#ask dire

No worries, I’m clearly a little late too haha!

🗣 Share your favorite dialogue exchange.

From my current WIP, where Deacon and Piper get trapped together in the Third Rail.

“Heya, Chameleon Girl.” A bottle thunks on the table. “I’m that scary, huh? You’re pretty brave, chatting up a deathclaw.” Piper pauses in the act of hanging her wet coat on the back of a chair. “What? No, that’s a character.” She drops into the chair. “One of those old comic books. Changes shape into, like, animals and things.” “Is that your way of subtly suggesting I stink like an animal?” Deacon picks at her sleeve and sniffs it. “Clearly isn’t enough to keep you away. Besides, I didn’t think chameleons shapeshifted. Into anything other than massive terrifying nightmare horrors, anyway.” “...you know, let’s forget I said anything. Last ten seconds never happened. Heya, person. Since we’ve decided you’re not…that…who are you today?” "I'm Doris, trader of farm…things. You know, seeds, buckets...hoes...lots of baby...two-headed things..." "What's a farm trader doing in Goodneighbor?" It’s a wonder Piper hasn’t pulled out her notebook yet. And that Deacon hasn’t burst into flames from the pure intensity of her scrutinizing gaze. "Even we farm traders get nights off! And how convenient to be in Goodneighbor where there are no farmers who might get curious and want to ask about the farm trading biz." She stifles an eyeroll and substitutes a swig of beer instead. Maybe a few swigs.

ok so apparently tumblr ate the ask when i tried to save it as a draft but i think @roachvalentine asked me this prompt with Carrot. Here you go!

[64 Sensory Prompts]

Finally Carrot was at the top of the hill—and below her was a shack. It looked like heaven…or at least as inviting as the Goodsprings bar. Energy returned to her in a surge, and she took a running, laughing jump onto the roof.

The sheet metal crunched and folded under her boots as she skidded along to a stop, but thankfully held. She probably shoulda thought about the condition of a potentially 200-year-old roof before jumping on it. A campfire indicated a former resident, but it was ancient and dissolving in disuse. Carrot found the door and barged in.

Forget the bar—this dark shack, tiny streaks of light streaming valiantly in through pinholes in the sheet metal and dissolving into the clouds of glittering dust, each step announced with the clatter of a kicked can or bottle skittering across the floor, was Doc-Mitchell’s-house-levels of inviting. Glinting faintly in the inadequate green light of the pipboy, shelves were scattered across the room, littered with scrap and with boxes bound to be full of goodies. A workbench stood against a wall, tools in disarray. And there was a second room. That room had more shelves, a wardrobe, and a delicious pile of ammo boxes. Bunk beds stood haphazardly out from the wall, a teddy bear waiting expectantly on the bottom mattress and a toy car underfoot. A family had lived here, then. Children. Probably meant that the locale was reasonably safe. Or not, if that particular misstep was the reason the shack was now abandoned. Almost certainly meant a stash of Blamco somewhere.

temperance: communication, healing, moderation;

“I’m here for you. You can talk to me.” possible AUs/settings/ideas: comfort, deep talks, hugging, woundtending  

Finally got this out! Hope it’s worth the wait!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was just a raider den-clearing like any other. Sole needed to get out, clear her head, kill some jackasses, and Hancock was all too happy to oblige. She’d had time to cope with her experience inside the Institute, and this felt like a step back towards normal. She’d picked off a couple sentries from cover, then she’d then charged into the fray swinging as the rest realized they were under attack. Hancock was there at her back, blasting away any that tried to jump her from behind.

They’d missed one, apparently. A little smarter than the others, this one must’ve hung back, avoided the rush, sniped from a distance.

Sole goes down with a bullet to the thigh.

53. The relief of fatalistic recklessness

[64 Sensory Prompts]

I’m gonna go with Carrot this time!

1. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded?

I will take every opportunity to brag about choosing Carrot’s name, haha. Because I’m feeling particularly bold, I’m just gonna paste in that part of the tale, from Courier Carrot:

The man kept talking, but she was distracted by a voice in her head, a phrase looping like a stuck song.

"Must seem like an 18-karat run of bad luck."

Eighteen carrots. What a weird phrase. Something to describe jewelry, she recalled. Or some sort of shiny thing, anyway. Was eighteen good or bad? Eighteen out of how many? What did that have to do with luck? And why did they judge jewelry in terms of carrots? She'd only seen carrots a couple times in her life, rare merchandise from a couple of the more brave or more stupid Commonwealth traders. Could be carrots were as valuable as jewelry. Maybe--fuck, her head...

"…Carrot?… Can't say it's what I'd have picked for you, but if that's your name, that's your name."

