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lucabyte · 10 days

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obligatory ramble about postcanon loop ask

also your art is amazing

Hiiiiiiiii :D thank you :)!!

and thank you for the excuse to post the. just absolute wall of text that i truncated down to form the tags of that post. (i did,,, hit the tag limit. i forgot tumblr had one of those...) so let me just paste that and tidy it up a bit...

I am putting this under a readmore because it's a bit long. but:

This is like. The General Context for all* of my postcanon doodles? (Except AUs obviously) Like this is the base idea I've been drawing them all in. So, feel free to backread with this in mind. I've basically had this 'postcanon' timeline set in my brain since finishing the game...

My general thoughts are that I like the idea of Loop (even if through dubiously ethical means) being able to slowly reintegrate with the party as a whole new person, because they are, in fact, their own person.

It's a muddle of thematic threads im pulling on and "wouldn't it be fucked up if", but. (at its core, it's powered by the fact that like, while narratively isat's theme of 'the only person who can truly take the first step to help you is yourself'. (wrt: loop helping the party help siffrin in act 5) which i LOVE AND IS GREAT NARRATIVELY…. would be super fucked up irl to learn that your friend 'learned as a lesson' while you stood by kinda uselessly. I know i'd be upset about it. but thats mostly background here. doesn't really come up. at least not until loop has to explain who they are and the party realises they had to fall back on literally themselves again for help, but i digress,)

The real core concept is: Occam's razor. It is like, inherently, a buckwild thing to accuse a person of being somehow a clone or copy of your friend. Even if they start vaguely alluding to a backstory it's far more likely they were some other person before all that. (I still think Odile has that theory in the back pocket but she's rational enough to know it's a really long shot without a solid explanation. and i think Loop deep down knows this, and would, if cornered into confessing, turn the situation around to go J'ACCUSE and make HER explain it instead. Ever longer dodging being direct with their emotions...)

And the party are nice! And if someone has changed and wants to keep stuff secret it's kind of not their business? (Though it's hard not to speculate… see: the main joke of the doodles) And they seem important to Siffrin so they just try to accept them abrasive quirks and all. And eventually the question of their prior identity just fades away since, well, they're Loop. Their friend Loop.

but yeah. personal headcanon is that a few months/weeks after picking up and getting aquainted with Nille** (since that was presumably the IMMEDIATE TASK postgame), Loop reappears (either after a literal period of nonexistance, or just spending a few months wandering the french countryside alone being attacked by wild dogs). Since Siffrin has had a while to be therapised by the party they're doing mostly okay, but Loop showing up and still being agitated/aggressive pulls them both into a bit of a backslide behaviourally and puts the party on the back foot again.

Hooowever, I do think that due to no longer being literally stewing in the worst pressure cooker of all time together, the two do mostly actually sort themselves out with productive conversation. (Via a cycle of: genuinely distressing argument -> weeeird lovebombing -> ok we're good -> repeat, that gets less intense over time)

Thus, allowing the party to just. Integrate loop as a new person. They and Siffrin shuffle into different ecological niches (Loop taking over stuff Siffrin is now too squeamish for, etc (see: hunting, mostly)), and while it's not exactly what Loop wanted they generally get that beggars can't be choosers and it's a pretty good deal. And the rest of the party does straight up just like them as a friend, especially when Loop quits trying to actively antagonise them after a few weeks of being around them, since they just can't keep up being mean to people they like forever.

As for how I think the truth eventually drags itself out. This is where I invoke The Isabeau Torment Nexus™. So its gonna get shippy here for a bit hold on.

Which is, I think giving them time before Loop reappears long enough that Siffrin and Iseabeau actually manage to become established, Isabeau has to be the one to nudge the pair of them and go. "Hey. You know we're in Vaugarde right. I'm okay with polyamory if we all communicate." Before Loop and Siffrin actually even acknowledge that whatever the fuck they have going on kinda looks a lot like a relationship of some kind. (or have already been agonising about that via fighting and arguing, depending) (Obviously this comes after Isa "Emotionally intelligent enough to keep a lid on the jealousy" Beau has managed to use that big brain of his to Not just go Scream somewhere on the daily because oh godddd they keep talking like theyre suicide-baiting each other jesus chriiist. is it overstepping his boundaries to bring that up?? god)

This, taking a bunch of the tension out of Loop and Isabeau's relationship (Since I imagine Loop is a. being weird for the obvious reasons and b. feeling kinda guilty about 'getting in the way of' Siffrin and Iseabeau), allows them to actually get close in a normal friend way. (I think an interesting turning point could be Isabeau actually taking Loop's side in an argument vs Siffrin, which would absolutely break Loop's brain. Especially if it's an argument that matters. Like what do you mean he isn't just going to play favourites. What?)

