![]() Additionally, I constructed a wooden enclosure in the yard to hold anything I deemed “compostable,” as well as a pit for my growing excess of human bones. I constructed a pit for my growing excess of human bonesīesides my many tubs, I also built a giant house to hold my magazines, tools and pantry items. This practice brought me the sort of calm that I imagine regular people get from following the organizational gospel of Marie Kondo. I alternated between making runs to different locations for more junk, and engaging in intense sorting sessions as I listened to hours of content. I had nearly wrapped up the main quest line by the point in the game where I really dug my heels into my “recycling” practices, but playing Fallout was a great way to keep my hands busy so that I could focus my attention on podcasts and other audio media. ![]() Additionally, my teddy bear fort has a nearly nude deceased raider in it who continues to respawn no matter what I do, and the resulting image is uncomfortable at best. As a result, I can’t get within a mile of that map sector without the game crashing that money belongs to Todd now. For one, I can no longer return to Nordhagen Beach, where I built an automated beltway to carry over 50,000 stacks of pre-war Benjamins into a giant glass tower. There are, of course, innate technical issues to deal with. That said, there was something satisfying about hip-checking these retro household goods into a bathtub and letting the game’s natural gravity take over. Instead, you have to place them on the edge of a tub and then strategically bump them in with your character. Unfortunately, the way the workshop controls function means that you can’t really deposit items into the tubs. Then, in workshop mode, I would painstakingly sort through the mass of trash, putting each item into its requisite bathtub. I dropped all of my junk onto a cement staging area. I built a large wooden shack and filled it with about 20 old rusted bathtubs, perfect for holding my preciously mundane treasures. This was where I really perfected my system. There were far more interesting assets to collect than I had cabins at Sunshine Co-Op, so I packed up my inventory and moved to the other side of the map, cutting the ribbon on the Spectacle Island Recycling Centre. My strange dragon’s hoard grew at a slow but steady rate. I collected more of each with subsequent trips out into the Commonwealth, and deposited them in their respective cabins. I thought it might make an amusing photo op if I filled each one with a different type of junk that you tend to naturally collect while adventuring through post-apocalyptic Boston: one cabin for balls and associated spheres, one cabin for the near-useless stacks of cash called Pre-War Money and one cabin in which to deposit all my human bones. As I worked within the game’s workshop mode to make it a livable settlement, I struggled with how to make use of the little green cabins that circled the site. I had set up camp at Sunshine Tidings Co-Op, a quaint robotics-friendly commune on the map’s western edge. It started out as a joke, as all good coping mechanisms do. The more time I spent in the wasteland, the more it transformed from a space for play into a useful tool for reflecting on and mediating my own mental health. My actions in the game also gave me the opportunity to feel useful, like I was making visible progress on a project when my depression prevented me from leaving the house or pursuing my regular hobbies and goals. I began to find that my actions in Fallout 4 were serving as an almost meditative practice that promoted thoughtful interactions with my environment and helped to calm racing thoughts. I’ve lived with an anxiety disorder and chronic depression for longer than I’ve known what to call them, and I’ve consistently struggled with finding healthy ways to deal with both. ![]() ![]() The Commonwealth transformed from a terrifying possible future filled with radioactive ghouls and bloodthirsty raiders to a place of calm once I made this realization, evoking and encouraging thoughtful order. My actions in Fallout 4 were serving as an almost meditative practice ![]()
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