#constantine (sosu)

[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!!!!!

[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]

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]

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]

🎁? 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]

🎮 for any ocs?

🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

OOOUGH OK

lets do an everyone feature

sirenity: drawing and playing music! they try to read when they can but the dyslexia makes that a bit hard sometimes so instead they listen to audiobook holotapes that the Followers sometimes have (and, eventually, that Ulysses makes for them)

constantine: motorcycling + general bike upkeep/modding, drumming, and! the secret Fibre Art Fiend Constantine Agenda (which was heretofore never beholden by someone other than me, so thank you!!)

nora: playing her guitar and going to shows! and collecting trinkets! in my heart of hearts she's a tchotchkes gal.

hestia: also fibre arts! and reading! she'd also like going to shows :)

sleeper: contrary to the name, they don't really sleep all that much, and the Eye is one of those places with a million things going on, so they've also got a lot of stuff going on. bodymodding, gardening, and getting into trouble :}

captain: the line between hobby and job is blurred a bit here because of the fishing, but ignoring that, she'd be a pretty good artist and likes to journal. does some fucky stuff with radios and physics-magic and regular magic.

keeper: ohh man she has SO MUCH time on her hands and she kinda has to do a bit of everything to keep (ha) the lighthouse/the area running smoothly. gardens, reads, has figured out a way to become one of those old-timey single-room-schoolhouse teachers to the surrounding area, little bit of carpentry/masonry/electircal work on the side, cooks and bakes... she does it all <3

[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.

[secondhand-lions]

HI TYPOS!! gonna scream. tumblr ate most of this back when it was just tags so now i gotta rewrite... so much. of this. okay

ok i've got this post open on mobile so i can see all of your tags AND answer your questions at the same time. onward!

re: great khans + motorbikes: greatest failing of fallout is having biker gangs with no bikes. every time there's a biker with no bike an angel loses it's wings. fnv would've been better with horses and motorbikes. also shoutout to tumblr user papakhan

re: constantine's claustrophobia v. cockpit: i imagine he learned how to fly a cropduster /before/ moving to Boston, when he'd still be out in the Great Plains, so his claustrophobia was not /nearly/ as bad as it is at the time of fo4

y'know how when you're driving and you sorta start to think about the car as an extension of your body? it's kinda like that; where the claustrophobia isn't bad BECAUSE it's just an extension of himself (+ also the freedom of flying kinda cancelled out the claustrophobia maybe?)

however if he tried to fly now i think his skin would feel too small and unfortunately it's not in a fun transgender metaphor way; it's definitely a period of his life that he looks back on fondly even if he can't imagine himself like that anymore. shit maybe it IS a fun transgender metaphor. fuck

this guy's cis. swear to god he's cis. ALSO THANK YOU FOR SO MUCH YUMMY PLANE INFORMATION

re: Constantine's drumming: when he's bored yes!! used to do it when he was nervous as well, but that was sorta drilled out of him during his time as a field medic (can't be twirling surgical instruments around anymore. rip. sad.) later game fo4 he probably gets back into the habit (but still not with surgical instruments)

re: Sirenity's strength+endurance: 1) sorta! big MT bumped her STR from 8 to 10 b/c of the Reinforced Spine perk, and i've considered having him get the endurance implant from Dr. Usanagi but it's more thematically relevant to have that 10th END point be from the one you can get at the end of the Lonesome Road dlc. so. we'll see if i can decide on that

2) oh yeah they DEFINITELY crash and burn multiple times. i think the keyword there is “burn”. Sirenity is as brilliant and terrible as the sun. and the sun is always burning! can't you feel it?

his dogshit luck stat (2) combined w/ the high endurance manifests as her BEING in horrible situations and getting hurt (horrible luck) BUUUUUUUUUUT somehow scraping through (high endurance)

i've thought too much about Sirenity's stats in terms of how they show up in their story. most of it's a parallel/reversal of Ulysses' stats because they're. hhhuff okay they! are! i'm rotating them in my head constantly and i'll make a post about their stats uhh. later. eventually.

okay now we've gotten to the point where tumblr ate shit, so this is all a 2nd draft without referencing the 1st soooooooo. we'll see.

re: Constantine v. sleeping: :3. SO glad you remembered that baby shaun was a condition for safe sleeping!

as for the immediate aftermath, ha, nope. nuh uh. he DOES try and not let himself get sleep deprived enough that he starts, like, hallucinating, because he knooooowwwssssss that'll just be horrific on his already horrible mental state. i'm talkin' seeing people he associates with safety (nora, hestia, his ma if i REALLY want to hurt him) as his brain tries to trick itself into thinking it's safe enough to sleep. maybe even some fun combos with war flashbacks. oof.

fun fact 95% of Constantine's in-game sleep hours have been when he's been travelling with Preston :3 he calls him a good luck charm after the second time he gets five consecutive hours :3 so that's sweet in a bit of a fucked up way. imagine preston being called a good luck charm.

ok lighter topic re: lakelurks/mirelurks: Sirenity (i) find lakelurks ecologically/evolutionarily interesting (i have. an entire page of notes. on lakelurk biology + possible reasons for existing.) and generally considers them a higher-danger pest, especially considering the pack/schooling(?) tendency.

Constantine doesn't get why mirelurks and mirelurk kings and mirelurk hunters are all called "mirelurks" because those are all? pretty different looking species? begrudgingly accepting of it on the basis of "well, the name tells you where they live and how they'll try to jump you" which is, honestly, one of the best ways to name something in the wasteland. Habitat+Hunting Habits, easiest crash course on How Not To Die.

[me] <- projecting their love of ecology and linguistics onto their ocs

re: Sirenity's potential place problems: hoookay how do i explain this... it's not that they have a problem with the Enviroments. that's just How The Place Is! not the Place's fault! they can't get mad at the Place! it's that there's People issues.

he spent most of OWB in a state of incredulous "sure, this might as well fucking happen" so nothing was really hitting as it should've. the Divide is Like That because of people problems, and sure, they're more used to open roads, but it's not like they're a stranger to that sort of environment. the canyons of Zion make them mildly uncomfortable in a purely tactical sense; they don't like being funnelled in like that, and they don't like that they might not see the people who have the high ground.

Sirenity doesn't like thinking of people as a variable to be worked around, is only begrudgingly accepting of it as Something You Have To Do Sometimes, and kinda hates that they've accepted it. poor ol' loverboy.

re: Constantine v. Diamond City v. Goodneighbor: there's too much of the parts of pre-war living that Constantine hated condensed into one spot for him to like Diamond City much at all. the social structure, the whole Having A Wall Will Fix Everything Actually mentality, the cops, the way the neighbours try their damned hardest to find anything even remotely wrong or different about you so they can out you as a commie synth, the cramped buildings, the ratrace.

the wall to Goodneighbor isn't a fix-everything wall, it's just a fact of wasteland living. the gate doesn't close on it's own. he still has his qualms with the place (the cops rebranded as the thing that encouraged neighbours to spy on eachother, the lack of harm reduction past destigmatization [which is an issue with the game's production at it's core but is still fun to think about literally], the whole?? democratic oligarch anarchy??? thing????) but the residents making an active point to not give a flying fuck about who you are? that definitely helps.

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