#at least with the 'working with a cerebrocrustacean' coin

[whatudottu]

#hmm I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to work with a cerebrocrustacean! but very difficult and very very outside the cultural norm#I do imagine (under the right and specific circumstances) if someone proved themeselves useful (and persistent) enough a-#-cerebrocrustacean bite their tongue and ignore their instincts to accept their assistance#I think a part of why cerebrocrustacean instincts go mad over collaboration is that their culture is so competitive and everyone is always-#-trying to prove themselves as superior#which makes cerebrocrustaceans just terrible at sharing credit because everyone wants to gain as much social reputation as possible#so if someone manages to prove themselves fine to work *under* the cerebrocrustacean they’d be *more* willing to share their space#I also think this would be likely with an off world cerebrocrustacean than one on thier home planet#they’re already experiencing this many culture shocks this might as well be one of them ~ via @ohyeahben10

Welp have an addendum, it's not impossible but your cerebrocrustacean lab partner is constantly gritting their teeth to not bite you. And that's in the situation of a lab partner specifically, with someone not presently living on Encephalonus IV and having been an offworlder for a while, just collecting culture shocks-

Seeing the “cerebrocrustaceans are highly territorial” headcanon slowly start to pick up more steam (albeit with a split as to whether they’re so cliquey and ride-or-die they view everyone who isn’t in their in-group as a potential threat until they’ve made it abundantly clear that they mean no harm or if they despise any sort of group collaboration unless it’s absolutely, positively necessary) makes me wonder if it’s a common stereotype by the galactic audience to view them as being massive pricks to everyone they meet. Like, oh, everyone on Encephalonus-IV hates each other’s guts and they’re incessantly rude to anyone and everyone they come across! They’re so petty and envious they can’t stand the thought of anyone being better at them than anything and delight in the suffering and misfortune of people they don’t like! They fly into murderous rages if a galvan so much as breathes on them, and if they weren’t such cowards, they’d nuke Galvan Prime into oblivion only to immediately start yet another rivalry with some other species for one reason or another!

Hah! Doesn’t help their case that Dr Psychobos became very well known thanks to the super famous superhero Ben 10!

But no yeah with galvans being the cold detached sort of smart, especially with their prevalence in intergalactic relationships (you don’t become the smartest being in not one but multiple galaxies by sitting alone in your room), what comparatively little interaction to the wider galactic sphere cerebrocrustaceans have has more expectations than if the galvans were more subtle in their influence. If you’ve heard how much of an grumpy old man scientist the First Thinker is, especially when you hear about one of his creations striking out against him due to neglect, well you’ve already started to get the picture of an isolated workspace that no one dares interrupt.

So then you come face to face with a snappy cerebrocrustacean scientist who’s rude, direct, and hovering over your shoulder making sure you don’t fuck up, well you won’t really find many cases of neglect when everything you do is under scrutiny. I guess the difference between my headcanon and @ohyeahben10 ‘s headcanon would be if you can endure the territorial… hostility may not be the right word, the fact that you’re in the same space as a cerebrocrustacean at work is already more than what they’d typically give, in my headcanon sphere you could potentially get past that barrier and transition from outgroup to ingroup; I don’t know exactly what’s in ohyeah’s head but I assume given his headcanons she might say that you practically could never get on a cerebrocrustacean’s good side, or at least not as close as an ingroup would suggest-

Either or, it’s gonna leave a bad first impression, and that is how the stereotype for being prickish is so widespread. Potentially, if a notable cerebrocrustacean scientist works intergalactically, the stereotype may narrow to Encephalonus IV having a very dickish social culture.