#switchboard fo4

[veryflirtytransportalate]

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I have made fistfuls of progress! I met the Railroad, I got that thing Virgil asked for, and Preston is still waiting on me to get back to him about those guys I helped, which I will totally eventually do. Yup, things are really clicking into place for ol' Sizzel, so it was time to upgrade the banner.

I think people are starting to recognize that my allegiances lie predominantly with the Minutemen, but no one has as of yet ascertained that the Preston Patrol are a cover for my dreams of total economic domination. Everything I purchase, I purchase with hundreds of bottles of purified water, and nobody seems to mind that weird metallic aftertaste.

I have yet to meet The Institute everyone speaks so fondly about, although I'm practicing for when I do: I've been going to Nuka-World and swallowing the intense desire to remove everyone in the entire vicinity from existence. I imagine these skills are going to come in handy whenever somebody at the Institute becomes so stupid that they think they can enlist me into their dumb operation. Literally every organization I run into does it at some point... except for Diamond City where I should be mayor, godfunkingdammit. I'm 99% sure that both Nuka-World and the Institute will fall by my hand, but I'm willing to let it play out a little bit.

Deacon is embarrassing to be around. Not that I'm not, but, he is. I have to admit, I sort of enjoy his jovial attitude and desire to method act a spy thriller. That's at least less embarrassing than role playing as knock off Batman, and I spent like three days doing that. Respect, Deacon.

(My rambling thoughts about the Railroad and how I'd rewrite everything below, including how Tinker Tom would be a Minuteman.)

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I usually ramble and rewrite the game below the cut anyway, but today is especially rambly, and especially rewrite-y. Also FUNK the Tumblr app, making me post this at 9 AM when it was SCHEDULED for 3:30 PM. 😤👿😤

The second thing I hate is the hands on the synth in the first picture, I had absolutely no idea, but without access to software there was nothing I could do about it. C'est la vie.

I've recently been playing a lot of my second save, which is a Survival run that I play entirely in black and white, so expect to see pictures of that in the future. I don't think anybody reads any of this part, so if you are, you get a little preview, as my thank you for reading the part where I just ramble about whatever I want and I don't have to commit to any kind of storytelling.

I don't dislike Deacon as much as I dislike McGravy but I don't like Deacon all that much either. I do appreciate that he is injecting some much-needed levity into the proceedings. The waste land is an absolute hellscape, and this dude just straight up didn't get the memo. He was written and voice acted and directed and animated to be the wacky one. I feel like a lot of people in the Fallout 4 development team thought they were making "the wacky one", unaware that many of their co-workers were also making, "the wacky one". I don't understand the Railroad at all, they have this dramatic the lights turn on and they're all wielding high-powered weaponry moment, like out of an anime, but this should have been the one faction that they treated with the most severity. Considering the real world connection that they're trying to make here? This would have been the perfect place to juxtapose thoughtful realism with the bombastic and horrifying world, not the place to introduce somebody surreal and comedic like Tinker Tom. Tinker Tom should have been a Concord/Sanctuary person, especially because Sturges has this flipped up hair cocky attitude situation going on, and that's basically what Deacon, Glory, and Desdemona eat, drink, and breathe.

I'm just kind of freeballing this right now but: I don't know if the characters are all that much bad as they are misplaced. Let's do some dramatis personae rearranging. Mama Murphy should totally be in Goodneighbor. Absolutely ridiculous that Goodneighbor does not have all of the super fun-loving wacky chem affiliated weirdos, and Mama Murphy is a textbook wandering oracle stereotype with a white wash, she'd fit in great there.

Swap Tinker Tom and Sturgis. I haven't considered that fully but that just seems like one too many mechanical people since we want TT in the Minutemen, and I think Tinker Tom should take the role of the wacky one that Mama Murphy was filling in the Concord/Sanctuary group. Imagine that Preston is trying to be serious and solve the problem but that gets undercut when Tinker Tom has a solution that actually would be very helpful and is well considered, but is rooted in this ridiculous technological background that nobody else can follow and unless he can teach everybody advanced engineering really fast this might not be the best plan ever. You ever see the new She-Ra? Entrapta and Adora. I can't think of any other examples at this moment, but I think dramatically the broad and overall heroic goals of the Minutemen provide a more cohesive framework for slightly more exaggerated or expressive characters, and the Railroad should have been a faction that presented a straightforward and grounded objective and methodology.

