#war for the commonwealth au .

[o-rusted-heart]

@cheatdeaths .

Something had changed after his conversation with Hancock. Nick wanted to say it just had something to do with him saying the quiet part out loud, at least in a private conversation with an old friend. But it was more than that; Six had been notably quiet. Maybe she was feeling embarrassed about her behavior during her illness, but any assuring and affectionate gestures Nick tried to replicate it with seemed to make her shy away.

No poetry, no metaphors. You gotta be crystal clear. But the courage the old synth was working on seemed to deflate with her silence. All that was left instead was the task ahead of them: a trip to a subterranean vault, and the final wish of a long-dead detective. Maybe once that was out of the way, he'd have the heart to tell her the truth.

It felt good to be back on the road again, even if it was carefully weaving through the Boston streets on a cold afternoon to head South. The Prydwen was looming above them like a shadow over the sun, casting a long shadow across their city. It was still enough to make Nick's heart drop. Maybe that's what prompted him to speak.

"...You doin' ok, Sweetheart? You've been... awfully quiet."

[girlactionfigure]

henmazzig

Not all heroes wear capes, but Judge Seburinde sure is. In a dissenting opinion, Uganda’s Judge Julia Sebutinde highlighted the many flaws in the ruling of the International Court of Justice, putting the entire institution to shame. Judge Julia Sebutinde, born in Uganda, initially worked for the Ministry of Justice in Uganda. In 1990, she advanced her education with a Master’s degree from the University of Edinburgh.  After graduating in 1991, Julia worked for the Ministry of Commonwealth in the UK and then joined the Ministry of Justice in the Republic of Namibia before being appointed as a Judge of the High Court of Uganda in 1996. In this role, she led several high-profile corruption inquiries into government departments, including the Ugandan Police, the Uganda People’s Defence Force, and the Uganda Revenue Authority, earning significant recognition for her contributions to justice in Uganda. In 2005, Julia was seconded to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, established by the UN to prosecute violations of humanitarian law during the Sierra Leone civil war.  She served as the presiding judge in the landmark prosecution of Liberian President James Taylor, who was found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2012.  Her exemplary work in international justice earned her an honorary LLD from the University of Edinburgh in 2009. In 2011, Julia achieved a historic milestone by being elected to a judicial seat on the International Court of Justice, becoming the first African woman to serve on the court, where she continues to contribute to global justice. Thank you Judge Seburined, for standing up for justice.

H/T @scartale-an-undertale-au

[burb-ie]

Okay so - the origin of the Autobots and Decepticons. I’ll admit I’m mostly pulling from the wiki, since the Allspark Almanac is very long and there’s a lot of lore thats scattered around a lot of different places. So this is what is commonly understood.

(Also this is over the course of millions of years. Transformers long ass timescale basically)

The Autobots and Decepticons are the modern factions, but in Cybertron’s past they’ve had several wars. There is some lore on how this came to be, but the important stuff if that a group called the Protectobots eventually came to power through a coup d’état.

Eventually Nova Magnus came to power, and started what was known as “the great purge” in order to eliminate all “undesirables” including knowledge of their past. They were stopped by another faction known as the Destrons led by Devros, who won the war and came to power around 1 billion years ago.

The Autobots emerged as a sub-faction of the Protectobots, encouraging them to expand into other planets and eventually other systems around 700 million years ago, founding the Autobot commonwealth. However, Destrons started to feel like they were doing all the work defending the commonwealth and not seeing the benefits. This ended eventually, likely from these tensions.

As tensions grew, a subfaction of Destrons, the Decepticons, rose to prominence around 70 million years ago and were led by Megazarak. By that time, the age of expansion was over and the Decepticons wanted to return to it - advocating to bring Cybertron itself to life to become a juggernaut of conquest. They’re vaguely implied to be very imperialistic while Autobots focused more on art and science.

When Megatron ousted Megazarak as leader, tensions reached a boiling point and the Great War began. We don’t know how long it exactly was, only that it lasted for millions of years and by the time animated started it’s been at least one or two million years. Long enough for there to be a new generation thats never seen war, at least on the Autobot’s side.

Jump forward a lot, a new combiner group were named Protectobots and it’s noted this name has negative connotations in modern times, which also tells us a lot about what we should think of them.

So basically both factions were originally political groups on Cybertron, but there’s always been something of a divide between the civilians and war frames that got more pronounced over time - which matches the g1 clips we see in the first episode, since the g1 backstory for the war was that the Autobots and Decepticons have always been fighting for control over Cybertron.

However, this divide became MONUMENTAL after the Great War, which was the largest of the Cybertronian wars, and now they’re basically completely different societies and co-existence is inconceivable to both groups from what we see.

I find this interesting compared to TFP, where Optimus Prime wants there to be peace super badly and the divide between them is a much more recent thing (relatively speaking).

Anyways - thanks for giving me space to infodump :) and I’m not any authority lol, especially since so much lore is scattered and almost none of it is in the show. Honestly, I think most Animated fic writers pick and choose what to use because of just how unexplained it is lol.

I’m loving the TFP x TFA stuff you’ve already done, it’s a lot of fun to contrast such different stories against eachother!

omg thank you for explaining this to me!

and im glad you enjoy my crossover au, ill use all the info you dumped on me to better flesh out this au, thank you!

[vaultwrites]

lavender's blue lore-dump

This pertains to this fic here: IT IS A LOT but I'm having so much fun with it, I can't even lie. I'll need to draw and dump all my sketches on my other blog someday, but for now, here's the ramblings of a man who has thought too much about this fantasy movie!sonadow AU.

KINGDOMS / MAP

In my mind, this world exists vaguely as a single continent named the Lands Below, split into four sections; the Robotnik Empire, Green Hills, the Commonwealth, and the Mushroom Kingdom (ha-ha, Mario reference, ik). Here I have speed-drawn what might be my worst map of all time but it does the job, so here we go.

The Robotnik Empire is ruled by the Robotnik Royal Family; a greedy, dying empire with imperialistic ventures & arcane-technology. Powerful and large, it is slowly being stretched too thin. Currently, its Lord Ruler IVO ROBOTNIK is attempting to conquer the kingdom of Green Hills.

The Commonwealth is a collection of free-kingdoms banded together against the Robotnik Empire. Chaotic and cluttered with disagreements, their main political body is GUN -- Guardians of the United Nation, ruled by Abraham Towers & Sir Walters. GUN and the Robotnik Empire have been locked in a war since the Robotniks pushed the Towers Royal Family & Walters Royal Family from their homelands. 

The Kingdom of Green Hills is a small kingdom wedged between the Robotnik Empire & the Commonwealth, in the mountains separating the two warring kingdoms. Rich and peaceful, it claims no ruler or political body -- but with Robotnik's interest in conquering it, the kingdom has reluctantly joined forces with GUN to save its own sovereignty. This is the home of the Wachowski’s. 

The Mushroom Kingdom is just the mushroom planet, but a continent near Green Hills. Unoccupied and rotted, it really just resembles a nicer Caelid without the evil birds and smell.

Far above these four Kingdoms lives the Lands Above -- a forgotten world where the owls and echidnas lived. This is also where the Master Emerald came from. Sonic fell from this world into Green Hills after Longclaw was killed. More on that later.

---

MAGIC SYSTEM

I’m being particularly vague about the magic system of this AU for a reason -- I really don’t want to develop a super intricate system when the main gist is, oh, ‘true love’s kiss!!!’ However, I will elaborate on my thoughts about the relationship between Chaos and magic.

First off: I am treating the magic here along the lines of how it’s used in DND and Elden Ring. In other words, wizards, sorcerers, warlocks -- these exist. Chaos is the primary source of arcane-magic in this universe. Inherently in the air, magicians can pull from Chaos to cast incantations, spells, rituals, etc.

There are two factions of magic-users: the learned magicians/mages, and the inherent magicians/mages. 

What’s the difference?

Learned = self-taught, book-taught, studied magic. This involves typically an external primer to start any incantation, like a wand, book tome, enchanted object, etc. In the case of this story, using Chaos-enthused objects also works as a powerful primer to make powerful spells. AKA -- spells cast by using the Master Emerald, Chaos Emeralds, or even quills are very powerful. Tails is a studied magician -- he has to use external Chaos (not in his body) to be able to cast magic.

Inherent = bloodline, passed down, inherently in the body magic. This involves just having a history of human blood being tied to magic (which relates to elves, etc etc we’re not too worried about that), or simply being a Chaos-connected creature. Example: Sonic. He’s inherently tied to Chaos via his mobian body/That Guy(™), so he can do magic without having to draw up rituals or carry around objects already connected to the Chaos. Shadow & Knuckles are the same.

Inherent magicians/mages have a special trait called the SOUL-BONDED. Incredibly rare, these are usually paired magicians whose Chaos inside their blood matches to another’s. Examples would be Sonic and Shadow, whose Chaos is so similar it causes the other to amplify and become dangerously powerful. Usually soul-bonded individuals have all sorts of mythos and legends around them -- like TRUE LOVE’S KISS, which pretty much goes if you kiss your soulmate, you’re bonded for life. However, not all Soul-Bonded are romantic. You can have a soul-bond and absolutely HATE or despise the person who has the same type of Chaos as you.

---

HISTORY

I’ll give a brief summary of everything before Lavender’s Blue. Feel free to skip if you want to experience it blindly in the fic, but I thought it might be helpful if you’re looking at me like huh author wdym (which may happen & I apologise).

IN THE BEGINNING, there was the Lands Above and the Lands Below. The Lands Below belonged to collections of human families. The Lands Above belonged to the owls and echidnas, and the mobians. 

Many years passed. Gradually, the mobians moved to the Lands Below. One human family rose to power; the Robotniks, for their discovery of steampunk / Chaos-powered technology. They quickly became an empire and started conquering other families. Two Royal Families, the Towers and Walters, fled their homeland with many others, and formed the Commonwealth & GUN.

GUN & the Robotnik Empire have been in an on-off war for decades.

Meanwhile, the owls and echidnas discovered a powerful Chaos gem; the Master Emerald, capable of causing a single mage to have the power of a God. Scared of the echidna’s greed & sudden power-hungry nature, the owls stole the Emerald from the echidnas and hid it in Green Hills. Longclaw was among those in that thievery.

