i just saw your post about your hogwarts oc lyubomira andreeva and i just wanted to say thank you for taking the time and effort to create a bulgarian character that’s not half-assed or a walking stereotype like victor krum (two first names btw, it still pisses me off 😒). i’m a real life descendant of a znaharka, my great grandmother lozana was a healer and fortune teller in her village. she had grey eyes, we call them vedeshti ochi (seeing/seer’s eyes) and i inherited them, along with her fierce connection to nature. i’m going on a personal journey to learn the folk magic and herbalism she would have taught me if she could have, and it’s awesome to see a character that i can relate to!! pls keep doing what you’re doing i’m rooting for you 💕
Hi hi! Thanks for your kind message, and as a fellow Bulgarian I'm glad you enjoyed my characters! I'm not really active in the fandom anymore, but making Lyubka and Bori were a way for me to explore and reconnect with our culture and beliefs after living abroad for most of my life, so it's really cool to find someone who relates to that! I wish you luck in your studies, folk magic and herbalism are truly a lost art nowadays. If you find any resources could you point me to them? My great gran Tianka was also a healer in her village afaik, but I never got to learn from her. Късмет и всичко добро! ❤️❤️
Warning, reference to in-game dark subject matter.
This is subjective and mostly me wishing for a more thoughtful story, with themes beyond robot racism.
Cait: TDLR; Her backstory is too much for how it's handled
It feels like Cait got thrown every bad thing she could have. With trauma in characters, less is more, and in Cait's case, it doesn't help that her writing is more interested in her trauma than who she is as a person. Like Cait only matters as a character because of what she went through and what that demonstrates about the wasteland, rather being a person first.
I would like to point out, her parents waited until she was 18 to sell her. Because, apparently, age of consent matters to sex slavers. It demonstrates a lack of commitment to the dark topic, which usually means you should tone it down. Leave one aspect, and keep the other. Abusive parents or slavery, not both.
Since Cait is our only basegame raider companion, you could use her to humanize raiders by showing how the cycle of trauma creates them. "But Gage—" is a little bitch.
Codsworth: TDLR; Focuses too much on his pre-war relationship to the player
What was Codsworth doing those 200 years? Did he just hang out in Sanctuary? Did no one ever come to Sanctuary in the meantime? Codsworth has no relation to the plot or world beyond Sole.
I think Codsworth should have had a quest about how he went out and tried to help where he could, but now doesn't know where those people are, and wants to know what became of them. Something to give Codsworth a connection to the wasteland. Or maybe Codsworth shouldn't have been the Sole Surivor's robot at all, just one that wandered into Sanctuary and met them. Then you could have a point that the first human the Sole saw after freezing (Kellogg) was cruel, but the first 'soulless' machine was kind, which makes a point about the main plot and the idea that being human doesn't make you 'human.'
Curie: TDLR; Should have been related directly to the main plot
Curie is a robot that is put inside a synth—which is, biologically, completely human in all but a chip in their head and the circumstances of their creation—and is totally fine. She learns to breathe, gets thoughts and feelings in a way a Ms. Nanny wouldn't, and handles sensations without bricking.
Send this bitch to the Institute and BOS, are you kidding me? Curie is walking proof of synths being more than machines. She has wants, imagination, potentially even dreams and nightmares. This is never brought up by anyone.
Also, Curie is a robot, and then inhuman, but still a person, and she uses science and her compassion to help the wasteland, where those who would destroy or enslave her use it to further their own egos.
Danse: TDLR; MAKE HIM SAY SORRY TO NICK AND HANCOCK
Danse's real character arc starts at his final affinity post BB, and then it doesn't go anywhere. He never learns to accept himself, or synths, or ghouls. Danse is a character that shows the terrible function of 4 Affinity Talks, because he needs, like, 10 of the things.
Danse needed his likes/dislikes updated after BB, interactions with Nick and Hancock, and a proper character arc where he unlearns his worst traits and the BOS's bullshit.
Deacon: TDLR; Dead wife? Really?
Can Deacon not just be a goofball man who used to be a bigot, and now works hard to help the people he hurt? Because Barbara and her death implies that Deacon didn't change because it was the right thing to do, but because bigotry personally affected him.
If there must be a death, make it that his community tore itself apart trying to find synths among them. Y'know, like...a witch hunt? In Salem, maybe? Since we didn't do anything interesting with Salem, one of the most interesting places in the USA? Deacon sees this and sees that it doesn't matter if synths are human or not, hatred will inevitably hurt anyone, because it doesn't actually care who you are. Hatred doesn't need a reason, only a target. The Synth plot should have been an allegory for McCarthyism instead of slavery, change my mind.
Hancock: TDLR; He's a historical LARPER that doesn't do anything in terms of a narrative.
No, Todd. You can't make John Hancock a ghoul and call it an OC.
Hancock could have had a story about identity crisis, idolatry, and trying to escape your past. We also get hints at a complex political issue in Goodneighbor about the push-and-pull between the desire for total freedom/anarchy, but the need for some kind of law and order. Hancock has a casual friendliness, and acts like 'one of the people,' but he is the mayor. There's tension there. Can your leader be your friend? Can your friend call all the shots while still being on equal footing with you? Can you lead a group of people who look up to you as a hero, and still retain modesty and not subconsciously separate yourself?
