#sotriverse

[singingsotries]

Everyone has their own "wtf was Benny doing as a Boot Rider" headcanons, here's a couple of mine!:

I could see him wanting to be a scout/scavver to get away from everyone, but is shafted with being the cook since he's the best at it. This is his (petty) personal hell.

While Benny doesn't especially hate anyone in the Boot Riders (minus Bingo), he's the type of person who needs his personal space, and if he doesn't get it, he gets pissy real quick, especially given he has to stay at camp all the time because of his assigned task/job.

He's still type to sneak out anyway, and forage for/steal better shit if what the actual scavvers came back with wasn't good enough for him.

That works most of the time, but on one occasion, he stole a bighorner and wanted to keep it for milk; Bingo kills it for meat instead.

Before House, Benny would have phases of wanting to start a farm or something (his only "escape"/grass is greener dream at the time), but would never go through with it because as much of a contrarian little shit he is, he still cares about his family.

If he happened to have actual siblings in the tribe (and I'm not saying he does!...). He would still value the perceived needs of the many over the few and act accordingly.

He's a mix of selfless and selfish in that regard; he'll do anything for his family but only what he thinks they need.

That being said, House leaned heavily into Benny's personal wants/hobbies in order to convince him to mutiny.

For example, at the time, Benny's favorite pre-war media was the Oz series (his mother had the first 3 books); House shows him a copy of the 1939 movie, and it like, genuinely blows his mind.

Then House lights up the Strip for him to see (EMERALD CITY PARALLELS)

Imagine the technicolor shift being paired with the city lighting up like I would've been compelled to do what the robot man asked me, too.

I know the Oz references are all in OWB but the mild unintentional parallels between Benny and House <--> Dorothy and the Wizard (a young person killing someone on behalf of the powerful owner of a glowing city who looks like he could do it himself but can't). Benny's wearing gingham pattern for gods sake/j

[singingsotries]

Potential headcanon that I'm still on the fence about:

(Assuming Benny was born into/grew up with the Bootriders) As a kid, he was known for being the "crybaby" of the group, which is imprinted on him as his "thing" within the tribe. Even after he "grows out" of it, he's still widely seen as a sap until he challenges/kills Bingo.

As a Chairman, he tries to put on a tough/controlled front most of the time (mostly by distancing himself from everyone), but he's still sentimental as hell. It's hard for him to not to wear his heart on his sleeve when and if the right people know how to push his buttons.

My extremely thought out evidence:

something something Benny never kills anyone he sleeps with in game, even if it would benefit him to do so by tying loose ends (which he is obviously fine with doing otherwise).

While the notes/things he says to a black widow courier at the fort could've just been another manipulation tactic, they might have had some truth to them.

[singingsotries]

A page from the Benny/Courier multi chapter that’ll hopefully come out this week

They pause, the next round of snickers silenced by their tongue, harshly bitten. The bubbled over, unsure half smile sinks under the weight of their own lips, fighting and failing to resurface in a pitiful display.

Slowly, they rise, dragging the excited hand into the wettened, soft center of theirs, pressing it down to the cool bar counter. His palm presses flush against the cool surface. They don’t say a word.

Thank you.

He swallows. Their hand, cool and steady, never quite leaves, feeling over his last two fingers in careful calculation.

Numb.

The show dies out as it always does, manufactured fervor and half-drunken cheers, Tommy walking off with a wink, nod, and a bouquet’s-worth of bright, pretty plasticized roses they resell at the end of the night. 5 caps a piece.

“You know, as much as I scouted for Tommy, I’ve never sat still long enough for a show.” They say over their shoulder, captured by the wavering light, in the place of any trepidation.

He leans against the counter, roughly balancing the heels of his shoes on the rungs of his barstool. The glint of their eyes elude him. “Consider yourself lucky,” comes his painfully dull response. He glances back as the man in question strolls off backstage-way, shooting a humorously deadly look to the fame stricken, would-be show killer. A considerably less deadly look and drawling announcement to the next act, dropping the microphone to him from just beyond the curtain with a show stopping smile.

Billy Knight.

He groans, shoulder to shoulder with them now, head falling against theirs in a dizzying clunk of his own.

His.

The sweater-vested kiss ass catches him in the crowd, running his mouth on a joke that wore out later than yesterday. He grimaces, “the hell hired this guy, anyway?”

“Me.”

“...”

[singingsotries]

Post-second battle, Six dedicates a large portion of their time at Big MT innovating new self defense tech, because Benny has an extremely punchable/killable face and they'd rather him not die.

[singingsotries]

Thinking about a fic where Benny gets mezzed by a random inexperienced assassin (to add insult to injury they aren’t NCR or legion just some dude) who thinks it’ll kill him since “they thought it only blew up heads”. But instead of the normal side effects he forgets the past 5 years of his life including Silver.

They gotta stay away from him because every time they’re around him he gets headaches and everyone’s all super concerned his head’s actually gonna fucking explode since the mesmetron manual is so vague. He does eventually regain his memory, but Silver is secretly super hurt that he forgot them in the first place, which is one of the inciting contributors of the “breakup arc”. So to speak.

[singingsotries]

Branching off from my last post, Benny gets kinda upset when Silver eats pre-war processed food in the exact way the box tells them to. Like, as a Boot Rider, he spent like 10 years perfecting recipes off reconstructing Fancy Lads and Yum-Yums, and here's Silver, eating the Blamco with the 200 year old cheese powder and all, milk optional.

(and as a failed food snob, he gets really REALLY annoyed when it tastes good)

That being said, Silver loves Wasteland Omelettes. Before then, they only ever had the "base" egg Omelettes (Aka, just the scrambled egg mixed with blood/water), and thought it was too rich (but it's nostalgic in a way, since most base creature egg omelettes are more for protein than they are for taste (going off the wiki, where there's some "tasty" variants of the Omelettes, implying that the base ones aren't as subjectively good as they could be).

In general, they really like what Benny cooks. He does solely for them even though it reminds him of his past.

[singingsotries]

Whenever I write a weird hypothetical in Silver’s thoughts, I get worried that readers will think they’re being serious instead of just being weird (affectionate). Not to be a mid gen Z and tie everything back to Toby Fox but you know how in Deltarune Kris randomly says shit like “perpetuate the cycle” about moss? Kinda like that.

[singingsotries]

Boone knows way more about Silver’s personal life/lore than Benny does and that honestly drives me insane but also I think Boone also keeps the most secrets from Silver by far. Like tbf all three of them (Benny, Boone, and Silver) are lying by omission pros but yeah.