#upliink

[mulattafury]

Could you tell us more details about the nightmares/flashbacks Sollux gets after the test flight of the new system?

Man I don’t think even he could tell you. A lot of them are in alternian and he can’t speak or read or write in that language but it’s all very confusing and upsetting especially when they seem less like memories and more like messages

thanks for all your great asks! :D

[mulattafury]

First off I loooove your characterization in Upliink, it's fab. I think you do a good job with Sollux's general manic-ness. Do you think he would ever get in a serious swing and get too freaked out with the whole Creepy Govt Corporation basically ruling his life and try to opt out somehow?

Hmmm... yes.

But not for the reasons you think! Sollux likes his job okay. He gets to do cool stuff with computers and schematics and airplanes. The system is horrible but he has a decent relationship with the individuals he works with -- the scientists and engineers, his own CO, his physician, they all get that captor’s got a bum deal and they do what they can to make life easier for him.

So it’s not that bad for him, relatively speaking. He’s got a job he’s cool with (because he was conditioned for it), a cool place to stay (that he can never leave), a free education (but no degree). Of course it helps that the alternative for him would be either going back to live in the district or neutralizing his psionics with medication to live with humans and he’s not really down for either of those, so it would take something pretty serious to change his mind

thanks for the ask bromie!

[mulattafury]

UPLINK asks: So, at the start, it was pretty clear there was tension with Roxy and Sollux, but she was in a relationship with someone else that seemed to be monogamous. Would they have developed into a kismessitude during the story? Or were they previously together? Or something else entirely? Also, another question is how much of The Psiioniic was in that neural helm? I am so curious about that. (If you can't tell, I adore the UPLINK story.)

Thanks! :D

For the first question, I will answer you in detail because that is a plot thread I’m abandoning in the rewrite. Family is kind of a recurring theme in Nuclearstuck, from Dave and Rose’s hard times growing up to that Horrible Thing that happens to Gamzee in bomb-ass pussy. Basically, the idea that Family is Hard but also in the dystopian situation these characters are living in Family is a Privilege (for humans). Trolls are hatched and registered in the districts and raised by nursery staff. Obviously canon trolls don’t raise their own young, but again this is more about separating the kids from the adults to more thoroughly assimilate them.

One way I was going to address this in Upliink, kind of mirroring Gamzee’s disastrous pregnancy in original Nukestuck, was with Roxy getting pregnant. She was planning to marry her baby-daddy to keep up appearances. Her refusal of a drink when she visits Sollux is kind of a nod to that. This would cause issues with Sollux, since he’d put it together waaaay before she ever told him, and stew on it and get pissy and passive-aggressive about it. He’s all fucked up knowing that any lil’ caterpillars he’ll ever have will probably be funneled into the military just like him (toying with a concept of high-powered psionics bein in a breeding program where they get paid if they produce psionics, and then again if their offspring enlist). It would also create some interesting tension between Gamzee and Dave when the fics reconnect, since Dave really wants to be a dad but Gamzee is absolutely not here for raising human wrigglers after what happened to his

But yeah! I decided to abandon that plotline ‘cause i thought it was kind of unnecessary. Also, the original dynamic I wanted to have for Roxy and Sollux was rivalry/antagonism/UST but they’re afraid to act on it because they could get in trouble. After developing these characters more, I prefer them in a kind of touchy, volatile blackrom where they care for each other a lot and understand each other pretty well but can suck at communicating about the stuff that matters and also they’re screwin’ like rabbits.

Wow I typed so much answering the first question that I think I ran out of room! Thanks for your ask! (and congrats on your weddin’!) <3

[mulattafury]

Hey! If it's not any trouble, could you maybe tell us more about what happens to Sollux in upliink?

A little! I actually have that whole fic sketched out and I want to revisit it. I’ll probably rewrite what little I have done. Since Carla (nuclearstuck’s creator) isn’t really in the fandom anymore, and is working on creating an original concept out of what they’ve already finished of nuclearstuck, the main fic probably won’t be finished and the little things we’ve planned of having the two fics sync up have kind of fizzled out.

