Xoxyuri

Sole: Let’s be more than friends.

Deacon: Best friends?

Sole: No, more than that.

Because I’ve seen like six of these posts and I needed to make my own. This game deserves so much love.

Deacon popping up in random places trying to be stealthy but we all know it’s him our 6th playthrough around

Also how Deacon wears shades with every disguise so at this point his outfits are practically pointless

The little things the companions do when they’re just walking around your settlement like Preston whistling or Cait humming

Raider background conversations. They’re all hilarious

Strong hating everything you do is honestly a mood and despite how frustrating it can be it’s actually funny

Kent Connolly getting so excited when you help him and just Kent in general

The “______ Loved That.” notification from basically every companion

Nick’s accent and voice acting. In every situtation

The way Nick sounds so choked up and emotional during his affinity quest like gosh I cried during that whole Eddie Winter thing

The ENTIRE Brain Dead quest in Far Harbor and how overly dramatic your character is when talking like a cheesy old detective film

Getting “Valentine Liked That.” as a notification when you uncover a clue in a detective case

The Sole Survivor talking like the Silver Shroud in the Silver Shroud quests and then “You’re through, son.” from Nick

Shooting at nothing with Hancock as a companion and him asking in a very freaked tone “Wait, you see ‘em, too?!”

The implication from that dialogue that Hancock is high at that moment and possibly every moment he’s with you

X6-88 basically going “Pardon my French” and then bluntly and explicitly stating how freaking awesome you are when you raise your affinity with him

The whole Confidence Man quest

Vadim Bobrov’s cheerfulness and accent and then Yefim Bobrov’s constant doneness with his brother

“I killed a man for this bar. Hahaha, only joking! He is dead though.”

Every single song on Diamond City Radio

Travis Miles’s nervousness pre-Confidence Man

Travis being confident after Confidence Man and thanking the Sole Survivor for helping him so sweetly on the radio

The things your Sole Survivor will say to wasteland animals and beasts when they pacificy them with the Wasteland Whisperer perk

“Don’t you remember, Eddie? It’s me! Your old pal Shamus/Molly McF***Yourself.”

Nick and Hancock roasting racists in Vault 81 and the BOS

Preston’s genuine anger and despair when you take him back to Quincy. You can feel the poor guy’s pain and regret

The Unlikely Valentine quest animation

The way a piece of the main Fallout 4 theme plays when you get an important/main quest

Synth Shaun’s comments on your companions

The way certain companions will say something nice and warm to you after you do something generous or kind for somebody

Piper’s hand movements and the way she makes her voice deeper when imitating people

The Nuka World Mascot being a complete douche to you in a super cheerful tone

The nice comments the Diamond City guards make about Nick when you’re traveling with him as your companion like “Nicky’s good people”

Also Nick offering to help a random resident even though the person clearly despises him and Nick checking up on a past client gently to make sure he’s doing okay

X6-88’s portrayed fear of heights when you make him get in a Vertibird

Going to kill the Red Death with the Mariner and packing all sorts of freaking ammo and mini nukes only to figure out it’s a freaking tiny mirelurk with glowing red eyes

The fact that MacCready said he was trying to be a better person for his promise to Duncan but yet he still likes it when you steal or break the law 90% of the time it’s just funny to me I love him

Meeting Hancock for the first time and he literally kills a person for you within 5 seconds of knowing you

Curie’s accent and excitement at everything

Codsworth saying your Sole Survivor’s name (if he can) and calling you sir/mum.

