#and it's going to be the one with a smaller world and fewer sidequests

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Tell Me Where To Find Shelter -- Weird And Complicated Video Game Crossover AUs Strike Again

Okay, so last week I offered you all an updated rewrite on my old Fallout 4 Sole Survivor!Victor AU, Tell Me Where To Find Shelter. And at the very end of said update, I let you know that I had an idea for fitting Alice into the AU --

Specifically, my Malkavian Alice from Vampire: the Masquerade -- Bloodlines.

Look, the fact of the matter is, Fallout 4 and Bloodlines have been rather closely connected in my head from day one of my purchasing them -- hell, I got them during the same Steam sale! (Along with the BioShock series entire, which is why I had a couple of posts about Tell Me Where to Find Shelter back in 2016, then it dropped off the face of the earth -- I played Bloodlines first, and followed up with that series.) And my “Londerland Bloodlines” playthrough of Bloodlines was done concurrently with my starting up Fallout 4, so -- yeah. Me wanting to figure out how to cross the two over was probably inevitable.

I know what you’re all thinking, of course -- “how the hell do you make this sort of crossover work?” Well, I have had a few ideas:

-->This version of Malkavian Alice and her adventures in 2004 Los Angeles would be much more like the standard fledgling’s, given that the Corpse Bride characters are now born in the future. So the person she saves in the hospital is Heather (who she does manage to send away in time to save her life), and the Giovanni party goes down without dragging an undead version of Lizzie into the mix. Obviously the story and setting would have to be tweaked to fit better into Fallout’s alternate history (though given what the computers in the original game are like, maybe that’s easier than expected). She still goes Independent, and escapes from Los Angeles in the wake of LaCroix’s explosive death, making her way slowly but surely to the East Coast because she has had enough of California and everyone there.

-->She manages to get on with her unlife, watching the growing tensions with China and the Resource Wars with unease, but keeping to herself and doing her best not to let her humanity slip as she gets older. When the bombs fall, she’s sleeping the day away in a basement bunker she set up in Boston -- but the destruction from the explosion ends up collapsing part of the ceiling, burying her in rubble -- with a chunk of timber piercing her heart. She ends up in a staked torpor. . .

-->Until Victor shows up at her location at night to clear out a few raiders who are taking over the place as a base. One of the raiders yanks out the stake to use as a weapon, has three seconds to wonder why it’s got fresh blood on it -- then Alice explodes from her centuries-long hiding place and drinks him dry. Victor is too stunned at first to actually shoot her, and once Alice’s blood thirst has been quest, she immediately puts her hands up and does her best to show she means him no harm. They talk, Alice explains what happened (and goes ahead and admits she’s a vampire when Victor explains about the nuclear apocalypse -- who gives a shit about the Masquerade when the world has ended?), she offers to help with the remaining raiders to prove her good intentions, Victor accepts, and they take down the assholes together.

-->Obviously, Alice isn’t immediately “unlockable” as a companion -- she’s still got her sunlight thing, after all! She and Victor chat about it, and Victor, feeling bad, offers his assistance. Alice accepts -- she misses the sun -- and says that she’ll stay where she is for the moment (after finding a non-partially-collapsed basement to stay in) and keep raiders and monsters out while he searches for information. And so the “Here Comes The Sun” quest begins, with Victor searching for a way to counteract the sunlight curse! I’m thinking this would end up interacting with the Cabot family stuff, because I don’t think it would be hard at all to change the source of their immortality, and the artifact upon Lorenzo’s head, from something alien to something vampiric. Maybe Lorenzo’s partially possessed by the spirit of an Antediluvian, and it’s turned his blood into something close enough to vitae it can make ghouls? At any rate, Jack manages to whip something up after examining some of Alice’s blood (which, naturally, she’s kind of nervous about, but what choice does she have?), and it successfully stops her from burning up in sunlight (though she is weaker in it). A grateful Alice thanks Victor (and Jack) and agrees to travel with him to experience the Commonwealth.

