hiii 👋

(From left to right: Mayor MacCready, Lucy, Bumble, Joseph, Eclair, Biwwy, Princess, Zip, Knick Knack, Knock Knock)

I've been thinking about this for a while now, that is, redrawing the Little Lamplight kiddos with more detail and more accurate depictions. Recently, I was streaming fo3 to my friends who don't know much about fallout and we were all baffled when we realized that Bumble is six (6). That's where it started. Then when you realize they mention Eclair is supposed to be missing an eye??? Yeah I needed to fix all that

Unfortunately this was a little rushed to get it finished in time, so I'd like to revisit it in the future, BUT this is a good starting place.

First of all, the dlc is very heavy handed with the "uncivilized savage" depiction of native americans. The fact that they had to be TAUGHT how to use guns and use their own natural resources to make medicine are already two examples of this right out of the gate

Plus, the fact all the tribe members wear rudimentary hides, hardly speak english, and sleep on the ground without any buildings (where Joshua and Daniel get to wear normal clothes and Joshua has his own work station) are more examples of this troupe (and its especially stupid since iirc a lot of southwestern tribes were known for making buildings that still exist to this day)

This also ties into the white savior troupe, since as said, the Dead Horses and the Sorrows both had to be taught to take care of themselves and have to be protected by another tribe by two white men (Joshua and Daniel), and that they practically worship them for it because they apparently would've died off if these two white guys didn't intervene

This, plus the fact they're both missionaries who are trying to convert the tribes into a Mormonism is downright offensive as Christianity as a whole has been used as a tool to justify committing genocide against us for centuries. Do I even need to explain this?

And speaking of them needing protection, the White Legs themselves are a whole shitty can of worms, falling right into the (what should be) long-dead idea that if we're not stupid mud people, that natives are bloodthirsty, cannibalistic, warring savages (which. Again. Another tool of propaganda used to literally kill us for as long as white people have been here). Which in turn loops back around to the whole white savior thing with the problem of the White Legs only being solved because Joshua uses his mighty hand of God to take them out or whatever. No matter if you try to end the dlc peacefully you STILL have to do that! It's fucked up!

This post is already lengthy and there's a lot of things I haven't covered (such as the native characters in the dlc generally falling into the "noble indian" troupe), but these are the most glaring issues I can come up with from the top of my head

Mormons and Native people have an extremely contentious history that is steeped in blood. Ali Nahdee covers the history between Indigenous peoples and Mormons well in her essay regarding Twilight--Her words are still applicable here. A review of few of her points with my own notes:

Mormons were responsible for 1/3 of residential schools in the U.S. and Canada. These were boarding schools that enforced assimilation. Children were not allowed to speak their own language, their hair was cut, and they were forced to dress in European styles. They were subjected to every form of abuse. The purpose of these schools was to break down families and cultural connections. The last residential schools were closing in the 1990s. (My own grandfather is a residential school survivor.)

(From this article linked in Nahdee's video; Though the author is an Indigenous Mormon woman herself, it is informative)

Mormons were directly responsible for the notoriously horrific Bear River Massacre of 1863, which I have talked about here before. The goal was to push Shoshones off their land. As with many Indigenous massacres, women and children were in many cases beaten, killed, and raped alongside men. 450 Shoshone people were killed. A professor of mine is a direct descendant of a survivor of the massacre.

These are only two especially horrific examples of what Mormons have done to Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas.

I'm certain this choice is purposeful (and Utah is of course full of Mormons) narratively, but does not serve well when the Indigenous people in the DLC itself are as OP said, TERRIBLE representation. They make use of Tonto Talk, and are helpless without their white saviors. Regardless of what the Courier does, the narrative makes no effort subvert these stereotypes--The Sorrows, The Dead Horses, and the White Legs will always be portrayed as hapless savages who will go extinct and disappear without the aid of their White Saviors (playing strongly into concepts of salvage anthropology, in which white anthropologists & ethnographers believed it was their duty to record the noble, disappearing Indians and their cultures while wildly misunderstanding the cultural contexts and lifeways that Indigenous people have survived and thrived with for literal thousands of years prior to European contact) regardless of the ending you choose.

I might also delve into the concept of Indigenous science fiction and apocalypse narratives in the wake of the Anthropocene put forward by Potawatomi academic Kyle Whyte, as well as the role of National Parks (Zion National Park specifically) in alienating Indigenous peoples from their land (Examined by Sam Senda-Cook in her 2013 article, Materializing Tensions: How Maps and Trails Mediate Nature) in relation to the narrative of Fallout: New Vegas in another post, but I'll cut off for now.

The point is, Honest Hearts is a historically and culturally loaded narrative that plays into harmful stereotypes of Indigenous peoples, and is tone-deaf and utterly inappropriate with regards to the positionality of Mormons and Indigenous people.

Mormons and Indigenous people have a long, bloody, and contemptuous history. From the start, The Book of Mormon states that both Jewish and Indigenous Americans are “scattered Israelites,” descendants of an ancient family of Jews who came across the sea from Israel and settled in America. Indigenous people are believed by Mormons to be “Lamanites,” sons and daughters of the wicked “Laman,” and at the top of a hierarchy of cursed lineages, “cursed with redness” or “marked skin” for turning away from God.

Mormons believe that ancient Lamanites slaughtered Nephites (pale-skinned, righteous God warriors and descendants of Nephi), despite the fact that there is no archaeological evidence or oral tradition from any Indigenous group to suggest this ever happened, and there is no genetic link between ancient Jewish populations and ancient Indigenous populations.

