. “Mom… I’ll be blunt. I don’t think mama is going to make it to tomorrow.”

Leere squeezed her daughter's hand, slowly nodding in agreement. Her voice was silent of any emotion. “Okay…”

Joy took a deep breath, squeezing back. Getting down on her knees, she made sure to look her mother in the eye at the same level. “Mom. I’ve made peace with Mama. She’s going to find peace in the Goddess’ Light. Have you found peace with it?”

Truthfully, Leere saw nothing she could do to fight this outcome, to change it. She wouldn’t force her family to stay young with her, even if it was in her ability to do so. Sunny cherished the life she had been given, and she wouldn’t want to alter it in any way. Despite this, Leere knew no amount of preparation would make her feel ready to say goodbye. “I wish I could have more time with her.”

Joy nodded, kissing her mother’s knuckles. “If she wakes up, spend whatever time you have left with her.”

Leere looked her beautiful purple eyed daughter in the face. “Joy. You can be here.” 

“I won’t be far. And you need this closure. Please mom.”

Leere nodded. Two more hours passed, the Necromancer sitting next to her wife. Every second that clicked by on the clock in the hallway felt like an eternity. Stirring in her bed, Sunny slowly opened her eyes. With a light creak of her voice, she smiled towards Leere. “Hello beautiful.”

Leere turned to her, returning the smile. “Hello sunshine. You have some energy in you for an adventure?”

There was still passion in Sunny’s voice, but the energy was long gone with her youth. “You want to tell me a story?”

“I was thinking I could carry you to the oak tree actually. Are you up for it?”

Sunny’s lips curled into the biggest smile she could muster. “For you. I could do anything.”

Carefully, with the help of Joy, Leere got Sunny dressed into her wonderful yellow sunflower dress, placing her sunflower hat upon her head. With a little piggy back, Leere gently carried Sunny onto her back. “Let’s go.”

Opening the door to the rest of the ranch, Leere didn’t have too far to travel. Just behind her, Joy trailed along. 

The sweet summer air blew through, with an orange sky that would set for another two hours above them. Leaning into her, Sunny murmured. “Leere?”

“Sunny?”

“You stay happy and full of happiness. You and Joy both.

“… I will.”

Leere didn’t need magic to know the moment was fast approaching. Sunny’s breathing grew lighter and lighter with every minute. Gently, Leere maneuvered her, cradling her in her arms. “We’re here.”

Sunny’s eyes gently rested on looking at the gorgeous shades of pink, orange, and purple that filled the sky. “That’s… good.”

“It’s a beautiful sunset, isn’t it Sunny?”

Gently, Sunny closed her eyes, a small murmur her only response. “Mmm.”

Looking out over Hyrule, Leere just watched the glorious colours over the mountain tops. Beside her, Joy settled down, holding Sunny’s hand. 

Leere felt a change. And tears silently streamed down her face without her knowing she started to cry. “It’s as colourful as you Sunny… Sunny?”

Looking down, the beautiful smile on Sunny’s face remained, but her life was over. Taking  Sunny’s hat off, Leere gently caressed the face of her wife. Her voice broken, Leere mustered all the love she could through the sorrow she felt. “Sunny? … I love you.”

Joy looked to her mother, her own tears staining her face. Gently, she did the only thing she could do. She hugged her mom, still holding her mama’s hand. For the Ingo’s, the sun had finally set. ________________________________________________________________ Leere and Modoc’s link keeps them bound, age not affecting the Necromancer. Despite peace being achieved for the world, can Leere face the price of this peace with the cost of time bearing down on her?  A collaboration with @ridersoftheapocalypse. I wrote the last section of this chapter on my own accord. Giving Sunny her send off was one of the hardest, emotionally difficult goodbyes I’ve had to make with a character. I hope you’ve come to enjoy her character as much as I have, and the light and love she represented for Leere. I am going to miss her terribly. 

Art by @s-kinnaly​. Next Ch. https://mrneighbourlove.tumblr.com/post/712433336649400320/the-long-years-ahead-ch-2-moving-on

[eregyrn-falls-art]

Bill and Modoc the Shaman (click to embiggen)

Another piece to celebrate the anniversary of the release of the Blacklight Journal 3 Special Edition!  This time, Modoc the Shaman!  I was excited to see a drawing in the blacklight Journal 3 of Modoc, and had been wanting to do something with him ever since.  

The reasoning and research behind the way he is dressed, along with illustrations, is probably best put under a cut...

“Modoc the Wise. A Gravity Falls shaman who met a gruesome end when he ran afoul of Bill. He is thought to be the one who inscribed the incantation on the cave that brought Bill into my life. I am the latest in a long line of these foolish men, and it is my burden to avenge them all or lose my life trying.”

(Once again, indebted to @fordarkisthesuede​ for the pic of the blacklight Journal, and the transcription!)

I really appreciated that the design for Modoc was clearly based on NW Coast elements, rather than his being a "generic shaman" design.  The only problem, though, was that the headdress and robe he is wearing is pretty clearly identifiable -- the headdress is a Haida chief's design, featuring a carved frontlet and ermine surround, while the robe looks a little like a Haida robe and a little like a Tlingit chilkat robe (it's hard to tell at that angle and in just linework; but the Tlingit did trade with the Haida).   

(Above, Haida Chief Son-I-Hat John McAllister, 2016)

So on the one hand, it's great that the design is from roughly the right part of North America!  (Rather than being a Plains design, for example.)  However, the Haida and Tlingit are coastal tribes, from quite far north (along the coast in what is now British Columbia in Canada, and southeastern Alaska).  And, Gravity Falls, as shown on maps in the show itself, is not coastal, and is located in at least central to south Oregon.  The tribes in that area aren't the same, and they don't have the same artistic and design expression.

(I'm not counting the presence of the totem pole in the show.  So-called totem poles are also more of a NW Coast thing, but, in modern times, they've become a lot more widespread throughout the region.  And the show is a case of a white guy using the totem pole as decoration for a tourist trap, in which case, it not being exactly geographically authentic is completely to be expected.)

So I decided to see if I could figure out how Modoc the Shaman might have looked, with a bit more of a nod to customs local to the Gravity Falls area.