This is fun, I'm going to keep going, but I can't stress how winged this is, I'm not even going to spell check this, so if you've made it this far, congratulations, you've seen the breakdown of all logic for me at this point.

Dr Li was really humanity focused in Fallout 3*, so her joining The Institute doesn't make any sense to me. She bangs on the doors of the whatever building to get in, she advocates for saving an individual who is a detriment to the survival of the group, and she does so in a, "I will not be accepting contrary suggestions because this is how we're doing it," kind of way. Like she wouldn't hear that the Institute are boogeyman? That she what, got kidnapped by them and just rolled with it like Sean did? Ridiculous. And all of the questions raised by this plot thread aren't fun, and wouldn't be fun to explore and answer. I would take Dr. Li and have her start off in Diamond City, at that same science school place where the girlfriends are. And just like before she can get recruited into the Brotherhood of Steel, and just like in the base game, it will be extremely disappointing that you can't recruit her to any faction that you want.

You know what this isn't even related to switching anybody but I would also rewrite it that instead of having the courser go after a synth that we've never heard of and will never hear from again while we fight gunners to get to them, the courser should have been targeting a synth super mutant at the top of the tower because it would have been a nice storytelling moment where we see that the Institute is aware that Virgil looks like a super mutant now and is taking active efforts to deduce where he has escaped to, and also validates Virgil trusting us, a stranger, because he can see the writing on the wall that is hiding strategy isn't going to work forever, and would have also tied in that big tower where Strong is located, and like Faux (sp??) in Fallout 3, we'd be able to collect a companion if we wanted to while on the critical story path, which is always really fun, and also it would dramatically escalate the stakes because you would see that the Institute is not just replacing people in communities with synths, but that they have started to place agents in positions within super mutant communities in the area as well, which is equal parts disgusting because the Institute villainizes super mutants as subhuman, but also terrifying because it truly represents that the Institute can get a version of anyone anywhere at any time, and also there should have been random events where the Institute sends a one-to-one clone of the player to kill the player, I don't know if that happens maybe it happens later in the game and I just never got to it, okay my fiance just came home with quesadillas and nachos and said I'm allowed to have some I'm going downstairs goodbye.

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*I'm coming back later to say that I was watching a video and somebody was describing a theory about Catherine from point lookout being Catherine the mom, and they listed some of the things Dr Lee had done, including driving Pinkerton into hiding, not being willing to cooperate with the Brotherhood of Steel at all, and argued that she was a narcissist. I could sort of see the logic in their argument, that she had a pattern of non-cooperation and that cooperation required that she be placed in a high level position, but I just don't know if I agree that that behavior wasn't in some ways justifiable. I would need to do more digging into who Pinkerton was in Fallout 3 to know whether or not it was justifiable that she didn't want to work with him, but at the same time, regardless of his involvement, she's a high-level administrator by trade, it seems to be what she excels at. I would believe if she was saying no, this is not a format of work that I really consent to or feel like I can thrive under, and her departure from the Brotherhood of Steel had more to do with organizational differences, which makes sense because they're an extremely militaristic and self-aggrandizing organization, I remember starting the DLC for the first time, broken steel, and being somewhat surprised at the total control the Brotherhood of Steel took over project purity. But that's exactly what they do, is exert control over these kinds of technological programs. Lots of people have an objection to that aspect of the brotherhood, so why be so judgmental over Dr Lee if she had the same impression and chose to withdraw her participation, knowing that the Brotherhood was committed to the free distribution of this resource, which was her ultimate goal in the first place! Complicated, very complicated, and if nothing else I wanted to make clear that my original assessment of her felt somewhat oversimplified after learning more about her. Also I wrote this entire thing using voice to text, because I was busy doing dishes, so if it doesn't make sense in certain parts, I hope you can deduce what I'm trying to say, because I don't have time to go back and fix it.

[druidgroves]

whisper doesn’t have as many disguises or aliases as the d-man but she’s got a few

[getahobby]

i think in video games i should be able to complete quests that haven't been given yet. wdym i need a specific npc to unlock this door?? let me fulfill my sense of whimsy (wander around the map and look in every corner before ever beginning the main quest) and then reward me for it!!

[sunnyinthecommonwealth]

A prequel to this (x)

[funkypoacher]

Fixing jewelry/ necktie!!!!!!

