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telekitnetic-art · 1 year

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Have you seen the formline art in splatoon? It's present in a variety of salmon run decals and on some of the locker graffiti. Idk if the Devs just googled "salmon art" and got indigenous art and decided to copy it or what. Not sure how I feel about it personally.

Long post incoming, gonna put a break here. Also sorry for the late response, I wanted to take a couple days to formalize my thoughts together before responding fully.

I have, I remember noticing in 2018-2019 (when i first started playing splatoon 2) how much one of the decals/graffiti located on the ruins of ark polaris back in 2 sort of resembled a formline bear and salmon. (near the logo in this screenshot, I couldn't find a clear picture online)

Back in 2019, it was pretty easy to think of it as coincidence or a stretch for a comparison. But with splatoon 3's salmon run decals, the resemblance is far easier to see, specifically with the TS-ORBRS graffiti and the TS-SCHL graffiti.

(also this was the best image size I could find for the graffiti images, sorry)

A couple of the banners have the designs on them as well:

The website Sealaska Heritage has info such as textbooks and an online doc about formline art (specifically geared towards Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian nations' style) with lots of info about formline art, and the Seattle Art Museum website has an info sheet (with credits listed as being from the Sealaska Heritage site as well) breaking down some of the basic shapes of formline art.

with this chart, you can definitely begin to notice the similarities between the Salmon Run graffiti and formline art. the ovoids, crescents, and u-shapes appear noticeably in some of the graffiti such as ORBRS and SCHL.

For perspective, here are some formline pieces featuring salmon or fish from various Indigenous artists from various nations.

"sk’ug sdang" (Two Dog Salmon) by Robert Davidson (Haida)

"metal medallion", by Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl (Tlingit Athabascan)

"Salmon People" by Alano Edzerza (Tahltan)

"Jumping Chum" by Stephanie Anderson (Wet'suwet'en)

"Salmon" by Art Thompson (Nuu-chah-nulth)

And that's literally just the surface of dozens of Indigenous artists from the PNW.

With these pieces, you can begin to see the resemblance that the graffiti designs have. A lot of the heads follow the pattern of utilizing ovoids for both the head and eyes, and u-shapes for the bodies and crescents to fill in specific areas are also common. For example, TS-SCHL has a small school of fish where the bodies are entire ovoids.

However, there are a couple flaws in the graffiti designs too. With a few of the designs, you can see they utilize the u-shape (see the formline shape breakdown from Sealaska again) in designs like TS-WHP and TS-SMFR. I can't speak for every Indigenous formline artist ever, but from how I've been taught to design formline art from my family, the u-shape should connect to the rest of the form instead of free-floating. I drew a quick example here:

you can see similar mistakes with a different kind of u-shape with TS-RLPL and TS-C0HK.

Another very specific mistake that takes a bit of squinting to make out is that ovoids are sort of top-heavy, for lack of a term I can't think of right now. The line or the area should be thicker on the top then the bottom. This mistake is frequent in the graffiti designs utilizing ovoid or ovoid adjacent face or body shapes, like TS-ORBRS, TS-C0HK or TS-SCHL.

Full disclaimer, I am not an expert at formline art. I've been practicing it under the tutelage of my aunt and father for about 3 or so years now, and there are definitely cultural variations that come into play as well. My culture's formline art style can look completely different from someone who is Haida or otherwise. This critique of the graffiti designs is based off my knowledge and skill at formline art, as well as critique and feedback that I've gotten from family. Formline art isn't just something you look at and replicate, there is a specific process of utilizing the shapes and negative space that you need to account for too. Some shapes have their own rules for how they're used as well.

Despite the beginner mistakes, the clear resemblances are pretty definitive proof that a good section of the sticker/graffiti designs for the salmonids are meant to be, or at the very least based off of or inspired by, formline art.

Splatoon's lore has a lot of elements of taking inspiration from real life culture (which is sort of one of the main elements of the story, the squids and octos are basing their society off long dead humans). Hell, Shiver and Frye are two prime examples of Splatoon working in real world culture into their setting and characters.

With that in mind, using an art style that's exclusive to an ethnicity of people as inspiration or baseline reference for the game mode that's all about taking natural resources from a species that in-game dialogue tends to treat as dangerous and lesser-minded is... not a good choice. Especially an ethnicity that has historically been ravaged and attacked by settlers for natural resources.

