#leave that kind of experimenting to other Malkavians

[thevalicemultiverse]

Dormouse: I don't have any glasses for the eclipse someone relay it to me when it happens

Hare: sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, less sun, no sun :(

more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, more sun, sun again

Dormouse: It's like I'm there

Alice: I'm going to be honest, I rather appreciate the description myself, given that I'm never actually going to see a solar eclipse again. Part of me does wonder if I'd be able to move about normally during the day during the moment of totality, but the rest of me knows it is not worth the risk.

[mydysfunctionalvampirefamily]

Neil apparating from nowhere to remind Johnny he promised to dance with Britta.

Britta looking for 'big names' uhuh you aren't fooling anyone.

Oh boy, we haven't even danced yet!!! And people are alrwady being weird with skeletal masks.

John asking Neil to do magic on him! What a huge step.

Noooooo fucking Delgado! Why??? I wanted to see them all dance.

Goddamn Delgado, you're such an asshole. I hope Johnny will step on Your neck and kill everything you care about.

Yes! Whethers! 🎶You're my hero, my miracle, you're all I need tonight. 🎶

10 successes??? Hot damn. Wtfffff the embrace of dark selena???

Johnny being kind of honoured that dark Selena took a 'shining' to him and immediately a little drunk with power and ready to dance.

Wow! This is what makes Britta turn on her mobile phone. You know things must be scary.

So Neil puts heightened sense up, because he feels entitled to this information??? What?? I still don't understand what's happening.

Someone suggested that it is to do with him losing all his things from his haven and that he kind of sees the coterie as his belongings now? But idk?

Wynn once again looking out for Britta, so she doesn't have to answer all Neil's questions.

Lmaooooo what kind of middle school romance power struggle are Britta and Pendragon caught in right now?? It's your turn to leave a voicemail no your turn!

Wow Britta just gave Neil the closest she has ever come to a nervous talking to. Good on her!

Neill! Why do you NEED to know?? Like is this smth I made up all in my head? No right? Neil didn't act like this before, did he?

Is this all him feeling guilty and 'slipping up' as he said?? If that's it then why doesn't he do this with the others though?

Yes Wynn!!! Mom this fucking malkavian!!! Tell him to go to his room if he is a bad boy!!!

Goddamn the dragonsbreath bullets AND a good dancer??? Could Whethers be any hotter?? Goddamn...

"we care too much" 😭

Write your name with your ass???? 😂I never heard that before. That is funny though.

Ohhhh we get more gangrel juice??? 👀 So even though Whethers is kind of an uncle for Johnny. That kind of fits with his deadbeat dad/sire.

Is their sire dark Selena?? Could be.

Yes Wynn thank you for officially acknowledging you are the mom. And the babies! I am living for this, partly because it aligns exactly with my world view.

Good on you Jane, brag about Neil! I bet it's a new experience for him.

Yeah Neil is a little batshit, but mostly we love him for that.

👀👀👀 Whethers asking about the diablerie!

This was such a good and interesting conversation between Wynn and Whethers.

[mxldito]

"Roughly, I guess. I think it's just that it's not something I'd call delusion, is all. I feel that's not what vampires experience when faced with whatever repels them." Coyote folded their arms, letting their legs stretch outwards. "Anyhow, I'm still Catholic. Just not church-approved Catholic."

"I'm no expert, but I can at least give you the gist of it." They continued, "So, the Land of Nod is interpreted as an actual location. Where Caine meets Lilith. She takes him in, gives him her blood, and shares her knowledge with him. Lilith is abandoned by Caine, as he leaves her home, he's approached by the archangels. Somewhere around there, he becomes the first vampire."

"He wanders to Enoch, Embraces the king and others, creating the Second Generation. Then they spread the curse further creating the Third Generation. They're called the Antediluvians. That's where we allegedly began to split off into various bloodlines. There's another layer for you. Bloodlines or Clans, variations of the same species.

I'm what they call Malkavian. An oracle and a 'lunatic'. There's plenty like me. Our alleged founder would be Malkav. All Clans have a founder. Allegedly." They shrugged in their chair, "That's as far as I know, that's all my blood sister could comfortably share with me. It's kind of a no-no to spread the mythology in the faction we were Sired into."

She takes a swig of her beer and follows, folding herself neatly into the other chair and then leaning close to peer into their eyes for a moment. "I'm not accusing you of not being a vampire at all, baby, I'm talking about the other stuff-- not being able to cross water, garlic, the crucifix. Shit like that, it seems like you're telling me the belief of it when you weren't one is what makes it so when you are. Is that right?"

Leaning back into her chair, she tips her head up to peer at the ceiling for a moment and then cracks her neck.

"Interesting about being made from Cain-- In the bible, after slaying Abel, Cain is banished from his farm to the land of Nod, which means "wandering". And Cain is distraught, and claims that he will be slain by any that come upon him, but God tells him that any that raise their hand against him shall be punished seven fold, and gives him the mark of Cain." She sniffs. "Christ, you probably know all that, you've told me you used to be Catholic. But there are many interpretations to the meaning of the story, you know-- Muslims and Gnostics have different interpretations too. I'd love to hear more about it."

[blighted-elf]

Now that LA By Night has concluded, I thought I’d write about some of my personal headcanons for my Bloodlines protagonist, Ahnaki, who still resides in Los Angeles. I imagine she quietly helped out in the background during the show’s events.

A warning for spoilers below.