As a result, Mormons (like many other Christian organizations in America) took part in the brutal and paternalistic residential school system, believing that Natives needed to be “saved,” (“Kill the Indian to save the man.”) Of all the residential schools in the U.S., one third were run by Mormon missionaries. Beyond residential schools, Mormons also operated the “Indian Placement Program” from 1954 to 2000, responsible for sending up to fifty thousand Native children to live with Mormon foster families. Both residential schools and the Indian Placement Program were rife with every kind of abuse imaginable. The last student within the program graduated in the year 2000, five years before Twilight was published. Mormons also took part in colonial expansion, believing their cause of slaughtering and converting “Lamanites” to be righteous retribution. Along with the U.S. government, Mormons were responsible for the Bear River Massacre of 1863, in which Shoshone women and children were raped, and more than four hundred and fifty Shoshone were slaughtered.

This expansion plays uncritically into the white supremacist stereotypes of Indigenous people perpetuated by Mormonism. Figures like Daniel and Joshua Graham are positioned by the narrative as the only hope for the Sorrows and Dead Horses— They are otherwise hopeless as they are hapless, and their cultures are shown to have degenerated and become childlike and superstitious. Again, there is a strong theme of paternalism throughout this DLC, an attitude which is heavily historically loaded.

I ALSO wanted to also add that, as I stated before, National Parks operate as a colonial project to alienate Indigenous people from our own lands. There is/was an ingrained belief in American culture that we are incapable of managing it, even as we managed to do so very successfully for thousands of years before European arrival (another theme played into in this expansion).

This is to say, I think it is significant that this story takes place in a former national park. I think it could have been a really interesting commentary about the reclamation of Indigenous land by Indigenous people, but this is far too overshadowed by the ham fisted narrative of paternalism, textual ascendancy of Mormonism, and uncritical presentation of Native people as (sometimes noble) savages.

Throwback to the first time I played New Vegas, and, with vaquero Raul as my companion, started Wang Dang Atomic Tango and thought for a solid moment too long that I could get Raul to work for the Garetts. You cannot. I wish this was a unique interaction, it would be so fucking funny.

Doctor Who (Steven Moffat specifically)

Sherlock (Steven Moffat specifically)

Actually Steven Moffat is basically just this sentiment given human form.

A version of this happened with The Magicians, tbh. Though instead of expectation: men, reality: women it was expectation: smug nihilists, reality: mentally ill queer folks.

Arguably Game of Thrones.

If we broaden it outside of television…I think Star Wars falls into this, at least the sequel trilogy. Maybe the MCU as well. And I can’t help but think of every band that’s ever complained that their fanbase is mostly women. 5 Seconds of Summer comes immediately to mind.

In general, most white male creators seem to have this massively entitled mindset where they want–and think they deserve–the time, attention, and enthusiasm that creative fandom (i.e. the side of fandom more dominated by women) is known for.

They want our eyes for ratings, our word-of-mouth for free publicity, our metas for social media buzz, and our spending power for merch and cons. But they don’t want us. And they don’t really want the responsibility of telling a story to a thoughtful, engaged audience, regardless of that audience’s demographic makeup. They just want to be praised for whatever schlock they cough up.

Mind you it is perfectly possible to make the switch in marketing, but execs would rather throw it all out than have something that doesn’t perform well with male viewers. For example the Rey merch was not expected to be popular, for some reason, there had to be public outcry to get merch of one of the main 3 protagonists. A PROTAGONIST. The fact that she wasn’t a huge part of the 1st launch says a lot already.

And what happened when female fans got too invested in the Sequel Trilogy? The entire writers room didn’t necessarily lash out, but they sure forgot how to behave.

Young Justice

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don’t want largely female audiences

#WhereIsRey (initial)

#WhereIsRey (ongoing)

Simply, they’re trying to assert a particular worldview via fiction, and upon getting confronted with something else, begin foot stamping. It’s not just men wanting male attention and gatekeeping. It’s that the fiction in the first place was an attempt to curate dominance and whoopsie! they miscalculated.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even though the show was marketed to women, Baby Bitch Whedon didn’t like that female fans preferred Spike to Angel and made that episode happen to punish them. The popularity of Willow and Tara’s relationship most definitely triggered Tara’s death in that very same episode.

I’ll second Game of Thrones from an earlier reblog, I truly think the final season turned out like that because the male writers didn’t like how many women were rooting for Daenerys. I can’t think of any other reason why she would go from ambitious woman who wants to rule justly to a bloodthirsty, genocidal maniac. It didn’t make sense whatsoever, and brushing it off as 'mad Targaryan blood/genes’ isn’t gonna cut it. She spent the entire run of the show until that point pushing BACK against that idea. Other female characters have also been treated pretty poorly and more like cannon fodder than whole rounded characters if we’re gonna be honest.

But honestly, I’m sure examples of this anti-woman mindset from (usually white male) showrunners could be found all over the place. This doesn’t just affect women and female characters, either. Queer characters are usually first to go in these scenarios. And POC characters get treated as an afterthought. Even if these 'diverse’ characters are well-written from the beginning, the SECOND the fuckers in charge see that their audience is 'too diverse’, they strip these characters of all development or just kill them off altogether. It’s like they’re saying 'this is about you but it’s not for you’ and 'I’ll gladly use your identity to gain brownie points with critics, but the second things don’t go my way, I’ll set it all on fire’.