-->As they go on together, they end up getting closer -- Alice likes that Victor is generally a good guy and sympathizes with the story of his lost family; Victor likes Alice’s snarky wit and strong sense of justice. As they share more details of their lives, help out the settlements, and battle monsters together, they realize they’re growing feelings for each other, and eventually get together, facing off against the Institute as a couple and parenting Synth Shaun/Chester together afterwards. (Alice jokes a lot that it took both her dying and the end of the world in general to finally get a domestic happy ending.)

-->Alice’s starting clothes would be a simple blue dress and apron with black buckled boots (the dress would naturally have a big bloody hole right over her heart when she first wakes up; she patches this after you leave her to her own devices for a bit), and she’d have the Tal’Mahe’Ra Blade (her prize from her storming of the Hallowbrook Hotel, taken from Andrei’s lair) as her standard weapon. She has a unique bite attack, being a vampire, and can still use Obfuscate (turning invisible to sneak past/sneak attack enemies) and Dementation (inflict debuffs on enemies so they’re confused and can’t shoot straight, or kill a single enemy from fear alone), though both have a cooldown so Victor can’t rely on her just spamming that to take care of every raider for him! XD Her perk would allow you to drain blood from enemy corpses (which other companions would find less disturbing than outright cannibalism, but still fairly creepy) and/or increase the healing capabilities of blood packs. I’m thinking, once romanced, she’d also have a unique variation of the “Lover’s Embrace” temporary perk, “Love Bite” -- Victor wakes up with HP not fully restored, but the XP boost is greater than “Lover’s Embrace” (+20% vs +15%).

-->Other vampiric elements of the Commonwealth would include:

A) That blood bank you can find? Those bags of blood are warm and fresh because there’s a Tremere there who has built up their power and knows some rituals for preserving the stuff. Unfortunately, they’re also very low humanity by this point, so they end up being a nasty surprise fight.

B) There’s a secret settlement of vampires that is made up of all the various fledglings you could pick from in Bloodlines, having learned to live together after the destruction of vampire society along with human when the bombs fell. The local Tremeres managed some blood sorcery that infused a mutfruit tree with human blood, so plasma fruit, a la The Sims 4, is a thing for them, and allows them to live in relative peace with their human neighbors (though they’ll happily drain anyone who attacks them). They’d probably have a quest revolving around either talking down or killing some vampire hunters who have been eying their base, and they could be persuaded to allow Jack Cabot and family to study them in exchange for vitae to help them stay in their immortal states. Also, the Malkavians openly call Victor the “Sole Survivor” and offer roundabout tips on his quests -- if he can decipher them. XD

C) This is just one that amuses me -- this universe’s Mysterious Stranger is none other than good old Caine! He’s trying to be a little more helpful to mortal and Kindred alike in the post-apocalypse, and has decided this means “showing up randomly to help people out of tight spots before vanishing again.” Alice, upon seeing him, jokes that the cabdriver thing didn’t work out, huh?

D) I’d kind of like to make stimpacks developed from vampire or ghoul blood to explain just how it is they can heal crippled limbs so fast -- the wiki didn’t provide much of an answer there! Which means anyone who uses them is at least slightly a ghoul. . .which might explain a few things about carry weight and why some enemies are so tough. (Legendaries have more vitae in their system, prompting the power-up, maybe?)

So yeah -- that’s how I’d get Bloodlines and Fallout to work together, and thus have my Malkavian!Alice and Sole Survivor!Victor be a couple in the wasteland. Because why make a crossover simple when I could make it way more complicated than it needs to be? XD Look, I just like the mental images I have of them together -- and of Alice taking out a whole army of baddies by hitting them with Voice of Bedlam to throw them into absolute chaos.

#tell me where to find shelter #fallout 4 #vampire the masquerade bloodlines #vtmb #valice #weird ass AUs #look this was probably inevitable #given the whole 'Londerland Bloodlines' fic keeping my brain at least partially in vampire land #and the fact that I just really love vampire!Alice with Victor #still this is a lot of thought for an AU #that is going to be snippets of fic at BEST #I can only novelize one RPG #and it's going to be the one with a smaller world and fewer sidequests #still I like a lot of these ideas #and the resultant mental images #'Voice of Bedlam' is the top tier Dementation ability in Bloodlines btw #it inflicts all the below levels randomly on the target and anyone near them #so you'd have people laughing or crying maniacally #people experience weird hallucinations that drop their combat abilities #people just plain old dying of fright #and people attacking each other randomly #(naturally Alice would activate it via a Hysteria scream) #she'd be the most terrifying thing in the Commonwealth #I love it :D #as does Victor XD #queued