The first issue, of course, is that while we have a general idea of where Gravity Falls is supposed to be, we don't have an exact location.  It's *probably* in the Cascades in central-ish Oregon, but we don't know how far to the north or south.  It's probably not as far south as Crater Lake, and it isn't as far north as Mt. Hood.  Otherwise...?  *Handwave*.  This makes a difference because the tribe whose lands comprise the north-central Cascades are the Molala, while the southern Cascades (into northern CA) are the Klamath (including the area around Crater Lake). 

In the end, I wound up going with a Klamath shaman design for Modoc, for a few reasons:

Edward Curtis took a bunch of photos of Klamath men and women, including one shaman, in the early 20th century.  So it's easier to find references for Klamath ceremonial dress.

I wasn't having much luck finding good references for the Molalla.

the show named the shaman “Modoc”.

The Modoc tribe is from the same region as the Klamath, and is affiliated with the Klamath Tribes today.

I based this design of Modoc the Shaman specifically on photos of Lee Snipes, otherwise known as "Captain Sky", one of the last practicing shamans of the Klamath (according to their own tribal website).  He was photographed in several outfits, and I blended elements from them.  To figure out the coloring, I was able to hunt down a website with pictures from what seems to be some Smithsonian holdings of historical Klamath clothes and decorations, in color.  (The problem with trying to reconstruct historical costumes from black and white photos, obviously, is that you can fall into the trap of making everything too monochrome.  In this case, I felt a little more certain by the end that the outfit probably WAS fairly monochrome in earth tones, with some stand-out red and blue design elements, based on the historic clothing samples.)

(Above, my two main references.  Both Lee Snipes / Captain Sky, taken by Curtis ca. 1923.  Snipes was photographed in a variety of outfits.  There are a few more photos of him, in which accessories vary but some basic design elements remain the same.  It seems likely -- though I don’t know for sure -- that Snipes himself was selecting the outfits for the photos.  I’m making an assumption, however, that these reflect what he would have worn for ceremonial purposes as a shaman.)

The other issue with figuring this out is that Modoc the Shaman is supposed to be from far in the past - 1000 CE.  It's not ideal to be attributing what is essentially a modern design to a far-past historical figure -- that is, it's not great to suggest that a Native American tribe's ceremonial dress was static in design across centuries, when we know that almost all traditional designs evolve even if the culture is trying to keep to a tradition.  So I just want to acknowledge that as problematic.  Just because we know what a Klamath shaman was wearing in the early 20th century, we can't necessarily say that a shaman from the same region was wearing the same things 500 or 1000 years earlier.  So, this is a good-faith effort to be more authentic to the region, but, with an acknowledgement of its limitations.

(At least we do know that the Klamath, or a form of that tribe, were living in the area for a very long time.  When I visited Crater Lake, a ranger gave a presentation that included the fact that it's now been acknowledged by historians that Klamath oral tradition includes what are basically mythologized eyewitness accounts of the eruption that formed Crater Lake... 10,000 years ago.) So there you go!  This was an interesting exercise, and I like the results.  

Finally, I should note: elements of this piece should be recognizable as a combination of screenshot-redraw modifications, most notably from The Last Mabelcorn.  The background is also based on some screenshots.

[eregyrn-falls]

(Okay first: I appreciate this!  I’m just adding this tangential thought here because that’s what came to mind when I saw this.)

See, what I want to know is...

WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS.

If Modoc (or whoever) had the time to write “do not read these incantations” and “do not summon at all costs” on the wall...

Then like... why not use that same paint/pigment to... black out the stuff you didn’t want them to read, SO NOBODY COULD READ IT?????  

Like, sure, warn against Bill (”don’t trust the triangle if he comes to you in a dream, making promises”), but why leave the incantation legible in the first place?

I have a hard time imagining this was another “but my life’s work!” situation.

This has bugged me for years.

u know that one meme

[alicec-666]

Some shIFty doodles that were made cuz of inspiration after reading this dialogue

(I'm sorry, but I couldn't NOT to do it :') )

[comparativetarot]

Ten of Pentacles. Art by James Pascoe, from the California Tarot.

Legacy. Stability; Prestige. Good family life. Prosperity. Joy. Share the wealth (spiritual / financial). Look forward to a new beginning.

“We’re still here.” Despite the genocide, broken treaties, institutional racism, forced relocation, boarding schools, attempted erasure, California Natives maintained traditions and passed their legacies through the generations. “The Modoc brought word of the Ghost Dance to the Shasta. In 1871, Wodziwob’s Ghost Dance spread from the Paiute in Nevada to a number of California tribes, including the Washo, Mono, Modoc, Klamath, Shasta, Karok, Achumawi, Northern Yana, Wintun, Hill Patwin, and Pomo. Mono chief Joijoi learned of the Ghost Dance from Moman, a Paiute Ghost Dance leader.” Joijoi sponsored the first Mono Ghost Dance at Saganiu. He invited other tribes to attend and spread the word of the dance throughout California. “The Ghost Dance was instrumental in reshaping native shamanism and helped Native Californians withstand pressures to adopt Christianity.”

[pengychan]

In Flat Dreams, Bill visited Gravity Falls in the Stone Age. Any reason in particular why you erased Modoc the Wise, a Native shaman?

Modoc the Wise was only mentioned in the Journal’s special edition. 

And now, taking a look at Flat Dreams…

In short, the reason why I “““erased””” Modoc the Wise may or may not be that the Time Anomaly Removal Crew never responded to my application and I was unable to travel forward in time by about a year to find out he was a thing. 

Guess I’ll write up a better CV next time.

[fordanoia]

@eregyrn-falls You Remain, As Always, To Be An Absolute Life Line - Thank You

Does anybody remember a post going around about the native tribe in gravity falls?

I feel like I saw some meta post that connected the dress from the one native that the northwest ancestor was with in one portrait (along with the general location of Oregon) to something specific like a tribe or similar.

[legendary-defender-of-fandoms]

A Comprehensive Overview of Everyone Responsible for Weirdmageddon

1) Bill Cipher

Bill spent millennia trying to escape the Nightmare Realm & take over a new dimension. It was never a question of IF he would succeed, but how & when.

The Pines Family weren’t the first ones to be the targets of Bill’s machinations; other victims include the ancient Egyptians, George Washington, Stanley Kubrick, and Modoc the Wise (the Gravity Falls shaman who painted the Zodiac & the warnings about Bill)

If Weirdmageddon had been successful, Bill would probably have pulled the same scam over and over, hopping from dimension to dimension until all of reality collapsed on itself

2) Stanford Filbrick Pines

How is Ford both the smartest & the dumbest person in the world, building a transdimensional Portal because a triangle in a top hat played chess with him once?

