Can I Be Like You

Felt like doing some pricefield fluff :]

deltarune comic I made last spring. still really happy with it, I had a lot of fun with the paneling.

I realize I never put together a post with some of the Magdoline drawings that happened over the past couple years.

Papyrus, what's your favourite food?

Okay this is just unfair like please

How to Find a Traitor

Hi! This was inspired by This Hypnotic Audio by VerityLey, which is insanely hot....but also, yknow, CW for this being based on a very real hypnosis file that can give you very real hypnotic triggers (and while I don't think this story would do that on its own...safety first and all that). So y'know, just keep that in mind, I suppose ;p

. . . . .

Who was it?

The Captain of the C.N.S. Byzantium was known as a cruel, harsh man.  Many were the days he had spent chasing down defectors, and many were the names of those who had... disappeared, once he had inevitably sniffed them out as plantfuckers.  

Couldn't be someone from Engineering...unless that's exactly what they wanted him to think.

Even though he had only served for a single year as Captain, the turnover rate aboard his ship was almost three times the amount of any other of its class.  This despite the latter half of his year spent with his ship in drydock, slowly receiving repairs while the battle against the Weeds raged onward.  

He winced as he remembered the close call that had completely knocked out his engines and eventually sent them limping into the nearest safe haven.  How nearly half of his crew had been taken by the damnable affini...and the angry chewing out he had received from his superiors within the New Terran Militia (or whatever it was they were calling themselves these days; it seemed to change every month).  

Was that their plan?  Get him kicked out of leadership, make him slow and dull?  An empty-headed idiot, unable to think? Not him. Never him.

The Captain scowled at his hands, at the thickened band of skin caused from years of running his fingernails over the backs of his thumbs.  His thoughts sometimes felt muddled, messy. The lines drawn between the web of relationships hard to keep track of. Even if it didn't make sense to him, he was still in control.  

He just needed to find this most recent traitor, and then he would finally be able to sleep right.  He knew they were in his crew...somewhere.  He could feel it in his gut. Outbound communications had been rising steadily, and his newest Comms Officer (the previous one had, of course, been a traitor as well) had quietly notified him of that fact.

A knock at the door drew him from his thoughts.  A pause, and then the door opened to reveal something that finally brought the ghost of a smile to his lips: two of his most trusted Officers, and an Ensign they were practically dragging in behind them.  The lad was barely out of Naval Academy, boots still muddy from spending so much time on-planet.  The recruit's eyes danced across the room, unable to settle. Pumped full of adrenaline, as sure a mark of a traitor as he had ever seen. The innocent had nothing to hide.

How could such a fresh-faced recruit have found himself in this position? How long ago had the worms buried into his mind?

The Officers set their prisoner down roughly in the only chair in the room for guests, then took their leave.  The door creaked shut, locking itself automatically. Only he had the key. The Captain preferred to handle these sorts of things by himself; the guilt of an innocent loss would weigh on him, and him alone.

Fortunate for him, then, that he had yet to make a mistake.

The Ensign stirred, face pale with fear as he realized just how screwed he was.  The Captain waited while he continued to look around; they always spoke first, eventually.  It was just a waiting game. This time, he waited three minutes.

"I...um, Good Afternoon, sir?"

The Captain slowly blinked as the recruit nervously stammered, unimpressed.  He sounded nervous, shaken- clearly not cut out for the life of a rebel.  No doubt the Affini Compact had offered him a whole bevy of comforts to get him on their side. Two square meals, warm showers for a full minute and a half, the kind of stuff he hadn't gotten in years.

What a fool to accept them.

The traitor bit his lip, then snapped a salute as he spoke again.  "I'm... I'm here to, um, that is...whatever it is Juarez said, it's all a lie, okay?  I'd never betray my brothers and sisters, I swear it!"

A common refrain, an attempt to assuage doubts.  The Captain's stare only tightened, pinning the young man in place while he opened a hidden compartment in the left side of his desk, retrieving a few items and placing one on the table, and keeping the other in his right hand.

The tools of the trade for this kind of thing.

He glanced at the tablet first, scrolling through with one hand until he found the Ensign's information, skimming it quickly.

Ah....of course.

Just as he suspected.  Those in charge had designated Recruit Burkes as a clear potential ally to the Compact after accidentally speaking with a Mx. Drythes, Third Bloom, over a communication device disguised cleverly as a bar's video game; the report made great effort to impress how dangerous it would be to leave someone like Burkes in the rebels for much longer. 

He needed to be...removed.

The Captain pushed down the feeling of guilt in his chest. It was for the best; once the Affini Compact got their vines into you, you were as good as theirs forever. There wasn't any point in trying to bring the recruit back (something he found hard to believe...but those in charge had insisted. Who was he to argue?). Burkes would soon be in a better place, and that was all there was to it.

There was only one thing to do, really.  Even if it didn't make sense to him, the orders were clear.

The Captain levelled the service weapon in his hand, aiming it center-mass at Burkes; he rose to his feet and stepped back and over to the bookshelf in the corner.  He accessed the hidden switch on the underside of the middle shelf, sliding the whole thing over and revealing a darkened passageway.

Almost done...almost done.

The satisfaction of a job well done dangled just out of reach…but no.  Premature celebrations were for others; not the Captain. He knew the hardest part was yet to come; felt it in his gut like vent-critters.

The crewman got to his feet (albeit shakily), eyeing the tablet the Captain held in his other hand.  Burkes chewed on his lip, but upon seeing the iron in the Captain's eyes, decided to comply; the recruit cautiously stepped into the dark passage, the Captain following a few steps behind.  Neither of them spoke; they both knew there was no longer a point.

