#i like tinkering w this au a lot as you may be able to tell

[creatureprofessor]

asking about navigators au jopson😊

Hehe, and I'm glad to answer - and this is gonna be a bit lengthy!

The gist of it is that by the time the AU starts, Thomasin Jopson has been dead for a couple of years. She died on the previous expedition Crozier had been on as a feyguided* navigator (w JCR as captain), and in this universe, navigators have stewards too.

(*Feyguided is an umbrella term in-universe, it refers to anything that isn't a saint or arcane magic, but can aid navigators, and somewhat classifies as an "entity".)

Jopson's condition is called "tethering" & is extremely rare, because it requires a very strong will and desire to remain by one specific person's side in the moment of death. So Jopson is basically tied to Crozier like a bizarre little balloon bc she chose to out of unwavering loyalty, devotion, and love. Actually, she sort of works like daemons from His Dark Materials, in the sense that she can't really be separated from Crozier (by distance) and if she dies, she perma-dies with her.

She can do things independently, like write, organize, do chores, mend, etc., but she needs no food or sleep, so every night she silently floats near Crozier's bed to keep her safe. Her hands are cold to the touch but solid enough when waking from a nightmare.

Generally she looks a bit eerie and hovers a few inches above ground. She is a bit paler than in life, her eyes are even bluer and more unsettling, she has faint tear marks under her eyes, and she looks like she's constantly out in the cold. She wears her nightrobe and stockings - the clothes she died in, but can change into a steward's clothes if required (for that she needs to borrow Crozier's life force for a bit, but it only feels like your blood being taken, it's quickly over). Her hair floats as if she's underwater, and her voice has a slight echo to it.

She can maintain this composure very well, "trouble on the inside needn't show on the outside", but she can get upset or mad, and then this composition can peel away.

This is the only sketch I have of her so far, and here she not too mad, but upset enough that the stray strands of hair that bothered her in life come back down to haunt her once again.

When something truly disturbs her, she unwillingly starts to look like when she died - frostbitten, lashing scars opened up and festering, tears falling down on her cheeks, gaunt and generally in a horrible shape. Lookswise, that form of hers draws some inspiration from the witch matrons from World of Warcraft as well as from The Terror itself.

In this AU i am sort of mixing and matching elements from the show, so the prev. expedition had to face some life-threatening situations (not Tuunbaq and Passage-related) and some freak accidents that made Crozier quit the Admiralty (she's called back by Fitzjames onto a sort of "last mission that will answer all your remaining questions"). But honestly, I wanted to experiment w the idea of a ghost that very much does things as if she was still alive because of how strongly she loves and feels loyal to Crozier.

And yes, she is like a guard dog and even if she can't do you too much harm, she can scream until your eardrums burst and if she's near Crozier, she can in theory kill someone, but she never resorted to that. She hates Hickey the moment her scheme is found out (impersonating Navigator Irving - more on that another time) and hates anything and anyone who can cause chaos and endanger her beloved Francis*, and has a darker streak to her personality that even she prefers not to dredge up - she feels horrified after Hickey gets lashed, not bc of that but bc she realizes that she found some "perverse pleasure" in it.

*Fun fact about AU Crozier: she used to be Frances Crozier but changed her name by a single letter to Francis bc she felt it rolled off the tongue better.

What Jopson does not know is that Crozier too, wanted her to stay and come back to life, so her current situation is a result of that desire also. Crozier was (and is) truly fond of her steward and that may be something even more... However, she also felt guilty after ordering Jopson to be lashed and guilty about what led to her death (partially, her negligence) - she decided to sober up completely after that expedition was over (like I said, I mix & match certain elements), and she is literally haunted by her past mistakes in the shape of her steward, who is doing all this haunting benevolently, but the nagging guilt will always be there. Has she done things differently, would Jopson still be alive? She may never know, but she does muse sometimes about the what ifs. But at the end of the day, neither of them are aware of the extent of the other's love - for now (?).

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Tell Me Where To Find Shelter -- The Reboot

Okay, so -- this past Saturday, I brought back the Pentatonix/Lindsey Stirling cover of Imagine Dragon’s “Radioactive,” and commented that part of the reason the song was on my mind was because I’ve been really getting into Fallout 4, which I’m playing with Victor as my Sole Survivor. This mean that, of course, I have a Valice AU for the game -- “Tell Me Where To Find Shelter.” I originally came up with a rather simplistic version of the AU aaaalll the way back in 2016, based on what little I knew about the game (and the series in general) from getting into the Fallout Shelter mobile game and seeing a friend’s posts about her Sole Survivor. That original version could be summed up as basically “the prologue sequence, only Victor and Victoria are secretly in a poly relationship with Emily, who dies too when their kid is stolen, and Victor discovers Alice alive in the Vault as the only other one who made it -- they go out into the Wasteland together to discover what happened to Victor’s kid.” Pretty simple, right?

