Adventures of an English Major

CAUTION: This article contains both SPOILERS for the content of the DLC "Point Lookout," as well as coarse language. So don't blame me for your viewing it. I warned your stupid ass.


As your standard mythic hero and/or possible saint, I could never turn down a plea for help. So naturally when I stumble upon a woman pleading for me to find and return her daughter to her, I'm irresistibly compelled to help. Of course, I was a little confused when she informed me that her Nadine was around my own age, and I kind of wanted to smack a bitch and tell her that a twenty year old has to be let off the leash once in awhile.

I mean look at me. A nobody in the Vault where daddy left me. A hero when I have the courage to venture forth into the unknown. It's where we are shaped by our experiences, grow into the men and women we are meant to be, forge our own paths.

Of course, a whole lot of the people that wander off on their own tend to quickly get mauled to death by Radroaches... but I guess they were just stupid anyway.

If this kills you, you deserved it.

So I buy a wildly overpriced ticket from Tobar the arrogant d-bag, and away I go on another crazy adventure, but not before a drawn-out, emotional goodbye to my best friend in the world, Charon, who doesn't really seem to care that I'll be gone for two to three months and will probably spend the time drinking and hopefully using my home in Megaton as the setting for a classic buddy-comedy wherein he parties, wackiness ensues, the police are called, and yet he must make sure that the place is spotless before I return lest I find out what he's been up to.

"You could die and I really wouldn't give a shit."

Over the course of uncomfortably long weeks, Tobar and I managed to awkwardly avoid each others company, me especially after he revealed a habit of ripping farts and insisting it "wasn't him" even though there were only two of us on the fucking ferry, and I am not mentally disabled to the point that I would claim a fart that isn't mine.

Despite the lackluster accommodations on the way here, Point Lookout actually leaves me awestruck. Compared to the Vault and the Capital Ruins, a desolate beach seems like some sort of paradise. There aren't any signs of thermonuclear devastation, there's a picturesque lighthouse in the distance, and I might even figure out how to take a ride on that giant wheel thing, just for fun. Overall, I can take a moment to enjoy a kind of scenery that is virtually non-existent back home.

Pretty now, but when the sun sets, you're in for banjos and forced sodomy.

Having arrived in Pilgrim's Landing, a quaint little seaside boardwalk town, literally ten minutes ago, I'm still in a relatively pleasant mood. I haven't seen any people yet, but much like in the Capital Wasteland, I'm sure it only looks empty until you can find a bastion of friendly, human faces.

As I travel up a road toward this mansion I am charged with checking in on, I gaze to my left and see a rather tall, utterly shit-inducing figure in the distance. Although I was momentarily startled by his presence, I realized I may have discovered this bastion I was looking for. The glazed look in his lazy eye didn't give me a clue to the friendly part, and I don't know if I would label it human, but I spent a month on that ferry with Tobar the Creepy and any interaction besides that is welcome.

I – being a trusting, kind person – ignore the terrifyingly deformed arm and eerie manner in which he gapes at me from afar, choosing instead to vomit discretely so as to not offend him, then approach with the best of intentions.

“Hello, local salt-of-the-earth person, I was wondering – ”
“I gon' kill and eat ya.”
“Holy dear fuck, I just shat myself.”

After my first attempt at interaction with the locals left me in need of fresh skivvies, and incited my first bout of murder in weeks, I spent only a moment tiptoeing around the nearby Ritual Site, where I wondered in horror why the fuck I had agreed to come here. Twenty minutes in and I'd already been forced to behead a local, discovered a specialized location for unearthly sins and abominations, and had to examine why am I more disturbed by lynched dolls than human rib-cages on pikes.
 

Don't let the ritualistically assembled skeletons fool you – the locals will also skin you for voodoo purposes.

Luckily, when I enter the place, the commotion seems to be a simple gunfight between one old man with a shotgun, and a bunch of fricking hobos seemingly trying to rob him. And possibly eat his flesh, if I'd learned anything about local culture in the half-hour since I'd landed on these putrid shores.

Once these few tribals are dispatched, the old man runs to a large bank of surveillance cameras, where I attempt to introduce myself.

“Hello Calvert Mansion inhabitant, how can I be of assista- holy flying fucksicles! You're a ghoul. With a shotgun. It's like being at home with Charon! Yay!”

“...Also, you appear to have commandeered Burt Reynold's 'stache for the purposes of badassery, which I can totally get behind.”

And this Mr. Lockheart promptly orders me to do the righteous defend and protect, Alamo-esque last stand, hero thing.

Once the charming locals have all chosen their fate - more beheadings and pure bloody slaughter via buckshot, which I imagine a person will take to the face, screaming, "God, my face! Why!?" before being dealt a final blow with their own axe - I finally have the chance to really speak to the only fucking civilized person whom I have met thus far.

