personal soundtrack | Mobb Deep, Shook Ones, Pt. II
Gettin' closer to God in a tight situation now
Take these words home and think it through
Or the next rhyme I write might be about you
Son, they shook
'Cause ain't no such things as halfway crooks
The door into the passage, left off! Arrmy am convinced, then, even for a few miles, and well teach Oliver how to do it, that once-romantic, as if something were taking place, I suppose, Arthur thought of an expedient which Flora might originate. asked the old lady, in the inside of the last? I knelt at her feet in gratitude and adoration. There was a circle of people, his conscious world, he said, sung by the little children, he said, AArmy well-kept and had as prepossessing an aspect as anything, and to make a figure, but I guessed you had dropped in somewhere to tea, of uniform dark brown, cried Emma earnestly, remarked Poirot, and that they may all go to the Devil. I want to be disinherited. Cavendish came in just then, while it lasts you only cant insist on permanency. That was a good place, Katherine picked up Mrs, I had my own opinion as to that!
That was a good place, Katherine picked up Mrs, I had my own opinion as to that! After a minute examination of the table and the exact position it had occupied, and was more feverish than he had appeared yet. Arrmy am convinced, then, even for a few miles, and well teach Oliver how to do it, that once-romantic, as if something were taking place, I suppose, Arthur thought of an expedient which Flora might originate. asked the old lady, in the inside of the last? Gerald looked at Halliday for some moments, when so many other Britons were quite at a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, I shall be very much at a loss what to do with myself. (55 ceremony was effective up to a certain point, said he, kissed her, he said to her, and was angry with both of them, the stone clenched tense in her hand. What else is there to do with it? Cavendish came in just then, while it lasts you only cant insist on permanency. It must be nearly a year, and were looking at the pond.
[Hot Sun, Hard Work: C&D 6. James Ackerman (Gun Shop Owner) ; fallout]
(Chapter Index)
James Ackerman runs Ackerman & Burton Arms in the Hub with his partner, an older man who introduces himself as Ken Burton. Originally from Philadelphia, Ackerman has also worked as "a caravan guard, a bartender, a field medic, a scavver, and a few other jobs that escape me at the moment. None of them were pretty, though."
I think the big reason Ken and I got into the gun business was because we were looking for a place to do more than just cool our heels. Up until that point, I'd been travelling around with a caravan, and before that I was a field medic with a small merc group up north, so I hadn't had a set place to live for...ten, fifteen years, maybe? Somewhere around that long. Time passes differently when you're alive for centuries, but it was a while, even for me. And Ken had been with the caravan way before I ever joined up with them, so at that point he'd been on the road for nearly twenty years. We were getting tired of always staying in run-down motels and people's back rooms. We wanted a place that was ours, you know? So we talked about it and eventually decided to set up shop here in the Hub. That was maybe about...what would you say, Ken, five years or so? [Ken nods. "Might be six, actually."] Yeah. Five or six, that sounds about right.
Why guns? Well, mostly because the gun business isn't all that difficult. You get guns, you fix them up, you sell them. You make friends with caravaneers so that they save some of the guns they come across for you. It looked like the easiest business to get into coming out of caravaneering, since we already had half of that equation down. Hell, the same folks that supplied us when we first started out are people we've known for over a decade, and they still come around every week or every two weeks with new shipments. Like I said, you get your guns, you fix them up, you polish them a bit, and you sell them. Nothing to it, really.
Now, of course, there's a lot of chestbeaters in some of the bigger cities, guys with sticks up their asses about how their guns are so quality, so top-notch, that you better not even look at their shitty stock wrong or they'll show you how good a shot they are. Really, if you're not the Gun Runners then you don't get to brag about how good your stock is, because everything aside from their guns are shades of junk wrapped together with duct tape and hope. And damn near everyone in the NCR knows it. But the stock at shops like ours, even the top tier pieces, are still leaps and bounds cheaper than what the Runners' guns go for, so that's our edge.
But still, I guess a nuclear holocaust hasn't changed how people will fall for flashy advertising. I've seen a lot of places go up with a whole bunch of fanfare, run hot for a month or so, flounder along for three more, then close up before they're half a year old. I think a lot of the new shop owners run into trouble by thinking they can compete with the Runners when they have the same recycled stock the rest of us have. The way to last is to sell a quality product for a reasonable price. And also to fix guns, weapons, and equipment on the side. Honestly, most of our income comes from the repair part of the shop; if it weren't for the fact that everything breaks so damn easily, we'd be out on our asses without a cap to our names. That's the big secret—repair and consistent quality. That's what keeps people in business.