Now, technically if you do digging into lore for salmon run, you can find out that the salmonid are not as simple-minded as the dialogue in-game (I am staring directly at the deep cut big run announcement dialogue we've gotten so far -_-) makes them out to be. The salmonids do trades and commerce with the octarians for equipment and gear. That's why they have such technically high tech gear, like the scrappers with their shields that actually resemble octarian shields and the flyfish with their missiles and flying aircraft. That's also why power eggs show up in the story mode; they're from the salmonids' trades with the octarians.

So the salmonid could technically be as just as smart as the inklings, which is why the dialogue and some of the portrayals of the salmonid are confusing and contradictory (shiver's dialogue from the first big run, that one promo picture of an inkling walking a smallfry on a leash????). I think a good bit of the fanbase sort of thinks of the little buddy we get during the game as a pet, and I'm sure that much more of the fanbase/playerbase doesn't really care about the lore whatsoever. Salmonids sort of have a similar vibe to me as hilichurls from Genshin Impact, where the lore tells you that they're smarter than people assume while NPCs talk of them as less intelligent monsters. And you're also caught in this paradox where killing/fighting them feels morally wrong but the gameplay loop has you continuously doing that while also telling you on the downlow that you should sort of feel bad about it.

Rassicas did a really good video on translating salmonid lore from various interviews, which is where I learned a lot about the salmonid lore that doesn't really get explained/brought up in the game.

The usage of formline art in Splatoon has me sort of mixed on my opinion, because besides using an Indigenous art style for an enemy species that are considered lesser in intelligence by the NPCs, Indigenous art and culture as a whole has suffered a lot under colonialism. I don't know how much awareness whoever is reading this has about Indigenous history and colonialism, but Indigenous culture as a whole was banned in North America by the respective governments from being practiced by the respective cultural groups. Things such as ceremonies, regalia, and even practicing formline art were banned from being used by Indigenous people. Non-Indigenous people however were free to use it, which is why a lot of bastardized versions of Indigenous regalia and culture exists. You can see it in non-indigenous spiritual practices utilizing Indigenous practices and terminology like spirit animals and dreamcatchers, and sports teams utilizing Indigenous culture in its labelling and mascots. That is where cultural appropriation comes into play. And before I get anybody commenting about this, the salmonid formlines don't count as "cultural appreciation" because as far as the info available is concerned, there wasn't any Indigenous people that were consulted for the designs. And even if there were, I again have mixed feelings about Splatoon utilizing an Indigenous art style as a design piece for an enemy character in the franchise.

On another note, this isn't the first time Indigenous cultural appropriation has popped up in the Splatoon franchise. There was actually a headgear that was unreleased in the first Splatoon game called "Warrior Headdress", and you can guess what it looked like.

Yeah. That was all levels of yikes and I'm thankful as hell that it didn't make it into the game (technically it's not in the game as a wearable item, but you can spot it at the very back of the headgear shop ingame)

So Splatoon has utilized Indigenous culture as inspiration beforehand with the games, so it's not much of a stretch anymore to think that the salmon run graffiti designs were based off formline art or was an attempt at formline art.

I'm not really sold on the idea that the salmonid are meant to be representative of Indigenous people though, nor do I believe that utilizing formline art for the salmonid was a malicious decision. But it was a slightly ignorant decision at best, because again using Indigenous specific art for a species of enemies that gets fought for their natural resources and is referred to by some of the NPCs as basically being lesser-minded animals is really not a good decision.

This whole thread is not meant as a guilt trip for anyone who likes the salmonid lore, has bought any of the salmonid graffiti stickers, or enjoys salmon run, nor is it an accusation of the devs for maliciously misusing Indigenous culture. I actually really enjoy salmon run for it's PSP and concept, but this design aspect gives me mixed feelings as an Indigenous person. And to be honest it's hard to label intentions or the thought process because there isn't any info available on the development of salmon run and those graffiti designs specifically. So it's hard to know if the devs employed an Indigenous artist for feedback or if they indeed just looked at some formline art of salmon and tried to replicate it or used it as inspiration. I'm inclined to believe the latter judging by the beginner formline mistakes seen in some of the designs. There is an art book coming out soon for Splatoon 3, so maybe that will give more info.