Yeah, you can throw all that out. Now, I have actually played the game, spoiled myself on the main quest and a lot of the side quests because I don’t give a damn, and have done a bit of research on the history of the Fallout verse as a whole. (Short version: It sucks. It sucks a lot.) So I have a lot of new ideas, meaning it’s time to reboot this verse! I wouldn’t expect a full-fledged story to come out of this (you’ve seen me panicking over the size of “Londerland Bloodlines,” right? Which is based off an action RPG that is reasonably linear and has a timeline of a month? Fallout 4 is open world and while the main quest is linear, the fact that I’ve been able to ignore it for MONTHS in-game because I can’t say no to Preston Garvey is -- eeep), but I may at least do a few snippets and whatnot.

So! Let me share what I’ve got regarding Victor’s history as the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 -- I’m gonna try to keep it to more general thoughts as I’m not totally up on the history of the Fallout world, and things may have to be adjusted if I later discover that something in the canon strongly contradicts it:

-->I have got his birth date: June 9th, 2050. This makes him 27 at the start of Fallout 4, which I felt was reasonable based on the Fallout Wiki stating both Sole Survivors were likely born between the early 2040s and the mid 2050s.

-->I still want him to be born in England, and have his family move to America a little later in his life -- though when is complicated by the whole Euro-Middle Eastern War and the New Plague putting America under quarantine for a while. The latest I can imagine is them making it over in his early teens or so, having left the broken-down wreck of the U.K. to rebuild fortunes in America.

-->They do indeed rebuild fortunes in America -- Boston, Massachusetts, to be precise. William sets up an extremely lucrative fish-canning business and makes sure to support the military extensively. (The Four Leaf fishpacking plant is almost certainly one of his in this timeline.)

-->The Victor/Victoria/Emily poly thing still happens, kicked off by Victor’s parents pressuring him into dating Victoria (whom he likes), Victor making friends with Emily (whom he also likes) -- and Victor accidentally asking Emily to prom via trying to rehearse his lines to ask Victoria to prom. Feeling bad as Emily is coming off a really bad breakup with an ass named Barkis (who stole a lot of money from her in a long con), he clears it with both girls to take Emily, and later they help defend Victoria when Barkis returns during the party and try to rob her. This leads to a close friendship, which eventually becomes something more.

-->Victor ends up being pulled into the Sino-American war straight out of high school -- William attempts to buy his way out, but for once his money doesn’t work, and Victor ends up fighting in Anchorage, Alaska.

-->This version of Victor, while still into butterflies and moths, is also a tinkerer, and quickly becomes known among his fellow soldiers in Fox Company (108th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion) as “that guy who can fix anything with duct tape and Wonderglue.” (I do enjoy my armor and gun mods -- everything must be deep pocketed!)

-->I’m not sure what Victor does to earn his “decorated war hero” status yet (probably saved the lives of a lot of men with some quick repairs and shooting), but it’s enough to finally get him discharged around 2076. Victoria and Emily had gotten together while he was stuck fighting, but are only too happy to let him into their relationship. Victor officially marries Victoria to keep his parents happy, and they move into Sanctuary Hills with Emily pretending to be their “eventual live-in babysitter” to avoid scrutiny from the parents.

-->And then, during a park escapade, Victoria ends up pregnant. Baby Shaun is welcomed to the world July 31st, 2077. Everyone is thrilled, and Victor picks up a Mr. Handy soon afterward to help with baby care.

-->And then, of course, the bombs drop on October 23rd, 2077. Victor, Victoria, Emily, and Shaun just barely make it into Vault 111, and end up in cryonic suspension -- Victoria is later shot when her and Victor’s pods are reactivated during the kidnapping, and Emily dies quietly when the life support is cut to all but Victor’s pod. Victor is absolutely devastated by their deaths, and takes Victoria’s wedding ring and Emily’s favorite butterfly hair clip as mementos to remember them by before leaving Vault 111.

-->As for the actual game stuff:

Victor’s starting SPECIAL stats were Strength 4, Perception 3, Endurance 7, Charisma 2, Intelligence 8, Agility 3, Luck 3. I’ve been mainly improving Strength for carry weight, though I recently started working seriously on bumping up Charisma because I have realized making it a dump stat was probably not the greatest idea.

