Application for Veronica Santangelo, Fallout: New Vegas

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((Veronica is taken from after the Independent ending, companion quest finished on the Causeless Rebel path, and the Dead Money DLC completed. Potential spoilers accordingly. I haven't RPed here in ages, please tell me if I'm botching something))

The woman entering the Sorting Room in what looked like a brown potato sack with a hood on top might be mistaken for a monk – that is, if you didn't take into account the mechanical gauntlet on her right hand that would hurt at high velocity. With a tired sigh, she lowered her rucksack from her shoulder and turned to the application.

A fresh start. From what she'd managed to pick up after arriving in a place that was unexpectedly metropolitan beyond even the preserved grandeur of New Vegas, her travels had shunted her into another version of the Old World. There was a lot of science involved, and at this point she wasn't ruling out magic. Her knowledge of technology might not be as helpful here, but at least the Brotherhood of Steel wouldn't be after her for giving it out.

State your full name.
"Veronica Renata Santangelo."

She gasped when the quill extricated itself from her grip and wrote it for her, then let out a little shriek of delight. “Okay, let's see… Gloria Van Graff! Nolan McNamara! Robert House! California! Belgium! Brahmin Wellington is people!" The quill complied. “Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers! Anna Anna bo-banna banana-fanna-fo-fanna!"

1. What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?
"Cheese that isn't two hundred years old. Which means it's mostly from Brahmin. Or Bighorners if you're feeling fancy. Bighorner cheese because –" She winked, and was disappointed in spite of herself when the quill failed to transcribe. “– I like the finer things in life."

2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?
The world Veronica hailed from had gone off the rails of conventional history sometime in the 1950s. One of the few upsides was that neither gentleman had come on the scene by the time the bombs had fallen 204 (and counting) years ago. “Well, which one gets in punching range first?"

3. What time is it where you are?
"Time for you to get a watch. Time for me to get a watch, too. Or, even better! Before I showed up here, I was thinking of trying to scavenge a Pip-Boy. They map and they check your aim and they put down your appointments and they probably boil your eggs, too."

4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.
Veronica was not unfamiliar with sexual harassment. From the NCRCF to the Gomorrah casino, there'd been guys wolf-whistling and calling on her to “ditch the robe," etc. “Well, if you have a leggy brunette we could… do some mutual harassment?"

5. If you are pushing to be in:

A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.

"The Workshop. Because that's what I do – candlelit workshops and long walks across the wasteland. Or…" She half-smiled. “Maybe the Brotherhood of Beer."

B. Gryffindor – Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.

“Are they all guys? Because if they are, wow, you're pretty mellow about it around here. I like that." Especially coming from an isolated organization with a vocal faction holding forth that baby-making was their responsibility to the Brotherhood. It's going to take a lot more than a bunch of baby showers for the Brotherhood to survive.

“Well, the Codex isn't really helpful on this – Harry should marry the one with bigger lasers, at least so he can take them away and lock them up in the attic, and then confiscate the other one's on the side? Or, let's see, a variety, so… what would they do in Caesar's Legion? Something Roman. Probably, er, a duel in the arena, maybe to the death, something like that. At least every moment those Legionaries mount each other is a moment they aren't being sexist jerkwads."

C. Ravenclaw – You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I'm constantly disposing of it.

“Ah huh." She toed the ground. “Sorry about that? Seriously, I might be a scribe, but I can't give you much advice – I'm more of a field work, hands-on kind of girl."

D. Hufflepuff – Prove you are not useless.

“I've been putting things together and taking them apart before my first word. I can do it on the fly, too – I don't need a lot of fancy equipment to knock something together. And I'm pretty good at punching people. Or if I absolutely have to, I guess I could shoot them."

6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe. Do not threaten us rather than offering a bribe. A threat indicates you either don't really want to be here, or don't have enough sense to answer the question properly. The hat will automatically squib you, regardless of other votes, if you do.

