Subhuman was willing to answer a few questions of mine and here is what he had to say;

1. how did you first get started in the Fallout community?

I bought Fallout on a whim in 2000 (or maybe early 2001?) after reading about it in an old PC Gamer mag from 1997, fell in love with it, and raved about it to all my friends. One of them referred me to PlanetFallout, which I joined, and which eventually folded and became DAC. I've been here ever since.

2. What was it about the Fallout games that you liked the most compared to other RPGs?

The gritty atmosphere, the clever writing and character dialogue, the open-ended freedom to explore a finely- (and realistically-) wrought world filled with violence and moral ambiguity. Before Fallout my only real RPG experiences were of the airtight, colorful, melodramatic Japanese console variety - discovering Fallout was like having an entire wing of the gaming estate opened up to me.

3. Did you play FO3 and if you did, did you enjoy it? If you didn't play FO3, then why not?

I haven't yet - I don't own a 360 (or a PC) and haven't played any of my friends' copies on their consoles. I'll get around to it eventually, but it's not keeping me up nights.

4. You are well known for being a homosexual and is somewhat odd to have an openly gay person in such a rough community. Why did you reveal that you were gay and why weren't you driven off from all the bashing afterwards?

It's been so long since I brought up my sexuality here for the first time that I forget the context. But regardless, I actually didn't get much "bashing" - the reaction from most of the DACers then ranged from mild curiosity to disbelief (which I still get). Regardless of the reaction, I didn't shy away from this "rough" community because I was a big fan of it - I loved wasting time on the forums, loved many members of the Fallout fanbase, and loved expressing my opinions. Still do, albeit much less frequently these days.

5. Your PALs comics were somewhat popular around here, why did you original start creating them and why did you stop?

Now here's where the bashing came in - Megatron linked to my comic years ago and the feedback was vicious. But apparently people kept reading it out of morbid curiosity, or something - I have yet to be convinced that anyone here actually enjoys the comic because they think it's good. I stopped the comic out of boredom, mostly, and because of school, work, and general laziness. I'm writing a new storyline for it, though, and have started getting back into Flash (the program I use to draw it) so I can reboot the comic again. Stay tuned.

6. What games are you currently playing, books you have been reading, and movies you have been watching?

I honestly rarely (if ever) play games anymore - not because of a deliberate choice, but because I sort of lost interest. I got into school and work and TV and other distractions - games just fell by the wayside. Plus I don't own any of the next-gen consoles, just a PS2, so I'm behind on the new games. But having games suck 90% of my life away when I was really into them somewhat discourages me from re-joining the fold even if I did get an up-to-date system. Right now I'm reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, and before that it was Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland. I also keep meaning to hunt down a copy of 1984 so I can re-read it, it's one of my faves. I haven't seen any movies in a while - the last one I watched was Chasing Amy, which I liked. I rent movies sporadically and see only a few in the theatres, most of which I'm dragged to, but every once in a while something comes along that I don't want to wait for the DVD for, so I'll go to the theatre.

7. What games are you looking forward to in the future?

If they ever make a System Shock 3 I'll be first in line. But as for specific titles on the horizon, see the previous question. No clue what's coming up.


8. Were you often compared to Screech from Save by the Bell as a teenager because of your similar looks?

Never. Nobody in real life thinks I look like him, because I don't, frankly. We share a similar face shape, if anything, but the comparison has never come up. It started because I took a pic making a somewhat Screech-like expression about 5 years ago, and like a lot of things in the DAC community, it stuck and now I can't get rid of it.
That's the one.

9. What do you see for the future of Fallout and RPGs in general?

Unfortunately, I see RPGs going squarely in the direction FO3 apparently has - first-person, action-oriented; a whiz-bang front end with the hardcore RPG engine either cleverly hid or completely downplayed. There seems to be an ever-dwindling market for the kind of classic RPG that Fallout represented (even when it came out, Fallout was considered an old-school throwback to the RPGs of yesteryear), and with gaming systems getting ever more high-tech and flashy, there doesn't seem to be much (if any) space for the more deliberately-paced, thoughtfully-written, in-depth segment of the RPG genre.

10. Why do you choose to post at DAC instead of places like NMA or RPGcodex?