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buckys-old-habits · 3 years

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Line Without A Hook (Spencer Reid x Reader)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader (platonic)

Summary: Spencer is a broken man and sometimes he needs help facing his demons and doubts. Is it all really worth it?

Word Count: 1.9k

Genre: Hurt / Comfort

Inspiration: Line Without A Hook by Ricky Montgomery

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“There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save.”

― Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky

Working for the FBI is a challenge, office hours are horrible and the world never sleeps in the sense of the bad it can produce.

The BAU is a special department that is necessary, saving people, catching bad guys, and being all and all nearly invisible in the back. Delving deep into the twisted and poisoned thoughts of people, formed by death, trauma, and snapped minds. Getting to know the horrible truth of what a broken childhood or a rejected mind can make people push to do.

Day in and day out, watching, analyzing, staring death and danger in the face, pureness getting swallowed by the darkness of the world. Emotions and people’s lives getting lost and twisted. Seeing the aftermath of a person tortured, mutilated, traumatized, killed in the worst sense. Dead inside but staying alive for the outside world.

Happy endings get swallowed by the next bad case, paperwork making you all relieve the horror you will carry into your sleep and dreams. Making you lock your door twice as secure as normally, work sneaking itself into your daily life.

This work does things to all the members of the BAU, things that they try to hide and don’t want to remember any time soon.

Kidnappings, drug uses, bullet wounds, mental and physical torture, loss through unsubs, the nagging feeling of doing the right thing and still not saving everyone, the downfall of your psyche because you were too slow and finally the reality that the bad in the world won’t just go away.

In the years you were a part of the BAU you saw and experienced a lot of loss and trauma, on yourself or your trusted friends. You saw people come and go, happy at the start and broken in the end, smiles replaced by frowns.

Gideon, Elle, Emily, Strauss, Alex, Kate, Aaron, Derek, and many more left because the job got in the way and too much. Trauma and resignment making them change their view on life and considering another way.

You understand them and wish them all the best in the world, a life away from all the terrors that plague the daily world.

But one person isn’t leaving, is still suffering in silence and putting on a strong face. A boy forced by trauma to grow into a man, a man that went through so much, alone and broken.

Dr. Spencer Reid is the textbook example of the way this job with the BAU can form and bend you. He suffered through kidnappings, forced drug use, bullet wounds, near-death experiences, loss of his lover, betrayal, prison, family issues and so much more. And he never even said a word when the world was showing him its darkest side.

People noticed and tried to help, but Spencer is a stubborn man, pushing his needs and emotions into the background and giving his all for others and the cases. His genius mind can’t handle the thought of burdening someone else with his problems. He rode himself into them, so he has to find a way out.

Sadly you saw the downfall of that thinking a few times. The secretive drug use while everybody knew, him shutting down after Maeve’s death, the way he grew harder to face the terror of the world.

The way the soft and sweet boy from the start was forced to hide under a strong and colder man to protect himself from the jobs’ impact on the psyche.

It’s not unusual for Spencer to disappear after some cases, just touched down with the jet and he is off, his head filled with dark and confusing thoughts. You watch him every time he rushes off the plane, throwing tight-lipped smiles to your coworkers.

These are the moments where you realize that the young boy inside him is breaking through, threatening to drown under the darkness he accumulated over the years.

You say your goodbyes to the others and follow the man out of the building, trying to catch up to him. Being one of his best friends sadly grants you the knowledge of how deep his thoughts can spiral and the way he tries to sift through them by himself.

The way he will self sabotage himself until he is broken and doesn’t see the good in himself anymore. Breaking him out of that spiral is nearly impossible, but you can slow the fall if you coax him out of his mind, which is your goal for this day. Further help will come when he accepts it.

It’s late in the afternoon, the sun slowly setting and dipping the world into some fiery oranges and reds, a stark contrast to the green under your feet. When Spencer spirals he hides away from the world, trying to find comfort in the calm and quiet. While that was his apartment once, it holds too much sorrow and other words now for his mind to form its own.

A soft smile settles on your lips when you see the familiar tall figure slumped under a weeping willow, the irony of the name not passing you by. It would have been amusing if you didn’t know the depths the tree already saw coming from Spencer. The many tears and dark thoughts that flow all around the dark bark.

The lake was a resort of calm for Spencer, becoming his new safe haven. Not many bad things happen here and it’s secluded enough to let his thoughts wander, allowing him to break apart under the green leaves and the protective shield of the hanging branches. Maybe he specifically sought out this tree because of the name. It’s a place for him to weep and feel his emotions.

Slowly, to not startle the man, you settle on the soft grass, keeping some distance between your folded legs. Spencer doesn’t deal well with touch and when his mind is occupied it's even more unwelcome. His body will reach out when it needs the comfort of another person.

Calm and silence encase you, only the warm wind rustling through the heavy branches and the soft whispering of the water in the lake, reminding you of the life in nature.

The first time you found Spencer here, through the help of an app on his phone, the calm stifled you and made you worry a lot more about his mental health. But now you can see the way it is the opposite of the job, the cases, the horror, the darkness.

Spencer shifts beside you, his leg nudging yours and you smile, keeping your eyes on the water. Many visits here made him realize he can open up to you, but he still feels like a burden, so you learned to wait.

Wait for him to speak, to settle his thoughts, and open himself up to another person. Sometimes it only takes minutes, sometimes hours and sometimes the dark of the night will leave you with no words from him at all.

Quietly you turn your hand so the grass tickles the back of it, opening yourself up for his touch. It takes a bit but then you feel the warmth of his fingers close around yours, hesitant and then stronger and nearly desperate. You stroke his skin and he finally looks at you, mustering you with deep brown eyes, questions lingering just under the surface.

Meeting his gaze, you stay quiet and wait, not breaking eye contact while he tries to sort his thoughts to convey them to you. Because this is the time he wants to share, share his doubts, his dreams, his ideas, and his desperations.

“Is it worth it?”

It’s a whispered and choked question coming from him, his voice shaking at the end, making your heart clench in your chest. It’s a loaded question, one that would make or break him. Squeezing his hand, you take a deep breath and settle your view back onto the lake. To be honest, you asked yourself the same question a lot already. Every bad case lingers for days and the fact that you were too slow, too unknowing, too helpless, settles heavily on you.

Could you have done more? Would the victim still be alive if you were just… better? Faster? More? But this is what breaks you, makes you spiral, and lets you forget the light in life. The good side that challenges the dark.

You look back at Spencer and meet his teary eyes, ready to spill the sorrow and pain he holds.

“I don’t know, Spencer. I won’t lie to you. I don’t know if this job is worth the pain and suffering. But I know that the result will only be the same when you let it dictate you. I once thought that going would be the best course of action, just leave and let it behind you. All the death and blood and horror. But I can’t”, you laugh dryly, the thought heavy on your heart.

“I can’t let the darkness win. I can’t just ignore the way that bad people will win when nobody is fighting for the light anymore. So no, it might not be worth it, but I can’t live with myself when I don’t try. I will lose myself when I let them win.”

You sigh, a deep and heavy sound, making you realize that you aren’t that black and white either. Not as deeply traumatized as Spencer, but still scarred by the job you handle. It seems unavoidable when you stare at the darkest emotions and twisted minds daily.

Spencer’s grip on your hand tightens and his knee settles heavily on yours, desperate for the warmth and the solidity that is your body, your presence.

He is quiet, but you can hear his thoughts running around his brilliant mind, racing to catch his attention. Trying to process your words and applying the meaning to himself, adding to his own beliefs or changing it.

Slowly you lift your hand and touch his cheek, wet with spilled tears, and he watches you, his whole attention on you. You smile, amused by the fact how quickly you dust his mind with a touch.

“Spencer, I would take it all. All the pain, if I could. But I can’t.”

He nods slowly, unknowingly leaning into your touch while you stroke his skin, wiping away the tears and wishing you could heal his broken soul.

“What I can do is give you my promise. I promise you that I will be there to pull you from the depths of your mind. You don’t deserve the darkness that plagues you and I will do my best to make you realize that there is still so much light inside you.”

Spencer takes your hand from his cheek and pushes forward, crushing into your body and clutching onto you. Sobs wrack him and wet tears soak into your shoulder, all his emotions rushing out and leaving him a scared boy, the same one that saw his dad leave.

With a heavy heart, you hold onto him, arms secure around him, shielding him and his vulnerability from the world.

“There's a sorrow and pain in everyone's life, but every now and then there's a ray of light that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort like hot soup and a soft bed.”

― Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream

#spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #spencer x reader #reader insert #franca-writes

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badass-at-fandoming · 3 years

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Just Little Ventrue Things ~

I finished a Camarilla Ventrue run of VTMB. Mostly, the only thing Ventrue these days know how to do is Dominate, run screaming, eat hot chip, and lie, and [high falsetto voice] here’s a list of other nonsense I discovered:

PC’s name is Christina; she’s a Dominatrix because I’m bi. Her sire was one of her clients, and she’s actually very, very angry about his death. She doesn’t mind being a vampire. She’s Wiccan and part of a coven

In this Camarilla run, I decided I would only do quests given by Camarilla members. My justification was that, while Christina is intelligent and curious about lore, she focuses on tasks that immediately relate to her and her goals. She’s not curious about others; won’t go out of her way to talk to them. She’s not a bleeding heart, like my other PCs, and she believes in the Camarilla’s laws. She just hates LaCroix for killing her sire. Her plan during the game is to curry as much favor within the Cam as possible and cozy up to LaCroix so she can stab him.

Enough backstory

Nonsense time

Smiling Jack laughs at you if you don’t eat a rat in the tutorial. LOL. The Ventrue dialog is like “I could barely choke down the homeless man: please don’t make me eat a rat!”

The blood in the Santa Monica haven’s fridge is now blue blood. Does regular blood make Ventrue sick? I was too scared to experiment.

[spots Mercurio] I am going to steal that ghoul

Rosa: The people you’re looking for are up there. Christina, assuming Rosa is a Cam agent: Okay, thanks, bye

Never spoke to the Thin-Bloods again (sorry Lily baby ;-;)

Everyone except Julius still leaves when the PC reaches Hollywood

If you try to feed on Julius, he WILL kick you in the head and you WILL glitch into the fire, be on fire; run away screaming in Prada

You can skip the whole basement of the Ocean House Hotel if you manage to jump over the hole in the staircase???? Like?? You mean the spookiest fucking level has been optional this whole time I”M

[ghost appears] [Christina smacks it with an axe] None of that.

Club girls speak to Christina and I’m on the FLOOR

Therese “kills” Jeanette, even though I had enough oompa to make that not happen.

Therese joins the Camarilla and says she’s in good position to be the next Prince??? Hello??? Where is our Prince Voerman ending????

Went straight to LaCroix, called him “sir,” and he name-dropped Napoleon.

LaCroix tells Christina to go visit the Anarchs. She blows the Anarchs off (Nines made a growly face, Damsel dialog yowl-exited out after I asked if she wanted to join the Cam; Skelter threatened to murder me twice). When LaCroix told Christina that, while he admired her Cam loyalty, she must listen to her enemies to understand what they wanted, it felt like he was actually being a good sire and mentor.

That’s weird.

When Christina asked for his history, he very carefully explained his lineage, like the important part of Ventrue culture it is.

Overall, I found LaCroix-being-nice-to-me extremely unsettling.

Sir. Stop smiling at me, sir. Stop being impressed I don’t ask for money. STOP MAKING ME UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE LIKE YOU, SIR.

In contrast, LaCroix sounded genuinely betrayed at the end

Also made it more obvious when he started to lose track of his marbles

Ventrue PC seems juuuuuuust tall enough for her forehead to glitch into the ceiling of literally any confined space

The dirty Elizabeth Dane policeman didn’t psspspspsp at Christina so the whole ship was 15 white-knuckled minutes of making police dance and scuttling about

There is!!! A lot less!!! Talking in this game!!! Than I remember!!! She is only good at talking and ordering people around i am bEGGING

All EXP goes to Dominate and making Christina extremely charismatic and buff.

Ventrue himbo????

Beckett un-himbo-ifies her

She insults Beckett on their first meeting, spitting out “What do you want, wolfie?!” I thought this was appropriate because she died like, 4 times on that warehouse mission and was Extremely Stressed And Under Duress

Beckett’s response of “Oh, you’re too young to have mouthed off to the truly old ones yet.” makes his later snide remark of “the young ones are so temperamental” 900% funnier. Yeah, LaCroix! Beckett thinks I’ve grown and am now more mature than you! XD

Missions involving sex workers hit different when you’re a sex worker.

Christina was incandescent with rage at the Brotherhood

Grout’s mansion mission was a lot of “I have no interest in this nonsense.”

For the first time ever, I didn’t kill anyone during the Museum quest! This is because Christina ran very fast and Dominated every guard as quickly as possible. Every single fucking guard knew she was there, but could do nothing about it, because they were dancing. The door to the sarcophagus locked (it will do this if too many guards are agro), but locked doors are no match for noclip hack.

Entertaining image of a tall woman absolutely blasting into this museum room and Beckett tackling her to the floor like wait! I must snark at you! You are legally obligated to speak with me!

Isaac is still somehow a pretty chill guy to work with if you’re Camarilla.

Christina didn’t visit VV or Ash. Interestingly, Ash didn’t show up at the hunter monastery later. Did he just die in his club? Is he still there, waiting, deciding?

Christina @ Andrei: what the fuck is this shit

“I don’t care. It’s ugly. Clean it up.”

SEWERS.

Not as bad as I was expecting

Did take shortcut, run away from fights, ducked out in the middle for a snack, and bring 7 blue blood packs tho

Gary threatened to shred her face with a cheese grater, which I thought was Toreador only dialog?? It must be connected to the Appearance Stat. Which Christina has maxed out.

When Heather became Christina’s ghoul, I was delighted because I thought this meant Christina would always have fresh blood.

If you ask to feed on her too soon after the last time, Heather says she feels light headed and wants to lie down. The dialog exits out

I love you, Heather bb

Perfected the art of nudging NPCs into corners

Mitnick’s quests now feature Enforced Nap Time for all guards

Seriously, Dominate is ridiculously powerful, hooooly shit. I get why people like it. I also like it when people do things I ask them to do.

Christina can’t sneak, but she CAN strongly encourage everyone to choke on their own tongues.

Very high contrast in the beginning of the game: 2 punches would knock her over, but anyone she spoke to would obey immediately and without question

Chinatown goes by ridiculously fast if you can’t sneak and don’t do any sidequests besides Mitnick’s.

For the first time ever, Zhao survived! This is because Christina made him take a nap.

He just told her to leave

You’re welcome, my good dude

IDK if it’s a game glitch, but Christina would vocalize? In battle, she grunts with effort and pain.

Got to the point where I kept expecting Dominate dialog in every interaction and would get disappointed if it didn’t show up. What do you mean I have to actually convince people? That’s lame.

Christina was polite and charming to Ming Xiao, who also conveyed a deeper betrayal than normal at the end. ;-;

I promise to give you a Ventrue boy toy soon, Xiao

Finale arc quests went by VERY FAST because Christina can’t sneak for shit. Just run in, Dominate blazing

You can skip the outside bit of the Hallowbrook Hotel if you find the open door on the top level what the fuuuuuuuuuCK

[“A Little Party Never Killed Nobody” plays while Christina wipes out the Sabbat in 10 minutes]

Andrei disappeared mid-fight and didn’t come back until I complained that only I was allowed to run away from boss fights

I’m categorizing “triggering the interaction to save Heather” as something quite difficult to do. The timing has to be just right. I’ve missed it twice now. BUT hacking into the game to save her is easy.

I love you, Heather bb

Final Beckett talk had the vibe of “You’re a very different person than me, but you’re also High Humanity and trying to do good. You don’t deserve to die.”

