#sen au

[tunastime]

hi @galaxyinacup! there's a lot of them since basically all of hermitcraft is there--so I mostly did the main cast, but there are a few friends in there too! I made a list below the cut here so people can look at it. I tried to think really hard on who really encapsulated what animal also :3c enjoy! happy birthday!!!

xisuma: rat (common)

docm: some sort of small bunny or perhaps a rabbit?

cleo: bird of prey. to eat the other ones.

tango: computer mouse

mumbo: black and white snake. on account of the 'stache

slip: gator

biffa: a crab. no--lobster

cub: bear. easy

etho: kitty cat :) doesn't matter what kind

bdubs: horse. because of the everything

hels: "fox red golden retriever"

wels: "english cream golden retriever"

evil xisuma: rat, but fancy

gem: wolverine (thanks rel)

jimmy: the escape key off my rgb keyboard (it's an animal trust me)

pearl: angler fish (you know why)

false: anemone. but when you look closer it's really one of those submersibles that studies the ocean floor. that has no implications btw don't worry about it

[tunastime]

Slim and Easy Pickings

a little late, but here's a piece for bigb's birthday that kind of got away from me! watching all of wild life in his pov really made me obsessed with him, so now I've scruffed him and put him in sen <3 happy birthday to the guy ever!!

A cargo-runner with his own ship, "Captain" BigB spends his time hauling supplies from station to station. This particular trip, despite it's semblance of normalcy, isn't going quite to plan. Especially when his recipient, Ren, the CMO of Medical Station 4, asks him to make a wayward stop for extra cargo. And that that cargo happens to be a person. (1067 words)

BigB puts the ship's computer to rest. Here in the cockpit, the lights dim, he leans his head back against the padded upholstered headrest and shuts his eyes for the briefest of moments. Of course the computer is running in the background—the ship's reprogrammed, but complimentary AI, SmallB, was still running life support, navigational control, security protocol. But without BigB poking around in its brain, it could devote part of its processing power to doing something it actually enjoyed, like watching BigB's reactions to media, or music, or books. 

He'd reworked the framework of the central AI not too long after he made his last installment on the ship and actually powered the damn thing on. He'd kept it dormant while still hauling for the Deep Space Miner's Corp from the connector station between a moon and its planet (he'd long since forgotten the name, now. Lunara? Lumiara? Luminary? Something like that) but now that it had been his for almost six months, he'd gutted and rebuilt the whole thing. He can almost feel it poking around in his data feed, squirreled away while he tried to rest his eyes.

He was fourteen days out from the medical station, and already, after ten days, cabin fever had started to set in. He'd been really good about it before, six, eight, even nine months quietly roaming his ship in bouts of silence. Maybe he was just anxious to stop moving for a bit. 

The medical station was more than just a hospital. It was like it was its own planet, with shops, docks, and transient housing. He'd been to stations like that before, but nothing that nice. And, he'd been promised, at the behest of station management, that his week of leave time could be spent there. They'd already arranged him a room, assured him a currency card for meals, and left him an open docking spot. It was nice—and he was suspicious, or would be, if he hadn't talked to the station chief himself. He'd also talked to a man called Ren, and Ren was who this delivery was for to begin with, stacked four crates high and three crates deep with medication, liquid, solid, reusable and disposable medical utensils, all the equipment an orbit-locked transitional medical facility needs to function. Ren was pleasant, spoke conversational common with a voice that sounded like it smiled more than frowned, and an accent reminiscent of people BigB used to know during his dockings on the orbital of Luminary (Luminary, is what is was, that was the name. At least he'd known it as Luminary, which was what people from planetside and dockside had said. Might've been called anything). He was the chief medical officer and head surgeon of the reconstruction unit—BigB was not interested in knowing what the term reconstruction meant. 

He blinks his eyes open. Not a nap, but definitely a rest for his dry eyes.

"Captain—" says SmallB, even though BigB isn't a Captain, not in the slightest. "Looks like we have an incoming transmission from the Octagon. Interested?"

“Depends on who it’s from, SB,” BigB says, stretching his arms and rising to a stand.

“Looks like it’s from the CMO of Medical Station 4, if that’s anything to you?”

“Ren?”

“The same.”

“Sure,” BigB says, repositioning himself in his chair. He sits up straight, trying to will the knot in the top of his spine away. “Patch him through.”