“I can fix your machines, or try to. I could teach you to punch things. I've got fission batteries." She gestured to her rucksack. “Not too many, because these things are heavy, but two hundred years and still going strong. Speaking of heavy, there's a thirty-five-pound bar of gold - you don't want to know where I got that. Orrrrr maybe you do. On the lighter side, there's holodisks on agricultural technology, because the guy I got them for didn't want them. Some people don't know a good thing when they see it." She smiled. It didn't quite get to her eyes.

“And, well, if I need to, I have a couple of really nice dresses in my size. No biggie. I can get more.

“Well, hope you'll take a chance on a naïve young girl from postapocalyptic Nevada with stars in her eyes and a pneumatic gauntlet on her hand."

"I have read the hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. _____VS_______
I have read the hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them. _____VS______.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. _____VS______.
One day, marmalade will rule the world. _____VS (Ooh, like an irradiated jar from the Old World gone horribly wrong? Check the safety seals, people!)________"

Comments

[chipsandwich.livejournal.com]

"What's a pneumatic gauntlet? Sounds wicked." She sounded like she was from Somewhere Else, all right. He'd have to see how much he could glean in conversation.

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She extended her right hand, showing him (http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/b/bb/POWERFIST.png) the attached hydraulic jack for double the smashing power. "If by 'wicked' you mean wonderful and awesome, yes, yes it is. To get un-technical, usually people call them Power Fists."

[chipsandwich.livejournal.com]

"Power is right," he said, peering at it. "Is that normal technology where you're from, or did you get it off an alien or something?"

[scribe-counter.livejournal.com]

"It's semi-normal. Standard issue in the Brotherhood of Steel, but they're pretty thin on the ground otherwise, and the Brotherhood likes to keep it that way."

[5by5-lehane.livejournal.com]

And cue the leggy brunette.

Faith was bored. Terribly, terribly bored. She'd entertained herself in the Forbidden Forest taking on acromantulas or doing a little side work in London when she found the time. She wandered by the popcorn room, hoping for a demon or vampire, or someone fun.

.. the metal hand sure looked cool.

"Not much in the way of mechanical stuff around here to fix. Kinda the bummer about magic schools. They kinda go poof with these little wands and fix things when they get broken."

[scribe-counter.livejournal.com]

Hee!

"Oh, so it's magic-magic, not like that one show with the baby geckos out of a hat at the Aces? I wasn't sure." She considered this, and began to wind her brain around possible applications - whether it was magic-magic or some other esoteric tech. "How good is it at building things from scratch?"

[5by5-lehane.livejournal.com]

"Nope. The real thing. It's not quite like the magic I saw back home, but it's close enough."

Faith shrugs and paces around the room, barely glancing at the application. She's all energy and motion and doesn't tend to stand in one place for very long. "Kinda boring, really."

"Building stuff? Don't know. Looks like this place has been here forever, and the tech is wicked old."

[scribe-counter.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I can do old tech," Veronica said with confidence. The Mojave Wasteland was well off, comparatively speaking, but purveyors of new tech remained limited. "So how hard is it to get my hands on one of these little wands?"

[codex-of-good.livejournal.com]

"Fricking seriously, what is it with this place and people with (http://hogwarts-hocus.livejournal.com/2019979.html?thread=113881227#t113881227) metal hands (http://hogwarts-hocus.livejournal.com/1904391.html?thread=106441991#t106441991)?!" Codex threw her own decidedly non-metal ones up in a gesture of supreme WTF. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just weird. For me. Weird for me. Maybe not for you, but definitely weird for me."

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"Oh, if that's a problem..." With a few seconds work Veronica disengaged the latches of the gauntlet and produced a normal hand (aside from extreme punching aptitude) from beneath it. She flexed her fingers. "There. Better?"