This prompt has been sitting in my inbox for months. Well before Christmas, at least (I think). But thank you very, very much for the prompt, you’re always amazing for sending prompts, and I seriously appreciate it. And thank you to @sforzinda for getting me talking about Fallout (and Deacon), it kicked me in the butt to get something down.

Deacon/OC FO4 Fixing jewelry/sunglasses

“Come on,” she said, hands in her pockets. “It’s a hop and a skip from here. Although don’t actually do that, goof.”

Guiding the still-just-numbers synth along, she knew the newbie’s jitters were simply a by-product of being freshly sprung from the Institute. The kid—he looked about 45, but whatever—he didn’t even have a name yet. Hell, it could be said he hardly had a face. From brow to stubbled chin, his façade was rendered inert by robotic ignorance of expression. Unsurprisingly, maintenance units weren’t programmed to smile, sneer, or grimace horrified; his serene face, therefore, had not yet been given life by emotional language, and it’d be a real bitch if he learned to emote now, out of nervousness. So on they trod.

“Stay close,” she whispered. “Shouldn’t be anything to worry about, Goodneighbor is a pretty alright space. But it’s always better to keep out of peoples’ way.”

Her anxiety was hitting from the same place, really. Since returning to the Commonwealth, she’d been running on a fuel-mixture of paranoia and fear. Also panic. Loneliness, isolation; desperation. The Sads, The Dumps, and a Funk. And while this is where her list of personal woes ran out of room on the page, there wasn’t one thing that she felt—it wasn’t only one thing that she carried on her shoulders like a pack too burdened, or a body. She didn’t bear the dead weight of the Railroad—some of them had survived, after all—but she definitely struggled in supporting the truth that the Institute had hit them, that the Switchboard was gone, and that the rest… and the rest.

Yes, some Railroad members still lived. Yes, yes, thankfully yes. And she didn’t know a damn one of them.

Escorting the synth, staying up-beat for his sake, there it was nonetheless. Loneliness. Isolation. She was taking this coulda-been friend to be unmade. The mind-mug makeover he’d receive at Doctor Amari’s office was for his benefit, obviously, but she wished, desperately, that he’d reconsider. That he’d stay. With her. The safehouse she was working for—the Allen safehouse—was just four agents sitting around, idle, while being human. Not a crime, that; however, following Acadia’s social freedoms, the local stifle was exhausting. It would've been nice to be one synth among two—nice like warm baths and cold beer, which, of course, were Commonwealth indulgences. Nice was an indulgence. That was something she’d forgotten.

The guts-grinding fear of hearing too many footsteps behind you? That she hadn’t forgotten. Not even kinda.

Oh, good. We are being followed.

“Fuck.”

With a simple acknowledgement of the suspicion licking down her spine, there followed a subsequent hauling of ass. Insisting M6-26 down a side-alley by dragging, she urged him to Just Hurry.

“And if you have to, run,” she added over her slightly-jangled breathing. “Run and ask where the doctor is. Amari will help you, it doesn’t matter if I’m there.”

Although Goodneighbor looked small, it swelled. It expanded through turns, lanes, and streets. The streets were crowded by rubble and ruin, which was where the cramped feeling came from, but it wasn’t small. If anything made it small, it was situations like this. A dangerous presence threatening closer. The heart racing; one’s vision darkening.

In pulling the synth along, Goodneighbor got smaller, felt smaller, she felt smaller, in that terrible, specific way which was all she knew, lately. The Institute had fatally crippled the Railroad—there were no allies here, and her pistol only boasted one damned bullet. A clean run to Amari’s had been freaking crucial. And this—if they had to fight, then…

… Then one bullet was going to have to make the difference. Taking the first corner, she pressed close to the wall, wet and edged by broken brick, waiting to ambush.

Her jaw stiffened. Her breathing stopped. Gravel crunched. They were right there.

Surprise.

Springing forward, shoving their bird-dogger against the wall, that was it all it took: a quick look-see at the would-be killer. Sunglasses slid down the man’s nose, revealing rounded eyes, and, like Institute maintenance units, neither were Institute Coursers programmed to look surprised.

“Sorry,” she blurted out.

Thanks to paranoia and the months away, she’d all but forgotten how locals liked a fight. It was, statistically speaking, about a million times more likely that he was trying to rob them over working retrieval for the Institute.