Literally EVERYONE was telling Ford not to build the Portal - Fiddleford, the Hand Witch, the Soothsquitos, the ancient cave paintings. But Ford trusted Bill’s flattery more than anyone else’s words of caution.

Ford then split the plans & instructions between three Journals, AND wrote them in various calculations & codes, guaranteeing that no one would be able to operate the Portal safely if anything happened to Ford.

And the cherry on top? Ford withheld worldsaving information about Bill, the Portal, and the Rift from his family because he didn’t want them to think less of him for his mistakes. Though I believe this particular character flaw is one of the many side effects of Filbrick’s stellar parenting, holding one son to the highest of standards with an insurmountable fear of failure while treating the other like trash who would never be anything more than a failure. Seriously, did he attend the Fire Lord Ozai School of Horrendous Parenting?

Also, Ford should’ve left the Rift at the Shack, where he KNEW it would be protected behind locked doors, steel vaults, and unicorn magic, instead of throwing it in his bag & bringing it to Crash Site Omega.

3) Stanley Pines

If Stan had just taken Journal 1 & left, then he wouldn’t have gotten into a fight with Ford, Ford wouldn’t have been pushed into the Portal, and Stan wouldn’t have spent the next 30 years trying to bring him back

Considering Stan had only 1/3 of the plans for the Portal, said plans were written in code, various calculations, and Ford’s ridiculously fancy chicken scratch, AND Stan had to teach himself physics, engineering, and God knows what else to get the Portal back up & running, it’s a miracle his repairs only caused gravitational anomalies for 18 hours & tore such a tiny Rift in the dimensions

Even if Stan hadn’t ignored Ford’s warnings the same way Ford ignored everyone else’s warnings, his gut must’ve told him activating the Portal would be dangerous. But he risked everything to save his brother. I’m not saying Stan was wrong to do so - I’m just putting it on the record that Stan knowingly & willingly leveraged the safety of the universe for Ford.

4) Dipper Pines

Again, this is a bit more on Ford than Dipper, since Ford forbade Dipper from telling anyone what Fold told him about Bill & the Rift. But that wasn’t something Ford should’ve asked of Dipper, and Dipper could’ve trusted Mabel at least with the truth about what they were up against.

It’s hard to say if Dipper’s attempts to shut down the Portal in those last few minutes had any part to play in the formation of the Rift, but it seems worthy to note them for posterity.

5) Blendin Blenjamin Blandin

According to a secret letter Ford found & transcribed in Journal 3, Blendin was getting picked on by everyone in the Time Police after Globnar. Even Time Baby was heckling him for getting his butt kicked by Dipper & Mabel. One night, he had a strange dream about a certain one-eyed triangle offering to help him get Time Baby off his back in exchange for a little favor. And that’s how “Blendin” came to be in the Gravity Falls Woods, ready to offer Mabel anything she wanted in exchange for the Rift.

Shouldn’t Blendin’s Time Cop training have contained a comprehensive course on Bill Cipher? His powers, his goals, how to avoid being tricked by him, etc? How did Blendin not know who he was?

Rather than stick around & help fight Bill after he defeated Time Baby, Blendin chose to run away & hide in the 1800s. His Time Tape was destroyed when he found himself in the path of an oncoming train, so Blendin wound up stuck in the past presumably forever. He made a decent life for himself, though, getting a job as a watch repairman. But he only wrote one letter (written in a Vignere Cipher, no less!) that could be seen as a warning about Bill & Weirdmageddon. He could’ve written more warnings, or traveled to Gravity Falls to cover up the Bill Cipher summoning spell, or something. But I guess he never thought that far ahead.

And last, but certainly not least:

6) The Axolotl

It’s hard to say how much responsibility should fall on the Axolotl’s shoulders - as an omnipotent being, he knew all about Bill’s machinations but apparently did nothing.

Did he know how, when, why, and who would ultimately defeat Bill & stayed out of it to avoid messing with fate? Did he subtly influence people & events to guarantee Bill’s downfall? Did he save Bill from ultimate destruction when Bill invoked his power at the end? We may never know.

This is part of why I hate omnipotent deities who have the ability to stop terrible things from happening, but choose to do nothing & let everything go to Hell in a handbasket because Reasons. But it’s hard to stay mad at a character who was literally never there to do anything, so he may have legit reasons for not helping out sooner.

And that is absolutely everyone who can honestly claim responsibility for Weirdmageddon. I sure am glad no one else in all of Gravity Falls can raise their hand with pride or hang their head in shame and claim responsibility for the Oddpocalypse. You’d be hard pressed to find ANYONE ELSE who should be feeling guilty about Gravity Falls turning into Hell on Earth for a week.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[whatwouldteslado]

Ford, I'm asking for the sake of being thorough. The Klamath tribe is the one that left those warnings about Bill, correct? (Correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not saying it has a connection to him, but if Nora was targeted specifically, that's an avenue to explore.

That’s correct.

Modoc the Shaman met his end after unfortunate dealings with Bill. I’m almost certain he was the one to inscribe most of the warnings about him.

Afterwards a large number of the Klamath people left Gravity Falls, while others seemed to carve tunnels into the rock formation around the town in, what I’m fairly certain, was a way to stay out of sight of Bill’s eyes. There’s been a few incidents that have further dwindled down the number remaining within town since that time. 

There is a possibility of another entity that they may have discovered, that could now be resurfacing. I would hope, it’s not something that is comparable to the threat of Bill. At the very least, it would not have run them out of town like Bill had.

[jheselbraum]

So, in the winter, historically Modoc and Klamath people would build these dugout houses? Like several feet below ground, to protect themselves from the snow. These were like, fucking huge okay? I'm talking, oh about 50 feet long and 20 feet tall.

What I'm saying is that it's entirely plausible that Modoc the Shaman built his prototype of the portal in his cultural equivalent of a basement laboratory.

[agftheorist]

For the one Gideon drew, it might be just his bad memory, remembering the order wrong.

About the one in the cage, Modoc the Shaman drew it, we know it canonically. He might have also misorder them because some of them (ice bag, glasses and several other) don't even had a meaning during the time he was alive. Ford literally copied from the cave so if he wrote it in wrong order, so did Ford.

