#cait rant

I'm still baffled that that content was cut. Then on top of that, it was never put back, not even as dlc. Not really.

Wasteland Workshop is so broken, it can hardly be called satisfying.

I would love to see a mod where someone makes Combat Zone reopen, only you run it jointly with Tommy, who pays you for bringing in captured raiders to fight to the death.

There would be chem dealers, prostitutes, a bar operated by a robot, and a completely moddable player home in one of the shacks overlooking the arena. Cait could be dismissed to live in the Combat Zone again, and you could actually bet on the fights and/or oversee bets.

Could you imagine a mod like that???? It would be one way of role playing a more ruthless, cold SS. And it would make sense within the given narrative for SS to have this shady side, especially after a quest like DCB.

Imagine being able to actually run the Combat Zone. Actually run it. Not in name only, not as an errand girl, but as a BOSS, who hired guards, gives out orders, and threatens people who step out of line.

One of my issues with Bethesda is that they want to make you boss of everything in name only. You "run" the Minutemen but you still do all the work. You're Overboss to some raiders but you still take orders from them and run fetch quests? You "run" the Institute, but all the scientists still talk down to you???

If Bethesda is going to pander to the players ego by naming them leader, then they should really make them leader. I would love to see a Combat Zone mod where I can actually run shit alongside Tommy.

Imagine if Bethesda had done this in the first place. Would have made Cait's romance even more interesting. Especially if she was against going back to the combat zone after her personal quest, but you wanted to keep running it.

Just damn.

I dunno. Somehow, this makes me love Cait more.

So I romanced both Cait and Hancock, right? Keep in mind that I romanced Cait first.

I came to a settlement where I'd left Cait and "slept" with Hancock in the same room -- thinking, gee, Cait doesn't care, right? Right??? Wrong.

I actually thought I might get the lover's embrace perk from both of them, with their "wake up" comments triggering at the same time. I mean, I didn't expect the perk to increase, just for both of them to say their normal gushing lines upon waking up.

Nope.

In the morning, Hancock is standing over the bed saying "Don't mind me. Just admiring the view." (He watches you sleep, lol)

But where is Cait? Standing off somewhere looking kinda pissed. I ask how she's doing and cringe when my character calls her "pal" -- as if they were nothing but friends!!! Cait seems to cringe from this as well given the sheer vitriol she proceeds to give me. She says she's happy to see me and wants to come with me, but when I open her trade screen, she screams about being nothing more than my packmule.

After the conversation is over, she's still got a pissed look and I'm still stung from her sheer hatred and anger -- something I've never *ever* gotten from her before.

And the worst part -- or maybe the best part -- is that oblivious Hancock is just standing behind me smiling the whole time Cait is verbally smashing me, completely unaware that he is "the other wife" in this scenario.

Just . . . damn.

I'm still trying to decide if I imagined Cait's anger and jealousy. But honestly, she was never pissed at me like this before.

I didn't even realize how bad it was until I romanced Cait. And I still can't believe it, but I might like Cait's romance more.

Cait constantly flirts, compliments you, makes jokes, worries about you, and calls you pet names. Constantly. Other day I came to check on her (lol) at the settlement where I'd left her, and she smiled and asked me if I wanted to snog. ^^

You'd think her constant teasing and gushing would be annoying, but I actually find it pretty sweet. When I talk to her, she says something like, "Whatcha need, beautiful?" Or she's always cautioning my character to be careful. She's always worried about Nora.

Curie worries about you nonstop as well, but because she's a doctor/scientist it doesn't sound nearly as warm as when Cait does it.

Especially when you get injured. I think Cait has some of the best lines when Sole Survivor is hurt.

I think it mostly has to do with the fact that Cait has never had anything to lose before, and now she's got you -- the one good thing in her life -- and she's terrified of losing you.

This is something I never even thought of before. Mostly because you wouldn't expect a poly relationship to be in a video game. But now that I've romanced Cait, I keep having lovely headcanons of my character, Cait, and Hancock being in this loving relationship, where the other two both follow my character around on her adventures, make jokes, flirt, and comfort and support my character while she's trying to find her son.

My character would get hurt and Cait would bandage her up while Hancock sat by, casually having a smoke and waiting to hit the road again. Cait would fuss and Nora would complain that she was too rough and Hancock would joke that maybe he has a gentler touch.

Cute fluff like that.

I could see Hancock supporting Cait while she's trying to get clean and maybe scolding my character for doing chems in front of Cait. Or could you imagine Cait trying to talk Hancock out of further drug use because she's afraid he'll overdose? (and he actually can, ironically enough)

These two oddballs and my character would just make such a fun, warm, weird little family.

