#actually vulpine

[seasidewanderers]

yesterday I was talking to a friend who knows I have DID, though I don't usually talk about it. this time something happened the night before, we were extremely dissociated and he noticed it too so he asked about that. I told him how this thing makes me dissociate, how in this instance I act like I'm someone else, and this behaviour and feeling lasts days after the thing that makes me dissociate.

I didn't mention DID directly, but he said "could it be that **name of "other me I become during that time"** is an alter trying to make himself known?"

and. I don't like to ascribe to DID what could very easily be that I'm a little tired, out of it, or just normal stress of a normal life. but this time he's right and really knocked me out of the shadow of doubt. I'm feeling much better today too! it feels nice to be acknowledged as me :)

[justablart56]

heehoo new oc :3

here's Chipper ! he/they

[mochimouiemarty]

check the spread

—

ive had this idea since last year (december)

featuring!!!! Alejandro by @sanudefinitelyhasadhd !!!!

first time drawing vro, sorry if I got anything wrong rghshfhsbf

dont mind the messy background and the uncoordinated colors, my brain is mush, and everytime I try to draw I am mentally cupping the remains like a thirsty traveller on a dirt road who has finally found a small murky pond

[whatudottu]

Hello Ben 10 fans, it's been a hot second hasn't it, it's time for another round of Whatudottu Rambles and it's been a long time coming! Not just because of the gaps between posts but because this original idea comes straight from 2023 notes yay!

Today, we'll be talking about vulpimancers, but specifically their history and the politics of Vulpin! Because! For some reason! Whenever I think about vulpimancers, Vulpin, and vulpinic tortugans I think about their relation to the rest of the universe at large and frankly I want to elaborate what has been years of note taking!

God it's gonna be LONG!

So! One of the caveats when dealing with societal structure and the politics therein with significantly more animalistic appearing species, especially vulpimancers who do not have the actual physical structure to speak Earth languages, is that trying to base them off of a real human culture is a SIGNIFICANT FAUX PAS let alone taking inspiration from more traditional and indigenous cultures from around the world. It's part of the reason my obviously-armadillo ant bio talpaedans have their cultural influence taken from historial Europe more specifically during the time of their royal blood swapping since that's the basis of the tradie marriages.

What this means for vulpimancers is that I won't be taking from any modern world culture and hopefully harkening their lives and otherwise timeline to be kind of the present day equivalent of early human communities. Vulpimancers don't exactly have hard borders on territory beyond their stable hunting grounds and are nomadic, sticking together in communities, working within packs, then bundling for rest with families. This will persist until the 'modern era' which consists of a lot more than just the last 25 so years 'today' means, and that territory ends up becoming a whole country, a few communities per country with their relevant amount of working packs and individual families within.

Communities are 'run' by family elders and pack leaders, being a combination of 'the eldest takes care of the youth' parent style but also of those in charge of resource gathering being the... I suppose statistical analysts of the community who take stock of the resources they have, the mouths they need to feed, the seasons of their country, and how well one resource is actually growing (in the case of plants) or breeding (in the case of animals). It's not completely flawless sure, but it's certainly a system that works in a deadly pitch black environment filled with predators galore. Each country has a basic sense of politics even without a so called 'government head' or unified governing body, and historically their international politics extend to the access foreign vulpimancers have to the lands and resources of their country. Often smelling like a region none of the communities have traveled through (and countrymancers would have had interactions with the other communities and familiarised themselves with their scents), the allowance of foreign travel are limited in small numbers to only a few members of a family and only one or two members of a worker pack just outside (never within) the border; a whole community is expected to remain well away from the border unless the border happens to be at the centre of a river or by a dense cave system.

This system would have gone uninterrupted were it not for the fact that early tortugan settlers, an old species already at space fairing technology well beyond many of the civilisations we know were what they are today, landed on Vulpin during their mission to colonise their star system. One argues that the tortugan got to their level of technology from having a lack of predators and thus more proposed 'free time' to dedicate to advanced sciences, another says that they were simply haughty and underprepared for an environment that they had no ability to even understand beyond the atmosphere let alone the conditions on the ground. What inarguably happened though was in some way the settlers were stranded, their ships corroding and decaying from the harsh chemicals of the air, fighting for their damn lives in the pitch black of Vulpin. Forced to adapt or die, the settlers faced the wild threats of Vulpin fighting tooth and nail to live, running into what would and will continue to be the apex predator vulpimancers reacting in fear to their initial 'foreigners in our territory' related hostilities. It was a reluctant few vulpimancers who saw the fear of the settlers and tried to, realising they both shared the same sapience (or at least an intelligence that was not well adapted to the daily stress of Vulpin), allowing their kindness to inform the tortugans of their own intelligence in turn.

However over time, evolving not only themselves but the environment around them in small yet incredibly noticeable ways, the nations of vulpimancers (particularly near the original region/s of the settler landing zones) were quick to notice and many quick to anger in reaction to the distortion of THEIR land - their COUNTRY - some even quick to forgo what kindness they had extended to the quivering death fodder. Hodgepodging together shelter from their ship scraps, warped metal and corroded rust making for an ironic newly created collection of beaten up shanty towns, the torugans (on their way to becoming the vulpinic tortugans of the modern era) were either left to fend for themselves as communities of vulpimancers dropped their support or had to rebuild again and again as some ran them out, furious at the junk obstructing their riverways, digging up their plants, and diverting the natural and long studied hunting grounds of their prey. The very rare few communities - or rather, specific individuals - leave the attempts at expansion to run it's course and to meet it's maker at the hands of the weather and wilds seeking to erase the settlers' old technology, truly predating on anything the tortugans have build up whether it be the walls of their home or the flesh beneath their skin.

Unlike the nomadic vulpimancers, the tortugans are sedentary in their housing and are densely packed into small Minitowns so to say, their population never particularly comparable to the large number of vulpimancers. Minitowns are only ever really found in countries that have notable 'places of evil' that the communities of the region avoid like the literal plague, especially areas that not a lot of wildlife disturb, which technically makes for shit city planning since it means prey species and plants aren't nearby in the area, but the tortugans would take anything to get predators off their backs even if it means they need to have their own versions of worker packs. Some Minitowns have actually consulted with a few communities about where best to place a sedentary 'camp' so to speak, which varies given the relationship a specific group or nation of vulpimancers have towards the settlers whether they'd rather hide them away near a cave system that could provide good shelter and cave-dwelling prey, or in specific colder locations where the tortugan-vulpimancer relationship is actually neutral to positive, they might suggest a Minitown to be built adjacent to a winter site to help during what might usually be a deadly chill.

Tortugans however can still be 'on the run' however if they've wondered into regions where vulpimancers hate them, but unfortunately the early settlers who have not yet adapted to the conditions of the planet are run off to die instead. This and the former paragraph would be referred to in modern times as the New Settler policy, more of a general reaction the general vulpimancer had to the tortugans rather than an official decree, but a generalised trend that can all be connected under a retroactive title.

With a somewhat stable environment, the remaining survivors and the descendants of the settlers would have adapted and become the vulpinic tortugans, now able to sustain themselves and not be as entirely reliant on their historical Minitowns; they still aren't an apex predator by any means, nor too far removed from being a prey species, but their poison spines and defense curl allows them not to be completely food. Due to the inherent limitations of even the recommended locations of Minitowns, a fair many tortugans become nomadic out of necessity, the growing number of mouth unable to be filled with the lack of resources. Tortugan and vulpimancer relations are still heavily varied between regions, but with the new nomadic tortugan groups - tending towards groups of friends or small families - there may yet be more opportunity for the two species to bond in the best case scenario. In a neutral but positive case, some countries that had been very hostile to the tortugans may view the up-and-coming nomads to not be as much of a threat to their land and allow them transit, though nothing more and in the most untrusting of cases they'll be escorted to the next border with haste or even only allowing passage if the path to an adjacent nation is otherwise hard to cross over.

Throughout their entire time trying to survive Vulpin, the tortugans previously didn't have enough time to consider anything as formal as politics. With their physical adaptations, now they can enter the world of more unspoken politics that the vulpimancers were already scent deep into, splitting into the primary two demographics of settler and nomad tortugans. Settler tortugans typically stay within the country, even if some may have nomadic tendencies to travel between known Minitowns of the region, often having a specialised class of the worker pack to rely on food and materials; they still cling onto every scrap that their ancestor came with, though they have long forgotten a lot of what they specifically meant to them. Nomadic tortugans can but often don't travel exclusively within their country - a contrast to their neighbouring communities - needing to avoid countries that actively hate them and only occasionally daring to step within countries that tolerate them at BEST but would rather not have to interact with them; they often sympathise with the original vulpimancer communities affected by their coloniser ancestors, those who ultimately failed in their goal regardless, travelling around the world that they know would have had attempts made to terraform it into something unrecognisable should the colonists have had 'better' circumstances to do so.