Longclaw eventually discovered a lost & powerful Chaos user, Sonic, and adopted him as her own. Like the movies, the two lived in harmony for a while before Sonic accidentally revealed their location to the echidnas. In revenge for stealing the Emerald, they attacked. Sacrificing herself, Longclaw flung Sonic into the Lands Below.

Ten years passed. Sonic lived in the Marshes of Green Hills -- a lonely, smelly life that was joined by Caliburn, a forgotten sapient sword stuck in a stone within the Marsh. In an attempt to free him from said stone, Sonic accidentally snapped Caliburn’s blade in half -- but found out his Chaos energy was able to be channeled through the sword as a powerful Chaos blade. The two have been stuck together as knave and mentor ever since.

Later, Sonic accidentally attracted the attention of His Grace Ivo Robotnik, the current lord ruler of the Robotnik Empire. Seeking shelter from being used as a Chaos battery, Sonic fled into the residence of local sellsword Thomas Wachowski (a banished knight of the Robotnik Empire who was cursed by Inquisitor Stone for insults against Prince Ivo Robotnik & freed from eternal sleep by his wife, Madison). From here follows a similar plot to the 1st movie: Tom panicked, sleep-potted Sonic, then got dragged into a conflict with the Robotnik Empire as the two eluded Ivo’s grip. The conflict was stopped when the Commonwealth drew interest in Sonic & decided to settle four outposts on the border between the Robotnik Empire and the Commonwealth. The two Kingdoms have been playing a game of political chicken ever since.

Sonic was then adopted by Thomas and Madison. 

Two years passed; Sonic became a squire under Madison & the Commonwealth, although a fairly lazy one. Eventually, though, his reputation as a powerful Chaos user preceded him into the Robotnik Empire to a young wizard apprentice, Tails -- & the Lands Above, where lone survivor Knuckles recognized Sonic as Longclaw’s apprentice. Knuckles jumped to the Lands Below, & was then commissioned by His Grace Ivo Robotnik to join forces with Inquisitor Stone to cleave into Green Hills and capture the hedgehog. Tails, in turn, fled his life in the orphanage to help Sonic. This then follows the plot of the 2nd movie: in a hunt for the Master Emerald, Sonic & Tails pitted against His Grace Ivo Robotnik & Knuckles. Eventually, Knuckles was betrayed by Ivo and joined Team Sonic to defeat the Egg-Emperor again. Sonic, using the Emerald for the first time, went Super and defeated Ivo.

Sonic still hasn’t unlocked his Excalibur form.

The Master Emerald now resides in Green Hills as the start of steampunk-industrial urbanization, led by Tails & Crazy Carl.

Knuckles and Tails now live with Tom and Maddie as Sonic’s adopted brothers. The three have taken it upon themselves to become Green Hill’s guardians, annoyed by GUN’s sudden & developed interest in their Chaos abilities. Sonic is close to becoming a knight.

This is where the story begins. 

---

IMPORTANT NOTES 

In this au, Eggman is the last surviving Royal of the Robotnik Empire. He was shoved into this position quite young after the war between GUN and the Robotnik Empire reached a critical standpoint; after Maria Robotnik, the prior heir, was killed during a GUN raid on the Ark Stronghold hidden in Green Hills, & Gerald Robotnik vanished from the public.

Agent Stone is INQUISITOR STONE, his loyal knight.

Godspeed if you read this far! Hope you enjoy the fic and my absolute crazy au.

[everydayyoulovemeless]

Random request but what about Fo4 companions reactions to a werewolf!Sole (either gender neutral or male idm)? 🙏

Fo4 Companions Reactions to a Werewolf!Sole

➼ Word Count » 1.6k ➼ Warnings » None ➼ Genre » Platonic/Romantic, Werewolf AU

MacCready's surprised when he first sees you turn. You didn't warn him about his when he first accepted your contract? Don't you think that maybe this should've been something you told him? Once you've reverted back to your usual self, he'll have a lot of questions he's going to ask you. First off, should he be cautious? Living in Little Lamplight and being so close to the Mutant vault has made him weary when it comes to evolutionary transformations on humans, and he'd like to know if there are any drawbacks to your ability. Second, who are you? At first, he assumed you'd be like any other client, but this certainly changes things. As interesting and helpful as you're transformation is, he's not one to mess around with anything supernatural and might drop you as a client depending on how long the two of you have known each other. If it happened right away, you're being dropped, but if he's gotten to know you a bit more, then he'll stay, but there's a very clear shift in tone toward the relationship.

Nick isn't sure how he's supposed to feel. It isn't every day you see someone turn from a human to a wolf in a matter of seconds, and he's not quite sure what to say. He'll stare at you silently for a while before settling on something like, "If your nose is as good as Dogmeat's, I might have a job for you." He supposes that you haven't really changed, so there's no need for him to be all uppity about it, but he can't help but find your relationship comical. A robot detective and a werewolf. Sounds like something straight out of the Unstoppables, and anytime you pass a poster or billboard from the pre-war series, he'll point to it and say something like, "Look, it's us."

Cait didn't trust you before and doesn't trust you now. How long will it take before you lose control and start mauling her? Can't hardly trust regular mutts as it is, so what makes you any different from a stray? She's hostile at first, mostly out of fear that you'll kill her, but there's also a part of her that thinks you'd make traveling the wasteland so much more fun. Now, suddenly, she's scheming ways to scare vendors into lowering prices or taking you to raider hideouts so that she can blow off some steam. Give her a few days and she'll quickly warm up to you and your ability. It might come off as disingenuous, but she'll become a lot more open with you. The two of you could really make a name for yourself out here, and she doesn't plan on leaving your side for a long time to come. The Commonwealth could gain a lot from having a few monsters running loose, and who better than the two of you?

Danse might actually shoot you on sight if you turn in front of him. To him, your transformation is an abomination, and he believes you need to be neutralized before you wreak havoc on anyone. He does it sorrowfully, but he sees it as something that must be done, even if you are someone he's considerably close to. If he finds out after Blind Betrayal, he'll just be incredibly uncomfortable around you, but he won't put you down. It makes him feel guilty, but he just finds the entire thing to be so unnatural and out of touch with humanity. Killing you is for the greater good, at least to him.

Preston didn't know what to think when he saw you change somewhere around the size of the deathclaw you were fighting. He gripped his musket tighter, afraid that you'd try and attack the settlers next. He wasn't sure what to do. You technically saved him and the rest of the people he was with, but there was a part of him that feared what you would do if you got too close. He stays with you despite it, not wanting to judge too quickly, but he's hesitant about the decision. He keeps his position as general until he feels he knows you better, but he wouldn't mind if you stayed with them in Sanctuary. He still doesn't trust you fully, never really sleeping in fear of what will happen when that same moon comes out again and you turn into that monster you were in Concord. It takes a while for him to warm up to you - he's got people he needs to protect, after all. As long as you stand with him and his cause, he won't have any trouble. The Minutemen could use soldiers like you anyway.

Codsworth was... confused? He's known you for years and hadn't ever noticed this change. He feels ashamed that he didn't find out sooner and would be devastated. But, fear not! He'll make it up to you by taking you to the best pet stores in the Commonwealth! He knows them all by heart, just in case you and your spouse ever decide to get a pet, and.. maybe something in there will help?

Piper will approach you slowly when she first sees you turn. You're not exactly what she remembers you looking like, but you're still the same person.. right? You won't eat her or anything? Once the initial shock disappears, she'll start having a field day with you. She'll say things about how "you were prettier as a human" or "can you smell yourself as well? Or...?" (she thinks you stink). You're definitely interview material, and she wastes no time asking you about when approximately you discovered you could do this? And does it have any limitations? There's no stopping the press, especially when having you around keeps critics off her back.

There's never a moment where Curie fears you. She instead just walks up to you and starts petting you, too excited to care about the possible dangers that could arise by doing so. She'll want to run so many tests on you. Not in a mean, exploitative way, but in a way where she can learn more about what it is that's causing you to do this. Is it radiation? A chemical imbalance? Or maybe it's a product of an evolutionary disease she's yet to hear of? Either way, she thinks it's vitally important for her to gain knowledge on it so that she's prepared if it ever becomes an issue in the future.

Strong is so happy when he sees it happen. Finally, the human is strong and has some kind of natural fighting instinct to rely on. He assumes you're just a different kind of mutant and is ecstatic to see it happen. He'll come to view you as the one true leader he should follow and would do literally anything you said.

Hancock thought he was tripping balls when he watched you turn from a regular guy into... well, whatever you were. He doesn't even realize how long he's been staring at you until you're shifting back. His first reaction is to sling his arm around your shoulder and ask if you saw that too. He's genuinely so confused and ecstatic all at once, and he's not sure what to do about it. All you need to know is that he doesn't think any differently about you and that he thinks it's one of the coolest things out here in the Commonwealth, even if he still doesn't believe he saw what he saw.

Deacon just laughs nervously the first time he sees you shift. Out of everything that could've happened, this is what... happened? He's incredibly confused. All his knowledge of history and old-world books did NOT prepare him for this, and it's making him a tad anxious. He'll watch you for a while out of curiosity and slight concern until you finally turn back. He'll grab your shoulders firmly and tell you to never do that around HQ 'cause they wouldn't recognize you and shoot you on sight, but that you should do that around HQ 'cause it'd be funny. After the initial confusion wears off, he'll take you straight to Tinker Tom. He just knows he'll have a field day with you, and neither of you were doing anything that important anyway.

X6-88 would've exterminated you long ago If it weren't for the fact you're related to Father. He thinks you'd do much better as a lab experiment than as the Institute's leader, mostly because he thinks you're contaminating in some way, and who knows how long it'll take before you run amok throughout the bunker. He'll keep quiet about it, though. It's not his place to say anything, so he won't, but he doesn't like or trust you in any capacity.

Old Longfellow starts firing at you the moment he turns to see you're changed form. It's not on purpose or out of any ill intent, it's just his survival instincts coming into play. Whenever he sees a beast like that emerging from the fog, he doesn't know what else to do but shoot at it. If you live, he'll just sheepishly apologize and tell you not to do that again, at least not while he's around. He's not here for games, and he can't tell who he's supposed to kill when you look similar to the Yao Guai's of Far Harbor. So, no more of that.