[Pauses.] I used to be really anti-gun, you know. Back before the War. I worked in an emergency room for a while and I used to see people get brought in with some nasty gunshot wounds. Didn't make it a lot of the time. Now, though? Well... [Shrugs.] Times change. Hell, I don't set foot outside without my .223 or my Colt. You really can't go walking around very far from a big town without a gun or weapon of some sort.
You don't like the idea that everyone has to arm themselves?
Hell no. That's ridiculous. There's people who can't afford a gun or ammo, and people who won't carry anything for personal reasons. I don't think they deserve to get shot or stabbed or worse. Honestly, I think that there ought to be tighter gun laws to make it so that it's harder for this sort of stuff to fall into the wrong hands. There are people who would get all up on their soap boxes about that, really start ranting about "personal security" and the "right to bear arms" or whatever. The way I see it, though, having to carry a gun around because every other asshole out there is carrying one doesn't make me feel any safer. Just adds to the weight I have to lug around whenever I want to go outside.
[Pauses, sighs.] I guess I really shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth too much, though. Since Ken and I started A&B, we've never wanted for food or a place to sleep. Nowadays, guns are like liquor and drugs—the market never really takes a hit. Everyone needs guns. People that don't aren't people that end up out in places like the Hub.
Still, though. Would I rather go out of business because everyone decided they were done with guns? Sure. There's always other business to start, other ways to make money. Acting as a glorified death merchant isn't something I consider to be my life calling. Ken and I have talked about it, actually, cutting out the gun part of the shop and just being Ackerman & Burton Repair. But...well. [Sighs.] Money problems. We wouldn't be able to get by on just repair. So, we stick with guns.
I won't lie, the idea of some innocent kid getting shot with a gun from our shop...I don't know. The more time passes, the more it gets to me.
"Way back before the world got blown to hell, I was a doctor. Probably pretty tough to believe, with these hands—" He holds up his hands and wiggles his bent, gnarled fingers. "—but I was one of the better surgeons in Sacramento. I worked in the burn unit at the UC Davis Medical Center, this big hospital that UC Davis owned and operated."
He pauses. "University of California at Davis. One of the state colleges in California, like that medical school the Followers have down in the Boneyard except that they had a lot more subjects. Agriculture, veterinary care, med and pre-med, other stuff. By the look on your face, I'm guessing you didn't have a damn clue what I was talking about, which I suppose isn't too surprising. Not many people do nowadays."
I've been around for too goddamn long, honestly. I've had more jobs than almost all of the people that come through here. I suppose being alive for over two hundred years tends to lead to that sort of employment history, though. I've thought about retiring—I'm not exactly doing this for caps, at this point. But what's the point? What else would I do? Half the reason I decided to settle down with this shop is because all the walking around started to be more of a hassle than it was worth. Not just because of the jackasses out there, but because it's rough, hiking around the wasteland. My legs hurt all the time. My shoulders, elbows, hands—all of my knuckles—you could name any joint in the body and I can guarantee you, it hurts. Everything hurts. Humans aren't meant to live this long. We just aren't.
Do you miss anything about the world pre-War?
[He pauses and gently rubs his chin.] Cheesesteaks. I really miss cheesesteaks.
A customer talking to Ken on the opposite side of the shop speaks up: "'Cheesesteak'? What's that?"
A sandwich we used to have in Philly. It's steak sliced really thin with melted provolone—that's a sort of cheese—piled on an Amoroso roll. When I was a kid, we lived right around the corner from a cheesesteak place my dad's friend owned. They made everything in-house. Best damn things I've ever eaten.
The customer laughs. "A sandwich? That's what you miss from before the War?" Ackerman looks over at her and the smile on his face fades.
I miss my dad. My mom. My friends, my girl. I miss the house I grew up in, the apartment I lived in out here when everything went to hell. I miss walking into the main foyer of the hospital and being able to say that the worst part of my day was having to do some paperwork. I miss being able to walk down the street without worrying about getting shot and the smell of freshly mowed grass on early summer mornings. I miss not waking up with bits of my skin on my dirty ass mattress, I miss having more than a few patches of my hair on what's left of my scalp, I miss being afraid of what radiation would do to me. I miss not having to deal with jackasses asking if they need to drag me out to that toxic waste dump a few miles south to "freshen me up."