She'd forgotten the man across from her. She must have been muttering out loud. She began to correct him, but stopped when she realized she didn't actually remember her name. Huh. Well, she'd never been too attached to it anyway. Carrot. Being named after jewelry was pretty fancy.  Like some pre-war heiress.  Imagine that, some pre-war heiress tramping around the Mojave in her tattered wanderer outfit and hurling dynamite at geckos.

13. What are your character’s sleeping habits? Heavy or light sleeper? Blanket stealer? One that always rolls onto the floor? Pushes their lover onto the floor? Sleep talker or walker?

She’s a light sleeper. Being a wastelander will do that to you, you have to be alert for any possible threats, especially if you’re traveling alone like she frequently does. Her ADHD plays a part in it too, so frequently her mind will just be going too fast and she won’t be able to block it out to sleep deeply.

She never has lovers in bed--you heard it here first, Carrot is officially aroace--but she will sometimes share a bed with traveling companions, a routine decision given the scarcity of wasteland beds. They find that she has no sense of personal space and is absolutely a blanket hog, will stretch into their space, and occasionally even ends up wrapped around them. She struggles with restless legs along with her restless mind too though, and often either spends sleepless hours thrashing or just gives up and goes to sort loot or repair weaponry.

43. Does your character have a switch that changes aspects of their personality whether they are around friends, family, etc. Is there someone who gets to see their true self?

Nah, everyone she encounters has the (honor? curse?) of knowing her true self. She enjoys the wasteland too much, enjoys traveling and learning and just the excitement of daily life, to care how she comes across to people. She’s also just too impulsive and forgetful to be successful hiding her personality even if she tried

@glowstickia​/ @falloutglow​ also asked 30 for both, so imma just say, y’all are both mean :P <3

Sole/Hancock

29. one headcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart

Well, the obvious one: that it can’t last. Their personalities just don’t work well together long-term, even though they’re enamored with each other and a ferocious duo short-term. Sole is introverted and gets exhausted--and jealous--by Hancock’s intense extroversion and constant need to be interacting with people. Most of their evenings off are spent socializing, whether entertaining people in his office or relaxing in the Third Rail if they’re in Goodneighbor, or the equivalent if they’re elsewhere, when she would rather relax by just enjoying his presence as they cook or read or whatever at home. And even though she knows how important she is to him, she can’t shake the feeling of inadequacy when he needs to be with other people, especially because his standard conversational method includes flirting, even though he has no intentions of actually acting on anything. And as much as he enjoys joining her occasionally to whup some baddies, he’s still Mayor and has to spend most of his time in Goodneighbor, and they both struggle with the frequent distance.

30. one headcanon about this OTP that mends it

They both kinda saved each other. Hancock was able to connect with Sole when she was dark with rage and fear and power, because he’d been there too, running from yourself by telling yourself you’re delivering justice. And he’s able to meet her where she is and help bring her back down to earth. Meanwhile, as his time becomes more occupied by her, he feels less need to pass the time with drugs or other temporary things. He’s able to refocus his priorities, run Goodneighbor more effectively, and remember that passion that drove him to take over Goodneighbor and turn it into a place of refuge in the first place. And that external validation of “yes, you are a good person” and “yes, you deserve love,” though it alone doesn’t fix him, it helps him through such a tumultuous time of both Commonwealth and personal upheaval to begin accepting those thoughts himself—really, that goes for both of them.

Sole/Preston

29. one headcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart

Preston had to wait so long mooning over her not that he necessarily had to be lonely in the meantime. He had to watch her evolve from a terrified vaultie who lost her family into the Commonwealth’s Arbiter of Justice, so afraid that she would turn into something even worse than the power-drunk evils that destroyed the Minutemen and created the Institute--and burned the world in the first place--, unable to help her or stop loving her.

30. one headcanon about this OTP that mends it

11 days, 8 hours, 17 minutes.

11 days since she had fled Vault 101 into the blinding light and harrowing openness of Outside. Since she had dragged herself to the great gate of Megaton, mostly unconscious from blood loss and not entirely certain she hadn’t hallucinated the cowboy robot. Since those hazy days in the clinic, drifting in and out of consciousness, until she was stable enough to be dumped on a merchant to repay her debt. An endless nightmare of guns and fangs and terrible food and dark ramshackle buildings with daggers of light striking through the cracks.

8 hours. That time this morning, she had pulled herself out of Moira’s spare bed, swallowed her now-usual breakfast of Sugar Bombs and brahmin milk, and started to work sorting scrap.

17 minutes. Moira was showing her a gun that a customer had traded in, cooing over its mods and beginning to strip it down, and had made a joke about its condition. And Dee had laughed. The look on Moira’s face startled her into introspection, then into a maelstrom of emotions. But it settled into the delight echoed in Moira’s eyes.

Dee was here, Outside, alive. Outside was survivable. Her dad was still alive, and she was going to find him.