To wrap this all up, I don't think there is really anything to be done about the designs. The game has been out for a while and I don't know if the game would change the designs at this point. I also don't think this should stop people from buying the sticker designs in game or playing salmon run. However, it is important to learn about the context of these designs so that you know why they exist and why they can be harmful, and so devs and creators can avoid making the same mistake in the future, and so Indigenous issues with cultural appropriation can be made more aware in the public space and not be ridiculed by non-Indigenous people. And again, I am just one Indigenous person so there may be other opinions from other Indigenous people on the graffiti designs and how they should be handled or viewed.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and have a good day!! Be sure to check out some actual Formline art made by Indigenous people, like the ones I listed near the top of the post!

#long post #salmon run #indigenous discussion #cw cultural appropriation #whoof that took a while to write #I really don't think this whole situation is one of maliciousness #but one of ignorance.#the devs had the foresight to (almost completely) remove the headdress item from the first game #so good on them for that #I just sort of wish they'd thought through using Indigenous art for the salmonids a lot better.#I wish the salmonids had a different sticker design entirely tbh #graffiti is such an open-ended style concept so they could've found lots of inspiration there #instead of using an Indigenous specific art style #(and making beginner mistakes while doing it)#also if you're here to cry cultural appreciation or about how “oh this is preserving Indigenous culture actually” I'm gonna need you #to walk back out that door.#I did not spend four hours writing this whole post to deal with “but cultural appreciation actually!!!” chuds.#Look up the definition of cultural appreciation vs cultural appropriation and get back to me.

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irradiatedsnakes · 2 years

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team doodles! from my as of yet unnamed "emmet and elesa travel through the distortion world to hop thru time and space like when you use the nether in minecraft to travel faster than you can in the overworld"... thingy. theyre gonna find their lost brother slash best friend and it'll be fine and no pokemon deities will be made angry in the process

please pay no mind to the extinct electric dinosaur and the [ERROR 182: POKÉDEX NO. NOT FOUND] they're normal

#art #pkmn #elesa #emmet #submas #whoof heres a lot of pkmn tags.#chandelure #eelektross #vikavolt #haxorus #missingno #luxray #toxtricity #zebstrika #ampharos #and ive been calling the little guy #dromiezolt

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invinciblerodent · 4 months

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well define "sure"

if by "sure" you mean "somewhat lightheaded and slightly nauseous", then i suppose yes, you could say that i'm sure

(can i just. idk. fuck around in the city forever. and like. you know. not.)

#squirrel plays bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #whoof okay endgame here we go #elixirs? drunk. party? decked out. pants? shat. thoroughly.

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mars-mystic · 2 months

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7G for the asks 👀👀👀

Office AU with G. "Do you want me to stay?"

George Russell/Lewis Hamilton. Uhhh… so this is not a healthy dynamic. No sir, not at all. Angst. Mind games. Rated M.

***

Lewis dropped the bombshell on Monday morning. He didn’t waste time, squeezing the office into the one too small conference room, promising big news. Packed in like sardines, they held their breath, waiting for what their boss had to say.

“I will be leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari,” Lewis said calmly, ignoring the gasps, the looks of outrage and disbelief. “Today will be my last day. Thank you, back to work.”

George let everyone filter out of the boardroom, anxiously hanging back in the corner. Lewis Hamilton couldn’t be leaving Mercedes, Lewis was Mercedes.

Everyone was gone. It was just the two of them left.

“What is it, Georgie?” Lewis asked kindly, as George blushed.

It was a nickname that had started years ago, when George was just a young kid, fresh out of university, looking for his big break. He’d been wandering around some conference or other, when he’d spotted Lewis. Lewis Hamilton. CEO of Mercedes Enterprises.

Lewis had looked him up and down as George shook his hand. “George Russell, pleasure to meet you.”

“Georgie,” Lewis mused, feeling his name out on his tongue. “Good name. I assume you have all the qualifications, or you wouldn’t be here wasting my time?”

“Yes, I do,” George said proudly. He’d worked hard to earn his degree, honours, with an impressive profile of extracurriculars on top.

“Good boy,” Lewis said, patting his shoulder. His hand lingered, trailing down George’s shoulder, making him shiver. “How badly do you want this job?”

“I’ll do anything,” George answered truthfully, voice laced with enthusiasm. He’d come this far. He wouldn’t let an opportunity like this slip between his fingers.