The ability to let your Sole Survivor say they forgive Kellogg after seeing his memories in the Dangerous Minds quest

Virgil

Encouraging Miss Edna to confess her love to Mr. Zwicky and then them getting married

The chapel in Diamond City

Sturges and his personality and accent

Danse saying “Outstanding”

Dogmeat’s little bark when you ask how he’s doing

The companions’ comfort upon seeing your dead spouse

Maxing affinity with your companions and being showered with compliments when you ask about your relationship

The implication that Hancock and Nick are friends

Billy reuniting with his family in the Kid in a Fridge quest

The entire noir mobster-like display during Unlikely Valentine and Skinny Malone’s stuttering when you convince Darla to go home

Deacon trying to lie you into the Railroad by making up awesomely impossible stories about you after literally traveling with you for one mission

Doctor Teddy Wright being such a nice guy in Far Harbor

Curing Andre of his ailment and then comforting him when he basically contemplates suicide

How Old Longfellow doesn’t gripe about you collecting junk and mentions that all junk can be useful and just THANK YOU MAN FINALLY SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS

Moe Cronin getting so excited about “baseball”

The excitement I feel when The Wanderer comes on Diamond City Radio

Supermutants shouting “RAGE! RAAAAAGE!” when in combat

“You have a robot butler?! Man… I wish I had a robot butler!”

The fact that Codsworth waited TWO HUNDRED YEARS FOR YOU TO COME HOME like what an ANGEL

Hancock calling you Sunshine if he’s romanced

Preston calling you Babe if he’s romanced

The rare occasion that Nick calls the female Sole Survivor “Doll”

How upon reaching the first affinity check with Nick the first thing he does is check up on you and make sure your doing okay, and then he proceeds to tell you about his adapting in the wasteland just what an ANGEL

MacCready’s “I didn’t know you could do THAT with mutfruit”

Cait’s accent

The companion’s comments when you get in power armor and then Danse just going “Now that’s what I call locked and loaded!” and then X6 going “Light ‘em up, ma'am/sir!” while both getting the “Liked That” response

Also Nick’s little sweet “I can barely tell us apart!”

When you have to do something you KNOW a companion is going to dislike but you literally have no choice, so if you’re like me you walk to another room and make them wait there while you do whatever it is you were doing

How the companions will angrily call you out whenever you murder someone like YES tell the bad person off sweetie

The sarcastic responses from your Sole Survivor

Magnolia’s singing

The Vault-Tec Rep being the absolute purest soul in Goodneighbor and just how happy he is when you say you’ll come visit him

Asking Codsworth “Your Thoughts?” and his jokes he’ll tell

Telling Desdemona you would lay down your life for a synth and getting “Valentine Loved That.”

Saving Kent Connolly and getting a “Loved That” response from different companions

The default background music in Sanctuary

The Railroad HQ music

Tinker Tom man

Getting positive reactions from companions like Preston and Deacon when you do things for their faction

The little kids in the Diamond City school talking about what they want to be when they grow up

“STRONG SMASH”

Giving the mama Deathclaw her egg back and it making her tame around you

Getting a mostly happy ending to Far Harbor and Kasumi reuniting with her family

Nick’s understandable despair when he’s trying to figure out about his past with DiMA

Nick and DiMA’s brotherly conversations when you convince Nick to accept him as his brother

Helping Cait overcome her chem addiction

The way Hancock looks whenever he’s sad is like a puppy

Standing up for Danse in Blind Betrayal

Whenever something makes a companion smile really big

Strong pronouncing things funny like “MACK-REE-DEE” for MacCready

How uncomfortable a lot of the companions get when talking about aliens with Jack Cabot

Fighting things in a dark abandoned subway as you happily listen to “BONGO BONGO BONGO I DON’T WANNA LEAVE THE CONGO OH NO NO NO NO NOOOOOO”

Companions glitching through the elevators 90% of the time and talking to them as only their nose sticks out of the wall

Quicksaving and then reloading every time you don’t pass a hard speech check

KL-E-0 in Goodneighbor “I’m a woman, baby. Can’t you tell?”

