#They did branch out intergalactically lol

[fluffer5]

Terrans And The Boon and Bane of Research

Terrans are inherently curious creatures. Even our youngs are encouraged to be curious to enhance their growth development. Growing infants can be very energetic tykes the moment they can interact with the world other than seeing blurry blobs from their vision. Also, did you know that infants can only see in shades of black, white, and gray until they enter 3-4 months of age when color starts bleeding out of the world for them? Then you'd have very handsy babies who would want to touch anything and everything with bright colors and want to feel out different textures as a way of associating with the world and their simple meanings.

Anyways, that's just the start of our... curious nature.

Remember back then when teens would eat tide pods since they wanted to know what it tastes like or those who were dared to do this kind of stuff? Or when children who would look at the rotating electric fan blades and think "If I stick my finger in there, what would happen?". Some would ask any nearby adult Terrans... others... let their impulsive thoughts win.

Yes, apparently impulsive and intrusive thoughts are different from each other lol.

Also, do you remember the time when kids would mix stuff in the bathroom as if they were witches or scientists or genius beauty product makers? They would always have the "What would happen if I combine this hair conditioner and this shampoo with this body wash?" even though they'd end up flushing that abomination of a mixture over the drain afterwards in fear of being reprimanded for wasting supplies lol.

Now, let's go back to the original post.

As students, some of us were tasked to do our own research papers, reviews, thesis, or assignments answering the 'what if' stuffs. If you're in a school or place that doesn't require you to submit research proposals as an undergraduate requirement to... graduate of course, then you're one lucky Terran.

Some of these students would submit wacky research titles if you don't create a theme for them (see the titles listed on the original post cuz I'd love to read on those stuff but we all know teachers won't let such titles slide or even reach the board of research panelists lol). I mean, personally, I would've love to ask others on their first hand experience of traumatizing stuff but I have also anticipated that such thing wouldn't get approved and the interviewees would dodge me like crazy lol (was supposed to do in-depth research on how soldiers felt after their first kill on live combat scenario).

It's also hard to interview people when they're wary of you and such is why the listed questions seem to be so intrusive; they just wanted to stop the interview since they're uncomfortable but also don't want to tell the interviewers out of fear of coming out as a rude person since they're taking the time out of their day and the interviewee already agreed to it and stuff... we know that dance and dodge thing.

Y'know this was supposed to be a list of things I wanted to research but went on to a spiral of stuff as to why some research topics wont see the light of day and all that shazam unless funded by a company, university, or research institution. Anyways, lemme try on this.



Things I'd Want To Research

How trauma affects people differently

Are there really intergalactic creatures in another universe and do they look like us?

Parallel worlds and how to predict possible futures

Are dreams gateway to parallel worlds?

If we forget something, where does it go and what do we do to immediately remember it?

Ghosts... how?

Guardian deities... again how??!

Writers and worldbuilding plus the fanfiction side



Things My Friends Want To Research

Why are minor subjects (unrelated to chosen course) needed in college when you can spend the other times doing major subject stuff?

Why does your own fart smell better/satisfying than other people's fart?

Orgasm differences between males and females

Why does the universe look like brain cells?

If mermaids are real and they've drowned a lot of people, why do land people wanna interfere with them?

Wanna study creatures from other dimension or planets

What if every universe exploding just means another brain cell exploding?

How does the brain process stuff we do subconsciously??

What actually happens when we die? (pertains on the soul state)

What do humans taste like?

What is muscle memory and how does it exactly work? Like just how?? Even dead people move post mortem like huh? (that's what they said)

What even are these octopus with three hearts and eight legs and a beak for a mouth? Are they failed creations or something?!

P.S. They started off shy when I asked them and went on a downward spiral of things they wanted to know lol.



Meanwhile, the aliens watching over this genius teen exploring their planet:

Alien 1: Is he... is he petting that dangerous XXX rated danger Cro'lkreo?!

Cro'lkreo : Cat like thing thing with six legs, illuminating poisoned tail, vibrant fanned neck that screams danger just purring and even showing off its kittens that were scrambling at said human for more chin scratches. They also kinda look like Orcas on land and have the fur of your favorite soft blanket so...

