#constantine (sosu)

[secondhand-lions]

the tough thing about having Constantine not do the Big Dig is that now i gotta figure out a way for Mel to NOT die and also flirt with him.

seriously, Mel saying "you're not so bad to look at" to CONSTANTINE????????? CONSTANTINE. i think he'd cry

[achillesofgold]

Anyways, time to shamelessly plug my own AO3

The End of All Things is a super basic canon-divergence Greedfall fic (for all three of you who play Greedfall). Minor Vasco/De Sardet, it’s mostly about De Sardet and Constantin

alone and sublime is a Fallout 4 fanfic for a female SoSu and Deacon. Get used to that, there’s more

take my hands, they’ll understand is a Deacon fic about seeing that dumb egg cry

o my heart is basically backstory for my SoSu but it’s x Deacon so—

with a bat and a blade is a new collection of x Deacon drabbles. There’s currently only one short fic in there, but it’ll be updated with more in a little bit.

[secondhand-lions]

💌 Post 4 pictures from Pinterest that describe your OC. Send this to 3 other blogs to keep the chain going!

CONSTANTINE !!! 🏍️

YAYYY CONSTANTINE!!

[secondhand-lions]

behold. the moment at which Constantine decided to kill his CO. presented to you by 17 million layers of white posca and black ballpoint pen. i'll clean this up and write an image id tomorrow but it's so, so past when i wanted to be asleep by

also this is the introduction to the very cool very fun funky fresh way of illustrating Constantine's thoughts in figured out

[secondhand-lions]

ok so this has been on my mind for a Hot Second because it's funny as all hell to me but i've only just decided to put it out into the world but ANYWAY

i genuinely don't think that Preston and Sturges know that Constantine is pre-war until that part where you have to go grab the cryolator. and even then there's the possibility to miss it

like at all. zero idea.

reasonings:

in my little headcannon universe, the security team from the vault established themselves in Sanctuary + that's why the houses look better than they should after 200 years

they were a relatively small settlement, and pretty isolated due to location. down to about a single family by the time Kellogg and the Institute roll in and that's the last anybody's ever heard of folks living there permanently.

(the Abernathy's have this in familial memory btw! it's a generation or so back, but it's there!)

even without all that, he was living in Sanctuary for a couple months before heading off to Concord and was able to clean the place up a bit more + re-establish a garden + prepare to take on livestock later on + establish a relationship with the Abernathy's

even IF he took them to visit Nora's grave in the meantime, they'd probably just assume she ghoulified. All Constantine's ever said about her boils down to "a really good friend of mine", "i miss her", "can't imagine what my life would be like without her", "we had a wild time together", etc, - all things that can be assigned to anybody. not that big of a mental leap to think of her as a ghoul.

Constantine openly admits that "[his] mental map of the region is a bit out of date"!

Constantine looks like a wastelander, especially after his couple months above ground.

Constantine's in-universe voiceline about previously living in Sanctuary is not the in-game one. It's closer to "Yeah, I used to live here before.....-" (expression undergoes several changes) (this is him realizing "before the war" would be weird as hell to say and worse to explain) "-... uhm. Just before."

probable conclusion about this situation from the POV of the sanctuary crew:

there used to be a small settlement here. it got destroyed by the Institute because they wanted something from the Vault

Constantine was part of that settlement, got his kid taken, and fled for a bit. He's only recently returned to start repairs.

Codsworth was ALSO part of the settlement and survived the Institute attack, and that's why he knows Constantine so well

He's been in the vault, but does/did not come from it. The vault also freaks him out. (this thought is justified because of his claustrophobia + asking Preston/Sturges to grab the Cryolator)

there's a personal history here that's sort of painful, Do Not Pry

everybody point and laugh. rotating them in my mind.

[secondhand-lions]

rolling around on the ground giggling about my force-of-nature-coded OCs likeeeeeeee. :3 !

and the thing is! it's perfectly suited to their respective environments! Sirenity is as brilliant and terrible as the desert sun! Constantine is as gently strong and frigid as frozen water! like!!!!!