But my FAVORITE line from her… “Anything that can kill a man, I sell. Except for suicidal depression. That is unfortunately not packageable.”

me:

warning for mentions of abuse, internalized homophobia, uhh i think thats it

it doesn’t make sense to have this idea in my head that he just snapped, that he impulsively made the decision to kill everyone. because we know from the get-go that sal hates violence. travis, a kid with internalized homophobia, took it out on sal by punching him. but sal wouldn’t fight back, nor would he let his friends fight back either. he doesn’t react when he sees ghosts form in a room the way they do (organs/blood/etc piling up before adding a layer to them that makes them appear ‘human’). and from what happened to him so long ago it’d make sense as to why he wants to stray away from any type of violence.

it was either that sal was under a type of manipulation while he murdered everyone, because terrence was revealed to be a monster of some sorts. that’s why we never actually saw him up until that point. or it was that sal simply believed he had no choice. either way; he never wanted to hurt anyone. he was willing to give anyone a chance, no matter how much bad they had done or how terrible they seemed in the eyes of others.

not to mention this idea of him being a bloodthirsty killer is… kind of ableist? sal obviously has a severe form of ptsd that has formed other mental illnesses/disorders in his brain. i mean it’s canon that he takes antidepressants, so he deals with depression. i’m no professional on mental health even if i’m mentally ill myself but from doing a tiny bit of research it seems that sal applies to some of the symptoms of psychosis.

we know sal doesn’t deal with hallucinations because others see what he sees, and from what we have seen in-game he doesn’t appear to show suicidal tendencies or behavior. regarding delusions, i’m not so sure on that either but i feel as though he might. (because of how everyone tells him his mother died in the ‘dog attack,’ but sal believes it was a person instead. whether this be because he repressed some of the traumatic memories or not, i don’t know)

withdrawal: he loves his friends, yet has a strained relationship with his father. he probably enjoys spending time with his friends but because he deals with depression, i wouldn’t say it’s unlikely he would isolate himself as a coping mechanism during an episode. suspiciousness: it becomes more prominent later on in the game that sal does have suspicions of almost everyone, not willing to speak about a lot of things and being hesitant before responding.

sleeping too much or not enough: sal deals with extreme night terrors that probably rob him of good sleep most of the time. depressed mood: he doesn’t always seem to have a depressed mood but in my eyes there are times where he’s shown to be lacking some sort of emotion or emotions. almost like… he has apathy? but i can’t be sure, i’d have to go through it all again very closely.

disorganized speech: it’s also hard to pinpoint this symptom on him as well because again i’m not a professional, and i don’t like diagnosing people and/or characters when diagnosing is not a field i’m strong in. but to me sal does seem well focused on certain topics, yet he’s quick to elaborate on them? if that makes sense.

so- i don’t really know, i never want to come off as offensive. these symptoms may be innaccurate so please correct me or give me information if you deal with psychosis or know someone who does and you’re educated on it. but from what i did gather for symptoms of psychosis it does seem more likely that sal deals with it, because psychosis stems from trauma and obviously he deals with ptsd.

in the media psychosis is seen as a type of mental illness that makes a person evil or dangerous. if sal were to canonically have psychosis, then all this fanart and fanwork and etc of him coming off as a person who was willing to kill for the sake of killing and that he’s “crazy” is highly ableist and insensitive towards people who do deal with psychosis.

sal tries his hardest to avoid inflicting violence on others whether it’s indirect or direct. i don’t care if you enjoy the ‘aesthetic’ of a masked kid being a “crazy psychotic serial killer,” it is not an aesthetic. it is not something you should be glorifying, especially when sal already deals with certain types of mental illness. he’s not a bad guy, as he simply put it: he had no choice. he killed those people because he loved them. it sounds terrible at first glance but the further you look into it, the more you realize that none of the murders were done because he wanted them to be done.

as i’ve stated like twice or three times before already, i am not a professional in mental health at all, this is simply my take on it. i started researching types of mental disorders/illness because it seemed odd to me on how strangely “emotionless” sal was portrayed to be. not because of the murders or anything. but after i looked into it, and i started looking at more fanworks, i see a pattern and that is that people think sal is a crazy bloodthirsty killer with no emotion other than the want to kill. which is obviously incorrect whether you do it for the aesthetic or not.