Alien 2: Yeah, he did the same thing with our planet's Flushu and befriended the elusive Kaflatu. If I didn't know any better I'd think this Terran kid was gearing up to dominate every planet.

Flushu : Generally a massive looking owl that hunts during the day and sleeps for 2 hours like an insomniac. Can turn invisible making it a feared hunter of said land. Can dive-bomb like Terran Falcons but at a speed of 500-600 km/hour. Also acts like a sky cat and a crow. Flushus love little shiny trinkets offered to them by the humans and loves being preened and petted. One particular Flushu nearly gifted the human a huge Painite gem (it exists btw) but was seen to be sulking when the human took back the gem back to the nearby Kaflatu or Humanoid Elder Dragon Tribe.

Alien 1: And that was done by a Terran kid?!

Alien 2: Well, technically, it would be a baby Terran based on our star year but the Terrans insist that their teenage or young adults are more than capable of planning and living on their own. Still wouldn't dare to touch or kidnap one of them though. The previous Grr'stiag Tribe nearly got annihilated but was spared by the nearby Intergalactic Waffle House Retrieve and Rescue Squad after giving back that one explorer they kidnapped.

Alien 2: The what squad?!!

What avenues of research would you and your friends cause to open up?

That's it, that's the post. I'm very happy to start this chain with what I'd cause alone, my friends would cause alone, and what we'd cause together!

Alone:

How people function with ADHD

PMDD (Pre-Menstrual dysphoric disorder, started when they ask why I take daily meds)

The inability to tell left from right 9 times out of 10

My Friends:

How much information on extremely specific topic someone can have while not knowing the sun is a star

How people interact with animals that are basically liquids (cats, ferrets)

Us Together:

How people finish each others thoughts

How everyone synchronizes their movements

How everyone says/thinks the same thing at the same time

How surprisingly smart people turn inexplicably stupid when together

Sound Level = Dominence

Meme culture

[sp4c3-0ddity]

Older Pidge and Lance get engaged, but with the whole 'universally famous paladins of Voltron' thing means planning the wedding becomes An Ordeal. Chaos ensues.

WELL not so much chaos as stress but here’s 2500 words of...whatever the hell this is lol. not proofread because it’s late, but i hope you like it

“Where do you want the wedding?” Allura asked. She trailedbehind Pidge, who stalked around the Castle looking for her favorite tablet.She had been so sure she left it on her bedside table...

“Uh, Earth?” Pidge said. She was only half-focused onAllura’s questions; they came too fast, and she barely gave her a chance toanswer them before plowing on to the next one.

“Hmm, well, your species has just makefirst contact,” Allura reminded her, tapping her own tablet with a stylusthoughtfully, “so are you sure about that? Aren’t youworried the variety of guests will overwhelm your government?”

Pidge halted in her tracks, eyes widening inhorror. “Wait, what?” she said, turning her head to stare atAllura. “Overwhelm--? What?”

“Well,” Allura said, smiling at her, “how manypeople did you plan on inviting?”

“I...I don’t know!” Pidge said. Quiznak, she andLance got engaged two quintants ago, and she’d only had the time toshare the news with her brother and father so far, let alone discuss thewedding’s guest list.

(Or even if they wanted to have a wedding,something Pidge...wasn’t too sure of.)

“Really, Pidge?” Allura frowned disapprovingly at her. “Youand Lance haven’t discussed this yet?”

“It’s been two days,”Pidge pointed out, wringing the hem of her shirt. “We’ve barely seen each other in the last two days,since he and Keith are off on a mission, and I’m here, and—”

“All right, calm down,” Allura said, resting a hand on hershoulder. “Perhaps you’re right, and this isa bit hasty of me, but…” She clapped her hands together, looking for allintents and purposes like a child in a candy store. “Oh, we haven’t had aproper wedding in the Castle since before—”She cut herself off, sobering immediately, and cleared her throat. “Anyway, Iwould suggest you take some time to talk about these things, Pidge.”