It was sometime in the modern era that Vulpin began to become an intergalactic dumping ground fueled by the tortugan colonies, or rather the United Tortugan Market - a trade colony built up of several planets within the same system, except for Vulpin - who are filling up with excess waste, recalled that one of their ancestral colony ships failed to produce any results on Vuplin and thus considered it the trash they they dumped onto it. Ignorant not only because the settlers failed to report back about a sapient species, they also wholeheartedly believe that the passengers sent to the planet on that initial voyage died before they could populate, they emptied out their waste bins and tossed them down onto the planet at ranges that would not allow corrosion to interfere with their ships flight. And now, where both the vulpimancer communities - disgruntled about repeated history - and the newly adapted vulpinic tortugans - newly afraid to taste their own ancestors' medicine - have to deal with their lands and homes being ruined and overrun by scraps and busted machines, the UTM begins selling a service to local customers for their new planet sized dump, dubbing it Vulpin: the Market Junkyard.

With the intergalactic trash piling up, destroying the ecosystem, damaging ancient lands and displacing many communities and even whole fucking countries of vulpimancers, new political ideologies start to form. There are the 'fuck aliens' crowds who - despite reluctance - allow for vulpimancer refugees of neighbouring countries, beginning to revert to (or worsing their already bad relationship to the tortugans) xenophobia towards both settler tortugans and nomadic tortugans, some countries turning to the ones cohabiting with them to 'go back to where [they] came from' and leave their planet alone. Others have put their foot down and - essentially - form the political ideology of 'learn to fucking cope' where communities specifically refuse to share their unmarred land to even their fellow countrymancers, splitting off into the 'okay LET'S fucking cope' ideology where the otherwise displaced community in reaction would essentially sever that community's nomadic path from the rest of the country by actively posturing against any movement into what is now deemed their own new country.

The last two ideologies, loosely titled 'maybe we need help' and 'there's too much shit to ignore', mirror the initial settler/nomad tortugan political split that spawned initially from vulpimancer influence. The first ideology works in stark contrast to the 'fuck aliens' ideology where displaced communities find refugee within tortugan settlements, between small families making homes in Minitowns or whole communities and even countries depending helping tortugans with Junkyard Cities - cities that are still only technically about the equivalent for maybe suburbs at most, Vulpin countries aren't particularly large but they are numerous - making use of the intergalactic trash to build homes and (unfortunately) having a steady supply able to repair and maintain them; it is however more common to have Minitowns with a partial nomadic life, even if it's only for the purpose of resources which still stem from their initial hurdles in town construction. The 'too much shit to ignore' ideology mirrors the international tortugan nomads where an entire country's worth of land is filled with rubbish that not even the native wildlife can make use of it's resources buried beneath the scrap, making the region an undeniable dead zone that may bring many species into extinction, if not simply endanger them; international travel would probably only be for family sized groups, probably only families given that, and only if they have experienced enough worker pack members.

Vulpinic tortugans, in contrast to the disgusted and resentful opinions that the vulpimancers hold for the trash piles, generally speaking simultaneously view the growing junkyards as horrendous yet rife with opportunity as the lands they were forced to call home fill with materials they can use to build their homes and potentially enter the stars their ancestors had dreams of one day returning to. Nomadic tortugans are revolted as though this may not have been the terraforming they feared their ancestors could have fallen into doing, they are still affecting the planet as if they were dominating the land with technology and greed, and settler tortugans specifically in areas not yet prone to junkfall do not much benefit from the opportunity they'd provide in order for their opinion to differ from the nomads, unless their worker packs reach further into the the junkyards for 'treasures'. As mentioned in the afforementioned 'we need help' vulpimancer ideology, settler tortugans in junkfall regions would gather around junkyards and build cities from the scraps, using the fact that the wildlife would steer clear of the cluttered regions as a deterrent to the risks of expansion to make larger settlements than they could have otherwise on an untainted Vulpin, especially with the wealth of materials able to maintain the structures of the city. But even the Junkyard Cities require an ample source of food and other resources not found in the trash, so overrun countries and the deep centre of the junkyards forming around the planet cannot support a city of needy people, displaced or otherwise, and thus even the settler tortugans of Junkyard Nations must leave to find greener-but-not-literally pastures; depending on the population of the displaced settler town, they may resettle at the edge of the junkyard to create a city, move even further away to recreate a Minitown just for them, or even become nomads and set a course away from their ruined homes.

With all these broadstroke political ideologies, there is the fundamental truth that within these junkyards houses 'useless garbage' from societies with much higher tech levels sitting in scraps of themselves, the levels ranging from interplanetary to even intergalactic levels of technology that may be broken to the point of being garbage, but their structure still exists and the stray opportunist to take the time to reverse engineer the scraps can do so with lots of trial and error. The tortugans have to learn by this exact trial and error having long forgotten the sciences their ancestors used to strand themselves on Vulpin, and ever watchful the vulpimancers (especially those displaced, especially those cohabiting with the tortugans) keep an open ear (gill?) to the goings on in the junkyards, enough so that a handful of individuals take the same route as their junkyard neighbours to trial and error their own tech.

Leaving a planet and it's inhabitants to rot under the piles of trash and metal you litter it with leaves for bitter peoples who scrap themselves their own frankensteinian machines of your and all your customers' technologies, influencing a rising tide of Vulpin spacefarers that offer no fealty or kindness to the United Tortugan Market your own peoples find respect in. Junker Pirates, you call them, rising from the pitch black of the corrosive atmosphere you first lost a colony fleet to, and how interesting. The settlers DID survive. And they've made pets- or so the tortugans and the rest of the intergalactic community believe.

Pirates are treated like pirates, of course; arrested like the criminals they are. Unfortunately this is one of the first instances of not recognising vulpimancers for the sapient beings that they are, where the vulpinic tortugans - revealed to be the closest cousin species hereditarily to the arburian pelarota, and thus obviously capable of sapience even if 'more feral' 'more savage' 'more undeveloped' - are sentenced to whatever punishment suits the declaration that they are indeed guilty of piracy, the vulpimancer crew on the other hand are treated like trained dogs and sent into the null void where a large population begins to form and a new brand of hostility begins to brew. Given that the vulpimancers with tortugan crew have to actually tolerate the tortugan enough to be isolated on a ship with them, the null void pirates do not generally resent the vulpinic tortugans of the crew, rather they may despise specifically the tortugan cousins or even the UTM, if they do not generalise and grow to hate everyone not from Vulpin. If the tortugan pirate are sent back to their planet - deported so to speak to Vulpin - and carry back the news that the vulpimancer members of their crew were sent to the null void without due processing, new hostilities spark on homeground. Communities that grow to despise the pirates for giving Vulpin and it's newly discovered people an even worse reputation that it already has, those that once again circle back into hating the tortugans - now their reasoning being that they 'keep getting away' from karma and still hurting their vulpimancer kin - and then there are those that grow to hate the intergalactive governments for stealing their family away and locking them between the folds of the dimensions. The pirates are still going to pirate, regardless of if they are breaking their terms by leaving the planet again, and those who have lost crew to the null void seek to find (and steal if necessary) null void technology and in a worst-case scenario memorise the construction of the projectors so they may smuggle back those illegitimately 'processed' back on Vulpin.

Other pirates that are either set free or are bound to fulfill the conditions of community service (which if word ever got back to Vulpin, the returning pirates being the key here, those that resent the intergalactic governments would resent the community service in turn) more often than not find themselves in the long term not returning to Vulpin. The pirate whom were set free may return full force into piracy once again, though this time without their vulpimancer crew - at least those that do not follow through with finding null void tech - and may begin to accrue members of other species into their Junker Ship, if they were open to such ideas. Those that were given community service may learn more about the intergalactic governments and try to find a way to fix their perceptions of vulpinic tortugans, vulpimancers, and Vulpin in it's entirety by eventually settling somewhere where they can begin getting into the far more structured and far more... loophole ridden poiltics of written law and relations. Those in the political field will begin to realise that Vulpin is legally speaking a part of the United Tortugan Market, that it's official name in the colony is Vulpin: the Market Junkyard, and that very distinctly is NOT UNDER THE 'OWNERSHIP' VULPIN'S OWN PEOPLES. The ex-pirates that happen to return home, learning a little of the politics if they are not politicians themselves, spread the news back home inciting others (including the very fucking understandably furious vulpimancers) to potentially engage in interplanetary and intergalactic politics of their own, especially vulpimancers who are tired of others - which includes the vulpinic tortugans who have been the most vocal not necessarily by choice, mind - speaking over them.