Lewis smiled at that, sharp and dangerous. “Good.” He slid a business card into George’s breast pocket. Patted it once. “You start tomorrow. My office. Top floor.”

“Thank you,” George said, beaming.

“Please,” Lewis waved him off. “The pleasure is all mine.”

George had expected to be given a brief hello before being pawned off to the lowest employee on the food chain for his training. Instead, Lewis had closed the door, offered him a seat at his side, walked him through everything he would be expected to do. George nodded along eagerly, making small notes for himself as he went. Lewis was calm with him, patient, answering all his questions with a soft smile.

Finally Lewis slammed his laptop shut. “Enough of that boring stuff. Did you get all that, Georgie?”

George nodded seriously. What he didn’t remember, he would ask another employee once Lewis showed him to his desk.

“Good boy,” Lewis said, laying a hand on his neck. “Now, do you want me to show you how you really get what you want around here?”

George barely had time to nod before Lewis was kissing him. The hand on his shoulder slid up to cup the back of his head as Lewis kissed him hard. George froze, but Lewis didn’t stop, just ran a soothing hand down his side.

Tentatively, George let himself relax into it. “Good boy,” Lewis mumbled against his lips, “that’s it.”

Lewis was a good kisser, and George let himself be swept away in it, lost track of time between gasps for air. He was starting to get dizzy with it, when Lewis pulled away abruptly.

“Do you understand?” Lewis asked softly, cradling his jaw. George’s mind was reeling, but he nodded slowly. “Alright, off you go. We’ll finish your training tomorrow.”

The next day they went further. Further than George had ever gone before. But Lewis was soft with him, gentle. Whispered praises in his ear, even when he cried.

“Good boy, Georgie,” he whispered as George gasped beneath him.

The next day was the same. And the day after that. Between the reports, and the meetings, and the hours of senseless monotony, there was Lewis.

A simple, “Georgie, my office please,” and he was there. He had always been there. Had given everything, done anything. Just like he’d promised.

Now, Lewis was watching him from across the boardroom. “Why are you so far away, Georgie?”

George didn’t move. “Why are you leaving?” He wasn’t going to cry. Not in front of Lewis. “Was I not enough?”

“Aww, Georgie, come here,” Lewis said, opening his arms as George ran into them. He held him gently, wiping his tears away with the pads of his thumbs. George melted against his chest, let Lewis pull him into a tender kiss, soft and familiar.

“You know you’ve always been my favourite,” Lewis smiled and George sniffled. “But it’s time to move on.”

“But- but who will replace you?” George asked, eyes glistening. Lewis kissed him again.

“I thought you could, Georgie. You’ve been so good for me,” Lewis said. “You worked hard for this chance. You deserve it.”

George shook his head desperately. “No. No. Not without you. Please. I- I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” Lewis said. “You’ve done incredibly well here. We never would’ve won that grant without you last year. The team is lucky to have you. You’ll do so well.”

George just sniffled and shook his head harder. “No, please don’t make me. Not without you.”

“Aww Georgie,” Lewis said softly, running his hands through George’s gentle curls, “do you want me to stay?”

George nodded desperately. “Please don’t leave me here. I can’t- I need you.”

“I know Georgie,” Lewis mumbled, holding him to his chest. “But there’s still one more thing you have to learn.”

George watched him with wide eyes, clinging on to his every word like gospel.

“Never love someone more than they love you. They’ll only use it to hurt you.”

Lewis gave him one last peck on the lips, before slipping out of his arms towards the door. He paused at the threshold.

“Good luck George. Don’t fuck it up.”

#gewis #george russell/lewis hamilton #whoof don’t know where this came from but here we are #hope u weren’t expecting something fun and cute #but then again…. it is me

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canonkiller · 11 months

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just want to say if I don't get to drawing my owed revenges during art fight I'll try to revenge in the off season (personal reasons) but uh. not sure how I'll be feeling for the next little bit. latest appointment news was um. not great! not great. so. not sure how much joy to create I'll have in me for a while. really appreciate the attacks I've been getting and the support I've had in all its forms, I'm just. processing.

#not art #sorry i dont want to Excessively Medicalpost on here (also my own personal reasons) but talk about a mood killer #im not dying. nothing is changing but. well. Nothing Is Changing. whoof.