There’s a small, affirmative chime from the ship’s computer as the two telecom links join together. Even at this distance, through an array of satellite and range extenders, planetside connectors, and ship-bound relays, com links could successfully patch through, even with a short delay. There would likely be about a thirty-second difference between the MS4 central hub and BigB’s own, smaller computer. Plus it would be audio only; there was no way for SB to support the strength of a holograph projector in any capacity, unless BigB did some serious rewiring and power allocation changes.

Ren’s voice jumps to life through the speaker.

“Captain B!” he says cheerily, still in that accented common tongue. “Nice to chat with you.”

“Likewise, Doctor,” BigB says. He takes the brief pauses as time to readjust the travel calculations and update his positional log. If Ren were collecting transmitter data real time, he wanted it to actually be there to collect.

“Please,” Ren says after the delay. “Just call me Ren. Listen—I wanted to ask you a favor. I know you’re still about two weeks out, and we’re expecting you on time, but I wanted to know if you would be willing to make a slight detour for me.”

BigB frowns. His concern must bleed slightly into the feed connection between himself and SB, because he feels an internal nudge, and sets his shoulders again.

“That depends on the favor, I guess. What sort of thing did you have in mind? And, maybe forgive the directness, but what kind of incentive?”

The pause is more significant this time, suggesting that Ren were taking time to consider the question, rather than just the connection relay delay. SB pokes him, quiet.

<You’re not a smuggler, remember?>

BigB wrinkles his nose.

I know that, he says, or really, subvocalizes, pushing his message into the feed connection between the two of them. I remember. But maybe it’s not what we think it is, yeah?

<Maybe so.>

Ren’s voice startles him, and SB, who’s jittering, electronic start shuffles through their feed connection enough to shock him. 

“I’ve got… a friend who needs transport. It’s a bit personal, but I’m willing to pay double for it. Plus what he’s willing to pitch in. He’s in a bit of a jam, but should just need a tow to MS4. If you’re willing?”

BigB pulls a face. It’s something SB sees, but doesn’t comment on. He drags his tongue between his teeth, frowning slightly.

“Double?”

“You’ve got my word, Captain,” Ren says, letting out a sigh that sounds more stressed than concerned. BigB feels a knot start to form at the notch of his sternum, right at his solar plexus. It feels… dangerous. But it can’t be the most dangerous thing he’s ever done. He sits back in his chair again, steepling his fingers, tapping them against his chin. 

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do,” BigB says, steeling his expression. “Send me the coordinates.”

[tunastime]

wrapped: 27? it’s my lucky number :D

hi hi!! apologies to all for getting to these so late! let's check out 27 :3

ah... of course. band of all time. my second top band of the year. my beloveds. this song goes incredibly crazy, and I think the vibes are different than what this fic represents, but the softer parts of the song... so very them to me. some very choice lyrics in the tags for them two. oh SEN we're in it now... I hope you enjoy some SEN docsuma! (627 words)

Doc wakes up to Xisuma’s face pressed into the soft of his neck. His first instinct is an easy one: curl closer.

It’s natural for Doc to find his way into X’s side or his arms or across his chest. Xisuma slept heavily, sprawled on his back, dead to everything except the person sleeping next to him. So when Xisuma found him, wormed his way close and into the cavity of his chest, or the pocket of his side, or with one arm over his back, it was Doc’s first thought to lean in with great joy and accept the weighted warmth that his admiral’s body provided. X’s nose was cold against his throat, and the body tucked carefully in the concave space between his prosthetic and his ribcage was curled tight. He spreads his fingers, palm flat on the rise of X’s back, his sleep-addled brain kicking down a few gears as Xisuma sighs into his skin.

“‘Suma,” he mumbles, words muddling. X makes a small noise. “‘S everything okay?”

Because, contrary to popular belief, Xisuma only curled this close in his arms on occasion. And normally (because Doc was clever, and Xisuma came to him when he needed his help, and he took a small morsel of pride in this fact, that he was that trustworthy and reliable and needed), this meant something was wrong.

He drags his synthetic palm down Xisuma’s curved lower back, following the narrow channel of his spine, as Xisuma speaks dryly.

“Jeez,” he mumbles. “Can’t even catch a quick snuggle before I’m called out?”

Doc snorts. He lets his eyes shut.

“Never.”

“Had a bad dream. ‘S all.”

Doc thumbs a notch of his spine. Xisuma physically relaxes into the touch. Real, present touch.

“And you’re alright?”

“Mmh,” Xisuma grumbles, digging his nose into the soft space between his neck and jaw. Doc hums warmly. “Could be better. Just wanted to remember you’re here.”