The introduction of interplanetary and intergalactic communications, even if it is limited to visitations as the environment in Vulpin (especially with Junkfalls now present as an element worry about) makes setting up a communications array for the height required to transmit and receive signals rather difficult on a good day, let alone a day shared with very... opinionated communities, has allowed for the ability to access foreign language and common symbols that can help with interspecies relations. Or hinder them, if you teach a very well used universal 'fuck you' sign to a very understandably pissed vulpimancer forced to be treated like an animal deaf to all the words being spoken around them. The access to language also helps form the first technologies allowing for Vulpin languages to be added to translators. However, with a lot of the languages in the intergalactic community having their own writing system (with Vulpin languages not needing a writing system for the longest time), the previously unwritten Vulpin languages are given one by the vulpinic tortugans who use a carved variety of and Old Tortugan writing system and transliterate many of the sounds, especially vulpimancer languages as unlike Vulpin tortugan languages, the sounds did not already have close equivalents. Writing it planetside is often done with sheets of metal rather than wasting plant material, but intergalactically with sighted individuals it is written on the average data screen.

With it's basis in Old Tortugan, modern tortugan languages with the same root language such as Arburian languages, not only can tortugans begin to read Vulpin languages, but anyone who has knowledge on tortugan languages can engage with Vulpin languages more thoroughly than they were able to previously. Which considering they considered the vulpinic tortugans as the 'most' sapient of the Vulpin species despite them both speaking in what essentially amounts to growls and yamper, is quite significant of a development, even as it is functionally once again removing the voice of vulpimancers in favour of the tortugan voice. Sometimes vulpimancer politicians are willing to let that slide in favour of being understood, walking around with tortugan liasons who have the mouth structure in other to reciprocate more common intergalactic languages. Other vulpimancer politicians refuse to rely on their fellow Vulpin national to speak for them and instead insist on using some newly created translators fitted with their relevant Vulpinic language pack, speaking for themselves with a voice technically not theirs but one that they can assuredly say voices their own personal experiences.

On Vulpin, there is a growing community of junkers, a variety of members not exactly connected like the communities of vulpimancers and their own ideologies made up of tortugans and vulpimancers (often called weirdos mostly because of their more nontraditional tortugan-like behaviour and interests), who spend most of their time in the junkyards scrapping together all the tech tossed homeward bound into their lands to develop distinctly Vulpinic technology. Unlike the pirates - which if questioned, they'll say they 'heeded the warnings' from the pirates and elect not to fall into the same trap - Junkers often remain on ground zero and don't actively seek out revenge, not like they are suddenly so much kinder than the Junker Pirates, but rather they use their pretty fucking justified anger to fuel their projects and scavenger hunts; it's also not like they're push overs with hearts of gold either, especially since some a working on building pretty powerful machines that could be considered weapons, they WILL defend themselves and they have quite a bit of faith in their abilities. And remaining on the planet is quite the majority of the vulpimancer communities, and not just the xenophobic ones, as they have unlike the politically motivated interplanetary travelers they choose to remain in their home territories (or as close as they can if they are one of the displaced communities). They are the communities and countries that try to maintain the general political interactions between each other that had been present for a long time within their evolutionary history, which does mean they do not explicitly care about the interplanetary affairs beyond hoping that the Vulpin politicians can get them to stop using the planet as a dumping ground. They - unless otherwise stated in their individual political ideologies - do not care to pay much attention to the weirdo vulpimancers and the alien tortugan who are a very clear example of how no other alien is likely to decide to live on Vulpin willingly ever.

One of the first interplanetary organisations that Vulpin and it's peoples were introduced to were the Plumbers, and given that their first interaction was with the Junker Pirates and their very severe sentences, Vulpin and Vulpin officials stationed even in government bodies are rather typically ACAB (or I suppose APAB, All Plumbers are Bastards), and many of the politicians are moving to get legally defined rights not just for the recently reintroduced vulpinic tortugans but also the very hard to fight for, very tooth and nail political clambering, establishment of rights for vulpimancers as well. Regardless of how well the pirates are breaking out the members of their crew from the null void, getting the official rights to trial and thus the ability to call the illegitimate processing of vulpimancer pirates as a violation of a vulpimancer's sapient rights and thus hopeful (doubtfully) garner some consequences for the hasty arrest of the early pirates. Politicians were also attempting to get the rights for Vulpin into the legal 'ownership' of the people of Vulpin, specifically recognising the vulpimancers as the original custodians of the land and respecting the national land of the vulpinic totugans that have evolved to live on Vulpin, but in order to do so they would need to actively find the current root owner of Vulpin within the United Tortugan Market. As much as the pirates and all those resentful of the intergalactic governments and the UTM would have liked to tear at the throats of the trade colony, the Vulpin representatives are in a tentative situation trying to prove not only the species' sapience, securing the rights in which that is allotted with, but also that the peoples are of... sound sociability in order to gain any semblance of recognition of being even a national people.

It is with the arrival of the tick on Arburia that presented an... ample opportunity to try and... convince the United Tortugan Market of that 'sound sociability' and potentially... a bargaining chip to their own planet's ownership. As much as the potential of damning an entire planet to suffer in ways similar to how they have suffered was very appealing, it would have been significantly detrimental to the work the politicians and the future of Vulpin against the tide of Junkfalls if they left the innocents of Arburia to die or to in fact use them as hostages to outweigh the biases to give them their legal ownership. Instead, at the begging of Vulpin representatives - with the help of the onboard communications of Junker Ships and the pirates that drove them - the members and species of Vulpin gambled on kindness and sought to rescue and save the arburian pelarota and their families like the early vulpimancers once did with the early tortugan settlers, ships lined full of fleeing families even as the government heads of the UTM began to panic upon seeing the pirate ships, especially when infamous crews and ships began to be sighted. Arburian pelarota's, being exposed in their time of need to the act of kindness from both vulpinic tortugans (which they believed to be more violent cousins) AND vulpimancers (where they had been wrongly informed where simple trained animals) had allowed them to understand their mutual sapience, regardless of the roughened and angry exterior of the peoples of Vulpin in addition to their nature as pirates. Fully willing to deliver the inhabitants of Arburia (which, they were not the only ship fleet, but they were the ones willing to keep searching even as the planet was in it's death marches) onto solid ground within the UTM colonies, they seek to enter the atmosphere of any of the requested planets. Hesitantly, not willing to let pirates into their planets, it was at the behest of their Aburian inhabitants that they allow the Junker Ships entry. It is with the evacuation of Arburia that Vulpin gained it's first ally.

It does not mean they suddenly have all the goals they have set out to do, but it means there is someone who is not themselves who have a ball in their court.

[grow-bettah]

may I present....

BOY!!!!

[vomitfox]

Pinned post :3

Hello I'm fox welcome to my blog.

I am a 21yr old foxkittything from the UK

I live with my owner wolf and our cat I love them both more than anything in the universe

I struggle w several mental and physical health issues and disabilities I cannot work because of these and require a carer (wolf) to help me with even basic things

I wanted to make a blog where I can be fox brained and yap my thoughts into the void. I'm not doing good and maybe this will be a distraction for me :)

Idrk what the theme of this blog will be but will be posting abt things I do and like ect ect

Basic dni criteria homophobes, racists, terfs ect fuck off

Would prefer 16+ to follow it will not be an nsfw page but I'll post abt alc, weed but occasionally there will be some horny stuff.

[nexus-nebulae]

why is the depiction of twins in media always either "they're so identical they're basically The Same Guy" or "they're so fundamentally opposite in every way that as adults they eventually go no contact" and there's like. no in between

[crepesuzette2023]

"Paul was an intellectually hungry boy who was unconvinced by school and unimpressed by the prospect of an office job. Here was this older lad, nearly 17, a leather-jacketed, sideburned, vulpine rocker who seemed to have already made an irreversible break from workaday life." (...)

"This was not a meeting of equals but fundamentally lopsided. For teenagers, age gaps are magnified: every year is a generation. John was not just older; he was already a big figure in the small world of southeast Liverpool teenagers. He was magnetic, unignorable. Girls fancied him, boys feared him. Paul knew, if he wanted to be friends with John, or to join him up there one day, he was the one who would have to make the effort. John Lennon didn’t care."

mclennon in my sunday newspaper???