[wellplacedrocket]

Sidequest Log | Technology is (probably) not gonna replace your bartender, but it’s still pretty damn cool

When I’m at a bar having a beer, the tap handles tease me. They make them so ornate and visually interesting now, and each beer has its own brewery-designed handle. They are works of art unto themselves; it’s like a statue park, except each statue represents something interesting and delicious going into my mouth. I fantasize about being my own bartender, expertly and with flourish pouring out my own glorious nectar of the gods into a tilted pintglass, knowing just when to stop so it doesn’t foam over.

I didn’t know that anyone had ever packaged my longing into a business plan, but this is 2018, so I guess that should have been obvious. On a whim recently, I impulsively stopped in Tap Society on 46th St. and Grand Ave in Minneapolis. I expected a typical burger bar with ESPN on TVs, and instead I spent the next hour or so getting my head around an entirely new (to me) business model: a self-serve bar.

I stuttered out my stupefied captivation with this idea to General Manager Michael Nienaltowski. What wondrous Narnia have I walked into here? He replied “Yeah. So obviously as you said, the tap wall, the self-serve tap wall, is really the star of the show here.”

It was very kind him to coach me up, because even though Tap Society is super simple, I’m so used to the standard bar procedure that I felt like I was fumbling every step of my whole be-my-own-bartender fantasy.

“We were looking up there and when we first came in, I thought that was a bar,” said Josh Peterson of Minneapolis, indicating the long table next to the tap wall. “There was someone over there and we thought that's the bartender. Then I realized. So once we figured it out, it's kind of cool.”

“I like that you pour your own beer, I think it’s fun,” added Tina Dunlap, also of Minneapolis.

When you enter, you “check in” at a station near the door and they scan your debit/credit card, hand it back to you, and you get another card from the bar - your Tap Card. Then you walk up to the tap wall and grab a glass.

Each pair of taps has a small screen above it, and then the beers’ names, styles, ABV, and cost per pint are posted on larger TV screens a few feet above. You insert your Tap Card into a slot, which unlocks the tap, then stick your glass under the spout, and fulfill your self-bartending fantasies. You can see the price of your pour accrue on the small screen above your tap, like you’re at the gas pump. It tallies that charge to your Tap Card. When you’re ready to be done, you turn your Tap Card in to a human or drop it down a box. Your name has already been associated with that Tap Card, so they read it from there and know what to charge your debit/credit card. No cash used at all.

So let’s pros/cons this thing! First of all, you can pour as small a glass as you want, and you’re only charged by how much your pour. They had a Märzen that I wanted to try just a bit of, so I got a pour that was about $1.70 - a few mouthfuls. Anticipating the draw that sampling would be with their tap wall, they have plenty of small glasses available. You can easily make your own flights. “I've had many customers come up with smaller glasses and pour six or seven different beers and it costs less than 10 bucks depending on what you're drinking,” Nienaltowski said.

Secondly, there’s no one to tip. Food is ordered from kiosks, and you’re getting your drinks yourself. Floor staff consists only of a few customer service people to help coach customers up as needed or answer questions, and “food runners” who bring it out to you. I don’t want to get into virtue signalling about my tipping habits, but I’m aware that bars and restaurants have carved out embarrassing minimum wage exceptions and expect their staff to be almost entirely paid in tips. When pressed a little, Nienaltowski said they pay “competitively,” and I wasn’t sure what that meant. I tend to be very skeptical of business posture toward labor, no matter how nice the businessperson is. But later, I was assured by a kitchen guy out on break listening in that he’s pretty happy with his wages. Net result for me was my total tab was noticeably lower than it usually is, thanks to short pours and no tip.