“Can’t get rid of me,” Doc mumbles tiredly. Xisuma snorts, but the hand cupped around Doc’s hip twists in the corner fabric of his shirt. He doesn’t really catch the murmured set of words X says against his neck, but it sounds a bit like hope not somewhere in there. Doc shifts him just a fraction closer, cupping his free hand over the part of Xisuma’s jaw still exposed, running his thumb over the space between his cheek and ear, all the connecting bones and soft cartilage hidden under the pale-soft, freckled plane of his face. His hold on Xisuma is firm, but not tight, carefully tucked snug against his body, soaking in his body heat and his stable breathing. Xisuma sighs shakily.

“Sweet Xisuma,” Doc hums. His hand finds purchase on the rise of Xisuma’s hip, thumb finding the patch of skin where his sleeveless shirt meets his waistband. X leans a little further, until his shoulder is near-uncomfortably eclipsing Doc’s own. He’s quite literally crushing himself into Doc’s chest, but the sound he makes is soft and seemingly pleased, especially as Doc huffs, and chuckles, and groans dramatically at the added weight. “So cozy!”

“Needless cruelty,” Xisuma huffs, muffled by Doc’s shirt and skin. “Makin’ fun’a me.”

“Calling you sweet is an insult?” Doc retorts. 

“‘S the way you said it.”

“Ah, right.”

Xisuma huffs again, but doesn’t say anything else. Doc goes back to soothing over that bare patch of skin until his eyes feel heavy and dry and he shuts them against the dark greys and blacks of their room. X’s muscles go slack bit by bit, sinking into his side as he lets himself drift again. Doc barely misses the small, soft, thanks, mumbled out between long, slow sighs. He smiles, and leans his cheek a little firmer to his head.

(send me an ask with a number 1-10 and I'll write something!)

[tunastime]

Found out you posted 3 chapters of "A Moment Called Forever" a while ago, I decided to go and read it and oh my god this is insane..

I'm rotating SEN docsuma in my head so fast I'M INSANE

I always love how you write Xisuma and his exhaustion, my guy is NOT alright, and especially the last bit of chapter 3, he'll explode if he loses any of his crew members. And the way Doc is holding him back there at the end?? God.. they both sure care for eachother.

Also how they both struggle through the whole chapter with titles and names, they try to act like just crew members but let's be real they both know they are a lot more than that.

They are so worried for eachother I'm gonna 💥💥💥💥

Also chapter 2 was really sweet, some memories, two guys eating dinner together really cool really nice.

Love the details of Xisuma generally not doing well after the incident (meal supplements instead of cooking) also ayeee Ren !! Love how you write his interactions with Doc.

and chapter 1, also really cool, loved reading about Xisuma's panic throughout the whole time

I feel like I could yell more about this fic so far, but words aren't wording, I really liked it though! You did a great job with it, I read all 3 chapters with like 1 break for tea so now I'm like 🧍

staring into your soul with the most crazy eyes stare

exploding you 💥💥💥💥💥

MAY!!!

I've been sitting here trying to respond to this for ages and I finally got a chance to hi! I am so so insane about it and docsuma for SEN even though I've taken a break writing SEN docsuma.

Xisuma is doing HORRIBLE. he is going to get better but for right now, there is so much going wrong with him AUGH. He's dealing with Doc not doing well, Cleo not doing well, Slip with his broken arm, and later on losing Tango and having to take care of two full other crews while trying to make sure his actual crew is alright.

Also how they both struggle through the whole chapter with titles and names, they try to act like just crew members but let's be real they both know they are a lot more than that.

REAL!! at this point, Doc is dealing with the very fringes of pining because oh wow xisuma is smart and competent and knows so well what he's doing, and cares so much about their crew and about doc, and well. Well! but Xisuma is dealing with so much that he's not thinking about anything aside from his crew and his own safety (of which he's sacrificing for everyone else). They've known each other for almost 5 years, since the mission critical events happen about 3 1/2- and 4 years into their trip. They don't exactly make it to 5 years given what happens. But Doc is not doing well about Xisuma, considering everything they've been through together and how, technically, Doc should be his superior, shouldn't have to listen to him. But he still does :3

they are so so so worried about each other all the time. they've gone through the ringer. they'll be do not separate forever <3 ALONG WITH CLEO MAY I ADD. cleo is stuck with these freaks FOREVER.

staring at you with my big big eyes. it only gets worse from here! in a wonderful and crazy way for the docsuma <3

[tunastime]

SEVEN!!! (plus three)

aaaaaaaaaaaaalright, lets see this time what we got...

alright shep this one works great LOL. I remember you sending a whole bunch, so this one ended up perfect :3 a very classic doc song if I do say so myself! (659 words)

Doc pulls his cheek between his teeth.