[seasidewanderers]

to the tune of every time we touch: every time we switch we get so tired, and every time we front we swear we could die

[cmiru]

✦ VULPECULA. OR…various with a Foxian reader !

synopsis: general headcanons for them with a Foxian s/o :D words: 0.4k warnings/tags: none! / headcanons, fluff, general silliness, gn reader, reader bites in 2 out of 4 parts because i said so, this will flop and that is okay including: Aventurine, Sunday, March 7th, Tingyun

AVENTURINE thought you were part cat for the first two weeks. no, seriously. he spent fourteen days teasing you about laser pointers and going pspsps when he wanted your attention. it was actually only when you were offended by his gift of some chocolates that he realized your features were vulpine, not feline (…and that his well-intentioned gift was basically an offer to make you physically sick). in his defense, there aren’t many obvious visual differences between the two. anyway, good luck dealing with his “affections”; if you thought he was touchy before you gave him the go-ahead to pet you, you think he’s insufferable now. on the bright side, he doesn’t take it personally when you give him warning bites. truth be told, he enjoys them a little too much.

SUNDAY is by far the most respectful person on this list. he won’t touch your ears or tail without asking—for a while, at least. he might begin to give in to temptation once you let him know it’s fine to touch, though even then he’s gentle, just giving you a light stroke or pet every now and then. please initiate a similar form of affection towards his wings; he’s usually a bit too shy to ask you himself, but he enjoys the simple intimacy of it. note: if you’re careful enough with how you treat his wings, he might let you preen them, so it is advisable to not try to take one of his feathers as a souvenir.

to be completely honest, MARCH 7TH needs to be sedated. Dan Heng has to half-pry her off you most of the time because of her cuteness aggression—she means no harm, but there are times where she forgets you aren’t a stuffed animal and squishes your poor ears in the tightest surprise hug known to man. she definitely minds if you bite her in self-defense, but if it’s only a playful chomp she’s more than willing to risk returning it with one of her own. the type to hug your tail instead of you whenever you sleep together.

TINGYUN could not possibly be more thrilled to have a partner with Foxian features just like hers. speaking of, tail-care sessions are a must—Tingyun puts a lot of effort into taking care of her own tail, so of course she’s more than willing to help you take care of yours; you better believe she’s devoting a portion of her excess funds to combs and brushes as well as other products just for you. oh, and you know how real foxes use their tails for warmth? her new favorite sleeping position is whichever one lets you drape your tails over one another.

a/n: Aventurine’s bit might be a little confusing if you’re like me a week ago and didn’t know chocolate is apparently toxic to Foxians, so here’s a screenshot from the hsr wiki to help prove i am not making shit up. that being said, thank you for reading <3

[girl-lostconnection]

Wolf in Sheep’s clothing is more than a Warning

Shoutout to my buddy @jesterinc without whom this wouldn’t have happened. Let’s all cheer for him for listening to my feverish rants, contributing a great deal of his own insight and adding fuel to this fire

It wasn’t difficult to get the injection with a stim off your ship and in the lab. All Price had to do was pull rank and say that it’s highly classified.

Coupled with lieutenant Riley’s heavy presence and “stop asking fucking questions and do your job” glare it did the trick. 

So no, it wasn’t difficult to whisk away the miraculous thing that stitched you up in the matter of seconds and left you in a state John could only describe as “high on pain relief”.

Thank God, Laswell was more than inclined to keep it under the cover until they have any substantial evidence or sufficient proof that something was very fucking wrong in Helldiver branch. 

Took them a couple weeks to actually get the bloody lab reports and get through thick pages of terminology that made their blood run cold for more reasons than one.

Stims were highly addictive and devastating in consequences in long term usage.

They drained the resources of the body, they wore out heart’s ability to pump blood, they ate Helldivers alive, they made them dependent on the next dosage and were frequently used as regular energy supplements.

It was not right or safe to keep this information hidden so Price had Kate to call in every favour and get the report and their own letters as high up the chain of command as it was possible.

The more people would find out about it the better.

It was something that had to be loud and flashy, something that would be impossible to ignore.

And slowly, the wheels came in motion.

They were picking up speed with every higher up official that saw the reports and detailed brief sent over from base.

Summary which could have been only described as "we are killing our own soldiers".

And upon investigation that got rolled out another nerve-wracking fact came to life - there were no regulation for how exactly stims were made.

There were no protocols of distribution.

Which meant that every day Helldivers all across the board would get different varieties of the same drug.

With different side effects and different components.

Some made out of terminid remains, some engeneered with the information they brought off Chort Bay, some from picked up samples of Illuminati sector.

Commandment pushed for the whole branch of Helldiver's to be put under review until further notice.

No missions, no dives, no stims.

Taskforce 141 volunteered to be the ones to come to your ship with these news. So you wouldn’t hear it from someone else. So you wouldn’t piece together the timing of it all.

Partially because Laswell let them know that if they won't — someone else will.

And partially because no matter what was going on with your branch — they knew you.

You were a good soldier.

A decorated military officer with years of experience and dedication likes of which Price hasn't seen before.

You were good, you were smart and what mattered the most — you were a friend.

You were their first link with the Helldivers and you were kind enough to let them onto your ship and into your armoury and never have asked a single question about their arrival.

Perhaps, because you never provided a lot of answers yourself — always in the rush, always one leg already in the hellpod, always ready to dive down.

So, naturally, when Kate told them to be part of the internal investigation. Investigation specifically into your involvement, they didn’t spend too much time mulling it over.

Of course, they will take the job.

Better them than some pencil-pusher that wouldn’t know the price and value of diligent work you conducted.

Therefore, without much hassle they packed up and came back to your ship.

They will need to find out whether or not you (divers) were aware about consequences stims brought onto your ships.

Whether or not you participated in distribution and if there was anything else command needed to know about.

Anything at all.

Especially, if there were any Helldivers that were no longer able to continue their service due to the effects of stims.

Taskforce were carefully notified that if you as a current captain of notorious SES “Whisper of Steel” were no longer able to continue in your current role — a thorough report was expected.

So they came back — tight-lipped and tense, bags of equipment in hands, explanations on the tips of their tongues.

Just to find you as calm as a soldier that was used to constant action can be out of said action.

You were sitting on the steps to the hellpods when they were dropped off — old journal in your hand, it's cover so beaten up it was a miracle the damn thing wasn't falling apart.

It was like nothing changed at all, your ship buzzing under their feet, stuff quietly chatting to each other, repairs being made in engineering wing.

Nothing out of ordinary.

You were still covered from head to toe — always ready to jump back into action at moment's notice.

The only part of you not covered were your hands — wide steady palms, deft fingers with a few crooked digits, skin wrapped in scars — jagged shrapnel cuts, splashes of old burns, pearly lines of skin tearing.

You didn’t pay much attention to occasional staring — too engrossed in your work, cataloguing newest supply arrivals, counting up how much more you’d need to order — pen spinning in your fingers.

Simon's eyes linger on ugly markings on some of your fingers — telltale signs of them being torn off and then stitched back on in time, before it was too late. That’s entirely too much pain for a single person, but who is he to judge.

Your nails are short and clean, cuticles darker from gun grease that never washes off fully.

But no signs of neurotic biting or picking of skin, no self-inflicted scratches, nothing to account for your supposed instability.

Or withdrawal symptoms.

Simon slots the knowledge for later, turning away from you.

It's rare to see even a sliver of your skin. Feels almost alien to see that much now.

A little reminder that you are a human just like them.

Simon sits himself down on opposing stairs, watching you out of the corner of his eye.

It's funny, he never thought that that's the way some (most) people feel about him.

So used to seeing armour and fabric covering every inch of skin at all times — the reminder of warm human flesh underneath feels almost uncomfortable.

How much does it take for a person to become something else? How long can you be a soldier before you turn into an archetype? A story.

Something intangible and ephemeral, ghost wearing human's body, memory of memory wrapped in flesh and greyish lines of nerves.

Not a person but a concept.

Part of the agenda, part of the myths, part of the story.

Simon watches you write crouched on the steps of the stairs, so human in the moment he feels like he doesn't know you at all.

Who are you under all that gear? Who are you with it?

His attention slides off you because Kyle as carefully as he can herds you away, pacing in front of you back and forth until you finish and get off the stairs with quiet groan.

His hand gets draped around your midriff which, they still can't get used to, is very much welcomed.

Because you grumble something, reluctantly melting into the embrace and allow him to lead you away, finally giving Simon space to work.

