PLEASE let me put your camera in my mouth i promise i wont bite you and chomp you and shake you and drag you to a freezing watery grave pleas please please i am just a friendly sea doggy i will only engulf your camera in my jaws and not anything else (lying)
FUCKING GETS YOU
This is funny and all but the actual context behind the second image is even funnier.
no one fundamentally doesn’t understand Fallout like like the modern Fallout fandom
it is, but that’s not the thing i’m taking issue with. the thing i take you with is that this question should be answered for you by playing any Fallout game! like, you’ll have to dig through Fallout lore to find the in-universe, textual reason for the retrofuturism, but the games practically bang you over the head with a super sledge about the metatextual significance of the Atomic Era retrofuturism.
the games’ setting is a clear satire of the nationism, imperialism, and hyper-capitalism of Atomic Era America (1945 to about 1963ish), working with a scenario that is emblematic of the era’s nuclear warfare paranoia. the american culture that lived in the comfort and luxury of a booming post-war economy and was gripped by the paradoxical fear that atomic annihilation could strike at any moment, without warning. a culture informed by the lies their government were telling them about the survivability of nuclear war, leading them to believe that if they obeyed their government, prepared for the worst, and made sure to get their very own fallout shelter, they could survive an atomic attack unscathed. a culture that grafted together comfortable consumerism with a world on the brink of mutually assured destruction to create a happy, fear-based economy ready for the end of all things.
what Fallout points out is that if there was no political shift during the 1960s with civil rights and counterculture movements, and this regressive eschatological culture continued to persist through major technological developments, it’s inevitable end point would be a world ending atomic war. like, that’s one of the main points of the Fallout setting, and certainly one of the most defining things about this series. without that commentary being tied to the aesthetics of it, it would just be a bog standard post-apoc setting with a fun 1950s aesthetic (so basically Fallout 4)
if you’re curious at all about the cultural impact atomic weapons and the Cold War had on atomic era america, i highly recommend the documentary The Atomic Café from 1982. the full film is available to watch on youtube for free:
watch it with an adblocker enabled so you don’t get served an ad for geico ai generated perfume or whatever while learning about american war crimes
oh, and the textual reason for Fallout’s retrofuturism is basically that the micro transistor was never invented and technology advanced down a path that didn’t utilize them.
say what you will about gotye’s “somebody i used to know” but i gotta appreciate a song that ends with a second party rebutting the entire rest of the song, while still in the song. imagine if more songs did this. incredible.
echojulietfoxtrot OP every song I can think of that does this is awesome, now you mention it. This could be a banger playlist.
It always gets me that the name “Gandalf” literally just means “Wand-Elf” or “Stick-Elf”. I’m imagining old Gondorians just being like:
Librarian: I saw that weird guy at the library again today.
Guard 1: What weird guy?
Librarian: The old guy with the beard? Kinda elfy-looking, apart from the beard?
Guard 1: Oh, with the big-ass stick?
Librarian: Yeah, looked like he was carrying an entire tree branch.
Guard 2: Yeah, that’s the Stick Elf.
Guard 1: Hell yeah, I fuckin’ love the Stick Elf.
Librarian: The “Stick Elf”?
Guard 2: He comes by every few years, usually after some weird book or other.
Librarian: Oh. Yeah, he wanted a treatise on goblin breeding habits.
Guard 2: Like, how they have sex? We have books on that?
Librarian: Yeah, turns out we do. I was as surprised as you are.
Guard 1: What’d the Stick Elf need a fuckin’ goblin-fuckin’ book for?
Librarian: I didn’t ask. So you just call him “Stick Elf”?
Guard 2: I mean, he looks kinda elfy and he always has that stick, so, like, yeah.
Guard 1: Dude also has some fuckin’ dope pipeweed.
Guard 2: Oh yeah, his pipeweed is awesome.
Librarian: How long has he been coming here?
Guard 2: Oh, for decades. He’s, like, super old.
Guard 1: More like fuckin’ centuries. Dude’s old as balls.
Guard 2: Wait, really?
Guard 1: Yeah, my gran-gran used to talk about him. She loved his pipeweed too.
Librarian: So he's… an immortal pipeweed dealer?
Guard 2: I think he’s just, like, a connoisseur. He doesn’t sell it or anything. He just always has some really top-notch pipeweed on him.
Archivist: Oh, are we talking about Stick Elf?
Guard 1: Hell yeah we are!
Librarian: You know about the Stick Elf, too?
Archivist: Oh, totally. Stick-Elf’s a super chill dude. Gave me some awesome pipeweed when I was maybe 12, and tee-bee-aitch I think I’m still a little buzzed from it.
Guard 1: What’d I tell ya, fuckin’ dope pipeweed!
Archivist: Also he’s really old.
Guard 1: Old as balls.
Librarian: Yeah, so Éodan and Jenniforomir were telling me.
Archivist: My grandpa used to tell me stories - he said one time he saw Stick Elf enter a smoke-ring contest.