Damsel threatens to kick the shit out of Christina and is extremely reluctant to tell her where Nines is

“Out of all people, they send you? All right, let’s just talk terms.” - Nines because Christina was short with him one (1) time

WEREWOLF HARD

You can just?? Walk out of your haven?? Without speaking to Jack at all???

I didn’t do that

But I could have

[”Dust in the Wind” plays while Christina kills entire Camarilla hit squad in 3 minutes]

You can visit Mercurio and Trip on your way out of Santa Monica??

Mercurio makes no comment on the blood hunt. Business as usual with him. This is fine.

Christina: I’m SO going to adopt that ghoul. And perhaps Isaac can be convinced to part with Romero...

(For the first time ever, my PC boinked Romero. Twice, to receive the break up email)

This is definitely a glitch, but Christina brushed up against Caine, and a worried voice said, “Are you all right?” It sounded like the same voice actor, but a higher pitch?

Always nice to think about Caine demonstrating care

Christina asked Caine who he is, and Caine replied that he “gets people where they’re going. [He’s] a driver,” which is a nice nod (lol) to both his literal job as a driver and as a shepherd/creator/god to Kindred. Caine creates and makes fate.

Caine triple checks with Christina that she’s sure Strauss won’t betray her. Thanks, Vampire Dad. :’D

For some reason, only other Ventrue guarded LaCroix’s tower. I wonder if this is intentional. Like all the other Camarilla Clans backed Strauss and left? So only LaCroix’s Ventrue lackeys remain? Anyway, it created some weird moments where Christina fought her double.

KILL YOUR DOUBLE

Sheriff laughed in haughty joy that he was to kill Christina. I don’t remember him laughing in other playthroughs.

Christina ruining Caine and Jack’s prank oh noes

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marybethsjournal · 3 years

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I’m working on a RDR2 AU, it’s literally so divergent from canon lol. It’s mostly focused on Lenny and Sean, who are seniors in high school, but all the gang members making an appearance. Here’s the character sheet I made so far if anyone’s interested in seeing what’s coming:

Lenny- one of the main protagonists. Blackwater High senior on honor roll, first chair trumpet in the band, skateboards. Works at Dutch’s Dough pizza place. Ex boyfriend of Jenny.

Tilly- Lenny’s younger sister. Blackwater High sophomore, one of the most valued members on the debate team, babysits kids on weekends.

Hosea- Lenny and Tilly’s grandfather (adopted father of their dad). Acts in local commercials, has a lot of money that nobody seems to know where it came from, spends most of his days reading and on the phone with Dutch when the younger man has an emergency and doesn’t know how to handle it (this happens quite often).

Uncle- Hosea’s brother??? Nobody’s really sure about his exact relation to the family but he lives in the Matthews household now and they can’t seem to get rid of him. A terrible influence.

Susan: Lenny and Tilly’s grandmother (adopted mother of their dad). The substitute teacher at Blackwater High that everyone fears. Can sniff out trouble better than a drug dog. Primary caretaker of Isaac.

Arthur: 28, son of Susan and Hosea. Father of Isaac. Recently moved back home after Eliza’s passing. Works security at nightclubs, mostly, but takes jobs wherever he can. Runs a secret internet persona that started out with him journaling in a blog; he’s internet famous but no one knows.

Eliza: ex-wife of Arthur and mother of Isaac. Was a kindergarten teacher. Died protecting the children from a school shooter.

Isaac: Arthur and Eliza’s son. 4 years old. Wants to be just like Lenny. Love dogs and wants to be a vet when he grows up. He’s also a little artist and gets all his artwork hung up on the fridge.

Sean: one of the main protagonists. Black High senior, failing out of school, barely literate, skateboards and thinks that’s a whole personality. Always hyped up on energy drinks. Works at Dutch’s Dough pizza place (Lenny saved him from getting fired like 3 times before the story even starts). Dating Karen.

Molly: Sean’s older sister. Freshman at West Elizabeth University. Works as Dutch’s personal secretary. She thinks he loves her (he doesn’t). Hopes to own her own makeup empire someday. Hand sews her and Sean’s clothing just because she enjoys it (Sean usually just puts the clothes she makes him at the back of his closet and wears name brands anyway). Acts like a “mean girl” but doesn’t have any friends besides Sadie.

John: 20, Sean and Molly’s cousin. Works at SJ’s Mechanic shop. Abigail’s boyfriend and Jack’s dad. Won’t take help from anybody and is barely keeping his family’s head above water.

Abigail: 19, mother of Jack and girlfriend of John. Has no life outside of Jack and is suffering from PPD. Enjoys singing and dancing. Holds the affection of Josiah.

Jack: infant son of John and Abigail.

Josiah: sophomore at West Elizabeth University. Training as a student teacher but his heart is in the preformative arts. All the girls at Blackwater high swoon over him, but him being 19, that’s never going to happen. Has a huge crush on Abigail.

Mary Beth: Blackwater high sophomore. one of Tilly’s best friends. Quiet and shy, she practically runs the school newspaper. Is in colourguard. Also on the debate team but mostly to support Tilly. Has a new friend on Kieran, whom she brought into the friend group. Has a crush on Arthur, but knowing it couldn’t and shouldn’t work out, has other wavering crushes on several guys: Javier, Josiah, Lenny.

Karen: Blackwater high junior. One of Tilly’s best friends. Does pretty well in school but often gets into fights and various other forms of trouble. Skateboards with Sean and Lenny. Helps Tilly out with the babysitting. Is on the cheer and volleyball team. Volunteers on a farm where lessons are given to special needs kids as a form of therapy and comfort. Dating Sean.

Kieran: New in town. Blackwater High sophomore. Volunteers at the farm with Karen. Met Mary Beth when he joined the colour guard team.

Bill: Blackwater High junior. A bully at school that for some reason has decided to take Kieran under his wing. Generally an asshat. Planning on going into the army.

Pearson: 30, works a food truck next to the skate park. A sort of mentor to the kids. Wants to become a professional chef.

Strauss:65, boring as Hell teacher at Blackwater High lol.

Reverend Swanson: 48, washed up preacher that is now getting his sermons written by Dutch. Nobody knows why Dutch is now writing these sermons.

Dutch: 45, CEO of Dutch’s Dough pizza chain. Doesn’t actually know how to run a business. Charismatic. Is way too old for Molly but is still playing her.

Sadie:21, Mechanic at SJ’s car shop. Molly’s friend. Can only be described as a badass haha.

Micah: VP at Dutch’s Dough. Everyone hates him but Dutch. Probably steals candy from babies.

Mary: Arthur’s ex. Wants to get back with him but he isn’t ready yet. Works at her father’s orchard. Is Molly’s fashion inspiration.

Charles:27, Arthur’s best friend. Works security with him but is climbing up in the world of shampoo modeling.

Javier: Blackwater High senior. Most popular guy in school. Basketball star.

Jenny: Lenny’s ex. Passed in a car accident.

Mac and Davey Callender: 19, workers at the local Van’s store. Probably stoners.

#red dead fanfic #rdr #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #sean maguire #karen jones #micah bell #charles smith #arthur morgan #lenny summers #tilly jackson #molly o'shea #mary beth gaskill

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sadnessofthings · 3 years

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Strauss headcanons thread continued, since the reply chain got too long. This is about Max and the gargoyle mostly.

@idreamtofmanderleyagain posted:

Thank you!

There’s a lot in here that ultimately I’m not too familiar with to speak on yet (LABN, Lore book references, etc.). That said, I do have a few responses:

So regarding the Gargoyle, my view is that Strauss has some unresolved, unacknowledged feelings of guilt tied to his actions and his toxic relationship with the Gargoyle. Much of the things he says about the Gargoyle read to me like someone still trying to mentally justify the bad choices he made by placing the blame on the shoulders of the being he harmed. If Strauss 100% felt like the Gargoyle needed to be gotten rid of, he would have done it himself a long time ago instead of letting his massive, potentially dangerous secret just hang about unchecked wherever it liked. I cannot imagine that he’s afraid of it, or not powerful enough to handle it. Perhaps he pushes the problem onto the Fledgeling because he can’t bring himself to harm it directly but is realizing that the issue was getting out of control. Honestly the entire situation with the Gargoyle shakes the level of integrity and strength Strauss otherwise manages to have, which is interesting to me. It’s a stain on his record that humanizes him quite a bit. I think the choices with which the Fledgeling is left with kind of left me wanting, because it wasn’t really possible to do the right thing for the Gargoyle (I’m including the possibility to give him to Isaac in that statement).

I actually forgot that you used the phrase “staunch traditionalist,” I’m sorry if you thought I was directing the statement at you! I was really speaking more broadly about the fandom, I think outside of the Strauss fans he can kind of get a little boxed-in. I think it’s clear that those in the Strauss fandom have unique takes and definitions of what his traditionalism means, which is cool.

Regarding VV, like I said, I don’t know that I truly ship them as much as I’m intrigued by the drama of their emotional dynamic. Which I want to make clear, I do NOT think they actually had a secret affair, nor do I see Max treating a woman that way. I strongly feel that he never let her take things in the direction of a relationship. However I also think that it’s not impossible that he could have harbored complex feelings about her. His response to her in the opening sequence could be less cruel than it seems at face value, especially if they are old acquaintances and are used to engaging in a little dance of her play-flirting and him scoffing in response.

That said, I don’t think he finds her sly seductiveness appealing. I’m not sure that “femme fatale” has good chemistry with him.

That’s unfortunate about LABN.

Thanks for the reply!

I like your gargoyle interpretation, and it makes a lot of sense. Max does seem a bit careless with the entire thing. Your reading could even solve one of the issues I have with this quest. That is, if you convince the gargoyle to join Isaac and lie to Strauss about it, he never learns the truth. I realize that this is so that diplomacy build characters can still get the Tremere haven and have access to the Cam ending. Yet I don’t like it, because it makes Max seem far too clueless. Ideally, I think that the next time you go to the chantry after having lied to him, Strauss should’ve wised up and throw your sorry ass to the street.

But if Strauss was feeling as bad about the gargoyle as you postulate, then maybe he could’ve learned the truth, yet decided not to act on it. (Max knowing the trust might be the case anyway, should he be interested in yet manipulating the fledgling for his own purposes, despite knowing her to be untrustworthy.) Might work. Although I’ve never even chosen this option myself. I’ve always just killed the gargoyle.

What would you consider as being the right thing to do with the gargoyle? Convince it to leave the city for somewhere safer, maybe going and buying some supplies for it first or something? Perhaps that could be implied in the Isaac option, since anarchs usually aren’t fans of keeping slaves. If the gargoyle dislikes working for Isaac, maybe he’ll just tell it to leave.

One option that I’d like would be just telling Max where the gargoyle is, but not offer to kill it for him. That way a non-combat build fledgling could still get positive disposition with Max (though a lesser amount), without having to betray him. Later you’d hear on the radio about there having been ruckus at the theater.

Personally, though, I can’t see Max having any scruples about having created this gargoyle, and I can see him going and making another one yet (I made a post on the topic some days ago). It takes dedication to learn the Gargoyle Creation Ritual, which is a very involved, long and grisly process. Even if he previously considered gargoyles to be just dull-minded servitors that are harmless to have, learning about the ritual would’ve made him reconsider that.

Max must have acquired two prisoners of two different clans (Nosferatu, Tzimisce, Gangrel; pick two depending what result you want) and then mutilated and tortured them in an agonizing process until their minds blanked out, giving him a blank canvas to work with conditioning. Then he would’ve dismembered and stitched them together again into an abomination and then let it cook for months in a pod, with occasional ritual chants. If his heart was too soft for this project, he probably would give up already when reading the instructions.

After doing all of this, how nice feelings could he have towards the resulting gargoyle, especially after it rebelled? I feel that to be able to preserve his sense of integrity, Strauss would have to consider the gargoyle’s existence and its role as his servitor as justified.

Furthermore, considering that Max seems very cautious and thoughtful character, I think it’s highly likely that he had already had closer interactions with gargoyles before deciding to create his own. Max starting to bond with the gargoyle after its creation, and feeling bad about the horrible things he had done, it somehow sits ill with the rest of it, in my interpretation of him. I think he really does have a high capacity for extremely unethical sorcery, and has a calm peace of mind over it, too. I think it makes him more interesting too, especially when it comes to how I envision my Tremere fledgling’s apprenticeship under him.

As for Strauss having the fledgling handle the gargoyle, that’s a cool interpretation. Even if he felt bad, his personal safety and duty to the Pyramid would eventually force his hand. I can imagine Max feeling conflicted while waiting at the chantry for the fledgling to return, maybe also feeling bad about thrusting this unjust murder unto the poor neonate?

However, I just see it as an elder using a pawn, as is their wont. (As well as a great final test for a potential new apprentice.) Max already had the anti-gargoyle amulet in his pocket, probably ready at all times to rush to action if he learned of its whereabouts. The amulet is powerful and Max trusts that its power combined with all the skill the fledgling has already shown ought to be enough to deal with the issue, so there’s no need for him to go out himself, attracting attention in Hollywood and making locals connect the dots between a rampaging gargoyle and the Tremere regent strutting about.

Maybe it’d make more sense for Max to thank the fledgling for the news, and send a 100% trusted apprentice for the kill instead, but then again there’d be no quest for us. Besides, things are already in motion, Isaac knows about the gargoyle, and the fledgling may very well go and check the theater out anyway. It makes sense for Max to ask the fledgling to do this IMO.

Still, I can see where you’re coming from with your reading though. He could’ve even just led the gargoyle slip away and claim it escaped when his Lord came asking, assuming he really started to feel bad about his deed. But considering the heavy danger he’d be placing himself in by doing so, I can’t see him doing that, even setting aside the rest.

I think the gargoyle fled only very recently. A month ago at maximum, but probably less. It would’ve been in hiding, and Max wouldn’t have yet heard about it being sighted in Hollywood. Max seems surprised to hear that the fledgling has information on it, after all. If the gargoyle decided to tell everyone about its history, Strauss would be in serious trouble. Hence, I can’t imagine him not acting immediately if he knew where it was lurking.

According to the Montmartre Pact, any Tremere caught having created gargoyles is to be stripped from any Tremere protections and given over to the Gangrel and the Nosferatu to be judged – and they are NOT fans of their clan mates being subjected to Tremere experimentation. Not a pleasant prospect, right. In practice, the Tremere of course cover and lie for anyone accused, but still it would be a serious issue, and Max’s peers and his Lord would be cross with him, at the very least. So even if Max did feel bangs of guilt, I think his self-preservation and desire to protect the clan from shame would override it, and the gargoyle would die, no matter how sad. Yet, considering how cool and stern he sounds when telling of the gargoyle, I doubt he felt a thing.

As for Max’s integrity w/r/t the gargoyle, yesterday I was discussing the gargoyle quest with a friend, and realized that Strauss references the gargoyle as being sentient. Canonically, they are of course sapient, and if Max knows the Creation Ritual, he surely knows this too. He even acknowledges that his gargoyle desired freedom and was unhappy with its lot in life.

This could just be Max downplaying the slavery aspect when talking to the fledgling. But otherwise during this convo, Max doesn’t hesitate to make it clear that gargoyles are just a servant race undeserving of freedom. So it could also be him trying to justify the entire thing to himself, making it seem less like an atrocity, with the gargoyle comparable to animals or other thaumaturgic servitors the Tremere make. On the other hand, Max seems like he’d be exact with his words, and not allow himself to cover up any truths by sticking to inaccurate terminology. So I don’t know. Hell, it can also just be the dev who wrote the line mixing up sapient and sentient, since I’ve seen it happen a ton in media.

All in all, I think Strauss probably has at least a mild case of Tremere supremacy thing going on, despite being very polite and welcoming to the fledgling no matter their clan. Sorry to bring up the lore books again, but Libellus Sanguinis 2 had good bits about how Dark Ages era Tremere had these very disdainful attitudes to the clans they used for gargoyle materials, such as seeing the Gangrel as very animalistic. Ditto for capturing werewolves for experimentation without any compunctions. (This book also had the phrase “incorrigible tendency to experiment” which is such a perfect way to describe the Tremere lol.) The mirror side of this would be the high respect for the “high clan�� Camarilla pillars, such as the Malkavians, who Max sees as seers, complimenting nicely his own mystical leanings.