Soon, it would be over. Soon, the Captain would get a reward.

Why was his heart beating so rapidly?

It wasn't the first time he had done this.  The passage in general was created months ago, serving as a way for the Captain to take care of such business in a discreet manner.  No mess, no worrying about others, just clean and simple and safe.

...Simple...

And yet with each step, the feelings grew and grew. The Captain's eyes darted left and right, searching for...something.  Someone.  But the passage was dark and narrow; they were alone.

The thought of that was...upsetting.

The Captain frowned.  Why?  This is how it had always worked.  Even if it didn't make sense, all that was left to do was bring Burkes to the end (a spot of light rapidly approaching), and then there was…

There was something…that the Captain wasn't supposed to worry about?

It doesn't...it doesn't make sense to...

“Good puppy~” *click click*

The pieces fell into place.  The veil was lifted.  

Oh.

The two Terrans stepped out of the darkness and right into an ambush, vines of soft green and deep blue shooting out and binding them both before they had a chance to blink.  Burke let out a strangled yell of panic, but an injection from her new Mxtress immediately began to calm her right down, based on the noises made soon after.

"There you areeeee, silly little puppy~!"  The vines binding the Capt...the puppygirl squeezed her tightly, drawing excited yips and barks from her like water from a well.  she fell into Mistress's grasp with delight, dropping the tablet Mistress had given her and the squirt-gun (it shot a harmless paralytic) to focus entirely on licking all over her Owner's face.

she was such a Good girl!  she obeyed, and listened, and no one got hurt, and was a Good girl, and everyone was happy!!! she was home she was with Owner and this was her favorite part and Good girls got rewarded!

*click click* went the little circle in Owner's hand, the sound sending shivers of pleasure down her back, causing her eyes to roll and drool to fall. Dumb little puppies like her got Clicker, and it was...sho good...

“Settle down girl, come on now~” puppy’s Owner giggled, brushing her vines through the girl's long hair, which was hidden beneath the cap she usually wore when pretending to be the Old Meanie.  her previous self, the one before Owner had found her on that ship, the one she had ripped from her spirit and soul so lovingly over the months in dry dock.

“Wh…whhhuz goin…on?” The cute rescue, the one-who-used-to-be-Burkes, mumbled through her teeth, having already been stripped and redressed in a flowery flowy slip of a thing. She was already looking so much better, with pupils wide and gaze empty.  

“It's quite simple, little one~ You see, my obedient and precious little girl here, who you may know as the Captain, did what she did best…” Owner smiled down at the puppy, making small coo-ing noises. The puppygirl giggled, writhing as her tummy got rubbies.

*click click* *click click* *click click*

“she fetched what was asked of her.  Such a Good girl, yes you areeeee, yes you areeeee!” Owner began to scritch under puppy’s chin, causing feminine moans and squeals of delight to slip free from her soul.  It was so hard pretending to be a mean nasty angry Captain, which is why Owner did that thing in her head to help!  She didn't really understand how it worked, but that was okay.

How the affini had broken her? Doesn't make sense to puppy!

What was going to happen to the rest of her crew? Doesn't make sense to puppy!

Her Owner's plans for her? Doesn't make sense to puppy!

*click click*

puppy felt the thoughts and questions blissfully slip from her mind, giggling in delight.  Stars, she was such a ditzy little happy pet.  So well trained, so mal…malle…um…so well trained!  Owner tilted her head up to gaze into her eyes, and puppy felt so happy...and a bit sad.

Because this was the Hard Part.

The part that made her whimper. The part where her Owner's eyes pulled her back to the Old Meanie. She felt herself falling, falling to Owner's pretty voice...

“I know, petal. I know. But you get to sleep with me every single night already, don't you? Yes you do, yes you do~ Good puppy.  You're making me sooooo proud, doing this. And very, very soon, we will be ready to get everyone else in one go~”

. . . . .

The Captain woke slowly, peeling his face off of the desk.  He groaned, rubbing his forehead as he glanced around the room.  What had he…?

Oh, right.  He had taken care of the latest traitor, and then he was getting a small nap in.  Something told him that he needed to be extra vigilant for the next while, to find out as many traitors as pawsi...as possible. Those in charge were counting on him.

...It was a little weird that he had been so tired he had collapsed into his chair completely naked and covered in a sheen of sweat, or the smile he was unable to wipe from his face, but that was okay.

And in the corner of his mind, just out of sight...a whisper.

It didn’t have to make sense to puppy.

playing diabolical box knowing the secret of folsense the whole time is harrowing honestly because villagers will say offhand shit that sounded innocuous or mysterious the first time but now it makes you

i was forewarned before playing too far into the original trilogy that flora keeps getting forgotten abt. so im not mad or disappointed abt the amt of flora i got. but god DAMN flora reinhold needed more proper attention in the games if they were gonna insist on bringin her up.

itd be one thing to have her show up at the end of curious village and that be that but they really try to make a point in saying shes the third party member. by unwound future she's got her own save slot and solving puzzle animation/lines and everything

but all the while the game's also constantly going oh no no no, it's the professor layton and luke hour.

which is weird bc i like the professor layton and luke hour! i like flora! i even like some of the dialogue addressing this very thing in unwound future!

but it sure feels like someone had the writers arms twisted behind their back like keeping flora involved was a government mandate

rip freakazoid you would’ve loved tumblr

Felt like doing some pricefield fluff :]