“Right,” Pidge said, forcing a smile. “Of course.”

“Of course I want to have a wedding,” Lance said, handsloose on the Red Lion’s controls while he spoke to Keith. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t know,” Keith said, shrugging, “but weddings involve alot of planning—”

“How would youknow?”

“—which means that you have to…think ahead,” he plowed on,as if Lance hadn’t interrupted him.

Lance raised an eyebrow. “How long did it take you to comeup with that?”

Keith pressed his lips together, and Lance could tell hefought a smile. “I actually got it from Allura,” he admitted.

“So she put you up to this.” Lance sighed, tapping his foot,but he smiled when the Castle came into view. “Honestly, Pidge and I haven’thad the chance to talk about it yet. It’s been…only two days, man.” Still, hehummed cheerfully while guiding the Red Lion into his hangar, the very thought that he was engaged – to Pidge – making him giddy all over again.

Pidge was his…fiancée. How strange. If someone told him when he and Pidge first met that theywould one day be engaged – that they would fallin love – he would’ve laughed his ass off; Pidge, the distant scrawny techyboy, his fiancée? Absurd!

(Then again, he wouldn’t have believed them about fightingat the forefront of an intergalactic war straight out of a science fantasymovie either.)

After touching down in the hangar, Lance let Keith leaveahead of him, taking a quiet moment alone in the Red Lion’s cockpit. Eventhough who piloted which Lion tended to be up for interpretation, it still feltstrange flying the Red Lion while Keith was also there.

The Red Lion rumbled in a mild scolding; unlike the BlueLion, his love was very much the ‘tough’ kind. Lance rolled his eyes and stood,stretching. And once he stepped out of the Lion, Pidge was there to greet him.

She smiled and wrapped her arms around him, her ear to hischest. “Missed me?” he asked her, running his gloved fingers through her hair.

“Like an itch,” she said without any bite.

“Aw, I missed you too,” he said.

Pidge loosened her hold on him but didn’t step away as shelooked at his face. “So…it seems we have a problem,” she said.

Lance frowned. “Uh...we do?”

She grimaced and said, “Yeah. We might need to plan awedding.”

“That’s it? That’s not a problem.”

“It is if it has to be…intergalactic.” Pidge rolled hereyes. “Allura insists.”

Oh no.

“I’m not against a big wedding,” Lance told Pidge. He sat onher bed, swinging his legs while he waited for her to put on her pajamas.

“I don’t think this is a bigwedding Allura has in mind,” Pidge said. She held a hair tie between herteeth while she bunched her hair up into a bun. “It sounds more…galactic.”

Lance snorted. “No.”

“Yes,” Pidge said, sighing. Once her hair was piled onto herhead, she sat beside him, leaning into him and basking in the warmth of hisbody. “She made it sound like…it would be expectedof us.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re ‘Paladins of Voltron’,” she said with theappropriate air quotes. “Which makes us publicfigures, Lance.”

“Which we’ve kind of been for a while?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.” She pulled her feet up ontothe bed, sitting with her legs crossed. “The point is that our engagement andeventual marriage will be up for public consumption – or, at least, Allurathinks it should be.”

“Hmm.” Lance seemed to consider that, tapping his chin witha finger. “I don’t think I’d mind.”

“Well, that’s because you like the attention.”

He scoffed. “You do too.”

“Only in small doses,” Pidge said. She lay back with a huff,the image of herself in a puffy white dress in front of more people – more races – than she could comprehendentering her mind. She imagined reciting sappy vows while the audience ‘oohed’and ‘aahed’, and hid her face. “Besides,” she continued, “it would be alogistical nightmare. Who’s going topay for it?”

“I’m guessing not your parents?”

Pidge snorted, removing her hands from her face so she couldlook up at him with an eyebrow raised. “You’re quiznaking right they’re not,”she said, “especially if half theuniverse will be attending.”

Lance laid down beside her, on his side, chin propped in hishand so that he hovered over her. “It wouldn’t be that bad,” he said, grinningteasingly. “Only a quarter of theuniverse, maybe a third tops.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s all, huh?”

