#theres other stuff i wanna say but its more from a writing and speculation perspective than like concrete info.

[greatwargospel]

My thoughts on the commonwealth BOS

I think the brotherhood of steel is really interesting and is kind of ignored in a lot of ways past the gung-ho militancy, so im posting abou it :). inspired by recently doing blind betrayal and my sister having an oc of a brotherhood member who gets maxson court martialed by the other elders. A lot of this is my interpretation and what ive read on the wiki. Essentially, the brotherhood as it stands in the commonwealth is bad, not only by normal means but by brotherhood means in some regards.

Outsider Recruits & The Codex

The codex, much to my disappointment, is not completely written out rulebook for the player to read in any of the fallout games, so we must take what is given to us. There are two or so different instances where the codex is quoted to reaffirm the isolationist polices of the brotherhood, in both FNV and FO3.

"We do not help them, or let them in. We keep knowledge they must never have" - Elder McNamara (FNV)

Despite it being ruled that outsiders are only allowed to join under very specfic circumstances, the Maxson allows for multiple unimpressive wastelanders to join the faction, following the precedent set forth by Elder Lyons in DC (Despite their iteration looking down on Lyons' leadership as a whole). The reason Lyons had to recruit wastelanders was due to Lyons not recieving as much support from Lost Hills council and other western chapters.

The Chain That Binds

I am really surprised that no one brings up the chain that binds in discussion about the commonwealth brotherhood, especially in reference to blind betrayal.

"Orders are to observe the flow and not skip ranks. A superior may only give orders to his direct subordinates, and not to those beneath them..." - Hidden Valley Terminal Entries (FNV)

As a knight, you are sent to answer to Maxson about Paladin Danse's synthhood, after convincing him you were none the wiser, Maxson gives you a direct order as elder to execute danse. This order skips roughly 12 different ranks that couldve given the order. The issue is that danse is your sponsor and direct commanding officer. The immediate and emergency gap in chain of command causes an issue but i do feel like there were either senior/head knights or paladins that you could be placed in their charge to give you the execution order.

[EDIT: Danse only gives you one mission during the entire BOS questline. Maxson mightve broken the chain the moment he asks you to Fort Strong. The other quests given by the Proctors and Lancer-Captain Kells are more iffy due to them not being your commanding officer but being roughly above rank but in different fields]

Requisitions

Upon meeting Proctor Teagan for the first time in the Prydwen he informs you that you will have to purchase your own...everything from him, rather than it being assigned to you like a regular military. This in itself is not a big issue like breaking a codex rule but more on the difference the commonwealth order between western branches as members traditionally do not have to pay for the services within the brotherhood unless you are an outsider recruit.

"I'm sorry, but you are an outsider. After you're in the Brotherhood for ten years or so I'll be able to do the operation for free." - Dr. Lorri (Fallout)

This can be bypassed once again by extenuating circumstances and the outsider member being a higher ranking member, but due to the BOS allowing more outsiders to join up.

So What?

I am a fan of fallout and the writing and worldbuilding of the brotherhood, so i want to take ceratain aspects and not change them but enhance them, allow maxsons chapter to be fucked. There are certain things that the BOS participates in like harrasing/threatening settlements into giving over crops and looking down upon Lyons attempts at altruism that could be really interestingly handeled, thats just kind swept under the rug. This is just a list of like codex and brotherhood rules that the commonwealth chapter doesnt really abideby though.