Anyway, Max probably isn’t as callous as those oldest Tremere in the clan’s earliest days as described in the Dark Ages books. But he may still harbor some such sentiments. After all, he has to somehow convince himself that what he does is more or less right. I think Max’s main goal in life is “to seek forever,” i.e. keep on gaining occult and other knowledge, and next to serve his clan (and therefore serve himself and his young Tremere charges under him). So going by that, he can justify much already.

Furthermore, he can pick experiment subjects that were hostile to him to begin with. In LA, he would’ve had access to crazed Tzimisce shovelheads. Maybe a Nosferatu that got caught trying to sneak into the chantry to spy? Max would have the excuse that these kindred would have to be executed anyway, and this way they are usefully recycled at least. With their minds dying, the resulting creature isn’t really them anymore, anyway.

Also I can’t lie, I love the horrible Tremere track record. There’s always some new bit of lore that tops the previous atrocity of theirs. And then acting all innocent after. I don’t think Strauss could’ve advanced that high in the Pyramid and lived for centuries without knowing how things are in his clan’s culture, while still being a great and bouncy Pyramid advocate to fresh little fledglings.

Hm, personally I still have hard time seeing the trial scene between Strauss and VV as nothing else than her just being an intentionally irreverent tease towards the oldest (and in her view, the stodgiest) Camarilla dignitary in the building, and Strauss just making it abundantly clear that he has absolutely zero interest. Maybe it’s because I found his reaction very relatable, having had to block unwanted attentions with the hand before... I agree with you that VV very much doesn’t seem like his type, anyway.

I hope I haven’t blathered too much. It’s just mega fascinating to learn how other ppl see Strauss.

I guess I mostly see him having a soft spot for fellow Tremere, and especially for fledglings that are in need of teaching and protection. I see Max as someone who loves to educate and to encourage neonates to find their own solutions, and that attitude can also extend for fledglings of other clans, as the game shows. (With the strict limit to what he is willing to tell to non-Tremere.)

If he has any dislikes about the usual Tremere/Pyramid methods, I think it’s mostly that he prefers encouraging clan togetherness from positive examples first, and instilling a desire for knowledge seeking, as is the clan’s supposed ideal. The less nice side to him is that I don’t think he ultimately cares that much about outsiders, despite often having respect and admiration towards them. If it comes down to it, he’ll always back his own clan. So while he can be welcoming and decorous to a Gangrel fledgling that has unusual power and hope the best for their future, he however doesn’t have qualms about using another Gangrel for gargoyle parts if the situation merits.

#Maximillian Strauss #vtmb #not allowed to quote just the last reply in a thread

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ryttu3k · 3 years

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First Bloodlines run - here’s how it worked out!

Didn’t get to actually finish - thanks, cutscene glitch - but I got to the last scene and I at least watched the Anarch ending on Youtube XD;; While I really do want to do at least two more runs, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to; either way, I mostly enjoyed my first run a ton!

More detail below the cut - how Sierra turned out as protag, and her views on other characters. I’ll write a separate ‘thoughts on Bloodlines as a game and its characters’ later on, this is just for Sierra’s run specifically.

So, Sierra as a character! Usually super high humanity - most drops were due to glitches or completely accidental (glitch - had to kill Hospital Guy because it flat-out wouldn’t let him escape, danced it back. Accidental - shot one of the hostages at Hollowbrook, felt horrible for it). One non-accidental one was convincing Ash to switch clothes with a guy at the club; she hadn’t expected the hunters to kill first and ask questions later. Yeah, also felt guilty about it. Otherwise, I’m pretty happy to put her at 9 for Humanity - she tried to help everyone she could, aside from those actively trying to kill her.

Ended up a much brainier character than I was expecting, which, uh, is usually what happens with my characters tbh. Still fits her character! She’s not scholarly (was a college drop-out) and prefers actually doing things than sitting still, but she’s clever and curious. Combat was usually almost always melee, because vampires with katanas are cool. High persuasion, she’s good at defusing a situation when fighting isn’t warranted.

Most-used discipline ended up being Animalism. Never did max out Protean :( Did use it a ton in dark areas, but mostly for night vision.

Sidequests - got a lot done. Failed three - Spiritual Release (sorry, ghosts :( ), You Only Die Once A Night (actually, I started this then died with 30 seconds to go, reset, and refused to start it again XD), and Dirty Dishes.

Missed or outright avoided Drug Trip, Trick or Treatment (Heather - the whole storyline with her bugs me), Daydream Believer (Copper is sweet, dammit, don't be mean!!), Replanting a Lily (never went back to the clinic after saving Lily), Traffik, And Her Name Was Venus/Venucide, Pimpin' for Romero, A Dish Best Served Cold (alas, you can’t convince the reviewer to give it a ragingly good review just to piss off SparklingWater XD), Model Citizen/Cover Girl, Poster Session, and all the Chinatown ones (I would have done Gone Fishin' if I had found it, refused Eye Gouge Hell, didn't encounter the others).

Character interactions - ended up ride-or-die Anarch. Part of that was that her literal first impressions were of Nines saving her life and Jack guiding her through how to survive a terrifying, bewildering situation, a lot of it was that she did start out as an activist in the first place, so falling in with the Anarchs was a natural continuation of that. Adores and looks up to Nines, felt horrifically guilty at the blood hunt, and was devastated when she thought he had died at Griffith Park. She was a mess after that (also a good part to do with rotschreck and spending a good five minutes or so trying really hard not to frenzy in terror), and it was only because of Jack that she didn’t fall apart completely. Jack is like the favourite weird uncle - she doesn’t know his involvement in the whole plot and I think wouldn’t quite understand why he set it in motion, but she really likes the impression he shows. Adores Damsel, and she’s not sure what to do with Skelter’s belief in the more religious aspects of stuff but likes him a lot too.

Aside from Nines, the other character she adores the most is Beckett! Her first words to him were literally, “Holy shit how did you do that that’s so cool can you teach me to do that?!”, she finds his adventures and knowledge absolutely fascinating, and she definitely started looking up archeological and anthropological stuff both for her own curiosity and to impress him XD

Other positive relationships - Jeanette is a bit complicated because of the whole Slashterpiece and pendant thing, but damn, at least she didn’t try to kill her like Therese did; while she wanted to reconcile the sisters, she was kind of relieved when Jeanette was the one who survived. Just found her more approachable and welcoming. Also definitely got drawn in by VV. She’s weak for pretty girls XD Got on great with Merc (despite the whole... Cammy thing), Knox, the Thinblood kids (who she hung out with a bunch while still in Santa Monica), Trip, Mitnick, and Ash (who she will fight people to protect). Chunk is a precious being who must be protected at all costs; at the Tower, she advised him that LaCroix was no good and he deserved better.

Complicated situations - initially did think Strauss was okay but her views on him soured fast when she learned about gargoyles. Isaac is mostly fine but they don’t have a lot of common ground, given her preferred genre is ‘loud action movies’ XD She can see why VV looks up to him, though, and felt quite sad about everything with Ash in general. Pisha scared her but she tried really hard not to judge, basically? I mean, predators gotta eat too... The cab driver bothers her for reasons she can’t articulate. Very odd man, that one. When she learned why the Southland Slasher was doing what he was doing, she felt sorry for him, and encouraged him to join the Anarchs for direction and a more positive outlet for his emotions.

Antagonists - mostly didn’t take pleasure in killing them, but she definitely felt pretty satisfied stabbing LaCroix >.> Will have nightmares for the rest of her unlife about Andrei’s house and the sanctum at Hollowbrook, the Mandarin’s tests, and the expression on Ash’s face when he talked about how much the Society of Leopold enjoyed torturing him. Gimble freaked her the hell out. And if she ever catches Vandal Cleaver alone, she’s going to flat-out kill him if she gets the opportunity.

For the future, I’ve been trying to work out how she and Lettow supposedly know each other (he mentions the fledgling as ‘a friend of mine’), given their opposing political views. I’m thinking their common ground would be that they’re both Gangrel; I can see them meeting by chance at some point, and Sierra requesting tutoring in Protean forms, which Lettow is pretty damn good at (she might be higher generation, 8th to his 9th, but he’s a lot older and more experienced).

Beyond that, info on her and her coterie can be found here! Yes, she fully appreciates the irony of dating a Garou, haha.

#ry plays bloodlines #oc: sierra #vampire the masquerade #vtm bloodlines #vtmb

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nightingaletrash · 5 years

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the thing about Beckett and Mercurio being the only people you can absolutely trust in vtmb is that, unlike pretty much every other Kindred or Ghoul, they don’t have any hidden agendas.

Beckett wants knowledge, he wants to understand why the Kindred exist and everyone knows it. He’s literally got nothing to hide, no hidden agenda he needs to manipulate you for. If he needs something from you, he’ll ask upright, and if you have a question that needs answering, he’ll try to answer it. Sarcasm may or may not be included depending on whether or not the question is stupid. And even if he doesn’t like or trust a Low Humanity Fledgling, he’ll still warn them not to open the Ankaran Sarcophagus. He doesn’t have to. He could have just left LA and left them to die. But he warns them anyway.

Mercurio is a businessman. He’s not involved in the details of the Camarilla, he just does as he’s asked, which is providing information and weapons. If you do right by him and not tell Lacroix about the astrolite, you can trust him to return the favour and help you out, even when you end up being on the run from his bosses. Screw him over, and you can trust him to get even.

Everyone else has an agenda, and even those who aren’t overtly political have no reason to believe that they can trust you not to turn things on them.

We’ll get the obvious ones out of the way first...

Lacroix: tries to get you killed at the Sabbat Warehouse, then decides to use you as a means to frame Nines for Grout’s murder, and then as a means to obtain the Ankaran Sarcophagus, then tries to kill you when you discover his alliance with Xiao.

Xiao: plays like she’s your friend, reveals her alliance with Lacroix and her deception as Nines to make herself seem more trustworthy, tells you that Lacroix will betray you now that you know the truth (which she has directly revealed to you) and if you do side with her, she then ties you to the sarcophagus and leaves you to go into torpor under the sea.

Now the less obvious ones...

Nines is the Anarch leader in a time of political turmoil, with the Kuei Jin invading and the Camarilla deciding to set up shop in LA despite having been kicked out years ago. He needs an upper hand, an advantage. At the start of the game, he’s not got any political designs around the Fledgling because they’re still young and inexperienced and are struggling to keep themselves alive. He helps them out because they need the help. By the end of the game however, the Fledgling is powerful in their own right. They don’t necessarily need his protection anymore, but that means that they could tip the balance of power in favour of the Anarchs. If you choose the Autarkis/Independent ending, he even says ‘we sure could use you’ which earns him a middle finger from a Fledgling who is done with being used.

Nines’ intentions may have been good, better than most others in the game, but by the end of the game he’s got ideas that centre around the idea of the Fledgling as a weapon. He still has an agenda, and he’ll take every advantage he can get against the Camarilla.

Velvet Velour is among one of the most manipulative characters in the game, even if her intentions are good and she means well. Isaac describes her as being almost alive, and she’s always very kind to the Fledgling, to the point where she can even fall for them and write them poetry. But she doesn’t like violence, and doesn’t want to directly partake in it, so she’ll coerce someone else into doing it for her. But she can’t be upfront about that fact. She can’t reveal any serious weakness because that’s dangerous for a Kindred. Especially to one she doesn’t know very well and hasn’t been able to gauge yet. Especially one working directly for the Prince and could turn any information over to him.

Velvet’s manipulations aren’t politically motivated, but rather she’s motivated by self-preservation. To keep her hands and conscience as clean as possible, while not exposing herself to potential threats.

If you have an Investigation of 3 or higher, you can call Knox out on his ‘Asian Vampire’ story and get him to confess that it was Bertram’s plan to use the Fledgling to take out the Cathayan spy; you can’t trust Knox because he’s a pawn, and you can’t trust Bertram because he will make a pawn out of you too.

The Voerman twins can’t be trusted because of their conflict. Therese has an agenda to advance her position in Santa Monica, but she tends to be relatively straight forward with the Fledgling about that. Jeanette’s agenda is to sabotage Therese, and she’ll use the Fledgling to do it. Therese’s objective is then to get rid of Jeanette, and possibly the Fledgling if they were complicit with Jeanette’s schemes.

Strauss tries to sway the Fledgling to the Camarilla, saying he wishes that Nines could see ‘the wisdom of the Camarilla’ and doesn’t take kindly to them hanging around the Anarchs. If you take the Plague Bearer job from Damsel and then speak to him, he sounds almost like a father who ‘isn’t angry, just disappointed.’ Maybe he genuinely believes that the Camarilla is the best place for a young fledgling, or maybe he just doesn’t want one more Anarch running around the place.

Gary Golden is, from the moment he’s named as a character, known to be a political trickster. He sells the same information he sold to Lacroix to the Giovanni, and when the Fledgling meets him, he uses Obfuscate to mess with them. And then, before he’ll tell you who he sold the intel to, he sends you to find Barabus in what is essentially enemy territory. He’s very open about the fact he likes messing with people, so you can trust him to do exactly that. And that means you can’t trust that he won’t mess with you too.

Speaking of Damsel... She’s very clear about being anti-Camarilla, and about using the Fledgling to get close to Lacroix and bring them down faster. She’s very forthright. But if you argue with her plan, say that you don’t want to go back to Lacroix - who may have Dominated you twice, demeaned and belittle you, and may have even thrown you out of the tower by that point - she just tells you that she doesn’t need another Kindred hanging around the bar. You’re in a unique position, might as well make the most of it. You could argue that the Fledgling agreed to the plan and knew what they were getting into but... they don’t. At most you know the bare basics of Kindred Politics. You know the factions, and you have the faintest grasp of what they all stand for, and nothing else. The Fledgling knows nothing about the intricacies of what they’re getting involved in, and what may be asked of them. Depending on your character, they might not even know much about politicking in general. Damsel sees an opportunity and decides to seize on it, never mind that this is a young Kindred who has no sire to teach them and is still getting their bearings in the world they’ve found themselves in.

I could say more about a lot of characters *cough*smilingjack*cough* but honestly this post is already longer than I planned. This isn’t me dragging any of these characters ofc. I actually really admire the level of complexity they all have and that even the ‘good’ characters are allowed to have flaws and hidden agendas, and not just the ‘bad guys’.

#nightingale rambles #vtmb #beckett #mercurio #sebastian lacroix #ming xiao #nines rodriguez #velvet velour #knox harrington #therese voerman #jeanette voerman #maximillian strauss #gary golden #damsel

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offbrand-outlaw · 5 years

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RDR2 HCs About Arthur Morgan because who's gonna stop me?

Arthur tries to ignore a lot of his younger years before he joined the gang. His childhood just wasn't pleasant and he doesn't like to remember it.

He did love his mother and sometimes, he thinks he might have loved his father? When he was too young to know better? He doesn't know. He keeps his picture and hat...but he doesn't really know why.

When he first joined the gang he was hard to handle. He was very suspicious of everyone and tried to fight a lot with everyone. He didn't understand why everyone was...nice to him?

Like, who were these men and women giving him food and shelter and a place to call home? What were they planning? Was there a catch?

Well, of course there was.

They took him out and taught him so many things. How to read, how to write, how to steal without getting caught (Hosea) and how to really do damage if you did get caught (Dutch).

Still, as he grew so did his mood swings. He'd back talk to Dutch, argue with Hosea, yell at the women and be a pain.

Sometimes, well sometimes Arthur got the impression that Dutch regretted saving him.

He never got that impression from Hosea.

Despite being difficult, Hosea was always patient and so were the women. Hosea always made sure that Arthur was okay, no natter what.