Then Isabeau, just actually open minded and charmed by Loop (and maybe even somewhat at Siffrin's suggestion?) tries to close the final open side on the polyamory triangle here and that's the final straw for Loop on "This lie by omission is too unethical to keep up, this is just actually sick and wrong. I can't do this while he doesn't know who I am." Though. Obviously it probably goes. Very poorly with emotions high like that. And the added element of several months of deceit. Getting dark here for a second but that dagger is going MISSING and so are THEY for a hot minute.

Then yaaay everything works out in the end 👍 yippieee!! all it took was maybe a lot of harrowed recontextualisation of all the weird shit your new friend said and did when it turns out they're your old friend. It's fine.

But yeah. this is basically the context all of my postcanon doodles have existed within? And those exist to give other people something to chew on. So this does too.

I suppose TL;DR: Imagine if sloopis almost fucking happens before isabeau knows who loop is. can you fucking imagine. can you imagine having to navigate that. nightmare.

*Yes this includes the implied cannibalism comic. Uhh. Comes part and parcel with headcanoning that Loop went way off the deep end similar to A5 Sif But Maybe Worse before giving in. Add weepy half-asleep confessions to murder wherever you see fit in your mind palace. 👍👍👍

**Re: Nille footnote. I don't have anywhere to put this besides here! I have some thoughts on Loop and Nille having an odd dynamic. I don't imagine Nille to be super gung-ho on trusting a bunch of adults (even if they are majority around her age) given their implied backstory. It's probably a big shock to the system, especially since Bambouche is a good couple hundred Kilometers up north from Dormont and these guys don't seem to have trains. She would've been unfrozen and without Bonnie for some time....

Which is to say: I think she's suspicious of them. I think she may be looking for excuses to distance herself, keep Bonnie safe. SO.... A new guy showing up? And antagonising the party? What do they know that I don't...? I should find out.

And since... Loop didn't ever know Nille, they have no ammunition or real reason to be cruel. Plus, if they're trying to stay on Bonnie's good side (SINCE... if Bonnie thought Loop was cringe they may as well kill themselves. In their mind.) they SUPER have no reason to antagonise Nille.

Mostly, they might be able to open up to each other easier than they can the rest of the party?

I feel like this resolves with Loop feeling compelled to apologise for what they and Siffrin let happen to Bonnie, though... Hmm... Depends on how you interpret Nille that they'd be glad nobody else had been told about that yet, or furious it had been secret this long. I lean toward the former.

#PHEW THIS IS LONG. i wrote some extra footnotes and tidied it up a bit. but uh. here you go! my personal headcanon baseline for postcanon.#i could probably elaborate more but that would get unwieldy. like i have opinions on loop's dynamics w each party member but. LONG POST...#lucabytetalks #isat #isat spoilers #in stars and time #isat loop #isiloop #sloopis #WONT be tagging everyone thats absurd. loop centric post though with a chunk about nille at the end #isat act 6 spoilers

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emblazons · 1 year

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Listen. If they wanted me to believe in mlvn they would have had Vecna take Mike from El. They would have her say “it you touch him again, I will kill you, again” before giving them a one-on-one romantic reunion where Mike did something like parallel being saved from the quarry + said “you saved me—you’re not the monster, not to me. I love you.” They would have had him encourage her to her face in a way she could respond to—before she won, or at the very least managed to save him from death the way she saved Max.

Funny how nothing like that happened tho. Instead Mike confessed, the world broke in half, Murray, Steve and Nancy delivered the final blows while El just stood there as Vecna faded away…and then this?