- She’d spend the next while searching for any remaining Camarilla and either run them out of the city or execute them without hesitation. She absolutely hated the truce and having to play nice, and is glad the sect is no longer welcome in the city. She would encourage Anarchs outside of LA to take back San Francisco and San Diego. - Staying off of her rather infamous social media for the time being, she’d try and learn more about the remaining Second Inquisition and work on re-directing their focus away from the city in a way that doesn’t throw any kindred (or other supernatural beings) under the bus. - Nines doesn’t ask anything of her as usual, but she offers help and support anyway. It’s usually in the form of information/reconnaissance, but a good, deep venting session is often more valuable. She continues to try and get him to loosen up and take nights off every now and then.  - Santa Monica is where most of the city’s Malkavians are, so she does anything to protect them, Jeanette especially. Resources, connections, mind, body, soul - she’d give it all for Santa Monica/the Voermans and that will never change. She spends most nights surrounded by her friends, just trying to forget how terrifying their reality is. - Ahnaki dislikes a lot of things Victor has done, but the two generally see eye-to-eye. He respects her reputation a lot, and she offers her information and blade if he should ever need it. I imagine he’d have a lot of Noddism related questions, and she’s happy to share her vast knowledge. She looks out for the Thinbloods in his domain as well, making sure no one fucks with them. - Her and Nelli have known each other for over a decade and they don’t generally get along, despite Isaac Abram’s insistence over the years. Ahni would keep an eye on Hollywood and be there should Nelli need help, but only because she believes Abram’s will return one day and would want to have it back in one piece. She is still very torn up over his Beckoning. - She’d continue spending a lot of time in the Warrens with Gary and his coterie as she always does, and keep bugging Mitnick for him and her to get SchreckNet back up and running.

- Given how many Dots she has in The Cobweb, Ahnaki would have felt it the second X went into torpor. She doesn’t question it, but reaches out to him through the network sometimes, even just to say “hey, miss you” or tell him funny stories. - Her and Jasper would exchange knowledge about various topics, as per usual. Because of her experience with the Society of Leopold and her studies on kindred, the two would try and figure out what Adrian’s blood did to X and see if it’s reversible. She would quickly notice how much more lonely Jasper is these nights, and try to invite him out to the Asylum even if he’s not very receptive.

- Because Eva totally survived whatever that last scene with her was (she just Earth Melded into the ground or something okay 😭), they would go back to their friendly relationship just like before the Camarilla came back. Ahni would freely offer blood for rituals as well as show her new occult books/artifacts she finds on her travels, and Eva would in turn offer to perform rituals. Although Ahni’s personal experiences with Strauss were positive and he was kind to her, she wouldn't hesitate to go after him if asked by Eva. She was horrified to hear how he treats the Tremere who disobey or try and leave the Pyramid. She absolutely has her back and has been ignoring Strauss’ formally written letters ever since. - Ahanki only recently got back from New York after helping the Anarchs over there, and thinks the change of city will be good for Annabelle. The two aren’t super close, but they’re good for sharing memes making fun of the old vamps. I imagine it’s a lot of Ahnaki saying “wow I actually taught Nines how to use an emoji tonight” or Annabelle saying “idk who D'Angelo is but he says you owe him money??”.

[robotslenderman]

Well how about I ask you about your OC/VTMB and OC/VTMNR? What guestures your OC makes that has the canon charcters all a flutter and when did they first realise that they were in love? :D

I was gonna answer this earlier, but then I saw that you showed me where to get Eternal Hearts and ended up on that wild fucking ride.

Anyway, now for something light, fluffy, and much less ridiculous: cuddly vampires!

VTMB: Maximillian Strauss and Madeline Jones

So like they’re not romantically involved but they love each other so I’m answering this anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Sorry I’m drunk time for a TL;DR before I get to the actual question)

I think their feelings for each other are very complex. Not in an “It’s Complicated^TM” kind of way, in an “it’s indescribable” kind of way.

It feels like they’re not quite romantic, but there’s also shades of romantic love in there? -- not in the sense of budding romantic feelings, of romantic feelings that will grow into stronger romantic feelings. The romance element is minor, and does not feel like it’ll grow stronger. But just in the sense that while they’re not in love with each other, their love for each other isn’t completely platonic.

It’s... really hard to explain. It’s romantic, but not. It’s platonic, but not. It’s something else entirely separate to both of those things. It’s not platonic, it’s not romantic, it’s not familial -- it’s something completely different that I don’t have a word for, and don’t know how to describe.

The easiest way to describe it is that outside of Strauss’s dedication to the Pyramid and the Tremere, outside of Madeline’s dedication to her own morals -- the other person is the most important thing in their life. Their relationship goes beyond all description in the English language.

They love each other. They’re the most important people in each other’s lives. That’s the only way I know how to put it.

And when Madeline was exiled from Los Angeles, despite being over seven hundred years old and having seen many Kindred come and go from his own life who’d been part of his for longer than the ten years she’d been -- Strauss could barely cope with it, and missed her terribly.

(ETA: @ryttu3k suggested “grey queerplatonic”. Honestly, that’s... almost spot on. Grey queerplatonic!)

What Madeline does -- Strauss is absolutely endeared by the fact she calls him “Wizard King.” At first he was indifferent to it, but after a while he started finding it absolutely adorable.

After a stressful night, coming back to the Chantry and hearing an unexpected and delighted “Wizard King! :D” always lifts his mood and makes him smile.

Always.

When he realised he loved her -- I’m just using this to mean love in general, not romantic love, because again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  what is their relationship exactly???? I DON’T KNOW

anyway

I think it was after the Vienna Chantry bombing. When Strauss knew something was horribly, horribly wrong, but not what yet, and couldn’t focus on his duties as Prince, and had to focus purely on the Chantry. It meant a lot of waiting for word from other Tremere and reassuring the apprentices and magisters, but he couldn’t focus at Elysium and had to be with his clan.

So as he lacked a Seneschal, that meant he had to leave LA in charge of his Sheriff while he paced the Chantry’s corridors in anxiety.