Gage isn't really sure what to think. He's just hoping the other gangs will be alright with it. After a while, it might grow on him. You being a werewolf fits nicely in the rugged raider aesthetic most of them have going on, and the stories that come out of people seeing you make the park seem more dangerous than it probably is. It helps keep others away, and he's glad for that.

[harrowedknight]

OC info and lore m’lord? Brave knight… please they’re both so handsome… I’d take Hancock in a knife fight for just one date fr…. Bleeding on the concrete outside kle0s shop rn….

Omg,,, thank u for the ask, I’ll take this as an opportunity to introduce all of my fellas since i have multiple saves/ocs for fallout 4. Right now they’re all in separate aus but I wanna connect them, I just haven’t decided who I want to be the sosu yet, if i even want one at all.

Starting with Ranger, my newest character. He’s the charismatic leader of the Minutemen. He likes making light of every situation, but he knows when to take things seriously. He just puts on a laidback attitude so he appears less intimidating. He’s trying very hard to make the commonwealth safer, but he has some doubts and insecurities about his position, which he bottles up and keeps to himself. He wants to be the person that everyone can rely on and look up to, even if that means putting his own problems aside to appear put-together and strong. He’s the one I draw Edward Deegan with, and I wanna do more with the two of them since I love me some eldritch horror vibes. I imagine Ranger and Edward go on relic hunts for Jack Cabot after their questline, getting into hijinks and fun spooky, horrifyingly traumatic adventures. Maybe kissing along the way. Who knows.

Knight on the other hand, is an anxious, paranoid little glorbo; and I say this while he stands at like 6’4”, he’s BIG, the tallest of all of my guys. He’s got severe PTSD and he really doesn’t like living in the apocalypse. He had a wife! They were in a queer platonic relationship; they got married for the benefits but they’re both gay. He’s devastated after losing her, since she was his best friend. He has a very hard time adjusting to the new commonwealth, he barely scrapes by, has to force himself to function because everything reminds him of war and suffering. He eventually stumbles into Goodneighbor, gets hooked on chems to distract himself from bad memories, meets Hancock one bad night and ends up getting drunk/rambling to the poor ghoul. They end up hitting it off despite the ridiculous introduction. Hancock manages to ground Knight, gives him a purpose again; helping good people, and hurting bad people. Knight travels the commonwealth doing odd jobs, trying to do what he can, even joins up with the Railroad to help out the Synths. Just trying to make up for all the time he’d lost, doing what he thinks would’ve made his best friend proud.

Now for Paladin. Yes, he is named Paladin, and yes, he WAS Paladin Paladin before being promoted to Sentinel. It’s probably obvious by now that I have a Dnd/medieval theme for my character’s names. Anyway, Paladin here is— of course— a part of the Brotherhood of Steel. I made him to be a big dickhead because I don’t play mean characters in video games enough. Unlike my other sosus he’s actually thriving in the apocalypse. Before being frozen he was very dissatisfied/disconnected with the ordinary life he was trying to live, he felt like a husk of himself and he couldn’t understand why. After waking up and being met with a destroyed world, his soldier mentality immediately kicked in again. He adapted fast, and when he learns about the Brotherhood and its US military-esc operations he quickly latches onto it. It’s familiar to him, and he excels at his duties. He rises through the ranks quickly, earning his place as Sentinel and developing a massive ego along the way. The Brotherhood makes him feel powerful, and that sort of becomes an addiction of sorts. He just wants more and more power, he wants to be respected; and if not respected, feared.

And as a bonus unrelated to fallout 4,

This is Monty, aka Montague. He’s a prewar ghoul living in the Canadian territories, or Little America as it’s referred to in the Fallout universe. He was a proud mountie back before Canada was annexed, kept his uniform in a locked safe for years. When the bombs fell and he was ghoulified, he pulled it out and dedicated himself to helping those who get lost in the nuclear winter. I’m still learning things about Fallout lore so idk how Canada is depicted after the bombs in canon, but the idea I had is that Monty lives in a massive, snowy wasteland which he’s learned to navigate with a lot of hard work and dedication. He earns caps by guiding people through the tundra, since few know how to avoid all the dangers it poses.

[ghoul-foolery]

Dirty Windows | 24

Hancock x Nora - A Fallout 4 Soulmate AU

//

Fic Summary:

Hancock never thought he would find his soulmate. Once a common occurrence, soulmates turned into a bit of a rarity after the bombs dropped. It was to be expected when there was an influx of people getting shot in the face on a daily basis. So when Hancock discovered that he had a soulmate he was ecstatic; all of the people in the Commonwealth, and he was one of the lucky few.

Too bad his soulmate didn't want anything to do with him.

//

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//

Two weeks had come and gone since Nora had taken up residence at the Slog, and she was sure that if she ever had it her way she’d never leave. The people were so willing to accept her into their social circles, and that in itself was borderline mind blowing. Striking up conversation with the Sanctuary crew felt so stilted, so forced. Perhaps it was because the expectations for her in Sanctuary were so high. The ghouls in the Slog didn’t expect anything out of her, but they were more than willing to teach valuable post-war life skills and Nora was an incredibly eager student. In the midst of it all, under Arlen’s gentle guidance, Nora was learning how to build a water purifier. 

All it took was a passing complaint about Sanctuary and the water purifier debacle; about how they seemed to assume she just had that sort of mechanical knowledge, or would be able to magically procure one. It was just some idle venting as she visited with the older ghoul in his workshop; nothing more, nothing less. Arlen had hummed thoughtfully, then promptly guided her out of his workshop, telling Nora to go offer Jones and Holly some help in the garden. It was a couple hours later, as she was chopping tatos for dinner, when Arlen emerged from his workshop. He called her name, and once she reached him, he passed her a slip of ancient notebook paper. It was a schematic, a blueprint. In clean writing off to the side, he listed the required components, and what sort of machinery she could dig around to find them. 

“If you want to get the parts, we can work on it together,” he had told her. His gentle smile was so fatherly, so caring. Nora couldn’t help it, she pulled the man into a tight hug. 

It felt as if Nora had cashed in every ounce of good karma she had saved up. No one in the Slog would accept any compensation for their time, and tutelage. No one would accept caps as a thanks. It didn’t feel like it was nearly enough, but all they would take from her was her gratitude and on some days they made that seem as if it were too much. Or, Holly would just get a little fed up with all the thank yous, and would tell Nora to stop saying it…

Though Nora still experienced moments of extreme guilt when she realized how little progress she had made when it came to finding her boy, it was quickly quelled when she reminded herself that she didn’t know how to survive on her own. If she managed to find Shaun, she wouldn’t know how to take care of him, she barely knew how to take care of herself. Nora didn’t want to be the reason why her son fell ill, or went hungry. So she learned what plants were acceptable to eat. She learned how to harvest vegetables, and razor grain. She learned how they stored their meat, and how to keep it properly preserved. And with Arlen Glass’ help, she would learn how to create a source of clean drinking water. Baby steps were still steps.

After accepting the blueprint from Arlen, Nora finally ventured away from the Slog to hunt down the supplies that she needed to build the water purifier. Every morning, after helping with breakfast, Nora would set out to scrounge up whatever scraps and machinery that she could. She siphoned gasoline, she hoarded fan belts, screws, and bolts. She would haul bags of gear back to the Slog, depositing them on Arlen’s workbench before setting out again. In the evenings, after she got back, Nora would help with dinner and then take a shift at evening watch. In the midst of it all, as she worked, as she traveled, her and John got to know each other.

They would go through daily idle chatter (”How was your day, dear?”), then continue on with any number of things. They covered a vast spectrum of topics, from favorite colors and foods, to more philosophical things. John divulged childhood memories, and awkward teenage experiences, and Nora would follow suit. As the days went on, Nora found herself becoming incredibly fond of the man. He was charismatic, and he was a whole lot smarter than he gave himself credit for. He was loyal to the people he considered his, and as loyal as he was he was even more protective. Nate would have loved him. The more Nora got to know John Hancock of Goodneighbor, the more certain she was that Nate and John would have been fast friends. They were both stubborn and loyal to a fault. They were both strong, and capable men, and even though she had only known John for a short while, she knew without a doubt that both men would bend over backwards to make her happy. John had helped her with so many things. She owed him so much. 

Bit by bit, she gathered the things on Arlen’s list and, after days of meticulous searching, she had everything that they needed. She stopped her daily wandering, and took up a spot in Arlen’s workshop where, together, they started constructing the water purifier. 

“Sounds like all he wants from you is a chance,” Arlen said, passing her a pair of needle nose pliers. “When you’re ready, I think you should give that to him.”

Arlen Glass had become her best friend, her confidant. After giving her tea on her first night he had somehow become a post-apocalypse father figure. His guidance helped Nora rediscover her confidence.

“Nate would want me to be happy, but – Ouch!” she recoiled, eyeballing a small bleeding cut on her finger. Nora leaned in close to the chassis of the under-construction water purifier. She nearly stuck her head inside as she searched for what had done the damage. “But I’m… afraid, I guess?”

“Afraid of being happy, when you think you shouldn’t be allowed to?”

Nora’s eyes shot to Arlen’s in surprise. Arlen was usually a little more gentle with his advice. He would pass her the seeds, but he would let her plant and sow things on her own. He wasn’t typically so blunt, but having heard Arlen’s story, she understood where he was coming from. He’d had a family, a beautiful one; but he had sacrificed happiness for work, and then he lost everything.

“Well when you say it like that, it sounds dumb,” she grumbled almost petulantly. She turned her attention back to their project.

Arlen chuckled in that airy way of his as he said, “You smile when you talk about Nate and John, you know. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.

Nora’s gaze tore away from her project yet again. Arlen had settled back in the old chair in his workshop. It was his typical sitting place whenever he read his morning paper. Instead of reclining back in the chair he was leaning forward, knees on his elbows, with a small, knowing smile. 

