Howdy, name's Skip. Use whatever pronouns you want. This is my Fallout blog. I would appreciate if minors don't follow as I am an adult and this blog will often have adult topics.
While I've played (and loved) all the games in the series, Fo4 holds a special place in my heart, it got me through some truly rough times in my life. Also *points at Strong* my husband is in there.
Yes, Strong the super mutant is my absolute favorite character in the entire franchise. If we could romance him I would do it in a heartbeat but for now I settle with shipping him with my Lone Wanderer, Liam Penworthy.
This blog is gonna have a lot of reblogging but I'm also planning on filling it with my various writings and artworks and getting more active about my OCs.
As I am multiply disabled irl, most of my OCs are also disabled in various ways. You will see representations of genetic conditions, scars, missing limbs, etc on this blog. Please do not tag them as body horror. These are things that real people live with every day.
I do not do crit on any of the games. I'm past that point in my life, I have grappled with mortality and have limited energy. I would rather use it on things I enjoy than focusing on things I dislike.
Personal tags I use:
Skip's Rambles (For general talking, I tend to slap this on any post where I am actually talking in the post not in the tags)
Skip's Art (For my art, both writing and drawing)
Skip's Meta (For any meta I may write about various topics, though let's be real it'll mostly be about super mutants.)
Skip's Salt (If I get critical about anything, fandom or otherwise)
FO4Strong (My blorbo)
OC: Liam Penworthy (My Lone Wanderer)
OC: Charlie Peyton (My Courier Six)
OC: Rosetta Waymon-Brennan (My "Sole" Survivor, her husband doesn't get fridged)
OC: Nathaniel Brennan (My other "Sole" Survivor; his wife doesn't get fridged)
OC: Buzzard (Pre-War ghoul)
OC: Union (A Gen1 synth)
OC: Attrition (A Gen2 synth)
OC: Sally (An Institute-born super mutant)
OC: Lucy (Sally's service dog)
OC: Leonard (A Unity-born super mutant)
My character playlists for both canon characters and ocs, will often be updated:
Attrition & Union (Basically "Start a synth revolution and fall in love: the playlist")
Buzzard (Warning for themes of religion, death, and suicidal ideation)
Charlie Peyton (Spans across the events of both FNV and FO4)
Conrad Kellogg (Warning for suicidal ideation/themes of self hatred.)
Liam Penworthy (Slight warning, contains themes of feeling trapped while trans and unable to seek gender affirming care at the start, overall journey of the Lone Wanderer and finding his place in the world)
Nathaniel Brennan (Spans the events of FO4, themes of depression and anxiety)
Rosetta Waymon-Brennan (Spans the events of FO4, themes of stress and fatigue)
Strong (Themes of being lost and finding your place in the world/falling in love)
when someone is completely fucking wrong about your blorbo but you don't want to argue about what basically boils down to opinions about shit that doesn't matter so you just sit there like
I have been going CRAZY thinking about how New Vegas is beyond the way it's depicted in game.. like there's so much more it could be like what we see in the All Roads comic.
No doubt that The Tops, Gammorah, and The Ultra Luxe are the big three that everyone comes for, but there's bound to be a bunch of smaller casinos, hotels, resturaunts, bars, ect. Beyond that there's probably also a bunch of entertainment like fights and horse racing- it's just another avenue for folks to bet their money on. I especially like to think about Benny and other chairmen havin' specific places they end up goin' to outside of work so they aren't always cooped up in the Tops, as nice as it is.
And and beyond that just think abt the whole ecosystem of people living in New Vegas to provide service for the place outside of the normal casino workers. There's cooks, bartenders, janitors, singers, dancers, fighters, bookies, waitresses, sooo damn much!!
