Fallout 2 fanfic idea: Good or Bad?

[Charwo]

WIth the restoration project for Fallout 2, there's a great addition to what your character can, so much that it increases the possibilities of roleplay. So I had an idea based on the RP version of the EPA:

THe Chosen One is your bog standard murderhobo. He's m mostly good, but he's very much into killing "bad people" and taking their stuff. He's also kind of an asshole, and people wonder if he's got a death wish or is sociopathic.

So, about a third of the way through the game, Myron leads him to the EPA fascility and there he finds Dr. Wood's special autodocs and how Dr. Edward Wood became Dr. Glenda Wood. And suddenly he knows what he's always wanted, and steps into the machine and becomes a woman.

But, aside with dealing with the awkward and cringey things of having a trans leader, she actualy becomes less effective as leader and warrior because for the first time ever, she's actually happy and has a reason to fear death. Also, now she has to deal with guilt that comes from all the people she murdered, the graves she looted and other shitty but not quite villianous things she did before. Because....she's not in emotional pain she didn't even realise she was in at the time. She's finally thinking clearly.

Good idea or not good idea?

 

[Mutant Screg]

Hey, you don't need our approval. Write your heart out, experiment with whatever comes to mind.

 

[00:49]

Question: why Fallout? Why not Skyrim or Mass Effect? Transexuality isn't really a topic discussed in Fallout. How does it fit there?
This is not a criticism, btw. The ability to experiment with themes is one of the advantages of fanfiction.
You answer that question to yourself, figure out what the Fallout setting can give to your story to make it better, and write this. The character conflict idea is solid.

 

[Charwo]

Question: why Fallout? Why not Skyrim or Mass Effect? Transexuality isn't really a topic discussed in Fallout. How does it fit there?
This is not a criticism, btw. The ability to experiment with themes is one of the advantages of fanfiction.
You answer that question to yourself, figure out what the Fallout setting can give to your story to make it better, and write this. The character conflict idea is solid.

Well, the reason why Fallout and not Mass Effect or Skyrim is because A. I hate Elder Scrolls and fantasy in general and B. In Mass Effect,. this character would know about transness from a realtively young age, be better educated and have the ability to transition before getting chuked into a brutal landscape. But this has more to do with RPGs in general. I want to flesh out the murderhobo, make a realistic murderhobo. Now we all know murderhoboing is all about the player not taking the world seriously and thinking acting like a sociopath is OK even in imaginationland. But as for the character, there has to be either complete sociopathy or severe, untreated emotional damage. And even beginning to deal with that dmage is going to fuck that person up, just at the point they need to do more murderhoboing.

There's also an isue of how being a woman is depowering in society: it's much harder to be feared without being hated as a woman. And as Machievelli puts it: it is better to be feared than loved if you cannot have both, but above all, you must never be hated.

 

[Tawûsê]

Transexuality isn't really a topic discussed in Fallout. How does it fit there?

In Mass Effect,. this character would know about transness from a realtively young age, be better educated and have the ability to transition before getting chuked into a brutal landscape.

OK, but you didn't really answer his question. Why does this need to be a brutal landscape? If it absolutely does, how does the Fallout setting work better than, say- Mad Max, or Wasteland, or basically any other post-apocalyptic setting?

I want to flesh out the murderhobo, make a realistic murderhobo. Now we all know murderhoboing is all about the player not taking the world seriously and thinking acting like a sociopath is OK even in imaginationland. But as for the character, there has to be either complete sociopathy or severe, untreated emotional damage.

And the automatic go-to is that he's suffering from gender dysphoria?

I'm sorry to say this: but not all gender-dysphoric people suffer from the urge of wanting to horribly mutilate people they deem "evil".

Plus, there's really no need to flush out the idea of a "murderhobo" protagonist. The whole point of someone doing that is, as you stated: because they don't give a shit about the motivations of their character, because they aren't Role-playing whatsoever.

And even beginning to deal with that dmage is going to fuck that person up, just at the point they need to do more murderhoboing.

So, this supposed character is going to mindlessly kill people before having a face-heel turn epiphany, and then regret being a sociopath- only after switching genders?

There's also an isue of how being a woman is depowering in society: it's much harder to be feared without being hated as a woman. And as Machievelli puts it: it is better to be feared than loved if you cannot have both, but above all, you must never be hated.

No. The character wouldn't be hated for being a woman. They'd be hated for going around murdering people and stealing their shit.

The problem with the idea is that it's trying to ask questions yet, would only provide even more for the reader: in due part to the main character's motivations being extremely lackluster.

 

[00:49]

Damn, that was not a question you have to answer to me or anyone, just something to consider before you go ahead, to make sure you make good use of what the setting gives you.