“You’re a smart woman, Eleanor. You should know that you wouldn’t be betraying Nathan by finding happiness again. If he was anything like you’ve said, he would want you safe, and happy. He’d want you to love and be loved.”

There was a sudden tightness in Nora’s throat. She did her best to swallow it down, and turn her attention back to the purifier but Arlen was suddenly at her side, cupping her face in his hands. They were hearty, weathered and overly textured, but they were also warm and grounding. 

“It’s okay for you to be happy, Eleanor,” he said it slowly, deliberately. “It’s okay.”

Nora’s hands rested over Arlen’s as she warbled, dangerously close to crying, “What if I fall in love with him and—“

“Honey, I think you might have already. Even if only a little bit.” The statement was like a kick to the gut, delivered with a smile. It knocked Nora’s world off its axis. Arlen continued, “If there is anything that can be learned from loss, it’s that you need to love the people in your life as strongly, and as fiercely as you can, because we never know when those special people will be taken away. Just remember, he will never replace Nate. You have a big heart, Eleanor. There is space for John in there, too.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice tight. That’s all she said because that’s all she could muster. 

“I’m not saying that you need to hurry up and stop mourning; and I’m not saying that you need to hurry up and fall in love.” The old ghoul placed a kiss to the crown of her head before leveling his eyes with hers. “But you need to know that it’s okay when you do. Grief doesn’t have an expiration date. If you wait for it to go away naturally, you’ll be waiting for forever and a day.”

“So it never goes away? It’s… This? Forever?” The guilt for growing fond of another man, the feeling of replacing someone she loved, the lingering dredges of hurt that hung around in her chest.

Arlen withdrew, turning his eyes to the in-progress water purifier, and then the pieces of an old Giddyup Buttercup. “They say that time heals all wounds, but it doesn’t. It just makes it easier to deal with.”

“Hey, smoothskin!” It was Wiseman’s voice, calling her from the front of the pool house.

Nora closed her eyes, swallowing at the lump in her throat, “Yeah?” She called out as Arlen picked up the needle nose pliers, and took over the task at hand.

“You got a visitor!”

The frown that had been marring Nora’s features deepened. Damn near every single person she knew who would want to visit her already lived in the Slog. Unless it was Preston for some reason. Or John. She was too aware of the way her heart leapt. Slowly, she peaked out of one of the broken windows to get eyes on the visitor. From a glance, it wasn’t anyone that she recognized from Sanctuary, and it most definitely wasn’t John. Nora’s hand immediately began to drift down to the pistol holstered at her thigh. 

“Go on,” Arlen said. “I’ll finish up this bit, and we can pick it up later.”

“Arlen?” 

“Mm?” He hummed, haltingly. 

She placed a hand on his forearm, leaning in to kiss the older man’s cheek. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

He tossed his head and said again, “Go on.”

With no small amount of hesitance, she left Arlen’s shop, stepping out into the early evening air. It had been a warm day, enough so that Nora had unzipped the top half of her vault suit in favor of adorning an oversized t-shirt. The arms of the suit were tied securely around her waist, and her hair was tied back into a ponytail. Her hands were greasy, scraped, and she could make out the dark smear of oil across her nose. She wasn’t really dressed for company, but she supposed that she never would be. 

Stepping around the building, Nora cleared her throat. The newcomer turned to face her. A smoothskin, like her. He wore an old conductor styled hat, a long coat, and he had a rifle hanging off his shoulder from a makeshift sling that looked to be fastened from an old belt. As she grew closer, she noted that he was handsome. Cheekbones that she could cut herself on, a proud, straight nose. Tanned, blue eyes, and a confident smile. 

“Well,” he said at length, “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

Nora held her distance, fishing an old rag from her pocket so she could start cleaning her hands. The tenuous grasp on her emotions turned steely as she stared the stranger down. No one would know that she had been on the brink of crying (ugh, again) thirty seconds ago. She eyed him warily, “Do I know you?”

His smile grew, “No. But I know you.”

The man’s eyes followed her hand as it dropped down to her side, resting casually by her pistol. Off to the side, she could see Wiseman tense and reach for her own weapon. 

Suddenly, the man laughed, “Calm down, girl! Shi-oot, I’m a friendly.” He’d almost said ‘shit’ but he had redirected. She didn’t know why, but that seemed important. She’d stow that away for later.

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t believe you.”

“Why don’t you, uh…” his index finger tapped his temple. 

At this point, the Slog ghouls knew that Nora had a soulmate. It was hard to keep things secret when the space was so open, and communal. Especially when they noticed just how much she seemed to talk to herself. She couldn’t find the ability to look any of them in the eye and just insist that she was a touch crazy.

Without breaking eye contact with the stranger, Nora opened her end of the bond and reached. “John?”

The answer was immediate, ”What’s crackin’, doll fa – shit, is that MacCready? Fuck, he works fast…”

“You know him?” she asked, feeling the tension drain from her shoulders. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. Wiseman waved his hand, catching her attention. He made a gesture, indicating that he was going to be inside. She nodded, mouthing a silent ‘thank you’.

”Yeah, I know him. He’s out that way runnin’ an errand or two for me. I didn’t expect for him to get to you for another week or so.”

“Wh-why didn’t you tell me that he was coming? I… God, I was getting freaked out.” It could have been another one of those sickos from the drive-in. It could have been someone much, more worse.

“Easy, angel,” the man known as MacCready drawled. “I told you, I’m a friendly.”

”Don’t you call her that, you little shit.”

Nora snorted, then immediately covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. She wanted to be irritated, dang it. The second he had made arrangements for someone to come meet her, she should have known about it. She composed herself, dropping her hand. “He said your name was MacCready?”

“Yep! RJ MacCready, and you must be Nora,” he held out his hand, and Nora reached to shake it. Only for her hand to be lifted, she watched with almost wide eyes as he pursed his thin lips to plant a kiss to her skin. 

”Goddammit, MacCready!”

MacCready stopped, a mere centimeter from making contact, and then he snickered, giving her hand a firm shake. He was laughing, eyes glittering with his amusement. He seemed to be banking on John seeing the interaction, and had been aiming to irritate Nora’s soulmate for fun.

”Tell that little fucker that he ain’t gettin’ paid for shit!”

It didn’t matter how much she wanted to be angry, she couldn’t even manage a bit of irritation to shoot in John’s direction. 

“He mad?” MacCready asked, his smile stretched from ear-to-ear..

Maybe it was the total relief that she felt, but Nora couldn’t help but laugh as she replied, “He seems to be a little annoyed, yeah.”

“Awesome.”

\\

Tag List: @takottai / @a-little-pebbl  / @yamatra

[wastelandhell]

I absolutely love your character Val! I'm a newer follower so I don't know much about him, but I love whenever you draw him. could you tell me more about his story? or how he ended up with Danse or even what their dynamic with each other is?

Ah thank you <3 I used to post more "lore" stuff on here and theres a bunch if you go way back in his tag, but in the last year I've just been kind of posting a lot of out-of-context and au stuff with no connection.

Him and Danse are both very opinionated men, and those opinions rarely align. They spend about as much time arguing as they do getting along, their relationship through most of the game is equal parts mutual pining and divorced.

They are finally able to acknowledge their feelings for each other shortly before "The Nuclear Option", but mutually split afterwards while Danse tries to find himself and Val focuses on establishing a stable home for Shaun. They reconnect about a year later when the commonwealth is in less of a state of crisis, and are finally able to pursue their relationship.

You know what, I haven't posted anything about him in a while, who's ready for a

This is not going to be very edited or formatted because I am a clown so. Sorry in advance.

A brief overview?

His "real" name is Vasili Gavriilovich Andonov but he goes by Valerie Anderson wherever he can, and does his best to hide his russian ancestry. He prefers people call him Val, though most of the brotherhood soldiers refer to him as Andonov. He hates people referring to him as Vasya or using his patronymic name, though thankfully there aren't a lot of people in the commonwealth who use russian naming conventions.

He's an autistic, bisexual, depressed alcoholic who indulges in stimulants a bit more than he should. He's surprisingly good at playing guitar, especially slide blues with his steel resonator guitar. He loves aircraft and built/painted scale models before the war. He's very lonely, even when around people who like him he never feels like he belongs. His birthday is Jan 12th, which is coincidentally a sort of holiday for the cryonics community.

He'll spend a lot of time looking inward and ruminating, and can identify a lot of his personal problems, but is not very good at "fixing" them. So he just kind of mopes around and wallows in self-loathing and self-pity. He's very gullible, and hates people messing with him. While he struggles a lot socially he is very intelligent, and is a genius with anything with an engine. Before the war he worked on vertibirds for the us military. His support of the brotherhood has nothing to do with their ideals; just that they keep him fed, paid, and let him work on aircraft. He's not particularly concerned with "saving" the commonwealth, he just wants to hurt the people who have hurt him.

Gameplay-wise, he's a melee/power armour build, with his highest stats INT and END. He can built so many weird and wonderful things that either explode or he can beat you to death with. Maybe both. His LCK and CHR are pretty miserable, nobody likes him and things are constantly going wrong. Playing a melee character in survival with MAIM is... a task.

Some sort of timeline?

He's the son of Russian immigrants who met in the US, His father Gavriil was an angry alcoholic who worked for the government and his mother Lidiya was a stay-at-home mom and a fervent christian. He had a sister, Kseniya, who was almost his opposite; a very polite and reserved child.

Valerie was small as a kid; being ginger, autistic, queer, and an immigrant made him a frequent target of his peers. Paired with his fathers physical and emotional abuse at home this made him a very angry and defensive person.

He spent most of his time away from home, preferring to spend his time in the woods around their home or just walking around town. He started smoking when he was 12 and drinking when he was 14, stealing from his father. As he got older he missed more and more school, spending his time committing petty crimes and getting into trouble.

While his father was more directly hostile his mother was equally overbearing in her own way. Val would identify himself as agnostic and having no belief in god, but for all of her preaching he still harbors a lot of “catholic guilt”, and fears that when he dies he will go to hell.

As he got older he quickly sprung from a small kid to a tall, muscular teenager. While he never learned to get along with his peers he learned to adapt an imposing, aggressive and masculine personality to defend himself.