[neonfretra]

does anyone want to discuss hrpf outside of shipping + written fic context . because i think about where what i do sits in relation to it all

for brevity i will be referring to the real person as the player and the fictionalized interpretation of the player as the character

to get things outta the way, i dont think theres very much you can say about real life people before you start crossin into real person fiction (rpf) territory LOL

transformative art is rpf. speculation is rpf. narratives is rpf. the second you start steppin away from a direct relay of the facts as is, we gettin in ficticious waters IMO. its really a neutral thing to me and my ethics begin and end at "dont show people who dont wanna see"

and its real funny to think about how i do art just because it feels like i set up way less barriers compared to people who DO write fic . i see all this talk about making sure you make your stuff login exclusive, about not sharin it to the people involved, disclaimers about how its in fact NOT a reflection of reality that your favorite athlete is mpregnant and YOU are are mfather.

and i just hit post and call it a day LOL

TO BE CLEAR there is definitely layers to it in the sense that i see similar amounts of caution with say ship art or certain degrees of raunch.

shipping in the rpf scene is funny to me in the sense of the tendency to treat shipping as THE exclusive rpf thing. like no i dont think my tomas tatar fanart is 1:1 on the reality front either. for example, nj devils hairline is not that far back and thags the only inaccuracy.

heres the kicker: mmy foot.

most of my doodles tend to evoke a degree of characterization or narrative. yeag maybe its a little less 30k slowburn and a little more fabian zetterlund shot putting a man but. that is fictional, that is a character

im not saying that rpf defines players more than the reality of them does but i do believe it does enforce certain views

in the spaces i hang around ive noticed the narrativization around certain characters being part fueled by the information that is filtered by reporters and part interpretations bounced back and forth by fandom . and when you have eyes on a story, its easy to pick out information solely as it agrees with you

maybe the most prominent narrative ive seen for the sharks has been macklin celebrini having a jock dad -> therefore he got daddy issues, joe thornton houses him -> therefore mentor and father figure joe thornton? where even though i havent seen any direct relay of information from any players (though ivent been looking LOL) a lot of the discussion around it revolves around this common understanding that it just is (the funnier part is arguably that will smith hockey has been doing more for this narrative for patrick marleau BUT NEITHER HERE NOR THERE.)

and its really interesting to note HOW fandom warps or weaves the story by going off common tropes or dynamics to make sense of the public facing parts we do see, which is what i think is magnified through the lens of fanworks but not (necessarily) CREATED by fanworks

which is where i feel my work is part of the. ecosystem??? life cycle??? and then we all return to the dirt and the worms eat us???

how much or how little we define the gap between player and character changes from person to person. i simply do not have that goin on here. devin cooley eats joey daccords hair take it or leave it. annnnd main tag that

other times i feel we wear the divide thin are when there is headcanon that uses facts about the player (ie a lot of ship talk) or when the character becomes the kneejerk understanding of the player (ie liveblogs. very fun way to get a read of a communitys feelings on something because of how immediate the reactions on it are)

the point of this post isnt to shame or interrogate people about participating in rpf, im not looking for those sort of feelings, im fascinated by fandom culture as a twig off the old branch and i would love to hear other perspectives on the same topic (and different communities! i dont have much involvement in fic. which is. a massive hole in my perspective on this probably)

is it possible to cross the line from rpf to plain old original content LOL (the answer is intent i know but. walk with me here its fun to think about)

naturally theres a degree of "original character" to every depiction . you gotta make up some amount of it. theres no clear separation OF rpf and original content because everything is about borrowing. you make characters with inspiration from other things. its near enough universal for someone who deals with characters to have at some point lifted a character directly out of their original context and made them their own.

its not just their face or name or some other physical attribute that makes it rpf id also argue because i have seen people using attributes of real people as "claims" for origubal characters (like a "faceclaim" to say "this is how i imagine my character to look")

on top of that there is fluctuating interest on actually depicting the player, with approaches that i have heard of ranging from "character that shares the quantitative aspects of the player and thats IT" to "character that was made heavily referencing to things the player has said/done"

its interesting when certain players in rpf have a consistent character! which trends to be in teams with a more active rpf oriented fanbase (vs interest mainly in the real life hockey played), comparing the fandom of kraken to the golden knights on tumblr for instance. its also interesting to note that more popular teams just have more rpf centric leans. because there are more people to write rpf. i mean also we are on a fandom centric site and rpf bridges that gap from narrative/character fueled media and sportsball more LOL

