brood games @broodgames - Tumblr Blog

hihiii

i'm brood, main is @broodsys

this will be my acct to post screenshots/random thoughts/etc about various games i tend to obsessively play

a not-comprehensive list of games i play and then the tag i'll use (an acronym when it's common/easy/not confusing, otherwise the game name)

palia ( #palia ) : 💖 i love tamala 💖 i love subira 💖

fallout 4 ( #fo4 )

stardew valley ( #sdv )

project zomboid ( #pz )

oxygen not included ( #oxygen not included )

my time at portia ( #mtap )

the long dark ( #tld )

the sims 4 ( #ts4 )

pacific drive ( #pacific drive )

grow: song of the evertree ( #grow song of the evertree )

don't starve ( #don't starve )

starbound ( #starbound )

no man's sky ( #no man's sky )

this pov feels so wrong lmao

#project zomboid

pz stress question

idk why, but my character keeps getting a maxed out stress moodlet overnight

i know that they sometimes have nightmares, but that shouldn't be every night. she's not infected. there's no zombies banging nearby. sometimes there are zombie bodies near-ish, could that be it?

or is sleeping while slightly uncomfortable (she's wearing a fire fighters helmet atm) enough to give them that much stress? i just don't get itttt lmao

she's a DIY expert, and her only additional trait is slow reader

#project zomboid

SIGHSSSS i got bit 😔

#project zomboid #the 'this is how you die' at the start does a lot for #setting the actual tone of the game and making death less frustrating tbh #like yeah this IS the story of how this character dies. okay then!

the helicopter event is, in a way, so funny

the government maybe: hey go fly over the area and see if there are any survivors the pilot: okay! the pilot: hey i see a survivor! the pilot: oh they're in trouble the pilot: i should fly back over and see how they're doing! the pilot: oh. oh dear. oh... i... the pilot, reporting in: no survivors sir *sweating buckets*

#project zomboid

icarusofathousanddays

Coming out as someone who is genuinely excited to marry Clint in the 1.7 Stardew update

(sorry)

my honking brings all the zombies to the yard

and they're like ahh i'm gonna eat you

but i have a car

#project zomboid #if i am cursed with this earworm i am cursing everyone else with it too #*runs over zombies* *runs over zombies* *runs over zombies*

deathclaws-are-squirrels

8, go skip go

“common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about.”

Hoo boy. This extends to a “common in-game opinion that is wrong.” Predictably I’m gonna talk about Strong, but this is actually about the super mutants in general, but also in Fo4 specifically.

Namely that everyone assumes they’re dumb.

Usually SOLELY on the “evidence” that they are big, bulky, and don’t talk eloquently. This happens a lot to any strongman archetype characters but it’s extremely noticeable in the Fallout fandom because the opinion is reinforced by a lot of npcs ingame.

At its core, from a Doyalist perspective, this is literally just ableism. The idea that if you can’t talk cleverly you’re somehow less smart, and also that being smart on it’s own means you’re somehow more valuable.

Now I’m talking about the Fo4 super mutants specifically because of something not a lot of people seem to actually know? That they were created by the Institute.

Unlike the super mutants you see in all the other games that were made by the Master, the mutants in Fo4 were made by the Institute and also infantilized, locked up, and experimented on cruelly before being either killed for not being useful enough or being “tagged” and turned out into the wasteland with no support system and in most cases no memory.

I could go into an even longer rant about how much the mutants in Fo4 are autistic-and-disabled-coded, but more specifically I want to address the intelligence.

They routinely operate heavy machinery that requires careful maintenance to keep working. Just research how much soldiers hate machine guns normally, they’re a *bitch* to keep running smoothly. Irl, the average minigun technical manual is over 500 pages. They jam often, they have a lot of fiddly parts that can break down, they need cleaning and repair. That’s not even going into the other weapons SM’s routinely use. And no, there’s not nearly enough military grade weapons just laying around for them to have been using til they break then looting more. It’s been 200 years.

In addition, the mutants in Fo4 do have a social structure and more specifically a sense of fairness and right and wrong. They share everything with their family and despise greed and theft. They value honesty and protecting each other.

When you consider that they were all abused horrifically by humans before being dumped to fend for themselves, their society is extremely impressive. Also their hatred of humans? Literally the first and only humans they can remember is the freaking Institute. Of course they hate humans. When you actually take the time to befriend Strong he comes to respect not only Sole but most of your party. Notably with a huge distrust for your robot and Courser companions, for good reason.

Strong specifically talks about hating and distrusting technology because of the Institute, not because he’s dumb. He and all the other super mutants associate technology with their prison and the worst experiences they’ve ever had. They smash any tech they see because they don’t have a way to tell if it’s being used by the Institute to spy.

This is getting long so I should end here but again: not being able to express yourself well in English does not equal stupidity. Just ask literally anyone for whom English isn’t their first language and any autistic person.

Super mutants are not dumb and they know a lot more about the Institute than most wastelanders.

Eloquence does not equal intelligence.

fuzzydreamin

Yes!

Though, a little adendum to "they smash any tech they see", because other than their use and maintenance of big guns they are also shown to use other technology sometimes too.

There's the trap radio with Rex and Strong at Trinity Tower, and another mutant does the same trick at Shaw Highschool. And the blind super mutant, Dead Eye, at Fraternal Post 115 is listening to a radio and will pull a siren switch to call in help if he hears you sneaking around. So they are quite good with radios too.