Realizing there had been an offered apology to that possibility, she huffed, readying for a different headache.

The man squared his stance. It was a bit of a show. There were lengths gone to to seem large and imposing, from hunched shoulders to bent elbows, increasing the room he took up. He was clean shaven-ish, ishly-armed with a knife at his belt, and this suggested he was a good-enough dude having a bad day, which, actually, was worse than anything.

“Not the right neighborhood to be starting things in, girlie,” he roughly grumbled, glaring over the tops of his sunglasses. “Unless, of course, you’re looking to get… railroaded.”

It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that—using that term in such an obvious, ham-fisted way that made her stomach drop and her head go feather-light. It was… God damn, she could hardly stand. And it wasn’t how he’d said it, either. With that bad, Boston accent, layered with a parody of menacing.

Jelly legs… Heard of ‘em, but never had ‘em. Not until now, not until—

“My god.”

Her body understood first. Her mind continued reeling, but her hand—a limp hand moved forward, feebly pushing his sunglasses back into place, up the bridge of his nose. It was that—it was his eyes which had given him away. She knew it all over again as she placed a hand on his upper arm, clothed in stained denim, and took in the raw, rough surface of the ancient cloth. She knew it over, and over, and over, and that knowledge seeped a dazed, dreamy smile across her face as her mind cupped the understanding, at last, as though water from a stream.

He’s alive.

“You’re shitting me,” rasped Deacon, too awestruck for jaw-dropping joy.

“No.” She grinned numbly. “No, I am not. Man, I’m good, huh?”

“How, though?” Deacon shifted his weight from one leg to the next. “I got the face-swap weeks back, and walking into HQ… I mean, some people still don’t recognize me. And after five damn seconds, you—”

“It’s because you’re bad at voices, Deacon. I know how bad you are at…”

Oh.

Ah.

The sob that bubbled up through her throat she let spill into sobbing, though she had sense, at least, to stifle it in palms pressed hard at her lips. She hadn’t said his name once since hearing of the Switchboard’s demise. She hadn’t had anyone to say the name to, but that really didn’t matter. She’d forgotten how to speak it without attaching to it gratitude, affection, fear, and the dozening other definitions which, when balled up, overwhelmed.

‘Overwhelmed’ was under-stating, of course. She couldn’t breathe.

“Hey. Hey, Bigs, c’mon.” Deacon’s voice softened. “It’s alright.”

Holding her upper arms, like she had done to him, Deacon’s grip was firm. Allowing her to ride it out—to moan quietly in waves, heartbroken and happy, then nauseous at the combination—well, a hug would have been better, but that wouldn’t’ve been him.

“Sorry.” Laughing stupidly, she wiped her cheeks, finding that talking was actually calming. “I—frick. I just—I mean, I thought…” Sigh. “Dejen came to Acadia and told me what happened,” she explained, watching Deacon through fresh tears, “so obviously I thought you were dead. Who else is okay? Where has everyone…?”

“Dejen got out?” Deacon’s hands dropped, propping on his hips. “Good, that’s—I mean, that’s the kind of good news we could definitely use.”

She nodded. She understood. Again. “So it’s bad, then?”

“Yeah.” His throat rolled. “It’s bad.” Cracking a smile, however, he was suddenly Deacon Takes A Holiday From The Doldrums, nonchalant and flashing pearlies. “But, hey, now you’re here. Big Mama is back. Bigger and better than ever, am I right? Plus, you brought a friend.”

Side-stepping the initial oopsie of realizing the synth had probably watched this in confounded dread, she got tripped up on the fact that she wasn’t in Acadia anymore—and that she had to watch what she said, and how, a hell of a lot closer.

“This is…” Approaching M6-26’s side, she placed a hand on his arm, adding a soothing squeeze. “This is Allen. He’s… out of Allen. We are on our way to the, uh, Memory Den for some new… memories, and this…” Turning to M6, she explained, “this is a friend.”

Deacon’s voice distanced in surprise. “Allen is still functioning?”

“You didn’t know?”

The man paced. “We’re getting our bearings. Slowly. But, no, since we all lost our heads and our quarters, wink-wink, what we know could fill a goddamn bottle cap. Protocol says we let things simmer a little longer before reaching out—”

“But you don’t give a shit about protocol,” she said, smiling.