FOLLOWED BY THIS?

I’ve spent an entire year giving y’all the deeper context for the storyline and all it’s subtleties but…lmao this was more than enough on its own, and I haven’t even touched 99.9% of byler, or the return of “there’s more to life than stupid boys” with Max.

But…of course it’s me whose delusional, right? 🙃

#anti mlvn #byler #I’m so tired y’all like lmao #you don’t need a film degree or anything more than baseline common sense for this???? where’s the confusion LMAO #mike wheeler #will byers #el hopper #st commentary #stranger things

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avallachs · 8 months

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i’m aware i’m 100% alone in this, but i genuinely adore ascended astarion (especially when romanced) because of how—frankly—horrific it is. it’s simultaneously so cathartic in its brutality but so unsatisfying personally while managing to be narratively satisfying (just as his other outcome is, of course).

#ophelia.txt #bg3 spoilers #the way he still has the shell of his old feelings for tav mirrored in his possessiveness of them. that alone does suggest that he’d #probably not subject them to the same overt cruelty that he suffered which makes it all far more dangerous and insidious. because what #humanity—in as much as it can be called thus—remained to him is gone. what made him HIM is gone and all that remains is an incredibly #powerful being who (if you got his scene after moonrise) hates them for letting him go through with it. he has no love left in him now.#only want and resentment and possessiveness. if he loves tav it’s the possessive and selfish love a child has for a toy. but he doesn’t #even respect them. he’s too paranoid now. too drunk on the power he has from his failure to break the cycle (which he. again. resents tav #for allowing). he said right out the gates that true vampires are never created. there’s only ever a sire and a spawn. and he views tav #letting him bite them as them degrading themselves. placing themselves as lesser than him and it’s the new baseline for how he’s going to #treat them because the man they loved is effectively gone. it makes me feel so unwell. i love ascended astarion like okay king of not #breaking the cycle 🙌🙌🙌

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transmechanicus · 18 days

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That prev post reminded me how much it weirds me tf out when someone only interacts with specific subsets of a minority group and learns their associated niche behavior patterns, and then tries to apply those patterns to every member of that minority that they meet afterwards only to be shocked when it doesn’t work.

#my stuff #i went to a queer group a while ago to make friends and the only two other transfems were both way more shy and feminine and reclusive than #and these two had been attending for a while so they were everybody else’s baseline for transfems #this is not the other transfems fault to be clear they’re just giving #*VIBING #and then i show up looking like i spilled out of a metal concert and slapped on the she/her sticker it got me some looks #like ohhhh you think all trans girls grow their hair out and wear pink and play 1 billion hour final fantasy i see how it is #ohhhh you have preconceived notions of what trans womanhood looks like #surprise i wear band shirts and a leather jacket 6/7 days a week i cuss and take up space and have mostly guy friends #and that doesn’t make me any less of a woman

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hadesknockedupintheunderworld · 5 days

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Okay I just need to say that I knew I'd like this Tailstube as soon as I saw the thumbnail (after all, I am a Sonadails enjoyer, and Tails is literally in the middle of them in the thumbnail)

But I think probably something that stood out the most to me when I watched it was just

The hints that Shadow and Tails have a relationship outside of Sonic??

The first thing that tipped me off to this was that not only did Tails convince Shadow to join in on his show, he also convinced him to stick around to its natural end?? You know, Shadow. The guy you can't force to do anything and frequently will just dip if he's bored or doesn't want to be there. But even while Sonic was annoying him and he made it clear he wanted the "interview" over with, he still never made a move to chaos control out of there because of any of this.

And the second thing that tipped me off was this:

When Shadow is both confused and annoyed at Sonic, he chooses to complain to Tails about Sonic. And so Tails steps in to try to "explain" what Sonic meant by what he said (i.e he told Shadow something much nicer in the interest of getting them to be on better terms). The fact that he looks to Tails to complain to about Tails' own best friend and possibly even to explain that which he does not understand in a social context tells me just how highly he regards Tails. And since both Shadow and Sonic are being childish here, it's amusing to see Tails regarded as something closer to a trusted figure with more power here.