Hosea's patience was probably what really saved Arthur. His patience showed Arthur that, no matter, they would never cast him out.

When Arthur realized this, he really started to work with the gang. He would go on heist, go hunting, go scouting, and even go on a few solo missions.

But, well, he was still a man who liked to fight and drink. So sometimes he'd get into scrapes with the other men in town and go out for a drink.

One night, he met a girl and she had his child. Eliza and Issac. He loved them more than...more than anything. Maybe more than he loved Hosea and his own mother...was it possible to love someone more than your own father and mother?

And than they died. Oh, Arthur was hurt. He was so hurt and just so broken he didn't think he'd move on. He was so angry. Angrier than anyone had ever seen him. He was...well Arthur thought he was a monster.

He'd drink and he'd fight and drink and fight. An endless cycle until one day Hosea held him down and didn't let him leave camp. Arthur hit Hosea, yelled at him and cursed him, but Hosea didn't let him up.

Not until after his curses turned to sobs and his punches turned to a tight hug around his neck. How could he possibly ever hurt this badly? How was it possible?

It took time but Arthur eventually got better. He mourned them and all he could've done, but he did get better. He started drawing again and started keeping up with his journal too.

He was healing and than Mary came along.

He loved her and she said she loved him...but her father always got in the way. Even though he knew it might happen, he was still hurt the day she refused to marry him and left.

It hurt but...it didn't hurt as bad as Eliza and Isaac. So, he knew he'd get better.

Arthur wants to be a good man, a worthy man, so that he might one day see them again. But, he still struggles with it.

Some general HCs now because that was tough

Arthur has a sweet tooth and Bessie used to bring him all sorts of goodies.

Arthur liked to wrestle as a kid, which helped him become such a good fighter.

Arthur also liked to prank people, mainly Hosea because Hosea is just so...fun to mess with?

"Arthur! Did you poor sand in my boots?" "No."

"Who...who put my bed roll in that tree?!" "I don't know."

"Arthur, I won't be mad, did you-" "No." "Arthur!"

Hosea never really got mad, just kind of exasperated.

Arthur was always asking stupid questions to make Dutch mad. Everyone in camp finds it funny. Dutch does not.

Arthur's low self esteem stems from his tough childhood and his past relationships.

Hosea always tries to help but he doesn't really succeed.

Arthur loves to sing and dance but only really by himself. When no one is looking he will get down and dance like most kids do for no reason.

As a kid, he used to take Dutch's things and just keep them until Dutch came looking. Arthur just kind of liked seeing him mad.

When Hosea and Dutch would argue, Arthur would sit with Bessie, Grimshaw, and Strauss and ask them who would win the fight. Nine times out of ten everyone would say Hosea and more often than not they were right.

Arthur never really had the chance to be a kid, but he doesn't think it mattered.

Arthur's love of drawing came from when the gang robbed a small art museum and he was just...in awe.

He practiced on people in camp and constantly had people be unwilling models.

"Herr Strauss! Hold still!" "Arthur! I'm-" "Don't talk!"

"Arthur, shouldn't you-?" "Aw, Grimshaw, you ruined it! Now your pose is all wrong!"

"Hosea?" "Hm, what? Arthur? What time is it? What are-" "Roll onto your other side. I need a good portrait."

After a while, he stopped drawing people and started drawing other things. He loves drawing landscapes and animals. Horses are his favorite.

So like, sorry if this is really long? I just had so much for Arthur to share.

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr headcanons #rdr2 #arthur morgan #j's rdr

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robotslenderman · 4 years

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OC I’ve barely ever talked about:

When I talk about Madeline and her relationship with Strauss, the Chantry and the Tremere, Amy is often at the front of my mind as one of her most meaningful friendships and bonds there. But I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned much about Amy, have I?

Amy was another fledgling that Strauss was raising at the time. She was Embraced as a Sabbat shovelhead in 2002 by Strauss’s antitribu childe, making her his grandchilde. Her sire was one of the few survivors of the 1998 antitribu massacre (having literally not been present when it happened), and also one of the last to be hunted down and eliminated.

Story under the cut. Contains a bit of headcanon involving canon characters (Strauss, Romero).

Two weeks before her sire’s final death, Amy was attacked walking home from her job as an accountant. She was thrown in an open grave in Hollywood, buried, and left to dig herself out. When she emerged, covered in dirt and wondering WTF happened and how she managed to survive being suffocated, she found the caretaker’s house and went inside for help.

Naturally, Romero freaked and pumped her full of lead.

(At the time, Amy just thought that Romero had been watching too many horror movies and thought she was a zombie. In reality, getting past Romero was part of an LA Shovelhead’s rite of passage and also the reason why Isaac kept him in the cemetery before the actual zombies showed up. The Sabbat had been increasing in numbers around that time and Romero was in charge of keeping any Shovelheads from making it out of the cemetery each night. The Sabbat left him alive because, you know, social Darwinists who reckoned his presence was doing them a favour by weeding out the weak.)

Covered in dirt, Amy fled, extremely confused as to why she managed to survive suffocation and being shot with a full magazine, and also having a strange but intense craving for a rare steak. On her way out of the cemetery she was intercepted by her sire, who fed her and brought her into the Sabbat fold. From Amy’s point of view, she was going through the weirdest kidnapping ever.

Two weeks later the Tremere caught up to him and killed him.

They would have killed Amy, too -- but she hadn’t committed Vaudlerie yet, and so didn’t have the mark of the antitribu that they expected her to have. Confused as to who she could be, figuring she was a fledgling but not knowing for sure and not wanting to chance it, the Tremere who killed her sire brought her to the LA Chantry to get Strauss to take a look at her.

Meanwhile Amy was like “uh yeah, I’ve been held hostage for two weeks by some whackjob who thinks I’m a vampire and gives me blood? I’m... honestly not sure how I haven’t starved to death yet but yeah that’s a thing that he’s doing. why am I not dead. a guy shot me two weeks ago and it just hurt a lot?”

Strauss found her Amusing. She had picked up enough information from her sire in the last fortnight that Strauss kept her (un)alive for a bit longer, partially to keep pumping her for information and partially to use her as bait for other antitribu Tremere his childe had been in contact with.

After that, she wasn’t useful any more, but she’d showed she wasn’t a liability either. So Strauss decided to keep her around and raise her as his grandchilde. Under other circumstances, if he already had a Fledgling childe at the time or simply been too busy, she’d have been put down.

She pretty much “grew up” (is that what vampires call it?) as Madeline’s adopted sister. She was around when the Pyramid was destroyed and when Madeline had her falling out with Strauss, and still there in the years afterwards. Amy gets along very well with Madeline and was pretty down when she left, but held no ill will towards her. Amy was one of the few people who could understand Madeline, although it did take her some practice to get there.

Amy had a gift for bringing out the oracle in Madeline, and was the first one to figure out that Madeline could use her mouth as a verbal equivalent to automatic writing. Amy could ask Madeline a question, and Madeline would answer it with knowledge Madeline didn’t know she had. It made them a very effective team.

Amy has made it her mission to turn Strauss into, if not a tech guy, then someone who can at least use a computer without supervision asking “where’s the any key?”

Unfortunately, Strauss is seven hundred years old and thinks technology is a fad that the kine are going through, so he has little motivation to learn and probably won’t figure out that it’s not a fad for another fifty years or so. On the rare occasion he does figure out a piece of technology, it’s almost obsolete.

Amy has not entirely given up, but until Strauss figures out that tech is here to stay, she sticks around as his unofficial tech monkey even as a neonate. Strauss is frustrated that she insists on sending texts to other vampires instead of simply letting him send out a runner with a handwritten letter, but by then they have a good enough relationship that he tolerates her insubordination on that front. Except when it comes to other elders; she lets him have his way then, because they prefer letters too.

It was Amy who delivered the card to the safehouse in Santa Monica, and also the one to raise the alarm that the Nosferatu had gone dark and stopped answering their messages.

#Amy Allegra #my OCs #Maximilian Strauss #VTM #VTMB

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the-awkward-outlaw · 5 years

Text

Second Chances - Ch. 14

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst

Warnings: angst, mentions of death, blood

Word count: ~8700

You can find the AO3 link here.

The sound of the rain beating down on the roof above your head pulls you gently from your sleep. You stir a bit under the sheets, becoming aware that you’re lying naked on the bed, a somewhat alien sensation but not an entirely unwelcome one. What happened last night between you and Arthur suddenly comes back to you. You stir slightly again, feeling a tenderness between your legs. You remember how sore you’d been when your former husband, James, had taken you the first time. How painful it was the next couple of days after. The soreness you feel now is different; less painful and certainly less hindering.

You roll over and find Arthur sitting on the bed, his journal in his lap. The sheets cover his legs, but other than that he’s entirely exposed. The scratching of his pencil stops and he smiles at you.

“Mornin’, beautiful,” he says gently.

You bite your lip and blush before sitting up, using the sheet to cover the majority of your body. You don’t know why you’re suddenly feeling so self conscious. It’s probably just the fact that your parents used to drag you to church, where the priest used to hammer into everyone’s brain that to have sex before marriage was a damning act. You stopped going to church after you were forced into your marriage. No one said that what James did to you was a damning act because he was married to you. What you and Arthur had done last night felt more right than any night you had spent with James.

Arthur puts down his pencil and sets his journal next to his leg. He turns his body so he can see you better.

“You a’right?” he asks.

You nod your head, finally finding your voice. “Last night was…” you begin to say.

He takes your hand. “Amazing.”

You feel your face blush again, the heat sinking down your neck. You shake your head. “I don’t know if I would say that. Not that you weren’t incredible,” you say, trying not to make him feel like he was inadequate. Arthur had known exactly how to please you; he’d made you feel things you never knew you could feel. “But I doubt I was any good.”

Arthur smiles sadly, looking down at your intertwined hands. “I thought you were great, darlin’,” he says, bringing your hand up to kiss it. “Those sounds you made last night.”

You blush again but reward him with a smile. You’re sure you had gotten pretty loud; the neighbors probably didn’t appreciate it.

“You know, I never did pay you back for that day in the woods,” you say.

Arthur chuckles. “I didn’t do that with thought of payment, sweetheart. That was entirely for you. Besides, think you paid me for it last night. That never wouldn’t have happened if…”

“If you hadn’t shown me it could be so good?” you finish. He looks up at you and nods. You make a mental note on how gorgeous his eyes are; you still don’t know if they’re green or blue.

“I love you, Y/N,” he suddenly says, completely throwing you off. You blink and then smile.

“I love you, too, Arthur Morgan.”

He leans back on the pillows, placing an arm behind you and pulling you into him. You happily lay on his chest, your fingers trailing through his hair. You realize how attractive it is, how the light coming from the window makes it glint gold and red. It doesn’t help that his shoulders and chest are so broad.

“Hmm, you’re much harrier than my husband was,” you say without thinking, watching your fingers comb through his hair.

“Is that a bad thing?”

You look up at him and smile. “Absolutely not. If anything, it just makes you more handsome.”

He looks away, his hand rubbing up your back. “Well, that makes one of us, darlin’.”

“Arthur,” you say, placing a hand on his cheek to make him look at you. “You are handsome.”

He smiles softly at you, but you can tell by his eyes he doesn’t believe it. You sit up and look at him, your hand still on his cheek.

“Arthur, you are the most wonderful man I’ve ever met.”

He looks down. “That’s real kind of ya, sweetheart, but I know ya ain’t met many men. Doubt you really have much to compare me to. ‘Sides, I’m a bad man, Y/N. I killed a lot of people and over a lot of real dumb stuff.”

You gently lift his head so he has to look at you again. “Just because you’ve done bad things, Arthur, doesn’t mean you’re a bad man. The fact that you regret those things means you have goodness inside of you.”

You can tell by his face that he’s about to argue, so you cut him off gently.

“Arthur, my husband and my father were both law-abiding citizens. Would you consider them good men just because they hadn’t killed anybody?”

Arthur sighs. “I done more than kill people, Y/N. I’ve robbed people, too.”

You stroke his cheek with your thumb. “My father owned a store, and my husband was a compulsive gambler. You think they didn’t rob people? Besides, you know what they did to me. Does the fact that they weren’t wanted by the law make them good men?”

Arthur places his hand over yours. He kisses the inside of your hand before looking back at you.

“No, Y/N,” he finally says. “They weren’t good men.”

“Exactly. My father was the biggest terror of my life, yet he was respected in the community. I was terrified every moment I was around my husband, yet he had friends who were lawmen. But when I’m with you, I know I’m safe. And Arthur?” you say, making sure he’s looking in your eyes. “Truly bad people don’t ask themselves if they’re bad.”

He suddenly smiles softly, his hand grabbing yours again. “How did I get so lucky to meet someone as amazing as you?”

You blush, looking down. Despite the fact that you’ve just been trying to help Arthur see himself better, you can’t believe that someone like him would think something so good about you. His finger slides under your chin, lifting your face up gently so he can look at you again.

“I mean it, darlin’. Yer amazin’.”

He bends down and kisses you. You lean your body into his, your hand sliding up and settling on his shoulder. He pulls you onto his lap, his arms wrapping around you. You break the kiss by the need for air. You smile at him.

“Ya know,” he says. “I may not have been with a lot of women, but yer certainly the best of ‘em.”

“Arthur,” you say with a small laugh. “The only woman I know you’ve been with is Mary. Forgive me, but she doesn’t seem like the kind of person that ever deserved you. Besides, if you’re comparing me to her, well she and I don’t seem nothing alike.”

He sighs heavily, his smile fading. “She ain’t the only one I been with, Y/N.”

His eyes look away, but not before you see an incredible sadness in them.

“What happened, Arthur?”

“I had a son once.”

Your breath hitches in your chest. Out of all the things you might have guessed he would say, that was the last one. “Did you… was Mary his mother?”

He shakes his head a little. “No, this was after Mary. I… I met a young girl named Eliza. 19. Waitress. I went into a saloon in this one little town for a few drinks. When we saw each other, we connected. Had way too many drinks, me and her.

“Took her home that night and we… well, I don’t remember much. But a few months later, Strauss brought me a letter from town that was from her saying she was pregnant. I did everything I could to help her while still workin’ for the gang.”

“Did you tell anyone? About Eliza and your son?”

“Only Hosea. Don’t know what I woulda done without his help. He helped keep my head straight so I could be a father to Isaac and still be part of the gang. Every few months, I’d stop by Eliza’s place for a few days. Brought her as much money as I could, and I took Isaac out huntin’ and fishin’.”

His eyes are far away as his hand runs up your back.

“One day, I got to her place and I saw two crosses outside. I knew immediately what it meant. Turns out some bastards had come and robbed ‘em, shot ‘em both dead. For $10. It hardened me, seein’ their names on those crosses.”

You hadn’t even been aware of your eyes watering, but a tear suddenly slides down your cheek.

“Arthur, I’m… I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine…”

Arthur just sighs, his face heavy.

“He was a good kid. Could never do wrong in his eyes, that was a lot of pressure. I shoulda been better to him. I could have saved them both if I… If I had been there the way a real father would have been.”

You don’t know what to say. You wipe your eyes quickly, trying to stem the flow of tears.

“It’s not your fault, Arthur,” you say without really thinking. “It’s not your fault that this life, this gang is all you’ve known. It’s not your fault that you’re as loyal as you are to Dutch, Hosea, the others. Anyone in your shoes would have done the same. You did the best you could with the situation you were put in.”

Arthur sighs again, but doesn’t say anything more. You can tell he hates himself for what happened.

“Did you ever find them?” you ask. “The men who…”

“No. ‘Sides, even if I did, it wouldn’t bring them back.”

You slide off his lap and kneel onto your knees. He looks at you curiously. Hesitating slightly, you grab his shoulders and bring him to you, placing his head on your shoulder as you hold him. His arms suddenly wrap around you so tight you almost struggle to breathe. His entire body shakes as you hear him sniff loudly. You brush your fingers through his hair and rub his back.

