LAS VEGAS — In the wake of Amazon Prime’s Fallout television series local gamer Eda Jeanston has revealed that she still enjoys playing New Vegas as much as she did when she was a young boy.
Jeanston, a 26-year-old trans woman from Nevada, posted to the Fallout subreddit how the cult classic third-person-shooter was her first exposure to queer culture, and how she never did actually beat the game; well, not until being reminded of it through Amazon’s Fallout series.
“I first played it when I was 12 and only knew two things, Deathclaws were scary and I really liked Veronica Santangelo and didn’t know why. Y’know, when you’re a kid, you don’t think about it, but you also do,” Eda said. “Back then, you knew what gay sort of meant, and you knew lesbians from American Pie. It was really hush-hush, yeah? Then New Vegas dropped, and little old me learned girls could have power fists. While also liking other girls.”
Fallout: New Vegas is fondly remembered for having two openly and prominently queer companions that can be recruited by the player: Arcade Gannon, a gay man that a male player with the ‘Confirmed Bachelor’ perk can flirt with to recruit immediately and bypass an otherwise required quest, and Veronica Santangelo, whose sexuality as a lesbian is a focal point of her character’s story, having her girlfriend forced away from her by her sole parental figure, who frowned upon Veronica’s relationship.
“I was obsessed with her. I thought she was the coolest companion in the game. There was this one quest she’d give where she asked my character to help her find a dress, because she’d always wanted to wear one, and I guess dresses aren’t all that practical in the apocalypse. I think something clicked after that.”
Eda was asked how she felt returning to (and completing) New Vegas this year, and after it was clarified to her that this was not a request for her opinions on Fallout 4, she stated:
“It’s always really funny, looking back on what you liked as a kid, especially when it’s like, holy shit, that’s the pretty lady that transed my gender. Veronica was, like, the blueprint for my taste in women. I have a $250 replica Power Fist I bought off Etsy that’s gonna arrive in a week. Live your best life, kiddos. Give more pretty ladies weapons, it might save your boys a whole lotta years of soul-searching.”
At press time, Jeanston is still going through the comments on her post where people are sharing similar stories. She is ignoring all the ones that mention Fallout 4.