[secondhand-lions]

trust i will be sending more of these tomorrow when im not actively trying to fall asleep, but for now:

🎂 BIRTHDAY CAKE — when is your oc's birthday? how old are they? what are their sun, moon, & rising signs (if known)? what about their tarot card, ruling planet, & ruling number (if known)? do they fit the typical traits of these sun, moon, & rising signs?

for Constantine definitely. and extra credit for any others (although this is a meaty one so i understand if you don’t wanna do this for all of them)

ooooooo ok!! i know nothing about zodiacs so i will be humbly bowing out of that part (which is, like, 80% of this, sorry <:} in exchange i WILL be doing the extra credit)

Constantine's a hellavua lot younger than people expect. there's a scene bouncing around in my head of preston+sturges reacting to finding out how old he is that i haven't written yet but it's there, trust. [quick search to make sure i'm not messing up my timeline here] anyway he's like, 30 at the time of the game starting, absolute maximum. i've been thinking of him at 26-28. the scars and eyebags and scruff beard do a lot to age him maxson WISHES-

Nora and Hestia are around the same age as Constantine. maybe Nora is a year or two older.

Sirenity is uhhhhh. getting up there, but not old. thinking mid-to-late-40s by their jaunt to the Commonwealth so they can conceivably be older than Hancock because THAT'S a thing that my brain decided would be funny and therefore true, so that puts them at late 30s by the events of fnv.

asking how old Sleeper is is like asking how old the ship of theseus is

Captain and Keeper are around the same age. 35ish when the bombs dropped, so they're both nearing their 250th birthdays at the time of fo4 which is fun! their 245th anniversary would also be coming up, and i think they'd celebrate their anniversaries more than their birthdays, but big milestone numbers like that are important regardless of feelings on the matter [EDIT: they did NOT get married at 5. i just spotted that misrake but it's so late and j do not have the brain for math right now]

[secondhand-lions]

HAUNTINGS

Constantine haunts Nora like a physical reaction. She can't bury him, he's claustrophobic, that would be cruel. It's a constant sense of "he wouldn't like it here" and "he'd want this to happen" and "there's too many stairs; you'll have to help him up". She inherits his claustrophobia and inability to articulate feelings.

Hestia haunts Nora like lack of personhood. She was finally getting the life her society has emphasized as the best, the thing to work for, and she knows it's all bullshit, knows she'd never truly get the whole thing, but, shit, maybe she just wanted the part with Hestia in it. Maybe she just wanted the part where she could provide for herself and for her friends without worrying about rent or the cops breaking down the door. Hestia's gone, and so is Nora's shot at personhood. She inherits her ability to cement herself in a community that shouldn't like her.

Nora haunts Constantine like a wall. Her absence means nobody knows him well enough to know what he's thinking when he can't express it. Her absence is a void. There's nobody to play off of, there's nobody to balance out. He'll lean on that wall just the same. He inherits her ability to bite down her rage to get done what needs to be done.

Hestia haunts Constantine like kindness. Or, well, the possibility of kindness. He sees every moment where she would've extended grace, love, a helping hand. There's an empty space in the world where the heart(h) should be. He'll stretch himself thin if only to fill a tenth of that void. Who else is there? He inherits her space in the world.

[secondhand-lions]

for the torturing your OCS ask game-- 1 and 14!

ooooohohohoo here we goooo

1. Which of your ocs do you most often imagine sick? In what ways?

14. How does your oc cope?

[list]

this one in all honesty is probably Sleeper, second place being Constantine.

For Sleeper it's in a chronically ill body degradation way as per the nature of the medium (oooo you wanna play Citizen Sleeper so bad ooooooo) - they cope through food. growing and harvesting ingredients, cooking/bringing it to a cook, the taste, the smell, the cleanup.

they're a social creature by nature (even if it's in a quiet/low-intensity/mutually casual way) and a large part of the coping is how the food brings people together slash allows them to contribute and interact but stay to the side and rest.