You don’t know how long you and he stay like that, but after a while he finally pulls away, his eyes slightly red and puffy. He places a hand on your cheek and kisses your forehead.

“Thank you, Y/N,” he whispers.

The rain carries on for the next two days, essentially trapping you and Arthur in Strawberry. Most of the time you spend in the hotel room, where you make love twice more. The rain finally begins to slow into a light drizzle.

The constant rain has dropped the temperature considerably to the point that the few times you have been outside, you’ve been able to see your breath.

Arthur leads you down the muddy street, ignoring the light rain, hand in hand with you. He takes you across the bridge and down to the saloon in town. You don’t really know why it’s called the saloon, Strawberry’s a dry town.

Arthur grabs a table for the both of you and orders venison steaks.

“Hope this rain stops soon,” you say over your meal. “We ain’t hunted much on this hunting trip.”

“I know. Camp definitely needs it, but I’m glad it rained. Gave us an excuse to…”

You blush over the table, smiling at him. “Me too.”

He grabs your hand resting on the table. “But I think it’s come down enough we could go huntin’ now.”

You agree and finish your meal. He walks you back to the horses where you mount Rannoch, with some difficulty. Arthur watches you with what you find to be a slightly cockish grin. He catches your eye and chuckles.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he says from Artemis’s back.

“It’s okay, Arthur. I’ll get used to it. Gonna have to around you.”

He chuckles again before leading you down the trail and towards Big Valley again. The remainder of the day you spend hunting, mainly pronghorns, deer and elk. The rain has stopped by nightfall, allowing you and Arthur to set up the tent on the soggy ground. You would have frozen during the night if it hadn’t been for Arthur lying close to you. You remember with a small grin how on the first night you’d spent in a tent with Arthur, you had hugged the side of the tent and barely moved. Now you curl into the crook of his arm, loving the feeling of his hand resting on your shoulder. You fall asleep, drinking in his comforting scent.

In the morning, you find yourself completely lying on top of Arthur, his thin blanket draped across you. You start to stir, hoping you’re not crushing him. His hand settles between your shoulder blades as he kisses your forehead.

“You’re okay, sweetheart,” he says.

You look up at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to completely take over your space.”

He grins at you. “You didn’t. I… pulled you up here.”

“Why?” He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know, I just wanted to.”

You kiss the scar on his chin before laying your head into the crook of his neck.

“You warm enough? I know you was cold last night,” he asks.

You sigh into his neck. “Yeah, I’m good.”

After a while, you finally slide off of him. He looks at you curiously.

“We probably need to get back to hunting, Arthur. We’ve been gone for days.”

He sighs before nodding. You both get up and pack up the tent. Just as you’re resaddling Rannoch, you hear something not far off growling and grunting. You look over Rannoch’s back and see a massive grizzly about 50 yards off in the trees. You’ve never come across a grizzly bear before, so you definitely don’t have the confidence to go after one.

Arthur stands behind you, watching the bear. “He’s got a lot of meat on him,” he says in a deep voice.

“Yeah, but there’s no way we can take him down without him attacking us.”

Arthur rubs his chin. “I might.” He grabs his bow from Artemis’s saddle.

“Arthur, an arrow isn’t going to kill a grizzly.”

“Not a regular one, no. But Charles gave me some poison arrows.”

He hunches down and starts slowly walking towards the bear.

“Be careful,” you whisper.

He continues on, his eyes never leaving the large bear. When he’s about twenty yards away from it, he stands up and aims the arrow. The bear looks up and sees him; it roars angrily. Arthur lets the arrow go, which hits the bear in the shoulder. The bear roars again and begins charging towards him.

“Arthur!” you scream. He’s just about to run back to you when the bear suddenly stops and starts running a paw against its neck. It turns away and begins ambling towards the tree, grunting. It suddenly slumps down on its side, its legs twitching.

Arthur gives you a knowing grin before turning and approaching the grunting bear. You’re worried the bear might attack him, even in its state, but Arthur plunges his knife into its heart. You hear it give one pained roar before its head slumps on the ground, completely still.

You approach Arthur as he begins to skin the bear. You help him since the thing is so massive. He heaves the rolled up skin onto his shoulder with a grunt and throws it onto Artemis’s back.

“What ya think, darlin’?” he asks. “Ya ready to head back to camp?”

“Guess we oughta. I know Hosea’s got a job for you.”

“Shit, I forgot about that. Well, let’s go.”

You smile at him as you mount Rannoch and follow him to Wallace Station, taking the train to Rhodes again. You manage to stay awake for this trip, Arthur’s hand on your leg the whole time.

“You ever rob a train like this, Arthur?” you ask. You know he’s robbed trains in the past, but you never knew what kind.

He smiles at you with a huff.

“Of course, darlin’. Even beaten a few passengers.”

“You don’t think any train we get on will be robbed, do you?”

He shakes his head. “No. Train robberies are mostly a thing of the past. The only ones that really get targeted are ones travelling a long distance. We’ll be fine.”

The train pulls into Rhodes and you both make your way to Clemens Point.

As soon as you enter the clearing, Hosea’s waiting in the trees with a wagon full of jugs you can only assume are full of moonshine. He hollers at Arthur, John sitting by his side. He dismounts Artemis and throws the bear pelt on to Rannoch’s back, patting your thigh before approaching Hosea.

You continue off into the clearing, donating the pelt to Pearson, who thanks you. He remarks on how you have fewer pelts for the amount of time you had been out. You try your best not to blush.

“Yeah, it rained heaps up there. We got trapped for a day or two.”

Pearson just gives you a smile beneath his thick mustache, going to a deer hanging up to drain.

As soon as Grimshaw sees you, she pounces on you, dealing out a large round of chores. By the time the sun has set, the rim of the horizon peaked with gold, you’re just finishing. Your stomach rumbles angrily; you haven’t taken a break since you’ve returned. You flex your sore fingers, which had been scrubbing laundry for the last hour. You stand up, heading over to the stew pot.

Just as you finish scooping up a plate, you hear someone approaching you. You turn and end up face to face with Micah.

“Ah, so nice for you to grace us with your presence again,” he sneers.

“What do you want, Micah?” you say harshly.

He lifts up his hand in an unconvincing gesture. “Nothing, miss. Y’know, I bet yer real happy to be this far from Blackwater.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

His grin widens. “I know you’re still wanted in Blackwater. From what I understand, you got a real nice bounty there.”

“Too bad yours is bigger than mine. Prevents you from claiming it,” you snarl.

His smile slinks into a frown. “Keep talkin’ like that and I’ll cut your tongue out, girlie.”

His words suddenly remind you of those Murphrees, taunting you in the cage. You try to ignore the icy stab in your chest.

“I’ll talk to you however I please, Mr. Bell. You’re nothing but a foul piece of shit.”

He raises his hand, you stand firm. A voice echoes through the camp.

“That was fun, Fenton!” you hear Hosea.

Micah lowers his hand, spotting Arthur and Hosea climbing off the wagon.

“Ah, you ain’t worth it right now,” he growls, stalking off. You take a deep breath to steady yourself. Arthur approaches you, a small smile playing on his lips.

“What did Hosea need with you?” you ask, your voice surprisingly steady.

He grabs a plate and starts filling it with stew. “Ah, we went to go sell it back to the Braithewaites. Only guess they knew we were the ones who stole it, so they had us go give it out for free at the saloon.”

He stands up straight, rolling his eyes. “Hosea came up with some scheme that required we dress up. Not my favorite thing to do. But we pulled it off until them damn Raiders showed up.”

He takes your hand and leads you over to the table so you can both eat. Afterwards, you follow him to the campfire and spend the remainder of the evening listening to the others’ stories.

After a few moments of silence, Arthur speaks up.

“Been a tough few weeks. I know I been kinda mad with you all. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry but I… I want us to get outta here. Everybody nearly gone crazy. I’m just trying to keep things together.”

He sighs heavily before continuing. “Sometimes it gets hard. I guess I’m… I’m just struggling to find a path forward for us all. Same as Dutch, same as Hosea. I don’t wanna die, but if I have to, I will. So forgive me, all of you.”

The others stay silent, including you, as you listen to his words. He stands up and heads off towards his tent. After a moment, you stand up and follow him.

“What was that all about?” you ask quietly, closing the tent flaps.

“What?” he says, taking off his shotgun coat and vest.

“That. Your little confession or whatever you wanna call it.”

“Oh. Nothing, darlin’. I just… I know I been hard on everyone lately. Just wanted ‘em all to know I ain’t doin’ it outta hate.”

You walk up to him and put a hand on his cheek. “They know that, Arthur. Everyone here knows why you been angry. You’re just trying to keep everyone alive. Can only imagine the pressure on your shoulders right now.”

He sighs before wrapping his arms around you. “I don’t even wanna know where I’d be without you, darlin’.”

You smile at him. “Probably in a mudpit, drunk as hell,” you tease.

He chuckles. “Probably.”

He gives you a small kiss before letting you go and sits down to take off his boots. You do the same before you lie down next to him, curling into his side once more.

Over the next few days, Hosea and Dutch keep Arthur busy dealing with the Grays and the Braithewaites. Micah came up with the idea that they should attempt to rob both families, something Arthur found to be an unwise decision. You’ve noticed that Dutch has been listening to Micah more and more. You don’t like it since it was Micah’s idea to rob the ferry in Blackwater and that turned out to be a complete mess.

Arthur had come back to camp early in the morning after spending all night with Sean, something to do with the Gray’s tobacco fields. He walks into the camp, bringing the smell of burnt tobacco with him.

“How’d it go?” you ask tiredly. You’ve been sleeping soundly until he had come in.

“Ah, ‘bout as well as you’d expect. Burned the fields just fine, then the Gray’s started shooting at me and Sean. That boy may be a fool, but he knows how to play people. You shoulda seen him talk his way into their land,” he says with a chuckle.

“You didn’t get hurt, did ya?” you ask, sitting up and giving him a look.

“Course not.” He sits down and sighs. “I have to head out in a bit. Join John at the Braithewaites. Grays mentioned they got some real nice Thoroughbred stallions.”

You grab him by the shoulders and pull him down to lie on the bed. “You need to get some sleep first, Arthur,” you say, planting yourself on top of him.

“I’ll get some sleep when I get back, darlin’,” he says with a smile. You can tell by his eyes he’s exhausted.

“Arthur, I know you pride yourself on pretty much carrying this gang single handedly, but you need to get some rest.”

You bend down and kiss him. His arms loop around you, squeezing you to him. He groans suddenly and you can feel him getting hard beneath you. You laugh against him.

“I’m serious, Arthur. You need some sleep.”

He kisses you again. “I could get to sleep a lot faster if…”

You grin at him, knowing exactly where he wants this to go. You stand up and close the tent flaps.

“Okay, fine, but you have to promise to be quiet,” you say, climbing back onto him.

After Arthur’s fallen asleep, you approach the campfire to grab some coffee. Abigail greets you warmly.

“How’s Jack?” you ask, sipping.

She smiles. “He’s… well, he’s doin’ just fine. If only…”

She trails off and shakes her head. You know she was about to say she wished John would be a better father to the boy. You just give her a sad smile before finishing your coffee.

You walk away towards Rannoch. You pull out a brush and begin grooming him.

“Good morning,” says a quiet, raspy voice behind you. Facing it, you find Kieran the O’Driscoll.

“Hello,” you say somewhat apprehensively. You’ve never actually spoken to him or even been around him much.

“Real fine horse you have, miss,” he says with a soft smile.

“Well, thank you.”

“You tamed him yourself, right?”

You smile. “Well, with Arthur’s help I guess.”

Kieran smiles and approaches Rannoch, offering him a sugar cube.

“What did you name him again?”

“Rannoch.”

“Rannoch?” he repeats. “Bit of a strange name. What’s it mean?”

“I… I don’t know,” you admit. “I got it from a book my grandmother used to read to me. It was the name of the main character. Thought it fit.”

“Well that’s real nice.”

You smile at him, turning back to Rannoch to pick out his hooves. When you finish, you stand up and find him staring at you, almost sadly.

“Arthur told me you saved his life back at Six Point Cabin,” you say awkwardly.

“Oh, that… that-that was nothing,” he says, looking away. “Weren’t nothing to me,” you say. “Thank you.”

He just nods and smiles before walking away towards his red roan horse.

You hear someone from near the main campfire calling your name. You turn and find Lenny and Bill standing near each other. Lenny gestures to you.

“What’s going on?” you ask, approaching them.

“Kid heard about a stage coach comin’ up from Saint Denis,” Bill says. “Headin’ up through Scarlet Meadows.”

“We figure it would be easiest to stop and rob if we had someone like you helpin’ us,” Lenny finishes.

“Me? Why me? I ain’t ever even robbed a stage before, fellas.”

Bill looks hard at you. “‘Cause yer young and pretty. Pretend like yer injured by the road and I bet them fellas on the stage will stop to see yer okay.”

“Ah, you mean you need an innocent woman’s help,” you say, trying not to sound accusatory. “Wouldn’t Mary-Beth be better? She’s younger than me and, well, she at least wears skirts.”

Lenny grins at you. “Yeah, but you know how to handle a gun. I saw you at Shady Belle.”

“Am I going to need to handle a gun again?” you ask.

“We’re hoping not,” Bill says, growing impatient. “Now let’s go. Grab yer horse and follow us.”

Not having much choice, you walk over and hop onto Rannoch’s back. You glance over at your shared tent briefly, seeing Arthur still sleeping in his cot. You wonder if he’d be happy about you being pulled into this. You shrug your shoulders and follow Bill and Lenny.

They lead you up to the Scarlet Meadows until you pass a small stream called Ringneck Creek. Just beyond it lies a trail heading north. Bill and Lenny stop in the trees.

“Okay, Y/N,” Bill says gruffly. “Now you just sit by the trail there and pretend to be lost or injured. We’ll wait here.”

You nod, feeling a little unsure. You dismount Rannoch and go to stand next to the trail. Looking down south, you find no one on the trail just yet.

“What time’s the stage supposed to come through here?” you yell back to the others.

“Just whenever it comes through,” Bill shoots back. “Ain’t like these things run on clockwork.”

“Your encouragement is staggering, Bill,” you shoot back, looking down on the trail again.

Fifteen minutes go by and still nothing. You’re just about to ask if you’ve possibly missed it when Lenny speaks up, looking through his binoculars.

“I see ‘em, they’re comin’!”

You reposition yourself on the trail and decide to use the injured woman technique. You sit down on the grass and grab your ankle, trying to put a pained expression on your face.

The stage comes over the small rise on the trail and approaches you, followed by four riders.

“Hey!” you yell out. “Hey, could you help?”

“We don’t take passengers, lady!” One of the men on top of the stage yells at you.

“Hold on,” the driver says, coming to a stop. “It’s just a girl, Henderson. Need help, ma’am?”

You nod and act relieved. “Yes, sir. My horse threw me and I think I twisted my ankle. Could you just drop me off at the closest town you’re going to?”

“I told ya, lady,” the man named Henderson snarls at you. “We don’t take passengers.”

“Will you calm down?” the driver says to him. “It ain’t that far to Emerald Ranch, we can drop her off there.”

Just as he’s about to hop off the wagon, Bill and Lenny run over on their horses, rifles pointed, bandanas covering their faces.

“Hands up! Get off the wagon!” Bill demands.

“You sons of bitches!” Henderson yells out. He points his rifle at Bill, but Lenny shoots him. Immediately the air is filled with explosions as you and the others fire upon the riders. The driver had jumped off the wagon and vanished before he could get shot. After a few moments, you, Bill and Lenny are the only ones left standing.

“Well, that weren’t too hard,” Bill says. You holster your gun and approach the stage coach. Just as your about to reach for the door handle, something grabs your ankle and pulls you down to your knees. The driver of the stage, who had been hiding underneath it, kneels behind you, pointing the barrel of a pistol to your temple.