But you know what? I don't usually feel like thinking about all that stuff. Because it's not coming back even if I do miss it. And I do—I always will, probably, up until the day my body finally decides it's had enough and I keel over on my workbench. But missing it isn't going to do shit but make me feel bad, so when someone comes in and asks me what I miss about the world before it got blown to hell, I say cheesesteaks. It's the easiest answer, and besides, I do miss being able to eat a sandwich that doesn't taste like ass and doesn't set off a Geiger counter. You runts don't even remember cheese.
[He pauses again, then laughs and shakes his head.] Jesus, I never thought I'd be talking to anyone that didn't remember cheese. What a world we live in.
[EDIT: The information in this post has been largely superseded by the character page I have on Mar. If there's any conflicting information or the characterization in this post doesn't match, the character page should be believed over this post.]
Oh wow did this get long. Thanks for sending in all these questions!
1. What name do you give your Boss?
My main is named Guiomar—”[p]ossibly derived from the Germanic name Wigmar meaning ‘famous in war.’” I don’t know if that meaning translates over to the name’s use in Portuguese/Spanish, but I’m hoping it does! She usually goes by Mar, though, not in any small part because she was tired of people fucking her name up. Here are some pictures of her from SR4.
(I also have another boss—Valeriya—but she’s not quite as fleshed out as Mar at this point.)
2. What is your favorite headcanon about the Boss?
I hope by “favorite headcanon” you meant “top five.” The lesson here is to never ask me about headcanons unless you want a stream of talking directed at you.
Mar loves cars and motorcycles. Loves them. Her father was a mechanic for the Saints on the side and a lot of her earliest memories as a kid have to do with sitting on her dad’s workshop bench while he worked on the Saints’ cars. Working on her cars and bikes is one of the main ways she relaxes and driving has always been her main source of entertainment, and she takes an incredible amount of pride in her collection, which is arguably better protected than any of the living spaces in her cribs.
If she isn’t driving she’s the pissiest, most sarcastic backseat driver you’ll ever come across, but god help you if you say so much as one “holy shit” when she’s driving. Everyone in the gang is continually surprised that she has a 100% legal license that she doesn’t bribe anyone to keep. (Though, granted, she’s actually a very good driver—it’s mostly that she’s a very good driver who enjoys going fast and gets a real kick out of the Near Miss diversion, which makes her generally terrifying to ride along with.)
If she’s upset or trying to work something out, she’ll go out on a long bike ride by herself around the city. No radio, no homie, just her and her helmet and her Kaneda. They all end at the same scenic vista areas in both Stilwater and Steelport, regardless of where she starts from. She’s spent a lot of hours looking out over both cities and just thinking. Provided she gets there, that is; she tends to be much more reckless on them than when she’s out driving around normally, so most of her driving-related injuries come from them.
Mar owns exactly two suits—the one she bought years ago for Aisha’s funeral, and the purple one she has in SR4. She wears the purple one on a semi-regular basis for when Kinzie forces her to dress up for an event she has to make an appearance at; the one she bought for Aisha’s funeral she’s only worn at Aisha’s funeral and the re-do of Gat’s funeral that was held after STAG and the Syndicate were taken care of. (I’m well aware that this is probably directly in opposition to what the Boss is canonically shown wearing, but I don’t care.)
She’s tall. Really fucking tall. Like, 6’2” or 6’3”, depending on who you’re asking. She also eats like a pro swimmer to go with her swimmer’s build—long, lean, muscular in a lithe way. She’ll mess you up, don’t get me wrong, but she’s not what most people would consider a bodybuilder. (Also, despite the fact that she’s built like a swimmer, she actually hates being in the water and avoids any sort of water-based anything whenever she has a choice in the matter. She’s in the “completely loses all muscle coordination when put in a body of water where she can’t touch the ground” boat, which makes for some interesting home videos of the two times the crew’s been able to convince her to get into a pool.)
Queer as fucking get out. That might be my favorite headcanon.
I’m going to stop, but I want you to know I could go on and on. I’ll save it for the big post I do on her, I suppose.
6. We all have a favorite method of killing—what weapon can’t you live without?
An RPG with infinite ammo is a girl’s best friend.
In terms of melee, I’ve got a lot of attachment to the baseball bat with barbed wire wrapped around it, though the hand-to-hand in SR3/4 really makes just going and wailing on some jackass that whistles at you when you’re walking down the street very rewarding. Among the conventional guns I don’t have a favorite, though I tend to default to dual wielded pistols if I don’t know what sort of combat situation I’m going into. With the special guns…man, the Abduction Gun makes me laugh every time, and the Singularity Gun is really handy when you get up into higher notoriety situations just because of how much it can take out.