In other words, a four-year-old Madeline Jones who couldn’t string a coherent sentence together.

It was a desperate move.

It was a desperate time.

After a week he finally realised that leaving a domain in the hands of a Malkavian Fledgling was a terrible idea, and came back to Elysium, fully expecting to have to deal with power grabs and put out fires.

He realised he loved her when he came back and found everything was fine. Well. Mostly fine. The Primogen were pissed BUT compliant, so that was PRACTICALLY “fine” considering what he’d expected.

The Primogen Council and other enemies had tried to take advantage of his absence and distraction and Madeline had smacked every single one of them down.

Sure, she couldn’t exactly tell them off in coherent terms -- but she was more than capable of dragging out their secrets, putting them on display, and reminding them exactly what she was capable of if they kept annoying her. She was more than capable of Dementating people stubborn enough to keep on going. She did not let them cow her, she did not let their stubborn refusal to understand her odd get in the way -- funny, they always understood her perfectly when the seer part of her dragged their secrets into the light -- and she did not let any of them try to boss her around. He’d left her in charge, and in charge she was determined to stay. The worst offenders had been utterly humiliated and made an example of with Dementate, which kept the rest in line. She’d made the Ventrue Primogen take off his pants and do a dance when he’d pushed her and tried to Dominate her in Elysium.

Harsh? Definitely. Necessary? Also yes. She’d warned them, and she only had so many tools at her disposal, and so she followed through on every single threat she’d made.

That was when Strauss realised he loved his adopted childe, and that he was damn proud of her.

And highkey wished he could make her part of the Pyramid -- Malkavian or not. Because if there was anyone outside the clan worthy of it, it was her.

VTMNR: Lettow Kaminsky and Elisa Mulgrew

What Elisa does -- Lettow loves her forehead kisses. Loves them. She kisses him right on his hairline, while cupping his cheeks or running her fingers up the back of his neck into his hair, and it always makes him melt.

She’s also very stubborn. When it’s not against him (for obvious reasons, lol), he loves that, too -- how in their last conversation before he left for the Middle East, she’d refused to leave the hangar until he’d promised he’d come back alive. After having a partner who’d fallen to depression and essentially committed suicide -- he loved having one that was absolutely fucking determined to stay alive, he loved being in love with a fighter.

When he realised he loved her -- maybe not quite “loved”, but definitely “had feelings for.” It was the night they were reunited after he came back from the Middle East, when Dove sent them both on a job that Elisa needed a bodyguard for and he was sitting in the front passenger seat as she drove and tried to entice him to talk about his experiences in the Middle East, so that they wouldn’t be buried, wouldn’t haunt him.

He was somewhat scarred by the Gehenna War and all the nasty shit happening out there because of the overpopulation of Elder kindred, and she’d tried (and failed) to relate to him, only making him feel patronised and belittled instead because she’d compared relatively petty experiences to his traumatic and scarring ones.

He realised he was falling in love with her when she apologised for it, and said “I just wanted to make you feel related to because I don’t want you to be alone right now. You deserve to feel supported. You deserve not to feel alone. You don’t have to be alone. I want to be there for you in any way I can be so that you don’t feel alone.”

After having essentially been abandoned by his previous bondmate, after having battled (and still battling) his complex feelings of abandonment and not-good-enough in regards to Aila -- hearing that?

Yeah.

He might not have fallen like a ton of bricks on the spot, but he knew at that moment that it was going to happen, that it was bound to happen, and its inevitability was something he couldn’t have fought if he wanted to.

As for the moment he realised he actually loved her? I couldn’t tell you; he sort of knew from that moment on it was coming, and he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment. It happened so gently and so softly that even though he was looking for it, he never saw it. It just was what it was, and one day it felt like it had always been there, and he couldn’t even remember when it snuck in.

[koszmar-zycie]

All of the fun, random questions! Do it!

Oh lawdy! To quote Ace Ventura: “Aaaaaalrighty, then!” - Apologies for the janky post, since I can’t space them without the site making the numbers all screwy.

Do you have any “yeah I’m good at it but I hate it” kind of skills? - hmmmm. To be honest, leading. If you buy into horoscopes, I’m a Dragon. And maybe it’s natural, maybe it’s theatre experience. But when I apply myself as a leader, I do AMAZING. The issue is that I generally like to be a support. Sometimes I like leading, but usually I’m not into the idea of being this focus or figurehead guiding the way as the leader. Whether projects or even fun, I tend to fall into a like... intermediate leadership role at best. 

If you could make one type of food cease to exist, what would you banish? - To be honest, I can’t do that. Even foods I’m not fond of are foods, and I would be remised if I were to remove any.  

You’re allowed to know everything about one highly specific thing/topic. What would you choose? - Deep sea thermal based biology. The deep sea is my 100% very favorite place on Earth. If I die and there’s an afterlife, I want endless ocean of all kinds. If I’m reincarnated, I want to be a Dragonfish or something. At any rate, I would do anything to have such a wealth of knowledge. Especially about something as fascinating to me as the ins and out of how the deep sea creatures that survive and thrive around the *extreme* heat and pressure of the vents. 

What’s a fictional character who you want to be like? In what way do you want to be like them? - I would love to be like Nathan Ford from Leverage. I want to be able to live my life as freely and wildly as he (though maybe not as illegally lol), and also pursue what I feel is right for me. Live through and persevere through hardship as well as he, even if he struggled.

If you had to live in and not leave a city for the rest of your life, what city would you choose? - That would be a VERY hard call between Avalon on Catalina Island USA, or Sedona, Arizona. While Sedona overall has more of what I love, Avalon has the sea. And I’d probably die without my ocean. 

