STARFIELD speculation

Posted on June 16, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

Here’s a crazy thought… What if that circular “artifact” thing in #Starfield turns out to be one of those orbs like the Eye of Magnus in Skyrim? What if, at some point, it connects us to Elder Scrolls 6?

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Movie Night: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Posted on June 12, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

Just watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) because it inspired the Dead Money add-on for Fallout: New Vegas.

The movie’s about some drifters who go prospecting for gold and encounter a host of trouble, leading up to the loss of their hard-earned fortune. The Fallout expansion takes place in a (mostly) abandoned Sierra Madre Casino full of secrets, gold and peril. It was designed to prevent the player from getting out alive with a massive fortune in gold bricks, but I managed to escape with the treasure back when I played the game on PS3 without console commands or mods.

This is what it felt like, trudging back to Novac while overencumbered.

And I discovered that Sierra Madre is where the “we don’t need no badges” line comes from! I know it’s been referenced a lot but I didn’t know where it orginated.

~ J.L. Hilton

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FALLOUT 3: Fawkes fan art

Posted on June 12, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

I wanted pulp fiction art of big beefy green Fawkes from FALLOUT 3, with my lone wanderer Charity doing the classic “leg cling.” So I made one.

Here’s the original pic by Earl Norem that it’s based on:

~ J.L. Hilton

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Growing up fast in the wasteland

Posted on June 8, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

In FALLOUT 3, I keep forgetting I’m just a 19-year-old! I’m sashaying around the rubble all “hey grandpa, you give mustache rides?” to hot scavengers and picking off raiders with the accuracy and indifference of a hardcore mercenary.

At least in FALLOUT 4, I could be in my 30s.

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Fallout Shelter trading cards

Posted on May 26, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

L@@K at these amazing custom Fallout Shelter trading cards, featuring my Minuteman General Fiona, Rose the Raider, and Rose’s weapon of choice Granny’s Kiss! They were commissioned from artist LeporidaeFluff, who’s been making them for people on Twitter. 

I am having some actual trading cards, postcards and stickers printed up for fans of my Fallout videos on YouTube.

BTW you can click on this link for my FALLOUT SHELTER videos on YouTube, in case you missed them a few years ago. I did some livestreams but mostly they are short no-commentary quest videos. Many feature customized vault dwellers based on viewers and Fallout or Skyrim characters. 

I know it started as a mobile game, but Fallout Shelter was actually really fun to play on PS4, and totally free. I didn’t have to spend a dime to get anything but a good time. 

~ J.L. Hilton

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The Origins of FALLOUT

Posted on May 15, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

TIL there’s a 1959 book called A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr, about a post-apocalyptic abbey in the southwest US desert, the same general area where FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS takes place, where monks preserve scientific knowledge after a devastating nuclear war.

The abbey in Canticle is located on an old road that goes “from the Great Salt Lake to Old El Paso…” Having just met Marcella during the Point Lookout DLC in FALLOUT 3, I’m wondering if this inspired the “Abbey of the Road” that she talks about in the game? It sounds a bit like the Followers of the Apocalypse and the Brotherhood of Steel factions in the Fallout franchise, as well.

One of the monks in Canticle meets a vagrant Wanderer (yes, that’s the character’s name) who leads him to the entrance to an ancient fallout shelter containing relics of the old world. In the end, the monk ends up being eaten by mutants.

The book then jumps ahead several centuries to another nuclear war, this time between the “Atlantic Confederacy” and the “Asian Coalition.” The monks execute an emergency plan to preserve knowledge by leaving on a starship to extrasolar colonies.

According to one of the developers Chris Taylor, Canticle, Road Warrior (1981) and City of Lost Children (1995) were major influences when creating the original 1997 FALLOUT game.

UPDATE 2024: In one of his YouTube videos, Tim Cain also mentions Canticle as an influence in the development of FALLOUT, along with A Boy and His Dog (1975), I Am Legend (the 1954 novel), Mad Max (1979), Forbidden Planet (1956), Doctor Strangelove (1964), The Day After (1983), La Jetée (1962, later adapted into the film 12 Monkeys) and many more books, movies and games. Check out his channel if you want to know more about the development of FALLOUT.

~ J.L. Hilton

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I’m no longer the protagonist

Posted on May 11, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

Sometimes I feel like I’ve become an NPC in real life. When I hit the age of 50, I was no longer the protagonist, just a quest giver.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Try-It Tuesday: CAT QUEST II

Posted on May 10, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

Today’s “Try-It Tuesday” video is CAT QUEST II: THE LUPUS EMPIRE, the Gentlebros’ delightful sequel to their 2017 game CAT QUEST, now with dogs!

See my entire CAT QUEST playlist on YouTube here

CAT QUEST II is an action role-playing game for one or two players, released in September 2019 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows PC, iOS and macOS, and for Nintendo Switch in October 2019.

The playable characters are a cat and a dog who must work together to free their kingdoms, Felingard and the Lupus Empire. In single-player mode, you control one character and the game controls the other, but you can switch between them. In cooperative two-player mode, a second player can take control of either the cat or the dog.

In our game, I controlled the cat and my youngest played the dog. Either protagonist can attack, cast spells, dodge, and use the weapons and armor you find along the way.

You can choose from destructive spells or ranged weapons like magic staffs, wands or my favorite the Bard Lute, get up close and personal with some heavy hitting swords and maces, or use a combination of all of the above.

We played the entire game, reached level 113 and achieved the Pawlatinum trophy! Like the first game, it was a lot of fun and I loved being able to play it with my daughter.

CAT QUEST II is rated E for everyone 10+ due to elements of fantasy violence.

