begin again

james | 32 | it/its fallout sideblog where i talk about how much i hate fallout and how racist it is. unfortunately i play & enjoy all the games though. activity from lycannibal.

[datura-tea]

when he was fifteen, butch deloria stitched three snakes on three jackets, one each for him and paul and wally. the snakes were the same but the markings weren’t, and with just one look, you’ll be able to identify the wearer.

but that was then. now, at nineteen, the jacket butch is wearing has the snake with brightest greens (paul’s favorite color) and it feels heavy on his back. now, butch looks at freddie in a jacket that’s a size too big, and remembers how naked wally had looked when he stormed out of the clinic wearing only the vault suit, how like a snake that had just shed its skin.

now, butch toys with the gun he stole from security, wondering what’s outside the vault. wondering, as he flicks the gun’s safety off and on and off again, if the doc’s kid is still alive, if they’re still wearing his jacket (the one with the sharpest fangs, dripping poison), and if they even knew how to take proper care of it, or if the leather had already begun peeling, and his stitches had already frayed and unraveled.

[calder]

you really think a fallout dev would do that? just go to work and write crass caricatures of marginalized people?

[beetlemp3]

| Fallout: New Vegas

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆Stars of the midnight ranges Shining through the night ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

[calder]

i like him a lot

[victoryrifle]

FALLOUT 3 [50/?]

[itsafreetrialofdeath]

the wasteland provides

[herssian]

world was kinder when everyone was obsessed with their new vegas courier

[calder]

fallout 4 is kinda like a marvel movie isn't it

[ruscha]

will bethesda ever get over their raider/bandit problem. will there ever be a day where raiders in fallout are more than mindless target practice dummies. with like real characterization and motives and stuff. the world may never know

[ruscha]

listening. learning

[calder]

the sudden loss my cat cybergoth was the most traumatizing experience of my life

i revealed my grief publicly shortly after i was doxxed by a member of the cult squatting at fallout.fandom.com

i received an ask the next day deadnaming me, accusing me of killing my cat & comparing me to "kate," another former member of the cult at fallout.fandom.com

this was not the first time this cult attacked me upon disclosing a death in my family

i am also not the first person they've attacked upon disclosing the death of a pet

the next month, i appeared in a server where NP people were present, and they proceeded to shame kate for being a former sex worker in front of me. they talked about punching her and siccing a dog on her. they used a racial slur to refer to her while addressing me

then they called me "a troll" for calling out their misogyny & attacked me mercilessly using libel and sexuality for months and months. they did it in front of my friends and banned anyone who spoke up for me. they explicitly hunted all "sympathizers."

a cryptofascist stalker cult controls fallout.fandom.com. at the bottom of this post, there is a large PSA with evidence and links to other informational posts. there is a shorter, more recent post here.

they will stalk you across the internet for years and use every type of violence to harm you. they will call you a stalker for reacting to their harassment. they will call you a bully for trying to talk to them via any means.

they hate women and people of color. they attack good actors until they disappear.

they will try to contact your job and get you fired. this has happened to multiple people.

there is no reasoning with them. there is no diplomacy. there is no mediation. they will only harm you because the harm is the point.

they call their targets "psychotic" and shame anyone who speaks to them as "enabling psychosis" while attacking the target's mental health as aggressively as possible

the people in power have a secret server (SNM) where they mock the community's "lolcows." they call their enemies "white knights." they coordinate the abuse of children in secret and carry it out as "policy"

fandom tried to stop it and the cult buried everything and bullied the employees involved

they want give the wiki a conservative bent & funnel people into the Discord through Fandom's SEO. this is why there is a Discord widget in the middle of every page, with a unique disclaimer below it.

this disclaimer is unique to fallout.fandom.com because fandom does not want to be responsible for this specific community

the cult shame and stalk anyone who expresses interest in reviewing evidence. they claim that any effort to hold them accountable for their factual public decisions is "a PR stunt for competing wikis."

the people engineering this do not build the wiki. they bully everyone who builds the wiki into enabling them, and crucify anyone who resists their abuse of the platform.

this has been happening for years. the cult leader has been there for over a decade. they want to keep doing this to fallout fans for decades to come.

the suffering is the point. i am far from the first person they have treated this way, and i have not been the last. they have tentatively cast several people as "anachorite 2," the next major abuse target.

this is about Nukapedia, the Fandom Fallout Wiki. they will fuck with your pets. they will fuck with your job. they will fuck with your family. please warn Fallout fans.

[the-hittite]

New Vegas: "The Brotherhood of Steel is a relic of a bygone age. Their rigid code and violent isolationism that helped them weather the apocalypse and become a major power in the post-apocalypse are now actively hindering them in the post-post-apocalypse. The world has moved on without them and they have not only failed to adapt, but are actively refusing even in the face of their own extinction. Already their existence is largely irrelevant to the rest of the world. In a few generations at best they will be nothing more than a memory, and not a kind one."

