Just got done decorating my personal work space at American villian tattoos and appearal here in NY. Most of the art you see on the wall are prints of my original work. Besides the nuka cola poster, evangelion stuff and the fallout 4 perk sheet which is not my work.
“You know what,” the Overboss says out of the blue, “I don’t think we’ve had enough controversy lately. Everyone sound off on your favourite flavour of Nuka-Cola and why you’re right and anything else is wrong.”
Rott just wants to relax under the sun before they go back to shovelling ghoulrilla shit and breeding molerats for the Pack. Andrea—who is, famously, a huge asshole—decides to leverage her rank to cause an argument instead, because of course. This is Andy they’re talking about, after all.
wrote a short little fic! rott is here! and so are other assorted pack members and also andy so check it out…………………..
i wish tumblr let you do polls because i for one would love to know how many people actually chose a pack/disciples ending for nuka-world because for me its like. the Only way to go dsfghjsdfhj but there’s NO fic for that ending (that i’ve found) and very few ppl seem to like nisha so i’m like…………………………………………. who else is with me here,
i love all the little alleyways and stuff in nuka-town where the raiders have made cozy little hangouts all tucked away and i think andy definitely loves to just vibe where it’s hard to find her for a few hours SO. i drew it. here,
It’s slow and burgeoning, but it happens all the same; with the death of the blazing heat and the sure lengthening of darker nights, Fizztop’s shadow casts over the entirety of Nuka-Town USA as the sun dips behind its jagged peak, the air growing crisp with a dewy coolness as mornings carry a chill that tickle the skin until goosebumps form and hair stands on end, breath softly misting in the air. On each of the verdant trees that line the park’s many roads and avenues the greenery begins to tinge yellow on the edges of their leaves, bringing forth golden hues sure to wither away in but a month’s time, and when the wind gusts the youngest to fall are crushed underfoot against the cracked paving, pressed into the grit by the tread of boots. The grasses grow tall in the wake of wet showers, the yao guai in the distance begin to fatten for the winter to come, and Nisha receives word that the Overboss wishes to have a meeting with her in the Grille.
It comes as no real surprise; whilst Andrea has yet to formally announce the start of the invasion of the Commonwealth to the masses, almost everyone knows that the clock is ticking down, anticipation as potent in the air as the lingering sulphuric scent of smoke. Soon, she’ll have taken even Colter’s grandest ambitions right out of his long-rotted fingers and into her own, hammering in the final nail of her dominance, and her next moves will be entirely of her own making—free of her predecessor’s ghost and powered by honed ambition. To that end, Nisha knows she’s been busy talking to Shank (begrudgingly) and to the scouts and officers of her favoured gangs (less begrudgingly), moving across the parks like a beast possessed as she focuses so entirely on thoughts of eastward expansion that the daily rigmarole of Nuka-World has fallen to the wayside, left almost entirely in Gage’s incapable hands. Sacrifices have to be made, Nisha supposes.
THE WORK OF WOLVES has updated with chapter fifteen; COME THE FALL.
In this instalment: plotting and planning and pondering.
(sorry it’s a little late i was out buying kiwis also sorry that this chapter is 8k i TRIED)
Nisha rarely, if ever, suffers from nightmares, but that little brush with Mags and William surely has to count as one just for how much it manages to unnerve her.
It’s almost embarrassing, is what it is; even during her lowest moments of weakness (be that turning to Mason for information or avoiding Andrea for weeks on end like a scorned idiot) Nisha’s never truly lost her composure like that, never let so much slip and read all over her face. Mags may not understand exactly what chipped at her armour, but now she knows something can, which is only a little less dangerous than if she’d pulled her knife and ran Mags through then and there. Nisha prides herself on appearing untouchable, and she doesn’t need the Operators to start undermining that reputation now, not when so much is at stake.
Then again, judging from what Mags had to say? Maybe it was already too late. Right now Nisha feels very touchable indeed, all thanks to a certain dark-eyed Overboss who likes to tip the scales this way and that when she isn’t even here to do it herself. Nisha thought she’d done well to hide their little indiscretions from prying eyes, but Andrea seems to have given the game away by proxy of getting just a little too used to her attention. Or maybe she’s been talking too openly with those Pack mongrels she seems to favour, who tend to let too many secrets out of their mouths when their tongues are numbed by Jet. Either way, it’s a problem.
And yet, it’s not the problem, not the one that had dug into Nisha’s spine to lodge between the vertebrae. Mags can interpret their relationship however she wants—Nisha doesn’t give a shit so long as the truth remains somewhat muddied—but what gets Nisha is the same quandary she’s been wondering for entirely too long now; why doesn’t anyone else seem to suspect Andrea as being anything other than what lies on the surface?
THE WORK OF WOLVEShas updated with chapter fourteen; MISSPENT YOUTH
In this instalment: rumours abound.
(thanks for the wait whilst I redrafted this chapter for the THIRD TIME)
Minimal spoilers, but there are still at least some minor ones.