From an objective analysis standpoint, of course this means they have their own friendship. And this is a prospect I enjoy (The idea that Tails and Shadow are good friends)! It actually means a lot to me that Tails could form a frienship or bond with Shadow outside of the context of Sonic (in terms of who initiates it and for what reason it's initiated).

But, my friends, from a biased standpoint, I'm shipping trash. And to me this Tailstube was a fun show for Sonadails fans. Honestly, Tails staging this episode to get Sonic and Shadow to talk and "bury the hatchet", as well as how he acts during the show, read a lot to me personally like a guy trying to get his two boyfriends (who happen to be rivals) to get on better terms, if not just tolerate each other. I quite like the idea of Tails dating both of these idiots and just trying to get them to play nice when they're all together (although frankly I think the ideal scenario for Tails in my biased reading is that Sonic and Shadow get together as well).

This is also not to mention the dynamics showcased here! Sonic and Tails as best friends, with Sonic assuming that he and Tails were gonna talk shit about Shadow behind his back, and Tails trying to get him to play nicer. Shadow and Tails as friends, with Tails trying to convince him why he and Sonic are in the perfect position to become friends and helping him out socially, and with Shadow choosing to do something he doesn't want to because of Tails, as well as looking to Tails to complain to when Sonic is annoying him or when he doesn't understand something. And then there's Sonic and Shadow. In short, their relationship in this episode reminded me a lot of the dynamic I plotted out for that Sonadow post I wrote up where the two just beat the crap out of each other. In slightly longer terms, I find interesting how Mr. Flynn maintained Sonic and Shadow's dynamic during SA2 (with Sonic bothering Shadow and trying to fight him, while Shadow is just annoyed that Sonic won't leave him alone) while also showing the audience that they are rivals. And in longer terms...Sonic was clearly seeking a fight during this episode. And the facial expression, the mocking, his tone of voice, it doesn’t really matter whether or not he actually dislikes Shadow and believes they could never be friends. He's trying to annoy Shadow and goad him into a fight because he wants to fight Shadow so badly it makes him look stupid. And we can tell by how he expresses his confusion to Tails that Shadow is just not getting this. To him Sonic is just being annoying and confusing. Sonic is targeting him specifically, and Shadow shoots back with his own words. And so it's also pointed that Shadow reciprocates/actually decides to fight Sonic when Sonic specifically challenges him. He doesn't respond to Sonic trying to goad him on, but when Sonic challenges him specifically he's much more interested in opposing him.

Anyways guys I love Shadow and Tails having a soft on the side relationship while Sonic flirts by convincing Shadow to fight him somehow😂💖

#sonic the hedgehog #tailstube #sonadails #sonshadails #sonadow #sontails #shadails #shadow the hedgehog #tails the fox #miles tails prower #i just be ramblin #man there are so many things about this episode #Another personal favorite interaction was when #Tails: Come on could you try to just say one nice thing about each other? One compliment? Please?#Sonic‚ mockingly: Anything you can do I can do better #Shadow: Yeah? Do it then. Prove it.#Sonic: Ah crap he called my bluff #Sonic: I uh...I love the way you...chaos control?#Tails: Okay. You do one now Shadow #Shadow: I uh... I also love the way you chaos control. ...It's impressive that you could do it with a fake emerald #Tails: See? You can compliment each other! Sorta #Sonic is on the aro/ace spectrum to me but to me his most compelling relationships are always little buddy effect related and knuckles #effect related #Which just means that he tends to hold relationships like his and Tails highly (and has taken more than one little buddy)‚ but is also #attracted to people who have tried to kill him. What can I say? He loves the softness and domesticity of having a smaller loyal partner as #he loves the danger and exhilaration of fighting/racing a strong opponent #Sonic and Shadow fighting (and especially Sonic trying to get Shadow to fight him on purpose) is just baseline what the two need #for 'toxic yaoi' so if someone can't even handle how hostile they were during the tailstube then...#Anyways‚ how we feelin Sonshadails fans?

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tswwwit · 4 months

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I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way but i recently reread the entire familiar au (its as amazing as always!) and its so impressive to see how far you have come as a writer especially compared to the new cult au its honestly pretty inspiring

Thank you! It's truly nice to hear that I've made progress. I mean, obviously - hopefully - I would have after all this time, but sometimes the improvement is hard to see when you're so close to it.