Basically, nuclearstuck came out of what I think was supposed to be a one-off Gamzee<3

The whole reason I developed Sollux in the AU was because he wasn’t part of the main story and Carla and I wanted to do some RPs in the AU. So I asked them how psionics would fit into the boundaries of nukestuck, and they had some ideas about the bureau of troll affairs, an organization that exists in the AU kinda-sorta masquerading as an advocacy organization but p transparently having their own gotdang agenda as a superpowered police force, using them to reverse-engineer alternian spaceflight technology

Which was a brilliant idea, but then we got to thinkin ok, the bureau is great as a scary fictional organization with unlimited resources and no accountability, but do you know what is an even scarier organization with unlimited resources and no accountability that exists in real life??

So that is where I got the idea (that and, at the time, binging my ass off on some X-Files) to create a military conspiracy story about stolen alien technology being harvested, studied, and tested in the total absence of ethics, seeing’s how trolls have little in the way of human rights, especially trolls who have signed their lives away to service.

Upliink is about how, with the gap between human technology and troll technology rapidly closing, modern science is approaching the point of fabricating new technology based off the alternian stuff. The problem is they weren’t really prepared for how much of the tech is organic, so they still have to use psionics to power it, and they still have to harvest a lot of components from alternian spacecraft to make everything work. This causes Problems.

The military is also trying to keep a lid on this research, because if the bureau sniffs it out there’s the whole shitstorm of who gets to have ownership of any technology that comes out of this research. This also causes Problems.

Soooo Upliink is about Roxy, a tactical networks engineer, and Sollux, a test pilot, and their respective roles in these developments. Neither of them know the full extent of what’s going on, they just do what they’re told, but when testing a new flight system that seems to be light years ahead of anything the military has developed before leaves Sollux with nightmares and flashbacks that aren’t his, they start to piece together that there’s a lot more going on than they’ve been told.

So yeah, I don’t want to dump a lot more detail in this particular ask since it’s something I definitely want to revisit as a fic. I’m trying to work more canon characters in there who don’t appear/aren’t mentioned in the main nukestuck series (which is amazing and everyone should read it).

Sooo yeah! I don’t wanna spoil anything but if anyone has any questions I would be super excited to answer them :D

[mulattafury]

:girl next tiem im bringin scissors :gill who you tellin 38(

been in a car for like a week decided to draw some girls

had an idea for a little story about these two a while back but for now just drawin meenah gettin her hair did

this is kind of a theme for me

[mulattafury]

this is dumb

a nice TA saves sollux captor's butt

later she might touch it

the fanfiction

Sollux holds no illusions about why he’s allowed to attend the academy.

Trolls flying military aircraft keeps human airmen out of combat. Those aircraft need to be tested by trolls, and the trolls testing them have to know enough about what they’re doing for that testing to be effective. He knows he hasn’t been awarded this luxury due to his intelligence or skill, but is being groomed for a specific purpose because of the unique nature of his psionic abilities.

It certainly helps that he happens to be immensely fascinated with the field he’s been railroaded into, but it doesn’t make it less humiliating when his grades suffer, or less infuriating when it isn’t his fault.

Intro to Aeronautical Engineering could have been an awesome class -- the students, at least, warmed up to him more quickly than in any of his others, but the professor certainly did not. Sollux had learned pretty quickly not to speak up much in class, too afraid of blowing his chances of being a test pilot to risk rocking the boat, but his exam scores disappearing from Blackboard were starting to become a problem.

The first time, the professor had insisted that Sollux hadn’t attended the exam. For this one, he’d promised to look into it, but now it showed as a missing grade online, bringing his overall average dangerously close to failing. What’s worse is that, after going over the exam in class, Sollux is sure he had the highest score. The TA who grades them has a weird routine of drawing a cat on the highest-scoring exam.

This time, none of his classmates had the cat.

So now he’s here, knocking twice at the slightly-ajar door of the professor’s office, determined to a least stand his ground this time around.

“Come in,” drones a voice from inside, though the man doesn’t look up from the papers he’s grading to acknowledge Sollux’s presence.

“Uh, hey, Fuller. You haven’t seen my missing exam in that stack, have you?”