“Drop your guns!” he yells to Bill and Lenny. “Or I’ll kill her!”

You start to struggle and his hand comes up and wraps around your throat.

“Easy, fella,” Lenny says, holding up his rifle and his other hand. “Let her go!”

The driver pulls back the hammer. “You think I’m kidding? I’ll do it!”

You thrust your elbow into his gut, he grunts and lets go of your throat. He buckles over and you turn around and punch him in the nose. You hear his gun go off before he falls down. Something hard tugs on your shirt, pulling you down. Bill’s rifle goes off, the bullet striking the driver in the head and splattering you in blood. You lie on the ground, convinced you’ve been shot although there’s no pain.

“You’re okay!” Lenny says, running over and helping you up.

“Am I shot?” you say, looking down at yourself. The only blood you see is the driver’s. Upon further inspection, you find a tiny hole in your shirt on the very edge of your body. You stick a finger into it and find that the bullet went through your shirt, which was a little large for you, but didn’t hit you. You take a deep breath, relieved.

“Ya shoulda been more careful, Y/N,” Bill snarls at you as he throws open the stage door.

“I wasn’t the only one who didn’t see him, Bill!” you say loudly.

He just grumbles as he searches the stage and comes out. He throws you and Lenny a bundle of $75.

“Not a bad take,” you say, putting it into your satchel.

The three of you head back to your horses and run back to Clemens Point. It’s late afternoon by the time you return. You see Artemis hitched next to John’s horse Old Boy.

As soon as you dismount, you hear Arthur speaking. He sounds angry.

“Takin’ her out! She don’t know the first thing about robbin’ a stage!”

You look over Rannoch’s back and find him hollering at Bill.

“She did just fine! No one got shot, we got paid!” he yells back to Arthur.

“Yeah, though not for lack of tryin’!” Arthur stomps away from him and towards you, waving his hand behind him. You’re suddenly worried. You’ve never liked being yelled at, despite how much your father did it to you. You straighten up, resolved to face it with all your courage.

Arthur comes to stand in front of you, his eyes hard and his brows furrowed.

“Are you hurt?” he demands.

You sigh. “No, Arthur. I’m just fine.”

“Who’s blood is that, then?” he gestures to your shirt. You’d managed to wipe it from your face but knew there was nothing you could do about your clothes. You tell him about the driver.

“Jesus, Y/N,” he says in frustration. “That’s the first thing ya do when robbing a wagon!”

“How was I to know? I never robbed one before.”

“Then why’d ya go out with Lenny and that fool?”

“How am I supposed to learn if I never do it?” you retort.

“I was gonna teach ya!” he says loudly. “But I been doin’ jobs for Dutch and Hosea! I was gonna take ya out when the time was right! I never wanna hear that you gone out robbin’ while I’m doin’ another job, ya hear me?!”

You wince at how loud his voice has gotten.

“It wasn’t my idea, Arthur,” you say quietly. “Bill told me I’d be perfect for the job.”

“And yer really gonna listen to that fool?”

“It went just fine, Arthur! I didn’t get shot, no one got hurt.”

He points to the hole in your shirt. “And like I said, it weren’t for lack o’ tryin’! It only takes once, Y/N!”

“So it’s okay for you to get shot at by a dozen men during a job, but one guy on a job of mine owns a pistol and I’m too weak to handle it?”

“That ain’t what I’m sayin’, Y/N,” he says quickly. “I’m just sayin’ ya need to be more careful! I don’t ever wanna hear ya been out doin’ this without me, understand?”

“I can take care of myself, Arthur! You know I can! I lived by myself for a year until I met you, chased by bounty hunters. Even shot a few.”

Arthur raises his hands and takes a step back from you, lowering and shaking his head. “I know what you done, sweetheart,” he says in a quieter tone. “I ain’t tryin’ to say yer weak. I just…”

He looks back up at you and you see the worry in his eyes. You take a hesitant step towards him, realizing how scared he must have been when he came back to hear you’d gone out on a job you had no experience with.

“I’m sorry,” you say, taking his hand nervously. You’re worried he’s still angry with you and that he might shake you off. Instead, his hand wraps around yours.

“Just promise me ya won’t do that again. If ya wanna do a job, let me know. I wanna be there with ya.”

“And what if it’s another situation like it was today?” you look up at him. “Where you’re gone and one of the others presents the opportunity.”

He sighs. “For now, tell ‘em to find someone else. I just… I want ya to know what yer doin’ before ya do stuff like that.”

You nod and slide your hand out of his. You’re just about to walk away when he grabs you gently, pulling you into his chest. You hesitate before wrapping your arms around him, nestling into his neck. He kisses your forehead before letting you go.

“That bullet didn’t get ya now, did it?” he asks, his voice gentle.

You shake your head and look down, pulling at your shirt where the bullet struck.

“It missed me somehow. Got lucky, I guess.”

He smiles at you. “Well, thank God for that. Now come on, let’s get ya somethin’ to eat.”

He takes your hand and guides you over to get some stew. Sitting down at the table, he grabs your free hand again. You’ve noticed how, ever since you both came out in the open about your relationship, he’s almost always touching you. Not that you mind, of course. You rather enjoy it.

“So, how much you come out with, anyways?” he asks.

You swallow the salty stew. “About $75.”

“Pretty good for yer first stage.”

“How much you get your first one?”

He chuckles. “Ah, about $20. Think it was one of them decoy stages.”

“What are those?”

Arthur explains how stage companies will send out decoy stages with a relatively small score to lure in criminals. You try not to smile at the end of his story, which ends with him recalling how he had tripped and fallen into some mud.

“Susan gave me a real good smackin’ when I got back, covered in that shit,” he chuckles.

After a few moments, Grimshaw, Pearson and John approach the table.

“We’re gonna play some poker,” John says. “You mind if we use the table?”

Arthur looks up at them. “Shoar. I’ll play, too.”

You stand up and grab yours and Arthur’s plates, taking them back to Pearson’s wagon, dumping them into the washbin. You go back to the table, planning on playing but finding that all the crates used as seats have been taken up.

You stand next to Arthur, placing an arm on his shoulder and leaning on it.

“You wanna play, sweetheart?” he asks.

“Sure, but there ain’t no more seats.”

He chuckles. “Shoar there is.”

His hand winds behind your waist, bringing you forward until you’re sitting on his lap.

“Arthur!” you say with a laugh. He just chuckles again as John shuffles the deck and hands everyone two cards. You look at yours: King of spades and 3 of hearts. You spot Arthur glancing at your cards.

“Are you cheating, Mr. Morgan? Is that why you made me sit here?” you playfully smack his shoulder, making him laugh. You hear Pearson and Grimshaw chuckle. John rolls his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Arthur says, smiling. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Sure you couldn’t,” you respond.

You and the others start throwing in your bets.

“Hope you’ll actually be around the next couple of days,” Grimshaw says to you. “Girls could use your help.”

“Ah, it’s my fault, Susan,” Arthur says, folding his hand. “I been takin’ her out huntin’.”

“Well, you need to remember she has other responsibilities, Mr. Morgan.”

“I won’t complain,” Pearson says, tossing in his bets. “Always appreciate the meat you both bring in.”

The cards on the table show you’ve got next to nothing. If it weren’t for your King, you’d be folding. You lay your cards down, losing to John’s hand.

You play a few more hands, occasionally peaking at Arthur’s cards. You’re sure he’s been looking at yours as well. After a while, you’re growing tired. You throw your hand in, which had nothing, and settle into Arthur.

“You gonna head off to bed?” he whispers in your ear.

“Nah, I’ll just watch with you for a bit,” you say. He nods and places his bet. You look up into the sky and silently acknowledge the stars. You recall how a few months ago, you’d been staring at the same stars tied to a tree and thinking it would be your last night alive.

You wake up in the morning, lying in your shared cot. You stir as little as possible due to the fact that this cot’s really only big enough for one. Your back is to Arthur, so you turn as gently as possible. He’s sleeping on his back, one arm behind his head, the other draped over the journal lying open on his stomach.

You reach over and gently grab the book, slowly sliding it out from under his hand. He grunts a bit in his sleep, his head turning slightly, but he doesn’t wake. You turn the book so the page he was working on faces you. You find a detailed pencil drawing of a long-legged horse. You don’t recognize it and you wonder if it was one of the one’s he’d stolen from the Braithewaites.

You flip through the previous pages, reading some of the passages he’d written. You marvel at his hand writing, the graceful loops and curving letters. You find your face drawn multiple times, along with some passages about things he had done with you. On one page, you find a highly detailed drawing of you lying in bed, your naked back exposed to him. You blush slightly at the fact that he even wanted to draw you in such a way. You read the passage he wrote explaining how you and he had connected in a new, more passionate way that night and how much he loved you.

Flipping through the pages, you find more drawings, more entries entailing the things he’s seen on his travels, the people he’s met. You find a page that catches your attention. On the left side is your face. He’s drawn you wearing a pained expression. On the right side, you read his passage.

Y/N confronted me on Mary. Told me that woman were never good enough for me, that I should find someone worth my efforts. Me being the fool I am, I threw it in her face. I know she’s got feelings for me, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any for her. This whole thing has gotten my head into a spiral. Oh Mary, what have you done to me? Got me so wrapped around you, I can’t even let you go long enough to find someone else. I said some bad things I’ll never be proud of to Y/N, I know I hurt her. She thought I was gonna hit her. I’ll never forget that horrible way she looked at me.

You flip the page, feeling sad. You wonder if he still has feelings for Mary, or if he’ll ever be over her. You read the next passage. You don’t dare mention it to him though.

I been a real fool. Chasing after Mary the way I have. Y/N told me if she really loved me, she wouldn’t be treating me this way. She’s right, of course, I known that a long time. I plan on telling Y/N the truth, how I feel about her. She’s gone now, off hunting or robbing or something along those lines.

Under that passage was a drawing of you standing in the trees across camp from where his tent had been in Horseshoe Overlook, your back to him. You flip the page and read the next passage, accompanied with a drawing of you looking hurt and miserable, your arm crossing your stomach.

Poor Y/N. Running from me, she got herself caught by some nasty folk called the Murphree Brood. They shot her horse and tortured her. Found her by her horse’s body, half dead. Surprised she could even stand, the way she was. When she saw me, she looked as though she was waiting for me to put her out of her misery. All I could do was hold on to her.

I’m a coward and a fool. I couldn’t even tell her the things I feel for her. She might have had feelings for me before, but after all this, I’d be lucky if she felt even a bit of that for me.

Arthur begins to stir beside you. You try and shut the book quickly, but you’re not fast enough. His eyes open, finding you immediately.

“What you doin’ with that?” he mutters, hardly moving. You can tell by his eyes he isn’t angry.

“Sorry, Arthur. This was lying open. I… I really shouldn’t have read it.”

“‘S’a’right, darlin’,” he says, sitting up next to you. You shut the journal and hand it back to him with a small smile. He slides it into his satchel before turning back to you, wrapping an arm behind you.

“I love your drawings,” you say before you can stop yourself, not knowing what to say in regards to his passages.

He laughs. “Those silly things? Ain’t nothing special.”

“Well, I think they are. Wish I had your skill.”

He just smiles before kissing your head. “Come on, let’s get some coffee.”

The two of you stand up after putting your boots back on. He holds your hand as he walks you through the camp. You greet Sean warmly, who’s just come from guard duty, standing next to the campfire with a cup of coffee.

“Ah, English and his girl!”

“Why are ya always calling me that?” Arthur says gruffly to him. “My family weren’t even English!”

Sean just chuckles before strolling away. You pour Arthur and yourself the steaming liquid, handing him his cup. He nods in thanks before taking a sip. You hear someone from near the lake calling Arthur’s name. You both turn and see Micah beckoning to him from Dutch’s tent.

“Ah, what now?” Arthur mutters.

You follow him to Dutch’s tent, where Micah is cleaning his pistol.

“What you want, Micah?” Arthur says. You hear a small hint of hesitancy. He’s told you how every job he’s done with Micah has turned into a blood bath.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” Micah says sarcastically. “For they shall be called…”

Arthur cuts him off, beckoning to Molly, who angrily walks past. “Hey, Molly, where’s Dutch?”

She just raises her hands and continues wandering off.

“Well, however it goes,” Micah finishes as though Arthur had never spoken.

“I’m not sure that line of thought serves you and me very well.”

“Well, that’s because, cowpoke, you are a man of profoundly limited intelligence.”

You step forward. “Shut your mouth, Micah.”

He chuckles. “I only speak the truth, miss.”

You’re just about to spit at him when Arthur puts a hand on your shoulder, stepping towards him.

“Enough of that. Now what you want?”

Micah adjusts his gun in his holster before leaning towards him. “While you and the old man and Dutch have been running around digging us ever deeper into shit, old Mr. Pearson might have gone and lightened the load a little.”

He calls Pearson over. The cook scurries over quickly, an excited grin on his face. Dutch wanders over as well, greeting them.

“You tell ‘em, fat man,” Micah says to Pearson.

“It’s peace, Dutch. The O’Driscolls. I mean, I think there’s a way.”

“Get the words out properly, fat man!” Micah says to him, rolling his eyes.

Pearson begins explaining how he bumped into some of the O’Driscolls. “Things were about to get ugly, but you know how I am in a fight!” He whips out his knife with a grin. “Like a cornered tiger!” He smiles over at you, clearly trying to look intimidating. You just fold your arms and smile back at him, resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

“Anyway,” he continues, putting his knife away. “We got to talking and they suggested a parley to end things like gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen?” Dutch suddenly snaps, walking heavily over to Pearson. “Colm O’Driscoll? Have you lost your minds?”

“You’re always telling us, Dutch,” Micah says. “Don’t fight wars ain’t worth fighting.”

Hosea, who’d been sitting at the table nearby and reading a newspaper, calls over. “It’s a trap!”

“Well, of course it’s probably a trap,” Micah responds. “But what have we got to lose finding out?”

“Getting shot,” Arthur says, glaring at Micah.

“We ain’t getting shot,” Micah says to him. “Because you’ll be protecting us! If it’s a trap, you shoot ‘em all, but if it’s that slim chance…”

“I don’t see the point in any of this!” Dutch says, walking past you and Arthur.

“It’s a chance we gotta take,” Micah says, following him to the table where Hosea sits.

You don’t like the way Micah sounds, something seems off about it. You’re just about to say something to Dutch, to tell him this is a bad idea, when he holds a hand up to silence everyone.

“I killed Colm’s brother, long time ago.” He takes a long pause, looking away. “Then he killed a woman I loved dear.”

Micah sighs and leans his hands on the table. “As you say, Dutch. It’s a long time ago.”

Dutch sighs and nods. You can tell by his eyes that he’s made a decision. “Let’s go. You and me,” he gestures to Micah. “With Arthur protecting us, no one else!”

Pearson begins to argue until Dutch tells him this isn’t a good job for him. Arthur turns to you. You’re suddenly worried. From everything you’ve heard about the O’Driscolls, a parley seems like the last thing they’d want between them and Dutch.

“It’ll be a’right,” Arthur says.

“I don’t want you to go,” you say, clutching his arm.

“Come on, Arthur!” Dutch calls from the back of his horse.

Arthur just sighs before patting your arm and heading off to Artemis. You watch him leave with the other two.

Pearson stands next to you, looking disappointed. “Come on, Y/N. Let’s go.”

He leads you over to his wagon, assigning you to cut up vegetables. The entire time, you can’t shake off the feeling that something’s wrong. You can’t stop thinking about how cozy Micah made it all sound, like it was going to be the easiest thing in the world.

A few hours have gone by. You sit at the table with Hosea, playing a round of dominoes, losing the third round spectacularly.

“You need to get your head in the game,” Hosea says, shuffling the tokens.

“Sorry, Hosea. Just worried is all.”