Do you tend to say what you’re thinking? What would people think of you if you did the opposite?  - Usually, yes. But in a careful way. It WILL happen periodically, because I’m also an emotional hunk of waste. But in general I do a decent enough job of being honest without being harsh about it. When I’m provoked or something really gets to me, then I can just vent without thinking.

Is there anything that you’ve done/experienced so much you hate it now? Easiest to come up with are like, food or music. - Hmmm. Not really. Halloween got SEVERELY killed for me, though. I still like it, but Haunt people are by and large the most obnoxious and hypocritical. Since I adore haunt, I HAVE to deal with them. Hatred for Christmas and other holidays while spouting about Halloween has drained my interest in Halloween. So yes an no, because that’s really OTHER people killing it for me. But I’m also sort of involved because of my love of the haunt business.

Were you afraid of anything “silly”/irrational as a child that you’ve since outgrown? - Deep water. As a kid I HATED the deep end of pools. Now I’m obsessed with deep water and the dark, unknown, crushing depths. Funny how things work out! I used to hate going near the slope in a pool if it was even a little dark (lighted pools were fine). Now, the only thing stopping me from just continuing to swim down if I go diving is my tank limits.

If you were to impart one moral lesson (think Aesop’s fables, Golden Rule, etc) on the world, what would it be? - Treat others as you wish to be treated. It’s SO easy to say, and yet nobody does it. 

If you were a DND character or a game character (or something like that) what would your highest stat be? What would you want your highest stat to be? What about the lowest, to both of those? - HA. I think about this way too much. I’d be a sea elf druid. STR 10 INT 12 CHA 16 DEX 12 END 18 WIS 18 - If I were to apply myself logically as an analog of myself, I’d have good durability and understanding and social capability (again, in specific regards), but my outward strength and dex would be kinda average. I like to think that I’m decently intelligent, as I LOVE books, learning, and figuring things out. But I’m also far from genius. Hence my focus on Wisdom. I’m also surprisingly dexterous, but in certain circumstances more than others, so that’s also pretty average. I don’t think I’ve really have any “bad” stats, but I’d definitely mix average with a couple high ones.

Is there anything you judge others for when you probably shouldn’t? - Probably. I have a huge mistake of expecting others to be courteous and offer a common decency/open perspective on things.

Who are “your kind” of people? - Goths and hippies, my friend. If you want to know my style? Goth Druid. lol 

If you had to come up with your last words right now… what would they be? - “Don’t regret not accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. Regret having not tried. I do not regret trying, even if I did not succeed.”

Do you have any “weirdly strong” opinions about things that don’t really matter? - This is VERY obscure (I have others, but it’s late and this came to mind first) But if you play Fate Grand Order.... SET YOUR GOD DAMNED SUPPORTS.

Your goal is to completely confuse the people around you in as short a time as possible– what do you say/do? - Honestly, just start quoting Lorne from Season 5 of Angel. Or act like a Malkavian. One of my VTM characters was a Malkavian who got in a fight with a parachute he had. Her name was Kitten.

What’s the most comfy place you’ve been in? - I don’t know, actually. Maybe the Luxe Hotel in LA during Anime Expo?

Did you have any “silly” beliefs as a kid? Where did they come from (parents, friends, out of nowhere, etc)? - Not that I know of. At least in terms of anything that’d have changed or something. I’m sure there’s Something, but I honestly can’t dig anything up in my memories.

If you were to add or remove one physical feature to yourself… what would it be? Can be from animals, can be from imagination… whatever. - Hahaha, I ALWAYS think about this one. Right now, I’d want maybe the electro-vision of sharks. 

What could you happily give a two hour lecture on? - Ocean conservation, and what’s correct and what isn’t.

What would a mirror opposite version of yourself be like? It doesn’t necessarily have to be an evil version– any feature can be reflected! - Someone who’s mostly optimistic. More bright colors than dark, short hair. Focused on socializing and extroverted. More than happy in one place forever, without an interest in travel. 

What’s an occasion you’ve done a double take? - Anime Expo a number of times. Seeing weird or unexpected, or legendary cosplays. 

If you could only see one color (and its varying shades– dark/light) for the rest of your life… what would you choose? - Blue. Guess that was probably obvious. But it’s a cool color and associated with calming. Between dark midnight and navy blues to vibrant aquamarines pressing towards green (without actually going into it), I feel like there’s a happy spectrum of all kinds that would be enough to get through without going too crazy.

Do your friends all share certain qualities? Major or minor! - Despite my.... unique personality, and preference towards quiet etc (INFJ), I have a lot of radically different kinds of friends. I honestly don’t think I could put any one thing down. Other than that I choose my friends carefully on who I think I can trust and is a good persona at heart. To a sufficient degree anyway. That’s also a huge part of my downsides, too. By being sensitive (and having certain conditions), when a friend does something that hurts me, it REALLY hurts.

How do you motivate yourself to do things? - Oh man, that’s funny. It is entirely circumstantial. As an artist/writer/creative (I use artist in the broad sense, but I figured I’d add that to help specify) I can VERY easily just have motivation on a moments notice. So it’s often pretty random. But if not, I jut need to think of why. I Looooooove gardening. Weeds need pulling? I think about what’ll happen if the roses or tomatos or lemon tree don’t get their water because of weeds sucking it up. Need to write? I’ll never leave my creation for *any*one if I don’t at least crack down on notes, and make slow and steady progress if nothing else. It’s usually just a small thing I think of to act as a spark, but it’s usually very effective.