“No, I have not.”

He still doesn’t look up, though he reaches to push his wire-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose. Sollux frowns.

“Oh. So… you haven’t seen it at all?”

“Nope.”

He still doesn’t look up.

“Can-- I mean, I’ll retake it, if I have to…”

“We’ve already gone over the exam in class, so I’m afraid not.”

“Well is there any extra credit I can do? I really can’t fail this --”

He’s interrupted by Fuller’s TA pushing around him, a stack of mail in one of her arms and a heavy bookbag slung over the other. Sollux has seen her around before, having noticed initially that she was remarkably tall for a human, and noticing more recently that she has a tiny Galaga tattoo on her lower back. He’s noticing it again, now, as she bends to plug in her laptop, but is brought back suddenly by the stern drone of Professor Fuller’s voice informing him that “I don’t give extra credit.”

He’s actually looking up at Sollux now, eyebrows raised and a frown turning the corners of his lips.

“Will that be all, Mr. Captor?”

“Uh, well…”

“Wait, Captor?” The TA stands up, seemingly noticing Sollux for the first time. “Are you Sollux Captor? Whoa, are you a PSII-Tactics cadet?”

“Heh, yeah. Guilty on both charges.”

“Ha! Sollux Captor -- six and six, I should have known.” She grins, and it’s brilliant, and suddenly Sollux wants to know everything about her. “Dude, what are >you< trying to get extra credit for? You’re making the rest of us look bad, overachiever…”

“Overachiever? I’m actually kind of close to failing…”

“Failing? No way, I graded your last… exam…”

Fuller is glaring quietly at her, and she returns it, brows furrowed, lips pressed in a tight line. It lasts only a moment before she laughs again, shaking her head.

“It’s funny, because I dropped the stapler under the desk when I was grading the other papers, and I saw yours by the trash. I thought it was another answer sheet, right, since all of your answers were perfect, but then I realized you were using a totally different method to solve like half of the questions. Anyway, I graded it and put it with the rest, it should be fine.” “I didn’t see it, Roxy,” Fuller insists, a hint of agitation coloring his usual monotone.

“Well. Maybe I put it in the wrong stack.” Roxy shrugs, crouching to open her bookbag and pulling out an obnoxiously glittery Hello Kitty binder labeled “AERO ENGR.”

“But, like I said, he used a really novel approach to many of the problems, so I wanted a copy for myself. Here it is…”

She places the papers on Fuller’s desk, glaring pointedly at him as his frown deepens.

“You look kinda busy, though, so I’ll put the grades in myself, don’t worry about it.”

She snatches the papers back from the professor and hands them to Sollux, the troll trying his best not to laugh or cry or both at the perfect score on the header. He thumbs through the pages, nodding as each checkmark sends a tiny thrill of victory tingling through him, but giving the tiniest, disappointed “Oh…” when he gets to the last page and still sees no cat.

Roxy notices, because of course she does, and with a snorting laugh takes one of the pages back from him.

“Roxy, right?” Sollux asks as she takes a seat at her desk, scrawling on the back of the page.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Just a regular mix-up that I just happened to catch, you know?” She gives another quick glance at Professor Fuller, who is back to pointedly ignoring them, and hands Sollux’s paper back with a smile.

“Have a good one, Captor.”

“You, too. See you in class, Professor…”

Sollux doesn’t look at the drawing until later. The cat has two sets of ears sticking out of an aviator hat, and a word balloon that says “When they try to drop you, land on your feet. Someday, you’ll soar above them all.”

It’s years later when Roxy finds it, laminated and tucked away in the inner pocket of his favorite coat.

The moment is sweet, the memories fond, and the teasing that follows extraordinarily merciless.

[mulattafury]

my fantroll dakham as a kid with some concepts i had in mind about something something nuclearstuck au something something small groups of trolls living secretly in subway tunnels and catacombs something something not assimilating into human culture

also i just wanted to draw a weird looking little troll kid with bug arms and exoskeletal plates that havent molted off yet

(i rly want to rp this character one of these days but idk)

[mulattafury]

like i just wanted to figure out his eyes but working on this became really soothing idk