For Constantine it's in a mentally ill way and a suddenly-disabled-and-dealing-with-the-consequences way. several horrific traumatic events within the span of a year and then having to deal with the aftermath of nuclear devastation will do that to a man.

he copes by working. he's not an intellectual, can't logic himself out of his feelings, and needs a physical escape. aaaand therein lies the problem. can't do gruntwork when his leg wants to give out every couple of seconds and the power armour frame (despite taking the weight off) still requires him to move mostly-dead muscles to operate it, so he's kinda stuck. and he hates feeling stuck.

his hands are still fine, though, so instead of grunt work he goes deeper into the finer stuff - clothing repairs, any finer machinery that Sturges needs fixing, that sort of thing. maybe he gets inspired by Arlen Glass and starts to dabble in toymaking.

help him outside. he gets stuck in the house the same way he gets stuck in his head. give him a lawn chair on the deck close to the workstation and he'll be LEAGUES better, especially with other people to talk to.

[secondhand-lions]

the one where both Nora AND Constantine are "sole" survivors

Nora is still the one shot, and Constantine's first actions upon thaw are still to get Nora out of the pod and try to save her life. This time, however, Nora is not long dead, and is instead still trying to fight Kellogg about Shawn. hate is a strong emotion but i fear it is the only strength she has left. Constantine manages to get the wound to stop bleeding (relatively easy, they're both half-frozen anyway) but can't get to the first aid materials to continue helping (cane snapped with the sudden temperature change the first time he entered the pod, can't get his legs underneath him) and gets pretty distressed about it. ("please, god, not you too, nora, please, please")

Nora, well, she can't let that stand. She helps Constantine keep himself out of a panic attack and they manage to drag themselves first to the nearest first aid kit and then out of that vault-shaped pit.

they go get their jackets back from Codsworth (and Constantine gets his leg brace back) and then onwards into Concord yayy. they have an argument that technically starts in front of Preston during the Power Armor talk but only really happens in the hall outside. "motherfucker you have ptsd" "nora, i'm the only one here with training, and i've seen too many people die in those suits to let it be you" "do you not fucking hear yourself?" "i do. i know. it'll have to work out." and Nora gets onto the ground to help him anyway.

unfortunately, deathclaw. fortunately (and unfortunately for the deathclaw), Nora keeps a level enough head and the deathclaw is too distracted by the giant hunk of metal shooting at it to notice Constantine (said giant hunk of metal) gesturing towards one of the old cars and Nora rigging it to explode. she knows it'll be really fucking bad for Constantine. she does it anyway, because she trusts him.

uhhhhhhhhhh yeah i don't have much else for this one. Nora still has that moment with Marcy ["just... don't let your grief make you lose what you have left."] but it's a lot more hopeful in the "this sucks and is bad and will continue to be bad but i'm doing a little better now" way.

OH YEAH Constantine's a quiet, heavily-scarred, strong man with intense eyes who has clearly been in and won a lot of very very bad fights. he's helpful, sure, and there's a moment or two of him noticing something small and fixing it for someone (an issue, a hit to quality-of-life that they don't have the energy/time to fix right now), but other than when he's doing a job or is actively sought out, he tends to keep his distance. resting bitch face, yknow?

anyway, Nora's always been better with people than he is, so she's in the room while Sturges and Preston (and, lets be real, Marcy) are having an admittedly gossipy conversation about The Scary Guy Who Lives With Us. Nora (who was previously minding her damn business, thank you very much) turns from where she's sitting (barstool) to comment, [incredulously, then disbelieving] "You're kidding, right?" (blank faces) "Connie's the gentlest, kindest man I've ever met."

and then that nudges Preston and Sturges to kinda just... accept that Constantine looks scary and to meet him where he's at and get to know him a little better.

marcy just accepts that he looks scary.

[secondhand-lions]

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIi

🚗 CAR — does your oc have a driver's license? can they drive/operate any automobiles/machinery besides cars?

🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)?

💤 SLEEPING SIGN — is your oc a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper? how are their sleeping habits?

🔱 TRIDENT EMBLEM — can your oc swim? do they enjoy swimming?

💚 GREEN HEART — does your oc prefer being inside or outside?

for both sirenity and constantine !!

