Even Apart From All The Offensive Depictions Of Tribal People Themselves, I Just Can't Fathom For Writing

Even apart from all the offensive depictions of tribal people themselves, I just can't fathom for writing purposes why you would make two groups and completely outsource their ability to make decisions for their groups to two random missionary figures without adding a possibility of them taking control of their own future (oh yeah colonialism that's why).

If between what is happening in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Palestine, England and Venezuela you are still talking about the fucking US presidential election like maybe get some fucking perspective

I think the way the president in 2 and Horrigan talk about "muties" sells the threat a lot more because there's a cognitive dissonance there that feels so real among bigoted treatment marginalized groups today. They don't really make sense, but they believe these things unwaveringly, and have committed a number of unspeakable atrocities based on nothing more than a hollow understanding of the world around them. Sure the Enclave in 3 talk about mutants needing to die, but it feels like a reiteration of "the strong must survive, the weak must die" that characterizes like 98% of Bethesda game factions, not like a bias informed by centuries of isolation and propoganda.

At this rate I might be the one who hates fun but I've been thinking about it and I hate how the enclave has been "mutated" (hoho) into what it is now in modern fallout products. There was something legitimately intimidating and different about them in 2, something that made their threat to all life as you knew it very tangible. I hope that's even remotely coherent

in fo2 they felt like an army of americans committing an organized genocide. they waxed philosophical in mixed company but laughed cruelly amongst themselves. they could not abide the existence of life that was not subordinate to them. they were distinctly republican patriots who owned slaves. now they're too nebulous to directly threaten rightists' worldview, by design.

in complete fairness, there's shit in the margins of fallout 3 about them detaining, scanning, and incinerating crowds of survivors, and John Henry Eden is, in concept, a satire of republican stagnancy. the thematic read is still technically functional as of 76, but it's so timidly executed that Impressively Unironic Enclave Roleplayers are easily the most notable 76 subculture.

please understand they took a softer approach so they could sell more variants of the fascist enclave hat in the atom shop. please understand there was no other way

I still feel there's room to dislike Maximus on the axes of his misogyny and fascism. For his misogyny I think he falls into the pretty common camp of characters not intended to be sexist but end up being so due to writers having sexist beliefs. Like I said, very common and not enough for me to dislike a character on his own, usually. The fascism and desire for power are things he's seized at every opportunity, and only entertains relaxing on that when he's around Lucy and quite far into the story. I don't have a problem with characters helping others out of fascism, but ever since they met, the amount of time for Lucy to reflect on or express her emotions was drastically reduced, and her competency fell through the floor so that Maximus could save her like 3 times. I desperately want him to become a more fleshed-out character with more than a fridge for a backstory, I suppose I'm just worried about collapsing her plot into his for a "she can fix him" arc because that's literally what we see in the last few episodes. I hope they give a reasonable amount of time to flesh out these characters and see the plot organically build, I am kind of nervous given how short and concise all corporate media is today. I do also agree that a substantial amount of the hate on his character has to be racially based because I've seen Fallout fans widely adore the most horrendous characters.

"maximus is a future villain!" wrong. maximus is autistic and bad under pressure and has yet to pass a single speech check

I literally always feel so guilty everytime I make a character in 4 bc they're always so sick and evil, but there's literally no other interesting option 💀

i have a bastard protagonist for each game, and for the bethesda games they are bastards because i am accepting what bethesda has given me without any alterations on my part. lone wanderer Ruth is a self-righteous religious freak who condescends everyone she meets and thinks she knows what's best for everyone even as she destroys entire towns. sole survivors Elias and Monica are actual, literal war criminals, with Elias having served in the special forces and Monica having committed horrific human rights violations in the pursuit of cybernetic science. fo76 Zeke is a straight-up fascist wholeheartedly supporting the Enclave and trying to rebuild america in all of its blood-soaked horror. like. bethesda fallouts lend themselves to this by default but seem to actually believe their own bullshit. fo3 says your religious belief is good and your violent acts have no real consequences; fo4 says you served in the war that explicitly involved a lot of horrific shit and you're a hero for it; fo76 wants to reestablish the fucking gold standard.

i love the ghost people…. their lore honestly makes me love dead money so much. reblogs > likes