[codex-of-good.livejournal.com]

"It's not a problem! It's not--oh. It's not your real hand." Codex squinted at the gauntlet, taken aback. "I'm... not sure if that's more or less weird. But it's cool! Really cool. Awesome, even." She grinned frantically, hoping that she hadn't been insulting. The gauntlet was really cool, and probably useful, and there were a whole lot of people Codex knew back home who could do with being punched in the face with a metal hand. (But not by Codex, who was not good with punching. Setting on fire, but not punching.)

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"Yes it is - you get a lot of people with real metal hands here?" Veronica lit up like the Lucky 38 sign. "Is it like, what's the word, cybernetics? Are they hooked up to the nerves and muscles and things?" Taking mental notes - if she ever went back, she'd love to powwow with Arcade about that.

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

"Building objects and taking them apart, that's quite a skill. Is that a natural talent of yours or did you study?" Lenneth asked, approaching her with a kind smile. The goddess took note of the fiery personality of the woman before her as well, keeping that in mind to bring up later.

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This was the one of the stranger outfits she'd seen after going onto the school grounds. As long as this woman wasn't going to talk Latin and banish her to the kitchen to scrub the dishes barefoot and pregnant, Veronica didn't mind. "Both? I mean, I had a knack, and then I studied. Under one of those, um, insane genius types."

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness, Lenneth would never do such a thing.

"I hope the insanity didn't rub off at all. I don't think any world needs any more of those types. Still, your really must be quite intelligent."

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Alas, Veronica's main points of reference for fantasy-style outfits were Gomorrah showgirls and, on the men's side, the Roman cosplayers of the Legion. Unless perhaps you counted the standard-issue Brotherhood scribe robes.

"I don't think it did," she said, smiling to hide her wince at the memory of Father Elijah. "But I bet that's what they all say."

[theregothedrums.livejournal.com]

"Fission batteries? Been a while since I've seen those. Bit hard to keep stable, aren't they?" From the eager glint in his eye, it might be guessed that the Master wasn't all that stable either.

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She'd seen something like that glint before, whenever Father Elijah got particularly worked up about something. "Oh, these are very stable," Veronica assured him. "I used the Geiger counters on them and everything." Despite the name, they were one of the Old World's masterpieces - definitely better at keeping in the radiation than the "safety barrels" she'd seen on the automated tour at REPCONN.

[theregothedrums.livejournal.com]

"So how much juice are we talking about?" He could always find a use for a serious energy source, whether for interplanetary conquest (and really, he mustn't, not when there were so many advantages to being in the Doctor's good graces) or just an evening's worth of really good fireworks.

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She took one out, making sure to use her gauntlet hand. "There's a lot going on in these little packages. You could power a streetlamp, a sign, a house, a Protectron - and you could keep the light on for years. Decades, sometimes. They're really helpful somewhere without reliable electricity, if you can get together the right adapters."

[ugly-old-hat.livejournal.com]

The Hat was intrigued. "Could you teach me to punch things?"

It waggled its straps. Lack of visible arms (http://hrwiki.org/wiki/Lack_of_Visible_Arms) had never broken the Hat's stride or slowed it down. (The Hat had got to keep on moving (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAiIJcoYBMg).)

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Veronica imagined the hat's straps with boxing gloves on the ends. She suppressed a giggle as she wondered if they could move with enough force to trigger the hydraulics of a Power Fist. "I... could definitely try!"

[ugly-old-hat.livejournal.com]

"That is fabulous because you know what I've always wanted to try? Kickboxing. I think kickboxing is so sexy," the Hat enthused. The strap-waggling took on a whole new ... sexiness. To be more specific, the straps were now twirling like pasty-tassels on an oldtimey stripper.

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"Sometimes a good kick spices things up," Veronica agreed. "Excuse me for asking, but what do you kick with?"

Would-be Follower of the Apocalypse that she was, Veronica had not yet encountered anything that Man (or Woman) Was Not Meant To Know.

Hufflepuff!

[ugly-old-hat.livejournal.com]

Your bribe has been accepted!

Welcome to Hufflepuff!