Every single piece of Fallout canon that came after: "Nuh-uh."

[bethesdarpg-blog]

[sslavshitsuperman]

Fallout will never be this good again

[artimator]

thinking about the potential of wasteland horses

bighorner in the background for scale

[capcollector]

??!

[sapropel]

Apolitically killing bandits and savages in my video game with no messages

[vonclosen]

always more to say about the erasure of native peoples in the fallout games. it’s incredibly frustrating

[vonclosen]

let me just say something anecdotal:

i’m from maine. i’ve lived here my whole life. i am also native american, and in community with other native people here (wabanaki people— passamaquoddy, penobscot, mi’kmaq and maliseet). i have been to mount desert island and bar harbor (you may know as far harbor) countless times throughout my life. i am also a native studies minor in a wabanaki-led program.

mount desert island, or pesamkuk (passamaquoddy name) has been a gathering place for wabanaki people since time immemorial. indigenous presence on the island has shaped what it is today. tourism and white settlement (summer homes, a coast guard base, a national park, and myriad other tourist businesses in places such as bar harbor) during the “rusticator period” (1840s-1920s) all but pushed major seasonal camps off the island. in fact, today most average-income people will have a difficult time living on MDI now. the crisis of affordable housing on the island was at one point so bad that teachers and firemen were traveling upwards of an hour to get to work. not great!

but that does not mean that indigenous people are simply gone from the island (or maine in general!)

in maine, the major wabanaki communities are: penobscot nation on indian island, motahkomikuk (passamaquoddy), qonasqamkuk (passamaquoddy), and sipayik (passamaquoddy). the houlton band of maliseets and mi’kmaq nation are both in aroostook county and do not have formal reservations in the same way. indigenous lands in maine are subject to some very interesting and frustrating legislation. for more info, look into the maine indian claims settlement act (MICSA).

image: wabanaki alliance

today, the abbe museum is in the middle of the tourist district in bar harbor— it is dedicated to wabanaki history and is largely wabanaki-run. efforts into restoring traditional harvesting are ongoing (such as picking sweetgrass)!

indigenous people are still very much here and deserve much, much better than complete erasure for the kitsch aesthetic of the game. wabanaki presence COULD HAVE BEEN integrated into the game. bethesda could have made an effort to reach out to wabanaki peoples to work on representation in some way or another. the history of the place could have been mentioned. it was not.

why is this?

i think a lot of it boils down to laziness. companies do not want to pay for cultural consultation. they don’t want to take a risk at either seeming “too woke” or, on the other side, not socially aware enough.

so indigenous people continue to be written out. because it is easier to pretend we are all dead.

for more information about wabanaki presence on pesamkuk:

https://abbemuseum.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/4b8da-namingthedawnlandgeorgeneptune_web.pdf (written by a passamaquoddy knowledge keeper— i have met them, very cool person!)

indians in eden by bunny mcbride and harald prins: https://ppld.overdrive.com/media/1239742

some discussion of suzanne greenlaw (maliseet) and her work around sweetgrass harvest: https://www.abbemuseum.org/blog/2018/6/21/a8ox8s8wxde6nenklfm77gayl60h87

the abbe museum website: https://www.abbemuseum.org/

[jaded4all]

Reason 1000 why New Vegas is better

[vonclosen]

New Vegas is not any better, I’m afraid to say. I’ve been meaning to do a write up on the issues associated with Indigenous representation in NV, but suffice to say, it’s really, really bad.

The rep in NV plays into a lot of the worst stereotypes— noble savages, white saviors, and positioning of ‘native adoption’ in the worst and most stereotypical way. I really deeply recommend reading Tuck & Yang’s ‘Decolonization is not a metaphor’ for a more in-depth analysis of some of those problems (as part of a broader and systemic conversation around Anti-Native racism)

New Vegas nearly starts to have an interesting conversation about Indigenous positionally, but fails miserably. Mormons and Anthropologists both (who are represented by Joshua Graham and Caesar) have extremely loaded histories with Indigenous people. From an essay I wrote last year (About Twilight, but still relevant):

Mormons and Indigenous people have a long, bloody, and contemptuous history. From the start, The Book of Mormon states that both Jewish and Indigenous Americans are “scattered Israelites,” descendants of an ancient family of Jews who came across the sea from Israel and settled in America. Indigenous people are believed by Mormons to be “Lamanites,” sons and daughters of the wicked “Laman,” and at the top of a hierarchy of cursed lineages, “cursed with redness” or “marked skin” for turning away from God.