~ J.L. Hilton

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May 2022 Update

Posted on May 1, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

I’m working my way through the Point Lookout DLC for FALLOUT 3, which seems to be inspired by movies like Deliverance (1972) and Wrong Turn (2003), and possibly others but I wouldn’t know because I don’t watch horror movies!  

The thumbnail for this recent video is one I’m real proud of, though. I typically use a screen shot from the video and add the FALLOUT 3 logo somewhere. But for this one, I did a composite of several images. I thought it turned out nice and creepy. 

I celebrated my 51st birthday last month, and my family threw me a murder because we’ve been watching a lot of Agatha Christie lately, including “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Death on the Nile.” and “Ordeal by Innocence.” 

My husband played the “corpse” and our oldest daughter wrote a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style story for me to play through. There were also clues around the house for me to find. 

It was so cool I turned it into a browser-based text adventure game using a program called Twine. If you’d like to play it, check out this link. 

Since this is my first time using Twine, let me know if you find any typos or have any suggestions, if you play it. Unfortunately, the current version doesn’t allow me to include images, but I may use this or another similar program to make my own text adventure games in the future. It was really fun to do. 

Team Trashcake has a lot going on, so we’ve taken a break from STARDEW VALLEY livestreams for now.

I was going through my old laptop and found some unedited footage from my GOD OF WAR playthrough, so there are a few more videos on that 2019 playlist now! See me battle valkyrie Kara with a fully-upgraded and powerful Shattered Gauntlet of Ages, defeat the valkyrie Olrun after dying eleven times, listen to Mimir’s stories about Ragnarok, obtain one of the most powerful armor sets in the game, and more on my YouTube channel.

Something else I worked on in April were my Fallout fanfiction stories. I finished the last two stories I had planned for the Fiona series, “The Blue Room” and “All In.” 

You can read these and other stories on AO3 at ArchiveOfOurOwn.org/users/Jewelsmith but be warned, they do contain ADULT CONTENT including explicit sex, language, drugs, alcohol and violence. 

Not all of my stories on AO3 are about Fallout, and not all of them are smutty (or entirely smutty). There are ratings and content tags on all AO3 stories, so if you’re looking to read about how MacCready Meets the Mayor, or how Fiona deals with a Cold, Cruel World by becoming the Minutemen general, you can do that pretty safely (assuming you don’t mind language and violence). But if you’d like something more romantic or even erotic, I’ve got that, too. 

I hope you’re enjoying spring, wherever you may be, and celebrating the lovely day of Beltaine, May 1, the beginning of summer in Irish mythology. I’ll be off to visit a holy well, light a bonfire, and adorn my front door with flowers. 

~ J.L. Hilton

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Give me your tired, your poor

Posted on April 27, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

I received this email from NC Senator Thom Tillis on April 25, 2022. I’m no armchair pundit nor am I interested in arguing politics. But this one really got under my skin.

He is not, in fact, being “clear” when he says the Title 42 Order “allows for immediate expulsion of illegal immigrants who attempt to cross the southern border.” He leaves out crucial context: Title 42 is a 2020 CDC order issued due to covid-19.

Coincidentally, the CDC has also issued orders regarding face masks & showing proof of vaccination, but I’m not seeing a lot of Republicans rushing to support those. Why then would Tillis support the Title 42 Order so vehemently? Fearmongering.

He cites “alarming reports” of 170,000 illegal immigrants who will attempt to enter the US if the Title 42 Order is rescinded. Why would it be rescinded? Because the CDC said it is “no longer necessary.”

But you know what? We already have an average of 170,000 people coming to the southern border every month now, even with Title 42 in place.

In case that doesn’t scare you enough, he says DHS & FEMA are preparing for over 500,000 illegal immigrants per month. What he doesn’t mention is that DHS plans to switch from Title 42 to processing for removal under Title 8. https://dhs.gov/news/2022/03/30/fact-sheet-dhs-preparations-potential-increase-migration…

Title 8 addresses “those who attempt to enter the US without authorization & who are unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the US (such as a valid asylum claim)…” So, it seems there will still be rules in place for dealing with immigrants. https://dhs.gov/news/2022/03/30/fact-sheet-dhs-preparations-potential-increase-migration…

He also neglects to mention what the DHS says in its fact sheet: “Violence, food insecurity, poverty & lack of economic opportunity in several countries in the Western Hemisphere are driving unprecedented levels of migration to our Southwest Border…” https://dhs.gov/news/2022/03/30/fact-sheet-dhs-preparations-potential-increase-migration

“… The devastating economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the region has only exacerbated these challenges. Human smuggling organizations peddle misinformation that the border is open.” https://dhs.gov/news/2022/03/30/fact-sheet-dhs-preparations-potential-increase-migration…

No, instead, Senator Tillis blames the “Biden Administration’s failed immigration policies” that “have caused illegal immigration to reach historic & unsustainable levels.” He also says “This dire humanitarian crisis cannot continue…”

And on that I agree with him, it is a humanitarian crisis. But if fearmongering, villifying & turning people away is the way he wants to deal with it, he does not represent me, a registered, voting, taxpaying constituent in NC.

Republicans often justify their positions by calling on a higher authority, and yet they’re also just as quick to ignore the portions of the Bible which do not suit their purposes. How about Matthew 25:42-45?

“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’”

Many of my ancestors came to the US to escape famine, war, fascism, poverty – one even came to escape an arranged marriage, according to family lore – and I will not pull the ladder up behind me. Far as I’m concerned, anyone who wants to be part of this country is welcome.

~ J.L. Hilton

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