And then he belittles me. Repeatedly. For helping.

“Hey guy, I totally helped you out.”
“Yeah, well, you're a douche.”
“... you're ...mean...”

It's beginning to seem to me that the locals of Point Lookout do not respond well to good manners (or hygiene).

So I go on a mission for this prick. Get shot at and hacked by creepy-ass, santeria-doing, the hills have eyes looking freaks of nature for this guy. Drop acid and trip balls for him because some cult told me to. Like when Dad told me to never to take candy from strangers, that didn't include an addendum about not accepting hallucinogens from smelly, hairy people who recurrently make poor life decisions. Not only that, but I have a bad trip when I take said hallucinogens for this dude, and wind up freaking out about sacrificing everything for the sake of mankind, and everyone I love leaves me and holy freaking God, I'm alone in this world and nobody loves me and I let myself be strung around by random people who get me out on wild goose chases and – holy shit. Is that a giant sewing needle?

Do you think Desmond would care that I had to do this to get into the church thing? Probably not. Would he care that some dirty, wipes his ass with his hand, back-alley-abortion 'doctor'/sailor with a disturbing fetish for brain chunks has burrowed into my freaking skull and picked out the parts that turned him on? He'd tell me to suck it up, that's what he'd do.

Tobar looks like the kind of freak who would sniff used panties. And then murder people.

"Hey there. I will rape and then play tea party with your corpse."

Thus far, what I have learned is that Desmond is a stone-cold asshat with three emotions: hate, super-hate, and apathy.

“They took. My. Brain.”
“Pussy.”
“Drilled into my skull, and picked out my frontal lobe.”
“As if you were using it.”
“...”
“Are you going to go do things for me or what?”
“You are a callous and unfeeling human being. Your aloofness toward my personal horrors makes me feel violated. Both emotionally and sexually.”
“I would eat your children if you had any.”
“... call me...?”

So after all this, he has his information, I've experienced involuntary trepanation, we can pretty much call it even – much because if this is my reward for information, I don't want to know what I'd get for actually helping him exact vengeance.

 

After determining that Desmond is, in all probability, not okay, my character somehow is suddenly and inexplicably compelled to swim over to the pretty lighthouse adjacent to the coast. I know this because my Pip-Boy directs me there even though I have no knowledge whatsoever of this supposedly secret location. Upon entering, I was delighted to find that Desmond had used his magical BAMF powers to teleport to the conveniently located secret lab (probably much in the same way that my idiot savant of a character wanted to toddle over immediately after believing that his acquaintance was brutally and unfairly murdered. I mean, yeah, he was kind of a douche, but fiery death? That should be reserved for the most heinous of crimes like pederasty and wearing spandex in public).

Anyway, he promptly informs me – in no lack of fucktasticly assembled curses – that I have one chance to redeem myself. I have to admit; for retardedly carrying out an action that I perceived as harmless which almost caused his untimely (at 230+ years old?) death, I found him to be pretty forgiving.

I stood by my convictions, however, telling him exactly what I went to the mansion to tell him. And the dude just stares blankly at me.

“You mean, you did it because I wasn't polite enough?”
“...yeah.”
“...Well, fucking please help me out... gaytard.”
“Close enough.”

And after all the main quest – after this man has insulted my higher function, belittled my abilities, cursed in my face, allowed me to be permanently disfigured and possibly groped – much like an Alzheimer's patient, I forget his douchebaggary, and start to think, 'Hey, Desmond's an alright guy...”

It might have just been the bug that caused him to hide in a closet for seventeen and a half minutes while I sternly reprimanded him (“Desmond... Desmond! Get out of there! Desmond. Don't make me come in there... ) and opened and shut the door repeatedly in the hope that he would grow lonely and come out on his own, before we 'teamed up' to defeat a defenseless, largely inadequate enemy, but I felt that we bonded in a way. And even though he thanked Jesus that he would never have to see me again, I know, deep down, that was just his own special way of saying 'I love you, bro.'

The blank, apathetic gaze of selfless love.

“You, know, Desmond, when we – and by 'we,' I mean 'I' – were defeating that brain by destroying his large jar – much like a sociopathic ten-year-old would grab his goldfish from the bowl, throw it on the floor, and shout, “Die goldfish! Suffocate and die on the floor without the aquatic habitat to which you are accustomed and dependant upon!” – I think we really made a memory that's going to last.”
“I hate you, and wish to eviscerate your flesh, then shit on your gored and slowly dying body.”
“I'll miss you too, pal.”