#answers #I've been tempted at times to just take down some of my really old stuff #Because I am very 😬 when I reread it #But I think it stands as a nice relic/testament to how I've grown as a writer #In that I only roll around in agony about 90% of the time reading current writing now as opposed 575% with the old stuff #It feels like I don't know what I'm doing at any given time #But presumably I've learned SOMETHING #And my writing is not The Worst™#Funny how the baseline changes as skill changes because it's hard to remember sometimes that yes #Skill has improved!!#I say as I stare at this document with severe doubts and worry and agony #Nothing like looking at a 5k doc and going 'yeah this is only halfway to the end at BEST'#There is so much more yet to complete #Also super nice to hear that the cult thing is good to read #It's got a lot more visuals than my usual so I'm pushing my comfort zone #I am Not A Visual Person so that takes some Effort #All of these tags have been very navelgazing so here's a fun fact #If *I* can get better at writing by doing it for a long time #YOU can do it TOO and BETTER #It just takes - again - a lot of writing to get there

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mumblesplash · 8 months

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the fact that doctors can just Recommend Weight Loss with no instructions beyond ‘eat healthier/less’ is actually insane to me, i lost weight on purpose ONCE and it took me like 6 years to recover a semi-normal relationship with food and hunger

#uhh #disordered eating cw #just in case #mumbling #like jfc i know i’m not the first to say it and my experience is relatively SO tame #but it STILL fucked with my head for YEARS #and most people don’t go nearly that long between weight loss attempts at all for basically their whole lives!!!!!#and we’re so blasé about it like yeah just eat less to lose weight #and so few people talk about the really weird shit that phase of my life taught me even though they seem like pretty universal things #like when you lose weight deliberately by denying yourself food you get COLD #you get cold and you get in your head and you get sad it’s like being less alive #the times i’ve lost weight/recomped on accident (by doing smth that makes me move more‚ getting better sleep etc)#it’s been WARM #burn hotter move freer feel happier #and also the way hunger feels when you’ve been denying yourself food for an extended time is NOT the same as baseline hunger #it’s actually kind of wild that we use the same word to describe both feelings like that shit is NOT the same #that shit is not ‘being really hungry’ it’s a fuckin. blood curse or some shit you feel straight up unhinged #and i should disclaim here i am not talking large amounts of weight #i’ve fluctuated over i think a 20lb range max since reaching close to my adult height and that’s a guesstimate #but even in my relatively unremarkable little experiences here the way deliberate weight loss fucked with my brain is absurd to me #i’m fine now have been for years but seriously thinking back on it the fact that this is routine medical advice. unreal

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crescentfool · 1 year

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i just want good things for them 🥺💗

#persona 3 #ryomina #ryoji mochizuki #minato arisato #makoto yuki #lizzy does art #been working through a backlog of sketches / baselines i have lying around since i am in a coloring mood lately!!!#i alternate between wanting to study things to make more elaborate Things (many sketch pages) then getting bored and wanting 2 color things #as u can see. i am in my coloring phase. i just wanted to draw ryomina being happy together bc thats what heals my soul #seeing them together just sparks joy and GAAH i would like to draw better for them but this shall suffice for now...#like i have so many ideas!! but i have been turtle-ing my way over to them whenever i feel that im ready to tackle smthn bigger.#ryomina can feed me for a lifetime. i love them in a symbolic aspect and the day i can capture that will the day i have ascended #i hope everyones been having a good one btw!!! love you all very much thank you always for the kindness 💛💙

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inchidentally · 1 day

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so torn between wanting lando and oscar to hang out more - but not wanting lando to miss out on being a slut

truly in this fandom we celebrate the bond that has formed between these two fully in spite of their lifestyles outside of racing being diametrically opposed

Girlfriend GuyTM Oscar who votes for sleep when he's alone

Hottie for HireTM Lando who runs his ten different careers and sponsorships while still finding time to keep at least five different ppl absolutely gagging for it

I like to think that their little catch ups on what they've been doing are like two different species finding out what life is like on a different planet