What’s one of your favorite jokes? Tell it to us!  - Okay, so this isn’t a joke, but it’s seriously STILL making me laugh just thinking about it. I was going to reference an old comedian in a previous post (I didn’t end up doing it, but still). Anyway, I was really confused as to why I couldn’t find him in google. It turns out, instead of looking up “Groucho Marx”, I was googling “Marco Grouch”. LOL That’s probably not quite as funny to y’all, but for some reason it’s killing me. XD

Hooooooeeee! Well, that was long, but actually really fun! Thank you @scatteredstoryteller! That was like... an essay. lol But definitely fun. I love asks. XD

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Tell Me Where To Find Shelter -- Weird And Complicated Video Game Crossover AUs Strike Again

Okay, so last week I offered you all an updated rewrite on my old Fallout 4 Sole Survivor!Victor AU, Tell Me Where To Find Shelter. And at the very end of said update, I let you know that I had an idea for fitting Alice into the AU --

Specifically, my Malkavian Alice from Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines.

Look, the fact of the matter is, Fallout 4 and Bloodlines have been rather closely connected in my head from day one of my purchasing them -- hell, I got them during the same Steam sale! (Along with the BioShock series entire, which is why I had a couple of posts about Tell Me Where to Find Shelter back in 2016, then it dropped off the face of the earth -- I played Bloodlines first, and followed up with that series.) And my “Londerland Bloodlines” playthrough of Bloodlines was done concurrently with my starting up Fallout 4, so -- yeah. Me wanting to figure out how to cross the two over was probably inevitable.

I know what you’re all thinking, of course -- “how the hell do you make this sort of crossover work?” Well, I have had a few ideas:

-->This version of Malkavian Alice and her adventures in 2004 Los Angeles would be much more like the standard fledgling’s, given that the Corpse Bride characters are now born in the future. So the person she saves in the hospital is Heather (who she does manage to send away in time to save her life), and the Giovanni party goes down without dragging an undead version of Lizzie into the mix. Obviously the story and setting would have to be tweaked to fit better into Fallout’s alternate history (though given what the computers in the original game are like, maybe that’s easier than expected). She still goes Independent, and escapes from Los Angeles in the wake of LaCroix’s explosive death, making her way slowly but surely to the East Coast because she has had enough of California and everyone there.

-->She manages to get on with her unlife, watching the growing tensions with China and the Resource Wars with unease, but keeping to herself and doing her best not to let her humanity slip as she gets older. When the bombs fall, she’s sleeping the day away in a basement bunker she set up in Boston -- but the destruction from the explosion ends up collapsing part of the ceiling, burying her in rubble -- with a chunk of timber piercing her heart. She ends up in a staked torpor. . .

-->Until Victor shows up at her location at night to clear out a few raiders who are taking over the place as a base. One of the raiders yanks out the stake to use as a weapon, has three seconds to wonder why it’s got fresh blood on it -- then Alice explodes from her centuries-long hiding place and drinks him dry. Victor is too stunned at first to actually shoot her, and once Alice’s blood thirst has been quest, she immediately puts her hands up and does her best to show she means him no harm. They talk, Alice explains what happened (and goes ahead and admits she’s a vampire when Victor explains about the nuclear apocalypse -- who gives a shit about the Masquerade when the world has ended?), she offers to help with the remaining raiders to prove her good intentions, Victor accepts, and they take down the assholes together.

-->Obviously, Alice isn’t immediately “unlockable” as a companion -- she’s still got her sunlight thing, after all! She and Victor chat about it, and Victor, feeling bad, offers his assistance. Alice accepts -- she misses the sun -- and says that she’ll stay where she is for the moment (after finding a non-partially-collapsed basement to stay in) and keep raiders and monsters out while he searches for information. And so the “Here Comes The Sun” quest begins, with Victor searching for a way to counteract the sunlight curse! I’m thinking this would end up interacting with the Cabot family stuff, because I don’t think it would be hard at all to change the source of their immortality, and the artifact upon Lorenzo’s head, from something alien to something vampiric. Maybe Lorenzo’s partially possessed by the spirit of an Antediluvian, and it’s turned his blood into something close enough to vitae it can make ghouls? At any rate, Jack manages to whip something up after examining some of Alice’s blood (which, naturally, she’s kind of nervous about, but what choice does she have?), and it successfully stops her from burning up in sunlight (though she is weaker in it). A grateful Alice thanks Victor (and Jack) and agrees to travel with him to experience the Commonwealth.

-->As they go on together, they end up getting closer -- Alice likes that Victor is generally a good guy and sympathizes with the story of his lost family; Victor likes Alice’s snarky wit and strong sense of justice. As they share more details of their lives, help out the settlements, and battle monsters together, they realize they’re growing feelings for each other, and eventually get together, facing off against the Institute as a couple and parenting Synth Shaun/Chester together afterwards. (Alice jokes a lot that it took both her dying and the end of the world in general to finally get a domestic happy ending.)

-->Alice’s starting clothes would be a simple blue dress and apron with black buckled boots (the dress would naturally have a big bloody hole right over her heart when she first wakes up; she patches this after you leave her to her own devices for a bit), and she’d have the Tal’Mahe’Ra Blade (her prize from her storming of the Hallowbrook Hotel, taken from Andrei’s lair) as her standard weapon. She has a unique bite attack, being a vampire, and can still use Obfuscate (turning invisible to sneak past/sneak attack enemies) and Dementation (inflict debuffs on enemies so they’re confused and can’t shoot straight, or kill a single enemy from fear alone), though both have a cooldown so Victor can’t rely on her just spamming that to take care of every raider for him! XD Her perk would allow you to drain blood from enemy corpses (which other companions would find less disturbing than outright cannibalism, but still fairly creepy) and/or increase the healing capabilities of blood packs. I’m thinking, once romanced, she’d also have a unique variation of the “Lover’s Embrace” temporary perk, “Love Bite” -- Victor wakes up with HP not fully restored, but the XP boost is greater than “Lover’s Embrace” (+20% vs +15%).