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chaos-monkeyy · 2 months

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For the truth and dare ask game:

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

I am going to blatantly cheat and link this series (3 pieces of very very NSFW delicious art ahead)--

--because all of them are fucking stellar and two of them were for two of my favourite own JohnTodd fics and I am still over the fucking moon about them even now 😍😍🤤🤤🤤

Also. That xeno-dick. The bite marks. Nnnf.

Writers Truth & dare ask game

#ask games #chaos answers #cosmereplay #fan art #way to get me distracted here whoof

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azems-familiar · 4 months

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Warrior of Light

#ffxiv #ffxiv screenshots #ffxiv oc #ffxiv wol #warrior of light #ff14 #oc: lelesu lesu #my edits #i just touched this shot up a bit. i don't really understand gpose so this is an actual cutscene screenshot #but. very pretty and the POSE. so here we are #i had a lot of feelings about the scene that came immediately after this whoof

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valeriannnn · 2 years

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ingame portraits are lacking (in number/variation, not quality) so im workshopping my Watcher

#concept art likeness is subject to change #also some painting practice cause whoof is rendering skin and hair the way im imagining them Difficult #this is for pillars of eternity btw #whatever ill tag #Pillars of Eternity #valerianart #making good on my intention to Post Here. for now

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merrilark · 11 months

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Sometimes you gotta hear or see things and take a big deep breath, hold it, and pretend you're exhaling out all the weight because nope, can't deal with that right now. Nope, nope.

Sometimes ignoring things you cannot realistically do anything about is the best course of action for taking care of yourself and the things you actually can do something about. It's okay to prioritize, because if you string yourself out too far for every problem or fear, you're not going to have the energy or headspace to take care of your own stuff.

So deep breaths. Let it out and try to focus. You're okay. Take it one day at a time.

#whoof #me @ my brain: we can have an existential crisis and internally scream about powerlessness later after we pay bills and cook dinner. k? cool #merri grumbles #but also plopping this here to remind myself its okay and i do not need to weight myself down actually #one step one day at a time.#save for a rainy day

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infizero · 6 months

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so thats the end of the session then DAMN. all that and they didnt even succeed their task. fuckkkkkk

#unfortunately i'll have to wait to watch grian's pov since i've gotta get back to working on my essay #considering its due at midnight #but WHOOF. that was a fucking SESSION. i know i said that last time but its just as true #honestly this session was even crazier than last one imo #this was SO fucking fun to watch wow #how the HELL are things gonna proceed from here..... there's no more greens left on the server.... so many reds #OH MY GOD and i didnt even think about that but with so many reds theyre ALL gonna have a violence-related task of their own #everyone actively trying to kill other people oh fuckkkk. yeah this next session might really end up being the last. or close to it #but i think a lot of people are definitely gonna permadie next week. fuckkkk #also i wonder if cleo's offer for scar to join their team still stands? i hope so :( i need scar to have friends #even if grian is also there. side eyes #serena.txt #serena.live #slsmp spoilers

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quenthel · 1 year

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Love the pathfinder games n they inspired me to do so much n i enjoyed experiencing the game w my buddies so much so it's always going to have a special place in my heart like it's a game i also started to master n might return to later for the gameplay AND thanks to one of my OCS i had some realizations Abt myself (embarrassing) but like going from discord ( full of cool people and incredibly good and exciting character concepts made by them) to Tumblr where like 90% of the fans are like on dragon age fandom levels of dumbassery and harassment was shocking and made me dislike the games more than i would have lol

#quenthel special #like i interacted w cool fans here too make no mistake but whoof #i left highschool already and was not expecting that type of behaviour here

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redhotarsenic · 7 months

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Whoof the Out Of Placeness is STRONG

#getting a strong feeling of I Should Not Be Here (You’re too weird for all these people) all of a sudden #I am actively trying my hardest to not pull away #man it’s hard chatting up people whoof #server’s blowing up now (unsurprisingly)#which is good! I’m glad!#I just have this chronic Do Not Jump Into Conversations That You Aren’t A Part Of thing going on #especially with The Man. still extremely shy about him I wanna engage with him but argh #uninteresting man!!! that is me!!!