#inchreplies #what's always wild to me is that who they are when they're at home and chilling/gaming they're basically the same person #like fundamentally the twinning thing ppl see is that their baseline frequencies are identical and lando is as shy as oscar and poss more??#but the second they step out into the world with other people they go in HUGELY different directions

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media-illiterate · 2 months

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Fallout 4 Alternate Timeline

Because @datura-tea asked about my tags on this post, and I already have it sitting in my wips folder, I thought I'd post my alternate timeline of events for Fallout 4! It always bothered me that the Commonwealth is still so underdeveloped while the West Coast has trains and a working electical grid. So I tried to come up with a coherent narrative of how it could have backslid into its current state.

Timeline under the readmore because it is, not short.

2077: The Great War occurs. The surviving students and faculty of CIT take refuge in the institute’s underground particle-physics labs, locking the rest of the wasteland out. They live in fear of being discovered by other survivors and raided for their tech, making them paranoid and isolationist.

2097: Building on prewar research, CIT survivors complete development of their Mass Relay teleportation device. Dubbing themselves simply as The Institute, they fully wall themselves off from the surface world and embark on an ambitious plan of underground expansion, scavenging what they need from the surface.

2131: The Institute develops gen-1 synths to act as surface operatives, mostly removing the need for Institute personnel to go to the surface. Now mostly insulated from violence, the Institute much more callous and combative towards surface dwellers.

2163: The Institute isolates samples of FEV from the air, and begins a program of carefully controlled mutation. The resulting supermutants are found lacking, and the program is put on hold.

2176: The Commonwealth People's Government is formed from several prominent settlements. The new nation takes steps to protect its people from the Institute’s aggressive scavenging methods, earning its ire. Though the institute takes steps to try and destabilize the CPG, their new gen-2 synths prove insufficient for the task.

2177: Reactivating their FEV program, the Institute begin producing supermutants from kidnapped wastelanders and releasing them into the commonwealth with the intent to destabilize the CPG. Through careful false-flag attacks using disguised synths, they manage to spark a state of war between the mutants and surface humans that will last for more than a century.

2180: The newly formed Commonwealth Minutemen, a volunteer citizen’s militia created by the CPG, help drive off the initial wave of supermutants from central Boston.

2180-2224: Tensions between the Institute and CPG continue to escalate. Though the efforts of the Institute’s FEV project hampers the young nation’s expansion, the supermutants are too disorganized and scattered to topple the government. Faced with an increasingly cohesive and rapidly developing CPG, the Institute begins work on its Gen-3 synth infiltrator project.

2225: The Institute discovers information on Vault 111. Preparations are made for an expedition to recover a pristine pre-war genetic code from one of the pre-war vault dwellers in cryostasis.

2227: The part where they murder your spouse and steal your kid happens.

2229: An early model synth infiltrator "malfunctions" in downtown Diamond city, exposing the existence of Gen-3 synths to the world. The cause of the malfunction is never found, though escaped synths often claim that it was an intentional suicide-by-cop.

2230: Realizing the security threat posed by the new Gen-3 synths, mid-ranking members of the CPG's nascent spy corps founds the town of Covenant over top of an abandoned tunnel network. Posing as a new settlement, almost no one outside the project know its true purpose: the town is actually a front for researching a method to discern humans from Gen-3 synths.

2233: The Institute begins its infiltration of the CPG using upgraded Gen-3 synths, killing & replacing key individuals at all levels of power. Though paranoia about synths continues to build, most fail to anticipate just how far the tech has advanced.

2235: The Institute finalizes development of an advanced model of Gen-4 synth, dubbed Coursers. Incorporating FEV and cybernetic enhancements, Coursers form an elite corps of assassins that eliminate anyone who learns about the Institute’s plans.

(Side note: I think coursers should have been so much weirder)

2237: Having completed their infiltration of the CPG, the Institute kicks off their plan to topple the CPG.

August 4: The Executive Chair of the CPG council, Robert Gray, is assassinated by his secretary in broad daylight. During the assassination and subsequent arrest, the secretary loudly declares that the Chair has been replaced by an Institute Synth.

August 12: Scandal breaks out as evidence of massive financial corruption is leaked to the public. Protests occur across the commonwealth as the full scope becomes clear.