It’s not something he likes doing to you, especially considering how relaxed you seem — you don’t look nervous, you don’t look guilty or like you are trying to hide something.

But as much as Simon likes you and would like to believe what he sees, experience tells him that sometimes people are not who they seem to be.

So, the faster they check you out, the sooner you will be away from the scrutiny and spotlight of the command.

That’s what matters the most.

And with you finally leaving your perch on the stairs right next to control panel means he gestures to Soap to come in and start shifting through files.

They finally get to slip through the cracks and dig up whatever you could have buried.

No matter how deep it is.

Price doesn’t come to meet up with Simon until the evening, too focused on your state and the way you stall under Kyle’s touch before relaxing when you realise it’s just him.

Like you need conscious effort to remind yourself that he is safe.

That they are safe.

Building up trust takes time and effort and John would like nothing more than to stay in this slow warm state with you gradually letting them in.

But he has never compromised in the matters of health and livelihood of his man. He’s not about to make you an exception out of his rule.

But Simon doesn’t find anything.

Neither does Soap.

There is nothing — no personal mementos, no diaries, no letters or email.

There is nothing, it’s like you-person has never existed.

Like there is nothing to you other than Helldiver-you. Other than soldier-you.

Which should be a relief but the gnawing feeling doesn’t let John to just let it go and report you as another Helldiver perfectly loyal to their duty.

Now it was not a matter of work ethics even, it was a matter of bone deep need to know you.

Everyone has something that makes them tick, that makes them them, that gives an inch he could hook onto to pull out the rest of your soft innards out of the hard shell.

There has to be something.

And something they found. Kyle does.

And not exactly finds.

There is a flash drive — angular little thing, old metallic case of which is covered in tiny scratches. Like it spent one too many years in someone’s pocket with all kinds of things.

Kyle pulls it out of your breast pocket, right under the heart, when you start dozing off.

Shame churning in his gut at that, because that’s low.

That’s not fair.

If you ever find out he might never come back from it.

The flash drive in front of them feels like a point of no return. Like stepping over some invisible line in the sand. Like pushing too hard into somewhere they were not invited to.

Johnny doesn’t like it. Johnny doesn’t like sneaking around in your personal things and he can see that neither does usually calm Simon.

None of them does, it’s written on everyone’s faces.

In a way small muscle in John’s jaw twitches with tension, in a way Soap rolls his shoulders as if hoping to shake off whatever sticky feeling he’s got from looking somewhere this deep — from sneaking around to find if you are hiding something.

Heavy hover of Simon’s brows doesn’t encourage Price either. None of them likes it. None of them feels like it’s the right thing to do.

All of them know it’s the necessary one.

“Doesn’t mean we will report everything that can be on it. We looked the other way before, we could do it again”, Simon hums out and it’s so sudden, but Kyle glances at him sideways and turns to captain to give him a tight nod.

It’s their job to work in the grey, is it not?

“But we have to see what’s on it, right? Just for…protection, aye?”, Soap still sounds as unsure as he can get but he actually takes the flash drive now and doesn’t watch it like something that could bite him if he’s not careful.

“Aye”, John just nods, crossing his arms over the chest and nods at Soap’s laptop. “Open it up, let’s see what’s in on it”.

There is no way you will give them all the answers willingly.

Which is weak excuse at best but the more solid one is that they can’t afford to tip you off if you do have something to hide.

Soap spends the next few hours trying to get into whatever encrypted data you have there.

Which admittedly is not what they have expected.

There is a strange type of encryption on them, Johnny shares, eyes glued to the screen as he waits for everything to upload.

Very different from what they usually see on protected data — not meant to destroy everything on the flesh drive as soon as it’s opened.

The code was specifically designed to preserve it.

Was it some kind of valuable intel you never passed on? Were these some kind of records you never got rid off?

About something or someone.

But there is nothing of sorts when Soap manages to crack it open.

On the flesh drive there’s nothing other than audiologs — hundreds of hours of audios, dozens and dozens of half-scraped recordings.

Terabytes of them.

It doesn’t make much sense on the first glance. It makes even less when they start listening.

They don’t know the appropriate order and it looks like a lot of dates has been scraped off the logs.

Frantically, feverishly, like someone without much technical expertise was rummaging through it, wiping off any trace of when and where it happened.

They click through few trying to grasp what is going on there only to find the unexpected.

It’s an entire year of audiologs that just get longer and more detailed the longer they keep going.

There is recorded music in horrible quality, there’s singing — a little off tune and a little hoarse — voice of someone not used to using it this much, but the melody is steady and excitement is palpable.

They don’t recognise the voice. Not at first.

Though whoever is singing they were having the time of their life. They were elated to share.

There’s also obviously male voice — strangely mechanical in its range, almost blank, completely level.

It reminds 141 of butchered quality of dynamics some Helldiver’s comms have. Like someone smashed it before using.

The sound is a little distorted, static flaring up when Soap tries to speed it up so they resign to just listening through the whole thing.

God knows these logs have seen better days.

But there is a lot of what they never expected to find.

There are jokes — old puns and dark humour and laughter, god, there is so much laughter.

It echoes through conversations, it cracks through years to the TaskForce listening with baited breaths.

It’s a beautiful laughter.

They don’t realise at first whose laughter it is. Whose singing it was.

They have never heard you laugh before.

You sound so young there. You sound so human.

Such a stark contrast to the person they came to know you as.

Older you is closed off, older you is guarded and twitchy — silent more often than not, feral animal aching for warmth and terrified of feeling any.

Marks of phantom old collar chuffing the skin of your neck until it breaks. Until you break.

What have been done to you? What happened?

There are million questions swirling through John’s head as he listens, brows furrowing when static flares up once again.

There is nothing wrong with recordings per se. Frankly speaking Price doesn’t see the reason to continue listening, especially since he can see how uncomfortable his team is with going through something so personal to you.

Something that obviously meant enough that you were carrying it with you whenever you went.

But there’s a nagging feeling that doesn’t leave John alone. Like they are missing something.

Helldivers are still soldiers — they are not forbidden from maintaining personal connections.

Why would someone (most likely you) try to scrape the flash drive so desperately? Why would you bother holding it as close to the body as possible?

Somewhere along these recordings there is answer to why you never come down on Chort Bay anymore. Somewhere along the audiologs they are going through there is a reason to why you do missions only in terminid sector.

There’s a question that doesn’t leave Price alone as he sits and listens through another dozen of butchered recordings.

Who’s the person on the other end?

And why do you still have this flesh drive if you could have gotten rid of it long time ago? Would save you a lot of trouble considering how hard you tried to cover up tracks.

So Johnny scrolls through the logs until he finds first one actually dated.

March. Tuesday. 11:51. Six years ago.

“What did you want to be before?”, male voice cracks to life startling them after almost three minutes of radio silence, Simon’s fingers twitching to reach for the gun.

But it’s just a recording, no one is here but them and these butchered audio logs. “Surely…surely, you did not intend to be this. No child does”

There is a small pause before you answer.

As if you want to ask how can the other person know it.

As if you don’t know if you should tell that most children actually do.

Because being a Helldiver is an honour.

It seems like one, at least.

The ultimate sacrifice in the name of greater good.

Your bones might have a chance of being the base of someone’s throne, shouldn’t this be honour enough?

“Ballerina”, your response makes Price quirk a brow, leaning back in chair. That’s the first log without any static. The first one where they can hear you clearly.

Your answer is short, curter than what you’d give your companion before. It reeks of old vulnerability and almost shameful shyness.

Not in your nature to play coy and you apparently didn’t intend to make it seem like it was.

“Ballerina?”, metal creaking is more evident now, male’s voice grinding on their ears, faint whisper of his comms acting as a white noise.

Filling the air with hum none can make out and falling into the background.

It didn’t occur to you at the time that those like your companion have lifespans even shorter than Helldivers so.

That they are machines of war way more dedicated than any diver is.

That they probably don’t dance.

You tell yourself that it’s the only reason you continue talking about something that is no longer viable even as an old fever dream.

“Yeah, the dancer. Did you know they retire young?”, the tidbit of knowledge feels like an offering, like you are a child bringing your stick figured drawing for some approval.

Your voice goes a little higher — smile in your voice so wide, Soap can’t help but chuckle.

“Don’t you all retire young?”, the tone is so level, so perfectly polite that the question would sound innocent if not for undercurrent of teasing.

It leaves you gobsmacked for a moment.

Was that…did he just joke about fast mortality rate amongst Helldivers? He of all people?

Unbelievable.

There’s a pause before your laughter escapes the confines of your mouth — wheezing thin sound that grows into hoarse warm bark of laughter.