I like Hancock, he's fun, he has a lot of interesting narrative stuff. But he doesn't do anything with it. It could have been a nice parallel with Elder Maxson, too.
MacCready: TDLR; Small inconsistencies + dude, go get your son???
Mac doesn't ever go back to Duncan, and Duncan never comes to the Commonwealth. I understand that the former is for game play reasons, but the latter feels like the writers forgot that Duncan exists.
MacCready has some issues with the likes/dislikes. I think they're mistakes instead of intended, but still. For example, in the Vault 81 quest. MacCready likes letting Austin die. He dislikes it if you give the cure.
There's also Sheffield, the soda addict in Diamond City. MacCready claims to have never seen someone with a sugar addiction, but Zip, from Little Lamplight, had an addiction.
Mac is mostly fine, aside from these inconsistencies. The Dead Wife thing sucks, but I allow it because it's pretty fundamental to his story, rather then being tacked on for sad points.
Nick: TDLR; Eddie Winter is a stupid bad guy with a stupid quest and Jenny Lands is a stupid tragic backstory
Eddie Winter being the first ghoul ever is mind-bogglingly bad. You're telling me that they made ghouls before the bombs? And even if they did, Winter couldn't be the first. How the fuck would anyone know that radiation makes you immortal if you do it right, otherwise?! So, that's a contradiction within an already contrived premise. And not only that, but he just. Leaves a bunch of holotapes with a number on the back, that make a code to the basement of his favorite sandwich shop, which just so happens to be on the same street Jenny gets fridged?
So, Eddie Winter (or one of his goons) was eating one day, looked out, saw the fiance of the detective hunting him and recognized her (????), shot her, and then presumably returned to his fucking sandwich??????
And then 2 centuries later, a clone of that detective somehow finds the holotapes, untouched, unmoved, still functioning and retaining the painted-on numbers. The numbers didn't...fade? Wipe off?
You can keep the concept of Nick wanted to finish something Pre-war Nick didn't get to, but this...this isn't it.
Like, Skinny Malone was right there. Maybe just Darla shows up when you free Nick, and then later Nick has to contend with Malone and the Triggermen in some grand conspiracy with Mayor MacDonough, Hancock, and Piper.
Preston: TDLR; The radiant quest mechanic fucked him over and his voice actor needed some retakes
The moment you get Radio Freedom, Preston should have stopped giving quests. Easy fix there. It would have saved him almost a decade of shitty memes.
The real problem with Preston is that his VA beefed it bad. I can quote some of his lines with perfect inflection because the VA just did it so poorly. X6-88's VA had to play a monotonous, little-emotion character, and he still nailed it and gave X6 a lot of personality and distinction. Preston sounds like a modded-in character. And Jon Gentry is a pretty good actor! He has a great live-action presence in his demo reels on IMDB. I think he just struggled to put his performance into his voice rather than his presence/body language, and they didn't let/have him do a retake.
Piper: TDLR; So much potential, so much failure. Piper is a shitty reporter, and that could have been a great opportunity to have commentary on the ethics of journalism.
Journalism is supposed to be a duty to the people. It has responsibilities and ethics that are very easily misunderstood or forgotten for the sake of the next article. A good journalist is not always accurate. An accurate journalist is not always kind. A kind journalist is not always good.
Piper is not a good journalist, because her writing is not informative, it isn't news or useful info. She writes about MacDonough being a synth—she's basically writing callout posts on her blog.
Piper is not an accurate journalist, because she never has evidence for this claim. She says MacDonough is a synth, that the Institute took the Survivor's baby even if the Survivor says no.
Piper is not a kind journalist, because she fearmongers and makes things worse for synths. She complains that no one believes or trusts her word, but the second thing you ever see in Diamond City is a man trying to kill his brother for fear he's been replaced.
This is all fine, if addressed and explored. But it isn't. Piper seems to be chasing the high of exposing authority, and both times, she's right. We, the player, know she's right because we find out later she is. Imagine if we didn't. Imagine that reveal scene never comes. Every issue of Publick Occurances is trying to start a witchhunt, and Piper doesn't notice that it's working.
So, let's make her arc about worrying about her sister.
X6-88: TDLR; BRUH HE HAS NOTHING
No backstory, no relationships with other characters, no quest, no character arc.
TODD. You had the chance to humanize the Institute, or at least show what it's like being an Institute synth that isn't free. And you, instead, put all that time into fucking KELLOGG. You think I give a fuck about KELLOGG? I don't even give a fuck about SHAUN.
🌠Honorable mentions🌠
Gage: Hypocrite that thinks becoming the problem is fixing the problem, also he has both eyes. What do you need an eyepatch for.
Strong: Bethesda Super Mutants suck shit. Y'know Erikson fron Far Harbor? Would rather have him.
Longfellow: Dead Wife Man. Again, would have preferred Erikson.
Dogmeat and Ada: Perfect, no notes.
Best companions are:
Dogmeat, for being doggy
Ada, for being robot lady
Preston, for being perfect aside from two technical, Doylist issues.
I hope the animators of the Overwatch shorts are having a nice day and getting a good chiropractor after carrying the entire franchise on their collective shoulders.
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