August 26: A special election is held, and voters elect minister of transportation Patricia Weiss as Chair. She delivers a hawkish election speech warning the Institute to back down.

September 10: A portion of the CPG stages a coup, using claims of mass election fraud as justification amid mass public unrest. They capture most of the CPG council members, and declare them traitors to the people of the commonwealth. Weiss escapes and sets up a government-in-exile out of Quincy with the remaining CPG military. She issues a two week ultimatum to the coup’s leaders, demanding that they release the counselors and surrender.

September 20: Before the date of the ultimatum passes, the CPG council is executed via mass firing squad in the CPG council chambers. Public dissent boils over into active civil war. The Minutemen quickly declare neutrality, but their attempts to protect outlying settlements are hampered by the widespread violence and lack of volunteers.

October 30: Under the guise of a ceasefire negotiation, the coup regime arrests Weiss. She is put through a kangaroo court and hanged as a synth infiltrator, to the shock of the public.

November: Multiple settlements withdraw from the CPG as the violence escalates, Bunker Hill and Goodneighbor first among them. The CPG civil war begins to peter out as both sides lose support, and numerous CPG military units defect to become raiders in search of pay.

December: Loyalist forces gain the upper hand, begin a reign of terror style purge of the remaining CPG officials, and declare the coup defeated. Weakened by the withdrawal of numerous settlements in reaction to the violence of the purge, the Loyalist government promptly collapses. Remnants of the rebel CPG forces attempt to declare a new government out of University Point, but fail to attract any major settlements.

2238: The CPG totally collapses. The remnants of its military forces, both loyalist and rebel, defect to the gunners en masse; many, disillusioned with military life, become raiders. Only the Minutemen command staff, operating out of Fort Independence, remain cohesive.

The collapse of the CPG ushers in an era of violence lasting decades as raider warlords exploit the chaos to carve the Commonwealth up into bandit fiefdoms.

Rumors begin to circulate that several of the key players of the CPG’s collapse were secretly synths. In truth, the entire chain of events was planned to a T, and leaders on all sides had been replaced. Only the Minutemen were overlooked, being seen by the Institute as just ragtag volunteers.

Several synth infiltrators defect from the Institute, seeking a way to free themselves and their peers. The organization they found will eventually grow into the Railroad.

Covenant, its secrecy miraculously intact, becomes radicalized by the fall of the CPG. Their methods become more desperate and more barbaric as time goes on.

2240's: The Minutemen begin rebuilding support for the CPG among the populace, striking back against the raider warlords and defending settlements from their depredations.

2250: Supermutant attacks increase sharply as the Institute releases more and more mutants onto the surface in an attempt to stop the Minutemen from reforming the CPG.

2274: After weathering two decades of freaquent supermutant attacks, Fort Independence finally falls at the hand of a mirelurk queen; unknown to anyone on the surface, this was the work of the Institute, who used their advanced signals technology to drive the creature into a frenzy.

2282: General Becker dies, leaving the Minutemen leaderless. The militia quickly declines, becoming disorganized and factional; raiders quickly exploit the chaos.

2285: Disgusted by his role in the Institute’s FEV program, Doctor Brian Virgil sabotages the program, mutates himself, and escapes into the glowing sea with the accumulated research. Distraught by the sudden lack of new reinforcements, the commonwealth mutants face an extinction crisis. Many begin to question their way of life, among them a mutant named Strong.

2288: The Sole Survivor wakes up.

#I don't think this is perfect but I do personally think it has a lot more coherence than fallout 4's baseline story #The Institute being both totally disconnected from reliant on and genuinely terrified of the surface would go a long way to explain things #Coupled with dehumanization and insulation from the consequences it becomes very clear how they would turn out Like That(tm)#Explaining the massive amount of raiders as being a bunch of competing bandit warlords also makes way more sense than 'its just like that'#This would preferably go with a remake of the raiders as. y'know. a bunch of competing bandit gangs rather than a bunch of violent randos #The power vacuum being artificially maintained by the Institute so they can continue to use the surface like a larder ties it all up nicely #fallout 4 #fallout 4 meta

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