tonight's fic consideration: how DRASTICALLY the cabot immortality serum's presence changes Everything when it isn't ignored
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tonight's fic consideration: how DRASTICALLY the cabot immortality serum's presence changes Everything when it isn't ignored
tonight's fic consideration: how DRASTICALLY the cabot immortality serum's presence changes Everything when it isn't ignored
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because literally the rest of fallout 4 ignores that it exists, and for good reason
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but if i'm going to be Doing Stuff with the cabots, then it cant really be ignored
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really, setting aside the implications of its existence when there is literally a plot critical character who is dying of an inevitable illness and it is important that he's dying so there being an option to prevent that would be MASSIVELY IMPORTANT
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(and it's being set aside because i dont know yet how i'm going to handle his. everything. shaun i love you, you asshole, but why do you have to be such a pain in my ass)
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the biggest thing is this:
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elle does not handle personal loss well at all. she has the worst time coping with it, and especially in her stage of development that she's at in fallout 4
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at the end of cabot quest, since she chooses the cabots over lorenzo because duh, that means the source of the serum is gone
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that means they are going to die
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after she managed to come to a point where she really feels a part of this family
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after she had struggled so hard to keep herself apart and she came to accept being brought into their fold
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and she just CANNOT deal with that
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in the game, you can pick up vials of the serum off the raiders in parsons. frankly, i dont know why, because lore-wise it doesnt make sense, but lets assume theyre spares / hoarded by those particular raiders / whatever, and elle gets her hands on it
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elle would fucking beg and plead for jack to try to figure out a way to recreate the serum without his dad's blood
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and jack wouldnt want to lose any more family, either
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like. edward has a comment about how wilhelmina probably wouldnt last long at all without the serum, and i think he's right
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jack and emogene are hardier though. and have more complicated relationships with immortality, especially emogene
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i dont think they want to die. emogene has suicidal ideology but i think it's that whole... you dont want your life to end, you want your life to change, thing
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edward can tell the sosu that she isn't crazy -- she just wishes the world was something different than it really is
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and despite her general dismissive attitude, emogene has an interest in the outside world and in other people
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she's just. trapped. being bound to the serum means she's bound to her family and this one house
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she first took the serum when she was in her early 30s and then she spent 400 years just
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unable to live her life freely
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even though you can tell she wants to be a free spirit, wants to explore things, wants to connect with people, and maybe even wants to make things better
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as implied with how she was interested in the one guy who turned out to be running a theft cult, and she's like, "i thought he was enlightened and interesting but then he was just like all those other assholes"
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(paraphrasing)
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jack, meawhile, treated the immortality as a means to an end. he only wanted to use it in order to live long enough to save his father, no matter how long it took
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which is why i will DIE on the hill that jack is a diehard optimist when it comes down to it
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but -- without that purpose, jack just kind of... shrugs and goes "oh well" about losing his immortality and moves on to the next research topic
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he has a deep curiousity about history and humanity's achievements (and i am intimidated by the concept of writing him bc of it 
)
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jack and emogene just have a personal zeal for life that is truly endearing for a pair of immortals
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even if they struggle with that immortality, with the isolation they've been living in, with how they exist in a little privileged bubble
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i dont think they'd want to die, but i think they would be hesitant at the idea of having a guilt-free source of serum all the same?