What I trust the most is what Bill shows in Dreamscapers and the one we always see in intro.

Plus, I seriously don't believe the order even matters when they're holding hands.

I am going crazy. FUCKING CRAZY.

I love gravity falls

it is an incredible story

but one thing is driving me nuts.

Bills Zodiac

This is the Zodiac Stanford Pines finds in the cave. It is also the same one he draws in weirdmageddon.

THE ABSOLUT SAME ZODIAC!

SO WHY IS IT DIFFRENT EVERYWHERE ELSE?!

The one Bill shows them.

The one Gideon draws in prison.

AND

THE ONE THEY USE FOR FANMERCH!

Now here is my problem, the Zodiac Stanford draws can't be wrong. It was working, even if it hadn't been the right one it was working in some way.

We see it working it can't be wrong.

Bill is afraid of this circle, he stops them from trying it again.

BUT

Gideon uses a different circles to SUMMON Bill, so the circle has obviously more than one function.

So now is the Question

What function does the Circle Bill himself gives them have.

It's pretty safe to say that this circle woudn't hurt Bill because he obviously isn't stupid. But it has to be important in some way because it is the same as the fanmerch circle.

Can someone help me with this, I'm going crazy over it.

[mrneighbourlove]

Into the Darkness and Unknown: Ch 5. A Blink into the Void

Bonegrinder woke and was quite concerned when he could not find Leere. He moved all his pillows and even checked near the river. Then the snake went to where Malik was sleeping, snoring rather loudly. Repeatedly, he poked the man with his tail.

"Hey. Hey. Wake up. Tiny princess is gone. Where is she?"

“What the hell are you doing?” Malik grumbled, slapping the snakes tail away. He was so intolerable.

"Tiny princess is gone. Where is she?" Bonegrinder asked him yet again. "She is not in the hut."

“We investigated the origins of Malus on our own. Afterwards, we discussed the origins of your heathen gods and the demon Teufel. I left for the night, but she remained behind.”

"... you let her research Malus? After all she's been through?!"

“Yes. Because she’s not a fragile little girl. She’s her own woman. I respect that.” Malik rose from his bed, grabbing his armour to strap on.

"Malus is dangerous, she doesn't know what horrors it holds! He is trying to protect her from what those fiends would do to her, use her for! Don't you know why Leere's back has that horrid tattoo upon it?!" Bonegrinder was worried and actually looked panicked. "He is going to find her! Stay here!" And with that, he slithered off in the direction of the Temple of Ruin.

“Wait a damn minute!” Malik grabbed him by the tip of his tail, having just barely finished getting into uniform. Holding on, he was dragged by the back as if he were on water skis.

Bonegrinder was old, but he was still damn fast when he wanted to be. When he tried to go through the opening corridor for the temple, the Anagari nearly lost his balance and released a loud 'OOF'. Looking back, the young lord had grabbed onto the side of the stone, halting the shaman's slithering. Lifting his tail, Bonegrinder watched as Malik still held on dangling there.  "... why are you covered in mud and leaves? You have to be presentable for Mother---wait... did you hold onto Bonegrinder's tail?"

Malik arm muscles were pulsing as he held onto the stone to stop Bonegrinder’s advance. “You stupid, ugly mother fucker.” Malik was glad he wore armour, but being splashed through mud, smacked by branches, and over all being dragged about was a completely unpleasant experience. Letting go of his tail, the only thing he could do was strip out of his armour, magically summon a different set of armour, and get changed into it. “You just had to run off like a child. Didn’t you. Your fat ass didn’t even know I was holding onto you.”

"Bonegrinder has little to no feeling in certain areas of his body, too much nerve damage." He wiggled the tip of his tail. "And you're just jealous that Bonegrinder has all the looks and you have none."

“Oh, don’t get me started on that topic you bastard.” Malik slapped his helmet angrily down onto his head. “Let’s go, I can see storm clouds forming. However, if I’m honest, I’d love to see god strike lightning down upon you.”

"Heheheh, you're just angry cause you know he is right." Bonegrinder had that smug grin on his face. "Come. Leere is this way..." He followed her scent into the library... then out of the library... and... "Huh? Oh. OH. We... might not want to interrupt this."

“Why? Where is she?”

"In Mother's bed."

"Nothing. Leere knows a fine piece of ass when she sees it." Bonegrinder then said, poking Malik's helmet with his claw. "You went after Asakonigei, so you know a lovely lady when you see one too."

“Don’t you dare bring up my wife. I’m not fucking the Queen of Danjur, Zarazu, or anyone else when I’m on diplomatic missions.” Malik growled deeply through graded teeth.

"Mother is not a queen, Malik. Mother is many, Mother is all, and Mother is a guardian." Bonegrinder truly did not see the problem. "This will not influence her decisions. Besides, he doesn't smell any arousal... they might just be sleeping."

Bonegrinder felt a punch in the back. “Open with that. God, you really are crazy.”

~

Inside the temple, Leere steered awake, yawning loudly. Seemed she was being held like a little stuffed bear.

Mother was still sleeping soundly until Leere started to stir.

"No bad dreams?"

“None. Yourself?”

"No, I don't dream very often now." Mother told the princess. "When I do, it's often visions of the future to come, the past which haunts me, or what will happen in the present."

“Well, it was nice.” Close enough, Leere snuck a quick peck in. “We should probably get back to the-” Before she could finish her sentence, there was a sound of lightning outside. “That’s odd. I don’t remember signs of a storm forming yesterday.”

"... you are brave to kiss an Echidnan of many like me, Leere." Mother then heard the rumble of thunder. "Hmm..."

A feeling, a shiver, was felt. To Leere, it was small. A coldness. To the Mother, something wrong was taking place in her homeland. “Do you feel something?”

"... something evil has made its way into my land." Mother had a dark frown on her face. "I must handle this situation. I cannot have it harming my children."

Leere stood up, immediately concerned. “I’ll go investigate.”

When Leere descended from Mother's nest, Bonegrinder was there with his arms crossed. "Bonegrinder would like to know why you were up there."

“I was researching the Mortuus. Your mother let me see the remains of your brother and father. Afterwards, I was very tired, so I offered to sleep beside Mother in her nest for the night. Why are you so concerned?”

"They are not his brother nor father, he is not of Mother, Mother considers us all her 'children'. Her people." Bonegrinder was... uncomfortable, being compared to Mother. It showed on his face. "You are in a strange land and trust others too easily here. While Mother said for you not to be harmed, that does not mean you are completely safe. You should have stayed in the hut. The library holds nothing but pain for you."