[…]

Mormons believe that ancient Lamanites slaughtered Nephites (pale-skinned, righteous God warriors and descendants of Nephi), despite the fact that there is no archaeological evidence or oral tradition from any Indigenous group to suggest this ever happened, and there is no genetic link between ancient Jewish populations and ancient Indigenous populations.

As a result, Mormons (like many other Christian organizations in America) took part in the brutal and paternalistic residential school system, believing that Natives needed to be “saved.” Of all the residential schools in the U.S., one third were run by Mormon missionaries. Beyond residential schools, Mormons also operated the “Indian Placement Program” from 1954 to 2000, responsible for sending up to fifty thousand Native children to live with Mormon foster families. Both residential schools and the Indian Placement Program were rife with every kind of abuse imaginable. The last student within the program graduated in the year 2000, five years before Twilight was published. Mormons also took part in colonial expansion, believing their cause of slaughtering and converting “Lamanites” to be righteous retribution. Along with the U.S. government, Mormons were responsible for the Bear River Massacre of 1863, in which Shoshone women and children were raped, and more than four hundred and fifty Shoshone were slaughtered.

For context around the issues with Anthropologists and Native people, refer to Vine Deloria Jr.’s collection of essays: https://archive.org/details/indiansanthropol0000unse

Indians and anthropologists : Vine Deloria, Jr., and the critique of anthropology : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

x, 226 p. ; 24 cm

New Vegas falls short. It does not do a successful political critique of Indigenous treatment by simply acknowledging our existence (in the most offensive, stereotypical light). Even for a piece created in the 2000s, it is beyond egregious.

Indigenous fans of Fallout have been talking about the problems of New Vegas for years. This is not a Bethesda problem, it is a systemic problem. I can think of very few game studios who have ever done any better.

[vonclosen]

Just wanted to add if you appreciate my writeups and such, a great way to support me is through my ko-fi tip jar. Things are tight for a lot of people right now, including myself, so don’t trouble yourself if you don’t have anything to spare.

I’m definitely heartened by the response this has had 💖

[vonclosen]

always more to say about the erasure of native peoples in the fallout games. it’s incredibly frustrating

[vonclosen]

let me just say something anecdotal:

i’m from maine. i’ve lived here my whole life. i am also native american, and in community with other native people here (wabanaki people— passamaquoddy, penobscot, mi’kmaq and maliseet). i have been to mount desert island and bar harbor (you may know as far harbor) countless times throughout my life. i am also a native studies minor in a wabanaki-led program.

mount desert island, or pesamkuk (passamaquoddy name) has been a gathering place for wabanaki people since time immemorial. indigenous presence on the island has shaped what it is today. tourism and white settlement (summer homes, a coast guard base, a national park, and myriad other tourist businesses in places such as bar harbor) during the “rusticator period” (1840s-1920s) all but pushed major seasonal camps off the island. in fact, today most average-income people will have a difficult time living on MDI now. the crisis of affordable housing on the island was at one point so bad that teachers and firemen were traveling upwards of an hour to get to work. not great!

but that does not mean that indigenous people are simply gone from the island (or maine in general!)

in maine, the major wabanaki communities are: penobscot nation on indian island, motahkomikuk (passamaquoddy), qonasqamkuk (passamaquoddy), and sipayik (passamaquoddy). the houlton band of maliseets and mi’kmaq nation are both in aroostook county and do not have formal reservations in the same way. indigenous lands in maine are subject to some very interesting and frustrating legislation. for more info, look into the maine indian claims settlement act (MICSA).

image: wabanaki alliance

today, the abbe museum is in the middle of the tourist district in bar harbor— it is dedicated to wabanaki history and is largely wabanaki-run. efforts into restoring traditional harvesting are ongoing (such as picking sweetgrass)!

indigenous people are still very much here and deserve much, much better than complete erasure for the kitsch aesthetic of the game. wabanaki presence COULD HAVE BEEN integrated into the game. bethesda could have made an effort to reach out to wabanaki peoples to work on representation in some way or another. the history of the place could have been mentioned. it was not.

why is this?

i think a lot of it boils down to laziness. companies do not want to pay for cultural consultation. they don’t want to take a risk at either seeming “too woke” or, on the other side, not socially aware enough.

so indigenous people continue to be written out. because it is easier to pretend we are all dead.

for more information about wabanaki presence on pesamkuk:

https://abbemuseum.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/4b8da-namingthedawnlandgeorgeneptune_web.pdf (written by a passamaquoddy knowledge keeper— i have met them, very cool person!)

indians in eden by bunny mcbride and harald prins: https://ppld.overdrive.com/media/1239742

some discussion of suzanne greenlaw (maliseet) and her work around sweetgrass harvest: https://www.abbemuseum.org/blog/2018/6/21/a8ox8s8wxde6nenklfm77gayl60h87

the abbe museum website: https://www.abbemuseum.org/