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MOVED TO @lackenthusiasm

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Effects of the surface on the MacLeans

Lucy and Norm are polar opposites on how they approach vault life. One seeks to conform in every single way whilst the other lacks enthusiasm of the life he deems mediocre or wrong or simply unfulfilling.

And the question then is: how much of that is innate and how much of that is suppressed memories of their time on the surface?

Lucy and Norm have one parent who's a pre-war junior exec so down with managing that he was frozen for centuries and is totally down with bombing civilians if they don't fit the Vault-Tec plan. Hank's like proper ruthless compared to the rest of Vault 33 and Rose. And then there's the fact that there's no clear timeline for how long Norm and Lucy were actually on the surface with Rose and Moldaver.

Was it a week, months, or was it years?

How formative was that experience for them? And how much did that experience permanently fuck them both up? How did they go back to vault life and be happy there after experiencing the real world of NCR civilisation? Did they know enough to process Rose dying?

Is the reason they don't remember a trauma response or the result of intense brainwashing/gaslighting. Because definitely Lucy and potentially also Norm were old enough to have core memories and understand their world and events. Being on the surface surrounded by people not in vault suits and with their mother, then either being dragged from or kidnapped by their father and returned to the vault and being told their mother is now dead should be fairly strong memories if not suppressed by trauma or deliberately covered up.

Norm can't leave things unanswered, he has to know, he has to find the truth of the vault and what Betty and the others are doing. He's a self proclaimed coward and yet his bravery and curiosity, just like Rose, leads him to discovering the truth whatever the cost. For someone who lacks enthusiasm with his vault jobs, he shows remarkable drive uncovering the mystery of the vaults.

Meanwhile Lucy is extremely driven and tries to conform to the ideals of the vault. She's nervous about her marriage and doesn't overstate her skills, and yet she acts and speaks as she's expected to, always polite and chipper and compliant. Except when she's not. And we see on the surface, especially with the Ghoul, that she has a core of steel to her. She can be vicious, she can be inquisitive, she can break the rules and bite back and get the job done whatever the cost. She does stick to her ideals for the most part, but the surface does bring out a side of her that is more like her father than she'd care to admit. Not selfless, but something more than what the vault dwellers were.

Whether or not the MacLean siblings are naturally made of stronger stuff given their parentage or they learnt to survive given their past, I'm not sure, but I do find it fascinating that of the Vault characters, Norm and Lucy massively stick out by being very much not like the others. They try to be, but who they are is different from a typical Vault 33/32/4 dweller.

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Felt like there wasn't enough fanart of Norm from the Fallout TV series so I made one myself.

Norm's storyline was really fun. I like how it featured the mystery part of exploring abandoned vaults in the games

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Our first priority has to be to maintain the security of this vault!

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I told myself I would hold off on moving the sideblog to a main blog until at LEAST July 1st just in case I lose muse/interest or something but I always feel so ✨️annoying✨️ trying to funnel people from a main blog to a sideblog and I don't like how limited sideblogs are anyway so I'm tempted to just cut my losses and move right away.

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@butnobodyhome 💙'd for a starter!

The smaller MacLean didn't expect he'd be following the precedent set by his sister so quickly, but upon his escape from Vault 31, it was clear Vault 33 was no longer the safe haven it once was…if it ever really was. It would only be a matter of time before Betty found out what he'd learned from snooping around, and Norm knew she would have no problem with defending her position aggressively if needed. The others wouldn't believe him without substantial evidence, they were too entrenched in what they had been trained to accept by Vault-Tec. What was left for him to do but pack a small bag of supplies and exit the vault to the surface.

It had only been a day and a half since Norm left the comfort of the world he'd known his entire life. He'd made it to Filly, a settlement that up until recently was a bustling marketplace, he was told by a local. When he asked why it seemed so quiet there now, the local told him that the Brotherhood of Steel was to blame, not that Norm knew who or what they were.

In his asking around, he learned that the Brotherhood were soldiers…sort of. And that they’d taken over Filly to use as an outpost before relocating to an NCR base. In between that, he caught glances and quiet whispers about his Vault suit and another Vault dweller who'd passed through recently. Could it be that they were talking about his dad or Lucy? Felt too close to be just a meaningless coincidence.

He approached a woman who was wearing a dress and cowboy boots. She seemed, somehow, to have a familiar appearance as well, although he was sure he'd never seen her before in his life. “ Excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but do you know anything about the Brotherhood of Steel? Or the…NCR? ”

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STARTER CALL. It's about time! I need to start finalizing my voice for Norm so mutuals (or rather, since this is a sideblog—people who I follow on main who follow this blog— feel free to like / comment on this post for a starter. I may reach out for additional plotting.