Theres so much of Vegas that we don't see in the game and so much it COULD be im AAAH im crazy
Dr. Li had to literally watch her one of her friends and colleagues die. Unable to do anything but take her friendās newborn to the other room while Catherine went into cardiac arrest and died on the table. She had to watch James leave, watch all their work fall about, and then pick herself up and start all over again in Rivet City. She has spent years working in Rivet City, gaining respect and making progress, only for James to appear outta nowhere and claim they were gonna finish what they started over 20 years ago. Who wouldnāt be bitter, frustrated, confused, or any combination of those emotions? I donāt understand this weird resentment so many FO3 players have towards a woman who has every right to feel conflicted and upset.Ā
And like, I do get that her leaving without knowing if the Lone Wanderer ever woke up/lived is arguably a bad choice, but 1) your face is such a painful reminder for her and 2) itās so much more interesting when characters make bad or questionable decisions. I thought we liked complicated characters?? Or is she not allowed to do that. I think Madison making the decision to not stick around is a very compelling choice for her character; it doesnāt read as not caring, it reads as genuine fear of having to lose you. If she doesnāt have to acknowledge the Lone Wanderer might be gone, then they can continue to exist in a more nebulous sense. There is no āend pointā for them. She can avoid accepting the fact that an entire family she loved is dead. She can avoid the survivorās guilt. And whoās to say that she isnāt continually impacted by this grief? In the end, she just wants to be left alone and do her research in peace. Madison Li is exhaustedāsheās lost everyone, her work continues to be invalidated, and Brotherhood or Institute, sheās continually being bossed around, had her work used in ways she does not agree with, or even lied to. I think sheās allowed to feel upset.Ā
Dr. Li is very decidedly not a selfish person. Sheās not acting this way out of some sense of greed or entitlement; she genuinely just wants to do work sheās passionate about and not have to worry about surviving. Her goals are always focused on wanting to better the wasteland itself. She wants to help people. If you speak to her in FO4, she remarks:
āAll those innocent people up there... dying. And here I am surrounded by technology that could make their lives better.ā
āAll those people dying in the Commonwealth while I was surrounded by food, medicine and comfort. How could I be so blind to the Institute's greed?ā
And she will become furious if youāve convinced her to return to the Brotherhood because sheāll be asked to work on Liberty Prime again.Ā
āAnd for a moment there, you almost had me thinking that you actually cared about the Commonwealthā¦ā
Liberty Primeās creation is literally one of the major reasons she left.Ā
āI left the Brotherhood because they had me work on weapons of warā¦I was tired of being stepped on and usedā¦.ā
In fact, if you speak with her after you destroy the Institute with the BoS, sheās one of the few NPCs I can think of who is genuinely angry with you for doing so. Itās not out of any loyalty to the Institute, but the fact that you still killed a bunch of people. She is actively critical of the Institute just as much as the Brotherhood, but she is still aghast that youād kill so many people. That you werenāt using Liberty Prime as leverage for surrender, but that you went the route of destruction.Ā
And that seems to be the recurring theme for Dr. Li. Her life is defined by loss. Sheās often caught in the middle of terrible situations with hard choices to make at every turn.Ā
[to the Sole Survivor] āā¦you were sleeping peacefully in your little tube while I went through a very special kind of hell.ā
Perhaps itās not uniqueāeveryone whoās born and raised in the wasteland has struggled with hardships in similar or even greater scale. And Madison gives off the impression of someone who does recognize just how lucky sheās been comparatively. She will remark in FO4 about the things sheās gotten to have while others suffer. It very clearly weighs on her. And despite her debatably better circumstances, it doesnāt mean the traumatic events sheās suffered are any less impactful and heartbreaking. You cannot blame her for being jaded. It seems like no matter what she does, she will lose someone she loves. Even her one friend in the InstituteāVirgilāends up having his death covered up. Over and over again, itās nothing but loss. Dr. Li continues to be one of the most enduring characters in the series. Sheās someone who struggles to deal with her grief and puts walls around herself to try to protect herself and what little she has left. She makes wrong choices in her pursuit of doing good, and sheās well-aware of being stuck in the middle. And I think that self-awarenessāhypocrisy, evenāis not out of insincerity, but rather that sheās human.Ā
āWhen she died, I think... I think he gave up. I know he wanted to keep you safe, but I think part of what he did was run away.ā
Sound familiar?
Ultimately, She wants to leave the wasteland better than she found it. Better than it found her. Her life is defined by death, by being left behind, and if she can do something to make up for it, she will. She doesnāt like to talk about herself, and instead wants her work to speak for her.
ā[They] turned my work into a weapon of war.ā
A woman whose life is nothing but deaths happening around her, out of her control. Sheās a deeply tragic character who is never given the same grace as others (I wonder whyš), someone who has good intentions and works to do what she can to help others, but who simply has a somber disposition given what sheās been through. If anything, itās a testament to her resolve that she hasnāt let her bitterness cloud her work. She will make this world better in spite of everything it has dealt her.
on the topic of disabled characters, though, i think a LOT of artists give characters mobility aids that their character wouldn't actually benefit from using.