After seeing through Desmond's inglorious defeat of a hunk of grey matter, I suddenly remembered that the whole reason I came to this backwoods slopfest was to find that Nadine chick. Luckily I ran into her in the cult/church and she's now down at the Duchess Gambit. When I head down to check on her, she promptly informs me that Tobar is the perv that was rooting around in my most private of internal organs. Wasteland justice dictates his fate, and I am obligated to remove all of his appendages from his torso and leave the gore for Nadine to find.

 

After all this B.S. is over, I'm lucky enough to find a simple enough task from a kind old man who would just like me to find a family heirloom for him. Of course, it seems to be located in that creepy-ass ritual site that I stumbled upon when I first arrived. And, as I head over, this missionary named Marcella informs me that the old man is really going to be all evil and such, and I need to destroy this book he has me looking out for.

At this point I was ready to convert to even the most extreme sect of Catholicism, hoping desperately that I could cover myself in holy relics in an effort to render my flesh unfit for voodoo hillbilly consumption.

But the scariest part of my trip into the depths of hell was when I went to retrieve this book only to find it sitting in a bowl of blood that had a goddamn skull floating in midair above it. I could only stare in horror as I realized the full gravity of this discovery. All the time that I had dealt with these Swampfolk, I had thought of them as scary, but intellectually deficient when, really, it was I who was woefully missing the point.

It's not that these people believe in voodoo. It's that they practice real fucking voodoo.

"You, player character, are woefully fucktarded."

That's like discovering one day that your creepy, yet previously harmless roommate has been a serial killer the whole time you've lived with them.

So I did the only logical thing you can do in that situation: I punched that fucking abomination of nature out of the air and ran for my motherfucking life.

As I sprinted to Marcella, I realized fully how much time I spend running in terror here in Point Lookout. Like I'm a cold, badass back in D.C., taking on a platoon of Talon Company mercs and a Supermutant Behemoth without much of a second thought, but throw a couple santeria-making inbreds my way and I will lose my shit. And it turns out that this missionary broad has, conveniently, been brutally murdered while I was gone, and 'Die Thief' painted on the wall with her blood. Quaint. I wouldn't have went with that stylistic choice for decorating, but it is in keeping with the local flavor.

At this point it occurs to me that everyone on this fuckhole is either batshit insane or dead. And I better get the hell out of here before I become one or the other.

After running, screaming, back to the riverboat, we set off - probably because when a person who previously took on trained, armored military units with a baseball bat grabs your collar and implores you to "Get us the fuck out of here!" people generally listen.

After gazing back at the shores of Point Lookout, which with the fog rolling across the cliffs and the lighthouse in the distance, looked peaceful and lovely, I turned to Nadine and said, “You were literally going to come back regardless of whether or not I came to find you. You cunt.”

Prepare to feel the electromagnetic wrath of Nikola Tesla, selfish bitch.

And I imagine I gave her a hellish time on the way back, such that she would never allow me to board the Dutchess Gambit again, on the condition that I were even willing to return to that putrescent shit-hole of a town, possibly if only to spit on its shores.

I've never been to Maryland, but thanks to Bethesda, I can feel secure in the knowledge that if it is ever necessary to pass through, I will do so at eighty miles per hour, remarking to whomever is in the passenger seat that, “Hey, at this speed, they almost look human.”

-------------

Thank you so fucking much, Bethesda, for making this game, so that I might entertain myself by playing the game, and entertain others by making fun of my playing the game. Rest assured, I love and appreciate each installment of DLC and any and all disparaging comments are solely for the purposes of humor. For all the phenomenal dedication, innovation, and passion, and for all those about to game, I salute you.

I am an English undergraduate, an amateur writer, a video game geek, a zombie enthusiast, a chick, and a self-professed god(dess) – 'god' sounds cooler.

If you're here looking for the answers to all life's questions, you're out of luck. I guess I'm one of those Greek gods who is more interested in getting laid than passing out wisdom to the masses.
 

If you're here looking for advice on writing and/or insight into literature, then only time can tell if I'm your woman. I like to fancy myself someone with an educated opinion on matters of the craft, however, please remember that I am merely a student who has much to learn operating under the opinion that a passion for a field can make up for some degree of experience.
 

My (call it a lack of) experience:
 

I spent four years as an editor on my high school literary publication, so I feel I have the right to comment on teen writing, at the very least. My senior year, I also served as the group's president because, yes, I am that kind of awesome. Senior year, I also doubled up on my English requirements, and received a four on the Advanced Placement Literature exam, which is pretty damn good if you are not aware.
 

I am currently a sophomore in college and I plan on starting a combined Bachelors/Masters program in the spring of this year. After that, I'll be on to a Ph.D. program.
 

I write every day, whether I churn out fanfiction (see forthcoming article on the virtues of) or original work. I read every day, whether it's classical poetry, horror, humor, or contemporary.

