thetatters: human/ (sunlight sunlight)
John Doe ([personal profile] thetatters) wrote in [community profile] route666rp2025-03-12 05:45 pm

01. crowned eagle (open)

Who: John and you!
What: Local octopus acts suspicious, becomes a bird, hides from rain, and touches corpses.
When: Throughout March.
Where: The grasslands.
Warnings: Event standard warnings. Minor self-inflicted injury (feather plucking) in one prompt if requested.

[ Feel free to claim one of John's note options when tagging any prompt! ]

1. theft
When John draws down the first crumpled balloon, he freezes at the sight of its burden. That creased sheet of notebook paper is familiar, and when he unfolds it, so too are the words:

song of my soul my voice is dead
die thou unsung as tears unshed


In his mind, dark stars wheel over the city. He can smell damp island caverns and the streets of Carcosa.

John crumples the note in his fist, and pretends that his hand does not shake.

For the rest of the month, he is alert as a hunting dog. Each time he spots one of those pages, whether sitting on a convoy table or peeking out of someone's bag, he waits for an opening. For any distraction. Then he tries to palm the note and slip away, intent on destroying the evidence at first opportunity.

But these sleights of hand were more Arthur's domain than his own. He is less subtle than he thinks.
2. feathers
The storm builds. John can feel it in limbs he does not possess, in the urge to twist and coil. It is like the moonlight madness, so he suspects this is a cycle, reliable as the movement of alien suns across the sky. There is some comfort in that: a cycle need not be measured in Earth-hours to be comprehensible to him. Like the blue dawn in the Dreamlands, it will come when it comes.

Nor does the prospect of sprouting teeth and tentacles frighten him. Privately, it's the opposite. When madness takes the Convoy, he would like to wear a more powerful form, so long as Arthur's body emerges unharmed by moonset.

But he resents the half-steps, the lingering corruption. He resents the glossy black feathers that speckle Arthur's skin, the grand eagle wings edged in iridescent gold. He often stops to glare at his own black-scaled hands, the curved talons which adorn each finger.

He is not clumsy with these. The wings, the talons, he moves more gracefully than Arthur's human legs. But the changes have forced him to go shirtless, and thus put too much on display: Arthur's skinny ribs, the slash and toothy bite mark at his belly, the gunshot scars over his stomach and chest. John has scavenged lengths of yellow fabric in half a dozen shades, and wears these as cloak and cowl, always hooded over his face.

Some days, these threadbare robes are clean. Others, they are speckled with blood from where he's plucked at feathers and picked at scales, furious at such corruption of Arthur's body. Only his left arm is always glossy-feathered and untouched.
3. corpse lore
John has learned what happens when he gets caught in the rain. So he waits nervously for the gaps between squalls, hunched in the safety of his truck or taking shelter in a crumbling ruin. Anything to stay dry.

Each time the rain stops, he picks his way through the field of Husks. He crouches, grim and harried as a graverobber, to lay his left hand upon a silver corpse. Always he hisses a gasp as though burned, recoils, and stalks away again.

Should he spot anyone else scavenging nearby, he tries to act casual. He waits out the rain in an abandoned building, stalling for privacy, acting as though nothing has happened at all.
serialmurderbot: (leap)

[personal profile] serialmurderbot 2025-03-18 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
There are any number of sounds that could echo out over the surrounding plains in the midst of a rainstorm like this. Thunder, of course. A vehicle backfiring, or the crash of one of the derelict houses giving way under the force of time and the growing violence of the weather. SecUnit only has to process for 0.3 seconds to be 92% certain that the sound that it just heard isn't any of those, but projectile fire, and by then it's already moving.

Triangulating the source of the sound takes a few moments longer, enough time for the pelting rain to have mottled it a grey-blue that sends its performance reliability dropping three percent, which - fuck. Better find whoever fired that shot and get this over with quick. It rounds the corner of a building, and -

SecUnits have higher processing power and reaction time than the average human, so when it slams around the corner it doesn't stop to process the scene (client ID: Levi, tags for combat experience, reserved personality. Other presence marked Target 1: Yellow cloth, black, curling tentacles [???], clearly reaching for Levi's throat) but throws itself forward.

No time to alert either. SecUnit is just there suddenly, sleeves pushed up and dark clothes and helmet turning it into halfway a shadow itself in the rainy weather. It sprints forward, tearing one now-clawed hand through the appendage at Levi's throat, throwing the momentum of the motion into a backspin kick into the center mass of the whirl of shadow and yellow cloth as it braces an arm around Levi, to keep the human from falling down.
solitarysoul: (rifle)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-03-18 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
When John's grip loosens Levi brings his hands up to tear the tentacle from his neck but before he's able to fully get free SecUnit appears and finishes the job. Gasping for breath he scrambles for his gun, pointing it towards John but not firing.
serialmurderbot: (named murder)

[personal profile] serialmurderbot 2025-03-19 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
There's the sharp whine of an energy weapon powering up, as SecUnit joins Levi in pointing an arm towards John - not a visible gun like the one Levi carries, but nevertheless obviously threatening, as it keeps itself between the two, its helmeted head shifting slightly as it follows John, subtly reacting to the strange visual chaos that is John in motion.

Not shooting, though - mostly because it recognizes that voice, and it's staring incredulously in John's direction.

"What the fuck," it says, voice stern and authoritative, "is going on here." To Levi, it adds, "Are you hurt?"
solitarysoul: (hmph)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-03-19 11:39 am (UTC)(link)
Levi narrows his eyes at John, not lowering his gun. This was probably a trick.

