#i would have drawn them in the ghoul mobile but then we wouldn't have a view of pusheen in the middle :p

[beatleswings]

Saw another comfort character drawing meme going around and found a perfect excuse to draw Don and Navarro together again but this time, Pusheen tags along!~

Reference:

[flannelshirtandjeans]

Oc interview meme

I was tagged by @radbeetle (thank you!!) and took this as an opportunity to talk through ghoul Norma in the future, interviewed by some future reporter for some paper or newsletter that's happening then. I'm stuck on mobile so super apologies for long and no cut! D:

I tag: (if you wanna do it) @johnandrasjaqobis @ceilingcow @keycchan

"We are sitting down today with one of the most pivotal figures of our Commonwealth's recent history, the mysterious but beloved by many, Norma Hawke, on the little porch of her home on Spectacle Island. She is serving a drink she claims to have coined, tarberry and mutfruit and just enough alcohol to have a punch."

How old are you?

Norma looks almost startled at the question. "You know," she tells me, "I have lost count. I was 32 when I came to... this Commonwealth, and had been frozen for more than 200 years. That was in... what year is it? Oh, and I turned into a ghoul before 40. That was decades and decades ago."

What do you look like? (For any readers who haven't seen you, or pictures.)

She laughs. "OLD, the way that us ghouls do. But I like to think I still got it!" She laughs again, and continues: "I'm a ghoul, unlike some stories say, and I don't have fins and gills like a fish. I'm just an old, short, round ghoul with some of my old hair left, still brown. Lipstick on every day, eyebrows drawn. I like it, it's routine."

Where are you from?

"The past. I'm a time traveler from a Vault - no, I'm originally from a different state (IDA HAS FORGOTTEN WHICH ONE), where I lived with my parents until I moved to Boston - here - to study law. Used to live in an apartment downtown, and then up in Sanctuary Hills with my husband and baby. Our old house is still there, I think. I... haven't been in a while."

Where do you live now?

She perks up, and a moment of quiet old sadness has passed without me realizing it was there initially. "Here on this island - I moved here when my wife here died and I started working more with the Minutemen to help build a government and a better Boston." She gets up and walks me around - shows me the single room cottage with its rag rugs and quilts, the garden swing, her little garden, and the fields, and her pride and joy, the apple tree. "I always wanted to be more of a country girl when I was younger" Norma says and pats the tree trunk. "I was such a city girl in truth, even when I thought I was getting there with my husband before the war, but I think I've gotten my wish now!"

What was your childhood like?

She snorts. "Rich in money but not in anything else. My parents... had me more because it was the thing to do and some kind of a status symbol, and not because they really wanted a child and to be a good caring family. Work came first. I grew up with a long list of tutors, and little love. Thankfully it mostly only made me want to be better than them."

What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions?

"I have worked a lot with the New Government of the Commonwealth, and the Minutemen that started building towards it. Not as much as I did, because I'm old and tired, and it's time to let them fly on their own instead of mother henning left and right there." She laughs. "I am still the highest lawmaster I suppose, but the law is working as well as it can without me too. Back in my day, when factions were more... at war with each other, I did work with the Minutemen and the Railroad, who joined forces to destroy the Institute."

Tell me about your best friend.

"There aren't a lot of people left who've been here as long as I have," Norma says, and that same quiet sadness creeps to her as before, but her smile remains. "Many have moved on, or died. But I am thankful for those who are still here. Sturges, who keeps the Castle running, and me too. He's like sunshine. We've seen each other less often of late, but try to meet at least every year on an important anniversary. To remember."

Do you have a family? Tell me about them!

She shakes her head. "No. I did, but they're gone. Husband, child, and wife. The child by my own hand." This child, as we know from history, was the Institute's leader, "Father". "His name was Shaun," Norma says. "I always found that whole title creepy."

What about a partner or partners?