(if you like sports from a purely sports oriented angle do you enjoy watching it? genuine question. because at what point is it "i could just be doing this myself" because ive hit that point with other things before LMAO)

i do call the difference being more "fandom" oriented but IDK if thats correctly using the word or just less syllables. and on top of that i cant exactly tell you if its popularity or stand out personality that holds more sway. though then again i guess those two traits arent separate from each other necessarily. or even that those are the only two factors to broad appeal (probably popularity with another player is up there. but im not trying to find a formula for most attractive to make rpf of)

to return to the kraken because that is the most rpf oriented team i follow, i do notice when players portrayed consistently. i can definitely tell you like. one or two character traits about players i do not follow the media of solely from liveblogs and art. complexity of the character varies by a lot, though i do think its interesting to consider the hows and whys.

a trait or interest being highlighted by media (i tend to see this in offical media coverage that gets spread by jokes) -> the character heavily revolves around this feature in jokes or casual reference, with heavy personal interpretation

media pushing a narrative by following a more cohesive timeline or story structure (i usually see this in fanworks. easier to identify the influence of IMO) -> fairly consistent character backstory or , at least in the broad strokes of it

just general agreements about tropes that are appealing with little basis on the player -> this is usually the more relationship focused character interpretation

there isnt usually just one factor (and this isnt an exhaustive list of factors) to one characters history. unless its a super new player on the radar.

its definitely a character that belongs to the fandom! as in the unique character to the unique community! its actually really funny how they evolve. you could probably fingerprint someones influences if you tried hard enough. with how new the kraken is (and the fact the fandom leans more towards being united as one body than any other team ive seen so far) it does get pretty easy to get it down to the post but. do your own treasure search. I wont deprive you!

(also its EMBARASSING... what if the people i mention SEE... im SHY...)

harder with an older fandom like the sharks there are so many dead and defunct sources or jokes so widely spread that it gets hard to locate the origin . because dead and defunct sources. though i think its growing a new ring around the fandom tree because of the newer players! so its a thought. to think about how different events influence the size and activity of a fanbase and to ask how different fans from different. eras? of a fanbase interact (or dont).

again i notice this in the sharks fandoms by comparing fans from the playoff contending sharks era (last playoff season was 18-19? start is a little murky but ill toss out that 2012 was the year tomas hertl was drafted because tomas hertl was an era of the sharks LOL a whole 12 years! i know people younger than his professional career and those people are catching up to me in height. humbling!) and fans from when the sharks were very much not playoff contending (quite an amount of the current active fans LOL). not sure if theres much to say without looking stupid. different jokes, notable players, friend groups, feelings towards other teams. all still feel very strongly about general manager mike grier scattering players like dandellion seeds to the wind.

(AGAIN. HOPING NO SHARKS FANS NOTICE THIS. IM SHY)

how many sharks fans havent seen logan couture on ice

again i am saying all this as someone who ACTIVELY participates in this BTW!!! does anyone notice that players i dont know definitely have a flatter "whatever is the funniest thing to say" angle . or that characters of players i know a few things about have like one punchline . or even that certain characters are consistent and not just bound by direct interpretations of one moment (which i do a lot of when im liveblogging) (dont get your hopes up for anything new here, the character usually is "pathetic and a little bit of a bastard")

i keep writing these disclaimers like. if someone disagreed this strongly they would not be reading this far. hi! is anyone still here. is someone still reading.

i have created life and i dont know to kill it.

i talk about one of my depictions of a player as a separate character (that is to say, a SEPARATE character from the character intended to represent the player) and i have NO idea if this is like. an OC? a defamation case in waiting? my spawn? do i have to pay childcare. does anyone know who or what im talking about or has the character been festering in my mind like an infection.

is it just me???

my advice to you: if you dont want somethin to come back dont give it a name.

consider dissecting your personal and the more widespread fandoms take on players and characters! its fun for me but i also just like taking things apart ^_^ i fear i may not be as analytical as this post demands i do a lot of restating information and thats it