#she's almost 50 and has a grown ass son and is a totally different person and has some very interesting thoughts about the other characters

[silverselfshippingchaos]

his birthday means that we are g.ladio posting like hell today

[falloutdialogue]

Logs from the Railroad’s Leaders

After completing the main storyline with the Railroad ending, the PAM mainframe terminal will allow you to access terminal entries from the Railroad’s past leaders, revealing some more backstory. Wyatt was leader from 2266-2273, Pinky was leader from 2273-2277, Desdemona has been leader since 2277. Desdemona claims Wyatt’s reports are the ‘earliest surviving records of the Railroad's history.’ 

Wyatt (66-73)

2266 Nov

Gathered surviving runners, held an election. I lost, or won, depending on how you look at it. After the HQ massacre, most people simply left the Railroad. Only one person survived HQ, a runner named John D. He called out for volunteers to get some of the old files. No one stepped forward. My job is to rebuild the Railroad from scratch. I think where Agamemnon went wrong, is that HQ was known by too many people. I'm theorizing here, but once the Institute hit a safehouse and leaned on anyone the HQ would be easy to find. But how could Agamemnon know just how deadly those damned Coursers are? Current count: 13. 0 synths. How the hell do we rebuild from here?

2267 Feb

Got our first synth out of the Commonwealth last month. Threw one Hell of a party. What people don't know is another runaway was recaptured by the Coursers before we even got to them. John D has been finding tourists at a pretty good clip. But he keeps their identities to himself. Operational security he calls it. It makes me grind my teeth, but he's probably right. I think our whole organization needs to be more like a pyramid. A broad base of tourists that help out, mainly with information. Then the runners and safehouse owners in the middle. Then agents. Then HQ on top of that.

2273 Mar

A whole work crew of synths escaped together. Five synths at once. We're scrambling to keep them hidden. Coursers have been spotted looking for them. They found one of our safehouses, but no one there knew where our HQ is. John developed a dead drop system we've been using. Some vocal elements (Toby) say we should shut down. But that's a year and a half worth of synths.

Pinky (73-77)

2273 Dec

I just found Wyatt's journal. For whoever runs this outfit in the future, I figure you should know how we messed up. We were running the Workgroup Five out of the CW when Coursers found our HQ. Total shitstorm. Deacon (that's what he's calling himself now) had an escape route planned, and most of the survivors owe him their life. Wyatt didn't make it past the first hail of bullets. Something everyone should know: if one safehouse goes down assume that all Hell's coming for your ass, because it probably is. Always, always, ALWAYS assume the Institute has resources beyond what we can imagine. From now on only the heavies leave HQ. And we got to move our packages fast. This slow crap hurts more than it helps.

2275 Jun

Damn it. We got two synths, or packages as we're calling them now, out of the CW. Running the 3rd and a Raider gang caught them. Total blood bath. P.K. almost lost his package near Danvers, too. I kicked Deacon out of HQ, got sick of the lying, face-changing son of a bitch. That month he spent as a Ghoul freaked a lot of people out. Going to keep running hard.

2276 Jan

Lesson: move all packages outside the Commonwealth. Lamda 8 homesteaded off Parsons. She got married to a farmer. Coursers found her and it got bloody. Lost Lamda 8. Her wife almost bit the bucket, too. Courser spotted heading south (with company). Watts volunteered to track them.

2276 Sep

Desdemona is a real pain in the ass. Keeps harping on every little damned thing. Worse than Deacon and Carrington combined. We lost a safehouse and went to ground. SOP. Desdemona says I'm being sloppy. I'm getting sick and tired of leading these misfits.

Desdemona (77-)

2277 Dec

After we lost Trinity, Pinky Thompson stepped down. It took some persuasion. We held a vote on who should run the Railroad. It came down to me and Carrington. Might be a problem there. The doctor, Deacon, and I have been analyzing the many, many mistakes of Pinky. Our "batting average" is roughly 50/50. Only a few synths a year make it out. It's hard to keep motivated when failure is so epidemic. We're going to hit the fundamentals: operational security. Look outs, counter-intelligence, and compartmentalization. We need to reduce the response time to find a new synth runner.