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!! omgg ok ok ok

🚗 (sirenity): not a whole lot of opportunities to get proper licenses out in the wastelands, but they could figure it out i believe in them. knows how to ride a motorcycle (thanks Great Khans). could probably figure out how to operate heavy machinery (+ cars + vertibirds) if given enough time and a manual they can read

🚗 (constantine): motorcycle! has his drivers license from before the war. rudimentary vertibird training. crop plane/small aircraft license because i think it's funny

🎻 (sirenity): anything and everything! mainly guitar and fiddle, knows how to tune a piano

🎻 (constantine): he's a drummer!

💤 (sirenity): light sleeper (wasteland) - can't sleep when there's something to do. tends to go until they drop unless they know that they won't get the opportunity to sleep again for a while

💤 (constantine): light sleeper (trauma) - has a specific set of conditions needed for him to feel comfortable enough to sleep. starts sleeping deeper once more of those conditions are met.

🔱 (sirenity): knows how to swim! swims for fun when it's safe and they have time, especially when there's other people to play with.

🔱 (constantine): knows how to swim! had plans to swim as physiotherapy before the bombs dropped, but those got interrupted for obvious reasons. can't really swim now because of the radiation, but definitely would if there was the opportunity.

💚 (sirenity): outside, all the way. they like being inside well enough, but they go stir-crazy wayyyyyy too easily and being inside restricts their movement in a way that makes them uncomfortable.

💚 (constantine): inside until it gets rough (claustrophobia) and then outside until it gets rough (agoraphobia). we love a king who's perpetually mildly uncomfortable. here's a little fun fact for you! he has a capital-R-Rough time in Diamond City, and much prefers Goodneighbor. Goodneighbor provides the juuust right ratio of "open space":"safe building" ratio, his only qualm is that the Third Rail is underground. lord knows he could use a drink

[secondhand-lions]

Hestia was the only one not crying during her and Nora's wedding ceremony, btw. Constantine (best man) had tears going down his face when Hestia was halfway down the aisle, Nora managed to keep it together until Hestia's vows.

[secondhand-lions]

🎶 you know i’m thinking about Connie and Jude

ooooo. oo. hmm

(prewar)

this is mostly based off of their "GO FAST! BREAK SHIT!" mentality that they both share(d) - i think this works from both sides, even. a sort of mutual "i want to see what makes you tick" with that extra little hit of "we have different insights into how the world works but we somehow ended up at the same conclusion".

(postwar)

christ. okay. man. i was just rereading the lyrics for this one and it all fell into place idk what to tell you

this one's a conversation, i think. starts with Constantine trying to level out Jude's impulsiveness. "Where went that cheeky friend of mine? / Where went that billion dollar smile?" works from both angles but i was thinking Jude about Constantine the first time around

[secondhand-lions]

🎁? Does Constantine have something for Jude?

oooooo okay okay okay. hmmm

ok well 1) A Goddamn Break

2) holotapes, i think! Connie had/has a large holotape collection - probably has some races recorded, and maybe he has one of her's kickin' around, if she'd like it (aka, proof AND bragging rights).

if not, the man's collection is still extensive! any songs she's missing especially hard, any movies she regrets not seeing or would like to see again, etc.!!

[secondhand-lions]

thought too hard about constantine and i think my heart exploded

[secondhand-lions]

giggles. 🤭. ok. ok ok ok SO

Hancock, very high, not thinking straight, upon meeting Constantine, calls him "smiles" as a nickname.

and Constantine. well he has this sort of "bucket of icewater dumped down the back of your shirt" effect reserved for moments when he's Pissed Off. anyway, he bites out a "real creative. get on with it." of his own.

and Hancock? well, he already knew he would have to backtrack before the word was fully out of his mouth but hoooooolyyyyyyyyy SHIT does he resolve to accelerate that effort.

bonuses:

Nick Valentine fully prepares himself to get between the two of them. shoots Fahrenheit a look like "you let him out of the house like this????" and shoots Hancock a look like "you left the house like this?????????"

(if this is the AU where Nora's still alive): ohhhhhhhhhh. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man she's pissed. Hancock has never truly known fear until that moment. Nora fully starts figuring out how she's going to wash his blood out of her jacket. if Nick is also there he startles and actually has to get between her and Hancock.