Leere knew that Bonegrinder was getting under her skin. Did all his people keep secrets? As a way to calm herself, she remembered an old lesson from her mother. ‘Take a deep breath Leere. Don’t let him get under your skin. Just count down. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, deep breaths.’ Clasping her hands, she felt ready to confront her feelings. “Bonegrinder. I’m going to tell you now that you are pushing my boundaries. I can make choices for myself.”

"He knows you can make choices, but there are some issues you are best left in blissful ignorance." Bonegrinder told the princess. "He does not keep this knowledge from you because he does not think you cannot handle it. He keeps it from you because he does not want you hurt further."

“You want me to stay ignorant!? Are you joking me?!” That certainly cut deep into Leere, with the voice of her reassuring mother shattering from her mind. “You’re contradicting yourself! It would hurt if I couldn’t handle it! You can’t keep information about my past from me! What kind of friend does that? What kind of friend are you if you’d actively deny the truth from me?”

"He does not mean mental hurt, Leere, he means physical hurt. The more you know, the more susceptible you are." Bonegrinder did not know how to explain more without revealing too much to the princess. "There is a reason he removed what he did from your tattoo those years ago. He is trying to keep evil from being drawn to you once more. He wants you to be safe and far from harm. Please believe him, tiny princess, he is trying to help you."

“Physically harmed? On that you couldn’t be more foolish. I’m one of the most committed fighters you’ll ever know, you better believe that.” Leere was going to say something else when she paused. Her face slowly changed to clear and focused attention. “Bonegrinder, Mother. There’s a cart of dead bodies out east not to far from here.”

Malik was the only one who couldn’t pick out the sense of undeath from so far away. “Are you saying Omisha is under attack?”

"Leere, Modoc, you two will have to finish your conversation later." Mother felt the dark magic on the exterior of her lands. Someone was using Mortuus magic and... there was something else. A mixture of rage, hate, and... unbalance. Chaotic magic. This was unsettling. "Modoc, go with the guards to investigate."

Bonegrinder was not going to argue. He nodded his head in agreement and then slithered off to gather some of Mother's most precious treasures; the deadliest of the deadly. These would aid him if there should be any trouble.

Then Mother turned to Leere, "My dear, please do not get too upset over Modoc's intentions. I do believe they are pure, yet at the same time, you do deserve your answers. I ask for only your patience."

“He should have more faith.” Leere turned her attention to Malik, who was already getting prepared to leave. “I’ll need my scythe back Lord Malik.”

The Gerudo chuckled, excited to see how the princess would fight with a weapon. He’d never had the chance before. Handing the hilt to her he kept for safe keeping, he pointed out to the east. “We shouldn’t spare an extra moment if innocents can be in the crossfire.”

"Perhaps when one needs more faith, he must first see the faith others have him. Give Modoc time, Leere." Mother then waited for her precious ones to gather before heading out with the humans. "We must be cautious."

~

The area was a flat plain that made a patch in the jungle’s of Omisha. Fresh green grass whistled with the wind from the storm brewing. Down at an old, crumbling sanctuary near the center of the plain, a Mortuus was channeling a ritual. The sky darkened with the blanket of a storm. Rain fell and thunder boomed after flashes of lightning. From the jungle growth, she saw two figures approach. She needed more time to fulfil her magic. “Kill them.”

As Leere and Malik approached, bodies that sprinkled off the cart and onto the ground came to life. Some shambled towards them with snarling teeth and claws. Other held weapons, brandishing spears and swords.

Malik drew his sword, cleaving through rows of zombies, hurling flesh into the air. With his shield he cracked some skulls open with merely the flick of his arm. He was a wrecking ball that obliterated the fragile bodies of the dead. The princess couldn’t help but remember how brutal he was when she first laid eyes on him as a child. Even amongst the living, she felt very little soul from the man when he was engaged in combat.

Leere could sense the sway of the Necromancer over these victims. These bodies were flesh, as well as human. On the clothing she recognized symbols and styles from Al-Daida. Raising a hand into the air next to three, she squeezed her fist. The heads squashed inward like a crumbled paper ball. Focusing her energy, she over took the will of five others to turn on other undead, chomping at the bits to devour one another. The other Necromancer must have caught on quick, because like a door shut in her face, Leere felt herself unable to enforce her will on more undead. With more time she could break down that door, but she needed to fight immediately. Activating her scythe, the staff extended outwards, a blue blade of energy shimmering with ancient technology. Spinning around she surgically cut down various zombies’ limb by limb. With her hilt, she’d push any that tried to grab her, giving them a lashing of her blade to rip their heads from their body.

When the time came to fight, Mother was going to ensure no one escaped. Trespassers would die. Her precious deadly ones ripped into the zombies easily, flanking the humans that led the charge. Most of the undead could never hope to penetrate the flesh of an Echidnan. It was too easy. What was coming next?

The Mortuus felt she had found the time she needed. These Echidnan’s would be trouble, but that’s what the ritual was for.

All the fighters on the battlefield saw a red glow pierce the sky, and on the ground next to the caster a pentagram pulsed wicked energy. From out of the earth hellfire spat out, and, with the smell of brimstone staining the air, demons set foot on earth. Many were vile, disturbing creatures. Some were humanoid, with edged weapons, but that’s the tamest they were in appearance. Some didn’t have eye sockets. Others had exposed craniums. Most were the size of Echidnan’s. Three had crab like lower bodies with bizarre hooked sails and jagged claws. Worst of all, a few sprouted wings and choose to fly off and cause havoc in the rest of Omisha.

Leere and Malik certainly felt fear, pausing in their advance. However, in a moment of reflection separate to both of them, they dug deep and found their courage to move onward.

Leere broke her promise to Mother. With her own magic, she summonsed forth her Dead Hand. An undead pale monstrosity burst from the earth, with dozens of bloody hands shooting from the ground to pull a demon towards the mark of its jaws. Other demons quickly jumped the undead, clawing and biting back at the creature.

Malik gave into his rage, fuelling his physical strength as he parried the strike of a sword-demon, plunging his blade into the gut of the abomination, and pulling upwards to cleave it in half.