“But I don’t give a shit about protocol,” was his echo. “Goes to show how hard it’s been to do the talky-talk thing with other Allens lately. Good to know some still have the resources to fight the good fight, though.”

They stopped speaking long enough that the world crept back in. It started with a glass shattering somewhere, every piece and fractal heard decimating against a wall, or the ground. A vulgar laugh followed. A shout. A bang. Wham, bam, thank-you… hm.

She glanced at M6. “We should get going.”

Deacon nodded. They were two steps in when she asked, casually, “who else is left?”

“Phft. Where’s the fun in telling you?” Deacon shook his head. “Come on—we get back to HQ, and you’ll see. Plus, the new digs? Very fancy. Very, uh… Cozy. That’s what you say when you’re packed in like sardines, right?”

“Dee, come on. Tell me. Is Glory, at least…? Is she—is Tommy alright?”

Like her, he stopped. Stopped walking, stopped talking, stopped bullshitting. He looked at her, and long ago she’d learned to read his body in lieu of getting a clue at his shaded eyes. Deacon’s hands were on his waist, his head was craned back, expression one for the sky, which, away from people, was where he preferred to hide his pain, and vulnerability. But he had stopped. Stopped walking, stopped talking. Stopped bullshitting.

“Mom, if I’m being honest, counting down the survivors is a little like listing out the dead. And I… “ By nature, Deacon’s voice cracked. With this, it hitched in his throat, shook and shattered, and was gone.

She changed the subject.

“Dawn.”

Head snapping in her direction, Deacon obviously hadn’t understood, which was fair. Confusion distracted, and that’s what she’d been going for.

“What?”

“I mean, obviously my codename is the same, I’ll always be Big Mama, but I…” Fingers knit together, she went nearer, smiling gentle. “I picked out a name. A real one. It’s Dawn.”

Deacon nodded. He looked at her for so long, and so steadily, that she started to believe he’d forgotten the world.

He hadn’t.

“Pretty,” he finally said.

Deacon, Dawn, and M6-26 continued to Dr. Amari’s.

[wishing4nuclearwinter]

the spy and the doctor 👀

that’s my Deacon/Arcade fic! it has been pushed to the back burner for the time being, but I hold out hope that I will one day finish it

the plot is basically that when Arcade gets found out for his past in the NCR ending and runs east, he eventually ends up in the Commonwealth several years later (a handful of months before the beginning of fo4). he runs into Deacon several times and after saving Deacon’s life in a fight, he is recruited for the Railroad. Somewhere along the way they form a friends with benefits type of relationship. The fic culminates with the fall of the Switchboard, tho there would be some aftermath stuff as well

here’s a lil snippet from Arcade’s stop in Diamond City

Arcade dared a look over at the man sitting beside him and barely managed not to fall off his seat. Bright yellow eyes stared back at him, glowing against grey skin torn away in places to reveal metal hinges. No, not a man, another robot.

He’d heard rumors of synths, machines made to look and act human. Claims that they were indistinguishable from flesh and blood. That they replaced people in some grand scheme to take over the Commonwealth or some such nonsense. He hadn’t given it much credence and here was further proof that the stories were nothing more than games of telephone gone wrong. While the thing sitting beside him was as lifelike a robot as he’d ever seen, no one could accuse it of being human.

He realized he was staring.

“What, do I have something stuck in my teeth?” the synth asked jokingly.

[dykexenomorph]

*peggle 2 gif* fo4 hcs TWO!!!!

(these are more companion centered to make up for my last one being so focused around the railroad. I'll still probably have railroad stuff too tho bc I'm Love Them)

this is so weirdly specific and I don't remember what made me start thinking this but cait is like??? weirdly warm at all times. like if u brushed up against her or smth youd think she's running an INSANE fever w how much warmer she is than the average person

i think I got this one from a fic I read (I don't remember which one, otherwise I'd credit it) but uhh nicks fullmetal hand (the one that doesn't have "skin" on it) is more sensitive than his other one is. it starts hurting easily and he has to tinker w it a lot more to make sure it doesn't get super messed up

desdemona basically never sleeps. she puts a lot of the blame for switchboard on herself and has promised never to let that happen again. the only time she gets rest is when everyone else teams up to force/convince her to go to bed.

on that note, glory doesn't sleep a lot either. not because she's a synth (I feel like the newer gens probably do need to sleep like humans do??), but because she gets nightmares about switchboard when she does sleep.

