A FOX, A WOLF, AND A SHEEP ALL WALK INTO THE FORT by Adira_Tyree
SUMMARY: “Soul-mates. Arcade has long since given up on the concept that his is out there, if only because every day he’s noticed his timer slow or even stall as the war progresses – as if even Fate isn’t sure anymore if it’s going to work out for him. But his day has finally come, and it’s not exactly what he’d hoped it to be. No fireworks, no fanfare. Just a mess of shouts and confusion. Emotions run hot, and cold, as he struggles to decide for himself what his fate really is, and whether or not he wants to follow it.”
PREGAME: I originally read this fic during Christmastime. I was visiting family, and as a bored alpha male does, I became briefly obsessed with Arcade Gannon and found this fic to read about him and Vulpes. I never really liked soulmate aus nor did I like the pairing of Arcade and Vulpes, but fic kinda changed my perspective on both. So now I reread it and prepped it up for a nice and epic review from yours truly.
REVIEW: This one doesn’t feel like I’m reading a fanfiction, it feels like a weird novella that you find at a library. It’s more of a semi-analysis of the characters and how they interact in the world than a romance, with the two characters barely being explicitly romantic with eachother, but the chemistry is still there, and you just see through Arcade’s eyes pretty well. The use of the soulmate au felt natural in the setting somehow, making me forget about it and it just blended in with the story. Arcade’s attachment to the clock was also just very in character. The characterization of Vulpes took me off guard for a bit, but Arcade was great, (probably because it was from his point of view). You could hear his whole internal monologue and be like yeah that’s something I’d see him say in the game, that self deprecating asshole. It was also very enthralling, many fanfics that focus on the action and story more than the relationship tend to lose the reader a couple chapters in, but this one had a good balance because it was so driven by Arcade and his whole internal debate with himself about Vulpes as well as just his whole identity and how he fit in the Mojave in a way that made me very interested. As well as like the whole thing with Vulpes justifying the work of the Legion, and how Arcade processed all that was sublime. I love the Legion because the lengths they go through to justify their actions, whether that be direct bigotry or pseudo-intellectual rationalizations, so seeing how this author tackled them was pretty fun. Honestly I wish Arcade and Vulpes would’ve had more debates, because I loved how the author wrote their exchanges. I’ll have to read the sequel when I find the motivation to. Overall, I enjoyed this one. It’s 25 chapters of well written shit that made me feel invested, though it took me a while to get through the last few, but that was because I didn’t want to finish it.
BEST LINE: Arcade huffed out a tiny laugh. “I don’t know that I’m much of a Follower anymore,” he said, his voice weak. “I’m sorry. I don’t have good people skills. Like to argue too much,” he muttered. “I guess I never got out of the habit of arguing about pre-war political structures and carried it over to post-war ones.”
RATING: 6/8 conversations in Latin (beta male ranking)
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