2279

2 escapees. 1 loss. 2 reclaimed before interception. Added a new member to core HQ. Thomas Weatherby. An Institute grenade did a number on his family farm. He's rattled but very, very smart. Hoping he can arm us with something better than pipe pistols. Organization grown. Devised rail signs and improvements to dead drops. No Coursers spotted all year. Merry Christmas.

2280

One of our rescues, G7-81, took a strange turn. Most synths are traumatized and go through the procedure with Doc A. G7 opted out. Begged to join. Did some crazy stunts with High Rise at Ticon. Called her into the HQ. Promoted "Glory" to heavy. She's well suited for the role (perhaps too much so). Been working with Tom. Brilliant, but he's getting increasingly eccentric. Carrington says the stress is causing severe psychological problems. But he's too damned essential. God help me, I'm keeping him on. 2 escapes. No losses. 1 reclaimed. Quiet year. Less chrome domes in the field than the last two years. No idea why.

2281

Where to begin? Year started like shit. Coursers came out of nowhere. They found the Farm, lookouts only gave us 30 seconds of warning. Torched what we could, casualties light. Relocated to the Beast. Then one of the B team scouts, Tommy Whispers, made the find of the century. An old DIA facility, "Switchboard." Called him up to HQ (overdue), Glory's taken him under his wing (God help him). Tom relocated to the Switchboard or Facility X as he calls it. Then he sent an urgent message. My first meeting with P.A.M... Can't describe. She made some predictions, frighteningly accurate. Asked for data. Started feeding it to her. Very reluctant to help the cause. But after a long talk with Glory she's on board. No one knows what Glory said to PAM. Deacon jokes that PAM has a crush on Glory. Certainly PAM acts different when she's around. But there's nothing emotional about PAM. With PAM's prediction managed to anticipate a run-away. Year ended badly. We had a synth infiltrator at Mercer. Deacon caught her before P.A.M. But damage done. Blew the Beast and moved to Bolthole. Only an hour to spare before the coursers came. 2 escapees, 1 loss, 0 reclaims.

2282

Promoted Tommy to be our second heavy. Tom made him a custom pistol, the kid's frightening with it. P.A.M. has us running strange ops for data. She's not always right, but right enough to be a trap. Too tempting to rely on her predictions. One day Deacon recommended moth-balling her. Took an hour to talk him down. 2 escapees. Not many runners this year.

2283

One word: PATRIOT. Our second package of the year was different from the start. Didn't behave lost. Ran in a straight line to Diamond City. Old Man Stockton caught her before she caused too many waves. She wasn't supposed to be on the work detail and had a care package: a map, instructions, and a coded holotape. Tom's been useless all year trying to decode the damned thing. Third package sent straight to Diamond City again. Set up Old Man Stockton as the gatekeeper. Then a fourth came in after a week. All with care packages. All with more codes. Someone on the inside is helping us. Code-name PATRIOT. All told 5 escapees this year.

2284

An incredible year. Everything's coming together. Tom broke PATRIOT's code, said it was designed to be broken (whatever that means). Just two words, "Mass Fusion." Sent some recon there and found nothing. Found out later why. PAM's been trying to find the location of the Institute in earnest. Failing. Deacon's convinced the solution lies in the past, not future. Deacon already knows the big secret - we know nothing about the Railroad before Wyatt was in charge (or is Deacon Johnny D???). Deacon's been digging into Institute sightings from years, even decades before. Or at least, that's what he says. Getting really tired of all his lies. Coursers caught Package 7. Almost nailed Old Man Stockton, too. One of our scouts found Package 8 heading to Mass Fusion. The coded message he carried was another location, Prospect Hill. 8 escapees this year, 1 loss, 1 reclaimed.