"Gone as well - I don't have anyone now, and my heart is probably too frail to fall in love again, truthfully. Jay was my first husband, a big red-headed shepherd from Maine, the sweetest man I ever met. And then there was Ellie (editor's note: Ellie Perkins, author of such crime thrillers as "The Ghost of Goodneighbor") after the war, the wittiest most amazing woman-- and I buried them both. I've had... flings. Friends with benefits. But I don't think I can bury more partners." Who these friends with benefits are, she won't say.

Who are your enemies, and why?

"There are people who don't like the new government, and understandably blame me for it, me being the only one left was such s big part of establishing it. I don't think I have any real enemies though. Any that I had would be... also mostly dead."

Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?

"I steered mostly clear of them when I first came here. I have never been a big fan of such... military structures, and even less after seeing how much my husband hated his time with the army at the time. After joining forces with the Railroad, and knowing the Brotherhood's dislike of synths, the safest course was to avoid them, and try to keep them away. There were other tensions as well, with them and the Minutemen too. The Brotherhood's blimp was blown from the sky with their leaders at time shortly after the Institute explosion, and there's a lot of stories going around saying that was me too, but I didn't have anything to do with it, I was in too much shock from the Intitute alone to even think of something like that. But their leadership changed after that and now what's remained of the Brotherhood here needs to co-operate with the New Government, and has. I still don't like them much, but they're not causing too many problems, and have been... forced to readjust their thinking a little."

When asked about who she thinks was responsible for the blimp explosion, she only says "I have a pretty good idea", and refuses to elaborate.

What about The Enclave?

"I have heard of them, but don't know much about them, truth be told."

How do you feel about Super Mutants?

She shrugs. "Depends on the person, same as anyone else! I used to be afraid of them when all I'd seen was the groups that'd go around raiding and eating people, running around with mininukes - and feel sorry for them after learning about the FEV. But so much has happened since, and a lot of humans I saw at the time weren't really any different. Just smaller. Things are better now, at least some."

What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in?

Norma laughs. "Oh! I've been in so many fights! Hmm." She stops to think, looking across the water to where the blue Minuteman flag flies above the Castle. She laughs again and says: "never thought as a girl that I'd end up with so many war stories. But here's one: once in one of the old hospitals, there was a band of raiders that had trapped a deathclaw on the bottom floor and used it to stage cage fights. I'd... cleared the raiders - they had... taken over a Railroad base and killed the agents there, and I wasn't looking to avenge them as much as see qhat had happened, and had no intent to deal with the deathclaw... But my dog slipped into the pit, thankfully without alerting the deathclaw immediately, so off course I had to go after him. Ended up on top of some cages down there, knocked off BETWEEN them where the deathclaw couldn't reach me and wandered off deeped into the bottom floor... I was pretty sure I would die right there but me and my companion managed to JUST kill it before it got to any of us."

(I guess that answers the next question:) Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?

"I have! More if them than I care to count, truth be told - I've had to travel through the Glowing Sea more than once, and once fought a park full of mutation of them that had some alligator in them! I think... a deathclaw was one of the first things I fought after I woke up here, outside of bugs. Just in Concord, right outside Sanctuary Hills."

Do you like fighting?

"I don't. I may gladly tell stories of victories past because they make good stories and because some of those need to be remembered, and learned from so they don't happen again - but I don't want to sound like I enjoyed it, or wouldn't rather have solved the situation without a fight."

What’s your weapon of choice?

She grimaces. "Pistols. Sniper rifles. I'm not strong or dexterous beyond being able to sneak well, so I need the advantage of the distance. I used to hate the sniper rifles because I felt like I wasn't giving whoever I was aiming at a fair fighting chance, it felt... so impersonal. I don't know, I alway hate killing people anyway, it just came with some additional guilt."

How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?)

Norma shakes her head. "Not brute strength for sure. I'm a lawyer still, even under all the things I've become since, and my first and foremost resort is always wits and charm, I think. It doesn't always work, obviously but I think... it has worked best for me so far."

Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?

Norma shifts uncomfortably, and dips inside for a minute, coming back with an old frayed and battleworn vault suit with golden number 111 on the back. "That's why I'm here," she says, and for the first time sounds almost dark. "The vault 111 was supposed to be my new home when the bombs fell, but they froze us instead, and I've learned of many other horrifying experiments happening in other vaults as well. It's VILE. I still can't go into a vault without seeing my husband being shot in the head, and my baby being stolen. I hate it. I don't go into them anymore if I can help it. I'm glad that communities can flourish in them now, I know Sanctuary has built their winter home in 111, but there's too much trauma in them for me."

How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?

Norma gestures at herself. "Obviously, I think -- turning into a ghoul was... awful, and painful, and disgusting, but I'm lucky to have had wonderful loving people around me at the time. I don't think I would be as happy in myself as I am now if it hadn't been for them. But even before I became a ghoul, radiation... did strange things to me, or I think it was the radiation? I didn't get skin reactions from swimming like everyone else, and eventually I started growing skin between my fingers, like webs?" She shows me her hands and spreads the toes on her bare feet to show me, and indeed she has some webbing there. "They took some damage from the ghoulification And then I found that I could breathe underwater. Some kind of a mutation, I think. The rads may have done their damage invisibly all that time though, all the swimming, the ghoulification came on so suddenly and without an apparent event that triggered it."

What’s your favorite wasteland critter?

"I am always a fan of cats - does that count? I am so relieved that they are still around. I got my first cat here from Ellie when I'd just turned into a ghoul, and I haven't been without since. If it DOESN'T count, I really like radstags, they're beautiful in their own way."

What's your least favorite wasteland critter?

"Bloodbugs. Bugs in general."

How do you feel about robots?

"Depends on the robot again! Some of them are really stuck in their old programming and are hard to interact with because of that, but others are great! Codsworth - bless his metal heart - tended to my roses for centuries while I was gone! He's like family to me."

How many caps do you have on you right now?

"I couldn't say, truth be told. I have some savings, but not as much as some people say I do. I get a comfortable living, but I would without caps, too. The Castle likes to send stuff over, they keep good care of their grandma ghoul."

Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?

Norma shrugs. "Usually don't drink them! Nuka Cola is noce for marinades."

Do you do chems?

"As a habit, no. Sometimes for aches, and sometimes if I need a stim. But I've never really been much to use them beyond just that."

Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?

Norma nods, and is quiet for a moment. "I don't... think that a day goes by without me thinking of that time. There's just... sovmany convenience items that I end up missing, or animals, or people. I don't tend to dwell, not anymore, it's past and won't change what is now, and I'll only hurt if I think about it too much. These days it's easier though, mostly nostalgia. I have found a good life here."

What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?

"I--" Norma falters and for the first time she looks truly fragile. "I wish... I regret that I couldn't be a mother to my son. That was entirely out of my hands, but I do regret it." She wipes away a tear and tries a laugh. "There are so many things I wish I'd done differently with him here, and keep wondering if I could have reached him somehow... If this could have gone differently. I don't know. I try to not wallow to much on what could have been done differently. It's too late to change that now."

What’s your biggest achievement?

Or what do you hope to achieve?

She wipes away her tears. "Ahh, this is easier. I'm... The Commonwealth now? I'm proud that I've been a part of building it towards a much safer and more prosperous place to live. But most of ask, I think? I'm proud of the library. That's something that me an Ellie built together, it was... like a proof of concept for everything bigger, I suppose. And it's still a lovely, lively place now, growing every day."

What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world?

"I want the Commonwealth to keep building. I want safety, and comfort, and sustainability. I want more connections elsewhere. And I want to know it can do that without me - I don't plan to go just yet, but I'm old and tired, and I will not be here forever. I want to be just some grandma, and let the world sort itself out. I've earned my rest, I think. And you know, I think it will happen, too. I think it will."