caits messed her knuckles/hands up pretty bad w all of the fighting she's had to do. they tend to hurt when it rains or gets colder

guess who's back at it w the trans hcs!!! (it's me. I'm back at it. I will never not be back at it. everyone u love AND their mom is trans /j). deacon is trans!!! maybe it's just me projecting but I think him changing his looks a lot and uhhh "trying out" a bunch of different styles is a very trans thing to do.

piper learned to read through old newspapers. her dad used to bring them home and read them with her so that she could learn. she taught nat this way too

on that note, i honestly don't think cait can read. I feel like her parents probably never bothered to teach her and she never really got the chance to learn after she was taken away from them.

synth curie really really likes to sing. she didn't really think about singing and never even tried to before she became a synth, but afterwards she sings CONSTANTLY

nick has perfect pitch. back when they were first making synths, the institute basically just chucked whatever feature they thought could be helpful into each synth and for some reason, being able to tune any busted wasteland instrument out there was one of those things

dogmeat helps preston a lot whenever he's having a bad mental health day. (I imagine preston probably deals w some pretty tough depression and stuff, given what he's gone through). whenever he starts feeling rough, dogmeat leaves sole and stays w preston until he starts feeling better again.

[thievesguildbest]

So, this is the first scene of my Fallout 4 webseries.  I’ll be posting this kinda like a comic, so stay tuned for more! I hope that everyone likes it! If ya want, leave a review, let me know how I did, what I can fix, etc. Also, sorry about the obnoxious watermark lol. 

[nuka-rockit]

OKAY since people said I should do it, I’ll give some random, unsorted headcanons I have about the FO4 companions

MacCready

short & scrawny as hell. Grew up on a diet of stale snack cakes and cave fungi, which stunted his growth. Tries to make up for it by wearing several layers of clothes to bulk up his frame.

bad at growing a beard. that goatee took a lot of effort.

slightly agoraphobic (fear of big open spaces), both because he grew up in a cave (”I feel more comfortable with a rocky ceiling above my head”) and because he’s a sniper and knows all too well how being in the open can be dangerous.

never learned how to swim properly (because why would you swim in irradiated slop?); will dog paddle if forced to go into open water.

very rarely gets sick. wasteland life has gotten his immune system surprisingly strong. If he gets sick however, it annoys him to no end and he complains about it. a lot.

Deacon

DAD BOD. chub in the middle, slightly noodly arms. Actually makes an effort to stay as average looking as possible so he won’t stick out of a crowd.

Sunburns easily. Tends to wear some kind of head covering in the summer. Frequently sports a farmer tan.

Likes to stay at an arm’s length from people because he’s not very strong physically and knows he’d be at a disatvantage if someone decided to attack him.

There’s a secret betting pool in the Railroad about how old he actually is. Will frequently make contradicting statements about his age because of course he knows about it. He actually stopped counting his birthdays years ago.

Tries to mediate between Carrington, Desdemona and Glory, often indirectly. Sometimes starts arguments with two opposing parties so they will unite, even if it’s against him. 

Afraid of actual responsility in the Railroad. He prefers to stay on the sides and leave the big decisions to Dez. He tells himself she’s just the better leader, but deep down he’s just afraid he’ll screw up and ruin the one thing he still cares about. Still blames himself for not seeing the attack on Switchboard coming sometimes.

Cait

Pre-Vault 95 she frequently forgot to eat when she was under influence. Afterwards her appetite skyrockets and she gains some extra bulk, mainly in the arms and back. She actually likes it a lot.

Hates unwanted touches from people, like greeting hugs or pats on the back. She really has to like someone before she’s okay with them casually touching her.

Has fuzz around her belly button and lower back. Gets freckles on her shoulders during summer, but rarely on her face.

Piper

At home, it’s usually Nat who is the responsible one when it comes to mealtimes. Without her, Piper would probably spend days immersed in research for her next article eating nothing but sugar bombs out of a box on the desk next to her.

Frequently gets hit on by drifters in bars, mostly the ones that don’t know her reputation. HAS punched at least one of the more handsy ones in the face.

Sleeps badly because her mind is racing all the time. Sometimes lies awake at night, afraid someone could snatch away Nat when she’s asleep.