“That’s all,” he said.

“Almost higher than I can count,” she said, staring at theceiling. “Definitely higher than you can count.”

“Exac—hey!”

Pidge giggled, chest filled with warmth despite theindignant expression Lance wore. But his face softened, and he leaned down tokiss her softly.

She held him there, burying her hands into his hair, whichwas long enough to curl around his ears. She pulled back from him a little andsaid, “You know, if we do end up witha big wedding, you’ll probably have to cut your hair.”

Lance snorted. “As long as it doesn’t look like a mullet, I’mfine with that.”

“Damn, I thought I had you.” Pidge sighed, easing her gripon his head as he looked down at her.

“You really don’t anything big, huh?”

She shook her head. “I’ve…never really thought about itbefore now,” she admitted, “but I would definitelyprefer something small.”

“Hmm.” Lance returned to her side again as he thought. “Maybegive this idea a chance though?”

Pidge rested her hand on her stomach and said, “Fine, butonly for you. And maybe for my mother.”

She only hoped she wouldn’t regret it.

Pidge regretted her concession approximately two quintantsand six vargas later, when Allura and Coran started pressing them – but mostlyPidge, because apparently the bride was expected to wedding plan in way too many cultures – about everythingfrom venue (Pidge decided Olkarion, because it was her favorite place in thewider universe), to the guest list (she and Lance mentioned a few each,including family members, but Allura and Coran took care of the rest), to thefood and decorations (Hunk took the task of catering upon himself gladly).

Ironically, the only breathing room she seemed to get –apart from ‘evenings’, blessedly quiet apart from Lance’s usual noise – was while on missions, whichgrew fewer and further between as the wedding date – set by Allura on a dayconsidered auspicious for matrimonial occasions by the long-dead Alteans. Then,she could let the Green Lion’s consciousness wash over her, soothing her like abreeze passing through a canopy of branches.

Even Matt got swept up into the frenzy, and by the timePidge stood on a stool, being fitted for a dress she would only wear once, she was ready to tear her hairout.

“Why can’t we just elope?”Pidge asked Lance one morning, when she woke up after only a few vargas ofsleep because Coran expected her to paint tea cups personally – another Altean tradition – from which the guests woulddrink.

Lance was responsible for painting the cups from which thetwo of them would drink, along with a third meant as an offering to water atree that they would plant together on Olkarion. Pidge couldn’t help beingenvious of how little he had to do –though to his credit he offered to do more.

Allura, though, often found excuses for him not to help, andPidge had the sneaking suspicion that she was using the wedding planning as areason to hang out with Pidge.

“Why can’t we?” Lance had his head pillowed on one arm whilehe examined his fingernails.

“Is that…agreement?”Pidge wondered.

He glanced at her. “Is it?”

“You’re no help,” Pidge scoffed, crossing her arms.

Lance reached over to her and rubbed her arm, roughfingertips that he long since gave up on keeping soft and moisturized scraping overher skin pleasantly. “I’m game if you are,” he said, though she detected a hintof disappointment in his voice.

Pidge sighed and decided she would tough it out, for now.

It took Pidge less time than she thought to reach herbreaking point, less than five quintants ahead of the actual wedding.

“No,” she said, crossing her arms and petulantly glaring atthe wall after Allura’s last question.

“You mean��you don’twant to spend the wedding night on Arus?” she asked again. “Even though it’swhere it all began?”

“No, I do not want to spend my wedding night on Arus,” Pidgesaid testily, “and I absolutely do not even thinkthat’s ‘where it all began’.” She stood up, ready to storm out, patiencespent. “Do you know where it all began for me? On Earth, when my father and brother were kidnapped by the Galra. Anddo you know where I would love tospend my wedding night?” She paused, half-hoping Allura would interrupt hertirade, but when she just stared at her, eyes wide, she continued, “On Earth, after I hug my mother and leavemy father somewhere safe where he can recover with his wife.”