This would be a lot easier if he could use his other hand. But. Well. As his situation was currently playing out, his other hand was currently sprawled out on the desk in front of him. And his other hand was also, in an odd sort of way, two other hands, who belonged to Etho. Who was not him, but leaned over the workbench at the other side with the same pulled-tight-in-concentration expression as Doc did. Etho tilts his head. Doc can’t see the twist of his mouth, given the scarring across part of his face and the mask he has over his nose and mouth to help with particulates as they work, but he can tell from the rapidly forming crease between Etho’s eyebrows, alongside his own exasperated expression, that. Well.

“Not sure we can work around this next one,” Etho grumbles, wrinkling his nose. Doc sighs out through his teeth, letting his cheek go as he drags his tongue over the spot he’d worried. 

“Code-wise?” Doc asks. “Or is it completely mechanical?”

Etho hums.

“Well, last time we fixed it, we didn’t touch any code, so the way it was communicating touch and feeling was still the same. We just adjusted the hardware so it was better at picking up those signals. Since I remember last time, you were still having issues trying to feel for like… push-pins and pens and little rocks—”

Doc swats at Etho’s head from across the table. Etho barks out a laugh as he winces.

“Aow—kidding!” he wheezes. Doc grumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Whatever man,” he sighs. “Yeah, the signal strength still sucks balls. But you’re saying we can’t fix it, no?”

“Maybe,” Etho hums. “Just going to be hard.”

“Is it going to be hard? Or is it going to take a long time?”

Etho looks over at him, tilting his head not unlike a dog trying to understand common.

“I guess just a long time? It’s a lot to sort through, but it’s not very complex,” he says, shrugging his shoulders slightly.

“Good,” Doc sighs. “We can deal with long, but I don’t think we can deal with tough.”

“You think?” Etho asks, but the way he says it gives Doc more than enough suggestion that he’s being sarcastic. Doc snorts, but doesn’t reply. Instead, he props one knee up on the stool he’s sitting on and uses the leverage to lean over the table. He plants a hand flat on the workbench to balance himself. This is his only arm, again, given that the other is affixed to the table with half its maintenance chambers open and a mess of wires where the metal, magnetic ports usually sit. It’s not like Doc has a gaping wound in his side, and the disabled connection port on his right shoulder isn’t tender or painful to the touch, but the weightlessness of the open port is a constant reminder of what’s sitting on the table in front of him.

To think he used to take it off every night. What a moron.

From this angle, he can see what Etho’s been working on a little better. He’s digging around in all of the maintenance files looking for the most recent update. It was always better to edit the most recent update, patch in whatever code they wanted to alter, and push their newer, self-generated update forward. That way if the technical support team got onto him, he could blame it on a faulty download.

It had worked a couple of times so far, so. 

Doc pulls his cheek between his teeth again, worrying absently. His eyes skip over a fresh section of code and he immediately feels his brain numb. 

Fuck, he sighs through his nose. “This is going to take forever.”

“No time like the present, Doc,” Etho hums, and flicks his wrist, sending a copy of his monitor’s display to the main view-board.

(send me a number between 1-100 and I'll write a little something based on the song!)

[tunastime]

QUASTION- reading into the fic u posted does that mean there is perhaps canon aroace SEN!Tango??? 👀👀👀

smiles so cutely :3c sorry @basil-the-bulbasaur I stole your tags

so I thought on this like, all day, and there's actually something very sweet about tango understanding jimmy and still caring so much about him while also just... not being able to process and understand the emotions that come with it. or just not feeling them. I originally wanted tango to have an emotional core like jimmy's installed later, and it's something I wrote briefly last year during the wrapped fics, but after further thought, I really really like aro/aroace tango. still caring very deeply about jimmy and him being incredibly important to him but not being able to really process or handle the emotions even with them being explained to him, even with being able to feel jimmy's emotional responses through code. just. not being able to unpack them.

I like it a lot <3 thanks y'all!!