"He--" His voice is harsh, cracked, from the bruising on his neck. That's all he manages to get out before wincing and coughing. He's well aware that the pause gives John time to fill in things with lies but that doesn't help him get anything out.
serialmurderbot: (named murder)

[personal profile] serialmurderbot 2025-03-20 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
SecUnit keeps a hand by Levi's shoulder, steadying him with faint contact even as it keeps most of its focus on John. Around them the plains fill with the howl of wind and the distant thudding roar of water hammering down, but despite the oncoming sound it doesn't waver.

The last thing it wants right now is to get the three of them into a building during a storm where it might have to get in between them again. It starts a background search of its media, the techniques it's seen the colony solicitor use on two disagreeing parties.

... While it's at it, there's footage of Doctor Mensah settling an argument between two of her kids, and it pulls that too, doing its best to mimic her 'I'm not fucking around' planetary leader tone.

"Right. You," it says, gesturing with its still-extended arm towards John, "Explain. You," this for Levi, "One tap if you think it's accurate, two if it's not. I don't have a lot of fucking patience right now."
solitarysoul: commisioned art (Serious)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-03-20 08:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Levi glares daggers at John, low growl rumbling in the back of his throat. He hasn't figured out how to control the growling yet, but right now he doesn't care.

He gives SecUnit a nod.
serialmurderbot: (named murder)

[personal profile] serialmurderbot 2025-03-23 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
Then how'd you see the gun feels like the obvious shitty retort, but now that SecUnit has had more time to evaluate John's behavior, and more importantly, his physical status, it can put together that black ichor on his shoulder with the gun Levi's holding, and recognize it for the mirror of blood on his face. Levi's not the only one who came out of this hurt. Does that make this better or worse? It spends .25 seconds weighing this before it decides it doesn't care.

It keeps its posture tense, the only sign of the shifting probabilities of its calculation of the situation here being the lack of increased pitch from the gun in its arm. "Great. If either of you try this again I'm snapping whatever you used to do it into little pieces. Even if it's still attached to your body." Not the best threat it's ever heard, but it's working under pressure here, okay.

"You're saying you just stepped into the rain and got so mad you attacked someone for no reason." It sounds... skeptical. "Not just for a stupid reason, but for no reason."

It doesn't look directly towards Levi, but the angle of its helmet indicates it's waiting for him to give his input as best he can, at the moment.
solitarysoul: (Not Amused)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-03-23 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"It w--" Levi attempts to protest and defend himself at the threat but that's all he manages to get out. He acted in self defense, he shouldn't be under the same threat as the tentacle monster!

Glowering, he removes one hand from his gun so he can tap SecUnit's arm twice.
serialmurderbot: (processing)

[personal profile] serialmurderbot 2025-03-23 08:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Levi's protest earns a very pointed, "I mean it." No more attempted murder on its watch.

The helmet is turned directly towards John, now. It's not a comfortable situation, with the shifting of John's form when he moves. It's the opposite effect from what it's experienced before, where its scanning capabilities were trying to tell it that there was nothing in the space its organic eyes could percieve - this time its data processing insists there must be something there, but its organics are determined to percieve it as a visual mess of shadows-feathers-something else that makes its organic neural tissue start screaming.

Maybe that's why it feels the need to be just as imposing as it can manage, at the moment, but something about that isn't adding up, for SecUnit. Maybe it's just that in its experience, people fight about something. Even when it's something stupid like who left the cracker wrapper in the sink, it's something, even if that something is a stand-in for something else more impossible to fight.

"A reflex to what," it asks, impatiently.
solitarysoul: (Unimpressed)

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-03-23 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Levi snorts but doesn't try to speak. He wants to see how John will respond right now.
serialmurderbot: (headache)

[personal profile] serialmurderbot 2025-03-30 02:46 pm (UTC)(link)
"You don't give orders here."

Said as a point of order - it says that because it's both true and because it needs time to process that, unexpectedly more time than usual, because it has to deal with a sudden performance reliability wobble as both organic and technological components throw out errors at whatever John's doing, and it has to focus past that in case this turns into John trying a last-ditch attempt at getting out of being cornered. Or at fleeing. Still, the howling of the wind and the oncoming rain are making its risk assessment spike, and the pattern of scales that have grown in along its arms are itching in a sharply uncomfortable way.

'Staying human', what the fuck. Gross.

It doesn't tilt its head, but it can hear Levi's still-rasping breathing, and he isn't talking still - that definitely requires medical attention, which can't be administered out here.

"I don't care who you are, but if you threaten or kill anyone in this Convoy, I will turn you inside out." Not great, as far as threats go, but - the important part is the deadly serious tone it uses for it, not so much the content of the threat itself. To Levi, it says, "Keep the gun."
solitarysoul: (Unimpressed)

cw: kids sent to war

[personal profile] solitarysoul 2025-03-30 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Being seen as a monster? Not exactly, since the thing he called Jack was still human...or appeared human, at least. Was the Kaiser a monster? Probably. There were weird stories about him and he definitely used some sort of magic when the fought. Not to mention just shrugging off the gunshot from Pav.

Levi hadn't trusted John before (really, he didn't trust much of anyone here) and now he definitely wouldn't. Though he's not sure if the association with the Kaiser or the attack was acting stronger on that. Probably the Kaiser, if that asshole hadn't tried to take over he'd never have to go to war. He, and so many others, would still have childhoods. That was on the Eastern Union more than the Kaiser, but he was the one who started it all.

He doesn't give two shits about the tentacles or the weird face (even if looking at John was giving him a headache). It was different than he'd seen here before, but he really stopped caring if people looked weird. During Termina some of the moonscorched had remained...well, not sane but not hostile. And here? Here it seemed like almost everyone was going through changes. At least John still had thumbs.

He grunts. Of course he's going to keep the gun.