“I know what you mean. I don’t like it either. Traps are easy to spring, but this one feels wrong.”

“These O’Driscolls. What’s the deal with them anyways?”

“Ah, that’s a long and ugly story. Dutch and Colm used to have an understanding, of sorts. They never got along, per say, but they deliberately stayed out of each other’s way when it came to scores.”

Hosea places down the double sixes token. You place down one of yours.

“Well, Colm’s idiot brother showed up to a train robbery we was pulling some 15 or so years ago. Started getting snarky with us, trying to weasel a share, so Dutch shot him. Few months later, we found Dutch’s girl Annabelle dead in an old cabin. It was obvious Colm did it, he’d left enough messages around her body. Ever since then, they’ve been fighting over scores and trying to get the other killed or arrested.”

You sit in silence for a moment, wondering what went through Dutch’s mind. You place your last token down. “Domino,” you say with little excitement.

Hours have gone by since Arthur left with Micah and Dutch. The feeling of unease in your stomach has only grown stronger. You’ve been mixing your chores with a steady amount of pacing near the horses, waiting. You pass them now and Grimshaw marches over to you.

“Miss Y/L/N!” She hollers. “I have had it! Go help the girls!”

You quickly dodge her grasp and scurry over to Karen, sitting on a crate.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Karen says. “They’ll be back soon.”

You just smile at her and pick up a part of the awning Karen’s sewing, helping her. You glance up every few minutes, waiting for the men to come bounding in.

After nearly an hour, you hear the sound of horses coming towards the camp. You abandon the awning and jog over to meet them. You spot Micah and his horse. He doesn’t even so much as look at you. Then Dutch appears, looking distraught. He sees you and his face falls. He stops and dismounts the Count.

“Arthur?” you say expectantly. “Where is he?”

Dutch pauses before placing a hand on your shoulder. He swallows heavily.

“I… I’m real sorry, Y/N. Arthur’s dead.”

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan #arthur x reader #arthur morgan x oc #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #Van Der Linde Gang #I'm awkward #second chances #fanfiction #R* Games #rockstar games

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vampire-the-askerade · 4 years

Text

Vtmb to seeing your bra strap haning out

[Look, I have no idea what drove me to not only write this, but also for everyone, but the fates has deemed it to be so else it would bit be here at this time.]

Camarilla

LaCroix- The absolute scandal! "Make yourself decent at once!"

Sheriff- He doesn't care. Wear your clothes how you want to.

Strauss- Will discreetly tell you( walking up to you to say it quietly if there are other people in the room), "Perhaps you would like to go to the other room to adjust yourself."

Therese- Look, she's been there and gets it. Sometimes a bra just doesn't do what you want it to. Will point out the strap is showing and suggest you fix it, but won't be horribly offended if you don't.

Nosferatu

Imalia- Only cares if it's not cute/fancy. Literally will be like, "If you're gonna show people your bra, at least wear a nice one."

Mitnick- He will notice immediately but not know if he should tell you or not. He doesn't know if it would be ruder to tell you or to let it be. Doesn't know the protocol for such things at all.

Bertram- As soon as he notices the strap, he'll crane his head to see if he can catch a glance at more. He's kind of a creep like that. Will make a snarky comment about it.

Barabus- Will just tell you straight out. After all that he has seen, there's no way he's going to find a simple article of clothing offensive.

Gary- Actually gets a little flustered about it. Knows that he shouldn't, but there's just a part in his upbringing that screams that seeing something like that is horrifically embarrassing for all parties involved. Either way, he'll manage to grunt out, "Having problems there, boss?"

Anarchs

Jeanette- Yeah, she's not going to care. Have you seen her? Her whole bra is showing.

Damsel- Oh, no. Now everyone will know that you wear the same piece of clothing that like half of the population wears! Not only does she not care, she will also tell other people they're stupid for freaking out about it.

Skelter- Might point it out if he sees it. It's not like it bothers him, but he's concerned that you might get embarrassed about it.

Nines- If this does fluster you, it will still fluster him more. He thinks the best way to handle the situation is to pretend that your strap is not hanging out from your shirt. Regardless, he keeps looking at it. He almost can't help it.

Jack- can and will snap it when he walks by. Not in a creepy way at all. More of his inner child coming out when it sees an opportunity for unbridled chaos. It will happen every time he able to pull it off; which is often.

Independents

Vivi- Immediately offers to get you one that fits better. It doesn't offend her, more so it bugs her. Why would you wear something that gives you fits like that when you could easily get one that does its job better.

Ash- He has crazy, drunk fans in his club all the time. He's seen a lot more of people than a bra strap. In fact, he'll take the bra strap over any of the other things that he's seen.

Isaac- It depends. He thinks it's tacky but won't see it as much of a bother if it's just in passing. However, if you're with him or representing him in any way, he will promptly tell you to go fix them because then he feels that you are making him look tacky.

Beckett- You wouldn't think that he would notice because almost everything would still be business as usual. That is until one day you hear, "So, you're wearing the blue one today?"

Other

Ming Xiao- Won't say anything, but she will be judging. You don't look that perfectly put together 24/7 and not notice something like that.

Andrea- At least you have clothes. He's been the Arch Bishop of one of the most volatile places in kindred history, and coverage of any sort is not always a given with the ravenous, anger-ridden fledglings that he is often trying to corral.

Pisha- More boggled that you still wear a bra. There are so many, less restricting options out there for you to use. Even with this, she doesn't care what you wear really. Just giving you some food for thought since you were considerate enough to give her actual food.

Cain/ the cabby- What the hell is a brassiere?

Ghouls and Humans

Mercurio- For him it depends on how much he knows you. Doing the dirty work that he has both before and after becoming a ghoul, he’s seen a lot. But, there’s just something for him seeing it happen with someone that he knows that gets him flustered. He feels like he’s seeing something he’s not supposed to.

Heather- Why does that matter? Some shirts just show them reguardeless. She used to be worried about this because she came from a rather strict household, so it would have bothered her at some point, but not any more.

Knox- He honestly doen’t even know what that is. Is it a new style of shirt? Looks pretty cool, bro. Man, can he get one too so he can look as cool as you do?

Vandal- Hey, are those removeable? Can he have them? He needs something to strangle someone a few floors up and those fit the bill just perfectly. He’ll even give them back when he’s done because he’s just that nice.

Patty- Wow, she would never! She would say that she didn’t care, but wouldn’t drop it the whole time you were with her. At this point you have to let it stay down out of principle.

Romero- He would snap them as he walked by, but unlike Jack it would be really creepy and not in a fun teasing way. Just punch him really good, and he’ll stop.

Chunk- Uh, hey, there friend, are you aware that you’re a bit out of dress-code there? He’s going to have to ask you to fix yourself or leave. Sorry, just boss’s orders there, pal.

#there's no excuse for this #it's like 12:40 and I'm slightly sleep deprived #vtmb #vtmb imagins #im too tired to tag all the people here #sorry

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artinandwritin · 5 years

Text

Fairy Tail Next Generation (my personal view)

Yesterday, I talked about my view on the next generation of How To Train Your Dragon. Today, I do the same, but with Fairy Tail.

Some names for the kids, like Storm, Reiki, Sylvia and others are from tumblr-user kkumri, so the rights for their names go to them! Next to that, Nashi is already sorta canon, so I’m not gonna argue with that.

The Dragneel Family (Natsu and Lucy):

Nashi Luna Dragneel is their first born child and oldest daughter, born in the year X797. She uses Fire Dragon Slayer Magic, is a mage of Fairy Tail and a member of Team Nashi. She is is more mature than her siblings, but also quite violent and doesn’t think things through. Looking more like her father, people are almost forced to call her “the Second Salamander”.

Lucas Igneel Dragneel is their first son and second child, born in X799. Although he uses Celestial Spirit Magic, he also has his fair share of Heat Resistance. He is a mage of Fairy Tail and a member of Team Star-Struck. He is rambunctious and a joker, often getting attention for one or more of his actions. He shares a close bond with Charlotte Conbolt, trusting each other above anything else.

Layla Ashley Dragneel, their third child and second daughter, is born in X801 and uses Sound Magic and Thought Protection. She is, like her siblings, part of Fairy Tail, and she is a member of Team Sound. She once was close with her older brother and the daughter of Wendy and Romeo, but after an accident involving the two they grew apart. She is more like her mother, although she doesn’t forgive others as easily.

The twins, Spirit Aquarius Dragneel and Igneel Jude Dragneel are born in X816, a long time after Layla’s birth. They were unexpected, but loved by all. Spirit uses Moon Dragon Slayer Magic, while Igneel uses Sun Dragon Slayer Magic.

The Fullbuster Family (Gray and Juvia):

Storm Silver Fullbuster is born in X796, a year before Nashi. The two are close, but fight a lot. Storm uses Ice Devil Slayer Magic and Water Magic and is a member of Team Nashi. He is quite the depressed thinker, often staring into the void - and the void stares back. However, he isn’t as emo as he thinks.

Sylvia Ur Fullbuster and her twin brother, Rin Yuki Fullbuster, are born in X799, in the same year as Lucas. Sylvia uses Water Devil Slayer Magic, Rin Archive Magic and Memory Control. Both are part of Team Sound. Rin and Lucas are best friends since birth, often telling each other their secrets or having a “men’s night off” (all they do is watching sappy movies and eating ice-cream). As his best friend, Lucas is the only one who knows about Rin’s crush on Rosemary Fernandes. Sylvia, however, shares too much information. She has the habit of stripping others - mainly males - and loves to write down love stories.

The Fernandes Family (Erza and Jellal):

Reiki Simon Fernandes is born in X795 and is a former member of Crime Sorcieré, now in Fairy Tail’s Team Nashi. He uses Heaven God Slayer Magic and is, like his mother, an S-Class Mage. He is the most mature, but also the most shy member of the next generation. He is seen as one of the most powerful people in Fairy Tail, often going on dangerous missions and taking risks.

Rosemary Strawberry Fernandes is born in X800 and Sylvia’s best friend. She uses Heavenly Body Magic and is a member of Team Sound. She is a warrior by heart, but often blunt and careless about the feelings of others, what makes her seem arrogant. However, she wishes best for her friends and family.

The Redfox Family (Gajeel and Levy):

Emma Ellie Redfox is born in X794 and is a long-time S-Class mage. She uses Iron Dragon Slayer Magic and is a part of the S-Class team, Team Strike of Lightning. She is a playful, but mature person who tries to help others with all her might. She is extremely close to Nova Dreyar and her foster brother, Kurai, and has trusted them both with her crush on Reiki.

Shutora Gale Redfox and Yajeh Metalicana Redfox are born in X799 and form Team Iron Destiny. Shutora uses Solid Script Magic, while her brother uses Sandstorm Magic. Yajeh is the more calm one, while his sister is more of an emo person, often joking about dark stuff. Both were close to Sylvia, but once the girl started crushing on Yajeh, the three grew apart.

The Dreyar Family (Laxus and Mirajane):

Nova Jane Dreyar is born in X794 and is part of S-Class team, Team Iron Destiny. She uses Lightning Dragon Slayer Magic and is very close with Emma and Kurai. She is strict, sometimes scary, but as she’s often on dangerous missions with her friends, it’s not often seen as something bad. Nova has a major thing for Kurai, but is too afraid to express it.

Rai Makarov Dreyar, born in X798, is a member of Team White Destiny and the greatest confidor of Fay Strauss, his cousin. He uses Take-Over Magic and Memory Make Magic, making him one of the strongest of the next generation. However, he is clumsy, shy and a real sweetheart - causing Layla to fall for him.

The Conbolt Family (Romeo and Wendy):

Charlotte Grandeeney Conbolt is born in X801, uses Sky Dragon Slayer Magic and is a member of Team Star-Struck. She is very close with Lucas, them having been friends since her birth. Both of them share a lot with each other, trusting the other with their deepest secrets. Charlotte is one of the sarcastic members of the next generation, but also easily scared and with zero confidence. Lucas refers to her as “his girl” more than often.

Aeros Peter Conbolt is the twin brother of Grandeeney Juliet Conbolt, who died quickly after their birth in X807. Aeros is scarred by this, often hearing his sister’s voice when it’s quiet. He uses Dark Magic and is not yet in a Guild. He is a little bit dark at times, but otherwise a normal kid.

Rowan Sky Conbolt is born in X813 and is about to use Rainbow Fire Magic like his father. He is a cheerful child, in contrast to his older siblings. He absolutely adores Lucas, and wants to play with him as soon as he walks into the house when he hangs out with Charlotte. Lucas, in return, loves his girl’s baby brother and acts like a big child around him.

Kurai’s Situation (Mavis/Mio and Zeref/Arius):

Kurai Hikaru Dragneel is born in X794, to Mio and Arius, aka the reïncarnations of Mavis and Zeref. However, issues happened, and Kurai was left by the door of Fairy Tail, with the only not being: “Please take care of our little Kurai”. He was adopted by Gajeel and Levy, raised alongside Emma. He turned out to love science, having a lab of his own. He is pretty cheerful and very good at observing and taking situaties into his own hands.

Happy and Carla’s Family:

Cappy and Ami are their only children, born in X808. Cappy is best friends with Nashi and almost exactly like his father, while Ami is on Team Star-Struck with Lucas and Charlotte and is more mature.

I have other couples’ kids listed, but it would take a very long time to write down all of them. So, here’s the list of the children I skipped over:

Otoko Strauss (Elfman and Evergreen) Fay Strauss (Elfman and Evergreen) Weiss Eucliffe (Sting and Yukino) Tora Eucliffe (Sting and Yukino) Kage Skiadrum Cheney (Rogue and Minerva) Zeri Erza Cheney (Rogue and Minerva) Cornelia Yosuko Alberona (Cana and Bacchus) Hebi Kya Suru (Erik/Cobra and Kinana) Amaru Ren Suru (Erik/Cobra and Kinana) Moran Shi Akachan (Bickslow and Lisanna, deceased) April Saisho Akachan (Bickslow and Lisanna) David Banme Akachan (Bickslow and Lisanna) Ebony San Akachan (Bickslow and Lisanna) Ayame Yui Akachan (Bickslow and Lisanna) Chirasu “Chira” Justine (Freed) Isaac Connell (Alzack and Bisca) Lyre Ultear Vastia (Lyon and Meredy) Kai Gray Vastia (Lyon and Meredy) Sora Tearm (Eve and Sherria) Akio Tearm (Eve and Sherria) Miyako Tearm (Eve and Sherria) Amy Akatsuki (Ren and Sherry) Kenji Akatsuki (Ren and Sherry) Hiroki Lates (Hibiki and Jenny) Kiyoko Lates (Hibiki and Jenny) Michi Lates (Hibiki and Jenny) Haru Lates (Hibiki and Jenny) Tsuki Mayonaka (Macbeth/Midnight and Sorano/Angel) Akeno Mayonaka (Macbeth/Midnight and Sorano/Angel) Catrin (Millianna and Shô) Felina (Millianna and Shô) Hayai (Jet, adopted) Atsui (Droy, adopted) Brannie Alors (Max) Koa Rocko (Laki and Warren) Nico Gryder (Mest and Katja) Lahar Gryder (Mest and Katja) Kioku Lore (Rufus) Safaia E. Fiore (Hisui and Arcadios) Delphinus (Aquarius and Scorpio) Carina (Aries and Leo/Loki) Lupus (Aries and Leo/Loki) Orion (Aries and Leo/Loki)

#fairy tail #nalu #gajevy #gale #rowen #romendy #natsuxlucy #jerza #fairy tail next generation #fairy tail next gen #ocs #characters #gruvia

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victorluvsalice · 4 years

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AU Thursday: Alice Vs The Questionnaire I Just Made

Because it would be remiss for me to send it out into the world and not answer it myself, right? ;p

1. How many of the sidequests did your characters do? Did they manage to complete all of them?

Alice completed most of the sidequests, mostly because I find them interesting, they're good to advance the plot of my story, and -- in-game -- they're good sources of XP. The only ones I skipped/failed were (Edit: naturally I forgot a few on my first posting; what can I say, there’s a lot of side quests!):

Drug Trip -- The Unofficial Patch Plus only quest where you can get some XP and +1 Finance by stealing some drugs for Trip from the clinic. In-game, I completely forgot this was an option and never did it. In-story, Alice is trying to get drugs by more legitimate means for Mercurio rather than steal morphine, so I don’t think she’d be keen to get the recreational stuff for Trip.