And it might be interesting to see how Cait reacts to raising synth Shaun with you because she hates synths. Would she come to the realization that all synths aren't awful and help you raise the kid? Could you just imagine Hancock arguing with her about it?

Of course, everything I'm describing is just my headcanon, not something I want to see in the actual game. This is fluff that would go on in my head if poly relationships had actually been implimented -- you know, with Hancock and Cait both acknowledging and consenting to being in a relationship with you. I don't want full scale scenes of drama galore. I just want a two second conversation where Hancock is like, "So I'm dating two chicks?" and Cait is like "Aye, hop in bed with us, darlin'." And that's it.

I said I was tired of female characters never getting to be bad girls with good hearts. I also said that Isabella (DA2) was almost ideal for the kind of character I was describing, only she failed for me because they haaaaad to make her wear her underwear for ten years in public.

I realized today that Cait is yet another female character who alllllmost fits my ideal of a perfect female badass. Only like Isabella, Cait is also selfish. But at least she's wearing pants with her corset . . .?

Characters like Cait and Isabella might be Neutral Evil at best, if they had an alignment. They are out for number one, plain and simple. And every other "badass" type female character I can think of (Jack from Mass Effect also comes to mind) is some kind of obnoxious, self-centered bitch.

Why can't a woman be a badass without being selfish or a total bitch? Why does being a badass woman require meanness??? My character Freckled Nora is a badass, but she's still out helping settlements and risking her life everyday for other people. She will blow your fucking head off if you’re doing wrong, but at the end of the day, she's still a good person and not a bitch at all.

I find it really frustrating that there is basically never a female version of Hancock in the video games I love. I wanna see a bad girl with a heart of gold. Hancock is a "bad boy" type but he would never be a slaver (Isabella) and he would never be selfish (Cait) and he wouldn't bite off your head or mock you or call you gay for trying to be his friend (Jack does all of that to FemShep). Hancock is basically Chaotic Good.

When a female character is a badass, she's depicted as selfish and/or a bitch. When a female character is good, she is usually sweet and nice and/or generally polite, basically Lawfully Good (Josephine and Cassandra from DAI, Curie, Piper . . .)

Leliana might be the only Chaotic Good female character I can think of. In Origins, she was arguably Lawful Good, but by Inquisition, she has become Chaotic good, and I really enjoyed the change. She was no longer playing sweet and nice. She was a badass mofo and was still a professional, polite person. She was a badass woman without being selfish or mean or over-sexualized. it was perfect.

I want more Chaotic Good female characters like Leliana. 

A female character who is “bad” without being a selfish bitch.

I finally got Cait's affinity low by continuing to take chems after her personal quest. But I couldn't get her affinity low enough to trigger a break up conversation.

So I take her to clear out some raiders and I use chems the whole time. Easy way to get the "I hate you now" conversation, right? Wrong.

As it turns out, Cait silently gains approval every time you perform criticals, use melee combat, and kill raiders with her. So even though I was taking chems through the whole fight, Cait still got excited because I was popping off heads (literally, it was so awesome!!!) with a juiced up, tricked out powerfist -- despite the fact that I was strung out on Psycho Jet. By the time the fight was over, the game told me that Cait idolized me again, and I about screamed.

Then Cait walks up to me and triggers a conversation where she apologizes for dumping me, and since she never dumped me in the first place, I was flabbergasted and frustrated. If a companion drops below admire, the game just assumes they dumped you at one point??? But I never got a break up conversation, and for a while, I couldn’t get the lover’s embrace perk either. Her affinity was low, but not low enough, so both me and the game were confused!!!

Seriously. Why did Bethesda pander and coddle us so MUCH? They made it ridiculously easy for companions to love us, to the point that the affinity system is pretty self defeating. Getting constant dislikes from a character only slows down their approval, but it doesn't make them hate you. All the characters enjoy hanging out with you and fighting with you. So if you wait long enough, they ALL will eventually max out.

Seriously why the fuck . . . Bethesda, WHY? Maybe I want Cait to hate me! Maybe I *wanted* a dramatic story where my character refuses to give up chems, so Cait leaves her!!!!

I could easily lower Cait's affinity by using console commands to break up with her, but then I realized that I didn't *want* Cait to break up with me. After doing her romance and spending so much time trying to shake that bitch her off . . . I think I actually like her. Which is confusing to me, because she's arguably a horrible person and the *last* companion I thought I'd like.