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duodusk · 2 years

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i just remembered i made this blog to post whatever i want SO have some scraps from things i didnt finish last year <3

#txt #my art #dsmp #other than those for bare minimum sorting purposes im not gonna be tagging this #you can rb like . if you want?? but i just want them somewhere since i never did anything with them #two of these are from a comic page i was making about the burger van conflict #i got like halfway through shading some of the characters and none of the background was colored and i was like. i dont want to do this #one of these actually was posted in a comic but i like him so hes on here #two from mouse drawings on wilburs merch site . im sure you can guess which ones #theres a collection of my tommy thumbnails which i did post under my bedrock bros comic from 2020 #a fundy sketch from an animatic i was gonna do of that bit he did with tubbo on the toll bridge #a ranboo sketch from an origins comic i did #and a cquackity test sketch i slapped color under #whoof #this post is a formatting nightmare sorry ^-^#part of why i made this blog is to get more comfortable posting less 'finished' art #and well i havent done much fanart this year i wanna post SOMETHING #ugh ok im gonnna go lay down now #this isnt even what i was gonna do i was looking through my art folders to find stuff to compare to the most recent drawing i finished #cuz i like doing comparisons and redraws :)#but i found a bunch of these and like well #anyway #how logn is this post i cant tell #sorry if its rly long #um um um i had something else to say #fuckkkkkk its gone #i think it was like. this is why im posting it at 230 am or something #i dont remember

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riftwalker-limbro · 1 year

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scarred - part 3

masterpost

----

The new warframe still hadn’t exited his room after several hours. After half a day, he’d at least managed to make contact with Ordis through a texting application on the datapad, as he had dutifully let Kelth know. After a full day, Kelth had grown tired of sitting around, and decided that the warframe was more than likely harmless, since he hadn’t shown any tendencies to turn his inner turmoil into outward destruction. So, they’d restarted hunting for Ordis’ drives.

Kelth and Sufford were just on their way back to the Liset after picking up the third successive drive when Ordis pinged them through comms.

“Hey Ordis, what’s up?” Kelth asked, curious.

“Hello, Kelth, the new warframe has, erm-”

Alarms went off inside Kelth’s head immediately. Sufford’s easy jog changed into a run. “What did he do?” they asked.

“He hasn’t done- oh, nothing like that, the Orbiter is still in pristine condition!” Kelth breathed out a sigh of relief, but before they could relax entirely, Ordis continued: “He’s just, well, ventured into the Helminth ward.”

“Did he hurt himself?” Kelth asked, instantly back on edge.

“No, no, he’s just - Sufford may need to do his Helminth-communication thing again, because Ordis fears that I may have given the warframe some ideas.”

Sufford had reached the Liset by now and easily jumped in. Kelth would’ve liked to disconnect and go check things out on the Orbiter, but if he was in the Helminth room, there wouldn’t be much they could do except yell at the door from a safe distance. They’d need Sufford there to be their hands.

“What kind of ideas?” they asked instead. “Dangerous ones?”

“No, no- I think he might be trying to figure out the Helminth?” At Kelth’s baffled silence, he hastily continued. “Ordis was showing him the table projector, and as example, the reconstruction of what he originally looked like - which I realise now might have not been the best idea- too fucking late- but he didn’t seem necessarily upset by it? Rather curious, actually.”

“So now he’s arguing with the Helminth? About his design?”

“Ordis- doesn’t fucking know- thinks he might be? Not sure what else it could be about. He’s still sending Ordis messages, questions about resource values and how easy they are to get.”

“Well, oops, guess he doesn’t like how he looks,” Kelth said, hiding their unease at the situation under dry humour. “We’re almost there, Ordis, Sufford can go and check out what he’s up to.”

And he did, as soon as the Liset had once again docked with the Orbiter. In the Infested ward of the ship, the new warframe stood a safe distance away from the chair, typing away furiously at the datapad. His speed with it had improved significantly, Kelth noted. Then, he looked up to see Sufford, and without missing a beat, motioned him over. While Sufford did so, baffled, he expertly flicked open another window on the pad and typed out another message.

“This isn��t an unreasonable ask, right?”

When Sufford looked up at the other, confused, he took the pad back and moved over to another tab, showing him. It was a new version of his reconstructive projection, modified again to bring back the tails and wrist-fins, but now incorporating them into a removable coat instead of directly onto his chassis.

“Cost too much,” the Helminth groaned. “Unworthy.”