-->Other vampiric elements of the Commonwealth would include:

A) That blood bank you can find? Those bags of blood are warm and fresh because there’s a Tremere there who has built up their power and knows some rituals for preserving the stuff. Unfortunately, they’re also very low humanity by this point, so they end up being a nasty surprise fight.

B) There’s a secret settlement of vampires that is made up of all the various fledglings you could pick from in Bloodlines, having learned to live together after the destruction of vampire society along with human when the bombs fell. The local Tremeres managed some blood sorcery that infused a mutfruit tree with human blood, so plasma fruit, a la The Sims 4, is a thing for them, and allows them to live in relative peace with their human neighbors (though they’ll happily drain anyone who attacks them). They’d probably have a quest revolving around either talking down or killing some vampire hunters who have been eying their base, and they could be persuaded to allow Jack Cabot and family to study them in exchange for vitae to help them stay in their immortal states. Also, the Malkavians openly call Victor the “Sole Survivor” and offer roundabout tips on his quests -- if he can decipher them. XD

C) This is just one that amuses me -- this universe’s Mysterious Stranger is none other than good old Caine! He’s trying to be a little more helpful to mortal and Kindred alike in the post-apocalypse, and has decided this means “showing up randomly to help people out of tight spots before vanishing again.” Alice, upon seeing him, jokes that the cabdriver thing didn’t work out, huh?

D) I’d kind of like to make stimpacks developed from vampire or ghoul blood to explain just how it is they can heal crippled limbs so fast -- the wiki didn’t provide much of an answer there! Which means anyone who uses them is at least slightly a ghoul. . .which might explain a few things about carry weight and why some enemies are so tough. (Legendaries have more vitae in their system, prompting the power-up, maybe?)

So yeah -- that’s how I’d get Bloodlines and Fallout to work together, and thus have my Malkavian!Alice and Sole Survivor!Victor be a couple in the wasteland. Because why make a crossover simple when I could make it way more complicated than it needs to be? XD Look, I just like the mental images I have of them together -- and of Alice taking out a whole army of baddies by hitting them with Voice of Bedlam to throw them into absolute chaos.

[t-wanderer]

Rant About White Wolf

Okay I promised this ages ago, and I was setting up shelves last night and now I’m in the mood, so here it is, why I stopped giving White Wolf my money. For starters I want to say that I take RPGs very seriously, which is not to say I’m pretentious or exclusionist or fun-hating. I mean I spend a lot of money supporting my favorite games. Here’s my game shelf from a few years ago...

Here’s the collection now....

So, let me paint a picture here. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in the 80s, but something happened in the 90s that changed how I run and play games. All of a sudden nobody wanted to play anything but Vampire. A pick up game at the comic shop, friends, cousins, it was impossible to run anything else. My choices were to run V:TM or not play. So I ran vampire, then mage, and honestly I’m glad I did. Vampire introduced me to the narrativist style of roleplaying. I met my wife LARPing. Mage remains one of my favorite games of all time. So I bought the books, then 2nd edition hit and I bought them again. Then 2nd ed revised. Sound familiar? Shadowrun, changed hands over and over again, new edition, re-buy all the books. 3rd edition, 3.5, 4th, now 5th, this is something that would happen consistantly for the next two decades. Companies trying to sell the same game, again. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. A new edition can fix problems, expand the world, or even be a completely different game. Breath of the Wild was not Nintendo trying to resell Skyward Sword. But Skyrim on the Switch is the same Skyrim I already bought twice, you know? Okay, so early Noughties, my whole social circle are White Wolf fans, and the Wold of Darkness ends. The event meets mixed responses, at least in my groups, but whatever, it’s fun and we get to talk about all the big secrets revealed. Nobody actually runs a Gehenna game, or whatever, and as far as our games went, the world just continued. It’s weird that each book gives a couple versions of the cannon, but whatever, the whole thing is optional, right? So Mark Rein-Hagan leaves and there are all sorts of nasty rumors floating around, and Vampire the Requiem comes out and there’s push back because it's different, but I think, different is good, there’s value in different. So I buy them, and well, the quality has been dropping with white wolf’s game books for a while. By that I mean, the amount of actual game content has been dropping. White wolf books are already 30-40% short fiction and artwork at this point, so combing through them for things I can use in a game is getting harder. World of Darkness: Mafia was almost entirely real world history and almost no game content at all, which is like, there are other books on the mafia i can read if I’m doing research, right? But anyway, Requiem comes out and it’s a little weird, but not terrible. But they’re being cagey, teasing out details of their new world. It makes it a little hard to run a game, because we know almost nothing about the antagonists at this point. It’d be like if every book mentioned the Sabbat, but never explained who they were. Finally, the last straw. After teasing and build up and hints scattered through their books, they release the VII book. I’m like, okay, finally give me the rest of the setting so I can try to run this. The very first page of the book is this:

And that’s it. I go ballistic. I’ll be honest, I felt disgusted and offended and I’ll explain why. I was like, How dare you tell me that I’m the storyteller and I get to decide what the mystery is. I *KNOW* I’m the storyteller and I can decide whatever I want is true. What I don’t have to do is pay you, $30-$60 a book, to tell me to “make it up.” I can “make it up” for free. It was cowardly, like they were afraid to risk coming out and you know, writing the antagonist for the fantasy setting they were selling us, like maybe we wouldn’t like it as much. But the way it was presented? One of the things the fandom loved was piercing together clues and hints, catching the references hidden or scattered across the games. (great example, read the entry for Rasputin in Clanbook: Malkavian, Setite, Bruja, Tribebook: Shadowlord, Traditionbook: Cult of Ecstasy, and finally in Guildbook: Puppeteer. Can you name any other RPG company to take such a little detail and spin it into myth like that? ) People also liked using the games together, the systems were compatable, and a big diverse world of darkness felt cooler. But the min/max warnings started showing up, first as sidebars, then caveats in the introductions, and finally a page-long rant in Blood Treachery vilifying anyone who wanted to run a revenant mage. (a far cry from “it’s your game,” eh? Not that I’d allow one, but still.) And this New World of Darkness was deliberately segregated, different game lines might as well have existed in different worlds. So there was another way to see this, that White Wolf was saying, Fuck you for enjoying our game wrong. We’ll force you to play it right. You like cross overs? We’ll make them impossible. You like secrets? Fine, we won’t even tell you who the main antagonist is for the story we’re selling. I was furious. And I never bought another book from them. I still run their games, I’m running an oWOD dark ages game right now, and Mage remains on my top three games of all time. (Psychosis and Amber, if you’re curious about the other two.) But when you’re selling a game book, you’re selling content. I’m paying for the ideas you have that I wouldn’t have thought of, for the characters only you can write, the mechanics only you can invent. The idea that this is a “toolbox” is insulting. Look at GURPS, that’s a toolbox. If I buy the GURPS cyberware book it doesn’t tell me “I get to decide how cyberware works,” it gives me comprehensive, exhaustive rules for every conceivable kind of cyberware, AND it doesn’t try to sell itself to me as the “official cyber campaign setting.” Why is VII a toolbox, and not, say, the Toreador? Oh wait, I can just make stuff up for them too, right? Why am I paying them anything at all? I can just invent my own setting and never buy a game book again, right? Okay, this rant is getting long. The point I’m making is somehow, I feel White Wolf lost track of what made them good, of what made us love their work so much. Maybe it was the loss of the old blood, maybe once the decay set in, no one could stop it. (There used to be a periodic “mass-exodus” of disgruntled white wolf interns who would leave angry, start their own company and then immediately go under and vanish. I have a small collection of games like this, Immortal: The Invisible War and Everlasting to name a few. Fun ideas, terribly written and produced, almost unplayable in execution.) Anyway, that’s how I feel. It’s an opinion, based off of my personal experiences, so your milage may vary. @secretsofthemasquerade​ (As promised)

[ryther-writes]

Unholy Renaissance: Winter Robynson

Winter Robynson is an 8th Generation Malkavian born December 28th, 1524. Her family inhabited the Forest of Dean, as her father was one of many hunters for the Tudor dynasty at the time. Her father had groomed her from a young age to be his successor in the hunting as it provided well for them, and among the skills she was taught as a child included trap making, the art of stealth in order to get closer to her prey, how to use a knife for fighting both prey and any poachers, and how to skin the animals.

She showed some promise, and by her late teens her father had started to take her along with him to hunt. Because of this, she also learned skills from other hunters they would run into, some with noble intentions such as using medicine in the field in case she or another were injured during a hunt, while some more devious like lock picking. The woods were not without their stories of strange folk too, who were said to only come out at night and hunt the wildlife  as well, only to leave their remains in the open with not a single drop of blood left.

Winter had brushed those rumors off however, and as she entered into her twenties, she opted to hunt even more than her father had, sometimes to his displeasure. One night however, she was out in the woods when she thought she saw a figure of some kind in the thick wood, and out of curiosity since not many were known to hunt at night, she decided to follow him to figure out who it was. Unfortunately for the human, as she stalked the mysterious person through the wood, the tables turned on her and the figure attacked her, and after a brief fight, she was overpowered and the vampire drained her entirely and then embraced her.

As it turned out, the vampire who Winter came to know as Charity Valentine was in fact looking for her. Being a former hunter for the nobles herself, she took interest in Winter’s hunting ability and self sufficiency, and so Charity decided to take the hunter as her childe. Although she was not initially distressed by the idea of being a vampire, the idea of insanity being the source of some of her power did trouble Winter greatly. Despairingly, she turned to the one thing she knew - how to hunt. But it was not only beasts that she hunted, but the humans of the land as well. In a way, the one thing she knew best also led her down her own path to insanity. Whenever she found herself in a bad situation or stressed out, the next thing she would remember was finding herself standing over her prey.

Despite her reluctance to the idea of giving in to her insanity, she did slowly learn from her sire, but both knew that they would eventually have to move out of the wood as there were only so much one could feast on in such a protected area before the humans would become too suspicious. Eventually they settled on moving across the English Channel and they headed for a fair ways inland, settling in the southeast end of France in Marseilles for a time.

Winter was restless though, and the Camarilla and it’s affairs was something that did not intrigue the hunter much. It was for folk that her father served, not for people such as herself, and she did not feel the equal to many of the higher ranking vampires in the dark society. So when rumors of a man who claimed he wanted to face the injustices that younger kindred faced and that he might have a way to break the blood bonds that vampires shared with each other, Winter was quick to move to find the one known as Giangaleazzo of Clan Lasombra in Milan after seeking her sire’s permission to do so, which was granted in hopes that it would give the fledgling some experience in the real world. Her only hope was that she would eventually be not someone’s subordinate in the cruel world she had gotten accustomed to over the years, but rather be their equal.

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Londerland Bloodlines -- AUs of the AU

Because, if you've learned one thing about me, it's that I'm never content with just ONE AU of a particular scenario. Just look at all the spinoffs I've made for the Forgotten Vows verse. Londerland Bloodlines -- my "Alice as a Malkavian PC in the Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines game, with Victor taking Heather's place as her ghoul" -- might not have as many variations on the concept as that one, but I do have three major "branches" from the original AU that I may as well share for those curious:

LaCroix's Puppet: In my original AU, after Alice retrieves the sarcophagus from the Giovanni, LaCroix comments on her ghoul "posing" as Victor Van Dort (unaware she's picked up the real deal) to help them get inside, and mentions he's actually looking for Victor so he can ghoul him -- he's interested in William's fish company, and figures having Victor under his control would be a good in. Alice is horrified, and thanks her lucky stars that she found Victor first.