Pidge turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, ignoringAllura’s call from behind her. She didn’t stop until she reached her bedroomand fell forward onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow.

She sulked for more time than she kept track of, bothexhausted and remorseful for losing her temper with Allura…again. When a soft knock sounded from the door, she rolled onto herback and, without bothering to ask who it was, said, “Come in.”

Lance walked in, the sight of him a balm on her nerves, andshe managed a smile. “So…” he said, leaning against the wall by the foot of thebed. “Allura said you were upset?”

“I could’ve handled it better,” Pidge said. She sat up andpulled her feet onto the bed, wrapping her arms around her legs.

“Yeah, probably,” Lance agreed. He sat beside her, armaround her waist as he pulled her closer to him. He rested his chin on her headand said, “Let’s elope.”

“You want to?” Pidge said hopefully.

“Yeah,” he said, sighing. “You’re obviously stressed out,and it won’t be worth it if you end up killing Allura. I’d rather not have mywife’s murder trial on our wedding day.”

Pidge snorted, amused despite herself. “All right,” shesaid. “When?”

“Hmm. How about we take the Red Lion – don’t give me thatlook, he’s faster than Green – on the morning of our special day?”

“Who’re you going to convince to set up a wormhole?” Pidgeasked.

Lance laced the fingers of their right hands together as hehummed thoughtfully. “I can say I want to personallypick up my family and your mother,” he said, “and you can sneak away with me.”He glanced sideways at her, the familiar hint of mischief in his eyes, the kindthat convinced you he was a clever escape artist rather than a goofball.

Though Pidge supposed there was no reason he couldn’t beboth.

A slow smile stretched across her lips. “You know what?” shesaid. “That’s actually a brilliant idea, Lance.”

“Hey, no need to sound so surprised, Pidge,” he said, rollinghis eyes. “I have my moments.”

“You do.” Pidge leaned up and kissing his cheek. “Let’s havemany more together.”

“Count on it,” Lance agreed, right before stealing a kiss.

“Where the quiznak are Pidge and Lance?” Allura wondered.She paced back and forth across the room, the dress she wore for the occasionswishing in her wake. “Lance was supposed to be back several vargas ago, andPidge should be dressed by now.”

“I’ll call Lance,” said Keith.

“I’ll call Pidge,” said Matt.

Both of the left the dressing room, taking out theirrespective communication devices. She overheard Matt speaking to his fatheroutside in a quiet voice.

A fidget in the corner caught Allura’s sight, and sheglanced towards Hunk. He’d been awfully silent the entire time, and he refusedto look directly at her, hands clasped together in his usual nervous tic.

“You’re hiding something,” she realized, approaching him.

“I might have forgotten to vet all the cooks,” Hunk saidwhile avoiding her eyes. “There could be assassins. Let me go—”

“Wait,” she interrupted, grabbing his arm.

Hunk paused, looking back at her. “Yes, Princess?”

“Oh, none of that,” she said, forcing herself to smiledisarmingly at him despite her irritation. “Do you know where Pidge and Lance are?”

To her surprise, Hunk admitted, “Yes.”

When he didn’t elaborate, she pressed, “Where?”

Hunk blinked and said, “Las Vegas.”

“Las Vegas? I…don’t know where that is.”

“It’s on Earth,” Hunk explained. “They’re probably visitingPidge’s mother and Lance’s family.”

“They invited them here!” Allura pointed out, gesturingaround the room and encompassing the Castle and Olkarion itself.

“Yes, well…” Hunk shifted his footing, but he seemed torelax as the truth came tumbling out. “Pidge was feeling overwhelmed, so theydecided to elope.”

Allura’s jaw dropped right as Matt and Keith returned.

“I know where they are,” said Matt. When Keith nodded hisagreement, Allura looked at the two of them properly, noting that neither ofthem wore disappointed expressions.

In fact, Matt seemed downright amused, and Keith resigned, as if he’d expected nothing else.

Allura pressed a hand to her face, as if she could hold inher rising frustration and the realization that the very Coalition could crumble if Pidge and Lance never showedup to their own wedding.

“Quiznak.”