Danse

REALLY BAD at smalltalk. Not because he doesn’t want to socialize, but because the Brotherhood has been the center of his life for so long he has a hard time thinking about less militaristic topics. Has trouble keeping a conversation going, but is a surprisingly good listener. 

Has to shave frequently or he will end up looking like a lumberjack.

In the Institute, before his memory wipe, he had nothing to do with combat. He was just a regular worker, mainly in the engineering area, fixing broken valves and such. Still likes to tinker, even if he doesn’t remember his former occupation.

Strict, but fair. Will stand up for lower ranking Brotherhood members if they are unjustly or too harshly disciplined for minor mistakes.

Would never admit it, but has let squires ride on his shoulders when he was in power armor before.

Lowkey scared of feral ghouls, not because of what they are, but because the thought that they used to be human, that someone he cares about could turn into a mindless shambler one day disturbs him.

X6-88

He wears those shades because he thinks it makes him look more intimidating. Or that’s what he would say. Actually direct eye contact makes him nervous. It feels too...intimate.

Loves to shower. He’s not squeamish about getting dirty if that’s what it takes to get the job done, but he values cleanliness a lot, partly because it distinguishes the Institute people from most wastelanders.

Suspicious of any substance that could alter his perception, even if it’s only a pain killer. He’s rather paranoid when on the surface and the thought of getting caught unaware or of being too slow to respond to danger worries him.

Knows about romance and physical intimacy, but only in theory. He never considered it to be appropriate for a synth to get involved in such things.

Sincerely believes the Institute to be the safest place for a synth to live (and he’s not entirely wrong). Regrets it when he has to eliminate a runaway, even if he won’t hesitate to do it. Thinks they don’t know what they get into when they go rogue and that he’s doing the best thing for them bringing them back in one piece, if possible. 

[shioritsumi]

I think I’ll remake my Soles on the PC for FO4 to match the narrative I have for him. 

One: I’ve decided to go ‘friend to all’ with all female Soles, and cannibal evil Institute with all the male Soles. Just a personal decision. 

Also I may make male Sole’s name a little less blatantly dumb to say out loud. (Cause right now it’s Bastard Assface. Fem Sole is Angel, by the way.) 

Narrative: Bastard was a former spy, member of the Switchboard before he was forcibly removed with a whole bunch of other spies and moved to either field duty as regular soldiers, or forcibly retired. Because the bosses up top wanted peace negotiations to go well and they didn’t think that would work if they still had actual spies. Bastard was one of the ones who was forcibly retired. (They attempted to move him to regular duty and...his elitist spy attitude didn’t mesh with that of the common soldier. They immediately removed him altogether.) 

A bunch of the removed spies were bitter about what had happened, and they...MAY have leaked some sensitive information to the enemy. Which may have ultimately led to the bombs. Bastard wasn’t one of the spies who did that, but he thought about it. Frankly, he had his hands full attempting to live a normal life again, after a nearly life-long career of sabotage and subterfuge. And then THAT went all to hell. 

Out of game, Bastard might end up betraying the Institute as well. Not necessarily because he cares about the Commonwealth, but because it’s what he does. He’s a spy-he infiltrates, gathers information, earns trust, and then destroys everything and burns every bridge he finds on the way out. It’s a bad habit he never really had an opportunity to even try to quit. In time, his marriage was bound to fail for exactly the same reason, most likely. Bastard has some real problems and therapists don’t exist anymore.

Fem! Sole Narrative: Angel is...literally not human. People look at her and think ‘oh, she’s so pretty, oh she’s so lovely, so kind’ and they ignore the signs. Like how she doesn’t need to sleep. Like how she can walk for days without eating or drinking anything. When she does, it’s more like she likes the taste or the side-effects, not because she needs to. Her eyes seem to glow in the dark, and her skin is almost transluscent. It’s...like she’s a literal angel sometimes. Nah, that’s crazy, right? I mean, she has a human son and she had a husband and-

Or what if she DOES have a human husband and son because adoption? Shaun’s not biologically Angel’s, but she loves him like he is. And she’s sorely disappointed in what she finds at the Institute. She had such high hopes for humanity, and she was hoping to spread that hope to the rest of the Commonwealth. But clearly, not everyone can be helped. 

So. Sole roles!

Bastard: Former spy, self-destructive tendencies ahoy! Angel: Literal angel, loves everyone way too much, she’s not mad she’s just DISAPPOINTED