Naturally, I have an AU where LaCroix got to him first -- I haven't decided if one of his agents spots Victor before the car accident, or if he learns Victor's in the clinic after the accident and has someone spirit him away before Alice finds him there. Either way, when Alice goes to see LaCroix in his office, Victor is there as well, having been ghouled by him. Most of Alice's interactions with Victor in this verse are seeing him being mistreated by LaCroix -- namely, being Dominated a LOT into saying what LaCroix wants him to say in conversations with his father regarding the company. Alice feels bad for the guy, and tries to keep his spirits up, which leads to them becoming friends. Maybe she even convinces LaCroix to let her take Victor out on the town or on less-dangerous missions occasionally, figuring he could use the break from his master.

Which means Alice and Victor still manage to bump into Victoria in Hollywood. LaCroix forces Victor to tell her about him, and he decides -- in a spirit of "goodwill" after Alice informs him of what Gary told her about the Giovanni having his sarcophagus -- that he'll give Victoria to them as a "present," escorted by Alice and Victor. Alice and Victor of course take a third option, and instead slaughter the Giovanni, discovering Emily and Lizzie in the basement. Victor begs Victoria and Emily to leave LA before LaCroix makes him do anything else that might hurt them -- they do so reluctantly. LaCroix, fortunately, isn't too angry about the whole mess, figuring either way he got what he wanted.

What he is angry about is Alice staying inconveniently alive when he's wanted her to die for quite a while now. After she survives both a werewolf attack and going up against Ming Xiao, he decides to hit her where it really hurts -- and while she's assaulting his tower headquarters, forces Victor to meet her outfitted in an explosive vest. (This sort of happens in the game too, only it's a random security guard.) Alice is horrified, but manages to use Dementation to reduce Victor to hysterically laughing too hard to set the vest off, and gets it off him before it can do him any harm. And then she soothes him with a drink of her own blood, which (thanks to their developing bond) counteracts some of LaCroix's influence -- they confront him together and Victor's the one who stabs him with the letter opener, instead of Alice as normal. They escape the tower before it explodes, collect Lizzie, and leave LA for Hill Valley, finding Victoria and Emily there. Once they're all set up, Victor pleads with Alice to blood-bond him to her -- and Alice, while still a little iffy on the whole thing, agrees that it's a lot better that he be hers than risking another master like LaCroix.

Double Kill: In my original AU, Alice ends up a vampire when she's tricked by local Malkavian Fish into coming by his place under the ruse that he's offering the apartment for sale. He attacks her and manages to Embrace her despite her fighting back. In this AU, however, there's another person there when this happens -- Victor! Here, Victor and Alice ended up seatmates on the plane to LA, got to talking, and developed a quick friendly bond. They get rooms in the same hotel -- and when Alice decides to check out Fish's place, she asks Victor to come along, since he's the closest person she has to a trusted friend or relative.

Unfortunately, Victor is unable to help her much when Fish decides to Embrace her -- he gets in one good shot with a lamp before Fish renders him helpless with laughter via Dementation. Then, pissed Victor tried to stop his masterwork, he basically throws him to the recently-vamped Alice with an "eat up!" Alice, starving, promptly drains her friend -- but then, horrified and not quite thinking clearly with all that's happened, tries to put the blood back in him by feeding it to him.

Result? Victor's now a vampire too! All three are apprehended shortly after his Embrace and brought before LaCroix. LaCroix's incredulous of Fish's claim that Alice Embraced Victor, until she admits she did so by accident. Fish is executed like normal, and Nines protests on behalf of both Victor and Alice, so LaCroix lets them both live.

...and that's where this one kind of stalls in the water, as I'm not sure what Victor's Malkavian mental illness would be. I'd like it to be related to his experiences in the Land of the Dead, but I can't come up with any good ideas. *wonders if Alice is deliberately blocking my creative impulses here because she doesn't want Victor to suffer as a vampire*

The Dark Goddess: In the original AU, Alice, at the end, realizes who the cab driver who seems to have been stalking her all across LA truly is -- Caine, the First Vampire. They have a short conversation, and Alice impresses on him her desire to just live with her little family of ghouls and sort-of-zombies, and then he takes her to suit up and kick ass, so to speak. In this AU, however, Alice makes an extra joke -- "You know, I could probably diablerize you right now and no one would know."

Caine's response? "What's stopping you?"

A stunned Alice quickly realizes he's serious -- if she drank him dry, he'd LET her. He admits he's tired of being alive and she's as good a successor to his nonsense as anybody. Alice debates with herself, but ultimately decides that if he really wants to hand the mantle over to her. . .

Cue a SHOCKWAVE going through the vampire community at large as their "God" is replaced by a "Goddess." Alice gains all of Caine's power and abilities, which includes access to EVERY discipline. She proceeds to happily WRECK Ming, the Sheriff, and LaCroix before calling a meeting of the LA Kindred and telling them to get their goddamn acts together. And then, still as sick of the politics as she was as an ordinary vampire, she goes to meet with her family in Hill Valley. Victor's gotten a heads-up as to her new state thanks to the voices that came along as a side-effect of drinking her Malkavian blood (they started calling her "Dark Goddess" instead of the usual "Dark Mistress") -- Alice reassures him and the others she's still Alice on the inside, and that she still loves them dearly. And the next time she visits Wonderland properly, instead of having it painted on the world around her, there's Caine, delighting in the fact that he can FINALLY enjoy the sunlight again. Sort of a best end there, I guess -- though I imagine Alice would also inherit Caine's curse of never being able to stay in one place too long, so they'd probably be moving on from Hill Valley sooner than in canon. Maybe they could do a world tour? :P