The scarred warframe let out a frustrated whistling sigh, tabbing back over to the text application and tapping out a new sentence.

“How can I convince it?”

Sufford took the datapad from him, awkwardly hovering his fingers over it.

“Ask him or the Helminth how high the costs are,” Kelth suggested, before humming, thoughtful. “Hm. The Helminth is practical, so it makes sense that it would reject a purely aesthetic change. You could always spin it to-”

Tersely, Sufford shoved something at them through transference. It wasn’t a transference function, but it was- oh, they could use the comms systems like that, too?

“Hello?” they spoke through his speakers. The other warframe startled back a little, snapping up his head to where the speakers were located on Sufford’s shoulders.

“You can hear me?” After a second, he nodded. “Good. I can’t be in this room myself or I’ll get sick, so we’ll just deal with that like this for now. Let’s see, how many resources did the Helminth say this would cost?”

He switched to another window with a list of resources already prepared, not insignificant but not as bad as his original repairs had been. “That’s doable-”

“Useless,” the infested mass interjected again. “Pointless.”

The other warframe hissed out his frustration. He didn’t even take back the datapad, but tapped at his previous question again. “How do I convince it?”

“The Helminth doesn’t listen to anything it doesn’t think is practical,” they began. “The gaps in your armour might’ve been patched, but it doesn’t look too sturdy, all torn-up like that - this coat could be like an extra layer of armour.”

The other stared at them for a minute. Through the datapad, he asked: “Armour for what?”

“What do you mean, armour for what?” Kelth asked, mildly concerned. “Did you- have you never been in battle?”

He carefully shook his head.

“Well,” Kelth said, baffled, “there’s not really a way around it? You’re a warframe, it’s, uh, kind of in the name. And outside of the few bases and allies of the Tenno, you’re likely to get attacked on sight, or worse, so it’d be better to be prepared.”

After another moment of frozen staring, the warframe typed out his next question. “I thought you said the Old War was over?”

“Yes? That doesn’t mean the system isn’t an absolute shitshow right now, though,” Kelth said. It was interesting but also worrying to see just how little this warframe knew of the current state of the system. Demonstrating their knowledge of the entire situation, explaining it like this, was kind of fun, though. “Grineer and Corpus are always in some kind of scuffle, the Infestation is everywhere trying to kill everything, and sometimes a huge Sentient on Uranus tries to cause trouble.”

The other’s body language communicated unmistakable surprise. Kelth gave a joyless chuckle. “Like I said - a mess. We see a lot of fighting.”

When the other didn’t make a move to type more words, they took the pad from his hands, meeting no resistance. They tabbed back to the new projection, humming as they considered it, rotating it this and that way. “This looks like it’d cover up most of the damage, while not hindering you from running, that’s good - nice design, by the way. Should be doable to get that shopping list filled in a day. You’re apparently capable of communicating with it, but since you haven’t had any luck haggling with it - Sufford, could you give convincing the Helminth a try, please?”

Sufford nodded, handing the datapad back to the other warframe and walking over to the Helminth’s mouth at the back of the room, sitting down in a meditative pose next to it.

“I can talk with you more in the lounge if you’d like,” Kelth said through the speakers, preparing to disconnect. “Sufford needs to focus for this, and he can’t do that with me here.”

When they saw the other warframe nod, they left Sufford to his task, and blinked open their own eyes in the somatic link.

“Hm,” Kelth said into the darkness of the closed device. “What do you think, Ordis?”

“He sure is a strange warframe,” he said immediately. “Painfully uninformed- missing a lot of context, it’s hard to gauge what is going on in his head. Your idea for the armour is sound, though, Ordis thinks.”

“Thank you,” Kelth said, “but I’m just basing it off of what I had originally assumed the coat to be for? I’m not really sure what he’d intended with it if not- oh,” and they winced a little, “he must’ve really not liked how he looked.”

“Maybe it’s the- broken, scarred- injuries he wants to hide,” Ordis said, before heaving a staticky sigh. “Ordis is afraid the glitch is getting worse again. Oh, I do hope it lets up again soon- not a fucking chance.”

“Hm,” Kelth said. “There are frames out there I’ve seen that do just look like that, but maybe for those, they’re not actually vulnerable spots - or maybe he just genuinely doesn’t like the look of them. Either way, the stuff he needs for it isn’t too much. Maybe we can even ask Kali, see if it has anything spare. And, hey, Ordis, we’ll figure it out.”