[tunastime]

Hello beloved tuna 💚

How about a number 9 for the spotify wrapped?? (And if u feel like throwing any SEN guys in there I would simply love to see them)

HI THEO. you can tell I've been listening/reading too much murderbot when I start writing in the cadence that freaking kevin r free uses to do the audiobooks. so here, have some SEN ranchers. this song is actually on the SEN ranchers playlist! so I drummed up a little something that I think takes place around that time, where tango is about to receive notice that he's to come back to the Prometheus

(794 words)

Jimmy feels the pressure of all his emotions in his chest like a bubble about to burst. He's made of complex metal lattice, wires and tiny fibers that move like muscle, tubes and chambers holding cooling fluids and lubricants, silicon that filled spaces left behind and protected the various moving parts, made up his skin filled with sensors. Still, the part of him that felt, that processed emotion in a way he wasn't sure he was supposed to, still created that sense of feeling in his chest, as if the air filters and chambers of fluid had seized up all at once and were grinding to start again.

It wasn't a bad feeling though. This one he liked. A lot. It was the closest he had felt to being real in a long time. But it sucked to know that he liked it, and that he only liked it because it made him feel present, because the present was a time in which he knew minutes were slipping through his hands in a way his internal clock couldn't properly count. 

Way back, when Tango first arrived, almost three months ago, he had told Jimmy that he was only there for a month. The successes and failures of their botanical project had meant Tango had stayed longer. It had given them more than enough time to become friends, dissect the little things that made them something other than human, find a piece of each other within the parts most similar. It was odd. And good. And Jimmy liked the idea of being like someone, rather than so different from his shipmates.  

Tango was in his room now—their room, maybe, if Jimmy were feeling brave. The thought of sharing, be that personal space, personal data, personal storage, memory, RAM, emotion, feeling, thought, was a thing that was equally as confusing as it was terrifying. Jimmy was made of emotion—concocted from a hacked emotional core that HASA allowed to be installed in him, and with no way of processing any of the emotion, to filter it through subroutines designed to handle it, to manage it, with the secondary buffer it was supposed to have, Jimmy had too many times fallen victim to its overwhelming charge of his system. So sharing that very large, very vulnerable part of him wasn’t something he thought Tango could handle. Tango simply wasn’t housing an emotional core. Sure, his processor was large, and the long-term storage he had was complex (and Jimmy would know, they’d both poked around in his code and parts as a fun side project, considering Tango had finally decided that Jimmy should simply upload the rest of his data into Tango’s memory in case their project ended early. Tango had been reluctant to do that when he first arrived—he was built to learn, not to just store and retrieve. But what was learning but storing and retrieving, Jimmy had argued, and by the time their three months were meeting a yet-unknown close, they’d gone and backed up the data into Tango’s skull, and looked for fun), but he didn’t have the emotional capacity Jimmy did. And maybe he wouldn’t for a long time.

But he’d let him in. Just like Tango had let Jimmy root around inside his code and trusted him not to delete something essential. And Jimmy hated the idea that he might be losing this soon. He’d overheard Fwhip at some point, talking low to Tango in the hallway. Something about callbacks and data transfers, names of admirals Jimmy had never heard of, but sounded important. He had meant to ask Tango, but had never summoned the strength or reason to do so.

Jimmy watches Tango out of the side of his vision. Tango stayed because he had something to do. Maybe if Jimmy sabotaged their data, Tango would stay. Maybe if he changed something, fixed part of the system but not another, took data into long-term storage where they couldn't access it. Whatever he could do. Tango would stay here. And he wouldn't be alone.

But he couldn't do that to Tango. Which is why this feeling hurts so much. He liked it, because it hurt. And he hated it, because it meant he was coming to terms with the idea that Tango was leaving.

Scott called it grief. Jimmy thinks that robots shouldn't have learned how to grieve. It made looking at his friend Tango that much harder. It made watching him try to laugh and smile that much more difficult. But tucked away in Jimmy's room, watching the display surface show reruns of media Jimmy had long since seen, Tango laughs, and Jimmy grins his way. He’s getting better at that—laughing. Jimmy likes it.

And maybe he likes grief. Just a little.

(send me a number 1-100 and I'll try to write a little something based on the song!)

[tunastime]

hi guys!! little announcement!!

so a new chapter of SEN is done, but seeing as I'm part of the mcyt wip purge (MY BELOVED), I'll have to wait until the end of the month to post! but that does mean you'll get two chapters (ooh!)

In the meantime, if y'all have any SEN requests, I would love to stay in that headspace :3c

I'll have more little SEN/DBHC (oooh?) ficlets, and the last of my prompt asks (sorry y'all for the delay!) out in the upcoming weeks I think... very exciting!