#boozer

for over a year i've been writing a fanfic zombie apocalypse au, and last year while i was figuring things out, i needed to do some more extra zombie research to come up with inspiration and ideas and the such

i watched some movies, the first season of the walking dead, most of a book, a few video games

and so the games i bought and played were State of Decay 1, State of Decay 2, Dying Light, and Days Gone (as recommended highly by someone)

but right before i started playing, i started hearing that people didn't like it, and it was a relative flop with the second game straight up getting cancelled. i had never heard of this game when it came out. i didn't know it existed until like september of 2024

but that planted a little seed of doubt in my head'

i started the game, and immediately i felt off with deacon. i was like, he's scrawny-ish? his voice doesn't match his design and his look? weird, okay.

and then im playing the very beginning of the game and i found myself getting frustrated with these small things of gameplay and menus and button prompts and stuff

and i was like, wait, do i not enjoy playing this game?

BOY WAS I WRONG

i let those weird reviews and what a friend said about it end up tainting my experience at first, so i was like LOOKING for reasons for it to be bad because it flopped

but i continued playing and got absorbed into the world right away and i was addicted, so thankfully i continued and didn't just get a refund or anything

and honestly, i love deacon so much (after the time skip with his longer hair, scruffy beard, and messy clothes, he was PERFECT and i felt fit the voice and personality better). seeing pre-deacon is weird. where is that man's hair??? where is his beard??? it's not right. i love his messy, scruffy look

and he's amazing

i love how refreshing his character feels (and now this might be revealing my general lack of video game experience…)

but i loved that he didn't feel like Generic White Male Protagonist like in all the other video games. he had a personality. he was moody and sassy. he wasn't perfectly muscular. he was messy and tatted. and one of the things that really stood out to me was the voice acting.

felt very normal and natural the way his lines were said, as well as just perfectly showing off his personality. it's hard to describe, but i loved his voice acting in particular. his facial expressions. he wasn't Popular Voice Actor Troy Baker or Nolan North or whatever that has most clean-cut, deep, hero voice

he had a voice that fully fit his personality

and i loved the uniqueness of going around on a motorcycle rather than a car. and that fact that everyone else also rides around on a motorcycle without explanation? chefs kiss. we dont need cars. i dont care it's unreasonable. it's atmosphere

at first i was a bit hmmmmmm about boozer, who is this weirdo, bald, tattoos ON THE HEAD… 🤨 are the two of you like… gang members? or something?

but i came to love him very quickly and i was actually REALLY concerned they would kill him (because why not, games kill side characters all the time, and we as the player had barely gotten to know him at that point)

so as his mission kept progressing i was like NOPE, YOU'RE NOT KILLING HIM, STOP

thankfully my homeboy was okay (AND WE GOT HIM A PUPPY TO BE HAPPY). kinda sad he was depressed and stuff. but my brother, im here for you

now after going through ALL OF THAT to keep him alive, the game had the AUDACITY to fake out killing him at the end

i was genuinely baffled and upset

kinda angry

and then after an emotional moment of ohhhh he's deeeaaddddd, he just walks back on screen with absolutely no fanfare

utterly hilarious

kind of felt like, initially the developers WANTED to have him sacrifice himself, but changed their minds or got backlash and were like hahahahahah jokes… he's okay

the zombies were legitimately terrifying. when i accidentally stumbled across a horde, it was an actual panic. and then i mess up and accidentally ride into them. and im trying to turn around. and they're sprinting at me. and im screaming. and then i die or escape

but yeah not many games actually make the zombies scary, especially in horde like that because there were just SO MANY

i used to be so bad at killing hordes and so scared that i was incompetent. i played on easy baby mode and avoided the hordes, until it came time to do it for a STORY MISSION. and guys… i just CANNOT use all the explosives and bombs and stuff and lead them into cramped spaces to kill them. it was impossible. so i failed three times and i just couldn't. maybe i looked something up that said easy mode meant you could skip the hordes or i was already on baby mode, but yes… i cheated and skipped the mission… i am a fake gamer

but as i played more throughout the game, i started to get more confident and then less scared of them. i did end up clearing out every single horde in the game with my maxed out skills, good weapons, and in game money that made me all powerful. i still wasn't any good with strategy regarding the bombs, but i certainly ran away a lot, shot a lot in the head, and snuck up to stealth kill a lot when they lost interest in me. over and over again. a good player would be embarrassed and ashamed by the inconvenient way i killed all the hordes 😅

but i did it

and speaking of zombies, o'brien???