When Val became too large for his father to easily push around he turned his anger towards Kseniya, whom Val was fiercely protective of. This only raised tensions at home, and Val and his father would get in frequent physical altercations. He contemplated leaving when he was 16 and could drive, but didn’t want to abandon his sister.

Eventually things came to a head when both of them had been drinking and Valerie came home late. Their fight got particularly nasty, and Val broke a bottle over his fathers head. He was immediately out cold, and Val was left shocked, covered in his fathers blood, believing he had just killed him. This would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Kseniya was home at the time, and ran in when she heard the yelling. Val tried to convince her to come with him, but she was shocked and terrified and refused to leave. Fearing retribution, and before he could really process what he had done, Val took any cash he could and the keys to his fathers car and fled.

He sold his fathers car and got something less traceable, which he lived out of for the next several years while he jumped around state to state. He picked up the occasional day job, but mostly supported himself by stealing cars and running drugs.

After he left is when he began going by Valerie Anderson. At first it was out of fear that he was wanted under his legal name, but he soon realized how much better people treated him if he had an “american” name.

When he was 20 he was eventually picked up for a minor offense, but given the political climate at the time he was offered the opportunity to join the military rather than face charges. As much as Val hated the government he was still very afraid of being connected to his fathers murder, and jumped at the chance to avoid any legal issues.

In his time in the military he discovered a love for aircraft, and pursued it doggedly. He got his GED, and went on to earn a masters in aerospace engineering. He never bothered with friends or relationships, he put all of his time into education and work. Lived and breathed for aircraft.

While Val enjoyed his job he continued to struggle with his mental health and substance abuse. He would frequently get into fights, eventually he got into a bar fight bad enough he nearly killed someone, getting the scars on his face at the same time.

While he was in trouble with the law he would end up working with his new attorney, Laura Walsh. She was elegant, graceful, composed, brilliant, persuasive, someone who always got what she wanted. And had terrible taste in men. Before the case was even over they started hooking up.

Their relationship was strictly friends-with-benefits, neither of them really cared for the other as a person and it was just sex. Over time, despite their best efforts, they came to see past the carefully crafted personas that they both presented to the world and fell in love with the people behind them.

He was 29 when they met, and they married less than 3 years later. They were moved to Boston for Val’s work, and it seemed like they would be staying for a while so they tried to establish themselves. Val tried to quit drinking around this time but struggled to face reality sober for the first time, and frequently slipped back.

Laura had always wanted children but Val was initially very against the idea. He still held a lot of unaddressed trauma from his own childhood and did not feel that he could ever be a good father.

Eventually Laura convinced him otherwise, and he agreed, again making an effort to clean himself up. When she fell pregnant his anxiety led to him having a breakdown at work, afterward he admitted himself to an inpatient rehab and spent 6 weeks there. From here until the start of the game was probably the best time of his life; sober, medicated and attending regular therapy sessions.

While Val was worried about his capacity to be a father, as soon as Shaun was born he lost that. That kid was his life, he did everything for him. He stayed on a break from work while Laura returned to practice, being a stay-at-home dad and throwing himself into domestic life. He even built a robot housekeeper!

His sister tracked him down somewhere around here and they began communicating through the post. She reveals that his father survived the attack, and was still alive, though she hadn’t spoken to him in years. They were planning to meet in person in the winter, though obviously that didn’t happen.

He was 33 when he went into the vault, and the main fo4 plot takes ~3 years to complete, but I think I’ve made this post long enough and I am too drunk and tired to keep typing. Safe to say hijinks ensue.

tl;dr hes an orange cringefail loser, and im hopelessly in love with him.

[o-rusted-heart]

@cheatdeaths .

Nick had gone to work cleaning up once Six got to bed back at their room in the Rexford; she'd been suddenly exhausted enough that the old synth was starting to worry. But he took care of getting their clothes washed and his leg re-aligned, out in the darkened lobby of the old hotel.

By the next morning Six was still sleeping, and later than usual. The snow outside was turning to a gentle rain, washing away the ice covering Boston. It took a few long minutes of debate outside the door for Nick to finally open it up after a polite knock.

"You okay, Doll?"

[endursent]

sigh………. 900’s icelandic commonwealth au with kaenri’ahns….. one can dream but who is going to read my niche old nordic blood feud chieftain political drama dainsleif x reader and capitano x reader…… triangle or just both of them fuck it…

the cold harsh winters and uninhabitable landscape…… the warm hearth and gatherings to uphold spirit…. the relief of summer……………… the alþingi meetings…… sturlungaöld-esque chieftain wars and internal conflict……. the dread and fatigue of endless family blood feuds….. must always be repaid….

my biggest problem would be conveying/translating all the old terms into english in a way that makes sense lol

[elvishdemigod]

I got 2 AU ideas with Mac x Sole and AAAAAAA

Okay, so in this first AU, Pre-War things may be a valuable resource. Ghouls for their knowledge, well kept things for what they hold, etc

MacCready is told there's a perfect mint-condition pre-war thing that would be worth a ton of caps. It doesn't throw him off that it's from a vault.

But what does throw him off is that the pre-war "thing" is a person in a cryo pod.

Finds out the person's the only survivor so he can't grab more, gets Sole out, takes them with him.

Of course, he needs the caps to eventually try and get some help getting his son's cure. Other people find out he's got a pre-war person who isn't a ghoul, wants to take them,

Mac and Sole end up falling in love despite Sole being kind of his captive. They help him get the cure, but they both still have the problem of people wanting to get this genuine unghoulified pre-war person

-

Second AU Romanced MacCready finds out he's a synth.

Original Mac came to the Commonwealth to get his sons cure, and that's when he got snatched.

Though the synth Mac was able to escape and flee to the Railroad, his love for his son and his original mission still stuck close to him.

He and Sole meet, fall in love, then later after coming and going from the Institute, they find out MacCready's a synth and hesitantly tells him.

[lady-raziel]

The Meme War Never Changes (Fallout 4 AU where they have Twitter 1/?)

In another universe, billionaire CEO Robert House bought popular social media platform X, renamed it Twitter, and had it integrated into every piece of tech on the market. Unfortunately for him, not long afterwards World War III was announced via tweet and nothing was ever the same again.

200 years later, having an active Twitter account is still the best way to get your message out to the wasteland-- great for post-apocalyptic shitposters, bad for factions without a social media strategy. In the Commonwealth, both the feral ghouls and the trolls will eat you alive, so remember...the meme war never changes ⚔️

[thedragonhermit]

More Person of Interest x Fallout AU!

I said in my previous art post that if I kept thinking about this AU I would post more about it, and guess what, I've been thinking about it :)))) So here's a summary of what I've currently got for it (I say "summary" but this ended up really long oops)

John Reese

His backstory is practically the same as PoI canon except it all happened in the pre-War Fallout universe, with the CIA National Clandestine Service: Special Activities Division under the control of the pre-War Enclave. Him, Staton, and Snow still had their final mission in China, but their infiltration was more high stakes as it was during the Sino-American War.

After surviving the missile strike, Reese manages to return to the States and works to track down Jessica just like in canon, only his search leads him to the community of Sanctuary Hills near Boston. By the time Reese gets there, she's already dead.

He learns her husband Peter abused her/disguised her cause of death as a car accident, and avenges her the night of October 22, 2077 by disposing of Peter. The following morning, Reese, still wallowing in his despair and rage over not being there for Jessica, is still in their house when a representative from Vault-Tec shows up at the door. He ends up answering and is signed up for Vault 111 under Peter Arndt's name.

Just like in Fallout 4, the representative's timing couldn't be more perfect as the bombs start falling not long after. Although Reese is in a state where he wouldn't mind going out with nuclear fire, he's whisked off to Vault 111 with the other residents who've applied, enters just as Boston is hit, is provided a vault suit to change into, and is directed into a "decontamination" pod-- aka a cryopod meant for testing the affects of long term stasis.

Reese doesn't wake up until 210 years later when the Vault's life support systems are beginning to crash, and exits to find a bespectacled man claiming to have just saved his life and somehow knows his name is John Reese; not Peter Arndt as Vault-Tec's records claim. He also manages to convince Reese not to kill him over knowing all this and to instead join the cause he woke him up for.

Harold Finch

A researcher for the Advanced Systems division of the Institute, though oddly not everyone can agree whether he was brought into their fold from the outside, or if he's always been there. Despite being in Advanced Systems, his work is primarily for the Synth Retention Bureau as the sophisticated Machine he built and maintains provides them their mass surveillance of the Commonwealth, while also predicting potential threats and locating runaway synths with incredible accuracy.

Finch is also seemingly the only one in the Institute who has a modicum of sympathy for the "uncouth, unclean, and uneducated" masses above ground, considering he's secretly using his Machine to try and help the people of the Commonwealth-- even if those efforts conflict with the Institute's plans.

He's a very mysterious and private man; the more you learn about him, the less you seem to really know him. Finch will talk about places and factions outside the Commonwealth as if he's seen them with his own eyes/interacted with them himself, and yet will deny having done so. He'll even talk that way about pre-War events, unnerving Reese with implications that Finch is from his time.

The Truth: he was born around 2234 and raised Harold Wren in the Enclave alongside his best friend, Nathan Ingram, with the two building the Machine together at Raven Rock. When their creation (mostly Harold's creation as Nathan would admit) neared it's official completion in 2276, Nathan confided in Harold that he'd overheard the Enclave higher ups' true intent for it-- to merge it's surveillance and predictive capabilities into President Eden; effectively erasing the Machine's emerging identity and just making it a part of the pre-War ZAX unit.

Harold was seemingly unbothered, having suspected this was going to happen and already accepted it, but Nathan was less accepting. Vowing to save the "life" Harold had inadvertently created, he downloaded the Machine's code from Raven Rock's servers and split it between two portable devices -- a modified Pip-Boy and an eyebot -- so he could run away from the Enclave with it. Harold learned of this plan when Nathan gave him one last chance to join him, only for Harold to try and talk him out of it. His friend's mind was stubbornly made up, however.

Harold didn't let Nathan get too far from Raven Rock before finally going after him, unable to abandon (or be abandoned) by his childhood best friend. Nathan was so pleased, he immediately handed over the Pip-Boy, claiming Harold technically held more custody over the Machine, then took a few unfortunate steps right into a hidden landmine.