Regardless, from that answer, I see you have ideas you want to explore on the fic. And some strong opinions. Then again, much of what Tawûsê said is true. Maybe the protagonist is someone who comes off as a murder hobo because he's unhappy and doesn't care? Maybe compare how people react to a transexual character with how they react to a ghoul/supermutant?- make it make sense in the setting. As you mentioned, this is not Mass Effect so wastelanders wouldn't know what to make of it. Use that.

It's a lofty idea, I just think you really need to think about what you're going to say, and how, for it to really work. It can work. Don't take this as discouragement.

 

[Charwo]

OK, but you didn't really answer his question. Why does this need to be a brutal landscape? If it absolutely does, how does the Fallout setting work better than, say- Mad Max, or Wasteland, or basically any other post-apocalyptic setting?



And the automatic go-to is that he's suffering from gender dysphoria?

I'm sorry to say this: but not all gender-dysphoric people suffer from the urge of wanting to horribly mutilate people they deem "evil".

Plus, there's really no need to flush out the idea of a "murderhobo" protagonist. The whole point of someone doing that is, as you stated: because they don't give a shit about the motivations of their character, because they aren't Role-playing whatsoever.



So, this supposed character is going to mindlessly kill people before having a face-heel turn epiphany, and then regret being a sociopath- only after switching genders?



No. The character wouldn't be hated for being a woman. They'd be hated for going around murdering people and stealing their shit.

The problem with the idea is that it's trying to ask questions yet, would only provide even more for the reader: in due part to the main character's motivations being extremely lackluster.

I think we have a different idea of muderhobo: yours is the choatic eveil murderhobo that just kills everyone. No, I'm talking about a morally nuetral character who spree kills 'bad guys' for their loot, the kind of character who murders Metzger's wole gang with just Sulik because she doesn't want to pay Metzger a thousand dollars for Vic. The kind of person who prays to come across a slaver caravan just to be able to shoot and loot the caravan master, and to whom freeing the slaves is a nice afterthought.

And no, this isn't the default spychologyof a platonic form of a murderhobo, this is the personal pain and psychology of one person, who just happens to be so numb to everything, so distant, that they come off as a sociopath, but they're actually not. We do all kinds of things when we aren't in our right state of mind, the only difference this character hasn't been in her right state of mind since she was a very small child, and had no idea why. So not immediately, but in the days and weeks beyond the transformation, it's going to hit her like a brick wall.

A lot of transpeople, while not sociopaths, join the military before transition hoping it will 'straighten them out' or manke them a 'real man.' So a trans person who feels both detached and feeling less than secure in who they are might well turn to ultraviolence in a world like Fallout, especially because it can be so very, very rewarding. I'm not trying to say that all trans people are violent, just that this is one means of acting servere, undiagnosied or treated trauma. It's another facet of why the wasteland sucks ass.

 

[DeadHill]

Transsexualism really doesn't fit in the Fallout series. However, I believe it'd be a pretty interesting idea to make some stuff with black humor. Like, some guy on an accident changed his gender or something. Things like this are what makes some of the terminal logs etc. in the game so interesting to read through. It's sad that there was no such stuff in the old games.

 

[Jogre]

Transsexualism really doesn't fit in the Fallout series.

Doesn't it?

Surely something we see happening to people in the real world fits perfectly in to Fallout.

 

[a721402]

Fitting or not, it's more important if their existence in Fallout make sense(The original Fallout I mean, not beth-verse)
Let's pretend this kind of technology existes and followers of apocalypse have preserved the technology, will people have the resources to do it? To become a transgender person don't sounds like an affordable thing to do for normal people in the wild or even in NCR.

 

[Charwo]

Fitting or not, it's more important if their existence in Fallout make sense(The original Fallout I mean, not beth-verse)
Let's pretend this kind of technology existes and followers of apocalypse have preserved the technology, will people have the resources to do it? To become a transgender person don't sounds like an affordable thing to do for normal people in the wild or even in NCR.

Well this isn't about Followers of the Apocalypse, this is about the plastic surgery autodocsin the bowels of the EPA, at least in the Restoration Porject. When I was writing my Veghas fanfic, which I want to complete once I'm no longer burnt out on playing NV, my character is an immortal who pretends to be a 'Pretty Ghoul' that is Ghoul that's undergone so much organ gradting and such they look human again. Would the Followers have this technology? At their Hospitals in NCR, yes. In Vegas, hell no. But a place that would have this kind of medical technology would be Vault City and anything like it. It would be expensive, but the Organ growing tech and davanced surgery advanced pharmacological expetiseare all canon, as in this is the reason why NCR wants to annex Vault City.

And even a full DNA rewrite would be simpler to pull off than FEV, so much so that gene editing is probably two generations behind, two human generations behindm and thus probably common knowledge to the public during the Resource Wars.