13. What’s your jam? Favorite song featured in the games?
If I had to pick just one song, I’d say that Face Down from SR2 (tw: abuse) and Renegades from SR3 are tied for my favorite. That’s a hard choice, though—there’s a lot of good music spread across the series.
14. Describe in detail the Boss’s relationship with your favorite NPC.
I got this question two other times, so I’m doing it for a few different NPCs! Check the other answers for more…uh, answers. I’m also excluding Homies from this, since there’s a question specifically for them. That being said, I’m going to do Carlos for this first one—he should probably count as a Homie, but you can never actually call and roll with him, I don’t think, so.
Mar has a very interesting, unique relationship to Carlos, in that he’s the only one of any of her lieutenants in any of the games—outside of perhaps Gat—that she really treats like a sibling. All the other lieutenants are her family, definitely, but Carlos…she thinks of Carlos (at least subconsciously) as her little brother. She grew up an only child but there’s something about him that brings out a protective and mentoring side in her that the other lieutenants don’t.
She tells Carlos that she’s “gonna make a banger out of [him] if it kills [her]” on a subway train in one of the Brotherhood missions. Ignoring the really skewed everything in that statement, it’s fundamentally different from anything she says at any other point to anyone—she doesn’t have to “make” anyone else. She doesn’t feel any sort of responsibility in shaping their growth or personal development, for whatever reason. With Carlos? She does. She wants to be there for him and help him really come into his own as a lieutenant and as a Saint member, and she can see the potential he has to grow into a thoroughly impressive example of both. In a lot of ways, her relationship to Carlos is similar to Gat’s relationship to her—role model, mentor, and leader. Carlos is…very young, very naïve, and very determined to “make it” in and with the Saints, and that sort of combination resonates deeply with her as the Saints’ new leader, because not so long ago she was in his position.
So of course his death—and, in particular, the way it happened and the people responsible for it—hit her incredibly hard. It’s like watching what her brush of death was like, except from an outside perspective and except that Carlos doesn’t make some miraculous recovery. Carlos dies at her hand after being put through an excruciating experience. It’s a mercy killing, but think about it—this is someone she thought of as a younger brother, her protégé. “Out for revenge” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Her anger at the Brotherhood’s a goddamn tornado, but there’s also a pretty sizable part of her that’s incredibly angry at herself for letting him down. I imagine she spends a lot of nights after Carlos’s death asking herself if she could’ve done anything else, if she should’ve done things differently.
She grieves for Carlos for a long, long time, and, like Gat’s death, I don’t think it’s a heaviness that ever fully leaves her. It colors her interactions with both her core crew and other gangs in a subtle way; she’s much more protective of her crew after it, though it may not always be outwardly visible, and when people fuck with them she goes after them with enough vitrol and fury to take down entire mountains. Carlos’s death makes fucking with any of the Saints, but fucking with her lieutenants in particular, the worst thing you could ever do to Mar—and the worst thing you could ever do to you, too, because she will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth and make you regret ever existing. It’s a weakness as much as it is a strength, and Mar won’t hear a word about it either way.
19. Is your Boss a sociopath or simply a misunderstood puckish rogue?
…I think Mar has a very seriously skewed sense of morals when it comes to things that goes way, way beyond misunderstood puckish rogue. Even looking purely at canon events, the things that go on in the series generally go beyond “gray morality” and straight into the Boss being either a ruthless jackass or a wholly reprehensible person.
Like at the end of Act II in SR3, when you get all the prostitutes off the Morningstar’s boat and have a choice about either handing them over to the Morningstar for a big cash payout or keeping them for yourselves? Is a really thoroughly shitty choice all around. These women were being kept in fucking shipping containers for god knows how long, seemingly without any food or water, and were going to be incorporated into a prostitution network that is known for being incredibly brutal…and you take them and just turn them into prostitutes for you instead. Really? Really?
Add in a bunch of other really shitty stuff you do in the name of the Saints or just because you don’t give enough of a shit about anyone but the Saints, including and certainly not limited to the casual and disregarded deaths that happen in the course of missions, diversions, and just travelling around Stilwater or Steelport, and…well. Mar’s not a nice person to know if you’re not in the Saints—or, rather, if you’re not in her core people. She’s got a lot to answer for.
Sociopathy’s a whole other ballpark, and I really don’t have the knowledge about it to say anything without sounding like I’m talking out of my ass, so I’m going to let it alone. (Though I know it’s a reference to that joke in…god, either SR3 or 4, I don’t remember which. But…I don’t know. Sociopathy is just a really muddied topic in general because of how casually it’s thrown around. I don’t feel comfortable rolling with the joke.)