Participation Medal: The Workshop DLC + Gun Runners’ Arsenal & Courier’s Stash
I’m grouping these together because while I like what all of these bring to their games, I don’t think it’s fair to compare them to the rest of the DLC in the series.
#12: Mothership Zeta
This one was alright at first, and it’s got some great loot, but the gameplay gets repetitive quick and there’s not a very compelling story to pull me along.
#11: Broken Steel
Broken Steel was pretty mediocre, but it gets a lot of praise for doing a really simple thing the base game should’ve done anyway. There’s a couple spots that offer a fun and challenging fight against the Enclave, but the quest overall is pretty pointless. On the plus side, it does add a few small side quests in the Capital Wasteland, and those ones are actually pretty interesting to play.
#10: Nuka~World
Nuka World is a good concept, fans had been complaining like they usually do, but this time about how you couldn’t really do anything very evil in Fallout 4 that wasn’t random and unprovoked murder/theft, so Bethesda decided to listen and gave us a compelling story with deep moral choices. I’m kidding, they basically gave everyone the finger and a DLC where you couldn’t be good, completely contradicting every decision you can make up to that point. Surprisingly enough, “Should I kill these furries, reskinned Gunners, and bloodthirsty psychopaths or should I allow these innocent slaves to continue being oppressed and abused?” is not as complex of a choice as someone at Bethesda must have thought. Also why the fuck did they make a theme park based on a soda when they have an entire roster of original and colorful comic book characters? Nuka Cola can reasonably have, like, 1 area for JC Bradberton and all that, but an entire park?
#9: Point Lookout
Point Lookout isn’t the worst DLC, but it’s by far the most overrated in the series (in my opinion of course). Apparently it’s like a big love letter to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but as someone who isn’t very familiar with much of his work, I don’t get many of the references, so all I see is a poorly crafted story centered around two centuries-old enemies that hate each other because… they do? Seriously, what is their motivation? It’s an intriguing rivalry, but without any explanation, they both just look like idiots, which is why I killed them both. Plus, it has an open world, but it only like 3 side quests, and only one of them is actually cool. It gets a couple things right though, the world itself is pretty cool in its design, and the dream sequence was pretty creatively done.
#8: Automatron
Automatron is a fairly simple DLC, with the star pretty clearly being the robot workbench, which is admittedly pretty fun to use. But despite this focus on the new workshop item, Automatron still tells a pretty cool story and introduces some memorable new characters, like Jezebel the back-talking brain, The Mechanist herself, who ends up being tied to the Fallout 3 character in a pretty clever way, and Ada, a robot companion who guides you along the quest. It’s pretty fun, but it’s short, which makes me wish we had a little more time to see the characters develop or at least interact more with each other. Also, the PS4 port of the DLC (where I played Fallout 4 until I switched to PC) was really buggy, with one of the areas having disappearing walls on every playthrough I’ve done, unpatched to this day. I haven’t had this issue on PC though, and I have no idea about Xbox.
#7 Honest Hearts
This one came so close to being awesome. It had so much going for it, notably a blue-eyed burned man with no burns on his face and some of the best voice acting in the entire series, as well as a beautiful new environment, one of my favorites of any open world in Fallout. But it falls kind of flat in its factions, with two tribes that felt almost the same except for their leaders, and the bad guy faction who killed Graham’s family. Joshua Graham is absolutely the saving grace of Honest Hearts, but since he only had a real hand to play at the beginning and the very end, the middle just felt like filler. Also, the first 20 minutes of the DLC can be spent getting to know the caravan that takes you to the Zion, only to find out I wasted my time and they all die immediately. It’s a decent fake-out, but I still spent all that time on the long expository dialogue right at the beginning (a common theme in New Vegas’s DLCs, and in my opinion the greatest flaw in each of them).
#6 Operation: Anchorage
This might be one the more controversial rankings, I know a lot of people don’t like Anchorage that much, but personally, I found it to be a really enjoyable experience. It’s short but sweet, and a beautiful window into pre-war military propaganda. You follow around an action-hero version of an American soldier that can scale mountains like Ethan Hunt and sneak through vents like John McClain. Oh, and the whole thing is really racist toward the Chinese, with offensive comments being thrown left and right by the US army (you know, the good guys!), and a general who can easily be convinced to commit suicide out of “honor”. It’s a really clever glimpse into the mindset of Americans just before the bombs. The Brotherhood Outcasts were pretty pointless, though. They just as easily could have been with the rest of the BoS instead of half-assedly using a faction that was barely developed anyway.