2285

Busy. We're in Switchboard now. Bolthole went down on fire. Coursers getting very active. But, by God, we're rescuing synths. 9-2-1. Both of those 2 were from goddamned lynch mobs.

2286

A dry year. Coursers, work crews, and synths vanished for three months. No idea why. Worked on fortifying Switchboard. Deacon was barely here all year. Chasing ghosts. 4-1-0.

2287

PAM's errored out on trying to find the Institute. Took a good month to get her to run without crashing. Her being down hurt the numbers. We now have 12 safehouses and I don't even know how many people. Carrington worries we're getting too big. But in order to move all the synths PATRIOT's sending us we need places to hide them. Deacon working on secret project. Code-name Wanderer. Deacon has a wild theory and an even wilder plan (Tea Party). I agree there's something strange there, but I'm withholding judgment. 9-1-1.

[kateanddevinreview]

A Christmas Prince

In Which Kate and Devin review Netflix’s new Christmas movie and utterly fail at avoiding spoilers.

Kate: So where do we start?! Devin: Pick a movie to talk about? Kate: Top of the list is Christmas Prince. It was terrible; from start to finish it was filled with cliches and things that didn't make sense Devin:  I liked the movie! Kate: You can like the movie that is fine. I enjoyed watching the movie? But only because it was so bad. Devin: I really like the izombie girl and she was super weird in this, almost soft spoken or something? Kate: She was weird, but she made it more enjoyable to me just because I like her. Devin: I would probably have been much less forgiving of this movie without her Kate: Prince was handsome, but I've already forgotten his name. Devin: Really? I thought he was eh. Kate: Not as handsome as in the next movie (spoliers!), but he was very princely I thought. Devin: I mean prince looked very british? But I don't find that attractive Kate: I guess I don't mean particularly attractive to me, but generically attractive. As in, I think more people would say he was very attractive than would say he was average. His acting was pretty blah though. His sister's hair was on point? Devin: Fair. She reminded me of the bitchy girl in willy wonka though. Kate: OMG, yes. She was very reminiscent of the bitchy girl. Devin: Was she the bitchy girl? Kate: I don't think she was? But definitely reminded me of her Devin: Hold on I am imdb-ing her Kate: Holding Devin:  Okay well searching “willy wonka and the chocolate factory” failed, because that is not the title. And you're right it's a totally different girl. Devin: Moving on, loved the queen lady, possibly because she's in it for all of 5 minutes. Kate: She was pretty good, very severe looking. But you could tell it was grief? (Spoiler: the king is dead) Devin: It's in the plot description, I don't think it's a spoiler. Kate: Oh is it? I didn't read the plot description. Devin: Also he's been dead for like a year Kate: Well fine Devin: No okay I lied. But it is revealed in like the first 10 minutes. Kate: It is a very major point in the plot. Kate: So actor choice I give it 8 christmas trees. Generally they all fit in and izombie girl made me willing to watch it. Devin: Yeah, out of 10 I'd say 8 is probably where I land too. Kate: Cool, consensus! Devin: I still really love that she has both family and friends and contacts them throughout the movie, like a normal person. Oh! And I liked that she called her boss to be like "hey, so, uh, what should I do?" Kate: That's true, the movie gets bonus points for concocting a real life around their protagonist. Devin: This is not a spoiler I don't think? But what the hell was with the scene where he saves her from wolves? Kate: Yes! That fit in nowhere? Wait, I mean, actually, when you think about how fast the plot moved, it progressed over only 2 weeks and ends with (Definitely spoiler) him proposing. Kate: Maybe attack by wolves was the instigating ‘falling in love quickly’ event? All the adrenaline? Devin: Oh yeah the timeline of this movie makes no sense. Also: how did she saddle and steal that horse if she was going to fall off so easy? Kate: How did she know how to ride a horse at all? Devin: Right? Kate: Clearly we are missing some important backstory here Devin: Was she from New York? Or do I just assume that's where all movie characters from a city live? Kate: I think the second, but I don't actually know where she was from. Her friend being super gay does suggest New York to me though.   