A particular demon with its eyes sewn shut held a staff with an orb on top. With the storm brewing in the sky, it spun its staff around before thrusting it toward an Echidnan. Lightning crackled and snapped down at the pointed target, tearing apart an old warrior. Between that caster and the two humans needing to put a stop to it, a demon with no skin on its muscly arms bounded its chest at Malik and roared.  

The Gerudo Lord tapped his shield at Leere, hoping she’d understand what would need to be done. “Catapult maneuver!”

Leere nodded, already running towards the man. She had witnessed her siblings practice the technique enough times as well as watch Rinku perform it in live combat to know what she needed to do. Jumping on his shield, the princess was thrown over the muscular demon straight towards the blind lightning caster. The demon hissed at her as she flew towards it. With a glare in her eyes, she struck downwards, cutting its head open like a cantaloupe down in vertical swing of her scythe. Landing on her feet, she quickly spun around to snap its staff in half, cleaving its body in good measure.

The other demon threw a punch at Malik, who in the motion of throwing Leere, swung his shield arm down at his opponent. The shield stabbed in between the knuckles of the demon, causing blood to squirt out onto Malik’s armour, as well as rewarding his ears with scream of pain. Least Malik could only hope it was pain; damn things roars sounded nearly identical. Under its screaming, Malik plunged upwards into the demon’s mouth, his blade piercing outwards the back of its skull. With a jerk, he pulled with his sword and shield out from its body, quickly moving with Leere to enter the grounds of the old sanctuary.

The land was full of blood now. The dark magic was tainting the ground and Mother was using her magic to push all of the demonic nature backwards. The leader of her people even used the storm of the enemy to sway lightning to crash upon demons that dared believe they could fly out to cause chaos. She had held the barrier separating Malus and Omisha. Now, she was using a shield to part her children from the demons. This foul magic would not hurt anymore, would not take hold of anyone, would never risk the lives of her people again! As Leere used her necromancy magic, Mother was very incensed. She would speak to the girl about the usage of such dark forces in her kingdom later. For now, she had a job to do; push back the intruder.

Bonegrinder was as deadly as ever, fighting beside of his brothers and sisters. Yet, he was more so experienced with these fiends. It sickened the Anagari to see the destruction, though he was more so worried. These demons were smarter than a zombie puppet. Once or twice, he used his long tail to swat a smaller demon from Leere or Malik, before being engaged by more of the larger abominations.

As Leere and Malik entered the grounds of the sanctuary, the intruder magically constructed a ring of fire around the area to keep anyone out who didn’t want to risk being burned, as well as to keep the two of them in her company. When she dropped her hood, Malik steadied his sword. “I know you.”

Leere felt an odd sense of curiosity towards this woman. She was taller than her, but still had the same red eyes and a similar shade of hair colour as her. This didn’t diminish her caution, however.

The woman raised a finger to Malik, frowning at first. Quickly, she shook off her frown with a light laugh. “Look at that. No longer able to be my puppet. No matter. When you die all over again you shall be a slave to my will once again, Dio!”

“The woman who tried to kill Zarazu.” Malik’s grip on his sword tightened. Leere felt this information was shared to give her clarity, but was also the man giving himself a reminder of why she was a serious threat.

“Indeed. She does not deserve to be the Goddess of Death. I will become the God of Death with her death.”

Malik didn’t take the threat to Zarazu’s life lightly. His hatred of the gods was deep enough, no need for this bitch to have grand dreams of ascending to godhood by taking the life of his friend, especially since Zarazu wasn’t an actual god. “You won’t touch her.”

“You’re right. I’ll probably have someone else rip out her intestines and snuff the breath out of her. Perhaps her husband.”

Leere readied her scythe, familiar with the madness of cultists enough from her travels. She knew there would be no reasoning with this woman. “The first Mortuus I met since my adoption, and you’re revolting. There’s a small hope that the people of Omisha are wrong about those that come from Malus, but I can see in your expression and wordplay that you’re a monster they fear.”

Dio turned her attention to Leere, a glow of examination filling her. “So… you’re the target. Heard stories about you. The Mortuus who escaped alive. You’ve made friends in high places. From what I understand, even a snake who can’t keep himself from destroying everything he loves.”

Leere and Malik knew she was speaking of Bonegrinder, but before they could ponder on this more, a flash of lightning was shot towards them both from a demon that made itself know behind Dio. It’s form Malik raised his shield to defend himself, but Leere had to throw herself to the ground to avoid the attack.

The woman laughed, a mad glee in her eyes. “My master is going to make me a god. I’ll use you both as slaves to build a temple in my honour on this very land.”

Mother knew not of the past incident with this Mortuus, but could put together enough pieces to realize that there was most definitely bad blood between the her and Malik. This demonic magic made her feel uneasy. It was the same kind of magic which was used to torment the souls of her mate and her child. Bad memories were there to help her, the Echidnan ruler reminded herself. She had to be cautious. She had to be faster. She had to be the smart one. With a slam of her tail, the Mother separated the earth between her children and the demons, a rift appearing in-between them.

The demons hissed; their attention being drawn to the Mother now that they were cut off from the rest of Omisha. One flashed frilled quills at the Echidnan. “The souls of your children will be our nourishment. But first, let us embrace you.”

Inside the sanctuary, Dio commanded her demon to attack Malik. It had the appearance of a flying eyeball with flower peddles surrounding the body. With a glow, black lightning shot towards the Gerudo, forcing him to take cover behind his shield and retreat amongst the rubble as the demon gave chase.

Dio herself locked eyes with Leere, her hands glowing with magic ready to destroy her enemies. There was a presence that felt familiar to Dio about this woman. Why? “A pampered princess can’t kill a god to be.”

“You are just another mad cultist.” Leere ran forward with her scythe to strike down Dio. Her blade met the empty air as the devilish woman danced around her strikes. Finally, she retaliated by snapping her fingers. At both of Leere’s sides, two Floormasters, man sized sentient hands, flew towards her to grab her. They were nearly identical to her Wallmaster, simply having a different function. She found herself being squeezed tight together in their grip. Dio snorted in amusement at her conjuration working out flawlessly. “Looks like the Destroyer is going to lose one of her friends.”

Leere felt her skin being torn into, blood leaking out onto the Floormasters. Good. Blood magic made the hands lose their grip, and before Dio could react, Leere threw the two hands together to make an icky battering ram of monster flesh. Both monsters forced together and hurled into Dio had the effectiveness of a giant fist punching her whole body. The woman was flung backwards into ground, blood flying from her now broken nose. Rising to her feet, her mood was soured to see Leere’s hands glowing red with cursed blood magic.