They patted the inside of the somatic link. Even if Ordis couldn’t feel it or even see, it’s not like they had many other options to reassure him.

“I hope we will, soon,” Ordis sighed. “Ordis is contacting Yura with the list that the warframe sent me earlier. The reply might not be instant, so you might want to go to the lounge instead, to talk to- oh, he’s just… walked through immediately. I guess he doesn’t want to chat.”

Kelth snorted. Maybe he’d improve after he got this coat and felt more comfortable. “That’s fine, he’s got you to talk to if he wants. Oh, then I might just go to my own room, see about getting a quick nap - finding your mystery drives is still taking a lot out of me with the focus, but it’s getting easier every time. Three in one go, this time!”

They exited the somatic link as Ordis stayed worryingly silent. “Ordis?”

“Don’t overexert yourself,” he said, seemingly on autopilot. “And- oh, nevermind.”

“No, no, what is it?” Kelth asked, concerned, staying right outside the somatic link for now.

Ordis sighed. “You finding these drives to find out what happened to Ordis is nice, and all, and that’s not to say that Ordis isn’t curious, but-”

“You’re worried what we’ll find?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Whatever we’ll find,” Kelth promised, “we’ll always be a team. Okay?”

Another sigh. “Ordis hopes that will be true, but there’s really no way to-”

“Hey,” they interrupted, putting on a stern tone. “Always a team. Yeah?”

He snorted. “Okay,” he said, smile breaking through in his synthetic voice. “Thank you.”

—

During Kelth’s nap, the requested resources had been supplied by Kali, and work on the new coat had been started. Three more drives later, it had been finished - but it wasn’t a great success, as it barely fit the warframe, who made it very clear that he was incredibly annoyed about this fact. Sufford said it might be ego, and was already starting to show doubts of how effective a warrior he could be, if he was that concerned over the fit of a simple coat. They defended the scarred warframe to him - he was likely just embarrassed about it, and they were convinced that if they could get him comfortable, he would loosen up significantly, and they could start testing out how he did with transference and figure out exactly how unfounded Sufford’s concerns were.

A few rounds of alterations by the Helminth later, and the coat already fit him much better. Kelth seemed to have had the right idea about him - he seemed much calmer with it, less likely to jump to annoyance and snappishness, less likely to stalk off to his room instead of hanging out in the lounge. None of the larger scars were visible anymore when he wore it, only some thinner lines sneaking out from under the edges. They pulsed with light like Sufford’s scar did, though much more intense - there was no layer of sword-still skin covering them like he had, for the simple reasons that there had been no spare material like there had been in Sufford’s case, and that adding even more foreign material was likely to decrease the frame’s mobility more than the coat would.

In any case, he seemed much calmer, much more stable, and Kelth figured it was as good a time as any to introduce new variables.

“Hey,” they greeted the still-unnamed warframe, who was sitting on the couch in the lounge, reading something on the datapad he’d solidly claimed as his. He gave a short nod in acknowledgement of them, not looking up. They remained standing, leaning casually forwards on their cane, hiding their nerves.

“Got a question for you,” they asked. Now, he did look up, so they continued. “There’s someone who’d like to meet you. Its name is Kali, and it helped a lot with gathering up your fragments and providing resources and credits to get you fixed back up.” The warframe remained entirely motionless, and Kelth didn’t know if it was in surprise or anything less nice, so they rushed to reassure him: “There’s no pressure, if you don’t want to meet it I’ll just tell it that, but I figured maybe you’d like-”

Before they could finish that last thought he was already nodding vigorously and navigating to the text application - they’d made painfully little headway teaching him sign so far, so text was still his primary method of communication. He only typed two words. “Sure, when?”

#sufford is not at all annoyed by how fast the new guy got good at datapads no not at all #bastard successfully wrangled. god.#there might be- whoof. 2-3 more parts of scarred depending on how shit works out #i might have estimated this one poorly but it's my dang story and i choose to not give a fuck about wordcount #vince took over what can i say. he's fun to torment #genuinely want to write his POV of this someday. i can't tell how erratic and unstable he sounds here because i know what's up #but im hoping he feels Off and like there are Several Things Going On There that kelth is just either Not picking up on or Not asking about

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