HELLO

the little secret ending for completing everything in the game, and then to be left on that with the realization that they cancelled the second games YEARS AGO

AH

fuck the wolves

deacon single handedly made that entire species extinct

he's also… like… the greatest killer in american history? with how many enemies i killed and bases i raided 😂😅

but he is UNPHASED

and those goddamn snipers…

the girl… idk the teenager? i forget her name. the one that he was tasked with saving as she was living on her own? reminded him of sarah's sister?

didn't care for her

i was like goddamn girl… you're a nuissance…

thought it was very funny she turned into a ripper

not that i hate her or anything

but just let me help you

i dont even recall exactly what happened now, but when i didn't save her, or she ran away or something, i was like… WELL… that's a shame… oh look, there's bear to kill

lemme just get on my cool ass motorcycle to ride away the pain

i liked rikki

BUT

GOD

DAMN

not that weird forced sexual tension

and here's the thing, obviously sarah was never dead. didn't see it = not dead. so yeah i expected her to come back. but in the context of the story, if there had been a thing with rikki, i wouldn't have really minded. he thought his wife was dead

BUT i was VEHEMENTLY AGAINST IT because they had ALREADY ESTABLISHED rikki was (what i assumed) a lesbian and actively seieng someone else.

so when THAT scene came around i hated it so much, i kept pausing the scene out of secondhand embarassment, looking away, making weird sounds, no no no no no no

again, i wasn't super loyal to sarah, nor was i against the idea of temporary deacon and rikki fling. had those things happened, whatever, all good. but they MADE A POINT to describe rikki and the other woman being... together?? so when there's was weird tension i was like…. ???with the lesbian??? wait… CHEATING? what's happening!!!

thankfully nothing came from that. rikki go home. you're too good for deacon. you have a lovely woman waiting in your bed, not my scruggly man

skizzo kinda funny. iron mike… more like rusted mike. womp womp and then there was the old lady at the springs tucker who ran like… a labour camp? wasn't it insinuated she was a hard ass that essentially worked people with the threat of force?

there's was this funny moment where i was talking to her and in the background someone was getting casually beat up for not working

i feel like people kept insinuating they hated her and she wasn't a good person, but then deacon kept doing jobs for her? kinda funny

another interesting relationship was with copeland

i don't know if anyone noticed this, but i did

whenever copeland did his radio broadcasts, deacon would always get mad. like REALLY mad, and he could be yelling and muttering to himself. like baby boy… you're all alone in the forest… who on earth are you talking to

made it seem like deacon absolutely despised copeland

and even when cope had pretty tame sounding radio messages, like nothing really controversial, still deacon was really mad 😂

BUT

as soon as he was actually face to face with copeland, he was very cordial and cooperative and never really showed that anger. made me think of those videos of dogs that are violently barking at another dog from behind a door, and then as soon as the door opens, they calm down and act totally peaceful

loved that

and also like… copeland had (in the context of the player learning the game functions) actually TAUGHT deacon how to do something - hunting i think. he was helpful??

so i started getting fun ex's vibes from them. like there was this simmering irritability, but they were still cordial and helped each other. deacon still helped copeland with any job he asked for essentially.

very funny

i know probably no one has ever had that thought, but it was stupid fun to image copeland and deacon were actually ex's

deacon

my bisexual icon

it just feels right to have him be bisexual

i love an open world game where you explore around and pick things up

i love hoarding

p i c k i n g t h i n g s u p

fun thing about that game is how similar i felt deacon and my character from my zombie fic was. going around settlement to settlement, seeing who he can help, never stopping in one place, always on the move, everyone knows him, very competent, military experience, on his own for the most part,

there were other things but i dont remember now. but seeing the smiliarities between deacon and my character was a fun experience for me

right, sarah

this game let me be delulu

cause i could easily just put myself in sarah's shoes

oh he loves sarah?

thank you 🥰

and spelled the better way too

the dicotomy of what deacon looks like vs. how much of a soft boy he actually is. i love it

the way that they ended the game with deacon and sarah riding away on a motorcycle together was so perfect, that i stole it 🤭 100% that's how my fic will end, my two lovers riding off into the sunset together

now sarah… she must be her own level of freak to fall for deacon, the guy who looked like he was a criminal part of a motorcycle gang

and at their wedding, there was no one?? does she not have a family??

maybe they revealed this but i dont remember right now

she looked lovely, hair done, accessories, wedding dress and then DEACON

to their wedding wore that FUCK ASS HAT (i love the hat, it's hot, but this was a wedding) and his leather jacket??? AND JEANS

girl… you dont deserve him

deacon you were foul for that

but also sarah

from one sarah to another sarah

make sure deacon never cuts his hair or shaves his face

he looks 1000% better than baby face pre-zombie apocalypse deacon

he glowed up

unfortunately it only took like… the fall of humanity...

but a win is a win

only boozer at the wedding

did she do everything on her own or did he help her?

i need to know more about that

the fact that sarah and deacon even got a happy ending is subversive in a way

games will always kill the wife or the female love interest for Man Pain™

but i liked that it didnt happen in this game

im running out of things to say

i once had like… the max number of zombie ears i think?

this was when i was killing all the hordes

i have successfully yapped for such a long time, and it's so long, that no one will read this

i tried talking to someone on tumblr that had said they had liked the game, so i sent them an ask happily talking about them game

but it got ignored, and then i think she made a vague, annoyed post about me 😭😭

that made me feel awful

i realize im years late to playing this game it's like impossible to find fandom for this game. and it's not even MULTIPLAYER

i wish i could just ride around with someone, talk, pick up plants, kill zombies. in an open world game like this that would be fun

days gone fans are far and few between

and i have nothing but this ramble