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Foundational Fallout texts, to me:

Fallout: New Vegas DLCs Lonesome Road and Dead Money

Frank Odlaws' quick redraw of an old indigenous Benny concept I drew (can't find the original post, but preserved here by calder)

The one panel of All Roads with NCR infantry on horseback

Any post by my beautiful mutuals

Tank Girl dir. Rachel Talalay

Fallout: Van Buren Legion car chariot concept art

Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa dir. George Miller

The Postman by David Brin (novel specifically. I haven't seen the Kevin Costner movie)

The Brickball scene in Fallout (2024-)

Red Dead Redemption 2

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Yeah, from what I recall it was mostly workers who were in favor of the aid and help by the machinery until the point at which they all started getting fired or laid off in pursuit of profit.

Workers then began sabotaging machines, which in turn got the government to see the labor unions (in many cases in Fallout lore this happens) as basically commies so the national guard was deployed to quash the miners protesting the fact that they were being ousted from the only income source in the area with their skillset.

It definitely comes across a little poorly since its all audio logs, terminal entries, notes, and environmental storytelling; in one of the (imo) least easy parts of the game to follow the narrative thread throughout.

fallout 76 brings up the concept of automation -> labor strikes -> automated strikebreakers

thats almost something

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I clearly couldn't decide how to spell these words

Oh well. Looks cool still I guess

The other side!

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one of the worst things about being a writer is when you have to sit on your hands about a REALLY COOL SPOILER. and you just want everyone to know about the really cool spoiler you want them to know so so so badly but the best way for them to learn it would be to experience it and you also want them to do THAT so you’re just sitting on your hands vibrating and making a low whine while your dog looks at you with concern. and then your friends go “what’s wrong”. and you go PLEASE I NEED TO TELL YOU. and they go “oh okay so tell me”. and you go NO,

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Being a fallout fan is first a test of media literacy and if you pass that it becomes a test of endurance.

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When I first got into Fallout and was delightfully babbling to my friends about all the fucked up vault experiments and such they looked at me like I was crazy and asked why the hell I liked it so much. At the time I didn’t really have an answer other than I liked the contrast of how silly it could get compared to the darker qualities—how it bounced between the two or combined them into a wonderful satire on capitalism.

After watching and rewatching the show, logging hundreds of hours across multiple games, and several posters up on my wall later, I think I finally understand why.

The games are set up for you to be the hero, to make your slice of the wasteland a better place, but unlike a lot of other media, being the hero is an active choice that you have to make over and over again. You are presented with a cruel, violent world that brings out the worst in humanity, and yet these games ask you to be kind, to help out an NPC with a small favor, or sacrifice something important for the greater good. It isn’t easy. A lot of times the best choice isn’t going to be perfect either, with many ethical decisions boiling down to harm reduction or the lesser of two evils—whatever gives the wasteland the best chance at survival. Sometimes you need to bloody your hands, but other times the better outcome results in maybe not forgiveness but refusing to act on revenge. Heroism is often challenging and morally grey at times.

Sure, you could choose to be evil, but it’s almost too easy—I find it so much more satisfying to be empathetic, to surprise characters with hope that the world doesn’t have to be so bleak. I guess in many ways it’s a type of Superman fantasy, having not only the desire to be kind but the power to be so in a world filled with darkness.

And it’s not just the player character vs the world, there are plenty of companions and other NPCs surviving and working to make things better. Here you are at the end of the world, yet people endure and life goes on. People grow crops, tend to livestock, and set up trade. They build communities and carve out homes in the ruins of the old world.

I guess in simpler terms, I like Fallout because it’s a hopeful display of humanity persevering. War may never change, but men can. I think a light in the dark is always going to get me, especially when that light is a spark trying to illuminate an entire sea of darkness. That spark may be hard to find, but goddamn how impressive is it that it’s trying so hard against all odds.

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YOOOOOO HAPPY BIRTHDAY FALLOUT 

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If you're reading this...

go write three sentences on your current writing project.

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Been playing New Vegas again. Always feels like there should be more to do and more quests than there are.

After this playthrough I need to do one more and take a pass at each DLC (and farm Caravan wins) and I'll have 100% achievements and done everything New Vegas has to offer.

Minor spoiler for the show up ahead.

Hopeful about what the series ends up doing with the locale when they get to it. After this I head back to Fallout 4 hell.

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"The Wandering Monk"

Part of a Fallout fan project I'm working on about a ghoul monk living in the once Chinese occupied country of Tibet. The story focuses heavily on buddhism and the influences it has on this part of Asia post-war. This was all hand painted in procreate

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One of the funniest things about enemies-to-lovers ships is how they’re almost always obsessed with each other. Like if a character actively chooses to interact with another character over and over again instead of simply ignoring them? Throw darts at it all you want, but you still printed out a picture of them to hang on your wall

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some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

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An action scene isn’t about writing down every punch, kick, or swing of the sword. You’re not choreographing a fight for your reader, you’re throwing them into the moment, making them feel the intensity, the panic, the adrenaline. Focus on the emotions, the tension, the stakes. Show how the character’s thinking changes in the heat of the moment, how their survival instincts kick in, how their body reacts to the chaos. Make it fast, make it brutal, and don’t drag it out longer than it needs to be. Action is about urgency, not precision.

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imagination (1963) - harold ordway rugg

"chekhovs cat / schrödingers razor / occams gun"

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Wintery bridge

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