Their biggest challenge to using most technology seems to actually be their hands moreso than their minds, and the fact that they get aggravated easily, leading to smashing what they are working on in a frustrated rage. We see this with Virgil's notes as his hands and hormones keep changing more and more, becoming frustrated as his terminal becomes harder to use due to the growing size and decreasing dexterity of his hands.

There's also this voiceline of Strong's: (I don't know off the top of my head what location sparks it though.)

These machines not work. Strong not break, broken when Strong got here.

As much as he is indeed technophobic, he understands that the human PC might have a use for tech still, so he's sure to clear his name when walking into a room of potentially useful but destroyed tech. I think it shows a certain level of trust in the PC too, that despite him not liking the use of tech he understands that the PC might have to use it sometimes.

deathclaws-are-squirrels

Thanks for the addendum! I wrote this shortly after I’d woken up so I didn’t have references to call on 😅 And yeah their hands being too big for most tech is another disability aspect of how I handle their writing and any adaptations. It’s not their fault they were thrown into a world not designed for them, after all.

I’m fairly sure Strong can say that line anywhere the game reads as a high tech prewar location iirc. Which ironically also includes the satellite array that the SM’s are camped in.

They seem more comfortable with “practical” technology like the radios you mentioned, which isn’t as futuristic-looking as the Institute stuff.

#fo4 #strong #ohhh this is all So Good

fuzzydreamin

The way that no wastelander knows where the super mutants are coming from in the Commonwealth

but Strong remembers that the Institute made him and being down there before they booted him

and that he sort of implys that the super mutants are just waiting for the Institute to resurface so that they can destroy their cruel creators

deathclaws-are-squirrels

How dare you hide this in the tags 😭

fuzzydreamin

Target audience reached.

No but for real, I understand as fans that tackling the SM issue in 4 can be hard, because Bethesda threw them under the bus so badly already and gave us so little to work with. But there is stuff there still, and they're victims of the Institute too and they've got their own stuff going on. They just aren't asking anyone else for help (except Strong, and he's doing it without directly asking).

I always😢at Strong's "Why you save/help me? Strong not human." lines. Like bro, human, mutant, synth, whatever, you're my buddy. My big, green, give-you-lots-of-personal-space, buddy. Helping each other is just what buddies do.

(and maybe as my buddy you can stop saying youre gonna eat my dog if he dies😂)

fuzzydreamin

Yeah, nah I get that bit with the dog meat. I've certainly cooked some up in-game myself. I just wish he wasn't so dang blunt all the time😭😂 but it can be endearing. He also says Dogmeat's no good because he's a regular dog, and not a mutant hound.

And yeah, here's some of Strong's lines about the Institute.

Just like Institute…Better hope Strong never find you.

Human ever seen Institute? Strong not remember much. Not like what remember though.

It's pretty similar to Nick's story honestly. Their subjects are isolated, so they don't get to see much outside of where the scientists keep them, and there's not much to remember aside from whatever experiments were being run on them, and that's not pleasant stuff to remember, so most don't want to even if they don't forget it all.

And yeah, the mutants forget their human life, and in the lore there's generally a phase early-in where their memory can still be a lil funky and there might be patches, but they do remember most of the start still, so most mutants would remember the Institute.

He also says this:

Damn Institute. Not hurt Strong anymore.

Which is just so😭 Poor big green guy.

And to show he's not alone in this:

{Surprised} Institute smashed! Strong tell brothers great story.

The mutants want the Institute gone just as much as everyone else. It's the one thing they could really connect with the people of the Commonwealth on, but they are bad at socialising outside of themselves and think needing that assistance in a weakness. Either way, the mutants celebrate their destruction with everyone else.

deathclaws-are-squirrels

I still wanna know how the mutants were tagged, and if they’re STILL tagged or if they figured out a way to get rid of it on each other. Like I’m assuming it was probably some kind of sub-dermal implant.

There’s also a bit of a chilling implication that the people who were kidnapped then replaced by synths may have been used as fodder for the FEV testing. All of the subjects listed on the terminals were in their late thirties/early forties, but it’s never said WHERE the Institute got their test subjects from so…

Also if you adopt the mutant hound, Gracie, in Far Harbor, Strong gets SO excited. It’s adorable!

fuzzydreamin

Yeah, I'd assume most of the mutants were the kidnapped wastelanders, they really wouldn't be using their own scientists for that, they can't risk it generally, and it's a good way to get rid of the kidnapped victims body by changing it so thoroughly.

There's only two cases in-game of Institute scientists using the FEV research on themselves, and that's Swann and Virgil.

Maybe they take the chips out, but it depends on if they were awake to know it was put in them, and if they can reach or get to it with their big clumsy hands.

Also it's no wonder the mutants in the Commonwealth are so damn hostile. Their first memory is of humans abusing them.

deathclaws-are-squirrels

I’d imagine because they’re mutualistic and close to each other, the super mutants would assist each other with such a thing

#fo4 #strong #weh... I love all of this so much

me: i'm gonna play it DIFFERENT this time!! me: *starts in muldraugh* me: oooh logging company... me, alt: oooh, that motel at the far end of town... me: well i should clearly start organizing warehouses (to get supplies) (brood you don't need to literally organize it to get the supplies) (brood you can just PUT EVERYTHING ON THE FLOOR it doesn't matter) (brood why are you making box walls) (brood why are you making box fortifications) (brood) (pls)

#project zomboid #soooo... i'm doing what i always do akjfsjf