“That’s really dark, Sar”, finally a mention of a name forces Kyle to scribble it down as fast as he can. Finally something to hook onto. A bloody name.

“And yet you are laughing”, satisfaction in man’s voice is so obvious it practically drips off every syllable.

Unusually expressive from what they heard before.

Thick and sticky, filling up ears and coating skin.

Like oil.

The recording clicks off and the room falls silent for a few moments with them simply staring at the screen.

There is uneasy feeling in John’s chest, like they are getting closer.

He’s not sure if he wants to keep going.

At this point it would be okay to close investigation on you, to clear you in eyes of the command.

But Soap scrolls down, clicking on the next dated recording without Price stopping him.

It dates almost eight months after the one they just listened to. Johnny clicks “play” and sits back ready to listen, cold slowly filling his fingertips.

What would be worse now — to find something or not find anything at all?

How much is too much as a price for your broken trust?

Your voice rings out of the speakers, too quiet for them to hear and they have to adjust the sound before continuing.

Your voice is tired hoarse thing when you breathe out “what a wicked thing it is. To dream of you. To dream of what I can never have and should have never wanted” and it makes something inside of Gaz ache for you. Why would you say that?

Was the price of being a Helldiver really this steep?

You sound so small on the record, so broken — exhaustion wrapping its heavy arms around your shoulders and pressing down hard.

“I wish it wasn’t like that.”, you finally say after a moment’s silence.

Male voice they already got used to hearing is almost soft when it responds to you — gentle purr of automatic vocal cords, not yet honed timbre of a person still learning to love.

“I know.”, John doesn’t know what he expected but it isn’t this. There is a strange finality to these words.

A quiet intimate kind of resignation he saw in soldiers that knew they are not coming back.

“I can’t do this, Sar”, your voice waivers — wet and cracking and Kyle turns away, leaning heavily on the back of the chair, shoulders slumped down.

This is more difficult than he thought it would be.

You sound defeated.

He has never heard you sound like that before. He now knows he never wants to hear you like that ever again.

“I know”, the gentle acceptance of someone who they ever saw feels wrong in the moment.

Feels like they are still fucking missing something.

A clue that has been looking them in the face all this time.

But with the way you are coming apart at the seams…Ghost doesn’t know how anything but tenderness could be possible.

Stubborn beautiful captain, has no one ever treated you with kindness you deserved?

Has no one but this…whoever that is handled you with proper care?

Did he even handle you with it?

“I…this can never end well”, you got quieter with every word and John has to take a breath because he is aching for you.

Younger you, softer you, bruised you.

Soldier so young you grasped for any straw of support. Soldier so lonely you apparently fell into hands of someone you shouldn’t have.

“Does it really matter?”, the question is so soft John feels like raging, like dismantling the whole fucking branch, like cradling you in his hands and holding tight because the sharp inhale he hears cuts deep.

There is a long pause before you finally answer, familiar clicking of the clip of your gun holster a little too loud.

“No. No, it doesn’t”

Audio ends on that — no usual goodbyes or jokes exchanged. No banter, no witty remarks.

Almost like you can’t do that. Almost like a little more and the rags of you are going to be torn apart.

Too worn-out, too thinly spread.

Oh, dear god, Captain. What have you done?

They take a break so Simon can properly search the databases for any soldier named or call signed “Sar”, any trace of the other person in these audiologs.

There’s an eerie feeling that doesn’t leave John, the same one he can see in occasional fidgeting of his men.

Something happened to these logs — parts of conversations scraped, the sound butchered, the encryption so robust Soap could hardly get through it.

Maybe once it was a happy memento, a treasure you kept close to your heart.

But it was this for younger you — the one who laughed and sang and admitted childish dreams sitting somewhere on the empty battlefield.

Now, in its ravaged state it was no longer what it was before.

It was a reminder.

An ominous one at that.

The kind people tried to brainstorm for radioactive burials so whoever comes across them in the distant future would know that haunted stones of black obelisks meant “stay away”.

John sits in the corner fiddling with a pen, clicking it again and again, gears turning in his head.

The male voice on the recordings — it sounded too rough for a Helldiver, too static-y even when your own sounded clearly.

The voice way too unnatural.

Like the person it belonged to was still learning how to use it.

Like he was mimicking speech patterns.

John comes back to listening through the dozen more broken records until Simon comes back tight-jawed and dark as death.

Finally with an answer.

There is ice slowly spreading in their veins — jaws clenched so hard it’s painful.

But pain is nothing. All of it is nothing.

Because he finally knows why you were guarding the flesh drive.

Why there is no soldier named “Sar”.

There has never been one.

“Sar” is not a name, but a nickname you gave your companion during your talks. “Sar” is short for “Comissar”.

You were communicating with autobot commander.

You were committing treason.

There’s another recording. The last one. Still completely intact.

Soap presses the key so hard it’s a miracle it doesn’t fall off.

This time there is no introduction, no greetings. There is only one voice.

The Autobot’s.

“Super Earth’s scum likes to portray us as unfeeling. Machines of pointless bloody war.”, he starts, voice as level as they get, eerie mechanical undertones of too static speech seeping through.

Sar…Comissar pauses before continuing, his voice getting so much softer it’s uncanny.

So soft John feels like grinding his teeth into nothing. Fucking hell, the autobot had no business sounding like that.

“But god, I swear, I could feel the sunlight shine on my face when you’d come down to me.”, there is a wistful component to his voice, one Simon doesn’t fucking like at all.

“I could feel the wind. I could taste the sea.”

“I could taste you.”, the implication leaves Kyle with dread raising its heavy head in his gut, eyes so wide it hurts. He can’t blink and he can’t turn away and he can’t stop listening.

They need to finish.

“We often think Helldivers to be soldiers of the guile — merciless and casually cruel, you plunge feet first into hell from a hell of your own straight above our heads — harbingers of death.”, is said almost conversationally, like it’s another fact. Another thing he probably had to get over.

“But I could have sworn you were an angel.”, there is reverence in the voice of the bloody machine the likes of which Soap hasn’t heard before. The absolute, almost biblical, devotion. Borderline an obsession.

“My angel”, the emphasis is not lost to them.

“My loveliest doom.”

“You were sent down to hunt and destroy my kind, to turn to ash my army, to bring ruin and despair.”, there is a small pause before the man continues.

His voice as tender as they could get, so eerily soft that Soap barely contained the urge to turn it off.

To stop listening.

But they need to finish it, so he just steps back from the laptop, turning his head away, the automatic voice gnarling on his nerves.

“But you brought me peace. You brought warmth.”, there is wonder in Comissar’s voice, quiet excitement of someone who long gave up and accepted the way things are.

“You brought laughter and songs and dreams.”, he says like this was everything. Like it is everything. More than he could have ever hoped for. More than he, perhaps, deserved.

“How strange it is, my love, to be machine deemed incapable of human emotions but still feel.

How strange it is that you — the perfect lovely you — made me so human I can barely recognise myself.”, he stalls for a moment before chuckling — sound cool and gentle, his cords still a little rusty.

“Maybe that’s another ploy of your branch. Maybe Helldivers finally found the way to our absolute ruin.

But oh, what a sweet way to go.

I couldn’t wish for a different one. I wouldn’t have.

Know that no matter what happens next — I have always been devoted to you.”, John’s hand hovers above the keyboard, urge to turn off the bloody recording so strong he almost does it.

“The last time we saw each other you said that it won’t end well. And I won’t lie to you — it won’t.”, the autobot shifts, metal creaking with its every movement, comms whispering in a language they cannot understand.

“I know that they will come for my fortress. I know they will win — my head will be the prime trophy of this campaign.”, the man says and it feels a lot like a goodbye. Like this is it. The end of the road.

“I know it’s not your fault.”, notion kicks the breath out of Simon because despite the revulsion and anger, there is so much gentle acceptance in Comissar’s voice it makes his skin crawl.

“We are not bad people, my love. Just very unlucky ones.

I can only hope that the next time we meet will be better.

I hope next time you won’t have to choose between duty and your humanity.

I hope when we meet next time you will forgive me for making this choice for you.”, John’s eyes flicker to Simon’s who’s already trying to get reports of what fucking happened back then. Someone should be able to share at least a crumb of information.

“Goodbye, my angel. Remember that down on Chort Bay even the rusted remains of my skeleton will love you.

And please,

Don’t ever come back.”

There’s a heavy silence when they record clicks off, finishing the playing of it.