Harold woke up, head pounding and the back of his neck bleeding, with the eyebot beeping frantically over him. When he sat up, he saw that Nathan was dead and that the Machine was somehow still functioning despite the haphazard way it's code had been cut in half, warning him of imminent danger on the Pip-Boy's screen. The Enclave was already coming after them.

Though it was extremely hard to leave his best friend, let alone how painful it was to move, Harold got to his feet with the eyebot's help and limped to the closest settlement to get quickly patched up before leaving the Capital Wasteland altogether.

He spent the next few years wandering the greater Wasteland with the Machine as his only companion; getting the Enclave off their trail with a convincing dead body double, trying not to attract the attention of the Brotherhood of Steel or more deadly factions like Caesar's Legion, all the while coming to better understand the very thing he'd built.

When Harold learned of the Institute in the Commonwealth, he convinced their Director into letting him join, then uploaded most of the Machine into their servers to hide it from Enclave and BoS searching-- though he kept the most vital code on the eyebot and a back door in his Pip-Boy to shield it from the Institute themselves (all parts of the Machine communicate remotely via an encrypted radio station).

Having seen the greater Wasteland for what it was, Harold gained a sympathy he hadn't been raised with while in the Enclave; a sympathy he could see the Institute also lacked. So he elected to take matters into his own hands and improve it with the Machine. But they couldn't do it alone.

Thankfully, he had happened to read an old, pre-War Enclave record when he was younger about an exceptional agent named John Reese who'd allegedly ended up in Boston despite being pronounced dead on mission in China...

The Machine

Considered a "miracle" as it's the first AI of it's scale to be successfully created post-War.

It's eyebot hides in plain sight among the eyebots that patrol Diamond City when it's not with Finch.

In PoI canon, the Machine provides it's "irrelevant" numbers by listing letters that match up to authors on books in Finch's library, with the dewey decimal system becoming the target's social security number. That system is flipped in this AU; the Machine gives numbers that match up with books in the Boston Public Library (Finch and Reese's hideout, tho I can't decide if they left the super mutants in it to help with their cover lol) that spell out their target's name.

Okay great, they have a name, now how do they track them down without the internet? Well, the Institute with all its surveillance of the Commonwealth has a large database of "persons of interest" that Finch just so happens to be able to access (I think in F4 it's just lists their secret synth agents?? But I feel like they also listed off people they felt may cause issues... idk, if that's not canon, it is canon for this AU!)

There are names they receive that don't appear in that database however, meaning the boys have to track them down the old fashion way-- asking around until someone who knows the target tells them where they are. The Machine will help sometimes by providing a time and place where the target is most likely to appear next.

Obvs the names of every Fallout 4 companion comes up, either their own name or someone related to them. They also get all the names related to F4's main and side quests (as well as some PoI characters like Shaw).

Technically there already is a threat predicting AI in Fallout 4 (Predictive Analytic Machine aka P.A.M.) which the Railroad can gain access to. It's purpose pre-War was to predict when the bombs were going to fall, but it's more like a complex algorithm that requires human input to operate-- whereas the Machine is a proper thinking AI that takes in it's own input via surveillance in order to make it's decisions.

I like the idea of Finch becoming aware of P.A.M.'s existence when the Railroad is suddenly out predicting the Machine, and though the Machine is ultimately capable of out thinking P.A.M., Finch ends up "crippling" the Machine in such a way that it can only out predict P.A.M. so much to allow the Railroad to continue evading the Institute.

Bear/Dogmeat

Instead of finding him at the Red Rocket gas station between Sanctuary and Concord, he's been confined to the life of a Gunners dog. When Reese sees him, he can tell he doesn't like his "owners" considering he's acting stressed and is kept on a leash unlike this gang of Gunners' other dogs. Reese also finds the name "Dogmeat" mean (like how he didn't like canon Bear's former name, Butcher) and that's why he renames him when he frees him from the Gunners.

Bear answers to both Bear and Dogmeat, but Reese is convinced he's happier when called by his new name.

Root

A Wastelander originally from the Texas area named Samantha Groves. When she was very young, her and her mom were picked up by Caesar's Legion and were stuck with them for a time, until a moment for escape opened up. Her mom urged her to run west towards NCR territory, which Root did and allowed her to be rescued by the Followers of the Apocalypse.

Under their care and tutelage, she proved herself naturally talented when it came to computers and started coming into her own as an impressive hacker. She befriended an older girl named Hanna who was also under the FoA's care, but sadly she was abducted and killed by an NCR officer, with Root the only witness.

No one believed her when she said what had happened to Hanna, leading to her taking matters into her own hands and luring a gang of Fiends into killing her friend's murderer before leaving.

For some time after, Root traversed the Wasteland, earning caps mostly by being a shadowy assassin who made use of hacking computers whenever they were available. The further east she traveled, the more she heard rumours about the Institute, peaking her curiosity and leading her to the Commonwealth. Where she eventually learns of the most incredible thing she's ever heard of: a miracle of a god-like Machine watching over everyone in the area...

S2-16 aka Shaw

An elite SRB Courser who was personally trained by Conrad Kellogg (for those who don't know Fallout 4, he's basically Hersh and provided the special combat training used by the Courser synths of the Institute. If Hersh were in this AU, he'd just replace Kellogg, but I've decided to keep Kellogg instead).

Like I said in my art post, her partner M4-39 becomes a bit too infatuated with the Railroad (whom they're supposed to be enemies with) and goes so far as to give himself the name Michael before trying to defect to them. He tries to convince S2-16 to go with him -- who he had started calling Shaw instead of her designation -- but he's ambushed and gunned down by X6-88. Shaw is considered also compromised just by having been his partner, even though she wasn't into the idea of joining the Railroad, but X6-88 doesn't believe her.

Just like in season 2 episode 16 (see where I got her designation from haha), while Reese and Finch are trying to help her out, Shaw gets captured by Root who's wanting more information on the Machine-- though in this AU she's wanting a way into the Institute so she can get at it directly. But the only known way in is via teleportation. Each Courser has a relay chip in their brain that allows them to be teleported back, which Root threatens to cut out of Shaw if she doesn't give her another way in. Shaw's freed before that can happen, but later agrees to Finch's proposition that she have her chip removed (in a safe manner) to prevent the SRB from tracking her down.

The job of a Courser, for those unaware, is to hunt down and bring back escaped synths. In order to ensure they follow through with their orders, they are installed with emotional dampening programming to prevent them from sympathizing with their targets. Although Dr. Amari is able to remove her relay chip, she's unable to remove this programming, leaving Shaw just like she is in canon: mostly devoid of emotion (besides rage).

Free of the Institute, she officially starts going by Shaw in honour of Michael and turns to focusing on tracking down Root (in a toxic yuri way).

Joss Carter and Lionel Fusco

Both were members of Diamond City Security until Carter's display of detective work during one case impressed the Great Green Jewel's only detective, Nick Valentine, so much that he offered her a job as his partner. Ever since, she's worked as a part of the Valentine Detective Agency alongside the old synth sleuth and his assistant, Ellie Perkins.

She's drawn into working with Reese and Finch after Valentine's name is given by the Machine when he's locked up by Skinny Malone in Vault 114.

Although Reese becomes known as "the Man in the Vault Suit," he also becomes a suspect in Valentine's ongoing Mysterious Stranger case, leaving Carter to try and keep him off Reese's trail.

Meanwhile, just like in canon, Fusco is stuck on the opposite side of things as he's a part of this AU's version of HR; a collection of corrupt DCS officers (which is most of them) who work back door deals with Gunners and Raiders for chems and caps, while pulling all sorts of strings in Mayor McDonough's favour.

He's dragged into Reese and Finch's operations when the Machine gives them Piper Wright's name, as HR is obvs not a fan of Diamond City's famous nosey reporter. With Fusco under Reese's thumb, he manages to get HR off her case as best as he can, but it's tricky work with Piper not being one to give up a story that easily, danger be dammed.

A Few PoI Baddies

Speaking of HR, Alonzo Quinn is still it's secret leader, being both an Upper Stands resident and Mayor McDonough's advisor. HR is ultimately in McDonough's pocket and takes a fair amount of commands from him, so long as Quinn agrees to them as well.

Patrick Simmons, HR's second in command, is the head of Diamond City Security instead of just being an officer.

Elias operates out of Goodneighbor and gradually takes control of most of it's gangs, including the Triggermen. He has a deal with Mayor Hancock that allows him to operate on the promise he won't pose a threat to Hancock's rule, though who knows how long that will last. I kinda want to make him a ghoul just for fun... that and/or go really wild and make him the son of Eddie Winters...... idk

Control would be the head of the SRB, potentially having replaced Zimmer after he went off to the Capital Wasteland.

Samaritan would be an Enclave creation, likely built from pieces of the Machine's own code that may have lingered after Nathan and Harold escaped.

Annnnnnnd that's basically the framework of what I've got!

[zoebelladona]

fics by crowstyping (that's me!) 🌿

PERCY JACKSON

arkadia is gone: broken trio lycanthrope au. in which it is lykaon instead of kronos.

kyparissos, run! kyparissos, cry: novelisation of thalia's death

pointed north: au about my ocs, campers luke's age post-battle of manhattan. pov my son of apollo oc with mommy issues and psychosexual problems.