“You dare strike me?”

“I’m going to drain the life from you is what I’m going to do.”

Dio couldn’t imagine how a Mortuus who left the capital of Malus could have so much power. “Ha. We’ll see about-HCK!!!”

Suddenly, Dio wasn’t laughing. Due to Leere’s blood making contact with her skin thanks to the battering ram the princess threw at Dio, she was now able to levitate the body of the other necromancer. Taking her time, she started to squeeze the oxygen out of Dio’s lungs with her magic. This startled the intruder to Omisha greatly. She could taste the thick amount of iron in her mouth as her breath was being taken away.

As Leere stepped forward into Dio’s shadow to get a closer look at bitch she was about to kill, the woman cocked her head to the right at the princess and thrust her arm upwards with all the strength she could to get through Leere’s blood magic. Leere felt her rib cage be violently stabbed as a shadow pierced into her. Taking a few steps back, Leere struggled for breath as Dio rose from the ground. With a cruel smile, Dio made another slash with her shadow. The bladed arm cut into Leere’s back, spinning her around with the force of the impact.

The princess breathed heavily from her injuries. The only thing that felt good was the smell of the rain that started to fall down. Every drop that hit her lacerations stung like hellfire instead of cooling water.

As Dio approached from behind, she paused, her expression being frozen on Leere’s back. “That tattoo… I didn’t think it plausible. But it is it. Schwanz des Teufels: Tyrannin.”

“What?” When the woman spoke to her, there was frightening chill in her voice, as if two people were speaking at once, viewing her body with nefarious intent.

“Rejoice Leere Dragmire. You have a purpose now, a reason to stay alive.” It was defiantly a different voice coming from Dio now, however, when she spoke again, Leere heard the smugness of the woman return. “Doesn’t mean I don’t get to cut you apart so thy can keep still forever.”

Tendrils of darkness lifted from Dio’s shadow, shooting towards Leere with the precision of whips. They crackled through the air as the Princess drew the knife as her side to repel them the best she could.

Mother was able to contain the fiends easily with the help of her deadly children. Most of the demons were massive mounds of flesh without proper training. It was easy to rip into the fiends and dispose of them. Once Bonegrinder had completed his duty to Mother, using his own dark magic to contain the demons where they stood, he turned his attention to Malik and Leere. He had seen the two duel opponents before, yet, this was different. Malik was struggling to obtain an offense with his foe. Leere was holding her own against the Mortuus bitch, yet there was... shadow magic being used. Too much darkness...

When Dio attacked Leere with her assault of shadow whips, Bonegrinder shot forward through the fire. His body smelled of burnt flesh for only a moment before regenerating. It was time to end this now before anymore lives could be lost. Lunging forward, he tackled Dio and had his jaws opened wide. His coils wrapped around Dio's body and his fangs were ready to clamp down on her head.

The eye demon that had Malik pinned behind cover flew in to assist Dio. Before Bonegrinder could kill the woman, the shadow fired a powerful stream of dark lightning into the back of his head. As his coils unfurled, Dio scuttled on her back away from the freak of nature that nearly devoured her.

Leere was quick to try and stop her, claiming and swinging her scythe at the bitch’s head. Dio barely escaped death once again, returning the attempt on her life with a kick to Leere’s wounded stomach.

The pain Leere felt was unbearable, and her scream was shrill and high as she stumbled back. She even dropped her weapon from the kick. Looking up, Leere quickly was electrocuted by a stream of red lightning launched from the fingertips of Dio’s raised right hand. Leere had been electrocuted before, but this felt different. It was of her life force was being drained from her, the very soul being stolen. And its agony she felt from it was unreal.

Malik saw the demon firing a continuous stream of electricity at Bonegrinder. It wouldn’t stop firing down upon him, shredding flesh right down to the bone. Looking the lightning storm above, he quickly thought of a plan. Raising a metal sword to the sky, Malik put just enough of his own energy that the blade started sparking. The sizzling increased volume, until finally, Malik felt it was ready to throw. Launching the blade right under the shadowy demon like a boomerang, a lightning bolt from the heavens struck downwards in a path towards the metal blade, piercing the demon through its entire body to reach it. Its form crumbled into the earth, turning into black goo.

Dio channeled her masters magic. Magic was his domain, so it was only natural he could take it away. He taught her his ways. It hurt like hell to use, but she knew it hurt her enemies even more. Seeing Bonegrinder get up, she fired her other hand of magic draining bolts towards the monster. “Come now. Transform. I know who you are. My master told me. It also so happens you are the enemy of all Mortuus.”

Malik ran forward, throwing himself in front of Dio’s bolts towards Leere with his shield. It gave her a moments recovery to breathe as Malik struggled against the anti-life magic. If he was going to protect anyone, it would be the princess over that bratty snake.

"MODOC!!!" Mother shouted when she saw him being attacked by the life draining magic. If he was unstable... if he lashed out, he could hurt them too. She yelled at the pair, motioning with her tail for them to get behind her barrier. "Malik! Leere!!! Get away!!! Get away from Modoc!!!"

Bonegrinder's body twisted and contorted, his coils seemingly ready to break. His mind was jumbled. Nothing was clear. Where was he? When was he? Why was he fighting? Who was he with? These questions, he knew he had an answer, but could not formulate one. Groaning, he held his head. The Anagari's body was starting to form... particles. Floating particles surrounded him. Ironically, not of dark magic, but of pure energy. Light energy. His eyes were glowing a solid white, and he spoke in a language that no one understand.

"You will not hurt them! You are done hurting innocents! We banished you once and we will banish you again!" Bonegrinder simply shot his hand through Dio's fiendish magic and grasped her by the throat. "You serve a false god who takes pleasure in the torment of others. I will wipe you from existence for your crimes against this world!" With a blast of pure energy, the celestial magic exploded... and threw everyone backwards. Even Mother was knocked off her many centipede legs. All the demons either were obliterated by the magic, or retreated back into the portal that returned them to the deepest pits of the underworld and Hell.

In Bonegrinder’s grasp, Dio tried to speak. Her face was turning dark purple from the tight iron grip around her tiny neck. Celestial magic had burned her body from head to toe. She’d have died outright if something inside her watching deemed her ready for death.