Kate: Back to ratings, I'm going to give this one a low grade on Christmas-iness. I think the plot could have progressed absolutely the exact same way without being set over Christmas, using a birthday or something. I give it only 1 reindeer. Do they ever say how the King dies? Devin: I assume either illness or age… actually I feel like the king got cancer, but that could be 100% a lie. Kate: Doesn't matter because it’s not christmas related. Devin: Cold. Did you think the mom was old to have a daughter as young as Emily? I can't actually remember how old she looked. Kate: I really wondered about that. She looked a little old but my dad has a friend who got pregnant at 50, so physically it’s possible. And the sister was what, between 9-12? Devin: Probably Kate: So if mom was 55 in the movie that seems doable Devin: Ok. Also the king was a dick "hehe I will continue to lie to my only son about his parentage, EVEN THOUGH I KNOW I AM DYING AND ALSO HE IS A GROWN ASS MAN AND IT AFFECTS THE POLITICS OF MY KINGDOM and then I will HIDE THIS VERY IMPORTANT LEGALLY BINDING DECREE to be found after my death and definitely for sure followed even though honestly no one has to listen to a dead guy. And the only hint they have is my shitty riddle poetry" Kate: I still very much doubt the legality of the paper "it has the king's seal on it" no thank you. That's not how I like my laws made Devin: Like doesn't he need that notarized or looked at by a council or some shit? Also, it's not even a decree, it just says "I love my son lots, just not enough to tell him the truth". Kate: And if he did, wouldn't that person have come forward when he died? So fucking weird, he was a dick, you're right. Devin: What modern day country is this anyway? Kate: A shitty European one. Devin: Like, fake country, yes. But I assumed they were using maybe England as a template or something. Kate: It seemed a little like they were. But a much smaller country than England? Devin: Are there still ruling monarchies? In real life? Kate: Yes? Saudi Arabia? Devin: Hmm, I don't know enough about Saudi Arabian law to determine if death bed messages hidden in acorns are legally binding. Kate: Well, one of their princes just murdered a bunch of their other princes, so probably not. Kate: Oh hey, apparently Monaco is a country that still has a ruling monarch. Devin: Huh Kate: There are others but I don't think we need to get into all that. Just go read the wiki people. Devin: I mentioned while I was watching, but I still resent her dramatic race to stop the coronation when she easily could have called the palace. Kate: You have cellphones! Use them! Devin: It would have saved at *least* half an hour. Kate: Trope! That goes in the trope category. I'm giving the plot like 2 eggnogs, maybe tropes like 4 jingle bells. Devin: Yeah the trope meter was off the scale in this movie. Kate: Like, I liked some of the tropes? Which is why it’s a little higher for me. But damn. All of them. Devin: Tropes can be good, they just threw a lot of them in there. Kate: They made a list of tropes and then made a movie around them. Devin: Clumsy female lead. Kate: Ugh. Hate that. Devin: "hehe oops, was this OBVIOUSLY EXPENSIVE VASE important?" Kate: Everything in a castle is expensive! Sick sister Devin: Mean kid just wants friendship. Kate: Ugh, the mean kid/friendship one is another pet peeve. Devin:  She goes from "I will kill you in your sleep" to "I trust you implicitly" in, like, a single scene. Kate: The sister warmed up to her in like 4 hours! That's not how it works! Have them bond over something silly right to begin with! Many movies do that well. Devin: If you need them to be friends for the plot, just don't make her mean to start! skip straight to friendship! Kate: Yes! Dead father. Dead mother Devin: Secret adoption Kate: Father who owns a restaurant that you have to go work at. Devin: Shaved his beard and suddenly she thinks he's hot Kate: Oh yes! Secretly not a playboy? Devin: Also he stole her taxi for seemingly no reason. Kate: I didn't really get that bit to be honest. Devin: Just to be a dick? Kate: Yeah, that was such a dick move. That was never addressed and she just forgave completely just because he's a prince. Devin: It's like they couldn't decide until halfway through if they wanted him to be nice or not. Also wanting to bone is not the same as love. Kate: Very true. It seemed like it just went on and on to me. I'd be like, surely this movie is wrapping up soon. And then it kept going. Devin: I definitely shouted at you "dear god look in the acorn!" for a solid hour of that movie Kate: You did. Over and over. You picked up on it the very first scene and you were cooking at the same time! Devin: It was so obviously a box! I have honestly no idea where she got the birth certificate from though. Or how bitchy love rival girl found it. I never learned her name Kate: Oh, so she literally just found the birth certificate in a desk at the lodge they went to after the wolves. It might have been a sort of secret compartment? But not very secret. Devin: lol what? Kate: And then bitchy rival girl searched her rooms. Devin: Rude Kate: Which was a huge invasion of privacy. Devin: If I was a secret reporter I would definitely lock that away. Kate: Right! They were like, spread out on her bed. Devin: Then again a 10 year old cracked her laptop password Kate: hahaha, I forgot that part, so dumb, just so dumb. Devin: She's honestly a terrible reporter Kate: Yeah, plot definitely only gets 2 eggnogs. I mean, she wasn't really a reporter. Devin: She sort of was? Kate: She was an editor who wanted to be a reporter. Devin: Yeah, fair. Kate: But clearly she was better at writing than reporting I would say. Devin: She did get the assignment. Kate: Cause no one else was available! Devin: What percentage of her getting that assignment was her boss hoping the prince would sleep with her? Kate: At least 75% Devin: "You lied your way into the palace? Goooooood. I stuffed some condoms in your luggage. No, no reason. Wink." Kate: OMG! Her boss was such a sleeze. Or at least it felt that way to me. Devin: I mean wasn't it a tabloid magazine? Kate: It must have been. Devin: iZombie was very naive. Kate: Soooooooo naive. How? She's an adult. Devin: A very sheltered adult. Kate: She works for a tabloid! Devin: Ok I think maybe it's final scoring time Kate: Ok, you wrap. Tell me how you feel? Devin: Probably a 3/10 for plot, 8/10 for actor choices, 4/10 for acting, uh, like 2/10 for Christmas-ness, 6/10 for ending? 2/10 for tropes? Kate: I think I’d go a little lower on the ending - 4 gift bags. It was pretty fucking weird, but it did end happy? And that's important in a christmas movie. Devin: It was weird, but I feel like I am very forgiving as long as it's happy. Split the difference and say 5? Kate: Sure, 5 gift bags. Devin: What would you give it overall? Kate: Overall it’s not a movie I would recommend unless you specifically like one of the following: the girl from izombie, movies about fake royal families or .... I can't think of a third thing Devin: Acorns Kate: Or acorns - if you really have a thing for super obvious plot devices, this movie is for you! Overall possibly 4 christmas's I suppose Devin: Aww, so low? Kate: Yeah, sorry. Devin: No you're fine. Kate: How many christmas's would you give the Christmas Prince? Devin: I was thinking a 6. Kate: I think 6 is perfectly acceptable. If you'd given it an 8 I would question. Devin: Never. Kate: Oh no! We forgot to judge the title! Devin: It's a terrible title. 0 sleigh bells. Kate: Yeah, 0 sleigh bells for the title. I think it was so we would realize it was supposed to be a christmas movie. Devin: Probably. The Christmas [Noun] is just so boring. Kate: The Christmas King would have made more sense? Devin: Hmm, I do like the Christmas King better. Kate: Because of the coronation plot line. That we didn't get into at all in this review. But whatever, go watch the movie. Devin: Yeah. Kate: You know it has something to do with acorns. Devin: Or don't watch it. Kate: Or don't.