i'm sort of having a mild brain fog moment rn so i can't fully articulate what i'm on about, but i think a lot of able-bodied artists view things like canes and crutches as interchangeable. and they often don't know enough about the wide range of mobility aids to make an informed decision about what their character might actually use based on their disability
i also think that aids like walkers and rollators are sort of viewed as "cringe" on some level, and many people view them to be "just for old people," so many artists will opt for giving a character who has full-body pain and fatigue a cane (which, in many cases, can potentially WORSEN full-body pain) instead. and a lot of people don't realize that most wheelchair users are able to walk, so they don't consider it an option for characters with chronic pain
idk it's kind of frustrating. i've genuinely never, ever seen a character that uses a rollator before. not once. i cannot name a single one. i know of multiple ocs who are described to have full-body pain, dizziness, and fatigue that are drawn as cane users and are never shown with wheelchairs or walkers, though
it's also sort of sad? i've been diagnosed since i was twelve years old, and i only heard of rollators LAST YEAR. and that was only because i saw one irl and immediately asked what it was. i wonder how many disabled people out there don't even know it's an option solely because they're completely underrepresented online and in media
if you're a creative with a disabled oc, PLEASEEE check out this link. it's a very nice and detailed guide for telling which mobility aids suit someone's needs best. it's incredibly important to make the right choice for your character! mobility aids tell you a LOT about someone's lived experience. picking the right one will communicate to your audience #1 what your character goes through #2 that you UNDERSTAND what your character goes through!
inspired by the twins at the carousel art trend/meme :)
i really wish the fandom wouldnt reduce him into jokes and would take his PTSD, surivivors guilt & passive suicidalness seriously U_U i love you so dearly Preston, im so sorry youve been through hell ((T_T))
the ghosts above him are random minutemen & kyle long :(
itās interesting how upset some people have gotten over negative things like homophobia and fatphobia being present in my writing. unfortunately Iāve had a life where those have been huge, shaping factors, and I like to talk about it. I was deeply anorexic for a number of years, and have had friendships and familial relationships deteriorate because of my queerness. being able to say āhey, this exists and it really, really sucks, now watch the fatphobic person get punched by a dragonā is kinda just what works for me, personally. I have a lot of feelings with nowhere else to put them, so my writing is always going to cater to my own catharsis.
I also want to push back against the idea that you can depict negative things like bigotry, so long as you also depict it being punished. thereās no Hays Code, and your story shouldn't have to be a children's fable with a moral lesson.
there's another book I've written that draws a lot from my own life (including verbatim conversations), and in it, not all the people with -isms get punished. some go on to live happy fulfilled lives, unaware of the damage they've sown, because that's often how it goes in real life. you're aware of the damage because you're inside the main character's head, and can you see how they've been affected, but that's it. no bigots getting punched by dragons this time. just one person learning how to live in a flawed society.
a skilled author will help the reader locate questions about what is āgoodā and āmoralā within themselves, regardless of whether characters with particular worldviews are punished within the narrative. and there are times when the lack of a punishment is intended to agitate the reader. it encourages you to think about a character's fate beyond a surface-level understanding. it forces you to confront your own judgment on what those characters "deserve." you, the reader, are asked to define why an ending feels tragic, or identify the "bitter" in "bittersweet."
if you're dissatisfied with whether a character received their comeuppance or not, consider the possibility that that's the point. your discomfort is the point.
Life for the Lone Wanderer is so brutal and lonely. None of the companions can really become your friend or are interested in being such. Two of them are slaves and one is a robot you own. None of them show much genuine positive feeling towards you except maybe Butch, and he bullied you violently throughout your entire childhood. Even your Mr. Handy robot (should you get the house in Megaton) is constantly making comments on how annoyed it is with you under its breath, which it canāt really do cause itās a robot so the insults are definitely audible. Your only family left you and will eventually die in front of you for a cause he deems more important than you.
Even people who are nice to you want something from you and will try to extort you for it. Even the good people like Three Dog or Victoria Watts or the kind people like Moira or the people of Oasis constantly asking you for things, dangerous things, difficult decisions, you can never really catch a break. Youāre trying to people please and help and feel some sort of, any sort of, connection to anyone because you are so, so lonely, all while dealing with this horrible new world youāve been unwillingly and traumatically thrust into plus the loss of everything and one youāve ever known.
Even Amata rejects you in the end. I canāt imagine the absolute devastation of knowing that you will never be allowed back home and that you have lost everything, every friend, every relationship, and no one is interested in fostering new ones. ļæ¼ļæ¼
Thereās just nothing to cling onto for support, and did I mention throughout it all you are a 19 year old baby? Rough stuff