#5. Old World Blues
New Vegas was made by a lot of the same team from Fallout 2, and in no other place is it more obvious than in The Crater, for better or for worse. Old World Blues is filled to the brim with memorable characters, witty dialogue, and, the most Black Isle part of all, pop culture references at every turn. But on the less positive side of classic Fallout parallels, while most of the locations are interesting to explore, the open world that connects them feels empty and repetitive, like it’s only there to pad for time. And the enemies, while visually interesting, serve the same function as basic enemy types from the Mojave. I did think the inclusion of the Mysterious Broadcast acting in the place of an ambient soundtrack was an interesting idea, it definitely added a unique charm to the area, however there aren’t many songs that play, so it gets a little repetitive, and there is no actual ambient soundtrack if you ever do turn off the radio. At that point, you’re left to choose between the same 8 or 9 jazz songs or absolute silence. These low points certainly don’t overshadow the highs, but I definitely feel their presence and the effect they had on my enjoyment at times.
#4. Lonesome Road
Lonesome Road is like the polar opposite of Old World Blues in every way. It tells a dark story in a linear world, and we finally learn about the mysterious other courier we’ve been hearing about. It’s not a perfectly told story, I think it’s the biggest offender of the “tell don’t show” mentality all of New Vegas’s DLC, as you can’t just get all the droning exposition over with at the beginning, it’s spread throughout the whole campaign in 5-10 minute increments. But it still tells a really intriguing story, and pays off with some of the toughest combat sections in the entire game (notably the Courier’s Mile, I played it at level 49 and still died repeatedly). It was also nice to have more of a look into the backstory of ED-E, who was a lot more animated and human than in the base game, and comes with a really nice eyebot remodel.
#3 Far Harbor
I might be going too easy on Far Harbor, admittedly I’m very forgiving of a lot of Fallout 4′s shortcomings because even though it’s not my favorite, it’s the one that introduced me to the series. But Far Harbor was so many leaps and bounds better than every other DLC in 4, and it’s just such a solid add-on to begin with that I think it deserves a spot in the top three. It has some decent gray morality between each of the three factions, although it’s really more of a “lesser of three evils” situation, because none of the factions are very likable at all by the end. The people of Far Harbor are cruel and judgmental, the Children of Atom are actively trying to kill themselves and everyone on the island in an attempt to grow the power of their deity, Atom, which several of their members don’t even believe in, and Acadia operates in isolation, manipulation, and paranoia, committing murders and replacements of people in power to try and keep the peace, effectively becoming like the Institute they dedicated themselves to escaping from. It certainly makes for more interesting moral decisions than the base game’s factions. The open world is also one of the best of any of the other DLC in this category, my favorite part being the ominous lighting created by the fog, a phenomenon that has come and go over time and allowed for new and dangerous creatures to develop and thrive. Far Harbor delivers a good story in a great open world, a feat Honest Hearts, Point Lookout, Nuka~World, and Old World Blues all managed to fall short of in one category or the other.
#2 The Pitt
For me, this is where Fallout DLC goes from really good to truly exceptional. The Pitt did so much right it’s frankly embarrassing for something like Nuka~World, which borrowed a lot of concepts from this but ended up using them poorly. The Pitt keeps a consistently dark tone, some of the most memorable and well done world design in the series, a truly disturbing new creature type, and for the first time since 1998, there’s a well thought out, morally gray decision to be made in Fallout that isn’t hindered by the karma system telling me if I made the right choice. It really made me wish there was more like this to experience, and although there aren’t many linear DLCs that deliver with this level of quality, there is one that managed to top it.
#1 Dead Money
Dead Money is, in my opinion of course, the absolute peak of Fallout so far. Yes, it has the long exposition dump at the beginning like every other New Vegas DLC, and the world design of the Sierra Madre may not be as breathtaking as The Pitt, but it still manages to outshine it in every other way. Dead Money tells an incredible character-based story with a diverse group that’s been forced together by one man hellbent on finding and obtaining the fabled treasure of the Sierra Madre. Like a lot of New Vegas, this sounds like a dumb idea when I try to describe it, but it really is a fantastic story with a small but memorable cast of strange, flawed, and deeply tragic characters as they either learn to let go of what’s holding them back, or die in their refusal to. At the end of the DLC, even the courier has to face trials to test their own ability to let go of the treasure they’ve been forced into finding for Father Elijah this whole time. On top of this, the two new enemy types are some of the most creative in the series, with the quick and strong Ghost People who finally break the pattern of “you gotta shoot ‘em in the head” to kill everything, and the hologram security who can only be stopped by sneaking to their power source and disabling them. Finally, to neatly tie up all of the themes in Dead Money, and New Vegas as a whole, is the haunting “Begin Again”, one of very few examples of an original song made for the Fallout universe, which just makes it that much more special.
I’m not really sure how to wrap this up, so instead I’ll just link Begin Again because it’s so perfect on so many levels.
Most of the raiders were weirded out when they were told that baby-faced kid was supposed to be the Overboss. They snatched him when he had been hunting with Danse and before he knew it, he was in the Nuka World, facing the Gauntlet. And now he was on top of Fizztop Mountain Grille trying to look tought and cool, while being absolutely terrified inside. As far as he was concerned, he was there for the soda.