“What the fuck happened on Chort Bay?”, Price doesn’t recognise the hoarse rasp for his voice until Simon doesn’t give him a glass of water, brown eyes dark with something John isn’t sure he understands.

“War torn. The battles are ongoing as of right now but at the time of the recording…”, Simon glances down on the report on his laptop before turning back to his captain. “…Helldiver forces took Chort Bay back — effectively eradicating everything in their way”.

Which means that no one survived.

The “Sar” perished with the resistance leaving you only that — the flash drive with all of your conversations. Perhaps hoping (if robots can hope) that you would understand.

Price thinks to the quiet fractured way you carry yourself and wonders if you ever did.

They need to know what to do now. How to proceed. Because fraternising with the enemy…it’s going to be punishable by an execution. If anyone finds out about their discovery you are going down.

You won’t be just dishonourably discharged — you will be shot dead.

Price rubs his palms over his eyes, heels of them pressing onto his eyeballs because god, how did you even get into this kind of mess? Why would you even hold onto incriminating piece of evidence?

He knows why, god, of course he knows. He listened through remaining conversations and heard your laughter and heard your shy confessions.

(John tries not to think that he had no right to them. That these recordings were not his to listen to, he has no claim over them — they aren’t for him)

They decide to come clean the next day. Maybe figure out how to proceed from then on, what to write. How to save you from yourself, if needed.

But all plans go down the drain when the next morning you are antsy and fidgety, eyes roaming over the ship in frantic search. You already noticed your flash drive gone.

Johnny tries to carefully start the conversation, explaining why they came back, what was the purpose of it.

He feels bile rise in his throat at the look on your face when you see your audiologs in his palm.

When you hear that they listened to them.

Kyle steps in, voice gentle as he tries to explain that they didn’t want to, that it’s just vetting process, that they won’t tell anyone what they found.

He also says that you must have had your reasons, but keeping such thing this close was reckless and wrong and—

But then you snatch the flash drive out of Soap’s hand, eyes wide with something he doesn’t like, clutching the thing like it’s a treasured.

Your treasure.

These conversations — hundreds of hours of conversations with a mechanical voice, tenderness of which seeps through every sound. Very syllable.

Mad, wrong and forbidden.

This should have never happened. It would have never happened if Helldivers were treated more humanely, Price thinks.

It would have never happened if you had proper protocols and socialisation and support in place.

What kind of madness is it, to fall in love with a fucking piece of steel? An enemy no less.

It is wrong, it is mad, it is everything you were never supposed to do. As a soldier, as a Helldiver.

It’s not just a mistake. It’s treason.

You would be executed without martial court, without right to appeal. You are a traitor.

“Captain?”, there’s heavy silence in the armoury, stares on you almost accusatory and you hate it you hate it you hate it.

They don’t know you, they don’t know what it’s like.

They don’t understand. They probably never will.

So you don’t say anything.

You stuff the flesh drive into the breast pocket under armoured plates of your vest, not looking them in the eye, not willing to give them any more than they already took.

“Captain, you- have you ever returned to the automaton sector?”, Simon’s question is carefully worded and it is not the best time to ask whether or not you killed autobots after having an affair with one.

It’s not fair to you and he knows it.

But the situation itself isn’t fair.

Neither are you with your heavy silences and your high walls and your stubborn glares.

“No.”, the answer is as short as they get, your thumb pressing into the sharp side of the metal case, trying to take your mind out of a spiral by any means necessary.

You never came back to Chort Bay. You never came back to autobot sector after coming down to collect the last message from Sar. One mission before you realised you couldn’t do it. You just couldn’t.

Robots were too human afterwards.

Even worse, you were too human — finger always stalling when it came to shooting other autobots.

Other’s like Sar.

Maybe in some deeper level you were still waiting for him to come back, to meet you with the flesh drive like he usually did. Maybe on some deeper level you were hoping for him to find another way.

Maybe you grew soft.

(Helldivers can’t be soft. Helldivers are never soft. Not if they want to survive)

“What does it say about me that I didn’t die with him and kept living?”, you don’t even realise you said it out loud until you look at Kyle and see that his face is grey with horror. He makes a step towards you, something pained in his eyes raising when you twitch away.

He’s spent his trust. It doesn’t take a mind reader to realise who took your flesh drive. It doesn’t take a psychic to figure out that he stole it.

But really, what does it say about you if you are still going though you admitted to Sar once that you probably wouldn’t be able to if something was to happen to him.

You kept living when maybe you shouldn’t have. You kept living like nothing ever happened, like you didn’t lose a part of you — a good part, a decent part, a humane part.

“Capt’n, please…”, there’s anguish in Price’s voice, his eyes — prettiest summer sky — looking at you the same way one would look at animal they ran over. Pity.

There is hot licks of fury in your chest, spreading like a wildfire, scorching you from inside out, cauterising the bleeding heart of yours.

How fucking dare he. How dare they scoop out everything that was left of the good you and watch it with morbid fascination like it was some suffering creature with broken spine.

How dare they even look like they feel sorry for you when there’s nothing to feel sorry about?

“This- look around”, there’s manic desperate chuckle, crack in his voice the size of one in your chest. “This isn’t livin’, capt’n. You are not livin’. You are survivin’. And all for a machine that-”

Maybe you would have listened before to him, but John Price steps on the landmine the size of Jupiter and you snap. Snarling, feral creature — kicked dog whose tail got caught in the closing doors — your eyes stinging, armour clicking in place all around you.

“He has a name.”, you snarl with such viciousness that John blinks in surprise, taken aback by your reaction. “And you don’t know him.”

“For fuck’s sake, capt’n, it’s not a name.”, Price snaps in return, stepping closer to you, eyes blazing, shoulders squaring and it’s almost laughable because what the fuck is he going to do? Wrestle you to the floor of your own ship? “You gave him a nickname. He never had a name. He’s not an actual person-“

Maybe it would have been better if he tried to fight you. At least that way you’d have a good excuse to land a few punches on him. At least that way you wouldn’t feel like someone backhanded you across the face — skin tingling with heat, beast in your chest uncurling into something dangerous.

How dare he talk like he knows what’s been going on? How fucking dare he speak of your friend, of your Sar, like he has been some fucking pet?

The silence is dark and heavy between you two, fire raging so loudly in your head you hardly hear Simon stepping in.

It hardly registers until he mentions something about stims and “withdrawal induced agitation” and your head snaps to him so fast he actually steps back.

You’ll admit it takes you a few moments to piece it all together. The investigation, the secrecy, the tension.

The last conversation that you had with Price.

Your fury builds up into the whole storm, your face so hot it hurts, you are so hot it’s sticky and sweaty, your uniform clinging to your body.

(Blood in the threads of it-blood in the threads of it-blood in the threads of it)

“You stole from me”, the first exhale is pure disbelief before the last bits of you snap like a dry twig and you practically lunge at Price, fingers wrapping around his shoulder with the force enough to break it. “I let you in and you stole from me.”, your anger is deaf and blind. Your anger is powerful.

Your pain isn’t.

You don’t expect it but it still hurts because you let them see so much, you thought they were safe, you thought they were friends.

Rookie mistake. You won’t repeat it again. Never again.

Hurt just amplifies your anger, revulsion flaring up when Soap reaches for you. Usually warm hand trying to soothe, trying to calm down.

But you can’t do this. You can’t-you cant-you can’t.

You think of Kyle waiting for you to fall asleep to take your flesh drive and bile rises to your throat.

You think of Price stealing your stim, of Simon going through your things and talking about your anger like it’s a fucking symptom.

You think of them and you want to crawl out of your skin.

The loud slap of your hand against Johnny, smacking him away clicks something in the team, the whole TaskForce coming into action.

Pulling them into the formation, pulling out soldiers and not friends.

For some reason it hurts even more.

“Captain, you have to calm down.”, there is an edge to Ghost’s voice and you just sneer in response, his changed attitude doing nothing but agitate you further.

Kyle watches you like he’s expecting you to snap. They all do, you realise.

“Get out.”, your voice is alien even to you, your body uncurling to its full frame, fury — now cold and merciless flooding your veins. “Get your things and get the fuck off my ship. Now.”

Simon opens his mouth to say something but you snap before a single word leaves his lips.

“Get out of I will personally drag you off my fucking bird, lieutenant.”, you hiss his rank out and it’s so wounded you almost cringe. Fucking hell, you are getting soft.

But still it works. He pulls back and turns away.

You don’t wait to see whether or not they have something else to say. You want nothing to do with them.

You want them out.

You want to hate them but instead you are just hurt and furious.

It’s a solemn ride back home. A quiet and heavy one, all of them feeling the effect of your fury still.