HIS DARK MATERIALS (follow @dximonions)

apple heart: narnia/hdm crossover. lyra belacqua x lucy pevensie one-shots collection.

bauble: a tony costa x lyra belacqua flash fic.

it's a long way out to reach the sea (but i'm sure i'll find you waiting there for me): au where lyra is not captured at the end of the subtle knife. lyra and will play in the ocean of another world.

paradise dropped: high school/small town au. panjava. will has a crush on lyra belacqua, they sit in the park and drink wine, talking about prophecies.

symbol no.14: bird: pre-the secret commonwealth fix-it where lyra and pantalaimon talk things out instead of letting it fester.

this peppermint winter: written post-s1 finale. christmas special about lyra trying to make the holidays feel special despite everything she went through.

novaturient: post-the amber spyglass lyra realises that while she might love will she wasn't in love with him.

within walls: human experiments but with dæmons

SHAPESHIFTER AU

the influence stars have: the lion king except it's humans who can shapeshift into animals

anatomy of an edelweiss flower: the secret of nimh except it's humans who can shapeshift into animals

《 possibly upcoming 》

power outage [ pjo / one-shot ]: throne room scene in tlo except thalia is there

lightning in a bottle [ pjo / multichap ]: au where luke does not join kronos. when thalia's tree is poisoned luke offers himself as volunteer to go on the quest for the golden fleece in an attempt to save her.

lichtenberg figures [ pjo / multichap ]: au where thalia comes back her actual age.

fixed star [ deltarune / one-shot? ]: following the events of the snowgrave route, instead of opening a new dark world kris goes to noelle and explains the situation. they think they might have a chance to find dess if they work together.

smile to charge, hug to cast [ pjo / multichap? ]: my will solace and lou ellen are besties manifesto. backstory stuff and how they fared during the events of pjo

supernova [ deltarune / one-shot ]: december holiday is missing. two kids try to find her.

bury me in the lake i swam when i was a child [ merlin / two-shot? ]: freya is not dead. she and merlin got married, he visits when he can. he brings her flowers.

amphibious [ merlin / one-shot ]: merlin can think of no one better to look after aithusa than the lady of the lake.

thaw & foredawn [ barbie / multichap ]: i rewrite magic of the pegasus but i let annika say fuck

dark age [ loz / one-shot ]: totk being the "beginning" of the timeline makes me angry so i'm novelising a theory i saw refuting that

how terrifying to be aglow [ loz / multichap ]: totk + ss remix where i do my own take of the imprisoning war from skyward sword using tears of the kingdom worldbuilding. aka, hylia and the original hero are zonai

we'll be dead in the water [ thg / multichap ]: welcome to the 73rd hunger games! fanfic quality version of the ongoing rp between myself and @on-the-river-lethe. for more check out @laberinthos

waking up the giants [ tlg / multichap ]: my version of the backstory of the dead civilisation in the last guardian

wearing our remains [ trc / multichap ]: my adam/blue/noah manifesto + au where i remix trc to Not include gansey and ronan. die mad about it

[wasteland-wrecker]

14 15?? year old Overboss au (I'll still label it 14 dw just a little fun thing)

Well, I guess it's a birthday for a special little guy, Nov 2nd, whose voice is finally dropping, but that means he's struggling with a lot of... mmh. Voice cracks.

For his birthday, he planned a whole MONTH away from the nuka world, telling the Pack and the Operators that if he comes back and there is a war, both sides are dying. Then he bids them goodbye as he goes with Gage all over the commonwealth. He specifically goes to Sancutary, talking about being on vacation, wanting a palm reading by Mama Murphy. He gives her jet, which starts up her sight again, and he sits in front of her chair, extending his arm out to her.

She's blunt. She sees a monster. She sees it murder his parents long ago, and she sees its hand stained. She sees his hand stained. He tells her to move one. She does, goes to the future. NukaWorld is still strong, but Mason is antsy and trying to 'dominate more'. Gray would be forced to get rid of him and replace him with a new Alpha. Convince a new Alpha to take a stand, one that would win against Mason. One that obedient to Gray.

Gray doesn't like sight, finding it more annoying that insightful. He leaves, stays in the 'hotel' in sanctuary with Gage for the night, then they are off to a few prewar places. Managing to crack some terminals, a lot of picking locks, and finally, terrorizing raider gangs in the Commonwealth. He's feared. He likes that. However, Gage is telling him to slow down a little. It's only been a week, and he's feeling restless with it all. He suggests... going to the capital. Gray thinks about it and agrees. On their way, they kill, pillage, and gain a lot of caps to help their journey for anything they want but can't steal.

1 week and 6 days into the month, they are in the capital! Causing chaos, meeting new people with fun stories... but at one point, Gray falls into an underground area by accident. He's groaning, sitting up as Gage falls in behind him, landing better. He is helped up, dusting himself off as he sees... a... medical are? Files? He takes the files and reads.

A big word he doesn't know how to realize. However, he learns what it is. An 'memory altering serum, that traps a person in a 'controlled form' of schizophrenia'. He thinks about it and looks over the instructions on how to use it on someone. Insert syringe under eye, push in serum, and make sure there is no air in it. Take to the person, guide them, and make them talk about what they see and where they are. Guide them toward whatever answer you want, or use it to control them into whatever person you want.

He sees... an ingredients section. When Gage asks what it is, Gray just shrugs, grinning. "No idea" he's a bad liar. He won't need a new Alpha if he could impair the current one.

He takes the rest of the vials with the serum, the papers about it, and the syringes and needs with him. All of it is unnervingly clean, as they make their way back to Nuka world.

He tells no one about it. He hides it away until he needs to use it.

Yep... uh.... kids... kids doing great still... having a fun birthday month...

This is sorta heavily inspired by the new blackops 6 campaign<3

Happy bday Gray! 🩶

This was so good to read… I’m wishing him luck with Mason. He needs to be “puppyfied” for real, that lil bitch. Can you even imagine Mason doing whatever you want? You won the entire game, you won life. You’re a little manipulative kid Gray, you’re meant to do great things in the future, I’m sure, haha!

(Gage should be proud… I’m wondering if he feels some sort of paternal instinct towards Gray or not 🤔)

[witty--fool]

Fallout: Vampire/Werewolf AU

Ok, so this started as a Hancock/oc sole vampire/werewolf AU in my silly little head... But it's spilled into a full blown supernatural/steampunk/gothic reimagining of the game? I'm probably going to write snippets of my ideas of this to post on Ao3. But I've written up an AU overview, and honestly? If I don't post it rn I'll explode. Kinda long, hope you enjoy. (I'll probably add more post as I add more character/locations)

Overall

The bombs still dropped, the Great War occurred and robots still roam– but the Commonwealth is more of a gothic wonderland. Radiation having permanently darkened the skies. Supernatural entities existed before, but more have been created as a result of the radiation. Like sole/Mary–Anne, the only known werewolf, created by Institute experiments with DNA splicing and radiation. 

Goodneighbor

Tucked deep into the dense, mist-shrouded woods, Goodneighbor has become a hidden refuge for the supernatural and the outcasts of society. It is a sanctuary where the unwanted and the feared come to seek safety from the harsh realities of the post-apocalyptic world. Goodneighbor didn’t exist before the bombs dropped, instead, it is a creation of the last two hundred years or so. Created by mayor Hancock with help from his closest advisors, Nick Valentine and Fahrenheit. 

Locations from the game still exist, but I’ve changed them to fit ti gothic landscape better. Such as: The Old State House is now just The State House. Hancock’s grand manor in the middle of the village. The Third Rail is now a tavern, the Memory Den is now more like a…place where the line between dead and living are blurred. Where people can make connections with the spirits of the long sense deceased. 

Goodneighbor is a myth, a legend. But some factors vehemently believe in it’s existence. The Brotherhood of Steel, hunters of all things unnatural, have strived to hunt down Goodneighbor, and more so, it’s mythical mayor. The Institute is sure of it’s existence as well, suspecting that’s where it’s wolf human hybrid experiment has escaped to.

Mayor Hancock

Still the mayor of Goodneighbor. Hancock is a centuries old vampire, he wasn’t always a ghoul though. Having existed centuries before the bombs dropped, but the two hundred years of being surrounded by relentless radiation has changed him into a ghoul.

He still sports the radiation scared skin of a ghoul, but his skin tone is more of a marble/ashen gray. His eyes are still the dark pits that they were in the game–but now they take on a red hue.  His gaze can be hypnotic, almost entrancing, capable of lulling people into a sense of trust.His fangs are a defining feature, longer and sharper than normal human teeth (as all fangs are).  When retracted, they barely peek from under his lips, giving him an unsettling smile, but when extended, they are vicious. Hancock’s fangs are imperfect and jagged–maybe even chipped. 

Hancock still sports his signature tricorn hat. The hat is worn and weathered but now features subtle, intricate embroidery along the edges, stitched in dark, shimmering threads. His hair, or what’s left of it, falls in uneven golden locks from underneath his hat. 

His clothing is basically the same. He still has his iconic red coat–but it is more regal,  No longer frayed at the seams, the coat’s rich, velvet texture seems both old and expensive.  The coat flows around him as he moves, as though he’s gliding through the air rather than walking.

 Beneath the coat, Hancock wears a deep black waistcoat over a loose, cream, billowing poet’s shirt. His waistcoat is embroidered with swirling dark patterns, almost like vines crawling across the fabric. The buttons of the jacket are pure gold, and the collar of his shirt is open, revealing part of his pale, scarred chest.

 Hancock’s pants are fitted and black, made from a leather-like material. His boots are worn leather, knee-high, and reinforced with metal buckles. The boots are heavily weathered, with scuff marks and dust.

He wears several rings on his fingers, each one unique. Some are simple golden bands, while others are adorned with dark gemstones—onyx, garnet, and blood-red rubies.

As a vampire, Hancock is known to not control his hunger well. Going as long as possible between feedings, is it because he dosen’t want to feed? Or is it because he’s too caught up with the responsibilities of keeping Goodneighbor, safe–and hidden?

Mary-Anne/The sole survivor

Once a normal Minuteman solider, Mary-Anne was captured by The Institute when her squadron was cornered by synths. In The Institute she was subjected to a variety of horrific and painful experiments. Primarily using gene splicing and radiation. Somehow, someway,  they introduced lycanthropy into the wasteland.. They broke her down mentally, trying to make the wolf DNA and instincts fully consume her. The scientist wired her so that both her transformation could be periodically triggered by the full moon, as well as by high amounts of radiation. Like that produced by a radstorm, or a potent injection. The Institute forced change after change, curious as to the effects of their sick experiment. Eventually, The Institute flew too close to the Sun, and Mary-Anne grew powerful enough to escape in her wolf form. Changing back into a human just in time to use a teleporter to escape.

She pops out deep in the woods outside of Goodneighbor, naked (bc werewolf transformation) and being chases by a multitude of gen 1 and 2s. She’s able to unknowingly make it to the gates of Goodneighbor. Where she’s lucky enough to have the guards gun down the approaching synths. 