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You know who else isn't getting enough love? Norm Maclean. Mans did all the snooping about his vault for us only to end up cryogenically frozen against his will and yall are sleeping on him!!!

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fallout tv series + onion headlines, okey dokey?

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I'm about to project neurodivergence onto Norm hold on:

He's playing his lil video game at the family breakfast/dinner table when Lucy and Hank are talking about book club, and I assume again when he's technically supposed to be helping set up for the wedding reception, which gets him 'Norman.'d at by Hank for not taking initiative in helping out even though the setup and decoration is practically done when this happens.

I totally see it as Norm stimming by playing his favorite video game to reduce the anxiety he might feel otherwise for not living up to what's expected from him and Hank doesn't like this because it doesn't fit into what he thinks Norm should be doing.

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Moisés Arias as Norman “Norm” MacLean Fallout | 1.01 · The End

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people talk a lot about norm having 10 perception and 10 intelligence and like very little charisma (like most other characters in the show), but honestly i don't even think that's true—i think charisma is his third strongest skill probably? sure he is a loner because he doesn't relate to the community he was brought up within, but as a watcher i was incredibly drawn to his body language (his little smirks, the way he looked at everyone like he saw right through their bullshit and/or stupidity—because he did) and his tone of voice. he had some banger one-liners and his delivery was absolutely incredible, i for real was hanging on his every word. to be honest, he probably is the only decent example of what vault 31 is trying to accomplish, and of course it has nothing to do with the experiment itself, it's just that to me norm really does have the potential to be a great leader. he is clever, determined, he makes compelling points and knows how to really use his words to convey them, with the added benefit of also being a decent person who genuinely cares about people he knows to be good. i truly think he will manipulate his way out of his predicament, and that takes charisma. my boy has that intelligence/perception/charisma build for sure

EDIT: another thing! norm would NOT want to be a leader. which is precisely why he'd be a good one

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Biological father(derogatory)

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VERSE INFO.

Basically, I have very few of these for right now because new character, new fandom, but I have the following verses available:

pre canon — any interaction that is set prior to the events of the TV show. Norm is an underachieving Vault dweller and his father can't seem to understand why he doesn't express much ambition or drive to succeed.

s1 canon — any interaction set during the canon events of the TV show's first season. will most likely be labeled according to specific episodes. (i.e. if an interaction takes place during 1.04 The Ghouls, I will tag that thread as "death to management — the ghouls." for organizational purposes.

post-canon — any interaction following the events of canon. willll probably be separated into canon divergent AUs when the time comes.

modern — nothing fancy yet. just your standard generic modern au.

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STARTER CALL. It's about time! I need to start finalizing my voice for Norm so mutuals (or rather, since this is a sideblog—people who I follow on main who follow this blog— feel free to like / comment on this post for a starter. I may reach out for additional plotting.

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NAME ETYMOLOGY

I saw a post that claimed Norman's first name has roots in Christianity and Judaism as a biblical name that means "sincere" but while I tried to research this further, I only found one site that makes this statement and offers no sources to back it up so I decided to go do my own research instead.

The name Norman comes from a Germanic byname meaning "Northman", "Man of the North," and was used in reference to the Scandinavians. The Normans were Vikings who settled on the coast of France in the region that would come to be known as Normandy.

Following the Norman Conquest, in which the Vikings sought to expand their territory, the English began to adopt the term "Norman" into their vernacular in reference to Scandinavian barbarians, however the term fell out of use by the 14th century with the decline and assimilation of the Scandinavians/Vikings.

The name Norman was revived during the mid-19th century (1850s) by C.M. Yonges, who used the name for a character in his novel, The Daisy Chain, and since then other prolific bearers of the name have included the painter Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) and Norman Mailer (1923-2007).

MacLean as a surname has a bit of a rabbit hole attached to it, as it is an Anglicized form of the Scottish Gaelic surname MacGillEathain or MacGillEain, meaning "son of the servant of Eòin." Eòin is a Gaelic spelling of Iohannes, the Latin form of Greek Ioannes, but let's keep this simple and stick with the fact that all of these are derived from the Biblical name: John.

John appears in use by both the Old Testament and New Testament and means "Yahweh (God) is gracious." In terms of popularity and use, John was a name more commonly used among Christians in the Byzantine Empire, but following the First Crusade it spread to Western Europe, becoming extremely popular in England as a common male name from the 13th to 20th century.