Now I’ll strawman up some downsides. First and foremost, if you’re into cocktails, you’re SOL. There’s no one to make them for you, so they don’t even bother. I suppose they could premix some gin and tonic or something and put it on tap if they really want, but eh. Literally the only time I ever order cocktails at bars is if I’m there because it’s specifically a cocktail bar and I’m splurging on fancy. I will concede that lowball glasses full of lime wedges and rows of weird bottles with pourers in interesting arrangements behind the bar are more visually interesting than Tap Society’s tap wall, which is all digital and kinda antiseptic.

On a related note, if you go to bars specifically for bartenders, Tap Society again strikes out. Bartenders have a romanticized vocation in our culture, and I get it. I’ve had a great time chatting to bartenders, the job tends to attract those who are comfortable schmoozing and multitasking often demands people of quick wit and efficient focus. I’m aware they’re at their job and therefore a captive audience, so I never want to dominate a bartender’s attention. But a good bartender can cheer you up, get a laugh, blow your mind, and make your night.

I wouldn’t want all bars to ditch their bartenders, and they won’t. But I think there’s room in the economy for tap walls, and I was having too much fun playing with the taps to miss the person who’s usually pouring them for me. And if it’s really busy, it’s far more efficient to let each customer come and line up at the tap they want (if there even is a line) than to create the customer service choke point of 25 people mashed against the bar all politely jockeying for elbow space while 4 bartenders hustle with little sense of any queue order.

Bartenders reading might think this tap wall is the enemy, here to put them out of a job. When I texted my dad about what I’d discovered, his response was “No bartenders. More unemployment.” Fair point! Is Tap Society the vanguard of the next wave of the Tech Priests of Silicon Valley, here to sacrifice real human livelihoods at the alter of technological efficiency?

“I think instead of looking at we are saying we have less people, I think it's the way we utilize the staff and when we have them on,” says Nienaltowski. He figured when it’s slow, they probably have the same staff size as they would if it were a normal sitdown bar/restaurant, but fewer staff compared to the standard model during busy hours. “I don't think it's necessarily looking at it as we cut bodies for automation to save a dollar, it's just the way our model works. It doesn't require all those people. And the people that we have, we utilize their strengths in different ways.”

It was unfair of me to try to make him speak for the entire socioeconomic footprint of technological advancement. He’s defending the employer and focusing just on how Tap Society works. But my dad’s grumble still holds, obviously. Tap Society is a medium-sized establishment, and it just isn’t going to hire as many total workers as it would if it were a normal bar. They’re obviously not devoid of the human touch in there. It was slow, and I chatted with humans the whole time I wasn’t taking pictures. I don’t know what the solution is to automation’s effect on the economy. Some kind of national job retraining and relocation assistance program, I guess.

Here’s a definite downside: no happy hour! I feel they could easily program the tap wall to drop the prices during certain hours. Not sure why they don’t.

You also might thinking that it would be super easy for all the local drunks to post up and knock back Miller Lite after Miller Lite with no gatekeeper keeping them from getting shitty. Valid concern. The Tap Cards only allow so much pouring before the card locks and you have to check in with a human to unlock it again. I’m not sure if it keeps track of volume or total tab applied to the card or maybe even alcohol consumed, tracked by ABV. It’s not a big deal to get your card reset, BUT it would be a problem if you were trying to buy a round for your table. I was at about $16.00 when it locked up on me, and I was done anyway, but it would fill up the card quick if there were other people involved.

I don’t think places like Tap Society are ever going to replace all your favorite bars and bartenders. But I stopped myself when I was about to type “I don’t think it’s going to revolutionize the bar/restaurant industry.” I’m not so sure about that, when I think about it. The tech is really, really cool, my friends. And as someone for whom beer accounts for 99% of my bar selections, it’s a simple, fun, interactive, and overall less expensive way to deliver it to me, with plenty of room for a tantalizing selection. If you like going to bars and drinking beers a lot, Tap Society and places like it might be perfect for you. And if you’re worried it’s another digital interloper trying to supplant a sacred analog ritual, that’s probably not going to happen. Probably.

“I think you can have both,” Josh told me. “I don't think this is the way where the world is going to go, but having a couple of these around, I don't think would hurt anything. And it’s cool, it’s a concept.”

“The problem is, you just always need a human,” said Ryan Lagieski, also of Minneapolis. “We’re not to the point where everything can be automated."

#beer #bars #Sidequest Log