I can’t list all his current perks off the top of my head, but Armorer and Gun Nut are up there -- he’s very much a shooty-bang-bang kind of guy, and I believe I mentioned loving deep pockets?

Victor hasn’t met all the factions yet, but -- he’s definitely a Minuteman. I am so easily distracted by those quests, it’s not even funny. ...Well, it’s a little funny. XD He was only too happy to help Preston Garvey’s group set up in Sanctuary Hills, and he and Preston are best friends now -- aka, Preston’s the first companion who idolizes me and whose perk I got. He’s a LITTLE awkward about the whole “General” thing (”Preston, you’re the one always telling ME what to do”) but he’ll grow into it.

As for the other factions -- he’s met Paladin Danse and helped him out at Arcjet, but refused the offer to join the Brotherhood. . .he might go back and do some missions with them, but I don’t think he’s going to like Elder Maxson’s views on synths and ghouls (Super Mutants -- okay, Super Mutants are assholes). He hasn’t met the Railroad yet, but I think he’ll like them and join up to help, even if he thinks some of their methods need tweaking. The Institute -- I think he’ll be of the mind that their discoveries are good, but they’re using them for such evil purposes, and -- ugh.

That being said, I’d like to go for the Minutemen ending that does not require warring with the Brotherhood of Steel, simply because there are kids on that airship and I’d feel bad shooting it down. If there was a way to just get rid of Maxson and maybe yank the Brotherhood closer to its Fallout 3 views. . .and if not blowing up the Institute was an option, Victor would be for it. Getting rid of the top brass who have completely written off the Commonwealth is one thing -- but the building, with all its advances? That could be useful.

Oh, and yes, he is adopting Synth Shaun -- but he is letting the kid know who and what he is, to help him forge his own path in life. (Synth Shaun also correctly guesses his new Dad feels awkward calling him by his predecessor’s name, and they decide on “Chester” instead.)

As for companions he’s currently met -- mentioned already that Preston’s his best friend, and he’s a solid supporter of the Minutemen. He adores Dogmeat and has made him a doghouse to live in at the Red Rocket near Sanctuary. He likes Piper Wright and her desire to spread the news quite a lot (and finds her attractive too). Danse he admires for his commitment to his men and his cause, but doesn’t really know him beyond that due to not joining the BoS. He IS very thankful for the gun, though -- Righteous Authority is useful! Codsworth and he had some rough moments at the beginning (I gave Mama Murphy some Jet for a vision, and poor guy got in the way of some friendly fire on an early trip), but seeing Victor get his modding on has improved their relationship quite a bit (Codsworth sees it as Victor getting back to his old helpful self). He’s encountered Ada and has grown quite fond of the little robot, wanting to help her avenge her slaughtered caravan family (WHY CAN I NOT HUG THE ROBOT). And he’s rescued Strong from Trinity Tower. . .and ended up getting sick of the Super Mutant’s constant negative comments toward humanity and inability to figure out stealth. He was helpful in taking back The Castle, but currently Victor’s got him living with a couple of settlers as a “guard” of sorts, in the hopes it’ll keep him busy and out of Victor’s hair.

And now you may notice there’s a strange lack in this longer-than-I-anticipated write-up. . .namely, where the hell is Alice? Well, that question has three answers:

-->For the purposes of my playthrough, I’m designating Piper as Alice -- she’s going to be Victor’s romance option in this game. (Me turning my attention to boosting Charisma may have been inspired by being unable to flirt with her during an affinity conversation no matter how many times I reloaded.)

-->An idea I had recently to put Alice in the verse was have her as a native-born Wastelander/escapee from a Vault (latter would probably be best to keep her history -- oh cripes, maybe she was from a Vault where BUMBY was OVERSEER, imagine THAT horror) who discovers the history of the “Order of Mysteries” (a group of women, lead by the old voice actress of the Mistress of Mysteries, who turned herself into a legit superhero post-Great War -- unfortunately betrayal led to the group dying out) and decides to take up the mantle, much like the Sole Survivor can become the Silver Shroud. She’d show up not long after Victor starts Shrouding around, asking to meet -- they’d have a little spar, end up fighting another enemy together, and she’d join up as a companion, leading to eventual romance.

-->But the first idea I had to get Alice into the story was. . .well. . .

Let me put it this way -- for quite a while, I was playing both Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines and Fallout 4 at the same time.

. . .yeah, I think this is going to need another post.