Simon looks at John and John finally understands. There is no other choice. Not now. Not anymore.

Upon return Price sits in his office for a few very long hours before he finally gets to writing the report command requested on you.

He has never compromised on his soldiers’ wellbeing and he won’t start now.

Even if he will need to drag you thrashing and kicking with a force of a damn bull.

Report gets sealed and so does your fate when he sends it out.

Report written black on white, his full name and rank, date and location.

Report doesn’t name you a traitor but Price knows you will hate them nonetheless.

Report says “recommend immediate transfer. Not suitable for active space duty. Not able to continue in their current responsibilities. Recommendation to discharge Helldiver captain of SES “Whisper of steel” effective immediately”.

[lucksea]

here ill actually post one so this can be all of you for real

my followers seeing me post insane au things out of context

[whatudottu]

So the anthropologist nerd/loser in me wondered what kind of folklore and mythology various alien cultures in the Ben 10 universe might have (creation myths, folk heroes, ways of explaining natural phenomena that aren’t science-based, etc.) and caused me to come up with possibly the dumbest idea for a Ben 10 OC yet: an alien bard who travels across the galaxy not just to perform but also to collect stories and ballads of great events and heroes from different planets to add to their collection and form new ballads based off of them.

One of their original stories tells the tale of an alien from a far-off planet who attempted to take control of the space-time continuum and was cursed by the gods of his planet for his hubris by being scattered across time and space and sent back to the beginning of the universe, forced to live through its entire history in an endless cycle all while never being able to experience the sweet release of death, only for him to learn how to bend time and space to his will and ascend to godhood himself, leading to an epic battle between him and the gods who had cursed him in the first place. Though they are required by the man who served as the inspiration behind the story to put a disclaimer at the beginning that the story is merely a dramatization and doesn't 100% line up with what actually happened before they can tell it.

Oh totally! With the advent of space travel, especially among the species that have had such for a LONG while, there would most certainly be folktales and mythology abound for newer space travelers to pick up. Like, even with a significant scientific understanding of the happenings of the universe, older facts translate into newer fiction as stories develop by word of mouth (or the equivalent depending on species physiology) by the more bardic types of intergalactic individuals.

Of course, you'd probably have the more librarian types who not only record all these tales but also all the fact that it was inspired by through vigorous fact checking. Me making Sugilite a mutant with a more unique planetary psychometry (accessing the 'memories' of the entire planet) lends to me also making him this librarian of Petropian history, and considering the state of Petropia (aka not revived) he can't particularly afford to spin a few myths of his own. Instead Sugilite would totally have some bardic stories ABOUT him and his 'Library of Alexandria' mutant power, especially with Mor'Otesi being as barren of cystalsapiens as it is.

[homunculus-argument]

Despite of knowing that it's the lense depth thing causing it, I'm nonetheless still annoyed by the discrepancy between how I look in the mirror and how I look in photographs. I actually genuinely like the way I look in the mirror. If I could alter any of my features at will, I'd just keep the ones I have but make them more so. Longer nose, higher cheekbones, a distinctly more vulpine face.

But every time I try to take a picture of myself, it's just "what's up you box-shaped bulldog-faced fuck. you look like your mom."

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I find it hilarious that Fellow wanted money but didn’t recognise and realise that he had kidnapped, a prince, a rich heir, and two possible mafia kids (Ortho and Lilia too with the backing of STXY and Briar Valley respectively but they’re less obvious). Regardless of who his employers were, I imagine if he actually succeeded, all of them would soon come to regret the fallout.

How about Fellow’s reaction after finding out what opportunity slipped through his fingers and/or what he narrowly avoided? Perhaps Yuu was the one who told him, or maybe he found out on his own.

I believe he's aware that Vil is a celebrity, but not really the others!

So tell me, do you wanna go?

“No kiddin’, the batch of NRC kids we pulled was loaded with star players!" Fellow's eyes were blown wide with alarm--but very quickly it gave way to a proud, self-serving grin, the glint of coins in his eyes. With his pointed teeth bared, you could see his carnivorous side shining through.

Omnivore, Leona had called him. An opportunist who's willing to turn and wag his tail at whoever's most convenient to ally himself with. Scum of the earth, really.

You were staring to understand that nickname.

“Heh, this Fellow Honest-sama’s got an eye for quality merchandise! I could spot your NRC uniforms from far away—that’s a given. But tsk, I almost made my fortune there! If I had only played my cards right, I'd have been set for life now!"

"Er, you wouldn't be worried about the potential fallout...? Or the moral depravity of it?" you weakly suggested. "Like... at all?"

"I ain't worried about that. You might have some influential folks, but so have I. It really pays to have friends on the other side, eh?"

"Wh-What kind of people do you know behind the scenes, Fellow-san...?"

For a second, seriousness settled onto his vulpine features--and he almost looked haunted. Pupils pinpricks, mouth eerily straight. "Wouldn't you like to know? When you're desperate enough for cash, you'd be willing to go to all sorts of extremes."

Then he brightened, returning to his usual self with the twirl of his cane.

"Aaaah, but let's not get into that boring stuff! Tell me more about these rich connections of yours." His smile was frighteningly wide and eager. Too eager.

You shuddered at the hand that had crawled around your back and gripped your shoulder. "Erm..."

"An heir, a prince, a supermodel and A-list actor, a banker's son, kid to the head of a secret organization, an ancient war vet, and twins to the undersea mob, you say? Don't spare any details!!"

Just what have I gotten myself into here?!

[littlelewdmable]

Me And My Faunus Part 2: Checking Boxes

Jaune stood in front of a large building with the words "Faunus Center" etched into the stone above the door. People passed him on the street as he actually tried to work up the courage to actually go into the building.

What was he even doing there? Was he actually going to adopt a faunus? A whole faunus? It was crazy. Yet, for whatever reason, Jaune walked into the building.

An older blonde woman sat at reception desk as Jaune walked in.

Secretary: How can I help you today?

Jaune: I'm, uhh, here to... adopt a faunus.

Secretary: Do you have an appointment?

Jaune: No, do I need one?

Secretary: No, but if you had any faunus you wanted in particular, they may not be available. Did you fill out our questionnaire on the website?

Jaune: There's a website?

Secretary: Is this your first experience with faunus adoption?

Jaune: Yeah?

Secretary: That would explain a lot. Here, fill out this paperwork and we'll see if you qualify and what kind of faunus would be best for you.

Jaune Okay, thank you.

Jaune takes the paperwork and sits down on a nearby bench. Happy that the woman gave him a clipboard at least.

The first few question were mostly about Jaune. What was his address? What was his income? How big was his house and yard? Which, he guessed made sense. They were at least trying to make sure you could actually take care of the faunus you were getting.

The next set of question were harder. They were mostly about what kind of faunus that Jaune wanted. Which Jaune hadn't really thought about. Nor did he really know what a vulpine or equine were to know if he wanted one.

Jaune sat and looked over the many option for what had to be an hour without checking a single box. He really didn't know what he wanted or didn't want from a faunus. He'd never even thought about getting one until the day before.

???: Need a little help?

Jaune looked up to see a dark haired woman with silvery eyes and a white hood covering most of her hair was standing next to him.

???: You've been staring at that piece of paper looking like a deer in the headlights for the last 5 minutes.

Jaune: I guess I could use a little help.

Jaune chuckled awkwardly as the woman sat down next to him and took the clipboard and pen.

Jaune: Do you work here?

Woman: You could say that, I help keep the place in order.

Woman: Now, what kind of faunus do you want... Jaune?

Jaune: I don't really know.

Woman: Well, what do you want a faunus for then?

Jaune: For company I guess. My sister said I should get a faunus to help be a little less homesick.

Woman: Hmm, so you want a friendly faunus that will keep you company?

Jaune: But I also live by myself, and have to leave for work and school for hours most days.

Woman: So they have to be a little independent too. Not too clingy, but still want to be around you when you come back.

Jaune: Yeah.

Woman: How about a canine faunus?

Jaune: Like a dog?

Woman: Dog faunus would be included in that, yes.

Jaune: Yeah, guess a dog faunus could work.

Woman: I think I have a good idea what you're looking for then.

The woman then checks off a bunch of different boxes. Jaune not really getting the chance to look at what she was writing before she was done.

Woman: I think this will work well for you.

The woman handed him the clipboard and looked over her shoulder. Walking off quickly as the secretary from earlier returned.

Secretary: Have you finished the questionnaire?

Jaune: I guess, but-

Secretary: Great, let's see what faunus will fit your requirements.