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but they especially... dont want to lose family. and they would empathize deeply with the way that elle is so fucking desperate not to lose them
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but:
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if jack succeeds in making the serum for them
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he would offer it to her, too
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she doesnt want to lose them -- but she's family too by that point, and they dont want to lose her, either
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and this is where you run up on the fact that elle values herself absolutely fucking not at all
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at that point in time, she gets all of her momentum from a sense of duty
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"there are things only i can do, there are people relying on me that i don't want to let down"
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she doesnt want to die. even though there are times when she pretty much dares death to come and get her because she keeps surviving shit she shouldnt have survived, and she's not processing it for shit
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she doesnt want to die... but the idea of living forever is just inconceivable to her
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she doesnt want to keep existing the way that she is. and she feels trapped by her duties and obligations to others and feels like she has no way out of being the way she is
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(in her core canon, this issue is present in her, but it's not nearly as prominent as it is in this fallout 4 AU. her traumas are really brought to the forefront by everything that's happened)
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(frankly, fallout 4 AU elle needs the barge's intervention more than fallout new vegas elle does, but the fun of the fo4 stuff is exploring all this shit that elle manages to bury and ignore in fnv)
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ANYWAY
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slaps desk
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the point is, this is kind of a huge fucking hurdle for elle, and i've never really known what to do with it, but i have finally had the obvious realization that it's the perfect way to address all this shit that she otherwise like. avoids talking about
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but it also has the MASSIVE POTENTIAL of utter fuckery elsewhere
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not just with shaun, but especially with shaun
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and we also run into this whole thing where like. elle would start using it as a one-time anti-death shot on other people
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here you can have a very brief dose of this immortality serum that apparently? has? no? fucking? negative side effects?
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in order to keep you from dying
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just long enough to get you going again and then you're good for a while
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because like. CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW IT HAS NO NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS?
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outside of "if you have it undiluted it's hyper-potent" which is only a downside when its your enemies who have it
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this is something i'm going to have to fix
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maybe the new version has issues with it in order to prevent the one-time anti-death shot deus ex machina
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i AM still sitting on the really fucking cool idea i had back in the marvel/fallout tumblr rp thing. where i expanded on the concept of like
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canon: raiders get a hold of serum. suddenly raiders know to assault parsons to release lorenzo. the artifact gives lorenzo telekinesis and access to a great eldritch hivemind library
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extrapolation: it probably isnt a stretch at all to assume that he has some degree of telepathy too. and in taking the serum, the raiders' minds were open or connected to lorenzo's
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further extrapolation: CAN LORENZO DO THAT WITH THE CABOTS, OR ANYONE ELSE WHO TAKES THE SERUM?
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i remember i had the idea that lorenzo's serum-induced telepathy connection didnt work with the whole family, just one of them. maybe emogene? i think i was considering it being emogene
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but the idea in the tumblr rp thing was the concept of elle getting injected with the serum while lorenzo is still alive -- probably as that whole one-time anti-death shot concept
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and then lorenzo getting hooks in her
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was a GOOD ONE
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but i also dont entirely know what i'd want to do with that
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it's just sitting there. mocking me
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anyway that aside. i definitely need to think up side effects for the original serum and/or the new one
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i also need to decide when, exactly, the new serum would be completed
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but that would NOT be a problem for the nano fic
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i say, as if i would ever actually getting around to writing further parts, but whatever
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point being!! it isnt the kind of thing that would necessarily need resolving in that specific story
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train of thought has run out of steam so i guess i'll stop there, but
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somewhat unrelated -- contemplating one-shots to establish elle with various companions, to help get an idea of dynamics and where they fit in a bigger scheme
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i love fallout 4 and i love the commonwealth and all the characters but jesus christ it is a lot of balls to juggle when you start pulling out to the proper scale
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also i need to start practicing jack and emogene
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excluding dlc, i think the only companion thats really out of elle's reach is danse
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but i also dont think she'd fall for bobbi no-nose's pitch and ever take on the job for the big dig, so by canon standards, she also wouldnt ever run with hancock
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but i guess there's nothing saying that they couldnt still get to know each other etc outside of that
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the big important ones are maccready, X6, and deacon. what a weird fucking trio
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who all hate each other
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godspeed elle
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but curie needs a special highlight since i have my secret agenda of jack/curie
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nick also needs a special highlight because of how elle. reacts. to him
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i think this would be interesting to do bc itd be more character study + establishing connections more than like, typical solo focus companion bonding fics
i think this would be interesting to do bc itd be more character study + establishing connections more than like, typical solo focus companion bonding fics
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which would also mean i'd have to like, decide on how shit goes, too, but thats not the point