I don't know why I said I "respect" Cait's selfishness in my last post (maybe I was half awake). That was the wrong word. I don't respect it, I just understand why she's like that and I sympathize. But my character also isn't going to stop helping settlements because Cait doesn't like it. And what's funny is that in Cait's "apology" conversation, she mentions how she needs to respect the way you do things the same way you respect her. It's like I predicted her words when I made that post yesterday (scary).

I think it would be pretty sweet to have a polygamous relationship with Cait and Hancock -- a *real* polygamous relationship. The fact that Bethesda calls the "romances" in Fallout 4 polygamous is laughable. None of the characters are onboard with you romancing someone else. In fact, Piper will ask Nick to spy on you if she suspects you of cheating, and Cait and Hancock get jealous when you flirt with other people (regardless of the fact that they flirt with each other RIGHT in front of you).

So basically, I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to stay in a romance with Cait but also romance Hancock and just keep them from meeting. . . . at least until someone comes out with a polygamy mod of some kind.

I can't wait for the first multiple follower mods. Would be great to drag around both Cait and Hancock on a playthrough. Would be even better if Fallout 4's base game had as much content, cities, story quests, and areas to explore as Skyrim (as they promised us -- LIES).

Problem is, I always save Hancock for last. He can die if he's dismissed, so I wait until the end of my game to recruit him, and by the time I've got him, I've done all the side quests and explored 90% of the world. Seems pointless to have multiple followers when there's nothing left to explore and enemies become ridiculously easy after a while.

Now that I've finished Cait's personal quest, I take chems regularly to piss her off.

What's amazing is that Cait actually has dialogue about it. Bethesda really made sure to give the companions lots of dialogue, then used the fact to make up their half-lies about the amount of content we were getting . . .

But yeah. I took Psycho while standing around with Cait and she chewed me out. It was hilarious. Then a second later and she's like, "Be careful, darling. I couldn't stand losin' ya."

Argh.

I can't believe it, but in spite of Cait being the polar opposite of everything I'd normally enjoy in a character . . . I really enjoy her as a character. When she falls in love with Sole Survivor, she falls hard. All her comments are pretty much gushing about the color of your eyes and how glad she is to have you.

One thing I'm really starting to dislike about the followers is how 9 out of 10 of them were suicidal. I always interpreted Hancock's crazy drug experimenting as an actual suicide attempt -- I can't imagine he actually thought he'd survive that radiation drug. Preston was also fully willing to let himself die. And Cait too? I realize Bethesda isn't great on telling stories but damn. I guess a post-apocalyptic world would make lots of people suicidal. . . .

Point is . . . I never actually expected to like Cait as a character or a romance. After hearing tha Cait hates it when you help people and hates it when you're peaceful, I thought Cait was going to be another Jack/Miranda/Morrigan/Sera. You know. A cliche tough girl with a soft center who would initially treat me like shit no matter how nice I was.

As it turned out, Cait responds very well to kindness and doesn't view it as your weakness but your strength. It's just that Cait has a line. She believes in being understanding and compassionate, but not to the point where you let people eventually take advantage of you. She sees helping the settlements and helping people in general as opening yourself up to being walked all over. And funnily enough, this is EXACTLY the kind of crap that can happen to the Sole Survivor in various quests. SS can be taken advantage of over and over because of their generosity and willingness to help people. The Minutemen put all the responsibility on you, Paul Pembroke will screw you over, Hancock uses you to protect Goodneighbor so he doesn't have to get off his ass (during the Shroud quests), Bobbi No Nose lies and uses you, the list goes on.

Cait knows it's a dog-eat-dog world and takes a harder, more selfish approach to surviving. I'll never agree with her m.o. (if I have the power to help people, then I should help people) but I understand and even . . . respect it? At little. After all, everyone can't be SS. Everyone can't save the Commonwealth.

I'm just really glad Cait didn't turn out to be the cliche bitchy bad girl in nothing but a bra/objectifying clothing that we've seen all too often in video games of yore. Thankfully, there's so much more to her than that (in my opinion). And nothing beats hearing her call me "darlin." Guess I'mma sucker for pet names. I like it the way I like Piper calling me "Blue."

As much as I like Cait, there's no going back now. I've already taken loads of chems, saved, and reloaded, just to piss Cait off. She will curse me out. I'll tell her to go if that's what she wants. And she'll go.

I got her perk. I finished her story arc. Time to move on.

I will be romancing Cait on subsequent playthroughs, though (if I do any).