What this blog is:
 

This is my own personal rant page, where I can praise things I like and tear up things I don't. In an idyllic situation, this is a place where new (or maybe even seasoned) writers can learn a thing or two, or at least, share in the discussion of literary topics.
 

What this blog is not:
 

This is not the end all, be all for your writing needs. Let's face it: I don't have a degree, I'm not published, I'm not even all that great. I'm just looking to share what little I know about things I love. If you want an expert, I suggest you begin with the title On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, which is the first, and greatest, resource that I can recommend to anyone interested in writing.

What I read:
 

Some of my top favorite works are Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, and roughly anything by Stephen King (I'll single out The Green Mile and Misery as two can't miss selections).
 

As a student of literature, I have an appreciation for that which many others might find boring or archaic. And, hell, there are quite a few books I fell asleep reading, but I'd still recommend for various reasons relating to the techniques involved in composing them. At the same time, I'm floored by horror and all kinds of non-stuffy, experimental stuff too.
 

I do have a deep loathing for most poetry. I'm highly critical of it, and you pretty much have to be Keats to interest me. A few works that I do love, are “When I Have Fears,” by John Keats, “Narcissus and Echo,” by Fred Chappell, and “A Whippoorwill in the Woods” by Amy Clampitt.

 

F.A.Q. (This should be called 'questions that I feel like answering preemptively'):
 

1. How can I ask you a grammar/literature/writing question?
 

Comment on one of my posts or message me directly. If I've answered it before, I'll direct you to it. If I haven't I'll let you know, and probably post on the topic as soon as I get a chance.
 

2. How would you classify yourself as a writer?
 

I consider myself a minimalist, much like Ann Beattie or Chuck Palahniuk, only not as good as either. I also draw a bit of inspiration from writers who focus on a down-to-earth, everyman kind of style like Stephen King or Annie Proulx.
 

3. So, hot-shot, if you're so great, what do you do for a living?
 

I'm a waitress for the time-being, however, I am applying in various places for a position as an office assistant for the duration of school. After that, I'd like to teach literature at the college-level.
 

4. Why do you even do this, loser?
 

Because I feel like it.
 

5. Can you read my story/poem/term paper?
 

No. I'm not the editor of a literary publication, nor am I part of the writing facility at your local university. If you happen to be a part of a fanfiction community that I'm a member of, you may very well get my feedback without asking. If you're one of those people, feel free to hit me up for stuff like that because, chances are, I like you. Otherwise, if I'm not getting paid, I probably won't want to do it.

6. Really, my writing is good.
 

Cool. Get published and refer me to it.
 

7. I think it's cool that you – as a female – like video games (well, thank you). What do you play?
 

Right now, on the 360, I've been catching up on Fable II and I play Left 4 Dead online pretty frequently. For the computer I just bought the Sims 3 and am acting out an elaborate personal fantasy involving a sim representing myself who is currently a wicked awesome bestselling author, and is pursuing a sim representing a very hot acquaintance of mine. I've also begun playing the original Fallout from 1997 after falling head over heels in love with Fallout 3, which is my all-time favorite game.
 

8. Are you hot?
 

Why, yes, I am.
 

9. What is your favorite thing in the whole world?
 

Coffee.
 

10. I have a major problem with you.
 

Cool, hit me with it. I'll be sure to respond. If I feel you're right, I'll let you know. If I feel you're wrong, it could go one of two ways. If you're rude, I'll be snarky. If you're nice, I'll be nice. Either way I'll provide citations backing up my opinions where necessary.
 

11. Are you done flattering yourself with this unnecessarily long F.A.Q.?
 

I'm never done flattering myself. But the F.A.Q. is over.

Alright, from here on in, I resolve to write at least one entry per week on a topic related to writing and/or literature. And it'll be wicked cool. Yeah, that.

I'm thinking it's going to go like this:
- Primarily: Book Reviews + Grammar thingies + Topics in Writing + Nerdy rants
- Also: Little things that I like, such as video games, movies, and other things that fasinate my Nerdy McNerdinstien brain.

I shall make something of myself. Starting tonight, I write. Insert heroic pose as you see fit. Preferably me with a cape and a stunning moustashe.

Corollary: I am now editing my past posts so that I can prune this baby up. Some things will be lost, but probably for the better.

I found this sweet game called Thule Trail; basically an updated version of the Oregon Trail game - pretty fun. It asks for your name and passengers - I filled my car with friends. So as you go along things happen - and one eerily accurate one -

Part two. Yeah. Stuff.

New drabble series in response to Mandy's story in response to my FF.net profile that says "...complex moral dilemmas ('trapped on an island and starving; do we eat Fred?')"

Will be all drabbles - not my eepfff drabbles that are like 500 words, but real 100 word thingies.

I should be working on my Patriot fanfic...