Guard 1: Ooh, I’ll bet he kicked fuckin’ ass.
Archivist: Apparently the guy made an entire warship out of smoke and it flew around shooting down the other rings.
Librarian: And how much of this “fuckin’ dope” pipeweed had your grandfather had by this point?
Guard 1: No no, that’s totally plausible. Dude’s got weird elf powers and shit for sure.
Archivist: He brought fireworks for the king’s birthday one year, too.
Guard 1: Oh fuck, I forgot about those! Fuckin’ incredible fireworks! Dragons and knights and glowy trees and shit! I was fuckin’ 6 years old or something, they totally blew my mind. Hey Éodan, did you see that shit?
Guard 2: No, I think that’s before I lived in Gondor.
Guard 1: Wait, you’re not from here?
Guard 2: Oh, no, I grew up in Rohan. We moved here when I was, like, thirteen because my uncle Éojeff said he could get my dad a sweet job. And also that there were houses that didn’t smell like horseshit.
Guard 1: Oh shit, are you related to Éojeff and Éosteve who run that æbleskiver stand on Norndîl St?
Guard 2: Yeah, they’re my uncles!
Guard 1: Shit, they cook a fuckin’ great æbleskiver!
Librarian: Ok, hold up a sec, “Stick Elf” can’t possibly be his real name.
Guard 1: Why not?
Librarian: What? You think his parents named him in the hopes that he would carry around a fucking tree when he got older?
Guard 2: Maybe they gave him the tree when he was born!
Archivist: I don’t think a baby could carry that stick.
Guard 1: You ever seen a baby hanging onto something? They’re hella strong.
Archivist: It’s not a strength thing, their hands are tiny. That staff is enormous!
Guard 1: My halberd’s bigger ‘n I am, I can hold it just fine.
Archivist: You’re not a baby.
Librarian: Also why would elf parents name their kid “stick ELF”?! Presumably they know that their kid’s going to be an elf!
Archivist: Is he actually an elf? I didn’t think they grew beards.
Guard 1: How’d he get old as balls if he’s not an elf?
Guard 2: His ears aren’t that pointy. Maybe he’s just a really old guy? Like, a Numémoriam or something?
Guard 1: Did you just say “Numémoriam”?
Guard 2: Nûnenorman? Munimõrbitan? Y'know, those guys like the king that can get super old.
Guard 1: You mean the fuckin’ Númenóreans?
Guard 2: Yeah, the Númenóreums.
Archivist: Even the Númenóreans don’t live THAT long.
Guard 1: Plus he carries that fuckin’ stick around.
Guard 2: Wait, what does the stick have to do with it?
Guard 1: That’s an elf thing. Y'know, trees and shit? Very elfy.
Librarian: Ok, look, but his parents naming him “Stick Elf” would be weird whether or not he’s an elf. In fact, it’s even weirder if he’s not - what human names their kid “elf”?
Archivist: Huh. Yeah, you’re right, he probably does have another name.
Guard 2: Yeah, I guess so.
Librarian: He’s been coming here for decades and nobody’s ever asked his real name?
Archivist: I dunno what to tell you, he’s Stick Elf. Even his library card just says 'Stick Elf’.
Guard 1: Fuck yeah, the Stick Elf!
Guard 2: Maybe we could, like, ask him his name sometime?
Guard 1: Hey, look, Elrond’s over there. He’s old as balls too, maybe he knows?
Guard 2: Oh, we shouldn’t interru-
Guard 1: HEY ELROND, YOU’RE OLD AS BALLS, RIGHT? WHAT’S THAT OLD ELF WITH THE STICK’S NAME?
Elrond(coming over): Do you mean an old man cloaked all in grey and blue, leaning on a rough-cut staff, who came to the great library this day?
Guard 1: Yeah, the Stick-Elf!
Guard 2: (Sorry to bother you, sir…)
Librarian: He’s got to have a real name besides 'the Stick Elf’, right?
Elrond: Indeed, for no elf is he. You speak of the wizard Olórin, wisest of the Maiar, older even than Eä itself. Many are his names in many countries: Tharkûn among the Dwarves; Incánus to the south; Mithrandir he is called among my people, the Grey Pilgrim.
Librarian: Oh.
Elrond: And here in the North he is called Stick-Elf.
Librarian: Oh.
Guard 1: Fuck yeah!
Stop posting workplace conversations on main
Adding to the goofiness of Tolkien giving him this name: he didn’t come up with it himself. There’s a King Gandalf in the Old Norse Ynglingasaga, with which Tolkien was absolutely familiar (note also the Westfold):
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And while the name does basically break down to “wand-elf” or “staff-elf” — Cleasby-Vigfusson reads it as a more generic term for any kind of magic thing or a tool used to do magic, but sure, “staff” fits that category — gandalf also just means “wizard”:
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So Tolkien basically did the same thing with Gandalf as he did with Theoden — just like Theoden is Old English for “king”, Gandalf is Old Norse for “wizard”. Or, you know, “magic-elf”.
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