To be completely honest with herself, she was terrified. If her body still had the capacity, she might have been pissing herself from fear, at least, if there hadn’t been a nugget of confidence in returning from the dead. Dio didn’t like the idea of dying regardless, but she’d serve one last purpose first. “My master will r-resurrect me. He will-”

Her eyes suddenly rolled back, and the air grew bitterly cold. The voice that left her mouth was clearly not her own. What’s more, it was the only one that could communicate with the being that inhabited Bonegrinder. “I found you at last. I don’t think you were the brother I expected though.”

Leere’s back was burning with pain and her magic sizzled from Bonegrinder’s explosion. She was flown far away, and when she tried to stand, she found her left leg was broken from the blast. It was hard to tell at sight, but she knew something was terribly wrong with both Bonegrinder and Dio. The air was phased around them like a mirage, the ground crackling with sparks.

Malik was lucky enough to be thrown into some rubble, so he wasn’t launched far. Closer than Leere, he could hear the voice that escaped the Mortuus. “Teufel.”

Teufel simply ignored Malik, as one would ignore an ant on a mountain hike. “I am God. I have subjects in all corners of this realm and others. This dear girl, played her part admirably. I will consider resurrecting her. Your God has one last task for you Dio. The Mother of Omisha insulted me by saying your pathetic tribe of life worshipers could ever control me. Deal with the matter.”

The Mortuus’ voice spoke out in the same tone as a broken note of a recorder. “Yes, my lord...”

Dio’s hand rose, and with magic not her own, a beam of celestial magic shot from her finger towards the Mother of Omisha as a way to pierce her heart. The magic already started to disintegrate Dio’s body as it left her being, too much for a mere mortal to handle such power.

"You will never win. Not as long as Kaksa is here. Not as long as I am here." Bonegrinder, no... an ancient god snarled at the voice of Chaos coming through Dio's body. It was a brother of Creation or Destruction who was in control of his host now. The celestial god of creation had laid dormant in his Echidnan host for a long while. Rarely did he surface. "You became greedy and tried to disrupt her beloved world. Now, you will never be at her side again. The Mother Goddess has wiped her hands of betraying filth like you---!!!"

When Dio shot magic at Mother, Bonegrinder reacted. He could only deflect it. Using a huge blast of his own celestial power, he knocked the beam sideways and it slammed into the side of a hill, exploding the earth. Hunks of grass, rock, and dirt flew through the air and the sudden force of casting his own magic caused the Anagari to sail through multiple trees, breaking the plants in half, before settling into the mud.

"MODOC!!!" Mother rushed to Bonegrinder's side and collected him into her arms. His body was disintegrated in some areas, but was slowly starting to repair itself. "Modoc? Modoc!!! I command you to open your eyes! Modoc!"

“Your goddess, Hylia, and the other gods have already failed. Already have I dominated a few myself. Join Ponca, Osage, and Akihara in Hell Modoc. I look forward to killing the last of your people Malik… Mother… Leere…. Hehe… Hehehe. HahahahaHAHAHAHA!!!” With a final defiant laugh, Dio’s body disintegrated into earth, her masters taunt being heard by all. The silhouette of her body left a black stain in the earth of Omisha.

Malik made his way to Mother, concerned about Bonegrinder’s condition. The last time he’d seen his body so damaged was when he himself detonated a highly volatile powder keg in his face. “Is he alive?”

"He is alive, but he's going to need some time to recover." Mother looked... worried. A huge, intimidating being like her being anxious was surely not a good sign. There was still a bit of celestial magic floating around Bonegrinder's body, yet now, it was harmless. As it sunk to the jungle floor, it actually rejuvenated the tainted parts of the ground. "He took a direct hit from Chaos... that stupid fool." The Echidan of many took a deep breath, fighting back tears. "You've been around as long as I have, yet have suffered more torment. Why do you continue to do such idiotic things when you know we all will need you?" She told Bonegrinder in his comatose state. "I fear that one day your body will not repair and what will we do then?" The other children of Mother made a makeshift stretcher and began to carry Bonegrinder back to the Temple of Ruin.

She then finally looked at Malik, and said, "... you have questions. I will answer. But not here."

Malik looked to Leere in the not too far distance, seeing her still on the ground writhing in pain. “Questions can come at a later time. Let us attend to our wounded first.” Malik walked past the bodies of demons and undead to reach Leere. Seeing the condition the princess was in, he winced behind his helmet. However, he respected her tenacity as a warrior for not complaining from the physical pain. “That leg doesn’t look good.”

“No... shit...” Leere was breathing as steady as she could to get through the pain. “I think my femur is broken.”

The Gerudo lord looked down to see some bone poking out of Leere’s skin. Between that and the gut wound, he wondered how she was still breathing.  “You need a Doctor.”

“No... shit...”

Carefully, but not enterally painlessly, Malik scooped Leere into his arms and carried her back to the rest of the Echidans. “I think a Bonegrinder is this Destroyer god we have heard so much about.”

“We can’t know for sure.”

“We both saw the magic he possessed. He tore through demons and Dio like they were nothing.”

Leere pondered on this theory, noting the facts. Bonegrinder surrounded himself with those that eroded the will of people. He was rather ravenous in his hunger, seemingly having no sight in his growth. Leere was read a tale that one of the known symbols of the end of the world was a giant snake. His own people held rumours about him. And given his powers, it wasn’t hard to imagine the type of destruction he could bring to the world. But he was still her friend, wasn’t he?

“Let’s... save that thought for later. I need rest for now.”

"Bring the princess into the infirmary. My healers will care for her." Mother instructed Malik. "And if you have any injuries that need tending, please tell my children. The Tlanuhwas will be sure to care for you and the princess tonight. Though if you rather have a Kokyangwuti, please tell me. There are many options to treat you, whatever you feel more comfortable." She then said, "I will visit after I ensure the barriers are stable."

“Understood.” With great haste, Malik took off with Leere in his arms. The battlefield they left behind had a remarkable effect. With the rain fall, life started to come back to land, all except marked by the hell and chaos left behind directly by Dio. Her death bed sizzled, whispering promises of more suffering and discord to be pulled in Omisha. Far, far away, a primordial evil was still laughing. The Devil found out the identity of one of its greatest enemies, as well as part of their very being thought forever lost. And if Teufel knew where and who they were, it would be all the easier to control the threads of fate for when its time would come. All in due time…

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[jazzmckay]

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]