From here, Finn, another vampire, suggests turning her out, seeing as she almost led the Institute right too them. Hancock appears from the shadows (and basically the ~iconic~ Hancock intro scene takes place.)

From there, Hancock takes her under his wing–and eventually they start a relationship. It’s a long time before he learns of her werewolf nature.

Mary-Anne is a woman of about thirty years, her eyes are a deep green, a shining emerald when she’s forced into her wolf form. She has long, black hair, down past her hips.

In the safety and quiet of Goodneighbor, Mary-Anne favors long, flowy gothic dresses that sway with her movements. The dresses are often in shades of deep crimson, black, or emerald green.  The lace-trimmed fabrics and corseted bodices make her feel connected to who she was, even as the wolf tries to consume her. While outside Goodneighbor, on trips or helping with patrols, she opts for a more practical approach. Wearing old, battle hardened road leathers. 

Every time her clothes are destroyed by a transformation. Hancock is always quick to replace them. He never seems bothered by the destruction, finding joy in seeing her comfortable and prepared, whether in leathers or lace. It's one of the ways he shows his affection and understanding—quietly making sure that no matter how many times she shifts into the wolf, there will always be something new waiting for her when she returns to her human form. He is also always quick to rush to her side when she transforms back into a human, wrapping his coat around her, preserving her modesty (something that is very important to her) before she can get proper clothes on.

When forced to transform, more often than not against her will, her once-human frame expands, standing nearly seven feet tall on hind legs. Her long, black hair remains a part of her, now blending seamlessly into the thick, glossy black fur that covers her body. 

Her face elongates into a sharp, feral snout, lined with razor-sharp teeth capable of tearing through flesh and bone with ease. The fangs, white and gleaming, are long and deadly. Her ears, now pointed and alert, twitch at the slightest sound.. Her nose, keen and powerful, can pick up scents far beyond the range of any human or normal wolf, for that matter.

Her transformation into this form is a brutal one, often leaving the remnants of her shredded clothes scattered in her wake. The change is fast and violent, bones snapping and reshaping as the wolf takes over. When she stands in this monstrous form, there is a wildness about her, but a controlled ferocity—she is not a mindless beast. Mary-Anne in her wolf form is still aware, still driven by her desire to protect those she loves, even if her human side struggles to stay in control.

Nick Valentine

Nick is still a synth, and is still haunted by the memories of a pre-war cop. But now, after waking up in the Institute’s garbage pile, he found his way to Goodneighbor. His smarts and his analytical nature has served him well as Hancock’s most trusted advisor. Nick acts as a foil to Hancock’s more passionate nature. Forcing him to slow down, and really think about his decisions. Especially when it comes to Mary-Anne. He estimates that he’s about one hundred and fifty years old, strangely, making him one of Goodneighbors younger residents. Among all the ghouls and vampires (Goodneighbor’s primary populations).

His mechanics are more clockwork/steampunk. With his skin taking on a tarnished copper hue. The lines of his artificial skin seem almost carved, like the visage of an ancient statue brought to life. Peaking out from the rips and tears in his synthetic skin are various cogs and gears. He makes a faint ticking sound when the room is deadly silent. His glowing neon eyes from base game are now a dimly glowing gold. 

 Gone is the detective’s trench coat and fedora. Here Nick wears a finely tailored, Victorian-inspired ensemble, albeit with patches in some areas from the inevitable wear and tear of over a hundred years. He is dressed in a deep, charcoal-black waistcoat with copper embroidery tracing along the seams. Over the waistcoat, he wears a long, dark coat that flows around him, made from rich, heavy fabric. The coat has a high collar and brass buttons, each adorned with delicate, swirling engravings. 

Underneath, Nick wears a crisp, high-collared shirt.The cuffs of his shirt are visible beneath his coat sleeves, fastened with brass cufflinks. Around his neck, he wears a simple, dark cravat. On his head is a sleek velvety top hat.

 Nick’s hands, still mechanical, have a more polished, clockwork-like appearance. His movements are smooth, yet slightly mechanical, giving him the presence of something between a man and an automaton. He frequently keeps his hands gloved in dark leather, though the slight clink of metal can be heard when he moves.

He still struggles with the identity issues that he has in-game. The inbetween space between man and machine. A tin man, haunted by the memories of a man in the distant past who was loved, deeply and truly loved.

Fahrenheit

Still Hancock’s body guard. Fiercely protective and almost always by Hancock's side, she is not only a skilled enforcer but also a lethal, vampiric presence within Goodneighbor. Her vampiric transformation has made her even more focused, cold, and dangerous. She has embraced the strength and immortality that vampirism offers, becoming a ruthless enforcer for Hancock and Goodneighbor. Her bond with Hancock runs deep—he trusts her implicitly, and she, in turn, serves him with unwavering dedication.

Residents of the town speculate it’s Hancock who turned her. But Fahrenheit denies this, although she’s never offered an alternative explanation.

In Goodneighbor, Fahrenheit is both feared and respected. She is Hancock’s shadow, always present and watching, ensuring that no threat gets close to him. While Hancock is the face of Goodneighbor’s leadership, Fahrenheit is the enforcer who makes sure his orders are carried out. The people of Goodneighbor know that to cross Hancock means dealing with Fahrenheit, and her reputation as a relentless protector precedes her.

She still wears practical, protective gear, but her armor is now enhanced with dark leather and steel accents. She dons a long, black leather duster, similar in style to Hancock’s coat. The coat is reinforced with armored plating beneath the leather, and dark steel buckles and rivets adorn the cuffs and shoulders. The coat’s high collar is embroidered with subtle, intricate designs, similar in motif to Hancock–showing her role and relation to him. Beneath the coat, Fahrenheit wears form-fitting black leather pants and a dark, corset-style vest lined with steel trim. Her boots are heavy and steel toed.

(Side note: If you haven’t picked up on it yet– Hancock→ gold, Nick→ brass/copper, Fahrenheit→ steel.)

Though Fahrenheit has fully embraced her vampiric nature, there is a part of her that remains haunted by her past humanity. She remembers the days before she was turned, when her strength and survival depended on her human grit and willpower alone. While she outwardly shows no signs of weakness, she sometimes struggles with the cold detachment that comes with being a vampire—constantly reminding herself of the line between protector and monster.

Codsworth

Here, essentially his role and personality are the same, except he is Hancock’s dedicated mechanical Butler. He’s a lot more steampunk/clockwork. 

Codsworth is responsible for maintaining Hancock’s estate, ensuring that everything from repairs to daily chores are handled efficiently. He oversees any other robotic staff or helpers in the household, ensuring that the estate runs smoothly.

Though just his butler, Codsworth acts as an informal advisor to Hancock. He offers calm, measured advice, particularly in moments where Hancock’s more emotional or impulsive nature may cloud his judgment.

Codsworth’s once-gleaming chrome body is now made of aged brass and copper, the metal is finely polished–most likely a task her does himself. His spherical central body is adorned with intricate, hand-etched designs—gears, cogs, and swirling patterns. His limbs have been reinforced with brass joints and copper piping that connect to his core.

Codsworth’s mechanical components are now more visible, with gears and pistons exposed at various points on his arms and torso. Like Nick, his parts are constantly whittling, clicking and ticking. Codsworth’s mechanical components are more visible, with gears and pistons exposed at various points on his arms and torso. His "eyes" are now encased in small glass domes with glowing, amber lights within them, his eyes glow warmly when he’s in a calm, domestic mode, but flicker and pulse with intensity when he switches into protective or combat modes. His eye stalks are adorned with copper fittings, and the glass occasionally fogs with condensation.

 In keeping with his role as Hancock’s butler, Codsworth wears a small, polished brass top hat perched at a jaunty angle atop his central body, complemented by a small brass bowtie. These features are all purely decorative. 

The Minutemen

The Minutemen’s primary mission remains the same: to protect the settlements of the Commonwealth and fight for the survival of what remains of humanity. However, in this world where vampires  and other supernatural entities roam, their duties have expanded. They are not just protectors from raiders and super mutants—they also defend against supernatural threats that stalk the woods and attack the vulnerable. They aren’t necessary on the side of the Supernatural. If they were to find Goodneighbor, things would most likely get ugly, fast. 

They also serve as a critical resistance against the growing influence of the Brotherhood of Steel and the Institute

Their General is Preston, and their fighting force is volunteers, mostly young people hungry to make a mark on the wasteland. 

The Brotherhood of Steel

Honestly? They’re quite similar to the games. FInding pre-war technology takes a back seat to their crusade against anything they deem unnatural. Vampires, ghouls, synths, and now a werewolf once they hear about her.

Clad in hulking suits of power armor adorned with religious symbols and iconography, the Brotherhood has adopted an almost Inquisitorial approach to the Commonwealth’s supernatural threats. They wield not only their traditional laser rifles and energy weapons but also silver-edged blades, enchanted relics, and advanced tech designed specifically to combat the supernatural. (everyone knows you need something like that to kill a vampire)

 Still led by  the zealous Elder Maxson, the Brotherhood operates under a strict dogma that views both the supernatural and those who sympathize with them as threats to humanity’s future. All those who oppose them often face the Brotherhood’s wrath for their "blasphemy."

To many, they are seen as overzealous tyrants who threaten anyone who doesn’t adhere to their rigid view of purity and progress.

The Institute

While still dedicated to technological advancement, genetic experimentation, and the perfection of synthetic life, the Institute’s goals are also driven by a vision of humanity where they control not only the future but the very nature of existence itself. They are not just scientists—they are alchemists of flesh and machine, seeking to transcend the limitations of life and death, manipulating both the natural and the supernatural for their own ends.The Institute’s experiments now go beyond simple synth creation and cloning. They are obsessed with understanding—and ultimately controlling—the supernatural forces that have emerged in the wasteland.

Now they not only capture residents of the Commonwealth te replace them with synths. They also kidnap for victims of experiments. Trying to induce vampirism and other supernatural states. Their newest successful experiment was inflicting a young woman with lycanthropy, through a delicate process of DNA splicing, exposure to radiation as well as mental and physical torture.