Daydream Believer -- Only marked as an official “quest” by Unofficial Patch Plus, this is where you can sell Copper “unicorn blood,” fang-blunting gum, and a stake to kill the head vampire if you’re feeling maliciously playful. Alice was not -- in fact, she likes the Thin-Bloods and wants to help them. And that includes sympathizing with Copper about his desire to become human again, while also warning him off doing anything stupid.

Replanting A Lily -- The quest where you send Vandal someone to replace Lily in his blood-draining chair once you’ve freed her as part of Thinned Blood. In-game, I simply Demented him into some hysterical laughter to forget the whole thing (in case I needed him for emergency rations). In-story, Alice slammed him up against the wall and informed him the only reason she wasn’t about to kill him was because she needed to stay in the Voerman sisters’ good books. Vandal being Vandal, he immediately found this the sexiest thing that had ever happened to him and tried to give her free blood (like might happen with the Intimidation option), which she told him to stick where the sun don’t shine. Yeaaaaah, Alice doesn’t like Vandal.

Occultish Personality -- The quest where you get occult items for Pisha, and she gives you powerful items in return. Rather than work with Pisha, I had Alice kill her after taking care of the Simon business. This was purely a character choice, as I didn't see Alice ever working with her (she disapproves too strongly of what Pisha does to sate her Hunger -- she understands that the woman is under a pretty nasty curse, but the entire camera crew?!).

Venucide -- Okay, this is an interesting one -- this is the alternate side quest you get if you take Boris up on his offer to kill Venus during And Her Name Was Venus. I didn’t do this in-game -- I’m not doing low Humanity with Alice, and besides you earn a lot more with Venus alive and giving you club profits -- but I mention it because Alice pretends to take the offer, goes back to Venus, and works with her to fake her death before going back to Boris to get the reward, then kill him. Venus is quite tickled by the whole thing. XD

Dirty Dishes -- The quest where you help one of the three Giovanni relatives at the party to gain an advantage over the other two. I attempted this one, with the intent of having maybe Victor or Victoria do something with the info in the story (as they're the ones actually doing the social stuff -- Alice snuck in Obfuscated with them), but as it turned out, I didn't have the Persuasion necessary to get the dark secrets out of all three. I only managed to get Adam Dunsirn to admit he’s broke -- ratted him out to Mira for an experience point. Ah well. . . In-story, Victor will probably learn Adam’s secret while socializing, but not actually tell anybody.

Model Citizen/Cover Girl -- Imalia's quests -- either planting webcams to spy on her rival Tawni, or (if you piss her off/want extra XP after the previous quest), getting her a copy of a magazine with her on the cover back before Nosferatuing. Imalia is one of those characters who reacts very poorly to meeting a Malkavian, and is generally pretty conceited, so I didn't have Alice stick around to actually get the quests. By this point in the story, she's not doing favors for people who treat her like ass unless she has to.

Poster Session -- The quest where you trade various objects you can collect around the world to Gary for posters of the ladies in the game. Okay, in all actuality, I am doing this one in my game, if only because I'm collecting the objects he's asking for anyway while doing other quests and I might as well, but Alice in-story wouldn't be interested, and I'm not sure Gary would make the offer anyway, given their relationship.

2. How long do you think their stay in L.A. lasted, from Embrace to ending?

I'm working on figuring this out right now in my current playthrough! Part of the reason I fired up Bloodlines again was to actually work out a timeline for "Londerland Bloodlines," as the one given on the wiki feels absurdly short (and cuts out all the side quests). The way I've currently got it, it looks like Alice's Adventures In Los Angeles will stretch from October 21st, 2004, to the middle of November that same year (maybe about the 15th or so?), though I think I'm going to be adding in extra time in the story to help develop relationships and build in some extra breathing room for the characters. So, at a rough estimate, about two months.

3. Which ending did they go for? And if they're the rare Kindred who sided with Ming or LaCroix, did they somehow manage to escape their canonical fates (blown up/sunk to the bottom of the ocean)?

Alice is Independent all the way -- by the end of the game, she neither likes nor trusts practically anyone in the Kindred/ghoul community of L.A. (with four key exceptions, and one of those -- Beckett -- has already skedaddled by the end game) and just wants out. Hell, she would have left earlier if she'd gotten the chance -- she would have happily left L.A. the moment LaCroix sent her up against the Sabbat alone if said Sabbat hadn't kidnapped Lizzie and Victoria, and she would have just left straight after rescuing them and killing Andrei if she hadn't had a guilt attack about helping to get a Blood Hunt called on Nines and deciding she had to tell him about what Ming-Xiao told her. And the Cabbie is the one who talks her into taking down LaCroix and Ming-Xiao when she escapes the Blood Hunt, telling her that the only way to truly feel free is to make sure neither of them can come after her again. She is only too happy to leave the city when everything and everyone is done and dusted.

(Also, semi-related I had what I feel is a pretty awesome idea regarding why she gives LaCroix the key -- a post in the vtmb tag mentioned that anyone who had Auspex might be able to scan the sarcophagus and see there's no uber-vampire inside. The way Alice uses Auspex in her story, it functions partially as a real-life "Shrink Sense,” to fit with her madness. Maybe, at the end of the game, Alice finally uses Auspex on the sarcophagus to see what she can glean, and sees that a) there's no vampire and b) the Insane Children have drawn jack-in-the-boxes all over it, along with arrows to leave. Figuring LaCroix can suffer the disappointment of it being empty, she drops the key and heads off, not QUITE realizing WHY the kids told her to leave -- that is, until her Wonderland friends start BOOKING IT out the door when she gets down to the lobby, and she realizes those jack-in-the-boxes look like her own Jackbombs. . .)

4. How do they feel about the major power players in L.A. (LaCroix, Strauss, Smiling Jack, Nines, Isaac, Ming-Xiao, Gary)? Did their opinions of them change at any point thanks to a quest or just more time spent with them?

LaCroix: Hates him from the moment he Dominates her into leaving the Nocturne Theater instead of bothering to answer any of her questions. She's willing to keep her head down when she's around him (for fear of more Domination) up until Grout's mansion -- then she starts demanding she be paid like a proper employee, at least, and getting a lot snarkier in his presence. When the Blood Hunt on Nines was called (which involved him Dominating her AGAIN so she wouldn't warn Nines beforehand), she was about ready to gut him, and sincerely hoped there was something in that damn Sarcophagus so it would eat him. She doesn't particularly mind he got blown up in the end -- she was much more concerned for anyone else who was in the upper levels of the tower.

Strauss: She found him a little condescending, but helpful, when she first arrived in Downtown and sought him out. (Didn't think much of his poetry skills, though.) He gave her some good information on vampires around the city and the Camarilla in general, and she can't deny he paid well for helping take care of the plaguebearer situation. Her opinion of him plummets the moment she learns about his role in creating the Gargoyle, though. The idea that he kept that living, thinking being as his slave. . .not to mention, his low opinion of ghouls doesn't do much to endear him to her either.

Smiling Jack: Like Strauss, she spends most of the game thinking he's not exactly the best company, but he was helpful and gave her a hand in a very tough spot in her life. And he seems to be the most chill of the older vampires she's come across.

And then the sarcophagus explodes, Alice manages to put together the clues on who's behind it, realize he slaughtered all those people on the Elizabeth Dane and is indirectly responsible for a lot of the shit she's gone through. . .and basically exiles herself from Los Angeles forever by staking him and leaving him for the sunrise on her way out. (She is as shocked as anyone that she managed to pull it off -- she thought it would be a much worse fight!)

Nines: Alice is grateful to him for helping to save her life at her initial trial, and she likes his philosophy just fine. Unfortunately, their relationship was wrecked fairly early on by two factors:

1) Alice making a joke about the Last Round, which Nines took poorly -- Alice attempted to apologize, but Nines refused to hear it

2) Alice not liking Skelter and Damsel, both of whom immediately gave her shit for being LaCroix's "lapdog" and a Malkavian

So yeah, there was definitely some tension there. And the whole Blood Hunt mess happened, and frankly Alice is shocked Nines was willing to talk to her when she went looking for him on her way out of L.A. post-Sabbat. She sometimes wishes they'd had a chance to make up, but given that she doesn't think much of the Anarchs in general anymore. . .she's not losing sleep over their cool relationship.

Isaac: He's one of the main reasons she doesn't think much of the Anarchs in general. She thought it was pretty smart of him to have someone to direct vampires new to Hollywood to him to say hello -- up until he mentioned "tribute." That and his generally imperious attitude toward her at first means she considers him just another Prince under a different title. Learning what happened between him and Ash didn't help either -- she can understand not wanting to let someone you care about just die, more than she would admit, but he doesn't seem to have handled things well post-Embrace, given he didn't do jack shit about the hunters menacing him. (Hoping the threat would drive Ash back into his arms, perhaps?) Add in that he didn't even pay her for taking care of the Gargoyle (never mind Alice didn't actually kill it -- she still convinced it to leave), and -- yeah. She considers him everything wrong with the Anarch movement.

Ming-Xiao: Alice considered her fairly stuck-up when they first met, but really no worse than any of the regular Kindred she'd met -- and it was interesting to quiz her on how Kue-jin are different. Of course, learning that the Mandarin was on her payroll and she's actively trying to kill her lowered her opinion of her a bit. She actively avoids Ming-Xiao after the Fu Syndicate stuff, and nearly just puts her new enchanted katana straight through her when she shows up post-Sabbat. She certainly doesn't shed a tear when she has to destroy her at the end of game.

Gary: Alice thinks he's a bit of an overdramatic jerk, but she kind of enjoys matching wits with him. And at least he's more honest about being a jerk than most vampires, and keeps up his end of the bargain when she frees Barnabus, no problem. Whatever relationship they have is built upon snarking at each other, basically. :p

5. How did they handle the situation with Heather (or, if you're like me, whoever you replaced Heather with in their personal story)?

Obviously, in my world, Victor got hit by the car and got the ghouling treatment. Alice saw him lying all alone in that room and -- couldn't let him just die like that. She's utterly horrified to learn that she created an addict by doing so, and actively has Betram and Knox seek Victor out (using the Cathayan's laptop as payment) and send him her way so she can keep an eye on him and hide any Masquerade violations he may commit. Her original intent was to hold onto him until he stopped being a ghoul, then quietly set him loose, away from prying Kindred eyes. . .

. . .And then she fell in love.

Cue quite a lot of angsting over the fact that she doesn't want to lose him, but she feels so guilty about the Blood Bond and she doesn't know if Victor's feelings are actually real -- which only gets worse when Victoria and Emily join the group, as then she's like "I should let Victor be with one of them -- oh crap I like them too, what the hell Alice, years of not falling in love and now it's two mortals and a zombie." It took Mercurio explaining that his Blood Bond does not actually force him to like LaCroix, just be loyal to him, to convince her that keeping Victor -- and turning Victoria into her ghoul -- might not be as bad as she feared.

And then Victor had his prophetic dream about the Sabbat. He and Emily successfully fled the city (the "letting Heather go" branch of her mini-storyline), but Lizzie and Victoria got captured by the Sabbat and used as bait for a trap for Alice (the "Heather gets captured and killed" branch). Unlike in canon, though, Alice is able to successfully save them (with the help of Bonejangles, VV, and Bertram), and ghouls Victoria to help her heal before sending them away. They all reunite once she's done with the endgame. :)

6. More generally, how closely does their storyline stick to how you have to do things canonically? For example, in quests, did they find third options that weren't offered by the game? Are their stories affected by mods you use while playing the game?

I play with the Unofficial Plus Patch, so there's going to be some stuff from that included in my story, just because that's what I'm used to -- for example, Alice is doing the restored library quest featuring the Lasombra in her storyline. As for the main storyline itself, I'd say that, even with the character replacements and suchlike, it stays pretty much true to the game until about the time Alice hits Hollywood -- namely because I've replaced one-shot character Sam with Victoria, who has a much larger role in "Londerland Bloodlines." After that, it starts to veer off a bit more, in particular during "Italian Dinner," where Emily, Lizzie, and Bonejangles join the party --

But the most major break with canon is in the endgame. Namely, Alice decides to skip fighting her way up Venture Tower and instead climbs up the outside with the help of some climbing equipment she sources from Mercurio. :p Lacroix is more than a little surprised. XD (Though she still has to fight the bat-form of the Sheriff -- can't escape the whole boss fight, Alice!)

7. Do they have an alternate storyline/history of what might have happened had they been Embraced but not ended up the protagonist Fledgling?

I covered that a couple of weeks ago! You can read the "Mistakenly Thinned Blood" AU of the AU in detail here, but the short version is "Alice is Embraced more secretly by her sire Fish, manages to kill him post-Embrace, goes to Santa Monica, and ends up hanging out with the Thin-Bloods because everyone thinks she's one of them. Still saves Victor, meets Victoria, and rescues Lizzie, Emily, and Sam from the Giovannis, though -- and then gets out of town before the freaking-out populace who just learned what she actually is can catch up with her."

8. Is the Cabbie a) Caine, b) another Kindred who believes himself to be Caine for whatever reason, c) another Kindred playing the long con by pretending to be Caine, d) something else entirely?

He's Caine -- I like the headcanon, and the idea of him posing as a random taxi driver in L.A., looking upon all this chaos and wondering "why. why." amuses me. XD

9. How do you handle/explain away obvious "this only works in a video game" mechanics in their storyline (e.g., the inventory system that allows them to carry like seven guns and five melee weapons at once)?

With me, Alice is going to be carrying a lot fewer weapons at once -- she'll generally pick a few favorites to take with her on missions (she always has a knife on her, at least), and uses Obfuscate to truck them around invisibly when she's in crowded areas. She probably also gets a bag or backpack to carry useful things. She also goes through a lot more clothes until she gets some decent leather jackets and such -- her starting outfit is basically wrecked by the tutorial mission, leading to LaCroix's agents having to buy her a new dress before she can pick up her things and go to her new haven in Santa Monica. (I have decided to make it Symbolic by having her wear the modern equivalent of her London outfit from A:MR when she gets Embraced, and the outfit being destroyed representing her change from human to vampire.)

10. How do you explain why the Fledgling is so ridiculously overpowered when compared to most other vampires their age (beyond the fact that they're likely 8th generation, going by their blood pool)?

My personal explanation, which might come up in the final conversation Alice has with Caine in the cab, is that some people in this universe are born with great supernatural potential, for whatever reason, and Alice is one of them. There's just something about her that lends itself well to being a supernatural creature -- and a powerful one at that. If she'd been from a werewolf line, she would have been an amazing werewolf; if she had awakened as a mage, she would have been a super-talented mage. As she was Embraced, she gets to be a terrifyingly strong vampire. Alice personally considers this a pretty shitty "chosen one" status, but she can't deny she liked getting really good at Obfuscate really fast!

#londerland bloodlines #vtmb #questionnaire #this about covers most of what I wanted to talk about with Alice #and I really like that idea for Alice giving LaCroix the key #my original idea was her just going 'you know what #here I hope the vampire inside eats you'#but that felt a little too vicious #not toward LaCroix but toward everyone else in L.A.#Alice may hate most of the Kindred she deals with #but that doesn't mean she wants them all dead from super-vampire #better to have her thinking 'oh there's nothing inside? just a toy?#great all yours LaCroix enjoy disappointment'#she probably should have recognized the explody jackbombs sooner but #she'd had a long night #queued

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